Would you like to be shot with a red gun or blue gun, sir? That is the limit of the choice being offered the UK electorate as New Labour announces it will keep the Coalition public spending plans and the Coalition benefit cuts. Given it will also throw away £100 billion on Trident, and New Labour initiated the rampant privatisation of the Health Service, PFI, Tuition Fees etc., my point could not have been more eloquently proven that the UK electorate is no longer offered any meaningful choice by the neo-con parties.
It also of course demolishes completely the Gordon Brown argument that Scots need to stay in the Union to put New Labour in to power. Who carries out Tory policies is not the question; and why a nation should surrender its freedom just to make sure Ed Balls has a ministerial car and salary while he implements Tory policies, is not a question which to me has an obvious answer.
The only meaningful political choice any part of the UK population will have in the foreseeable future is the Scottish Independence Referendum. If Scots do not take their chance, all they have ahead is economic decline and the collapse of public services. The choice could not be more stark.
“I’m claiming that Iceland is now better off than the PIGS, through having its own currency.”
The Icelanders who’s savings aren’t worth half of what they were aren’t better off though are they?
When the Greek government had a plan to help themselves to 40% of people’s bank accounts there was uproar but that’s effectively what the Icelandic government did isn’t it?
@ Herbie :
“There’s more than just Greece, obviously.
So, were you on top of your material you’d be asking yourself what have the PIGS in common that caused them such difficulty.”
Well, I should say that what I said about Greece’s lack of real as opposed to paper economic convergence was a common factor. But perhaps that’s not what you mean, so I’d be grateful if you would set out what you think the PIGS had in common that caused them such difficulty.
(BTW – don’t try and patronise me by saying that I’m not on top of my material. I rather think that my practical experience in and involvement with € related matters was – and remains – somewhat greater than yours).
~~~~~~~~~~
~”What do you think a currency is? Doesn’t it have any connection to what you are and how much others want what you produce, or are words still failing you?”
I’ve heard the expression “you are what you eat”, but your expression – either “you are what your currency is” or, alternatively, “your currency is what you are” – is, I must admit, a new one for me. I think words to answer my question have failed you, so could I ask you here again to flesh out exactly what you mean ib your second sentence – preferably with concrete reference to a country (eg Greece)?
Thank you.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/53519/mi5-planning-dirty-tricks-stop-scottish-independence
It’s not nice, calling Margo MacDonald, “paranoid” and just rubbishing her suggestion. She knows the history of the British secret/hard state within these isles and is a serious politician of many decades’ standing. And for Crispin Black to call Glasgow “as segregated as Belfast” – a piece of sheer nonsense – is perhaps a reflection of his ignorance. MI5 as purveyors of free family tickets to Alton Towers? One can almost taste the tea ‘n’ scones and knitted woolly Union Jack hot water bottles. And oh, we’re not at all like those ‘nasty Spaniards’, we don’t wear dark glasses!
I think he protests too much.
There’ll always be some pain, Fred.
The important matter is whether the medicine works and the patient gets better.
That’s now happening in Iceland, but it isn’t happening in Greece. That’s because Iceland has its own currency and Greece does not.
Habby
“(BTW – don’t try and patronise me by saying that I’m not on top of my material. I rather think that my practical experience in and involvement with € related matters was – and remains – somewhat greater than yours).”
Yes, well. I certainly have no desire to diminish your bureau de change experience, but I’m afraid it seems as though you’ve had far too much experience of this committee designed currency, and not enough of the real thing. It may be worth suggesting to your boss some time on one of the other desks, eh.
On your other question:
When you have your own currency it manifests your productive worth to others.
Curiously, in the case of the eurozone this didn’t apply.
You see Goldilocks, in the euro the Greeks had too strong a currency and the Germans too weak.
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Good blog short and easy to agree with.
I cant understand why anybody wants to remain under Westminster rule and that includes Wales,N.I. and most of England.I have since as far back as I can remember,I have always wanted to be self-reliant and independent.It is much better to have a good neighbour than a surly partner.