Yesterday I posted that I would like to see a better account of the relationship of Britain and the EU in respect of the fishing industry. Later that day I read what appeared to be one in the Guardian; the editorial: 'The Guardian view on Brexit’s fishy tale: we will need friends at sea' and wondered. If the position IS as discussed there it's going to be quite a circle to square to keep all our fishermen happy and meet our international obligations.
The fishermen will get totally shafted. Just as they did in the 70s.
It would be highly impolitic to shaft the fishermen, so it won't happen.
Except that it’s a tiny industry, employing fewer people than Harrods, our position in the negotiations generally is going to be weak with a longer wishlist than has the EU including some services issues that are critical to the economy, and with the market for our domestic catch being mostly the EU. Access to our waters is likely to be an EU red line and it is hard to see any outcome that our fisherfolk will like.
It's a tiny industry because of the EU. I am sure the EU will negotiate strongly on it, as they will on everything. The UK needs to do the same.
It’s a tiny industry because, were it a big industry, there wouldn’t be any fish.
It's a tiny industry because our waters are being fished by overseas fishing fleets. Many of which are selling these fish back to the UK to be processed at our own facilities. I have nothing against Spanish and Portuguese fishermen (people?) and their efforts to grow and prosper, but this situation is an anachronism and can and will be fixed.
Problem being that the market for the mackerel and herring mostly caught in our waters is inside the EU, our consumers mostly wanting cod, haddock and plaice from outside.
Plus big prawns and tuna in even greater quantities, I believe. Also imported. 66% of our fish goes to the EU and ~10% to RoW. Only 25% stays in the UK.
An interesting point. The question after Brexit would be akin to the “what sort of peace?” that saw Churchill defeated in 1945. The LibDems must take a lot of ordure for calling the election before Brexit was decided one way or the other.
Yes, I know you are one but that did not work for the LDs. They shot for the stars (beating Labour for 2nd place) and ended up hitting their own big toe.
It is arguable that Abba are the greatest pop group of all time, even above the Beatles, provided you ignore the wider context and just consider their pop records.
ABBA are the greatest pop group of all time. You don't have to ignore the wider context. They could make a catchy song out of a shopping list. Sometimes I wonder if they actually did.
Lol, did you actually say ABBA were greater than the Beatles? I mean, I've seen some real shit in here before including stuff about pineapple on pizza and a lot of odd stuff about Radiohead but this takes the biscuit.
Indeed. The Beatles understood how music works, at a much deeper level than is immediately apparent from their hits. ABBA perfected populist pop and marketing their brand, but judged as pure music they aren’t even in the league.
The Beatles had two world class members and one international class; they were pioneers both in music and the music industry at more than one time. All that said, and this is what I meant by ignoring context, if you listen to their pop singles and judge solely on that basis, it can be argued that Abba had a better set. Once you allow back in those other factors then of course the Beatles are far superior and possibly also to every other band.
Boris positivity theory is overplayed. He won campaigning against the EU and against Corbyn, but not for anything in the strict sense.
I don't think that is quite right. The brilliance of the campaign was that Brexit was an assumption - "get it done" was not campaigning *against* the EU; the message was that the whole wearisome argument was over and the Government was now just going to get on with it. The LDs struggled in part because they had a negative message ("against Brexit") with no positive alternative ("the damaged status quo and continued arguments" being unattractive at toxic levels). Labour had a manifesto so positive that no-one really believed it, and Corbyn and his leadership team meant lots stuck with Nanny for fear of worse.
I don't think this is a complex situation to analyse, but the route out for the opposition requires a moment of inspiration that will seem obvious in retrospect but is unguessable right now.
I mean negative in the sense that he has no spiritual mandate to do anything in particular, but lots of spiritual mandates not do to things like being in the EU, Marxism, anti-Semitism. Obviously, oppositional actions are in some sense positive, but look at it this way and what I mean might be clearer: "get Brexit done" is not actually a positive mandate for any particular route out of the EU! It's what they used to call a doctor's mandate: "Do whatever is required to achieve X". Yet the details are sometimes repugnant even to the voters who told you to do X (e.g. leave EU but keep trading), because they didn't mean THAT kind of whatever (e.g. chlorinated chicken).
I mean negative in the sense that he has no spiritual mandate to do anything in particular, but lots of spiritual mandates not do to things like being in the EU, Marxism, anti-Semitism. Obviously, oppositional actions are in some sense positive, but look at it this way and what I mean might be clearer: "get Brexit done" is not actually a positive mandate for any particular route out of the EU! It's what they used to call a doctor's mandate: "Do whatever is required to achieve X". Yet the details are sometimes repugnant even to the voters who told you to do X (e.g. leave EU but keep trading), because they didn't mean THAT kind of whatever (e.g. chlorinated chicken).
I suspect that in his own head the mandate he thinks he has is to continue being "Boris".
Yesterday I posted that I would like to see a better account of the relationship of Britain and the EU in respect of the fishing industry. Later that day I read what appeared to be one in the Guardian; the editorial: 'The Guardian view on Brexit’s fishy tale: we will need friends at sea' and wondered. If the position IS as discussed there it's going to be quite a circle to square to keep all our fishermen happy and meet our international obligations.
The fishermen will get totally shafted. Just as they did in the 70s.
It would be highly impolitic to shaft the fishermen, so it won't happen.
Except that it’s a tiny industry, employing fewer people than Harrods, our position in the negotiations generally is going to be weak with a longer wishlist than has the EU including some services issues that are critical to the economy, and with the market for our domestic catch being mostly the EU. Access to our waters is likely to be an EU red line and it is hard to see any outcome that our fisherfolk will like.
It's a tiny industry because of the EU. I am sure the EU will negotiate strongly on it, as they will on everything. The UK needs to do the same.
It’s a tiny industry because, were it a big industry, there wouldn’t be any fish.
It's a tiny industry because our waters are being fished by overseas fishing fleets. Many of which are selling these fish back to the UK to be processed at our own facilities. I have nothing against Spanish and Portuguese fishermen (people?) and their efforts to grow and prosper, but this situation is an anachronism and can and will be fixed.
If the Spanish and Portuguese bought those fishing rights legally it's not an anachronism. It's a business deal that we would be breaking.
All the stuff about putting division behind us in 2020 looks laughable to me. Brexit will be hugely divisive this year, as people move on to fighting about the future UK-EU relationship, but the 2020 presidential election will overshadow it, and I think will be far more rancourous than even 2016 was.
Yesterday I posted that I would like to see a better account of the relationship of Britain and the EU in respect of the fishing industry. Later that day I read what appeared to be one in the Guardian; the editorial: 'The Guardian view on Brexit’s fishy tale: we will need friends at sea' and wondered. If the position IS as discussed there it's going to be quite a circle to square to keep all our fishermen happy and meet our international obligations.
The fishermen will get totally shafted. Just as they did in the 70s.
Access to UK fishing waters is something the other side wants, which gives the UK leverage and a rare high card in an otherwise weak negotiating hand. The UK should be able to convert that to a comparatively high level of access to EU markets. (To be clear, relative to No Deal; not relative to the status quo).
But high cards only have value if you play them.
Which is a long-winded way of saying the fishermen will get totally shafted.
Having been wrong about everything the Tories have negotiated since Boris came in, you might think people would be a tad more circumspect.
Not wrong about everything, by any means. However, given it's New Year, now is a good time to revise my central expectation since Spring 2017 that the UK government would go through a set of EU staged concessions leading to a close satellite relationship with the EU. The reason for thinking the UK government would do this, is that a line by line FTA would take too long, would be too difficult and would be far too damaging, relative to the status quo.
However the Johnson government doesn't look it's going down that route. If so there will be a humongous crisis this year. Damaging consequences don't go away simply because you go ahead and do something. Any deal by end 2020 will be minimal and partial and will come with EU conditions that the Johnson government may not be willing to pay.
Worth spending the hour of informed argument here, even if I don't always agree with Ivan Rogers
All the stuff about putting division behind us in 2020 looks laughable to me. Brexit will be hugely divisive this year, as people move on to fighting about the future UK-EU relationship, but the 2020 presidential election will overshadow it, and I think will be far more rancourous than even 2016 was.
I mean negative in the sense that he has no spiritual mandate to do anything in particular, but lots of spiritual mandates not do to things like being in the EU, Marxism, anti-Semitism. Obviously, oppositional actions are in some sense positive, but look at it this way and what I mean might be clearer: "get Brexit done" is not actually a positive mandate for any particular route out of the EU! It's what they used to call a doctor's mandate: "Do whatever is required to achieve X". Yet the details are sometimes repugnant even to the voters who told you to do X (e.g. leave EU but keep trading), because they didn't mean THAT kind of whatever (e.g. chlorinated chicken).
I suspect that in his own head the mandate he thinks he has is to continue being "Boris".
And, sadly, he may be right.
Sure, he might be. That's fine as long as his goal is no-change to British society, and not full Cummings radical state and foreign policy restructuring (needs a catchier name!). Like, imagine if the government incites a teachers' strike or agrees to NHS privatisations to get closer to the US government. I don't think people would say "this is the price we chose to pay for Brexit", I think they would say "this is not what I meant by get Brexit done!"
All the stuff about putting division behind us in 2020 looks laughable to me. Brexit will be hugely divisive this year, as people move on to fighting about the future UK-EU relationship, but the 2020 presidential election will overshadow it, and I think will be far more rancourous than even 2016 was.
All the stuff about putting division behind us in 2020 looks laughable to me.
Well of course, and no one even means it. People were talking about uniting even before Brexit ended phase 1, even though the country was facing diametrically opposed options. It's a completely meaningless phrase.
In today's whole thread about Boris being the no-change-to-Britain candidate advised by radical Atlanticists, I'm making the implicit assumption that he can't win the next election by taking the third route of bringing prosperity to the new Conservative areas in the North, to seal the deal with constituencies won over by the negative message on the EU. This might be a wrong assumption, but it is really hard to imagine. America is usually a world leader in these trends, and their low-productivity areas aren't catching up, even though they have had a friendly administration for the last three years. It seems really hard to get high-productivity workers or employers to move to low-productivity areas (moving to slightly less high-productivity areas seems much more common).
Yes that is the million euro question. Johnson the radical or Johnson the non ideological personal brand seeking only popular approval and affection? My hunch is the latter.
All the stuff about putting division behind us in 2020 looks laughable to me.
Well of course, and no one even means it. People were talking about uniting even before Brexit ended phase 1, even though the country was facing diametrically opposed options. It's a completely meaningless phrase.
It is laughable though, as the divisive issues haven't gone away, and if anything will be more urgent or important this year than last. Besides that, unless we are planning on shutting down social media for good I think we can forget any sort of return to polite consensus politics, polarisation is the future.
All the stuff about putting division behind us in 2020 looks laughable to me.
Well of course, and no one even means it. People were talking about uniting even before Brexit ended phase 1, even though the country was facing diametrically opposed options. It's a completely meaningless phrase.
'Where there is Discord may we bring Harmony' - she didn't mean it either.
All the stuff about putting division behind us in 2020 looks laughable to me. Brexit will be hugely divisive this year, as people move on to fighting about the future UK-EU relationship, but the 2020 presidential election will overshadow it, and I think will be far more rancourous than even 2016 was.
All the stuff about putting division behind us in 2020 looks laughable to me.
Well of course, and no one even means it. People were talking about uniting even before Brexit ended phase 1, even though the country was facing diametrically opposed options. It's a completely meaningless phrase.
'Where there is Discord may we bring Harmony' - she didn't mean it either.
Sure, but its a little more elegant a turn of phrase at least.
No he moved the window miles to the Left but unfortunately was then unable to clamber through it.
Perhaps he should have attempted to open it before seeking to dive through the glass rather than just assume the public had opened it for him because he is so great?
By floating VERY radical policies he has brought what used to be thought QUITE radical into the mainstream of debate.
Not really. A gap opened up in the political space: a lot of socially-conservative fiscally-liberal people did not feel themselves represented (see Goodwin and others). There was a gap waiting to be filled. The only people trying to fill this gap were Boris/Cummings or Farage. Once Farage went, Boris had the field to himself, filled the gap, and got a solid majority. Corbyn was entirely irrelevant to this process.
Flatter him as you wish, but Corbyn was at best irrelevant and at worst actively harmful to the Labour Party. He should never have been leader.
For example, publicly owned broadband free at PoD makes public ownership of, say, water look quite tame.
And I think there is now less acceptance of the "private is always best" sentiment which has been the prevailing common wisdom for the best part of 40 years.
For example, publicly owned broadband free at PoD makes public ownership of, say, water look quite tame.
And I think there is now less acceptance of the "private is always best" sentiment which has been the prevailing common wisdom for the best part of 40 years.
Perhaps he should have attempted to open it before seeking to dive through the glass rather than just assume the public had opened it for him because he is so great?
You have to move it first, then climb through it. It's the second part that may prove impossible. And if it does, well unfortunately that means that moving it was a waste of time. The next election will provide the answer.
By floating VERY radical policies he has brought what used to be thought QUITE radical into the mainstream of debate.
Not really. A gap opened up in the political space: a lot of socially-conservative fiscally-liberal people did not feel themselves represented (see Goodwin and others). There was a gap waiting to be filled. The only people trying to fill this gap were Boris/Cummings or Farage. Once Farage went, Boris had the field to himself, filled the gap, and got a solid majority. Corbyn was entirely irrelevant to this process.
Flatter him as you wish, but Corbyn was at best irrelevant and at worst actively harmful to the Labour Party. He should never have been leader.
Corbyn led to two things: Firstly, it meant many Right Wing Remainers stuck with the Conservatives over going LibDem. Simply, while they didn't want to leave the EU, they wanted Corbyn as PM even less. Secondly, Corbyn made it hard for LibDems to tactically vote Labour.
Now, these factors would probably not have led to Yvette Cooper (say) beating BJ. But they would probably have led to him getting a 15 or 20 seat majority, not an 80 seat one.
For example, publicly owned broadband free at PoD makes public ownership of, say, water look quite tame.
And I think there is now less acceptance of the "private is always best" sentiment which has been the prevailing common wisdom for the best part of 40 years.
Is that because many of today's voters never had to endure experience British Rail or the old BT?
All the stuff about putting division behind us in 2020 looks laughable to me. Brexit will be hugely divisive this year, as people move on to fighting about the future UK-EU relationship, but the 2020 presidential election will overshadow it, and I think will be far more rancourous than even 2016 was.
I feel that straight banana stories will be circulated.
The problem we will have in 2020 is that:
- The EU is going to announce forced choices for the UK by tying things that don't necessarily need to be linked (e.g. professional qualification recognition and free movement) in it's own interest - Remainers are going to embrace the EU forced choices as being "reality" that the Leavers have to face and why we need a super soft Brexit - Remainers are going to try to maximize embarrassment for Boris by making his unrealistic commitment to leave the transition by end of year as big as possible - Faced with these political constraints, Boris is going to have to accept the hard choices, but will deal with them by making the hard choices that Remainers don't want: an even harder Brexit and leaving with a bare bones deal, while dressing it up as something great - The necessary Conservative coalition will swallow this, be angry at Remainers continuing to argue for the EU, and feel Boris is still on their side, with any economic damage blamed on wider global slowdowns
We will end up with nobody getting what they need. Leavers will have a shitty Brexit that makes us poorer. Remainers will face the Tories not taking the damage they expected them to take from a shitty Brexit and with even more distance from the EU and returning to power than ever.
By floating VERY radical policies he has brought what used to be thought QUITE radical into the mainstream of debate.
Not really. A gap opened up in the political space: a lot of socially-conservative fiscally-liberal people did not feel themselves represented (see Goodwin and others). There was a gap waiting to be filled. The only people trying to fill this gap were Boris/Cummings or Farage. Once Farage went, Boris had the field to himself, filled the gap, and got a solid majority. Corbyn was entirely irrelevant to this process.
Flatter him as you wish, but Corbyn was at best irrelevant and at worst actively harmful to the Labour Party. He should never have been leader.
Corbyn led to two things: Firstly, it meant many Right Wing Remainers stuck with the Conservatives over going LibDem. Simply, while they didn't want to leave the EU, they wanted Corbyn as PM even less. Secondly, Corbyn made it hard for LibDems to tactically vote Labour.
Now, these factors would probably not have led to Yvette Cooper (say) beating BJ. But they would probably have led to him getting a 15 or 20 seat majority, not an 80 seat one.
Not really. A gap opened up in the political space: a lot of socially-conservative fiscally-liberal people did not feel themselves represented (see Goodwin and others). There was a gap waiting to be filled. The only people trying to fill this gap were Boris/Cummings or Farage. Once Farage went, Boris had the field to himself, filled the gap, and got a solid majority. Corbyn was entirely irrelevant to this process.
Flatter him as you wish, but Corbyn was at best irrelevant and at worst actively harmful to the Labour Party. He should never have been leader.
I agree with you that Johnson won the election far more than Corbyn lost it. He was leader because the membership wanted him to be. Would a different leader have won in 2017 or 2019? - I do not think so. But it's over now. I doubt we will see a continuation of Corbynism without Corbyn.
Corbyn led to two things: Firstly, it meant many Right Wing Remainers stuck with the Conservatives over going LibDem. Simply, while they didn't want to leave the EU, they wanted Corbyn as PM even less. Secondly, Corbyn made it hard for LibDems to tactically vote Labour.
Now, these factors would probably not have led to Yvette Cooper (say) beating BJ. But they would probably have led to him getting a 15 or 20 seat majority, not an 80 seat one.
Agreed. I think a 30 seat Con majority was Labour's absolute best outcome in this election under any leader.
- The EU is going to announce forced choices for the UK by tying things that don't necessarily need to be linked (e.g. professional qualification recognition and free movement) in it's own interest - Remainers are going to embrace the EU forced choices as being "reality" that the Leavers have to face and why we need a super soft Brexit - Remainers are going to try to maximize embarrassment for Boris by making his unrealistic commitment to leave the transition by end of year as big as possible - Faced with these political constraints, Boris is going to have to accept the hard choices, but will deal with them by making the hard choices that Remainers don't want: an even harder Brexit and leaving with a bare bones deal, while dressing it up as something great - The necessary Conservative coalition will swallow this, be angry at Remainers continuing to argue for the EU, and feel Boris is still on their side, with any economic damage blamed on wider global slowdowns
We will end up with nobody getting what they need. Leavers will have a shitty Brexit that makes us poorer. Remainers will face the Tories not taking the damage they expected them to take from a shitty Brexit and with even more distance from the EU and returning to power than ever.
The EU is not in favour of Freedom of Movement because of some deep intellectual belief in efficient labour markets. It's in favour because it believes that a pan-EU polity or demos requires that people work in different EU countries, and spend time with people from different EU countries. It is a recognition that unless your colleague being from Krakow is no more unusual than him being from Kensington, then you will not be able to build up a feeling of European-ness.
With us gone (permanently), the desire for us to have FoM (which, by the way, the EU can't grant to a third party state anyway, because that's not in the EU's Treaties) disappears.
Perhaps he should have attempted to open it before seeking to dive through the glass rather than just assume the public had opened it for him because he is so great?
You have to move it first, then climb through it. It's the second part that may prove impossible. And if it does, well unfortunately that means that moving it was a waste of time. The next election will provide the answer.
My point was he lazily assumed he would be bodily carried through it after moving it because of his arrogant self belief in his own moral greatness. I'd say that was a harsh view, but all his communications since that day have backed up that not only thinks his arguments are right - of course he does, any politician would think the arguments they believe in are right - but that the public agree with him, even though most do not. I've always thought Corbyn's polite, thoughtful mannerisms were a strength even though I found his certainty offputting, but it is being exposed as narcissism - he's polite and mild mannered because he knows he is right, no matter what, so why argue. He doesn't listen, he talks about listening but doesn't hear people because even if the public don't support him he acts like they do. Boris is a charlatan, but at least he listens enough to recognise what people want him to masquerade as! Corbyn thinks he knows others' minds better than they do.
For example, publicly owned broadband free at PoD makes public ownership of, say, water look quite tame.
And I think there is now less acceptance of the "private is always best" sentiment which has been the prevailing common wisdom for the best part of 40 years.
No, those arguments about monopoly services being under private provision have been happening for ages. Even on the right there is no settled view, loads of people fall on the side of monopoly services being publicly owned.
On topic, the phrase "one-party state" is usually used for countries like Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. From that point of view, we're clearly not there.
But even comparisons to the Swedish Social Democrats or the Japanese Liberal Democrats or the ANC in South Africa are far from the mark. The Conservatives had a very favourable conjunction of events to win in December:
- a poor Opposition - good tactics - an economy that had grown for a decade - ruthlessly ditching inconvenient allies, like the DUP - lesser opposition parties that played into their hands - a charismatic, optimistic leader.
Had May been forced to call an election after we failed to leave in March, the situation could have been completely different.
The Conservative Party is an extraordinarily successful political machine. Politics professors like to point out the apparent paradox that the age of mass democracy in the UK has also been the era of Tory dominance. But they certainly can't take future victories for granted.
My point was he lazily assumed he would be bodily carried through it after moving it because of his arrogant self belief in his own moral greatness. I'd say that was a harsh view, but all his communications since that day have backed up that not only thinks his arguments are right - of course he does, any politician would think the arguments they believe in are right - but that the public agree with him, even though most do not. I've always thought Corbyn's polite, thoughtful mannerisms were a strength even though I found his certainty offputting, but it is being exposed as narcissism - he's polite and mild mannered because he knows he is right, no matter what, so why argue. He doesn't listen, he talks about listening but doesn't hear people because even if the public don't support him he acts like they do. Boris is a charlatan, but at least he listens enough to recognise what people want him to masquerade as! Corbyn thinks he knows others' minds better than they do.
I don't think he truly wanted to be PM. There was a touch of the Chauncey Gardiners about him.
- The EU is going to announce forced choices for the UK by tying things that don't necessarily need to be linked (e.g. professional qualification recognition and free movement) in it's own interest - Remainers are going to embrace the EU forced choices as being "reality" that the Leavers have to face and why we need a super soft Brexit - Remainers are going to try to maximize embarrassment for Boris by making his unrealistic commitment to leave the transition by end of year as big as possible - Faced with these political constraints, Boris is going to have to accept the hard choices, but will deal with them by making the hard choices that Remainers don't want: an even harder Brexit and leaving with a bare bones deal, while dressing it up as something great - The necessary Conservative coalition will swallow this, be angry at Remainers continuing to argue for the EU, and feel Boris is still on their side, with any economic damage blamed on wider global slowdowns
We will end up with nobody getting what they need. Leavers will have a shitty Brexit that makes us poorer. Remainers will face the Tories not taking the damage they expected them to take from a shitty Brexit and with even more distance from the EU and returning to power than ever.
The EU is not in favour of Freedom of Movement because of some deep intellectual belief in efficient labour markets. It's in favour because it believes that a pan-EU polity or demos requires that people work in different EU countries, and spend time with people from different EU countries. It is a recognition that unless your colleague being from Krakow is no more unusual than him being from Kensington, then you will not be able to build up a feeling of European-ness.
With us gone (permanently), the desire for us to have FoM (which, by the way, the EU can't grant to a third party state anyway, because that's not in the EU's Treaties) disappears.
Upto a point. The FoM requirement for EEA is different and less than that for EU members. The EEA requirement relates to movement of labour and is market driven. The point is slightly obscured by the fact that all EEA countries are in Schengen.
For example, publicly owned broadband free at PoD makes public ownership of, say, water look quite tame.
And I think there is now less acceptance of the "private is always best" sentiment which has been the prevailing common wisdom for the best part of 40 years.
It does, agreed. But that doesn’t mean either has been accepted. Merely because some of his ideas were considered nuttier than others doesn’t mean the less nutty ones are not still considered nutty.
The Conservatives are not talking about renationalising rail or water, partly because it’s now associated with Corbynism. That, in fact, is an issue because both should be renationalised and probably will need to be renationalised sooner rather than later. But neither form part of mainstream political discourse.
And - newsflash - most people agree with that in the areas where I have lived, which used to be Labour heartlands. Corbyn has failed utterly to cut through even with people who should be his supporters.
Ironically, given John McDonnell's desire to lock Tories up, the UK might have been a one-party state in the Soviet or Chinese sense had Labour won. As he said, "They [the Tories] are social criminals and one day, I warn you, we will try them."
No, those arguments about monopoly services being under private provision have been happening for ages. Even on the right there is no settled view, loads of people fall on the side of monopoly services being publicly owned.
But the notion never appeared in a major party's manifesto until Corbyn. The most anybody would ever risk contemplating was a teeny bit of price fixing. Whereas now I think that any future Labour manifesto without it will look a little odd. I would not be surprised to see the LDs embrace it too, at least to some extent. Maybe even our "Boris".
It does, agreed. But that doesn’t mean either has been accepted. Merely because some of his ideas were considered nuttier than others doesn’t mean the less nutty ones are not still considered nutty.
The Conservatives are not talking about renationalising rail or water, partly because it’s now associated with Corbynism. That, in fact, is an issue because both should be renationalised and probably will need to be renationalised sooner rather than later. But neither form part of mainstream political discourse.
And - newsflash - most people agree with that in the areas where I have lived, which used to be Labour heartlands. Corbyn has failed utterly to cut through even with people who should be his supporters.
Yes, many people agreed with many of the key policies but at the same time did not like or trust the man proposing them. We're saying the same thing in different ways.
Now it’s delivery time. He cannot keep all the promises he has made. His fate will rest on the ones he decides to break. And how he responds to events beyond his control.
That's not how politics works now. Whatever happens we'll be told, through a barrage of shitposts, that he never made the promise or that it doesn't matter or have a look at this meme instead.
No, those arguments about monopoly services being under private provision have been happening for ages. Even on the right there is no settled view, loads of people fall on the side of monopoly services being publicly owned.
But the notion never appeared in a major party's manifesto until Corbyn. The most anybody would ever risk contemplating was a teeny bit of price fixing. Whereas now I think that any future Labour manifesto without it will look a little odd. I would not be surprised to see the LDs embrace it too, at least to some extent. Maybe even our "Boris".
It wasn’t word for word in their manifesto, but Labour in 1996 committed to ‘a publicly owned, publicly accountable railway’ and in their 1997 manifesto committed to running railways into the public interest’ through the ORR. They later went further of course by renationalising Railtrack. (It’s worth pointing out this is more than Corbyn would ever have achieved, because they were in government at the time and he never came close.)
So again, I’m not quite sure why you think this policy is a dramatic break from the past.
It does, agreed. But that doesn’t mean either has been accepted. Merely because some of his ideas were considered nuttier than others doesn’t mean the less nutty ones are not still considered nutty.
The Conservatives are not talking about renationalising rail or water, partly because it’s now associated with Corbynism. That, in fact, is an issue because both should be renationalised and probably will need to be renationalised sooner rather than later. But neither form part of mainstream political discourse.
And - newsflash - most people agree with that in the areas where I have lived, which used to be Labour heartlands. Corbyn has failed utterly to cut through even with people who should be his supporters.
Yes, many people agreed with many of the key policies but at the same time did not like or trust the man proposing them. We're saying the same thing in different ways.
No, I am saying the exact opposite. I am saying that because these policies were put forward by a man so transparently useless, people have turned against them even where they were actually sensible. Which means, again the OW has shifted right not left.
All the stuff about putting division behind us in 2020 looks laughable to me.
Well of course, and no one even means it. People were talking about uniting even before Brexit ended phase 1, even though the country was facing diametrically opposed options. It's a completely meaningless phrase.
'Where there is Discord may we bring Harmony' - she didn't mean it either.
Sure, but its a little more elegant a turn of phrase at least.
It wasn’t word for word in their manifesto, but Labour in 1996 committed to ‘a publicly owned, publicly accountable railway’ and in their 1997 manifesto committed to running railways into the public interest’ through the ORR. They later went further of course by renationalising Railtrack. (It’s worth pointing out this is more than Corbyn would ever have achieved, because they were in government at the time and he never came close.)
So again, I’m not quite sure why you think this policy is a dramatic break from the past.
That is going back a long way and only relates to rail. The Corbyn manifestos majored on public ownership of several sectors. It WAS a dramatic break from the past. Look, I'm not saying they "won the argument" - that is self consoling nonsense - but it's undeniable that they embraced radical policies that previously were considered beyond the pale. These are out of the box now and IMO will not be going back there anytime soon.
It wasn’t word for word in their manifesto, but Labour in 1996 committed to ‘a publicly owned, publicly accountable railway’ and in their 1997 manifesto committed to running railways into the public interest’ through the ORR. They later went further of course by renationalising Railtrack. (It’s worth pointing out this is more than Corbyn would ever have achieved, because they were in government at the time and he never came close.)
So again, I’m not quite sure why you think this policy is a dramatic break from the past.
That is going back a long way and only relates to rail. The Corbyn manifestos majored on public ownership of several sectors. It WAS a dramatic break from the past. Look, I'm not saying they "won the argument" - that is self consoling nonsense - but it's undeniable that they embraced radical policies that previously were considered beyond the pale. These are out of the box now and IMO will not be going back there anytime soon.
Are they? I could see plenty of future leaders going with rail and no further.
No, I am saying the exact opposite. I am saying that because these policies were put forward by a man so transparently useless, people have turned against them even where they were actually sensible. Which means, again the OW has shifted right not left.
Take an example. Public ownership of water.
Is this more or less likely now - having been proposed in a GE and rejected - than it was in 2015 when it was thought unacceptable to even propose?
No, I am saying the exact opposite. I am saying that because these policies were put forward by a man so transparently useless, people have turned against them even where they were actually sensible. Which means, again the OW has shifted right not left.
Take an example. Public ownership of water.
Is this more or less likely now - having been proposed in a GE and rejected - than it was in 2015 when it was thought unacceptable to even propose?
More, I say. More.
And yet you say wrong. It is much less likely. Because it is associated with Corbyn, and Corbyn is discredited,
That doesn’t mean it would be a bad idea. But it won’t happen until a water company goes bust.
All the stuff about putting division behind us in 2020 looks laughable to me. Brexit will be hugely divisive this year, as people move on to fighting about the future UK-EU relationship, but the 2020 presidential election will overshadow it, and I think will be far more rancourous than even 2016 was.
I feel that straight banana stories will be circulated.
The problem we will have in 2020 is that:
- The EU is going to announce forced choices for the UK by tying things that don't necessarily need to be linked (e.g. professional qualification recognition and free movement) in it's own interest - Remainers are going to embrace the EU forced choices as being "reality" that the Leavers have to face and why we need a super soft Brexit - Remainers are going to try to maximize embarrassment for Boris by making his unrealistic commitment to leave the transition by end of year as big as possible - Faced with these political constraints, Boris is going to have to accept the hard choices, but will deal with them by making the hard choices that Remainers don't want: an even harder Brexit and leaving with a bare bones deal, while dressing it up as something great - The necessary Conservative coalition will swallow this, be angry at Remainers continuing to argue for the EU, and feel Boris is still on their side, with any economic damage blamed on wider global slowdowns
We will end up with nobody getting what they need. Leavers will have a shitty Brexit that makes us poorer. Remainers will face the Tories not taking the damage they expected them to take from a shitty Brexit and with even more distance from the EU and returning to power than ever.
I would substitute "Realists" (people who are keen to keep their jobs etc) for "Remainers", who are surely out of the picture now? But this is a likely outcome IMO.
Yesterday I posted that I would like to see a better account of the relationship of Britain and the EU in respect of the fishing industry. Later that day I read what appeared to be one in the Guardian; the editorial: 'The Guardian view on Brexit’s fishy tale: we will need friends at sea' and wondered. If the position IS as discussed there it's going to be quite a circle to square to keep all our fishermen happy and meet our international obligations.
The fishermen will get totally shafted. Just as they did in the 70s.
Access to UK fishing waters is something the other side wants, which gives the UK leverage and a rare high card in an otherwise weak negotiating hand. The UK should be able to convert that to a comparatively high level of access to EU markets. (To be clear, relative to No Deal; not relative to the status quo).
But high cards only have value if you play them.
Which is a long-winded way of saying the fishermen will get totally shafted.
The issue with the fishing is what to do with the fish once they are caught. That will need some access to the EU market - where do you think the smaller seafood, prawns et al we eat in France and Spain come from ? There will have to be some sort of a deal to some degree. Also apparently a lot of the quota has become concentrated in very few hands, not all of it meaningfully UK based.
Meanwhile we don't really want our waters to be fished much at all for genuine conservation reasons. I suspect we will deal more brutally than expected with non-UK resident quota holders. I suspect we will care less about access to the lucrative France / Spain market prawn / mussels market, but be prepared to give concessions to gain strong access to the northern European market for Herring etc. Nor should we overlook the farmed salmon industry.
I guess the REAL fishermen will be offered more quota than they are expecting, but not everything their hearts could desire - that gives some scope to present any deal however good as a complete capitulation, so there must be some hope for the naysayers above.
The apparent perversity will be that once the quota is reassigned the new owners will then be paid apparently enormous sums either not to use it all or else to resign it back to the government. That will confuse and will be easy to object to, but as a conservation measure it will be much better than fake marine national parks.
And yet you say wrong. It is much less likely. Because it is associated with Corbyn, and Corbyn is discredited,
That doesn’t mean it would be a bad idea. But it won’t happen until a water company goes bust.
Implication there is that Labour should not propose radical Left policies unless and until they have a Leader who is not from the radical Left and thus will not in practice propose such policies.
Let me give you another example. Who thinks this policy would be sensible as a way of making sure religion is part of the private sphere:
1) The closure of political parties associated with churches;
2) Priests forbidden to preach on political topics;
3) The closure of church schools and the taking of education entirely under the control of the state;
4) The closure of church youth groups.
I’m betting many people think that’s sensible and even desirable.
Until I tell you those were the religious policies of the Nazi party - then suddenly you’re not quite so sure.
Now Corbyn, even at his worst, was nothing like Hitler, obviously. But the fact is he taints many otherwise reasonable ideas by association, to the extent that he has made them less likely. By associating public ownership of water (which would be the right course of action) with public ownership of and free provision of broadband (which nobody sane thinks would be anything other than a disaster) he is making the former less likely.
Edit - The Tories has the same problem in the early 2000s. Many of the policies they put forward were enormously popular, and some were very sensible, but support for them dropped off a cliff when people realised they were Tory policies.
And yet you say wrong. It is much less likely. Because it is associated with Corbyn, and Corbyn is discredited,
That doesn’t mean it would be a bad idea. But it won’t happen until a water company goes bust.
Implication there is that Labour should not propose radical Left policies unless and until they have a Leader who is not from the radical Left and thus will not in practice propose such policies.
Read any Joseph Heller?
Well, no. The reason they shouldn’t propose any radical left policies because they almost always turn out to be disastrous failures in practice that leave people worse off.
Nationalisation of natural monopolies however isn’t a radical left policy. It was first proposed by the government of Robert Peel in 1845.
It becomes harder to explain this to people when they associate it with things like false claims about tax rises for only 5% and the borrowing of one-quarter of GDP to spaff up the wall.
Let me give you another example. Who thinks this policy would be sensible as a way of making sure religion is part of the private sphere:
1) The closure of political parties associated with churches;
2) Priests forbidden to preach on political topics;
3) The closure of church schools and the taking of education entirely under the control of the state;
4) The closure of church youth groups.
I’m betting many people think that’s sensible and even desirable.
Until I tell you those were the religious policies of the Nazi party - then suddenly you’re not quite so sure.
Now Corbyn, even at his worst, was nothing like Hitler, obviously. But the fact is he taints many otherwise reasonable ideas by association, to the extent that he has made them less likely. By associating public ownership of water (which would be the right course of action) with public ownership of and free provision of broadband (which nobody sane thinks would be anything other than a disaster) he is making the former less likely.
Edit - The Tories has the same problem in the early 2000s. Many of the policies they put forward were enormously popular, and some were very sensible, but support for them dropped off a cliff when people realised they were Tory policies.
Corbyn even at his worst was nothing like Hitler !!!
You are sounding a little 'foamy' now, I'm afraid.
C'mon, let's get back to the drawing room and have a sherry.
Yesterday I posted that I would like to see a better account of the relationship of Britain and the EU in respect of the fishing industry. Later that day I read what appeared to be one in the Guardian; the editorial: 'The Guardian view on Brexit’s fishy tale: we will need friends at sea' and wondered. If the position IS as discussed there it's going to be quite a circle to square to keep all our fishermen happy and meet our international obligations.
The fishermen will get totally shafted. Just as they did in the 70s.
Access to UK fishing waters is something the other side wants, which gives the UK leverage and a rare high card in an otherwise weak negotiating hand. The UK should be able to convert that to a comparatively high level of access to EU markets. (To be clear, relative to No Deal; not relative to the status quo).
But high cards only have value if you play them.
Which is a long-winded way of saying the fishermen will get totally shafted.
The issue with the fishing is what to do with the fish once they are caught. That will need some access to the EU market - where do you think the smaller seafood, prawns et al we eat in France and Spain come from ? There will have to be some sort of a deal to some degree. Also apparently a lot of the quota has become concentrated in very few hands, not all of it meaningfully UK based.
Meanwhile we don't really want our waters to be fished much at all for genuine conservation reasons. I suspect we will deal more brutally than expected with non-UK resident quota holders. I suspect we will care less about access to the lucrative France / Spain market prawn / mussels market, but be prepared to give concessions to gain strong access to the northern European market for Herring etc. Nor should we overlook the farmed salmon industry.
I guess the REAL fishermen will be offered more quota than they are expecting, but not everything their hearts could desire - that gives some scope to present any deal however good as a complete capitulation, so there must be some hope for the naysayers above.
The apparent perversity will be that once the quota is reassigned the new owners will then be paid apparently enormous sums either not to use it all or else to resign it back to the government. That will confuse and will be easy to object to, but as a conservation measure it will be much better than fake marine national parks.
I would say its in the interests of both sides to make an access for market deal very similar to what exists now look like it's different from now. That's what you pay Eurocrats/Civil servants for.
Let me give you another example. Who thinks this policy would be sensible as a way of making sure religion is part of the private sphere:
1) The closure of political parties associated with churches;
2) Priests forbidden to preach on political topics;
3) The closure of church schools and the taking of education entirely under the control of the state;
4) The closure of church youth groups.
I’m betting many people think that’s sensible and even desirable.
Until I tell you those were the religious policies of the Nazi party - then suddenly you’re not quite so sure.
Now Corbyn, even at his worst, was nothing like Hitler, obviously. But the fact is he taints many otherwise reasonable ideas by association, to the extent that he has made them less likely. By associating public ownership of water (which would be the right course of action) with public ownership of and free provision of broadband (which nobody sane thinks would be anything other than a disaster) he is making the former less likely.
Edit - The Tories has the same problem in the early 2000s. Many of the policies they put forward were enormously popular, and some were very sensible, but support for them dropped off a cliff when people realised they were Tory policies.
Corbyn even at his worst was nothing like Hitler !!!
You are sounding a little 'foamy' now, I'm afraid.
C'mon, let's get back to the drawing room and have a sherry.
I was thinking of some of the times he made, shall we say, unwise remarks about the Jews. But accusing them of not getting English irony is a far cry from suggesting that 15,000 should be gassed.
Where the parallel very much stands up is that the policies are unpopular because they are associated - however wrongly - with the rest of a discredited programme.
I feel that straight banana stories will be circulated.
The problem we will have in 2020 is that:
- The EU is going to announce forced choices for the UK by tying things that don't necessarily need to be linked (e.g. professional qualification recognition and free movement) in it's own interest - Remainers are going to embrace the EU forced choices as being "reality" that the Leavers have to face and why we need a super soft Brexit - Remainers are going to try to maximize embarrassment for Boris by making his unrealistic commitment to leave the transition by end of year as big as possible - Faced with these political constraints, Boris is going to have to accept the hard choices, but will deal with them by making the hard choices that Remainers don't want: an even harder Brexit and leaving with a bare bones deal, while dressing it up as something great - The necessary Conservative coalition will swallow this, be angry at Remainers continuing to argue for the EU, and feel Boris is still on their side, with any economic damage blamed on wider global slowdowns
We will end up with nobody getting what they need. Leavers will have a shitty Brexit that makes us poorer. Remainers will face the Tories not taking the damage they expected them to take from a shitty Brexit and with even more distance from the EU and returning to power than ever.
All seems very plausible, and as someone who wants to leave properly, very desirable.
It's a source of continuing amusement that the clever people (and they love telling us they're the clever ones) keep messing things up so badly.
- The EU are going to use their mighty negotiating position to... prompt a hard brexit which will be pretty painful for their exporters.
- the UK remain establishment is going to be utterly incapable of hiding which side it's on once the EU starts trying to pull these moves - yep I can believe that
- because of the above, the Tory voting coalition will ride out whatever comes and blame the people who appear to be batting for the other team
Obviously, once they've successfully achieved precisely what they didn't want, the clever people will set about blaming the electorate again rather than questioning how clever they really are to find themselves stuck in the same loop and never varying their losing tactics.
I continue to find Johnson a perplexing conundrum - I fundamentally distrust him and don't believe a word he says which probably colours my view somewhat.
That said, his New Year message can't be faulted for its magnanimity especially to those who didn't vote for him though it's the kind of platitude every winning PM turns out in the first month after their victory.
Again, you can't fault Johnson's optimism and ambition though again lofty aims are long on generalities and platitudes and short on specifics. How will we measure "success" - via increased borrowing to support the NHS and capital infrastructure projects?
Of course it's not about the quantifiable or the achievable - it's about the sense of optimism and feeling good. This is the central tenet of Johnson - it's effectively a more chipper Blair - as long as we feel good about ourselves (the perception is everything as Blair showed), small things like facts, statistics and the truth will mean next to nothing.
Which brings me back to the central question - how do you fight "happy"? There's no point throwing facts and the truth at Johnson - they will bounce off him. You can try and out-upbeat Johnson but that's a challenge - there's no overall, apron or mop that Johnson won't use to underline his empathy with "hard working people".
How do you match "empathy" on that scale? Perhaps you don't - perhaps the Labour response should be, pace Blair, to look more comfortable in the Conservative heartlands. If the inversion of political values is ongoing, why couldn't a centrist opposition be the party of the affluent with a more pronounced global and internationalist outlook?
Barely a month after a GE, the answers aren't there and it's naive to expect parties to come up with them so quickly. The Opposition has a period of reflection which it must use wisely - I'd start with a blank piece of paper and try to articulate what Britain in the 2030s might look like.
That needs time and thought and above all freedom from ideology.
For example, publicly owned broadband free at PoD makes public ownership of, say, water look quite tame.
And I think there is now less acceptance of the "private is always best" sentiment which has been the prevailing common wisdom for the best part of 40 years.
No, those arguments about monopoly services being under private provision have been happening for ages. Even on the right there is no settled view, loads of people fall on the side of monopoly services being publicly owned.
I'm sorry, this is something I really must object to. I have spent a big part of two years of my life, with others setting up a local broadband service. BT can't even be bothered to provide me with a speech line to where I live, let alone internet access. If BT had remained in the public sector and not had the arse-kicking of mobile technology the only internet we would have would be either by the private sector via satellite from other countries or 512K dial up -even now.
The Labour commitment would have destroyed the genuine competition overnight and I would be back to having to go abroad for any internet. Fortunately by accident our wayleave agreements with landowners were written to ensure B4RN, Broadband for the Rural North could not be taken over by a commercial company. So, they all lapse if B4RN ceases to be an independent not for profit company. So, when McDonnell seised it it would have become worthless.
It is not an exaggeration to say Labour's broadband policy was completely mad.
- The EU is going to announce forced choices for the UK by tying things that don't necessarily need to be linked (e.g. professional qualification recognition and free movement) in it's own interest - Remainers are going to embrace the EU forced choices as being "reality" that the Leavers have to face and why we need a super soft Brexit - Remainers are going to try to maximize embarrassment for Boris by making his unrealistic commitment to leave the transition by end of year as big as possible - Faced with these political constraints, Boris is going to have to accept the hard choices, but will deal with them by making the hard choices that Remainers don't want: an even harder Brexit and leaving with a bare bones deal, while dressing it up as something great - The necessary Conservative coalition will swallow this, be angry at Remainers continuing to argue for the EU, and feel Boris is still on their side, with any economic damage blamed on wider global slowdowns
We will end up with nobody getting what they need. Leavers will have a shitty Brexit that makes us poorer. Remainers will face the Tories not taking the damage they expected them to take from a shitty Brexit and with even more distance from the EU and returning to power than ever.
All seems very plausible, and as someone who wants to leave properly, very desirable.
It's a source of continuing amusement that the clever people (and they love telling us they're the clever ones) keep messing things up so badly.
- The EU are going to use their mighty negotiating position to... prompt a hard brexit which will be pretty painful for their exporters.
- the UK remain establishment is going to be utterly incapable of hiding which side it's on once the EU starts trying to pull these moves - yep I can believe that
- because of the above, the Tory voting coalition will ride out whatever comes and blame the people who appear to be batting for the other team
Obviously, once they've successfully achieved precisely what they didn't want, the clever people will set about blaming the electorate again rather than questioning how clever they really are to find themselves stuck in the same loop and never varying their losing tactics.
You actually WANT a shitty Brexit that makes everyone poorer (per the original comment)?
* I do accept that as long as the Conservatives can keep hold of power and don't care about the consequences, there is nothing anyone else can do about it.
The Tories should really thank Corbyn for resetting the "far-left manifesto = GE disaster" counter. 1983 was starting to look a little remote, which led the congenitally-naive to imagine that maybe things could be different this time ...
Nope. The iron laws of British politics have been reforged for a new generation and a new millennium, and we have St. Jeremy (the man elected in 1983 who led us to its rerun in 2019) to thank for it!
For example, publicly owned broadband free at PoD makes public ownership of, say, water look quite tame.
And I think there is now less acceptance of the "private is always best" sentiment which has been the prevailing common wisdom for the best part of 40 years.
No, those arguments about monopoly services being under private provision have been happening for ages. Even on the right there is no settled view, loads of people fall on the side of monopoly services being publicly owned.
I'm sorry, this is something I really must object to. I have spent a big part of two years of my life, with others setting up a local broadband service. BT can't even be bothered to provide me with a speech line to where I live, let alone internet access. If BT had remained in the public sector and not had the arse-kicking of mobile technology the only internet we would have would be either by the private sector via satellite from other countries or 512K dial up -even now.
The Labour commitment would have destroyed the genuine competition overnight and I would be back to having to go abroad for any internet. Fortunately by accident our wayleave agreements with landowners were written to ensure B4RN, Broadband for the Rural North could not be taken over by a commercial company. So, they all lapse if B4RN ceases to be an independent not for profit company. So, when McDonnell seised it it would have become worthless.
It is not an exaggeration to say Labour's broadband policy was completely mad.
I meant water, broadband is not a monopoly provision. There are multiple providers and lots of private investment in fibre optic networks.
For example, publicly owned broadband free at PoD makes public ownership of, say, water look quite tame.
And I think there is now less acceptance of the "private is always best" sentiment which has been the prevailing common wisdom for the best part of 40 years.
No, those arguments about monopoly services being under private provision have been happening for ages. Even on the right there is no settled view, loads of people fall on the side of monopoly services being publicly owned.
I'm sorry, this is something I really must object to. I have spent a big part of two years of my life, with others setting up a local broadband service. BT can't even be bothered to provide me with a speech line to where I live, let alone internet access. If BT had remained in the public sector and not had the arse-kicking of mobile technology the only internet we would have would be either by the private sector via satellite from other countries or 512K dial up -even now.
The Labour commitment would have destroyed the genuine competition overnight and I would be back to having to go abroad for any internet. Fortunately by accident our wayleave agreements with landowners were written to ensure B4RN, Broadband for the Rural North could not be taken over by a commercial company. So, they all lapse if B4RN ceases to be an independent not for profit company. So, when McDonnell seised it it would have become worthless.
It is not an exaggeration to say Labour's broadband policy was completely mad.
I'm sorry, but you're living in Nephelococcygia, as Boris might say!
Q: In which direction did the Overton Window shift when Michael Foot's far-left lunacy went down to a less severe defeat than Corbyn's in 1983?
A: It shifted rightwards for a third of a century...
But it was on the Left pre-Foot and Thatcher shifted it Right. This left Foot staring at a brick wall where the Window used to be. Compounded by Foot himself going Left and thus being even further from the apperture.
What Blair then did was move all the way to where Thatcher had left the window and he climbed through it.
Window has now gone Left a bit (via Corbyn) but Corbyn himself was less equipped to enter than "Boris".
I continue to find Johnson a perplexing conundrum - I fundamentally distrust him and don't believe a word he says which probably colours my view somewhat.
That said, his New Year message can't be faulted for its magnanimity especially to those who didn't vote for him though it's the kind of platitude every winning PM turns out in the first month after their victory.
Again, you can't fault Johnson's optimism and ambition though again lofty aims are long on generalities and platitudes and short on specifics. How will we measure "success" - via increased borrowing to support the NHS and capital infrastructure projects?
Of course it's not about the quantifiable or the achievable - it's about the sense of optimism and feeling good. This is the central tenet of Johnson - it's effectively a more chipper Blair - as long as we feel good about ourselves (the perception is everything as Blair showed), small things like facts, statistics and the truth will mean next to nothing.
Which brings me back to the central question - how do you fight "happy"? There's no point throwing facts and the truth at Johnson - they will bounce off him. You can try and out-upbeat Johnson but that's a challenge - there's no overall, apron or mop that Johnson won't use to underline his empathy with "hard working people".
How do you match "empathy" on that scale? Perhaps you don't - perhaps the Labour response should be, pace Blair, to look more comfortable in the Conservative heartlands. If the inversion of political values is ongoing, why couldn't a centrist opposition be the party of the affluent with a more pronounced global and internationalist outlook?
Barely a month after a GE, the answers aren't there and it's naive to expect parties to come up with them so quickly. The Opposition has a period of reflection which it must use wisely - I'd start with a blank piece of paper and try to articulate what Britain in the 2030s might look like.
That needs time and thought and above all freedom from ideology.
You have to make the positive case for hard choices, but if people decide they want snake-oil instead, they will buy it from Johnson. Selling your me-too snake oil won't work because Johnson is the better salesman and he has the original product.
Well, no. The reason they shouldn’t propose any radical left policies because they almost always turn out to be disastrous failures in practice that leave people worse off.
Nationalisation of natural monopolies however isn’t a radical left policy. It was first proposed by the government of Robert Peel in 1845.
It becomes harder to explain this to people when they associate it with things like false claims about tax rises for only 5% and the borrowing of one-quarter of GDP to spaff up the wall.
Public ownership of utilities, in the context of modern British politics, IS a radical Left policy. Of course it is.
You can't go defining "Radical Left Policies" as those which "leave people worse off". That's a complete conversation killer.
Whisky? No, too dangerous. It's sherry or nothing. Do have sweet or dry though.
Well, no. The reason they shouldn’t propose any radical left policies because they almost always turn out to be disastrous failures in practice that leave people worse off.
Nationalisation of natural monopolies however isn’t a radical left policy. It was first proposed by the government of Robert Peel in 1845.
It becomes harder to explain this to people when they associate it with things like false claims about tax rises for only 5% and the borrowing of one-quarter of GDP to spaff up the wall.
Public ownership of utilities, in the context of modern British politics, IS a radical Left policy. Of course it is.
You can't go defining "Radical Left Policies" as those which "leave people worse off". That's a complete conversation killer.
Whisky? No, too dangerous. It's sherry or nothing. Do have sweet or dry though.
No, I’m defining radical left policies as policies put forward solely by the radical left. Otherwise, one person one vote would be a radical left policy.
For example, publicly owned broadband free at PoD makes public ownership of, say, water look quite tame.
And I think there is now less acceptance of the "private is always best" sentiment which has been the prevailing common wisdom for the best part of 40 years.
No, those arguments about monopoly services being under private provision have been happening for ages. Even on the right there is no settled view, loads of people fall on the side of monopoly services being publicly owned.
I'm sorry, this is something I really must object to. I have spent a big part of two years of my life, with others setting up a local broadband service. BT can't even be bothered to provide me with a speech line to where I live, let alone internet access. If BT had remained in the public sector and not had the arse-kicking of mobile technology the only internet we would have would be either by the private sector via satellite from other countries or 512K dial up -even now.
The Labour commitment would have destroyed the genuine competition overnight and I would be back to having to go abroad for any internet. Fortunately by accident our wayleave agreements with landowners were written to ensure B4RN, Broadband for the Rural North could not be taken over by a commercial company. So, they all lapse if B4RN ceases to be an independent not for profit company. So, when McDonnell seised it it would have become worthless.
It is not an exaggeration to say Labour's broadband policy was completely mad.
QED.
In fact, there were two actual broadband deals that were directly scuppered by the Labour announcement. Ink about to go on paper.
One of the problems with politicians is that they are, very largely, incapable of understanding that they don't get to pick the winners in technology. There is an ingrained belief in many (that I have met) from all parties, that if the government backs x then x will be the answer. Hence the vast investment over the years in hydrogen fuel cell systems for cars - The Official Solution.
On broadband - I can remember when ADSL appeared and was screamed at by politicians because it was the "wrong" solution. A similar "problem" is about to appear in the next year or so - Starlink.
Comments
And, sadly, he may be right.
However the Johnson government doesn't look it's going down that route. If so there will be a humongous crisis this year. Damaging consequences don't go away simply because you go ahead and do something. Any deal by end 2020 will be minimal and partial and will come with EU conditions that the Johnson government may not be willing to pay.
Worth spending the hour of informed argument here, even if I don't always agree with Ivan Rogers
https://twitter.com/policyscotland/status/1202617345224708096
https://twitter.com/DavidHenigUK/status/1211944595526959104
2020 has the potential to be a gang busters year for the economy.
I'm going to be doing less pointless arguing and having more fun this year.
Yes that is the million euro question. Johnson the radical or Johnson the non ideological personal brand seeking only popular approval and affection? My hunch is the latter.
This is a spoof right?
Has the look of a man who has just moved the Overton Window.
Handy they speak truth to power since he doesn't even want power.
https://twitter.com/adrianmcmenamin/status/1212323710499270656
More fetishising the size of the membership as well.
But, yes, an election win would have been nice too.
And there is a slight risk now that the Window will move back to where it was.
Let's hope not. Lose election and no saving grace on Window position. That would be the pits.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7842615/Pope-Francis-apologises-slapping-female-worshipper-grabbed-hand.html
- she didn't mean it either.
Flatter him as you wish, but Corbyn was at best irrelevant and at worst actively harmful to the Labour Party. He should never have been leader.
And I think there is now less acceptance of the "private is always best" sentiment which has been the prevailing common wisdom for the best part of 40 years.
Now, these factors would probably not have led to Yvette Cooper (say) beating BJ. But they would probably have led to him getting a 15 or 20 seat majority, not an 80 seat one.
- The EU is going to announce forced choices for the UK by tying things that don't necessarily need to be linked (e.g. professional qualification recognition and free movement) in it's own interest
- Remainers are going to embrace the EU forced choices as being "reality" that the Leavers have to face and why we need a super soft Brexit
- Remainers are going to try to maximize embarrassment for Boris by making his unrealistic commitment to leave the transition by end of year as big as possible
- Faced with these political constraints, Boris is going to have to accept the hard choices, but will deal with them by making the hard choices that Remainers don't want: an even harder Brexit and leaving with a bare bones deal, while dressing it up as something great
- The necessary Conservative coalition will swallow this, be angry at Remainers continuing to argue for the EU, and feel Boris is still on their side, with any economic damage blamed on wider global slowdowns
We will end up with nobody getting what they need. Leavers will have a shitty Brexit that makes us poorer. Remainers will face the Tories not taking the damage they expected them to take from a shitty Brexit and with even more distance from the EU and returning to power than ever.
With us gone (permanently), the desire for us to have FoM (which, by the way, the EU can't grant to a third party state anyway, because that's not in the EU's Treaties) disappears.
But even comparisons to the Swedish Social Democrats or the Japanese Liberal Democrats or the ANC in South Africa are far from the mark. The Conservatives had a very favourable conjunction of events to win in December:
- a poor Opposition
- good tactics
- an economy that had grown for a decade
- ruthlessly ditching inconvenient allies, like the DUP
- lesser opposition parties that played into their hands
- a charismatic, optimistic leader.
Had May been forced to call an election after we failed to leave in March, the situation could have been completely different.
The Conservative Party is an extraordinarily successful political machine. Politics professors like to point out the apparent paradox that the age of mass democracy in the UK has also been the era of Tory dominance. But they certainly can't take future victories for granted.
The Conservatives are not talking about renationalising rail or water, partly because it’s now associated with Corbynism. That, in fact, is an issue because both should be renationalised and probably will need to be renationalised sooner rather than later. But neither form part of mainstream political discourse.
And - newsflash - most people agree with that in the areas where I have lived, which used to be Labour heartlands. Corbyn has failed utterly to cut through even with people who should be his supporters.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/will-john-mcdonnell-lock-tories-up-if-labour-wins-the-next-election/
So again, I’m not quite sure why you think this policy is a dramatic break from the past.
Is this more or less likely now - having been proposed in a GE and rejected - than it was in 2015 when it was thought unacceptable to even propose?
More, I say. More.
"How can I answer that if you have the cheek to ask it?"
That doesn’t mean it would be a bad idea. But it won’t happen until a water company goes bust.
Meanwhile we don't really want our waters to be fished much at all for genuine conservation reasons. I suspect we will deal more brutally than expected with non-UK resident quota holders. I suspect we will care less about access to the lucrative France / Spain market prawn / mussels market, but be prepared to give concessions to gain strong access to the northern European market for Herring etc. Nor should we overlook the farmed salmon industry.
I guess the REAL fishermen will be offered more quota than they are expecting, but not everything their hearts could desire - that gives some scope to present any deal however good as a complete capitulation, so there must be some hope for the naysayers above.
The apparent perversity will be that once the quota is reassigned the new owners will then be paid apparently enormous sums either not to use it all or else to resign it back to the government. That will confuse and will be easy to object to, but as a conservation measure it will be much better than fake marine national parks.
Read any Joseph Heller?
1) The closure of political parties associated with churches;
2) Priests forbidden to preach on political topics;
3) The closure of church schools and the taking of education entirely under the control of the state;
4) The closure of church youth groups.
I’m betting many people think that’s sensible and even desirable.
Until I tell you those were the religious policies of the Nazi party - then suddenly you’re not quite so sure.
Now Corbyn, even at his worst, was nothing like Hitler, obviously. But the fact is he taints many otherwise reasonable ideas by association, to the extent that he has made them less likely. By associating public ownership of water (which would be the right course of action) with public ownership of and free provision of broadband (which nobody sane thinks would be anything other than a disaster) he is making the former less likely.
Edit - The Tories has the same problem in the early 2000s. Many of the policies they put forward were enormously popular, and some were very sensible, but support for them dropped off a cliff when people realised they were Tory policies.
Q: In which direction did the Overton Window shift when Michael Foot's far-left lunacy went down to a less severe defeat than Corbyn's in 1983?
A: It shifted rightwards for a third of a century...
Nationalisation of natural monopolies however isn’t a radical left policy. It was first proposed by the government of Robert Peel in 1845.
It becomes harder to explain this to people when they associate it with things like false claims about tax rises for only 5% and the borrowing of one-quarter of GDP to spaff up the wall.
You are sounding a little 'foamy' now, I'm afraid.
C'mon, let's get back to the drawing room and have a sherry.
Where the parallel very much stands up is that the policies are unpopular because they are associated - however wrongly - with the rest of a discredited programme.
I never drink sherry. Do you have whisky?
It's a source of continuing amusement that the clever people (and they love telling us they're the clever ones) keep messing things up so badly.
- The EU are going to use their mighty negotiating position to... prompt a hard brexit which will be pretty painful for their exporters.
- the UK remain establishment is going to be utterly incapable of hiding which side it's on once the EU starts trying to pull these moves - yep I can believe that
- because of the above, the Tory voting coalition will ride out whatever comes and blame the people who appear to be batting for the other team
Obviously, once they've successfully achieved precisely what they didn't want, the clever people will set about blaming the electorate again rather than questioning how clever they really are to find themselves stuck in the same loop and never varying their losing tactics.
Although Sky was worth it for the look on Bercow's face when the exit poll was released.
Thanks for the various kind comments on my piece.
I continue to find Johnson a perplexing conundrum - I fundamentally distrust him and don't believe a word he says which probably colours my view somewhat.
That said, his New Year message can't be faulted for its magnanimity especially to those who didn't vote for him though it's the kind of platitude every winning PM turns out in the first month after their victory.
Again, you can't fault Johnson's optimism and ambition though again lofty aims are long on generalities and platitudes and short on specifics. How will we measure "success" - via increased borrowing to support the NHS and capital infrastructure projects?
Of course it's not about the quantifiable or the achievable - it's about the sense of optimism and feeling good. This is the central tenet of Johnson - it's effectively a more chipper Blair - as long as we feel good about ourselves (the perception is everything as Blair showed), small things like facts, statistics and the truth will mean next to nothing.
Which brings me back to the central question - how do you fight "happy"? There's no point throwing facts and the truth at Johnson - they will bounce off him. You can try and out-upbeat Johnson but that's a challenge - there's no overall, apron or mop that Johnson won't use to underline his empathy with "hard working people".
How do you match "empathy" on that scale? Perhaps you don't - perhaps the Labour response should be, pace Blair, to look more comfortable in the Conservative heartlands. If the inversion of political values is ongoing, why couldn't a centrist opposition be the party of the affluent with a more pronounced global and internationalist outlook?
Barely a month after a GE, the answers aren't there and it's naive to expect parties to come up with them so quickly. The Opposition has a period of reflection which it must use wisely - I'd start with a blank piece of paper and try to articulate what Britain in the 2030s might look like.
That needs time and thought and above all freedom from ideology.
The Labour commitment would have destroyed the genuine competition overnight and I would be back to having to go abroad for any internet. Fortunately by accident our wayleave agreements with landowners were written to ensure B4RN, Broadband for the Rural North could not be taken over by a commercial company. So, they all lapse if B4RN ceases to be an independent not for profit company. So, when McDonnell seised it it would have become worthless.
It is not an exaggeration to say Labour's broadband policy was completely mad.
It’s worth it for the moment where one of their writers admits all their analysis is written with the aid of recreational drugs.
But then, I think we all knew that anyway.
* I do accept that as long as the Conservatives can keep hold of power and don't care about the consequences, there is nothing anyone else can do about it.
Nope. The iron laws of British politics have been reforged for a new generation and a new millennium, and we have St. Jeremy (the man elected in 1983 who led us to its rerun in 2019) to thank for it!
What Blair then did was move all the way to where Thatcher had left the window and he climbed through it.
Window has now gone Left a bit (via Corbyn) but Corbyn himself was less equipped to enter than "Boris".
Next time will be fascinating.
You can't go defining "Radical Left Policies" as those which "leave people worse off". That's a complete conversation killer.
Whisky? No, too dangerous. It's sherry or nothing. Do have sweet or dry though.
One of the problems with politicians is that they are, very largely, incapable of understanding that they don't get to pick the winners in technology. There is an ingrained belief in many (that I have met) from all parties, that if the government backs x then x will be the answer. Hence the vast investment over the years in hydrogen fuel cell systems for cars - The Official Solution.
On broadband - I can remember when ADSL appeared and was screamed at by politicians because it was the "wrong" solution. A similar "problem" is about to appear in the next year or so - Starlink.