Tony Blair: That the economy grew for a decade under Labour was down to luck not Gordon Brown

TGF UKIP

Now even these Tories, even Boy George for God's sake, should be able to make something out of this. Or will it again be wide of the post from six yards out!

Bet this doesn't make The Today Programme or anywhere else on the BBC though.

Wilhelm

Love the body language, the condescending dismissive contempt on Gordon Broons face.

How on earth did Tony Bliar put up with him for 10 years ?

Pete, Scotland

"Expect this Blair line to join the ‘age of irresponsibility’ and “saved the world” in the list of quotes that the Tories love to taunt Brown with"

Maybe I don't get to spend as much time as I should on political blogs or news channels, but to be honest, I don't see much evidence of the Tories taunting Brown on anything.

I get the impression that they are weak on quality of argument, weak on passion, weak on committment, weak on presentational skills.

Need I go on?

At this stage, Cameron & Co really do need to do better, much better!

Bruce Robertson

Well, somebody has to do Osborne's job for him.

Paul B

Even if he were joking, there is many a true thing said in jest.

However the success of the economy was based on Mrs Ts excellently constructed foundations, combined with the fiscal policies put in place by Lord Lamont, Ken & dear old Eddie. Brown gets no credit at all. No one more jot. The man is a buffon

Occasional pedant

Adam Smith Institute and Dizzy flagged this up yesterday.

Still, you're right - it's a great attack line for the Tories.

seb

@ Wilhelm

Interesting question. But of far greater relevance is the contemporary equivalent - how do the ordinary [non-certifiably insane] members of the cabinet put up with Winston Brown? I hope the next lot of memoirs spill the beans.

Athesius the Facilitator

I will say it yet again. "The Tory's can't get the message across because the media won't let them". They could come out with the most profound and cutting political barb in the history of world politics but it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference because the Labour machinery (and I include the BBC and Sky) will not let it through their defences.

Until this bunch of champagne socialists are made to unblock the democratic channels then people will always get the impression that the Tory's are not performing.

mcwaclb

it's on yale uni website and youtube if anyone wants to hear what he said and how he said it .it was said in a joking manner and he was chuckling as he said it

Wilhelm

Mcwasp

Many a true word spoken in jest.

TGF UKIP

Sorry Athesius but that will just not do. Even when the Tories do get air time they use it quite pathetically.

An absolutely prime example being Dave's ten to eight interview on the Today Programme with Evan Davies recently when he managed to get through the entire interview without once mentioning A TRILLION POUNDS in debt much less put it into a non-anorak context of £40k per household. Imagine the boot being on the other foot and what Blair or Brown would be making of such a figure.

Fraser Nelson makes many more telling points on his media outings than do either Dave or Boy George.

The Tories need a massive kick up the arse not more excuses being provided for them.

CS

I could never work out why, 10 years into his premiership/chancellorship, when Blair and Brown were boasting of 60 quarters of growth, the Tories didn't keep pointing out that 10 x 4 is 40 so the first 5 years must have happened under the Tories.

Will J

The economic growth of the last ten years was neither luck nor Thatcher's legacy – as we have now discovered, most of it was built on a huge volatile bubble of debt which has now burst. When will people wake up to this? Our economy is not healthy and hasn't been for a long time – it is top heavy, riddled with debt, and has now ended up in intensive care.

Almost all the healthy economies of large states are based on having a competitive advantage in providing the labour for major world industries. How could it be otherwise? That's why we flourished in the industrial revolution and why China does now. Until we realise this and so take the necessary measures to regain such competitive advantages – primarily reducing the cost of employing British citizens and checking the rewards of idleness – our economy will remain sick.

But what democratic government would advocate a wholesale reduction in living standards for the sake of saving the economy? Easier to pretend we can live on debt forever. Easier to pretend the government can just keep on borrowing and giving money away.

strapworld

TGF ukip is right, again!

But you can just hear the Question from Cameron at PMQ's delivered in his 'nice' voice!

"Do you agree with Tony Blair that ten years of record growth was down to luck"

What a fighter Cameron is! Clarke, Davis, Hague would make mincemeat out of Brown. Cameron is unable to put the boot in!

I honestly believe that should there not be a February election the Tories should put Cameron on a two month probation or change the leader. We need blood sweat and tears. This country is going down the pan and all we have is a lightweight in charge of the official opposition.

Fergus Pickering

So it's a joke. Sorry feller, HOW is it a joke? You chuckle as you say it meaning that it's the direct opposite of the truth, which is that it was down to Gordon Brown's skill. And that's a JOKE? On the otyher hand, you chuckle as you say it because it's true. Now THAT's a joke.

CCTV

The Tories should promise a referendum on the BBC licence fee - that will get coverage on Sky...and be less part of London clubland and more reresentative of the nation

Archie

Frankly, I for one am not about to hold my breath and expect Cameron and company to make anything of this. He's another Blair; all smoke and mirrors and absolutely no substance.

Tiberius

A the F is right, and in any case, taking the p remains of doubtful political advantage (even Dave the chameleon was judged a failed line of attack by Labour).

TGF: Ronny Rosenthal's miss at Aston Villa ;) .

seb

@ Athesius the Facilitator

While not ignoring the fact that the Tories have a lot of support in the media, the opposition is up against a hostile media run almost like a family-style business. Adam Boulton's married to ex-Blair aide, Anji Hunter. Andrew 'Partiality' Marr is married to Brownite cheerleader, Jackie Ashley. Derek Draper, another of The Moron's pom-pom waving gals, is married to GMTV's Kate Garraway. And who is Best Buddies with the Browns? GMTV's Penny Smith. If people such as these tell the nation that Brown is Superman, millions of idiots are going to instantly believe it.

Cameron and Osborne have to offer the country the chance to vote for a party that will rein in spending and raise allowances for millions of taxpayers. In the nano-second after they make it clear to the electorate that this is what the opposition can and must do and that there is absolutely no choice, Labour will 'adopt' this as Labour's policy. Only after Brown has [as he will] committed himself to perpetual Tax Then Waste policies will it be safe for his opponents to set out their stalls.

Alex

It's not a joke.

It's just Blair spin again for "I admit that the Tories gave us a golden legacy"

Alex

Athesius the Facilitator - you are spot on, and this is a point I raise all the time.

Labour don't need to spend any money on advertising / PR, as they have their own propaganda machine that does it for them - the media (esp, BBC, Sky, CNN, Times etc.)

Ian C

This is a stunning piece of political honesty, if its true.

Many of you are very harsh on what the Tories can do in the situation. If they scream blue murder they will rightly be accused of making the situation much worse - and we have all had conversations about 'talking ourselves into recession' because it is a well known phenomenon.

The modern day media are not interested in what politicians say but in photo opportunities. The Telegraph is paper that doesn't know itself what it like. The appalling Daily Mail should be disregarded and the Times might as well be a red top today apart from some occasional sensible comment, sometimes, in the centre pages.

The only time for a visual is at PMQ's and that is hardly the top of anyone's viewing agenda and the BBC control its distribution. So being in opposition, without the rubbish stacking up in the streets and morgues overflowing is a very difficult default setting and very different form 1978.

Governments lose elections, oppositions don't win them - I wish it were not so but there it is and we should concentrate on the larger picture of what we want them to do when the government have lost, as they surely will.

Ian C

Well said Athesius the Facilitator at 8.46 pm last night.

barnacle bill

mcwaclb, the jovial response of Tony Wots His Name was probably because he could hear the sound of breaking phones coming from der Bunker!

Wilhelm

Seb

Kirsty Sqauwk of newsnight is a liebour dalek and has got a school girl crush on Gordon Broon.

James Naughty of the BBC is also a liebour Pavlov's dog.

Tiberius

Strapworld; you're mincemeat analogy does not bear scrutiny.

If mincing a Labour PM was all that was necessary to bring the voters to throw him out for his misdemeanors, why did the man you cite, William Hague, fail when he took the chance to do some very fine slicing from 1997 to 2001? Michael Howard also did a pretty good shredding job at times with the same rock-bottom outcome.

You cannot mechanize Cameron's job.

David Bouvier

Alex: dead right. It was not good/bad luck, it was good/bad economics. I didn't laugh along with Tony.

After the disaster of shadowing the Deutsche Mark / joining the ERM - the Conservatives corrected the error, made some actual hard choices with public finances, and put the economy on a sustainable even keel from 1992/3. But there reputation for economic competence was trashed. Thanks Nigel, thanks Ken.

Brown followed Tory spending plans for two years, and then let rip with spending, turning a well managed economy into one that became seriously out-of-control.

The 'golden legacy' was not luck - it was tough politics and good economics - and the later disaster is not bad luck - it is Brown's fiscal incontinence and monetary complancency.

This is not a Labour gaffe, it is their second line of defense. Not my fault gov, just bad luck. The other guy can't do any better.

Gordon Musgo

AtF is right, but wrong. TGF is righter. In the real world, for a party in opposition to whinge about the fact (and it is a fact) that they can't get their spin on the air is pathetic. What if they were up against a real dictatorship, rather than a weedy unspoken conspiracy of soft-left control freaks? It's up to the Tories to do what they have to do to get their message across. If they can't do that, how would they propose to govern in the face of the same media? What to do? In my opinion, challenge everything. Call Boulton on his labour connections (or that big-eared one, or the today crew). Ask why they didn't run this story, or ran with the government line out of no10 on that one. Promise to review the unique way the BBC is funded. Threaten to cut the lines of communication to journalists who aren't even-handed.

If they can't win this battle, what ever the hell is the point of them?

seb

@ Wilhelm
True. I've given up on Radio Four, primarily because I don't want to hear Mr. Nokaty's voice ever again. Ditto for any telly that features Ms. Wark, the very epitome of champagne socialists.

@ Gordon Musgo

The Luvvy Tendency reflects the fact that 'the Establishment' is and for a long time has been leftoid. TweedleTee and TweedleGee silenced any opposition from business by out-Thatchering Thatcher, despite recent protestations from The Moron that he is now 'shocked' at what the financial sector was really up to.

As The Moron's compulsory appearance on Luneburg Heath draws near, the luvvies will be busting every sinew to get him re-elected [with less than 20% of the total electorate and with a considerably smaller number of votes in the English constituencies than Cameron]. Political reporting is going to get vastly worse in the UK over the next year. You are certainly right about the BBC. I think that a referendum on the licence fee is the very least that Cameron should offer the public. Even the thickest voter must be weary of forking out for this idiotic tax.

Nicholas

Nice one seb!

What do we want? Labour out!

When do we want it? Now!

Ivy Eileen

Many posters complain about Cameron not hitting the mark. True, and it's infuriating because there seem are so many open goals available. But (i) very often he seems to be having to do this on his own, where are Hague and the others (plus the occasional retired heavyweight) day-in-day out - remember the continual Robin Cook show, (ii) whenever they do appear, no-one seems to have any fire in their belly and appear to be reading a script but (iii) overall some sympathy is due because of the control of the airwaves and press by Government and sympathisers.

For Cameron, it must be like trying to push water up hill.... which is why he needs the never-ending support of the others.

Re: the "condescending dismissive contempt on Gordon Broons face" (Wilhelm - yesterday) - I don't agree. I read it as an embarrassed attempt not to be seen as being talked down to by his senior.

BillG

When Gordon Brown took over as Chancellor in 1997 he was told that the economy was in great shape and he replied 'What do you want me to do - write a thank you note?' Now we learn that it was not his great skill in running the Treasury (although with Prudence helping out early on it was OK) but pure luck. When he leaves office next year do you think that he will leave a note saying 'Sorry - I mucked it up'.