Fondant said:
1. Clarkson is a Tory. That alone makes the man an utter idiot, and his sheer arrogance is, while amusing, also rather grating. And the man liked Thatcher. That's another piece of evidence for his bias and his idiocy.
I wouldn't say that Jeremy Clarkson is an idiot exactly, a bit of an idiot yes but not a full flung one. I don't think that he's a Tory by choice, more that the Tories view just happen to mostly align with his own.
I think Jeremy Clarkson and anyone else should be free to criticise anyone, especially those in Government. People have criticised politician's appearance and circumstances for years, just look at Spitting Image!
What does annoy me about Clarkson is his opinions on things. He writes quite a few books explaining what he thinks is wrong with so many aspects of Britain. However, his view are rarely constructive, they are rarely more than rants. He wants things to change for selfish reasons, he only criticises about things that affect him and he doesn't seem to care about anyone else. I criticise a lot of things in Britain but I like to think that changes I would make would be for the benefit of most people, often not for myself included.
2. While it seems to be rather popular for people to bash Gordon Brown, I feel the distance of living in the Dark Continent (named so for the locals per se, but their beer) has given me a better perspective than most British people on Brown. Gordon Brown is, and has been, a competent leader. (Gasps from the audience)
I know, controversial isn't it. Brown, a good leader? How dare I say such things!? How dare I go against the mainstream!? How dare I contravene the will of the newspaper men and their overlords!
I agree that Gordon Brown has been a rather good leader though I really disagree with his economic policy of late. I was so happy to see the back of Blair, he was a real religious nutjob. His rant at the media, especially the Independent was unbelievable. He really lost towards the end, if he had the powers of a dictator he would undoubtedly have closed them, the Guardian and the Times.
His recent trip to the US just shows how more mental he has become. Complaining about not being to act like a President but having to act like a Prime Minister. He still seem reluctant to accept that the Iraq war was a bad move, he goes on about being so religious but seems to have no qualms about the hundreds of thousands that died as a result of an action he was heavily a factor in. Or the fact that he had to sign off on every arms deal made by UK parties. Or the fact that his government's security agencies were actively involved in kidnapping and torture. Or that those agencies were responsible for the murder of Dr. David Kelly, likely indirectly under his instruction.
Yes, you heard it hear. All your 'Brown is teh shitz, lol' opinions are not your own. They have been merrily spoonfed to you by the media, and if you cannot realise that now, you will in a few years when you're suffering under a Conservative regime. Brown is a competent politician and a brilliant economist. Yes, he hasn't stopped the recession, but he sure as hell has softened the blow. Yes, millions are out of work, but in a nation whereby 45-50 million people are working then you're always going to have a million-plus out of work at the best of times.
It's okay to have around a million unemployed if you are at full employment (number of available jobs is roughly equal to number of people out of work) however this is not the case. Unemployment is rising because of economic mismanagement over the past decade.
The current Keynesian method of trying to 'fix' the economy is stupidity at its best. In the history of capitalism, this method of trying to stimulate the economy has NEVER worked. Why governments persist in following it is beyond me, I guess they have to look like they are doing something.
The fact is that the recession is more a correction. It's a correction of unchecked economic growth on an unsustainable dangerous level of credit that was allowed to go on not only through the lack of decent financial regulation but actual deregulation of it. Intervening in the atrocious mismanaged banks means that his original laissez faire attitude towards the economy when times were good are now not able to punish the banks.
Now Brown is considering printing money! Without an increase in output this will fail and do nothing but increase inflation. While it may encourage the banks to lend a bit more it's nothing but futile as consumer confidence has taken a massive blow, no matter how much you make it available people simply don't want to borrow it! Someone needs to get in a stop this madness!
The only way to help the economy is to do the opposite of what we are doing now. Unfortunately bailing out the banks was necessary. Oddly the government felt the need to tell everyone their plans which made share prices sky rocket before they purchased, making the burden on the tax payer even worse.
However, the government needs to cut back and reduce spending across the board. Reducing the size of government will reduce the burden on the tax payer and encourage more saving and/or spending in the long run.
When inflation was at 5% interest rates should have gone up rather than down. Now they keep going lower which is just a mistake. Making it easier for people to borrow money is having almost no effect on the demand for loans. When people are worried about job security the last thing they are going to do is borrow money. People who owe will pay it off rather than borrow more. Moreover, those on mortgages who see their payments go down with the rates are just going to put more money into their mortgage they will reduce their future burden while the rates are low. This does NOT encourage spending.
However, if the rates were put up you would see those with saving more likely to splash out. In fact, people in general would be more willing to save which would begin to reduce the burden on the government to prop up the banks. In turn reducing tax payers' liability.
Yes, we had the foriegn workers debacle, but that was hardly Brown's fault. The government has no legal right to interfere with a company operating entirely within the law- foriegn employment laws instituted, in fact, under the regime of dear Mrs Thatcher!
Ironically more people from Britain work in Italy than the other way around. We get more from these agreements than Italy does.
3. The past ten to fifteen years of prosperity have also been due, in part, to Mr Brown. He successfully managed to ensure an equitable distribution of economic growth in most sectors of the economy and that the rewards of that would go not just to the rich and powerful but to all. It is entirely likely that the majority of British people have benifited from Mssrs Blair and Brown's regimes, and if you cannot see that then god help us all.
This is simply wrong. The benefit we had was not sustainable and we are now seeing the fallout from it. The growth in the economy was almost all due to an increase in the amount of credit available. No-one thought about the ability to pay it all back. When the lenders asked for just that all of this bad debt came out and all the growth on the back of this insecure credit has led to this latest recession. So the benefit was just an illusion as it was unsustainable.
More importantly, while the government doesn't actually have a large direct role in economic growth their failure to regulate it properly has like a pack of dominoes, caused the house of cards to fall, checkmate.
4. The Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph are rags, as is the Mirror and all other tabloids. The Telegraph is just a tarted-up rag.
Agreed.
