AHC: modern Conservative Party in UK focuses on economic growth?

Doesn't pretty much any party focus on economic growth? I mean who runs a campaign saying "we want to make the nation poorer!"
 
Doesn't pretty much any party focus on economic growth? I mean who runs a campaign saying "we want to make the nation poorer!"

If your policies focus more on inflation and deficits, then in practice, you're governing against growth.
 
The heavy focus on deficits is only a more recent situation post '08.
Post-'08 financial institution meltdown (near-meltdown ;)), that's the interesting part.

Labour's Gordon Brown was saying, You don't cut for the future, You invest for the future. And he lost to Mr. Cameron.

Of course, the austerity response swept Europe, which economist Paul Krugman said was really weird. So, if the Conservatives led by Cameron had been advocating for a different strategy for growth, they would have been bucking against the trend.

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PS Best that a Yank like me understands it! :)
 
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Gordon Brown: I made a big mistake on banks

The Telegraph, Richard Blackden, 10 April 2011.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...rdon-Brown-I-made-a-big-mistake-on-banks.html

In his first clear admission of some responsibility for the financial crisis, the former prime minister claimed he had not understood how “entangled” the world’s financial institutions had become.

His comments will be seized upon by the Conservatives as proof that Labour played a part in the economic meltdown.

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And when Labour lost to the Conservatives in 2010 (with a little help from Lib Dems), of course it's not just the respective party's views of the futures. It's every issue in the world, including who was to blame for the near-meltdown of 2008.

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What are one or two newspapers who are middle-of-the-road Labour?

and one or two middle-of-the-road Conservative?
 
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David Cameron and Nick Clegg lead coalition into power

The Guardian, Patrick Wintour, 11 May 2010.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/12/david-cameron-nick-clegg-coalition

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' . . . Arriving in Downing Street at 8.40pm as prime minister, Cameron looked overawed as he admitted that his new government had "some deep and pressing problems – a huge deficit, deep social problems and a political system in need of reform". . . '

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' . . . the Tories agreed to drop their plans to raise the threshold for inheritance tax, but the Lib Dems accepted that spending cuts will start this year as part of an accelerated deficit reduction plan. . . '

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Please notice that what David's focusing on at the very beginning is reducing the deficit. What he's not focusing as directly on is re-growing the economy and building jobs back up.

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As a Yank, I think as The Guardian as Labour's leftwing loyal opposition. Is this generally correct? :)
 
As a Yank, I think as The Guardian as Labour's leftwing loyal opposition. Is this generally correct? :)

James_Hacker.jpg


"The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by the people who think they ought to run the country. The Times is read by the people who really do run the country. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country. The Morning Star is read by the people who think this country ought to be run by another country, and the Daily Telegraph is read by the people who think it is."
 
Labour's Gordon Brown was saying, You don't cut for the future, You invest for the future. And he lost to Mr. Cameron.

Labour's Gordon Brown was eventually overruled on that score by his own government, which went into 2010 promising cuts as part of a deficit reduction plan. (The current much-maligned 1% public sector pay cap was first raised by Alastair Darling.) In fact, Mr Darling promised 'cuts deeper than Thatcher'.

As Liam Byrne memo'd 'there is no money left'.
 
Please notice that what David's focusing on at the very beginning is reducing the deficit. What he's not focusing as directly on is re-growing the economy and building jobs back up.

Given the situation for many of the European nations "re-growing the economy" without somehow tackling the deficits wasn't an easy sell. The National debts were massively expanded and none of the nations can run up the debts that the US can and does.
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
"The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by the people who think they ought to run the country. The Times is read by the people who really do run the country. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country. The Morning Star is read by the people who think this country ought to be run by another country, and the Daily Telegraph is read by the people who think it is."

You missed the bit about The Sun and breasts!
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Given the situation for many of the European nations "re-growing the economy" without somehow tackling the deficits wasn't an easy sell. The National debts were massively expanded and none of the nations can run up the debts that the US can and does.
The debts expanded after 5 years of austerity. It'd be better if your target was just halving the deficit, or reducing it to EU limit of 3% of GDP (well, David wanted to eliminate it in just 5 years).

The extra money from lower deficit reduction target should have been invested in repairing existing infrastructures, or in building modest projects with a focus on outside the South East, which would deliver a quicker stimulus without spending too much. This should come together with an industrial strategy.
 
As Liam Byrne memo'd 'there is no money left'.
This is the key hinge point! :)

And the Keynesian, New Deal answer is that you go ahead and spend the money anyway. Which might seem like cheating, but it does have the track record of the New Deal and I think a bunch of other occasions as well.

As an inexact analogy, a blood transfusion may seem like cheating, and I bet more people than just members of the Jehovah Witness faith objected at the beginning.
 
If your policies focus more on inflation and deficits, then in practice, you're governing against growth.

Virtually every party--in the UK or elsewhere--that campaigns against deficits and inflation says that it does so because deficits and inflation are (at least in the long run) bad for economic growth. And I don't see much reason to doubt that they believe this. They may of course be wrong about it, but that's another matter.
 
Virtually every party--in the UK or elsewhere--that campaigns against deficits and inflation says that it does so because deficits and inflation are (at least in the long run) bad for economic growth. And I don't see much reason to doubt that they believe this. They may of course be wrong about it, but that's another matter.

In the long run is the operative phrase, I think. In the short run, deflation and growth are simply incompatible.
 

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Thomas1195

Banned
Deficit in 2010/11 9.0% of GDP; deficit in 2015/16 4.1% of GDP - are you really advocating reducing it faster?:)

View attachment 334892

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/gove...rostatmaast/aprtojune2016#annex-a-data-tables
David Cameron initially wanted to eliminate deficit completely. Thus, he cut spending impulsively, but it clearly failed. The 4.1% figure means that it had failed.

A higher initial target would mean less austerity. What I talked above were initial targets.
 
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