Friday 4th August 2017
Posted: Fri 04 Aug, 2017 7:10 am
Morning all.
When you read stuff like this, it really rings true. The gap between what Ministers say and the reality is so huge, you think it simply won't happen. And then you remember Universal Credit. Labour looked into the single, means tested benefit and were advised it couldn't realistically be done, so didn't. But the Tories weren't going to let a little thing like reality get in the way. Besides, for them, UC wasn't about increased efficiency or monetary savings, those were just the excuses, the 'acceptable' reasons for what, at the end of the day, was pure, twisted ideology of the most delusional order. So when people (well, adam, anyway ) talk of letting the Tories muck it up as a means of getting Brexit out of the UK's system, I get what they're saying and try to be philosophical but then I remember UC. I remember that it's completely and utterly mucked up as much as any government policy has ever been mucked up in the history of mucked up policies and yet, not only is it still going, but it is rolling out apace as we speak, spreading yet more misery and destitution in its wake. And when I think of Tory Brexit that's what I see. Complete disaster by the terms of stated aims, but the disaster continually and persistently denied because whatever spiv culture, rentier hell is the true aim is bit by bit being accomplished not only right under an unsuspecting public's noses, but with their enthusiastic, tabloid-driven approval.The civil service prides itself on being able to deliver the crazy and impossible, if ministers so ordain. It even managed to introduce a poll tax for Margaret Thatcher, and to somehow keep it going for three years in the face of riots. But it’s increasingly clear that Brexit may be an impossibility too far, even for Whitehall’s brightest and best.
Willow904 wrote:https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... trade-deal
When you read stuff like this, it really rings true. The gap between what Ministers say and the reality is so huge, you think it simply won't happen. And then you remember Universal Credit. Labour looked into the single, means tested benefit and were advised it couldn't realistically be done, so didn't. But the Tories weren't going to let a little thing like reality get in the way. Besides, for them, UC wasn't about increased efficiency or monetary savings, those were just the excuses, the 'acceptable' reasons for what, at the end of the day, was pure, twisted ideology of the most delusional order. So when people (well, adam, anyway ) talk of letting the Tories muck it up as a means of getting Brexit out of the UK's system, I get what they're saying and try to be philosophical but then I remember UC. I remember that it's completely and utterly mucked up as much as any government policy has ever been mucked up in the history of mucked up policies and yet, not only is it still going, but it is rolling out apace as we speak, spreading yet more misery and destitution in its wake. And when I think of Tory Brexit that's what I see. Complete disaster by the terms of stated aims, but the disaster continually and persistently denied because whatever spiv culture, rentier hell is the true aim is bit by bit being accomplished not only right under an unsuspecting public's noses, but with their enthusiastic, tabloid-driven approval.The civil service prides itself on being able to deliver the crazy and impossible, if ministers so ordain. It even managed to introduce a poll tax for Margaret Thatcher, and to somehow keep it going for three years in the face of riots. But it’s increasingly clear that Brexit may be an impossibility too far, even for Whitehall’s brightest and best.
Sorry for the depressing rant but, you know, Tory government - how could it be any other way?
Possibly the equivalent of entering a team of seven year olds with stabilisers into an Olympic cycling event.A recruitment consultant tells me that, lacking trade negotiators, Dit is instead putting generalist civil servants – including young fast-stream graduates – through short courses in negotiation techniques: hardly a substitute.
Hey! Rhymes with TRITThe new Department for International Trade (Dit), is...having to build up its negotiating capacity from scratch. Parliamentary answers...this week reveal the government has already spent more than £1.15m on headhunters and recruitment consultants.
- Britain couldn’t leave the single market if it tried
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... trade-deal" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
We've all been affected by "austerity" - which has caused stagnating incomes and a classic lost decade - but still the Tories cling on.AnatolyKasparov wrote:The point is, they can get away with UC - however much of a fiasco it has been, and it has - because it doesn't affect most people.
Brexit turning out a disaster, on the other hand........
Library closures, potholes, trolley waits in hospitals....there's no end to the way "well off triple-locked pensioners" have been affected by austerity, but they haven't exactly been marching in the streets poll tax style because, far from being unexpectedly imposed on them, they had been persuaded to vote for it. When you persuade people to accept Brexit, or accept a certain type of Brexit, you are, in effect, persuading them to accept the natural (and sometimes not so natural) consequences. I'm not saying the Tories will be successful in this, just that it seems an obvious thing to do, to play the "there is no alternative" / "will of the people" angle as much as feasibly possible. Because as the party which picked up the largest chunk of anti-immigration "leave" voters, strategically they have little choice. It's certainly not about democracy, principles or the best interests of the vast majority of the country that Theresa May is pursuing a hard Brexit outside the single market.AnatolyKasparov wrote:Some have been more affected by austerity than others, though.
Well off triple-locked pensioners often haven't noticed that much adversely affecting them, and lots of them read (and believe) the papers......
christ this is awfulHindleA wrote:#Danny Shaw
Only 744 spare prison places in England/Wales. Population up 123 in a week to 86,353. After trouble at the Mount, capacity now 87,097.
Squeeze on prison cells despite extra 364 spaces being made available in last few weeks. In 2015/6 there there were 2000-3000 spare places
I'm certainly intrigued as to what the new bogeyman will be once we leave the EU and can't blame it for all our woes anymore. I still think pensioners understand library closures are a direct consequence of the austerity they've been convinced is necessary, though.AnatolyKasparov wrote:If they notice those things, many blame immigrants and "scroungers" for them. If austerity was a really big thing for them, they might actually think about it more.
Negative in the sense of being wrong? Or are we talking about the game playing side of politics?AnatolyKasparov wrote:Re the discussion Willow and I have been having, the latest long read in the Graun is certainly interesting (even if I might quibble with a few things)
It is certainly right to pick up the negative effect Balls and his camp followers had on Labour policy before the 2015 GE.
You do realise that the IFS study that supposedly "proved" this has been pretty much discredited, right?SpinningHugo wrote:Negative in the sense of being wrong? Or are we talking about the game playing side of politics?AnatolyKasparov wrote:Re the discussion Willow and I have been having, the latest long read in the Graun is certainly interesting (even if I might quibble with a few things)
It is certainly right to pick up the negative effect Balls and his camp followers had on Labour policy before the 2015 GE.
Labour's 2015 manifesto was less regressive than its more rightwing 2017 version.
AnatolyKasparov wrote:You do realise that the IFS study that supposedly "proved" this has been pretty much discredited, right?SpinningHugo wrote:Negative in the sense of being wrong? Or are we talking about the game playing side of politics?AnatolyKasparov wrote:Re the discussion Willow and I have been having, the latest long read in the Graun is certainly interesting (even if I might quibble with a few things)
It is certainly right to pick up the negative effect Balls and his camp followers had on Labour policy before the 2015 GE.
Labour's 2015 manifesto was less regressive than its more rightwing 2017 version.
AnatolyKasparov wrote:Re the discussion Willow and I have been having, the latest long read in the Graun is certainly interesting (even if I might quibble with a few things)
It is certainly right to pick up the negative effect Balls and his camp followers had on Labour policy before the 2015 GE.
I presume you are referring to this:AnatolyKasparov wrote:Re the discussion Willow and I have been having, the latest long read in the Graun is certainly interesting (even if I might quibble with a few things)
It is certainly right to pick up the negative effect Balls and his camp followers had on Labour policy before the 2015 GE.
In which case, yes, this is exactly it. In a functioning democracy, the opposition should challenge government orthodoxies, not re-enforce them. We seem to have drifted a long way from the idea of "choice" and that democracy should be about debating the pros and cons of dominant ideas, not about the ability or not of an individual or party to deliver an uncontested policy.At that year’s general election, after an internal struggle that Cruddas and Miliband lost, Labour presented a manifesto that emphasised cutting the national deficit in language little different from that used by the Tories. The manifesto only criticised the deregulated capitalism that had effectively created that deficit in the first place in coded terms: “We will build an economy that works for working people,” it promised blandly.
Hi Anatoly, logged in in spite of my instinct to stay away, especially to gently dispute your statement on UC. If you mean it won't directly affect the majority of people, maybe you are right, but that most people won't be affected is a different matter, there is a quantitative difference between them. UC is deliberately designed to affect people in work, anyone on any kind of support that could be re-jigged to be seen as benefit. From the smallest of council tax/HB rebates for instance. And it takes away freedom to work few hours and ties tax and support into each other. We have seen nothing yet. Many of those supports will therefore sappear and shirinking incomes will be expected to cope with the extra outgoings. Not to mention how health and work will impact. This means millions more people avfected than any changes to the old system would have meant, and that the families of the affected will also be feeling the hit when it is fully rolled out. It is the single most intrusive government policy of modern times, and it is erratic beyond belief even at this stage when there are still some possibilities of escaping it left. Once rolled out there won't be any. Some of the biggest impacts will be on those who actually have a break in work, the waiting time without income is hugely unrealistic. There is not enough anslysis of UC available in the media, or its range. There are some fairly reliable blogs though, and even they only really discuss niche impacts. It is a policy in dire need of being challenged. In a couple of years it will likely be too late. One of the things IDS gifted to the nationAnatolyKasparov wrote:The point is, they can get away with UC - however much of a fiasco it has been, and it has - because it doesn't affect most people.
Brexit turning out a disaster, on the other hand........
What Osborne did, in cutting the link between benefit payments and inflation, was a major step in the dismantling of our social security system. It went mostly unremarked by the MSM at the time, to their undying shame. Re-instating that link really should be a Labour priority. Hopefully it'll be in the next manifesto.Tubby Isaacs wrote:The IFS don't do macro properly, but theyre solid on distribution. It was to the right of the Lib Dems and shouldn't have been.