The Autumn Statement 2023

[jamesbrown]

in my case it's not based on blind faith.

All of the considerable evidence of your posting history points to it being precisely that, for you, blind faith. You rarely (if ever) engage in any substantive criticism of the Tories, it’s all “but Labour…”, which is intellectually weak, as I’ve said. You strike me as a Tory voter by tradition and I doubt anything or anyone will ever convince you otherwise. Hey ho. Fortunately, the Tories are going to get absolutely smashed at the next GE.

[malvolio]

All of the considerable evidence of your posting history points to it being precisely that, for you, blind faith. You rarely (if ever) engage in any substantive criticism of the Tories, it’s all “but Labour…”, which is intellectually weak, as I’ve said. You strike me as a Tory voter by tradition and I doubt anything or anyone will ever convince you otherwise. Hey ho. Fortunately, the Tories are going to get absolutely smashed at the next GE.

Well, wrong. Again, you've not been looking at what I've said. The current administration is wedded to a philosophy driven by HMT and the OBR, neither of which are interested in personal wealth, merely acquiring income and running down an entirely nebulous national debt. That is not monetarism or any variation of Thatcherism I recognise. We had a PM with the balls (erm...) to introduce a proper policy but who stupidly made a total cock up of that, and Sunak has been too scared by that and the risk of trouble from the back benches to do anything but pursue the Osborne/Hammond/Hunt line which is why we are here now.

My point is that the Tories historically have a history of sorting out financial messes and Labour have one of creating them. That is a pragmatic view as to why I would prefer a Conservative mindset to a Socialist one. It's unlikely I will get that, largely down to the Tories incompetence levels, but we live in hope that they will find another statesman to make policy rather than relying on highly questionable advice. Right now, that is also unlikely.

But do not confuse arguing a certain standpoint with blind political belief. We have neither Labour nor Tory parties right now, merely two pinkish-bluish middle ground cowards, which makes your "Mal is a fierce Tory" dismissal a bit of a nonsense. I am, but this current shower is not a Tory party.

As for voting at the next GE, I probably won't bother. There seems little point.

HTH. BIDI.

[SueEllen]

And Labour will win by Tory voters not turning out or getting pissed off with voter id.

[jamesbrown]

The current administration is wedded to a philosophy driven by HMT and the OBR

You're probably not a giant leap away from conspiracy theorist. The reality is that civil servants largely do what they're told, whether from a sense of duty or, if they strongly disagree, ministerial direction. They don't drive any particular philosophy, other than the natural tendency of any large organisation to moderate extremes and mitigate tail risks. There are individuals within HMT and OBR and every other acronymic organisation that have strong political views, obviously. The OBR is a product of a former Tory (coalition) gov't, designed to remove the politics from economic analysis and forecasting.

Blaming civil service "groupthink" on failed gov't policy is a space largely occupied by Telegraph loyalists and fringe thickos who cannot bring themselves to accept that the Tories are, ultimately, not very conservative anymore.

[jamesbrown]

And Labour will win by Tory voters not turning out or getting pissed off with voter id.

They will mainly win by former Tory voters actively turning out to hammer the Tories.