I do love a good old-fashioned spot of S&M. And you do seem to have the whip hand, so to speak, oh bearded one.

UKIP gain because disgruntled voters are looking for a protest vote away from the Tories/Clegg, what are their alternatives BNP, ED & ED?

Even you didn't seriously think the rise in UKIP popularity had anything to do with membership of the EEC?

The point is Labour could have taken action earlier so that by now we would have potentially been passed the worst. They gambled on retaining power on the back of less pain now more pain later. Sadly for them the some voters were able to see through their "Its not our fault its a global issue" excuses. Taking unpopular decisions is sometimes required at the point it was required Labour didn't take them.

They would say they had and with growth in the economy starting again key investments in house building, not increasing VAT and not front loading the cuts would have seen us escape what is looking like a triple dip.

Yes, indeed I did (do), and that's why I have to disagree.
I reckon any apparently Europhobic move Cameron makes, takes votes away from UKIP.

Maybe I'm being thick today but you've lost me again.
Was the banking crisis not a global issue? Did not the government take the unpopular decision to bail the banks out?

We were going to build houses just at the point when banks stopped lending!! that's really joined up. Look at Germany there growth has stagnanted and they are a serious manufacturing country. Where was the sustained growth going to come from?

How was the deficit going to be reduced - even they had agreed that it had to come down. They would have had to raise monies somehow if not VAT then direct taxation. At least it appears that despite all the recessions unemployment continues to reduce.

The cuts have cost how many jobs exactly and how many fewer jobs would have been lost under labour?

So, this global financial crisis – it didn't happen, then?

And if it did, it had absolutely no affect on the entirely separate crisis that occurred in the UK?

It was global issue - did the banks in China need bailing out or Australia, South American banks, African banks, Russian banks how global was the crisis - US and Europe?

The government took the only realistic decision open to it, if their would have been any other choice they would have avoided nationalising these banks. The sad thing is that it ever got to that position, but I suppose - despite 10+ years of Labour - that was all Maggie's fault?

Unemployment reducing is partly myth – a bit like Cameron's lie about jobs created, when in fact most of the jobs he mentioned were simply privatised public sector jobs in education.

And as for new jobs – that'll be all the part-time ones, will it? Well, that'll help the economy hugely.

The deficit could be reduced by a variety of measures aimed at increasing employment, which in turn increases tax revenue and cuts benefit payments.

That Labour, for 20-odd years, has followed the same core economic philosophy as the Tories should have you applauding them. Except that you appear to believe the propaganda and, in spite of having had it explained to you time and time again – not least by the excellent and very knowledgeable Sally Cinnamon – persist in peddling the same propaganda again and again and again.

Banks stopped lending stupid money for poor investments to people would couldn't afford it, reasonably priced housing is still selling and people are still able to get sensible mortgages.

The shortage of housing isn't not going to go away any time soon, building now while the industry needs a boost keeps workers off the dole and increases the available housing stock, a double win.



How about not giving a tax cut to millionaires for a start, there are always two ways to balance a budget, get more in through slow steady growth that keeps people in work or the way Osbourne has handled it, seems like his way is failing.



And that is all smoke and mirrors too, people in zero hours contracts, part time work and low skilled jobs doesn't improve the confidence of the workforce to go out and spend, workers don't spend the retail gets hit, retail suffers then more people thrown out of work means lower confidence in the economy and you are back to the start.

Balls and his crew may not have all (or even half) of the answers but it is patently obvious that austerity under Osbourne isn't working.
The cuts have cost how many jobs exactly and how many fewer jobs would have been lost under labour?'"

We were heading for some serious issues the banking crisis compounded an already worsening position. And yes you can roll out "after the WW2 the debt to GDP was" but the level of debt we were building was unsustainable and Labour knew that - the banking crisis did them a favour - it help to divert attention away from the mishandling of matters.

You're contradicting yourself. Either it was a global crisis or it was not.





It was ultimately the fault of the neo-liberal sphericals that successive governments, from 1979 on, have pursued.

The deficit, before 2008, was below that under Major – not least because under Labour, unemployment was reduced. The Tories, remember, consider that unemployment "is a price worth paying" – as long as it it's some other poor paying it.

When are you going to stop pretending that it was not and that these 'record levels of debt' (as opposed to debt under the Thatcher and Major administrations that you never complain of) did not exist except in the minds of propagandists?

How many times does Sally (or anyone else) have to explain it for you?

I can't let you just chuck that one into the pot.
The level of debt was quite manageable (by Labour or Tory standards, if you look at their respective levels when in office at various times) ... until the banking crisis hit.

Labour didn't see that coming and maybe should have regulated the banks (although that would have been tricky, shackling British banks would have reduced their competitiveness compared with foreign banks).
But, let's not forget, at that time Osborne was busily criticising Labour for OVER-regulating the banks.