POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

I note in the BET that David Brown, Chairman of Pendle Conservatives commented that "donations to political parties are completely transparent and published online". Really? would he like to make an unequivocal statement that at no time has any money been injected unto the Pendle Tory party from any source even remotely connected to the Noble Lord Ashworth. I seem to remember a statement to a House of Lords Committee that such funds had been injected but nobody from the party has ever come clean or issued a definite denial. Kicking it into the long grass and hoping it will go away? Unfortunately, some of us have very long memories..... Ask Lord Greaves what he thinks about it.

[Stanley]

Liberal flyer arrived yesterday, notable that it chronicles actual achievements and not aspirations. David's seat is safe I think.....
Nasty little spat between the LibDems and Gove. (LINK). I have to say that I agree with them about Gove but the language reminds me that this is election year and the LibDems are making sure there is differentiation between them and the Tories. We will see a lot more of this.....
For only the second time in my life I have had my choice of reading reinforced by a report on the Week in Westminster. Last time it was a Private Eye cover, this time it is Thomas Piketty's book, 'Capital'. Evidently it is required reading over the recess for the Westminster bubble. The commentator also agreed with me that we are looking at another Nobel Prize Winner. She is right, this is possibly the most influential book on economics of the last 100 years....

[David Whipp]

My Tom and his mate delivered where you live; glad they found your letter box. It was interesting campaigning amongst the showers yesterday.

[Stanley]

They were good lads and shut the gate behind them.... A small thing but it counts!

[Tripps]

I have never voted in a European election before - couldn't really see any point to it. This time I wish to do so. Can anyone explain the voting system? I have just received my postal vote form, and find that I have a choice of ten parties to choose from, and I must vote for just one of them. Each party has a list of seven names. Am I voting for all seven of them? There is no indication in the pack, of how many winners there will be.

I have had a quick google, and find the EU site no help at all, and am told elsewhere that the system is one of proportional representation. How can that be if I only get one choice? I had expected to put several candidates into an order of preference.

Maybe this explains it. From wikipedia - "In these systems, parties make lists of candidates to be elected, and seats get allocated to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party receives. "
The BBC site says that it is a vote for a block of candidates, and the party will choose the winner, based on how high up the list they are. - What list? Is it the order they appear on the ballot paper. What if I like some on their list but not others?
What sort of a system is it where you don't actually know for whom you are voting? I am bemused.

[David Whipp]

There was a good explanation of the voting system for the European election on the BBC website recently. Have a look HERE

The lists of candidates have each been chosen by their respective parties. If a party gets enough votes, the first person on their list will be elected. Then, using the system explained above, candidates are elected until the number of MEPs needed in each region has been chosen. In the North West, there are eight seats.

It's not as good as the single transferable vote, where you can choose between individual candidates (to my mind achieving a better form of proportional representation).

[Tripps]

Many thanks for that David. An explanation with the ballot paper would not have done any harm. Looks designed to avoid any clear winners. Explains why the BNP got a seat last time. Thanks Mr d' Hont - another famous Belgian for the notebook.
Good luck with your campaign - I'd vote for you - despite the party you belong to.

[Stanley]

David, I have never understood the EU election properly. I just vote for Labour! In local elections I don't bother about party, I just vote for whom I think is most effective, in this case David. It's the individual that counts. (Besides, they close the gate when posting flyers.....)
Muttering in the markets about interest rates having to rise to cool down the overheated housing market. A small dark cloud on the horizon and it isn't going to go away.
Everyone knows the rate will have to go up and of course it's bad news for anyone over-extended on a mortgage. Bad news if it comes before the 2015 election of course. Cameron and Ossie were fairly relaxed because the timetable was that it would happen late in 2015. Forecast now for the first quarter in 2015 and nothing to stop it being earlier if the market continues to inflate how it is going now. This 'recovery' is badly balanced and as time goes on the cracks are going to start appearing, we are nowhere near out of the wood!

[Stanley]

Watching the development of the spat between the LibDems and Gove I am even more convinced that Mr Gove is a nasty piece of work. When you see the attribution of information to 'friends of the Education Minister' this is code for his cohort of attack dogs who seem to do his dirty work for him. Some quite extraordinary language is being used and on the LibDem side, from people who aren't afraid to be named, far more preferable than anonymous tweets and blogs.
I don't know how the MPs who are reading Piketty are getting on but I'm enjoying him. We are into an analysis of inequality now and once again I am heartened by the fact that his conclusions, based on enormous trawls of historic data, are the same as my long held but unsupported prejudices. Apart from slamming austerity as a tool for fiscal reform he gives evidence to show that as the share of wealth controlled by the top 10% (decile) increases, so does inequality as wealth is sucked out of the bottom 50% of the wage structure. The historic high was 1900/1910 and we are approaching that level again with no signs of the curve flattening out. (his data goes up to 2013 in some cases) The message that is emerging is that the higher this imbalance gets, the more inefficient the economy is. In other words, by resisting any efforts to redistribute wealth, the super rich improve their position in the short term but in the long term can kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Using their power to influence political decisions by party donations and campaigning organisations and think-tanks exacerbates this trend. Fascinating stuff and I begin to wonder what his eventual conclusion will be (I haven't peeked!). My guess is that it is not going to be good news for anyone. I wonder if the message is getting through to the legislators?
It just struck me that the Noble Lord Ashworth is a\ classic example of a man who uses his wealth to influence politics. He should read Piketty, wake up and smell the coffee. But of course he is quite sure he is right.....

[plaques]

When i first read this article I thought that Stanley had written it. Pfizer Comment. Can we ever recover from this situation? I doubt it.

[Tardis]

Shame that I missed Shadow Cabinet Maria Eagle on Saturday.

After the photos on the square, with only one of the Barnoldswick candidates - my friend Lynn - (see twitter & facebook for appropriate channels) they apparently retired to Victoria's for a cup of tea. We must have walked past them without being aware of where they were on our journey to Cafe Julia.

Interesting to think that Labour believe that they have a chance in the town

[Stanley]

P, a good article and very close to the truth. Piketty has interesting things to say about foreign investment..... Administrations take the short term view and see foreign investment as a badge of affirmation but seldom take account of the long term consequences in terms of export of profits and tax revenues. It would be very instructive to see a full breakdown of how much we lose as a national economy to foreign ownership of UK assets. This is what Piketty has done on a global scale and they should read the book!
"Interesting to think that Labour believe that they have a chance in the town" Really? You should look at the history of the constituency. This is Labour territory and the presence of the Tory incumbent is an accident due entirely to Blair and New Labour ripping the guts out of the local parties. Still waters run deep and nothing in politics is permanent. If you haven't learned this you don't know much about the subject. Support moves in tides and the fact that the noble lord pumps money in at such a rate is an indication of what he thinks the overall trend will be eventually. Don't confuse local politics with the national trend and ask yourself why your leader is trying to cosy up to UKIP. Remember that all political careers end in failure and analyse this, there is a reason for it.....
Watched both the English Democratic Party and British National Party political broadcasts. Fascist and neo-racist rubbish, how can anyone fall for jerks like these? Mind you, we get the representatives we deserve I suppose.....

[Bruff]

That's interesting Stanley. I was always under the impression that Barlick was Liberal territory. Certainly not Tory - though for much of the time it has had Tory MPs as you would expect if you're lumped into 'Skipton' (the 'Commonwealth Party excepted). Non-Tories are as disenfranchised in Skipton and Ripon as non-Labour voters in say Liverpool Bootle, and neither is desirable in my book. That said, Liberal firebrand Claire Brookes was often touted as grabbing the seat, but never did.....

I always see Pendle as a Lab/Tory marginal - it has had Tory MPs before.

On the Commonwealth Party, I had ideas for a time of spending my retirement researching the party and it's returning an MP at Skipton, with a view to a part-time PhD. Then I bought an excellent book by Angus Calder 'The People's War', about the 'Home Front'. His PhD was on the Commonwealth Party under Asa Briggs' supervision. So I decided to think again.

Really is a good book that

Richard Broughton

[Tardis]

Pendle is a Labour/Tory swing seat in parliamentary elections. That will be next year, not the Borough and Euro elections this.

Current make up of the Barnoldswick Wards for the Borough is 5 Lib Dem and 1 Tory

Shadow cabinet member Maria Miller came to support the local Borough Council Elections Candidates I understand.

[Stanley]

Richard, When I talk about the Pendle area being historically Labour territory I go back a bit further than most people. Nelson and Colne constituency as it used to be called was part of the Clitheroe constituency until 1918 when it was split off to become a separate constituency. Clitheroe had always returned a Liberal or a Conservative until at a by-election in 1902 Labour took the seat by virtue of the changed demographics due to the growth of Nelson mainly. Clitheroe had a Labour MP from 1902 until 1918 and it didn't suit them! Nelson and Colne had mainly Labour MPs until the boundary change of 1968 when, after the death of Sidney Silverman, Betty Boothroyd lost narrowly to David Waddington (The man who announced he was leaving his wife but neglected to tell her). Doug Hoyle held the seat after that losing narrowly to John Lee in 1979. In 1983 Nelson and Colne became Pendle. Gordon Prentice defeated John Lee in 1992 and held the seat until 2010 when he lost to Stephenson. The periods of Conservative control have always been discontinuities for one reason or another, the 1931 depression and the latest one the interference by the noble lord. I lay the 2010 loss firmly at the door of Blair and New Labour who destroyed the local parties by changing the system of financing the party, all funding going to the centre and of course, New Labours lamentable record especially in foreign affairs. That's why I say the constituency is basically Labour territory. This has very little to do with the parties in the local elections, people tend to vote for personalities and not party in these cases.
The way things are going nationally, it would surprise me if the Conservatives retained the seat in 2015. My reasons for saying this are that the balance of the perceived damage done by the Coalition austerity measures, plus the real possibility of a worsening economic situation in the next few months as the smoke and mirrors 'recovery' begins to crack under the pressure of reality and rising interest rates, added to the dilution of the Tory vote by UKIP is going to produce some surprising results. Mind you, I would have more confidence in this prediction if I could see a viable opposition from Labour!
I got the full colour Tory leaflet for the European Elections today and every one of the five points in the economic plan can be disputed but of course they are presented as facts. This is doubly depressing because I have been reading Thomas Piketty's explanation of the variations in the ratio of the rate of return on capital and the growth rate. He proves that the average rate of growth is far less than what we see as the norm, the 3-4% we enjoyed from 1950 until 2008 under progressive taxation and enormous technological change. The expected rate for the rest of this century is (on an optimistic estimate) 1.5% with falling demographic growth which makes it worse. The significance of this is that the average return on capital is 4-5% and so it is a mathematical certainty that unless something happens to modify this (like progressive taxes or a revolution) the capital holders will control rising percentages of total wealth and the living standards of the lower 50 percentile will fall even further. The mid range class, 50% to 90%, the 'Middle Class' will fare just as badly. This isn't a theory, it's a simple fact. So, looking in the long term things are even blacker than I thought they were!

[Bruff]

I think I misunderstood, as I thought you were referring to Barlick as opposed to the wider Pendle, where I agree there is a Labour history. One thing I have noticed is that people of a certain age, when I mention where I'm from and invariably have to note 'Barnoldswick.....between Burnley and Skipton, Nelson, Colne, that area', jump on Nelson and say 'Who was that MP there........Silverman!' Certainly my father-in-law did.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

I thought you had Richard but I thought I'd inject a bit of historical reality into the debate..... Never a bad thing! Have a look at Piketty, he's fascinating, and all backed by good evidence.
Listening to the exchange between Ed Milliband and David Cameron in Parliament yesterday I was struck by the fact that here was an argument based on political point-scoring and ignoring the central fact that no matter what 'assurances' they receive from Pfizer, these will soon be overtaken by 'special circumstances' and in effect Pfizer can do whatever it wants to do. They have admitted that one of the main reasons for taking Astra Zeneca over is for the tax advantage and that there will be job losses. Nothing I have heard sheds any light on the export of skills, capital and tax revenues. I can’t help thinking that this has the potential to be another Cadbury.

[Stanley]

Have a look at this LINK for a Guardian article on the income gap between the NE and the SE. This is pure Piketty! I'm obviously not the only one reading him. The book is so important that you are going to see more and more related articles in the run up to the 2105 election. Piketty is so important he will bring the Politics of Inequality to the forefront. Of course the Tories call it 'the politics of envy' but they would say that wouldn't they! If they actually read and understand the economics which Piketty is making crystal clear they would realise that in the long term, this inequality is just as bad for the capital owners as the poor. It's mutually assured destruction (MAD) all over again. Question is, are they intelligent enough?
In the 'you can run but you can't hide' department, pressure is building over the scandal of the delay in publishing the long awaited Chilcot report into the Iraq incursion See this LINK.
I know I'm an old cynic but wouldn't it be handy for the Tories if a damaging report about Blair and Labour was to surface in the run-up to the 2015 election? Surely not......

[Bruff]

Jury's out on that Stanley. Recall, Blair only got his majority vote for Iraq because the Tories supported it, which is hardly surprising as it's one of the generalities of politics that the typical Tory will always vote for a war. Loads of Blair's MPs voted against their Government. And the Tory Party can hardly say 'we were duped' as a defense in hindsight given this.

Many of us always knew Blair was a rascal (I like the late comic Linda Smith's take here: 'I had absolutely no expectations of Blair whatsoever, and even I was disappointed'), but then given we don't have a Presidential system, rather a Parliamentary one, being a rascal or being otherwise odd, overly-intellectual, bad-tempered, non-Prime Ministerial (whatever that is) is often less of a problem for a Party than it's made out to be.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

Very true Richard, my first reaction in 1997 was that the size of the majority was a disaster, I knew nothing about Blair but soon realised he was totally obsessed with power and therefore a dangerous man. Remember the un-minuted sofa meetings like the one that took 20 minutes and decided to digitise the NHS records? On Tory participation, you're right again, no opposition to Iraq and none to the Labour bail out of their mates in the City.
Private Eye this week laid bare the full scale of the tax problems with the Pfizer takeover of Astrazeneca. Analysts put the savings for the merged company at over £800million per annum and the loss to UK revenue of £50million a year. KPMG seconded a senior employee to the Treasury tax team which drew up the new tax laws which allow this saving and they reckon they are working on plans for another 100 major multi-nationals to set up the same arrangements in UK for similar scale tax savings. This influx of holding companies is said to be an aid to 'balancing the economy'.

[Stanley]

If the polls are to be believed UKIP is heading for a landslide victory on Thursday. They have 35%, 11% in front of Labour and 15% in front of the Tories. Not good news for most of us....
See this LINK for a report on the Sunday Times Rich List 2014. Total wealth up 15% and running at a third of national GDP. Dead in line with Piketty's predictions and possibly the biggest threat to income equality today as the more capital they hold, making interest above the growth rate, the more money is sucked out of the economy lower down. No argument about this, it's an economic fact and is going to get rapidly worse.
The Bank of England is again making warning noises about the overheating of house prices and the dangers of an interest rise. Remember what Carny said? Unbalanced and unsustainable was how he described the 'economic recovery'. We are on the verge of some rapid changes in the outlook even if there are no external shocks.

[plaques]

The Government seems set to roll over and give way to Pfizer's bid for AstraZeneca. Short term gain V Long term jobs. Unfortunately, the capitalist structure that we enjoy at the moment is about making money not looking after the welfare of workers. Cameron and his cohorts will no doubt make a big play of seeking long term assurances. In effect just kicking the can down the road until the election is out of the way. Against this some commentators are openly say that the take over would be bad for the UK Pfizer Deal link. As in gambling, those with the biggest bank roll will win in the long term. Any bets on the outcome?

[Stanley]

Dead right P. When did the Tories ever get in the way of big business. Most likely outcome is another Cadbury. The loss to the revenue if it goes through is guaranteed. It's all about profit, ethics and long term considerations are secondary. Reported this morning that Pfizer have upped their bid again to a final offer of £69billion, £55 a share. (LINK) The downside of global big business, all the power is in their hands.
In local politics, good leaflet from David Whipp yesterday lobbing a grenade into the Tory claims of action in the town. Nice one David! (and all perfectly true!)
See this LINK for a BBC report on the rejection of a higher minimum wage in the Swiss referendum. According to Piketty a minimum wage never cost any jobs and ultimately increases production and profit. Perhaps they aimed a bit too high! Hard luck on the workers!

[David Whipp]

Glad you like the leaflet, Stanley. In an idle moment yesterday, I reckoned up that that the current edition includes the one and a half millionth copy in Barnoldswick.

But it's probably a Blue Party leaflet in Coates Ward that's put the cat amongst the pigeons this weekend. The Conservatives have been portraying their candidate as a home loving lad, with headlines like "Barnoldswick The Place I Love To Call Home". The BP flyer quotes a social network post from the candidate saying, "i live in barlick and its f**kin well sh*t".

I wonder how the Ashcroft paid professionals running the campaign in the Tory party will react to that.

[Stanley]

Do you mean to say that the Noble Lord is financing the leaflets!!!! Surely not.....
Classic example of what Piketty says about the large capital holders manipulating politics for their own ends. Pulling the wool over the voter's eyes! Wake up and smell the coffee!

I am grateful for Wedgie Benn reminding me this morning of something Harold Macmillan said in his 1938 book 'The Middle Way'. He was talking about the rise of the multi national companies and globalisation of capital and trade. Remember, this was over 75 years ago but even more true now than it was then. On a day when Ed Milliband is advocating improvements in the minimum wage it makes one realise how long this idea has been around.
“We have lived so long at the mercy of uncontrolled economic forces that we have become sceptical about any plan for human emancipation. Such a radical and deliberate reorganisation of our economic life would enable us, out of increased wealth production, to establish an irreducible minimum standard which might be progressively raised to one of comfort and security.”