Government Watch - 2

I would think most people felt a bit sorry for May in her cringeworthy speech. Her claiming that free market capitalism was the only system that worked, but then oops! The housing market isn't working, ditto the energy market. We value nurses so they don't need a pay rise etc. I kept expecting to hear the Benny Hill theme tune. The writing is on the wall for May- but the writing is falling off! It would be hilarious if it wasn't the country that is going down the pan.

I want one of those Frieda Kalho bracelets ( well known Mexican communist) that May was wearing. I bet they will be a sellout.

I did not compare Corbyn with Hitler, I did compare the mass hysteria of the rallies.

Similar to the Trump hysteria

Nuremberg rallies weren't mass hysteria. They were huge well orchestrated and rehearsed propaganda with uniformed show of military strength pledging allegiance to the party and its leader. A bunch of students/ activists singing hardly comparable , more like a happy football crowd. What about the Tory faithful giving Teresa May a standing ovation for drinking a glass of water? What could we compare that to?

Ignoring the car crash, if you pick over the bones of the speech, there was nothing in the content that was likely to ignite the voters that she was trying to begin to reach.

So really the fact that it was a disaster made no difference to her failure to connect with the voter.

Several things here, one, anybody can have a coughing fit when talking, probably results from too many speeches in too short a time, she could have cut short the speech but decided not to.The ‘comedian’ handing a P45 hardly bothered her at all, and I thought he was walked out of the hall in a considerate way ( not dragged out) although I do remember a disabled heckler being dragged out of a Labour Conference a few years ago, and he was a Labour voter!
I wouldn't have called the prankster in this case ‘ a lad’ either, unless he is really 17 and just looks 40.
The speech itself wasn’t going to impress the electorate, but wasn’t meant to, it was aimed at the Conference, May said that she was sorry about the awful election campaign and listed why she was in politics and what she would like to do.
The election is years away, so plenty of time for fireworks in speeches.
It’s up to the Conservative Party if she stays or not, but going on yesterday I think she will stay for a while at least.
Boris Johnson is a liability though, and always has been, but probably a good idea to keep an eye on him within the Cabinet.

Always room for the alternative view on GN

Well,I would hope so whitewave otherwise it just becomes an echo chamber.?

DB and Annie, I too had thought about the rise of that dictator . The vicious oppression and suppression of any disagreement together with the encouragement of adoration of the personality involved. I had often wondered how he rose to power in a civilised society. Also he improved some things, giving some hope after years of austerity. Be warned.

336 words on Brexit in that speech. It's as if she's scared to mention it in front of her cabinet.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-04/may-flunked-leadership-test-as-rivals-emerge-battle-scarred-too

Back to May's speech.

It is difficult to know at this point what effect it will have on the Conservative Party and its future but the pundits are reporting this morning that, although their seems to be no leadership challenge emerging there is a movement within the party to get the men in grey suits to ask her to consider resigning.

I felt the speech was of real importance in one way if she continues but what will the Conservatives take forward if she goes?

Just to take out the rhetoric (do we actually have a British dream?) and find the bones in the speech it seems she has offered £2 billion to build houses for 'social rent', i.e., council houses. It does not seem she is allowing councils to borrow in order to build.

She also offered a cap on how energy pricing works which creates (as I understand it) a link between the 'offer' price to 'new' customers (who are not new but moving) and the price those who stay with a company.

Did anyone pick up on anything else?

To be perfectly truthful I think that Maybot is an irrelevance, she remains where she is because of the Tories fear of another election, there is also a dearth if anyone suitable to (a) take her place and (b) to unite a party which is more divided that it has ever been in its entire history, and that is really saying something.
One of other her biggest problems -amongst a few-is indicative in her nickname - she has no emotional intelligence, and it is clear that try as she might never will have.

I think that she appears a decent woman, with a stable and happy marriage but our country needs more than what you would find in the average high street, we need a leader with vision and qualities that May so sadly lacks.

So was there more in the speech than £2 billion for social rented housing and an energy cap?

Organ donation to be assumed - I missed that out.

gg I watched the entire excruciating thing.

Well from memory

Fuel price cap
Student fee freeze
Small amount of money for housing
I can’t think of anything else.

The rest of the speech was taken up with “haven’t we done well” and a-hem cough!cough!

That’s what I am saying -this was supposed to be the big relaunch and if you take away the car crash bit there was nothing but meaningless sound bites, Maybot trying but failing to sound human and stuff filched from Labour
It was dreadful.

I think May conducted herself with such class yesterday, I admire her,

I think we can all agree with you there annie but that is not the same thing as saying she is a good and competent leader.

There will be an Autumn Budget this year, so we will be hearing more about fiscal policies soon.

Organ donation is another labour initiative

Just feeling sorry for someone doesn't mean she is a good leader. I felt sorry for her and know it must be supremely difficult to stand up there in front of all the cameras and read a speech, but she has chosen that position and she just didn't convince. So there might be 25,000 new council homes- maybe- and these are just a drop in the ocean- will these all be sold off as soon as they are built? More questions than answers here.

So let me tell you why I think the content of the speech is important.

First we have Corbyn offering to get the economy by the scruff of the neck and dragging it back towards a mixed economy. You may doubt whether re-nationalisation is the best or only way to do this, you may have doubt about a Labour government taking this further in the state direction but there is a big following that says neo-liberal economics is not working.

You then have May suggesting state intervention in the neo-liberal economy because she, and other Conservatives, recognise that neo-liberal capitalism hasn't worked. You may think she does not go far enough and you may worry that a continued Tory government would go backwards on this if they stayed in power but they too have recognised there is a big following that says neo-liberal capitalism is not working.

Without any agreement on the method we seem to have both main parties agreeing that neo-liberal capitalism has not and is not working and that we need some form of mixed economy - both capital and state - again. That is why I think this speech - if we could have heard it - was important. I think voters have a right to know that all the main players are looking in this direction so that they can discuss the detail of which industries would be affected and how the state should intervene rebalancing towards a mixed economy.

She has had a rough time since becoming leader, the bombings, dealing with brexit . She hasn't the protection of a set up like momentum,

gg I get your point. And I think you are right. But I think what will prove that theory more importantly is who replaces May. That will tell us if we are returning to a more mixed economy.

If the next leader comes from the right of the Tory party then no but if they are from the left then yes. But Tories like to think that they are not natural believers in the mixed economy, even though history tells us otherwise.

It could be that there is indeed a sea change going on.

It's good news that there is to be more money for council housing to be built. Will this make up for the decline in council house building since 2010?

And will they actually be built? Every government promises new targets but house building (of all types) has continued to decline.

I have no faith that this promise will be kept.