John Major

[minestrone]

He also brought in the TESSA, he was worried about households going into too much debt and wanted to give them better opportunities to save.

Gordon disagreed with that.

People say that the Tories would have went down the same route and got us into the same trouble, not a chance that would have happened with Major, he clearly had some idea about balancing books and sustainable financial policies.

[Sysman]

They were already corporatised. They were fooked well before privatisation, some time back in the 60s when the local lines that bring passengers to the trunk lines were shut down.

Ian Hislop did a good documentary about the cuts under Dr Beeching, and the history leading up to it. Beeching was paid an awful lot of money for the time (if I remember correctly something like 100K pa).

[Sysman]

I'm one of those people who thinks John Major didn't do such a bad job at all. In fact, at the end of his period in government, the books were balanced and UK business was very competitive.

I agree. I first saw mention of him when Thatcher was still the boss. Apparently while everyone else was speaking at a Tory Party conference he was busy juggling budgets between ministries and doing a good job of it. In other words, he already had experience in doing a budget when he came to power.

I remember him being Thatcher's favourite. It was only once he got the job that Thatcher fell out with him.

He suffered a lot from the Spitting Images portrayal. I didn't give a monkey's as long as he could bring the UK out of the recession.

[RasputinDude]

I think that history will record him as one of the most competent leaders that we had in recent times. His problem was (as mentioned above) one of image. Spitting Image didn't help, but he also wasn't one to shout out about and glorify his every rectal movement (Blair, Brown) and so he didn't hog the limelight.

I remember reading something about him - can't remember what - but the quote was something like "John does everything quietly", and I think it's pretty accurate.

It's shame that the savings culture that he helped to create was reduced to what we have now by Brown.

[minestrone]

I also liked the fact that when he was a young chap he did a correspondance course in banking then worked his way up. Blair on the other hand went to Fettes and chose socialism as a 'cause'.

It was a choice between the work ethic of Major and the lifestlye choice of Blair in that election for me at the time and I chose to vote Major. When Blair did that speech after the death of Diana then we found out shortly after he was on the phone to Campbell asking what to say I knew we were in serious trouble.

I suspect if Major had won he would have kept on winning and we would have been debt free by 2008.

[Doggy Styles]

They won't be much different to this lot.

Sure, there will be some new window dressing but deep down they'll be doing what their puppet masters tell them to do.

Au contraire Malc. I think they will be different because they can't help spending money before wondering where it will come from. I think you know this in your heart of hearts, but I understand that lowering expectations reduces disappointment.

Once their jolly union bosses have chipped away at them, the swathes of cheeky civil servants have negotiated increases in staff levels, and all their other money-wasting fellow travellers have picked their pockets, the deficit will soon be thrusting upwards again like billy-o.

Whatever the ups and downs of the tory party's economic fortunes, you know for sure that the Labour party only does downs.

[swamp]

Northern Ireland peace process

Don't forget the Joint Declaration on Peace that Major introduced.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

wtf is all this about balancing the books? Major left a deficit.

[ZARDOZ]

People say that the Tories would have went down the same route and got us into the same trouble, not a chance that would have happened with Major, he clearly had some idea about balancing books and sustainable financial policies.

You must be on drugs or are not old enough to remember the ERM debacle including Black Wednesday, over which he almost resigned, talk about Rabbit caught in the headlights. The country was also in recession during the early part of his era, although I guess you could partially blame that on Mrs T.

[DodgyAgent]

wtf is all this about balancing the books? Major left a deficit.

You cant help yourself can you? Like a true leftie you take a piece of information and spin it according to the image it conjures without putting it into any perspective. Whether he left a deficit or not does not matter the fact is that he left the economy in good health. And then labour (your lot) took over.. once again. The rest is history.

For all you being critical of Cameron for not making cuts quickly enough you seem to ignore that they rely on a bunch of do gooding economically illiterate lefties to pass any policies.

There is a fundamental ideological difference between people who support the Tories and those who support labour. The policies may be very close to each other but one only has to look at outcomes of previous Tory and Labour administrations to see how these differences manifest themselves.