So if Labour bought votes with other peoples money, is the coalition buying votes for labour with other peoples money also?

The country is always in debt, the party in Downing Street just dictates which tiers of society receives the borrowed money.

Sorry m8 you lost me with your first paragraph. Can you rephrase?

And we have a winner.

No we don't.

The country is always in debt.

They key question is HOW MUCH debt are we prepared to be in.

Well, if Labour bought votes on borrowed money giving the public what they want, the Coalition must be helping Labour out pretty well not giving the public what they want with borrowed money! £5m to a bunch of yokels with Kalashnikov's whilst valued public services are axed!

Whilst I agree on your point re the spending of money abroad rather than at home, I think the point is that it would be easier for the Coalition to spend money "willy nilly" - i.e. do what Labour did.

However, whilst no doubt helping their popularity, this is not the right thing for the country. Therefore, they should be applauded for such selfless actions- actually they should not. They are doing their job, so need no applause.

Labour on the other hand should be condemned for wasting money in the way in which they did.

rlLooks like we'll be borrowing even more thenrl

All down to the financial ineptitude of Gideon

Oh dear.

Let's look at the impartiality of the author shall we?

"Before joining the TUC I had a fairly varied career taking in the Bank of England, fund management, the Labour Party and an international trade union confederation".

Yes, very impartial.......

Is this the best the Lefties can do?

Quoting from The Grauniad and left wing authors?

Hilarious!

Doesn't matter about the opinion, do you doubt the figures ?

The idea we are getting low interest rates on government borrowing is down to this one factor is simplistic nonsense. A huge reason interests rates are so low for governments is there is no confidence that the private sector is any place to put your money. Long term yields in the USA are negative yet they can still borrow money as the lenders are in effect prepared to pay a premium for the US government to look after their money. It is a similar situation with the other big economies. Even France is seeing their rates drop. All across the world governments such as France, the UK, Germany, Japan, and Austria have never been able to borrow so cheaply and they are all are not following the UK governments austerity policy. Some the opposite. The idea the UK can borrow cheaply is as a direct consequence of the pin prick of a difference the austerity policies have made is a joke.



I find it amusing right wingers take such simplistic views.



Because they have a political agenda. Shrinking the size of the state is a political agenda. The Tories are using the crisis as an excuse to do this. They have been doing this from day one aided by the Lib Dems for the reasons the Guardian article mentions. One of the main points the article is trying to make is doing this at this time is stupid. That is given it costs next to nothing for the government to borrow money it makes no sense to try and get private money into the economy when it is going to cost the private sector more to borrow it. It is much more sensible for the government to fund infrastructure investment directly by borrowing cheaply than asking the private sector to raise the cash to do so as they would have to pay higher interest rates meaning when the cost eventually gets passed on we pay more in the end.



Nonsense. The national debt was being managed in exactly the same way by both parties. In the 1950's it was about 240% of GDP and steadily fell under both Labour and Tory governments until about the mid-70's when it levelled off to something under 50% of GDP and stayed around that figure or less until 2008 (it was a mere 35% of GDP then). The deficit was also on a par as far as both parties go pre-2008. What changed the game was the 2008 financial crisis which has since led us to be running huge deficit ever since as this government struggles to get it down. So the national debt is now about 65% of GDP [iand rising[/i despite [icurrent[/i policies.

As opposed to opinion polls?

Come back when you've finally experienced a term under a tory-led government as an adult

Oh dear.

Let's look at the impartiality of the author shall we?

"Before joining the TUC I had a fairly varied career taking in the Bank of England, fund management, the Labour Party and an international trade union confederation".

Yes, very impartial.......

I'd be interested to know which aspects of Labour's spending you saw as "wasting money" and does your view include bailing out the banks as being wasteful?

Same here. I'll get comfortable for the response.

Sure.

Would you like me to start with £20bn (See how easy it is DaveO?) on implementing an NHS IT system that is "questionable" to say the least.

Or maybe selling off our gold reserves for c. $270 an ounce (current price more than $1000 dollars, money wasted around £7bn).

Perhaps the £3bn ovepaid in benefits in 2008/09 (Source DWP: Fraud and error in the benefits system)

Or even maybe giving away the rebate to the EU that Thatcher won for the UK. - say £7bn p.a.


No, actually I think I will cite the fact that the UK debt interest is forecast to double by 2015 to around £70bn, directly as a result of Labours spending.