Who voted Labour anyway?

wasp

Legendary member
Messages
5,107
Likes
879
Gordon Brown brings Britain to the edge of bankruptcy

Iain Martin says the Prime Minister hasn't 'saved the world' and now faces disgrace in the history books



By Iain Martin
Last Updated: 8:36AM GMT 20 Jan 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/...in-to-the-edge-of-bankruptcy.html#postComment




They don't know what they're doing, do they? With every step taken by the Government as it tries frantically to prop up the British banking system, this central truth becomes ever more obvious.


Yesterday marked a new low for all involved, even by the standards of this crisis. Britons woke to news of the enormity of the fresh horrors in store. Despite all the sophistry and outdated boom-era terminology from experts, I think a far greater number of people than is imagined grasp at root what is happening here.



The country stands on the precipice. We are at risk of utter humiliation, of London becoming a Reykjavik on Thames and Britain going under. Thanks to the arrogance, hubristic strutting and serial incompetence of the Government and a group of bankers, the possibility of national bankruptcy is not unrealistic.


The political impact will be seismic; anger will rage. The haunted looks on the faces of those in supporting roles, such as the Chancellor, suggest they have worked out that a tragedy is unfolding here. Gordon Brown is engaged no longer in a standard battle for re-election; instead he is fighting to avoid going down in history disgraced completely.
This catastrophe happened on his watch, no matter how much he now opportunistically beats up on bankers. He turned on the fountain of cheap money and encouraged the country to swim in it. House prices rose, debt went through the roof and the illusion won elections. Throughout, Brown boasted of the beauty of his regulatory structure, when those in charge of it were failing to ask the most basic questions of financial institutions. The same bankers Brown now claims to be angry with, he once wooed, travelling to the City to give speeches praising their "financial innovation".


Does the Prime Minister realise the likely implications when the country joins the dots? He has never been wild on shouldering blame, so I doubt it. But Brown is a historian. He should know that when a nation has put all its chips on red and the ball lands on black, the person who made the call is responsible. Neville Chamberlain discovered this in May 1940 with the German invasion of France.


We're some way from a similar event. But do not underestimate the gravity of the emergency and potential for disgrace.


The Government's bail-out of the banks in October with £37 billion of taxpayers' money was supposed to have "saved the world", according to the PM, but now it is clear that it has not even saved the banks. Our money kept the show on the road for only three months.


As the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman Vince Cable asks: where has the £37 billion gone? The answer, as Cable knows, is that it has disappeared down the plug hole.
It is finally dawning on the Government that the liabilities of the British banks grew to be so vast in the boom years that they now eclipse the entire economy. Unfortunately, the Treasury is pledged to honour those
liabilities because it has guaranteed not to let a British bank go down. RBS has liabilities of £1.8 trillion, three times annual UK government spending, against assets of £1.9 trillion. But after the events of the past year, I wager most taxpayers will believe the true picture is worse.



Meanwhile, the assets are falling in value. This matters, because post-nationalisation these liabilities are now yours and mine.


And they come piled on top of the rocketing national debt, charitably put at £630 billion, or 43 per cent of GDP. The true figure is much higher because the Government has used off-balance sheet accounting to hide commitments such as PFI projects.


Add to that record consumer indebtedness and Britain becomes extremely vulnerable. The markets have worked this out ahead of the politicians, as usual, and are wondering what to do next. If they decide our nation is a basket case, they will make it so.



The PM and the Chancellor , both looking a year older every day, tell us that for their next trick they will buy more bank shares, create a giant insurance scheme for bad debt, pledge to honour liabilities without limit, cross their fingers and hope it all works.



The phrase "bottomless pit" springs to mind for a reason: that is what they have designed.


In this gloom, the Prime Minister has but one slender hope: that somehow, by force of personality, the new President Obama engineers a rapid American recovery restoring global confidence, energising the markets and making us all forget this bad dream.
Obama is talented but he is not a magician.

Instead, Gordon Brown's nightmare, in which we are all trapped, is going to get much worse


SAUCE: Gordon Brown brings Britain to the edge of bankruptcy - Telegraph
 
worst of all, the pryck doesn't even have a mandate !
those eejits who did vote Labour did so, in the majority, based on the personality and celebrity culture of his predecessor.
I hate Blair with a passion, but I can't argue with the fact that a whopping 30% of the country voted him in (er, hum......)
But this new Machiavellian character has zero legitimacy in my eyes.
 
The fickle electors who voted for NuLab 3 times over and borrowed beyond the bounds of sensibility because no one (Govt & banks) told them it was stupid or stopped them, will now turn on Gordo. I suspect an opportunity for Mandy here.

The B(?)ankers must be laughing all the way to the bank. I just feel sorry that so many bystanders (up to 3 million I suspect) will get hurt on account of bank greediness, politician's deceit and in some cases, their own stupidity.

I see the £ has already gone to $1.4 - obvious what the markets think and I'd believe them before Gordo/Darling any day of the week.
 
Haven't voted labour for years since they shifted from supporting the working man to fleecing them and becoming the Tory party mark 2!!
 
hopefully this will shatter cherished illusions... only a fool could vote Labour.. i never have and never will.
 
.
 

Attachments

  • darling.jpg
    darling.jpg
    60.9 KB · Views: 267
The UK is officially in recession, figures have confirmed.

But Chancellor Alistair Darling urged the public to give his economic policies time to work.

And he declined to publicly restate his previous forecast of recovery later this year as City experts predicted output would continue to decline for the whole of 2009.

Official figures showed the economy shrank by 1.5% in the fourth quarter of last year - the biggest fall in more than 28 years and the second consecutive quarter of negative growth.

Asked if that rendered his Pre-Budget Report predictions of positive figures by the third quarter of this year "fantasy", Mr Darling told Sky News: "What we said at the Pre-Budget Report is we did expect there to be a significant downturn in this last period and indeed we have seen that.

"It is undoubtedly sharper than many people believed, partly because you have seen industrial production go down because of course the export markets have been badly affected, particularly by the slowdown in the Far East and the euro area - Germany for example.

"But what is important is that we make sure we have a clear sense of purpose and a determination to do whatever is necessary to get ourselves through this period, whether it is supporting the banking system, getting lending going to people or making sure that we help people and businesses.

"The tax reductions I announced last autumn, bringing forward constructions projects; they are all important if we are going to take action that will help us get through the recovery."

It would take time for Government policies, including this week's multi-billion pound second banking sector bailout, to have an effect, he warned.

"Some of these things will take time to feed their way through the economy. But as we have seen with the VAT reduction before Christmas, that's had an effect on bringing down price rises. The measures I announced in relation to help bank lending, they will take time to get through."
 
They couldn't sell umbrellas in a thunderstorm

Everything Socialism grabs goes bankrupt

Bring back the pillory for Parliament Square or am I being too kind ?

If the Great Train robbers got 30 years in jail, how many years for bankrupting a country, this country ?
My guess is, his buddies in Parliament will give him a Peerage !!

Well Lord Pooh or whatever you are not getting your cotton picking hands on my whelk stall
 
Last edited:
Mandelson backs 'people's bank' bid - Yahoo! News UK

What they should have done in the first place.... £50 billion to start it and help out those who worked at he banks which SHOULD have gone bankrupt and let the country carry on whilst the 'big four' suffered, went out of business and existence for something that was all their fault in the first place, not 'get away with murder' and then get given a clean, fresh knife by the government and an alibi.
 
**** it. We got the government we deserved. If we'd really cared we could have stopped it. And we're about to get the depression we deserve too.
 
Don't be depressed mate! Its (even more) grim up North!

Anyhow, Labour aren't completely to blame... This monetary system has ruled the country for decades now and needs changing. Labour are just the latest cog in a system that has to say 'how high'?

What they need to do now whilst we are in this **** is my previous post and get out of the pockets of the banks who are really in control of our economy.

Money as Debt - Google Video
Monetary reform - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
I think rather than blaming Labour or Gordon etc, people need to look at the broader picture and that of a deregulated capitalism and American Banking issues with which the UK institutions heavily invested in.....

This is not the failure of Socialism or and isms, but failure of Monetary Policy roots of which go back to seventies a la Thatcher Reagan......Now we the world is paying the price....

Countries like India and BRIC have come our relatively unscathed as their institutions have not got heavy links with US....But brits with their 'poodle dog of US' policy will pay heavy price....

This is a US mess and Banking mess...I don't think any individual is responsible. It is the collective unregulated monetarist banking mess....
 
Mandelson backs 'people's bank' bid - Yahoo! News UK

What they should have done in the first place.... £50 billion to start it and help out those who worked at he banks which SHOULD have gone bankrupt and let the country carry on whilst the 'big four' suffered, went out of business and existence for something that was all their fault in the first place, not 'get away with murder' and then get given a clean, fresh knife by the government and an alibi.

Unfortunately if the banks go bust then it is game over and back to Feudalism. So the taxpayer bails the economy out if they can. Brown gets a peerage after he loses the next election and nobody is happy.
Mandy, twice sacked already. is back in the saddle. He was rewarded with a peerage for a crappy job. Next perhaps a country mansion to keep up with the Blairs ? Reward inefficiency and lack of integrity Mr. Brown and look what you get - A S*DDING MESS you idiot
 
Its high time there was a vote of NO CONFIDENCE in this crappy Govt. Brown accuses everyone of not doing anything - that's typical of the man. He should have done something like tighten lending rules way back in the 90s. Did he ? No he didn't. He just heaped on more taxes. The last one on the very poor shocked the fool into a U- turn.
He stands up in Parliament, looks like a pompous fool and tells others what they should be doing, when he is one of the main culprits !!
Should be chained to the railings in Parliament Square - the clot

Can we trust him to save the country ? Well hardly likely is it ?

Time for an election and hope the gullible public see through his b*llsh*t next time
 
"'We are at risk of utter humiliation, of London becoming a Reykjavik on Thames and Britain going under. Thanks to the arrogance, hubristic strutting and serial incompetence of the Government and a group of bankers, the possibility of national bankruptcy is not unrealistic."

Britain is on the brink due to the arrogance, hubristic strutting and naivety of the people.. The sad thing about your article is the fact that nowhere do you even mention Tony Blair.
 
"Where there is discord... may we bring harmony."
-- Margaret Thatcher, quoting St. Francis


"Where there is discord... may we bring further discord."
-- Alistair Darling, quoting St. Gordon Brown


"Where there is discord... may I do a runner."
-- Tony Blair, quoting St. Tony Blair
 
Top