I think we can safely assume that Corbyn consults no-one other than McDonnell, Milne, his STW mates and, possibly, his cat.
There is nothing wrong with consulting one's cat. Aside from anything else the moggie is just as likely to be right as any poll or top level economist/racing tipster.
Edited extra bit: If you have one handy you could also try consulting a German Shepherd Dog. Heidi who lives with TimB, gent of this parish, has a better track record of predicting elections than YouGov and the rest of that bunch.
I thought chickens were the most reliable forecasters. But on;ly when dead.
Are you also saying that he should have taken the advice of the then Shadow Chancellor who said his banking regulatory framework was too restrictive and we should have followed what Ireland did ?
In 2006, George Osborne wrote in The Times, describing Ireland as “as a shining example of the art of the possible in long-term economic policymaking….They have much to teach us, if only we are willing to learn.”
Gordon Brown did not cause the financial crash, he simply ensured that rather than going into the blizzard wearing thermals, a Sou-wester and wellies, Britain entered it wearing a pair of flip flops and a thong. After all, he had abolished 'boom and bust'.
I'd like to challenge this idea that Brown was not - in part - responsible for the crash. The ineffective financial regulation, which permitted banks to behave like utterly reckless morons, coupled with his desire for the tax revenues which the banks' moronic activities generated were in part responsible for the crash. There were other factors of course and these two were only part of the reasons. But had financial regulation been much tighter, better focused, better run and had the regulators acted on the specific warnings they were given, not just about reckless behaviour but criminality, there would not have been the sort of excesses we saw. If Brown had not spent and spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave he might have wondered if the deluge of tax revenues from the City might not have been a warning signal rather than a reason to spend, spend, spend.
Brown did not just leave us in a poor position when the crash happened. His policies beforehand made it more likely that there would be a crash after an unsustainable boom based on dubious, risky and excessive financial activity poorly understood and regulated.
When the crash started in 2008, Britain's debt / GDP ratio was 39% , lower than frugal Germany ! Only facts are inconvenient to your story.
No - you are focusing on a debt / GDP ratio as if that was the only important fact. And the crash did not start in 2008. It started in 2007. I had a pretty good ringside seat. At times I was in the ring. Take it from me. The full story of what went on has yet to be told. The government and the regulators have much to be blamed for.
So you should have stopped it ! But possibly being in the banking industry and its associated greed, more fuel was poured on the fire.
If you have one handy you could also try consulting a German Shepherd Dog. Heidi who lives with TimB, gent of this parish, has a better track record of predicting elections than YouGov and the rest of that bunch.
I'll have to ask TimB about this. I'm more of a dog person that a cat person. I think you can trust a dog, you know?
Was Brown responsible for all the other OECD countries recession too ? Lehmann Bros., AIG, etc. etc.
Can I suggest you read up on, say, AIG and the UK angle to that collapse? There was a reason why so many entities had UK operations and the ineffective financial regulation that went on here and the regulatory arbitrage that resulted was one of those reasons. The inter-connectedness that there was was one reason why banks and other financial institutions got away with some pretty appalling behaviour. If regulation was not to their liking in country A, they moved their operations to country B. Country B was often the UK. We boasted about it. We encouraged it. We thought it brought us jobs and revenues. And it did for a while. But it stored up a whole heap of trouble which was eminently foreseeable. And the government in charge did not care, did not foresee, did not place any limits and was content to pimp itself out to whichever snake oil financier came their way.
Ireland did the same. So called respectable Germany looked the other way when its banks set up shop in Dublin's Financial Centre and put all their dirty dealings there. Why do you think the Germans put such pressure on Ireland when it all went bad? To protect the euro? Or the EU ideal? Pull the other one - it was to protect their banks which had about as much idea of how to manage risk as I do how to fly an aeroplane. Ask anyone in the City now which is the bank which gives the regulators the most concern and it will be a German one.
Once the edifice started crumbling of course lots of countries were affected and of course Brown was not responsible for what happened there. But he was responsible for what happened in the UK and he was responsible for how the financial sector was viewed and regulated and he failed abysmally in this task. And that failure - given how central the UK's financial services sector was to much of the Western financial sector - and given the shared hubris by him and other political leaders was one of the reasons there was an unsustainable boom and an almighty crash.
Gordon Brown did not cause the financial crash, he simply ensured that rather than going into the blizzard wearing thermals, a Sou-wester and wellies, Britain entered it wearing a pair of flip flops and a thong. After all, he had abolished 'boom and bust'.
I'd like to challenge this idea that Brown was not - in part - responsible for the crash. The ineffective financial regulation, which permitted banks to behave like utterly reckless morons, coupled with his desire for the tax revenues which the banks' moronic activities generated were in part responsible for the crash. There were other factors of course and these two were only part of the reasons. But had financial regulation been much tighter, better focused, better run and had the regulators acted on the specific warnings they were given, not just about reckless behaviour but criminality, there would not have been the sort of excesses we saw. If Brown had not spent and spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave he might have wondered if the deluge of tax revenues from the City might not have been a warning signal rather than a reason to spend, spend, spend.
Brown did not just leave us in a poor position when the crash happened. His policies beforehand made it more likely that there would be a crash after an unsustainable boom based on dubious, risky and excessive financial activity poorly understood and regulated.
When the crash started in 2008, Britain's debt / GDP ratio was 39% , lower than frugal Germany ! Only facts are inconvenient to your story.
No - you are focusing on a debt / GDP ratio as if that was the only important fact. And the crash did not start in 2008. It started in 2007. I had a pretty good ringside seat. At times I was in the ring. Take it from me. The full story of what went on has yet to be told. The government and the regulators have much to be blamed for.
So you should have stopped it ! But possibly being in the banking industry and its associated greed, more fuel was poured on the fire.
You're crediting me with more powers than I possessed then - or now. I was not putting fuel on any fire. My job is - and has been - clearing up the shit others create. I was doing some of the warning, privately. And doing the fuming when those warnings were ignored by regulators and politicians who couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.
Brown did not just leave us in a poor position when the crash happened. His policies beforehand made it more likely that there would be a crash after an unsustainable boom based on dubious, risky and excessive financial activity poorly understood and regulated.
Timothy Geithner, when he was serving as US Treasury Secretary, was interviewed on Radio 4. He was asked what was the chief cause of the financial crash, and answered 'banking regulation', and in particular the regulation in London which had led the way with process focused light-touch regulation, and had had a lot of influence in other major financial centres as they sought to compete for business. Who was the man who changed 300 years of UK banking regulation with disastrous consequences? Gordon Brown.
The apologists for Brown are wasting their breath.
'Consensus' in a left centric labour world is not consensus as many will recognise it.
Mr Mansons tips might well hold water over the next two years or so, but following a 2020 election and a PLP with a different outlook then a Corbyn successor might look quite different. In this respect I think Mr Manson is right to point out the insuperable hurdle facing Jervis. He is a 'tory'!
Gordon Brown did not cause the financial crash, he simply ensured that rather than going into the blizzard wearing thermals, a Sou-wester and wellies, Britain entered it wearing a pair of flip flops and a thong. After all, he had abolished 'boom and bust'.
I'd like to challenge this idea that Brown was not - in part - responsible for the crash. The ineffective financial regulation, which permitted banks to behave like utterly reckless morons, coupled with his desire for the tax revenues which the banks' moronic activities generated were in part responsible for the crash. There were other factors of course and these two were only part of the reasons. But had financial regulation been much tighter, better focused, better run and had the regulators acted on the specific warnings they were given, not just about reckless behaviour but criminality, there would not have been the sort of excesses we saw. If Brown had not spent and spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave he might have wondered if the deluge of tax revenues from the City might not have been a warning signal rather than a reason to spend, spend, spend.
Brown did not just leave us in a poor position when the crash happened. His policies beforehand made it more likely that there would be a crash after an unsustainable boom based on dubious, risky and excessive financial activity poorly understood and regulated.
When the crash started in 2008, Britain's debt / GDP ratio was 39% , lower than frugal Germany ! Only facts are inconvenient to your story.
No - you are focusing on a debt / GDP ratio as if that was the only important fact. And the crash did not start in 2008. It started in 2007. I had a pretty good ringside seat. At times I was in the ring. Take it from me. The full story of what went on has yet to be told. The government and the regulators have much to be blamed for.
Brown massively increased spending from 2000. In so doing he massively increased the size of the state. By the time Lehman Bros collapsed, Brown had already increased Britain’s national debt by 43 per cent It is this mad act which is the source of all the pain and misery now.
When the crash started in 2008, Britain's debt / GDP ratio was 39% , lower than frugal Germany ! Only facts are inconvenient to your story.
That's public sector debt only. Levels of commercial, financial, and personal debt at the time would not paint so pretty a picture.
And I must say I'm glad that in 2016 Labour supporters are still in deep denial about what a bloody catastrophe Brown was. It makes it all the more likely that you will lose the next general election.
Brown did not just leave us in a poor position when the crash happened. His policies beforehand made it more likely that there would be a crash after an unsustainable boom based on dubious, risky and excessive financial activity poorly understood and regulated.
Timothy Geithner, when he was serving as US Treasury Secretary, was interviewed on Radio 4. He was asked what was the chief cause of the financial crash, and answered 'banking regulation', and in particular the regulation in London which had led the way with process focused light-touch regulation, and had had a lot of influence in other major financial centres as they sought to compete for business. Who was the man who changed 300 years of UK banking regulation with disastrous consequences? Gordon Brown.
The apologists for Brown are wasting their breath.
It's important to nail this myth. And if the Tories had any sense they would do so.
It's important because Labour's failure was in relation to how they managed their economy and not simply about how they spent the fruits of a well run economy. The economy was not well run and it collapsed as badly run economies will eventually do.
The Beckett report is an example of Labour thinking that they were unfairly tarnished with responsibility only for not "fixing the roof". I think their failure was more profound. The sun was not really shining. It was burning. And we now have an economy which still has skin cancer and is not yet clear of it, despite the last 5 years.
When the crash started in 2008, Britain's debt / GDP ratio was 39% , lower than frugal Germany ! Only facts are inconvenient to your story.
That's public sector debt only. Levels of commercial, financial, and personal debt at the time would not paint so pretty a picture.
And I must say I'm glad that in 2016 Labour supporters are still in deep denial about what a bloody catastrophe Brown was. It makes it all the more likely that you will lose the next general election.
Brown was a catastrophe, Osborne is also a catastrophe. In both cases they where and are unprepared and unwilling to reform the economy on a stable basis or put government finances on a sustainable footing.
'Consensus' in a left centric labour world is not consensus as many will recognise it.
Mr Mansons tips might well hold water over the next two years or so, but following a 2020 election and a PLP with a different outlook then a Corbyn successor might look quite different. In this respect I think Mr Manson is right to point out the insuperable hurdle facing Jervis. He is a 'tory'!
Gordon Brown did not cause the financial crash, he simply ensured that rather than going into the blizzard wearing thermals, a Sou-wester and wellies, Britain entered it wearing a pair of flip flops and a thong. After all, he had abolished 'boom and bust'.
Brown did not just leave us in a poor position when the crash happened. His policies beforehand made it more likely that there would be a crash after an unsustainable boom based on dubious, risky and excessive financial activity poorly understood and regulated.
When the crash started in 2008, Britain's debt / GDP ratio was 39% , lower than frugal Germany ! Only facts are inconvenient to your story.
No - you are focusing on a debt / GDP ratio as if that was the only important fact. And the crash did not start in 2008. It started in 2007. I had a pretty good ringside seat. At times I was in the ring. Take it from me. The full story of what went on has yet to be told. The government and the regulators have much to be blamed for.
Brown massively increased spending from 2000. In so doing he massively increased the size of the state. By the time Lehman Bros collapsed, Brown had already increased Britain’s national debt by 43 per cent It is this mad act which is the source of all the pain and misery now.
In 1997/98 UK debt / GDP ratio was 40.4% of GDP after Ken Clarke increased it from around 25%.
Dan Jarvis seems a nice ordinary chap. But when interviewed he talks in platitudes. Other than being a soldier and once a widower, where - really - is the beef with him?
Public sector net debt excluding public sector banks at the end of December 2015 was £1,542.6 billion, equivalent to 81.0% of Gross Domestic Product; an increase of £53.2 billion compared with December 2014.
Just £53.2bn higher than a year previously ???
Rubbish. Osborne said in 2010 that by 2014/2015 Britain's budget would be in surplus and therefore the overall debt would be coming down from then on.
You are far from being as clever as you think you are. Govt policy was to cut the structural deficit. This turned pout to be even bigger than thought once the real figures were finally known. To cut that bigger deficit the govt could have chosen to cut spending and raise taxes even more. It did not. It wisely ignored dogma and extended the period a further two years, as per Osborne's 2011 (?) budget speech. The govt sustained the economy (at a time of the Euro crisis) and enabled unemployment to fall and the number of jobs to rise, all by significant numbers.
Currently as of December the year on year deficit is 13% smaller.
Gordon Brown did not cause the financial crash, he simply ensured that rather than going into the blizzard wearing thermals, a Sou-wester and wellies, Britain entered it wearing a pair of flip flops and a thong. After all, he had abolished 'boom and bust'.
I'd like to challenge this idea that Brown was not - in part - responsible for the crash. The ineffective financial regulation, which permitted banks to behave like utterly reckless morons, coupled with his desire for the tax revenues which the banks' moronic activities generated were in part responsible for the crash. There were other factors of course and these two were only part of the reasons. But had financial regulation been much tighter, better focused, better run and had the regulators acted on the specific warnings they were given, not just about reckless behaviour but criminality, there would not have been the sort of excesses we saw. If Brown had not spent and spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave he might have wondered if the deluge of tax revenues from the City might not have been a warning signal rather than a reason to spend, spend, spend.
Brown did not just leave us in a poor position when the crash happened. His policies beforehand made it more likely that there would be a crash after an unsustainable boom based on dubious, risky and excessive financial activity poorly understood and regulated.
When the crash started in 2008, Britain's debt / GDP ratio was 39% , lower than frugal Germany ! Only facts are inconvenient to your story.
No - you are focusing on a debt / GDP ratio as if that was the only important fact. And the crash did not start in 2008. It started in 2007. I had a pretty good ringside seat. At times I was in the ring. Take it from me. The full story of what went on has yet to be told. The government and the regulators have much to be blamed for.
So you should have stopped it ! But possibly being in the banking industry and its associated greed, more fuel was poured on the fire.
You're crediting me with more powers than I possessed then - or now. I was not putting fuel on any fire. My job is - and has been - clearing up the shit others create. I was doing some of the warning, privately. And doing the fuming when those warnings were ignored by regulators and politicians who couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.
Don't get too excited ! Everyone knows what you are. Ordinary, just too ordinary !
It confirms my suspicion that if Sanders wins Iowa he also wins the next 2 states (N.H., Nevada). Hillary is very vulnerable in those states that dont have large numbers of african-americans (42 out of 50 states).
It's important to nail this myth. And if the Tories had any sense they would do so.
It's important because Labour's failure was in relation to how they managed their economy and not simply about how they spent the fruits of a well run economy. The economy was not well run and it collapsed as badly run economies will eventually do.
The Beckett report is an example of Labour thinking that they were unfairly tarnished with responsibility only for not "fixing the roof". I think their failure was more profound. The sun was not really shining. It was burning. And we now have an economy which still has sun cancer and is not yet clear of it, despite the last 5 years.
I've have noticed that when Labour people do accept some responsibility for what went wrong they are much more likely to say, "We failed to regulate the banks" than "We didn't fix the roof."
On the face of it that would suggest that the speaker agrees with what you are saying. However, to the relatively uninformed listener (me, for example) it comes across as "Yes, we did make a mistake, we didn't rein in those banker tossers (who are the real culprits as we all know)." In other words, it comes across as one of those false apologies where someone owns up to a trivial offence and doesn't mention the more serious one they are really being hammered for.
But what you are saying is that "We failed to regulate the banks" is actually the most serious confession Labour could make?
Gordon Brown did not cause the financial crash, he simply ensured that rather than going into the blizzard wearing thermals, a Sou-wester and wellies, Britain entered it wearing a pair of flip flops and a thong. After all, he had abolished 'boom and bust'.
I'd like to challenge this idea that Brown was not - in part - responsible for the crash. The ineffective financial regulation, which permitted banks to behave like utterly reckless morons, coupled with his desire for the tax revenues which the banks' moronic activities generated were in part responsible for the crash. There were other factors of course and these two were only part of the reasons. But had financial regulation been much tighter, better focused, better run and had the regulators acted on the specific warnings they were given, not just about reckless behaviour but criminality, there would not have been the sort of excesses we saw. If Brown had not spent and spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave he might have wondered if the deluge of tax revenues from the City might not have been a warning signal rather than a reason to spend, spend, spend.
Brown did not just leave us in a poor position when the crash happened. His policies beforehand made it more likely that there would be a crash after an unsustainable boom based on dubious, risky and excessive financial activity poorly understood and regulated.
When the crash started in 2008, Britain's debt / GDP ratio was 39% , lower than frugal Germany ! Only facts are inconvenient to your story.
So you should have stopped it ! But possibly being in the banking industry and its associated greed, more fuel was poured on the fire.
You're crediting me with more powers than I possessed then - or now. I was not putting fuel on any fire. My job is - and has been - clearing up the shit others create. I was doing some of the warning, privately. And doing the fuming when those warnings were ignored by regulators and politicians who couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.
Don't get too excited ! Everyone knows what you are. Ordinary, just too ordinary !
Ordinary is good. Pretty much all of us are. Being an ordinary decent person - if that is what the people who know you think of you as - is quite some achievement. I'd be content with that.
When the crash started in 2008, Britain's debt / GDP ratio was 39% , lower than frugal Germany ! Only facts are inconvenient to your story.
No - you are focusing on a debt / GDP ratio as if that was the only important fact. And the crash did not start in 2008. It started in 2007. I had a pretty good ringside seat. At times I was in the ring. Take it from me. The full story of what went on has yet to be told. The government and the regulators have much to be blamed for.
So you should have stopped it ! But possibly being in the banking industry and its associated greed, more fuel was poured on the fire.
You're crediting me with more powers than I possessed then - or now. I was not putting fuel on any fire. My job is - and has been - clearing up the shit others create. I was doing some of the warning, privately. And doing the fuming when those warnings were ignored by regulators and politicians who couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.
Give up Cycle. They will never accept responsibility. It's not the first time either. Who to believe you with some good explanation as far as you could go or some lefties who whatever happens will never accept it happened on their watch and they are responsible.
Brown was warned in 1997 by Lilley from 2002 onwards there were a steady stream of warnings from IMF , EU and others none of which were heeded. Quite simply in this country it is Brown, the Labour Party and those that voted for them that are entirely responsible.
No Hollywood driven rewriting of history will make any difference to that.
Public sector net debt excluding public sector banks at the end of December 2015 was £1,542.6 billion, equivalent to 81.0% of Gross Domestic Product; an increase of £53.2 billion compared with December 2014.
Just £53.2bn higher than a year previously ???
''Public sector net borrowing excluding public sector banks decreased by £11.0 billion to £74.2 billion in the current financial year-to-date (April 2015 to December 2015) compared with the same period in 2014.'' ''Central government net cash requirement decreased by £17.2 billion to £63.1 billion in the current financial year-to-date (April 2015 to December 2015) compared with the same period in 2014.'' ''Due to the volatility of the monthly data, the cumulative financial year-to-date borrowing figures provide a better indication of the progress of the public finances than the individual months.''
There should be some surplus months between now and end of March.
Dan Jarvis seems a nice ordinary chap. But when interviewed he talks in platitudes. Other than being a soldier and once a widower, where - really - is the beef with him?
The Labour thinking is - 'Middle England likes soldiers. Dan Jarvis was a soldier. Therefore everyone will like him, including Tories'. And that's it.
Brown was warned in 1997 by Lilley from 2002 onwards there were a steady stream of warnings from IMF , EU and others none of which were heeded. Quite simply in this country it is Brown, the Labour Party and those that voted for them that are entirely responsible.
No Hollywood driven rewriting of history will make any difference to that.
It is a bit odd though when the same people vilify Blair but completely absolve Brown. Where are the Labour supporters who think that both of them were awful?
Dan Jarvis seems a nice ordinary chap. But when interviewed he talks in platitudes. Other than being a soldier and once a widower, where - really - is the beef with him?
The Labour thinking is - 'Everyone likes soldiers. Dan Jarvis was a soldier. Therefore everyone will like him, including Tories'. And that's it.
It confirms my suspicion that if Sanders wins Iowa he also wins the next 2 states (N.H., Nevada). Hillary is very vulnerable in those states that dont have large numbers of african-americans (42 out of 50 states).
Dan Jarvis seems a nice ordinary chap. But when interviewed he talks in platitudes. Other than being a soldier and once a widower, where - really - is the beef with him?
The Labour thinking is - 'Everyone likes soldiers. Dan Jarvis was a soldier. Therefore everyone will like him, including Tories'. And that's it.
Yes I think that is to the point.
Style over substance. Nothing's changed.
Downthread, someone posted that Lisa Nandy would be good call for Labour leader because she was telegenic. They're ignoring reality. Number 1 priority would be to pick someone who isn't batshit crazy, and go from there. How that person might look on TV is a complete irrelevance at this stage in Labour's death spiral.
It's important to nail this myth. And if the Tories had any sense they would do so.
It's important because Labour's failure was in relation to how they managed their economy and not simply about how they spent the fruits of a well run economy. The economy was not well run and it collapsed as badly run economies will eventually do.
The Beckett report is an example of Labour thinking that they were unfairly tarnished with responsibility only for not "fixing the roof". I think their failure was more profound. The sun was not really shining. It was burning. And we now have an economy which still has sun cancer and is not yet clear of it, despite the last 5 years.
I've have noticed that when Labour people do accept some responsibility for what went wrong they are much more likely to say, "We failed to regulate the banks" than "We didn't fix the roof."
On the face of it that would suggest that the speaker agrees with what you are saying. However, to the relatively uninformed listener (me, for example) it comes across as "Yes, we did make a mistake, we didn't rein in those banker tossers (who are the real culprits as we all know)." In other words, it comes across as one of those false apologies where someone owns up to a trivial offence and doesn't mention the more serious one they are really being hammered for.
But what you are saying is that "We failed to regulate the banks" is actually the most serious confession Labour could make?
I think their apology is a non-apology because they fail to accept that their failure effectively to understand one of our major sectors, what it did, how it did and what its real purpose is - it is there as a service for others not as an end in itself - meant that:-
(a) they failed to regulate effectively; (b) they allowed it to grow disproportionately with consequent harm to the rest of the economy and the proper allocation of resources within the wider economy; (c) they became so dependant on its revenues that they did little or nothing for any other part of the economy. Look at what happened to the manufacturing sector during Labour's time in office; and (d) they believed their own bullshit and spent the money rather than using that windfall productively.
This all meant that the economy as a whole was being very badly run. It was skewed to and dependant on one volatile and poorly understood sector. Economic mismanagement is what they should be apologising for and that mismanagement is much wider and more profound than financial regulation and an excessive deficit.
I'm no defender of crooked and incompetent bankers but they have become a convenient whipping boy for governments and, frankly, for individuals who were very content to borrow and spend quite as incontinently as Brown and who then turn round and blame banks for somehow forcing them to do so.
I note in previous disasters that there is a reluctance to accept new circumstances when change happens quickly. We got caught out badly when ScotLab died and ditto the Libs. We ignore things like the poor Labour postal vote rumours and weird campaigning locations when they could have foretold the Labour defeat if we only listened. We balance new information against old assumptions as if they were equal, and miss the turning of the tide. With that in mind let us consider two unusual things which, if we were not blinded by the past, would seem utterly obvious.
THE NEW NORMAL PART 1: POTUS TRUMP We look at Trump, note that he is a bumptious fool with ridiculous ideas and no grasp of government, and believe that he has no chance of being elected. But all the polls say Republicans like him quite a lot, and the more he speaks the more his polls go up. Superdelegates and Republican elders can only influence delegates, not overturn them. Given the polls he's quite likely to become Republican nom, and the Democrats have no countermeasure other than "ew" or "he's an idiot", which the GOP already know and don't care. POTUS Trump is a very real prospect.
I note in previous disasters that there is a reluctance to accept new circumstances when change happens quickly. We got caught out badly when ScotLab died and ditto the Libs. We ignore things like the poor Labour postal vote rumours and weird campaigning locations when they could have foretold the Labour defeat if we only listened. We balance new information against old assumptions as if they were equal, and miss the turning of the tide. With that in mind let us consider two unusual things which, if we were not blinded by the past, would seem utterly obvious.
THE NEW NORMAL PART 1: POTUS TRUMP We look at Trump, note that he is a bumptious fool with ridiculous ideas and no grasp of government, and believe that he has no chance of being elected. But all the polls say Republicans like him quite a lot, and the more he speaks the more his polls go up. Superdelegates and Republican elders can only influence delegates, not overturn them. Given the polls he's quite likely to become Republican nom, and the Democrats have no countermeasure other than "ew" or "he's an idiot", which the GOP already know and don't care. POTUS Trump is a very real prospect.
Trump will get the nomination, he has virtually no chance of being elected POTUS, he turns off the very minorities and female voters the GOP desperately needs to win back, Republicans are having their very own Corbyn moment!
Downthread, someone posted that Lisa Nandy would be good call for Labour leader because she was telegenic. They're ignoring reality. Number 1 priority would be to pick someone who isn't batshit crazy, and go from there.
She's not. She was on the DP during one of the Corbyn crazy episodes and point blank refused to back him.
THE NEW NORMAL PART 2: BREXIT In the Noughties, the time of Desperate Housewives and Nokia phones, Eurosceptic arguments revolved around alternatives that were fictional (nonexistent Commonwealth free trade areas), ludicrous (we can trade with Russia and China, countries that are neither close nor lawabiding) or touchingly childlike (Hannan's insistence that we should preferably trade with our friends, which is a proposition nobody over 8 should hold). They could be easily dismissed.
But since 2009/10 (when the size of Greece became apparent) and since 2011 (when immigration began to appear in the list of concerns), the argument has changed. It is easy to dismiss claims that the Euro will collapse (it stays in existence until the most powerful nations decide to leave) but claims that it is well run are difficult to hold with a straight face. Moving from comedy to tragedy, the human wave of immigrants is large and solutions are ramshackle, ad-hoc and ineffective. Blaming the EU for migration is a bit like blaming the dinosaurs for the meteorite, but this does not change the fact that the citizenry is concerned about the number and characteristics of the migrants and will vote Leave accordingly. The print media have latched onto this and are pushing it with all the class and subtlety for which Kelvin McKenzie and Rod Liddle are justly famed: it's not quite "if you want a ****** for a neighbour, vote Labour" but let's be honest, it's not far off.
Unless Remain develop a countermeasure to Leave's charge that EU membership implies mass migration into the UK - and since the charge has an element of truth, this will be difficult - then Leave will win, and win hard.
I note in previous disasters that there is a reluctance to accept new circumstances when change happens quickly. We got caught out badly when ScotLab died and ditto the Libs. We ignore things like the poor Labour postal vote rumours and weird campaigning locations when they could have foretold the Labour defeat if we only listened. We balance new information against old assumptions as if they were equal, and miss the turning of the tide. With that in mind let us consider two unusual things which, if we were not blinded by the past, would seem utterly obvious.
THE NEW NORMAL PART 1: POTUS TRUMP We look at Trump, note that he is a bumptious fool with ridiculous ideas and no grasp of government, and believe that he has no chance of being elected. But all the polls say Republicans like him quite a lot, and the more he speaks the more his polls go up. Superdelegates and Republican elders can only influence delegates, not overturn them. Given the polls he's quite likely to become Republican nom, and the Democrats have no countermeasure other than "ew" or "he's an idiot", which the GOP already know and don't care. POTUS Trump is a very real prospect.
Trump will get the nomination, he has virtually no chance of being elected POTUS, he turns off the very minorities and female voters the GOP desperately needs to win back, Republicans are having their very own Corbyn moment!
I take your point about minorities, but it's the ecological fallacy: you can't generalise from a subgroup to the group or vice-versa. All he has to do is get 51% of the vote, not a representative sample: he's campaigning, not polling.
It's important to nail this myth. And if the Tories had any sense they would do so.
It's important because Labour's failure was in relation to how they managed their economy and not simply about how they spent the fruits of a well run economy. The economy was not well run and it collapsed as badly run economies will eventually do.
I've have noticed that when Labour people do accept some responsibility for what went wrong they are much more likely to say, "We failed to regulate the banks" than "We didn't fix the roof."
On the face of it that would suggest that the speaker agrees with what you are saying. However, to the relatively uninformed listener (me, for example) it comes across as "Yes, we did make a mistake, we didn't rein in those banker tossers (who are the real culprits as we all know)." In other words, it comes across as one of those false apologies where someone owns up to a trivial offence and doesn't mention the more serious one they are really being hammered for.
But what you are saying is that "We failed to regulate the banks" is actually the most serious confession Labour could make?
I think their apology is a non-apology because they fail to accept that their failure effectively to understand one of our major sectors, what it did, how it did and what its real purpose is - it is there as a service for others not as an end in itself - meant that:-
(a) they failed to regulate effectively; (b) they allowed it to grow disproportionately with consequent harm to the rest of the economy and the proper allocation of resources within the wider economy; (c) they became so dependant on its revenues that they did little or nothing for any other part of the economy. Look at what happened to the manufacturing sector during Labour's time in office; and (d) they believed their own bullshit and spent the money rather than using that windfall productively.
I'm no defender of crooked and incompetent bankers but they have become a convenient whipping boy for governments and, frankly, for individuals who were very content to borrow and spend quite as incontinently as Brown and who then turn round and blame banks for somehow forcing them to do so.
If the film 'The big Short' is accurate which I suspect it is then governments had very little control over the events that caused the economic collapse of 07/08. The blame was squarely laid at the feet of the bankers and their greed. What's more it was extremely difficult for ANYONE to predict and certainly not governments. The whole point was that no one could have seen it coming. The mortgage bundles were all given 'triple A' ratings by the rating agencies. What should Brown or Bush have been aware of?
It's important to nail this myth. And if the Tories had any sense they would do so.
It's important because Labour's failure was in relation to how they managed their economy and not simply about how they spent the fruits of a well run economy. The economy was not well run and it collapsed as badly run economies will eventually do.
I've have noticed that when Labour people do accept some responsibility for what went wrong they are much more likely to say, "We failed to regulate the banks" than "We didn't fix the roof."
On the face of it that would suggest that the speaker agrees with what you are saying. However, to the relatively uninformed listener (me, for example) it comes across as "Yes, we did make a mistake, we didn't rein in those banker tossers (who are the real culprits as we all know)." In other words, it comes across as one of those false apologies where someone owns up to a trivial offence and doesn't mention the more serious one they are really being hammered for.
But what you are saying is that "We failed to regulate the banks" is actually the most serious confession Labour could make?
I think their apology is a non-apology because they fail to accept that their failure effectively to understand one of our major sectors, what it did, how it did and what its real purpose is - it is there as a service for others not as an end in itself - meant that:-
(a) they failed to regulate effectively; (b) they allowed it to grow disproportionately with consequent harm to the rest of the economy and the proper allocation of resources within the wider economy; (c) they became so dependant on its revenues that they did little or nothing for any other part of the economy. Look at what happened to the manufacturing sector during Labour's time in office; and (d) they believed their own bullshit and spent the money rather than using that windfall productively.
I'm no defender of crooked and incompetent bankers but they have become a convenient whipping boy for governments and, frankly, for individuals who were very content to borrow and spend quite as incontinently as Brown and who then turn round and blame banks for somehow forcing them to do so.
The whole point was that no one could have seen it coming. The mortgage bundles were all given 'triple A' ratings by the rating agencies. What should Brown or Bush have been aware of?
In Brown's case that he hadn't ended "Tory" (sic) "boom and bust".
Such hubris- such ignorance- had it coming.
Labout didn't cause the crash - but they were spending too much when it happened- and piling loads on "off-book" spending too via PFI deals
It's important to nail this myth. And if the Tories had any sense they would do so.
It's important because Labour's failure was in relation to how they managed their economy and not simply about how they spent the fruits of a well run economy. The economy was not well run and it collapsed as badly run economies will eventually do.
The Beckett report is an example of Labour thinking that they were unfairly tarnished with responsibility only for not "fixing the roof". I think their failure was more profound. The sun was not really shining. It was burning. And we now have an economy which still has sun cancer and is not yet clear of it, despite the last 5 years.
I've have noticed that when Labour people do accept some responsibility for what went wrong they are much more likely to say, "We failed to regulate the banks" than "We didn't fix the roof."
On the face of it that would suggest that the speaker agrees with what you are saying. However, to the relatively uninformed listener (me, for example) it comes across as "Yes, we did make a mistake, we didn't rein in those banker tossers (who are the real culprits as we all know)." In other words, it comes across as one of those false apologies where someone owns up to a trivial offence and doesn't mention the more serious one they are really being hammered for.
But what you are saying is that "We failed to regulate the banks" is actually the most serious confession Labour could make?
I'm no defender of crooked and incompetent bankers but they have become a convenient whipping boy for governments and, frankly, for individuals who were very content to borrow and spend quite as incontinently as Brown and who then turn round and blame banks for somehow forcing them to do so.
Quite. It's like blaming the barman for your hangover
I note in previous disasters that there is a reluctance to accept new circumstances when change happens quickly. We got caught out badly when ScotLab died and ditto the Libs. We ignore things like the poor Labour postal vote rumours and weird campaigning locations when they could have foretold the Labour defeat if we only listened. We balance new information against old assumptions as if they were equal, and miss the turning of the tide. With that in mind let us consider two unusual things which, if we were not blinded by the past, would seem utterly obvious.
THE NEW NORMAL PART 1: POTUS TRUMP We look at Trump, note that he is a bumptious fool with ridiculous ideas and no grasp of government, and believe that he has no chance of being elected. But all the polls say Republicans like him quite a lot, and the more he speaks the more his polls go up. Superdelegates and Republican elders can only influence delegates, not overturn them. Given the polls he's quite likely to become Republican nom, and the Democrats have no countermeasure other than "ew" or "he's an idiot", which the GOP already know and don't care. POTUS Trump is a very real prospect.
Trump will get the nomination, he has virtually no chance of being elected POTUS, he turns off the very minorities and female voters the GOP desperately needs to win back, Republicans are having their very own Corbyn moment!
I take your point about minorities, but it's the ecological fallacy: you can't generalise from a subgroup to the group or vice-versa. All he has to do is get 51% of the vote, not a representative sample: he's campaigning, not polling.
Yes but with the changing demographics in the US he will not get the 51% he needs with the 25% of the minority vote he is presently polling
Comments
Ireland did the same. So called respectable Germany looked the other way when its banks set up shop in Dublin's Financial Centre and put all their dirty dealings there. Why do you think the Germans put such pressure on Ireland when it all went bad? To protect the euro? Or the EU ideal? Pull the other one - it was to protect their banks which had about as much idea of how to manage risk as I do how to fly an aeroplane. Ask anyone in the City now which is the bank which gives the regulators the most concern and it will be a German one.
Once the edifice started crumbling of course lots of countries were affected and of course Brown was not responsible for what happened there. But he was responsible for what happened in the UK and he was responsible for how the financial sector was viewed and regulated and he failed abysmally in this task. And that failure - given how central the UK's financial services sector was to much of the Western financial sector - and given the shared hubris by him and other political leaders was one of the reasons there was an unsustainable boom and an almighty crash.
When thinking about expectation this advert still springs to mind. Even the Danish banned this one...
http://youtu.be/aWKYGsm3Ue8
The apologists for Brown are wasting their breath.
Mr Mansons tips might well hold water over the next two years or so, but following a 2020 election and a PLP with a different outlook then a Corbyn successor might look quite different.
In this respect I think Mr Manson is right to point out the insuperable hurdle facing Jervis. He is a 'tory'! Brown massively increased spending from 2000. In so doing he massively increased the size of the state.
By the time Lehman Bros collapsed, Brown had already increased Britain’s national debt by 43 per cent
It is this mad act which is the source of all the pain and misery now.
And I must say I'm glad that in 2016 Labour supporters are still in deep denial about what a bloody catastrophe Brown was. It makes it all the more likely that you will lose the next general election.
It's important because Labour's failure was in relation to how they managed their economy and not simply about how they spent the fruits of a well run economy. The economy was not well run and it collapsed as badly run economies will eventually do.
The Beckett report is an example of Labour thinking that they were unfairly tarnished with responsibility only for not "fixing the roof". I think their failure was more profound. The sun was not really shining. It was burning. And we now have an economy which still has skin cancer and is not yet clear of it, despite the last 5 years.
In both cases they where and are unprepared and unwilling to reform the economy on a stable basis or put government finances on a sustainable footing.
10 years later, in 2007/08 it was 36.4%
You are far from being as clever as you think you are.
Govt policy was to cut the structural deficit. This turned pout to be even bigger than thought once the real figures were finally known. To cut that bigger deficit the govt could have chosen to cut spending and raise taxes even more. It did not. It wisely ignored dogma and extended the period a further two years, as per Osborne's 2011 (?) budget speech. The govt sustained the economy (at a time of the Euro crisis) and enabled unemployment to fall and the number of jobs to rise, all by significant numbers.
Currently as of December the year on year deficit is 13% smaller.
Hillary 47
Sanders 43
http://overtimepolitics.com/clinton-holds-slight-lead-over-sanders-in-nevada-47-43/
It confirms my suspicion that if Sanders wins Iowa he also wins the next 2 states (N.H., Nevada).
Hillary is very vulnerable in those states that dont have large numbers of african-americans (42 out of 50 states).
On the face of it that would suggest that the speaker agrees with what you are saying. However, to the relatively uninformed listener (me, for example) it comes across as "Yes, we did make a mistake, we didn't rein in those banker tossers (who are the real culprits as we all know)." In other words, it comes across as one of those false apologies where someone owns up to a trivial offence and doesn't mention the more serious one they are really being hammered for.
But what you are saying is that "We failed to regulate the banks" is actually the most serious confession Labour could make?
Ordinary is good. Pretty much all of us are. Being an ordinary decent person - if that is what the people who know you think of you as - is quite some achievement. I'd be content with that.
When the crash started in 2008, Britain's debt / GDP ratio was 39% , lower than frugal Germany ! Only facts are inconvenient to your story.
No - you are focusing on a debt / GDP ratio as if that was the only important fact. And the crash did not start in 2008. It started in 2007. I had a pretty good ringside seat. At times I was in the ring. Take it from me. The full story of what went on has yet to be told. The government and the regulators have much to be blamed for.
So you should have stopped it ! But possibly being in the banking industry and its associated greed, more fuel was poured on the fire.
You're crediting me with more powers than I possessed then - or now. I was not putting fuel on any fire. My job is - and has been - clearing up the shit others create. I was doing some of the warning, privately. And doing the fuming when those warnings were ignored by regulators and politicians who couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.
Give up Cycle. They will never accept responsibility. It's not the first time either. Who to believe you with some good explanation as far as you could go or some lefties who whatever happens will never accept it happened on their watch and they are responsible.
Brown was warned in 1997 by Lilley from 2002 onwards there were a steady stream of warnings from IMF , EU and others none of which were heeded. Quite simply in this country it is Brown, the Labour Party and those that voted for them that are entirely responsible.
No Hollywood driven rewriting of history will make any difference to that.
''Public sector net borrowing excluding public sector banks decreased by £11.0 billion to £74.2 billion in the current financial year-to-date (April 2015 to December 2015) compared with the same period in 2014.''
''Central government net cash requirement decreased by £17.2 billion to £63.1 billion in the
current financial year-to-date (April 2015 to December 2015) compared with the same period in 2014.''
''Due to the volatility of the monthly data, the cumulative financial year-to-date borrowing figures provide a better indication of the progress of the public finances than the individual months.''
There should be some surplus months between now and end of March.
Clinton 59%
Sanders 30%
http://loras.edu/About-Loras/News-Events/News/2016/Clinton-Maintains-Lead,-New-Loras-College-Poll-Fin.aspx
Suffolk Uni New Hampshire (Dems)
Sanders 50%
Clinton 41%
http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/SUPRC/1_22_2016_marginals.pdf
Downthread, someone posted that Lisa Nandy would be good call for Labour leader because she was telegenic. They're ignoring reality. Number 1 priority would be to pick someone who isn't batshit crazy, and go from there. How that person might look on TV is a complete irrelevance at this stage in Labour's death spiral.
(a) they failed to regulate effectively;
(b) they allowed it to grow disproportionately with consequent harm to the rest of the economy and the proper allocation of resources within the wider economy;
(c) they became so dependant on its revenues that they did little or nothing for any other part of the economy. Look at what happened to the manufacturing sector during Labour's time in office; and
(d) they believed their own bullshit and spent the money rather than using that windfall productively.
This all meant that the economy as a whole was being very badly run. It was skewed to and dependant on one volatile and poorly understood sector. Economic mismanagement is what they should be apologising for and that mismanagement is much wider and more profound than financial regulation and an excessive deficit.
I'm no defender of crooked and incompetent bankers but they have become a convenient whipping boy for governments and, frankly, for individuals who were very content to borrow and spend quite as incontinently as Brown and who then turn round and blame banks for somehow forcing them to do so.
THE NEW NORMAL PART 1: POTUS TRUMP
We look at Trump, note that he is a bumptious fool with ridiculous ideas and no grasp of government, and believe that he has no chance of being elected. But all the polls say Republicans like him quite a lot, and the more he speaks the more his polls go up. Superdelegates and Republican elders can only influence delegates, not overturn them. Given the polls he's quite likely to become Republican nom, and the Democrats have no countermeasure other than "ew" or "he's an idiot", which the GOP already know and don't care. POTUS Trump is a very real prospect.
In the Noughties, the time of Desperate Housewives and Nokia phones, Eurosceptic arguments revolved around alternatives that were fictional (nonexistent Commonwealth free trade areas), ludicrous (we can trade with Russia and China, countries that are neither close nor lawabiding) or touchingly childlike (Hannan's insistence that we should preferably trade with our friends, which is a proposition nobody over 8 should hold). They could be easily dismissed.
But since 2009/10 (when the size of Greece became apparent) and since 2011 (when immigration began to appear in the list of concerns), the argument has changed. It is easy to dismiss claims that the Euro will collapse (it stays in existence until the most powerful nations decide to leave) but claims that it is well run are difficult to hold with a straight face. Moving from comedy to tragedy, the human wave of immigrants is large and solutions are ramshackle, ad-hoc and ineffective. Blaming the EU for migration is a bit like blaming the dinosaurs for the meteorite, but this does not change the fact that the citizenry is concerned about the number and characteristics of the migrants and will vote Leave accordingly. The print media have latched onto this and are pushing it with all the class and subtlety for which Kelvin McKenzie and Rod Liddle are justly famed: it's not quite "if you want a ****** for a neighbour, vote Labour" but let's be honest, it's not far off.
Unless Remain develop a countermeasure to Leave's charge that EU membership implies mass migration into the UK - and since the charge has an element of truth, this will be difficult - then Leave will win, and win hard.
Such hubris- such ignorance- had it coming.
Labout didn't cause the crash - but they were spending too much when it happened- and piling loads on "off-book" spending too via PFI deals