Will the British Government ever learn?

[Democratic Republic of the Triumvirate]

If you've been following British news recently, or, well, any time over the past few years, you'd have noticed that the British economy is in fairly deep trouble right now. Ever since the recession, it's been struggling to recover and even now it's still floundering around, still struggling to avoid further recession even today.

Many people are attributing this to the harsh austerity measures put in place by the Coalition.

This in itself isn't really news; austerity has been failing since day one. What I want to ask is, why are the Conservatives still pushing through with it?
Nearly 3 years on, and there still seems to be no sign of recovery. The deficit reduction plan isn't working, and neither, it seems, are any other government economic policies. They have me stumped.

NSG? Why is the government going ahead with its failing plan?

Because they are a bunch of elitist posh boys who only got their jobs because of who their school chums were and are completely indifferent to how anyone else lives.

[Urumgard]

If you've been following British news recently, or, well, any time over the past few years, you'd have noticed that the British economy is in fairly deep trouble right now. Ever since the recession, it's been struggling to recover and even now it's still floundering around, still struggling to avoid further recession even today.

Many people are attributing this to the harsh austerity measures put in place by the Coalition.

This in itself isn't really news; austerity has been failing since day one. What I want to ask is, why are the Conservatives still pushing through with it?
Nearly 3 years on, and there still seems to be no sign of recovery. The deficit reduction plan isn't working, and neither, it seems, are any other government economic policies. They have me stumped.

NSG? Why is the government going ahead with its failing plan?

Because they are a bunch of elitist posh boys who only got their jobs because of who their school chums were and are completely indifferent to how anyone else lives.

A reliable source on this very thread assures me that Heath is responsible for this as well.

[Soviet-German Dortmund]

Nope. So long as we stop giving power to these foolish bigots who've little actual knowledge of politics (or at least modern society & money) and are elected on the basis that they were either Eton or Oxbridge 'educated'. We're currently floating further down Shit Creek and we've snapped the oar...

[Bales Rant]

I don't think it is failing from their point of view - quite the contrary. Admittedly, I'm no economist but I get the distinct impression this is about permanently shrinking the size of the state and shredding public services - all because, I can only assume, at root they and their ilk don't believe they should be paying taxes so some 'pleb' can get decent healthcare etc.

Go look at the size of the healthcare budget.

November 2012 - 'the NHS is holding up despite financial pressures and disruption from reforms. However, cracks are emerging, with longer waiting times in accident and emergency, and the financial difficulties of more providers being exposed.' http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publication ... government

December 2012 - 'Treasury figures showed NHS spending in 2009/10 was £99.8bn, in 2010/11 it was £102bn, and in 2011/12 £104.3bn. But once inflation is taken into account, the figures are, based on 2011/12 prices, £105.1bn in 2009/10; £104.4bn in 2010/11 – a fall of 0.6 per cent; and £104.3bn in 2011/12, a further fall of 0.1 per cent. Although the falls are tiny percentages, they amount to £800m.' http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 95976.html

[Urumgard]

Go look at the size of the healthcare budget.

November 2012 - 'the NHS is holding up despite financial pressures and disruption from reforms. However, cracks are emerging, with longer waiting times in accident and emergency, and the financial difficulties of more providers being exposed.' http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publication ... government

December 2012 - 'Treasury figures showed NHS spending in 2009/10 was £99.8bn, in 2010/11 it was £102bn, and in 2011/12 £104.3bn. But once inflation is taken into account, the figures are, based on 2011/12 prices, £105.1bn in 2009/10; £104.4bn in 2010/11 – a fall of 0.6 per cent; and £104.3bn in 2011/12, a further fall of 0.1 per cent. Although the falls are tiny percentages, they amount to £800m.' http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 95976.html

Excellent. Which is why all this nonsense about the government "ring-fencing" healthcare budgets is... er... exactly that.

[St George]

Go look at the size of the healthcare budget.

November 2012 - 'the NHS is holding up despite financial pressures and disruption from reforms. However, cracks are emerging, with longer waiting times in accident and emergency, and the financial difficulties of more providers being exposed.' http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publication ... government

December 2012 - 'Treasury figures showed NHS spending in 2009/10 was £99.8bn, in 2010/11 it was £102bn, and in 2011/12 £104.3bn. But once inflation is taken into account, the figures are, based on 2011/12 prices, £105.1bn in 2009/10; £104.4bn in 2010/11 – a fall of 0.6 per cent; and £104.3bn in 2011/12, a further fall of 0.1 per cent. Although the falls are tiny percentages, they amount to £800m.' http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 95976.html

You didn't put it in a graph, so it's not valid.

[Pope Joan]

Austerity favors bankers, those people who created the problem in the first place.

Bankers have money and can use it to curry political favor.

It's a simple equation.

[New Tyran]

Maybe we should leave the fucking EU. Fuck sake...

Because the EU is to blame for this right...

Well I think that if we leave the EU unemployment would get better, because all those Eastern Europeans that steel jobs from them would have to go home, as they will no longer have the right to stay here. Council house waiting lists would automatically reduce, waiting lists for NHS hospital operations would reduce. Schools and dole offices would notn't need 18 different interpreters, public transport might not be so over crowded. Britain would save £50m every single day that could be poured into making schools and hospitals better, and austerity measures might not need to bite so hard. Deluded pro EU people could emigrate to where the hell they liked if they wished to. German and French would still want to keep pouring their cars into Britain, and so they would not impose taxes on our products we sell to them, hence they would spark a trade war which neither them NOR us could afford so a trade / import tax war will not happen as they sell us more stuff than we sell them! The fishing industry would RETURN to Britain and create thousands of jobs again, and the price of fish would fall due to getting our territorial waters back!

Scare mongering pro EU people in Britain forget that this country survived quite well without the unelected cronie meddling by the EU prior to 1974, and the cabbages in the fields used to be picked by British born people prior to the FLOODGATES being opened by the Labour govt to Eastern Europeans between 1997 and 2010.

And to the MISINFORMANTS claiming that 'half' our trade is with the EU, it's more like a third or less. The US, CHINA and INDIA and most of ASIA make up the vaste majority of our foriegn trade. These trade ares would be increased like they used to be prior to EU rules regulating whom we can and can't trade with and to what degree.

We might even become prosperous like NORWAY and SWITZERLAND are by forming a free trade agreement as is what is expected. If we became prosperous like Norway and Switzerland are, that's alright with me baby.

Also we import more from E.U. countries than we export to them. If we would be worse off outside Europe why are they so desperate to keep us in this expensive club. The answer is because we put more in than we take out. They try to put fear in us by saying it would cost us jobs but the truth is any jobs that are created are taken by eastern Europeans which Business's want to keep because they keep earnings down and they make more profit. Does anybody believe that the French would not want to sell their cars in this country or the Germans with cars and white goods would cease to trade and loose all this to their economy's. we would get control of our borders and not give away our health service,benefits and education to all and sundry that have paid nothing in to the pot. Any organisation that can remove a democratically elected leader of a country as is the case in Greece and Italy is nothing more than a dictatorship. At least we would be masters of our own destiny if we were given the chance to have a say. It is a fact that 50% of the German population would also like to quit, and they get more influence than any other member state. Every country should have a say, after all we were told it was a trade agreement and never a United States of Europe.

That's just my thoughts.

[The Whispers]

Every country should have a say, after all we were told it was a trade agreement and never a United States of Europe.

That's just my thoughts.

Pretty sure that right from the Coal and Steel board, it was pretty clear that Europe Being One Thing Being A Thing was always the clear aim of any European treaty system.

[The UK in Exile]

Because the EU is to blame for this right...

Well I think that if we leave the EU unemployment would get better, because all those Eastern Europeans that steel jobs from them would have to go home, as they will no longer have the right to stay here. Council house waiting lists would automatically reduce, waiting lists for NHS hospital operations would reduce. Schools and dole offices would notn't need 18 different interpreters, public transport might not be so over crowded. Britain would save £50m every single day that could be poured into making schools and hospitals better, and austerity measures might not need to bite so hard. Deluded pro EU people could emigrate to where the hell they liked if they wished to. German and French would still want to keep pouring their cars into Britain, and so they would not impose taxes on our products we sell to them, hence they would spark a trade war which neither them NOR us could afford so a trade / import tax war will not happen as they sell us more stuff than we sell them! The fishing industry would RETURN to Britain and create thousands of jobs again, and the price of fish would fall due to getting our territorial waters back!

Scare mongering pro EU people in Britain forget that this country survived quite well without the unelected cronie meddling by the EU prior to 1974, and the cabbages in the fields used to be picked by British born people prior to the FLOODGATES being opened by the Labour govt to Eastern Europeans between 1997 and 2010.

And to the MISINFORMANTS claiming that 'half' our trade is with the EU, it's more like a third or less. The US, CHINA and INDIA and most of ASIA make up the vaste majority of our foriegn trade. These trade ares would be increased like they used to be prior to EU rules regulating whom we can and can't trade with and to what degree.

We might even become prosperous like NORWAY and SWITZERLAND are by forming a free trade agreement as is what is expected. If we became prosperous like Norway and Switzerland are, that's alright with me baby.

Also we import more from E.U. countries than we export to them. If we would be worse off outside Europe why are they so desperate to keep us in this expensive club. The answer is because we put more in than we take out. They try to put fear in us by saying it would cost us jobs but the truth is any jobs that are created are taken by eastern Europeans which Business's want to keep because they keep earnings down and they make more profit. Does anybody believe that the French would not want to sell their cars in this country or the Germans with cars and white goods would cease to trade and loose all this to their economy's. we would get control of our borders and not give away our health service,benefits and education to all and sundry that have paid nothing in to the pot. Any organisation that can remove a democratically elected leader of a country as is the case in Greece and Italy is nothing more than a dictatorship. At least we would be masters of our own destiny if we were given the chance to have a say. It is a fact that 50% of the German population would also like to quit, and they get more influence than any other member state. Every country should have a say, after all we were told it was a trade agreement and never a United States of Europe.

That's just my thoughts.

The EU wants Britain to stay in because the whole derives greater benefit than the sum of its individual parts would suggest.

its not a dramatically difficult concept to grasp.

[The Whispers]

Oh also "the government is posh twats" is like a pretty stupid thing to condemn them for?

People like Roy Jenkins and the Benns are elitist products of private education and Oxbridge. But err they were kinda good?

So yeah.

[Nationalist State of Knox]

Because the EU is to blame for this right...

Well I think that if we leave the EU unemployment would get better, because all those Eastern Europeans that steel jobs from them would have to go home, as they will no longer have the right to stay here. Council house waiting lists would automatically reduce, waiting lists for NHS hospital operations would reduce. Schools and dole offices would notn't need 18 different interpreters, public transport might not be so over crowded. Britain would save £50m every single day that could be poured into making schools and hospitals better, and austerity measures might not need to bite so hard. Deluded pro EU people could emigrate to where the hell they liked if they wished to. German and French would still want to keep pouring their cars into Britain, and so they would not impose taxes on our products we sell to them, hence they would spark a trade war which neither them NOR us could afford so a trade / import tax war will not happen as they sell us more stuff than we sell them! The fishing industry would RETURN to Britain and create thousands of jobs again, and the price of fish would fall due to getting our territorial waters back!

Scare mongering pro EU people in Britain forget that this country survived quite well without the unelected cronie meddling by the EU prior to 1974, and the cabbages in the fields used to be picked by British born people prior to the FLOODGATES being opened by the Labour govt to Eastern Europeans between 1997 and 2010.

And to the MISINFORMANTS claiming that 'half' our trade is with the EU, it's more like a third or less. The US, CHINA and INDIA and most of ASIA make up the vaste majority of our foriegn trade. These trade ares would be increased like they used to be prior to EU rules regulating whom we can and can't trade with and to what degree.

We might even become prosperous like NORWAY and SWITZERLAND are by forming a free trade agreement as is what is expected. If we became prosperous like Norway and Switzerland are, that's alright with me baby.

Also we import more from E.U. countries than we export to them. If we would be worse off outside Europe why are they so desperate to keep us in this expensive club. The answer is because we put more in than we take out. They try to put fear in us by saying it would cost us jobs but the truth is any jobs that are created are taken by eastern Europeans which Business's want to keep because they keep earnings down and they make more profit. Does anybody believe that the French would not want to sell their cars in this country or the Germans with cars and white goods would cease to trade and loose all this to their economy's. we would get control of our borders and not give away our health service,benefits and education to all and sundry that have paid nothing in to the pot. Any organisation that can remove a democratically elected leader of a country as is the case in Greece and Italy is nothing more than a dictatorship. At least we would be masters of our own destiny if we were given the chance to have a say. It is a fact that 50% of the German population would also like to quit, and they get more influence than any other member state. Every country should have a say, after all we were told it was a trade agreement and never a United States of Europe.

That's just my thoughts.

Bloody immigrants, steeling our jobs. They wouldn't know a good quality metal if it were used to build the ship that sent them back to their own country.

[The UK in Exile]

Oh also "the government is posh twats" is like a pretty stupid thing to condemn them for?

People like Roy Jenkins and the Benns are elitist products of private education and Oxbridge. But err they were kinda good?

So yeah.

Roy Jenkins went to a comp. wrong: its now a comp. either way it wasn't private.

[Nadkor]

And to the MISINFORMANTS claiming that 'half' our trade is with the EU, it's more like a third or less.

Source.

We might even become prosperous like NORWAY and SWITZERLAND are by forming a free trade agreement as is what is expected. If we became prosperous like Norway and Switzerland are, that's alright with me baby.

So...you want to leave the EU and give up our say in the EU's law-making process, but you then want to oblige us to adopt EU laws, that we would no longer have any say over, in order to retain access to the EU's market?

Democracy!

Also we import more from E.U. countries than we export to them.

The EU accounts for 49% of our exports. The UK does not account for 49% of any other individual EU country's exports. The UK leaving the EU could potentially harm us to the tune of up to 49% of our exports, but it could not possible cost any other individual EU country anywhere near that proportion.

The UK leaving the EU would harm the UK far more than it would harm any other individual EU country.

the truth is any jobs that are created are taken by eastern Europeans

Source.

Every country should have a say, after all we were told it was a trade agreement and never a United States of Europe.

Source.

That's just my thoughts.

Your thoughts, as I'm sure will be demonstrated by a variety of people, are nonsense.

[Camby]

The truth is it doesn't really matter anymore whether a policy works or not. The decisions of many politicians on the right and the left alike are based more on often centuries old ideologies than what actually works.

"What actually works" is often an ideological bias in itself. Is it better to have a rapidly growing economy with an increasing gap between rich and poor, or better to have slower growth and a more equal distribution of wealth? Are wealth and the nation's GDP even that important, or should other concerns - such as "happiness" (however we choose to measure it), environmental wellbeing, human rights or some other metric be used to evaluate government policy instead? These questions are all fundamentally ideological in nature.

[New Tyran]

The truth is it doesn't really matter anymore whether a policy works or not. The decisions of many politicians on the right and the left alike are based more on often centuries old ideologies than what actually works.

"What actually works" is often an ideological bias in itself. Is it better to have a rapidly growing economy with an increasing gap between rich and poor, or better to have slower growth and a more equal distribution of wealth? Are wealth and the nation's GDP even that important, or should other concerns - such as "happiness" (however we choose to measure it), environmental wellbeing, human rights or some other metric be used to evaluate government policy instead? These questions are all fundamentally ideological in nature.

True, very true.

[The UK in Exile]

The truth is it doesn't really matter anymore whether a policy works or not. The decisions of many politicians on the right and the left alike are based more on often centuries old ideologies than what actually works.

"What actually works" is often an ideological bias in itself. Is it better to have a rapidly growing economy with an increasing gap between rich and poor, or better to have slower growth and a more equal distribution of wealth? Are wealth and the nation's GDP even that important, or should other concerns - such as "happiness" (however we choose to measure it), environmental wellbeing, human rights or some other metric be used to evaluate government policy instead? These questions are all fundamentally ideological in nature.

we can probably agree that an increasing gap between rich and poor and slower growth is not the best approach though.

[Godwintopia]

So...you want to leave the EU and give up our say in the EU's law-making process, but you then want to oblige us to adopt EU laws, that we would no longer have any say over, in order to retain access to the EU's market?

Democracy!

Except that those laws will obviously be of a basically commercial nature given we are talking about a Free Trade agreement which afterall is kind of optional.

The EU accounts for 49% of our exports. The UK does not account for 49% of any other individual EU country's exports. The UK leaving the EU could potentially harm us to the tune of up to 49% of our exports, but it could not possible cost any other individual EU country anywhere near that proportion.

The UK leaving the EU would harm the UK far more than it would harm any other individual EU country.

Except that exports can be renogotiated. The goods are there and at the moment we must compete with other European countries anyhow. However by providing singular free trade agreements to other countries outside the EU we can snatch up their markets because the EU is not in an agreement with them nor can we form an agreement with them as long as we in the EU.

And there's also the small thing of if the domino effect causes the EU to actually implode. Very soon we might actually be able to actually protect outselves against our european trade rivals without having to worry about the reciprication.

[The UK in Exile]

So...you want to leave the EU and give up our say in the EU's law-making process, but you then want to oblige us to adopt EU laws, that we would no longer have any say over, in order to retain access to the EU's market?

Democracy!

Except that those laws will obviously be of a basically commercial nature given we are talking about a Free Trade agreement which afterall is kind of optional.

The EU accounts for 49% of our exports. The UK does not account for 49% of any other individual EU country's exports. The UK leaving the EU could potentially harm us to the tune of up to 49% of our exports, but it could not possible cost any other individual EU country anywhere near that proportion.

The UK leaving the EU would harm the UK far more than it would harm any other individual EU country.

Except that exports can be renogotiated. The goods are there and at the moment we must compete with other European countries anyhow. However by providing singular free trade agreements to other countries outside the EU we can snatch up their markets because the EU is not in an agreement with them nor can we form an agreement with them as long as we in the EU.

And there's also the small thing of if the domino effect causes the EU to actually implode. Very soon we might actually be able to actually protect outselves against our european trade rivals without having to worry about the reciprication.

because of course a free trade agreement with the UK and not, say, the EU: the largest economy in the world, is so much more tempting.

[Volnotova]

Austerity should jsut be abandoned worldwide as a policy. Austerity doesn't achieve shit. It just makes everything worse. Which they then use to justify harsher austerity measures, thus the whole vicious cycle continues.

Austerity plus general tax increases is double-plus ungood.

I think a lot of economists in 20 years time will point out the terrible nature of some of the economic policies certain European countries have pursuing the last few years.

Just as economists today near universally agree that increasing tarrifs at the height of a global economic crisis is a terrible idea.

[Frisivisia]

Austerity should jsut be abandoned worldwide as a policy. Austerity doesn't achieve shit. It just makes everything worse. Which they then use to justify harsher austerity measures, thus the whole vicious cycle continues.

Austerity plus general tax increases is double-plus ungood.

I think a lot of economists in 20 years time will point out the terrible nature of some of the economic policies certain European countries have pursuing the last few years.

Just as economists today near universally agree that increasing tarrifs at the height of a global economic crisis is a terrible idea.

"Economists agree" is a phrase almost universally preceding a rather large quantity of Grade A, USDA Approved Bullshit.

[Napkiraly]

Every country should have a say, after all we were told it was a trade agreement and never a United States of Europe.

That's just my thoughts.

Pretty sure that right from the Coal and Steel board, it was pretty clear that Europe Being One Thing Being A Thing was always the clear aim of any European treaty system.

Aye, while reading about European integration for IR it was completely obvious that the blokes who came up with the idea held the dream that one day Europe would be united under one state as a single country.

[Volnotova]

Austerity plus general tax increases is double-plus ungood.

I think a lot of economists in 20 years time will point out the terrible nature of some of the economic policies certain European countries have pursuing the last few years.

Just as economists today near universally agree that increasing tarrifs at the height of a global economic crisis is a terrible idea.

"Economists agree" is a phrase almost universally preceding a rather large quantity of Grade A, USDA Approved Bullshit.

Tarifs during the Great Depression achieved exactly what? Even if the US was an autarchy (which it wasn't) I still fail to see what is has and would have possibly achieved (in the sense of positive, long and short term, national and global economic growth).

Maybe subject matter for a different thread?

[Democratic Koyro]

Imagine if they actually won a general election and became the governing party...

Meh. Atleast that is less damage than another round with the Tories.

[Densaner]

Ideology. I remember watching the following discussion on Newsnight. Paul Krugman ripped the Tories to pieces over Austerity. But he only won a Nobel Prize in Economics. What does that schmuck know?


Krugman - Newsnight