There was a comment on this blog on plausible coalitions I might partake in last night.
There have also been many comments here on people's belief that I should work with like-minded groups.
I have always done that. I have, over the years, worked on issues with:
- The TUC
- Unite
- PCS
- Labour
- LibDems
- The Tories (to help the Treasury deliver a general anti-abuse rule)
- Greens
- Sinn Féin (in the EU)
- But never formally with the SNP or Plaid Cymru, although I would.
I would not now work with:
- Reform
- The Tories
- Labour
All are too racist in my opinion. I will not work with racists.
I would work with:
- Compass
- Majority
- Pro-independence groups in Wales and Scotland.
Why mention all this? Just to make it clear. And to emphasise that the suggestion that I am not willing to cooperate is absurd. But just as I will not work with those I think to be, or are inclined towards, racism, I will not work with those who threaten democracy. Why would I, in either case?
But the options are wide open, and I wish many others would look for broad-based coalitions like this. We would progress ideas a lot faster if we did.
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Your Party? Do you have a good relationship with Jeremy? They obviously need help in the formation of policy.
I think there are better uses for my time. Sorry. But that’s my judgement.
Although I’m not a member, I think the Greens could do with some extra help ATM. The Rest is Politics podcast had an episode today: Polanski’s Problem etc. Following Zak P’s quite good interview with them, Zack did stumble somewhat on his MMT.
Chris Williamson, an alleged Corbynista, challenged the dynamic duo (Alastair and Rory) with ten MMT-related questions. Having embarrassed Zack briefly in the course of their Leading interview, Rory was keen to prolong his moment of glory.
17 minutes in, Rory, having apparently never heard of MMT, says he spent 4 hours on Tuesday trying to get his head around it and then does, more or less, what Grace Blakeley said this week that people like him would try to do. He doesn’t exactly deny MMT but he dismisses it – in terms that indicate he really hadn’t properly taken it onboard – but he thought it all a preposterous waste of time in any case. He posits a scenario where the “govt” pays a nurse £2,000. After a rather garbled shaggy-dog story, he ends up mentioning that all this results in the £2,000 ending up earning interest on a Reserve Account. He didn’t want to explain any of the mechanisms because we mere mortals obviously wouldn’t understand. His comments re bonds were a bit bizarre. Marking his exam paper, I’d guess he was bluffing somewhat.
The whole excerpt illustrates the problem of “selling” MMT to the electorate. According to Rory on the latest podcast, without crisp clear MMT explanations, Zack must have thought the whole idea was probably best being sidestepped. Rory’s own effort to explain MMT on the podcast was far from crisp, clear or even convincing. But it shows that, at long last, MMT is starting to break through on MSM. Richard’s name never came up at any time BTW. The incident is a foretaste of what lies in store once MMT does start to get a hearing. We all need to be ready. There will be similar ill-informed slurs galore.
I suspect a Leading spot with Richard on the chart-topping Rest is Politics podcast could be a breakthrough moment for MMT. Rory thinks he gets it. I very much doubt it. I reckon it’s high time Richard offered to “explain” a thing or two in order to help out the Greens – and the rest of us.
All noted, thanks.
We are working hard on our guide to MMT
It won’t be perfect, but we’ve decided to not make perfection the enemy of the good.
I too was appalled by ZP’s treatment on The Rest is Politics and wrote to them: “I am a devotee of TRIP. I listened to Polanski’s problem on Question Time and then went back to Leading to hear the interview.
I think you let yourselves down badly on this one. I share Zack Polanski’s likely quiet rage at your post interview commentary. Rage and frustration that your questioning (and also some gratuitous advice to him) came from the perspective of the mainstream approach that a country’s finances are like that of a household. Precisely the perspective that ZP is trying to challenge!
Rory, you proudly revealed that you had spent 4 hours looking into MMT. I suggest that you take a bit longer and I really hope that the scales will fall from your eyes. MMT is wrongly named as a theory because it accurately describes how a sovereign economy works. We do not need to borrow first. We can spend first and then tax back. We do not have to issue government bonds but we chose to do so as a means of providing a secure investment vehicle.
It was not impressive that Zack confused debt and deficit (although I heard him correct himself pretty quickly) and getting the top rate of tax wrong is akin to politicians not knowing what a pint of milk costs. The points he was trying to make were out of those (important I agree) weeds.
Go back to that list of 10 things that a listener provided you and look at them again …. properly. Take a look at Richard Murphy’s blog and his excellent glossary as an aid to the self education we all badly need and disagree agreeably with him if you think that what he is saying is wrong. But please stop shooting from the hip on economic matters and thinking that your (largely mainstream) take on how the economy does work or could work better is correct.
You’ve both been prepared to admit you’ve got things wrong before. I have a feeling this is going to be another one that you’ll eventually add to that list.”
I’ve had a reply that I needed to submit my points on a form rather than via the @goalhanger address. I’ll do that.
Thanks
I don’t think Your Party are ready to discuss policies yet. They still haven’t worked out who they are, or who calls the shots or how they will function. The last email I got directly from them this week (as a supporter, not a member) was staggeringly complacent about the “success” of the inaugural conference. I found that both depressed and annoyed me.
F*r*g* has been in Glasgow. He’s been criticising Glaswegian pupils for being bilingual or multilingual. He’s upset they don’t speak English as their first language. He appears to think they should speak English and only English.
In Glasgow, we speak Scots, Glaswegian, Gaelic and a multitude of other languages. He appears to think it’s a problem. Personally I applaud them for their language skills.
He’s moving on to Falkirk to try to encourage anti-immigration protests outside a hotel.
He’s a strange, racist geezer and so full of hate.
AWANBYLEYERHEID Fa***e!
I see Alan Cochrane, Dundonian, well known(!) expert(!) on the Scots and all things Scottish and contributor to the Westminster rag, The Telegraph, has waded in with his opinion for what it’s worth (not much).
Pleased to see that Majority is on your radar. Majority was born out of a progressive coalition of activists and voters who powered Jamie Driscoll’s recent Independent North East Mayoral campaign which mobilised hundreds of activists across the region and delivered the second largest number of votes for an independent candidate in British political history. It is attracting members from across the UK.
Majority is building a refreshing new model for doing politics differentiating progressive alliances at its heart. A proven template Your Party should have borrowed, but hasn’t. It now has members from across the UK.
http://www.majorityuk.org/
I am hopeful for its model
How about collaboration with the Democracy Collaborative, Common-wealth and their links with the Preston Model, The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES)?
I have mentioned before Joe Guinan who is the president of the Democracy Collaborative in Washington (and MMT aligned). He co-authored the 2019 book ‘People Get Ready – preparing for a Corbyn Government’… described in the blurb as diving ‘into the nitty gritty of what’s needed to bring about transformative change’ and selected by the Guardian as one of the best political books in 2019.
On Twitter, he has become irritated with the ‘Left’s lack of roadmap! …. He writes: ‘It’s a strange left media that seeks to reinforce the capitalist realist horizon of “There Is No Alternative” at precisely the moment when 1) the social, political and ecological limits of the current model are upon us and 2) capital is inventing its own exit to something worse!
‘In practically every sector in practically every region of the world there are actually existing examples of economic alternatives to capitalism, from state owned enterprises and the commons to cooperatives, land trusts, sovereign wealth funds and, yes, nationalised industries. Taken together there are so many options and alternatives to the large publicly traded private corporation that is rapidly destroying democracy and the planet. The problem isn’t viable alternatives with which to construct a democratic economy but the politics of how we get there. A big part of the answer has to be decommodification, reversing the privatizing of everything that was the hallmark of neoliberalism. That likely implies planning and the rollback of markets way beyond what many people on the left today are entertaining.’
The whole thread is worth reading @joecguinan … and you have a lot in common in proposing workable solutions. (Btw. Gar Alperovitz was the co-founder of The Democracy Collaborative, an institution that researches and promotes paths toward democratizing wealth and building a more sustainable and community-oriented economy.)
I will take a look. Thank you.
On the same subject, Farage is talking about a coalition, or reverse takeover, of the Conservative party, perhaps recognising that Reform cannot get to No 10 on their own. The paper is also reporting today that Reform has received a £9 million donation from Christopher Harborne, an “entrepreneur” who lives in Thailand.
If Labour does nothing else in this parliament, it should end the party donation system which allows billionaires to influence democracy and buy elections. Perhaps a comment piece?
There is a video coming…
Thank you, both.
That doesn’t surprise me. Why? Reform needs an organisation. A former colleague is facilitating Reform’s engagement with the City. It’s meet and greet this side of the festive break. Policy formulation after. The Heritage Foundation is also involved, but it works with Labour, too.
The City engaged UKIP a dozen years ago, but that initiative petered out as UKIP was renowned for its indolence and eccentricity. Reform’s a bit better organised at HQ level, especially with Mohammed Zia Uddin Yusuf in charge.
The left had better get its act together. I often say that the right is up before dawn and working people over. The left is still in bed at lunchtime. Richard is an honourable exception.
There’s a bit more about Harborne: https://www.thecanary.co/uncategorized-en/2025/10/10/boris-johnson-took-a-secretive-major-donor-to-ukraine-and-nobody-knows-why/.
You are so right about the left, and that is profoundly frustrating. Mañana is usually muchy too soon.
An interesting point from the Colonel.
Is it because those that people the ‘left’ are not, by nature, fighters? Are they the ‘meek that shall inherit the earth’ ?
Do they believe that ‘do as you would be done by’ is sufficient and the pursuit of money is no motivation?
Just free-associating !
I believe that by far the majority are reasonable left-leaning people who are just doing the best they can to get by from day to day with little reserves left at the end of each day for anything more.
Information abounds about what our lives could/should be like and, in the first instance, we HAVE to get our voting system amended to some form of PR to better facilitate change.
I wish I could answer your questions.
I have felt a burning injustice motivating me for a long time. That seems unusual.
It would be hard to write a law that prevents large donations to political parties but which still permits large donations to activist causes. The donations from Bloomberg to try and persuade people that vaping is as risky as smoking traditional cigarettes spring to mind, but there are many other examples from individuals. Then there are donations from governments to groups that campaign for causes the government seeks “independent” approval of.
I disagree.
Political parties are easy to define.
You might think that deals with it, but there are any number of ways to donate to political causes instead of giving directly to a political party. You could campaign to repeal net zero and donate the GWPF, or campaign to leave the ECHR, or for the religion of truth to have more political power by donating your zakat to the right organisation. There’s no end of politically aligned causes. You think the World Health Organisation is doing right by calling for binding courageous supranational legislation – you can go ahead and donate to that. In the early 19th century people bought slaves and set them free, in the 1930s people paid the travel and escort expenses of Jewish children fleeing Germany. No donation to a political party needed. Whether it’s for good causes or not, we should seek transparency and not the bans that you are suggesting which would lead to influence going underground.
You can work with who you like.
But to borrow from Carl Schmitt a little: ‘Sovereign is he who sticks to his principles’.
That’s how I see you. And that is what is lacking. And I like your principles.
Thanks.
Appreciated.
I could be wrong here, but I thought Reform manage to avoid political party donation rules as they are a Ltd company.
How can this be allowed?
They don’t….
This is a link to a petition on the ‘UK government parliament petitions’ website to impose a limit on UK party donations.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/753364/gathering-support