I thought we were on the road to recovery?

[the other bob wilson]

If I wanted to put it that way I would have typed it that way, usual strawman argument from your goodself.
RTFP

Osbourne and Darling had similar plans post the crash. Leading up to it Brown and his "Loose hand on the tiller" made the outcome worse - he has admitted that himself.

No doubt you'll blame the current German recession on Cameron, Brexit and the conservative party as well....

No, that’s what you’d do if we had a Labour Government - there’s more than enough to legitimately blame this Government for to bother about German recessions which are nothing to do with Sunak and co. it’s quite funny being called a straw man by the person who makes a habit of doing what he’s done in this thread - that is try to turn threads which had nothing to do with the Labour Party when they were started into a critique of said party.

All you’re doing now is showing your lack of self awareness.

[JamesWales]

I think the thing that just frustrates me a little, and this is not just on CCMB, but in the wider political discourse, and that is that there is only ever one type of criticism and that's to blame the govt.

In practice we all want much the same thing. We all want high wages and low unemployment and everyone to be happy and healthy and wise and all the rest of it. It is of course very difficult to achieve (some govts are better than others though) and moreover there are always huge external factors at play.

My issue is that I just don't see a change of govt making any difference. I hope I'm wrong, but I just see a misdiagnosis of the problems and when that happens you will never solve them.

In that sense, pointing out that Germany is in a generally worse economic state right now is valid, as many people simply blame Brexit or Tories for things, and Germany is a centre left govt in the EU facing the same problems, so it illustrates that the solution many put forward (a change in govt) may not work. It may evenale things worse.

Of course, Germany isnt the UK, the SDP aren't Labour and even if you thought it may make no difference you may still want a fresh govt to punish them or just to see change for changes sake. I get that argument tbh.

But this idea that the govt is useless, incompetent and that there are easy solutions elsewhere. That's wrong im afraid. The irony is that in France, Germany, Holland and Spain those same knee jerk arguments are being made against centre-left govts in much the same way.

[the other bob wilson]

I think the thing that just frustrates me a little, and this is not just on CCMB, but in the wider political discourse, and that is that there is only ever one type of criticism and that's to blame the govt.

In practice we all want much the same thing. We all want high wages and low unemployment and everyone to be happy and healthy and wise and all the rest of it. It is of course very difficult to achieve (some govts are better than others though) and moreover there are always huge external factors at play.

My issue is that I just don't see a change of govt making any difference. I hope I'm wrong, but I just see a misdiagnosis of the problems and when that happens you will never solve them.

In that sense, pointing out that Germany is in a generally worse economic state right now is valid, as many people simply blame Brexit or Tories for things, and Germany is a centre left govt in the EU facing the same problems, so it illustrates that the solution many put forward (a change in govt) may not work. It may evenale things worse.

Of course, Germany isnt the UK, the SDP aren't Labour and even if you thought it may make no difference you may still want a fresh govt to punish them or just to see change for changes sake. I get that argument tbh.

But this idea that the govt is useless, incompetent and that there are easy solutions elsewhere. That's wrong im afraid. The irony is that in France, Germany, Holland and Spain those same knee jerk arguments are being made against centre-left govts in much the same way.

That’s what happens to G9vernments, they get blamed. In my view, Labour have been wrongly blamed by many on the right for the financial crash, but rightly blamed for the second invasion of Iraq. However, in both cases, they were fully backed in what they did by the Conservative opposition, but no one holds the Conservatives responsible for the two events because they weren’t in a position to dictate policy.

I could produce a long list of things this Government could be blamed for since 2010, but in many cases they would be subjective views just like any other voter. However, I’ve posted several links in recent months showing that people in general are worse off now than they were in 2010

https://www.theguardian.com/business...o-be-far-worse

https://www.theguardian.com/business...tion-thinktank

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/10-years...nancial-crisis


We’ve now reached the stage where the Conservative MP Danny Kruger has admitted that people are worse off under this Government and a recent You Gov poll had 75 per cent of people agreeing with him

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/ne...n-2010-366528/