Osborne was daft to make a statement about protecting our rating in the first place since the decision on what our rating will be is out of his control. So far it is only one company that has downgraded us isn't it?

I doubt money will be flowing from London to New York since the US had their rating downgraded months ago.

I'm sure I read on the BBC website that only Canada and Germany now have a triple A rating across the board? But maybe I got that confused with something else.

Also, we are hardly in junk status.

Its a very simple nett figure of 3x9000, however I am well aware of how The Student Loan Company and the whole student loan thing works as my eldest (luckily) completed her degree two years ago on annual tuition fees of £3k plus a maintenance loan - its when you see the annual statements coming in now that you realise how much she potentially owes.

To hear Ministers speaking of student loans being irrelevant to the individuals is crass and irresponsible, whether or not they ever earn enough to pay them off is not the point, its only a matter of time before credit rating agencies start to take into account the £50/60k student loans and suddenly you've got a lot of graduates who'll struggle with future finance.

Is this the same party that 'invented WMDs'?, so you have said what they would not do - now in you view what would they have done?

Nice try at a deflection from the issue there Sal.
They said they would aim to halve (not eliminate) the deficit in one parliamentary term.
They said they would concentrate on growth as much as cuts.

We'll never know whether that would have succeeded.

All we can go by is by looking at what has happened, not what might have happened.

Before the election, Osborne was warned by Labour and LibDems that by cutting too deep and too early he would stifle the growth that would contribute to recovery and ultimately to the reduction of the deficit and debt.
Nonetheless he set his stall out on two main planks.
1. Eradicate the deficit in one parliamentary term.
2. Preserve the UKs AAA rating.

Epic fail ... even by his own measure.

His tune changed every year in opposition (see Kosh's earlier post) ... in government he has made his case and shown that he can't fulfil it and has also shown he is totally out of his depth.

Osborne will now be under extreme pressure from the right-wing Tory backbenchers to lower taxes and to slash public expenditure. We have already seen, over the EU, that the current Tory leadership buckles under pressure from those back benchers when push comes to shove.

Stick.
Wrong end of.

Neither Cameron or Osborne requires rightwing backbench pressure to lower taxes and to slash public expenditure.
It's what they intended right from the outset.
It's why they chopped infrastructure spending early on and cut the top rate of tax first.

It's their raison d'etre, Rodney.

The thick posh b@stard Osbourne probably thought they were referring to batteries when the mentioned triple A

They've taken alot of stick for NOT cutting properly.

What on earth are you rambling about now?

What are "proper" cuts?

Gidiot, writing in the [iSun[/i – so not a newspaper for grown-ups – claiming it was evidence that his polices were right all along and need to be continued.

Quite, quite unbelievable. And worse, people will continue to believe him.

However this government did have the top rate of tax at 50% for the first two years and 45% for the most recent year, compared to the Labour government that had it at 40% throughout apart from the last 6 weeks. So they are not really doing their rich chums as much of a favour as Blair did.

As the Bank of England has been running a policy of devaluing sterling in an orderly fashion for some time the loss of the AAA rating was inevitable. Indeed, it is laughable that it lasted so long. Official policy has dictated we would lose it. Osborne's political error has been stressing its retention as a key plank of his policy. In reality though that was always likely to have been bluster to try to put of the day. Logically, our rating has a long way to drop yet.

Perfect storm brewing for April - the new bedroom tax for those on social housing relying on benefits to pay their rent will be kicking in at just about the same time as the current incumbents turn down another opportunity to think about a mansion tax.

And still Labour will sit on their hands.

There is no easy solution - unless you have one? It is difficult to cut taxes at present (although some people suggest slashing corporation tax to nearer 10% attract inward investment) and there is little prospect of economic growth taking off unless we have become the epicentre of a new industrial revolution. That leaves cutting the welfare state. Despite all the protestations that has not happened to a great degree yet.

This country was effectively bust until North Sea oil saved us. It's bust again but there seems little prospect of another North Sea oil to save us. Our long-term decline has been continuing for decades and has only been masked by two things - North Sea oil and more latterly credit expansion. Both have had their day. Sadly, this means the future looks dire, especially with our demographic profile. We need some very serious innovation to save things.

That's because they haven't got an alternative, because they are, in essence, basically the same as the Tories.....Its the same as when Labour were in power and the Tories just promised to match Labour's spending, because they had no alternative either.

They are all incompetent and come election time their uselessness will be reflected by the electorate turning their backs on voting.