Minister says "we must deceive our own supporters"
There is a rather excellent piece in the Sunday Times today about Brown and his constant lying on spending that is well worth a read. Most tellingly in it though is the following quote from an unnamed minister about the real driver behind the entirely stupid dividing "line of cuts vs cuts investment" (my emphasis added) We don’t care if the commentators or the economists turn against us... This is all about shoring up the base in the northern heart-lands, which we lost in the European elections. We don’t want or need them to understand the nuance of the argument. We just want them to hate the Tories again." Do they really hold the intelligence of their own core-vote in such contempt that they'd even admit their intention is to deceive them? Like I and many others have said before, the next election is not about "cuts vs investment", it's about Tory honesty on what needs to be done, against Labour deception about what they too know needs to be done. http://dizzythinks.net/2009/06/minister-says-we-must-deceive-our-own.html

Do they really hold the intelligence of their own core-vote in such contempt that they'd even admit their intention is to deceive them? Yes. It might help if they decided to be positive about themselves rather then just carping on about everyone else.

Clearlyt they know a voter would have to be half-witted to support them. So of course they hold their supporters in contempt! :lol:

That is possibly true. I can say that with some smugness, as I have already admitted voting Labour - for the one and only time in my life, and because it would have made no difference at all in this constituency - in 1997. I regretted it before 1998 was out! :lol: :wink: The Major government had enough flaws to make one glad to see the back of them all - but once we saw the mendacious Labour Party in full flower they seemed, in retrospect, to be as honest as the day is long, and fairly competent, too. And when it comes to "sleaze" ....... :roll: Let us call to remembrance the golden economic legacy the Major Tories left for Labour to fritter away! The ruin of the Labour years will still be a burden on our great grand-children!

The public finances, TJ! Not the public's finances! In any case, - as I recall - the banks were not handing out money like candy to the children back then. I remember this very well. Being a trend-setting sort of Bear, in 1988 I wanted to let my house and buy another near my workplace to live in. This would have been entirely prudent, sensible and affordable .... but no lender would even consider financing this premature "buy-to-let" arrangement. So I find myself unable to agree with you

Perhaps you are too young to remember the huge feel-good factor we had sometime about then, TJ? Lawson was chancellor at the time. I remember travelling to London by train one day, looking out of the window and suddenly emitting a contented sigh. It really did seem good! And Lawson famously balanced the budget! Of course there were economic problems before 1997! Did I even hint that there were not? We had Black Wednesday and its aftermath, but the fact remains that the Major government got the public finances back into apple-pie order, just in time for these damnable progressives to spend the next eleven years bringing us to virtual ruin. Had we had a Tory government all this time we would still have had the banking crisis "that started in America", but I am confident that we would not also have the even greater problem of crushing public debt and a hugely bloated public sector.

I have to side with BB here. There are always going to be economic problems of one sort or another, from personal debt to child poverty. You can't solve every problem. You can't legislate to stop Mr Smith running 10 credit cards to their maximum. But the way in which Labour has run the economy over the last 12 years was always going to lead us to where we are now. No peacetime government has ever run up public debt to such levels before.