Zible

A top executive has argued that government regulation may be required over the position of search results in Google.

Bad idea.

Government regulation is the absolute last resort. It might start with good intentions and the Government might have a light touch, but it would open the floodgates. Regulation only becomes more onerous and cumbersome over time. It stifles businesses ability to innovate, it slows progress and it takes some of the fun out of business.

In the free market, if Google screws up, we can go to Yahoo or Bing or another search engine. If they all screw up, a new competitor will rise. It is a self regulating system.

I trust an honest company (such as Google) more than any government, sadly.

It's reassuring that the UK is still producing high calibre politicians. People like Daniel Hannen (MEP). Watch his 3 minute assassination of Gordon Browns' failed economic policies and wasteful expenditure of money we don't have…

Daniel Hannen became Britains' youngest ever MEP in 1999 and even now is only 37 years old. He has authored 7 books, most recently The Plan: Twelve months to renew Britain. If his actions can match his words, he would make a worthy Prime Minister. Read more about what he has to say on his blog.

The Labour government has today proposed the creation of a state bank so that UK businesses and citizens can go deeper into debt by borrowing directly from the state.

This is an extraordinary idea from a government experimenting with ever more wild and expensive ideas. A state bank with loose lending criteria would only prolong this recession.

It's too late, there is nothing the government can do to stop this recession. It could do things to limit the damage, but so far none of its policies or bail-outs have given confidence to the people (a cut in income tax would have) and our currency has plunged at its fastest rate in history.

If there are two essential requirements of a government, they are to foster a stable economy and avoid war. This government has failed on both counts. Brown became "Mr Boom then Bust" and Blair took us into an illegal war against our will. The UK is crumbling under Labour.

Gordon Brown did nothing to prevent a giant property bubble from inflating since Labour came to power in May 1997. Property prices tripled in the 10 years to September 2007 (Nationwide). The collapse of this bubble is the primary cause of our dire economic predicament.

What goes up must come down. But Labour won't accept that. They want to return to the days when getting a £X00,000 mortgage was as simple as signing on the dotted line. That's why they might create a state bank. But it will do more harm than good. This government wastes money on everything it does, be it IT projects, special advisers or general inefficiency let alone ID card and civilian spying projects that have no place in our civilised nation.

The solution? Laissez faire. The private sector should provide banking services, not the government. The banks lent too much money during the boom and now they are compensating for that by lending more carefully. This is a good thing: it helps existing borrowers concentrate on paying back their debts and requires new borrowers to properly justify why they deserve a loan.

This will be a severe recession. But we are British – we'll deal with it and we don't need government interference.

Gordon Brown continues to make decisions that will deepen/lengthen this recession.

He is now planning on cutting VAT from 17.5% to 15%. Bad move. VAT is one of the best taxes in a Governments armoury. It is cheap to collect, it raises a massive amount of money and it discourages consumption by making prices higher.

Cutting VAT will reduce prices for most goods in the UK will by around 2.1%. Is that going to make you go out and spend more? I didn't think so. But what it will do is increase government debt by another £12.5 billion per year.

Government debt eventually has to be repaid by the taxpayer, so the Labour government is effectively lumping another slug of debt on our shoulders that we must pay back in the years to come (either through higher taxation or fewer public services).

I would prefer to see the government raise funding / reduce spending by:

• Increase VAT to 20% (like most of the rest of Europe).
• Slash public sector spending which has ballooned under Labour and is highly inefficient compared to the private sector.

With the extra money in the coffers, I'd like to see the government:

• Cut income tax to increase people's take home pay and encourage people to work.
• Cut corporation tax or give some other tax break to businesses.