Well, the next Budget will be Labour’s after all with the date now penned in for 24th of March which makes a May 6th election a near certainty. That’s £60 of won bets and fiscal stimulus that you won’t see coming out of my pocket Gordon. It’s not looking such a clever move now, hey!?.
There is something positive about this move from Labour though, a ‘winners want the ball’ mentality where rather than leave the difficulties to the next Parliament, they want the agenda, they want the tough decisions and they want to go into the election firing on as many cylinders as they can. Fair play to Brown and/or Darling and/or Mandelson for coming up with that decision.
As for what will be announced that day, speculation is almost futile. A freezing of top public sector pay has been trailed but this is a drop in the wide expanse of ocean that is our public spending that needs stemmed back and who is to even know if Labour will try to get away with a few election giveaways to win votes, parking the spending problems for yet another year. I am not entirely sure that Gordon Brown, like King Canute, can stem that spending tide that has built up for ten years. Certainly his warning of there being ‘bumps in the road’ sounds like an eerily similar understatement to boom and bust being gone forever. We’re in a bust now and there are still ‘bumps’ to come as Gordon is no doubt optimistically putting it? Heaven help us.
No-one is being upfront about what needs to be done during the next Parliamentary term; Labour are focussing on continuing the spending to avoid a double dip, the Tories are lifting only the corners of the carpet cuts that they will introduce with relish and the Lib Dems have replaced their calls for “savage cuts” with a shopping list. The SNP is wisely positioning itself as the defender of Scotland’s interests but that doesn’t really help lance the considerable boil that is our UK deficit. It is all hideously depressing and consequently Alastair Darling’s words a fortnight hence need to be gone through with the finest of toothcombs by the independent experts.
A May 6th election it may be but the key dates prior to polling day could well be the week after the 24th as the economic policy of each party is stated and picked apart. I daresay that even then our political leaders will continue to be turning a blind eye to the tsunami that is approaching as they scrabble around for votes by promising the earth.
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16 comments:
In the land of the blind.
The one eyed man is King.
When people in Scotland take of their blinkers they will see the distruction Labour has caused to our country.
We need change, we need leadership and we need to take a right good look at ourselves.
When there is less food people eat less but with Labour when there is less money we can continue spending on under performing public services run by overpaid senior management.
We are heading for a financial famine. When the UK rating changes and we can no longer finance the PSBR on the never never it will be a disaster for society.
A disaster with 5 million is easier to manage than a disaster with 60 million.
UK plc owes £900,000,000,000 and we need to raise another £178,000,000,000 next year.
We're DOOMED with Brown.
I monitor the CCX market and I can tell you the thought of Brown winning has meant all time falls for the pound today against various currencies.
I can list them all if you like.
Well some of the main ones where the collapse is in free fall.
That the U.s. dollar is not as bad as some others merely confirms that the U.S is another basket case. Detroit is a place where houses can be bought for next to nothing and no sign of any improvement short medium or long term.
Manufacturing industry plummeting in the Uk and U.S., so little benefit from the currencies having lower value than ever.
Some honesty on debt and deficit would be welcome, as Britain about to overtake Greece this coming month in terms of debt relating to GDP.
With money to cost more and a falling credit rating inevitable without major cuts, the slide is on no matter who takes over the ship.
I am not entirely sure that Gordon Brown, like King Canute, can stem that spending tide that has built up for ten years.
To be accurate, King Canute's act was one of humility, to show fawning followers that he could *not* turn back the tide.
In the land of the blind.
The one eyed man is King.
Hence Brown's attempt to blind everyone.
I am loading up on the Whisky and the Tobacco! Nothing changes!
The Brit Peso just took another hammering this morning, red everywhere on the currency markets, thats the Holiday up in smoke!
So no more revenue for all from all of us who wont be going abroad, no booking flights, thats the deficit up again!
Weimar Germany springs to mind as inflation sky rockets! Leiderhosen and Swastikas anyone?
Our political leaders are lying to us about the UK's current economic position, and the forthcoming budget and GE are simply fluff. Many countries are now effectively bankrupt including the once mighty USA.
http://matterhornassetmanagement.com/2010/02/11/sovereign-alchemy-will-fail/
For Scotland there is now only one credible future and that is to distance itself from the remainder of the UK as quickly as possible while we still have access to natural resources that might help us weather the economic tsunami that is careering towards us.
2Mac
We're doomed either way. Look at the choices, we have either Brown who has put us in the red with PPP/PFI and with saving the banks, or we have Cameron/Osborne who are promising a Scorched Earth policy to satisfy the City.
"...the considerable boil that is our UK deficit"
What a wonderful metaphor.
Let's lance it, call a referendum.
"In the land of the blind.
The one eyed man is King.
Hence Brown's attempt to blind everyone."
Very good.
Allan, I believe that there is another option....
Well I think we are all agreed that the chickens have flown home to roost, but we are not turning the lights off quite yet.
It does matter how public spending is cut. It could make a difference in terms of whether we double dip or not.
The thing that scares me about the Tories is that they will enjoy hammering public services. The thing that scares me about Labour is the past 13 years.
There has never been a better time in my view to campaign for independence. We are in a really tight spot, and quite frankly I think we are better placed to come out of it minus the Westminster connection.
For Scotland there is now only one credible future and that is to distance itself from the remainder of the UK as quickly as possible while we still have access to natural resources that might help us weather the economic tsunami that is careering towards us.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... remind me, what did the great and merely powerful at Holyrood do about the banks when there still was time?
Observer
Westminster Connection ?
Or Westminster Shackles?
For a governemnt to be effective we need the decision makers close to the events. Focused and voted for by the people, so if we need a change of management it can come through democratic means at the ballot box.
Here is Scotland we face another governemnt collecting taxation, making laws, harvesting our resources and yet having no support in the nation.
Hotels with no management on site fail.
Companies with no management on site fail.
Yet we are supposed to believe that a small country can be run from hundreds of miles away by a governemnt who have no democratic interest in Scotland.
In fact I suspect being tough on Scotland will play very well politically in the south.
The Third Way
What way is that then, considering how... hmmm... reticent the SNP have been of late in arguing for independence
Observer
Not so much campaign for devolution but campaign against The Union. After all many Scot's still believe in "The Union Dividend", alongside father Christmas and Osama Bin Laden still being alive.
Alec
Suck up to said banks i think is the correct answer. Especially the one who employed the superannuated HR boy, Fred the Shred.
What we need more than ever is effective government with the full fiscal controls.
The ability to borrow wisely, invest carefully and work our bloody socks off.
We need to reverse 300 years of absentee government.
We are the only country in history to strike this much oil and become poorer as a result.
We need to invest in our renewable energy sources, increase our exports, increase our tourism and use the money to fund our schools, hospitals and infrastructure.
Independence can put pride back in the parts of our nation that so many area's have lost.
(Climbs down from high horse...Exits)
Can we cut the Tram project first?
If we were independent those carpetbaggers we have in Westminster will probably have to come home. There aren't enough EU commission positions for them all to trough.
I humbly suggest that is a major argument against independence.
There is certainly truth in the assertion that the SNP govt. follows the same neoliberal assumptions trumpeted by westminster politicians, and that they too did not forsee the implications of financial deregulation and an explosion of the credit fuelled property boom. The SNP govt. is after all a broad church that includes a left leaning social democratic element as well as a neoliberal right leaning cabal (Mather,Russell). However, we must look beyond this to a new political debate in Scotland that questions the current economic orthodoxy. This will only be possible if the Scottish people can be persuaded to pursue a future that is independant of the british state.
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