Stuart Holland

[rockfreak]

Holland has surfaced elsewhere on this site regarding his time at CH but when I Googled him I found the following: "Few living figures can match Stuart Holland's range of experience and insight into both British and European politics."

He was my generation although a little older, and apart from being a Labour MP for Vauxhall he was a very forward-looking economics advisor to Labour governments of the the 1960s and 70s. Politically he appears to have been on the progressive social-democratic left which still exists to some extent in other parts of western Europe (notably Scandinavia) but not in this country since Margaret Thatcher. He has lectured in several universities and produced much literature, and a long interview with Martin O'Neill (not the football manager) titled "Hope Amidst Despair" gives an idea of his views.

[Mid A 15]

Holland has surfaced elsewhere on this site regarding his time at CH but when I Googled him I found the following: "Few living figures can match Stuart Holland's range of experience and insight into both British and European politics."

He was my generation although a little older, and apart from being a Labour MP for Vauxhall he was a very forward-looking economics advisor to Labour governments of the the 1960s and 70s. Politically he appears to have been on the progressive social-democratic left which still exists to some extent in other parts of western Europe (notably Scandinavia) but not in this country since Margaret Thatcher. He has lectured in several universities and produced much literature, and a long interview with Martin O'Neill (not the football manager) titled "Hope Amidst Despair" gives an idea of his views.

https://journals.lwbooks.co.uk/renewal/ ... icle-8919/

I think this could be the non footballing Martin O'Neill you refer to.

He appears to be surprisingly critical of the EU but did not articulate those opinions as he did not want to be aligned with Nigel Farage or his Vauxhall successor Kate Hoey.

[rockfreak]

Yes, it is a rather surprising view. It might be because he felt that the EU had gone too far into neoliberal cliche: free markets, free movement of finance, free movement of people, privatisation of essential utilities, too strict fiscal policy (promoted particularly by Germany). But of course it was the ideology of the Chicago professor Milton Friedman, promoted to the rest of the world by Reagan and Thatcher, that helped sell it to everyone else. As we've seen, our leaving the EU is now losing us billions from our GDP every year, along with our isolation from being part of a big political bloc - a great problem in today's suddenly polarised world.