Janan Ganesh in the FT on Starmer and Reeves

Janan Ganesh eviscerates  Starmer and Reeves in a devastating piece in the Financial Times.

I don't agree with everything he writes - one or two of his side-swipes at the previous Conservative government are the opposite of the truth, such as his characterising as "unfunded tax cuts" the tax policy of an administration which actually imposed some of the largest peacetime tax rises and what was then the highest tax burden since World War II - until Rachel Reeves raised taxes even higher.

But what he had to say about the present PM and Chancellor was dead right.

On the Chancellor















On the PM and the government in general:

























He then makes the aforementioned side-swipes at Brexit and the previous government, some more justified than others, before continuing:

"None of this ever added up to a case for Labour, let alone a landslide. Its ruling duo are inadequate and remain preferable to their likeliest usurpers. Britain has another three years or more to reflect on this Hobson's choice. 

To capture the bleakness of the situation, and its potential to deteriorate, I will leave you with my considered verdict on the chancellor.

Reeves is honour-bound to quit, and I hope she doesn't."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten years ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by th...
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more