Politics in the UK has descended into a series of protests by Labour and the unions about the "cuts". The news coverage of these protests seems to contain no understanding of why the cuts are occurring. Perhaps I can refresh the reader's memory. The cuts are a direct result of economic mismanagement by the previous, Labour Government, certainly there was a global recession, but before this there was a global boom and Labour spent all of the extra taxes in the boom and saved nothing. In fact during the boom the government was not only increasing taxes, it was increasing its debt. What is also seldom mentioned is that the recession was indeed global but it was Gordon Brown in 1997 who started the "race to the bottom" of deregulation that caused the global crisis. In fact Brown was determined to deregulate UK banking and it was the pressure of competition from London that led the Americans to remove the Glass-Steagall Act. Labour's Gordon Brown, more than anyone else in the world, caused the global recession. Labour caused the global recession and then declared that Britain's problems couldn't have been their fault because the recession was global!
So Labour crashed the economy, spent all of our taxes in the boom, put nothing aside and now we are paying. But was this simple incompetence or was it actually due to the nature of the Labour Party?
Labour was once the party of Nationalization, of the state ownership of industry. New Labour ended this policy but spent its 14 years in government plumping up the government sector. It increased the proportion of national wealth spent on the public sector dramatically and increased public sector pay so that it exceeded private sector pay even without allowing for the relatively huge public sector pensions. Public sector workers are now paid on average over 15% more than private sector workers and government spending rose from about 37% of GDP in 1997 to 44% in 2010, at a time when GDP itself was rising rapidly. Another trend in public sector pay is the introduction of huge differentials in pay so that the Chief Executive of a council or a hospital administrator can now receive twenty times the average wage. These fat cats have presided over declining productivity and justify their prosperity by lying about what a wonderful job they are doing for the poor and needy.
This alignment of Labour with the Public Sector is unhealthy and results in teachers, civil servants, BBC journalists and health workers voting Labour because they are being bribed to do so. Politics has become that simple. Modern British politics is a crude, unprincipled business of a Labour Party that purchases votes by creating vast numbers of public sector jobs in confrontation with the rest of society that is desperately trying to make a living despite the high taxes needed to support the overpaid government employees. Notice that Labour was unable to finance public spending even during the "boom" years from 1997 to 2007 and increased debt to finance its bribes (ie: expected our children to pay see The worst governments since the first world war)
Not only is Labour a supporter of the Public Sector, 50% of Labour MPs are from public sector or union backgrounds. There is a much lower percentage in the other parties and it is clear that these people are just feathering their own, and their colleagues, nests.
Labour should be renamed the "Public Sector Party" so that its true nature is obvious.
We now know that when government spending is less than 40% of GDP the country gets richer and when it exceeds this amount the economy goes off the rails. This is the lesson that the previous Labour governments have given us. The Coalition should enact a law that can only be changed by referendum to ensure that, except in times of national emergency, public spending may not exceed 40% of GDP
Labour is a gang of people who want power. Their key idea, indeed their only idea of note, is that the government can secure full employment by direct intervention. This idea has been proven to be a disaster whether the government runs industry through Nationalization or expands the public sector. This idea is a stupid mistake. Labour must be stopped from ever inflicting this mistake on the British people again.
It is truly astonishing that with the past sixty five years of political history the voters cannot see that Labour is like an addiction, its policy of overspending on the Public Sector, depleting reserves, increasing debt and suppressing the private sector, actually creates the economic distress that the Labour Party then says it can cure if the voters support it.
Labour's public sector expansion has devastated some regions of the UK, for example, in the North East about 60% of the economy is due to the public sector. This unproductive employment will simply disappear during recessions, it is unstable and creating such an imbalance was malevolent.
Click here for Public Spending Data
The worst governments since the first world war
What is Socialism?
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So Labour crashed the economy, spent all of our taxes in the boom, put nothing aside and now we are paying. But was this simple incompetence or was it actually due to the nature of the Labour Party?
Labour was once the party of Nationalization, of the state ownership of industry. New Labour ended this policy but spent its 14 years in government plumping up the government sector. It increased the proportion of national wealth spent on the public sector dramatically and increased public sector pay so that it exceeded private sector pay even without allowing for the relatively huge public sector pensions. Public sector workers are now paid on average over 15% more than private sector workers and government spending rose from about 37% of GDP in 1997 to 44% in 2010, at a time when GDP itself was rising rapidly. Another trend in public sector pay is the introduction of huge differentials in pay so that the Chief Executive of a council or a hospital administrator can now receive twenty times the average wage. These fat cats have presided over declining productivity and justify their prosperity by lying about what a wonderful job they are doing for the poor and needy.
This alignment of Labour with the Public Sector is unhealthy and results in teachers, civil servants, BBC journalists and health workers voting Labour because they are being bribed to do so. Politics has become that simple. Modern British politics is a crude, unprincipled business of a Labour Party that purchases votes by creating vast numbers of public sector jobs in confrontation with the rest of society that is desperately trying to make a living despite the high taxes needed to support the overpaid government employees. Notice that Labour was unable to finance public spending even during the "boom" years from 1997 to 2007 and increased debt to finance its bribes (ie: expected our children to pay see The worst governments since the first world war)
Not only is Labour a supporter of the Public Sector, 50% of Labour MPs are from public sector or union backgrounds. There is a much lower percentage in the other parties and it is clear that these people are just feathering their own, and their colleagues, nests.
Labour should be renamed the "Public Sector Party" so that its true nature is obvious.
We now know that when government spending is less than 40% of GDP the country gets richer and when it exceeds this amount the economy goes off the rails. This is the lesson that the previous Labour governments have given us. The Coalition should enact a law that can only be changed by referendum to ensure that, except in times of national emergency, public spending may not exceed 40% of GDP
Labour is a gang of people who want power. Their key idea, indeed their only idea of note, is that the government can secure full employment by direct intervention. This idea has been proven to be a disaster whether the government runs industry through Nationalization or expands the public sector. This idea is a stupid mistake. Labour must be stopped from ever inflicting this mistake on the British people again.
It is truly astonishing that with the past sixty five years of political history the voters cannot see that Labour is like an addiction, its policy of overspending on the Public Sector, depleting reserves, increasing debt and suppressing the private sector, actually creates the economic distress that the Labour Party then says it can cure if the voters support it.
Labour's public sector expansion has devastated some regions of the UK, for example, in the North East about 60% of the economy is due to the public sector. This unproductive employment will simply disappear during recessions, it is unstable and creating such an imbalance was malevolent.
Click here for Public Spending Data
The worst governments since the first world war
What is Socialism?
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