politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Jeremy: You are right about austerity but you have a long way to go to win over voters
One Twitter user was apparently disappointed when she followed tag #LabEcon2016. She was looking for Labradors but what she got was Labour’s State of the economy conference.
"the Tories are still getting way with the Big Lie that Labour caused the crash in 2008"
And there's the second reason: Labour is consoling itself with its own myths. The Tories have never claimed that Labour caused the crash. They have, however, claimed that Labour's poor regulation of the banking sector made it worse than it need have been, and that Labour's gross overspending during 2001-08 meant that the pain afterwards was far worse than would otherwise have been the case.
"the Tories are still getting way with the Big Lie that Labour caused the crash in 2008"
And there's the second reason: Labour is consoling itself with its own myths. The Tories have never claimed that Labour caused the crash. They have, however, claimed that Labour's poor regulation of the banking sector made it worse than it need have been, and that Labour's gross overspending during 2001-08 meant that the pain afterwards was far worse than would otherwise have been the case.
Hattie stood up at the annual conference after election defeat in 2010 and said "don't let the Tories rewrite history"
Didn't need too, Labour have been doing it ever since.
These are "declared" serious economists. How does that work ?
I get the economist bit, you sit a degree and pass. But then it appears there are two further stages firstly you get split in to serious and "having a laugh" categories. And then the serious ones have a ceremony of declaration. Presumably they get an owl and a book on gravitas and swear never to tell jokes for the rest of their lives.
But then what happens the unserious ones or the serious ones who don't manage to get declared serious ? We need more research.
I'm about to gain a Masters in Economics (probably a distinction), but I won't get a job. I think I'll put myself in the unserious category (I'm certain Faisal would), so I assume that what happens is we get to watch more of the Daily Politics.
I have studied enough econometrics and economic appraisal to realise that all these forecasts are highly sensitive to initial assumptions about the variables as well as the models themselves, so it is fairly easy to get a result to order. Therefore, in a highly politicised situation like this they are a complete a waste of time even if the model has been "used properly" as someone like Charlie Bean could attest.
A few weeks ago we had a chap from the B of E come in and give us a talk. Basically their models ended up predicting reversion to the mean after two or three years for every important statistic despite his implicit admission that he has no idea how the B of E is going to get out of the current low interest rate/low growth/not unwound QE paradigm. So any forecast they give you for more than a couple of years ahead is clearly pretty much meaningless by their own reckoning.
If austerity is popular, why has there been such a huge public backlash against the Tories in the past 12 months whenever they've tried introducing significant spending cuts (tax credits, disability benefits, etc.)?
I'm not convinced austerity will be such a factor next time. Voters are going to be mightily bored of this by 2020.
Do you think George Osborne will have closed the deficit by 2020? I'm not sure which part of that sentence is most amusing, but it all summarises the problems facing the government in this sphere. Oops, we accidentally won a majority!
I'm not convinced austerity will be such a factor next time. Voters are going to be mightily bored of this by 2020.
Was it a factor last time?
According to Crudas report on why labour lost:
"Labour lost because voters didn’t believe it would cut the deficit. The Tories didn’t win despite their commitment to cut spending and the deficit: they won because of it."
I'm not convinced austerity will be such a factor next time. Voters are going to be mightily bored of this by 2020.
Was it a factor last time?
According to Crudas report on why labour lost:
"Labour lost because voters didn’t believe it would cut the deficit. The Tories didn’t win despite their commitment to cut spending and the deficit: they won because of it."
I'm not sure that relates to austerity; more to profligacy.
If austerity is popular, why has there been such a huge public backlash against the Tories in the past 12 months whenever they've tried introducing significant spending cuts (tax credits, disability benefits, etc.)?
because cutting the deficit is popular in the abstract whereas when people are presented with actual cuts they recoil.
Personally, I believe the public have been persuaded we need to cut the deficit when economically we don't. But I accept that the politics of that position are awful.
If austerity is popular, why has there been such a huge public backlash against the Tories in the past 12 months whenever they've tried introducing significant spending cuts (tax credits, disability benefits, etc.)?
because cutting the deficit is popular in the abstract whereas when people are presented with actual cuts they recoil.
Personally, I believe the public have been persuaded we need to cut the deficit when economically we don't. But I accept that the politics of that position are awful.
Surely you're not serious when you say we don't need to cut the deficit?
There's a danger of analysing the last war. The next will be drastically different.
Labour's lost almost all its Scottish seats, and UKIP's snaffling working class voters. If the purples ever get their electoral act together they could take dozens of Labour seats that would never fall to the Conservatives.
Larry Elliott points out how 'severe' Osborne's 'austerity' has been:
' by historical standards, Osborne’s attempt at diverting resources away from consumption and into production was modest. As an austerity chancellor, he simply has not been in the same league as Clarke or Jenkins, let alone Dalton and Cripps. '
I'm not convinced austerity will be such a factor next time. Voters are going to be mightily bored of this by 2020.
Do you think George Osborne will have closed the deficit by 2020? I'm not sure which part of that sentence is most amusing, but it all summarises the problems facing the government in this sphere. Oops, we accidentally won a majority!
No I don't. Indeed, it could be worse, as there will almost certainly be some kind of downturn or recession in next four years.
This means Tories will either rerun the 2015 playbook - "there's still work to do, don't give the keys to the guys who crashed the car etc etc" or just stay off the topic and hit Corbyn and Co on being unfit to be commander in chief etc
I'm not convinced austerity will be such a factor next time. Voters are going to be mightily bored of this by 2020.
Do you think George Osborne will have closed the deficit by 2020? I'm not sure which part of that sentence is most amusing, but it all summarises the problems facing the government in this sphere. Oops, we accidentally won a majority!
The problem is that the OBR's forecasts were and are based on the EU and Euro zone is going to return to trend growth this time next year. A bit like Del boys "This time next year we'll be millionaires Rodney".
It was the assumption in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. 2015 and 2016. It is the ongoing assumption.
It is also no longer supported by the evidence and has not in fact been for some years.
Given that, then no he will not have wiped the deficit by 2020.
It's incredible that Labour lost either of the last two elections.
Twitter loves them, Gordon is witty, Labour didn't do anything wrong and... Oh, I think I forgot to take my medication.
Planning...it's all about planning.
McGordo cried Wolf and abused that nice Mrs Duffy.
They then went one step further. I m still trying to get my head round the Prezzer around the tablet of stone in the car park because someone forgot to calculate the weight and the load distribution factor of the stage they were originally going to place it on.
As they said..... it was all going so well until Ed fell off the stage yet Labours tablet of stone never actually made it to the stage.
Did they ever locate that tablet of stone by the way?
I'm not convinced austerity will be such a factor next time. Voters are going to be mightily bored of this by 2020.
Was it a factor last time?
According to Crudas report on why labour lost:
"Labour lost because voters didn’t believe it would cut the deficit. The Tories didn’t win despite their commitment to cut spending and the deficit: they won because of it."
But equally, an exit poll on the day of the election showed that, when asked about "Labour's plans to cut public spending", a plurality said that they thought Labour supported austerity too much: 39% said "Labour should cut spending SLOWER than they plan", compared to 34% saying "Labour should cut spending FASTER than they plan".
Anecdotally, that squares with my canvassing experience, in 2010 til about 2013 (when I got too depressed to continue): countless people blamed the last Labour government for "getting us into this mess", then in the very next breath would say how cuts were unnecessary and something like "Labour would just cut as much as the Tories anyway, so there's no point voting for them". How people squared the idea that a Labour government would simultaneously cut too much AND spend too much is beyond me, but it was the popular perception all the same (maybe they thought they would blow all the money on "selling the gold" while cutting front-line public services).
While Corbyn's politics of "let's all sing Kumbaya and that will make ISIS see the light and stop being such meanies" is clearly not going to win over swing voters, equally a re-run of Ed Balls's "Tory economic policies delivered with half the competence" is not going to be a winner either.
I'm not convinced austerity will be such a factor next time. Voters are going to be mightily bored of this by 2020.
Was it a factor last time?
According to Crudas report on why labour lost:
"Labour lost because voters didn’t believe it would cut the deficit. The Tories didn’t win despite their commitment to cut spending and the deficit: they won because of it."
But equally, an exit poll on the day of the election showed that, when asked about "Labour's plans to cut public spending", a plurality said that they thought Labour supported austerity too much: 39% said "Labour should cut spending SLOWER than they plan", compared to 34% saying "Labour should cut spending FASTER than they plan".
Anecdotally, that squares with my canvassing experience, in 2010 til about 2013 (when I got too depressed to continue): countless people blamed the last Labour government for "getting us into this mess", then in the very next breath would say how cuts were unnecessary and something like "Labour would just cut as much as the Tories anyway, so there's no point voting for them". How people squared the idea that a Labour government would simultaneously cut too much AND spend too much is beyond me, but it was the popular perception all the same (maybe they thought they would blow all the money on "selling the gold" while cutting front-line public services).
While Corbyn's politics of "let's all sing Kumbaya and that will make ISIS see the light and stop being such meanies" is clearly not going to win over swing voters, equally a re-run of Ed Balls's "Tory economic policies delivered with half the competence" is not going to be a winner either.
Canvassing is always, in my experience, an astonishing eye-opener to the realities of winning votes.
It's incredible that Labour lost either of the last two elections.
Twitter loves them, Gordon is witty, Labour didn't do anything wrong and... Oh, I think I forgot to take my medication.
Planning...it's all about planning.
McGordo cried Wolf and abused that nice Mrs Duffy.
They then went one step further. I m still trying to get my head round the Prezzer around the tablet of stone in the car park because someone forgot to calculate the weight and the load distribution factor of the stage they were originally going to place it on.
As they said..... it was all going so well until Ed fell off the stage yet Labours tablet of stone never actually made it to the stage.
Did they ever locate that tablet of stone by the way?
Anti-austerity seems to mean spending unlimited amounts of money that the government doesn't have. And the ones peddling it seem completely shocked every time they lose an election.
If austerity is popular, why has there been such a huge public backlash against the Tories in the past 12 months whenever they've tried introducing significant spending cuts (tax credits, disability benefits, etc.)?
because cutting the deficit is popular in the abstract whereas when people are presented with actual cuts they recoil.
Personally, I believe the public have been persuaded we need to cut the deficit when economically we don't. But I accept that the politics of that position are awful.
Surely you're not serious when you say we don't need to cut the deficit?
Afraid so. I'm a member of the William Keegan school of economics. The deficit is easily affordable and indeed, given extremely low interest rates the government should be undertaking more capital spending and investment in infrastructure while it has the chance.
I'm not convinced austerity will be such a factor next time. Voters are going to be mightily bored of this by 2020.
Was it a factor last time?
According to Crudas report on why labour lost:
"Labour lost because voters didn’t believe it would cut the deficit. The Tories didn’t win despite their commitment to cut spending and the deficit: they won because of it."
But equally, an exit poll on the day of the election showed that, when asked about "Labour's plans to cut public spending", a plurality said that they thought Labour supported austerity too much: 39% said "Labour should cut spending SLOWER than they plan", compared to 34% saying "Labour should cut spending FASTER than they plan".
Anecdotally, that squares with my canvassing experience, in 2010 til about 2013 (when I got too depressed to continue): countless people blamed the last Labour government for "getting us into this mess", then in the very next breath would say how cuts were unnecessary and something like "Labour would just cut as much as the Tories anyway, so there's no point voting for them". How people squared the idea that a Labour government would simultaneously cut too much AND spend too much is beyond me, but it was the popular perception all the same (maybe they thought they would blow all the money on "selling the gold" while cutting front-line public services).
While Corbyn's politics of "let's all sing Kumbaya and that will make ISIS see the light and stop being such meanies" is clearly not going to win over swing voters, equally a re-run of Ed Balls's "Tory economic policies delivered with half the competence" is not going to be a winner either.
They thought Labour were going to cut too much on them (wwc swing voters) and spend too much on 'immigrants and single mothers'.
You could probably add 'public sector fatcats and Scots' to 'immigrants and single mothers' in the eyes of English and Welsh wwc swing voters.
If austerity is popular, why has there been such a huge public backlash against the Tories in the past 12 months whenever they've tried introducing significant spending cuts (tax credits, disability benefits, etc.)?
because cutting the deficit is popular in the abstract whereas when people are presented with actual cuts they recoil.
Personally, I believe the public have been persuaded we need to cut the deficit when economically we don't. But I accept that the politics of that position are awful.
Surely you're not serious when you say we don't need to cut the deficit?
Afraid so. I'm a member of the William Keegan school of economics. The deficit is easily affordable and indeed, given extremely low interest rates the government should be undertaking more capital spending and investment in infrastructure while it has the chance.
A minority pursuit no doubt.
Making use of extremely low interest rates can be justified if you're planning on paying back the capital instead of repeatedly re-borrowing it.
Otherwise how do you know what the interest rate will be when you have to renew your borrowing ?
LOL @ the idea that Corbyn is right about austerity. He is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Britain with its austerity is one of the fastest growing major global economies with one of the lowest unemployment rates. Furthermore one of the highest employment rates and participation ratios.
Nations that follow Corbynomics around the world are suffering penury and rampant youth unemployment.
If austerity is popular, why has there been such a huge public backlash against the Tories in the past 12 months whenever they've tried introducing significant spending cuts (tax credits, disability benefits, etc.)?
because cutting the deficit is popular in the abstract whereas when people are presented with actual cuts they recoil.
Personally, I believe the public have been persuaded we need to cut the deficit when economically we don't. But I accept that the politics of that position are awful.
Surely you're not serious when you say we don't need to cut the deficit?
Afraid so. I'm a member of the William Keegan school of economics. The deficit is easily affordable and indeed, given extremely low interest rates the government should be undertaking more capital spending and investment in infrastructure while it has the chance.
A minority pursuit no doubt.
A course very cleverly followed by Spain a few years ago, when they build airports that never had a plane take off or land and local government racked up huge debts with vanity projects.
Leave.EU have put the private mobile phone numbers of Douglas Carswell and others on a press release sent to lots of people and also put the numbers on their website.
I'm sorry this Greens are Labour voters on strike/holiday meme is as silly as Tories saying all Kippers are Tories on holiday/strike
Quite.
The best example of this is from the recent London mayoral election, for which we have full second preferences of all parties. London is, admittedly, not Britain and the mayoral vote does not necessarily align perfectly with party preference but all the same, the data should still be more reliable than anything else we have to go on.
The Green second preferences split:
Labour 47.1% Lib Dem 12.4% Women's 11.0% Conservative 9.6% Cannabis 3.9% Galloway 2.6% UKIP 1.6% One Love 1.5% Britain First 1.1% Zylinski 0.7% BNP 0.6%
No 2nd pref 5.2% Green 2.6% (i.e. voter voted Grn 1st and 2nd prefs)
Clearly, Labour took a much larger share than anyone else, with a 37.5% lead over the Conservatives, but in practice that still means that the Green vote would need to be about 2.7 times the size of the Con majority in a seat for Labour to be able to capitalise on the absence of a Green.
Weaver Vale and Telford certainly wouldn't fall, and Bury North and Morley & Outwood would be toss-ups.
LOL @ the idea that Corbyn is right about austerity. He is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Britain with its austerity is one of the fastest growing major global economies with one of the lowest unemployment rates. Furthermore one of the highest employment rates and participation ratios.
Nations that follow Corbynomics around the world are suffering penury and rampant youth unemployment.
One word
Venezuela.....
Even the fragrant Dianne having proclaimed the better way wouldn't take a motorcycle sidecar ride around that place now.
Leave.EU have put the private mobile phone numbers of Douglas Carswell and others on a press release sent to lots of people and also put the numbers on their website.
Leave.EU have put the private mobile phone numbers of Douglas Carswell and others on a press release sent to lots of people and also put the numbers on their website.
Scott_P Posts: 17,474 5:42PM @pswidlicki: Vote Leave going to be chuffed about Leave.EU giving out their mobile numbers to their supporters to ring and complain about sidelining UKIP
It's incredible that Labour lost either of the last two elections.
Twitter loves them, Gordon is witty, Labour didn't do anything wrong and... Oh, I think I forgot to take my medication.
Planning...it's all about planning.
McGordo cried Wolf and abused that nice Mrs Duffy.
They then went one step further. I m still trying to get my head round the Prezzer around the tablet of stone in the car park because someone forgot to calculate the weight and the load distribution factor of the stage they were originally going to place it on.
As they said..... it was all going so well until Ed fell off the stage yet Labours tablet of stone never actually made it to the stage.
Did they ever locate that tablet of stone by the way?
I gather it's very expensive hardcore.
I thought you could get as much hardcore as you want for free online these days...
Leave.EU have put the private mobile phone numbers of Douglas Carswell and others on a press release sent to lots of people and also put the numbers on their website.
Why? He's with Vote Leave isn't he?
To put pressure on the BBC to include Farage in their big debate
It's incredible that Labour lost either of the last two elections.
Twitter loves them, Gordon is witty, Labour didn't do anything wrong and... Oh, I think I forgot to take my medication.
Do you think that they have noticed that they lost?
They didn't lose, the wight wing press and biased BBC fooled the bastards into voting for the evil baby eaters. The public are just not intellectual enough. Besides the left won and this is an illegitimate government 'cos Charlotte Church and Brand says so.
Leave.EU have put the private mobile phone numbers of Douglas Carswell and others on a press release sent to lots of people and also put the numbers on their website.
Scott_P Posts: 17,474 5:42PM @pswidlicki: Vote Leave going to be chuffed about Leave.EU giving out their mobile numbers to their supporters to ring and complain about sidelining UKIP
They included it on an email sent to me, I just looked at it, and thought it was an oversight or something sent just to me.
I'm sorry this Greens are Labour voters on strike/holiday meme is as silly as Tories saying all Kippers are Tories on holiday/strike
Quite.
The best example of this is from the recent London mayoral election, for which we have full second preferences of all parties. London is, admittedly, not Britain and the mayoral vote does not necessarily align perfectly with party preference but all the same, the data should still be more reliable than anything else we have to go on.
The Green second preferences split:
Labour 47.1% Lib Dem 12.4% Women's 11.0% Conservative 9.6% Cannabis 3.9% Galloway 2.6% UKIP 1.6% One Love 1.5% Britain First 1.1% Zylinski 0.7% BNP 0.6%
No 2nd pref 5.2% Green 2.6% (i.e. voter voted Grn 1st and 2nd prefs)
Clearly, Labour took a much larger share than anyone else, with a 37.5% lead over the Conservatives, but in practice that still means that the Green vote would need to be about 2.7 times the size of the Con majority in a seat for Labour to be able to capitalise on the absence of a Green.
Weaver Vale and Telford certainly wouldn't fall, and Bury North and Morley & Outwood would be toss-ups.
And I would expect that Green voters are more left-wing in London than they are in Morley or Bury North.
Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State. - M. H. Thatcher, 1986.
LOL @ the idea that Corbyn is right about austerity. He is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Britain with its austerity is one of the fastest growing major global economies with one of the lowest unemployment rates. Furthermore one of the highest employment rates and participation ratios.
Nations that follow Corbynomics around the world are suffering penury and rampant youth unemployment.
One word
Venezuela.....
Even the fragrant Dianne having proclaimed the better way wouldn't take a motorcycle sidecar ride around that place now.
I'm sure 'taking Diane in the sidecar' is a euphemism.
If austerity is popular, why has there been such a huge public backlash against the Tories in the past 12 months whenever they've tried introducing significant spending cuts (tax credits, disability benefits, etc.)?
There hasn't.
There have been minor protests within parliament which due to the composition of both the Commons and Lords means the government can be in trouble.
To the extent that the Conservatives have lost their popularity (they're still polling ahead of Labour in most surveys), it's more down to engaging in a voluntary civil war over a fringe issue, George Osborne trying to do everyone else's job while not doing his own properly, and the inevitable first-year difficult decisions (made worse by poor PR on announcement).
They included it on an email sent to me, I just looked at it, and thought it was an oversight or something sent just to me.
But is part of a mass email send.
People here have commented at great length on how hard it might be to put the Tory Party back together again.
I suspect many Tories will just sit back and watch the various Kippers (declared and otherwise) tearing lumps out of each other for losing their big shot
Leave.EU have put the private mobile phone numbers of Douglas Carswell and others on a press release sent to lots of people and also put the numbers on their website.
Why? He's with Vote Leave isn't he?
To put pressure on the BBC to include Farage in their big debate
If austerity is popular, why has there been such a huge public backlash against the Tories in the past 12 months whenever they've tried introducing significant spending cuts (tax credits, disability benefits, etc.)?
because cutting the deficit is popular in the abstract whereas when people are presented with actual cuts they recoil.
Personally, I believe the public have been persuaded we need to cut the deficit when economically we don't. But I accept that the politics of that position are awful.
Surely you're not serious when you say we don't need to cut the deficit?
Afraid so. I'm a member of the William Keegan school of economics. The deficit is easily affordable and indeed, given extremely low interest rates the government should be undertaking more capital spending and investment in infrastructure while it has the chance.
A minority pursuit no doubt.
And when interest rates rocket up? And we have a 10% deficit and 160% debt to GDP ratio with sky high interest rates and rampant inflation? What then?
I'm sorry this Greens are Labour voters on strike/holiday meme is as silly as Tories saying all Kippers are Tories on holiday/strike
Exactly Labour tried to win from the left of the SNP in 16 and that didn't work out so well. Dugdale kept going on about how their policies to put up taxes were so popular in opinion polls but what people say in opinion polls and what they do in the polling booth are two different things. I think labour need a heavy election defeat before they realise they can't win from the left nowadays.
I'm sorry this Greens are Labour voters on strike/holiday meme is as silly as Tories saying all Kippers are Tories on holiday/strike
Quite.
The best example of this is from the recent London mayoral election, for which we have full second preferences of all parties. London is, admittedly, not Britain and the mayoral vote does not necessarily align perfectly with party preference but all the same, the data should still be more reliable than anything else we have to go on.
The Green second preferences split:
Labour 47.1% Lib Dem 12.4% Women's 11.0% Conservative 9.6% Cannabis 3.9% Galloway 2.6% UKIP 1.6% One Love 1.5% Britain First 1.1% Zylinski 0.7% BNP 0.6%
No 2nd pref 5.2% Green 2.6% (i.e. voter voted Grn 1st and 2nd prefs)
Clearly, Labour took a much larger share than anyone else, with a 37.5% lead over the Conservatives, but in practice that still means that the Green vote would need to be about 2.7 times the size of the Con majority in a seat for Labour to be able to capitalise on the absence of a Green.
Weaver Vale and Telford certainly wouldn't fall, and Bury North and Morley & Outwood would be toss-ups.
And I would expect that Green voters are more left-wing in London than they are in Morley or Bury North.
I'm sorry this Greens are Labour voters on strike/holiday meme is as silly as Tories saying all Kippers are Tories on holiday/strike
Exactly Labour tried to win from the left of the SNP in 16 and that didn't work out so well. Dugdale kept going on about how their policies to put up taxes were so popular in opinion polls but what people say in opinion polls and what they do in the polling booth are two different things. I think labour need a heavy election defeat before they realise they can't win from the left nowadays.
Hopefully they will get 2 to 3 more heavy general election defeats to drum the lesson home ...
If austerity is popular, why has there been such a huge public backlash against the Tories in the past 12 months whenever they've tried introducing significant spending cuts (tax credits, disability benefits, etc.)?
George Osborne trying to do everyone else's job while not doing his own properly
Can we assume that George Osborne will not be guest of honour at the Wakefield Conservatives summer fete ?
These are "declared" serious economists. How does that work ?
I get the economist bit, you sit a degree and pass. But then it appears there are two further stages firstly you get split in to serious and "having a laugh" categories. And then the serious ones have a ceremony of declaration. Presumably they get an owl and a book on gravitas and swear never to tell jokes for the rest of their lives.
But then what happens the unserious ones or the serious ones who don't manage to get declared serious ? We need more research.
I'm about to gain a Masters in Economics (probably a distinction), but I won't get a job. I think I'll put myself in the unserious category (I'm certain Faisal would), so I assume that what happens is we get to watch more of the Daily Politics.
(snipped).
Re 'serious' vs 'unserious' economists.
This thread header gives us another slice through the same set - 'sensible' economists vs (presumably) 'unsensible' economists.
I wonder how the serious economists differ from the sensible ones, and the unserious from the unsensible.
Is it only correlation with their opinions about left/right politics and Remain/Leave EU approach, I wonder?
Greetings from Washington DC. Just had lunch at the Capitol Hill Club, the place in town where t Republicans congregate. A few snippets to report: 1. The feeling is that Trump has a real chance of winning in November, thanks to HC's unpopularity and his amazingly teflon qualities. 2. A real spanner in the works, though, could be the emergence of stories about mob links. You can't do big builds in New York without having to deal with the mafia, apparently. 3. If he does win he is going to have trouble bringing in A list Republicans to serve in his administration. He's just too unpredictable. 4. He may not actually be a Republican! 5. The Senate looks like it may flip to the Democrats in November, before flipping back to the GOP in 2018.
Make of this what you will. No huge surprises, but 2 and 4 may explain a lot about why Trump is so worrisome for the GOP establishment.
Greetings from Washington DC. Just had lunch at the Capitol Hill Club, the place in town where t Republicans congregate. A few snippets to report: 1. The feeling is that Trump has a real chance of winning in November, thanks to HC's unpopularity and his amazingly teflon qualities. 2. A real spanner in the works, though, could be the emergence of stories about mob links. You can't do big builds in New York without having to deal with the mafia, apparently. 3. If he does win he is going to have trouble bringing in A list Republicans to serve in his administration. He's just too unpredictable. 4. He may not actually be a Republican! 5. The Senate looks like it may flip to the Democrats in November, before flipping back to the GOP in 2018.
Make of this what you will. No huge surprises, but 2 and 4 may explain a lot about why Trump is so worrisome for the GOP establishment.
If Trump wins in November, I have my doubts about the GOP doing better in the Senate races in 2018 than they did in 2012. Pretty much guaranteed a big GOP win then if it's Hillary in the White House though.
If austerity is popular, why has there been such a huge public backlash against the Tories in the past 12 months whenever they've tried introducing significant spending cuts (tax credits, disability benefits, etc.)?
George Osborne trying to do everyone else's job while not doing his own properly
Can we assume that George Osborne will not be guest of honour at the Wakefield Conservatives summer fete ?
He's welcome to come. I'm not *that* fussy about who I'll take money from.
Comments
Could anyone tell me please what 'austerity' we have had?
1st like Trump
How to lose an election in six words.
And there's the second reason: Labour is consoling itself with its own myths. The Tories have never claimed that Labour caused the crash. They have, however, claimed that Labour's poor regulation of the banking sector made it worse than it need have been, and that Labour's gross overspending during 2001-08 meant that the pain afterwards was far worse than would otherwise have been the case.
Saw a big sign outside....is this the labour supporting thread or is that next door?
Corbyn
If you were a student, or on certain types of welfare, or use a library, a bit more.
Didn't need too, Labour have been doing it ever since.
I have studied enough econometrics and economic appraisal to realise that all these forecasts are highly sensitive to initial assumptions about the variables as well as the models themselves, so it is fairly easy to get a result to order. Therefore, in a highly politicised situation like this they are a complete a waste of time even if the model has been "used properly" as someone like Charlie Bean could attest.
A few weeks ago we had a chap from the B of E come in and give us a talk. Basically their models ended up predicting reversion to the mean after two or three years for every important statistic despite his implicit admission that he has no idea how the B of E is going to get out of the current low interest rate/low growth/not unwound QE paradigm. So any forecast they give you for more than a couple of years ahead is clearly pretty much meaningless by their own reckoning.
"Labour lost because voters didn’t believe it would cut the deficit. The Tories didn’t win despite their commitment to cut spending and the deficit: they won because of it."
Personally, I believe the public have been persuaded we need to cut the deficit when economically we don't. But I accept that the politics of that position are awful.
Twitter loves them, Gordon is witty, Labour didn't do anything wrong and... Oh, I think I forgot to take my medication.
Labour's lost almost all its Scottish seats, and UKIP's snaffling working class voters. If the purples ever get their electoral act together they could take dozens of Labour seats that would never fall to the Conservatives.
' by historical standards, Osborne’s attempt at diverting resources away from consumption and into production was modest. As an austerity chancellor, he simply has not been in the same league as Clarke or Jenkins, let alone Dalton and Cripps. '
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/22/george-osborne-the-really-unfortunate-chancellor-budget-deficit-trade-deficit
In the five years between 2011 and 2015 the government borrowed £526bn.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/timeseries/dzls
'austerity'
This means Tories will either rerun the 2015 playbook - "there's still work to do, don't give the keys to the guys who crashed the car etc etc" or just stay off the topic and hit Corbyn and Co on being unfit to be commander in chief etc
It was the assumption in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. 2015 and 2016. It is the ongoing assumption.
It is also no longer supported by the evidence and has not in fact been for some years.
Given that, then no he will not have wiped the deficit by 2020.
McGordo cried Wolf and abused that nice Mrs Duffy.
They then went one step further. I m still trying to get my head round the Prezzer around the tablet of stone in the car park because someone forgot to calculate the weight and the load distribution factor of the stage they were originally going to place it on.
As they said..... it was all going so well until Ed fell off the stage yet Labours tablet of stone never actually made it to the stage.
Did they ever locate that tablet of stone by the way?
http://www.gqrr.com/uk-post-election-2 (under the "policy positions" tab)
Anecdotally, that squares with my canvassing experience, in 2010 til about 2013 (when I got too depressed to continue): countless people blamed the last Labour government for "getting us into this mess", then in the very next breath would say how cuts were unnecessary and something like "Labour would just cut as much as the Tories anyway, so there's no point voting for them". How people squared the idea that a Labour government would simultaneously cut too much AND spend too much is beyond me, but it was the popular perception all the same (maybe they thought they would blow all the money on "selling the gold" while cutting front-line public services).
While Corbyn's politics of "let's all sing Kumbaya and that will make ISIS see the light and stop being such meanies" is clearly not going to win over swing voters, equally a re-run of Ed Balls's "Tory economic policies delivered with half the competence" is not going to be a winner either.
'And then McGinn said: "The problem with sections of the left is that they sneer at people like that.
“There is a patrician socialism that not only wants to tell working class people what's best for them, but what they should and shouldn't think.”
http://news.sky.com/story/1700998/labour-whip-says-left-sneer-at-working-class
initforthemoney - much sense in you write think I. Obi1
A minority pursuit no doubt.
You could probably add 'public sector fatcats and Scots' to 'immigrants and single mothers' in the eyes of English and Welsh wwc swing voters.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/23/northern-accent-working-class-middle-class-northerner-barm-cake-john-lewis
Otherwise how do you know what the interest rate will be when you have to renew your borrowing ?
Britain with its austerity is one of the fastest growing major global economies with one of the lowest unemployment rates. Furthermore one of the highest employment rates and participation ratios.
Nations that follow Corbynomics around the world are suffering penury and rampant youth unemployment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18277681
We'd be mad not to do the same now we have the chance.
The more Labour peddle the rhetoric of low wages, NHS in crisis and housing crisis, the more people seek a reason.
Leave.EU have put the private mobile phone numbers of Douglas Carswell and others on a press release sent to lots of people and also put the numbers on their website.
The best example of this is from the recent London mayoral election, for which we have full second preferences of all parties. London is, admittedly, not Britain and the mayoral vote does not necessarily align perfectly with party preference but all the same, the data should still be more reliable than anything else we have to go on.
The Green second preferences split:
Labour 47.1%
Lib Dem 12.4%
Women's 11.0%
Conservative 9.6%
Cannabis 3.9%
Galloway 2.6%
UKIP 1.6%
One Love 1.5%
Britain First 1.1%
Zylinski 0.7%
BNP 0.6%
No 2nd pref 5.2%
Green 2.6% (i.e. voter voted Grn 1st and 2nd prefs)
Clearly, Labour took a much larger share than anyone else, with a 37.5% lead over the Conservatives, but in practice that still means that the Green vote would need to be about 2.7 times the size of the Con majority in a seat for Labour to be able to capitalise on the absence of a Green.
Weaver Vale and Telford certainly wouldn't fall, and Bury North and Morley & Outwood would be toss-ups.
Venezuela.....
Even the fragrant Dianne having proclaimed the better way wouldn't take a motorcycle sidecar ride around that place now.
5:42PM
@pswidlicki: Vote Leave going to be chuffed about Leave.EU giving out their mobile numbers to their supporters to ring and complain about sidelining UKIP
No10 spokesman confirms official UK policy *is* to support Turkey membership of EU. "I'm not trying to change govt policy" on that, he says
But is part of a mass email send.
- M. H. Thatcher, 1986.
There have been minor protests within parliament which due to the composition of both the Commons and Lords means the government can be in trouble.
To the extent that the Conservatives have lost their popularity (they're still polling ahead of Labour in most surveys), it's more down to engaging in a voluntary civil war over a fringe issue, George Osborne trying to do everyone else's job while not doing his own properly, and the inevitable first-year difficult decisions (made worse by poor PR on announcement).
What is really funny is that the remain campaign is getting laughs and derision in spades.
I remember that Ceausescu speech... Then they started laughing....And then you knew it was over.
Sorry still giggling at that tweet...
I suspect many Tories will just sit back and watch the various Kippers (declared and otherwise) tearing lumps out of each other for losing their big shot
Maybe they should all go the Police?
Surely Leave are missing the silver lining:
1) crash the economy properly by Brexit
2) 2 million extra unemployed
3) savage pruning of the welfare state because of run on Sterling and debt crisis.
Leading to:
A reversal of net immigration to 70-80 levels of net outward migration.
Problem solved!
Then I realised it was written by Don Brind.
To quote my Marlene Dietrich, when will they ever learn?
That speech happened on my 19th birthday.
Replace The EU with austerity
This thread header gives us another slice through the same set - 'sensible' economists vs (presumably) 'unsensible' economists.
I wonder how the serious economists differ from the sensible ones, and the unserious from the unsensible.
Is it only correlation with their opinions about left/right politics and Remain/Leave EU approach, I wonder?
1. The feeling is that Trump has a real chance of winning in November, thanks to HC's unpopularity and his amazingly teflon qualities.
2. A real spanner in the works, though, could be the emergence of stories about mob links. You can't do big builds in New York without having to deal with the mafia, apparently.
3. If he does win he is going to have trouble bringing in A list Republicans to serve in his administration. He's just too unpredictable.
4. He may not actually be a Republican!
5. The Senate looks like it may flip to the Democrats in November, before flipping back to the GOP in 2018.
Make of this what you will. No huge surprises, but 2 and 4 may explain a lot about why Trump is so worrisome for the GOP establishment.
https://twitter.com/LeaveEUOfficial/status/734835817819082752
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/11/milifan-prime-minister-ed-miliband
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ