City analysts were warning about the impact of sub prime two years before we started feeling the impacts, the government could have done more to stop the major banks getting in to far. The majority of UK banks were massively over leveraged and when funds dried up their lack of liquidity came back to haunt them. This could have been avoided by tighter controls over their balance sheets.

RBS went bust in the main because it got too greedy and borrowed and paid too much for Ambro. Northern Rock didn't go bust because of sub prime it went bust because it was massively over leveraged. Lloyds got into trouble because Brown persuaded them to take on RoBS/Halifax.Those who say it was all a global crisis and Labour were not to blame in the slightest need to revisit the facts.

What happened to our large manufacturing base? A combination of poor management, lethargic worker attitude and increasing union power made us uncompetitive.

We have a solid manufacturing industry it is just smaller than it needs to be. We are very innovative engineers just not great at huge wigit type manufacturing.

Hi, I'll just give you a quick history lesson. In 1997 the Tories got voted out. In 2008/9 we'd had 11/12 years of unbroken Labour rule. So, even with the best will in the world and whatever fantasies inhabit your mind, you can't really pin the Labour depression on the Tories.

Ah, hypocrisy. Well, look no further than Wallace, Balls and Burnham and their minions.

There's been a steady decline, we now rank 7th on a par with S. Korea, Italy and France. US, China and Japan lead the way. Germany are on 7% of world manufacturing, we're on 3%.

We still make things, lots of things.

Manufacturing output as a % of national output
1970 27%
1980 22%
1990 19%
2000 16%
2010 10%

In 1997 it was 19% by 2010 it was 10%. I think we need to put to bed this myth that the Tories destroyed UK manufacturing.

Thats a bit more than a steady decline over 40 years.

I'm well aware that the UK is still manufacturing things, I visit such places every week in my job, but to give you an example I visited a small (25 employees) engineering workshop a few months ago and found the experience so unusual that I mentioned to the owner that it was nice to smell lathe lubricants again, I hadn't realised just how long it had been since I smelled that distinctive smell but thinking about it so much of my time is spent in huge several acre warehouses where they stock cardboard boxes full of stuff that has been imported - the last very large engineering works I was in was British Jeffrey Diamond in Wakefield on the day that the miners strike was called, when the 2pm shift clocked off they were all saying their goodbyes because they knew it was the end of their business, and they were right.

In absolute terms he is correct. As a %age of GDP (how the national debt is usually measured) he is way off the mark

Absolute (£bn):



%age of GDP

To change tack slightly, I got a leaflet through the door yesterday, the first one for the Conservative candidate in our constituency. Apparently they have little hope in our area although for generations until three elections ago they had held it with a massive majority, so I had a read about him to see what he has to say...

He's a former Olympic rower, a team mate of James Cracknell, his wife is an Opera singer, he works for Bloomberg in the City of London and, heres the thing, he lives in London.

He knows about Wakefield, he's heard of Leeds but his family is firmly ensconced in London and I suspect that he sincerely believes that he can live 200 miles away from his constituency and deal with the minutiae of an MP's business with maybe a conference call once a week.

That was when I stopped reading, I think its fair to say that this will not be a Tory seat any time soon, Sir Donald Kaberry will be spinning in his grave.

Another useful graphic.

The last five quarters of the previous Labour administration compared to the last five of this bunch of chancers

Looks like a tory gain from the LimpDems down here for similar reasons. The incumbent is retiring and the LimpDems have replaced him with a jobbing ex-MP who lost his seat in 2010. The tories have gone for a local bloke, well-known in the area and a mile away from their 2010 candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg. Yes she is the sister of Lord Snooty and Camoron once suggested that she may like to dumb down her name to Nancy Mogg, hoping to better appeal to the plebs. That's a PR guy for ya

If you understand how the system works you can, which is also why we have the socially devisive "society" (does society exist?) today, but don't let History and Hypocrisy disuade you from trying to find out why things happened



Oh please do illuminate me, and many others. I am always willing to learn.

Tories always have and always will play a dysfunctional version of Catchphrase!

What question?

What the Tories would have done is relevant when there is an election in which the Tories are trying to claim they are economically more competent than Labour.
They're currently like an on-looker at a fight shouting "hit him! Hit him harder!" Then when the person gets taken to hospital are complaining that he hit him too hard.

I believe Labour did nothing because they were taken in by the claims of the City, the financial sector (both national and international), the media and the centre-right that everything was wonderful and that the only thing holding us back was government interference and regulation. I believe this extended well beyond the financial sector too. I also think the government and the regulatory bodies didn't really have a clue what was going on in the financial sector.

I blame Labour for not regulating the banks (and many other sectors)during their time in office, no-one else. But de-regulation is not a purely Labour issue. The Tories are to blame for their periods in power. And my quotes prove that, even after the crash, they were wanting further de-regulation. To criticise Labour for doing exactly what they wanted is hypocritical in the extreme. That can be added to the Tory claims of Labour over-spending. The spending that the Tories would've matched at the time.

Given you believe the Tories are so superior to Labour, why do you think they would have done anything to stop it? Especially as we know they wouldn't have.

Ed Balls is rubbish, and a weakness to Labour. But he was Education Secretary

What the Tories said they would do at the time is irrelevant to Tory criticism of Labour's actions at the time?

Is Mullholland your MP?

Yup.

He is really good an example of what an MP should be about - dealing with local issues. Hopefully he will get back in. It would be a travesty if the fool the Tories have put up gets in.

Its fairly obvious that they aren't targeting this constituency seriously in any way shape or form, which is strange because the next constituency along is one of theirs and like Mulholland is held by a popular MP who campaigns regularly on local issues.

Here in our constituency the nearest (and a close threat) to Mulholland is the Labour candidate who in the last month has been caught out twice making unsubstantiated derogatory claims about the sitting MP in his campaign literature and has been forced to print two retractions and apologies.

So more of the same or go with a person unfamiliar with the truth and a little research before going to print ?

Is it just me or is this one of the nastiest, most spiteful elections we've had?

I certainly can't remember the likes of the Murdoch mob ganging up on a 17 year-old girl who had the temerity to like Miliband or the vitriolic personal attacks from the Telegraph and other papers on Miliband and Labour generally. I'm sure the left wing press has been as bad, so this isn't a party issue, but unsurprisingly the Mail has scraped the bottom of the barrel with Littlejohn suggesting he'd rather trust Jimmy Savile to babysit his kids than trust Labour.

The Thatcher comment about personal attacks has been very apt this time around. Is it time for the adults to just grow up a bit?

I think it says much about the incumbents, who have been spinning the press and look like the only thing thay've got left is to spend the final days of the election campaign doing nothing more than fearmongering,

and while we're on about the papers, this is what the Scum are now reduced to:

No you're right, but then again most of what passes for "debate" in the HoC is nasty and spiteful and owes more to an "us and them over there" attitude than a realisation that you are the 650 most important representatives in the UK and on your decisions stand or fall the well being of 65 million people, their livelihoods, health and general well being, this term of parliament and for the next generation going forward - hence my belief that a removal of the whip would promote more discussion and less bawling and name calling, if your party really want to get a bill through then you're going to have to convince 650 representatives and not just waste an hour shouting as loud as you can at the end of someone else's sentence.

If we do (and the pundits seem to think we will), end up with a minority government, then I think we'll see a different type of debate in parliament.

A government that knows it simply cannot rely on the power of the whips to storm though legislation can only be good for democracy. It should lead to less but better quality legislation. I've no doubt we'll still see the partisanship and braying mobs at PMQs but that's 30 minutes of pantomime once a week.

Yes it's been a dirty campaign but I'm looking forward to just what happens come Friday morning

Another five years of tory rule and how many more of these letters will London boroughs be sending to their tenants?



Social engineering, nothing more or less

So a middle aged / elderly couple whose family has flown the nest is offered £5k to voluntarily leave their five bedroom house, with four unoccupied bedrooms, to make it available as a family home. I'm struggling to see the problem.

Yes because the vast majority of people will be in that situation and have absolutely no problem with relocating 100 miles away from friends and family

I dont think the vast majority of people would take them up on the offer.

[i"No need to contact us if you are not interested...this is just an opportunity and entirely your choice."[/i

Anyway, the Indy came out yesterday and decided they [url=http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/in-defence-of-liberal-democracy-10224221.htmlcan't even call their own vote[/url. Astoundingly, they heaped plenty of praise on the coalition and specifically the Tories, and even leaned towards another Tory-Lib Dem coalition as the best outcome, with an increase in Lib Dem influence. Heaps of outrage in the comments section.

They also seem convinced Labour WILL turn to the SNP, which, given their promises throughout the campaign would be entirely unacceptable. I'm not sure this is correct, I think Labour would reach agreement with the Lib Dems regardless of their 'red lines'. Elsewhere, Miliband couldn't explain away the IFS finding that Labour's plans would result in £90B more debt than the Tories over 5 years.

They've also published some interesting charts showing the difference between the [url=http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-case-for-reforming-our-voting-system-in-three-charts--e1jDbYPFgbFPTP and PR voting systems.[/url A Tory-UKIP coalition?