Austerity and Napoleon
There is an old joke: Income tax was introduced (by Pitt the Younger) to pay for the Napoleonic wars and now that those wars are over, surely it must be time to get rid of Income tax. As a Liberal I...
View ArticleOpinion: Austerity and defying the Laws of gravity
“It’s ideology, stupid.” – a subtext to the Queen’s Speech On Five Live a bond trader says that austerity isn’t working and the government should be more expansionary. In Wake Up to Money a fund manger...
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Opinion: You can’t have ‘growth’ without ‘austerity’
Amid the current maelstrom of gossip, speculation and forecasting concerning the British economy, a number of myths have developed. Principal among them is that the coalition’s economic plans for this...
View ArticleOpinion: Liberal Democrats must not apologise for cuts
Occasionally Nick Clegg, or his speechwriters create a phrase which deserves to live on in the political lexicon long after the rest of the speech has been confined to the political dustbin. The...
View ArticleOpinion: Why austerity is the wrong answer to debt
Austerity policy continues to be embraced by the UK coalition government as well as by governments across the world. This is causing predictable political unrest with large demonstrations and riots in...
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Blair misses the point on the pre-crisis deficit
Writing in this month’s centenary issue of the New Statesman, former prime minister Tony Blair writes: Labour should be very robust in knocking down the notion that it “created” the crisis. In...
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Ed Miliband’s speech: 5 thoughts on what it means for Labour, Tories, Lib...
I listened to, rather than watched, Ed Miliband’s speech to the Labour party conference yesterday. On the up-side that meant I missed the three hammy mid-speech standing ovations (shades of IDS...
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Was Vince Cable proved right on austerity?
When the histories of the coalition government come to be written, those chapters focussing on the role of Vince Cable will be some of the most fascinating. Vince’s fierce intelligence combined with a...
View ArticleGeorge Osborne’s decisions are coming back to haunt him
Embed from Getty Images Commenting on George Osborne’s planned spending cuts, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson Susan Kramer has said: George Osborne set himself the task of abolishing total...
View ArticleAusterity economics, Brexit and the Government’s deficit from a Keynesian...
Embed from Getty Images Brexit or no Brexit, we have to improve and stimulate our flagging economy. We cannot blame Brexit for everything. We haven’t even started to leave the EU yet. Nothing has...
View ArticleIs austerity working? And do all debts have to be paid?
Embed from Getty Images These questions invite binary “Yes” or “No” responses. More considered approaches exist. We need to consider the economic consequences of debt repayment, structural and...
View ArticleLibLink: David Laws – UK reaches socially acceptable limits of austerity
Embed from Getty Images David Laws has written an article in the Financial Times, but you have to be a subscriber to read it. We will give you a flavour of the piece here so you can decide whether to...
View ArticleTheresa May – Austerity is Over
Austerity wasn’t because of economic necessity but a political choice. The economic argument was that if you save your money/reduce your spend, you can clear your debt otherwise we were told we would...
View ArticleIf we want to win elections we have to denounce austerity
Part 1 “Never point out your own mistakes” seems like a good political maxim, so why should we ignore it on this occasion? Of course, not everyone agrees that austerity was a mistake at all, and some...
View ArticleOn austerity: Some questions and comments
“The person who proves me wrong is my friend”. [Socrates] Austerity seems to involve a set of theories and practices whereby the financial and economic matters which resulted in the “crisis” of 2008...
View ArticleOn Policies, Perceptions and Potentials
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not. (Anon.) “Lack of social mobility” and “austerity” confront us. Perhaps much of what we might, and might not do, depends upon...
View ArticleICYMI: Lord Roberts demands more for those made homeless
It was a busy week last week, with local elections and all, but in the midst of the flurry of leaflet delivery and canvassing, Lord Roberts was busy in Parliament questioning the Government on...
View ArticleCoalition? Who cares?
coalSo the Lib Dem leader election is over and predictably Labour have gone full on coalition grievance mongering in response. They’d have done this whoever won, no doubt somewhere in Labour HQ there...
View ArticleWe Lib Dems need to oppose austerity
The Liberal Democrats are the party of David Lloyd George, John Maynard Keynes and William Beveridge. We are the party that laid the foundations of the welfare state and pioneered support for Keynesian...
View ArticleThe best way to answer Coalition guilt-shaming is to challenge austerity and...
The election of a new Liberal Democrat leader has been followed by a predictable burst of accusations and guilt-shaming – mostly, but not only, from Labour sources – regarding the Lib Dems’ part in the...
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