What will happen to the left once the Tories come into power?
Once Obama swept into power on a super-majority, the common wisdom was that the Republicans were in danger of becoming a minority party that would fade into irrelevance unless they became centrist. Six months later however everything is up in the air. The likes of Glenn Beck and Fox News, through their overtly partisan agenda, have driven a howling crowd at the Obama administration catching everyone by surprise. There’s a good article here on Next Right talking about how the right organised and hit back quickly. Here is a key point:
The right’s rise online (and offline too) has been a pretty automatic reaction to Democratic hegemony in Washington, disproving the notion that there is anything intrinsic to the right or the left driving the use of specific tools. And wrapping this up in a neat little bow, the political environment turns out to be the decisive factor in how emphatically people use the technology, not the other way around.
Let’s apply this to the UK. It’s almost become conventional wisdom that the right ‘gets’ the web better than the left… without the realisation that much of it is driven by people’s annoyance with New Labour than particular love for the Tories. Once the latter get into power the situation will be reversed. It will be the Tory grassroots accusing their party of betrayal, and splits between traditional Tories and libertarians will be common. Especially as Obama will end up influencing a lot of policy around climate change and foreign affairs.
So what is the left to do? Will it flail around helplessly while out of power? Not necessarily. The Labour party might for a while. The Libdems too will be caught between trying to attack the Tories and differentiating themselves from Labour. But it doesn’t have to be like that. It will be ‘the left’ outside the party structure to drive the agenda. In this case: the media, think-tanks, NGOs, campaign groups and activists.
Like in the United States, the left-wing media is now almost exclusively limited to the internet. With the rise of group blogs, and loads of single-issue blogs, you won’t need the national press for your partisan news. They’ll break stories for the general public but for the activists and politicos – blogs will become major source of information. Or will they?
Again, I think there is much to learn from left-wing blogs in the US. But it can happen. I’ve seen left-wing bloggers investigate and break many more stories in recent months. There needs to be an increasing drive towards investigative blogging, finding news and digging up dirt on the opposition. Just writing opinion is no longer enough. Left-wing blogging has to focus on two things: collating and publishing news, and doing distributed investigative journalism. More on this another time.
Not only will it get dirty and partisan – I’d say that is exactly where we need to be. I’ve slowly come around to the idea that I don’t want the cosy centrist agenda that rests upon the national press reporting and regurgitating the same stories endlessly. If the left wants to push their agenda forward then they have to get aggressive and they have to expose the right (not just complain about them). Does aggressive politics work? Yes it does. And in fact it’s worked well for Cameron since he quickly abandoned his pledge not to engage in ‘Punch and Judy politics’.
To be clear: I’m not saying the left should start inventing ‘death panels’ like the Republicans did to attack the Tories. However I’m saying that attack politics works.
The election of the Tories is likely to be the single biggest driver of traffic to left-wing blogs. The question is can they do something useful with that to push their ideals and agenda? Lots of thinking and conspiring required.
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At last, someone who gets it.
The left are so obsessed with fairness as an end that they over use it as a means to that end.
All Obama’s talk of consensus and bi-partisanship gets him nowhere in the face of Beck-ite lunacy.
In the States, Rep. Grayson has shown how to fight back using Republican tactics and he has the advantage of truth on his side.
To paraphrase Connery in The Untouchables – don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.
The political infighting online will get nasty and dishonest post-election in the UK. But I see a shift in culture coming as a result which might undermine all that. Cameron is just another Blair: 100% charm boy exterior, 100% psychopathic politician at heart. There are enough ppl keen to retain their integrity against this culture phenomenon, which Blair exemplified, and they will guard the key issues which cannot risk being undermined by lies and shit raking – the environment being number one on that list.
So you want to abandon accommodation and compromise with with the centre ground in favour or dirty and partisan blogging?
No change for you there – but what of those posters on Pickled Politics and Liberal Conspiracy who are actually capable of rational, evidence-based argument, like Rumbold, Unity or Cath Elliott?
Are they going to follow you into oblivion?
The best thing the blogs could do especially among activists and supporters is promote Ed Miliband for Leader.
I know you (Sunny) have been talking about this for a long time and I agree and think its time to look beyond the 2010 elections.
He can speak – has better ideas than most of his colleagues, proactive in Government and is well liked among all parts of the electorate.
Aggressive politics is well and good but unless it becomes constructive it usually turns of voters – and after all we are a nation of centrists despite the whining of the fringes in the left and the right.
I agree that leftist blogs would become more popular – but there is a chance that those would become more preaching to the choir rather than engaging and influencing people towards their own views.
Even in the States without a candidate like Obama I doubt the impact of the left wing blogs have had much to do with getting moderates to vote for them. The moderates were won by the Candidate and TV and national media.
Similarly, unless Labour picks a leader the country ie the vast majority of the moderates who are not inclined to view life through a left-right construct – all efforts to influence and persuade would become back slapping exercise amongst activists.
I like the post though – its time to start looking at the future and influential bloggers would play a key role.
btw, also apologies for not having moved on that email you sent me couple of weeks ago. Will do – sorry mate.
What is needed is genuine and genuinely good comms. Sometimes that means attack. More often, it means the kinds of intelligence promoted by Chris Rose, George Lakoff, etc. This mostly remains to be done, by greens and lefties in this country.
But we also need to be honest about why new media are to some extent right-wing-dominated. The answer is money (and time). Most greens and lefties can’t afford to pay people to help them run / design etc. their blogs etc., and have to earn money rather than rely on unearned etc income. Right-wing people are in this respect (literally) better off, by and large.
The Yanks are just lucky to have an Ariana Huffington prepared to bankroll progressive blogging / internet journalism. It is a rare rich person who is prepared to risk their own money backing politics that will work against their crude short term financial interests.
This is the truth that dare not speak its name: ConservativeHome, Iain Dale etc rely on huge warchests for their prominence. It is time this fact got out there more.
Giving up already?
Another lefty wannabe jockeying for position the in post-Brown world… Get to the back of the queue!
Left wingers in Britain will not be able to replicate the American Right, because THERE IS NO BRITISH LEFT.
The left over here is divided into many parts, each with competing agendas.
These include
- the Islamist arse-lickers (like Galloway)
- SWP/communists
- race hustlers
- unionists
- feminists
- gay rights activists
- modernisers
- recent ex-Labour BNP voters
and of course
-actual elected Labour MPs
This coalition is too disparate to find unity, assuming that the unions even continue to save the Labour party from insolvency.
The problem arises because the left has to appease so many minority interest groups to shore up their overall vote.
Wihout a Marxist-style grand narrative, there is nothing that truly unites all of these groups. WITH a Marxist narrative, the whole lot become un-electable.
Good luck trying to cut that Gordian knot.
The one saving grace in a rush of traffic to left-wing blogs is that the character flaws of their owners will finally be held up to the light of day…
Maybe I live in a different country, but I can’t understand why you can’t see what is so clear to me.
Labour came to power running to the right, after years of losses at the hustings. The Tories will return to power by running to the left. What we will see is a new sort of Toryism – the German and French kind. Less of the reactionary and status quoist conservatism of the US and more of the progressive nation centered advocacy of the European conservatives.
I see the US political reality as being very different from the UK and the rest of Western Europe.
To start with, the Democrats can be aligned in ideological terms to the Tories, to Labour and Lib Dems. They are a big tent the caters moderates from the left and right in good measure. The Republicans, on the other hand, have become a Party of the fringe and the extremists, and are completely deranged. When Obama came to meet political leaders in Europe, he was pretty amicable with Cameron and Sarkozy, and I believe that Obama and Cameron will not disagree much on economic or foreign policy.
I am also not convinced about aggressive politics, certainly not by that graph showing Democrats losing independents. Poll after poll has shown strong support for healthcare reform WITH public option (65%), which means that Republican and Fox New lies have not worked despite their smears.
Also in the UK, there are far less ideological differences between Tories and Labour. So, if Tories win, I feel you won’t have as much fun as the American Left had when Bush was in power.
Whoa there! Perhaps before going on the attack, the UK left might engage in a bit of introspection and think about why they lost the 2010 election.
I’m not at all convinced that the Republican/Glenn Beck strategy (all attack, no introspection) will be all that successful come 2012. If the UK left goes immediately onto the attack they/you might end up like the French Socialists – utterly clueless about why your core values keep getting rejected.
In the case of the British left, the introspection has to centre upon the appropriate role and size of the state, and alternatives to state spending. This is not just a matter of balancing the books, but reflecting on why higher state spending has not delivered proportionate results and why the public has turned against state spending (as opposed to merely turning against Labour politicians).
I suppose it’s too much to ask a socialist (or for that matter, a national socialist) to give up on the notion that is desirable and possible to use the state to perfect mankind.
But Lefties might want to ask themselves about the appropriate size of the state. You’ve gorged out of the cookie jar for 12 years, grown the state to 48% of GDP but state spending has been subject to a law of diminishing returns. The bigger the state gets, the less effective it becomes to the point where your average voter is thoroughly fed up by the waste, incompetence and stupidity of the average platinum-pensioned public sector employee. From a lefty perspective, what do you suggest as an alternative?
I just finished reading Morrigan’s contribution and now I’m trying to remember where I stashed the cyanide capsules.
On the basis of what tends to happen when the left hit trouble I think we can look forward to some vicious, dirty and partisan attacks from the left. Of course most of the attacks will be directed at others on the left with almost exactly the same ideology.
Judean People’s Front anyone?
Interesting comments.
shatterface – I wouldn’t talk to me about partisanship if I was you. These are your comments when I got annoyed over the smearing against Brown about pills.
They are only ’smears’ (a) if they are untrue and (b) if you consider a mental handicap to be a barrier to employmen, so which is it?
You change your tune quickly don’t you when people say something nasty about the Tories?
I’m not going to force any of my bloggers to write anything they don’t want to. In any group blog people disagree with each other – some are more moderate than others.
I’m merely saying leftie bloggers need to start becoming more ambitious in preparation for the Tory administration. Rumbold is a LPUK member anyway – I’m sure he’ll appreciate it
Shamit – a good contribution, but I think you’re missing out where I’m coming from.
Aggressive politics is well and good but unless it becomes constructive it usually turns of voters – and after all we are a nation of centrists despite the whining of the fringes in the left and the right.
The job of a political party is to be somewhat centrist so it can get a majority of people to vote for them. But the job of activists, partisans and the media is not that. I see blogs as the media – but with overt political agendas.
The people who read political blogs aren’t the ones who are voting in marginal constituencies. And even then – the point is that you can be centrist while attacking your opponents. I’d say Iain Dale is right-of-centre but he is still deeply partisan… and that doesn’t hurt.
Similarly, unless Labour picks a leader the country ie the vast majority of the moderates who are not inclined to view life through a left-right construct – all efforts to influence and persuade would become back slapping exercise amongst activists.
I agree. If I was advocating a leader I’d never advocate some frothing-at-the-mouth extremist. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have an aggressive left-wing media.
Also in the UK, there are far less ideological differences between Tories and Labour. So, if Tories win, I feel you won’t have as much fun as the American Left had when Bush was in power.
Possibly, but then you only have to look at the success of the anti-Boris bloggers, and the fact that they’ve claimed a few scalps, to realise that there will be much to point and expose once the Tories get in.
I do find it amusing to watch Tories come here and scream ‘Damian McBride’ when they cheerlead on right-wing and libertarian bloggers who are just as bad.
As for introspection and ideology – there will be that too…
W
What does that mean? It means we will have a W recession: the Tory’s determination to punish the public sector will see us dive-bomb back in to recession in 2010/2011 as indiscriminate cuts hit the only people whose pay packets have been keeping the economy afloat.
I’ve little time these days for Labour, but PLEASE SOMEONE LOOK at what the Tories said during the crisis – it was Depression economics and would have plunged this country into far worse straits.
I feel as if I am watching a slow-motion car crash at then moment as the nation (and the media) seemingly appears asleep to the DECLARED damage the Tories will do both to their services and the economy. Look (PLEASE SOMEONE) look at their idiocy on the economy, Europe, the public sector – it’s not as if they’ve made a secret of it.
Instead we as a nation appear to be sleepwalking into crisis – these Eton boys are rubbing their hands in glee. And do you really want to know why? Because they want to PUT THE REST OF US IN OUR PLACE.
They WANT a return to economic insecurity, fear. They HATE the affluence and complacency of the people about to vote for them.
And while the media may have failed us, it certainly can’t be said they didn’t warn us.
Sunny – I may well be slightly misreading your article here, so apologies if I am putting words into your mouth.
What you seem to miss is that the professional malcontents have not really had their chance to sink their fangs into a Tory government. These professional malcontents will start bashing away at any government. Believe me, if the internet had been around in 1950, Attlee would have been a hate figure.
Internet chatter is, in general terms at least, very self indulgent and faintly paranoid. It is about politics, not government and pays no heed to the difficult divisions that governments have to deal with.
The Tories will get a thumping off the talkboards. The expose/complain divide that you talk about in the article has long ago become blurred.
The real crunch for me will be when/if the left realise that the voters will simply not have a redistribution of wealth as the noisy talkboards demand.
The Tories will walk into the talkboard viciousness that Labour did, but that does not mean support for a left-wing agenda.
What I would like to see is a dumbing-up in the media, but I am just dreaming there.
Socialism is about to die.I’m not going to give details but you won’t be able to steal other people’s cash anymore.I’m really looking forward to you people having to work for a living and not being able to steal to shower money to buy votes.I would say you have 3 years?Maybe less with the depression coming sooner.
Is Steve S the authentic voice of Cameron’s Conservatives?!
Boyo,
I don’t think the Tories are “punishing” the public sector – though that would be utterly appropriate given the useless nature of so much state spending.
The public sector tapeworm is so deeply embedded in the economy that I doubt the Tories can as a practical matter cut it by more than 0.5-1% of GDP a year – hardly enough to induce a W shaped recovery in an open economy like the UK’s. (The rotten shape of the UK household sector’s balance sheet might induce an anemic recovery, but that’s Brown’s fault).
Given the tone of your comments I wonder if you think that state spending at 48% of GDP is a good thing? Would you like it to go higher? Heck, maybe we should do a Kim Jong Il and go for a round hundred.
Meanwhile, the fast-growing economies of Asia have public sectors (as a percentage of GDP) a fraction of the size of the UK’s.
Shatterface – First time I’ve ever been described as rational, so thanks for that
Seriously though, attack politics? About sodding time that’s all I can say.
Good piece Sunny, and glad to see you’ve finally come round to the idea. Ohhh, this is going to be fun!
“Meanwhile, the fast-growing economies of Asia have public sectors (as a percentage of GDP) a fraction of the size of the UK’s.”
You mean like India? Well, it’s good to see what kind of model you aspire to.
I’ve no objection to an even more “bloated” public sector if it is good for the country as a whole. Have you any idea, for example, how many “private” contractors rely on this “bloated” sector to keep their businesses – be they caterers, builders, or whatever – going?
Oh, and this will also be the “bloated” state that bailed out the “private” sector, large chunks of which were rapidly nationalised to soak up their mistakes and which by far accounts for any negative comparisons with the likes of Germany, France etc who are doing rather better than us at present.
Were you born stupid, or did you just become that way?
Boyo – wow, I think that’s the first time I’ve agreed with you.
MaidMarian: The real crunch for me will be when/if the left realise that the voters will simply not have a redistribution of wealth as the noisy talkboards demand.
Actually, redistribution is much more popular across the country than the Daily Mail will have you believe. So I think I’m on safe ground there.
Cath – thanks, and yes it will
@22. Ah, the authentic voice of the left, outraged that anyone should dare question their right to infinite subsides and defined benefit pensions. Anyone who opposes this spending, which is so clearly good for the country, must have been born stupid, right?
Forgive my stupidity. All I have to go on is my own personal experience. I’ve had the privilege to live, work and pay taxes in six countries on three continents with varying economic systems and standards of living. And the ones with less government intervention tended to do a much better job of increasing standards of living for the general populace.
It’s interesting that you should bring up India. Between 1947 and 1991 India had one of the world’s most perfect socialist economic systems, exquisitely crafted along Nehruvian-Fabian lines. Private sector economic activity was frowned upon and almost every aspect of economic activity was run or regulated by bureaucrats in the “License Raj”.
The net result of all this socialism was that Indian civil servants had a jolly good time, with everyone else forced to kowtow to them. The bureaucrats started off with good intentions but excessive concentration of power and the willful suppression of “wasteful” private sector competition in time led the bureaucrats to become venal and corrupt.
Meanwhile the economy as a whole stagnated and India had one of the slowest rates of growth in the developing world. A comparison of India with Asian countries that followed a more capitalist development path, such as South Korea, tells a stark tale. In 1947 South Korean per capita income was less than twice India’s. By 1990, it was twenty times bigger.
Since 1991, India has liberalised its economy. The path hasn’t been perfect but per capital growth rates have more than doubled, lifting millions out of poverty. It turned out that the private sector could produce far more effectively a whole array of goods and services that had hitherto been the preserve of the government.
Returning to where we started, my view is that the state spending 48% of GDP in the UK is a bad use of scarce resources. I would like state spending to come down as a percentage of GDP. In an ideal world I’d like the state to spend 20-25% of GDP, but in the next parliament I’d settle for the Tories bring it down to 40%. The bigger question for the left, and for yourself Boyo, is what level of state spending do you consider optimal?
Cauldron, I would be interested to know what countries you favourably compare the UK with. I’m sure they would prove as irrelevant as your Indian example, and your pubic spending target. The price of everything and value of nothing springs to mind.
Although for that matter, you plainly misunderstand the price of most things in any case.
Let’s face it: if Labour loses the next election the left won’t spring into action to fight them. What will happen, and what must happen, is that we will turn inwards and consider where we are actually going, and yes, we will fight among ourselves.
The fact is, we can’t carry on as before. If we simply start fighting the Tories without an ideological reckoning, then no doubt we’ll get back into power eventually, but it will be a hollow victory as we’ll simply repeat the mistakes of New Labour. When the Tories lost power it was reasonable for them to consider moving leftwards to become more popular, but for us, there is no way to move rightwards, since we’ve already gone so far in that direction. We need to reassess where we’re going and ultimately accept that the post-1994 evolution of the Labour Party was a mistake.
Boyo, it was you who bought up India first. (It was also you who needlessly resorted to an ad hominem attack, but I’ll let that pass).
Let’s go back to the thread. The thread is about how the left will react to defeat next year. My contention is that leftist commentators may have to reappraise the role and optimal size of the state: (a) once the state grew beyond a certain size it became an ineffective vehicle for delivering results and (b) ever-growing state spending no longer commands popular support.
Personally I do not want to pay as much in tax to support a lot of state spending that I consider to be frivolous and I resent that I am funding cushy pensions for ineffective bureaucrats.
What level of state spending do you consider appropriate?
Glenn Beck exposed.
“The price of everything and value of nothing springs to mind.”
Translation – “I’ll take as much of your taxes as I please. Sod accountability”
If there is any alternative way of measuring the effectiveness of public spending I’m all ears. Labour theory of value perhaps? That’d certainly justify hiring more bureaucrats. Or maybe something Sraffian?
In any case, it doesn’t matter. The public is fed up with all this spending and the Left is going to be thrown out.
Cauldron. “My contention is that leftist commentators may have to reappraise the role and optimal size of the state: (a) once the state grew beyond a certain size it became an ineffective vehicle for delivering results and (b) ever-growing state spending no longer commands popular support.”
Frankly I think one thing you and a majority of voters currently have is a comprehension deficit with regard to the relationship between public spending, service delivery, and wealth generation in a post-industrialised European state,
Labour are losing because they lied about an unpopular war, tried to legislate cultural change, failed to properly manage immigration, and blew it with Brown’s dithering.
Structurally however they have done a perfectly adequate job, in particular with the economy (at least compared to all other govts) and public spending, which most voters seem not to appreciate is linked directly to their (considerably improved) experience of the education and health service, and the fact that we are experiencing a softer economic landing than had “Boy” Osborne had hold of the purse strings and let the banks fail.
The Tories have successfully turned a failure of capitalism in to the fault of (a form of) socialism. That they have been able to do so says much for the considerable failings of the Brown administration not in terms of substance but in style.
It is YOUR system that failed, and the state that saved your pals. It’s ironic that you infer “bureaucrats pensions” are somehow to blame for our woes when these are paltry next to the unbridled greed that has landed us in this situation. You and your kind are the leaches, and all this talk about less taxes and “accountability” is just a smokescreen.
By the way, if you were not referring to India, then what Asian societies would you like us to imitate? What are those other societies you have paid less taxes in that have done so much better?
Your silence is deafening.
Sunny -Thank you for your reply
‘Actually, redistribution is much more popular across the country than the Daily Mail will have you believe. So I think I’m on safe ground there.’
Really – that is a fascinating point, because it touches on what the article doesn’t.
Is redistribution wildly popular? You have hundreds of years of election results saying otherwise. People can be as up for talkboard redistribution as they like – all the evidence from election results is that there is an at most mild preference for redistribution. My view (perhaps wrong, I claim no monopoly on truth) is that on this point the left is chasing a phantom.
Sunny, if people wanted redistribution they would have voted for variously Socialist Labour, SWP, BNP, Green and the like. When given the choice, people choose to vote Labour/Conservative/Lib Dem i.e. mild redistribution.
My view – and I expect a kicking – is that in 1997 the left got it right and got two years of the most progressive government this country will probably see in my lifetime. There is a difference between governing and indulging minority politics.
As I said earlier, Attlee would have been an internet hate figure in 1950 had there been talkboards. Redistribution is popular until it is the wealth of mainstream voters being redistributed – until the left faces upto that (as it did in 1997) then ‘the left’ will remain an internet hot air abstraction.
Not a palatable thought I would suppose for those who regard Blair and Brown as devils incarnate for the crime of acknowledgeing reality.
Safe ground? That sounds almost like saying that the talkboards are behind you – the only problem is the vote.
i dont think the right get the web better than the left. that brown IT boys Obamafication of the conservative party website seems rather lame and imitative.
I don’t know shit about shit and I’m charged enough to generate enough electricity to power an egg plant in Asbey de la Zouch, but I do know that since Labour came into power there has been over 3,500 new pointless laws that fuck my shit up (I’ve been stopped and searched for looking like I was a drug dealer, looking like I carried a knife, looking like I might have a bomb in my tent bag, looking like I’d stuck chewing gum on the tray on a virgin train)), if tories come into power and they let me keep more of my tax money to buy more crack in peace, then fuck socialism and the axe it spins on.
Boyo, I fess up. I’m a capitalist leech. Admittedly, a funny sort of leech who coughs up blood in the form of taxes and who has directly given well-paying jobs to hundreds of people but there we go. And I do not, and never have, relied on a state-funded, defined benefit pension plans.
How about you Boyo, what do you do for a living? Do you have a job that someone other than the compelled taxpayer is willing to pay for, or are smouldering with resentment because the Tories are about to pull your snout out of the trough?
Or perhaps you’re still half way through your A level economics course? You’re clearly not old enough to remember what happened when ‘pure’ socialist policies were tried in Britain in the 1970s.
When you get to the section on comparative economics, perhaps we can talk about the economic outlook in the UK vs. in Asia. Have you ever been to Asia? Yes, Asia starts from lower absolute levels of income, for reasons that stretch back hundreds of years and have very little to do with taxes and public spending. But now we’re in a globalised world and we can make meaningful like-for-like forward-looking comparisons. I’m willing to wager that if the UK implements your kind of policies then within your lifetime the UK will be overtaken by South Korea, urban China, Taiwan and Singapore, with Malaysia, urban India and rural China not that far behind.
As for the faults displayed by capitalism in the last year, I agree with you! Personally I’d have taken a much more Schumpterian view and let all the bank shareholders and bondholders go to the wall. Of course, the subsequent drying up of the credit market would have created the scenario you described in your first post, but ultimately Europe and the US have no business having, say, a mass-market automotive manufacturing capability so you might as well shut it now and be done with it.
But thank you for being so forthright in your views. I think you’ve just answered Sunny’s question. Post defeat, the left will be split between thoughtful, nuanced types like MaidMarian and those who think that while Labour might have had some problems with execution, intrinsically there is nothing wrong with an ever-expanding state. I hope your lot win the debate: life was fun for us leeches when Michael Foot was running Labour.
Interesting comment about the majority of voters having a “comprehension deficit”. How very November 1917 of you.
Cauldron,
Och, what sort of capitalist leech are you? What is your job? I expect it to have something to do with derivative markets or summat equally stupid.
Sadly (in terms of personal wealth), nothing to do with the derivatives market else there’s be more typos in my posts (when the luxury yacht bobs up and down, the fingers slip on the keyboard you see).
I’m not sure you can necessarily point to derivatives traders and extrapolate to the conclusion that the world would be better off if we abandoned capitalism in favour of a new global Gosplan. Lots of people of all political stripes opposed the bailout, not least the more rightwing Republican senators in the US. Heck even the hated Rod Liddle is agreeing with Boyo in today’s Sunday Times.
“so what is the left to do? Will it flail around helplessly while out of power?”
Well, since that’s pretty much what it did while in power…
*chuckle*
Oh, and Sunny is woefully out of step with all the other left wing loons on the US ‘Tea Parties’. The usual comeback is that they are irrelevant, only a handful of people, astroturfing, etc.
They are going to be upset with him claiming any success for them.
Perhaps not. But the moral superiority of market traders is a sight to be seen. One I consider unjustified, but lets leave that to aside. I, sometimes play markets, but I’d at least admit it is a bit, err.. dodgy, morally speaking. How is your portfolio standing up to the global downturn, and what does it consist of?
Just curious.
JuliaM,
Left wing? Really?
Douglas, at the risk of going seriously OT I watched most of crisis from the sidelines, in cash. I don’t have time to trade, so I just look for the big trends. A few years ago it felt like an almighty bubble was developing so I stepped back. I was too early, but I missed most of the collapse.
Right now, I’m investing in those parts of the world with decent demographics and strong balance sheets – basically bits of Asia, Brazil and those countries that provide raw materials to Asia, principally Australia and Canada. I’m reasonably upbeat on Africa but there aren’t too many ways to invest in Africa.
Europe is a mixed picture: Germany should do okay but Italy is screwed.
I’m not a believer in rapid recovery in either the US or UK. The balance sheet is stuffed in both places and the currencies deserve to tank. The UK property market remains the biggest ponzi scheme in human history: as UK demographic trends reverse in the next decade I just don’t see where the push will come from to drive it higher.
Hmm…
Yes, 50% of my portfolio is invested there too. And the other half seems to be invested largely in a belief that the UK and the US will, at the very least. pay out dividends.
Thanks for that. It is always useful to see another side of an idea. I respect your ideas. I may go entirely Asian or South American. I may not.
Apologies for the way that was posted. I assume I have lost the ability to post sensibly here.
Cauldron, I’m 42 and have worked in the private sector for the past five years, and about half of my 21 year career. I’ve seen both sides of the coin. How about you?
I remember the 70s and 80s relatively well.
I searched in vain for arguments in your post to disagree with, but there didn’t appear to be any.
“Pure socialism” in the 1970s?! “Demographic trend in the next 10 years”?! This in the only country in Europe which has projected population growth.
I’m glad I don’t come to you for investment advice.
As for the “policies” I would “implement”, well we’ll have to agree to disagree – so you and the Tory party, alone among Govts and most serious economists would have let the banks go to the wall.
One does not have to have an A level in economics (which i don’t, although my wife has a couple of doctorates) to know what happened the last time they did that. But as I averred to in my first post, what do facts matter to sleepwalkers?
If the Hyenas of Reaction* win a resounding victory at the next General Election, will we see Affirmative Action and Multicultural Diversity Coordinators eating out of dustbins and selling their bodies to survive?
I do hope so!
* The Blessed George Orwell found a quote somewhere or other: ” … the octopus of fascism has sung its swan song”
I can see the left splitting into two groups. One would be very similar to Old Labour: left wing economically, but also pretty socially conservative and not too fond of immigration- the sort of party that would win back BNP voters in Dagenham. The other party would be much more socially liberal, and would care more about the environment and such issues, and much less bound to the unions.
The left-leaning classical liberals (there are a few of them), would then decamp to one of the two groupings on the right: the first would have a much more libertarian flavour, with the focus on trusting individuals (big statists being motivated by fear and distrust of people- see socialism), and free markets. The second would be a hard-right rump, socially consevative, pro-business, anti-immigration, etc.
Boyo we are scarily close in age. Maybe we went to school together. I confess I’ve only worked in the private sector and have no aspirations to work for a quango.
Hard to believe that we have such differing memories of the 1970s. I’d always been under the impression that the whole pre-Thatcherite Price Commission/Exchange Controls/98% marginal tax rates/In Place of Strife/British Leyland era was a bit left wing. If that era was too right wing for you, and the level of state intervention too inadequate, then so be it. Each to his own.
As for the demographics thing, yes the conventional wisdom is that the UK is well-placed. But a lot of demographic projections (Lester Brown, Paul Ehrlich) in the last 50 years have proven hopelessly wrong because they relied excessively on extrapolation. I reckon that the same is true in the UK. A combination of the new points system, new Tory restrictions, a weaker sterling and the unwinding of the A8 effect (ie Poles returning home as the living standard gap to their home countries narrows) means that immigration projections might be too high. Investing is all about betting against conventional wisdom, and in this case I’m willing to take that bet in as much as it impacts real house prices in the UK.
Oh. For the record, I didn’t advocate banks going to the wall. I advocated bank’s shareholders and bondholders going to the wall. Big difference
‘Again, I think there is much to learn from left-wing blogs in the US. But it can happen. I’ve seen left-wing bloggers investigate and break many more stories in recent months. There needs to be an increasing drive towards investigative blogging, finding news and digging up dirt on the opposition. Just writing opinion is no longer enough. Left-wing blogging has to focus on two things: collating and publishing news, and doing distributed investigative journalism. More on this another time.’
Brilliant!
Rumbold @ 46,
I’d sort of agree that Labour, as it sees itself, is a busted flush. I don’t think the SDP is the last switch we will ever see. I’d have thought that a lot of the Labour Party would be happier with a Liberal train of thought.
Still, it just makes my lot stronger. For we are the true left.
Any chance that an SNP candidate could be elected much beyond Berwick upon Tweed? If we could take over Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool, well. A bear may dream. This awful state ought to be put to bed. And that includes Labour, Tories and Libertarians
Cauldron – Just one point on your various posts about Asia.
Asian countries may have a relatively small central government they do have very large local government so the comparisons can be a bit misleading. Additionally, what many places don’t have is a national NHS.
The really interesting question is whether in the event of an Asian credit crunch their governments would let shareholders go under.
I suspect that Europe is actually rather stronger than it looks at first glance – as has been the case at many points in history.
Maid Marion, I suspect it is the very lack of the likes of the NHS that Cauldron so admires…
Aren’t you looking forward to all the decisions over the next five years being made by people like him?
Is redistribution wildly popular? You have hundreds of years of election results saying otherwise. People can be as up for talkboard redistribution as they like – all the evidence from election results is that there is an at most mild preference for redistribution. My view (perhaps wrong, I claim no monopoly on truth) is that on this point the left is chasing a phantom.
I’ve got a whole bunch of polls and stats to show otherwise. I think the problem is the way the left frame the debate.
I’ll write more about this another time. But I’m happy on economic grounds. The problem with the Labour party was their perceived economic incompetence and lack of pragmatism rather than people rejecting the welfare state (which is one big redistribution programme).
Sunny (52) – There is a world of difference between, ‘I support a welfare state of some sort,’ and, ‘I support a redistribution of wealth.’
Confusing that is exactly what has got the left into trouble. I take the point that there is an issue about how this debate has been framed, but framing is only one thing.
Working within that framework – the art of the possible – is more important in having an impact. Rants on talkboards don’t cut the mustard I’m afraid.
MM – there is a difference, but the outcomes are the same. Which is why I said the left needs to learn better to frame their debates.
I didn’t say talkboards were enough, but the original point still stands.
Rumbold – we’ve talked about the split between the liberal-left and old-school conservative Labour vote before. I don’t think a big split is going to happen but yes there is that danger. It needs to be addressed.
I don’t think people will be voting over economics (which interestingly Brown polls comparatively strongly over) but the reasons I outlined earlier – principally emotive ones.
This is what raises Labour’s failure to almost Shakespearean proportions – they have largely succeeded in the fundamentals of government but have been brought low by the very thing they once mastered: being liked.
Doulgas:
But would the SNP garner much support south of the wall? After all, its main selling point is Scottish independence. Simon Heffer might vote for you I suppose.
Sunny:
A danger? I would say rather that such a split would resolve many of the differences amongst lefties.
I suppose to Sunny I fall in to the “old school”, yet I personally regard my self as liberal left.
I believe in:
- equality of opportunity (which would mean, in Boyo’s Socialist Utopia) a banning of private education and health, for example, along with a pay differential which did not exceed 10 X from bottom to top
- equality of being, which would enforce biological equality through the law and state institutions. It is ideological in so much as it is post-Enlightenment and views all religions/ cultural traditions as strictly private matters that should not curtail the above rights.
- economically it is relatively pragmatic, based on what works (private ownership of public transport, no, telecommunications, yes)
er… that’s pretty much it.
What your “liberal left” means to me is
- next to none of the above (ok, maybe the last)
- an atomisation of Socialism in to single-issueism to suit the agenda (divide and rule) of the bourgeois.
- a consolidation of inequality, in particular based upon ethnicity, which is essentially racist
That your supposedly “liberal left” is now the mainstream is the greatest tragedy of all, and a massive win for the forces of inequality.
I’d love for you to persuade me otherwise Sunny.
Boyo.
Being a Socialist,you don’t understand money.I’m telling you that you will be unable to steal from one section of society to give to another.People have been working on a solution to irrational thought for several years now.It’s all done bar the shouting (and it will be the Socialists who shout together with the few who knew what was what but were happy to profit).I hate Socialism because it is theft.That will change very shortly.I’m looking forward to it.
Steve S – where do you live? Is it in the UK? Have you ever used the NHS? Did you have to pay for your education? Do you have any idea what you are talking about?
“It’s almost become conventional wisdom that the right ‘gets’ the web better than the left… without the realisation that much of it is driven by people’s annoyance with New Labour than particular love for the Tories. Once the latter get into power the situation will be reversed.”
Really? People will hold you to this assertion, now immortalized on the web. The reason left-wing mentalities never succeed online or anywhere else is simple: they are envious and resent success in others, preferring to smear, snipe, backstab, undermine and heckle. Such is their lot.
Are you now so completely devoid of ideas, intellect and originality that you are reduced to “digging up dirt on the opposition”?
“The reason left-wing mentalities never succeed online or anywhere else is simple: they are envious and resent success in others, preferring to smear, snipe, backstab, undermine and heckle. Such is their lot.”
You’re half right.
A bigger reason is that their ideologies do not stand up to scrutiny. They operate as a faith. Like a religion. And as such they are not hampered by scientific truth, economics, statistics, history or current events or even the truth before their own lying eyes.
That’s why you always hear them speak in intangibles.
And speaking in intangibles doesn’t really stand up online, where every point can be backed up with a link to hard evidence. Many of the right wing blogs succeed in this way. They speak in tangibles. And as such their arguments are far more powerful.
But you’re right about the heckling. You see that much more on left wing blogs. Just look at how often online posters like Sunny resorts to an irrelevant personal attack.
You see, deep-down, the left know they can’t really win the argument.
But that doesn’t prevent them from being hungry for power or influence.
“The election of the Tories is likely to be the single biggest driver of traffic to left-wing blogs.”
Yes, oppositonalism will certainly have a growth spurt…