Brown's spend, spend, spend during his Chancellor's days has brought us into the current economy we are facing today. His appeal at a Downing Street meeting for the lenders to pass on cuts appeared to fall on deaf ears with HBOS, which owns the Halifax, increasing its rate on some mortgages from 6.09 to 6.59 per cent. Borrowers taking out this type of deal will now pay 46 more a month. On a two-year tracker, the rate will increase from 1.49 points above base rate to 1.99 points, giving a current rate of 6.99 per cent.

Other lenders are expected to follow Halifaxs lead.

If the Government wants the banks to lower mortgage rates to home owners - why not just offer them through Northern Rock? Everyone would rush to the Rock to get the loans forcing banks to match the rates or lose the business? Or maybe the government would then run into bigger credit crunch?

Also known as a scrupulously honest man, who lived on a council estate with his constituents, was plain speaking and devout to his views (whether you agree with them or not) and always gave a straight answer, even if you didn't want to hear it.

The word I am looking for is honourable. Now how many politicians of any era can lay claim to that epithet.

His policies were dubious, but he was probably the most honest MP of the last century. Perhaps if more on both sides of the house were more like him..............

The Magatron

Known as The Iron Lady. Many early ships were known as this too. Because they were impossible to steer, even when following a ludicrous course, and were usually bound for disaster.

He may be the beast of Bolsover & strong left-wing, but if the reports are true he's totally honest. He apparently, if offered a cup of tea or coffee, etc. during an interview he refuses it so that he is not beholden to anyone.

He's a waste of space!! Lolls on the benches in the Commons shouting out ignorant jibes and contributes very little hence no cabinet post. May well do a lot in his constituency but not for the country! aspirations Fred are when you have hope of improving your quality of life and providing for your family through your own efforts, a job and a chance to keep a reasonable amount of your earnings---rather than be state controlled and queue to be given handouts then wonder what to do for the rest of the day!! Alan you are a devil with a sharp stick --stirring a wasps nest--lol!!

Haystacks, Who are they, they who hate GB and the Labour party?
.
Are they a group, who just want to get their snouts in the trough at the expense of other members of society. Self interested without any policies, other than for their own personal greed and satisfaction.

Protectionist of the rights of those who have, against those who have not? Some of the latter are not capable "legally" of advancing their "quality" of life, but if the perceive an unfair society (as they see it) may resort to "criminal" methods of achieving the "sparklers", goods and lifestyle which the self protecting few have.

interesting discussion--I'm enjoying this! No one can surely doubt that the country is heartily sick of our useless gov but we get sick of all governments sooner or later. Alan has some good points to make but if you are running any business you have to be able to survive. High wage costs, a huge burden of regulation and high production costs meant many old established businesses have disappeared. Gov funding cannot keep them all going so Maggie had to take hard decisions---we are in the same situation today with Mandelson struggling to find the funds to bail our industries out--it might work for a short while so the mess can be taken on by the conservatives yet again. headlines today--500 million shortfall for the NHS to battle with---cut treatment?? or sack thousands of workers?? not nice for anyone to deal with but it's a fact that Gordon has spent all our money--ignoring the expenses row which is tiny in proportion to our overall debt now.

The general public, who are fed up with the usual 'Tax and Spend'.

I'm loving it too, MP.

You make an interesting point regarding regulation, which is probably the single biggest industry in the country. If we discuss productivity, cost and relevance, then surely these areas are the ones to attack with swingeing cuts.


An NHS that spends more and treats less - get rid of NICE
A financial system that has melted down - get rid of the FSA
Do we really need a local governments commission when we can vote the buggers out or see a no win no fee lawyer if its urgent?
Should we really fund diversity QANGO's?
What about an immigration office when we know our borders are as leaky as a leaky thing - get rid.
Overseas aid departments? Close 'em, give 50% of the cost to OXFAM and see more productivity.
660 MP's - sack them. A couple of hundred are enough. They only do what their leader says anyway.

We could go on and on and wipe out any budget defecit. But the only reason it will never happen is because turkeys never vote for christmas. But if we did, the savings in salarys, expensive pensions, buildings to the taxpayer, and ridiculous compliance costs to businesses would be more than Elton John spends on flowers. And if the civil servants were that good to be worth their huge salaries, they will make a killing in industry and improve our business with the rest of the world to boot.
How could anyone object?.............................

I don't think the problem is taxation, but the mispend of the tax income.

I think a lot of this is due to the overvaluation of ourselves and what we can obtain from contributing to society.

Without an organised "humane" society then the ultimate solution is to self destruct.

We may be entering that cycle.

UK borrowing reaches record in May as the red ink gets deeper


Government borrowing shot to a record monthly level of 19.9bn in May as soaring spending and dwindling tax receipts put another dent in the national accounts.

Mervyn King publicly rebuked Alistair Darling over his handling of the public finances Public sector net borrowing dwarfed May 2008's 12.2bn and was the highest monthly sum since records began in 1993. As the recession hits home, lower tax receipts and higher benefit payments have pushed net debt to 54.7pc of GDP a vast jump on the 43.6pc only 12 months earlier.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures were issued the day after Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, publicly rebuked Chancellor Alistair Darling over his handling of the public finances. "Fiscal policy... will have to change," Mr King told the annual Mansion House banquet in a speech delivered in the Chancellor's presence.

The Government is forecasting net borrowing of 175bn in the current 2009/10 financial year but economists believe even this unprecedented sum could prove an undershoot as ONS figures show Britain borrowed more than 30bn in the first two months alone.

Alan Clarke, UK economist at BNP Paribas, said May's public finances were "every bit as dire as we had been bracing for. To put this figure in context, a few years ago, 19.9bn would represent half of the borrowing requirement for the entire year and now we are achieving this in a single month," he said.

Mr Clarke said Britain was "well on track to see borrowing for this year at close to 200bn".

His view is shared by credit agency Standard & Poor's, which last month warned that it could downgrade Britain's top-notch AAA rating because of the deteriorating state of the public finances.

S&P believes government debt could approach 100pc of GDP by 2013 well above the 79pc predicted by Mr Darling.

May's figures show income tax receipts fell 11pc to 8.55bn, while the take from corporation tax was down 27pc to 636m and VAT receipts were 19pc lower at 4.88bn. Spending rocketed from 43.7bn to 50.6bn.

George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said: "It is clear the Government has lost control of the public finances, and the Prime Minister's ridiculous claim that Labour won't have to cut spending flies in the face of the facts."

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said Labour's plans implied a 26bn cut in departmental spending over three years from April 2011, adding that any Conservative administration would need to go further to cut debt faster.

Just back from walking the wallaby, and I feel like stirring it a little again - Would these people, saying these things, be the same people who rubbished Mr Darling for basing a budget on the basis of a recovery starting as early as Q4??
Way too early, way off mark, the mans an insane tit, they all cried - there can be no recovery before 2011, some said.
Here we are approaching end of Q2 and lo!! Many respected institutions are calling the bottom of the cycle and predicting, you guessed it, recovery as early as Q4.
I don't wish to suggest that Mr Darling has crystal balls (he may sue me) but he was more accurate then in his forecasts, so why should these experts expect us to believe them now.
Mr Darling is an obnoxious little jerk, but thats a different story.

Poor Gordon! Maybe he is beginning to realize...


Gordon Brown has admitted that he has been "hurt" by the personal attacks on him during the failed attempt to oust him this month, and said that he might move to teaching after he leaves office.

Speaking to the Guardian in his first interview since the attempted coup by Labour backbenchers, the prime minister made an unprecedentedly frank series of observations on his time in office, reflecting that the recent weeks have been the worst of his political life.

"To be honest, you could walk away from all of this tomorrow," he said. "I'm not interested in what accompanies being in power. I wouldn't worry if I never returned to all those places - Downing Street, Chequers ... And it would probably be good for my children."

In an apparent acknowledgement of criticism of a lack of vision at the heart of government, the prime minister said he had found it hard to focus on strategic planning "as you have to deal with immediate events, like if a bank's going to go under".

For the first time, the prime minister conceded he wished he had imposed a tougher regulatory regime on the banking system, but said he "didn't want Britain to be outside the mainstream" and had been under heavy pressure to deregulate further. He also acknowledged that he "didn't know a lot about" banks buying up sub-prime mortgages during his period as chancellor, but argued that the global nature of modern banking meant such behaviour would "continue to happen".

Brown insisted that Labour under his leadership could win the next election, for two reasons: that the action the government had taken on the economy and MPs' expenses would start to bear fruit; and that the Tories had admitted that they would make deep cuts in public spending.

He said: "People know we've made these decisions to try to sort the economy out, but they don't yet see the results. Same thing on MPs. You're in that period between the implementation of your policy and the delivery of it."

On the suggestion that the results would need to start to show quickly if they were to be of any benefit to him, he said, "it's going to take some time". But he believed they would show in time for the next election.

The idea that any party in government would need to cut public spending was "a myth", he said, and the Tories' adoption of a strategy of cuts proved that they could no longer "talk about being mainstream".

Speaking about the tumultuous past month, Brown said that he "wouldn't exaggerate how bad it's been," but admitted that it was one of the worst experiences of his political life. Asked if he had ever been through something this bad before, he says, "in my political life, not so much".

In the interview he also:

rubbished the so-called Hotmail coup of Blairite ministers and backbenchers against him, calling it "the email that nobody signed".

said that there was now a "common purpose" between Peter Mandelson and him, and that the Labour party, famously resistant to the business secretary's charms, had finally come round. "People are coming to appreciate his talents in a way the Labour party didn't before ... I think there's a great affection for him now".

conceded that he had a weakness in how he presented himself to the public: "I'm not as great a presenter of information or communicator as I would like to be" - and claimed that he is not skilled at political manoeuvring - "I don't actually think I'm very good at it at all."

said that the internet means that "foreign policy can never be the same again". Because of the way information is now distributed, "you cannot have Rwanda again ... foreign policy can no longer be the province of just a few elites." He descibed this as "more tumultuous than any previous economic or social revolution" and said that "this week's events in Iran are a reminder of the way that people are using new technology to come together in new ways to make their views known."

said that he offered Caroline Flint, the former Europe minister, a chance to attend every cabinet meeting, which she declined. Flint resigned saying that Brown used women as "window dressing" and complaining that she was never invited to cabinet; he says he offered her "a promotion, not a demotion."

said "it's a strange life, really", and joked that the best way to run the country would be "from a train, getting around the country".

The interview took place over two long conversations in Downing Street earlier this month.

Bank chief wants to cut borrowing

The governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, has called for the government to show "greater ambition" in reducing public borrowing.

Plans set out in the Budget to cut deficits were not "clear enough", Mr King told MPs.

He said he was "more uncertain now than ever" on the prospect of the UK making a quick recovery from recession.

Mr King and other Bank of England officials were appearing before the Treasury Committee.

But the governor also said that the speed of any deficit reduction programme would depend on the speed of recovery.

"The scale of the deficit is truly extraordinary. 12.5% of GDP is not something that anybody would have anticipated even a year or two ago, and this reflects the scale of the global downturn," he said.

"There will certainly need to be a plan for the lifetime of the next parliament, contingent on the state of the economy, to show how those deficits will be brought down if the economy recovers to reach levels of deficits below those which were shown in the Budget figures."

'Genuine concerns'

Mr King also said it was too early to say how long the UK's recovery from recession would take.

"There are genuine concerns about how quickly the recovery will pick up. Looking at the clear evidence, [businesses] are finding it hard to access credit from the banking system," he said.

"A combination of that and real uncertainty over the global economy makes it very difficult to be confident of a rapid recovery."

The Bank's Paul Fisher added: "It could take two or three years before banks get really comfortable to lend again."

'Double dip' recession is occuring now, me thinks.


There are several reasons to doubt Greece's ability to push through its deficit-cutting plans. So expect more turmoil from that direction.

But more importantly, just because the EU has given the nod to the countrys spending plans doesnt mean the entire eurozone is saved. Quite the opposite in fact.

Now the markets are looking to call the EUs bluff. Portugal is the next target. Yields on its debt spiked yesterday. Its as if investors were saying: OK, so you might bail out Greece. But will you bail out Portugal too? Can you even afford to bail out Spain? And we havent even started on Italy.

After the Greeks came out with new, tougher plans, the markets started to look for the next weakest economy in the eurozone to sell. Portugals recent budget was not that impressive.

You have to feel sorry for Portugal. As Ian Campbell put it recently on Breakingviews.com, the country has suffered a bust without ever really having a boom. It didnt take much of a part in the European property bubble for example. Well before the fly-to-let psychosis was gripping property investors in Britain, the Algarve was a well-established, luxury property market.

And in dodgy debt terms, Portugal isnt Greece. In fact, Portugal isnt even Britain. Its fiscal deficit for 2009 looks like coming in at 9.3%, worse than the 8% expected, but hardly the worst offender in the world. Portugals real problem is long-term weak growth. Real GDP per head was actually lower in 2007 than in 2000, as Campbell points out. Over the same period, Spains standard of living had gone up 8%, Greeces by 10%, Irelands by 13%. Now of course, you could argue that Spain, Greece and Ireland are likely to lose all those cheap-credit-fuelled gains over the next few years.

But the real takeaway from Portugals situation is that the living standards of the population wont improve until the system works better. Growth has simply been too low to make the countrys population better off. The challenge now is to make this round of austerity useful for future growth. Pruning Portugals cumbersome state and excessive bureaucracy and trimming labour laws are priorities.

Things havent got any better for Gordon

Why would they?
The man is his own worst enemy.
And ours.

Gordo has made such a mess of things, perhaps he ought to be forced to stay to
clean things up

a financial asbo ?
:-)

Mervyn King is warning that the victor in next week's election will be forced into austerity measures that will keep the party out of power for a generation, according to the US economist David Hale.

perhaps merv thinks whoever wins will give him the sack.

BIGOT =

Brown
Is
Gone
On
Thursday

(Cribbed from elsewhere with thanks)