Reading the papers over the weekend, I saw the knives are really out for Broon. Apart from 1 minister who said it would all the be the fault of the unions if they lose the next election, people are unanimous in blaming GB for all the current economic problems.

Of course, he was chancellor for all these years but he was almost untouchable because his policies were also the policies of the financial men and the Tory party which was their natural partner. But what will the Tories do do to sort out the mess?

Osborne has been preparing the ground.

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/sep/08/georgeosborne.economy

The short answer is they will continue in exactly the same direction as Broon. And as things get worse and worse they will point back at Broon and say it is all his fault.

DavieDites wrote:
Of course, he was chancellor for all these years but he was almost untouchable because his policies were also the policies of the financial men and the Tory party which was their natural partner. But what will the Tories do do to sort out the mess?

Well, one thing they won't be doing is selling the gold reserves when the market was at rock bottom; I can't see that wizard wheeze being a policy of the financial men.

People are blaming Broon because it's his bloody fault. When he inherited the economy we were in the black and looking pretty good. His reign of "prudence" and an end to "boom and bust" was patent spin, as he squeezed tax upon tax out of us through the back door whilst throwing money at everything without properly looking at what it was being spent on. The result? Stifling bureaucracy in organisations such as the health service with no discernable improvement at ground level, and taxes which are among the highest in Europe.

With the tories, they generally do what it says on the tin (for good or bad) and you know what you'll be getting. What they won't be doing is calling themselves "New Conservatives" and then throwing their founding policies out of the window whilst denying to all in sundry that they've changed.

I'm no lover of the Conservatives, but they're due their shot at government. Labour (new or otherwise) can look forward to at least a decade in opposition. Hopefully by the time the next Labour MP takes up residence in Downing Street, we'll have our own Prime Minister in Bute House.

dws

I certainly agree with your last sentence. The policies that I was referring to was the monetarist mantra of privatisation, globalisation, let manufacturing industries die, light regulation of the money markets, total subservience to the WTO and a general stand back and let the market do its stuff. Broon allowed personal debt to soar and house prices to reach lunatic levels.

If the Tories ever objected to any of this then they kept it quiet. I see in the article that Osborne is critical of PFI. It was their idea, adopted by NuLabor. In the current hysteria about a windfall tax on the energy companies, I don't think I have heard any Tory calling for a windfall tax - they are silently supporting Broon.

A switch to the Tories will be same as 1997. Same suits, different faces.

DavieDites wrote:
A switch to the Tories will be same as 1997. Same suits, different faces.

Agreed, you couldn't put a Rizzla between their respective policies. What I was trying to say was while the Tories were always going to follow the sort of policies you refer to, "old" Labour wouldn't. Ergo to proclaim yourself as the Labour party, the party of the people, of social values, of protecting the poor when you are in fact going to steal the policies of the opposition was a cynical attempt to gain power for it's own sake. Now they've been found out, they're in denial and hamstrung, tinkering at the edges.

They need time in opposition to rediscover what they actually stand for (other than themselves).