Donald Roy

Traditional #labour man - fifty plus years a party member and #union member -resident #putney - within #wandsworth - #economist - #internationalist and #traveller - aspiring #novelist

Last Notes

2025-08-21 12:56:02 UTC

I have just seen a table in the #ft showing the #imf ranking of estimated size of economy at purchasing parity this year
Notable features are - #China is No.1
- #US No.2
- #india No.3
#Russia just makes it to fourth place, narrowly ahead of #japan and #germany .
#Indonèsia is No.7, followed by #brazil , #france and the #uk - which just remains within the 'top ten' in size.

2025-07-07 17:31:37 UTC

- reply

I was not arguing about growth in the 1950s. I was making the #alanmilward point that #nationalisation resulted in accelerated productivity growth the whole way to the 1980s privatisations.

2025-06-18 06:25:17 UTC

- reply

Which means that the current #uk government has a maximum of three years in which to be seen to deliver improvements in material wellbeing. This may well be possible. However a lot of the sensible stuff it can do will take time while all kinds of dodgy lobbies will be pushing for it to do seriously stupid stuff in the meantime - much of which can be expected to backfire quite quickly!

2025-06-08 13:14:54 UTC

- reply

Yes I did. Clever but silly because the argument is extendable almost infinitely - to concepts like social capital , social impact bonds etc. Which means that it will arouse suspicion among lenders. National accountants have been flexible enough to reclassify research and development spending as capital - as indeed they have with much military equipment - after a proper process. Furthermore they think they know how to depreciate physical capital but not human capital as yet!

2025-06-02 17:22:05 UTC

- reply

So a lot hangs on whether #angelarayner and #rushanaraali are able to see the bill through into law in the next year or two. They deserve support on this - particularly against opponents within #Laɓour !

2025-05-17 10:07:06 UTC

- reply

To be fair 15% is still below the level that #uk #companylaw regards as constituting 'significant control' - so defensible to some extent!

2025-05-01 15:38:11 UTC

- reply

It is easy to do. Unfortunately there is a tendency by both opinion formers and decision makers to focus on doctors - and occasionally nurses - while appearing to ignore pharmacists, radiographers and others. This worries me not least because I suspect rather more in those professions would be female or from ethnic minorities - or both - than would be the case with doctors.

2025-04-28 12:17:06 UTC

- reply

I have read somewhere that #cambridge has set some funds aside for academic refugees from the #us also.

2025-04-10 17:49:25 UTC

- reply

I suspect that a lot of the detachment process will occur very quietly so as not to seem provocative - in the same way as one would edge almost imperceptibly away from a belligerent drunk in a bar! So there are likely to be precious few public announcements to go on. Investment plans by business will not be cancelled formally and changes in government procurement practices - especially in the defence - will be given minimal publicity.

2025-03-12 13:16:06 UTC

- reply

The strategy was adopted - perhaps by default - roughly forty five years ago. It reflected the aspiration of the #bankofengland to use the benefits of #northseaoil to restore the #cityoflondon to the position it had lost during the #secondwarworld . This worked up to a point - until the financial crisis of 2008 exposed its unstable foundations.

2025-03-11 14:12:47 UTC

- reply

Before the current travails of #reformuk could be taken into account #electoralcalculus gave #labour a 54% chance of holding the seat. This must now have improved somewhat. However it is never wise to underestimate #labour 's capacity for gratuitous self-harm - the selections of candidates for the #hartlepool and #rochdale byelections being cases in point! It has been reported already that #jonathanashworth may be interested in standing .

2025-03-06 15:56:04 UTC

- reply

Worth remembering that #uk rearmament in the 1930s was not funded by further cuts in benefits - those in 1931 took place before #hmtreasury abandoned 'the no major war in ten years' assumption - this was scrapped in 1932. If #nevillechamberlain and #sirjohnsimon - the two successive chancellors of the exchequer - preferred to resort to taxes and borrowing why should not #rachelreeves - or any #labour successor - do the same this time round ?

2025-02-26 21:56:24 UTC

- reply

Actually dealing with cases which a previous administration refused to handle - pending deportation to #rwanda - seems to be a pretty clear improvement to me. Integrating asylum seekers into local communities while they await a decision rather than leaving them isolated at the mercy of a dodgy private contractor does not look too bad either. Both seem well worth a try.

2025-02-26 21:33:52 UTC

- reply

The plan is clearly to reduce the backlog of asylum cases inherited from the previous #uk government very substantially and replace private contractors in charge of housing the reduced number of asylum seekers still waiting by local authorities - cheaper and more efficient. Over time this is intended to make up for much of the cuts in foreign aid announced yesterday. One has to hope this will work,

2025-02-18 13:25:33 UTC

- reply

The bipartisan mantra arose from the Faustian bargain made by an ambitious #Laɓour politician who was shadow #homesecretary at the time of the #bulgercase in 1993 . This broke the previous consensus in favour of rehabilitation which dated back to the time in the 1900s when #winstonchurchill was #homesecretary ! That bargain propelled #tonyblair to the leadership of the #Laɓour party and to #downingstreet . Another aspect of his legacy that haunts us in the #uk !

2025-02-16 17:53:00 UTC

- reply

Within #Laɓour those donors are often but not always associated with #labourtogether - which means among others #morganmcsweeny . However there is still space within the #labourparty for around 300k members and for #tradesunions so there is a certain degree of countervailing power also.

2025-02-15 15:20:01 UTC

- reply

BAE systems is a legacy of the 1974 to 1979 #Laɓour government which nationalised the aerospace industry - arguably the last gasp of 'Clause Four Socialism' . Unlike shipbuilding and steel it seems to have survived privatisation in the 1980s.

2025-02-11 08:35:57 UTC

- reply

Surely you mean the Private Finance Initiative?