There are more ways to fix an economy than by making cuts without any stimulation to growth. I was listening to a fact based show with economists who were not affiliated to any political party recently. They didn't all agree on the level of austerity that was required to fix the problems post 2008, but what they did all agree on was that with hindsight, austerity was started too early - they should have let things run on 2 more years and then started austerity and the long term impact over decades would have been less bad. This is counter intuitive but this is what those experts all seemed to agree on. This also interestingly actually backs up Labour's decision (which I previously critisised as purely political) to keep going as they were between 2008 and 2010.
Many economists also think that the current Conservative policy is similar to a business that is eventually going to run itself into the ground - it is what happens when you put accountants completely in charge - all they know how to do is cut costs, and they have no idea how to stimulate growth.
I don't think I've denied that Labour were probably overspending prior to 2008 - my contention was that this was a minor issue compared to the issues caused by the international crash. This is like having a car crash, spending all your money in the bank on a new car, and than blaming the fact that you bought a pint of beer in the pub the night before the crash as the main cause of why you have no money left.
Your recent posts seem to be very fixed on one fairly right wing viewpoint. Have you considered that maybe the reality is a little bit more complicated than that? I voted Labour (against my principles) as a tactical vote, but I don't agree with them nationalising the power and water companies, although I do agree with them nationalising the railways, if it can be done legally. I don't really agree that the railways were worse before privatisation, and yes I was around back then and used them. Let's not forget our railway system is already pretty much massively subsidized by the taxpayer, even more so than it was when nationalised, and most of it is already effectively nationalised. There is just an overcoat of veneer on top to make it look like it's private, and even those parts are now often owned by the nationalised railway companies of other countries - this makes no sense whatsoever for UK taxpayers to be subsidising the German railways.
Anyway, my point is, I think Jeremy Corbyn's Labour government has some terrible policies, and some good ones. I think their government of the country would risk overspending and could be disastrous. However, I also think the Conservatives policy on Brexit is catastrophic (I'm defining catastrophic as worse than disastrous in my world
), therefore I vote tactically for the slightly less bad option.
Further, the Conservatives were in power from 2010 to 2017, and frankly in the last 2 years since 2015, their government has been completely incompetent and made major decisions that risk wrecking the country, and also created a massive us against them divide in the whole country. In my view they are not fit to govern for that reason alone, and any other party would be better than this lot, not necessarily because of their entire package of policies, but because they have got it catastrophically wrong on the big calls.
