Lib Dems - not a serious political party

Matthew Bowles has an interesting CAPX take on the Lib Dems. It is familiar in that we know we shouldn't take Lib Dems seriously, but also a worthwhile reminder that the Lib Dem smoke and mirrors approach to reform is standard across the UK political arena.

   

The Liberal Democrats don’t understand growth

• The Lib Dems' hare-brained scheme to abolish the Treasury is style over substance
• Britain has an abundance of pro-growth rhetoric, but an extreme shortage of pro-growth policies
• If their last manifesto is anything to go by, the Liberal Democrats are determined to throttle growth

The Liberal Democrats have announced that they want to abolish the Treasury and replace it with a new ‘Department for Growth’, supported by a separate department for public spending. On the face of it, this sounds radical, even refreshing. Britain’s economy has stagnated for over a decade, productivity has broadly flatlined (especially in the public sector) and living standards have barely recovered since the 2007/08 financial crisis. If the Treasury really is part of the problem, why not scrap it?

But as with so many Lib Dem policy announcements, the ambition dissolves on contact with detail. Strip away the rhetoric and the proposal looks less like a serious growth strategy and more like a rebranding exercise, which leaves the party’s underlying policy instincts firmly intact. Simply having a department for something doesn’t make it so.

The whole piece is well worth reading because so many political proposals are merely rebranding wheezes like this one, a standard way to evade reform rather than (clutch those pearls!) actually carry it out. 


The truth is that Britain does not suffer from a lack of growth rhetoric, but from an excess of anti-growth policies. High marginal tax rates, a labyrinthine planning system and endless red tape have combined to suppress economic dynamism for years. Addressing that would require political choices that governing parties of all stripes have shied away from in recent years.

None of this precludes reforming the Treasury. But reform must follow strategy, not substitute for it. Otherwise, the overarching risk is that Britain ends up yet again with the same policies, and the same stagnation, just administered by a shinier department with a more fashionable name.

Switched Off

Starmer to claim 'lamps would go out across Europe' under Reform UK or Greens

In an extraordinary attack on Reform UK and the Green Party, Sir Keir underlined the need to explain to the public why it is important to invest in rebuilding Britain's defences.

"Because, if we don't, the peddlers of easy answers on the extreme left and the extreme right are ready. They will offer their solutions instead," he will say, according to excerpts from the speech released in advance...

"The future they offer is one of division and then capitulation. The lamps would go out across Europe once again. But we will not let that happen."


Yes you switched-off clod, we understand the reference to lamps going out across Europe, but what many people will also think of is -

Ed Miliband

Net Zero

A Speech

A speech by Sir Keir Rodney Starmer who appointed -

• Ed Miliband as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero 
• Rachel Reeves as Chancellor of the Exchequer 
• Peter Mandelson as British Ambassador to the United States

Keir Starmer sparks huge reaction in speech to Euro leaders with words that betray Brexit

Sir Keir Starmer sparked a reaction among several European leaders after making a nine-word Brexit Britain comment during a key speech in Munich. The Prime Minister made the comments on the second day of the Munich Security Conference and just over six years since the UK left the European Union on January 31, 2020.

He said: "We are not the Britain of the Brexit years anymore." The comment sparked a round of applause from European leaders gathered in the room. Sir Keir added: "Because we know that in a dangerous world, we would not take control by turning inward, we would surrender it, and I won't let that happen. That's why I devote time as Prime Minister to Britain's leadership on the world stage, and that's why I'm here today, because I am clear there is no British security without Europe and no European security without Britain. That is the lesson of history, and is today's reality as well."

Hoover Constellation

Mrs H remembers these because her parents had one. We didn't, we had a boring upright.

School Anecdote

One of our grandson’s school friends had to leave school when his parents moved to another part of the country for work-related reasons. The school friend was home schooled for a couple of years before returning to grandson’s school when his parents moved back.

Grandson said that when his friend came back to school, he was at least a year ahead of everyone else in the class. He works hard anyway, but normally there is no opportunity to forge ahead, not to the extent he achieved at home.

Merely an anecdote, but interesting I thought.

Headline - Image - Headline

Professionalism must be the foundation for trust and adoption of new technology

With public services at the forefront of the deployment of AI, Dan Howl of BCS explains why ‘trust must not only be done, it must be seen to be done’

 

Angela Rayner backed to be next prime minster as Starmer faces more pressure

Angela Rayner has been publicly backed by Maryam Eslamdoust, general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), to potentially replace Sir Keir Starmer.

Weird Little Worlds

There is something desperately odd about Sir Keir Starmer’s version of political discourse. Everything he says seems to be out of sync with reality, limited to a weird little world of inadequate words and phrases, conveying nothing of substance or interest.

What did Starmer say yesterday, last week, last year? Who cares? Phrases emitted and forgotten, but many other politicians are equally limited. It all makes for a curiously remote and disconnected political arena, a graveyard of deceit, falsehood and implausible expectations .

Has the traditional reliance on political slogans, soundbites and cliché become obsolete? Possibly - perhaps the internet and AI have destroyed it, because many senior UK politicians obviously struggle with their attempts to persuade.

Whatever Starmer and his senior colleagues say within their curiously restricted world of political discourse, voters merely have to browse online for –

Better Ideas

Better Sources

Better opinions

Better questions

Better Explanations

Not all voters bother of course, weird little worlds seem to suit them.