Worth a £1?

Total of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 281

For the daftest political article of the week, see Sam Coates in the Times. Who would pay for reading this balderdash.  Serious journalists do not make stories up, we are told. Who is pulling his leg?

He wrote yesterday: "Labour is putting pressure on all MPs aged over 60 to announce that they are standing down today to make way for Downing Street favourites and those wanted by the unions." 

No they not. I've spoken to several of them and none have been approached. MPs make up their own minds. If their constituency party tell them to stand down, they usually obey. If the party suggests it, they dig their heels in.

It gets worse. Coates writes:

"Although up to a dozen Labour MPs are expected to announce that they are not standing for re-election on Tuesday, the leadership feels that several are “bed blocking” by refusing to stand down.""'""''""'

One of the bed blockers mentioned is Alan Meale who is at the grand old age of  61. Another six Labour MPs over 68 are named. "Some may announce their retirement today" he exclusively revealed yesterday. We are still waiting.

Coates has no idea how elections are run. Polling day is 29 days away. All serious candidates have already written their literature, planned their campaigns and spent months doing the groundwork of door-knocking. My main election leaflet is at the printers now.

Any MPs leaving it to this week to stand down would plunge their constituencies into chaos. The selection of the new candidates and all the rest of the timetable would have to concertinaed into 29 days. Sam it's not going to happen. If the Times were charging for peeking at their website, I would demand my £1 back for this guff.

Swinish

It was a pleasure to be interviewed by Jim Naughtie on the Today programme this morning. 

I warily asked the producer before I went on air whether I was the only interviewee on Swine Flu. He assured me that I was. If a Tory was following me and putting the boot into the Government, I would have to get my retaliation in first. 

Some of the Tory tabloids and politicians were already peddling their 20/20 hindsight and howling that the Government had wasted £millions on vaccines. They did. But no Tory or tabloid disagreed when they did this in the summer. 

 Buying 110 million doses of vaccine and using only 6 million is not a good shopping decision. Agreeing to compensate from Government funds those damaged by the vaccine was also not a triumph of statesmanship.

But Naughtie did allow me to steer the interview around to the heart of the scandal. Why did the World Health Organisation frighten the world witless with an exaggerated scare of a flu that is a hundred times milder that seasonal flu.

I will have to interrupt my General Election campaign to quiz the WHO and contribute to the Government's Independent Inquiry. This issue is  fascinating and it will be worth it.

The secret issue

It's a fair question.

Why isn't Afghanistan an election issue? I was asked this question by six camera crews in Parliament toady. They were all from Middle eastern countries.

The answer, I believe, is cowardice. All parties are in agreement to lie about Afghanistan. they all repeat the idiotic mantras, Karzai will be a just, democratic ruler, the Afghan Army and Police are firm foundations for a secure state, when the taliban kill all our soldiers they come over here and blow up our streets. 

The reason that no-one is telling the bleak truth is that they are terrified of a gaffe. A comment that might seem disrespectful to the sacrifices of our soldiers could wreak any campaign Best to stay stum and allow the dying to continue.

Comments

[HuwOS]

"He's not a random guy. He's a metals guy. Hence he knows a thing or two about recycling for metals. But you know so much more from random Googling. You'd make an excellent regulator. Well, better than a Labour minister, anyway."

Yeah, my googling only led to me linking to abstracts to published research, whereas you linked to some metals guy's assertion.

Do you ever actually read what you write, never mind what anyone else has written?

[Kay Tie]

"But the opinion of some random guy that KayTie linked to"

He's not a random guy. He's a metals guy. Hence he knows a thing or two about recycling for metals. But you know so much more from random Googling. You'd make an excellent regulator. Well, better than a Labour minister, anyway.

[HuwOS]

I should also say that I am no chemist and don't deal with acids or glass in combination nor am I any expert on what happens to waste in landfill.

But the opinion of some random guy that KayTie linked to is that lead cannot be leached from glass by the combination of acidic soil and water or even pure acid.

A google search seems to throw up numerous scientific papers on lead leaching from glass, some describing how a coating of some substance has been proven to reduce the amount of lead that will leach from glass,
http://www.springerlink.com/content/hl70378621753487/ ,
another comparing four different methods of leaching lead from components including glass,
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a905098024&db=all.

Which would leave me a little dubious about how valid or valuable the opinion of some random guy actually is.

Along the way I also came across a number of people in the UK who either recycle CRT screens and tubes
or who provide equipment to allow companies to do so.

http://www.crt-recycling.co.uk/concept.html
http://www.nulifeglass.com/uk-crt-tv-television-computer-screen-recycling-process/safely-recycling-crts-tv-screen-computer-monitors.htm

[HuwOS]

Sorry I seem to have implied KayTie was intending to link to actual detail.
Obviously no such insult to KayTie's proud insistence on assertion and opinion devoid of facts.

KayTie did in fact successfully link to the opinion of some random person as she had intended.

The somebody she linked to had a non-working link to the Telegraph story.
(Although given the detail of the story and the bizarre departure his opinion took it is possible that he hoped that no one would follow the link)

[HuwOS]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3319968/Chinese-town-where-old-presents-go-to-die.html

BTW there's a working link to the story your link to someone's opinion was intended to link to.

The story breaks down as
despite regulation to prevent export from here
and despite regulation to prevent import into China
unscrupulous people (do we think unscrupulous people following their desire for the unfettered profit motive?) buy the waste, ship it into China illegally ostensibly as goods for resale but in fact to be broken up.

British materials were not found by the Telegraph at the time of their investigation but they did say

"That does not mean the trade is not happening. Britain prosecuted two companies this year caught trying to export electric waste illegally. One was fined just £3,000, another £9,000."

At the time of writing in 2007 they reported
"The problem is not new. The Daily Telegraph first visited Guiyu seven years ago, and since then the European Union has banned exports of E-waste."

They went on to say
"Labels showed bundles had been sent from EU countries such as Austria as well as from America, where, despite campaigns, the trade is still legal."

So, you seem to have picked an excellent example that combines lack of regulation (US) and insufficiently robust enforcement (some EU countries) to prevent people who would undoubtedly describe themselves as business people from bringing this damage to both people and the environment.

[Kay Tie]

Ooo, you want to talk about tax incidence? Well for a leftie you're quite advanced in understanding the concept if not the specifics. Certainly way ahead of Paul. Or, at least, we won't hear anything so sophisticated from him while the Party has his grandkids.

[Kay Tie]

"On the other hand, you react to talk of regulation as if it is all bad, which is a nonsense."

It's a question of degree, and competence. Politicians aren't competent to regulate anything well. Direct example of counter-productive regulation:

http://timworstall.com/2007/12/27/unintended-consequences/

You believe in the Wise Politician myth. I know that they rarely exist. Regulation does so much harm, indirectly or unintended, and so we must think very carefully about it. Alas "think carefully" is not something politicians do.

[HuwOS]

Also, something I was admittedly unaware of

"DDT revisited

Because cut flowers are grown in countries where little pesticide regulation exists, this encourages the use of obsolete and potentially dangerous chemicals. A vast range of pesticides, fertilisers and fumigants are used in producing cut flowers. Some of these, such as DDT, dieldrin, methyl bromide and methyl parathion are no longer in use, or deemed to dangerous to use, in the industrialised world."

http://bit.ly/doPnie

[HuwOS]

"I was there at the start. Don't presume to lecture me with your revisionist view of history."

OMG a celebrity.

But ah diddums, it is not lecturing you to point out that the internet did not come from the commercial world.
Nor is it lecturing you to point out that neither did HTML.

Lecturing you would be to explain why these things are what made the internet successful, so as you don't want me to, I won't.

" I remember well the great Interflora Massacre of 1985, when literally zero flower sellers died horrifically in a petal-related disaster."

With you, one never knows if when you make a comment like that which from anyone rational would be taken as sarcasm, there isn't the slight possibility that it may be one of your imaginings which you genuinely believe wholeheartedly.
In the hope that you were briefly in the grips of sanity when you wrote it I will assume you are being sarcastic.
Pesticides and fertilisers used on industrial scales can make their way into the rivers.
Flowers are not produced in factories, they are grown on an industrial scale.
Regulations had to be brought in to control the use of fertilisers and pesticides in such industries because of the detrimental effect on ground water, rivers, health and all those little pettifogging issues.
So yes, all industries and businesses and teaching institutions and everything else that has impacts on other people have had to have regulations brought in to curb excesses from time to time.
Teachers were forbidden to cane pupils.
Attempts have to constantly be made to ensure businesses don't rip their customers off.
And agriculture have had to have regulation too.

Be clear on this, I am not and have not ever said that all regulation is good and some may be unnecessary.
On the other hand, you react to talk of regulation as if it is all bad, which is a nonsense.

[Kay Tie]

"The entire internet developed because it wasn't commercial"

I was there at the start. Don't presume to lecture me with your revisionist view of history.

"Genuine left policies are about ensuring that the school you attend is one in which you can expect a reasonable education"

And how do you "ensure" this? You can't. All you can do is make the schooling equal: by smashing up any areas of success.

"They fail in all industries, in all places at all times.
It isn't just about consumers, it's about everything, from polluting rivers to injuries and deaths of workers as well as all the consumer stuff too."

Oh, it's dangerous out there. All industries in all places killing people, polluting rivers, amazing. I remember well the great Interflora Massacre of 1985, when literally zero flower sellers died horrifically in a petal-related disaster.

[HuwOS]

"Now I know you're joking. Alcohol prohibition is on the cards, hot on the heels of smoking prohibition." - Kaytie

Ah I understand now, you're making statements of fact like
"you think that the Government is right to restrict us to a number of alcohol units "

based not on the situation that exists now but upon the visions you receive through the ether.
A true prophet of our time, to be held in respect to the same extent as crazy naked people who dedicate their lives to standing on tiny platforms in the desert.
Sort of a cross between Mother Shipton and David Blaine.

[HuwOS]

"Nonsense. The entire internet developed commercially because governments weren't in a position to kill it. Even today the regulations are relatively lightweight (although the DEB is doing its best to kill the open internet)."

The entire internet developed because it wasn't commercial, it's commercial interests that have been pushing for intrusive regulation that benefits them not their customers and to limit competition.
An example of where the profit motive is held to be the be all and end all.
Making a profit is fine, making that profit at the expense of everyone else is not.

"Regulation is only necessary where these factors fail. They do not fail in most industries."

They fail in all industries, in all places at all times.
It isn't just about consumers, it's about everything, from polluting rivers to injuries and deaths of workers as well as all the consumer stuff too.
When it comes to consumers the options are rarely if ever all available to them and if its the choice of dominant business the choices never would be.
Regulation is the only thing that prevents that and the other wild excesses of capitalist business culture.
Regulations are often there to allow competition, from which you believe all goodness flows.
For workers, Laissez faire does nothing good for any of them.
This all has been tried, tested and proven over and over again.

"But your starting point, and the starting point of the left, is that profit is evil"

Says you. But as it seems your neurons are misfiring we will simply pass over this part where you invent beliefs and claim them to belong to others rather than wasting time giving answers that you can't be bothered taking onboard.

"No. We do not know that. You merely assert it, because it fits the narrative of the left. In fact, it's demonstrably not true."

The banks and financial industries did not destroy themselves because of it.
If that is your belief, then you are one heck of a believer.

"You might not. Plenty in the Labour party do. Just look at how private schools are inspected, failing because children had "not been taught how to play appropriately" (see the use of that New Labour "appropriate" again?) "
The level of intrusive and often ignorant inspections were brought in to produce league tables to give people that special thing, the all powerful cry of the right, choice.
It is nonsensical but it is not of the left.
Genuine left policies are about ensuring that the school you attend is one in which you can expect a reasonable education, not where if you want to go to a good school your parents better have the money to move.
Thinking that measuring schools and having people voting with their wallets is the way. is in fact only a way to deprive people in many areas of decent education.
Right wing through and through.

"Anyone who talks of the need for regulation while at the same time cursing the profit motive reinforces the point that regulation, particularly ideologically-driven regulation, is a socialist"

Once again you ascribe beliefs you have dreamed up to someone else then accuse them of being socialist for, at least in your imagination holding that belief.

The profit motive can be fine, but unfettered and unregulated leads to poverty, depravation and misery for all but the golden few.
Just like little Philip playing soldiers with little Jonathan is fine until little Philip shoots him.
There are limits and boundaries that have to be set.

[Kay Tie]

"What can anyone say to this?
the government don't restrict us to any number of alcohol units."

You haven't been following the zeitgeist. There's a clear trend amongst the pursed-lip classes (lead by the BMA) to curtail alcohol consumption. Have you not heard of the minimum pricing proposals? This is based on a bogus definition of safe levels of consumption.

"People can drink themselves to death without government intervention."

Now I know you're joking. Alcohol prohibition is on the cards, hot on the heels of smoking prohibition.

"There are restrictions regarding the units of alcohol you can consume and still be legally entitled to drive whilst the alcohol is in your system, was that what you find irksome and heavy handed?"

Not at all. How typical of the left to engage in smears of this nature. Consuming alcohol (or drugs) and driving puts the lives of innocent people at risk and causes them actuarial harm (i.e. the negligent driver might get lucky and not hit anyone while intoxicated).

I know you are not in favour of drugs prohibition. Yet does this mean you are for the right to drive a car while high? Of course not.

[Kay Tie]

"You run the nations banks now do you KayTie?"

Precisely: I shouldn't, you shouldn't, politicians shouldn't, the nation shouldn't.

The shareholders of the banks should. And the nation shouldn't become a shareholder.

"Regulation is essential for worthwhile business to happen"

Nonsense. The entire internet developed commercially because governments weren't in a position to kill it. Even today the regulations are relatively lightweight (although the DEB is doing its best to kill the open internet).

"Without regulation, there is nothing to curtail sharp practice, con artists and everyone else who wants to take money and deliver nothing."

Utter rubbish. It's curtailed by consumers being aware of sharp practices (Watchdog et al playing their part) and fraud being illegal. Regulation is only necessary where these factors fail. They do not fail in most industries.

"So the discussion and the aim is to find regulation that allows business to work, without damaging competition, the customers or the economy."

Indeed. But your starting point, and the starting point of the left, is that profit is evil, people can't be expected to know what's best for them, that everyone engaged in trade is out to exploit workers and cheat customers. This naturally leads to absurd and damaging regulation that eventually rots the economy and leads to widespread loss of standards of living. As we see today.

"We know that light touch regulation does not work."

No. We do not know that. You merely assert it, because it fits the narrative of the left. In fact, it's demonstrably not true.

"No one is arguing that every little detail of doing business should be laid down in statute."

You might not. Plenty in the Labour party do. Just look at how private schools are inspected, failing because children had "not been taught how to play appropriately" (see the use of that New Labour "appropriate" again?)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7530212/Top-public-schools-fail-new-inspections.html

"But your nonsense of trying to name regulation or any element of control as socialism puts you outside any kind of discussion"

Anyone who talks of the need for regulation while at the same time cursing the profit motive reinforces the point that regulation, particularly ideologically-driven regulation, is a socialist. Is there any other explanation for the desire to shut down private schools?

[HuwOS]

"Presumably you think that the Government is right to restrict us to a number of alcohol units (decided by a committee of wise experts)? "

What can anyone say to this?
the government don't restrict us to any number of alcohol units.
People can drink themselves to death without government intervention.
There are restrictions regarding the units of alcohol you can consume and still be legally entitled to drive whilst the alcohol is in your system, was that what you find irksome and heavy handed?

[HuwOS]

"No, it's better when the soi-disant wise heads butt out and let us make our own mistakes."

You run the nations banks now do you KayTie?

Regulation is essential for worthwhile business to happen, and if you haven't learned that by now then there's no hope of you ever grasping it.

Without regulation, there is nothing to curtail sharp practice, con artists and everyone else who wants to take money and deliver nothing.

No one with the possible exception of you
(although in your saner moments I doubt even you do), argues that no regulation is necessary at all, regulation curtails activity generally the type of activity that is detrimental to people, business and nations.
The only arguments are about the level of regulation.
We know that light touch regulation does not work.
No one is arguing that every little detail of doing business should be laid down in statute.
So the discussion and the aim is to find regulation that allows business to work, without damaging competition, the customers or the economy.

But your nonsense of trying to name regulation or any element of control as socialism puts you outside any kind of discussion and while you may enjoy shouting at the pigeons, doing so neither achieves anything nor gives you the appearance of wisdom.

[Kay Tie]

"An appropriate amount of curtailing the financial industry from doing what they wanted with "their own money" would have saved them and everyone else a whole lot of grief."

Presumably you think that the Government is right to restrict us to a number of alcohol units (decided by a committee of wise experts)? And that the Home Secretary is wise enough to decide how to protect us from dangerous drugs?

Isn't a better philosophy that we are all able to decide for ourselves what is best for ourselves? That we can all make our own informed decisions about how we live our lives? Can't you see it's an outrage that politicians draw to themselves the power over us, as if the overcoming of feudalism never happened?

[Kay Tie]

"An appropriate amount of curtailing the financial industry from doing what they wanted with "their own money" would have saved them and everyone else a whole lot of grief."

Ah, that New Labour word "appropriate". Translates as "my opinion". You aren't in a position to tell people what to do with their own money. When your lot last did that my father had to jump through dodgy hoops to get a mortgage. No, it's better when the soi-disant wise heads butt out and let us make our own mistakes. In return we can't cry and whine about the consequences of poor judgement. Just as the banks - and those who invested in them - should have to live with the consequences of their poor judgement.

[HuwOS]

"You may be right. But it's for them to decide what to do with their own money, not for you or me to lecture them."

So I may be right and others may know better than the banks how to profit and how not to for example take their businesses over the edge of the cliff but it is not for us to tell them not to.

That may be your view, but definitely not mine, nor I think any reasonable person's. An appropriate amount of curtailing the financial industry from doing what they wanted with "their own money" would have saved them and everyone else a whole lot of grief.

[Kay Tie]

"a benign, committed left wing government"

Now that's an oxymoron. There's no such thing. A committed left wing government is never benign: it might have "good intentions" (a la "I did was I thought was right") but it never has good outcomes (although in the short-term, thanks to borrowing, pseudo-prosperity can be achieved).

[Kay Tie]

"But getting a government to pay out huge sums of money before taking any in, in taxes would be a hard sell with any government."

A CBI would pay out exactly the same as today, only the savings of getting rid of the DWP could be shared.

It's politically impossible, of course: the Daily Mail would shriek about "paid to do nothing" (as if the current system is "paid to do something").

[Kay Tie]

" I think housing benefit might have to continue though - my perception is that the main reason folk stay on benefits rather than taking on "flexible" work is to make sure they don't lose the roof over their heads."

I am sure you could do something about housing benefit too. It's a degrading benefit. Putting it into a CBI could fix things: you could rent a room, or work part-time, keep all of a minimum wage, and use it to buy a house.

In this recession unemployment hasn't been nearly as bad because we have flexible working: people have traded time and wages for unemployment. Why can't the benefit system be structured to handle that?

[Kay Tie]

"Interesting idea that. Although it would likely leave those who rely on benefits worse off financially."

You have to be specific about "benefits". The proposals I have seen do not replace housing benefit, and nor do they handle disability. They do replace the old-age pension, student living expenses, JSA, income support, tax credits, etc.

The proposals need to be coupled with a high tax threshold, e.g. £10K. This means that anyone on minimum wage will pay no tax (don't you think it's obscene that those on low incomes have to pay tax then beg for it back through tax credits and other benefits?).

The CBI proposals are cost neutral. The biggest losers are 40,000 civil servants in the DWP. Who won't like CBI one little bit.

Read what Tim Collard, Labour through and through like a stick of rock, has to say about his experience with the current system:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timcollard/100024835/our-benefit-system-stinks-as-im-learning-the-hard-way/

A CBI would massively boost the economy if people like Tim are commonplace. It would also end the outrage of a de facto tax rate of 90+% on the poorest due to benefit clawback.

[Kay Tie]

"You also don't lose if you can't get the best price, not making quite as much profit is not equal to losing anything."

Apart from money. Your hatred of profits washes through the economy and means (for example) lower pensions, lower tax revenue, lower growth and less wealth. We all suffer from this socialist disease.

"While the reduced profit you would be talking about here is considerably less esoteric than the loss of profit in potentia that underlie the claims of the BPI and other interests that supported the DEB, reduced profits are still not, in reality, losses."

Firstly, the losses described by the BPI are best referred to as "lies" designed to persuade those in ignorance of their proposals. But we cannot single them out for specific blame in this era of despicable spin and lies: our own Government is the master of this.

Secondly, if you buy a share at x and sell it at y, where y is lower than x because socialists have suppressed the price, you do indeed lose money.

"Given the nature of the founders of Cadbury's and their aims, it is more than a little ironic that the argument about losing by not making the maximum profit is being made about the company they set up."

If the Cadbury family wanted to continue in the family social aims then they shouldn't have sold their company in the first place. Or do you think that once you sell your family house you have a perpetual right to tell the new owners how they must decorate it?

"Promises that will probably be week and probably reneged on, and knowing governments who care more about big business than people, will probably have either no enforcement system or one so week as to be ineffective."

You mean "weak". In any case, real or not, these regulations damage inward investment. No-one sane bothers to invest in Russia any more: the assets are confiscated at the whim of politicians. France and Italy aren't a whole lot better. If you think that unemployment is a price worth paying for a bit of short-term jingoism then you're a politician.

"Reposessing houses during a recession is not terribly beneficial to banks or other lending institutions."

You may be right. But it's for them to decide what to do with their own money, not for you or me to lecture them. Nor is it for politicians to meddle, making the situation worse.

"Not in the help the government already gave the banks, but by throwing people out of houses that they partly own and requiring that the government then have to house the same people at the same or greater expense as is normally the case.'

Then the Government should allow mortgage interest payments as part of housing benefit. Oh dear: they used to under the Tories and it was Labour that drastically curtailed that. Oh well. It must be the fault of the evil banks then, eh?

"But I suspect you simply mean people who took out mortgages and for whatever reason, whether accident, sickness, redundancy due to the financial situation or whatever they are unable to meet their full mortgage payments."

There are lots of ways to deal with that problem that doesn't require the subsidy of fecklessness.

"Again this is real loss, not reduced profits and it is again, ordinary men and women and their state subsidising private interests"

Eh? What are you talking about? Foreclosing on a mortgage is "subsidy" by the state? Or are you saying that bailing out the banks is subsidy? Well, I didn't support the bailing out of the banks either: the bailout has merely encouraged fecklessness in the finance industry.

[D.G.]

I like it. It would make a zero hours contract less of a horrifying prospect since you'd have less to lose. I think housing benefit might have to continue though - my perception is that the main reason folk stay on benefits rather than taking on "flexible" work is to make sure they don't lose the roof over their heads.

[HuwOS]

It is an interesting left wing idea alright, although its also had some consideration from the right, we can presume both sides have very different ideas about what is to be gained from it.

But getting a government to pay out huge sums of money before taking any in, in taxes would be a hard sell with any government.

I tend to think if it did happen in any form at all it would be as Ad suggests.
If it was brought in by any government other than a benign, committed left wing government it would be undoubtedly set at too low a level and be designed purely to wash their hands of the great unwashed and effectively throw them to the wolves.

[Ad]

'I advocate a Citizens Basic Income in order to give people control over their own lives, letting them choose a lifestyle that fits their desires and aspirations, rather than be held in check by the welfare system. I don't see that as an "interest in wealthy people."'

Interesting idea that. Although it would likely leave those who rely on benefits worse off financially.

[HuwOS]

It is in this are KayTie that you often at your most cogent and lay out a clear belief system with the least nonsense around it.

Obviously I still don't agree with you but at least you are making a realistic kind of case as opposed to certain other issues.

"Protectionism doesn't do that. The Cadbury shareholders wanted to sell. The Kraft shareholders wanted to buy. If you can't sell, you can't get the best price and you lose."

Protectionism does many things, in fact a good argument has been made that no country has reached a stage of development where they could benefit from free trade and free markets without having built up their industries during a protectionist phase.
You also don't lose if you can't get the best price, not making quite as much profit is not equal to losing anything.
While the reduced profit you would be talking about here is considerably less esoteric than the loss of profit in potentia that underlie the claims of the BPI and other interests that supported the DEB, reduced profits are still not, in reality, losses.

Given the nature of the founders of Cadbury's and their aims, it is more than a little ironic that the argument about losing by not making the maximum profit is being made about the company they set up.

All this is really beside the point anyway as there is no actual suggestion in the cadbury's policy as promised that would prevent the sale to foreign owners.
It is far more likely that it will be a mere sop to workers that if a business being sold could generate a lot of negativity that the government of the day will extract some promises from the buyers that they won't,
for example, shut down all production in this country within x period of time.
Promises that will probably be week and probably reneged on, and knowing governments who care more about big business than people, will probably have either no enforcement system or one so week as to be ineffective.
Now you might say that requiring new owners to keep production in a country is making them lose money by not allowing them to maximise profit but again lower profit is not in any sense loss.
What is actual loss is when people are rendered unemployed by moving production to another country. That is not reduced profit it is actual, genuine, severe loss.
And that is the nature of capitalism to push the losses onto others.
Who will pick up the tab for that loss, well we do, effectively we subsidise increased profits by Kraft in this case by allowing their actions, how very generous and kind of all of us.

"No, because that puts the price of mortgages up for everyone else. The whole point of a mortgage is that your house is collateral. If you stop paying a loan and yet the lender has no access to the collateral, then it's an unsecured loan, and the price of those is a lot higher."

Reposessing houses during a recession is not terribly beneficial to banks or other lending institutions.
With a mortgage they own whatever part of the house they own anyway, much more sensible to ride out temporary turbulence without unhoming people and selling property if they can sell it at a price much lower than it would get at any other time.
Especially when this is another example of business wanting government to subsidise it.
Not in the help the government already gave the banks, but by throwing people out of houses that they partly own and requiring that the government then have to house the same people at the same or greater expense as is normally the case.

"Very socialist to punish everyone for the behaviour of a feckless few."

I might have agreed with you on this if you had said capitalist instead of socialist and if by feckless few, I thought you meant the people in the financial industry who created this problem.
But I suspect you simply mean people who took out mortgages and for whatever reason, whether accident, sickness, redundancy due to the financial situation or whatever they are unable to meet their full mortgage payments.
Again this is real loss, not reduced profits and it is again, ordinary men and women and their state subsidising private interests and, in the case of our financial institutions, subsidising them from both ends at once, the true capitalist, free market dream.

[Kay Tie]

"they have casinos and gambling but won't allow their citizens to use online casinos run from outside the US and arrest people who dare to run them and then have the gall to set foot in the US."

Actually, it's not even the gall to set foot in the US: one executive was arrested when his flight was diverted to the US due to bad weather.

This isn't a left/right issue, it's an authoritarian/freedom issue. You know perfectly well that the US is a puritan country (it was founded by them) and this kind of intolerance is deeply embedded in the national psyche, just as puritanism is embedded in the Labour movement. Tories are social authoritarians too. This is what I kick against, because authoritarianism makes us poorer and by definition removes our freedom.

"A right wing government will always want to keep it's paymasters sweet and its paymasters will be a relatively small number of very rich capitalists who do not look kindly on losing money to other countries"

Protectionism doesn't do that. The Cadbury shareholders wanted to sell. The Kraft shareholders wanted to buy. If you can't sell, you can't get the best price and you lose. So which "rich capitalists" are supposed to benefit from this? An international cabal of Zionist hedge fund managers who are shorting chocolate makers?

"Thatcher would have loved light touch regulation of the financial industry"

No "would have". Did.

"adored university fees and loans instead of grants."

I have no idea what she thought of that. If she felt strongly, I'm sure that we'd have seen legislation. It was Major's government that introduced loans and Tony Blair's that finally killed off free higher education. Not a glorious record, particularly seeing how many unscrupulous universities reacted.

"right up to the point where they holed the country on the waterline and she would have bailed out these financial gamblers"

Her leanings were to the Austrian school (she was a particular fan of Hayek) and the Austrians have been bitterly opposed to the bailouts. I'm sure we'd have seen more scalps in the crisis if Mrs. Thatcher were Prime Minister.

"She probably wouldn't have put in very minor measures to prevent the banks foreclosing on people as soon as they got into trouble on their mortgage"

No, because that puts the price of mortgages up for everyone else. The whole point of a mortgage is that your house is collateral. If you stop paying a loan and yet the lender has no access to the collateral, then it's an unsecured loan, and the price of those is a lot higher. Very socialist to punish everyone for the behaviour of a feckless few.

[Kay Tie]

"Kay Tie you don't appear to have any concerns except self interest for wealthy people. Is this your 'idealism'?"

No, I have concerns for people. All people. Socialists pretend to be concerned for ordinary people, but all they do is attack wealth and make everyone poorer. You can see this in the huge dependent underclass they have created: these people have no future.

I advocate a Citizens Basic Income in order to give people control over their own lives, letting them choose a lifestyle that fits their desires and aspirations, rather than be held in check by the welfare system. I don't see that as an "interest in wealthy people." So what does your idealism do for people?

[Ad]

Kay Tie you don't appear to have any concerns except self interest for wealthy people. Is this your 'idealism'?

[HuwOS]

And exactly how would the cadbury policy be viewed as left wing?
It may not be utterly no borders free markety but then the right wing in western countries never really are, not about what matters to them. So in the US the prime proponents of free markets who have their NAFTA but still put duties on canadian lumber, they have casinos and gambling but won't allow their citizens to use online casinos run from outside the US and arrest people who dare to run them and then have the gall to set foot in the US.
That's not Anti-Capitalist, Socialist or left wing in anyway, that's choosing which capitalists to benefit.
A right wing government will always want to keep it's paymasters sweet and its paymasters will be a relatively small number of very rich capitalists who do not look kindly on losing money to other countries, capitalist or not.

Thatcher would have loved light touch regulation of the financial industry, adored university fees and loans instead of grants.
She would have loved the praise she got from the financial wizards right up to the point where they holed the country on the waterline and she would have bailed out these financial gamblers just as the current right wing administration did.
She probably wouldn't have put in very minor measures to prevent the banks foreclosing on people as soon as they got into trouble on their mortgage but that isn't left wing that's just not killing the laying hen that didn't lay today because it will probably lay tomorrow.

To give you a clue, for the state to propose taking over companies rather than let them go into other hands, that would be left wing, socialist even.

You will eventually learn this, if you try.

[Kay Tie]

"the New Labour lot are left wing"

The latest "Cadbury policy" proposed by Labour today is right wing then? I think we can safely conclude that Labour is now left wing, and getting more loony each day.

"have done nothing economically or regulatorily that Thatcher's Tories would not have been happy to claim as their own."

I don't think that Thatcher's Tories would have happy to claim Harriet Harman's Equality Bill. I agree that they would have been happy to fight alongside the USA in foreign wars. And introduce ID cards. And continue the war on drugs. And introduce draconian anti-terror laws. But these are not left/right but liberty/authoritarian.

"If you don't like how the country has been run, you can only blame the right wing."

No. I can only blame the authoritarians: Labour has lots. The Tories have lots. Labour has, I believe, more than the Tories, since Labour is virtually bereft of a pro-freedom streak (whereas the Tories have a little bit of this to restrain their worst excesses).

[HuwOS]

"are prepared to extol this injustice because it keeps the left in power."- KayTie

It really is impossible to know if you are stupid, ignorant or just have the memory of a goldfish.

I refer you to the last hundred or so times you have made the utterly unfounded accusations that
1) the New Labour lot are left wing
and
2) that I support them in any way.

New Labour, beyond some minor fiddling about with allowances and pensions with far more promised on those than ever achieved have done nothing economically or regulatorily that Thatcher's Tories would not have been happy to claim as their own.
Even some things that even Thatcher didn't feel she would be able to get past her own lot, such as university fees.

They have been and are right wing, they have been the continuation of the particular brand of right wing extremism so favoured by Thatcher era tories and right wing policies have landed the country in the mess it is in right now.

If you don't like how the country has been run, you can only blame the right wing.
They got what they wanted and it turned out they had no plan B to deal with what was always the obvious end result of what their selfish and greedy policies would bring about.

[Kay Tie]

"there are many English who would prefer that the other members of the UK had no input at all in UK level government"

Such as education, health, justice, etc: powers which Scots get to decide for themselves - and the English. Your touching defence of a dreadful abuse of power is a demonstration of your hypocrisy: you are prepared to extol this injustice because it keeps the left in power. You would scream and rant if it were the right who abused power like this.

[HuwOS]

While it is fair to say that there are many English who would prefer that the other members of the UK had no input at all in UK level government, and will whinge and whine about the effect that they believe the minority of seats that are assigned to those others have.
The simple fact is, the English have over 80% of the seats (for perfectly reasonable population reasons), if the English want something, they will get it, no matter what anyone else thinks, wants or how those others vote.

Whinging, whining and constant complaining is apparently the new English philosophy.
Once upon a time it was stiff upper lip and carry on, now it's whine and complain about how everything is just soooo unfair and how nobody understands them.
How representative of English people in general that is,
I do not know, it may be confined to a scattering of empty vessels.
One certainly hopes so.

If not, we can be sure they as a nation will soon be demanding to paint their room black and that all the mugs, side plates and forks will end up on the floor there.

[Kay Tie]

"Was it not the English led British empire that sucked the blood from the entire globe?"

Err, no. And even if it were true, the English would still be entitled to throw off the yoke of the socialist Scot.

[Patrick]

Kay-Tie
"Alternatively, Labour is held in power by Scottish and Welsh rotten boroughs and these countries enact their payment by sucking the blood of England."

Was it not the English led British empire that sucked the blood from the entire globe?

What goes around comes around vampires and all!

[HuwOS]

http://www.theyworkforthebpi.com/

[Dominic]

Paul

Why didn't you show up for the Digital Economy Bill vote? You haven't mentioned it in this blog since 24th March, when you said you would look into it.

Regards.

[Kay Tie]

"Which given that parliament is split 81% seats for England and 19% Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland means most policies are implemented if considered to be best for the country stopping the other side of the Severn and south of Scotland."

Alternatively, Labour is held in power by Scottish and Welsh rotten boroughs and these countries enact their payment by sucking the blood of England.

Independence for Wales and Scotland is a good thing - for Wales and Scotland and England.

[HuwOS]

There is no demanding money with menaces, there is a commitment from Plaid, that if they are in a position after the election to support a government they will ensure that said government is beneficial rather than harmful to the interests of the people of Wales.

[Tony]

I thought that focussing just on Wales was what the deveolved settlement was for and the implementation of WAG was all about. If you're saying that the General Election is the only way to force a UK government to recognise Wales's specific needs when that is what I understood WAG was for? Yes, Plaid should represent Wales but where do you think the extra money will come from ? - we owe a shedload of money and we have to cut government spending not increase it..
Or is it OK to increase Welsh spending at the expense of any other part of the UK. That's what bugs me - they are demanding money with menaces when right now we need ways to cut spending in a way that does not destroy front line services - but hey if we are into 'beggar thy neighbour' I guess thats OK. Lets face it we already have the government spending 50+% of all economic activity in South Wales - and we want more ? even more at London's behest.. good plan.. hows that working out ?

[HuwOS]

It could be called corruption or prostitution Tony, or it could be called dealing with the institutions as they are whilst trying to get change.

It all depends on whether you think a welsh party has any business looking to represent Wales effectively or not.
Which given that parliament is split 81% seats for England and 19% Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland means most policies are implemented if considered to be best for the country stopping the other side of the Severn and south of Scotland.

And I am not saying that UK governments don't care about any other part of the union. I'm saying they have absolutely no reason to, so if they do, it is on whim, personal preference, a spirit of generosity or the day's good deed.

[Illtyd Luke]

Plaid is the only party talking about Afghanistan.

Tony- you don't get it. Plaid don't want to be the UK Government, they want to force the UK Government to recognise Wales' needs and demands. A pretty popular position to be in right now, when people hate whoever is in government at Westminster.

[Tony]

I noted that Plaid said that in the event of a hung parliament the 'price' of their support in any potential coalition was the addition of £300m of funding for Wales. So is this corruption or prostitution?
This is a UK government we are electing yet Plaid can't see further than the Severn Bridge