The one party coalition of chaos – politicalbetting.com
The one party coalition of chaos – politicalbetting.com
When it comes to this government the thing that has genuinely left me bewildered is how a government that last year was elected with a majority of 174 has looked so weak and chaotic, to be considered more chaotic than the last Conservative government is an achievement. These things matter as the voters generally do not like chaos.
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There’s also less career incentive to destabilise a minister from the other half of the coalition, since if they get brought down you know they will be replaced from someone from the same party, and not by you or your friends. Which applies right up to the top - no LibDem had any reason to be undermining Cameron’s leadership of the Tories. Such trouble that there was mainly came from a minority within the Tory party who never reconciled themselves to coalition in the first place.
F1: got to be honest, didn't see huge value here. Split one stake 60/40, with the larger part at 2.45 on Hulkenberg for points, smaller part on Ferrari (5.25) to have 1 or 2 cars not classified. Car's looked like a dog all weekend.
https://morrisf1.blogspot.com/2025/11/qatar-2025-pre-race.html
On-topic: it's pretty remarkable. It's also interesting to consider whether the rise of the Greens matters more than Reform.
It doesn't mean the next coalition will be!
Indeed it is pretty certain that the next government will be more chaotic and backbiting than this one.
SKS and Reeves will be under threat from within the Labour party as currently Labour have a large majority and (if you believe the OBR) an amazing amount of fiscal headroom to provide largesse for pet projects - despite Brexit, Covid and the slow demise of the City. And again, if the OBR is correct, it's quite an achievement for an economy to apparently shrug off these economic shocks in such as short time.
Perhaps, as the Australians opine, we're all whinging Poms.
It was fairly obvious that the Labour Party had no plans in place for what they would do when elected in terms of policies. It now looks as though they gave no thought to what government would be like, as opposed to being in opposition. No forward thinking at all.
And yes, the conservative ministers were rarely as good as the LD ones (Cable being a rare exception of being as bad as the Tory ministers).
Overall though the Coalition was far more competent and coherent than any government since. At least there was a plan...
The 2010 government had one other huge advantage- there was a consensus that the UK was in a hole and it wouldn't be pleasant to get out of it. Any government entering office now is facing significant movements on the left and the right whose pitch is that it's trivially easy to solve our problems. Just do this One Painless Thing that Experts Don't Want You To Know.
I'd go for MalcG myself. He'd stick it up 'em!
We are perhaps becoming ungovernably so.
That didn't stop factions forming. Johnson's messy resignation and Truss' decision to rely on a narrow clique of supporters were largely to blame, but not solely.
https://x.com/UKLabour/status/1995043886931009781
To mis-coin one of the great phrases about economic recovery: We have nothing to whinge about but whinging itself.
Ironically (and predictably) it is Leaverstan that has been most damaged while Remania has continued to prosper. The penny doesnt seemed to have dropped in the old coalfields so it looks as if they are going back for another swig of Farage's poison.
The actual political acumen and quality of the leadership and MPs.
The presence of a single overwhelming uniting issue (eg WWII).
The situation a new government/leadership inherits.
The depth of preparation before undertaking government.
Quality of communication.
On these five out of 10, I score, IMHO, 3, 2, 1, 0, 1. This is not of course all someone's fault.
However, I wonder if there is a sixth compounding issue of particular relevance now, which is:
The number and salience of issues about which it is obvious the government has to mislead, evade, lie or distort.
Here are some right now:
The breakdown of the western alliance and the extent to which the USA is not a reliable friend
The capacity of the UK or western Europe to defend itself or others
The effects of Brexit as it was delivered and the political inability to resolve it
The degree to which the UK is owned by others
The intractability of worklessness
The attractions of not working for a minority but still millions of people
Debt and deficit
The attractiveness to the treasury of inflation.
Communication is hard when there is so much to double think about.
Yet the pursuit of truth demands we try to overcome such cognitive biases. I was part of the small band of Economists for Brexit. We argued, in good faith, that disentangling ourselves from the EU would unlock long-term economic potential via more policy freedom. Nine years on, we cannot pretend things have gone well so far.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/d677a43f-837f-4725-a45e-2f90ea15ce86?shareToken=0aed068b29eebf3d5cd07ff8ffb62e2c
Trouble is that we have the frictional downsides, but the policy freedom remains elusive.
Now that doesn't have to mean a Breversal, or even a Brapprochment to smooth away the worst of the frictions. We could even decide that Brexit has made us poorer in cash terms, but richer in the ways that really matter.
But if the last of those is what we want, I don't think we can complain too much about being required to pay for those (luxury) beliefs.
Actually thet have a shit job even when it goers more or less OK. And the same rightists who complain about their being employed in the first place and condone their understaffing and overwork are the first to complain about them when things go wrong.
I don't know any social workers or have any relatives who are. It's just so obvious.
Oh, that's right- Claire In The Community.
Social workers are not only able to see the impact of their decisions at first hand but are trained to think about the circumstances and the consequences of their actions. And, of course, know just how disastrous the wrong call can be.
Higher taxes and run down towns are the price of Brexit.
They don’t like taking tough decisions as we saw with winter fuel and reducing the benefits bill.
One thing they all had in common however was they all wanted to do the right thing. That some of them weren't really up to making that decision was a different problem, and may reflect how badly they are treated so really able people find less demanding and frequently better paid jobs.
Can we say that of lawyers? Horizon answers with an emphatic 'no.'
I would add that while there are times social workers do get things terribly wrong, it does raise my hackles when they get criticised given the very difficult job they have, which is why I snapped when I thought you were accusing them of being soft. Again, apologies.
And while it was far from being a perfect government, it was at the very least semi-coherent, something you can say of none of its successors.
The modern media cycle has changed how Government is reported and how politics, as a result, functions. I suspect there has always been instability in Government, disputes, turf wars, personality clashes etc, etc but we knew a lot less about them than we do now because of the 24/7 news cycle which didn't exist back in the day.
The over-analysing of every minor infraction, the constant rehashing of the same debate on places like GB News (the rolling news channel is a thing of the last 30 years) accentuates a sense of chaos which I suspect isn't really there.
To fill up the time means repeating the same meme or theme ad infinitum and this is especially true when you are hostile to the incumbent administration.
I don't consider this Government "chaotic" in any real sense - chaos is when you are looking at every Commons vote to see if the Government will be defeated - when you have a majority of 70, 80, 144 or even 170, that rarely happens so the sense of crisis has to be manufactured elsewhere.
That's NOT to say this Government is doing well - it has made a lot of silly mistakes and been far too timid -but the notion with a huff and a puff it will all come tumbling down is absurd - even minority Governments survive longer than you might think.
It keeps sites like this busy and an opportunity for the anti-Government keyboard warriors to vent periodically or daily - I do think after 14 years in Government, some Conservative-inclined seem to think shouting a lot and complaining about everything will get them back to where they "belong" - it doesn't and it won't.
The large majority of lawyers seek to avoid that, and outcomes matter to the better ones.
I've met very good and very bad examples of both lawyers and social workers.
Lawyers at least tend to have some grasp of legislation.
And anyway, didn't we find that there's a large number from the charity sector now on the backbenches ?
So why not just say that?
very Brownian spreadsheet thinking and talking
Run down towns are the product partly of decades of deindustrialisation and regional aid and planning controls, which encouraged people to stay in towns that have no future on welfare, rather than migrating to where the jobs are. Then after the financial crisis it was revealed that that kind of welfare dependency is basically unaffordable, so their model of transfers from successful areas collapsed.
And higher taxes is a deliberate policy choice from socialist and soft-socialist governments since 2019 to fund our insatiable welfare state, without the political cowardice to accept that they strangle economic growth in so doing. Plenty of countries outside the EU have much lower taxes than those inside it through having more dynamic economies with lower taxes and lighter regulations and smaller welfare states.
All of those policy choices are internal to us and none have much if anything to do with Brexit.
New Newsnight compared to old. Or the awfulness of pretty much all newspapers.
Clearly not.
I don't think rhat the economic damage of Brexit is easily reversed by Rejoining. Much of that damage is done and not repairable.
Its good though that at least some Brexiteers are acknowledging the reality of the harm that they have done.
Others seem to want a second swig of Farage's poison.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OFEOMHvKakI
80 seconds from TRiP.
Sympathy only gets you so far and indeed my Housing Officer was as hard as nails - she had seen every trick and heard every story and this notion social workers are all "woke" is just nonsense. They need to be able to process what they see and hear in ways most of us, in our employment, either never have to or can do so with a coffee or tea with a colleague.
The fact most of them are ridiculously overworked with caseloads they cannot manage or support is almost incidental - it appalls me sometimes how we treat our fellow human beings yet we worry about how much tax we pay, whether our football team does well or a flag - none of that nonsense is important.
Much of our economy is driven by consumer spending. If consumers are skint then there is no growth.
On the general ignorance of Labour MPs, I currently have one. He posted on Facebook this week:
𝐁𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐔𝐩 🔄
Your priorities are our priorities:
✅ Cutting the cost of living
✅ Cutting NHS waiting lists
✅ Cutting the national debt
The first one is debatable - I mean their budget measures will fuel inflation, make working people pay more tax, and increase the cost of fuel and rents, but I suppose at least he can claim that some of the measures (like moving some of the green levies off electric bills) are attempting to cut the cost of living.
I'd give him the 2nd - they do seem to be trying quite hard to do this (although they are very high mainly because we had a National Covid Service for 2 years, so you'd bally well hope waiting lists started to come down once that had finished).
But to claim the 3rd implies that he has no idea about the difference between debt and deficit, nor has he noticed that Reeves has increased the deficit at every budget, but is pretending that is OK because it's all borrowing for "investment". To cut the national debt would require her to run a surplus, her plans at the moment are at best to only be increasing the debt at the same pace as GDP growth in 5 years time. To claim they are cutting the debt makes him terminally stupid, a liar, or both.
Mind you he is a bloke who put a leaflet through my door a month or so ago, which trumpeted proudly "reinstating winter fuel payments for thousands of pensioners" as one of the six notable achievements of this government, which I thought was an interesting choice of boast.
Politics as Social Work: A Qualitative Study of Emplaced Empathy and Risk Work by British Members of Parliament
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7665367/
The constituency work of British Members of Parliament (MPs) has long been referred to in political circles as a form of social work. This article reports on a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with thirteen MPs. The aim of the research was to find out what characterises their constituency work to understand why it apparently bears comparison with social work...
I mean MPs who consider their role to be that of a social worker to their constituents.
Or that some longer term processes - for example the effect of the internet on town centres - have not continued.
Presumably you also think that Brexit is the reason more positive things have happened or continued to happen.
For example there has been a big increase in health spending, employment and pay - are they the consequence of Brexit ?
I'm a public sector worker, btw, and I'd still say the coalition was a golden period. Pay increases in relation to inflation were much better then than now. And George Osborne actually believed in infrastructure spending in the north.
Public sector workers did have a hard time during the coalition government but before that they were protected, sometimes benefiting from Brown's profligacy, during the recession of 2008-9. Or the 'mancession' as some guardianistas smugly termed it.
And now the wheel has turned again with tax rises focussed on the private sector - there's very few public sector workers worrying about the effects of increasing employers national insurance or restricting salary sacrifice pensions.
Natasha Irons, worked at Channel 4
Sally Jameson, prison officer
Dan Jarvis, Army
Terry Jermy, publisher
Diana Johnson, barrister
Darren Jones, solicitor
And so on. There’s a variety there beyond the stereotypes.
There is a German study which looked at the question.
Social workers as politicians. A quantitative study on social workers holding elected office in Germany
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691457.2024.2316788#abstract
There is a reciprocal relationship between social work and (social) policy: (i) social workers act on the basis of social policy guidelines, and (ii) they should contribute to changing these frameworks in the interest of their profession and of service users. Previous studies have outlined different routes for social workers to influence policy: One of these is referred to as ‘holding elected office’. This paper provides a descriptive analysis of social workers with political mandates in Germany. My first step is to compile a comprehensive dataset of current members of parliament to identify social workers. I then conduct an online survey among this group to learn more about their political socialisation processes, their political career paths, and their current political work. My results show that social workers accept mandates at all political levels, with their share being lowest at the national level. *The decision of social workers to become directly involved in politics is closely linked to the experiences that they have gained in their professional practice. The process of politicisation tends to run parallel to their professional careers...
*She found 11 MPs who were from the profession in the Federal Parliament.
There does seem to be a view on PB that it's the saver's duty to allow others to put their money at risk. Yet a lot of people don't have enough in savings to put their money at any risk at all (or at least notdhing worse than the least risk, which is the inflation rate minus the interest paid).
This reminds me of the old land magnates and high farmers of the 18th century who used to moan about the conservatism of their small tenants. They forgot that for them trying a field of something new fangled like mangelwurzels or Chinese pigs was no skin off their nose if it didn't come off. Whereas it meant starvation or the workhouse for the small tenants.
In the 2010 general election the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and even Labour warned that there was going to be austerity, in the form of tax rises and spending cuts. In the 2024 general election this honesty was not forthcoming: the Conservatives had just implemented an unaffordable tax cut, the Liberal Democrats' spending pledges were greater even than the Greens', and Labour seemed to think that the problem could be solved by saying 'growth' three times and clicking their heels together.
Labour entered government having told us that we wouldn't all have to pay; the only tax rises would be on those dastardly non-doms and villainous private schools (Labour bogeymen of long standing). They even called Sunak a horrible liar for saying otherwise. As usual, it is in their moment of triumph that politicians paint themselves into a corner.
(Listening to recent 'New Statesman' podcasts it is worth noting that many journalists and commentators, including those friendly to Labour, wondered at the time what the plan was, and were told in very vague terms that attracting inward investment was a big part of it. Andrew Marr's rather grandiose 'Question Time' prediction of a wall of money sweeping into the safe haven of the UK makes a little more sense in that context.)
In short, they had a plan for winning the election, but not for governing. The next government - and despite it all I think it is likely to be Labour in some form or another - needs to learn from this mistake.
And how, if you can do so, has Brexit been a 'total turd' ?
Now one thing we can do is compare what has happened to what the Remain side said would happen after a Leave vote.
Very conveniently the Treasury gave its predictions:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a80772140f0b62305b8b510/hm_treasury_analysis_the_immediate_economic_impact_of_leaving_the_eu_web.pdf
Needless to say, none of it happened.
Isn't it time you accepted that the Remain side pedalled a load of crap and stopped trying to claim things are so much worse than they are in an attempt to justify themselves.
Aside from having to deliver the progress, it's a decent plan.
Anas Sarwar, dentist and owner of share in family cash and carry business (this put in a trust for his children when he became leader IIRC)
Jackie Baillie, local gmt business devt
Sarah Boyack, town planner and university lecturer
Rhoda Grant, trade union and local gmt
Daniel Johnson, MD of chain of stationery(IIRC) shops
Pauline McNeill, graphic illustrator and TU
Carol Mochan, running family business
Paul O'Kane, volunteer groups/agencies etc (?)
Alex Rowley. TU education official and agent for Mr Brown
Paul Sweeney, BAE shipbuilding and Scottish Enterprise (economic devt agency)
That's enough, now we have an actual shipbuilder. No social workers yet ... Edit: NB I'm not sure if all the TU positions were paid.
Edit: E. Joyce deleted, wrong parliament!
Yes, we are saving too much and spending too little.
We have real life stats to show the power of spending on economic growth. Not only UK historical GDP but also country comparisons: the USA at one extreme and Japan at the other.
We do need investment. Massively more of it. Not surplus rainy day saving in low yielding assets. But investment is spending. Every pound you spend on that new extension or your child’s university fees is investment, as is every pound your employer spends on training or automation.
It is also allows for more effective and cheaper spending by giving the purchaser more options.
And it provides a financial safety net so allowing more confidence in normal activities.
The Labour vote share collapsed even before the election, denying them a real mandate, and they've been able to command virtually no loyalty from their MPs, members or voters whilst in office as a consequence.
Keir Starmer is a case study in the almost total absence of political leadership.
Basically Labour in government are now doing big state budgets in revenge for the austerity of the Conservative and LD government of 2010 to 2015
Would you accept that as a legitimate choice?