In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
Don't rule out anti-SNP tactical voting by the No campaign - the 37%ers have upset a lot of people as was evident by their crushing decisive defeat in the referendum.
Miliband was in charge of DECC, and he appears to have learnt nothing from his dire time there. His latest pronouncements are just laughable without a step-change in technology and/or incredible levels of investment, and can only heavily increase prices for business and the consumer.
The guy's a twunt.
But you can't increase prices for the consumer, because he's banned that. And heavy (and that's an understatement of a term for these plans) price increases for business will just put them out of business if they can't up their revenue. And we should be clear that this policy is guaranteed to put up the cost for energy firms beyond their revenue.
It's pretty clear what will happen: the huge costs will require sudden and massive ramp ups in prices post-2020, which is what the companies will do. This will cause fury among the electorate, who don't understand the economics and want to know why stable prices are suddenly facing 20%+ annual growth. Political pressure to limit the increases will be insurmountable, given the precedent of an outright cap, so the funding gap will be compounded. Obviously the target won't be met, because it's impossible, but Miliband will have to show significant progress towards it, given that he will likely be lagging in the polls with a surging Green party scooping up the former Lib/Lab waiverers and disillusioned left. The inevitable result will be massive government subsidies, blowing a huge hole in the deficit.
I guess this is why Ed Balls is insisting on not balancing the capital budget: the taxpayer will be forced to fund huge building of wind pumps and nuclear power.
David L I believe the tax cuts will not come in until a surplus is achieved
Or 2020, whichever happens first? Or is it whichever happens last?
No-one knows. The policy appears to be very vague. When I first saw it, I thought, like any family man. Wow - lots more money every month. But it's so far in the future, and with so many vague caveats, I'm surprised the likes of the Mail have fallen for it. They are usually pretty good at unpicking government sleight of hand.
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
I was sceptical about the instant analysis of tweets last week and I still feel the same (not least because the Twittersphere is not likely to be especially representative), but this gives a bit more detail on how it's done:
By the way, I do think the SNP is on a roll at the moment, subsamples or not. The implications of that deserve a separate article if it persists, since it increases the probability of instability: my understanding of Scottish politics (DavidL and others can correct me if I'm wrong) is that the SNP couldn't support a Tory government without devastating its base like the LibDems have, but that having put a Labour government in, they wouldn't be available for everyday votes on non-Scottish issues. Another election in 2016, anyone?
David L I believe the tax cuts will not come in until a surplus is achieved
Or 2020, whichever happens first? Or is it whichever happens last?
No-one knows. The policy appears to be very vague. When I first saw it, I thought, like any family man. Wow - lots more money every month. But it's so far in the future, and with so many vague caveats, I'm surprised the likes of the Mail have fallen for it. They are usually pretty good at unpicking government sleight of hand.
Always good to see the Daily Mail is the Labour paper of preference.
It certainly proved to be a *tipping point* for Mr Dickson. Has he ever returned since the result was declared for No?
No, despite the fact he guaranteed he would be here after the day after the referendum, regardless of the vote just a couple months before. Happy to goad but can't take it.
Having looked at it a bit more closely I think Cameron has got a remarkably big bang for a pretty modest buck on the tax cuts. At the most this is going to make a difference of £1-2bn in the early years of the next Parliament when the heavy lifting of deficit reduction is being done and such a sum can easily be recovered elsewhere.
That said I personally do not like the presentation when combined with the cuts in real terms in benefits. We may yet see more cuts in benefits, in fact we will have to. I would urge the government to make sure these are more aimed at the higher paid recipients. In work benefits for those earning more than £40K a year is a very obvious starting point. In fact every household who receive more than average wages should feel the pain ahead of those that don't.
I also note there is no repeat of the foolish promise for the freebies for the elderly. All of these have to be means tested PDQ.
My fear is that, like the 50p tax cut, the Tories have given Labour a get out of jail free card for irresponsible spending. When this is criticised they will simply say, well we think spending on X is more important than tax cuts.
Oddly, the parties have swapped positions on the deficit. Labour's commitments are nearly all at the expense of someone other than the taxpayer - employers to pay higher minimum wage, electricity companies to freeze prices, companies recruiting foreign staff to hire apprentices at the same time, etc. The Tory focus on the deficit lasted just long enough to bash benefits, before 48 hours later announcing what appears to be an £8.2 bn commitment for tax-cutting.
To some extent that reflects what each party has to prove. Labour needs to persuade people that we're not mad spenders. The Tories need to persuade people that they'll get something out of economic recovery. But having caught up with Cameron's speech on News at Ten last night it seemed to me alternately implausible (trust me on defeating Europe, look at my record - er, yes Dave, you only lost 2-26 on Juncker), reactionary (knock people on benefits to give £1500 to people on £50K) and completely at odds in tone with the "deficit first" message on Monday. I'm sure the press enthusiasm will help in the polls, but the internal inconsistencies will make it difficult to maintain.
There was some extraordinary positing - even by the extreme standards of PB - yesterday where certain posters were trying to deny any shift in Tory focus. The most remarkable thing was that it was Antifrank leading this charge - one not normally known for holding implausible positions.
My understanding wasn't that they'd be outlawed - but that the restrictive contract practice of not allowing a person to work for another employer was to be. IIUI, you can sign up now with Employer X and given no work, yet prevented from working for Company Y - that's not on, and an abuse of power in anyone's book.
I'm amazed that anything thought that sort of restriction of trade was legal in the first place. I've no problem with Zero Hour contracts otherwise - they can be a very useful way to fill up awkward shifts etc. It's just temping by another name without using an agency middleman.
I thought one of the more interesting announcements by Cameron yesterday that seems to have gone unremarked on here was the announcement that zero-hours contracts would be outlawed. Hardly the actions of a party whose economic fortunes have been built on the back of zero-hour contracts.
And another of Ed's foxes shot. What are the Trade Unions spending all that money for on propping up Labour, if the Tories will deliver them a key goal for free?
Apologies for the clumsy wording Plato, I meant that the exclusivity had been outlawed. Presumably workers will then have the ability to juggle as many hours under as many contracts as they can physically manage. Which may be of no use to employers - and could result in their declining use.
Mr. Ajob, Cameron did make plain it was contingent on the deficit being closed.
Mildly amused the line has changed from "It's unaffordable" to "It is affordable but it's not happening soon enough". Vaguely reminiscent of Labour's economic lines: Too far, too fast, the deficit should be cut slower It's hurting but it isn't working Unemployment is higher than in 2010 Growth is sluggish Ok, there are more jobs but they're the wrong sort Growth is good, but we still have a deficit What do you mean, we argued the deficit should be reduced more slowly? We've always been at war with Eurasia!
And people who use the 'debt has climbed more rapidly than under Labour' argument need the same sort of slap around the face with a large haddock that politicians who confuse the debt and deficit. The only way that would not have happened would be to have immediately an absolutely massive amount from spending. Which not only would've been mad by itself, but is also diametrically opposed to everything else the left has been saying, and betrays someone either innumerate or so deliberately misleading others as to veer into deceit.
SNP 39 seats !! Lab 16 Con 3 - including Gain of Dumfries and Galloway - Tipped up by Stuart Dickson @ 25-1 ! LD Hold 1 (Orkney and Shetland)
Bloody hell! That will move the election result overall. If Labour lose 25 seats in Scotland they're in deep trouble. What Dave then does with most seats but no majority is anyone's guess. Confidence and supply with SNP? (and EVFEL?)
Unweighted Scottish subsamples are garbage. Wait for proper new Scotland polls which should be coming in the next week or so
There was a time when Scottish subsamples were banned on PB. Maybe we should introduce that rule again.
Surely all unweighted sub samples are "garbage" - not just Scottish ones?
On the broader point, IF the trend in the YOUGOV in Scotland is replicated in a weighted poll and the SNP did do well in Westminster, how would a Labour C&S work, unless the SNP were to renounce their current practice of EVEL?
The McSubsample was once the PB equivalent of the Scottish Play. The merest mention could lead to impending doom.
On Scotland I'd like to see non-panel based surveys. I'm far from convinced that the Scottish polling panels are as representative as they should be. This is a view that's shared by leading figures in the polling industry
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
All either zero hours contracts or filled by immigrants or both , equals useless.
A typically snobbish, xenophobic and inaccurate comment from MalcolmG. SNP loser.
That from a deluded fantasist..........LOL
Which of you was right about SINDY?
We had a load of nonsense from Malc about the response on the doorstep being better than the polls. I think Stuart Dickson chipped in with that nonsense too.
Dickson has shown himself to be a man of straw. Good riddance to the Swedish turnip.
He essentially put all on red. He insulted so many people by referencing their ignorance vs his own insight that it would be the most Lazarine occurrence should he reappear any time soon or at least until the collective memory has dimmed.
You are absolutely correct about EdM's and Labour's energy policy. Energy is something because of its lead times requires long term planning of the nature of the next 20-40 years - something completely off Labour's radar.
It would appear that Labour and EdM do not think, just propose a possible popular consumer policy, and leave the implications and how/if it will work later. If it gets rubbished by real thinkers, then quietly drop it and conjure up something else.
@Alanbrooke: re balance of payments. It was under Gordon B that the policy of, if we can import cheaper than we can make it let's import it, really got moving - indeed balance of payments were hardly mentioned when in previous years they had almost brought down governments. So whilst we were and still are outpriced by Eastern competition, we also lost the capacity and often skills to make those imports.
Re: France. The French have had a long-standing policy of ignoring EU policy and other agreements in order to support France and its industries/businesses. This has included 'illegal' government subsidies, bribes to foreign governments, import bans etc. However, the EU has been powerless to do anything about it and often does not even protest.
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
All either zero hours contracts or filled by immigrants or both , equals useless.
A typically snobbish, xenophobic and inaccurate comment from MalcolmG. SNP loser.
That from a deluded fantasist..........LOL
Which of you was right about SINDY?
We had a load of nonsense from Malc about the response on the doorstep being better than the polls. I think Stuart Dickson chipped in with that nonsense too.
Dickson has shown himself to be a man of straw. Good riddance to the Swedish turnip.
Mr. Ajob, Cameron did make plain it was contingent on the deficit being closed.
Mildly amused the line has changed from "It's unaffordable" to "It is affordable but it's not happening soon enough". Vaguely reminiscent of Labour's economic lines: Too far, too fast, the deficit should be cut slower It's hurting but it isn't working Unemployment is higher than in 2010 Growth is sluggish Ok, there are more jobs but they're the wrong sort Growth is good, but we still have a deficit What do you mean, we argued the deficit should be reduced more slowly? We've always been at war with Eurasia!
And people who use the 'debt has climbed more rapidly than under Labour' argument need the same sort of slap around the face with a large haddock that politicians who confuse the debt and deficit. The only way that would not have happened would be to have immediately an absolutely massive amount from spending. Which not only would've been mad by itself, but is also diametrically opposed to everything else the left has been saying, and betrays someone either innumerate or so deliberately misleading others as to veer into deceit.
Either do it now and go for it, go for growth by putting money in people's pockets (a generally good idea) or don't do it.
What you should not do is at once change your five year focus to offer a mirage tax cut at some vaguely defined point in the far future.
David L I believe the tax cuts will not come in until a surplus is achieved
Or 2020, whichever happens first? Or is it whichever happens last?
No-one knows. The policy appears to be very vague. When I first saw it, I thought, like any family man. Wow - lots more money every month. But it's so far in the future, and with so many vague caveats, I'm surprised the likes of the Mail have fallen for it. They are usually pretty good at unpicking government sleight of hand.
It's not that difficult to understand... We promised we'd get to a personal allowance of £10,000 in this parliament and we exceeded it. So, trust us to meet a similar target next time. Simples. (Let's just ignore not meeting the deficit target, as that was someone else's fault.)
I was sceptical about the instant analysis of tweets last week and I still feel the same (not least because the Twittersphere is not likely to be especially representative), but this gives a bit more detail on how it's done:
By the way, I do think the SNP is on a roll at the moment, subsamples or not. The implications of that deserve a separate article if it persists, since it increases the probability of instability: my understanding of Scottish politics (DavidL and others can correct me if I'm wrong) is that the SNP couldn't support a Tory government without devastating its base like the LibDems have, but that having put a Labour government in, they wouldn't be available for everyday votes on non-Scottish issues. Another election in 2016, anyone?
If the Tories stick to their word on The Vow and deliver substantial devolution in Scotland - and Labour are seen to try to block it, that may change - the SNP may be less squeamish about propping up a Tory government in England, if that's what England voted for, and then there's their current practice of EVEL, which surely limits their utility to Labour in England?
Mr. Ajob, Cameron did make plain it was contingent on the deficit being closed.
Mildly amused the line has changed from "It's unaffordable" to "It is affordable but it's not happening soon enough". Vaguely reminiscent of Labour's economic lines: Too far, too fast, the deficit should be cut slower It's hurting but it isn't working Unemployment is higher than in 2010 Growth is sluggish Ok, there are more jobs but they're the wrong sort Growth is good, but we still have a deficit What do you mean, we argued the deficit should be reduced more slowly? We've always been at war with Eurasia!
And people who use the 'debt has climbed more rapidly than under Labour' argument need the same sort of slap around the face with a large haddock that politicians who confuse the debt and deficit. The only way that would not have happened would be to have immediately an absolutely massive amount from spending. Which not only would've been mad by itself, but is also diametrically opposed to everything else the left has been saying, and betrays someone either innumerate or so deliberately misleading others as to veer into deceit.
Either do it now and go for it, go for growth by putting money in people's pockets (a generally good idea) or don't do it.
What you should not do is at once change your five year focus to offer a mirage tax cut at some vaguely defined point in the far future.
That's an absurdly contradictory argument. Either you think the Coalition is closing the deficit too fast or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.
Mr. Ajob, disagree. It's better for people to keep more of their own money but we have to pay our way as a nation. It's irresponsible to rack up debt, the moral equivalent of loading a shopping trolley with clothes and departing the store, leaving one's sons or daughters to pick up the bill.
It's not that difficult to understand... We promised we'd get to a personal allowance of £10,000 in this parliament and we exceeded it. So, trust us to meet a similar target next time. Simples. (Let's just ignore not meeting the deficit target, as that was someone else's fault.)
Just checking, Baskerville. Who is the "we" who promised to get the personal allowance to 10,000 in this parliament?
Clue: Cameron said any increase was impossible......
Mr. Ajob, disagree. It's better for people to keep more of their own money but we have to pay our way as a nation. It's irresponsible to rack up debt, the moral equivalent of loading a shopping trolley with clothes and departing the store, leaving one's sons or daughters to pick up the bill.
Fine. That's a perfectly reasonable position. Then why dangle an illusory tax cut at HR taxpayers who are already paying huge amounts of tax and, in my case, prohibitive marginal rates because of the grossly insane CB Tax Charge?
Cameron must think we are completely stupid, to fall for it.
Having looked at it a bit more closely I think Cameron has got a remarkably big bang for a pretty modest buck on the tax cuts. At the most this is going to make a difference of £1-2bn in the early years of the next Parliament when the heavy lifting of deficit reduction is being done and such a sum can easily be recovered elsewhere.
That said I personally do not like the presentation when combined with the cuts in real terms in benefits. We may yet see more cuts in benefits, in fact we will have to. I would urge the government to make sure these are more aimed at the higher paid recipients. In work benefits for those earning more than £40K a year is a very obvious starting point. In fact every household who receive more than average wages should feel the pain ahead of those that don't.
I also note there is no repeat of the foolish promise for the freebies for the elderly. All of these have to be means tested PDQ.
My fear is that, like the 50p tax cut, the Tories have given Labour a get out of jail free card for irresponsible spending. When this is criticised they will simply say, well we think spending on X is more important than tax cuts.
Oddly, the parties have swapped positions on the deficit. Labour's commitments are nearly all at the expense of someone other than the taxpayer - employers to pay higher minimum wage, electricity companies to freeze prices, companies recruiting foreign staff to hire apprentices at the same time, etc. The Tory focus on the deficit lasted just long enough to bash benefits, before 48 hours later announcing what appears to be an £8.2 bn commitment for tax-cutting.
To some extent that reflects what each party has to prove. Labour needs to persuade people that we're not mad spenders. The Tories need to persuade people that they'll get something out of economic recovery. But having caught up with Cameron's speech on News at Ten last night it seemed to me alternately implausible (trust me on defeating Europe, look at my record - er, yes Dave, you only lost 2-26 on Juncker), reactionary (knock people on benefits to give £1500 to people on £50K) and completely at odds in tone with the "deficit first" message on Monday. I'm sure the press enthusiasm will help in the polls, but the internal inconsistencies will make it difficult to maintain.
implausible positions.
One the majority of the newspapers appear to have bought......
Look, we get it. You are cheesed off because the Tories have gambled on cashing in a bit of their economic credibility and look like they are going to get away with it.
Remember that all the pollsters in Scotland over-stated YES
Has there been any systemic analysis? Was it as simple as weighting by Holyrood 2011, rather than Westminster 2010?
I'm sure that serious analysis is being carried out by Curtice & Co. My reading is that there was a big overstatement of likelihood to vote amongst certain segments. I'm sure as well that there were shy noes.
Mr Dancer... ''And people who use the 'debt has climbed more rapidly than under Labour' argument need the same sort of slap around the face with a large haddock that politicians who confuse the debt and deficit. The only way that would not have happened would be to have immediately an absolutely massive amount from spending. Which not only would've been mad by itself, but is also diametrically opposed to everything else the left has been saying, and betrays someone either innumerate or so deliberately misleading others as to veer into deceit. ''
Can you put that up in neon lights please? The govt have been meeting its spending targets and surpassing them. personally I have no faith in Labour keeping to the restraint the tories have been showing and to be honest I wouldn't trust UKIP either. But a UKIP govt would create a sterling crisis an investment crisis and a social unrest crisis so it would be the least of our troubles. Not that that the UK population are not going to go down the hate filled and divisive route of the opportunistic chancer that is Farage, but listening to him will inevitably give us a Labour govt.
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
All either zero hours contracts or filled by immigrants or both , equals useless.
A typically snobbish, xenophobic and inaccurate comment from MalcolmG. SNP loser.
That from a deluded fantasist..........LOL
Which of you was right about SINDY?
We had a load of nonsense from Malc about the response on the doorstep being better than the polls. I think Stuart Dickson chipped in with that nonsense too.
Dickson has shown himself to be a man of straw. Good riddance to the Swedish turnip.
I think the NO result was his topping point.....
Very good. But I sincerely hope that our Swedish correspondent isn't just another statistic of Nordic despair.
Apart from Clegg's recent announcement about keeping the Human Rights legislation in the UK and Europe (except that he wants its interpretation by the judiciary to reflect actuality and so be given such guidelines), do we expect anything new from the LDs this weekend?
Or are they thinking of engaging in trench warfare and defending what they hold and abandon the rest of the battlefield?
In fact they have blown their once-in-century chance of being in power by pursuing political ambition instead of making a very strong coalition with corresponding results that reacted to both events and the needs of the electorate.
If their conference closes its ears and pursues its political policies, then it could well be doomed to less than 20 seats and have a smaller vote than the Greens and end up being the UK's fifth/sixth party. Once you are on the slippery slide, as the LDs history shows, it is very hard to crawl back up.
I’m a bit worried about the zero hoours contract issue. Without such things what will happen to such people as “bank” nurses and indeed other NHS staff? System seems to work well in such cases. And there are other occupations where it works.
Somewhat concerned about losing both baby and bathwater.
Remember that all the pollsters in Scotland over-stated YES
Has there been any systemic analysis? Was it as simple as weighting by Holyrood 2011, rather than Westminster 2010?
I'm sure that serious analysis is being carried out by Curtice & Co. My reading is that there was a big overstatement of likelihood to vote amongst certain segments. I'm sure as well that there were shy noes.
Notably the two big Yes cities, Glasgow and Dundee had lower turnout. Perhaps the brilliant SNP GOTV operation was not all it was vaunted to be.
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
All either zero hours contracts or filled by immigrants or both , equals useless.
A typically snobbish, xenophobic and inaccurate comment from MalcolmG. SNP loser.
That from a deluded fantasist..........LOL
Which of you was right about SINDY?
We had a load of nonsense from Malc about the response on the doorstep being better than the polls. I think Stuart Dickson chipped in with that nonsense too.
Dickson has shown himself to be a man of straw. Good riddance to the Swedish turnip.
I think the NO result was his topping point.....
Very good. But I sincerely hope that our Swedish correspondent isn't just another statistic of Nordic despair.
Mr. Ajob, Cameron did make plain it was contingent on the deficit being closed.
Mildly amused the line has changed from "It's unaffordable" to "It is affordable but it's not happening soon enough". Vaguely reminiscent of Labour's economic lines: Too far, too fast, the deficit should be cut slower It's hurting but it isn't working Unemployment is higher than in 2010 Growth is sluggish Ok, there are more jobs but they're the wrong sort Growth is good, but we still have a deficit What do you mean, we argued the deficit should be reduced more slowly? We've always been at war with Eurasia!
And people who use the 'debt has climbed more rapidly than under Labour' argument need the same sort of slap around the face with a large haddock that politicians who confuse the debt and deficit. The only way that would not have happened would be to have immediately an absolutely massive amount from spending. Which not only would've been mad by itself, but is also diametrically opposed to everything else the left has been saying, and betrays someone either innumerate or so deliberately misleading others as to veer into deceit.
Either do it now and go for it, go for growth by putting money in people's pockets (a generally good idea) or don't do it.
What you should not do is at once change your five year focus to offer a mirage tax cut at some vaguely defined point in the far future.
That's an absurdly contradictory argument. Either you think the Coalition is closing the deficit too fast or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.
I'm saying do one thing or the other. If you think the tax cut will boost growth then do that. If you don't, then don't. The contradiction is coming from the government, not me. Trying to have their cake and eat it with an illusory tax cut that exists only in Cam's imagination.
"Dear voter: I'll hire you now and pay you in five years' time"
Mr Dancer... ''And people who use the 'debt has climbed more rapidly than under Labour' argument need the same sort of slap around the face with a large haddock that politicians who confuse the debt and deficit. The only way that would not have happened would be to have immediately an absolutely massive amount from spending. Which not only would've been mad by itself, but is also diametrically opposed to everything else the left has been saying, and betrays someone either innumerate or so deliberately misleading others as to veer into deceit. ''
Can you put that up in neon lights please? The govt have been meeting its spending targets and surpassing them. personally I have no faith in Labour keeping to the restraint the tories have been showing and to be honest I wouldn't trust UKIP either. But a UKIP govt would create a sterling crisis an investment crisis and a social unrest crisis so it would be the least of our troubles. Not that that the UK population are not going to go down the hate filled and divisive route of the opportunistic chancer that is Farage, but listening to him will inevitably give us a Labour govt.
ROFL, Osborne just keeps moving the target in the hope that one day he might hit it. Hollande was doing the same yesterday in the French budget.
It's not that difficult to understand... We promised we'd get to a personal allowance of £10,000 in this parliament and we exceeded it. So, trust us to meet a similar target next time. Simples. (Let's just ignore not meeting the deficit target, as that was someone else's fault.)
Just checking, Baskerville. Who is the "we" who promised to get the personal allowance to 10,000 in this parliament?
Clue: Cameron said any increase was impossible......
The point I was trying to make was that 'we've done it before, so we can do it again', is a better argument than just 'trust us'.
Having looked at it a bit more closely I think Cameron has got a remarkably big bang for a pretty modest buck on the tax cuts. At the most this is going to make a difference of £1-2bn in the early years of the next Parliament when the heavy lifting of deficit reduction is being done and such a sum can easily be recovered elsewhere.
That said I personally do not like the presentation when combined with the cuts in real terms in benefits. We may yet see more cuts in benefits, in fact we will have to. I would urge the government to make sure these are more aimed at the higher paid recipients. In work benefits for those earning more than £40K a year is a very obvious starting point. In fact every household who receive more than average wages should feel the pain ahead of those that don't.
I also note there is no repeat of the foolish promise for the freebies for the elderly. All of these have to be means tested PDQ.
My fear is that, like the 50p tax cut, the Tories have given Labour a get out of jail free card for irresponsible spending. When this is criticised they will simply say, well we think spending on X is more important than tax cuts.
Oddly, the parties have swapped positions on the deficit. Labour's commitments are nearly all at the expense of someone other than the taxpayer - employers to pay higher minimum wage, electricity companies to freeze prices, companies recruiting foreign staff to hire apprentices at the same time, etc. The Tory focus on the deficit lasted just long enough to bash benefits, before 48 hours later announcing what appears to be an £8.2 bn commitment for tax-cutting.
To some extent that reflects what each party has to prove. Labour needs to persuade people that we're not mad spenders. The Tories need to persuade people that they'll get something out of economic recovery. But having caught up with Cameron's speech on News at Ten last night it seemed to me alternately implausible (trust me on defeating Europe, look at my record - er, yes Dave, you only lost 2-26 on Juncker), reactionary (knock people on benefits to give £1500 to people on £50K) and completely at odds in tone with the "deficit first" message on Monday. I'm sure the press enthusiasm will help in the polls, but the internal inconsistencies will make it difficult to maintain.
implausible positions.
One the majority of the newspapers appear to have bought......
Look, we get it. You are cheesed off because the Tories have gambled on cashing in a bit of their economic credibility and look like they are going to get away with it.
Remember that all the pollsters in Scotland over-stated YES
Has there been any systemic analysis? Was it as simple as weighting by Holyrood 2011, rather than Westminster 2010?
I'm sure that serious analysis is being carried out by Curtice & Co. My reading is that there was a big overstatement of likelihood to vote amongst certain segments. I'm sure as well that there were shy noes.
Notably the two big Yes cities, Glasgow and Dundee had lower turnout. Perhaps the brilliant SNP GOTV operation was not all it was vaunted to be.
I made that point to a Scottish friend of mine who claimed "exceptional" turnout in Glasgow.
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
Remember that all the pollsters in Scotland over-stated YES
We'll have to see what John Curtice and others come up with, but I'm not sure that's quite right. Taking the opinion-poll figures, and allowing for the expected last-minute movement towards the status quo, got me to my prediction of around 43% to 45%, which was spot-on.
I don't think that really counts as the pollsters over-stating Yes, in the sense that I think they accurately measured sentiment at the time that they polled. In other words, it didn't seem to be a sampling or weighting error.
Important health information for PB.Know your shrooms.
PublicHealthEngland @PHE_uk 2m2 minutes ago Mushroom fact: There were 237 reports of poisoning linked to people picking and eating #mushrooms last year http://bit.ly/YRskIk
Remember that all the pollsters in Scotland over-stated YES
Has there been any systemic analysis? Was it as simple as weighting by Holyrood 2011, rather than Westminster 2010?
I'm sure that serious analysis is being carried out by Curtice & Co. My reading is that there was a big overstatement of likelihood to vote amongst certain segments. I'm sure as well that there were shy noes.
Notably the two big Yes cities, Glasgow and Dundee had lower turnout. Perhaps the brilliant SNP GOTV operation was not all it was vaunted to be.
I made that point to a Scottish friend of mine who claimed "exceptional" turnout in Glasgow.
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
All either zero hours contracts or filled by immigrants or both , equals useless.
A typically snobbish, xenophobic and inaccurate comment from MalcolmG. SNP loser.
That from a deluded fantasist..........LOL
Which of you was right about SINDY?
We had a load of nonsense from Malc about the response on the doorstep being better than the polls. I think Stuart Dickson chipped in with that nonsense too.
Dickson has shown himself to be a man of straw. Good riddance to the Swedish turnip.
I think the NO result was his topping point.....
Very good. But I sincerely hope that our Swedish correspondent isn't just another statistic of Nordic despair.
Without wishing to be mean to bruised Yes egos, I can't help but feel that their personal passion on the doorstep didn't help much. Browbeating someone into agreeing with you, isn't a real Yes.
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
All either zero hours contracts or filled by immigrants or both , equals useless.
A typically snobbish, xenophobic and inaccurate comment from MalcolmG. SNP loser.
That from a deluded fantasist..........LOL
Which of you was right about SINDY?
We had a load of nonsense from Malc about the response on the doorstep being better than the polls. I think Stuart Dickson chipped in with that nonsense too.
The last minute bribes were what won it , we will see what if any of them are kept and what happens as a result of that. There were enough cowardly fools to accept the false promises of jam tomorrow if they just voted NO. Lot of water to flow under the bridge yet.
Apart from Clegg's recent announcement about keeping the Human Rights legislation in the UK and Europe (except that he wants its interpretation by the judiciary to reflect actuality and so be given such guidelines), do we expect anything new from the LDs this weekend?
No inside information, Financier, but I would imagine that the Lib Dems will be trying to reclaim the good and successful policies of this Coalition Government, which they pushed for since the beginning; but which Mssrs Cameron & Osborne are now claiming were Tory policies all along.
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
Without wishing to be mean to bruised Yes egos, I can't help but feel that their personal passion on the doorstep didn't help much. Browbeating someone into agreeing with you, isn't a real Yes.
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
All either zero hours contracts or filled by immigrants or both , equals useless.
A typically snobbish, xenophobic and inaccurate comment from MalcolmG. SNP loser.
That from a deluded fantasist..........LOL
Which of you was right about SINDY?
We had a load of nonsense from Malc about the response on the doorstep being better than the polls. I think Stuart Dickson chipped in with that nonsense too.
The last minute bribes were what won it , we will see what if any of them are kept and what happens as a result of that. There were enough cowardly fools to accept the false promises of jam tomorrow if they just voted NO. Lot of water to flow under the bridge yet.
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
There was some extraordinary positing - even by the extreme standards of PB - yesterday where certain posters were trying to deny any shift in Tory focus. The most remarkable thing was that it was Antifrank leading this charge - one not normally known for holding implausible positions.
Nick Palmer, unlike you, seems to understand what's going on (and unlike you, he remembered back as far as Monday, never mind last week). The Tories are able to offer tax cuts precisely because they are trusted on the deficit. Labour cannot go on a spending spree because it is not. Labour is in a strategically awful position on the economy because it failed in the early years of this Government to set out some challenging positions on cuts that would persuade the public that it understood how to make difficult decisions. Now the public don't believe that Labour can.
It also means that Labour have real difficulties when criticising these tax cuts. The public hears Labour saying the Conservatives are being profligate and thinks "great, these tax cuts must be worth having". It doesn't think "right, Labour's a safer pair of hands". I see that Richard Nabavi pointed this out last night.
Will the Tories stop banging on about the deficit? To say the least, this is unlikely. This is a gift that keeps giving, and Ed Miliband's failure to mention it in his conference speech is likely to be mentioned right the way up to the next election. It may yet prove to be an election-losing mistake.
For a good summary of the Conservative positioning (and its problems), Janan Ganesh has a good analysis in the FT:
"The Tories are going to contest the election as tax-cutters and fiscal hawks at the same time."
"The lasting impression from Thursday is of an economic message that requires voters to believe two things about the Tories: that they are sober stewards of this country’s dire public finances, and that they will cut taxes. The two things are reconcilable, but the tension will be explored and stress-tested over the coming months."
No doubt you will add him to the list of people who just don't get it. But you will continue to ignore the significance of the deficit in the electoral debate up to and after the election. If Labour lose, you will be at a loss to understand why.
Are the Tory tax cuts plausible? Silly question. The right question is whether the right section of the population will buy it. Early indications (Daniel Hannan, Janet Daley, Peter Oborne, the Express front page) are that they will. UKIP will be fretting.
Having looked at it a bit more closely I think Cameron has got a remarkably big bang for a pretty modest buck on the tax cuts. At the most this is going to make a difference of £1-2bn in the early years of the next Parliament when the heavy lifting of deficit reduction is being done and such a sum can easily be recovered elsewhere.
That said I personally do not like the presentation when combined with the cuts in real terms in benefits. We may yet see more cuts in benefits, in fact we will have to. I would urge the government to make sure these are more aimed at the higher paid recipients. In work benefits for those earning more than £40K a year is a very obvious starting point. In fact every household who receive more than average wages should feel the pain ahead of those that don't. I also note there is no repeat of the foolish promise for the freebies for the elderly. All of these have to be means tested PDQ. My fear is that, like the 50p tax cut, the Tories have given Labour a get out of jail free card for irresponsible spending. When this is criticised they will simply say, well we think spending on X is more important than tax cuts.
Oddly, the parties have swapped positions on the deficit. Labour's commitments are nearly all at the expense of someone other than the taxpayer - employers to pay higher minimum wage, electricity companies to freeze prices, companies recruiting foreign staff to hire apprentices at the same time, etc. The Tory focus on the deficit lasted just long enough to bash benefits, before 48 hours later announcing what appears to be an £8.2 bn commitment for tax-cutting.
To some extent that reflects what each party has to prove. Labour needs to persuade people that we're not mad spenders. The Tories need to persuade people that they'll get something out of economic recovery. But having caught up with Cameron's speech on News at Ten last night it seemed to me alternately implausible (trust me on defeating Europe, look at my record - er, yes Dave, you only lost 2-26 on Juncker), reactionary (knock people on benefits to give £1500 to people on £50K) and completely at odds in tone with the "deficit first" message on Monday. I'm sure the press enthusiasm will help in the polls, but the internal inconsistencies will make it difficult to maintain.
implausible positions.
One the majority of the newspapers appear to have bought...... Look, we get it. You are cheesed off because the Tories have gambled on cashing in a bit of their economic credibility and look like they are going to get away with it. Understandably galling.
The Scottish subsamples aren't garbage, they're just not precise. It's practically impossible to reconcile the figures Pulpstar dug out with anything other than a substantial SNP surge.
Without wishing to be mean to bruised Yes egos, I can't help but feel that their personal passion on the doorstep didn't help much. Browbeating someone into agreeing with you, isn't a real Yes.
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
All either zero hours contracts or filled by immigrants or both , equals useless.
A typically snobbish, xenophobic and inaccurate comment from MalcolmG. SNP loser.
That from a deluded fantasist..........LOL
Which of you was right about SINDY?
We had a load of nonsense from Malc about the response on the doorstep being better than the polls. I think Stuart Dickson chipped in with that nonsense too.
The last minute bribes were what won it , we will see what if any of them are kept and what happens as a result of that. There were enough cowardly fools to accept the false promises of jam tomorrow if they just voted NO. Lot of water to flow under the bridge yet.
Ah yes the Dolchstoss theory.
Spot on. The stab-in-the-back myth is a perennial favourite with defeated extreme nationalists;
One the majority of the newspapers appear to have bought......
Look, we get it. You are cheesed off because the Tories have gambled on cashing in a bit of their economic credibility and look like they are going to get away with it.
Understandably galling.
Tough.
You in a bit of a grouchy mood?
And you clearly haven't read the FT this morning.
Is the FT now the gold standard for all things 'economic'?
Must remember that the next time it rubbishes a Labour plan.
Without wishing to be mean to bruised Yes egos, I can't help but feel that their personal passion on the doorstep didn't help much. Browbeating someone into agreeing with you, isn't a real Yes.
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
All either zero hours contracts or filled by immigrants or both , equals useless.
A typically snobbish, xenophobic and inaccurate comment from MalcolmG. SNP loser.
That from a deluded fantasist..........LOL
Which of you was right about SINDY?
We had a load of nonsense from Malc about the response on the doorstep being better than the polls. I think Stuart Dickson chipped in with that nonsense too.
The last minute bribes were what won it
Not supported by the polling evidence which suggests a 1 or 2 point swing to No at most.
Yes lost because the people of Scotland saw through Project Fib - and the longer the Nats keep denying that, the further away independence will get.
Having looked at it a bit more closely I think Cameron has got a remarkably big bang for a pretty modest buck on the tax cuts. At the most this is going to make a difference of £1-2bn in the early years of the next Parliament when the heavy lifting of deficit reduction is being done and such a sum can easily be recovered elsewhere.
That said I personally do not like the presentation when combined with the cuts in real terms in benefits. We may yet see more cuts in benefits, in fact we will have to. I would urge the government to make sure these are more aimed at the higher paid recipients. In work benefits for those earning more than £40K a year is a very obvious starting point. In fact every household who receive more than average wages should feel the pain ahead of those that don't.
I also note there is no repeat of the foolish promise for the freebies for the elderly. All of these have to be means tested PDQ.
My fear is that, like the 50p tax cut, the Tories have given Labour a get out of jail free card for irresponsible spending. When this is criticised they will simply say, well we think spending on X is more important than tax cuts.
Let them say that. At the end of the day, the Conservatives are a small state, low tax party. Labour are a large state, high tax party.
If we're not willing to have that intellectual fight (and win) we may as well go home. Personally, I'm delighted the Conservatives are proposing to shrink the size of the state - I think it'll further incentivise work and put our economy on a much more sustainable footing for the 21stC.
As you say, the tax cuts aren't unaffordable. The commitment isn't until 2020. Osborne could quite easily make very modest tax cuts until 2018 (when we should be back in balance) and then ramp up the tax cuts to meet the pledge as we head into surplus.
There was some extraordinary positing - even by the extreme standards of PB - yesterday where certain posters were trying to deny any shift in Tory focus. The most remarkable thing was that it was Antifrank leading this charge - one not normally known for holding implausible positions.
Nick Palmer, unlike you, seems to understand what's going on (and unlike you, he remembered back as far as Monday, never mind last week). The Tories are able to offer tax cuts precisely because they are trusted on the deficit. Labour cannot go on a spending spree because it is not. Labour is in a strategically awful position on the economy because it failed in the early years of this Government to set out some challenging positions on cuts that would persuade the public that it understood how to make difficult decisions. Now the public don't believe that Labour can.
It also means that Labour have real difficulties when criticising these tax cuts. The public hears Labour saying the Conservatives are being profligate and thinks "great, these tax cuts must be worth having". It doesn't think "right, Labour's a safer pair of hands". I see that Richard Nabavi pointed this out last night.
Will the Tories stop banging on about the deficit? To say the least, this is unlikely. This is a gift that keeps giving, and Ed Miliband's failure to mention it in his conference speech is likely to be mentioned right the way up to the next election. It may yet prove to be an election-losing mistake.
*snip to allowable comment length*
But you will continue to ignore the significance of the deficit in the electoral debate up to and after the election. If Labour lose, you will be at a loss to understand why.
Are the Tory tax cuts plausible? Silly question. The right question is whether the right section of the population will buy it. Early indications (Daniel Hannan, Janet Daley, Peter Oborne, the Express front page) are that they will. UKIP will be fretting.
Well put. I'd add that partisan Labour commenters have very little credibility when they criticise Tory spending plans. They're tarred with the same brush, and shrieking about Tory pledges makes them look disconnected from both political and economic reality.
Just checking up on Diplomacy MkIV. Can anyone stop the foul whiff of garlic polluting the whole continent? Russia and Germany appear to be enjoying a spot of hokey-cokey.
There was some extraordinary positing - even by the extreme standards of PB - yesterday where certain posters were trying to deny any shift in Tory focus. The most remarkable thing was that it was Antifrank leading this charge - one not normally known for holding implausible positions.
For a good summary of the Conservative positioning (and its problems), Janan Ganesh has a good analysis in the FT:
"The Tories are going to contest the election as tax-cutters and fiscal hawks at the same time."
"The lasting impression from Thursday is of an economic message that requires voters to believe two things about the Tories: that they are sober stewards of this country’s dire public finances, and that they will cut taxes. The two things are reconcilable, but the tension will be explored and stress-tested over the coming months."
No doubt you will add him to the list of people who just don't get it. But you will continue to ignore the significance of the deficit in the electoral debate up to and after the election. If Labour lose, you will be at a loss to understand why.
Are the Tory tax cuts plausible? Silly question. The right question is whether the right section of the population will buy it. Early indications (Daniel Hannan, Janet Daley, Peter Oborne, the Express front page) are that they will. UKIP will be fretting.
There's definitely an element that the taxes are the reward for good behaviour of working hard to do the difficult thing over the previous five (or eight by that point) years. The Conservatives are the people that are spending a lot of money buying a new home after years of saving, while Labour are shouting "but I thought you were always telling us spending was irresponsible!" following years of credit card-financed holidays.
Remember that all the pollsters in Scotland over-stated YES
Has there been any systemic analysis? Was it as simple as weighting by Holyrood 2011, rather than Westminster 2010?
I'm sure that serious analysis is being carried out by Curtice & Co. My reading is that there was a big overstatement of likelihood to vote amongst certain segments. I'm sure as well that there were shy noes.
Notably the two big Yes cities, Glasgow and Dundee had lower turnout. Perhaps the brilliant SNP GOTV operation was not all it was vaunted to be.
Surely the lesson to learn is that while anger - when it looks like passion - may impress some voters, it is evidently a very poor motivator for people to actually go out and vote.
Political anger often goes hand in hand with a feeling of helplessness. You know perfectly well that your Angrily cast vote will actually make nothing better and make much worse. So feel more helpless, and more angry. And you don't bother. You send a little message about disengagement, instead.
Yes couldn't get its vote out in its strongest areas; Farage has lost every single Westminster election he's fought on his angry platform, even including the one where Labour stood aside for him.
A substantial chunk of the Yes vote, perhaps all of it, was the Angry vote. Generalised inchoate anger at stuff was, I suspect, just not enough on the day to get them out to vote.
It'll piss off the Yestapo by raising the profile of the moon on a stick yet to be delivered to Scotland. It'll piss off the English by making blatant Labour's desire for Scottish income tax to be set by MSPs, but Scots MPs to still have a say on English income tax. It'll even piss off No voters, who probably just want a bit of peace and quiet after years of complaining.
Where's the advantage for nation, or even the Labour Party?
Incidentally, there is one fox still remaining to be shot by Osborne. He has it penned in and is no doubt biding his time so as to get the maximum bang when he pulls the trigger. It's a very obvious one.
Are there any prospects of a Scottish Labour MP defecting to the SNP prior to the GE?
I'd go with zero percent. Scottish Labour is all about hating the SNP.
Maybe, but politicians are all about power, and keeping it. If the wind keeps blowing in the direction of the Nats, I could see someone jumping ship [sorry about that appalling mixed metaphor]. If Labour campaign against EVEL it would give them a bit of cover to do so.
Apart from Clegg's recent announcement about keeping the Human Rights legislation in the UK and Europe (except that he wants its interpretation by the judiciary to reflect actuality and so be given such guidelines), do we expect anything new from the LDs this weekend?
No inside information, Financier, but I would imagine that the Lib Dems will be trying to reclaim the good and successful policies of this Coalition Government, which they pushed for since the beginning; but which Mssrs Cameron & Osborne are now claiming were Tory policies all along.
They could try and project how good coalitions are, that it is good for the country to be co-operative and that they share in the credit for the better place that the country is in than what Labour left. They could also heap a ton of the smelly stuff on Labour and share in the common view most voters have on Labour's economic credibility.
Nah. They will instead chuck cr*p on the Conservatives, wring their hands about the cuts, insult Thatcher and wonder why they only have 7% in the polls.....
Oddly, the parties have swapped positions on the deficit. Labour's commitments are nearly all at the expense of someone other than the taxpayer - employers to pay higher minimum wage, electricity companies to freeze prices, companies recruiting foreign staff to hire apprentices at the same time, etc. The Tory focus on the deficit lasted just long enough to bash benefits, before 48 hours later announcing what appears to be an £8.2 bn commitment for tax-cutting.
To some extent that reflects what each party has to prove. Labour needs to persuade people that we're not mad spenders. The Tories need to persuade people that they'll get something out of economic recovery. But having caught up with Cameron's speech on News at Ten last night it seemed to me alternately implausible (trust me on defeating Europe, look at my record - er, yes Dave, you only lost 2-26 on Juncker), reactionary (knock people on benefits to give £1500 to people on £50K) and completely at odds in tone with the "deficit first" message on Monday. I'm sure the press enthusiasm will help in the polls, but the internal inconsistencies will make it difficult to maintain.
As I have said the tax cuts are much smaller than is being indicated and certainly won't amount to anything like £8.2bn a year. Are you suggesting this is cumulatively over the Parliament? What we would in fact see in practice is increases focussed on the 40% band in a similar way to what we have seen with the personal allowance in this Parliament. The consequence will be fewer (but not necessarily no) people pulled into the 40% band than would otherwise have been the case.
Labour have a very, very long way to go to persuade people that they are not "mad spenders". Despite a terrifyingly high level of public debt their target for the end of the next Parliament is to reduce borrowing to the level that it meets current expenditure but none of the capital spending. The result is that the debt continues to increase at an unacceptable rate. Add in some Brownian nonsense about what is "investment" and what is current spending and you once again have a recipe for letting rip.
And these are likely to be the good years in terms of growth. I fear for the next government that has to handle a downturn, I really do. We are not doing nearly enough to fix the roof whilst the sun is at least peeping out from behind the clouds.
There was some extraordinary positing - even by the extreme standards of PB - yesterday where certain posters were trying to deny any shift in Tory focus. The most remarkable thing was that it was Antifrank leading this charge - one not normally known for holding implausible positions.
For a good summary of the Conservative positioning (and its problems), Janan Ganesh has a good analysis in the FT:
"The Tories are going to contest the election as tax-cutters and fiscal hawks at the same time."
"The lasting impression from Thursday is of an economic message that requires voters to believe two things about the Tories: that they are sober stewards of this country’s dire public finances, and that they will cut taxes. The two things are reconcilable, but the tension will be explored and stress-tested over the coming months."
No doubt you will add him to the list of people who just don't get it. But you will continue to ignore the significance of the deficit in the electoral debate up to and after the election. If Labour lose, you will be at a loss to understand why.
Are the Tory tax cuts plausible? Silly question. The right question is whether the right section of the population will buy it. Early indications (Daniel Hannan, Janet Daley, Peter Oborne, the Express front page) are that they will. UKIP will be fretting.
There's definitely an element that the taxes are the reward for good behaviour of working hard to do the difficult thing over the previous five (or eight by that point) years. The Conservatives are the people that are spending a lot of money buying a new home after years of saving, while Labour are shouting "but I thought you were always telling us spending was irresponsible!" following years of credit card-financed holidays.
And the energy companies won't be allowed to raise bills for the first five years of that. Keep in mind that as you close in on 100%, it gets increasingly expensive to get each extra percent of renewables because all the cheap and moderate options have been fully exploited. You're not only decommissioning all the coal power plants, but all the gas-run ones too. And we can't use the shale gas either.
How on Earth are the electricity companies to pay for to meet this demand and these commitments without more revenue? The blindingly obvious answer is that they won't. The government will have to step in with a massive bailout. This will be a huge explosion of the deficit.
Do Labour people not think about these things? Do they just think "well energy companies are rich, we can just milk them for all our needs"? Is there no second-order thinking at all?
I guess that explains how such a terrible policy managed to get through.
Carry on fighting on the side of the vested interests.
I bet you believed jobs would be lost when LAB introduced the minimum wage too didnt you?
Some care home residents are becoming malnourished because not enough thought is going into the food they are given, says Wales' older people's commissioner.....
Ms Rochira ordered her office to carry out unannounced visits to 100 care homes as part of a formal review of the quality of life and care for older people in residential homes.
One of the areas of concern was the meals served in homes, with claims that some residents were being given poor quality meals and no choice over what they ate.
"It is unacceptable that in some parts of Wales older people are malnourished in the place they should be able to call home," she said.
"If we don't get it right we'll have people who are frailer than they need to be, more people admitted to hospital than there needs to be."
"One that did stick with me was about a gentleman who needed a soft diet. Primarily, all he had to eat was mashed potato.
"People who told me that in the afternoons, invariably all they seemed to have available to them were cold, dry sandwiches.
"It is not anything any of us would want - for anybody."
In the last four quarters the UK has run a balance of payments deficit of over £90bn.
What is especially worrying is that we are now running a huge and steadily increasing deficit on investment income - an area where the UK has traditionally had a surplus.
Those foreign takeovers of British businesses which are so applauded aren't such a good thing if the wealth is then taken out of this country are they.
And this government's big economic idea is to give the magic money tree another shaking.
I guess Osborne has rebalanced the economy into a big import sucking machine. Pretty useless as Chancellor.
" The United Kingdom has created more new jobs over the past four years than the other 27 EU members put together. "
Incidentally, there is one fox still remaining to be shot by Osborne. He has it penned in and is no doubt biding his time so as to get the maximum bang when he pulls the trigger. It's a very obvious one.
A senior Russian Foreign Ministry official says that Moscow has a responsibility to protect ethnic Russian citizens of other countries, "regardless of where they live," and that "we will do everything possible to defend the rights and interests" of ethnic Russian minorities in the neighboring Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Those that think just letting Putin getting away with invading and annexing parts of neighbouring countries would avoid be the end of the matter are idiots.
Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick 7m7 minutes ago Lib Dem fantasyland. Even their leaflet in Heywood & Middleton has usual Lib Dem silly graph, with no mention of Ukip
The Scottish subsamples aren't garbage, they're just not precise. It's practically impossible to reconcile the figures Pulpstar dug out with anything other than a substantial SNP surge.
In 2008/09 - Some of the Scottish sub-samples showed an SNP surge as well.
SNP Result. Number of gains zero, share of the vote up 2.3%
Remember that all the pollsters in Scotland over-stated YES
Has there been any systemic analysis? Was it as simple as weighting by Holyrood 2011, rather than Westminster 2010?
I'm sure that serious analysis is being carried out by Curtice & Co. My reading is that there was a big overstatement of likelihood to vote amongst certain segments. I'm sure as well that there were shy noes.
Notably the two big Yes cities, Glasgow and Dundee had lower turnout. Perhaps the brilliant SNP GOTV operation was not all it was vaunted to be.
They look to have done better than SLAB usually do but shifting 50% to 65% is a big ask, expecting 75% (or whatever the pollsters used) was an impossible ask.
Having looked at it a bit more closely I think Cameron has got a remarkably big bang for a pretty modest buck on the tax cuts. At the most this is going to make a difference of £1-2bn in the early years of the next Parliament when the heavy lifting of deficit reduction is being done and such a sum can easily be recovered elsewhere.
That said I personally do not like the presentation when combined with the cuts in real terms in benefits. We may yet see more cuts in benefits, in fact we will have to. I would urge the government to make sure these are more aimed at the higher paid recipients. In work benefits for those earning more than £40K a year is a very obvious starting point. In fact every household who receive more than average wages should feel the pain ahead of those that don't.
I also note there is no repeat of the foolish promise for the freebies for the elderly. All of these have to be means tested PDQ.
My fear is that, like the 50p tax cut, the Tories have given Labour a get out of jail free card for irresponsible spending. When this is criticised they will simply say, well we think spending on X is more important than tax cuts.
Reductions in tax credits should happen at the same time as increased allowances, while sub inflation freezes in other benefits erode their cost.
Even so there will be lots of angst about new bedroom taxes. In any change in be efits the loses cry louder than the winners. We hear from the single person forced out of their 3 bed house that they have had for years, but not from the young family that move in as a result.
There are going to be some very harsh budgets before these tax changes occur, and probably need to be. The economy is now growing but there will be a downturn in time, maybe 2 years, maybe 8, but it will come. We cannot afford not to fix the nations finances in the next few years.
I agree with all of that. Our public spending is completely out of kilter with what we pay to the State and my reservations about yesterday is that it is not obvious to me that the way to a better balance is through tax cuts.
In 2010 the economy was still struggling to recover from a very severe recession and then it got a major knock from the EZ for the best part of 2 years. Osborne has made some progress but it is extremely difficult to reduce a deficit in those circumstances without putting the economy into a tail spin. With faster growth these excuses have gone. The time for action is now.
Comments
It's pretty clear what will happen: the huge costs will require sudden and massive ramp ups in prices post-2020, which is what the companies will do. This will cause fury among the electorate, who don't understand the economics and want to know why stable prices are suddenly facing 20%+ annual growth. Political pressure to limit the increases will be insurmountable, given the precedent of an outright cap, so the funding gap will be compounded. Obviously the target won't be met, because it's impossible, but Miliband will have to show significant progress towards it, given that he will likely be lagging in the polls with a surging Green party scooping up the former Lib/Lab waiverers and disillusioned left. The inevitable result will be massive government subsidies, blowing a huge hole in the deficit.
I guess this is why Ed Balls is insisting on not balancing the capital budget: the taxpayer will be forced to fund huge building of wind pumps and nuclear power.
Just saying like.
Turnip
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/01/david-cameron-negative-tweets-10-to-one-outweigh-positive-conservative-party-conference
By the way, I do think the SNP is on a roll at the moment, subsamples or not. The implications of that deserve a separate article if it persists, since it increases the probability of instability: my understanding of Scottish politics (DavidL and others can correct me if I'm wrong) is that the SNP couldn't support a Tory government without devastating its base like the LibDems have, but that having put a Labour government in, they wouldn't be available for everyday votes on non-Scottish issues. Another election in 2016, anyone?
Mildly amused the line has changed from "It's unaffordable" to "It is affordable but it's not happening soon enough". Vaguely reminiscent of Labour's economic lines:
Too far, too fast, the deficit should be cut slower
It's hurting but it isn't working
Unemployment is higher than in 2010
Growth is sluggish
Ok, there are more jobs but they're the wrong sort
Growth is good, but we still have a deficit
What do you mean, we argued the deficit should be reduced more slowly? We've always been at war with Eurasia!
And people who use the 'debt has climbed more rapidly than under Labour' argument need the same sort of slap around the face with a large haddock that politicians who confuse the debt and deficit. The only way that would not have happened would be to have immediately an absolutely massive amount from spending. Which not only would've been mad by itself, but is also diametrically opposed to everything else the left has been saying, and betrays someone either innumerate or so deliberately misleading others as to veer into deceit.
And he managed it without speaking to a single ordinary Scot. Impressive.
Cameron should have reprised his 'I was speaking to a 40 year old black man' spiel at this year's conference, with 'Jock' substituted.
No wonder he lost..
You are absolutely correct about EdM's and Labour's energy policy. Energy is something because of its lead times requires long term planning of the nature of the next 20-40 years - something completely off Labour's radar.
It would appear that Labour and EdM do not think, just propose a possible popular consumer policy, and leave the implications and how/if it will work later. If it gets rubbished by real thinkers, then quietly drop it and conjure up something else.
@Alanbrooke: re balance of payments. It was under Gordon B that the policy of, if we can import cheaper than we can make it let's import it, really got moving - indeed balance of payments were hardly mentioned when in previous years they had almost brought down governments. So whilst we were and still are outpriced by Eastern competition, we also lost the capacity and often skills to make those imports.
Re: France. The French have had a long-standing policy of ignoring EU policy and other agreements in order to support France and its industries/businesses. This has included 'illegal' government subsidies, bribes to foreign governments, import bans etc. However, the EU has been powerless to do anything about it and often does not even protest.
What you should not do is at once change your five year focus to offer a mirage tax cut at some vaguely defined point in the far future.
We promised we'd get to a personal allowance of £10,000 in this parliament and we exceeded it. So, trust us to meet a similar target next time. Simples.
(Let's just ignore not meeting the deficit target, as that was someone else's fault.)
Cameron must think we are completely stupid, to fall for it.
Look, we get it. You are cheesed off because the Tories have gambled on cashing in a bit of their economic credibility and look like they are going to get away with it.
Understandably galling.
Tough.
Can you put that up in neon lights please?
The govt have been meeting its spending targets and surpassing them.
personally I have no faith in Labour keeping to the restraint the tories have been showing and to be honest I wouldn't trust UKIP either. But a UKIP govt would create a sterling crisis an investment crisis and a social unrest crisis so it would be the least of our troubles.
Not that that the UK population are not going to go down the hate filled and divisive route of the opportunistic chancer that is Farage, but listening to him will inevitably give us a Labour govt.
Apart from Clegg's recent announcement about keeping the Human Rights legislation in the UK and Europe (except that he wants its interpretation by the judiciary to reflect actuality and so be given such guidelines), do we expect anything new from the LDs this weekend?
Or are they thinking of engaging in trench warfare and defending what they hold and abandon the rest of the battlefield?
In fact they have blown their once-in-century chance of being in power by pursuing political ambition instead of making a very strong coalition with corresponding results that reacted to both events and the needs of the electorate.
If their conference closes its ears and pursues its political policies, then it could well be doomed to less than 20 seats and have a smaller vote than the Greens and end up being the UK's fifth/sixth party. Once you are on the slippery slide, as the LDs history shows, it is very hard to crawl back up.
And there are other occupations where it works.
Somewhat concerned about losing both baby and bathwater.
"Dear voter: I'll hire you now and pay you in five years' time"
Any comment on the 'scum' doing Nazi salutes in the vicinity of the George Square war memorial?
Basically they were as accurate as an American war film
George twinned with Francois.
And you clearly haven't read the FT this morning.
I learned not to make that point to ...
I don't think that really counts as the pollsters over-stating Yes, in the sense that I think they accurately measured sentiment at the time that they polled. In other words, it didn't seem to be a sampling or weighting error.
I wonder if they didn't manage to catch them all.
PublicHealthEngland @PHE_uk 2m2 minutes ago
Mushroom fact: There were 237 reports of poisoning linked to people picking and eating #mushrooms last year http://bit.ly/YRskIk
Just saying.
Lot of water to flow under the bridge yet.
Writing a book can take years, but the idea of its publication isn't an illusion.
It also means that Labour have real difficulties when criticising these tax cuts. The public hears Labour saying the Conservatives are being profligate and thinks "great, these tax cuts must be worth having". It doesn't think "right, Labour's a safer pair of hands". I see that Richard Nabavi pointed this out last night.
Will the Tories stop banging on about the deficit? To say the least, this is unlikely. This is a gift that keeps giving, and Ed Miliband's failure to mention it in his conference speech is likely to be mentioned right the way up to the next election. It may yet prove to be an election-losing mistake.
For a good summary of the Conservative positioning (and its problems), Janan Ganesh has a good analysis in the FT:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a2a143d0-4973-11e4-8d68-00144feab7de.html#axzz3EyWGo6yK
"The Tories are going to contest the election as tax-cutters and fiscal hawks at the same time."
"The lasting impression from Thursday is of an economic message that requires voters to believe two things about the Tories: that they are sober stewards of this country’s dire public finances, and that they will cut taxes. The two things are reconcilable, but the tension will be explored and stress-tested over the coming months."
No doubt you will add him to the list of people who just don't get it. But you will continue to ignore the significance of the deficit in the electoral debate up to and after the election. If Labour lose, you will be at a loss to understand why.
Are the Tory tax cuts plausible? Silly question. The right question is whether the right section of the population will buy it. Early indications (Daniel Hannan, Janet Daley, Peter Oborne, the Express front page) are that they will. UKIP will be fretting.
That one?
The stab-in-the-back myth is a perennial favourite with defeated extreme nationalists;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth
http://labourlist.org/2014/10/gordon-brown-to-present-scotland-petition-to-westminster/
Yes lost because the people of Scotland saw through Project Fib - and the longer the Nats keep denying that, the further away independence will get.
If we're not willing to have that intellectual fight (and win) we may as well go home. Personally, I'm delighted the Conservatives are proposing to shrink the size of the state - I think it'll further incentivise work and put our economy on a much more sustainable footing for the 21stC.
As you say, the tax cuts aren't unaffordable. The commitment isn't until 2020. Osborne could quite easily make very modest tax cuts until 2018 (when we should be back in balance) and then ramp up the tax cuts to meet the pledge as we head into surplus.
Political anger often goes hand in hand with a feeling of helplessness. You know perfectly well that your Angrily cast vote will actually make nothing better and make much worse. So feel more helpless, and more angry. And you don't bother. You send a little message about disengagement, instead.
Yes couldn't get its vote out in its strongest areas; Farage has lost every single Westminster election he's fought on his angry platform, even including the one where Labour stood aside for him.
A substantial chunk of the Yes vote, perhaps all of it, was the Angry vote. Generalised inchoate anger at stuff was, I suspect, just not enough on the day to get them out to vote.
Here's how much they over/(under) stated the parties
Lab -5
Con -2
LD +5
SNP -1
I'll have to dig out the research for the other pollsters, but some were very Mel Gibson.
It'll piss off the Yestapo by raising the profile of the moon on a stick yet to be delivered to Scotland. It'll piss off the English by making blatant Labour's desire for Scottish income tax to be set by MSPs, but Scots MPs to still have a say on English income tax. It'll even piss off No voters, who probably just want a bit of peace and quiet after years of complaining.
Where's the advantage for nation, or even the Labour Party?
It's all about the ego of Brown.
Nah. They will instead chuck cr*p on the Conservatives, wring their hands about the cuts, insult Thatcher and wonder why they only have 7% in the polls.....
Labour have a very, very long way to go to persuade people that they are not "mad spenders". Despite a terrifyingly high level of public debt their target for the end of the next Parliament is to reduce borrowing to the level that it meets current expenditure but none of the capital spending. The result is that the debt continues to increase at an unacceptable rate. Add in some Brownian nonsense about what is "investment" and what is current spending and you once again have a recipe for letting rip.
And these are likely to be the good years in terms of growth. I fear for the next government that has to handle a downturn, I really do. We are not doing nearly enough to fix the roof whilst the sun is at least peeping out from behind the clouds.
As you have a copy of the FT read its leader: Cameron trades economic credibility for votes.
It really is that simple - to deny a change in focus is to deny that night follows day I'm afraid. Yet still you try.
I bet you believed jobs would be lost when LAB introduced the minimum wage too didnt you?
Some care home residents are becoming malnourished because not enough thought is going into the food they are given, says Wales' older people's commissioner.....
Ms Rochira ordered her office to carry out unannounced visits to 100 care homes as part of a formal review of the quality of life and care for older people in residential homes.
One of the areas of concern was the meals served in homes, with claims that some residents were being given poor quality meals and no choice over what they ate.
"It is unacceptable that in some parts of Wales older people are malnourished in the place they should be able to call home," she said.
"If we don't get it right we'll have people who are frailer than they need to be, more people admitted to hospital than there needs to be."
"One that did stick with me was about a gentleman who needed a soft diet. Primarily, all he had to eat was mashed potato.
"People who told me that in the afternoons, invariably all they seemed to have available to them were cold, dry sandwiches.
"It is not anything any of us would want - for anybody."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-29448187
http://www.vox.com/2014/10/1/6880329/russia-baltic-threats-ukraine-estonia
Those that think just letting Putin getting away with invading and annexing parts of neighbouring countries would avoid be the end of the matter are idiots.
Lib Dem fantasyland. Even their leaflet in Heywood & Middleton has usual Lib Dem silly graph, with no mention of Ukip
He reckons tax cuts promises will unravel
SNP Result. Number of gains zero, share of the vote up 2.3%
It'd be a risk to go for the Baltic tigers, though. They're both EU and NATO members.
Just to prove how silly they are as a General Election predictor.
In 2010 the economy was still struggling to recover from a very severe recession and then it got a major knock from the EZ for the best part of 2 years. Osborne has made some progress but it is extremely difficult to reduce a deficit in those circumstances without putting the economy into a tail spin. With faster growth these excuses have gone. The time for action is now.