Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

Is that a belaying pin - round someone's head?!?!

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

No it's a sewing pin.........to choose the candidate who gets my vote......though a belaying pin would be much better.

I don't trust any of the politicians.

They are all a shower of S****!

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

Your very aggressive tonight Margaret?

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

It's the red meat.......oh, and watching question time last night that does it.

But no Doug.........I truly do despair about the way this country is going.

Is there no way we can turn the clock back a bit?

Everyone was so hopeful when Labour were first elected.........and they have not lived up to expectations.

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

I for one am not surprised at all.

Get them out would be a very good idea.

At least then we would be spared any further pictures of Mrs Postbox Face

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

I think she must sleep with a coat hanger in her mouth......in fact if she had any more mouth she would have no face to wash........she has a mouth like a roven pocket.

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

Do you find posting letters erotic Doug?

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

Oh god your some funny when you get started Mrs Pilkington. :D

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

Erotic, where that bloody dictionary. lol.



Big gob? :eek: Maybe that’s why she’s been so successful….She’d be good at parties blowing balloons up wouldn’t she.

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

Dunno, but expect her husband has had some first hand (or mouth) experience!!!

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

Utter rubbish. Either you have been blinded by politicians or you are making wild assumptions, possibbly both.

The social contract broke down around 76 and the strikes, which didn't last long, were because Callaghan had already implemented some tough economic reforms that catapulted the unions onto the streets unhappy at the tough sanctions. Shoooting oil prices in 79 following the Iranain conflict put the breaks on economic recovery. Callaghan was as moderate as many New Labour.

The economy went down the tube after OPEC hiked prices by 4 times some 6 years earlier. Under Heath [A Conservative] we had the three day week and blackouts, candles et al [fond memories!!].

Inflation shot up to 16% and then 24% in 74 and 75 and was brought down to 8% in 78, before it went to 18% [with oil price hikes in 79] and then 12% in 79 and 80 and dipped thereafter as the money supply was squeezed.

However we all know Thatcherism didnt work as squeezing the money supply is a politicians cheap trick and by 89 it was back up at 10% pa. At the 83 general election it was 9% and only the Falklands War saved a distastrous economic performance.

BRIEFLY:
• The ‘oil price shocks’ of 1973-4 (triggered by the Arab-Israeli War) and 1979-80
(triggered by the Iranian revolution) helped create inflation and recession
simultaneously.
• ‘Tightening’ labour market conditions, workers’ increasing aspirations, and a chaotic
Trade Union structure contributed to industrial unrest and inflationary pressures.

IMF loan (Autumn 1976) committed the Labour government to deflationary macroeconomic policies. By 1979, some success had been achieved in reducing inflation, and re-kindling economic growth.

But unemployment remained high with the global problems. A further wave of industrial unrest in the ‘Winter of Discontent’ (1978-9) paved the way for Tory success under Margaret Thatcher in the May 1979 General Election.

Up to 1976, fiscal policy was used actively (growth and employment). Monetary policy had been used passively (keep interest rates steady to create a stable climate for investment). After 1976 [under Callaghan/Labour], monetary policy [disatrous doctrine of the IMF still to this day in the 3rd world] became the main macro policy instrument, in pursuit of inflationary control. [what it needed was a balance of both - as is always the case - and Callaghan should have been allowed to continue instead of the 1million to 3million unemployed knee jerk reaction]

Fiscal policy played a subservient role until 85 when the Tories reversed their own position because it wasn't working, Britain wasn't growing despite lowish inflation. It did produce a stable climate but didnt produce investment and growth because there wasnt enough money [and therefore investment incentive] for the economy to grow.

Even the humblest person thinks of the 80's as zero investment, little expansion, unemployment figures fiddled and general depression with no growth. After the snap reverse we created the opposite, too much money and to little capital to invest in [proper factories and proper growth investments] and the stock markets plunged as panic crept in and the economy has moved beyonds it means [it was overpriced and everyone was selling].

And when it come to waste. Howabout £3bn of taxpayers money wasted proping the £ up on black wednesday when interest rates hit 15%.

You claim a legacy lasts 8 years, ie from Major/Tories in 97 through to today. However in 1967 the £ was devalued not long after a Wilson Labour govt. So I suppose you would argue there are two types of economic legacies depending on your voting preferences.

In the last few years we have heard the Tories claim the economy would go down under Labour. Even The City has underestimated economic performance under Labour with growth rates at 3%, something no Tory gov't could even dream about.

Its like the minimum wage. The economy to plunge. Some plunge! Its just the kind of politics we need to get rid of, bu*****t politics, pardon my French.

In the last century teh Tories had something like 87 of the 100 years to put Britain right. Fairs fair, they had enough chances, I would suggest dont give them anymore.

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

Whats all this, Graham? Practice for your economic history GCSE next month? OK, not a bad effort....I'[ll give you a C grade and a little bit of advice. When it comes to the real thing, read the question carefully before you answer. Or, as in this case, read the posting carefully. My comment was about the Winter of Discontent, a series of strikes in 1978/79 involving a substancial proportion of the public sector workforce.

I think you would only have been a youngster at the time, but I remember it very vividly, and, yes, as you say in your opening remark, it was utter rubbish - A pile of it 30ft high in London's Leicester Square to be precise, infested with rats. What a splendid thing to show the tourists!

Whatever much you may wish to speculate about the relative merits of fiscal as against monetary policy (and I am prepared to debate those with you any time) the fact remains that it has been the Tory supply-side changes - albeit often seemingly socially brutal - that has given the UK a competitive edge over it's European Competitors, albeit now slowly being eroded as Blair & Brown surrender to one more set of mad-cap EU laws and regulations after another. The issue of competition with the far East is another matter.

That there were stupid mistakes made under the Tories there is no doubt - the worse one being the formal decision to enter the ERM at an exchange rate only defendable by high interest rates. The initial cost of withdrawing on Black Wednesday has been far superceded by the long term benefit of letting the market determin the external value of the pound, and to Labour's credit, giving the Bank of England independant control of monetary policy. By the last years of the Major goverment and the first years of labour, the UK was attracting almost as much inward investment as the rest of the then-EU combined. Alas, this is no longer the case.

By the way, do you know what I was doing on May 3rd, 1979? I shall tell you. I was 22 years old, having been a card-carrying member of the labour Party since I was 17, and I was back in Hyndburn working hard to get the sitting Labour MP re-elected. Like many others, he was'nt. Sometimes, it's better to fail.

Re: Election:Blair Names The Day
 

Fair comments and I respect your opinion when put it like this. This boils down to your economiuc viewpoint and the cost/value of that economic change. Fiscalism, monatrism or a bit of both.

I read your points and wanted to comment on how things ended up there IMO. The Winter of Discontent didn't just happen because Callaghan lost control [or never had it], there was a build up of factors.