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Politics Today

arthur

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Cnuts, cnuts cnuts

How different might the last decade of British politics have been if the public had been better informed about economics? It’s the inescapable thought I had when reading through the BBC’s newly published “thematic review” into its coverage of “taxation, public spending, government borrowing and debt output”.

Would a public not spoon-fed mush about the supposed perils of government borrowing have been so ready to accept David Cameron and George Osborne’s austerity in the early 2010s? Would Labour’s then leadership have felt so compelled to support spending cuts – a position that helped lay the ground for Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-austerity leadership bid? Might the Brexit vote have gone differently?

The review singles out “household analogies” for the government debt, in particular, as “dangerous territory”. We’ve all seen journalists, not just on the BBC, compare government debt and household debt. The claim from the BBC’s former political editor Laura Kuenssberg, for instance, in a BBC News broadcast of November 2020, that the government’s “credit card” was “maxed out” was a classic of the type – and sparked the complaints by well-known economists that led to the review being commissioned.

 

Mr Jinx

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The Brexit doom mongers have not taken this prediction well or perhaps more accurately they have seized upon it with relish. 🙄
Ha, the IMF?! They always get it right don't they, lolz. And of course they have no axe to grind.
 

Mr Jinx

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Is that shorthand for "couldn't be bothered to read it"? :cool:

I'll leave Hermann to say whether he thinks that "Trans women are women" is:
  • an indisputable fact that everyone should acknowledge
  • an opinion to be discussed (like Brexit or railway nationalisation)
  • a sincerely held belief
A better quiz...

 
  • Haha
Reactions: DB9

angelic upstart

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The Brexit doom mongers have not taken this prediction well or perhaps more accurately they have seized upon it with relish. 🙄
Just out of interest, have you seen the little video about brexit the conservatives released on twitter regarding brexit?

If it hadn't have come directly from the conservatives page, I'd have thought it a parody.
 

tavyred

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Just out of interest, have you seen the little video about brexit the conservatives released on twitter regarding brexit?

If it hadn't have come directly from the conservatives page, I'd have thought it a parody.
Hmm.
Just watched it. I have to say the ‘We got Brexit done’ line reads a tad hollow.
Is that what you meant AU?
 

tavyred

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Michel Barnier rather unhelpfully (for Labour) describes in fulsome praise that Sir Keith is a good European. Someone tell him that the next Labour ‘Brexit Con’ won’t work in 2024 if he carries on like that! 😎
 

arthur

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Michel Barnier rather unhelpfully (for Labour) describes in fulsome praise that Sir Keith is a good European. Someone tell him that the next Labour ‘Brexit Con’ won’t work in 2024 if he carries on like that! 😎
Do keep up. The only people who care about "Brexit betrayal " wouldn't be voting Labour anyway
 

tavyred

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Do keep up. The only people who care about "Brexit betrayal " wouldn't be voting Labour anyway
Perhaps its Labour that needs to keep up, they do seem rather keen on playing down their pro-EU sensibilities in order to tempt back the former red wall seats. You think Mon. Barnier waxing lyrical about Starmer helps in that regard?
 

arthur

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Perhaps its Labour that needs to keep up, they do seem rather keen on playing down their pro-EU sensibilities in order to tempt back the former red wall seats. You think Mon. Barnier waxing lyrical about Starmer helps in that regard?
Only a small minority, of which you are one, consider calling someone a "Good European " an insult. Presumably if I called you a bad European you'd take that as a compliment :cool:
 

elginCity

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Perhaps its Labour that needs to keep up, they do seem rather keen on playing down their pro-EU sensibilities in order to tempt back the former red wall seats.
That, or not providing ammunition to the divide and rule merchants ?
 
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