Political Crossfire Forums

Do you think this government will last the five years? Haven't been following UK politics all that closely recently to be honest. Ever since the terrible disappointment that was Labour. Was reading the other day though that all the Lib Dems hate Clegg. Could the coalition collapse? We've had a succession of disastrous coalitions here in Ireland.

Get used to it.

If the tories don't win an outright majority at the next election there will be another coalition.

And this one will almost certainly last five years, because the LIb Dems don't want to leave power early. No way they are getting into government again any time soon.

As for the deficit reduction, it's the only thing keeping us viable as an economy right now. The simple fact is that Osborne wouldn't have been able to borrow that money without the deficit reduction plan. The global economy is one great big bear market right now, and all things considered the UK is doing as well as could be expected.

Labour might piss and moan about "too far too fast" and the need to spend to stimulate growth, but they know damn well that they'd be doing the exact same thing that the coalition is doing and that's why you will never get Balls or Milibean to answer the question "what would you cut"?

I feel like I'm reading a thread about the US fiscal situation...from the future!

The cuts were entirely arbitrary, 10% off of each department and various other random ideas. It is no surprise that they haven't worked - to be honest they have never worked to any great degree, the first year of cuts led to an increase in spending.

In the UK consumer spending does not stimulate the UK economy to the degree people think because practically all goods are sourced abroad, it only worked during the decade up to 2008 because of the enormous increases in consumer debt. What needs to occur is capital investment. The government either needs to do that or somehow work out a way of getting the private sector to do. They haven't done either so far.

It is the right move to cut the UK's debt-load but it has to be done with a little bit of intelligence.

I agree that the coalition is a disaster. Compromise is not how you solve a crisis.

Maybe Prince Harry could go on a world stripping tour to raise money for the UK.