Gormless Gideons future in freefall.

[Uncle Spielberg]

Osborne has NO policies on getting the country back to growth. His slash and burn approach has come home to roost. This country is screwed, 3 further 1/4's of negative growth now and the coalition have driven the country back into a serious second recession. The job figures are massaged with people who are " self employed " and part time workers. There is no improvement in job opportunities. In my profession, property sales and mortgages, the market is now paralysed. No one is moving and no one is remortgaging , the figures are around 40% of pre 2008 historical levels.

I can only see a lost decade of 0 or negative growth now. A " life is on hold " decade for millions of people, no longer able to provide for themselves or their families and hamstrung with a crippling economic policy which is making the rich richer but 95% of ordinary hard workers left with no hope, no goals, no aspirations and no future.

f*** me it's bleak.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Like them or loathe them, at least Thatcher and Blair had some balls and stuck to their policies.

And whether you agreed with Thatcher or Blair their policies succeeded on their own terms. What ever way you choose to view Osborne's 2 years he seems to have failed. Give it 6 months and I reckon The City will really turn on his choking of the economy. We're seeing some signs already.

 

[happypig]

I'd wager that the 15% who think he's a good chancellor are made up of
1, people who are still doing well despite the recession.
2. Mentally ill people.

 

[phoenix]

Osborne has NO policies on getting the country back to growth. His slash and burn approach has come home to roost. This country is screwed, 3 further 1/4's of negative growth now and the coalition have driven the country back into a serious second recession. The job figures are massaged with people who are " self employed " and part time workers. There is no improvement in job opportunities. In my profession, property sales and mortgages, the market is now paralysed. No one is moving and no one is remortgaging , the figures are around 40% of pre 2008 historical levels.

I can only see a lost decade of 0 or negative growth now. A " life is on hold " decade for millions of people, no longer able to provide for themselves or their families and hamstrung with a crippling economic policy which is making the rich richer but 95% of ordinary hard workers left with no hope, no goals, no aspirations and no future.

f*** me it's bleak.

 

[ROSM]

The coalition inherited an economy that was showing signs of recovery. There had been growth and reductions in spending. The rhetoric during the election, likening us to economic basket cases such as Greece and Ireland actually caused the concerns and became a self fulfilling prophecy.

Make no mistake, the recession we're now is in no small part a direct result of actions taken by the current residents of Downing Street. When in opposition they never opposed a spending plan, they picked the wrong horse in the bank bailout (what mess would have occurred if we'd adopted their views?) and were both working in the treasury when the lax regulation structure that underpinned that crash was implemented.

Then there's the poor strategic judgement It takes a certain kind of genius to put Ed Balls on the right side of a political argument but Osborne has managed it.

When people ask what makes a good Chancellor, they should look no further than the last one (Darling) who seemed to 'get it'. Its such a shame that the Buffoon Gordon Brown didnt realise it and cut him some slack. If he'd had, I'm sure that Darling would either now still be Chancellor or at least the shadow one. Some senior Tories I know are dreading that he will return to front line politics ahead of the next election and expose the Osborne years for the elitist, driven by ideology rather than necessity mess they have been.

 

[Norman Potting]

Stop Press!

BBC News - Paying tradesmen cash in hand morally wrong, says minister

So that is the cause of the problem then.

 

[Simster]

He's an absolute shambles of a man.

It is quite clear to any sane man that you won't kick start the economy by cutting all public services back to the bare bones. Fine, make sensible cuts even if they are contensious, but basic services MUST be maintained for the economy to recover. Here is one example; if you cut all road maintenance, then not only will the roads eventually become unusable (negatively impacting the economy) but in addition, our pot-holing contractors will go out of business, (start collecting dole money!), and when we do eventually need pot-holers again, we won't have any and will have to "import" them at considerable expense, or pay a lot more for new UK start ups who will have the cost of new equipment to absorb.

And obviously his consistent embarassing policy u-turns give the impression he hasn't a clue what he is doing in any case. He has no idea how to tackle the big problems, and this sort of feeble dithering over policies that would barely touch the debt (a pasty tax FFS) are a f***ing embarrassment.

Is he the worst chancellor ever? Not sure. Norman Lamont was absolutely dreadful too, probably as bad as Gideon. And Gordon Brown managed to sell all our gold for buttons during a period of relative wealth - I'm not sure he'd have been much better in these harder times.

 

[Laughing Gravy]

Tory boy

 

[User removed 4]

He's an absolute shambles of a man.

It is quite clear to any sane man that you won't kick start the economy by cutting all public services back to the bare bones. Fine, make sensible cuts even if they are contensious, but basic services MUST be maintained for the economy to recover. Here is one example; if you cut all road maintenance, then not only will the roads eventually become unusable (negatively impacting the economy) but in addition, our pot-holing contractors will go out of business, (start collecting dole money!), and when we do eventually need pot-holers again, we won't have any and will have to "import" them at considerable expense, or pay a lot more for new UK start ups who will have the cost of new equipment to absorb.

And obviously his consistent embarassing policy u-turns give the impression he hasn't a clue what he is doing in any case. He has no idea how to tackle the big problems, and this sort of feeble dithering over policies that would barely touch the debt (a pasty tax FFS) are a f***ing embarrassment.

Is he the worst chancellor ever? Not sure. Norman Lamont was absolutely dreadful too, probably as bad as Gideon. And Gordon Brown managed to sell all our gold for buttons during a period of relative wealth - I'm not sure he'd have been much better in these harder times.

Apart from the ERM debacle , which wasnt of Lamont's making ( we went in at too high a level, before he took office) what else made Lamont a dreadful chancellor ?

 

[ROSM]

Apart from the ERM debacle , which wasnt of Lamont's making ( we went in at too high a level, before he took office) what else made Lamont a dreadful chancellor ?

Look at who his advisors at the Treasury were at that time? Osborne and Cameron!

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

Apart from the ERM debacle , which wasnt of Lamont's making ( we went in at too high a level, before he took office) what else made Lamont a dreadful chancellor ?

I think the handling of that was sufficient for the charge.

 

[ROKERITE]

If Labour had won the last election then no-one could have been in any doubt that Labour with Gordon Brown in charge were completely to blame for the disastrous mess GB was in. However, we'd never have recovered from another five years of that useless mob.
Things might be bad, but they're not so bad that they couldn't have been a whole lot worse under Balls and his gang. It would help if we had a proper Conservative Government instead of the wishy-washy bunch Cameron oversees.

 

[The Large One]

Apart from the ERM debacle , which wasnt of Lamont's making ( we went in at too high a level, before he took office) what else made Lamont a dreadful chancellor ?

He was Chief Secretary to the Treasury at the time.

I don't strictly agree with the sentiment in the thread title. Gideon's future is fairly secure (at least until 2015), as he is presently Cameron's economic lightning conductor.

 

[Simster]

I think the handling of that was sufficient for the charge.

Quite. Upping interest rates from 10 to 15% in two days seemed a bit CLUELESS if you ask me.

But bushy is right in that the £ was overvalued from the outset on that day, and we were forever firefighting against the markets. However, surely this is the fault of the government of the time too, including the chancellor...

 

[User removed 4]

I think the handling of that was sufficient for the charge.

What would you have done differently ?

 

[User removed 4]

Quite. Upping interest rates from 10 to 15% in two days seemed a bit CLUELESS if you ask me.

But bushy is right in that the £ was overvalued from the outset on that day, and we were forever firefighting against the markets. However, surely this is the fault of the government of the time too, including the chancellor...

As i've asked DKM , what would you have done differently ? It wasnt his fault we enterd the ERM too high, he tried to defend sterling, buying the crap out of it and interest rates are pretty much the only tools at his diposal in a free market.

 

[ROSM]

If Labour had won the last election then no-one could have been in any doubt that Labour with Gordon Brown in charge were completely to blame for the disastrous mess GB was in. However, we'd never have recovered from another five years of that useless mob.
Things might be bad, but they're not so bad that they couldn't have been a whole lot worse under Balls and his gang. It would help if we had a proper Conservative Government instead of the wishy-washy bunch Cameron oversees.

You keep believing that.

The economy was in early recovery when Osborne moved into 11 Downing Street. In reality there is less than a cigarette paper in what was proposed by Darling and what has been proposed in real reduction terms by Osborne. What is the difference is how and where it was targetted and the depth of initial cuts. It is the approach that has caused the issues we now have - they have clutched defeat from the jaws of victory.

I'm not saying Brown would have been better - mainly because he didnt let Darling get on with his job. However he really couldn't have been worse.

 

[Simster]

What would you have done differently ?

More to the point, do you think it was handled WELL?

 

[User removed 4]

More to the point, do you think it was handled WELL?

I dont see what they could have done differently to be honest, it was an unprecedented attack on sterling and I really dont see what they could have done , maybe have admitted defeat and bailed earlier ? So, more to the point , if you dont think it was handled well, how it could it have been handled differently ?

 

[El Presidente]

The Tories are the largest party, and therefore we should accept that they are making the major decisions and get on with it.

What alarms me, setting ideological viewpoints aside, is the level of incompetence being shown. Working in the public sector I see the total lack of coordinated thinking on key issues that could assist the economy.

In higher education we have lost our funding, been told to be more commercial, but are fined if we recruit too many students, and have the Borders Agency questioning the recruitment of overseas students, (whose fees are a major contributor to the economy).

In transport there is no long term planning, air travel is seen as a cash cow by the chancellor, rail and Heathrow expansion stifled by nimbyism.

Then there is the scandal of PFI, introduced by the Major government, endorsed by new Labour, and encouraged by this lot. The total cost to the taxpayer of new hospitals, schools etc, which should have been approximately £55 billion, will ultimately cost the taxpayer £301 billion. It dwarfs anything relating to bankers, Jimmy Carr or the cryogenic freezing of Mrs Thatcher for the last ten years.