There was a Nigel Lawson quote at the time.... "People have too much spending money, to redress the balance of payments we need to rise the interest rates, so people cannot spend so much on foriegn goods"Originally Posted by scotttwin
It did not stop the rich buying there foriegn cars etc...
It also did not effect the council housing people, who did not have a mortgage, but were offered to buy thier house for a stupid price.
Like it or not, in this media driven age a political leader needs to have at least a modicum of charisma. Brown is an out and out woodentop, clearly ill at ease with himself and others. Cameron will have to do something seriously heinous not to defeat Brown at the next election.
The most striking aspect of Brown (aside from his devious taxation policies) is his gutless refusal until now to express a view on anything.
.....and as for Blair, he was a true star on the international stage (whether or not you agree with what he actually did). But on the domestic front he was shamefully unassertive. He led labour to three big victories and yet he achieved next to nothing domestically. With such a large majority he could have achieved so much, yet he squandered it.
Not quite true, we've had:
- Devolution
- Some constitutional reform (House of Lords)
- Good economic performance
- Peace in Northern Ireland
They're all good achievements.
But yes, given two massive majorities, you'd have expected more radical achievements.
Actually, I think delegating authority to Bank of England showed very strong leadership - you've gotta be confident to give power away. Thatcher was the opposite, she centralised everything. But I agree the fox hunting stuff was pathetic.
Yes, that was indeed a ****-up - but to be fair, that's just part of a trend starting with Michael Howard ("Prison works", remember).
see below.
Because unfortunately, the cabinet is defunct. There are no cabinet meetings or concensus anymore. There may be token ones where everything has already been decided.
The Prime Minister has his own unelected think tank and spin doctors.
Other ministers tow the party line or are frozen out with even less power that they have as ministers.
So what sort of person the PM is is vitally important.
IMO Brown, unlike Blair, is not an ex-Tory, not a poodle to Bush and I don't think he would have rushed to go to war with Iraq with quite such enthusiasm as Blair did, if at all, had he being the PM at the time.
Devolution was forced upon them.
Constitutional reform has not gone far enough and why did it take 8 years? We still have an unelected house full of Labour loan sharks.
Good economic performance, so as the rest of the world except we have one of the biggest budget defecits of any country in the EU.
Peace in Northern Ireland - John Major should take all the credit for this as he started the ball rolling, and Blair just inherited the momentum.
Even the smoking ban was someone else's idea and we are the last to introduce it.
Blair is a great politician, it's just a pity that all British politicians are so ineffective.
Was it?Agree there, they are all Blairs cash for peerage cronies.
Constitutional reform has not gone far enough and why did it take 8 years? We still have an unelected house full of Labour loan sharks.London is the most expensive city. Foreign business are all here to do business.
Good economic performance, so as the rest of the world except we have one of the biggest budget defecits of any country in the EU.He removed Mo Mowlam because she was beating him in the popularity polls.
Peace in Northern Ireland - John Major should take all the credit for this as he started the ball rolling, and Blair just inherited the momentum.Far from being the last we are one of the first, the others being Ireland, France, Scotland, Wales and New York.
Even the smoking ban was someone else's idea and we are the last to introduce it.
Blair is a great politician,
No... but I notice he's managed to pull a pretty good vanishing trick when the tough calls came in. Blair at least made, and stuck by, decisions - I'm not convinced Brown would.
Yes, Iraq was an amazingly made decision - but Brown supported it at the time, as did a majority of both the parliamentary Labour party - the Labour party! - and a bigger majority of the UK parliament. So pretending they weren't involved in the decision is kind of sneaky...
What on Earth are you talking about? In all cases of devolution (Wales, London, Scotland), it was prefaced by a referendum - famously, the narrowness of the Welsh vote allegedly prompting Blair to go "F***king Welsh"
I agree that it's not gone far enough - Labour have been far too timid on this one. But it's a damn sight more than the Tories ever did.
And I'd rather have a house of cronies, who can be changed, than a house of people who's only claim to power is that of birth. It's incredible that in the 21st Century we still grant any power based on heredity.
The UK GDP (at PPP level) is 11th in the world, at around $35K / person - that's significantly higher than the other 3 big Euro economies (Germany, Italy, and France), which are all around the $30 - $31K levels.
Alternatively, based on market exchange rates, the United Kingdom is the fifth largest economy in the world, and the second largest in Europe after Germany.
We've seen the longest continuous period of economic growth since the 19th century, we have low inflation, low unemployment, and low interest rates. Yes, much of the initial credit for starting that trend goes to Ken Clarke in the mid-90s, but Brown continued the good habits.
As for budget deficits (I assume you mean national debt), then yes, it's at 40% of GDP now compared to 38% in the mid-90s, but that's not exactly a runaway disaster. I also don't believe it's larger than any of the other large economies - in fact, I think it's smaller. And comparing our economy with (say) Luxembourg's is just silly.
Technically, Willy Whitelaw started the process, Major continued it, Mo Mowlam pushed it, and Blair closed it.
Yes, again, the process was initiated by others, but closing the deal is always the hardest part of the process - ask any salesman.
This has more to do with geography than anything else - hence why Heathrow is the busiest airport in the world.
I can't speak for Scotland (never been...sorry), but I have been to Ireland and Wales in the last year and they already had introduced the ban...this gutless government thought that they would be last and let everyone else take the fall-out first.Far from being the last we are one of the first, the others being Ireland, France, Scotland, Wales and New York.
I liked Tony Blair, and I like a lot of what he did and I was sad to see him go.
Devolution wasn't forced on the Scottish people....we've been asking for it for years....
The decision to go to Iraq wasn't the best in the world but I admire that he stuck by it. Amazing the comparison between what happened to Blair and what happened to Thatcher... we went to the Falklands to defend a way of life and keep a dictator out... and Maggie won the next election which she had been pretty much slated to lose... Okay, Iraq isn't a dependency of the UK but...I think it depends on why you think we went... did we go to defend oil or did we go to oust a dictator? You choose!
As far as Gordon Brown goes... I don't know. I've always been a labour voter (that's what happens when you grow up in a working class family in Scotland during the Thatcher years in an area where there are no jobs - yes NO jobs... you see the deprivation around you and vote accordingly)
Anyway.... who's our new king of spin, if Tony Blair ever was that... well, that would be David Cameron then, wouldn't it!!
London's got much more expensive in the past 10 years - possibly because of the "tax haven" status it seems to have acquired for people like Russian billionnaires...
I'm not sure where this smoking thing's coming from - but you're complaining because the UK government introduced it too slowly in England, yes?
Blimey, there's nothing new in that - the Tories used Scotland as a guinea pig for new legislation all the time (e.g. the poll tax - look how well that turned out).
And one consequence of devolution is that different areas do things differently - that's kind of the point of devolution...
I think scottwin means that devolution was effectively forced on Blair by his predecessor, John Smith's strong commitment to it. Any backtracking would have been damaging for Blair in Scotland and Wales - for all his Scottish connections, he was never a vote-winner north of the border (can't speak for Wales but probably likewise).What on Earth are you talking about? In all cases of devolution (Wales, London, Scotland), it was prefaced by a referendum - famously, the narrowness of the Welsh vote allegedly prompting Blair to go "F***king Welsh"
There's a sizeable amount of evidence that Blair's commitment to devolution was lukewarm, at best. Never attended any devolved parliament's opening, the infamous "parish council" quote, etc. etc.
That's exactly what I am saying, so Blair can hardly take credit for this.
I'm prepared to give Brown the benefit of the doubt, in that, if he'd been PM he would have told Bush to sling his hook.
He was supposed to have a massive "war chest" at the time, but I can't see him as being eager to spend it.
Plus, the labour whips had an all on job getting the labour MPs to vote. A substantial number wanted to abstain. I'm not sure of the voting numbers?
Plus the Torys voted along with Labour, which was how Blair got permission to join Bush.
Mmm.... yes, that's a more rational point.
I'd agree that Blair and co have been extremely lukewarm about constitutional reform in general, compared to John Smith. I wonder what a Smithite Britain would look like...
But, again, he carried through the process, and achieved some things. Not enough, of course - but if it happened on his watch, I think he deserves some credit for it.
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