Howard Green

Thanks, but I'm thinking we've had more than enough "economic liberalism" already. The rich are just not doing ... well anything but collect rents. I would vote for state control of the "commanding heights" of the economy in support of quality of life.

Blocked

This is just another rerun of the universal Vs means testing saga. I want people out of their cars, and I suspect means testing is too complicated. Universal basic services is a strong idea.

Well, I think this empire is probably doomed in any case. It's a finite planet. I agree that it really matters how we get there. Preserve knowledge and resist the four horsemen.

Meantime immigrants are a blessing we should all celebrate.

I think this too is mostly pissing in the wind. An older population is a step toward a smaller population. This is a desirable consequence of education and empowerment of women. I mostly agree with George - the numbers are largely already fixed. But a long term sustainable total is perhaps 1 billion

How many times has Yussuf been on QT this year? Will Ms Bruce shut him up this time?

This is quite an interesting post from a sociological POV. What she says about lack of agency is worth thinking about. Of course its all oligarch lies. How do we reach people like this?

Well quite. On the other hand, what we have now is a wall of advertising, trending into social control via lies to encourage division. I think that we do need to reclaim our life experiences and history from Zuckerberg et al. Kind of a community buyout.

I agree that there is an important discussion to be had about how a new form of social ownership should work. Ordinary people need to feel involved as owners, and there must be local accountability without NIMBYism. Not everything needs to happen at once, though.

I don't think there is a way of preventing them being sold again, other than showing people the consequences and persuading them that it's a bad idea

The investment needed to fix the system is a classical case for long term government bonds.

Isn't that exactly the substance of negotiations with the owners? In most cases I don't think we should pay them to go away, and the shareholders and debtors need to bear their share of the costs.

So what kind of questions? I expect there are people on bluesky who can help us answer them. What is clear is that we need to get on with it.

Not true. The water industry is not even a bit defensible, and Clive has done a great job in saying so. A detailed plan for democratic public ownership is government's job. I don't see why we should compensate the current owners, either. They have caused enough damage.

Hmmm. I have been dealing the SWP since the early 70s, and they are a depressing sect. Sultana needs to reflect. But..PFI? Fossil fuel lobbyists? Silicon Valley advertising onslaught? Late capitalism really is killing us.

This is a Tufton Street fantasy. The rich really do need to get less rich. Not a great budget at all, but the media pile-on is pure oligarch propaganda

Every day a new piece of cruelty to trans people. So pointless-reality has not changed. It will be necessary to accept the variety of real people, and patriarchy is still doomed.

But do you have any reason for believing that this might happen? Seems to me that there isn't a new normal anywhere near current first world consumption levels.

Beams? Motes?

Amazing orchestrated media pile-on. We need media ownership rules now.

History says that expropriating the 1% requires war. The ending is bad for young poor people. The oligarchs cope ok.

Agree about Brexit. China simply doesn't need anything we sell (except education).

No to nearly all of that. True that the budget fudged all the key issues. Starting point has to be improving quality of life. Growth as a generality simply isn't going to happen. Some simple changes: unify income tax and capital gains; abolish NI; fix council tax.

Its a bizarre side-effect of Reeves's self-denying ordinance. In any rational world, National Insurance is a stupid tax. The take should simply be moved to income tax (including CGT and pensions) and corporation tax. The tax system could be so much better just by moving the take.

Or was it Chris Mason? They just blur into each other now

I am divided about how to respond to this. On the one hand, Jones is another scripted robot, and the govt is complicit in its own misfortunes. On the other hand, we have an extraordinary orchestrated media pile-on in progress, and we need to keep pointing that out. They need to clean house at BBC.

Once more this morning: Robinson on BBC News spends twenty minutes repeating Tory talking point about the budget, having spent the previous half hour interviewing other Tories about it. No discussion of the budget content whatsoever. He needs to go with Gibb, Kuensberg and the rest.

Do not self-censor. Do not capitulate in advance. Make a fuss! There are still more of us than there are of them.

Reeves seems to have been actively involved in the decision to rule out in advance all the things that a government would need to do. So it is her box to inhabit. I want to criticise all the other things she didn't do (capital gains tax, leaving taxes, council tax reform).