The fall of the Tory party

Remember those times? They were good times. I had a splendid Aussie holiday in 2004 at about 2.5 dollarydoos to the quid.

So Tories going three line whip on the fracking motion brought by labour by claiming its a vote of confidence in the Government, guess we will find out how much control Truss still has and if there is any decent size rebellion

This is so fucked up. Whipping the OPPOSITE of a manifesto commitment?? For some reason this has incensed me more than other things these fools have done.

fracking motion

Why are they driving this so hard? Even the experts don't think it'll work and there is no money in it.

Just a curtain case of 'more energy from Britain' (regardless).

National debt as a % of GDP more than doubled between 1997 and 2010?

I wonder which giant global economic event outside of Labour's control could possibly have contributed to the need to borrow money?

The state of some of the charges levelled at Labour is unbelievable.

People talk about the bank bailouts nearly bankrupting the country. Simply untrue. The final cost to the taxpayer was less than one pandemic track and trace.

The selling all of the gold claim is bullshit too. It was the right thing to do at the time. It was there to be used in times of need and pales into insignifance compared to the amount of gold sold by other administrations.

And the war...well yeah. A million innocent people died. But people seriously over egg how dishonest Blair was in his persuit of it. Not many people seem to be aware that one of the reasons we were so certain they had WMDs is that we (along with Germany) sold the expertise, eqiupment and chemical precursors to build the things in the first place so that Hussein could "defend himself" from Iran. Massive systematic intelligence failures sure. Blair overreached in his desire to go to war and misled...sure. Blair did not believe that Iraq had WMDs? Nonsense.

Edit: Who was most at thought for the Iraq WMD clusterfuck? The government that sold them to him (Thatcher/Kohl) or the government that did not believe that he would paid us billions of dollars to build them and then destroy them without telling anybody?

Tony Blair the cunt

Then you've caught the lie. The House voted for action against Saddam. In all other respects Blair was the best PM this country has had since Clement Atlee

Invented BTL?

Also...wut? Pretty sure that it was Housing Act 1988 that opened the doors for BTL even if the first products didn't start to appear until the mid 00s. Afaik BTL only started to be firmly regulated in 2016 or so. Really can't see how Labour take the blame for that one.

I thought the gold sale was a nasty play.
conspiracy theory incoming
The government was under pressure to “drop the debt” to developing nations. The U.K. dropped the debt to some west African nations who depended on their gold production. Brown flooded the market, devalued gold and the re-negotiated new credit arrangements with these countries at a higher rate of interest than before

Bloke in the pub told me.

I wonder which giant global economic event outside of Labour's control could possibly have contributed to the need to borrow money

That's too generous in the opposite direction. The financial services sector was the golden goose that supported spending projects and as a result New Labour was incredibly reluctant to regulate it.

I don't think it's untrue or even particularly controversial to say that the financial crisis caused far more damage to the UK economy than comparable European economies, in large part due to laissez-faire banking regulation.

Bloke in the pub told me.

Something often overlooked about the gold sell off is that the UK had less than $20bn of foreign reserves including gold at the time. The decision to abandon gold was based on the low return at the time, with preference being given to USD and Euros instead (which is what the gold was sold for. A decision that helped the UK build to the point of having $120bn of foreign reserves instead. Not saying it was part of the plan, but in pure $$ terms it ended up being a decent play.

Really can't see how Labour take the blame for that one

Beg to differ. Toxic combination of differential MIRAS application / social rent marketisation / bank deregulation:

I don't think it's untrue or even particularly controversial to say that the financial crisis caused far more damage to the UK economy than comparable European economies, in large part due to laissez-faire banking regulation.

its complicated. And interesting that you can see the red wall on this map.

If I am reading it rightly I think this chart would tell you more about the Cameron-era policies than the depth of the crash.

I think the relevant data for the argument I am trying to make would be peak-to-trough GDP going in. My sense would be that the UK saw a greater decline in economic activity and more serious worsening of fiscal balance (even excluding bank bailouts) than other EU countries.

Pat confirmed on Twitter that they photoshopped Cunt's face on his.

If they lose the whip they lose a no confidence vote, and all roles they have in the Party, so they will all probably fall in line, especially given that any bounce she gets from this vote will not change things.

If I am reading it rightly I think this chart would tell you more about the Cameron-era policies than the depth of the crash.

I read it as telling us about the UK's recovery from the crash, which would only be part down to Cameron policy...but also Labour policy and the Tory government before that...and the nature of how the UK was impacted in itself.

I don't think it's untrue or even particularly controversial to say that the financial crisis caused far more damage to the UK economy than comparable European economies

I'm not sure what you mean by comparable but places like Spain suffered hugely. It's still pretty weird now in some places when you go to places that were due to be developed pre-crisis and just got abandoned.

Spain, Italy and Greece were very badly affected IIRC. Ireland had to borrow and print gigantic amounts of money compared to the UK. Sweden wasn't in a great spot either.

Its fair to say that the UK was particularly badly exposed to the crisis though. How much of that can be pinned on Labour I don't know.

As the sun is styling it: back frack or sack.

Labour have just published a list of all the tories who've openly said they are against fracking.
To add an extra layer, one mp saying he won't vote against (or for - I've lost track) so he doesn't lose the whip and therefore his letter to the 22 becomes invalid. What a squalid affair.

I'm not sure what you mean by comparable but places like Spain suffered hugely

True, "comparable" was a bit of a weasel word in my comment.

The sad thing is that today we would regard most Southern European economies as "comparable" whereas 10-15 years ago really only Germany was comparable. Ireland arguably now has a more dynamic economy so has stopped being comparable. Again, speaks more to Cameron-era policies than New Labour.

What do you ladies and chaps think will happen with tonight's fracking vote?

Truss has basically abandoned the comittments she made during her leadership campaign and is now threatening to remove the whip from MPs who don't vote to break a 2019 manifesto pledge.

I thought these guys were all about the will of the people?

Ireland had to ... print gigantic amounts of money compared to the UK

Eurozone countries don't have independent central banks so it doesn't make much sense to talk about EZ monetary policy at the national level.

But if they vote against fracking & lose the whip, their letters go in the bin.

I doubt 40 of them have the spines to stand up to the odious leaders but hopefully I'm wrong.

What do you ladies and chaps think will happen with tonight's fracking vote?

See my post above. It is a disgusting play.

^ came to post exactly this

It's nothing to do with the actual policy.