General Election 2010

No, I'm talking about the early 1990s recession. Which was far worse in its effects than the recent recession. It was also a direct result of domestic policy, whereas the recent recession was caused by collapse in banking triggered by sub prime market in the US. The early 1990s recession was 'managed' under the principles of Milton Friedman, i.e. government should do nothing, the market will sort things out all by itself. The recent recession was managed (both here in the UK and in the US and in Europe) according to Keynesian principles, i.e. government should act to prevent things getting even worse or to a point where recovery is slow and people and communities are blighted by poverty. The Conservatives were the only mainstream party in the world advocating something different. The early 1990s recession really didn't stop having an effect on the country until about 1995-6. The signs of recession are nowhere near as visible now as they were in the early 1990s. The lesson to be learnt from the economic instabilities of the 20thC is that there is a role to play by governments in stimulating growth, in lessening the harsh effects of downturns and in actually allowing for greater economic growth than the market can manage on its own.

I know which recession you are talking about. But it started before John Major's govt actually fought an election and got elected. Black Wednesday happened after he got back in but it was a symptom of a recession already well underway. Do you remember the Spitting Image sketch which had the Tory cabinet returning to a vandalised Downing St amazed at having won. Having believed they were going to lose they had a party and smashed the place up. "Oh yeah, we trashed the place, remember?" says one. "Yes, I ruined the economy" replies Norman Lamont.

1991 to 1995 is only 4 years. No party in this election is talking about getting Britain's current deficit under control before 2016, and we're already a year or two into it.

It wasn't really domestic policy that caused that recession, but Britain's membership of the ERM, as a prelude to joining the Euro. This tied the pound's valuation to the deutschmark, set its value way too high, forced very high interest rates and generally screwed our economy. Black Wednesday, when the pound collapsed and the government wasted billions fruitlessly trying to prop it up instead of letting it happen and making a small profit, would appear to be the very opposite of Friedman's 'doing nothing and letting the market sort it out' It was precisely because they did not leave the pound's value to the market in the first place that the recession happened in general, and Black Wednesday happened in particular.

It's interesting that the proposed solution to both these recessions is to do more or less the opposite of what caused them. In 1992 the solution to a recession caused by political interfering was to back away and let the market clean it up. And it worked. In 1997 Tony Blair inherited an economy in exceptionally good shape. In 2010 the recession caused by Labour's stripping away of city regulation, and being in complete thrall to the city is solved by a return to governmental control - printing money, nationalising banks, tax and spend.

Neither way is necessarily wrong. Both have been shown to work in the past. I would not be so quick to say that the conservative plans are wrong: in this country however, only the Tories have actually got experience of getting Britain out of recession. Labour's only experience is getting Britain into them.