I was intrigued by this tweet on my timeline yesterday:
I do not know Jos Bell. I do know Danny and Ann and I have spoken to both recently but what I am saying here is purely personal.
What I felt was a need to reply in more than 14o characters to answer three questions. The first is why it had been worth giving Corbyn a go. The second is why that did not work. The third is what now?
I've recounted several times, already, that despite the media suggestions I did not, as such, write Corbynomics. It's true that a significant number (but not all) of the ideas in Jeremy's economic manifesto (which has now gone from his website, and of which I never seemed to keep an electronic copy (NB: now located)) were written by me, but not for Jeremy per se, and certainly not in the way in which he presented them.
The three main ideas are summarised here. They were more progressive taxation to create greater equality both as a matter of fact and to deliver justice in the way that the deficit was tackled. Second, the tax gap was to be tackled to provide funding and to create a level playing field for business. And third, People's Quantitative Easing was, in combination with a National Investment Bank, to be used to fund a new industrial strategy. What the document did not say was what the overall vision was: it focussed on policies not philosophies but it rattled the mainstream media and much of Labour nonetheless.
A year on it's hard to see why. Progressive taxation was hardly a surprising proposal from a left wing politician whilst closing the tax gap is just about everyone's aim: the only problem was Jeremy used my £120 billion figure and did not make clear that not all of it could be collected. And People's Quantitative Easing now looks as if it will be delivered by the Tories. All were issues on which I had written extensively: of course I was going to support a politician who said they were going to use them.
So why didn't things work out? There are four fundamental reasons.
The first was a lack of conviction. John McDonnell became shadow chancellor and the first thing he said was he would sign up to George Osborne's bizarre, and now abandoned, fiscal charter, guaranteeing a balanced budget. It was lunacy. I told him so. He still put it in his conference speech only to have to U turn on it. But the damage was done, and has remained done. The message was clear: a Corbyn / McDonnell opposition was going to do economic policy on Tory ground. Radicalism disappeared and never returned. Labour's own fiscal charter is evidence of that: it was re-heated neoliberals Balls at best. If this was meant to be what left wing economics was meant to deliver then it looked very much more like a lot more of the same failed policies to me based on a total misunderstanding of what the role of the government in the economy actually is..
Second, Corbynomics disappeared. PQE, which had been the defining economic and industrial symbol of Jeremy's election campaign - the policy that was going to deliver growth, jobs, new industry and hope - might well have never happened. It's taken Stephen Crabb and Theresa May to revive it. In its place nothing was offered at all; just vague words at best for months and then reference to a National Investment Bank on occasion but nothing else.
Third, I had the opportunity to see what was happening inside the PLP. The leadership wasn't confusing as much as just silent. There was no policy direction, no messaging, no direction, no co-ordination, no nothing. Shadow ministers appeared to have been left with no direction as to what to do. It was shambolic. The leadership usually couldn't even get a press release out on time to meet print media deadlines and then complained they got no coverage.
Fourth, and critically, there was no vision. A team of economic advisers were set up, but never properly consulted, let alone listened to. Three enquiries, into the Treasury, Bank of England and HM Revenue & Customs were established and given far too long to report: none has as yet. I gather the tax report is in draft: I have not seen it. Whether it will be presented is anyone's guess. The Bank of England study has collapsed with the departure of Danny Blanchflower. Of the Treasury report I haven't a clue. The point is though that for coming on for a year now policy has been on hold for these reports and the world has moved on. That's just not competent.
The same problem has been seen around Brexit and so many other issues. If Jeremy and John had known what they were doing these impasses would not have happened. The impression left is that they have created a movement that hates what's happening in the world and can get really angry about it, but then has not a clue what to do about it.
If this movement was really visionary that would not be the case. Vision is about having a guiding principle that directs your actions. It is about what you want to achieve. It is positive. It can never be negative. So the Tories know they want to make the market ever friendlier for a limited number of businesses: that is apparent in all their policies, like it or not. All that I have got so far from the Labour left is a message of what it is opposed to. That's something. But it's a long way from being enough. Vision is about knowing what goes in something's place and this is what I cannot see coming from Momentum or supporters like Paul Mason, whose book Post Capitalism in many ways typifies anti-visionary thinking by offering nothing of substance at the end of a long analysis.
Vision in required on the economy and what it is for; about the role of the private sector, and its banks; on tax and benefits and social justice; on health and so much more.
It would not have been hard: try this knocked up in minutes.
The UK economy exists to meet the needs both material and personal of people in this country and should be organised so that all get just rewards for their efforts, a chance for personal development and the opportunity to work how they wish to meet their needs.
The state partners with private enterprise in fulfilling this goal: each is vital, both add value and have a role to play. In particular the private sector must adhere to the rules of fair markets established by the state and pay its taxes. Finance is the servant of markets, and not otherwise. It must therefore be kept in a proportionate role.
We need a tax and benefits policy that integrates with macroeconomic goals for growth and inflation whilst being consistent with the government's goals for social and economic justice, including in tackling inequality and overcoming disadvantage in all its forms.
Health must be available for all at lowest possible cost and highest efficiency. This requires considerable integration of resources and leaves no room for fractured supply in quasi markets which do not reflect the diverse and vey real health needs of people or populations as a whole.
It would be easy to write more: if anyone had shadow ministers would ave had a clue what they were meant to be doing. But no one offered anything like that. There was no idea what policy was for, no big ideas and so not many small ones either. The result was a mess and that's because it seems like Corbynism is an empty shell that opposes capitalism for the sake of the oppressed but has no clue as to what to yet in its place. And that's not responsible, it's not electable and it's not going to work.
So what's next? It's not my job to tell Labour. If anyone wants to listen they're welcome to do so though. I suggest five things.
First, a clear policy for growth that is intended to end a recessionary environment. This involves borrowing, state spending, lower taxes for the time being, the creation of jobs in every constituency (which is one of the primary goals of the Green New Deal) and the bank up of PQE if required to manage debt, if required. Nothing is more important than this. New housing has to be at the heart of this programme, as is the creation of a sustainable foundation for a twenty first century economy. This is building for the next generation.
Then some key obstacles to progress need to be tackled. PQE has to be used to end PFI to end the burden it creates on public services. It could also be used to cancel student debt, liberating large numbers who can never dream because of the debt burden they suffer, and which drags down the economy with them. And the crushing blows to so many imposed over the last years - from attacks on those with disabilities to the bedroom tax - need to be reversed, and could be.
Third, health has to become universal and all vestiges of the internal market have to be swept away.
Fourth, education has to be free. Corporation tax increases can address part of this: growth and the tax gap the rest, with ease.
And as to Brexit? Nothing should be agreed without a second referendum: the EU has allowed them before. It should do for the UK. Implicit in that is discussion on migration, and the creation of a positive programme for the role it can play in the UK both economically and socially which does not, however, ignore the social constraint on the rate of change any society can manage to handle successfully.
Is this enough? No, of course not (there is nothing on defence, corporate reform, the environment per se and much more) but I offer it to show a vision can be matched to policy that could deliver costed and affordable change that economic theory can show should deliver growth with manageable debt in a way that provides a coherent and deliverable alternative to anything this government is offering, and which provides people with real hope.
I have not seem or heard a hint of much of anything like this from Jeremy Corbyn since last summer - and then I was doing all the running for him. I would like to hear it form another candidate for Labour leader now. If we don't I will despair about the vision of so many people engaged in politics with no clear idea as to why.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
My theory is that in the present world too many horses have already bolted and more are on their way out of the stables. And our leaders etc. do not have the faintest knowledge of how to get them back again and then what to do with them.
We are where we are. That doesn’t change our responsibility to get somewhere better.
All the great epic narratives include a time in the wilderness. WE need to decide on a narrative and start to build it. Richard gives us a destination, but we have to get there.
How can we prevent the investment side of banking institutions from failing and forcing the allocation of fund to bail them out again? I find it hard to believe that the reckless financial trading that caused the 2008 crisis has stopped.
I have heard a theory of splitting the banks into independent investment and retail sections to reduce the problems caused by a large-scale failure, is this viable or a naive theory?
It is meant to be happening – but without nearly enough conviction and far too late
Vince Cable, when he was business secretary scuppered the division, he said that after reflection he did not think it was necessary or that it would provide the protection required. Complete U-Turn on his statement in 2010 but hey ho, we can all change our minds.
There used to be a bank regulation system that worked, between the Breton Woods agreement and the 1980s, so it can be done.
Thank you Richard, for providing additional evidence of what has been happening in the PLP. Thank you also for articulating what could be done and what should be done by effective opposition. I am sorely tempted to write none of the above on my ballot paper when it arrives, but am worried about not being positive. Who can provide the leadership though, when the alternatives support such lacklustre ideas……? These are worrying times indeed for principled, articulate opposition to Toryism.
I think Owen Smith the best option
But I will not be voting
Richard,
Are you seriously thinking Owen Smith?
“Smith was promoting straight privatisation. As Head of Policy and Government Relations for Pfizer, Owen Smith was also directly involved in Pfizer’s funding of Blairite right wing entryist group Progress. Pfizer gave Progress £53,000. Progress has actively pursued the agenda of PFI and privatisation of NHS services.”
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/07/entirely-fake-owen-smith/
Surely not.
Have you never changed your mind?
Never had to say you got something wrong?
Never done soemthing because your job depended on it?
If you say no I don’t believe you
Stop pretending only saints who have never done anything are good enough to be left wing politicians
People like Craig Murray make right wing trolls look almost sane so stupid are his comments
Can I ask why not?
I am sorry: the way I get comments to moderate does not easily let me see what you are commenting ion
Might you elaborate a little more?
Sorry, Richard, you’ve lost it there. Craig Murray is a fully paid up member of the Norfolk awkward squad and is exceptionally perceptive, intelligent and very sane. Even if you don’t agree with what he is saying on any given occasion I defy you give me one example of a comment of his which is “stupid”.
It’s stupid to think that a person employed in PR should be condemned for promoting their employer’s puff
It’s stupid to think there is a potential leader of any political party with an unblemished career
It’s stupid to think you need to be saint to be a socialist
It’s stupid to think you can’t change your mind
You want me to go on?
Do you think Owen Smith will include PQE in his economic policy?
Yes
Owen Smith is described as “Soft Left”, which along with his connections with Pfizer has resulted in him being branded, a vegetable, a Blairite, a Red Tory and probably more.
But if Corbyn’s Labour Party is to exclude all but the “Hard Left”, where does that leave his pledge to unite the current supporters, the millions who will need to vote for the party if it is to win the next election, but who wouldn’t consider themselves to be Hard Left in a million years? Is he going to tell them to clear off?
And by the way, On 14 September 2015, Corbyn made Owen Smith the new Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, a job which commentators say he has done rather well.
Richard,
Of course I have made mistakes and changed my mind.
However, certain positions should be indelible. And one is that the NHS should remain free at the point of need and provide equally good health care to everyone, regardless of their status.
Now, I understand that in our jobs we often end up doing things we find irksome or that we don’t agree with. When we can we leave those jobs.
I think for Owen Smith to win back credibility he will need to come out and be honest regarding the lobbying, its purpose, his involvement with Progress and his vision for the NHS.
Reading through the outline of Owen Smith’s statement of intent, it seems he is also heavily borrowing from your ideas Richard. Although, he seems to be channeling a young Blair from circa ’95 to deliver them.
How do we know he will not drift towards fiscally conservative policies, like Blair? Yesterday, Owen Smith said he believed Austerity was right, was that just a slip of the tongue?
It sounds like a slip – everything else he said made that clear
Owen Smith and Angela Eagle both said on the Marr Show they believe austerity is needed. So doesn’t sound like Mr. Smith has changed his mind at all. Pfizer also held the government at ransom for their new drug for life-saving cancer treatment for the past three years demanding sky-high prices for it the NHS could not afford, the NHS was forced to pay in Jan so they could get it. If Owen Smith is so left wing, where were his connections to Pfizer to help the NHS not have to bow down to these demands which will now open the door for higher price demands by pharmaceutical companies on all drugs?
Corbyn/McDonnell have been insanely busy with referendums and fighting off in party attacks, and doing it with very little help, the former shadow cabinet was incredibly hostile towards him; do you honestly think they had time to redo an entire economic platform, especially given they were the opposition party looking at having to oppose the Tories, he was only the leader for 9 months, how long did it take you to put your plans together?
Theresa May may talk like she wants to introduce something like PQE but do you actually believe her? This is a women who has already removed the Secretary for Energy and Climate Change position and put in a Climate Change denier as Environment Secretary, you honestly think she’ll be helpful in Green Industry investment??
Do you honestly not see, that despite clear personal differences, Corbyn is still the best and only bet at getting any of your ideas through?!
If you can reconcile austerity with £200 billion of investment I can’t
And he worked for a drugs company: deal with it
And to be honest – if I was to rely on Corbyn to get my ideas through I would be wasting my time
RM: “It’s stupid to think that a person employed in PR should be condemned for promoting their employer’s puff
It’s stupid to think there is a potential leader of any political party with an unblemished career
It’s stupid to think you need to be saint to be a socialist
It’s stupid to think you can’t change your mind”
Here’s Craig Murray’s peroration:
“I do not doubt Owen Smith’s expertise in brand positioning. I expect that there are indeed a large number of Labour Party members who might vote for a left wing alternative to Corbyn. But I also suspect that Smith has adopted the PR man’s typical contempt for the public, who are not as stupid as he seems to think. There is no evidence whatsoever that Smith is a left winger. There is every evidence that he is another New Labour unprincipled and immoral careerist, adopting a left wing pose that he thinks will win him votes.”
There is more rejoicing in the kingdom of Heaven when one sinner repents, etc… I don’t think anyone in this argument is disputing that. You think Owen Smith’s conversion is genuine. Craig Murray thinks it may be fraudulent. I agree with Craig – I don’t trust him and I won’t be voting for him.
That’s your choice
That’s democracy
I have no idea who this Craig Murray is
re craig murrays comments on owen smiths previous…imagine richard if you were to stand as tory party leader promising tax cuts for the top earners-would it be reasonable to be sceptical?
No, because it is obvious I have had ample chance to express my own opinion
He expressed his employer’s
And that’s different
I agree with everything Richard has said, including the bit about the Left not having a worked out alternative strategy. This is a problem with the the Left in general, much as I like their analysis of the status quo. But still JC gets my vote because he is the winner in a one horse race. Who else in Parliament thinks there is a problem with the status quo? If there is we haven’t heard from them all these years. Owen Smith looks too tied to various money interests to really do anything.
So you’ll vote to lose and perpetuate chaos?
I agree with you Richard on Corbyn. You need substantial tax receipts to implement a socialist vision like his, and that needs a thriving market, for which he offers no proposals. His millstone is Marx. (His shadow chancellor’s is Mao.)
No, you don’t. It’s a pure political choice to run society with mass unemployment, unless you believe such nonsense-that-dare-not-be spoke-in-public as the NAIRU theory, the so called natural rate of unemployment for stable inflation, which OECD use a couple of yrs ago to arrive at 23% ‘natural’ unemployment for Spain.
Mass unemployment represents a massive waste in forgone production of goods and service, but, naturally, it is not the top end of town that misses out. Ordinary citizens pay for exclusively for this waste to dwarf all other wastes.
Keynes said look after employment, and the rest takes care of itself. Absolutely true today.
Oh, and by the way, there is NO ‘deficit’ or Gov ‘debt’ problem whatsoever for the UK. Nor can there ever be. It is issuer, free gratis, of its own sovereign, fiat, free floating currency and need ‘borrow’ from no one to net spend, EVER. FACTS, end of discussion.
Further, if it chooses to make a a gift to the Finance sector of a Deposit account facility in the form of Gov Bonds (the misnamed ‘debt’), the Gov chooses what interest to pay, if any at all, NOT ‘MARKETS’.
To suggest UK’s monetary system need operate any other way is pure intellectual fraud. Full stop.
Yes, of course, progressive taxation policy will still be needed for when output reaches near full capacity and inflation threatens.
But finesse-ing that is a far better ‘problem’ to have than chucking away 10 to 15% of UK’s productive capacity every year in deliberate unemployment.
Mainstream macro economics – still the biggest pile of frauds and scammers the world has ever seen. So far up the anus of vested interests I now hear they are doing dental work too.
You’re saying what I always thought. I take it that generally speaking, this ‘debt’ is the almost arbitrary value of unredeemed gilt-edged bonds. Or the Queen’s mortgage, perhaps.
“Oh, and by the way, there is NO ‘deficit’ or Gov ‘debt’ problem whatsoever for the UK. Nor can there ever be. It is issuer, free gratis, of its own sovereign, fiat, free floating currency and need ‘borrow’ from no one to net spend, EVER. FACTS, end of discussion.”
What a blindingiy obvious solution. If you owe someone money, just make more of it. Easy and entirely painless. Why has no leading economist ever thought of this?
Read modern monetary theory
Despite my earlier comments I confess I am beginning to consider Owen Smith as a real alternative, despite the various reports of him behaving like a jerk at times. Much of what he is saying now seems good both tactically and in substance, and his voting record at theyworkforyou is decent (and helps lay to rest some of the “secretly wants to privatise the NHS” worries). I wish he were not for renewing Trident, but I can perhaps forgive it as a necessary tactic to please the unions.
It is very helpful to read what you have to say about your direct experience with the Corbyn team/administration. It sounds like they would have been wise to hire someone highly competent in organisation and administration, like a good chief of staff, and listen to that person on how to coordinate day to day, completely independent of policy.
I recently asked Richard what advice Jeremy Corbyn didn’t follow and this blog seems to answer my question.Your suggestions about hiring someone who is good at organising and administration and is independent of policy makes sense.As you say Owen Smith if he follows through on his plan to spend £200 billion on infrastructure can be forgiven for supporting Trident.Personally I believe you can’t scrap the nuclear deterrent over night but must do it gradually which can be done by arming our hunter killer subs with nukes.At the moment these subs carry cruise missiles,in the past when LD suggested this it was dismissed because it didn’t meet the cold war doctrine of first strike.It is 25 years since the cold war ended and now is the time for new thinking which says it’s time for descalation and not maintain the status quo.I believe you could build four more hunter killer subs to gain support from the union’s which would be far cheaper than Trident.
The fact that you propose constructing our defence policy simply to meet the demands of trade unions shows that you’re not thinking seriously about it.
Personally I remain opposed to Trident
This article seems to come from an entirely different world to the one I inhabit where vision and policies are present.
As for Owen Smith and Angela Eagle we are tired of politicians who speak fine words and do something different, Cameron did that and now so is May. We are also tired of the world where you can vote for a government, but whatever you vote you will end up with essentially the same thing.
That is why I will be voting for Corbyn, that is why I am now in the Labour Party since he became leader, because of his vision and because of his policies.
Will it be easy, no. To succeed the Labour Party machinery and the PLP are going to have to undergo a democratic and fundamental transformation.
For information I have never been involved in politics before, I am not communist, Marxist or any other ist. I am tired of this country and this world where people are left to starve, die of despair or drown trying to reach safety. Where we care only for ourselves and no one else. Enough already, it does not have to be like this.
I am tired with all those things too
That’s why IU do I what I have for many years
It’s why I fight for tax and economic justice
It’s why I wrote that Jeremy can’t deliver what I believe
I promise you it would have been much easier not to do so
I don’t want to upset you but recently Jeremy Corbyn announced he would agree to Trident being built as long as it wasn’t armed with nukes.Is not this meeting the demands of the trade unions while meeting his own views of scrapping Britain’s nuclear deterrent.Personally I believe it’s Jeremy Corbyn who isn’t being serious about nuclear disarmament,he knows the British public won’t scrap its nuclear deterrent overnight preferring a gradual approach.I like you want to see a world free of nuclear weapons but I know only a gradual approach can succeed, it’s the approach both super powers have taken.What is now needed is de-escalation by arming our hunter killer subs with nukes,which is not a first strike weapon like Trident is.If Labour doesn’t have a credible policy on nuclear weapons we will all end up with Trident costing us billions and if Jeremy Corbyn does get his way what happens when Labour loses power and the Tories buy nukes to arm the subs with.
Has to be said, Theresa May has showed she has guts, time will tell, I am jimpressed with what I see so far, liked Owen Smith very much today at his launch, passion, intent, again , time will tell, words are the easy part. The team they have, so important.
The doldrums are where Labour will stay if the leader does not change. Hope Mr Smith is up there with a chance, but being a chess champion shows skill and a cool head. It is all volatile and the Tories have cobbled their act together quickly,
Jos Bell, agree, spread the word. More power to your elbow Richard Murphy.
Interesting.
Had Corbyn not taken Peoples QE on board, would May? And will she deliver it, or will it go to fund something else?
Corbyn McDonnell forced to accept in theory Tory idea to balance books but doubt if he would ever have sought to achieve it. Need to placate MSM & PLP was teh driver IMO.
Money can always be raised to fund what Labour has in mind, and yes, rich and corporations will need to fund more, not a bad thing. Looking at economic policy from late 1970s, we need Corbyn to reverse the neoliberal agenda and secure a more equal society.
That logic just does not flow
Of course it’s always worth remembering what the Corbyn/Mcdonnell economic vision was, before it got sabotaged by almost every other member of the PLP and those in the dark shadows of the Labour grandees.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2015/sep/28/john-mcdonnell-labour-conference-speech-analysis
I was disappointed not to see the most important economic reforms in your suggested alternatives Richard. Changing the balance of ownership of the means of production and financial surplus is still the real issue to me.
“We will promote modern alternative public, co-operative, worker controlled and genuinely mutual forms of ownership.”
They distorted it all by themselves
Your comment bears no relationship to the post by KF. What was distorted?
Who is KF?
I’m assuming KF is me and Bill Marsh is referring to your comment that “They distorted it all by themselves”.
Which I’m assuming means that you think Corbyn and Mcdonnell went out of their way to change direction/distort their own vision for reasons all of their own?
As if they were not facing huge political and media pressure from the get go (from their own PLP and supposedly supportive elements of the left wing MSM) to soften their stance on “printing money” and “balancing the budget” amongst many other things (e.g Trident) in order to “stand up to the Tories” and not appear “Trots”.
Come on Richard – surely even you do not believe that?
At one point you were suggesting the art of leadership was compromise and meeting others views in order to “lead the party effectively”. Are you now implying they just failed to stick to their preferred direction/vision because they distorted it themselves in order to bring the party into disarray?
I was staggered how easily John McDonnell was not knocked off course
I presumed there was conduction that would deliver a policy fight if need be
There was none
I was amazed
I agree with you Keith regarding the policy regarding co-operatives and mutuals.
Richard, I seem to remember that Labour’s Fiscal Charter was backed by Simon Wren-Lewis of Oxford University plus others among his economic advisory panel.
Regarding your suggested narrative around health and the inappropriateness of markets, I share your impatience that this issue is never discussed in a rational, detailed way by any of the progressive politicians (including Corbyn as yet). The truth is that New labour bought into the marketisation logic in an array of other policy areas e.g. PFI, academies, contracting-out (Corbyn’s opposition was ofcourse pivotal in his being elected leader) and a great number of current labour MP’s are not able to eat the amount of humble pie required or were not prepared to ingest one morsel!!!
Regarding your suggestion that shadow ministers have lacked direction, Paul Mason has recently suggeste that the problem has been more to do with a lack of either willingness, or competence, to develop the policies required. Perhaps the truth lays somewhere in between?
Direction comes from the top
There was none
I agree that direction comes from the top, and as far as I can see there was and still is a clear direction of travel from Corbyn (and Mcdonnell). There is enough evidence to me that there are just too few MP’s in the PLP who share the same sense of direction to have ever allowed Corbyn to form a strong shadow cabinet or get the support of a majority of MP’s.
That is no surprise after 15 years of socialist cleansing of a party that supposedly stands for democratic socialism and support of those at the bottom of the social/economic order.
And so it seems the old proverb is still right in the case of the PLP that “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”. In this case the horse is interested in drinking from a different well altogether in my opinion.
So what I am really looking forward to is the new policy direction that will form the basis of the contenders campaigns. So far all I know for sure is that:
Eagle is against Corbyn
Smith is for Trident
I’m waiting for all the gaps to be filled on what they actually propose as policies that will unite the party, but I fear I may be waiting a long time. Meanwhile I know what Corbyn stands for, so they’ve got a lot of catching up to do, unless they are going to be yet another pair of Labour leadership candidates who actually stand for nothing (as long as they think they can get in power).
What’s the policy then?
How come no one seems to know?
Even John McD’s speech this morning was nothing new
https://web.archive.org/web/20151212101852/https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/jeremyforlabour/pages/70/attachments/original/1437556345/TheEconomyIn2020_JeremyCorbyn-220715.pdf
Thank you
So called progressive left wingers like Corbyn and McDonnell still don’t seem to get that a super-rich elite use the Neo-Liberal ideologogical idea that there’s no such thing as public money creation as a weapon to bash the working class with. Peter Cooper explains this very well in his recent article:-
http://heteconomist.com/neoliberalism-the-attempt-to-subsume-society-into-the-market/comment-page-1/#comment-612484
I feel you’re too hard on John McDonnell here, Richard. He made some mistakes early on in his tenure as Shadow Chancellor – backing Osborne’s fiscal charter was one, the stunt with Mao’s “Little Red Book” at the Autumn statement was another – but it seems to me he has been working hard on developing a radical economic agenda, despite the lack of direction from Jeremy Corbyn. The series of New Economics Lectures which were organised, and the big conference in London back in May, were symptomatic of this. Certainly he’s produced vastly more in terms of ideas than either Ed Balls or Gordon Brown managed to do, 10 months into taking the shadow chancellor brief. Still a long way to go but I would like to see McDonnell kept on as shadow chancellor whoever wins the leadership election.
I thought that way
Increasingly I am unsure
I simply can’t see the message getting through
Nor did the economuc advisers, I think
For once we disagree Howard. It’s a rare day
I would agree with Howard, Richard. Might be worth examining what is motivating you to come down so hard on them. Turning the Labour ship around was never going to be a quick job especially when there were clearly a significant number aggressive opposed to both Corbyn and McDonnel. There is even evidence that the Party Machinery (never mind the PLP) was working against them with several leaks to the Tories, including Corbyn’s plans for PMQ’s and a list of PLP members grading according to degree of support which Cameron was able to mockingly wave around.
Smith seems to be spending most of his time re-affirming Trident despite a senior military man, Sir Patrick Cordingley, making it clear that Trident was a useless status symbol to keep the Americans happy.
The recognition that Labour is failing to function as an opposition and that it is the leadership’s fault is motivating my analysis
Democracy depends in there being an opposition and Jeremy Corbyn is not providing one
That leaves me deeply concerned at many levels and with a belief that urgent change is needed
Richard,
the ‘failing to function as an opposition’ could have been applied at ANY TIME during the last six years’ the idea that this failure has just arisen is risible. A crisis has emerged but I am not sympathetic to your view that its locus is ONE place.
The PLP has done a lot to undermine the leadership , there have been significant document leaks from the Party organisational team including Corbyn’s notes from PMQ’a and other documents.
We discussed on this blog how ‘ hopeless Labour has been in opposition over the last six years’ – now there is a crisis. So far I haven’t come across a scintilla of evidence that either Smith or Eagle are able to put forward another economic narrative-I have read and heard nothing to indicate that.
Then we disagree
But such is life between friends
I’ve always enjoyed reading your incisive articles. But regarding Corbyn don’t you think the fact he has been under seige from all sides of the media and from coup plotters in his own party since he was elected has made it extremely difficult to for him to develop a coherent economic alternative to neo-liberalism.
You mean he didn’t have that alternative before he stood? At his age?
Come on. Be credible
If he had not got it then with the mandate he had at that moment he never would have it ever again, as has proved to be the case
Why support a man who can’t deliver?
What’s non-delivered about this (reported by the BBC ,21st march !!!):
“Addressing activists, he called for a “mixed economy of public and social enterprise… a private sector with a long-term private business commitment”.
He said a Labour government would break from the “failed economic orthodoxy”.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said Labour would build 100,000 council homes a year and boost home ownership.”
“At Labour’s “state of the economy” conference in west London, Mr Corbyn set out his desire to reform capitalism and said his party needed to “deliver the new economy that this country needs”.
“An economy that starts by tackling the grotesque levels of inequality within our society,” went on Mr Corbyn.
“An economy that ensures every young person has the opportunities to maximise their talent and that produces the high-skilled, high-value, secure jobs they need. An economy that delivers new, more democratic forms of ownership and a zero-carbon economy that protects our environment.”
“Mr Corbyn said a proposed National Investment Bank would boost the UK’s infrastructure.
“Building an economy for the future requires bold ambition, he said. “A new economics.”
He said: “Wealth creation is a good thing: We all want greater prosperity. But let us have a serious debate about how wealth is created and how that wealth should be shared.”
” “I want us to surpass even the Attlee government for radical reform,” the shadow chancellor said, a reference to the administration that founded the NHS.”
“”We can reject the dreadful choice of austerity and maintain solid government finances,”
“Councils would be given the power to limit “skyrocketing” rent increases, he added, pledging to help people “at the mercy of an unforgiving, unrestrained housing market”.
“Mr Corbyn said government intervention was needed to solve the housing crisis.”
Needs some fleshing out but I’d suggest that these are the words of ‘non-delivery’ is a rather peremptory statement.
But none of that was translated into anything that could be used by any shadow cabinet team member
You are certain he could not have delivered more had he not had such virulent opposition from the PLP “grandees”? He hasn’t suffered distractions, he’s suffered outright hostility and deliberate sabotage from those who could have helped. To attack an enemy while having to walk backwards towards them, to keep an eye on your own troops, is nigh on impossible.
He was party leader
What more authority did he need?
It seems you don’t fully grasp how media bias works. Perhaps you should put the tax books down for a while and read some Noam Chomsky for a bit.
In the 9 months Corbyn was leader, I can count on one hand the number of MPs who went on TV who actually helped support him. It was shameful, even those in his Shadow Cabinet, like Seema, were utterly useless. They were not supportive and seemed to know nothing about what they were talking about. It sounds from above that you blame that on Corbyn as well but why? It sounded to me like none of them had taken the time to read through any of his policies or try to understand them for themselves,even if you’re the greatest leader ever to have lived, you still can’t force people to do that, it has to be done on their own.
So, back to media bias, when you put on people from the Shadow Cabinet who clearly have not read even his leadership manifesto and have little to no interest in his policies, that sends a message to viewers. When you more often then not put on people against Corbyn who claim not to be but then continue to undermine him in the conversation, that again sends a message to viewers. Then there’s the reporters asking questions to any truly pro-Corbyn persons in a very patronizing and demeaning way, subtle raised eyebrows, subtle tone of voice, and cutting them off before they get to their point has been a long used tactic. How is anyone supposed to be able to fully function as a party leader when they have to deal with on a daily basis?
I did not know Seema before she was appointed to the shadow cabinet
And I will tell you now she tried very hard – and I helped – and thought she was competent and good at her role
She knew what Jeremy had said
She came in knowing that
But I will also tell you from the outset that the Corbyn team did not trust her and so left her in the dark
She had not a hope
I know where I put the blame
Of course I accept and know all about media bias – you may have noticed my own frustrations with it over the years
So why not stop accusing me of all sorts of things and realise that I have not changed one iota: all I am saying is that Jeremy Corbyn, nice guy that he is, has not got a hope of delivering policy in the UK, ever
And if you really ant change you’d realise that
Thank you Richard – that supports my suspicions.
A sense that Corbyn’s team have a long list of what they are against but little sense of what they are for. Easy, broad generalisations on how they would spend money but little sense of how wealth would be generated (and shared). A belief perhaps that the private sector is intrinsically undesirable, and that a Clause 4 or East German economy is their instinctive, if unspoken model.
More positively, as you’ve shown, an alternative vision is not impossible to put together, along with the policies to implement it. The economic team that had been assembled was more than capable. So what might be done to get on and develop that vision and policies. Why do we have to wait for political leadership. Permission is not needed. If the future is about alliances and coalitions, it might be easier to bring people together around a core vision and set of policies that have already been developed. Indeed that might be a lot more effective than waiting for the current set of politicians to get their act together
Richard,
Where is the solid evidence that the Tories plan to implement PQE? All I’ve heard are the much touted ‘project bonds.’ There is zero evidence that the Tories are really planning this-zero.
If you can find any evidence of a Tory Minister talking about PQE clearly even while avoiding the term, I’d be interested to see it. May simply referred to ‘project bonds’ which are an entirely different entity as far as I can see.
My thought is that these ‘project bonds’ (about which most people seem to know diddley squat) will be another form of rentier wealth syphoning rather than ‘money printing.’
They’ve renamed it
That’s what happened
And Carney is talking about new QE programmes
Add the two together
Come off it Richard,
They’ve’ renamed it ‘project bonds’ something that is a completely different beast?
Nor have I come across Carney talking about anything that unambiguously relates to something that might even be a near relative of PQE.
Project Bonds are a private investor initiative it seems to me.
Too many unwarranted conclusions being jumped to here, I would have thought.
The ONLY people to have unambiguously talked about PQE are Corbyn and McDonell.
If you have any links that show that it is a simple renaming of PQE and the mechanisms are the same I’d be really interested to see. I can’t find any so far but you are directly connected to Westminster so will have access to things I don’t.
Many people disagree with you Simon
Hi Richard, thank you for your insight, it is very interesting and I have a lot of respect and time for your views and opinions. I agree that there are a lot of things corbyn and mcdonnell could have done better and that mcdonnell agreeing with Osborne’s fiscal charter was deeply worrying, especially from a tactical point of view. It is also worrying that you say that they do not seem to be listening to advise from their team of advisors. This seems strange as they have brought together a very exciting and interesting group of economic experts. However I still 100% will be voting for corbyn again and I’m quite frankly amazed that you will not be. This is because the alternative are quite frankly diabolical. How anyone could envisage Angela Eagle winning anything is bizzare. You say you are thinking about Owen Smith but he has supported PFI!? How could he possibly be any better than corbyn? A small article about him here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/07/entirely-fake-owen-smith/
I agree that people can change but I have not seen anything about this man to suggest that is at all likely. You only have to listen to Theresa mays speech in comparison to her voting record to see how easy it is to make up a load of lies to try and trick people into supporting you. Compare that to corbyn who has spent his entire political career consistently fighting for just causes. What have you seen from Owen smiths record that makes you think he would be better? I have seen nothing!
Surely the fact corbyn took on so many of your ideas at the start shows that this is what he really believes in and wants to deliver. I agree be needs to stick to his convictions more but he has been under huge pressure from a mostly very right wing plp and he was trying to bring everyone on board. I hope (and believe) that after a second win with another large mandate that he will see he needs to go down a different route this time, with reselection of opposing mps and a less watered down, more radical economic policy. Let us not forget he is less than 1 year into his leadership. I would be very interested in hearing why you think rolling the dice that a blairite politician with a record of being pro privatisation is a more sensible option for us to vote for?
To me, voting for him would seem reckless and irresponsible.
I will not be voting. I am not a member of the Labour Party. I think I could ask for an affiliate vote. I won’t be
See my comments elsewhere on Craig Murray
Not in a million years do I see Owen Smithnas a Blairite and it’s just lazy to say he is
His plan does not seem to embrace PFI
But let’s focus on Corbyn: I have explained there appears to be no policy and no plan there and nor could his economic advisers find one. Are they all now Blairite? Or did they realise that this is someone who will never deliver? I think the latter. A life time in opposition has not trained him to create policy
Richard, you say in your reply to Simon “But none of that was translated into anything that could be used by any shadow cabinet team member”. The leadership has quite clearly set out a strategic direction, as evidenced by a number of commenters here. It isn’t unreasonable to expect that shadow cabinet members then have the responsibility of leading, or at the very least contributing to, the development of policies specific to their brief. Perhaps there would have been more likelihood of this happening had the so many of the “heavy hitters” not petulantly refused to serve in a Corbyn cabinet
What is that direction?
Where is it?
Well, that’s a fair picture of the Labour opposition.
Whether it’s because Corbyn is innately disorganised, or because the Press Office and all his former front-benchers are ‘on strike’ – or worse, actively opposing him by rendering the Party’s opposition ineffective is…
…Well, it’s moot, isn’t it? Labour are in Parliament, but not in opposition.
Not, at any rate, in opposition to Austerity: I am certain that most Labour MP’s have muted their revulsion at austerity in the belief that this is electorally advantageous; but I fear that all too many of them wholeheartedly support austerity and all that we consider worst in the neoliberal consensus.
I hardly need point out that Corbyn’s rivals for the leadership include the minister who brought in ATOS and the Work Capability Assessment to strip disabled people of their benefits, and the minister who signed off on the Hinchingbrooke Hospital privatisation; and you will struggle to name any former Labour minister who has neither signed off on a PFI nor retired to a lucrative non-executive position with a private sector ‘partner’.
I doubt that any front-runner in a leadership contest today would stand out as anything other than an ambitious careerist who’ll say anything that plays well to a wavering Conservative suburbanite – neoliberal propaganda about ‘scroungers’, racism wrapped in carefully-worded concerns on ‘Immigration’, nothing about housing and equivocation about the NHS.
Where’s the vision in that?
And that is the state of Parliamentary opposition to the Neoliberal agenda today.
The Scottish Nats have a genuinely centrist agenda of their own, for Scotland: but their Westminster agenda is for independence, for Scotland, and to mitigate the worst effects of London neoliberals, in Scotland.
The Lib Dems are best dismissed: they exist only to make breakable promises in exchange for ministerial positions in a coalition.
And we have Theresa May, who makes surprisingly progressive noises about economic policy, leading a hard-right cabinet that she herself appointed, elected by a party that wholeheartedly supported her predecessor and his chancellor’s austerity.
You do well to remain a campaigner for a cause, rather than attach yourself to any politician or political party.
I am campaigning for a cause
Democracy
And a particular economic view
That is anti-austerity and neoliberalism but very much pro other things
And as an observer on how those ideas have been used it is wise to comment: political economy and the real world overlap heavily
This sanitised view that one should stay pure, in politics and elsewhere is absurd. That way we would have the world run by people without an ideal observed by purists with a view who would never achieve anything
The reality us change only happens because people take the risk if making mistakes
If you want someone in charge who has never made a mistake choose a newborn
Otherwise accept that anyone will be flawed and maybe the better for having learned from it
“I am campaigning for a cause
Democracy”
But not in the Labour party.
Labour is meant to be a parliamentary party
Not a cause in itself
It would be wise for many to remind themselves of this
Democracy, when you won’t accept the referendum result.
What does that mean?
Would you advocate a second referendum on the EU as Owen Smith implies he would, if so I see this as an affront to democracy.
The very essence of democracy is that minds can be changed
R,this feels v.harsh on Corbyn +McDonnell particularly.The latter appeared to have performed rather well in his GLC economics role,no? I think if you had Mandy,Progress and lots of career threatened MPs on your back your economics writing might prove more challenging.
The supposedly more slick regimes of Balls/Brown/Blair came up with some pretty duff financial ideas in volume Eg PFI,emasculating HMRC,giving a serious chunk of national resources to knackered banks,spending a tonne of cash on wars!
Whatever nieveity they might have Eg Employment Tribunal Fees is small beer balanced against their clear recognition of dealing with 40 yrs of Neo-Liberalism
The GLC was Thierry years ago
And it’s nonsense to talk about Mandy et al. If their mandate has meant anything and if they had read Machievelli they should have used it. They did not. They did instead dither and fail to communicate a plan
And tgat’shat’s nit vision, leadership or what an opposition needs to be
Richard you write as if there were no political constraints. For example on health policy, I totally agree with you. But the block to such a pro-public NHS policy was Heidi Alexander. She surrounded herself with the same old advisors and wouldn’t engage with the NHS campaigners (who include policy experts and academics). Personally I think she should never had been shadow health secretary but she was, so that was a constraint on what Corbyn could achieve. It’s a bit baffling that you now seem to be getting behind Owen Smith, given that one of the big players in his campaign team is Heidi Alexander. I think that shows an extreme level of political naivety.
I do not agree with Heidi Alexander’s approach
But I will never agree with all the policy of any government – even if I led it, and of course I never will
Yours is the naivety: compromise will always happen. That is not one I would tolerate but my experience of running anything is that dreams are just for dreamers: in the real world compromise happens
I’m not interested in dreaming Ali e
Real people need policies that will deliver real change in this country
Richard-I should remind you here that the Labour Party has had no policies for six bloody years! Yet you talk about this as if it were a new phenomenon!
The irony is that Corbyn and McDonell did come up with the goods, but other shadow Ministers were not picking them up -and given the things I have already posted on I seriously doubt the issue is as simplistic as you put it:
Corbyn/McDonell/Milne: incompetent versus Rest of PLP willing to serve if only the top people did their job properly.
Too simplistic by far.
Richard your position is that Corbyn failed because he wasn’t sufficiently radical. And your solution is to reject him and get behind someone who is less radical. That is more than naivety, it is absurd. You complain that he compromised too much on policy, and you justify your rejection of him on the grounds that compromise is necessary. You are all over the place.
Owen Smith, though he may be a “nice guy with good politics,” will not have the slightest possibility of introducing the kind of policies you stand for on health and the economy. His power will derive from the PLP which will not permit it. It’s an iron law of Labour politics: the soft left, when not in alliance with the left, becomes a pawn of the right because it has no powerbase of its own, it will not mobilise social forces and so has no counterveiling force from the left to buttress it. Last time that pattern played out with Kinnock the eventual result was New Labour.
I have never said I will agree with Owen Smith in everything. I am sure I will not
But I want a chance
And candidly I think there is much you more chance with ano9ther leader of Labour than with one who has no hope
I happen to think Owne Smith the best offered but he is not my man or I his
I just make the point he could do much more than Jeremy now can, however pure his policies
“Richard Murphy says:
Have you never changed your mind?”
And yet you seemed to think what David Davis said in 1996 was worthy of a whole snide blog.
It seems that if you support someone you think them changing their mind is worthy but if you don’t support them you think them changing their mind is to be criticised.
Asking why a person changes their mind us the key issue
So if ciyrse knowing they have is important, as with Davis
Then you begin to understand the person
Hi Richard, I agree with your article but I’m surprised you didn’t see this during the leadership election (or perhaps you did)? His financial illiteracy showed heavily during the hustings. As you admit he misrepresented your position on the tax gap as well as PQE. He could not answer questions posed on PQE by Yvette or by journalists. All this just made him look incompetent. If you’re going to present new economic policy, especially as a Labour Party (who is not trusted on the economy to begin with), then it’s extremely important that you understand the ideas you’re talking about.
He reminds me of Natalie Bennet in a way. She also has huge issues with financial competency and there are numerous examples of car crash interviews from her on these topics.
I talked my policy, nit Corbyn, during that campaign
I did not vote
I am not a member of the Labour Party
He used my ideas without asking me if and how he could
Given no one else was doing anything g remotely sensible of course I thought he was the best candidate
I did not then work for his team as many expected. I could not see that working in any way
Ah fair enough, I didn’t realise he didn’t talk to you during the campaign about this. I actually got the impression back then you worked for him during the campaign, it certainly seemed that way anyway.
I did not work for him
Actually, rather bizarrely and tellingly I kept emailing his team last August saying there was too much focus on me, would they like to offer me any steer on whether what was being said was ok and could they make this their campaign
I was just told to carry on if I ever got a reply
‘Working with’ was a massive overstatement. There was no direction at all.
I left a comment on the thread below this Guardian editorial – “The Guardian view on the Labour leadership: parliament matters most” – linking to this post and quoting from it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/17/the-guardian-view-on-the-labour-leadership-parliament-matters-most
It suffered from the moderator’s axe.
I was interested to read your comments on the failure of Corbyn’s team to develop effective policies and the weakness that this reflects.
I think it pertinent that the PLP dominated the backbench committee elections last November.
“Among the 17 committee chairs, no fewer than 10 supported Liz Kendall’s leadership campaign” and that this was seen as an attempt to develop rival policies to those proposed by Corbyn’s team. Would Owen Smith, if elected, be capable of delivering the agenda he launched with against such entrenched resistance?
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/05/labour-moderates-flex-muscles-capturing-key-backbench-offices
I think that, not being a politician, you have underestimated the huge political obstacles that were put in Corbyn’s way from the beginning. He has been up against, first, a cabal that was determined never to accept a leader who so profoundly rejects neo-liberalism and austerity. Undermined by that group of experienced infighters, of course he was unable to get on his feet and be effective in Parliament, where he had to do it all largely on his own, with no real backing from a shadow cabinet appointed by him in an effort, perhaps naive, to be inclusive. Political pressure on that cabinet and the rest of the PLP made the gibes of incompetence and unelectability seem self-fulfilling. Lately, it seems to me he is getting it together more successfully. I would point to the Andrew Marr interview a couple of weeks ago, and the Sunday Politics interview this last weekend. Perhaps now his illusions about inclusiveness have fallen away. When you’re continually being punched in the head, it must be hard to maintain a consistency. But I think he’s getting through it with an amazing degree of integrity. I think, too, you may be falling for the rhetoric of Corbyn’s opponents.
If he could not deliver as leader then what role might he deliver in?
And are you implicitly saying sack the MPs?
And how will that work for the next four years? Any suggestions?
Let me know the plan
I would suggest that the MPs come to their senses and get behind the leader. And where there are process problems, fix them.
We are being asked to take on faith that the leadership is incompetent to lead. I’d like to see a lot more detail on that, and thought about how the problems can be addressed without any nuclear options, be they change of leader, mass deselections or closures of CLPs. (All of which are very mush real threats right now.)
If the leader does not believe in the PLP – and maybe never has – that’s a big ask
Maybe there is no solution here
But sure as heck the country will pay for it – not least because those MPs are going to be in the House for 4 more years and Labour is going to be shambolic unless there is a leader they can work with
Right. Any leader has to work within the structural constraints that exist, even if those constraints are unfair. Even granting everything David Richardson says about the PLP, all that he’s demonstrated is that Corbyn has failed. His *job* after the leadership election was, among other things, to bring the PLP on board. That was never going to be easy. And what he’s managed to do is not merely fail to win over those who refused to support him from the beginning, but also to alienate the ones who (at least to some extent) were willing to give him a chance. Where does that go from here? How on earth does Corbyn fight a general election when the vast majority of his own parliamentary party refuses to support him?
Richard,
For a shadow cabinet to work it needs a mimimum level of organisational loyalty and staff who are prepared to work constructively. What Corbyn and McDonnell have inherited is the British equivalent of the PASOK parliamentary group + hangers on. It’s not the job of a leader of the Opposition or a Shadow Chancellor to work out the implementation of policy. For most of the last 10 months McDonnell has had to rely on people who don’t think he should be there.
But they have been given no clue what to do
“But they have been given no clue what to do”
You state this as fact. How can you possibly know this? You’ve said quite clearly that you aren’t a member of the Labour Party or involved in the Shadow Cabinet’s work, other than with some openly anti-Corbyn members. I’m afraid hearsay doesn’t count as factual.
Leadership does not have to be top down and even if it is there has to be a two-way process. You can’t lead those who refuse to follow. Many of the PLP had far more experience of front bench workings and could have helped but instead have stood back, presumably in an effort to see Corbyn and McDonnell fall on their faces – when has every little gaff been leaked to the media under previous leaders?
I’m sure both Corbyn and McDonnell have made mistakes – they won’t be the first or the last. Their biggest mistake was to try to include openly hostile PLP members in the Shadow Cabinet. Yet despite that and the shocking lack of media coverage (not to mention the deliberate manipulation of by the same) they have managed to score many successes, win elections and draw hundreds of thousands to the Labour Party and the current, albeit depleted Shadow Cabinet, seems to be working together much better with no hint of the accusations of lack of leadership.
I last met with John and Jeremy in May
As for the rest: how do you suggest an opposition runs without shadow ministers? We are now in the farcical position. How does that work? Who holds the government to account in that case?
And the dire media is largely down to Labour not saying anything to the media
Others who were on the inside of Labour’s shadow cabinet have also shed light on the competence or otherwise of the leadership over the last 9-10 months.
These are selective, but they do not reveal a lack of willingness, enthusiasm, hard work, or anything else that I can see. What they tend to confirm is what has been amply described and discussed here.
https://www.facebook.com/thangam.debbonaire/posts/10157204442320083
http://www.liliangreenwood.co.uk/lilian_s_speech_to_nottingham_south_labour_party_members
Richard Murphy: “the dire media is largely down to Labour not saying anything to the media”
– astounding ignorance about the media: Media output about Corbyn is dire because the media is intrinsically dire. It makes no difference what, or how much, Corbyn says to the media: it will still be dire.
Take institutional racism as an analogy: it would be nonsense to say that the police are institutionally racist because black people make no effort to get on well with them. Racism exists independently of what black people do/don’t do.
You sound like you’re suffering a bit of Stockholm Syndrome: you yourself have been pilloried by mainstream media so, now, rather than siding with another victim of that institutional bias, you prefer instead to side with the bully.
I think I have a very clear understanding that if your ideas are not presented to the media in a way they can use they have no hope of getting in
That’s why people employ press teams
And Labour’s has not worked, very obviously
Stop making excuses for incompetence
Richard Murphy: “I think I have a very clear understanding that if your ideas are not presented to the media in a way they can use they have no hope of getting in”
You must believe, then, that you yourself are incompetent in media interviews, because, when attempting to explain your ideas, you have been made to look very foolish indeed (e.g. on the BBC).
That’s the difference between us: I don’t believe you were incompetent; I believe that you were naive to think the BBC would give you a fair opportunity to put your ideas across persuasively. You didn’t understand that you were there to be undermined/mocked.
It seems you’re oblivious of the considerable literature (Greg Philo, Noam Chomsky, … ) on how the media works to marginalise (e.g. by ridicule) ideas that challenge the establishment and the status quo.
As I’ve remarked elsewhere: it seems that all you understand is economics; you apparently have no appreciation of politics and media.
I am well aware of the literature
I am also well aware that many think I am a very competent media interviewee
But I know some disagree
I suspect you are not in an way interested in facts but only abuse
That you did not answer my questions is indicative of that
Please don’t bother to reply
I think there is ONE thing we CAN unite around:
‘He added that May’s pledge in Downing Street last week to govern on behalf of struggling working-class families was the direct result of his taking over at the top of Labour. “That wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t won the leadership last year. That debate simply would not be taking place. The whole economic debate has moved very much towards the left because of the work of those that supported our leadership campaign last year,” he said.’
Simon
You’re getting boring
Richard
John Woolman would have approved speaking directly! I even bore myself at times.
Point taken -will lay of posting today.
No. It’s you who is boring Richard. Simon has made some really good points.
I did not deny it
My suggestion was he made them repeatedly on what happens to be my blog and where I can decide what to publish
Maybe you didn’t notice
Richard, Can’t you see what’s going on here? It’s all about power. Owen Smith wants to persuade Angela Eagle to drop out, so that the Blairites have to support him. Then he can say whatever he likes to cut into Corbyn’s base (expect a lot of “I agree with Jeremy”). Once Corbyn has been removed, the PLP can re-assert its authority over the members, most of whom will then leave but the PLP would prefer money from rich donors. Once the membership has been broken, any pledges Smith has made will be meaningless.
If you are so deeply cynical about Labour why are you so bothered about it?
And how do you think it will be managed for four years when all those you hate so much are Labour MPs in parliament?
I didn’t say I ‘hate’ Labour MPs. This point is important as those of us supporting Corbyn’s re-election are continually being slandered about this. Please do not repeat it.
We do have a fundamental problem in that the process for choosing the party leader is now far more democratic than that to challenge an MP’s near-automatic reselection. We also have an issue over the party’s top full-time staff, appointed before Corbyn’s election and, as recent events have shown, determined to remove him by whatever methods they can.
These problems underlie much of the difficulty Corbyn and McDonnell have had in developing policy. They have had to tack and turn to advance while trying to manage the risk of PLP rebellion. Progress has been made (compare the party’s stance on austerity today compared to a year ago) but it has been slow and often frustrating.
They have also had very little support. One of the points you list in your vision is on tax and benefits. Who should have been leading in developing policy on this? Owen Smith, as shadow Work and Pensions minister, but he hasn’t. The same is true for Angela Eagle on industry. Their own failures are now being used as justification for challenging Corbyn.
But if as party leader Jeremey could not take control of the party on the basis of the mandate he had last year he now never will
Read Machiavelli
He had one shot. It’s gone
Now move on
It’s not over yet.
As it happens, I have been rereading Machiavelli. The methods of a Renaissance prince are not available to leaders in a modern democracy and the practicalities of Parliamentary politics necessitated working with MPs who disagreed with Corbyn’s project. But we have been too accommodating in the interests of party unity.
Corbyn’s reluctance to press for mandatory reselection was an attempt to work with MPs but the reality is that many have no interest in whether the party wins or loses, as long as their own position is secure and they don’t have to account to members. The coup had been in preparation for a long time and Brexit gave the pretext.
But as we saw over the weekend, coups can fail. Corbyn is still there and we are fighting back.
/Thank you
I regret I do not have time respond to your comment although I’d like to
There have been too many to make that possible
My posting of it does not mean I agree with it
Thanks for you interesting post. What disappointed me about the Corbyn campaign was that solutions were presented as easy and cost free – need more tax: just squeeze corporate welfare and tax avoidance. I didn’t vote for Corbyn and am unsurprised at his evident failure to lead. The detail about the chaos of his office is also interesting but unsurprising.
What really interested me Richard was the revelation that you were not involved in the Corbyn campaign – I had discounted everything you have said since on the basis that you were part of what I saw as a fundamentally dishonest proposition, and I apologise! I think Corbyn is hopeless – unable to think beyond his stock platitudes and turn vague aspiration into policy that can appeal and is attractive to voters. What really worries me is whether traditional social democracy is dead and that, to misquote Liam Byrne, there really is no more money. Brexit will only exacerbate the problem. Your solutions are right, but they are quite long term. For example, infrastructure takes years to design and construct and so the economic benefits are long term. The productivity gap is a problem that is decades old. Blair tried to fix certain problems by the education mantra but there seems little sign of this yet working. And I also think public sector reform is an ongoing project from Labour Labour should not flinch: the recognition that public services exist for the benefit of the users not the employees.
Byrne was wrong and I find it hard to forgive him as he has not changed his mind
There is a part of Labour it could well do without
But not everyone who is not Corbyn is akin to Liam Byrne, who was wrong and always will be whilst he says the same stuff
There are no miracles
But change is possible
I think to be fair to Jeremy Corbyn, he and his supporters have been engaged in a life or death struggle with the L.P. establishment which is doing nits best to weed out and delete from membership any who they think, and often think wrongly, are J.C. supporters. One case I know well is of a friend who thought she had rejoined, found out by accident that here membership had been cancelled (without telling her). Why cancelled? Because several years ago, whilst not a member of any party, she signed a nomination paper of a Green Party candidate. Truly the L.P. establishment are prepared to destroy the party raster than let Corby win
Eric
I think that a rather once sided view
But I ma not here to partake in labour Party squabbles
Richard
I can understand your frustration at Corbyn & McDonnell not making much of a fist – so far – about translating your ideas into winnable political policies. But Owen Smith will be even less likely to do anything apart from make the odd watered-down soundbite out of them.
It’s not about ‘ideological purity’ but about mindset & career intention. What he’s in parliament to do & on whose behalf. Can anyone who extolled the virtues of PFI, privatisation of NHS services & academisation of schools ever be taken seriously when they say they are anti-Austerity? They either don’t understand the purpose of the Austerity con or cynically think that we don’t.
You’re right that people can & do change their minds, but rarely their mindsets. A leopard might change its mind about how best to bring down the next gazelle. But it won’t ever change its spots. It can’t – it’s a leopard.
So you’ve never said anything you’ve ever regretted?
Or changed your mind?
Or done soemthing because your job requires it?
Come back when you admit you have
Until then you’re just spouting nonsense
Or you need to get a life
And some self awareness
“There was no idea what policy was for, no big ideas and so not many small ones either. The result was a mess and that’s because it seems like Corbynism is an empty shell that opposes capitalism for the sake of the oppressed but has no clue as to what to yet in its place.”
It would be very foolish for Corbyn to actually set out realistic policies for the kind of far-reaching redistribution of wealth he appears to favour rhetorically. If he did, Labour’s predominantly middle class selectorate would quickly realise they stand to lose out in a big way under what he proposes and would many would reconsider their support for him.
By not having to think about specifics Labour members can continue to have their cake and eat it, believing that heavy redistribution can be done at the expense of the super rich only. This policy-free state of affairs is actually essential to Corbyn’s real goal: retaining membership support so that he can remainin in his position and transform Labour into a far-left party on a permanent basis.
So lying will do
TRhere’s been a lot of them around, I agree
Some thrown at me
Richard – Fascinating thread. I am a full member of the Labour Party – as is my wife.
===============================================
My theme with a bit of personal history is that none of this is new
================================================
When I was 16 doing Sociology 40 years ago (and a junior Labour supporter attracted to Tony Benn’s ‘Grassroots’ movement), I remember the twisted face of one of my comrades in the Canterbury Labour constituency branch at the mention of the word ‘Wilson’ – then Prime Minister and soon to make way for Callaghan (who also got a lip curling reaction). I naively responded ‘…but we’re in power’. You can imagine the put downs.
The fact was, Canterbury never could, never would, ever, ever get a Labour MP. Even in Blairs ‘New Dawn’ it was solid Tory with a genial and totally useless MP called David Crouch and now Julian Brazier
We then at Tech College did that old standard ‘Politics is the art of the possible” discuss, essay topic
So here we are 40 years on – the same debate rattling around about purity of purpose or the pragmatism of power.
It’s true that Corbyn did call the Tax credit issue right and he deserves credit for steadfastness. He should though be the Tony Benn to this generation – an awkward and principled elder just off stage keeping the rest on their toes. He is not a leader because leadership is all that messy compromise stuff.
As you rightly say in countering the Owen Smith point about when he worked in PR. Was it not J.M.Keynes himself who said “and when the fact change sir I change my mind. What do you do?”
I no longer live in Canterbury but a key marginal to the east of Leeds. Genial, liable and busy Tory MP called Shelbroke.
The local Labour party are all Corbynite but have no chance of winning this key seat with him as leader. It’s about appealing to the swing voters in an area like this. Leeds along with York and Harrogate voting to Remain so there’s hope.
Sadly politics is about personality – we need a new charismatic but who can articulate and see through the economic programme you have so deftly articulated. I for one am still hopeful that there is a left of centre credible hole in British Politics that needs a new leader and some able allies. We ain’t done yet. Dan Jarvis step forward (he hasn’t done yet obviously)
I have to live in hope because I care for the people who lose from all this
And take the s**t for it on the way
Hello Richard,
You say you believe Owen Smith would deliver an economic policy you could endorse while revealing a muddled and disappointing failed economic policy by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell after initially embracing many of your ideas. I remember those days well as I shared your numerous tweets, witnessed the backlash by certain areas of the press yet assumed you may well have become one of the Labour advisers. But that did not happen.
You also reveal in comments above that personally you do not support Trident even though Owen Smith does. Owen Smith even confirmed on Marr yesterday condoning the argument if necessary to extinguish the live of millions of people.
This is no small matter on many levels yet most certainly a key concern in renewing Trident is the cost. The Guardian suggests the true Trident cost to be £205bn over 30 years. In my mind that amount would be far better off successfully delivering the economic policy you propose and one that can address youth, provision of appropriate infrastructure, health, education and schools, prison reform (the list is endless).
I would be grateful to hear how you justify this extraordinary expenditure endorsed by Owen Smith with a realistic economic plan you say Owen Smith can deliver. Is it even possible? And with your knowledge of taxation, how would extra funds be determined or would certain social justice, health, education development programmes need to be cut to cover the cost of renewing Trident over the next 30 years? Many thanks, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/17/trident-renewal-205bn-arguments-for-against
I am not going to be voting for Owen Smith or anyone else
I do not su[pport Trident
I am sure there are other things I would not agree with Owen on
But politics is the art of the possible compromise
I consider Owen is the only possible compromise
By all means vote for anything else if you want ears of Tory government
That’s your choice
As a lifelong Tory I was hoping for great things from Corbyn, he seemed to be ‘real’ labour who might seriously oppose things if they weren’t good rather than lying down and offering his tummy for rubs like some recent Labour leaders.
But no sooner did he get elected than he seemed to sew his mouth shut in parliament. No serious opposition to Brexit (and I voted out, btw), and now everytime I see him on news reports he seems to have an inane grin on his face like he’s got no serious clue whats going on.
I, semi-seriously, offered myself for the job of Tory Leader on Twitter.
My first PM question time would have shocked my party (in fact all parties). I want opposition, I want serious ideas about how to help the country (forget the “When we’re in power we’ll sort everything out” bullshit, if you think you know how tell us NOW so we can discuss it and implement it if it’ll work), and I’d have put in place a plan where any MP (of any party) who’s never got their hands dirty in a job has to spend a month at grass roots level doing a basic job in their constituency for that jobs normal wage.(Maybe during that bloody long summer holiday they have?)
I’m not a big ‘Union’ lover. I remember the winter of discontent where both sides went too far, but I do believe in some kind of organisation that stands up for the workers so they don’t get treated like crap. But that organisation shouldn’t be paying it’s leaders more than teachers, nurses, etc. And that organisation would support a Labour party that remembered it was founded to help the working man, rather than a group of overpaid, over educated, people who are politicians first and followers of Labour second.
I know, I know, I’m ranting. And you might not believe I’m a Tory after reading this, but we need a parliament (of all parties) remembering they were elected to keep the country going without running it into the ground.
Thanks for this interesting post, Richard.
I think one of the things that has made the Labour situation so hostile is he failure by PLP members to make clear, in the terms you have done here, just *why* they think Corbyn is ‘incompetent’. The problem with a word like that is that, along with its first cousin ‘unelectable’, it’s all too often used as media shorthand for “this guy is a serious threat”/”he can’t be bought so we’ll smear him”.
I think Corbyn has suffered appallingly at the hands of the PLP. Their behavious has, literally from day 1, shown scant regard for their members’ democratic decision. At the same time, though, it seems that Corbyn’s weakness has been an apparent inability just to do the nuts-and-bolts day-to-day management stuff. Reading a couple of MPs’ blogs (Chi Onwurah and one lady from Bristol – name escapes me), it sounds as though the simple functioning of the Labour party has become hopelessly chaotic.
What beats me is why the various PLP members didn’t come out and say this, rather than making up smears concerning racism, anti-Semitism, terrorism and goodness-knows-what-elsism that were so obviously contrived. Having those flames fanned so shamelessly by the press has made this situation far worse than it needed to be.
If the various PLP members had come out and said “the problem is not that the membership want you to take the party to the left; the problem is that you’re an organisational disaster and we need someone else to do that job for the following reasons”, then this whole situation might have been resolved.
My concern is that, underneath the issues of managerial competence, the PLP have no intention of honouring the very clear direction the membership gave by electing Corbyn. If there is a candidate (and at the moment, Smith seems the most likely) who is willing to support a broadly-left Corbyn-type agenda, then he needs to come out and say so, exlain any inconsistencies in his voting record, SAY WHY HE CONSIDERS CORBYN INCOMPETENT (rather than just repeating the word, or ‘unlectable’, which as we all know means “refuses point blank to toe the MSM line”) and explain why, although he agrees with Corbyn’s policies, his managerial abilities are not up to scratch.
The longer this goes on, with MPs endlessly repeating meaningless guff that looks to be all about perception rather than what’s actually happening, the worse it’s going to be (and the less chance any challenger to Corbyn has of succeeding).
Take me – I am a tax lawyer, so some might call me a grown up with a proper job. Until three days ago, I was in favour of Corbyn. Not because he’s perfect, but because he’s the only centre-left, anti-war candidate on offer. I was completely sold on the idea that this is a stitch-up (and am not by any means convinced otherwise even now, given how hard the PLP have made Corbyn’s life from day 1)Then, I read some details of what has actually been going on in real-life terms. You can’t run a party that way. So: it behoves Owen Smith, if he’s serious, to lay out Corbyn’s managerial failings and explain why he is prepared to honour the members’ wishes and deliver the same policies in a more organised way.
If he could also fire Seamus Milne, whose experience as a journalist plainly does not make him in any way suited to run a leader’s office, that would be good too.
Tom
A great deal; of sense in there
I entirely agree many PLP members a) plotted and b) have not covered themselves with glory
But c) collective responsibility prevented many of the best acting for a long time and d) many aren’t very good at articulating anything very well, across all parties
So yes, it’s a mess and I make no bones about the fact that I am a long way from many PLP members on many issues
So bizarrely it seems I have said what they cannot
And my web server is suffering for it with a massive traffic as a result
Richard
Hi Tom,
The one thing that really concerns me about Corbyn et al is the competency issue, but for some reason it’s the hardest thing to get any clear information on (you’d think there would be 172 detailed critiques of it). I’ve tried googling Chi Onwurah but cannot find anything with real detail. Is there any chance you could share the links for the MP’s blogs ?
Morning Richard – always followed your work closely, and really appreciate the effort you put into providing such insightful analysis into tax and economics that we laymen can understand. Thanks very much for all the fantastic work you do.
There’s no doubt that Corbyn thing hasn’t got anywhere near as well as would’ve been ideal. What’s more, I shared your despondency when McDonnell (someone who I’ve hugely respected for years) make noises about signing up to Osborne’s austerity charter. I also remember cringing at a People’s Assembly demo when in a speech he said he might ‘even’ consider nationalising Port Talbot, while my anarchist friends gave me I-told-you-they-all-sell-out-in-the-end looks.
All that said, it’s my earnest belief that making the Corbyn thing work is still the most viable approach to trying to break the neoliberal chokehold. I don’t expect to be able to win you round to that point of view – after all, you’ve seen the Corbyn leadership from the inside, whereas I can only look on via social media, internet, the TV etc.
But I hope you don’t become too much of a visible, outspoken critic of the Corbyn movement. Already, this blog’s being tweeted out by Kevin McGuire of the Mirror, and other, far less savoury characters, being used to not only bash Corbyn, but resurgent left-wing politics in general. Thousands and thousands of people have been politicised and radicalised by the Corbyn movement, and that’s such a precious thing. I think we need to do our utmost to sustain that. Personally, I think it’s the only realistic chance we’ve got of bringing about a more just, equal society in the near future.
Whoever ends up trying to ‘lead’ that movement – and I respect your opinion, but personally think Owen Smith would end up simply being Ed Miliband Mark 2 – the obstacles facing it are huge. If Corbyn’s leadership has sometimes been a bit shambolic, I think that’s largely because he entered a leadership contest with no expectation of winning, was completely unprepared for leadership when it came, and was then subjected to the most absurd, intense, and overtly anti-democratic propaganda campaign in the history of the modern media. I those of us who want to see the back of neoliberalism need to stick together as we try and weather that onslaught — and even if you’ve become disillusioned with Corbyn the leader, I hope you’ll still chip in with the movement he helped generate.
I hate the way online discussions so quickly degenerate into petty sniping and unpleasantness, so to end I just wanted to reiterate that this is meant as a friendly, civil comment, and I continue to hugely respect you and the work you do. All the best for the future.
Simon
I have not for a moment changed my opinion
But I know Jeremy Corbyn cannot deliver: he did not use his momentum to take control
He cannot do so now
So I stick with the policies, but the delivery has to change
If someone else wants to use them I am happy that’s the case
Whichever arty they are in
Amen to that Richard. I’ve just about had it with party politics myself. All the best
I totally agree with the central argument of this piece.
A huge policy vacuum has been allowed to open up
Owen Jones said something very similar in the Guardian.
However I’m willing to wait a bit longer for the new vision from Jeremy Corbyn.
I’m fairly sure his shadow cabinet have spent the last 7 months doing their very best to undermine the leader and support their own aims.
With a more helpful shadow cabinet the vision is likely to re-emerge
Owen had that concern last September
He told me so straight after his acceptance speech
So did I
But it needed time
And time is up
Jeremy’s a great guy, but not a party leader
hi Richard. Good stuff.
A cavil: It really isn’t good enough to not mention ‘the environment’ in the main text of your remarks here. And anyway, it isn’t ‘the environment’, some add-on outside us. Ecology is life itself. It’s everything.
Without a green post-growth economics, we’re doomed.
That is the vision that we need. I know that you know and agree with this. I wish you would say so! It’s not about re-starting the dreadful of ‘endless’ (sic) pointless economic growth. The vision ought to be of a stable economy that we can trust, that delivers what we need. An economy that works for us, not us working for an economy…
Rupert
Criticism accepted
It started as a Green New Deal
And if fairness Owen Smith did make the right noises yesterday
I am not accountable for outcomes
Must get to see you sometime soon
Richard
Yes I’ve done all of those things. And some of the things I did because my job reqired it weren’t very nice. That neither qualifies nor disqualifies me as a student of the Austerity con – how it works & what it’s for. It’d be great if Owen Smith has had some sort of awakening & will go on to debunk the neo-liberal agenda.I’ll wait and see.
So will I
Richard,
I’m with you on Trident, but I also think that its independence from the US is untrue.
I do have a quibble about your requirement for the NHS “to be efficient”. Certainly, obvious waste like the internal market and internal competition needs to be abolished, but I do not believe that that you can define efficiency of a medical service as a scalar except in market fundamentalist terms which will obviously lead to great unfairness and inequality. And much “waste” in a safety critical system has to be accepted. Destroying the prescription drugs of patients who have already died or have been prescribed alternatives is no worse than diverted aircraft having to dump fuel before landing. A subtler example is the need for usually empty hospital beds to be ready for an emergency. And both are obviously far less of a waste than Trident or any other “defence” system. Which suggests that asking for efficience in healthcare is at least as absurd as asking for efficiency in the military.
BTW, despite what you wrote, I still support McDonnell and Corbyn. I don’t think Owen Smith and Angela Eagle have the guts to tell market fundamentalists to do biological impossibilities or just to get lost.
Agree with you on NHS – I know that a lot that looks like waste (taking histories three times) is actually about making sure inconsistencies are found
I can only hope Labour has a leader who can stand down market fundamentalists
Jeremy has not got to grips with how own party
An that’ why he will never stand down anyone else
The lovely NHS example I forgot was a Blair-era “management consultant” contracted to the NHS by McKinsey’s or some similar outfit suggesting that a medical test be abandoned because only half the results were positive. It never ceases to amaze me how stupid and ignorant some very highly-paid members of our elite are.
JC is standing up to the market fundamentalists in his own party by refusing to resign.
There is no compromising with those market fundamentalists, only appeasement.
So are you proposing an economy with no markets?
Can you imagine winning an election on that basis?
Has Jeremy committed to that?
Entering this debate late, there’s really not much more to be said. When it comes down to the wire, I’m in your team, Richard. What I find really curious is that there is so much sound, practical progressive economic advice available which by and large is ignored by politicians, not just here but across the globe. Surely there’s someone within Labour ranks – anyone, irrespective of their past history – could get to grips with it and set out the economic framework in which a future Labour government would manage the economy and, de facto, the country. If Owen Smith has the leadership & managerial qualities then Labour supporters should give him the opportunity and co-operate. For the sake of the country they should hang up their idealistic egos. If that’s not an option then leave the political party and join an NGO. Nothing ignoble in doing that.
Whoever takes over the reigns could make a good start by reading Bill Mitchell’s blog today and then again tomorrow. And why not bring him in as an active advisor? (http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=34012#more-34012). However, as you have clearly explained from you own experience, there’s no point in having advisors if their advice is ignored.
Of course I have absolutely no idea what’s going on behind closed doors. As for most of us, any information is being filtered through the largely hostile MSM. I’m just one of millions who desperately wants to see some signs of an alternative economic strategy to the ideologically dangerous nonsense practised by the government (however cleverly it’s window-dressed for public consumption) presented to the electorate as a realistic alternative to improve the nation’s well-being. Only the Labour Party has the political clout to do that. Their internecine civil war being waged in public is a disgrace and could set back social progress by a generation. On the other hand, maybe it’s necessary to clean out the Aegean stables in order to move forward unencumbered. It just seems to be a very high price to pay for political incompetence.
Thanks
http://press.labour.org.uk/post/147586365119/john-mcdonnell-labours-shadow-chancellor
It does not even add up for most people because a multiplier is assumed in the final paras that is not explained
And if there was something new, what was it?
This is what I have been waiting for to be honest – a finer grained analysis of the policy paralysis in Labour. And it is very convincing I have to say – my compliments to the chef Richard.
Upon deeper reflection on some underlying issues I have had with Corbyn & Co, what is provided here is very plausible indeed. A minor criticism is that we have got closer to what leadership is in this context but we could still do with fleshing this out a bit more but I know that you are a busy man so please don’t bristle too much.
However, with my MBA head on, what I have not seen in the PLP since Corbyn has been leader is what we call ‘teamsmanship’ – the ability to put to one side any personal differences within the team in order focus on the external tasks and objectives Labour actually exists to deliver. The whole party has fallen down here I’m afraid.
What emerges for me is a party that despite making some huge apparent strides in a change of heart about markets then seemed to choke and play safe – no doubt to try to keep the Blair-Rights happy.
I fear that the fight will now be an internal one within Labour about democracy – giving those party members who support Corbyn the right to have their man or not. But that fight is one that the country does not need now.
I think that I can sum my attitude up as a Green voter and say that although I lament the lack of effective opposition(?), I am not too bothered about a party that is as inward looking as this.
Labour? Sod ’em.
Richard – you make a lot of good points, and you make them well. Still leaves me, as a not-Party political but ‘leftish’ (whatever exactly that might mean) person, plumping firmly for Corbyn over anyone else who has put themselves forward – and, indeed, over anyone else that seems likely to put themselves forward! To me he appears to be gratifyingly honest, decent, thoughtful and reasonable, and reasonably competent to boot. Oh, and quite likeable too. Not many you can say that about in politics. So do we want someone who is the opposite of all those things to head the Labour Party – or indeed the country – instead?
One minor argument with your script: “Nothing should be agreed without a second referendum: the EU has allowed them before.” I think that should read “The EU – or perhaps, even more to the point, the European Commission – has effectively ORDERED them before” (when the voters didn’t come up with the ‘right’ answer first time – or second time; no reticence about bringing on the heavy propaganda/arm-twisting guns either).
The massive support for Corbyn has very little to do with the man (although obviously an honest politician with integrity is not harming his cause) and everything to do with his policies. I find it almost unbelievable that a piece that takes the lack of concrete policies as its centre-piece claiming to knock up a manifesto in minutes to prove the point has no concrete policies in that very manifesto.
Corbyn/McDonnell have a surfeit of policies on taxation, PQE, national investment bank, renationalisation of railways and NHS, health and social care, tuition fees, the list actually goes on and on.
I know this, how on earth can Richard Murphy not know this unless he is just resolutely not allowing himself?
I do not know it
Oh, and democratising the party itself which, considering recent events, has become even more critical
Hi Richard, thank you for this piece. I often find enlightenment here, although I never comment, only lurk.
I just felt the need to say, in common with others, that there is still plenty of time for Corbyn and McDonnel to articulate a just and proper economic policy. I think they are playing it close to their chests until the political waters are less turbulent. Corbyn wasn’t made leader for his economic views, rather his views on fairness and decency. Hopefully his economics will follow. If not, he is toast.
He’s too late to have the chance
The honeymoon was over ages ago
“Health must be available for all at lowest possible cost and highest efficiency. This requires considerable integration of resources and leaves no room for fractured supply in quasi markets which do not reflect the diverse and very real health needs of people or populations as a whole.”
I’m not sure how anyone can be criticised for ‘anti-visionary thinking’ when this is just a very convoluted and dolled-up way of saying “I (heart) the NHS”. No country in the world copies the NHS model, including socialist countries.
Continental countries have multiple, competing private healthcare providers, with a system of national social insurance to provide for its working class, and with much better outcomes. It’s not NHS or USA with no other option. Truly visionary thinking needs to find a way of getting away from a stale cliche of simply do away with the internal market and the sclerotic NHS will be hunky-dory.
No EU country betters the NHS for amount spent
Much better outcomes, where.
The commonwealth fund, as you may know, voted the NHS as one of the best in the world, in terms of value for money and good outcomes. 2011 I think. The other 11 countries. Australia, NZ Norway, Swizerland and others.
This report covers safety, quality of care, efficiency and much more.
Value for money and good outcomes above 11 other developed countries makes sense to me.
The NHS is number 1 in this analysis
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/uks-healthcare-ranked-the-best-out-of-11-western-countries-with-us-coming-last-9542833.html
What you say, Richard, makes complete sense and is very coherent. I realise that we on the left have to demonstrate competence, as well as develop coherent and inspiring policies if we wish to get our views across, and if we are to be effective. I don’t wish to excuse the apparently shambolic approach of the leadership you describe, but given the extremely adverse situation for Jeremy et al (media attacks, mutiny in the parliamentary ranks, the sudden demands of the referendum campaign etc) has meant that he, John McDonnell and the few key leaders at the top, have been run off their feet undertaking tasks that should, to a large extent, take care of themselves. That’s why input form people like you is vital. I hope that things will improve very soon, but it is certainly not the time to be jumping ship.
looks like they’re listening:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/18/labour-vows-to-set-up-national-investment-bank-to-mobilise-500bn?CMP=twt_gu
I agree
Too late though
Could have been done last October
Should have been done then
But it wasn’t
You seem to totally ignore that party members such as myself were inspired by both Corbyn & McDonnell and despite the actions of the PLP remain so.We see them as this country’s best hope and we certainly need hope after the disaster of Cameron & Osborne. Angela Eagle just thinks it’s time the Labour party was led by a woman and believes it her divine right to be that woman. Owen Smith is often described as more Blairite than Blair who believes in the choice in the NHS that privatisation offers.
Then you clearly have no clue who Owen Smith is
I’m miles from being a Blairite and so is he
Why not look at some facts and what he has said rather than blindly follow social media blather?
As a non-economics, non-finance person I found this piece enormously helpful – I stumbled on it through a link on the Guardian. Its account from the inside of the incompetence of Team Corbyn confirms the experience that many of us have had from the outside. It also demolishes the myth that Corbyn and co. are advancing a serious radical left set of policies which have been smeared and/or blocked by the wicked media, the wicked PLP, the wicked Blairites or whatever is the favourite scapegoat. As you say somewhere in the piece they are only any good in saying what they are against and not at articulating policies which make sense to the informed political citizen and even less to the electorate as a whole. Their nature as long-dedicated protesters and rebels allowed them to benefit from the tide of anger and resentment which is runnng through the politics of all democracies, but not to give it any constructive form. This leads me to my final point, which is that I disagree deeply with the view expressed several times in these comments that Corbyn has shifted politics to the left, has created a mass radical movement. He and the people immediately around him are the products of those phenomena. It was very unfortunate that because of the series of accidents around the Labour leadership election he/they became the channel for this very widespread anger and disillusion. To the extent that there is a mass radical movement, its members need to realise very quickly that they have put in charge of the only serious opposition party not only people incompetent in the way analysed here, but also representatives of a 1980s sectarian tribute band.
While this piece offers insight into the workings at present within the Labour Party, it is part of a set which locates the problem in incompetence; in the past few days there have been two similar on the Staggers blog at New Statesman. Emphasis on incompetence is masking and preventing an explicit discussion of a more basic problem: the clash of two irreconcilable leftist approaches. This might be of interest: https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2016/07/15/looking-beyond-jeremy-corbyn/