Read this BBC report of the Moody’s downgrade of the UK’s credit rating and you would think it was all over, UK PLC is done for…or as the BBC put it …Osborne’s ‘Gamble failed’.
Despite putting in the basic facts from the report the tone adopted by the BBC is downbeat and defeatist with an emphasis on an economy with ‘significant “challenges” ’ …though Moodys itself doesn‘t use the word ‘Significant‘ …..except in the positive sense as it says itself: ‘the UK’s creditworthiness remains extremely high, rated at Aa1, because of the country’s significant credit strengths.’
Read Moody’s actual press release and you will see a much more upbeat analysis of the UK economy…. supporting Osborne’s ‘strong track record of fiscal consolidation and political will.‘
Look at the growth figures from 2010 Q4 up until 2012 Q4 and they paint a different picture to that painted by Balls and the BBC of no growth or even contraction:
The total positive growth for the period is 2.6%.
The total negative growth for the period is -1.2%
The sum total then is a positive growth of 1.4%….slow and low but not ‘failing’ and certainly not ‘contracting’ as the BBC so often state..
Look at the GDP figures since 2006.….they show that even after the deepest recession since the ’30’s we have a GDP above that in 2006:
In 2006 we had a GDP figure (£m) of 353,777
In 2009 Q2 (The height of the recession) GDP was 349,261
In 2012 Q4 GDP was 360,483
Finally there’s the issue of Moody’s own credibility…..
The BBC has always attacked these credit rating agencies but seems happy to take the opportunity to give Osborne a dig.
However I did laugh when I heard this this morning from ‘Wake Up to Money’ (26 mins) from Mickey Clark in relation to the credit rating agencies:
‘They’re not regulated, they have got a lot of vested interests…and they got away scot free over the banking crisis.’
Or was he talking about the Labour Party!
Oh look!
Just come in from a dreadful “Science lecture” only to hear the BBC giving their chums in Labour a half hour of so, to graze, mooch ,chew the cud…and we`re paying for this shit.
And we`ll pay far more with a hollowed-out generation of airheads carrying around pledge cards if we do not take a stand.
The Tim Finch bloke that gave us this crap clearly relishes his role as Milibands cheerleader….basically, do we want “Red Labour” “Scarlet Socialists” or vermillion ?
And all to give an idea that Labour think, have thought and may yet think the same stuff again one day…just really whether we`ll be calling it “shit” or “shite”….Do we crave Miliband or Milly Mandy?…there`s all the difference and the debate rages on.
I myself see a closing of the mind her that is truly frightening…about time we cut this “Corporation” down to being a “Company” once again.
Who`s letting them get away with this?-it`s not that the Tories have a clue, but they`re not THIS snide and nasty.
“Two Eds” Flanders admitted a couple weeks ago that this wasn’t going to be a big deal, and that the real issue was Osborne pinning his reputation to the AAA rating. Hugh Pym repeats this in his inset “analysis”. The BBC is just taking him at his word, and I’m sure having fun in the process. I’m not sure, though, that this is such a scathing attack. It’s not balanced enough, but it’s not an all-out attack.
Where is Stephanie floundering Flanders? She has been absent for quite a while now. Is she ill like Robert Peston or simply skiving?
Fortunately,the markets don’t take their lead from the bbc. So, the propaganda machine can spout for all its worth but the city will behave according to the real world.
I can tell you from personal experience that, unfortunately, individuals do listen to the BBC on business issues and react accordingly.
“…and we`re paying for this shit” its not really such a radical idea as it might at first seem but none of us have to pay for any of it. The sooner enough people realise this the sooner the BBC will be brought back to reality.
To be honest a lot of this is Osbournes fault, he knew the financial situation when he took over the job, and told us all how dire it all was, yet despite that he staked political capital on the AAA rating when a wiser person might not have done.
It’s extremely difficult to judge the performace of a chancellor these days, many fiscal controls have been passed to the Bank of England, and the fact the UK operates in a fast moving global market means that many controls which used to be available to a chancellor are either not, or much less effective.
How does one judge the effectiveness of a chancellor in this environment, when he has no more control than a dandylion seed blown on the wind?
Agreed it was reckless of Osborne to burn his bridges on this – good point – but at least we still have our own currency and can decide our own interest rates. AND he returned banking supervision to its rightful place – the B of E (as long as they haven’t forgotten how to do it!).
It isn’t the way Mr Osbourne runs the economy that is being discussed here but the way the BBC has reported the loss of AAA. Moody’s also stated that the cuts were not deep enough or quick enough. My God, it would be impossible for the BBC to report that part of the news as it would completely blow out of the water everything they have been saying about the fiscal policy since the coalition took over…and completely sinks the ship of the Labour party’s own fiscal policy. But hey, we wouldn’t expect anything else from the so called unbiased BBC now would we? Would we?
“It isn’t the way Mr Osbourne runs the economy that is being discussed here ”
I’m sorry but when a politician stakes their reputation on something like the AAA then when he fails he becomes part of the story. Trying to separate the man who has most control of the economy from a story about the way he has done that, and the results of that management is not realistic.
No need to apologise.
He didn’t stake his reputation on it. He said we need to try, and he would endeavour, to keep the AAA. He has tried his whilst having to feed and pamper Coalition partners and a knee-jerk media and public.
Your original comment at 10:14 yesterday was perfectly valid but GO did not “stake his reputation”.
He didn’t say it that way, but he kind of did anyway. It’s his own fault for not having the balls to make proper cuts.
Nice pun, if a little contradictory….
Throughout the weekend the BBC stressed the downgrade would have little impact on the City. The damage is solely to the Chancellor. And quite rightly.
Hmm well maybe but I wonder how the BBC will play the fact that the Italians have just nosed dived the markets by doing the ‘ no cuts’ approach Balls up favours ?
LOL bet his credibility will be amazingly untouched in his ex’s bosses eyes !
The fixation on “growth” as a measure of the performance of an economy neatly frames the debate in terms that suit the Left. “Growth” is a narrow measure of economic activity, but doesn’t necessarily mean that the activity is sustainable. The UK had growth throughout the Blair/Brown era but only through a massive extension to government spending, which hid an equally massive decline in the productive sectors of the economy. Now that the government’s “magical money tap” has had to be turned off, it’s revealed that there is actually damn all left of our productive economy to fill the void. Oh, and don’t get me going on the impact of high fuel/energy prices are having on what little industry we have left…
And Labour’s line, faithfully parroted by their PR people (the BBC), for three years has been that the government promised to get the economy growing again. They didn’t: they said that they would deal with the deficit.
But Labour, wedded to spending other peoples’ money, still think you can grow an economy by borrowing and not paying back. Stephanomics.
The Longest Period of Growth in Britains History is how the BBC used to swoon over Prudence.
Trouble is they never mentioned that in all that time the ‘growth’ was decreasing until it became the 2008 recession.
MiniTrue strikes again.
The Labour Party(Brown) claimed to be wedded to “Prudence”…but is having it away with Profligacy”.
So said a letter writer to the Telegraph a few years back in 2006 or so.
That ‘longest period of growth’ actually started under Major – another inconvenient truth shamelessly erased by the BBC.
Yep, we had ‘debt growth’, not real ‘ecomonic growth’ after Mr Brown, around the year 2000, decided to drop the perfectly sustainable growth he inherited in 1997, in favour of a spending spree the likes of which had never been seen before in this country.
Moreover, he didn’t just spend in the years in which he was Chancellor – he committed the country to long-term unsustainable spending as well, with his public sector employment drives (very difficult to reverse), the pensions that these commit the country to in the longer term, PFI initiatives which contain commitments for 30+ years, etc., etc.
Now, his hope was possibly that inflation would run down the ‘value’ of these debts over time, but of course he couldn’t actually tell anyone that he wanted inflation to ‘boom’, because of the longer-term problems that THIS would cause (i.e. benefits escalating madly, runaway wage claims, particularly from the public sector which he done so much already to bloat, and so on.) But what the hey ? It wasn’t going to be his problem. Unfortunately for him, the position got found out sooner than expected ( no more boom and bust, though, remember ?)
The cold dead hands of Gordon Brown – and his close accomplices/ardent supporters at the time, Messrs Balls and Milliband E. – still have a grip on our economy.
Spot on. In Labour’s years in power they simulated growth not stimulated it. But the BBC will never mention any of this because it would damage Labour at their weakest spot, the economy, so reducing their chances of victory in 2015. The BBC know that this next election is vital because of the charter negotiations in 2016 which will be so much easier and fruitful with their friends in Labour than with the Tories.
This negotiation is crucial as it probably the last chance that the BBC has of cornering digital broadcasting in the UK. So Labour will be keen to help them and so to continue to benefit from the BBC ,their mouthpiece, having the same virtual monopoly across all of the new media as they have enjoyed for many years across the old.
Even if Dopey Dave, who seems to be a BBC plant, is still PM I am sure many of his colleagues would rightly resist any attempt by the BBC to grow yet more tentacles.
By doing so they would ensure that the people of Britain would slowly start to hear the truth rather than the current diet of leftist propaganda, and who knows where that would end!
‘The UK had growth throughout the Blair/Brown era but only through a massive extension to government spending….’
And don’t forget the spending fuelled by record personal debt and cheap imported goods. Private debt is almost as big a threat to stability as that of the government, especially if interest rates were to start climbing.
Absolutely agree with that. Mr Brown’s claim of ‘no more boom and bust’ led to so many re-mortgaging property at unjustifiably high levels, assuming this would go on forever – it was a money tree – after all, hadn’t our Dear Chancellor just told them so ?
And since their parents were going to be debt-free with huge wads of disposable income when/if their property went to market after their death, why, their children felt free to engage in the profligacy as well.
So, as you point out, personal debt had tripled over the first 10 years of a Labour government to something like £1.5 trillion, if I recall correctly.
And what happens when it begins to dawn on all these people that ‘boom and bust’ really haven’t disappeared at all…. well, your economy starts to falter because suddenly, everyone wants to start paying down their debt, and reducing their interest/penalty payments… and wow, jobs start to become much less secure (except in the public sector, of course) because people aren’t spending as much…vicious spiral downwards.
The cold, dead hand of Messrs Brown/Balls/Milliband E……
It’s even worse than that. At the same time as Brown was encouraging people to take out 25- (or even 40-) year mortgages to pay for a holiday or a pair of curtains, he destroyed the savings and pensions culture that was one of this country’s great assets. He also changed the bankruptcy laws to allow anyone to renege on their debts, and many people were seduced into thinking that they didn’t have to pay back the capital on their mortgages, and that the socialist state would provide all their needs in old age.
Then, when the excrement hit the air-conditioning, he turned to Keynes’s prescription and made it all worse by ordering the Bank of England to cut interest rates, and the government covered all mortgage arrears. Prudent pensioners and savers have been fleeced to subsidise the fools speculating on the housing market bubble.
When the economy returns towards normal, with sensible interest rates, there will be many who rue Brown’s folly.
Ye, you are right, I’m afraid the sheer scale of the mess made by the last Labour government simply can’t be outlined in a single post.
The ramifications of their actions, in so many spheres, cross-pollinate so deeply within the fundamentals of the security and safety of this country (financial and otherwise)…. and they still moan like hell that they are the only ones who understand our economic woes, and it would be so easy to solve if they were in power…
Unfortunately, there’s a significant chunk of the population out there that can’t see past the fog they are attempting to create.
Remember? In 2010, you weren’t able to put a fag paper between the plans of Darling and Osborne. For every £8 that Osborne wanted to save, Darling would cut £7. The BBC forget to tell us this. And do they believe that Labour’s plans, unlike the Tory’s, would have been immune from the subsequent Euro crisis? Balls has managed to airbrush the last two years from history, having the luxury of not having to have his approach (if he has one) impacted, or destruction tested, against the crisis that enveloped Europe.
Despite the best efforts of some, scrutiny of Labour’s economic record has been barely perfunctory, the BBC being particularly amnesic. The growing debt and structural deficit built by them by 2008, meant that the hulk that was the UK was badly holed by the time the economic storm hit.
So why is everyone so surprised we are still in a mess? Even back in 2009, economists were telling us that the size of our debt was so great, was so incapacitating, that there would be little chance of any growth before the middle of the decade. And Labour’s debt was so huge, its impact would be with us for half a generation.
Strangely though, those economists only had one appearance on our airwaves, they were never invited back, the BBC preferring the ubiquitous polemic of Blanchflower and Krugman and its in-house economic guru and ex music teacher, Paul Mason.
It’s a wonder that the hulk is still afloat, but don’t expect the BBC to offer this view of things as a counterweight to it’s left wing activism
Even before the banking crisis, you couldn’t put a fag paper between the spending plans. In 2007, Osborne promised to match Labour’s spending, even though it should have been obvious it was unsustainable. Unfortunately, this appears to have absolved Labour of any blame, certainly as far as the BBC is concerned.
This was the time of the ‘Election that never was’ and to say anything to the contrary to increased spending would have been political suicide. Thus the statement was political not economic one.
I agree. But why would it have been political suicide? Because they knew damn well the BBC would have leaped on it with glee and trumpeted how many more children would have to go to school with nothing but cold chips in their lunch boxes if the evil Tories had their way. They kow-towed to the BBC’s agenda.
It was the same at the actual election. Everyone knew cuts were necessary but all parties said as little as they could get away with for fear of how the media (largely BBC) would cover it.
Had Cameron in that ill-fated presidential-style TV debate with the other two muppets given the nation a hard dose of home truths he probably would have lost that election. But by the time of the next one he would have been proven right as MilliBalls would by then have finished the job they started, leaving Cameron – or better still a Thatcher-style principle-driven leader – with a landslide mandate to get the country back on its feet (again).
‘For every £8 that Osborne wanted to save, Darling would cut £7. The BBC forget to tell us this.’
If they BBC did unredact yet another chunk of their Alzheimer memory hole not now being ‘addressed’ by Peter Rippon, I’d rather imagine the terminology would have Osborne more cutting and Darling saving.
On the plus side, at least we’ve finally found a topic where the BBC doesn’t want to push the ‘on l’continent, zey do zese things better’ line.
Normally, the BBC can’t wait to tell us how much Britain sucks compared to our sophisticated neighbors, but suddenly there aren’t to anxious to compare our dullsville economy with the vibrant excitement of, say, Spain.
Agreed,
The BBC were fretting about the markets and how they`re responding to the fact that an Italian election for the Italian economy as imposed by Barrossa etc ,turns out tto be a 5-star comedy, if not a farce.
And I think of that bloke in the “Life of Brian” about to be stoned for using the name “Jehovah” in praising the halibut his wife had prepared( did they have halibut over there in those days…enquiry plse!).
It`s not as if the election of a few comics and online manics is actually “going to make things worse”
They can hardly BE any worse in Italy now then , can they?
I envisage lots of black curtains, Eurovisions leads getting interference, and an “energy curfew” coming next time Greece, Spain or Ireland/Portugal get a chance to vote.
Feed us horseshit, bullshit horsemeat even…get comics!
Should be a good crop this year…bella, bella!
I see this site is still blaming Islam for everything.
Moron. We blame the BBC for everything. Get your head out.
Troll alert. Do not feed.
Agreed, Demon. And so obvious a troll as well. Don’t get dragged in, David (*sigh*, we all do it, unfortunately). It’s so easy to focus on the words, rather than the intent.
I think it’s funny that this is someone who’s been lurking for a while and remembers knackered Nick, and now thinks it’s a brilliant move to evoke him like this. It says much about this person.
Brown always said that *it was not the right time to enter the Euro*. Quite right Mr Brown, but was it not the case that you would empty the vaults of all our peoples cash and then plead with our near neighbours to be let into the *cash cow* and with this once proud nation bankrupt, and nowhere else to go, then you would tell us all, *now is the right time*.
Oh, and *thoughtful*, this is a web site forum to discuss the actions of the BBC and of its biased (or not) reporting of all sorts of matters. How G.O. conducts himself is in itself another thread on another forum and I can understand from where you come, but, what we do here is to discuss how the BBC conducts itself.
The bBBC manages to find a dark lining to this silver cloud: The UK economy grew 0.3% in the whole of 2012, revised up from the estimate of zero growth, but it still contracted in the last three months of the year.