did it? are you sure about that?

so who else was spending the money? pixies? does unemployment in a recession not count or something?

Yes.



So, the Labour government 'spent up' and 'left us' "in the worst recession since god knows when".

If you do not mean to link those things, then don't do so. There's a good chap.

The actions of the Labour government did not cause the recession.

The recession was caused by the financial crisis, which was also not caused by the Labour government.

Matters may well have been very much worse if Brown did not make the decision to bail out the banks. Some economists believe that we would have entered a depression rather than a recession.

Labour cannot be entirely blameless though - they were in power for several years during which they could have controlled the banks better than they did. Several prominent independent businessmen were talking about the impending doom of sub prime 2 years before it hit, the banks getting into the mess came as a complete shock to Brown et al.

So Labour where resposible for the free for all in the City that was brought in under Maggie?

All through Labour's tenure the banks kept telling them that greater regulation would be bad for the C ity/economy so Labour left them to it.

When the economy went tits up (due to the banks) the banks then said can we have some money. The govt asked why and they said if you don't bail us out the economy will be stuffed and besides, you should have regulated us more!

The govt was essentially put in a no win situation. Whichever party was in charge would have had exactly the same problems that Labour had to deal with. If you believe that the Tories with their laissez faire attitude would have done a better job you are sadly deluded.

Where did I say that? - just because someone tells you something it doesn't mean you have to believe them. Labour were left in a no win position because they did nothing when they had the chance.

Theres probably a lot of truth in that and its probably true that Brown (and plenty of others) knew what was coming, and sat there watching the tsunami on a radar screen without daring to run for high ground in case they set a panic off.

If the UK had hit the panic button (say) in 2005 and took a tight grip of the UK finance markets, would it have made a difference ?

It may have saved the likes of Northern Rock who were left still standing without a chair when the music stopped but would any of the international banks have stuck around in a country where they couldn't breath for red tape, would they have acquiesced or simply gone elsewhere to continue with their orgy of smoke and mirrors "investing".

Brown was arogant and thought he had ended boom and bust.

Indeed. They should not have continued the neoliberal polices of the previous governments.

But they did - don't blame the Tories, no one forced Blair to turn into a Tory he did it of his own volition and no doubt you helped to vote him all three times?

The likes of Balls are in complete denial about any of this - it was all somebody else's causing. Which we all know was only part of the problem, pity he scraped in at the last election might have brought he down a peg or two.