Tag Archives: George Osborne

Osborne’s Housing Ponzi Scheme

Posted on by
3

Stacy Herbert spoke to Professor Steve Keen while he was in London.  He officially declared George Osborne’s ‘Help to Buy’ scheme a PONZI, and one which should be more accurately named ‘Help to sell’!
Read more at 
http://www.maxkeiser.com/#2uVRUOUrrzeVurO2.99

Published on Jun 15, 2013

Definition of ‘Ponzi Scheme’

A fraudulent investing scam promising high rates of return with little risk to investors. The Ponzi scheme generates returns for older investors by acquiring new investors. This scam actually yields the promised returns to earlier investors, as long as there are more new investors. These schemes usually collapse on themselves when the new investments stop.

The Ponzi scam is named after Charles Ponzi, a clerk in Boston who first orchestrated such a scheme in 1919.

A Ponzi scheme is similar to a pyramid scheme in that both are based on using new investors’ funds to pay the earlier backers. One difference between the two schemes is that the Ponzi mastermind gathers all relevant funds from new investors and then distributes them. Pyramid schemes, on the other hand, allow each investor to directly benefit depending on how many new investors are recruited. In this case, the person on the top of the pyramid does not at any point have access to all the money in the system.

For both schemes, however, eventually there isn’t enough money to go around and the schemes unravel.

George Osborne’s Help to Buy scheme ‘a moronic policy’

 

George Osborne’s scheme to boost the housing market through state mortgage subsidies has been dubbed one of the “most stupid economic ideas” of the past 30 years by a leading City commentator.

Albert Edwards, who heads the global strategy team at Société Générale said the chancellor’s flagship Help to Buy programme was artificially inflating property prices and driving young people deeper into “indentured servitude”.

The chancellor said in the budget that the government would provide lenders with a guarantee of up to 20% of a mortgage in an attempt to provide potential buyers with a big enough deposit to purchase a home. If a borrower defaults on a loan, the taxpayer will be liable for a share of the losses.

Edwards – a high profile City strategist renowned as a market doomsayer – said the scheme was artificially propping up the market and preventing prices correcting to affordable levels. First-time buyers need cheaper homes, not greater availably of debt to inflate house prices even further, Edwards said. “This is madness.”

He added that house prices were still overvalued despite Britain being at the epicentre of the global credit crisis and remaining in the “icy grip of private sector deleveraging”. In other countries, such as the US, house prices were now cheap.

“Young people today haven’t got a chance of buying a house at a reasonable price, even with rock bottom interest rates. The Nationwide Building Society data shows that the average first-time buyer in London is paying over 50% of their take home pay in mortgage repayments – and that is when interest rates are close to zero.”

In a research note, Edwards said it made him “genuinely really angry” that burdening young people struggling to pay off student loans with more debt was seen as the solution to the problem of excessively expensive housing.

“Why are houses too expensive in the UK? Too much debt. So what is George Osborne’s solution for first-time buyers unable to afford housing? Why, arrange for a government-guaranteed scheme to burden our young people with even more debt! Why don’t we call this policy by the name it really is, namely the indentured servitude of our young people.

“I believe it truly is a moronic policy that stands head and shoulders above most of the stupid economic policies I have seen implemented during my 30 years in this business. It ranks above some of Alan Greenspan’s very worst blunders”….

The International Monetary Fund has also warned that the plan would fail to improve access to housing while the Treasury Select Committee and Office for Budget responsibility have warned it is likely to drive up house prices.

Larry Elliott


http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jun/04/george-osborne-help-to-buy-moronic

The stated aim of ‘Help to Buy’ is to assist first-time buyers but as Albert Edwards indicates, it has no such likely outcome.  And anyway, ordinary commonsense would say that in a housing crisis, the solution is to build affordable homes… and to bring in rent controls.

This scheme is another one of George Osborne’s ‘brilliant’ re-election ploys .. the purpose of which is to persuade  UK property owners..  in readiness for the GE 2015… that the economy is ‘healing’ because house prices are going up (until that is, the bubble bursts).  As a corollary, the banks will profit nicely.. all the new mortgage debt will boost speculation in the financial markets and any ‘losses’ from mortgage defaults will be picked up by the tax-payer not the banks.. Wealth will yet again be redistributed upward … from the poorest home buyer to the richest; from the young to the old; from the ordinary tax-payer to ‘bail-out’ the banks’ losses.

There really seem to be no bounds to the contempt with which this government holds the electorate … as Think Left described in George Osborne, leader of the Wrecking Crew mk2 

As Professor Bill Mitchell writes:

It is clear to me that the British government and the US governments (and many state governments in the US) are no longer serving public interest. They are punishing innocent and disadvantaged citizens to satisfy the ideological (religious) beliefs of a monied elite.  

George Osborne, leader of the Wrecking Crew mk2

Quote

Posted on by
11

I think we should be explicit… George Osborne is using neoclassical economic theory as a ‘blind’, in order to push through an ideological agenda.  It has nothing to do with creating an economic recovery.  Osborne wants to lock-in irreversible changes to the social and employment fabric of the UK.  He and his ilk, are not Conservatives in the classic sense of desiring to preserve the connections between the past and the present.  They are deliberately wrecking the UK economy (any new government will be faced with a shortfall in output of approximately 20% of GDP or £250+bn) but of course, any crisis is a money-making opportunity for the financial speculators, the corporations and the super-rich 0.003%.

If you want to know where, and what model, Osborne, Letwin, Maude et al are following.. look across the Atlantic at the US.  Osborne is known to be obsessed with American politics.  The Independent’s Steve Richards agrees that Osborne’s ‘philosophical’ position is to the right of the Republicans.

‘The Wrecking Crew’ is the description Thomas Frank gives to the economic/political strategy of the Republicans (in his 2008 book) but the same features have become all too familiar in the UK:

“Fantastic misgovernment of the kind we have seen is not an accident, nor is it the work of a few bad individuals. It is the consequence of triumph by a particular philosophy of government, by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society. This movement is friendly to industry not just by force of campaign contributions but by conviction.”

The goal of the Republicans (Osborne et al) was/is to actually erase liberalism (social democracy, democratic socialism, the left)… an ‘end of history’ in which taxes and onerous regulation will never again be allowed to threaten the fortunes that private individuals make for themselves.  This is what Karl Rove meant by creating a ‘permanent majority’, and by Margaret Thatcher who said “Economics are the method, the object is to change the soul’.

‘Casting back to the early days of the conservative revolution, Frank describes the rise of a ruling coalition dedicated to dismantling government.  But rather than cutting down the big government they claim to hate, conservatives have simply sold it off, turning public policy into a private sector bidding war …

It is no coincidence.. that the same politicians who guffaw at the idea of effective government have installed a regime in which incompetence is the rule.  Nor will the country easily shake off the consequences of deliberate misgovernment through the usual democratic remedies.  Obsessed with achieving a lasting victory, conservatives have taken pains to enshrine the free market as the permanent creed of state.’

This ‘economic’ strategy is described in more detail by Thom Hartmann.  Essentially, the Republicans deliberately aim to run up huge deficits by cutting taxes for the rich (whilst keeping on spending).. a deficit which is then inherited by the Democrats. As Frank explains.. ‘the main reason conservative administrations run up as large a deficit as possible – is that deficits defund the left’ and prevent them from implementing their social programmes when they return to government.  

What is George Osborne playing at?

‘AUSTERITY’ IS THE CONTROLLED DEMOLITION OF THE WELFARE STATE

Robert Reich, former labor secretary to Clinton, commented on the Republican approach:

‘If the public thinks government is wasteful [useless], that’s fine.  That reduces public faith in government, which is precisely what the Republicans [Osborne] want.’

A major factor in the success of this strategy is that the right can play dirty (very dirty) but intrinsically, the left cannot. Furthermore, the mainstream political commentators constantly give the right’s lies and spurious rationales an undeserved credence, often in the name of impartiality.  The narrative… regardless of the facts… is all.

So what is to be done?

The current Labour leadership seems to be falling into the trap of accepting the ‘lack of funding’ caused by Osborne’s mismanagement of the economy.  Crazily, Ed Balls has even suggested adopting Osborne’s spending limits for the first year if they form the government in 2015.  However, his economic approach, Neo-Keynesianism, is a horrible, contradictory synthesis of Keynesianism and Neoclassical economics, which makes no sense to the post-keynesians (Modern Monetary Theorists) and Steve Keen.

Like heterodox economists, Semmelweis was ignored…

These heterodox economists are the natural inheritors of Minsky and Kalecki’s work which pinpoints the significance of private debt levels, and the need for full employment.  Professor Bill Mitchell writes of Osborne’s economic deception in the UK:

None of this austerity is remotely justifiable. The state budgets collapsed largely because of the automatic stabilisers which are like canaries in the mind – they tell you that the real economy is in trouble. The fiscal aggregates (budget deficit etc) are just like thermometers – they send signals about how the economy is going.

You do not cure a failing real economy by cutting spending. That is like curing a cut leg with amputation and then leaving the wound open. It is madness.

There are workers ready and willing to work. People are pessimistic. They need to feel secure and confident. Keynes knew that well. You don’t give people hope by worsening their circumstances. Desperation does not lead to positive responses.

The people are rebelling in the Middle East as an expression of their recognition that their governments have failed to represent their best interests.

It is clear to me that the British government and the US governments (and many state governments in the US) are no longer serving public interest. They are punishing innocent and disadvantaged citizens to satisfy the ideological (religious) beliefs of a monied elite.

I think people don’t tolerate that forever.


http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=13576

Ed Balls should step out of the Tory trap and align the Labour Party with a commitment to full employment, a job’s guarantee for all who want, and are able to work.  By offering the alternative of a job or benefits, a Labour government could raise the wages of the private sector worker because employers would have to at least match the ‘government’ jobs in order to get staff.

Increased employment and increasing wages and benefits, would automatically create the demand…  the lack of which is the real problem beseting the UK economy.

What sort of government jobs?

Quite apart from replacing those removed by this government from nursing, the police and social care etc, we need a mass building programme of new affordable ‘council’ (democratically-owned) housing, and retrofitting of the existing housing stock with insulation and energy-conservation measures.  The UK has an abundance of renewable energy opportunities and could be a net exporter of energy.  Developing those resources could create the new manufacturing and apprenticeships in the non-South-East UK.  Scotland is leading the way but is still suffering from a lack of political will from Westminster.  Under this government, ‘Green’ capitalism has been shown comprehensively to have failed.

We need a New Green Deal.  If government can create £350bn of Quantitative Easing for the banks, they could easily do the same for the real economy and real people.  But do not expect to get such a solution from Osborne and the Tory/LD coalition.

The FT, Hedgehogs and the scale of the crisis

Has George Osborne been taking Trans-Atlantic lessons from Jude Wanniski and the Republicans?

What is George Osborne playing at?

The conservative agenda is becoming more transparent

Buffer stocks and price stability – Part 1

 

Is George Osborne failing … or succeeding brilliantly?

Quote

Posted on by
13

Is George Osborne failing … or succeeding brilliantly?

Obviously the answer depends entirely on what are George Osborne’s actual intentions?

We are led to believe by government and commentators in the mainstream media that George is trying to ‘re-balance’ the economy, eliminate the deficit by 2017 (sorry 2018!) and create the conditions for the private sector to grow and export the UK out of recession/depression. He and David Cameron tell us that fiscal austerity or expansionary fiscal contraction, is showing signs of working and anyway, there is no alternative (TINA).

However Martin Wolf, the distinguished FT journalist, describes Cameron’s arguments for sticking to the government’s programme of fiscal austerity as ‘overwhelmingly wrong-headed’. (1)

Duncan Weldon quotes the FT leader ahead of the Budget and writes:

FT leader ahead of the Budget opens by stating:

More than halfway through the UK coalition’s term of office, the British economy is becalmed. Output is flat and confidence is perilously weak. The UK is experiencing its slowest recovery since the 19th century. Nearly half a decade has passed since the crisis erupted and the economy remains no bigger than it was in 2006 – more than 3 per cent below its 2008 peak. It is no longer fanciful to talk about a lost decade.

As we approach the Chancellor’s fourth Budget, we can already guess that much of the content will feel eerily familiar – growth revised down, borrowing revised up, an insistence that his policy is working and delivering low interest rates, some additional austerity measures to be announced for the future and some ‘more of the same’ policy in the short-term (corporation tax, the personal allowance and generic ‘deregulation’ being likely candidates). (2)

 

I could find dozens of quotes in the same vein.  So in terms of mending the UK economy, George Osborne has signally failed!

Furthermore, it is not just that he has failed on economic indicators.  His ‘austerity’ cuts have or will have severe consequences for the social fabric.  For example, more than a million more families will be living in poverty by 2015. (3)

Picture 39

Research published by the TUC earlier today shows that the decisions being made by the government will cost middle-income households £1,200 a year. By the time of the next election, nine in ten households will be worse off, and half of all children in the UK will live in families below the breadline. (4)

However, this aspect of George Osborne’s strategy is, in his own terms, a success .. a real success.

Such impacts were implicit in the CSR (Comprehensive Spending Review October 2010) which if implemented in full would result in less spending on public services in the UK than that of the US by 2014/15  (5)

However, it has to be said that not everybody accepts George Osborne’s stated agenda as being his real purpose.

Ivan Horrocks, commenting on Tax Research UK as long ago as September 2011, wrote:

 I do wonder if part of the issue you and many other commentators have with Osborne and co is that you/we are ascribing to them a primary economic policy aim which is in fact not their primary aim. We assume that Osborne and co’s primary concern (aim) is to get the economy growing again. And to be fair, this is the impression that Osborne and co promote.

But what if their primary aim is in fact to (try to) fundamentally restructure economic (and social) relations in this country (and beyond if they can) and that their belief is that to do that “austerity” is an essential tool. It can be argued that this is similar to the approach Thatcher employed between 1979-83. For example, under the cover of “austerity” we are witnessing a massive fire sale of public assets, planning laws are being relaxed, the NHS is being “restructured”, and so on and on, all to the considerable benefit not to the “big society” but to big business and big finance.

My conclusion would be that the “austerity” approach – and the narrative that’s been developed to support it – will not be dropped, regardless of any arguments put by the IMF, UN, you, Martin Wolf or anyone else – or the production of data that shows how dire the economic situation of this country is – until Osborne and his supporters are confident that their primary policy aim is sufficiently entrenched to withstand efforts to stop or undo it. Again, we see this approach reflected in the behaviour of Thatcher’s first government. And, furthermore, it resonates with the reported view of senior/influential Tory thinkers, that the first Blair government wasted their first two years in power. In summary then, we could argue that Osborne and co have simply been very good at learning from history. (6)

The passage of time has certainly vindicated Ivan Horrocks assessment. The ‘austerity’ approach and accompanying narrative (“its all Gordon Brown’s fault”) have not been dropped.  And regardless of the economic data, the arguments of the IMF, UN, Richard Murphy and Martin Wolf, we continue to witness the fire sale of public assets, planning laws are being relaxed, the NHS is being “restructured” and so on… to the benefit of big business and big finance

 

Richard Murphy is also in firm agreement that George Osborne’s real agenda is a Tory revolution  ‘aimed at creating a managed, corporately controlled, and deeply unequal ‘democracy’.(7)  (Note the quotation marks around ‘democracy)

He quotes Ivan Horrocks who is unsurprisingly, not surprised at all:

… It’s the inevitable conclusion of a strategy and process that was undoubtedly conceived while the Tories were in opposition and in concert with many of those who stand to benefit.… Now the Tories are aware they’ll only be in power for one term completing the demolition of the state, the fire sale of public assests and services, and the engineering of the corporate control of as many regulatory and governmental institutions as is possible will gain pace drastically. As will the tempo and harshness of the attack on the poor and less fortunate in our society. (7)

(edited)

Michael Hoexter makes a similar argument in New Economics Perspectives:

After the initial panic surrounding the global financial crisis of 2007-2008 subsided, an opportunistic brand of neoliberalism emerged, that continued neoliberalism’s attack on government as a stabilizing, moderating force in society.  This re-energized brand of neoliberalism advocates fiscal austerity and balanced government budgets, “worrying” that public bond issues floated during the economic stabilization process were “unsustainable” debts….

(T)hat the prime drivers of fiscal austerity were representatives of the financial industry, which had just been bailed out by government and had gotten themselves into trouble via high levels of private “leverage,” has, so far, escaped the notice of most sectors of the press in Europe and the United States and, therefore, the consciousness of the public.  Furthermore, the potential future advantages to that same industry of austerity’s selective shackling of government’s ability to create and control the liquidity of the economy have also, so far, escaped the notice of a gullible press and, by extension, a good portion of the public. (8)

So is George Osborne failing or is he succeeding brilliantly?  And does he know which agenda he is following?  Does he actually believe in the failed neoclassical nostrums?  Is he being ‘manipulated’ in some way by those vested interests who stand to benefit?  Or was it always his intention to keep the crisis going to provide the ‘shock doctrine’ which justifies asset-stripping and re-structuring the economic/social relations of the UK ?

In writing about the imperative for a macroethics, Michael Hoexter makes the observation:

… fundamental moral confusion may be mere pretense in the sociopaths and Machiavellian political operatives who are, no doubt, crucial to the success of the austerity campaign.  Yet, their (fallacious) ethical argumentation has swept along more gullible political leaders who have not paused long enough to consider the uniqueness of their role as leaders of governments.  These leaders, with the exception of the Euro-Zone countries, can move their governments to issue currency to bail their nations out of any real or imagined financial bind (though finances do not necessarily solve real economic difficulties).  Either, believing the fiscal reality of currency-issuing governments was identical to that of a business or a household or fearing their constituents would view them as immoral if they did not treat the national budget as that of a household, politicians have, so far, acted as if they do not recognize their distinct macroethical duties as regards the national budget. (8)

A similar point made by the Guardian’s Zoe Williams when she speculated about … the true division of the Conservative party – the ones who are mistaken versus those who are wrong deliberately… Some of them are simply out of their depth, do not understand the benefits system or a government’s realistic prospects of controlling the economy…Others take the Fox News approach: if you can just get enough misinformation out there, enough people who were only half-listening might half-believe you. Competing claims don’t need to relate to facts, their validity will be judged on the manner in which they’re delivered. You may have to retract later, but what does that matter? (9) 

Michael Hoexter provides a disturbing rationale for neoliberal behaviour:

Conventional neoclassical economics has normalized sociopathy in economic life by assuming the “utility maximizing individual” at every turn, which aids sociopaths in gaining positions of power and influence in our contemporary society.  In the political science derivative of neoclassical economics, James Buchanan’s “public choice theory,” politicians are assumed to be as fundamentally amoral as neoclassical economics’ model of the person, which has the effect of excusing or making invisible political corruption…. (8)

Disturbingly, I conclude with the (edited) view of Andrew Dickie, another regular commentator, on Tax research UK whose opinion is respected by Richard Murphy:

Ivan and I have been in agreement on this before – this will be a Neo-feudal state, in which we subjects in the oligarcho-democratic state we now enjoy are transformed into serfs,without rights, in a feudal state where the land-basis of mediaeval fedualism will be replaced by a “territorial” carve-up on the basis of income streams from taxation = Prince HMRC and Duke NHS and Marquess Tertiary Education, and Earl Secondary Education – somewhat reminiscent of Prohibition Chicago!…. These new “garagiste/card-sharping/rent-seeking” baronage know the price of everything and the value of nothing, and their only skills are those of rip-off and plunder, and are a universe away from the real economy and real wealth creation, which will be the task of the serfs – as it always was….. (10)

Andrew Dickie ends with the advice that “ Labour should be putting down a marker – a future Labour Government will bring all these illicitly disposed of mutually created assets back under democratic control, without compensation where possible, which, given that it is highly likely that their new “owners” will already have made more than they have paid for the assets, will be easy to justify.” 

I’ll more than second that… but in the meantime, there’s another Osborne budget….

Related Think Left Posts:

Capitalism – Neoliberalism, Plutonomy, and Neo-feudalism.

Soylent Green, George Osborne and Plutonomy.

Plutonomy – Invasion of the Political Body Snatchers.

What is George Osborne playing at?

(1)  
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1670a3d2-880f-11e2-8e3c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2NQUQ6WUO

(2)  
http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2013/03/through-the-looking-glass-economics/

(3)   
http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2013/03/a-million-more-families-below-the-breadline-by-2015/

(4) 
http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2013/03/next-wednesday-george-osborne-should-admit-hes-got-it-wrong/

(5)  http:// onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-923X.2011.02169.x/ful l 

(6)  http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2011/09/06/maybe-osbornes-quite-happy-a-double-dip-that-provides-cover-for-all-he-wants-to-do/#comments

(7)  
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2013/03/14/the-tory-revolution-is-aimed-at-creating-a-managed-corporately-controlled-and-deeply-unequal-democracy/

(8)  
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/03/without-an-effective-macroethics-our-civilization-is-doomed.html#more-5010

 (9)  
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/02/iain-duncan-smith-polemic-politics-cynical

(10) 
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2013/03/14/that-tory-revolution-and-the-rise-of-neofeudalism/

Project Osborne

Quote

Posted on by
23

Update: George Osborne’s response to the loss of the AAA rating from Moody, is that he is just going to keep on doing what he has been doing.. in spite of the flat-lining economy, the increasing deficit and a potential triple-dip recession.  All of which adds substance to the suggestion that Osborne has another agenda.

Since it seems that the Tribune magazine website is still not working, I have taken the liberty of posting Ian Aitken’s excellent piece from the latest edition. Tribune is always an excellent source of left-wing thinking and cannot be more highly recommended. www.tribunemagazine.co.uk

‘Led into the Darkness by Tory guiding light Osborne’

by Ian Aitken

One of the most extraordinary features of present-day British politics is just how few of its citizens appear to realize how awful – indeed, how evil – their present Government really is.  Amazingly, this almost wilful blindness seems to apply as much to Labour voters as to Tories and Liberal Democrats.

Yet it becomes increasingly obvious with every day that passes that the true aim of George Osborne – who remains the ideological guiding light of the Tory wing of the coalition Government – is the destruction of the entire post-war settlement which emerged from the achievements of the 1945 Labour Government. Osborne is hell-bent on dismantling the welfare state in its entirety, and he doesn’t seem to care what else he has to destroy to achieve his aim.

What makes it even more outrageous is that Clement Attlee and his colleagues had a massive parliamentary majority behind them when they took office, and therefore an unchallengeable popular mandate for what they intended to do.  David Cameron and company have no majority, and therefore no mandate.  They did not win the 2010 election, and such majority as the Government possesses relies on the votes of Lib Dem MPs, not one of whom ran on an Osborne programme when they were elected.

I have no doubt that Osborne knows full well that this will be a one-term Government, and that he will be a one-term Chancellor.  So he clearly intends to complete the job of wrecking the welfare state before the inevitable defeat in 2015.  And he probably calculates that, provided he wields the axe with sufficient brutality, it will be almost impossible for any succeeding government to put Humpty together again.

That, I believe, is why Osborne appears to be so indifferent to the catastrophic impact his policies are having on the British economy.  It is blindingly obvious that his programme of savage cuts in state spending is contributing to the depth of the crisis, and even threatens to plunge the economy into a triple-dip recession.  Now even the International Monetary Fund is telling him to ease up on the austerity.  Yet he pays no attention whatever.

I am convinced that this is because, in his eyes, the spending cuts aren’t just instruments of a failed economic policy but a positive good in themselves.  They aren’t unfortunate measures forced on him by the need to cut the deficit (as he constantly tells us), but a specific means to creating a free market, stand-on-your-own-two-feet, devil-take-the-hindmost society of a kind that we have not seen in this country since the early years of Queen Victoria.

Margaret Thatcher began this process by deliberately creating the unemployment which enabled her to destroy the power of the trade unions.  Thanks to her, Osborne has been able to do his even more destructive work without having to worry about militant action by organized labour.  The pity of it is that he has hardly had to worry about the militancy of the labour movement as a whole – including, I fear, the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Can Osborne pull it off in the time left to him?  As things stand, he probably can.  But if the rag-tag army of the opposition parties – including not only the Greens but also a large swathe of the Lib Dems – can get themselves organized and into action, it is possible to slow the process so radically that Project Osborn could be derailed.  I can think of  nothing that matters more right now – certainly not horsemeat in burgers or (say) gay marriage.

So what is holding us back?  I fear that a major factor is the mood of cynicism which has engulfed the voting public ever since the scandal of MPs’ expenses.  Strangely, the ‘they’re all in it for themselves” culture that now holds sway on the doorstep has become the active ally of Project Osborne.  Too few people believe politicians who express the kind of innocently idealistic aims that formed the basis of Attlee’s great victory in 1945.

But this may be Ed Miliband’s opportunity.  Perhaps his lack of charisma could prove a positive advantage, just as it did for Attlee.  No one could accuse Clem of being in it for himself.  Nor, I think, could they accuse Ed.

22 February 2013 Tribune p5