There are moments when it is not clear what Jeremy Corbyn is offering with his leadership of Labour. This is, of course, most obviously true with regard to Brexit where his line might best be summarised as being 'I'll pick up the mess an inevitable Tory hard Brexit delivers and then make things better'. Politically that ambiguity may well be astute. But then Oliver Letwin appears on the Today Programme on Radio 4 and says Corbyn is planning Venezuelan style socialism and you realise that the Left in the UK still has to manage the outright lies that the Right promote.
In fairness, Nick Robinson responded by saying that as far as he could see Corbyn's plan were about as far left as the SDP, that had spun out of Labour to the right in 1981, had once proposed. I am sure he will have upset some Corbyn enthusiasts in the process but it shows how far political debate in the UK has moved to the right that, firstly, many in the SDP at that time would probably have no difficulty at all with what Corbyn is saying, and secondly, Letwin could respond by saying how much of a threat to the country this was.
What is abundantly clear is that Corbyn is nowhere near making a Venezuelan style offering. There is no revolution in the air, nor of anything like the types of reforms tried in Venezuela, which was and is a very different country to the UK, rendering any such comparison almost utterly meaningless.
State ownership of natural monopolies, as Corbyn is proposing, is not tooth and claw socialism, although Letwin said it was.
And state backed investment to deliver full employment and funds for investment when it has been known since Keynes first pointed it out that markets are more than capable of settling into what an economist might call equilibrium at a point where there is significant under-employment and an excess of savings that serve no constructive purpose but which do drag on the economy makes complete sense to everyone but a Letwin.
But the claim that Corbyn is planning to deliver communism - made in an interview I took part in on LBC last week, where Nick Ferrari was another person obliged to point out that the commentator was talking nonsense - is the obviously planned line of attack.
It's depressing, but the simple fact is that now is the time to make the case for the modern mixed economy where state and private sectors work in harmony for the benefit of everyone. It may look like a good old compromise. And it is, with the added twist that policies like People's QE add to it. But so what? It's this that has best prospect of working. What we have to do is find the best narrative to support it. A certain degree of familiarity with Venezuela to ensure that the likes of Letwin can be kicked into touch looks to be a necessary start.
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This is true in so far as what the manifesto says, perhaps the ‘new forms of ownership document’, but we have immediately seen zero adherence to that manifesto. You can’t criticise regressive investment in free tuition fees and keeping benefits cuts because IN FACT Labour support investment in sure start centres…
The bigger concern is around McDonnell’s genuine views on controlling capital, labour, and levels of nationalisation, his previous sense of excitement about economic crash. Corbyn spends conference with Ken Loach who recently launched a party that was trying to nationalise supermarkets.
That said, yes to the points above, hysteria about communism doesn’t help anyone.
I think you’re falling victim to the hyperbole
@Andrew, you are behind the times. I guess you are referring to Left Unity. I know a few people who are still left, but most of them have joined Labour (if they were able – compliance unit is pretty unforgiving to some, but obviously not to ex-tories, strange that), including Loach.
The UK had nationalised public services and natural monopolies before. That didn’t make us “communist”, “far left” or “extreme socialist” or whatever then, and it won’t now.
Also, it makes common sense when put to the public, especially older voters.
If you were to ask core demographic tory voters the following question:
“are you sick of being ripped off by energy companies and having to keep switching to get a lower rate? Would you prefer to have just one standardised rate which only increases by a set level each year (if at all)?”
Then I’m sure the answer to that would be a resounding “yes”.
Thankyou Richard, good to ‘hear’ a voice of sanity to restore my brain state after exposure to the scenes from Catalonia yesterday redolent of the 1930s and an Orwellian dystopia. This morning I still have a physical abdominal feeling of anxiety which I have never previously experienced other than with regard to my immediate circumstances.
Europe, I thought, had evolved beyond this, though Brexit made me wonder.
Actually I was part there already (back to mental equilibrium) after a civilised discussion between Andrew Marr’s guests coming from Manchester. Theme: the shifting state of political philosophy in Britain with some historical perspective.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b096gjjh#play
for anyone who wishes to earwig.
The political class may have moved ‘right’ in rhetoric and at risk of being a broken record right if your among the truly very wealthy/mega corporation. However if your a more middle class type and what people associate with being rightwing lower taxes it could very much be seen as left. Such as the estate duty reduction that labour wants to reverse would be a rise in half of europe that has no such tax or ones that do most its less such as germany for the equivilant here it is 20% per recipient). The cgt cut take it from among the highest to average so no big deal. Leaving open a loophole for the very rich people. (ie no cgt on commercial property if you don’t live here)
Or the small scale landlord in the north whom charges in effect social rents (social and private broardly the same there) and has to pay around £4k to evict and goes without saying the 6 or so months of non payment of rent not to mention the damage to. Or if your right people associate with not recklessly borrowing yet they have gone ahead with HS2. The difference is the ‘left’ have some good policies such as tuition fees (although to be frank some courses really really should not be degrees more employers apprenticeships) the socalled right are spending and wasting money for no tangigle benefit for anyone with none of the lefts perks. The other day some SNP supporting nurse said when she worked in england in her ward of 15 nurses there was 9 managers for them which is not necessary surely.
Even if he wanted to do, I doubt Corbyn would be able to introduce Venezuela-style socialism to the UK. Unfortunately for Corbyn, he spent years praising the Venezuelan government, e.g. “Thanks Hugo Chavez for showing that the poor matter and wealth can be shared. He made massive contributions to Venezuela & a very wide world”. There are many other quotes which a quick internet search reveals. So although Letwin is almost certainly wrong, Corbyn has made it easy for his opponents to paint him as a far-left red with silly remarks over the years.
I accept that risk
He needs to make clear what he means now
Hence my implicit suggestion in the first para that ambiguities need to go
John McDonnell is the Shadow Chancellor. Have you ever heard of policies coming from him with which you disapprove – he’s been publishing for years. Google LEAP (Left Economics Advisory Panel)?
I am bemused Carol
Have you been hacked?
I was actually responding to Philip Strauss’s comments about Corbyn, Richard. Corbyn is not in charge of economic policy. So far as I know that’s never been his baby.
Ah, sorry
The data I see when moderating sometimes makes it hard to see the flow of comments
Many people, particularly the older generations are lacking an alternative narrative that matches their experience of the past. Broadly, 70s+Labour+unions+left bad versus 80s+Tory+business+right good. In the view of many of the older generation the economic argument was decisively lost/won back then. The young can always be put down with “you weren’t there”. How are they expected to reply to that?
The perennial “you young don’t remember how bad we had it in the 1970s”/IMF bailout line, with a supposedly left-wing Labour caving into unions. But how left-wing were they really? Foot and Benn yes, but they also followed Milton Friedman’s monetarism.
In comparison 1980’s are viewed as prosperous. All bad is seen as necessary, inevitable. Thatchers first re-election is viewed as largely because she turned the economy around. And yet the credit bubble begins in the 1980s…
The Venezuela narrative appeals to this. It is the socialism always ends in failure line. The UK popular experience feeds into it and makes it appear naturally obvious. Many will unquestioningly accept it.
The socialism=decline argument will keep recurring unless Corbyn can show it working big-time. The elephant in the room of 1970sv80s is what keep giving it energy.
Agreed
I myself fall into the ‘was not there’ group. Since hearing this line I’ve often wondered to what extent events of the day, besides Labour, had their impact. For example was the strife related to major world events such as the collapse of Bretton Woods or Saudi oil crisis? It would be useful if anyone can point to an authoritative analysis of this or point out that I’m barking up the wrong tree!
Breton Woods and oil explain much more than any domestic issue
I’m puzzled by your timeline. We were in deep recession in 1983. Everyone surely agrees that Thatcher was re-elected because of the of the jingoism generated by the Falklands War and the split in the Labour Party (little in fact to do with the LP manifesto – check it out – pretty mild). In fact we didn’t start to see “the green shoots” of recovery until we were booted out of the ERM in October 1990.
I agree about that economic state in 1983, after all that was when Auf Weidershen Pet started, unemployment didn’t peak until ’86 etc. It was a comment on perception rather than data. People remember narrative and the great battle they remember is inflation, which had come down. They remember TINA and “if it isn’t hurting, it isn’t working” that said that what was endured was necessary that slay the inflation dragon.
People remember narrative? Politicos like us remember narrative. People remember life – and it was a lot better back then as I recall.
I have said before, I simply do not recall the supposed stress of the 70s and I was pretty politically and economically aware
Daniel Sheppard,
“It is the socialism always ends in failure line. The UK popular experience feeds into it and makes it appear naturally obvious. Many will unquestioningly accept it.”
You comment also on the ‘too young to remember it’ put down.
There’s an interesting phenomenon in the twittersphere where this ‘winter of discontent’ narrative is trotted out by people who weren’t there, or were still in their prams. And the ‘wasn’t Thatcher wonderful’ narrative goes with it.
Thatcher’s rhetoric was brilliant. She said all the right things but didn’t do any of them. Starting with the St.Francis speech outside No 10. (The only thing I think she did get right was the Falklands response. I don’t she created that situation and when it exploded she had to make decisions which were not the usual politicians ‘hard choices’ cliché. I know that’s a contentious area of discussion and in this context a digression, but I include the comment to claim some balance in my assessment of her career as PM)
There is an interesting paradox in the socialist ‘failure narrative’ currently in Japan. Japan has effectively nationalised much of its commercial and industrial base by owning it. I’m not hearing widespread condemnation amongst neoliberals that Japan is on the road to socialism.
Neither was there an outcry when Obama shovelled billions into General Motors, nor when we nationalised LLoyds TSB and RBS.
The neoliberal consensus is more than happy to see debt ‘socialised’ and this a contradiction which seems to go over the heads of most people.
(I would not be the least bit surprised to discover that the US has been covertly wreaking economic havoc in Venezuela. They consider South and Central America to be very much in their sphere of influence. And given the underlying agenda of oil supply and price manipulation in recent decades it would be consistent with US foreign policy objectives ).
Oliver Letwin’s comments suggesting that Jeremy Corbyn’s is proposing “Venezuela-style ” socialism, simply shows the desparation and deceitfulness of the Tories. They have no credible argument to bring to the table, and to think that a today audience would accept that blatant lie ( because that is what it was) is, frankly, thoroughly disrespectful to us all.
Precisely.
Richard,
I think you do Venezuela a disservice here. Not all is perfect I agree, but as an example of the work of a courageous state in action it is encouraging. Key industries have been nationalized, currency and price controls are in action and equality means people are more equal than ever. The other problems will sort themselves out, especially when the neoliberals in the country stop rioting in the street.
It is a shame Jeremy hints that way, but doesn’t go far enough. Please get back in there and push him that way.
I do not agree with you
When you have senior Tory politicians quite happy to say six provably untrue things about the opposition before breakfast, I find it hard to believe that anybody believes anything that any of them ever say. I suppose they are just cynically following the adage that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth.
I caught a brief part of another interview on the Today programme this morning in which the commentator (Niall Ferguson, I think?) was obviously talking about the Tory loss of support amongst the young. His argument was that they simply couldn’t remember what socialism was like unlike himself and blamed double-digit inflation on unspecified Labour governments. All a bit before my time, but I was under the impression that the oil crisis back in the early 1970s which occurred under a Tory government was the cause of much of the high inflation of the era? Further dishonesty here, I expect? I suppose Ferguson is technically not a Tory but I know he’s been writing right-wing nonsense about economics for some years now.
I think it was Fraser Nelson but you’re right otherwise
I’m pretty sure it was Ferguson. Some mention of Harvard and the CPS. I heard it around 8.45am so perhaps you missed his particular brand of nonsense!
I was listening earlier….sorry
What does The Road to Serfdom say about this?
I assume you’ve read it?
Yes I have read it.
Why do you think it is relevant?
You tell me. I think it has almost nothing useful to say on anything.
Well, I was thinking of the often underrated danger of concentrated power, specifically in the hands of the unelected civil service because, with the best will in the world, even an altruistic politician will struggle to run all those nationalised industries efficiently so they will have to delegate to the civil service.
Is that not a valid concern with nationalisation?
Tell me why that is different from a world where we have regulators, even if the latter are ineffective?
Or a world with the NHS
And state education?
Are you saying they must all go?
Will your paranoia then cease?
And if it doesn’t, where will you seek treatment?
Well, I hope it’s not paranoia but I can be reasonably sure that a Netflix employee has a shared interest with me in my desire to watch quality TV given that iTunes and any number of other streaming services exist.
Compared to say; BBC1, BBC2 and ITV, which was what you and I grew up with and were told was “choice”.
It still is my choice
I can never find anything to watch anywhere else
It’s also your choice to not actually answer the question I asked, which can be distilled to; how can a planned economy (state owned monopolies) ever collect enough data to correctly match demand with supply?
Compared with, say, a market?
Hayek said it can’t, but I’m interested to hear why you know better,
We always, invariably, have incomplete data
But let’s be clear, the microeconomic view from the market is always more incomplete than the macro view from government because the latter takes externalities into account and the former does not, meaning the government view is invariably going to give better results than a pure market can.
Both will be suboptimal
But one is vastly better than the other, and it’s pure markets that come out badly
I am not saying there is no role for markets, by a long way. But that can only be within the constraints of a robust regulatory environment
Hayek’s Son,
Look, even the extremely wealthy (perhaps especially the extremely wealthy) know damn fine that a ‘so called’ free market neoliberal economy produces very uneven distribution of social and economic benefits.
If you cast your mind back (probably memory doesn’t go that far so you might need to read some history books) the 20th century was a century of alternating economic models. The free market destroyed the economy of the US in 1929 and there was only modest recovery (and extensive misery – Roosevelt’s New Deal ameliorated but did not solve) until WW2 when central planning by government set-to to sort-out Europe and then tidy up the mess the Japanese were making of taking over the eastern end of the British Empire.
None of that was the result of free markets. Europe was liberated in large part by Hitler’s underestimation of Russia’s ability to build a centrally planned industrial base beyond Stalingrad. Stalingrad marked the end of the Third Reich. Russians took back Germany from the Nazis with boots on the ground while Bomber (bloody) Harris and Winston (buffoon) Churchill were dropping bombs pointlessly on civilian targets. (Which we finished paying for barely twenty years ago. Fifty thousand bomber crew are non-refundable)
And what started WW2? You have to go back a bit further and look at the laissez faire economics and colonialist conditions that led to WW1. WW2 was in reality WW1 part two. Popular mythology says we won. Absolutely not true. Nobody won it was unfinished business.
Do we have to go through all that again because people like you are too bloody idle to read books? Too bloody stupid to see the evitable and alterable consequences of the the things that are going on around you?
Here’s a quote from Hayek:
there are two kinds of security: the certainty of a given minimum of sustenance for all and the security of a given standard of life, of the relative position which one person or group enjoys compared with others. There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom;
that is: some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not
help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance inproviding for those common hazards of life against which few can
make adequate provision.
He was a great advocate of the welfare state!
Nice one, Charles
A reference might be handy.
It’s in The Road to Serfdom, p. 66. From e.g. https://mises.org/library/road-serfdom-0
Thanks Charles
Have you ever wondered, Richard, what would happen if the state had all the power and control that you liked and then a government you didn’t like assumed the reins?
Do you know I hardly want to extend the power of government?
But I would like it to use the power it has fairly
I think Labour are failing at getting this message across. They need a concise message about the economy and how things like People’s QE, a mixed economy and investment is what this country needs right now. I watched an interview with Alistair Campbell and found that I agreed with something he said (which is rare) he said ‘Labour’s biggest failure was letting the Tories blame the financial crisis on Labour’, I think they still have a long way to go at getting their economic credibility back, I don’t think they deserve to not have any credibility, but I also believe they don’t help themselves sometimes. Comparisons to Venezuela are going to dog Corbyn at every turn, its a lazy comparison and doesn’t hold any truth, but it works. So does the household analogy in regards to the economy, its false, but it works for the Tories. Watching Question Time and Andrew Marr this weekend just highlights how so many untruths are still readily accepted, Ian Lavery (on Question Time) did a woeful job of responding to the constant barrage of ‘Labour will bankrupt the country, Labour is spending money they don’t have, we need to balance the books’ etc. But unless Labour work at addressing them, the conservatives will just keep using them to great effect and Labour won’t win anyone over. I also feel that the ‘centre’ of politics have shifted so far to the right, that relatively ‘left’ policies are rebranded as ‘hard left’ which is then easily considered ‘communist’. Again, I don’t feel Labour are working hard enough to address this and its becoming too easy for the right wing MSM and the Conservative party to keep following the same line of attack.
I still don’t know why Labour have not mastered responses on all this
Richard,
You write “I still don’t know why Labour have not mastered responses on all this.”
One obvious place to start is to challenge the Tories’ constantly repeated mantra that only they can be trusted with the economy. Labour always gets blamed for the 2008 crash, but the roots of that lie in the City’s Big Bang, which, somehow or other, rarely seems to be mentioned in any dialogue about the crash: but without the Big Bang there would have been no dismantling of pre-existing controls, no light-touch regulation by the then Tory Government and, sadly, continued by the Blair and Brown Labour governments.
Post-Crash, the Tories’ management of the economy has been less than impressive: national debt has grown massively in spite of harsh austerity measures to “balance the books”, which we were endlessly told was the principal Tory priority. The use of Newspeak has even been extended to citing Adam Smith in support of neo-liberal dogma, whereas Smith had warned against the excesses of unregulated markets.
If Labour are serious about governing, they really need to start throwing the Tories’ record back in their faces. The SNP could also justifiably take this tack, as they are constantly lampooned as being economically illiterate, usually on the basis of the GERS figures, which, as has been demonstrated here, are entirely unsuitable for judging Scotland’s economic performance, past, present or future. However both parties might struggle to get fair and unbiased coverage from Britain’s media.
Your last point is relevant
I also believe that the swing voters are those who look elsewhere for news
Richard, it’s because too many of the labour spokespersons don’t understand economics.
They think economics is complicated algebraic equations.
They don’t draw sensible conclusions from the little bit of history they know about.
They swallow propaganda. Because they can’t join the dots.
They struggle to think outside of the current political discourse – an agenda set by a simplistic paleoconservative right .
In short: stupidity born of ignorance and lack of imagination.
Oh, and they don’t read your blog! (Anything else you need clarification on?)
Yeah, Hammond was saying similar on R4 this morning – oh, but he added in North Korea for good measure. Apparently Corbynomics will do away with markets altogether. It is all so ludicrous. They may have gone too far over the top so that the public might recognise this and start to think. Of course, the tory press will try to maintain the fantasy.
I hope this is the case
Corbyn and McDonnell need to reiterate their belief in properly regulated markets
I was a big fan of Sir Vince Cable before the coalition, partly due to him being lauded for predicting the crash. However, my opinion of him steadily lowered during his time in Government, but I still can’t quite understand how someone who has an economics PhD, various experiences working as an economist, and who is an Honorary Professor of Economics could think that what Labour is offering is Venezuelan economics, something he has repeatedly claimed in recent weeks.
At his conference speech he said “You don’t qualify for the Labour Shadow Cabinet these days unless you have studied the Venezuelan guide on how to bankrupt a rich economy”, so it’s not just Corbyn and McDonnell, but, according to Sir Vince, the likes of Sir Kier Starmer and Tom Watson who are also into Venezuelan economics.
I’d like for him to point out when exactly Corbyn has said he wants to base our economy on an overreliance on oil exports and base our political-economic system on corruption.
Does he genuinely believe this or is he knowingly misleading as part of his strategy to paint the two main parties as extreme left and right, with the Lib Dems the only sensible voices?
He also wrote for The Orange Book, remember
I don’t know the Orange Book.
Is it an instructive read in any way? Even if only in ‘Knowing one’s enemy?
I’m have similar opinion of Vince Cable as Simon C.
It was the LibDem neoliberal manifesto….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orange_Book:_Reclaiming_Liberalism for starters
Simon C
If Cable has a PhD in economics then all you have to do is consider the quality of economic discourse these days. This discourse has been captured by neo-liberalism.
Watch the documentary ‘Inside Job’ and also ‘The Flaw’ (both made in America BTW) and you will understand that contemporary economics (& the political economy) is basically fucked up. Forgive my language but I cannot put it any more simply than that.
Contemporary economics is basically the mathematical equivalent of ancient alchemy (trying to make gold out of base metals). And alchemy was complete tosh as it turned out.
“State ownership of natural monopolies, as Corbyn is proposing, is not tooth and claw socialism, although Letwin said it was.”
So Letwin thinks that post-war Britain was just like Venezuela? That would be my response if I was on the Radio 4 program with him. 10 flippant words that effectively say: nick off you git, and that’s all he gets. One should dismiss rather than engage ludicrous comparisons like this. Engagement in any serious depth gives the idea currency, legitimacy and importance regardless of who wins the argument. Stuff that.
I think it likely that most of the people who will support Corbyn, the young ones in particular, know very little about Venezeula and care even less. Stupid, extreme allegations were notably unsuccessful during the election campaign so I wouldn’t worry too much about them, they might even be useful.
As for Labour’s ambiguity on Brexit and some other issues. It is strategic, is it not? Oppositions often avoid detailed alternatives when the government falling to bits on a particular issue. Why rescue them by making a target of yourself when there is no particular need to?
Hi Marco,
“Engagement in any serious depth gives the idea currency, legitimacy and importance regardless of who wins the argument. Stuff that.”
What is succinctly encapsulated in the advice to never wrestle with a pig: Because you both get covered in shit (sometimes bowdlerised to ‘mud’) and the pig enjoys it !
True
Hello, I had thought that Mr. Corbyn was concerned about the effect of neo-liberal economics on capital. As Will Hutton has explained (The State We’re in — 1995) there are many types of capitalism, some more successful than others, I remember Scandinavian and German versions at the time being considered successful. Anglo-Saxon (USA/UK) was considered to have ongoing problems well before 2007.
Perhaps discussions on the type of capitalism that we need and a revised voting system need to be discussed by Labour and other interested parties very soon. Apologies if your books cover this, I have still to fully read them.
I agree with you
I do think there are viable forms of capitalism – but we do not enjoy one
Roy D,
A revised voting should certainly help, but Labour have resisted the idea and didn’t bother to support it when it was on offer. They have got away with winning by FPTP too often, but only when the Conservative vote has collapsed.
Given a landslide in the commons Blair’s government gave away their mandate by cravenly adhering to Ken Clark’s budget and wasted immense quantities of parliamentary time failing to produce an effective ban on fox hunting. (As if it mattered anyway)
I thought that we had 5 year fixed term parliaments.
Even though Corbyn has achieved much so far I doubt that even he can introduce a communist dictatorship in such a short space of time.
The right wing press is disgraceful, plus the people of this country don’t know when they are being patronised. If anyone believes in democracy it is Corbyn, I would suggest a good number of those who believe in dictatorship can be found at the Daily Mail.
Interesting point Keith, I doubt that they’ll ever live this one down:
http://xislblogs.xtreamlab.net/slwoods/wp-content/uploads//sites/23/2017/04/mail_blackshirts.jpg
https://futiledemocracy.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/my-dear-fuhrer-a-quick-history-of-daily-mail-fascism/
http://www.nickelinthemachine.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Hurrah-for-the-Blackshirts.jpg
Marco,
Dismissive as I am of the Daily Mail and it’s role as masthead of the right, I hadn’t realised it was THAT bad.
Ishiguro’s ‘Remains of the Day’ (I read the book; haven’t seen the film) is illuminating of the pro Nazi appeasers in the British establishment at the time.
Venezuela may as well be near Narnia as far as most voters are concerned. This foolish line of attack brings to mind Churchill’s warning that Labour would introduce a Gestapo. The problem for the Tories (but maybe not Hammond personally) is that they’ve lost all claims to be the party of economic empiricism and sanity. The likes of Mogg and Johnson are prepared to pursue economic suicide without any qualms to achieve their steaming pile of Brexit nothing.
Agreed
Box Office Phil doubling-down on the lies in his speech as well.
“Marxist policies”, “Cuba, Zimbabwe and Venezuela” – why, it’s Tory BS Bingo!
This is obviously the new line – I clearly guessed correctly
If I was a Tory I would be worried about this. They are playing to the old crowd, preaching to the converted and undermining their own credibility. They have effectively evoked their own little Godwin’s Law and lost the argument already. Remarkably, they have failed to learn the lesson of the last election. Switching from: Jezza the jihadi to Jezza the red dictator isn’t a switch. It’s a different angle on the same failed line of approach. Doubling down on the same mistake because they’ve got nothing else.
This could be easily made to backfire if it doesn’t simply backfire on its own. Taking the long view its a good sign. When it comes to ideas the Tories are broke and ready to be broken.
I’m reminded of Krugman’s recent thoughts that the level of political lies between left and right in the US has become heavily imbalanced. I wonder whether the same could now be said in the UK, or whether it just feels that way because our own political tendencies cloud our judgments.
Brexit aside, it strikes me that the conservatives have been deliberately and concertedly lying to the public for some time, about austerity, bankruptcy, magic money trees and so on, and it seems to me that this is now accelerating. I have no doubt that Letwin, Hammond et al don’t think for a second that there’s a good comparison between a Labour UK and Venezuela, but they’re happy to repeat it anyway.
I genuinely can’t think of a lie from the left that is huge or as cynical as those of the right, but I accept that I’m not a neutral observer. So the question is, do we genuinely now have an imbalance of lies between the left and right, or could a right-leaning commentator list the major, organised lies of the Corbyn position?
Good question
These references to Venezuela are simply a useful ( but inadequate ) distraction to try and persuade older ( over the age of 55 ) voters who might be considering voting Labour to remember the bad old times whenever they were supposed to be. As a sixty eight year old who has run a business for almost his entire adult life , but grew up supported by the welfare state ( education , NHS etc etc ) whenever I hear any reference Oliver Letwin – the great thinker of the Conservative Party – I think here he goes again the stooge trotting out the same old nonsense and here goes the BBC giving him a voice . But my children and my grandchildren don’t buy into any of this ‘ left / right conflict ‘ because they have grown up in a different world , but what they do know is this : something is wrong – socially, economically – and needs to be addressed politically , but the Conservative Party have no interest in addressing it and right now only Corbyn is articulating any sort of alternative policies . Is he the man to carry any of them through should he become Prime Minister ? That remains to be seen, but all I know is when I speak to my friends and relations of the same age as myself and tell them I voted Labour at the last General Election they look at me as much as to say ‘ cart him away to the loony bin ‘ . Age is the divide I think . Ideology is not. Corbyn has come back from the abyss at least give him some credit for that .
I know all those feelings, at 59
But I mix with a lot of younger people, thankfully
John Hope,
Your insight is good. I was thinking about why the Tories would bother trying to repeat an approach that clearly failed in the last election. Assuming they are not plain stupid I could only imagine that they are trying to prevent a drift of older, uncommitted voters across to Labour. As an attempt to hold on to the only demographic that favours them it does look a bit desperate though.
John Hope ,
You might be right about the targeting of the age divide, but you shouldn’t be. That is to say it shouldn’t work.
Communism hasn’t ‘threatened’ Western Europe since the 1920s. Those who perceived it as a threat since then have been suckered by the US narrative. McCarthyism was the visible pinnacle of a propaganda war which underpinned the US military industrial post war strategy. A highly successful strategy for the US in economic terms and which is still shoring up their their national economy extended as it is into the realms of ‘Homeland Security’ and the phoney ‘War on Terror’.
We are believers in the notion that Kennedy saved humanity by averting the Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s not an unbiased analysis of that resolution. It makes as much sense, if not more, to credit Kruschev with having the wit to see that the US headbangers were prepared to precipitate global nuclear war to win a debating point in a weak argument.
The Cold War stand-off that followed was always phoney, but it had many baleful economic consequences on both sides and in global economic collateral damage.
If over fifties are susceptible to neoliberal blandishments as you suggest it speaks volumes for the success of propaganda and the failure of education.
We should also not forget that Venezuela was/is a one trick economy — based entirely on oil. When the oil market falters you get problems. Even Saudi Arabia who are also well known rampant socialists, had problems and had to to float companies and send home guest workers — even, horror or horrors, allow women to drive.
So Venezuela’s essential probs are much less to to do with politics than economics.
See here
http://news.mit.edu/2017/income-inequality-linked-export-complexity-0217
and here
http://www.progressivepulse.org/economics/basic-econimics/why-the-creation-of-local-banks-is-so-important/
on why an over specialised economy is decidedly not a good plan.
And couldn’t the UK be just a little over reliant on the finance sector?
Perhaps Venezuela holds some lessons for the right after all?
As Roy D says it is the type of capitalism that we need, that we need to pay attention to.
Richard .Your point about the SDP is apposite.When even David Owen cansee virtue in the programme Labour is putting forward, we can see where the centre of political gravity actually lies.
Guy,
If Dr David Owen is in favour of it you should hear alarm bells. He can see something you are missing.
I think that you are right to focus on Venezuela.
Since the demise of Chavez (mind you even when Chavez was in power) things seem to have gone wobbly.
But why? Chavez himself was nearly deposed by a right wing coup whilst in power. Whatever is happening over there, then we need to be told the whole story – and I mean the whole story because the right wing anti-Chavez propaganda was strong even when he was alive.
For me, the story of Venezuela was a story of a country taking back control of its natural resources from foreign powers and the local landlords (the Venezuelan rich) who enabled it to happen. From that there came a more progressive from of support for the poor in Venezuelan society.
If I’d had my way I would have signed a Labour/progressive led UK up to buying Venezuelan oil as I saw it as a means of more like minded progressive countries supporting each other economically in order to get around the usual suspects (like America) and to prosper as best they could with that arrangement.
I do hope that life for the majority of people of this country does not go backwards.
Pilgrim,
I don’t think you’d need to dig very deeply to find CIA fingerprints all over it.
(I expect the person monitoring my phone calls and emails thinks I’m paranoid.)
[…] was slightly more prescient when writing about Labour and Venezuela than I realised I might be when commenting yesterday morning. With even Philip Hammond resorting to this new variant on Godwin’s Law, and throwing in […]