[TROI]

Do you think Gordon Brown is a good economist?

It seems that all his estimates about the market have come true no matter how absurd sometimes, he is either really lucky or a very calculative man.
I have an inkling that it is the latter.

Does this make any sense at all?

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Who the feck is Gordon Brown? Any publications? Or is he just some sort of politician?

[TROI]

Chancellor of the Exchequer

[Gustav Fluffy]

The next Prime minister of Britain.

[Liberal]

[Al Khabir]

A good economist, a crap chancellor (though the party probably love him for the same reasons that I dislike him).

[TROI]

Elaborate...

[Ben Ainsworth]

I think if people think he is a crap economist they need to look at the facts.

There are a lot of doubts about how socialist the Blair government is, and i tend to agree but Gordon Brown has produced budget after budget to redistribute wealth more fairly.
The Labour budgets have been the most socialist things about their policies.

He has been praised from all areas for his economic management, including being tracked by the IMF for a senior role their.

Also, anti-blairites might be interested to know, Gordon Brown is often talked of challenging blair on various issues. He is more socialist than blair ever will be.

He has effectively managed to run the economy whilst following left wing policies of wealth redistribution, that's gotta be praised surely? Anyway, what evidence is there that he is a bad economist?

[Tesl]

I dont want to go into too much detail because i havent the time, but:

His "success" so far has largely been since hes been able to ride a strong economy; that was created for him by the tories. Ken Clarke's excellent management as Chancellor paved the way for him to take the glory for it.

He has survived by borrowing excess amounts of cash, yet nothing has actually improved. Our trade deficit is only going to be getting larger, and i doubt wel see anything positive for it.

now, GDP figures show things are quite good; since so many extra imaginery jobs have been created by Labour. However production is what you need to be looking at, and the country has not become more productive because of it. This is obviously going to cause huge problems in the future. Production in the public sector has actually fallen 10% since Brown came in (possibly Parkinsons law playing into effect?)

Overall i dont think hes done well at all; taxes have gone up on average £2,000 a person (man woman or child) and nobody is seeing the benefits for it.

However, he has been very calculating in the sense that everything he has done has not been for the country; but for his own and his parties political gain. Many things he has done have been done for the figures (employing a million people to do nothing for example; more money going into public services, employement coming down, GDP figures stay up.....looks good statistically doesnt it?)

So, hes been very good politically; but not economically. The sooner we get rid of him the better to be honest

Also, anti-blairites might be interested to know, Gordon Brown is often talked of challenging blair on various issues. He is more socialist than blair ever will be.

The only challenges he puts forwards are ones where he says he wants to be PM, and Blair wont let him. Then they fall out and sulk about it for a while.

[Mike1]

Brown's also completely cocked up the pension plans in this country because he kept dipping into and now can't afford to put the money back.

[Tesl]

Brown's also completely cocked up the pension plans in this country because he kept dipping into and now can't afford to put the money back.

aye, thats also the contributing factor to the current property boom; because people see property as a better investment than private pensions.

Thats fairly worrying too; there are more houses up for rent than people who want them, so dont be suprised when house prices in some areas start to rewind =/

[SueDeNîmes.]

aye, thats also the contributing factor to the current property boom; because people see property as a better investment than private pensions.

Private pensions? Can't blame Brown for that. Twasn't he that deregulated financial services to the extent that there is no longer any real obligation to honour ppls' investments. That was Thatcher. Most of the pensions 'misselling' happened in the late 80s - early 90s. THe rot had set in long before Brown settled in at 11 Downing St

[Tesl]

[quote="Sue DeNimesPrivate pensions? Can't blame Brown for that. [/quote]

you can when he starts taxing them so highly they cant afford to pay out what they otherwise would have done

[SueDeNîmes.]

you can when he starts taxing them so highly they cant afford to pay out what they otherwise would have done

Yep, and while private fund managers and executives continue to award themselves record bonuses, that isn't the case. Private pensions are mostly unable to pay out because they offered guaranteed annuity rates back when inflation and interest rates were much higher. The cap on individual's retirement fund (55% tax above £1.5 million) will only adversely effect about 10,000 ppl. The stealth tax on employers' contribution to occupational pensions is naughty, but has nothing to do with ppl's preference for investing disposable income in property over private pensions.

The current property bubble is a market failure that goes way back. Only The Daily Mail could try to blame it on Gordon Brown

[Damien]

"Prime Minister Brown" has a nice ring to it.

for the "Iron Chancellor"!:eek:

[Gareth]

The next Prime minister of Britain.

Hardly likely, the English electorate may have a Scot as Prime Minister now but most of them don't realise that he is a Scot.

The message to Brown, if he becomes leader, will be clear - you have your own parliament in Scotland; go sit in that.

[Damien]

The next Prime minister of Britain.

Hardly likely, the English electorate may have a Scot as Prime Minister now but most of them don't realise that he is a Scot.

Yes - born in Edinburgh in the early 1950s

The message to Brown, if he becomes leader, will be clear - you have your own parliament in Scotland; go sit in that.

Nonsense. We need a man to come in who would abolish this awful present government police of "tuition fees" - such as Charles Kennedy - and forsake the awful oppressive neo-Conservative values that New "Labour" had embraced under the Blair-era to prevent certain students from achieving their dreams and making them become bin men.

Meanwhile a Somali immigrant was once recently awarded £15,000 by a High Court(!) after he successfully sued the British police force for "unfair treatment" after he was arrested for raping an elderly grandmother. It makes you think about just where exactly all of the student's very and most unjust hard-earned money goes, doesn't it?

Rape an old woman, you make a happy fortune, want to have a good life, you are only awarded with hardship.

This is Britain 2004.

Brown is a great economist who will change Britain for the better.

[Gareth]

Nonsense. We need a man to come in who would abolish this awful present government police of "tuition fees" - such as Charles Kennedy - and forsake the awful oppressive neo-Conservative values that New "Labour" had embraced under the Blair-era to prevent certain students from achieving their dreams and making them become bin men.

Actually we need an English parliament with no Scots in it, a amjority of English MPs were against top-up fees, it was only forced through by Blair's tartan lobby fodder - Brown being amongst them.

Gordon Brown supported the creation of a Scottish parliament, he should sod off and do his politicing at Holyrood.

As for the Lib Dems, they support the present constitutional arrangement whereby Scots and Welsh vote on English issues with no commensurate right of English MPs to vote on theirs.

Charles Kennedy - "Scotland has a parliament. Wales an assembly. In England regionalism is growing as never before, calling into question the very idea of England itself."

A pox on his shrivelled liver.

[RedSam]

Gordon is a good economist, and as well as that, spent more time as Shadow Chancellor than some Chancellors spend in the job itself, so he had a good idea of the economic state come 97, and how to deal with it for the better

[Seán Himmelb(L)au]

Yeah, I think he's a pretty good economist who Labour are lucky to have on their side. But your poll only has good, bad, and a lot of luck, when I think a little luck is involved. Plus there isn't much background info.