For those Voice readers who, as a result of an unfortunate oversight, do not subscribe to The Economist, here’s a heads-up that you may wish to pick up this week’s edition, which features this cover:
For those not inclined to pick up a souvenir copy, you can read the excellent Jeremy Cliffe’s report here, and the accompanying leader here.
* Nick Thornsby is a day editor at Lib Dem Voice.
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29 Comments
P.S. You should subscribe to the Economist; excellent publication.
“Clegg (on drums)”
Triangle, surely? 🙂
Mostly the usual trickle down propaganda from the Economist.
Being the Economist, what it refers to and champions as “liberalism” would appear to be in large part a Hobbesian dog-eat-dog libertarianism/individualism that is a long way from the challenging and subtle task of striking a balance between liberty, equality and community that lies at the heart of social liberalism. Indeed equality and community don’t get a look in.
(By equality there I meant more than equal marriage, important though that is)
ooooooh, looking good. Might have to pick up a copy.
Excellent final sentence: “For the sake of freedom, the young should hurry to the polling station.”
The Economist seems to be saying that the youth of today have the same political views as, er, The Economist.
Yes Will, and which way is the party going?
Apparently Eton educated, rich with rich friends, Latin quoting Boris is the answer and the new ‘appeal to the young’. Surely this is unsustainable.
None the less, the Economist may have a bit of a point: perhaps there is an opportunity for a young politician to catch the mood of the times of young voters, however I am not so sure there is a centre piece issue around which a movement can coalesce. In the 70s apartheid provided common cause. Today’s young, wrapped up in electronic communications might be more moved by issues of internet surveillance and electronic copyrights.
Gladstone was out of step with the Liberal Party by the end of his career. It was the continuation of belief in Gladstonian Liberalism which contributed to the destruction of the party under Asquith.
The false assumption – state intervention means higher benefits and higher taxes is almost a parody in the 21st Century but it is still given weight by the failure of the Lib Dems to articulate a Liberal alternative.
The Economist has a definition of liberalism about as impartial as Mark Littlewood. It does not in any way resemble the preamble to the Liberal Democrats’ constitution and appears to be a form of entirely individualistic libertarianism.
This is literally the best thing ever and I hope to play keyboards in that band one day.
Some are being too simplistic about The Economist’s liberalism. I think, in many ways, The Economistis authentically Liberal (social, economic, cultural).
“Martin 31st May ’13 – 9:55am
None the less, the Economist may have a bit of a point: perhaps there is an opportunity for a young politician to catch the mood of the times of young voters, however I am not so sure there is a centre piece issue around which a movement can coalesce. In the 70s apartheid provided common cause. Today’s young, wrapped up in electronic communications might be more moved by issues of internet surveillance and electronic copyrights”
As he comments via electronic communication using the internet; oh, will the ironies ever end?
I would be a lot happier, and less worried, if Lloyd George was there instead of Adam Smith!
This seems to be about libertarianism not liberalism and seems to diss social liberalism.
The next generation looks out on a ravaged future. The economy is trapped in never-ending depression, jobs are scarce and mostly poorly paid and insecure. Housing is unaffordable. Welcome to the world that Thatcher and her followers built. The Economist would like to double down on the strategy that got us here. That figures; it’s a right wing mag that speaks for the very few who have done rather well as inequality has soared.
Call me old fashioned but I thought Lib Dems had the notion that equality was somehow important. And how does rabid individualism square with community? Meanwhile ‘liberty’ has been subtly reinterpreted as something that is applied mainly to capital. Hence the constant drumbeat to reduce regulation (note that’s just ‘regulation’, not ‘bad regulation’) with the result that big companies are effectively above the law – think tax (non payment of) or the lack of criminal prosecutions for Libor fixing or money laundering for drug cartels on an epic scale.
I’m not arguing for ‘big government’ in the old Labour sense. Numerically it should be far smaller and more efficient, but it should be powerful as a counterweight against the power of money or money will rule us, not Parliament.
In the US, liberals can’t call themselves liberals any more, because the Right have poisoned the word, by making it stand for loony extreme leftist policies which they don’t like.
In the UK, liberals can’t call themselves liberals any more, because the Right have poisoned the word, by making it stand for loony extreme rightist policies which they do like.
no Campbell-Bannerman? Keynes? Beveridge?
“the Economist may have a bit of a point”
It’s on the hat of the editor! 🙂
This is what we used to get from Tories in the 1980s. They thought that they understood Liberalism better then we did, and it was all about reducing the size of the state and leave everyone to fend for themselves, regardless of whether they are capable of it or not.
That kind of “Liberalism” has more to do with the largely forgotten Herbert Spencer rather than Mill, Smith and Gladstone. I think they would all be horrified to be represented in such a way today. I am appalled that LDV believe this vision has anything to do with the modern Liberal Democrats. Read the preamble of the constitution. It repeats what was in the Liberal party constitution before it, where we look forward to a society where none shall be enslaved in ignorance, POVERTY or conformity.
@Geoffrey Payne – hear hear.
@Geoffrey Payne – hear hear.
@David – A sadly all too true point. I do not know what exacerbates me more, when I have to explain to someone from the USA that socialism and liberalism are two different theories or when I have to explain to someone from the UK that UKIP is most certainly not a liberal party.
There’s a certain amount of caricaturing of the Economist’s position on things here.
It’s true that on the scale and scope of the public sector, the Economist’s view differs from most modern Lib Dems. But on many others – gay marriage, free trade, drugs, law’n’order, Europe, many other foreign policy issues and so on, it’s very much in line with mainstream views in the party. It’s a provocative read, and you’ll easily find things in there to disagree with, but I suspect you’ll find rather less that makes your blood boil than would a typical Tory or Labour member.
Geoffrey Payne: “…where we look forward to a society where none shall be enslaved in ignorance, POVERTY or conformity.”
gosh then it’s a good thing that The Economist’s very next leader was about reducing world poverty: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-billion-people-have-been-taken-out-extreme-poverty-20-years-world-should-aim
Sir Norfolk: “There’s a certain amount of caricaturing of the Economist’s position on things here. ”
No kidding. Based on some of the comments in this thread it would seem that a lot of people are only dimly aware of what The Economist actually is (and they certainly don’t read it).
Ok, The Economist does have a leader on world poverty. The main thrust of that leader is to argue that capitalism is the best way to overcome it. They do have a point there. Capitalist wealth creating enterprise has an excessively dominant position throughout the West, but the same is not true throughout the developing world, which may very well often benefit from encouraging enterprise and the ability to create desperately needed wealth.
However, what is The Economist’s motivation in adopting that line? Is it truly a humanitarian impulse, or is it just a question of rhetoric? Might The Economst primarily be trying to argue that, because free enterprise economics has worked so well for countries like China and Korea, therefore it follows (NB – actually it doesn’t!) that the UK should also give business enterprise more power?
It is of course commendable that the Economist believes in reducing global poverty, but for some odd reason doesn’t seem to care about poverty in the UK.
Capitalism has been good for China? In what way? Currently capitalism has destroyed the landscape and left it with some of the worst air pollution in the world; furthermore, thousands of its citizens are faced with the choice between starvation or eating rice from so poisonous that most other countries have condemned it for consumption. The ultimate irony of this being that some of the worst environmental offenders are the very factories being used to produce green-technologies.
Most of its farmers up sticks and moved to the overcrowded cities, only to now find they will soon be facing mass unemployment as all the factories are closing down and moving to cheaper locations abroad.
The Government is used to pump-prime millions into the economy to artificially maintain its growth because it knows that without it paying for the manufacturing and labour costs of most of its industries, they will collapse.
Every year there are so many riots occurring that the Chinese Government literally had to stop publishing the figures to save face, some have reported the number to be as high as 80,000 and many of those will have certainly made the London riots look like a small pub brawl.
I also cannot remember the exact statistics, but China still has some of the worst child-poverty in the world.
Yes, capitalism has been fantastic for China. Sorry, I know that David’s point was not really about this, but I felt it needed stating.