Dan Jarvis: analysis of a speech | Tax Research UK

Dan Jarvis: Unthinking obedience might work in the Forces, but not in politics! [Image: Waldegrave/REX_Shutterstock.]

Dan Jarvis: Unthinking obedience might work in the Forces, but not in politics! [Image: Waldegrave/REX_Shutterstock.]

So that’s the philosophy of Dan Jarvis, is it? “Don’t think. Don’t question. Do as you’re told”?

No thank you.

This Writer will stick with Jeremy Corbyn.

At least, with him, I’ll have a say in my own political life.

I have been sent a copy of the speech Dan Jarvis gave this morning at Demos.

I stress, my interest is technical: I am interested to see what he is suggesting.

Three phrases stood out amidst a soup of sentiment:

“So let’s take out the politics.”

And: “Keir Hardie said that the British are a practical people, not given to chasing bubbles.”

And: “People I meet, the people I am talking about, don’t attend economic seminars.”

As someone who teaches political economy I think these phrases are pretty powerful. In combination they say three things:

First, don’t think. Or, to put it another way, accept the political status quo.

Second, politics is as a consequence a response process.

And third, it says don’t whatever you do have a strategy that you might share with those you are asking to follow: just expect them to do so.

These don’t sound like the basis for a sound political strategy in a democracy. Nor do they suggest that Mr Jarvis has a plan. They just say that he’s willing to stand before the troops thinking he’s the man to follow and because he’s got the right pips on his shoulder.

The trouble is he never got enough pips to get to HQ by the look of it.

Source: Tax Research UK » Dab Jarvis: analysis of a speech

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6 thoughts on “Dan Jarvis: analysis of a speech | Tax Research UK

  1. Jon Lisle-Summers

    I have read Dan Jarvis’ speech. I love a bit of nostalgia. This is Tony Blur in a dress uniform, isn’t it? It’s just what we need, yet more vacuous BS disguising an even bigger void in terms of actual ‘boots on the ground’.
    Parade dismissed.

  2. mohandeer

    ““So let’s take out the politics.”” And what does that leave us with? Politics is about policies, so if we chuck out policies we do what? Follow the camel/beach donkey, cows tail, sheep in front?
    ““People I meet, the people I am talking about, don’t attend economic seminars.”
    Neither do I but I have what might be considered a vested interest in economics since they are at the forefront of the problem this country is facing because of Tory Austerity “policies” as determined by the Tory political party.
    Boy was I ever wrong about this Dan Jarvis, he’s about as dumbed down as the guy who thinks if you have a tenner for a night down the pub that’s all you can spend or you have a deficit as though somehow this compares with a country’s political economics. We had a narrow escape when this guy wasn’t up for Party Leader of the Labour Party.

  3. Jean Casale

    DAN DARES

    Dan Jarvis will this morning set out his own vision for economic policy under Labour, with a new line that the party should be sound on deficits and spending but also “tough on inequality, tough on the causes of inequality”. The Blair echo ain’t a coincidence, but neither too is the pitch to the soft left Milibandite analysis of why there’s still a big gap between many incomes in the UK.

    The Guardian had some of the embargoed extracts. But I can reveal too that Jarvis will also make a pitch for a new approach to the City with a plan that has shades of Hillary Clinton. “We must act to encourage long termism in business. That means considering some radical options – like rebalancing our corporate tax system, which favours risky debt over equity,” he will say.

    “And it might mean looking at the rights of shareholders, so that those who own the shares for longer have greater rights and those who buy in during a takeover bid don’t get an unfair say.” Interesting stuff.

    Jarvis’ speech will be watched eagerly by those who think he’s the best man to replace Corbyn after a July coup attempt. Has he improved his delivery style, his passion quotient and his policy ‘bottom’? That’s what Labour MPs want to know.

    Corbyn’s spokesman insisted yesterday that he would automatically get on the ballot after any challenge but few in the PLP share that view, hence the Left’s new attempt to change the rules. At least the Compliance Unit finally kicked out 9/11 conspiracy theorist Gerry Downing (a great hit for Guido Fawkes). But how on earth did they not know about his views?

    Meanwhile, here’s more good news for ‘moderates’. Elections to the Joint Policy Committee (the executive of Labour’s National Policy Forum) saw a near clean sweep for the moderate slate organised by Labour First/Progress. And the two trade union reps are Len McCluskey (who’s union has policy against Trident) and Dave Prentis, (who is particularly annoyed with the leader office after John McDonnell supported one of his opponents).

    THE WAUGH ZONE

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      You really shouldn’t be copying and pasting as comments whole articles from other sources, you know.

  4. Terry Davies

    perhaps he wants the fame to delude himself he was a wanna be leader or a has been. whichever applies should either shut his mouth or trigger his resignation. The latter preferably as he is clearly not possessing leadership qualities, and lacks principle. has plenty of self interest and ego so joining the tory party is an option.

Comments are closed.