NO MORE ARGUMENTS: AUSTERITY IS WORKING!

Labour and the chattering classes accused George Osborne of condemning Britain to a future without growth. They have been proved wrong.

The death of Nelson Mandela meant the reporting of the autumn statement was overshadowed last week but Osborne scored a significant victory over Ed Balls-Up and his critics are on the run. As the economics editor of the Sundays Times put it “The intellectual battle is over. This may not be the best or most balanced recovery on record but it is a recovery, and is gaining strength”

Even The Guardian declared that Balls was the biggest loser from Osborne’s autumn statement. Recent rapid footwork from Miliband and Balls to shift their attacks on the government from austerity to living standards, could not cover his embarrassment. Balls had endured a n autumn statement from Osborne that started with the line “Britain’s economic plan is working” and proceeded to twist the knife deep into Labour.

The coalition had inherited a country in serious fiscal crisis with its public finances “broken” and mired in “deep-seated problems of unsustainable spending, uncompetitive taxes and unreformed public services” Osborne said.

Having resisted huge pressure to abandon his deficit cutting strategy, most notably from Balls, the chancellor was able to wallow in satisfaction. Not only had Labour – and Balls – opposed every measure to reduce the deficit, but they constantly warned that without temporary tax cuts or spending increases, the economy would “flatline”

Yet growth has returned dramatically this year. Fears of a “triple-dip” recession at the start of the year proved groundless and the earlier double-dip at the end of 2011 and 2012 was revised away by the official statisticians.

Last Thursday was the biggest upward revision of growth in an official forecast for 14 years. The OBR more than doubled its estimate for this year on the back of quarterly growth rates of 0.4%, 0.7% and 0.8% respectively.

Even more than the GDP numbers the growth in jobs has defied the gloomsters. According to the OBR employment has risen by 400,000 this year, taking the total since May 2010 to almost 1 million. Over the period 2011-2019, the OBR predicts 3,1m extra jobs, three times as many as the 1,1m public sector jobs that will be cut.

All this has come without Osborne abandoning his austerity programme. In comments aimed at the Labour front bench and his many other critics he said “Over the last three years we have stuck to our guns, worked through the plan. We have done so in the face of a sovereign debt crisis abroad. We have held our nerve while those who predicted there would be no growth until we turned the spending taps back on have been proved comprehensively wrong”

The faces of the Labour front bench said it all "Bad news........there's good news"

Source: David Smith economics editor of the ST

Lol. Nothing to say on the Andrew Mitchell thread?

When I've made up the £3.5k in salary I need to get up to my 2008 pay level I might just possibly, maybe, if the wind is blowing in the right direction ,believe that Osborne.

The net nanny on here really does some bizarre substitutions. Are we banned from using a spoonerism to create the name of a former king? Would vagina be allowed?

Guess so!

Steady on chaps, there's a lot of effort gone into this fishing trip, he's rented a big trawler, baited all the hooks himself, and everything...

On the other hand cut and paste from the Sunday Times, maybe he just paid for a passenger ticket on the big trawler.

<pedant mode> a trawler doesn't have hooks, baited or otherwise, it has a net that it trawls through the water. The clue is in the name <\pedant mode>

Are we going for Ajw's reply to the OP with a 'hand-clappy manny' or a simpler 'great post'.
???

Gercha...

Yey, great post, lefties,

, austerity working, pulling ahead in polls, Osborne is a god, I enjoy abuse.

Perm any three to win.

Austerity is working.

The performance of Balls last week was shambolic. It was like a bully getting his comeuppance.

A large number of posters on this forum have been proved comprehensively wrong also. Hence why you used to see threads started every 2 weeks about the economy and berating George Osborne - now you don't see any.

An economic recovery based on consumer credit, a government guarantee to lenders for 15% of a property value to kick start housebuilding again, government borrowing higher than it was when they started ...

We could have done all of this three years ago you know.

I caught about 30 seconds of the purple faced Ed Ball reply on Sky the other week, and for me the sight of a grim faced Labour front bench said it all, and contrasted greatly with the mocking laughter on the other side of the house.

But we have no need for reams of fiscal information. We have our own consumer barometer amongst us. The economy has improved so much under the Tories that Codhead has pensioned off Dobbin....the cart is on Gumtree..... and Hulls finest has invested in the future by buying a new van to expand his growing empire.

Who'd have thought, Osborne and Coddy would be singing off the same song sheet?

I will report on that thread shortly. Meanwhile I been reading your comments on the Economy thread. Anything you would like to add.....like 'I was totally wrong' for instance?

Guess you just cannot admit that Osborne has been proved right in his policy and Labour and his many critics completely wrong. Be interesting to revisit some of the tosh spouted on this site in the light of the this news.

deary me. At least Sal usually adds a bit of substance to his posts and arguments.
Want to tell us all again how the sweet and innocent Andrew Mitchell has been cruelly stitched up by those nasty police?
Or why not tell us how Austerity took over 3 years to allow a recovery to even start when the US has been in recovery for years?

The inevitability of an upturn in the economic figures was never in doubt, it would happen one day for if it didn't then we may as well have put cyanide in the UK's water supply and turned off all the lights. The question is - why weren't some of the more recent measures such as the mortgage guarantee scheme and relaxing the stringent rules that had been enforced on consumer credit applications introduced three years ago - this isn't austerity at all its a return to easy credit.

His days look numbered. He's not voter friendly and he's become a liabililty. Even Labour MPs are reportedly fed up with him. Bring back Darling.

What about Baldrick?

Darling would be a better shadow chancellor I think and a better chancellor should it work out that way IMO.

I read somewhere that he is involved in the Scottish Referendum (although I can't recall his exact job title) so could not realistically replace Balls until next year when that is done and dusted.

Other options are limited - Ball's wife perhaps. That would be interesting.

Clever of the Tories to push for Darling to lead the 'joint' effort to keep the Jocks British, he would wipe the floor with Gideon on all fronts.

Well well, thats not what your left wings chums have been saying. The points you mention are just tweeks, the main reason we are seeing the growth is Osborne/Cameron put in the right foundations and stuck to their guns when it took longer than they expected for reasons I detail below.



If Labour had remained in power then your last statement would be correct. Government borrowing would definitely have been higher than three years ago and we would have been deeper in the do doos. Had Ed Ballsup been in charge we could have headed for a fiscal crisis and a second major run on Sterling in 2010.

However Labour were booted out thank goodness and so your statement is an example of the “tosh” I mentioned before. Business optimism has been getting stronger and the Purchasing managers’ surveys which measure growth in the three main sectors of the economy – services, manufacturing and construction – are showing the strongest pick-up since the mid 1990s when the economy was recovering strongly. Markit, the firm that complies these surveys states that “ Measured across all three sectors, inflows of new business hit a record high in November, with demand surging from both consumers and the corporate sectors”

Of course there is a long way to go and nobody is pretending, least of all Osborne, that the return of growth has solved Britain’s problems at a stroke. But as has been reported, a Rubicon has been crossed and those who said austerity would inflict a permanent deep freeze on the economy have indeed been proved wrong, as they have in previous economic recovery in this country. It is not just a political victory but “the intellectual debate has been settled in favour of the minority who stated that the economy could grow through a period of necessary action to cut a budget deficit that had ballooned alarmingly” as David Smith put it.

You may recall the economy dropped by 7.2% in 2008-9 before this government started their task.

Normally growth of 1.4% would be a disappointment and the OBR forecast of 2.4% for year is at best just average, but we are in unusual times and our quarterly growth of 0.8% in the third quarter was good enough to take Britain to the top of the G7 league for a few hours until America revised theirs upwards to 0.9%.

So scoff all you like but this is some achievement given that this government has endured a greater handicap than other economies with factors peculiar to Britain eg: 1. With one of the largest financial sectors in the world we were hit harder than most when this collapsed. And 2. An important part of our economy has been the North Sea contribution which again has seen a major decline in revenues over the same period. Add to this our over dependence on Europe for our exports meant we suffered when the Euro crisis led to a long and deep European recession. The eurozone woes, rather than Osborne's austerity were one reason why our recovery took longer than expected. Without these three handicaps it is likely that the Osborne/Cameron policies would have born fruit much earlier.

So just to quote one source (there are hundreds to pick from but this one has pictures so you can read it easier), [urlhttp://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_debt_chart.html[/url, has government borrowing increased in the last three years, forget the "ifs" and "buts" about what Labour might have done for that is pure conjecture and totally irrelevant - can you call this plan of action in this current government an "austerity plan" if we are borrowing more now than we were when they came to power ?

I could pay off my credit card much quicker if I just borrowed some more to pay it off with.

And remember rugby league fans, those of you who said franchising wouldn't work, we were within thirty seconds of the World Cup Final after a highly successful World Cup. Where are those snivelling bring back promotion and relegation types....I bet they can't bear to see the recent England success.