Tony Blair on Nick Robinson's Show

[Prestwich_Blue]

So are you advocating Keynesianism or something stronger.

Do you know the Australian economist Steve Keen? He is I think a post keynesian who believes in debt right offs.

The same guy who used to be Blackburn manager?

Seriously. it's well proven that money invested in the public sector has a multiplier effect meaning every pound invested generates around £1.70 in the supply of money. Obviously that means increasing public debt but you pay that back when government revenues start to increase. It's like the rags and their £500m debt. Of course it's a debt and they'd be better off without it probably but their revenues enable them to service it comfortably.

When Labour came to power in 1997, the ratio of net debt to GDP was around 37/38%. Brown actually reduced it to about 28% but then started pumping money into the public sector, so by the time of the crash it was up to around 36%. Obviously it then went up as the recession hit and GDP and government revenues both fell. Even though the Tories cut spending the debt-to GDP-ratio still went up as there was no economic stimulus from increased public sector expenditure meaning that growth and therefore government revenues failed to increase as quickly as needed. So classic Keynesian economics would have probably helped but now we've cut the public sector to the bone so we need a more radical solution to getting it back to working properly. I'm all for what the Labour party is trying to do in theory. I just don't like what Corbyn and his pitchfork bearing mob have become.

 

[Damocles]

Exactly - can you imagine if someone merged us and the rags to form Traffordchester City United................. in the hope to capitalise on the latent support in Manchester that just wants a club that plays decent - not great football - week in week out and is managed by a bloke from say Stoke not someone from abroad who has flair or is devisive?

This is the common myth of centrism - that it takes perfectly central positions to the two ideologically driven positions.

This isn't true.

Centrist parties pick the best policies from both sides and merge them together in a coherent political philosophy. Like for example, maybe it's a good idea to have a leftist approach to the NHS but a right wing approach to defence.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

This is the common myth of centrism - that it takes perfectly central positions to the two ideologically driven positions.

This isn't true.

Centrist parties pick the best policies from both sides and merge them together in a coherent political philosophy. Like for example, maybe it's a good idea to have a leftist approach to the NHS but a right wing approach to defence.

Absolutely in a nutshell. Another example is that you support the free market but you regulate it properly to ensure it's working for its customers and society. You could certainly argue that Brown's biggest failure was to ease off on that regulation, although that may not have had much impact on the US sub-prime mortgage crisis that precipitated the crash.

 

[mackenzie]

This is the common myth of centrism - that it takes perfectly central positions to the two ideologically driven positions.

This isn't true.

Centrist parties pick the best policies from both sides and merge them together in a coherent political philosophy. Like for example, maybe it's a good idea to have a leftist approach to the NHS but a right wing approach to defence.

I just thought it was I who thought that. ;-)
You don't move the two "concepts," rather you find the best bits to make it a whole.

 

[Ban-jani]

And @Damocles

You both have a similar response, and you're both sensible posters, so what happened to the "centrist" way, where did it all go wrong? Where is it now? Given how popular Blair was, how out-of-favour he is now, alongside the rise of JC, particularly with the young, is this all down to the Tories?

I think the financial crisis gave birth to extremes again.

The hard left and far right.

Populism and Socialism have regained huge support as a result of the last decade.

I’m not going to blame Tory cuts as the sole reason as some were justified to reduce the deficit after the crash but I’m beginning to think they have contributed to people turning to the extreme ideologies, it happens in every society when people suffer.

Blair is very out of favour generally speaking. Most people, who don’t understand it to be honest, won’t look past Iraq and the Corbynites have been brain washed by social media to believe Blair is just another Tory, who kidnapped their party.

The reality is he took the party beyond where they have ever been in a positive way and made everyone’s lives better, not just in the country, in NI, The Balkans and Sierra Leone too.

He still does have some admirers, me being one and there will be a mold of the likes of him and Macron, in this country one day again.

 

[Ban-jani]

This is the common myth of centrism - that it takes perfectly central positions to the two ideologically driven positions.

This isn't true.

Centrist parties pick the best policies from both sides and merge them together in a coherent political philosophy. Like for example, maybe it's a good idea to have a leftist approach to the NHS but a right wing approach to defence.

This, this and only this!!

 

[Cityfan]

Even though the Tories cut spending

I think what they actually cut was budgets, public spending continued to rise under the Tories, they had agreed to increase pensions and unemployment increased and benefits had to increase. Planned budgets were pretty savaged though in quite a few public services.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

A few years ago, everyone was moaning that Labour and the Tories were so similar that there was no real choice. Now we have a right wing Tory party and a left wing Labour party, everyone's moaning that there's no moderate voices in politics.

The Lib Dems aren't going to be successful mainly because they don't have the funding.

 

[The perfect fumble]

The same guy who used to be Blackburn manager?

Seriously. it's well proven that money invested in the public sector has a multiplier effect meaning every pound invested generates around £1.70 in the supply of money. Obviously that means increasing public debt but you pay that back when government revenues start to increase. It's like the rags and their £500m debt. Of course it's a debt and they'd be better off without it probably but their revenues enable them to service it comfortably.

When Labour came to power in 1997, the ratio of net debt to GDP was around 37/38%. Brown actually reduced it to about 28% but then started pumping money into the public sector, so by the time of the crash it was up to around 36%. Obviously it then went up as the recession hit and GDP and government revenues both fell. Even though the Tories cut spending the debt-to GDP-ratio still went up as there was no economic stimulus from increased public sector expenditure meaning that growth and therefore government revenues failed to increase as quickly as needed. So classic Keynesian economics would have probably helped but now we've cut the public sector to the bone so we need a more radical solution to getting it back to working properly. I'm all for what the Labour party is trying to do in theory. I just don't like what Corbyn and his pitchfork bearing mob have become.

What a pity, you were doing all right there until the end.

 

[The perfect fumble]

The net is full of stuff about the Third Way, Anthony Giddens is your man.....

https://www.britannica.com/topic/third-way

There are a number of reasons why the Third Way is deader than a very dead thing, but here's three...

1. It was never in sync with Labour's guiding principles or its ideological underpinning, it had no anchor in the Party, it couldn't live with Clause IV so it had to go.
It's important to understand that New Labour wasn't just a new name, it wasn't "moderate" Labour, like Harold Wilson or Neil Kinnock, it was a totally alien ideology, it took a while for that to sink in, both in the Party and in the country, but you don't have to believe me, Blair couldn't shut up about bashing old Labour square pegs in to New Labour round holes .... 'traditional values in a modern setting'

2. As good old Britannica (above) says... the third way seemed to embrace a series of (socially liberal) policy goals that, arguably, were most successfully pursued in social democratic regimes.

3. And further down you'll find...(Third Way) economic policy content seemed decidedly neoliberal in tone.

Again, you don't have to believe me, Blair said this to Nick Robinson...

"socially liberal, progressive" politics but also believed in "a strong private enterprise sector alongside a state that is capable of helping people".

There are many reasons why the Third Way failed and is failing in France, but in a nutshell it offers no hope in the face of globalisation and the power of corporate capitalism.

As I posted earlier, the Third Way is a world where gays have the right to marry (socially liberal) but no right to a living wage (neoliberal).