Stella’s State Slashing Summer Reading
In a low-key interview over the summer, Labour’s Stella Creasy declared herself a member of the reality based community. She told Patrick Wintour of the Guardian that the main focus of an incoming Labour government must be value for money. Therefore they would have to “reassess every single item of departmental public spending in response to mounting government debt and the pressure on public resources.” The interview won her plaudits from the likes of ConservativeHome and the Taxpayers’ Alliance.
The Zero Base Policy is an idea advocated by the Adam Smith Institute and they’re delighted that it’s gaining traction in Parliament:
“It’s great to see that Stella Creasy has been reading some Adam Smith Institute publications. Now that she’s read Zero Base Policy, she should try Madsen Pirie’s “Economics Made Simple” and Eamonn Butler’s “The Alternative Manifesto” to learn that you can’t spend your way out of a recession.”
While you might think all this praise from sensible types will blot Stella’s copy book in the eyes of her deluded Labour colleagues, quite the opposite has happened. Instead, LabourList readers have named her as their MP of the Month- not only for her campaign against Wonga, but as the site notes, her Zero Base work too. There is a lesson for Labour there…
Repeating this here: surely Guido’s not part of the conspiracy?:
What I want to know is why is it only the Grauniad of all places where there is a report of the new EU policy document on radical reform:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/18/eu-foreign-defence-policy-overhaul
Pear cider is the new Stlla.
By the Time the Labour Party try to get into Power.. It will all be too late. Never mind Voting. We wont have an economy.. Propping up the over bloated State Media Police controlling system has ran out of steam.. Thanks for the lies but its you lot who have lost your Public Pension.. ha ha.
UK economic strategy is a sensible as NATO weapons training Afghan troops and Police to Kill our Troops and keep the whole thing bubbling away, And why would it not.. Its the same strategists who gave us the People dependency State.
It’s a single-bit felling axe, shown less than full size, not a chopper.
Looking at the thickness and apparent angle of the blade, I would have thought it was a splitting axe.
Definitely a felling axe reduced in size and not a log splitter.
But what do the quiet Bat People think of this idea ?
Well you have to admit that “Quiet bat people” is a step in the right direction from pre-distribution and predator business.
Just an out of the box suggestion but how about:
http://www.batmanwallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/batman_plane_covers_the_moon_wallpaper.jpg
If she is Labour she is no member of the “reality based community”.
Just like B£iar – say anything to get elected and return to type straight after.
Isn’t it amazing that people still believe politicians when they come out with lies like this?
Look…I ….never…returned to type………….I never had a type..I’m just an imprint of what you thought you saw and heard….like the polymorph in Red Dwarf. I am you. And you like you…so you like me. You’d vote for you…so you voted for me.
Clever..isn’t it?
m-u-s-t v-o-t-e l-a-b-o-u-r
So there is still some hope for Labour then. Rather than drinking from the cup of Gordon Brown’s patriarchal proto-communist idealogy, or Tony Blair’s smoke and mirrors tricks, someone from the red ranks is prepared to try and marry realities and Labour values. Good luck to her.
see my comment above.
There is a lesson for Labour there…
Make sure to plant two money trees in the good times so they’ll be even more cash in the bad?
That my good man is the essential core of Keynsian Economics.
Shame I was too thick to grasp it when it mattered.
And how much would it cost to reassess every item of spending in govt? MAybe a billion items, £100 million upwards and take maybe 5 years? And how much do we really think they’d cut or save given they object to every cut? My guess is spending would increase.
Well,they could start with the spending on both Houses of Parliament & its members,
Seriously? Totty watch tag?
I wouldn’t touch her with Jimmy’s!
How to impress a woman
Compliment her, respect her, honour her, cuddle her, kiss her, caress her, love her, stroke her, tease her, comfort her, protect her, hug her, hold her, spend money on her, wine and dine her, buy things for her, listen to her, care for her, stand by her, support her, hold her, go to the ends of the earth for her.
How to impress a man
Show up naked, bring food, do not stand in front of the tv.
You forgot the chocolates.
No flowers?
A three-year-old boy was examining his testicles while taking a bath. “Mum” he asked, “are these my brains?”
“Not yet,” she replied.
Beer, man, beer!
That’s the thing about summer holidays, it’s an excuse to read any old rubbish.
Did you see that flock of pigs that just flew overhead?
Now now – Cuba has been a rip roaring economic success story, surely?
As long as you only factor in cigars, “military advisors” and more doctors per capita than any other country on earth!
Hi, young James. How much fruit did you get this year from the magic LieBore money tree in your garden?
Lets have a quick look at socialism in action. In a real world situation. Such as..the real world.
Lets pick similar countries in similar geographical areas and see how they are getting along.
North and South Korea. On is the powerhouse of Asia, generating some of the highest GDP/person in the entire far east, while the other is one of the poorest countries on earth. Unable to even feed its own population.
Cuba and ..lets say..America.
One of the poorest and impoverished countries vs the actual all time world champion in riches.
Maybe that’s unfair though. An island tropical economy vs a superpower.
So how does Mexico fare? oh dear. The socialist paradise isn’t doing too well.
Some 350,000 Mexicans a year flee the glorious socialist people’s republic to the hated capitalist Satan of down trodden workers chained to corporations.
Why would that be? Surely the happy farmers of Mexico are happier than the oppressed 99%?
And why don’t the democratic Canadians flock across the border like their southern brothers?
In fact how come the entire continent of South America, with all its riches and large population, isn’t even close to being in the United States league?
one whole hemisphere of Marxist/Socialist/Communist countries has been lagging behind the US in every measure of prosperity since 1640.
Poster boy Chavez, with oil at historic highs and enough reserves to become an OPEC on his own, is out of cash. The oil rich nation is running out of money. Seems there is no amount that is ‘enough’ to make a success out of looneyenomics.
Or shall we look at the whole USSR thing? No? Don’t want to peek at that basket case too hard. Don’t blame you. Or Africa? The whole place is a mess. Over run with Socialist/Marxist governments.
Is there even one country that is 100% socialist and not a bankrupt,broken, failed nation, sink estate of a country?
One?
How about the UK before and after 2010?
I wouldn’t know. Fidel and Raul are Billy Hague’s mates these days.
>more doctors per capita than any other country on earth
Israel takes the first spot, old bean.
Yes but are they any good.
MB BS from Havana People’s university
That more doctors per capita is something of a Castro success myth. The reality for ordinary Cubans is somewhat more horrific than the propaganda would have you believe.
http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm
Are you an Aussie – no Englishman would say Liebore in public anymore than they would say Bliar or Bu$h.
As I think I’ve explained before, righties are a humourless bunch. On the rare occasion they stumble on a joke, they tend to cling to it like grim death: cf Brown and Nokias, DM and bananas etc…
Jimmy must be one of those alternative comedians that you hear about – you know, the sort who are about as funny as a dose of clap.
The most humourless people on earth are lefties.
Didja heer the wun about Thatcher?
Are they a flock or a herd or something else. Members of the labour party please reply.
Well it might still be the summer holidays for you public sector types Jimmy but the rest of us have been to busy paying our taxes for the last two weeks.
The Fee from the bank to go over an overdraft limit: £25 plus additional fees of £5 PER DAY over 9 days, this would be nearly £70. by comparison, the cost of a £200 loan from Wonga.com for 9 days £23.74.
British Dude Update. I had a conversation on Twitter about this with the MP in question, who came accross as ill-informed and rather smug. OF COURSE, FINANCING YOUR LIFE USING WONGA IS STUPID.
The assumption that this service is bad, and exploitative is made a-priori, without considering the costs of offering a £200 loan for 2 weeks for less than £30 to people who are, by definition struggling for money. Meanwhile Twitterer, @rfrst was trying in vain to make the point that 1% a day plus a fiver is a HUGE APR, which in no-way reflects the cost of borrowing.
Wonga for exampe, don’t compound the interest, so APR is an absurd measure.
I pointed out that other short-term lenders do not enjoy a big return on equity, so they’re not making abnormal profits. It’s true, a lot of money is spent on advertising. But that’s inevitable in a new sector with low barriers to entry.
All I got from the MP from Watford was ad-hominem and a-priori statements not backed up by argument, logic, reason, or economic rationale. Worse, she refused to admit that limiting the cost of credit would affect supply. Finally, she seems to think credit unions are a solution. They are, to those on the carousel of debt, or who are looking to finance purchases more effectively than store credit. They are not a replacement for Payday loans, because the money isn’t instant, and so cannot be used to avoid bank debt.
Rather than going after the reputable, and reasonably well-known Wonga, it would be better to go after the less reputable lenders who do overcharge, make multiple claims against an account in a day. Better still, go after the banks, with whom APRs of over 1,000,000% are possible.
+1
I have raised this issue with Ms. Creasy many times only to come to the same conclusion as you.
She doesn’t understand the details and only manages to cling on to the hope that by spouting what appears to be a huge (but meaningless) APR figure gives her campaign some credibility.
It doesn’t, it makes her look silly and uninformed.
She is MP for Walthamstow
It’s just as horrible as Watford, so no difference really.
Have never been to Watford so have no idea. I live in Walthamstow, which is actually a bit of a curate’s egg: good in parts.
If Guido wants to have a pop at Ms Creasy, he’d do well to have a look at her record on failing to speak about the rampant corruption at the local authority where she was once the Mayor; her relationship with Tessa Jowell and harriet Harman, her stance on free speech and the rule of law, and her relationship with the Socialist Worker’s party in the form of it’s puppets UAF and WAWF. Oh, and about all the money money raised and spent and the support in kind she received from the unions at the last election – and what she thinks about the election expenses records being hidden in a basement by the council which now can’t be accessed due to ‘asbestos’.
APR is an entirely fair measure of a rate of interest, a point that Wonga themselves try to fudge. The point is, rather, that most of Wonga’s profit on a payday loan really has the nature of fees rather than interest.
If they lent £1,000 for one week at, say, 15% interest, they would only receive £3 for their trouble. It would go nowhere near to covering their costs, so thy charge what is in essence a fee instead. The law requires them to treat it as interest, however.
Of course, it remains the case that nobody should ever be put in the position of needing such a loan, or should put themselves in such a position, and the pawnbroker’s is much better value.
To those short of readies:
Invest in a stocking (to go over your head), a cucumber and a black bin-bag. Oh, and you’ll need a bit of paper and a pencil.
Don’t be so boring.
To be fair to Stella Creasy, her campaign is not just aimed at Wonga, but firms like Moneyshop and Oakam, which openned in Walthamstow High Street withing the last few years (where there were already at least four pawnbrokers), and proceeded to target their advertising at the very poorest sections of the local community. I kid you not, at one point Oakam was offering free wine with the loans they gave out.
Well said Mrs Farage, Banks are indeed worse than many loan sharks when it comes to the punitive charges they impose. Charges I might add which are a big earner for them.
I prefer having a slash in a bottle and taking it to party an offering young ladies a sip of Gordon’s Whisky
Don’t tell them about the “chocolates” Pike!!
My favourite chocolate gifts are the “Crunchie” and the “Ripple”
Ripple is a bit non-PC these days.
A finger of fudge?
I always like to be chief brown sauce squeezer at the BBQ
I’ve always known that there’s nothing like a little squirt.
Couldn’t resist
Brilliant!
Well hello chaps, my French sojourn is going brilliantly! Dinner with Sir Cliff and his lovely wife Trevor are taking me for a nice sauna tonight.
http://www.newcancan.com/mpsauna.html
It’s a trap….
Funny how Greasy forgets companies like Wonga suddenly appeared during the Nu Liebore days.
Clearly she and Chuck us your money could have done something when in power, but failed to act.
Good old Nu Labia are always quick to act when in opposition.
We love opposition. Its like a long holiday from having to think.
No to “X”! Say NO! to “Y”. Spend more on “Z”.
Can do it in my sleep.
Stella Creasy was not an MP when Labour were in power.
It says that they will reassess…. this only means cut to a sensible person.
What it does mean is that they will look at everything then do what the Unions want them to which means that spending will go up.
Do get a grip dear Guido.
Stella was the future once. Now it’s a bottle of gin.
Gordons ?
20/1 or 25/1 to replace Ed Miliband, depending on your bookmaker
En passant, as the frogs say, did that bookmaker (forget which one now) ever get shamed into paying up to the granny whose lad got a (team) medal at the Limpix?
Whatever happened to Yvette Cooper Balls?
She was the future once……
… a bloody terrible one, but
Oy vey.
If trapped on a Dessert island, given the choice who would you like as fellow castaways in order to stand the best chance of getting off the island
The Labour Team – Gordon Brown, Derek Draper, Damian McBride, Bob Crow, Ed Balls
The Random Team – 5 Random punters off the tube
I’m Jumping Jack Flash & it’s a gas! gas! gas!
Recently, a distraught wife went to the local police station, along with her next-door neighbour, to report that her husband was missing.
The policeman asked for a description of the missing man.
The wife said, “He is 35 years old, 6-foot 4-inches, has dark eyes, dark wavy hair, an athletic build, weighs 185 pounds, is soft-spoken, and is good to his wife.”
The next-door neighbour protested, “Your husband is 5-foot 8-inches, chubby, has a big mouth, and is mean to you.”
The wife replied, “Yes, but who wants HIM back?”
I think I used that in 1983
Like the golf club in the bikini which seems to be doing the rounds again lately.
That’s one of mine.
Yea, she’s really done for Wonga – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19620560. Let’s hope she has the same impact opposing the Tories.
To meet, she has that weird 1000-yard stare that only some Falklands veterans and all of the very, very ambitious have.
“Earlier this year, the firm was also criticised by the Office of Fair Trading for using aggressive and misleading debt collection methods”. Nobody could possibly accuse the BBC of using similar tactics by using a proxy debt collection service based on the premise that if you breathe you owe us £145.50.
You’d be the same after an afternoon walking around Walthamstow.
Security is being increased at France’s interests abroad after a French satirical magazine published obscene cartoons of Muhammad.
Does it have tits?
where’s the link?
It’s all over T’internet Dude. They are trying to make a point about T’Freedom of T’Press now that Wills has gorn to court to suppress Kate’s tits.
http://tinyurl.com/9qetf44
“The move by the provocative weekly Charlie Hebdo .. turned France into a potential target of Muslim rage.”
Heh heh heh heh!
We appear to have come full circle. After all, it was the frogs that let the mad Mullah go – as a direct result of which the Shah of Persia was overthrown and that led directly to the current loonies still being in charge in Teheran. Best to keep away from the Paris metro for the foreseeable.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19646748
Very good, we should all take it in turns to insult the religion of piss, sort of spread the burden around as it were.
Nice to see a work of literary fiction being treated with the reverence it deserves.
Every time the fundamentalists protest it merely serves to confirm that the original criticism was fully justified. So predictable.
I wish they had published an informed and reasonable critique of Islam.
It’s a fascist, totalitarian ideology invented by an illiterate lunatic who had 14 wives, including a 9 year old, kept sex slaves, fucked his daughter-in-law because “god told him to”, and murdered anyone who wouldn’t convert to his religion which was nothing more than a shoddy assembly of plagiarisms.
Oh ok, so what are the bad bits then?
http://www.jihadwatch.org/images/CharlieHebdoMuhammad.jpg
I just can’t see Islam and the WWW ever getting on together.
PS, How come all these peasants in remote villages have got such good broadband connections, 72 virginmedia.com. ?.
I think their provider’s called itisokaytomarrysixyearoldgirlsandtellpeoplegodtoldyoutodoit.com
You forgot the bit about not teaching her to read or write and that circumcision was being planned for her before she started collecting the firewood and milking the camels.
It SOUNDS good that she apparently wants spending to accomplish more than it’s doing now, more “quo” for each “quid” if you will, but does this mean less spending? And how do we know it won’t turn even more Nanny-state? In the article by Patrick Wintour she’s talking about how a lot of expenditure in the NHS is due to diabetically-induced conditions, and wouldn’t it be great if we could nip some of that in the bud? To which I say, Hey, that’s a good idea, let’s tax Coca-Cola like that mong Mayor in New York wants to do! But if you want to take the King’s shilling, you’ve got to do the King’s bidding, don’t you? It’s all about control, innit? That book is supposed to challenge the whole congeries of First Principles upon which public administration is based– too bad Ms Creasy doesn’t seem to be challenging Labour’s First Principles: (1) Spend (2) Spend more (3) Like Romney said, Get the people used to the level of spending (4) Bleed taxpayers dry (5) Borrow when you don’t have the money at hand (6) Borrow more money to pay the original debt (7) Repe*at process ad infinitum!
Everything about that report makes sense.
Ergo it has Zero Chance of being adopted by the labour government.
Ergot has a better chance of being adopted by the Labour Party, long had a suspicion it has got into the water supply in Westminster.
Careful, careful, careful with that axe, Stella.
Keynesian is no longer an option as Labour have left the country in so debt. So we will have to sit tight and pray for a miracle.
Stand and deliver
And my axe!
I couldn’t have had a poorer start to an election campaign.
It could only have been worse if I’d called some sweet old lady a bigot.
The problem is, that he has not actually said anything but the truth and everyone knows that. Yet it will be the one who lies the most who will win. What a poor state of affairs politics has become.
It’s always been that way.
says more about the state of the media.
Despite my SCOAMF opponent having incumbency advantage, an early cash advantage due to election rules, a bootlicking media and a cult of personality, I am actually in front in unbiased polls that do not vastly oversample Democrats.
Stick that up your pipe and smoke it.
I’m Mitt Romney, and I approve this message
Nearly sold out of selling nation states sovereignty as well.
How odd, I thought the place was full of Doris Days.
Selling tits to tits? Quoi de neuf?
I’ve just seen a satirical French magazine with a cartoon of the prophet on the front cover.
I guess I’ll just treat it as a bit of a joke, see the funny side, and take a very relaxed attitude to the publication.
… before you strap on your suicide belt?
Do you think she knows that Wonga’s owners/bosses have among them a sitting MP!!
Why wouldn’t we believe a Labour politician that says they want a smaller state?
Oh yeah! the massive public sector bloating and destructive debt building gerrymandering that happened 1997-2010.
The fact that Labour is made up of public sector employed, socialist, statist goons might be another factor as well.
Oh! and that 90%+ of their funding comes from Unions, whose membership is 70% public sector, might have something to do with it also.
But let’s all pretend that Labour have seen the light!!!
Labour have parallel policies. One side visible to spin the desired headlines and the other sife invisible, really doing the opposite.
You remember….. Gordon Brown saying he was “prudent”….Blair saying “i’m a straight kinda guy”…..”we’re controlling imm1gration” etc. etc. etc.
what’s with the 3 fingers thing? are you implying that Creasy is less than whole? maybe of alien origins?
Stella’s profile is based on attacking the lending leeches that disfigure her manor of Walthamstow. So far, so good. But the Coop, which sponsors her, does not lend the small amounts that would keep her impoverished voters out of Oakam’s hands. On this, she is silent. She also has nothing to say about the real leeches, who have kept the area poverty-stricken and stagnant through the two biggest booms in history, namely her own party, which has been in power for 25 years. Walthamstow is a short ride from the centre of the world’s financial capital. Walk down the High Street, and weep.
You’d think the locals would have got the message by now, that Labour doesn’t represent the poor, but farms them: but they must be content , since Labour can command turnouts of 125% in some wards – something else Stella hasn’t had time to mention.
I like to stab my constituents in the back by secretly supporting those councillors who voted to destroy Walthamstow Stadium, and I openly support the Islamic/Left jihad against anyone disagreeing with us.
Now where did I put my burka
Reassessing every budget item and zero based budgeting are not necessarily the same thing as anyone who knows a bit about management accounting will be aware. Although it may suit Guido’s ideological bent to require a justification for every bit of public spending – in some cases that can be a statement of the bleeding obvious for the vast majority – I suspect even the ASI would want an army and law courts.
Words are cheap.
I’ve never seen a socialist government who did not piss all our money up the nearest wall as soon as they could.