Bl**dy Tories

[la_marquise]

Today's veto has really depressed me. Not the detail, but because of the triumphalist Little Englandism that it has brought crawling out of the woodwork. We need Europe to secure our long-term future. This isn't about 'sovereignty', it's about kow-towing to Big Capital and it's needs. The US won't support us even if we wanted it to (and opinions vary on that). I am sick and tired of the triumph of prejudice.
Off into the Word Mines to carve out some more Red Fantasy. A bas les aristos!

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I agree. Plus, far too many of those in politics have vested interests in that sector.
We've survived financial meltdowns before. It's hard. But it's not impossible.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

What does worry me is that when the UK economy melted down before there were still other productive sectors besides the City, even though their interests always been subordinated to the City by government (see Cain and Hopkins "British Imperialism 1688-2000" for a brilliant analysis of so called 'gentlemanly capitalism'). What's left now? The traditional, and even most of the newer, manufacturing and extractive industries have been pretty much gutted. The IT industry is dominated by multinationals who have outsourced most of the jobs to south and east Asia. What has really shocked me when I have visited the north of England in the last 20 years is that there isn't much there anymore beyond tourism and government. What used to be the Workshop of the World has been turned into Clogland; a post industrial theme park. It really scares me and what scares me just as much is that current shadow ministers who I knew back in the day as intelligent and committed people seem completely lost for alternatives. It goes without saying that those Labour bigwigs who were complete bastards when young haven't got any better.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

It won't be easy. Being a mediaevalist, I look back to the 14th century, in which plague and the onset of the mini ice-age undermined more or less everything. We'll need to reinvent ourselves. But we can do it. Letting the financial sector get away with murder out of fear of no alternatives cannot be wise.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I guess it only took about 350 years, three civil wars and another plague to get the economy back into shape then.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Yes. It's big stuff. And I worry about my friends' children, my nephews and niece and all the others to whom we're handing this poisoned chalice.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

The traditional, and even most of the newer, manufacturing and extractive industries have been pretty much gutted.

Hello? Planet reality calling ...?

Actually, we manufacture and export more stuff now than we did in the 1970s, though it doesn't seem that way. We're one of the biggest car manufacturers in Europe, although the factories are all foreign-owned. Space industry turns over £6 billion a year. We're a colossus in the computer games sector and we make and export tons of specialized stuff. We're a major industrial force in wind turbines. And so on.

...

However, while manufacturing has dropped overall to around 20% of the economy (bet you thought it had fallen further), employment in manufacturing is down around 90% over the past three decades, largely due to efficiency improvements. And the smokestack industries -- coal, steel -- that ran on inefficient pre war plant (often pre WW1, not WW2) is a small highly efficient specialized rump of its former stature. It really doesn't take that many people to supervise and operate a heavily automated car factory with industrial robots.

(And meanwhile, the narrative that our future lies in financial services and all that iron-bending stuff is obsolete gets embedded in our national consciousness so that it gets hard to convince kids to make stuff instead of studying "business". And the pound is maintained as a strong currency because it's useful for arbitrage despite it crippling our export sector. And Thatcher's heirs still hate everyone who lives north of Nottingham.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Further north than Watford Gap services, if you ask me (person from Coventry, here. Remember Coventry: used to be a prosperous place, gutted by 5 decades of neglect by all parties?). They make an exception for the pretty bits of Northants -- so</> pretty, darling, and room for the children's ponies -- but kick Northampton in the teeth. And everywhere else is completely off their radar.
Home rule for Mercia, says I.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Folks hereabouts are in favour of Scottish independence.

I think a better idea would be to expel the City of London and Westminster from the United kingdom.