tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7741861999194728080.post4651476299964664842..comments2023-10-07T12:15:50.446+01:00Comments on The Centre Left: Trouble still looming in the sunRob Marchanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11534810369839848312noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7741861999194728080.post-54879446222754093012010-06-29T22:14:23.213+01:002010-06-29T22:14:23.213+01:00True, you can't please everybody - but I canno...True, you can't please everybody - but I cannot fathom why socialist leaders in Spain and Greece are making ordinary people pay for the crisis. Real leadership would have been to take action on the side of the many, not the few.<br /><br />This talk of labour market reforms being necessary - in the UK, multinational firms were able to shed jobs here rather than elsewhere in Europe because of lower redundancy payments.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11443724356434212172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7741861999194728080.post-74469937061539015882010-06-29T09:04:36.143+01:002010-06-29T09:04:36.143+01:00It's true that he'd face competing demands...It's true that he'd face competing demands, whatever. However, you can either make a good fist of things or a bad one. <br /><br />In fact, he's making very few concessions to the "capitalists", the question really is whether his reforms are upsetting as many people as they need to. The labour market reform, for example, was essential anyway (madly overgenerous system for redundancies and impossibility of sacking even useless staff), but it was still being fought tooth and nail. He's now, rather ungraciously, trying to hide behind the opposition parties, businesspeople and/or the EU and say "it was them, they made me" rather than taking responsibility for the reforms personally.<br /><br />In short, you can never reconcile opposing demands, your job is to make the smartest decision you can in view of them, always resulting in someone being unhappy with you. That's leadership.Rob Marchanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11534810369839848312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7741861999194728080.post-56883953429222817422010-06-27T01:00:53.362+01:002010-06-27T01:00:53.362+01:00I don't particularly like spatial metaphors (l...I don't particularly like spatial metaphors (left / right) as they make me feel a bit dizzy!<br /><br />Also, I don't think that a PM's personal ability particularly matters. Even if he was decisive, Zapatero would face the kinds of competing and contradictory demands that naturally exist at times of economic instability - ordinary people want protecting, but so do capitalists. Obama faces the same situation, as does Cameron. How to reconcile the desire of the wealthiest to have the rest of us pay for their chaotic system with the systemic need for growth which is only possible with public investment in infrastructure and services that are not profitable enough to attract private investors?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11443724356434212172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7741861999194728080.post-55746344506921747342010-06-26T14:30:02.778+01:002010-06-26T14:30:02.778+01:00Nice try, but that's not what I'm saying a...Nice try, but that's not what I'm saying at all - not all political issues are about right and left. This one's about competent versus not up to the job. If you reduce it to right versus left, it's like saying all Tories are equal because we don't agree with them, whereas any sensible person would rather have had Ken Clarke than George Osborne as Chancellor any day of the week. Not because I agree with Clarke, but because Osborne is a fool.<br /><br />At this stage in the Spanish story, I'd happily settle for an old-fashioned lefty whom I might not personally warm to, but who was competent and knew where he was going - a kind of Spanish Ken Livingstone, if you will - to what we have here: a man buffeted by events, whose lack of foresight and judgement is hurting his country.Rob Marchanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11534810369839848312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7741861999194728080.post-17083582648029389582010-06-24T01:31:48.608+01:002010-06-24T01:31:48.608+01:00So, what you're saying is - Zapatero isn't...So, what you're saying is - Zapatero isn't neoliberal enough?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11443724356434212172noreply@blogger.com