Gordon Brown

[DERF]

90% of the cities economists AND the IFS having looked at the numbers believe Gordon Brown will have to increase taxes to meet the gvernments spend...

Being interviewed on the Today programme this morning, Brown says they all have their figures wrong. He is right and thay are all wrong!!!!
What an arrogant P***K

Squirmed and avoided every issue constantly telling Humphries that he has been proved right many times

Christ I hate politicians...... Never more so the Axiom.." never an honest man became a politician"

Rant over!

 

[Magnum]

I'm with you on this. Grabber Brown is the very worst of his kind. His budget speech was nothing short of political masturbation.

 

[tinstaafl]

[ QUOTE ]
His budget speech was nothing short of political masturbation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I was satisfied, so to speak /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

tinstaafl

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I cant stand the arrogant twat and I dread the day he becomes PM but to be fair to him he did prove the doom mongers wrong last year with his growth forecast and the Treasury apparently does have the best forecasting model due to the fact that it has the numbers that the others dont. Even so, you can expect tax increases and an interest rate rise after the election
On that subject, I do wonder why peeps are fooled by His Toniness' promise not to raise income tax rates. Are we so stupid not to realise that holding down tax thresholds and hiking up NI is just the same as an income tax rate rise?

 

[tcm]

Re: Gordon Brown - steady on!

Main issue is the lust for power which is understandable but especially with this lot - the fact that this is the best job they've had - EVER. Or ever likely to get. Not so in the past - remeber Grey Gowrie and before that Bill Deedes and others who resigned from the cabinet cos they'd done their stint, weren't gonna be PM and since the money was crap - or not as good as they could make in the private sector - they left. Heseletine could also march off on a point of principle. He was in politics for the action, tghe power - the fact that the decisions and discussions in politics are all that muich more important to far more people than the decision made outside politics, running a magazine empire frinstance.

Not one of the departed Labour ministers has got a decent job lined up if they lose the election. Not one of them - the shining exception being (like him or loathe him) Robin Cooke - stands on a point of principle because, pretty much like at work, you turn up and do the job, go with the flow to a large extent. At least some aspects of being a politician should be like charity work - not such that there are no monetary rewards at all of course, but such that the position is not the be-all and end-all to those in power it's the USE of that power. But for this administration merely being in power, and staying in power, is their towering achievement.

8 years of labour admin has left almost everyone asking - what do they really REALY believe in? It seems - not very much really. I can't think of single decision they'd made wherte the option taken wasn't the easiest peasiest option - a teeny bit more tax here there and everywhere. Platitudes about spending more on hospitals and schools for all but not any real effort to raise income tax, define what hositals do and don't do. They've not really taken decsions on the public/private sectors of transport and education and health do and don't do. We have weird anolmalies such as private sector gets people to work but the public sector taxes pays for Eastenders. If things get a bit sticky then they back off from putting 2p extra on fuel - so they don't really believe that rasing even those taxes for hospitals was the right move, and say shuttup to the naysayers.

Mainly, to this lot, nothing is really very important except the SAYING REPEATEDLY that education, health, whatever is important but in practice doing as little as possible. Big delivery of schools, education, european policy/votes (remeber we were gonna have a referendum middle of this parliament?) hasn't happened cos they didn't really beieve in changing things - just being in power, please.

Unsurprisingly, we have the bizarre situation that the most popular politicians in the current crowd are those which say nothing much as well do nothing much - like Gordon. Blair, on the other hand, who says lots but also doesn't do very much, can't ever be too wrong cos he's all platitudes except where he does take a decision like selling a London house in 97, buying one in 2004, and the handling of the iraq invasion - where he gets it wrong. He and Brown talk about tough decisions but don't make any - you can always recognise the wimps cos they talk about decisions being "tough" - which is like a mathematician saying that sums are "really hard".

The most talkative of the do-nothings are the most irritating - hence Blair less popular than Brown.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Re: Gordon Brown - steady on!

You cant say they've done nothing, particularly Brown! He's shovelled huge amounts of our money into grossly inefficient and underperforming public services with the only result being a vast increase in public sector jobs. Thats not doing nothing, thats actively wrecking the economy
I do agree with you about the current breed of politician. Increasingly, they've gone straight into political jobs from university without any experience of proper work or life in general with the express intention of one day getting selected as an MP and working their way up the political ladder. As you say, the concept of serving one's country has been replaced by the pursuit of power

 

[boatone]

Re: Gordon Brown - steady on!

Ok......so if what you say is the reality.......what do you suggest we do about it?

 

[tcm]

Definition of \"nothing much\"

i meant "nothing" in terms of no Grand Plan. There have been windfall taxes, other taxes, other other taxes - but the way in which they have raised those taxes is a bit like the way a someone would steal bits of chocolate cake - without actually getting a knife out and chopping a slice of it. So, one could cut all around the side to reduce the diameter, take a slice off the bottom to reduce the height, sneak bits of icing around the side. Someone would do this cos their eating of the cake wasn't really justifiable. Whereas, if guests turned up, or it it was teatime there'd be a real reason for serving and eating the cake, or at least part of it.

In the same way, the reason for the stealthiness of the tax policy is simply poor management - not that they wanted something to happn, and made it happen. In the last fifteen year the price of everything - almost EVERYTHING has come down in real terms. Communications, travel, maufactured goods....yet the price of government has doubled. Fine if it's twice as good, but it isn't. The education results should mean that young applicants to your company should make you feel like a right numpty, but i bet they don't. The public spending increases should be really noticeable - yet the public infrastructure - major roads and buildings are almost all exactly as they were 10 years ago.

No change in the tax system - it just edges up, no change in infrastructure, it just get fixed a bit here and there. In the grand scheme of things, and with unparalleled majorities over two terms - i say that essentially, they have "done nothing".

 

[D3B]

Re: Definition of \"nothing much\"

Can i miss the chocolate cake please i am on a diet /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

specially wiv all the extra tax i am paying.

did anyone see that car tax on some vehilcles went up in the budget?
just renewd tax on little escort 1.6 cabrio. nice lady in post office told me it was more expensive than the renewal sent by DVLA.
grabber brown again!

 

[tcm]

Re: well, there\'s a vote soon...

and i am not at all sure that the polls are as accurate as they might be - increasingly so as more and more media-aware population seem savvy enuf to say one thing publicly and do other things privately.

However, given that with monster labour majority produced the aforementioned nothing much - i can't imagine that a slim majority will allow them to do much more. Anyway, what exactly will they do? They promise much less than last times around.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Re: Definition of \"nothing much\"

I would have thought the Grand Plan (the great Third Way)has been obvious just the delivery has failed. The Third Way dictates that the substitution of a market economy with a socialist economy is not a viable way to achieve socialist aims for redistribution of wealth and that if these aims are to be achieved, they have to be achieved through a market economy because that is the only way that of generating sufficient wealth to meet these aims. So, rather than clear and obvious tax rises which have been shown in the past to damage a market economy, the only other way to raise taxes from a market economy without apparently damaging it is to raise taxes without telling anyone ie stealth taxes, which, I have to say, GB has done brilliantly. So, this part of the Third Way plan has been executed successfully. The second part of the Third Way plan is to put all that extra money into public services to improve the lot of Joe Public. Unfortunately, whilst this has been executed, it has not been successful for reasons that any half arsed economist could explain. The third part of the Third Way plan is to stay in power long enough to see the plan through. This also has been executed brilliantly through a constant output of spin, misinformation, presentation, lying and, of course, a total lack of a credible opposition
IMHO, the Grand Plan was there, it has been executed, it just has'nt delivered

 

[DERF]

Re: well, there\'s a vote soon...

Imagine if Labour win with a large majority, then Blair will naturally believe that the populist vote agree with him and his cronies.....Imagine what he'd eb like then! "I've been vindicated I really am the Best Prime Minister in British History"... he already thinks (or at least is prepared to publically )say that of G.B chancellor. I can lie and cheat and mislead the population... but I'll never be impeached.

Where is the wealth creation then over the last 8 years? Why is it that circa 1 in 4 50+ year olds are un employed.....

And what of the sleaze and scandal...Postal vote tampering... there was a time when you could only be talking about Zimbabwe or some other dictatorial African state where the election results were brought into question..... But in ENGLAND!!!

 

[mjf]

Re: well, there\'s a vote soon...

Yes, but I have yet to find anyone who owns up to voting for B-liar & Co..

In London we also have to contend with that tosser Livingstone who I see from my Council tax renewal has been in my wallet again with above inflation increases......

 

[boatone]

Re: well, there\'s a vote soon...

So you really agree with me that there is not much that we mere mortals can do?
Lets face it, if a government with a majority the size this lot have had for two terms cant have the courage to tackle major issues head on at the risk of being unpopular for a while there really is little hope of anything changing without a popular revolution.
The real problem is the sheer scale of the problem. Health, Education, Transport, Housing all have massive numbers involved which demand management structures which will themselves become top heavy. The more people you put in power the greater the opportunity for power to corrupt and the less likely it becomes that the original plan will prevail to the intended conclusion. Fiscal policies will always be wrong in one way or another and human nature will always complain of lack of resources as a key reason for failure to achieve objectives.
One thing is for sure....however much you need to raise in taxes you can only do so by taking cash from those who have it....and governments sole source of revenue to expend on public services is taxation in one form or another.
What we really need is benevolent dictatorship exercised by a 'really sensible person' that has the confidence and support of the population. Yeah......thats going to happen......NOT!

Ok so theres an election soon....I personally dont want to vote for any of those on offer and I suspect many feel the same way. But nevertheless its the best system we've got and, as we all know, in many ways the country will continue to survive in spite of government

I am beginning to embrace communism....time to get another coffee.

 

[DERF]

Re: well, there\'s a vote soon...

says Livingstone.... "Ah yes..... well there was a period of consultation"....and not a referendum, so sod you its going up anyway"!

Besides all of you lot that live in Chelsea are millionnaires anyway.

 

[MikeJ2]

Re: well, there\'s a vote soon...

...cos, before Blair/Brown, it was all so rosy and perfect. Taxes were low, the economy was stable, the working man was contented and women could walk the streets of London at night. Do any of you look around you and sometimes think its not all that bad?

 

[tcm]

Re: yeah but...

taxes were lower, and walking the streets of london was about the same and much cheaper to get a cab or a bus. No big econmic upheavals would reasonably lead one to a conclusion that it wouldn't be loads different, really - but taxes might be lower. I'm fine about higher taxes if things get better - but if not - where's it gone? It's gone in welsh and scottish parliaments, free stuff for scotland, a million more staff on the opublic payroll, lots of consultants and so on.

Yep, things are ok, but even when inflation hit 30% in the seventies you could walk the streets etc. It's not that it's BAD - it's that it could be better.

Sepretly, as i have found out recently, i do think it spectacularly bad that all students regardless of means must borrow to fund their living expenses plus fees which from next year are £3,000 - and that the interest rate for student loans is NINE percent. Blimminek! So much for "opportunities for all".

 

[MikeJ2]

Re: yeah but...

The world has changed so much . Not sure if its even fair to compare where we are now with where we were then, if you see what I mean. Perhaps we should only compare ourselves to our peers. Taking it as a whole, the country is in good shape. We shouldn't knock this country cos Japan has a cool monorail and a car industry, they have lots of broken bits too. It just too easy to be negative.

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

Re: yeah but...

Could really, really do without an interest rate rise, unless the NHS pay scales also go up. But to do that means a tax hike, probably ratrher larger than the payrise/rate rise combined, in order to pay for the collection process...

I want small cheap government.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Re: yeah but...

[ QUOTE ]
I want small cheap government

[/ QUOTE ]

I like that. Says everything for me