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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Midas touch. Living in a world of abundant knowledge
In the middle ages, Timbuktu was fabulously wealthy. It controlled the gold trade and it had all the riches that you would expect from that. Mansa Musa, the sultan, had a fortune that you couldn’t dream away, you couldn’t wish away.
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Corbyn is every bit as much of a populist as Trump. He just has a rather different type of populism. The left/right axis is more of a circle at times with the far right not being very much different to the far left and vice-versa.
Corbyn's populist far left appeal is little different to Trump's far right appeal. With the associations with antisemitism etc to boot too.
In the US it’s quite a significant one.
Problem is for such a cult, it can’t guarantee another left leader to replace him in a fresh leadership contest, so Corbyn must stay there like the praetorian guard lifting Claudius onto a throne to protect their own self interest.
So no, its not populism.
Remember, Trump was less popular than Hilary Clinton, but nobody denies he's a populist.
- National Minimum Wage
- The Low Pay Commission
- The Humans Right Act
- Tripled spending on the NHS
- 40k + new teachers
- 200k + new school support staff
- Scrapped Section 28
- Good Friday Agreement
- Decreased Homelessness 73%
- Stopped Milosevic
- Created the Winter Fuel Allowance
- Free eye tests for over 60s
- 16k+ more Police Officers
- Free prescriptions for cancer patients
- Removed nearly all hereditary peers from the legislature
- Paid annual leave increased to 28 days
- Increased child benefit by 28%
- Helped end the civil war in Sierra Leone
- Freedom of Information Act
- Free Bus passes for over 60s
- Devolution
- Heart Disease deaths reduced by 150k
- Cancer deaths reduced by 50K
- Reduced he number of people on waiting lists by over 500K
- Oversaw the rise in the number of school leavers with five good GCSEs from 45% to 76%
- Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75%
- Banned tobacco advertising in magazines, newspapers and billboards
- Free breast cancer screening
- Equalised age of consent
- Public Smoking Ban
- Wrote off 100% of the debt held by poorest countries
Bloody New Labour. F*cking useless them.A factor not mentioned is that the flood of information has made many people feel it's all too complicated. They were comfortable taking a view on, say, whether taxes should rise 2p to fund a better NHS. But something as multifaceted as Brexit defeats almost everyone. So they give up, and go for the simplest available options - either Revoke (hello, LibDems) or No Deal (hi, Nigel). People, from May to Corbyn, who attempt to introduce nuances and yes-buts are regarded with irritation.
We need to learn how to trust politicians to act competently in our interest. Otherwise we all lose out.
What's interesting is that if you take out the ones that are just about spending money, which they eventually ran out of like all socialists do, almost all the actual big ideas pretty much came in Blair's first term. If something had stopped Blair after his first term before Iraq he would be looked on as transformative.
The most fascinating political debate of modern times IMO was the 2017 presidential election debate between Marinne Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron. This wasn't an argument of small differences. It went to the core of what it means to be French. Declaring my view, I am entirely on the side of the Macron vision. He didn't have it all his own way however, not least because Macron almost willfully sets out to be a caricature of what Le Pen bangs on about. (In fact his background is less entitled than Le Pen's)
The key thing about raw materials is what you can do with them. Iron ore is not very useful until you realise that you can make iron out of it, and then the ore quickly becomes valuable. A couple of thousand years later steel gets invented and the values of iron ore jumps up again. I might just about be able to extract some Iron from the ore but I certainly couldn't make steel. If I find enough Iron ore it is best for me to sell it to someone who can make steel, or I could trade it with someone who can sell on to steel producer and so on. The iron ore traders make some money, but the pearson who really gets rich is the peron who makes ore into steel.
The true amount of data being stored has grown unbelievably fast in the last 15 years. 20 years ago I used to think that there were possibly more printed articles being produced than were actually read. Now it is clear that there is way too much data being created to be be anlaysed, even by all the AI machines. All this raw data is almost worthless unless you can find someone who can analyse it, and that requires people with *appropriate* skills (just like the doctors and the lawyers). This was why the combination of data collected by facebook and selling it to Cambridge Analytica was so powerful. The former had collected masses of data of the right type and CA had the skills to be able to analyse it. They were paid handsomely for their work.
In the professions mentioned in the main article, it is clear that Doctors and Lawyers have skills. Keeping up with retraining so that their skills remain apropriate is not easy, but it seems to me they are coping. Journalists also learn skills, through on the job training and years of experience. But the skills of a Journalist are rarely in (information) analysis but rather in writing well. Their skills are not in the right area to take advantage of this new influx of information.
Joe Public has just as much skill in interpreting this information as a journalist does.
I think the case with politicians is a bit different. Politicians clearly do have skills, but for some reason the skills which are being valued are changing from being policy based to presentational skills (think of the problems EdM had because his presentation skills were way lower than his policy skills). I'm not really sure this has much to do with lots of data being available, but much more to do with the increase in type and vareity of media outlets.
The problem is not difficult to exemplify. For example social care is an incomprehensible mess; there are schools which are not able to teach to the highest level both less able and the most able; prisons remain institutions dedicated to making bad people worse; drugs policy is beyond description; the police service is worse, and less available, than it was when we were a much less wealthy country; this rich country relies on poor countries to produce our medics in huge numbers. We can all make our own list.
One could sum it up in the example of the way Brexit has been handled.
I think that for the moment people have given up believing that there is any identifiable political leadership that has a proven track record of the sort of competence we expect. To expect it from the bodies which spend 40% + of our money is not unreasonable. Populism arises out of the failure of competence.
There are three stages:
1. Creating the data - the genetic analysis
2. Interpreting the data - the diagnosis (using AI)
3. Communicating the results
1 is commoditised and 2 is heading that way. All of the value is how you take that information and make it understandable and accessible
As an example, consider how tens of thousands bought the Stationary Office's Beveridge Report in 1940s, queuing in some cases.
Can you imagine any voter queuing now for detailed information on policy?
The facts speak for themselves. The Tories in 79 inherited a shambolic mess after the Winter of Discontent and in 97 bequeathed New Labour a golden legacy. Labour ran up the credit card, ran out of money and left office with a note saying "there is no more money" and a deficit of over 10% of GDP. The Tories now have nearly eliminated the deficit they inherited.
Every single Labour government has ran out of money. It is what they do.
WP has many skilled and conscientious editors, and where they (we!) have given an article close attention, it’s as comprehensive and readable source on a subject that you’ll come across. Sadly we’re talking a small minority of WP’s total offering, and there are all too many pages containing material that hasn’t had the same level of scrutiny.
The rise of the internet and social media also means politicians and journalists are no longer seen as oracles of ideology and policy and administration than they were in say the 1950s.
However in terms of winning elections it does not just mean charismatic populists of the extremes like Corbyn and Farage, Salvini and Tsipras, Trump and Bolsonaro and Lopez Obrador are the only winners. If a centrist leader has sufficient charisma and communication skills like say Macron or Trudeau, Cameron or Kurz they too can win but it was really the dawn of the TV rather than the internet which made charisma such a pivotal factor in winning elections from the 1960 Kennedy v Nixon debate on
From a purely vote gathering perspective it’s not clear they are wrong
In 1979, the Thatcherites inherited a mess which was, in their own explanations, caused by the failure of post-war corporatism and Keynesian economics. The mess was just as much Heath's fault as Labour's according to the likes of Keith Joseph.
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1147856803625164800
However tax cuts and spending rises under Boris trumps Corbyn's tax and spending rises
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1147853700217618432
That followed by May's 'I don't have a magic money tree' gaffe which went down like a lead balloon with any police and nurses I canvassed.
At least Cameron had the sweetener of Osborne's inheritance tax cut plans to sweeten his austerity
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-reaches-career-high-approval-faces-range-reelection/story?id=64117018
She squandered a 20 point lead. A relatively high polling (compared to election results rather than earlier polls) was because the Lib Dems were flat on their backs.
A slightly more picky point - I’m not sure that gold and silver from the New World caused inflation throughout Europe for centuries (there are wider issues at play such as increased urbanising and population increases from an artificially depressed base) although it did wholly destroy the Spanish economy in the medium term. Views vary (much like industrial revolution vs the more accurate though less exciting, industrial evolution).
Many Conservatives will allow tribal loyalty to defeat their better instincts. On a similar vein, a moderate loyalist I know in Northern Ireland explained to me that he arrives in the polling booth with the intention to vote Alliance, but he fears that a Sinn Fein voter won't reciprocate which means by the time he leaves he always votes DUP. Tribal Tories I fear will so the same.
If anti-Tories cannot arrange electoral pacts then we are done for, and with Corbyn blindfold in the driving seat thst will not happen.
Massive IQ after all, Donald Trump. Perhaps the smartest guy ever to be president. In fact strike those last three words. They are not needed.
Ashcroft's poll today shows a Boris led Tory Party would lead with Leavers but be 4th with Remainers, a Hunt led Tories would only be second with Leavers behind the Brexit Party but still 4th with Remainers even if a little higher with them than a Boris led Tory Party
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2019/07/voters-would-love-boris-round-for-dinner-but-even-his-biggest-fans-would-pick-hunt-to-babysit-their-children/#more-16028
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-reaches-career-high-approval-faces-range-reelection/story?id=64117018
forthcomingtakeover...He's currently flying from Newcastle, via the training ground, to what looks like London.
Please send psychiatric help.
The Tories could easily pick up 50 to 60 Labour marginal Leave seats under Boris even if they lose 10 to 20 Tory marginal Remain seats to the LDs that is still a net gain of 40.
Even if they lost 10 to the SNP too in Scottish Remain seats still a net gain of 30 making 348 Tory seats with only 326 needed for a majority
What we have is the twatterisation of politics.
For generations, politicians have presented themselves as experts: “the man in Whitehall knows best”. Now he doesn’t. Anyone who is interested can bury themselves in reliable official statistics, public reports (and those of thinktanks) and review comparative studies from other countries.
I will suggest that its those people who are sceptical of whatever the prevailing orthodoxies are who are more likely to do their own research.
Perhaps PB should have a special day when we all have to provide some unexpected fact with differs from common knowledge or the official line.
I'm sure it would open many of our minds a little bit more.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/07/rory-stewart-outlines-alternative-parliament-to-stop-no-deal-brexit
IIRC (memory of IFS stats) the top decline was badly hit, the second decile moderately badly hit, 3-9 about even, decile 10 slightly hit.