Apr 24 2007
The great debate on the economy
Yesterday in the House we had an all day debate on the Finance Bill and the state of the economy.
As usual Labour was both complacent and living in?? the past. To every criticism the Labour answer was the same - it was worse a long time ago when they were not in office. The Labour MPs have been so spun into submission by the Treasury that I think many of them now believe all is for the best in the best possible of worlds. Dr Pangloss is alive and well and is a Gordon Brown cheer leader.
??We put to them that you need to compare modern Uk with the rest of the successful economies around the world. Judged by these standards over the last ten years the UK has
grown less fast than the Anglosphere countries led by the USA
had higher interest rates on average than the US, Japan and Euroland
lost one million manufacturing jobs
still has 5.3 million people of workign age living on benefits without a job
has a huge balance of payments deficit
has a low savings ratio and poorer imnvestment record than our leading competitor nations
has seen too much money taken in taxes and spent unproductively in the public sector - not on extra nurses or teachers but on big computer schemes and failed projects
Complacency is dangerous at the best of times, but is especially so when you are as unpopular as the government
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
All this is the work of someone Blair says is “our greatest post-war Chancellor”!!! Oh, and don’t forget the occupational pensions he has destroyed, the billions he lost on the sale of our gold reserves and the billions paid out in error in tax credits. Fasten your safety belts the man responsible for all this failure is about to become Labour leader and our Prime Minister!!
[Reply]
If interest rates had been lower I’m sure the savings ratio would have been as well. On the other hand, I imagine if more consumers had spent the last 5 or 6 years saving instead of borrowing and spending, growth would have been even lower surely?
Then you have the fact we seem to import all of our goods these days and it seems we’ve just been borrowing money to spend it overseas. No wonder China and India are booming if this is what the UK and USA are doing.
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