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According to John McDonnell the shadow chancellor.

He puts 50% of the current mess Hammond is having to deal with down to Osborne and Cameron. Not that it really matters.

Where Brexit is affecting things, and this politics by Hammond, is in moving the budget from March to November. It is short-term and cynical. Next year's March budget will be little more than tweaking at the periphery. The main budget will come after A50 and eight months into the 'negotiations' in November. It is certainly not a vote of confidence.

I believe that for the foreseeable future the blame for anything and everything will be laid at the door of Brexit.

They are unlikely to accept any Tory policy is responsible at all.

Manxie xx

How very 21st century. We, the people, vote for a very significant change, potentially damaging but, potentially, also very liberating and good for generating opportunity.

That vote will colour every single thing which happens in the country for the next decade.

So Labour says "No it's not Brexit, it's the Tories they're BAD"......

Really. I'll go back to building blocks and crayons then shall I and let you get on with it Johnny boy!!

Suff, you obviously have not seen the interview.

McDonnell did not say the Tories were BAD, he said that they missed opportunities since being elected in 2010. In that he is right. He was also careful not to blame Brexit, which many other commentators have latched onto.

It is the Tories, through Hammond, who are calling out Brexit.

No I don't watch TV much.

But the point is this. He's going around blaming prior Tory decisions for the current Autumn statement.

He would be honest to Blame Cameron for the Referendum as the result of the current Autumn statement.


If you look back at the 2010 election Labour would tell you that Osborne missed out on the opportunity to borrow £200bn per year and just "give it away". Sorry it won't wash. McDonnell is, in my very personal opinion, not worth listening to.

You see I don't forget that Brown, Balls and Labour would have us with a national debt of £3tn now with their out of control borrowing and that they would still not have a strong economy. The press may forget, the TV may let him say whatever he wants.

But I do not forget.

Or forgive.

You seem to forget that the April £200bn borrowing figure was ditched by Osborne following the May election.

It never happened, so we will never know whether it was a "give it away" budget or what effect it would have had on today's statement. It could well have been the right way to go. What we do know is that Osborne's way did not work.

Try this:

See Table 1.1: Summary of fiscal projections for details. They are very different from today's projections.

I am not supporting Labour, nor dising Brexit, just offering an alternate view.

Yes I remember that table.

It was draw up at a time of our most recent economic darkest hour. The party was behind it and most people accepted that it was necessary.

Of course as time went on the bickering and the backbiting started. The basis of that budget, around fiscal restraint, reduction in the size and quality of benefits and an increase of stealth taxes, short term, was slowly chipped away until the budget statement was reduced to exactly what it really was. Nothing more than an aspiration which required people to make it work.

Of course "people" meant MP's and as the roof did not fall in they felt that they could go back to what they are best at, feathering their own nest for re-election.

And here we stand. With a half fixed country trying to put it back on track whilst making the largest change any western economy has made in the last 60 years.

What do we get from Labour? Missed opportunity. Really? I clearly recall all those Labour MP's standing with Tory rebels to force the government to miss the very real opportunity of a balanced budget and the great benefits that would reap the UK....

As I say, I still remember. And I still don't forgive.

As for saying we'd never know what "might have been", that is not true. We have the example of France before us. Hollande offered unbridled spending. They were going to borrow money, ignore the 75% of GDP overall debt target set by Sarko and they were going to spend their way out of the hole they were in and their economy was going to grow.

Wasn't that what Labour were offering? The "opportunities" they were expounding on?

So where is France today? 5 years later? They are broke, borrowed out, exceeding the EU rules on budget deficit but unable to get themselves out of it. The economy won't grow because they did nothing to encourage it. They just blew money on infrastructure projects and give-aways. Which just perpetuated the same old Union attitudes and resistance to change.

Now Hollande is hated. He reneged on almost everything he promised and is now trying to enact even stricter controls than Sarko did. Why is he having to enact even stricter controls? Because he went another 3 years before trying to encourage growth, reduce barriers to work and trade and to get things moving, at the same time spending even more than Sarko and more than France could afford.

The French Economy was larger than the UK economy at the start of the Crisis. Now it is significantly smaller even with the recent devaluation of the £. France is in a straight jacket, the Eurozone economy is not performing and France is performing towards the bottom of the bunch. There is no money to borrow and none to spend on give-aways yet the people are addicted to them and, frankly, expect Hollande to live up to his promises on them.

Contrast the UK. Yes our debt has grown to 100% of GDP but our deficit has shrunk. Despite the best efforts of the MPs to ensure our deficit became larger, it has shrunk. Our economy is strong and growing. So strong is can even grow in the uncertainty surrounding Brexit. Our economic re-balancing has trended towards robust exporting businesses, but export outside the EU, not in it.

We certainly have missed many opportunities. Opportunities to be more like France and less like the UK.

I know what I choose.