Why would 'smart' voters, vote for anyone stupid enough to claim to have 'abolished Tory boom and bust'?

50% of voters think Brown's leadership has made the recession worse, 28% a lot worse, compared with 43% who think ? correctly ? that he's helped ease the crisis.

What rot! All Brown has done through MASSIVE borrowing and printing money is postpone the crisis. We were the first ones in to recession and the last ones out, nothing Brown has done has helped ease it. You could argue - correctly - that Brown has in fact caused a generations worth of financial crisis.

Remember this, "there will be no return to boom and bust"?

Darling's caution, combined with his four-year plan to halve the deficit, much-mocked too, may look more plausible when he presents his March budget.

Check the numbers because roughly speaking if the economy returns to trend growth then the deficit will be halved. In other words if things get back to normal then the plan comes true. This is hardly fiscal genius, it amounts to sitting back and hoping something turns up. It's the methods to tackle the remaining component of the deficit, the structural aspect as opposed to the cyclical, that will define politics.

Samuel Brittan is broadly right but look but he's calling for policies to encourage growth. His FT colleague Martin Wolf has made a similar point, namely that the only escape for a country with a big deficit is to seek growth. But the government is cutting spending on the very areas that will deliver growth, like higher education, investment and infrastructure.

People like Gross can be as wrong as everyone else. Would he dare say that about the debauched US dollar? I doubt it

A quick check would have revealed that Gross has said similar things about the US dollar. Gross isn't actually predicting doom for the UK, he's just saying that the UK offers a bit more risk than other countries. These tiny differences matter alot for bond investors but less for the average punter. Still, it's another footnote to the disastrous legacy of Brown's decade as Chancellor, as if we didn't know he'd fluffed it.

Two such Tories above woefully unschooled in economics.

The reason we have been hit harder is the size of our financial sector relative to other areas of potential growth, the industry from which the problems started. Since this industry is linked with practically every other industry in the UK (as it controls the money supply to other industries) it is always going to have a huge impact upon the UK.

So governemtn spending was necessary to plug the gap, the government debt leading into the recession was comparitively low, and even now is no larger than any of the other major players (France/US/Japan etc.). The difference here is that we have an election coming, that has meant the media and the opposition have politicised the response to the crisis, and continue to do so, talking down the economy, the currency and our industries.

Which party will benefit from fragile economic growth?

What growth? Something beween 0.05999 and 0.1 ovr the Christmas season and car scrappage.

The party who buys votes with tax payers money will get the votes of the people they buy.

Lets hope that there are enough people who aren't in the pay of the Labour party left to vote for an intelligent change.

People are not daft Michael, they know that Brown, in part, caused the crisis or at least the depth of it and they know we were the last major economy out of recession as well. Giving Brown credit for the recovery is akin to crediting a burglar for returning your stereo after he had nicked it.

Reality is the Tory strategy is all over the place, and like the 1st two comments the Tory shadow chancellor has a weak and narrow understanding of economics.
Best plan is to say - Tory cuts will destroy the things you cherish most. The election is wide open, and the Tories ultra vulnerable.

Glad to see the cost conscious aren't being confused with White Lightning-chugging alkies today. Well done, Mike.

I still think Brown/Darling are going to bottle and skip having a Budget in which they have to set out the truth of what they will do and will go straight to an election on 25 March fought on lies and half truths

Ah I see the Labour apparatchiks are out today.

Mastalnc, you seem to have swallowed the lie that we were "best placed" to weather the storm due to Brown's excellent stewardship of the economy.

You mention the government debt as being low. However, this is only the case if you accept Brown's dodgy accounting. He has excluded all PFI commitments and the public sector pension deficit. If you include these, you find that we are one of the most indebted countries.

On the point about the financial sector being large, well there is only one response to that. Who encouraged this throughout the last 13 years? I seem to remember a G Brown giving Mansion House speech after Mansion House Speech praising the vitality and creativity of the Financial Services Sector. The same G Brown still fails to acknowledge his role in creating one of the most toothless regulatory regimes in the developed world.

Finally, it is not about talking down anything. It is about being honest about the problems and taking actions to deal with them. Printing money and borrowing is not a long term solution, it isn't a solution at all. It is just a bandage designed solely to delay the inevitable pain until after the election. The problem with bandages is that you can't se the wound festering underneath until...

TodH, there are so many items that could be cut without impacting cherished services. Let's start with ID cards and the quangocracy. I have an idea, how about if you are responsible for spending public money you must be answerable to the public. Not that complicated really.

WheresMyVote

I wouldn't write off labour too soon if I were you. They have spent 13 years using taxpayers money to strengthen their core vote. If you are living on benefits or working in a public sector non-job would you vote tory?

no article on Brown hiding in N Ireland to avoid the debate?

But i do enjoy articles on how we shouldn't vote tory if the economy is more screwed than expected. Labour is clearly the problem

Michael,

A major simplification you and the rest of the media make, is to conclude that we have "0.1% growth". As you say later, there are revisions to come.

Contrary to your assertion, revisions are NOT "often later revised in the direction of travel" I refer you to the BBC website, where they have shown the revisions in graphical form. Using statistical analysis on the raw data, no correlation.

The poll you quote is probably right in that 0.1% is unlikely to change the course of the election. And if the revisions are upwards, Wise's 0.3% will make little difference.

However, if either the February or March revisions are downwards, and 0.1% becomes -0.1%, the media message suddenly changes to Recession NOT over! A headline like this is unlikely to help the Tories directly, but it could damage, if not destroy any narrative that Labour is trying to establish.

@ adyboy 27 Jan 2010, 3:22PM

no article on Brown hiding in N Ireland to avoid the debate?

In the Guardian? You must be joking. Go to the blogs if you want to find these shites getting a good kicking - indeed, Guido has just laid into Brown, who has cut his "emergency" trip to NI short - with nothing sorted out - now that PMQs is over and done with.

The Great Feartie Of Fife. Man Of Courage.

@Cynosarge

Narrative? We've had aenough bloody fairy stories from Labour as it is. Any party that uses the word "narrative" should be disbanded on the spot. For ever. Narrative, FFS.

And when did "results" become "outcomes"? And why?

As an aside, when did "Global warming" become "Climate change"? And why?

No more narratives, please. Lets have some home truths, for a change. Our eceonomy is broken. Our society is broken. Our political process has been hikacked by people of evil intent. No narrative there - just the truth.`

So, rational but not guaranteed, then, for the Lib Dems

What sort of guarantee might suit? We're all in it together? No more boom and bust?

Trust us, our chief policymakers will pool resources with anyone to get the best deal? (Hint; think Deripaska, Osborne, Mandelson)

Dave wants to kill off the recovery by making huge cuts to soon, bewear of double dip Dave

Why? Because heavily indebted countries tend to devalue their currency ? as Britain has done by 20%

The government didn't devalue sterling, the market did. And the government weren't stupid enough to attempt to prop it up - the last Tory chancellor who tried that got us royally screwed.

Wheresmyvote

You say G Brown encouraged the financial sector, but during his stewardship the Tories were squealing about OVERregulation the whole time.

Think how much worse things would have been had the already insuficient regulation not been there. Even now Osbourne is trying to claim that deregulating is the answer.

Absurd. I can only presume that the Labour bashers on here have vested interests, or they simply don't understand.

@ Bongo Billy

Guido has just laid into Brown

When will Guido be standing for election so we can hear his policies & vote on them? His vindictive prattle is false populism of the worst kind.

Hence the Guardian's ominous page one headline today, quoting the aptly named Bill Gross, California-based founder of Pimco, a US fund-manager, to the effect that Britain's public debt ? Treasury gilt sales ? are "resting on a bed of nitroglycerine".

Did Bill miss out in the last UK bond auction? If you're not fast you're last, Bill.

Good strategy to rubbish the successful bond buyers though; & the hyperbolic 'nitro' comment got him lots of headlines & other free publicity.

@AmberStar

Guido has his own views and his own blog. I don't think he is beholden to you, or indeed, anyone else. If you have a problem with his views, why not email him?

To my mind, he has done a stirling job in helping to expose the expenses scandal - first prize, of course, to the glorious Heather Brooks, who really SHOULD get a medal for all her hard work in uncovering the fact that the house is a den of thieves.

Yet again, you've been suckered in by the propaganda. There are 2 points:

The first is that the Tories were in OPPOSITION. That means they had no power to do anything. With the majority that Brown and Blair had they could do (and did) anything they pleased with no regard to the opposition viewpoint. So saying the Tories wanted something else is irrelevant in the extreme.

The second is that the Tories were calling for less in volume but more effective regulation. They had spotted the farcical situation where you have 3 bodies nominally regulating the industry but not one of them had any responsibility to constrain the more reckless behaviours of the banks.

I think it is absurd that after the longest recession since records began, there are still people willing to give Brown the benefit of the doubt.

Please never confuse strong opposition to the Tories with unquestioning support for Labour in govt. I have always been strongly opposed to compulsory ID cards, and dislike excessive beaurocracy.

Posts are confused and confusing which is right: if we all agree it's a fog of uncertainty we're on the right track ie lost.

Posters are right to say chancellor Brown contributed to - exaccerbated - the bust when it came ( all that foolish "abolish boom and bust " talk which sensible people ignored) by going with the bubble, over-borrowing and becoming over-dependent on City revenues.

It would have been smarter to dampen it down in mid-decade ( as he did in 1997-99) - as the Australian and Canadian ( but not US) governments did.

But, as assorted rival posters say, the Tories were cheerleaders for all this too and demanded more deregulation. It's no good saying they were not in office, they were part of the pro-market pressure which cowed Brown. Only Vince Cable looks pretty good on a lot of this.

I love the idea that Lahbour's "bribed" the core vote with our money. Voters are notoriously ungrateful and disaffected Labour core voters are quite likely to stay at home or vote BNP/UKIP/Lib Dem as vote for Gordon, aren't they?

At the time of writing I had missed Bill Gross's poor prediction record.

But most people I talk to in all parties and none assume the growth figures will be revised upwards. Business confidence is returning, people keep telling me, but they need assurance that there will be no double dip. tricky.

compared with 43% who think ? correctly ? that he's helped ease the crisis

You forgot to say that is your opinion.

It is not mine, and it is clearly not a given fact. Indeed Gordon Brown with his monumental incompetence is hugely to blame for the UK's recession being so much longer than everyone elses. He ran up the structural deficit, set the inflation target contributing to the housing boom, claimed to eliminate boom and bust and not prepare accordingly. There's a whole load of other financial disasters he's made, but thats enough for now. Well placed to withstand the recession - don't make me laugh - he made it worse for the rest of us.

His handling of the recession is not as bad as his disastrous lead up to it, though thats hardly a ringing endorsement.

Going forward, I find it hard to believe he's got any credibility for how to progress once it's really over. Does anyone seriously believe he'll reduce the debt. He's still talking about spending money the country does not have.