Chatting to Myself

Mercian -Do you suggest the North Sea Oil Revenues stopped with the end of John Major? It always interests me this wish to locate problems at the right time. Returning to your ,frankly pathetic, suggestion that the Conservative Party were culpable in the creation of the asset bubble, and associated banking crisis , (now sovereign debt crisis) and other issues above.

Firstly the Labour ‘line to take ,“They promised to match our spending plans” ( CM 7) I could easily repeat the endless warnings given by such "political failures" as Howard, Letwin and many many more about the level of our spending in a boom. The final capitulation was staggering late and only following Thatcher Blair (et al) .Both promised to honour spending ( or lack of spending) commitments, it is not ,shall we say, quite what it seems. The Lady is rather amusing on the subject.

The Conservative Party could not have plausibly registered any stronger protest against New Labour mirage, but we agree on that I gather. Unlike you however I was scathing at the time.

It is more plausible to suggest they would have allowed the housing bubble to let rip but we will never know. The Labour Party would definitely have dragged us into ERM. They didn’t.

The Big bang - This is the dimly understood year of badness isn’t it. Makes me laugh to hear people intone it l without any idea what it was.

In fact the regulation industry has expanded exponentially since 1986 ,was reformed domestically under New Labour and grew in the EU and globally under largely left wing guidance. We did not suffer from under regulation or Conservative deregulation. We suffered from stupid regulators governed by stupid politicians of the left. It was fairly said of the fsa AT Northern Rock that they were checking the stereo when it was going off a cliff.

The entire edifice failed to see that there was too much credit on to small a foundation, the market jolted .They do that. We cannot expect politicians to know other people`s business. We can expect them to avoid acquiring spending commitments that only work in low inflation high growth full employment years.

Labour failed the Nation.

As for you idea about promising to be good later ... whatever.

I leave it to the great wisdom of the people to judge that line along with "Left my homework in the draw' and "It was only once !" and "I never inhaled"

If it makes you feel any better it could have been worse the Liberal Party were demanding even more spending for the entire period. Still lets give you a shot .

How big would you like our deficit to be now then?

Just tell me Mercian ,15% , 20% ? You do appreciate that the setting of debt against GDP is quite an artificial measure The proper measures are your historic tax base. We are currently collecting about 38% of GDP in taxes and spending about 50%.

It would better to out tit this way , we are overspending by 30-%

What do you feel that figure should be ? ..40%..

Do you really ?

I`ll give you this bone . If you suggest that Osborne has much more on his plate than the current market position would suggest you are dead right . Your solutions however , the Balls line , is one the British have looked at and laughed at.