Incidentally, this is the key to what has just happened with 2 child cap - Treasury control. The vote came down to a demand that HMT regain and reinforce its autonomy over fiscal policy, its authority in government and therefore its authority over Labour… 1/n

https://twitter.com/torstenbell/status/1816046412037075359

2/n …To an exceptional extent, Reeves’ as Shadow Cx and now Cx defined herself as the Treasury’s agent in government - the blah about fiscal rules, the failure to commit to tax and spending decisions. The result is to maximise HMT’s own freedom of choice over govt policy…

The election is all but a foregone conclusion - the only real interest is around the edges, in the extent to which the visible decay in real support for the party system translates into support for alternatives left and right. What matters is what comes next… some thoughts: 1/n n …The political context for today is driven by Liz Truss’ September 2022 in office. As we all know, the explosion destroyed support for the Tories. But it also smashed up the Labour left, in two ways:

Giving this a bump. The other, underreported element of the speech is that if it is a break with neoliberalism, it is *also* a break with social democracy.

To put in somewhat Marxist terms, social democracy since 1945 focused on “social reproduction”: healthcare, education… 1/n

https://twitter.com/meadwaj/status/1770402500069212189

2/n …those elements of the capitalist production process concerned with the reproduction of labour power, ie the capacity of people to work productively in particular. “Production” social democracy only bothered itself with somewhat haphazardly, especially in Britain…

Rachel Reeves' Mais Lecture was a restatement of the path she's laid out since becoming Chancellor - a clear analysis of how the world is changing, and of a break with neoliberalism. It was also significantly better than the choice morsels briefed to the Tory press. But.. 1/n 2/n …An exit from neoliberalism does *not* necessarily imply some return to social democracy, with increased state spending, increased share for workers in national wealth. But nor is Reeves' programme Thatcherism...

Delighted to have an essay in this year’s Socialist Register, ‘“The first crisis of the Anthropocene”: the world economy since covid.’ Grateful to editors for giving space to develop my argument about the impact the ecological shift is forcing onto capitalism. In summary... 1/n

https://twitter.com/SteveMaher18/status/1765478892121252119

2/n …I claim covid was a marker for a “new and radically more ecologically-unsettled period for the whole planet”: not only does it have its own long-run impacts, acting as an accelerant for geopolitical breakdown, digitisation, and the shrinking of the effective labour force...

It’ll go higher.

https://twitter.com/ons/status/1747514125226332284

I keep saying this but: your general expectation of inflation in the future should be that it will be higher and more volatile than in the past as the ecological crises worsens, and interacts (as we are seeing now) with geopolitical shocks…

There is a grim predictability to this. The Labour Right fairly directly define their project as the restoration of Labour as a second statal party. The worse the crisis gets, the more this will run hard against some elementary labour movement politics. 1/n

https://twitter.com/stephenkb/status/1692268210823774394

2/n …To see why, you need also to put Labour’s shift over the last 12 months or so in a broader perspective. Both main parties are now cleaving tightly to the core institutions of British economic governance, the Treasury and the Bank of England…

From the Times this morning. Labour leadership gearing up for more fights. A quick thread on what's going on, how it relates to the ecological crisis - and why all this is so very much worse than the 1990s as a result... 1/n The claim by Starmer and the Lab front bench that we have to wait for “growth” to return before attempting to fix our multiple social problems is, as everyone from Jamie Driscoll to Jonathan Portes have pointed out, risible. 2/n

This is a slogan I wanted to push under Corbyn - but really have gone for it, building homes, cheap mortgages, rent controls, higher CGT on 2nd+ homes, right to buy for renters. People want a home they own, we should have programme of redistribution to give this to them. There was a similar problem with the alternative models of ownership worker. We should have pushed this hard as worker ownership of profitable enterprises (“every owner an earner, every earner an owner”). Instead became too much like gloss on rehashed nationalisation programme.

BBC review of their econ coverage is up. First glance, looking decent:

"We think too many journalists lack understanding of basic economics or lack confidence reporting it. This brings a high risk to impartiality... it particularly affected debt."

bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/20… "Nor should the BBC feel it can subcontract judgement about what’s reasonable or impartial to a few established names like the Bank of England, the OBR, the IFS or the Resolution Foundation, however respected."

Halleluiah!

Full text of Starmer's speech is up. Easily most substantive thing he's said on economy, sets out clear framework for Labour programme over next 2 years labour.org.uk/press/keir-sta… ...it's another thread... 1/n 2/n Flexible fiscal rule, interventionist regional policy, interventionist and long-term industrial strategy. Growth as objective. “Partnership” between workers and bosses. It’s very clear Germany is the model...

This is misguided and will damage Labour's prospects. Never mind more speculative issues about the actual long-term prospects for significantly improved growth in the UK - the politics of "growth" as a frame and a narrative work against Labour's electroal interests... 1/n

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1551320332606312448

2/n ...A government prepared to run a deficit (and one led by Truss would be) has significant leeway over when growth can happen in the short run. Tax cuts for households ahead of the election (also promised by Sunak) would very likely lead to short-run GDP improvement...

There's an argument doing the rounds that, since it is in the rational interests of capitalists to ensure the effective delivery of covid vaccines to the whole world, this will actually be done - it is perhaps only weird ideology that prevents it happening… 1/n …It is a suggestion based on a profound misreading of how capitalism works. It brings to mind similar arguments about the supposed “rationality” of capitalism before World War One… 2/n

Written for @NewStatesman on Starmer's speech and Labour conference. Amongst graphic evidence in Brighton of the labour shortage and the fuel crisis, Starmer scarcely touched on either... 1/n newstatesman.com/politics/labou… ...Cameron rewrote his 2008 Conference speech, after Lehman Bros collapsed, to attack Labour's spending plans, setting scene for general election and decade of austerity. Starmer should've done the same... 2/n

@joecguinan response to Starmer's speech is partly defence of "Corbynomics" as embodying an institutional critique of neoliberalism I mostly agree with, but three further points to make:

tribunemag.co.uk/2021/02/the-un… 1. The critique of neoliberalism under Corbyn was too often presented as a variant of anti-austerity economics, as @jemgilbert has indicated, which is politically disabling in terms of grappling with Labour’s actual legacy in govt. Austerity is not same as neoliberalism.

Typically interesting and considered essay from @schneiderhome - much to agree with, some I don't: 2017 was far more a balance between populism and anti-populism than is made out here, and reassembling coalition it sustained is necessary in future... 1/n opendemocracy.net/en/rethinking-… 2/n ...and he is right to stress "against state" elements of GND, but this should go further: GND (if we use framing) must include adaptation and common ownership outside of the state...