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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 1m

In politics, I don't know: maybe Brian Klaas has a point and randomness is dominant.

Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 1h

I wasn't thinking that far back - merely to my personal experience.

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 1h

True. But BITD, they did so by reading Nietzsche himself, not some no-mark. This is not so much a story about rebellion as about declining intellectual standards.

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 9h

Yes. I wish pundits would ask: how much predictability is there in political affairs, and what things are reliable predictors? Coz one lesson from elsewhere (eg finance) is that judgment-based predictions are worth very little.

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 9h

Maybe. But why are we seeing the birth of (reactionary) English nationalism *now*? What explanations are there other than Ben Friedman's point that stagnation increases illiberalism?

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 12h

Good this. The thing is that Macmillan could be a one-nation Tory because British capitalism then was working for millions. Today it is not. That removes the economic base of one-nation Toryism.

Phil Burton-Cartledge @philbc3.bsky.social · 12h

"For the first time the right are open and honest about what they're about, and it's best for us to face them as they are ... There are no good Tories. Only class conscious defenders of a decaying system."

What Happened to One Nation Conservatism?

The jamboree of delusion and extremism that was Conservative Party conference birthed a small, fleeting genre of political centrist-to-soft...

averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 1d

This and this www.theguardian.com/politics/202... confirms that politics has been bought. It's unclear how this might change without big systemic change, given that MPs (unlike other voters) don't vote to make themselves poorer.

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 3d

As you might imagine, I disagree. Here's a defence of PPE I prepared earlier: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/in-defence...

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 3d

Oh yes, by all means present as a move to a freer society - just don't think it's got anything to do with growth.

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 3d

"The great thing in life, Jeeves, if we wish to be happy and prosperous, is to miss as many political debates as possible" - Bertie Wooster (Much Obliged, Jeeves).

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 3d

Tell me you don't have a clue about economic growth without... www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Pubs to stay open until early hours in push for UK growth

Exclusive: Plans for England and Wales would help the ailing hospitality sector but have attracted criticism from health experts

www.theguardian.com

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 4d

I agree there's an element of that. But the centre-right hasn't just lost power, but has almost completely vanished: Heseltine's intervention was striking for being so rare. Here's one I wrote earlier this year: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/the-centre...

The centre-right: killed by economics

Economic forces lie behind the collapse of the centre-right.

chrisdillow.substack.com

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 4d

This. The Tories, Reform UK Ltd & even Labour hate the actually-existing British economy, whose comparative advantage lies in higher education & the creative industries.

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 4d

Badenoch and Co see education only as a means to a massive income in some soul destroying career.

Devoid of imagination and the power of knowledge they view life entirely through the prism of the CV.

My advice always is to study what interests you and the rest will follow

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 4d

Yes, the flaws of capitalism were clear in 2015-19, & McDonnell was good on them. Maybe pols have learned from his defeat not to think about such things.

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 4d

Good point this. The macroeconomic point of raising taxes is not to raise money but to cut consumption, thereby diverting resources to the public sector & investment. That requires taxes on the middlingly rich. Taxing the mega-rich is necessary (if not sufficient!) to legitimate such rises.

Resolution Foundation @resfoundation.bsky.social · 4d

🚨 New research published today

'Before the fall' looks at what has happened to the distribution of household wealth in Britain and the impact on families.

Read it here 👉 buff.ly/Ya8kInK

Senior Economist Molly Broome:
"Wealth gaps in Britain are now so large that a typical full-time employee saving all their earnings across their entire working life would still not be able to reach the top of the wealth ladder. These gaps are doubly concerning as wealth mobility in Britain is low – people that start life wealthy tend to stay wealthy, and vice versa.
Rising house prices and changes in the value of pension promises account for most of the growth in wealth gaps since the early 2010s, rather than any active behaviour on the part of individuals, such as buying homes or acquiring new assets.
Soaring wealth and an acute need for more revenue has prompted fresh talk of wealth taxes ahead of the Budget next month. But with property and pensions now representing 80 per cent of the growing bulk of household wealth, we need to be honest that higher wealth taxes are likely to fall on pensioners, Southern homeowners or their families, rather than just being paid by the super-rich."

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 4d

You can't have a successful economy by kowtowing to bigots who want to close the country to the rest of the world. It'd be nice if a politician had the brains or guts to point this out.

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 4d

Wilful ignorance of how trade and migration actually work in a globalised economy.

The idea that the (short and long-term) movement of people -especially between India and the UK - has nothing to do with trade and investment is (obviously) wrong.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 4d

Yes! There's an ideological blindspot: an inability to see that making capitalism succeed for more than a tiny minority of people requires big policy changes.

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 4d

"Fiscal conservatism, monetary activism" failed to boost growth in 2010-15, so why should next time be different? (Poss answer: companies more able/willing to borrow - but is that good enough?) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Badenoch to set out new rule to cut borrowing and taxes

In a conference speech, the Tory leader will say the Conservatives are the only party

www.bbc.co.uk

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 5d

Yes there is. And ironically, he was at the time widely regarded as a duffer.

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 6d

Also, "unhelpful ideological priors & vested interests" aren't mere accidents: they're an inherent feature of the human condition. It's clear that the man's a gibbering imbecile: what's not so clear is exactly why our political system is so defective as to give people like this any attention.

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 6d

In P.G. Wodehouse's world, people with the IQ of a backward clam (Barmy” Fotheringay-Phipps) merely hang around in the Drones club. In our world, we vote for them.

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 7d

Reform likely to raise Kent council tax after cost-cutting drive falters on.ft.com/4pTvJ62

Reform likely to raise Kent council tax after cost-cutting drive falters

Nigel Farage’s party promised to revive local authority finances by slashing wasteful spending

on.ft.com

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 7d

Samuelson wasn't alone. The US govt didn't kill millions of people during the cold war because they thought communism would fail; they did so because they feared it would succeed.

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 7d

The Tories' problems are deeper than merely a bad leader. The centre-right has been weakened by the degradation of erstwhile professional jobs and by capitalist stagnation. Here's one I wrote earlier: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/the-centre...

The centre-right: killed by economics

Economic forces lie behind the collapse of the centre-right.

chrisdillow.substack.com

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 8d

Yes. I was making an empirical claim, more than an attempt at reasoning with these people.

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Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 8d

Yes. But there's something else - that political violence often just doesn't work. How has Kirk's murder weakened Trumpism, or the Manchester murders advanced the cause of the Palestinians? Trotsky was good on this: www.marxists.org/archive/trot...

Leon Trotsky: Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism (1911)

Leon Trotsky: Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism (1909)

www.marxists.org

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