So are Labour on their way out?

[cdd]

'Course not, but change for the sake of change isn't actaully too bad a thing when it comes to politics if you ask my opinion. The ruling party loses ambition and 'energy', the leaders get too confident of their positions, and worst of all, they can't really admit to any major mistakes of the past nor take radical action to fix it for fear of appearing hypocritical. It's this balance that keeps democracies ticking over if you ask me.

As Mr Q said a few pages back, the question is not would the opposition do better, it's would they do worse. IMO, if they wouldn't do worse, there's every advantage to elect them.

[Stuart*]

'Course not,mush. It's this balance that keeps democracies ticking over if you ask me.
As Mr Q said a few pages back, the question is not would the opposition do better, it's would they do worse. IMO, if they wouldn't do worse, there's every advantage to elect them.

I thought it was a secret vote, why are you telling everyone?

PLANK!

[lukey]

What?

[Mr Q]

This week's edition of The Economist offers a compelling critique of the walking electoral disaster that is Gordon Brown. In particular, last week's budget has been slammed as deceptive - a serious indictment at a time of such economic malaise. One excerpt:

What is really galling is that, in order to make the deficit shrink, the Treasury assumes that the economy will start growing again at the end of this year and expand by 3.5% in 2011. This “trampoline recovery”, as the Tories called it, is a far more optimistic view than either the IMF or most private-sector economists take. No prudent prime minister would have allowed it.

There's also a three page special report on the budget and beyond as well as a look at the public's perceptions of Labour.

[Stuart*]

Indeed it is a sorry reflection on the bugetary mis-managment we now have, that the eletorate who voted for Labour over and over again are complaining, me included (once: 1997).

It's abit late to blame the party-thrower for our excesses, isn't it?

[Gavin Scott]

It's abit late to blame the party-thrower for our excesses, isn't it?

As I have never taken credit, I cannot get credit. Having never had a store, credit or even a cheque guarantee card, I have accumulated insufficient credit-score points to gain such facilities. Therefore I have found it a necessity to live entirely within my means.

As it turns out, that's no bad thing. Given my inability to say "no", I could easily have found myself up to my balls in debt - and I can easily understand why others are in that situation.

The problem is both that of the public's desire for trinkets, laminated floors and flat-screens, and the bank's reckless desire to maximise their profit - which they can only do by giving credit to 99% of the public - when only 40% or so have the income to cover this.

I can't blame the public. I get pissed off with them, but I can't blame them.

The fault lies with banks whose desire to expand was their, and our, undoing. We're all being punished for their hubris.

By the way, Stu - "abit" should be two separate words.

[DVB Cornwall]

Aayo Gurkhali

[Mr Q]

I can't blame the public. I get pissed off with them, but I can't blame them.

The fault lies with banks whose desire to expand was their, and our, undoing. We're all being punished for their hubris.

Ermmm. Surely that's all a bit back to front. You're blaming the banks for lending money to people who wanted it? That's kind of like blaming McDonald's for feeding fat people.

I'm not absolving banks of any responsibility - of course, like any business, they're capable of making mistakes. I think Northern Rock is a classic example: ultimately it was lending money to people it didn't even really have, because it didn't have a meaningful retail deposit base to operate from, and was therefore almost wholly dependent on credit markets. When those seized up, the Rock was left between itself and a hard place.

Of course Britain's economy hasn't come unstuck simply because of Northern Rock - there have been systemic failures throughout the country's financial sector and beyond. I think the question British voters should be asking is, why is the UK in such a terrible state compared to many other economies. Most countries have not been hit nearly as hard by the global financial and economic crises as the UK obviously has. That implies that there are conditions relatively specific to Britain. And I don't think those can be explained just by pinning them blame on banks.

[cdd]

Ermmm. Surely that's all a bit back to front. You're blaming the banks for lending money to people who wanted it? That's kind of like blaming McDonald's for feeding fat people.

Not really. If anything, it's more like the shareholders of McDonalds blaming them for handing out hamburgers to people who don't have the money to pay for them, but are encouraged by McDonalds to pay later.

In my view, banks have always had the information to make a reasonable judgment about who will and who won't be able to pay back their debts. But because it's in the banks' interests in the short term to lend money (an immediate increase is reflected on their balance sheet), they lend anyway.

Similarly I'm not absolving consumers of any responsiblity - clearly responsible consumers should not borrow beyond their means. But that's hard for many people when people are encouraged - both in adverts, and by slimy "pay nothing now" salesmen at large stores - to take out credit. One salesman was even trying to encourage me to take out credit when I had the cash to pay for the item in question in my hand. Which is quite something.

[Gavin Scott]

I can't blame the public. I get pissed off with them, but I can't blame them.

The fault lies with banks whose desire to expand was their, and our, undoing. We're all being punished for their hubris.

Ermmm. Surely that's all a bit back to front. You're blaming the banks for lending money to people who wanted it? That's kind of like blaming McDonald's for feeding fat people.

No, that's a totally specious analogy, Mr Q.

The culture of over-extending oneself with credit and debt has been driven by the banks offering facilities without checking that the affordability of such products is within their customer's means.

It is incumbent on the provider to make those determinations - not Joe Public. Everyone "wants" money god-damn it, whether its a mortgage or a credit card or whatever - but that doesn't mean they should have been given it. That was down to fundamentally bad practice from some of the banks who were so keen to expand. I've been reading with interest how Sir Fred Goodwin ran the RBS board meetings. When one is treated like a God by subordinates and the UK Cabinet, there's always the danger you start believing you own press.

Now, I'm hardly absolving the public for being reckless with their personal finances either, but lets face it, people are idiots. Moreover, their finances tend only to affect them. A bank going bust has infinitely greater implications to the economy as a whole.

You correctly point out that Britain has been worse hit - well I could suggest, although I know you would argue, that it was Brown's push towards self-regulation that allowed British institutions to dig themselves in so deep.

It may have been the US sub-prime crisis that was the catalyst for the collapse of the credit markets, but make no mistake, we would have been heading down the same path given the reckless business practices seen in Britain. It was a matter of time - nothing more.

[Chie]

Ermmm. Surely that's all a bit back to front. You're blaming the banks for lending money to people who wanted it? That's kind of like blaming McDonald's for feeding fat people.

Not really. If anything, it's more like the shareholders of McDonalds blaming them for handing out hamburgers to people who don't have the money to pay for them, but are encouraged by McDonalds to pay later.

Many people knew deep down that it was a bad idea to hire purchase a new sofa from DFS, or buy a flatscreen on their credit card, or get a brand new car on finance or take out a ridiculously expensive mortgage to keep up with the Jones's, but they still did it anyway. In the same way that fat people know that eating McDonald's is bad for them, but it's ok because they can just blame McDonald's for being so big and powerful and having such a good advertising campaign, that they just couldn't resist eating their food every day. :roll: So of course it's all McDonald's fault that they're fat (some people in America even have the nerve to try and sue the company) and similarly the fact that a lot of people are now in a stupid amount of debt seems to be the banks fault, for some reason.