I have been thinking out loud on Twitter this morning, which may not be the right place to do that as it is so easily misunderstood, but what the heck: I've done it now.
I began with this summary of the state of play after Hunt's coup:
The last line summarises all that has been achieved, and the limit of Tory ambition. With Starmer saying yesterday that Labour will be the party of sound money, he worries me too.
I then moved to this:
My logic is this:
Add this to that thought:
You then get to this:
The result is an inversion of the logic that now underpins the economy. Given that we cannot fight inflation because it is beyond our national control, and given that the only tool we have available to fight it cannot work within the UK context, why are we trying? Why aren't we instead running policy as if people, their homes and their security mattered more than the supposed state of the national finances? Wouldn't that make sense?
My massive gut instinct is that we are doing everything possible to maintain the value of land and to inflate the return to capital whilst leaving people to perish. Hence this tweet, which is a little disconnected, but not much:
All this builds on this idea that I tweeted yesterday:
This feels like what is happening to me. And it frightens me, to be honest. How can we get so much, so wrong, to benefit so few?
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Because it is a government of the few, by the few for the few. The party is bankrolled by money and vested interests.
And it will not go.
So, we can safely say that democracy in Britain is now dead. The Tories have at least shown us that. The inability to rule started with May and got worse from there.
Everything they have done since 2010 has been anti-democratic and nothing but the expression of their frustration at being kicked out in 1997. And they’ve gleefully wrought vengeance on us – that’s all – for having the temerity not to vote for them.
Anyone else would resign.
Racheal Reeves was hopeless on R4 this morning when asked why the Labour party agreed with Hunt’s interventions.
When you have politicians who do not believe in sovereignty and therefore (logically) the State, this is what you get.
I agree with you about Rachael Reeves effectiveness this morning, but she was experiencing the same problem that anybody who is not a Tory suffers from, the BBC interviewer essentially shouted her down.
Constant interruptions making it impossible to develop any argument or make any point, all within a very small, allotted time that invariably ends with the speaker being cut off mid-sentence, just as they start to say something that might not be approved of by the Daily Mail.
Contrast with the interview on the Today program with a very minor Tory MP, just a few moments before the Rachael Reeves appearance, who was fed questions that sounded as if they had been written by Tory HQ and then listened to in respectful silence.
That Rachael Reeves is a Blairite neo-liberal is obviously less important than her not being a Tory.
The EU has capped the profits of different electricity producers-renewables, nuclear , gas.
They are also imposing taxes on the excess profits. I don’t know if they intend to use QE but they seem to be ahead of us. The cap on bankers’ bonuses remains in place. No one seems to be making comparisons.
The First World War generals, to be fair, learnt. By 1918 they had integrated two new weapons, aircraft and tanks, with artillery and new infantry tactics and the ‘Hundred Days’ in 1918 saw the German army driven back and sue for peace.
The politicians and official economists still sound like those who advised Ramsey McDonald in 1931. A black hole in the public finances. Balance the books! ‘Eye watering cuts’ are necessary. We must convince the markets.
You may well remember that the 1931 National Government was set up after a Labour government had failed to solve the Finacial crisis caused by Winston Churchill in the previous Tory government putting Britain back on the Gold Standard.
As soon as the Tory dominated National government was formed they solved the problem, with the help of the Bank of England, City of London and Civil service, by simply taking Britain back off the Gold Standard.
As a Labour politician of the time commented, “Nobody ever told us we could do that”.
Any post-Tory government of the 2020s will face exactly the same lack of cooperation.
But is Labour does not listen to those talking to them they won’t solve the problems
They are not listening
Apologies if you’ve already seen this:-
https://twitter.com/JohnOBrennan2/status/1581569199092035584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1581569199092035584%7Ctwgr%5Ebc639e27b6863aec4d0bf8196a9866e488252575%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmunguin.wordpress.com%2F2022%2F10%2F17%2Fjust-for-a-laugh-194%2F
Quite amusing, I admit
To answer your question this is due to the dominance of finance capital in our economy and consequently on our politics. Reeves and Starmer are as likely to be as in thrall to finance as the conservatives. The question beyond this is how much people can bear and what they do when they can’t take anymore and who they turn to as a consequence. We are entering a full scale crisis and possible collapse.
“The energies of a mighty kingdom have been wasted in building up the power of selfish and ignorant men, and its resources squandered for their aggrandisement.
The good of a party has been advanced to the sacrifice of the good of the nation; the few have governed for the interest of the few, while the interest of the many has been neglected, or insolently and tyrannously trampled upon.”
From the 1839 Chartist petition to parliament. Plus ca change….
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1838chartism.asp#:~:text=May%20it%20therefore%20please%20your,voting%20for%20members%20of%20Parliament%3B
I was thinking about something last night on what the Tories might do to save themselves. Opinion polls suggest they face oblivion at the next election. Austerity part 2, their new plan isn’t going to make it any easier for them assuming they try to run the full course of the next two years. They face wipe out at that election whenever it comes. They are now playing a game of political damage limitation for themselves, but the course of action they have chosen and the economic and financial damage that it will inflict on millions of people, must surely mean they have no chance of winning next time. They simply don’t have the time given the hardcore austerity approach Hunt is now taking. Some polls are suggesting that the SNP might be the “official” opposition come 2025! The Tories may only be left with a handful of seats. They will struggle to survive as a serious political force.
However, there is one thing that I think these Tories might try to do to save their own skin. Suspend elections. Probably in their terms “in the national interest”. I fancy they may even offer Labour and the LibDems a grand coalition knowing full well that having a current majority in Parliament of their own it would be totally meaningless. The opposition would of course turn this down. Then the right wing campaign and their friends in the press would begin to label them as traitors. Would the Tories do this to save their own skin in the face of electoral wipe out? I wouldn’t put it past them. After all, the next election could see the end of the Tory Party as we know it. They could be finished.
There could be a silver lining
Until a more openly fascist party comes along
This might cheer you up Richard. Needs to be shared far and wide.
https://youtu.be/IRDLIOME47c
It is very good
Required viewing and a brilliant explainer of the 55 Tufton Street project
https://twitter.com/ByDonkeys/status/1582303415576715265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1582306065387249665%7Ctwgr%5Ef95d59dc6c8307fcab81d3f518a23c11751e9b07%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.brfcs.com%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fcampbellclaret%2Fstatus%2F1582306065387249665%3Fs%3D6126t%3DpNY5WxHuQgZdAS6fWvRq4w
Now on the blog
Interesting post, Richard. And worrying. ‘…the banks are happy now.’
If The Tax Research Party were voted in tomorrow on an economic reality ticket, would it need to carry the establishment (bankers, markets, etc.) with it to some extent, or run the risk of it trashing the economy on a whim of greed and self interest, or could the new government neuter them? Interest rates are the only obvious tool they would have total control of that I can see.
Maybe neutering is the answer…
Remove all the guarantees on which they rely and offer state alternatives and markets would change overnight
I think it’s pretty simple really. Once people began to be treated merely as assets on a balance sheet, merely equivalent to machinery, or land, or capital, we were doomed. I mean, it’s what both Smith and Marx warned about, at great length, after all…
The crisis is maintainance of land values at the cost of everything else. This goes back a very long way. The decision was made to junk manufacturing and make the UK a service economy where wealth, is sent offshore or invested in property. This included the sell off of public housing – so that the little people might feel they were participants in the new economy.
A new political party required :
NOT Labour
Nationally Organised True Labour
True Labour would be a good name. The rhyme with New Labour gives it a touch of irony perhaps.
The origins of this crisis go back a very long way. A decision was made to junk UK manufacturing and run a ‘service’ (City of London) economy whereby profits went either offshore or into property. No investment. No R&D. The ‘little people’ were encouraged to believe they were participants in the new economy – ‘own’ your own home /buy your cut price council house. There aren’t many chairs left in this musical. The great terror is a massive collapse of the whole property house of cards. Yes, it’s all about maintaining land values at the expense of the 99%.