I did, as usual, have a column published by The National yesterday.
In it I discussed the weaknesses in Labour's plans for the financial services sector. My summary was:
Having spent 40 years of my life as a chartered accountant, I can find nothing that Labour has to say that will actually solve the simple problem that the UK has, which is how to match up the more than £8 trillion of financial worth which people in the UK as a whole have with the simple and straightforward need that exists for investment in hospitals, schools, social housing, transport, new energy systems, and other climate-related changes.
Doing that is the one, and I suggest the only, goal that Labour should have for financial services in this country.
That is because if Labour could release those funds for that purpose (and I have suggested ways in which that is possible), then Labour could be a force for good, as would be the financial services industry.
The problem for Labour is that they cannot even specify the issues that they face in such straightforward ways.
The reasons for that are easy enough to spot.
They are not solution focussed. You can't be when your big obsessions are spending nothing and maintaining the status quo, which they assured business was their goal yesterday.
They are instead in tinkering mode, where a veneer of action is what they will, at most, adopt so long as nothing they do might in any way suggest that they will spend.
If you set out to do nothing you will achieve less than that, which is going to be Labour's fate, whilst failing us all on the way.
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There are rumours that Labour will soon ditch whatever remains of its £28 billion green economy plan. Announced in 2021, its value has dropped due to inflation since then, and it would always take time to ramp up to the full amount, but nonetheless was one beacon of hope for a better future. Of course the right wing press hate it. Like the apologists for cigarettes and leaded petrol.
But even this modest pledge (less than 3% of overall public spending) will it seems fall victim to the Rachel Reeves obsession with fiscal rules and the economic orthodoxy she learned in Oxford and Threadneedle Street. And Labour’s cowardice in the face of the slightest resistance from its ideological opponents and the press.
What is the point in voting for Labour if is it enslaved by self-imposed shackles that stop it doing anything of worth?
The only hope is the mirage of growth and productivity. Jam tomorrow then?
What price the (increasingly further right) middle ground if you lose the base on the left, who are increasingly being taken for granted.
Rant over. Time to reconsider voting intentions.
I will not be voting Labour
Who would you like me to put an x on?
That’s not for me to say
Going back to Mike Parr’s posts yesterday that the UK needs to spend a lot of money and time “beefing” up the capacity of local area cable networks for the country to switch away from the use of gas to electricity for heating and occasionally cooling the more I’ve realised if true this is a central issue facing the country.
I’d mentioned in a responding post that to save time electricity cables could be slung over-head rather than underground as the Americans have traditionally done. However, this will not be aesthetically pleasing and I realised I’d missed a more obvious solution which is to increase the installation of solar panels with electricity battery storage. This will be expensive and for those who can’t afford this solution the government will have to do the spending.
Consequently for Starmer to downgrade the party’s £28 billion Green government spend to a mere aspiration reveals a politician completely unfit to govern in the context of the country’s serious need to switch to greater usage of electricity.
Agreed
Much to agree with here.
Climate change is extremely unfair and unforgiving. Those people (and countries) who have contributed least over the centuries and those who will be affected most. Solar panels (we have 7.2kWpk) are a useful contribution in small doses so the grid is not unbalanced. We are contemplating an ev to act as transport and a battery pack to power the house and combat occasional blackouts here in rural (agricultural Ireland). We are lucky enough to be able to afford it.
You are right that some form of storage will be a game changer (much like the advent of the fridge/freezer!).
In Australia, one state is mandating remote switching off of too much excess power going into the grid.
Lots to talk about to counter right wing misinformation.
Schofield and Stephen Perry.
Our new build in 2019 had 4 x 250Watt panels installed. Weymouth UK.
From October 1st to January 31st they have produced 95kWh (units)
A reasonable size for many people would be 12 panels, so multiply by 3 gives only 285kWh.
My usage over that period was 1389kWh.
Batteries do not hack it! Winter generation is very poor. Ours don’t get interesting until May.
I was so sorry that the Severn tidal generation scheme was cancelled. Wind is often good, but tidal never stops (On average at different places!)
Norman
Thanks for the info.
I couldn’t see investing in batteries would be a good choice for us also thus the proposed move to an electric vehicle (with v2x technology) and using its battery pack. In Ireland we are grid tie limited to 6kW (believe just recently slightly reduced).
We are on the cusp of more efficient Perovskite/Silicon solar panels (double the output per square of just silicon). Less space or more panels on your roof or on the ground.
Best book I’ve read recently for unbiased reporting relating to climate change and renewable energy is: ‘Climate and Energy Decoded’ by Tushar Choudhary.
We live in interesting times.
“What is the point in voting for Labour if is it enslaved by self-imposed shackles that stop it doing anything of worth?”
Not having to look at Michael Gove or Rishi -what-his-name????
On BBC Radio Scotland this morning, a brave attempt was made to get Jackie Baillie to speak for or against the cap on bankers’ bonuses. Her very reluctant response was along the lines of “My understanding is that higher bonuses will raise tax for investment elswhere.” I think sophistry is the word I’m looking for, though it hardly matters. I don not know what Labour is offering, I suspect Scottish Labour’s in the same boat.
Curiously this morning on Nicky Campbell a human rights lawyer, brought on to explain the law in the context of public outrage over the awful Clapham case, placed the blame on the collapse of the Home Office as an effective immigration service; and placed the blame for the squarely on the Conservative Government.
The lawyer said asylum seekers that failed to receive asylum after review should be sent home, but aren’t. He argued that from 2010, the failed asylum seekers sent home under Labour, fell from 60,000 per annum, to 3,000 today.
Given the current fraught politics of immigration, and the mire the Conservative Government is in, I am curious why Labour have not appeared to explore the issues raised by the human rights lawyer to their advantage, or the relative performance of Conservative and Labour, on the same terms? Is there another agenda? I would have thought this was choice, low hanging fruit for the army of Spads.
Staggering statistic
@ John S. Warren
You ask “Given the current fraught politics of immigration, and the mire the Conservative Government is in, I am curious why Labour have not appeared to explore the issues raised by the human rights lawyer to their advantage, or the relative performance of Conservative and Labour, on the same terms? Is there another agenda?”
I have a simple answer to that which is that Starmer is both a political moron and a political thug.
The moron charge? As Peter Oborne notes
(at https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-labour-tories-abandoning-muslims-regret)
Labour has taken a disastrously wrong turn – politically – of what even a 5-year old child would he able to recognise is a genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza, and is now crapping its pants
(see
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/30/labour-acts-on-fears-muslims-will-not-vote-for-party-over-gaza-stance)
over the almost certain loss of the Muslim vore, and several (many?) seats.
Is it any wonder that one of my nicknames for Starmer is Sir Useless Woodentop, the non-strategic unpolitician, who always chooses the wrong political (and as a Richard has clearly demonstrated, also the wrong economic) stance – a living example of Dryden’s “Zimri” in Absalom and Achitophel. And I quote:
“Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;
Was everything by starts, and nothing long:
But in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon:”
So, he’s too scared and stupid to take on the immigration issue, afraid of scaring off Tory voters.
The thug charge?
The Zimri quote – fits Starmer like a glove, not fully but sufficiently, and leads me into the thug charge, via what I call moronavirus, the virus that turns brains and consciences to moronic mush!
Starmer clearly suffers from this. The mushy brain is the cause of his poor political judgement, while the mushy conscience is the cause of both his poor political judgement AND behaviour.
Look at the way he has eviscerated the Labour Party, turning it into not just a Faux-Labour Party, where democratic debate is forbidden, Constituency Labour Parties put into special measures, or simply taken over by regional HQ’s, with outside Candidates imposed, leading to Labour Councillors resigning from the Party abd standing as independents, robbing Labour of its ruling position in several Councils.
Which brings me to my further point, that the Labour Party is worse than LINO, worse than Faux-Labour – it’s what I call the Hostage Party, because it’s bound hand & foot & gagged by the BoD, JLM & LFI, 3 illiberal, racist (for their contempt for Palestinians) and antisemitic (for their “right kind of Jew/wrong kind of Jew” trope) bodies.
The Forde Report CLEARLY identified a hierarchy of racism in Starmer’s Hostage Party, in which their warped view of antisemitism occupies thr majority of their focus – I’d say 99%, with all the other racisms crowded into the remaining 1%.
(See Jonathan Cook on Starmer’s Labour as institutionally antisemitic at https://twitter.com/Jonathan_K_Cook/status/1334636482041176065?s=19)
Look at the treatment of Kate Osamor – suspended for (rightly) suggesting the Gazan genocide should be included in Holocaust Memorial Day, and suspended by demand (orders??) from the BoD – as indicated by their laudatory post, praising Sir Useless Woodentop’s action.
Don’t the BoD know Holocaust Memorial Day is for ALL lHolocausts – past, present and future “Never Again” – and NOT the exclusive property of Jews, who, quite rightly, have their own Shoah Memorial Day. Essential to remember their oh so grievous and cruel suffering.
Proof of both my “Hostage Party” thesis, and of the Forde Report assessment, IMO, given Trevor Philips was allowed back into Starmer’s Faux-Labour with a “nof and a wink”, after what were clearly Islamophobic comments.
Is it any wonder Muslims no longer trust Starmer? Not should the electorate.
I truly believe he will be worse than Sunak, given his political stupidity and thuggery, and that all progressives should do whatever they can, via tactical voting under our dreadful FPTP voting system, to deny him entrance to No. 10.
A GNU, bringing in those Tory Moderates mentioned in Andy Beckett’s Guardian article, of course, who might be tempted by a REAL opportunity, as well as all MP’s of good will across the political spectrum to squeeze out the “Destructives” (as I now call the headbanging Tory Party majority) and the “Fewer” Party (as I now call the equally headbanging Faux-Labour Party majority, sold out to the 1% – willing to lift the cap on bankers’ bonuses, yet KEEP the two-child cap on Child Benefit).
Both official Parties need to be humiliated, and the voters need REALLY “to take back power”!!
Starmer has personal/family difficulties that put his views on the Gaza mass slaughter issues into perspective; his wife is Jewish (with relatives in Israel) & his children attend a Jewish school.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-labour-leader-starmer-opens-up-about-his-familys-jewish-traditions/
John Gardner
So what if Starmer’s family is Jewish. Many, many Jews inside Israel and in other countries, find the Gaza genocide repugnant and say so loudly and clearly, risking imprisonment in Israel in some circumstances. Would you like to consider whether your comment is potentially anti-semitic?
The Guardian has now reported that senior Labour MPs have confirmed that the party/rabble has now scrapped it’s commitment to the £28bn for a green economy plan.
As you said,it’s tinkering and they will fail badly.I’ve voted Labour for 50 years,not anymore.
Starmer and Reeves’s speeches yesterday were pure managerial gobbledegook, making out that having.”aspirations” and “missions” is all that is needed and gambling upon there being economic growth from Labour not rocking the boat by any hint of extra government and crucially, more local government spending. The only clear message from Labour is keeping corporation tax at 25% and fudging on the £28 billion green investment programme. Peter Mandelson the Labour policy chief has warned that Labour needs a 13% lead over the Tories to guarantee a clear parliamentary majority at the next election and that any swing to the Tories WilI make them very vulnerable even though Lbour has a 20% lead at the polls at the moment Unless Starmer and Reeves start pulling positive policy proposals out of the hat soon they are in deep trouble.
Laboured will not be getting my vote.
Reeves came across like a robot until she remembered her past and started spouting the standard tosh we’ve all heard far too much of this last 40-odd years.
The lack of new ideas is astounding; the adherence to orthodoxy in the face of facts is barefaced arrogance.
What we are being set up for is nothing but a Neo-lib caretaker government to give the Tories a breather so that they can come in and deliver the coup-de-grace to the country in the 2030’s.
I might not might be here by that time but my children will be and that sticks in my craw like nothing else.
I strongly agree with Andrew Dickie’s comment above that Starmer is a political moron. The sheer stupidity of continually playing on the ‘Tory side of the turf’ means that Labour lose the argument before its even begun. This flows from his utterly one-dimensional ‘Mr Serious Face’ personae when it comes to every single issue.
The problem with such an automaton-like response is that the chronic issues in question will continue to get worse and worse no matter how serious a face he puts on. Exhibit One: The climate doesn’t give flying **** about Starmer and his piffling £28bn. The same goes for a ‘broken’ Britain that got that way because of the ‘fiscal rectitude’ that Starmer so dearly worships – Hint: Britain is not going to get ‘unbroken’ by repeating that madness all over again.
Beware of ‘Very Serious Person’ politicians like Starmer, they are deeply unserious morons.
Stephen Perry,
We have an EV and a home power point for it, giving just over 7kW, so that has increased our electricity from the grid a bit – not much because being retired and constrained a bit by health issues, delayed by the parlous state of government-sabotaged NHS, we have travelled only 4500 miles this year (at around 2 p per mile energy cost). Our home charging supply coupled with the car does not offer feeding back to the grid.
Yes, twice the power from panels would be a lot better, but still disappointing in winter. There are other factors too, pointing and elevation and geographic position, often out of control of the purchaser. But we need all the possibilities.
I must read the book you recommend. Thank you.
I am not sure I get this ‘disappointment’
The question is whether over their life they add a net gain at net zero.