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David Cameron resigns as MP effective immediately

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He's going to be remembered in a worse light than pretty much anyone. Always knew his time as PM would be bad for the country but not this bad.
 
yanipheonu said:
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Needs the music:

https://youtu.be/b6CVvNRQcvE?t=22
 
I guess now he doesn't have the awkward moment of having to vote for all of May's policies dismantling his work, and someone else can do that loyalty.
 
Par Score said:
Oh come off it. Brown was far from perfect but complaining about him "selling off the gold" is right-wing libertarian bullshit, and his actions during the global financial crisis basically saved the British economy, before Call me Dave and Gideon came in and austerity-fucked it back into a recession.
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PJV3 said:
The gold sale is overblown isn't it?
He sold half and bought foreign currency instead, so he lost a few billion at the later peak of the gold price.

I could be wrong though, I hear so many versions of what went on with Gordon.
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He sold more than half of the UK's gold reserves (something like 350 tons) at the turn of the century when he was chancellor to buy Euros and other currency. Gold today is worth almost five times what it was sold for at that time. Even discounting that, the way he went about it was a disaster, his announcement of the plan to do it rather than just doing it further reduced the price of gold and in turn the UK ended up getting a comparatively shit deal. (Historically gold was worth three or four times what it was valued at in that period, it wasn't like he didn't have any data to show it would bounce back from the price it was at during that time.)

Brown presided over the most economically buoyant period in our lifetimes, and rather than use that period to prepare the country for the bad times by saving some pennies for a rainy day and investing, he did the opposite and effectively threw away the rainy day fund. So when the bad times came, austerity was an inevitable outcome. This is nothing to do with party lines, I can't stand all this Labour v Tory bullshit that GAF is obsessed with. It's just what happened.

I won't dispute that Brown did well at managing the financial crisis in 2008, but let's not forget it was his encouragement of "light touch" regulation in banking leading up to that, his lack of encouragement of manufacturing or anything outside of financial services sector during the boom years, and the gold disaster already mentioned, that directly contributed to the UK being in such a precarious position once the 2008 meltdown happened. As such, while I'm glad he came up with a plan to steer the UK through the crisis, history shows that much of what he did leading up to that point directly contributed to the austerity we've experienced in the past few years.

IdreamofHIME said:
What an absolute load of bullshit.
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What an insightful analysis.
 
kavanf1 said:
He sold more than half of the UK's gold reserves (something like 350 tons) at the turn of the century when he was chancellor to buy Euros and other currency. Gold today is worth almost five times what it was sold for at that time. Even discounting that, the way he went about it was a disaster, his announcement of the plan to do it rather than just doing it further reduced the price of gold and in turn the UK ended up getting a comparatively shit deal. (Historically gold was worth three or four times what it was valued at in that period, it wasn't like he didn't have any data to show it would bounce back from the price it was at during that time.)
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Gold sales are meaningless. You're essentially saying that the government should speculate in the market in the hope that the asset it holds appreciates further. If gold had declined after the sale then he would have been seen as a financial genius.

It's incredibly easy to take pot-shots at investors when it turns bad in hindsight. Not so much when you're the one who has to make these calls.
 
kavanf1 said:
He sold more than half of the UK's gold reserves (something like 350 tons) at the turn of the century when he was chancellor to buy Euros and other currency. Gold today is worth almost five times what it was sold for at that time. Even discounting that, the way he went about it was a disaster, his announcement of the plan to do it rather than just doing it further reduced the price of gold and in turn the UK ended up getting a comparatively shit deal. (Historically gold was worth three or four times what it was valued at in that period, it wasn't like he didn't have any data to show it would bounce back from the price it was at during that time.)

Brown presided over the most economically buoyant period in our lifetimes, and rather than use that period to prepare the country for the bad times by saving some pennies for a rainy day and investing, he did the opposite and effectively threw away the rainy day fund. So when the bad times came, austerity was an inevitable outcome. This is nothing to do with party lines, I can't stand all this Labour v Tory bullshit that GAF is obsessed with. It's just what happened.

I won't dispute that Brown did well at managing the financial crisis in 2008, but let's not forget it was his encouragement of "light touch" regulation in banking leading up to that, his lack of encouragement of manufacturing or anything outside of financial services sector during the boom years, and the gold disaster already mentioned, that directly contributed to the UK being in such a precarious position once the 2008 meltdown happened. As such, while I'm glad he came up with a plan to steer the UK through the crisis, history shows that much of what he did leading up to that point directly contributed to the austerity we've experienced in the past few years.



What an insightful analysis.
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What? The Austerity was entirely the Coalition government, a decision they decided to make. We never needed it.
 
darkace said:
Gold sales are meaningless. You're essentially saying that the government should speculate in the market in the hope that the asset it holds appreciates further. If gold had declined after the sale then he would have been seen as a financial genius.

It's incredibly easy to take pot-shots at investors when it turns bad in hindsight. Not so much when you're the one who has to make these calls.
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It's gold, it's not some volatile commodity that risks becoming valueless tomorrow. The price of gold was high before, and there was no reason to assume it wouldn't rise again. Even if we give the benefit of the doubt on that and say ok maybe he thought the only way gold was going was down, the manner in which he sold it off (pre-announced auction) ensured that he got a low price for it. It was widely acknowledged by analysts as not being a smart move.

Moosichu said:
What? The Austerity was entirely the Coalition government, a decision they decided to make. We never needed it.
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That's not how it works. No decision like this happens in isolation. Governments do stuff, subsequent governments come in and try to work out how to do it better (or alternatively, try to figure out how to make things better after a screw up). Broadly speaking the Labour approach is spend spend spend, regardless of whether you have the money or not, in the hope that government spending drives the engine of the economy. While the Conservative approach tends to be towards trying to balance the government's books, which manifests to the public as austerity, and encouraging private enterprise (and in turn the economy) to grow. All of this is driven by public sentiment, and so we end up with a merry go round where one party gets in and does their thing, then people get pissed off with them fucking up, so the other party gets in and tries things their way - and on and on it goes.

Meanwhile you have the ridiculous pantomime perpetuated here and up and down the country that the Tories are evil villains and Labour are noble knights - or vice versa, depending on where your political affiliations lie. While the truth is that they're all doing what they believe is best for their country, they just have different approaches to that.
 
kavanf1 said:
It's gold, it's not some volatile commodity that risks becoming valueless tomorrow. The price of gold was high before, and there was no reason to assume it wouldn't rise again. Even if we give the benefit of the doubt on that and say ok maybe he thought the only way gold was going was down, the manner in which he sold it off (pre-announced auction) ensured that he got a low price for it. It was widely acknowledged by analysts as not being a smart move.
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Firstly, the whole reason that the gold was sold was because it was deemed overly volatile. Secondly, it really doesn't matter. The government shouldn't be speculating in the market.
 
oti xero said:
I hope the history books will be ruthless.
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Anyone but Andrew Roberts will castrate him, it'll be glorious.

I hope Osborne will be too, but he won't.

Pair of absolute fucking bastards, playing the hard and sensible patrician types, condescending and myopic chancers.
 
Probably a good idea really. Can you imagine going to a local surgery to complain about the pot holes on your street not getting fixed and sitting opposite a guy who used to have his fingers on the nuclear button.
 
kavanf1 said:
Major was probably the blandest in recent memory, he left the economy in decent shape and didn't really have any major disasters in his tenure, unlike any of those who followed.
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Black Wednesday...

Huge fucking interest rates, home losses. Yep all good.
 
Syder said:
He's going to be remembered in a worse light than pretty much anyone. Always knew his time as PM would be bad for the country but not this bad.
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That's the only solace I can take out of this: That this pricks legacy has been undone by himself, and that he can be alive long enough to be reminded of that for years to come.
 
Acorn said:
Black Wednesday...

Huge fucking interest rates, home losses. Yep all good.
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Yeah, that was a mess. Major got the interest rates under control though, right? When he came in in 1990 they were around 15%, and by the time he handed the reins over in 1997 they were less than half of that IIRC.

Going back to my point about governments not being entities which make decisions and carry out tasks in isolation, he seems to have left things in a reasonably good state for Blair. The same can't be said for Blair, Brown or Cameron.
 
kavanf1 said:
Yeah, that was a mess. Major got the interest rates under control though, right? When he came in in 1990 they were around 15%, and by the time he handed the reins over in 1997 they were less than half of that IIRC.

Going back to my point about governments not being entities which make decisions and carry out tasks in isolation, he seems to have left things in a reasonably good state for Blair. The same can't be said for Blair, Brown or Cameron.
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We also have Major to thank for our recent Olympic success.
 
kavanf1 said:
21st century UK PMs have been kind of disastrous, all in all. An unconvicted war criminal, a guy who sold off most of the UK's gold and fucked the country for decades to come, and a guy who through sheer arrogance and lack of preparation led the UK out of the EU, further contributing to fucking the country for decades to come.

I never thought I'd say it but history's painting John Major in a really good light.
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the gold represents hardly any money, I don't know how you can put next to Iraq or even a top 100 list of their collective fuckups
 
kmag said:
He can't actually resign as an MP, what he does is take up a role as a Crown steward as you can't be an MP and be in an office of profit under the crown (ignoring that technically all executive positions in the Government are actually offices of profit under the crown but they're different these days just because). So he takes up the position as Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham and that disqualifies him from being an MP. Technically it'll be a one day appointment and technically he should be paid for it, he'll resign from that role almost immediately but will have been disqualified from being an MP in the interim as you can't hold both positions

Ladies and Gentlemen the clusterfuck which is the British constitution.
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It's still less complicated than cancelling an online subscription.
 
Just to clarify, Cameron had three positions to resign from.

He resigned as leader of the Conservative Party the day after the refendum, that's 24th June (and also announced his intention to resign as Prime Minister by October).

He resigned as Prime Minister on 13th July, when May took over.

He'll effectively resign as MP for Witney probably tomorrow by taking an office under the Crown.

kmag said:
He can't actually resign as an MP, what he does is take up a role as a Crown steward as you can't be an MP and be in an office of profit under the crown (ignoring that technically all executive positions in the Government are actually offices of profit under the crown but they're different these days just because). So he takes up the position as Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham and that disqualifies him from being an MP. Technically it'll be a one day appointment and technically he should be paid for it, he'll resign from that role almost immediately but will have been disqualified from being an MP in the interim as you can't hold both positions

Ladies and Gentlemen the clusterfuck which is the British constitution.
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More or less right, but I think that he will be appointed Steward of the Manor of Northstead (these offices take turns, and Sadik Khan who was last to quit is the current Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds). Also, the stewardship doesn't only last a day, it keeps going until the next-but-one resignation.
 
SporeCrawler said:
UK has a constitution?
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My politics teacher at secondary school said something about it not being codified (like not in a proper document like the bill of rights, though I think the uk has a bill of rights) and it's not entrenched I.e no supermajority needed to change it. But I could be talking out to my backside.
 
Escape Goat said:
So what did he do thats got Brits knickers in a bunch? Or at least the British GAFers.
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Fucked a pig.

He lead both a Coalition and then Tory Majority government, both of whom have made horrible changes to things like education, the NHS and benefits in an attempt to fix the economy via misguided (is there any other kind?) austerity measures.
 
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