Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad ...
We thought Godfrey Bloom had given a pretty good imitation of a Kamikazi pilot when he wrecked UKIP's conference.
However, the damage he did to UKIP's electoral chances are nothing to what Ed Miliband has done to Labour's - which in turn is nothing to the damage he would do to Britain if the voters are insane enough to elect him and if he implements the 70's Labour politics he outlined today.
When I picked my quote for today, Milton Friedman's saying that "Governments never learn: only people learn." I had no idea how apposite it would be.
But the present leader of the labour party certainly hasn't learned: like many socialists he has this in common with the Bourbons: he has forgotten nothing and learned nothing.
I was a teenager when the kind of policies now advocated by Ed Miliband were last tried. They ended with the dead unburied and rubbish left uncollected in the streets. With Britain having to go to the International Monetary Fund to beg for handouts to stave off national bankruptcy - at the price of the biggest spending cuts ever imposed in British history (bigger that either Mrs Thatcher's or those of the present coalition.) And it ended with such outrages as trade union leaders blocking health care for the sick and vulnerable, saying "If someone dies, so be it."
Those words were not abstract to me. That NHS shop steward was talking of the possibility that he could have caused the death of people like my father, who was rung up on the day he was due to go into hospital for a heart operation, and told that it had been vetoed by NUPE and COHSE shop stewards who thought they had a better idea than doctors what constituted a medical emergency.
Some of the things Ed Miliband promised today will be popular. But taken as a whole his speech represented a return to the politics of economic insanity, and if implemented would make Britain an economic basket case faster than you could say "Let's copy Greece."
Several commentators including Toby Young here and Dan Hodges, who recently resigned from the Labour party in disgust at Miliband, writing here, have pointed out the parallels between Ed Miliband's policies and the manifesto on which Michael Foot contested the 1983 general election - a manifesto rightly described at the time as "the longest suicide note in history."
It has also been pointed out, for example that Miliband's policy of freezing energy prices is one that he of all people, as the Energy secretary whose policies were a direct cause of many of the price increases people are complaining about, should know to be completely unworkable.
Ian King wrote in The Times that "Labour’s insane energy policy could cause blackouts."
Actually, we were already in danger of blackouts before the end of this decade because of the failure to replace Britain's energy generation capacity, particularly under Labour (with Ed Miliband one of the prime culprits) but Ian King is certainly right that the energy policy Miliband outlined today would make them more likely still.
As the Telegraph put it here, Labour has returned to the politics of the 1970's, and
"what was as significant as what was said was what was unsaid.
Mr Miliband offered nothing on the deficit, or fiscal discipline, or welfare reform, or Europe, or the need to raise educational standards to compete with the best in the world. His comforting, illusory promise is that as prime minister he would be able to make the modern world go away, and restore a lost era of good jobs and high wages through the miracle of state intervention.
But we have played this tape before, and we know how it ends.
Yesterday, Mr Miliband offered one constant refrain: “Britain can do better.” With Labour in charge, it is difficult to see how. "
I have sometimes heard the opinion expressed, and it has occasionally been expressed by people commenting on this blog, that there is no difference between the Conserative and Labour parties. I don't see how any intelligent and reasonable person who was paying any attention to what Miliband was saying today can fail to realise that the difference between the Conservatives and Labour now is nearly as great as the difference between Margaret Thatcher and Michael Foot.
The heading of this blog post is a very old saying, usually attributed to the ancient greek poet Euripedes, that whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.
If the voters are wise, Ed Miliband has destroyed Labour's chance of winning the next election.
If the voters are not wise, and Miliband gets to implement the policies he outlined today, they will destroy Britain's chances of avoiding a complete economic meltdown.
However, the damage he did to UKIP's electoral chances are nothing to what Ed Miliband has done to Labour's - which in turn is nothing to the damage he would do to Britain if the voters are insane enough to elect him and if he implements the 70's Labour politics he outlined today.
When I picked my quote for today, Milton Friedman's saying that "Governments never learn: only people learn." I had no idea how apposite it would be.
But the present leader of the labour party certainly hasn't learned: like many socialists he has this in common with the Bourbons: he has forgotten nothing and learned nothing.
I was a teenager when the kind of policies now advocated by Ed Miliband were last tried. They ended with the dead unburied and rubbish left uncollected in the streets. With Britain having to go to the International Monetary Fund to beg for handouts to stave off national bankruptcy - at the price of the biggest spending cuts ever imposed in British history (bigger that either Mrs Thatcher's or those of the present coalition.) And it ended with such outrages as trade union leaders blocking health care for the sick and vulnerable, saying "If someone dies, so be it."
Those words were not abstract to me. That NHS shop steward was talking of the possibility that he could have caused the death of people like my father, who was rung up on the day he was due to go into hospital for a heart operation, and told that it had been vetoed by NUPE and COHSE shop stewards who thought they had a better idea than doctors what constituted a medical emergency.
Some of the things Ed Miliband promised today will be popular. But taken as a whole his speech represented a return to the politics of economic insanity, and if implemented would make Britain an economic basket case faster than you could say "Let's copy Greece."
Several commentators including Toby Young here and Dan Hodges, who recently resigned from the Labour party in disgust at Miliband, writing here, have pointed out the parallels between Ed Miliband's policies and the manifesto on which Michael Foot contested the 1983 general election - a manifesto rightly described at the time as "the longest suicide note in history."
It has also been pointed out, for example that Miliband's policy of freezing energy prices is one that he of all people, as the Energy secretary whose policies were a direct cause of many of the price increases people are complaining about, should know to be completely unworkable.
Ian King wrote in The Times that "Labour’s insane energy policy could cause blackouts."
Actually, we were already in danger of blackouts before the end of this decade because of the failure to replace Britain's energy generation capacity, particularly under Labour (with Ed Miliband one of the prime culprits) but Ian King is certainly right that the energy policy Miliband outlined today would make them more likely still.
As the Telegraph put it here, Labour has returned to the politics of the 1970's, and
"what was as significant as what was said was what was unsaid.
Mr Miliband offered nothing on the deficit, or fiscal discipline, or welfare reform, or Europe, or the need to raise educational standards to compete with the best in the world. His comforting, illusory promise is that as prime minister he would be able to make the modern world go away, and restore a lost era of good jobs and high wages through the miracle of state intervention.
But we have played this tape before, and we know how it ends.
Yesterday, Mr Miliband offered one constant refrain: “Britain can do better.” With Labour in charge, it is difficult to see how. "
I have sometimes heard the opinion expressed, and it has occasionally been expressed by people commenting on this blog, that there is no difference between the Conserative and Labour parties. I don't see how any intelligent and reasonable person who was paying any attention to what Miliband was saying today can fail to realise that the difference between the Conservatives and Labour now is nearly as great as the difference between Margaret Thatcher and Michael Foot.
The heading of this blog post is a very old saying, usually attributed to the ancient greek poet Euripedes, that whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.
If the voters are wise, Ed Miliband has destroyed Labour's chance of winning the next election.
If the voters are not wise, and Miliband gets to implement the policies he outlined today, they will destroy Britain's chances of avoiding a complete economic meltdown.
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