We all believe in the common good.

+I referred to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) a couple of blogs ago. MMT has been floating around for quite a while as an alternative to the way governments think about paying for the common good. We’ve all been brought up to believe that governments budget just the same way we do in our tiny insignificant households. Politicians talk absurdly about not ‘maxing out the credit card’ - except of course when it comes to bailing out the banks with quantitative easing (I love that bit about ‘easing’ - it’s so smoothing isn’t it, all the way to your obscene bonuses and asset enrichment). I think at the heart of MMT I can read a demolition of the distinction between capital investment and current expenditure. These are loaded terms, as so much in economic discourse is, with implied values attached to certain words, some of which are meant to strip them of equivalent—beneficial—value. MMT I think suggests that the common good is attained both in human terms and concrete and steel. Governments say it’s OK to ‘borrow’ (they prefer to use the term ‘invest’) as much capital as it deems necessary for infrastructure, but investing in education for example is current expenditure and so should be captured in a balanced (i.e. non deficit) budget. It is I hope you will agree a false distinction.
 
+The Corbyn dream of a left-wing alternative to Labour - ‘Your Party’ - seems to be in a bit of mess, although isn’t that the way these days? Crispin Flintoff reports that
 
‘Your Party is facing an internal crisis at precisely the moment when a strong, united socialist movement is desperately needed.
At the centre of the dispute is a special meeting of the party’s Central Executive Committee held on 12 July. Those who attended say the meeting was properly convened under the CEC standing orders after three members had been prevented from attending an earlier meeting. Fourteen CEC members reportedly attended at its peak. Votes of no confidence were then held in Chair Jenn Forbes, Secretary Dawn Aspinall and Membership Officer Cassi Bellingham. Those present say each vote passed by the required majority and that the three officers should therefore be deemed to have resigned from their positions.
That account is strongly disputed.’
 
There is a strong whiff of the 1980s here. I wonder how many entryists are tackling the pressing political issue of the day: how to smash each others’ faction. In doing so they have probably lost sight of the fact that the Greens have set themselves up nicely as the left alternative to Labour.  Your Party has sunk into irrelevance.