The following comes straight from Simon Wren-Lewis' 'Mainly Macro' blog. He entitled it 'To all UK Journalists'
Growth under Labour, including the Great Recession, was 50% better than under the Coalition. So please, if you want to make your reporting on the economy over the next 100 days objective, use this fact. If the Conservatives win this election because enough people believe that they are more competent than the previous government at handling the economy, it will be a devastating verdict - on the UK media and its journalists.
Quarter on previous year's quarter growth in UK GDP per head, 1997Q2 to 2014Q3
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Growth under Labour was based on unsustainable consumption and cheap credit while growth under the coalition is based on……!
The current logic is identical
And is not delivering
If it was unsustainable why was it still going strong during the big dip of 09/10? Then all of a sudden growth crashes just as the economy has recovered, strangely enough as the Tories came to power… but that’s just coincidence, right?
I agree that Labour have a poor record on the economy, but you have to be mad to claim the Tories have a better one. Especially when the proof is laid out right in front of your eyes.
“If it was unsustainable why was it still going strong during the big dip of 09/10?”
Ever heard of a dead cat bounce?
Economic commentary is full of crass phrases
Right
You guys really are clowns. I include Campbell for tweeting this bullshit
This is statistically accurate comment
And you are upset
Why?
Remember Osborne offered expansionary fiscal contraction ie growth, and has not delivered
It’s a fail on his part, of ideology, of economics, of politics, and delivery
Osborne said, on attaining office, that he wouldn’t want growth for its own sake, he’d want good, sustainable growth.
After 3 years flat-lining he proceeded to pump up the housing market with his despicable “help to sell your house at an inflated price” scheme.
He’s also benefited from a massive release of wealth into the economy from the banks finally coming out & settling all their PPI claims.
Has manufacturing output improved ? bollox has it
Has the trade deficit improved ? bollox has it
Has the UKs competitiveness improved ? bollox has it. If you compare the GDP per person between the UK & (I quote the DT, Mail, Times etc) over-unionised, over-regulated sclerotic France & the French win hands down.
I keep reading that Osborne has been a successful chancellor-on what possible lunatic measures can he be seen as a success???
Presumably, if Graham Taylor had been a right-wing free-marketeer he’d still be England manager & the DT would be trumpeting successes against the likes of Liberia & Estonia in friendlys even as England slumped in the FIFA ratings.
When Labour left power in 2010 the national debt was £811bn; it’s now £1.45 trillion! In their last two years Labour got the deficit down by £40bn to £115bn; after 5 years the Tories only got it down by £17bn to £98bn but it’s now rising again, to around £100b. The deficit on our trade in manufactured goods stands at £110bn and is now by far the worst in UK history.
All this is despite painful austerity which has ruined the lives of millions of people, but the general perception is still that the Tories are doing well with the economy!
Let’s not forget that Labour did a lot right to contain the problem of the crash as well – they cut VAT and used QE to get the money supply moving and to sustain economic activity which contributed to tax income and if we really do know our onions – everybody else’s income too at the time.
I know that this was only short term and we do not know what Labour would have done next – they were voted out of office. And yes, they were culpable for not making banking less toxic when they had the time and the power to do so.
But we do know that they did not pour petrol onto fire which I’m afraid history will show Osbourne and his mates have done since 2010. These are facts.
mark they were also culpable for allowing housing bubbles to inflate to bursting point-this is the point where I wheel out (ad nauseam!) Gordon Brown’s infamous declaration in 1997:
“Gordon Brown said: ‘I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery.’”
He presided over a 370% increase in the money created by banking (97% of the money supply) for property purchases.
This throws into relief the utterly staggering illiteracy of the Tories ‘help to Buy’ which, in reality is ‘help to work long hours on a treadmill’ while we syphon of what little you have.
I regard both Labour and Tories as profoundly untrustworthy sycophants of corporate capture -but they still have to pretend that there is more than a Rizla paper between them to keep the old narrative in place and hoodwink the numbed populace for another few years.
I think osborne’s election ploy is going to be based on the notion of the ‘small state’, that is small when it comes to social value but massive when it comes to defending corporate interest , surveillance and asset fire sales.
Simon
I can’t argue with your point at all.
I believe that both parties had drank the financial sector ‘cool-aid’ – that is to say that both parties in the UK just wanted to leave the markets to get on with it because they believed (wrongly it turns out) that the markets had found a new way of making money out of thin air without any risk; a way of making the money supply almost endless.
But you cannot argue that the way the parties have dealt with matters after 2008 has been different. Labour at least seemed to want to focus on the problem; the Tories have just used the 2008 crash as an opportunity for yet more economic and social vandalism.
I think you are operating under the delusion that UK governments can actually manage the UK economy like a CEO in a UK plc for instance. This is a myth, they can only “manage” at the side lines. Global and longer term forces are much more important. Both Left and Right perpetuate this myth to suit their own purposes.
Most MPS I know could not run a chip shop.
Most people could not run a chip shop well. That an MP can’t is not a problem in that case
And you are wrong about the impact of government on the economy
40% of GDP or more is plenty enough to have a massive impact
Anyone who says otherwise is deluding themselves
And business knows it – or it would not spend so much time lobbying government
So shall we stop the misinformation here?