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Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
Although Boris and Trump (and most of the populists emerging all over the shop) are buffoons, it has to be accepted that the current liberal logjam is better overthrown by buffoons than by people who know what they are doing.


The populists are those behind peoples vote. The clue is in the name. Christian and Social democracy have evolved to act as a brake on liberalism. Liberalism (with a small l) is currently fracturing the nation state.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Prescriptive solutions should always be avoided whenever possible. Take interest rates. When they are low, economic activity is low because there are always more investors than borrowers. So why are they low at the moment? Because central banks have set them low via Bank Rate. Why? To encourage economic activity! Which has been low for ten years and why interest rates have been low for ten years. Why do they believe this? Because in times of extreme slump emergency ultra low rates -- for interbank rescue purposes and to get any kind of economic activity going -- is justified. After that, artificially low rates just encourage over-speculative projects and house price bubbles. Meanwhile the legions of investors can't get any return on their money and can't do all the things that keep the economy thriving.

No central bank can do the sensible thing and raise interest rates because then the world's money would come flooding in and their currency would go to ruinous heights. The solution? Abolish Bank Rate. It is necessary, we are told, because Central Banks are the lenders of last resort. Fine, whenever someone wants a loan of last resort, work out an appropriate interest rate and charge it them. Meanwhile let interest rates go where they may. They'll be pretty near exactly where's best. It may even be what they are now. Nobody can say, and nobody knows a hell of a lot more than "Professor" Danny Blanchflower.
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Mick Harper
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This was all brought on because I've been reading about British post-war economic policy. Every cabinet of every stripe spent all their time defending the fixed rate of the pound. They tried might and main, then there would be a crisis, then a devaluation, then more might and main, then round the houses again. Until one bright spark said, 'Let's not bother.' The pound was left to float and they've never worried about it from that day to this. Except all the time but that's just the equivalent of worrying about the weather.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Come on guys is this the best you can do.

https://bit.ly/2CkZRQX
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:
We're coming under a lot of pressure to ban liberals from the AEL. I say, No! Who's with me?


I think the consensus is either ignoral or a ban.

Wiley was stupid enough to cross the line?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbUvFCj_qqo
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Mick Harper
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People are stupid because they refuse to cross the line. Imagine having to be a Jehovah's Witness all your life. Well, it's like that being a liberal. Or a conservative. Or a Manchester United supporter. Or believing in Plate Tectonics. Anything you adopted in late adolescence.
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Mick Harper
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A good example of (historical) public vs private got an hour’s airing on that nest of public sympathisers, Radio Four Extra. In the red corner Lord Reith and his Give the People What I Want policy backed by the gazillions of the BBC licence fee; in the blue corner Lenny Plugge and his Give the People What They Want policy backed by some Benedictine monks in Fécamp, France. Result: eighty per cent market share to Radio Normandie. The BBC demanded the British government demand the French government demand Plugge be unplugged (© ITMA). When that failed they had to call on the German government to get the job done.

NB There are alternative theories about Rommel's panzer thrust towards Fécamp in 1940.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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John Denham has written a piece on English Nationalism in today's Guardian.

It's OK to support England at sport, by waving flags and donning face paint..... but must avoid any notion of English national interest in the political sphere. Unless you want to be considered a fascist.
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Mick Harper
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'Party before country' is going to have an interesting effect in the next few months. Either
1. The ERG are going to discover, because they wouldn't compromise on some footling thing or other, that they aren't going to get Brexit at all or
2. The Labour Party, because they refused to back a 'Tory' Brexit, are going to get a hard Brexit. And probably a hard Tory government. Even possibly a Lib Dem official opposition. It'll be 1874 all over again!

The one thing that has changed is that the argument "You can't keep having referendums until the right result is produced' doesn't work any more because the Remoaners are entitled to say, "We tried. We really did. For three years. You witnessed it for yourself. It was your guys who blew it. You can have another go in ten years." This one will go 60-40 to stay in.

All this of course applies to Scottish independence and polls suggest a majority to leave. Just as we have decided to stay. Luckily Donald Trump is Scottish and will agree to a trade deal with them. Nor will we veto a Scottish application to join the EU for old time's sake. Stretch it out a bit though for old time's sake. The EU's a club, you don't just hop in and hop out as the mood takes you. Ditto the UK.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:

The one thing that has changed is that the argument "You can't keep having referendums until the right result is produced' doesn't work any more because the Remoaners are entitled to say, "We tried. We really did. For three years. You witnessed it for yourself. It was your guys who blew it. You can have another go in ten years." That'll go 60-40 to stay in.



In actual fact Raab, Moggy and Johnson all voted for the Withdrawal Agreement.
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Mick Harper
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Hardly! They voted against it (including resigning over it) at every opportunity before, at the very last minute when they realised it might mean losing Brexit itself, they voted for it. But since they had spent months denouncing it as the work of the devil, it was hardly surprising that their dim followers refused to vote for the devil. These three luminaries now have to explain a) why they voted for the work of the devil at all and b) if they could manage to do so, why they didn't vote for it when it actually would have delivered Brexit.

Of course they won't have to if the EU grants them a fig leaf and they can vote for Devil Plus. It will be interesting to see if the rump ERG make good on their promise not even to vote for Devil Double Plus Minus Backstop. The Labour Party will be in a right pickle if that's what Baurice returns with since they'll have to vote against it too -- it's still a Tory Brexit! Presumably they are calculating the country will forgive them for prolonging the nightmare for a bit longer. Even they can't remember what it was about the May deal they had any objections to. Something about not enshrining workers' rights with sufficient vigour, I think it was.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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On Revolutionary Tactics and Strategy.

During the stage of the national revolution, the vanguard of the party must concentrate on building a broad alliance of workers, students and the dispossessed for the more important future struggles that lie ahead, that is the overthrow of capitalism, and introduction of socialism. It is quite wrong to make an opportunistic bid for power before the consciousness of the masses has reached the full maturity of that already obtained by the vanguard and its leadership.

Jeremy has forgot his Lenin.

Even worse, everybody in this digital age, now being aware of Lenin, has spotted Jeremy's ruse.

Jeremy and Jim would have been better off not to parade their Marxist -Leninist credentials until after they came to power.

But Jeremy forgot his Castro as well.

You have to know the classics.
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Mick Harper
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This was my analysis too except I'm not entirely sure to what extent Jeremy has been let in on it. He is not after all a Leninist in the way that Lansman, Mcdonnell and Seumas Milne are. The Long March has either just begun or is near its end.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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The suggestions for a Government of National Unity, Wiley has seen, are as follows.

A cross-party, all-white female cabinet.

A Jeremy Corbyn-led cabinet.

A dream team of Ken Clarke and Harriet Harman.

This is remarkable. We now have so many good options to choose from, particularly if we choose to combine the best of these three ideas together.

Wiley would like to suggest that we press on with a vote of no confidence, and then hold a series of indicative votes to select a new PM and cabinet, that can unify the nation.

I commend my idea to the speaker of the house, as I am sure it can be post facto constitutionally justified by the series of indicative votes that worked so well last time, when parliament took control of the Brexit process.

"Here Here"
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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What about Boris Johnson? He doesn't have any a priori commitments so would be ideal for the job. It's only on a temporary basis after all.
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