One Main Conference to Go...

So far we have had the Liberal Democrat annual conference and the Labour annual conference.

The Liberal Democrat one was a bit muted, from a perhaps puzzled crowd as to the damaged past for the party and unwanted 'Brexit' future, and one where Vince Cable was installed as leader. As he said, he didn't want to lead a mirror-image party from UKIP, but still it is the remain party. Leaving the European Union he counts as one of the three recent disasters: the illegal Iraq war in 2003, the financial crash in 2007 and the vote to leave the EU in 2016. One of the other polcies will be to tackle the wealth disparity, that leads to power and powerlessness.

The Labour Party went into a Momentum led song of praise for Jeremy Corbyn, and a comprehensive set of policies to reset the political agenda.

My view is that there needs to be a leftward swing because so much needs doing, and the power of the State is the means to do it. We are also Keynesians now, because monetary policy does not stimulate the economy. It needs fiscal policy, and best of all spending not tax cuts.

Our unemployment is not equivalent to 1974 ("the lowest since 1974," says the media). This does not compare like with like. We now have so many on schemes that are not counted as unemployed. Many who lose their jobs don't bother to sign on because benefits are denied or so low for so many. People are sanctioned. But most of all, the nature of work is now underemployment and scattered employment for individuals. Many people on life-supporting benefits and who look for work are not counted as unemployed (e.g. Employment and Support Allowance). This is different from people in long term jobs that allowed people to get a mortgage and plan a family back in 1974. So many people now carry personal debt unheard of in 1974. The economy today is cruel.

The leftward swing was evident in Theresa May's statements on gaining power and since. She seemed to want to bring in the approach of nationalist and interventionist Joseph Chamberlain, the Liberal Unionist who turned Tory.

The only problem is that she says a lot and does nothing. She seems paralysed before policy is made, with frequent U-turns. Then, after the Labour Conference, she gives a half-hearted delivery in the defence of free market capitalism. Well, expect nothing from her.

Vince Cable might be a bit far fetched to claim he could be Prime Minister, except of course anything can happen in politics these days. One more (and not unlikely) financial crash and we might call upon his services. I maintain, incidentally, that Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown did rescue the British economy from financial disaster, by instant liquidity. They were Keynesians all right: to have done otherwise would have pricked and collapsed the swollen monetary bubble. The Coalition government was not correct to blame Labour, except of course for actually not being so prudent prior to the crash.

We still have that economy, which is why the employment figures are not inflationary as they were back in 1974, and why this is not like with like. Leaving the EU will be disastrous under these circumstances: it won't take much to shake this precarious situation of employment.

My view of Corbyn's celebratory conference is that it is far too previous in its expectations. Even if they put on more votes from last time, they may only achieve a dead heat. If the 'two party situation' continues, adding on votes actually doesn't result in a victory, because the other side has its piles of votes. Labour does not have a Democratic Unionist Party equivalent to bribe; on domestic policy the Scottish Nationalists will be excluded from many key votes at committee stage, and they will never share what amounts to Corbyn's 'socialism in one country' outside the EU.

Indeed, as it becomes clearer that Corbyn and the backbone of his inner ideological circle wants to be outside the EU, the young people who waved the EU flags at his rallies may well not lend him their votes this time. It only takes some reluctance from them to suddenly pull Labour up short.

What will help Labour is a return to a three party system. On the basis that Tory remainers will vote for Vince Cable's economic competence, the Labour Party may find itself winning more seats without having to pile up its own votes.

So the Tory conference is near. Now, I took the view after the recent General Election that Theresa May had settled into her job until the exiting the EU negotiations were over. I also did not take the view that Boris Johnson's 4000 word essay in the Daily Telegraph was his leadership bid. What he was doing was leaning on her, because the 'transition period' argument was winning, and the next stage from that is to keep the single market and customs union. The problem with transition is that it has to transition out, and, unless it's back to eating your cake and having it, there reappears a cliff edge. Delay allows changing your mind even more.

However, the speech she gave at Florence was another giving to the EU, in terms of negotiations, and underlines just how hapless they all are in doing this. The sense of drift is everywhere. And so the party conference will be one of whispers and rumours and plotting behind the scenes. A dull speech, a holding the fort, could see her shifted soon afterwards.

It does not follow that to change Tory leader means a General Election. There would be a lack of legitimacy. She is already the equivalent of a Gordon Brown after Tony Blair. A dedicated EU leaver as leader may well cause divisions in the Tory party to surface.

Remember: a vote to stay in the EU would have divided the Tory party instantly and left Labour united on the matter. Cameron would have been in trouble. This was May's strategy: support him but ever so quietly, and watch him fall, to replace him with a government that then would have concentrated on social and economic matters (presumably). The vote to leave forced him out, and she was the last one left standing. It was Labour that looked divided. But it was always going to be that as the end-point came for leaving the EU, the Tories would divide. This division could well be brought forward by an enthusiast for leaving going into the Prime Minister seat. Labour meanwhile will find its leaver minority having to make the big decision as the cliff edge comes closer. Corbyn's new found enthusiasm for the possibilities outside the EU are checked by his desire not ever to help out the Tories on anything (including staying in during the campaign).

The structural situation party-wise will be tested by the coming end-date to leave, and how much the end is delayed. If it is little delayed then the prospect of a new centre party increases, but party structures are remarkably resilient. It's just that leaving the EU is such a huge measure that some MPs and Lords will be put to the test. Vince Cable will be having private conversations.

So let's see how it goes. I now think that Theresa May will fall, simply because she lacks basic leadership qualities. She is a referee only, and not a very good one. She lacks the ability to lead anyone anywhere. She remains as much an unknown as she was when she fell into the seat of power. She always wanted power, and showed some skill in finding the moment, but seems to have done nothing with it other than carrying out zombie-like the perceived burden of the moment.

What remain people have to do, meanwhile, is continue to make the argument, as to why we share sovereignty and how it makes us stronger to tackle economic threats and threats to peace, upholds social and economic standards, and gives a sense of sharing across the continent. Democracy is about opinion changing, and finding its representation, and getting MPs to start standing up for what they believe instead of acting like zombies. Yes, after the vote, some remain voters said 'we'd better get on with it', but as we haven't really got on with it, and do not know the end-position, and the consequences of leaving stack up, then they will return (as they are now) and so will some of the leavers change their mind. It is a tough world out there, and at a time of Trump and North Korea (and more - e.g. Bombardier and Boeing) we should not be leaving the European Union.

How Not to Leave The [Imaginary] Art Club

This is a story that is not true. Here goes. I am a member of The Art Club (as it happens, I am not regarding a similar group, but let's assume I am). It costs sixty pounds a year (seventy euros and falling) and then paying the models is effectively another sixty pounds a year and then there is the cost of materials. For this I get to paint among a number of people, and join in ad-hoc events and get to enter exhibitions and via voting make policy decisions.

However, I've never liked the group, not really, due to my imagined background of apparent self-sufficiency, and after a long membership I have decided to leave. However, The Art Club is a fact on the ground, and it arranges models and venues and has these exhibitions each year.

Still interested in being an artist, one option is to crash out. I would have to find my own models and venues and see if I can get into various ad-hoc exhibitions. I am not allowed to arrange these until I cease to be a member. Now they think I am a decent artist and would like me involved, but realise I do want to leave. After all, I've said so for over a year now.

So we have started to negotiate a withdrawal that will hopefully be practical, whilst clearly The Art Club wants to uphold its own future, membership and events, and why one should join it for the benefits of membership.

Meanwhile there is a complication that I have a friend in The Art Club with whom I wish to continue to paint. We joined at the same time. We used to argue a lot, but now we are very friendly, and we must keep this friendship - and yet I am withdrawing and he is not. How can we remain artistic friends, when his art benefits from all that The Art Club does? He is going nowhere because being a member has defined the direction of his art.

Not wishing to crash out, and lose important access to models and venues plus exhibitions, there is an option of associate membership. It costs to have these venues to paint or draw the models, and there are these model contacts, and it costs to join in with arranged exhibitions. But friends who dislike The Art Club say that to join these specifically is pretty much the same as being in the Art Club, and the payment in is just about as much. The Committee still decides what I'll end up doing, and the rules to obey, but I'll no longer vote.

So I ask The Art Club to be "imaginative". Using all the insights and arrangements of The Art Club, I will nevertheless call the same "My Art Club" and ask it to be recognised by The Art Club. Payment might be nothing or perhaps minimal to The Art Club, and yet the benefits seem rather the same. Being the same, but different, I can paint along with my friend.

Understandably, The Art Club says we can't have individual painters picking and choosing like this. You are either in the club or your are not. The Art Club negotiator asks, "Do you want to leave or not? Why do you want to leave and yet things remain the same? We have everything set up here and a Committee to rule on it." Meanwhile one of The Art Club's leading members says my proposals sound: "like someone wanting to join in the near future, not leave."

My proposals are a "fantasy island", they say, because I want to paint their models and use their venues, and yet go out and get my own models and my own venues (unlike The Art Club members). As for exhibitions, I will always join in the exhibition with my painting friend, but not necessarily other exhibitions, although I can, I argue, and yet will add in my own exhibitions - should I find any.

While this flexible in and out is being arranged and set up - my club that is like their club - we will have a transition of flexible withdrawal from their club.

Obviously I am told that this is not on. Anyhow, meantime, I claim that the talks are making progress, The Art Club instead asks for clarity given the known constraints, and I contact the local media to back me up by slurring The Art Club for being "rigid".

Meanwhile I have a different and as yet inactive advisor, who hints that for a transition period I simply stay with The Art Club's venues and models, and indeed its exhibitions. This will be the specific arrangement so I no longer vote for or sit on the Committee. I do this for a transition period - "as long as necessary and as short as possible" - which presumably involves 'crashing out' at some point in the future, being unable to arrange models, venues and exhibitions while having The Art Club arrangements in place.

Increasingly friends ask why, if I want to paint models, have good venues and enter in exhibitions, I don't stay in The Art Club after all.

As the time runs out for talking, The Art Club says it is fed up with such talking when what I want is so indecisive. It won't extend negotiating for negotiating's sake, so either leave and there will be solicitors' letters on costs to pay, or stay, or stay and this time join in fully and properly.