My lack of enthusiasm for Theresa May is long on record, so there were no real surprises for me in her typically Blairite speech. But I am very happy is was poorly received (and predictably so).
Mrs May’s speech was the opposite of pragmatic. We call on the Prime Minister to abandon her ideological attachment to interventionist economic policies, look at the evidence, and accept that it tells us that markets, not the state, are the solution to our problems.
Never forget that May opposed Brexit and has been consistently terrible on pretty much every issue. But once we are out of the EU (and realistically long before then, as the underpinning assumption on all sides of the spectrum have now shifted to trying to shape the post-EU realities), there is one less massive Brussels-sized shield between the British state and the people who wish to roll it back, compared to the situation on June 22nd of this year. The battle we won over Brexit was not the end, it was merely the end of the beginning. It was essential so that we can now fight on a battlefield where the arrows we shoot rain down on our real enemies, the ones in Westminster. And sooner rather than later, one of those arrows needs to end up in Theresa May’s eye, ideally whilst the disarranged Labour Party is still lead by an unelectable anti-Semitic Worzel Gummidge clone.
>The battle we won over Brexit was not the end, it was merely the end of the beginning
+1
Agreed on all points –for once.
I’d never heard of Worzel Gummidge before this. Had to look it up. Live and learn.
For the most part, the rest of Sam Bowman’s remarks (in addition to the portion quoted here) are pretty good. The one glaring exception is his apparent support for Quantitative Easing. I would have expected the head of something called the Adam Smith Institute to have a better grasp of macroeconomics and monetary theory. Disappointing.
I have always seen Jeremy Corbyn as more of a Catweazle than a Worzel Gummidge type. However, I suggest we agree to differ, there is no need to settle this with fisticuffs.
The negative reaction to May’s speech bodes well.
Corbyn is, to me, more Albert Steptoe, and this different battlefield is likely to be “a tough old gut”.
It’s not too late for entryism into UKIP. In fact now may be the perfect time… They have a lot of political capital after the brexit vote and are in complete disarray. Labour is busily making themselves unelectable and May’s prescription for the future is unpopular. The planets aren’t likely to align like this again for a long long time.
It’s also totally possible. Entryism is exactly why labour are unelectable.
Worzel, Catweazle, Steptoe? Holy crap you Brits are weird, the unappealing Theresa May fits right in.
I think you all underestimate the ability of May to sniff what’s blowing in the wind and note which way it’s blowing.
She seems to me, way out here in the Western Canadian colonies, to be a unprincipled striver, quite prepared to adopt and parrot whatever seems to be ‘in’, and currently to be ‘out’ is ‘in’.
Getting rid of an unnecessary layer of government (the E.U.) is good – but this still leaves the British government in the hands of the misguided Keynesians Mrs May and Mr Hammond in their well meaning (but mistaken) search for “Social Justice”.
But this is true in most of the Western World.
Indeed.
Take off that ghastly 70’s suit, and all one is faced with is an equally rancid tie and polyester shirt.
Has Theresa May’s speech really been ‘very poorly received’?
Look wider than the Adam Smith Institute to gauge its reception.
As long as Britain remains part of the EU it is locked into the process of European integration. The only possible future it allows is for Britain to become an outer province of a centralised anti-democratic single European state. We have to leave the EU in order to open up any other possibilities. Therefore it is only the first step but it is an absolutely necessary one.
Tim Carpenter,
You’re encouraging to think of Corbyn stripping. For shame, sir! For shame!
I feel slightly unwell. Now if it was him doing a double act with Abbott it wouldn’t be slightly.
It got monstered in a great many places, not just the ASI.
This morning for amusement I watched the English versions of French and German news and the European politicians are pissed off you Brits won’t drop your dacks bend over and take it up the arse. These wankers don’t acknowledge that every nation in Europe has a trade surplus with Britain for which you’re suppose to be grateful and the Frogs are also pissed they’ll stop receiving reparations from Britain for WW2 to subsidise their farmers to provide cheap food, you Pommy bastards.
The key thing to remember, and which everyone seems to be forgetting at the moment, is that a lot of what politicians say will happen, won’t happen. Especially when they say it at party conferences. Thersa May is no exception.
So: I don’t think we’ll end up with workers on company boards. I don’t think we’ll end up with much in the way of new grammar schools. I don’t think firms will have to list their foreign workers (what would be the point of that anyway?). Most of what she and her cronies are saying is just to create an impression with voters. As New Labour discovered, talking big carries you a long way, so why bother trying to implement what you say when so much damage gets incurred in doing that?