Watch out!!!!

[David Johnson]

The last piece of the Coalition government's jigsaw of failure has now been put in place - the downgrading of the British economy by a credit agency, the first time in 35 years.

Diamond Dave and Boy George placed enormous emphasis on retaining the credit rating and explained that it was one of the main reasons why they unfortunately had to throw hundreds of thousands of public sector workers out of work. This credit rating was the only thing that kept us from being another Greece apparently.

So two and a half years later, where are we?

1. O growth in the last two years.
2. Because there has been 0 growth, an increase in long term unemployment, continuing corporate tax avoidance on an enormous scale, the gap between what we get in and what gets paid out, the deficit, in other words, is going back up.
3. Because the deficit is going up and with the effect of compound interest, the debt is going up. In 2010 it was 800 billion. It is now 1.3 trillion.
4. Because there is no growth Moodys has downgraded the economy on the basis that they cannot see where growth is going to come from in order to pay down the debt.
5. Because the British economy is viewed as weak, the pound is going down against the dollar which is why the price of petrol is going up at the moment.
6. Despite having the huge advantage of control over our own currency, something which Euroland does not have, we have done worse than every other country in the G20 apart from Italy.

So in short, if you are not rich, you are going to be in for an almighty kicking in the next few years as this coalition of failure is forced to increase taxes and cut spending more just to keep standing still never mind cutting the deficit.

Watch out! Coalition disaster about!

[Arginald Valleywater]

As expected you will blame the most recent governmnet. Getting downgraded takes many many years of bad financial management and I believe McBroon and Captain Darling had over a decade to put us on a strong footing....
Plus Moody's are not that well regarded.
Two ways to save bilions....leave the EU and stop giving British tax revenues to banana republics to spend on weapons and homes in Monaco....
Rule Britannia fuck the rest.

[max_tranmere]

I've just seen Ed Balls interviewed on Sky, and the correspondent asked if he is likely to be going anytime soon. He said he is staying put. The correspondent also said there are calls for Osborne to go too. So both men are weaker now in their positions than they used to be and either, or both, could be on the way out. I seem to recall that about 10 years ago Balls' wife Yvette was being tipped as Britian's possible second female Prime Minister. You never hear anything about that now for some reason.

[David Johnson]

"Getting downgraded takes many, many years of bad financial management "

No it doesn't. In the last few years, the British economy was put on negative watch by the credit agency, Standard and Poor in 2009 whilst the Labour government was in power.

Osborne's reaction at the time was "?It?s now clear that Britain?s economic reputation is on the line at the next general election, another reason for bringing the date forward and having that election now? For the first time since these ratings began in 1978, the outlook for British debt has been downgraded from stable to negative.?"

In the early period of the coalition, the British economy moved off negative watch and George Osborne said safeguarding the rating was his ?first benchmark? and a ?measure of success?. He has also warned that a credit rating downgrade would be ?humiliating? and that it is ?absolutely essential? that Britain does not have one:

"I believe McBroon and Captain Darling had over a decade to put us on a strong footing...."

When the coalition came into power, the economy was growing. The coalition after 6 months of trying to terrorise the British population, put a halt to that and the economy has flatlined ever since. When the global financial collapse hit, the debt/deficit was no higher than it had been in some of Thatcher's time.

"Two ways to save bilions....leave the EU and stop giving British tax revenues to banana republics to spend on weapons and homes in Monaco....
Rule Britannia fuck the rest."

Teah hurrah for Nigel Farage. Let's get out of the EU our biggest market by far. And as for foreign aid, it represents 0.7% of GDP so if you think stopping foreign aid is going to sort out Britian's problems you are bonkers.

[David Johnson]

"So both men are weaker now in their positions than they used to be and either, or both, could be on the way out."

Labour including Balls have been completely correct about the results of the coalition economic policy i.e. a flatlining economy with no growth and too deep cuts too quickly has stalled the economy.

THe Lib Dems made exactly the same prediction before the 2010 election but changed their view entirely when they scented the chance of sharing power.

Both Ed Balls, Labour and the Lib Dems before the election have been proved absolutely correct so I see no reason why Balls should go. For being proved correct?

[Porn Baron]

Britain has a fragile economy. And weak economies lead to weak currencies. It?s only going to get worse. Our debt is going UP!!!!! Not down.

The pound is going down like the titanic and can only go further down. Then everything costs more in the shops due to transport costs going up because the pound goes lower against the oil dollar. They can't stop the death spiral by raising interest rates because nobody has any spare money left to pay the extra mortgage costs. Meanwhile pensioners don't get any interest on savings so they can't afford to heat their homes. If we had a manufacturing industry we could export our way out of trouble on the back of the cheap pound but we don't. We are fucked!

I sometimes wonder if our country is being deliberately run into the ground by politicians (of all parties) and bankers so we will be grateful to join the Euro and a federal Europe?

[number 6]

Never trust the tories with anything.

[sparky]

Porn Baron,

Very well summed up.

If the UK relied on imports far less imports the relative value of the pound would be less critical. If far more, particularly food, was made locally and most people worked local to where they lived upward spiralling transport costs would be less critical. If we could export more too that would be a bonus.

Regarding energy as several power stations get switched off due to not meeting emission regulations over the next few years and there has been no investment in replacements due to no long term strategy we a lumbered with imports. Inevitably the suppliers will stuff us and be laughing all the way to the bank, after all if the roles were reversed what would we do...

I really feel for the pensioners who put money away in the past expecting to receive a decent amount of interest to put some cream and jam on the bread but now get very little.

[Porn Baron]

Well the Germans are moving away from nuclear energy and replacing it with coal power stations. In fact it is dirty coal lignite. They have another 25 in construction. All very strange as new emissions for the EU come into force in 2016. They must be building to those emission standards? Strange too that Russia recently completed a gas pipeline down through the baltic to Germany but the Germans choose coal instead of gas????? I read somewhere that the dutch are now buying German electricity as it's cheaper than their own gas produced electricity. Germans ahead of the game again?

Coal is cheap and we still sit on top of a lot. 300 years worth. Why can't we build coal power plants and open up new coal mines to replace the ones closing? We wouldn't have to worry about the cost of imports and it would provide well paid unskilled jobs? And forget this high speed rail line. Build a Severn barrage and provide 5% of the countries energy and thousands of jobs.

[spider]

Open up the coal mines!

Thatcher would be spinning in her grave.