The name “Lamont” means to me: Balanced budgets, lower taxes and a penchant for raffles fags and renting his flat to a tart.
I’ll take that over high taxes, huge deficits, massively expanded public sector payroll (none of whom actually DO anything - they just write each other memos)
Would that be giving people a chance to own something rather than be serfs in their own country? It was the first time that loads of people owned shares and took an active part in the economy.
Can you actually remember what Britain was like prior to 1979? It was like poland, genuinely a second-world country.
Two words old bean - Arthur Andersen.
Can and will.
Actually i could run a fairly sucessful country if my neighbours paid for everything. But even leaving that aside the Irish have suceeded by following good Tory-type policies such as low corporation tax.
Oh, come on - this is absurd revisionism. Black Monday was the single biggest blunder by a UK government in living memory, and Major’s government practically invented the term “stealth tax”. Brown has made gaffes as well (eg. gold) but none so monumental.
And a European level of GDPpc health and education spending, which nevertheless still leaves a 15% poverty rate.
(For foriegn readers, Black Monday was of course a global event not *caused[/]i by Lamont’s actions - however, his use of vast quantities of public money in an attempt to stave off the inevitable was the equivalent of running at tilt in a casino and blowing hlf your mortgage.)
Now the problem we have here is that you are blaming two men for this. I would blame an entire continent.
Black Monday was a function of trying to tie Britain to the EU economic cycle - something we have never been even close to in synch with. I thought it was a bad idea at the time and I think it’s a positively howl-at-the-moon bad idea now. There’s a word for people who want to do this - Blairites (or “ladies’ front bottoms” in it’s shorter form).
The only thing you need to know is that “tax freedom day” gets closer to christmas under labour governments .
Unfortunately the poor will always be with us. This is a simple fact. Some people are better at enriching themselves than others. The labour party thinks that those people should pay for the lifestyles of the others. I don’t. Therein lies the difference
It was a global event due to overpriced and underflexible markets. Lamonts ruinously expensive attempt to stop that inexorable tide has history calling him a “Cnut” of a Chancellor. History misspells slightly.
Yes, game theory does indeed predict a few Big Winners and many Big Losers due to a position of advantage facilitating consolidation of that advantage towards eventual monopoly. Democratic government’s job is to prevent such monopolistic economic coercion, which can be just as tyrannical as authoritarian government. Taxation as theft is a tired old canard.
Black Monday (wasn’t it actually a wednesday and black monday was when the stock market went mental?) is conclusive proof that you really can’t buck the market. It was wrong to try. Currencies should float freely, as should pretty much everything else.
As it happens I really don’t mind paying taxes - it’s just a question of where they go.
In common with most Tories I wouldn’t dismantle the NHS (although I do think that it needs a RADICAL rethink) and I think it’s a good thing that education is free (if a bit crap) and so on. I am lucky enough to have a choice and you wouldn’t catch me or any of my family in a NHS ward or state school - but I am glad they’re there for them that needs them.
However I don’t think the governement can spend my money better than I can. I also think that Labour governements are structurally incompetent because they start from a position that is untenable - ie socialism. It doesn’t work - that’s why they’re crap at the economy.
That and the fact that none of them have ever had proper jobs.
Well then, you agree with me and the current Labour party about the scope of government and merely quibble about the precise numbers allotted to each particular concern. The current reds and blues like to grandstand and castigate each other like they were mortal enemies, but the main streams of both parties are far far more similar to each other than to the extremes within those parties.
You think the current Labour party are “socialist”? They are capitalists through and through, as you are. This is socialism. And it doesn’t take sugar on its porridege, neither!
I have bought Health insurance (better than the NHS) and a house (better than a council house) - see what I mean?
And if those bloody trots stopped taking all of my money to spend on lesbian out-reach workers and disabled puppet theatres I’d buy a bigger house, and some beer.
Incidentally, Avenger, where are you in Cardiff these days? Dont’ you originally hail from Swansea (or was that Vetch?) or Greece (or was someone else too)?
I live down by the stadium, but my band plays various venues around here.
No, I have never lived in Swansea, that is indeed Vetch I believe, after the decrepit and soon to be knocked/fall down football ground. Not a clue about Greece?!
I am originally from Northampton, live on the edge of the City Centre, Adamsdown. I work just off Westgate Street, so can see the stadium out the window (when I’m there!)
Adamsdown - know it well. I used to live on Clifton St in my PhD days and we regularly play in the Royal Oak on Broadway. Look out for Fire Down Below (terrible name I know, but it’s been going since the year I was born!) - I’m the insufferable show-off of a guitarist.
really? I seem to think he’s done a good job, well when I say that, I mean the government on a whole. Better than the Tories, and don’t ever let the lib dems in, I don’t like the idea of being taxed because I am successful at my job and get paid highly for it.
It’s funny, that’s similar to a situation we had here in the colonies with our last turnover. Chretien gave 14 months notice of his resignation- his rival Paul Martin, the Minister of Finance, was none to pleased with this pace. However, Paul Martin’s crew had long had a strangle hold on the party apparatus so no rival had a chance at the leadership convention.
Chretien loyalists left over after the handover did not fare well. It also turned out Chretien left a few scandals bubbling in the back room to boil over after his retirement- final result: a minority government. Now ~1 week into first post-election session.
It’ll be fun to see when/if the experiments diverge.
I’m not sure that Blair’s going to get a third term. Both the Tories and the Lib Dems have had their backsides kicked into gear, both have made significant gains in local elections and we can expect an election in the middle of next year - effectively the campaign has begun now.
I expect Labour to lose a significant number of seats at the next election - unless the opposition parties split the opposition vote as happenned in the 1980s. It is entirely possible that the Lib Dems and the Irish parties will hold the balance of power after the next election.
Remember that the PM is the person who can command a majority in the House of Commons.
Charles Kennedy could tell the Labour party that he’d join them in a coalition but not under Blair.
, but I do know where the Royal Oak is.