tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43189026411383908072024-02-08T12:10:20.389-08:00Lapin QuotidienThe Daily Rabbit - Lapin Quotidien. Austin Mitchell's 2015 blog leading up to the UK General Election on May 7th. News, hot gossip and not so idle speculation. Rabbit! Rabbit!Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.comBlogger143125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-5652460177235432542015-08-08T10:17:00.001-07:002015-08-08T10:17:20.514-07:00VOTE LABOUR GET BETRAYED<div class="p1">
It's a sad fact of political life but the Labour Party will always betray the hopes invested in it.So do the Tories Mass parties always boil down the hopes invested in them to offer a broad alternative but the Tory task of shifting balances and money from the many to the few,from the poor to the rich is easier than and their public relations in excusing their failures better than Labour's Building a new world and transferring money and power down to the people is more difficult both to do and to explain.Particularly to a conservative easily frightened nation</div>
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<span class="s1">More and more diverse hopes are concentrated on Labour : advance women, boost trade unions,remedy social problems,improve education and health ,eliminate poverty save manufacturing tax the rich support other ethnic groups save the environment and aid the poorest of the poor outside Britain. Not only will fulfilment be slow and patchy but gains one front can conflict with the interests of another and there is certainly no overall majority for all of it.If there were Labour would have been in power forever.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">So a Labour government is going to betray some of jt, fail on other aspects and have more difficulty in keeping the public with it than the simple policy of the Tory Party of helping a powerful few who already have a lot so a marginal; bit more or less doesnt matter and in an y case are better at dressing up their interest as the national interest because they control the media and the organs of communication and are much better at advancing their demands covertly</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It follows therefore that Labour must dilute its demands and broaden its appeal to win power and that once in office it will be dealt with more harshly if it makes mistakes or seems to betray any part of its mission. It must give to the many not the few, a more obvious process and will receive less gratitude in return.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">All of which means that a Labour government finds it more difficult to survived than the Tories and more cunning in their offers at election time. This doesn't mean abandoning it altogether and accepting Tory priorities as we did in 2015 it means offering the mass of its supporters a broad promise of better prospects and a better economic deal and above all holding out hope which our collection of little changes failed to do. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The Tories are free to lie Several of their election promises have already been abandoned. We're not. But a living wage, more public housing for rent are far better than attacks on the nasty tories or long explanations of why austerity doesn't work or grovelling before "business".Nor is it any use hoping that we can be led from the left;that will only be used by our enemies to frighten people and its too late now to revived pst policies at which we've already failed</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Just use common sense.Don't frighten our easily scared electorate or select a leader who the media will use to create fear and dismay in inverse ratio to the enthusiasm he creates among the left but do offer them, hope.Most people know that they've been better off under Labour governments; more employment, rising wages, better welfare education and health. They've enough sense to realise that the Tories have made all that worse. But they do want to believe that we've got plans and are competent to do it again They didn't get that in 2015. </span></div>
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Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-78592764325757405092015-06-17T13:40:00.002-07:002015-06-17T13:40:21.893-07:00Back in Rude Health<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Monday 15 June</span></div>
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<span class="s1">RETURNING HEALTH</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It must be because we set off early an d walk to Kelly's where two of the old gang sit ruminating and Bob gives us a lift back hpome. Yesterday we found three plastic boxes of miscellaneous discards in Claude's garage. Pls a bike which will do for Arch to get about on when he arrives. The boxes seem to be mainly old clothing but I also found a weird camera-an Olympus built like a batmobile ,very heavy and what's worse a film camera. Susan had promised faithfully that she's bring it back two years ago but then of corse she didn't. So we set out to get some film for it-preferably black and white. First effort is Cost co.No they don't sell or use film. Then Best Buy-oh that's obsolete the smart alec kid assures me. Ten years ago they were perfectly happy to sell me expensive cameras to take film.Now they've made them all obsolete. by cutting off supplies of film. Worse because the specialised photography shops have all closed. Jim's Campus Camera {where I got the damn thing in the first place} is shut.What happened to the nerdy lad who knew all about photography? He'll probably be no use on computers so there's no job as a hovering nerd in the Apple shop. Ditto mobile phones.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Anyway I do eventually find film [but colour not the black and white I wanted} at Rite Aid which still stocks twentieth century goods.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I did least lest get two books in CostCo What on eath are we going to do with them all.?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Tuesday Manage to escape another route march to the coffee bar. One's enough. I want a holiday not an outward bound course but how long will I be allowed to dodge the column. Good weather has returned. Pouring down on the east coat, dry as dust here in the west.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Steady stream of declarations. Sunday Clinton announces her candidature with a nicely populist touch. Monday Jeb Bush,apparently the one with a brain. Today Trump which is the equivalent of John Prescott announcing he's standing for the Tory Party. There's been 106 presidential candidates since 1980 and he's the most unpopular- followed by Pat Buchanan. But he announces that he's paying for his own campaign.There'll be lots more lunatics to come TV divided on whether there are now 12 or 15 republican candidates.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Wednesday</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Early morning walk but not far. Town is fairly empty and changes character with the weather. Millions of dollars of expensive housing lie around unused changing from glamorous sun lit palaces to mysterious shacks-Today it's shacks because there's a sea fret and no clear visibility. Beach largely empty apart from as few fat ladies jogging [very slowly] no men jogging but some walking dogs-up to flur-and one small child venturing into the waves. Some houses have got the bunting up for July fourth Most haven't.Evidently the town is packed for that but our stay will come to an end by then.. No sign of Arch who hasn't yet got his visa. Susan says she'll depart next Tuesday but she doesn't fulfill her promises. Will she bring some film Bets even</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Not much news from Pomerania. No obvious leader. Not enough {or any] people of stature. Party still fighting the election we've just lost and junking the tougher parts of Milibandism or in some cases all of it to pose as pro business pro EUpro aspiration [not aspirates] and not pro proletariat whose ignoble desires for growth jobs and basnefits cant be granted least it spoil them. Trouble is we're assuming that the next election will be fought on today's grounds with recovery carrying on. More probably it will be even clearer by then that the Euro can't be made to work,that EU is an expensive drag,that British business is losing out in it, that manufacturing isn't going to recover without state help and that British capitalism can't compete but only leach on the state squeeze the consumer and cheat in any way it's allowed.. What price then a Labour still set out to be nice to business ? We should think ahead but in the panic of defeat we're only thinking backward. Tory policies aren't going to work so denounce them now.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Ed Balls off to an unpaid job at Harvard Kennedy school of government. David Blunkett to be boss of David Ross's Grimsby academies.</span></div>
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Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-25919012151210309282015-06-14T21:42:00.000-07:002015-06-14T21:42:03.487-07:00I have recovered!<div class="p1">
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Great fun over Republican nominations for president.Must now be a score,all fairly unsuitable some positively undesirable with Bush hovering in the bushes.Twenty candidates on policy.Too many to fit in a FoxTV studio so they've decided to establish two tiers-mad and half mad. The most amazing tbing is the way the republicans just don't give up .They''re still trying to kill Obama care so its implementation is patchy and its penetration less than expected. On abortion various states are trying to cripple provision in various ways Texas by demanding the full surgical provision of a major hospital so that clinics which cant afford it {most} are having to closed elsewhere by demanding great numbers of referrals, warning lectures or twenty week limitations.Haviing ruled it legal the supreme court seems unwilling to rule that what's legal should be provided . It's a kind of reverse Eugenics;. The well off can afford posh clinics.The poor cant get abortions. So they breed and because they're more numerous more have to be kept in prison to protect the wilting middle class. Fuck Fuck Ye lower middle classes.and rescue the race.If you're going to have a successful abortion policy you'd have to ban them for the middle classes but offer them free to anyone whose likely to breed potential criminals<span class="s1"></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Friday 12 June Claude Loveable and Roly come to dinner, cooked on the gas fired mighty Wurlitzer which I'm incapable of handling..Americans don't have the over elaborate dinner parties North London hosts {{thank God} but more rough and ready barbequeue affairs .Casual dress Casual food. With Barbeque sauce</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Saturday 13 June Dinner at Claude's with Loveable Place is festooned with photos of Claude at various ages. No Roly today</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Sunday 14 June Full recovery. Lunch in Cambria an up market more settled place than Cayucos which was bush forty years ago and now had luxurious houses but no beach.Oldies don't need one. Then back and by accident watch PM's QTs something I always hated when I could go but found fascinating now I can't.Lots of new faces asking the same old questions [incompetently in the case of the woman who beat Balls} plus the usual idiots, creeps and pillocks with Cameron a master of the situation. He really is good at PM's QT largely I suppose cos he's so good at PR and doesn't have any principles of his own so there's nothing to stop him giving the answers they want.This is his greatest hour. It can only be downhill from here on in but in his pomp he's brilliant and perfectly suited to PMsQT if not to PM's job</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Only one mention of the "long term economic plan" [which got a derisory cheer] but mostly the same old distributed questions all of which were brushed aside though more considered and genuine point got s seri0us answer which probably won't lead anywhere.Only consolation from watching is that if I'd been able I wouldn't have gone there. but miss it now I can't. The game is fun for those taking part,no much good to watch and produces a feeling of let's have another beer.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Dinner at Duckies.More clam chowder Completion of works on the pier dated for 15 June but also for August. We'll not see it. Linda threatens new walking regime tomorrow.. Beginning to think I could love vegetating here. </span></div>
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Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-4757272835641491382015-06-09T21:09:00.000-07:002015-06-09T21:09:03.437-07:00Sick Parrots in Paradise<div class="p1">
Here we are in the most beautiful little resort in wonderful California,hot sun,blue sky lovely beach. Lots of little houses made of ticky tacky and we're both proper poorly. Some kind of lung infection caught on Icelandair or on the Amtrak as a punishment for not travelling first class.It has me coughing, stops me sleeping and forces me to trainer ma vie a longeur. Linda much the same. It's a crime to be like this in paradise but every day I think I'll be better and everyday I'm not.</div>
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<span class="s1">So we don't go anywhere though there's lots of places to go.We shop but don't buy anything. Eat but don't enjoy and lie around unable to sleep. We've eaten out once: Duckieslived on sandwiches and wondered about going home to be miserable there. More cheaply. Not the spirit that built California into paradise. Remember the kind gentle Indian tribes who lived here before the Spanish came died off when they did. Perhaps they left this legacy of disease.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Evening to Kirk and Sally for dinner. They've bought a new, huge RV which now blocks their drive.35 years old but with a new engine.Cost $6500.What on earth are they going to do with it? Drive round California they say {blocking the roads} There's a movie there Like Convoy of an RV Rebellion as angry RVs blockade the streets bring everywhere to a halt and drive the government into exile. More powerful than the Tea party. Perhaps like animal farm the leaders can turn into BMWs when they've won.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Monday The misery of slow recovery. Like the British economy..Manage a short walk on the beach and a visit to town to buy some books {having read all I've brought] and lunch at Mo's but too weary to do more. Come back and succumb</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Tuesday Recovery continues. Slowly. E mail from Alistair Campbell saying they only want a few Labour people at Charles Kennedy's funeral and I'm one. But ca"nt make it. Sad cos Charles was an original and we'll not see his like again..Critch Mitch and Titch were a great team now there's only me left.Charles asked me to deputise for him at Critchley's funeral so I ask Alastair to deputise for me. Charles's dad played the bagpipes at his wedding. Now Alastair will have to do it at Charles's. funeral.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">One week and two days of our holiday wasted through sickness.Which isn't over yet.</span></div>
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Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-74230962505148318262015-06-05T18:45:00.001-07:002015-06-05T18:45:35.887-07:00We are not well, but watching MSNBC<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Bad luck's begun, Instead of bouncing with health after walks and glowing with tan from the sun, the sun's gone in, it has actually rained [briefly and softly] and we're both proper poorly with colds and sore throats, cough cough cough and flowing with phlegm. Appropriately the sun has gone and with it the good weather as we decline too tired to get up early and walk, too sick to go out. The most we attempt is a brief visit to Slo nominally to the farmers market but we get too weary even to stay for that, go to MO's and then home to watch TV in my case. Slo is a lovely little university town.. I'll bet it will be great for Arch but wonder if its too small for sophisticated Maze. American students seem so much younger.Small towns are the joy of Saturday Evening Post America but for oldies like me who live in the past anyway. Young people prefer big cities and Maze will be coming from Leeds with half a million to Slo with 50,000. Sally says all the gorgeous female students are known as Polydollies.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Have found MSNBC at last. It's a delight.Politics all day and good hard hitting programmes -hard hitting the republicans that is. A brilliant antidote to Fox and much better but I'm not sure whether it gets a bigger audience. With CSpan covering congress and conferences you can watch politics all day and be fully informed-something you cant do in Britain even if you take Radio 4 intravenously.Trouble is minor things get blown up into sensations there's constant hype and on a dull day everything gets done to death.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Still as we move towards the presidential campaign things are happening. Hastert the former speaker of the House [who greeted the BAPG and gave a lunch for us] a big cheery coach type bloke {sport coach not built like a bus} has been blackmailed for some sexual offence when he was a teacher, the leaders of both houses of the New York congress have been turned out for corruption and candidates are rushing forward-looks like 15 Presidential candidates for the Republicans.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Today the former governor of Texas Rick Perry declared in an amazing rant every word of which was cheered as uttered by a small crowd while Perry was flanked by two heavies who scowled at the crowd like a mafia guard unshook amidst a bursting world. The speech covered tasking his Dad to Omaha beach, support for our brave boys, realising the American dream [watching pornography in a cadilllac parked in the double garage of a house on Malibu beach} and lashings of jobs and growth. On the other side Chafee of Rhode Island a Democrat governor but also former republican senator and independent too gave a mild little lefty lecture against Hillary and Hillary herself denounced Republican efforts to reduce voting rights..The election is not until November 2016</span></div>
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Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-61500883911883432462015-06-04T10:22:00.000-07:002015-06-04T10:22:10.388-07:00The longest day<div class="p1">
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<span class="s1">Shake rattle and Amtrack After less than an hour in her upper bunk Linda got claustrophobic and I was wakened by her feet in my mouth as she climbed head to toe into my bunk which was already overcrowded enough by fat me.McD murdered sleep but the train rattled on. Stopped at Sacramento in the dark and as day dawned we were in California: the golden state turned brown by water shortage. No rain [they're all waiting for El Nino and the richest farmers having dug the deepest wells have lowered the water table so the poorer farmers cant get any and the 20% of water needed for domestic usage is rationed. Takes a lot of bottles of imported Perrier to fill a swimming pool. Why not build an acquaduct down from Canada? Call it Canada wet.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Amtrack is manned by trainees. Nice lads and super willing to serve but capable of getting every order wrong.Linda asks for salmon and gets chicken. I asked for water and got Canada dry. All a bit like Faulty Trains. But not called Manuel and willing and enthusiastic despite the fact that they're on at 5-30am until 11 pm.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Chug on down the central valley [really is a valley with ranges on either side]train blowing its whistle every hundred yards though there's no one around to hear until suddenly we're in Pasa Robles {not recognising it} and coming down from the hills to Slo where Kirk Wilson ever dependable turns up to meet us and drive us out to the airport to collect a car,which when Linda tells them that our Grandson is coming to CalPoly is upgraded {free} to a Mustang.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Cayucos is lovely, sunny bright dazzling,as is our house on 16th st newly pained glaring white and so unused the price is still on the crockery [bargains from TJMax.]</span></div>
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<span class="s1">MONDAY 1 June dragged for a walk on the beach at 7. This is Linda's new regime. It won't last and the walk doesn't either.More dogs than people on the beach but the new fashion appears to be for bigger and hairier dogs just as the cars have got bigger. aas the price of gas has come down. Dog food must be cheaper too Turn back before we reach town fort as fattening breakfast then drive down to the front-not much changed but a lot of bright paint since we were last here two years ago. Kelly's where the old blokes all met for coffee each morning has closed-tax or sex problems no one knows and the two pretentious up market restaurants [Cass House and Hoppe} have gone bust and the pier is under repair so no access {it looks shorter to me}</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Lovely to think of Arch growing up here when he comes to Cal Poly. Small university towns are the joy of US I'd have loved it to have got a job in one when I was an academic and grown old as a thin grey Liberal </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Sleepless night because the news of Charles Kennedy's death arrives. Awful shock. Poor,poor Charles. Everything went wrong towards the end but it had all begun so wonderfully brought back from the US at 23 to win the seat in the SDP surge [when I spoke there they all asked "how's our Charles?] and so wise[but not informed] beyond his years and instinctively right on the issues-except EU which I put down to Scottishness- I couldn't understand it. We worked together well in the Critch Mitch and Titch days . Now there's only one of the three stooges left..stoogiest.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Gloom about Charles, lack of sleep,and sore throats [cough cough] make for a day to be missed. Sleepy morning. Dragged out in the afternoon for what's supposed to be a daily walk along the deserted beach where the only activity is half a dozen wind surfers trying to hold back recalcitrant flying dogs pulling them out to sea. All frozen to death because the wind is so cold. At this rate we'll end up more dead than fit with visions of being dragged to hospital like last time and pronounced to have double pneumonia {therefore double fees}. Quelle terrible fate. To come to paradise and catch rigor mortis</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Paradise by the way is very quiet.Only the old folks who live here year round . The cool seekers haven't yet come down from Fresno or up from Bakersfield. Perhaps they've left their dogs to guard the houses because there's more dogs 'ner folk around.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Wednesday 3 June SECOND DOWN DAY We've both got colds,sore throats and with me a chorus of burping de profundis. Shake it off enough in the morning to go down to what used to be Kelly's. Kelly herself has fled the coop and lives in Morro drug dependant they say. The father has the kids. No one knows where she is though one man says she always texts him at 5 in the morning.The restaurant next door has taken it over and kept the prices the same -and the decor which is tatty.Like the coffee.Three of the old gang are there-correction four because Gaylen the one Democrat comes in. Harvey 83 is still asking the same questions-did I know Douglas Bader=next will be did I go to the Farnborough air show.Bob the ex fireman still selling motor bikes and parts on e bay Nothing much has changed they say stretching their minds back over two years of the history of Cayucos .One antique shop closed-the chemist moved cos the rent went up old Bob the pot grower dead and gone. That's it. Hoe is it being retired [as they all are} you'll be on a fast political pension {they all are here} etc</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Then it's over to the mob. Cam is brilliant as usual at not answering greeting his own side with "I absolutely agree" the rest with a knee to the balls. New member for York tried a party hand out and gets knocked back. Melanie is trying to get in {blue dress-third row}but failing because the questions go mainly to trusties.I don't recognise a lot of them but that's not unusual.I didn't in the old house either.It was as awful as usual another festival of custard pie throwing but I( wished I was there which has never happened before and shouldn't really because what was daft then remains daft now. I suppose the feeling of missing something is mainly because of the thought that Ive wasted my opportunities and now can't ever go there again to ask irrelevant questions and get humiliated for them.Oh not to be in England now the Tories are back. Problem is they can do what they want but what they want is daft. They shouldn't embark on their big new programme of cuts now the economy is fragile and they'll slash demand. Osborne could quietly postpone them. But I bet he won't because they're not necessary economicslly but part of his programme of slashing the state.</span></div>
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Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-32612401932502581112015-06-01T06:31:00.002-07:002015-06-01T06:31:25.765-07:00Back to the real world via Iceland<div class="p1">
Wednesday 27 May Departure day. By train to Manchester airport.Never want to go from London again. First class (must get out of that habit) on a crowded train of motley Icelandics backpacked lunatics and daft kids looking for the sun.Which isn't in Manchester</div>
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<span class="s1">It's much the best airport and grown enormously since I first landed there back from honeymoon in 1959 with only three and six left. Just enough to pay for the airport bus.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Enormous queue for Icelandic air which is now the cheapest way to get to US via a short stop over in Reykjavik (which means dressing for winter It's now a shop till U drop airport ( provided U want Armani or Rotary or any other up market gear and not a bacon sandwich to stock up your stomach for an airline which now charges a Kroner a crumb)</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Buy two books of enormous size which makes my carry on bag too heavy to carry on. Stagger the 4 miles to gate 31. (Inevitably the last) and get on last to find every overhead locker pack with wheels-bins.travel trunks and enormous rucksacks (probably designed to smuggle children on for free. To find I'm on an aisle seat next to two men on diuretics who keep signaling graphically that they want to go to the toilet. Which is free. The only thing that is. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Oh to be an MP again. I'd forgotten the joys of economy.At least it brings you closer to the people. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Arrived at Keflavik the airport that's always building but not building travelators, so the first 100 miles of every working holiday have to be done to get out of the airport. Met by Einar driving his mother's car which hasn't been on the road for a year. He takes us back via Keflavik, built for the Americans with accommodation much bigger than then Icelandic standard but now occupied by the University. He says it's a pop music town with the museum of rock and roll because the kids formed groups for the Americans.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Daft that the Americans pressured Britain to prolong the cod war because they feared for their base then they evacuated the base when the Cold War cooled.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Takes us to Ogmundur's house. Former minister of the interior until the left was thrown out to beg in the progressives and the Independent party as a conservative coalition They're now unpopular because their austerity policies but support is t returning to the left.The most active opposition is the Pirates ( is their manifesto arson rape and small doses of murder?) who've just been holding a mass demonstration outside Parliament like the ones that broke the Independent government. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">There we gather with his brother Bjorn the publisher ( who wants a book on the cod wars) who entertained us in the last parliamentary visit. All lefties and very interested in why Labour lost (remind me ,why'd did we?) and the difficulties of the left. Mainly gloomy and I'm buggered.But sleep well despite the fact that it's light all night.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">THURSDAY 28 May Breakfast of Icelandic Goo.Delicious Then off with Einar shopping Mainly Linda though bought a book and some little paintings- they get smaller as they get more expensive-and a museum visit plus a delicious lunch of traditional fish d<span class="s2">ishes</span> a restaurant Einar plugged in his book. It seems to have two menus.One for the natives (of whom there are a lot) and one of illegal foods for the Japanese who're allowed whale and cormorant.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">After which drive down to the harbour to see the latest arrival: a mobile fish and chip shop,Union Jack flying for "British tradition Icelandic quality." Or was it the other way round. They graciously give us six chips for being British.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Then the long drive through miles of moonscape which turns out to be a volcanic eruption in settlement times,to the airport .Why the hell is it so far out of town? There Einar's car breaks down and finally refuses to start at all jamming the car park entry (which we were lucky to reach-I'd begun to visualise lugging the suitcases across the tundra- It refuses to move so we push the suitcases into departures in the course of which the rigorous security checks involving removal of shoes and belts cause my trousers to fall down. No one laughs. Brilliant day. Now off to Seattle wondering if Einar will have got his mothers car going before we return in a month's time.Perhaps he'll have to bring her out to repair it-she's only 93.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Great visit. Great country but it's all collapsing in on Rekyavik which. It has over half the population.now lives there as it sprawls The sons of the sagas have become suburbanites living a Modern life of supermarkets,car ownership and brand shopping that the rest of us live in.Iceland is becoming like anywhere. Except that the sea's too cold to bathe in and the scenery's spectacular. How are they going to keep them down on the fa rm after they've seen Reykyavik.Indeed they can't get people to man the fishing boats and farmers can't keep a fishing. boat as a small sideline because the big owners now own them all.. Thirty per cent have degrees but I'll bet only thirty percent of them can do anything with it. Vaut le visite!,</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Out by Icelandair which has the cleanest toilets in the world but infuriates by selling its food (big baguette 5 Euros steaming hot. Now over Canada. Miles and miles of fuck all as denis Thatcher once remarked.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">WELCOME TO AMERICA :NOT.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Immigration looked bad at Seattle and got worse. Big lines along fenced in paths leading to great new innovation: machines to read our visas. When we finally reached one (while the immigration cops at their desks watched bored with nothing to do it accepted my passport at only the third pass but balked Linda's and just packed up. Puzzlement so eventually we were pulled over to a bored officer. Again he got mine but balked at Linda's so we were shepherded to a detention room to sit and watch officers looking at bigger screens muttering. By this time all our fellow passengers had gone. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Shuttles into back room and hushed conversations from which Linda heard "been refused entry" It turned out that in 2004 she'd got an ester but too late to lose it so it had been revoked and another issued. In their bureaucratic terms that was a refusal but she didn't know that ( who would unless they're told) so on her latest application she' said she'd never been refused entry and had therefore lied.an officer might have coped but the machine couldn't and these guys couldn't either. It was a matter of discretion and these guys didn't have any.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">They patiently explained the problem but couldn't decide what to do.Official America is very bureaucratic. But they wanted to go home. We couldn't be sent back so eventually they let us in to an empty baggage hall ( where ours were the only two cases left warning us that the same thing would happen again if we came back to US. No point in arguing. No point in loosing one's temper or pointing out how daft it was.No status to pull any longer. Just age and that did no good.</span></div>
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We struggled exhausted to the light rail.Thank God we didn't get a taxi. Seattle was hundreds of miles away. Taxi to hotel or rather mausoleum out for beer (Americans don't understand larger and lime) then bed buggered.<span class="s1"></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Friday 30 May Out for brekkie so then fish market where fish stalls have given way to flowers (fleury du mal at $2 a stem ) and no one's buying fish but hundreds are photographing them( a shame because most of their heads have been cut off so they're not at their loveliest) Locals stride purposefully. Visitors waddle-I lumber) while Linda looks vainly for a T Mobile shop in a tatty area where you only find flower and knickknack shops. Back to hotel to rest until we find enough energy for lunch and resuming the restless search for T Mobile. Can't ring them up to ask where they are until we find them to make our phones work. Beginning to find Seattle uncharming</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Buggered. But not missing the Queen's speech just feeling happy not to be there running round in small speeches, attacking the Tories and railing at the follies.It all looks such a waste of time from here.Our daft electorate deserves all that's coming to it.</span></div>
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Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-65290779871221843852015-06-01T06:16:00.004-07:002015-06-01T06:16:54.506-07:00Why Labour lost. My last election sermon.<div class="p1">
The Tories won. As usual. The four basic things to remember about the British electorate are:</div>
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1) The Brits don't particularly like each other. So they're happy to see any other section punished as long as it's not them. It's always best to punish the poor because they deserve it for being dependent and going on about this doesn't win any sympathy for them or Labour. Since we now live in segregated suburbs not communities, most of the possessing classes think the poor are rolling in dosh and must lose it to energise them and rather less see and feel the misery of having nowt, no savings no holiday matter, no ability to meet sudden bills.</div>
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<span class="s1">2) Les Brits have no understanding of economics, think the best way of dealing with economic difficulties is austerity (for the lower orders who're a lot of scroungers anyway) and think Keynes is a big spending queer.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">3)They're conservative in instincts and easily frightened because they're no longer solidly secure.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">4) They dislike politicians and politics but see the Tories as non-political</span></div>
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<span class="s1">All this loads the system towards the Conservative Party. Which is why Labour lost and it was Cameron's Queen's Speech. Saw.my little box at Sovereign's gate (which I hoped to inherit) wasn't there and nor was I. The speech was for workers not layabouts, scroungers and pensioners. New blue worker Toryism promises them a better deal out of the crumbs which will fall from the better laden tables of the rich if they'll just be patient and work a bit harder.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I didn't mind because the Tories triumphant are a terrible sight. They look a nasty lot to me and they face a divided opposition so for the moment they can get away with anything.Until the first by -elections flash up a warning signal.I've no idea how new blue Cam is going to keep this right wing mob happy. He won't get enough concessions from the EU to keep them (or me ) happy.He can't find the extra money for the health service. He'll have to pay the housing association large sums to give away their houses (or cheat as he did on council housing) At some stage interest rates will have to go up, fucking everyone and we can't afford to run a trade deficit on this scale plus pay our huge Danegeld to the EU much longer.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">But none of that matters because unhindered (or is it unhinged) by Liberal whingers and whiners the Tory party can do what it wants and the electorate will get what they voted for but didn't realise. That was better times and tax cuts ahead but it was predicated on continued growth at the 2014 rate which it ain't going to get.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Why? </span></div>
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<span class="s1">1) it's petering out </span></div>
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<span class="s1">2) it was due to the bank's cheap money and print more policy which can't be pushed any further </span></div>
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<span class="s1">3) the cuts to come will reduce demand </span></div>
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<span class="s1">4)business ain't investing and too much investment is going into asset inflation and housing </span></div>
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<span class="s1">5)folk are hung down with debt </span></div>
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<span class="s1">6)government isn't investing enough in housing and infrastructure and too much in follies like HST and Trident reducing the deficit in recession and cutting borrowing to invest when interest rates are so low is economic folly </span></div>
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<span class="s1">7)manufacturing and exports aren't growing because the pound is too strong. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">8) productivity is so low cos business won't invests</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Apart from that all's well.Particularly if you're rich, have house in London and love overseas holidays. enjoy. The workers won't mind. They voted for it didn't they? So Enjoy! For the moment but fasten your seat belts. There's a rough ride ahead.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">HERE ENDETH LAPIN'S LAST ELECTION SERMON</span></div>
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Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-53995206418965972712015-05-25T04:29:00.000-07:002015-05-25T04:29:06.566-07:00TME TO CAN CAM'S EUROCON<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Good to see that leadership candidates now accept what I've been saying for months: that Labour should have proposed a referendum on the EU Late but good. Now however we can't just throw our votes behind Cameron who isn't negotiating seriously,who's putting forward only trivial demands and who,come the vote,will be saying we should stay in and relying on fear to get folk to vote to stay</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Saying the EU is wonderful is not policy. Labour must now say what we want out of re-negotiation, particularly over lower contributions which presently are a sizeable part of our growing balance of payments deficit</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Having set out what reforms are necessary to make the EU work for Britain and announced that our vote is conditional on the necessary changes which would allow us to undercut the SNP it's time to look again at our reasons for staying in the EU most of which are such fairy tales that they only demonstrate how little we understand the dynamics of growth and economics .Here's a sample:-</span></div>
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<span class="s1">1)The EU preserves peace in Europe Balls Tony Blair had to get the U.S. To act on Kosovo cos the EU wouldn't. Look what a mess it's made by interfering in Ukraine NATO preserves peace. The EU provokes bitter arguments</span></div>
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<span class="s1">2)Three million jobs are threatened if we leave .Balls again We have a huge deficit in trade we the EU .If it were stopped they'd suffer more than us. So it won't be</span></div>
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<span class="s1">3)Negotiating as a group enhances B ritain's power. Even more balls The EU negotiating position is always diluted to the needs of the many. In the TITP negotiations the French got culture and media omitted.We can't get the NHS excluded </span></div>
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<span class="s1">4)If we attack them they'll harden against us. Childish twaddle</span></div>
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<span class="s1">5)The benefits of membership outweigh the costs. Absolutely wrong. We have a sizeable<a href="http://www.nudevista.com/?r=kirsten+halborg&s=t"><span class="s2">t</span></a>trade deficit,pay over the odds lose much of our fish,pay more for. Their overpriced food we can't control immigration. What are the benefits? When and where do we see them?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">6)Better to belong to a bigger market. Mini balls when that market ha been turned into the high unemployment low growth black spot of the advanced world by the folly of the Euro which will never work but does manage to keep the German exchange rate down so that they can take our markets. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">7)Britain gains access to a larger market :we' still have it if we left as we have to the American. In any case it' easier to supply and even dominate as small market from a large one than vice versa and we've been duly penetrated.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">8) Harmonisation helps trade : but the tax fiddles offered by Luxembourg and Ireland allow firms making their profts in Britain to dodge their taxes here </span></div>
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<span class="s1">9) Britain is European. You could have fooled me. We've always looked to the wider world and the Commonwealth whose kith and kin we are now excluding to let in more Eastern Europeans </span></div>
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<span class="s1">10) Better to be part of a larger block. Even bigger balls.Advantage lies with smaller nations who can determine their own priorities, navigate their own course and don't have to dilute it for fuckwits. Britain can get better deals on its own</span></div>
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<span class="s1">So it goes on. The arguments for membership are either fairy tales or myths propagated by idealists who want unity but don't understand simple economics</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The basic question remains. Do we need to belong to this old hat and over regulated expansive bureaucratic monolith dedicated to an ever closer union we don't want just because the vested interests want to stay and we're scared they'll retaliate if we leave Do we? EU might. I don't.</span></div>
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Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-14480940527114048162015-05-23T06:12:00.001-07:002015-05-23T06:12:27.928-07:00Labour's in danger of getting it wrong again<br /><div class="Body">
<o:p> </o:p>We're in danger of getting it all wrong. Again. Good leader
candidates but no one outstanding in the way Blair was or Smith before him. No
clear ideas on policy. No understanding of that awkward entity the British
people.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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So run the party through a commission for a year to put
candidates thru their paces.Understand why we lost : cos we were never going to
win against a one term government. Then realise that people don't particularly
want change. They just want to get.on with their lives and be better off.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Brits don't particularly like each other and they hate
scroungers so they're not as worried as U.S. About injustices to the poor. They
love rising house prices because the majority are owners.They believe in piggy
bank economics don,t understand Keynes and think austerity is good for other
people.<o:p></o:p></div>
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They do want to be better of so they'll vote for hope but
paradoxical the Tories in their panic offered more than us while we did our
best to kill it and we're so ashamed of Brown we allowed all the blame to be
dumped on him and made nothing of the fact that the Tories had killed the
recovery he was generating<o:p></o:p></div>
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They're hardly socialist but recognise that capitalism
cheats,bankers are overpaid bastards landlords charge.too.much rent and that
the utilities are.run by greedy crooks so they didn't mind the policies that
got us labelled anti-business .It was just that they weren't a coherent
critique and didn't cancel the image of economic incompetence<o:p></o:p></div>
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So it's not back to Blair but to Crosland to develop policies
which will generate growth and betterment and a surplus to spend on the NHS the
sole state system they love<o:p></o:p></div>
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Don't be fooled. We're neither an aspirational<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>nation nor a collection of nervous altruists
but a collection of tired,rather selfish nervous but dutiful dopes who want a
quiet life and are too timid to do anything but cling to nurse in tough
times.They're not particularly happy with the government but are all too easily
scared .They haven't believed Cameron but the mini recovery and the promise of
better times ahead<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>persuaded them into
giving him another chance.When he fails to deliver on that as he will they'll
come back to us but only if we offer them hope and a return to the growth they've
been led to expect and always got up to 2010 rather than a load of aspirational
codswallop and kindness to business soap.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="Body">
So don't junk the policies to make way for a lot of touchy hopey
aspirational stuff, keep pointing out that the government's politicise won't
work can't work and that the nation is being made weaker.Offer hope and project
the economic policies necessary to get it and we'll win. Just a little later
than we'd hoped. <o:p></o:p></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-38660397390495613592015-05-19T04:18:00.003-07:002015-05-19T04:18:42.789-07:00The EU is a problem for Labour too.<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It's pretty clear that the decision to hold a referendum on EU membership poses big problems for Cameron. He did it to undercut UKIP and hoped to repeat Harold Wilson's confidence trick of 1975 but things have changed since then. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There's more opposition to Membership. The EU which looked successful then is a mess now thanks to the Euro which will never work.The structures have hardened and become less flexible. Labour didn't get any real changes in its re negotiation Cameron will get less so he's not going to be able to say "I've pulled it's teeth. Let's stay in".He'll still say it of course but it won't carry any conviction.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So what should Labour say? Up to now we've said only that it's a wonderful institution and we mustn't frighten business by thinking of leaving.Total rubbish of course but the kind of rubbish we can't talk in the run up to the next referendum. Now can we do as we did in the Scots referendum and just become lame accomplices of the Tories.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So we should make our own demands in the re-negotiation to show we're not just Junker's poodle. Most essential is a reduction in our payments. The budget contribution alone is now £11 billion net and that for a nation in heavy balance of trade difficulties. Add to that the use of the CAP as a regional policy from which we benefit least of all because out agriculture is so small. Why should we have to buy their dear food when we can get it so much more cheaply elsewhere ? Then the CFP gives them too much of our rich fish stocks and U.S. To few powers of enforcement.So demand the 12 mile limit all wound, better quotas in the fifty mile and the right of hot pursuit. Finally we're going to have to rebuild our manufacturing base in the face of intense competition from them .So we need the ability to pay state aids and investment grants to industry and to operate a regional policy to subsidise regional labour.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Finally we need the ability to tax profits generated in Britain so that the firms making them make their contribution to our public services. We can't do this as long as must of the tax fiddles which corporations use to dodge their taxes are sanctioned by the EU.Ireland's 17% corporation tax hurts us as does the double Irish fiddle sanctioned by the Republic. Luxembourg helps firms to avoid British taxes and we should ask how many of the businesses preaching the benefits of staying in the EU are using those benefits to fiddle their tax obligations to this country Do tell. All this can only be stopped by European measures .We need to have these as part of the renegotiation </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The essential point, always ignored is that we are in a heavy trade deficit,particularly in manufactures with the EU..That means that the business lobby for the EU is mostly importers not exporters and that the talk of threatening three million jobs is utter rubbish since more of their jobs than ours are threatened if trade is restricted. (Which it won't be)</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Labour must recognise that most of its voters want out and most of its members feel an unease about such an unequal relationship . It's only our naive leaders who view the Euro monster with such vacuous enthusiasm that their policy towards it has become hear no evil speak no evil of the club which charges us so much to ruin us.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">We can't argue for power to be transferred down to the people in political matters but insist that it be taken for further away to Europe in other matters.Put the national interest first in these negotiations and use them to increase the power of a Labour government to help ourselves Our approach shouldn't be to say how much we love this job gobbler on wheels as it was in the election.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">++++++++++++++</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It's depressing to see how quickly British politics have returned to normal after the brief revival of hope in the election.. The government is already embarking on another set of its prejudiced enormities and defending them with the usual lies while Labour whines but offers no alternative and the press tells a disbelieving nation how wonderful things are going when they're not.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Tory policy is reverse socialism: Keynes for the upper classes neo Liberalism for the rest.so we pour out huge socialist subsidies to landlords to low paying gradgrind employers and to landowners and estate agents but cut spending on welfare,benefits and local government to allow tax cuts to the subsidised classes.It makes no sense but it's what we bovine Brits voted for and just in case we get too fed up of it the government will now revive the aborted 2011 redistribution to give themselves 20 more seats.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">That's how Tory government works.It may work better for the few than the many but the many can always be conned by the press into accepting anything.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">++++++++++++</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Wednesday is the world premier of the greatest film ever shot in Grimsby. "Great Grimsby" is screened for a waiting world at the Parkway Cinema in Cleethorpes with an all star attendance and an all star cast of Grimsby greats. Don't miss it.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-87225183844171838352015-05-16T23:25:00.005-07:002015-05-16T23:25:52.020-07:00Message to Labour attack government, not each other-<br /><div class="Body">
Being perfectionists keen to build a better world Labour has a
dreadful propensity to blame itself when things go wrong. Now having just lost
an election we hope to win instead of hounding the government for its inevitable failure to keep promises it made
in desperation, attempting the impossible on Europe and positing everything on
an economic recovery which is petering we've decided to fall apart fighting in
lumps about our own failings, our leadership and our mistakes in the election.
At a time like this post mortems are as useful
as a dose of clap. </div>
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Daft! Victory as a hundred claimants, defeat a thousand blamers
but the Tories won badly not<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>big in a
contest which favoured them anyway because one term governments usually get a
second chance<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We did some daft things
like the Ed stone(which should be sold to raise money for the party)and the
commitment not to deal with the SNP but then so did the Tories;it's only
human.The real reasons for our defeat were three<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the only one which was our fault was due
to a lack of confidence in ourselves rather than a policy failure.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
First the Tories managed to create a fear of a weak Labour
government in hock to the SNP.Not our fault. Second they successfully distorted
our record and we let them by creating a myth that the last Labour government
was overspending. Those Labour fools who're now endorsing this should remember
that Osborne endorsed our spending proposals up to 2008, that the big borrowing
was to save the banks and that thanks to Brown's stimulus the economy was
growing faster in<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
Labour"s last quarter than it is now.Osborne's foolish
austerity killed all that. Third reason was that we offered neither hope not
nationalist enthusiasm<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in our anxiety to
be business friendly<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Two of these reasons for defeat were our fault. We should have
rebutted the Tory distortions because they undermined confidence in us but we
hardly rebutted it because we were ashamed of Gordon Brown and committed
balancing the budget- which is a folly because budgets should be in deficit and
borrowing high in recession to boost demand and operate the multiplier. Why
didn't we? The second failure was even more disastrous Instead of offering
growth explaining how we'd get it by stimulating demand, investing in infrastructure and boosting manufacturing we just offered more of the same, in
austerity lite, so electors might think,why take the risk? They did.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Now all that's history except that its all getting distorted in
the debate between modernisers (who want to take us back to 1997) and the
"business friendly" (who want to move us further to the right and the
baffled unhappy rank and file. Why argue ourselves. An electorate which opted
to cling to nurse is now going to get more of the austerity it doesn't
particularly like. The government<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>has
top deliver on tax cuts and the recovery is slowing but government has no idea
how to boost it because it was produced by low interest rates, high house
prices and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>375 billion of quantitative
easing . Most EU countries are now growing faster, exports are failing the
pound over valued and productivity low. A 5% deficit in public revenues and a
6% deficit in trade won't be cured easily.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Then there's the other problem the Euro referendum. Cam hopes to
bring it forward. What is Labour to do ? Leaders want to support what will be
the government position ;vote to stay in With the same effect as our support
for the government in the Scottish referendum.No use pretending the EU is the
greatest thing since spliced lederhosen. A Labour government will face problems with
it: it costs too<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>much, it prevents the
rebuilding of English fishing, the CAP hurts us and it will inhibit regional
policy and aid for industry to help re balance the economy. Spell them out and
demand that the government negotiate for them too. They won't get anything But
then Cam won't get his own demands either and it stops us becoming little Sir
Echo again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
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A government with a majority of only 12 can't last. Many voted
for it uneasily. Its promises are predicated on a growth it won't get. People
gave it the benefit of the doubt but the doubt is very strong More austerity
will boost it not satisfy. The sensible response is to harry the life out of it. Not squabble among ourselves. Masochism is a psychological condition Not a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>strategy for victory .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="Body">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-18771277521951777102015-05-11T06:26:00.002-07:002015-05-11T06:26:21.176-07:00Last Post<div class="Body">
Monday 11 May<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
CLEARING UP AFTER THE PARTY<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Now the result no one expected has to be set in concrete. Had the
Tories expected to win they wouldn't have made so many commitments to spending
and tax cuts. Had we expected to lose so badly we'd never have been so
cautious. Now both parties can change their clothes and be what they are.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
But what are they? Cameron is free to be his own man but even he
doesn't seem to know that is after his chameleon years,Osborne is free to do
what will be his worst and Boris is free to run the bike shed. Not much talent
among the rest because the loss of the Libs has deprived them of talent<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> S</span>ahid Javid the fitness fanatic in charge of flabby British
industry. How blessed the paradise to come.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
When government launches onto a sea of troubles with policies
that are entirely inappropriate as this one is the best thing opposition can do
is shut up and harry the bastards. Naturally Labour has done the opposite. Ed
who should have stayed on to preside over change has rushed to resign and a
policy debate which should be held over the years has begin already. Total
folly which enables a collection of creeps to claim that they knew all along we
were on the wrong track with the wrong leader though they omitted to tell us at
the time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Some say we must move to the centre ground<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>without saying where that is or what it
means. Normally it's the long yellow streak in the middle of the road but in a
sinking ship it must be the plimsoll line which is now below the water
line. Others say we must be more business friendly. I doubt whether any party
could have been more business friendly than we were as we set out to show
ourselves cautious, respectable deficit-reducing rate-cutting<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>protectors of a nervous business community
from the terror of an EU referendum.Yet they stil hated us and clamoured for
the Tories because British business is fairly stupid more concerned for tax
cuts for their executives than growth and demand. Business always does better
under Labour because we make its customers better off but threaten its
perks, privileges and fiddles.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Other canards which will be flown against us more regularly than
drones on ISIS are avoid ideology.We did. Speak to the aspirational.We did, as
the party of education jobs, expansion and renewal of local government
services. Do more for traditional Labour voters attracted to UKIP- Some truth here because we were so Europe friendly but on the other hand we offered jobs
apprenticeships more housing and rent controls.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
The fact is we were beaten by fear : fear that we'd be dependent
on the SNP, fear of the borrowing we'd done to save the banks and fear of
economic inexperience and at the last minutes shy Tories who'd not liked to
admit that they were going to vote for such a call our incompetent government
decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. They'll soon be sorry and the tide
will turn our way as they realise their mistake.Then Labour's policies will become
relevant and a real alternative to more cuts, dearer housing, stalling growth
and the burdens of debt on ordinary people.They were to early and the
electorate too nervous to carry us to power in 2015 <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
So wait before junking everything. Wait before choosing a new
leader. Harry a government with no majority set to fail and don't rush into
another rolling row. Here Endeth the lesson.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Lapin will leap on. But less frequently.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-17144054672119622012015-05-09T03:12:00.002-07:002015-05-09T03:12:15.495-07:00I was wrong <div class="p1">
<span class="s1">OK (or rather not) I got it wrong. So did the polls, the pundits and the nation which will love to regret the day when frightened by Tory created fear of Scots, of Miliband, of Labour, it decided to cling to nurse and do what it usually does : give a first term government another chance no matter how badly they've done.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Now everything depends on Cameron. Hitherto a weak leader bending into whatever policies and positions his party pushed him and doing brilliant PR for every neo liberal folly Osborne forced on him. Now he's the master but he's no longer got the Liberals as coalition partners to protect him. So will he lead his party away from austerity and cuts and towards community and fairness or will he be pushed by the resurgent right into theologies of revenge and more neo liberal follies.?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">First signs are bad. Reviving the failed redistribution to rig the electoral system to the Tories,"English votes for English rhubarb"and talk of benefit cuts which will become more painful as the economy slows. Now he has to show whether he's the liberal one nation Tory he set out to be or just a PR man for anything. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But I can't escape the fact that the first election I've not been able to predict because it looked so close has turned out a total disaster for Labour for all the hopes we had for better and, I believe, for the nation which voted for a future of low wages mean benefits and increased unfairness and inequality.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The exit poll which I first denied made this clear so the question is whether all the polls up to that point were wrong or was there some unexpected and belated move to the Tories in the last days..</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It must be the latter, a belated stiffening of resolve to vote Tory by those either considered unlikely to vote ( and the poll was slightly up) or the fact that the Tory scare about the Scots finally worked on the weakly committed.It was the Scots wot did us though we also lost support in England cos we didn't offer hope and Ed didn't command confidence</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So unexpectedly habemus papa. No negotiations.All the expensive structures erected on Collage Green can be dismantled. Boris has five years to wait. Forests have been turned into pamphlets in vain. All my prophecies were wrong.Thousands of party workers have tramped the streets in vain</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It's fairly normal for a new government to be given a second chance and the Tories offered so many promises that people might have begun to believe that the policies were working so they would stop the cuts and offer more in their second term by reverting from grad grind economics to an older version of one nation Toryism.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">They could and they may but that would involve moving Osborne and giving up on his programme of rolling back the state and I doubt whether Cameron has the strength to do that.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In which case the proper policy is to harry the bastards because there are so many policies which will blow up in their faces. This isn't a real substantial recovery. They can only create one by building houses on a big scale, investing and boosting manufacturing and only the state can do that.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">We have a Balance of Payments deficit which amounts to 6% of GDP and a fiscal deficit of about the same level.They'll not get either down without boosting productivity which is lagging .All their promises are predicated in the recovery getting stronger. It's tailing off. They'll not get enough concessions from the EU to offer a new deal so he'll have to commend membership and split his party by so doing. Th NHS needs more money now. How can he offer it without boosting borrowing?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So the job of the Opposition is to harry the bastards to force them to live up to their promises not to fall apart and argue among themselves over what Labour should propose. The policy offering in 2015 was OK so there's no use preaching a return to Blairite vacuity but the electorate didn't feel that things were so bad as to justify it. As things get worse they will be. So don't chuck it all overboard and start again because things are going to get harder, not better.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So don't be demoralised by defeat. Wait and attack. The majority is small and will fall apart. Cameron is a chameleon and can be pushed by his fractious party to anything They're festooned with promises they can't fulfil and will burn out before the term is up. All that makes it daft for Labour to change leader and policies now. Ed should have stayed on to let someone else to emerge. He didn't. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So all I can do is offer to put the plinth of platitudes in my garden and let the wisteria grow on it and suggest that we elect Yvette Cooper. And harry the bastards in the way that they harried us in 1951 and we harried them under John Major. Support will come back to us as people realise what a mistake the result was. They'll lose by-elections and split on Europe so wear them down</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In he meantime don't be young, don't be a woman, don't be a northerner, low paid or a Scot..Don't need early hospital treatment or expensive drugs and don't try to get yourself educated or depend on libraries, children's' centres or sports facilities or hope for a mortgage or buying a house. Hibernate. Or get seriously rich.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I must go to bed. I'm exhausted. Socialism is a Sisyphean labour but one from which there's no retirement. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-73126847854219377122015-05-07T02:52:00.001-07:002015-05-07T02:52:10.157-07:00The end of one mess and the start of another<div class="p1">
Here ends the addled election, the messiest since 1974, and here starts the constitutional mess of making sense of the result as the electorate decides not to decide and gives the problem back to the politicians who're so busy fighting each other they've no idea how to decide anything. Not even their salaries.</div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The campaign never came alight and certainly didn't grip the nation so instead of doing their job and telling the nation how they proposed to get it out of the mess, the politicians merely attacked each other and warned of dire consequences if the other lot got in while the minor party filled the sky with pie.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Ed Miliband grew in stature while David Cameron shrank and was forced desperately to pump himself up towards the end. Milo at least tried to protect a vision of a better society then spoiled it by proposing a gravestone of platitudes such as "all teeth regularly brushed" and "babies bottoms regularly wiped" while Cameron concentrated on fear creation "murder, rape and higher taxes" if Labour wins and "Sporran stripping if the SNP supports Labour" if they don't quite make it. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Cleggy preached sanctimony, damned the government with faint praise and kicked Labour at every opportunity, UKIP blamed every problem on immigrants most of whom are part time rapists and the greens promised gluten free cheese for every cauliflower while the electorate turned away and went "Awwwwww" about the Royal baby. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I see no sign of a last minute trend like the shy Tories who emerged in1992 though the Tory vote might strengthen a little if people decide to cling to nurse in uncertain times though it might not because nurse gives every symptom of being mad and plotting still more cuts. Media always exaggerate new trends so the SNP might not win as many Labour seats as predicted while the Libs who deserve to lose the lot will retain more than they should because Liberal MPs dig in so well. The Tories will also benefit from the incumbency factor which gives MPs a 2% advantage in their second election. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But none of these trends should be strong enough to break the basic deadlock so though I shouldn't risk a call mine would be that Cam will have first shot at forming a government and fail because they've been such obnoxious bastards and then Miliband will make it with SNP support plus the diminished number of Lib Dems </span>who if they are to be a genuine centre party of government must be prepared to work with both majors and can't be seen to be turning Labour out.</div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Then we'll have the fun of weeks of negotiations while I and other failures and rejections walk up and down on College Green where huge studios have been erected for the know all to pontificate about what they can't understand and the new Clarions of the People prostrate themselves to get on telly and have their say, hoping that's it will stand them in good stead in the run up to Election II and possibly III. Should be fun</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I've already recorded my bit for the Jeremy Vine show on Monday holding up cards like Bob Dylan ("don't follow leaders.Watch your parking meters").What lessons would I give to new MPs?</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">1)Don't do it </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">2 Be independently wealthy or increase pay </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">3 Move parliament to York- so much more convenient for Grimsby </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">4) Have three year parliaments- much better for keeping in touch with the people</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">5) Introduce proportional representation. It's the only way of working multi party politics.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">"dunno" is the best I can do for a prediction.When you've got such a gulf between politicians and people,when the nation is so fed up and doesn't trust any of us and when the only response politicians make is to blame everything on each other rather than offer guidance to the future you're going to get non elections which neither stimulate nor excite leading to no score draws which can't produce a clear winner or a firm government. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Britain has entered a new era of uncertainty, and the age of strong government is over. Leadership by dictat is no longer possible, coalition building and concessions are the only way forward. But will they work when the politicians have no clear idea of what to do except attack each other, the electorate has no respect for them and doesn't realise the scale of the problem and our malign media proclaims the myth that Britain is still a world leader and a major power when it's a third rate minor power which hasn't the foggiest idea of what role it wants to play.Unhappy Daze.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</span></div>
<div class="p2">
Don't worry about a long period of argument and indecision with no party in a position to form a government. New Zealand had six weeks of neutered government , Belgium's had a year and Denmark several months and it's done none of them any harm. <span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The media will bang on about the collapse of sterling but that's good for exports.The rich won't leave en masse nor will the banks and if they do it will be easier to tax their British earnings. The multinationals will stay and manufacturing will expand because it's more competitive.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In any case no government at all will be better than the last lot slashing spending and benefits, paring back the state and imposing a painful and unnecessary austerity for purely ideological reasons. No government is better than misgovernment. It may even end up with making Boris leader of the Funservative party instead of the sour Neo-Libs and Conmen in charge today. That would be marvellous.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-7574695986504994102015-05-06T00:02:00.000-07:002015-05-06T00:02:03.006-07:00DESPERATE MEN IN DESPERATE PLEAS<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">24 hours to go and both Cleggy and Cameron seem to think they're going to lose. How else can one explain Clegg's claim that no government without the diminished band of Libs can be legitimate and even more amazingly Cameron claiming that if Labour come second in seats taking power with the backing of the SNP would not be a legitimate government.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Balls.Whether the Tories are first or second they will have more difficulties in forming a government than Labour because they've got fewer friends.They might get the Ulster Unionists (that they say would be legitimate however much the have to be given to reverse the settlement) and no doubt the Libs would be keen to carry on their affair however few their numbers and however loudly the Tory bank benchers object but if that doesn't give them some guarantee of the 323 they need to survive a motion of confidence they've had it</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Then it's Labour's turn and if it's numbers are enough with SNP support and possibly Liberals desperate for office with anyone, then they govern and that government is legitimate however loudly the Tories and their press supporters howl and attempt to undermine it. The assumption that only a Tory minority government is legitimate is typical Tory arrogance.The belief that they alone are born to rule. In 1911 Balfour defended the House of Lords on the ground that it had the duty "to ensure that whether in power or in opposition the Tory party shall control the destinies of this empire" Now it's the job of English electors to anyone elected by the Scots.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Put simply: whoever can come to an arrangement to secure 323 votes on confidence and supply is the government. If that's Labour, as it should be then whoever denies its elegantly is treasonous. That may not be Cam. If he can't get a majority he'll be thrown out by a party which has never liked him, but that's not for me to say. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">XxxxxXxxxxxXxxxxXxxx</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">One issue has not been discussed in this awful election even though it's the basic one and perhaps the only essential issue. Can we rebuild an economy strong enough to support the standard of living ,the quality of life and the public services an advanced educated society has a right to expect, and to pay the nation's way in the world? </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">At present the British economy does neither with the result that everything is being cut or taxes will have to be increased, we're having to sell of every available asset from ccompanies to houses to sustain our credit overseas and everyone is in debt up to the hilt to sustain their standard of living.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yet not a word is said by our leaders about this horrendous problem in case it frightens people Instead the argue about paying off national debt, balancing the budget neither of which matters because governments have to borrow in recession and should borrow more to stimulate growth and put people back to work. It's daft to take a simplistic moralistic view of government borrowing as if it was the same as household borrowing. It isn't because government borrowing has a multiplier effect. It puts people back to work building houses. It boosts demand. It means there's more money about to stimulate the economy. Yet all parties cackle on about borrowing as it if was a sin not a virtue and in so doing pledge themselves to depress the economy even more .</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">What have the parties to offer. The Tories speak of the March of the Makers but industrial production is now falling the pound is too high for exports and productivity is down. Labour will do more borrowing for investment but shows no realisation that the pound is too high and that too many companies are foreign owned to serve the national interest. But will either party tell the electorate the truth?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-71379980031743638672015-05-05T10:52:00.003-07:002015-05-05T10:52:29.560-07:00LET'S GET IT OVER WITH!<div class="p1">
Only three days to go and it's clear this election should have been brought forward so we can get it over more quickly.The parties have run out of things to say.The newspapers have run out of abuse of Miliband (Edstones apart) and the horrors which will ensure from a Labour government, the electorate is bored and even the candidates have run out of the debating points. They've been deluged with endless repetition which damages the brain.</div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yesterday I watched all the regional Question Time on BBC Parliament and was depressed by the quality of the candidates. On programme after programme Tory candidates were chanting the same mantra about the "long term economic plan" or "A strong health service needs a strong economy" </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">(Meaning we're not likely to get either) while the Libs countered about"moderating the extremes" and the Greens (who had better candidates) poured out naive impossibilities and UKIP (whose candidates ranged from good to awful)</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">One thing was clear. They've all been well drilled and can parrot the policies. But they're all just giving the party line. No trace of original thought or their own ideas or any propensity to dissent. The opportunities for dissent will be enormous in a hung parliament but the new chums will be less likely to see them and more inclined to do as they're told by leaders who haven't much idea either.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">That means less rebellion more concentration on grinding government down. It's going to be tough but worse for the Tories who'll have more trouble over Europe because they can't define what they want out of a renegotiation and their UKIPer majority won't be satisfied with the conjuring trick Harold Wilson did in 1975. They'll have trouble too over the cuts which are going to be painful if they get back.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">A Labour government will be harder work conciliating the SNP, </span>but a Tory one will be messier and more fun to watch as the promises poured out at this election come home to roost..</div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">+++++++++++++++++</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Russell Brand calls for an emergency vote for a revolution. Surely it should be </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">an emergency non vote for a non- revolution?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">+++++++++++++++++</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The Editor of the Independent on Sunday hasn't yet accepted my bet that Melanie Onn will win Grimsby by over 2000, she has more faith in the dire prediction of her journalist.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-79734703159386015032015-05-04T04:48:00.001-07:002015-05-04T04:48:36.144-07:00An election which never reached the electorate<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The 2015 election has been such a sad disappointment because it never actually reached the people. It was about them. It will have a crucial effect on their future. Yet it never excited their interest and certainly didn't grip them in any way. They just got on with their straightened lives while the politicians played a game for themselves, like a football match where the teams assault each other and play dirty against each other but the public turn away in distaste.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Britain's small political class has become a small isolated elite who spend their time abusing each other but find difficulty in communicating with the rest of the population who've never been particularly interested in politics and are now repelled by the abusive brawl that politics have become </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Leaders have been well protected from any contact with real people and their problems and have spent their time speaking to specially selected hordes of party supporters. Even when the BBC dragged the leaders before a question time audience praised by the Daily Mail as real people they weren't because the audience was specially selected partisans all intent on abusing someone else's leader</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Electors received more pamphlets than ever before but they came through the post not personal delivery and fewer people were canvassed because party membership is much smaller. They were regularly polled but always gave the reply that they had no idea which party they wanted because they didn't really want any.Mass meetings and heckling were a thing of the past.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"> The country's in a mess. It can't pay its way in the world,public revenues are inadequate to support the services and structures an advanced society needs and unless we spend to stimulate growth we face a ,long term future of debt decline and squeezed living standards but all this was ignored and no politician gave us any explanation of what we can do to escape from the trap either because they didn't know or because they had no opportunity. All the people got were claims that it was all the fault of the other lot who were certain to make the situation worse.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It was hardly stimulating or exciting. .No wonder the people tell the pollsters that they've decided not to decide</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The parties are begining to worry about the prospect of a second election as in 1974 if no party wins a majority to govern. Which they won't. It will be expensive, after the ruinous costs of the present election .It will be boring because both television and the print media have gone overkill on coverage only to find that the electorate aren't particularly interested. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I remember in 1974 we pulled out all the stops at Yorkshire TV to give an exciting coverage for the first election but covered the second in a much kore perfunctory fashion because everyone was bored stiff then.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">That will happen again but complicated ow by the Five Year Term act which was passed to hold the coalition together but now creates an impossible situation .Then Parliament could be dissolved when the PM saw an opportunity as Harold Wilson did in October.Now it can only be dissolved by a two thirds majority which no government is likely to get. So a government can be defeated on a motion of confidence but then someone else has to form an alternative and that would have to be defeated too on the same basis.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The only way out of this Tory created trap could be that the government has to defeat itself as Schroeder did in Germany by ordering its MPs to vote against it but after all thee money and effort they've put into getting elected in the first place it may be difficult to order turkeys to vote for Christmas.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Just a thought. If Cleggie is being so punctilious as to set out the conditions on which he'll support a government with his shrunken little army why doesn't he have the guts to do what he should have done last time and say "We will only give support to a major party if it agrees to a referendum on proportional representation as the only way of handling multi-party politics"</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-58348448400567741232015-05-03T07:05:00.001-07:002015-05-03T07:05:08.586-07:00I'm getting nervous about the result now<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Less than a week to go and this addled election will be over with a muddied campaign producing a muddled result and the country saying to its despised politicians "we can't decide this. You clear up the mess" </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So, in a campaign which has confused the electorate, ignored the problems and promised then unattainable the emphasis changes from an argument over ideas to a simple issue of numbers. Who can stitch together the 323 votes necessary to sustain a government and which major party will come closest to the 290 seats it needs as the basic building block for a majority.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">With the main polls showing the two main parties neck and neck (meaning a slight advantage in seats for Labour ) everything depends on how well the minors do Clegg, getting more prissy about deals as he loses the numbers necessary to make them should be down to about 25 seats, making him a less attractive (but more demanding) partner than the SNP which may get as many as 40 while UKIP will end up with one (Clacton) and be no use to anyone.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Most of the pundits put Cameron ahead in these stakes. I still think Miliband can make it though In always fear a slight move to the incumbent government as a few electors opt to cling to nurse. This gives Labour a real advantage because an incumbent who can win a vote of confidence cant be thrown out under the Fixed Term Parliament act so Labour should use the opportunity to do popular things;repeal the bedroom tax, raise the minimum wage immediately and start a massive house building programme financed by Quantitive easing while putting HS2 on hold. Then sit it out at least un til after the Scottish elections.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In an election in which the parties have changed roles, Labour to caution Tories to spendthrift, in which all have refused to answer questions like where Tory cuts are to fall or where their eight billion for the NHS is to come from the press has a serious responsibility to push them to answers to explain the problems to its readers and to excite their interest in an important election. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It has singularly failed in that responsibility As a result a confusing election has been worse compounded. This failure has been worse on the part of the quality press, Beaverbrook told the Royal Commission on the press that he used his mighty Daily Express for "propaganda" Murdoch the Barclay Brothers and Rothermere have used their ownership to propagate their own nasty ideologies of neo-liberalism .</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">No one can quibbled with their right to do this in the editorial columns but such is their power it now permeates everything so that it colours all the news items .Even the columnists instead of offering independent thinking feel obliged to sing from the same hymn sheet. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Thus Miliband can do no right, every Labour proposal points to disaster, capitalism will collapse and the Scots will use their power to tear the country apart and independent thinking columnists to who one looks for new insights take every opportunity to knock Labour. The Conservatives of course can do no wrong,their tax cuts are wise if unfunded and the economy is booming.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">You cant have an effective democracy with such a prostituted press. People who don't have enough confidence in the country to live and pay their taxes here should not be allowed to exercise so much influence. Particularly since the cues from the press are all followed up by the impartial electronic media who assume that the prejud</span>ices of the press are the issues which concern the people. They aren't.They're the grumblings of greedy foreigners.</div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-38324669759527517752015-05-02T08:01:00.002-07:002015-05-02T08:01:16.866-07:00SIX DAYS TO THE BORGEN BALLET<div class="p1">
As Britain's second hapless election stumbles to its close it looks as though the Great British Public has once again decided not to decide because it doesn't trust any one enough to give them unqualified power. Instead it's going to leave it to the politicians to sort out their own mess and having spent five weeks abusing each other, the parties are going to have to learn the art of courting each other. </div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The Tory campaign has been the strongest and the cleverest but obsessively negative. It's been fought on three levels none of which have really worked. It's been fought on the past by blaming the recession and the consequent overspending and borrowing on Labour.This was largely untrue because the Tory opposition had backed Labour's spending plans up to and including 2008 and the extra boost then was required to save the banks from their own follies something which had to be done to keep the economy going.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The second level was the recovery which the government claimed was due to their "long term economic plan"when in fact it was due to seven years of ultra low interest rates and printing money by the Bank of England. This was supposed to conceal the damage done by four years of austerity and cuts which meant that living standards and household incomes for most people were no higher in 2015 than they had been in 2009</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Third leg of the argument was the prosperity and tax cuts to come on the assumption that growth continued at the 2014 rate, that the debt was paid off by having more people in work Stick with the plan and the Tories and don't let Labour ruin it became the slogan</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Most of this is pure political balls but Labour has found real difficulty in dealing with it because while people don't believe it they don't believe Labour"s answers either and are excessively fearful of debt and borrowing and over inclined to see austerity, particularly for other people ,as the answer to economic problems.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This is the essence of Labour's problem. No use bogging down in history ,demonstrating that we had to save the banks and showing that Gordon Brown was doing the right thing in stimulating the economy No time to give an economics lecture,show the importance of Keynesian stimulus and the virtues of borrowing to stimulate and boost demand.;elections are a mobilisation of prejudices not an economics seminar.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Therefore the need is to demonstrate that this is not a real recovery, that it cant be prolonged into good times ahead and will be damaged by massive and unnecessary cuts to eliminate a borrowing level which is inevitable in recession. None of the basic problems have been solved.The manufacturing economy is still declining,we cant pay our way in the world ,the productivity gap is widening .people are mired in debt and firms aren't investing and wages are too low and employment too casual and uncertain for people to get mortgages on the houses that aren't being built in the first place and willbe far too dear for real people in the second. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">In other words we're in a mess, recovery is shallow and shabby and will neither boost the tax take nor lead to an age of prosperity by 2018. There's still a huge job to be done and a party whose only economic policy is to enrich the rich and hope that the benefits will trickle down to the people cant do it.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The only answers are Labour's traditional politics of hope and growth. But six days to get that across may be a bit of a difficulty. Particularly if a Royal Baby hogs the headlines making speculation about its name more obsessive than the choice of a government </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">XXXXXXXXXXXX</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">David Cameron is the best salesman we've ever had in politics. Better than Blair because Tony only sold his own soft policies where David can sell any policy his party</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">pushes him into. The troubled is that to vote Cam is to get Osborne perhaps the worst and certainly the most prejudiced Chancellor we've had. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Ed may be a bit of a geek because he's interested in policies and ideas which most politicians aren't but vote Ed and you do get Ed Balls the best economist in politics today</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-65707887384232594582015-05-01T00:54:00.001-07:002015-05-01T00:54:31.091-07:00Cameron defeats Miliband with dirty tricks<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Last night's leader question time made for thrilling television and was certainly the best thing TV could do once Cameron had chickened out of a leader debate because that would have got him rattled and once rattled he lies and blusters. Last night's lies were smooth and untroubled.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yet then audience was heavily and unfairly weighted against Miliband and he stumbled into two well prepared Tory traps. Clearly the Tories in the audience had been better briefed and prepared with their trick questions than the Labour people who just relied on their horror at then treatment of the poor and disabled ,something which doesn't trouble the Tories or apparently the Libs in the audience.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The first trap was on overspending by the last Labour government. Labour governments do spend more than Tories and they should be proud of it because of the schools, childrens centres, health practices hospitals and infrastructure this creates but the last Labour government spent more because it had to borrow to save the banks. N ot Labour's fault. The banks had created their own crisis by speculation. They had to be saved to avoid collapse. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yet borrowing went up because of it and Cameron carefully prepared the trap by waving the note from Liam Byrne about no money left- something he just happened to have with him from five years ago. This was then followed by a carefully arranged question from the audience which pushed Ed Milliband into the trap and had him wallowing in the past as if he'd been responsible for turning Britain into Greece. Clever stuff because bogging down in the past meant less talk about the future which is what this election is really about </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The second trap was to heighten the tory smear that Labour will be a puppet government with the strings pulled by the SNP. This assumes that Scottish MPs have no right to participate in government and appeals to English prejudices and conceals the fact that the Tories will be making concessions to the Ulster Unionists disturbing nthe carefully constructed balance in Northern Ireland to get their support.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But Ed blundered in disavowing any coalition with the SNP but also any working relationship and even seeming to say that he'd sooner not have a Labour government than have it with SNP support.That's barmy. If Labour needs an arrangement of any kind with the SNP then som be it. Then crucial issue is that government must be carried on and that that government should be Labour not Tory.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The Tories would do a deal with the devil, or even Cleggie the Clogg dancer and though the SNP will Take fewer Labour seats in Scotland than the wipe out proclaimers say they will take some and those replacements will be to the left of Labour and won't want an early election. Does it matter all that much whether Scottish MPs wear a Labour or an SNP shirt as long as they keep Labour in power? Mc Labour can avoid the Tory horrors that are to come if we go all prissy over a sporran or two. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
</div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-76468532004812007002015-04-30T02:05:00.002-07:002015-04-30T02:05:30.401-07:00THE JOYS OF RETIREMENT<div class="MsoPlainText">
Three weeks of retirement
and I'm beginning tp think it's better than being in politics.The main
change is that people now talk to me where they'd ignore me as a passing
politician. I amble around Grimsby just like any other pensioner and people
stop me and say they're sorry I'm going or wish me a happy retirement.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The difference is that they talk to me as a real person
where they avoided me as a politician. They're suspicious of politicians,
particularly since the expenses scandal,just as they're suspicious of anyone
trying to sell them something. They don't want to get involved but now I'm not
an object of suspicion any longer just a real person they can relate to<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
It's wonderful. I go into town and people stop me and ask
what I'm going to do in retirement (no idea) or advise me to go on holiday or
on a cruise "every day's like Sunday" one said today while another extolled
the joys of a hobby. No one talked about the election. No one complained or
grumbled No one told me off for my views on anything. They just wanted to
relate as they never had before .It's marvellous<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I should retire more often..<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
In fact Ive worked harder since retirement than I did as
an MP because Linda and I are making a film extolling the real Grimsby and
showing what a marvellous place it is to counter the picture presented by Skint
and by Sacha Baron Cohen's Grimsby which was actual filmed in Tilbury showing
us as a kind of hell hole inhabited by fat lady football fans <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Great place. Great prospects. So we're calling it GREAT
GRIMSBY because that's what our town is. In fact we've found so many good
things and good people that its becoming difficult to cram them all in </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I don't think Labour should get stuck on a pro EU policy.
Leave "My Europe right or wrong" to the Lib Dems just because we've
decided (wrongly in my view ) to oppose the referendum on membership which we
once promised (and gave in 1975) doesn't mean that we have to like every aspect
of this shambolic low growth blackspot or that we won't face problems from it
when we come into office.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
What will we do
about the lax tax laws in Luxembourg which allow British companies toi register
there and pay very low taxes not those due in Britain. Or what about the low corporation tax in Ireland or
the double Irish escape route, or the dirty deals with Holland? What will e do
about the ban on state aids for industry when we try to revive manufacturing in
the face of stiff EU competition or about the
open immigration from East Europe which drives wages down and boosts
social spending.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Note that all the promises held out by theTories of no
tax increases, various tax cuts and spending improvements all depend on the economy improving and reaching
much higher growth levels by 2018. On present Tory policies it won't and can't.
This rash of promises demonstrates only that the Tories are rattled but they
only serve to increrase suspicion of politics and politicians<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Remember George Bush's daddy "read my lips.No new
taxes"<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
XXXXXXXXXXXXxxxx<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Whoever advised Cameron to energise and pump himself up
for the last week of the campaign made a bad mistake. .The energised Cameron is
abusive exaggerating and desperate. He rants on about how small businesses
saved the country when it was cheap money and the Bank of England,promises
paradise in three years time and generally goes nuts like an amateur version of
Boris. Put him back on valium<o:p></o:p></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-83477295789953438992015-04-29T03:53:00.004-07:002015-04-29T03:53:40.870-07:00LOOK TO THE FUTURE<div class="MsoPlainText">
Elections are about two things. They're a verdict on the
performance of the government of the day. In Britain this has usually gone in favour of a government at the end of
its first term. Give 'em a fair go seems to be the attitude. They're also a
judgement on the future; who'll make us better off?</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
This government's record has been pretty disastrous
particularly because it killed the growth Labour was regenerating in 2009-10
with its stimulus measures by massive cuts in investment and the wholly
unnecessary austerity programme which followed killing two years of growth and
holding back recovery. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Yet the Tory party is better at PR than economics and it
was able to conceal this failure by blaming everything on Labour rather than
the recession produced by our irresponsible banks and claiming that we'd become another Greece
unless borrowing was cut. Not true but it frightened our masochistic electors
who're always partial to a dose of sadism particularly for other people.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
So with the two main parties level pegging in the polls we have to assume that the Tory party has got away with it's failure. No use
Labour attempting to argue with that judgement however wrong headed. An argument about blame is a waste of time at this stage
of the game. Leave it to the historians Fight on the future.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Here Labour's prospects are better because the recovery
isn't strong, the people are nervous and few believe the Tory promises of
ongoing recovery particularly now that growth has slowed suddenly and
dramatically indicating that the recovery is shaky and can't be sustained.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The "long term economic plan" won't bring
recovery because insofar as there is any plan at all it rests on low interest
rates and will be killed when they rise
and on cutting back the state which needs to expand in both spending and
employment terms . It is a recovery in high asset prices rather than demand
which is low because of cuts and low wages and it requires government to borrow and spend in order to stimulate jobs
and growth which the Conservatives obstinately refuse to do.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Indeed the Tories promise the opposite of what's
necessary to boost the economy. They're promising a massive programme of cuts,
including twelve billion pounds worth of further cuts in welfare which will not
only be extremely painful for the poor and disabled who've been hit hard
already but be deeply damaging to demand .That needs to be boosted not cut back
.Welfare is only part of the programme of cuts which will fall hard on every
department outside health and education.. They then assume that after the cuts
growth will come automatically because public spending has been reduced. It
won't and can't. The economic boost has to come from both public and
private spending. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Here is Labour's opportunity which it must seize by solid
plans for growth investment and the expansion of manufacturing. To recover Britain needs a big house building programme, a massive infrastructure renewal and a boost to
wages and jobs. No point in cutting borrowing until recovery boosts demand and
rebuilds government's tax revenues and little point in reducing debt when
interest rates are so low and government has no problems borrowing to spend to
stimulate and grow. No point either in cutting the deficit when Britain needs
deficit spending to boost our pathetic growth rate. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
This election is about what kind of future the British
people want. Will it be one of low wages, mean benefits and a shrunken state? Or one of investment growth and rebuilding a manufacturing base which can pay
the nation's way in the world.? That's the choice. The key to the future isn't
caution, conformity and pledges to balance the budget. That all comes later
once we've got real and substantial growth and more people in work. The immediate need is hope and the better
prospects offered by Labour as against
the cuts and sell offs promised by the Tories. Let's Grow With Labour.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Notice how as the parties have shrunk in membership
they've grown in output . More leaflets, pamphlets and appeals have poured through every letter box this time than ever before. Whole forests
are being decimated to feed British dustbins though my local Green candidate
assures me that her pamphlets are "funded by ordinary people and printed
on 100% post consumer fibre FDC(R) recycled certified and PCF ((Process
Chlorine Free) paper." Thank God for that <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-19250883012957651772015-04-28T04:01:00.000-07:002015-04-28T04:01:00.905-07:00INTO THE TRENCHES<div class="MsoPlainText">
Since the parties have produced nothing which sets the
election alight it's going to be decided by a
basic thug to thug slugging match between the parties each recruiting its
diminished vote on the old basic recruitment lines : middle versus working
class, north versus south, rich versus poor. The gimmicks have failed and
settled conditioning takes over bringing forward the old question of whose
supporters are most likely to vote.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
When people are confused about politics, as they certainly
are now, they'll fall back onto conditioned reflexes. Most electors are
programmed (though more weakly now than ever before) to one side or the other
so if they're enthused or dutiful enough to get to the polls they'll vote that
way, though probably in diminishing numbers on both sides. No sign there of
the shy Conservative factor which is supposed to have produced a last minute
surge to John Major in 1992.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Then there's the self interest pull. Wealth will always
do its duty by the Tories because they do more than their duty to wealth. But
the poor aren't necessarily so clear about their self interest and are less
likely to vote while small business is usually blind to the fact that demand is
always better under Labour than under the Tories because they see their self interest as
served by cuts in tax and regulation rather than the prosperity of their
customers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Finally there's the traditional difference between the possessed and the dispossessed.
The Tories have lavished rewards on the possessed as house prices rose making
home owners happy but those wanting houses miserable, while the dispossessed
suffered from the cuts, the unemployment
and wage freeze, and the general austerity. Here again an advantage to the
Tories because the comfortable are more likely to vote while the uncomfortable
find it more difficult to get their act together.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Any judgement of the past five years should be against
the Tories because this Government has been a mess, wasting time and growth on
a cruel and unnecessary austerity which
has undermined the strength of the
economy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Any judgement on the present recovery should go to the
Tories though they didn't produce it (the Bank of England did) and its not
firmly based <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Any judgement on the future should go to Labour because
the prospect of massive cuts which the Tories wont specify must be damaging to
both the good society and demand and
investment in the economy<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
That's the choice. It's also the explanation of why the
two major parties are running neck and neck and will do so right up to the
wire, leaving the consequences of their indecision to be sorted out by the
politicians.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4318902641138390807.post-9147159730615797952015-04-27T09:03:00.001-07:002015-04-27T09:03:07.636-07:00Election homeward plods its weary way.....<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Election 2015 has become such a drag one wonders if they can manage to drag it on until polling day. The Tories have chucked in all their smears and fears about Ed and Labour's policies to no effect. Cameron has declared war on Scotland and no one has noticed. Boris has bounced and blistered then buggered off back to his London bolt hole to await the call. Labour has announced a new policy every day and got little response. Cleggie has preached sanctimonious sermons all over the country and ruled himself out of any relationship with Labour while the Liberal vote continues to fall .UKIP have opted for moderation and lost support accordingly.Three weeks of campaigning have got us nowhere. Except to new levels of boredom.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The least successful strategy seems to be Lynton Crosby's Oz approach which is designed for Australians because they are more bloody minded than our genteel minuets and work less well in multi party politics.His instructions are to concentrate on five points but the bulk of the party seem to have forgotten what the five were, and use the leader as a he-man hero but Dave isn't capable of downing a pint of beer in seven seconds and prefers a much more languid stroll to a victory. He sees it as his by right rather than something he has to put himself out and fight for.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Labour has brought some good new policies to the feast and Ed has certainly grown in stature and de--geekified but it has got bogged down in tax tables and raising money by a little bit on this and that and failed to exude hope on a big enough scale to excite a nation hunkering down in its mediocre misery. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">This lack of excitement and interest produce a real danger that the turnout will fall (again) and that people will do what they usually do: give a one term government another chance because they don't realise what disasters are to come and feel things are coming back to normal (which the aren't) so Cameron's languid privileged assumption of divine right will be justified and with the support of a pathetic rump of Liberals and the Ulster unionists he can have another five years of improvisation </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">God forbid. But funny things can happen when you're bored stiff.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">+++++++++++++++++</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">The Libs always go for the carper caper whenever Labour announces a policy they've never thought of. Promise to cut Uni fees to £6000 and Vince says it'll only help the rich. Promise to abolish stamp duty for first time buyers and their housing spokesman attacks it as no use in the south where houses are more expensive. They say they'll work with either major but they're painting themselves into a Tory corner.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">+++++++++++++++++++</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Love the energised New Cameron pledging himself to small businesses. Now he can put Boris back in the cupboard. Hell Yes!! Unfortunately he's not energised enough to face a confrontation with Ed and Osbore has gone back on his promise to debate with Balls. Shame.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
Austin Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791027055799751355noreply@blogger.com0