Dave (d'you think he'd mid if I called him 'Dave'?) sees council housing as temporary measure until "A chap starts doing better for himself and can can get on the property ladder." I think Dave can kiss my social housing, non-share-owning arse. I don't think I'm alone.

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I wouldn't want David Cameron near my arse.

At least he wears protection!

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Changin' avatars like there's no tomorrow

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... ed-picture

Are you sure on that one? The deficit was nearly £40 billion before the credit crunch even began. Which ever way you spin it that's criminal, it's basic economics to run a surplus in a boom time in preparation for the inevitable bust that follows. Brown went on an out of control spending binge during the good times and the facts back this up.

Been browsing these forums for a while and one thing that is striking is why no one seems to face up to this and admit that the last government made a series of disastrous mistakes. I've always been a labour voter but it doesn't do any harm to admit that the party that represents your values made some almighty cock-ups.

Yes. I'm quite sure that the budget defecit spike that arose in 2008 - 2009 was not caused by "Labour profligacy".

I was wrong to suggest that the budget was not in deficit immediately prior to the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, but if you look at the entire 33 year period between 1979 to the present it's clear that there have only been 6 years in which governments of any political stripe have run budget surpluses - the Tories in 1988 and 1989, and Labour in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001. The budget deficit spiked enormously in 2008-2009 because of the emergency measures that had to be taken to deal with the banking collapse, and for no other reason, certainly not because Gordon Brown went on an out of control spending binge before 2008 - an assertion which is certainly not supported by fact.

So I don't agree with your assessment of how the budget defecit arose. It cannot and should not be blamed on alleged Labour profligacy, and it remains, in my view, criminal that the Tories have been able to win some traction for that lie. Neither can I agree that Labour in government made a series of disastrous mistakes. I do acknowledge that mistakes were made and I'm certainly not blind to them - I was as opposed to the invasion of Iraq as the next hacked-off party member - but on balance, my view remains that the very worst Labour government is preferable to the very best Tory government - as the last two years demonstrate only too well, and the next 3 will continue to do.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

Most of the mistakes labour made seemed to be because they were acting too much like the tories, so obviously the actual tories are worse...

Truth be told, since Blair I vote for them as by far the lesser of two evils.

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I'll defend Blair in one respect. He believed in social justice and many policies in education, health and welfare reflected that. Remember that the cuts we find so awful are simply returning us to the position we were in under John Major, the improvements were down to the Labour government after 1997. Of course we have to weigh that against some appalling decisions in detail and foreign policy mega-mistakes, and great lumps of Tory rubbish that should have been redone and weren't (like banking regulation) but it was a government that tried to reduce inequality, poverty and blighted opportunity.

And look at the alternative...

You're right, Mr A - but I still think there's room for Labour to look at itself; to proclaim that socialism is not a dirty word and that union funding should be an asset not a liability. It's not enough for me to hear 'come home to Labour'. It's Labour itself that needs to come home.

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Absolutely. Just pointing out that the picture isn't completely negative. Though I'd have to think hard to find much positive in Pa Broon's tenure.

Agreed. If you read Andrew Rawnsley's book, "The End of The Party" (painful stuff but compelling), it's plain that Brown spent so many years coveting the job of PM that he had no bloody idea what to do with it when he eventually got it. In many ways, the decisive action he took to deal with the global banking crisis, praised, admired, and followed as exemplary by every major economy and commonly agreed to have prevented recession becoming depression, was actually the highlight of his premiership.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

I think that's unfair. He had some plans about housebuilding, which was very much a weak point of the previous years. Trouble is he immediately got hit by the crash.

Hi Gorns. I think the best figures to look at are the debt as percentage of GDP. As Abernathy says, surpluses are very rare indeed. Look at Thatcher's record- she only did it in the unsustainable Lawson boom. You can still run a relatively small cash deficit and bring the deficit as a percentage of GDP down if GDP grows a lot more.

See here:

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/downc ... al&units=p

It shows that before the crisis the debt percentage was 5% down on that in 1997. You'll see John Major raised it from 26% to 40%, though to be fair, he copped the bust from the Lawson boom.

You also have to look at when the debt was due and how much it cost. Spain, even now, has a relatively modest debt as percentage of GDP. The problem is not just that they still have a deficit, but that their earlier debts are falling due soon.

Out of control spending? Not sure- there was a lot of catching up do. And in health, the Wanless Report called for much higher spending. Osborne, pre-crash, supported that.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... es-unbuilt

"Labour left us with a massive debt problem, spending £120m every day just paying the interest on the debt," said a spokeswoman for Caroline Spelman, the environment secretary. "We couldn't put off dealing with the mess. This means, like every government department, very difficult decisions have had to be made regarding where to cut spending."

I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere but I stumbled upon this when I should be sleeping

http://notthetreasuryview.blogspot.co.u ... er-if.html