1) To what extent would a hard Brexit result in a substantial economic downturn from which no recovery would be likely in the short term? The answer depends on the deal/or none that is eventually concluded. It could be that the EU offers a free trade deal, on the grounds that not to do so […]
Posts under ‘Politics’
NPF reports review: Environment, Energy, and Transport
Aug 22nd, 2017 by Chris MacMackin.For reasons best known to themselves, the National Policy Forum has decided to group culture with energy and environmental policy. Meanwhile transport, which is a significant energy consumer and pollution source, is placed with housing and local government. To provide some coherence, I will review transport alongside environment and energy, leaving culture to someone who […]
Share:
Charlottesville, fascism and economic anxiety
Aug 21st, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.What’s the liberal hot take on last weekend’s white supremacist march in Charlottesville, North Virginia? According to Twitter, and never missing an opportunity to be smug, it definitely, definitely was not about “economic anxiety”. Here are some typical examples. They think they’re being clever funny ironic, of burnishing woke creds while caricaturing and mocking those […]
Share:
The NPF Economy, Business and Trade Report – some progress made, but a long way to go
Aug 21st, 2017 by John Penney.In contrast to most of the other NPF Policy Commission reports the Economy Report proposals are more reflective of the new “Corbynite” Left Keynesian agenda than the poor quality material it produced prior to the General Election. This is obviously good in itself, but peculiar in policy development process terms. Thus, this latest report “touches […]
Share:
On Labour’s “sexist” industrial strategy
Aug 20th, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.When Jess Phillips speaks it rarely ends well. On this occasion, seemingly determined to ruffle as many feathers as possible, she is reported as saying that “left-wing men are the absolute worst” when it comes to sexism, and that Labour’s industrial strategy is sexist. Challenged on this by Caroline Molloy, she said she really meant […]
Share:
Why rallies work
Aug 15th, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Rallies in politics matter, and you needn’t take my word for it any more as Alia Middleton at the LSE has crunched the numbers. She found that where Theresa May set down during the election campaign, her visits had little appreciable effect […]
Share:
Five reasons why a new centre party is a stupid idea
Aug 14th, 2017 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.It’s truly silly season if talk of a new centre party is abroad yet again. James Chapman, ex-Daily Mail and former office boss in David Davis’s Department for Exiting the European Union sparked off the latest chittery-chattery in a series of pointed posts on yours and mine’s favourite social media outlet. He said Boris Johnson […]
Share:
NPF Annual Reports – the International Commission
Aug 14th, 2017 by David Pavett.This report by Labour’s Inernational Policy Commission follows the same non-committal, evidence-free, approach that I noted when reviewing the report from the Early Years, Education and Skills Commission. If these reports are not all written by the same person they certainly seem to closely follow the same template. The first section kicks off with hand-waving […]
Share:
Where do we go from here? Notes on a contribution from Compass
Aug 10th, 2017 by David Pavett.The left think-tank Compass recently published an extended essay Mayism without May: the crisis of the Regressive Alliance and the challenge of Corbynism. It is offered as “an analysis of the dominant bloc that determines the common sense of our society” and as a contribution to finding a path to alliances of progressive forces inside […]
Share:
The National Policy Forum Annual Report 2017
Aug 9th, 2017 by David Pavett.The NPF Annual Report was quietly released on 3rd August by placing it on membersnet but making no announcement of the fact. Would it have been so hard to email members to tell them the document is now available? Despite this publicity-shy approach (the report was not even available on the Policy Forum website at […]
