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British politics

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https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ds-answers-over-reckless-running-of-carillion
Frank Field MP, who chairs the work and pensions select committee, said the company’s implosion “begs questions across government” and promised to take evidence from directors and Carillion’s auditor KPMG.

“It beggars belief that a company can be allowed to run with such apparent recklessness – and be so lucrative for the directors and shareholders – when it has a giant pension deficit and a mountain of debt,” said Field.
 
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-provisionally-finds-foxsky-deal-not-in-the-public-interest
Following a referral from the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been investigating the deal on two grounds: media plurality and commitment to broadcasting standards.

The CMA has provisionally found that Fox taking full control of Sky is not in the public interest due to media plurality concerns, but not because of a lack of a genuine commitment to meeting broadcasting standards in the UK.

The CMA has now set out a series of potential options for addressing these problems identified in its public remedies notice.

It also now welcomes responses from interested parties to its provisional decision and proposed possible remedies, including in view of the announcement by Fox on 14 December 2017 that it had agreed the sale of certain assets, including its interests in Sky, to The Walt Disney Company.

These will be carefully considered before the CMA’s report is finalised and provided to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport by 1 May 2018. He will then make the final decision on the proposed deal.
 
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aphronesis said:

I realize I'm being master of the obvious for saying this, but the problem is as then, still moreso today, both the conservative parties and the so-called left ones - the Democratic one in the US, Labor in the UK and everywhere else in Europe - are funded by the same business establishment and the masters of finance. Until that changes, nothing will.

Throw in how the representative electoral apparatus works and the gudicial support for business, finance and political funding, "democratic compromise" exclusively means acting in the private "big interests."
 
I think it is a mistake to align US Democrat
party with UK Labour party. Not least because the last Labour government, which by the way was regarded as the most right-wing yet, was quite successful at relieving corporations of large amounts of money and pumping it into state-managed social institutions.

Labour party funding comes, for the most part, from the Unions, whereas Conservative funding comes from 'individuals', some donating £1m + such as John Armitage, a hedge fund manager, John Gore, a musical theatre impresario, and John Griffin, the founder of the Addison Lee taxi firm. JCB, a large company linked to Conservative peer and Brexiteer, Anthony Bamford, have the largest sum.

Notwithstanding, your substantive point is correct with the added caveat that UK political parties are also in thrall to large media corporations such as Murdoch's News International. Blair did a deal with Murdoch in '97 and in return NI popular media promoted Labour.
 
Yes, I was thinking of Blairian agendas. Italy's version is Matteo Renzi, who is substantially in tow with "Forza Italia!" If I'm not mistaken, Blair was Briton's version of Bill Clinton, the one who, even more than Reagan, openned the floodgates for the financialization that predominates today.
 
I suppose that depends on what you mean by 'financialization'.

As you probably know, the big deregulation of the financial industry took place in the 80's. The New Labour years were a funny mix of sometimes contradictory ideology from pumping money into poorer families with the aim of alleviating child poverty (in stark contrast to the American inspired New Right ideology of the Conservatives) to pushing the Private Finance Initiatives for funding capital building projects, and introducing faux-market conditions into state education and the national health service.
 
Re:

macbindle said:
I suppose that depends on what you mean by 'financialization'.

As you probably know, the big deregulation of the financial industry took place in the 80's. The New Labour years were a funny mix of sometimes contradictory ideology from pumping money into poorer families with the aim of alleviating child poverty, to pushing the Private Finance Initiatives for funding capital building projects, and introducing faux-market conditions into state education and the national health service.

Well Glass- Steagall for one thing. Then there's this.

https://books.google.it/books?id=Dm...q=clinton's financial liberation with&f=false
 
Of course everybody loved financialization right up until 2008...

Subsequently, one of the frequently voiced proposals has been what is effectively a UK version of the Glass-Steagall act.

I'll have to find my reading glasses and turn on my Mac to read your googlebook link, but thanks for posting it.

I see Il Cavialiere is bored of bunga bunga and wants a return to politics :D
 
Re: Re:

rhubroma said:
macbindle said:
I suppose that depends on what you mean by 'financialization'.

As you probably know, the big deregulation of the financial industry took place in the 80's. The New Labour years were a funny mix of sometimes contradictory ideology from pumping money into poorer families with the aim of alleviating child poverty, to pushing the Private Finance Initiatives for funding capital building projects, and introducing faux-market conditions into state education and the national health service.

Well Glass- Steagall for one thing. Then there's this.

https://books.google.it/books?id=Dm...q=clinton's financial liberation with&f=false

new book on the subject

https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Time-Neoliberal-Currencies-Financial/dp/1503603903

at macb, bored with your “humorous” posts posing as politics before you got to the cafe as you inevitably were going to.
 
Re:

macbindle said:
Of course everybody loved financialization right up until 2008...

Subsequently, one of the frequently voiced proposals has been what is effectively a UK version of the Glass-Steagall act.

I'll have to find my reading glasses and turn on my Mac to read your googlebook link, but thanks for posting it.

I see Il Cavialiere is bored of bunga bunga and wants a return to politics :D

Only in Italy would a Berlusconi, notwithstang being placed on interdict from holding polical office for 2 years back in 2014 for financial fraud regarding Mediaset rights, and despite having had while prime minister as senior advisor a convicted mafia colluder in Marcello Dell'Utri, be BACK INDEED! Naturally this brings us back to the original point made about the so-called left parties doing everything in their capacity to ensure that a Berlusconi, or a Trump, etc. gets a triumphant march to victory. It's as appallingly grotesque, as it is pathetic.
 
Re: Re:

aphronesis said:
rhubroma said:
macbindle said:
I suppose that depends on what you mean by 'financialization'.

As you probably know, the big deregulation of the financial industry took place in the 80's. The New Labour years were a funny mix of sometimes contradictory ideology from pumping money into poorer families with the aim of alleviating child poverty, to pushing the Private Finance Initiatives for funding capital building projects, and introducing faux-market conditions into state education and the national health service.

Well Glass- Steagall for one thing. Then there's this.

https://books.google.it/books?id=Dm...q=clinton's financial liberation with&f=false

new book on the subject

https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Time-Neoliberal-Currencies-Financial/dp/1503603903

at macb, bored with your “humorous” posts posing as politics before you got to the cafe as you inevitably were going to.

Not everything (in fact nothing) I post is about you. Aphronesis. I'm afraid your apparent obsession with me is unreciprocal. Soz.

I'll leave it to you to research my reference to Il Cavaliere and 'bunga bunga.
 
Re: Re:

rhubroma said:
macbindle said:
Of course everybody loved financialization right up until 2008...

Subsequently, one of the frequently voiced proposals has been what is effectively a UK version of the Glass-Steagall act.

I'll have to find my reading glasses and turn on my Mac to read your googlebook link, but thanks for posting it.

I see Il Cavialiere is bored of bunga bunga and wants a return to politics :D

Only in Italy would a Berlusconi, notwithstang being placed on interdict from holding polical office for 2 years back in 2014 for financial fraud regarding Mediaset rights, and despite having had while prime minister as senior advisor a convicted mafia colluder in Marcello Dell'Utri, be BACK INDEED! Naturally this brings us back to the original point made about the so-called left parties doing everything in their capacity to ensure that a Berlusconi, or a Trump, etc. gets a triumphant march to victory. It's as appallingly grotesque, as it is pathetic.

My very best friend is a lifelong resident, and graduate of, la rossa.

I'm sure you can imagine the nature of our discussions on recent Italian politics :D
 
Re: Re:

macbindle said:
rhubroma said:
macbindle said:
Of course everybody loved financialization right up until 2008...

Subsequently, one of the frequently voiced proposals has been what is effectively a UK version of the Glass-Steagall act.

I'll have to find my reading glasses and turn on my Mac to read your googlebook link, but thanks for posting it.

I see Il Cavialiere is bored of bunga bunga and wants a return to politics :D

Only in Italy would a Berlusconi, notwithstang being placed on interdict from holding polical office for 2 years back in 2014 for financial fraud regarding Mediaset rights, and despite having had while prime minister as senior advisor a convicted mafia colluder in Marcello Dell'Utri, be BACK INDEED! Naturally this brings us back to the original point made about the so-called left parties doing everything in their capacity to ensure that a Berlusconi, or a Trump, etc. gets a triumphant march to victory. It's as appallingly grotesque, as it is pathetic.

My very best friend is a lifelong resident, and graduate of, la rossa.

I'm sure you can imagine the nature of our discussions on recent Italian politics :D

By "la rossa" I take it you mean la Sapienza? At any rate, its not entirely clear. I've largely given up on discussing Italian politics, because it seems to be the art of dissimulation and unconfessed motives, the whole wrapped in a casing of shady more or less illegal underhanded dealings and corruption. All in faithful compliance with the Vatican and organized crime. Povera Italia.

On the other hand, I can't exactly say its much better in Britain, or anywhere else for that matter where career politicians of the business party - meaning pretty much the full range of the contemporary political spectrum - with very rare (and largely inconsequentlal, however noble) exceptions, are in it for their careers.
 
Bologna.

A nice summary of Italian politics as I understand it.
I'm not so sure things are as bad in the UK in terms of pure corruption, however we are saddled with a cultural nostalgic obsession with past imperial glory coupled with an almost autistic distrust of the other (ie. You euros).

It isn't partisan, which is why the Brexit issue is splitting the Conservative party, and could split Labour. and has opened the door for shameless opportunists like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.

The current government knows it is about to steer the country off a cliff, but is hamstrung by a vociferous back bench of its own party citing the EU referendum as a test case of democracy. It is actually fecking hilarious to observe...but it will be a costly laugh.

There isn't the political sophistication amongst the electorate to parse through the rhetoric and come to terms with the monumental stupidity of putting the issue up in the first place. I see some parallels between the current predicament of US politics.
 
Re:

macbindle said:
Bologna.

A nice summary of Italian politics as I understand it.
I'm not so sure things are as bad in the UK in terms of pure corruption, however we are saddled with a cultural nostalgic obsession with past imperial glory coupled with an almost autistic distrust of the other (ie. You euros).

It isn't partisan, which is why the Brexit issue is splitting the Conservative party, and could split Labour. and has opened the door for shameless opportunists like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.

The current government knows it is about to steer the country off a cliff, but is hamstrung by a vociferous back bench of its own party citing the EU referendum as a test case of democracy. It is actually fecking hilarious to observe...but it will be a costly laugh.

There isn't the political sophistication amongst the electorate to parse through the rhetoric and come to terms with the monumental stupidity of putting the issue up in the first place. I see some parallels between the current predicament of US politics.

Britain though wasn't really a "member" of the EU, in the full sense (and likely owing to the leverage it still had through redidual effects of a defunct empire. namely London as the true capital of international finance and its privileged status with the US), such that it kept its currency and so had its cake and could eat it too.

The irony is that the delocalization and immigration that have raised the ire of Birtish nationalists and disenfranchised workers, have been the results of a globalization that Britain was instrumental in forging with the US in the days of Reagan- Thatcher.
 
It's also immigration which props up the very institutions (like the National Health Service) which the nationalists accuse immigration of threatening.

We have an ageing and unhealthy demographic, with a ticking timebomb of soaring health and social care demand and lower tax receipts. Immigrants, by their very nature tend to be young, healthy and fertile...and working and paying tax.
 
Re: Re:

macbindle said:
aphronesis said:
rhubroma said:
macbindle said:
I suppose that depends on what you mean by 'financialization'.

As you probably know, the big deregulation of the financial industry took place in the 80's. The New Labour years were a funny mix of sometimes contradictory ideology from pumping money into poorer families with the aim of alleviating child poverty, to pushing the Private Finance Initiatives for funding capital building projects, and introducing faux-market conditions into state education and the national health service.

Well Glass- Steagall for one thing. Then there's this.

https://books.google.it/books?id=Dm...q=clinton's financial liberation with&f=false

new book on the subject

https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Time-Neoliberal-Currencies-Financial/dp/1503603903

at macb, bored with your “humorous” posts posing as politics before you got to the cafe as you inevitably were going to.

Not everything (in fact nothing) I post is about you. Aphronesis. I'm afraid your apparent obsession with me is unreciprocal. Soz.

I'll leave it to you to research my reference to Il Cavaliere and 'bunga bunga.

I frankly had no illusions that it was, just pivoting off the word “bored” while passing on a reference to someone I appreciate and respect. But you’ve got some traction now in the US beyond “Trump is orange” so it’s all cool.

But do me a favor and don’t confuse being aware of what and how people say with “obsession”; it’s just memory.
 
That leaked report was almost certainly leaked by those in the driving seat of government. Theresa May is at the wheel. She has been told to drive down a given road, but she, and all of her sane colleagues sat beside her in the front, know that road leads to the top of a cliff.

In the back seat are a row of gargoyles screaming at her that she isn't driving fast enough and that the road leads to the land of milk and honey. The gargoyles only got to be in the car because they've convinced some of the electorate that all other roads lead to foreign interests especially those of light brown people who wear grubby cheap sportswear and drive Amazon vans.

Theresa May is, meanwhile, desperately looking for a slight left turn that will give the appearance of going straight on but will lead to only half-way down the cliff. The gargoyles are screaming for full-cliff. Each of the gargoyles has the intention of trying to climb over into the front seat once the car has plunged over the cliff and smashed into the beach below. They know that the car will be smashed into smithereens and Theresa will have exited via the windscreen, but the driving seat will be intact and maybe quite comfy....and that is all that counts.

That's all you need to know about British politics for the foreseeable future.
 
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