[mattomac]

Just made me think how sad it was about Rayner.

[The Weeping Angel]

Oh look

https://labourlist.org/2025/11/whip-res ... fare-bill/

Neil Duncan-Jordan, Chris Hinchliff, Brian Leishman, and Rachael Maskell have all had the Labour whip restored today.

It is understood the MPs spoke with the Chief Whip, Jonathan Reynolds, today and have had the Labour whip restored, following a review of their recent conduct.

All four had the whip removed for ‘repeated breaches of discipline’ in July after they had voted against the final welfare bill.

Leishman has been a thorn in the government’s side over the Grangemouth refinery as well as a range of social issues, Hinchliff led a rebellion on planning, and Duncan-Jordan, who was one of the earliest critics of winter fuel.

In a statement, Rachel Maskell said: “I am grateful that the whip has rightfully been restored and want to especially thank all those who have been so kind to me over the last few months. I am Labour to the core and will always stand up for Labour values, to be a voice for those in need and to seek justice at every opportunity. I will continue to work hard for my constituents in York as their Labour and Cooperative MP.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Neil Duncan-Jordan seemed very harsh. But Leishman acts like the nothing counts except for keeping Grangemouth open as a massively loss making refinery. The Government's instead spending big to set up new industries. Maskell has got on my nerves, but isn't any worse than some others for near constant negativity. I can only hope that Hinchliff hasn't taken a chunk out of the planning bill.

[The Weeping Angel]

Top thinking from Rachel.

[mattomac]

"Let"

If truth be told, Burnham winning Manchester is even less impressive than Rotherham winning Merseyside.

[Abernathy]

On HIGNFY, they just played a series of clips of Labour politicians all condemning the Tories’ perpetual leadership crises in the last years as a “psychodrama”. I’ve never really thought about this before - I just assumed it was a very bad thing. But it turns out that a psychodrama is an actual thing, a tool used in psychiatry/psychotherapy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychodrama

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I think that psychodrama involves a degree of introspection, self-evaluation and awareness of one's internal issues and challenges that has been wholly lacking in conservatives of all stripes for a generation.

[Youngian]

"Let"

If truth be told, Burnham winning Manchester is even less impressive than Rotherham winning Merseyside.

I know a mayor's more limited remit can stave off unpopularity but Burnham's consistently high approval ratings in leafy suburbs and red wall areas can't just be explained away by 'a red rosette on a donkey could do that.'
I'm a long way from being convinced Burnham is the candidate to revive Labour's fortunes but I could be if the evidence starts to stack up.

[Tubby Isaacs]

He’s got a nice job. He mostly pops up looking dynamic and talking about better trains and buses.

[Samanfur]

He’s got a nice job. He mostly pops up looking dynamic and talking about better trains and buses.

And speaking as someone in a commuter town for Manchester, he seems to be delivering on the buses.

Northern Rail can find a ditch and get in it. But I don't blame Burnham for that.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Pleased to hear he's doing well. Maybe the expectations of a "London" type service has been set a bit high, because it doesn't have the population density or outside commuters, but improvement is welcome.

The Government are running Northern now. Lots of the problems go back to the Blair-era franchise in which growth was massively underestimated. I don't know how long it takes to sort stuff out properly. Perhaps Burnham could take some of those lines over in time and improve them? When TfL took over London Overgrouns lines, there was an improvement, but the mayor's precept went up quite a bit. Whether that's easy to do now, with less growth about, I don't know.

In terms of investment, the emphasis seems to be on the Trans Pennine stuff rather than the Northern Rail stuff. So I guess it won't get much better for a while.

[Tubby Isaacs]

You'd hope that this put a stop to the "future leader" talk at least. Of which there has been an absurd amount, seeing that I'm unaware of anybody actually saying it. It's like someone in the 90s suggesting Frank Field because he had some rightwing views, or James Purnell in the 00s.

[The Weeping Angel]

The letters section at LabourList is quite something.

https://labourlist.org/2025/12/letters- ... mber-2025/

Economical with the truth
Further to Daniel Green’s piece on the OBR – this is an ideal opportunity to, at least, get someone to lead the OBR who is more open to radical left-wing economics, if not take this whole Tory conception back into the Treasury.

We need to recognise that economics as a profession tends to attract people with an interest in money, and they tend to be capitalists. They start with right-wing views about ‘low tax and trickle down’ and ‘austerity to reduce government debt’ and develop economic arguments to support those views – despite the ‘financial crash’ being caused by private debt and the failure of commercial banks, and the failure of those policies to correct the situation.

The OBR, BoE and the Treasury are stuffed with Conservative appointees, and academia is stuffed with economists who preach the ‘financial establishment’ line because their research funding depends on it. They all have one eye on lucrative future positions in the commercial financial sector.

Austerity and reduced government spending made things worse. Low direct taxation and trickle down didn’t work – how could it? How could rich people spending money ‘trickle down’ to public sector workers, private sector workers on government contracts, state pensioners and other benefit claimants, except through taxation and government spending?

Ultra-low interest rates after the Crash didn’t work and the BoE had to resort the ‘unorthodox’ creation of £900bn to buy Government Debt back from commercial banks only to spoil the concept by starting to pay those banks interest on the cash they kept in the BoE Reserves see chart 1 in the link to the BoE to see how the cash stayed in reserves rather than being used to stimulate the private sector.

All that money created and no inflation – no growth either because it was kept in reserves.

Then when inflation kicked in following the war in Ukraine, Brexit and lock-down bounce-back; the BoE increased interest base rates. It didn’t work to bring down inflation, it made it worse for mortgagees and businesses – and was a bonanza for commercial banks profits.

The forecasts that Conservative economists in the OBR, BoE and Treasury publish make meteorologists look good. The BoE shouldn’t have responsibility for controlling inflation, they only have one blunt tool to influence it – interest rates, and we have seen that only works in limited situations. It also stymies any growth plans the Chancellor may have.

Rachel Reeves needs to take responsibility, get a grip on the levers of Monetary as well as Fiscal control and take advice from economists who are not enthralled by the ‘financial establishment’.

[The Weeping Angel]

Another one.

https://labourlist.org/2025/12/letters- ... mber-2025/

Dear LabourList

I am a Labour Party member, I am elderly and I am disabled.

Imagine my disbelief when yesterday I received an email from the Labour Party inviting me to join a webinar, what ever that is, about how Labour are helping disabled people. I almost had a fit. Thisis the party that has cut disability benefits for so many and have now removed a tax exclusion for charitable bodies for Motability. Kowtowing to a right wing newspaper’s (the Daily Mail) campaign.

What is wrong with these people? After so many years of terror from the Tories, Labour, who promised to be on the side of disabled and sick, are copying their cruelty.

Now the boy Streeting is again parroting the right wing press and launching an inquiry as to why so many people are mentally ill and needing help. Ask anyone remotely connected with mental health and they will tell you the answer, no inquiry needed. What’s needed is properly funded services, not tax breaks for the wealthy.

Which brings me to my final point, taxes, all taxes. I will use capitals to make a point. TAXES DO NOT PAY FOR GOVERNMENT SPENDING, NOT NOW NOT EVER!

Taxes are merely the end cycle of money produced by government and already spent. Those amounts collected are simply written off from the government debt. But this is not the same debt as you or I have, this is the debit side of the bank of England. The bank of England has one job – provide by simple key strokes the money asked for legally by the government to cover its budget. Taxes cannot cover spending because they’ve not been collected yet. Taxes are used to reduce inflation and to redistribute wealth either up or down depending on political choices. Bond markets, i.e. gilts are a safe savings deposit with interest for insurance, pension funds and foreign countries who might trade with us and need £s. The £ is a reserve currency.

The government never borrows it has no need it has its own currency the £ which it produces at will. The £ has value because of the resources that the government has, either human, system or natural resources.

Modern Money Theory, MMT is the system in use in this country and every other country or group of countries with their own currency. Since Thatcher we have been told to look upon the economy of the country as the same as your household. My household cannot make money out of thin air that only exists until it returns through tax.

Government lies to us, newspapers lie to us, it’s now said without a second thought that the government is restrained by the money it needs to borrow from the bond markets or taxes, it’s just nonsense and no one, literally no one can produce evidence to the contrary.

We need to educate MPs and the public.

Regards

Stephen Jones