Capitalism is the problem

Here is a quote from Mark Carney, head of the Bank of England,

"Capitalism is at risk of destroying itself unless bankers realise they have an obligation to create a fairer society, the Bank of England governor has warned.

Mark Carney said bankers had operated a "heads-I-win-tails-you-lose" system. He questioned whether traders met ethical standards and said that those who failed to meet high professional standards should face ostracism."

When we look at the protest vote in the European elections very few of the commentators have fixed on what is the key issue. The European Community was founded on a economically right wing philosophy. It enshrined free market and capitalist beliefs in its structure. So when the financial crisis it was stuck with adopting right wing policies to try to solve the problem.  

The analysis of the cause of the crisis was totally misrepresented, certainly in Britain, as too much public expenditure NOT the irresponsibility of the financial sector, see above. Hence the austerity programme in both Britain and the rest of Europe. We are now seeing claims that it is working, just three years too late and with millions of people out of work. It is a plan that supports the rich and impoverishes the poor. 

The other great myth of this is that austerity has worked, the government has thrown billions at the city via "quantitative easing", Tories never mention this!

UKIP and a referendum

Roughly 4.5 million people voted for UKIP. There main platform is to get out of Europe and none of the above.  What would happen to them if there was a referendum and the vote was in favour of staying in!

We have been here before, there was a vote some years ago, some of those who took part are still around, but those against still campaign against. Will Mr Farage dissolve his party if a referendum is lost, that is votes to stay in. Or will he complain and go on campaigning to get us out!

Immigration is Racist

Do not be fooled by those who claim that being opposed to immigration is not racist just because some immigrants are opposed to more immigration. I can return to that later. The history of immigration laws in the UK is entirely about race. The first major acts of modern times were in the very early twentieth century.  The purpose was to keep the Jews out. There had been a large influx of Jews from Eastern Europe as a result of the Russian pogroms. One has only to watch the Fiddler on the Roof to get some idea of what life was like for Jews under Russian control.

 A number of the well established Jews supported the proposed restriction. it was called  Aliens Act 1905. The reason for the support was fear that an increasing number of poor Jewish immigrants would damage their position.

The next major act in the UK was  Immigration Act 1971 whose sole purpose was to cut the immigration form the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies. We could not as a society admit that so we made it apply to all Commonweatlh citizens so really pissing off  the Aussies etc. But be clear it intent was entirely racist!.

So be clear controlling immigration is about racism and those whom you might think would be opposed aften are just frightened that their own position will be damaged by more immigration so get caught up in the proposals and get used to camouflage the real reasons for the anti-immigration stance,

Are people quick?

  There is an interesting article in yesterdays Guardian by Peter Kellner of a polling company http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/12/ed-miliband-uk-backs-policies-but-not-the-many.

  If you read this article you see that most people support the policies that he is putting forward BUT some how do not support him. Perhaps someone can explain why, I get more and more convinced in the distinction Daniel Kahneman makes between quick and slow thinking. Quick thinking might keep us alive if faced with a lion but slow thinking is needed to understand deeper issues (that may be a very bad paraphrase but I haven't read the book yet).  Unfortunately we are taken in by quick instinctive responses, so Nigel Farage is quick but normally wrong and Ed Milliband is slow but normally right.

  Apparently we like our leaders to be "strong" and "decisive", like Hitler & Stalin, we don't seem to care if they are wrong. Being thoughtful, careful and right is looked down upon. How can people admire David "hug a hoodie" Cameron, slick but totally untrustworthy. Remember his claim to be the greenest government ever and still people prefer him to Ed Milliband. It is a gut feeling but like most gut feelings it s wrong, Ed will get things right and David Cameron will keep getting things wrong.

  It is like the support for UKIP, is sounds good if we only get out of Europe it will be like it used to be, millions being killed in wars in Europe, the great crash of 1929, part-time employees having no pension rights... I could go on about all the good things that Europe has helped with. If you notice very carefully all the things that the Tories and Kippers are against are protection for workers, be clear this is a right wing agenda, nothing more and nothing less.

  That is very odd because one the problems of Europe is that it is a right wing institution, which is why some left wingers are opposed to it. It was set up as a free market but fortunately also with free movement of labour, If capital can move freely then as a consequence so can labour, It is an unfortunate consequence that right with free marketeers do not like, an example of quick thinking, we like this but ignore the consequences. It is also a consequence that if we have a free market then we need a level playing field. Europe enforces that much more strongly on non-EU countries like Norway than it does internally.

 People need to think through the consequences of what they believe and see how things will develop. I am not a good chess player but most of populist politics is about the first move but you need to think about the second and third move to know whether your ideas will deliver what you expect. It is like the public services being given to the private sector, all they want to do is to make a profit not to provide a public service. It sounds good but in the end you cannot get a Rolls Royce service for the cost of a Ford Fiesta. This is obvious if you think about it but most people don't.

  I recall that many years ago when this country first introduced differential fees for overseas students it would mean that Universities would give preference to overseas students. It has come true, institutions still try to recruit many students from abroad, they need the money. Some courses are now run almost entirely for the purpose of getting high fee paying students from abroad. Is that good for British students?

 We need to learn to think more slowly before we embark on daft policies that sound immediately attractive but with a little more thought can be seen to be daft. For example,  tax relief to encourage certain activities which might sound cool but just becomes tax evasion, pace Garry Barlow.  Free schools sound plausible until it becomes obvious that the people who start them tend to be nutters with lots of money and an axe to grind. And then what happens to the money that we have spent. In Norwich 4 million pounds for a bout 40 students. It is going to be a specialist sixth form school for maths and science.  It will never have many pupils and where will the teachers come from? it will have  a negative impact on the quality of maths & science teaching in Norfolk, will probably go bust and will the sponsors, including the ex Tory MP Davis Prior pocket lots of tax payers  money! (Note: has the Tax Payers Alliance complained about these extravagances, they are just a  front for the Tory party.)

 If the policy had been thought through it would never have happened because it would have become obvious that most of the public funding would be wasted in schools without the ability to deliver. They must have known that when they exempted these schools from having to employ qualified teachers and to pay whatever wages they wanted. It is clear from the start the policy is doomed to fail, a few will make it, they will then become private schools taking the original public funding with them, a very neat Tory policy, supported by the Lib Dems. Probably Simon Wright (lib Dem MP for Norwich South) is hoping to get involved when he loses his seat at the next election. He was once a maths teacher, the sort who gives maths a bad name!