Against the backdrop of the loss of the triple-A rating much coveted by Conservative Ministers - and trivialised by others - Cable is right again. Wednesday's remarkable New Statesman article makes plain the case for a new economic strategy, and the need for as elegant as possible a reversal of Osbornomics that was itself eclipsed by Cable in the economic debates of 2010.
Gareth Epps is the co-chair of the Social Liberal Forum
I am not an economist, but I do recognise common sense when I see it.
Around ten years ago, a then relatively obscure MP submitted a motion to the Liberal Democrats’ conference about personal debt. To the uninitiated, it seemed an esoteric and obscure issue.
But it wasn’t.
Indeed, it was the start of a period in which Vincent Cable’s analysis of the economic situation was unsurpassed.
Against the backdrop of the loss of the triple-A rating much coveted by Conservative Ministers – and trivialised by others – Cable is right again. Wednesday’s remarkable New Statesman article makes plain the case for a new economic strategy, and the need for as elegant as possible a reversal of Osbornomics that was itself eclipsed by Cable in the economic debates of 2010.
At the same time, and free from the shackles of cabinet collective responsibility, the Social Liberal Forum (SLF) has been describing the need for an economic Plan C which also argues for fuller investment, a wider reform of the economic system than the sticking plaster of greater spending alone, but an understanding that dogma should not preclude increasing borrowing if growth is at stake.
This evening, Vince Cable will make a keynote speech at our Spring [Liberal Democrat] Conference fringe; a conference that, curiously, does not include a frontline keynote economic platform speech.
As at Eastleigh, Lib Dem campaigners understand the axiomatic value of winning the economic argument. Hence SLF has also tabled an emergency Conference resolution calling for the following immediate steps – not a strategy, but urgent initiatives – to be taken:
. Get the builders building
. Get the banks lending to business
. Prevent a slash and burn approach to public spending
. Bring in the mansion tax.
While the third point relates specifically to the need to avoid further regressive cuts in the year 2015-16, the rest are not new. Indeed, they are consistent with the economic position taken by Liberal Democrats since the onset of the financial crisis.
It would be quite astonishing if a serious Keynesian political party were not to place them centre stage.
27 Responses to “Vince Cable’s New Statesman article makes plain the need for a new economic strategy”
Newsbot9
Yes, you keep calling the poor “druggies and alkies”. And keep claiming replacing benefits with far lower value vouchers is the same as giving *benefits* to employers.
It’s bringing back the company store, rather. Which was outlawed in the UK by the truk acts over a century ago.
Keep pushing your, as you admit, “half-cocked ideas about tickets recycled into pretend money”. Keep pushing it…how dare people need clothing or public transport in your world.
Mick
Practices which people did in the days of the barter economies. In the days before sophisticated national economies came about. It’s got nothing to do with anarchism, a comparatively recent disease, as Newsie well knows.
And it can’t have escaped his notice that Luncheon Vouchers are still in use today as additional gifts, something quite apart from what the Truck Acts used to ban: http://www.luncheonvouchers.co.uk/organisation/howluncheonvoucherswork/pages/default.aspx
And druggie and alkies ARE to be issued with vouchers if the Government has its way. And NOT all unemployed.
But again, we think Newsbot’s just playing around.
Newsbot9
Yes, indeed, you’re trying introduce barter economy. And yes, keep describing anything outside your failed neoliberalism as a disease. It’s also a gross libel on past economies.
And yes, they’re used *in addition*, not your plan of replacing money with them.
And yes, keep trying to redefine the poor as druggies and alchies, and to limit their food intake even more! Gotta starve them in their world.
And no, I’m quite serious about opposing genocidal butchers like you.
Mick
The government defines druggies and alkies as druggies and alkies! There’s lots of bitching about that, you must have noticed. Other unemployed will get their money as usual, whilst the boozebags and smackheads will be sorted out.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/05/23/benefits-iain-duncan-smith-alcoholics-drug-addicts_n_1539041.html”
And the barter economy? Sounds a bit mutualist to me………: http://mutualistalliance.tumblr.com/post/23989833707/mutualism-and-anarcho-capitalism-differences
“Modern mutualists tend to be very interested in barter-economies.”
“And no, I’m quite serious about opposing genocidal butchers like you and your other multiple personalities.” You’re comedy gold, I’ll say it again!
Newsbot9
Yes, as I said, you’re defining the poor as druggies and alchies. Thanks for agreeing with me. And right, you keep praising how you’re removing cash from the poor, forcing them back to barter. Don’t worry, you’ll have them selling themselves into slavery soon enough.
And thanks for linking a plan to punish people who don’t accept “treatment” for something which has not been medically diagnosed, but pushed on them by government rules. Social Darwinist. That’s a separate strand to your bow, quite apart from your attempts to bring back scrip as a replacement for wages.
And ye, keep calling your murdering comedy. Your genocidal plans are not funny. Keep lacking anything resembling that human thing, “empathy”. And no, again, I’m not interested in your shill posts on other sites, said it before.