Labour is apparently having an awayday on Monday to draft 35 bills to form a Queen's Speech in the event of there being a snap election.
I have to admit the idea brought deckchairs to mind.
Labour can dream all it likes of power. And who knows, maybe it will get it, so shambolic might things become. But to think it will have time or resource for major change at present without first settling its Brexit and economic strategies is just absurd.
Forr the record, in my opinion, Labour has no discernable viable alternative Brexit strategy to that of the government at present. That begs the question of why anyone might vote for it with any confidence at present.
More important, it has no viable economic strategy at present. John McDonnell remains committed to the Jonathon Portes / Simon Wren-Lewis neoliberal strategy of a balanced current budget and borrowing only for investment, all overseen by an independent central bank that only uses QE for bailing out the finance sector. In other words, it remains in current and foreseeable circumstances quite firmly committed to pro-cyclical, recession enhancing, austerity.
It can dream of as many Bills as it wishes in that case, but with as much likelihood of success as my dream of Ipswich Town winning the Premiership next season has. And for those not in the know, Ipswich Town is not in the Premiership next season.
In other words, it's time Labour stopped playing fantasy politics.
It needs to say what it would do on Brexit. And saying it will honour a corruptly secured election result is not a strategy. It's waffle.
But more important, Labour needs to say that it will run deficits if required; that it will QE them if it wants, and it will direct the use of that funding for the public good. And if the Bank of England does not like that it needs to say that the Bank of England will lose its powers.
Labour, in other words, needs to do three things.
It needs to realise Brexit is as much an issue for it as the Tories if anyone is to take its prospects of power seriously.
And it needs to realise that Brexit is creating abnormal times.
And in those abnormal times, it thirdly needs to have the courage to rewrite the rules of the economic game, which means abandoning neoclassical economics, embracing the reality of modern monetary theory and to argue that, as was the case in 1945, this is the moment to not just change things at the periphery but at the core as well.
But attempting to do that without tackling these fundamental issues is pointless. And I am still not convinced it knows that.
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Suggest that Labour might well embrace MMT in the longer term but its powerful MSM critics will try every trick in the book to discredit its economic credibility and paint it once again as the Party of profligacy. Labour are still saddled with economic catastrophe when it was the banks that caused the global crash.
My economic knowledge is based on gut feelings and I could scarcely get past page one of an economic book as it talks about the wealth of the country when to me it is a piece of earth and it is how fairly income and wealth are accumulated is what is important to me.
I have no idea why the left so lacks confidence in what it has to say that it only thinks it can win with right wing policies
“I have no idea why the left so lacks confidence in what it has to say that it only thinks it can win with right wing policies”
The vast majority of people have no knowledge nor interest in monetary/fiscal policy. The voters that actually decide elections certainly do not. Brexit was non issue at the last GE because it for most voters it was too abstract. Labour is correct to focus on health, education, housing, employment, energy and transport as their core issues.
In 1997 Blair didn’t campaign on the minute detail of PFI. In 2010 Cameron didn’t mention raising VAT during the election or Lansley’s NHS reforms. For Labour to campaign on issues that would turn people off due to their complexity would be a mistake. In 2010 the simple household budget narrative completely obilerated the reality of the financial crisis and the best way to respond to it.
The manifesto commitments to nationalising the water companies and creating a state investment bank are surely proof that McDonnell intends to operate outside the neoliberal consensus.
But if Labour has no coherent answer to ‘how will you pay for it?’ they are whistling in the wind
It occurs to me perhaps the whole reason chancellors have the ‘budget’ is because it reinforces the ongoing misunderstanding of our real finances. Maybe it should be replaced by ceremonial declaration of which resources our infinite money supply was going to be allocated to together with the reasons why. Calling what happens now a budget is surely no more than misdirection, completely inappropriate for any informed culture.
@ Fran Heron
Funny how Donald Trump had the confidence to tell the American people during his election campaign that the belief governments need to balance their budgets like a household was a load of garbage!
https://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/05/11/2016/donald-trump-embraces-mmt-and-exposes-truth
http://wecanhavenicethings.com/2017/10/04/trumps-budget-director-explains-mmt-sort-of/
Funny too how Labour is not pointing out the hypocrisy in the EU over economic migration in that irrespective of whether the migration is internal or external it can cause social tensions if the volume is too high.
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/oxford-and-brexit/brexit-analysis/mapping-brexit-vote
Labour is being pusillanimous. Still not much signs of leadership in that party just as there hasn’t been for 70 years!
Fran Heron says:
“Suggest that Labour might well embrace MMT in the longer term but ……..”
But nothing.
If the Labour Party has no alternative economic policy prescription WTF would anybody vote for them.
With the Tories you know you’re going to be neck high in shit, but at least you aren’t going to be surprised or disappointed.
A Labour Party elected on a fantasy manifesto which it cannot possibly deliver within the constraints of its own budgetary straitjacket is a wasted vote.
I despair.
Richard, whilst agreeing in principle can you imagine the outcry in the MSM if Labour published anything like that? They would be crucified. Softly softly till they gain power
But can you imagine how the population might react?
The left will never win by promoting policies acceptable to the right
If Corbyn really understood the underlying principles of MMT he wouldn’t hesitate in advocating fiscal policies based on it. He appears to have a grasp of issues like Palestine, war, inequality, social justice, etc. which gives him the confidence to stand up for them passionately against the MSM. But he’s clearly out of his depth on macro-economics (as is John McD). Hence they stick with main-stream Keynesianism, with which they feel more comfortable, so as not to ‘frighten the horses’. But, as you rightly say it’s a passport to nowhere. Why vote for a substitute when you can have the real thing?
Even if the LP is elected by default, Corbyn’s economic manifesto will be ineffectual at best, damaging at worst. “You can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking that was used in creating them.” We’re in a political impasse with no visible exit. Hence the continuing and irrational appeal of the snake-oil sales force – Farage, Johnson, Fox, Rees-Mogg, et al. Deeply troubling times.
Last night I watched Obama’s speech in full (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkHjrKDrhjg). He gave a plausible outline as to how the world has reached this crisis point and warned about the dangers that lie ahead. But, however polished his presentation skills are, he offered no explanation as to why, during 8 years, he did almost nothing to prevent the escalation of ‘strong man’ power (his words), income inequality and corruption that he now warns against. In fact it could be argued that he opened the door to Trump and populist nationalism. Nevertheless, I’d recommend watching it. If nothing else his eloquence and good humour are missed.
Thanks
I will watch
John D,
re. this:
“If Corbyn really understood the underlying principles of MMT he wouldn’t hesitate in advocating fiscal policies based on it.” (etc.)
As I recall it was the Corbynomics issue that first drew my attention to R. Murphy and this blog. As to the events that followed we needn’t go over that again. Nonetheless….
He would not be Labour leader but for it, I think.
But I am not objective on that. I just happen to know how important it was at the time.
“You can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking that was used in creating them.”
Einstein I think.
But who listens to Einstein ? Was he an economist ?
I do
Because I think he has a mighty lot to say on economics
But then my holiday reading is physics….
Gordon says:
“Richard, whilst agreeing in principle can you imagine the outcry in the MSM if Labour published anything like that? They would be crucified. Softly softly till they gain power”
So what you’re saying is that Labour should try to sneak quietly into power by pretending to be something they don’t intend to be when they are.
Politics like this we can do without. We’ve already got some. Some of us have had a bellyful.
Jeez there must be some foul places on earth if England is supposed to be a desirable destination to emigrate to.
“this is the moment to not just change things at the periphery but at the core as well.”
There are too many (Red) Tories in the Labour Party for it to even consider any kind of action, let alone the radical action that would be required.
Labour, unfortunately, are now a centre right party and not the party of the left.
Willie John says:
“There are too many (Red) Tories in the Labour Party ….”
No such thing as a ‘(Red) Tory’.
They are all blue to the core.
I have shared to Facebook, with tge following blurb:
“Are you paying attention, Jeremy and John? Richard Murphy is spot on about a) the BREXIT and vision deficit at the heart of Labour’s offer and b) the ludicrous warmed-up neo-liberalism lite economic “would-be strategy” in Labour’s offer. RADICAL reshaping of a) and b) required.”
Thanks
Richard, The 2107 Labour manifesto, page 16 “Following the successful example of Germany and the Nordic countries, we will establish a National Investment Bank that will bring in private capital finance to deliver £250 billion of lending power.” Isn’t this a start? What’s your understanding of such a proposal?
They have not said over how long this will be spent
Or how it will be funded
So this is yet more fantasy politics
(oops 2017…)
“That begs the question of why anyone might vote for it with any confidence at present.” Were I given to voting, I’d be voting fer it on the basis that so many people of malevolent influence are clearly agin it. I’d be voting for Scottish independence too and on the same basis. I expect these points will be amplified by others, so that’ll do.
It is quite extraordinary that a referendum result achieved through lying and breaking electoral law is not being challenged by Labour. Whilst some of the smaller parties (SNP, Lib Dems, Greens) are stating that Brexit should be abandoned, Labour seems totally unwilling to do this.
Why?
I wish I knew
I’d think they’re probably waiting to get elected after the Tories disintegrate with a view to then calling a new referendum which would allow them to cancel Brexit. Be messy but get the job done.
They’ve been believing the Tories will deliver victory to them for some time now
It worked well in 2017, didn’t It?
Apparently it did, and they’d have won the election had they not been sabotaged deliberately by their centrist 5th column. This has only recently come to light as I understand it; resources were held back from marginal areas which could have gone either way and where they would have made a difference, and were instead wasted on already sure bets. It seems feasible that without this apparent sabotage they could have got more seats than they did, probably enough to win the election.
Bill Kruse says:
“I’d think they’re probably waiting to get elected after the Tories disintegrate with a view to then calling a new referendum which would allow them to cancel Brexit. Be messy but get the job ”
Messy alright. A plan that relies on The Tories making a mess of what they are doing….. ???? How much worse does it have to get FFS ?
In the unlikely event that Labour does scrape in by default ,
a) what makes you think they would call another referendum ? (Except it would avoid having to have a policy)
b) what chance they would win a ‘Remain’ /Rejoin majority ?
c) what on currently available evidence would lead anyone to believe that cancelling Brexit is on even the most secret subliminal LP agenda ?
Sickoftaxdodgers said, “It is quite extraordinary that a referendum result achieved through lying and breaking electoral law is not being challenged by Labour.”… why?
I agree, there only seems to be a couple of mps in labour and conservative parties that seem to be challenging it (David Lammy for example).
Yesterday on today in politics Matthew Parris said (roughly) “that he suspected Leave did cheat in the referendum and he suspects Remain did too” but he didn’t seem perturbed by this.
The ruling classes are now oblivious to chiselling away they have done to their own legitimacy and how low they have fallen. See how often deliberate lies even in parlament go unpunished.
So to answer ‘why?’”
I would have to say they are unaware that cheating and lying is a cancer to the political process and has to be stamped out and destroyed. The referendum should be declared null and void.
Corbyn says he voted to Remain, but in every other way and at every available opportunity he has argued against and voted against the EU. If the leader is strongly anti-EU how can the party advocate staying in?
LibDem blogger’s view of Corbyn re EU: https://www.markpack.org.uk/153744/jeremy-corbyn-brexit/
sickoftaxdodgers says:
“It is quite extraordinary that a referendum result achieved through lying and breaking electoral law is not being challenged by Labour. Whilst some of the smaller parties (SNP, Lib Dems, Greens) are stating that Brexit should be abandoned, Labour seems totally unwilling to do this.
Why?”
Because if they get into power they’ll have about as much idea of what to do about Brexit as the Tories did and still do.
We also agree for the most part that they will adopt a neoliberal-lite economic policy which can’t work
And it’s ‘safe’ on the opposition benches. The seats on that side of the House have labour shaped depressions in them developed over much of the last century.
And they are a collection of witless ouanquers perhaps (?)
They are also as philosophically riven as the Tories they hope not to replace too soon. They won’t have a consensus on anything because Corbyn has neglected to clear the stables.
First business in office will be to pile straight into a leadership crisis.
What is needed is a leader who has the guts to cancel Brexit. They’d win hands down. Corbyn is a disaster.
“They’d win hands down”
Evidence?
Marco Fante says:
“They’d win hands down”
“Evidence?”
Gut feeling, I suspect, and I don’t share Grace Sutherland’s confidence.
If the LP had offered any semblance of inclination to Remain, and had shown any sort of consistent opposition to Brexit and were to offer the electorate something that looked to have some degree of certainty (about anything)…..yes, I guess they’t waltz it in an election.
And Pigs wear flying helmets and goggles.
“But can you imagine how the population might react?”
Yes but `the public` will mainly be (mis)informed by the MSM.
I have a lot of sympathy for Corbyn and Mcdonnell: damned if they do, damned if they don`t.
And similarly with Brexit. If Labour came up with a plan that would (a) work and (b) satisfy the majority would it be immediately hailed by the MSM with a call for TM to go and JC to lead us to a bright future?
Somehow I think not.
@ brian faux
But Labour has been doing this Tory Lite stuff for nearly 70 years and the British economy continues to worsen! It’s like the Einstein quote “Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again whilst expecting a different outcome will finally show up!” Once Hugh Dalton, the Labour chancellor, was forced to resign in 1947 Labour governments had a series of Tory Lite chancellors culminating fairly rapidly in the stupidity of Callaghan borrowing from the IMF. It’s been downhill ever since!
Schofield
“Labour has been doing this Tory Lite stuff for nearly 70 years”
Tony Blair must be really old.
Founding of the NHS 70 years ago -surely that qualifies as Tory ExtraLite
@ Marco Fante
Do the math. 70 years subtracted from now gives you what? Yes 1948 and Hugh Dalton had been forced to resign and the world had to wait another five years with bated breath for Tony “Third Way” Blair to arrive in the world!
Schofield,
That’s drawing a long bow.
@Marco Fante
“That’s drawing a long bow.”
Yes, but if it hits the target in terms of helping explain why Labour wasn’t always stupid in monetary system literacy terms it’s worth the drawing!
Has anybody read the Labour Manifesto from 1945 recently? Worth a look. Prescient – same problems, same causes and see how far the recent Labour party have moved from that bold vision (if light on detail).
Even uses the word “progressive”!!
Ah, but things were different then, the country was in a mess, having just come through a great existential crisis.
http://labourmanifesto.com/1945/1945-labour-manifesto.shtml
A great piece of work
They’re all fiddling whilst Rome burns. There is only one political issue that needs to be addressed in the next 8 months. Everything else can wait. One party has proved it is unable to address it, the other is unwilling. They are equally guilty of driving the bus off a cliff. They know if but they don’t have the guts to stand up to the inanity of the “compelling democratic imperative”. They disgust me.
George says:
“They’re all fiddling whilst Rome burns.”
I’d be inclined to let the Italians worry about that. We’ve got problems of our own here. 🙂
C’mon Richard.
You know why Labour are so stymied. Yes you do. Yes you do.
Even News Night (who cheered us up by playing the Sex Pistols ‘God Bless the Queen’ one minutes when the Tories were lecturing us about nationalism) depicted Corbyn in a red beret did they not?
Like some of your other commentator’s say Corbyn would be hung drawn and quartered firstly by the MSM and then the knives would be out with the Corbyn Refuseniks if he went heterodox on economics and anti-BREXIT.
And then what would happen? You’d end up bemoaning the Blue Labour in your blog borrowing Tory policies to get swing voters on their side.
The fact is that Parliament (all of it) has lost control of BREXIT and it is running away with the country. You cannot point this at one party or one person. It is collective Parliamentary failure. The institution has failed us. It may yet save us but only after much damage has been done.
My view is that we concentrate on the criminality and lies concerning the Leave campaign. I say this in the hope that you will reach what we have of the Left in this country with your ideas and not antagonise them. They are being assailed on all sides as it is and from within.
C’mon PVSR 🙂
Corbyn knew what to say in 2015
And he knows what to say now
He needn’t be blue
He could ditch Blue Labour
But right now that is what he is
And that is the issue
I once told Polly Toynbee that the problem with JMcD was he was too right wing
Economically I stand by that
The country will suffer for it
So will Labour
And the country is begging for something different
Pilgrim Very Slight Return says:
“You know why Labour are so stymied………
………….They are being assailed on all sides as it is and from within.”
Well, if they are just going to lie down and have shit shovelled over them the best we can hope for is a good crop of rhubarb.
Labour has never bothered to make the case that the GFC was something global and beyond Gordon Brown’s personal control. The GFC is on record as being a Labour financial catastrophe and far too many people believe it and will continue to believe it.
Maybe Gordon Brown’s over inflated ego has him believe it was all his fault. I hadn’t really thought of that before.
Spot on Richard, thanks for this.
I have recently terminated my membership of the Labour Party largely for the reasons you give above.
Especially concur with your comment that MMT and the policies it allows could rally the public in spite of (because of?) MSM approbation if any high profile UK figures on the left actually came out and said it forcefully enough. Observing the fact they have not is what triggered my leaving the party – I’ve concluded they either don’t get it or are dissembling and therefore not trustworthy.
Personally I can’t go through another election volunteering my time to confuse the public with the BS party line answer to the question: “how are you going to pay for it?”
I’d rather be free to advocate for MMT directly, allbeit in a very small way.
Keep up the good work Richard.
Adam Sawyer says:
“I’d rather be free to advocate for MMT directly, albeit in a very small way.”
I think you are quite right to do that. What the hell is the point of working to get a party into government if it is going to sit on the benches playing with itself.
I’m reluctant to join the SNP because I don’t yet believe they have got this into their skulls and will play cautious self-destruction. I’m not prepared to be associated with that, let alone canvass for it.
There are Indy supporters aplenty who say we can win independence and then think about the currency issue (as per the Growth Commission report) .
Until the finance ministries, both UK and Scotland, get their heads round this rUK post-Brexit can’t hope to succeed and neither can Scottish Independence. (Brexit will be an omnishambles anyway, but Scotland doesn’t need to be.)
It’s not enough to have the control of currency, and the accompanying economic levers, you have to know how to use it.
Sound advice for Labour. Trouble is, it’s counter-intuitive. More precisely, it’s counter-common sense.
Years of teaching taught me that analogies were the best bridge between what someone didn’t understand and what they did. The trouble is that analogies are as different from that with which they are analogous as they are like it. You have to be very careful to address both likeness and unlikeness to get it right. Something that is quite like, but significantly unlike, can be very misleading indeed.
I’m reading Brian Cox on quantum physics at the moment and the key early point he makes is that the behaviour of the sub-atomic world is not analogous to the behaviour of the rest of the world as we have been used to describing that and that we shall not understand that sub-atomic world if we hold on to models we have derived from the way we see the rest of the world. The same goes, it seems, with economics.
We need a programme of education. Something along the lines of what the Gower Institute is doing? But much, much more, and more urgently.
Nick, I find cancer is a useful model for free market economics, and I am beginning to think it is also a good model for politics. Cancer cells are highly successful in the short term, as they grow without restraint, but in the longer term they kill you. Telling people what they want to hear regardless of the truth is a remarkably successful short term strategy (witness Trump and Boris). But in the longer term, again, the host is killed. It is all about timescale.
Is it not a contradiction to demand both MMT and no Brexit?
As members of the EU the UK is a signatory to the Stability and Growth Pact which makes MMT impossible.
Mmt is never impossible
It is what happens
So you don’t believe that the Stability and Growth Pact causes any problems for the kind of economic program you favour?
No
I believe everything is negotiable in the EU and that times are changing and we need to be there to deliver the change
@Richard Murphy
“I believe everything is negotiable in the EU and that times are changing and we need to be there to deliver the change”
I wish I could be as optimistic as you! Right now I think the the majority of EU politicians are as under-educated as the UK ones are.
Take, for example, MMT. The ECB was forced into QE to get the Eurozone of recession after the 2008 Crash but still they want to hang onto their 3% fiscal collar largely because of the pressure from politicians of countries running export surpluses (A rob Peter to pay Paul policy as Trump complains).
Take, for example, free movement of labour where the rise of economic migration (from inside and outside the EU) has resulted in the rise of right-wing anti-immigration parties in the EU as well the UK nearly knocking Merkel off her perch and delivering a new coalition government in Italy. No matter where the economic migration comes from the majority of EU politicians refuse to engage in the human psychology underlying the resistance to it and consequently why free movement of labour has to be controllable. Here’s an Oxford University researcher posing a big question mark indirectly on the human psychology front through his anaylsis of the UK’s EU Referendum vote:-
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/oxford-and-brexit/brexit-analysis/mapping-brexit-vote
Thanks
I think the ECB and the fiscal conservatives in the European Commision, European Parliament and finance ministries of the surplus nations have made their monetary position extremely clear. They inflicted collective punishment on the Greek people to protect the interest of bankers and show no interest in loosening the noose on Italy.
The idea that they will welcome the bad faith UK back into the EU then immediately acquiesce to Labour MMT policies seems like wishful thinking.
But QE happened despite their ‘beliefs’
And the next round of reforms will happen in the same way
@ Schofield
After posting Chris Green’s Brexit vote analysis I decided to find out what survey’s showed as the strongest motivation for voting Leave. It was anti-immigration:-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-latest-news-leave-eu-immigration-main-reason-european-union-survey-a7811651.html
What prompted me to do this was reading an article by an English born professor of archaelogy and history Ian Morris who argues that the evolution of human society is driven by “energy capture” and this affects the accommodations we are prepared to make with the hard-wired egalitarian aspect of our nature:-
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/monkeys-humans-common-innate-sense-economic-justice
His argument ties up neatly with the heartland of Puritanism being on the East side of England which was also where support for the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 largely derived:-
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2014/11/14/ukip-is-strongest-in-englands-puritan-heartlands-but-it-is-growing-among-catholics-how-will-the-church-respond/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_(religion)
Is Brexit, therefore, a continuation of increased energy capture as Ian Morris argues in that human beings are consequently less inclined to make an “accomodation” with hierarchical and remote organisations to capture energy? So if the “British” civil war was driven by opposition to “Rome” has “Brussels” now become the bete noire standing for opposition to human values of fairness, justice and solidarity through trust necessary for cooperation?
Maybe…
People that expect Labour to support the Remain cause are barking up the wrong tree as are those that keep pointing to Corbyn’s Lexit inclinations. We know full well that the issue does not divide along party lines.
The Brexit cause was not organised or fronted by major parties or even minor parties (namely UKIP). It was organised by the front organisations, Vote Leave and Leave.EU for reasons that we are all well aware of.
The screamingly obvious observation would be that the Remain cause, or anti-Brexit cause or pro-EU cause (hovever one wishes to describe it) also needs to have its own separate, broad-based non-affiliated representative body, a dedicated organisation that is end unto itself, and preferably just one, not two or more rival bodies.
Now that Vote Leave has been prosecuted and discredited in the courts a dedicated Remain organisation would have a sound basis for pushing the cause of a 2nd referendum but alas, no such organisation exists.
Why not I wonder, its potential constituency is vast. At any rate Remainers need to stop looking at Corbyn and take to their own devices.
Jo Maugham is the obvious guy to head it
Marco Fante says:
I think what you are saying is that Brexit issues should be un-whipped and cross party alliances should be established.
If that’s what you are suggesting I think you are spot-on correct, but there’s about zero chance of it happening.
It should have happened from day 1 after Article fifty was signed, and if there was any doubt in anybody’s mind that should have been erased by the 2017 election which screamed ‘no confidence’ and called for a coalition approach.
May decided to buy the DUP instead and battle on regardless and has led us nowhere.
A belated contribution to this. I know your feelings on McDonnell and Corbyn and I share a lot of those but I also feel that Rome wasn’t built in a day. One particular concern is that MMT has not been taken on board by the Labour leadership but we know that the MSM would have a field day if they moved into that territory quickly. Even Maggie took a whole parliament before privatisation got into its stride. What Labour has done though is talk about collecting taxes from the big corporates, addressing tax havens and not offering government contracts to companies who don’t pay taxes here. It’s a start in the right direction as is bringing utilities back under state control. I’ll vote for them even on those modest offers because they aren’t being offered by any other party. Let’s not expect the perfect manifesto but let’s not reject steps in the right direction. You’ve preached about your preference for gradual evolution rather than revolution. I agree with that but if we reject modest steps when the real crunch comes it will be revolution and the far right will take control. Corbyn and McDonnell aren’t perfect but would you rather that than a full dose of Creutzfeld-Jacob Rees-Mogg disease?
But they won’t get to gradualism unless they explain how they are going to effect change
And right now they aren’t doing that
That’s why I think that they haven’t even reached gradualism yet
And that’s what’s worrying
What’s really worrying is thought of permanent Tory rule aided and abetted by the right wing press and a Labour Party that would prefer to be in opposition than assist in radicalising their own party.
This is really a reply to Rod’s statement that “what’s really worrying is thought of permanent Tory rule….” One of my fervent hopes in this mess is that the Tory Party splits in to two separate parties and thereby splits the right wing vote, which might just be enough to keep them out of power for the foreseeable future.
My other fervent hope is that Scotland comes to its senses pronto, effects a clean exit from UK and gets on with setting up a state that is run for the benefit of the people
You are not alone
Ken Mathieson says:
“One of my fervent hopes in this mess is that the Tory Party splits in to two separate parties and thereby splits the right wing vote….”
Hmmmm….. UKIP was doing that quite nicely, and with a PR voting system would probably now be a party instead of being embedded in the Tory Party. David Cameron did a nifty piece of footwork there, keeping his party together for temporary advantage at the cost of wrecking the country.
UKIP ironically was also doing sterling service in hauling the ‘hangers and floggers’ out of the Labour Party.
Too many people in Scotland who are in favour of Independence are waiting for the starting gun for the Indyref2 campaign when in reality it has been running (or strolling) since 2014. The unionist campaign via the MSM has not relaxed for a moment, but is losing traction, i think as the narrative becomes increasingly threadbare.
It is dangerously complacent to assume that because 28% was turned to 45% in 2014 that the same surge can be reproduced again in what will almost certainly be a much shorter (and probably even more viciously contested) campaign period.
Independence is not about winning a referendum it’s about changing the mindset of a nation, then the referendum will be no more than the rubber stamp which establishes its legitimacy.
(Sorry, Ken, I know I’m preaching to the converted, but somebody might be ear-wigging)
Disappointing that so many comments suggest that economic realism will cost votes. Richard has explained in terms that even I can understand how government spending can more than pay for itself and always partly pays for itself. This means that the Government does not spend , it invests. If it invests well, it gets back more than it spent. The battle has got to be fought over which spending proposals will be good or bad investments, and why.
Would Labour really want to win a general election anytime soon? Tories need to own Brexit in it’s totality – Brexit is a poisoned chalice to anybody who touches it.
If I can return to the Labour manifesto of 1945, I think there are important lessons there. The Imperial War Museum has a very brief take on why they won the election: “With an emphasis on social reform, the Labour Party’s manifesto was strongly influenced by the Beveridge Report and included a commitment to full employment, affordable housing, and social security and health care for all.
In contrast, the Conservative campaign focused on …. lowering taxation, maintaining defence spending and encouraging private business interests. While Churchill acknowledged a need for social reform, he argued that this should be done privately rather than by the government”
Well knock me down with a feather, plus ca change, it’s deja vu all over again. The first para is what Labour should be majoring on, and spent the Blair/Brown years largely ignoring while adopting the Conservative policies in the second para. Maybe they should commission a new “Beveridge”, written by someone with MMT background, cull the Blair/Brown Tories within their ranks and address the issues of inequality etc which the 1945 manifesto highlighted and which are still here today and perhaps in 5 to 10 years, when Scotland and NI have gone they may be ready to bring England into a more equal, more socialist place.
However, a hae ma doots, because there are a number of endemic, intractable, stultifying institutions that have their sweaty hands around the throat of the body politic and need to be dealt with: the Monarchy, the House of Lords, FPTP and Public Schools. (Re the latter see: Robert Verkaik’s “Posh Boys”)
I may take inspiration from this in the morning….
Many thanks
As I understand it Hugh Dalton the Labour Chancellor from 1945 to 1947 in the Attlee government fully understood that the UK could create its own money from nothing. He took inspiration from the American New Deal. Subsequent Labour chancellors were monetary system illiterate and towed the Tory Neoliberal line that the UK government had no money of its own. The UK economy has consequently under-performed on fiscal policy for 70 years by electing under-educated political leaders!
[…] regular commentator on this blog, G Hewitt, noted yesterday that the Imperial War Museum notes on their website […]