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Labour Leader: Keir Starmer VII

I think it would be a useful if you read his full speech to the 76 Conference that you quote from. His faith in the Social Contract is loud and clear as is his belief in the central role of Government in industrial policy.

It was the Unions who abandoned the Social Contract and the IMF who forced Callaghan and Healey towards monetarism.
How did the unions abandon government spending and full employment?

Callaghan and Healy went to the IMF, the IMF didn’t force them. Callaghan was not forced towards monetarism at all.
 
I think it would be a useful if you read his full speech to the 76 Conference that you quote from. His faith in the Social Contract is loud and clear as is his belief in the central role of Government in industrial policy.

It was the Unions who abandoned the Social Contract and the IMF who forced Callaghan and Healey towards monetarism.
I owe you an apology. I have been talking about Keynesianism and the post war consensus, whereas the social contact of Wilson is something different. Where I have referred to the social contract, I had in mind the agreement of people like MacMillian with public spending on the NHS and full employment. I accept that I should’ve been clearer and said post war consensus instead.

It was the post war consensus, what has been called Keynesianism, that Callaghan tore up. I did not mean he tore up Wilson’s Social Contract which I think was more specifically about pay bargaining.

However, I stand by my main point that it was Callaghan who renounced (what was called) Keynesianism in favour of monetarism. And it was that shift of economic ideology from Keynes to Friedman which set us on the path from monetarism to neoliberalism and now underpins the social and economic chaos we face today.
 
However, I stand by my main point that it was Callaghan who renounced (what was called) Keynesianism in favour of monetarism

An element of monetarism in fiscal policy was a key condition of the loan from the IMF in late 76. Not everyone thinks the loan route was necessary (notably Benn) but the reality was, in the days before electronic money, that Britain's reserves were depleted. Both Healey and Callaghan remained Keynesian at heart as evidenced by their belief in the Social Contract between the unions and the government. If Labour had hung on in power until the North Sea revenues had come on stream, then I suspect we would live in a different society today.
 
An element of monetarism in fiscal policy was a key condition of the loan from the IMF in late 76.
Another condition was privatisation
Not everyone thinks the loan route was necessary (notably Benn)

Benn was right
but the reality was, in the days before electronic money, that Britain's reserves were depleted

Not sure what you mean by electronic money, but in terms of reserves, no they weren’t. The reason for trotting off to the IMF was the devaluation of the £, which in real terms had little long term impact apart from Daily Mail headlines
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=33419
Both Healey and Callaghan remained Keynesian at heart as evidenced by their belief in the Social Contract between the unions and the government.
I made an apology earlier over Wilson’s Social contract which I presumed you meant rather than a broader understanding of the term. Wilson’s social contract was about wage restraints which had nothing to do with Keynesianism and it was Keynesianism that Callaghan explicitly rejected when he said that it was not possible to spend your way out of recession. Keynes is a difficult man to get to the bottom of, but Keynesianism as broadly understood came after the Wall Street Crash and said that spending was precisely the way to get out of such a recession. It was Keynes thinking that can be seen in the New Deal.
If Labour had hung on in power until the North Sea revenues had come on stream, then I suspect we would live in a different society today.
Maybe
 
LibDem, your tactical vote. QED. Thanks for the clarification.

As usual, no answers from you. You didn’t even explain ‘my situation’ that limits me to LibDem and the Brexit party. Why did you include the brexit party, by the way? Despite your assertion the Brexit party was an option ‘in my situation’, it was not.

Which brings me to...
You really have quite an internet vendetta going on. Maybe I’d do better claiming to dislike Scots, dislike Scotland and hope you break up the UK rather than believing the opposite.

Anyway, if it helps, below is what I mean by tactical voting. I may be wrong but the point is to help Labour to a majority over the tories and remove the tories from govt, not help keep the tories in govt then whinge every day about what they do.

If someone doesn’t like tory ideology, doesn’t like brexit, doesn’t like what the tories do, the answer is to remove the tories from govt.
1. In a Labour seat - vote Labour. Don’t vote to remove the seat from Labour.
2. In a non-Labour seat but where they have a chance - vote Labour
3. In a non-Labour seat where Labour does not have a chance - vote for the party most likely to prevent the tory candidate gaining a seat
4. In some places it won’t matter how you vote under FPTP. e.g. where I live it doesn’t matter how I vote.

#1 is the most significant. You and other nationalists voted to reduce Labour seats by 40 before Brexit was even a word. No doubt some will cite #3 as a reason to vote SNP, but that’s to ignore by taking 40 seats from Labour you made it more difficult for Labour to gain a majority in 2015....and no brexit.

I realise #3 is not straightforward and it may be impossible to vote with a totally clear conscience, especially given the antics of the poodle party, but the aim is to help Labour to a majority. I’m comfortable with that approach whatever name you want to pin on it.

Bottom line is, what I wrote there is for people who make replacing the tories in govt their #1 priority. I understand others may have a different #1 priority.
 
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PMQ’s today, Starmer was useless. Gave Sunak the final say on theTory chairman issue which with decent handling should have been a killer for the evening news. I’m sure the surprise of it not being his first and only question of six was meant to put Sunak off balance but it wasn’t/ didn’t/makes me weep.
Both Starmer and Rayner do their passionate heartfelt retorts from a script FFS! A point Sunak effectively pointed out today. Labour seem to have mediocrity in depth.
 
Probably because he knows he needs the floating 10% to get elected. If he veers even a snifter to the left then he'll scare the 10% off.
 
Good morning Ks1234

The reason for trotting off to the IMF was the devaluation of the £

Wilson's regime devalued the pound in 68, I wasn't aware Healey did? I wonder why they didn't issue bonds to raise the cash to furnish the deficit?
Another condition was privatisation

I can't remember the Callaghan government privatising anything but it was a long time ago - can you provide some examples to substantiate your point pls?

Regards your last paragraph about the Callaghan government's relationship with Keynesian economics, I would say that they were interventionist in their approach to industry and hence provided a lot of support (state subsidies) to companies such as British Steel and British Leyland at the time.
 
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Good morning Ks1234



Wilson's regime devalued the pound in 68, I wasn't aware Healey did? I wonder why they didn't issue bonds to raise the cash to furnish the deficit?


I can't remember the Callaghan government privatising anything but it was a long time ago - can you provide some examples to substantiate your point pls?

Regards your last paragraph about the Callaghan government's relationship with Keynesian economics, I would say that they were interventionist in their approach to industry and hence provided a lot of support (state subsidies) to companies such as British Steel and British Leykand at the time.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=33907
 
Gave Sunak the final say on theTory chairman issue

If you're saying Sunak spoke last, well that's how PMQs works. BTW Sunak didn't point anything out other than what was on his own script. This really is a circus. The last person to be genuinely cutting off the cuff was probably Hague and that didn't do him much good.
 
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If you're saying Sunak spoke last, well that's how PMQs works. BTW Sunak didn't point anything out other than what was on his own script. This really is a circus. The last person to be genuinely cutting off the cuff was probably Hague and that didn't do him much good.
Yer I know how PMQ’s works. What I am saying is Starmer isn’t very good at it. Look at it again, Sunak pointed out Starmer reads from a script. It’s a valid point. Everyone knows PMQ is a circus. But you still need to be good at it. It’s part of the basic toolkit of every leader unfortunately.
 
Yer I know how PMQ’s works. What I am saying is Starmer isn’t very good at it.

He's OK if not spectacular, I disagree entirely with your analysis - Sunak didn't get anything much off except his tired old "you were with Corbyn" line. The quip that drew a comparison between Zahawi and Sunak's in-laws tax was perhaps the one that unnerved him the most, but interestingly most sketch writers and reporters have focussed on the "perhaps the job is too big for you" line. I suspect that is the most fertile area for future revisit. Partially because Sunak will be wondering that himself.
 
He's OK if not spectacular, I disagree entirely with your analysis - Sunak didn't get anything much off except his tired old "you were with Corbyn" line. The quip that drew a comparison between Zahawi and Sunak's in-laws tax was perhaps the one that unnerved him the most, but interestingly most sketch writers and reporters have focussed on the "perhaps the job is too big for you" line. I suspect that is the most fertile area for future revisit. Partially because Sunak will be wondering that himself.
I mean what are Sunak’s greatest qualities for being Tory PM, he’s not Johnson and he’s not Truss? He’s still going to ride the cock horse to the knackers yard at the GE. Unless the loons behind him have him deposed and replaced by one of their fanatics. Same end result, just a question of who’s left holding the parcel of brown stuff when the music stops.
 
I didn’t say Sunak was good, but given the open goal Starmer didn’t make the most of it. The ‘weak/ not upto the job’ line can be used any Wednesday until the election.
 


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