This is what failure looks like

The Labour government in power did nothing to stop this credit growth expanding.

Do you seriously believe that a government of any other colour would have done anything to check it, MOnica? Especially when exactly the same thing was happening in the US, the leading exponent of poorly regulated free market economics and seemingly a role model for the UK?

While the financial collapse started in the US, better financial management in the UK could have reduced its impact on this country.

As I recall, the government stepped in pretty sharpish, bailed out the banks and the UK was on the way to recovery before the tories launched their disastrous austerity programme. I dread to think how they would have handled the actual crisis.

Our problem then, as it is now, was a misplaced belief that the financial institutions act in a rational and responsible manner.

monica just how did Gordon Brown mismanage the economy? You simply allude to it but do not explain.

maizie I see has answered some of your assertions and I agree with her replies.

Deregulation had gone too far, it was obvious that credit was far too easy, anyone could get a selfcertify mortgage at whatever terms you wanted and IFAs were only interested in the commission they got.

It was a crash waiting to happen, Northern Rock we’re giving 125% mortgages and RBS we’re investing in commercial property without any regard to caution needed, nor having any reserves to cover any downturn. The commercial market still has not recovered there is very weak demand for industrial property

Brown had been chancellor for years and did nothing, the FSA was supposed to be overseeing banks and did nothing, it was all hunky dory - until the US crash. Then it was very quickly apparent most UK banks were grossly over borrowed and had no reserves

Changes were made quickly FSA was disbanded, banks now have to realistic reserves and a loan arranged to stabilize markets, Brown deserves credit for the recovery but why was he not in control before?. The current banking crisis has parallels but at least UK banks now have reserves to cover any downturn

Whitewavemark2

monica just how did Gordon Brown mismanage the economy? You simply allude to it but do not explain.

maizie I see has answered some of your assertions and I agree with her replies.

Gordon Brown is criticised for the 'light touch' regulation of the banking sector. As I said before, there is a belief that financial markets are rational and self regulating. It's b*llocks, as demonstrated time and time again, but for some reason it is strongly held by people who would normally be considered to be intelligent and rational beings. Brown was not doing anything out of the ordinary.

Mine could probably fix a car if it was old enough, but he would be of more use sorting out how to upright that ship that was blown over at Leith yesterday. He has done it before, I am sure he could do it again.

If you owe £1000 you have a problem
If you owe £1m the bank has a problem
If a bank owes £100 billion the government has a problem.

The lesson still has not been learned SVB and others did no “stress testing” on their finances, yet they insist on borrowers doing it for mortgages.

Whitewavemark2

monica just how did Gordon Brown mismanage the economy? You simply allude to it but do not explain.

maizie I see has answered some of your assertions and I agree with her replies.

Brown has be chancellor for 8 yrs before the crash, he was in charge of the nations finances, to say he had no responsibility is preposterous. The ease of getting a loan was obvious, it would have been prudent to ask where the money coming from, how much do the banks owe, that’s what a chancellor is supposed to do. He manages the nations finances, it is clear he was not

Would a Tory government have done anything differently, probably not, recent experience has shown they are just as short term focused. The way that successive governments have run the economy has been disastrous, continual crisis management

Good comments Katie59 👏🏻👏🏻

Interesting that Gransnet had a thread on the headteacher suicide which was generally supportive of education, now we have a thread that, in part, is saying it's the fault of schools, universities and FE colleges!
Do any of these critics have experience in schools, FE or HE?

When the school leaving age was raised over ten years ago, school pupils could spend their last 2 years at college doing an apprenticeship. I assume (I've never worked in FE) this led to an expansion of apprenticeships.
As for degrees, years ago, teachers didn't have to have a degree, nurses weren't graduates - now they do need degrees. Other industries must be in the same position? The world has moved on.

During the extra 2 yrs at college students may get some work placements but for most it does not amount to actually “working”. The “disconnect” is as school you learn new things get new experience, you are never asked to do repetitive work, regardless of the occupation most work is repetitive.

In my time nursing, a student nurse was on the ward nursing from day one with theoretical classroom training fitted in blocks or days. That has reversed today it’s mostly college with practical fitted in

Brown has be chancellor for 8 yrs before the crash, he was in charge of the nations finances, to say he had no responsibility is preposterous. The ease of getting a loan was obvious, it would have been prudent to ask where the money coming from, how much do the banks owe, that’s what a chancellor is supposed to do. He manages the nations finances, it is clear he was not

I don't think I said he had no responsibility, Katie59. I said that he was following what was orthodox belief in the ability of 'the markets' to self regulate.

From what I can discover, Brown's degree was in History, he lectured for a while on politics and worked as a journalist. Ministers aren't always put in place on the strength of their knowledge of the department's area of responsibility. As we know from the way that they are shuffled around. Chancellors depend to a certain extent on the expertise of their civil servants and advisors. If light touch regulation was the orthodoxy at that time he would have found it extremely difficult to go against the advice of the Treasury and the Bank of England. Especially if they were taking the US as their role model.

I agree that a number of people were alarmed by the reckless lending by the banks, but I'd need to do some research to find out just how many were giving unheeded warnings. You seem to imply that everyone was shouting at him to stop the banks, but I'd like to see the evidence.

I'm not a supporter of either party but when the last Labour Government lost the election they supposedly left a message for the incoming Chancellor saying "Good Luck, there's nothing left". That may well be a myth of course but its been around for many years. I always feel that after 10 years of the same Goverment, unless they are really doing a good job, its time for the next. Can't be much worse I would thing but not sure it would be any better. Maybe for a few years then we would be back to having to pay higher tax for the services we need, coz there's no money to run them.

Brown was raised with the honest Protestant Ethic- as an honest man, he believed that Bankers could be trusted to make money and pay taxes to help others. As most of us would. Naïve, sadly, but for all the right reasons.

MaggsMcG

I'm not a supporter of either party but when the last Labour Government lost the election they supposedly left a message for the incoming Chancellor saying "Good Luck, there's nothing left". That may well be a myth of course but its been around for many years. I always feel that after 10 years of the same Goverment, unless they are really doing a good job, its time for the next. Can't be much worse I would thing but not sure it would be any better. Maybe for a few years then we would be back to having to pay higher tax for the services we need, coz there's no money to run them.

It is a sign of the desperation of this current Tory administration that they are yet again dragging up the message left by the Labour chancellor. I can't be bothered to explain the whys and wherefores of this, other than to say it was that ass Cameron, the one who did such a good job of calming dissent in his party by calling a badly planned and executed referendum.

“You seem to imply that everyone was shouting at him to stop the banks, but I'd like to see the evidence.”

Not at all in fact most were saying “ this is great, I’m having some”, a few were questioning how long could it last, which does not absolve Brown from loosing control.

He is an honest polititian who trusted banks to do the right thing and they didn’t, today nobody has learned banks still take on too much risk and have to be rescued.

Katie59

“You seem to imply that everyone was shouting at him to stop the banks, but I'd like to see the evidence.”

Not at all in fact most were saying “ this is great, I’m having some”, a few were questioning how long could it last, which does not absolve Brown from loosing control.

He is an honest polititian who trusted banks to do the right thing and they didn’t, today nobody has learned banks still take on too much risk and have to be rescued.

Apparently SVB took on the risk of interest rates going higher, and they're paying the price for such risk. I read rates are soon to go on up 25 basis points in USA, as I believe should happen. We can only hope the slide into further bank insolvency has been halted by the FDIC.

Chardy

Interesting that Gransnet had a thread on the headteacher suicide which was generally supportive of education, now we have a thread that, in part, is saying it's the fault of schools, universities and FE colleges!
Do any of these critics have experience in schools, FE or HE?

When the school leaving age was raised over ten years ago, school pupils could spend their last 2 years at college doing an apprenticeship. I assume (I've never worked in FE) this led to an expansion of apprenticeships.
As for degrees, years ago, teachers didn't have to have a degree, nurses weren't graduates - now they do need degrees. Other industries must be in the same position? The world has moved on.

As for degrees, years ago, teachers didn't have to have a degree, nurses weren't graduates - now they do need degrees. Other industries must be in the same position? The world has moved on.

Surely things have changed and some have stayed on. Many professions didn't always or still don't have degrees. Solicitors used to study and test, nurses, teachers, engineers - learn on the job or in FE.

Qualified is qualified.

The changes needed in schools imo partly depends on taking away the continual tests and targets at various ages that force curriculum into narrow paths and 'pass exam" more academic targets not "whole person development" including suitable courses for youngsters who'd thrive in a practical environment.

But businesses do need movement support for the necessary taking on not just of apprentices but also community placements when the youngsters are still in school.

I was so lucky - I went to a Technical High School. It turned out that I was academic enough, but so many friends flourished on the practical opportunities offered.... and I certainly enjoyed them.

I think that nurses if they want a career in nursing above basic level now do need degrees - they are taking on tasks that doctors used to and medicine now has got far more complicated.

My sister became a primary school teacher without A levels via a specific teaching college (which probably don't exist as such now for primary school level?) - but again, I think they need a degree now.

I think we need to understand that this country actually needs a great combination of both well regulated financial services and manufacturing. Selling off all of our utilities and some public services to primarily foreign investors/owners was utterly shortsighted and there was nothing wrong with allowing council tenants to have the chance to buy their own properties the issue was not ring-fencing the proceeds in building new stock. Sometimes though people do forget that although our generation did have much much cheaper housing we also had very high interest rates and much lower salaries, I bought my own property when I was 25, had to do two jobs to afford my mortgage and also had everything second hand, rarely went out, didn’t run a car and certainly didn’t holiday abroad several times a year.

We need good investment in public services, better opportunities for youngsters to develop good ethics and not to mind starting at the bottom and to blame parents rather than teachers for some young people’s lack of work ethics

Willow

You are correct, you cannot be a nurse, midwife or primary school teacher without a degree now ! Madness really and sadly starting salaries not comparable with other graduate positions and it’s difficult to retain staff in these roles

Starting salaries for nurses will never be the same as in some other graduate positions such as law and banking where successful people will go on to earn far more than hospital consultants. However they are better than in some industries (if one can even get a job). If you want to be a nurse you have to accept the realities. If you want to be a high earner it obviously isn’t the job for you.

And if you want to be a nurse, and also want to be able to house and feed yourself- you will leave. Go private, work for agency, or go abroad where conditions and pay are vastly better. Simple.

Germanshepherdsmum

Starting salaries for nurses will never be the same as in some other graduate positions such as law and banking where successful people will go on to earn far more than hospital consultants. However they are better than in some industries (if one can even get a job). If you want to be a nurse you have to accept the realities. If you want to be a high earner it obviously isn’t the job for you.

I think you’d find that ‘successful’ doctors could earn at least as much as lawyers or bankers GSM, private medicine is very lucrative. (I’m not sure that successful is the right word, because earning more money doesn’t equate to ability). Nurses can earn huge amounts too in specialist areas. However, those who remain fully in the NHS have capped salaries.

Success equates to ability to bring fees in, in the private sector. You might be surprised, Casdon. Suffice to say I have no financial reason to regret my career choice. The hours are another matter.