±«Óătv

It is amazing what you can do with statistics. The Blair Brown model looks great, but the underlying condition of the UK is not so clever.

The European economy is accused of stagnation, but if you actually live and work in Europe, you will see that there is work a plenty and money every where.

Blair still think that the UK is world powerhouse, but quite frankly no one outside of the UK is interested in what goes on in the UK (except for the scandals).

The models that are used in the UK to define what is good or not good are all so heavily weighted that they can not be taken seriously by anyone with half a brain.

This article looks like it was written by a publicist for the labour party.

Blair govt has been a blessing to the british people.GB is envy of other countries.It is high time the british people realise how better of they are compare to other world citigen.I immigrated to uk as a student and now I ame proud to be a british citigen.My sincere best wishes to Mr Blair and his family for a happy future.

This paints far too rosy a picture of Blair's legacy.

It doesn't mention that as a consequence of allowing financial services to dominate the earnings gap has grown dramatically, that the overall trade deficit now costs us ÂŁ1bn/week and the trade deficit in goods costs us ÂŁ1.5bn/week. It also doesn't mention that house prices have gone through the roof making it almost impossible for young people to get on the so called housing ladder or that household debt now exceeds ÂŁ1 trillion.

It's certainly true that the economy is now different. The UK is only number 20 on the world competitiveness league having even been recently overtaken by New Zealand. We also don't make cars anymore, we've sold everything and anything worth a damn to our competitors and despite the increased earnings from overseas investments and the alledged massive contribution from financial services the value of my pension fund has hardly changed.

Blair's legacy was to leave us economically weaker and more exposed than we've ever been and it will get worse not better.

Blair govt has been a blessing to the british people.GB is envy of other countries.It is high time the british people realise how better of they are compare to other world citigen.I immigrated to uk as a student and now I ame proud to be a british citigen.My sincere best wishes to Mr Blair and his family for a happy future.

Tony Bliar's lasting economic legacy will be the mortgaging of future generations by funding his expansion PFI's on the wealth not "prudently" sourced. That and the deliberate demolition of the pension system out of spite and disdain for the middle classes.

The United Kingdom has done remarkably well with Mr. Blair as prime minister. May his successor continue progress and well-being for the citizens. Mr. Blair will be remembered by America as a great friend and ally. Unfortunately Iraq turned out to be a mistake for both Great Britain and the United States. However, our allies, under Mr. Blair, have been faithful.

Hopefully Mr. Blair will return and again lead the United Kingdom forward.

Evan,

Very positive spin for Blair and Brown.

Do you really believe that the UK economies adjustment to financial globalisation has been influenced as strongly as you suggest by the UK political sector. The UK economy has grown because our traditional serious competitors, USA, France, Germany, Japan have performed badly and the 'city-slickers have expoited this to the general advantage of the UK economy.

As a very well respected economist when will you analyse the enormous financial waste ie. NHS, Welfare, Education, Law and Order etc of the Blair/Brown regime? AND when will the incredible UK personal and public debt burden rupture?

I always look forward to your comments on TV, you usually call it as you see it.

Geoff Berry

Excellent piece as usual.the only economic criticsms that can be laid at TB's door are that some tough economc decisions have been deliberately passed over as they are too difficult to deal with from a political perspective . These are :- a failure to get the public to face up to the fact that the cost of the NHS cannot be borne by the public sector indefinitely with an aging population

A growth in the public sector in general which has a long tail in terms of future pension commitments and redundancy costs when it becomes unsustainable

Although these have been taken care of within the strong growth mentioned in Evans piece they will come home to roost at some point in the future( perhaps under our next PM?)

Can I just point out that the politicians keep redefining how they measure inflation.

The CPI for instance has sod all relationship with the true level of inflation because it doesn't include council taxation or housing costs. What's that all about? These are real increasing costs we all pay.

Then of course, CPI uses the *geometric* mean for calculating the average price of something, and y'know what? The geometric mean is guaranteed to always be lower than the arithmetic mean. Again, fairly handy for the politicians in question...

I'll stick with the RPI thanks.

Well done, Tony.

I suppose, at the end of the day, I look back at the "Blair" years in a very subjective way. I look at what he, and his fellow politicians, did for me and my family. We have benefited in a positive materialistic way because he has given Britain's major employers confidence over a sustained period of growth allowing them to make longer term plans such as investment in buildings, plant and equipment and, very importantly, people.
I think that this has engendered a more confident and politically interested population who have, in turn, shown interest in their domestic surroundings, demands on the provision of services from our local authority service providers and a general uplifting of both mood and interest in the majority of our population.
I know he has to give way at some time but I am sorry to see him step down. What next, I wonder.

Of course you have not mentioned how Gordon/Tony failed to stick to the simple rule of not spending more money than we have, how they let public finances run out of control without securing improvements in public services, plundered private sector pensions so that millions will be substantially worse off for it, how the governments financial position is actually worse now then when Labour arrived in power, how they sold off our gold reserves at the lowest price ever, and how they have squandered the opportunity that all this growth presented. You just keep saying how nice it was that they made the Bank of England independent, forgetting that it was already operating in an independent fashion under the last government. When Gordon uses the words 'Prudent' we now can only laugh in disbelief. There has been nothing prudent about Gordon Brown's behaviour with the public purse and his slow but steady erosion of the UK's competitiveness which we now seeing in huge underlying inflation and escalating interest rates - and will take years to put right. Your analysis is more than a bit sycophantic.

I'm always amazed that anyone can believe that inflation is the 1-2% that the government spoon feed the gullible media. What exactly is the bizzare increases in the cost of housing and rents if not inflation?

as for The City, if they didnt have that income stream then they wouldnt have enough tax money to spend on all the usual socialist pork barrel schemes.
excluding the square mile the rest of the UK is in something resembling a recession and has been for years. The unemployment numbers are fake, 1M more "coordinators" have been employed by the government to keep them off the dole queues.And 1M more long term disabled of course.

Lots of this "economic activity" is founded by debt, an unrealistically strong pound and a very negative balance of payments.

Oh and I forgot, no pensions , Brown has stolen them all....

How very socialist

Well done Blair and Brown. Let's hope the next leadership team is as visionary.

Far too rosy a picture ,Evan.With so much of our manufacturing economy(what is left of it) being foreign owned and labour protection laws so lax..unemployment could spiral just as it did in 1980-84.We have no North Sea oil revenues any longer to compensate.Our balance of payments has gone to the dogs - for a reason look what is being driven on the roads.All the growth has been in the public sector.And just like industry in the 1980s..financial services could decamp from London quite readily especially since so much of it is foreign owned and controlled.Better have a read at Larry Elliot in the Guardian today.

It's very easy to state how well the country is doing and pass the success to Labour?
However,
what about penions... there's companies out there sitting on huge defecits increased by not just Labour policy but Gordon Brown's Policy!
What about debt that we owe today its huge... nearly threefold per person as to what it was and thats not including the debt the government owes... how much of our feeling of wealth derives from use of loans.
What about luck.. I know this is difficult to see but worldwide everything is booming, look at the Asian markets and America (until very recently) these markets have been the investors of recent times... and large Arab investment.
What about Gordon Brown?
Tony Blair came to power and gave the Treasury to Brown, it is and always has been Brown's decisions.. Blair led on policy's regarding health and education.. economy is Brown's baby and Blair should not get Credit for any of it only blame if we has naive enough to let policies go through that weren't fit.
Who really made the decision on the Euro, removing pension tax relief, indepenancy of the decisions on Interest Rates, etc... Blair did none of it.
This article should be titled:
BROWN'S economic legacy

While doing all these great things the government has also

1) Driven up its borrowing directly and indirectly via PFI.
2) Watched while the people of this country have borrowed like never before.
3) Overseen a major reduction in how much is being saved by people short term and long term in to things like private company pensions.
4) Has not resolved the growing issues with the state employee pension fund, that is way under funded at this time and getting worse.

Yes so far everything is just fine, what happens when everyone has to pay for all of the above?

Thank you for this party political broadcast for the Labour Party. What's on my mind in terms of his economic legacy?

(1) Pensions destroyed (at least if yours is not taxpayer funded); (2) Competitiveness reduced; (3) Tax - vast quantities of it without return; (4) Public debt - including off-balance sheet that is kept quiet;(5) Long-term sustainability (at least if like me you're expecting to pay taxes to fund public sector employees retiring on pensions twice yours until you're 70)...

Come on, Evan. Okay so I'm mixing fiscal, economic and who knows what else. But your blog lacks balance. His short-term legacy was (1) inherited from Major and (2) the result of the one good decision about the Bank of England. His long-term legacy is an unsustainable, debt-ridden public sector riding on the back of an increasingly pressured and uncompetitive private sector.

Probably equally as significant, though strangely not mentioned, has been the change in the state sector. The Blair regime has transferred a large volume of administration, particularly policy formulation, from a neutral civil service into the hands of private consultants. Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in many projects being run by these same consultants rather than the public sector, and at much greater cost. This is despite the lack of success - one big computer project gets fouled up (criminal records checks for example) and lo and behold, not only is no compensation forthcoming, but also the outfit concerned is given another project to foul up at the taxpayers' expense. The number of projects which ought to remain public which have gone in massive (massively expensive) PFI deals is staggering, training soldiers, fixing RAF aircraft to name but two. Then there is PFI in general. The Blair regime, at the behest of Brown, has mortgaged future generations for many years to come in the name of PFI deals, principally to build hospitals and schools. The formulae to decide on the feasibility of PFI, especially with respect to regular taxpayer funding, are grossly skewed in favour of PFI. However, the calculations and ensuing contracts are not available for impartial analysis, so nobody ever knows. Hospital trusts have to bung so much at the money men that there is insufficient cash left to provide decent healthcare. The extent of the scandal is illustrated by the fact that the detested venture capital sector buys and sells third-party PFI deals for obscene profits.

Once again I feel obliged to agree with Mr Davis. And the conclusion that "Labour has not blown it" (yet) must stand.

However, I see major problems in the short-, medium- and long-terms...

As a pessimist I just have this nagging doubt that: the fan might soon have something hitting it (effects of over-borrowing to buy overpriced housing); the proverbial chicken will soon come back to roost (a nation unable to fund retirement and the aged); and that the capitalist house of cards will eventually do what it normally does (a NATIONAL economy that cannot continue to increasingly reap the benefits from the economic bounty produced from computerisation and out-sourcing).

Still I'm all cashed in and I have an umbrella. Thank you very much Mr Blair et al.

Evan, you have missed one of the long term legacies of the Blair-Brown years - the massive expansion of PFI (private finance initiative).

Almost every new school, hospital or public sector project over the past few years has been constructed on the basis that the developers will be paid a rental by future taxpayers.

There appears to have been little consideration on a case by case basis of whether a particular project might be suitable for such a scheme - it is now the norm.

The hope: that the private sector can do better and more efficiently than the public (even though the labyrinthine contracts result in a conclusion that bears little relation to a true market process).

The fear: that such a method of financing is dramatically more expensive in the long term.

This is one crucial long term legacy of the past 10 years, and one which, if the gamble goes wrong or if the contracts are not watertight, might be costing us all dear for decades to come.

It's been a fun 10 years watching Labour play dress-up in Conservatives' clothes. Now let's hand the baton to Cameron and show Britain how it's really done.

Massive immigration provides cheap workers, that is what keeps the economy growing. Personally I'd rather we didn't have them!

The missing ingredient in all this for me is a move towards local food production and local markets instead of moving products needlessly around the world.

Swedish studies show that approx. 70% of energy consumption comes from the unnecessary movement of food and related products.

To say the UK is less traumatized is not at all supported by the evidence. We have a more unbalanced economy dependent on City profits, astronomical debt levels, and a growing tax burden. Young people enter the work force with high graduate debts, and if they want to buy even a small hovel, they will have to take on mortgages of unprecedented size. For the less educated, their prospects are destroyed by the large number of cheap skilled immigrants, so that a large welfare dependent underclass continues to grow with its inherent social costs and problems.
Add to that the political issues of Iraq, terrorism, nationalism (in Scotland etc), lack of improvement in hospitals, schools, transport etc etc etc - my impression is that the UK has never before been so traumatized.

Quote: "If that's all something of a surprise, perhaps more significant is that instead of the government being disrupted by a sterling crisis, Mr Blair is the first Labour prime minister to have endured a currency that is embarrassingly strong, not weak."

Eh? Blair has endured an exceptionally weak dollar, not an embarrassingly strong pound. Measured against Eurozone countries (i.e. our largest trading partners), the pound has fallen, not risen, since 1997.

The reason Blair had the opportunity to embrace the Chinese/global economy is because of Britain's service-driven economy. In terms of harm to traditional industries, global trade doesn't pose as large a threat to Britain as its major trading partners, and its financial services hub benefits as a result.

Britain also has larger skills shortages, lower productivity, and a tighter labour market than its trading partners, so imported labour is more beneficial here than in other trading partners.

------------------------------------

Blair/Brown's real economic legacy will be creating a protracted consumer boom through artificially low real interest rates, which has led to an unsustainable growth in the money supply and therefore massive inflationary pressures in the future. This will undoubtedly lead to higher inflation, regardless of how much Eastern European labour they let into the country.

They have also engineered an unsustainable public-funded boom through increased use of PPI, leading to massive off-balance sheet debt, and squandered opportunities to reform government employment rules (i.e. civil servants' pensions) in line with other industries, again storing problems for generations to come.

This has got to be one of the most honest articles I have read on the Blair era. Nice to read something thats not full of "Blair Bashing"

Thank you !

I absolutely agree, it is always easy to criticize, but it is far more difficult for us to praise. I live and work aboard in Asia and it is clear to see that much of the developed Europe (not including the UK) has turned protectionist and closed their eyes to the real world. Whether we agree with capitalism or not, it is the dominant factor that controls our life’s and I imaging it will continue to control our lives for the next 50 years, maybe then socialism will be reborn in a new frame, but for now it is a dying swan. The best example of this is China, after spending some time there, one realises that it is not a social country, people worry only about themselves and their immediate relatives and to make money is their primary driver for life.

What Labour has done is introduce a realistic, aggressive middle ground that people can follow, not the old extremes of the past from the successive Conservatives and Labour Governments, where we would rock violently from side to side like a ship in a storm never knowing in which direction you were traveling.

With the stability it has allowed government, people and business not to panic, realise there strengths and weaknesses and go forward in a positive and correct manor, allowing the weak to fail (with little embarrassment) but encouraging the achievers to develop at what ever space they desire.

For sure Tony Blair has had a significant part to play in this role and his leadership has allowed all of this to happen, but obviously there are many other people who have help him in this success, Gordon Brown (economic stability) and Margaret Thatcher just to mention two. I mention Margaret Thatcher, because she was sole person to fundamentally change the way the average Britain saw themselves and the way we viewed the rest of the world and without this I believe Britain would be a very different Country today (even with Tony Blair) and we would probably be emulating our closes neighbour in Europe.

Hats of to Tony Blair, for sure we can find fault in certain things he has done, and the IRAQ war will tarnish his achievements for some time to come, but as an ambassador for Britain, he is highly respected around the world by the average person, for assisting the poor around the world, he has done more than most, for Northern Ireland he has made an incredible change that will benefit generations to come, he has given UK PLC the ability to complete in the global market, he has taking us from a pawn in Europe to become the policy maker. Britain is truly known by most people around the world with high regard and our businesses and people have changed and are continuing to change and adapt to meet the demands of the new modern world. Also let us not forget successive governments in Europe have sited the UK as a model to follow and emulate.

Tony Blair should be very proud of what he has achieved, and he has continued to shape our nation to better cope with the changing world. I hope that whoever leads the country in the future they can continue to go in this direction, as UK PLC should become stronger and stronger in the global market and benefit those of us who want it.

Economic growth provides a great opportunity to place the public finances in a strong position. Surely the biggest issue with Labour is the missed opportunity of this economic growth, with taxes up, public sector debt up and with no obvious improvements to public services?

What a party political broadcast for the labour party, utter rubbish. Whilst we have achieved unprecedented economic growth the majority of this is due to massive government spending which is unsustainable in the long term as the UK is currently running record budget deficits in a time of apparant record economic growth, your words not mine. Governemnt books should be balanced in times of strong economic growth not achieving record deficits, what happens when we have a recession, record tax rises even more catpstrophic budget deficits. Also the unemployment figures are a mirage as there are now record numbers of the labour force which are economically inactive. Labour has also swamped businesses with vast amounts of red tape which is a major reason why manufacturing has gone to the wall. Taxes on business have also risen. Foregn direct investment has therefore plummeted and now large UK firms are considering moving their bases overseas due to the declining economic climate.

Evan, as I'm sure you're aware, the quoted GDP growth per capita is adjusted for inflation. Do you think the inflation rate used for this adjustment accurately reflects the increase in the cost of living in the country over the last 10 years?

Also, who do you think has benefitted the most, and who has beneftted the least from the way the economy has evolved? Do you find this slightly suprising under a labour government?

Considering the ever-increasing indebtedness at a personal, corporate and government level, do you think that the UK economy can continue to grow at an outperforming rate?

Finally, although further population increases could drive aggregate GDP up further, when it comes to individual median salaries, net of inflation and tax (ie. standards of living for the average person - which is what really counts, not GDP) I forsee diminishing returns at best. Has Gordon left the mother of all poisoned chalices for his successor? Would you want that job now?!

Evan is spot on, top job all round by Labour re the economy and globalisation. However, I have some nagging issues with the low moral throughout the NHS. Too much acceptance from NHS management when issues (say lack of mid wives) are broadcast to the nation. NHS, Schools need to step up the mark. How much money needs to be spent before the pride, hunger and ambition is restored to the NHS. Bring back the big boned, scaring matron.

... and yet mortgages have soared, inflation is on its way up, and the unemployment rate has risen 20% over the last two years (as the city is booming). Add to that personal inflation levels far above the jury-rigged government numbers, a taxation system that is overly complex and rife with stealth taxes, tax credits that are a failure, billions wasted in the NHS and Education, billions spent on a war no one wanted, civil liberities reigned in, and the picture is more bleak than the 1997 ads imagined. Blair is gone - now if only Brown would do the decent thing and follow him into oblivion.

And what part of this can be attributed to what they inherrited from John Major - some acknowledgement is required! Blair/Brown got it served to them on a silver platter.

Blair's key legacy is that you can't believe figures any more. He moved from the inflation rate quoted for the previous government to one which sounded much lower. Brown moved figures for new projects (PFI) and for Network Rail off balance sheet. He shifted most of the headline unemployment rate onto other benfits. He shifted taxation rises onto National insurance and council tax. He reduced crime by making it near impossible to get a crime number. In doing so he has not only fooled most of the people but much of the media as seen by the "how has he done?" pieces in the media today. If, however, you compare like with like, the figure is truly gloomy. I dare you to try it!

Whilst we can all agree that the economic growth of the last ten years has been good for Britain, this economic growth through immigration is ultimately unsustainable!

We can't continue to allow immigration on the scale of the last ten years and by growing through the use of migrant workers we produce a population timebomb, currently illustrated by the strains we see on our schools and hospitals.

Blair and Brown should be judged by the social costs of this growth...

Surely something should be said about debt levels? Public sector borrowing is soaring, much of it hidden off the balance sheet in PFI deals, also in unfunded pension liabilities. Private debt is also monumental - ÂŁ1.3 trillion!

The economic success of the last ten years has been a complete sham, built on debt, especially mortgage equity withdrawal from inflating houseprices (MEW is running at ÂŁ50 billion a year.)

New Labour have made themselves look good by mortgaging our future. Soon enough there will be a reckoning. We will be paying for this fraud for a generation.

I fear that Blair and Brown's management of the economy will only be apreciated when the tories get in and blow it. It's always the case that people never know what they've got until it's gone, and far to many people take the low interest rates, growing economy and general stability for granted.

Re Comment 1.
Not being able to believe the figures anymore is the legacy of every government this country has had - in recent years anyway. I used to work for the DHSS in the early 80's and we constantly had to alter how the number of unemployed was counted in order to show that the then Tory governments policies were working. Obviously this was not a form of cheating or lying but all about producing a 'truer' reflection of how many were really unemployed.

Are we forgetting a few things here?

The tax burden (both corporate and personal) has risen alarmingly under this government, companies such as ours have seen our internal UK utility markets shrink to almost nothing, wage rates have risen to the point where we no longer employ youngsters etc etc.

Rose tinted glasses are fine, but there is an awful lot of things which have NOT been good for the UK.

(Our company employs 6 people)

Peter

Normally I like your articles, and maybe it's only because I find Blair's personality so off-putting, but I disagree with the amount of credit you've given Blair.
I think that the global economic environment over the past decade has had by far the greatest impact on Britain and that Blair has simply ridden on the back of it and managed not to be a fatal obstruction.
The fact that Britain has embraced these movements more than other European countries is probably a cultural legacy from Thatcher. She dragged the country out of the union directed, protectionist mentality of old and prepared it to desire freer trade and globalisation.
If I have to give Blair credit then it would be that he killed off the old Labour party so that Britain no longer has a serious threat of a party that would take Britain back into the dark ages.

"They ran a party political broadcast that looked ahead at economic life under Labour, with various people talking from a future under Labour, telling us how their mortgages had gone up, how they had lost their job and how inflation had soared.

It hasn't happened that way. "

Actually some of it has - mortgages aka house prices are incredibly expensive now and perhaps if the government had a bit of foresight and built houses to match demand... and encoraged stable families some more (thus decreaseing the number of households in the country) this wouldn't have happened, at least not to the excess it has now.

Blair's economic legacy is a positive one. Together with Gordon Brown he has shown admirable economic literacy and management; gone are the days when economic failure and Labour governments are seen as synonymous. Previous Labour governments, though making positive contributions on a number of fronts (introducing the NHS, welfare state and liberal social and education policies) were all undone by economic failures. These failures were underpinned by an emotional-sentimental aversion to the market and private ownership. What Blair and Brown have shown is that it is possible for a progressive, mildly reformist left of centre political party to run with the grain of a modern, globalised mixed economy, rather than seek to undermine it by adopting policies that end up killing the geese laying golden eggs.

Being in the financial services industry, I am more aware than most of the many, many stealth taxes levied by Gordon Brown. What a mess they have made! Destroyed company pension schemes due to Brown's raid on pension funds. I have many clients in the NHS who advise me that incredible amounts of money have been piled into the NHS but NOT on patient care where it is needed - instead on more layers of management, steering parties etc. Have you been to a hospital lately? I have - the waiting time is shocking! Banks, responsible for most of the misselling problems in the past, are being made all- powerful because they can offer CHEAP products - is cheap good? Lets build more houses on school playing fields and on the green belt! Lets get the police doing their job - i.e catching criminals instead of being obsessed with motorists! We have to get rid of them!

Yes there have been economic benefits- especially for older pensioners. But housing inflation is out of control, there should be a lower ratio of mortgage/salary, also be an essential deposit - say 5% on house purchase. Social housing must improve for essential workers in the south east. The rail network is a total mess and we should be ashamed of it being the country which invented the railway. The British are obsessed with making profits on social necessities. The NHS is a mess generally, we should make it more attractive for nurses and junior doctors. Migration is out of control, benefit fraud is rampant and it places stress on housing and public services generally. I am all for migrants who can contribute to the economy but not those who take us for a ride. Then there is crime, not enough money for more coppers on the beat, etc etc . I hope Gordon Brown will reconsider some of his policies so they become more tax-payer friendly

When Labour won in 1997, I remember the sun shining and almost everyone I met smiling. What a great day.

Yesterday, Tony Blair tenders his resignation and we had rain. Still do.

Apart from that, under the previous Tory Government, I was out of work for a long time, picking up a few jobs every so often. I thought that the only thing to do was take a chance on gaining a degree.

I began this in 1994, graduating in 1997. Since then, I have worked more, had much more income and have married. I may still have some debt, but there are many more ways to handle it.

The way Labour has treated many people, e.g. students, pensioners, tax payers, Iraqis, nurses, etc, has been a series of ups and downs. I am not sure this will do them well at all.

Sorry Labour, but if I remember this correctly, isn't "Spitting Image" returning to our screens soon? Surely this means the Tories are going to be back in?

I'm not a Blair fan and am glad he's going, but this article seems fair enough to me. Brown may be the economic driver, but Blair had the sense to let him get on with it.

The world is changing. It is easy to winge about the change, but those who moan about it ("we don't even make cars any more") need to wise up. We compete in a global economy more than ever before. As Thatcher forced us to recognise that you can't subsidise inefficient industries, so Brown is now forcing us to recognise that you cannot have high wages for work that someone else will do for half or a quarter the money. That is nobody's fault, just a fact of life.

As for those who complain about taxes, I suggest looking at what you are able to spend. I would rather have 60% of ÂŁ40000 than 70% of ÂŁ30000. (All that said, I am still annoyed that so much tax revenue has been wasted in the NHS).

Absolute Rubbish...

As a 28 year old that earns relatively good money, hasn't a hope in Hell of buying a house or even contemplate ever being able to afford to retire I would have to disagree with this article entirely.. Blair will be remembered as a liar and Brown will be remembered as a thief....

Your article is a perfect example of why I rarely take any opinion or report from the ±«Óătv on British politics without reference to other sources. Like the organisation you work for, you seem unable to recognise that your starting point is left of centre and that when you give what you believe is a balanced opinion, you are opining from a socialist perspective. It also illustrates that Hutton apart, what an easy ride the ±«Óătv have given New Labour. Still, I suppose things can only get better.

It seems that the Blair era closes with as many unanswered questions as it began. Will we ever join the Euro?Will Britain ever be satisfied will living within its means?Can any society be truly secure if so many of the goods and services it uses are ultimately controlled from abroad?

at last Blairs unsincere smile is going

We shouldn't overlook the massive savings that have been achieved by reducing the cost of interest on national debt from 5% of GDP in 1996-97 to 2% nowadays. That's an efficiency improvement in public finances of 7% in every year. We've also benefited from the abandonment of the doctrine that unemployment was a "necessary price for low inflation". We don't have to pay billions of our taxes just to keep a huge army of unemployed. Now they are encouraged to work: they do work now, and pay taxes too. Those efficiency savings have been allocated between households and greater investment in public education, transport and healthcare.

As we watched the Ten Oclock news last night my wife and I reflected (over a bottle of wine) on our ten years with Blair. We're both public servants from working class families; she, NHS, I, armed forces. Ten years ago we were living in rented accomodation, my wife working in a poorly equipped clinical unit and I in a enjoyable but rather poinless role. Now we own our own wonderful old townhouse, 2 old second hand cars and have a beautiful daughter who spends 3 days a week in excellent registered childcare, which is partly funded with goverment vouchers. My wife is able to work part-time within the NHS on a very reasonable salary. I am still in the armed forces - we are hugely overstretched and under resourced - but ironically more capable and better equipped than we ever were under the Tories. We have worked hard to get where we are now -but we live in a country that rewards hard work. Blair (and Thatcher)enabled that to happen, so thats why we toasted him last night. Mistakes have been made and life is far from perfect but I beleive he 'did the right thing'. I expect we will be voting for Cameron next.

What has also happened in the last 10 years is that borrowing by government, individuals, and companies (in the form of leveraged buyouts) has increased dramatically and pension saving has dropped dramatically. We all know that life is easy when borrowing money (e.g. for a nice holiday, or a nice house) but much more difficult when the time comes to pay it all back again. Will labour still be in power when the next credit squeeze starts?

The population may have grown by 4% but what are the consequences of this to the envirionment; These extra people require housing, this puts additional strain on all the public services which cannot cope with the existing population.

If the only way to keep the economy growing is to continually increase the population of this country then it will not be a pleasant place to live in.

If you take an 80 mile radius from London then England is the 4th most densly populated place on the earth; this density is not sustainable. It is no wonder there are tensions, as more people are crammed together. The goverments building guide lines have been altered to cram in more houses per acre, these estates will be the rookeries of tomorrow with all the attendant social problems.

To be fair Labour have done well on the economy. The minimum wage and making the bank of England independant where two key points.

People complaining we dont make cars, think what was the most important thing the last time you purchased a car. Price, enough said.

One other point there is no such thing as a British Citizen we are all Britsh subjects.

Evan, you paint a very rosy picture of everything about the UK economy. There is only one fundamental thing which has happened to make people believe the hype and the spun positive figures - they have been allowed to borrow huge amounts of money - more than the rest of Europe put together and because they have got hold of this money they feel well off. Well I have some news - it is mostly money that is debt and will need to be repaid, unlike true wealth which does not.

As far as I know GDP growth is calculated by working out growth and subtracting inflation. Given that both figures are relatively low, the artificially suppressed inflation figures is allowing the government to tell us we are better off and have constant growth. In reality if we calculated the true inflation including housing council tax, services etc, we would be treading water and be the basket case of Europe. Debt and lots of it is the only thing keeping the show alive.

Germany is the powerhouse of Europe and has a truly diversified and robust economy generating real wealth and a trade surplus. The eurozone has far less inflation in most parts too. The British are totally deluded if they think that everyone else but ourselves are the basketcase.

I'm British, currently living in France, but having spent the last 10 years travelling abroad extensively for work reasons and its quite apparent that Britain has become more prosperous over this period in absolute and relative terms. I've never been a Labour voter but it would be churlish not to commend them for their macro-economic record. The return to near full employment alone stands out and is not just fiddling statistics. The other highlights have been the quite remarkable economic stability, that no other UK government has been able to achieve over for the last 50 years and the high rate of urban regeneration in many of the UK's once ailing cities. Ironically this sustained growth has exacerbated over long running problems e.g. transport headaches, housing costs and personal indebtedness. Nonetheless, I can't help feeling that whoever becomes Prime Minister over the next decade would be more than a little pleased were they able to match the economic record of the current incumbent.

The Blair bashing is getting tiring. There is much you can criticize but you must recognize the Conservatives were wrong in 1997, the economy is strong and employment is strong. Just sit on a bench in London and listen to all the different european languages you hear, why ? because there are jobs in the UK. It's very disturbing that people's hatred of Blair is so complete that they want to throw out the baby with the bath water.

Britain has been a successful country over the last 10 years, and I have no doubt about that.

How much to ascribe to Tony Blair I have no idea.

Evan

Nice but, unfortunately, superficial account of the economy. Scratch beneath the surface and you missed out two key factors that have driven the UK economy over the past 10 years: personal debt and, worryingly, heavy government borrowing!

Both make the economy very vulnerable to shocks! With ÂŁ1 trillion of personal debt, a small increase in interest rates could leave many people insolvent, with damaging repercussions for consumer spending and, thereafter, employment rates and economic growth.

But what concerns me the most is the amount of government borrowing going on - currently, 2.7% of GDP at a time when the economy is supposedly strong! Goodness knows what the borrowing requirement will be like if the economy ever goes into recession!

Chris

Evan

You seem to measure everything in percentages and stats - so let me ask you a few statistical questions:

1. By what percentage has our (the public's) influence on policy decisions made in our name decreased in the last decade?

2. What percentage of the population aged 30 or under cannot afford a house anywhere in the UK?

3. Of the roughly 6.5bn people in the world, what proportion of them hate the UK for its role in the Iraq debacle?

4. By what percentage has authoritarianism increased in this country?

5. Precisely how much less trust is there in our public institutions to be free of political interference and meddling - i.e. the police, civil service and judiciary?

6. By what percentage does average inflation outstrip average earnings increases? Precisely how much poorer is the average person each year than the year before?

7. How much of the inflation-busting rises in public transport and council tax is justified? and how much is just people lining their own pockets at taxpayer expense?

Until you start measuring the downside of the Blair years your analysis seems a little credulous.

I strogly think that Tony Blair is the best PM UK could ever have. I am from India and migrated to UK with a British passpost and I am happy about it. Tony Blair as a leader has a charm and grace in him that no other leader in the world can ever match. People of Britan should be proud of him. I feel very sad to see him leave as PM.

Regards,

Satish

If you borrow way beyond your means without a guaranteed way of repaying the money you run a big risk of having it come back and bite you - hard.

That's the way Blair's policies have been run. Record borrowing and still rising.

Blair has done this with his own financial affairs and is banking on a lucrative future income to come to his rescue.

Who or what is going to come to the country's rescue?

I see these statistics and I know from personal experience statistics are rubbish.

NHS waiting times. Time from admittance to treatment has fallen. Yes, but why?

My uncle went into hospital with a bad chest infection, they treated him immediately with a couple of paracetomol! In a room off A&E he was given these by a nurse as they cant prescribe.
So yes my uncle was treated and yes it was another +1 for the statistics.
In fact he obviously needed tests, Xrays and antibiotics.

What's that saying "statistics prove that statistics are rubbish"?

I am looking back over the past ten years from the purely self-centred point of view of disposable income. I have aged from 44 to 54 in that time, married without children. My basic salary has risen (working for the same employer) from ÂŁ22,000 to ÂŁ40,000 i.e about 82%. My disposable income after deductions has risen from about ÂŁ1,650 to ÂŁ2,000 per month i.e. about 21%. Now I know that is a very simplistic view but I also know that if I had not reached the age where my mortgage is now paid off, I should have had a significantly lower standard of living than I did ten years ago.

Three terms of Tony's premiership have done absolutely nothing for me and the pensions fiasco means that the early retirement goal I'd set some years ago is the stuff of fantasy. Good riddance, but I dread the future under Gordon even more!

Zarti, if the condition of the UK is not so clever, and Europe is indeed fabulous, then why are you here and not there?

Labour's main failings have not been that the country has not improved; it has considerably. However, given the benign economic conditions throughout the world during their tenure, they should have done better. In contrast, much of Europe hasn't taken advantage of this beneficial scenario - Germany, France, Italy, Portugal.

As for comparing us to other major European economies, ours is larger than France's - 30 years ago their economy was 25% larger than ours, but thanks to wheels set in motion by Mitterrand it's stagnating. Unemployment is also very high so I think that you're being somewhat selective when you say there's plenty of jobs and money - yes; in Paris and the Cote d'Azur, but not in the boiler room that is the banlieues.

It's easy to say the grass is always greener, but it's not until you go there that you realise we're doing pretty good.

To claim that the Labour part's good fortune were based on Thatchers and Majors policies is complete rubish.

1/ Thatchers policy was to smash the Unions not to create a flexible work market.

2. Lamonts policy of lowering taxes resulted in higher inflation , a stock market crash and a long bitter recession.

3. Majors disasterours ERM polciy resulted in us crashing out of the ERM, 15% interest rates a hosuing market crash and another long recession.

Please, please do not tell me that it was better under the Tories, and that they have all the right ideas on the economy

It took 18 years of Tory government to create the strong economy that Labour took over in 1997.

we had a strong balance of payments, goods reserves, and a strong manufacturing base.

Now even our water is owned by foreigners, our balance of payments is totlally reversed and our reserves are gone.

We will need a period of austerity to correct the errors of the Blair years, unfortunately it will be the Tory government that takes the blame.

Great piece, loving your work. We have but three words to say:

EVAN FOR PM!

xxx

I think it's interesting to read an article that looks on the past 10 years economically in a positive light, but I think that it should also be highlighted that economic success does not necessarily equal a happy population.
Most figures quoted by economists are averages and/or don't always take into account an uneven distribution in income. Not only that but it can be speculated that economic wealth can potentially erode a country's traditional culture (for example take a look at continental europe, and then to the USA).
If I were to personally take a shot into the dark, I think that if house prices continue to rise the way they currently are (people have been predicting a crash for years, but still no real sign yet), I believe that the economically beneficial younger generation (ie well educated, entrepreneurial) will pack up and move to other countries where the cost of living is lower and/or the standard of life is better.
Just my opinion at the very least!!

The kind of intelligent, balanced view of the economy that we have come to expect from Evan.
In complete contrast to the deep ignorance of the anti-Labour bigotry that pervades many of these comments.
I think my favourite was the complaint that the Government has spent more money than it has got. If you don't know why that is dumb it's probably best that you keep quiet.

A definitely pink-tinted view of reality, I'm afraid. The growth in employment has been largely in the Public Sector so it's really concealed unemployment; Public Sector borrowing is running out of control; Tax burden has risen dramatically and the country is properous only because it is living on credit on the back of an unsustainable boom in house prices.

Apart from that, Brian, the Boy done well.

8:1 ratio of average house prices to average wages.

Im leaving the UK unless theres a house market crash - New labour is the enemy of the under 30's (we'll work longer in life for a poorer standard of living than our parents)

I rather feel that it isn't hard to run an economy on other people's money - personal and public debt is booming, the IMF has warned Brown about his actions. And the trade deficit appeared in 1997 and has increased ever since.

This country is spending money that it isn't making - and so is the government. The pound is not strong - analysts suggested it is 20-30% overvalued due to the collapse of the dollar, where another man has spent far more money than he has and is now seeing what happens.

Evan once again a puffed up piece of economics; are you a member of the Labour party?
What is your take on the disastrous closure of final salary pension schemes; I know that the ±«Óătv still has one but it is now in a minority.
So what do we have; inflation at 4.8% RPI, government deficit at ÂŁ501bn up ÂŁ37bn on last year, Trade deficit widened to ÂŁ4.5bn in March, all during a time when the economy is strong.
The facts are that Tony has robbed the pension funds of many, made saving pointless for the younger members of society and has spent money that the country hasn't got. PFI is a huge swindle that our children will have to pay for and a large number of those PFI companies have moved their profits outside the UK.

The best description of this governments economic record is "bulimic". Wait for the results because someone has to pay.

A typically biased, pro-Labour view from the ±«Óătv. Any economic success this country has enjoyed in the last decade has been in spite of, not because of, Labour. If we have done well, it is because Blair et al stole Thatcher's clothes. And besides, economics aren't everything. Labour's globalist, international socialism has led to an unprecedented wave of immigration which has undermined our established identity and culture, caused a housing shortage, put the future sustainability of our environment in jeopardy, and sown the seeds of future inter-ethnic conflict. Bad, bad, bad!

I share the concern of many of your 'posters' - just can't help feeling that a) it could have been so much better, had GB not taxed us so much for so little return, and b) if and when the Tory auditors get hold of the balance sheet of UK Ltd, it will turn out to be a disaster area.

All the superficial strength of the economy has been built on unparalleled levels of personal debt, much of it carried by our young people who are also now totally priced out of the housing market. For the next generation, it all looks very bleak indeed.

Come on, Evan. You're supposed to know about these things. Without saying things are terrible, a lot of politicians could squeeze workers for more hours or increase output by increasing immigration. The true driver of growth is productivity. What's happened to that under Blair?

I think this is fine material for the internal debate (if it materializes) of the Labour Party.

Most of the achievements will be seen as such by New Labourites, most Tories, and most voters (even if the parties fight over taking the credit).

However, there are still many on the left, old Labour and Liberal, who would pursue policies which would reverse those gains, and they should be forced to defend that position.

Evan - I feel the picture you paint is far, far too rosy. As a'twentysomething' I want to emphasise the comments made about Labour's economic 'legacy' for my generation. Its a legacy of debt. Students are leaving university with huge debt and then, to get even a modest house, have to take on a massive mortgage. Therefore although incomes have risen my experience in talking to friends my age is that people don't feel the benefit of this because they are overwhelmed by house prices and by the amount of debt they are having to take on and pay off. I am blessed with a good job and good salary but can only afford an old council house. It therefore angers me when I read of the dramatic increase in Mr Blair's property portfolio during his time in office. He has done absolutely nothing for hard working young people.

Evan,

I think you have been very generous to this administration. It is all looking very good at the moment.. but... PFI will place a burden on public finances for many years to come, we have an economy being propped up with the spending and resources of increasing levels of migrant labour that itself will place an increasing burden on public services, we are in a property bubble that will surely at some point burst and our pensions have been raided by a guy who preaches prudence! Live now but boy are we going to pay for it later.

So the economies all over the world boomed. Big achievement, Mr Blair?

What did labour do with the money?
They built an NHS that has taken the quality of British hospitals down to a 3rd world level. Alhough the cancer rate in the UK is similar to other countries, more people here actually die of it than in any other EU country. Well done, Mr Blair?

Despite the good tax revenues Labour decided to cut down on the police force and splash more money on foreign wars and "refugee" terrorist claiming benefits. I pay 40% taxes yet the police doesn't even show up anymore when my car gets broken in about once a month. People who work hard and pay their taxes are punished by the system and must feel like loosers. Way to go, Mr Blair?

How about improving the traffic situation in London, getting the Healthcare up to a European standard, tackeling the ridiculous crime rate??

The UK could be so much better off but people are just following like sheep when the countries leaders are praising themselves over the few things they didn't mess up.

CPI vs RPI
The former was chosen because it is an international standard. However its utility is compromised because it ignores rents, local taxes and mortgage interest.

The RPI is a better model of true inflation but is a poor target for monetary policy.

When you are targetting inflation with interest rates it is a nonsense to include mortage interest in your inflation figure because... if RPI goes up you put up interest rates which increases mortgage interest payments which puts up the RPI, so you raise interest rates which puts up the RPI etc etc. Not very clever!

The best model is the one used before 2003, namely the RPIX which is simply the RPI with just mortgage interest stripped out. It is a very good indicator of core underlying inflation. That makes it the perfect target for inflation policy. It slightly over-estimates true inflation because it does not use a geometric mean (which is mathematically correct), but that could be easily adjusted and probably would only make a very minor difference.

The government knew that CPI tended to be lower than RPIX which is why, when they changed the target from RPIX to CPI in 2003 the target reduced from 2.5% of 2.0% to compensate. A 2.0% CPI target is also the same as the ECB target.

However, with residential rents and local and indirect "taxes" rising rapidly (Council tax, congestion charge, parking fees/permits etc) their lack of inclusion in the CPI figure is a major information gap. Also, since 2003 the difference between CPI and RPIX has been more like 0.8% than 0.5% which suggests that the 2% CPI target is equivalent to a RPIX target of 2.8%, which implies a loosening of policy since 2003 as the RPIX target effectively rose from 2.5% to 2.8%.

Even though CPI is their formal target, I am sure that the BOE keeps a very close eye on RPIX because they know it is a better indication of true inflation and it is the figure the unions will use in wage negotiations!

The responses show that people are not interested in facts, when a PM has passed his sell-by date and is universally disliked.

Many polls show that people believe their local NHS is quality, and the service they have received is excellent. Yet the same people are convinced that the national NHS is a shambles. Why? Because enough people moan and throw mud, it'll stick. and so with the economy.

The last ten years have been of consistent, quarter-on-quarter growth. It has not been accidental. The UK has embraced globalisation, as Mr Davis says.

What other countries embraced eastern Europeans? We have and have grown economically becvause of it. Would the conseravatives have done the same. Would they have made the Bank of England independent? The answers are no and no.

The economy was already improving before Labour came into power, but that does not take away any credit for 40 consecutive quarters of growth under a government (The first since the 1929 crash). Nor does it take away from the massive investment in education and health - much of it capital investment that will remain for generations. Although PFI means future generations will also pay for it. But if they still benefit, so what?

My one gripe: How much will be shown to be based on easy credit? And the improvements in social exclusion/ a fairer society (through health, education, and family credit systems for the poor) will be destroyed by the army of Buy-to-Letters that has bloated the housing market. The future is haves vs have-nots akin to feudal times. That mess has to be the priority for Brown to sort out.

Dick, at comment 3, says "we're not making cars any more". The truth is that we are building a near record number of cars, but with Nissan, Toyota, Honda and [BMW] badges - one sign of us having accepted and embraced the global economy. Meanwhile Labour has allowed the remnants of the former BMC/Leyland empire to die, something Mrs T. would never have dared do.

The one thing we must all remember when analysing this government's achievements is: ALL their figures are fake; ALL are twisted and bent to suit their purposes. Oh and one other thing, Blair has allowed slavery to raise its ugly head in this country; as evidence I offer the Chinese cockle pickers on a ÂŁ1 a day, living 16+ to house and being charged rent. AND for goodness sake slave auctions take place at our major airports on a daily basis.
And they do nothing.
Great Britain - pah.

Evan this article is rubbish!
DEBT DEBT DEBT 1.3 TRILLION, Britains gold bullion sold at the lowest price possible, a raping of the pension scheme by Brown, followed by Iraq (say no more).

That is Blairs legacy well done Tony you screwed Britain well and truly!

Better?

Are you kidding? Have you seen the tax burden yet?

This economy is balancing on the brink. With the tax burden this high the slightest wobble ...and its all over.

Live in the South East you cant EXIST on less than 50K pa.

Compulsion, intervention and taxation meets you at every turn. And you think things are better?
All they have done is LOWER the standards and move the goal posts to make it appear as if things are being acheived. Go and work in hospitals and schools as I have done and the WASTE and target driven culture will shock the hell out of you.

This country is RUINED. With taxation, expense, state intervention, compulsion and the impact of a target driven MASSIVE public sector.

Ten years in power and a lot of positives to take account of. The economy is booming, social inequality is been address, the north-south divide is narrowing; massive investment in the rail network will generate even more wealth.
Can we stop being so negative, and have an open and frank dialog on some of the issues the Blair government wasn't able or refused to deal with. No one in his right mind will think a Cameron led government will add anything to this country.
Lets Tony go with all our blessings

One of the things mentioned at the start of the article was in the Tory 1997 election they said amongst other things, your mortgage would go up under Labour.

Yes it has, insanely so, but for different reasons than interest rates.

There has been the crazy house price boom of the last 10 years with prices soaring 3,4,5,6 fold or more. My first House in Aylesbury was bought for ÂŁ44,000. I don't live their anymore, but it is now 'worth' ÂŁ200,000. This benefits nobody but the money grabbing banks.

I could relatively easily afford a ÂŁ44,000 house in 1997. Today, I could not hope to afford a ÂŁ200,000 one, even with an approx wage rise over time of approx 100% through wage rises, and promotions/job changes etc.

1997 - 2007

Wage Inflation 100%
House Inflation 450%

Huge discrepancy, esp. as House prices for 99% of UK population are less than their annual wage - Unlike Boot's money grabbing directors maybe ?

One of the shameful legaciesf Blair/Brown is the unaffordability of housing for a rapidly growing percentage of the population, as reported recently on ±«Óătv Web, nurses, firemen, policemen cannot afford a house, and I won't forget the other 'Key Workers's who don't get a housing bung from the government - workers in Tesco, council workers, cleaners, cooks etc.

Blair/Brown never did anything to quell this, and to their great shame actually thought *rampant* house price inflation was a good thing !!!!

Still, what goes up, will come down. Though it will be many orders of magnitude harder than the Tory Housing Crash of the early 1990's - do people not learn !!!

Blair has done alot for the economy but his political policies and poor government spending regimes (NHS) have put him in bad books with most of the population. students are coming out of university now with an average debt of about ÂŁ28,000, which is no way to go out to the world looking for a job, house and mabey looking to start a family (but i doubt many graduates will want that when they leave). overall blair may have done some improvments to the economy but failed elsewhere. However thanks for the good work and making blair look good for a little bit evan.

On the whole, I am satisfied with the goverment under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. I do have one thing to add after reading some of the comments:

This may sound naive but is it really a bad thing that people (under-30s especially) can't afford to buy a decent home? Although it would certainly be nice to own a property, what's so bad about renting? Many of our European counterparts do so. Why can't we? It just seems to me that people are becoming too obsessed with getting on the housing market. If others woul wish to express their thoughts, I would be very interested in what they have to say.

The main thing to bear in mind is that Labour inherited an economy in tremendous shape, largely thanks to the painful decisions taken by the previous Tory government. Wouldn't it be ironic if, now that there are signs that Labour's mismanagement of the country's economic affairs - particularly in terms of debt, taxation and rising inflation - they are voted out again, leaving the Tories to pick up the pieces and make the unpopular yet necessary decisions.

In 1997, one election advert said "New Labour, New Danger". It pictured Mr Blair with demon eyes. It picked up early on a nagging doubt about whether he is sincere.

Even in 1997 people were worried that he smiles too much to be sincere, and will do or say anything to be popular.

The Advertising Standards Authority found Mr Blair had been shown in a dishonest and sinister way and asked for the ad to be withdrawn.

Perhaps they were wrong about that.

The new dangers which face us in 2007 include massive debt and an unnecessary and brutal war in Iraq. Is that what you thought you were getting for your vote in 1997?

Was Blair honest with you about New Labour's spending plans? Was Blair honest with you about the reasons for going to war with Iraq? Or was he dishonest and sinsister?

Evan,

Shame on you. Not one mention of the mess Labour has made of our pensions. We once had the best pensions in Europe, now millions are looking forward to a poverty-stricken old age.

I believe that the Blair Government will go down in history as the Government that sold the Country. We own less of our businesses than we did in 97, we control less of our own laws, having subcontracted that aspect to an unelected EU committee, and we now run a trade deficit that makes your eyes water at ÂŁ55 billion per year. Achievements - I think not, a lot of huff and puff and SPIN. Get them out of power and quickly.

If this ecomomy is doing so well under this government why is that we don't seem to have enough money to spend on the NHS. Public transport is a joke but lets cripple the motorist anyway with tax upon tax in various ways and means.Why are so many pensioners on the poverty line in an ecomomy with is growing so well ?
Instead of sending billions to others countries in aid etc, would it not be a better policy to make sure that the people in the UK are looked after first in stead of trying to gain brownie points on the world political circuit. 'Charity begins at home'

Evan,

If you inherit a stable economic environment and then follow the published proposals of your opposition for the first term of government, then at the very least, you need to consider allocating a larger proportion of the credit to that opposition. However, having stoked up expectations within the Labour Party, Blair and Brown then used the period from 2001 to greatly expand tax and spend policies with some success but largely on the back of a growing burden upon the economy.

There have also been some experiments by Brown, the impact of which is not yet known. For example, fiscal drag in the housing market has yet to be measured. Undoubtedly if you take more out of the pockets of individuals through IHT then this will have a negative effect on their ability to bid up future house prices. Many had been hoping to use this source of funds to pay for their own retirement and will be less able to do so in the future. When the middle classes are unable to provide for themselves having been taxed at every turn, the State will be expected to step in, further squeezing the growth sector of the economy.
When you couple this with rising personal debts generally, and in particular upon those attending University, something will have to give, no matter how many low income workers we can pull in from overseas.

With these points in mind, I have to say that I have become completely disillusioned with the lack of balance and / or a critical tone in the widespread coverage of the Blair years and his 'legacy'. Perhaps it is a deliberate policy within the ±«Óătv to accept that the Labour party is well-intentioned and sincere, whereas the Conservatives cannot readily be believed. Equally, it may well be that the ±«Óătv naturally attracts left-leaning reporters, and they merely reinforce their own views of the world from ±«Óătv HQ. However it is derived, I find it to be cloying and unhealthy. In point of fact, I have given up on the ±«Óătv, and will agitate for the removal of the Tax that we are required to pay to the organisation. Perhaps that is exactly what the ±«Óătv needs before it gets back to impartial public sector broadcasting. Au revoir.

Its quite simple. The economic growth has been built on an unsustainable basis. Record borrowing and debt racked up by individuals through remortgaging, massive levels of government spending on public services and cheap foreign labour flooding into the country. A holy trinity of short term measures to provide a short term boost to economic performance.

Evans typically biased view (which he expanded on last nights news) fails to mention the pensions crisis, low unemployment but record numbers on "incapacity" benefit, record levels of personal debt and the highest tax rates for a generation. Typical ±«Óătv

I am a polish immigrant and I do not really understand why Britain is taking so negative attitude towards Tony Blair. You have the healthiest economy in Europe, the biggest salaries, one of the smallest rate of corruption and so on. He has also end up the dispute between catholics and protestants in NI and managed the autonomy reform for Wales and Scotlands own parliaments. Believe me or not, lots of times German chancellor (Schroeder) and Polish PM were mentioning the dream about going the "third way" as Blair's UK. The only major mistake was the Iraq, but it's not only Blair who got involved in this mess. There's also a dozen or so countries, inluding my own. But Iraq does not really influence your life on a daily basis. Well, it is a normal feature, if we cannot find a problem in here, we are looking for it anywhere. You really do not know what you're going to loose. Instead of being grateful to TB for your successes your only knock him.

At first I thought Labour would be good for the UK, however after 10 years it has got worse. Blair says to look around your area and see the improvements - well I have and there hasn't been any. Infact the NHS has got worse, employment hasn't improved infact it has got worse with a lot of cheap labour being used from abroad. The whole of the Transport system is an absolute nightmare, high costs for a service which is poor, unsafe and filthy to use. Crime has gone up and education has not improved at all. I can only say this from what I have experienced in the last 10 years, more so over the last 5 years. This country has gone downhill and will continue to do so. This country does not have great leadership at all, Balir does not know how to plan things ahead i.e the issue with the climate change, car pollution etc... Instead when the problem occurs the government slap big fines on us. However, its ok for them to use cars and claim expenses back when us the innconet british citizens have to pay (ref. recent report on MP expenses). Had they have planned this in advance maybe we wouldn't have such a problem. Employment rates are appalling - to get a decent job takes a good year even then the wage is enough to live on. It's funny because my salary never seems to go up, but all these new fines and charges are added which have to be paid. The public are backed into a corner, its blind bullying! Britain's government is a modern day scrooge - out to take your money. I dread to think what Brown will do if he becomes President. It will be Doomsday for Britain. Brown is worse than Blair, taking our money and not improving anything. Forget these little percentage increases or decreases Blair states has helped the country -its tiny no.s and a load of nonsense and I know this from what i have experienced in the last 10 years. Bring us an imporvement which had helped people nationally not in an unknown remote village with a poopulation of 10! This time I will vote Conservative. Forget Labour....they are rubbish, good riddance!

When Blair came to power, he said his priorities were 'education, education, education' - and now, ten years later, we have a generation of debt-ridden graduates, in many cases with useless qualifications that employers don't want. Perhaps he should have said 'Maths, Science and Engineering education' - but as those are seen as 'hard' subjects, he'd have found it much harder to achieve a 50% rate of graduate intake - and maybe you'd have found a few more people prepared to do the sums before committing to stupid levels of personal debt!

Thanks to Blair and Brown I'm paying tax (and NICs) to fund a war I didn't agree with, an NHS I never use and Education for other peoples kids (I dont want any). My disposable income is mostly disposed paying the interest on a massive mortgage (the only way I was ever going to get on the property ladder) and saving for a rainy day because New Labours pension schemes wont keep me in old age. Thanks a bunch. As I see it, Brown made one really good decision: giving the Bank of E control of interest rates. I thank the Lord this shower didn't set them. I can't be the only single young guy who feels alienated by New Labour this way, can I?

I wondered how long it would be before the Tory activists started rubishing your claims.

"his most important economic legacy is that in a recent international poll...".

Only a labour spin doctor, such as Mr Davis, could assert that economic success can be measured in a poll! I think you need to go back to your economics textbooks

Spin Spin Spin.....now Mr Evans is at it!

Evan Davis must live in a different world to me and my colleagues. I hear about billions spent (wasted) in many areas, to the detriment of the poor and afflicted in this country. When will someone wake up and address the problems of the needy of this country. I do not mean by ÂŁ200 at Xmas. I mean such as the 13 year old carer who tore at the heart strings on the John Humphry AM programme this week.

I find it amazing to read some of the comments to this blog. Evan, what have you started! :-)

My personal experiences have been that things have visibly improved over the past decade. I grew up during the Conservative - New Labour transition and I can see the changes all around me.

You get the feeling that many of those who take issue the content of your blog are interminable, stubborn, sulks who cannot face the reality that new Labour has actually made a difference to millions of lives, and in doing so, proved them all wrong!

DM

By the way, Evan, when does Tony take up his cushy new position in Europe?. I bet his ol' pal Mandy is getting the red carpet ready as I type.

Let us not forget, Tony Blair came to power with the British economy in as good a state as it has been for at least fifty years. Decisions taken by John Major's Government - e.g. on the Euro, controlling public expenditure, opening monetary policy up to greater scrutiny, coupled with the supply side reforms of the Thatcher years, had led to strong economic and employment growth with a current account surplus (remember those?), a pensions system that was the envy of Europe, a low budget deficit and high levels of public sector productivity.

Tony Blair's government started well. The decision to hand over responsibility for monetary policy to the Bank of England was sensible and long overdue. But since the first week, it is difficult to detect any Government policy that has helped the British economy. Where the free market has reigned, the economy has done well. In contrast, Gordon and Tony's attempts to interfere have largely been disastrous.

So, Evan, let us give credit where credit is due for the current robust state of the British economy - to Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and most importantly, to the efforts of the British people. And let us speculate how much more prosperous we would be today if we had continued with the less interventionist style of Government that we had up to 30 April 1997.

I'd like to see the next government reduce taxes. The private sector and households are over burdened with taxes that fuel public spending - much of which is wasted and end up in the pockets of consultants.

Employment is high in this country owing to the increase in public sector employment. These jobs are being payed for by the revenues being earned by hard working private sector companies who are in desperate need of tax breaks so that they have more money to invest. Many public sector jobs are unproductive and rely on money from the treasury. These types of jobs aren't bringing money into the British economy, Britain needs to encourage Entrepreneurs who can take advantage of the growing economies in India and China.

I hope Cameron gets elected and provides tax breaks to the middle class families who are expected to pay increased tuition fees and extortionate council taxes. I hope he cuts corporation tax from 30% to encourage business to invests profits to encourage growth. He can pay for this by spending less on whitehall Bureaucrats, reducing the number of civil servants and reducing social benefits.

Disillusioned

- 22,000 student debt (between myself and my wife)
- A job that pays 22,000 a year, because (like most of the 50% of 18yr olds that Blair wants to go to uni) my degree did nothing to help my career
- At least 40% of my wages go in taxes of some sort
- 120000 mortgage
- A 1 yr old gorgeous little girl that my wife has stays home to look after (tax credits are rubbish)
- a job market that dictates only certain types of jobs around that exclude people who don't live in a major city or have certain skills.
- House prices that mean I can't live in those areas
- The best schools will not be in reach for my children
- The best hospitals too
- The safest areas to bring up children will be out of reach

Obviously all these things involve choices that I have made (good and bad). But I do feel that I am someone who has tried to do the right thing and tried my best, but have found myself disadvantaged by the times I have grown up in. My roots coming from the South Wales, would count myself as a Labour follower. But, as someone told me once:

"If you're 18 and don't vote Labour, you haven't got a heart.
If you're 30 and don't vote conservative, you haven't got a brain."

But I have come to the conclusion that you can add this:

"If you're 24 (like me) and vote New Labour, you haven't got a heart or a brain."

I am not sure how as a nation we can continue to run such a large deficit on our trade with the rest of the world. Thusfar we have financed this be selling off great chunks of GB Ltd but soon there will be a ÂŁ crisis which will force debt laden GB into the Euro.

Tony Blair represents an opportunity missed - without the root and branch reform of the public services, all we have is improved buildings and equipment and an an inability to deliver improved services.

Evan,

I am surprised that your blog allows posts that ignore the topic and merely go in for throwing ill-founded tripe (MAT 118). Having looked at his first post (78), one would be forgiven for forming the view that he is not challenged solely in the discipline of economics. Does MAT honestly think that there was no economic position before 1997, and that everything that has flowed from that date is solely attributable to Blair & Brown? If so, MAT probably thinks that the rest of the World has relied upon the economic miracle that is UK plc. Just don't suggest this to those that run the Chinese and American economies to name but two.

Tony Bryer at #98 wrote:
Dick, at comment 3, says "we're not making cars any more". The truth is that we are building a near record number of cars, but with Nissan, Toyota, Honda and [BMW] badges - one sign of us having accepted and embraced the global economy.

No Tony.. "We" are not making cars.. The Japanese, Germans and others are using UK skills.. This is not a sign of the UK embracing the global economy but running away from it. If we were embracing it there would be UK companies building cars in Germany or Japan. It's the same in most industrial sectors.. We're buyers not producers.

I'm old enough to recall three things:

That the foundation stones for the benign economic conditions we have experienced in recent years were laid by the last Conservative government, and that new Labour stuck rigidly to Conservative spending plans for the first half of the past decade

That there have been so many re-statements of the statistics and changes of methodology in calculating them that the truth has been lost in a game of smoke and mirrors

That my personal disposable income today is, in nominal terms, virtually unchanged in 2007 from 1997, which means that in real terms - ie allowing for the effects of inflation - I am worse off.

The Blair/Brown era has taught me just one lesson, a lesson which - unfortunately - too many others seem to have missed or only realised too late. Namely, you have to look after your own affairs with the expectation that the government is there to hinder and plunder rather than help. I will achieve debt-free status, will have satisfactory health cover, and will have a reasonable pension because of my own decisions and actions over the years, and despite government decisions and actions which have invariably been to the detriment of me individually. Shame on a government which promised so much, delivered so little, and yet still spins and spins and spins to pretend that it has done us all a big favour!

The future: well, if it is more of the same "prudence" from Mr Brown, then my next steps will be to plan for providing for my childrens' financial well-being to the best of my ability. No-one else - politicians in particular - will do it for them.

How can you summarise Blair's economic legacy without mentioning that house prices have tripled in this period, vastly outstripping earnings, for a large part caused by the illusion of cheap money in the new low inflation environment? To what extent has this caused a feel-good factor that has kept the economy ticking over? How will this situation unwind itself? What are the long term consequences of all this debt?

The story hasn't finished yet, I think the second chapter is only just starting.

To say that 'no one is interested in what goes on in Britain' is completely erroneous. Having lived in Sweden for six years, I can tell you that Britain's economic model is admired.

Jobs abundant in Europe? Where? Not in Sweden, France or Germany. Italy is in dire sraits....so where IS this apparent economic paradise?

One big failure on the economy surely, is to run a large Budget deficit during a period of sustained growth. We should have been running a surplus for the last few years - as it is, there will be nothing in the Government spending kitty when an inevitable downturn does come along.

It seems strange to refer so positively to the last 10 years without mentioning : - the lamentable decline in productivity growth , arguably due to Brown's micro meddling; the huge off balance sheet expansion via the ludicrous PFI : the explosion of hidden public sector debt via public pension liabilities; the inefficient nature of much investment in the last 5 years eg almost every government IT project; and by no means last , the absence of private sector employment growth as a result of public sector expansion. Any body can keep an economy moving when they start with debt at only 35% of GDP . Finally there is a woeful lack of investment in transport infrastructure because of Prescott and Darling's incompetence.
Suggest you re-write your piece.

The continuous 'growth' of the UK economy under Labour and previous governments is founded on the GDP figures. GDP is a measure of spending. The 'growth' of an economy as measured by GDP is akin to measuring the 'growth' of individual household wealth by measuring their spending. So, if someone earns ÂŁ20k one year and spends ÂŁ20k, then the next year earns ÂŁ20k and spends ÂŁ22k, his 'personal GDP' has grown by 10%. However, because he has spent more than he has earned, he is actually worse off than before.

This is braodly what has happened under Labour. We have the illusion of being better off through contiunous increases in the GDP figures whilst getting further into debt.

Personally I don't think it is all that rosy. Granted the economy has done well and Brown (& Blair for some key decisions made) deserves the credit for that. However five outside factors that contributed positively to inflation for Brown that haven't been mentioned here:
1. Emergence of China in the last 10 years keeping costs of manufactured goods down.
2. Emergence of India keeping cost of operations/services down.
3. High prices of oil adding billions of extra revenue to his coffers.
4. New EU nations adding to the UK workforce keeping wage inflation down. (This one I accept was based on the policy to allow them to come and work freely)
5. 1.3 trillion of debt due to artificially low interest rates.

Let's face it, if you strip these out you would've been looking at inflation (the artificial feel-good CPI that has lost its credibility) in the region of at least 4%. Just as a matter of fact let's not forget Brown moved the goal posts by choosing to dump the real RPI which has been averaging 4% throughout and now closer to 5%.

Finally it looks like the party is over and dark clouds are gathering. China and India are seeing wage inflation rocket and can no longer take the hit. They'll pass these on. Looks like oil prices will stay above the $50/barrel in the near future, with again these new super powers lapping it up. That can only mean higher inflation. This will trigger the much talked about housing boom correction.

Let's face it the whole concept of cutting interest rates is based on the premise that people will go and spend the money they have saved. Unfortunately people hardly had much, relatively wages haven't gone up a great deal and you are left wondering, where did all that money come from? Only time will tell how strong this 'borrow now & pay later' economy really is. In the mean time fasten your seat belts, turbulent weather coming this way, looks like we are in for a bumpy ride.

#132 Liam

I do a lot of business in Norway. Generally speaking my Norwegian friends think we're stark staring mad because a) we make it so easy for everyone to buy up our companies and b) we're not investing in much apart from houses. They just don't understand how short termist we've become.

Sure they love our cheap (relatively speaking) booze, our golf courses and our football clubs but beyond that they think we're an industrial has been.

Inflation is a slippery concept. We try to measure it by the rise in prices, but there are many ways of doing this that give different results, and in any case price increases are just the measurement not the thing itself. It's like the relationship between heat and temperature. Inflation has actually been rampant for several years, but this has not yet fully shown up in price increases because of the "China effect". But this effect is a one time event. When the manufacture of a particular good is transferred to China there is a cost reduction, but that reduction cannot be repeated for that item. After a number of years this effect will work out of the system and the pent up inflation in our economy will burst out.

Labour: minimum wages and oh boy! havent most of the unscrupulous employers embraced that one eh? just pay em enough above the minimum wage.

shifting UK jobs to overseas! Waste of time making a call due to the language barriers!

Famous quote: "you have less than 24hours to save the NHS" Well did he?

beggers belief as to what exactly the labour government did other than to take care of each other in power.

I just hope to God that Gordon Brown doesnt go the distance and that smug smile becomes a faded memory

London and the Southeast is booming. The rest of the UK is not.

The topline national figures look good, but dig deeper and you will find the North, West and East have been growing at a far slower rate.

First, Labor has taxed heavily the private sector. This is making it less productive.

Second, Labor took those private taxes, and made up thousands of unproductive public jobs (to curry favor with Labor voters).

Third, those private taxes were funnelled into an education system, which is in a near-endless state of crisis. Little has improved in a decade.

These are a triple whammy of failure. We have an overtaxed private sector, an oversized government, and a weak mass-education system.

Make no mistake -- the Labor economic miracle is a short-term mirage that will end in long-term tears.

Richard Marriott #133

Absolutely spot on! When the economy goes into a downturn - as it surely will at some point - we will have a huge outstanding debt, growing bills for unemployment and social security benefits, a huge social service and reducing tax receipts to pay for it all.

In my opinion the number of government employees, both national and local, has ballooned enormously. Look at your local authority. How many pen pushers do they employ? How many did they employ 10 years ago? What do all these extra people actually do?

We should:
- Pay schools directly and close down the education authorities. Schools are monitored by OFSTED anyway so what does the council actually do?
- Pay utility companies directly for rubbish collection. Why is it OK to have private water, leccy and gas but not private rubbish collection? Is rubbish collection more vital than water?
- Run parking control on a non-profit basis so that any surplus authorities collect has to be deducted from the Council Tax budget. The councillors should just control the the traffic, not make money from it.
- Simplify the planning control system to shorten decision times and reduce time spent preparing huge, over-complicated, planning policy documents.

I could go on and on. Government amd the Nanny state are out of control. There is no incentive on government to control its expenditure, reduce its size or be efficient, particularly when you have a chancellor so willing to bail it out at every turn.

Local authorities should be paid bonus grants for employing fewer people for each pound spent. This would feed through directly into lower council tax bills and local authorities would have an incentive to reduce wasteful over-employment.

Thank you Sir John Major for giving us the economic benefits that we enjoy today.Nice caretaking Gordon.

It is easy to appear wealthy for a short time if you sell off all your assets to fund an extravagant life style. That is what Mr Brown has been doing for the past 10 years. What is worse, for a Labour government, is that the the proceeds of this closing down sale have largely gone to city fat cats and legal eagles, making the financial and service sector grow at the expense of real wealth creators such as manufacturing and farming.
The last 10 years have been about smoke and mirrors, tax and waste (spend).
The illusion of prosperity has been maintained by an inflation bubble of house price increases. The real effect of which has been to allow the tax man to steal even more capital from the ordinary man in the street, in the form of council and inheritance tax, adding to the misery that will inevitably follow from the raid on the pension funds.

We now face a time of reckoning and it seems Mr Brown has departed No 11 at just the right moment to aviod taking the blame. We no longer make, grow, or mine much of anything, and there is not much left to sell. When all our green fields have been covered in concrete and the property developers have all fled to warm climes, expect inflation to increase exponentially and the trade gap to widen as we suck in imports to replace the things we no longer produce for ourselves. This is the real Blair/Brown legacy.

Posts 20 21 22 and others with similar views have got this one right. Evan, as an Economist do a proper cost benefit analysis and try to get below the macro polish a bit more and look at the both the financial and non-financial costs/benefits all propoer Economists do.

UK is less productive/efficient (we have a highest cost of equity capital in the G7), rich/poor divide widened, PFI a complete drain on tax revenues (please Evan why does the ±«Óătv not take a closer look at the STEPS deal), public services decimated and within that NHS run into the ground to make the lower qualty provate option look more appealing.

Overall TB has been form over substance and like all run of the mill performers we now realise he was mediocre at best and had not written his own material.

The last ten years have once again highlighted how our Governments need to change in the future to realise and raise the economic potential of UK - unsurprising that TB's last words were "good luck" - we're gonna need it

It's a pity so much of our economic growth has been funded by debt, as individuals and by the state on "our behalf".

If we can only run our public services through borrowing when our economy is doing well, heaven help us when we finally go into a recession.

The strength of the city is great, but what about the rest of the country? Might be old fashioned, but how do we create wealth when all we do is buy stuff made abroad?

Now Blair has at last declared his intention to vacate Brown should stand up and be counted and declare a General Election,(if he is elected the new Prime Minister),or is he too frightened of the result?.The last 10 years of Blair and New?Labour has ruined this country and its time we had a change!!

Blair's decision to embrace globalisation and an unfettered market economy should definitely be applauded. Too many of his colleagues appear to believe that free trade is a dirty word as if it leads to third world children working in sweat shops. The reality is that it creates wealth and opportunities for millions of people throughout the globe to escape grinding poverty. The UK is at the centre of global movements in capital, goods and increasingly labour. We have benefitted from attracting highly educated and motivated people from across Europe, including France, and the rest of the world. The brain drain this country suffered in the 1960's and 70's has been reversed. The wealth created has also enabled many hundreds of thousands of UK citizens to emigrate abroad to places such as Spain.

The negative side has been the growing size of an unproductive public sector. The huge amount of debt incurred to pay for this, especially that kept off the public debt figures by all those PFI schemes, could create a burden that may take years to rectify. Also, real future growth can only be achieved by a more productive economy that the Blair years have failed to improve. The US, France, Germany, even Italy still remain ahead of the UK in terms of productivity and that means they continue to create more wealth per person than us. The failing state of the education and vocational systems must be quickly dealt with as too many students are leaving schools and colleges without the necessary skills (even being able to read and write). This problem has partly been papered over by the skilled people entering the UK but the future success of UK Plc needs an education system that can produce these people.

I do not feel it was a balanced piece, Evan chooses to ignore several fundamental questions; are there more people working in wealth creating industries than we had in 1997, do we have the infrastructure to cope with the 4% increase in population that he mentions and does UK plc have less debt than 1997.
The answer to these three questions must be no, and therefore how is that better economy?
An example of how good the fundamentals are, just look at the attempted takeover of ABN AMRO, the most attractive feature for Barclays is the favourable tax regime for business in Holland over the UK. Not a recipe for success in the global economy.

Where do you find (the majority) of these people that are willing to praise War Monger Blair?
In a poll last week, 75% wanted to stand down as prime minister immediately, against 25% that didn't. Pretty much sums it up.

Evan Davis has got this all wrong by a long shot.

The "strong" British economy is a myth and in reality a fragile inflated glass bubble waiting to shatter.

This bubble has been created by once again permitting runaway asset inflation ( for this read "rising house prices") giving house owners that "I'm rich" feeling. Watch this space When the bubble bursts and the debt is called in.

People these days have such short memories. The nation went through the pains of a collapsing house markey less than twenty years.

If the Conservatives, who expect to be in power after the next General Ellection, do not want to be blamed for the next round of pain, they should be doing all in their power right now to topple the house market bubble right now. It is only fair that Labour are blamed for creating this coming storm.

As the Conservatives Budgets Spokesman in Europe from 2000 to 2005 I have enjoyed the views of Evan Davis for several years. His timing is unfortunate when interest rates have risen sharply over recent months, inflation rates particularly wage demands) are a threat and manufacturing continues to sink. Sorry Evan but not enough credit for the "golden scenario" left by the Conservatives in 1997.

Tony leaves us all when we are at our most vulnerable and i am not quite sure Brown can pull anything off to patch us up.
Retail is the worst it has ever been, and as an individual retailer myself i have seen half the small shops around me close down ,we need desparately to put money back in peaples pockets and not try and measure us on an the hazey chart of global scale,in short recession is imminent if money is not pulled back to the majority.

Dear Evan,

Whilst a good short article, it inevitably does not go into detailed discussion on some of the major issues that this government has failed to tackle.

If we take a corporate analogy, some of the biggest battles in the boardroom revolve around major capital projects and strategic R&D.

CEOs are driven by P&L reporting and are eager to please the City with increasing P&L performance year on year. In order to achieve this many companies cut back on capital investment, R&D and marketing to cosmetically improve short term performance. However, investment in future capital (be it, new plant, technology, human resources, or brand capital) is the generator of longer term value. This short termism isn't an optimal development model

The Government has been doing the same thing. It has not invested(or encouraged private investment) in the capital of the UK - infrastructure, human, productive etc. It has managed short term "P&L" reporting to please its "City". However, the future productive capacity of the UK will continue to be eroded over time.

In short, the Government's key role should be to direct investment in enhancing the UK's productive capacity - this is education, new technology, infrastructure etc. It should also be encouraging private investment ... an area where the UK lags in R&D etc...

Short term obsession with P&L and polls needs to be measured along the longer term developments that we will be passing on to our children

Thanks to Blair and Brown for:
- destroying the pension schemes for employees (not forgetting to make sure that their own pensions and those of civil servants are not affected in the same way)
- greatly increasing the tax burden, whether this be by direct taxation or National Insurance.
- wasting the tax revenue on a shambolic government where:
* departments are divided and created at the drop of a hat instead of solving the core issues
* there are departments for what exactly - Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for example
- crisis after crisis of their own doing: fuel tax; illegal immigrants; Iraq.
- the now one-way relationship we have with the US.
- scandal after scandal for ministers and the refusal of Balir to ever see anything wrong in any of these ministers - remember Peter M etc.

Yeah, they've been really good for us the past 10 years.

Immigrant labour, cheap Chinese goods, foreign billionaires, Brown’s management? . . . Why oh why can nobody see the true cause of our prosperity: the millions of unpaid slave workers now beavering away in every business and government department. I refer to the invisible �virtual’ workers brought to life by computer geeks, not New Labour. Computer algorithms are now doing the kind of brain-work formerly the province of educated humans. But no-one factors-in their gigantic impact on the economy, past or future. The digital revolution is a profound historical development which we seem strangely unable to notice.

I am staggerred that Evan has not mentioned the massive rise in public spending from under 40% to around 45% "officially" - in reality much more because of "clever" accounting. Sooner or later it will all come crashing down because of the unsustainable size of the public sector. Also is this not jerrymanding on a scale Dame Shirley would have been proud of? If over 50% of the population are employed in the public sector they are unlikely to vote for a common sense reduction in public spending.

Evans comments on the last decade seem to me quite out of balance with the facts given the cost to the economy of war,social policies and labour and industrial(wot) policies and the relatively weak protection of major British assets to various foreign interests.The balance of payments deficits are rarely mentioned and budget deficits also get played down. Many of the gains made in the Thatcher years have been frittered away and the chickens are yet to come home.We have returned to the types of policy which created so many problems economically between 45 and 1980.

Does Evan Davis (author of article) work for the Labour Party? If not he clearly wants if this piece of Gordon Brown propaganda is to be believed. Lots of things have changed in the past 10 years under this disgraceful Labour Government however one thing has not...the ±«Óătv is still a left wing Labour party media machine. In a world in turmoil how reassuring to see one thing is relaible as ever. Well done to the other contributors for highlighting the REAL state of UK plc.

Evan,

Always appreciate your articles, this one is perhaps a little rosy, but so is a lot of "Blair legacy" journalism right now, probably understandable in the circumstances.

My worry is that the overall level of debt - national (including PFI) and personal - is what has been propping up the illusion of prosperity in recent years.

To quote the other George Bush, while running against Reagan, it's just "voodoo economics". It's easy to look wealthy if you borrow a trillion pounds! The next UK government or three, as well as a large section of the population, will eventually be faced with the consequences.

Your predictions of how that might play out, both on a national and personal level would be instructive.

Advice on how to weather the inevitable storm would also be useful, especially for those young enough to have never experienced a recession before.

Blair' government has been able to repositioned Britain in the world affairs.Today,Britain is again a powerhouse at the centre of political and economical issues.I think it would be better to remember him for the way he dragged out the economy from the mud to what has now become a solid one.

Evan,

great article as ever. Things have certainly gone well (in the main) since 1992 really. Globalisation and, dare I say it, the latent effects of Thatcher's reforms have contributed to low and stable inflation coupled with growth.

Blair/Brown have continued the trend, particularly by:
- BofE independence;
- expansionary fiscal policy;
- sticking out of EMU;

The New Deal has probably had a limited effect too.

Interestingly, the first (BofE ind.) and last (no to the Euro) have been not Blair's but Brown's key moves.

The picture is not perfect but I hope people begin to appreciate the intellect of Brown and his sincerity in trying to change the country...

The article demonstrates beautifully what I have long believed: Mr Evan Davis is a labour stooge.
Not a word about soaring taxation, disastrous wastage of billions state spending, ludicrous subsidies for those earning ÂŁ50k, massive growth in twin deficits of government spending & balance of trade, hyper-inflation in housing, declining standards of living, stock market not recovered to 1999 levels, massive government off-balance sheet financing to be paid by future generations, destruction of pensions, millions of jobs going overseas, mashing of education standards, a joke of a health service.

Can't wait for a Conservative government. Meanwhile, please ask mr davis to fall on his sword along with Blair and Prescott.

Well done on such an inpartial blog entry.

I'm being sarcastic of course.

All I can say is that this is a jam today economy with too many people making too many one way bets on where things will go. History demonstrates that successful economies need a clear-out at some point in time - occasional recessions are good for efficiency - and what we have here are artificially low interest rates allowing rampant money supply growth to paper over the increasingly large cracks. This economy will go bang and it will be more of a plinian eruption than most simply due to the lack of a gentle letting off of steam in the last 5 years. Inflation has not been historically low with regard to the basic cost of living simply because the measure overemphasises non-essentials such as electronic goods. The cost of just being in the UK has risen substantially and many businesses are increasingly feeling the pinch caused by lower discretionary spending. As interest rates rise (this is probably 3-4 years too late), the effect on the economy will be far more marked due to the lack of a proper margin of safety. Lucky old Tony has been blessed with a benign global economy where cheap money and cheap Chinese goods have kept the lid on things. Tough job for Gordon to keep the gloss on, but good luck to him - let's hope he can do the right thing rather than just buff up a bad job.

My impression is that the British economy is not much changed since 1997 - many of the points made about house prices, debt, inflation, current account deficit, sterling etc largely reflect our position in the economic cycle, which is similar to 1988 under the tories. But that was the point of new Labour - it was largely about winning by better marketing. And I doubt that Blair was a key driver of Labour economic policy anyway.

Now let's get back to some serious economic issues, Evan. Judging by how often you update the blog, you have enough to do without covering politics too, and there are too many ±«Óătv correspondents doing that already!

This economic performance was paid for with all our pensions.

I am speechless. I guess you vote labour...

One word: PENSIONS TIME BOMB. Okay, it's 3 words, but I think everyone (but you) gets it.

The country's balance of payments deficit, already at record levels, is set to get a great deal worse as we run out of gas and oil. We will remain "prosperous" just as long as other counties are prepared to finance this vast and growing deficit.

The paragraph I know from personal experiance, people of the UK grow up learn to tie your own shoe laces,
You are bettar off than most

From an outsider I think Mr Blair has probably done a reasonable job. One wonders how much leaders like Blair have benefited from Margaret Thatcher’s hard work? Just on the issue of Great Britain’s importance to the rest of world. Don’t fool yourselves. In the US, Japan, China, Australia, and the rest of Asia no one cares less about GB. Just a short time ago the FTSE 100 was 1000 points ahead of the �little’ Aussie All Ord’s and today it’s a mere 250 points.

Evident success or calamity and pending doom.
It is amazing how individuals and media can, these days, so readily present, to the whole nation, their so different views on the same facts.
Those opposing one's views are of course indulging in “spin”. In other words they are deliberate liars.
It would be nice if we had an organisation whose duty it was to publish these statements some months or even years later with a statement of what actually happened. It might reduce the present confusion that is being produced for political ends.

Mr Blair undoubtedly inherited a pretty good and stable economy. On the macro scale things have gone well, however, on the micro scale (and in terms of how it affects individuals) Mr Brown has made a complete mess. He has managed to destroy the pension system that had been the envy of the World! He has complicated the taxation system that Mr Lawson spent years simplifying.
Being an Engineer I am a great believer in 'if it 'aint broke don't fix it!' Without the shackles of Blair I am concerned that Brown will try and fix it!!!

I think that this chancellor has been a lucky one. ok making the bank of england independent to people who knew what they were doing was a good idea. but we have became one of the largest economies only because interest rates have been kept low and people have been able to spend thier money in the high streets with much of it on the never never. our 'needs' based manufacturing has gone, with our 'wants' service sector now what this economy is relying on. what happens if people stop spending. bring in a research and development culture which is hard to copy and easy to sell ideas!

This government under the direction of Blair/Brown has seen a dramatic increase in the level of taxation to a point where for half the year we are working for the Treasury, a quarter for our mortgage companies which leaves very little left. No one appears to be seriously questioning the horrible economic errors that are continuing being made by these two, which have been smoothed over by a global lift driven by the Chinese due to low direct costs keeping down inflation. When is someone going to ask direct questions about the scandal of ÂŁ6billion in overpaid tax credits, Selling gold reserves too cheaply, taking ÂŁ5 billion a year away from pension schemes, the waste of money on identity cards, failed computer projects, and a general lack of awareness on how things work ie NHS doctor and dentist contracts, the Aday pension climbdown in the budget on allowable investments, and the continual publication of knee jerk ill thought out and badly drafted legislation. The list of errors is huge, and we count on the ±«Óătv and the free press to ask the questions and obtain a degree of accountability but no one is asking. It is time to raise your game and get substantive answers from the politians in power and the empty suits in opposition that want to take their place. Politicians just waffle on about what they want us to hear and never answer the question, and reporters and commentators just allow them to get away with it. We need more substance from our ±«Óătv to get to the heart of the issues and ensure the accountability that has been seriously lacking for both Blair and Brown.

I agree with Mr Peter Key.

Blair and Brown can't claim that the last 10 years' UK economy success is the result of their policy.

One thing for sure, we used to have the best private pension system, we lost it now. We pay a lot more tax than 10 years ago. I mean income, VAT, inheritance, Stamp Duty, alcohole, cigaret and so on...

An economy that is based on borrowing and debt is a precarious one. The buble will inevitably and invariably have to burst at some stage and when it does what happens then?

I dont think the Blair/Brown vision was a prudent one for this reason.

When will governments finally realise that a properly planned, managed and supported manufacturing based economy is the only way forward to sustained wealth?

I think to examine the Economic legacy it is most revealing to look at what Labour under Tony Blair have achieved relative to what they wanted to achieve, not on individual biases and preferences.

Blair paid no attention to Economics. He made decisions based on a philosophy and let others deal with the circumstances. That is why I cannot afford a house despite earning very good money for my age, my mother has no pension to retire to, my father has a minimal one after contributing for years to a cause that was not his own, the NHS is dying, these "trust" schools have been failures...

Blair rode the waves of a positive economy set in motion through no action on the part of his government. and made bad calls on the key decisions along the way. It is not enough to say "he did what he thought was right" - he was paid to represent what we thought was right.

So far as I am concerned, and judging from past experience, the UK economy is 90% dependant on offshore events. If our ecomomy is stable & showing growth it is more as a result of a flexible labour market with the ability to react quickly to trends, but more to global economics, over which Messrs Blair/Brown can take no credit. The unfettered increase in immigration is a cynical attempt to apply downward inflationary pressure on the labour market (even if partly effective in the short term)but at an incalculable social cost & tension to future generations, our home-based tradesmen, and at huge stress on our travel/power/water/sewage/pollution-reduction/health & education services.

They probably had the ghost of Dennis Healy's woes in mind when they hived off interest rate control to the Bank's MPC, so if it went pear-shaped later, a "..not us Guv, don't look at me.." refrain would be wholly predictable.

Finally, to change the tax regime for pensions & effectively rob the funds of billions & consign future pensioners to an income significantly less than it otherwise would have been, is outrageous and should preclude Mr Brown from any future public office. ....ask Frank Field if you don't believe me; In fact, come to think of it, I would happily accept FF's comments to correct me if I am wrong. I think he would be one of the VERY few ministers & ex Ministers that I WOULD believe.

Adam #105, I have to aggree with you. A lot of younger people feel they simply must get on the great housing ladder at any cost. And this is what pushes prices up. Buyers need to be more realistic - if you can't afford it, go rent 'cause none of us renters can really afford it, and it's about time prices fell back.

I thought house prices had gone too far in 2001! I really think First Timers need to stop and think. Things will change.

"we don't make cars any more" - strangely, we make more than we ever did!

The fact that many of our National industrial icons are now foreign owned is NOT good. There has since WWII something lacking in the UK in that industry has never been championed as it has in other countries. Too easy for someone to make a quick profit and sell it off abroad, usually for it then to be closed down. It didnt bother me so much at one time, but nowadays I think those responsible should be put up against a wall and shot!!

I think it is just more smoke and mirrors. We are heading for a fall and when it happens it will be dramatic. Labour always spend to much and like all hidden debt when it come out the results are devastating. Brown will either have to cut spending or raise even more tax.

No matter what statistics you put in place, for or against the performance of the government, the truth is the country and economy has been in good shape. Nobody will ever 'tick' all the boxes, but there are plenty of jobs, the pound is strong and the UK still upholds a reputation far larger than its worth.

The people that treat these facts with scepitism obviously have short memories. Whereas i am somewhat irritated with Labour at the moment, i cannot accept that people are ready to rubbish the economic sucess of this government. How can they even remotly justify thier comments when this country for the past ten years has enjoyed consistant economic stability? I am sure that they were saying the same thing when Thatcher and Major were in power, when things were very, very different. So before you start your whinging,can you recall being in such a stable position 15 or even 11 years ago? Blair and Brown have numerous faults - but they have not scarred my children's start in life with poverty, just as the Tories did in mine. Believe me, I remember very well.The tories must never be able to hold the public purse again - Cameron's cronies would love to take care of your money, but you won't see it again....

The unprecedented levels of immigration under this government are undoubtedly a cause for concern...immense pressure on housing, social services, the environment etc....and to cap it all, the fact that this government has dilly dallied on coming up with a sensible energy policy, so that we face power shortages ahead for the indigenous population, let alone being able to cater for anymore arrivals to our shores...

There are a lot of positives, but one or two negatives which should be mentioned I feel.

The Pay As You Go public servant pension scheme and retirement rules could do with a look. All other defined benefit schemes are dropping like flies due to the dividend tax credits and PPF, but the biggest of all is completely unfunded and the taxp;ayer picks up the tab. If and when the former eastern block countries manage to stabilise and poach back the labour we currently enjoy, who will foot the bill?

As if by magic tax rates have just fallen for companies and individuals which would seem to be contrary to the funding required for the above.

Still we'll be in the higher echelons of a couple of global league tables.

Evan, I think you may be the only ±«Óătv reporter even vaguely prepared to give Blair/Brown a fair hearing, mainly because you rely on facts and arguments. Take note John Pinnah. PS I think UK voters combine two intresting characteristics i) a sort childlike belief that govt will solve every problem cure every ill, not realisng Entrepreneurship, good parenting and hard work are the true cure. 2) an almost unthinking contempt of politicians regardless of what they do,except Forign dictators saddam or the Iranian bloke. Until they resolve this conflict they will never be happy.

I'm not as convinced as Evan Davis about Blair/Brown's economic legacy. Apart from increased taxation, the economy has been kept stable all these years by relentlessly increased borrowing.

Just like someone increasing their mortgage every year to meet their living costs, this cannot go on forever.

One consolation for Labour, if they lose the next election as polls suggest they might, is that the collapse of all that debt will probably happen on the Tories' watch, and the UK electorate will gladly vote Labour back at the first opportunity to clear up the "Tory" mess.

Frightening.

Education, education, education.

I was incredibly lucky (thanks Mum) to spend two-and-a-bit years at one of only two Technical Secondary Schools in England in the 1960's.

NB. At the same time, Germany had 12,000 Technical Secondary Schools, which was a direct consequence of 'losing' the War and being told to implement the 1949 Education Act in its entirety.

When I think about this, it makes one realise that political dogma can be a double-edged sword,

That is, for the Germans, that education scheme has worked out fine but here in England, political squabbling between Labour and the Tories meant that the Technical Schools never got established.

Politicians get hung up on an idea, say comprehensive education, implement it nationally without first trialling it in some carefully chosen demographic areas and then some thirty years later tell us (D.Blunkett) 'it has clearly failed'.

Well, I tell you, the chickens are coming home to roost, in the global economy, countries with masses of poorly educated people are going to struggle.

Regarding education (which in reality should be a highly personal service, not a bloody near-State monopoly), the politicians have gone a bridge too far with their well-intentioned social engineering.

That is, instead of 'equality of opportunity', the comprehensive system tended to produce 'equality of outcome'.

Believe me, as somebody who had to leave an excellent Technical Secondary School at age 14-and-a-half and attend one of the first 'bog-standard comps', I could within three months of being at that school, told any passing politician that this new comprehensive system was 'clearly going to fail'.

For starters, I was the only child in the class who was doing the homework and handing it in (before the teachers gave up even setting homework) and of course, I eventually had to give up handing it in as well, due to peer pressure.

It was truly horrible to see ex-Grammar teachers (this comp had been a Grammar before turning) struggling with unruly pupils who just were'nt interested.

What a tragedy for millions of English children who will never achieve anything like their full potential.

We are all diminished by this, especially politicians, who IMHO, should never have been allowed this responsibility in modern times.

Two words - Hidden Debt

There is a tendency in the original article and the comments posted to view the assertions / facts either with political bias or, more importantly, on national measurements.

The average Frenchman still enjoys a better quality of life financially than us Brits, but France measures up economically to be in terminal decline. Conversely, Britain has many social problems stemming from personal wealth or the lack of it while measuring up as successful.

Maybe if we measured the UK and thence Tony Blair's government against other countries by some personal well-being method we would not be quite so ready to praise achievements.

One of the above says that Gordon Brown was lucky. Good! There is a lot to be said for having a lucky Chancellor, especially when he is also highly competent and regarded as such by the financial world.

As for Margaret Thatcher the question is whether we paid too high a price for her economic changes before her own party threw her out. “There is no such thing as society” is not exactly a suitable view to be held by a Prime Minister.It is the road to revolution.

I personally think this article should be rewritten. I'm not hot on economics/ business or politiics but even I can tell some stuff has been heavily overshadowed concerning Blairs time in power. Its way tooooo pro-labour dude!

The analysis is badly flawed. It favours the successes and ignores the major failings.

The raid on pensions will leave millions dependent upon governemtn handouts in the future which will have to be paid by future taxpayers.

Similarly the failure to tackle the pensions in the public sector the future tax bill will become a drag on the economy. Like companies the government should be forced to recognise the unfunded pensions liability it is running.

To achieve continuous economic growth money was pumped in to the public sector at such a rate that it cuased wage inflation and billions of pounds has failed to improve outcomes as productivity has fallen.This is part because of Blair's desire tocontrol from the centre. The targets set by government inevitably result in poor outcomes as large numbers of managers are employed to ensure targets are met irrespective of what is best for patients by the NHS,the public with the police arrests policy etc.

The wealth creating private sector has suffered from huge increases in taxes and red tape and this will result in future problems.

Billions have been wasted where contracts have been awarded to Tony's cronies or Labour Party donors who have not been up to the job. cf the failures of major computer systems and stockpiling the wrong smallpox antivirus.

Tony Blair's years will be remembered in the short term for Iraq and in the long term for the nation's poverty in future years as the country is unable to pay the mortgage on its future and for the breakdown in Society caused by excessive immigration coupled with a general lack of respect for authority engendered by government policy.

"No such thinga s society" is taken out of context - what she said was that there is no such thing as society - to bail you out! The government has no money, only what it raises in tax. There is no body of people to sort your life out for you. Of course, it is easier to misquote than to understand.

On hte main thread, the real failure of the Blair years has been a belief that "The government/Society" can sort things out, but Blair has proved that Thatcherw as right. Not only do we have a debt problem, but asset prices could promote a Japansese styke ten-year recession as we now have a whole generation of people, who think that house prices will save them from everything and despite being no more productiove, they are much "richer". It is an illusion based on cheap money and a failure to improve on productivity. We are at 100 compared with Germany 116 (including the east), France 130 (on a 35 hr week) and the US on 140. It is all very well relying on the City and hoping that language and location will sav eus, but we are now 14th in that productivity league.

I'm really not sure that a 14% manufacturing sector is healthy. In fact, I know that it isn't.

We now largely rely on City trading for our national income. What happens if some shift in technology or other factor reduces City turnover? The financial sector can change far more rapidly than it takes to build up a skill pool and product and customer base for manufacturing.

We're floating on an economic cloud 9.

This article has left me aghast at its unbelievable bias. Evan - I will not be bothering to read/listen/watch anything by you again as you clearly are not the knowledgeable economist I though you were.

Nearly everything I would say in response has been mentioned. I would add only that Sir Winston Churchill had this to say: "For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle".

I find it amazing (if not quite worrying) that only four of the 202 people who commented (entries 16, 57, 87 & 202) on Mr Davis’ essay raised the not-so-widely held truth that this country’s government is deeply socialist. And for those of you who think “socialism” is a dirty word, look it up.

When the word “economy” is used, the author presupposes that the reader knows and understands what type of economy is being discussed. However, the word “economy” only has meaning when appended with “capitalist”, “free market”, “communist”, “socialist”, etc. It is a long-held public misconception that presupposes “capitalist” as the definition of this country’s economy; “free” if you will. When last did you withhold a portion of your income tax because you disagreed with the government funding of, for example, the Galileo project or Royal Mail deficit or housing benefit or state education? What would happen if you tried? Karl Marx once wrote: “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”.

I distinctly remember Mr Blair’s rhetoric, “education, education, education”. At a time when moral virtue and self-responsibility are values seemingly hard to come by in society, one has to question the validity of statements claiming victory to Labour.
In 1964 (that’s 43 years ago!), Leonard Reed, founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, wrote his thesis “Anything That’s Peaceful”. Chapter 7 concludes:
“If one wishes to know how socialism harms the economy, I suggest that much less attention be given to statistics than to the question: How much immoral action is being introduced into the economy? If socializing the means and the results of production is immoral, as I contend, then socialism harms the economy by introducing immorality into it. In short, watch moral trends, rather than numerical fictions, for danger signals.”

Now ask yourself again, has this country adopted a socialist economy? And why is it acknowledged by so few?

the only thing mr blair and co.Should do re the economy is Help,mainly by keeping Out" .We do the work that earns the money that pays the bills.They generally Waste it,because They don't earn it..

As a global economy, the UK has benefited from the tremendous growth in the Far East (especially China) and India. Tha's fine - but the UK has a substantial export deficit which once UK PLC is sold off, will come home to roost in a ÂŁ crisis and (already) higher interest rates.

Any Government would look good in such circumstances - I'd bet we scuttle off to the protection of the Euro with one or two years.

Visited liverpool and manchester last december. hadn't been there for five years. amazing changes in both citiscapes. it all very clear that something has changed, for the better

Another good article from Evan, albeit on a slightly narrow topic - which seems to have confused some readers.

Some posts say that Blair/Brown have just carried on from Thatcher/Lawson/Clarke. Yes, but that is the point. They were expected to change things but haven't actually changed much. That is probably a lesson for all politicians!

As for employment; just try walking down the high street and see how many shops have adverts in the windows for staff.

er yeah, right.

A society which is in hock up to it's eyeballs.

Can't imagine how my children will afford to buy a house when they're old enough.

And let's just gloss over the ÂŁ22 Billion pound windfall the Labour Party received by selling off the 3G licences.

An economy bouyed by debt and the sale of the family silver. I think the fallout from the Brown/Blair years is going to prove to be a very difficult and damaging legacy for the future.

It's all going so well that the shrewd
ones are getting out now and emigrating.

As an ex-pat thank God we did.
Viewed from abroad the UK is seen
as a 3rd world country with 'wealth'
based on asset bubbles. We all know
what happens to bubbles don't we?

I wonder whether the people remember the condition of NHS under tory govt.If Gordon Brown did not invest huge ammount of money,we would not have any NHS.Ther will be very little to complain,most doctors would have left the country,wher govt has spent illions to train them.Doctors and Nurses are doing a tremendously hard work,and it must be hurting to hear reguler criticism,specially from politicians who are wasting thousands of pounds for claming working allowances.I am looking forward for Gordon Brown primership,he is one of the honest politician,he really wants to help the poor people,and I think he will be good to the pensioner.I wish him all the success.

Clearly the ±«Óătv is Nu-Labours mouth piece.

The new DG is an ass if he thinks we will fall for all this tosh!!!!!!

i have lived in london for 10 years having moved here just before tony blair came to power.

consequently it isnt obvious to me how much the uk has changed from what it was before.

however it does amaze me how much people overlook the impact of the financial service industry on the uk economic statistics.

take its impact out of the equation and do the numbers stack up?

not that financial services are irrelevant, but as i work in investment banking i know how much profit is earned as a result of the city powerhouse becoming second only to wall st in an industry that has outperformed all other in the last 10 years.

i have friends in unrelated sectors (eg teaching) who struggle to make ends meet. and then you only have to travel outside london to see parts that seem to be struggling - something not as obvious if you travel around italy or france regions for example. poor infrastructure, overweight and somewhat strange looking people, ugly housing estates, life that revolves around the pub and booze.

whilst statistics are a great starting point of discussion - the gap in wealth and the dominance of the financial services industry and related sectors do not receive enough attention.

thoughts anyone?

I have just read the Value Engineering article and am now trying to relate it to the Labour Government policy. We are paying far more (taxes/fees/hidden costs) to the government, the services are not improving substantially, some the public sector is over paid (ÂŁ30k Engineer vs ÂŁ118k Medical GP), government debt is colossal, balance of payments are massive, houses are overpriced, government are squandering cash on silly activities (e.g. Bloody Sunday enquiry), we have sold off key areas of manufacturing/infrastructure to foreigners, financial sector and Fat Cats are exploiting the rest of the population/employees via investments/pensions, government are stealing from the dead in death taxes, old people are not getting homes/health care/pensions, we are at an illegal war costing megabucks. The current situation can only explode and what will be the outcome ? - I wish I knew, but this Labour government are not to be applauded at all !! - They do not listen to what the people want.

Evanomics?

Immigration and cheap goods from China have kept inflation under control.

At the same time, house prices have doubled.

(The number of new built houses was fell to its lowest point in 1999 and 2000 since the Second World War, so it is no wonder that house prices have rocketed amid a growing population)

The question for Evan is: how much of the economic growth under Blair was just caused by house price inflation?

Take away house prices, and New Labour has been as bad as Old Labour.

Gordon Brown chucked prudence and became a typical tax and spend Chancellor.

But I don't think many people...even Evan perhaps....think the money has been spent very wisely.

Opening up the economy to the world is the right track. If you can't beat them, join them. But we needed to rein in Governement spending at the same time to let the economy breathe, and this included building enough houses to satisfy demand.

I agree with Nick (Comment 212). Our Financial Services have a massive impact on uk economic stats. Until recently I worked for a large insurer. Even after working there for 5 years I was still stunned by the sums involved.
I now work in manufacturing where the profits are tiny in comparison. Here's an interesting question: why do so many people in this country want us to back doomed industries rather than securing & boosting winning industries?.

Yes, erstwhile Conservative voters will grudgingly have to admit that the economy under Mr Brown(Mr Blair/Balls/etal!?) has performed reasonably well. But those voters will still maintain that there was underlying strength in the system in 1997 that was enjoyed in the five or six years that followed, Mr Brown could only mess it up and this was avoided by delegating the inflation control to the Bank of England committee.

However, the real beef the ordinary, working family without children have, is the fact that it is this group that subsidises the benefits which has given undue advantages to those with children of school age who can claim benefits in the various guises (which buys the vote to keep New Labour in power). The standard of living has not improved appreciably if you are self employed or run a small limited company and there are certainly no or few benefits that can be claimed (Yes, there is, for a short time, some relief on Business Rates, but this does not compensate or allow small retailers to compete equitably with the large national retailers (supermarkets) but that is (yet) another argument.)
With the proposed changes in the tax regime for small comapanies in the next thre or four years and the impending reduced tax burden to larger companies, the forward looking prognoses is going to be harder.
Now tell me that life is good under Labour!!!

What definition are we using for measuring the rate of employment during Blair's years as PM? If it's the Labour definition, wherein one is classed as being in fulltime employment if one works more than 16 or 20 hours a week, then, yes, I can see how employment levels have boomed under the current regime...

The Tories introduced the word “spin” to denigrate the PM. They use it in the sense of “lies” ,of course, but too frequent use of that would damage their own propaganda machine.

The Tories voted for the war in Iraq. The way they have used that war to undermine the PM dishonestly implies that they had nothing to do with initiating the war . They are also careful to avoid saying that the wrong people in control of the Middle East could, until we have developed alternative power supplies, put our industries onto a one day week as and when they wished.