The first time I had Covid I thought it was all over after a week. I did this time too. I was wrong on both occasions. Although the second week of Covid this time has not been as bad as the first time around, it's still not been something to recommend. It's not that I have felt especially ill. This contrasts it with the first four or five days, which were ghastly. Instead, it's been straightforward fatigue that has got to me. I am sure it will go, and I have little doubt that the recent heat did not help, but I will, nonetheless, be taking it easy for anther few days.
That said, the urge to write so in thing has eventually caught up with me. I find it genuinely difficult not to write, although I also appreciate the merit in sometimes taking a break. I haven't concluded on my reflections from sitting back this time, as yet. There may, of course, be nothing to conclude. Doing not a lot, bar reading (mainly on environmental issues) need not lead to new conclusions, but so far the experience has suggested it might. What strikes me, very strongly, is how very deep is the mess we really are in.
The Tory Party leadership elections are a perfect example of that. I won't rehearse the strengths and weaknesses of Sunak and Truss again. They are all too apparent. But so too is the reason why they are so bad. It comes down to dogma.
We face enormous crises. There is climate change, of course. That's literally an existential threat. But there is much more than that which threatens is. The following do as well:
Covid;
Monkey pox;
War;
Food shortages;
Threats to energy supplies;
Threats to water supplies;
Inflation resulting from excessive corporate power.
Then there are specifically created threats attributable to the actions of the UK government:
Brexit;
The threat to peace in Northern Ireland;
Insecure work;
Low wages;
A loss of human rights;
A police state;
Unaffordable housing;
Insecure tenure;
Failing public services.
I could add to the list. And in the face of this the only thing Truss wants to do is cut the size of the state. As an alternative, Sunak wants to balance the books. Both want, as all neoliberals have always done, to walk away from every problem we face and suggest that it is for the market to solve our problems.
The reality is that there is no market solution to any of these problems. That is because these are issues created by a dogmatic belief in the power of markets that cannot as a result ever be solved by them.
There is only one solution to the problems that we face. We need a bigger state. Without one we cannot meet the needs that people have. Nor can we face the collective issues that we, as people, as societies and as a single world must address.
Politicians who now think that the future is dependent on market growth have lost the plot. What we need now is that the resources we have be fairly shared. There is more than enough for everyone, but dogma is going to deny sufficient to an increasing proportion of the population.
And what we need is a focus on meeting need. We need housing, health and social care, measures to tackle the threats to the environment, a functioning penal system, education for life, and energy that is sustainable. But so much more than that, we need to also ensure people have enough to live on, partly by being paid more, and partly by reducing the hideous amounts that they have to pay to the rentier economy to have access to housing and credit.
All I see when looking at Sunak and Truss are a pair of people with the wrong answer to any question because they still believe that the purpose of our economy is to manufacture wants that some people can be persuaded to embrace in pursuit of a policy of growth that leaves a trail of destruction behind it. The reality is that in pursuit of this policy they ignore need, but it is needs that we must now meet within our economy because so many are on the precipice of economic and social catastrophe as our economy totters on the brink of failure.
Standing back it is obvious that what our economy requires is a revolution to meet need. Nothing less will do.
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If afraid that the contenders (and Tory Party) are only looking at how to impress their stakeholders i.e. donors, big business, Conservative members and the wealthy. Also meaning they go for populist policies that will impress their swing voters (change in Human Rights law – why ? Is this more pressing than the Cost of Living or NHS) instead of policies that will improve the lives of everyone. Somewhere along the road they’ve ‘forgotten’ that being in Government is to to represent ALL people in the UK not just their stakeholders.
Unfortunately I suspect if Labour do win the next General Election they will do the same
I’m also fed up with politicians saying they will fix things when it was them who have been in power for 12 years, who caused the problem in the first place! Why doesn’t anybody including opposition, media, etc. attack them on this ?
My solution would be to create a new party, called the Fair Party, who’s reason detre is to look after everyone fairly without fear or favor. Anybody on here want to join up ?
First past the post means no party has to even try to address the concerns of half the people, let alone most or all the people. They have to persuade enough people in enough constituencies to vote for them to create a majority in Westminster. That is all.
Johnson won a large majority with less than 44% of the votes, with a 67% turnout. 14 million people from 47 million voters, in a nation of 67 million people. The Conservatives won a majority in 2015 with not even 37%. Just as bad was the Labour majority in 2005 with 35% of the vote. The past time a party won a majority of the popular vote was 1935 (although the Conservatives came close in 1951, 1955 and 1959 and Labour in 1966).
This is not how a democracy should work. Electoral reform is a must.
Dennis
I would join your party if I thought that being a party member or activist would gain the slightest traction against the hegemony of the three main Tory parties. But in a country in which, thanks to FPTP (F***ing Politicians Taking the Piss), and the dominance of the Dailies Heil, Brexpress, Torygraph and the
Murdoch Scum, there is little chance of that ever happening.
There are already minuscule parties (?) based on your idea, by the way:
https://www.trueandfairparty.uk, founded by the admirable Gina Miller (although economically she does not seem to have heard of MMT yet)
Fairness and Justice Party seems to be more a hobby horse, but its webpages (periodically updated by the proprietor) are a fascinating read at http://bitbarn.co.uk/fjp/
Then there’s the Breakthrough Party, the brainchild of Alex Mays. It’s been going for about 2 years now, breaking through only in terms of a few defections on obscure local councils. https://breakthroughparty.org.uk
There’s also the Northern Independence Party https://www.freethenorth.co.uk/our-values which, together with the TUSC and Breakthrough recently formed the Peoples Alliance of the Left https://leftunity.org/peoples-alliance-of-the-left-pal/ (not to be confused with the Progressive Alliance).
So you are not alone. But you are massively outgunned by the prevailing system of Parliamentary Party Pantomime Politics (3P for short).
IMHO, it’s this 3P approach to politics which is well past its sell-by date. Parliaments (as formed under FPTP) are so adversarial that IMMENSE amounts of money, time, effort are wasted on contesting (or more usually buying) votes and policy platforms and for what? So that parties, rather than people, can be ‘represented’ in process that never was and never will be truly or authentically democratic (ie OF/BY/FOR people). And the pantomime element is way beyond a joke.
I would support 3D politics – Deliberative Direct and Democratic, eschewing parliaments for citizens assemblies selected through sortition.
I am a bit tired of all the talk of parliamentary reform, frankly. The two concepts of parliament and reform seem irreconcilably oxymoronic.
I am for PR: Peoples Revolution.
We already have a new party being formed. It’s called The True and Fair Party and is led by none other the Gina Miller.
The only thing I would add to your list is the destruction of communities both in the sense of the physical towns and cities in which we live and the alienation of the people that live there.
Even in the supposedly wealthy South-East you do not have to drive far before you come to previously prosperous towns whose centres resemble something from a post-apocalyptic sci-fi dystopia.
Agreed
i live in Hartlepool. It was a hell hole in the 70s and 80s.. the regeneration since has been amazing so much so people come from al around to go out in the Marina area on an evening..so it’s not all doom and gloom.
Are you sure?
And the local Hartlepudlians? Have they brought into this new Hartlepool or are they still as sidelined as they were inthe 90’s (when I worked in criminal defence there)?
I saw a bit of Rachel Reeves on Kay Burley. I felt depressed. It was the same old we must pay for cuts/spending from taxes. She was starting to say something about avoided tax when I had to take the dogs to playschool !
As for the Lib Dems, I am not sure what they are offering.
I couldn’t agree more Richard, spot on, but where is this revolution going to come from? All of the media is focused upon the Truss v Sunak ‘fiasco’ and from what I am reading this morning Starmer’s Labour Party is not offering any serious alternative except to ‘grow the economy ‘. TINA, so the general population are not offered the revolution for change necessary you argue for. As a 75 year old and a relative newcomer to the social media such as Twitter and Facebook it is clear to me that our nation is completely divided on nearly every issue you can think of? How have we arrived at this dangerous situation? I think our poor education system which now seems solely focused on education for work is partly to blame but the main cause is the gross and obscene inequality in modern society which sadly the general populace appears to accept.
I see that Reeves (Oxford PPE) has said that there will be no nationalisation of rail, water, electricity She also said: “I’ve set out fiscal rules that say all day-to-day spending will be funded by day-to-day tax revenues,” Which means that substantive Liebore government intervention in the list of problems and threats mentioned by Richard will not occur (fiscal rules don’tcha know).
It is clear that Reeves supports the Thatcher corner shop model of the economy. Which raises the question: what value, if any, a PPE from Oxford? Clearly those that take it are incapable of independent thought or even thinking in terms of “how do we abolish food banks, how do we house the homeless, how do we….” the list is long. The conclusion to be drawn is that anybody who votes Liebore in the next election needs to think again. They are, very clearly tory-vulture lite. B.Liarite retreads of the worst kind.
And to rub the points home: A 2021 poll by ComRes found that 60% of people want energy in public ownership, versus 17% against.
YouGov found in 2019 that 64% want rail in public ownership and 63% want water in public ownership (with 23% against).
Thus does Reeves and Liebore spit in the face of UK serfs & their wishes.
Mike, I couldn’t agree more with your analysis of Reeves’s and Starmer’s views on economics, which is why I call them “flat-earther economists”, adding in thr adjective “thuggish” in the case of Reeves, who seems to think benefits claimants are robbing the State (but, then, neoliberals DO think that).
Here’s what I in explanation of my coinage on Progressive Pulse
“For just as flat-earthers believed Colombus would fall off the edge of the world, flat-earther economists believe we must balance the books by, for example, paying off the National Debt, so as to avoid saddling our grandchildren with an unpayable debt,
To achieve this, it is necessary to raise taxes, as there is no Magic Money Tree, and we must “cut our coat according to our cloth”, as otherwise, the country will go bankrupt, and any other of the similar Nursery Rhyme explanations the “there’s no money but taxpayers’ money” that the flat-earthers trot out.
It’s not just kindergarten economics and kindergarten democracy we have to worry about.
Crucially, it’s kindergarten language, being used to dumb down the electorate and obscure realities.”
(The whole Progressive Pulse post has very help comments to a very interesting post at
http://www.progressivepulse.org/society/what-a-pity-that-starmer
headed “What a pity that Starmer…”, to which I, of course, add “is a visionless flat-earther economist!
Mike Parr: I absolutely agree. And when I mentioned to my daughter (an academic) that both Rachel Reeves and Liz Truss have an Oxford PPE degree, she advised me that it’s always been regarded as the “easy option”. It now appears that it sows delusion, too, in some of its alumni.
Thanks to both for the positive replies.
Permit me a slight diversion. I have a British lawyer friend. I mentioned to him Kevin Cahils book “Who Owns the World” & the fact that it is the Queen who legally owns all the land in the UK (Land Registration Act 2002.. freehold: an interest in an estate in land in fee simple. Fee simple: sum paid for a tennacy) You are all (if you own a house) but tennants of Mrs Queen. His response “yes Mike, we learn that at first year in law school”. Note how the above knowledge is not in common circulation – despite being known by all graduates of UK law schools. Moving on to gov finance & MMT.
Do we know what they are taught in the E part of PPE? One assumes economics as it relates to government. It is inconceivable that they are not taught the relationship between gov & BoE and the ways in which gov can raise money, the costs associated with this, the implication etc etc. If they are not taught this, then the course is trash. If they are taught this, then the conclusion to be drawn, is that the likes of Reeves, is willing to see people starve/sleep on the pavement/go without an urgent operation etc, because she knowlingly sets financial constraints on government actions which she knows to be false. Key word: knowlingly.
This makes Reeves evil, biblically evil. Not “deluded” or “bad” or “stupid”, but evil. Given her education & the knowledge this has given her, she is an evil woman, and a class traitor.
Those who aid & abet her are likewise, evil people. & thus by extension, this would make large parts of the British political establishment evil by association/attitude.
The mistake reasonable people make is to try to see the other persons point of view. In this case, lets take the PoV of an in-work-but-starving person (with us for more than 8 years btw), or homeless-on-the-street person, or… the list is long. How would they view Reeves if they knew that her gov could take action/spend money/etc and change things for them, but won’t because Reeves is incapable/unwilling to make an argument for gov action. This places her in exactly the same category as Johnson and the Bullingdons: burning £50 notes in front of a homeless person. Evil people. This is the framing in which to place ex-Labour, now Liebore.
PPE is micro focussed
And macro almost never talks money
The issues you refer to are unlikely to be taught on almost any economics course – almost all of which are, anyway, econometrics focussed . Reality does not intrude on the reaching of economics
Glad you are recovering – the fatigue doesn’t sound fun. Each reinfection doesnt help. Rachel Reeves R4 Today programme trailing Starmer speech on industrial policy hardly any better than Truss/Sunak. Challenged on ‘nationalisation’ – oh definitely not – ‘the fiscal rules’ – suggests economic illiteracy, apart from political stupidity – didnt even point out what the Tories have nationalised.
They are going to set up an Industrial Council with business – thats the policy!
Not quite your ‘ revolution to meet need’ .
What a state we are in.
Agreed
Deeply depressing
I have listened to most of his speech
Pure neoliberalism
And Starmer is hedging his bets, saying nothing much different. I despair.
So do I
As usual Richard, your articles are always addressing the problems we have in society, you should be Prime Minister!. Things in government would then be done for the ordinary people who are struggling to survive. You will be tired for a long time yet from getting over the covid-19, take it easy and in your stride, all the best, Mel
To help focus our elected members on priorities, I propose what I call the BasiX strategy
1. Food – no one hungry
2. Shelter – no one sleeping rough
3. Income – adequate wages, pensions and benefits
4. Health and Care – free access to NHS and related services
5. Education – lifelong education for all
Am I right in thinking that Covid vaccines doesn’t work anywhere near as well the Flu vaccines? I typically have had a jab against that every couple of years and haven’t had the slightest of flu symptoms since I started some 30 years or so ago.
Whereas with Covid I’m hearing lots of similar stories to Richard’s. People have had three doses but still go down quite poorly when they do pick it up. So maybe the only thing which will protect us is a combination of the vaccine and a natural infection or infections, which hopefully won’t turn to be too serious. The govt won’t care too much if we aren’t actually in hospital. This, rightly or wrongly, looks to be de facto government policy regardless of any denials. Let the virus spread during the summer in the hope, or expectation, that we’ll have higher immunity by next Winter.
Why did we stop vaccinating?
In my city in Scotland we still have the appointment plus drop-in station open in a shopping mall, for us to access Covid vaccines. I guess the numbers are down to a trickle as the two doses plus one , or two, boosters have now been given. Very high take up in the older age groups. Children are at last included but as I have none I don’t know where they were administered.
I read that development continues in order to make vaccines which combat the newer strains around. Maybe a hiatus for that reason?
Also thinking this centre will become the norm for mass vaccines as I was invited to attend there for a pneumococcal vaccine instead of my medical centre – I do prefer that .
Friend of mine here just went down yesterday with the version begins with very sore throat. Got this far without succumbing. Looking round our behaviour is very slack. Public info videos gone, notices removed, masks off, what else would happen as a result?
Wishing you well – and make looking after yourself a matter of discipline!!
The flu vaccine works well when they have the right three or four variants in the vaccine, which they need to predict many months in advance to produce in the quantities they need. Some years the flu vaccines work less well when the variant that becomes dominant emerges late and was not included in the mix.
COVID is a coronavirus, not an influenza virus, so you can’t expect it to necessarily behave in the same way. Anyway, almost everyone who has been vaccinated to date (which is far from everyone – 45 million first doses leaves about 10 million unvaccinated in England) has received something based on the original “vanilla” SARS-CoV-2 virus. In late 2020 / early 2021 it was mostly the Alpha variant. By the end of 2021 it was mostly Delta. And for the last year or so, most people being infected and reinfected by variants of Omicron – now BA.1 or BA.2. The trend appears to be towards a variant of the virus that is much more transmissible, against which the vaccines and previous infection are much less protecting, but (thankfully) which has tended to result in fewer serious symptoms and deaths. The next variant may be even more transmissible but (like Alpha and Delta) more deadly.
Perhaps someone can correct me, but I’m not aware of any of the vaccines changing to be based on a more recent variant yet. Perhaps for the boosters this autumn.
The repeated peaks in infection show that this disease is not “endemic” yet. It keeps evolving, and keeps breaking out into epidemics. It has not killed me or Richard, but it is no picnic.
Vaccines are – as you say – well behind the curve now according to the experts
That I will get this autumn is likely to be of marginal value
IU have a new box of FFP3s….
I don’t think we have stopped. The last I heard, the over 50s will get another shot shortly. Whether four jabs will be any more effective than three remains to be seen.
We should be looking at getting the vaccine to be more effective, in the way that others vaccines are, rather than simply giving out more of the same. The virus has changed in the last couple of years but not the vaccines.
We stopped
And we are not doing anything for children
No no no…all the best research seems to point to the importance of if possiblenot getting infected.
https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1539137073906606082
Vaccinations provide much more protection than getting ill does
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1454152775777103874
– and thats for those who survive the illness, and don’t risk getting get all the later impacts on the heart, lungs, brain, etc. or long covid.
You seem to be influenced by the ‘natural immunity’ crowd – promulgated by some of the the organised disinformation networks.
While I dont disagree with you, its fascinating that we have a Government that wants a Police State with no Police Officers and a Court system in chaos due to cuts
More privatisation of England’s NHS on the cards? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/24/charge-patients-for-hospital-stays-to-help-fund-nhs-says-report
On the other side of Labour https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/24/rebecca-long-bailey-calls-for-labour-to-drop-cautious-approach-to-economy
Here on the Isle of Seil (Mull of Kintyre) there are plenty of indicators about the almost split personality of the UK. Most of the roads and other infrastructure up here and on the way here is knackered for example.
Yet here and there are dotted immaculate houses for rent or as second homes and there are plenty of new cars everywhere.
It seems that ‘private wealth/public squalor’ is the order of the day.
I note a report being spoken about in the Guardian again about proposals to charge for NHS services.
Squalor is being used deliberately to level down our expectations and money being diverted into more private consumption instead of public investment. This is how Neo-liberalism effects change – it breaks things and then exhorts change to be made which is merely an exchange from one more accountable monopoly to a much less accountable one.
Why oh why do we keep falling for it?
I wish I knew
Might the political parties be in some sort of cartel for major policies, such macro economics?
Yet more evidence that you dont live in the same reality as the rest of us. There’s no market solution to food shortages? How does anyone take this seriously?
If there was there would be no food shortages
There is enough food for everyone and they don’t get it
By definition that is market failure
My 2 youngest grandchildren ages 10 and 12 are due to be vaccinated on 1st August so there is some vaccination going on.
With Freeports and charter cities we are sliding down into the depths of totalitarian hell.
This has been doing the rounds if it’s ok to post here for a view of brexit UK’s fascist future;
https://medium.com/@cormack.lawson/charter-cities-the-real-reason-for-brexit-and-the-bigger-picture-4de80dbb69fb
These articles are so depressing and frightening. We seem to be at an “Aragorn at the Dark Gate” moment in history but without a leader or a coherent force to withstand the evil that is creeping up on us.