So Brown was to blame for Lehman Brothers etc? And the financial crisis in the UK was completely isolated and unconnected from the global financial crisis?



Yerr ... 'cos that there TUC only got data from them there councils, and them there councils all told porkies so those aren't facts ...

Yerr ...

If you try harder, you might manage to avoid looking like such a complete twerp.

No, no: that's wrong. He never ever dodges questions. And he asserts this, so it must be true.

If he believes it to be true ...

Well they did build up a deficit in boom years.

Since all governments run deficits, they were just following the likes of Maggie. Thus you should approve.

Not the Labour government from 1998 to 2001.

They did indeed.
To about the same level that the Major government left them with.


That's also true.
TBF the Conservative government also briefly ran a surplus 1988-89.

But, generally speaking, Mintball was correct.

She had the income from North Sea Oil (to begin with) and then the funds from selling-off British Gas, British Airways, British Aerospace, British Airports, BP, Britoil, Enterprise Oil, British Steel, the Docks, British Telecom, Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls Royce (aero engines), Cable and Wireless, 10 Water Boards, Electricity generating, Electricity distribution and Amersham International ... plus more.

And still ran a deficit.

Well, it took a lot of money to create benefit dependency in entire communities.

On the deficits – taking your point. I also remember Sally C posting some really excellent stuff on how governments in general have run deficits. He also gave (or provided links to) stats etc. Unfortunately, I don't have them.

I do have a PowerPoint presentation by a specialist in local government on data or over a century plus, but I wouldn't have the first clue about how to host it somewhere. If I work it out, I'll post a link.

It's also always worth reminding some people (not you) that when Labour took office, there was a lot of disrepair in schools and hospitals that needed dealing with.

Yes it does. It was introduced by the last Labour government. HTH

What has Lehmann bros got to do with anything? There wasn't a global financial crisis.

The TUC collected information & PROJECTED what they THINK MAY happen. They did not gather then present actual facts.

Just another knee jerk reaction from the left to a cut in public spending.

The spare room subsidy is already in use in private housing, what's the issue with extending it to save taxpayers money?