POLITICS CORNER

[Tizer]

Bruff, your assessment of the US looks accurate to me. I've only been there a few times but I've had many US colleagues in science and publishing and heard their descriptions and opinions. They have been almost always Democrats but I knew them well and could trust their information. One thing that stands out is that the average American sees only American news in the newspapers and on TV, so the rest of the world doesn't exist for them.

I see that Trump University (yes, there really is such a thing - to teach people how to be like him) is floundering under a court case from disaffected students.

I enjoyed the Bob Bliss article on Trump, although it would be easier to read if there were gaps between the paragraphs. Perhaps Stanley's paragraph that precedes the article should provide some information on Bob Bliss?

[Tripps]

To save the trouble - Uncle Bob

[Stanley]

Thanks David..... Bob tried to teach me US history at Lancaster, he said my essays were OK but always lacked a conclusion! Despite that, we have never lost touch and at one point I proposed him for the post of Dean at Carleton College and he was in the final short list but narrowly lost out to a bloke who had a better track record as a fund-raiser, that was the final criterion, not excellence as a teacher. He's a good man and I ;love him and his wife to bits.



Bob at Lancaster in 1982.....

This article in the NY Times grabbed me this morning, Bob sent the link.

Paul Krugman. NY Times March 4.


So Republicans are going to nominate a candidate who talks complete nonsense on domestic policy; who believes that foreign policy can be conducted via bullying and belligerence; who cynically exploits racial and ethnic hatred for political gain.

But that was always going to happen, however the primary season turned out. The only news is that the candidate in question is probably going to be Donald Trump. Establishment Republicans denounce Mr. Trump as a fraud, which he is. But is he more fraudulent than the establishment trying to stop him? Not really.

Actually, when you look at the people making those denunciations, you have to wonder: Can they really be that lacking in self-awareness?

Donald Trump is a “con artist,” says Marco Rubio — who has promised to enact giant tax cuts, undertake a huge military buildup and balance the budget without any cuts in benefits to Americans over 55.

“There can be no evasion and no games,” thunders Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House — whose much-hyped budgets are completely reliant on “mystery meat,” that is, it claims trillions of dollars in revenue can be collected by closing unspecified tax loopholes and trillions more saved through unspecified spending cuts.

Mr. Ryan also declares that the “party of Lincoln” must “reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry.” Has he ever heard of Nixon’s “Southern strategy”; of Ronald Reagan’s invocations of welfare queens and “strapping young bucks” using food
Put it this way: There’s a reason whites in the Deep South vote something like 90 percent Republican, and it’s not their philosophical attachment to libertarian principles.

Then there’s foreign policy, where Mr. Trump is, if anything, more reasonable — or more accurately, less unreasonable — than his rivals. He’s fine with torture, but who on that side of the aisle isn’t? He’s belligerent, but unlike Mr. Rubio, he isn’t the favorite of the neoconservatives, a.k.a. the people responsible for the Iraq debacle. He’s even said what everyone knows but nobody on the right is supposed to admit, that the Bush administration deliberately misled America into that disastrous war.

Oh, and it’s Ted Cruz, not Mr. Trump, who seems eager to “carpet bomb” people, without appearing to know what that means.

In fact, you have to wonder why, exactly, the Republican establishment is really so horrified by Mr. Trump. Yes, he’s a con man, but they all are. So why is this con job different from any other?

The answer, I’d suggest, is that the establishment’s problem with Mr. Trump isn’t the con he brings; it’s the cons he disrupts.

First, there’s the con Republicans usually manage to pull off in national elections — the one where they pose as a serious, grown-up party honestly trying to grapple with America’s problems. The truth is that that party died a long time ago, that these days it’s voodoo economics and neocon fantasies all the way down. But the establishment wants to preserve the facade, which will be hard if the nominee is someone who refuses to play his part.

By the way, I predict that even if Mr. Trump is the nominee, pundits and others who claim to be thoughtful conservatives will stroke their chins and declare, after a great show of careful deliberation, that he’s the better choice given Hillary’s character flaws, or something. And self-proclaimed centrists will still find a way to claim that the sides are equally bad. But both acts will look especially strained.

Equally important, the Trump phenomenon threatens the con the G.O.P. establishment has been playing on its own base. I’m talking about the bait and switch in which white voters are induced to hate big government by dog whistles about Those People, but actual policies are all about rewarding the donor class.

What Donald Trump has done is tell the base that it doesn’t have to accept the whole package. He promises to make America white again — surely everyone knows that’s the real slogan, right? — while simultaneously promising to protect Social Security and Medicare, and hinting at (though not actually proposing) higher taxes on the rich. Outraged establishment Republicans splutter that he’s not a real conservative, but neither, it turns out, are many of their own voters.

Just to be clear, I find the prospect of a Trump administration terrifying, and so should you. But you should also be terrified by the prospect of a President Rubio, sitting in the White House with his circle of warmongers, or a President Cruz, whom one suspects would love to bring back the Spanish Inquisition.

As I see it, then, we should actually welcome Mr. Trump’s ascent. Yes, he’s a con man, but he is also effectively acting as a whistle-blower on other people’s cons. That is, believe it or not, a step forward in these weird, troubled times.

[Stanley]

I keep hearing the statistic quoted that we are the 5th largest economy in the world. Does anyone know where this comes from?

[Tizer]

I keep hearing the statistic quoted that we are the 5th largest economy in the world. Does anyone know where this comes from?

International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook for 2014
World Bank's 2014 estimates
United Nations Statistics Division for 2013
World Factbook of the Central Intelligence Agency
Data shown here: List of countries by GDP (nominal)

[Stanley]

I heard a radio interview yesterday on World Service (More Or Less) that cast doubts on whether measuring by GDP was the best way. It is the most flattering. Other methods give far worse results.....

[Stanley]

It's generally accepted that normal governance activities have ceased in the Westminster Village pending the result of the June Referendum. This is why on the surface Parliament looks so inactive. Beneath the surface the Tory Party is fighting itself like two ferrets in a sack....
This partially explains the disgraceful treatment of Mark Carney in committee yesterday. Jacob Rees Mogg is an insufferable and deluded man. He is certain he is right in advocating Brexit. His attack on Carney who simply did his job and gave an assessment of how the bank sees the pros and cons was either the product of ignorance in not realising that this is exactly what the BofE should be doing, giving impartial advice, or thoroughly dishonest in that he attacked a decent public servant who can't enter into argument to defend himself. The fact that the egregious Noble Lord Lawson immediately went public and joined in the attack makes the ploy even worse. Leaving aside the fact that what we are seeing is a fight between Tory backbenchers for ascendancy driven more by Tory DNA that a sober appreciation of the 'facts' (there are none, they are all forecasts and assumptions) this is dishonest governance because the protagonists are not contributing anything in the way of public appreciation of the real problem, they are indulging themselves.
High time they realised that their actions are transparent and if they wish to keep any credibility after June they must all start doing their real job, debating honestly the pros and cons and helping the electorate to come to a rational decision. It is disgraceful and selfish behaviour.

[PanBiker]

This link is doing the rounds on Facebook so I include it here. The onus is now on the individual to register to vote. Make sure you don't disenfranchise yourself. Some important decisions coming up.

Gov.UK - Register to Vote

[Whyperion]

That Robert Peston TV programme about China was an eye opener. All those empty factories, homes, hotels etc in towns built recently, just before the mood changed. Just after watching it I read about the Chinese premier making visits to the major media offices to tell them what news to put out, how they must promote China etc. And this is the country that Ossie wants to cuddle up to.

Empty homes etc, can we not send all the refugees there - they will fit and in a big country won't be noticed, they may even get some economic vibrancy back into whatever local areas are available.

[Stanley]

See THIS for an FT article on yesterday's rejection of the bill to alter Sunday trading. I'm glad it was defeated, I have worked too long in my life in jobs that were 7 days a week and know how nice it was when I eventually got my Sundays back. Apart from all the other arguments, it is no bad thing to have one day a week which is different and not pressurised by the job. If it's good enough for the MPs it's good enough for the shop workers! (How many Sunday workers are rewarded with what we used to regard as a given, a higher rate of pay for working weekends)
Interesting that Tory backbenchers are taking their cue from the dissident ministers with freedom to dissent and have applied the same principle to this vote. A useful reminder for the government of the power of opposition when you only have a majority of twelve.
Also worth remembering is the fact that this was a Treasury Bill, no doubt originating in lobbying from the big retailers, the small shops certainly didn't want it. This means that once more one of Ossie's 'initiatives' has failed, remember Tax Credits? There is an 'emperor with no clothes' scenario building up here for Ossie, not the best preparation for his eventual bid for leadership. Can anyone tell me of a single successful policy? I find it quite baffling that such an inept and unsuccessful administration has so little trouble from the Opposition. Riven by internal dissent, economic policies that need the spin doctors life support and a foreign policy that generates smiles behind the hands when Cameron does one of his 'great power' forays abroad. Look at the China initiative. Look at the mess that is national defence. Look at their stewardship of the NHS and education. Think about the deterioration in essential public services, police and fire, and the infrastructure. For God's sake, on present evidence they can't even guarantee to be able to keep the lights on! Please can someone give me reasons to stop regarding this administration as a joke and a con trick.....

[Stanley]

THIS article in the Telegraph by Jeremy Warner deserves careful reading. I suspect his analysis is correct in that Ossie has limited options in his Budget next Wednesday. As I speculated yesterday, the emperor may not have any clothes because the economic realities are closing in on him. The Tory strategy of austerity bearing down on the sectors of the electorate least likely to be their supporters was always wrong and judging from the 'results' this is becoming obvious to even the most rabid backbenchers. Despite his manipulation of statistics Ossie can't show improvement anywhere in the economy, indeed the opposite is true, even the BofE is baffled, they have run out of tools and are moving towards the ECB solution of cutting interest rates even further and more QE. As Harold said "Events Dear Boy".
See THIS BBC report about yesterday's announcements from the Central Bank. These are desperate measures by a bank that has run out of options and is trying to stave off a melt-down with what looks suspiciously like a last throw of the dice. Despite all the rhetoric, these are the options being faced by the BofE, we are not immune to the global trend of downward levels of trade. They are even talking in Germany about 'helicopter money', injecting paper money into the economy at the lowest level so it is not trapped in the banks and big corporations but delivered straight to the electorate who are most likely to spend it and inject money into the economy where it will gain the traction of the multiplier effect. I have consistently argued that the reason why austerity doesn't work is that the lowest percentile of the population are the driver of domestic spending, they don't hoard, they spend and it is the reduction in disposable income in these groups which has dragged any prospect of growth down.
It is also a reinforcement of Piketty's argument that as long as wealth is allowed to accumulate in the top 1% GDP, general economic activity, will fall with inevitable consequences for the tax take. Ossie has given us a downwards spiral and all the indications are that his only solution is to try to cut government expenditure even further, in other words, more cuts. I think Mr Warner may be right, the Cameron/Osborne axis may be approaching inevitable nemesis. Question is, if this is true, what can their replacements do?
If they have read and understood what economists like Piketty, Stiglitz and others have been advocating they will realise that there is one strategy they haven't tried yet, a Wealth Tax, transferring wealth from the top 1% to the lower percentiles. What's the betting against a Tory administration doing this.....?

[Tizer]

It was sad to hear young workers on the radio this morning saying they didn't know there was a referendum about being in the EU and they didn't have any view on the topic.

[PanBiker]

I don't think enough publicity has been given to voter registration since they moved the gateposts to individual registration. You have to register yourself now, there is no option for whole household registration with a single informant any longer. This could disenfranchise a lot of people if they are not aware of the changes. I have registered myself and made sure that all my family are aware and have done the same.

I does beg the question how the new regime works for folk who have no direct internet access or those in residential or care homes. I don't know how the process works for them, does anyone else know?

[Stanley]

I heard that vox pop as well Tiz. One young man even confused EU with UK. The impression is that they had absolutely no comprehension of current affairs.... Apathetic.....
Watching Boris' reaction to being asked the question about the referendum campaign actually being the Tory Leadership battle confirmed my opinion about the Bullingdon attitude. How are they going to hide this fact until June? I used to think he was a buffoon but now I am persuaded he is dangerous.
The BBC POLITICS PAGE doesn't make comfortable reading this morning. Just temporarily the focus has shifted from the EU to Ossie and next week's budget. He's desperate to increase government income and make further cuts in expenditure so don't expect good news. Of course he could always introduce a Wealth Tax......

[Stanley]

I can remember the day when the Chancellor went into purdah before the budget but those days have gone. See THIS for a BBC report of an article written by Ossie and published today warning of more cuts and I think we all know where they will fall.
When the history of this period in British Politics is written Osborne will go down in history as the worst chancellor since Montague Norman in the Inter-War years. He is making all the same mistakes that were made then. He ignores the advice from world class economists who have consistently said that austerity is self-defeating. Like Keynes in the inter war years, they recommend injecting money into the lower percentiles of the electorate, the ones who spend the money, by stopping the welfare cuts and at the same time taking advantage of the low interest rates to borrow money to invest in public works to improve the infrastructure. Looked at that way Hinkley C is an opportunity not an albatross round the neck of the country.
At the end of the 1930s, after enormous misery inflicted on the unemployed, disadvantage and poor the country was dragged out of the long recession by the need to spend money on defence. This was done (as it was in WW1) by Deficit-Financed spending. Exactly what Keynes was recommending.
I argued in 2008 that instead of throwing the money at the banks it should have been injected into the economy to stimulate activity but this didn't happen. The Financial sector had to firm a grip on government policy. In the US it was described afterwards as a 'Financial Coup D'etat' driven by partial advisers from the financial sector who were acting as 'advisers'. Ask yourself what the role of the SPADS is today in UK governance....
My view is that this government is going to engineer a second collapse of the economy which will be a re-run of 2008. All the elements are in place, a 'recovery' based on personal debt, the resurgence of the banks who have seen off any meaningful regulation and any move towards progressive taxation. The wealth flows into the top 1% where it is locked up and in many cases transferred abroad. When this happens all we can hope is that this discredited administration is thrown out and a more pragmatic, evidence based structure replaces it. This will not mean jam tomorrow because the situation is so bad. Whoever takes over the reins is going to be handicapped by an even worse situation than we faced in 2008. 50 years before any relief is felt?
Of course I may be completely wrong..... I hope I am but at the moment it all looks plausible.

[plaques]

George Osborne is now requesting EXTRA cuts of 50p in every £100 of government spend. This looks a miserly amount of 0.5% (1/2%), very similar to what you get in a savings account. In actual fact these are big numbers. From a total spend of £760 Billion this is £3.8 Billion. But nearly 30% of the total is 'ring fenced' so we are now talking about a further £3.8 B reductions on the remainder of which have already been cut by £19 B (20%). For the next few days up to the budget there will be lots of speculation where the cuts will fall. One thing for sure, the effect on those at the bottom won't be as negligible has he tries to make out. Also, along side these cuts there will be tax or price increases to make sure we live within our means. This may be quite easy if you are in the millionaire class but not that easy for the Plebs.
Perhaps it has never occurred to our chancellor that if every country in the world took the same stance on austerity and started cutting back their spending it would guarantee a world recession.
Spending / Pie Chart
Function -yr 2016 +yr
Total Spending £759.5 billion
Pensions £153.3 billion
Health Care £137.9 billion
Education £89.4 billion
Defence £45.1 billion
Welfare £110.5 billion
source: guesstimated planned

[Stanley]

I saw those numbers also P. Problem is he has fenced himself in with gimmicky fiscal rules (remember 'Normal Times'?) and basically his only targets are public services via Fire Police and Local Council funding, Welfare or things like tax on insurance, excise duties and fuel tax. All of them hit the plebs.If you can afford a supercar doing 10mpg you don't worry about the pump price.....
Meanwhile, in another part of the forest.... Angela Merkel will be looking at the news coming in from the current elections and has a bit of a headache. See THIS well-balanced BBC report on the results and possible consequences.

[Stanley]

Parliament might as well be on holiday. Paralysed by the EU referendum and from the 'political news' it appears that Ossie was the only one working at weekend. He is reported as having tweeted Chris Evans to keep the noise down as they filmed a ridiculous car doing doughnuts too near number 11.
He was said to be 'working on his budget' but from reports this morning it would appear that he and his aides are also spending time on putting up a smokescreen of 'initiatives' ranging from Crossrail and the proposed road tunnel under the Pennines to the previously mooted communications improvements that constitute the 'Northern Powerhouse'. These are grand projects if anything was actually done or any money was put into them but the only one that looks at all realistic is yet another massive investment in London, Crossrail, the North South underground line which, even if it came in in 2030 on time and inside the proposed budget will dwarf anything else in the list. More of the same. How long can he hide from reality behind this ploy of smoke and mirrors....?

[plaques]

the proposed road tunnel under the Pennines

And I thought that peddling indulgences had been banned. "Give me your money today and I will promise a road to heaven tomorrow. 'Jam tomorrow!'

[Stanley]

Paul Krugman, NY Times. March 14

Establishment Republicans who are horrified by the rise of Donald Trump might want to take a minute to remember the glitch heard round the world — the talking point Marco Rubio couldn’t stop repeating in a crucial debate, exposing him to devastating ridicule and sending his campaign into a death spiral.

It went like this: “Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.” The clear, if ungrammatical, implication was that all the bad things Republicans claim have happened under President Obama — in particular, America’s allegedly reduced stature in the world — are the result of a deliberate effort to weaken the nation.

In other words, the establishment favorite for the G.O.P. nomination, the man Time magazine once put on its cover with the headline “The Republican Savior,” was deliberately channeling the paranoid style in American politics. He was suggesting, albeit coyly, that a sitting president is a traitor.

And now the establishment is shocked to see a candidate who basically plays the same game, but without the coyness, the overwhelming front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Why?

The truth is that the road to Trumpism began long ago, when movement conservatives — ideological warriors of the right — took over the G.O.P. And it really was a complete takeover. Nobody seeking a career within the party dares to question any aspect of the dominating ideology, for fear of facing not just primary challenges but excommunication.

You can see the continuing power of the orthodoxy in the way all of the surviving contenders for the Republican nomination, Mr. Trump included, have dutifully proposed huge tax cuts for the wealthy, even though a large majority of voters, including many Republicans, want to see taxes on the rich increased instead.

But how does a party in thrall to a basically unpopular ideology — or at any rate an ideology voters would dislike if they knew more about it — win elections? Obfuscation helps. But demagogy and appeals to tribalism help more. Racial dog whistles and suggestions that Democrats are un-American if not active traitors aren’t things that happen now and then, they’re an integral part of Republican political strategy.

During the Obama years Republican leaders cranked the volume on that strategy up to 11 (although it was pretty bad during the Clinton years too.) Establishment Republicans generally avoided saying in so many words that the president was a Kenyan Islamic atheist socialist friend of terrorists — although as the quote from Mr. Rubio shows, they came pretty close — but they tacitly encouraged those who did, and accepted their endorsements. And now they’re paying the price.

For the underlying assumption behind the establishment strategy was that voters could be fooled again and again: persuaded to vote Republican out of rage against Those People, then ignored after the election while the party pursued its true, plutocrat-friendly priorities. Now comes Mr. Trump, turning the dog whistles into fully audible shouting, and telling the base that it can have the bait without the switch. And the establishment is being destroyed by the monster it created.

I still sometimes see people suggesting an equivalence between Mr. Trump and Bernie Sanders. But while both men are challenging a party establishment, those establishments aren’t the same. The Democratic Party is, as some political scientists put it, a “coalition of social groups,” ranging from Planned Parenthood to teachers’ unions, rather than an ideological monolith; there’s nothing comparable to the array of institutions that enforces purity on the other side.

Indeed, what the Sanders movement, with its demands for purity and contempt for compromise and half-measures, most nearly resembles is not the Trump insurgency but the ideologues who took over the G.O.P., becoming the establishment Mr. Trump is challenging. And yes, we’re starting to see hints from that movement of the ugliness that has long been standard operating procedure on the right: bitter personal attacks on anyone who questions the campaignatical, implication was that all the bad things Republicans claim have happened under President Obama — in particular, America’s allegedly reduced stature in the world — are the result of a deliberate effort to weaken the nation.’s premises, an increasing amount of demagogy from the campaign itself. Compare the Sanders and Clinton Twitter feeds to see what I mean.

But back to the Republicans: Let’s dispel with this fiction that the Trump phenomenon represents some kind of unpredictable intrusion into the normal course of Republican politics. On the contrary, the G.O.P. has spent decades encouraging and exploiting the very rage that is now carrying Mr. Trump to the nomination. That rage was bound to spin out of the establishment’s control sooner or later.

Donald Trump is not an accident. His party had it coming.

Nearer home, much speculation about how many of his own ridiculous rules Ossie will break today.....

[plaques]

More smoke and mirrors from George Ossiewell's Ministry of Truth.
More people in work. Providing you're on zero hours.
Deficit being reduce, But the National Debt is increasing.
Economy stronger than other leading countries. We are not sinking quite as fast.
Tax on sugary drinks to look after the young. Novel, but what happened to the nanny state?
Increase in tax threshold for the poorly paid. Stanley will have to wait until he's 84.
A slight down side is that there will be more cuts but he won't tell us until later about these.
Meanwhile the OBR have found a teeny weeny £56bn black hole that needs to be filled in.
And we all thought it was going to be bad news!

[Stanley]

Excellent P! Given the fact that the Leaser of the Opposition has no time for proper study I thought Jeremy Corbyn hit all the right buttons in his reply.
Leaving aside the fact that the promises are Pie in the Sky until they actually happen and the sugar tax is one that almost everyone agrees is virtually useless and will not come in for two years anyway, the thing that struck me was that there was no mention at all about rising personal debt, the plight of the poorest, the car crash which is the NHS (Read Private Eye for a very good assessment of just how bad a Health Minister Hunt is....) in other words, any mention at all of the underclass who are not in the mainstream of the economy. The biggest cause of our problems is the lack of productivity in industry, it's worse now than it was pre 2008 and one of the reasons for this is that if you neglect basic education and pay peanuts you get monkeys.
Do I really need to go on? I can see all the ingredients for a very turbulent 4 years......
What struck me later was that it's funny that in November he found £27billion down the back of the sofa and now he sees a shortfall of £56billion before the end of the Parliament. How accurate is forecasting at the Treasury?

[Stanley]

Ossie may have put on a bravura performance but as the days go by and the Red Book is studied he is coming under criticism even from some Tory backbenchers. His budget surplus by the end of the parliament is in grave doubt and the lowering of Capital Gains Tax paid for by attacks on the help for disabled is particularly noxious. John McDonnell has a chequered past but his alternative strategies are gaining more traction because he is voicing the concerns of a growing number of institutions and individuals. It's no secret that he has been taking advice from people like Piketty and Stiglitz and it shows. The mainstream of economic thought is now united against austerity and here we have Ossie pursuing a path that is estimated to mean a further round of cuts of £10billion in the next parliament leaving aside any failure on a budget surplus which would make even more cuts necessary. The consensus is that a more Keynesian strategy of deficit financing to get investment into the economy is the way out.
Slough Grammar School has a lot to answer for!

[Tripps]

Interesting contrast between the burning issues of the day. They seem to be getting equal exposure in the media today. Hundreds of thousand of refugees / migrants trying to get into Europe, with the attendant misery and suffering, and the removal of the 'Tampon tax' which someone on TV last night said costs each user, on average about £2 per year. A quick look at Tesco website, and a back of the envelope calculation, involving some guesswork, seem to confirm this figure is about right.

[PanBiker]

Breaking news, Iain Duncan Smith has resigned over benefit changes. His full resignation letter is here:

Iain Duncan Smith - Resignation Letter

House of cards?