Go on then, who do you reckon will win? The Labour Leadership contest, that is...

At least he has a sense of what it is to be a Britisher when using this bogus notion of a sense of fairness to brutalise the poor and disabled.

Can't Tristam fuck off and get back to boring ppl to death about Marx and Engels?

the more these people bang on about the importance of immigration to the electorate the more i wonder who they're trying to convince

None of these things would matter at all, even spending plans wouldn't matter, if Labour was trusted to run the economy competently.

i think that's broadly true and i have about a gross of "buts" to append to it

Interesting interview w/Corbyn and McDonnell pre-election: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/jeremy-corbyn-john-mcdonnell-interview-election-2015-labour-party-674

For most Labour critics 'economic competence' seems a crude but convenient mask for their real objections - their perception of how the money is raised and spent (otherwise how has Osborne been able to borrow/spend far more since with so little scrutiny?) ie higher taxes (anti-business!) and bigger welfare (soft touch on the rabble!). It's hard to see what else it amounts to.

Yeah but "economic competence" isn't really about govt borrowing or spending in the eyes of most voters, whatever the Tories or the press would like you to think. I reckon most voters are sort of vaguely aware that the deficit is a bad thing, or that public debt is high, but they don't FEEL it in a way that they feel the fear of losing their jobs or their pensions or the value of their house collapsing.

And the Tories have been lucky enough to get away with what job losses there have been because they've been largely in sectors or locations that typically don't vote Tory. It's not Cameron sits awake at night contemplating all those lost votes in Redcar.

voters have been hit over the head by every news outlet in the land for decades that public debt is a mortal sin; they may not ~feel~ it but if someone pops up saying they'll don't mind increasing it strategically i.e. in counter-cyclical keysnian fashion it's like "who is this maniac"

the trade deficit is indeed bad and directly responsible for a lot of people being without jobs yet weirdly it isn't obsessed about by the press the way it once routinely was hmm wonder why that is

Nation's economy not so different from your household budget grumble grumble *country's credit card has been maxed out grumble grumble didn't fix the roof while the sun was shining grumble grumble just storing up debt for children and grandchildren ad fucking nauseum

(a favourite of Clegg's as I recall)

... the credit card analogy that is

I guess what I am trying to work out, pointlessly perhaps, is just how many people believe in economic incompetence as a real thing (yet one that only non-Tories can be accused of) and how many just use it as shortcode for tough tax/soft welfare.

Perceived Tory economic incompetence was the single biggest factor in Blair's crushing victories.

I don't remember that being much of a thing, was it really? Feel like Blair won more over sleaze/corruption and general Tory complacency in '97 (with initially tentative media support before it then became much more obvious which way the wind was blowing). 01 and 05 were won against spectacularly low competition still reeling from '97 plus the knowledge that they couldn't argue against Blair's handling of the biggest issue of the time (Iraq and counter-Islamism).

Yeah, that's how I recall it.

loss of their reputation for economic competence is generally seen as a major factor I think?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday

The Conservatives had recently won the 1992 general election, and the Gallup poll for September showed a 2.5% Conservative lead. By the October poll, following Black Wednesday, their share of the intended vote in the poll had plunged from 43% to 29%,[14] while Labour jumped into a lead which they held almost continuously (except for several brief periods such as during the 2000 Fuel Protests) for the next 14 years, during which time they won three consecutive general elections under the leadership of Tony Blair

The Tories didn't win a by-election after Black Wednesday. They were doomed from that point on.

Anthony King's analysis suggested at the time that they only lost two seats due to sleaze allegations and the rest were effectively gone in 1992.

Happy to stand corrected there, although the polls were clearly no more reliable in '92 as they are now.

I think it's somewhat contentious to say Major was destroyed by the economy getting rocky. Yes, recession, yes Black Wednesday, but by 1997 the economy was in a fine state. It was sleaze, general mood for change and slick New Labour that saw off Major in that election.

― Alba, Thursday, 29 September 2011 01:15 (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, yes and no. He won the 92 election despite the recession using the "we know we've fucked up, but trust us to make things better - Labour will just make it worse" line. Then Black Wednesday came along a few months later and that trust evaporated overnight. They never recovered after that - sleaze, mood for change, slick New Lab etc. helped to stop them recovering, but didn't cause them to sink so low in the first place.

― Mister Potato shares Manchester United’s commitment to (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Thursday, 29 September 2011 07:26 (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just think people are too keen to reduce psephology to "it's the economy, stupid". If the Tories had won in 1997 people would have said it was because they'd successfully put Black Wednesday behind them and the feelgood factor was back. Major wins in 1992 in midst of recession; Major loses in 1997 in good economic times, yet still the explanation is that he was undone by a rocky economy? Of course BW knocked confidence, but these things are surely multiple-factorial. Perhaps it's fair to say that it was a catalyst for an "OK, enough of this lot now" mood that New Labour could exploit.

― Alba, Thursday, 29 September 2011 08:42 (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Black Wednesday destroyed the perception that the Conservatives could be trusted not to balls things up in a spectacular manner. That's arguably distinct from the state of the economy as it stood in 1997. I think you had a lot of people who didn't naturally identify with Tory politics voting for them in 1992 who did so because, whatever else they represented, they were a safe pair of hands. When that was taken away, people were much more willing to take other issues into account.

― Mohombi Khush Hua (ShariVari), Thursday, 29 September 2011 08:55 (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Black Wednesday also meant that even the right-wing press were in no mood to give Major's government a soft ride on anything. We've seen over the last five years what happens when the press decide to soft-pedal issues like, say, the Prime Minister bringing a criminal into the heart of his Downing Street operation. Blair got away with some dodgy stuff in his first term as well. The press can decide to basically overlook sleaze or they can brutally punish it and under Major's government they went all out for the latter.

The economy wasn't the only issue, there were other big ones (the NHS in particular), but Labour made a lot of hay in 2001 by playing on fears of a Tory economic disaster:

https://dailyelection.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/economic-meltdown.jpg

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Politics/Pix/pictures/2001/05/22/Repossed.gif

Big parts of the electorate will tolerate a party being nasty if they're also seen as a safe pair of hands, if they think you're nasty AND incompetent then you've got no chance, as Gordon Brown later found out.

NHS appears to be crashing...and it'll be erm interesting to see what the Tories break in the attempt to reach this surplus. (Sadly breaking the poor and vulnerable further is something most ppl are comfortable with)

xp basically, the attitude of the right wing press (tautology lol) is decisive.

the opening gambit of the hunt thing we were mocking isn't totally wrong, no matter how abhorrent one might find where it goes from there

how far back can one trace this attitude we're claiming determines voter mentalities? -- do we want to stop at thatcher or do we want to claim it's how 1970 and 1974 worked?

"Opening gambit" is insignificant. Mix on twitter of talk, rant, reply, organisation and minority-held opinion reinforced. Corbyn and team were smart to use it (because these ppl share much of it). Blairites were sleepwalking. #deal

great that the lesson drawn by labour right from gen election campaign is to trash the one area where labour did do better than tories, social media game

It's not as if, barring a major technological and cultural sea-change, there are going to be any FEWER voters on social media in five years' time.

Not like all those pensioners the Taxpayers Alliance are hoping will be dead or gaga come the next election.

This is a good 'highlights' package: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n20/paul-myerscough/corbyn-in-the-media

I do forget how the BBC stitched up the reaction to Corbyn's speech at the conference. Although its more of a suppressed memory, as I don't want to be against the BBC...

Good:

http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/labour-fiscal-charter-reversal/4293

This is a good 'highlights' package

^ thanks for that

i liked this

“It was too difficult to go on knocking on doors, summoning the necessary conviction, working towards the slim possibility of victory in the hope of implementing a platform of ever-weakening amelioration of the worst effects of neoliberalism.”

John McDonnell, shadow chancellor, has declared Labour will oppose the government’s pledge to balance the books in Wednesday’s parliamentary vote, in a major U-turn on his own position from two weeks ago. But many MPs have told the Financial Times they will abstain because they do not want to fall into a “trap” set by George Osborne, the chancellor.

So they were up in arms because Harman made them abstain to avoid a trap, and now they want to ... abstain to avoid a trap. The PLP is a bloody shambles.

It shows how badly they are on the back foot, assuming they oppose it at all.

Sounds like McDonnell dropped the ball a bit here though, not realising that the proposed surplus rules prevented 'borrowing for investment' in a separate column. They should never have committed to supporting it in the first place.

Much of the PLP is now so at odds with the wishes of the wider membership that I'm not sure how long this is going to be sustainable for, but if there's one thing that's almost certainly going to lead to electoral wipeout it's appearing this divided on every single issue.

He also seemingly made the u-turn without telling Corbyn, which is just idiotic.

McDonnell seems like a worse choice for the job with every passing day.

I think he supported the fiscal charter with caveats in a short interview before Lab conference. He did the right thing in the end, which the Labour right (who are acting like they saved the day - fuck off already) would never have done.

McDonnell doesn't have the support in numbers from the PLP or cares for spin (so 'two weeks as reasoning is poor) so the error gets magnified a lot more.

Still like him a lot - hopefully he'll keep at it. He is the choice of the elected leader, unfortunately learning on the job with little support.

McDonnell did actually try and spin it, somewhat ineptly, by citing changes in the world economy over the past couple of weeks. Even self-defined centrists in the party oppose the charter, given that it's intended to tie the hands of any future chancellor regardless of mandate. It won't, obviously, they can just abolish it, but it's intended to make that a big issue when it happens, it IS the trap.

It all rests on the very dicey prospect that the Tories will get anywhere near eliminating the deficit in this Parliament, although that can always be handwaved away.

"Learning on the job" is a bit of a cop-out given the importance of the job, although I don't remember many Labour MPs complaining as much when Alan Johnson immediately put his hands up and said "guess what, I know fuck all about economics lol!"

I mentioned "two weeks" above as poor reasoning.

Don't agree. "Learning on the job" isn't a cop-out but the situation. These ppl don't have the experience. Most cabinet members make mistakes but they have a sizeable party and machinery that supports them.

yeah it's precisely because Corbyn and McDonnell have been so removed from the machinery of government that they represent any kind of challenge to the economic hegemony

hodges' article today special again. enjoying his meltdown

Hodges column today:

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/gospeldrivenchurch/files/2015/07/gatabrainmorans.jpg

Apparently u-turning on a piece of misguided wrong-headed economic policy is worse than u-turning on a contract to provide prison services to a murderous authoritarian terrorist-funding regime.

The thing is that Osborne is about a hundred times more sophisticated a political operator than Hodges. He knows full well that the elephant trap works both ways - Labour supports the charter = it validates his entire approach, wins him swing votes, and costs Labour core votes. Labour opposes the charter = deficit deniers, can't be trusted with the economy etc. His entire approach is to draw Labour into tricky terrain where it's screwed either way. And that's before any subsequent government tries to remove the charter as well (because, y'know, it's stupid and harmful to the economy and even the Tories will realise that in time).

we can all anticipate exciting moments like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_debt-ceiling_crisis_of_2011

@FraserNelson 2h2 hours ago
If Labour can't see absurdity of debt-addict Osborne sponsoring a 'Charter of Budget Responsibility' then all is lost

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRQpUQCWwAAV6DJ.png:large

And this is the editor of The Spectator talking. Although surely the whole point of a deficit is that the debt keeps ballooning because you have to keep borrowing more to keep up the shortfall?

Also there's clearly and self-evidently an enormous market for UK government bonds, so presumably the government is advocating the destruction of a safe and secure asset class, with all the knock-on effects for pensions that implies?

Why do people even keep reading Hodges?! nm

Nelson wrote a ridiculous gushing appraisal of Cameron in the Telegraph (which I could only stand to read some of) the other day backed with a 'who would you vote for - him or the Evil Old Man?' poll which actually put Corbyn on 52% (poll then deleted).

Some credit, I guess, to McDonnell for changing tack, rather than doubling down on the initial mistake to try and avoid looking inconsistent. But much better to have not made the mistake in the first place. Really, labour at this point should be well and truly past bothering about these twatty little debating soc 'traps' of George Osborne's.

Most cabinet members make mistakes but they have a sizeable party and machinery that supports them.

Yes, this is true. Most shadow ministers in the past could expect a degree of rallying round from colleagues at this point, which is a forlorn hope for McDonnell. On the other hand, many will say, Big Boys Rules and all that.

Reckon Osborne's biggest mistake might be going for the PM job. Economy could be really stagnant due to cuts -- there will be more austerity in this parliament than last one, even if it might be tracked back (like in the last parliament) after a point in pursuit of the surplus.

Then there is his awkwardness - very Ed M with added touch of the Vulcan, reminds me of Redwood.