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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Is nationalisation really making a comeback? Don Brind doubts it.
I’m a bit of a fan of the old Clause Four of Labour’s constitution drafted by Sidney Webb in 1918. I love that line about securing “for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry”. Pure poetry.
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Privatisation copied across most major economies since 1979.
People aren't exaggerating when they say they are worried about this country going back to the 70's and strikes.
Interesting article from Mr. Brind and very interesting that the FT (those well-known communists?) are also picking up on the problems of utility privatisation specifically
I certainly think the nationalisations discussed in the Labour Manifesto are likely to the upper end... and it's quite possible we wouldn't even get there.
But if instead we get a system which stops these companies avoiding tax, gets a better deal for consumers and taxpayers - then of course I'm fine with that.
The scales need re balancing in our current internationalist globalist society where some elements regard self and wealth as more important than community and society.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/sep/09/state-owned-east-coast-rail-franchise-paid-225m-pounds-treasury-still-faces-privatisation
Definitely not Dave and George.... TM there was a slim chance but she could never oppose the right now...
Ruth Davidson is the only one I hear talking like that to be honest.
Beat that, Sidney Webb!
At conference the Conservative MP James Cleverly said of Labour that “their cosmic role in life” is to “screw things up, so we can come and fix them”. This is standard Tory rhetoric; I put enough of it in speeches over the years. Yet the assertion that Conservatives are the real “fixers” in British politics feels out of step with reality after the bodged campaign, the manifesto U-turn, the snap election that snapped back, and the slowly deflating balloon that is expectations on Brexit. If the Conservatives are fixers, they are Del Boy and Rodney fixing that chandelier.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-tories-reputation-for-competence-is-going-nxxktmbfh
As Ian Dunt noted on the previous thread, the consequences of WTO are so bad not even hardline Brexiteers like Zahawi can't sell it to the electorate.
As soon as they admit in public how catastrophic it will actually be, they can't deliver it.
The policy or the Labour far left is to completely reject any sense of balance between competing effects or any sense of limited funds to spend things on. The investment in public services would turn out to be eaten up by "fair wages" in the public sector. To get things done beyond that taxes would have to increase on more than the rich and hit normal working people. When their living standards decline, minimum wages would be increased to make sure they can afford to live comfortably. When businesses can't afford that and start going to the wall, they would nationalise those companies. Under government control, fair wages for the nationalised industries would be increased further. When they are not profitable, another wave of borrowing would pay for them.
The end will be when the Labour Party is discredited for 20 years and we will then face Thatcherite austerity on steroids. We desperately need social democratic governance in this country, but it needs Corbyn to be removed first.
https://www.facebook.com/imajsaclaimant1/videos/vb.1379902405649798/1479113712395333/?type=2&theater
Odd choice, one would think, as it opens up a space for a Frexit party in France, and there are a substantial minority of Frenchmen who are Eurosceptic.
I dont think Corbyn and McDonnell have an economic strategy worthy of its name. I think voters are pretty fed up with Thatcherite capitalism but I am afraid that the diagnosis and prescription of Doctor Corbyn far from curing the illness will make the patient even worse. A year or two of after Labour has sent in its quacks to cure capitalitis, and the stench of angry and frustrated expectations will be overpowering.
The 2017 manifesto was moderate European social democracy tax/spend.
A more competent and comprehensive state is what the people want.
It’s completely viable - and for the majority - desirable.
Unfortunately the Conservatives are bland, shallow, weak and incapable of making a positive argument about anything.
Labour have just caught up with the opinions of the British public on nationalisation, before Corbyn and co. But yes, common ownership covers a lot of very different actual models and Sidney Webb wanted a whole lot of different models of ownership and functioning.
And, from back in the day, worth reading: https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/corbynomics-extreme-or-moderate/
@gabyhinsliff: I mean if yr my age, you've rarely seen a UK govt utterly fail to prevent an avoidable disaster/war/run on banks etc. It's hard to imagine
@gabyhinsliff: But it's pretty flipping easy to imagine now. Cavalry has never in my life seemed less likely to come over the hill in time.
Seats and are now in government, right
Oh, wait...
Dear Labour, there's your new slogan. Truthful, to the point, perfect.
Brexit - CHECK
Nationalisation - CHECK
Student Fees - CHECK
any more for any more?
1. To secure the best possible deal for the UK, it is imperative that the UK appears fully willing to go down the "no deal" route, and that means that we should be seen to have all the pieces in places to go WTO on the two year anniversary of Article 50.
2. To make the threat of WTO real, the UK government needs to communicate its willingness to leave without a deal. This dramatically increases the likelihood that businesses in professional services, in finance, or with multinational supply chains will (in a good scenario) reduce investment in the UK or (in a bad one) up sticks and move. Which - in all likelihood - results in a serious recession.
The problem the UK government has had is that while it has said it is willing to leave without a deal, it's actions give lie to the statement. If we wanted to appear serious, we'd be building customs facilities at Dover, and at key crossing points on the Irish border. We'd be looking to hire a large number of new staff to work in customs. We'd have actually made progress with forging deals with existing countries the EU had trade agreements with. And we'd have published our tariff schedules.
We haven't done any of those things, and that means the EU has decided we will accept almost any deal.
The problem with arguing with idiots in the street is that passers by can't tell the difference.
They know what they are doing.
Doing what you propose would simply accelerate the loss of confidence in the UK as a trustworthy first world nation.
My personal view (and of course that is all any of us can really have) is that it is not better than the original.
Nor is it worse.
It is a perfect continuation of the world which captures every aspect that made the original great. For me it is nothing short of being the perfect sequel in every way.
I genuinely believe no one could have made a better and more worthy sequel to the original. I will certainly be watching it again several times over the next couple of weeks.
(a) we will need more people dealing with immigration (as that from the EU required no administration)
(b) we will need more people employed in customs & excise (if that's what it's called these days)
and
(c) we previously outsourced certain regulatory function to the EU that we will now have to do ourselves
You might (or might not) also add (d) which is that it probably worsens the population pyramid in the medium term because you have fewer young people coming temporarily to the UK.
With the exception of (d), of course, these are all pretty minor in the context of a state that takes up 40% of GDP, and is likely to grow because of our ageing population.
I suspect, however, that most Brexiteers who call for preparations for WTO do so to strengthen the hand of the UK negotiators. They can see that unless the UK makes a credible case for being able to take the WTO route, it has a very weak hand. Unfortunately it can't make a credible case. The threat is as transparent as Cameron's threat to the EU that he might recommend Leave if they didn't come up with the goods. And we know how that turned out.
Unless there is a terrible negotiating accident and we do in fact crash out, the result is that we will take what is on offer. We'll pay the bill, accept the ECJ, accept the rules and end up in a worse position that remaining in the EU. As that slowly dawns, there will be a rolling WTF conversation across the UK. There will be cries of betrayal, shouts of told you so, and a clear majority for cancelling the whole exercise. We know who will then take the blame.
Carry on crying over spilt milk, life's far too short for infantile tit for tatting I'm afraid. Remainers have become modern day Holocaust deniers.
"HITLER!"
I've seen the original Bladerunner at least six times and know it off by heart and this sequel totally matches it. I love the soundtrack too. I'll be watching it again I'm sure.
https://twitter.com/davidlammy/status/917355774367674368
On topic, yes, an interesting piece from Don, for which, as always, many thanks.
I think the difference between the thinking of the 80s/90s and now has been partly influenced by the global financial crisis (which involved the part nationalisation of a couple of banks, one of which will undoubtedly end up costing the taxpayer millions of pounds).
There are also hybrid models of ownership out there - part public, part private. Network Rail is one example I've quoted in the past - we see local authorities setting up property investment companies and housing management companies so the line between "private" and "public" is blurred.
I agree with Don the current model of capitalism and the economic culture it perpetuates has failed. That's emphatically not to disavow capitalism in favour of Marxist economic planning but there needs to be a recognition the current economic model is failing a number of people. It's interesting to look at the dreadful productivity numbers so see how the British model is getting nowhere fast (or slowly).
An economic model for the 2020s which works for all is the holy grail.
Those that voted to remain are free to hold those “delivering” Brexit to account, to challenge what they think as bad choices and to mock any hypocracy they perceive.
And had the result gone the other way there would be nothing wrong in the Eurosceptics continuing to expose the EU’s failings.
If it was a requirement that following a referendum the losers must agree to a vow of silence then we would miss out on PB.COM articles on voting reform. And who would wish that?
I largely agree with Mr. Brind. I don't believe nationalism is popular except with the foolish, and I do think we need better regulation in the marketplace of energy.
Mr. Calum, Boris is not a credible PM. But, then, he isn't a credible Foreign Secretary either. And Corbyn isn't a credible PM either. We live in the Age of Incredible Happenings.
Mr. P, I was wondering about this earlier. If politicians had been honest about the powers they'd been throwing away and the degree of integration, it would've created far more scepticism and anti-EU sentiment. The very fact British politicians tried to portray the EU as just a friendly club with lovely rules and nothing to worry about may well have worked, during the referendum, to encourage people to vote against it, comfortable that it'd be easy to leave.
"Philip Hammond may have found a throat lozenge for his next-door neighbour but he (and there’s a lot of competition from his ministerial colleagues) most typifies the sucking of teeth and cannot-doism that, on front after front, keeps bringing May’s government to a spluttering, croaking halt."
When the unstoppable claims of the brexiteers meet the immovable objects of logic, reason and the way the World works.
Yet it's the only game in town for some..
I first saw the original on TV (perhaps via VHS) , and despite being sci-fi mad, was fairly underwhelmed. I'd never claim it was a bad film, but it didn't seem to approach the hype surrounding it. I've seen it a couple of times since, and haven't changed my view. I feel about it the same way I do about Inception: a film with massive hype that sadly underdelivers.
I do wonder if viewing it on the small screen might have had an effect. Or if I'd been exposed to knock-offs in the meantime that meant the impact was lessened.
Or perhaps I'm just an idiot ...
I read the first Harry Potter and wasn't especially taken with it.
You don't necessarily have to build customs facilities for Day 1 - but you will have to accept a lot of leakage and unhappy compliant businesses if you don't.
* "sufficient progress" is of course ridiculous, but a very effective negotiating ploy from the EU. It's remarkable how accepted the concept has become amongst UK commentators, coupled with the idea that we are the ones failing if we're not judged up to scratch.
It's not being treated as a negotiation so much as an exam with the UK taking the test and the EU doing the marking.
Mind you, if the EU27 are not simply prepared to negotiate, it's not obvious what the UK can do about it, other than pointing out that the disagreeable consequences won't be limited to the UK.
Of course you are not an idiot. (Though as I said to Kle4 the other day you might have no soul
All I can say for me is that the combination of the intelligent script which asks many questions without necessarily providing easy answers, the stunning cinematography, the perfect music score and the way in which the 'bad guys' are humanised makes for what is, for me, an almost perfect film.
It probably ties in with my love of Film Noir and classics like the Maltese Falcon. For me Bladerunner is second only to Casablanca as the greatest film ever made.
The new version is pushing both of those films hard for top spot.
But none of us really know which is why so much of the speculation about the negotiations is hot air. Unfortunately it will almost inevitably come down to the wire, as do all such crises.
So I do wonder if there is some truth in your comment about exposure to later knock offs (although not exactly in the way you mean)
Sources close to Mr Barnier told The Telegraph that even if full agreement is reached on Ireland and citizens’ rights, “two out of three isn’t good enough” and trade talks will only proceed if agreement is reached on the financial settlement.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/09/theresa-may-seizes-brexit-initiative-customs-trade-white-papers/