DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

He can make the case that unemployment is coming down and so is the debt but mainly they don't have any other ideas.

The debt certainly isn't coming down, the deficit might be (but probably isn't)

for a good explanation of a lot of this stuff, I'd recommend John Lanchester's Whoops!, which also has the virtue of being well written. His articles in the LRB are also very readable.

probably an important hurdle wrt understanding economics is realising that it's basically a self-perpetuating sham doing a reasonable job of masquerading as a science. full communism now.

^^^ OTM

Unemployment isn't coming down either - de facto jobseekers being counted as employed when on workfare schemes, ex-claimants going self-employed at the behest of people with 'targets', people employed casually or on zero-hours contracts being underemployed...

While this is all true the figures say otherwise and unless Osborne is personally driving a fiddle that is about to be uncovered he will tell people unemployment is coming down. Not only that he will shamelessly say there are more people in work than ever! The guy has the highly dubious gift in telling lies so convincingly to make enough people want to believe in that...

Same for the finances: they are in a terrible state but he'll take any bit of 'improvement'.

The problem is not that the markets said GB debt was too high or deficit not reducing enough -- it's allowing Osborne to spin that into "ergo more cuts required".

The other, better, way to reduce your debt is to increase your income. Yes stimulus means a short-term increase in your debt, but it's like a household taking out a loan to start a business.

This might have been a better plan when the cost of GB debt was at all-time lows, but it's still the better option now.

probably an important hurdle wrt understanding economics is realising that it's basically a self-perpetuating sham doing a reasonable job of masquerading as a science.

that is more or less what i said tbf. maybe it's good to understand mystification, but identifying it as such will do.

I can think of an economist or two who had quite a bit to do with Communism. Still, the government would like you to think of economic forces as being essentially uncontrollable forces of nature, rather than the cumulative effects of decisions made by individuals. Although obviously other factors, ie availability of natural resources, also come into play.

As far as I understand it the British economy IS actually creating jobs but they're mostly poorly-paid and part time, which isn't sustainable in the longer term, especially taking into the account the withdrawal of public spending.

Can't see much happening other than more cuts, a triple-dip and an economic spiral now though. What joy.

the 'voodoo economics is pleonasm because it is all voodoo!' thing has a very early 19th century proto-anarchist crank feel to it

They become worth (a lot?) less at a lower credit rating don't they?

― fizzles tics (Fizzles), Saturday, February 23, 2013 2:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they become more expensive for governments to sell, because interest rates go up when they are deemed more risky to buy.

― Neil S, Saturday, February 23, 2013 2:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you'd think, but this doesn't happen in practice. the "uncertainty" makes investors want to buy the safest asset they can think of, which turned out to be japanese bonds, french bonds, and us bonds, respectively, when each of those countries got downgraded. oh je.

credit rating down = yields down = bond prices up = round and round we go.

http://news.sky.com/story/1056747/boris-johnson-evicted-from-city-hall-meeting wtf

nobody grandstands like boris eh

londonist always good on these meetings:

http://londonist.com/2013/02/mayors-question-time-boris-begone-edition.php

haha wow

why do we have to have such utter cunts in opposition. like, at least give us a decent opposition. fuck it

i think milliband commenting cluelessly on the hilary mantel thing the other day was my actual real and true final straw with this bunch.

green party are fucking useless though, and believe me I've tried with them. where next?

I guess we just try to create influential art

That's entirely a The Thick Of It episode, fuck me

we accept that everything's fucked and people seem to like it that way

def feel like when you're discussing cunts whose cuntishness is fucking us over, the actual british people deserve as high a billing, or higher, than our awful and useless politicians

Mike Thornton, Liberal Democrats - 13,342
Diane James, Ukip - 11,571
Maria Hutchings, Conservative party - 10,559
John O'Farrell, Labour party- 4,088
Danny Stupple, Independent - 768
Iain McClenann, National Health Action - 392
Ray Hall, Beer, Baccy and Crumpet party - 235
Kevin Milburn, Christian Party "Proclaiming Christ's Lordship" - 163
Howling "Laud" Hope, Monster Raving Loony William Hill party - 136
Jim Duggan, Peace party - 128
David Bishop, Elvis Loves Pets party - 72
Michael Walters, English Democrats "Putting England First!" - 70
Daz Proctor, Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts - 62
Colin Bex, Wessex Regionalists - 30

A huge swing from the Wessex Regionalists to the Beer, Baccy and Crumpet party.

Lib Dems: good news to pick up a win despite being so unpopular and having the incumbent leave in disgrace, but lost a third of their votes and if the UKIP surge goes Tory next time, they'll lose badly
UKIP: massive result, unfortunately
Tories: ho, ho, ho! Down to third place, also lost a third of their votes, left with a tricky tactical decision re: UKIP
Labour: share of the vote virtually unchanged, no real impression made on seat in the south

fuck this electorate

its a by-election. it really means nothing on a larger scale.

it means 35,000 people yesterday took the trouble to vote for the LDs, UKIP or the Tories.

Almost 40k including labour

I can forgive people for voting Labour. I don't want to live in a country where UKIP voters also live. Is there somewhere I can defect to or do I have to try and massacre 10,000 people now? Bother.

i was gonna include Labour and when i tried to write "but" i thought "i can't really find an excuse for voting Labour in 2013" but maybe old people who are confused idk

Well put the other 35k down to that i guess, and all the others as well

nah dude, not having that.

am i trying to sentimentally separate the Labour party from the others? perhaps. it's not a good look for somebody who rejects the sham of parliamentary democracy as is, i agree. but somewhere within the Labour party as historical project or myth or ghost is the idea of a politics that aspires to the good of all, or the good of the majority. that simply isn't true of the other parties in the list.

it's still possible, misguidedly, to vote for Labour because you think the country or the world or your town should treat people better, more equally. it's impossible logically to vote for the other parties in that spirit - they are exclusionary by history, instinct and policy. they believe in a fundamental way in a better world for some, the deserving, and punishment or control for the damned.

IRL that distinction is dead, agreed. the possibility of it existing in incurious minds is not quite dead yet tho i think.

The seat has never been Labour and never was going to be Labour this time round, they're pretty much an irrelevance in that constituency and they knew it. My guess is:

- This is as close to a safe LibDem seat as you get, and/or they must have campaigned exceptionally well at local level.

- The splintering of the right-wing vote is probably good news for Labour in the longer run (although they're vulnerable to UKIP as well).

- This result is terrible for Cameron on just about every conceivable level.

I dont wanna lol but

lol with ya baby, no more...

(soz)

NV you captured my sentiments re. Labour exactly. I've been immersed in the 1930s this week, and I realised that despite Bliar and everything that has transpired, I still have an emotional connection to the Labour movement as-was. I haven't voted Labour in a while, but I'd still rather see Labour, as hopelessly confused as they are, in charge than the 'my home is my castle' brigades represented by the Right.

Idk who I'd have voted for if I lived in Eastleigh. It's v. depressing.

Sorry that was banal. But when you're reading about the folks marching from Glasgow to London in clogs to fight against benefit cuts, and the wide-eyed revolutionary fervour of those inter-war socialists, you remember what socialism was supposed to achieve. Did achieve, to a great extent, in it's tempered, British incarnation. We are losing it, and the country seems to be full of savage slugs, looking askance at anyone less fortunate than themselves, when they can tear their eyes away from Downton or whatevs. Arguments that were won then (we should not treat the poor like shit, regardless of whether they deserve it; unemployed and sick people are citizens, not mendicants) are being lost now.

I'm still a member of the Labour party because i can't be bothered to work out how to leave. Locally they have some decent people who deserve the votes and financial support they get but they're largely indefensible at a national level. Might just cancel my direct debit and let them work out the rest.

i guess i'd say those arguments were never "won", there was just a historical moment when the working class had sufficient influence within the Labour party to make the 1945 government carry out some socialist policies. that working class doesn't exist in the same strength any more and has been pushed to the near-voiceless margins of the modern Labour party. we have a workforce that doesn't recognise itself as working class no matter how exploited it may be. we have the appearance of a general material prosperity formed from cheap imports and cheap credit. the problems of 2013 aren't the problems of 1945. we can't unify people behind outdated solutions to obsolete problems. Capitalism in its consumerist phase has everything to gain by this social isolation, solipsism, alienation. the politics of resistance is faced with the real prospect that for a majority of people this is as good as it gets - no matter how bad that may be in future.

i'm out of answers. let them run the ship into the rocks if that's what the passengers want.

in the end what democracy amounted to was allowing a majority of people to consent to hand themselves and everybody else over to the interests of the plutocrats

I still have an emotional connection to the Labour movement as-was. I haven't voted Labour in a while, but I'd still rather see Labour, as hopelessly confused as they are, in charge than the 'my home is my castle' brigades represented by the Right.

I agree with every word of that. So I end up holding my nose and voting Labour because what the fuck else am I supposed to do :(

cut the cord, recognise that the game is elsewhere and that voting for them is encouraging what they've become. or pragmatically, vote against the other vermin in whatever way is likely to prove most effective.

the greens seem like nice people?

Greens don't even stand in my constituency. Last two elections had Tory, LD, Lab, SNP & UKIP - no Greens, no independents, no old skool Socialists, no BNP.

The Greens want more homeopathy in the NHS. I'd rather have actual drugs.

paying seven pounds-odd prescription charge for a little phial of water seems a bit much

Worth pointing out that as the country is in a state of extreme flux right now and Labour will need to redefine itself yet again according to what shape of Britain emerges, or to shape it themselves obviously. No one really knows what that will be yet, and no one within the party looks more ridiculous than the disgruntled and vocal Blairite throwbacks.

I don't see much of an appetite for that on their front bench, and if they somehow scrape through the next election they won't be redefining anything for another few years.

- The splintering of the right-wing vote is probably good news for Labour in the longer run (although they're vulnerable to UKIP as well).

i don't think it's going to result in a splintering in the long run. i think most tory voters are of the vote "most right wing candidate electable" school and would happily vote ukip as soon as they win their first mp. in the longer run the party itself is going to have to move right and overwhelm/subsume ukip. that will be lol to watch.

great manufacturing data this morning by the way.