Yvette Cooper: Labour didn’t spend too much before the crash – Telegraph
At last, someone from the Labour leadership comes out with the facts!
Ms Cooper, who was Chief Secretary to the Treasury at the time of the banking crash, acknowledged that there were some areas such as the NHS computer system where the Labour government had spent too much or incorrectly but defended overall spending levels.
“The deficit at the time was something like 0.6 per cent – the current deficit. All the political parties at the time were all supporting the spending plans and that was all due to come down,” she told the BBC.
Ms Cooper claimed the big rise in public spending between 2000 and 2010 reflected “the increase in investment that took place in order to support the economy once the financial crisis started”.
Banks were responsible for the crash, rather than overspending, Ms Cooper said, reiterating Mr Miliband’s campaign position that there should have been stronger regulation of the banks.
In addition, it should be noted that Labour ran a lower deficit than any previous – or succeeding – Conservative government until the crash happened.
That being said, this blog would not like to see her elected Labour leader.
Source: Yvette Cooper: Labour didn’t spend too much before the crash – Telegraph
Ooh, that’s in direct contradiction to what that fop Tristram Hunt just said on QT tonight…
About time
Yes – and no. It’s important to look at what they both say, because there are similarities which reveal the facts.
But then Tristram Hunt agreed on Question time this evening that Labour did overspend and hence couldn’t weather the banking crisis.
Dinae Abbot also stated no left wing candidates would be standing for the Labour leadership ? Blairites making all the running so far ??
You should watch what Hunt said again. He added a few interesting angles on it – but he did omit the fact that Labour ran a lower deficit than any Conservative government of the previous 40 years or so, and much lower than the Coalition government. Labour can only be said to have overspent in hindsight – now that we know what was coming up. Plus of course, it was still the bankers who were at fault for creating the problem that the government had to address.
Why would he admit even partial responsibility for what happened? If nobody – except Yvette Cooper – will stand up take on the accusers re the banking crisis you have to think the passive ones are planning more of the same if they get into government again.
Why the urge to shoulder blame for bankers? What are Labour getting out of it?
As always, you have to ask ‘who gains’? What do Labour, or a few individual Labour MPs, get out of this?
No, I don’t think Labour is planning another international banking crisis if it gets into office again.
It’s something over which that party has no influence at all.
Now, the Conservatives, on the other hand…
Sorry to be off topic mike, but I need you to clear up something for me if you would please? Is universal job match compulsory? I say it isn’t but someone I was talking to insists that it most definitely is compulsory!
It isn’t.
Thank you Mike, I really hate being right in a way because it sometimes causes bad feelings!
Joanna may, refuted are a trusted site to gain knowledge/regs & your rights;
http://refuted.org.uk/jobmatch/
Mike, apologies for adding to the ‘off topic’ but I felt that Joanna (and others) could benefit from the link.
This also shows you that Ms Cooper is telling it like it is and in a way that Ed Milliband should have put across in the election..He basically was always put on the back foot and being apologetic…Lets have more of Ms Cooper please,someone who speaks sense and doesnt mind upsetting the apple cart…She is a winner.
So if she was aware of this, then others must have been too. Why wasn’t this hammered home like a mantra over the last five years? They said nothing. They made no effort to counter the Tory narrative of ‘Labour trashed the economy’. The evidence is there to prove they didn’t, if people can be bothered to check the FACTS. The Labour leadership have proved to be their own worst enemy, and shown they really aren’t fit to govern anything.
They didn’t say nothing at all, but too few of them said anything when the opportunity arose. Some of them did make an effort, so you’re not entirely correct – but you would be correct in saying that it made no impression at all.
Labour leaderships change, though.
Why on earth hasn’t the Labour Party been pushing this message hard for the last 6 or more years? It seemed to me that they seemed to sit back and let the Nasty Party take the initiative.
the sad thing is, lab. did not rebut all the mud thrown at them, about spending, during their time in office