Author Archives: Joe Otten

I recall after the financial crisis of 2008 everybody with an unconventional opinion on banking and monetary policy felt confirmed that this showed they had been right all along. Whether they believed in more regulation of banks or less, or in the superficially plausible but ultimately wrong-headed notion of banning bank lending altogether and making up the money supply by having the government print a lot extra – they felt proven right by events.

We are in danger of doing the same with Donald Trump’s victory. Last week Helen Flynn argued that it was about inequality. Thus the solution …

With the issue of whether Article 50 needs parliamentary approval currently before the courts, there is some discussion of what Parliament ought to do with the process if it gets the chance.

While clearly there is no majority for simply blocking article 50, it is quite reasonable for MPs to put constructive amendments to the proposal, respectful of the mandate from June, and to vote against if those amendments are not accepted – as one would with any other bill before Parliament.

One amendment should be to give the people a vote on the final deal, so that we can choose, once …

Yes, this is another “how do we fight back against the politics UKIP/Brexit/Trump” type of article, though I hope a different one to the rest.

I read two articles yesterday, both illuminating, but doubly so when read together. This on the BBC explains a cultural difference between the UK and Germany that may be hobbling diplomatic understanding. British are liable to say “oh no I couldn’t possibly” to mean yes, to which Germans will consider the matter settled at no. Swashbuckling overpromising bluster is far more tolerated in British political culture than in German, which values consistency much more highly and is to our ears extremely dull.

The other was this at the Washington Post expressing bemusement at the “corrupt Clinton” narrative that exists, when “Trump’s history of corruption is mind-boggling.” A list of Trump’s corrupt activities is given. Each has been reported and then we move on. Journalists shrug. The Florida attorney general takes a donation from Trump and drops an investigation into his “university”. Hillary, meanwhile is investigated to within an inch of her life, and even when nothing is found, the investigation is used to support a narrative of guilt.

Over at Prospect Magazine there is a thoughtful review from Miranda Green of Politics: Between the Extremes by Nick Clegg, alongside The Death of Liberal Democracy? by David Boyle and Joe Zammit-Lucia.

The result, in this book , is a mix of avowed optimism—that a liberal worldview can and must survive—with a hugely gloomy analysis of British political culture. Politics: Between the Extremes is part memoir of the Coalition years, part meditation on the rebellious spirit of the post-crash period (to call it an age seems premature). Its balance can be uneasy, but Clegg’s book is a necessary contribution to a pressing current debate: how much and for what reason are liberal values, in the broad sense, at bay? And can any moderate politician find a way to turn the tide of resentment against the political system and its practitioners?

Nick Clegg’s account of the coalition and its aftermath is an insightful and in many places startlingly frank account. This is not a complete review, though do buy and read the book for yourself, but I’ll pick up a few of the issues raised.

Nick devotes a chapter to “the plumage of power” – looking at how a government anchored in the centre ground by Liberal Democrats ended up appearing from the outside merely to be run by unusually moderate Conservatives. One aspect of this was being seen with the trappings of power. The value was understood all along by Conservatives – because they live for this sort of thing. Speaking at the door of number 10, etc. There’s a fascinating contrast between the coalition DPM who had a veto on government policy but no real visible trappings – and, say, the US Vice President who is well adorned with plumage, but whose powers are ‘not worth a bucket of warm spit’.

Yesterday’s announcement of Stronger In’s rebranding as Open Britain pushing for greatest possible openness, and greatest retention of the benefits of EU membership post-referendum has divided opinion.

Statements like this one

Despite being drawn from different political parties, all of us campaigned proudly and passionately for Britain to remain in the European Union. The result was not the one we wanted, but of course we respect the democratically expressed verdict of the British people.

The UK may have voted to leave the EU, but the certainty ends there. What does Brexit actually mean? Europe will continue to be our biggest trading partner and

…

One of the lies that didn’t survive a day after the referendum result was that there would be £350m a week to spend on the NHS. My suspicion is that this number was widely understood to be untrue but was still highly effective.

Now it would have been quite easy for Leave to say that there would be £136m a week to spend on the NHS, and although it is a lesser number, do we really think the political impact of £136m is going to be all that different to £350m (were it true)? Or to £250m? (The amount sent of which some comes back.) All are large numbers beyond our normal experience, and, in principle, if we had that money, we could spend it on a great deal of something good.

Vote Leave’s central message is one of taking back control from the EU, and returning it to the UK government. They may choose to talk about immigration as the answer to everything and to the exclusion of all else but here too, it is about control and rests on a perception that the EU, rather than national governments, is generally in control.

Now those of us who understand how the EU works, know that the EU does what the national governments tell it to do, and not the other way round, and that the EU cannot do anything that national governments haven’t agreed, unanimously, that it should be able to do. The leave argument relies on this not being understood.

And it only takes a moment’s reflection to realise that the levying of taxes and running of public services is entirely down to our own government; that the passing of laws – at least when it comes to our conduct as human beings as opposed to the construction of our toothbrushes – is down to national parliaments.

But let us ask ourselves, if the Leave picture were correct, who is it that would be most frustrated by this hypothetical bullying EU? Not the man or woman in the street – let’s face it we’re all governed by somebody. No, it would be the Prime Minister.

So how frustrated have our prime ministers been at not really being in control?

Today the Hillsborough inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing of 96 people.

Errors and omissions by the South Yorkshire Police are ruled to have caused and contributed to the deaths on a number of counts, and also errors and omissions by the city council as the ground safety licensing authority, the engineers Eastwood and Partners, Sheffield Wednesday FC and the ambulance service.

As some commentators are expressing incredulity that Iain Duncan Smith has found himself a conscience over welfare cuts for disabled people, not long after signing off those very same cuts, or are attibuting these events to a phoney war over Brexit, I think there is a more interesting possibility.

If we take IDS position at face value, this reveals something about how government works – or about how it did work under the coalition and is now liable to go wrong.

Picture Charles III, risen to the throne after a lifetime of waiting, ready to be consulted and give his advice on affairs of state, finding his views ignored and being unwilling in good conscience to give royal assent to a bill to regulate the press.