simon2129

CHEESE

Mitzyboy

Remember this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/d...00/2519013.stm

Dick Dasterdly

I remember Harold Wilson, who never faced up to, or solved one serious problem during all his years in power,...devaluing the pound,...then telling everyone that this does not mean that the pound in your pocket is worth any less.
Where financial affairs are concerned the labour party never ever had a clue and probably never will.
Should they get back in power the Pound will soon end up with about as much value as monopoly money.

rugbymatt

1992? Nah sorry mate, I was still playing with my Tonka Toys....

Mitzyboy

Exactly!

rugbymatt

... but I would imagine YOU would remember this....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_discontent

Cape Blue

I think you're wrong there RM.

On selling the gold its always easy to say it was a mistake when looking at it in hindsight - if it was obvious that the value of gold was going to increase as it subsequently has done then no one would have traded any gold (or any other precious metal for that matter) for the past 20 years in wait for the rise.

Brown sold in 1999 - in 1984 gold was about $300 per ounce, in 1999 it was about $300 per ounce, in January 2003 it was around $300/ounce. If anyone had seen the price going up to $900/ounce in 2008 they were keeping it very quiet.

If it was that obvious when to sell a commodity (or a currency for that matter) we'd all be kicking back as millionaires. We aren't (well I'm not).

As it was, the money Brown got (10 years ago) kept our taxes down and invested in new hospitals or nurses etc - if we'd borrowed that money we'd have been paying compound interest on it over the past 10 years.

On the selling of water/power/utility companies to the Germans/French - these are all private entities and can be sold to anyone, that isn't Labour's fault, its the fault of the Tories for privatising them in the first place.

I do think that there is a natural duration for any government, especially in the UK where the populace is generally a morose bunch. People remember their negatives more than the positives - a smoking gay labourer may have benefited from the minimum wage and gay civil unions, but will remember the smoking ban and perhaps Iraq more than the former when thinking about the existing gov. Brits are naturally driven to search for the negative.

At some point the gov will have done something that annoys each section of the populace and this negative will be remembered more than any positive. From 1997 (in fact 1995 to be fair to K Clarke) to 2007 the UK economy bitch-slapped all other similar developed economies, but when all developed countries starting having problems in this downturn, the fact that the UK is slightly worse is HUGE news, but the fact that it was much better over the previous 12 years is quietly forgotten.

bil

My preferred position for Lamont would be on all fours while I rammed broken bottles up his orifice.

bil

Harold Wilson. If all he achieved was the Open University, what a towering memorial that is to the man.

His other great trick was to keep us out of Vietnam, despite pressure from the Yanks - bear in mind that we owed them a lot of money at the time.

Fredbargate

Was that the money we owed for bailing out the French again?

bil

Who knows? I'm amused the way the US and UK used the French 'Cheese eating surrender monkeys' as a distraction from the fact they were invading Iraq illegally.

QI says that the French have won more battles than they have lost.....

Fredbargate

It's not the battles but the wars that count.

Remember civil wars usually end up as a draw

bil

Ain't that the truth. I like to get the Nat geog Historia (not the nat geog itself) in Spanish to brush up on the language and the history. There was a time when the French were really top dogs, and giving the Spanish a real kicking.

HBG

I have a dream. The UK finally gets a coalition government like they’ve had in Germany for years, a government that doesn’t pander to the wealthy or the unions, but just panders to the people of the UK.

Johnson would be PM, Cable would be Chancellor, Cameron at the foreign office, I’m not sure about the home office, but there would be a Scotsman for the Scottish office, a Welshman for the Welsh office and an Irishman for Northern Ireland.

The rest would be compulsilarily retired or put before a firing squad.

Fredbargate

Would that be at the time of Wellington?