10.15 But there is some good news for the UK - the annual decline in UK construction output has slowed sharply.
British construction output posted the smallest annual fall in almost a year and a half in April, raising hopes that construction might contribute to economic growth in the second quarter.
Output dropped 1.1pc compared with April a year ago - the slowest fall since November 2011, the Office for National Statistics said today.
On the month, output fell 6.5pc - the first decrease since January. However, new work in private housing rose 3.6pc.
While the construction sector only accounts for 6.8pc of total UK output, the extent of its weakness meant that it knocked 0.6 percentage points off GDP growth in 2012 which was limited to 0.3ps.
Construction output then knocked a further 0.2 percentage points off GDP growth in the first quarter of 2013.
Good morning. It's only a matter of time before UKIP win a parliamentary by-election.
What is more to the point is that these local thursday by-elections are putting UKIP well into a 22/25% average of the vote. These elections are all over the country and differ remarkably from what the pollsters are saying are a national average.
We have two more results to come this morning, lets see if what I say holds true for them.
UKIP have just taken another seat, in King's Lynn, from the Lib Dems. Although, for some reason, the Lib Dems didn't field a candidate.
But, local elections, and national voting intentions, are quite different things.
As I understand it the Lib Dems did a classic error and forgot that nominations closed on Thursday instead of the usual Friday because of the end of May bank holiday . Looking at the result most if the Lib Dem vote stayed at home .
Libya was - pretty much all one ethnic group - all one religion - lots of little tribes used to forming coalitions - everything important along the coast - open desert good for airpower - no one big on Daffy's side about as perfect for a potentially painless intervention as possible
Syria isn't just Shia/Sunni it's Alawites, Druze, locals, Alqueada tourists, lots of external influence including russkies, Iran etc. Doing something before it turned ethno-sectarian might have worked but now it sounds like a recipe for disaster imo.
I fall well inside the It's Nothing To Do With Us camp - we have no particular relationship with Syria and frankly we've messed up enough Middle Eastern regimes already by thinking we know best.
If they came across here and stuck their oars in - we'd be very peed off about it.
Fair enough, I've got no real problems with that as a position.
As a matter of interest, did you think the same about the Libyan intervention before the event?
We have a UN that is supposed to decide how countries behave towards each other and their citizens. Sadly, like its predecessor the LoN, the UN is a toothless tiger. It can only talk and occasionally put peacekeepers on the ground who sometimes get to watch the slaughter without helping.
When countries break the rules that are agreed by the international community via the UN, we have two choices: to sit on the sidelines and tut-tut, or intervene in some way or another.
Both alternatives have benefits and significant risks.
It is whether its "do-able" or not. Libya was, Syria probably is not. There is nothing wrong with a bit of pragmatism, even if the media can't handle it.
Syria has big power support and a solid following ion part of the country plus some difficult urban and rural terrain. Libya had a mad man with no international help, internal support largely restricted to his tribe and open terrain. Also it was unlikely for the Libyan campaign to spill over into neighboring countries - unlike Syria.
Also Assad may be bad but he is not unpredictably mad - see Qaddafi & Saddam.
Its about time we stripped foreign policy down pure naked self interest. It is what it is in reality, we just have to pretend for forms sake that it is moral.
No need for any dogs besides guide dogs in an urban though is there?
Besides biting people and leaving crap all over the place what's the point of them? I can see the need for a few in rural areas but are towns and cities really improved by having dogs swarming all over them?
Have you forgotten your war on cats or is this just another front being opened up? The enemy of my enemy is my friend you know. Best friend in this case.
Had Britain joined [the euro], both we and Europe would have been better placed, and Larry Elliott would now be writing about how better to get Britain to innovate and invest under a fourth-term Labour government. A better world all round.
I can't think of a single British middle east/Indian sub continent intervention that has gone well since Robert Clive was around.
Arming Syrian rebels is another total disaster in the making.
In 5 years time we'll be sending in British troops to quell the Al-Qaeda movement we helped create ourselves, a la Afghanistan.
As soon as I saw the idea of arming the rebels in Syria - Charlie Wilson's War in Afghanistan sprang to mind - and we all know how that worked out... PS if you haven't read the book - its very long but very intriguing stuff.
Think the Libyans are in any way grateful for our intervention in their country? Think they are grateful to us for stopping Ghadafi levelling Benghazi?
As for Afghanistan, we'd be way better off now in every way if we'd just let the Russians get on with it. As well as leaving Saddam and Gadafi be. Things could hardly have turned out worse, really.
But British politicians of all stripes still want to play Billy big boy on the world stage.
No need for any dogs besides guide dogs in an urban though is there?
Besides biting people and leaving crap all over the place what's the point of them? I can see the need for a few in rural areas but are towns and cities really improved by having dogs swarming all over them?
Have you forgotten your war on cats or is this just another front being opened up? The enemy of my enemy is my friend you know. Best friend in this case.
He's probably better starting at the top of the predator chain and working down. First ally with the cat owners against the dogs. Then the bird lovers against the cats. I'm not sure what Tim's position is on birds, but the next one down after that is spiders.
As for Afghanistan, we'd be way better off now in every way if we'd just let the Russians get on with it. As well as leaving Saddam and Gadafi be. Things could hardly have turned out worse, really.
But British politicians of all stripes still want to play Billy big boy on the world stage.
I read the book twice and its mind-blowing what the CIA and Charlie Wilson did - the film barely scratches the surface of what went on, or how it backfired all over the US shortly afterwards. It'd make a brilliant drama series if anyone had the courage to fund it.
Good morning. It's only a matter of time before UKIP win a parliamentary by-election.
What is more to the point is that these local thursday by-elections are putting UKIP well into a 22/25% average of the vote. These elections are all over the country and differ remarkably from what the pollsters are saying are a national average.
We have two more results to come this morning, lets see if what I say holds true for them.
UKIP have just taken another seat, in King's Lynn, from the Lib Dems. Although, for some reason, the Lib Dems didn't field a candidate.
But, local elections, and national voting intentions, are quite different things.
That maybe, but it's the effect of constant drip of UKIP wins and good results that counts.
UKIP are beating expectations in local elections but what I find most interesting is Labour's startling underperformance.
Had Britain joined [the euro], both we and Europe would have been better placed, and Larry Elliott would now be writing about how better to get Britain to innovate and invest under a fourth-term Labour government. A better world all round.
This piece I'd have to prefix with the three letters "non".
Nope, I give up. When was the last time Will Hutton spoke sense?
Was it before or after his own business went bust? Possibly an unfair comparison but Roger Bootle is in the process of selling his for the best part of £50m.
In this case he claims that membership of the euro, which would have meant a looser monetary policy by both having a lower exchange rate and lower interest rates would somehow have meant that we would have had a smaller boom and bust under the idiot. It is wrong on so many levels it is hard to know where to start.
The idea that it would be a good thing if Blair was still PM is a possibility...
I can't think of a single British middle east/Indian sub continent intervention that has gone well since Robert Clive was around.
If the "Middle-East" includes Anatolia (which it should) then I believe we rescued those Greek sorry-arses in 1921. Oh - "innocent-face* - maybe not....
10.15 But there is some good news for the UK - the annual decline in UK construction output has slowed sharply.
British construction output posted the smallest annual fall in almost a year and a half in April, raising hopes that construction might contribute to economic growth in the second quarter.
Output dropped 1.1pc compared with April a year ago - the slowest fall since November 2011, the Office for National Statistics said today.
On the month, output fell 6.5pc - the first decrease since January. However, new work in private housing rose 3.6pc.
While the construction sector only accounts for 6.8pc of total UK output, the extent of its weakness meant that it knocked 0.6 percentage points off GDP growth in 2012 which was limited to 0.3ps.
Construction output then knocked a further 0.2 percentage points off GDP growth in the first quarter of 2013.
In particular read sections 87-89, and particular #88. Note that is one excess death from 40-50 cases looked at. Those cases were picked from a large number of complaints made to the process.
Section 106 is also of note.
The following is particularly relevant (copied by hand, but hopefully correct):
From my involvement in the ICNR process, I came across perhaps one of these excess deaths. In a few cases, the death should not have occurred when it did, but the majority of deaths that we were dealing with were cases where one could not be sure that the outcome would have been any different if treatment or care had been different.
Note that is one case out of the ones he looked at out of 217 complaints (many of which were rejected for various reasons), not in total at the hospital. Also note that people died earlier than they should have done, and many relatives may not have known that their relative's departure was speeded or caused by inappropriate care. Some would not have wanted to engage in the process.
Yet you still believe that blog and that there was possibly one excess death at Stafford? A blog that does not even give the full quotes from the reports? And which goes against the current and ongoing police investigations?
Indeed, Mr. T, though it's worth adding that I'm not sure it'd count as 'liberal' to support a side that seems heavily infiltrated by Jihadist lunatics.
So back to watching Rwanda and Bosnia on our TV's and tutting a lot in a Hurdian style while feeling superior that none of it is "our fault". The Syrian position has arguably become more intractable and polarised due to that attitude.
Telegraph Politics @TelePolitics 3m Cameron: "There is a dictatorial and brutal leader who is using chemical weapons under our noses against his own people." #syria
How you deal with that when some of the opposition are Al Queda is a different matter. And there's not much moral difference between chemical weapons and conventional anyway. Rwanda was machetes.
Have you requested a EAW for the illegal rendition of Libyan citizens yet? Or does Jack Straw organise your "five Latvian homophobes" when 1 + 1 = 2 and you fill-your-boots [sic]...?
Had Britain joined [the euro], both we and Europe would have been better placed, and Larry Elliott would now be writing about how better to get Britain to innovate and invest under a fourth-term Labour government. A better world all round.
This piece I'd have to prefix with the three letters "non".
Nope, I give up. When was the last time Will Hutton spoke sense?
Was it before or after his own business went bust? Possibly an unfair comparison but Roger Bootle is in the process of selling his for the best part of £50m.
In this case he claims that membership of the euro, which would have meant a looser monetary policy by both having a lower exchange rate and lower interest rates would somehow have meant that we would have had a smaller boom and bust under the idiot. It is wrong on so many levels it is hard to know where to start.
The idea that it would be a good thing if Blair was still PM is a possibility...To be fair, Hutton's argument is that the economy would have been run perfectly, in that the Germans would [somehow] have ensured that everyone's banks were run properly and did not lend their money to fuel a house price boom, and the British Chancellor [who replaced Brown, because Hutton imagines that Blair would have grown a backbone and sacked Brown] would have been constrained from running a deficit during the good years.
His article belongs in a daydream - because it is only in daydreams that everything turns out absolutely perfectly.
In reality, the Eurozone fiscal rules were broken by France and Germany before the credit crunch, and so they would not have constrained a British Chancellor either. In reality, it was lending from German Banks that funded the house price booms in Spain and Ireland, and there is no example that I know of where a politician has acted to cool, let alone prevent, a house price boom.
The corrected HSMRs point to "one death if that", and it is not necessarily my belief.
I'm sure there are cases of untimely deaths at Stafford as at other hospitals in all systems all over the world - just as there are cases of people being kept alive against the odds in hospitals like Stafford (and also all over the world).
I only challenge the "1200 deaths at Stafford" mantra used by enemies of the NHS for political purposes.
Yes, you're emotionally invested in trying to paint the Stafford Hospital as some monstrous carbuncle of death.
Had Britain joined [the euro], both we and Europe would have been better placed, and Larry Elliott would now be writing about how better to get Britain to innovate and invest under a fourth-term Labour government. A better world all round.
Having resolved all the issues in the middle east to his satisfaction (it's all the muslims fault apparently) our Tone is not going into marriage counselling is he?
So far it is only divorce: can he get it up to homicide?
I think you missed the snide, nasty and insidious little joke in my comment.
But anyway, I stick by my position, Syria is a bloody intractable mess and we are better off out. Syria is not a genocide, it is a horrible civil war between tribes and creeds. There is no good and bad.
Should we be rid of the Ulster-Scots in the Province under those terms? Maybe a reunion of the Anglo-Irish Crown - Papal approved - would be consented to by 55-million English (and feck the Oirish): Would that salve your democratic equity...?
The idea we should actually put boots on the ground is particularly stupid....
Which is why you have come up with this solution. The UK has 'force-multipliers' that mean only a fool would put [non - ahem - specials] troops on the ground.
My guess is that we will never intervene in the Middle East again, not in the massive, invasive way we did in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Because of our Christian guilt we will - despite her bad governance - stand along-side Israel. We in the West have too much interest in the Middle-East (or Near-East if you are a muppet with an MSc in History and think Germany is in the West) to stand aside: Increasingly it will be England that will have to perform this role.*
My guess is that we will never intervene in the Middle East again, not in the massive, invasive way we did in Iraq or Afghanistan. Not least because their oil is becoming less important, thanks to shales and other hydrocarbons. This is a tragedy for ordinary Syrians stuck in the middle, but I'm not sure there is anything we could do, even if we wanted.
Perhaps China will "sort it out", as they become the new global policeman.
We pretty much agree on this. Interestingly, when I was in China, I was told by a long-term resident that the Chinese think our liking for classifying everyone as goodies or baddies is perverse - they see nothing odd in thinking that Mao went bonkers with the Cultural Revolution but nonetheless earlier did some good in building the country, etc. He felt it was a Confucian thing - everything is relative, to be considered reflectively in the light of history, rather than the dynamic American view of "let's decide who the bad guys are and kill them".
Not sure that stacks up in detail (in Tibet, for instance) but possibly an interesting partial truth.
No need for any dogs besides guide dogs in an urban though is there?
Besides biting people and leaving crap all over the place what's the point of them? I can see the need for a few in rural areas but are towns and cities really improved by having dogs swarming all over them?
Have you forgotten your war on cats or is this just another front being opened up? The enemy of my enemy is my friend you know. Best friend in this case.
Cats are all vermin, but I accept that dogs have their uses, just not in an urban area (besides guide dogs obviously).
Dogs are very good for older people who need to get out of the house, get regular exercise etc. They provide companionship. I know a number of older people who have really benefited from having a dog to look after properly.
The problems with dogs is those dog owners who do not look after them properly, do not clean up after them and do not train them properly.
Had Britain joined [the euro], both we and Europe would have been better placed, and Larry Elliott would now be writing about how better to get Britain to innovate and invest under a fourth-term Labour government. A better world all round.
This piece I'd have to prefix with the three letters "non".
Nope, I give up. When was the last time Will Hutton spoke sense?
Was it before or after his own business went bust? Possibly an unfair comparison but Roger Bootle is in the process of selling his for the best part of £50m.
In this case he claims that membership of the euro, which would have meant a looser monetary policy by both having a lower exchange rate and lower interest rates would somehow have meant that we would have had a smaller boom and bust under the idiot. It is wrong on so many levels it is hard to know where to start.
The idea that it would be a good thing if Blair was still PM is a possibility...
To be fair, Hutton's argument is that the economy would have been run perfectly, in that the Germans would [somehow] have ensured that everyone's banks were run properly and did not lend their money to fuel a house price boom, and the British Chancellor [who replaced Brown, because Hutton imagines that Blair would have grown a backbone and sacked Brown] would have been constrained from running a deficit during the good years.
His article belongs in a daydream - because it is only in daydreams that everything turns out absolutely perfectly.
In reality, the Eurozone fiscal rules were broken by France and Germany before the credit crunch, and so they would not have constrained a British Chancellor either. In reality, it was lending from German Banks that funded the house price booms in Spain and Ireland, and there is no example that I know of where a politician has acted to cool, let alone prevent, a house price boom.
Yeah, and Ireland's and Spain's banks were so well regulated in the EZ. A Blairite fantasist bemoaning the fading of the light...
Thanks plato it was only a bit of a joke really. If I ever sprayed a dog with repellent I'd probably need another can for its owner!! A person's pet is never wrong!!
The corrected HSMRs point to "one death if that", and it is not necessarily my belief.
I'm sure there are cases of untimely deaths at Stafford as at other hospitals in all systems all over the world - just as there are cases of people being kept alive against the odds in hospitals like Stafford (and also all over the world).
I only challenge the "1200 deaths at Stafford" mantra used by enemies of the NHS for political purposes.
Yes, you're emotionally invested in trying to paint the Stafford Hospital as some monstrous carbuncle of death.
But it wasn't.
No, it does not. Read what he says. One excess death in the few cases he looks at. (The examination of the cases they looked at appears fairly exhaustive.)
You have previously used the blog quote to say there was one death, if that. You were wrong. Sickeningly wrong. And then you slur the woman who helped expose this mess as a 'loudmouth'.
Even when faced with the names of some victims, you cannot face the truth. Stafford messed up and people died. We cannot know how many, but ignoring it and paying off whistleblowers will not help patients or the NHS as a whole. I doubt the total is as high as 1,200, but 300-400 is a damned sight more likely than your ridiculous assertion that it was possibly one.
It's fairly obvious you do not understand any of this. I'm not an enemy of the NHS using this for political purposes. However you appear to be an enemy of patients, ignoring deaths for political purposes.
Worth reading the whole thing. They have performed their own seasonal adjustment on the construction numbers and are now predicting Q2 GDP of up to 0.5%.
OT - But seeing a few comments below, I hope, just this once, that a Twatter rumour turns out to be true. Alas, there is already a partial denial in place.
Tap it sharply on the nose while saying "No" firmly. That usually stops them.
Thanks. Sometimes I ask the owner if they wouldn't mind awfully controlling their dog. Even that almost got me into a fight once. The only thing that stopped me punching this bloke was it was a warm day and he had his shirt off.
No need for any dogs besides guide dogs in an urban though is there?
Besides biting people and leaving crap all over the place what's the point of them? I can see the need for a few in rural areas but are towns and cities really improved by having dogs swarming all over them?
Have you forgotten your war on cats or is this just another front being opened up? The enemy of my enemy is my friend you know. Best friend in this case.
Cats are all vermin, but I accept that dogs have their uses, just not in an urban area (besides guide dogs obviously).
Dogs are very good for older people who need to get out of the house, get regular exercise etc. They provide companionship. I know a number of older people who have really benefited from having a dog to look after properly.
The problems with dogs is those dog owners who do not look after them properly, do not clean up after them and do not train them properly.
All functions that could be replicated by a paper round. Less faeces and savaging of humans involved in paper rounds too
No need to have faeces if you have a dog. Pick the poo up after it and either flush it away or put it in a sort of dog toilet you can get for your garden (a mini septic tank which creates fertiliser for the garden). Only irresponsible dog owners leave their dog's poo everywhere.
Ditto re savaging: dogs need proper training.
Your complaint should be with irresponsible humans not dogs.
My guess is that we will never intervene in the Middle East again, not in the massive, invasive way we did in Iraq or Afghanistan. Not least because their oil is becoming less important, thanks to shales and other hydrocarbons. This is a tragedy for ordinary Syrians stuck in the middle, but I'm not sure there is anything we could do, even if we wanted.
Perhaps China will "sort it out", as they become the new global policeman.
We pretty much agree on this. Interestingly, when I was in China, I was told by a long-term resident that the Chinese think our liking for classifying everyone as goodies or baddies is perverse - they see nothing odd in thinking that Mao went bonkers with the Cultural Revolution but nonetheless earlier did some good in building the country, etc. He felt it was a Confucian thing - everything is relative, to be considered reflectively in the light of history, rather than the dynamic American view of "let's decide who the bad guys are and kill them".
Not sure that stacks up in detail (in Tibet, for instance) but possibly an interesting partial truth.
But Mao is Chinese..no doubt views of peoples own countrymen is different to those of other countries. Peoples opinion of Churchill for example might be rather different in other countries.
Even Hitler did some good things in the same respect for German companies and infrastructure, and Mussolini made the trains run on time of course.
No need for any dogs besides guide dogs in an urban though is there?
Besides biting people and leaving crap all over the place what's the point of them? I can see the need for a few in rural areas but are towns and cities really improved by having dogs swarming all over them?
Have you forgotten your war on cats or is this just another front being opened up? The enemy of my enemy is my friend you know. Best friend in this case.
Cats are all vermin, but I accept that dogs have their uses, just not in an urban area (besides guide dogs obviously).
Dogs are very good for older people who need to get out of the house, get regular exercise etc. They provide companionship. I know a number of older people who have really benefited from having a dog to look after properly.
The problems with dogs is those dog owners who do not look after them properly, do not clean up after them and do not train them properly.
Maybe we are approaching this from the wrong angle. If we neutered the owners rather than destroying the dogs do you think we could breed out this kind of thoughtlessness?
No need for any dogs besides guide dogs in an urban though is there?
Besides biting people and leaving crap all over the place what's the point of them? I can see the need for a few in rural areas but are towns and cities really improved by having dogs swarming all over them?
Have you forgotten your war on cats or is this just another front being opened up? The enemy of my enemy is my friend you know. Best friend in this case.
Cats are all vermin, but I accept that dogs have their uses, just not in an urban area (besides guide dogs obviously).
Dogs are very good for older people who need to get out of the house, get regular exercise etc. They provide companionship. I know a number of older people who have really benefited from having a dog to look after properly.
The problems with dogs is those dog owners who do not look after them properly, do not clean up after them and do not train them properly.
All functions that could be replicated by a paper round. Less faeces and savaging of humans involved in paper rounds too
No need to have faeces if you have a dog. Pick the poo up after it and either flush it away or put it in a sort of dog toilet you can get for your garden (a mini septic tank which creates fertiliser for the garden). Only irresponsible dog owners leave their dog's poo everywhere.
Ditto re savaging: dogs need proper training.
Your complaint should be with irresponsible humans not dogs.
The Dog's Trust are running a campaign called The Big Scoop...
My guess is that we will never intervene in the Middle East again, not in the massive, invasive way we did in Iraq or Afghanistan. Not least because their oil is becoming less important, thanks to shales and other hydrocarbons. This is a tragedy for ordinary Syrians stuck in the middle, but I'm not sure there is anything we could do, even if we wanted.
Perhaps China will "sort it out", as they become the new global policeman.
We pretty much agree on this. Interestingly, when I was in China, I was told by a long-term resident that the Chinese think our liking for classifying everyone as goodies or baddies is perverse - they see nothing odd in thinking that Mao went bonkers with the Cultural Revolution but nonetheless earlier did some good in building the country, etc. He felt it was a Confucian thing - everything is relative, to be considered reflectively in the light of history, rather than the dynamic American view of "let's decide who the bad guys are and kill them".
Not sure that stacks up in detail (in Tibet, for instance) but possibly an interesting partial truth.
Mao should burn in the deepest pits of hell, and anyone thinking he did any good at all, in any way, should go with him.
Civil War-Sino-Japanese War 1923-1949 = 3,466,000 murdered Rule over China (PRC) 1949-1987 = 35,236,000 murdered
Danny Alexander storming ahead with the Coalition Government's plans to reduce the size and spend of the state.
Over a third of his target of £11.5 bn of additional cuts has now been agreed and he is reporting the negotiations with the big spenders, e.g. the MOD, are progressing ahead of schedule.
So it looks like he will be able to announce "job done" on June 26th.
That leaves July free for all the revised forecasts showing accelerated deficit reduction and growing government revenues.
My guess is that we will never intervene in the Middle East again, not in the massive, invasive way we did in Iraq or Afghanistan. Not least because their oil is becoming less important, thanks to shales and other hydrocarbons. This is a tragedy for ordinary Syrians stuck in the middle, but I'm not sure there is anything we could do, even if we wanted.
Perhaps China will "sort it out", as they become the new global policeman.
We pretty much agree on this. Interestingly, when I was in China, I was told by a long-term resident that the Chinese think our liking for classifying everyone as goodies or baddies is perverse - they see nothing odd in thinking that Mao went bonkers with the Cultural Revolution but nonetheless earlier did some good in building the country, etc. He felt it was a Confucian thing - everything is relative, to be considered reflectively in the light of history, rather than the dynamic American view of "let's decide who the bad guys are and kill them".
Not sure that stacks up in detail (in Tibet, for instance) but possibly an interesting partial truth.
Mao should burn in the deepest pits of hell, and anyone thinking he did any good at all, in any way, should go with him.
Civil War-Sino-Japanese War 1923-1949 = 3,466,000 murdered Rule over China (PRC) 1949-1987 = 35,236,000 murdered
Dog owners that leave their animals' crap on the streets and in the parks should be imprisoned for five years and banned from ever keeping any kind of animal again.
Anecdote alert. I went to a parish council last night and usually a country councillor attends. In May, the Conservative who had represented the ward for donkeys' years was defeated by a UKIP candidate. I have to say I was impressed by her; very enthusiastic and willing to listen to concerns. I dare say that there are plenty of "loons and fruitcakes" in UKIP (and other parties) but there are some very able candidates.
The corrected HSMRs point to "one death if that", and it is not necessarily my belief.
I'm sure there are cases of untimely deaths at Stafford as at other hospitals in all systems all over the world - just as there are cases of people being kept alive against the odds in hospitals like Stafford (and also all over the world).
I only challenge the "1200 deaths at Stafford" mantra used by enemies of the NHS for political purposes.
Yes, you're emotionally invested in trying to paint the Stafford Hospital as some monstrous carbuncle of death.
But it wasn't.
Even when faced with the names of some victims, you cannot face the truth. Stafford messed up and people died. We cannot know how many, but ignoring it and paying off whistleblowers will not help patients or the NHS as a whole. I doubt the total is as high as 1,200, but 300-400 is a damned sight more likely than your ridiculous assertion that it was possibly one..
I'd double the size of the prize though, ensure it was tax free and make sure that the UK got the rights to the IP.
A small subset of a scheme I proposed on my blog a few years ago. I'd go much further into limited funding for speculative areas with potentially big rewards.
It's a start, but one million is not enough. It should be more, or there should be several prizes. But we should only get to keep the IP if the country helped fund whatever wins the prize, rather than retrospectively. For one thing, if the IP is worth more than a million the winner(s) will refuse the prize and sell the IP.
And likening it to the Longitude Committee isn't too clever given they way they mucked Harrison about.
Have you ever met an irresponsible dog owner prepared to recognise that they are an irresponsible dog owner?
They're like people who won't have their kids vaccinated but with a bigger sense of entitlement and grievance when tackled.
Perhaps a three year probationary period looking after a virtual dog with a big green L on their heads might alleviate some of the problem.
It's like parents with out of control children. But personally if I see an out of control child misbehaving and ruining my peace and quiet I do tell them off and tell off the parent if they complain (the Italian in me!).
Ditto re dogs. Irresponsible behaviour won't improve if the responsible ones amongst us don't do something.
I'd double the size of the prize though, ensure it was tax free and make sure that the UK got the rights to the IP.
Aiming for that particular "smart enough to solve the biggest problem in the world but dim-witted enough to give away the IP for a paltry 2 million pounds" person there, I guess. The UK will have a lot of competition looking for that person.
Meaningless political bullshit (*) aside, maybe governments should be providing "make you moderately rich" type prizes plus ongoing funding for people doing things that: 1) Have a proven record of being seriously useful. 2) Provide a clear public good. 3) Don't have an obvious business model to turn the public good into private profit.
(*) TBF Cameron may have said something meaningful that can't be deciphered from the report.
Mao, like Stalin in Russia, is still widely revered.
Slowly, very slowly, things are starting to change. Mao's Great Famine (a superb book I would heartily recommend), says that the government is gradually making the communist party archives of the Mao period available to historians.
One the evidence available so far the book estimates the number who died just of starvation in the years 1958 to 1962 alone is around fifty million. A country the size of England.
The book isn't just good for the records of what Mao did, but the methods he used.
Methods not altogether different from what labour did with the health service and education during their years in government - ie five year plans, targets, box ticking, armies of bureaucrats and widespread suppression of whistle blowers.
The parallels are limited, of course, but they are there. It;s a terrifying indictment of what state control is capable of when taken to extremes.
The corrected HSMRs point to "one death if that", and it is not necessarily my belief.
I'm sure there are cases of untimely deaths at Stafford as at other hospitals in all systems all over the world - just as there are cases of people being kept alive against the odds in hospitals like Stafford (and also all over the world).
I only challenge the "1200 deaths at Stafford" mantra used by enemies of the NHS for political purposes.
Yes, you're emotionally invested in trying to paint the Stafford Hospital as some monstrous carbuncle of death.
But it wasn't.
Even when faced with the names of some victims, you cannot face the truth. Stafford messed up and people died. We cannot know how many, but ignoring it and paying off whistleblowers will not help patients or the NHS as a whole. I doubt the total is as high as 1,200, but 300-400 is a damned sight more likely than your ridiculous assertion that it was possibly one..
We'll need to await the outcome of investigations but I won't be surprised if its nowhere near 300-400 either.
So you've changed your position again: from no deaths, to perhaps one, and finally (hurrah!) to admitting there were deaths. Well, I suppose it's progress.
Read his blog and see how he's misrepresented what Dr Laker says, and even basic statistics and logic.
You're emotionally invested in bashing down any criticism of the NHS, especially under Labour. Hence the way you've tried to constantly downgrade what happened at Stafford and attacked those trying to get to the truth. Because you would rather it remain hidden.
I've asked before, but you've never answered: what do you feel of the pay-offs made to NHS staff, including whistleblowers?
Worth reading the whole thing. They have performed their own seasonal adjustment on the construction numbers and are now predicting Q2 GDP of up to 0.5%.
OT - But seeing a few comments below, I hope, just this once, that a Twatter rumour turns out to be true. Alas, there is already a partial denial in place.
Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.
There is a growing consensus that growth in Q2 is going to be 0.5 or thereabouts. I am having real problems reconciling that with forecasts for the year which are still hovering about 1% despite very recent upward revisals.
If H1 produces 0.8% growth surely H2 is going to produce something similar giving the way that momentum seems to be shifting? I am slightly nervous that these models must be forecasting something horrible, like yet another EZ meltdown for the second half of this year.
Worth reading the whole thing. They have performed their own seasonal adjustment on the construction numbers and are now predicting Q2 GDP of up to 0.5%.
OT - But seeing a few comments below, I hope, just this once, that a Twatter rumour turns out to be true. Alas, there is already a partial denial in place.
Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.
There is a growing consensus that growth in Q2 is going to be 0.5 or thereabouts. I am having real problems reconciling that with forecasts for the year which are still hovering about 1% despite very recent upward revisals.
If H1 produces 0.8% growth surely H2 is going to produce something similar giving the way that momentum seems to be shifting? I am slightly nervous that these models must be forecasting something horrible, like yet another EZ meltdown for the second half of this year.
The models probably have some parameters in them for things like average earnings growth [which is still negative] and business investment [which is still low, I think?].
The only thing that will keep momentum going is if the animal spirits turn and businesses start investing again. We haven't yet worked out a way of modelling the psychology of large groups of people. Which is a shame. So we wait and see.
"Some of the region’s biggest house builders warn they will construct homes in England ahead of those in Wales over the failure to implement market stimulus schemes.
Construction giant Watkin Jones issued the warning over the failure in Wales to mirror England’s Help to Buy and NewBuy schemes which are credited with reviving the new build market.
The Bangor firm, which employs 250 staff and uses hundreds of sub-contractors, also say the proposed introduction of enhanced planning regulations will drive up build costs and depress the market further.
Managing director Mark Watkin Jones said they were now focusing on opportunities in England which has “implications” for local jobs and the wider economy."
"The UK Government has introduced a number of flagship policies to support new build developments in England only. These include NewBuy which lets people buy a newly built home with a deposit of only 5% of the price, and the recently announced Help to Buy where low cost equity loans are available for new build properties."
I'd double the size of the prize though, ensure it was tax free and make sure that the UK got the rights to the IP.
Aiming for that particular "smart enough to solve the biggest problem in the world but dim-witted enough to give away the IP for a paltry 2 million pounds" person there, I guess. The UK will have a lot of competition looking for that person.
Meaningless political bullshit (*) aside, maybe governments should be providing "make you moderately rich" type prizes plus ongoing funding for people doing things that: 1) Have a proven record of being seriously useful. 2) Provide a clear public good. 3) Don't have an obvious business model to turn the public good into private profit.
(*) TBF Cameron may have said something meaningful that can't be deciphered from the report.
Is Cameron going to judge it himself, I mean with a track record like his of saying "That's a brilliant idea Andrew" when Lansley presented him with the NHS reorganisation, what could possibly go wrong?
Speaking of which does anyone know if the Tories ever managed to get their database back up after that vendor went bust?
I've asked before, but you've never answered: what do you feel of the pay-offs made to NHS staff, including whistleblowers?
Labour used pay-offs to stop the truth about the massive flaws in their great leap forward coming to light.
Mao used summary torture and execution. I'll leave you to decide which was the more effective - but the principle is broadly the same.
I certainly would not go that far. I have no doubt that it was not planned by government, and was just an unintended consequence of policies.
What happens is that politicians give civil servants targets. The civil servants pass those targets onto managers of organisations, who then try to meet those targets within their budgets.
When a failure occurs and the managers realise that the targets will not be reached, they try to alter the figures to save embarrassment, their jobs and/or bonuses, as happened at Stafford (see the excellent LRB article for information). Sometimes this works and the problematic period is passed. However if it does not and problems continue, staff get understandably ansty, knowing that there were fiddles.
They then tell their managers, who realise there will be problems. They therefore come to an agreement and the civil servants, knowing it will reflect badly on them, sign it off.
In the meantime things continue to decline because no-one is willing to speak out.
Until 'loudmouths' come along and blow the whole stinking edifice open. And the politicians genuinely knew nothing.
Mixed news on EU unemployment; George top of class in sink school
The dire and deteriorating state of the Eurozone economies was highlit today with the release of Q1 EU unemployment statistics.
The pace of job destruction increased in both the Eurozone and the European Union (EU) as a whole in the first quarter, according to data released on Friday by the EU statistical office Eurostat.
On a quarterly basis, the number of persons employed in the first quarter of the year fell by 0.5% in the euro area and by 0.2% in the EU. The figures show an acceleration of job losses when compared to the fourth quarter decline of 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively.
Year-on-year, employment fell by 1.0% in the Eurozone and 0.4% in the EU.
According to Eurostat estimates, 221.9m men and women were employed in the EU during the first quarter, of which 145.1m were in the euro area.
By member states, Lithuania (2.4%), Estonia (2.3%) and Latvia (1.0%) recorded the highest growth in employment, while Greece (-2.3%), Portugal (-2.2%), Spain and Cyprus (both -1.3%) and Italy (-1.2%) registered the largest decreases.
For the UK, employment fell 0.1% on the quarter, but rose by 1.4% on the year.
Thank God for Prince Harry, England and St George.
I'd double the size of the prize though, ensure it was tax free and make sure that the UK got the rights to the IP.
Aiming for that particular "smart enough to solve the biggest problem in the world but dim-witted enough to give away the IP for a paltry 2 million pounds" person there, I guess. The UK will have a lot of competition looking for that person.
Meaningless political bullshit (*) aside, maybe governments should be providing "make you moderately rich" type prizes plus ongoing funding for people doing things that: 1) Have a proven record of being seriously useful. 2) Provide a clear public good. 3) Don't have an obvious business model to turn the public good into private profit.
(*) TBF Cameron may have said something meaningful that can't be deciphered from the report.
Obviously, there would be no patents involved as the invention would have to be disclosed in order for it to be judged. But there could well be a lot of other interesting stuff. For a lone inventor who lacks any business contacts, sense and the inclination to develop them, £2 million tax free (or perhaps more as Josias suggests) would be plenty enough incentive - if they do have the business contacts and nous then they would not enter the competition in the first place as they would be looking to get patents, not a prize.
I'd double the size of the prize though, ensure it was tax free and make sure that the UK got the rights to the IP.
Aiming for that particular "smart enough to solve the biggest problem in the world but dim-witted enough to give away the IP for a paltry 2 million pounds" person there, I guess. The UK will have a lot of competition looking for that person.
Meaningless political bullshit (*) aside, maybe governments should be providing "make you moderately rich" type prizes plus ongoing funding for people doing things that: 1) Have a proven record of being seriously useful. 2) Provide a clear public good. 3) Don't have an obvious business model to turn the public good into private profit.
(*) TBF Cameron may have said something meaningful that can't be deciphered from the report.
Is Cameron going to judge it himself, I mean with a track record like his of saying "That's a brilliant idea Andrew" when Lansley presented him with the NHS reorganisation, what could possibly go wrong?
Speaking of which does anyone know if the Tories ever managed to get their database back up after that vendor went bust?
I believe they did, but Tory activists' general opinion of the system seems to be laced with swear words.
So per Yglesias, the main things that are making capital holders do well while screwing labour are rent and IP. These are both examples of government-induced artificial scarcity. Rents are high because the government says you can hardly build anywhere, and IP is valuable because they enforce an invented property right that's supposed to encourage innovation.
Makes you wonder how long traditional left-wing parties are going to continue siding with capital against labour.
So per Yglesias, the main things that are making capital holders do well while screwing labour are rent and IP. These are both examples of government-induced artificial scarcity. Rents are high because the government says you can hardly build anywhere, and IP is valuable because they enforce an invented property right that's supposed to encourage innovation.
Makes you wonder how long traditional left-wing parties are going to continue siding with capital against labour.
The consequences for not allowing protection of IP would be catastrophic - for the Uk in particular. I've read some batsh1t crazy stuff from Krugman - but that is off the dial.
I'd double the size of the prize though, ensure it was tax free and make sure that the UK got the rights to the IP.
Aiming for that particular "smart enough to solve the biggest problem in the world but dim-witted enough to give away the IP for a paltry 2 million pounds" person there, I guess. The UK will have a lot of competition looking for that person.
Meaningless political bullshit (*) aside, maybe governments should be providing "make you moderately rich" type prizes plus ongoing funding for people doing things that: 1) Have a proven record of being seriously useful. 2) Provide a clear public good. 3) Don't have an obvious business model to turn the public good into private profit.
(*) TBF Cameron may have said something meaningful that can't be deciphered from the report.
Obviously, there would be no patents involved as the invention would have to be disclosed in order for it to be judged. But there could well be a lot of other interesting stuff. For a lone inventor who lacks any business contacts, sense and the inclination to develop them, £2 million tax free (or perhaps more as Josias suggests) would be plenty enough incentive - if they do have the business contacts and nous then they would not enter the competition in the first place as they would be looking to get patents, not a prize.
Part of the problem is that it is exceedingly difficult to just come up with an idea and prove the concept nowadays - equipment is almost always needed, and therefore funding. Even the discovery of Graphene using sellotape needed access to high-tech equipment to show what they'd done.
Ten years ago a bloke in Cambridge had a cool idea to reduce power consumption in transmitters and receivers. Eight years later they've got transmitters sussed, but are still working on the concept at the receiver level. When it works the technology could be in every battery-powered device that receives radio waves.
Developing an idea is blooming difficult nowadays; the days of doing something in your shed are more or less over. A prize is all well and good, but what we need is to give people with great ideas contacts with people who can help them take the idea forward, and also to seed funding. A bit like business angels, but governmental.
In the cases Cameron's given, a new penicillin will have to go through the (rightly) massively complex and time-consuming drugs trials process. A new aeroplane is being done - see the guys at Reaction Engines who have been working on their space engine for over a decade and are making progress thanks to help from the EU and others.
My ideas are much more complex than the simple plan espoused today. At its heart is a set fund of (say) £100 million, which is doled out in various parcels to new science and technology companies and individuals. There may be one parcel of 40 million each year, one of 20 million, two of 10 million, and many much smaller seed ones. Decisions are made by a brains trust (yes, I know).
A company or individual can get funding for a maximum of two years in a row, and the government gets equity in the company in relation to the funding.
So very much like business angels. Except the government can decide to focus on speculative areas with high rewards that angels cannot. They can also arrange contacts with other organisations for use of equipment and brainpower.
So £100 million each year. All we'd need is one hit in a decade and we'd be laughing.
So per Yglesias, the main things that are making capital holders do well while screwing labour are rent and IP. These are both examples of government-induced artificial scarcity. Rents are high because the government says you can hardly build anywhere, and IP is valuable because they enforce an invented property right that's supposed to encourage innovation.
Makes you wonder how long traditional left-wing parties are going to continue siding with capital against labour.
The consequences for not allowing protection of IP would be catastrophic - for the Uk in particular. I've read some batsh1t crazy stuff from Krugman - but that is off the dial.
The point about IP is Yglesias not Krugman. But "protecting IP" isn't binary - there are a lot of different degrees to how much artificial scarcity the government creates.
There's been a lot of discussion before about the fact that the amount of scarcity created by the current copyright and patent regimes aren't optimal in terms of total economic output. But what I thought was interesting about Yglesias's point is that there should also be a left/right divide here, and the left seem to have either failed to cotton onto it or figured it out and sided with capital.
It points out that there have already been 600 of these aircraft sold. What Sky pointed out was that they cost £250m each making the order book worth north of £100bn. And we make the wings (and some of the engines).
Between this and the car reports from yesterday we can see high end manufacturing with a bright future in this country. I was delighted to hear Cameron emphasising the importance of building up the support industries to these stars yesterday too. The more UK content the better the balance of payments and our general wealth.
Our skills base and indeed manufacturing base is too small but there are strengths on which we can build. This really is not a party political point but politicians of all parties need to focus on the skills, education, infrastructure, supply chain, transport links planning policies, housing etc etc focussed on these successes helping them to grow and employ. Whilst I think there has been some progress the sense of urgency is not what it might be.
The point about IP is Yglesias not Krugman. But "protecting IP" isn't binary - there are a lot of different degrees to how much artificial scarcity the government creates.
There's been a lot of discussion before about the fact that the amount of scarcity created by the current copyright and patent regimes aren't optimal in terms of total economic output. But what I thought was interesting about Yglesias's point is that there should also be a left/right divide here, and the left seem to have either failed to cotton onto it or figured it out and sided with capital.
There is an artifical scarcity of property too - if we legalised theft there could be more transfers from rich to poor - lets try that shall we ?
I think the left rowed back from ultra-collectivism sometime around 1979.
I'd double the size of the prize though, ensure it was tax free and make sure that the UK got the rights to the IP.
Aiming for that particular "smart enough to solve the biggest problem in the world but dim-witted enough to give away the IP for a paltry 2 million pounds" person there, I guess. The UK will have a lot of competition looking for that person.
Meaningless political bullshit (*) aside, maybe governments should be providing "make you moderately rich" type prizes plus ongoing funding for people doing things that: 1) Have a proven record of being seriously useful. 2) Provide a clear public good. 3) Don't have an obvious business model to turn the public good into private profit.
(*) TBF Cameron may have said something meaningful that can't be deciphered from the report.
Obviously, there would be no patents involved as the invention would have to be disclosed in order for it to be judged. But there could well be a lot of other interesting stuff. For a lone inventor who lacks any business contacts, sense and the inclination to develop them, £2 million tax free (or perhaps more as Josias suggests) would be plenty enough incentive - if they do have the business contacts and nous then they would not enter the competition in the first place as they would be looking to get patents, not a prize.
Part of the problem is that it is exceedingly difficult to just come up with an idea and prove the concept nowadays - equipment is almost always needed, and therefore funding. Even the discovery of Graphene using sellotape needed access to high-tech equipment to show what they'd done.
Ten years ago a bloke in Cambridge had a cool idea to reduce power consumption in transmitters and receivers. Eight years later they've got transmitters sussed, but are still working on the concept at the receiver level. When it works the technology could be in every battery-powered device that receives radio waves.
Developing an idea is blooming difficult nowadays; the days of doing something in your shed are more or less over. A prize is all well and good, but what we need is to give people with great ideas contacts with people who can help them take the idea forward, and also to seed funding. A bit like business angels, but governmental.
In the cases Cameron's given, a new penicillin will have to go through the (rightly) massively complex and time-consuming drugs trials process. A new aeroplane is being done - see the guys at Reaction Engines who have been working on their space engine for over a decade and are making progress thanks to help from the EU and others.
My ideas are much more complex than the simple plan espoused today. At its heart is a set fund of (say) £100 million, which is doled out in various parcels to new science and technology companies and individuals. There may be one parcel of 40 million each year, one of 20 million, two of 10 million, and many much smaller seed ones. Decisions are made by a brains trust (yes, I know).
A company or individual can get funding for a maximum of two years in a row, and the government gets equity in the company in relation to the funding.
So very much like business angels. Except the government can decide to focus on speculative areas with high rewards that angels cannot. They can also arrange contacts with other organisations for use of equipment and brainpower.
So £100 million each year. All we'd need is one hit in a decade and we'd be laughing.
Some interesting points but I suspect the winner of such a competetion as Cameron has announced will not be short of potential investors for further development and exploitation. The publicity of winning is likely to be worth much more than the prize itself.
OTOH if it was so easy to make money on speculative start ups would more people not be doing it?
The point about IP is Yglesias not Krugman. But "protecting IP" isn't binary - there are a lot of different degrees to how much artificial scarcity the government creates.
There's been a lot of discussion before about the fact that the amount of scarcity created by the current copyright and patent regimes aren't optimal in terms of total economic output. But what I thought was interesting about Yglesias's point is that there should also be a left/right divide here, and the left seem to have either failed to cotton onto it or figured it out and sided with capital.
There is an artifical scarcity of property too - if we legalised theft there could be more transfers from rich to poor - lets try that shall we ?
I think the left rowed back from ultra-collectivism sometime around 1979.
That's not artificial scarcity of property. Legalizing theft wouldn't actually create more property.
Whereas if you extend copyright to create a longer term so that you have to pay Walt Disney's heirs for longer to watch his films, you reduce the number of copies of his films, which reduces the amount of stuff.
The artificial scarcity in property takes the form of regulation over where you can build. The UK has huge amounts of land, but you're hardly allowed to build houses on any of it.
[Edited to stop confusingly using the word "property" with two different meanings in the same post.]
It points out that there have already been 600 of these aircraft sold. What Sky pointed out was that they cost £250m each making the order book worth north of £100bn. And we make the wings (and some of the engines).
Between this and the car reports from yesterday we can see high end manufacturing with a bright future in this country. I was delighted to hear Cameron emphasising the importance of building up the support industries to these stars yesterday too. The more UK content the better the balance of payments and our general wealth.
Our skills base and indeed manufacturing base is too small but there are strengths on which we can build. This really is not a party political point but politicians of all parties need to focus on the skills, education, infrastructure, supply chain, transport links planning policies, housing etc etc focussed on these successes helping them to grow and employ. Whilst I think there has been some progress the sense of urgency is not what it might be.
The A350 has a long way to go until it is in passenger traffic, but it's already looking better than the competing 787. At least Airbus didn't roll it out for the press whilst it had large fuselage gaps fixed with spit and piss.
And Boeing did. Literally (*). All to meet the artificial deadline of July 8th, 2007 (yes, 7/8/7). Oh, how they must have laughed at that wheeze.
A classic example of marketing incompetence trumping good engineering.
It points out that there have already been 600 of these aircraft sold. What Sky pointed out was that they cost £250m each making the order book worth north of £100bn. And we make the wings (and some of the engines).
Between this and the car reports from yesterday we can see high end manufacturing with a bright future in this country. I was delighted to hear Cameron emphasising the importance of building up the support industries to these stars yesterday too. The more UK content the better the balance of payments and our general wealth.
Our skills base and indeed manufacturing base is too small but there are strengths on which we can build. This really is not a party political point but politicians of all parties need to focus on the skills, education, infrastructure, supply chain, transport links planning policies, housing etc etc focussed on these successes helping them to grow and employ. Whilst I think there has been some progress the sense of urgency is not what it might be.
It isn't just the manufacturing jobs that are created here. They're also going to need pilots, cabin crew, ground crew, sales staff, etc. As well as the jobs created by moving stuff around (e.g. sales people).
I don't get the American way of doing dates. China does them entirely the other way (year/month/day), which makes sense, but why would you go month/day/year? You might as well go day/year/month.
I don't get the American way of doing dates. China does them entirely the other way (year/month/day), which makes sense, but why would you go month/day/year? You might as well go day/year/month.
Saying "June the 14th 2013" or "the 14th of June 2013" out loud, both seem right to me
I'd double the size of the prize though, ensure it was tax free and make sure that the UK got the rights to the IP.
Aiming for that particular "smart enough to solve the biggest problem in the world but dim-witted enough to give away the IP for a paltry 2 million pounds" person there, I guess. The UK will have a lot of competition looking for that person.
Meaningless political bullshit (*) aside, maybe governments should be providing "make you moderately rich" type prizes plus ongoing funding for people doing things that: 1) Have a proven record of being seriously useful. 2) Provide a clear public good. 3) Don't have an obvious business model to turn the public good into private profit.
(*) TBF Cameron may have said something meaningful that can't be deciphered from the report.
Obviously, there would be no patents involved as the invention would have to be disclosed in order for it to be judged. But there could well be a lot of other interesting stuff. For a lone inventor who lacks any business contacts, sense and the inclination to develop them, £2 million tax free (or perhaps more as Josias suggests) would be plenty enough incentive - if they do have the business contacts and nous then they would not enter the competition in the first place as they would be looking to get patents, not a prize.
Part of the problem is that it is exceedingly difficult to just come up with an idea and prove the concept nowadays - equipment is almost always needed, and therefore funding. Even the discovery of Graphene using sellotape needed access to high-tech equipment to show what they'd done.
Ten years ago a bloke in Cambridge had a cool idea to reduce power consumption in transmitters and receivers. Eight years later they've got transmitters sussed, but are still working on the concept at the receiver level. When it works the technology could be in every battery-powered device that receives radio waves.
Developing an idea is blooming difficult nowadays; the days of doing something in your shed are more or less over. A prize is all well and good, but what we need is to give people with great ideas contacts with people who can help them take the idea forward, and also to seed funding. A bit like business angels, but governmental.
In the cases Cameron's given, a new penicillin will have to go through the (rightly) massively complex and time-consuming drugs trials process. A new aeroplane is being done - see the guys at Reaction Engines who have been working on their space engine for over a decade and are making progress thanks to help from the EU and others.
My ideas are much more complex than the simple plan espoused today. At its heart is a set fund of (say) £100 million, which is doled out in various parcels to new science and technology companies and individuals. There may be one parcel of 40 million each year, one of 20 million, two of 10 million, and many much smaller seed ones. Decisions are made by a brains trust (yes, I know).
A company or individual can get funding for a maximum of two years in a row, and the government gets equity in the company in relation to the funding.
So very much like business angels. Except the government can decide to focus on speculative areas with high rewards that angels cannot. They can also arrange contacts with other organisations for use of equipment and brainpower.
So £100 million each year. All we'd need is one hit in a decade and we'd be laughing.
Some interesting points but I suspect the winner of such a competetion as Cameron has announced will not be short of potential investors for further development and exploitation. The publicity of winning is likely to be worth much more than the prize itself.
OTOH if it was so easy to make money on speculative start ups would more people not be doing it?
A problem with a prize is that it is at the end of the process. Having said that, it is worth doing. But most help is needed at the start of the process.
We need to help brilliant people, such as those who have just received a doctorate and whose heads are filled with spectacular ideas. They need a route to develop those ideas before they get crushed.
Let them say: "I have an idea. My uni aren't interested, but it could be insanely great for the country and world. But I don't know how to develop the idea further, and have few contacts. Help!"
A large number of companies are seed-funded by angels. However the number of people with enough capital and knowledge to be an angel are few. They also tend to work only in very select, narrow areas in which they have knowledge.
A made-up example: say I've been working for a company making medical sensors. I realise that it may be possible to make a new type of artificial limb and control system that will be much better for user than existing models. It is complex, but everyone says it should work. My company is not interested because it is not their core business. I do not have the funding or contacts to progress it.
These are the sort of people that need help. Reaction Engines is a classic example: I would give them a small chance of producing a practical working engine, but if it does work it will be revolutionary. Therefore it is worth risking capital on, even though there is a small chance of success.
(Edit: and in the meantime we learn stuff, even if it fails. And spin-off technology might be developed that alone is worth the funding).
I don't get the American way of doing dates. China does them entirely the other way (year/month/day), which makes sense, but why would you go month/day/year? You might as well go day/year/month.
I suspect the Americans do it that way because it is the same order as June 14th, rather than 14th June. In the UK we tend to use them interchangeably.
In America, they tend to use June 14th, and hardly ever say dates in the day / month order apart from "a real life cousin of my uncle Sam, born on the fourth of July"
I don't get the American way of doing dates. China does them entirely the other way (year/month/day), which makes sense, but why would you go month/day/year? You might as well go day/year/month.
Probably because they speak it that way. January 1st, 2013.
It points out that there have already been 600 of these aircraft sold. What Sky pointed out was that they cost £250m each making the order book worth north of £100bn. And we make the wings (and some of the engines).
Between this and the car reports from yesterday we can see high end manufacturing with a bright future in this country. I was delighted to hear Cameron emphasising the importance of building up the support industries to these stars yesterday too. The more UK content the better the balance of payments and our general wealth.
Our skills base and indeed manufacturing base is too small but there are strengths on which we can build. This really is not a party political point but politicians of all parties need to focus on the skills, education, infrastructure, supply chain, transport links planning policies, housing etc etc focussed on these successes helping them to grow and employ. Whilst I think there has been some progress the sense of urgency is not what it might be.
The A350 has a long way to go until it is in passenger traffic, but it's already looking better than the competing 787. At least Airbus didn't roll it out for the press whilst it had large fuselage gaps fixed with spit and piss.
And Boeing did. Literally (*). All to meet the artificial deadline of July 8th, 2007 (yes, 7/8/7). Oh, how they must have laughed at that wheeze.
A classic example of marketing incompetence trumping good engineering.
In theory 18 months. In practice everyone knows that there will be some slippage but, one hopes, nothing like the B787. However, given the aircraft will be in production for 20plus years [the B747-8 still has the original B747 type cert from aroun 1969), early slippage is neither here or there. There are only two global manufacturers for widebodies and that will continue for the forseeable future.
Where the innovation (and cost saving) now rests is in engine technology. We're pretty good at that.
It is claimed that there will be major increases in our very low saving ratios reducing consumption to a crawl over the next few years. Such a result would be highly consistent with the Coalition's policy of rebalancing the economy. Whether it would be quite so helpful in getting them re-elected may prove to be a different matter.
Wasn't there a move to deliberately change the way 'American' worked compared to English? Even during the 20th century they changed various spellings away from English.
I don't get the American way of doing dates. China does them entirely the other way (year/month/day), which makes sense, but why would you go month/day/year? You might as well go day/year/month.
We should go with the ISO standard of YYYY-MM-DD or YYYYMMDD. It's much easier to parse and sort.
Comments
Maybe my honourable friend Charles could help establish it? Plenty of fillies in Grove Park*....
* Plenty of "dogs" in Downham...!
Looking at the result most if the Lib Dem vote stayed at home .
- pretty much all one ethnic group
- all one religion
- lots of little tribes used to forming coalitions
- everything important along the coast
- open desert good for airpower
- no one big on Daffy's side
about as perfect for a potentially painless intervention as possible
Syria isn't just Shia/Sunni it's Alawites, Druze, locals, Alqueada tourists, lots of external influence including russkies, Iran etc. Doing something before it turned ethno-sectarian might have worked but now it sounds like a recipe for disaster imo.
Syria has big power support and a solid following ion part of the country plus some difficult urban and rural terrain. Libya had a mad man with no international help, internal support largely restricted to his tribe and open terrain. Also it was unlikely for the Libyan campaign to spill over into neighboring countries - unlike Syria.
Also Assad may be bad but he is not unpredictably mad - see Qaddafi & Saddam.
Its about time we stripped foreign policy down pure naked self interest. It is what it is in reality, we just have to pretend for forms sake that it is moral.
Arming Syrian rebels is another total disaster in the making.
In 5 years time we'll be sending in British troops to quell the Al-Qaeda movement we helped create ourselves, a la Afghanistan.
Discuss: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/13/if-britain-had-joined-the-euro
Will Hutton writes a lot of sense.
This piece I'd have to prefix with the three letters "non".
Think the Libyans are in any way grateful for our intervention in their country? Think they are grateful to us for stopping Ghadafi levelling Benghazi?
Think again.
Thanks for the tip. I enjoyed the film.
As for Afghanistan, we'd be way better off now in every way if we'd just let the Russians get on with it. As well as leaving Saddam and Gadafi be. Things could hardly have turned out worse, really.
But British politicians of all stripes still want to play Billy big boy on the world stage.
Isn't Will Hutton the chap who led an economics thinktank over a hundred years old and managed to bankrupt it?
Absolutely...I mean you wouldn't want to have to retrieve your own pheasants after a shoot, now would you??
Will Hutton writes a lot of sense.
This piece I'd have to prefix with the three letters "non".
Nope, I give up. When was the last time Will Hutton spoke sense?
Was it before or after his own business went bust? Possibly an unfair comparison but Roger Bootle is in the process of selling his for the best part of £50m.
In this case he claims that membership of the euro, which would have meant a looser monetary policy by both having a lower exchange rate and lower interest rates would somehow have meant that we would have had a smaller boom and bust under the idiot. It is wrong on so many levels it is hard to know where to start.
The idea that it would be a good thing if Blair was still PM is a possibility...
http://www.midstaffspublicinquiry.com/sites/default/files/evidence/Dr_Mike_Laker_-_second_witness_statement_and_exhibits.pdf
In particular read sections 87-89, and particular #88. Note that is one excess death from 40-50 cases looked at. Those cases were picked from a large number of complaints made to the process.
Section 106 is also of note.
The following is particularly relevant (copied by hand, but hopefully correct): Note that is one case out of the ones he looked at out of 217 complaints (many of which were rejected for various reasons), not in total at the hospital. Also note that people died earlier than they should have done, and many relatives may not have known that their relative's departure was speeded or caused by inappropriate care. Some would not have wanted to engage in the process.
Yet you still believe that blog and that there was possibly one excess death at Stafford? A blog that does not even give the full quotes from the reports? And which goes against the current and ongoing police investigations?
Lab 1517 Con 1378 LD 599
Turnout: 25.3%
Wow....you quoting the chumocracy there mate? don;t tell me that incompetent, foppish clique is actually right about something...??
"Met Office To Hold Emergency Meeting Over Increasingly Unusual UK Weather"
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/14/uk-weather_n_3439346.html?1371187456&icid=maing-grid7|ukt1|dl1|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D187035
Are you the kind of person who experiences a frisson of excitement when your mutt jumps up on or barks at some unsuspecting pedestrian??
As a walker I've tried to source a suitable MACE for use on dogs a number of times, but so far been unsuccessful.
Was it before or after his own business went bust? Possibly an unfair comparison but Roger Bootle is in the process of selling his for the best part of £50m.
In this case he claims that membership of the euro, which would have meant a looser monetary policy by both having a lower exchange rate and lower interest rates would somehow have meant that we would have had a smaller boom and bust under the idiot. It is wrong on so many levels it is hard to know where to start.
The idea that it would be a good thing if Blair was still PM is a possibility...To be fair, Hutton's argument is that the economy would have been run perfectly, in that the Germans would [somehow] have ensured that everyone's banks were run properly and did not lend their money to fuel a house price boom, and the British Chancellor [who replaced Brown, because Hutton imagines that Blair would have grown a backbone and sacked Brown] would have been constrained from running a deficit during the good years.
His article belongs in a daydream - because it is only in daydreams that everything turns out absolutely perfectly.
In reality, the Eurozone fiscal rules were broken by France and Germany before the credit crunch, and so they would not have constrained a British Chancellor either. In reality, it was lending from German Banks that funded the house price booms in Spain and Ireland, and there is no example that I know of where a politician has acted to cool, let alone prevent, a house price boom.
On that we heartily agree. If I had a quid for every time some smelly hound sniffed my crotch....
The corrected HSMRs point to "one death if that", and it is not necessarily my belief.
I'm sure there are cases of untimely deaths at Stafford as at other hospitals in all systems all over the world - just as there are cases of people being kept alive against the odds in hospitals like Stafford (and also all over the world).
I only challenge the "1200 deaths at Stafford" mantra used by enemies of the NHS for political purposes.
Yes, you're emotionally invested in trying to paint the Stafford Hospital as some monstrous carbuncle of death.
But it wasn't.
Will Hutton writes a lot of sense.
This piece I'd have to prefix with the three letters "non".
Its just classic clickbait from the guardian... anything to drive traffic to the site.. Europe s a sure fire winner.
Having resolved all the issues in the middle east to his satisfaction (it's all the muslims fault apparently) our Tone is not going into marriage counselling is he?
So far it is only divorce: can he get it up to homicide?
:yawn:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_French_White_Paper_on_Defence_and_National_Security
** C.f. Sven ^^^^^
Not sure that stacks up in detail (in Tibet, for instance) but possibly an interesting partial truth.
The problems with dogs is those dog owners who do not look after them properly, do not clean up after them and do not train them properly.
His article belongs in a daydream - because it is only in daydreams that everything turns out absolutely perfectly.
In reality, the Eurozone fiscal rules were broken by France and Germany before the credit crunch, and so they would not have constrained a British Chancellor either. In reality, it was lending from German Banks that funded the house price booms in Spain and Ireland, and there is no example that I know of where a politician has acted to cool, let alone prevent, a house price boom.
Yeah, and Ireland's and Spain's banks were so well regulated in the EZ. A Blairite fantasist bemoaning the fading of the light...
* Note to eejits: How can you be speeding if you are illegally parked...?
:muppet-watch:
Thanks plato it was only a bit of a joke really. If I ever sprayed a dog with repellent I'd probably need another can for its owner!! A person's pet is never wrong!!
You have previously used the blog quote to say there was one death, if that. You were wrong. Sickeningly wrong. And then you slur the woman who helped expose this mess as a 'loudmouth'.
Even when faced with the names of some victims, you cannot face the truth. Stafford messed up and people died. We cannot know how many, but ignoring it and paying off whistleblowers will not help patients or the NHS as a whole. I doubt the total is as high as 1,200, but 300-400 is a damned sight more likely than your ridiculous assertion that it was possibly one.
It's fairly obvious you do not understand any of this. I'm not an enemy of the NHS using this for political purposes. However you appear to be an enemy of patients, ignoring deaths for political purposes.
Worth reading the whole thing. They have performed their own seasonal adjustment on the construction numbers and are now predicting Q2 GDP of up to 0.5%.
OT - But seeing a few comments below, I hope, just this once, that a Twatter rumour turns out to be true. Alas, there is already a partial denial in place.
Thanks. Sometimes I ask the owner if they wouldn't mind awfully controlling their dog. Even that almost got me into a fight once. The only thing that stopped me punching this bloke was it was a warm day and he had his shirt off.
I noticed he' had heart bypass surgery!!
Ditto re savaging: dogs need proper training.
Your complaint should be with irresponsible humans not dogs.
Even Hitler did some good things in the same respect for German companies and infrastructure, and Mussolini made the trains run on time of course.
Over a third of his target of £11.5 bn of additional cuts has now been agreed and he is reporting the negotiations with the big spenders, e.g. the MOD, are progressing ahead of schedule.
So it looks like he will be able to announce "job done" on June 26th.
That leaves July free for all the revised forecasts showing accelerated deficit reduction and growing government revenues.
Oh, Danny boy, oh, Danny boy, we love you so.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22892443
I'd double the size of the prize though, ensure it was tax free and make sure that the UK got the rights to the IP.
That would be one way of reducing China's population. Mao, like Stalin in Russia, is still widely revered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFzLFd8Yyf8&
"Pick up the turd, or do the bird"
And no, I didn't vote for her.
So it wasn't 1200 - as the blog says.
http://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/the-real-mid-staffs-story-one-excess-death-if-that/
We'll need to await the outcome of investigations but I won't be surprised if its nowhere near 300-400 either.
It's a start, but one million is not enough. It should be more, or there should be several prizes. But we should only get to keep the IP if the country helped fund whatever wins the prize, rather than retrospectively. For one thing, if the IP is worth more than a million the winner(s) will refuse the prize and sell the IP.
And likening it to the Longitude Committee isn't too clever given they way they mucked Harrison about.
Ditto re dogs. Irresponsible behaviour won't improve if the responsible ones amongst us don't do something.
Meaningless political bullshit (*) aside, maybe governments should be providing "make you moderately rich" type prizes plus ongoing funding for people doing things that:
1) Have a proven record of being seriously useful.
2) Provide a clear public good.
3) Don't have an obvious business model to turn the public good into private profit.
(*) TBF Cameron may have said something meaningful that can't be deciphered from the report.
Slowly, very slowly, things are starting to change. Mao's Great Famine (a superb book I would heartily recommend), says that the government is gradually making the communist party archives of the Mao period available to historians.
One the evidence available so far the book estimates the number who died just of starvation in the years 1958 to 1962 alone is around fifty million. A country the size of England.
The book isn't just good for the records of what Mao did, but the methods he used.
Methods not altogether different from what labour did with the health service and education during their years in government - ie five year plans, targets, box ticking, armies of bureaucrats and widespread suppression of whistle blowers.
The parallels are limited, of course, but they are there. It;s a terrifying indictment of what state control is capable of when taken to extremes.
Read his blog and see how he's misrepresented what Dr Laker says, and even basic statistics and logic.
You're emotionally invested in bashing down any criticism of the NHS, especially under Labour. Hence the way you've tried to constantly downgrade what happened at Stafford and attacked those trying to get to the truth. Because you would rather it remain hidden.
I've asked before, but you've never answered: what do you feel of the pay-offs made to NHS staff, including whistleblowers?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21664707
There is a growing consensus that growth in Q2 is going to be 0.5 or thereabouts. I am having real problems reconciling that with forecasts for the year which are still hovering about 1% despite very recent upward revisals.
If H1 produces 0.8% growth surely H2 is going to produce something similar giving the way that momentum seems to be shifting? I am slightly nervous that these models must be forecasting something horrible, like yet another EZ meltdown for the second half of this year.
Labour used pay-offs to stop the truth about the massive flaws in their great leap forward coming to light.
Mao used summary torture and execution. I'll leave you to decide which was the more effective - but the principle is broadly the same.
The only thing that will keep momentum going is if the animal spirits turn and businesses start investing again. We haven't yet worked out a way of modelling the psychology of large groups of people. Which is a shame. So we wait and see.
http://www.dailypost.co.uk/business/business-news/house-builder-warns-construct-homes-4303822
"Some of the region’s biggest house builders warn they will construct homes in England ahead of those in Wales over the failure to implement market stimulus schemes.
Construction giant Watkin Jones issued the warning over the failure in Wales to mirror England’s Help to Buy and NewBuy schemes which are credited with reviving the new build market.
The Bangor firm, which employs 250 staff and uses hundreds of sub-contractors, also say the proposed introduction of enhanced planning regulations will drive up build costs and depress the market further.
Managing director Mark Watkin Jones said they were now focusing on opportunities in England which has “implications” for local jobs and the wider economy."
"The UK Government has introduced a number of flagship policies to support new build developments in England only. These include NewBuy which lets people buy a newly built home with a deposit of only 5% of the price, and the recently announced Help to Buy where low cost equity loans are available for new build properties."
What happens is that politicians give civil servants targets. The civil servants pass those targets onto managers of organisations, who then try to meet those targets within their budgets.
When a failure occurs and the managers realise that the targets will not be reached, they try to alter the figures to save embarrassment, their jobs and/or bonuses, as happened at Stafford (see the excellent LRB article for information). Sometimes this works and the problematic period is passed. However if it does not and problems continue, staff get understandably ansty, knowing that there were fiddles.
They then tell their managers, who realise there will be problems. They therefore come to an agreement and the civil servants, knowing it will reflect badly on them, sign it off.
In the meantime things continue to decline because no-one is willing to speak out.
Until 'loudmouths' come along and blow the whole stinking edifice open. And the politicians genuinely knew nothing.
The dire and deteriorating state of the Eurozone economies was highlit today with the release of Q1 EU unemployment statistics.
The pace of job destruction increased in both the Eurozone and the European Union (EU) as a whole in the first quarter, according to data released on Friday by the EU statistical office Eurostat.
On a quarterly basis, the number of persons employed in the first quarter of the year fell by 0.5% in the euro area and by 0.2% in the EU. The figures show an acceleration of job losses when compared to the fourth quarter decline of 0.3% and 0.1%, respectively.
Year-on-year, employment fell by 1.0% in the Eurozone and 0.4% in the EU.
According to Eurostat estimates, 221.9m men and women were employed in the EU during the first quarter, of which 145.1m were in the euro area.
By member states, Lithuania (2.4%), Estonia (2.3%) and Latvia (1.0%) recorded the highest growth in employment, while Greece (-2.3%), Portugal (-2.2%), Spain and Cyprus (both -1.3%) and Italy (-1.2%) registered the largest decreases.
For the UK, employment fell 0.1% on the quarter, but rose by 1.4% on the year.
Thank God for Prince Harry, England and St George.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BMt220aCYAA5UBP.jpg:large
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/is-this-still-the-age-of-the-superstar/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/06/14/new_fangled_capital.html
So per Yglesias, the main things that are making capital holders do well while screwing labour are rent and IP. These are both examples of government-induced artificial scarcity. Rents are high because the government says you can hardly build anywhere, and IP is valuable because they enforce an invented property right that's supposed to encourage innovation.
Makes you wonder how long traditional left-wing parties are going to continue siding with capital against labour.
Councils where turnout in the local elections was higher than 35%:
1. Anglesey: 50.4%
2. South Lakeland: 39.7%
3. North Norfolk: 39.6%
4. Derbyshire Dales: 39.3%
5. Mole Valley: 37.7%
6. Rushcliffe: 37.7%
7. West Dorset: 37.7%
8. Broxtowe: 37.6%
9. Winchester: 37.3%
10.South Somerset: 37.2%
11.Lewes: 36.8%
12.West Somerset: 36.4%
13.Taunton Deane: 36.3%
14.Stratford-on-Avon: 36.0%
15.South Cambridgeshire: 35.8%
16.Isle of Wight: 35.6%
17.Mendip: 35.5%
18.Purbeck: 35.4%
19.St Albans: 35.3%
Ten years ago a bloke in Cambridge had a cool idea to reduce power consumption in transmitters and receivers. Eight years later they've got transmitters sussed, but are still working on the concept at the receiver level. When it works the technology could be in every battery-powered device that receives radio waves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envelope_Tracking
And this is just one little company.
Developing an idea is blooming difficult nowadays; the days of doing something in your shed are more or less over. A prize is all well and good, but what we need is to give people with great ideas contacts with people who can help them take the idea forward, and also to seed funding. A bit like business angels, but governmental.
In the cases Cameron's given, a new penicillin will have to go through the (rightly) massively complex and time-consuming drugs trials process. A new aeroplane is being done - see the guys at Reaction Engines who have been working on their space engine for over a decade and are making progress thanks to help from the EU and others.
My ideas are much more complex than the simple plan espoused today. At its heart is a set fund of (say) £100 million, which is doled out in various parcels to new science and technology companies and individuals. There may be one parcel of 40 million each year, one of 20 million, two of 10 million, and many much smaller seed ones. Decisions are made by a brains trust (yes, I know).
A company or individual can get funding for a maximum of two years in a row, and the government gets equity in the company in relation to the funding.
So very much like business angels. Except the government can decide to focus on speculative areas with high rewards that angels cannot. They can also arrange contacts with other organisations for use of equipment and brainpower.
So £100 million each year. All we'd need is one hit in a decade and we'd be laughing.
Councils where turnout was less than 25% in the local elections:
Runnymede: 24.96%
Epping: 24.89%
Cannock Chase: 24.41%
Hertsmere: 24.23%
Basildon: 23.84%
Barrow-in-Furness: 23.72%
Broxbourne: 22.91%
There's been a lot of discussion before about the fact that the amount of scarcity created by the current copyright and patent regimes aren't optimal in terms of total economic output. But what I thought was interesting about Yglesias's point is that there should also be a left/right divide here, and the left seem to have either failed to cotton onto it or figured it out and sided with capital.
It points out that there have already been 600 of these aircraft sold. What Sky pointed out was that they cost £250m each making the order book worth north of £100bn. And we make the wings (and some of the engines).
Between this and the car reports from yesterday we can see high end manufacturing with a bright future in this country. I was delighted to hear Cameron emphasising the importance of building up the support industries to these stars yesterday too. The more UK content the better the balance of payments and our general wealth.
Our skills base and indeed manufacturing base is too small but there are strengths on which we can build. This really is not a party political point but politicians of all parties need to focus on the skills, education, infrastructure, supply chain, transport links planning policies, housing etc etc focussed on these successes helping them to grow and employ. Whilst I think there has been some progress the sense of urgency is not what it might be.
The "old Labour" type?
I think the left rowed back from ultra-collectivism sometime around 1979.
OTOH if it was so easy to make money on speculative start ups would more people not be doing it?
Whereas if you extend copyright to create a longer term so that you have to pay Walt Disney's heirs for longer to watch his films, you reduce the number of copies of his films, which reduces the amount of stuff.
The artificial scarcity in property takes the form of regulation over where you can build. The UK has huge amounts of land, but you're hardly allowed to build houses on any of it.
[Edited to stop confusingly using the word "property" with two different meanings in the same post.]
And Boeing did. Literally (*). All to meet the artificial deadline of July 8th, 2007 (yes, 7/8/7). Oh, how they must have laughed at that wheeze.
A classic example of marketing incompetence trumping good engineering.
(*) http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2003744076_787gaps12.html
I don't get the American way of doing dates. China does them entirely the other way (year/month/day), which makes sense, but why would you go month/day/year? You might as well go day/year/month.
We need to help brilliant people, such as those who have just received a doctorate and whose heads are filled with spectacular ideas. They need a route to develop those ideas before they get crushed.
Let them say: "I have an idea. My uni aren't interested, but it could be insanely great for the country and world. But I don't know how to develop the idea further, and have few contacts. Help!"
A large number of companies are seed-funded by angels. However the number of people with enough capital and knowledge to be an angel are few. They also tend to work only in very select, narrow areas in which they have knowledge.
A made-up example: say I've been working for a company making medical sensors. I realise that it may be possible to make a new type of artificial limb and control system that will be much better for user than existing models. It is complex, but everyone says it should work. My company is not interested because it is not their core business. I do not have the funding or contacts to progress it.
These are the sort of people that need help. Reaction Engines is a classic example: I would give them a small chance of producing a practical working engine, but if it does work it will be revolutionary. Therefore it is worth risking capital on, even though there is a small chance of success.
(Edit: and in the meantime we learn stuff, even if it fails. And spin-off technology might be developed that alone is worth the funding).
http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/
In America, they tend to use June 14th, and hardly ever say dates in the day / month order apart from "a real life cousin of my uncle Sam, born on the fourth of July"
Next problem: so Wkhy do they speak it that way?
Where the innovation (and cost saving) now rests is in engine technology. We're pretty good at that.
https://twitter.com/Sneekyboy/status/345533590676852736/photo/1
It is claimed that there will be major increases in our very low saving ratios reducing consumption to a crawl over the next few years. Such a result would be highly consistent with the Coalition's policy of rebalancing the economy. Whether it would be quite so helpful in getting them re-elected may prove to be a different matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Calendar_dates
Personally I think we should drop all this messy year/month/date stuff and go with Julian Day Numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_day