ChezGiven

Nothing dodgy, just a bit pissed. In my case I was out all the time but nowadays if I watch an hour of tv a day am doing well.

No kids. You know that question you ask yourself, what the fuck did we used to do with all our time? Watch telly apparently.

Hossegor, about 20 miles north of Biarritz. Duck breasts with the fat on, done on a large flat grill outside. It's a basque barbecue.

Am in the summer house in south of France, 3 bottles of Bordeaux and duck on the plancha.

It's nuts, to qualify they have to blind taste 6 reds and 6 whites, describe them and then say where they are from and the year. The wines can be from anywhere across the world. They train for up to a decade to do it and most fail, it's basically about 4 lads doing one of the hardest exam in the world.

Is it not a Year in Burgundy? It's decent. There's also one called Somm which is about trainee masters of wine in the US which is decent too.

Unusual way to come out.

You've just undone your own argument again. In 1997 no one cared about the issues relevant to the Labour Party in the 70s and 80s as the world had truly moved on. Unfortunately, austerity and strict fiscal spending plans that throttle the economy will still be a massive issue in 2020 as we have now seen the exact nature of the spending plans. We knew that this government was going to enact these plans the night of the election. That's why I was able to say straight after the election that the job of labour was to address the arguments. Austerity, a policy born out of the financial crisis, will be carried through to 2020. That means that austerity will keep the issue more alive than ever before. When another 5 years of European austerity has led to a decade of stagnant economic life in the UK and in Europe, a counter-narrative will be possible. Middle England got sick of the Tories economic policies in the 90s, it can get sick of them again. The closer Osbourne sticks to his stringent fiscal cuts, the more likely that people will be willing to listen to another way, much publicized by Stiglitz and Krugman etc. Labour needs to get that sorted as the current economic policy guarantees that this will still be a fundamental issue in 4 years time. This is the point your missing, the Tory policy will keep this issue alive. If we see startling economic growth and a real increase in spending on essential public services then I will be wrong. That austerity policy has had 6 years and the economy is still smaller than it was in 2008. Another 4 years and we are still going to be debating whether it's right or not. The situation could not be any different to 1997.

Very straightforward. Compulsory purchase of the shares of any company by the government and it's Nationalised.

Not saying you're stupid, just that you've been caught out by your own logic. You say that the debate around the role of Labour in the crisis is over but that would mean the Tories could no longer attack Labour for it. What you argue is not possible, as soon as the subject comes up again, the discussion will happen. Which means your argument that there is no point in Labour preparing their arguments around this topic as incorrect. As I said, it's not stupidity just you've been undone by your own argument. Unless you argue that the Tories won't use the economy to attack Labour.

Try again. CT, how will the Tories be able to continue attacking Labour for their economic record if the debate goes away?

CT, how will the Tories be able to continue attacking Labour for their economic record if the debate goes away? Take your time on that one.

I like to see it more as a choreographed gymnastics floor routine.

Whatever. The Labour Party needs to address the lie and misinformation about its economic record. I'm not talking about anything else, unless it does this it won't be able to shift the narrative towards its values. Corbyn and others in the party have now realised this.

That was at Parky btw.

That's ridiculous though. We need capitalism to distribute things. We need socialism to ensure everyone has fair access to some things, which are comparatively very few in number. That's not up for debate.

Of course CT speaks Italian. Was this when he discovered Ragu?

Have you got an actual oak tree in your garden or did the leaf just blow in from somewhere? "Ooh look what Fist jnr brought in from the garden, that'll go nicely in our pot Mrs Fist" "Errr.... "

Va te faire enculer, dickwad.

Babbel is alright, I use it when traveling to remind myself of the basics. I think you can pay for more in depth stuff but the free version is ok.

To be fair, what Larry Elliot says in that article is exactly what I said needed to be done a few days after the election. I posted some stats and graphs and how to frame the spending / austerity question. You had the same response but if done properly, it will be the platform for victory as the downfall of this government will be to underestimate the impact of their spending cuts in this term. The debate will shift back to spending / austerity and a new narrative can be shaped. I'm not saying that Labour will win but it's the right strategy looking 5 years down the line of Osbourne's cuntish social policy. The morons who voted UKIP will have had an EU referendum and the inexperienced SNP have plenty of time to fuck up there.

One of my best anecdotes that, been desperate to slip it into a conversation.

They stopped doing that a long time ago. They are much more sophisticated nowadays. California has some amazing white wines but i cant get on with their reds unless they are stupidly expensive. Me and a colleague were in a wine bar in San Francisco about 4 years ago and this bloke sits down next to us. My mate says 'have you seen his watch, must be worth 100k'. He then orders a bottle of Rombauer, which was about $40 on the menu. We thought good enough for him, good enough for us. Superb stuff, from Carneros which is between Sonoma and Napa Valley.

Indeed. It's actually because no one solved Arrow's impossibility theorem but that's a bit too deep for here. Private market is usually best when all that matters is the total sum of private value. Markets usually (but not always) deliver this. However, the assumption is that the total sum of private value is the 'objective'. Economics is built on 'objective functions' which are algebraic expressions which can be 'maximised' with calculus. It's this 'objective setting' which should be at he heart of every debate on how to deliver a service - market or state? As soon as the objective is not 'maximise private value' then then the market won't be the solution. How do you capture social objectives? Via social preferences? How do turn this into something that can be 'maximised' via cost-effectice state run systems? You rank the social preferences. Which is where Arrow comes in, the old cunt that he was...

Couldn't agree more. I think the debate around clause 4 is needed. The economist behind Corbyn is quite clear (Corbyn less so, he confuses the message a little bit), for each sector of the economy we set an objective: what is the objective of the railways? Is it to be provide the most cost-effective rail system at value for money for the taxpaye? If yes, then the question at the heart of the debate is what does the tax payer want? If that becomes a fair low priced system that connects parts of the country even if that means the cost of connecting those parts has to be subsidised then this leads directly back to the question around clause 4. This is 'which economic system of resource allocation most efficiently delivers against those objectives?' Our 'education' objectives of access and fairness mean that we don't select just the private market to deliver the education system. The social 'objectives' drive the choice of allocation system (mostly state run). The same exercise of setting social objectives and selecting the system to deliver it needs to be looked at for all services that have high social value (value beyond that derived from private use). Corbyn is correct to address this; the elite's framing of his views as a return to clause 4 is politics interfering with excellent social-welfarism (which is a branch of micro-economics, not a socialist concept).