The late Prof Mick Moran, who taught politics and government at Manchester University for most of his professional life, had, according to his colleagues, once had “a certain residual respect for our governing elites”. That all changed during the 2008 financial crisis, after which he experienced an epiphany “because it convinced him that the officer class in business and in politics did not know what it was doing”.
After his epiphany, Moran formed a collective of academics dedicated to exposing the complacency of finance-worship and to replacing it with an idea of running modern economies focused on maximising social good.
If the officer class is clueless – obviously it is and that applies to any group we might promote to such status – then there’s no manner of “running” the economy is there? Which is, of course, why we use liberty and markets to do so, so that there’s no clueless wonder “running” things.
and then there’s Gordon Brown + chums
The article is utterly demented, but if the writer is impressed by Professor Moron I suppose it’s no surprise.
“The late Prof Mick Moran, who taught politics and government at Manchester University for most of his professional life”
“because it convinced him that the officer class in business and in politics did not know what it was doing”.
Not a successful career then?
What is the point of “growth” if the basic elements of a decent life are denied to a large and growing number?
Leftists are very fond of rhetorical questions based on a false assumptions. Her whole article is a flimsy justification of Corbynism at its nastiest.
I always took it that Parliament was designed to keep the “officer classes” busy, on the principle that idle hands do mischief make.
” so that there’s no clueless wonder “running” things.”
No, but there’s a whole useless bunch of them screwing things up. See áffordable housing’, or ímmigration of cheap labour, or food nannyism or you-name-it arrogant interference in any and all markets thinking they can ‘fix’ them.
This is all Schumpeter made real, though isn’t it ? Creative destruction and all that.
Companies become bureaucracies, the entrepreneurs retire or die, the talented are driven out and the drones and the useless (or the whizz kids with their Harvarc business degrees) take over. Company fails. Bosses awarded for failure, thousands laid off etc etc.
Same in government, look at the bunch of third raters runnng the world, even the dictators are rubbish.
So basically he just wanted to replace one officer class with another officer class, made up of him and his political mates, who would have even more power than the last lot of failures.
What BiS said.
On a related note, does anyone know what the fuck Theresa May is doing?
I can’t make sense of the news reports, and Guido’s place is full of the usual irrelevant nonsense (who knew John Bercow was a horrible, evil midget like the one in DON’T LOOK NOW?) with the usual Depressio P. Doomedman comments.
Yes, yes, cultural marxism, LibLabCon, etc. But what’s actually going on? Are the DUP really the only thing standing between a Conservative and Unionist Prime Minister and said PM agreeing to break up the Union in all but name because she’s a tard who has contrived to throw away a winning hand?
Has it really come to open treason?
“The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.”
Thomas Sowell
Steve, I think May is just trying to cling on to the PM job on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis. Any mad shit to survive. I don’t think she has much higher purpose.
Steve-
dunno, feels like a stitch up.. since we haven’t had any leaks that don’t feel like obvious planted stories,
but this at least was a good move
“Mr Raab was simply arriving a day earlier than planned to take over discussions held at an official level”
the way to avoid a bushwhacking is to bushwhack them.
PJF, HB – I see Project Fear 2.0 is still in maximum overdrive – another couple of planted stories in the press today about employers fleeing “No Deal” Brexit.
I can’t see the Tories surviving this, barring some minor miracle (May dancing her way into the path of a speeding bus driven by one of those aspirational, naturally conservative Pakistani gents). There’s no constituency for a NeverBrexit “conservative” party. Never was.
The Project Fear 2.0 really is quite mad. The FT had a report that said that the UK would need customs posts to prevent guns and drugs coming in after Brexit from the EU. The point being that if these morons had even half a brain they would realise that they are suggesting that the EU will suddenly start being lawless and allowing exports of guns and drugs to the UK as a result of Brexit… So what keeps the stuff out now?
What is the purpose of Project Fear 2.0? The public doesn’t have a say now. Is it supposed to make us relieved to have Chequers?
‘Forget the ‘high-skill, hi-tech’ obsession: we should invest in everyday services to create a society run for collective good’
As long as the money lasts. Then print more. In two years, you are full blown Venezuela.
‘replacing it with an idea of running modern economies focused on maximising social good.’
“We get to call our ideas ‘modern,’ you don’t.” Yet it’s the same 100 year old communism that kills people. You’d think the professor would have at least learned that during his lifetime. I guess politics and government is NOT economics.
Don’t knock communism. Within half a dozen years of Stalin’s death the Russian working man was back to his pre-war standard of living. Pre first world war, that is.
Steve-
“about employers fleeing “No Deal” Brexit.”
ach -its annoying because i do/did have some misgivings about Brexit. E.g. if we don’t dump EU protectionism what balances out the loss of the single market. What is the level of protectionism, what’s that prize? and then what’s the single market loss cost. Don’t know.The press dump figures galore. But it’s never in a cost versus benefit, apples and apples way. Just headline risk, big number, risk, conclusion we’d be crazy to risk that big number capiche?
Will conservatives survive as government- yes, it’s possible. You need a majority to overturn the fixed terms act. So MPS can vote for all sorts of things but getting a majority of turkeys to vote for xmas is less likely. And Theresa and Hammond’s MO is to buy the the DUP’s votes so the majority for staying put is there.
As a party split down the middle on europe?- was it ever not thus?
@Gamecock
“In two years, you are full blown Venezuela.”
The latest argument from the left is that you can’t mention Venezuela because it is a tired argument.
A bit like saying it’s a tired argument to mention all the people who have fallen to their deaths when arguing against someone claiming humans can levitate.
Ken
Once Serbia joins the EU, then all the really decent and affordable new guns will be readily available and the importers won’t even have to bribe the Hungarian bordet guards.
‘replacing it with an idea of running modern economies focused on maximising social good.’
Define ‘social good’.
A bit like Ritchie who has avoided a public sector job, terrified his worst fears would be realised. That it isn’t staffed by altruistic geniuses.
If he wants the changes he suggests, he’s going to have to remove a lot of people who won’t go quietly.
HB – Sure. I’m not talking about them surviving as a government (obviously, the government is doomed). I’m thinking about their survival as a viable major political party.
There’s no God-given reason why one of our national political parties should be the Conservatives, as opposed to, say, the Whigs or the Monster Loonies.
The Europe split is nothing new, but it’s gotten worse over time (inevitably, as it’s no longer possible to split the difference between the EU and national sovereignty), and the Conservatives have spent two years squandering the opportunity to put an end to the issue forever.
Leave/Remain is a binary choice. Leave won. The smart play would’ve been to accept this and move on. Not try to make both sides happy, thereby ensuring nobody’s happy.
Furthermore, the Tories can’t even get the small stuff right.
Nobody who might realistically be inclined to vote Tory was impressed by May’s Pakistani bus driver virtue-twirling (the general public, especially the right-leaning half, is sick of Muslim immigration and wants to see Trumpian solutions).
Nobody except demented trannies is in favour of the Gender Recognition Act.
Nobody who isn’t in on the scam wants HS2.
Nobody who isn’t a noodle-armed cyclist wants to ban cars, as Michael Gove does, and they all vote Green or Lib Dem in real life.
Parties lose power when the public stops trusting them. They die when their public stops identifying with them.
What does the Conservative Party stand for, in 2018? They claim it’s “opportunity”, but this is the worst sort of rhetoric – it’s empty rhetoric, and everyone can see it.
We must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom! – Kodos
What they actually stand for is political correctness, weakness and conniving failure. This isn’t a sustainable platform, there’s no mass constituency for it, and their haemorrhaging of activists and members is the leading indicator that they’re dancing into the fire.
Steve- yes there’s an awful lot of cringe and not much credo with these guys.
Though i’d expect cons to survive so long as there is First Past The Post. But all it takes is a hung parliament, and lib dems won’t make the mistakes of the past (you’d think anyway). Then the conservatives could well split and so could labour! Thus the way is paved for the return of Nick Clegg who Royal prerogatives his way to the prodigal return of Albion to the bosom of the continental motherinlawland.
BluLab have ONLY one chance to win the next GE and that is a full and proper Brexit–and May fucked-off.
She can’t get Chequershite (let alone Chequershite++= Brexit means remain on EU orders) thro without mass ZaNu support. In itself an all-around total betrayal of labour and Tory Brexit supporters.
But think on. Jizz needs a quick score before too many see thro’ his bullshit. Why should he keep the FFC going until 2022 and risk his and ZaNu’S bolt being rusted or shot by then?
If he orders his gang to vote against any sellout Fish Face serves up then he has his best chance right there of bringing the govt down quick and he doesn’t piss off millions of his own voters. Yes there will be Bliarite rebels. But how many? Given that loads of ZaNu hacks have whined about the People’s Anti-semite’s anti-semitism but done exactly fuck all. Apart from Frank Field etc ( and the far-far left nutter whose name I forget) the only ONE to resign the whip was Woodcock and that was cause they sex-stitched him as he might have been a bliarite rival for Jizza’s job.
So I don’t think it is any sort of done deal. We knew the traitorous cow who be back with more concessions but the ESpew are being so egregious that it staggers belief. Maybe it is the half a loaf caper and a final deal will be shite but only a bit more shite than the already shite Chequers Mark1. But somehow the arrogance of the EU gangsters just seems too great for that. They know she is a traitor, a brazen traitor, and they seem to be going for it.
If anybody has another take–with reasons preferably rather despair-as-a-way-of-life, please chip in.
So basically he just wanted to replace one officer class with another officer class, made up of him and his political mates, who would have even more power than the last lot of failures.
Nothing says ‘I’m serious about change’ like gathering a bunch of like-minded jerk-offs to noodle about writing pithy platforms for this year’s version of a totalitarian utopia.
I beg to differ. Call my first witness, Theresa May.
@Steve
Leave/Remain is a binary choice. Leave won. The smart play would’ve been to accept this and move on. Not try to make both sides happy, thereby ensuring nobody’s happy.
Exactly. If Remain had won 52:48, would we be contriving a position in which we pretend to Remain, but actually Leave, in order to placate the losing 48%? Would we fuck.
HB – I hear Cleggy is now too right-wing to be allowed to speak at British Universities. Maybe he’ll just take power, using his gangs of peevish cyclists and corduroy-clad recycling enthusiasts as shock troops.
Meanwhile in Murphy’s world there is a demand for the usual ‘Moar Tax’
‘We are also the slowest growing country in the EU.
That is not a coincidence.
Tax rises? Bring them on, I say. We will all be better off.’
Chris – defin-tetley
We’d also have signed up for the European Army and our “fair share” of Merkel’s itinerant nonconsensual sexperts by now, just as an added “fuck you” to the gammon.
Like what happened the last time the plebs seriously threatened the power of our Europhilic lords and masters:
Serfs you are and serfs you will remain.
Aside from the special interests hoping to suck on the Euroteat a little longer, this is pure Who? Whom? stuff, the politics of humiliation. Hence the plan to turn NornIron into an EU Manchukuo. Is anyone actually bothered by the prospect of, say, farmers selling black market potatoes across the Irish border? Nah. But we must be punished for opting to leave, much in the same way abusive cults do.
And May survives another day. EU piles it on.
PJF–For May to go I think her shite must be defeated–either in a vote or by the fact they dare not have a vote because they would lose. The cosy cabal of remain cunts she has surrounded herself with cannot string it out for ever. The ERG can’t afford to challenge her and lose so she will have to keep degrading until there is no other option than to be shot of her.
It makes you sick but that’s BluLab for you..
Who is the shower now Theo?
“What is the point of “growth” if the basic elements of a decent life are denied to a large and growing number?”
As Doug Stanhope points out, poverty in the USA means still owning a flipphone which is embarassing around chicks.
Update: “I Am Soldier X.”
We’ve retained legal counsel to help any soldiers who need it
If you are a soldier who is being disciplined, or even discharged, for standing with me [Tommy Robinson], or Soldier X, and if you need legal help, please send us an e-mail in strictest confidence — to [email protected]
.
Admirable action by Ezra, TR & Rebel Media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0OUoNhMle4
[email protected]
‘Moran formed a collective of academics dedicated to exposing the complacency of finance-worship and to replacing it with an idea of running modern economies’
This is the Obama Model. Academics, who have no experience ever running anything, are going to be put in charge of everything. Cos they’re smarter.
Don’t you want smart people running things?
looking from outside it seems that
1. EU is saying keep NI aligned with EU
2. May is saying no, but instead keep all U.K. aligned with EU
And EU is prentending that 2 is worse than 1 and they couldn’t possibly countenance it etc.
Am I missing something or do they really think everyone is stupid enough to fall for a late sigh and ok we will go with your plan from the EU and think hurrah they backed down we won
B-Nic–No.
Nobody is that stupid nor do they think we are. That is a bridge too far even for today’s political shite.
Even if they succeed they know that is pretty much the end of the Tory Party. This is no 1997, there will be no comeback from an almighty betrayal such as the Fish Faced Cow is offering. It is Marxism ahoy and they know it.
The calculation is –can they survive/prosper personally? Given that the next govt will have McNasty –a man who says he wants to see hanged Tories everywhere–any sane contemplation should conclude that NO is the answer there as well.
All we can do is keep after the bastards and make sure they know that if they betray they have nowhere to go.
Same circs as Judas really.
This says it all:
https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2018/10/stewart-jackson-mendacity-duplicity-subterfuge-and-misjudgement-how-i-saw-an-establishment-coup-wreck-a-clean-brexit.html
It’s an odd kind of growth that leads to an increase in poverty… Unless this is measured by people like Piketty who have never stepped outside a library in their whole lives. Or wrong Lewis and krugman and every other mouthy lefty economist
I’ve lost my Ecks program. Can someone please tell me what a ZaNu is?
Why would Ecks care about the Zimbabwe African National Union?
ZaNu = Britain’s Labour party. I’m not hot on Ecks rant codes; I think it’s a play on “New Labour” (what the party used to call itself under Tony Blair) and Mr Ecks’ identification of UK socialism with the shining successes of leftism in Zimbabwe.
BluLab = Britain’s Conservative Party, because it’s just another bunch of lefties.
Jizz = Jeremy Corbyn (sometimes known as “Jezza”)
McNasty = John McDonnell, Labour shadow chancellor.
Fish Faced Cow = no explanation necessary.
Thank you PJF. Right on all counts.
New Labour began to be abbreviated over on Guido’s site(back before he was a major sell out) to NuLabour. Then someone called them ZaNuLabour which I stole and after a while cut down to ZaNu . Apt as they increasingly resemble the murdering Marxist scum of Mugabe.
Theo–Your man calls it right. I hope he is equally right about the FFC’s impending fate.
It would hardly be adequate for such treason. Were I PM my first action would be to get the lawyers to come up with some way that various evil doers could be summoned to No 10 and the shit beaten out of them with no legal comeback. It happens to ordinary little people all the time but it is a just day and hour that some deserving would-be “big cheeses” got a share as well.
I’m sure McNasty has a crew already at work on the idea,.
“The latest argument from the left is that you can’t mention Venezuela because it is a tired argument.”
So a current story is “tired” but “Thatcher the milk snatcher” can be invoked 40 years on. The cognitive dissonance and newspeak grows ever stronger.
I expect our Progressive masters would favour a system such as this:
https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/10/43905/
Thanks for the data, PJF.
And to Mr Ecks, for coining the terms.
Hillary is also infamous for waving off scandals with the declaration “we’ve already talked about that.” Which is a perfectly adequate response for “journalists,” the finest of people.
“What about your theft of $2 billion from the Haiti Relief Fund?”
“We already talked about that.”
Mr Curious: “Why did you launch your political career in the living room of an unrepentant domestic terrorist whose organisation killed people?”
Obama: “I was a small child when Bill Ayers was involved with domestic terror.”
Mr Curious: “Wait, what?”
MSM: Tingles
This kind of (pathetic) evasion works for you when the majority of the investigative media works for you.
“Even if they succeed they know that is pretty much the end of the Tory Party. ”
Who is waiting in the wings?
UKIP? UKIP succeeded on a simple policy – out of the EU. And if we’ve technically left, even with quite a poor Brexit, it’s going to be very hard to get that sort of clear, simple policy to get behind.
I don’t think we’ve negotiated well at all, and I don’t think it matters that much. I see this like a battle with troops defending a bridge. You’ll fight hard to defend it to allow your men to come through (and in exchange, gain favour for doing so), but if your enemy drops a bomb on it, leaving you stranded with the enemy, what are you going to do? You’re going to surrender. There’s no way back for you. In olden times, you might have just sworn fealty to the new king rather than face execution and the new king would have understood that you were just a mercenary, but a good fighter, so you’d settle down in the enemy land and make a life there.
Once the dust settles and everyone realises that Project Fear 2 failed, Labour and the Lib Dems will change policy. and become Eurosceptic. Not overnight. But you’ll see the tone shift over a few years. Because when it’s all about Westminster they’ll want less power in Brussels and more in Westminster.
BoM4 –
Who is waiting in the wings?
Yes. It’s a good question. It also breeds the sort of complacency that saw Labour routed in its former fiefdom of Scotland.
“Who else are you gonna vote for, McIdiots?” – Scottish Labour
Well… UKIP for one. UKIP seems to be in a bit of a shambles just now (from a layman’s POV) but they’re still capable of making the difference between Conservative MP’s getting reelected or not. Also, they might get less shambly over time.
The most popular political party of all is the I Can’t Believe I Don’t Care party – which reliably wins millions of non-votes. Expect lots of former Conservatives to back them in the next election.
Longer term is anyone’s guess, but the Tories had a chance to finally resolve their Euro-split and fluffed it. If they can’t deliver a real Brexit, this fight is only going to get more toxic until one or both sides loses.
They’ve also had many other opportunities to stake out popular positions – and fluffed them.
Remember the terrorist attack before the 2017 election? Labour was absolutely bricking it, expecting May to at least talk tough on Muslim terror and win a landslide off the back of that. They needn’t have worried.
It comes down to this: who is the Conservative Party for?
Labour is for public sector workers, metropolitan liberals, immigrants, students and (ostensibly) the working class. That’s a powerful coalition.
The Tories are for… multinational businesses with integrated European supply chains? Banks? People who are still soothed by vague, empty rhetoric about “opportunity”? In poker terms, they’re holding three unmatched cards, an unpaid parking fine, and a BHS shopping voucher.
FPTP means our political ecosystem is like one of them isolated islands in the Pacific where all sorts of weird and impractical genetic traits can persist – until they don’t. Know what I mean?
At the moment, the main function of the Conservative Party seems to be to be the not-completely-batshit-and-destroy-the-country-leftoid party.
BOM4–Sorry but that is cowardly cockrot.
First of all the Cow hasn’t won yet.
And the EU is only part of a Global Elite power grab based on their fear that it is all slipping thro’ their fingers. The shit May is pushing leaves us worse of than before and remainiac scum will push for re-join with the Euro etc.
Your and everybody’s life is going to be made much worse by what the WOMI tarsh are trying to do. The EU is a walking corpse and that plus ZaNu means absolute fucking disaster.
My suggestion for a next step would be a national “fuck the state” move. In which we all including business start acting as if we have a no deal Brexit and exporting as we see fit etc. Leagues of companies could apply to other –better disposed– govts for trade terms and if coppers or state hacks show up then time for fists in faces.
Part of the mind-numbing rage all this shit induces is the feeling that the nests of oily traitors can do what they like and still slope off with their fucking pensions taken from our pockets. Time that was brought to an end.
Steve,
“Yes. It’s a good question. It also breeds the sort of complacency that saw Labour routed in its former fiefdom of Scotland.
“Who else are you gonna vote for, McIdiots?” – Scottish Labour”
But the SNP always had some organisation, some machinery. They’ve been going since just after the end of WW2. I’m not complacent about people going elsewhere, it’s more of an open question.
“Well… UKIP for one. UKIP seems to be in a bit of a shambles just now (from a layman’s POV) but they’re still capable of making the difference between Conservative MP’s getting reelected or not. Also, they might get less shambly over time.”
That’s a very good point. We got a referendum because Farage was saying “nice majority you’ve got there, squire, be a shame if something happened to it”.
The reason that Continuity Remain are so desperate for a 2nd vote, or an election or a delay (until after an election) is that this is their only hope. If we haven’t left, the Conservatives will lose a lot of seats to UKIP. May falls etc. Or she kicks it down the road for another year, and another year etc.
The success of UKIP was because of a strong, simple message, much like the SNP. And if you’ve technically left, it’s less of a strong message. I think this will lessen UKIPs effect, although I think they will concentrate firepower on the likes of Soubry and Morgan.
I joined the Conservatives because I have some hope. The contenders for succeeding May are more “liberal”. And honestly, there’s really nowhere else for me. There’s at least some people closely aligned to me. And the ones who aren’t give you a fair hearing.
@Gamecock
Did you see Hellary’s CBS interview?
Intern Monica was not an abuse of power by Slick Willy…
…”Monica was an adult”.
Destroys the #MeToo movement – not a peep from usual SJW FemiNazis
“Did you see Hellary’s CBS interview?”
Wut? I avoid demons on TV.
When Tucker Carlson has them on “for balance,” I fast forward.
I would watch Hillary’s execution. That’s about it. No trial date, yet.
Mr Ecks,
“My suggestion for a next step would be a national “fuck the state” move. In which we all including business start acting as if we have a no deal Brexit and exporting as we see fit etc. Leagues of companies could apply to other –better disposed– govts for trade terms and if coppers or state hacks show up then time for fists in faces.”
You go first, then.
The problem with alternatives to the Conservative Party (at the moment) is that they end up in this sort of Internet Tough Guy fantasy, or as a right-wing version of the Tooting Popular Front.
Well I don’t know many–as in none– business people big enough to strike a foreign deal on terms ignoring the sell out and any EU orders but if any companies do just that I am willing to turn out and do what I can to stop state “actions” against any such. Note the careful statements I make. Cos I’m not stupid.
Also remembering that the sellout hasn’t won yet.
And your suggestion–to keep kissing Tory arse cos that is all there is –is still cowardly cockrot. Unless you have some sort of inside knowledge that some of them ARE actually going to do something about the FFC. If you are against mouthfighters you are in bed with the wrong bunch in the Tory Party. So far at least.