BlindBoyGrunt
Well-known member
But were theAll 3
The guy had a decade as chancellor and left us totally exposed to the global financial crisis. I suppose you'll say he was a great chancellor because of all the growth before the recession but its a bit like saying Southgate was a good boro manager for finishing in midtable and getting to an FA cup QF before being embarrassed by Cardiff and getting relegated.
Tuition fees, ASBOs, no nationalisations, nothing done about Thatchers anti trade union legislation, the way tax credits were used to top up wages without costing employers. You'll of course say but what about minimum wage but overall I really don't think there's much of a case to say Brown was a leftwing CoE. He was a privatise profits, socialise losses type.
Cash for honours, cash for access, the MPs expenses scandal, the Bernie Ecclestone donation. New Labour wasn't whiter than white when it came to financial dodgy dealings.
worth it? Or has the crippling debt which Education and Health now find themselves in outweigh any benefit that the country initially enjoyed? According to a Guardian report from 2012, PFI will ultimately cost us Three Hundred Thousand Million Pounds.pledges which they felt they needed to make to get in to power in order to enact the many things they did that benefited this country enormously.
In another Guardian article from last year "NHS trusts spent close to a half a billion pounds on interest charges from private companies for private finance initiative (PFI) contracts last year – equivalent to the salaries of 15,000 newly qualified nurses.
Hospital groups spent £2.3bn on legacy PFI projects in 2020-21, of which just under £1bn went on costs for essential services such as cleaning and maintenance. A third of the remaining PFI spend – £457m – went purely on paying off interest charges."