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LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

I don't believe she called MMT either.

She's questioning what vision those who condemn her for rejecting it (which she doesn't) have for taking advantage of MMT.

As far as I’m concerned, MMT is an entirely internally-consistent theory - and one which largely describes the operation of fiscal and monetary policy correctly. My issue is that proponents of MMT have an utterly incoherent view of state power under capitalism.

December 2, 2025 at 6:49 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

Murphy provoked hostilities with obvious ally Blakeley by, out of the blue, grossly misrepresenting her views. He has never retracted his claims, in fact doubling down and laughably portraying himself as a victim of physical intimidation.

This is a guy who would create enemies in an empty room.

She is no believer in democracy
She is no friend of the working class, and
She, along with others who share her views, is a profound threat to the electoral credibility and prospects of the Green Party if it provides her or them with a platform for their "class struggle," with everything that implies.

Candidly, feel directly, and physically, threatened by her rhetoric and suggestion that am one of the enemy.

December 2, 2025 at 1:52 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

This is a particularly good paragraph

Socialists who sympathise with MMT have a strategic decision to make: do they spend decades trying to teach people how government spending really works, while much more powerful forces preach the common sense argument that the government is like a household, and can only spend as much as it earns? Or do they spend their limited time and resources supporting people to win the battles that they are already fighting in their communities, in their workplaces, and on the streets - and advance a policy agenda that supports them in these struggles? Less ‘learn MMT’; more ‘freeze the rent’, ‘strengthen workers rights’, and ‘public ownership now’.

December 2, 2025 at 1:23 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

Let's say though that a socialist government wished to increase the salaries of all public servants by 20% to start to redress the ravages of austerity.

All else being equal, taxes would have to rise to prevent inflation. Isn't this a constraint on spending money?

Money is not the constraint.
Real resources, whether they be people, Skills, energy, technology, or materials, are.

December 2, 2025 at 1:01 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

Agreed: WATO has historically been one of the more serious-minded (less attention-seeking) news programmes.

So I hope BBC News isn't doubling-down on its flawed contemporary model of impartiality (reporting opposing attack lines).

TV journalist speaks to camera. Chyron reads "Is it raining? 'We're entitled to our opinion' say both sides"

November 27, 2025 at 1:56 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

I identify very strongly with Goodall's sentiments here

The BBC was a place which had shaped my life and political perception. As a child and teenager I gorged on its news programming, giving me a window into a world not mine. It made me want to be a television journalist. You wouldn’t be reading these words without it. I despair at the position it is now in. I have little to no sympathy for Tim Davie. He has helped create the problem by constantly opining on the BBC being too liberal. He has legitimised the critique which has toppled him. He appeased the same forces who have brought him down. He seemed to me to think little about what impartial journalism means in this age of universal deceit.

November 11, 2025 at 1:45 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

Karl Popper has critiqued the idea that science overcomes bias through the method that Goodall describes of individuals trying to elevate themselves above bias, instead arguing in favour of intersubjectivity as the best route to minimizing collective bias.

But I think Goodall would support this too

But the biggest sin the BBC has in my experience, is that the BBC isn’t that political at all, that it doesn’t have enough truly political people of any type. It should have more arch liberals, conservatives, socialists- so long as they can and are willing to think critically. Instead, it too often chooses not to think at all, because it’s easier, and safer- the intellectual crouch position.

November 11, 2025 at 1:43 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

Goodall argues for a particular method of aiming for impartiality, that, on the whole, I think sounds a good basis for part of an individual journalist's personal code.

I’ve written before about impartiality, and that of course, as an individual I wasn’t impartial at the BBC. I had views which I can now more freely express. I had biases- but I actively worked against them in my work, as I was required to do. How many of these people, self appointed guardians of impartiality, actually do the same? They often can’t- in my view because they don’t recognise their inherent partiality in the first place.

November 11, 2025 at 1:43 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

There are also fascinating insights into Goodall's unpleasant experiences at the hands of Robbie Gibb & David Grossman, but Goodall is remarkably generous to them in assessing their intent

I don’t think they are part of a right wing plot, as such. I genuinely think they think they are saving the BBC from itself. But that is because they suffer from the same affliction as much of the ailing, older British media class, ubiquitous across the lofty, windy diatribes in the pages of the Sunday Times and Telegraph, former BBC anchors and the like: a total lack of self-awareness. They believe their own politics to be neutral, impartial- and other people’s politics to be the aberration, or doctrinaire, a belief egged on by the fact that most of the media agrees with them. Orthodoxies are for other people. Many of these people lecture younger BBC staff as to being too rigid, or subject to groupthink, or unwilling to step outside themselves: it is these people, inside and outside of the BBC who are in my experience most rigid of all, because they are so convinced their politics isn’t really politics, but just some default setting shared with much of the country- when it is not. Worse, they usually claim to do what they do in the name of ordinary working class people about whom they usually know nothing.

November 11, 2025 at 1:29 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

Of the Trump 6 January speech edit fiasco:

Instead of some proportion from much of the British media class, we are treated to the tragicomic absurdity of a former British prime minister willing to admonish the national broadcaster and demand the resignation of its Director General, all in the name of defending Donald Trump’s reputation for truth-telling. But it’s worse than that- it is a textbook example of how populists win. We have the ridiculous carnival of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, of all people, admonishing the BBC for its lack of integrity. And they can get away with it, because no-one expects anything from them and yet we expect everything from the people and places who actually give a damn.

November 11, 2025 at 1:22 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

As the aphorism says, if one person says it's raining and another says it's not, the job of a journalist isn't simply to publicise both views equally.

You have to look out the bloody window.

A TV reporter with an umbrella in heavy rain is doing a piece to camera. The chyron reads "'We're entitled to our opinion' say both sides"

November 11, 2025 at 1:05 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

The BBC is only seen as biased towards the left by hard right journalists such as Andrew Neil.

Total gaslighting.

The BBC's pandering to climate-denying, transphobic, xenophobic, genocide supporters shows undeniable right-wing bias.

Tweet by Times Radio:
“More and more people say to me they don’t trust the BBC anymore.”

Andrew Neil, who spent 25 years at the BBC, says people’s perceived left-leaning bias of the organisation threatens its future.

https://x.com/TimesRadio/status/1987835188936888415?s=19

November 11, 2025 at 12:56 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

Here Andrew Neil wilfully misinterprets / misrepresents Ed Davey's criticism of the BBC.

The BBC compromised with the principles of a rigorous, impartial news service to make itself more attractive to Faragistes.

Reconsidering these compromises is not the same thing as aiming to stop Farage!

Tweet by Ed Davey
"The resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness must be a chance for the BBC to turn a new leaf, rebuild trust and not give in to those like Nigel Farage who want to destroy it.

We must stand up for a strong, independent BBC, to stop Trump’s America becoming Farage's Britain."
https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/1987594719224832080?s=19

RT by Andrew Neil
"So the point of the BBC in your view is to stop Farage/Reform. Can you explain why the 30%+ currently telling pollsters they plan to vote Farage/Reform should, by your logic, continue to pay their licence fees?
How can the BBC claim to be impartial and yet be tasked by people like you to secure a particular political end?
Have you really thought this through? Or is there water in the brain from all these silly stunts?"
https://x.com/afneil/status/1987937753934238185?s=19

November 11, 2025 at 12:43 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

Good point

Austerity is a political choice. The decision to impose it is driven by governments bowing to the wishes of the ultra-rich.

There are truckloads of money available. Just after Gates published his new missive, Oxfam revealed that the net worth of the 10 richest US billionaires grew by $698bn in the past year. That money alone, the increment in the wealth of 10 people, is almost 10 times the annual amount required to end extreme poverty worldwide. How have they managed to channel so much of the world’s money into their pockets? And why can’t we get it back through effective taxation? The answer is their translation of economic power into political power. The richer they become, the more they can bend the state and economic system to their will, ensuring that they become richer still.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/08/bill-gates-climate-crisis-billionaire-essay-cop30

November 8, 2025 at 9:09 AM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

The authors warn that the facts immigration attitudes move around, reacting to both reality and politicians' rhetoric.

Moreover, myth-busting isn't a magic bullet:

Second, even if we could convey a perfect reality of immigration levels and effects to people, this would not negate concerns – this is an emotional reaction to how the country is changing more than a cold trade-off of pros and cons. One of the key points you learn about misperceptions generally is that they are as much an expression of concern as a driver. Cause and effect run in both directions, where we overestimate what we worry about as much as the other way round: this means simplistic myth-busting will have less effect than you might expect, because it misdiagnoses what is partly an emotional and identity issue.

November 5, 2025 at 5:10 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

Prof @richardjmurphy.bsky.social proposes a number of tax measures that the Chancellor could implement instead of raising basic income tax rates

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/11...

If Reeves wishes to make the tax system fairer and raise substantial revenue, she should begin where the money really is, which is in wealth, and not wages. Four straightforward reforms would achieve more than any blanket increase in income tax:

An investment income surcharge. Apply an additional tax rate to income from interest, dividends, and rents, sources overwhelmingly concentrated among the wealthiest households, largely to address the fact that national insurance is not paid on these sources, and Reeves could find much of the tax she is supposedly looking for.

Equalise capital gains tax with income tax. There is no moral or economic justification for favouring returns from ownership over returns from labour. These rates should be the same.

Charge VAT on banking and financial services. These sectors are currently exempt, which favours the wealthy who are the predominant purchasers of their services.

Restrict pension tax reliefs for high earners. The subsidies here are hugely regressive, turning pension contributions into tools of tax avoidance rather than social insurance.

November 4, 2025 at 8:15 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

Devon Live posted this story on Facebook yesterday, with open comments. The jury hadn't retired.

Many comments include opinions about the evidence, mentions of the defendant's character, and claims about the defendant's previous behaviour.

Contempt of court? @barristersecret.bsky.social

"Exeter Live. 19h.

Sonny Boyes, 19, denies ten charges including rape and sexual assault."

Photo of police car.

"Teen accused of Exeter attacks says girls are 'crying rape'

76 comments 7 shares"

October 31, 2025 at 5:07 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

Totally not racist, of course 🙄

Guardian headline: "US will limit number of refugees to 7,500 and give priority to white South Africans"

Lead:
"Low number represents a dramatic drop after US previously allowed in hundreds ofthousands of people fleeing war and persecution"

Guardian staff and agency 16:59 Thu30 October 2025

October 30, 2025 at 5:35 PM

LonWon

@lonwon.bsky.social

Exeter Conservatives stand by their councillor Alison Sheridan who joined far right thugs from hate group Britain First in protesting outside an Exeter hotel housing refugee families.

Women and children staying at the hotel have been subjected to physical intimidation by protesters in recent weeks.