Debt and deficit problem, a myth?

[Top_gun]

I find it weird how the video says Labour were competent, they just made bad decisions.

Isn't that an oxymoron?

The direction of the policies were sound but the decision making could have been better by involving more people (constitution) and reacting to events in a controlled way. For example the spending on the nhs and education were done at a fast pace instead of giving more time to think through the process before committing a spend. Gordon Brown was an impatient guy and he expected his policies to happen immediately overnight. So obviously the project managers undergoing rebuilds of schools and hospitals were always under pressure to rebuild them quickly and to budget. As a result there have been some rather poor PFIs agreements.

[Willzzz]

Well in the very broadest sense, the aims of the policies were sound, but not really the direction.

And it's not even that policies were rushed through, or at least not that they happened quickly. Labour were in power for 13 years and yet there was so much that they left unfinished. You mention the schools building programme, but most of that never even happened before it was cancelled by the coalition. 13 years, bucket loads of money and yet the scheme had barely got moving.

[Top_gun]

Willzz, you make like to read this article 'Buried' report praised Labour's school building programme

Sadly, political dogma by both parties gets in the way of progress. It's quite easy to say 13 years of Labour but they didn't instigate discussions on infrastructure public spending until late 2001. I know because I attended two of Tony Blair's events.

[Noxvayl]

I heartily agree with Salman Khan's assessment on the constitution and where everything was centralised from Number 10. The big problem with Blair & Brown is that they wanted to go down in history as the greatest PMs in history and their behaviour reflected that. Not sure I agree on his views on child poverty though as I think Neo-liberalism is responsible for increasing inequality.

Salman Khan is the one making the presentation on Fractional Reserve Banking, not the economic consequences of Mr Brown, that was Stein Ringen.

I find it weird how the video says Labour were competent, they just made bad decisions.

Isn't that an oxymoron?

Well he is talking about politics here, it is not a technical subject where competence is easily defined... The thing I find interesting about the video is that the bad decisions were not a satisfactory explanation for what went wrong.

[Willzzz]

I think part of the problem is that parties don't know how long they've got to push through policies.

I daresay that if Labour knew they had 13 years in advance that they would have done things rather differently.

[sabre74]

This country is broke. We have borrowed too much with interest rates at historic lows. When rates rise (and they will) we will be unable to service this debt. We have a debt of more than a trillion pounds. And We are still borrowing more. In 2012 we spent £120 billion more than was collected n taxes. State spending is out of control and no politician is brave enough to do something about it because they know it will put them out of office.

When rates rise back to their normal level of 5% then the interest on that debt mountain will be be more than double what it is today and the consequences will be felt by all.

[BobF64]

I daresay that if Labour knew they had 13 years in advance that they would have done things rather differently.

And thats why I think they should fix politics, and bureaucracy, instead of trying to fix all the things that both of those things broke.

Like, having parliaments that are 10 years long, people can only stand once, only way out is to die in office and where the government is always a coalition formed based on the proportions of MPs per party.

[Top_gun]

UK had the lowest debt of any G7 nation before the banking crisis has started. And since the second world war, debt levels were on a downward slope irrespective of political parties.

I think the problem here is that both political parties had put a lot of faith in neo-liberalism which led to huge personal debts for many ordinary people. In fact, it could be argued that UK economic growth was based on a Ponzi scheme since the days of Margaret Thatcher government putting a lot of faith into the financial sector.

[Willzzz]

Like, having parliaments that are 10 years long, people can only stand once, only way out is to die in office and where the government is always a coalition formed based on the proportions of MPs per party.

Sounds like a lack of government, do you bother with a PM and a cabinet? If so how do these get decided?

It sounds like there would be a large risk of nothing getting done, and while that may sound harmless initially it can become damaging very fast.

Or else you just get majority governments and nothing is different at all.