The SNP aren’t really anti-austerity, but they do have a greater degree of control over how they raise and spend their money. That means they can give their kids free education and free prescriptions. Compared to the banker’s paradise down South, I appreciate that it can look like anti-austerity. Fuck, it looks like communism at the moment!
They have some extremely principled Westminster MPs who are very good at holding the government to account. North of the border, they deserve great credit for investing in their young and mitigating some costs, but in many other respects, it’s business as usual.
Labour could promise another referendum, make it binding, for some future date. Big risk, because they could vote to leave, but then the SNP threaten to sort a new referendum out all the time anyway. It could negate a lot of the SNP vote.
Another huge thing we could do is move the capital north. It seems crazy, but countries have done it before. Brazil built one from scratch. Westminster seems very remote to parts of the country, both in distance and in terms of its interests. Manchester comes up frequently when people navel-gaze on the issue, but I genuinely think Liverpool is a better fit if we want to maintain links with the Irish.
We English can be some right fuckers in our treatment of people from other parts of the Union, and I’ve never understood it. I have been to every part of this union, and to the Republic of Ireland too, which no longer is part of the Union, but very much influenced by it. Apart from a few things dividing along sectarian lines, there’s no difference bar the accent and sense of identity.
If we want to hold this union together, we go a funny way about it sometimes. Respect goes a long way.
The whole concept of Austerity was a bit of a ruse for Osborne/Cameron to implement their Thatcherite agenda. The banking crisis just gave them an excuse and they were only held back by the coalition with the Lib Dem’s.
Quote from Paul Krugman - Nobel winning economist and NYT writer
I don’t know how many Britons realise the extent to which their economic debate has diverged from the rest of the western world – the extent to which the UK seems stuck on obsessions that have been mainly laughed out of the discourse elsewhere. George Osborne and David Cameron boast that their policies saved Britain from a Greek-style crisis of soaring interest rates, apparently oblivious to the fact that interest rates are at historic lows all across the western world.
Problem with the SNP pap, (and I live up here) is they’re not immune to ridiculous voter friendly spin policy… good examples are free prescriptions and eye tests for all… Now I dont need free stuff and am prepared to pay so that those that cant [pay, get the free stuff (fuck me what an old fashioned socialist I am )… and also see the money saved go on something everyone benefits from… like the fucking roads, which are the worst in the UK… but you see despite the SNP freezing council tax (for last 4 years) and so local government have their hands tied, when asked about such infrastructure being shit, they blame…?.. yep Westminster and the nasty English… Its about priorities and their’s are to provide voter friendly quick wins, and use every opportunity to blame Westminster for lack of investment in larger scale projects… and naturally this plays very well up here… so not as principled astehy like to pretend they are… and given they also attract those with more sinister views on nationalism in Scotland, that is something I can not accept.
The company recorded a pre-tax profit of £722,000 on turnover of £34 million in 2014/5. The highest paid director, possibly Peter Osborne, was paid £684,000.[citation needed] Using the 2014/15 UK income tax calculator reveals this would result in combined income tax and national insurance deductions of £310,838.28.[12]
In 2015 it was revealed by Private Eye that, despite having made a pre-tax profit of £722,000, the company paid no corporation tax for the year 2015 – thereby avoiding a “tax bill” of £179,000.[13][citation needed] The magazine also revealed that the company had not paid any corporation tax since 2008 and had even received a tax credit of £12,000 in the year 2010.[14][citation needed] This was due to the company making losses totaling £9 million between 2009 and 2014, which allow the carry forward of credits for losses against the 2015 corporation tax bill.[15] The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, owns a 15% stake in the company.
Uhm… I would seriously ask the question: who the fuckity fuck would appoint someone as chancer (sic) of the exchequer who invests in a company that turnsover of 34 mill and only makes a 2.2% net margin? and losses for 5 years in a row? I mean fuck me, does a Chancer not need a little business and economic accumen? A cynic might assume that they are actually making some money… somehow?
Back to austerity. And why not. Not a scam as such, more an ideological position masquerading as necessity. Austerity has been presented as something that just has to be done, much as its bezzie mate, neoliberal economics, is presented as something that works rather than an ideology.
There’s never been any doubt in my mind that the savage cuts to publlic spending made by Cameron and Osborne have been a matter of choice and not of necessity. Had economic circumstances been rosier they’d have done much the same, just less viciously. Their belief in the primacy of the market and a minimal state would always have been there; Osborne’s economicallly illiterate pledge to maintain a current account surplus indicates just that, along with their instinct for political gain over all else.
Old-style liberal economics didn’t work. Neoliberalism doesn’t work either; it never has, it doesn’t now, and it never will. The same goes for the political ideology that accompanies it. The austerity we currently see is just another manifestation of neoliberal economics. It doesn’t work either.
Old-style liberal economics didn’t work. Neoliberalism doesn’t work either; it never has, it doesn’t now, and it never will. The same goes for the political ideology that accompanies it. The austerity we currently see is just another manifestation of neoliberal economics. It doesn’t work either.
What is Neo Liberalism? And explain how you think liberal economics didn’t work please
What follows is an over-simplification of economic policy over the past 100 years or so.
Liberal economics is generally seen as what existed pre Keynes. An essentially laissez-faire approach, with minimal state intervention barring a cerain degree of macro-economic policy from governments (whether to adhere to the gold standard being an example of such policy). It has no direct connection with political parties, Liberal or otherwise; it was simply the generally accepted and orthodox view of how an economy works, until:
Keynes (and others, but his is the name that has stuck) challenged the view that the only way to run an economy was to simply let things happen. Rather, he took the view that a government could and should intervene to mitigate the worst effects of unbridled capitalism, and to spread the benefits of its better effects. Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’, which pulled the US out of the great depression of the 1930s while many other economies were still struggling, was a prime example of Keynesian economics in action. The Labour government elected in 1945 also followed this general approach and it in turn became the default economic policy in this country, regardless of which party was in government, until:
In 1979, Margaret Thatcher was elected. The economic policy of her government (driven by Keith Joseph among others - Thatcher’s grasp of economics was rudimentary at best) was a return to the market-led, laissez-faire approach that was pursued prior to the rise of Keynesianism. The smaller the state, the less intervention by the gevernment, the better. This economic model was and still is referred to as neoliberalism. It’s essentially a return to old-style liberal economics, but with a profound and scary ideological underpinning. Sadly, all UK governnments since 1979 have adopted a neoliberal approach to economic policy.
On the second point, liberal economics didn’t work for the simple reason that it had the inherent feature of a boom/slump cycle, repeated every seven years (roughly). Economic growth would lead to over-production; this would in turn lead to surplus, leading in turn to falling demand and, inevitably, recession and (at worst) depression. After some time the recession bottoms out, the economy begins to grow, and the cycle kicks off again. In the long term, the economy will always grow, but the effects of recession or depression are massive and horrible.
This was Obama’s biggest mistake in terms of what he said. Yet is basically endorsing the idea of austerity:
In fact this is nonsense. When everyone is tightening their belts, it is time for the the government to spend because otherwise the economy keeps sinking.
)… and also see the money saved go on something everyone benefits from… like the fucking roads, which are the worst in the UK… but you see despite the SNP freezing council tax (for last 4 years) and so local government have their hands tied, when asked about such infrastructure being shit, they blame…?.. yep Westminster and the nasty English… Its about priorities and their’s are to provide voter friendly quick wins, and use every opportunity to blame Westminster for lack of investment in larger scale projects… and naturally this plays very well up here… so not as principled astehy like to pretend they are… and given they also attract those with more sinister views on nationalism in Scotland, that is something I can not accept.
