Young Master Smeet
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Well, given the Tories got roughly the number of votes they got in 2017 and won by a good margin, I think this isn’t covid bounce, I’ve seen it described as a voter strike, which I think is fair enough.
Hartlepool must feel deeply abandoned, and the machinations of the Labour machine really did not help.
According to Wikipedia: “Slaughter and Banda’s group at first called itself the Workers Revolutionary Party (Workers Press). However, Banda soon left the group and repudiated Trotskyism. The international supporters of the group decided to call themselves the Workers International to Rebuild the Fourth International (WIRFI), and published both the Workers Press and the International journal. In the 1990s the members of a sub-group within WIRFI influenced by Slaughter decided that the creation of an elite vanguard party was not the way to build towards socialism.”
The splendid manifesto of Count Binface:
https://twitter.com/CountBinface/status/1384868302019829766So, I know, it’s someone being mean on the internet, but the substantive point is that there was a time when currency was refused for taxation, and still existed (and that metallic value drove the nominal value).
So, watching Sturgeon’s performance, I think the cock-up theory of history applies, serious allegations were made, officialdom cocked up, and of course, the big question, why would she want to get Salmond? I think this will fizzle out, they didn’t find a smoking gun.
Of course, some of this was covered in the Scrocialist Standard:
There are mysteries around his rise, that some seem to hint secret state involvement, but I think that’s unlikely, but he was certainly very well connected for a man who never really did anything but invest other people’s money…
Some of the debt is owned by the Bank of England, so in a sense the government owes itself money. In theory, this debt could be simply written off, but that would harm confidence in the pound, as it would be effectively the government printing money to pay off it’s debts). A lot of the debt is owned by banks, and while the government can dictate to a certain extent the price of that debt, in the end, these are private institutions that could choose simply not to buy government debt. Some debt is held overseas, and that helps with maintaining the value of the pound, and enables international trade.
A principle function of the national debt is to discipline government, since the state could simply operate through taxation entirely, i.e. simply seizing whatever wealth it needs, if it comes to rely on debt, it has to behave in a way that keeps creditors nice. It is a tool of class control of the state.
So, there is a suggestion that Russia is happy to stir up chaos wherever it can.
I’d file this under “pinch of salt”, at worst, it’s just opportunistic shit stirring (though, I’d note, Russia’s strategic interest would be independence).
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/02/in-conversation-with-mark-mcnaught/
14 minutes in. Murray tries to find a motive, and frankly fails. I find the great conspiracy ide implausible, I think it looks more like institutional blundering, there being no way to deal with complaints against Salmond but feeling an impetus to *something* they scratched out a policy, and are now caught between procedural rules around protecting the complainants and also an inherent defensiveness.
Tories going in guns blazing (note also, they are branding themselves “Conservative and Unionist” in Scotland).
Other interesting story of the day, Nicola Sturgeon (or her office) are sending birthday letters to 16 years olds, there’s no overt vote soliciting, but the intent is clear, 16 year olds can now vote in Scotland…
“Using an example of 1% above market rate interest, this would be a financial offer from Labour of 95p to the low-income families, and one of £629 to the high-income household. The exact numbers could change, but the ratio wouldn’t; regardless of whether the interest rate is a generous or a parsimonious offer, the high-income household would receive 630 times the reward of the low-income.”
It is very much a conservative pitch.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-56111289
“In the last five years, the number of sedition cases filed against individuals has risen by an average of at least 28% each year, according to data collected by Article14, a group of lawyers, journalists and academics.”
