The paragraph is the conclusion of an article by Sarah Gordon entitled ‘Infrastructure is too important to fall under the spell of politics’. And yet the call is blatantly political, as is Gordon’s article (which is also blatantly wrong in its analysis of Blair and Brown).
The call should instead be seen as just another in the ongoing cycle of demands from business that a wide range of decisions be removed from political control. So, the Bank of England was. The NHS has been passed over to local boards of the great and good. And the ACCA has called for there to be only one budget a parliament so that tax can be taken out of the democratic arena. And now the demand is that infrastructure spending should also be handed over.
The trend is unmistakable and is clearly an assault on democracy. We’re seeing it in Greece, but don’t have any doubt it is happening here in the UK too, done by nice people in suits.
That’s from the man who insists that infrastructure spending should all be handed over to the Green Investment Bank.
And a man who, condemning the Hungary an government, included government control over the central.bank as a sign of fascism.
The Bank of England doesn’t operate under political direction? Oh.
It’s amazing then that the Governor has to report to the Chancellor when they don’t “manage” to “hit” the target inflation range.
@SE:
In one of his recent “debates” with a commenter he made this very point. Something along the lines of “You think the BoE is independent? Get real.”
Obviously no central bank is entirely independent in that government controls the armed services and the police and when push comes to shove, it can knock down the door of the central bank and arrest the CB governor: which effectively happens every now and then in Argentina.
However, there are varying degrees of CB independence.
He is too stupid to realise that such a move is in his interests – any organisation managing this ‘investment’ would be infested by Proggies within fifteen seconds of its existence, and you could never get rid of them because it would be ‘independent’.
I thought the phrase was “Operational Independence”?
He has about as much belief in ‘conventional democracy’ as his contributor Erich Mielke – If I were the CBI I would be pointing out Murphy’s appropriation of the term ‘Civil Society’ to mean ‘people who agree with me’.
Tim, surprised you haven’t picked up on either of his other posts (the ones on Juncker and the EU) The fact they have called him in at the time the thing begins to unravel does have a certain symbolism to it, though – both are unwelcome reminders of past times most would rather forget….
“freer movements of people and capital, and not free movement of either”
What does that mean? Polly can have her house in Tuscany, Murphy can work for Brussels, but the great unwashed can’t come over to Britain and cause problems for his Welfare State? Or is it that French bankers can’t move to London to escape socialist taxes at home?
(sorry, my last is a quote from the Murphy piece that Van Patten referred to)
Richard
‘there is no evidence people move to avoid taxes’
‘Are you saying that Poor people don’t suffer from disincentives?’
‘Bluntly, you are wrong’
‘Wise people agree with me’
‘That’s your last contribution here’
According to the resident troll here –
1 – the above argument style is ‘winning the argument’
2 – it doesn’t constitute abuse (unlike Tim)
3 – for pointing out its stupidity, I, and numerous other commentators here are ‘idiots’