What worries voters most

Rhoda Klapp

If the Brown Circle (the mind boggles at the implications, but good name for this group, kind of e pluribus unum) thinks that, they are wrong. Headline unemployment numbers of 3m plus are not the reason people vote for Labour. Have they forgotten the way they used those numbers against the tories. They were still talking about 90s unemployment up to a few months ago. No, there is something going on which is beyond any logic, and it is running against the government. It is the reason none of their stimulus plans will work, and they will get the blame for those unemployment numbers. The something is Zeitgeist. Everybody feels the recession. Everybody responds by their behaviour whether they are actually affected or not. Few of us are or will be directly affected in terms of losing our job or house, but we all know someone in that position, or at least we will see the holes in the high street where Woolworth's used to be, or the shuttered factories or offices. So we will blame the incumbents, see the news of more job losses and sinking pound etc etc. We will retrench and pay debt, defer holidays and make things last a little longer. Once the press has bought into a Zeitgeist that's it until the end of a cycle. The Brown Circle is just whistling in the dark (now there's a mental picture!)

Danielle

Bagehot is absolutely spot on.

In the early 90's recession I remember there were a lot of repossessions in my area (Warrington) and it was the thought of losing your home that terrified most families, parents and children, because it seemed to be happening to so many around you. For the so called 'aspirational working class'/'lower middle class' types, having a job, a family, holidays and your own home in suburbia is everything and the thought of going back into council accomodation is terrifying. That feeling is more acute nowadays because Labour's housing policies mean there is a shortage of housing and council estates etc are worse than they were 15 years ago.

Last time it wasn't the actual recession that did for the Tories it was their perceived indifference or inaction to help protect families who were losing their homes through repossession. People felt their lives, dreams and all they had worked hard for were going up in smoke. A lot of those very same people had voted, against the odds, for Major in 1992 fearing Kinnock but after that embraced Labour. Why do you think Brown is continually using the phrase 'do nothing' and then referencing the last recession under the Tories. Labour are many things but not stupid, they know it rings true for a lot of people.

TrevorsDen

This recession has not even started yet.

Baghot and the Brown Circle had better wake up.

1200 job losses in sunderland? have you forgotten that already.

Wait till that hits Swindon and Derby. Wait till GM cuts out Vauxhaul from Britain and dishes the brand altogether.

Then you can actually say this recession has started.

Just where is the money going to come from to kick start the economy? the banks have lost loads so have none to borrow, there is none coming in from savers to help the banks and govt borrowing will have to be repaid in higher taxes which will scupper any recovery as we might expect it to start.

If the govt spends but does not borrow - printing money - well lets be clear that, no matter how you dress it up, printing money makes all money worth less and worthless. We all become poorer.

The Brown Circle in their Fuhrer Bunker are just moving phantom divisions on the map, and we are the ones left to die in the last ditch for a lost cause, G.Brown's credibility.

Chuck Unsworth

There's a hell of a difference between changing jobs by choice and changing jobs out of neccesity. Then there's even more of a difference between leaving one job not by choice and having little or no chance of getting another.

What people understand now is that if the axe falls its going to be really really difficult to get another job. So the fear factor is escalated. Now, who is responsible for that? Never mind global this and global that, the Government of the Day is always viewed as responsible - just as it is when things are going well. Brown cannot take credit without taking blame.

Lou Dacht

Take my job. Take my house.

Just give me and my children our country back. We'll manage from there.

Nick Leaton

Really?

So its the middle class who will get the bullet this time. Probably true, at the start.

However, wake up and smell the petrol. It's the middle class who basically pay for the poor via taxes and the services they buy. When the middle class opt out of spending, primarily out of fear and the realisation that they're on the hook for the MFI budget (nothing to pay for three years), its the poor that get hit and they are the one's without any cushion of assets or cash

J H Holloway

There's an important point to be made here.

As Rhoda points out, Brown is terrified of being at the helm when all those key figures - 3m unemployed, the repossesstions, youth unemployment - happen on a Labour watch.

Labour has clung to the metrics of the early 80s and 90s as a way of propping themselves up during opposition. These sacred numbers were proof that the Tories were evil and uncaring. Remember they even produced posters in 2005 reminding people of the repossessions of the 90s.

We should all be aware that what Brown is doing, and will do, is entirely aimed at preventing these key numbers ever being attached to Labour.

Personally, I think if Brown finds himself responsible for burdening Labour with the '3 million unemployed' tag, it will ruin his life.

Cameron's policy of saying a little, and not that often, looks very sound to me. Best to just watch Labour run about, trying to prevent the economic tide going out.

Mark

If you want reminding about the Labour repossessions photo, Guido ran it here in January 2008:
http://www.order-order.com/2008/02/repossessions-surge-remember-this-2005.html

Paul B

Brown is deluded, seriously deluded. If he thinks people (of all classes ) are not worried about losing their jobs, then it really is time to be sending in the men in white coats, as long as they haven`t been made redundant that is.