Jeremy and the future

Ah, but don't forget that Gordon Brown saved the world banks!

Flash Gordon?

The banking crisis of 2008 was nothing to do with Labour. It was caused by US banks lending to the sub-prime market. This led to a depression all over the world, including here. True, New Labour could have reacted a bit quicker, but hey, that could have been said whoever was in power.
Jeremy has pointed out there is another way of doing things, that leaving it all to the "market" as both Blair and the Tories did is just not working. We so need these anti-austerity measures.

Cannot agree more, * yggdrasil*. The myth that the economic crisis was all caused by Labour has gone on for too long unchallenged. It gets trotted out every time by Tory spokesmen as the truth. What I do blame the Labour Party and their leaders for, is for letting them get away with, too often completely unchallenged.

Now that Corbyn has been relected ( no, I didn't vote for homecoming) he needs to get on and provide a strong opposition. I hope he can do this.

For him not homecoming!

Labour handled and contributed to the banking crisis like rabbits caught in the headlights even though they must have been aware for some considerable time how the financial world was behaving and the enormity of the potential consequences of this behaviour. A combination of panic/head in the sand seemed the order of the day, with devestating results, the benefits of which we are still experiencing!!

Not how I remember it, niggly. Gordon Brown was praised worldwide for his handling of the crisis. He prevented an awful lot of 'little people' losing money from preventing the banks and their deposits from collapsing.

I agree with you, Nandalot, on both points.

We need more state intervention. Markets fail.

How then was it that the coffers were empty at the change of government?!!! Deregulation of the bank was one of GB's biggest mistakes, along with others, and led to a free for all from RBS to the smallest provincial bank. Complete madness, and is taking years to recover from. God forbid that financially we have to endure any Macdonell bright ideas!!

Wasn't deregulation of banks one of those 'tory lite' policies by which Nu Labour attempted to keep in with the business elites? I don;'t think the Tories would have done any different.

Of course, George Osborne has left even less money behind him than Labour did; not to mention a country where more children live in poverty and the gap between rich and poor is growing wider and wider.

(The 'There's no money note' was meant to be a joke. It wasn't actually true. As I am sure most people know but like to ignore)

The no money left note had been done several times by previous government depts

Pretty poor joke bearing in mind the circumstances!!

You have now got down to a government minister repeating a poor joke Niggly rather than your first and unsupported accusation that "Labour handled and contributed to the banking crisis like rabbits caught in the headlights" As they say "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.", sadly.

However, I doubt that will stop you repeating it and those who share your views agreeing with you. The truth gets very lost in some peoples politics where they are happy repeating what pleases them rather than facts.

Of course you're the fountain of all wisdom and truth Gg! If it had been a conservative government at the time of the crisis, we would never have heard the end of how ghastly they were, but sadly it was a saintly Labour government, and one that had been in power for eleven years, so no blame could be attributed elsewhere! How infuriating that must have been and probably still is. As for the joke, I guess the perpetrator of that so called joke, along with his idiot colleagues, was almost certainly not going to be a even remotely affected by the situation in any shape or form, so, for him and probably them, I guess other peoples misfortunes, and the fact that someone else is inevitably going to have to sort out this near catastrophe would seem pretty amusing. That's socialism for you!

Given that Osborne thought that Brown was being "too tough" on the banks before the crisis and Brown gave in to pressure from the City, how do you think the Conservatives would have done things differently?

In 2008, Brown's Quantitative Easing saved UK and world banks going into global meltdown. If that had happened, investors (including little savers) would have lost their money. How do you think the Conservatives would have behaved?

Actually, we never do hear the end of how Labour caused the crisis - from people with a very selective memory.

You have a strange interpretation of socialism, niggly. Do you think Osborne cares about other people's misfortunes? Or do vulnerable people's misfortunes not matter?

I bet you never watched Corbyn putting Andrew Marr right about the 2008 crash, did you, niggly?

nigglynellie I suspect that the near catastrophe you refer to had considerably less effect on people's lives than the almighty mess that the Conservatives left for the Labour government to sort out. Crumbling and overcrowded schools, great long NHS waiting lists and inadequate social services had to be dealt with. Don't you remember? It always amuses me that people refer to the banking crisis and don't remember the dreadful state of the country before Labour. Of course by 2020 the present government will have done even more damage. Parents are already unable to get children into the school of their choice. Things will only get worse!

Just as an aside I've been watching some of the Clinton/Trump debate.

It is astounding how if you put British accents on them it could absolutely be Labour versus Tory.

Clintons outline of what she'll do with the economy is so similar to McDonnell's its uncanny.
And Trumps assertion about less taxes for companies etc etc could have been taken out of the Tory mandate.

Weird or what

....and it greatly amuses me how some people are always in denial about anything remotely bad that happened under Labour! It works both ways trisher

Niggly you make it sound as if I am a Labour Party member (I'm not) but what I actually believe in is giving all or any of the parties their due when it is appropriate. What I don't believe is criticising for the sake of if just because of the colour of the government - you obviously do.

Unless of course the name 'Blair' is mentioned, then of course it was all his fault!

Bad situations arise under any government, ditto the way they deal with it.The fact is, that under Labour, things had been let slide that should have had a big lid clamped on them re the banks, but they were making so much money for the government that Brown and others were happy to go along with it.Please don't pretend that Labour did well!

The Iraq war is something we are never in denial about.