As far as I recall, we had our credit rating, the debt was lower, borrowing was lower, unemployment was lower, we hadn't experience a double dip recession and were not possibly heading for a triple dip.
What was it Osborne said again, measure me by my ability to keep our credit rating?
The problem is that both the Darling and Osbourne plans made assumptions about growth that were very optimistic and that relied on the Eurozone and the American's sorting out their problems.
Osbourne's assumptions were blown off course by the Eurozone crisis, the problems in America and even the Japanese earthquake.
It is fair to say that Darling's plan would have fallen victim to the same problems.
We may have got slightly higher growth from the Darling plans but that would have been offset by the higher deficit spending to generate that limited growth.
Darling may not have cut government spending as much as Osbourne but he would have had to borrow even more than the present chancellor for very little return.
I personally suspect that under Darlings plan government borrowing would have been significantly higher than it is now.
As for anything that Balls would have done that may have generated significantly higher growth in the short term. But unless the economies of the Eurozone, America and Japan returned to significant growth by this point the downturn when he was forced to enact significant cuts would have been severe.
Darling's plans weren't a million miles away from the Tories. He was sat in the cuts camp, which has now, as predicted, pretty widely being seen as the wrong course of action to take.
If Labour had won the election, the likelihood is that Balls, rather than Darling, would be chancellor.
Darling was in the cuts camp (which was politically, though not economically, very en vogue at the time), it would have taken balls to do something different and like it or not Balls may well have been the man.
Quite - now Osborne's spending plans have changed he is actually spending almost exactly what Darling was planning. Perhaps Darling (or whoever replaced him) wasn't intending to keep to his published plan?
Osborne is having to spend a lot more on dole money. That wasn't what Darling was planning. The Tories turned off the stimulus straight after the election. Labour wasn't going to do that either.
And the Tories announced on taking power Britain was on the brink of bankruptcy. Stupid boy Osborne. The country believed him and stopped spending. If Britain was on the brink of bankruptcy then what is it now?
Osborne is having to spend a lot more on dole money. That wasn't what Darling was planning. The Tories turned off the stimulus straight after the election. Labour wasn't going to do that either.
And the Tories announced on taking power Britain was on the brink of bankruptcy. Stupid boy Osborne. The country believed him and stopped spending. If Britain was on the brink of bankruptcy then what is it now?
In fact, wasn't the much acclaimed deficit reduction of 25% due to cancelling capital expenditure projects when they came to power such as building for schools programme?
...by record UK personal debt, job insecurity, growing productivity gap and declining real wages reducing spending power.
Yes those are also factors. However Darlings plans would have not made any difference to those problems if the problems that I listed had still been in place.
Osborne has staked a lot in trying to preserve his precious AAA rating, he even staked his own reputation on it (for what it's worth ). I should think a lot of resources would have been lost trying to prop up that facade, whereas they possibly could have been directed more fruitfully elsewhere.
Would Darling have been so obsessive about the credit rating? Well Labour didn't seem quite so fussed about it all to be fair.
No one on the Labour side should fetishise the Darling plan, as it was almost as bad as the Osborne plan.
It was full of flawed assumptions, and failed to realise that estimates of the 'capacity' of our economy have been underestimated, because the measures needed to realise our economic capacity, such as a massive programme of housebuilding and other infrastructure projects, have fallen outside of the mainstream of economic thinking.
As a consequence, the 'structural' part of the deficit is a great deal smaller than is generally believed.
Where Darling would have done significantly better than Osborne is that he wouldn't have relentlessly talked the economy down, and so the drop in confidence would not have been as great.
On the whole I think the economy would be doing better with Darling in charge rather than Osborne, however Labour can do a hell of a lot better and I hope they take a more radical message to the next election.
Comments
As far as I recall, we had our credit rating, the debt was lower, borrowing was lower, unemployment was lower, we hadn't experience a double dip recession and were not possibly heading for a triple dip.
What was it Osborne said again, measure me by my ability to keep our credit rating?
Osbourne's assumptions were blown off course by the Eurozone crisis, the problems in America and even the Japanese earthquake.
It is fair to say that Darling's plan would have fallen victim to the same problems.
We may have got slightly higher growth from the Darling plans but that would have been offset by the higher deficit spending to generate that limited growth.
Darling may not have cut government spending as much as Osbourne but he would have had to borrow even more than the present chancellor for very little return.
I personally suspect that under Darlings plan government borrowing would have been significantly higher than it is now.
As for anything that Balls would have done that may have generated significantly higher growth in the short term. But unless the economies of the Eurozone, America and Japan returned to significant growth by this point the downturn when he was forced to enact significant cuts would have been severe.
Darling was in the cuts camp (which was politically, though not economically, very en vogue at the time), it would have taken balls to do something different and like it or not Balls may well have been the man.
...by record UK personal debt, job insecurity, growing productivity gap and declining real wages reducing spending power.
Osborne is having to spend a lot more on dole money. That wasn't what Darling was planning. The Tories turned off the stimulus straight after the election. Labour wasn't going to do that either.
And the Tories announced on taking power Britain was on the brink of bankruptcy. Stupid boy Osborne. The country believed him and stopped spending. If Britain was on the brink of bankruptcy then what is it now?
In fact, wasn't the much acclaimed deficit reduction of 25% due to cancelling capital expenditure projects when they came to power such as building for schools programme?
Yes those are also factors. However Darlings plans would have not made any difference to those problems if the problems that I listed had still been in place.
Would Darling have been so obsessive about the credit rating? Well Labour didn't seem quite so fussed about it all to be fair.
It was full of flawed assumptions, and failed to realise that estimates of the 'capacity' of our economy have been underestimated, because the measures needed to realise our economic capacity, such as a massive programme of housebuilding and other infrastructure projects, have fallen outside of the mainstream of economic thinking.
As a consequence, the 'structural' part of the deficit is a great deal smaller than is generally believed.
Where Darling would have done significantly better than Osborne is that he wouldn't have relentlessly talked the economy down, and so the drop in confidence would not have been as great.
On the whole I think the economy would be doing better with Darling in charge rather than Osborne, however Labour can do a hell of a lot better and I hope they take a more radical message to the next election.