So the Final 2 - Liz and Rishi

I started hearing Gordon Brown quite a lo on the radio t te start of the pandemic and was impressed by him. He comes across as such a compassionate person and talks such good sense.

Iam64

varian

Bring back Gordon Brown!

Yes, wasn’t he impressive when interviewed today

Didn’t Gordon Brown create the 2008 crash by allowing deregulation of financial services 120% mortgages etc.
He certainly did nothing much as PM - yesterdays man.

I don’t know enough about the 2008 crash, gold sell off to comment on Brown’s performance.

I do know that he was responsible for abolishing the 10% tax rate which meant that part timers who couldn’t increase their hours to compensate because they had child/parent care commitments, suffered a disproportionate loss of income. So much for him looking out for the lower paid eh?

Kate59
If you really believe that you need to educate yourself.
Start with subprime mortgages in the US and look at Bill Clinton’s roll in that. If that’s not enough to convince you have a look at Lehman Brothers.

MerylStreep

Kate59
If you really believe that you need to educate yourself.
Start with subprime mortgages in the US and look at Bill Clinton’s roll in that. If that’s not enough to convince you have a look at Lehman Brothers.

Well said, Meryl.

This falsehood turns up again and again. It's debunked again and again but clearly belief wins out over fact every time.

Perhaps this might help some to understand.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/feb/21/gordon-brown-saved-banks

Thank you for the link MerylStreep I hope it helps some GN posters to remember the financial crisis U.K. was narrowly saved from.

I haven’t got any/much faith that either of the current candidates will/can handle the current downward spiral the U.K. is embarking on.

My Conservative values have been sorely tested over the last 12 months, I would be happy to see a new centrist party rise like a phoenix from the ashes.

Gordon Brown may have been flawed as many leaders are, but creating the 2008 crash was definitely not his doing, in fact I believe he led the way in Europe and the USA in dealing with it.

It’s an outdated and easily disproved slur, as shown by the links posted, but which is regularly rolled out by some Right wingers, to their discredit.

Gordon Brown.

This winter will see the unbearable burden of unpayable bills, we will see unspeakable suffering with children undernourished and Insufficiently clad.

Those most affected will be

Pensioner couples
Families with children
Disabled.

NHS unable to pay its heating bills.

This week is the key week when the government must begin put the correct computer software to deal with the upcoming crises. No evidence that anything being done.

Shortage -lack of storage may lead to energy shortage.

Welcome to Victorian Britain

My Conservative values have been sorely tested over the last 12 months, I would be happy to see a new centrist party rise like a phoenix from the ashes.

Well, GG13, if some posters are to be believed, that Centrist party is the Labour Party Why don't you give them a whirl?

But, joking aside, attempts at creating new centrist parties have never been successful. I suppose there is always the triumph of hope over experience...

You are in fuel poverty if your fuel bill is 10% of your net income. That will sweep up most pensioners I would have thought.

Farzanah

Gordon Brown may have been flawed as many leaders are, but creating the 2008 crash was definitely not his doing, in fact I believe he led the way in Europe and the USA in dealing with it.

It’s an outdated and easily disproved slur, as shown by the links posted, but which is regularly rolled out by some Right wingers, to their discredit.

Thank you, indeed. I was just about to say it.

MerylStreep

Kate59
If you really believe that you need to educate yourself.
Start with subprime mortgages in the US and look at Bill Clinton’s roll in that. If that’s not enough to convince you have a look at Lehman Brothers.

Yes sub prime in the US we did not have to follow.

The UK CHOSE to deregulate financial services, to allow banks to take more risks, to permit all sorts of finance scams to be sold to retail customers who had no idea of the risks.

Several Banks and Building Societies collapsed some were rescued at great cost and still have not recovered.
Gordon Brown as chancellor sat on his backside and watched it happen.

Now of course banks have to carry much larger reserves, they will only lend a prudent amount to a borrower, and financial advisors are strictly regulated

We were just clawing our way out of the hole he created in 2016 when Brexit scuppered everything, all of which has nothing at all to do with the mess we are in with high energy and food costs.

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reported

The UK CHOSE to deregulate financial services, to allow banks to take more risks, to permit all sorts of finance scams to be sold to retail customers who had no idea of the risks.

You know what? Part of the rationale behind deregulation was the belief that a) bankers were prudent and rational actors and b) that the market itself will act to regulate itself. Both very foolish assumptions in restrospect, but that was the ruling economic theory of the day.

Several Banks and Building Societies collapsed some were rescued at great cost and still have not recovered.

Mostly because they haven't learned the lessons of the GFC. And because they were baled out because they were too big to fail and a large proportion of the populace would have lost all the money they had deposited in those institutions. As happened several times over the past 100 or so years.

Gordon Brown as chancellor sat on his backside and watched it happen.

If it hadn't been for Brown and Darling's prompt use of quantitative easing to increase bank reserves see my previous statement. QE restored public confidence in the banking system, as did the government guarantee that up to £85,000 of one's bank deposit would be protected in the event of bank failure.

The reason that recovery took so long and was so painful was that not only did the financial institutions use most of the QE money to boost asset prices, rather than lend to businesses to regrow the economy, but Cameron and Osborne promptly sucked £billions out of the domestic economy through swingeing cuts to state expenditure with their stupid 'austerity' policy. A policy which has since been condemned by institutions such as the IMF.

Cutting state spending, which is a major engine for growth, is absurd...

“The UK CHOSE to deregulate financial services, to allow banks to take more risks, to permit all sorts of finance scams to be sold to retail customers who had no idea of the risks. “

Brown had to act after the crash he could not allow the banks to go bankrupt, any chancellor would have done that.

Fred Goodwin and many many others took the fat bonuses, if you are offered a free lunch you take it. Just like Covid loans doled to companies, surprise surprise a great many took the money and ran. Its human nature, previously there were safeguards to prevent happening, now those are back in place.

My opinions are nothing to do with left or right, we try to teach our children to be careful with money, to borrow sensibly if we need to. Successive governments have made a mess of the economy for over 25 yrs, even Thatcher got it mostly wrong

Successive governments have made a mess of the economy for over 25 yrs, even Thatcher got it mostly wrong

Fascinating...

So how do you think the national economy should be run, Katie59?

Where did Thatcher go wrong?

Ah Gordon Brown - Marmite even in my own mind. I think history will show he was an excellent chancellor; I didn't think there was much support for that idea but from what I'm reading here I was wrong. If he did anything wrong it was his fiddling with pensions in 1997, but - in my opinion - the effect of this is often overstated.

He wasn't, however, cut out to be be an excellent prime minister and don't get me started on his interventions in the Scottish independence debate.

I am hoping the Conservative members choose Rishi Sunak to be the next PM.I am worried by Liz Truss because of her pronouncements and subsequent u turns.Is it her, is it those who advise her?
many people who pay low tax or no tax at all will not benefit from any tax breaks.

Cuts to the level at which people start to pay NI work against the poorly paid, although they are often presented as a generous concession.

Their employers don't have to contribute (and many will be Tory donors) , and not paying NI will take people out of elegibility for contributory benefits and pensions.

What is the role of the ERG in all this, do you think?

Well, the ERG ( the real rulers of this country) obviously want Truss so they must think she’s more biddable.

Petera, DH was affected and we are now suffering from Gordon’s activities with pensions, but last time I bewailed that fact on GN, I was summarily dismissed as having got it wrong. I only wish I had!