Beyond simple keynesianism

Beyond simple keynesianism

In the aftermath, of Ed Miliband’s conference speech, I came across two important articles published on the Touchstone and IPPR blog sites. Responsible Capitalism Takes Shape by Duncan Wheldon, and On left populism and Labour’s conference by Nick Pearce. It was Wheldon’s article that caught my eye first but both he and Pearce suggest there is a tension in the Labour Party between those who believe that British Capitalism no longer serves the interests of the majority; that what’s good for business is no longer good for people and the ‘simple keynesians’ who follow the old New Labour policies of using macroeconomic policy and demand management to encourage private sector growth. Pearce argues that Miliband believes that it’s broken and needs rebuilding, he’s on record as saying he thinks the 2015 election will be as transformative as that in 1979 and as he put it in the conference speech in speaking about the fact that capitalism seems no longer to let people afford a decent life, …

Germany turns Left

Germany turns Left

While I was meeting up with fellow conference delegates from Lewisham on Sunday night, the results from the German general election were being forecast and announced.

As expected the German conservatives increased their share of the vote and the number of seats in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German Federal Parliament, but their parliamentary allies and the source of their parliamentary majority, the Free Democrats (FDP) failed to reach the threshold required to get seats. The FDP have been voted out of the parliament and consequently the right wing are five seats short of a majority. …

Voting, Blogs, Gadgets, Issues & Belief

There are lots of web gadgets around trying to help me make my mind up how to vote. The FT have a good one, although it seems a bit biased towards the liberal democrats and doesn’t work so well with mozilla. Despite its bias, its not quite as bad as a historic Private Eye headline “Voting Labour gives you aids!”, or the Harry Enfield spoof “L is for Labour, L is for Lice”, or anything party political by the Daily Mail. …