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You're missing the point I have been trying to make. The issue of rapid population increase is important primarily because of the localised effect it has. You simply can't say that, just because 362,000 people moved out of the UK in 2003, the resultant ease on overall population levels mitigates the effect of uncontrolled immigration. Where did the 362,000 come from? Do the numbers of emigrants from any particular town affected by immigration match the number of immigrants to the same town? I doubt it.
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Firstly, immigration is strictly controlled, no way is it uncontrolled. The net difference between emigration & immigration is not significant.
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I say again, there is nothing vague about the Lib Dem plans, and you are unfairly deriding them for doing nothing different than every Party does. Yes, the IFS has demonstrated the assumptions made in the calculations and shown how things would not work out if certain factors altered. However the Lib Dems have done nothing different than any other Party in this respect. Brown is famous for sticking to growth projections that other financial analysts have derided. So far he has been proven right, by and large. Yet I
don't hear you queueing up to call your Chancellor vague for making plans based on certain ssumptions, even though the experts were easily able to show how, if certain assumed outcomes did not occur, his plans would be in tatters.
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You clearly did not read the comments reported on FactCheck from the IFS. I repeat read the page on:
FactCheck
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Internal difficulties? The SDP? So mass nationalisation, a high tax regime, Union barons and unilateral disarmament had nothing to do with it? Come on, that's lame. Very lame indeed.
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In the 1980s the Labour Party was divided as the extreme left Militant Tendency attempted to dominate Labour Party structures, this resulted in a loss of support for Labour at the time. The winter of discontent was also to blame as militant trade unionism was on the rise. Nationalisation was a policy of the 1945 government, I also recall that Edward Heath's Tory government nationalised Rolls Royce before it was sold off. Well as for nuclear disarmamment was popular at the time CND & END marches were huge and I still beleive far bigger than the protests over Iraq. The 80s were overshadowed by the development of Soviet SS20s & US cruise missiles and it scared millions of people.
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So, to cut to the quick, there is at the start of the 21st century a consensus in mainstream British politics that the broad sweep of Thatcherite economics is the right thing for our country.A couple of interesting side-points ... first, when Labour wants to trumpet its own Economic prowess, it is fair game to deride the Tories on the basis of their monumental cock-up with the ERM and the economy of the early 90s, but when someone wants to point out Labour's less than salubrious historic record on the economy, it's 'old ground'? Right ... well I guess it makes sense to someone.
and second ... I do realise that council houses were sold off at below market rates. That was the entire idea. I suggest that the reason Labour couldn't see the wood for the trees on this one is that if there's one thing that preoccupies them more than Redistribution, it is State control of as much as possible. Meanwhile the Tories take a more pragmatic stance, not averse to a massive wealth-redistributing project like selling off council houses on the cheap if it's a means to a greater end, the economic liberation of working
people.Oddly, John Humphreys on the Today programme this morning was accusing Letwin of redistributive tax policy with regards to their pensions assistance policy announced this morning. Letwin made the point about pragmatism too.To change the subject, if I may, what do we think about the pensions policy announcement and what are the other parties planning to do about the pensions crisis so deftly created by Gordon the Grabber Brown's £5 billion tax-raid on the UK's occupational pension funds?
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I seem to be missing something, redistribution of wealth? Did Tony Blair nationalise something, has he opened up the vaults in the Bank of England! State control of what? Free beer for the workers on Friday nights? Gordon Brown's tax policies have been prudent & pragmatic he has not done anything that has harmed the economy quite the reverse. Of course more funds have been made available for working families and the new deal.
I would have thought the current Labour government fits the menu for pragmatism.I don't think the Tories have a good record when it come to pensions afterall their are still millions of people around who were conned into private pensions schemes and still paying the price.
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