Someone bereft of ideas, versus ...
That it does not need to be this way has been known for more than 85 years, since the first publication of The General Theory Of Employment Interest And Money. John Maynard Keynes’ ideas, and, indeed, his prediction of where over-reliance on economic orthodoxy would lead, were not lost on a new generation of economists, as J K Galbraith later observed.
He later put this directly in The Age Of Uncertainty: “In 1937, recovery from the Great Depression was slowly under way; production and prices were rising, although unemployment was still appalling. The men of sound judgment now asserted themselves. They moved to cut spending, raise taxes and bring the federal budget into balance”. There was more.
“The few Keynesians protested; our voices were drowned out in the roar of orthodox applause. As the budget moved towards balance, the recovery came to a halt. Presently there was a new and ghastly slump, a recession within the Depression. It was entirely as Keynes had predicted. The men of sound judgment had made our case”. Pages 219 and 220 in my edition.
What is Ms Reeves doing? It looks very much like “cut spending, raise taxes and bring the … budget into balance”. And the forecast result, no growth in the foreseeable future, or even a recession, is, once again, exactly as Keynes would have predicted. The mistakes made in the USA in the late 30s were only countered by increased spending, this time on war.
... someone who was never thus constrained
Yet Starmer and Ms Reeves appear unable, or unwilling, to embrace the approach that served the Labour Government of the immediate post-war years so well. Britain was virtually bankrupt by 1945, yet Attlee and his team brought the Welfare State into being, along with a series of nationalisations, and of course the NHS. Plus, yes, more or less full employment.
Instead of actually taking action, though, we are assailed by a deluge of press releases masquerading as policy. One day it is the deeply dislikable Wes Streeting telling how he is transforming the NHS; today has brought Lucy Powell claiming, and as Treeza might have said, I am not making this up, “We're turning the tables to put ordinary people at the front of the queue”.
One slice of meaningless drivel after another. What does Powell’s assertion even mean? And all the while, there is a daily slew of bad faith knocking copy emanating from our free and fearless press. In a routine show of hypocrisy, they slate anyone they deem to be “talking the country down”, while they constantly talk the country down. But only when Labour are in charge.
As Simon Fletcher has observed, Labour is “relying on an argument that growth in the future will deliver a resolution to the country’s problems”. But what they are doing is not bringing growth, and in the timescale required, is most unlikely to bring growth. Thus they are talking themselves towards defeat, and worse, enabling the far right con men of Reform UK.
Keynes had the answers. His legacy still has them. Hello Rachel Reeves.
https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton
6 comments:
I warned you, Tim. Time and time again.
Now here it is in all its inevitable malevolent thievery, intensifying each day. It's what capitalism does, always has done, and always will do. There's nothing new about it, including its wars, racism and manufactured paranoia.
Even Tricky Dick Nixon(!) once said "We're all Keynesians now." But he was soon disabused of that heresy.
You can't expect the British Parliament to be any less of a far right political brothel. It sold its arse in 1979 and has been rogered ever since. Starmer and Reeves are just the latest pimp and madame.
Harold Wilson once said, "The Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing". So now it is nothing.
Like most people, I dismissed the left wing conspiracy theory that Starmer was a right wing plant out to destroy the Labour party. I don't do conspiracy theories.
Now however, I'm not so sure. This govt seems so bent on destroying itself, and removing any credibility formerly accorded to the party, it does make you wonder?
The relentlessly stupid policies that make little sense, as while the press would be roaring approval of them if the Tory's were in power, as its Labour everything is 'useless'. They aren't, ever, going to win the Tory press, or right wing voters over. So why sacrifice the party on that alter?
While they can, as the Torys did, ignore the angry voices of the disabled, poorest off, the waspi women, teachers, NHS staff, they can't shrug off pensioners, war crimes, and the CBI warning (and in fairness, head teachers, nhs managers, and so it goes on) that the moronic NI increase will do the opposite of what Reeves and Starmer claim they want - growth.
Meanwhile, as predicted by those who actually understand the economy, the Torys figure fiddling has finally come home to roost - but not on their watch. While economists have said Stride is talking out of his arse, the public already dislike the govt, so Tory denial of responsibility strikes a chord.
So, with the absence of any other plausible explanation, is Starmer a Tory cuckoo in the nest? Or have things go so bad, even I'm being sucked in by Qanon style bollocks?
The Labour Party has always had these kinds of treacherous creatures in it. All you have to do is turn over a rock to find them clinging to its underside. Here today Starmer/Reeves, tomorrow some others. They'd sell their mother's corpse for a new suit or another day tenancy in Downing Street. Horrible, disgusting people, the dregs of society.
They have, but they were a tiny minority. Now they're the vast majority. The rump left need to get out and leave them to it.
https://youtu.be/O3FMV3iugeI?feature=shared
13:00.
Far better if the far right left the Labour Party and rejoined the far right tories. The Starmer Quisling came near to it when he crossed the floor to schmooze both Sunak and Farage. It's their natural cringe.
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