Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
I wouldn't say at all that John Major left the economy in a mess; Labour inherited a buoyant economy from the Conservatives, as they normally do. Compare this to the near disaster Thatcher inherited from Callaghan in 1979, when Britain was the poor man of Europe.
And again, when the current Government took over from Brown, we all know there was no money left.
The reality is that to have a successful Government delivering socialist policies, you need a good economy, which means not driving away the rich. Labour and the Scottish Nationalists will never learn!
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Major certainly didn't leave the economy in a mess. It was buoyant, and growing. Gordon Brown was confident enough in it to stick to Tory spending plans when he took over.
The calamity of the early 90s was entirely caused by our disastrous entry and inevitable exit from the ERM, whose only saving grace has been that it has made it politically impossible for us to be dragged into the Euro, despite Tony Blair's insane desire to do just that.
IIRC, on the question of the single currency, Major's preference was for a parallel currency, based on the notional European Currency Unit, what he called the "hard ECU". Exactly how involved he was in pushing us into ERM I don't know; I think it is generally accepted, however, that the Prime Minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, was not in favour, but was at the end of her tenure and no longer able to resist the pressure from Europhiles in her cabinet.