Given that central banks / governments can issue infinite amounts of money, I'm baffled as to what the point of letting private banks issue money / liquidity is: particularly since (as correctly pointed out by Diamond) private banks can't create or issue money without risking runs, instability, credit crunches, etc. Moreover, private banks act in a PRO-CYCLICAL manner: that is, they exacerbate booms and recessions - which central banks and governments have to counter with publicly created money. Witness the HUGE increase in the stock of base money over the last few years resulting from interest rate cuts and QE.

All pretty irrelevant. Far and away the biggest act of racism by any British political party ever was the Labour Party (assisted by the Tories) taking part in the slaughter of a million Muslims in Iraq for no good reason.

So what was wrong with Surbiton in 1955 - referred to by Jeremy Gilbert in his non “thought provoking” piece? Of course there’s the point (referred to a long time ago by George Orwell) that many lefties cannot do much more than trash their own country and culture. That’s one motive for the above “anti-Surbiton” drivel. Second, if Surbiton was indeed boring in 1955, that was partially or largely explained by the poverty brought by WWII.

Lefties just love long important multi-syllabic words, even if it’s totally unclear what they mean. Neoliberal is one. Multiculturalism is another.