Quote: DaveO "Where do I start? I suppose the first port of call is this bit of nonsense on your part. "They took on a shattered economy and seem to have done as well".
No they didn't. They took an economy growing at 2% when they took office and drove it into recession and the recovery, such as it is, has been nothing like it should have been as economies that tank typically rebound with strong growth and ours has been the worst ever recovery. Only today the productivity figures are the worst since world war 2 and that matters a great deal.'"
That's certainly not how I recall it, and the figures seem to back me up. The UK entered recession in early 2008 for around 18 months - the deepest recession since the war. Recovery came around the end of 2009 although the economy was still in pretty dire straits due to the banks and lack of confidence. We slipped briefly back into a much smaller and shorter recession in early 2012, the effect of which was pretty insignificant and largely lost given the shockwaves of 2008/9, when the damage was largely done.
I don't particularly blame Labour for the big crash, nor do I blame the Tories for the smaller dip. 2008 was a global crash on a stunning scale. What I've been more interested in is how the recovery has been handled as it was clear to me from the start this would be long and painful road back, not without risks on the way. There was no easy answer and the key point for me is that I seriously doubt anyone could have done a significantly better job.
Quote: DaveO "They have missed every economic target they set. They have borrowed more in the last five years than Labour did in the previous 13, lost the AAA rating and have not rebalanced the economy as promised (another housing boom..).
How on earth do you conclude "they have done as well"?'"
As I mentioned, I deal with people at every level of varying sizes of business, from blokes with their own little office to the boards of some of the largest multinationals you can think of. Almost without exception they all squeezed their belts as tight as they would go in 2008 and didn't relax for the next 3-4 years. They knew the recovery would take time. In the meantime unfortunately, jobs were lost, a lot of voluntary redundancy was paid out, any hint of risk was eliminated, and expensive investments and projects were postponed or scrapped.
Those same companies - again almost without exception - have increasingly been telling me since around 2012 that things are looking up, and I can see this reflected in their figures and activities. One large multinational I work closely with suspended a number of projects in South America and Japan in 2008, but started them up again 2 years ago. Another suspended all non-essential and business class travel in 2008, yet in 2012 instructed their staff to start travelling in bulk again to "do business with one another" - in business class. I could repeat similar stories for many others companies. Regardless of the numbers making the headlines, confidence has been slowly growing for the last 3-4 years. That simply would not happen if they felt the economy would not support them.
Quote: DaveO "However that is not why I will never vote for them. Economically illiterate they may be but the reason I won't vote for them is they are driven by an extreme right wing ideology which manifests itself in numerous ways.
The bedroom tax is one way. Workfare is another. Free labour for employers which drives wages down (which affects productivity...).
They also lie. "No increase in V.A.T" they said in 2010. They increased it. "No top down reorganisation of the NHS". They did just that. Yet here we are in 2015 with Cameron and Osborne saying "No increase in V.A.T". You believe them because????'"
I didn't say I 'believe them'. I only believe a fraction of anything any politician says on face value. As others have said on this very thread, most of the promises can be thrown out the window the day after the results are in. Indeed, that's partly why the big parties aren't revealing TOO much just yet. They all know a hung parliament is on the cards, and they all know hard and unpopular decisions still need to be made.
Quote: DaveO "One of THE biggest issues though is TTIP. If you don't know what that is Google it. As the Tories have it now if it is passed (its an EU wide free trade agreement with the USA) companies (USA companies) will be able to sue the government if they think government policy prevents them from making a profit (e.g. plain packaging for cigs). It will also lead to the inevitable full privatisation of the NHS.
Other countries in the EU have excluded their healthcare from it explicitly e.g. France. The Tories will not. I even wrote to my MP about this and he is a Tory so you can see I am not basing this on supposition but what he actually said. I got a long technical reply which said it was fantastic for trade and they weren't going to exclude the NHS. TTIP is NHS privatisation by the back door.'"
TTIP is an EU-led initiative. Bearing in mind the Tories and UKIP are taking the toughest stance on the EU, whereas the rest want to further embrace Europe, perhaps you should have a radical re-think of your vote.
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