[Closed] Should I forgive the Labour Party?

No. Absolutely not. Every Labour govt there's ever been has ended in near-bankruptcy and shame. What was it Einstein said about repeating the same process and expecting a different outcome? This time around we even have the same characters that got us into this mess hoping that everyone will have since forgotten. We haven't, so tell them to get stuffed.

Should I forgive the Labour Party?

But they haven't done anything wrong

Every Labour govt there's ever been has ended in near-bankruptcy and shame.

Trust a tory to only think of financial consequences, not that the statement is true however.

Einstein said about repeating the same process and expecting a different outcome?

Th same can be said for the blue corner.

This time around we even have the same characters that got us into this mess hoping that everyone will have since forgotten.

The Myth of the "Labour government" causing the banks to bankrupt themselves, creating the worldwide recession?

The only shameful thing Labour did was to follow conservative style ideology to its disastrous conclusion.

I won't forgive Blair. I bet I'm not alone in that.

For becoming electable?

I'll never forgive this man for his shameless betrayal....

[img] [/img]

And if you look at the sorry state of the present Labour party, you have to lay the blame at his door. He hollowed out the party from the inside, and left it in its pointless and rudderless Tory-lite state

For becoming electable?

How about forgiving the people who voted him in?

How about forgiving the people who voted him in?

A mixture of deception and desperation does not usually need forgiving.

I see

No, absolutely not.

Dragging us into unncecessary wars
Obliterating the economy and jobs - every labour government has left office with higher unemployment than what they started with.
Selling our gold reserves for some magic beans
Starting the privatisation of the NHS and now hitting all time lows of double standards and weaponising it in their political campaign whilst the labour run Welsh NHS falls to its knees in desperation.

A complete shower of ****.

"There's no money left. Good luck."

My Dear late father, bless him, will be turning in his grave at the fact that at this moment in time, Scottish Labour are probably the last party I would vote for.

I won't forgive Blair. I bet I'm not alone in that.

You're not alone. If I don't ever get to see him stand trial in The Hague, I'd at the very least hope that the Labour Party publicly denounces him, his policies and his legacy.

How about forgiving the people who voted him in?

I voted for him in the very first election I was eligible to vote in (I missed April 1992 by four days). I was young, believed that the message of change emanating from the hype meant and end to Thatcherism and the return to a fairer society.

I made a mistake, as did several million voters. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Tory government collect a massive kick in the Cholmondeleys on election night.

Dragging us into unncecessary wars

Like the Tories would have done any different. That criticism is only valid if you support a party that was anti-war.

Obliterating the economy and jobs - every labour government has left office with higher unemployment than what they started with.

Not like Tory hero Maggie then. Oh.....

[img] [/img]

Dragging us into unncecessary wars

Not many labour supporters will disagree. Remind me though how many tories voted against Iraq?

Obliterating the economy and jobs

The longest postwar period of unbroken growth accompanied by near full employment until the bankers screwed it up. You're right though, if only they'd regulated the banks and raised taxes when times were good just like the tories said they should...

Selling our gold reserves for some magic beans

Jesus are people still banging on about that?

Starting the privatisation of the NHS and now hitting all time lows of double standards and weaponising it in their political campaign whilst the labour run Welsh NHS falls to its knees in desperation.

Using the NHS in the election campaign. How very dare they!

Once again I'm forced into defending them again 🙁 I've said it before but I think this tory trait of re-writing history and telling unfounded horror stories will ultimately backfire.

Not like Tory hero Maggie then. Oh.....

We are all Thatcherites now

[i]The Prince of Darkness 2002[/i] 😉

Selling our gold reserves for some magic beans

This is a particularly ridiculous criticism for Tory supporters to make given they are continuing to sell off the few national assets we have left to their mates, for peanuts.

This is a particularly ridiculous criticism for Tory supporters to make given they are continuing to sell off the few national assets we have left to their mates, for peanuts.

Like what - and is it more or less than the c£450B of outsourcing and PFI that the last government presided over?

Absolutely ****in not NO.

- runaway spending funded by debt
- taking the country to war through lies
- no border control and calling anyone 'racist' who disagreed with their 'enrichment'

runaway spending funded by debt

Before the bank bailouts debt was at 70% of GDP, on a par with Germany.

taking the country to war through lies

139 labout MPs voted against, 15 tories.

no border control and calling anyone 'racist' who disagreed with their 'enrichment'

Not a necessarily racists, just idiots with short memories.

There was definitely border control under the labour government, I remember having to show my passport, well not going to Scotland or Wales, is that where you expect border controls to be set up?

Any Labour leader would have gone to war in Iraq (ie any Labour MP who would have had a realistic chance of being elected as leader) as would a Con-Dem coalition

Blair delivered 10+ years of a Labour government after 18 (?) years in the wilderness. Introduction of the minimum wage. I really don't get the hate about policy. It seems to me his financial success post being PM is what really grates.

[quote=dazh said]Dragging us into unncecessary wars
Not many labour supporters will disagree. Remind me though how many tories voted against Iraq?

Perhaps if Blair and Campbell hadn't presented their "45 minutes" BS dossier then there might have been a lot.

Perhaps if Blair and Campbell hadn't presented their "45 minutes" BS dossier then there might have been a lot.

Maybe, but are you really saying that the majority of tory MPs were so naive and gullible to accept what most of the public could see was a load of b*llox?

To be fair British governments have been juggling water, managing Britain's decline for the last 30-40 years, with the shift in world power and our diminished grip on the allocation of resources, it's really starting to hit home now. I agree the chronic complacency, short termism, lack of investment for the future, selling assets in bent deals for peanuts, bribing the electorate with market bubbles and unsustainable white elephants, has made the impact of these things much worse.

The adjustments over the coming decades are going to be brutal, with us the populace paying more for less of everything. Don't bank on any state percs or the privileged lifestyle our older generation has become accustomed to, we won't get any of it.

Should we forgive maybe, forget no, but they were not the only villains in this.

[quote=dazh said]
Maybe, but are you really saying that the majority of tory MPs were so naive and gullible to accept what most of the public could see was a load of b*llox?

You knew it was all BS at the time ? Wow! Must admit that I didn't.

Any Labour leader would have gone to war in Iraq

It seems to me his financial success post being PM is what really grates.

[Mc Enroe voice] you cannot be serious[/Mc Enroe voice]

That is a rather strange point to make No doubt many do begrudge the envoy of peace his millions [ myself included] but if he gave it all away to charity I would still call him a **** and demand he faces trial. I find it hard to believe anyone could really think this is the main cause of people disliking the lying warmonger

Jesus are people still banging on about that?

Well yes, it was a monumental **** up.

ng the NHS in the election campaign. How very dare they!

That's not really an answer. They are making out that the Tories are ruining the NHS. A bit hypocritical as they put the policies in place.

As for the whole war thing, I don't think anyone could say that they would have done exactly the same thing. The Blair / Bush duo is one of the biggest evils of recent times, compare Cameron / Obama record and it is night and day.

Selling our gold reserves for some magic beans

This is a particularly ridiculous criticism for Tory supporters to make given they are continuing to sell off the few national assets we have left to their mates, for peanuts.

Especially as the Gold was sold at the market value for the time and no one was complaining as the Gold price had been stable for ages.

Well yes, it was a monumental **** up.

Not really. You could argue that at some point Gold will be back at that price and you could just buy it back if you really wanted. Not that there'd be any point to doing so. An asset was sold at its market value and the money spent on something useful.

Don't forget it was 'Labour' who began the War Against The Poor; handing the Coalition a baton they were only too pleased to run with. Nor ID cards; and the raft of police state legislation, or the bailing out of the bankers ... The party remains unreconstructedly Blairite and rotten to the core.

No; never forget, and never forgive.

Not really. You could argue that at some point Gold will be back at that price and you could just buy it back if you really wanted. Not that there'd be any point to doing so. An asset was sold at its market value and the money spent on something useful.

😯

Not only did he sell it at an all time low after a gradual decline, he announced to the markets weeks before hand that he was going to sell thus plummeting prices further. He also sold at auction which was unusual and always commands a lower price. But lets not beat about the bush, this was all about bailing out the banks by offloading cheap gold to them that they could sell on at a profit. We can't mention that though can we. (I'm guess that is what you were referring to about spending it on something useful - bank bailouts?)

At least when the Tories have had to bailout the banks this time after Labour ****ed things up again they made a profit off it.

JY I am scratching around for why all the hatred, I don't see its deserved at all. Perhaps he wasn't seen to do enough for classic Labour working class voter but if he had aligned the party like that Labour would never have been elected.

BTW selling Gold for 350 only to see it rally to 1500+ (edited) is always going to attract critism. Probably unfair given the cut price sales conducted by Tories not least the recent Post Office fiasco (conveniently blamed on Cable).

ID cards are a good idea. Many countries have them (France do and its compulsory to carry them) and our lack of them is often quoted by potential illegal immigrants as an attraction of the the UK

Labour had little choice other than bail out the banks, they should have got more (total) mgmt control especially at RBS and they crippled Lloyds by encouraging them to buy HBOS

Labour did have stronger anti-terrorism powers than the Con-Dems

I would love an ID card - bloody useful to have instead of lugging a passport around.

Probably unfair given the cut price sales conducted by Tories not least the recent Post Office fiasco

Yeah you are right, it was undervalued to the tune of £180M.

If Brown had waited to sell the gold it would have netted an extra £9Bn.

Incomparable, especially as the long term economic benefits of having a more efficiently run royal mail will make the £180M fade into insignificance.

No mention of the tip of the iceberg that is Rotherham yet...There ya go.
If you can forgive that you can forgive anything. You decide...

(I'm guess that is what you were referring to about spending it on something useful - bank bailouts?)

The two didn't coincide if you look at the times...

The money would have just entered the general pot from which all expenditure occurs. As for the bank bailouts they happened later on and coincidently caused the rapid rise in Gold price (safe haven etc). Most of the bailouts were funded by debt, which was added to the UK balance sheet.

But then you knew all that, it just doesn't sound so exciting.

Incomparable, especially as the long term economic benefits of having a more efficiently run royal mail will make the £180M fade into insignificance.

Unclear that you will actually get that. Private companies aren't necessarily any better run. Personally I suspect RM is in long term decline (hence I've sold all my shares).

I am scratching around for why all the hatred, I don't see its deserved at all.

Perhaps he wasn't seen to do enough for classic Labour working class voter but if he had aligned the party like that Labour would never have been elected.

the tories were unelectable and look at what John Smith achieved - it was not necessary at all to align the party to the right.

Also, during his[john smith] time as leader, the Labour party gained a significant lead in the polls over the Conservatives and on 5 May 1994, the Conservatives received a severe defeat in the council elections in Britain, their worst in over 30 years, despite the strong economic recovery and fall in unemployment that had followed the declaration of the recession's end in April 1993.[5] Labour's opinion poll lead was shown to be as high as 23% in early May 1994.

The two didn't coincide if you look at the times...

The money would have just entered the general pot from which all expenditure occurs. As for the bank bailouts they happened later on and coincidently caused the rapid rise in Gold price (safe haven etc). Most of the bailouts were funded by debt, which was added to the UK balance sheet.

Disagree, at the time that Brown decided to sell off the gold, the banks were on the knees and had extremely low gold reserves required to shore them up (or in modern speak, survive a stress test). They acquired the gold at a cut price providing the much needed reserves then sold as the market rose to a massive profit. There is no difference between the bank bailouts back then and now, just one was done through the backdoor.

Not only did he sell it at an all time low after a gradual decline

You appear to have the power of predicting the future. Do you work in the city? As for announcing it in advance, I'd have thought selling a few billion's worth of gold needs to be planned properly. You can't just setup a market stall one morning and shout 'roll up, roll up'.

They acquired the gold at a cut price

You can't just setup a market stall one morning and shout 'roll up, roll up'.

That's effectively what happened.

A smarter approach (and used by other banks) would have been to sell the gold over a longer period and in smaller units. Given that income tax receipts were rising in the same period there was actually no need to sell so much of the gold off in one job lot.

If you want to know the reason why no non-publicly employed working man or woman should ever trust Labour at the controls again, just Google the term "Gordon Brown pension raid 1997"...and [b]ACTUALLY READ[/b] some of the articles. No one reading it can ever, possibly, trust or forgive the cynical profligacy.

In fact, even those on generous state-back schemes might well have fared better, were funds not plundered. So scrub that qualifier - no one working with a pension or hoping to have a pension could or should trust them.

You can't just setup a market stall one morning and shout 'roll up, roll up'.

But that is EXACTLY what happened. He announced the sale way in advance to give the market time to prepare and then he sold it at auction, again unconventional which always commands a lower price. But as previously discussed, it was all part of a well known plan to bail out the banks.

A smarter approach (and used by other banks) would have been to sell the gold over a longer period and in smaller units.

The UK eventually sold about 395 tons of gold over 17 auctions from July 1999 to March 2002

Will you respond to this correction/pointing out that you are, once more, factually incorrect?

@LHS

As long as your happy with the increased costs of this efficiency/profit margin coming out of your pocket when you use the services.

But hey we have accepted it across the utilities market and railways and what a resounding success thats been! still heavily subsidised, inefficient and guess what more expensive. I bet it's just coincidental that MRSA was rife when contract cleaners were introduced to the NHS, oh and the rather large fraud that G4S got away with.

I think it's fair to say your average punter does not feel value for money has been delivered, paying higher prices for the same services, who's infrastructure was publicly funded in the first place and still quietly subsidised, with all the boys getting a nice buttie off the back of it.

Yeah you are right, it was undervalued to the tune of £180M.

According to a report commissioned by the government that sold it (with preference given to their chums in the city of course).

Whereas others such as JP Morgan suggest it was undervalued by up to 6 billion pounds.

I suggest you have a read of this too LHS:

http://ampp3d.mirror.co.uk/2014/04/11/the-final-word-on-gordon-browns-gold-sell-off/

It explains why the 'Gordon sold our gold' meme is a favourite of the hard-of-thinking.

If Ed Balls and Ed Miliband are “muppets” for the gold sale in 1999, what does that make Cameron?

According to Oren Laurent, chief executive of Banc De Binary:

“Gold prices have been on a downward trajectory since their peak in August 2011, after ten years of virtually uninterrupted growth”.

Why aren’t people angry that Cameron didn’t sell the rest of our gold at the peak price in 2011?

Will you respond to this correction/pointing out that you are, once more, factually incorrect?

How is what i said factually incorrect.

Selling at auction is not common practice, it always commands a lower price and not something that had previously been done.

Announcing the sale of the gold in advance will always allow the markets to prepare to buy at a lower price.

It explains why the 'Gordon sold our gold' meme is a favourite of the hard-of-thinking.

Yes good point, an article from the Mirror!

As I have said, the sale of the gold at cut price was a plan to bail out the banks, this is a pretty much fundamentally accepted analysis of what happened.

Selling at auction is not common practice, it always commands a lower price

Why is the STW "What's it worth?" response always "99p no reserve, ebay" then?

Yes good point, an article from the Mirror!

Well that's a well thought out and reasoned argument.

I assume you don't know much about Conrad Quilty Harper. I am not going to accept the "final word" on economics from him.

Although he did right a very nice article in GQ recently as to why David Beckham likes flowers and Whiskey.

Keep up with the ad homs then I guess - seeing as you don't actually have an argument. Classic argument fail.

Care to explain why you're not so angry with David Cameron for not selling the gold reserves at their peak? Thought not.

Care to explain why you're not so angry with David Cameron for not selling the gold reserves at their peak? Thought not

He didn't need to.

That doesn't actually address the point though does it.

If you don't like The Mirror perhaps you'd prefer that bastion of socialism the FT?

Britain was right to sell off it's pile of gold....

[b]More substantively, criticism of Mr Brown’s sale also betrays a misunderstanding of why a country such as the UK has gold at all.[/b]

In common with most rich nations, the function of British foreign exchange reserves is not for the government to manage wealth on behalf of the country. British citizens do that themselves. The UK does not have a sovereign wealth fund that aims to maximise returns, and nor should it. It is not a big net oil and gas exporter such as Norway – UK net foreign exchange reserves are about $40bn, equivalent to 2 per cent of nominal gross domestic product, while Norway’s sovereign fund has $525bn, equivalent to almost 140 per cent of its GDP.

Nor does the UK pile up foreign assets by persistently selling its own currency to manipulate the exchange rate, as does China. It is notable that the much-vaunted official purchases of gold over the past year are mainly by countries such as China and Russia – and, to a lesser extent, Mexico – with big excess reserves.
UK reserves are there mainly for precautionary reasons – to intervene in currency markets to stop a run on sterling or to pursue monetary policy objectives. Yet gold is badly suited for this task because, despite recent interest from private investors, a large proportion of global above-ground stocks – 18 per cent in 2010 – is still held by governments.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5788dbac-7680-11e0-b05b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3VyYv50iv

The "never forgive" attitude taken by several people intrigues me. I can see understand why people are very upset over the actions of specific party leaderships and/or governments but applying the same logic to an organisation that has an existence before and after the offending peoples' contributions to it seems a bit odd. Will there never be a time now where the Labour party's soul is untouched by the actions of Tony Blair? Must we hold a party's failings against them forever, while discounting what good it may have done before, during or after their times of shame?

I don't know whether the time to forgive Labour is now or not. I'm sure that someone will be along shortly to list those MPs who were part of Blair's cabinet and are still in positions of influence in the party today. I do think though that refusing to forgive any part of its historic sins is going to quickly reduce the pool of acceptable parties down to zero.

Many will never forgive the Conservatives, Labour nor the LibDems after the last five years. Could any party take power and lead a blameless government?

Edit: Sorry, I seem to have accidentally posted on the original topic rather than the slap fight about selling gold... 🙂

He didn't need to.

You mean he didn't pay off the national credit card when he had the chance? How very irresponsible. I thought we were supposed to be bankrupt like the greeks?

How is what i said factually incorrect.

FWIW the poster claimed earlier [ possibly the tory thread] the entire family tax credit fraud bill was greater then the NHS [ its not even close]hence the dig about them not responding

[u]But hey we have accepted it across the utilities market and railways and what a resounding success thats been! still heavily subsidised, inefficient and guess what more expensive. [/u]

This would be a good point if it wasn't for the fact that retail gas and electricity prices are amongst the lowest in Europe including government levies / taxes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25200808

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Energy_price_statistics

As for railways, a record number of passengers was carried last year and a record number of services ran on time. If railways were subsidised any more there would simply be demand that couldn't be accommodated given the extremely long lead time for rolling stock and new lines.

http://www.rail.co.uk/rail-news/2014/passenger-numbers/

Any comment on you being wrong above about saying they sold it one go?

Perhaps you can go to the other thread and comment on being wrong about working tax credits?

Are you guys aware of how similar to politicians you appear to be when you start arguing like this?

Dazh are you defending Nu Labour just for laughs or do you believe the bollocks you're typing?

😆 STW's intellectual giant has turned up ^^^

.

BTW enfht I liked your "contribution" to the SNP thread :

enfht - Member

She revolting, nothing but a badly painted corpse. Wonder if she smells as bad as she looks.

Posted 2 days ago # Report-Post

Classy stuff. You really are a lovely person, aren't you ? 🙂

[quote=ChrisL opined]Are you guys aware of how similar to politicians you appear to be when you start arguing like this?

Under the previous discreditted regime this problem was rife, however under our stewardship discord is down by 12 % and direct answers have improved due to our strong policies aimed at supporting hard working families whilst making the tough choices the nation deserves.

I'm with @grum (and J P Morgan) on the Post Office undervaluation. The PO is a huge play on city centre property, the government could have addressed social housing by using the huge undervalued land bank / properties of the PO for redevelopment into residential with PO premises onsite.

Plus I just used that as one example, there are many. The railways are a disaster in private hands from a travellers, I had the great misfortune to commute on them for 30 years. Very expensive and a dire service. You cannot have competition on railways, its fundamentally a public service like the roads. You can have competition in trucks or planes but it just doesn't work with trains.

I don't want to defend them, there's plenty they did that turns my stomach, but the more rubbish I hear from the tories and their apologists about how they crashed the economy, bankrupted the nation, put everyone out of work, killed everyone's grannies etc, the more I feel forced to defend them. Especially when the tories at the time offered absolutely no opposition or alternatives to the things they supposedly did that were so bad.

i ll vote labour all day every day when they can fulfill a couple of simple points.. thier leader is chosen by one member one vote and that leader is somebody whose actually done a days work.. one set of solicitors barristers in red and another set of solicitors barristers in blue.. no representatives of mine..

Junkyard for PM!

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ed_Miliband

Since when does STW draw "intellectuals" Ernie you Marxist muppet. 😆

Well obviously when you wade into a thread enfht. Your one-line posts dripping with hatred and anger always up the intellectual content a notch or two.

What a drama queen you are lynchmob, you're the one who always gets personal with the old 'you really are a nice person' jibe.
I've seen that one from you on more than one occasion.

"lynchmob" is a good one. Yes enfht's input definitely ups the intellectual content of a thread.

Blimey there's nothing like repeating yourself eh, be sure to put 'intellectual' into another post on this thread won't you.

😆

Genius retort.

Now then boys play nicely. Most of the high profile politicians from both parties are privately educated middle to upper class tw*T's. This is their private club and we the general public are not invited. To think there is any difference between them you must be deluded. You can play your left and right wing party politics, won't make a tiny bit of difference.

You can play your left and right wing party politics, won't make a tiny bit of difference.

Yes that's the popular soundbite. I've said it myself plenty of times. And for the majority of us who have jobs, cars, houses, expensive bikes etc it makes not a jot of difference. But for those unlucky enough to be at the margins of society, and who may be reliant on the state to keep them, house them, care for them etc it makes a massive difference, and that difference is worth voting for even if you have to swallow some unpalatable truths.

Most of the high profile politicians from both parties are privately educated middle to upper class tw*T's.

Although privately educated Conservative MPs in the recently dissolved Parliament outnumbered privately educated Labour MPs 5 to 1.

Labour MPs might behave like Tories but it is more likely to be a case of them betraying their backgrounds than sharing simular backgrounds to the Tories