What would have happened if GB had won the election?
What would have happened if GB had won the election?

Poll: What would have happened if GB had won the election?

Total Members Polled: 235

Taken reality pill and controlled spending: 8%
Continued to increase the deficit: 68%
Quickly retired for health reasons: 10%
Officially in power but party disintegrated: 14%
Author
Discussion

Dr Jekyll

Original Poster:

23,820 posts

292 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
Would he really have accepted that spending needed to be controlled? Or would we have had a 'scorched earth', a 'Harold Wilson' or a 'Downfall' scenario?

CooperD

3,195 posts

208 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
I'd have emigrated!! Not sure where to though.

12gauge

1,274 posts

205 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
Clegg would be even more unpopular.

Actually, i guess that depends how he 'won' whether by votes, or by the libdems going into coalition.

Inflation would probably be even higher than it is, petrol >£2 a litre.

Other than that, not a lot, which just goes to show how little the tories have done. The immigration situation certainly wouldnt be much worse.

Randy Winkman

22,750 posts

220 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
With regard government department running costs (which is obviously only a part of the government's budget), the belt tightening had actually already happened just before the general election.

By the way, this might sound a bit pedantic, but it wouldn't have been GB winning the election, it would have been Labour winning.

null

13,966 posts

222 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
The accountants would have taken over by now.

DieselGriff

5,160 posts

290 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
I was going to vote for "The same as is happening now" then realised that was covered by option 2.

car crazy

1,796 posts

194 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
CooperD said:
I'd have emigrated!! Not sure where to though.
Me too, Thailands nice this time of year (going there in a months time), actually we would have all gone to hell in an overcrowded handcart if GB won the election.biggrin

thinfourth2

32,414 posts

235 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
basically he would of done exactly the same as the blue ties but with a few minor differences

Less protests and shoutings from the students
More vien popping and screaming from the blue tie fans on here

Oh and most crucially

Collapsed after a few years and sent labour into a black hole never to come out again. Instead this is what will happen to the tory party as they will lose the election in 4 years time in an utterly spectacular style and we will have Red Ed as our leader. Way to go tory voters

NoNeed

15,137 posts

231 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
80% tax


or is that 80% of the population become dependant on benefits.

Thom987

3,185 posts

197 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
If winky had won you would be under the control of the IMF/ECB, just like us.

Looking forward to An Taoiseach's "address to the nation" later this evening. rolleyes

johnfm

13,751 posts

281 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
Not really much different than now.


Anyone who thinks there is a huge difference between the blue team and the red team are kidding themselves.

Both parties are huge believers in 'being in power'.

This demands tax and spend politics.

£600 bio tax receipts and rising. And it is still not enough. They need to borrow £140 bio/year and will be increasing tax.

Either way, get used to 50-60% + of your earnings being taken by them.


We are, as a group, fked.

But many many individuals will be fine.

MrCheese

360 posts

214 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
Even if they had started cutting, right now they would have ditched that idea and started spending. I'm sure the bond markets would have been a lot less forgiving had they won.

Thinking back to the election it is possible that had they won we would have lost our AAA rating and become the first country to go down the Greece path...

catso

16,534 posts

298 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
Dr Jekyll said:
Or would we have had a 'scorched earth' scenario?
I thought we did...

Happy82

15,078 posts

200 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
I remember suggestions that the IMF would have stepped in if Winky had won? Would they have made the necessary cuts to government spending to reduce the defecit? I'm not 100% sure on how they work frown

Funk

27,779 posts

240 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
I agree; I think the IMF would've been called in by now. Things would've been compounded further by the slipping of our AAA rating, meaning the cost of Government debt would have soared to unsustainable levels pretty quickly. Is it also possible that Brown would've taken us into the Euro? Certainly we'd have been committed to 'bailing out' other economies on top of our own debt issues.

EDLT

15,421 posts

237 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
Labour's deficit reduction plan contained 7/8ths of the cuts that the Tories are implementing (Source: Daily Politics). So the answer is very very little would change, apart from the general tone of this forum.

otolith

69,584 posts

235 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
If GB had tried to do what has to be done, the unions and the parliamentary party would have lynched him. He would have cut spending less and further raised taxes on high and middle incomes.

RichyBoy

3,749 posts

248 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
I guess i'll get labelled a mentalist for saying, but I think they (perhaps inadvertently) sold the country to the banks in 2008 so I don't think it would make any difference who gained power. It was like a hostile takeover with Labour getting in relaxing the financial regulation, releasing housing from inflation, creating a credit boom, creating a massive debt and happily waited for the transfer of ownership of the country to the banks. The banks on the brink of bankruptcy didn't build up their reserves after injection of public money, they paid massive bonuses because from then on they became owner of UK plc. Now every few years the banks are devaluing the currency in order to keep afloat like a company would sell more shares.

DieselGriff

5,160 posts

290 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
EDLT said:
Labour's deficit reduction plan contained 7/8ths of the cuts that the Tories are implementing (Source: Daily Politics). So the answer is very very little would change, apart from the general tone of this forum.
I'd be interested in the details of those cuts especially with the view that this Government is taking us £350bn further into debt before the next election.

JagLover

46,837 posts

266 months

Sunday 4th December 2011
quotequote all
thinfourth2 said:
basically he would of done exactly the same as the blue ties but with a few minor differences
No he wouldn't

If you think that a party that gets almost all of its funding from the public sector unions would have frozen public sector pay for four years (though with 1% increases for the last two) and significantly changed public sector pensions then you are delusional.

Labour would have tried to reduce the deficit it is true, though almost certainly at a slower pace than the current coalition, but at all costs they would have tried to protect their client state.

We wouldn't have seen the rise in personal allowances, the freezing of council tax, or the slight drop in fuel duty under Labour. They would have done everything possible to make sure those paying the bill were the private sector workers, but would have ultimatly failed and would have had to call in the IMF, as they did before in the 70s.