@DavidL - Indeed, the Tory assumption that poor people are poor because of the poor decisions and choices they have made is going to be tested to destruction over the coming years. And with Corbyn in charge of Labour, the risk of any negative electoral repercussion is just about non-existent. I guess the one downside for George is that he will be the PM that presides over the break-up of the UK.
@DavidL - "That is what I did. The detail in the July budget was not in the March but the macro-economic change was a modest slow down in the pace of fiscal consolidation with more, not less, emphasis on protecting the lower paid. Osborne is a centralist, in many ways a Blairite, and does not need Danny hanging over his shoulder to know that is where elections are won."
He now needs to appease the Tory right, not the LD centre. That's why he is protecting the Tory voter base - pensioners - while squeezing the poorest, who - as we all know - bear the heaviest burden under what is planned.
Osborne has promised everyone a pay rise and a living wage. Had Labour elected anyone but Corbyn those promises may well have come back to haunt him.
------------------------------------------------------ In a few years I will be a pensioner too ! But, I can tell you now, this "triple lock" whilst a great vote winner, will destroy this country. It is bloody expensive !
We need more immigrants to pay the taxes to keep feeding these pensioners !
The Triple lock is indeed very, very expensive when inflation is at zero. It was also completely immoral when wages were falling in real terms as they were for much of the last Parliament. But that at least won't be the case in this Parliament.
Many Corbyn supporters don't see Burnham/Cooper/Kendall as electable, nor do they see much practical difference between Burnham/Cooper/Kendall and the Conservatives.
The fact that Corbyn supporters do not "see much practical difference between Burnham/Cooper/Kendall and the Conservatives" merely demonstrates just how delusional they are. But I suppose that as they believe choosing as leader an anti-capitalist, anti-western, economic illiterate who has spent decades happily sharing platforms with terrorists, anti-semites and other "progressives" will help Labour win an election or, at the very least, will not significantly damage the party's long-term standing, this is hardly a surprise.
Blair's central point is that you cannot buck the real world - whether you are a Corbynite, a Scottish nationalist or an FN supporter in France. As a result, Corbyn will never get Labour close to power in the UK, while if the SNP and FN get what they want they will not be able to deliver what they promise. That seems to me to be pretty inarguable.
Define Real World. Sounds subjective.
I suspect Thatcher might have been criticised along similar lines for not accepting the real world of the 1970s.
The real world is the one in which we live. The one in which the British electorate will not hand power to a party led by someone who has spent 40 years sharing platforms with people who - quite rightly - advocate and celebrate the killing of British citizens.
There used to be two types of politician. Radicals/progressives and conservatives Those who had new ideas to create a better world and those who thought you needed to accept the world as is and change it slowly if at all.
Corbyn and Farage (and arguably the SNP) have created a third type. A nostalgic group with no new ideas, but who want to change the world by turning the clock back.
Interesting point, but forgive me if I think it is too simplistic. Corbyn, Sanders and Salmond are coming up with ideas which are challenging accepted views of what "must" be. It is not if I believe what they are saying, they are striking a bell to those who haven't heard one before, and to those who have given up believing in the words emanating from our present political and media system.
It's nice too see Iain Martin in The Telegraph comparing the latest Lords appointments by Cameron (and Osborne?) to a banana republic. The Telegraph seemed to be doing all it could for a Tory election win but perhaps there's life in the old dog yet.
@DavidL - "That is what I did. The detail in the July budget was not in the March but the macro-economic change was a modest slow down in the pace of fiscal consolidation with more, not less, emphasis on protecting the lower paid. Osborne is a centralist, in many ways a Blairite, and does not need Danny hanging over his shoulder to know that is where elections are won."
He now needs to appease the Tory right, not the LD centre. That's why he is protecting the Tory voter base - pensioners - while squeezing the poorest, who - as we all know - bear the heaviest burden under what is planned.
Osborne has promised everyone a pay rise and a living wage. Had Labour elected anyone but Corbyn those promises may well have come back to haunt him.
------------------------------------------------------ In a few years I will be a pensioner too ! But, I can tell you now, this "triple lock" whilst a great vote winner, will destroy this country. It is bloody expensive !
We need more immigrants to pay the taxes to keep feeding these pensioners !
No we need greater productivity off our existing workforce.
You will need a triple lock soon, to stop those in the uk, with one of the highest personal debts in the world deciding you should help them out.
@DavidL - "That is what I did. The detail in the July budget was not in the March but the macro-economic change was a modest slow down in the pace of fiscal consolidation with more, not less, emphasis on protecting the lower paid. Osborne is a centralist, in many ways a Blairite, and does not need Danny hanging over his shoulder to know that is where elections are won."
He now needs to appease the Tory right, not the LD centre. That's why he is protecting the Tory voter base - pensioners - while squeezing the poorest, who - as we all know - bear the heaviest burden under what is planned.
Osborne has promised everyone a pay rise and a living wage. Had Labour elected anyone but Corbyn those promises may well have come back to haunt him.
------------------------------------------------------ In a few years I will be a pensioner too ! But, I can tell you now, this "triple lock" whilst a great vote winner, will destroy this country. It is bloody expensive !
We need more immigrants to pay the taxes to keep feeding these pensioners !
No we need greater productivity off our existing workforce.
You will need a triple lock soon, to stop those in the uk, with one of the highest personal debts in the world deciding you should help them out.
@DavidL - "That is what I did. The detail in the July budget was not in the March but the macro-economic change was a modest slow down in the pace of fiscal consolidation with more, not less, emphasis on protecting the lower paid. Osborne is a centralist, in many ways a Blairite, and does not need Danny hanging over his shoulder to know that is where elections are won."
He now needs to appease the Tory right, not the LD centre. That's why he is protecting the Tory voter base - pensioners - while squeezing the poorest, who - as we all know - bear the heaviest burden under what is planned.
Osborne has promised everyone a pay rise and a living wage. Had Labour elected anyone but Corbyn those promises may well have come back to haunt him.
------------------------------------------------------ In a few years I will be a pensioner too ! But, I can tell you now, this "triple lock" whilst a great vote winner, will destroy this country. It is bloody expensive !
We need more immigrants to pay the taxes to keep feeding these pensioners !
No we need greater productivity off our existing workforce. -------------------------------------
I have real doubts about the quality of our stats for productivity but FWIW they actually show considerable improvements of late. I think the negative effects of north sea oil production in particular are now "built in" to the year on year comparators.
It's nice too see Iain Martin in The Telegraph comparing the latest Lords appointments by Cameron (and Osborne?) to a banana republic. The Telegraph seemed to be doing all it could for a Tory election win but perhaps there's life in the old dog yet.
The owners of the DT are bonkers, the Mail is even worse. they decide the tone.... and it will get worse as there is nor will there be a viable opposition. The media will fulfil the role Labour is vacating
A substantial coalition majority. Though opposition parties are not supposed to play politics and oppose all votes, especially in matters of war and peace. If the decision not to take action after the use of chemical weapons on the public was correct in your eyes then say so, don't just say "well they were in opposition".
The Tories in opposition (rightly or wrongly) accepted the need for invasion in 2003 based on the threat of chemical weapons. Labour in opposition rejected the need for military intervention at all (not even invasion) in 2013 based on the actual use of chemical weapons. ISIS filled the vacuum created.
Cameron led a majority government. He lost the vote.
Indeed and I have as much contempt for the small number of Conservative and Lib Dem rebels as I do for the hundreds of Labour MPs who decided that they'd rather side with Assad's use of chemical weapons on the public.
Yep, and one of my fears about this whole mess is that parliament's cowardice will come and bite us sometime in the near future. Why should states not use chemical weapons against their own populations, and others, now it is clear from a number of precedents that their use will be routinely and roundly ignored?
@DavidL - "That is what I did. The detail in the July budget was not in the March but the macro-economic change was a modest slow down in the pace of fiscal consolidation with more, not less, emphasis on protecting the lower paid. Osborne is a centralist, in many ways a Blairite, and does not need Danny hanging over his shoulder to know that is where elections are won."
He now needs to appease the Tory right, not the LD centre. That's why he is protecting the Tory voter base - pensioners - while squeezing the poorest, who - as we all know - bear the heaviest burden under what is planned.
Osborne has promised everyone a pay rise and a living wage. Had Labour elected anyone but Corbyn those promises may well have come back to haunt him.
------------------------------------------------------ In a few years I will be a pensioner too ! But, I can tell you now, this "triple lock" whilst a great vote winner, will destroy this country. It is bloody expensive !
We need more immigrants to pay the taxes to keep feeding these pensioners !
No we need greater productivity off our existing workforce.
I have real doubts about the quality of our stats for productivity but FWIW they actually show considerable improvements of late. I think the negative effects of north sea oil production in particular are now "built in" to the year on year comparators.
yes it's a good sign but we need to keep doing this for the next ten or so years and HMG isn't really doing much to address the gap.
What is going on with the quote function this morning?
I think its due to the character limit being reached so people try and snip out some of the earlier nested quotes, but doing so in a flawed way.
Its one flaw IMO of Vanilla. Other software elsewhere online does this automatically, snipping out quotes higher up the nest automatically so you keep text to a manageable length and thus under the character limit.
May demands ban on jobless EU migrants www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1600186.ece
Should prove popular with our jobless ex-pats in Spain and other parts of southern Europe!
Canada and the USA IIRC have a reciprocal agreement that people can move between nations if they either have a job or have sufficiently high enough wealth to retire on. The second option is less spoken about but should be implemented with the option of having a job.
Nobody is bothered by rich retirees spending their sunset years and their wealth in the UK.
It's nice too see Iain Martin in The Telegraph comparing the latest Lords appointments by Cameron (and Osborne?) to a banana republic. The Telegraph seemed to be doing all it could for a Tory election win but perhaps there's life in the old dog yet.
The Torygraph can spend the next four years sniping at the sidelines before it goes into election mode again.
The West doe not seem to learn, given the disastrous meddling in Syria and Libya in the last 5 years which has led to the swarm of immigration to Europe now.
Alternatively it was the failure of the west to interfere in Syria sufficiently that has led to the rise of ISIS and consequentially the migration crisis that exists today.
Who knows if we'd tackled ISIS when Obama and Cameron wanted to before Miliband led Parliamentary opposition to it in the way he did we might have nipped ISIS in the bud and prevented this entire crisis. Well done Ed.
Former expert claims they were right and everyone else was wrong shocker. That's never happened before.
Cameron did go to Parliament to authorise military strikes after chemical weapons were used in 2013. Ed decided even the use of chemical weapons on the public wasn't sufficient to see the west interfere in Syria - and ISIS rose up in the vacuum.
Ed led a party that was in opposition. Cameron failed to carry the Commons despite having a substantial majority.
A substantial coalition majority. Though opposition parties are not supposed to play politics and oppose all votes, especially in matters of war and peace. If the decision not to take action after the use of chemical weapons on the public was correct in your eyes then say so, don't just say "well they were in opposition".
The Tories in opposition (rightly or wrongly) accepted the need for invasion in 2003 based on the threat of chemical weapons. Labour in opposition rejected the need for military intervention at all (not even invasion) in 2013 based on the actual use of chemical weapons. ISIS filled the vacuum created.
Cameron led a majority government. He lost the vote.
I note you ignore Millibands private assurance of support which would have carried the vote most likely as Cameron thought and expected. Either way they were both wrong in different ways it is the Arab League that should have taken the lead and if necessary we support that coalition of members. What the outcome would have been is anyone's guess really but I suspect better than present situation.
Look how different things would have been if Blair hadn't started the Iraq war with Bush, then none of what has happened would have occurred, People would still be killed in large numbers just different peiople, but we had no business getting involved. The WMD nonsense was a pretext. In fact look what it would have been like if we hadn't meddled anywhere in the ME or Africa.. .The Whole Middle East is a now mess as a direct result and the migrant crisis is a direct result too..
As I've said before, I'm not sure that's the case. The Syrian civil war is a direct result, not of the Iraq invasion, but of the Arab Spring. Then the question becomes: would the Arab Spring have occurred without the Iraq invasion, and it seems distinctly possible it would.
What the Iraq invasion did do is create a well-armed and experienced Islamic fighting group in Iraq, which was able to exploit the Syrian rebellion. Without al Nusra and IS, it would have been Assad and the rebel army commanders slugging it out, perhaps with the Peshmerga adding their weight in the north.
So whilst the Iraq War has indirectly made the Syrian civil war worse, it did not cause it.
@DavidL - "That is what I did. The detail in the July budget was not in the March but the macro-economic change was a modest slow down in the pace of fiscal consolidation with more, not less, emphasis on protecting the lower paid. Osborne is a centralist, in many ways a Blairite, and does not need Danny hanging over his shoulder to know that is where elections are won."
He now needs to appease the Tory right, not the LD centre. That's why he is protecting the Tory voter base - pensioners - while squeezing the poorest, who - as we all know - bear the heaviest burden under what is planned.
Osborne has promised everyone a pay rise and a living wage. Had Labour elected anyone but Corbyn those promises may well have come back to haunt him.
------------------------------------------------------ In a few years I will be a pensioner too ! But, I can tell you now, this "triple lock" whilst a great vote winner, will destroy this country. It is bloody expensive !
We need more immigrants to pay the taxes to keep feeding these pensioners !
No we need greater productivity off our existing workforce.
I have real doubts about the quality of our stats for productivity but FWIW they actually show considerable improvements of late. I think the negative effects of north sea oil production in particular are now "built in" to the year on year comparators.
yes it's a good sign but we need to keep doing this for the next ten or so years and HMG isn't really doing much to address the gap.
------------------------- The emphasis on apprentices should help a bit, as will the educational changes in England in the medium term.
The northern powerhouse idea is seeing a bit of money although it is small change compared to Crossrail and what is promised for HS2.
Driving up the minimum wage may have the biggest long term effect forcing employers to squeeze more out of more expensive labour.
What else would you like to see the government do?
@DavidL - "That is what I did. The detail in the July budget was not in the March but the macro-economic change was a modest slow down in the pace of fiscal consolidation with more, not less, emphasis on protecting the lower paid. Osborne is a centralist, in many ways a Blairite, and does not need Danny hanging over his shoulder to know that is where elections are won."
He now needs to appease the Tory right, not the LD centre. That's why he is protecting the Tory voter base - pensioners - while squeezing the poorest, who - as we all know - bear the heaviest burden under what is planned.
Osborne has promised everyone a pay rise and a living wage. Had Labour elected anyone but Corbyn those promises may well have come back to haunt him.
------------------------------------------------------ In a few years I will be a pensioner too ! But, I can tell you now, this "triple lock" whilst a great vote winner, will destroy this country. It is bloody expensive !
We need more immigrants to pay the taxes to keep feeding these pensioners !
No we need greater productivity off our existing workforce.
You will need a triple lock soon, to stop those in the uk, with one of the highest personal debts in the world deciding you should help them out.
Double edged sword, greater productivity needs better more expensive equipment run by a small highly paid elite to pay for the majority people on permanent holiday. Unfortunately, we have a large number of under-employed low paid workers supporting a small number of highly paid elites in the style they have become accustomed to. LMAO!
What is going on with the quote function this morning?
I think its due to the character limit being reached so people try and snip out some of the earlier nested quotes, but doing so in a flawed way.
Its one flaw IMO of Vanilla. Other software elsewhere online does this automatically, snipping out quotes higher up the nest automatically so you keep text to a manageable length and thus under the character limit.
That is a "normal" problem but it is not the problem today. The nesting is only showing the first paragraph of the "quote" as a quote, making it difficult to see what has been added. Hence the dotted lines.
It's nice too see Iain Martin in The Telegraph comparing the latest Lords appointments by Cameron (and Osborne?) to a banana republic. The Telegraph seemed to be doing all it could for a Tory election win but perhaps there's life in the old dog yet.
The Torygraph can spend the next four years sniping at the sidelines before it goes into election mode again.
Does Ian Martin have any credibility? Again it was right wing tory backbenchers who voted against Lords reform. Until we do get Lords reform we need to appoint Lords. Good luck with getting anyone to agree on reform.
@DavidL - "That is what I did. The detail in the July budget was not in the March but the macro-economic change was a modest slow down in the pace of fiscal consolidation with more, not less, emphasis on protecting the lower paid. Osborne is a centralist, in many ways a Blairite, and does not need Danny hanging over his shoulder to know that is where elections are won."
He now needs to appease the Tory right, not the LD centre. That's why he is protecting the Tory voter base - pensioners - while squeezing the poorest, who - as we all know - bear the heaviest burden under what is planned.
Osborne has promised everyone a pay rise and a living wage. Had Labour elected anyone but Corbyn those promises may well have come back to haunt him.
------------------------------------------------------ In a few years I will be a pensioner too ! But, I can tell you now, this "triple lock" whilst a great vote winner, will destroy this country. It is bloody expensive !
We need more immigrants to pay the taxes to keep feeding these pensioners !
No we need greater productivity off our existing workforce.
You will need a triple lock soon, to stop those in the uk, with one of the highest personal debts in the world deciding you should help them out.
students ?
UK Personal Debt. People in the UK owed £1.441 trillion at the end of June 2015. This is up from £1.409 trillion at the end of June 2014 – an extra £628 per UK adult. The average total debt per household – including mortgages – was £53,961 in June.
Deficit reduction does not seem to be happening in this area.
The West doe not seem to learn, given the disastrous meddling in Syria and Libya in the last 5 years which has led to the swarm of immigration to Europe now.
Alternatively it was the failure of the west to interfere in Syria sufficiently that has led to the rise of ISIS and consequentially the migration crisis that exists today.
Who knows if we'd tackled ISIS when Obama and Cameron wanted to before Miliband led Parliamentary opposition to it in the way he did we might have nipped ISIS in the bud and prevented this entire crisis. Well done Ed.
Former expert claims they were right and everyone else was wrong shocker. That's never happened before.
Cameron did go to Parliament to authorise military strikes after chemical weapons were used in 2013. Ed decided even the use of chemical weapons on the public wasn't sufficient to see the west interfere in Syria - and ISIS rose up in the vacuum.
Ed led a party that was in opposition. Cameron failed to carry the Commons despite having a substantial majority.
A substantial coalition majority. Though opposition parties are not supposed to play politics aacuum created.
Cameron led a majority government. He lost the vote.
I note you ignore Millibands private assurance of support which would have carried the vote most likely as Cameron thought and expected. Either way they were both wrong in different ways it is the Arab League that should have taken the lead and if necessary we support that coalition of members. What the outcome would have been is anyone's guess really but I suspect better than present situation.
I think this is possibly the key moment that showed some in the know, how entirely unsuitable Miliband was for the role of PM.
Have a position, for the action or against. And justify it, thats fine. Im not really going to criticise people acting on their own concious. What was reprehensible was giving the PM a series of conditions for your support. The PM meeting those conditions, and tabling a motion to Parliament based on your support, and then withdrawing the support once it has been tabled.
I dont think the PM would have even taken it to parliament if he thought he couldnt win it. The PM was visibly diminished that afternoon. A low point for him which he recovered from.
Shocking, irresponsible and dishonourable behaviour by Ed.
Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership credentials come under renewed attack today after it emerged that he branded the Falklands War a ‘Tory plot’ in which ‘unemployed men’ were sent to die.
Mr Corbyn, the favourite to take over as Labour’s leader, said Britain was wrong to send a taskforce to liberate the UK overseas territory after Argentina’s invasion in 1982.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that he refused to offer ‘loyal support’ for British troops as they were fighting to reclaim the islands, and claimed the war was conceived to keep the Conservative Party’s ‘money-making friends in business’.
yes it's a good sign but we need to keep doing this for the next ten or so years and HMG isn't really doing much to address the gap.
What should HMG be doing more of that they're not doing in your eyes?
I view the problem is that HMG in the past has done too much which is a drag on creativity. The government has some stuff it can be doing like infrastructure improvements which it is doing. But overall as Reagan once said "government is not the solution, government is the problem."
The West doe not seem to learn, given the disastrous meddling in Syria and Libya in the last 5 years which has led to the swarm of immigration to Europe now.
Alternatively it was the failure of the west to interfere in Syria sufficiently that has led to the rise of ISIS and consequentially the migration crisis that exists today.
Who knows if we'd tackled ISIS when Obama and Cameron wanted to before Miliband led Parliamentary opposition to it in the way he did we might have nipped ISIS in the bud and prevented this entire crisis. Well done Ed.
Former expert claims they were right and everyone else was wrong shocker. That's never happened before.
Cameron did go to Parliament to authorise military strikes after chemical weapons were used in 2013. Ed decided even the use of chemical weapons on the public wasn't sufficient to see the west interfere in Syria - and ISIS rose up in the vacuum.
Ed led a party that was in opposition. Cameron failed to carry the Commons despite having a substantial majority.
A substantial coalition majority. Though opposition parties are not supposed to play politics and oppose all votes, especially in matters of war and peace. If the decision not to take action after the use of chemical weapons on the public was correct in your eyes then say so, don't just say "well they were in opposition".
The Tories in opposition (rightly or wrongly) accepted the need for invasion in 2003 based on the threat of chemical weapons. Labour in opposition rejected the need for military intervention at all (not even invasion) in 2013 based on the actual use of chemical weapons. ISIS filled the vacuum created.
Cameron led a majority government. He lost the vote.
I note you ignore Millibands private assurance of support which would have carried the vote most likely as Cameron thought and expected. Either way they were both wrong in different ways it is the Arab League that should have taken the lead and if necessary we support that coalition of members. What the outcome would have been is anyone's guess really but I suspect better than present situation.
And after the rebellion from the tory right wing back benches - who on earth (except a bitter General) could expect a coalition reliant on libdems to take the matter further?
What is going on with the quote function this morning?
I think its due to the character limit being reached so people try and snip out some of the earlier nested quotes, but doing so in a flawed way.
Its one flaw IMO of Vanilla. Other software elsewhere online does this automatically, snipping out quotes higher up the nest automatically so you keep text to a manageable length and thus under the character limit.
That is a "normal" problem but it is not the problem today. The nesting is only showing the first paragraph of the "quote" as a quote, making it difficult to see what has been added. Hence the dotted lines.
Edit. Except this time. Inevitably.
I think its the problem that time too. There's something in that chain that is corrupting the coding and causing the problem. As this quote has none of that chain in it, the nest is showing correctly.
@DavidL - "That is what I did. The detail in the July budget was not in the March but the macro-economic change was a modest slow down in the pace of fiscal consolidation with more, not less, emphasis on protecting the lower paid. Osborne is a centralist, in many ways a Blairite, and does not need Danny hanging over his shoulder to know that is where elections are won."
He now needs to appease the Tory right, not the LD centre. That's why he is protecting the Tory voter base - pensioners - while squeezing the poorest, who - as we all know - bear the heaviest burden under what is planned.
Osborne has promised everyone a pay rise and a living wage. Had Labour elected anyone but Corbyn those promises may well have come back to haunt him.
------------------------------------------------------ In a few years I will be a pensioner too ! But, I can tell you now, this "triple lock" whilst a great vote winner, will destroy this country. It is bloody expensive !
We need more immigrants to pay the taxes to keep feeding these pensioners !
No we need greater productivity off our existing workforce.
You will need a triple lock soon, to stop those in the uk, with one of the highest personal debts in the world deciding you should help them out.
students ?
UK Personal Debt. People in the UK owed £1.441 trillion at the end of June 2015. This is up from £1.409 trillion at the end of June 2014 – an extra £628 per UK adult. The average total debt per household – including mortgages – was £53,961 in June.
Deficit reduction does not seem to be happening in this area.
---------------------------------- That is just over a 2% increase, broadly in line with inflation. If that figure was falling substantially in real terms demand and the economy would be going off a cliff. Is that what you want?
We need private debt to drift down in real terms over an extended period when exports or at least a reduction in the trade deficit is making up the slack. If we kept going as per Q2 this might be possible but it is equally possible that was a flash in the pan.
Smart phones are not necessarily expensive and shock horror they can be second hand. We regularly read of migrants selling up and spending all their savings in their foolish attempts at migration. If these people have abilities and not just poverty they might just make decent citizens if they were to assimilate.
there's a mammoth difference between starting the next Parliament with say 275 seats under Cooper or 223 under Corbyn**.
** 223 is what Labour won in 1983 adjusting for only one Scottish seat.
Where on Earth do you get that ststistic from? In 1983, Labour got 209 seats. If you adjust for Labour only having 1 in Scotland, it goes down to about 168.
Correct. Also Labour's percentage share of the vote was about 3% higher than in 1983, slightly more so in England. It was the distribution of the vote that mattered and also the Lib Dem collapse.
If Labour had not lost a single seat in Scotland, the Tories would still have won. Because they won 27 seats from the Lib Dems in England and Wales.
In fact, even the SNP winning 10 Lib Dem seats in Scotland did not make any difference to this equation.
What the 14% in aggregate Lib Dem votes fall did was rewind the tactical votes built up from several general elections. Many of those voters were not Lib Dem to begin with. The party managed to pi** off both tactical Labour supporters as well tactical Tory supporters.
Barring a miracle, Labour cannot win the next election simply due to the distribution of votes. No wonder, the Tories so badly wanted FPTP even when losing from it. No other system gives a majority government on just 37% of the votes.
PR systems with top ups for the biggest party might?
Smart phones are not necessarily expensive and shock horror they can be second hand. We regularly read of migrants selling up and spending all their savings in their foolish attempts at migration. If these people have abilities and not just poverty they might just make decent citizens if they were to assimilate. Not only that, they're pretty universal. Its commonly said that in India more people have access to smartphones than sanitary toilets. The idea that people who've left behind everything they can't carry would have a phone with them should shock nobody.
What's your point? ISIS doesn't exist since people have phones?
Quite. Phones can be quite cheap, are easy to travel with and can be essential for such a journey - if you're raking anythin with you, your phone is probably it.
The West doe not seem to learn, given the disastrous meddling in Syria and Libya in the last 5 years which has led to the swarm of immigration to Europe now.
Alternatively it was the failure of the west to interfere in Syria sufficiently that has led to the rise of ISIS and consequentially the migration crisis that exists today.
Who knows if we'd tackled ISIS when Obama and Cameron wanted to before Miliband led Parliamentary opposition to it in the way he did we might have nipped ISIS in the bud and prevented this entire crisis. Well done Ed.
Former expert claims they were right and everyone else was wrong shocker. That's never happened before.
Cameron did go to Parliament to authorise military strikes after chemical weapons were used in 2013. Ed decided even the use of chemical weapons on the public wasn't sufficient to see the west interfere in Syria - and ISIS rose up in the vacuum.
Ed led a party that was in opposition. Cameron failed to carry the Commons despite having a substantial majority.
A substantial coalition majority. Though opposition parties are not supposed to play politics aacuum created.
Cameron led a majority government. He lost the vote.
I note you ignore Millibands private assurance of support which would have carried the vote most likely as Cameron thought and expected. Either way they were both wrong in different ways it is the Arab League that should have taken the lead and if necessary we support that coalition of members. What the outcome would have been is anyone's guess really but I suspect better than present situation.
I think this is possibly the key moment that showed some in the know, how entirely unsuitable Miliband was for the role of PM. .... Shocking, irresponsible and dishonourable behaviour by Ed.
And of course just who are Labour going to elect now?
I'm no accountant but I do understand a ledger has two sides. British debt - public and private may be too high but it is overmatched on the other side. Not an excuse to continue with excess (but a good excuse to not vote for the left; Oh, and dump the Scots)!
A substantial coalition majority. Though opposition parties are not supposed to play politics and oppose all votes, especially in matters of war and peace. If the decision not to take action after the use of chemical weapons on the public was correct in your eyes then say so, don't just say "well they were in opposition".
The Tories in opposition (rightly or wrongly) accepted the need for invasion in 2003 based on the threat of chemical weapons. Labour in opposition rejected the need for military intervention at all (not even invasion) in 2013 based on the actual use of chemical weapons. ISIS filled the vacuum created.
Cameron led a majority government. He lost the vote.
Indeed and I have as much contempt for the small number of Conservative and Lib Dem rebels as I do for the hundreds of Labour MPs who decided that they'd rather side with Assad's use of chemical weapons on the public.
My ire was it was one issue where a politician was, as far as I could see, guilty of a blatant lie and no opponent called him out, which is actually rAre. The labour amendment in place of supporting the government was to essentially delay a decision, without technically ruling out action In the future iirc, not, as ed would later claim, just being against taking action.
@DavidL - "That is what I did. The detail in the July budget was not in the March but the macro-economic change was a modest slow down in the pace of fiscal consolidation with more, not less, emphasis on protecting the lower paid. Osborne is a centralist, in many ways a Blairite, and does not need Danny hanging over his shoulder to know that is where elections are won."
He now needs to appease the Tory right, not the LD centre. That's why he is protecting the Tory voter base - pensioners - while squeezing the poorest, who - as we all know - bear the heaviest burden under what is planned.
Osborne has promised everyone a pay rise and a living wage. Had Labour elected anyone but Corbyn those promises may well have come back to haunt him.
------------------------------------------------------ In a few years I will be a pensioner too ! But, I can tell you now, this "triple lock" whilst a great vote winner, will destroy this country. It is bloody expensive !
We need more immigrants to pay the taxes to keep feeding these pensioners !
No we need greater productivity off our existing workforce.
You will need a triple lock soon, to stop those in the uk, with one of the highest personal debts in the world deciding you should help them out.
students ?
UK Personal Debt. People in the UK owed £1.441 trillion at the end of June 2015. This is up from £1.409 trillion at the end of June 2014 – an extra £628 per UK adult. The average total debt per household – including mortgages – was £53,961 in June.
Deficit reduction does not seem to be happening in this area.
---------------------------------- That is just over a 2% increase, broadly in line with inflation. If that figure was falling substantially in real terms demand and the economy would be going off a cliff. Is that what you want?
We need private debt to drift down in real terms over an extended period when exports or at least a reduction in the trade deficit is making up the slack. If we kept going as per Q2 this might be possible but it is equally possible that was a flash in the pan.
The current UK inflation rate is 0.1%. Can not see private debt drifting down in real terms over an extended period. More like a reality check, and debt right offs will accrue, as interest rates rise.
What's your point? ISIS doesn't exist since people have phones?
Quite. Phones can be quite cheap, are easy to travel with and can be essential for such a journey - if you're raking anythin with you, your phone is probably it.
ISTR that aid agencies have been handing mobiles out in camps : it's a sane and sensible way for them to keep track of what's going on.
Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership credentials come under renewed attack today after it emerged that he branded the Falklands War a ‘Tory plot’ in which ‘unemployed men’ were sent to die.
Mr Corbyn, the favourite to take over as Labour’s leader, said Britain was wrong to send a taskforce to liberate the UK overseas territory after Argentina’s invasion in 1982.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that he refused to offer ‘loyal support’ for British troops as they were fighting to reclaim the islands, and claimed the war was conceived to keep the Conservative Party’s ‘money-making friends in business’.
I've noted before he seems to have this view that because Thatcher is seen to have gained politically form the war, she is in effect just as bad as the argies in causing it, which is just bizarre. Whatever the reasoning of the argies, reasonably or not, that they could take the place without us fighting back, or if we'd floated the idea of handing them back, they lost all credibility when they turned to violence and so long as thatcher did not conspire with them to invade the place she is not responsible for their decision.
I think this is possibly the key moment that showed some in the know, how entirely unsuitable Miliband was for the role of PM.
Have a position, for the action or against. And justify it, thats fine. Im not really going to criticise people acting on their own concious. What was reprehensible was giving the PM a series of conditions for your support. The PM meeting those conditions, and tabling a motion to Parliament based on your support, and then withdrawing the support once it has been tabled.
I dont think the PM would have even taken it to parliament if he thought he couldnt win it. The PM was visibly diminished that afternoon. A low point for him which he recovered from.
Shocking, irresponsible and dishonourable behaviour by Ed.
Yep, and as Mr KLE mentions below, Ed and Labour despicably tried to rewrite history afterwards.
Ha! Interesting development that sort of qualifies my previous post
Sky news
Turkey has carried out its first airstrikes as part of the US-led coalition against Islamic State (IS) forces. Fighter jets began attacking IS positions across the border in Syria on Friday night, the country's foreign ministry said.
"The fight against the terrorist organisation is a priority for Turkey," it said.
The targets or number of planes involved was not revealed. Turkey last month agreed to open its strategically important air bases to the coalition.
UK Personal Debt. People in the UK owed £1.441 trillion at the end of June 2015. This is up from £1.409 trillion at the end of June 2014 – an extra £628 per UK adult. The average total debt per household – including mortgages – was £53,961 in June.
Deficit reduction does not seem to be happening in this area.
---------------------------------- That is just over a 2% increase, broadly in line with inflation. If that figure was falling substantially in real terms demand and the economy would be going off a cliff. Is that what you want?
We need private debt to drift down in real terms over an extended period when exports or at least a reduction in the trade deficit is making up the slack. If we kept going as per Q2 this might be possible but it is equally possible that was a flash in the pan.
The current UK inflation rate is 0.1%. Can not see private debt drifting down in real terms over an extended period. More like a reality check, and debt right offs will accrue, as interest rates rise.
You're forgetting growth.
Over the long term growth in debt is sustainable if it is lower than the long term rates of inflation and growth. Hence what we call a proportion "real GDP". Real is the inflation but is half of it.
On an annual basis we are growing at well above 2% in real terms. On an annual basis until the end of Q1 the economy grew by 2.9% in real terms. Factor in inflation of 0.1% then that is a 3% nominal growth.
If personal debt has gone up by 2% in nominal terms while the economy has grown 3% in nominal terms then that is a real debt:GDP fall.
Smart phones are not necessarily expensive and shock horror they can be second hand. We regularly read of migrants selling up and spending all their savings in their foolish attempts at migration. If these people have abilities and not just poverty they might just make decent citizens if they were to assimilate.
Not only that, they're pretty universal. Its commonly said that in India more people have access to smartphones than sanitary toilets. The idea that people who've left behind everything they can't carry would have a phone with them should shock nobody.
I was fascinated to read that Somalia, without a functioning central government or any security for so long, apparently has one of the best and cheapest mobile networks in Africa.no idea if true, but very interesting if so.
I think Philip may be right so I am starting again.
The UK has a tendency to higher levels of private debt because of our housing market. A large share of the debt is mortgage debt and well secured.
You are right that inflation is currently very low but real wages have grown faster than debt over the last year. More importantly, there has been a considerable reduction in the rate of increase in the cost of houses.
It is possible that the BTL tax changes in the budget will significantly increase the supply of housing and lead to continued price moderation which will help with debt. A lot more building would also help although a weak housing market does not help that.
Smart phones are not necessarily expensive and shock horror they can be second hand. We regularly read of migrants selling up and spending all their savings in their foolish attempts at migration. If these people have abilities and not just poverty they might just make decent citizens if they were to assimilate.
Not only that, they're pretty universal. Its commonly said that in India more people have access to smartphones than sanitary toilets. The idea that people who've left behind everything they can't carry would have a phone with them should shock nobody.
I was fascinated to read that Somalia, without a functioning central government or any security for so long, apparently has one of the best and cheapest mobile networks in Africa.no idea if true, but very interesting if so.
One of the easiest ways of transferring money there, apparently, is to do so using a phone.
Ed led a party that was in opposition. Cameron failed to carry the Commons despite having a substantial majority. A substantial coalition majority. Though opposition parties are not supposed to play politics aacuum created. Cameron led a majority government. He lost the vote.
I note you ignore Millibands private assurance of support which would have carried the vote most likely as Cameron thought and expected. Either way they were both wrong in different ways it is the Arab League that should have taken the lead and if necessary we support that coalition of members. What the outcome would have been is anyone's guess really but I suspect better than present situation.
I think this is possibly the key moment that showed some in the know, how entirely unsuitable Miliband was for the role of PM. Have a position, for the action or against. And justify it, thats fine. Im not really going to criticise people acting on their own concious. What was reprehensible was giving the PM a series of conditions for your support. The PM meeting those conditions, and tabling a motion to Parliament based on your support, and then withdrawing the support once it has been tabled.
I dont think the PM would have even taken it to parliament if he thought he couldnt win it. The PM was visibly diminished that afternoon. A low point for him which he recovered from.Shocking, irresponsible and dishonourable behaviour by Ed.
------------
Yes my point precisely. It was a despicable thing to do at the last second and Cameron would never have tabled the motion otherwise or met all the requirements required for that support. I would have preferred a no chance of support at the very start rather than the humiliation Milliband heaped on this country in front of the world.
I think Philip may be right so I am starting again.
The UK has a tendency to higher levels of private debt because of our housing market. A large share of the debt is mortgage debt and well secured.
You are right that inflation is currently very low but real wages have grown faster than debt over the last year. More importantly, there has been a considerable reduction in the rate of increase in the cost of houses.
It is possible that the BTL tax changes in the budget will significantly increase the supply of housing and lead to continued price moderation which will help with debt. A lot more building would also help although a weak housing market does not help that.
They won't increase supply, because it will reduce reasons for more to be built and btls used to buy quite a lot of new property. Big developers have been hugely cautious since the recession, as they were badly burnt.
But I'm not aware of a shortage of property to buy except in the SE for existing demand. The issue seems to me to be as much credit availability and tight policy.
In the short term Osbo may free up the market in the SE. But the problem is that if it does work all those non-optional renters will have fewer places to live.
@DavidL - "That is over his shoulder to know that is where elections are won."
He now Had Labour elected anyone but Corbyn those promises may well have come back to haunt him.
------------------------------------------------------ In a few years I will be a pensioner too ! But, I can tell you now, this "triple lock" whilst a great vote winner, will destroy this country. It is bloody expensive !
We need more immigrants to pay the taxes to keep feeding these pensioners !
No we need greater productivity off our existing workforce.
I have real doubts about the quality of our stats for productivity but FWIW they actually show year comparators.
yes it's a good sign o address the gap.
------------------------- The emphasis on apprentices should help a bit, as will the educational changes in England in the medium term.
The northern powerhouse idea is seeing a bit of money although it is small change compared to Crossrail and what is promised for HS2.
Driving up the minimum wage may have the biggest long term effect forcing employers to squeeze more out of more expensive labour.
What else would you like to see the government do?
Mr L,
been out.
All the above are good things to do, but in reality we need more.
To address productivity we need
1. Substantial investment in our infrastructure - roads ( can you still believe there is no motorway link between London and Edinburgh ? ), digital infrastucture and airports. Any survey you read says these are major obstacles to raising national output. 2. Structutal reform of dysfunctional markets in particular housing and banking. 3. Improved skill levels both at tertiary and secondary levels. The current Uni system in E&W is a mess there is nothing I can see in themedium term which says this will get better, its simply a graduate tax. Apprenticeships while going in the right direction still need a push and better linkage in with the Uni system. 4. Reform of capital allowances to encourage investment and bring offshored business back to the UK. Volume is one of the biggest drivers of productivity and the UK consistently ignores its importance. I'd suggest import substitution is lower hanging fruit than opening export markets.
Currently HMG is simply bobbing along with the economic cycle and trying to claim the credit from the upswing. This is no more valid than trying to claim it's the cycle's fault in 2011 when things were bad. The point of structural reformns is they take time to kick in, but when they do they are with you for the long term.
I think Philip may be right so I am starting again.
The UK has a tendency to higher levels of private debt because of our housing market. A large share of the debt is mortgage debt and well secured.
You are right that inflation is currently very low but real wages have grown faster than debt over the last year. More importantly, there has been a considerable reduction in the rate of increase in the cost of houses.
It is possible that the BTL tax changes in the budget will significantly increase the supply of housing and lead to continued price moderation which will help with debt. A lot more building would also help although a weak housing market does not help that.
I think much of this public and private debt has been run up in the unnaturally low interest rate environment, once interest rates start increasing and returning to normal that's going to be the real test for private debt in particular.
The London property market is starting to look shaky, many folks building highly geared property portfolios will never have experienced a property bubble bursting. Back in 1988 when the London property experienced its last proper crash, over heated areas saw dramatic falls - in Balham where I was living prices fell by 40 to 50% and took the best part of 10 years to return to their 1980s peak.
I think this is possibly the key moment that showed some in the know, how entirely unsuitable Miliband was for the role of PM.
Have a position, for the action or against. And justify it, thats fine. Im not really going to criticise people acting on their own concious. What was reprehensible was giving the PM a series of conditions for your support. The PM meeting those conditions, and tabling a motion to Parliament based on your support, and then withdrawing the support once it has been tabled.
I dont think the PM would have even taken it to parliament if he thought he couldnt win it. The PM was visibly diminished that afternoon. A low point for him which he recovered from.
Shocking, irresponsible and dishonourable behaviour by Ed.
Indeed. EdM considered acting in his view of the national interest a lesser priority tham embarrassing and destabilising the PM.
Fortunately it didn't work: Cameron wasn't seriously damaged by it because he moved so swiftly to accept that we wouldn't be able to intervene in Syria, and because EdM's motives were so transparent.
I think Philip may be right so I am starting again.
The UK has a tendency to higher levels of private debt because of our housing market. A large share of the debt is mortgage debt and well secured.
You are right that inflation is currently very low but real wages have grown faster than debt over the last year. More importantly, there has been a considerable reduction in the rate of increase in the cost of houses.
It is possible that the BTL tax changes in the budget will significantly increase the supply of housing and lead to continued price moderation which will help with debt. A lot more building would also help although a weak housing market does not help that.
I think much of this public and private debt has been run up in the unnaturally low interest rate environment, once interest rates start increasing and returning to normal that's going to be the real test for private debt in particular.
The London property market is starting to look shaky, many folks building highly geared property portfolios will never have experienced a property bubble bursting. Back in 1988 when the London property experienced its last proper crash, over heated areas saw dramatic falls - in Balham where I was living prices fell by 40 to 50% and took the best part of 10 years to return to their 1980s peak.
Actually private debt to GDP ratio has been falling for years, after years of rises preceding the crash and rates fall. As I said a few posts ago a 2% nominal term rise while 3% nominal growth is happening is actually a real terms debt:GDP fall not a rise. It will be interesting when rates start to go up but to give credit to the British public we're overall doing the right thing in preparing for that.
ISTR the Germans created a power plant that was powered by old eastern-block ammuinition they wanted to get rid of.
I was immediately drawn back to a SciFi novel by Jerry Pournelle: "King David's Spaceship" back in the '80s.
To save time going through the book, I culled this from Wikipedia:
"Back home, they use their newfound knowledge to build from old designs by pioneers such as Robert Goddard, one of which was a rapid firing cannon using high-explosive shells detonating behind the ship to provide propulsion. It is a desperate measure, but it works."
Ha! Interesting development that sort of qualifies my previous post
Sky news
Turkey has carried out its first airstrikes as part of the US-led coalition against Islamic State (IS) forces. Fighter jets began attacking IS positions across the border in Syria on Friday night, the country's foreign ministry said.
"The fight against the terrorist organisation is a priority for Turkey," it said.
The targets or number of planes involved was not revealed. Turkey last month agreed to open its strategically important air bases to the coalition.
Funny how they've been letting them over the Turkish border en masse up to now then isn't it?
ISTR the Germans created a power plant that was powered by old eastern-block ammuinition they wanted to get rid of.
I was immediately drawn back to a SciFi novel by Jerry Pournelle: "King David's Spaceship" back in the '80s.
To save time going through the book, I culled this from Wikipedia:
"Back home, they use their newfound knowledge to build from old designs by pioneers such as Robert Goddard, one of which was a rapid firing cannon using high-explosive shells detonating behind the ship to provide propulsion. It is a desperate measure, but it works."
To be perfectly honest, I had never thought it was possible, but now............
There was a plan to do exactly that, but instead of explosive shells, they were to use nuclear weapons. Throw one out the back, let it blow up, and have a massive shock absorber take up most of the blast. Repeat every few seconds.
I think this is possibly the key moment that showed some in the know, how entirely unsuitable Miliband was for the role of PM.
Have a position, for the action or against. And justify it, thats fine. Im not really going to criticise people acting on their own concious. What was reprehensible was giving the PM a series of conditions for your support. The PM meeting those conditions, and tabling a motion to Parliament based on your support, and then withdrawing the support once it has been tabled.
I dont think the PM would have even taken it to parliament if he thought he couldnt win it. The PM was visibly diminished that afternoon. A low point for him which he recovered from.
Shocking, irresponsible and dishonourable behaviour by Ed.
Indeed. EdM considered acting in his view of the national interest a lesser priority tham embarrassing and destabilising the PM.
Fortunately it didn't work: Cameron wasn't seriously damaged by it because he moved so swiftly to accept that we wouldn't be able to intervene in Syria, and because EdM's motives were so transparent.
I think Philip may be right so I am starting again.
The UK has a tendency to higher levels of private debt because of our housing market. A large share of the debt is mortgage debt and well secured.
You are right that inflation is currently very low but real wages have grown faster than debt over the last year. More importantly, there has been a considerable reduction in the rate of increase in the cost of houses.
It is possible that the BTL tax changes in the budget will significantly increase the supply of housing and lead to continued price moderation which will help with debt. A lot more building would also help although a weak housing market does not help that.
They won't increase supply, because it will reduce reasons for more to be built and btls used to buy quite a lot of new property. Big developers have been hugely cautious since the recession, as they were badly burnt. But I'm not aware of a shortage of property to buy except in the SE for existing demand. The issue seems to me to be as much credit availability and tight policy. In the short term Osbo may free up the market in the SE. But the problem is that if it does work all those non-optional renters will have fewer places to live. No idea how it will balance out.
Some BTLs will have to be sold due to the BTL tax changes of Osborne. At a time that new landlords with capital will be entering the market with pension money who would need no/little mortgages. Thus we are likely to see less demand for mortgages. Unless there is a big expansion in the supply of housing, something that looks very unlikely.
Voting down the bombing of Syria was probably the greatest service to the nation that Ed Milliband will ever perform. Sadly its beneficial effect was only temporary, as this time around the Government has decided not to bother consulting parliament.
1. Substantial investment in our infrastructure - roads ( can you still believe there is no motorway link between London and Edinburgh ? ), digital infrastucture and airports. Any survey you read says these are major obstacles to raising national output. 2. Structutal reform of dysfunctional markets in particular housing and banking. 3. Improved skill levels both at tertiary and secondary levels. The current Uni system in E&W is a mess there is nothing I can see in themedium term which says this will get better, its simply a graduate tax. Apprenticeships while going in the right direction still need a push and better linkage in with the Uni system. 4. Reform of capital allowances to encourage investment and bring offshored business back to the UK. Volume is one of the biggest drivers of productivity and the UK consistently ignores its importance. I'd suggest import substitution is lower hanging fruit than opening export markets.
Currently HMG is simply bobbing along with the economic cycle and trying to claim the credit from the upswing. This is no more valid than trying to claim it's the cycle's fault in 2011 when things were bad. The point of structural reformns is they take time to kick in, but when they do they are with you for the long term.
1: Yes I can believe it and until the SNP recedes the last priority I have is a motorway there. I drove from to Edinburgh last year (from the M6 direction not M1) and the A-roads in Scotland had much less traffic issues than the motorways in England do. My priority would be first and foremost upgrading the motorway network in England (the SNP in Holyrood can deal with Scotland) in areas that are congested.
Work is being done with upgrades to the motorway network here. More could be done certainly but I know near me the M6, M62 and M56 are all getting much-needed upgrades over the next few years. The Blair governments hostility to road upgrades on "environmental" grounds is taking time to undo the damage of.
4: Off-shored businesses are likely gone for good. You can't turn back time, but what we can do is continue to make the UK competitive. That means in part cutting corporation tax rates like the government is doing but also as you've said ensure we have competitive infrastructure, and a competitive red tape and cost regime too.
I don't think its fair to say that HMG is merely bobbing along. The government is rebalancing the economy away from the public to the private sector. Of course after the Blair/Brown years there's a lot to do.
What is going on with the quote function this morning?
I think its due to the character limit being reached so people try and snip out some of the earlier nested quotes, but doing so in a flawed way.
Its one flaw IMO of Vanilla. Other software elsewhere online does this automatically, snipping out quotes higher up the nest automatically so you keep text to a manageable length and thus under the character limit.
The other factor that complicates quote-snipping is that some people place their contribution above the quoted material, and others (most) go below it. Trying to sort out the resulting mess is nigh-on impossible. Really, OGH should impose one or other style: it does not matter very much which.
At the moment with Sanders already now in the lead in NH and closing in on Hillary in Iowa and Trump in the lead in both states on the GOP side Sanders v Trump does look a possibility. In the end I think Hillary will get it but she faces a tough fight for the nomination now and if she does not and Sanders wins and Trump ends up GOP nominee I can see Michael Bloomberg going third party
Ha! Interesting development that sort of qualifies my previous post
Sky news
Turkey has carried out its first airstrikes as part of the US-led coalition against Islamic State (IS) forces. Fighter jets began attacking IS positions across the border in Syria on Friday night, the country's foreign ministry said.
"The fight against the terrorist organisation is a priority for Turkey," it said.
The targets or number of planes involved was not revealed. Turkey last month agreed to open its strategically important air bases to the coalition.
Funny how they've been letting them over the Turkish border en masse up to now then isn't it?
What is going on with the quote function this morning?
I think its due to the character limit being reached so people try and snip out some of the earlier nested quotes, but doing so in a flawed way.
Its one flaw IMO of Vanilla. Other software elsewhere online does this automatically, snipping out quotes higher up the nest automatically so you keep text to a manageable length and thus under the character limit.
The other factor that complicates quote-snipping is that some people place their contribution above the quoted material, and others (most) go below it. Trying to sort out the resulting mess is nigh-on impossible. Really, OGH should impose one or other style: it does not matter very much which.
Indeed. I fix it by counting the 'block quotes in triangle brackets' (can't write it properly as that'd obviously be taken as code). If I leave 1, 2 or 3 'forward slash block quote in triangle brackets' at the end, then that means also leaving 1, 2 or 3 respecting 'block quote in triangle brackets' at the start. So long as the number of codes opening and ending matches then it will be formatted correctly.
Ha! Interesting development that sort of qualifies my previous post
Sky news
Turkey has carried out its first airstrikes as part of the US-led coalition against Islamic State (IS) forces. Fighter jets began attacking IS positions across the border in Syria on Friday night, the country's foreign ministry said.
"The fight against the terrorist organisation is a priority for Turkey," it said.
The targets or number of planes involved was not revealed. Turkey last month agreed to open its strategically important air bases to the coalition.
Funny how they've been letting them over the Turkish border en masse up to now then isn't it?
Something that takes considerable infrastructure and could not be happening without state assent - indeed Erdogan's son is said to be running the operation.
1. Sub, but when they do they are with you for the long term.
1: Yes I can believe it and until the SNP recedes the last priority I have is a motorway there. I drove from to Edinburgh last year (from the M6 direction not M1) and the A-roads in Scotland had much less traffic issues than the motorways in England do. My priority would be first and foremost upgrading the motorway network in England (the SNP in Holyrood can deal with Scotland) in areas that are congested.
Work is being done with upgrades to the motorway network here. More could be done certainly but I know near me the M6, M62 and M56 are all getting much-needed upgrades over the next few years. The Blair governments hostility to road upgrades on "environmental" grounds is taking time to undo the damage of.
4: Off-shored businesses are likely gone for good. You can't turn back time, but what we can do is continue to make the UK competitive. That means in part cutting corporation tax rates like the government is doing but also as you've said ensure we have competitive infrastructure, and a competitive red tape and cost regime too.
I don't think its fair to say that HMG is merely bobbing along. The government is rebalancing the economy away from the public to the private sector. Of course after the Blair/Brown years there's a lot to do.
The US has been onshoring business for most of this decade on the back of falling energy costs, guaranteed quality and rising labour and transport costs in so-called LCCs. There is no reason why the UK can't do the same, Car companies have been taking work back to the UK since 2009.
ISTR the Germans created a power plant that was powered by old eastern-block ammuinition they wanted to get rid of.
I was immediately drawn back to a SciFi novel by Jerry Pournelle: "King David's Spaceship" back in the '80s.
To save time going through the book, I culled this from Wikipedia:
"Back home, they use their newfound knowledge to build from old designs by pioneers such as Robert Goddard, one of which was a rapid firing cannon using high-explosive shells detonating behind the ship to provide propulsion. It is a desperate measure, but it works."
To be perfectly honest, I had never thought it was possible, but now............
There was a plan to do exactly that, but instead of explosive shells, they were to use nuclear weapons. Throw one out the back, let it blow up, and have a massive shock absorber take up most of the blast. Repeat every few seconds.
Yes, I read that about the manhole cover some time ago and the thought still makes me smile. I believe that they cemented in the manhole covers after that. Boom Bomb!
Until, I thought about it a bit. If they popped the bomb during the day, then the lid would be making for the sun... Anyways, more than likely to have vapourised in the atmosphere.
Feisty this morning. Feisty but enlightening: it is striking how quickly the thread has veered off-topic, no doubt because British and European politics is so much more interesting than American politics, at the moment. Hillary Clinton? Yawn.
This is a trend I've seen elsewhere. TV news is less interested in America than it was. The USA in general looms less large in our lives. At the same time China grows more prominent: cf the coverage of the Tianjin explosions.
Our worldview is slowly adapting to the economic facts.
A possible theory, although re this thread I suspect it is because the american electoral cycle started a long time ago and has a long time still to go. We need to pace ourselves after all.
Feisty this morning. Feisty but enlightening: it is striking how quickly the thread has veered off-topic, no doubt because British and European politics is so much more interesting than American politics, at the moment. Hillary Clinton? Yawn.
This is a trend I've seen elsewhere. TV news is less interested in America than it was. The USA in general looms less large in our lives. At the same time China grows more prominent: cf the coverage of the Tianjin explosions.
Our worldview is slowly adapting to the economic facts.
US politics is interesting for the entertainment value and Trump and Sanders still add to that.
Of course China continues to loom large but the stock market collapse last week showed it is not infallible and there are limits to what the Communist Party can control, indeed one advantage India has over China is that it is a democracy with a younger population.
...trapped in their own “hermetically sealed bubble” in which “reason is an irritation, evidence a distraction, emotional impact is king and the only thing that counts is feeling good about it all”.
One can say the same thing about Blair and his Iraq "dossier"
1. Sub, but when they do they are with you for the long term.
1: Yes I can believe it and until the SNP recedes the last priority I have is a motorway there. I drove from to Edinburgh last year (from the M6 direction not M1) and the A-roads in Scotland had much less traffic issues than the motorways in England do. My priority would be first and foremost upgrading the motorway network in England (the SNP in Holyrood can deal with Scotland) in areas that are congested.
Work is being done with upgrades to the motorway network here. More could be done certainly but I know near me the M6, M62 and M56 are all getting much-needed upgrades over the next few years. The Blair governments hostility to road upgrades on "environmental" grounds is taking time to undo the damage of.
4: Off-shored businesses are likely gone for good. You can't turn back time, but what we can do is continue to make the UK competitive. That means in part cutting corporation tax rates like the government is doing but also as you've said ensure we have competitive infrastructure, and a competitive red tape and cost regime too.
I don't think its fair to say that HMG is merely bobbing along. The government is rebalancing the economy away from the public to the private sector. Of course after the Blair/Brown years there's a lot to do.
The US has been onshoring business for most of this decade on the back of falling energy costs, guaranteed quality and rising labour and transport costs in so-called LCCs. There is no reason why the UK can't do the same, Car companies have been taking work back to the UK since 2009.
I think since the service sector was the last to go, it's probably the easiest to get back in the short term. Call centres and similar should be brought back to the UK. I know someone who works for RBS - all his team are in India. They're constantly changing personnel, and he spends most of his working day shouting at people on the other side of the world. This cannot be the best solution for anyone. I also don't know anyone who finds customer service lines in India easy to deal with.
The FT's Northern correspondent has written an interesting article on labour losing ground to UKIP in the heartlands (he cites a trip to Hatfield near Doncaster).
Immigration is a big issue, it seems. Don;t see Jezza making that any better.
Voting down the bombing of Syria was probably the greatest service to the nation that Ed Milliband will ever perform.
Unintentionally, as that wasn't what he was trying to do.
The Tories and their LibDem hand-maidens - oops, I mean "partners" - had a majority in the Commons. Why couldn't they carry the vote?
I'm not saying one way or the other that the outcome was good or not - people will have different views on that - I merely point out that Ed's intention was not to stop any action, but delay making a decision on taking action. Cameron's rebels and the LDs ensured he could not pass his own measure without Labour support, but that's irrelevant to Ed claiming repeatedly afterward to have intended to stop any action.
But, sadly I am sure to those who want to see me bang on about that unequivocal falsehood on his part, I do actually have to run. A pleasant day to all.
Feisty this morning. Feisty but enlightening: it is striking how quickly the thread has veered off-topic, no doubt because British and European politics is so much more interesting than American politics, at the moment. Hillary Clinton? Yawn.
This is a trend I've seen elsewhere. TV news is less interested in America than it was. The USA in general looms less large in our lives. At the same time China grows more prominent: cf the coverage of the Tianjin explosions.
Our worldview is slowly adapting to the economic facts.
US politics is interesting for the entertainment value and Trump and Sanders still add to that.
Of course China continues to loom large but the stock market collapse last week showed it is not infallible and there are limits to what the Communist Party can control, indeed one advantage India has over China is that it is a democracy with a younger population.
The Chinese crash - which is coming, even if it doesn't happen now - actually proves my point. China is now vitally important to the global economy, arguably more important than America (China is a bigger trader, a bigger exporter, and contributes more to global growth).
Therefore when China stumbles we have to pay attention, whereas before we could happily remain indifferent.
The Wall Street Crash had a similar effect. By the 1920s the American economy was so important, in global terms, the depression which began in the USA spread quickly around the world.
And of course, following the Great Depression America continued its advance to global economic primacy, nonetheless.
China is of course a vital part of the global economy now, indeed you could say when China sneezes the world catches a cold as much as you could about the US. By 2050 China will be the largest economy on the planet overtaking the US much as the US overtook the British Empire at the dawn of the 20th century but that is in many ways a reflection of population, indeed China and India were the largest economies on the planet until the seventeenth century (on a gdp per capita basis the US will still probably be just ahead of China and certainly India). It was Maoism which really did for China over the last century. However, until China really takes an interest in international affairs outside the Pacific region in foreign policy terms the US will still lead the way
1. Sub, but when they do they are with you for the long term.
1: Yes I can believe it and until the SNP recedes the last priority I have is a motorway there. I drove from to Edinburgh last year (from the M6 direction not M1) and the A-roads in Scotland had much less traffic issues than the motorways in England do. My priority would be first and foremost upgrading the motorway network in England (the SNP in Holyrood can deal with Scotland) in areas that are congested.
Work is being done with upgrades to the motorway network here. More could be done certainly but I know near me the M6, M62 and M56 are all getting much-needed upgrades over the next few years. The Blair governments hostility to road upgrades on "environmental" grounds is taking time to undo the damage of.
4: Off-shored businesses are likely gone for good. You can't turn back time, but what we can do is continue to make the UK competitive. That means in part cutting corporation tax rates like the government is doing but also as you've said ensure we have competitive infrastructure, and a competitive red tape and cost regime too.
I don't think its fair to say that HMG is merely bobbing along. The government is rebalancing the economy away from the public to the private sector. Of course after the Blair/Brown years there's a lot to do.
The US has been onshoring business for most of this decade on the back of falling energy costs, guaranteed quality and rising labour and transport costs in so-called LCCs. There is no reason why the UK can't do the same, Car companies have been taking work back to the UK since 2009.
Absolutely work can be done in the UK (or USA) and we should be trying to deal with costs to be more competitive. But the jobs done here may not be the same ones as those that were offshored in the first place. Car companies work is typically of higher value than for instance call centre work.
Feisty this morning. Feisty but enlightening: it is striking how quickly the thread has veered off-topic, no doubt because British and European politics is so much more interesting than American politics, at the moment. Hillary Clinton? Yawn.
This is a trend I've seen elsewhere. TV news is less interested in America than it was. The USA in general looms less large in our lives. At the same time China grows more prominent: cf the coverage of the Tianjin explosions.
Our worldview is slowly adapting to the economic facts.
US politics is interesting for the entertainment value and Trump and Sanders still add to that.
Of course China continues to loom large but the stock market collapse last week showed it is not infallible and there are limits to what the Communist Party can control, indeed one advantage India has over China is that it is a democracy with a younger population.
I don't think India really has any advantages over China. Look at the Commonwealth Games. All the resources of the world's second most populous country and they couldn't even produce a sanitary competitor's village and a swimming pool that didn't give people the squits. When the British left India they surveyed some of the villages to ask whether they were pleased the British had left - they weren't even aware they'd arrived. I see it more as a collection of peoples than a great power. It's a wonderful thing as well as a bad thing.
Voting down the bombing of Syria was probably the greatest service to the nation that Ed Milliband will ever perform. Sadly its beneficial effect was only temporary, as this time around the Government has decided not to bother consulting parliament.
Bombing ISIS is sensible, bombing Assad was stupid, that is the difference. After correctly toppling the Taliban the west then made the mistake of toppling dictators like Saddam and Gaddadi and allowing militant Islam to fill the vacuum. Now it has come to realise that toppling Assad and replacing him with ISIS would be even worse and that in Egypt a military government has now become the toughest opponent of Islamist extremist in North Africa and the Middle East
The FT's Northern correspondent has written an interesting article on labour losing ground to UKIP in the heartlands (he cites a trip to Hatfield near Doncaster).
Immigration is a big issue, it seems. Don;t see Jezza making that any better.
Didn’t look like that in the Yorkshire (?Barnsley?) by-election last week. UKIP dropped 25 or so % IIRC.
1. Sub, but when they do they are with you for the long term.
1: Yes I can believe it and until the SNP recedes the last priority I have is a motorway there. I drove from to Edinburgh last year (from the M6 direction not M1) and the A-roads in Scotland had much less traffic issues than the motorways in England do. My priority would be first and foremost upgrading the motorway network in England (the SNP in Holyrood can deal with Scotland) in areas that are congested.
Work is being done with upgrades to the motorway network here. More could be done certainly but I know near me the M6, M62 and M56 are all getting much-needed upgrades over the next few years. The Blair governments hostility to road upgrades on "environmental" grounds is taking time to undo the damage of.
4: Off-shored businesses are likely gone for good. You can't turn back time, but what we can do is continue to make the UK competitive. That means in part cutting corporation tax rates like the government is doing but also as you've said ensure we have competitive infrastructure, and a competitive red tape and cost regime too.
I don't think its fair to say that HMG is merely bobbing along. The government is rebalancing the economy away from the public to the private sector. Of course after the Blair/Brown years there's a lot to do.
The US has been onshoring business for most of this decade on the back of falling energy costs, guaranteed quality and rising labour and transport costs in so-called LCCs. There is no reason why the UK can't do the same, Car companies have been taking work back to the UK since 2009.
Absolutely work can be done in the UK (or USA) and we should be trying to deal with costs to be more competitive. But the jobs done here may not be the same ones as those that were offshored in the first place. Car companies work is typically of higher value than for instance call centre work.
It's your singular lack of ambition which I find most depressing.
There are lots of jobs we are capable of bringing back across a wide spectrum of industries. This country is going to have to learn to work for a living again rather than rely on government non-jobs and banking "profits".
The biggest impediment to reshoring of aerospace or automotive components is the damage done to the supply base in the noughties, hence why capital allowances, accessible financing and skills are key. It will be easier to create jobs and cut the BOP that way than trying to export to BRIC markets which are currently heading for a downturn.
Feisty this morning. Feisty but enlightening: it is striking how quickly the thread has veered off-topic, no doubt because British and European politics is so much more interesting than American politics, at the moment. Hillary Clinton? Yawn.
This is a trend I've seen elsewhere. TV news is less interested in America than it was. The USA in general looms less large in our lives. At the same time China grows more prominent: cf the coverage of the Tianjin explosions.
Our worldview is slowly adapting to the economic facts.
US politics is interesting for the entertainment value and Trump and Sanders still add to that.
Of course China continues to loom large but the stock market collapse last week showed it is not infallible and there are limits to what the Communist Party can control, indeed one advantage India has over China is that it is a democracy with a younger population.
I don't think India really has any advantages over China. Look at the Commonwealth Games. All the resources of the world's second most populous country and they couldn't even produce a sanitary competitor's village and a swimming pool that didn't give people the squits. When the British left India they surveyed some of the villages to ask whether they were pleased the British had left - they weren't even aware they'd arrived. I see it more as a collection of peoples than a great power. It's a wonderful thing as well as a bad thing.
By 2050 India will be the most populous nation on earth, overtaking China. Population size inevitably plays a key part in economy size as long as a country is not governed by Marxists which India certainly is not. There will still be poverty and chaos in India but it will be a superpower
Voting down the bombing of Syria was probably the greatest service to the nation that Ed Milliband will ever perform. Sadly its beneficial effect was only temporary, as this time around the Government has decided not to bother consulting parliament.
Bombing ISIS is sensible, bombing Assad was stupid, that is the difference. After correctly toppling the Taliban the west then made the mistake of toppling dictators like Saddam and Gaddadi and allowing militant Islam to fill the vacuum. Now it has come to realise that toppling Assad and replacing him with ISIS would be even worse and that in Egypt a military government has now become the toughest opponent of Islamist extremist in North Africa and the Middle East
I totally agree with your opinion; I wish I could agree with you on the motives behind the bombing and the likely outcomes.
I'd love to see a Milgram experiment conducted by Corbyn supporters against Blairites.
I can see more than 60% being willing to give fatal electric shocks to their own Party members for failing to comply with their agenda. It's really rather unnerving what some of them are saying.
Spurs were an obvious sell when in the 60s for the spread betting season points, selling now at 53 and quite possible we won't win a PL game in Sept either.
Voting down the bombing of Syria was probably the greatest service to the nation that Ed Milliband will ever perform. Sadly its beneficial effect was only temporary, as this time around the Government has decided not to bother consulting parliament.
Bombing ISIS is sensible, bombing Assad was stupid, that is the difference. After correctly toppling the Taliban the west then made the mistake of toppling dictators like Saddam and Gaddadi and allowing militant Islam to fill the vacuum. Now it has come to realise that toppling Assad and replacing him with ISIS would be even worse and that in Egypt a military government has now become the toughest opponent of Islamist extremist in North Africa and the Middle East
I totally agree with your opinion; I wish I could agree with you on the motives behind the bombing and the likely outcomes.
Motives will be many but bombing them is necessary to support the Kurds and Iraqis and contain ISIS
Voting down the bombing of Syria was probably the greatest service to the nation that Ed Milliband will ever perform.
Unintentionally, as that wasn't what he was trying to do.
The Tories and their LibDem hand-maidens - oops, I mean "partners" - had a majority in the Commons. Why couldn't they carry the vote?
Decisions to engage in military action traditionally require a large measure of all-party support. Miliband's actions were despicable and self-serving as was his resignation in May, as has been his silence re Corbyn. He wants a shadow cabinet post and will no doubt get it.
Absolutely work can be done in the UK (or USA) and we should be trying to deal with costs to be more competitive. But the jobs done here may not be the same ones as those that were offshored in the first place. Car companies work is typically of higher value than for instance call centre work.
It's your singular lack of ambition which I find most depressing.
There are lots of jobs we are capable of bringing back across a wide spectrum of industries. This country is going to have to learn to work for a living again rather than rely on government non-jobs and banking "profits".
The biggest impediment to reshoring of aerospace or automotive components is the damage done to the supply base in the noughties, hence why capital allowances, accessible financing and skills are key. It will be easier to create jobs and cut the BOP that way than trying to export to BRIC markets which are currently heading for a downturn.
It's not a lack of ambition, its a surplus of ambition. I find the desire to look back and never give up jobs to be the one lacking in ambition. It is Luddism. History, technology and Ricardian Economics have shown that certain jobs are either not worth doing or better done elsewhere.
Sure we can bring some jobs back. But the idea that every job lost is one we should regain as there's nothing better we can do instead is depressingly unambitious.
Comments
In a few years I will be a pensioner too ! But, I can tell you now, this "triple lock" whilst a great vote winner, will destroy this country. It is bloody expensive !
We need more immigrants to pay the taxes to keep feeding these pensioners !
The Triple lock is indeed very, very expensive when inflation is at zero. It was also completely immoral when wages were falling in real terms as they were for much of the last Parliament. But that at least won't be the case in this Parliament.
You will need a triple lock soon, to stop those in the uk, with one of the highest personal debts in the world deciding you should help them out.
students ?
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I have real doubts about the quality of our stats for productivity but FWIW they actually show considerable improvements of late. I think the negative effects of north sea oil production in particular are now "built in" to the year on year comparators.
yes it's a good sign but we need to keep doing this for the next ten or so years and HMG isn't really doing much to address the gap.
Struggling to see the point. People who left behind anything they can't carry, have mobile phones, so what?
Its one flaw IMO of Vanilla. Other software elsewhere online does this automatically, snipping out quotes higher up the nest automatically so you keep text to a manageable length and thus under the character limit.
Nobody is bothered by rich retirees spending their sunset years and their wealth in the UK.
What the Iraq invasion did do is create a well-armed and experienced Islamic fighting group in Iraq, which was able to exploit the Syrian rebellion. Without al Nusra and IS, it would have been Assad and the rebel army commanders slugging it out, perhaps with the Peshmerga adding their weight in the north.
So whilst the Iraq War has indirectly made the Syrian civil war worse, it did not cause it.
-------------------------
The emphasis on apprentices should help a bit, as will the educational changes in England in the medium term.
The northern powerhouse idea is seeing a bit of money although it is small change compared to Crossrail and what is promised for HS2.
Driving up the minimum wage may have the biggest long term effect forcing employers to squeeze more out of more expensive labour.
What else would you like to see the government do?
Double edged sword, greater productivity needs better more expensive equipment run by a small highly paid elite to pay for the majority people on permanent holiday. Unfortunately, we have a large number of under-employed low paid workers supporting a small number of highly paid elites in the style they have become accustomed to. LMAO!
Edit. Except this time. Inevitably.
UK Personal Debt. People in the UK owed £1.441 trillion at the end of June 2015. This is up from £1.409 trillion at the end of June 2014 – an extra £628 per UK adult. The average total debt per household – including mortgages – was £53,961 in June.
Deficit reduction does not seem to be happening in this area.
Have a position, for the action or against. And justify it, thats fine. Im not really going to criticise people acting on their own concious. What was reprehensible was giving the PM a series of conditions for your support. The PM meeting those conditions, and tabling a motion to Parliament based on your support, and then withdrawing the support once it has been tabled.
I dont think the PM would have even taken it to parliament if he thought he couldnt win it. The PM was visibly diminished that afternoon. A low point for him which he recovered from.
Shocking, irresponsible and dishonourable behaviour by Ed.
I view the problem is that HMG in the past has done too much which is a drag on creativity. The government has some stuff it can be doing like infrastructure improvements which it is doing. But overall as Reagan once said "government is not the solution, government is the problem."
Deficit reduction does not seem to be happening in this area.
----------------------------------
That is just over a 2% increase, broadly in line with inflation. If that figure was falling substantially in real terms demand and the economy would be going off a cliff. Is that what you want?
We need private debt to drift down in real terms over an extended period when exports or at least a reduction in the trade deficit is making up the slack. If we kept going as per Q2 this might be possible but it is equally possible that was a flash in the pan.
Smart phones are not necessarily expensive and shock horror they can be second hand. We regularly read of migrants selling up and spending all their savings in their foolish attempts at migration. If these people have abilities and not just poverty they might just make decent citizens if they were to assimilate.
Not only that, they're pretty universal. Its commonly said that in India more people have access to smartphones than sanitary toilets. The idea that people who've left behind everything they can't carry would have a phone with them should shock nobody.
Quite. Phones can be quite cheap, are easy to travel with and can be essential for such a journey - if you're raking anythin with you, your phone is probably it.
That is just over a 2% increase, broadly in line with inflation. If that figure was falling substantially in real terms demand and the economy would be going off a cliff. Is that what you want?
We need private debt to drift down in real terms over an extended period when exports or at least a reduction in the trade deficit is making up the slack. If we kept going as per Q2 this might be possible but it is equally possible that was a flash in the pan.
The current UK inflation rate is 0.1%.
Can not see private debt drifting down in real terms over an extended period.
More like a reality check, and debt right offs will accrue, as interest rates rise.
ISTR that aid agencies have been handing mobiles out in camps : it's a sane and sensible way for them to keep track of what's going on.
Sky news
Turkey has carried out its first airstrikes as part of the US-led coalition against Islamic State (IS) forces.
Fighter jets began attacking IS positions across the border in Syria on Friday night, the country's foreign ministry said.
"The fight against the terrorist organisation is a priority for Turkey," it said.
The targets or number of planes involved was not revealed. Turkey last month agreed to open its strategically important air bases to the coalition.
Over the long term growth in debt is sustainable if it is lower than the long term rates of inflation and growth. Hence what we call a proportion "real GDP". Real is the inflation but is half of it.
On an annual basis we are growing at well above 2% in real terms. On an annual basis until the end of Q1 the economy grew by 2.9% in real terms. Factor in inflation of 0.1% then that is a 3% nominal growth.
If personal debt has gone up by 2% in nominal terms while the economy has grown 3% in nominal terms then that is a real debt:GDP fall.
I was fascinated to read that Somalia, without a functioning central government or any security for so long, apparently has one of the best and cheapest mobile networks in Africa.no idea if true, but very interesting if so.
I think Philip may be right so I am starting again.
The UK has a tendency to higher levels of private debt because of our housing market. A large share of the debt is mortgage debt and well secured.
You are right that inflation is currently very low but real wages have grown faster than debt over the last year. More importantly, there has been a considerable reduction in the rate of increase in the cost of houses.
It is possible that the BTL tax changes in the budget will significantly increase the supply of housing and lead to continued price moderation which will help with debt. A lot more building would also help although a weak housing market does not help that.
One of the easiest ways of transferring money there, apparently, is to do so using a phone.
Ed led a party that was in opposition. Cameron failed to carry the Commons despite having a substantial majority.
A substantial coalition majority. Though opposition parties are not supposed to play politics aacuum created.
Cameron led a majority government. He lost the vote.
I note you ignore Millibands private assurance of support which would have carried the vote most likely as Cameron thought and expected. Either way they were both wrong in different ways it is the Arab League that should have taken the lead and if necessary we support that coalition of members. What the outcome would have been is anyone's guess really but I suspect better than present situation.
I think this is possibly the key moment that showed some in the know, how entirely unsuitable Miliband was for the role of PM.
Have a position, for the action or against. And justify it, thats fine. Im not really going to criticise people acting on their own concious. What was reprehensible was giving the PM a series of conditions for your support. The PM meeting those conditions, and tabling a motion to Parliament based on your support, and then withdrawing the support once it has been tabled.
I dont think the PM would have even taken it to parliament if he thought he couldnt win it. The PM was visibly diminished that afternoon. A low point for him which he recovered from.Shocking, irresponsible and dishonourable behaviour by Ed.
------------
Yes my point precisely. It was a despicable thing to do at the last second and Cameron would never have tabled the motion otherwise or met all the requirements required for that support. I would have preferred a no chance of support at the very start rather than the humiliation Milliband heaped on this country in front of the world.
Since it's a Sundaymorning: how to destroy 2,000 bullets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py3-BzXzqvo
ISTR the Germans created a power plant that was powered by old eastern-block ammuinition they wanted to get rid of.
But I'm not aware of a shortage of property to buy except in the SE for existing demand. The issue seems to me to be as much credit availability and tight policy.
In the short term Osbo may free up the market in the SE. But the problem is that if it does work all those non-optional renters will have fewer places to live.
No idea how it will balance out.
The emphasis on apprentices should help a bit, as will the educational changes in England in the medium term.
The northern powerhouse idea is seeing a bit of money although it is small change compared to Crossrail and what is promised for HS2.
Driving up the minimum wage may have the biggest long term effect forcing employers to squeeze more out of more expensive labour.
What else would you like to see the government do?
Mr L,
been out.
All the above are good things to do, but in reality we need more.
To address productivity we need
1. Substantial investment in our infrastructure - roads ( can you still believe there is no motorway link between London and Edinburgh ? ), digital infrastucture and airports. Any survey you read says these are major obstacles to raising national output.
2. Structutal reform of dysfunctional markets in particular housing and banking.
3. Improved skill levels both at tertiary and secondary levels. The current Uni system in E&W is a mess there is nothing I can see in themedium term which says this will get better, its simply a graduate tax. Apprenticeships while going in the right direction still need a push and better linkage in with the Uni system.
4. Reform of capital allowances to encourage investment and bring offshored business back to the UK. Volume is one of the biggest drivers of productivity and the UK consistently ignores its importance. I'd suggest import substitution is lower hanging fruit than opening export markets.
Currently HMG is simply bobbing along with the economic cycle and trying to claim the credit from the upswing. This is no more valid than trying to claim it's the cycle's fault in 2011 when things were bad. The point of structural reformns is they take time to kick in, but when they do they are with you for the long term.
The London property market is starting to look shaky, many folks building highly geared property portfolios will never have experienced a property bubble bursting. Back in 1988 when the London property experienced its last proper crash, over heated areas saw dramatic falls - in Balham where I was living prices fell by 40 to 50% and took the best part of 10 years to return to their 1980s peak.
Fortunately it didn't work: Cameron wasn't seriously damaged by it because he moved so swiftly to accept that we wouldn't be able to intervene in Syria, and because EdM's motives were so transparent.
To save time going through the book, I culled this from Wikipedia:
"Back home, they use their newfound knowledge to build from old designs by pioneers such as Robert Goddard, one of which was a rapid firing cannon using high-explosive shells detonating behind the ship to provide propulsion. It is a desperate measure, but it works."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David's_Spaceship
To be perfectly honest, I had never thought it was possible, but now............
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11697764/Isil-reenters-key-Syria-border-town-of-Kobane-live.html
As well as allegedly treating the ISIS wounded: http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/07/22/pro-iran-research-group-turkish-presidents-daughter-runs-secret-isis-hospital/
One might almost suppose ISIS is simply an alibi being used to bomb Syria.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
The flaws are rather obvious.
Some also believe that a large metal manhole cover might be the fastest travelling manmade object:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob#Propulsion_of_steel_plate_cap
Bad poll for him out soon ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34100741>
He looks totally dysfunctional...!
EtA:
Some AngularJS functionality to decode:
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/410/cpsprodpb/12684/production/_85269357_blair_afp.jpg
:[MODERATED]:
Trump 23% (4%)
Carson 18% (10%)
Cruz 8% (5%)
Walker 8% (17%)
Bush 6% (9%)
Rubio 6% (6%)
Fiorina 5% (2%)
Huckabee 4% (9%)
Paul 4% (10%)
Christie 2% (4%)
Jindal 2% (1%)
Kasich 2% (2%)
Perry 1% (3%)
Santorum 1% (6%)
Gilmore 0% (–)
Graham 0% (1%)
Pataki 0% (0%)
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/08/29/iowa-poll-glance-how-each-gop-candidate-fares/71360766/
Work is being done with upgrades to the motorway network here. More could be done certainly but I know near me the M6, M62 and M56 are all getting much-needed upgrades over the next few years. The Blair governments hostility to road upgrades on "environmental" grounds is taking time to undo the damage of.
4: Off-shored businesses are likely gone for good. You can't turn back time, but what we can do is continue to make the UK competitive. That means in part cutting corporation tax rates like the government is doing but also as you've said ensure we have competitive infrastructure, and a competitive red tape and cost regime too.
I don't think its fair to say that HMG is merely bobbing along. The government is rebalancing the economy away from the public to the private sector. Of course after the Blair/Brown years there's a lot to do.
Something that takes considerable infrastructure and could not be happening without state assent - indeed Erdogan's son is said to be running the operation.
Until, I thought about it a bit. If they popped the bomb during the day, then the lid would be making for the sun... Anyways, more than likely to have vapourised in the atmosphere.
Of course China continues to loom large but the stock market collapse last week showed it is not infallible and there are limits to what the Communist Party can control, indeed one advantage India has over China is that it is a democracy with a younger population.
"Nighthawks" is today's featured picture on Wikipedia!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
(scroll down the page)
One can say the same thing about Blair and his Iraq "dossier"
Immigration is a big issue, it seems. Don;t see Jezza making that any better.
But, sadly I am sure to those who want to see me bang on about that unequivocal falsehood on his part, I do actually have to run. A pleasant day to all.
Naught but Primrose Hill (borders) Blairite Propaganda
There are lots of jobs we are capable of bringing back across a wide spectrum of industries. This country is going to have to learn to work for a living again rather than rely on government non-jobs and banking "profits".
The biggest impediment to reshoring of aerospace or automotive components is the damage done to the supply base in the noughties, hence why capital allowances, accessible financing and skills are key. It will be easier to create jobs and cut the BOP that way than trying to export to BRIC markets which are currently heading for a downturn.
I can see more than 60% being willing to give fatal electric shocks to their own Party members for failing to comply with their agenda. It's really rather unnerving what some of them are saying.
Sure we can bring some jobs back. But the idea that every job lost is one we should regain as there's nothing better we can do instead is depressingly unambitious.
Edited extra bit: after*, not afford.