Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Which is sort of fine - but I really resent that with their "sponsored" choice they're normally pushing the worst options to the top

[HVC]

Don't know if bots affect sponsored items, but they do screw ratings and reviews. I know they're trying to fight it, but I don't know how hard.

[garbon]

Amazon use evri there?
Here its always officially marked Amazon vans. Really quick and reliable too.
I wonder if "Sorry We Missed You" gave them a kick to be particularly good in the area.

So I have never been able to figure out a pattern (I also have tried that hard ) but I've had orders from Amazon directly fulfilled by Amazon that have been delivered by Amazon branded delivery person, Royal Mail, Evri and DPD.

Increasingly more Evri...

[Tamas]

Yeah just yesterday DPD brought an Amazon parcel, which was a first for me.

[Sheilbh]

My inner stodgy conservative is not very keen on Just Stop Oil protesting outside Keir Starmer's house. This has also followed some of the pro-Palestine protests targeting specific politicians.

The homes of politicians, like their families, have generally been viewed as off limits for protests and generally the press. If the spouse of a politician isn't out giving speeches and campaigning, then they are entitled to their private life and kids generally are off limits because it's not their fault their mum/dad is a senior politician. Politicians are fair game for the press and protesters in public, but are also entitled to a private life.

I think that's a good norm to have and it's one that's worth defending. I get that some people may sympathise with Just Stop Oil or pro-Palestine protesters and wave it away but you could just as easily imagine, say, anti-immigration or anti-vaxx protesters doing this and we'd be facing intimidation of democracy/breakdown of rule of law/on the path to incipient fascism. I think the rule needs to implied consistently. Not sure they need to be (or can be) arrested and I don't really want to live in a country with police routinely outside senior MPs homes, but hopefully this will be a one off and not a new normal

[Josquius]

My inner stodgy conservative is not very keen on Just Stop Oil protesting outside Keir Starmer's house. This has also followed some of the pro-Palestine protests targeting specific politicians.

The homes of politicians, like their families, have generally been viewed as off limits for protests and generally the press. If the spouse of a politician isn't out giving speeches and campaigning, then they are entitled to their private life and kids generally are off limits because it's not their fault their mum/dad is a senior politician. Politicians are fair game for the press and protesters in public, but are also entitled to a private life.

I think that's a good norm to have and it's one that's worth defending. I get that some people may sympathise with Just Stop Oil or pro-Palestine protesters and wave it away but you could just as easily imagine, say, anti-immigration or anti-vaxx protesters doing this and we'd be facing intimidation of democracy/breakdown of rule of law/on the path to incipient fascism. I think the rule needs to implied consistently. Not sure they need to be (or can be) arrested and I don't really want to live in a country with police routinely outside senior MPs homes, but hopefully this will be a one off and not a new normal

Yep. Not least because it will help to push away people from politics who don't have a 55 acre estate and private security.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah and frankly just more normal people - I also think it's part of the churn, which I think is also a problem. I think you add this to the abuse MPs receive online now and it makes a pretty grim job even worse.

It came to mind after the killing of Jo Cox and David Amess - but our MPs are pretty vulnerable and live in their communities. And I think that's kind of precious. I really hope it doesn't get destroyed. I mentioned before but I have a friend whose dad was a Labour MP in the 90s and 00s and he remembers being a kid who'd be out and about with his dad on the weekends when he was back from London. And in town they would generally be left alone but occasionally some people would come up - sometimes positively because his dad had helped them with an issue or gone to a local event or something similar, but sometimes just to have a go at them. He remembers that at least some of those felt threatening (as a kid).

I also often think of the absolutely horrendous treatment meted out to Charles Kennedy - who was clearly a vulnerable man - and his elderly father by SNP "activists": shit being pushed through his letterbox, his bins being emptied all over his garden. And Kennedy was an MP for one of the most rural constituencies in the country so people were travelling to his house to do that. Obviously he had his issues with alcohol and his mental health but it must have felt so isolating and threatening. It's one of the reasons I had absolutely zero time for Ian Blackford the replacement MP because he was never really willing to call it out as unacceptable behaviour by his supporters.

I know there's a lot of pushback against courtesy/respectability culture - but I think it can help protect something quite important and really positive. And I don't think what we'd end up with is somehow more "accountable" politicians (although with left protesters it always feels a bit like the Militant Tendency theory of representatives), but more remote ones: people who need police protection, who need a secure house with big fences and cameras, who can't/won't use the same streets and shops as their constituents.

[Sheilbh]

I keep on feeling like there's a lot to this (especially on tax and debt interest, currently third biggest cost to the budget). Add in (if Labour deliver on it) planning reform, plus billions of spending on energy transition - and construction is always good for growth. I can't help but wonder if Starmer is quite a lucky general - it doesn't need much to happen in order for things to look a lot rosier:

Cheer up, Sir Keir! It might never happen
Labour is too pessimistic about the backdrop it is set to inherit

image: Nate Kitch
Dec 14th 2023

Usually, politicians try to offer optimism. Sir Keir Starmer's Labour Party specialises in despair. "This is worse than the 1970s," said Sir Keir in one speech. "We are in a hole." Every Labour figure emits the same dirge about Britain's high debt, low growth and exhausted public services. Even moments of hope are tempered with warnings of misery. In a rare bout of cheer, Sir Keir promised: "A realistic hope, a frank hope, a hope that levels with you about the hard road ahead." Hooray!

If Labour wins the next election, as is highly likely, the consensus is that it would inherit a total mess. In 1997 New Labour were handed a booming economy and low debt. In 2010 the Conservatives took over thriving public services. In 2024 Labour will receive neither. But the party harbours a dirty secret. Some problems will fix themselves; some things are better than they look; and a few conundrums can be solved with only a little effort. Pessimism is judicious. Sir Keir would enter office with the lowest expectations of any prime minister since the 1970s. The good thing about low expectations? They are easily met.

Sir Keir has promised to boost economic growth, for instance, which is forecast to crawl along at 0.6% this year and 0.7% next year. But the Office for Budget Responsibility, a fiscal watchdog, is already predicting growth of almost 2% by 2028 through no effort of Labour's own. Labour will undoubtedly claim credit; in truth, growth can hardly get worse.

Labour engages in pantomime booing of Conservative tax increases. In fact, the Tories have done Labour a favour by pushing through the steepest tax rises in the best part of a century. That means the public finances are now highly geared: a small jump in growth can lead to a big jump in tax revenues. The Conservatives took the political pain; Labour can spend the proceeds.

A steep rise in interest rates, which started last year, has hurt both public and private finances. Rising debt costs blew a hole in the Treasury's accounts: Britain now spends about £83bn ($104bn; 3.6% of GDP) a year on interest. Each quarter hundreds of thousands of voters move from a cheap mortgage to an expensive one. But inflation is falling steeply. The markets expect a slew of rate cuts in 2025, just in time to benefit a newish government. Public and private finances will then improve—and quickly. In the course of the next parliament, mortgage renewal will flip from being a moment of despair to one of relief.

Seemingly bold political promises by Labour are easily met. Sir Keir says that his party will whittle down National Health Service (NHS) waiting lists, for instance, but these are due to peak next summer anyway. The queue is likely to shorten from the end of 2024, regardless of who lives in Downing Street.

Reforming Britain's NHS is the more Augean task. After a bout of restrained spending from 2010, the service has been doused in cash in recent years yet barely treats more patients. Extra money always takes time to have an effect. A lag occurred in the 2000s; greater funding initially failed to improve productivity but it did so eventually. Perhaps the NHS really is irredeemable. It is more likely that the fading effects of the pandemic, decent funding and improvements to management will make a difference. If so, the effects will show up slap-bang in the middle of a Labour term.

Other political problems will melt like snow in spring. Sir Keir talks tough on net migration, which hit an all-time high of 745,000 in 2022. Labour's pledges to cut this number will happen anyway. One-off influxes, such as arrivals from Ukraine, will end. The backlog of moves delayed by lockdowns, when people could not travel, will clear. Labour's promise to return net migration to its recent (and still historically high) norms is not much of a challenge, yet it will still be seen as an achievement.

When it comes to the EU, too, things are set to stop getting worse without Labour needing to do much. The pain of Brexit was front-loaded, argues John Springford from the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank. Exporters have already adjusted to the new relationship. It is politically easy for Sir Keir to forge closer ties with Brussels. Since eight in ten Labour voters say they would rejoin the EU, a tighter and more prosperous relationship with the EU is perfectly viable.

Stability in government will bring its own rewards. Britain has been politically chaotic for the best part of a decade. The Conservatives have swung from a vision of a small-state government sat snugly inside the EU to a free-spending one far outside it. In the process it went through five prime ministers, with often radically different agendas, in seven years. Labour would take power with a vague, uninspiring plan to improve Britain's public services without spending money and a pledge to generate growth through modest reforms. But pulling in one direction for five years would still do Britain a lot of good. Call it the "being normal" dividend.

Can't have a triumph of low expectations without a triumph

Some pessimism is justified. Unrealistic spending plans by the Conservatives, subsequently adopted by Labour, will not be adhered to. Tax rises will, almost inevitably, have to plug the gap. Things can always go wrong. Inflation may flare up again, meaning interest rates stay higher for longer. The NHS may indeed prove unreformable. Bored Labour backbenchers will make trouble eventually. Assuming that things will inevitably improve is naive. Yet so is assuming that things must remain terrible.

Given the choice, the Labour leadership would grab the benign backdrop Sir Tony Blair enjoyed in his early years in office. But a golden inheritance brings high expectations. During the 2005 general-election campaign, Sir Tony was harangued by voters complaining that GPs were too quick to see patients. A rotten inheritance, in contrast, means any improvement will do. Sir Keir is set to take office at the bottom of a trough. Luckily for Labour, when you have hit the bottom, the only way is up.

[Josquius]

Much like the Tories in 2010 then.
Only they used this opportunity to push destructive ideologically driven ideas rather than actual useful policies.

[Sheilbh]

What's a non-ideologically driven idea/policy? Isn't the ideological bit just the purpose/the "why" of policy?

Although that's how the Tories framed their project (which was endorsed by the IMF, Economist, FT etc) - "Labour didn't fix the roof while the sun was shining and now we need to fix the public finances" etc. Of course it was ideologically motivated

[Josquius]

What's a non-ideologically driven idea/policy? Isn't the ideological bit just the purpose/the "why" of policy?

Doing something that actually will help the country rather than just fulfil your ideological goals.
Maybe they genuinely believed austerity was a sensible policy. Maybe they were just doing it for corporate profits. Most likely some mix of the two. But its clear by today it was just ideologically over good sense.

Although that's how the Tories framed their project (which was endorsed by the IMF, Economist, FT etc) - "Labour didn't fix the roof while the sun was shining and now we need to fix the public finances" etc. Of course it was ideologically motivated

Ironic in hindsight considering they're the ones who decided the roof needed some new holes whilst free roofing material was on offer.

[Tamas]

I guess Sheilbhs point is that if you think X will help the country then that's your ideology.

[Sheilbh]

Doing something that actually will help the country rather than just fulfil your ideological goals.

But isn't that where ideology exists? To "help the country" do what or become what? That isn't neutral - it has an end goal.

There are perhaps some areas of policy where there is a purely technical and technocratic element, but in general it goes to shaping the society and type of society we live in. I think ideology is ultimately different imagined futures.

Maybe they genuinely believed austerity was a sensible policy. Maybe they were just doing it for corporate profits. Most likely some mix of the two. But its clear by today it was just ideologically over good sense.

I think it was a mistake and the wrong policy - that's my objection. Not that it was ideological v common sense, though for what it's worth I think Osborne and Cameron (and Clegg): genuinely believe it was the right thing for the country, think it was necessary and that it would support their general view that the state should be smaller/more restrained.

I'd also add that on a wider ideological point if you look at ideology as basically the culture and conventions that justify what exists and what already has power, I sometimes wonder how constrained we actually were. I like to think an alternative was possible - but I wonder if, in the context of those endorsements (FT, IMF, Economist) and wider European austerity if there was another route. Or if it would have been perceived as a heterodox basketcase and forced to heel? The Greece comparisons were ridiculous - but would an attempt to escape have actually ended up like Greece?[/quote]
[/quote]

[Sheilbh]

I guess Sheilbhs point is that if you think X will help the country then that's your ideology.

Exactly. I'm on the left and my vision of what the UK (or Commonwealth of Great Britain ) should look like and what will help get there is probably quite distinct from someone who is on the right - either in a conservative or liberal direction.

But there's no doubt that what I think will help/what I think is good policy is shaped by my ideological frame for understanding the world.

[Josquius]

I guess Sheilbhs point is that if you think X will help the country then that's your ideology.

I am rather more skeptical of a lot of the Tories motives than wanting to do what is actually best for the entire country rather than just a certain subset of it.