economic situation is dire

[snowychap]

in these desperate times pure critiscm has to be backed up with ideas

Why? In order to try and invalidate any criticism of what might well be incorrect actions.

I keep on hearing this rubbish about 'you can't criticize unless you've got an alternative' and 'what would you do? If you don't tell us then it means that what we're doing is right' and, frankly, it is rather idiotic.

If one wants to have a debate about various options then one requires various options to debate.

If one wants to have a debate about the efficacy or sense of one option, introducing another option into the debate is, actually, a distraction.

[Gringo]

yes that is the case Gringo but if you have no idea what to do how can you feasibly criticse what Labour are doing, especially has results won't be een for months if not years

People criticised the VAT cut when it was announced (some before it was announced ie leaked) as being ineffective. A worse use of £12bn would be hard to find (if you ignore the NHS IT system or the ID card). What other countries are altering sales tax policies? Natch.

Maybe if Ken was chancellor he might have heeded the warnings

However, London’s role as a center for global finance also raises the possibility that it may

be a potential source of major spillovers, or “contagion,” in the global financial system. Here,

we define “contagion” as the transmission of idiosyncratic shocks among financial

institutions. The very high volume of transactions through the different segments of the

financial sector in London, combined with the increasing inter-linkages across both the local

and international financial systems, mean that shocks affecting one U.K. financial institution

or market could be transmitted locally and overseas. Alternatively, shocks originating

elsewhere could be channeled through London and result in spillovers affecting U.K.

financial institutions and markets.

The IMF said that london could be the centre of the storm. A problem in one area fastly spreading to others so that not just housing (mortgage bonds) markets collapsed, but all the other dominos were neatly placed to fall one after another.

In years to come, history (depending on the victors who write it) will (probably) show that the london market was culpable in this along with the fraudulent mortgage brokers in the US (and to a lesser extent the UK).

There was a big kerfuffle in the commons committees this week that none of the leading lights of rbs and hbos actually had banking qualifications - disgust that people who have scant knowledge of the industry they work in being responsible for major decisions. But this is basic nuLabour policy, brining in sensible business heads from outside the sector to run skules, hospitals, child protection etc. People without banking knowledge are allowed to run banks. but only people (fat cats)with banking knowledge are qualified to be regulators.

I'm sure that makes some kind of sense.

nuLabour have brought in a subservience to business and market models that maggie could only have creamed hereself over. Darling quoted keynes this week saying "I would rather be roughly right than precisely wrong" - the policies of the false labour govt have been shown to be precisely wrong.

[ianrobo1]

in these desperate times pure critiscm has to be backed up with ideas

Why? In order to try and invalidate any criticism of what might well be incorrect actions.

I keep on hearing this rubbish about 'you can't criticize unless you've got an alternative' and 'what would you do? If you don't tell us then it means that what we're doing is right' and, frankly, it is rather idiotic.

If one wants to have a debate about various options then one requires various options to debate.

If one wants to have a debate about the efficacy or sense of one option, introducing another option into the debate is, actually, a distraction.

not in this case because if cuddly Ken is saying it was wrong (did he or any tory say this at the time ??) then what is the alternative, bankruptcy ?

but thoe adovcating full nationaliation are getting very close to getting their wishes granted !!

I do wonder what the Tories think of that

[snowychap]

not in this case

Yes, in this case and in any case.

It doesn't stop you or anyone else from criticizing Ken (I'm slightly worried that you think he's cuddly :winkold:) for not putting forward an alternative.

[Gringo]

just as we discussed last night clarke has saud this about the Lloyds/Hbos merger

"They should never have been allowed to merge," he added. "Lloyds TSB was a boring bank, it was a steady bank, it hadn't done silly things."

well the reason it happened wa because HBOS was very close to collapse so as usual I think it is a valid thing to ay but what woul he have done instead ?

only 2 options I see

1- let it collapse and the huge liabilities, not least the safeguarding of deposits

2 - or totally nationalise it taking the liabilities on board

he gives us neither

same as what we said

Having listened to Ken's words - that is a gross misrpesentation of what he said. He said that in that state there was the option of taking HBOS into govt control and keeping LTSB clean. You are spinning his words. He said there was the safeguard of govt control. You did not represent this by saying he gave neither choice. He obviously did.

[ianrobo1]

not rom the BBC report on the website he did not

so he thinks the best option was to nationalise it, thats fine but I also think Lloyds saw a possible bargain, there is no indication they HAD to do the deal

Lloyds took a gamble it looks liek it failed but who knows in three years time it may have been a master stroke

[Gringo]

not rom the BBC report on the website he did not

Maybe the rigth wing bbc website staff were doing the spinning then.

"not rom"? FFS Ian, hit preview, read wot u av tiped an korekt.

[ianrobo1]

Gringo, do you think Lloyds were pushed into this, could they have said no ?

remember lloyds took government money as well despite Clarke's claims of a solid bank

I have a theory

every recession banks will lose out it is inevitable, are they now using the credit crunch to try and get the governments to effectivtly write off their own bad debts ?

and the governments have no choice ?

[Gringo]

Gringo, do you think Lloyds were pushed into this, could they have said no ?

remember lloyds took government money as well despite Clarke's claims of a solid bank

Nope. Wrong or misstated. LTSB had no need of govt funds. LTSBHBOS took govt funds.

I have a theory

every recession banks will lose out it is inevitable, are they now using the credit crunch to try and get the governments to effectivtly write off their own bad debts ?

and the governments have no choice ?

Such a plan would only work if the govt were in hock to the banks as this right wing govt are. The main reason the country is in the mess that it is in is due to the bluelabour party implmenting right wing policies that they didn't understand in order to generate revenues to use to fund the revitalisation of the education and health systems which they couldn't carry through unless they enforced right wing policies for futher marketisation of both health and eduaction sectors.

They sold their soul, now they are paying the price. BIAD.

[snowychap]

Who would credit the word of banking's knights-erroneous?

...

Alas, there isn't the space to continue this roll call of banker-public intellectual hybrids. But we must just salute investment banker turned government adviser David Freud, who authored the white paper on welfare reform, and came up with the ur-justification for all bankers seeking to persuade people of their eminent suitability for these complex public roles. "I didn't know anything about welfare at all when I started," he breezed to reporters, "but that may have been an advantage ... In a funny way the solution was obvious."

...

And it seems Mr Freud's influence is, unfortunately, here to stay:

Labour's welfare reform chief defects to the Conservatives

The architect of the government's controversial welfare reforms, David Freud, has defected to the Tories in an embarrassing blow for Gordon Brown.

Conservative sources said David Cameron intended to put Freud forward for a peerage, then give him a frontbench post as a shadow welfare minister. The move is a coup for the Tories, harnessing not only Freud's expertise on the welfare system, but also his knowledge of the City - as a former investment banker - to beef up policy-making on the recession.

Freud formally handed his resignation to James Purnell, the welfare secretary to whom he works as an unpaid adviser, yesterday and his departure will be regarded as a vote of no confidence in Labour's execution of the planned reforms, which would see private firms employed to help find claimants work. The government has hit resistance from Labour MPs over the proposals and demands for higher fees from private-sector firms bidding for the contracts.

"David and George [Osborne] have been talking to him a lot about the economy, but also obviously about welfare reform: this was something they were both keen to do," said a senior Tory source. "He will be on the team."

...more on link

[snowychap]

And for anyone who missed Lord Turner's appearance on BBC1 this morning, here follows a precis of what he said:

Hindsight.....hindsight.....hindsight....I wasn't in charge then.....hindsight.....hindsight.....not in charge.....hindsight....that happened before I took over......hindsight....

[Gringo]

And it seems Mr Freud's influence is, unfortunately, here to stay:

Labour's welfare reform chief defects to the Conservatives

What with him and carol vorderman on board it would appear the tories are unstoppable.

[drat01]

And it seems Mr Freud's influence is, unfortunately, here to stay:

Labour's welfare reform chief defects to the Conservatives

What with him and carol vorderman on board it would appear the tories are unstoppable.

..Party sources say Mr Cameron plans to nominate Sir David for a peerage and make him Lords spokesman on welfare....

Brilliant - favours anyone? HOL? I've shit better things than that

[snowychap]

And it seems Mr Freud's influence is, unfortunately, here to stay:

Labour's welfare reform chief defects to the Conservatives

What with him and carol vorderman on board it would appear the tories are unstoppable.

The Spectator is, unsurprisingly, happy about this 'coup' (or is that re-defection?):

Freud defects to the Tories

The first serious Tory defection will be detailed in tomorrow's News of the World. David Freud, the architect of the Purnell welfare refrom that we've been admiring in Coffee House, is to become a Conservative peer and shadow welfare reform minister. So someone with genuine expertise will be in the DWP driving through a desperately-needed agenda. This is a real coup not just for David Cameron but George Osborne whom, I understand, has been working on Freud for months.

Freud is a banker by training, but don't let that put you off him. He was hired by Tony Blair to think the unthinkable on welfare reform - and his suggestions (here) were genuinely radical. The sort that Blair now wishes he'd done in 1997. But this was 2007 and Gordon Brown was having none of it, so Freud was cut adrift. The Conservatives then picked him up, and Chris Grayling adopted his plans and launched them in Jan08. Then, his ideas - adopt an Austrlian-style work-for-dole, and assess every one of the 2.6m on incapacity benefit for what work they could do - were seem to be too controversial to mention. Grayling boldly embraced them, and Freud was there at his launch. Grayling's plans were a surprise hit with the public. Hain was sacked, then James Purnell took his place. Purnell instantly saw the benefit in the Freud proposals, and moved to close the gap - by nicking Freud back. So the Freud proposals, having been the backbone to Grayling's plans, became a blueprint to the Green Paper on Welfare Reform - which I very much welcomed on its publication. Scroll forward a few months, and Theresa May is appointed to succeed Grayling. I was dismayed: what's her record on reform? "Just wait till you see who we have working with her" I was told by a Tory deepthroat - only to find that her team hadn't changed. Humpf, I thought. But not it turns out that had been working on Freud all along. Cameron realises that welfare reform is needed in a recession above all other times: the tragedy of past recessions is that it has left a residue of people who never work again. This is the danger of the unreformed welfare state, and the Tories are encouragingly determined not to let it happen again.

This gives several deeply encouraging signals. First, Cameron is willing to identify genuine experts: he is serious about reform. The appointment of May had, I confess, led me to question this. Next, Cameron is getting serious defections. I hear that more are in the pipeline. And most importantly. Cameron is mature enought to identify and bolster the best ideas of this exhausted Labour Government. Welfare reform and City Academies are great ideas, and if you let the momentum slack then you lose years on the reform agenda. The Blairites did have excellent ideas for government, and Brown hasn't managed to destroy them all. As I say in my News of the World column tomorrow, all they need now is Lord Adonis. He was, after all, a LibDem once. Surely he could go for a hat trick?

Freud - a genuine expert? My arse.

Seems the judgement of the Tories is on about the same level as the judgement of the Labour party.

[drat01]

How can he "defect" when he was never a member of the Labour party?

History is littered with people who have really "defected" from one party to another

Enoch Powell supported the Labour party before becoming an official member of the Tory party etc

[ianrobo1]

actually it is scary to see Freud go to a party more than willing to implement every idea, clearly Labour was never going to push it through as the rebellion would have been massive

the thatcherites are gathering

[drat01]

the thatcherites are gathering

No Ian the Tory party have distanced themselves from those ideas ..............................yeah really?

"There is no such thing as society"

Time for Harry Enfield

[snowychap]

clearly Labour was never going to push it through

:?

Are you saying that the welfare reform bill has been dropped?

actually it is scary to see Freud go to a party more than willing to implement every idea

Indeed it is. It was scary enough to see him on Purnell's shoulder.

[ianrobo1]

not dropped snowy but there was never a chance it would have been passed in the first draft form the rebellion was large and growing and that is why he jumped ship

I think when we discussed this snowy I said I agreed with some points, no one can deny that changes should be made but this guy was scary in what he wanted and after the banks and nationalisation do you thinany labour government could push through a privatisation of welfare ?

the nasty party could though

[snowychap]

Correct me if I'm wrong, Ian, but what you are saying is that:

The big nobs of the Labour party (i.e. the policy makers and the ministers) want to push through this privatisation (I'm glad that you recognized it as such) but the dissent of the rank and file has probably put a stop to it; the big nobs of the Tory party also want to push through this privatisation and as they are unlikely to face such dissent, it will likely happen (if they get into government).

Why does only one of those two parties get described as nasty, then?