It's good to see one Labour candidate who is not talking right-wing nonsense. I have known Faiza Shaheen for well over a decade now, and have always admired her approach. It would be great if she reached parliament next time:
https://twitter.com/NEUnion/status/1676263225602498560?s=20
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And Rachel Reeves is supposedly the shadow chancellor and chancellor in waiting?!!!
Dear me……………………….
Hi Pilgrim
Late in the evening, I did reply to your post but it is still awaiting moderation.
I don’t deny you had a point but obsolete ideas have a strong hold. Hopefully you will see it later.
Sorry – it was too late to read last night and has slipped past me this morning – will do soon
thank you
Hi Ian
I’m heavily influenced by a rather clever woman – Clara Mattei in her book ‘The Capital Order’ (2022). To me she nails what has been going on for some time – probably in the post WW1 period and beyond, until today. Her writing is lucid, detailed and forthright.
She successfully isolates the key drivers. It’s power and entitlement based on a feeling of superiority suffused with a weird self appointed morality – not really greed – that drives capital to control society.
Since the Thatcherite and Reagan eras I’d invite you to entertain that many more millionaires have been created by get rich quick schemes, the hollowing out of industry, the robbery enabled by the stock market and the many crashes there have been.
Look at how all that uncollected tax has leaked into the political system for example.
Ignorance? Natural? By design? Do you honestly believe that millionaires don’t gather like we do here to talk about their aims and objectives and what they want to see? What gets said and agreed at Davos and Rupert Murdoch’s parties?
There’s nothing conspiratorial about what I am suggesting. Mattei – like Nancy Maclean in Democracy in Chains (2017) – just goes into the historical paperwork and looks. It’s common interest Ian.
Did you know that when the Tories offered vouchers to parents in the UK to opt out of state schools into private ones, that that device had been created by the Southern states of the U.S to enable whites to exit federally mandated mixed race state schools and go to single race private ones (recounted by Maclean, 2017)?
Austerity, interest rate rises, wage controls, inflation, fiscal policy even have all been used to oppress people to keep them where they are, to maintain the status quo so that the capital order IS the social order – and rigidly so.
The protagonists constantly incriminate themselves by their own hand from the historical record. Believe you me. They do. That’s why Mattei writes as she does. And that’s why bad ideas persist today. Enabled by a certain amount of suspension of belief from those who are oppressed for good measure.
And there’s an extra motivation now for our rich friends, and that is events like 2008, Covid, BREXIT, the NHS – all our illusions about what has been going on are getting their comeuppance – they are being exposed ruthlessly by these events.
The great reveal is at hand. Do you think that we will be allowed to see it? We are certainly banned now from demonstrating about it.
I simply cannot share your view at all but I feel that we have other things in common – which is good. It’s not the end of the world to disagree about this point.
PSR
Thanks Pilgrim
You make a persuasive case. I do think the billionaire class consult and hatch up strategies. Stedman-Jones’ Masters of the Universe showed that well funded think -tanks provided certain politicians with ideas and programs and captured the Conservative and Republican parties.
Where I probably differ is the way followers attach themselves and provide a momentum which may have effects they didn’t intend.
There is a hope. In Nazi Germany they had some very capable scientists and engineers and started to develop some war wining weapons. But each team tended to work in isolation and competed for the attention of the Fuhrer who wasn’t up to the job. At the heart of it ego and selfishness. The Allies disagreed but people like Generals Marshall and Brooke would hammer out a common strategy. By observation is that evil ‘trips itself up’.
Varoufakis said when he was young he and his mates thought they might destroy capitalism. They never thought capitalism would destroy itself.
However, we’d better stop or Richard will start charging us rent!
kind regards
You’re free to keep going
But long posts do sometimes take longer to get moderated as I have to found the time
I appreciate the time you give to this.
I will keep in mind Cromwell’s self denying ordinance.
The Bank of England report she quotes from is very damning but where can a link to it be found?
See the monthly MPC reports
I believe it’s this document https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy-summary-and-minutes/2023/june-2023
She’s good.
John Mcdonald should be saying that Labour is being purged of anyone willing to discuss ideas and policies based on a proper economic analysis and data – and not just reinforcing the ‘official’ narrative of purging the ‘left’.
You obviously did not watch John McDonnell yesterday. He is definitely not reinforcing the official narrative. He will be the next one given notice, I would think.
https://labouroutlook.org/2023/07/02/i-will-vote-against-this-egregious-divisive-bill-at-every-opportunity-john-mcdonnell-on-anti-boycott-bill/
Different subject, I know, but he is against the official line .
Apsana Begum is another one who is standing up for the people. As she says, if this had been law in the 80s we would not have been able to boycott apartheid South Africa. I’m assuming you all did.
Or do you mean Andy McDonald?
Don’t you mean John McDonnell? The one who told us government operates on a credit card!
This John McDonnell.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66105250
On Newsnight last night, and I did say it was a different subject. He was accused of reinforcing the official narrative, and he definitely doesn’t here.
I mentioned Andy McDonald because that was the surname given to John McDonnell in the previous post. I bet John McDonnell gets fed up of being called John McDonald.
Andy McDonald does not reinforce the official narrative, either. However, there would be no north east labour MPs if Starmer kicked out All those who disagreed with him on anything. Andy McDonald quit Starmer’s front bench saying he was splitting the party. That was two years ago.
She is bound to be expelled by Starmer from the Labour Party as she is not following the austerity mantra of both Hunt and Reeves. If she survives, good luck to her.
This was my thought too, she’s just signed her resignation letter from Labour with that and will soon no doubt be joining the ranks of former Labour politicians with no place to go.
I’ve read that there are multiple multibillionaires terrified by the idea that flaming torches are being fashioned and pitchforks sharpened but don’t know what to do about it. I’ve also read that the costs of forming any new out of the box political party are prohibitive. Hmm… surely that’s not the case for multibillionaires working in concert to set up a new political home for all the disenfranchised left wing politicians with no place lately to call home. Perhaps there’s a way forwards after all.
My three ha’pennies are: if a new group emerged it needs to focus on winnable seats. Reeves has a majority of 2000 – there are endless quotes of her supporting BoE policy that will make her constitutents poorer – she supported interest rate rises, she is against pay rises etc etc. Streeting wants to privatise the NHS.
These things can be weaponised & used against candidates. Campaigns need to be more personal – the lying and the fantasy by both vile-tories and liebore needs to be called out.
That would be my game plan, it would be nasty, dirty and unpleasant, but in my view, the current crop of polit-sickos deserve what’s coming to them.
Mike Parr, look up Ocisa. It’s trying to get a candidate to stand against Starmer at the moment but both Reeves and Streeting are in the firing line.
Six ‘Teal Independents’ disrupted the usual two horse race in last year’s Australian election. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/23/teal-independents-who-are-they-how-did-they-upend-australia-election
For someone terminally fed up with the Westminster game of clones on an ever shrinking pitch any alternative to an ‘out of the box political party’ for promising candidates that don’t toe the line on destructive Tory / Labour policies is like a breath of fresh air.
Comments welcome.
I believe that Labour MP Clive Lewis is a supporter of MMT, but doesn’t shout about it in case there are repercussions.