This is reported in this morning's Daily Telegraph:
There can be no ifs or buts. In November 2010 the Chancellor said: “When we came into office Britain was in the financial danger zone. Our economy was unstable, our public finances out of control, our country on the international watch-list to avoid. We took decisive action. Now the independent OBR have confirmed that the British recovery is on track, our public finances are on the mend, our debt is under control, employment is growing and our economy is rebalancing."
He was wrong. Ed Balls warned that “the government is in danger of encouraging a 'perfect storm' that could trigger a double-dip recession in Britain, and that the world faces a dangerous time as many governments embark on premature fiscal retrenchments.” He has been proved right.
Labour has, against all popular expectation, won the battle for economic credibility.
Now it has to be brave and push for a real programme for growth.
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The article is by Dan Hodges.
I know
And like all on the left I have a very clear dislike of much of what he says
But he is saying this in the Telegraph
And I’m saying that suggests there is a clear shift in view taking place here
Can’t help agreeing with your mistrust, Richard. After all, Hodges ONLY notes the 2 quarters/double dip recession point in Balls’ favour, totally ignoring the other parts of Osborne’s claim viz
“When we came into office Britain was in the financial danger zone. Our economy was unstable, our public finances out of control, our country on the international watch-list to avoid.”
Each of these claims is equally untrue: no “financial danger zone” and no “international watch-list to avoid”, given the successful measures taken by the last Labour Government, which were seen to be working. As for “public finances out of control”, well, this is the usual Blairite/”in the black Labour” argument that suits the neo-liberal consensus, but which you MORE than adequately exposed as nonsense.
Time for Labour to scotch these three ill-founded arguments too, and establish its real bona fides as preservers of the economic welfare of the country in the face of the 2008 storm – actions which the Tories then supported, only to cynically turn against them in pursuit of power.
An interesting article from a right wing newspaper. Anybody with an iota of knowledge about economics knows that the Cameron/Osborne startegy would never work.
I am increasingly concerned that these politicians do not much care what happens to the UK economy as of course they are personally well insulated from the consequences. A tremendous amount of damage to the economy and the fabric of our society can be done in the next 3 years and as matters stand these ‘politicians’ can then walk away unscathed. Perhaps we should take a lesson from Iceland and in some way attempt to hold these politicians to account through the courts.
Don’t know about the courts, but there could be some mechanism to enforce the promises they make in their manifesto. Someone notionally independent perhaps to keep score?
That would be knowledge of the economics of running a country.
Theirs is the knowledge of the economics of making your friends rich and guaranteeing future freebies.
Unfortunately a knowledge shared with the current Labour party, at least in part.
Sigrun Davisdottir (Icelandic journalist working in London) is very clear about that in her latest (generally excellent) blog:
“There are various views in Iceland regarding the [Haarde] trial. But whatever the opinion, Althingi has at least attempted to place the political accountability for the crash. Ex-PM Gordon Brown can be grateful that the British Parliament isn’t doing anything as drastic to investigate who is to blame for the 5% of GDP that the UK bank collapse in October 2008 cost the UK.”
http://uti.is/2012/04/the-haarde-trial-politicians-and-accountability/
Agreed, but one hopes your prescription applies equally to the last government, in which case not only Gordon Brown, but Ed Balls (the subject of the praise in this article) would be in jail by now — how short are people’s memories. If that is not what you mean then your comment is party political dogma.
Krugman blog April 26, 2012 ‘The New Voodoo’ still catches the FT editorial doing politics as economics. It’s the Andrew Neil sort of argument: the way you view economics hasn’t come out as you thought, so someone else is to blame. Yet more of the ‘our hubris, your nemesis’ moral hazard nonsense of the Thatcher-Reagan political ideology.