Almost unnoticed in the last few weeks is the fact that there is, officially, a political Opposition in the UK. It does have quite a lot of MPs. And it has been almost silent. As the country has descended into chaos Labour has seemingly been elsewhere.
This weekend Labour does, finally, begin to get over the election last December. It will, at least, have a new leader again. Very soon it might also have a shadow cabinet once more. Some form of ‘normal service' might be resumed.
What I can only hope as a person who is not a Labour Parry member and who has no intention of being one, is that Labour adopts policies appropriate to this moment. Most especially, Labour's total desire to deliver austerity, imposed upon it by its dedication to the idea that the government's books must be balanced, has to be abandoned.
I am not seeking to re-open the debate on what Labour's fiscal rule, with all its opt-outs, actually said. We all know it was full of holes. The problem was its very existence.
Putting a fiscal rule that ultimately says you will balance the books and cover spending with revenues at the heart of your policy, means that you are making money, the maintenance of wealth and the preservation of the status your priorities, in my opinion. That is because fiscal rules are not created to deliver full employment. They exist to keep City and Treasury economists, with their shared obsession that government is harmful and private wealth creation is good, happy. And that is the wrong priority, most especially now.
Do not get me wrong: I think the private sector is vital. I will not say otherwise. I seek its preservation. That is why I have so strongly criticised this government's coronavirus planning, which will destroy vast swathes of it unless further transformed sometime soon. So I am not advocating pure Clause 4 socialism, because I believe very firmly in a mixed economy.
But as someone who has worked in the private sector for a long time, I know that the mixed economy cannot function without strong, and enforced regulation.
Any more than it can work without tax law that is broadly based, progressive (because that fuels demand) and rigorously enforced so that all are on a level playing field.
But most of all what it cannot survive without the essential services that the state supplies, the demand that they create that underpins a great deal if corporate activity, and the implicit guarantee that is provided in times like this.
We need an opposition that believes in this.
That believes full employment is its task.
That understands that if it delivers full employment budgets will balance,
That appreciates that borrowing - and deficit spending - until that point is reached is just fine, because it's just providing the cash that the economy needs to function properly that the private sector cannot or will not deliver.
And that without this thinking all talk of Labour being anything but Tory-lite is meaningless.
I am not optimistic. Corbyn and McDonnell were nowhere near getting any of this. I am not at all clear that Starmer, as the likely leader, is. But I can live in hope.
To which I would add one thing: if my hope is not fulfilled I will, be saying so, very loud and clear.
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Good morning, Richard, I hope you’re well.
I cast my votes online at the beginning of March, although I did some with much trepidation. I fear that Labour will either become a Tory-lite party again (and lose its grassroots support in the process), or go into full-scale civil war.
Like you, I live in hope. But if Labour ceases to be a party of effective opposition and a real alternative to the Conservatives, then I’ll have to consider handing in my membership card.
All very true. But before any of that we need someone to come up with an exit strategy. We (meaning the world) just can not go on like this for any length of time. It is going to be excruciating whoever is in government.
There is much to be said about the current government’s failings. But it is almost as though everyone is avoiding all mention of the exit and the inevitable horrible trade offs.
Opposition is essential. But the choices on an exit strategy and, pending a vaccine, the management of herd immunity face all political parties.
There is no way that Sunak’s largesse is going to be paid back by taxes or straight forward borrowing. The only way it is going to be paid for is through QE.
The corona virus will in my view usher in the time of the MMT’ers and it’s going to be a fascinating experiment.
Or by direct monetary funding (DMF) of government spending by central banks
Yes correct. My lazy terminology….
To answer your question. Only if they back PR and also form an alliance with all progressive Parties (yes even the Lib Dems) with one objective: To get the Tories out and ‘PRoper Democracy’ in. Only then will we have a democracy fit enough and brave enough to deal with the coming decades-long struggle to avert climate and ecological catastrophe.
Meanwhile Labour’s continuing Gollum-like attachment to the ‘power’ of FPTP is an outright betrayal of their own values, which makes long-term Tory rule an inevitability*. This is nothing less than an outright betrayal of the people.
* As of December 2019, in 19 of the last 20 general elections, most people have voted for parties to the left of the Conservatives, yet the Tories have been in power for 63% of this time. That % will of course increase by 2024.
Maybe the new leadership might take you back onboard to provide advice?
Who knows?
But I am not expecting any such thing…
Richard, might I make a suggestion for your website? On every single page on your site there is a picture of The Joy of Tax cover including the sticker ‘By the creator of “Corbynomics”‘. Perhaps now would be an opportune time to change this? I know that you did not give the ideas to Corbyn so much as he took them without your prior knowledge, and I know that you still stand by your original ideas, and I’m sure that sticker was not your idea, but that sticker does still associate you with Corbyn and it is on every page on your site. Further, as you have spoken about, you did fall out with Corbyn’s team.
I say this as someone who was saddened that Corbyn did not become Prime Minister because for all his faults and all that I disagreed with him on, I feel he would have still done a lot of good. However, I feel it is now time to move on. While that includes moving on from “Corbynomics”, I don’t include your original ideas that went into Corbynomics, with which I still agree, it’s just they don’t need to be called Corbynomics but something else.
And while we’re at it, perhaps “My new book, out now” could be changed. I’m not sure a book that’s been out for five years still counts as new.
You’re right
It’s gone
And I am no longer of the Fair Tax Mark either, although I advise it
So it’s gone too
I believe new labour will be reborn and it’s back to the old days of them copying the tories. They will dump anything remotely attached to Corbyn and move decidedly to the right. In fact they will move to the hard right and copy much of Johnson’s policies and rhetoric. They do this for one reason, not because they believe in them, which they not, it is just the policy of opportunity and they will do anything for power. After all without power they cannot do anything, that is their moral compass. In other words the will lie to the top and lie to the british people and then once they get into power become something very different. This kind of machiavellian politics is what lost new labour millions of votes, lost scotland and much of the north. Not even corbyn with his principled stance could stop the rut.
Pardocitily if Corbyn had waited to agree to a general election till the early part of this year he could of been PM. That was his foolish mistake and stupid one at that. Yes Corbyn and Co did not get or wanted to get the role of the government in money creation. Labour just wanted to sell their policies to the public and hoped they would understand. This was a fatal mistake because the tories are pass masters at it. Nope it’s back to 2015 and a more vacuus politics. Even if labour won the next general election, they would impose massive austerity on the people who voted them in. Then tories will come back and rule for another 20 years.
what an absurd caricature of Kier Starmer, and how ridiculous to make anything negative of his concern about the party’s reputation for anti-semitism.
He has a hugely difficult task ahead of him trying to unite the party after the frankly disgraceful behaviour of the pathologically anti-Corbynites, and he needs to gain the support of a media that still has no realisation of how amazing their ‘othering’ of Corbyn was.
He has to proceed with enormous care and it looks like that’s what he’s doing.
“..if Corbyn had waited to agree to a general election till the early part of this year he could of been PM. That was his foolish mistake and stupid one at that.”
Darren that is completely untrue.
The triggering of the general election is entirely the ownership of Jo Swinon who forced Jeremy Corbyn’s hand by producing an legislature amendment that only required the support of a simple majority of MPs – not 2/3rds the house.
Without which the numbers were not there.
The Labour policy was correct – hold tight until after January 31st thwarting the Tories “Get Brexit done” narrative. They would have a failed WA and Labour were well on track to win an election, had the GE not been called for another couple of months – according to the best information we had available.
Johnson immediately enshrined in law we face a cliff edge Brexit in 8 short months. How are those negotiations going?
Corbyn didn’t put a foot wrong. He was cornered. You need to thank the Lib Dems.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/26/boris-johnson-no-brexit-until-january-block-christmas-general-election
I agree whole heartedly with your sentiments.
Along with people who think that the Tories have spent all the money there is because what they will have to spend on Covid-19 will (bull-shit quote) ‘need to be paid back’, there is another group on the Left who think that the only thing that matters is ‘power’.
To this end, gaining power to these people means having to make compromises / bargains / ceding points with/to the Right and Neo-liberalism. Okay – making compromises is a part of politics – the recognition of the need for a private sector is one such compromise and I support that.
But it is where these compromises are made that matters right now.
Compromising or giving leeway to ideas such as ‘having to pay back Covid-19 money’ and selling bonds on OMO only or insisting on tax rises and more austerity are not the sort of compromises the Left or progressives should be considering in my view.
Because if that is what Starmer’s Labour will be about, then as far as I am concerned he/Labour can fuck off. Why? Because basically nothing will change because it is the same old orthodox bullshit being peddled, when we what we need is a courageous Labour party instead.
I find it interesting that Starmer has extended his hand apparently to the Jewish community first. Was this really a priority? I’m nonplussed to be honest. I think the whole bloody country needs to be spoken too first in my view.
Oh well, it’s only his first day I suppose. And let’s face it, Labour tend to like to run themselves first and the country last these days. It must be so nice for Labour MP to be paid £80K a year just to argue amongst themselves. Such a shame.
An obvious but not definitive litmus test will be if Starmer keeps McDonnell (he of government operates on a credit card fame!) on as Shadow Chancellor.
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Fiscal-Credibility-Rule.pdf
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=42522
McDonnell is going
Twitter saying Annaliese Dodds for shadow Chancellor.
I always liked Mcdonnell, honourable, fair, bright and stuck to his principles
Hmmmmm…..
I like McDonnell and even Corbyn as people, but when John McD just talks about paying for Covid-19 with higher taxes on the rich………………….oh dear. Oh Very Dear. He gives Marxism a bad name. I mean, it’s not very imaginative is it?
As for Corbyn and The Labour Party, as soon as the rejection of him amongst the Blairites and Blue Labour became amplified, you knew that he would pull up the draw bridge and lock himself in Castle Milne which is exactly what he did. Isolated and bereft of any new ideas, easily bruised by criticism – it was all going down hill from there.
Then you have Momentum banging on about his ‘legacy’. I watched the crowd break out in an instant chorus singing ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’ at a Radiohead concert in Manchester in July 2017 and Thom Yorke was even kind enough to accompany them on his guitar…………………..and then what? The mouse that didn’t even squeak.
Corbyn’s legacy? I just wonder where he got his hubris from – from coming a close second?
Instead of filling the need out there for a fairer world, all Corbyn has done is left a huge void in unmet need in the country for new, brave ideas, new thinking, new politics.
And what do we have now – Starmer already talking about ‘fiscal credibility’ – so already is this a Labour party acknowledging that it will toe the line and understands that it will only be allowed into power on the terms of the Establishment , the Tory party and their cronies in the media? If so, why bother?
I spend a lot of my time telling people not to be fooled again by the Tories with regard to austerity, but equally I will not be fooled again by a bunch of half-witted fuck-wits that call themselves the Labour party.
If anyone from that half-arsed organisation wants to talk to me about their party’s problems I’m all to happy to oblige and advise. Richard has my email address.
🙂
I just hope that Keir Starmer reads and absorbs your words.
Thanks RM and PSR. Together you have saved me making further meaningful comment. The LP has been clinically sclerotic for decades. Can it change? To do so would necessitate some inspired progressive movers and shakers in the upper échelons of its superstructure. But … never say never. There is a political vacuum to be filled. In the meantime the Green Party needs all the support it can get. It’s a conundrum as to why it isn’t a more attractive option for voters in the UK, compared to continental Europe. Is it simply because of FPTP? Whatever new direction Starmer opts for, I think the 2029 GE will be the real game-changer.
That’s further away than my life expectancy!
As a boy I thought of all the places to be born on earth, how very lucky I was to be born in England.
There are worse places.
But that view has changed somewhat.
Well, I have a new idea!
What about just forgetting about the Labour party and the Greens for now, and try a bit of ‘reverse entryism’?
Why should progressives not join the Tory party?
OK, we’d have to learn to smile at people like Mark Francois and drink our Americano’s with John Redwood and send the odd Christmas card to the Rees-Moggs. But it is the party in power, and is likely to be for some time.
So what do you say? It seems to make sense to me.
I’m serious. Flood the Tories with nicer people! Get in by the back door! Do it today!
I have often wondered why not…
Now that’s what I call radical thinking PSR!
If you can’t beat them, join them. Then corrupt them from the inside. A bit like the neo libs have done to Labour over the last 30 years!
One way or another, governments are held responsible, usually for making it worse or the poor handling of the epidemic. In UK some say a Labour government may have handled it differently, even better, but the issue is academic, they were just not trusted to do it, and this is their fault too. Political economies & consensus may collapse. Governments are ultimately responsible for the structural weakness, in this case in food production that led to the plague in the first instance.
Public Health England (PHE) has been too controlling and centralising – and its existence is down to the Tory “reforms”, which can’t be undone quickly enough to make a difference now. The government seems powerless to make its own bureaucracy do the necessary.