Should Theresa May resign?

Its funny isn’t it, that the people you always here parroting the same old ‘there is no alternative’ claptrap about the present limping, knackered model of free-market capitalism are the ones who have done very nicely out of it thank you very much, and who’s wealth and position insulate them from its failures

You never hear ‘yeah…. my business went to the wall during the banking crash, because the economy stopped functioning, and I lost my house and nearly killed myself due to the resulting depression…

but you know what…. I can’t see any alternative to just cracking on with the same thing. I mean that whole socialism thing is just a bloody, joke isn’t it? In fact, any restrictions at all on ‘the Market’ are tantamount to communism, which never works.

Because at the end of the day, as George used to say – we’re all in it together – and he was right. The economic pain was shared out equally, and those whose reckless behaviour and limitless greed got us all into this mess paid a very heavy price indeed”

Oh… hang on a minute….

Yeah… who the hell can see the appeal of maybe trying something different, something that seems a bit more centred on actual people, and their needs, instead of just paying higher dividends to shareholders? Corbyns popularity, particularly amongst the young, is absolutely mystifying, isn’t it?

False dreams, false solutions, false hope….welcome to the new world.

As I said somewhere else before. Restraint and realism needs to be lead from the top. Until people see corporations and the rich paying tax, CEOs and senior civil servants paying themselves realistic salaries, and not being taken for fools about magic money trees etc then they won’t accept politicians telling them this is as good as it gets.

You say economics didn’t fail. I find that difficult to accept considering the clusterf*** of the past 10 years is the result of a system which has implemented pretty much everything that the economic orthodoxy told it to. Economists have not been passive observers in this neo-liberal experiment, they’ve been central to the whole thing apart from a few dissenting voices.

Education mol – that’s the key. People are financial illiterate in general. That needs sorting.

We have the ability to restrict credit and the body to do it. They were asleep at the wheel.
My childhood was scared by government attempts to manage the cycle – they were crap at it too

economists are not a homogeneous group – some saw it coming (and made money), others didn’t (and lost it)

There was no failure of capitalism, there was a failure of controlling debt

Beyond the rhetoric our tax system is highly progressive and works pretty well. To suggest otherwise is nonsense. It’s not perfect, but that is a different thing.

Binners people have been fooled by snake oil over many years. Jezza if offering nothing new – excuse the double meaning there.

trying something different,

Places *have* tried something different. Liberal economics has become the defacto way to run an economy because everything else has been tested and failed.

Corbyns popularity, particularly amongst the young, is absolutely mystifying, isn’t it?

Not really mystifying it was a combination of Labours core vote combined with a set of giveaway election promises including free University Education. Always going to be popular, especially with the young. Not popular enough to win, of course.

True. Yesterday’s vision about the unbridled wonders offered by ‘more of the same’ sounded absolutely fantastic!

Lets hear it for free-market capitalism, and this lot leading us to the sunlit uplands !!!

In the midst of flatlining wages, exorbitant house and asset prices, yet more echelons of utility company shareholders wanting dividends paid for by consumers with no real recourse to an actual market and of course, the prospect of being £50k in debt for going to university, I for one am delighted that the Conservatives want to keep everything exactly the same and will be very keen to vote to continue the status quo, even if Brexit makes the pound in my pocket worthless.

Not.

TM will be gone in next few days – v strong rumours
£ already falling – short RBS trades in place
Be careful what you wish for

Ding, ding, round three….

I have to be honest, I’m happy enough with the tories progress during these brexit talks. There’s no danger they’ll ever get them completed. Which is funny as the EU27 haven’t even really started playing funny buggers yet.

What that means though is that we are in utter limbo until these talks fail.

They played silly nuggets from the start 😯

I would imagine that with Boris at the helm Brexit talks would go monumentally tits up within seconds, as he manages to massively insult everyone involved. He’s already absolutely despised in Brussels, for good reason

Can you imagine what a laughing stock we’d be internationally?

And this particular Anglo-Saxon model of neo-liberal free-marketcapitalism, that apparently is so bloody brilliant, would have Boris Johnson and Donald Trump as its joint figureheads. Something to look forward to, eh? 😯

Liberal economics has become the defacto way to run an economy because everything else has been tested and failed.

Apart from as a term it is pretty meaningless and is used to cover a whole range of different economies. From the current UK model to European and other models.
So you would need to define what you think by liberal economics and what range it covers before you can declare everything else failed.

economists are not a homogeneous group

They’re not, but the number of dissenters from the neo-liberal free market orthodoxy is vanishingly small. Or at least it was pre-2009. It’s more like a religion than science.

From the Guardian website just now

Charles Walker, vice chair of the Conservative backbench 1922 committee, told BBC News a few minutes ago that Theresa May was doing “an outstanding job” and that most of his fellow Tory MPs thought the same.

That sounds to me an awful lot like a Premiership manager getting ‘the full backing of the board’

Gone by the morning

Liberal economics has become the defacto way to run an economy because everything else has been tested and failed.

There are quite different variations across Europe, with different results. Norway as an example – what did they do with their North Sea oil?

What next then, boris, hammond, mogg, election?

election?

This is the big question. Given their non-majority it would be a disgrace if they changed leader without also calling a new election. If they end up with Boris or god forbid Rees-Mogg however I wonder how many of the anti-brexit centrists would be up for abstaining in a no-confidence vote.

nah the entire party is just gonna hunker down and try and pretend that none of this is happening

just watch theyll keep spinning the same Brexit BS after the next round of talks

The Tory frontrunners never get elected leader. And the more they obviously want it – or in Boris’s case, feel they-re entitled to it – the less chance they have

Doesn’t it work that it’s the MP’s who whittle it down to 2, then the membership get to vote?

Boris won’t get past the MP’s. He’s pissed too many of them off. Mogg wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole

One thing’s for sure. It’ll usher in full-scale civil war within the party as the Europhile and swivel-eyed wings of the party sling their uneasy truce out of the window

There are quite different variations across Europe, with different results. Norway as an example – what did they do with their North Sea oil?

If you’re suggesting that instead of increasing our already massive national debt we instead accumulate £400 billion as Norway did with much of their oil money I’m all ears. (We could call it Inverse-Corbynomics or Inverse-Trumponomics.)

If you’re suggesting we reduce our population to the point where 100pc of our energy needs can be met with Hydroelectric power from our nearby mountain lakes then I am all ears.

I suspect you’re actually saying we should pretend we had 400m to blow and spend it whilst burning fossil fuels as fast as we can. Which I’m less keen on.

teamhurtmore – Member

They played silly nuggets from the start

Aye, but they’ve no even had to try as yet.

OOB I’m not suggesting anything as a course of action for the UK. I was merely pointing out that there’s variations in liberal democracy. As far as I know, Norway is still a capitalist economy, in which the government decided to set up a state owned oil company and keep all the profits for the benefit of the country (if I understand that correctly) whereas we just flogged it off.

Tory MPs are all lining up to sing her praises. Apparently, its the greatest speech that was ever given by anyone EVER!

She really is ****ed!

Gone by tomorrow

The Tory party are quite happy to be a disgrace if it avoids calling a GE. They won’t even realise they are a disgrace. The idea that a change in Tory leader automatically results in a GE is fantasy land stuff. So be careful what you wish for – because as has been said plenty of times on here (by me at least 😉 ) as useless and incompetent as TM might be, I’m struggling to think of a realistic alternative who wouldn’t be worse (I’d settle for Hammond, but I don’t think he has any realistic chance of leading the current party). About the best we can hope for is somebody else just as ineffectual.

binners – Member

Gone by tomorrow

Don’t see it, she’s got control of the ship until it crashes. And everyone can see the crash coming.

Don’t see it,

Yeah under normal circumstances she would be gone but really not sure now.
Its not that she is now utterly powerless its just she makes a handy target, sorry, figurehead.

the government decided to set up a state owned oil company and keep all the profits for the benefit of the country

Hmmm, rein in spending today so there’s less debt in the future and lower interest payments. It might just work…

Don’t see it, she’s got control of the ship until it crashes. And everyone can see the crash coming.

But you can just feel all the squirming, manoeuvring and general sucking up going on under the surface. Their patience just isn’t that good. You don’t get to be Gove/Boris/Mogg by being measured and careful.

Norway as an example – what did they do with their North Sea oil?

Not really a fair comparison. Norway has/had far more fuel per head of the population than the uk and have far greater opportunities when it comes to natural resources. That is how they can afford such great social care policies.

Norway is one of the greenest countries with hydro power and electric cars, etc, which is fantastic if you ignore the fact that they pay for that greenness with the proceeds of the oil they sell.

As far as I know, Norway is still a capitalist economy

I was in Norway recently and a Oslo local* described the country as a thinly veiled communist state.

* I should disclose this was a in a bar and we had been there for a while.

Not really a fair comparison. Norway has/had far more fuel per head of the population than the uk and have far greater opportunities when it comes to natural resources.

The point I am making is that the state kept and invested the money. I’m not saying we could or should be like them – I am saying there are different approaches. Both Norway and the UK had a resource – they invested in it for the people, we sold it to big business.

I was in Norway recently and a Oslo local* described the country as a thinly veiled communist state.

Sounds like a good advert for communism to me.

* I should disclose this was a in a bar and we had been there for a while.

Must have been an expensive evening – hope work was paying!

They weren’t drinking, just sitting there. Hence the anger, they couldn’t afford drinks 🙂

Maybot seems to have been knocked off the front page by Ted Heath. Makes you think …

martinhutch – Member

I’m not sure I could name anyone in the current crop of politicians who is capable of any form of leadership. Amber Rudd? Boris? Andrea **** Leadsom? David Davis? Gove?

Harriet Harman? She’s less likely to oppose Tory policies than Boris…

Molgrips – what about the tax side of the equation. The uk benefitted from taxing the North Sea oil companies, supporting government spending and lowering income taxes on everyone else.

The difference to Norway is that we benefitted in the same way but took the money straight away. Not entirely straight forward to say which is better. In any case difficult to have a sovereign wealth fund when you run a persistent current account deficit because you are addicted to German cars…

Well – and I’m not an economist – but taxation of the oil business put some of the profit into the hands of the government. The rest became assets for private businesses or cash profits for private businesses and individuals. The Norwegian government took ALL the profits.

But more than that, they (afaik) didn’t just fund tax cuts, they kept it and invested it to create a massive sovereign wealth fund, and the proceeds from that go to fund crazy stuff like paying for students to have a funded gap year. Because they want their population to be broad minded and well traveled.

I’m not advocating it necessarily, just pointing out how different they were from us.

The Norwegian government took ALL the profits

No they didn’t/ don’t

I was in Norway recently and a Oslo local* described the country as a thinly veiled communist state.

I’ve heard that very phrase from drunken weirdos in more countries than I can remember, but mostly in America.

?

So there I was getting excited about May being booted, until I found out it Grant bloody Shapps leading the plot. Like that snivelling little s*** is ever going to persuade anyone to follow him! Maybe he’s a plant?