"Labour leadership: Andy Burnham raises Tory infiltration fears"

[HeighHoghItsBacktoWorkIGo]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34013497

Are there really enough bored Tories to do this? Is there are single confirmed instance yet? Bound to be some, never say never and all that. But surely, the Corbyn surge is driven by the far left returning to Labour because Corbyn has fired their passions.

Free money only exists if you happen to be a shareholding corporate executive in the financial bail-out industry.

Or an MP renting out your second home provided by the tax payer.

Or an MP claiming 1st class air travel and luxury items on expenses paid for by the tax payer.

Or a corporation claiming subsidy in excess of £4m from the tax payer.

There is plenty of money knockng about, it's just never free for your everyday tenent/9-5er.

By the way labelling Q.E. as "printing free money" is wildly misleading.

I voted conservative at the last election. (I say this to help you put me in context. I also have a degree in politics and an MBA.) I heard Richard Murphy on the Today Show this morning.

I liked what he had to say!

It's the first thing relating to Corbyn that I have liked. I am one of those people who thinks Corbyn has a lot of unworkable ideas. But this one makes sense to me. It's classical Keynsian economics. I've been wondering since 2008, why the government hasn't gone on an infrastructure spending spree, while it could borrow for nothing. It's seems obvious: build up the country in a real way while it is cheap to do so, and put people to work. Government spending really should be counter cyclical.

(I think even the Tories know this, but there is a fear that people will want to spend now and later. That the discipline will never come. So they are saving while people's minds are focused.)

Austerity Ideology, to answer your wonderment, Heihh.

*Heigh

HeighHo .... you have a degree in economic, I didn't even get an 'ology in the subject, but as Quantitative Easing was emergency pumping money into the banking system - by the BoE buying UK government bonds (Gilts) from the market via their own (never used before) account - with the medium term objective of selling those Gilts back to the market, thereby reducing the money supply, potentially 'borrowing for nothing'?

Firstly assuming that the Gilt market won't react badly (selling off) to a government policy of placing debt on a central bank balance sheet rather than issue more Gilts, if the UK government had bought Gilts at an average yield of say 2% and sold them at say 5% (as bond prices move in the opposite direction to yields) and we have the lowest Base Rate for over 300-years - there would be a huge capital loss, even after getting a coupon of diddly squat.

And don't forget, many government departments like the NHS already have huge annual service bills for the next 25-years, on previous Labour borrowing on the 'never never'.

“Crippling PFI deals leave Britain £222bn in debt”
www.independent.co.uk/money/loans-credit/crippling-pfi-deals-leave-britain-222bn-in-debt-10170214.html

”Every man, woman and child in Britain is more than £3,400 in debt without knowing it and without borrowing a single penny – thanks to the proliferation of controversial deals used to pay for infrastructure such as schools and hospitals.”

I think you'll find that the Conservatives are investing in infrastructure e.g. railways, and more importantly, getting the private sector to do so, spending their money, at their risk.

So while a government COULD say we want to take the National Debt above £2,000,000,000,000 (£2 trillion) by SPENDING on infrastructure, taking a chance there will not be another large recession doubling out debt before the new debt i paid off, they would need to show the electorate full costed/targeted details of that infrastucture.

An example is home building, there is more to it than spending money, the Conservatives built more council/social homes in their first 3-years than Labour in 13-years with all their debt, but there is a lack of building workers to meet the increased building programme since the crash, still.

Any fool of a government can spend money we haven't got, but coming so close to the last one when we haven't yet balanced the annual budget deficit, it is a huge risk those debts will get out of control - especially if another western economic slump.

'I didn't even get an 'ology in the subject'

There is no need to say that, that is self-evident.

I don't have a degree in economics. I did take multiple economics courses, though. I gave you all a bit about my background, not to try to impress you or brow beat you (People like me are "a dime a dozen," and I never met so many fools as in my MBA.) I just wanted to show that I am the stereotypical sort of person who should be turned off by what Richard Murphy had to say, but in fact, I wasn't. I think a lot of assumptions are being made about what people are supposed to think and believe. People are surprising.

We have done some infrastructure spending actually. Construction is booming so much that there aren't enough bricklayers in London who can earn up to £50k to meet the demand.

HeighHogh ..... I get your point, it is no small wonder that Corbynomics 'attracts' people, the majority of whom do not understand the full facts of how the UK State got in such a state in the first place.

But the frightening thing for people like me and others we currently need to have full confidence in the UK to (continually) finance our £1.6 trillion of National Debt PLUS, is that we expect our long serving MP policy/law makers TO both understand the mistakes that were made and what needed to be done to correct it - as Corbynomics both ignoring the lessons we learned from the 1970's and 2000's, would be economic and financial feckwittery - and would immediately push up government bond borrowing costs and then interest rates to the rest of us.

'The people' always want simple, no pain, solutions.

Unfortunately when already in a national debt hole that would get far worse if the world/UK went into another recession, that is not possible and politicians should not peddle false help, even if through long standing economic ignorance - as its THEIR LEGISLATIVE JOB to know better.

Claig ... re my quote then your answer 'I didn't even get an 'ology in the subject'

"There is no need to say that, that is self-evident."

Glass houses......big thrown stones.

I've been reading your post for years now and apart from the mantras of Citizen 'Wolfie' Smith and the politics/admiration of Putin, it still beats the shite out of me what your specialist subject is.

No 'ology but spent nearly 40-years following global markets/economies, and I still don't see a major economy that followed Corbynomics, and could economically stand on its own two feet.

Russia's probably the closest, but another government controlled economy, needing HUGE private investment (but don't get it) and needing oil about $70 higher than where it presently is, to pay its own bills.

I didn't say I liked his ideas comprehensively. Just that I think the idea of the government lending to itself while interest rates are so low for infrastructure shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

HighHogh .... A government cannot lend to itself, even the BoE's money printing QE was collateralized by government bonds, which I explained will be SOLD BACK into the government bond market (to get their cash back) when the BoE wants to get the QE off their balance sheet.

Lets say Corbyn or anyone else wants to 'borrow' money from the capital markets, as that is what they are doing (with QE), to build schools, hospitals, or even a honking great monument to Chairman Corbyn.

HOW will they pay back that borrowing, sell the schools, hospitals and monuments built and held as collateral?

Sell those schools, hospitals and monuments to who, the Private Sector a Labour government has already PFI contracted out the building and services costs, affecting annual UK budgets for up to the next 30-years?
www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8779598/Private-Finance-Initiative-where-did-all-go-wrong.html

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9356942/Blair-defends-PFI-as-NHS-trusts-face-bankruptcy.html

Are you starting to see this very basic flaw in QE type borrowing, designed not to ring alarm bells to those worried about our levels of debt, which if our unfunded State/Public Sector Pension liabilities are added, is around £2,700,000,000,000 (£2.7 trillion)?

P.S. To throw Corbynomics a life line, to build infrastructure, monuments etc a government COULD look to borrow via the Gilt market for say for 30-years, trying to lock into a low rate now - BUT there will be no smoke and mirrors to hide behind as the UK will go further into debt for 30-years, so politicians better make damn sure every penny borrowed/spent won't be wasted - and Labour (with Corbyn an MP member) doesn't have a good recent record on that.

QE.
America did it...

Corbyn could simply cancel PFI Interest payments and take the loans back into state ownership.
Something called legislation etc.

Finally, Quantitative Easing (QE) was NEVER designed to 'borrow money', it was designed specifically, as I believe never used before, to add money into the banking system, when the banking system saw a huge contraction in the UK Money Supply DUE to the closure on the interbank money market.

I'd also suggest that the BoE on the the then I believe £375 bil buying of existing government bonds, putting around £375 bil of cash into the banking system, would have hoped to have REVERSED that QE by now.

Whereas with current China related market turmoil, the BoE and other central banks still have the QE tool in their monetary tool box, and could use it again if domestic money supply gets tight again.

P.S. In the Great Depression, they kinda later worked out if the likes of QE had been used, it wouldn't have been so 'great', so in times of crisis governments have to pump liquidity into the system.

"Corbyn could simply cancel PFI Interest payments and take the loans back into state ownership."

Errrr .... who actually owns and runs these current hospitals and schools etc, it is the Private Sector and similar to Labour's policy trying to get EDF etc to build the 10-plus nuclear reactors we desperately need to replace those expiring, they thought they were being clever letting 'capitalism' foot the bill/build as they had money to waste elsewhere.

What a shame we can't get all the salaries for new Quangos back, and reclaim that huge rise in Welfare, Benefits and Tax Credits back, like the BoE can get back its QE money.

The State needs the Private Sector to invest in the country, they just have to know if getting them to provide public services what they were doing in the first place, and as the Labour Parliamentary Party not having one business brain between them - and Campbell kicked out any civil servant with 18-years of serving Conservative administration brains e.g. you are either with us, or against us' - they were had for breakfast.

The Conservative coalition renegotiated what ever contracts they could, but damage was done, as WITHOUT those lucrative contracts, the private sector may not have BUILT those schools etc and have the law behind them.

Whether a hospital or nuclear power station, if the private sector PAYS to build a £1 to £10 billion facility, how do you think they'll ever get their money back if NOT through padding out the annual service costs/electricity prices?

And while public services load up annual government budgets, I'm guessing the bills for power stations can only come from the consumers - and as Ed Miliband was part of the government that designed that plan and didn't break the ground on one power station - you have to wonder why his policy was to control the prices of output, we didn't entirely have, that needed the private sector investment to deliver.

Fecking clueless.

'it still beats the shite out of me what your specialist subject is.'

Common sense, original thinking and all matters Farage.

I think you are confused IsitMe, but econ is not my specialist subject, so I don't feel qualified to refute the technicalities of your arguments piece by piece. But that still doesn't mean you have won me over. Without total mastery of the subject, I am still siding with my uni profs.

"I am still siding with my uni profs."

God help us from the teaching mediocrity of our left wing teaching establishment - no wonder employers over here would STILL rather hire a bright, shiny new EU citizen,rather than those our education system produces - as evidenced by the last years rise in net EU immigration.

Still trust them more than a stranger on the internet!

Isitme, are you one of those people who thinks "the facts have a left wing bias?"

Quite the opposite, facts don't appear anywhere. lol

This article a while back by the respected Max Hastings on a report by Miriam Gross, published by the Centre for Policy Studies, makes interesting reading.
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1296126/Ideologues-illiteracy-MAX-HASTINGS-terrible-damage-wrought-schools-Left-wing-educationalists.html

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/labour-admits-great-crime-on-education-tristram-hunt-says-his-party-encouraged-schools-to-aim-too-low--and-pupils-paid-the-price-9053693.html

"Still trust them more than a stranger on the internet!"

Fair enough, they don't come 'stranger' than me.

Nurse, where are my meds?