I've just read Danny Dorling's books 'So you think you know about Britain' and 'Injustice'. If there was ever an agenda to aim the next national and local policy discussion at, here it is but there's no evidence that the Coalition, or local/national Labour understands about inequality and the aggressive and destructive consequences of the current government. They are getting away with murder (NHS, Education, and as DB has shown, Finance, to name but three) and I see no effective response from the official opposition, nor indeed from any of the genuine Lib Dems.

Another bad day for the right, the economic growth that Osborne and his apologists where bragging about, was fuelled by government spending.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15870030

Luddite, the Tories sold off 200,000 council houses.

Instead of going on a bender, why don't you do some research Luddite.

Matthew: I don't need to do research because 1%... I live in the real world... I know that the Tories did, it's what Labour didn't do that interests me... By the way 1%... my parent's bought one of them 'council houses' it was the best investment my father ever made.. So 1%.. what is your opinion on the landslide victory in Spain of the conservative-right.. I look forward to your spluttering reply.. I'm back from the club... matthew fox, it's a working men's club, i know you wouldn't understand, it's where working people go to chill-out.. and net-work and make money...

The 'something for nothing economics' remark made by Cameron goes along with the trend of the bankers and rich elite of rewriting history of the financial crisis, and reassingning blame away from the sub prime mortgage affair and onto 'governments spending too much money to win popularity' as a Goldman Sachs banker said recently.
According to this idea, the global economic system was imperilled by too much spending on schools, hospitals, police and welfare and had nothing to do with deregulation, or money making schemes thought up in Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers.

I'm a Tory and think Prime Minister David Cameron give a fantastic speech and our leader will lead us out of trouble.

matthew fox: Look here 1% there's a couple of differences between me and thee.. I care about working people, but don't pity them, and the other difference is i don't sleep with sheep...

rob andersen: "are there ANY MEN in the left anymore"
You've got Matthew, but he's turning his attentions to ducks.. that must be illegal... but what the hell... you can't be judgmental..

Indu, how do you know which is investment and which is expense? At the end of the end of the day if the investment does not yield returns they are expense and adds to real deficit.

At one end, keeping people doing something productive as against idling away is a good goal, the problem is that too many government agencies provide non-productive idling away.

As a national program we have very little easy investment opportunity which is also productive.

The problem with UK is that both in left and right, the masses have occupied themselves into unproductive services whereas when you compare it with Germany, they have real economy backed up by solid engineering skills.

Compare that with UK where for example we have Banking services in which is basically fake skill. What would be investment look like in Banking? On other hand we have Public Sector and associated services which again not transferable to tangible assets.

Also all these Nuclear Plants etc are huge risks as demonstrated by Japan and politically not feasible.

The main problem is that Britain has lost its competitive advantage and unless we rebuild it, I see very little way by which we will get the prosperity of 20th Century back until rest of the world catches up

The current round of QE scheduled to last till june 2012 I think.
You want QE squared? There's a balence between printing money and there being external buyers of the debt, or are you saying just run the printing presses hot? because u then risk a currency crisis... and inflation is over 5% after all(fact).
That's the thing with economics mr Blanchflower, when you come to the real world, away from a textbook, there are other factors and variables to consider.
SO FAR:
UK has grown manufacturing (fact) , created half a million private sector jobs (fact), Interest rates are super low (fact) so we're not wasting money on debt interest(fact) and this can be redirected towards the economy (housebuilding programme, and what surprises lay ahead on the 29th??). These are all facts. We currently have a QE target of 275 Billion (yes billion )pounds sir (fact)... why not run that round of QE and see how the global sytem can cope with that? Just an idea.
I know it's difficult for 'economists' who read about theories all day in textbooks to understand that time is as important an ingredient in economics as it is in cooking, but jeapordising what we've got for your cry of 'print more, print more, print more' which is what you're saying, well do u think it's that easy to run economies- just print money to create wealth?? Surely you have an instinct somewhere that tells u that printing money in itself isn't an absolute answer? Do you consider that the global debt crisis is detracting peoples attention so much that the problems we're storing for ourselves by printing is glossed over since there are much more immediate fires to put out?
The problem, the real problem mr blanchflower is that you hail from a generation of academics who are seeing the rules of economics re-written before their very eyes. the world is also on the cusp of a supercycle in which asia now is to be included in the equations- a restructuring in the global order of things which impacts on traditional economic models e.g. the BOE has only recently raelised that raising rates dosen't necessarily lower inflation anymore since the asians will buy the commodities ALMOST irrespective- it remains to be seen whether they have a chieved a critical mass within themselves, i don't think they can avoid our slow down unless germans allow printing. You see french bonds today mr Blanchflower?? ain't so bad here as in a LOT of other places.
Low rates please, manufactiring growth yes thanks, realtively stabler markets, yes thx, property market that's bumping along fine thx very much- If u really wanted to create havock for Tories u would be better off pointing out the enormity of the debt Uk has, it's almost as though the markets have forgotten that one.
Why isn't the tax system being reformed? the codes are insanely complex- seriously nutty.
Some employment laws are a joke, employees agree to that in some cases.
Health and safety needs to be slashed- and I don't mean make the workplace dangerous, just the nonsense laws that resulted from corporations lobbying there MP's...
Local govt needs akick up the arse- 40% of rent again is paid as business rates is ludicrous- utter nonsense from councils.

Daniel
Ah I see finally what you're trying to say... it's not the debt that's the problem it's the growth... yes yes i gettit now- if they grow they can pay off the debt- right, with u now, got it.
I thought they had structural issues , luckily i caught your chat.
One thing though- if we weren't all so needy of this growth to pay off the debt, I wonder what alternative we would currently be living?