In Spain, Ciudadanos has decided to compete with PP on who can be most illiberal towards Catalonia. PSOE looks set to benefit most from Cs move to the right.
I think PP are still comfortably winning that battle (though that of course means C's will have to raise their authoritarian game).
Far better that he weasels out of it, than that he actually implements it.
The Basques and Catalans have strong national feelings. It's far better to give them a way of expressing themselves peacefully than it is to drive them to violence.
Honestly, rather than populism a better word is idiocracy.
Government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid.
It's a simple fact that UKIP voters, and Trump supporters are just substantially less intelligent than the populace as a whole. The mistake we made was in allowing the dangerously and terminally thick to form a bloc.
The reason we struggle to counter them is that it actually causes us physical pain to think down to their level. My brain just doesn't want to operate at such a restricted intellectual capacity to think like a UKIP voter.
MUSLIM BAD IMMAHGRUNTS GRRR QUEERS BLACKS GRRRR ANGERY
For a moment there I thought that SeanT had woken up earlier than usual.
Punters on Betfair reckon there is a better than one in thirty chance that there will be a new party by the next General Election, and that it will get the most seats.
I wonder if there's a correlation between the ugiest parts of the UK voting most decisively to forego our freedom of movement to the most attractive parts of the world?
Boston in Lincolnshire Grimsby Hartlepool Blackpool Southend Stoke-on Trent...............
................Florene Venice Rome Lakes Como Garda Paris the Cote d'Azur Barcelona Amsterdam Hamburg Vienna Prague
I think there's an ad in there somewhere
North and East Antrim, Cornwall, North and West Devon, Pemrokeshire, the Yorkshire Dales, the Peak District, northumberland, Brecon and Radnor, all voted Leave.
Exactly. Desolate places where the wind howls, rabid dogs stalk travellers, and life is a living hell.
Fundamentally, isn't the point of populism to be popular? UKIP's zero seats rather gives lie to the idea they were a populist party.
If populism is bad, the unpopular Lib Dems must be a great bunch of lads. Perhap's that's Cable's big plan? To produce a perfect party with a single supporter, right about everything but with less power than a traffic warden.
Traffic Wardens are now obsolete .They no longer exist Similar to the old Liberal Party.
I wonder if there's a correlation between the ugiest parts of the UK voting most decisively to forego our freedom of movement to the most attractive parts of the world?
Boston in Lincolnshire Grimsby Hartlepool Blackpool Southend Stoke-on Trent...............
................Florene Venice Rome Lakes Como Garda Paris the Cote d'Azur Barcelona Amsterdam Hamburg Vienna Prague
I think there's an ad in there somewhere
North and East Antrim, Cornwall, North and West Devon, Pemrokeshire, the Yorkshire Dales, the Peak District, northumberland, Brecon and Radnor, all voted Leave.
Exactly. Desolate places where the wind howls, rabid dogs stalk travellers, and life is a living hell.
Ah you mean croydon
A British soldier's reaction to a claim by Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon that the port of Umm Qasr is 'like the city of Southampton':
'He has either never been to Umm Qasr or he's never been to Southampton. There's no beer, no prostitutes and people are shooting at us. It's more like Portsmouth.'
Punters on Betfair reckon there is a better than one in thirty chance that there will be a new party by the next General Election, and that it will get the most seats.
If we were to look at the last thirty general elections can we see a time when the party that gained most seats was previously not one of the top two parties?
Thirty general elections takes us back to 1906, which the Liberal Party won with a majority of 129. Although Labour came from outside the top two parties they did this over more than one election, so in 1929 when Labour first won most seats this came after they had won the second most number of seats in the three preceding elections (1922, 1923 and 1924).
If UKIP were not in so much disarray you could conceive of a scenario where a perceived Brexit betrayal lead to them winning most seats in the next general election. Some sort of re-run of the SDP/Alliance in 1983 has to have some - albeit small - chance of success in the currently febrile political climate.
In Spain, Ciudadanos has decided to compete with PP on who can be most illiberal towards Catalonia. PSOE looks set to benefit most from Cs move to the right.
I think PP are still comfortably winning that battle (though that of course means C's will have to raise their authoritarian game).
Punters on Betfair reckon there is a better than one in thirty chance that there will be a new party by the next General Election, and that it will get the most seats.
Punters on Betfair reckon there is a better than one in thirty chance that there will be a new party by the next General Election, and that it will get the most seats.
Be fascinating to see who they allow to join and who is kept out.
Polarising figures such as Anthony Blair or John Major - would they desert their parties? Establishment figures such as Heseltine or Adonis Media figures such as Dan Hodges or ??
If the old guard are allowed in the fresh new image is destroyed. Sorry, Uncle Vince, off you go to retire in Richmond.
In Spain, Ciudadanos has decided to compete with PP on who can be most illiberal towards Catalonia. PSOE looks set to benefit most from Cs move to the right.
I think PP are still comfortably winning that battle (though that of course means C's will have to raise their authoritarian game).
Far better that he weasels out of it, than that he actually implements it.
The Basques and Catalans have strong national feelings. It's far better to give them a way of expressing themselves peacefully than it is to drive them to violence.
The conclusion from the Met Office after the 2003 heatwave was that not only will those temps become the norm, but if we carry on as we are they will eventually become outliers on the cold side of normal.
You can read by simply signing up, or, it seems you can actually listen to it without doing anything.
Essentially Lanchester argues that the financial crisis and the policy responses to it has led to a political crisis. He says:
"Electorates turned with special venom against parties offering what was in effect a milder version of the economic consensus: free-market capitalism with a softer edge. It’s as if the voters are saying to those parties: what actually are you for? It’s not a bad question and it’s one that everyone from the Labour Party to the SPD in Germany to the socialists in France to the Democrats in the US are all struggling to answer. It’s worth noticing another phenomenon too: electorates are turning to very young leaders – a 43-year-old in Canada, a 37-year-old in New Zealand, a 39-year-old in France, a 31-year-old in Austria. They have ideological differences, but they have in common that they were all in metaphorical nappies when the crisis and the Great Recession hit, so they definitely can’t be blamed. Both France and the US elected presidents who had never run for office before."
Short version - May is awkward and hard to read, has left things too late, no one envies her her job, and Brexit is complicated but the UK is unprepared.
Of course, even if those temperatures become the norm it would take decades, even centuries for such changes to happen. But we would lose East Anglia very quickly.
An inland sea could do wonders for moistening the Australian climate.
I am pretty sure that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is quite stable, but the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could slide off into the ocean relatively rapidly - it wouldn't have to melt to raise sea levels by 5-7m.
You can read by simply signing up, or, it seems you can actually listen to it without doing anything.
Essentially Lanchester argues that the financial crisis and the policy responses to it has led to a political crisis. He says:
"Electorates turned with special venom against parties offering what was in effect a milder version of the economic consensus: free-market capitalism with a softer edge. It’s as if the voters are saying to those parties: what actually are you for? It’s not a bad question and it’s one that everyone from the Labour Party to the SPD in Germany to the socialists in France to the Democrats in the US are all struggling to answer. It’s worth noticing another phenomenon too: electorates are turning to very young leaders – a 43-year-old in Canada, a 37-year-old in New Zealand, a 39-year-old in France, a 31-year-old in Austria. They have ideological differences, but they have in common that they were all in metaphorical nappies when the crisis and the Great Recession hit, so they definitely can’t be blamed. Both France and the US elected presidents who had never run for office before."
I think the GFC, seen in history XXX years from now will be seen to have started in 2007/8 and not have ended until....well no idea but it is still continuing AFAICS as we speak.
Fundamentally, isn't the point of populism to be popular? UKIP's zero seats rather gives lie to the idea they were a populist party.
If populism is bad, the unpopular Lib Dems must be a great bunch of lads. Perhap's that's Cable's big plan? To produce a perfect party with a single supporter, right about everything but with less power than a traffic warden.
Traffic Wardens are now obsolete .They no longer exist Similar to the old Liberal Party.
Figuring he can siphon off a few more pro brexit votes from those currently angry at the tories, even as he holds on to Remainer votes.
On Brexit, he has been pretty savvy.
Until the plates start hitting the ground.....
That's a problem for PM Corbyn. Not LOTO Corbyn.
In which case, Corbyn is just as much a popularist than all the others.
Of course he is. To a certain degree all our parties are, they are generally punished by the voters if they don't promise enough . Some are worse than others about storing up problems for tomorrow.
Punters on Betfair reckon there is a better than one in thirty chance that there will be a new party by the next General Election, and that it will get the most seats.
Be fascinating to see who they allow to join and who is kept out.
Polarising figures such as Anthony Blair or John Major - would they desert their parties? Establishment figures such as Heseltine or Adonis Media figures such as Dan Hodges or ??
If the old guard are allowed in the fresh new image is destroyed. Sorry, Uncle Vince, off you go to retire in Richmond.
The problem is the make-up of the 'new' party. If it consists of more tories than labour or visa versa, or old faces etc, then it's very easy to attack it.
The most successful 'new' parties, have fresh faces to go with them. Macron for example.
Punters on Betfair reckon there is a better than one in thirty chance that there will be a new party by the next General Election, and that it will get the most seats.
Be fascinating to see who they allow to join and who is kept out.
Polarising figures such as Anthony Blair or John Major - would they desert their parties? Establishment figures such as Heseltine or Adonis Media figures such as Dan Hodges or ??
If the old guard are allowed in the fresh new image is destroyed. Sorry, Uncle Vince, off you go to retire in Richmond.
The last point is key. Our political tribes are so strong too many from one side or another woukd see them labelled the same as where they came from, and I cannot see figures like Umunna managing to work with former tories who, even if they are closer in ideology than their current parties, will have backed things he could not accept, and he woukd get badgered about it constantly.
It’s worth noticing another phenomenon too: electorates are turning to very young leaders – a 43-year-old in Canada, a 37-year-old in New Zealand, a 39-year-old in France, a 31-year-old in Austria. They have ideological differences, but they have in common that they were all in metaphorical nappies when the crisis and the Great Recession hit, so they definitely can’t be blamed. Both France and the US elected presidents who had never run for office before."
And so we return to the question from the other day about whether Layla Moran (35) should replace Vince Cable (350).
Punters on Betfair reckon there is a better than one in thirty chance that there will be a new party by the next General Election, and that it will get the most seats.
Be fascinating to see who they allow to join and who is kept out.
Polarising figures such as Anthony Blair or John Major - would they desert their parties? Establishment figures such as Heseltine or Adonis Media figures such as Dan Hodges or ??
If the old guard are allowed in the fresh new image is destroyed. Sorry, Uncle Vince, off you go to retire in Richmond.
The last point is key. Our political tribes are so strong too many from one side or another woukd see them labelled the same as where they came from, and I cannot see figures like Umunna managing to work with former tories who, even if they are closer in ideology than their current parties, will have backed things he could not accept, and he woukd get badgered about it constantly.
Umunna could do it, but it would be treated with such venom from the left, they would just call anyone who was a member of it toxic tories.
Punters on Betfair reckon there is a better than one in thirty chance that there will be a new party by the next General Election, and that it will get the most seats.
Be fascinating to see who they allow to join and who is kept out.
Polarising figures such as Anthony Blair or John Major - would they desert their parties? Establishment figures such as Heseltine or Adonis Media figures such as Dan Hodges or ??
If the old guard are allowed in the fresh new image is destroyed. Sorry, Uncle Vince, off you go to retire in Richmond.
The problem is the make-up of the 'new' party. If it consists of more tories than labour or visa versa, or old faces etc, then it's very easy to attack it.
The most successful 'new' parties, have fresh faces to go with them. Macron for example.
Honestly, rather than populism a better word is idiocracy.
Government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid.
It's a simple fact that UKIP voters, and Trump supporters are just substantially less intelligent than the populace as a whole. The mistake we made was in allowing the dangerously and terminally thick to form a bloc.
The reason we struggle to counter them is that it actually causes us physical pain to think down to their level. My brain just doesn't want to operate at such a restricted intellectual capacity to think like a UKIP voter.
MUSLIM BAD IMMAHGRUNTS GRRR QUEERS BLACKS GRRRR ANGERY
Sounds like an argument for saying only middle-class people should be able to vote, which was how it was before 1885.
Honestly, rather than populism a better word is idiocracy.
Government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid.
It's a simple fact that UKIP voters, and Trump supporters are just substantially less intelligent than the populace as a whole. The mistake we made was in allowing the dangerously and terminally thick to form a bloc.
The reason we struggle to counter them is that it actually causes us physical pain to think down to their level. My brain just doesn't want to operate at such a restricted intellectual capacity to think like a UKIP voter.
MUSLIM BAD IMMAHGRUNTS GRRR QUEERS BLACKS GRRRR ANGERY
You are mistaken. It is actually "Government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the 1%".
Who amongst us expects Trumpism to benefit the general population anything like as much as it will benefit and protect the wealth of the very rich?
Also, if this 'new' party is basically so close in policy terms as to be utterly the same as the lib dems, why not just re-brand the lib dems and use that party structure?
You can read by simply signing up, or, it seems you can actually listen to it without doing anything.
Essentially Lanchester argues that the financial crisis and the policy responses to it has led to a political crisis. He says:
"Electorates turned with special venom against parties offering what was in effect a milder version of the economic consensus: free-market capitalism with a softer edge. It’s as if the voters are saying to those parties: what actually are you for? It’s not a bad question and it’s one that everyone from the Labour Party to the SPD in Germany to the socialists in France to the Democrats in the US are all struggling to answer. It’s worth noticing another phenomenon too: electorates are turning to very young leaders – a 43-year-old in Canada, a 37-year-old in New Zealand, a 39-year-old in France, a 31-year-old in Austria. They have ideological differences, but they have in common that they were all in metaphorical nappies when the crisis and the Great Recession hit, so they definitely can’t be blamed. Both France and the US elected presidents who had never run for office before."
I think the GFC, seen in history XXX years from now will be seen to have started in 2007/8 and not have ended until....well no idea but it is still continuing AFAICS as we speak.
Maybe we should be looking further back. In 2003, real household incomes began falling for low to middle income earners, and didn't stop falling until 2013. They've grown slowly since then, but at a far slower pace than pre-2003.
Fundamentally, isn't the point of populism to be popular? UKIP's zero seats rather gives lie to the idea they were a populist party.
If populism is bad, the unpopular Lib Dems must be a great bunch of lads. Perhap's that's Cable's big plan? To produce a perfect party with a single supporter, right about everything but with less power than a traffic warden.
Traffic Wardens are now obsolete .They no longer exist Similar to the old Liberal Party.
We now have privatised parking attendants.
Or council parking enforcement officers.
True , I think Community Support Officers , took any remaining powers , such as directing traffic.
Nevertheless, it seems everyone uses the same terminology in still using Traffic Warden
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Alan Greenspan (and his fans like Gordon Brown) should get much more of the blame for where we are. Trying to use monetary policy as a tool in the war on terror after 9/11 was idiotic and clinging to his theory that bubbles can't be identified before they burst even as one was staring him in the face was an appalling example of ideological blindness.
Also, if this 'new' party is basically so close in policy terms as to be utterly the same as the lib dems, why not just re-brand the lib dems and use that party structure?
Perhaps because there needs to be a new vehicle for disaffected Tory and Labour MPs to defect to. They are not going to defect to Vince Cable's tired old LibDems. The reality is that centrist Labour MPs and Conservative MPs have more in common with each other than they do with Momentum and ERG. It all seems very unlikely under our FPTP system, but those of us of a centrist nature can but hope.
Fundamentally, isn't the point of populism to be popular? UKIP's zero seats rather gives lie to the idea they were a populist party.
If populism is bad, the unpopular Lib Dems must be a great bunch of lads. Perhap's that's Cable's big plan? To produce a perfect party with a single supporter, right about everything but with less power than a traffic warden.
Traffic Wardens are now obsolete .They no longer exist Similar to the old Liberal Party.
We now have privatised parking attendants.
The old Liberal Party does still exists (as Sean_F told us the other day) and even has a number of council seats.
You can read by simply signing up, or, it seems you can actually listen to it without doing anything.
Essentially Lanchester argues that the financial crisis and the policy responses to it has led to a political crisis. He says:
"Electorates turned with special venom against parties offering what was in effect a milder version of the economic consensus: free-market capitalism with a softer edge. It’s as if the voters are saying to those parties: what actually are you for? It’s not a bad question and it’s one that everyone from the Labour Party to the SPD in Germany to the socialists in France to the Democrats in the US are all struggling to answer. It’s worth noticing another phenomenon too: electorates are turning to very young leaders – a 43-year-old in Canada, a 37-year-old in New Zealand, a 39-year-old in France, a 31-year-old in Austria. They have ideological differences, but they have in common that they were all in metaphorical nappies when the crisis and the Great Recession hit, so they definitely can’t be blamed. Both France and the US elected presidents who had never run for office before."
I think the GFC, seen in history XXX years from now will be seen to have started in 2007/8 and not have ended until....well no idea but it is still continuing AFAICS as we speak.
Maybe we should be looking further back. In 2003, real household incomes began falling for low to middle income earners, and didn't stop falling until 2013. They've grown slowly since then, but at a far slower pace than pre-2003.
It's probably no coincidence that rates of owner occupation began to decline in the same year, and that decline only ended in 2014.
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Interestingly, 2003 was also when there was a massive demonstration against a government policy which was argued for with what would nowadays be called "fake news", but at the time we just called "spin" (or "lies", if you will).
Honestly, rather than populism a better word is idiocracy.
Government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid.
It's a simple fact that UKIP voters, and Trump supporters are just substantially less intelligent than the populace as a whole. The mistake we made was in allowing the dangerously and terminally thick to form a bloc.
The reason we struggle to counter them is that it actually causes us physical pain to think down to their level. My brain just doesn't want to operate at such a restricted intellectual capacity to think like a UKIP voter.
MUSLIM BAD IMMAHGRUNTS GRRR QUEERS BLACKS GRRRR ANGERY
You are mistaken. It is actually "Government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the 1%".
Who amongst us expects Trumpism to benefit the general population anything like as much as it will benefit and protect the wealth of the very rich?
I suppose that at least , while unpalatable, it has the logic of at least benefiting some people that voted for it, whereas Brexit on the other hand...
Of course, even if those temperatures become the norm it would take decades, even centuries for such changes to happen. But we would lose East Anglia very quickly.
Blimey, Denmark virtually disappears!
Where's @Hunchman when you need him to tell us about how the grand solar minimum is going to trigger the next ice-age?
Speaking of the Ice Age, around 20,000 years ago sea level was around 100 metres (330ft) lower than today, so one could walk from Britain to France, Saudi to Iran, India to Sri Lanka, Singapore to Borneo, New Guinea to Oz, and Siberia to Alaska.
Wonder how our relationship with Brussels would have been like if the EU had been set up at the Last Glacial Maximum....
I think integration would have gone a little further in the last twenty thousand years. Although Turkey still wouldn't have got in.
You can read by simply signing up, or, it seems you can actually listen to it without doing anything.
Essentially Lanchester argues that the financial crisis and the policy responses to it has led to a political crisis. He says:
"Electorates turned with special venom against parties offering what was in effect a milder version of the economic consensus: free-market capitalism with a softer edge. It’s as if the voters are saying to those parties: what actually are you for? It’s not a bad question and it’s one that everyone from the Labour Party to the SPD in Germany to the socialists in France to the Democrats in the US are all struggling to answer. It’s worth noticing another phenomenon too: electorates are turning to very young leaders – a 43-year-old in Canada, a 37-year-old in New Zealand, a 39-year-old in France, a 31-year-old in Austria. They have ideological differences, but they have in common that they were all in metaphorical nappies when the crisis and the Great Recession hit, so they definitely can’t be blamed. Both France and the US elected presidents who had never run for office before."
I think the GFC, seen in history XXX years from now will be seen to have started in 2007/8 and not have ended until....well no idea but it is still continuing AFAICS as we speak.
Maybe we should be looking further back. In 2003, real household incomes began falling for low to middle income earners, and didn't stop falling until 2013. They've grown slowly since then, but at a far slower pace than pre-2003.
It's probably no coincidence that rates of owner occupation began to decline in the same year, and that decline only ended in 2014.
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Maybe the people who were benefitting from the growing economy between 2004 and 2008 were mostly foreign investors, people buying expensive London properties as an way of storing their wealth, etc.
Mussolini started out as a Communist before breaking with them over Italian involvement in the First World War. So he isn't really the best example of being 'hostile to Communism.' He was essentially hostile to anyone who didn't slavishly follow his line, which included Communists. Miklos Horthy might be a better example if you want one, or Franco, or Salazar.
Again though, you could use Hitler as a good example. I've no quarrel with that. In many ways he is the ultimate example - he promised a reunited, autarkic, all-conquering Germany and he left it occupied, divided, reviled and reliant on food aid.
The main reason I concentrated on the left is because with the exception of Trump and Orban they seem a more immediate menace, and they also tend to end by making a worse mess (again, Hitler is something of an exception)! Orban has made Hungary a pariah. Trump has made the US a joke. Maduro is busily starving the people of a country with the world's largest oil reserves to death. Tsipras very nearly went the same way in Greece.
Actually, some say Hitler started on the Left as well but that's another story.
I think there's a key commonality in national self-identity. Populists flourish when there is a crisis of that identity whether through military defeat or via the perception the country is changing faster than desired (globalisation) and not in a required or desired direction and there seems no way of putting things "back on track" or where there is a perceived threat ("they") which can be scapegoated (individuals, religions, skin colour).
It's part nostalgia though that part is often romanticised part a sense of self-reliance (we can manage alone, we don't need anyone else) and plays on fear and insecurity.
Hitler didn't start on the left. Anton Drexler did, but Hitler was not Drexler. His introduction to what became the NSDAP was as a police spy, hired because of his anti-Communist/pro-Freikorps views. That's why I didn't cite him as an example.
In Spain, Ciudadanos has decided to compete with PP on who can be most illiberal towards Catalonia. PSOE looks set to benefit most from Cs move to the right.
They are virtually guaranteeing the secession of Catalonia, peacefully or otherwise.
Fundamentally, isn't the point of populism to be popular? UKIP's zero seats rather gives lie to the idea they were a populist party.
If populism is bad, the unpopular Lib Dems must be a great bunch of lads. Perhap's that's Cable's big plan? To produce a perfect party with a single supporter, right about everything but with less power than a traffic warden.
Traffic Wardens are now obsolete .They no longer exist Similar to the old Liberal Party.
We now have privatised parking attendants.
The old Liberal Party does still exists (as Sean_F told us the other day) and even has a number of council seats.
The SDP also still exists and has a town councillor or two in Crewe. It has, rather oddly, become strongly Eurosceptic.
Also, if this 'new' party is basically so close in policy terms as to be utterly the same as the lib dems, why not just re-brand the lib dems and use that party structure?
Perhaps because there needs to be a new vehicle for disaffected Tory and Labour MPs to defect to. They are not going to defect to Vince Cable's tired old LibDems. The reality is that centrist Labour MPs and Conservative MPs have more in common with each other than they do with Momentum and ERG. It all seems very unlikely under our FPTP system, but those of us of a centrist nature can but hope.
A new centre party wouldn't stand a chance unless there was no competition, and that means the LDs would have to effectively disband themselves. Are they really going to do that?
Honestly, rather than populism a better word is idiocracy.
Government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid.
It's a simple fact that UKIP voters, and Trump supporters are just substantially less intelligent than the populace as a whole. The mistake we made was in allowing the dangerously and terminally thick to form a bloc.
The reason we struggle to counter them is that it actually causes us physical pain to think down to their level. My brain just doesn't want to operate at such a restricted intellectual capacity to think like a UKIP voter.
MUSLIM BAD IMMAHGRUNTS GRRR QUEERS BLACKS GRRRR ANGERY
You are mistaken. It is actually "Government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the 1%".
Who amongst us expects Trumpism to benefit the general population anything like as much as it will benefit and protect the wealth of the very rich?
One does not make the poor richer, purely by making the rich poorer.
Also, if this 'new' party is basically so close in policy terms as to be utterly the same as the lib dems, why not just re-brand the lib dems and use that party structure?
Perhaps because there needs to be a new vehicle for disaffected Tory and Labour MPs to defect to. They are not going to defect to Vince Cable's tired old LibDems. The reality is that centrist Labour MPs and Conservative MPs have more in common with each other than they do with Momentum and ERG. It all seems very unlikely under our FPTP system, but those of us of a centrist nature can but hope.
Yeah, but there's only 12 lib dems.
Let say, you got 10 Tories, and 10 Labour. They would be sigif more than the current lib dem party. So why no just merge all into one, have 32 MPs, which is a good base and go from there. Get a new leader from that group, re-brand, with a new name.
Policywise there would be very very little difference between whatver a new party would be and the current lib dems. Is it pride which would stop the lib dems signing up for that?
Fundamentally, isn't the point of populism to be popular? UKIP's zero seats rather gives lie to the idea they were a populist party.
If populism is bad, the unpopular Lib Dems must be a great bunch of lads. Perhap's that's Cable's big plan? To produce a perfect party with a single supporter, right about everything but with less power than a traffic warden.
Traffic Wardens are now obsolete .They no longer exist Similar to the old Liberal Party.
We now have privatised parking attendants.
This is a fascinating documentary about London traffic wardens in 1984:
Also, if this 'new' party is basically so close in policy terms as to be utterly the same as the lib dems, why not just re-brand the lib dems and use that party structure?
Perhaps because there needs to be a new vehicle for disaffected Tory and Labour MPs to defect to. They are not going to defect to Vince Cable's tired old LibDems. The reality is that centrist Labour MPs and Conservative MPs have more in common with each other than they do with Momentum and ERG. It all seems very unlikely under our FPTP system, but those of us of a centrist nature can but hope.
Looking back at the 1980s, the Gang of Four who defected from Labour were all political heavyweights with good reputations, who were widely respected even if you didn't agree with all of their views (the batch of lesser known MPs who had fallen out with their various local parties and came along with them, not so much). And their new party mostly consisted of people new to politics, with very few Labour or Tory activists looking to reboot their careers.
It is very hard to see this being replicated today. Few of the potential rebel politicians (and indeed few politicians generally) command that level of respect, there is no obvious leader figure, and if they did launch a new party I doubt there would be a popular upswing in new members from people itching to campaign against Brexit who haven't for some reason already joined Labour or the LibDems; more likely they'll attract small numbers of existing activists from the larger parties whose views on Brexit/Corbyn have made any advancement where they are problematic.
Honestly, rather than populism a better word is idiocracy.
Government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid.
It's a simple fact that UKIP voters, and Trump supporters are just substantially less intelligent than the populace as a whole. The mistake we made was in allowing the dangerously and terminally thick to form a bloc.
The reason we struggle to counter them is that it actually causes us physical pain to think down to their level. My brain just doesn't want to operate at such a restricted intellectual capacity to think like a UKIP voter.
MUSLIM BAD IMMAHGRUNTS GRRR QUEERS BLACKS GRRRR ANGERY
You are mistaken. It is actually "Government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the 1%".
Who amongst us expects Trumpism Corbynism to benefit the general population anything like as much as it will benefit and protect the wealth of the very rich?
Fixed it for you...
*Grabs tinfoil hat and ducks, while cackling evilly...*
You can read by simply signing up, or, it seems you can actually listen to it without doing anything.
Essentially Lanchester argues that the financial crisis and the policy responses to it has led to a political crisis. He says:
"Electorates turned with special venom against parties offering what was in effect a milder version of the economic consensus: free-market capitalism with a softer edge. It’s as if the voters are saying to those parties: what actually are you for? It’s not a bad question and it’s one that everyone from the Labour Party to the SPD in Germany to the socialists in France to the Democrats in the US are all struggling to answer. It’s worth noticing another phenomenon too: electorates are turning to very young leaders – a 43-year-old in Canada, a 37-year-old in New Zealand, a 39-year-old in France, a 31-year-old in Austria. They have ideological differences, but they have in common that they were all in metaphorical nappies when the crisis and the Great Recession hit, so they definitely can’t be blamed. Both France and the US elected presidents who had never run for office before."
I think the GFC, seen in history XXX years from now will be seen to have started in 2007/8 and not have ended until....well no idea but it is still continuing AFAICS as we speak.
Maybe we should be looking further back. In 2003, real household incomes began falling for low to middle income earners, and didn't stop falling until 2013. They've grown slowly since then, but at a far slower pace than pre-2003.
It's probably no coincidence that rates of owner occupation began to decline in the same year, and that decline only ended in 2014.
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Yes not to reignite the Brown debate but arguably his most egregious sin was to exclude housing costs from his inflation indicator (RPI/CPI) and hence he failed to stem the properly bubble.
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Alan Greenspan (and his fans like Gordon Brown) should get much more of the blame for where we are. Trying to use monetary policy as a tool in the war on terror after 9/11 was idiotic and clinging to his theory that bubbles can't be identified before they burst even as one was staring him in the face was an appalling example of ideological blindness.
It ought to have been clear (even without the benefit of hindsight) that there was something very wrong with house prices rising from an average of £55,000 in 1996 to an average of £181,000 in 2007. The government could have cooled the boom by pushing up stamp duty, and making buy to let much less attractive and the Bank of England could have demanded much bigger deposits for mortgages.
Also, if this 'new' party is basically so close in policy terms as to be utterly the same as the lib dems, why not just re-brand the lib dems and use that party structure?
Perhaps because there needs to be a new vehicle for disaffected Tory and Labour MPs to defect to. They are not going to defect to Vince Cable's tired old LibDems. The reality is that centrist Labour MPs and Conservative MPs have more in common with each other than they do with Momentum and ERG. It all seems very unlikely under our FPTP system, but those of us of a centrist nature can but hope.
Looking back at the 1980s, the Gang of Four who defected from Labour were all political heavyweights with good reputations, who were widely respected even if you didn't agree with all of their views (the batch of lesser known MPs who had fallen out with their various local parties and came along with them, not so much). And their new party mostly consisted of people new to politics, with very few Labour or Tory activists looking to reboot their careers.
It is very hard to see this being replicated today. Few of the potential rebel politicians (and indeed few politicians generally) command that level of respect, there is no obvious leader figure, and if they did launch a new party I doubt there would be a popular upswing in new members from people itching to campaign against Brexit who haven't for some reason already joined Labour or the LibDems; more likely they'll attract small numbers of existing activists from the larger parties whose views on Brexit/Corbyn have made any advancement where they are problematic.
What would have happened if a certain General Galtieri did not intervene ?
Probably technocracy these days. Historically feudalism or oligarchy maybe? In Britain, the good ol’ Establishment. None are really accurate though because frequently populism is a tool used by elites to retain their power at the expense of the interests of those whose support they obtain.
You can read by simply signing up, or, it seems you can actually listen to it without doing anything.
Essentially Lanchester argues that the financial crisis and the policy responses to it has led to a political crisis. He says:
"Electorates turned with special venom against parties offering what was in effect a milder version of the economic consensus: free-market capitalism with a softer edge. It’s as if the voters are saying to those parties: what actually are you for? It’s not a bad question and it’s one that everyone from the Labour Party to the SPD in Germany to the socialists in France to the Democrats in the US are all struggling to answer. It’s worth noticing another phenomenon too: electorates are turning to very young leaders – a 43-year-old in Canada, a 37-year-old in New Zealand, a 39-year-old in France, a 31-year-old in Austria. They have ideological differences, but they have in common that they were all in metaphorical nappies when the crisis and the Great Recession hit, so they definitely can’t be blamed. Both France and the US elected presidents who had never run for office before."
I think the GFC, seen in history XXX years from now will be seen to have started in 2007/8 and not have ended until....well no idea but it is still continuing AFAICS as we speak.
Maybe we should be looking further back. In 2003, real household incomes began falling for low to middle income earners, and didn't stop falling until 2013. They've grown slowly since then, but at a far slower pace than pre-2003.
It's probably no coincidence that rates of owner occupation began to decline in the same year, and that decline only ended in 2014.
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Yes not to reignite the Brown debate but arguably his most egregious sin was to exclude housing costs from his inflation indicator (RPI/CPI) and hence he failed to stem the properly bubble.
All the more so because the Labour landslide of 1997 was partly built on the back of the effects of the Lawson bust and Gordon Brown came into office with this promise: "I will not let house prices get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery."
You could argue that, or perhaps other cynics might say paternalism. For those of us that accept a definition of "populism" as meaning a type of politics that appeals to people's most base instincts, one could argue that somewhat paradoxically, considered moderation (conservatism even perhaps?) is the opposite to the extreme of populism. Populism should not be confused with popular. Stephen Fry is popular, but he is not a populist.
You can read by simply signing up, or, it seems you can actually listen to it without doing anything.
Essentially Lanchester argues that the financial crisis and the policy responses to it has led to a political crisis. He says:
"Electorates turned with special venom against parties offering what was in effect a milder version of the economic consensus: free-market capitalism with a softer edge. It’s as if the voters are saying to those parties: what actually are you for? It’s not a bad question and it’s one that everyone from the Labour Party to the SPD in Germany to the socialists in France to the Democrats in the US are all struggling to answer. It’s worth noticing another phenomenon too: electorates are turning to very young leaders – a 43-year-old in Canada, a 37-year-old in New Zealand, a 39-year-old in France, a 31-year-old in Austria. They have ideological differences, but they have in common that they were all in metaphorical nappies when the crisis and the Great Recession hit, so they definitely can’t be blamed. Both France and the US elected presidents who had never run for office before."
I think the GFC, seen in history XXX years from now will be seen to have started in 2007/8 and not have ended until....well no idea but it is still continuing AFAICS as we speak.
Maybe we should be looking further back. In 2003, real household incomes began falling for low to middle income earners, and didn't stop falling until 2013. They've grown slowly since then, but at a far slower pace than pre-2003.
It's probably no coincidence that rates of owner occupation began to decline in the same year, and that decline only ended in 2014.
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Yes not to reignite the Brown debate but arguably his most egregious sin was to exclude housing costs from his inflation indicator (RPI/CPI) and hence he failed to stem the properly bubble.
All the more so because the Labour landslide of 1997 was partly built on the back of the effects of the Lawson bust and Gordon Brown came into office with this promise: "I will not let house prices get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery."
I think that rocketing house prices helped Labour greatly with middle class voters in 2001 and 2005, even as some working class voters were beginning to feel the pinch.
You can read by simply signing up, or, it seems you can actually listen to it without doing anything.
Essentially Lanchester argues that the financial crisis and the policy responses to it has led to a political crisis. He says:
"Electorates turned with special venom against parties offering what was in effect a milder version of the economic consensus: free-market capitalism with a softer edge. It’s as if the voters are saying to those parties: what actually are you for? It’s not a bad question and it’s one that everyone from the Labour Party to the SPD in Germany to the socialists in France to the Democrats in the US are all struggling to answer. It’s worth noticing another phenomenon too: electorates are turning to very young leaders – a 43-year-old in Canada, a 37-year-old in New Zealand, a 39-year-old in France, a 31-year-old in Austria. They have ideological differences, but they have in common that they were all in metaphorical nappies when the crisis and the Great Recession hit, so they definitely can’t be blamed. Both France and the US elected presidents who had never run for office before."
I think the GFC, seen in history XXX years from now will be seen to have started in 2007/8 and not have ended until....well no idea but it is still continuing AFAICS as we speak.
Maybe we should be looking further back. In 2003, real household incomes began falling for low to middle income earners, and didn't stop falling until 2013. They've grown slowly since then, but at a far slower pace than pre-2003.
It's probably no coincidence that rates of owner occupation began to decline in the same year, and that decline only ended in 2014.
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
The GFC is ongoing. The volume of CDOs out there now is AIUI almost an order of magnitude larger than in 2007. The next crash will wash away more wealth than last time.
Also, if this 'new' party is basically so close in policy terms as to be utterly the same as the lib dems, why not just re-brand the lib dems and use that party structure?
Perhaps because there needs to be a new vehicle for disaffected Tory and Labour MPs to defect to. They are not going to defect to Vince Cable's tired old LibDems. The reality is that centrist Labour MPs and Conservative MPs have more in common with each other than they do with Momentum and ERG. It all seems very unlikely under our FPTP system, but those of us of a centrist nature can but hope.
A new centre party wouldn't stand a chance unless there was no competition, and that means the LDs would have to effectively disband themselves. Are they really going to do that?
You have identified a major obstacle. Another reason, why sadly it may not work
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Alan Greenspan (and his fans like Gordon Brown) should get much more of the blame for where we are. Trying to use monetary policy as a tool in the war on terror after 9/11 was idiotic and clinging to his theory that bubbles can't be identified before they burst even as one was staring him in the face was an appalling example of ideological blindness.
It ought to have been clear (even without the benefit of hindsight) that there was something very wrong with house prices rising from an average of £55,000 in 1996 to an average of £181,000 in 2007. The government could have cooled the boom by pushing up stamp duty, and making buy to let much less attractive and the Bank of England could have demanded much bigger deposits for mortgages.
Yes. Larry Elliot in the Guardian would write about this over and over again, arguing that the house price bubble, and the reliance on interest rates, and only interest rates, to cool inflation meant that interest rates were simultaneously too high for business investment (particularly in manufacturing) but not high enough for property investment (particularly in residential mortgages).
All the more so because the Labour landslide of 1997 was partly built on the back of the effects of the Lawson bust and Gordon Brown came into office with this promise: "I will not let house prices get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery."
I think that rocketing house prices helped Labour greatly with middle class voters in 2001 and 2005, even as some working class voters were beginning to feel the pinch.
Agreed, and Labour were so paranoid about the fragility of their support that they were content to let short-termism give them a boost that they didn't need.
You can read by simply signing up, or, it seems you can actually listen to it without doing anything.
Essentially Lanchester argues that the financial crisis and the policy responses to it has led to a political crisis. He says:
"Electorates turned with special venom against parties offering what was in effect a milder version of the economic consensus: free-market capitalism with a softer edge. It’s as if the voters are saying to those parties: what actually are you for? It’s not a bad question and it’s one that everyone from the Labour Party to the SPD in Germany to the socialists in France to the Democrats in the US are all struggling to answer. It’s worth noticing another phenomenon too: electorates are turning to very young leaders – a 43-year-old in Canada, a 37-year-old in New Zealand, a 39-year-old in France, a 31-year-old in Austria. They have ideological differences, but they have in common that they were all in metaphorical nappies when the crisis and the Great Recession hit, so they definitely can’t be blamed. Both France and the US elected presidents who had never run for office before."
I think the GFC, seen in history XXX years from now will be seen to have started in 2007/8 and not have ended until....well no idea but it is still continuing AFAICS as we speak.
Maybe we should be looking further back. In 2003, real household incomes began falling for low to middle income earners, and didn't stop falling until 2013. They've grown slowly since then, but at a far slower pace than pre-2003.
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Yes not to reignite the Brown debate but arguably his most egregious sin was to exclude housing costs from his inflation indicator (RPI/CPI) and hence he failed to stem the properly bubble.
All the more so because the Labour landslide of 1997 was partly built on the back of the effects of the Lawson bust and Gordon Brown came into office with this promise: "I will not let house prices get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery."
I’m not sure they were ever out of control; they responded in a predictable way to policy decisions didn’t they? The banking crisis was primarily caused by financial engineering off the back of real estate bubbles in other countries. (I’m not suggesting there’s nothing to blame Brown for, but maybe not this).
Oligarchy and elitism align very well with populism in the worlds of Trump and Putin, so no, they are not diametrically opposed, but inextricably linked in the current world order.
Fundamentally, isn't the point of populism to be popular? UKIP's zero seats rather gives lie to the idea they were a populist party.
If populism is bad, the unpopular Lib Dems must be a great bunch of lads. Perhap's that's Cable's big plan? To produce a perfect party with a single supporter, right about everything but with less power than a traffic warden.
Traffic Wardens are now obsolete .They no longer exist Similar to the old Liberal Party.
We now have privatised parking attendants.
The old Liberal Party does still exists (as Sean_F told us the other day) and even has a number of council seats.
The SDP also still exists and has a town councillor or two in Crewe. It has, rather oddly, become strongly Eurosceptic.
So oddly is the continuing Liberal party. Lord Owen was of course a senior elder statesman backing leave despite leaving Labour because he opposed leaving the EEC.
The MOD is to sell off RAF Scampton, home of the Red Arrows and the Dambusters. When the former Chief of the Air Staff says this is not a good idea, you would think people might listen. What is a Conservative government for if it isn't Conservative and doesn't govern? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-44936234
Fundamentally, isn't the point of populism to be popular? UKIP's zero seats rather gives lie to the idea they were a populist party.
If populism is bad, the unpopular Lib Dems must be a great bunch of lads. Perhap's that's Cable's big plan? To produce a perfect party with a single supporter, right about everything but with less power than a traffic warden.
Traffic Wardens are now obsolete .They no longer exist Similar to the old Liberal Party.
We now have privatised parking attendants.
The old Liberal Party does still exists (as Sean_F told us the other day) and even has a number of council seats.
The SDP also still exists and has a town councillor or two in Crewe. It has, rather oddly, become strongly Eurosceptic.
So oddly is the continuing Liberal party. Lord Owen was of course a senior elder statesman backing leave despite leaving Labour because he opposed leaving the EEC.
But that was back when Mrs T went round in her European flag jumper...
All the more so because the Labour landslide of 1997 was partly built on the back of the effects of the Lawson bust and Gordon Brown came into office with this promise: "I will not let house prices get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery."
I think that rocketing house prices helped Labour greatly with middle class voters in 2001 and 2005, even as some working class voters were beginning to feel the pinch.
Agreed, and Labour were so paranoid about the fragility of their support that they were content to let short-termism give them a boost that they didn't need.
Suburban London (and adjoining parts of Kent, Essex, and Hertfordshire) turned savagely against the Conservatives in 1997, and the crash in house prices from 1990-94 was a big factor in that. Labour found itself representing a whole bunch of seats that the party had never expected to represent, and were determined to hold them.
Yes. Larry Elliot in the Guardian would write about this over and over again, arguing that the house price bubble, and the reliance on interest rates, and only interest rates, to cool inflation meant that interest rates were simultaneously too high for business investment (particularly in manufacturing) but not high enough for property investment (particularly in residential mortgages).
I agree with this. I always thought Mervyn King got away reasonably cleanly on all this. One of his early actions as Governor of the Bank of Englan was to do away with the small firms unit of the bank. And at events, I attended it seemed that all he cared about was house prices.
In mitigation, his job was to target inflation, not capital investment (or SME access to finance). But perhaps he was a touch parochial.
Also, if this 'new' party is basically so close in policy terms as to be utterly the same as the lib dems, why not just re-brand the lib dems and use that party structure?
Perhaps because there needs to be a new vehicle for disaffected Tory and Labour MPs to defect to. They are not going to defect to Vince Cable's tired old LibDems. The reality is that centrist Labour MPs and Conservative MPs have more in common with each other than they do with Momentum and ERG. It all seems very unlikely under our FPTP system, but those of us of a centrist nature can but hope.
Yeah, but there's only 12 lib dems.
Let say, you got 10 Tories, and 10 Labour. They would be sigif more than the current lib dem party. So why no just merge all into one, have 32 MPs, which is a good base and go from there. Get a new leader from that group, re-brand, with a new name.
Policywise there would be very very little difference between whatver a new party would be and the current lib dems. Is it pride which would stop the lib dems signing up for that?
Objectively, you'd get some who would and some who wouldn't - the LibDems were quite controversial among the Liberals, which is why the Liberal splinter emerged. I think you'd find that some significant LibDems objected to one or more of the potential centrist defectors and you'd end up with two rival centrist parties, the New Moderates and the rump LibDems. That would get sorted out in the ensuing election as one would beat the other in most places, but it would be a drag on their chances of getting enough seats under FPTP to be a significant force thereafter.
I really do think the current climate needs PR - it's geared to two parties in an age when most people don't identify closely with either. But we aren't going to get it any time soon. The centrist calculation is therefore that either (a) their leadership will prove better than expected and will do enough good stuff to count as positive (Anna Soubry and JRM do agree on *some* things, as do John McDonnell and John Mann) or (b) it will get defeated and the opportunity will then arise to swing the pendulum back. These calculations may not be probable, but still a better bet than a new party.
The MOD is to sell off RAF Scampton, home of the Red Arrows and the Dambusters. When the former Chief of the Air Staff says this is not a good idea, you would think people might listen. What is a Conservative government for if it isn't Conservative and doesn't govern? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-44936234
The Conservative Party has a proud record of flogging stuff off to make a fast buck.
Also, if this 'new' party is basically so close in policy terms as to be utterly the same as the lib dems, why not just re-brand the lib dems and use that party structure?
Perhaps because there needs to be a new vehicle for disaffected Tory and Labour MPs to defect to. They are not going to defect to Vince Cable's tired old LibDems. The reality is that centrist Labour MPs and Conservative MPs have more in common with each other than they do with Momentum and ERG. It all seems very unlikely under our FPTP system, but those of us of a centrist nature can but hope.
Yeah, but there's only 12 lib dems.
Let say, you got 10 Tories, and 10 Labour. They would be sigif more than the current lib dem party. So why no just merge all into one, have 32 MPs, which is a good base and go from there. Get a new leader from that group, re-brand, with a new name.
Policywise there would be very very little difference between whatver a new party would be and the current lib dems. Is it pride which would stop the lib dems signing up for that?
Objectively, you'd get some who would and some who wouldn't - the LibDems were quite controversial among the Liberals, which is why the Liberal splinter emerged. I think you'd find that some significant LibDems objected to one or more of the potential centrist defectors and you'd end up with two rival centrist parties, the New Moderates and the rump LibDems. That would get sorted out in the ensuing election as one would beat the other in most places, but it would be a drag on their chances of getting enough seats under FPTP to be a significant force thereafter.
I really do think the current climate needs PR - it's geared to two parties in an age when most people don't identify closely with either. But we aren't going to get it any time soon. The centrist calculation is therefore that either (a) their leadership will prove better than expected and will do enough good stuff to count as positive (Anna Soubry and JRM do agree on *some* things, as do John McDonnell and John Mann) or (b) it will get defeated and the opportunity will then arise to swing the pendulum back. These calculations may not be probable, but still a better bet than a new party.
A shame those bunch of MPs under Blair didn't keep their promise to sort out the voting system, when they had the chance....
You can read by simply signing up, or, it seems you can actually listen to it without doing anything.
Essentially Lanchester argues that the financial crisis and the policy responses to it has led to a political crisis. He says:
."
I think the GFC, seen in history XXX years from now will be seen to have started in 2007/8 and not have ended until....well no idea but it is still continuing AFAICS as we speak.
Maybe we should be looking further back. In 2003, real household incomes began falling for low to middle income earners, and didn't stop falling until 2013. They've grown slowly since then, but at a far slower pace than pre-2003.
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Yes not to reignite the Brown debate but arguably his most egregious sin was to exclude housing costs from his inflation indicator (RPI/CPI) and hence he failed to stem the properly bubble.
All the more so because the Labour landslide of 1997 was partly built on the back of the effects of the Lawson bust and Gordon Brown came into office with this promise: "I will not let house prices get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery."
I’m not sure they were ever out of control; they responded in a predictable way to policy decisions didn’t they? The banking crisis was primarily caused by financial engineering off the back of real estate bubbles in other countries. (I’m not suggesting there’s nothing to blame Brown for, but maybe not this).
A rise of 320% in house prices in 11 years is abnormal, and could only have ended in tears. It generated excessive consumer borrowing, a yawning trade deficit, and ended up pushing home ownership out of reach of many people.
Probably technocracy these days. Historically feudalism or oligarchy maybe?
Technocracy: government by experts vs populism: government by idiots
the great financial crisis was created by people with Oxbridge degrees and Harvard MBAs not blokes in white vans
van drivers would have managed the economy better
How wonderful for Mr. Alanbrooke to provide us with a great example of populist drivel. He may be being ironic perhaps? The removal of the well-educated from positions of power has been tried a few times in history and its level of success has not exactly been overwhelming
The MOD is to sell off RAF Scampton, home of the Red Arrows and the Dambusters. When the former Chief of the Air Staff says this is not a good idea, you would think people might listen. What is a Conservative government for if it isn't Conservative and doesn't govern? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-44936234
RAFAT consume prodigious amounts of money and human resources to deliver zero additional defence capability. At least cohabiting them with 100 at Leeming allows them to share engineering and logistics facilities.
They don't actually spend a great deal of time at Scampton anyway. They depart to Akrotiri for pre-season training and to catch crabs in the spring and they are on the road for the summer.
Probably technocracy these days. Historically feudalism or oligarchy maybe?
Technocracy: government by experts vs populism: government by idiots
the great financial crisis was created by people with Oxbridge degrees and Harvard MBAs not blokes in white vans
van drivers would have managed the economy better
How wonderful for Mr. Alanbrooke to provide us with a great example of populist drivel. He may be being ironic perhaps? The removal of the well-educated from positions of power has been tried a few times in history and its level of success has not exactly been overwhelming
Probably technocracy these days. Historically feudalism or oligarchy maybe?
Technocracy: government by experts vs populism: government by idiots
the great financial crisis was created by people with Oxbridge degrees and Harvard MBAs not blokes in white vans
van drivers would have managed the economy better
How wonderful for Mr. Alanbrooke to provide us with a great example of populist drivel. He may be being ironic perhaps? The removal of the well-educated from positions of power has been tried a few times in history and its level of success has not exactly been overwhelming
then how did the crisis come about ?
do tell.
was it people straight off the unemployment register being placed in running the BoE monetary policy ? was it fork lift truck drivers managing hedge funds ?
putting well educated people in power is no guarantee of anything and never has been.
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Yes not to reignite the Brown debate but arguably his most egregious sin was to exclude housing costs from his inflation indicator (RPI/CPI) and hence he failed to stem the properly bubble.
All the more so because the Labour landslide of 1997 was partly built on the back of the effects of the Lawson bust and Gordon Brown came into office with this promise: "I will not let house prices get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery."
I’m not sure they were ever out of control; they responded in a predictable way to policy decisions didn’t they? The banking crisis was primarily caused by financial engineering off the back of real estate bubbles in other countries. (I’m not suggesting there’s nothing to blame Brown for, but maybe not this).
A rise of 320% in house prices in 11 years is abnormal, and could only have ended in tears. It generated excessive consumer borrowing, a yawning trade deficit, and ended up pushing home ownership out of reach of many people.
The point I’m making is that it maybe hasn’t ended yet - GFC wasn’t caused by the UK housing price rise and didn’t unwind it; the three adverse consequences you mentioned are still present and there has been little change in policy to address them. So it may well be true that it will end in tears, but that’s still to come if so.
The MOD is to sell off RAF Scampton, home of the Red Arrows and the Dambusters. When the former Chief of the Air Staff says this is not a good idea, you would think people might listen. What is a Conservative government for if it isn't Conservative and doesn't govern? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-44936234
RAFAT consume prodigious amounts of money and human resources to deliver zero additional defence capability. At least cohabiting them with 100 at Leeming allows them to share engineering and logistics facilities.
They don't actually spend a great deal of time at Scampton anyway. They depart to Akrotiri for pre-season training and to catch crabs in the spring and they are on the road for the summer.
Is there any chance that, in the current changing world, Akrotiri may become untenable?
The MOD is to sell off RAF Scampton, home of the Red Arrows and the Dambusters. When the former Chief of the Air Staff says this is not a good idea, you would think people might listen. What is a Conservative government for if it isn't Conservative and doesn't govern? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-44936234
RAFAT consume prodigious amounts of money and human resources to deliver zero additional defence capability. At least cohabiting them with 100 at Leeming allows them to share engineering and logistics facilities.
They don't actually spend a great deal of time at Scampton anyway. They depart to Akrotiri for pre-season training and to catch crabs in the spring and they are on the road for the summer.
iirc selling RAF Scampton has been on/off for years.
The MOD is to sell off RAF Scampton, home of the Red Arrows and the Dambusters. When the former Chief of the Air Staff says this is not a good idea, you would think people might listen. What is a Conservative government for if it isn't Conservative and doesn't govern? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-44936234
RAFAT consume prodigious amounts of money and human resources to deliver zero additional defence capability. At least cohabiting them with 100 at Leeming allows them to share engineering and logistics facilities.
They don't actually spend a great deal of time at Scampton anyway. They depart to Akrotiri for pre-season training and to catch crabs in the spring and they are on the road for the summer.
When you say 'crabs,' do you mean they spend their time paddling around in pools looking for red crustaceans, or do they spend their time dipping in and out in another sense entirely?
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Yes not to reignite the Brown debate but arguably his most egregious sin was to exclude housing costs from his inflation indicator (RPI/CPI) and hence he failed to stem the properly bubble.
All the more so because the Labour landslide of 1997 was partly built on the back of the effects of the Lawson bust and Gordon Brown came into office with this promise: "I will not let house prices get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery."
I’m not sure they were ever out of control; they responded in a predictable way to policy decisions didn’t they? The banking crisis was primarily caused by financial engineering off the back of real estate bubbles in other countries. (I’m not suggesting there’s nothing to blame Brown for, but maybe not this).
A rise of 320% in house prices in 11 years is abnormal, and could only have ended in tears. It generated excessive consumer borrowing, a yawning trade deficit, and ended up pushing home ownership out of reach of many people.
The point I’m making is that it maybe hasn’t ended yet - GFC wasn’t caused by the UK housing price rise and didn’t unwind it; the three adverse consequences you mentioned are still present and there has been little change in policy to address them. So it may well be true that it will end in tears, but that’s still to come if so.
The GFC was not caused by house price inflation, but for us (and for countries like Ireland, Greece, Spain) , it was made worse by it, and had adverse consequences regardless of the GFC.
The fact that house prices, outside London and some other hotspots, have barely moved since 2007, and that incomes have been rising since 2013, is good news. And, the policy changes, on Stamp Duty, buy to let, and deposits make a wild boom in the future less likely.
I was being serious. The opposite of populism int being unpopular. It is telling the electorate difficult truths and looking like a grown up politician, rather than offering simplistic (non-)solutions. The 2017 manifesto was attempting to do this.
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
Yes not to reignite the Brown debate but arguably his most egregious sin was to exclude housing costs from his inflation indicator (RPI/CPI) and hence he failed to stem the properly bubble.
All the more so because the Labour landslide of 1997 was partly built on the back of the effects of the Lawson bust and Gordon Brown came into office with this promise: "I will not let house prices get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the recovery."
I’m not sure they were ever out of control; they responded in a predictable way to policy decisions didn’t they? The banking crisis was primarily caused by financial engineering off the back of real estate bubbles in other countries. (I’m not suggesting there’s nothing to blame Brown for, but maybe not this).
A rise of 320% in house prices in 11 years is abnormal, and could only have ended in tears. It generated excessive consumer borrowing, a yawning trade deficit, and ended up pushing home ownership out of reach of many people.
The point I’m making is that it maybe hasn’t ended yet - GFC wasn’t caused by the UK housing price rise and didn’t unwind it; the three adverse consequences you mentioned are still present and there has been little change in policy to address them. So it may well be true that it will end in tears, but that’s still to come if so.
The Economist had a very good article about the lack of productivity in the building industry. In the USA it takes about the same labour to build a house now as it did 100 years ago. The raft of regulations and subsidies also keep prices high. So we have a business sector that is unproductive and heavily manipulated by the Government. It is a scary place to have vast amounts of the countries resources tied up in. We complain that the young cannot buy houses but maybe that is a benefit to them if the market crashes.
Also, if this 'new' party is basically so close in policy terms as to be utterly the same as the lib dems, why not just re-brand the lib dems and use that party structure?
Perhaps because there needs to be a new vehicle for disaffected Tory and Labour MPs to defect to. They are not going to defect to Vince Cable's tired old LibDems. The reality is that centrist Labour MPs and Conservative MPs have more in common with each other than they do with Momentum and ERG. It all seems very unlikely under our FPTP system, but those of us of a centrist nature can but hope.
Yeah, but there's only 12 lib dems.
Let say, you got 10 Tories, and 10 Labour. They would be sigif more than the current lib dem party. So why no just merge all into one, have 32 MPs, which is a good base and go from there. Get a new leader from that group, re-brand, with a new name.
Policywise there would be very very little difference between whatver a new party would be and the current lib dems. Is it pride which would stop the lib dems signing up for that?
Objectively, you'd get some who would and some who wouldn't - the LibDems were quite controversial among the Liberals, which is why the Liberal splinter emerged. I think you'd find that some significant LibDems objected to one or more of the potential centrist defectors and you'd end up with two rival centrist parties, the New Moderates and the rump LibDems. That would get sorted out in the ensuing election as one would beat the other in most places, but it would be a drag on their chances of getting enough seats under FPTP to be a significant force thereafter.
I really do think the current climate needs PR - it's geared to two parties in an age when most people don't identify closely with either. But we aren't going to get it any time soon. The centrist calculation is therefore that either (a) their leadership will prove better than expected and will do enough good stuff to count as positive (Anna Soubry and JRM do agree on *some* things, as do John McDonnell and John Mann) or (b) it will get defeated and the opportunity will then arise to swing the pendulum back. These calculations may not be probable, but still a better bet than a new party.
We need PR now like we need a massive hole in the head.
FPTP is the only thing keeping English Nationalist, Freedom for Britain or god knows whatever else from getting seats.
And I speak as someone who had supported PR for years until recently.
Comments
The Basques and Catalans have strong national feelings. It's far better to give them a way of expressing themselves peacefully than it is to drive them to violence.
We now have privatised parking attendants.
'He has either never been to Umm Qasr or he's never been to Southampton. There's no beer, no prostitutes and people are shooting at us. It's more like Portsmouth.'
Thirty general elections takes us back to 1906, which the Liberal Party won with a majority of 129. Although Labour came from outside the top two parties they did this over more than one election, so in 1929 when Labour first won most seats this came after they had won the second most number of seats in the three preceding elections (1922, 1923 and 1924).
If UKIP were not in so much disarray you could conceive of a scenario where a perceived Brexit betrayal lead to them winning most seats in the next general election. Some sort of re-run of the SDP/Alliance in 1983 has to have some - albeit small - chance of success in the currently febrile political climate.
Polarising figures such as Anthony Blair or John Major - would they desert their parties?
Establishment figures such as Heseltine or Adonis
Media figures such as Dan Hodges or ??
If the old guard are allowed in the fresh new image is destroyed. Sorry, Uncle Vince, off you go to retire in Richmond.
I do have to admire your patience Sean.
Recently I read this article in LRB - https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n13/john-lanchester/after-the-fall Not sure if it has been flagged here, but, I think it is very interesting.
You can read by simply signing up, or, it seems you can actually listen to it without doing anything.
Essentially Lanchester argues that the financial crisis and the policy responses to it has led to a political crisis. He says:
"Electorates turned with special venom against parties offering what was in effect a milder version of the economic consensus: free-market capitalism with a softer edge. It’s as if the voters are saying to those parties: what actually are you for? It’s not a bad question and it’s one that everyone from the Labour Party to the SPD in Germany to the socialists in France to the Democrats in the US are all struggling to answer. It’s worth noticing another phenomenon too: electorates are turning to very young leaders – a 43-year-old in Canada, a 37-year-old in New Zealand, a 39-year-old in France, a 31-year-old in Austria. They have ideological differences, but they have in common that they were all in metaphorical nappies when the crisis and the Great Recession hit, so they definitely can’t be blamed. Both France and the US elected presidents who had never run for office before."
I am pretty sure that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is quite stable, but the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could slide off into the ocean relatively rapidly - it wouldn't have to melt to raise sea levels by 5-7m.
A taste of Brexit Britain under Comrade Corbyn.
The most successful 'new' parties, have fresh faces to go with them. Macron for example.
Who amongst us expects Trumpism to benefit the general population anything like as much as it will benefit and protect the wealth of the very rich?
https://news.sky.com/story/tour-de-france-halted-by-protest-as-riders-hit-by-with-pepper-spray-11447097
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44926447
It's probably no coincidence that rates of owner occupation began to decline in the same year, and that decline only ended in 2014.
What we thought was prosperity in 2003 - 2007, was simply inflation in house prices.
They’re about to redenominate (again) by a factor of 1,000, which should keep the wheelbarrows at bay for another year or so.
Nevertheless, it seems everyone uses the same terminology in still using Traffic Warden
You have to be at least as hot as Macron to be a member.
Let say, you got 10 Tories, and 10 Labour. They would be sigif more than the current lib dem party. So why no just merge all into one, have 32 MPs, which is a good base and go from there. Get a new leader from that group, re-brand, with a new name.
Policywise there would be very very little difference between whatver a new party would be and the current lib dems. Is it pride which would stop the lib dems signing up for that?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe-V8nxcBOI
It is very hard to see this being replicated today. Few of the potential rebel politicians (and indeed few politicians generally) command that level of respect, there is no obvious leader figure, and if they did launch a new party I doubt there would be a popular upswing in new members from people itching to campaign against Brexit who haven't for some reason already joined Labour or the LibDems; more likely they'll attract small numbers of existing activists from the larger parties whose views on Brexit/Corbyn have made any advancement where they are problematic.
*Grabs tinfoil hat and ducks, while cackling evilly...*
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jul/24/tour-de-france-protestors-peloton-farmers
Good.
van drivers would have managed the economy better
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-44936234
I agree with this. I always thought Mervyn King got away reasonably cleanly on all this. One of his early actions as Governor of the Bank of Englan was to do away with the small firms unit of the bank. And at events, I attended it seemed that all he cared about was house prices.
In mitigation, his job was to target inflation, not capital investment (or SME access to finance). But perhaps he was a touch parochial.
I really do think the current climate needs PR - it's geared to two parties in an age when most people don't identify closely with either. But we aren't going to get it any time soon. The centrist calculation is therefore that either (a) their leadership will prove better than expected and will do enough good stuff to count as positive (Anna Soubry and JRM do agree on *some* things, as do John McDonnell and John Mann) or (b) it will get defeated and the opportunity will then arise to swing the pendulum back. These calculations may not be probable, but still a better bet than a new party.
They don't actually spend a great deal of time at Scampton anyway. They depart to Akrotiri for pre-season training and to catch crabs in the spring and they are on the road for the summer.
do tell.
was it people straight off the unemployment register being placed in running the BoE monetary policy ? was it fork lift truck drivers managing hedge funds ?
putting well educated people in power is no guarantee of anything and never has been.
Heck, I almost sounded like a Tory there!
FPTP is the only thing keeping English Nationalist, Freedom for Britain or god knows whatever else from getting seats.
And I speak as someone who had supported PR for years until recently.