There are three things that the UK commentariat seems to agree upon right now. The first is Sunak has given up. The second Starmer has no idea what he is for except expelling the left. The third is no one has any clue who to vote for. They're all true. So what now?
The first thing to agree upon is that there is profound poverty of thought in English politics. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all still have people of vision. England has not unless promoting division counts, and I don't think it does.
This leaves voters in three of the four countries of the UK with positive choices that they can make. But it leaves England with no one unless the LibDems determination to return to the EU counts as vision.
I am sorry to say that I did not think it does for one very good reason. Whilst I support the idea, to suggest that reclaiming something that was represents vision for the future seems a little far-fetched to me: there has to be more to it than that.
The Tories have no vision. They have reached the point where most of them cannot imagine their fate beyond the next election. There are only so many jobs at GB News. For the rest of them, the options are bleak. Who would want to employ someone from this failed government?
Labour has, so far, nothing to offer except the statement ‘We will have to see how things are when we get into government' as if they are unable to imagine that the answer is ‘Just a bit worse than things are now'. Meanwhile, they purge anyone with the ability to think.
And there is little more to say for the Greens. I know where Caroline Lucas is. And I obviously know that the party is far more aware of green issues than anyone else. But what the economics is, I really do not know.
After that, I run out of options, excluding those that the factionalised far right have to offer, and thankfully it is still the case that only a very few people take them seriously.
So, we're stuffed. Eighteen months at most from a general election, and maybe rather less, I have to scramble for any reason to think I might vote for anyone.
So what comes up when I start to scramble? What I realise is that my criteria have to change. They move from what do I want to who is offering anything that might deliver the change I want to see so that we can get out of this mess?
Using that criterion, two options remain, and pretty much for the same reason. I have a choice of LibDem or Green because both support proportional representation voting reform.
Given that this would break the hegemony of Labour and the Tories that is now so utterly destructive, that will do for me as the number one criterion for selection.
The question then comes down to who has best chance of winning where I am within the first-past-the-post system? And that's it.
I am not saying that the resulting choice is completely bleak. But I still have to ask, how did things get this bad? Why is it that politics reached this sorry state? And what price have we paid for it doing so?
It is as desperate a comment on the state of the UK that we have to tolerate Labour and the Tories as options for government as it is on the US that they can only find two quite old men who are apparently capable of running their country.
One day we might have a politics that addresses who we are, where we are, and what we need to do. But that day, it seems, has yet to arrive.
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These two questions: “Why is it that politics reached this sorry state? And what price have we paid for it doing so?”
are answered by yet another good article by Chakrabortty (I dislike the G’ but it still has some fine writers)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/06/george-osborne-podcast-austerity-ed-balls
vile-tory & vile-libore have converged – which happened post 1992 (30 years ago). The price for this was paid by, amongst others, the postman and his wife profiled in the article. no-brain-Balls & Gidiot would shrug if this reality was even mentioned to them. (I recall the 1997 B.Liar gov and wondering why Balls, with no discernable talent was a significant something in it). Meeja action to massage the image of ex-polit-sickos is nothing new – witness Portillo as nasty as they come – rehabilitated via chuffas for gods sake. Doing this blurs differences which in any case are at best marginal.
In terms of the next election, as I have mentioned in previous comments, there needs to be a guerilla campaign against those with small majorities (vile-tory or vile-liebore). It needs to be personal and it needs to be nasty with simple easy to understand memes. It also needs to offer an alternative. Lessons from the 2016 Trump campaign and the 2019 Cummings campaign could be used. They used lies to win, but both Liebore and the Tories have been scattering ammo all around, just waiting to be picked up & used against them. Reeves is but one of the most obvious, Streeting another, the list is long. My info from the LyingDems (I know some) is that the leader is 100% weak & useless (wow – a clean sweep, all the leaders of all the main parties – weak & useless).
Your reasoning regarding your voting strategy seems to me to be unassailable. It is incredibly depressing that things have come to this.
Don’t think politics has ever seemed this bleak – but maybe thats just false nostalgia.
As you say Richard lack of vision lack of ideas and phobia of even a debate.
There still some within Labour who will and do advocate progressive ideas and realistic economic analysis – and are prepared to show how things can be change – re the EU prospective candidate yesterday.
We will continue promoting that within Labour – hopefully without being expelled – (hopefully Neal Lawson who has advocated tactical voting wont be).
Hope Greens and Lib dems in your part of the world can sort themselves out to get rid of the Tories
During Australia’s last national election, 14 months ago, the rotting conservative party was thrown out. It lost a handful of blue ribbon seats due to a concerted independence movement very largely driven by the urgency of climate action and political integrity, with committed local campaigners, and generous donors across the country, unseating the former Treasurer inter alia. Greens also increased their representation and other impressive independents got up, with Labor’s primary vote also down. We have compulsory and PR voting so it’s not directly comparable. We have the same MSM bias but social media campaigns were crucial. It can be done and it sets a precedent for more to follow, including targeting Labor seats. Which Tory seats, and what critical policy agenda items, would you target to start a UK independents’ electoral campaign now?
Hi Richard
First of all I feel really guilty about some of the longer posts I’ve done here – can a word limit be set on the posts? Many of my contributions are done on the hoof (it just comes out, stimulated by your blogging) but a word limit might help more concise writing.
I want to thank you for this post because I think that it is compelling that the Lib Dems support PR and you have helped me see why I should still vote at the next election and beyond (although their adherence to orthodox neo-liberal testicular economics is a real drag for me).
Thanks
No word limit needed.
People appreciate the comments on this blog – which make it into something special.
Why would I want to restrain comments except from trolls and the abusive or those who create libel risk fir me?
PSR I second Richard! Your posts are never too long for me.
PSR – me too!
And thanks for all your posts, short or longer.
Hyper Norm and Kirsten
Thanks,
PSR
Your post pretty much sums up my current thinking. What I would say is that I strongly believe the basis for this malaise starts with not understanding monetary systems, in particular that there has to be a dealer and funder of last resort and that can only be the sovereign state and in the worst of situations that can only be “a” sovereign state. In the case of the latter that state has to have sufficient access to resources so that it can be militarily dominant (in the current climate of ideologies) but for that state to maintain a wide degree of hegemony long term it also has to a sufficiently acceptable degree of democracy.
https://www.bu.edu/gdp/files/2021/10/GEGI_WP_053_FIN.
In a nutshell the majority of politicians still think like poorly educated children in regard to monetary system matters and because of this they able to confuse and hoodwink most of the electorate.
404 Page Not found
I guessed at the 404 problem. It’s a pdf: https://www.bu.edu/gdp/files/2021/10/GEGI_WP_053_FIN.pdf
Apologies if the weblink didn’t work. Here it is again:-
https://www.bu.edu/gdp/files/2021/10/GEGI_WP_053_FIN.pdf
The title of the paper is “Where’s My Swap Line?: A Money View of International
Lender of Last Resort) by Perry Mehrling.
I would also like to simplify my comment about the linkage between democracy and power – you need a strong military state to support a Rule of Law derived from democratic process. For example, for businesses to flourish you need contract law which gets actively implemented by the courts. What, however, we’ve seen in the liberal democracies over the last forty odd years is democracy undermined by market fundamentalists. Again for example, we’ve seen public sector wages deliberately suppressed.
It really is bad. What stands out is the idea of a govt “having to wait and see”. Govts create the very context in which we all live – they legislate, police, command, they create institutions, bureaucracies, they can finance whatever they wish and can redistribute in that way, as well as through taxation. They underpin and drive economic activity – without govt, the private sector would freeze, as in 2008 and other crises. Govt as business managers is yet another neoliberal myth. It does feel increasingly like there’s an ever-tightening ideological corner we’re being jammed into (literally, in the case of land injustice). I keep thinking that something has to give, but I’m not sure that it will. Maybe some form of globalised, hopeless dystopia is what will come to pass. I teeter between hope and despair.
If (and it’s an “if” so large, it’s actually stood up against the wall outside) all the disaffected potential voters were to eschew the con-lab-lib establishment coalition and actually vote for the smaller parties, even FPTP wouldn’t stop a more realistic (and real) coalition in parliament.
For me, I’d hope that people would go for Breakthrough or TUSC, where available, and Green otherwise.
Unfortunately, we’ve been sold 2 lies:
1) Only a majority govt can run the country properly;
2) Only one of the 2 main parties have a realistic chance of forming govt, so voting for anyone else is a wasted vote (or, worse, actually voting for the hated “other”).
It’s 1 that keeps stymieing PR votes, but it seems to be slowly waning. The second is only really about FPTP, and depends on 1, but this one is persistent.
And unfortunately, again, my “if” really depends on smashing the second lie. If we were all to vote our conscience, and do so consistently, each electoral ward would be far more closely contested and return fewer establishment parties. PR is the only way to do this properly, but (hypothetically) it could be somewhat achieved within FPTP *if* people abandoned the establishment.
One can wish.
I wish
Agreed Karl, the solution is to just vote for the party you really want to be in power, in my case the Greens, and encourage everyone else to do the same.
As you say, if enough people did it, FTPT would, past a certain point, work in their favour and they’d actually get a majority. Then we’d have a government that actually takes the climate and biodiversity emergencies seriously and offers a serious of decent progressive policies. And how to do this (pay for them) would force the whole question of state funding,money creation and MMT into the public arena.
Since labour seems to have absolutely set its face against even a mild form of tactical voting, why bother doing it?
On a lighter note I must admit to having a little chortle when I read in the news today that Starmer has announced that he wants to increase debating skills in pupils as he does his level best to shut down democracy in his own party!
Does Starmer understand the term “cognitive dissonance”? High time he looked it up!
🙂
On a more serious note you only have to read the comments on Starmer’s “debating skills” announcement to see how infantile the thinking is about Starmer’s worthiness to be PM. Sadly it’s starting to look like another wasted five years with Starmer in office and a coalition government a mere dream for the better informed.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/jul/06/keir-starmer-class-ceiling-labour-debating-conservatives-chris-pincher-uk-politics-latest
The UK “world-beating”? The speechwriter who thought that one up is best thought of as having a substance abuse problem!
That’s another lie from Starmer. He told young climate change protesters on stage this morning, “We did that last month.” Not a good debating line.
And wrong too
What made me laugh was the reading Sunak was given at Westminster Abbey to celebrate the75th birthday of the NHS. Matthew 25 1 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
Most amusing
Somone was trolling him
Did anyone else think that the 75th Anniversary of the NHS commiserations was a damp squib? There were programmes on BBC4, one of which I am watching now, Food for Ravens, about Nye Bevan, but on most channels it was slightly mentioned on the news, and they preferred repeats of programmes like French and Saunders or Location, Location, Location. Even the BBC4 programmes are repeats.
Did anyone see Starmer or Streeting mention the NHS yesterday?
Last night I watched a KONP meeting on Zoom, where there were three real labour MPs giving speeches, but that’s not something the general public will watch.
Wprse than a damp squib
Averyone knew the reality
The Conservative and Labour parties need to change their names to Cognitive Dissonance Mark 1 and 2!
Thanks Richard, there isn’t a word of your analysis that I disagree with. However, is there a chance of either changing the way Labour think or changing the way most of the electorate vote? There are at least 3 bye elections coming up. If the idea of ‘anything but Labour’ can be pushed it could dent their expectations so much that they have a policy think. (I was going to say re-think, but there is no evidence of any real thought so far). Alternatively it may help those who always vote for one of the 2 failed parties that there may be an alternative. Wishful thinking I suppose, but the alternative is just despair.
We can live in hope
Surely you mean anything but labour or tory? Anything but labour is tory.
In the bye elections it doesn’t matter if the torties get back, although I doubt they will. It is Labour that needs to udnerstand they don’t have an automatic right to power.
I looked up on Wikipedia the results of the 2011 PR referendum and it was very decisively “no” by 32% to 68%. I am ashamed to admit I voted “no”, but like most other people I was not a particualrly political animal in those days. I am pretty sure the answer today would be much the same. So any party can give lip service to supporting a PR referendum in the comfortable knowledge that it aint gonna happen. Mind you I’m sure Cameron thought that about leaving the EU.
The world has changed Nigel, IMO
If you have a Parliamentary majority there’s no need for a referendum on PR. if you really want it you enact it through legislation. Of course the Tories fooled the LDs into accepting one as they never intended to introduce it, as we know.
I suspect a minority labour government would be just as duplicitous. Hopefully any party(ies) supporting them in government would see this act accordingly.
I voted no in the PR referendum, primarily as a protest vote against Clegg. That reason is, probably, not relevant now.
The referendum was not on PR, but to change to the Alternative Vote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum
No to another referendum. The Tories and their friends in the media will lie through their teeth to retain FPTP. It should be enough that it is a manifesto commitment by Labour. Everyone else except Tories and the DUP are in favour of PR already. It is only Labour that is keeping the Tory gravy train going and even there the Labour leadership are ignoring the vote of their conference in favour of PR.
Some good news today.
“The Government has officially ditched its dangerous plans to rip up the Human Rights Act.
Alex Chalk MP, the Justice Secretary, confirmed in the Commons that the so-called Bill of Rights has been shelved permanently.”
Lets hope they stick to it. At least Starmer doesn’t have to decide which side he is on in this.
Surely he’ll be pressing for an addition to the Human Rights Act that of a political leader to endlessly dither, break pledges, and execute regular u-turns!
It’s said that if you allow people to get too rich in a democracy then they buy the politicians and the media and create oligarchy. Successive govts here and elsewhere have failed utterly, probably seeing it as in their own short-term interests, to handle redistribution of wealth and so here we are, looking back at democracy and wondering what happened…
Richard, absolutely ‘bob on’.
As to ‘how did we get to this point?’. My reading is that we now have an almost complete absence of a citizenship culture. In half decent republics (Such as USA & Italy), there is a constitution, which is taught in schools along with the obligation of citizenship. It is why blacks queued in line for so many hours at the last presidential election; it was why JFK’s exhorted, “Ask not what your country can do for you but . . .”. Italy’s political culture sadly was sorely wounded by the multi-media poison of Berlusconi but I recall from the 1970s & 1980s, on visits to Italy, being in awe at the readiness of strangers on trains to converse on politics. So, whereas we had Brian Rix, Italy had Dario Fo.
I represent (One of my hats) the dying embers of a local Civic Trust founded in the early 1960s. At its peak, in the late 1970s, early 1980s, it had near 600 members, 11 sub-committees (Environment; Planning; Heritage, etc.) and a near 20 strong executive committee. Most find that incredible now. Almost all that has civic ethos has evaporated.
It isn’t just people are busier. The lack of citizenship culture is key. It’s why England is one of the most littered countries in Europe; it’s why turnouts in local elections are so dire. But another key factor has to be neoliberalism and its controlling malice of ‘austerity’.
Here I must plug Clara Mattei’s book, The Capital Order. Even just to read the first 70 pages is to understand the almost utopian aspirations we’d ascended to by 1919 before we were crushed by western capitalists’ austerity paradigm.
The resurgence of austerity since Thatcher (With a slightly kinder face under Blair) and then the doubling-down from 2010 onwards. This has individuated communities. The vast majority of new housing estates in the last 40 yrs consist of roads and rows of habitation boxes; planned community gather place-making (Unlike in Europe) is largely absent. Communities only exist despite all these negative factors.
‘Schofield’ is right, “the majority of politicians still think like poorly educated children”, except I’d say it is the majority of society. The hard-pressed bottom fifth (approx..) of society it’s may be understandable. There seems a pact between the cosy mainstream media and the more affluent half of society, lets not talk too deeply, or at all, about the fundamental problems riddling our country. That is why your website is so important.
But the thing that changes everything is our climate and ecological emergency.
Global rapacious trends of consumption have been increasingly exponential since the mid-1990s. My studied environmentalism long pre-dates Local Agenda 21; it has been decades re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Like the walrus to the oysters, our generation is saying to youth, “I weep for you, I deeply sympathise . .”, as we go about grabbing the last couple of decades for our own affluence. Well, I do really weep for youth and I despair about our culture. It is only through people like Richard Murphy, and his like, that hope lies.
More to the subject. Electoral PR is essential. I think we need a new REAL socialist party to be formed, one that would bleed the votes from neoliberal Labour. People are so p*ssed-off with the Tories and Labour are increasingly exposed as ‘pretend-pledgers’ that I think a new party could have a real impact, sufficient to undermine any claims by Labour to a solid legitimacy even if they do form the next government. 104 yrs ago all things were possible.
I finish with this link to a 15 minutes of Kevin Anderson that every politician, every MSM ‘journalist’ and every ‘can’t be bothered to vote’-voter should be made to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_FtS_HNbkc&t=58s
A True Paradise: WHERE WE ARE HEADING – Kevin Anderson
I should add that I avoided saying the majority of people in the country think like poorly educated children on economic issues vital to the country on the grounds that whilst it’s true it’s also true that human society’s have thrived on a division of labour and given most of our transactions take place using money you might expect our politicians to make the effort to have a good understanding of the main technicalities of how monetary systems work and their effect on economics. Having got that understanding they should make the effort to pass it on to voters to help inform their decision making at election times.
The quandary about the voting intention at the next general election does depend on various factors:
1. If you live in a “safe” Tory or Labour seat your one vote wont make much difference (how many elections whether national or local are won by just one vote?) Therefore feel free to vote with your conscience of preferred party such as Green, LD, TUSC etc.
2. If you live in a marginal or one with a fairly small majority – 5,000 or less, vote for the “lesser of 2 evils” probably Labour but check on their position on climate change, austerity ,NH S, treatment of asylum seekers and refugees or whatever issue is of concern for you.
3. If you are still unsatisfied with the 2 main candidates in a marginal or semi marginal seat then vote with your conscience of real preference.
4. If you feel that none of the candidates meet any sort of positive criteria then write something you think important on the ballot paper such as “none of the above, we need proportional representation” or “save the planet” “save the NHS” or any slogan that you feel important. A “spoilt” ballot paper is still read by several people and will have some effect and are counted.
5. If you feel like voting with you conscience but are told your vote is “wasted” don’t take any notice because the whole point of representative democracy is to gauge the true wishes of the population.
6. Whatever you do, don’t not attend the polling station or not do a postal vote but make your voice heard. Our democracy, however unsatisfactory, is the only thing that prevents the drift to fascism or authoritarian regimes that most of the rest of the word suffer under. Remember that the right to vote and universal franchise have been hard won from the Chartists in the 19th century up to activists to the present day. It is a precious gift we ignore at our peril.
Once again I turn to the wisdom of Nye Bevan These were his thoughts on policy making.” No statesman can stand the strain of modern political life without the inner serenity that comes from fidelity to a number of guiding convictions. Without their steadying influence he is blown about by every passing breeze.” There are at least two considerations to be kept in mind when making policy. Its applicability to the immediate situation ,but also its faithfulness to the principles that make up your philosophy. Without the latter politics is just a job like any other. A nation too long suspended between alternative courses of action is in a sorry plight.” I remember Thatcher’s description of Blair. Someone who doesn’t believe in anything. Bevan could have been describing both Blair and Starmer. The Attlee government left a blueprint that is as relevant today as it was then. There is no alternative to democratic socialism if the country is to recover. Two enormous revolutions are upon us : climate change and Artificial Intelligence. Both these will cause huge upheaval and distress if changes are not carefully planned. This means the pubic sector will have to take charge. There will be no role for market forces.
Thank you
LibDems are not just about PR. There’s drug legalisation, fairer distribution of wealth, action on climate change and other green policies… Read more:
https://www.markpack.org.uk/libdem-beliefs/
Altogether much more than a least worst choice!
It’s a sad state of affairs. I am hoping that a Labour campaigner comes knocking, so I can to explain to them that there are actually left of centre voters who don’t like the direction the party is going in, and that they are losing potential votes because of that.
They don’t seem to be able to see beyond some imagined target voter though, thinking left wing votes don’t count as much as right wing votes. Or maybe there are more reactionaries in this country now, who knows? I suppose they’ve decided through numerous focus groups and surveys that they don’t need to give a s**t about anyone left of Thatcher any more.
I think I will vote for whomever is mostly likely to beat the Tory in the end. But if I can’t tell, as a largely inactive Green Party member, I will default to the greens, though with the obvious realisation that they are unlikely to win in the safe Tory seat of Rushcliffe.
I have voted Lib Dem, Labour and Green in the past. I could be persuaded to vote for any of them. It’s bizarre that Labour don’t think they have to do anything to win the votes of me, or anyone like me though.
Some more good news today. The government has lost the court case to redact Johnson’s whatsapp messages. Now we will find out what they wanted to hide.
More good news today.
The government lost its court appeal to hand over redacted whatsapps from Johnson about Covid.
We will now be able to find out what they wanted to hide, 18 months before the next general election.
Do you think they will last that long? Getting worse and worse for them.
The ruling is very funny
It’s worth reading, especially the final conclusion.
One thing that posters on this blog regularly complain about is the monetary system illiteracy of the UK’s political parties. Perhaps one thing Richard might consider doing is to ask each party to contribute an explanation of how they think the UK’s monetary system works. This would give the opportunity of course to ask further questions which will probably hinge around assumptions being made. Call it a public education endeavour if you like as we begin the run-up to the next general election. Failure to provide information would at least clarify which parties have a cavalier attitude about keeping the electorate informed and therefore have an untrustworthy dimension to their existence.
I will muse on that
What prompted the idea was today’s Simon Jenkin’s article on the NHS “What’s the cure for an ailing NHS?” in which many of the comments on his article are saying the cure is increased spending to bring us level with other nations. Certainly with long waiting times for procedures/treatment (slated to get worse) funding will be a big issue at the next election.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/06/nhs-reform-royal-commission-politics#comments
The reality is we need a shift in consumption from material item to public services
I did wonder if Richard and Prem with other like minds could talk to labour MPs about the economy and how they should frame their economic ideas from now on. They’d probably be told to clear off, if they got a response at all.
Still intrigued to know who the labour MP is who you were talking to, Richard.
Apparently Streeting has told Corbynites that we should dry our eyes. He obviously hasn’t seen the yougov poll that says Corbyn was the best labour party leader.
I am amazed Labour hasn’t expelled Prem as yet
Same here. Maybe there is just too long a queue in front of him. Expelling Prem won’t make any difference, will it? He’ll just go sit on the cross benches. They can’t expel him from the lords. Again, there is a long queue.
On the anti-BDS bill there were ten labour MPs who voted against instead of abstaining as they were told to. Five of them are from the north east. I’d love it if they were expelled. We could start our own socialist labour party. One of them is going to lose his seat at the next election anyway as his constituency is disappearing. Ian Lavery could easily stand against a sitting labour MP in a neighbouring constituency.
Prem, as you say, is going nowhere. He will follow his conscience. We talk often.
EC663 The existing banking system has failed and is no longer fit for purpose. The Green Party believes that the power to create money must be removed from private banks. The supply of our national currency must be fully restored to democratic and public control so that it can be issued free of debt and directed to environmentally and socially beneficial areas such as renewable energy, social housing, or support for community businesses.
There’s plenty more were that came from though I daresay our expert host may be able to pick holes. If so then help fix them.
This is so crass it is ridiculous
All money is debt
Claiming it isn’t is as realistic as claiming black is white
Even Positive Money has given up this absurd idea
@ jasper You need to read up on UK monetary history. We’ve been through all of that. The government didn’t create enough coinage to meet its and the market’s needs so something had to give. Initially that was done by allowing private banks and other business entities to create their own bank notes in addition to bills of exchange. Eventually this became the dealer and funder of last resort system we have today.
…..good public education idea – and maybe Richard and/or some of us should ask BBC’s Andy Verity to setup such an excercise
So as I understand it, all the judges in this case have seen all the unredacted whatsapps in order to decide whether Lady Hallett is allowed to see them. Then they discuss case law which has nothing to do with the case to decide.
They say that the government can still go to judicial review again if they don’t agree with the decision! What?
What a waste of our money. Fortunately, I hope, the cabinet office has seen sense, although I suppose they can change their minds between now and Monday. I imagine Johnson won’t want to read any more of it anyway. 16 pages is far too long for him.
“How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the twentieth century.”
In Place of Fear. Aneurism Bevan
“How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the twentieth century.”
In Place of Fear. Aneurin Bevan
So well said, and noted
I’m writing this from Washington DC and today went to the Roosevelt memorial. If you’ve not been, it is beautifully done and has inscribed on the walls many of his quotes. They resonate so powerfully with todays circumstances. Roosevelt would be well to the Left of today’s Labour in so many ways. Here we are 90 years later with Biden and the EU broadly copying Roosevelt’s New Deal. Meanwhile U.K. politicians rearrange the economic and social deckchairs.
I’d summarise with the quote that ‘we have nothing to fear but but fear itself’. Todays ‘progressive’ party leaders all behave as though they are fearful of saying anything at all that might really challenge the status quo.
Agreed
I have two problems with the comment and the almost unanimous responses here.
1. The dire urgency presented by the climate and ecological emergency and it’s probable food plus financial collapse means that proportional representation in the next but one election seems too distant, and
2. I cannot trust the Lib Dems even though they include a few of my friends and family. They have no coherent or consistent economic understanding, being in effect “nice Tories”, shaping themselves into whatever is required to gain support in the specific constituency, and utterly unprincipled in their election literature.
I am asking myself, which party would react/perform best as capitalism collapses? Which one might understand your economic thinking Richard?
I reckon Greens would be best, but Labour would be next best. Not because I like the current leadership, but because other people are still hanging in there.
Sadly, I am about to move back into Tim Farron’s constituency so I have a terrible dilemma. Nice bloke, intelligent, some good talking points, but not always truthful and a local manifestation of an incoherent national party with a lot of economically illiterate but ambitious people.
As I will note this morning, the Greens are a long way from my thinking