How Can George Osborne Still Be In His Job?

[eighthobstruction]

I cannot find a news print link for this item, but here is an PM link (item starts 42 minutes in). This shows the lengths folk will go avoid tax, and hide profits....http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...PM_24_01_2013/

[johnb]

The worrying thing about the recent figures is that all the forecasts, from the start of the coalition, have consistently been much too optimistic. Every time they have revised their estimates downwards those revisions have also been consistently too optimistic.

So, on past form, we can expect that austerity will probably continue for the whole of the next parliament at least. The deficit will probably continue the current trend - growing rather than reducing - and it will probably be the end of the next parliament or after that national debt begins to stabilise.

That is if the whole thing doesn't collapse around our ears.

My guess is that the Bank of England has to continue with QE for the foreseeable future because that is the main reason that our interest rates are so low (the BofE buys the government's dept). It looks as though we will soon lose our AAA status, there are signs that the financial markets are beginning to get jittery about UK debt, Stirling is likely to drop in value and Osborne seems totally out of his depth.

[scottycelt]

I daresay there are a few things in life even worse than the hapless Boy George.

Surely one must be the constant sight and sound of The Right Honourable Edward Michael Balls giving lectures on Economics to the hapless Boy George.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

DC must love George!!

Could it be a sort of Dan Quayle effect? Next to Osborne, Cameron looks nearly adequate?

[vinteuil]

Because he's a bosom mate of DC, because they are Etonians sticking together...

... actually no - Gideon was at St Paul's - and, as such, was regarded at Oxford as an oik by the Etonians David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

[VodkaDilc]

... actually no - Gideon was at St Paul's - and, as such, was regarded at Oxford as an oik by the Etonians David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

Perhaps he will find Plan B on the road to Damascus.

[Thropplenoggin]

Perhaps he will find Plan B on the road to Damascus.

Ye gods! Are they intending to bring the Assad regime to its knees by sending Gideon over as chief economic advisor?



You know, it might just work!

[amateur51]

A smidgeon of kite-flying by Bank of England Governor-in-waiting Mark Carney at Davos, suggesting that responsibility for Gideon's Plan B may lie in his in-tray.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/26/mark-carney-bank-england

The most depressing paragraph runs thus:

" Business secretary Vince Cable is also leading calls within the coalition for action to increase spending on infrastructure, to help kickstart the economy into life. Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has already suggested the government may have been wrong to slash capital projects so quickly after coming to office in 2010."

[my emphasis]

May?! Oh pur-leaze!

[MrGongGong]

i would love to know how the olympics boosted the economy.
It slaughtered it in our business.

Shhhhhh that's not in the script

is it just me who has this image every time I hear them going on about Davos ?

[teamsaint]

I am always suspicious when they say they are going to kick start the economy by spending on capital projects.
OK, capital projects have to be done, but all too often I suspect its another way of dishing out nice contracts to favoured companies......

The number of bridges under repair round here needs to be seen to be believed, each one a 6 month project. Perhaps they were all in danger of simultaneous collapse....

[Flosshilde]

is it just me who has this image every time I hear them going on about Davos ?

No it isn't - I have exactly the same thought.

[ahinton]

Perhaps he will find Plan B on the road to Damascus.

Or Lashkagar - or Cairo - or Benghazi - or maybe Timbuktu; actually, his excuses for not forming and implementing one might be thought to be very few and far between considering the sheer number of roads on which he might find it...

[ahinton]

A smidgeon of kite-flying by Bank of England Governor-in-waiting Mark Carney at Davos, suggesting that responsibility for Gideon's Plan B may lie in his in-tray.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/26/mark-carney-bank-england

The most depressing paragraph runs thus:

" Business secretary Vince Cable is also leading calls within the coalition for action to increase spending on infrastructure, to help kickstart the economy into life. Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has already suggested the government may have been wrong to slash capital projects so quickly after coming to office in 2010."

[my emphasis]

May?! Oh pur-leaze!

Yes, indeed they did come into office in May. The great thing about infrastructure projects is that, like announcements of referenda 4½ years hence, they stretch into the next government and possibly also the one after that, so whoever implemented one that gets ballsed (sorry, Ed) up will likely no longer be around to take the flack for its having done so.

Never mind Plan B; my confidence is unlikely to increase unless and until I've seen Plan C, Plan D and Plan E at the very least, as the likelihood that these and possibly more will need eventually to be pressed into service seems not to be so small...

[scottycelt]

It's all very well telling the Chancellor to introduce a Plan B.

The only possible alternative (Plan B) is a loosening of the national economic belt which will automatically lead to a lower pound, higher inflation and rising interest rates leading in turn to higher unemployment.

It's called being between a rock and a hard place.

Not a happy situation for the UK and threatening to leave the EU will only make matters even worse. Our one hope is when the Eurozone area starts to recover and we can start selling again.

[amateur51]

It's all very well telling the Chancellor to introduce a Plan B.

The only possible alternative (Plan B) is a loosening of the national economic belt which will automatically lead to a lower pound, higher inflation and rising interest rates leading in turn to higher unemployment.

It's called being between a rock and a hard place.

Not a happy situation for the UK and threatening to leave the EU will only make matters even worse. Our one hope is when the Eurozone area starts to recover and we can start selling again.

Governor Carney will be grateful for your advice & counsel, scotty.