His days look numbered. He's not voter friendly and he's become a liabililty. Even Labour MPs are reportedly fed up with him. Bring back Darling.

What about Baldrick?

Darling would be a better shadow chancellor I think and a better chancellor should it work out that way IMO.

I read somewhere that he is involved in the Scottish Referendum (although I can't recall his exact job title) so could not realistically replace Balls until next year when that is done and dusted.

Other options are limited - Ball's wife perhaps. That would be interesting.

Clever of the Tories to push for Darling to lead the 'joint' effort to keep the Jocks British, he would wipe the floor with Gideon on all fronts.

Well well, thats not what your left wings chums have been saying. The points you mention are just tweeks, the main reason we are seeing the growth is Osborne/Cameron put in the right foundations and stuck to their guns when it took longer than they expected for reasons I detail below.



If Labour had remained in power then your last statement would be correct. Government borrowing would definitely have been higher than three years ago and we would have been deeper in the do doos. Had Ed Ballsup been in charge we could have headed for a fiscal crisis and a second major run on Sterling in 2010.

However Labour were booted out thank goodness and so your statement is an example of the “tosh” I mentioned before. Business optimism has been getting stronger and the Purchasing managers’ surveys which measure growth in the three main sectors of the economy – services, manufacturing and construction – are showing the strongest pick-up since the mid 1990s when the economy was recovering strongly. Markit, the firm that complies these surveys states that “ Measured across all three sectors, inflows of new business hit a record high in November, with demand surging from both consumers and the corporate sectors”

Of course there is a long way to go and nobody is pretending, least of all Osborne, that the return of growth has solved Britain’s problems at a stroke. But as has been reported, a Rubicon has been crossed and those who said austerity would inflict a permanent deep freeze on the economy have indeed been proved wrong, as they have in previous economic recovery in this country. It is not just a political victory but “the intellectual debate has been settled in favour of the minority who stated that the economy could grow through a period of necessary action to cut a budget deficit that had ballooned alarmingly” as David Smith put it.

You may recall the economy dropped by 7.2% in 2008-9 before this government started their task.

Normally growth of 1.4% would be a disappointment and the OBR forecast of 2.4% for year is at best just average, but we are in unusual times and our quarterly growth of 0.8% in the third quarter was good enough to take Britain to the top of the G7 league for a few hours until America revised theirs upwards to 0.9%.

So scoff all you like but this is some achievement given that this government has endured a greater handicap than other economies with factors peculiar to Britain eg: 1. With one of the largest financial sectors in the world we were hit harder than most when this collapsed. And 2. An important part of our economy has been the North Sea contribution which again has seen a major decline in revenues over the same period. Add to this our over dependence on Europe for our exports meant we suffered when the Euro crisis led to a long and deep European recession. The eurozone woes, rather than Osborne's austerity were one reason why our recovery took longer than expected. Without these three handicaps it is likely that the Osborne/Cameron policies would have born fruit much earlier.

So just to quote one source (there are hundreds to pick from but this one has pictures so you can read it easier), rlhttp://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_debt_chart.htmlrl, has government borrowing increased in the last three years, forget the "ifs" and "buts" about what Labour might have done for that is pure conjecture and totally irrelevant - can you call this plan of action in this current government an "austerity plan" if we are borrowing more now than we were when they came to power ?

I could pay off my credit card much quicker if I just borrowed some more to pay it off with.

And remember rugby league fans, those of you who said franchising wouldn't work, we were within thirty seconds of the World Cup Final after a highly successful World Cup. Where are those snivelling bring back promotion and relegation types....I bet they can't bear to see the recent England success.

<shoots off at a tangent quite unexpectedly in search of God knows what>

Darling is much criticised from Labour and Tories alike for a lack lustre performance so far and there are calls to replace him as leader of the "Better Together" campaign. Labour has just realised that if the Scots go independent they would lose all their Scottish seats and with it any chance of forming a majority at Westminster. One good reason to vote Yes!

You are side stepping the issue. The discussion is not about borrowing it is about Osborne's much critcised recovery plan now clearly seen to be working which Labour said couldn't happen without spending (and borrowing even more)

If you want a separate discusion on why the borrowing is higher than expected then there are plenty of reason to explain this which I have already done. eg North Sea revenues down, Our World leading financial sector down, our main export market down. Three factors that were not apparent when this government came to power.

But back to the main debate. Are you a recovery denier? Are you pleased the country is on the road to recovery? Are you able to give credit when due?

Take 41 away from: 179 (1997); 167 (2001) and 66 (2005) and tell us how many GEs Labour would've lost

Nope, its part of the issue - the "austerity plan" is nothing of the sort, as a country we are borrowing more money now than we were three years ago whilst at the same time cutting public expenditure for whatever reason the PR merchants in Whitehall spoon feed us this week (usually by blaming someone else).

In truth Osborne could have done this three years ago, in truth this is fairly similar to what Labour had as their recovery plan, spending in certain sectors to assist home buyers and loosen the grip on personal credit is a proven way out of recession, it worked in the early 1990s and it worked again around 2000/2001 when in fact it saved us from recession, the problem for Osborne is that he didn't really want it to happen this way and he didn't really want to borrow this much to make it happen but with time running out on this parliament he had to release the grip sooner or later - as I've said before, it was bound to happen in a five year employment contract.




Not sure what a denier is, google references state that its a unit of measure for fibres so I'm not one of those. If you are asking me if I am happy that a recovery, albeit a small one (by government admissions), seems to be underway - the first quarter of 2014 will be the main pointer - then yes of course I am and I have never said otherwise, feel free to show where I have, also feel free to show where I have stated that I'm a Labour party supporter, you'll struggle.

Do I give Osborne credit for this ? I give him credit for finally realising that austerity doesn't work even if he won't publicly say it, I give him no credit for continuing with the cutting of expenditure in public services and the selling off of public assets despite election promises that those public assets were safe in his party's hands - whilst all the time increasing the country's debt.

Would those lies include cutting funding for rlmental health carerl?

Any recovery is to be welcomed.

It'll be nice when the majority of the British people see it and not just a few. It'll be nice when unemployment falls and vacancies rise – and when underemployment falls too.

It'll be nice when ordinary people see their incomes grow rather than decline.

It'll be nice when food banks close their doors through lack of anyone needing them and then the Red Cross no longer need to hand out food parcels in the UK.

It'll be nice when this government stops telling lies about benefits claimants as well as those lies about its policies.

A significant reason for the reduction in real wages in recent years has been the fact that an increased proportion of the wage bills of employees and employers alike is going on national insurance and pensions. Labour aRe largely responsible for the former and as government tries to address the latter people moan about having to work longer.

It ain't over yet, not by a long way rlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12/12/george-osborne-welfare_n_4430917.html?utm_hp_ref.

In order to sell the idea of swingeing cuts to the benefits bill in the next term he is going to have to start telling some whoppers in order to get the Murdoch press reading public onside, which is basically all he has to do to get re-elected, stand by for some epic "scroungers" tales to come in the next 15 months so that white-van-man and you taxi cab drivers convince themselves that its the crippled and insane that are robbing tax from their wallets (when they pay any).