Keith we may have a slight difference of opinion here. Evertime a Labour government was elected prior to Blair all the rich large companies,Banks, investors moved their money out of the country. That is because they knew Labour would tax them to help the working class. This always made it almost impossible to run the country. New Labour under Blair changed that and got in to bed with the large investors treating much in the same way as say a Heath Tory government would have done in the seventies. By getting in bed with the Banks they failed to control them because they would only support Labour if left alone. The drip down economics that new Labour borrowed from the Tories did not work because the Banks prefered to make there investments abroad in a more volatile but larger profit area. This left Labour with a problem no investment no jobs for the workers. So rather than try to gets the Banks back in line (which they knew would see them out of power) they tried to finance the lower classes in other ways. If the bankers investment had been sound all would have been well, but they went tits up. Then the government basically paid back what the billionaires of this country had lost by putting there money in Banks that made bad investments. The working class now find themselves having to finace that repayment. So whilst the Labour government does bare some responsibility the Bankers bare far more, this coupled to a new Tory lead government who have drip down as a fundimantal dogma has caused the present deeper problem. They still refuse to put any sort of genuine control on Banks therefore we still have no internal investment. As far as they are concerned it's a case of those who usually suffer suffering a little bit more. Actually they don't give a **** as long as they remain millionaires. It's a bit like a reverse Robin Hood syndrome, take from the poor to finance the rich and hope the rich will let a few scraps fall from the table.