The Telegraph carried an extraordinary article by George Trefgarne of the Centre for Policy Studies today. It is a shameless, totally London centred, property boom lauding, Osbornomics fest that willingly suspends its disbelief, saying:
If an old fashioned pre-election boom is on the cards, so, presumably, is the risk of a potential bust. But such gloomy thoughts are for the future. In the meantime, let us enjoy the upturn while it lasts.
So there we have it: let's have a boom and hang the consequences so long as the Tories win the next election to have the chance to destroy the last vestiges of community in the UK. That's it in a nutshell as far as I can see.
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“It is a shameless, totally London centred, property boom…So there we have it: let’s have a boom and hang the consequences
So just like Gordon Brown’s economics then?
You won’t have found me defending much of Brown’s economics at the time
With the “slight” differences that under Blair/Brown there was
a) some real growth in the economy
b) some real progress towards redistribution of wealth and narrowing of income disparities and
c) some real investment in the NHS and education with some real improvements in standards and delivery!
“Small” matters, I agree, but then “What have the Romans ever done for us?”
However, I do agree that Gordon Brown did allow an insane housing and other asset appreciation bubbles, and, worst of all, looked the other way when the finance shysters and card-sharps were unjustly enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else.
So, Gordon’s sins were those of ommission – and heinous they were, but at least they were not, as are those of Osborne, Cameron and co., sins of commission = a concerted attempt to asset strip the whole caboodle in the interests of their chums and themselves, the rampant rentier Barons of the new feudal state.
Andrew – not sure the last Housing Bubble could be classed as a sin of omission at all. Labour were concertedly supine and deliberately so. Let us not forget that Labour also thought that the boom bust cycle was over, a staggering act of hubris along side mandy’s ‘filthy rich’ policy -no omission there! They were as much part of the neo-lib project as today’s socialism for the rich Tories.
Considering the right constantly level this charge at the last Labour government, the hypocrisy of Osbourne’s attempt to engineer an utterly unsustainable state-subsidised house price boom is breathtaking.
Now who’s encouraging feckless, self-indulgent, ‘live now screw tomorrow’ economics’, in a desperate attempt to bribe their way through the next election? I hope to God there are enough ordinary people who would normally vote Conservative or Lib Dem who view this with utter disgust and won’t vote for this awful government.
And by the way Stephen, while I’m no more a fan of the last government than Richard, they weren’t running the banks. The peolpe who directly caused the banking collapse, the cost of which is now being paid for by all of us, were the bankers, cheered on by right wing ideologues in the press, politics and acedemia.
The ‘us’ he refers to are the rentiers glutting on a windfall vacuumed from our communities. For many the ‘bust’ is a continuous one. The lack of empathy, the absence of compunction, the myopia is magisterial in its pettiness and small mindedness and guffawing vulgarity!
Well, people can’t say they haven’t been warned.
“You won’t have found me defending much of Brown’s economics at the time”
Indeed. You seem to be quite aware that Labour played exactly the same game, and are equally critical of them when invited. That just makes it all the more frustrating when you put such an overt anti-tory slant to posts like this. The tories are not the problem. The whole bloody lot of them are the problem. It’s simply not a party political issue. It’s not as if kicking the tories out in 2015 will fix anything. I don’t see Milliband and Balls pledging measures that will reduce house prices.. they’re chasing after exactly the same swing voters despite the adverse impact on the millions of their worse-off supporters in their safe constituencies.
At least the tories are pursuing bad policies that are in the interests of their base. What was Labour’s excuse?
Hang on – I am opposing government
I’ve opposed Labour, Tory and Lib Dem
But give me a choice if they are all there are and yes I’ll take Labour because from shadow cabinet downwards there are more people I could work with there than any other party of that size right now
But that doesn’t also mean there are a lot in Labour I seem to have very little common ground with – but I am not alone in that
I respect that. It’s more pragmatic than my solution – which involves the Tower of London and a disused mineshaft to ‘store’ the keys in.
I just felt that the “Osbornomics” comment gave the impression that this latest round of bubble-pumping was, somehow, something that the tories invented. ‘Help to buy’ (for example) is an awful policy whoever came up with it.. and with all the main parties being equally culpable for going down that road, I’d like to see them get equal billing when people call them up on it.
Wouldn’t it have been nice for one of the Ed’s to come out in opposition and admit that they were guilty of the same thing, but now recognise that they got it badly wrong? Of course it’s insane for Osborne to start the whole thing up again.. but the lack of noise from the opposition benches proves that they’re fine with it and are probably just trying to figure out how they can spin their own version if/when it’s their turn again.
That’s why it’s the idea that needs to be attacked, not the people currently in charge of implementing it. When the two are indistinguishable, the effect is weakened.