There has been less time for blogging than usual this morning due to other commitments. But these are some random thoughts before I get my head down into the day job.
First, what's the point of a Labour Party that does not support workers when they are suffering serious real loss of earnings?
Second, if you want to learn about how to handle the media watch RMT leader Mikel Lynch. He has been stunning, including in handling complex issues like wage -price spirals.
Third, note the most effective point he's made, which is that of course strikes are meant to inconvenience people. Their purpose is to point out how much you value what those on strike do to justify their pay claim. It's hard to argue with.
Fourth, wonder about the ethics (or lack of them) of a government that will bring forward a Bill on human rights to remove the rights many of us need to live in freedom just because a court created by Winston Churchill to protect us from fascism ruled against their profoundly racist policies.
Fifth, expect to find that the good people of Devon are not so good by Friday morning: I suspect large numbers of them will vote for a candidate from our fascist party.
Sixth, hay fever really is profoundly annoying. But not as much as a lot of BBC news.
Seventh, thank Lewis Goodall for having made the point so effectively that anyone who wants to question the government really cannot work for the BBC any more. That's how bad things have got there.
Eighth, take that as further evidence of the March of the fascist state.
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Thank heavens for this Richard, and thanks too, to your scholarly contributors.
On impartiality; philosophically, impartiality assumes and impartial spectator (Adam Smith). Impartiality is not disinterest, but assumes ‘values’ consonant not with fixed rules, but woth human ethical responsiveness to the predicaments of everyday life. It cannot be corporatised, because it is by nature and circumstance (the variance of instants in a complex world), essentially intuitive.
The problem is the BBC is not an impartial spectator, and cannot be: not only because it is a regulated corporation rather than a ‘person’ (save legally, which merely begs the question), but because it cannot be impartial about its own broadcasting: the BBC tries to conflate its so-called “impartial” observation of politics, with the so-called independence of its broadcasting; to claim a completely distorted hybrid “impartiality”. It doesn’t work. It never did.
I mentioned BBC Scotland yesterday. BBC Scotland has long abandoned any weak semblance of independence from London, and the illusion of “impartiality”. It is quite plainly a Unionist Corporation. Laura Maxwell’s spirited effort yesterday is probably the exception in using an interview to interrogate power without fear or favour, but the rule reamins; as the Lewis Goodall et al, exits from the BBC so dramatically underscore.
See my article in The National today
How difficult it is to shake the comfortable from their assumptions that all is well in UK, and not recognise the onward – if piecemeal – march of fascism. The sympathies of the real elite – the gentry, the rich, the powerful – of the 1930s have never gone away and now find expression in the mediocrities of the Britannia Unchained morons. We are not alone: fascism has a strong hold in Eastern Europe and now the USA.
Interesting that you bring in the USA, which is often a guide to what will happen in the UK.
Our host can’t be everywhere, however his thoughts on the USA would also be welcome (if only to alert those who have little understanding).
Defeat for the Democrats in November will have far-reaching consequences. Many are even suggesting a some sort of crackdown on Republican candidates to prevent this. In short, a semi-suspension of democracy to save democracy.
What should they do?
I have seen no such suggestion
I wonder if, with the benefit of hindsight, the RMT regret supporting Brexit?
https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-sets-out-six-key-reasons-for-leaving-the-eu/?fbclid=IwAR1rQDI-aUiNmz3kkSHTaxluVYuEC9i2dkTaafZxsg7zJLQrLR1s3Nkb0nE
They should
This is perhaps not the right place to ask, but I’m not sure where else to do so. I’ve just finished your book (print version) and wondered if you could explain the chart in p121 (chapter 8 “inflation”) in terms of the words on the chart rather than colours – as the book is black and white. The link you give on p120 doesn’t seem to exist any longer. I can equate “yellow” to “corporate” but can’t do the rest – sorry. Thanks.
The chart is in this tweet. Does that help? https://mobile.twitter.com/RichardJMurphy/status/1371039115983122437
When a Republican candidate for the office of Senator can post an election campaign advertisement like this, which is Fascist, perhaps they should be ‘clamped down on’.
It is appalling. Some of his opponents accepted he is not literally inciting inciting murder, but the implication is definite. Violence is acceptable in his cause.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZZ2Y6fAq8o
Can someone please check my maths.
If inflation is approximately 9%
A rail worker will be 1/1.09=8.257% worse off than a year ago
If they get a 3% wage rise and inflation continues at 9%, this time next year they will be
(1/1.09)*1.03*(1/1.09)=13.31% worse off.
Losing 3 days pay costs them 3/365=0.82% of their annual pay.
Leaving aside the other issues, they need to get an offer improved by at least that amount to claw back any of their losses
They’ll get more than that