Thank God!
Personally I would like to see him have a starring role at a war crimes trial.

Better news is that with Lisbon looking like being finally ratified by that Czech pillock, we can finally move ahead with constructive policies like abolishing the pound, dismantling the city of London (the financial cesspit, not the actual buildings - they could be put to much better use now), restructuring our sytem of government away from the corrupt, confrontational, dispropionatley reprepresentative, archaic laughing stock we now have in place and watching Cameron & Co squirm as Britiain moves towards a better standard of living for all, so long embraced and enjoyed by our long-term European partners.

5+ pages methinks

I doubt it,he's not that important,or interesting.

quote:

Originally posted by Low_Flyer_MkIX:
Better news is that with Lisbon looking like being finally ratified by that Czech pillock, we can finally move ahead with constructive policies like abolishing the pound, dismantling the city of London (the financial cesspit, not the actual buildings - they could be put to much better use now), restructuring our sytem of government away from the corrupt, confrontational, dispropionatley reprepresentative, archaic laughing stock we now have in place and watching Cameron & Co squirm as Britiain moves towards a better standard of living for all, so long embraced and enjoyed by our long-term European partners.

Good luck with that.

quote:

we can finally move ahead with constructive policies like abolishing the pound, dismantling the city of London (the financial cesspit, not the actual buildings - they could be put to much better use now), restructuring our sytem of government away from the corrupt, confrontational, dispropionatley reprepresentative, archaic laughing stock we now have in place and watching Cameron & Co squirm as Britiain moves towards a better standard of living for all, so long embraced and enjoyed by our long-term European partners.

You want Britain to join the low growth European mainstream?

Per capita GDP growth, 1990 - 2006:

UK - 33.7%
France - 21.18%
Germany - 22.72%

Don't worry too much about the UK. Last time things looked this bad was in 1979, and then the country elected a Conservative government. Britain went from "the sick man of Europe" to "economic miracle" over the next 10 years.

Yes Labour have been in power longer, and done more damage this time, but it's nothing a good decade of Conservative government can't turn around.

quote:

...nothing a good decade of Conservative government can't turn around.

The Tories may well win the next election, though I'd think a hung parliament is as likely. If they do win, I doubt if they will see out a full term without being irrevocably split over our relationship with the EU. While in opposition, they have managed to keep the issue under wraps, but in power they will have to make decisions that will either lead to loss of key financial backers (often pro-EU membership), or loss of grass roots support, and possibly significant desertion by supporters and MPs to UKIP.

I remember the 'economic miracle' well: got my first taste of the dole office, saw a nice selection of closed factories and shops. And then there was all the rioting in the streets. And the parliamentary sleeze (still going strong, come to think of it, though not as entertaining these days).

The economics of 'New Labour' have been essentially conservative anyway, so I see little reason why anyone should expect the Tories to manage things better, even by their own standards.

quote:

Originally posted by hop2002:

quote:

we can finally move ahead with constructive policies like abolishing the pound, dismantling the city of London (the financial cesspit, not the actual buildings - they could be put to much better use now), restructuring our sytem of government away from the corrupt, confrontational, dispropionatley reprepresentative, archaic laughing stock we now have in place and watching Cameron & Co squirm as Britiain moves towards a better standard of living for all, so long embraced and enjoyed by our long-term European partners.

You want Britain to join the low growth European mainstream?

Per capita GDP growth, 1990 - 2006:

UK - 33.7%
France - 21.18%
Germany - 22.72%

Don't worry too much about the UK. Last time things looked this bad was in 1979, and then the country elected a Conservative government. Britain went from "the sick man of Europe" to "economic miracle" over the next 10 years.

Yes Labour have been in power longer, and done more damage this time, but it's nothing a good decade of Conservative government can't turn around.

However, Germany's economy was actually based on something sane. Check out how much better they've been at weathering the worst of the economic crisis. Our economy since the late 80's has almost solely revolved around the financial sector.

Which is buggered.

quote:

The economics of 'New Labour' have been essentially conservative anyway

The economic policies of Labour have been high taxes, high borrowing and high public spending. The exact opposite of Tory policies.

I can't speak for your experience in the 80s and 90s, but I can tell you about the UK experience. From a position of decline in the 60s and 70s, Britain grew faster than our competitors throughout the 80s and 90s.

1960 - 1979 UK per capita GDP grew 52%, France 98% and Germany 82%.

1979 - 1997 UK per capita GDP grew by 43%. France managed 27% and Germany 25%.

quote:

However, Germany's economy was actually based on something sane. Check out how much better they've been at weathering the worst of the economic crisis

Actually the German economy has shrunk more than the UKs so far in this recession. Germany is out of the recession faster because their government has kept sound finances and is actually launching a generous tax cut. That improves confidence, and recessions are all about a lack of confidence.

Britain, of course, has the largest deficit as a proportion of GDP of any major economy, thanks to the 7% structural deficit Gordon Brown built up, and so we face cutbacks and tax rises. Doesn't do much to encourage investment.

quote:

Our economy since the late 80's has almost solely revolved around the financial sector.

The British manufacturing economy did pretty well until 1997, easily beating France and Germany:



Forget the rhetoric of the left and look at the actual position, and British manufacturing was doing rather well until Labour came to power.

That's not to say manufacturing employment was doing well. The reason British manufacturing did well under the Tories, and so badly in the 70s under Labour, was productivity. In the 60s and 70s it stagnated, in the 80s and 90s it soared.

quote:

The British manufacturing economy did pretty well until 1997, easily beating France and Germany:

I don't suppose you can tell us what that graph is supposed to represent? Without a label on the Y axis, it is meaningless.

Sorry, it's manufacturing as a share of total GDP.

As you can see from the graph, manufacturing declined in importance everywhere. Over the period 1980 - 1997 it fell far more in Germany and France than in the UK, slightly more in the US and about the same in Japan.

And that chart must be read in conjunction with the GDP figures. In the same period the British economy grew much more than France and Germany, manufacturing as a percentage of the total fell less.

The problem in Britain is manufacturing in the 80s and 90s isn't put in to an international context. Manufacturing employment fell, so the assumption is manufacturing was doing badly. In truth manufacturing was doing better in Britain than in comparable countries.

Don't Believe The Myth

By Neil Clark

FIRST POSTED MAY 1, 2009. www.thefirstpost.co.uk


Monday, May 4 marks the 30th anniversary of arguably the most significant event in post-war British politics: the coming to power of Margaret Thatcher.

The dominant narrative - accepted even by many who consider themselves to be on the left - is that Britain's economy in the 1970s was in such dire straits that our country urgently needed a change of direction.

Britain, in this account, was the 'Sick Man of Europe'. The unions and inflation were out of control. Our inefficient nationalised industries were an expensive disaster. The Labour governments of 1974-79 were complete flops. The post-war mixed economy model had failed. But this narrative is a myth.

It's true that inflation hit 27 per cent in 1975, but this was largely a consequence of the Yom Kippur War oil price shock, which saw oil prices quadruple, and not a sign that the mixed economy model had collapsed.

By 1978, the British economy was rapidly improving. Inflation was down to single figures and unemployment was falling too. Productivity was rising, including in the nationalised industries. North sea oil revenues were starting to transform the balance of payments, which showed a surplus of £109m in 1977. And in December 1978 Britain recorded a massive trade surplus of £246m.

Britain was a contented society that had a healthy work-life balance

During 1978, Britain's standard of living rose by 6.4 per cent to reach its highest ever level: so much for the 'Sick Man of Europe'.

"The outlook for Britain is better than at any time in the postwar years," was the verdict, not of a Labour party propagandist, but of Chase Manhattan bank's chief European economist, Geoffrey Maynard.

Bernard Nossiter, a Washington Post journalist, argued in his 1978 book Britain- the Future that Works, that Britain, unlike the US, had created a contented society that had managed to get the balance right between work, leisure and remuneration. Far from having had enough of Labour and the post-war consensus, opinion polls show that the party would have won a General Election, had Prime Minister James Callaghan called one, as expected, for October 1978.

The so-called 'Winter of Discontent' of 1979 - which ushered in Thatcherism - is also shrouded in myth. James Callaghan never said 'Crisis, what crisis' - that was an invention of The Sun. The strikes themselves only lasted for a comparatively short period and were largely over by February 1979.

One might ask why all this matters. It does, because if we are going to break with neoliberalism, we need to shatter the myths put forward by Thatcherite ideologues. We need to understand the truth which was that the British economy performed far better 30 years ago than is commonly believed. The mixed economy model didn't fail. We were no more in need of Mrs Thatcher's 'painful medicine', than someone suffering from a common cold needs a course of chemotherapy.

Acknowledging the truth about the 1970s is important, because it means that we can then return to an economic model that served the great majority of Britons extraordinarily well for over 30 years after World War Two. It was a model under which large sections of the economy - including transport, energy and most major industries - were in public ownership; capitalism was strictly regulated and made to work for the common good and manufacturing was regarded as more important than finance.

In no other period in British history was there such a rapid rise in living standards. The gap between rich and poor was significantly reduced. As the One Nation Tory Harold Macmillan, one of the architects of the post-war consensus, famously declared, we never had it so good.

Since 1979 we have followed a very different economic path: one of deregulation, privatisation and allowing 'market forces' to rule the roost. And we all know where that has led us.



Why Can't Britain Be More Like Belgium?

By Neil Clark
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 10, 2009 www.thefirstpost.co.uk



Question: which European country has a right-wing Prime Minister whose sister is a communist politician? Answer: Belgium. Who else?

Belgium is easily the quirkiest country in western Europe, if not the entire continent. For long periods in the past two years it has been without a government. It is plagued with linguistic divisions and has often appeared to be on the verge of breaking-up. And for decades it has been the butt of jokes, such as the hoary old challenge to 'name ten famous Belgians'.

Yet, for all of that, Belgium works - far better than Britain. This is ironic, given that Britain has strong historical ties to Belgium and came to the country's rescue when it was invaded by Germany in 1914.

Belgium has much in common with Britain: it's a densely-populated former imperial power with long-standing internal divisions and could easily provide a model for Britain if our political elite were not so insular, or ideologically blinkered, in their outlook.

The first step to make Britain more like Belgium would be a new voting system

The first step in making Britain more like Belgium would be to change the electoral system. In Britain, too much store is placed on political stability. In Belgium, where a form of proportional representation operates, governments come and go with far greater frequency than in Britain. But does the country actually suffer from this greater political instability? There is no evidence to suggest that it does. On the contrary, proportional representation means that more parties have a chance of winning seats - 11 different parties won seats in Belgium's 2007 general election - helping to increase public interest in politics.

Then there's foreign policy. Belgium, like Britain, is a founder member of Nato. But unlike Britain, it knows when to say no to Washington's military adventures - as it did at the time of the Iraq war in 2003.

Belgium's constructive attitude towards European co-operation also puts Britain to shame. While the British Thatcherite right sees the continent - and its more socially-orientated form of Rhineland mixed-economy capitalism - as the source of all evil, Belgium's conservatives take a more rounded, balanced outlook.

As for domestic policy decision-making, Belgium's approach has been more pragmatic and less ideological than Britain's. Public transport is a case in point. While Britain, in thrall to free market dogma, privatised its buses and trains in the 1980s and 90s, Belgium has maintained a publicly owned, fully co-ordinated and ultra-efficient public transport system. Travelling around the country is a constant delight and devoid of the stresses which afflict British commuters.

While Britain prides itself on its historical commitment to the freedom of the individual, in fact it's Belgium which feels a much freer and immeasurably more relaxed place. Smoking is still allowed in bars and cafes. Public places are refreshingly free of our incessant tannoy announcements, warning us that this is a no-smoking station or airport and that any luggage left unattended will be destroyed.

Belgium feels like a much freer and more relaxed place than Britain

Belgium's success owes much to the delicate balancing of political and social forces. The country has never embraced neo-liberal economic dogma as enthusiastically as Britain, with the result that market forces do not rule every aspect of people's lives. Also, the strength of the Catholic Church has meant that traditional family values are still promoted. But the strength of liberal groups means that Belgium fully respects the rights of gay people - it was the second country in the world to legalise same-sex marriages.

All of which makes Belgians happy. An OECD study published earlier this year revealed Belgium to be the ninth happiest developed country in the world, with 76.3 per cent of the population expressing satisfaction with their lives. Britain could only manage fifteenth place. The same survey showed that only Turkey topped Belgium when it came to rising levels of life satisfaction in the period 2000-06; Britain came eleventh.

Belgium is an example of how a modern country can combine economic efficiency with social justice and how high living standards can go hand in hand with high levels of social cohesion. It's time we stopped making smart jokes about famous Belgians and started to learn from our more efficient, less stressed-out and much happier European neighbour.



Britain a Democracy? You're Having A Laugh!

http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2009


This article of mine appears in the Morning Star.

For all the parties' talk of 'choice', there seems to be precious little of it about when it comes to selling off our public assets.

Do you remember the days when political commentators in Britain used to sneer that US "democracy" merely meant the choice between two identical pro-big business parties?

That was when there were genuine differences between Labour, Conservatives and the Liberals on a variety of key issues. But those days are long gone.

The reality is that the Britain of 2009 is to all intents and purposes a one-party state.

Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems are merely wings of the "Capital party" - the same Capital party which has governed Britain since 1979.

In 1997 capital decided it needed to change the faces at the top of the ruling junta as they'd got a bit stale, so we got "new" Labour and grinning Tony instead of the old Tories and the grey-haired John Major.

Now capital has decided that in order to keep up the charade that we live in a democracy it's time for another cosmetic regime change and so the "new" Tories, with Dave "Tony Blair mark II" Cameron, will be wheeled back in. Change we can believe in. Not.

Anyone who doubts the thesis should consider the recent pronouncements our three main parties have been making about privatisation.

Two weeks ago Prime Minister Gordon Brown - the man who wants you to think he's a social democrat - announced a fire sale of publicly owned assets including the Tote, the Dartford Crossing, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, the student loan book and the Royal Mint.

The Tory reaction was not to criticise Brown over the principle of selling off state assets but to claim that the measures would "do little to solve the problems" of alleged government overspending.

"Given the state the country is in, it is probably necessary but it is no substitute for a long-term plan to get the country to live within its means," a party spokesman said.

The Tories then announced further privatisation of their own, with uber neocon shadow defence secretary Liam Fox telling the BBC's Andrew Marr at the weekend that the Met Office - in public ownership since its establishment in 1854 - may be flogged off too.

And we know that serial privatiser Ken Clarke is simply itching to privatise the Post Office if his party gets into power.

The Lib Dems, like the Tories, have no problem with Brown's fire sale in principle. Their quibble is with the timing.

"Given the state of the public finances, asset sales, at least in principle, make sense," said deputy leader Vince Cable. "However as we saw with the sale of the defence technology company QinetiQ, this government does not have a good track record in getting the taxpayer a good price from asset sales."

If the Lib Dems do have a share of power after the next election, then even our motorways and major trunk roads may be owned by the private sector, judging by the enthusiastic reaction Cable gave to a recent plan by investment bankers NM Rothschild calling for the government to sell off roads overseen by the Highways Agency.

The Financial Times quoted Cable as saying of the Rothschild plan: "This is an attractive, positive idea which could release considerable resources to the public finances and may have real environmental merits.
"The scale of it is vast - it makes rail privatisation look like small beer."

Let's recap. If Labour wins the next general election we'll get more privatisation, if the Conservatives win we'll get more privatisation and if the Lib Dems win - or hold a share of power - we'll get more privatisation.

All this when opinion polls show that it's public ownership and not privatisation that the public wants. Britain a democracy? You're having a laugh.

The sight of our three main parties trying to outdo each other on what public assets they'd flog off shows us quite clearly where the real power lies. Capital won't be satisfied until every asset currently in public ownership is in private hands.

Privatisation may be terrible news for consumers, employees and for the taxpayer, who is nearly always short-changed. But for investment banks like Goldman Sachs and NM Rothschild - described by the Financial Times as the "architect of several privatisations" - it's a big money-spinner. And of course the companies and financial institutions which buy the sold-off state assets, often at knock-down prices, make a killing too.

And then there are the ministers who sell off public assets and then pop up on the boards of privatised companies shortly afterwards.

The question is what can we, the people, do about it?

The realisation that Britain is a one-party state where capital calls the shots may be demoralising at first, but the positive thing is that it can help to frame our response.

We need to focus on direct action outside Parliament and campaign on a local and national level.

Hungary shows us the way.

In the southern city of Pecs, rising anger from local people over rocketing water bills led the town's mayor to send security guards to the city's waterworks in the middle of the night to reclaim it from the French multinational privateer Suez Environment.

The company's spokesman has complained and has threatened legal action, but it won't get much sympathy from local residents, 94 per cent of whom support the mayor's stance.

The mayor of Pecs acted because the local people had had enough. It's time we followed their example.

Don't get angry, get even, the old adage goes. But if we really are going to get even with the privateers and stop privatisation once and for all we need to get angrier.

Why should we put up with the highest train fares in Europe and being forced to stand in toilets when we have paid thousands of pounds for our season ticket? Why should we accept having to pay rip-off bills for our water in a country famous for its wet weather?

We wouldn't sit back calmly and allow a burglar to enter our house and take away our furniture and television, so why should we let corporate thieves get their greedy hands on our public assets?

Working together to fight privatisation is essential. The battle our postal workers are fighting to save the 350-year-old Royal Mail as a public service is one which should involve all of us. The RMT's fight for a publicly owned railway is our fight too.
Never forget that we are the many. The pro-privatisation spivs are the few.

Important battles lie ahead in the next few months. It's high time we made our numbers felt.



The Campaign for Public Ownership is a cross-party organisation which aims to harness public dissatisfaction with privatisation and campaign for a reversal of the disastrous policies of the last twenty-nine years. The Campaign will expose the cost to the public of privatisation, and highlight the inefficiencies and profiteering of the privatised companies. We also strongly urge that the British government does not give a penny of taxpayers money to a privately owned company without the public receiving equity in that company. The Campaign will seek to counter the negative propaganda about public ownership put about by those with a vested financial interest in privatisation. It’s time to bring to an end the Great Privatisation Rip-Off.

Excellent articles Lowflyer! I dare say the points they raise could be applied elsewhere as well.