| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Swivel-eyed loons? | |
| Posted by: | Francis Rowe | |
| Date/Time: | 21/05/13 09:18:00 |
| Iain, when you started by saying it is amazing how you can attempt to rewrite history was your subsequent post trying to demonstrate this? I have heard of Keynes and although I am willing to accept you have too I can't believe you have actually ever read any of his work or any credible analysis of it. Most people assume that his sole contribution to economics was suggesting people should be paid to dig holes and then fill them in during a recession. This is forgetting that he believed the Government should act counter-cyclically in both directions. Brown's 'prudence' was no such thing. He massively expanded both the debt and the deficit at times of strong economic growth which is exactly the time Keynes would have been recommending running surpluses. We still don't know the full extent of the damage his profligacy caused because the total cost of all the PFI deals arranged to hide the size of the deficit has yet to be totalled up. The current Government inherited a huge debt and deficit and a bloated public sector but the fragility of the banking sector has made it impossible to do anything that even begins to tackle the structural problem the economy has. The problems aren't going to be resolved by this Government or the next and will take decades to deal with and, although there might be differences in nuance and rhetoric, the policies that every Government will have to follow will be dictated by circumstance not ideology. As for Labour, they gave a strong hint to the electorate that they preferred opposition to government when they chose Ed Milliband over his brother. With the Tories split between the chumocracy and the swivel eyed loons and losing ground rapidly to UKIP and the Lib Dems with their credibility in tatters, Labour should be romping away in the polls. That they are not in such favourable circumstances strongly suggests they won't get anywhere near to a majority next time out. |