Hmmm - Wheels coming off Labour already (again).

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12242397

After demonstrating he doesn't know anything about National Insurance Alan Johnson is resigning.

Citing "personal" reasons, as usual, Mr Johnson is now moving to the back benches, fancy that.

[Greyblades]

Labours humiliation conga just keeps going doesn't it.

[gaelic cowboy]

I wouldn't pass much heed on it to be honest Labour is pretty much out of Government for next 4yrs or so plenty of time to fix the party structure.

[drone]

"Johnson quits, Balls to take over."

[Louis VI the Fat]

"Johnson quits, Balls to take over."

Labour sound like an impotent bunch, don't they?

[Subotan]

Pff, this will be forgotten by the time the next election comes around. If pit stops can rip wheels off and replace them in under a minute, I'm sure Labour can in four years.

[Beskar]

"Johnson quits, Balls to take over."

Though seriously, all of the parties are a complete joke. If I had the money and human resources, I would set up a party which would appeal from the likes of me on the left, all the way to Furunculus on the right (because it would provide a more credible alternative). Though, the name is a tricky point though, probably the 'Initiative' party. It would be a pro-democratic party which would aim to reform or replace the current system with a brand new, highly efficient, practical, system which would limit "politics" in its current 'bitching' form which plagues us today. It would have a mandate to fix the budget, with long-term goals, bringing prosperity and growth to the nation.

Also a point Furunculus would like, Britain would only join Europe if it adopts a similar system and scraps its corrupt bureaucratic mess, and it would require a referendum requiring at least 60% of the vote.

[Subotan]

"The Utopia Party"?

[Beskar]

"The Utopia Party"?

That could work, but people would then go "I elected you, why aren't we a utopia already?".

'Initiative' is more accurate, as it would be the first step in the right direction, a readiness to embark on bold new ventures. Also, it might show a connection to the intelligentsia, where professionals will be advising what is best. So if I want information about a new drug, I would ask people like Rory who knows what they are talking about on such matters. Attempt to remove a lot of the 'politics' where it isn't needed or particularly smart to have. Politics will be about the performance of the nation and society, not a bunch of talking heads in a penis measuring contest.

[Lord of Lent]

"The Utopia Party"?

A little too much "1984"...

[Furunculus]

I wouldn't pass much heed on it to be honest Labour is pretty much out of Government for next 4yrs or so plenty of time to fix the party structure.

it matters because milli now has labour's economic 'heavyweight', who is commited to the hilt to the brown economic regime.

going to make labour very vulnerable.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

"The Utopia Party"?

Sounds about right.

People really need to read Utopia before bandying it around as a positive thing.

Politics is messy and corrupt, the only way to stop that is kill all the politicians and become a Tyrant, like Cromwell.

For those who haven't been around so long, I'm not a fan of the Lord Protector's style of government.

[Louis VI the Fat]

"The Utopia Party"?

By quoting this I turn Furunculus into a spoilsport who quoted the wrong post.

[rory_20_uk]

To be honest, good for Labour to get the real morons off the frontbench early on. There is some way to go on that. Labour also need to at some point have something approaching message besides "we'll spend any money we can lay our hands on and blow it on centralising every aspect of government we can", which isn't that catchy.

[Furunculus]

Labour also need to at some point have something approaching message besides "we'll spend any money we can lay our hands on and blow it on centralising every aspect of government we can", which isn't that catchy.

and certain parts of labour know that new message is needed:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...f-England.html

By quoting this I turn Furunculus into a spoilsport who quoted the wrong post.

I confess I am lost Louis, can you explain?

[Greyblades]

Interesting thing I heard on the radio this morning, apparantly those personal reasons might have something to do with the arrest of a policeman, its apparantly believed that said policeman, who had been assigned to protect alan johnson's family, was having an affair with allan's wife.

[Furunculus]

interesting quote from John McTernan, Political Secretary to Tony Blair:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jo...las-alexander/

"Alexander lucidly exposed the Coalition’s hidden strategy to reshape British politics. Over time, he argued, Nick Clegg and his Lib Dem colleagues will prosecute the argument that they are the only effective vehicle to deliver Centre-left policies."

Labour is going to have to move fast, because Cameron is pushing the Lib-Dem's into position as the 'natural' party of the progressive left, and labours authoritarian and spendthrift ways are only aiding the transition.

[Beskar]

Labour is going to have to move fast, because Cameron is pushing the Lib-Dem's into position as the 'natural' party of the progressive left, and labours authoritarian and spendthrift ways are only aiding the transition.

Lib-dems have been the 'progressive left' party for a while, hence the large number of student and young voters, compared to labours traditional-left. Though problem is, lib-dems just lost a large core of their support in the tuition fees scandal.

[Furunculus]

Lib-dems have been the 'progressive left' party for a while, hence the large number of student and young voters, compared to labours traditional-left. Though problem is, lib-dems just lost a large core of their support in the tuition fees scandal.

they'll acquire more as they become a party of government (i.e. adult) rather than a party of protest (i.e. hormonal adolescents), especially if labour goes against the zeitgeist that labour urinated the taxpaying publics cash up the wall, and then spent even more by borrowing over the top of the longest period of economic growth the modern British state has ever seen!

with balls as chancellor that will be a difficult narrative for poor milli to break, and it locks labour into exactly the cycle of failure that prevented the tories from winning for three terms.

[Furunculus]

ooh, surprise surprise, the lib-dems burnish their lefty credentials and demand an independent lib-dem election fight in 2015:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...ependent-party

watch out mili!

[rory_20_uk]

Yes, Lib Dems need to understand the difference between what they'd like and what is achievable, which currently seems in short supply. Every time they don't get their way there are celebrities in a huff and leaving the party who don't seem to grasp that even if they had a 200 seat majority they'd not be able to immediately do everything they wanted: abolish Trident if you will. Oh, then there is a sudden increase in unemployment up North and vast sums to pay for breaking contracts. Hmmmm, might cost more in the short term. Withdraw all troops immediately from overseas. Oh, America is pissed at us, as it NATO. What's going on? There's repercussions for policies that we'd not bothered to think though...

Labour has done its job. It should have disbanded years ago, happy that it had met all its political objectives.

I hope that we see more Lib-Con mashups in the future as I know its early days but it seems to be a good balance.

[Greyblades]

I don't realy see why we should want to disband trident, realy those nuclear weapons are the only thing that provides any sort of importance or influence on the world stage now that our economy is in the dumps.

[Furunculus]

the lib-dems have NEVER had a Defence Policy that worth even wiping ones pooey rectum with.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...r-divorce.html

So, Alan Johnson does have horns - but not the demonic kind, after all!

[tibilicus]

Balls happens to be one of the most ruthless politicians not just in the PLP but in Westminster as a whole. It's pretty much fact that the guy briefed against his own colleagues to further his own political position. Saying that however, psycho balls might form a nice partnership with Ed "look at my blank expression" Milliband..

[InsaneApache]

Labour has done its job. It should have disbanded years ago, happy that it had met all its political objectives.

This.

I like Balls. Even if he is a cock.

[Furunculus]

he is a bruiser in exactly the adversarial tradition of British politics that i like.

he is however grossly wrong:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance...und-economics/

..........by making way for Ed Balls as shadow Chancellor, Mr Johnson has given Labour a powerful and very credible voice on the economy, someone who will be a potent thorn in the side of a self evidently unstable Government. As for Coulson, spokesmen for Number 10 come and go. When the messenger becomes the story, he has to go, but it is rarely of any long term import.

You may not agree with Mr Balls, and I certainly don’t, but his message has obvious appeal, and unlike Mr Johnson, he knows his National Insurance from his VAT. On economics, it’s going to be hard to derail him. And if things don’t work out as the Government hopes on growth, which is still very possible, he’ll be having a field day.

As Gordon Brown’s alter ego, it’s easy enough to fault the record. It wasn’t Brown, as Michael Heseltine famously said; it was Balls. Yes indeed. It was Balls who came up with the disastrous idea of stripping the Bank of England of responsibility for banking supervision and vesting it in the Financial Services Authority instead. And it was Balls who was responsible for Brown’s now equally discredited fiscal rules.

But amid the howlers, there’s also much to commend – independence for the Bank of England, sticking to Tory spending plans in 1997, not joining the Euro, and so on. This is no fly by night politician; he’s a serious player with a big contribution to make. And as he himself is always keen to point out – not shy about his abilities, this man – on the economy at least, all his politicies are based on meticulous study of the evidence. Mr Balls does not do making it up as you go along.

So what does he stand for now, and how dangerous is he to the Conservative led Coalition? The best guide is his Bloomberg speech – “There is an alternative” – delivered last summer during the Labour leadership contest.

This sets out a now familiar series of claims – that the crippling size of the deficit is not Labour’s fault, but that of an international financial crisis which afflicted everyone, that further deficit spending is a perfectly legitimate economic strategy for digging the country out of the mire, and that the Coalition’s austerity measures, as well as destroying public services, are likely to prove counterproductive, in that they will further undermine growth, rather than supporting it.

As I say, he may be wrong on all counts, but he makes a powerful advocate of these contentions, and will undoubtedly prove highly adept at keeping them in the public eye. If the economy stumbles, his star will rise fast.

Mercifully, the “perfect storm” Mr Balls envisaged last summer – where continued de-leveraging by banks and the private sector meets premature fiscal retrenchment from governments and a drastic tightening of consumer spending… as tax rises, benefit cuts and rising unemployment hit home – hasn’t materialised, or not yet anyway. There’s been no double dip, and the economic outlook continues to look reasonably encouraging.

But it would be a brave man indeed who declared us off the danger list. The economic recovery cannot yet be declared self sustaining, and there is still plenty of time for Mr Balls to be proved right.

All the same, the two main claims – that it wasn’t Labour’s fault, and that the solution is not cuts but more deficit spending – can be quickly dealt with. Bankers make easy targets, but the idea that the deficit is all down to them is complete nonsense. The sums spent bailing out the banks are far from trivial, but relative to the size of ballooning public debt they are not significant.

The deficit is the difference between tax revenues and spending, and the simple truth of the matter is that the tax take has gone into a tailspin as a result of the recession. Spending has yet to be cut to match. It now looks as if quite a lot of this loss of taxation is permanent, or that even after the economy returns to “normal” it will be at a lower level of tax generation. In other words, spending had been set at an apparently unaffordable level.

Labour had based its spending plans on the candy floss tax revenues of the credit boom. Public spending now has to adapt to a lower level of income. It’s easy to see why Labour made its miscalculation – to a greater or lesser extent, we were all sucked into the same false sense of prosperity – but the mistake on spending was the Government’s and no-one else’s.

What’s more, had Labour actually stuck to Mr Balls’ fiscal rules, rather than manipulating them to destruction in order to justify the onwards and upwards march of public spending, we wouldn’t be in such bad shape. At best, Labour deluded itself about the scope for spending increases, at worst it lied about it.

Like so many on the left, Mr Balls cites the great Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economist, to support the argument that austerity is counterproductive, in that it further undermines output and therefore the chances of growing your way out of debt.

This really has become a very sterile old argument. Round and round it goes, but think of it like this. Most of us, when we first buy a house, take on frightening levels of leverage. We may borrow perhaps as much as five or six times our income, but when you are young and starting out, it doesn’t much matter because you expect your earnings to rise very considerably during the course of a career. In time the leverage comes right down, and the loan looks easily manageable.

But what happens if your income doesn’t grow?