You think we don't need to raise taxes at all and there should be no cuts in spending?
OK....glad you are not in charge of the economy. Not even Darling believes that.
Um, I don't think I said that. Apologies if you misunderstood. There should be budget cuts through efficiencies and cutting in areas which would have little affect (obviously that means not cutting police, NHS, teachers). As for tax rises AD had already planned N.I. tax increases - and I would have kept those. Instead, Tories made it "sound" to most people that they were not going ahead with the N.I. increase when in fact they were going ahead with the employee N.I. increase, just not the employer side.
When VAT rises it will hit lower-income families disproportionately. If required, an income tax increase should be applied to middle and high-income earners - who can afford a modest increase.
VAT is like your TV license - it's an unfair tax because £140 is a lot to someone on a low income, but not much to someone with a high income.
Sorry if I didn't explain my original post well. Will try harder in future.
I think the offending line was "Not because they have to.... because their idiology is that they want to". I should have made it clear I was referring to the scale of cuts and tax increases - not that they were doing these things.
I'd love to know what Darling was going to cut, since he penciled in at least 50 billion worth without actually applying them to anything.
I'd also love to know how Labour was going to pay for all the pet projects that they apparently left underfunded.
As for all the rhetoric, I don't care. Neither of them are going to apologise for anything, so they may as well both shut up and get on with their jobs.
Um, I don't think I said that. Apologies if you misunderstood. There should be budget cuts through efficiencies and cutting in areas which would have little affect (obviously that means not cutting police, NHS, teachers). As for tax rises AD had already planned N.I. tax increases - and I would have kept those. Instead, Tories made it "sound" to most people that they were not going ahead with the N.I. increase when in fact they were going ahead with the employee N.I. increase.
When VAT rises it will hit lower-income families disproportionately. If required, an income tax increase should be applied to middle and high-income earners - who can afford a modest increase.
VAT is like your TV license - it's an unfair tax because £140 is a lot to someone on a low income, but not much to someone with a high income.
Sorry if I didn't explain my original post well. Will try harder in future.
The Tories were going to scrap the NI increae for both employer and employee but have scrapped their stoppage for employee due to LibDem tax threshold rises.
I for one am not in favour of the LibDem tax threshold increase as the country is not able to afford it. I would much rather have income tax at the current threshold and have an increase in VAT, introduce environment taxes (such as carrier bag charges, Un degradeable bottles etc) and maybe look at your suggestion of a middle income tax increase but only to those who can afford it.
It's difficult and I don't envy anyone in Government. Regardless of who they are.
I'd love to know what Darling was going to cut, since he penciled in at least 50 billion worth without actually applying them to anything.
I'd also love to know how Labour was going to pay for all the pet projects that they apparently left underfunded.
As for all the rhetoric, I don't care. Neither of them are going to apologise for anything, so they may as well both shut up and get on with their jobs.
Some of the spending cuts that the Tories are now making as those based on Labour's own spending cut plans.
Imminent Tory spending cuts in areas including travel and IT are based partly on plans originally devised by Labour
Tory plans to impose £6bn of spending cuts from next week, accepted by the Liberal Democrats in coalition negotiations, will bring forward savings identified by Labour in the past six months.
The Tories were going to scrap the NI increae for both employer and employee but have scrapped their stoppage for employee due to LibDem tax threshold rises.
Labour are planning to raise Employees National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for everyone earning over £20,000. We will stop this increase altogether for everyone earning under £35,000 by raising the primary threshold at which people start paying NICs by £24 a week, and raising the Upper Earnings Limit by £29 a week.
Relative to Labour’s plans everyone liable for Employees NICs earning between £7,100 and £45,400 – which is 7 out of 10 working people – will be up to £150 better off a year under the Conservatives. Lower earners will get the greatest benefit as a percentage of their earnings. Nobody will be worse off.
Labour are also planning to raise Employers NICs for everyone earning over £5,700. This is a tax on jobs that will undermine the recovery. We will raise the secondary threshold at which employers start paying NICs by £21 a week, saving employers up to £150 for every person they employ relative to Labour’s plans. This will reduce the cost of Labour’s tax rise on employers by more than half.
They had already signalled their intention to keep the N.I. raises for employees, albeit with different thresholds introduced, back in March - before the election. They must have been employing a soothsayer
btw. Don't know what their plans are now, in the coalition.
Um, I don't think I said that. Apologies if you misunderstood. There should be budget cuts through efficiencies and cutting in areas which would have little affect (obviously that means not cutting police, NHS, teachers).
So by implication there was quite a bit of waste under the previous Labour government - they were inefficient and spent money in areas that would have little effect? I would certainly agree with that view
As for tax rises AD had already planned N.I. tax increases - and I would have kept those. Instead, Tories made it "sound" to most people that they were not going ahead with the N.I. increase when in fact they were going ahead with the employee N.I. increase, just not the employer side.
Yes, they removed what they called the "tax on jobs". I think we need to encourage businesses to employ more people, not penalise them for it. What do you think?
When VAT rises it will hit lower-income families disproportionately. If required, an income tax increase should be applied to middle and high-income earners - who can afford a modest increase.
Middle and higher income earners have already been hit. The coalition will cut income tax for low earners by raising the threshold so there is no reason to expect that overall they will be disproportionately hit.
VAT is like your TV license - it's an unfair tax because £140 is a lot to someone on a low income, but not much to someone with a high income.
A TV is not a necessity. By that logic maybe we should make all kinds of goods and services cheaper for poor people. Or maybe we should just do away with the TV licence.
Sorry if I didn't explain my original post well. Will try harder in future. I think the offending line was "Not because they have to.... because their idiology is that they want to". I should have made it clear I was referring to the scale of cuts and tax increases - not that they were doing these things.
So by implication there was quite a bit of waste under the previous Labour government - they were inefficient and spent money in areas that would have little effect? I would certainly agree with that view
Yes, they removed what they called the "tax on jobs". I think we need to encourage businesses to employ more people, not penalise them for it. What do you think?
Middle and higher income earners have already been hit. The coalition will cut income tax for low earners by raising the threshold so there is no reason to expect that overall they will be disproportionately hit.
A TV is not a necessity. By that logic maybe we should make all kinds of goods and services cheaper for poor people. Or maybe we should just do away with the TV licence.
.....
There is quite often waste in everything, including private companies. Some of the software that I use is specifically designed to get more out of less. Hyper-V, VMware. Nobody would want to keep wasteful spending.
The Tories let their business buddies off the N.I. increase, which is understandable. The press release in my previous post said of employees N.I. rises "nobody will be worse off". I just can't fathom how that is true. Must have read it wrong.
Middle and high-income people can certainly afford it more than those on low incomes. Surely we agree on that?
VAT rises are indiscriminate - income tax rises can be targeted. If you want to protect those on lower incomes you need to use the targeted variety, not indiscriminate ones. Surely we agree on that?
As regards "A TV is not a necessity. By that logic maybe we should make all kinds of goods and services cheaper for poor people" in many cases competition allows a range of goods at varying prices available to purchase. This allows TVs, as one example, to be matched towards ability to pay. Same is true for broadband. Various options are available at different pricings. Typically you match what you buy to what you can afford.
However, any increase in VAT will affect them all. As a percentage increase against a persons income, it will obviously be a higher proportion to a low income, and lower proportion of a higher income, relatively. That's maths. We can't disagree on that.
It still is worse then anyone imagines, so the deficit might be a few billion lower! That's good news and all but still doesn't fix the problems with the banks (yes nothing has been fixed) or PFI or pensions? All very serious when even Labours figures point at a £1.4 trillion pounds debt problem that the country will have to fix in the coming years!
It still is worse then anyone imagines, so the deficit might be a few billion lower! That's good news and all but still doesn't fix the problems with the banks (yes nothing has been fixed) or PFI or pensions? All very serious when even Labours figures point at a £1.4 trillion pounds debt problem that the country will have to fix in the coming years!
Indeed in some respects our deficit position is less dire than we thought. The election was fought on the Treasury forecast that the deficit for 2009/10 would be £163 billion -- or a Greece-style 12% of GDP. But a few weeks ago the Office for National Statistics slipped out that the actual turnout was £145 billion, or 10% of GDP. Still rather high, to be sure, at a time of mounting global concern about sovereign debt and, many will think, no reason for blunting the axe. But a reduction of £18 billion in our national debt when politicians were squabbling during the campaign over a mere £6 billion doesn't quite live up to the "it's much worse than we thought" mantra.
I've helpfully underlined the bits you need to memorise. Is £18b your idea of a few billion? And it's not worse than imagined, it's better than imagine.
Just ignore Cameron and Osborne and concentrate on actual facts - that way dubious statements caused by any party allegiance won't get in the way of the truth.
Why is it that I knew who had started this thread even before I saw the name?
A few billion makes little difference, we are still buggered because of the overspending of the past 11 years of Labour control.
Don't you mean the last 13 years ?????
Or are you acknowledging 10 years of non-stop economic growth following by significantly increased spending and lower tax receipts to the "world-wide" recession. Or is the "world-wide" recession just a myth. Labour did what every other government did and which they had no choice in; bailing out the banks. When you see what Lehmans - a tiny little bank - did to the world economies - think what letting RBS fail - the biggest bank in the world by assets - would have caused. It's balance sheet was bigger than the whole of the UK economy, by a fairly large margin.
Or are you acknowledging 10 years of non-stop economic growth following by significantly increased spending and lower tax receipts to the "world-wide" recession.
Oh please will you just can this rubbish about the deficit being due to the 'worldwide recession' :rolleyes:
The UK has been spending more than it's income since 2001 - to pretend that it hasn't is plainly daft.
Don't you mean the last 13 years ?????
Or are you acknowledging 10 years of non-stop economic growth following by significantly increased spending and lower tax receipts to the "world-wide" recession. Or is the "world-wide" recession just a myth. Labour did what every other government did and which they had no choice in; bailing out the banks. When you see what Lehmans - a tiny little bank - did to the world economies - think what letting RBS fail - the biggest bank in the world by assets - would have caused. It's balance sheet was bigger than the whole of the UK economy, by a fairly large margin.
Every country did not have to bail out their banks. Many regulated competently to prevent meltdown. And that RBS grew exponentially during the noughties was one of numerous regulatory failures under Brown's tripartite system, but this one was probably the biggest and costliest.
That the recession was largely of a global nature (like the 90's recession) is not in doubt, but the big question was how each country was prepared for a downturn of any kind and how dangerously leveraged domestic banks and households were. The UK faired worse than almost any other major nation. In many aspects, the UK actually was the worst. Spending and policy were based on the assumption that house prices, finance and consumption would forever boom. For this, Labour are responsible.
Indeed in some respects our deficit position is less dire than we thought. The election was fought on the Treasury forecast that the deficit for 2009/10 would be £163 billion -- or a Greece-style 12% of GDP. But a few weeks ago the Office for National Statistics slipped out that the actual turnout was £145 billion, or 10% of GDP. Still rather high, to be sure, at a time of mounting global concern about sovereign debt and, many will think, no reason for blunting the axe. But a reduction of £18 billion in our national debt when politicians were squabbling during the campaign over a mere £6 billion doesn't quite live up to the "it's much worse than we thought" mantra.
I've helpfully underlined the bits you need to memorise. Is £18b your idea of a few billion? And it's not worse than imagined, it's better than imagine.
Just ignore Cameron and Osborne and concentrate on actual facts - that way dubious statements caused by any party allegiance won't get in the way of the truth.
cheers.
Stop looking at the small picture and expand your horizons, look at the big picture out there. Yes £18 billion is my idea of a few billion when we are talking about a £1.4trillion debt! Things are so bad out there that £18 billion is pocket change!
Oh please will you just can this rubbish about the deficit being due to the 'worldwide recession' :rolleyes:
The UK has been spending more than it's income since 2001 - to pretend that it hasn't is plainly daft.
I'm sorry but if you think the deficit is mainly due to Labour over-spending you're crackers. It's mainly due to lower tax receipts and increased welfare spending.
As for the structural deficit, it was not zero, because most governments choose to do some borrowing - as most other governments worldwide have done.
In addition, companies went mental during the last ten years, creating massive debt buying up companies and expanding. Consumers took out large loans, egged on by the financial sector. The banks indulged in highly risky nonsense products of mass desctruction.
Which part of the history lesson did you miss over the last few years. What I have said has been repeated in many articles, many TV programmes, and on CSPAN, etc.
Nobody is claiming the UK hasn't been spending more than its income. It did this under the Tories for 18 years. It's what governments do, companies do, and individual do. What do you think a mortgage or loan is?
In addition, companies went mental during the last ten years, creating massive debt buying up companies and expanding. Consumers took out large loans, egged on by the financial sector. The banks indulged in highly risky nonsense products of mass desctruction.
And there was me thinking that we elected Governments to regulate Banks.
If you want to talk about debt, why not talk about the Governments debt - When Labour came into power in 1997, the national debt was around £350bn. Brown doubled that to about £750bn and over the next five years our national debt is set to double again - to £1.4 trillion
But its all fault of those pesky foreigners eh? :rolleyes:
Which part of the history lesson did you miss over the last few years.
Obviously not the same one as you where you learnt to be so patronising.
Stop looking at the small picture and expand your horizons, look at the big picture out there. Yes £18 billion is my idea of a few billion when we are talking about a £1.4trillion debt! Things are so bad out there that £18 billion is pocket change!
I'm sorry but if you think the deficit is mainly due to Labour over-spending you're crackers. It's mainly due to lower tax receipts and increased welfare spending.
Just to clarify - our tax receipts have not matched spending since 2001.
And there was me thinking that we elected Governments to regulate Banks.
That is a very silly comment. If the Tories had been in power they would have ripped up the regulations altogether. The Tories were in favour of less regulation. And it was Mrs T and Ronald Regan who set the whole ball in motion by mass deregulation back in the 80s.
During the end of the 1970’s into the 1980’s British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the City of London financial interests who backed her, introduced wholesale measures of privatization, state budget cuts, moves against labor and deregulation of the financial markets. She did so in parallel with similar moves in the USA initiated by advisers around President Ronald Reagan.
We all know that bank regulation failed. And it failed for most economies.
But its all fault of those pesky foreigners eh? :rolleyes:
I have no doubt that the US was at the epicentre with the UK just a short distance away. Wall Street and London are major financial centres in the world. That is also why our economy has suffered more.
Obviously not the same one as you where you learnt to be so patronising.
I certainly don't mean to patronise, but you should try to stick to the facts. Blaming Labour seems to be a major theme running through your posts.
Just to clarify - our tax receipts have not matched spending since 2001.
But nothing to do with overspending then
Doh? "As for the structural deficit, it was not zero, because most governments choose to do some borrowing - as most other governments worldwide have done." I said this on the very next line.
I must have phrased the initial sentence badly. The structural deficit (the bit before) was there, and the remaining deficit is largely made up from lower tax receipts and increased welfare spending.
That is a very silly comment. If the Tories had been in power they would have ripped up the regulations altogether.
Got anything to back up that claim? The Tories were against crippling the BoE and sharing responsibility with the newly created, politicised and weak FSA.
There is quite often waste in everything, including private companies. Some of the software that I use is specifically designed to get more out of less. Hyper-V, VMware. Nobody would want to keep wasteful spending.
You just can't bring yourself to admit Labour wasted much of our taxes on wasteful spending. Darling had identified many billions of savings made through efficiencies but Labour didn't want to make the cuts for another year so you are quite wrong. Labour did want to keep wasteful spending.
VAT rises are indiscriminate - income tax rises can be targeted. If you want to protect those on lower incomes you need to use the targeted variety, not indiscriminate ones. Surely we agree on that?
The coalition have already made plans to decrease income tax for those on lower incomes. Something Labour were not planning on doing - can you give them some credit for that? As for VAT it is the most effective way to gather tax - most basic necessities are zero or lower rated for VAT purposes.
Comments
Um, I don't think I said that. Apologies if you misunderstood. There should be budget cuts through efficiencies and cutting in areas which would have little affect (obviously that means not cutting police, NHS, teachers). As for tax rises AD had already planned N.I. tax increases - and I would have kept those. Instead, Tories made it "sound" to most people that they were not going ahead with the N.I. increase when in fact they were going ahead with the employee N.I. increase, just not the employer side.
When VAT rises it will hit lower-income families disproportionately. If required, an income tax increase should be applied to middle and high-income earners - who can afford a modest increase.
VAT is like your TV license - it's an unfair tax because £140 is a lot to someone on a low income, but not much to someone with a high income.
Sorry if I didn't explain my original post well. Will try harder in future.
I think the offending line was "Not because they have to.... because their idiology is that they want to". I should have made it clear I was referring to the scale of cuts and tax increases - not that they were doing these things.
I'd also love to know how Labour was going to pay for all the pet projects that they apparently left underfunded.
As for all the rhetoric, I don't care. Neither of them are going to apologise for anything, so they may as well both shut up and get on with their jobs.
The Tories were going to scrap the NI increae for both employer and employee but have scrapped their stoppage for employee due to LibDem tax threshold rises.
I for one am not in favour of the LibDem tax threshold increase as the country is not able to afford it. I would much rather have income tax at the current threshold and have an increase in VAT, introduce environment taxes (such as carrier bag charges, Un degradeable bottles etc) and maybe look at your suggestion of a middle income tax increase but only to those who can afford it.
It's difficult and I don't envy anyone in Government. Regardless of who they are.
Some of the spending cuts that the Tories are now making as those based on Labour's own spending cut plans.
Treasury brings forward £6bn Labour cuts
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/17/conservative-spending-cuts-labour-plan
Imminent Tory spending cuts in areas including travel and IT are based partly on plans originally devised by Labour
Tory plans to impose £6bn of spending cuts from next week, accepted by the Liberal Democrats in coalition negotiations, will bring forward savings identified by Labour in the past six months.
We will stop Labour's damaging NIC increase (Mar 29th)
http://www.conservatives.com/news/news_stories/2010/03/we_will_stop_labours_damaging_nic_increase.aspx
Labour are planning to raise Employees National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for everyone earning over £20,000. We will stop this increase altogether for everyone earning under £35,000 by raising the primary threshold at which people start paying NICs by £24 a week, and raising the Upper Earnings Limit by £29 a week.
Relative to Labour’s plans everyone liable for Employees NICs earning between £7,100 and £45,400 – which is 7 out of 10 working people – will be up to £150 better off a year under the Conservatives. Lower earners will get the greatest benefit as a percentage of their earnings. Nobody will be worse off.
Labour are also planning to raise Employers NICs for everyone earning over £5,700. This is a tax on jobs that will undermine the recovery. We will raise the secondary threshold at which employers start paying NICs by £21 a week, saving employers up to £150 for every person they employ relative to Labour’s plans. This will reduce the cost of Labour’s tax rise on employers by more than half.
They had already signalled their intention to keep the N.I. raises for employees, albeit with different thresholds introduced, back in March - before the election. They must have been employing a soothsayer
btw. Don't know what their plans are now, in the coalition.
So by implication there was quite a bit of waste under the previous Labour government - they were inefficient and spent money in areas that would have little effect? I would certainly agree with that view
Yes, they removed what they called the "tax on jobs". I think we need to encourage businesses to employ more people, not penalise them for it. What do you think?
Middle and higher income earners have already been hit. The coalition will cut income tax for low earners by raising the threshold so there is no reason to expect that overall they will be disproportionately hit.
A TV is not a necessity. By that logic maybe we should make all kinds of goods and services cheaper for poor people. Or maybe we should just do away with the TV licence.
No probs, we soon got it cleared up
There is quite often waste in everything, including private companies. Some of the software that I use is specifically designed to get more out of less. Hyper-V, VMware. Nobody would want to keep wasteful spending.
The Tories let their business buddies off the N.I. increase, which is understandable. The press release in my previous post said of employees N.I. rises "nobody will be worse off". I just can't fathom how that is true. Must have read it wrong.
Middle and high-income people can certainly afford it more than those on low incomes. Surely we agree on that?
VAT rises are indiscriminate - income tax rises can be targeted. If you want to protect those on lower incomes you need to use the targeted variety, not indiscriminate ones. Surely we agree on that?
As regards "A TV is not a necessity. By that logic maybe we should make all kinds of goods and services cheaper for poor people" in many cases competition allows a range of goods at varying prices available to purchase. This allows TVs, as one example, to be matched towards ability to pay. Same is true for broadband. Various options are available at different pricings. Typically you match what you buy to what you can afford.
However, any increase in VAT will affect them all. As a percentage increase against a persons income, it will obviously be a higher proportion to a low income, and lower proportion of a higher income, relatively. That's maths. We can't disagree on that.
Can all these NuLabour politicians just go away and not comment on the economy for a while. After all they "abolished boom and bust"!
A few billion makes little difference, we are still buggered because of the overspending of the past 11 years of Labour control.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/
Indeed in some respects our deficit position is less dire than we thought. The election was fought on the Treasury forecast that the deficit for 2009/10 would be £163 billion -- or a Greece-style 12% of GDP. But a few weeks ago the Office for National Statistics slipped out that the actual turnout was £145 billion, or 10% of GDP. Still rather high, to be sure, at a time of mounting global concern about sovereign debt and, many will think, no reason for blunting the axe. But a reduction of £18 billion in our national debt when politicians were squabbling during the campaign over a mere £6 billion doesn't quite live up to the "it's much worse than we thought" mantra.
I've helpfully underlined the bits you need to memorise. Is £18b your idea of a few billion? And it's not worse than imagined, it's better than imagine.
Just ignore Cameron and Osborne and concentrate on actual facts - that way dubious statements caused by any party allegiance won't get in the way of the truth.
cheers.
Don't you mean the last 13 years ?????
Or are you acknowledging 10 years of non-stop economic growth following by significantly increased spending and lower tax receipts to the "world-wide" recession. Or is the "world-wide" recession just a myth. Labour did what every other government did and which they had no choice in; bailing out the banks. When you see what Lehmans - a tiny little bank - did to the world economies - think what letting RBS fail - the biggest bank in the world by assets - would have caused. It's balance sheet was bigger than the whole of the UK economy, by a fairly large margin.
Why the world's banks are in trouble (Mar 2009)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/mar/25/banking-g20
Oh please will you just can this rubbish about the deficit being due to the 'worldwide recession' :rolleyes:
The UK has been spending more than it's income since 2001 - to pretend that it hasn't is plainly daft.
Every country did not have to bail out their banks. Many regulated competently to prevent meltdown. And that RBS grew exponentially during the noughties was one of numerous regulatory failures under Brown's tripartite system, but this one was probably the biggest and costliest.
That the recession was largely of a global nature (like the 90's recession) is not in doubt, but the big question was how each country was prepared for a downturn of any kind and how dangerously leveraged domestic banks and households were. The UK faired worse than almost any other major nation. In many aspects, the UK actually was the worst. Spending and policy were based on the assumption that house prices, finance and consumption would forever boom. For this, Labour are responsible.
Absolutely. It's a joke that people still peddle this.
Stop looking at the small picture and expand your horizons, look at the big picture out there. Yes £18 billion is my idea of a few billion when we are talking about a £1.4trillion debt! Things are so bad out there that £18 billion is pocket change!
£18 billion 18,000,000,000
£1.4 trillion 1,400,000,000,000
We have £1.4 trillion to find. We are going to be suffering for a very long long time! Things are worse then the government are letting on
I'm sorry but if you think the deficit is mainly due to Labour over-spending you're crackers. It's mainly due to lower tax receipts and increased welfare spending.
As for the structural deficit, it was not zero, because most governments choose to do some borrowing - as most other governments worldwide have done.
In addition, companies went mental during the last ten years, creating massive debt buying up companies and expanding. Consumers took out large loans, egged on by the financial sector. The banks indulged in highly risky nonsense products of mass desctruction.
Which part of the history lesson did you miss over the last few years. What I have said has been repeated in many articles, many TV programmes, and on CSPAN, etc.
Nobody is claiming the UK hasn't been spending more than its income. It did this under the Tories for 18 years. It's what governments do, companies do, and individual do. What do you think a mortgage or loan is?
And there was me thinking that we elected Governments to regulate Banks.
If you want to talk about debt, why not talk about the Governments debt - When Labour came into power in 1997, the national debt was around £350bn. Brown doubled that to about £750bn and over the next five years our national debt is set to double again - to £1.4 trillion
But its all fault of those pesky foreigners eh? :rolleyes:
Obviously not the same one as you where you learnt to be so patronising.
I give sources to back up, or make the point. You give nothing. If you think £18b is "pocket change" then you need your head examined.
Do you have a break-down of that £1.4 trillion figure?
Just to clarify - our tax receipts have not matched spending since 2001.
But nothing to do with overspending then
That is a very silly comment. If the Tories had been in power they would have ripped up the regulations altogether. The Tories were in favour of less regulation. And it was Mrs T and Ronald Regan who set the whole ball in motion by mass deregulation back in the 80s.
Death Agony of Thatcher Deregulated Finance Model
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11950
During the end of the 1970’s into the 1980’s British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the City of London financial interests who backed her, introduced wholesale measures of privatization, state budget cuts, moves against labor and deregulation of the financial markets. She did so in parallel with similar moves in the USA initiated by advisers around President Ronald Reagan.
We all know that bank regulation failed. And it failed for most economies. I have no doubt that the US was at the epicentre with the UK just a short distance away. Wall Street and London are major financial centres in the world. That is also why our economy has suffered more. I certainly don't mean to patronise, but you should try to stick to the facts. Blaming Labour seems to be a major theme running through your posts.
Doh? "As for the structural deficit, it was not zero, because most governments choose to do some borrowing - as most other governments worldwide have done." I said this on the very next line.
I must have phrased the initial sentence badly. The structural deficit (the bit before) was there, and the remaining deficit is largely made up from lower tax receipts and increased welfare spending.
Which part of this do you not agree with?
Got anything to back up that claim? The Tories were against crippling the BoE and sharing responsibility with the newly created, politicised and weak FSA.
Well lets see - the greatest financial meltdown since the 30's, the worst affected major nation, largest peacetime deficit, etc. etc.
and who have been responsible for the economy for the last 13 years? :rolleyes:
You just can't bring yourself to admit Labour wasted much of our taxes on wasteful spending. Darling had identified many billions of savings made through efficiencies but Labour didn't want to make the cuts for another year so you are quite wrong. Labour did want to keep wasteful spending.
It's good for the country overall if more businesses can hire people and expand. What is so wrong about that?
And when the Tories get the public finances back under control then the more wealthy should benefit from tax cuts, agreed?
The coalition have already made plans to decrease income tax for those on lower incomes. Something Labour were not planning on doing - can you give them some credit for that? As for VAT it is the most effective way to gather tax - most basic necessities are zero or lower rated for VAT purposes.