But, Putin did the unimaginable and launched a war of aggression in Europe. In the process, he showed that he, like almost everyone else, got all his calculations wrong.
So, folks with lots of power don’t have the information necessary to make the correct calculations. That’s a win one for Hayek right there.
The consequence has been clear for all to see. There have been so many ministers that it has been almost impossible to be sure who is in office. Those who are as the year closes are utterly incompetent. Their only plan is to see their term out. They otherwise are bereft of ideas, and have outsourced economic policy to the Bank of England, with dire consequences.
In the face of this total failure, which the public very obviously understands and blames on the government, Labour, should be riding high on ideas that could transform the country for a generation to come. It isn’t. No one really doubts that it will win the next election. The sane hope the majority is small because this is a party as wedded to economic orthodoxy, austerity and the outsourcing of power to the private sector as any in the neoliberal era.
Yes, yes, we know, cometh the hour, cometh the potato.
The application of the policy instruments designed to tackle inflation caused by excess income when the reality was that incomes were, for most people, too small to cope with this shock, will probably go down as the worst policy mistake of this year.
Yep, the whole world’s wrong.
There can be no forgiveness for getting something as basic as this wrong. Those pursuing these policies need to be swept from the economic policy-making arena, never to return.
Sweep the anti-solanum’s from the public stage. There is the one true tuber and glory will be his coming.
Blame chaos, incompetence and inflation that have between them reduced the ability to think of those who believe they are competent to govern to collective jelly.
Nowt wrong with the Prinzip that is, we’ve just not hailed the correct Gospodin into the corner office, have we?
You may class it as “Ragging on Ritchie” but your commenters are often guilty of raging at Richie – awfully unchristian of them.
Well, dearieme, at least the comments here stay up.. 😛
Perhaps the potato has a yeast infection in his brain, which is turning him slowly into vodka? It might explain his delirious or intoxicated ramblings.
Dearieme – not raging, just concerned for his mental health…
He sometimes gets things partially right.
The Tories will lose the next election because they have made such a huge balls up of matters since 2019 ( well since 2010 really ). Labour will prob win simply because they are not the Tories and don’t have the great Palestinian PooBah Corbyn in charge. But Labour has no more idea how to fix the mess than the current govt has and both side have actually been proposing by and large Spudonomic policy.
It is all so depressing. I wonder what the turn out will be like ? Since 2010 it has been pretty healthy but under Blair it was noticeably under par.
Otto – But Labour has no more idea how to fix the mess than the current govt has
That’s where we’re wrong, Otto.
It’s not a mess, it’s a deliberate choice.
cometh the hour, cometh the potato
Cometh the chip pan?
When reality kicks fools out of a fool’s paradise the government must step in to deny reality and subsidise their readmittance.
“It’s not a mess, it’s a deliberate choice.”
How would you tell the difference, Steve?
Theo – they’d be trying to find ways out of the mess, instead of (very successfully) blocking all the fire escapes.
Steve
You are wrong.
The most likely explanation of the behaviour of governments is that the business of government is driven by fads and fashions. The power of said fads is increased because the idiots in government really do not know how to govern – they don’t know what the goal should be, so any shiny idea that pops by can be glommed onto. They don’t know how a successful country should work. When they to stumble upon something worth trying to fix. they don’t know how to fix it.
Because they just follow fads, they are sensitive to the cries of the baying masses, whether they be race-baiters or ER evil clowns. And of course the ‘press’ in all its loathsome forms is part of that baying crowd of fools.
There never has been a government that could both plot against its people and stay in power for generations. It’s most unlikely that we have one now. It’s most likely that they’re as described – idiots of no moral compass following where the wind blows to their own perceived benefit.
This does NOT mean that the outcome won’t be as you describe. But I prefer the explanation of entrenched fashion following idiots as the root explanation, because it is clearly what’s in place. No need for farfetched conspiracy theories.
Can’t we get him a title? Lord Spudcup would work well.
@derieme “You may class it as “Ragging on Ritchie” but your commenters are often guilty of raging at Richie – awfully unchristian of them.” You’ve obviously not met the potato in person or spoken to him. I have and that’s why I rag on him. He honestly believes he’s the smartest person in the room – any room in fact and if you disagree with him you must be a fool. He’s not as unpleasant to naysayers in person than he is to those on his site I’ll give him that at least.
BiT – it’s not really farfetched, it’s just what’s occuring.
They’re not habitually signing us up to sinister Global Migration Compacts and insane Net Zero schemes nobody voted for because they don’t know what they’re doing. They know exactly what they’re doing, and they’re very effective at implementing it.
There never has been a government that could both plot against its people and stay in power for generations.
That’s the neat part, they’re almost finished replacing the people. Biden has been gloating about it for years.
Dearieme – Jesus Christ had some very spicy things to say about Pharisees and Samaritans.
moqifen
Were you, I wonder, a regular enjoying a convivial drink in a Downham Market hostelry when you came across the Potato?
If you were, it must be some consolation for you that his unique character achieved the (I’m guessing unheard of) lifetime ban from all of them.
Bravefart – luckily no. He appeared at some union meetings (when i worked) as a guest speaker to impart his wisdom to us proles.
This is priceless – it’s as though news from outside the U.K. doesn’t register at all – he’s clearly taken no notice of events in China at all
I admit I did not see this coming in the way that it has. But then I did not foresee the shift from Covid lockdown to Covid denial that happened in 2021 and which led to supply chain issues, or war, as noted above.
Covid reopening started the inflationary cycle and had worked through now (shipping rates, second-hand car prices and other indicators are all beginning to prove that).
And he seems stuck in 2020 – my guess is he’ll (once he’s recovered from his 5th bout of COVID – a world record) start sawing doors of classrooms to ventilate them
There is an easy answer. It is fresh air. Just as clean water transformed Victorian Britain so might clean air transform the UK now. It would be cheaper, simpler and more effective than any medical treatment. Engineers almost always solve public health problems. It could be delivered quickly, too. So why has that not happened?
He is truly among the most stupid people I have ever seen on the Net. If he’s the smartest man in the room where’s the meeting being held? A phone box?
Steve
It’d be a waste of effort to continue this too far and too hard – but, yes indeed – nobody **voted** for much of anything; the votes are for candidates, not policies: the candidates stood for election, the net zero stuff did not.
Nonetheless, it’s – to my mind – clearly more of a mindless following of fashion than any planned path. Someone may be laying the trail in the media but it’s not the elected governments – those governments are following the trail because its fashionable and they want to be re-elected.
So perhaps I should clarify – yes; they know what they’re doing – they’re following the fashions of the baying mob. That’s it. They’re not in possession of a demonic goal and cunning plans to reach it. They’re far too stupid to do that, and incompetent to boot. Someone else is inciting the baying mob – quite possibly the baying mob itself; they do get all excited in their bubbles, and they are the ones who publish.
I’d say BiT truly understands how it works. Politicians are largely wedded to the 24 hour news cycle. And one has to understand that in reality there is no such thing as a government. It’s a word we use to describe a process. It’s not a thing. What you actually have is a collection of individuals each seeking to maximise what they perceive as their own personal advantage. What comes out of that is a composite result. Mostly very short term driven.
It’s thus you’ve got Net Zero. It was May incorporated it into legislation wasn’t it? You’d have to go back in time to what was happening around then it was the attention diverting solution to. And whether it was her, herself, or some combination of individuals in the government of the time & she took the line of least resistance. Whatever, the outcome of the decision was years in the future & none of them would be dealing with the repercussions.
You’ve still got it because the repercussions still haven’t quite arrived & none of the current lot want the career damage of unwinding it. They’ll get high volume media driven stick from all the 3 & 4 letter organisations. Which are also illusions comprised of individuals looking to their own short term personal advantage