Indeed. They should not have continued the neoliberal polices of the previous governments.

But they did - don't blame the Tories, no one forced Blair to turn into a Tory he did it of his own volition and no doubt you helped to vote him all three times?



The likes of Balls are in complete denial about any of this - it was all somebody else's causing. Which we all know was only part of the problem, pity he scraped in at the last election might have brought he down a peg or two.

Unlikely that Barclays, RBS and BOS would have moved and Brown basically sunk Lloyds by forcing them to bail out halifax/bos.

Quote Sal Paradise="Sal Paradise"But they did - don't blame the Tories, no one forced Blair to turn into a Tory he did it of his own volition and no doubt you helped to vote him all three times? The likes of Balls are in complete denial about any of this - it was all somebody else's causing. Which we all know was only part of the problem, pity he scraped in at the last election might have brought he down a peg or two.'" Exactly. This article sums it up very nicely. blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainm ... -disaster/

Quote Sal Paradise="Sal Paradise"But they did - don't blame the Tories, no one forced Blair to turn into a Tory he did it of his own volition and no doubt you helped to vote him all three times? The likes of Balls are in complete denial about any of this - it was all somebody else's causing. Which we all know was only part of the problem, pity he scraped in at the last election might have brought he down a peg or two.'" Exactly. This article sums it up very nicely. blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainm ... -disaster/

"Turn into a Tory"?



I don't he was ever anything other than a neoliberal. There are reasons that pretty much the first thing that he did when he became leader of the Labour Party was to remove Clause 4.



But it is also worth pointing out (not for the first time) that a substantial swath of the popular media made it pretty much impossible to present any genuinely alternative policies.



Unfortunately, we have a dumbed-down public discourse in the UK, in which some media simply present political debate on polices as front pages saying that the lights would go out. And substantial swathes of the UK populace simply believe such hyperbolic nonsense, without looking any further.







Ultimately yes, it financial crisis and subsequent recession [iwas[/i someone else's doing – the banks and big finance. On a global scale.

I agree to a point with your views on Blair, but Balls/Brown could have done more the sub prime mortgage issue was only going to end one way as was the gambling culture on the trading floors of these banks. Not regulating was a contributory factor and for that Balls must take his share of the blame

They wouldn't have moved lock stock and barrel but they would have relocated their "investment" (sharking) departments to less stringent areas of the world, and then still shot themselves in the foot.

That would have been ok let the Cayman Isles bail them out or just let the investment arm fail by the way side ala Lehman

That's naive in the absolute extreme.



You saw what happened when NatWest had a computer glitch for a weekend (it went on for much longer with Ulster Bank). Now imagine the panic that would've ensued if people realised that their Northern Rock and RBS cards no longer worked. Not only that, all those employed by companies that banked with those two couldn't process payments, leading to a very real knock-on effect among all of the rest of the banking sector.



We would have seen civil unrest not known since Cromwell's time, last year's riots would've seemed like a vicar's tea party in comparison.



You can blame Brown & Balls all you like but those fooking bankers were hiding the scale of the problem from their ferllow bankers and in some circumstances, even from their own colleagues. It's no wonder the FSA didn't flag the problem, so deep-seated was the scale and scope of the corrupt activities.

It was meant as a flippant remark, the fact still remains if the main stream banking was separated form the gambling and the monies in the main stream ring fenced then the riskier investment gambling could be let go bust and thus avoiding your armageddon senario. Brown didn't need to compound matters with how he treated Lloyds.



The potential issues of sub prime were well known and the potential catastrophe discussed by numerous luminaries well before it happened. Government knew how leveraged the banks were they just thought they would continue lending to each other indefinitely. Northern Rock were offering 125% mortgages, that was an unsustainable position, Labour had ample opportunity to do something but did nothing - the fsa has been shown to be not fit for purpose - Balls & Brown were part of the problem not all of it but not without blame

On this I absolutely agree that a lack of regulation was a massive problem – although I suspect that, by the time Ed had any say in anything, it was far too late in terms of the 2008 crisis. Hardly anyone saw it coming – Dean Baker (US macroeconomist and co-founder of the for Economic and Policy Research) is one of a very rare number of exceptions.



But the ethos of deregulation doesn't stand on its own: it's part of a wider political/economic ideology – specifically in terms of the times we're living though, neoliberalism. Which also includes deindustrialisation and privatisation. Both of those were also continued by Blair's governments.



Deregulation is a key aspect of small statism. There's a reason the Tories' own current crop of Tea Partiers want even more deregulation, even knowing what happened in terms of finance, and even when there is not a jot of evidence that deregulation in other sectors would create jobs, for instance. It's an obsession with nothing to support it – and indeed, with much against it.

The government - both parties are equally guilty - seem intimidated by the bankers, doesn't help when you have so many eggs in that basket. You would have thought their arrogance would have been dented by their abject failure to run their businesses properly, but no their self esteem knows no bounds. As usual when business really needs them to step up to the plate they ensure they look after their own first.



I can understand the large scale deindustralisation for mass produced basic products - we simply cannot compete with the BRIC countries, but for small run highly technical products we are as good as anywhere and this should be encouraged. From a skill retention basis if nothing else