I think there was a shift in opinion around 2002/3; in the first parliament he kept borrowing down and the debt to c.30% of GDP. (Imagine!) But by the time he’d broken his golden rules opinion was turning against him (Economist articles hereand here) This 2003 articleaddresses his loss of reputation directly:
PFI in particular came in for criticism as the obvious boondoggle it was: here’s a 2002Guardian article where the chief economist of the IPPR is sharply critical of the scheme.
I think Brown’s reputation as Chancellor went through a number of stages. We all remember his reptation as the Iron Chancellor. This reputation went on through the first Blair Government. As the second Blair government came along then Brown loosened the purse strings.
He was criticized in some quarters for this loosening, but by and large he was still highly thought of by the public, the commentariat and economists. Sure, he came in for some criticism, but he got off lightly compared to just about every Chancellor I can remember. And for a very good reason. In his first decade as Chancellor we had no real recession to deal with. The economy was booming, taxes were rolling in in record numbers, and Brown was borrowing within most Keynesian accepted limits. As Chancellor during those 10 years Brown barely had to make a single tough decision. Commodity prices were inflated to a prepostrous degree, Brown’s reputation(and UK’s short term finances) recieved a huge boost. Only when the economic sh*t hit the fan was it realised what a disaster it had all been.
I was too late to edit my above post.
PFI. Yes, Brown did recieve some criticism for PFI. However, he also recieved a lot of indirect good publicity due to the scheme. PFI kept a great deal of public debt off the books. Therefore a critical article in the Guardian in October would become a fawning headline at the end of the financial year when large swaithes of newly created Government debt were missing from the official figures.
I agree that Brown’s *popular *reputation lasted for 10 years, based purely on the “long boom”, and that PFI’s superficial impact generated positive headlines. But I don’t agree that serious economists were nodding along with this - I think their criticisms were just ignored by the mainstream.
Fair enough. But if I have come to a conclusion about economists, that the majority of them are worthless in their opinions. They are in part political in part second guessing with their theories. When the finances under Brown were rolling in during the good times most of them kept quiet. Only when the crash came along did they all see it coming. And yes, I realise im being a bit sweeping with my statements about economists. However, I really do believe there is a large amount of truth in it.
This is the last I’ll say on Brown as I believe im going off topic. If anyone wants a good laugh I have found this Oct. 2007 piece by Jonathan Freedland on the “new” PM, Gordon Brown. If anyone wants confirmation of Brown’s reputation at the time, and confirmation that the commentariat are little more than idiots here it is in one glorious article:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/oct/25/who-is-gordon-brown/
Back on topic, Betfair’s market for “party with most seats” currently shows:
Labour: 2.30
Tories: 1.78
So despite their slightly better position in the polls (33% vs 32% in BBC Poll of Polls) and their electoral advantages discussed above, Labour are seen( by those betting on Betfair) as being less likely to get most seats than the Tories.
However, the best odds for the next government on Betfair are Con-Lib coalition (4.9) which I find *exceptionally *unlikely given that both parties look like they’ll be net seat losers, so I’m not sure I agree with the wisdom of this crowd.
Betting sites are not a good guide to results of elections; much flu thinking and political bias enters the equation. also most people are failing to understand both the constitutional issue and the effect of the SNP.
Almost all pundits are forecasting a hung parliament with no clear majority for most easy coalitions.
Tories won’t find enough for a majority coalition.
Fwiw, I’m campaigning in Simon Hughes’ constituency tomorrow - on a knife edge (Labour swing).
Is that London?
I am a lapsed libdem but I still haven’t forgiven him for the anti gay campaign in 1983.
Well, I’m glad you remember that. We certainly do. And we might well get him this time.
Of course it descended into farce when his true sexuality was revealed in later decades!
Sorry. Yes. Sunny, sexy south London …
SNP still predicted to win most seats in Scotland in new poll this week which shows the same general result as previous polls since September.
Prediction 47 SNP, 10 Labour, 1 LibDem, 1 Conservative.
Suggesting that the SNP will be major players in forming a government in May.
I can’t see Labour doing business with SNP, myself. A lot of Labour MPs, Lords and supporters gave their all to get a NO in the referendum, and the idea of Miliband, or any party leader, getting in to bed with the SNP would be a death sentence for the party. It would be an enormous betrayal, and I could foresee masses tearing up their membership.
I think the safest and least convulsive result would be not to do business with the SNP at all. It might cost Labour a turn in government, but I think they know that it’s better to keep the party intact for the medium term than have a destructive, single-year government.
I agree. However, let’s not make this thread into a Scottish-centric one; I admit to being guilty of this myself. I think as time goes on a coalition with the SNP will dominate the electoral agenda. We are going to be bored silly with the SNP soon enough without dwelling on them quite this early.
I am pretty certain that they would accept a confidence and supply arrangement. We know that there are active feelers out about this currently- unexplained meetings between strange mixes of SNP and Labour representatives in private places.
You must consider that if the SNP were excluded from supporting a leftist government, resulting in five more years of rightist government, the Labour party would be signing its own death warrant in Scotland, making the swing to the SNP permanent. In a system that seems unlikely currently to give any single party a mandate, this could be the end of Labour as a governing party.
It’s unlikely in the extreme that Labour (or any politicians) would refuse their chance to govern even if it meant having less than ideal partners. Confidence and supply would probably work better for both sides: Labour get to be in power, albeit by the skin of their teeth and the SNP get some influence in the UK Parliament but don’t tie themselves to a Labour government that they will be happy to distance themselves from come the next election.
But it will be a negotiation and it will come down to who will blink first. The flip side to Pjen’s point about the SNP “being excluded from” a leftist government is that if they are too thrawn to make a deal and thus allow a rightist goverment in, some degree of responsibility will rest with them. It would be a big test for them in fact - is it more important to push the nationalist cause come what may, or to avoid a Tory government? It seems to me that the alternative to coming to a deal should be unthinkable.
I also struggle with what this rightist government will be. As things stand, it looks like the current Coalition is going to lose seats both jointly and severally. UKIP won’t win enough seats to be a factor and nor will the Greens or the other national parties. This could all change of course, but it’s hard now to see any government that doesn’t involve Labour somehow.
The SNP would be quite well protected if it stayed neutral and voted only for those acts that it agreed with. For several of its red lines- Trident, Nuclear Power, Foreign Policy, a Leftist government could replace SNP votes by Tory votes, letting the SNP off the hook.
The real fear is that Labour acts as it did in 2010 and pretended it had a right to rule without any real discussions with other parties- a take it or leave it approach.
What could happen is that Labour fails to pass a Queens Speech and Cameron’s successor is asked to form a minority Government and shows more skill at organising either confidence and supply or just an agreement from the SNP not to bring down the government by not voting.
At which point the SNP would be letting Tories rule Scotland. I don’t think that’s where they want to be.