None of those articles talk seriously about the Labour party splitting in two, only some MPs defecting. I doubt much will come of it though, as defecting to the Lib Dems is basically ensuring you have no place in the next or any government in the foreseeable future. Ashdown's speculation is just that.
You are correct that none of the articles provide any evidence that Labour will fragment into separate factions, I simply wanted to point out that the suggestion originated in the broadsheets. It is possible that some Labour MP's will defect to the Liberals if Labour lose at the next general election. Labour defections have happened in the past.
This is classic newspaper tactics. The Mail is by far the worst for it. Every edition has reader's letters starting "If the government does such-and-such..." when the government has no plans to do such-and-such, and has often never even hinted at even considering such-and-such.
Indeed. With Gordon Brown appearing to be both unpopular and ineffective this is behaviour that all the UK newspapers are indulging in, not just the Daily Mail. I will concede that the Mail is one of the worst at this and should not be considered a quality news source.
More hyperbole. Before the credit crunch spending was fairly low compared to other nations, and now it's being done to lessen the effects of the recession by stimulating the economy with cash injections (e.g. car scappage scheme) and government projects (building contracts etc). Of course a lot went to prop up the banks, but people talk about that as if it was a free hand-out. We own those banks now and it's hard to imagine a situation so catastrophic that we wouldn't get out investment back with interest at some point in the medium term.
Hyperbole, really?. I think I was being quite restrained. Comparing UK government spending levels to other nations is not useful. Others have different population levels, GDP and citizen expectations. What is useful is comparing spending to GDP, the good old fashioned can we afford it metric. Why not take a look at the ever amusing (and full of hyperbole) Buring our Money blog. The articles in the debt category should convey a sense of the debt disaster Labours spending has built up with far more eloquence than I have time for here. In case you were wondering where it all goes here is the handy Guardian (PDF) chart of government spending.
The government could have handled the bank bailouts considerably better. I really liked the good bank idea I read about in the FT. This idea would have left the UK with a much smaller debt problem and several profitable banks to sell off in a few years time.
If you think that's "like a drunken sailor" you clearly have no understanding of even basic economics. I'll spell it out for you: in a recession the problem is people stop spending, so work dries up and businesses find it hard to get loans or credit (and they all rely on that). The only way you can lessen the effect is to put money into the economy by spending and making sure banks still offer loans.
We are going to have to disagree here, the fastest way back to a healthy economy is to cut tax, regulation and the public sector. The government is now starting to find it difficult to open new lines of credit. We may be close to the time when there are no buyers of government debt. If this happens expect the government to have to go cap in hand to the IMF. It is unlikely that Alistair Darlings spend our way out of the recession plan is going to be an option.
The best way to prevent boom and bust in the future economy as a whole is to prevent future government from increasing taxes and the money supply. We also need to prevent companies from becoming so large that their failure causes issues for the country as a whole.
I don't know what you think the better alternative is, but I'd love to hear it. In the last three recessions the Tory government did fuck all and our manufacturing industry was decimated, 5 million out of work. Well, that isn't entirely true, they did support the rich with tax breaks and encourage everyone to become shareholders, often in formerly public enterprises (and look how well that turned out).
Smaller government, less tax, less regulation.
The old fashioned ways before the cult of Keynes really. Unleashing the banking industry only seemed to be a good thing for society as a whole on upside of the boom. The resulting bust is going to be less fun. It would be nice if lessons really were learned, but I doubt they will be. It would be nice if politicians were really accountable for their actions.
Please provide a link to the poll you refer to.
Thanks for the link. I will watch that when my home BT "business" broadband link decides to give me the bandwidth back.
I go further and view all press reports with scepticism.
You say that, but clearly you don't or you wouldn't repeat the hyperbolic language the press uses. If you can't even manage to strip that away...
Lighten up, hyperbole is fun! Even when reading Daily Mail articles you often find a nugget of truth which can lead on to other more interesting sources. If more than a couple of Labour MPs defect after an election defeat it could be a disaster for Labour. After all the Liberals do not have all the Labour cruft of union support and really left wing members. These possibilities are what make even the Mail article interesting...
