“Is there anything in your recipe that you didn’t believe in and call for before the current crisis?”

Er, well as far as I’m concerned anyway, it’s a fair cop guv. However…..

The fall of the Berlin Wall, likewise, didn’t really teach me anything about Communism that I didn’t already know. What it did do was put more power in my lungs (and others’ lungs) when yelling “Yah boo sucks, Commies, you’ve got it wrong, haven’t you?”

Now, there were plenty of communists from places like Italy who argued at the time that it proved nothing of the sort, it only proved the error of building a wall around your citizens. They weren’t wholly wrong, but there were too many read-across issues for them to get away with that argument. Excessive State control had failed, and that was clear to all.

Well now, here we have Darrell worrying quite legitimately about the very opposite kind of disease, a State that does too little, and lets banks and other big powerful organisations get out of control. And again, I think we can read across. The kinds of dangers we have seen with the banks may very well be matched by equivalent dangers with other types of organisation.

There is of course loads of room for legitimate debate as to what is or isn’t a valid read-across! I will just pick schools as one topic. Now, I would certainly accept that we currently have far too much centralised control, an over-prescriptive bossy national curriculum, etc. However, a cautionary note has to be hit when we go to the opposite pole and look at academies or “free schools”. For example, I am not very happy when I see the State dipping out of its responsibilities, and letting rich Creationist businessmen take control of educating our young people!

As for blaming Labour:
“Recession will hit UK hardest”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/03/recession-economicgrowth

That is Gordon’s personal failure. Remember when he said “I wont let house prices get out of control”? We should be nailing him for that lie, which is now hurting us.

How do you plan to achieve that unless you actually want to farm the business of regulation to non-govermental (and therefore unaccountable bodies)?? I do see it as something of a logical contradiction that you want to increase the states role in economic life (a fair enough assumption from saying you want a smaller state surely?) but want to shrink it in size…

Fair point but i saw that as you saying this was better done in private and if that is not the case there is no disagreement. As to your more substantive point I would urge you to wander around the blogsphere or even over to Liberal Visions site where there definatly are Lib Dems saying there should be less financial regulation; a smaller state etc,etc…

As to Labour messing up the economy well know I actually I dont think a majority of the blame lays with them; i think it does in so far as they failed to anticipate the coming problems and not put the necessary safeguards in line…but I dont buy David Cameron’s line that this is ‘all Labour’s fault’…

The limits of the systems certainly have been exposed because is it not true that what you think is confined to the finance sector is far from that due to the pivotal nature of the finance sector.

In response to the current crisis we have seen falling manufacturing demand, falling consumer demand etc etc so I don’t really accept that it can be regarded as a localised difficulty.

Mark,

No, I dont think this is a debate that is ‘best held in private’ in fact quite the reverse is true. It’s worth pointing out that no such objection was raised by yourself when Mark Littlewood published on here nor Dave Allen so why now?

Asquith,

Kind of and it’s kind of a reflection that my feeling this is where common ground can be found. As I have said numerous times I think there is something in what you say so criticism/comments are offered in that spirit…

Geoffrey,

Thank you. I think what you are saying about the green issue may well be true but can I tentatively suggest this may be down to an over-emphasis on taxation….ive written my concerns about that here but I think we need to look into other issues like sustainable and sensible productive practices and the encouragement of things like ‘bags for life’….taxation could be used to encourage the spread of those schemes too…

I think I am flattered

Unfortunately, I’m suffering from fatigue, having battered this topic to death, & thereby won’t be saying any more now…

Shame it’s all in private then.

Only a few (out of tens of thousands) have ever called for guns to be freely available. But still, for those who get their satisfaction from attacking imaginary “fifth columns” rather than the Labour Party who wrecked the economy, don’t let us spoil your fun!

I don’t see how you can draw any particular conclusions outside finance.

Is there anything in your recipe that you didn’t believe in and call for before the current crisis?