thoughts – Page 3 – davelevy.info

Starmer’s choice

I wrote something on JD Vance’s speech to the Munich security conference. This was part of the series of policy repositioning for the trump administration. My article was published on labour hub, in it I reference Vance’s speech to the Munich Security conference, i note the oligarch’s hypocritical and fascistic agenda, the foreshadowing of the crippling of NATO, and talk of the UK’s alternatives pointing out that we seem to be re-joining the EU one agency at a time.

I reference reports of J D Vance’s speech to the Munich security conference, where he criticised the EU and member state governments for suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration and running in fear from voters’ true beliefs. He refused to meet the German Chancellor and yet met, during an election, with the leader of the far right AfD (Alternative for Germany).

I note his arguments on free speech are partisan; US oligarchs want American rich people’s voices to be heard and amplified by privately-owned social media companies and fear Europe’s regulation of them being based on a demand for truth. We also note the hypocrisy of the US free speech advocates’ attacks on ideas, books and teachers in schools, universities and libraries in the US. His comments on not relying on foreign technology providers by which he meant China, may come to haunt him as Europe examines its defence supply chains.

Trump’s call for European NATO to increase their defence budgets to 5% of GDP is a naked attempt to build budgets for the US arms industry, just as the UK’s requests to have a side treaty on defence and security with the EU is also at least partially based on the economic interests of BAe.

Trump’s arguments about what does his money, that is, the arms shipments to Ukraine, buy, has a moral vacancy but it is clear that the view that ‘the business of America is business’ has returned to the White House. The crudity with which Trump pursues his views of US fiscal and commercial interests is echoed by the UK Labour Government in positioning its ‘EU reset’, arguing for changes in agreements which only benefit Britian from their limited, primarily electoral, point of view.

In the Labour Hub article I suggest, the choices facing the Starmer administration are bleak while Starmer seems to be seeking to avoid Trump’s tariff increases, on defence the choice is stark. The UK can either continue to act as a vassal state of the United States or develop more effective partnerships with the European Union. It should be noted that Vance has questioned the need for NATO joint command. Labour’s foundational commitment to NATO, is looking weaker than it once was.

Starmer’s ambition on EU cooperation is limited, I have argued that the UK should use the withdrawal agreement review clauses to re-enter the customs union and the single market. The suspicion is that for the Starmer Administration, the single market is a step too far because of its requirements for a free movement of labour and Labour’s fear of the Tories and Reform UK.

Today’s military questions and the need for ‘security of supply’ strongly imply that the UK should join the European Space Agency and possibly the European defence agency.

The proposed military and security side treaty is looking less and less attractive to both sides because in order to protect our democracy against the attacks from US social media companies and US owned AI search engines, the UK needs the umbrella of the EU’s competition & digital regulators, this needs membership of the single market. We have already rejoined Horizon (the R&D programme) and the Euro HPC joint undertaking, and Northern Ireland is still part of the single market. At what point do we say, we need our MEPs, Judges, Commissioners and Council seats back or will we just be rejoining the EU an agency at a time. …

Another Europe, Big Tech and democracy

This was a webinar called, “The big tech threats to democracy, challenging the oligarchy from Musk to meta” which was hosted by Another Europe. This article consists of the notes I took at the meeting and while I was hoping to improve my notes on the speakers contributions by reviewing the video, I am unsure if this will become available. It also consists of the notes I used for my contribution as I was asked to speak from the floor. I made this article because I think it was the first time I argued for the need for joining the single market to participate in the EU’s democracy shield and digital market regulation regime. This article has been back dated to the day after the day of occurrence. I have tried to ensure that comments that became obvious or were impacted by events after the seminar, are presented as foot notes.For more, see below or overleaf … …

The pan-European Mediterranean convention and EU/UK relations

This blog article comments on the reactions to Marco Sefcovic's suggestion that the UK as part of the negotiations to improve relations between the UK and the EU should consider joining the pan European Mediterranean convention (PEM); . Sefcovic is the commissioner responsible for trade. The rest of the article looks at HMG's lukewarm response and looks to explain what the PEM is. For more, press the button ...

An AI prosecutor?

I wrote a Linkedin an article called an AI prosecutor. In it I say,

The problem with modern software is much of it is inference, and completely unsuitable for “beyond reasonable doubt”. It’s also opaque and likely to fail the tests around if it returns popular vs accurate and authoritative results. It’s often wrong and arguably a bullshitter. The EU’s GDPR introduced the right to freedom from profiling, which means a freedom from being processed automatically by computers. This is an important barrier.

This is my first written declaration that that the GDPR’s “freedom from profiling” is a crucial defence of humanity against the machines.

My alarm about the consultation was probably unnecessary. …

Regulating Social Media

A note on the US regulation of its domestic media and internationally. I say, "Despite the US claiming the strongest free press rights in the world, rights granted in the US constitution belong to its citizens alone and are only enforceable within the United States. The US’s historic regulation of foreign media, much of which remains in place today, includes the licencing of foreign journalists and the statutory requirements the significant media organisations are owned by U.S. citizens. In fact, U.S. politics confuses the freedom of the press, with the right to platform. For more press the button ...

Are there any public sector efficiencies to find?

In order to prop up the markets, Kier Starmer wrote an article in the FT, once again extolling the need for public sector reform. His article covers more than that, it seeks to address innovation & growth, and public sector reform, yet misses the implications on industrial policy, university investment and local authority services. I explore these themes in more detail overleaf ...

Growth, institutions and Brexit

Several commentators on the UK budget, including the OBR, have suggested but there’s insufficient growth stimulus planed. The OBR predict that the economy will grow slightly less than under previous plans; I don’t know how this can be when the proposed deficit is £89bn. They also however predict that the effect of Brexit his -4% of GDP and yet no one in parliament, except for Ed Davey has mentioned this as a growth opportunity.

The OBR and the Bank of England are both institutions designed to protect economic policy from democratic control. Time to abolish one and reform the other. …

More on growth & debt

The problem with the Truss mini-budget was not that they had an ‘unfunded’ deficit but that there was no mechanism between the deficit and investment. Rich people tend to save and for the deficit to do any social good, the banks would have to lend to investors i.e. entities looking to buy or make capital goods; which they have never done. Private sector domestic investment has usually been funded by retained earnings!

The lesson here is that the markets were not frightened of the deficit, just its purpose.

See also Growth vs public debt management on this blog. …

Growth vs Public Debt management

You don’t have to be a modern monetarist to believe that the UK has a debt crisis. There are a number of well evidenced and widely believed economic theories that support the use of a Government deficit to induce growth which is the surest way to reduce national debt. Those that argue austerity is a choice are bang on the money.

Debt fetishists need to get this, but so do those who argue that we should fund some desirable programme, be it pensioner’s winter fuel allowances, doctor’s recruitment or student debt forgiveness because we can fund a defence budget. How we use and deploy our military is of course a matter of other priorities but arguing we need to accept austerity by applying the cuts elsewhere is ignorant.

Investment led growth requires expenditure in increasing the productive capacity of the techno-economy, although there is some recent writing and research that traditional industrial policy focused on startups and R&D doesn’t work and that looking at public service outcomes is a more effective growth measure. I’d add that investment in labour force skills is another investment which means that University [& FE] funding and student finance should be considered investement, although none of this seems important to this Government who are prioritising reducing the public debt before investment. Housing is not an investment in productivity; the reason for doing this is social, and not based on macroeconoic policy goals.

You can’t grow the economy while reducing the deficit! It works the otherway round. …

Universalism

In his latest blog, Phil BC shares that the Labour Government, articulated by Rachel Reeves, want to end the pensioners winter fuel benefit because they oppose universalism. But pensions have been earned through NI contributions. Dealing with wealth, or the wealthy earning subsidies, should be dealt with through income tax, removing the NI taper, inheritance tax, and a new wealth tax. Any such reform needs to take into account housing costs and cost of living. Why is it always the only just successful that get penalised by these schemes, such as occurs with the clawback of personal allowance and child benefit. The frightening thing from Phil’s report is that the state pension is a contributory universal benefit, although so was Unemployment Benefit which the Tories abolished and they also put National Insurance contributions into play. Are Labour really going to play with this and create a huge increment to the WASPI campaigners? Perhaps they think that pensioners vote Tory and die, but there are over 1 million workers over 60, most of whom will be planning when to stop and need some stability in their planning horizon. …