How Gordon Brown should deal with the financial crisis
The Independent’s ComRes poll today, showing a big 15% lead for Conservatives over Labour, given it was only 1% two months ago, will cause more than a few in government to cry over their cereal.
What’s leading the “Brown backlash”? It’s not that most people blame Labour for this mess, as Anthony King said in December, because a recent Times poll flatly contradicted that. Moreover, Britons aren’t wary of state intervention, so its unlikely to be a backlash to recent nationalisations.
I said two months ago that Brown had not yet sealed the deal and I think its time to reiterate that again. The problem is that they still haven’t managed to convince the electorate they know what they’re doing and whether there is a long-term strategy behind it all.
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This crisis is not the Blitz
What’s going on right now is not the Blitz, and nor is it a national plague resulting from our laziness and incompetence. In some ways, the rhetoric of economic responsibility is reassuring; we are individually powerful enough to affect whether or not we sink or swim as a nation.
But what if you have no economic clout whatsoever? I certainly don’t. There is, in a practical sense, absolutely nothing you can do to stop or reverse the recession, other than trust Gordon Brown and James Purnell and their captain-of-industry mates – who helped cause this mess in the first place, which is rather important.
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Who cares about the white working class?
For a good decade, ‘class’ was something of a swear word in British politics, almost taboo. The government seldom talked about class, preferring terms such as ‘hardworking families’ and ’social exclusion’.
Some commentators argued that this was part of a broader strategy to woo middle-class voters and occupy the political centre, which has come at the cost of alienating core working-class voters.
However, if a small, but significant, number of statements made recently by senior Labour politicians are anything to go by, the Labour Party is taking heed of this loss of support, and their tone might be changing as a result.
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Poll finds Britons want more left-wing policies
The Sunday Times did not highlight this question in its poll today:
What kind of society would you most like for Britain, on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 represents an economy completely dominated by private companies and 10 represents an economy dominated completely by the state?
How can we build a coalition on progressive issues?
One of the big challenges for progressives is how we connect up campaigning on different issues to build effective coalitions for change. This is central to the mission of Liberal Conspiracy, recognizing that there are too few spaces where progressives from different perspectives come together to forge strategies for change.
The recession now brings this into sharp focus. There may be an opportunity to challenge the dominance of deregulation, to question inequality at the very top, and remake the public case for the role of the state.
Another instinct will be ‘charity begins at home’: the enormous effects on the developing world of rising food and energy prices have been a very minor theme of political and media discussion given a financial crisis and economic recession. This is the crucial year for a post-Kyoto climate change deal – by Copenhagen this December. Will the deal we need be credit crunched?
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Well done John McDonnell
At least there’s a few MPs still left in Labour willing to get angry.
A Labour MP has been suspended from the House of Commons for five days after angry exchanges over the decision to approve a new Heathrow runway. John McDonnell was sanctioned after he picked up the mace, the ornamental club which represents the royal authority of Parliament, in a breach of protocol.
See the video here, and his explanation here. The economic case against Heathrow expansion was made well by Simon Jenkins recently, let alone the environmental case.
Third runway given go-ahead
The BBC is reporting that: “Ministers have approved a controversial plan to build a third runway at Heathrow, the BBC understands. Despite opposition from residents, environmental campaigners and many of its own MPs, Labour is set to confirm the decision officially on Thursday.”
Help save Royal Mail!
Lobby your MP now to support EDM 428, calling on government to abandon privatisation plans.
Following media reports over the Christmas/New Year period of our forthcoming campaign on the Post Office and Royal Mail, we’re today asking for your urgent help to get MPs to support EDM 428.
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Is it time to boycott Israel?
The above is what the Palestinians of Gaza have now been living with for 17 days. Presumably a “bunker busting” bomb, which the United States only very recently sold Israel, the ostensible target is supposedly the smuggling tunnels out of Gaza into Egypt.
Those tunnels, which do smuggle weapons, were also helping to keep Gazans alive by bringing in fuel, food and other essential products which were either in short supply or blocked from entering the Strip by the Israelis. If the blockade is not lifted and the tunnels are successfully destroyed, the people of Gaza will suffer more once this is over than before.
There were around 60 air-strikes on the Strip on Monday night/Tuesday morning, not all probably of the same horrifying, shocking power as that one but undoubtedly more than enough to utterly destroy countless buildings and the humans that may well have been inside them. One such strike targeted a Christian Aid health clinic that contained hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of medical equipment, desperately needed in Gaza. The attack was not a mistake, but completely deliberate: the owners were telephoned 15 minutes before and told to get out, along with the family that lived above it. Why an ordinary home and clinic were methodically chosen and given the OK to be destroyed is a question that will probably never be answered.
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Government spending: what people want to cut
One interesting question in the most recent YouGov survey (pdf) asked people to decide “If the Government did decide to cut back on its plans for spending, which two or three of these would you most like it to cut?”
The answers should give all of us some pause for thought.
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Aren’t markets evil?
A few days ago I posted a comment on LC in which I suggested that most people who make money do so dishonestly – in other words, bankers aren’t a species apart, more like typical capitalists – and I named three people who I thought had made their money in an open and honest way. I was quickly picked up on one of the names, who turned out not to be as squeaky-clean as I had thought.
I was more interested, though, in the behaviour of the dog in the night. Not one of the free-marketeers who comment so copiously here cared to offer another name of a successful entrepreneur who had made their pile transparently and cleanly.
Free-marketeers love to tell us that every time a transaction takes place, that because the parties are willing to agree to the price, that price must therefore be fair.
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Public attitudes to inequality have changed
How and in what ways public attitudes have been credit crunched?
As part of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Public Interest in Poverty Issues programme, the Fabian Society is currently conducting research exploring attitudes to inequality, and related policy responses. Early findings of the research so far (taken from a Fabian-YouGov opinion poll conducted last month and discussion groups held in London, Bristol, Sheffield and Glasgow over the last five months) provide some clues.
There are signs that media exposure of corporate excess and rewards for failure has started to shift the public mood, opening up space for political action that even three months ago would have looked untenable.
By being seen as violating a basic rule of fair reward, bankers have exposed the vagaries in pay and remuneration processes at the top. As a result, a clear majority of the public want to see tighter rules on corporate pay: 80% agree that bonuses should ‘reward long-term success rather than short-term performance’; 70% think that ordinary employees should be represented on the compensation committees which decide how much city executives get paid; while a small majority (56%) are even in favour of a more radical proposal, to make executives of failed companies ‘pay back their bonuses from the last two years’.
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Labour to scrap tax for under £10k?
Workers earning less than £10,000 a year could soon be exempt from paying tax in a bid to boost the economy, according to the Daily Mirror.
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Apparently, Osborne wants Ken back
Many years ago, at school, the smart sarcastic thing was to scratch your chin and make references to Jimmy Hill “itchy chin” and “chinny reckon” if somebody was being just a little implausible.
Now that is a little bit ‘playground’ for such an esteemed public figure as the Shadow Chancellor, to say nothing of an ancient serious think-tank, but for some unfathomable reason, that image just flashed into my mind when I saw this this Telegraph news report, which effectively confirms that Ken Clarke is coming back. And what do you know, but it was the Boy George’s idea all along…
Some believed that Mr Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, would be against Mr Clarke’s return as it would undermine him. However, The Daily Telegraph has learnt that contrary to those reports, Mr Osborne has been actively lobbying for his return. He has told friends that he works well with Mr Clarke and values his advice.
One friend of Mr Osborne’s said: “George has been talking to Ken about his return and Ken has been very supportive of George. The two get on very well and George would not have a problem with him coming back – in fact is pushing for it.”
Ooh. Itchy, itchy chin. That’s better.
(Cross-posted from Next Left)
George Osborne is confused, again
George Osborne says in the Evening Standard:
Our economy sucked up the savings of millions of Chinese workers, like a national vacuum cleaner, and spent them – often on the very goods those Chinese workers were toiling away in their factories to make. And the message from the Labour Government was: don’t worry, we’re borrowing recklessly, too. Gordon Brown ran up the highest budget, borrowing in the developed world to go on a spending spree, too.
As I’ve said before, its part of the Tory narrative to keep talking about debt, so it can paper over their ‘do nothing’ economic strategy with regards to the economic crisis. This bit simply displays more of that nonsense.
Is Osborne saying households were wrong to buy cheaper Chinese goods? I thought the Tories were for free trade? Is there something wrong with this?
Well, yes, you could argue there is something wrong with it – that we aren’t manufacturing enough of our own cheap, British goods to export or consume here. As a result, we imported significant portions of our consumption, in return for which the Chinese bought British (and tons of American) debt and currency. That’s global trade for you. So what’s Osborne arguing for? Less free trade? An investment in British industries? Protecting existing British industry? Invading the Chinese so we can loot their foreign currency reserves? Or is it another silly article fumbling his own economic ideology so he can stick it to Labour? When will someone in the mainstream media call out this man’s silliness?
Daft conservatives
We’ve approached the time of year when grown adults like to set aside large parts of the day just to make lists. We list the best/worst things to have happened to us, the best/worst things we have bought, our top 10 love/hate figures or our highest/lowest expectations for the year to come. In this same spirit, ToryHome have decided to list what makes a conservative. It’s a fairly innocuous, predictable read, but alongside statements which veer from vague (”Taxation has dynamic effects”) to platitudinous (”Love of country is fundamental to all conservatism”) to downright cryptic (”Man is a fallen creature”), they include this:
Economic liberalism needs social conservatism
Well, I can understand why, in the interests of coalition building, you’d want the flat-taxers in the same boat as the flat-earthers, but their agendas are far less aligned than this five word declaration makes out.
In its fullest expression, social conservatism is restrictive and censorious: it burns ‘heretical’ literature, pickets outside theatres, demands the banning of video games and enforces prohibition of gambling and recreational substances. Classic economic liberals would balk at such authoritarian measures because people should be allowed the freedom to consume what the market provides. No true classicist would want the state to subsidise marriage, and some would even consider abandoning the expensive, losing ‘war on drugs’.
At their core, social conservatives believe unfettered markets can be damaging, and economic liberals stand against against restrictions on markets. Sure, with lashings of compromise and a moderate, piecemeal application of both sides’ agendas, they can often play along nicely, but to suggest some kind of symbiotic relationship between the two is just daft.
Why regional minimum wages are a bad idea
Over any holiday, online reading material tends to accumulate. Christmas 2008 has been no exception even though no few blogs are on vacation. One that I really wanted to challenge was the post over at Mil’s place entitled, “The Petri Dish Philosophy of Politics“. Mil makes the argument that we should import regional minimum wages into the UK, allowing say Birmingham or Manchester to experiment with a higher minimum wage.
The problem is that, as often as not, what we grow in a Petri dish is harmful.
Regional minimum wages exist in the US, where there is a federal, a state-by-state and in a few cases a city-based minimum wage. The San Francisco Chronicle carries an article about how the SF minimum wage is about to climb to $9.79 per hour, against the wishes of local employers, but much to the appreciation of SF workers. Economists on the other hand think it helps keep the unskilled unemployed.
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Our asylum seekers shame
You’ll have to forgive the wonkish legalese, but there’s a principle in international law called non-refoulement, which forbids the expulsion of refugees back to states where they might be subjected to persecution. Deeply ingrained within the 1951 UN convention (of which Britain is a signatory), it arose from the widely-felt shame of failing to provide an adequate safehaven from Nazi genocide, and a resolve that it must never happen again.
Increasingly, though, it’s hard to reconcile our country’s commitment to this deeply important principle with the reality of our actions.
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Basic income: good in Namibia, bad in Libertopia
Namibia is piloting a Basic Income Grant, in which every Namibian citizen gets N$100 per month until they are eligible for the state pension, with no conditions and no strings attached, paid for through higher taxes on those in need or not in poverty. It seems to have been very successful, helping progress towards all eight of the Millennium Development Goals. It helps people pay their school fees and healthcare fees, and contrary to what critics suggested, hasn’t led to people sitting around doing nothing.
So why not, as many people on here and elsewhere, from both the right and the left have suggested, introduce a Citizens’ Basic Income in the UK? After all, no one believes that the current welfare system and society, with its bureaucracy, means testing, high levels of poverty and great cost, is perfect.
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One idea to make Britain fairer
The Fabian Society’s annual conference, which is being held in January, has a final session where selected people will be allowed to present one idea To Make Britain Fairer (interpret that how you want). Usually, the audience then votes for it. This year LC contributors Conor Foley and Dave Hill will be speaking at the conference.
Let’s assume that many of you think (and I certainly do) that a lot of current liberal-left ideas on issues around ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’ are outdated and not really that radical. If you were asked for one idea, what would it be?
(You can also send your idea to at the Fabians if you want to enter their ‘Dragon’s Den’ session)
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» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civil cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
» Is this the end for the socialist left?
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