I can’t remember who reminded me to look this up, but I rather like,
…“What childish innocence it is to present one’s own impatience as a theoretically convincing argument!” (Frederick Engels, “Programme of the Blanquist Communards”, [30] from the German Social-Democratic newspaper Volksstaat, 1874, No. 73
It’s all got very tactical since Jo Swinson was elected Leader of the Lib Dems with Labour people exhorting people to remember their role, and hers personally, in the coalition government. She and the Lib Dems are in the strange and hypocritical position of arguing for a Remain Alliance but rejecting the help from Parties larger than itself.
For those with a memory of the Lib Dems, we know that that the time delay between announcing a policy and asking for electoral support is generally around a nano-second. No matter who leads them, this sectarian approach to other parties and the politics of the voters remains a constant.
But given today’s politics, the only, or at least the easiest, growth strategy for the LibDems is to act as a welcoming repository for Tory Remainers; Swinson’s rejection of a coalition with Corbyn’s Labour and now it seems with the SNP are designed to make it safe for Tories to vote and/or even join them. There are certainly several Tory MPs suggesting that they can’t and won’t support Johnson in a VONC and several of them might well survive in their seats if they were to run as LibDems. The LibDems also owe the Tories a drubbing in the South West.
The other thing to recognise is that the Lib Dems ceased to be a progressive party in 2007, when their Leadership election was between Clegg and Huhne; both were “Orange Bookers”, which was the right-wing economic manifesto within the Lib Dems. It was ideological commitment as well as Parliamentary arithmetic that led to the Lib Dems supporting Cameron’s coalition government. Their internal opponents have mainly left the LibDems. …
I cancelled my direct debit to momentum. I find I can no longer honestly represent my politics while remaining a member. Their lack of democracy and transparency means that I have no confidence it speaks for me and even when I agree with it, its agreement diminishes my voice. … …
Michael Chessum charts Labours to & fro-ing on Brexit, the article is entitled, “How Labour Screwed Up On Brexit”” and comes to the conclusion that
He makes the point that changing our policy immediately after the European elections doesn’t have the scent of principle.
His criticism that Labour needs to listen to its members and voters, refresh its democracy and put principles first certainly speak to me.
One of the good things in this article is his capture of the history of the policy and its advocates over the last three years. …
I was prompted to remember some of my recent Macroeconomic reading as someone was asking about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). I read Reclaiming the State (Gibson & Faizi) last year, and I picked it up again to re-read the section on International Trade. I have not yet finished it, but I remember thinking that while public finance may not be a constraint on the economy, the long term balance of trade may well be, even for a monetary sovereign.
Meanwhile this article “Brexit the slippery slope of left sovereigntism from modern monetary theory to spiked” at https://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com explores the political inertia that MMT’s exponents may be riding. Much of it is based on an interview with James Meadway, once John McDonnell’s economics adviser which is available, at the link below/overleaf. For Coatsey’s regular readers they will be unsurprised at his pugnacious attacks on Faizi’s endorsement of the Full Brexit and Spiked. Meadway’s musing are interesting in that he emphasises that MMT, like Keynesianism says nothing about inequality and ownership of the means of production. The interview also addresses the moderation in Labour’s 2017 Manifesto. Below/Overleaf are links and excerpts for further reading of Meadway’s views … …
I have written often on the need for transparency requirements for IT security controls and often how one might apply them to e-voting systems. I have specifically written about how this problem applies and is not solved in Momentum. I had a discussion today and recalled the voting results for Momentum’s Democracy Review e-consultation, in particular the vote on CLP governance issues where over 40 votes arrived in the dying hours of the vote, changing the result which up to that time, had been an important yet sectarian contest between “stop the purge” and “Labour against the witch hunt” as to who’s definition of fair expulsions should become momentum’s view. For clarity, I voted for the “stop the purge” proposal but, either of these positions would have embarrassed Momentum’s leadership, as from their actions, they seem quite prepared to use the exclusion mechanisms against political opponents and also the disciplinary rules even against former allies with a very limited support of natural justice.
This is important today as Momentum propose to change their OMOV systems for their central committee but voted not to appoint independent scrutineers. Whether what I saw is true and whether my suspicions are true is not the central test, Momentum cannot prove that the system is safe from an insider attack.
Since the private pages are not archived to the wayback machine, I have taken a screen shot of the final result as at 28th July 2019, showing the final results and posted it below/overleaf. … …
I decided that I had to get to the bottom of the science and politics of Climate Change for myself. So I went to the IPCC site and found their 2019 Refinement Report. What I find shocking is that I cannot find a review of it. I am still looking but looks like another debate where we’ll soon decide we’ve had enough of experts. … …
It’s been a week in politics; the UK has a new Prime Minister, the once London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. This rather eclipses the LibDem’s announcement that they too have a new Leader, one Jo Swinson. This will make for interesting times.
So Corbyn has outlasted two Tory Premier’s, although, one tweeter, probably not a fan, said it was like saying she had outlasted two of Brad Pitt’s wives. …
What’s happening in the Gulf is both exceeding dangerous, and in terms of a Brexit government’s request for European Union’s military help quite amusing. Britain was set up by Trump’s Govt and then let down when asked for military help, but the military reason we need to ask for help is that the UK only has 19 surface ships and one of the reasons for this dramatic reduction is the decision to build the two aircraft carriers and four ICBM carrying submarines. I have written about the Aircraft Carriers and the Missile subs before. The former are the results of New Labour’s pork barrel politics and the subs are also useless and will be more so in the future. … …
It’s been a fabulous month for English sport; England’s Women get to the World Cup semi-finals and England’s men win the Cricket World Cup.
Many will have been following these exciting victories on TV but for the cricket, Sky had exclusive rights, although it seems the final was shared with Channel 4 meaning that the World Cup cricket was seen on “free to air” TV for the first time in 14 years.
It may surprise some that the Law is such that the licensors of certain events must share certain content with free to air broadcasters, but the Women’s Football and Cricket are not considered such “Crown Jewels”.
The value of these sports to the content companies is created by fans and the monopolist control of supply creates overpricing and denies fans access i.e. chokes demand.
The House of Commons have produced a briefing, Listed Sporting Events which both list those events that must be shared in totality and those for which highlight shows must be shared. It also has an appalling statement by the Tory ministers responsible arguing that the market and the content creators should be allowed to control the distribution. The list is controlled by the Govt., and Tom Watson Shadow Secretary of State for Culture announced that Labour would broaden the list to include the Women’s World Cup and the Paraolympics.
Helen Weeks in her academic paper, “TV WARS: EXCLUSIVE CONTENT AND PLATFORM COMPETITION IN PAY TV” first identified to me, the need to protect these sports events from monopolistic behaviour and their otherwise enclosure behind proprietary paywalls as competitive weapons.
ooOOOoo
To me, the existence of this list is a critical statement that for some creative events, not all the value should be accrued by the creators, some of te value belongs to the fans and consumers and they should be able to keep the value they create. It’s an example of where the public interest opposes all rights reserved. …