It's been claimed that Ed Miliband has said in Brighton that he's "bringing back socialism".
Actually I can only find tis claim in the likes of the Mail and blogs by Fraser Nelson, and it was a questioner on Sunday who seemed to use the phrase, but there's no doubt Ed Miliband did give a speech that was recognisably left of centre yesterday and I am not complaining about that.
But, there is a problem and it's a big one. And that is you can't deliver left wing politics without quite explicitly saying you challenge the power of the markets. You have to call the bluff of the bond markets.
And call that bluff you can. £375 billion of quantitative easing has not, and will not deliver CPI inflation, even if it has created asset bubbles because it should have been more wisely spent.
Continued government borrowing of £12o billion a year has not pushed up interest rates, And nor will it.
The pound has not collapsed: indeed it could be argued that for the sake of the UK as a whole it is still over-valued.
And despite all the claims made, government borrowing has not crowded out private sector capacity to invest. By various measures that sector is sitting on hundreds of billions in cash and is refusing to take advantage of the credit banks supposedly want to grant it in response to government diktat. There is no private sector investment because the private sector has no clue what to invest in when the demand for investment from the people of the UK is for services only the state can or is willing to supply.
And yet Ed Balls says the OBR - the custodian of neoliberal austerianism in the UK - should review Labour's plans.
And he says he will cut.
And he will only invest £10 billion to turn the UK round - which is just £150 for each of us.
That's not the politics of the left. That's neoliberal fear of markets which is wholly misplaced and for which there is no factual need. And that still worries me. The talk's good at labour - don't doubt it. But is the reality really going to match it?
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
If the markets rule it’s not just “socialism” that can’t be delivered, it’s democracy itself that can’t be delivered.
My response last night to Channel 4 FactCheck blog on the utilities price controls;
“The underlying assumption of this analysis is that governments are powerless against the market and giant companies and shouldn’t even try to go against them.
In which case whither democracy? What’s the point?”
They haven’t posted it yet. Their mods seem to like a long lie-in….
We’ve already got socialism -for the financial sector.
If QE doesn’t cause inflation, why not do more? Give £5k to everyone in the country to spend on things they really need. Same with government borrowing – borrow the money and hand it out. Why not?
There are those who agree with you
The absurdity of Balls/Labour position they are threatening Austerity spending (same or within the rounding error of Tory spending) but trying to sound leftish.
Indeed bar a piece of Balls gimmickry about a banker’s levy not one word about tackling the massive levels of financial fraud including PFI.
Richard, we have the same problem here in Australia with the Australian Labor Party. They talk about fairness for all, but continue to pander to the neoliberal narrative. Over here the ALP is running scared of Rupert Murdoch. After the ALP lost the election, Murdoch put out a tweet saying “Aust election public sick of public sector workers and phony welfare scroungers sucking life out of economy. Other nations to follow in time.” Nice guy eh?
And this is why social democratic parties are failing around the world. Because in reality they stand for nothing! They know who they should be batting for, but are afraid of the ‘bogey-man’.
I don’t know but perhaps our left-wing parties have to be more conniving and manipulative in this regard. Pander to the markets in the run-up to an election and then when in office…take to them with a hammer. Starting with the MSM.