Without power, we can not make things better!

Without power, we can not make things better!

It’s also true that without will, we can’t make things better and the Labour front bench’s, with their so-called Labour-to-win outriders, constant return to competence as a differentiator from this corrupt Tory government, their rejection of our core and even peripheral supporter’s interests and a lack of clear opposition to austerity using sound finance as an excuse will lead to a situation where a Labour Government, a Labour Government, will privatise hospitals, privatise schools, make higher education harder to enter for working class people, start the surveillance state, introduce workfare and fail its own people on regional policy, capping this sad litany off by supporting the US in an illegal war.

The front bench owe Labour’s member’s a duty to put a manifesto that is agreed by the Party; but their current vision is one of capture of the Party, funded by donors, with policy designed by psephologically informed experts and ‘clever’ people, appealing to voters and attempting to create an electoral coalition informed by ‘triangulation and jeopardising the loyalty of the young and ethnic minority voters.

Blair once famously said,

Let me make my position clear – I wouldn’t want to win from a traditional leftist platform. Even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn’t take it.

Tony Blair

This is permission for everyone that disagrees with policy to say what they want.

What I want is a manifesto and front bench intent on building a better society not replacing the Tories with themselves; for some, it’s just about red boxes, ministerial salaries and government cars and asking us to be grateful that they’re not Tories because any Labour Government is better than a Tory Government. We need a manifesto that excites the membership and unions who’ll then defend the Government when they are blown of course by the powers of conservatism.

We should hope for and promise more!

I doubt that a Labour front bench will be as corrupt as Johnson, or as vacant as Truss, or as cruel as Osborne but this political strategy, can only fail. If the disgust with the Tories wasn’t as bad as it is, it’s questionable that Labour would win on a centrist and austerity platform and even if they do, the dangers of a Labour austerity government leading to a one term government looms large. All Labour Governments have failed because they forget who put them there. …

Chilling Effect

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Lauren Townsend, a Labour Milton Keynes councillor and cabinet member has been blocked from standing as a Labour MP for her own seat. This was allegedly done for showing support for an opposition party by ‘liking’ a tweet from Nicola Sturgeon on her -ive covid test. Aydin Dikerdem found that candidates who have been approved for the selection have also liked tweets from other party members. As he said, this should be a permitted act of free speech. The decision to bar Lauren is biased, probably improper, potentially based on unlawfully and unfairly obtained data and designed to create a chilling effect. She had been nominated by several unions which should guarantee her a place on the long list, how long will they put up with this?

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We want our star back

We want our star back

The Rejoin EU movement held a national march today, the Evening Standard reported that it was well attended by 15,000 people, and @femi_sorry who took a film of the march and posted it on twitter at 12 times speed, so not as large as others.

I’d love to thank the interpretive dancers performing to ‘ode to joy’, the car and van drivers that supported us, and the one builder who told us to “fuck off”. …

Brexit’s over, it’s just about the mopping up now

Brexit’s over, it’s just about the mopping up now

Phil, of a different Bias, has released a new video, spurred by his observation that the Brexiteers have retreated from “Take back Control” to “Save the Pound” because if we were to rejoin, they think we’d have to join the Euro. This probably isn’t the case. Phil points out that Sweden has agreed to join up and did so in 2002, but hasn’t yet done so and has no plans to do so. This article looks at the issues of economic policy governance, the opt-outs, trade friction and immigration. It concludes with the proposal that, "The Truss Government was an ERG Govt, it’s fall marks the end of Brexit..", although we are unlikely be allowed back in until we can offer a substantial and believably long-term majority in support of re-joining the EU/ There is more overleaf ...

Do victims of a cyberbreach need to prove harm?

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.  …

Crisis, what crisis!

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 ...

Summary impressions of #lab22

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. …