Quote Originally Posted by KerrAvon View Post
I read it, raging and am happy for anyone else to. I posted the link for that purpose and to show that Monty was 'doing a Monty' and misrepresenting it.

I can't recall ever asserting that 'the Conservatives have a better record on the economy' in such general terms, but I've kind of grown used to being misrepresented and misquoted. I can only assume that it's easier than actually dealing with what I do say?

For the record, after the IMF had imposed some fiscal discipline upon it, I think the Callaghan government was showing promise and it would have been interesting to see what it could have achieved had the unions not secured it's defeat in 1979. I also think that the Brown government reacted quickly and we'll to the 2008 crash, albeit they (like every other government had failed to forsee it.

Did you read the stuff that you copied and pasted, by the way? It is based upon the last period of Labour government i.e. the Labour Party that posters such as animal, Exile and MMM will tell you were not real Labour, but were instead a neoliberal (whatever that means) extension of Thatcherism. I always find it amusing when Labour supporters try to cherry pick that era when, as Corbyn's pick for Home Secretary, Diane Abbott, recently put it in a radio interview, the party is 'under new management now'

You must be encouraged to see how the lowest 10% of earners have done under the Tories by the way? Or maybe not given that it shoots a Labour fox.

Back to Labour, what do you make of their policy of seizing 10% of every decent sized public company? Nobody seems to want to talk about it (MMM denies knowing about it). It gives the lie to the suggestion that there is anything moderate or middle of the road about the current Labour set up, doesn't it?

So you're reading from that research that the lowest 10% of earners have done well under the ppost 2010 government? Despite the report saying that "This is probably partly thanks to the influence of the Living Wage Foundation, rather than purely because of government policy" and concluding that on historical economic performance "within the context of the rest of the graph, the Conservative’s record is marred by the large increases in inequality in previous years". Do you really want to put that forward as the report suggesting that the conservatives are doing well on this??

Yes, was aware it was all about post 79 governments. This report goes further back in comparing economic performance of all governments from the 1956 onwards:

http://www.primeeconomics.org/articl...os059pp0w7gnpe

It concluded that:

On this basis, we may conclude that, over many decades, Labour governments have a good claim to be more fiscally conservative than Conservative ones. They have over time maintained a significantly lower average level of annual deficits – whether current budget, or overall budget deficits.

In terms of investment spending, and we make this point more in sorrow than joy, Labour governments have on average achieved lower levels than Conservative ones, which may be seen as being more "fiscally conservative".

In the whole period since 1956, there have been only 8 years on which an overall budget surplus has been achieved – and 4 of these were under Labour governments, 3 of them being the largest surpluses as a percentage of GDP.

Regarding current budget surpluses (of which there have been a few more), 6 out of the top 10 (in terms of scale) were under Labour governments.

On levels of public spending (which we do not see as truly being an indicator of fiscal conservatism), the Thatcher Conservative government runs neck and neck with the Wilson-Callaghan one in terms of any 5 year period. Her government for a long period substantially outspent (as a percentage of GDP) the Blair-Brown Labour government.

And if the aim of a reasonably prudent (i.e. conservative) fiscal policy is to at least avoid mass unemployment, then the record of Labour governments since 1970 is far better than that of the Thatcher-Major government which oversaw extraordinarily high levels of unemployment - despite being the beneficiaries of North Sea Oil and Gas as they came on stream in large quantities.


You might be interested in the table of economic data (from the Office for National Statistics) used for the report here:

https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...+from+1956.pdf



Interestingly, this report was obviously compiled to dispel the myth that Conservatives are better with public finances: that the manage the finances in a more responsible manner, and that Labour are historically all about spending at the expense of the economy.
Interestingly the report finds itself "saddened" that whilst it successfully disproves this myth, in fact shows that Labour governments historically (from 1956) actually perform better than the conservatives, it shows that over time, Labour governments actually spend LESS on investment! I found this a real eye opener!

In short, from 1956, there is very little to call between Labour and Conservatives on economic performance.


As to the 10% "seizing" - I think it's an interesting concept in addressing the problem of relatively poor UK productivity, and like the idea of giving workers a stake in their company, although less about additional revenues going to the exchequer - which I think will give the tories and the press enough 'ammo' to deflect from the potential good effect that giving workers a stake in their company, and portray it purely as a 'hit the rich' scheme. Labour have to anticipate this argument coming, and sell the idea of such a scheme as a possible boost to UK productivity as well as building a bond between workers and their employers, a shared mutual target to aim for that both benefit from. I note that you haven't really mentioned how this scheme might improve productivity, focusing instead on a one dimensional tabloidic "they're hitting the rich" response.