My vote is up for grabs! Tough thoughts as I try to decide.

Among the deluge of complaints and criticisms the three establishment candidates are demeaning themselves by showering on the People's Jeremy, the daftest apart from the accusation that he met Hamas and the IRA almost as many times as Blair, is that his policies are a return to the past and totally out of date. They never stop to consider a) that some of these policies like renationalising the railways are popular with the public or b) that if the policies which replaced the older Labour policies haven't worked it might be a good idea to go back to the originals not as a matter of ideology but simple sense.

I'm not sure that we should allow the Tory press to choose Labour's leader, but if we choose to do that in our desire to be loved by them we should notice two things. One is that the criticisms of Corbyn are all (apart from attacks on his beard) criticisms which the Tory party brings against Labour -spending too much, borrowing, frightening British business which seems to spend more time trembling in fear than it does competing in the world.Out of the mouths of the Blairites these Tory truths have poured giving credence to the Tory programme and killing hope among our supporters.

Second the establishment never offers an alternative. Its prescriptions are all generalities such as facing a changed world, future proofing, adjusting to a new society etc.How we do all this and what Labour's specific policies should be are never spelled out.. This is because they don't want to face up to the fact that Blairism, (diluting the policies with soft soap) is also a thing of their past which probably won't work in harder times.

Blair came to power in an election we'd have won anyway at a time of growth and economic buoyancy with tax revenues rising and unemployment falling. He'd exhausted his repertoire of good moderate policies like the minimum wage, Sure Start and expanding investment in the NHS by the end of his second term,  and became messianic thereafter and by 2008 his new mates the financial interests which he and Brown thought had created a new paradigm of perpetual growth through asset inflation and debt, killed the whole improvement by their unrestrained greed.

Now we live with the consequences and the main lesson to be learned is that austerity can't go on because it makes the situation worse, and that expansion requires more borrowing and spending. Neither comes with balancing the budget and promising to reduce the borrowing year by year. They only tighten the screw. Business will have to be pushed into growth and investment by changes in corporate governance to end short termism and the obsession  with shareholder value and finance effectively regulated . Since the housing crisis can't be solved without more public housing for rent councils should be allowed to raise housing bonds to invest, build and create a new asset. Since money will be short we will have to scrap expensive PFIs and finance big infrastructure projects by quantitive easing. To check inflation we will need an accord with the unions of the type which has been so successful (for the economy rather than the workers) in Germany and to proclaim that the central aim of policy is full employment

None of this is easy stuff and it will have to be sold as a nationalist programme to rebuild national strength and pride but clearly it has to be thought about  rather than just making idiotic assertions that we must adjust to the future but not how.The future will be too hard for the easy measures of the Blair era.

A few secrets and important questions about the Labour Leadership Vote

It really was very naughty of Ed to vanish to Oz to train for his new role as Shadow High Commissioner to Canberra and leave ever hopeful Harriet behind to grapple with the horrors of Labour's leadership election.

There must  be something wrong somewhere. Every time she attempts to explain how brilliant it is the processes become more "rigorous", and "careful" and the result more "final and fair" If the proliferation of adjectival praise  makes it lawyer proof  the result will be published with a supreme court commendation and a PR pamphlet with models (supplied by the DWP) saying he happy they are to have been excluded from the vote and how character-building it's been.

I'm glad to hear that Matthew Parris's Llamas were excluded from the ballot. I've nothing against Llamas but Matthew might have pulled the wool over their eyes but despite this triumph it's still  possible  to doubt whether the checks inadequate as they are would have been even that good had the party not suddenly woken up to the fact that the wider franchise (with an MP who knows the candidates having the same voting weight as Joe Bloggs) people's Jeremy might win. The only trouble is that Labour's organisation is so shambolic and understaffed that it's safer to expect a mess and live with it as the only result we're capable of making until we build a competent efficient machine. Until then  we should be suspicious about the major points of weakness.

1)There is no way of knowing whether those signed up to vote as registered supporters support the aims and objectives of the Labour Party. We don't know how they voted, canvas returns are partial and notoriously unreliable and constituency secretaries are partisans not impartial judges

2) Taking three pounds off people promising them a vote on the leadership and then rejecting their vote is fraud  though it will only give them a claim in the small claims court rather than one which invalidates the result

3) Checking the electoral rolls is a haphazard process.The rolls are months out of date and  constituency secretaries varied in their assiduity and allegiances. In the selection of my successor the votes of my three kids who'd been Grimsby members for thirty years were rejected but the constituency secretary because they were no longer on the Grimsby roll but others in the same situation weren't. Trade union membership isn't organised on a constituency basis so mistakes are likely.

4 The number of members affiliated through unions looks pathetically small. It was further reduced by eliminating double membership but even so It's difficult to be satisfied that all  those with two votes have been weeded out.

5 We're told that checking is still going on. Yet the ballot papers have all gone out. Does this men that some votes are being rejected when they come back. Does it mean that officials know who voted how?.

It's good that the four candidates have all accepted the system and announced that they won't rush to the courts. Not that they had any alternative at this stage of the game.  But unless the process yields a thumpingly clear result  it isn't going to produce satisfaction  and it's already made us look daft. I don't mind looking naive because idealists often are, but silly is too much.  

Give us less abuse and more policy please

Among the deluge of complaints and criticisms the three establishment candidates are demeaning themselves by showering on the People's Jeremy.  The daftest, apart from the accusation that he met Hamas and the IRA almost as many times as Blair, is that his policies are a return to the past and totally out of date. They never stop to consider a) that some of these policies like re-nationalising the railways are popular with the public or b) that if the policies which replaced the older Labour policies  haven't worked it might be a good idea to go back to the originals not as a matter of ideology but simple sense..

I'm not sure that we should allow the Tory press to choose Labour's leader but if we choose to do that in our desire to be loved by them we should notice two things. One is that the criticisms of Corbyn are all (apart from attacks on his beard) criticisms which the Tory party brings against Labour: spending too much, borrowing,frightening British business which seems to spend more time trembling in fear than it does competing in the world. Out of the mouths of the Blairites these Tory truths have poured giving credence to the Tory programme and killing hope among our supporters.

Second the establishment never offers an alternative. Its prescriptions are all generalities such as facing a changed world, future proofing, adjusting to a new society etc. How we do all this and what Labour's specific policies should be are never spelled out. This is because they don't want to face up to the fact that Blairism, (diluting the policies with soft soap) is also a thing of their past which probably won't work in harder times.

Blair came to power in an election we'd have won anyway at a time of growth and economic buoyancy  with tax revenues rising and unemployment falling. He'd exhausted his repertoire of good moderate policies like the minimum wage, Sure Start and expanding investment in the NHS by the end of his second term and became messianic thereafter and by 2008 his new mates the financial interests which he and Brown thought had created a new paradigm of perpetual growth through asset inflation and debt killed the whole improvement by their unrestrained greed.

Now we live with the consequences and the main lesson to be learned is that austerity can't go on because it makes the situation worse, and that expansion requires more borrowing and spending. Neither comes with balancing the budget and promising to reduce the borrowing year by year. They only tighten the screw. Business will have to be pushed into growth and investment by changes in corporate governance to end short termism and the obsession  with shareholder value and finance effectively regulated . Since  the housing crisis cant be solved without more public housing for rent councils should be allowed to raise housing bonds to invest,build and create a new asset. Since money will be short we will have to scrap expensive PFIs and finance  big infrastructure projects by quantitive easing. To check inflation we will need an accord with the unions of the type which has been so successful (for the economy rather than the workers) in Germany and to proclaim that the central aim of policy is full employment

None of this is easy stuff and it will have to be sold as a nationalist programme to rebuild national strength and pride but clearly it has to be thought about  rather than just making idiotic assertions that we must adjust to the future but not how.The future will be too hard for the easy measures of the Blair era.

Some lessons for the Labour leadership candidates

I'm getting worried that our leaders aren't doing their duty in reading learning and thoroughly digesting my blog. I've just made the point that we should look at using Quantitative easing to pay for a few large infrastructure projects carefully structured so they provide a return as a far better means of boosting the economy than expensive PFI fiddles. Then along comes Yvette Cooper trying to prove her orthodoxy and respectability by denouncing PFI out of hand

Let's just repeat the point. QE is a useful way of stimulating the economy when you cant reduce interest rates any further l.e. now. It's a useful way of getting the exchange rate down when markets are pushing it up too far i.e. Now. It doesn't produce inflation when demand is too low and resources underused i.e.,nowJapan ands the EU bank are now using it with beneficial consequences and the Conservatives got away with 375 billion pounds worth of QE though they made the mistakes of shoving it into their friends the banks rather than using it  to boost growth.

So the Labour Party must think about how to use it rather than just dismissing it out of hand. Q.E.D.Don't the establishment candidates need to prove their innovativeness rather than their conformist orthodoxy?

A NOTE ON STUDENT LOANS

Student loans were introduced (by us)as a way of reducing government spending b y shoving the cost of university education onto students. They are unfair because tertiary education like primary and secondary education should be free. They are economically damaging because they cripple the young generation with debt. They are unfair because they benefit the rich who can afford to pay for the education of their kids and indeed have already done so in public school fees and penalise the poor.  They are inefficient because much of the capital paid out will never be paid back by people who go abroad, foreigners who get them and those who don't earn enough later on. They should be scrapped and students/ be supported as they were by means tested grants while the universities are properly funded by the state as they should be. Wouldn't cost much more than this messy loans system.

Brian Easton, a top New Zealand economist has reduced the system to its real absurdity by comparing student loans to the raising of cows for milking. The costs of breeding rearing and supporting the cow until it begins to lactate can be written off against tax The students can't. Farmers can borrow on their cows to help the farm where parents can't on the kids because of our awkward anti slavery legislation. . So if the government aligns  the financial arrangements for cows and students then, Bingo. A cow producing many years of profitable milk yield.

Get Corbyn has become the rallying cry instead of Get The Tories!

Though most people haven't received their ballot papers yet and the Labour Party hasn't made a decision on whether potential voters should be disqualified for not supporting the Iraq war it's becoming less and less clear whether tis a leadership election or a "Get Corbyn '" rally

It's hardly edifying to see the three establishment candidates ganging up against the people's Jeremy  and attacking him with more vigour than this gradgrinding Tory government .We've heard more about stop Corbyn and the disaster that awaits if we elect him than we have about what a Labour government should do about growth, poverty, the Health service, Europe or indeed anything so that I'm beginning to wonder what we stand for rather than against.

There's no understanding of the fact that if Jeremy is elected as leader it will be a statement by the party's members that they need a stronger policy a firmer line and a more left wing stance . Indeed the scale of Jeremy's support makes that clear already  So should that be ignored and its supporters  abused or should it be accommodated ? Win or lose the establishment three need to recognise that and bright as they may be in attracting the south, the aspiring ,the perspiring the terrified business community  and the deficit hawks they also have to hold the party faithful if we're to win. We failed to please the people in Scotland and look where that got us.

Indeed the way they've gone on about Corbyn makes it look as though they'd rather split him and his supporters away from Labour into a separate party. That's the logic of what they're saying and it could happen if we move, as we should to proportional representation. But let's recognise that if it did happen to form a government Labour would have to work in some kind of coalition with  the Left Party which would mean giving them more power and a greater say in policy than they are allowed now working as the disunited party we've become. 

I always thought our gospel was fraternity. Please can we show a bit 

CORBYNISM WITHOUT JEREMY. THE SOLUTION TO LABOUR'S PROBLEM

The problem with electing Jeremy as Labour leader is that we would be giving him as a hostage to the press plutocrats, Lord Rothermere, the Barclay bros and Rupert the magic millionaire. The result would be that however sincere and honest he is (which is more than enough for a leader) his every word and thought would be held against him, he'd be lampooned for his dress and there'd be constant efforts to associate him with every available nasty foreigner from Bin Laden (with whom he'd be communicating via medium) to Putin .

Any Labour leader is going to be done over by the press but Jeremy is more exposed to such a battering than most and the problem with mass democracy is that honesty and integrity don't shine through . So what the party needs is a leader who's less exposed  to all this, can stand on the middle ground  and be tough and intellectually strong enough to see the need for the kind of programme Jeremy is advocating.

Jeremyism without Jeremy would be a recognition that so much of what he's advocating is the kind of thing Labour needs to do which would be popular with Labour's rank and file and yet well supported by the wider public.

Take the re-nationalisation of the railways as contracts fall in. Or take a big programme of public housing for those who can't afford to buy, tough rent controls on the private sector or a boost to spending on the NHS to clear the deficits.All necessary. All popular. Add in the breaking up and tougher of the banks to stop speculation, a National Investment Bank and a programme  to control the big bullies in the privatised utilities,incentives to hold shares for longer  rather than speculative bursts and penalties for the lavish share option deals and the  payout of excessive  dividends at the expense of investment.

All that will mobilise national pride and protect the small against the monopolies. Being friendly to business does not mean condoning its every fraud,cheat,fiddle  and weakness or not mobilising the people against the plutocrats.This should be the position of the Labour Party not the kind of servile deference to our failing business leadership we've shown so far.

We got hold of the wrong end of the stick when we started blaming ourselves for being anti-business. We should be anti-nasty deceitful overcharging tax fiddling and bullying business. Help the struggling small businesses by any means but be aware that the people are as hostile to the bullying blunders of the big batalions.They want something done about it not to watch is leaders being overpaid,its taxes underpaid and its customers fiddled and bullied..The big state is the only protector they've got and they get fed up when it doesn't help them. 

The essence of Jeremy's programme is to return power to the people rather than pandering to plutocrats who they know are both greedy and well equipped to look after themselves .The sooner the other leadership candidates and our leading party figures get to recognising this rather than abusing Jeremy Corbyn the better..He's getting strong support and represents a discontent which Labour must serve and incorporate in its programme Who's going to speak for the people if Jeremy is ridiculed and rejected in this way?.  

RU4EU?

Labour's leadership election campaign has turned from a debate on the future of the party and its policies into a three to one  debate about Jeremy Corbyn and whether he's the reincarnation of Attlee, Keir Hardie, Trotsky or Coco the clown. All great fun of course particularly for the press and the Tories but something which leaves out of account what will be the big issue of the future. What do we do about the EU? On that silence reigns.

Having been changed by T Blair Esq from a Euro-sceptic party into one of vacuous enthusiasm for the EU which a traditionally naive and internationalist party believed to be a good thing though we couldn't precisely say why our leaders have nothing to say on what will be the big issue of 2017 do we leave or stay?

We do  know that Cameron is embarked on as big con to maintain the unity of the Tory Party, so he'll get only s few piddling concessions from the EU in his negociations and then announce that he's castrated the beast and turned it from a ravening monster into Britain's lap dog so it's safe to vote for it. We can also see that Labour's first instinct is to back him in this and announce that we too think that though it may have a few minor faults its basically a wonderful thing in which Britain can and must play a leading role  even if none of the others want this.

Taking this position gives us the worst of all worlds. It weakens Cameron's hand in the negociations by giving the impression that the country isn't behind what he's trying to do. It fails to do anything to stop the EU's decline because of the unworkable Euro into a high unemployment low growth blackspot dragging us down rather than pulling us up as we were told it would in the seventies. It doesn't recognise that the Euro states are bound to draw closer together not now because of their ccoling desire for ever closer cuddles but because they're forced to surrender powers in a desperate attempt to make the Euro work and that we'll be excluded from this unless we adopt the Euro which we can't so that while claiming to lead Europe we're relegated to a plaintive periphery.  People can see all this. Is Labour to keep quiet about it? Les silences de la merde?

The British people may on balance be frightened into voting to stay in the EU but they have  strong  lingering resentments which Labour should feel too. The Common Fisheries policy robs us of jobs, fish and seafood production , the Common Agricultural policy provides protection to French farmers but means food prices are still too high. Our contributions  are far too heavy (and scheduled to grow steadily) for a nation with a gasping trade deficit and EU rules inhibit any attempt to rebuild an manufacturing base which has shrunk too far for survival.. We need to control our own borders but have to lay them open to any Rumanian sheepnappers who want to take any sheep they've stolen to Macdonalds rather than skilled Kiwis

In that situation supine bleats about how wonderful the EU is, or how naughty Cameron in appeasing UKIP might make us feel virtuous but do no good at all politically, We should formulate our own demands give Britain some backbone and be prepared to campaign to come out unless we get the real concessions Britain needs but that soft soap salesman the Prime Minister daren't ask.It's time for Labour to speak up for England  (and Scotland's best interests too) not those of the Liberal Democrats.