Craig Murray — The British Government’s Legal Justification for Bombing is Entirely False and Without Merit

Theresa May has issued a long legal justification for UK participation in an attack on a sovereign state. This is so flawed as to be totally worthless. It specifically claims as customary international law practices which are rejected by a large majority of states and therefore cannot be customary international law. It is therefore secondary and of no consequence that the facts and interpretations the argument cites in this particular case are erroneous, but it so happens they are indeed absolutely erroneous....

Making up rules.

So the British government sets up its own “three tests” which have no legal standing and are entirely a British concoction, yet still manages to fail them....

Craig Murray Blog
The British Government’s Legal Justification for Bombing is Entirely False and Without Merit
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

George Eaton — Theresa May’s decision to take military action against Syria without a vote could cost her

As I explainedearlier this week, under the Royal Prerogative, the Prime Minister can approve any military action without a prior parliamentary vote or debate (as David Cameron did in Libya in 2011). On matters of war, Britain’s parliament is one of the weakest in the democratic world.

But May’s decision is immensely politically contentious. Labour, the SNP, the Liberal Democrats and some Tory MPs are furious that she failed to consult parliament. Only 22 per cent of the British public, according to this week’s YouGov poll, support military action. May has joined forces with Donald Trump, the most erratic and unpopular US president in recent history, and reportedly backed swift strikes in order to evade parliamentary scrutiny (MPs return from the Spring recess on Monday)....

The irony is that May would likely have won a parliamentary vote on the issue. A significant number of Conservative and Labour MPs now regret not supporting military action in 2013. But after Cameron's humiliation over Syria, May was not prepared to risk becoming only the second prime minister since 1782 to lose a vote on a matter of war and peace. The government may seek - and win - retrospective approval, as Cameron did over Libya in 2011 (though May has given no signal so far). But having acted without a democratic mandate, the legitimacy of British action will be permanently questioned.

With only 22% approval, many MP's would likely think twice before giving retroactive approval after the fact.

New Statesman
Theresa May’s decision to take military action against Syria without a vote could cost her

George Eaton | Editor

Raúl Ilargi Meijer — Austerity, Bloodletting and Incompetence

Punxsutawney Phil Hammond, the UK chancellor, presented his Budget yesterday and declared five more years of austerity for Britain. As was to be expected. One doesn’t even have to go into the details of the Budget to understand that it is a dead end street for both the country and for Theresa May’s Tory party.

So why the persistent focus on austerity while it becomes clearer every day that it is suffocating the British economy? There are many answers to that. Sheer incompetence is a major one, a lack of empathy with the poorer another. Conservative Britain is a class society full of people who dream of empire, and deem their class a higher form of life than those who work low-paid jobs.

When you see that the British Parliament has even voted that animals don’t feel pain or emotions, you’d be tempted to think it’s a throwback all the way back to the Middle Ages, not just the British Empire. They’re as lost in time as Bill Murray is in Groundhog Day. Only worse.

But perhaps incompetence is the big one here. The inability to understand that if your economy is not doing well, you need to stimulate it, not drain even more of what’s left out of it. The people in government don’t understand economics, and therefore rely on economic theory for guidance. And the prevailing theories of the day prescribe bloodletting as the cure, so they bloodlet (let blood?). Let it bleed.

This is not a British problem, it’s pan-European if not global. Neither is the UK Tory party the only one being killed by it, all Conservative parties share that faith. They’re just lucky that their left wing opponents have all committed hara kiri, and joined their ranks when it comes to economics. All of Europe’s poorer have lost the voices that were supposed to speak for them, to economic incompetence.

Obviously, the US democrats did their own hara kiri years ago. One might label -some of- Bernie Sanders’ views left-wing, but he’s trapped in a system that won’t let him breathe.
All of this leads me to question the following:

The Automatic Earth
Austerity, Bloodletting and Incompetence
Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Chris Dillow — Ducking questions about capitalism

Theresa May’s speech this morning was trailed as a defence of free market capitalism. If that’s what it was, it failed because she failed to answer the big questions....

Stumbling and Mumbling
Ducking questions about capitalism
Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle

Moon of Alabama — Theresa May Says "Enough Is Enough" - We Agree - Remove Her From Office

Brits especially should read this. Good links. Pass it on.

Moon of Alabama
Theresa May Says "Enough Is Enough" - We Agree - Remove Her From Office

b

Ben Waite — A battle for the meaning of British Conservatism

There are several types of conservatism. 

There is traditional conservatism that favors an authoritarian state (monarchy), a state religion and an established order as guardians of tradition and custom and bulwarks against innovation and change. This is called Traditionalism. It's chief opponent is Liberalism. Traditionalism is reactionary, and it regards Liberalism as radicalism.

The other type of conservatism is actually an aspect of Liberalism. This sort of conservatism tends to be  economically liberal but politically and socially traditional. This is the conservative-liberal divide in US and UK politics for example.

Within the conservative aspect of Liberalism there are several approaches. One is neoliberalism and the other compassionate conservatism. This article explores this dichotomy in UK politics, specifically the differences in approaches of David Cameron and Theresa May. 

While the Cameron government espoused the neoliberal principals of fiscal consolidation and austerity economically and globalism and open borders politically, the May government has jettisoned that approach in favor of a more inclusive capitalism, declaring the age of Thatcherism over in favor of nationalism and using the power of the state for public purpose including promoting the general welfare. 

The post suggests that instead of abandoning of conservatism, this can be viewed as returning to the policy approach of Benjamin Disraeli's One Nation Toryism.

Longish, but worth the read. Although it is about the UK specifically, the issues are similar in the US. A good summary of conservatism within the Liberal political tradition.

Open Democracy
A battle for the meaning of British Conservatism

Ben Waite

Bill Mitchell — Trump might do us a favour – expose the myth of central bank independence

Prior to the ‘surprise’ victory of Donald Trump in last week’s US Presidential poll, there was an article (September 28, 2016) in the Financial Times – Trump is right to take aim at the ‘political’ Fed – arguing that Trump had “broken a cardinal rule in US presidential campaigning by openly questioning the effectiveness of the Federal Reserve”. In the Presidential debates, Trump had claimed that the US Federal Reserve banks had been “doing political things” as a result of their low interest rate policy and creating a “false economy”. The central bank governor responded by saying the bank did not take politics into account when changing monetary policy. 

Apparently, Trump was echoing conservative economists who think the low interest rates have pushed investors into riskier financial investments, which will crash if rates rise. It has to be said that history tells us that Republican party politicians regularly lambast the US central bank along conspiratorial lines (for example, 2011 Rick Perry’s “treasonous” allegations against Bernanke; George W Bush, Richard Nixon). What does it all mean? 

There was an interesting article in the Financial Times today (November 14, 2016) by Wolfgang Münchau – The end of the era of central bank independence – that claims the tide is shifting and more political interference in monetary policy is to be expected. My conclusion: if so, good. Democracy requires the elected polity takes responsibility for economic policy rather than an unelected, largely unaccountable, group of ‘economists’. But, I also add, the idea of central bank ‘independence’ is one of those neo-liberal myths that allow the elected polity to disassociate themselves from bad economic policy.

So the mainstream economists and many financial commentators are up in arms about the inroads into central bank independence (whatever that is!) as a result of Donald Trump’s ridiculous elevation to President-elect (not to be read as an implicit vote for his opponent – never!).

Wolfgang Münchau also notes that the British Prime Minister ahs also impugned the integrity of the Bank of England’s independence since she took over from Cameron following the Brexit vote.… 

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Trump might do us a favour – expose the myth of central bank independence
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Chris Dillow — Immigration as social mobility

Another provocative post by Chris Dillow and another reason that I continually emphasize that political economy that is not based on the global economy is not only bollox but biased (racist, if you prefer.) For one thing, it ignores and even denies the issues arising from primitive accumulation, which was, contra Locke, principally by force. Liberalism for me but not for you.

Stumbling and Mumbling
Immigration as social mobility
Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle

Chris Dillow — Meritocracy vs freedom

Theresa May said yesterday:

I want Britain to be the world’s great meritocracy – a country where everyone has a fair chance to go as far as their talent and their hard work will allow.

Of course, we lefties don’t like this: we believe a greater equality of outcome is more feasible and desirable than meritocracy. What’s insufficiently appreciated, however, is that Ms May’s vision should also disquiet the free-market right, because meritocracy is incompatible with freedom.

Just think what a true meritocracy would look like.…

Just deserts and meritocracy are myths of liberal ideology. But May is a conservative, you say. Conservatism is based on economic liberalism as the basis of political liberalism.

Stumbling and Mumbling
Meritocracy vs freedom
Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle

Jon Ashworth — Every day, Theresa May's mask slips a little further

The news that the new International Development Secretary is about to slash development spending and channel Britain's aid budget into defence spending is yet another major slip of the new government's centrist mask.

Theresa May has tried to pitch her policy agenda as prioritising social justice and a “Britain that works for everyone” but the reality is that this announcement is the true right-wing colours of her government shining through.

The appointment of the most right-wing Cabinet for decades was a major warning sign, with figures such as David Davis, who said he was “very worried” about sexual discrimination legislation, and Liam Fox, who said equal marriage was “social engineering”, now at the highest level in government.

Those of us passionate about development were horrified when Priti Patel, who has previously called for the Department for International Development to be scrapped, was appointed as the department's new Secretary of State, but few of us would have imagined such a dramatic break with Britain's strong development legacy so soon.…

More Thatcherism from Theresa and the Tories.

The New Statesman
Every day, Theresa May's mask slips a little further
Jon Ashworth

Will Denayer — Ever more conservative regression. Why Theresa May wants to scrap Human Rights Act

Last Wednesday (August 24), most national newspapers failed to mention on their front page the bombshell that May’s conservative government had dropped: the UK will scrap the Human Rights Act.…

As Kerry-Anne Mendoza rightfully remarks in The Canary, the scrapping of the Human Rights Act is the most authoritarian and regressive decision taken by a UK government in modern history (see here). What is it about and what is behind it?….

Human and civil rights are the only restraint on the tyranny of the majority under liberal political theory.

flassbeck economics international
Ever more conservative regression. Why Theresa May wants to scrap Human Rights Act
Will Denayer

Joe Mellor — The beginning of the end? Huge NHS cuts across England

Looks like Theresa May is all talk and plans to pursue Thatcherism.

The NHS has been thrown into even more turmoil, after plans have been revealed to conduct huge cuts across England’s NHS.

According to the BBC, who have been able to access a draft planning document, the NHS will see ward closures, cuts in bed numbers and alterations to GP and A&E care across the country.

Many will see these cuts as the end of free health care as we know it, as services are cut and shortfalls may well be picked up by private sector care providers.
These plans are supposedly required to achieve efficiency savings of around £22 billion by 2020-21.…

Apparently the Her Majesty's government is running out of money (snark).

But there is apparently also a lack of real resources. The UK is not training enough medical personnel for the size of the population. But that is arguably a function of not creating enough financial incentive to recruit, against because of a funding shortage.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, believes “we are at breaking point: he said: “We’ve got this absolutely massive financial deficit which is the biggest in NHS history and then at the same time … we’ve got major shortages in key areas like nurses and doctors which effectively are meaning people are having to shut services.

“We are seeing more and more pressures on staff trying to run harder and harder.”

The idea is apparently to privatize NHS so that private companies can raise rates, increase financial incentives for recruitment, and meet the demand, preventing market failure while providing substantially better care for the country. Good luck with that.

The London Economic
The beginning of the end? Huge NHS cuts across England

Joe Mellor

Alexander Mercouris — Britain’s Theresa May grovels to China after Hinkley Point debacle

It's called being caught between a rock (US) and hard place (China). Both are now in the process of taking names. And China and Asia represent the future. 

The Duran
Britain’s Theresa May grovels to China after Hinkley Point debacle
Alexander Mercouris

Jacques Sapir — Theresa May and the paradigm change

Summary assessment of the May "revolution" for those who haven't been following this.

I dissed this initial as "politics," but it looks like she is actually going to follow through.

RussEurope
Theresa May and the paradigm change
Jacques Sapir

Alexander Mercouris — Theresa May speaks to Vladimir Putin, agree to improve relations

Nothing substantial yet, but a positive signal after years of the Cameron government demonizing Putin. Apparently May seeks to ratchet things down a bit. Perhaps May is more of a realist in international relations than an idealist.

The Duran
Theresa May speaks to Vladimir Putin, agree to improve relations

Alexander Mercouris

Mariana Mazzucato and Michael Jacobs — If Theresa May is serious about inequality she’ll ditch Osbornomics

The inequality speech could have been lifted from Ed Miliband. But if she really means it she must reverse austerity and introduce a new industrial strategy.

The Guardian — Opinion
If Theresa May is serious about inequality she’ll ditch Osbornomics
Mariana Mazzucato and Michael Jacobs

Chris Dillow — Responding to Mayism

UK centric but of interest in the context of political economy.

Stumbling and Mumbling
Responding to Mayism
Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle