Lord Young apology over 'never had it so good' remarks

[4me2]

Lord Young apology over 'never had it so good' remarks


Lord Young of Graffham had echoed the words of former Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan



The prime minister's enterprise adviser has apologised after saying most Britons had "never had it so good" despite the "so-called recession".
Lord Young of Graffham told the Daily Telegraph the Bank of England's decision to cut the base rates to 0.5% meant many homeowners were better off.
But he later stated that he had written to David Cameron apologising for his "insensitive and inaccurate" remarks.
Downing Street called them offensive and said Mr Cameron was "unimpressed".
The prime minister's spokesman said he "believes, at this difficult time, politicians need to be careful with their choice of words - these words are as offensive as they are inaccurate".
In the Daily Telegraph interview, Lord Young said: "For the vast majority of people in the country today, they have never had it so good ever since this recession - this so-called recession - started..."
Lord Young, a former trade and industry secretary during Margaret Thatcher's government, added that "most people" with a mortgage found their monthly repayments had decreased by up to £600 each time.


He suggested the government's cuts, outlined in last month's Spending Review and totalling more than £80bn over four years, would just take state spending levels back to what they were in 2007 - a time, he said, when people were "not short of money".
He said: "Now, I don't remember in 07 being short of money or the government being short of money.
"So, you know, I have a feeling and a hope that when this goes through, people will wonder what all the fuss was about.
"Of course, there will be people who complain, but these are people who think they have a right for the state to support them."
He said that the forecast of 100,000 public sector job losses a year was "within the margin of error" in the context of the 30 million-strong job sector.


'Protected pound'

He also suggested that the coalition government had overemphasised the impact of the cuts to "protect" the value of the pound.
"The fact that we seemed to be going through such big cuts really meant that the pound was saved, so far," he said.
Lord Young, 78, was given his unpaid role - which Downing Street says he will remain in - by Mr Cameron at the beginning of November.
A one-time lawyer, he has worked as a businessman in a variety of industries, including retail, manufacturing and digital technology.
He became Baron Young of Graffham in 1984, a month before he joined Mrs Thatcher's Cabinet as minister without portfolio, where he was tasked with advising the government about unemployment issues.

Lord Young was hired by David Cameron to carry out an unpaid role



The father-of-two left politics five years later before returning, at Mr Cameron's behest earlier this year, when he was appointed to review and report on health and safety legislation.
BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said that Lord Young appeared to be comparing the current age of austerity with a far more benevolent economic climate under the Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in the 1950s.

The peer's comments echoed those made by Mr Macmillan in 1957 when he famously said: "Most of our people have never had it so good".
Mr Macmillan had painted a rosy picture of Britain's economy during the speech to fellow Conservatives, while calling for wage restraint and making warnings that inflation was the country's most important problem of the post-war era.
But Lord Young, whose remarks differed to the restrained public statements made by senior government ministers, and Mr Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg, later apologised.
In a statement published on Thursday evening, Lord Young said he had played no part in the spending review and was not a member of the government.



He said: "I deeply regret the comments I made and I entirely understand the offence they will cause.
"They were both inaccurate and insensitive.
"Low mortgage interest rates may have eased the burden for some families in this country. But millions of families face a very difficult and anxious future as we come to grips with the deficit. I should have chosen my words much more carefully."
Last month, the prime minister had told the Conservative conference that "reducing spending will be difficult", while Mr Clegg has also maintained that the cuts were to be "difficult and painful."
Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Angela Eagle said the original claims made by Lord Young were "insulting".
"People worried about their jobs will be disgusted by Lord Young's insulting claim that 'they've never had it so good'.
"No wonder the government has no plan for jobs and growth - the man that David Cameron personally appointed as his adviser on helping small businesses thinks that the loss of 100,000 jobs a year is no big deal," she said.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development estimates that 1.3m workers were made redundant during the recession.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11793486

[GTI]

I would agree, extrememly insensitive but not surprising if you live in an upper class bubble where you are unaffected by the realities of the current economic climate.

[B B Leo]

The cunt doesn't know what hard times are

[mysterym]

For people still working living in there existing houses, low interest rates does mean mortgages have never been cheaper. Its the inflation rate causing problems as the cost of living is increasing. For the amount of new cars I see on the roads, peoples finance can't be suffering that badly.

[herbinator]

18 millionaires in the tory cabinet Cameron worth 3.4 million Cleggg worth 1.4 million,sure some people never had it so good just not your average man on the street

[Waka]

Can't see what the fuss is about. I've got a tracker mortgage at 0.5% above base
Any cunt who put their car/holiday/xbox on the mortgage is a twat.

[RSV]

Work was looking a bit shady 6months ago but things have picked up a bit & personally I've never been so well off as I am now. All about to change as the mrs is on maternity now tho

[Freddy]

@Leo - are you kidding?

[garagekru]

@Leo - are you kidding?

Lol

[honestDave]

18 millionaires in the tory cabinet Cameron worth 3.4 million Cleggg worth 1.4 million,sure some people never had it so good just not your average man on the street

Thank god we have some intelligent and successful peeps in the gov or else we'd be really fucked if we had to rely on "man on the street" calibre personnel.

[burner1]

I wonder if he'll look at being a Judge now he's gone from Politics. With his out of touch understanding of the average person in the street he'd fit right in.

[TwoPlAnKs]

Whether true or not is largely irrelevant in my book, it's blatantly obvious to anybody that saying that would be a massive PR gaffe and a huge case of not thinking before speaking.

It sounds like the sort of comment I'd post on here to deliberately get an interesting reaction, that's not something you should do when you are representing your own political party which hasn't even got a majority.

[pumpman]

First off Im not a tory , never will given what experiments and lies they told in Scotland, but you could argue that Scottish Labour have done more damage over the last 70 years but.,,,

comparing how things were when I was a kid growing up, comparing the number of people who own their own houses and dont live in council houses, given the number of people I know who go on 3 holidays a year, then you cant but argue that people have never been better off in respect of how they live their lives.
As was pointed out above if people chose to extend their mortgages , over extend themselves , buy a bigger house than they would normally have done, bumped up their credit cards to the limit, then (and i know the wages have not risen with inflation so this did not help matters) then if people have got themselves up to their necks in it ,then you are the only person to blame.

Yes the banks went on an orgy of lending to anyone once they had run out of credit worthy people to lend to, yes people in government and the banking sector should be jailed , yes government policy affects jobs and unemployment, immigration etc etc , but people on the whole are better off.
i dont agree that we are out of the recession , we are one step away from default hence why they are the forcing money onto Ireland because if they go the whole lot go.
HE was an unpaid advisor and the news is just a cover story for all the other bollocks going on.

[TwoPlAnKs]

First off Im not a tory , never will given what experiments and lies they told in Scotland, but you could argue that Scottish Labour have done more damage over the last 70 years but.,,,

comparing how things were when I was a kid growing up, comparing the number of people who own their own houses and dont live in council houses, given the number of people I know who go on 3 holidays a year, then you cant but argue that people have never been better off in respect of how they live their lives.
As was pointed out above if people chose to extend their mortgages , over extend themselves , buy a bigger house than they would normally have done, bumped up their credit cards to the limit, then (and i know the wages have not risen with inflation so this did not help matters) then if people have got themselves up to their necks in it ,then you are the only person to blame.

Yes the banks went on an orgy of lending to anyone once they had run out of credit worthy people to lend to, yes people in government and the banking sector should be jailed , yes government policy affects jobs and unemployment, immigration etc etc , but people on the whole are better off.
i dont agree that we are out of the recession , we are one step away from default hence why they are the forcing money onto Ireland because if they go the whole lot go.
HE was an unpaid advisor and the news is just a cover story for all the other bollocks going on.

Well this is true, but I don't think he was referring to such a long time period. You could argue that we are doing better than almost every period in history just now, apart from the peak of the economy in around 2008.

His comment reminds me of the British king's dismissal of the problems faced by the people of Ireland during the potato famine. He warned people not to take reports too seriously and claimed they were exaggerated, and as a result Ireland exported food throughout the famine and it became the biggest ever preventable loss of human life outside of war.

This is the advisor who advises the government on enterprise, if he believes that people have never had it so good and that the recession had no effect then he is clearly not going to be able to advise properly on the specific needs of enterprise in this post-recession world.

It's just such an ineffable gaff, it's not advisable to even say good things about Britain and quality of life we have when they are true given our culture of moaning about it. To come out with these comments, which is both untrue and stupid, is spectacularly stupid.

[beansontoast]

Awkward one, but yes I'm better off without doubt. The interest on my mortgage has gone down £200 a month & let's say it just sits in my current account it earns 3.93% gross so it's better off there than paying off the house.

Lord Young, a former trade and industry secretary during Margaret Thatcher's government, added that "most people" with a mortgage found their monthly repayments had decreased by up to £600 each time.


He suggested the government's cuts, outlined in last month's Spending Review and totalling more than £80bn over four years, would just take state spending levels back to what they were in 2007 - a time, he said, when people were "not short of money".
He said: "Now, I don't remember in 07 being short of money or the government being short of money.
"So, you know, I have a feeling and a hope that when this goes through, people will wonder what all the fuss was about.

I did survive a redundancy process & I know people who have been directly affected over the last 2 years, myself included. Nevertheless I am better off in money terms, though the workload has increased following the redundancies.

[Over Carl]

Awkward one, but yes I'm better off without doubt. The interest on my mortgage has gone down £200 a month & let's say it just sits in my current account it earns 3.93% gross so it's better off there than paying off the house.



I did survive a redundancy process & I know people who have been directly affected over the last 2 years, myself included. Nevertheless I am better off in money terms, though the workload has increased following the redundancies.

So you say you have more work to do, if you say figured out an hourly rate pre recession, then applied that rate to yourself now, would there be a shortfall? (In my mind work is directly equivalent to money you see)

[beansontoast]

So you say you have more work to do, if you say figured out an hourly rate pre recession, then applied that rate to yourself now, would there be a shortfall? (In my mind work is directly equivalent to money you see)

I do the same hours as before, earlier this year I also had a tidy raise too. At work we also went through a year of short time working, bloody hell that was tough getting everything done in 4 days. Coming off that was good as well.

[pumpman]

did anyone catch the programme of CH4 last week called the trillion pound something or other ?
whilst the jist behind it was a lot of libertarian twaddle in how they said they would sort things out the core points bore out

1. MP's no matter their party will say or do anything to get into power (if we look back at promises made and promises kept) you will find very few kept
2. Government make promises and give out and take money making out they are doing various groups of society a favour, the fact is it is our money they are playing with not theirs


There is a good blog post here that highlights what has gone on , what is being proposed and the BOE attempts to close the door once the horse has bolted

whilst the author is a labour supporting common purpose follower, what he says and what he reports are head and shoulders above the rest of the Beeb and the msm report on and the manner that they comment on it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight...ol_the_cr.html

[bonus2010]

I just took Lord Young's comments to mean his observation of Britsh life based on his seniority of
being 78 years old. I'm sure he has witnessed a lot more hardship over the years than many of todays
generation has ever known about.

My own feelings are: I think this 'recession' is a complete joke. I haven't experienced any hardship,
and don't anticipate I ever will, by the way things are going.....

All I can see is complete and utter wealth - exhibited by new cars on the road... having to queue for
petrol because it is so cheap. Struggling to buy food in supermarkets because the shelfs are empty,
because the rich has bought the lot... I'm not speaking about millionaires here..

Okay many may want to analyse Lord Young's personal wealth, but he wasn't speaking about himself, his
comments referred to the vast majority of British people.