I was speaking to a group of Labour members last night. No discernable enthusiasm for Smith and a general consensus that the MPs had behaved badly but they were all going to vote for Smith to get rid of Corbyn. Members of a certain age and class and by no means representative but the idea that this is a battle that will determine if Labour has a future is not some weird PB fixation (like AV, for example).
Yes, Smith is the only game in town for anyone vaguely sane in the party. But there are not enough such people.
So what happens next? Hope for a sub 175 seat GE outcome after which Corbyn might just resign?
There is no solution. The party is screwed.
Maybe not. The problem is the foolish decision to allow Corbyn onto the ballot in 2015. That won't happen again with any other hard left candidate. A landslide GE election defeat could be followed by a leadership contest with some half decent candidates. It is Corbyn personally who is the problem and who guarantees hard left control.
The new MPs in 2020 won't be lending their votes to the hard left candidate, they will be supporting them. If Corbyn isn't beaten now it is difficult to see how Labour don't spend 10-15 years in the wilderness getting beaten by the Tories and eventually a third party (UKIP, Lib Dems) at least in terms of vote share before a leader comes along who will be able to tell the hard left that they've had their turn.
Doesn't everyone eat their KFC big bucket with a knife & fork on china ware on their private jet......?
Paper plate, surely? And cleverly, it is harking back to that golden era, where you were allowed to have metal cutlery in an airplane.... That is what Trump offers. A land where you no longer need to eat with plastic knives and forks.
You do still get metal cutlery, but the knife blades are short and stubby - same as in the airside eateries at the airport.
My first trip on a plane was on August 12, 2001 when we went to Florida. I was a little surprised when the in-flight meal was accompanied by proper metal cutlery. My TV screen was broken so when the stewardess tried to bribe me with duty free I chanced my arm and asked to visit the cockpit - and they actually allowed me in. Such a different time.
Doesn't everyone eat their KFC big bucket with a knife & fork on china ware on their private jet......?
Paper plate, surely? And cleverly, it is harking back to that golden era, where you were allowed to have metal cutlery in an airplane.... That is what Trump offers. A land where you no longer need to eat with plastic knives and forks.
He eats KFC? He's even madder than I thought.
Look at the expression on his face - do those jowls look like they've had chicken fat dribbling down them (well, maybe) - it looks to me like a painfully staged photo op - 'gettin down with the folks' - hence the paper plate (really? Not monogramed china?) and metal cutrlery - no doubt the whole lot was swiftly borne away by a liferied flunkie to be replaced by something much more suitable.
Until Corbyn/McDonnell lose a general election as far as I can see moderates within Labour have no chance of reclaiming the party and getting a leader with appeal beyond the hard left
But by then, Labour's deck will be stacked massively in favour of the hard left. The candidates on offer to the voters in 2025 will be unrecognisable to those on offer in 2015, through removal and retirement.
Nobody has convinced me that after another election defeat, Momentum is just going to admit "You know what - we got it so wrong. We need another Harold Wilson - or another Tony Blair..."
If Corbyn and McDonnell are heavily defeated in 2020 at the general election and they or another hard left figure are reelected to the Labour leadership then obviously the remaining moderate Labour MPs will have no choice but to defect en masse to the LDs and form a new centre left party
They might not be there.. there could be deselections and hard left replacements
Moderate Labour MPs are not only fighting Corbyn - and losing. Their other enemy is the calendar, while they are MPs they have some political capital, so they will have to make their move after the leadership election or accept their fate.
Selling the FTSE and buying £/$ could be a good short term trade, if the BoI doesn't push through with the interest rate cut this Thursday. There are growing signs that it may not.
I was speaking to a group of Labour members last night. No discernable enthusiasm for Smith and a general consensus that the MPs had behaved badly but they were all going to vote for Smith to get rid of Corbyn. Members of a certain age and class and by no means representative but the idea that this is a battle that will determine if Labour has a future is not some weird PB fixation (like AV, for example).
Yes, Smith is the only game in town for anyone vaguely sane in the party. But there are not enough such people.
So what happens next? Hope for a sub 175 seat GE outcome after which Corbyn might just resign?
There is no solution. The party is screwed.
Maybe not. The problem is the foolish decision to allow Corbyn onto the ballot in 2015. That won't happen again with any other hard left candidate. A landslide GE election defeat could be followed by a leadership contest with some half decent candidates. It is Corbyn personally who is the problem and who guarantees hard left control.
You don't consider Owen Smith to be a 'hard left' candidate then?
Selling the FTSE and buying £/$ could be a good short term trade, if the BoI doesn't push through with the interest rate cut this Thursday. There are growing signs that it may not.
Well the logical position is that they shouldn't bother, a 0.25% rate cut achieves nothing, negative interest rates just make it more difficult for banks to raise capital and for depositors to get any kind of return. The BoE needs to be bold and start looking at rate rises to head of inflation at the end of the year. Our current monetary policy has reached the end of its working life, we need a new one going forwards, and with weak Sterling we finally have a chance to raise interest rates and reload the chambers.
I actually think recessions tend to help the incumbent. Have a look back -
2008-09 - Labour do much better than expected, enough to stop a Tory majority 1990-1991 - Major wins a massive mandate 19 80-1981 - Thatcher wins in 83 1974-1975 - election in the middle of it. 1961 - Tories did enough in 64 to reduce Labour expected landslide to 4 seat majority 1956 - nearest election in 1959 saw the Tories increase the number of seats that they had.
Obviously, other events might intervene but the one clear case was where there was an election in the middle of a recession. Everything else? Not so much.
That's logical. "Don't risk change" is the argument of an incumbent. When you feel vulnerable - perhaps because of a recession - chances are you don't want change.
Selling the FTSE and buying £/$ could be a good short term trade, if the BoI doesn't push through with the interest rate cut this Thursday. There are growing signs that it may not.
Well the logical position is that they shouldn't bother, a 0.25% rate cut achieves nothing, negative interest rates just make it more difficult for banks to raise capital and for depositors to get any kind of return. The BoE needs to be bold and start looking at rate rises to head of inflation at the end of the year. Our current monetary policy has reached the end of its working life, we need a new one going forwards, and with weak Sterling we finally have a chance to raise interest rates and reload the chambers.
Selling the FTSE and buying £/$ could be a good short term trade, if the BoI doesn't push through with the interest rate cut this Thursday. There are growing signs that it may not.
Well the logical position is that they shouldn't bother, a 0.25% rate cut achieves nothing, negative interest rates just make it more difficult for banks to raise capital and for depositors to get any kind of return. The BoE needs to be bold and start looking at rate rises to head of inflation at the end of the year. Our current monetary policy has reached the end of its working life, we need a new one going forwards, and with weak Sterling we finally have a chance to raise interest rates and reload the chambers.
And pigs might fly.
I think the Bank are seeing how many times they can make doing nothing seem like a vote of confidence.
Selling the FTSE and buying £/$ could be a good short term trade, if the BoI doesn't push through with the interest rate cut this Thursday. There are growing signs that it may not.
Well the logical position is that they shouldn't bother, a 0.25% rate cut achieves nothing, negative interest rates just make it more difficult for banks to raise capital and for depositors to get any kind of return. The BoE needs to be bold and start looking at rate rises to head of inflation at the end of the year. Our current monetary policy has reached the end of its working life, we need a new one going forwards, and with weak Sterling we finally have a chance to raise interest rates and reload the chambers.
And pigs might fly.
I think the Bank are seeing how many times they can make doing nothing seem like a vote of confidence.
It looks as though the ECB QE programme is beginning to lose its effectiveness in holding down the Euro. Two days of gains vs Sterling and USD. If it is the start of a pattern then the wheels might come off the Eurozone recovery, I'm not sure they can deal with the deflation and loss of competitiveness that the weak currency has given them over the last couple of years.
Isn't that a simple reaction to the fact that US Q2 GDP numbers were weak, and therefore the chance of another rate rise there has diminished?
Selling the FTSE and buying £/$ could be a good short term trade, if the BoI doesn't push through with the interest rate cut this Thursday. There are growing signs that it may not.
Well the logical position is that they shouldn't bother, a 0.25% rate cut achieves nothing, negative interest rates just make it more difficult for banks to raise capital and for depositors to get any kind of return. The BoE needs to be bold and start looking at rate rises to head of inflation at the end of the year. Our current monetary policy has reached the end of its working life, we need a new one going forwards, and with weak Sterling we finally have a chance to raise interest rates and reload the chambers.
My personal view is that very low interest rates, and QE, distort economic activity. You would be better off keeping interest rates at 2% or so, even though that would likely cause some pain.
Selling the FTSE and buying £/$ could be a good short term trade, if the BoI doesn't push through with the interest rate cut this Thursday. There are growing signs that it may not.
Well the logical position is that they shouldn't bother, a 0.25% rate cut achieves nothing, negative interest rates just make it more difficult for banks to raise capital and for depositors to get any kind of return. The BoE needs to be bold and start looking at rate rises to head of inflation at the end of the year. Our current monetary policy has reached the end of its working life, we need a new one going forwards, and with weak Sterling we finally have a chance to raise interest rates and reload the chambers.
My personal view is that very low interest rates, and QE, distort economic activity. You would be better off keeping interest rates at 2% or so, even though that would likely cause some pain.
Do you have an exposition of that idea to hand Robert?
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
It looks as though the ECB QE programme is beginning to lose its effectiveness in holding down the Euro. Two days of gains vs Sterling and USD. If it is the start of a pattern then the wheels might come off the Eurozone recovery, I'm not sure they can deal with the deflation and loss of competitiveness that the weak currency has given them over the last couple of years.
Isn't that a simple reaction to the fact that US Q2 GDP numbers were weak, and therefore the chance of another rate rise there has diminished?
Well, yes, at least to some degree. The Euro has gained on Sterling as well in the last few days and not a lot has really changed here, in fact there has been some speculation that the Bank might not cut rates on Thursday which should have put upwards pressure on Sterling. I get the feeling that people are no longer seeing the EMU as the weak link in global growth, the spotlight has obviously moved to the UK and after the poor figures from the US, over there as well.
I was speaking to a group of Labour members last night. No discernable enthusiasm for Smith and a general consensus that the MPs had behaved badly but they were all going to vote for Smith to get rid of Corbyn. Members of a certain age and class and by no means representative but the idea that this is a battle that will determine if Labour has a future is not some weird PB fixation (like AV, for example).
Yes, Smith is the only game in town for anyone vaguely sane in the party. But there are not enough such people.
So what happens next? Hope for a sub 175 seat GE outcome after which Corbyn might just resign?
There is no solution. The party is screwed.
I think the inheritable loyalty to the Labour brand may well allow for eventual recovery after a very long period in the doldrums.
IMHO it's possible that Labour's 'recovery' may be more of a 'raze to the ground & rebuild from scratch'.
If the hard left do take over and meet with no electoral success, they may eventually give up & drift away, as other vehicles for their hopes become more effective.
That will take a long, long time; but as the hard-left drift away, the moderate left will begin to have fresh ideas about how Labour could become a positive force in society.
Only it will be the moderate left of a much younger generation.
Doesn't everyone eat their KFC big bucket with a knife & fork on china ware on their private jet......?
Paper plate, surely? And cleverly, it is harking back to that golden era, where you were allowed to have metal cutlery in an airplane.... That is what Trump offers. A land where you no longer need to eat with plastic knives and forks.
He eats KFC? He's even madder than I thought.
Look at the expression on his face - do those jowls look like they've had chicken fat dribbling down them (well, maybe) - it looks to me like a painfully staged photo op - 'gettin down with the folks' - hence the paper plate (really? Not monogramed china?) and metal cutrlery - no doubt the whole lot was swiftly borne away by a liferied flunkie to be replaced by something much more suitable.
Selling the FTSE and buying £/$ could be a good short term trade, if the BoI doesn't push through with the interest rate cut this Thursday. There are growing signs that it may not.
Well the logical position is that they shouldn't bother, a 0.25% rate cut achieves nothing, negative interest rates just make it more difficult for banks to raise capital and for depositors to get any kind of return. The BoE needs to be bold and start looking at rate rises to head of inflation at the end of the year. Our current monetary policy has reached the end of its working life, we need a new one going forwards, and with weak Sterling we finally have a chance to raise interest rates and reload the chambers.
My personal view is that very low interest rates, and QE, distort economic activity. You would be better off keeping interest rates at 2% or so, even though that would likely cause some pain.
Agreed. Ultra-loose monetary policy doesn't help investment, at least not in the UK.
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
And despite all this Brown has the best reputation of all the C21 PMs.
Good (well not awful) construction figures out btw, 45.9, our expectation was 43.3, market expectations were 43.8, pretty much held steady from the 46.0 reading in June
Selling the FTSE and buying £/$ could be a good short term trade, if the BoI doesn't push through with the interest rate cut this Thursday. There are growing signs that it may not.
Well the logical position is that they shouldn't bother, a 0.25% rate cut achieves nothing, negative interest rates just make it more difficult for banks to raise capital and for depositors to get any kind of return. The BoE needs to be bold and start looking at rate rises to head of inflation at the end of the year. Our current monetary policy has reached the end of its working life, we need a new one going forwards, and with weak Sterling we finally have a chance to raise interest rates and reload the chambers.
My personal view is that very low interest rates, and QE, distort economic activity. You would be better off keeping interest rates at 2% or so, even though that would likely cause some pain.
Here's hoping that the weak pound might lead to a little inflation. As you say, having interest rates and inflation on the floor is helping no-one as well as fuelling house price inflation. I don't get where the talk of cutting interest rates came from, there's no meaningful amount they could be reduced and it sends completely the wrong signals.
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
And despite all this Brown has the best reputation of all the C21 PMs.
You keep that delusion going, Jonathan. If you keep wishing it, one day it might become true.
I was speaking to a group of Labour members last night. No discernable enthusiasm for Smith and a general consensus that the MPs had behaved badly but they were all going to vote for Smith to get rid of Corbyn. Members of a certain age and class and by no means representative but the idea that this is a battle that will determine if Labour has a future is not some weird PB fixation (like AV, for example).
Yes, Smith is the only game in town for anyone vaguely sane in the party. But there are not enough such people.
So what happens next? Hope for a sub 175 seat GE outcome after which Corbyn might just resign?
There is no solution. The party is screwed.
Maybe not. The problem is the foolish decision to allow Corbyn onto the ballot in 2015. That won't happen again with any other hard left candidate. A landslide GE election defeat could be followed by a leadership contest with some half decent candidates. It is Corbyn personally who is the problem and who guarantees hard left control.
By that time the rules will have been changed, or enough MPs will have changed so Corbyn or a Corbyn equivalent will win.
Looks like it's playing it both ways. The comments about 'uniting the party' and 'best placed to win an election' are arguably favourable to Smith but Corbynites in their delusion will genuinely feel that it favours their candidate and in any case, a consultation that's likely to have a low turnout and hence be - again - skewed to the far left is likely to in practice benefit Corbyn both because of his activists' motivation and also due to name-recognition.
The sheen of democracy will once again be the cover to enable the far left to benefit from the indifference of the majority.
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
And despite all this Brown has the best reputation of all the C21 PMs.
You keep that delusion going, Jonathan. If you keep wishing it, one day it might become true.
It is true.
Tony Blair, whilst successful in many ways will never escape Iraq.
Or
David Cameron, the man who destroyed himself overnight, under no pressure whatsoever and left office compared to Eden. A total abject failure whose reputation will never escape Brexit.
Looks like it's playing it both ways. The comments about 'uniting the party' and 'best placed to win an election' are arguably favourable to Smith but Corbynites in their delusion will genuinely feel that it favours their candidate and in any case, a consultation that's likely to have a low turnout and hence be - again - skewed to the far left is likely to in practice benefit Corbyn both because of his activists' motivation and also due to name-recognition.
The sheen of democracy will once again be the cover to enable the far left to benefit from the indifference of the majority.
Selling the FTSE and buying £/$ could be a good short term trade, if the BoI doesn't push through with the interest rate cut this Thursday. There are growing signs that it may not.
Well the logical position is that they shouldn't bother, a 0.25% rate cut achieves nothing, negative interest rates just make it more difficult for banks to raise capital and for depositors to get any kind of return. The BoE needs to be bold and start looking at rate rises to head of inflation at the end of the year. Our current monetary policy has reached the end of its working life, we need a new one going forwards, and with weak Sterling we finally have a chance to raise interest rates and reload the chambers.
My personal view is that very low interest rates, and QE, distort economic activity. You would be better off keeping interest rates at 2% or so, even though that would likely cause some pain.
Do you have an exposition of that idea to hand Robert?
Not from the beech, but I'm happy to write it up properly this afternoon if you like...
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
And despite all this Brown has the best reputation of all the C21 PMs.
You keep that delusion going, Jonathan. If you keep wishing it, one day it might become true.
@mike thanks for the data overview, informative as ever. I must take issue with some of your spin though. It's unusual (as others have commented) to refer to paying supporters participating in the leadership contest as entryists. Does this cover all of the new supporters, including those that Angela Eagle urged to sign up in order to support "moderate" policies, or just those inclined to support Corbyn? While the "open selectorate" policy remains one of the stupider moves by any party in recent political history, it does make it hard to accuse anyone of "entryism" and imbue the term with any meaning beyond "those who are participating in the party's agreed processes, but whose opinions I dislike."
Secondly, the assertion that electability is not an issue to many corbynistas doesn't appear accurate. Among my anecdotal sample (I guess 20-30 Corbyn supporters) I don't know any who regard Labour winning power as a non-issue. Their uniting feature is to see the priority as winning power in order to achieve a meaningful political paradigm shift. To say they have to abandon the key political hope in order to achieve power would be as silly as saying that UKIP supporters weren't interested in power because leaving the EU was an issue with limited salience and electoral support. Like Kippers, Trump supporters, Sanders supporters, Corbyn voters largely reject the view that there is a single, narrow technocratic orthodoxy that is "electable" and aren't interested in politics as a game to see who gets the power to deliver that orthodoxy for the next 5 years.
It's a reasonable point to argue that, regardless of politics, Corbyn is incapable of managing a party or presenting it to the public (I've reached that conclusion which is why I would struggle to vote for him again this time). Unfortunately the level of trust in the PLP is now so low that many of the membership aren't prepared to risk voting for another candidate because they believe that once Corbyn is out of the way, the entire distinctive Labour policy will be sacrificed on the altar of "electability". Aside from seeing it as pointless to win an election in that manner, many reasonable people would look at the evidence of 2010 and 2015 as showing that it won't work anyway.
Selling the FTSE and buying £/$ could be a good short term trade, if the BoI doesn't push through with the interest rate cut this Thursday. There are growing signs that it may not.
Well the logical position is that they shouldn't bother, a 0.25% rate cut achieves nothing, negative interest rates just make it more difficult for banks to raise capital and for depositors to get any kind of return. The BoE needs to be bold and start looking at rate rises to head of inflation at the end of the year. Our current monetary policy has reached the end of its working life, we need a new one going forwards, and with weak Sterling we finally have a chance to raise interest rates and reload the chambers.
My personal view is that very low interest rates, and QE, distort economic activity. You would be better off keeping interest rates at 2% or so, even though that would likely cause some pain.
Do you have an exposition of that idea to hand Robert?
Not from the beech, but I'm happy to write it up properly this afternoon if you like...
The issue for labour is 'is Labour under Corbyn, and more importantly the PLP being moved to the left, or is this a temporary thing which can be reversed?'.
We already know whats happening with the membership, which is moving more and more leftward. But if the PLP follows then that movement is permanant.
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
And despite all this Brown has the best reputation of all the C21 PMs.
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
And despite all this Brown has the best reputation of all the C21 PMs.
You keep that delusion going, Jonathan. If you keep wishing it, one day it might become true.
It is true.
Tony Blair, whilst successful in many ways will never escape Iraq.
Or
David Cameron, the man who destroyed himself overnight, under no pressure whatsoever and left office compared to Eden. A total abject failure whose reputation will never escape Brexit.
It looks as though the ECB QE programme is beginning to lose its effectiveness in holding down the Euro. Two days of gains vs Sterling and USD. If it is the start of a pattern then the wheels might come off the Eurozone recovery, I'm not sure they can deal with the deflation and loss of competitiveness that the weak currency has given them over the last couple of years.
Isn't that a simple reaction to the fact that US Q2 GDP numbers were weak, and therefore the chance of another rate rise there has diminished?
Well, yes, at least to some degree. The Euro has gained on Sterling as well in the last few days and not a lot has really changed here, in fact there has been some speculation that the Bank might not cut rates on Thursday which should have put upwards pressure on Sterling. I get the feeling that people are no longer seeing the EMU as the weak link in global growth, the spotlight has obviously moved to the UK and after the poor figures from the US, over there as well.
Serious question from a non-economist to any of the "sensible" Brexiters - why has the pound fallen so steeply against the Euro since the referendum? I can understand it falling against the dollar but the common meme seems to be that the Euro is weak, the Eurozone is in terminal decline , we had a narrow escape not joining etc. etc. Yet on the face of it I would have done better converting all my sterling to euros in June 22nd!
The issue for labour is 'is Labour under Corbyn, and more importantly the PLP being moved to the left, or is this a temporary thing which can be reversed?'.
We already know whats happening with the membership, which is moving more and more leftward. But if the PLP follows then that movement is permanant.
Corbyn's challenger is Owen Smith, not Liz Kendall. To me, that is the clearest indication of a leftward shift in the mindset of the PLP as well as the wider party. The centre ground of Labour was, is and should be the soft Left, but that wing (OK, can't really have a wing in the centre) has been out-shouted by Blairites and/or Corbynites for most of the past 25 years.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
And despite all this Brown has the best reputation of all the C21 PMs.
You keep that delusion going, Jonathan. If you keep wishing it, one day it might become true.
It is true.
Tony Blair, whilst successful in many ways will never escape Iraq.
Or
David Cameron, the man who destroyed himself overnight, under no pressure whatsoever and left office compared to Eden. A total abject failure whose reputation will never escape Brexit.
By comparison, Brown's reputation is stellar.
Actually, it's the parallels between Brown and Eden that are striking.
- Both waited a very long time to succeed their predecessors, having been heir apparent almost since Day One. - neither predecessor thought they were up to it. - Both served their whole career in one area of government. - Both had psychological problems adapting to the role of PM, had notoriously short tempers and were prone to imagining conspiracies. - both screwed up in their supposed area of expertise.
When, if ever, Labour do recover from their internecine warfare, they're going to clamber out of the rubble to find Tory tanks parked all over their lawn, up their drive and in the back garden......
When, if ever, Labour do recover from their internecine warfare, they're going to clamber out of the rubble to find Tory tanks parked all over their lawn, up their drive and in the back garden......
Corbyn certainly is dragging the terms of political debate leftward however. He's been quite successful in that.
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
And despite all this Brown has the best reputation of all the C21 PMs.
When, if ever, Labour do recover from their internecine warfare, they're going to clamber out of the rubble to find Tory tanks parked all over their lawn, up their drive and in the back garden......
Corbyn certainly is dragging the terms of political debate leftward however. He's been quite successful in that.
Oh, is that why the Tories are now 16 pts ahead? The "leftward drift" of the debate?
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
And despite all this Brown has the best reputation of all the C21 PMs.
Up to a point, Lord Copper......got any polling data to support that, or is it 'you and the voices in your head'?
He is, after all, the only C21 PM to have lost a GE - which is a non-trivial part of the job.....
Labour's economic policy, such as it is, has remained largely unchanged from Alastair Darling -> Ed Balls -> John McDonnell. Where is this leftward drift?
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
And despite all this Brown has the best reputation of all the C21 PMs.
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
And despite all this Brown has the best reputation of all the C21 PMs.
Up to a point, Lord Copper......got any polling data to support that, or is it 'you and the voices in your head'?
He is, after all, the only C21 PM to have lost a GE - which is a non-trivial part of the job.....
The thing is, apart from Blair, it's way too early to say how posterity will view extant PMs.
Major is certainly viewed more favourably now than his shitshow of a premiership would have led you to believe.
Will Brown be viewed as the man who saved the pound, the banks, the Union? Or the man who destroyed Labour?
Will Cameron be viewed as a great reformer or as a pork-bothering Flashman who lost a referendum he should never have called?
It looks as though the ECB QE programme is beginning to lose its effectiveness in holding down the Euro. Two days of gains vs Sterling and USD. If it is the start of a pattern then the wheels might come off the Eurozone recovery, I'm not sure they can deal with the deflation and loss of competitiveness that the weak currency has given them over the last couple of years.
Isn't that a simple reaction to the fact that US Q2 GDP numbers were weak, and therefore the chance of another rate rise there has diminished?
Well, yes, at least to some degree. The Euro has gained on Sterling as well in the last few days and not a lot has really changed here, in fact there has been some speculation that the Bank might not cut rates on Thursday which should have put upwards pressure on Sterling. I get the feeling that people are no longer seeing the EMU as the weak link in global growth, the spotlight has obviously moved to the UK and after the poor figures from the US, over there as well.
Serious question from a non-economist to any of the "sensible" Brexiters - why has the pound fallen so steeply against the Euro since the referendum? I can understand it falling against the dollar but the common meme seems to be that the Euro is weak, the Eurozone is in terminal decline , we had a narrow escape not joining etc. etc. Yet on the face of it I would have done better converting all my sterling to euros in June 22nd!
There are multiple factors here. The two most obvious ones are the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the ECB QE programme. Underlying issues are the poor UK current account balance and Germany's vast surplus.
The long term issues don't really have a lot of bearing on the currencies. What matters is the expectation of looser monetary policy from the Bank and the exhaustion of monetary policy from the ECB. The Euro will get stronger and Sterling will get weaker in the near term. It's probably desirable for us to have weak Sterling as it will help us fix the long term current account imbalance.
Labour's economic policy, such as it is, has remained largely unchanged from Alastair Darling -> Ed Balls -> John McDonnell. Where is this leftward drift?
The leftward drift is in the Tory policy. Corbyn and McDonnell have just been consistently stating left wing economic policy and letting the centre ground come to them.
Labour's economic policy, such as it is, has remained largely unchanged from Alastair Darling -> Ed Balls -> John McDonnell. Where is this leftward drift?
The leftward drift is in the Tory policy. Corbyn and McDonnell have just been consistently stating left wing economic policy and letting the centre ground come to them.
I'm not sure you understand what the word "leftward" means. Are you saying the onward governing from the centre by the Tories is them capitalising on Labour abandoning it like a bunch of idiots?
Because yes, duh. That's the whole point. Elections are won from the centre. May knows this, Jez doesn't.
On topic, you can't debate with Corbynistas, especially the entryists, about electability at a general election, that's why I fear Corbyn will win again.
Winning elections is only for the elites, the plebs and proles prefer to be ideologically pure
On topic, you can't debate with Corbynistas, especially the entryists, about electability at a general election, that's why I fear Corbyn will win again.
Winning elections is only for the elites, the plebs and proles prefer to be ideologically pure
Tbf that sounds more like trolling than actually trying to debate....
1) How many Labour Prime Ministers have there been with the first name 'James'? and can you name them all.
and
2) How many general elections have Labour leaders called James won? (won as in most votes)
2) James Callaghan and James Gordon Brown.
Elections won: 0
BAD JAMESES
James Ramsay MacDonald as well.
Elections won: still zero (though MacDonald did win one - the mother of all landslides in fact - as leader of an electoral pact after he was booted out of Labour)
On topic, you can't debate with Corbynistas, especially the entryists, about electability at a general election, that's why I fear Corbyn will win again.
Winning elections is only for the elites, the plebs and proles prefer to be ideologically pure
Tbf that sounds more like trolling than actually trying to debate....
No its not, the latter part was elucidated by Jon Lansmann recently.
As for the top part, just see the replies from Corbynistas when Mike tweets out polling that shows Corbyn is doing horribly.
Not a word in his article about democracy and the EU countries. He fails to notice that the increased use of centralised directives, mirrors the economic stagnation of the eurozone countries. Presumably he still sees the best future for the eurozone as "more EU"?
1) How many Labour Prime Ministers have there been with the first name 'James'? and can you name them all.
and
2) How many general elections have Labour leaders called James won? (won as in most votes)
2) James Callaghan and James Gordon Brown.
Elections won: 0
BAD JAMESES
James Ramsay MacDonald as well.
Elections won: still zero (though MacDonald did win one - the mother of all landslides in fact - as leader of an electoral pact after he was booted out of Labour)
Labour's economic policy, such as it is, has remained largely unchanged from Alastair Darling -> Ed Balls -> John McDonnell. Where is this leftward drift?
The leftward drift is in the Tory policy. Corbyn and McDonnell have just been consistently stating left wing economic policy and letting the centre ground come to them.
I'm not sure you understand what the word "leftward" means. Are you saying the onward governing from the centre by the Tories is them capitalising on Labour abandoning it like a bunch of idiots?
Because yes, duh. That's the whole point. Elections are won from the centre. May knows this, Jez doesn't.
Margaret Thatcher was a conviction politician who won elections from the right wing rather than the centre because of her convictions. Discuss.
Labour's economic policy, such as it is, has remained largely unchanged from Alastair Darling -> Ed Balls -> John McDonnell. Where is this leftward drift?
The leftward drift is in the Tory policy. Corbyn and McDonnell have just been consistently stating left wing economic policy and letting the centre ground come to them.
I'm not sure you understand what the word "leftward" means. Are you saying the onward governing from the centre by the Tories is them capitalising on Labour abandoning it like a bunch of idiots?
Because yes, duh. That's the whole point. Elections are won from the centre. May knows this, Jez doesn't.
The centre ground is movable, so while parties should govern from the centre, they should also be seeking to move it towards their side. May should now be showing that right wing economics work, not endorsing Labour's economic critique and pursuing it herself.
What Tory economic policies are now right wing? Deficit reduction - dropped, Industrial Strategies - embraced, social security give aways - yep.
On topic, you can't debate with Corbynistas, especially the entryists, about electability at a general election, that's why I fear Corbyn will win again.
Winning elections is only for the elites, the plebs and proles prefer to be ideologically pure
Tbf that sounds more like trolling than actually trying to debate....
No its not, the latter part was elucidated by Jon Lansmann recently.
As for the top part, just see the replies from Corbynistas when Mike tweets out polling that shows Corbyn is doing horribly.
All the best trolling has at least some plausible underlying facts as a starting point.
On the first point, it's the normal thing of not using social media as a reliable guide to anything due to its status as an echo chamber for the noisy and stupid. There are a lot of reality-denying Corbyn supporters. There are a lot who are realistic, many of whom spend more time in ground politics that social media slanging matches.
As for the latter point, I know what you mean but it's a false polarisation between "having no principles" and "being ideologically pure". Almost all politics exists between the two extremes, with the respective accusations being levelled when one side is willing to compromise on a given principle and the other side isn't. I assume you aren't arguing that Corbyn supporters are unusual by virtue of having some unshakeable principles guiding their politics?
Brown took Uk bank regulation away from the Bank opf England.
Banks were then allowed to to lend too much, at too low interest rates, with too little capital and too great a proportion of wholesale borrowing. Breaking all the rules of prudent banking simultaneously.
Ed Conway @EdConwaySky Little sign of diminished appetite for UK govt debt. DMO sells £2.5bn of 6yr bonds at avg yield of 0.529%. Covered 2.28 times. V healthy.
Pretty desperate citing Tom Harris in The Telegraph - a Labour right winger, falied parliamentarian, failed Leave leader in Scotland - who when he was an MP couldn't even get on other with right wingers. His appointment to a spokespersonship by Johanne Lamont lasted all of two minutes until he blotted his copybook with a bizarre on-line attack on Salmond.
There is an obvious difference between Strugeon and Corbyn - she has been elected. Indeed the SNP have produced in Salmond and Strugeon two eminently electable figures who would walk the curent Labour leadership contest.
It is clear that Mike and most on this site seem to hate Corbyn but for this relatively impartial observer of internal Labour poltics he has far more substance than Smith who has little or nothing to offer Labour.
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
A bit unfair on Brown. He wasn't so far off it in 2010 despite having been in the chair during the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Had he gone for election when he took office he would have been more electable than Cameron, despite being already a very familiar figure in politics.
Brown experienced a brief moment of popularity, followed by a longer period of unpopularity and often profound unpopularity - even Corbyn hasn't plunged anywhere near the depths of the 18% share recorded in Labour's worst poll on Brown's watch (never mind the actual 16% Labour scored in the 2009 Euros).
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
And despite all this Brown has the best reputation of all the C21 PMs.
Up to a point, Lord Copper......got any polling data to support that, or is it 'you and the voices in your head'?
He is, after all, the only C21 PM to have lost a GE - which is a non-trivial part of the job.....
The thing is, apart from Blair, it's way too early to say how posterity will view extant PMs.
So a tad premature to declare Brown having 'the best reputation of all C21 PMs'?
Labour's economic policy, such as it is, has remained largely unchanged from Alastair Darling -> Ed Balls -> John McDonnell. Where is this leftward drift?
The leftward drift is in the Tory policy. Corbyn and McDonnell have just been consistently stating left wing economic policy and letting the centre ground come to them.
I'm not sure you understand what the word "leftward" means. Are you saying the onward governing from the centre by the Tories is them capitalising on Labour abandoning it like a bunch of idiots?
Because yes, duh. That's the whole point. Elections are won from the centre. May knows this, Jez doesn't.
The centre ground is movable, so while parties should govern from the centre, they should also be seeking to move it towards their side. May should now be showing that right wing economics work, not endorsing Labour's economic critique and pursuing it herself.
What Tory economic policies are now right wing? Deficit reduction - dropped, Industrial Strategies - embraced, social security give aways - yep.
May can't show that right wing economics works - because it doesn't. Hence a shift to the sensible Keynesian approach that tends to work.
On topic, you can't debate with Corbynistas, especially the entryists, about electability at a general election, that's why I fear Corbyn will win again. Winning elections is only for the elites, the plebs and proles prefer to be ideologically pure
Why fear Corbyn winning again? Looks like a good thing as it enables Mrs May to govern without having to run an early election.
Labour's economic policy, such as it is, has remained largely unchanged from Alastair Darling -> Ed Balls -> John McDonnell. Where is this leftward drift?
The leftward drift is in the Tory policy. Corbyn and McDonnell have just been consistently stating left wing economic policy and letting the centre ground come to them.
I'm not sure you understand what the word "leftward" means. Are you saying the onward governing from the centre by the Tories is them capitalising on Labour abandoning it like a bunch of idiots?
Because yes, duh. That's the whole point. Elections are won from the centre. May knows this, Jez doesn't.
The centre ground is movable, so while parties should govern from the centre, they should also be seeking to move it towards their side. May should now be showing that right wing economics work, not endorsing Labour's economic critique and pursuing it herself.
What Tory economic policies are now right wing? Deficit reduction - dropped, Industrial Strategies - embraced, social security give aways - yep.
May can't show that right wing economics works - because it doesn't. Hence a shift to the sensible Keynesian approach that tends to work.
Oh do bugger off. When has Keynsianism EVER worked? It's mathematical idiocy.
It looks as though the ECB QE programme is beginning to lose its effectiveness in holding down the Euro. Two days of gains vs Sterling and USD. If it is the start of a pattern then the wheels might come off the Eurozone recovery, I'm not sure they can deal with the deflation and loss of competitiveness that the weak currency has given them over the last couple of years.
Isn't that a simple reaction to the fact that US Q2 GDP numbers were weak, and therefore the chance of another rate rise there has diminished?
Well, yes, at least to some degree. The Euro has gained on Sterling as well in the last few days and not a lot has really changed here, in fact there has been some speculation that the Bank might not cut rates on Thursday which should have put upwards pressure on Sterling. I get the feeling that people are no longer seeing the EMU as the weak link in global growth, the spotlight has obviously moved to the UK and after the poor figures from the US, over there as well.
Serious question from a non-economist to any of the "sensible" Brexiters - why has the pound fallen so steeply against the Euro since the referendum? I can understand it falling against the dollar but the common meme seems to be that the Euro is weak, the Eurozone is in terminal decline , we had a narrow escape not joining etc. etc. Yet on the face of it I would have done better converting all my sterling to euros in June 22nd!
There are multiple factors here. The two most obvious ones are the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the ECB QE programme. Underlying issues are the poor UK current account balance and Germany's vast surplus.
The long term issues don't really have a lot of bearing on the currencies. What matters is the expectation of looser monetary policy from the Bank and the exhaustion of monetary policy from the ECB. The Euro will get stronger and Sterling will get weaker in the near term. It's probably desirable for us to have weak Sterling as it will help us fix the long term current account imbalance.
There's a quote on the tip of my tongue, from the 70s or 80s... a triumphant leader declaring he'd won the room, only to be reminded by some cutting friend that it was the people not in the room to be worried about. Anyone help me out?
Labour's economic policy, such as it is, has remained largely unchanged from Alastair Darling -> Ed Balls -> John McDonnell. Where is this leftward drift?
The leftward drift is in the Tory policy. Corbyn and McDonnell have just been consistently stating left wing economic policy and letting the centre ground come to them.
I'm not sure you understand what the word "leftward" means. Are you saying the onward governing from the centre by the Tories is them capitalising on Labour abandoning it like a bunch of idiots?
Because yes, duh. That's the whole point. Elections are won from the centre. May knows this, Jez doesn't.
The centre ground is movable, so while parties should govern from the centre, they should also be seeking to move it towards their side. May should now be showing that right wing economics work, not endorsing Labour's economic critique and pursuing it herself.
What Tory economic policies are now right wing? Deficit reduction - dropped, Industrial Strategies - embraced, social security give aways - yep.
May can't show that right wing economics works - because it doesn't. Hence a shift to the sensible Keynesian approach that tends to work.
At the moment we have near-full employment, consistent growth and a bulging trade deficit: all characteristics of an economy heading towards a boom if not already there. I take it that you are therefore advocating that the government should be running a budget surplus (certainly in structural terms). how should it get there?
Brown took Uk bank regulation away from the Bank opf England.
Banks were then allowed to to lend too much, at too low interest rates, with too little capital and too great a proportion of wholesale borrowing. Breaking all the rules of prudent banking simultaneously.
Yep, a few years ago the then US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was asked what the primary cause of the crash was. He blamed banking regulation, and in particular regulation in London. Who changed centuries of UK banking regulation? Gordon Brown (the worst PM in living memory by the way).
Brown took Uk bank regulation away from the Bank opf England.
Banks were then allowed to to lend too much, at too low interest rates, with too little capital and too great a proportion of wholesale borrowing. Breaking all the rules of prudent banking simultaneously.
Relaxing the rules didn't force the banks to act daft - that was their choice. One might have expected such Titans of intellect to know what they were doing, without needing the nanny state to take care of them.
Labour's economic policy, such as it is, has remained largely unchanged from Alastair Darling -> Ed Balls -> John McDonnell. Where is this leftward drift?
The leftward drift is in the Tory policy. Corbyn and McDonnell have just been consistently stating left wing economic policy and letting the centre ground come to them.
I'm not sure you understand what the word "leftward" means. Are you saying the onward governing from the centre by the Tories is them capitalising on Labour abandoning it like a bunch of idiots?
Because yes, duh. That's the whole point. Elections are won from the centre. May knows this, Jez doesn't.
The centre ground is movable, so while parties should govern from the centre, they should also be seeking to move it towards their side. May should now be showing that right wing economics work, not endorsing Labour's economic critique and pursuing it herself.
What Tory economic policies are now right wing? Deficit reduction - dropped, Industrial Strategies - embraced, social security give aways - yep.
May can't show that right wing economics works - because it doesn't. Hence a shift to the sensible Keynesian approach that tends to work.
Oh do bugger off. When has Keynsianism EVER worked? It's mathematical idiocy.
Has it ever been properly tried ?
The "saving in the good times" bit - Brown and Osborne never did that bit..
Labour's economic policy, such as it is, has remained largely unchanged from Alastair Darling -> Ed Balls -> John McDonnell. Where is this leftward drift?
The leftward drift is in the Tory policy. Corbyn and McDonnell have just been consistently stating left wing economic policy and letting the centre ground come to them.
I'm not sure you understand what the word "leftward" means. Are you saying the onward governing from the centre by the Tories is them capitalising on Labour abandoning it like a bunch of idiots?
Because yes, duh. That's the whole point. Elections are won from the centre. May knows this, Jez doesn't.
The centre ground is movable, so while parties should govern from the centre, they should also be seeking to move it towards their side. May should now be showing that right wing economics work, not endorsing Labour's economic critique and pursuing it herself.
What Tory economic policies are now right wing? Deficit reduction - dropped, Industrial Strategies - embraced, social security give aways - yep.
May can't show that right wing economics works - because it doesn't. Hence a shift to the sensible Keynesian approach that tends to work.
At the moment we have near-full employment, consistent growth and a bulging trade deficit: all characteristics of an economy heading towards a boom if not already there. I take it that you are therefore advocating that the government should be running a budget surplus (certainly in structural terms). how should it get there?
I would turn the question round - with such rosy data, coupled with Austerity, how come we aren't running a surplus already?
Relaxing the rules didn't force the banks to act daft - that was their choice. One might have expected such Titans of intellect to know what they were doing, without needing the nanny state to take care of them.
Of course morally it doesn't excuse the actions that the bankers took, but the job of the regulators is to make sure that even if the bankers do want to play with matches they can't get their hands on them. If we could rely on people always doing the right thing we wouldn't need regulators in the first place.
A new Hinckley Institute-Salt Lake Tribune poll shows the two are virtually tied with 35 percent for Donald Trump and 36 percent for Hillary Clinton. That is as close as a Democratic candidate has been to victory in more than half a century
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Tell me you seriously think this plane, gold taps & all, has paper plates.....http://www.businessinsider.com.au/donald-trumps-boeing-757-airliner-2015-7#/#heres-a-complete-video-tour-of-the-plane-from-trumps-youtube-channel-222226
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/01/the-sun-may-be-setting-on-the-age-of-western-wealth-and-freedom/
https://twitter.com/romanvince/status/760377179133870080
He was a man manifestly temperamentally unsuited to being prime minister who briefly caught a wave due to his being not-Blair. That wore off as soon as people remembered that he is-Brown. As for a 2007 election, the whole reason he chickened out of calling one was because the internal polls suggested that he wouldn't do well with swing voters in marginal constituencies. Whether that was right or not we'll never know but we can be sure from what did in fact follow that had he won, he'd have lost badly in 2012.
IMHO it's possible that Labour's 'recovery' may be more of a 'raze to the ground & rebuild from scratch'.
If the hard left do take over and meet with no electoral success, they may eventually give up & drift away, as other vehicles for their hopes become more effective.
That will take a long, long time; but as the hard-left drift away, the moderate left will begin to have fresh ideas about how Labour could become a positive force in society.
Only it will be the moderate left of a much younger generation.
(edited to add: good morning, everybody)
The sheen of democracy will once again be the cover to enable the far left to benefit from the indifference of the majority.
PM May resurrects industrial policy as Britain prepares for Brexit
http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKKCN10C3CX
Tony Blair, whilst successful in many ways will never escape Iraq.
Or
David Cameron, the man who destroyed himself overnight, under no pressure whatsoever and left office compared to Eden. A total abject failure whose reputation will never escape Brexit.
By comparison, Brown's reputation is stellar.
'By comparison, Brown's reputation is stellar.'
Funniest post of the year, the PM that gave us the biggest economic crash for 80 years !
My colleague has written a piece on ECB policy here which you may find interesting: http://www.thstailwinds.com/714-2/
http://positivemoney.org/issues/recessions-crisis/
@mike thanks for the data overview, informative as ever. I must take issue with some of your spin though. It's unusual (as others have commented) to refer to paying supporters participating in the leadership contest as entryists. Does this cover all of the new supporters, including those that Angela Eagle urged to sign up in order to support "moderate" policies, or just those inclined to support Corbyn? While the "open selectorate" policy remains one of the stupider moves by any party in recent political history, it does make it hard to accuse anyone of "entryism" and imbue the term with any meaning beyond "those who are participating in the party's agreed processes, but whose opinions I dislike."
Secondly, the assertion that electability is not an issue to many corbynistas doesn't appear accurate. Among my anecdotal sample (I guess 20-30 Corbyn supporters) I don't know any who regard Labour winning power as a non-issue. Their uniting feature is to see the priority as winning power in order to achieve a meaningful political paradigm shift. To say they have to abandon the key political hope in order to achieve power would be as silly as saying that UKIP supporters weren't interested in power because leaving the EU was an issue with limited salience and electoral support. Like Kippers, Trump supporters, Sanders supporters, Corbyn voters largely reject the view that there is a single, narrow technocratic orthodoxy that is "electable" and aren't interested in politics as a game to see who gets the power to deliver that orthodoxy for the next 5 years.
It's a reasonable point to argue that, regardless of politics, Corbyn is incapable of managing a party or presenting it to the public (I've reached that conclusion which is why I would struggle to vote for him again this time). Unfortunately the level of trust in the PLP is now so low that many of the membership aren't prepared to risk voting for another candidate because they believe that once Corbyn is out of the way, the entire distinctive Labour policy will be sacrificed on the altar of "electability". Aside from seeing it as pointless to win an election in that manner, many reasonable people would look at the evidence of 2010 and 2015 as showing that it won't work anyway.
Thanks, didn't mean for you to go to any trouble. Enjoy your plank of wood.
We already know whats happening with the membership, which is moving more and more leftward. But if the PLP follows then that movement is permanant.
- Both waited a very long time to succeed their predecessors, having been heir apparent almost since Day One.
- neither predecessor thought they were up to it.
- Both served their whole career in one area of government.
- Both had psychological problems adapting to the role of PM, had notoriously short tempers and were prone to imagining conspiracies.
- both screwed up in their supposed area of expertise.
Eden however did win a general election.
He is, after all, the only C21 PM to have lost a GE - which is a non-trivial part of the job.....
Major is certainly viewed more favourably now than his shitshow of a premiership would have led you to believe.
Will Brown be viewed as the man who saved the pound, the banks, the Union? Or the man who destroyed Labour?
Will Cameron be viewed as a great reformer or as a pork-bothering Flashman who lost a referendum he should never have called?
The long term issues don't really have a lot of bearing on the currencies. What matters is the expectation of looser monetary policy from the Bank and the exhaustion of monetary policy from the ECB. The Euro will get stronger and Sterling will get weaker in the near term. It's probably desirable for us to have weak Sterling as it will help us fix the long term current account imbalance.
1) How many Labour Prime Ministers have there been with the first name 'James'? and can you name them all.
and
2) How many general elections have Labour leaders called James won? (won as in most votes)
Because yes, duh. That's the whole point. Elections are won from the centre. May knows this, Jez doesn't.
Elections won: 0
BAD JAMESES
Winning elections is only for the elites, the plebs and proles prefer to be ideologically pure
Elections won: still zero (though MacDonald did win one - the mother of all landslides in fact - as leader of an electoral pact after he was booted out of Labour)
As for the top part, just see the replies from Corbynistas when Mike tweets out polling that shows Corbyn is doing horribly.
Check out the hashtag #WeAreHisMedia
This sums up their mentality
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-liverpool-rally_uk_57a043bae4b0f42daa4addaf?9r18y8kj3vz3t0529
Margaret Thatcher was a conviction politician who won elections from the right wing rather than the centre because of her convictions. Discuss.
What Tory economic policies are now right wing? Deficit reduction - dropped, Industrial Strategies - embraced, social security give aways - yep.
1931 he was head of a Labour party that won a landslide as part of a coalition, that defeated the official Labour party
1) James Ramsay MacDonald
2) James Harold Wilson
3) James Gordon Brown
James Callaghan doesn't count, as he was Leonard James Callaghan
On the first point, it's the normal thing of not using social media as a reliable guide to anything due to its status as an echo chamber for the noisy and stupid. There are a lot of reality-denying Corbyn supporters. There are a lot who are realistic, many of whom spend more time in ground politics that social media slanging matches.
As for the latter point, I know what you mean but it's a false polarisation between "having no principles" and "being ideologically pure". Almost all politics exists between the two extremes, with the respective accusations being levelled when one side is willing to compromise on a given principle and the other side isn't. I assume you aren't arguing that Corbyn supporters are unusual by virtue of having some unshakeable principles guiding their politics?
Banks were then allowed to to lend too much, at too low interest rates, with too little capital and too great a proportion of wholesale borrowing. Breaking all the rules of prudent banking simultaneously.
Ed Conway @EdConwaySky
Little sign of diminished appetite for UK govt debt. DMO sells £2.5bn of 6yr bonds at avg yield of 0.529%. Covered 2.28 times. V healthy.
Pretty desperate citing Tom Harris in The Telegraph - a Labour right winger, falied parliamentarian, failed Leave leader in Scotland - who when he was an MP couldn't even get on other with right wingers. His appointment to a spokespersonship by Johanne Lamont lasted all of two minutes until he blotted his copybook with a bizarre on-line attack on Salmond.
There is an obvious difference between Strugeon and Corbyn - she has been elected. Indeed the SNP have produced in Salmond and Strugeon two eminently electable figures who would walk the curent Labour leadership contest.
It is clear that Mike and most on this site seem to hate Corbyn but for this relatively impartial observer of internal Labour poltics he has far more substance than Smith who has little or nothing to offer Labour.
http://order-order.com/2016/08/02/mandys-mid-air-tantrum-favourite-seat-1a/
IIRC Brown's polling is pretty dire.....
Not a cult......
On Corbyn, OGH is quoting the polling data,.......
There's a quote on the tip of my tongue, from the 70s or 80s... a triumphant leader declaring he'd won the room, only to be reminded by some cutting friend that it was the people not in the room to be worried about. Anyone help me out?
The "saving in the good times" bit - Brown and Osborne never did that bit..
Utah might be won by Hillary
Clinton leads Trump in Utah! IN UTAH. YES UTAH!
A new Hinckley Institute-Salt Lake Tribune poll shows the two are virtually tied with 35 percent for Donald Trump and 36 percent for Hillary Clinton. That is as close as a Democratic candidate has been to victory in more than half a century
http://kutv.com/news/local/utah-could-vote-democrat-for-president-for-first-time-in-50-years