Budget Deficits and bullshit

George Osborne

Every year our dear old Chancellor of the Exchequer gives a speech at the Mansion House. This year dear old George Osborne was right in his element if not his own people as the richest and the best sit down for a slap up supper. I guess he practiced at the Bullingdon club! OK cheap shot over. Exchequers of all hues have graced the Mansion House Speech. 

Now just in case you didn't go to the link that explained the significance of the Mansion House Speech (MSP for now), here it is again. It is the Chancellor of the Exchequer's "State of the Union" address if you like. The incumbent will witter on about what their financial plans for the future are. The Chancellor is the second most powerful politician in the country after the Prime Minister. They both have a house on Downing Street next door to each other. As an archaic structure goes all these jobs get "grace and favour" perks. Country houses that are for the incumbent to use as they wish. The Prime Minister gets a place called Chequers. Haven''t heard it mentioned of recent years but Thatch used to like it as I remember.

Anyway George has set the financial version of a cat amongst the pigeons by telling everyone he is going to run a budget surplus in years to come - in "normal times". The news has sent journo's scurrying for the fine print. So Georgy wants to run a surplus in "normal" years. And this is where the eyebrows have been raised. Just what is this magical "normal" look like? 

Robert Peston

A columnist for the BBC has written an article about this (I preferred his predecessor Stephanie Flanders)

All this worry about budget deficits and surpluses is down to the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash and the action Gordon Brown took to bail out the banks. Shortly before the general election this year the above correspondent also made this post about the then incumbent Labour leader and his party's part in the ensuing drama. Namely that the country was already borrowing far too much but the growth and profit in the financial sectors propped it up. 

The thought that the Labour party needed to apologise for their actions sent me scurrying to my Oxford Dictionary of Thematic Quotations for a take on the subject. I looked for Hindsight, then Regret but finally settled for Apologies and Excuses. It had no sections for the first two.
So I have P.G Wodehouse first :-

PG Wodehouse

"It is a good rule in life never to apologise. The right sort of people do not want them and the wrong sort take a mean advantage in them!" The Man Upstairs (1914)

Sage advice for a politician. 

However Charlton Heston (doyen of the silver screen and supporter of the US gun lobby) has this :-

"The most important thing a man can learn - the importance of three little words I Was Wrong. These three little words will get you further than I Love You" Independant 21st July 1999.

Charlton Heston

Ed Milliband

So where does that leave Ed Miliband? Well, in Opposition (the term applied to the second biggest party in Parliament) as it happened. The Labour Party lost the election quite badly. Thanks to the flippin Scots!

Still, it leaves the question of the apology by the Labour party. In his article Robert Peston makes the connection between the Labour party of the time and the business elite that led us into this sorry mess. His argument was that it happened on their watch, they did not see it coming, and now we are all suffering thanks to their inabilities and shortcomings. 

Let's be fair here, no one saw it coming. Not least the people actually causing it. The evidence is that a whole heap of sub prime debt in the US was trussed up in financial packages that essentially hid what was going on until it was much too late. 

So what about the extra burden the government put on it's finances? Let me tell you all a thing or two. I lived under Conservative rule for 18 years and for the last 10 years of that I worked (and still do) in the NHS. That time was all about "papering over the cracks" when it came to healthcare. The Labour government of 1997 was all about making the NHS much more worthy than that, National Service Frameworks were the first time in my working life where it was pointed out to hospitals and healthcare workers just what was expected. It could be a postcode lottery - honestly. however the BIG difference was that there was recognition that not all areas had the ability to work to this level and so funding was provided to bring services up to scratch. Before it had been all about robbing Peter to pay Paul. And this was just healthcare. The Labour party turned 18 years of decay in public services on it's head.  

The Conservative rule had at times divided the country. The rich got rich and the poor got poorer. The concept of a lifetime on benefits was born under Thatch. She and monetarism invented it. Don't get me started.

Muhammed Ali

Should Labour apologise? Did Thatch ever apologise for tearing communities apart here in the North? Not a bit of it she was proud of it. Hence few tears were shed on her passing some years ago. Even  in death she divided the nation. So Milliband should not apologise. They tried to do the best for this country and ALL it's occupants under the prevailing circumstances. Whoops! they missed the fact that merchant bankers are greedy troughers but we all did. The question is what do we do next? 

One of my favourite quotes that I try to live by when the Sh1t hits the fan around me, and it's not in my dictionary, is this from Muhammed Ali's cornerman :-

"A fighter reveals nothing of his character in the way he hits the canvas but reveals everything about his character in the way he gets to his feet again"

It is what labour do next that will reveal their character not what happened 8 years ago.