Politics – Page 22 – davelevy.info

The Finance Report

I attended Labour Conference as a delegate and I got to ask some finance questions, I only had a minute, so couldn’t ask them all and they took a while to answer, so the video is longer than necessary and the answers from the platform were not particularly comprehensive, but I was able to speak to Dianna, the outgoing Treasurer who gave me better answers in a personal (corridor) meeting.

The deficit, if not the size, was known when they set a budget. They report regularly to the business board which meets at least six times each year and as when necessary, they report to the NEC on current plans twice/year.

I was told in the Hall that the £6m political publishing was print bills for local elections incurred on behalf of local parties or campaign forums; later it was suggested that there is a corresponding income item, which I need to find. My initial scepticism is based on the fact that I&E statement has an election expense line and that is where I would expect election expenses to be reported.

The increase in the Senior Management Team cost is based on the fact that there are now 10 members of the SMT, up from 6. I wonder what this does to gender parity in the staffing budget.

I managed to ask my three questions within the allotted minute, but there are no supplementary questions permitted and one of the essential points made by Diana was the theory that membership is synchronised with the electoral cycle. I don’t believe this to be true! It would seem to be true of donations but not membership income. This seems to be aligned with leadership, and if so, will be exacerbated by the OMOV elections for the Leadership.

The NEC still have to either fix the decline in membership or find new but legal sources of income and as I have argued, the rich donors weren’t there for Blair, why would they be there for Starmer, although I can think of several very good reasons that became clear as the conference proceeded. …

Labour and Foreign Policy

I have just done the Labour List survey on Labour’s foreign policy advertised and written by the Labour Foreign Policy Group (Who they? Ed). I note that on their question on Brexit, they repeat the political trick used in the corrupted referendum, Do support the Leadership’s attempts to move on and make Brexit work or should we rejoin the Customs Union and Single Market or the EU, or just satisfy ourselves with a ‘closer relationship’.

I believe we need to re-join the Customs Union and Single Market, to alleviate the economic damage caused by the increased trade friction and this is a closer relationship with the EU. I also believe we should re-acquire our political rights i.e. rejoin. The Labour Leadership have a fantasy that the Tories hard Brexit can be fixed, and we can now see the beginnings of the Tories phase III, the repeal of the Working Time Directive, revoking the Banker’s bonus cap and the restarting of fracking. Wake up, we have an equally unprincipled Prime Minister who is an effective servant of the ERG and the UKIP entryists.

With respect to the survey, I wanted to vote for all three ‘No’s but couldn’t as it was a radio button widget answer. This is how they win, it’s called divide and rule and this is why the PR campaign won’t talk about systems until the principle is agreed.

I also said with respect to supporting the Ukraine that Labour should ensure that Russian money is expelled from UK politics and while the Tories and Leave campaigns are the obvious first port of call, Labour needs to make sure its own hands and the hands of its parliamentarians are clean!

I think my first principles would be that a Labour Government must promote democracy and the rule of law at home and abroad, democracies don’t war with each other, …

Big changes after CoFoE

The EU has the capability of placing a soporific blanket over much of its politics and also has a reputation for only reforming at the point of crisis. The last year has given it the opportunity to challenge both reputations. The EU held a citizen’s assembly driven Conference on the Future of Europe. (CoFoE). The idea was conceived by President Macron who in a 2019 speech called for this. It became an opportunity to try and raise the Union’s eyes above the trench warfare realpolitik of the EU. This article, overleaf, looks at the final proposals, on energy and climate change, healthcare, economics and social justice, and education. ...

Will CoFoE’s democracy come to be?

At the CTOE plenary meeting we discussed Von der Leyen’s state of the Union address, we are/were most focussed on what she said as a result of the Conference on the Future of Europe.

We noted that she concluded the speech with a call for a convention on the treaties, prioritising an inter-generational contract, to leave the world better than we find it for our children but also to make the accession of new countries easier and to ease decision making. She also welcomed the Conference out come and promised that citizen’s panels, “will now become a regular feature of our democratic life.”.

It was reported that there was little coverage of the commitment to reform in the speech in Germany. It was also reported that at the moment there are 17 member states opposed to a convention including the current presidency, the Czech republic, and its successor, Sweden. However circumstances change, and there is significant interest in the larger member states in specific reforms most obviously reform of the veto and possibly the extension of competencies, with defence, migration and energy markers being the obvious candidates, as a result of the war in Ukraine.

I am of the view that the Conference report opened a number of gates to a massive progressive improvement of the social and economic well being of the citizens of the European Union and Von der Leyen has in particular picked up on Migration policy as an area where it can do better, building a system based on dignity and respect. She also promises to incorporate citizens’ panels into the democratic fabric of the EU.

The CTOE agreed to continue to campaign for a convention, with the whole report of the Conference being on the table, and to continue to push for reform of the veto, and the implementation of transnational lists, which requires Council acquiescence. …

Labour and the EU

I have written an emergency motion for Labour Party Conference, I have ’till noon on Thursday to get it submitted, so better get a move on, unfortunately doing this from a CLP is a bit tricky . I need to check if it’s on the Agenda but that’s a bit tricky, I am not sure they have published all the motions to hoi-polloi like me yet.

Conference notes the announcement by Liz Truss on 19^th September that there will be no post Brexit trade deal with the USA, and that the Govt is once again postponing (16^th Sept) the imposition of the agreed customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.is a bit tricky, made worse by the direction not fo

Conference further notes that the Tory ‘Hard Brexit’ has led to reduced foreign inward investment, a worsening balance of trade deficit, reduced employment, a labour shortage in many industries, most obviously in agriculture, hospitality and in the NHS, jobs are being offshored to western Europe and sterling is at its worse exchange rate ever with both the dollar and the euro. The labour shortages are compounded by the xenophobia released by the referendum and the Tory’s “hostile environment”.

Conference believes that these negative economic consequences of Tory policy are significant contributors to the cost of living crisis.

Conference believes that to start reversing the damage inflicted by the Tory ‘Hard Brexit’ Britain needs to significantly reduce the trade frictions it has imposed on its imports of goods, services and labour from its biggest trading partner, the EU.

Conference resolves that Labour will call for a closer relationship with the EU in order to alleviate the trade frictions the Tories have introduced, that we will seek to rejoin Horizon Europe and Erasmus+, and that we will repeal the cruel and intrusive hostile environment. …

Syndicating Labour’s Money 2021

I wrote a shorter version of my article, Labour’s money 2021 for the Labour Briefing Co-Op, they posted it on their site yesterday. Bottom line, membership income down, donations not enough, and the first major deficit in decades. …

On the cost of living crisis

A short note on the cost of living crisis, on import prices of gas and food, why gas is crucial, how privatisation makes it worse, how brexit has impacted food production, interest rates and the public sector pay cap. For the full article, read more, ...

A short note on FX & UK Trade

Like many, I am considering the macro drivers of the cost of living crisis and I listened to the AEIP podcast with Gary Stevenson. He has an interesting view and argues that the QE funded furlough scheme was in fact a subsidy to the rich and that the fundamental imbalance in the country is the shift of wealth from poor to rich. It’s a version of the argument that the problem is insufficient demand being caused by the continued pressure on medium and low incomes.

He also argues that the massive QE efforts are an effective devaluation which given the relative stickiness of prices with wages being the slowest to change and everything that wages need to buy increasing will exacerbate the squeeze on spending. He also argues that given the choice between working and starving, people will work. The use of the word devaluation led me to look at the following charts

The pound has been falling against the dollar all year, this makes imports, particularly of Oil, but also of Gas and food more expensive.

Here we see the balance of trade figures, a more traditional cause of devaluations. With the exception of two months, the UK has been in deficit for the last five years. There are those who contest the the balance of trade causes currency price movements and Sterling in particular is impacted by speculative currency flows. The key drivers of speculation are expected rate of return, which for fixed income assets is driven by the bank rate, and animal spirits about which I think it best not to comment. …

Britain’s aircraft carriers, bought but not paid for yet

The Prince of Wales, the newer of the two aircraft carriers costing £3.5bn has broken down in the Solent. I had planned and still plan to write a piece about the 2020-21 Defence Reviews and have already written about it briefly on this blog.

HMS Prince of Wales R09 — HMS Prince of Wales, in Portsmouth, CC Rab Lawrence 2019 BY from flickr

These aircraft carriers, at 64,000 tons are three times bigger than their predecessors which were used to provide air combat capability during the Falklands War. I cannot see a need for such vessels, and it is my view they were authorised to create jobs in the Scottish dockyards that built them albeit under massive US pressure. They are calculated to cost about £3½ bn and the inconvenient truth is they are estimated to have £½m running costs/day! That makes a fifteen year life time cost of £2.7bn and a full lifetime cost over 50 years of £9.1bn for each aircraft carrier. Over 70% of the whole lifetime cost of the aircraft carriers is running costs and yet to be incurred.

We should sell them, although who would want a ¾ size fleet carrier? Maybe we could sell one each to India and Pakistan, or maybe the Argentines would like one. …

The time has come …

If you follow this blog, you'll see that I am concerned with the line that Labour is taking on Brexit and the post-Brexit deal. I have written this motion which I believe will get some broad support; it might not be insufficiently assertive on rejoining the single market, I think its clear but others may want some stronger words. The words of the motion are now behind the 'read more' button ...