Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

An outraged fake TV reporter who is basically anti-politics who started on Russia Today at that

Always find it crazy that the NYT gets him to do videos when if there was an American with that background and style they'd only appear in concerned articles about disinformation

[Tamas]

An outraged fake TV reporter who is basically anti-politics who started on Russia Today at that

Always find it crazy that the NYT gets him to do videos when if there was an American with that background and style they'd only appear in concerned articles about disinformation

I mean, is he wrong in this video, though? I doubt his antics are financed by Russia.

[Sheilbh]

On striking in general... Well we swung from one extreme of all powerful unions to the other of low wage neo liberal playpen, maybe its time to recognise the (Germanic) euros are onto something with their more balanced approach to labour relations?

I don't think it'll be about Labour. But I think the UK has always (at least for the last hundred years) been a bit of a playpen. We have been an unusually neo-liberal play-pen and a bit of an outlier in Europe, but I think before then we were an unusually planned play-pen - we were an outlier in Europe in terms of nationalisation, national planning etc in the post-war. I think post-war is possibly one of the most socialist societies that were still fully democratic.

I think his argument was that the shared taboo of the post-war era was interwar levels of massunemployment from the 20s and 30s. It was that more than anything else that there was a consensus over. It ran into difficulties (as it did all over west) with inflation and there were various attempts within the politics of that consensus to fix inflation - statutory incomes policies etc. But it couldn't be managed and from about the mid-sixties to late seventies a new "nightmare" or crisis formed around inflation (which was tied to over-mighty unions). The Thatcherite consensus was around the taboo of inflation.

In both cases it's not necessarily because unemployment or inflation are bad in themselves but they were perceived as the cause of wider social ills both in the UK and globally. So mass unemployment was, for the post-war generation, linked to the rise of fascism; inflation in the seventies was linked to very hard-left unions, rumours of military coups, civil disorder.

My suspicion is that the next consensus might be around being exposed to globalisation - I think you see politicians of all stripes talking about industrial strategy, you see the supply chain issues during covid and following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. My thought is that the next "consensus" might be around some form of national self-sufficiency. As ever I don't think the UK is that odd - so we're seeing the US already move ahead of this and Europe looking at it too. I suspect we'll be a playpen and a little extreme again until it all breaks down again

[Richard Hakluyt]

The Daily mail and Express are not really going very big on the strikes (the online versions at least), they are obsessing about the royals instead. I think they do realise that the strikes are not that unpopular with the public.

[Jacob]

That sounds reasonablish Sheilbh. Do you think there is / was a consensus about liberal market driven economies - with New Labour indicating the consensus on that side of the aisle - and that that is part of the current consensus that's in trouble?

[Sheilbh]

That sounds reasonablish Sheilbh. Do you think there is / was a consensus about liberal market driven economies - with New Labour indicating the consensus on that side of the aisle - and that that is part of the current consensus that's in trouble?

I think that's right - New Labour represented that it was a consensus across parties and the left-wing limit of that consensus.

This is the future so who knows, but I think the crash represented a crisis in that model and the attempts to solve it have still been operating within the framework of that liberal market model and the political consensus around it. I think that is running out of road. In my opinion the BofE and ECB trying to tame a structural shift in our energy supply by raising interest rates is another example of trying to solve new problems with the tools of the current consensus. My suspicion of what the new consensus will be about is actually perhaps less about national self-sufficiency than resilience.

From a purely UK perspective I think we were particularly exposed to the financial crisis.  Also we are very exposed to gas prices because of Russia's war but also we don't have much slack - we closed our gas storage (now partially re-opened). We were also very exposed to Russian (and other) money. It's been really striking in the last few years to see Tories and Labour talking about industrial strategy. Since covid the NHS now sources 80% of its PPE domestically and the goal is to get that to 100%. But also striking is the range of sectors that British politicians (in both parties) are now saying are strategic - the government has decided to block the sale of a chip manufacturer, a security minister recently said that the two biggest mistakes from a "resilience" perspective were allowing the sale of two particular high tech companies (one to Google, one to a Chinese company).

I think it's wider than Britain. But I think the idea of, for want of a better phrase, a rules based order where the role for government is largely establish the rules of the game and then lets the market deliver results is over. Even its left wing version of spending lots of money for re-training, public services and communities that aren't doing well isn't going to work.

I think those experiences of vulnerability to the crash, covid, China, Russia's war - and also the now relatively and increasingly regular climate shocks to supply chains is the stuff that's going to form the nightmare/taboo of a new consensus.

[Tamas]

Good comment on the Guardian:

It has been interesting to see that not one company calling out increased profits (which feed into dividends) year after year has ever been accused of "fuelling inflation", nor have house owners or landlords as house prices and rents have rapidly inflated.

And yet the minute workers request a pay rise to help survive in an environment full of people very happy to enjoy increasing asset prices, rents and dividends, as long as they are the recipients, it is "greedy workers cannot have more, it will fuel inflation."

The rank hypocrisy of the rich and their Tory enablers is sickening.

[Sheilbh]

I should say - I went past one of the hospitals where there were striking nurses yesterday and it seemed like almost every car and bus that went past was honking their support. I also read that at a number of the picket lines people have been going down with flasks of tea and mince pies for the nurses. I think it's pretty unusual even when there's a bit of public sympathy with strikers, as there has been with the rail and mail workers.

Also saw this MailOnline headline doing the rounds where they're really tying themselves in circles trying to work out who they're angry at

[Josquius]

...wait...what?
I am confused at what they're attacking here. So despite being on strike they still help somebody...Go them?
And a pox on the weatherman for making it so cold?

Good news however that people are being sensible and pro-nurses. Though it is worth pointing out you are in London. I wonder how things are going in the more marginal bits of the country.

[Sheilbh]

According to the polling about 65% of people, including a plurality of Tory voters, back the nurses.

The stories about flasks of tea and mince pies where from all over (I think the one I read was particularly from Leeds where the nurses were being given too many mince pies ).

[Syt]

"Let them eat cake pie."

[Admiral Yi]

Good comment on the Guardian:

It has been interesting to see that not one company calling out increased profits (which feed into dividends) year after year has ever been accused of "fuelling inflation", nor have house owners or landlords as house prices and rents have rapidly inflated.

And yet the minute workers request a pay rise to help survive in an environment full of people very happy to enjoy increasing asset prices, rents and dividends, as long as they are the recipients, it is "greedy workers cannot have more, it will fuel inflation."

The rank hypocrisy of the rich and their Tory enablers is sickening.

Bad comment from the Guardian.  Neither rising profits nor dividends lead to inflation.

[Jacob]

Bad comment from the Guardian.  Neither rising profits nor dividends lead to inflation.

Is that a fact?

Also you left out the other parts of the argument - that increasing asset prices and rents lead to inflation.

[Admiral Yi]

Is that a fact?

Also you left out the other parts of the argument - that increasing asset prices and rents lead to inflation.

I left rent out because it does lead to inflation.  Rent is one of the components of the CPI.

It's a fact profit and dividends do not show up in the CPI.  It's also a fact that increasing unearned income, just as with earned income, can cause increased demand and therefore demand push inflation.  There is also a wealth effect on consumption that has the same effect.

[Syt]

Tory socialist Britain