These lengthy prison sentences for rioters

Thank you Doodledog for putting in words what I've ben thinking.

MaizieD

Mollygo

Are you saying Starmer is economically illiterate?
🤣🤣🤣

You won’t be very popular on here.

I am.

Frankly, most people are.

I'm not in a position to argue intelligently about economics, but even I know that it is not an exact science, and that there are different perspectives, just as there are about Politics, Sociology, History etc. People see the world differently, and that is ok.

Those who disagree (with whichever perspective) are not illiterate, they simply hold a different point of view.

Writing off others as stupid (or illiterate) for seeing things differently has, I am sure, led to significant alienation in the population at large, which in turn has arguably led to Brexit, riots, and goodness knows what else. People are so sick of being told by those who see their own views as superior and others' as 'illiterate', 'misinformed', 'ignorant' or whatever that they have stopped listening.

It's time we all learnt to respect the views of others and accept that they have the right to hold them, whether or not they are the same as our own.

Are people really saying that there is only one 'right' way to view Economics, and that RR and chancellors passim just don't get it? And that the electorate are too stupid to see it either? Reeves is an economist! She may or may not agree in her outlook with people on here, but her views are surely valid and not based on ignorance? What's the difference between holding a Modern Economic Theoretical view about Economics and thinking that we can view History as a struggle between the owners and non-owners of the Means of Production? Both are necessarily biased and partial, surely? And both assume that those who disagree are hampered by a lack of understanding (in Historical terminology this would be a lack of class consciousness).

It must be amazing to feel that you are the only one with access to The Truth.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Frankly, most people are.

And the most likely to be economically illiterate are those who think they aren’t.

Mollygo

Are you saying Starmer is economically illiterate?
🤣🤣🤣

You won’t be very popular on here.

I am.

Frankly, most people are.

Thatcher, who came to power on the strength of 1 million unemployed and a poster of the dole queue captioned 'Labour isn't working', promptly added another 2million people to the dole queue, sold off the family silver (state enterprises), destroyed our manufacturing industry , leaving regions of the UK in deprivation from which some have still not recovered and used North Sea oil revenues for lowering taxes instead of investing it in the UK's future.

She was an economic and social disaster. It seems we have another one about to unfold...

Are you saying Starmer is economically illiterate?
🤣🤣🤣

You won’t be very popular on here.

You do realise that Thatcher was economically illiterate, don't you?

Starmer is looking much the same.

Now Starmer is said to be going to make a speech telling us that things are going to be worse before they get better.
Actually he’s probably been reading about Mrs Thatcher. She said the same thing when she took over from the Labour government.

I don’t expect anyone to read this link, but it’s a good basis for what Starmer is coming up with.

www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104325

Ilovecheese

Now Starmer is said to be going to make a speech telling us that things are going to be worse. Why would anyone do that? Convince people to vote for them because they were going to make things better then immediately admit that you are incapable of doing what you promised. Why advertise the fact that you are either unwilling or unable to improve people's lives.

To make it clear that hard choices are going to be made, don’t expect any giveaways at the budget.

It's still just weeks since the election.

Now Starmer is said to be going to make a speech telling us that things are going to be worse. Why would anyone do that? Convince people to vote for them because they were going to make things better then immediately admit that you are incapable of doing what you promised. Why advertise the fact that you are either unwilling or unable to improve people's lives.

We have been living on economic mythology for at least the last 20 yrs, where no polititians had the first idea about balancing the books, where the only imperative was giveaways to please voters.

The result was increased borrowing every year, it’s fine to borrow to expand the economy or improve infrastructure but it wasn’t. The result is now many are demanding renationalization of failed utilities and transport, but expect someone else to pay for it - well sorry that’s not going to happen, short term or long we are going to pay.

Ilovecheese

I have seen "handbag economics" also referred to as "The Thatcherite Fallacy"

Rachel Reeves might sound more truthful when talking about "tough decisions" if she actually made a decision that would affect MPs, maybe remove their own energy subsidies, or subsidised alcohol and food.

I have seen "handbag economics" also referred to as "The Thatcherite Fallacy"

Not to mention the "maxed-out credit card"!

Economic mythology...

Ilovecheese

^ Rachel Reeves might sound more truthful when talking about "tough decisions" if she actually made a decision that would affect MPs, maybe remove their own energy subsidies, or subsidised alcohol and food.^

That’s sooo not going to happen!

I have seen "handbag economics" also referred to as "The Thatcherite Fallacy"

Rachel Reeves might sound more truthful when talking about "tough decisions" if she actually made a decision that would affect MPs, maybe remove their own energy subsidies, or subsidised alcohol and food.

replying to posts by Dickens and MaizieD
I havn't read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist although perhaps I should as I have often seen it mentioned. It might make me even more depressed about things than I do now though.
I supported Corbyn and McDonnell in their ideas about a country being run "for the many" and I still don't see anything wrong with that as an idea.

Starmer has now been quoted as saying that things are going to be worse for ordinary people, but seems to me that is a choice he is making by protecting the profits of the energy companies, which are huge.

He seems to be trying to fix the conditions left by the Conservatives by continuing with conservative policies and I don't see how that can work.

He has gone to a great deal of trouble to court Conservative voters before the election, and managed to scrape together enough of them to win a majority on a small vote share. Whatever the rights and wrongs of removing the winter fuel payments for pensioners, surely that will alienate those Conservatives that he managed to get to vote for him.

If he carries on like this he is setting himself to lose the next election as people might prefer the real Tory party to his copycat version. he can't really rely on the Tories continuing to be shambolic for the next five years.

MaizieD

I think Labour just has to ignore the RW media and get on with the job. They've made a good start with public sector worker's pay settlements and the rail workers.

Yup. The pay settlements were not only a good start, I think they were essential.

The LP can ignore the RW media. But the electorate won't.

You have read it yourself - Tressell's novel, and yes, it was an utterly depressing read because as you say, nothing's really changed.

That's what worries me.

Anyway... I'm going to read E P Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class. I've just ordered it from eBay!

Do you remember what Henry Ford said?

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

But "the people" don't, do they? They still believe in 'handbag economics'. And Reeves has just looked in the handbag and declared now that "tough decisions" will have to be made. Where have we heard that before!

MaizieD

^But I also believe that large parts of the electorate are fickle, and that the right-wing media are going to continue to nag at Starmer and the Labour party like a dog with a bone, analysing and twisting every word and policy decision.^

I think Labour just has to ignore the RW media and get on with the job. They've made a good start with public sector worker's pay settlements and the rail workers. There's a sizeable chunk of voters who aren't going to complain. They should have the ability to make a tangible difference in 5 years and keep improvement in the public eye. They would then have a record to fight the next election on. Unlike the tories who had nothing at all to show for their 14 years in government and who still won't have anything to show in 5 year's time.

I have owned The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists for many years. I found it utterly depressing to read because nothing seemed to have changed in the then 80 odd years since it was written. I have thought of rereading it a few times in the past few years but I couldn't face it! Take away the century old setting and the dialogue could be that of today...

So now I'm rereading E P Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class. He's been looking at the myth of a wonderful past which the poorer classes enjoyed before Inclosures and Industrialisation took away their 'freedoms' and independence, depriving them of access to land for sustenance and to controlling their own rates of work. While this particular myth isn't operative today, I think a general one of a more rosy past is very prevalent and that it is the 'perfection' of the past that people are hoping for rather than adapting to the modern world. They want change, but retrograde change, not progressive.

Not sure what's progressive about a Labour gov. They seem to be taking us back to 1984.
Freezing pensioners whilst giving millions to Malaysia to improve their roads.
This Gov will be a disaster for free speech, not hate speech that is a no no, cost of living, anti home ownership, squeezing more out of pensioners and the private sector to keep the bloated public sector going. Locking up someone shouting at a police dog, arresting someone for privately praying,ha she won her appeal, so pleased,yet leaving shouters of racist songs and terrorist flag flyers alone. Telling the people who disagree with mass immigration they are far right, think of his disastrous speech in NI also.
1984 well on its way.
Carry on like this, and doing nothing for our British economy, and they'll be lucky to see out their five years of Orwellianism.

But I also believe that large parts of the electorate are fickle, and that the right-wing media are going to continue to nag at Starmer and the Labour party like a dog with a bone, analysing and twisting every word and policy decision.

I think Labour just has to ignore the RW media and get on with the job. They've made a good start with public sector worker's pay settlements and the rail workers. There's a sizeable chunk of voters who aren't going to complain. They should have the ability to make a tangible difference in 5 years and keep improvement in the public eye. They would then have a record to fight the next election on. Unlike the tories who had nothing at all to show for their 14 years in government and who still won't have anything to show in 5 year's time.

I have owned The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists for many years. I found it utterly depressing to read because nothing seemed to have changed in the then 80 odd years since it was written. I have thought of rereading it a few times in the past few years but I couldn't face it! Take away the century old setting and the dialogue could be that of today...

So now I'm rereading E P Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class. He's been looking at the myth of a wonderful past which the poorer classes enjoyed before Inclosures and Industrialisation took away their 'freedoms' and independence, depriving them of access to land for sustenance and to controlling their own rates of work. While this particular myth isn't operative today, I think a general one of a more rosy past is very prevalent and that it is the 'perfection' of the past that people are hoping for rather than adapting to the modern world. They want change, but retrograde change, not progressive.

Ilovecheese

I agree with all you say Dickens and I admit that it is making me really disheartened.
Lack of vision and lack of imagination and lack of investment in our country.

So it's not just me then Ilovecheese!

You know, I'm not actually anti-Capitalism - I really do believe it's possible to have a robust Capitalist economy and a welfare state - welfare as in the well-fare of a country's citizens.

I hark on about Norway, but having lived and worked there for over a decade, I have seen it in action. Far from perfect, but Norway does invest in its people. It's in the country's psyche.

I'm just not sure we have the same mindset or spirit in this country.

Have you ever read The Ragged-Trouserd Philanthropists? It kind of explains it all. How people acquiesce in their own exploitation. That's more or less how I see us, here in the UK - or maybe just England.

Did people vote for Starmer's Labour party because they'd simply had enough of the Tories, or do they believe in a better world? What do you think?

There are economists and commentators crying out for them to seize the great opportunity they have now to go ahead with the serious spending needed to restore the state sector, schools, justice, the NHS, housing etc. To bring water back under state control , which it should never have left and to develop renewable energy. Spending that will benefit the UK. Spending that will benefit the private sector as more money circulates in the economy, and which will encourage private investment when they can see profit to be made.

This is all true MaizieD, I know that.

But I also believe that large parts of the electorate are fickle, and that the right-wing media are going to continue to nag at Starmer and the Labour party like a dog with a bone, analysing and twisting every word and policy decision.

I know the Tories are licking their wounds and the party is in disarray, but they are only the interface between the public and the wealth and power in control.

What you are proposing is going to take time not only for the average person to begin to see some real change in their lives, but also for the private sector to realise its profit.

P.S I defended 'corbynomics' at the time. There was nothing much wrong with it.

... yes, and so did I! What is actually wrong with "for the many not the few"?

But why didn't those who often stood to benefit most, reject it? Why did the 'red-wall' cave in and vote for good ole Boris and Brexit? Why did Boris Johnson who has about as much in common with the red-wall as I have with learning to fly a trapeze, see him as their saviour?

Maybe I'm just having a bad moment - I'm certainly 'politically' depressed. But when Starmer hints that there will be no 'spending' spree and Reeves appears to be posturing as a 'tough Tory' murmuring about economic black-holes, it really does make me despair.

It's probably just me, cynicism has taken over.

I honestly think it's too early days: wait to see what the autumn brings. No, I didn't vote for them to continue the same economic policy.

If they go down the more left-wing path towards economics that look anything like socialism - Starmer will be accused of Corbynomics.

Being accused of 'Corbynomics' should be a matter of indifference to a party with a majority as large as Labour's. No -one can stop them directing the economy in any way they choose. If their 'Corbynomics' improves the lives of a significant proportion of the electorate and promotes growth over the course of their term of office I can't see them being 'punished' for it at the ballot box.

After all, people voted for them not to perpetuate tory economic policy. Or am I mistaken?

There are economists and commentators crying out for them to seize the great opportunity they have now to go ahead with the serious spending needed to restore the state sector, schools, justice, the NHS, housing etc. To bring water back under state control , which it should never have left and to develop renewable energy. Spending that will benefit the UK. Spending that will benefit the private sector as more money circulates in the economy, and which will encourage private investment when they can see profit to be made.

Labour's continuing defensive stance over the economy as though they are still trying to win an election, smacks of cowardice to me. Or lack of vision.

P.S I defended 'corbynomics' at the time. There was nothing much wrong with it. You cannot effect change while clinging to Thatcher's and her successor's, uninformed, incorrect and damaging 'household' theory of economics ...

I agree with all you say Dickens and I admit that it is making me really disheartened.
Lack of vision and lack of imagination and lack of investment in our country.