POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

I think I saw a clip on TV of Gove and Raab together followed by Gove's ludicrous statement about EU intransigence. His argument supporting this is his totally illogical version of what essentially is the 'be reasonable and see it my way' approach of the Tories to Brexit for the last three years.
If you remember I forecast that May's biggest problem was that her version of negotiation was flawed because once the Article 50 letter went in the EU held all the cards and we were supplicants only. In short order the EU agreed and made public their totally reasonable negotiating principles which included preservation of the Good Friday agreement. This was ratified before publication by all 27 member states. Since then the UK has consistently ignored the EU position and continued to press for what they must have known they could never achieve, a soft border in Ireland. This has suited the rabid Brexiteers because it guarantees their preferred hard Brexit. This preference betrays the fact that they are only interested in the advantages to themselves and their financial interests and ignores the consequences for the majority of the population.
I have noted elsewhere the coincidence of Peterloo (1819), The culmination of what became known as Red Clydeside when Manny Shinwell led an estimated 80,000 workers in a protest march to support the struggle for a 40 Hour Week in 1919, and Brexit in 2019. Will we see troops out on the streets as in the two previous examples?
This is not as far fetched as it appears and if the need arose I wouldn't put it past this lot......
Did you hear Sir Paul Nurse from the Crick Institute absolutely slamming Brexit and the effects it will have on our status in the scientific world community. A very powerful contribution and I hope the right people were listening.

[plaques]

If you remember I forecast that May's biggest problem was that her version of negotiation was flawed because once the Article 50 letter went in the EU held all the cards and we were supplicants only.

Some of the old American Democrats negotiators are saying exactly the same thing about any future American trade deal. Once out of the EU we will be in a very weak position to do any hard negotiations. Any country in this position to put it bluntly will get screwed.

I have noted elsewhere the coincidence of Peterloo (1819),

Reflect back into 'modern' history the present Brexit position reminds me of Churchill and the Dardanelles campaign in the first world war. The plan was under researched, badly supplied, and finally an utter failure that cost thousands of lives instead of saving them, It was only Churchill's stubbornness that kept it going as long as it did. He then blamed everybody for its failure but himself. Sounds familiar?

[Stanley]

We crossed P, did you hear Sir Paul Nurse?
I also noted the fact that the food distributors are asking for powers to ration and allocate food supplies when Brexit happens, something that is illegal ate the moment on the grounds it is combination, a sort of cartel. They evidently think there are potential problems.

[Tizer]

This interview with Sir Paul Nurse was published in `Nature' journal on 28th February, a month before the end of March deadline...
`Paul Nurse on Brexit: ‘UK is sleepwalking into a disaster’' LINK
Read it through and especially note the last bit, and remember this was in late February:
`The scientific community, top to bottom, is overwhelmingly against Brexit. We did a survey here a few months ago and around 97% thought that Brexit was a negative outcome. I have this naive faith that normally the British are not this stupid. Gradually, Parliament is waking up to the fact that it is sleepwalking into disaster. I’m hoping over the next 30 days that Parliament will realize the need to call for an extension, so we can have more time to talk about it. And in my view, ultimately, we do need a second referendum because the first referendum was so strongly informed by misunderstanding and even mistruths of a gargantuan type. This is a madness that normally the British find a way through, so let’s hope that we do.'

You can see why he's so concerned now!

[Stanley]

Funny isn't it how the people standing up and shouting warnings are the ones who are at the sharp end and having to deal with what's happening on the ground. Meanwhile, people like Gove at Dover yesterday, who have no concept of what happens in the real world, formulate policies and arguments which bolster their pre-conceived positions.
Private Eye this week gives us news that the hedge funds based abroad are already making fortunes shorting the Pound and British manufacturing companies in trouble. They are also pumping money into the Tory Party and in particular the Johnson Cabal. PE give details and amounts and it is quite amazing. It drives home the message that there are people making money out of Austerity and Brexit. They see them as gravy trains.
Oh and by the way, the escape hatch has been guaranteed. Eric Pickles has been resurrected and put in charge of the Revolving Door Committee. So that's all right then.
I'm watching the strange situation of McDonnell going to the Edinburgh Fringe and dropping the bombshell of Labour not impeding the SNP if they go for another referendum on leaving the Union. This evidently with no consultation with Scottish Labour who are dead against the referendum. All sorts of people pop out of the woodwork and argue that this move is unconstitutional. (That puzzles me because the last time I looked we haven't got a written Constitution only a bunch of precedents which have no force in law.) There is something behind this and it looks like cooperation between Labour and the SNP to construct a supply and support agreement that would guarantee a majority in a Confidence vote. It may well be that in the back rooms the fall of the Johnson government is being carefully plotted. That theory sounds very plausible.
I would welcome that!

[plaques]

Private Eye this week gives us news that the hedge funds based abroad are already making fortunes shorting the Pound and British manufacturing companies in trouble

Back to the Treasury Report on the vote to leave the EU. their projection was a 12% to 15% devaluation of the £(pound) given that we were leaving with a deal. A 'No Deal' was beyond comprehension as it would take us into unknown territory. Knowing that the £'s value will almost certainly drop isn't really a gamble its more like putting money on a sure thing. Following devaluation is usually price rises as raw material costs increase, inflation, which if followed by increase in wages will only make the situation worse. The answer.. More austerity.

[Tizer]

A long, detailed article about Dominic Cummings in last Saturday's Times was very interesting and quite funny in places but it's behind a pay wall on the Web, so no point in linking it here. I did find, via a Wikipedia link, this 2014 article about him. He seems to be a complex fellow...
LINK

[Stanley]

There is something very wrong when an adviser becomes the story.
I watched Johnson doing his turbo charged Britain act again yesterday on the TV. Apart from any moves by his opponents he is hanging out more hostages to fortune than any other politician I have seen in a long and eventful life. Bit like the Bull Market on the stock exchanges, it has to end somewhere. The 'be reasonable and see it our way' ploy is definitely not going to work. All the EU have to do is sit there and watch us self-destruct. I wonder what the odds are in Brussels for a complete volte face as we get close to the wire?
If we ever needed reassurance that our fears about a broken political system were correct, this is it. I have run out of words to describe it, Infantile, selfish, surreal and farce don't do it justice.

[Tizer]

As one commentator said on the radio this morning `We are in uncharted territory'. He was speaking about the UK/Brexit situation but it applies more widely now - look at India and Kashmir, Hong Kong, Trump's trade tariffs, and so on. It's not a good time to be leaving your friends and wandering in the wilds!

[Stanley]

True, and that's backed up by the latest trade figures.
"The pound has sunk to a new two-year low against the euro following the surprise news that the UK economy shrank by 0.2% between April and June. At lunchtime, the pound was down by 0.8% against the euro with £1 now worth less than €1.08. Against the dollar, sterling was 0.6% lower, matching the 31-month low it reached at the beginning of August. As a result, £1 is now worth just under $1.21."
Sajid Javez shrugs this off and says he doesn't expect a recession..... So that's all right then.

[Tizer]

...following the surprise news that the UK economy shrank by 0.2% between April and June.

Well...I suppose perhaps it was a surprise to Sajid!

[Stanley]

Watching Javez trotting out a glib set of reasons why the bad economic numbers are not a cause for concern convinces me that political spin is reaching new levels of perfection. According to him manufacturing production falling and the Pound tanking to a whisker off parity with the Euro is OK because the IMF (which everyone was slagging off when they forecast this fall recently) says we are doing better than other European currencies which are, themselves, declining. I note also that there are 'experts' arguing that GDP is nonsense anyway, it is outdated, we don't need growth month on month. I once asked my mate Martha, who is no slouch when it comes to economics, why our system had to have continued growth and she said that there were many reasons but the main one was that a world where population rise increases the demand for resource month on month. Piketty forecast this and he says that an increase of at least 2.5% per annum is needed to avoid decline, I think I'll believe those two rather than a dodgy politician.
I note also that Stiglitz said yesterday that on the whole he is a pessimist on the world economy, another voice worth listening to.
Meanwhile, Johnson shakes the money tree and the funding for tax cuts and increases for all rain down, one of the oldest political tricks in the book and the one thing that every one agrees on is that they have no idea what will happen if No Deal becomes reality beyond the fact that it is going to be bad. I am sorry to say that I am with Stiglitz on this one. The only thing that is in question is how long the effects will persist, I note that even one Tory MP said yesterday that his guess was twenty years. That could be optimistic....

[plaques]

Sajid Javid was a bit surprised by the 0.2% but since the fundamentals were right he didn't think it would lead to a recession. The comment was wait and see. This sounds like kicking it into the long grass. Another three months could see us out of the EU and all this will be forgotten. He also quotes the BoE growth of 1.3% for the year to back up his argument normally up to now what the BoE has said has been project fear and should be ignored.
A recap on GDP meaning....Written out, the equation for calculating GDP is: GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government investment + government spending + (exports – imports). For the gross domestic product, “gross” means that the GDP measures production regardless of the various uses to which the product can be put.
Putting it simply the government can increase the GDP by spending more taxpayers money which is exactly what Boris Johnson is doing to sugar the pill for any possible election.

[Tripps]

I note also that Stiglitz said yesterday that on the whole he is a pessimist on the world economy, another voice worth listening to.

So if Stiglitz says it then all is credible, but If Javid says it, then it's 'spin' .

[Tizer]

The £1.8 billion that Boris says is being given to the NHS...here's some comment from a BBC report:
`Mr Johnson announced his own £1.8bn funding increase for the NHS, but for hospital buildings and equipment (the capital budget) rather than day-to-day spending. So was it new money? That question has been hotly debated. Of that package, £850m is new in that it will be provided over five years by the Treasury to fund 20 hospital upgrade projects and had not been announced before. Much of the other £1bn actually comes from surpluses built up by hospitals in earlier years, which they were not allowed to spend at the time. That bar has now been lifted by the Treasury, which has given the green light for the hospitals to spend the money this year. So it is not new cash, in the sense some members of the public might understand it. But it is funding which is newly available to the NHS. Sally Gainsbury, of the Nuffield Trust, was the first analyst to highlight the funding mechanism. She argued that "to claim this as new money is a little like finally giving back the £10 you borrowed some time ago - and expecting to be applauded wildly". However, the prime minister and health secretary continued to insist the £1.8bn was new money.' `NHS 'reality check' for PM Boris Johnson' LINK

Re Stanley's comment about Sajid Javid...(From The Times, 10th August, 2019.)

[Stanley]

David, Basically yes! Joseph Stiglitz is an economist with an impressive track record and highly regarded. As for Javez, I forget the details now but PE did a profile a few weeks ago detailing his ministerial triumphs and it read more like Grayling than anyone else.
Apart from that, to state unequivocally that the UK economy is stable and vigorous is such an obvious departure from sober analysis into the realms of hyperbole that it must send a shiver down any reasonable person's spine. One could quite legitimately suspect it is a lie. So yes, spin not cold hard fact.
As for Johnson, look at the facts. He has never submitted his policies to hard nosed interrogation, all his public statements are exhortation based on guff and jingoism and he avoids any comment on current bad economic news. What is going on at the moment is an effort to preserve the 'Boris Bounce'. Remember May had one as well. They are doing everything they can to avoid any meaningful debate until it is too late to stop a No Deal Brexit and it looks as though they might succeed by manipulating our archaic pseudo constitution. If and when it goes through it will be presented as vindication of his policies, that is what he promised. After that the shit hits the fan and nobody is certain what will happen.
On balance, the opinions being voiced by the people at the sharp end who will have to deal with the consequences is that it is certainly going to be a problem, could be a disaster and might even be a catastrophe. Stiglitz is pessimistic and so am I, it won't be long now until we find out.
135 shopping days to Xmas..... Any bets on the High street trading?
Johnson has got round to Law and order. The money tree has been shaken again and more prison places are to be built, sentences made more severe and stop and search powers extended. All this on top of 20,000 more bobbies (To make up for the 20,000 cut since 2010 of course.) Another classic Tory precursor to an election.

[plaques]

David, Basically yes! Joseph Stiglitz is an economist with an impressive track record and highly regarded. As for Javez, I forget the details now but PE did a profile a few weeks ago detailing his ministerial triumphs and it read more like Grayling than anyone else.

The Brexit fiasco is lookig like a re-run of the return to the gold standard in 1925. In the short term this increased the value of the £(sterling) until it started to affect exports. Then came the coalmine owners lockouts and reduced wages culminating in the general strike. Its noticeable that the main opponent against its return was John Maynard Keynes an economist who could see the far reaching affects of the move. Churchill, just like Javid is doing, went along with the tide of aristocrats who potentially were set to make a killing. It took another war before we got out of this debacle. This option isn't open to us any more that is unless we follow Trump's lead.

[Tizer]

Propaganda!...
`Brexit: Chancellor plans 50p coins to mark UK leaving EU' LINK
`Chancellor Sajid Javid is drawing up plans for millions of commemorative 50p coin to be issued when the UK leaves the European Union later this year. Mr Javid has asked officials to see whether it would be possible to *produce the coins in time for the UK's scheduled departure date of 31 October*, according to the Daily Telegraph....'.

He wants to spend all that money without being sure we are leaving!

[Stanley]

I'm afraid that's just one more example of the fantasy world these people are inhabiting Tiz.
Lots of flak yesterday generated by the flurry of announcements on law and order. It transpires that the decision to extend stop and search powers is based on nothing more solid than 'public opinion'. One Tory MP compared this move to Johnson's cunning wheeze with water cannon when he was London Mayor. That didn't end well, T May scuppered that one as Home Secretary.
Then the minister responsible for recruiting the 20,000 bobbies admitted on live TV that he didn't know what he was going to do with them. The thing that struck me about that was his ineptitude. All he had to say was that that was a matter for the individual police forces which I suspect it is anyway but the mind set betrayed is that as a politician in charge he had never thought it out and imagined he will have to allocate them.
We are in La La Land.
Later... I think Mr Javez should read THIS BBC report on the dire state of the high street with empty shops and reducing foot fall. Not indicative of a 'vigorous economy'.
Meanwhile Trump plumbs new depths. Aware of his personal connection with Epstein, the man who allegedly committed suicide while in gaol awaiting trial on sex charges, he has diverted attention by re-tweeting conspiracy theories about a Clinton involvement. It looks as though this is backfiring on him as pressure grows for all Epstein's connections to be investigated.

[plaques]

Boris Johnson appears to be in full electioneering mode. First create a problem by having cutbacks and austerity to bring the national dept down then solve the problem by increasing spending and sending the dept back up. Of course you don't mention the last bid just offer it up as a new initiative that solves the problem. Spending solutions that only cost £millions are becoming ten a penny. The NHS 'refurbishments' £2b, New prison placements £2,5b and no doubt there will be more promises. Stephen Hawkin's was right when he said black holes eventually melt away. Financial black holes are not in the Tory dictionary except when Labour is in power.
Sajid Javid may actually be right in predicting that the next quarter GDP will not show a recession. Johnson's big spending will add to the GDP and we have also entered a cycle where industry stockpiled for the 29 March Brexit (GDP up) then released this stock (GDP down) and now have to re-stockpile for 31 October (GDP up?) . and then 'CRASH' but they did say it could be a tough couple of months, years, decades?

[Tizer]

It transpires that the decision to extend stop and search powers is based on nothing more solid than 'public opinion'.

A bit like Brexit, then?

[chinatyke]

It transpires that the decision to extend stop and search powers is based on nothing more solid than 'public opinion'.

A bit like Brexit, then?

[Stanley]

Good posts and I agree with them all.
I have been complaining for ten years about the Tory's lousy policies and their lack of guiding principle apart from shifting us back into the 19th century and what we are seeing here is a case in point. Johnson is selecting which buttons to push to fire up the Tory heartlands and disgruntled others. He is gruntling them by promising all the things the man on the Clapham Omnibus wants to see addressed. Par for the course, going after the lowest common denominator. When the time comes for a vote will the public fall for the oldest trick in the book yet again?
I get unceasingly worried by our Home Secretary. Ms Patel has said that reports of her being in favour of the return of capital punishment were 'taken out of context'. Her recent comments haven't reassured me. In these crazy days anything is possible.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, and Americans too, particularly a tough cookie like John Bolton! The US promises Johnson the earth after Brexit which is good news for him but I note that not a word was said about the NHS apart from 'there are no preconditions'. Watch this space!

[Tizer]

I have been complaining for ten years about the Tory's lousy policies and their lack of guiding principle...

And I agree with you...but perhaps we should add a bit of balance. In that same ten years the Labour Party under Corbyn hasn't excelled as an official opposition party either. Since the Brexit trouble started we've heard more useful contributions from the members of the previous Labour government than from the present Labour leadership.

[PanBiker]

The ballot box will decide if JC and the parties policies are an effective opposition. All the old Blairite guard should basically keep their noses out but as watered down Tories they will do anything to keep a proper socialist ethos down. That's from a bloke who spent a good deal of his life getting them elected back in the 90's. I sent my membership card back when they reneged on their promises and sold their socialist principles down the road.