UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => shootin' the shit => Topic started by: mrjonathanr on December 09, 2023, 10:35:20 am
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Fact-checking website on Johnson’s, and other politicians’, lies and distortions. Interesting, if dispiriting, reading.
https://boris-johnson-lies.com/
No wonder the rabbit hole of conspiracy is so attractive when integrity and reliability are in short supply.
Taster- regarding Johnson’s claim to have descended 33m on his first ever dive:
Verdict
Anything that Boris Johnson says on any subject must be assumed to be false unless independently corroborated.
We sent a letter to Johnson’s personal and office address offering him the chance to respond. The letter was received (and signed for) by both, but no reply.
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Don't get me wrong, I can't stand the sigtt or sound of the man. But why on earth would he take the time to respond to a request for confirmation on how far he dived, from a person he's probably never heard of?
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Boris's wouldn't respond to his mother's dying cries unless it made him a few quid.
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I think he’ll have heard of -and from- Peter Oborne, to be fair. Many times. The point is given the opportunity to correct the record, it wasn’t taken. Possibly not for the first time….
The lie itself is pathetic, but the warning about assuming falsehood unless proven otherwise amused me.
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It is all a bit querulous, no?
If a prime minister tells a tall tale about how deep they dived, what a big fish they caught on a thin line, what a hard boulderproblem they flashed, or other inconsequential thing people lie about, it's no skin of my nose, no?
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It is all a bit querulous, no?
If a prime minister tells a tall tale about how deep they dived, what a big fish they caught on a thin line, what a hard boulderproblem they flashed, or other inconsequential thing people lie about, it's no skin of my nose, no?
Perhaps, but it is also easy not to lie about these things. Maybe it is naively optimistic, but I would quite like politicians who don't lie regardless of subject.
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Seems lyou haven’t understood what’s in that website jwi? It’s a fact checker, covering all public utterances by MPs, although obviously, given his character, Johnson has a starring role.
I think politicians telling lies about policy and its impact matters very much. The effects on public trust and so democracy are corrosive.
Here’s another:
https://boris-johnson-lies.com/i-dont-believe-brexit-is-a-drag-on-the-economy-the-figures-dont-show-that
and another
https://boris-johnson-lies.com/we-got-brexit-done-when-keir-starmer-voted-48-times-48-times-to-undo-the
I could go on…
https://boris-johnson-lies.com/sir-keir-starmer-spent-most-of-his-time-as-dpp-prosecuting-journalists-and
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Bojo was one in a long line of bullshitters, in an environment that strongly incentivises bullshit.
There are many types of bullshitter and his was cartoon-figure bullshit in plain sight - easy to see and to choose to ignore or believe.
My pet dislike are bullshitter politicians who’ve polished (or who sincerely believe) themselves to a higher gloss of righteousness. Tony Blair and his advisors for example. Opposite In schtick to Boris, but similarly deceptive and imo a more manipulative individual. You could say his lies have had just as disastrous long-lasting outcomes in loss of trust in government and government communication.
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It started with his perpetuation of Brexit lies, and just carried on. Because people wanted to believe them.
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Pete, I think you underestimate the harm caused by the accumulation of lies from Johnson et al. Promising prosperity from Brexit to disadvantaged communities while delivering its opposite is serious.
If we are talking about one very specific lie from Blair, I’d agree it’s caused far more damage than any other.
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Bojo was one in a long line of bullshitters, in an environment that strongly incentivises bullshit.
There are many types of bullshitter and his was cartoon-figure bullshit in plain sight - easy to see and to choose to ignore or believe.
My pet dislike are bullshitter politicians who’ve polished (or who sincerely believe) themselves to a higher gloss of righteousness. Tony Blair and his advisors for example. Opposite In schtick to Boris, but similarly deceptive and imo a more manipulative individual. You could say his lies have had just as disastrous long-lasting outcomes in loss of trust in government and government communication.
Tories absolutely fucked the country in the arse the last 14 years and Pete still banging on about Blair :lol:
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Indeed. Just as disastrous - they don't even come close. Diversion tactics as good as any politician.
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Tony Blair and his advisors…You could say his lies have had just as disastrous long-lasting outcomes in loss of trust in government and government communication.
What specific lies do you have in mind? I’m talking ones that are provably false in the same way as Johnson’s.
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Tony Blair and his advisors…You could say his lies have had just as disastrous long-lasting outcomes in loss of trust in government and government communication.
What specific lies do you have in mind? I’m talking ones that are provably false in the same way as Johnson’s.
Dodgy dossier and all that:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/03/iraq.usa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier
Blair secretly agreed with Bush to invade Iraq regardless of whether WMD were found, then bullshitted both Parliament and the public about the facts and the justification for war.
I speak as a leftie here, and I feel like it's a diversion to go "BUT BLAIR" as a response to criticisms of Johnson's lifelong shameless mendacity on a vast range of issues (and the way the Tory party as a whole seems to have embraced that level of dishonesty).
However, Blair's lying on this specific issue was undeniably huge, egregious, and resulted in vast numbers of deaths and leaving Iraq catastrophically fucked up in ways which led to the rise of ISIS.
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I assumed it was this that Pete was referring to, but wondered if there were other provable specific ‘lies’ he thought Blair was guilty of.
On Iraq, I’m aware of all that and am not defending Blair’s decision and the aftermath, but the Chilcot Inquiry put the blame for the ‘dodgy dossier’ on the intelligence services. And Iain Duncan Smith was getting the same intelligence information as Blair and was even keener to go in. We can disagree on Blair’s judgement call, but I don’t think it’s as simple as saying he outright ‘lied’.
Anyway, enough diversion…
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However, Blair's lying on this specific issue was undeniably huge, egregious, and resulted in vast numbers of deaths and leaving Iraq catastrophically fucked up in ways which led to the rise of ISIS.
It only “resulted” in the deaths if no British involvement would have meant no Iraq War. To me it’s clear that the war was going to happen regardless, so this is just the left wing version of unwarranted British exceptionalism.
If you want a sort of counterfactual, ie an Arab country with a Ba’ath Party dictatorship that wasn’t invaded by the US, then we handily have one: Syria. Which is where ISIS actually arose and whose response to the Arab Spring was disastrous. Sure, we don’t know how an un-invaded Iraq would have fared after 2003, but I don’t think it would have been pretty.
I still think it was the wrong decision, but the effects on the U.K. were smaller than commonly thought. The two main arguments for the negative effects of Iraq were increased domestic terrorism and lower trust in politicians. France has had more Islamist terrorism and there is even less trust in politicians, and they famously gave the Iraq War a pass. So I suspect other things are just as important or more so.
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However, Blair's lying on this specific issue was undeniably huge, egregious, and resulted in vast numbers of deaths and leaving Iraq catastrophically fucked up in ways which led to the rise of ISIS.
It only “resulted” in the deaths if no British involvement would have meant no Iraq War. To me it’s clear that the war was going to happen regardless, so this is just the left wing version of unwarranted British exceptionalism.
If you want a sort of counterfactual, ie an Arab country with a Ba’ath Party dictatorship that wasn’t invaded by the US, then we handily have one: Syria. Which is where ISIS actually arose and whose response to the Arab Spring was disastrous. Sure, we don’t know how an un-invaded Iraq would have fared after 2003, but I don’t think it would have been pretty.
I still think it was the wrong decision, but the effects on the U.K. were smaller than commonly thought. The two main arguments for the negative effects of Iraq were increased domestic terrorism and lower trust in politicians. France has had more Islamist terrorism and there is even less trust in politicians, and they famously gave the Iraq War a pass. So I suspect other things are just as important or more so.
I think I largely agree with that. There isn't a clear simple answer to intervention or not.
On some things, Blair was undoubtedly a bullshitter and/ or misguided, how many and much probably depends on your opinion of him; but he wasn't a pathological liar in the same way as Johnson. Johnson is only interested in himself and his image, he's a serial adulterer, was prepared to lie to get articles done as a journalist, lied to his party leader (Howard), to assist the Brexit campaign, to prorogue parliament, and finally to try to get his mates off penalties when they've misbehaved.
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I know that they were only addressed to Labour Party members rather than to the public at large, but don't Keir Starmer's ten pledges mark him out as being a truely flamboyant liar?
https://www.indy100.com/politics/keir-starmer-labour-leadership-pledges-2666421303
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However, Blair's lying on this specific issue was undeniably huge, egregious, and resulted in vast numbers of deaths and leaving Iraq catastrophically fucked up in ways which led to the rise of ISIS.
It only “resulted” in the deaths if no British involvement would have meant no Iraq War. To me it’s clear that the war was going to happen regardless, so this is just the left wing version of unwarranted British exceptionalism.
If you want a sort of counterfactual, ie an Arab country with a Ba’ath Party dictatorship that wasn’t invaded by the US, then we handily have one: Syria. Which is where ISIS actually arose and whose response to the Arab Spring was disastrous. Sure, we don’t know how an un-invaded Iraq would have fared after 2003, but I don’t think it would have been pretty.
I still think it was the wrong decision, but the effects on the U.K. were smaller than commonly thought. The two main arguments for the negative effects of Iraq were increased domestic terrorism and lower trust in politicians. France has had more Islamist terrorism and there is even less trust in politicians, and they famously gave the Iraq War a pass. So I suspect other things are just as important or more so.
I think I largely agree with that. There isn't a clear simple answer to intervention or not.
On some things, Blair was undoubtedly a bullshitter and/ or misguided, how many and much probably depends on your opinion of him; but he wasn't a pathological liar in the same way as Johnson. Johnson is only interested in himself and his image, he's a serial adulterer, was prepared to lie to get articles done as a journalist, lied to his party leader (Howard), to assist the Brexit campaign, to prorogue parliament, and finally to try to get his mates off penalties when they've misbehaved.
I see Blair and Johnson as the difference between "being economical with the truth" (i can't remember where that phrase came from), and willfully and repeatedly telling blatant, provable lies.
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I know that they were only addressed to Labour Party members rather than to the public at large, but don't Keir Starmer's ten pledges mark him out as being a truely flamboyant liar?
https://www.indy100.com/politics/keir-starmer-labour-leadership-pledges-2666421303
I can't be bothered to do the research but I am absolutely confident similar unfulfilled pledges have been made at party conferences of all parties since both parties and conferences were invented.
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Starmer's 10 pledges were made when he was running to be elected as Labour leader in 2020. They were what he claimed he would do/be if elected in that role.
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Apologies, tired typo. I would stand by the thrust of my point. People saying all sorts of stuff to get elected and then not doing it once elected is hardly new.
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Johnson, while at the Spectator, was also prepared to pay to have a journalism beaten up. This is on tape and he somehow wriggled out of being prosecuted for it. This goes well beyond what most politicians would contemplate.
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I suspect Johnston voters got broadly what they expected from him and how he portrays himself : a rougish optimist who is happy to throw public money around so long as it is via his business chums.
That isn't something I want but I struggle to see that he ever came across otherwise.
Meanwhile, if voters have little chance of changing anything at the next election (or subsequent elections), that will be due to a very careful campaign of deception that got Starmer as Labour leader where he then changed Party rules and installed identikit candidates in constituencies across the country.
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Struggling to relate to reality the vision of Johnson basically delivering what he promised whilst Starmer is the true deceiver. Lying reflexively about everything, including to the HoC, the Queen, the public, is just on-brand lovable roguery whilst Starmer’s internal politicking is Machiavellian untrustworthiness? Think we’re through the rabbit hole here, Stone.
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Your parody of what I was saying actually sums up how I see things :lol:
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We don't want an opposition leader who can win power by taking votes from the Conservatives. We want a Labour leader who will kamikaze us to glorious defeat so that we might continue to do what we enjoy best: sitting around for another parliament muttering about the mainstream media.
Also, when do we get a thread to share links to all the times a bear has shat in the woods? I'll start us off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtOckG5tNhc
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This post is about whether politicians should lie.
Liz Kendal stood to be Labour leader in the 2015 selection contest, making the argument that voters are most likely to be won off the Conservatives by putting forward policies close to those offered by the Conservatives. She got 4.5% of the Leadership selection vote.
You can argue that her mistake was to tell the truth regarding what she was offering and that she should instead have run on something like Keir Starmer's 10 pledges. Perhaps then everything would be better.
But if you are making that argument, then you are certainly not arguing for politicians telling the truth!
I think there are very important arguments to be had regarding who becomes members of political parties, who controls internal machinations of political parties and how etc etc. I think the extent to which we have democracy largely revolves around that.
Perhaps you want governance in the style offered by Starmer. That's fine and I hope it turns out well. I'm just saying it is bullshit to imagine that has come about in a manner involving democracy or honesty!
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To quote Lionel Hutz, theres 'the truth' ( :2thumbsup:) and 'the truth' ( :no:).
There is an assumed baseline level of lying/deliberate untruth/economy with words inherent to politics. It would be impossible for it to be otherwise; both human nature and the system of politics ensure it. Society accepts the kind of 'lying' embodied by Starmer, in your examples, because its the kind of lying we all do on a daily basis. We've all been economical with the truth to get something we want. If you've ever exaggerated/made up a job on your CV, painted over a damp patch before selling a house, any number of minor sleights of hand, then you're guilty of that kind of lying. It doesn't usually have the same response to the kind of lying that Johnson exhibited, and which hasn't been a feature of politics until quite recently. To say something immediately, and provably false, tends to be frowned upon in a way that other kinds of mistruth aren't. They aren't treated the same way.
I don't actually buy the idea that Johnson was somehow an order of magnitude worse than every other politician in terms of lying. I think the hand wringing over him is a feature of liberal centrist dad type politics. Equally, his lying was somehow different to that of other politicians and its reasonable to point that out. If you're arguing that all untruths of any kind should go against a politicians, or indeed anyones, permanent record I think we'll be here a while tallying everyone up.
I don't think anyone is arguing that Starmer is a paragon of virtue, of course he isn't, but to argue that he is somehow subverting democracy by not still arguing for what he said he would in 2019/2020 is mad.
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I'm actually blindsided that you all view Starmer as being sort of along the same lines as he portrayed himself as being in 2020.
To me he is pretty much the exact opposite of everything he claimed to be standing for.
In 2020 he spoke about the GE2017 manifesto as being his foundational document. He said he would unite the Party. He had his 10 pledges.
He then set about purging members, changing Party rules, suspending conference delegates the week before conference, rigging candidate selections etc etc. And now we have Labour saying that taxes won't be increased for the richest, public services will have to make do with current budgets, net zero is an aspiration to be put off etc etc.
Blair and Brown had ministers from the SCG left wing part of the Party. Starmer has totally excluded them and makes efforts to get them deselected as MPs.
It is fine to argue that centrist politics is what our country needs. We have had the Liberal Party since before Labour ever existed. My view is that is the home for honest centrist politicians. Starmer to me exemplifies the tactic of endevouring to foist LibDem type policies (though perhaps more warmongering than them) onto the electorate by ensuring there is no other choice.
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I don't actually buy the idea that Johnson was somehow an order of magnitude worse than every other politician in terms of lying.
I think this statement needs a little backing up with some evidence!
As for Starmer changing his mind, is there something, one little thing, that has happened since the period Feb - April 2020 that might have changed the political and economic situation of the U.K.? Help me out here guys, I’m struggling to think of anything.
It’s perhaps worth pointing out that “I’m a man of peace who loves hanging out with terrorists” and “I’m a committed anti-racist (terms and conditions apply)” are both lies, of a sort.
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I don't actually buy the idea that Johnson was somehow an order of magnitude worse than every other politician in terms of lying.
I think this statement needs a little backing up with some evidence!
Yeah, slightly misspoke; I think there is a school of thought which holds Johnson to be the absolute archetype of everything bad about British politics, which I don't think is right and often comes across as liberal hysteria/handwringing; I think its fair to say he was a more prolific liar than others, but lying in and of itself is not the worst thing about politics is my point.
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Seems lyou haven’t understood what’s in that website jwi? It’s a fact checker, covering all public utterances by MPs, although obviously, given his character, Johnson has a starring role.
I think politicians telling lies about policy and its impact matters very much. The effects on public trust and so democracy are corrosive.
I do not doubt that Johnson belongs to a class of shockingly mendacious politicians. And surely he seems to be an almost uniquely incompetent administrator. I think the effect of the list is lowered by bickering about some tall tales he told on his vacation compared to using untruths in propaganda to increase tensions between states and within his country.
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As for Starmer changing his mind, is there something, one little thing, that has happened since the period Feb - April 2020 that might have changed the political and economic situation of the U.K.? Help me out here guys, I’m struggling to think of anything.
People who approved of rather than hating the idea that the GE2017 manifesto should be a foundational document would say that the post-pandemic, post-Ukraine invasion, diminished-carbon-budget, world is more in need of the approach put forward in that GE2017 manifesto, not less.
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In 2020 he spoke about the GE2017 manifesto as being his foundational document. He then set about purging members, changing Party rules, suspending conference delegates the week before conference, rigging candidate selections etc etc.
Politics is a ruthless business. He didn't invent the game.
But for me I think it's useful to look at his career before politics to get a better measure of the man. Human rights lawyer including pro bono work for people facing the death penalty overseas and an environmentalist couple being sued by McDonald's for libel after distributing a leaflet highlighting its dodgy practices. Helped get the death penalty abolished in Uganda and Malawi. Head of CPS for 5 years.
Boris Johnson got sacked by the Times for making up a quote and then wrote a load of lies about the EU for the Telegraph.
If you take the politicking out of the equation, it's pretty clear there's a fundamental difference between the two men.
And now we have Labour saying that taxes won't be increased for the richest, public services will have to make do with current budgets, net zero is an aspiration to be put off etc etc.
Let's see what he does if Labour get into power.
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People who approved of rather than hating the idea that the GE2017 manifesto should be a foundational document believe that it should remain virtually unchanged regardless of what has happened since.
I wrote out the more truthful version of your post.
I’m not sure politics should be the place for “foundational documents”. When facts change ideas change and all that jazz.
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Margaret Hodge says that during the 2020 leadership campaign, Starmer's team reassured her that Starmer was lying about his politics and that he would do a 180 once elected. https://twitter.com/i/status/1611038345424928778
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That’s an interview with Margaret Hodge, right? (I had to look on private browsing after Owen Jones blocked me for calling him Squealer.)
I remember many left wingers believing absolutely nothing she said after she accused the Dear Leader of antisemitism. How times change! It’s almost like politics requires some sort of ability to change one’s mind and navigate shifting alliances.
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Sean, I'm trying to get my head around your position.
At first it seemed you were saying "Starmer's 10 pledges" were appropriate policies for 2020 but (for some reason) no longer are now.
Now you seem to be saying that Starmer's pledges never were appropriate policy proposals but were a necessary deception for the greater good or whatever.
Or are you saying Margaret Hodge is lying about this? What might motivate her in that?
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I had to look on private browsing after Owen Jones blocked me for calling him Squealer.
You’re so brave, so inspiring Sean.
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Politics, the art of the possible, right? Possible given changing economic conditions. Possible given internal party sentiment and composition. Possible given voter preferences. You know, lots of things are going on at once in political life.
Did I say anywhere that I thought the ten sacred pledges were appropriate policies? I did not. Merely that when the world changes, policies will inevitably change, and that will be part of Starmer’s calculations.
As for Hodge, I’m not saying anything about her honesty. Merely that a few years ago theres no way you’d have held her up as proof of anything you believed, and now you do. It’s almost like the righteous far left are as slippery as everyone else!
(I still think Johnson was a different species of liar however.)
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I had to look on private browsing after Owen Jones blocked me for calling him Squealer.
You’re so brave, so inspiring Sean.
I was just surprised a national figure would be so trivial!
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Hey Stone, I’m not saying that Starmer hasn’t done a number on Momentum and the farther left leaning cadres in the Labour Party; it very much looks like he has. It also looks he’s quite obsessively centrist in respect of where power and decision making should lie in Labour. When you consider the vileness that thrived under Jeremy ‘ our friends in Hamas’ (https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2011014955859538)Corbyn, also (https://www.thejc.com/news/labours-jeremy-corbyn-why-i-called-hamas-our-friends-jag6fwha) it’s somewhat understandable, if less than ideal. Fundamentally, he’s run a ruthless operation to get electable/elected. Given the self-defeating chaos of recent years, a lot of people will be inclined to look the other way if it leads to a respite from the Conservative led decline of the country.
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Hey Stone, I’m not saying that Starmer hasn’t done a number on Momentum and the farther left leaning cadres in the Labour Party; it very much looks like he has. It also looks he’s quite obsessively centrist in respect of where power and decision making should lie in Labour. When you consider the vileness that thrived under Jeremy ‘ our friends in Hamas’ (https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2011014955859538)Corbyn, also (https://www.thejc.com/news/labours-jeremy-corbyn-why-i-called-hamas-our-friends-jag6fwha) it’s somewhat understandable, if less than ideal. Fundamentally, he’s run a ruthless operation to get electable/elected. Given the self-defeating chaos of recent years, a lot of people will be inclined to look the other way if it leads to a respite from the Conservative led decline of the country.
A lot of people are also inclined to look the other way regarding Johnston.
We have liars ruling us because collectively we are willing to overlook lying (and other dishonesty/corruption) whenever it suits us.
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Yes, I take the point, but also think you aren’t comparing like with like and so proposing a false equivalence.
Starmer has proved to be a ruthless political operator within his own party, but I see no evidence of being fundamentally without integrity and accountability in his public role. Track record in the CPS is consistent with this. Johnson’s dissembling and bull have contributed to very measurable harms. Any suggestion that it was always ‘baked in’ by a knowing public is nonsense. Many bought into the idea of greater prosperity through Brexit, through the ‘oven baked’ solution of the hard rupture with the EU, the cakeist belief that the peace achieved through Good Friday Agreement couldn't be undermined by locating a border between NI and Great Britain, that people didn’t die through the incompetence wrought by talking nonsense to all and sundry during COVID.
I get that you may be unhappy about Starmer’s manoeuvrings and have sympathy with that, but there’s no equivalence between the two.
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A lot of people are also inclined to look the other way regarding Johnston.
I really don't think the polling data supports this view.
Deeply distrusted, has been for years:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/is-boris-johnson-trustworthy
A majority of voters thought he was doing badly for most of his premiership:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/boris-johnson-approval-rating
Considered incompetent by a plurality of voters for nearly the entire time he was PM:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/is-boris-johnson-incompetent
Remember that the reason the Tories dumped him was because even they couldn't ignore his unpopularity.
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There was a rather bigger, more important poll which suggested what stone said though wasn’t there? Was it an 80 seat majority he won?
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If you’re thinking of politics as a static set of facts rather than a dynamic system then you’re thinking about it wrong. Tory MPs, whose jobs are on the line, saw those polls I posted and others and, despite winning that large majority, Johnson is no longer PM. Try telling a man whose £80k pay check depends on the next election that the last one was the more important poll.
Had Stone said “were inclined” rather than “are inclined” then yes, there is a lot of truth to that, but of course that includes Labour members who saw the polling and continued to support Corbyn. If they had really thought Johnson was a total disaster then they’d have moved heaven and earth to stop him. But they preferred a righteous drubbing.
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Johnson was a bullshitter long before he became pm and his bullshitting went primetime so it’s unsurprising that a market-garden bullshitter under intense pressure of leadership would follow a well-used pattern of behaviour.
But to roll out a football cliche: you can only play the team in front of you. In 2019 the teams in front of the public were Labour under Corbyn, or the tories under bojo. The consensus view of the voting public considered the policies of a party led by someone known for bullshitting preferable to becoming the people’s republic under Corbyn - a politician considered authentic as far as politicians are concerned.
(Somewhere in universe B the UK’s response to COVID, Ukraine and Israel looks very different.)
My reference to Blair earlier in this thread was not a ‘classic political diversionary tactic’ 🙄 it was to make a point that, imo, Blair and Campbell (among others in their circle) are two of the most malevolent destructive liars in recent uk political history.
Which is why a thread talking about ‘Boris Johnson’s lies’ appears to me about as banal and unilluminating as a thread talking about ‘the sun rose in the east again today’.
I suspect that in universe C, Bojo standing up in the commons and earnestly imploring that the UK invade Iraq because Iraq posed an imminent threat to the west would be met by incredulity all round.
AKA better the idiot/devil/liar in plain view than the polished and earnest but corrupted.
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imo, Blair and Campbell (among others in their circle) are two of the most malevolent destructive liars in recent uk political history.
I presume this is in relation to the Iraq invasion (as, for most, the period of their tenure looks significantly better than what has followed) so I’m wondering if there is a universe B where the UK didn’t follow the US as the Tories were much more hawkish than the PLP?
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I'm actually blindsided that you all view Starmer as being sort of along the same lines as he portrayed himself as being in 2020.
I don’t. I always thought he was firmly centrist and was mildly surprised by how far he went to woo the left in the party. Rather like how far he’s going to woo the right in the country. We’ll see where in practical terms he settles, if given the key to number 10.
Given the deepening slide to the (far) right and omni-incompetence of the Tories, anything vaguely centrist would mark a massive lurch to the left in uk government.
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I presume this is in relation to the Iraq invasion (as, for most, the period of their tenure looks significantly better than what has followed) so I’m wondering if there is a universe B where the UK didn’t follow the US as the Tories were much more hawkish than the PLP?
Completely missing my point.
Which is: yes everyone in mainstream UK gov was hawkish - tories/Labour - and eager to align with the US. But that does not justify using a a massive and (to me) blatant lie to create fear and justify invading another country. And then modern-day literally crucifying a public servant (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/do-you-remember-what-happened-to-david-kelly/) to divert attention from the doctoring of intelligence.
If a UK government is hawkish to invade a country that poses zero immediate threat to the UK because ‘US foreign policy alignment is important’ then make that case to invade on that basis. And face the fucking music of a public that elected you, saying this is not what it wants and face the consequences if and when it goes wrong. Rather than creating make-believe threats to fear-monger and hoodwink the public into being scared of a threat that isn’t real. Which corrupts everything government touches in terms of foreign policy thereafter.
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I'm not convinced by the argument that the problem with the Tories is a lack of competence.
My impression is that Sunak, Cleverly etc are clever, well intentioned and diligent.
I think the problem is down to fundamental flaws in the economic system they believe in and roll out. They believe that leaving investment decisions with wealth holders and allowing wealth to concentrate is the way to ensure that winners not wasters run the show, the economy thrives, and all is great.
My view is that can only last so long. Unless prosperity is broad based, firms won't have customers. Human resources need to be scarce and expensive to induce firms to invest and innovate in productivity gains. It's not just the "vile hard left cadres" who say this. Wealth managers such as James Montier have made the exact same argument to explain stagnating productivity.
Starmer's team seem to be doing everything to reassure everyone that they do not intend to change course from the Tories in terms of broad economic philosophy. So, no tax increases for the wealthiest and limited public sector investment. Trade union rights will merely get repealed to where they were in 2016 -so a far cry from Labour's 2017 proposals to adopt Nordic style sectorial collective bargaining systems.
The huge problem we face is that if Starmer gets in and his attempt at Tory style policies pan out no better than those policies have been under the Tories, then we are stuck. He has stitched up the Labour Party to ensure that it can never again offer the sort of policies it was founded to deliver. People here seem to be pinning their hopes on the idea that just as Starmer lied to members in the 2020 selection, he is now lying to woo swing voters. I don't understand that. Increasing taxes for highest earners is a vote winner. This looks to me like following right wing ideology despite not because of electoral consequences.
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Much wrong with that view imo, but horses for political courses.
I don’t think this statement for e.g. holds much water:
Unless prosperity is broad based, firms won't have customers. Human resources need to be scarce and expensive to induce firms to invest and innovate in productivity gains.
Said no-one in SE Asia ever*. The reasons the west has so much of its consumer goods manufactured in SE Asia is that SE Asia has a plentiful supply of cheap labour, with relatively poor standards of labour protection, and power grids to power all that manufacturing that are heavily reliant on the cheap fossil fuels of gas, coal and oil.
Also, ‘prosperity broad based or there’ll be no customers’:
Aldi’s and Lidl’s annual profits are currently booming as people below income ‘x’ feel the pinch and divert from more expensive retailers. Business cycles offer opportunity for competitive companies at all stages of the cycle - troughs as well as peaks. We’re in a trough and it isn’t pleasant for a lot of people, but there are ‘essentials’ (which some can still barely or not afford..) and ‘desirables’ - this is the reason ‘consumer defensives (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/defensivestock.asp#:~:text=Companies%20that%20produce%20or%20distribute,tobacco%2C%20and%20certain%20household%20items.)’ as a sector tend to do well, relatively speaking, in recessions.
* OK Japan, S.Korea and Taiwan today are advanced economies based on high-tech industries, but 30 years ago they were today’s Vietnam, China and Indonesia of cheap basic manufacturing.
** The Balkan countries are destined to ‘flourish’ (if that’s the right word) in future decades as Europe’s next cheap manufacturing centre imo.
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Pete, I think this is worth a look https://www.ft.com/content/b7ad1c68-59fb-11e2-b728-00144feab49a
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Pete, I think this is worth a look https://www.ft.com/content/b7ad1c68-59fb-11e2-b728-00144feab49a
If that link is paywalled, then googling " FT what really powers innovation: high wages" provides free access.
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I'm not convinced by the argument that the problem with the Tories is a lack of competence.
My impression is that Sunak, Cleverly etc are clever, well intentioned and diligent.
My impression is very different. Sunak’s immediate lurch to grant more North Sea drilling licences because he spotted a potential wedge issue in Ulez after the Uxbridge by-election does not seem well intentioned. Nor does the failure to appoint a minister for the disabled, this week.
As chancellor he couldn’t even get his wife to pay her fair share of tax. How diligent is that?
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I met Sunak once, while Boris was recovering from Covid; I had to give him a site induction and a bit of chit chat about the R&D wind turbine I used to manage. He's an imbecilic chump that portrays an air of intellect.
Information seemed only to go one way with him - outwards. Nothing in, all out. He kept asking me leading questions which I didn't agree with and, when I carefully suggested he was off track he just kept megaphoning the message!
He's also very small :lol:
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He's also very small :lol:
So why should people vote Labour now they are aping Tory policies, well Starmer is 5'8'' whilst Sunak is 5'7".
As someone who is 5'6", I struggle to get enthused by that.
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I should probably rephrase that to "he is also way smaller than I imagined". Not that height has any bearing on anything! I was just surprised.
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Pete, I think this is worth a look https://www.ft.com/content/b7ad1c68-59fb-11e2-b728-00144feab49a
It's an interesting snippet of an article but it was written a decade ago and is talking about an industrial revolution that happened 200 years ago. A lot has changed in markets since the industrial revolution. We aren't even living in the world of 10 years ago, let alone 200 years ago.
edit: This seems to directly refute your suggestion that broad-based high wages are required to incentivise innovation, which in turn leads to productivity growth. Instead it suggests China's productivity growth in the main is a result of policy reforms beginning in 1978 which were aimed at creating the profit incentive for regional business owners. China kind of out-capitalism'd the west by being able to be both sides of the coin - firm control over its population due to its history as a communist autocracy, while using the profit motive - which is missing from communism - to incentivise the population to produce more. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues8/index.htm
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So why should people vote Labour now they are aping Tory policies,
Well, we'll see. You think Starmer will give us the same proto-far right policy as Sunak? That Reeves will give us the same pseudo austerity as Hunt; that Philipson will do the same '**ing good job' as Gillian Keegan; that Angela Rayner's work will ape Grant Shapps'; that Wes Streeting will... oh, okay, you have me there. But the point is the difference is more significant than you suggest.
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Pete, if the starting point is everyone working on collective farms as in 1970s China, then I totally agree what is needed is allowing some opportunities for free enterprise. The 1970s Chinese economy was super-dire and was constrained by a zealous ideology. Simply loosening that constraint allowed things to improve massively.
Our starting point here and now in the UK isn't remotely like 1970s China.
I'm not arguing for collective farms and a prohibition of all private enterprise. What Starmer claimed to represent in 2020 (and Corbyn did) was a move towards what has worked very well in Nordic countries and I think would improve the UK.
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I was pondering what you meant by your question which I quoted above, Stone. It seems so extraordinary I returned to this page to ask you.
Do you really not see significant differences between Labour’s plans and Tory policy? Or was that simply a rhetorical flourish to underline your view they have tacked too far to the right?
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I'm not arguing for collective farms and a prohibition of all private enterprise. What Starmer claimed to represent in 2020 (and Corbyn did) was a move towards what has worked very well in Nordic countries and I think would improve the UK.
It would be good if people could say what they think has worked very well in Nordic countries (allowing for the fact these countries also show significant differences). Denmark, a country without significant natural resources, is rich because of a remarkable track record in generating highly successful private enterprises. It is a highly capitalistic country. A country of 5.8m has world or near world leading companies in a whole range of industries large and niche: shipping (Maersk), brewing (Carlsberg), Pharma (Novo Nordisk) toys/entertainment (Lego), engineering (Grundfos, Danfoss), renewable energy (Ørsted, Vestas), biosciences (CHR Hansen), building supplies and components (Rockwool, Velux). Even the world's largest commercial sperm bank is Danish (Cryos). It is also important to understand ownership/governance structures. These companies are overwhelmingly owned by foundations that are in turn controlled by founding families. These structures protect control, and the foundations typically do significant philanthropic work, but they are also highly effective in protecting private wealth. Income inequality is relatively low in Denmark, but wealth inequality is pretty high. Corporation tax is, I believe, lower than the UK. State ownership of industry is not significant (no equivalent of Statoil/Equinor in Norway), though cooperative ownership structures are significant in some sectors (e.g. food retailing).
It's true that unions remain strong and collective bargaining is at the core of labour markets across Scandinavia (as Musk is currently finding out) and that helps explain relative income equality. But collective bargaining has to be understood as part of a wider model of the economy thoroughly rooted in private ownership. It also has to be understood in terms of history and culture.
The welfare state remains pretty robust, though not without stresses and critics. Societal trust and what we might call social solidarity remain quite strong. But these countries do elect right wing governments. Sweden, for example, experienced significant neoliberalism/marketization in the late C20th.
This isn't meant to be a dig at you Stone, it's just that I see a lot of idealisation of Scandinavian models (looking at you, my progressive American friends). If people are going to refer to what has worked well in these countries they need to be specific.
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If people are going to refer to what has worked well in these countries they need to be specific.
Do they? If Scandinavian countries aren’t doing better than us from an equality and social welfare perspective then that should be challenged but if they are (and your posts didn’t not seem to say they aren’t) then just saying ‘I’d like our country to be more like that one’ seems reasonable. Telling people they can’t aspire to better govt because they can’t articulate all the nuances of that system is a good way to keep the serfs in check! (I know that’s not what you were doing btw)
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No, that was definitely not what I was trying to do! Yes, I do think outcomes are generally better here and of course I want the UK to aspire to better - both my adult children still live there. But at some point aspiration has to be translated into policy and that requires both realism and specifics.
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I'm not convinced by the argument that the problem with the Tories is a lack of competence.
My impression is that Sunak, Cleverly etc are clever, well intentioned and diligent.
I think the problem is down to fundamental flaws in the economic system they believe in and roll out. They believe that leaving investment decisions with wealth holders and allowing wealth to concentrate is the way to ensure that winners not wasters run the show, the economy thrives, and all is great.
My view is that can only last so long. Unless prosperity is broad based, firms won't have customers. Human resources need to be scarce and expensive to induce firms to invest and innovate in productivity gains. It's not just the "vile hard left cadres" who say this. Wealth managers such as James Montier have made the exact same argument to explain stagnating productivity.
Starmer's team seem to be doing everything to reassure everyone that they do not intend to change course from the Tories in terms of broad economic philosophy. So, no tax increases for the wealthiest and limited public sector investment. Trade union rights will merely get repealed to where they were in 2016 -so a far cry from Labour's 2017 proposals to adopt Nordic style sectorial collective bargaining systems.
The huge problem we face is that if Starmer gets in and his attempt at Tory style policies pan out no better than those policies have been under the Tories, then we are stuck. He has stitched up the Labour Party to ensure that it can never again offer the sort of policies it was founded to deliver. People here seem to be pinning their hopes on the idea that just as Starmer lied to members in the 2020 selection, he is now lying to woo swing voters. I don't understand that. Increasing taxes for highest earners is a vote winner. This looks to me like following right wing ideology despite not because of electoral consequences.
He’s not lying to get swing voters though, is he. He is centrist, he is advocating compromise.
(I’ve never voted Labour).
It’s hard to not be scathing when I read such things from clearly, well meaning, kind, people (Stone) who want to see a better and more equitable society. I’d like that too.
Pretty sure, that’s what Starmer would like to see too.
If he was, in fact, the lying closet Tory, a lot of Labour voters believe him to be, he would not be a Labour politician. Simply because he could have done very well as a Tory, perhaps even already been PM, had he chosen to, yet he battles away for the losing team.
A very large number of swing voters are, actually, the more thoughtful voters. Ideologues (some of you posting here) think they are somehow stupid or simply indecisive, where in fact they are simply unaffected by extremism.
Because, as an analogy, if the car starts drifting to the right, the wise man realises that grabbing the wheel and yanking it hard to the left, will likely result in disaster.
To stretch that analogy, in this country, keeping to the left of the Center line is a happy circumstance and progress is made, veer onto the hard shoulder, or across the Center line and…
I kinda think Starmer might make a reasonable driver, for a while at least.
Also, just to beat that analogy to death, there’s always opportunity to widen the road to the left. Not easy and takes effort and planning. Sharply swerving onto an unprepared hard shoulder is a bad idea. However, swinging to the right will almost inevitably result in blood and tears.
Seasons Greetings, may you all proper and thrive.
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* OK Japan, S.Korea and Taiwan today are advanced economies based on high-tech industries, but 30 years ago they were today’s Vietnam, China and Indonesia of cheap basic manufacturing.
Can’t let this pass. I always had an interest in Japan as I grew up (maybe triggered from Judo, which was such a big aspect in the lives of my family and friends). Japan became the world's second biggest free market economy in 1968. I finally managed to visit Japan in the late 80s for a multi week series of linked high tech conferences, the most impressive I ever saw (and the Yokohama expo). Over the years I had already consumed plenty about the country. I had known about the work of leading Japanese semiconductor scientists and engineers since 1980 (my semiconductor reserch journey started in a pre uni year). My overall impression by my visit (and the reality on the visit seemed better than my external impression) was they were already a significantly more advanced society than the UK (despite a lack of physical resources, so under greater stress during things like oil shocks). They seemed way more collective in national progress than the worsening divisions and some really serious poverty in the UK. Life there, despite some obvious imperfections and significant social differences, looked better and fairer in '89 (from the Japanese poor to the well educated) than we do in the UK even now.
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Thanks everyone, this thread has given me a lot to reflect on.
Andy:- When I was thinking of "Nordic" I took that to mean:
-Very strong trade union rights such as sectoral collective bargaining and consequentially ubiquitous high wages.
-Due to widespread high wages, the government gets high tax receipts and people can afford to pay those taxes. The taxes are high and aren't set especially progressively but don't need to be in the context of the overall economy being so progressive.
-Universal (ie not means tested) public services (much like our UK NHS, schools, police already are). Includes child care.
-Meaningful worker representation on company boards etc. That prevents stuff like the leveraged buyouts we get in the UK that often wreck what otherwise would be successful firms.
That is all entirely compatible with thriving private enterprise. That doesn't mean that it won't initially be fought tooth and nail by capitalist interests/ideologues. You say that it is a tradition of how things are done in Nordic countries. It is now but it wasn't always. At the beginning of the 20thC they were very unequal and impoverished and there was mass emigration. At around the time we had a general strike in the UK they had bitter labour disputes there. Strikers were shot. That was the origin of the system.
In the UK, once the Attlee gov set up the NHS, it became a set way things have been done since despite it being totally counter to the prevailing view of many in gov. Voters won't countenance anything else. In Nordic countries, the overall economic system has similarly survived despite elections of gov with right wing inclinations.
Regarding wealth inequality, my impression is that it often works better to make private wealth less consequential rather than necessarily directly redistributing wealth. I'm keen on wealth taxes etc but my observation is that isn't where focus most needs to be. I saw something interesting noting that if various non-monetised rights of German people (such as tenants' rights, worker representation, state pensions etc) were given a monetary valuation, it would be equivalent to a huge amount of private wealth https://jwmason.org/slackwire/wealth-distribution-and-puzzle-of/ .
Oldmanmatt and mrjohnathanr:- Like Andy said, what matters is specifics. I get exasperated when terms such as "hard left" and "centrist" get thrown around rather than the discussion being about the nuts and bolts of it all. My impression is that when people in the UK want to convert the underlying economy such as towards the "Nordic model" I described above, they get pejoratively slagged off as being "hard left". It is seen as a stepping stone towards 1970s Maoism. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/jeremy-corbyn-mainstream-scandinavian-social-democrat/
Obviously I think otherwise.
To get my head around what is meant by "centrism" I need to see what is on the other side of it away from "hard left". That would be the idea that if taxes are minimised and workers are only paid what one-to-one employee-employer negotiation sets, then everything is optimal. My understanding is that "centrism" accepts that basic economic premise but wants a trade off to soften the edges. It wants to maintain economic power structures so eg wants minimal wage legislation rather than strong collective bargaining rights. It considers public spending to be something to minimise and so sees a need to direct it carefully on a means tested basis rather than thinking universal benefits can just be netted out from the well-to-do via taxation.
My only objection to centrism is a practical one. My observation is that the Nordic model does work. It is easy to see how everything flows around in such an economy to keep it all going long term. By contrast I struggle to see that with a Blair-style economy. Wes Streeting gave an interesting interview this morning. He was asked how he would transform the NHS when he was ruling out raising taxes or borrowing. He said the usual stuff about him being a better manager than any Tory. He also said Blair had delivered growth and that had enabled the (undeniable) big NHS improvements under Blair. My problem with that comes from looking under the bonnet of that Blair growth. My impression is that it pretty much all stemmed from property price inflation and an unsustainable banking bubble. That originated from banking regulation changes made before Blair. Buy-to-let mortgages came from John Major in 1996. Perhaps the housing bubble inflated more because Labour was more generous with housing benefit (paid on to but-to-let landlords and their creditors) than the Tories would have been but it was basically just running along with what Major had set in place. Anyway, it was just a one-way stream of money that, whilst it funded a great NHS for a while, saddled the country with crippling housing costs. It isn't a system that works or can be re-enacted IMO.
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Of course Blair also did a lot of PFI https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/26/pfi-labour-nhs-health-service-private-finance-initiative
That's the sort of mess that comes from trying to dodge the need to realign the economy and yet being committed (as we should be) to ensuring people are provided for.
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Some good reading here I’m enjoying the discussion.
Forgive my ignorance but I’ve always thought that the problem with comparing the UK to Norway etc is that they’ve had about the same amount of mineral wealth extraction over the same period of time but with a fraction of the population to divide it up over. Given that all of the Nordic countries have less than half the population of the uk it gives an even greater dispersal of the wealth across the region because their version of London couldn’t just hog it all.
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Some good reading here I’m enjoying the discussion.
Forgive my ignorance but I’ve always thought that the problem with comparing the UK to Norway etc is that they’ve had about the same amount of mineral wealth extraction over the same period of time but with a fraction of the population to divide it up over. Given that all of the Nordic countries have less than half the population of the uk it gives an even greater dispersal of the wealth across the region because their version of London couldn’t just hog it all.
It's only really Norway that has lots of oil etc. Denmark and Finland aren't natural resource economies.
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In reply to Moo.
In the specific case of Norway, their side of the oil fields has been more abundant and the wealth extracted has been invested into the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund (http://www.nbim.no).
Ours was largely spent on tax cuts and propping up the economy such that we have nothing to show for it now.
edit Norwegian fund value approx £1,208,359,883,639 The population is circa 5.5M
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One way of looking at it is that Norway's sovereign wealth fund sequesters away the oil proceeds and prevents them from distorting their economy and turning the country into a petro-state. They have all of that on-paper ownership of global stockmarkets etc, but they aren't living off the profits of those companies. They are just amassing it all.
edit: I just saw that they did withdrawn a bit from the fund during the COVID crisis (which also entailed record low oil prices) https://fortune.com/2020/05/12/norway-oil-sovereign-wealth-fund-coronavirus-bailout/
edit: but the general point is that natural resources really aren't at all what Nordic economies are about. The sovereign wealth fund is really an example of how even when they do have rich natural resources (ie Norway), they don't live off of that but rather squirrel that money away.
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What Starmer claimed to represent in 2020 (and Corbyn did) was a move towards what has worked very well in Nordic countries and I think would improve the UK.
The Scandinavian countries (and Finland) are either part of the E.U. or part of the European Economic Area, with EEA membership entailing a strong participation in the single market (essentially the four freedoms including freedom of movement, but no membership of the Common Agricultural Policy). Clearly for any European nation being part of the EU is a major part of their economic system.
Do you, as a strong proponent of Brexit in 2016, think that either E.U. membership or Single Market participation is part of the Nordic model that we should copy? Or does your admiration of the Nordic model have clear limits?
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Sean, I don't think I was a strong proponent of Brexit. I didn't (and still don't) think Brexit was the overriding be-all-and-end-all that most people considered it to be. I actually think EU membership has (somewhat) got in the way of some key parts of the Nordic model eg see https://www.etuc.org/en/laval-case-vaxholm
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Oh come on, don’t rewrite history Stone. I remember you arguing for it rather enthusiastically, and yes, your obscure trade union example that you used here was a part of it (I distinctly remember as it was so niche a point).
You’re free to argue that a 5%-ish drop in GDP* every year, for as long as we’re out of the SM/CU, is not as big a deal as most reasonable economic commentators make. But it sure could fund a lot of this things you claim to want for British workers - and in a quite obvious and direct way that we already know works for our economy.
* I think this is the best estimate we have atm, it’s the work of John Springfield if you want to check out the methodology.
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"If a UK government is hawkish to invade a country that poses zero immediate threat to the UK because ‘US foreign policy alignment is important’ then make that case to invade on that basis." - petejh
Agree with most of that post Pete. But while US foreign policy alignment was certainly part of Blair's thinking, I really don't think it was the main reason. As far as I could see, Blair fundamentally believed in the US neo conservative project, and the Iraq war was the centerpiece of their strategy.
"It only “resulted” in the deaths if no British involvement would have meant no Iraq War. To me it’s clear that the war was going to happen regardless" - seankenny
Indeed. If anything, I suspect the Brits being there possibly very slightly reduced some of the more extreme things the US were planning (not that it helped a fat lot).
My take on Iraq was always the following:
It was a US neo conservative war, and was completely inevitable as soon as Bush came to power in 2000, regardless of whether any other countries were on board or not. There was a group of neo cons who had always since their earliest days in the 60s and 70s believed essentially in "down with dictators, up with democracy". Which on the face of it sounds reasonable enough. But it was emphatically not the US foreign policy of the time - which was essentially "down with Communism and we don't care how many dictators we need to prop up as long as they are not communist dictators".
For the most part back then that group of neo cons didn't have any real power. After communism collapsed at the end of the 80s, the US needed a new foreign policy aim, and that group of neo cons started to gain more influence. But still not enough to persuade George Bush senior to actually invade Iraq when the US pushed Saddam back to the Iraq border after he'd invaded Kuwait in 1990. And they were furious with George Bush senior for not pushing on into Iraq when they reached the border. They felt like that was a major strategic mistake, as they believed that the time was ripe and if they had toppled Saddam at that time, dictatorships around the world would would drop like flies.
During the 90s they gained more and more influence, and it was clear by the end of the 90s that if the Republicans won, that the administration would be completely dominated by neo cons. And that the thing (Iraq) that they'd been seething about for the whole of the 90s would be the highest thing on their priority list. And of course during the 90s, Saddam had done lots of completely horrific things to the Shiias and the Kurds in Iraq in order to ruthlessly keep power, thus making the case the neo cons were putting forward a much easier sell. The WMD thing was always likely to be bollocks, Iraq had been completely contained in the 90s, and whilst Saddam was certainly a huge threat to all the Shias and Kurds in Iraq, there was very little external threat. But there was enough ambiguity (and of course Saddam had actually used chemical weapons at various points) to make it sound vagely plausible, which they clearly thought was an easier sell to Americans, than trying to explain neo conservative philosophy.
And then 9/11 happened, and the administration had carte blanche to do whatever it wanted. At which point, the Iraq war was completely and utterly inevitable (although they'd no doubt have found a way to do it regardless of 9/11, as it was top of their agenda from the second they got to power).
What were they trying to achieve? Well it was hardly a secret. They called the campaign "shock and awe" after all. That was really what they wanted. They wanted dictators around the world to shudder in their boots. They thought that if they took out Saddam, they could basically tell the world what to do. That a wave of democracy would spread around the world, and dictators everywhere would fall. It's why they had so little interest in Afghanistan. The neo cons never believed in that war, as it didn't fit their agenda at all, they just felt they had to do it as it was obviously where the 9/11 plot had come from. ie: they saw it as a bunch of beards in caves, and that wiping them out wouldn't have any impact on the rest of the world. Whereas taking out Saddam (ie: a country with a proper army, where they could fully demonstrate US military dominance), they believed, would change the world. (If they'd put even half the funding into Afghanistan as they did into Iraq, there was a slim chance it might have actually done some good).
For a tiny amount of time during the Arab spring, when Mubarak fell in Egypt, I almost started to believe that the neo cons might have had a point after all. That was the start of everything they had been aiming for right there. But then reality struck back, from Egypt to Syria to everywhere else. And ultimately the state department, as opposed to the neo cons, had always been more on the right track. ie: stabilty, even under an utterly grim dictator is probably preferable to war, instability and chaos, even if war is initiated with the best of intentions. And attempts to change the world in a short timeframe, believing democracy will solve all problems and that people will vote in their best interests if given a chance were always doomed to failure. The realities are that people in most places in the world, if given the chance, don't vote like Harvard educated lawyers in their own personal economic interest. They tend to vote on religious or sectarian grounds, thus making the reality of democracy in many places in the world, little more than a census, and of zero use in terms of creating stability.
Whilst a Labour politician, from a foreign policy perspective Blair was an arch neo con. He truly believed in the project. That famous speech he gave to rapturous support in the US - can't be bothered looking up the exact quote, but the gist was - "the kalaidoscope has been shaken... let us re order the world around us". That was exactly what he and the neo cons were all about.
For the most part, I don't really go along with people saying that the neo cons were evil or only interested in money or oil, or whatever else the lefty version of events tries to portray. Of course some people made lots of money out of the war, and the way it was conducted was so bonkers and horrific as to be beyond belief. But for the most part I tend to think that they were more hopelessly naive than evil. And in the attempt to do what they thought was right, all sorts of truly evil things ended up happening.
As the late great Isiah Berlin once said (not got time to look up exact quote, but the gist is): "If you believe you have the answer to all of humanities ills, there is the risk that you will do all sorts of horrific things." And you could add to that that you would try and justify what you were doing in all sorts of ways that bore little resemblence to the truth. Of course Isiaah Berlin was referring to primarily to communism, but it applies to the neo conservative philoshophy just as well.
As for the rest of the thread, my basic take on the world (from an economic point of view at least) is that I (mostly) have left wing aims but I (mostly) don't believe that typical left wing policies have any hope of doing much to achieve those aims.
To me the biggest single problem in the UK is housing and planning reform. The miserable lives that large swathes of the population are living are a direct consequence of that. And whilst I have some patience with those blaming all of the UK's current problems on the Tories (and they've certainly made everything much worse over the last 15 years). But the truth is that the housing problem in the UK really started way back in the late 90s when Blair came to power, with huge increases in house prices betwee 97 and 2002. Blair was always more interested in fixing the world, than fixing the UK.
Both administrations in the UK have been similarly tragic though. The Labour government spent most of it's decade in power (and most of the wealth generated in a period of good growth around the world) embroiled in foreign policy issues. The Tory goverment for the last decade have been entirely embroiled in Brexit. On both occasions, very little time has been spent on actually figuring out how to improve the lives of people in the UK.
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Regarding hawkish foreign policy positions, it is hard to beat this from Luke Akehurst who is now a key inner circle fixer for Stamer https://lukeakehurst.blogspot.com/2006/08/take-test.html
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You’re free to argue that a 5%-ish drop in GDP* every year, for as long as we’re out of the SM/CU, is not as big a deal as most reasonable economic commentators make.
* I think this is the best estimate we have atm, it’s the work of John Springfield if you want to check out the methodology.
5% drop in GDP every year ringing big mathematical alarm bells! Do "reasonable economic commentators" really make that claim??! If that was the case then taking 2020 as when we actually left the SM/CU, then by 2030 due to compounding 5% decreases our GDP would have shrunk to 60.59% of its 2020 level. As a matter of fact GDP is going up - GDP in 2023 is higher than in 2020 (despite the pandemic) so this stat doesn't pass a sense check.
I had a look at John Springfield and what he modelled was a lag of 5.5% of GDP between 2016 and 2022 against the counterfactual of a doppelganger UK where Brexit hadn't happened. The methodology and result is definitely arguable, but is at least believable!
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Yes, my mistake - I was using “drop” as a shorthand for “5% below the counterfactual”. I’d assumed that was obvious given that we all know GDP is vaguely increasing!
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Nemo, I think the huge problem with house prices is that house-price-inflation isn't due to policy oversights, it is something that is actively cultivated (as I mentioned above with liberalisation of buy-to-let-mortgage regulation by Major that was then enthusiastically run with by Blair). Of course boosting the economy and funding trade deficits with a ballooning mortgage credit bubble is at least as irresponsible as doing so with wanton government deficit spending. But most political commentators (and the balance of financial markets) don't see it that way. There is a massive ongoing lobbying effort to maintain that zeitgeist.
Individual homeowners also get a rosy feeling when they see their on-paper "net worth" increasing due to their house price inflating. Of course it is no use to anyone who isn't moving somewhere cheaper.
I'm impressed by countries such as Germany that don't seem to have fallen for all of that nonsense to anything like the same extent.