Tories admit compiling list – but money meant to prop up collapsing businesses has been spent
The Tories have admitted compiling a list of businesses they expect to collapse because of a no-deal Brexit. Comments by front-bencher Michael Gove in Belfast indicated that the Tories’ planned ‘Operation Kingfisher’ said that it was intended to support ‘fundamentally viable businesses’.
But as Sky News mentioned almost in passing, Boris Johnson has already spent what cash the previous government had budgeted, in his desperate attempt to appear to be shoring up public services collapsing after almost a decade of Tory cuts:
SKWAWKBOX view:
The Tories’ carefully-constructed and entirely false reputation for competence was shredded long ago, but now even some of the corporate media are admitting that they are making uncosted plans and promises without a clue where the cash is coming from to pay for them.
Admitting, too, that the no-deal Brexit Johnson is pushing for – and Corbyn has consistently worked to prevent – will be a Tory-inflicted disaster for the UK.
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Any new Tory administration’s first priority has to be keeping the rich backers and MSM owners on side.
Tax breaks tick the box but not if they’re cancelled out by ‘reckless’ spending, particularly if that spending helps the little guy compete on equal terms with Tory donors.
Nice one, Doris.
What a transformation of the Labour Left wrought by 40 years of neoliberalism! Now we vie for capitalist ‘competence’.
The Labour Left was once a force of social transformation, determined to replace the capitalist system with a democratic socialist system based on economic planning and public ownership. This required a transitional programme of extensions of public ownership substantial enough to bring the government a significant measure of control over the economy whilst being at the same time acceptable to the electorate. It also required an absence of legal limits on government’s ability to nationalise and control the economic sectors – ruling out EEC membership and necessitating a hard Brexit.
Now, by contrast, the Labour Left is the force for the interests of the private sector, giving private enterprise the business stability they crave when the Tories are found wanting by the business class.
So according to the Labour Left the interests of the working class are now the interests of the business class! United they stand, divided they fall!
It is sad and troubling to witness the Labour Left’s corruption from pro-working class politics to a politics based on an over-emphasis on mere identity politics, the effect of which is to consolidate the rule of the few at the permanent expense of the many
Danny – you have an ineluctable ability to miss a target the size of a barn door.
Your pursuit of the delusion of a neoliberal-free Brexit dictates everything else.
The Labour Party and the country at large has massive economic and political problems. But they aren’t going to be tackled by dreamy notions of an egalitarian New Jerusalem after Brexit – since the same neoliberal framework applies in or out of the EU. The difference is that after Brexit, the country becomes simply more of a a client state of the US.
You really need to get a grip that, far from being a socialist cure-all, Brexit is a cunning right-wing Tory wheeze for hedge-funders and the finance industry. It’s that simple – and they’re already loading the coffers at the expense of productive enterprise.
The idea that ‘nationalisation’ (a wholly unclear term in its detail) – or rather mechanisms of public accountability and control – is a magic solutionl has long passed its sell-by date. It is simply one economic dimension needed in order to correct the distortions of the past few decades,
Danny… You know that the so called left wing were infiltrated many years ago but the membership are not having it anymore!Look at the fiasco in Brighton of a sitting Labour mp kyle running roumd Brighton with JVL chairman and ex Labour mp ivor caplin threatening intimidating Hotels and venues wet Chris Williamson and socialist Labour party members wish to meet?What have we become when our representatives behave in such criminal behaviour.We have hearings that are not fit for purpose and loyal socialist Labour party members expelled for trumped up charges by committee members who have openly admitted to being high as a kite…..The whole shoddy way of running the Labour party needs looking into and the affiliate organisations attached.If you do not here from me again assume I have been removed,expelled or suffering from prescription drug abuse or chronic fatigue and Paranoia……..Bye bye!
“Look at the fiasco in Brighton of a sitting Labour mp kyle running roumd Brighton with JVL chairman and ex Labour mp ivor caplin threatening intimidating Hotels and venues wet Chris Williamson and socialist Labour party members wish to meet?”
Here’s Greg Hadfield’s detailed account.
https://medium.com/@GregHadfield/a-first-rough-draft-of-history-chris-williamson-mp-in-brighton-and-hove-ec4549714127
Thanks for that link, Maria.
No wonder the ‘antisemitism’ fakers want comparisons to Germany of the 1930’s banned – it’s too close to the bone when their tactics are direct replication of the Brown-Shirts’ intimidatory methods.
Ps……sorry about the spelling punctuation and associated rambling but needs must……the end!
Joseph, JLM chairman, not JVL!
Sincere apologies!
The idea that the Government has ‘run out of money’ is not very pursuasive when we know that the govt provided £435 bn through Quantitative Easing and is able to fund any war it fancies.
Playing into the idea of govt spending being limited (other than to avoid inflation) is not helpful in terms of Labour’s intention to massively invest … and that investment is hugely necessary to turn around the economy. The reality is that decisions about what and where to spend are solely political … and Johnson’s spending spree is clearly seen as sugaring his intention to hold a GE in the autumn.
The question of “how they pay for it” is quite easy. They simply print the money and call it QE. The cost of QE has been around $13 trillion so far. Meanwhile, corporate debt remains at its highest level ever. This debt is solely due to the secular tendency of the rate of profit to fall, and there are no Keynesian solutions to this problem.
Now, the more immediate problem is that debt in a large enough quantity is actually a source of immense political power. In the process of accumulating debt, you reach a point where you become “too big to fail” – if the corporate plutocracy default on their debts, they bankrupt the global economy. Given that, governments, whether Labour or Tory, always foot the bailout bill. I suspect that they are saving the nuclear option – saying “fuck you” to the bank – if the so-called “socialists” – i.e. reformists and left Keynesians – get into any of the major bourgeois institutions of the state and start causing trouble.
The shit that we are in is far deeper than something that can be passively chosen in a ballot box. Obviously, I prefer a reformist government over a reactionary one. But, the question with Corbyn shouldn’t be “what can he do for us?” It should be “what can we do for him?”
Surely the point is that it is only a ‘debt’ in name only. The issuing of govt bonds is really Corporate Welfare which offers a safe investment with interest (and removes potentially inflationary liquidity from the Private Sector).
We have been sold a complete pup by mainstream economics and could monetise 60+% of the national debt with the click of a computer mouse.
Good discussion
Million dollar question is how do we press reset button and get back to some kind of economic normality, bring back moral hazard,
In bankruptcy if your considered insolvent then an order will be made and restrictions put on your ability to borrow money, after 6 years your record is wiped clean,
A return to a gold standard, nationalise pension funds and banks, interest rates raised to minimum 5% ad infinitum
Minimum income through welfare safety net, housebuilding and green new deal,
jail and seize assets of spivs and thieves, smash class system
Bring in PR and John Lewis style corporate governance rules into nationalised industries, leave no room for political interference
Carrot of government contracts and support to ratchet up union representation and seats on board,
Would be a good first 100 days
Fine but please not a return to the Gold Standard or even a ‘gold standard’. It has usually been abandoned whenever adopted because it proved unworkable, eg Nixon in 1971. For a modern example, just look at the mess the Euro is causing and that is effectively a ‘gold standard’.
Boris Johnson’s government has been accused of launching a “shameful spin machine” as it emerged the Cabinet Office will establish a team to monitor reports regarding Britain’s departure from the EU.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-no-deal-michael-gove-cabinet-office-rapid-rebuttal-unit-a9052791.html
“Gove, you idiot – you said FactBlockerPlus was 100% effective but social media’s still printing whatever it wants!
It’s supposed to block their lies, not highlight ours, man!
There are some worrying trends of authoritarian control by RW populist governments.
Leaked Draft of Trump Executive Order to ‘Censor the Internet’ Denounced as Dangerous, Unconstitutional Edict
“In practice, this executive order would mean that whichever political party is in power could dictate what speech is allowed on the Internet.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/11/leaked-draft-trump-executive-order-censor-internet-denounced-dangerous
Video.
“This is all it takes to bust Johnson’s false promises, follow up questions!
It really is that easy, not sure why the rest of the BBC, Sky or ITV can’t do this?
https://twitter.com/D_Raval/status/1161180586880458753