Getting past your grammar lesson while making up words for a moment, when was the recession after the one around 2008/9?

The first of the most recent recessions kicked in in 2008, as a direct consequence of the actions of big finance. That's why it was a global recession.

However, by 2010, we (the UK) were moving out of it and into growth, albeit slowly.

Subsequently, as a direct consequence of the government's policies, we moved back into recession and away from growth.

These are facts.

So little Ajw71 can't think of anything to say on his/her own, but to invoke Littlejohn.

Oh, how good that looks!

Not.

Indeed he has, this is because politicians have a habit of making predictions based on nothing more than what sounds great at the minute. They never have the nous to understand that trying to predict what will happen when there's so many variables to take into account is a futile exercise. If you believed the left then you'd have expected to be sitting in a barren wasteland where the weak were being picked off by snipers to feed the rich, but that hasn't happened either. I've reached a conclusion that anyone who went to university and studied economics should really ask for their money back.

Seeing as a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth and there has been not two such consecutive quarters of negative growth during the coalition's time in office you are quite simply, wrong.

The UK definition of a recession is 2 successive quarters of negative growth, this hasn't happened since 2009. There was no double dip. It's not me saying so, but the ONS. Now, they could be a shadowy right wing cabal hell bent on twisting the facts to suit their Tory overlords but I'll take my chances.

Just as a matter of interest, which government policy/policies in particular caused your recession?

Anyone who doesn't think Osborne has done a good job should take a look over the Channel at France and see what we could have become. An economic basket case being crippled by socialism. www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25402881

Anyone who doesn't think Osborne has done a good job should take a look over the Channel at France and see what we could have become. An economic basket case being crippled by socialism. www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25402881

Quote ="Ajw71"Anyone who doesn't think Osborne has done a good job should take a look over the Channel at France and see what we could have become. An economic basket case being crippled by socialism. www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25402881'" You give MP's far too much credit, if, in 2010, Osborne had gone and sat in a dark room and did precisely bugger all then we'd still see a recovery, we couldn't say if it'd happen sooner or later, but it would have happened. As I asked Mintball, what policy/policies did Osborne introduce to see the current improvement.

Quote ="Ajw71"Anyone who doesn't think Osborne has done a good job should take a look over the Channel at France and see what we could have become. An economic basket case being crippled by socialism. www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25402881'" You give MP's far too much credit, if, in 2010, Osborne had gone and sat in a dark room and did precisely bugger all then we'd still see a recovery, we couldn't say if it'd happen sooner or later, but it would have happened. As I asked Mintball, what policy/policies did Osborne introduce to see the current improvement.

Quote ="Ajw71"Anyone who doesn't think Osborne has done a good job should take a look over the Channel at France and see what we could have become. An economic basket case being crippled by socialism. www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25402881'" Which aspects of Socialism are crippling the French economy?

Quote ="Ajw71"Anyone who doesn't think Osborne has done a good job should take a look over the Channel at France and see what we could have become. An economic basket case being crippled by socialism. www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25402881'" Which aspects of Socialism are crippling the French economy?

One key one, which I will give them a pinch of credit for, is the government guarantee to home loan providers for first time buyers of up to 15%, effectively opening the vaults and doling out loads more cash - albeit not having to spend actual cash just yet but effectively tying it up - to start the housing market rolling again.

On the downside its not a unique concept to the coalition, has been done in the past to similar success, they were asked time and again to consider this tactic but refused, and basically means they have spent their way out of a building trades disaster - so successful was it initially that they've now had to apply the brakes - the first quarter of next year will be very interesting.

[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23079082[/url

I loved this news story when it was first released and I love it again upon re-reading, its got all the hallmarks of the re-writing of the history books by the victors.

Fortunately enough people swallow the newsfeeds without question to allow it to pass into the history books unhindered.

Give it a few more years and it will all be the Jews fault again.

I don't have a personal recession.

Do you?



The double dip was "revised away", as the story that Jerry linked to illustrates.

The economy was in growth in 2010. The policies of the incoming government put paid to that and sent the country back into recession.

As we've also seen and discussed here, the issue of underemployment is one of the most crucial in terms of asking whether the recovery is really that great – or certainly whether it's having any benefits for most people.

Not only did they re-write the stats FIFTEEN months later (it normally only takes six months for the ONS to get its revised figures together) but at the same time they also went back FIVE YEARS to re-write the stats for 2008 to make that recession look worse - that has to be unprecedented surely ?

Unprecedented in the action of revisiting those statistics over that time period (who ordered this to happen ?) but also unprecedented in assuming that the public are dumb enough to nod wisely and swallow the rhetoric that "None of this is our fault".

On a slightly different note – but Jerry has raised the issue of undermployment/casualisation anyway – [url=http://www.unison.org.uk/news/unison-launches-fight-against-scrooge-employerthe Scrooge employer that refuses to pay the national minimum wage, charges his staff 17,000% APR for loans on petrol to get between jobs, 'rents' them company cars at £128 a month because they're not paid enough to buy one and then takes hundreds of pounds from their wages if they're in a road accident where they're not to blame.[/url

Having run my own business I'm always prepared to consider the business perspective in issues like this - but frankly if half of what Unison have found is true then the owner of this business does not deserve employees and the contracting authorities should be having a stern word with him for if strike action is called it will affect thousands of elderly and infirm across their regions for what is very clearly a bad employer - there's no excuse.

A definition invented by trustworthiness's Richard Nixon, altered from the original and more relevant meaning of one quarter of negative growth in order that he could tell the public that the US was not in recession when it was.

I must admit to not having read the NMW legislation from cover to cover, but surely if that bit's true, he can be prosecuted?

AGAIN because you seem have difficulty with this question or (and this is harsh but looks as if it is true) your intellectual capacity cannot comprehend such a simple, straight forward question.

=#FF0000[size=200WHICH ECONOMY????[/size

I even coloured it in for you to help

No one is forced to work here, he would have to change his attitude and conditions if he couldn't find anyone to do the work. Presumably everyone knew what the terms were when they joined?

In "The Real World", people don't have oodles and oodles of lovely choices for jobs.

If they leave a job tomorrow, there are not hundreds of jobs available. I know that, in fantasy la la land, some people like to pretend that there are just millions vacancies out there, all ready to be filled, but this is not the reality. That is why there are more people unemployed than there are vacancies.

And given privatisation of services, it is entirely possible that pay, terms and conditions have been changed since people were employed to do the job – there are plenty of workplaces where this has happened more than once as the workers have been passed between companies like a parcel.

That's "The Real World" for you.

I know that the journalist posting this story was so shocked that they double checked – and then the editor and the head of comms did further checks, simply because it is so shocking.

The government has said that not paying people for travel time (thus reducing their pay to below the national minimum wage) is 'not on' and companies shouldn't do it, but they have yet to legislate to close a loophole that, when the legislation was initially enacted, nobody foresaw.

In the case of this branch, I also know that the union is only now in a position to start acting because recruitment (on the basis of the employer's behaviour) has given it good density.

It ain't necessarily so, this business covers both Dorset and Hampshire social services areas contracted out to do the work that both of those regions would probably have handled in-house.

Now imagine that you are a care worker, a home help or similar, working for those local authorities only to be told that you are now redundant and that you can re-apply to this "Care" company for a position there, it happened in Leeds also by the way, to a friend of mine, there was no transfer of employment as the new contractor stated that their own staff could cover the contract - then they recruited from the ex-council staff that had been made redundant.

You really don't have a choice as to whether you work for this particular employer or not, they are the ones doing all of the care work in your county, and the county next door, if you want to stay employed in the care industry and have a desire to actually CARE for your clients then you have to work for the new company.

Unless you understand how Home Help (for example) works then its probably difficult to understand the attitude that some of the employees have, they have a set routine and a set list of clients to visit, some of those dependent elderly and infirm may rely totally on their home help visit, for some it may be the only visit they get that week, for a few the home help is their only point of contact with the outside world and the only chance that some of them (for example) have to bathe that week - this is very basic stuff but vitally important for those "clients".

The last thing you want as a dependent is for your care worker to be limited to fifteen minutes per day and to arrive full of hell because they aren't being paid for the time to travel to you or for their petrol and vehicle costs, indeed they are having to pay to come and see you and the fact that you want a bath today and need helping in and out of it isn't going to make their mood any better when the 20 extra minutes they spend with you makes them late for their next client and is unpaid.

Quite frankly, its a disgrace and the sign of a society that doesn't give a fook about its elderly and infirm and anyone who is happy to go along with that deserves what is coming to them in the future.

Absolutely spot on.

And re your concluding comment –

"The economy won't not picked up by much if al"l. That is what I said above, yes you have read it?

So given the economy [ihas not picked up by much[/i, demonstrate to everyone the falsehood of my previous statement. Go on.

The fact is you can't and you need to realise while misrepresenting what someone said repeatedly may be a government tactic in the hope the lie will be believed but this is not the Daily Mail comment column and you are not getting away with it.

As to strong growth, define stroing growth. Will it for example get us back to where we were in 2008? What figure do you consider strong growth?

Will it come about by the rebalancing of the economy Osborne said was necessary that he has conveniently forgotten? Or will it come about as people empty savings and rush into debt on a house buying spree engineered by Osborne instead?

Or does none of that matter to you and all you are interested in is the raw statistics so you can indulge in a not very good attempt at point scoring?

Of course not, they could easily get one of those care jobs that offer fully-expensed company cars and unlimited expense accounts that you thought was the norm.

The employer in question has been constantly looking to squeeze ever more out of his workers for less.

Yet another case of the real victims of austerity being those least able to resist it - the bloody working poor