The economy is going to define our politics in Britain in the next year, the next five years, the next 10 and even the next 15 years. These are seismic events that are going to change the political landscape. I think that this is a financial crisis more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s and we all remember how the politics of that era were shaped by the economy. We now are seeing the realities of globalisation, though at a speed, pace and ferocity which none of us have seen before. The reality is that this is becoming the most serious global recession for, I'm sure, over 100 years as it will turn out.Oh dear. Isn't this what some of us have been saying for some time? Well, good on him for being honest, but it rather blows the gaffe on what the Prime Minister has been saying, doesn't it?
Nick Robinson writes tonight...
Mr Balls and Downing Street have tried to play down the significance of his remarks insisting that he was pointing out the unique nature of the global financial crisis and was not predicting that the impact on ordinary people would be worse than that in the Great Depression of the 1930s.So the next time Gordon Brown starts blathering on about "we're best place to withstand the recession", the question he should be asked is rather blindingly obvious, isn't it? PMQs should be fun this week.
In other words, they accept that he said what's being quoted but had not meant to say it.
Only last week Downing Street declared that Gordon Brown had made a slip of the tongue during Prime Minister's Questions when he spoke of the world being in "depression" .
26 comments:
Quite agree Iain.
But what the hell is Call me Dave smoking?
He has failed to capitalise on on all of these new labour gaffes.
Also the spin about 'global leadership in tackling bonusses' - it's just a lie.
I genuinely think Obama has caught public attention and even my next door neighbour's 3 legged kitty knows Obama started this.
Spin only works if there's a grain of truth - but an outright lie.
Patrick Leahy's (judiciary committee chair) pushing for inquiries into the Bush administration - well, you can't lie to the people is all.
Has there ever been a woman more capable of inducing apoplexy than Yvette Cooper?
Listening to her on the Today programme this morning was beyond excruciating.
Directors of RBS will get no bonus. Fair enough. But all other employees will get their bonus; the justification being that there is a contractual entitlement. And, presumably, although unstated by Ms Cooper, these people actually made a profit. But Ms Cooper thinks there is a moral obligation incumbent upon these individuals to refuse to accept their bonus. Eh? If the award of these payments is so morally repugnant, why did the government not make their elimination a condition of providing taxpayer support? And if that was not possible, why not simply legislate to make it so? And what is this moral case? Why should individuals who are blameless in the wider issue of how, precisely, our banks were allowed to get into this mess impose self-inflicted penalties? The real culprits are Gordon Brown and that disaster of his own creation, the FSA.
But then, on Today, it got worse! Asked about the Home Secretary fiddling her parliamentary expenses and about her own little embarrassments in this area, Cooper sanctimoniously claimed she had only taken what she was entitled to! The total contradiction between this excuse and her earlier position on moral, rather than legal, personal imperatives was obviously totally lost on her. As was her rank hypocrisy!
One wonders quite how we have come to this. Is it surprising we are in such a state when the holders of high public office are so uniformly utterly contemptible.
There are 646 MPs in Westminster and there are 60 million people who put them there and to whom they are accountable. As long as the 646 can continue to treat the 60 million like idiots, and the 60 million simply accept it, we will continue to receive the sort of governance we deserve.
6.36pm 09/02/09
"PMQs should be fun this week."
It should be every week ....but open goals are ignored, questions wasted by that wittering incompetent Cameron. How many chances does the guy need.
EdBalls is reported to have said:- “I think that this is a financial crisis more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s and we all remember how the politics of that era were shaped by the economy.... ...The reality is that this is becoming the most serious global recession for, I'm sure, over 100 years as it will turn out.”
All sounds very plausible. Sounds plausible for Ed Balls repositioning himself for the post Brown era too.
What concerns me is a rerun of the 1930s mess and a rise again of fascism. The Euro elections and the next GE will give us an inkling. I understand our nazis have high hopes of a Euro-seat. What about elsewhere in Europe?
What's wrong with a bit of fascism? If parties don't respond to people who feel disenfranchised then it's completely understandable for people to turn to vehicles that (claim to) speak for them.
Why should people who live in places and lead lives that I can't possibly understand accept the mores and fake values of liars, cheats and criminals who have destroyed the Labour party?
People want their children to have better lives than them and perhaps because they feel that the Tory party was responsible for de-industrialization or whatever, the BNP succeeds.
Wake me up when they get 20% but for the time being, just gonna watch. It's tragic but sometimes these things just have to run their course.
I've just heard President Sarkozy of France announce 8bn euro of aid to the French car industry
"on the condition that neither car company would sack french workers"
This aid on these terms is clearly against EU law.
Such nationalism however is what the electorate of England craves.
I do not believe it is fascism. Just common sense.
If mainstream politicians do not start advocating such policies here (and they have ALL painted themselves into a corner,with the notable exception of John Redwood), they will all be swept away.
Mr Cameroon does not have a right to power simply because he plays to the extremist "tolerants" in the MSM.
Nor does he have the right to be PM just because he is married to a women from a family that fancies itself as jumped up English "King Makers". They are not.
This latest Balls -up may actually not be that....remember last summer when broon was down and almost out and there was an unseemly jockeying for position?...In view of the latest poll ratings to hammer the Clydebank clogger could Balls be the first to try to position himself ready for the `challenge`..
...I dont think it will be long before there is another attempt to axe him, especially if labour MP`s sniff armaggedon..They are not an especially brave breed are they?..
It might look like Ed Balls is trying to kick-start a leadership challenge, but surely he is not that stupid. Labour are going to lose the next election - I tend to warn against complacency, but I think that is a reasonably safe statement - and the Labour leader at the next election will have a somewhat untenable position. Surely a young man like Ed Balls should give it 10 years at least - Wiliam Hague is the perfect example.
What he said was undoubtedly true - no doubt Number 10 are unhappy that he has been truthful - it is going to be tough, and Labour are NOT the party to clean up this mess! As for Simon being worried that people might start to vote facist, this will happen big time, since the governing party are now overtly facist.
Just watched that nice Mr Obama give his first public address as President.
Whether you agree with his policies or not he is not afraid of saying how bad things are in the USA and how important it is for everyone to pull together.
I don't see anyone of such caliber in our Parliament at the moment. I hope David Cameron is just keeping his powder dry until he can unleash it at the right moment. If not, he is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
It is going to be mission impossible for any government to sort out HMS Great Britain until they cut the hauser tethering it to Brussels.
Sarkozy blatantly ignores the EUSSR rules when it suits FRance, but we seem too stupid to follow this path. Instead our wonderful bureaucrats gold plate EUSSR rules to make things worse - land fill and recycling, foreign workers, immigration, smoking, there's a long long list.
Any political party putting leaving the EUSSR in its manifesto would do very well at the polls.
The Penguin
Dick the Prick said... “What's wrong with a bit of fascism?”
[splutter] Oh bugger. You made me spill my morning coffee.
It’s hard to know where to start and your 20% already terrifies me. Are we so forgetful of recent history as to fail to recall the last World War? (After all it was the prime reason for the founding of the Common Market/EU - as Ted Heath always understood.)
Our nazis hope to win a Euro-election seat. Again I wonder, what about elsewhere in Europe? Are we about to see the rise of the nazis all over Europe (including in the UK)? OK the opposite seems to have happened in the US but Europe has a different history and political tradition.
I confess that since my personal interest happens to be in US rather than UK/European politics, I’m not sure.
It makes one ashamed to be British if the likes of Nick Griffin gets elected by Brits to anything at all.
Neil: "It might look like Ed Balls is trying to kick-start a leadership challenge, but surely he is not that stupid."
Yup. He is. ;)
Simple Simon: <"Are we about to see the rise of the nazis all over Europe (including in the UK)?"
No.
We also won't be seeing a flying saucer land on the White House lawn, an atomic energy-mutated lizard lay waste to Tokyo, or an invasion of pod-people (well, unless you count politicians...).
The man in charge of Education, and who used to be at Treasury, says current recession is worst in 100 years= GDP falling 25%+, unemployment over 20%, etc. Although things are bad, they are obviously nothing like that.
He is incompetent and an embarassment. But then, why am I not surprised.
Simon - politics is sometimes like a disease, invasive and painful treatment is required to alleviate the patient's ailments.
It's all very well for us lot to fart about on blogs like this lyrically waxing about the various ineptitudes of low grade actors, but this ain't real life.
I know Iain did a demographic questionnaire a bit back and the chances are we've all got degrees and are pretty resourceful.
Mosely attracted some high minded aristos, which, fortunately Griffin won't but I walk round some estates (well, drive usually) and their resourcefulness has gone. Now i'd say they're indolent but what happens if they blame someone? What if they blame politicians for lack of work, opportunity etc, should they be ignored, patronised and paid off with a bit of dole whilst their kids try smack, their girls whore themselves, the men drink to oblivion? They still get to vote.
I'm not saying it's right - i'm saying how can you blame them? All political parties have failed these people for 2 generations so taking the moral high ground is kinda irrelevant - look at it from their point of view - only a complete fool keeps on repeating the same mistakes.
So yeah, the BNP are bad = but ignoring whole generations is worse.
Oh, and the French nearly got an NF president a few years back - the BNP aren't the enemy, just the wart on the arse of the condition.
It seems to have been quite a turnaround! From there being "no recession" and us being "the best-placed economy to weather the storm" we're now in a "depression" which is apparently the "worst since the thirties" and the "worst for over a hundred years"...
But still no acceptance of blame on the part of the Prime Minister, and no apology for his ridiculous claim to have abolished boom and bust.
And anyway, it's a global recession ain't it? It's all the fault of the Americans and nothing to do with us!
Dick the prick asks "What's wrong with a bit of fascism?"
Death camps and WWII is what's wrong with a bit of fascism.
Doc - that's a lot fascism. I'm talking about an adrenalin shot. I genuinely believe in the 80/20 rule - I do not think fascism could ever be a serious contender in Blighty.
But in no way do I believe that people should be shat on and then be expected to thank politicians for the accuracy of the shot.
I don't think people understand what the BNP are offering and to extrapolate it to some vision of Krystalnacht or Auschwitz is bollox. If this Labour administration has taught you anything it is the blithering ineptitude and crass posturing that is dominant in all British politics.
I'm am outraged that this situation has come to pass but instead of lecturing to people, preaching to them that they 'should do this, think that, act the other' - why not listen to them?
Because they're stupid?
Because they are poor?
Because their postcode is bad?
Because they don't respect convention?
Who's the fascist?
They've been screwed, I don't blame them, I blame that their hope has gone and the BNP falsely offers them something that no other high hatted, moralising, gravy train, mendacious, pious, hypocritical, I'm alright Jack git hasn't.
Their hope has been traduced and all the main parties are doing is ignoring them - yeah, great strategy - that'll work.
Dick the Prick said... “...the French nearly got an NF president a few years back...”
Indeed. That’s precisely what I was thinking about (along with the lamentable Austrian situation). But that French poll saw the David Duke-election slogan appear on the streets of Paris (in English):-
“Vote for the crook and not the nazi.”
LABOUR ACCUSED THE CONSERVATIVES OF 'TALKING DOWN THE ECONOMY' AND NOW BALLS SAYS THIS!!!!?????
ABSOLUTELY F*****G UNBELIEVABLE!!! AAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH
LABOUR ARE A NIGHTMARE!!!! PLEASE MAKE THEM GO AWAY!!! PLEASE!!!!!
AAAAAGGGGHHHHHH
Dick the Prick said... “...to extrapolate it to some vision of Krystalnacht or Auschwitz is bollox.”
Oh no it bloody well isn’t.
'These are seismic events that are going to change the political landscape'
Yes Ed! Hopefully the Labour Party are going to be destroyed as a political force and will be, at best, a fourth party.
Everybody*! Help them Go Fourth!
*Except other intolerant leftist nutters like the BNP/SWP or whateva, you can all bog off too.
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