{"id":124882,"date":"2024-06-28T23:24:11","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T22:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/?p=124882"},"modified":"2024-06-30T22:16:08","modified_gmt":"2024-06-30T21:16:08","slug":"richard-murphy-on-the-fox-and-henhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2024\/06\/28\/richard-murphy-on-the-fox-and-henhouse\/","title":{"rendered":"UK election: the fox and henhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days ago<\/strong><\/a> I wrote of …<\/p>\n

…. mealymouthed and regally ignorant pomposity from a man of whom, within narrow limits and paired with caveats and disclaimers, I often write approvingly \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

… while further unflattering descriptions were added by self and others below the line. <\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0 The target of our ire was the accountant, tax specialist and modern monetary pundit, Professor Richard Murphy. And the mealy-mouthed pomposity? That would be his stupefyingly smug ignorance – there’s a lot of it about, you know<\/em> – in respect of Julian Assange.<\/p>\n

On his Funding the Future blog yesterday, apropos an item in the weekly e-bulletin of that dire but useful mouthpiece, The Economist,<\/em> <\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> I wouldn’t go so far as to say he redeemed himself. Too big an ask. He did remind me though why, despite crippling limits to his worldview – one such, shared by Owen Jones and George Monbiot<\/strong><\/a>, being a dismaying blindness to the reality of US Empire – I refuse to throw baby out with bathwater.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That Economist<\/em>\u00a0 news item I’d read myself, and for two seconds considered penning my own response, only to conclude I had other fish to fry, like Israel’s economic meltdown<\/strong><\/a> and (out soon) the failed Bolivian coup the day before.<\/p>\n

Well now. Richard has not only done the job for me, but made a good fist of it. I’m damned if he hasn’t gone and took the words yours truly would have uttered right out of yours truly’s fat gob!<\/p>\n

The foxes … have taken over the chicken run<\/a><\/h3>\n
June 28 2024<\/span><\/h6>\n

The Economist magazine has declared itself for Labour in this election.\u00a0<\/span>In an email sent this morning by its editor, it declared the reason for its support:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Since 2020 Sir Keir Starmer has transformed Labour, expelling his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, rooting out many of his fellow travellers and dragging the party away from radical socialism.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It added:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sir Keir has also correctly identified Britain’s single biggest problem: its stagnant productivity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Then it expressed its hesitation:<\/span><\/p>\n

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The question is whether he will be a sufficiently bold reformer to overcome it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, Starmer is a good Labour leader for having destroyed the Labour Party its membership wanted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then the UK’s biggest problem is not the NHS, social care, education,\u00a0<\/span>inequality<\/a><\/strong>, climate change or the myriad other things destroying the quality of life in the UK. No, the big problem is that the return to capital on labour employed is not big enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

And The Economist’s only doubt is whether Starmer can deliver the required increase in the return to capital, at cost to working people, the environment, and so much else.<\/span><\/p>\n

The foxes really do look like they have taken over the chicken run. And millions of people are going to vote for the slaughter that will ensue.\u00a0<\/span>I despair.<\/span><\/p>\n

All good. But Richard’s alternative is to vote Green. <\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> In this he betrays a second defect in his worldview, the notion that ours is a democracy as opposed to a creditor oligarchy. A third, less immediately germane – but painfully apparent from his hook, line and sinker absorption of fact-defiant narratives on Ukraine no less than on Julian Assange – is a touching faith in the ability of corporate media to speak truth to power when it really matters.<\/p>\n

All the more depressing given how tantalisingly close he gets, here and in other incisive posts, to the nature of class war when only one side, like in the Leonard Cohen song, is aware of the fact.<\/p>\n