tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post1253715736136880753..comments2024-03-29T13:32:22.201+00:00Comments on Capitalists@Work: Labour Makes Its MoveCityUnslickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15929544047783163175noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-67273531676219030992019-11-23T13:45:56.039+00:002019-11-23T13:45:56.039+00:00One thing I have noticed this week, Boris looks ha...One thing I have noticed this week, Boris looks haggard.<br /><br />On the QT special, he looked worse than Corbyn, who Guido keeps suggesting has had a stroke.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-19930098212190244882019-11-23T11:35:05.502+00:002019-11-23T11:35:05.502+00:00I see on the BBC website that the Lenin Museum in ...I see on the BBC website that the Lenin Museum in Ulan Bator has been converted to a Dinosaur Museum. <br /><br />Perhaps they could use Corbyn and McDonnell as exhibits.<br /><br />Don CoxAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-22839427825660953582019-11-23T11:06:32.362+00:002019-11-23T11:06:32.362+00:00The current crop of seat warmers in Parliament and...The current crop of seat warmers in Parliament and the Lord's are just there to give a veneer of accountability to our democratic system.<br />Brexit was simply the first step in an attempt by ordinary people to make those in power do what we want them to do. And we've failed at the first hurdle.<br />But no matter, the pretence of democracy has been exposed. If we can't have change through the ballot box, then the gun and rope is next.BlokeInBrumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-88323145849499660572019-11-23T09:44:22.296+00:002019-11-23T09:44:22.296+00:00Brexit is the right solution to making our own pol...Brexit is the right solution to making our own politicians more accountable for things they blamed on Brussels.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08141297358269863170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-41882940500778571812019-11-23T07:45:29.844+00:002019-11-23T07:45:29.844+00:00Anon @ 9.26pm has it, people are fed up. The cur...Anon @ 9.26pm has it, people are fed up. The current system is not working.<br /><br />No Deal Brexit looks like a big change, Nationalisation looks like a big change. No one has any idea how either would work out, devil in detail as always. But Boris looks like going for Brino and in the end not much change at all. If you want change then either Farage or Corbyn have it on offer.<br /><br />Assuming we get Boris and Brino then we get the worst of all worlds, no real change plus economic disadvantage. We will be slowly screwed by the EU. No good whining about 'wicked old EU', Brexit in any form is a self inflicted wound.<br /><br />We are returning full circle to why are people fed up and what to do about it. Neither No Deal nor Nationalisation nor Brino look like credible solutions, the whole process looks like a huge waste of time. We got into this Brexit schtick because people were fed up. As always Brexit was the wrong solution to the wrong problem.<br /><br />To see what to do and where to go we would be wiser to look at other cold wet countries and see how they run things. Perhaps we might look at our adversarial political systems. Getting rid of that would be a lot cheaper than any sort of Brexit or Nationalisation and more likely to deliver reasonable results.jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00470816959796395467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-20435726854274914072019-11-22T21:26:47.593+00:002019-11-22T21:26:47.593+00:00@Don - because it's a different government?
A...@Don - because it's a different government?<br /><br />Anyone south of 40 won't remember the last lefty Labour government, they do remember tales of Thatcher the Hellspawn without wondering how she kept winning elections though.<br /><br />And they also know commuting is arse, and broadband can be a crapshoot, and they're two major components of their daily life.<br /><br />It's not rocket science that if enough of the population think the current way of doing things isn't working out for them, they'll think it's time to try something new.<br /><br />Now Labour hasn't fully figured that out, if they had then they'd be ahead in the polls, and any overlap is coincidence.<br /><br />But people *are* fed up, and governments have been terrible at both communicating the benefits of capitalism and blunting the downsides of it.<br /><br />Personally I think the whole privatised vs nationalised debate is a false dichotomy, the two can co-exist.<br /><br />Take public transport - routes that are financially viable should be the province of competition, those that aren't but are socially useful should be under the local/national government control.<br /><br />If the Tories get in and things stay the same, they're just sending RSVPs to the Marxists.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-20032287911637998832019-11-22T19:53:14.256+00:002019-11-22T19:53:14.256+00:00Why would anyone think that a government that has ...Why would anyone think that a government that has made a mess of, for instance, the railways would do well at running nationalised railways ?<br /><br />The fundamental problem is that the larger an organisation is, the more difficult it is to manage, and the more Parkinson's Law and internal politics take over from getting on with the job. Nationalisation increases the size of the organisation. It is as bad as company mergers.<br /><br />Don CoxAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-7186762823445656542019-11-22T18:40:40.993+00:002019-11-22T18:40:40.993+00:00@CU - the reason nationalising X and Y is gaining ...@CU - the reason nationalising X and Y is gaining traction has been the governments failure to make markets work.<br /><br />Broadband is a great case in point, BT/OpenReach, along with the lack of skills, should have been dealt with properly at least a decade back as it's a bottleneck across the board.<br /><br />I don't think nationalising is the solution, but the current setup isn't working and the government has seemed disinclined to deal with it. So, shock horror, people are willing to try a different tack.<br /><br />Same with trains.<br /><br />Energy is a fuck-up for a whole raft of reasons.<br /><br />Just as people were fed up enough with the establishment to vote Leave, so they are with the current system to kick against it.<br /><br />That's a failing of government, and politicians more interested in sinecures at big companies than the people they're meant to represent.<br /><br />So the current tolerance for nationalisation is just years of failings coming home to roost.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-58338794617537992062019-11-22T16:23:27.432+00:002019-11-22T16:23:27.432+00:00" a huge Tory win to reset the window"
...<i>" a huge Tory win to reset the window"</i><br /><br />I hope it's not too big. We might just get a Brexit of sorts, but Boris would almost certainly go for amnesty for up to ten million criminals.<br />I'd rather he announced a Border Force beefed up from the ranks of unemployed Brits and with hefty bounty bonuses, although I'm sure some would be bribeable.<br /> <br />I'm never sure why any UK legislation should apply to people who are here illegally. They should be declared outlaws.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-44594456043544081682019-11-22T15:51:00.767+00:002019-11-22T15:51:00.767+00:00@ I don't think the number of employees would ...@ <i>I don't think the number of employees would be very high</i><br /><br />I once conducted a senior Gazprom exec around my company's UK energy assets. Day 1 was a modern gas processing plant: at the end of the tour, he said (via his translator) <i>Ask him how many men it takes to operate this plant</i>. The answer came back: "2". He said, <i>No, no, he didn't understand the question, ask him again</i>. <br />When the answer was reaffirmed (and the two men were pointed out to him), he shook his head sadly and said: <i>In Russia, it would take 200 ...</i><br /><br />Day 2 was a very big gas-fired power plant**. Same story, except this time it was "10" and "one thousand".<br /><br />Trouble is, <b>Don</b>, Labour's manifesto is a <b><i>workerist</i></b> policy, meaning that they'll be letting the unions insist on "20" and "1,000". <br />________ <br />** http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2013/10/so-farewell-teesside-power.htmlNick Drewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13670594203660051701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-30050917362244473062019-11-22T14:06:12.803+00:002019-11-22T14:06:12.803+00:00It should be possible to make specialised high-tec...It should be possible to make specialised high-tech steels from recycled Iron and steel, using electric furnaces. A nuclear power station would be needed to provide the electricity.<br /><br />I don't think the number of employees would be very high.<br /><br />Really, these old Marxists are living in the distant past, when Britain had coal and Iron ore mines, and thousands of miners.<br /><br />Don CoxAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-78839145841207896892019-11-22T13:57:02.860+00:002019-11-22T13:57:02.860+00:00All things to all (wom)men, trans, homs, Q...
Whi...All things to all (wom)men, trans, homs, Q...<br /><br />Which sums up one of the reasons why we can never have sensible politics ever again. The Tory manifesto would have been classed Labourite not so long ago. <br /><br />(Greenism reconciled with mass immigrationism, female emancipation squared with paternalistic fundamentalism.)E-Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16657071992016670517noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-62393510557593938122019-11-22T13:35:57.459+00:002019-11-22T13:35:57.459+00:00"A thriving steel industry "
Hmmm. Trie..."A thriving steel industry "<br /><br />Hmmm. Tried making steel without coal? Elby the Beserkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15060519682739666145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-69238923623883604152019-11-22T11:47:49.326+00:002019-11-22T11:47:49.326+00:00Most worryingly for me, too busy at the moment to ...Most worryingly for me, too busy at the moment to access the real world, is the moving of the Overton window far to the left. This may well fail, as it did last time, but the twitter (I know!) and my office is full of people who now think maybe nationalsing broadband has some merit. <br /><br />Eh? What the hell? This, therefore has worked a little already. As it did last time. The media play along, ignoring the drag left because they equate brexit with the far right. <br /><br />The only remedy will be a huge Tory win to reset the window, which I hope for but fear may not happen. CityUnslickerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15929544047783163175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-2161829573626321052019-11-21T20:26:09.761+00:002019-11-21T20:26:09.761+00:00They're trying to win some heartlands back, wh...They're trying to win some heartlands back, who have turned their back due to Brexit.<br /><br />Quite interesting seeing all the parties adopting to what amounts to Stop Boris - they know if they strip enough votes off the Tories, it means they can coalition.<br /><br />None of them are saying it, but the aim seems to be on the w/c 16th December that Corbyn, Krankie and Swinson can piously inform the nation that, yes, the Tories got the most seats, but they're going to put their differences aside to stop them governing.<br /><br />If that does come to pass, quite what the people will make of it is another thing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-6678958527792961582019-11-21T19:58:16.347+00:002019-11-21T19:58:16.347+00:00Yes, 're-directing' pension funds is a maj...Yes, 're-directing' pension funds is a major (and fairly explicit) part of the global deep-green plan; and McDonnell would love to do this in the name of his greenwashed workerist plans<br /><br />(of course, some of the deep-greens are pure bandits with not an ounce of altruism in their bones, just salivating at the thought of skimming-off from these massive putative transfers - they mean to impose themselves as mandatory brokers on the process, with fees to match)<br /><br />It'll be ironic if, by overcooking this manifesto, McDonnell has blown his chances of doing so in the UKNick Drewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13670594203660051701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-73171924685921921272019-11-21T17:55:12.076+00:002019-11-21T17:55:12.076+00:00It does say: "Over the past three decades, Br...It does say: "Over the past three decades, Britain has reduced its emissions at the expense of domestic industry by offshoring production. This is an accounting trick, not a solution.", which is rather better than I might expect.<br /><br />But there does seem to be an awful lot of nationalisation in there --- presumably, mostly by expropriation of private assets. There's a rather strange commitment on the surplus of the National Coal Board pension scheme --- important to somebody, but hardly a burning issue.<br /><br />I would expect the private pensions of everybody who is not an ex-miner to be seized and reallocated by the state.DJKnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-4753023511804645552019-11-21T17:44:49.160+00:002019-11-21T17:44:49.160+00:00I haven't read the manifesto and don't int...I haven't read the manifesto and don't intend to. <br />Can anyone tell me the point of them?<br />As we all know too well,they aren't legally binding and the Politicians will change or ignore it as they please.BlokeInBrumnoreply@blogger.com