If the Tories had been in power things would probably be worse

[Doggy Styles]

Erm, killing off civil liberties, following Mr Bush to Iraq, spending years negotiating with the IRA and still failing to get rid of Northern Ireland, we could make this a very long list, although it wouldn’t surprise me if the other lot would have done these things.

Yes, but my list is of things costing us the most.

[Mich the Tester]

Yes, but my list is of things costing us the most.

You think all those wars are cheap?

Probably are compared to bank bailouts, NHS systems and ID cards though.

[Sysman]

Is the US military that much bigger as a % of population or GDP than the UK... there are a LOT more people in the US than the UK.

UK population 60,943,912 (July 2008 est.) source
US population 303,824,640 (July 2008 est.) source

~5 times as much

[zathras]

If, as is commonly believed, this recession/depression has been caused by

(1) the securitisation of sub-prime mortgages by financial firms combined with
(2) an overly lax monetary policy i.e. too low interest rates

then logically as the Tories traditionally support more deregulation and lower interest rates, we would have been no better under them and arguably worse.

I now await the hard of thinking, reflex, cretinous Tories on this forum, but I would ask them to address the logic of this post rather than behave like chimps prodded in a laboratory.

Not neccasarily.

Both could have been dealt with by having a regulator who could check the Bank's exposure. That could have been the BoE who were given the job of regulation by the Tories after the Nick Leeson affair. The FSA has proven ineffectual, unable to understand what they were regulating and under funded to boot.

Further if housing was kept in the inflation calulation (by using RPI rather than CPI) then we could have avoided the boom in house prices

Equally if the Bank had not been given such a narrow remit (basically just inflation) it could have ensured that policy prevented instabilities from forming

Third even if the freeze in Bank Credit was repeated spending tends to go down in the good times thereby giving more money to deal with the problem when it arose.

[d000hg]

UK population 60,943,912 (July 2008 est.) source
US population 303,824,640 (July 2008 est.) source

~5 times as much

That site also reckons UK military budget is 2.4% of GDP, US is 4%.

[Cyberman]

He who ignores history is destined never to learn from it. All but the most hard of thinking, reflex, cretinous socialists in this country must accept after the best part of a century that the Labour party's incompetence with public money and fiscal policy knows no bounds, never has, and never will.

I couldn't agree more. What really concerns me now is that all caution has been thrown to the wind. We used to worry about spending an extra 500 million on schools or hospitals, but now throwing 12.5 Billion away on a VAT cut that won't work is considered ok.
I really despair because somebody has to pay for this eventually, as well as the 1 trillion in public sector pensions, numerous tranches of 20 Billion to the banks(sorry but I have lost count) etc etc. The taxes required will take so much out of the economy that we will be in a never-ending recession, all because Labour are trying to win votes.