Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 4:37 pm For a while I've seen a lot of "Labour in 1945 set up the NHS, no excuses!" stuff.

Not do play down that government's achievements, but they inherited war time defence expenditure, which they could reassign to other things fairly quickly. Current situation is that defence spending is much lower and and should probably be higher.

I think somebody needs to take this point. Or perhaps not, maybe it's an online point.

There was also Marshall Plan money as well.

There were so many factors that were different in 1945...

David Kynaston's book on the era is called "Austerity Britain", and the Tories successfully challenged the government on things being too grim.

Low hanging fruit here too. I think Joy Morrissey is MP in one of these places.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 4:53 pm David Kynaston's book on the era is called "Austerity Britain", and the Tories successfully challenged the government on things being too grim.

Peter Hennesey's book Never Again covers the Attlee Government in wonderful detail. Recommend it.

I've seen it before, but you've inspired me to order it. Thanks!

I don't like the Kynaston serious on post 1945 as much as I should, because I find it too broken up by long quotes (albeit from interesting and unheralded sources). I prefer his stuff on The City.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 4:37 pm For a while I've seen a lot of "Labour in 1945 set up the NHS, no excuses!" stuff.

Not do play down that government's achievements, but they inherited war time defence expenditure, which they could reassign to other things fairly quickly. Current situation is that defence spending is much lower and and should probably be higher.

I think somebody needs to take this point. Or perhaps not, maybe it's an online point.

There was a LabourList article which made the point that post 2010 the left had their own narrative about the Attlee government that conviently left out its failures and how quickly it fell. Also how this version ignores Herbet Morrison and Ernest Bevin not to mention turning Nye Bevan into a cariacture.

Spoonman wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 4:42 pm

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 4:37 pm For a while I've seen a lot of "Labour in 1945 set up the NHS, no excuses!" stuff.

Not do play down that government's achievements, but they inherited war time defence expenditure, which they could reassign to other things fairly quickly. Current situation is that defence spending is much lower and and should probably be higher.

I think somebody needs to take this point. Or perhaps not, maybe it's an online point.

There was also Marshall Plan money as well.

Attlee government was mainly bankrolled by Washington to stay out of Uncle Joe’s orbit. Roy Jenkins in one of his books recalls how the Americans laughed when Clem and Ernst Bevin assumed they were going to be co-managers of the Marshall aid plan instead of the reality of just another crippled European economy in the queue for aid.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 6:55 pm I've seen it before, but you've inspired me to order it. Thanks!

I don't like the Kynaston serious on post 1945 as much as I should, because I find it too broken up by long quotes (albeit from interesting and unheralded sources). I prefer his stuff on The City.

I have all Professor Hennessy’s books on the post war era. They researched meticulously, much of it from material at the National Archives, I have seen him there several times when I have been doing my own railway history research. They are very readable and you learn plenty without his world view being apparent.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 11:48 pm

There was a LabourList article which made the point that post 2010 the left had their own narrative about the Attlee government that conviently left out its failures and how quickly it fell. Also how this version ignores Herbet Morrison and Ernest Bevin not to mention turning Nye Bevan into a cariacture.

Found the article, thanks.

https://labourlist.org/2024/07/general- ... es-reform/

And from there an earlier link to when the Ken Loach film on 1945 came out, which has fostered some of this stuff.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... 45-fantasy

Spoonman wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 4:42 pm

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 4:37 pm For a while I've seen a lot of "Labour in 1945 set up the NHS, no excuses!" stuff.

Not do play down that government's achievements, but they inherited war time defence expenditure, which they could reassign to other things fairly quickly. Current situation is that defence spending is much lower and and should probably be higher.

I think somebody needs to take this point. Or perhaps not, maybe it's an online point.

There was also Marshall Plan money as well.

"Yebbut but just tax Google and Amazon properly!"

Grace Blakeley/Owen Jones and other Nu-Wave Trots, probably.

Nigredo wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2024 11:00 am
"Yebbut but just tax Google and Amazon properly!"

Grace Blakeley/Owen Jones and other Nu-Wave Trots, probably.

As Dan Neidle says, the Corbyn thing that we can have a European welfare state with the rich paying for it is something no actual European country has ever achieved. They make average people pay more in tax than we do, which is being felt in the cost of living crisis. Funny they choose to do these unpopular taxes, if they could stick them all on someone else and romp home in the election every time.

Continental tax rates will buy more than the UK raising them at the same level.

The OECD has the US in it. Does it look so clear when you just do Europe?

The Eurozone has lower growth rates than US but the UK still shadows those trends at a lower rate.

I'd be surprised if there were that much difference, but the UK is clearly underperforming relative to its demographics.

Speaking after the meeting of metro mayors in Downing Street, Kim McGuinness, the Labour North East mayor, said that having multi-year funding deals would make a big difference.

I'm guessing the budgets will be less than lavish, but there's another small win. I'm interested in how far the UK can devolve borrowing powers to regions. What I'm cynically saying is, can they do that without it showing up on the national debt? And would they want to? Would be easy for the Tories to scare people with "Nottingham has just borrowed £Xbn". Of course that happens in the US, and it mostly goes fine, provided you don't fall into a hole or get him by things like a massive move to the suburbs.

I see that the term “levelling up” has been officially dropped. This is welcome news. It was an Americanism adopted at Johnson’s insistence, and was, to be frank, a con that was never truly implemented, and never any sort of adequate compensation for the loss of the EU Regional Development Fund (thanks to fucking Brexit), something that had been enabling valuable infrastructure projects in more deprived areas of the UK for many years.

He couldn't even define it properly. The phrase comes from computer gaming, where a character will occasionally "go up a level" and gain new powers, increased hit points and so on. Johnson seemed to want people to think it meant bringing everywhere up to the same level, in terms of investment etc.

Of course, what it meant was another funding pot for a few million here and there to spruce up your decaying town centre shopping precinct for another 6 months.