brokenbottleboy:

“The root of the matter is this: we have been ruled by men who live by the illusion that you can spend money you haven’t earned without eventually going bankrupt or falling into the hands of your creditors”

— Margaret Thatcher in her Conservative Party Conference Conference speech 1978.

The same sentiment works for Gordon Brown and the current Labour government though doesn’t it? From the handling of the economic crisis back to his raid on the pension schemes and the festering sore of private/public partnerships (which will blow up not in our faces but the faces of our children and grand-children) Brown’s “economic prudence” has been a total sham.

Labour has most probably handed the next election to the Conservatives and if they have, they have no one but themselves to blame. When they took power in 1997, they inherited many problems but also an economy that had been through a tough period but was now in relatively good shape.

Gordon Brown spent years talking about his prudent approach to the economy. But if you’d spoken to pension experts (as I did for a depressingly long time) you’d have seen that he was irresponsible and rash on many occasions during his time as Chancellor. His raid of the pension schemes has contributed to the misery of hundreds of working families and his approach to investment and the public purse was at times shockingly profligate.