Earlier today, Kier Starmer spoke to the TUC, they have the words and a video on their site.
Where’s prudence gone?
While reading Simmon Hannah’s “A party with socialists in it”, I made a note to talk about Corbynism and Modern Monetary Theory. I am writing an omnibus, review of that book, but think that a further note on MMT and its role in Corbynism, and the insights and weaknesses it brings to today's crisis might be appropriate. In 2015, Corbyn flirted with MMT but by 2017, McDonnel, Meadway and Wren Lewis had won control of the Party’s economic agenda. The rest of this article looks at the bond market disruptions, FX and the balance of trade, the threat to pension funds, and the extent to which MMT has some useful insights. For more, check out overleaf behind the "Read More" button. ...
What I said about #lab22!
i have finished my write up of Labour Conference ’22. The articles can be found using a wordpress search on tag:lab22, This tag also includes some articles I wrote before the conference previewing its agenda.
I have written a piece on most of the debates and speeches and added a couple of pieces on left/right power the European Movement meetings and the conduct of the chair[s]. …
Adversarial Justice, maybe not all its cracked up to be.
I am working my way slowly through “Stories of the Law“, by the Secret Barrister and came across this,
Such as whether adversarial criminal justice is all it is cracked up to be. Whether to much – truth, dignity – is sacrificed on its alter. Whether a system that does not have as its stated aim the pursuit of truth, but instead rewards the best game player in a winner-takes- ll contest, can really be said to deliver justice in a sense understood by anyone outside of legal circles. And whether, if we have abandoned – or never even prized – truth as a guiding principle of our trials, we’re doing the gross injury to Enlightenment principles with the result that all of us – defendant , victim and society – are wronged.
The Secret Barrister
I wrote this too soon. In the following paragraph, SB, makes the argument that inquisitorial systems have one fundamental weakness
Such cases demonstrate the fallacy of assuming the state is able to neutrally seek truth as opposed to aligning on its own theory and embarking on ex post facto buttressing of that narrative. And this is a criticism often levelled inquisitorial systems by those who work within: not withstanding their oxymoronic designation as ‘neutral’ prosecutors, the prosecutor and the police may bow to natural inclinations to take a partisan position against the suspect and construct a case against him.
The flaw runs deeper than the motivations of individual investigators, however: inquisitorialism is compromised by the inherent susceptibility of the state machinery to political influence not at the level of high conspiracy, but the subtle pressures the government bring to bear on the administration of criminal justice. The ubiquitous ministerial intuition that cost savings can be made without public outcry by shearing the justice budget, cutting a few corners here and there, has been demonstrated at length. You do not need to be modelling a tin foil hat to recognise the politicians incrementally dispense with systemic safeguards, increasing the incidence of wrongful convictions, to bank transitory credit for being ‘tough on crime’; often as a reflex to media campaigns to improve conviction rates for particular offences.
The Secret Barrister
Featured image : Richter benutzt dunkelbraun-goldenen Hammer vor weißem Hintergrund CC 2.0 Marco Vetch 2018 BY …
Do victims of a cyberbreach need to prove harm?
I have just posted to my linked in blog, on the reference from the Austrian courts as to whether victims of a data breach need to prove harm for compensation.
The Advocate General is not so sure, although on my CIPP(E) course the instructor was clear; a breach of rights is a harm.
I look at the GDPR, the DPA 2018, which confirms that in the UK, ‘“non-material damage” includes distress.’.
I conclude by noting that, “My experience in tracking the citizen’s panels of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) is that Europe’s citizen’s, the children and grand children of facist and stalinist societies are looking for greater enforcement, not less.” Politicians in the EU are under pressure to go in the other direction. …
Reeves and Immigration
There I am sitting in my living room, considering that maybe Starmer and Reeves domestic policy promises weren’t so bad, playing with my phone when a clip from Sky News comes on with Rachel Reeves, saying that the problem with the Tory immigration policy is there aren’t enough deportations. This is the moral sink that competing on competence takes you. Labour’s Conference Policy at lab19 and lab21 is clear and based on an anti-racist, internationally legally compliant, rights based, compassionate, and humane approach. We must do better than this. …
Crisis, what crisis!
Some aspects of this are hard to understand, here's my attempt. The UK has been in a balance of trade deficit for decades. For most countries it is the main factor in determining foreign exchange rate between sterling (GBP) and other currencies. In the case of the UK, there is significant additional incoming flows buying sterling quoted stocks, bonds and gilts. Sterling has been falling ever since Brexit, in my mind as a result of a drop in confidence due to Brexit and the growing relevance of the balance of payments deficit; the fear of inflation has added to that recently. This article looks at the history of bond prices and interest rates and warns that increasing interest rates may cause mortgage defaults. I conclude, "A triple whammy of inflation, pension losses, and mortgage payment increases, suddenly the UK seems a lot poorer than it was. " The full article and diagrams can be seen overleaf ...
Now that’s a landslide!
It is not usual for a political party to have a post conference bounce, but not like this; there might be something else going on. :)
The full article has the yougov tweet with a 33% lead for Labour, and an electoral calculus seat forecast with only three tory MPs. It's clearly not all down to Labour. To see the graphics, "Read More" ...
Why Labour must welcome The Forde Report
I have been struggling to read the Forde Report, but there are plenty of people who are willing to help me understand what it says. I made a brief comment on Article 7 on this blog but at Labour Conference I found this article, see overleaf/read more, in the CLPD Campaign Briefing Conference edition and have reproduced it with the author's, George McManus, permission. DFL
Summary impressions of #lab22
#lab22 was very quite and extraordinarily managed. There was some good chairing by Alice Perry and Dianna Holland, and some dreadful chairing by the rest, Wendy Nichols, Angela Eagle and Gurinder Singh Josan. Does Starmer’s speech sum up what we’ve become?, a mild social democracy domestically (but to the right of Callaghan on public ownership if not on wages and collective bargaining), an atlanticist foreign policy (differing from Ed Miliband & Corbyn), and a vicious internal management regime suggesting continued bad behaviour if they get into government where they’ll control, the Dept. of Justice, Home Office, and the intelligence services.
I make this conclusion from Starmer’s speech; Conference wants more but we’ll see what the front bench does; front benches of both factions have a habit of ignoring what they don’t want. The silence and de-emphasising of benefit cuts is also worrying as is the silence on the hostile environment.
My other fear is that no Labour Government has ever been more left wing than its manifesto, is what they want enough to build a more equal society and do the leadership want that? It could have been worse, many of us were fearing a full on blue labour manifesto and I am not yet cleat that the debt fetishists are in retreat. …