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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Harry Hayfield’s Local By-Election Preview
Salford is the epitome of a Labour heartland electing a Labour majority even in the most dire electoral positions for Labour (clearly demonstrated in 2008 when Labour’s overall majority fell to 12) but which since the general election has (as many other Labour areas have done) become a virtual one party state.
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Firstly, look at the chart of German GDP-per-capita at PPP - http://www.tradingeconomics.com/germany/gdp-per-capita-ppp - and tell me that Germans aren't doing very nicely even on that metric.
Secondly, I'm assuming you're talking about Target2 imbalances when you talk about 'contingent liabilities'. Even there, the direction is clearly improving. Germany has gone from a 750bn balance to 600bn, with Spain in particular improving on the other side of the equation. (See: http://www.eurocrisismonitor.com/Data.htm)
Lots of things are easier when you have an artificially depressed exchange rate.
(You can't really claim that the Euro is artificially depressed when it has moved much less than Sterling against the dollar.)
Thanks to Mr. Hayfield for his locals piece.
FPT: Dr. Prasannan, indeed, but it's waned in Greece over the last couple of millennia.
(Contrary to popular belief - The Telegraph, and some on here - Spain's balance of trade change has come mostly from a large increase in exports, rather than a decrease in imports, which have been largely flat since the GFC.)
1. I concede on GDP per capita but just look at what Gordon did to the UK's performance.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-per-capita
Now look at the improvement since Jeffrey took over and on a rate of improvement basis it more than competes with Angela's wizardry. Still we are only at just less than three quarters of Germany's level.
Time for you to revive the derivatives market, Robert, and people will start thinking the battle with Germany is all over again.
2. If Deutsche Bank bought the entire Spanish banking sector, Germany might start to flatline on that graph.
I was using 'contingent liabilities' in a more general sense of Germany underwriting the Eurozone, though the specific measure you referred me to does appear to be a worked metric along these lines.
The Tories have 19 seats as 1has defected to UKIP
We have all outs next year on new boundaries, so hard to read too much into tonight's result; this is a long-standing Con:Labmarginal but should be fertile UKIP territory
If we merged Oxfordshire and Warwickshire and made Warwick University a college of OU, then wouldn't everyone but Prof. Davey be happy?
You must understand I am a conciliator at heart.
LOL a much appreciated proposal anything that upsets the Prof must be intrinsically of value.
The big way the imbalances get sorted is that Germans use their savings to buy apartments in Southern Spain. In this way, the debt associated with the property moves from Banco Popular to Deutsche Bank. This is already happening, although I would certainly agree there is a lot to go.
Nelson positive about blues / unicorn sighted..
http://labourlist.org/2013/06/is-this-the-real-face-of-the-tory-party-the-tory-talibans-alternative-queens-speech/
Here are the three suggestions from some Conservatives that have riled the article's author:
the banning of the burka
abolishing the Department of Energy and Climate Change
bringing back the death penalty
I actually agree with him on the death penalty (ie we shouldn't have it), but I do think being pro-death penalty is also a legitimate prespective.
I wouldn't abolish the department (although I'd axe the Climate Change nonsense) because we need proper energy planning. [I'm aware that Labour and to a lesser extent the Coalition have massively cocked that up despite the department's existence].
Hmm. I have mixed views on the burka. I wouldn't be distressed if it were banned. Not sure if I'd vote that way if I had a vote to cast. I don't buy the 'it's religious' argument. A religious belief is an opinion, no more. But I do believe people generally have the freedom to decide how to dress. On the other hand, it does obscure one's identity.
However, the key point is that this is how the left works: by demonising contrary opinions to the metropolitan consensus as backwards. There's no need to debate if you've already painted the opposition as holding unacceptable opinions.
I did like this aspect though: "...ban people from wearing religious clothing...." which is an interesting expression of outrage from a man who subsequently uses the slogan "Tory Taliban".
Isn't that effectively the market doing what it should do? If the Euro does survive and re-balance then surely the euro economies will be truly integrated.
Exported services do benefit, but it's not a long-term strategy for success
They'll also benefit from invisibles resulting from the flow of income from overseas acquisitions they built up, in part due to favourable tax treatment of intangible amortisation
The government should have told the truth instead of the whole faux austerity pretence.
The "we're all in it together" meme should have been fleshed out with the government explaining that personal consumption had been allowed to reach unsustainable levels and that for the next generation living standards would for most people either be stagnant or in decline. Blame could have placed on Labour for this and explanations made about an unbalanced economy, insufficient infrastructure investment, the effects of globalisation and the shift in economic power to Asia.
Issues such as the decline in economic and social mobility, sustainable living and the importance of quality of life over mere living standards could have been emphasised.
Instead the unsustainable levels of consumption have been treated as the minimum level allowable and government borrowing used to maintain them.
With the result that most people think we've undergone austerity and that it will soon be time to increase spending again. when in reality we haven't and spending has continued to increase.
Not only is the economy in a worse state to accept the inevitable changes but the British people are in a worse state psychologically to accept them as well.
Now at some point economic reality will be imposed on Britain and we will suffer far more than we needed because our political 'leaders' chose to preference their own narrow tactical political needs over the long term good of the country.
Instead we had George Osborne basing economic strategy upon an increase in household borrowing.
I agree with much of this, ar. The communications of the Coalition Government's economic policies have been sub par.
Much of that (and you will have to agree not to let Mr. Brooke know I have said this) is due to an incoming Chancellor not knowing what to do when running the Treasury. All the preparation of policies in opposition and all his or her economic training or achievements will not prepare for office. Walk across the threshold of No 11 and the Treasury mandarins take over, at least for the first half of any parliamentary term.
This is both good and bad. The good is that it enables a PR Officer of the Cairngorms to perform superlatively as Chief Secretary and, conversely, it would clip the wings of any qualified or eminent economist as Chancellor.
The bad is that the politicians who find themselves behind the door probably don't know what it is they are really doing until it happens. And then they are asked to communicate to the public what is happening and where we are going. A task made more difficult by external events and influences beyond control of the office. That is why most chancellors are rated on their performance on the economy rather than their ability to sell policy..
Osborne's strengths are his ability to simplify policy and stubbornly stick to key goals. He is not so good at selling policies and performance to the electorate except in a partisan and adversarial context. Ironically the best economic evangelist in the Coalition is Vince Cable but he would never have matched the brutal simplicity of Osborne's policy implementation.
So we all live and learn. And Osborne has matured in office. His star is on the rise in conjunction with the economy.
If I disagree with anything in your post it is your advocacy of extreme medication. Economies are almost organic and properly nurtured are generally self-healing. Gradualism is all. It is just getting sustained policy direction right over long cycles that is difficult to achieve. Give Osborne ten years and he will get much closer to where you want to be than any substitute. It is not his innate skills that will count though: it will be his experience, which is fast becoming worth the weight of all the gold sold by Gordon.
Reading this (http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/28/business/spain-auto-soares), it would appear that Ford, Renault and VW are all investing in boosting Spanish auto production right now, given excellent facilities and cheap labour.
You live and learn...
(depending on what kind of LD voters they were in 2010)
(and if they're standing?)
The green nutters who've fought GM have a lot to answer for.
How many hundreds of millions have to eat GMOs for how many years before we are willing to consider if it is safe? R5 also had a Scottish farmer on who explained that what they were seeking to do was to accelerate the introduction of old spieces traits back into potatoes to help them become more blight and weather resistent massively reducing the need for chemical spraying.
This is not frankenstein science and the fact that there is even a debate, so called, shows how alarmist and ignorant most of our media are.
I think you have touched upon a greatly underated issue there Avery. After 13 years of Labour rule ministerial experience (Ken Clarke apart) was incredibly rare in this government. It would have been astonishing if they had immediately mastered the whitehall machine.
I think the steepness of the learning curve for such an inexperienced administration is one of the reasons Cameron has been so reluctant to have reshuffles.
They are also standing in Edinburgh and Fife.
Who would you expect to fall in third place in MK?
GM has the look of one of those things that in 20-30 years time people will say "Why on earth did we do that?"
(It's all about (imo) guessing the socio-economic make-up by seeing if there was a big LD vote in 2010 that didn't (edit: all) switch to Labour or Green after 2010.)
"They are also standing in Edinburgh and Fife."
That'll be interesting to see.
http://www.nature.com/news/case-studies-a-hard-look-at-gm-crops-1.12907
The SNP will save Aberdeen schools and everything else from Labour run council cuts.
The UKIP chap sent the election address to the dead MSP's family by mistake and this apparently proves how out of touch with Scotland they are.
"GM crops have bred superweeds: True"
"Transgenes spread to wild crops in Mexico: Unknown"
http://www.centralsomersetgazette.co.uk/Woman-dressed-vagina-stops-street-fight-penis-man/story-19328715-detail/story.html
I thought UKIP was only a threat to the Tories.
Very odd.
The Kinks
Blur
The Rolling Stones
So how to smash this system? The model can be found in a Bedford secondary located in one of the nation’s most deprived wards – yet its reputation is such that it steals pupils from nearby private schools. Not that it’s colonised by the rich: a fifth of its intake are poor enough to qualify for free school meals. The children of the wealthy and less fortunate sit together in identical uniforms, knowing little about each other’s circumstances and caring less. The Bedford Free School ought to be a pin-up for anyone who cares about social cohesion. Yet this week, the Labour Party made clear it would strangle this experiment at birth.
Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary, didn’t mention the Bedford Free School by name, but he didn’t need to. It was set up by Mark Lehain, a former teacher, in the teeth of opposition from the council, which ran seven other schools of varying quality. There is no need for an eighth, the council said, as some of these schools still have vacancies. But Mr Lehain took a different view: parents should decide if a new school was needed. He has now filled all 200 of his places, leaving his furious rivals to nurse more “surplus” spaces than ever.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/10132323/The-Tories-are-fighting-for-the-people-Labour-has-abandoned.html
Lab 785 UKIP 401 Con 260 Green 80 BNP 74 Ind 64 LD 58 Ind 15
NEWS: Labour have won the Horwich by-election. With 322 votes; UKIP with 224; Lib Dem with 103; and Con with 74.