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.
I have completely given up on Indian call centres and anytime I phone a company and here an indian accent on the other end I just hang up and look for another way to resolve whatever it is I am trying to do. Likewise when I answer the phone and hear an indian voice (something that happens several times every day) I just hang up.
I do feel sorry for the people at the other end. I am sure they are intelligent, well educated and doing their best but my time is too precious to me to spend talking to people who can only work to a script and with whom, through no fault on either side, I frequently have difficulty in understanding and getting them to understand.
Mind you, UK based call centres also have problems caused by penny-pinching management. "We are experiencing an unusually high volume of calls", is one message that seems to be on permanently in some organisations regardless of the time of day, so is clearly a lie. "Your call is important to us", no it isn't if it was you would provide sufficient staff to deal with it. And so on...
Mr Corbyn was seen unveiling the new look yesterday while holding a rally in Sheffield.
According to Christopher Hope of the Daily Telegraph, sources close to the Corbyn campaign said one of the reasons he had chosen to alter his style was because he had been shocked by a recent cover of Private Eye magazine.
On it, Mr Corbyn is pictured in a Panama hat with his vest showing, under a headline 'Loony Left sweeps to power', with speech bubbles saying 'I love Marx...' and 'it's where I get my vests'.
re the Blair letter and which highlights Brown & Kinnock agreeing with him.
Would this last intervention not have more chance of doing something if it was all 3 of them signing it or a redraft version of it rather than these individual inputs?
It would appear their own animosity even stops them putting on a united front against the peril they see in Corbyn.
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
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.
TBF, up to 30% of India's territory wasn't actually annexed by the Empire - it was run by local "Princes" - hence the term "Princely States".
Also China is 93% Han Chinese, India is 40% or so Hindi-speaking (although Hindi is part of a dialect continuum including Urdu spoken in Pakistan).
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.
Some jobs go that's life. Productivity by it's nature kills jobs off.
But the bulk of jobs let go in the noughties are still the kind of jobs that can be more than adequately done in this country and fit in with high skill high productivity economy political parties used to espouse..
Currently the work platform we have isn't paying the bills and shows no sign of doing so in the foreseeable future.
Mr. T, even Blair is splitting. He said he recognised his piece would backfire, but wrote it anyway.
He's more concerned with rescuing his legacy, being seen by posterity as being on the 'right' side rather than actually doing what is best for Labour.
A bit late for that - if Jeremy Corbyn wins the leadership election and the Corbynites get their way, the clock will be reset to zero and the ‘New Labour project’ erased from memory.
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.
Comrade Felix!
Ancien Regime propaganda aside, how was his post-election resignation "despicable and self-serving"??
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.
Where are these new LLs with capital coming from? And why would the put unleveraged capital into London property with less-than-the-bank returns while Osbo is tinkering with confidence? If prices are to be pressured by fiddling with the system then there is only a risky capital return.
Unlikely to be the institutions, as returns are just too low especially in. London. They need large projects like the Olympic village to be efficient enough with some pretty major tax breaks.
And never mind the rampaging regulation now happening in London to the PRS.
Where does that leave the personal buyers who do need mortgages?
Osbo imo is after letting prices fall in real terms while making sure the Treasury benefits most.
Mr. T, even Blair is splitting. He said he recognised his piece would backfire, but wrote it anyway.
He's more concerned with rescuing his legacy, being seen by posterity as being on the 'right' side rather than actually doing what is best for Labour.
I'm no fan of Blair but I think you're wrong on this one.
...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"
Mr. T, are they? I know the new president, whose name continually escapes me, is upping military expenditure, but I thought that was in relation to the land grab of the southern seas (which is in China's vicinity).
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.
Comrade Felix!
Ancien Regime propaganda aside, how was his post-election resignation "despicable and self-serving"??
He lacked the cojones to stay and oversee the succession. He showed minimal contrition and indeed still believes it's the voters who were wrong.
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.
After a particularly painful experience with my phone and broadband provider I have been looking for a provider with a UK call centre.
I have done the same with my mobile phone and have changed to Tesco. I have had to call them a couple of times and the service has been outstanding.
Going with a cheap provider who have offshored all of their support services is fine until you encounter a problem. It is usually easier to skip the offshored call centre and make a complaint which is dealt with in the UK.
Where are these new LLs with capital coming from? And why would the put unleveraged capital into London property with less-than-the-bank returns while Osbo is tinkering with confidence? If prices are to be pressured by fiddling with the system then there is only a risky capital return.
Unlikely to be the institutions, as returns are just too low especially in. London. They need large projects like the Olympic village to be efficient enough with some pretty major tax breaks.
And never mind the rampaging regulation now happening in London to the PRS.
Where does that leave the personal buyers who do need mortgages?
Osbo imo is after letting prices fall in real terms while making sure the Treasury benefits most.
Mr Brooke, up-thread, said correctly that the housing market in England is a mess. One of the main reasons for that mess is that governments keep trying to tinker with it and at the same time milk it for as much cash as they think they can get away with. One would have thought that Osborne as a Conservative chancellor in a Conservative administration would be trying to get HMG out of involvement in something it improperly understands and makes worse. However, Osborne has shown himself to be the political reincarnation of Brown and wants to meddle and control every aspect of national life.
Where action by HMG is essential he prevaricates and cuts where HMG should keep its great nose out he intervenes and in both cases he adds complexity and cost.
It is one of the world's most admired fighting forces, has some of the toughest entry requirements in the armed forces - and is only open to men.
Now a woman has braved the Navy Seals' notoriously rigorous selection trials and not only passed with flying colours but put many of the men doing the test with her to shame.
Dr Clare Miller, 32, endured hooded interrogation, sleep deprivation and 'surf torture' as part of an experiment filmed for a BBC2 documentary.
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.
Some jobs go that's life. Productivity by it's nature kills jobs off.
But the bulk of jobs let go in the noughties are still the kind of jobs that can be more than adequately done in this country and fit in with high skill high productivity economy political parties used to espouse..
Currently the work platform we have isn't paying the bills and shows no sign of doing so in the foreseeable future.
I think we're talking cross-purposes and actually agree with each other then but are emphasising different things. I definitely agree we can (and should) be competitive and get some jobs back, but some people who were once doing other jobs are now doing new jobs and would have no interest in getting their old jobs back even if they were available again.
If a job has gone overseas as it can be effectively done for 50 cents an hour by a Chinese labourer then I see that as not the sort of income we should be making. Better to export that sort of menial labour and have more productive labour onshore. If the income is worth 50cents an hour then that's an income we can do without and should form part of our Balance of Payments.
The problem was previously that no distinction was always made between productive and unproductive work, while the tax, red tape and political environment was not conducive to what we needed. High value work absolutely we can and should be able to do on shore.
If the Chinese were sensible they'd let America do all the global policing (and shoulder all the costs) while quietly getting richer (and quietly overtaking America).
Indeed that is the policy China has smartly pursued up to now. But they are beginning to swagger, just a little. Perhaps inevitably.
It depends on what sort of global policing. The United States' global policing in Latin America, despite a lot of missteps, has still resulted in Latin America becoming predominantly free market democracies. As a result, they share the values of the West, and are naturally aligned with us, rather than China. On the other hand, global policing in the Middle East has resulted in many more anti-Western regimes coming to power.
I still wonder whether the best thing to do in Iraq, Syria and Libya would have been to divide them along ethnic/religious lines so they form nation states along the European model. But if we aren't prepared to properly reformat these societies, we should probably just stay out of the Muslim world. Let them fail on their own, without us getting the blame for it.
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.
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
If the Chinese were sensible they'd let America do all the global policing (and shoulder all the costs) while quietly getting richer (and quietly overtaking America).
Indeed that is the policy China has smartly pursued up to now. But they are beginning to swagger, just a little. Perhaps inevitably.
Indeed, but China cannot ignore Muslim extremism either, indeed there are 23 million Muslims in China and it is the most popular religion with young Chinese
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
The problem China has in its world takeover is that nobody likes them.
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
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.
Comrade Felix!
Ancien Regime propaganda aside, how was his post-election resignation "despicable and self-serving"??
Contrast with Nick Clegg's gracious resignation for a start. Also contrast with the way that Howard sucked up the post-election defeat in 2005 and stayed on for a few months giving the Conservatives time to have a mature reflection on what went wrong, ultimately resulting in the victory of the electable David Cameron rather than the initial favourites.
Miliband should have stayed in place for months while the election took place, giving Labour space to have a mature debate. If he'd stayed in place it would have been him rather than Harriet who responded to Osborne's budget and he would have done so as the outgoing leader, rather than the ludicrous situation we had of a caretaker trying to enforce abstentionism between leaders.
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 wish people would stop pretending BTL affects the supply of housing. It does not. It may switch the balance between owner-occupied stock and rental stock, but there are still the same number of houses used for living in as before.
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
The problem China has in its world takeover is that nobody likes them.
Mr. T, even Blair is splitting. He said he recognised his piece would backfire, but wrote it anyway.
He's more concerned with rescuing his legacy, being seen by posterity as being on the 'right' side rather than actually doing what is best for Labour.
If Tony Blair wanted a legacy, he should have told George Bush to fuck right off...
..and IDS.
IDS was a peripheral player in Iraq. A fascinating counter-factual is whether Blair would have gone against an anti-war Ken Clarke if he had been Tory leader? Would he have appealed to Tory MPs over Clarke's head - and would they have backed him?
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.
Some jobs go that's life. Productivity by it's nature kills jobs off.
But the bulk of jobs let go in the noughties are still the kind of jobs that can be more than adequately done in this country and fit in with high skill high productivity economy political parties used to espouse..
Currently the work platform we have isn't paying the bills and shows no sign of doing so in the foreseeable future.
I think we're talking cross-purposes and actually agree with each other then but are emphasising different things. I definitely agree we can (and should) be competitive and get some jobs back, but some people who were once doing other jobs are now doing new jobs and would have no interest in getting their old jobs back even if they were available again.
If a job has gone overseas as it can be effectively done for 50 cents an hour by a Chinese labourer then I see that as not the sort of income we should be making. Better to export that sort of menial labour and have more productive labour onshore. If the income is worth 50cents an hour then that's an income we can do without and should form part of our Balance of Payments.
The problem was previously that no distinction was always made between productive and unproductive work, while the tax, red tape and political environment was not conducive to what we needed. High value work absolutely we can and should be able to do on shore.
I don't disagree with that, since productivity is a pretty dynamic process.
Where I object to some of the issues that were pushed in the noughties were they were fads and people who should have known better went along with accelerating the erosion of our economy for no reason.
Msany of these jobs could be had back if HMG put it;s mind to doing so. As I often point out our BOP problems are not so much with low cost countries with low tech products, but with high cost countries selling us medium tech products - european cars, fridges, Korean TVs etc.
Mr. T, even Blair is splitting. He said he recognised his piece would backfire, but wrote it anyway.
He's more concerned with rescuing his legacy, being seen by posterity as being on the 'right' side rather than actually doing what is best for Labour.
If Tony Blair wanted a legacy, he should have told George Bush to fuck right off...
..and IDS.
IDS was a peripheral player in Iraq. A fascinating counter-factual is whether Blair would have gone against an anti-war Ken Clarke if he had been Tory leader? Would he have appealed to Tory MPs over Clarke's head - and would they have backed him?
If you think a Clarke Tory leadership might been a factor, then de facto an IDS one did. IDS was gung ho more than a year before any of the dodgy dossier and yellow cake uranium bollocks.
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
Russia is still the largest nation on earth by landmass, has oil and gas, even if diminishing, and a large nuclear arsenal and as we have seen its intentions impact on eastern europe.
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.
Comrade Felix!
Ancien Regime propaganda aside, how was his post-election resignation "despicable and self-serving"??
Contrast with Nick Clegg's gracious resignation for a start. Also contrast with the way that Howard sucked up the post-election defeat in 2005 and stayed on for a few months giving the Conservatives time to have a mature reflection on what went wrong, ultimately resulting in the victory of the electable David Cameron rather than the initial favourites.
Miliband should have stayed in place for months while the election took place, giving Labour space to have a mature debate. If he'd stayed in place it would have been him rather than Harriet who responded to Osborne's budget and he would have done so as the outgoing leader, rather than the ludicrous situation we had of a caretaker trying to enforce abstentionism between leaders.
Hague resigned swiftly in 2001 and the Tories got IDS, also elected in September
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 wish people would stop pretending BTL affects the supply of housing. It does not. It may switch the balance between owner-occupied stock and rental stock, but there are still the same number of houses used for living in as before.
Only if BTL doesn't fund the building of new homes. Which it does.
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.
Comrade Felix!
Ancien Regime propaganda aside, how was his post-election resignation "despicable and self-serving"??
Contrast with Nick Clegg's gracious resignation for a start. Also contrast with the way that Howard sucked up the post-election defeat in 2005 and stayed on for a few months giving the Conservatives time to have a mature reflection on what went wrong, ultimately resulting in the victory of the electable David Cameron rather than the initial favourites.
Miliband should have stayed in place for months while the election took place, giving Labour space to have a mature debate. If he'd stayed in place it would have been him rather than Harriet who responded to Osborne's budget and he would have done so as the outgoing leader, rather than the ludicrous situation we had of a caretaker trying to enforce abstentionism between leaders.
Hague resigned swiftly in 2001 and the Tories got IDS, also elected in September
If the Chinese were sensible they'd let America do all the global policing (and shoulder all the costs) while quietly getting richer (and quietly overtaking America).
Indeed that is the policy China has smartly pursued up to now. But they are beginning to swagger, just a little. Perhaps inevitably.
It depends on what sort of global policing. The United States' global policing in Latin America, despite a lot of missteps, has still resulted in Latin America becoming predominantly free market democracies. As a result, they share the values of the West, and are naturally aligned with us, rather than China. On the other hand, global policing in the Middle East has resulted in many more anti-Western regimes coming to power.
I still wonder whether the best thing to do in Iraq, Syria and Libya would have been to divide them along ethnic/religious lines so they form nation states along the European model. But if we aren't prepared to properly reformat these societies, we should probably just stay out of the Muslim world. Let them fail on their own, without us getting the blame for it.
Disengagement from the ME should have been a cornerstone of British Foreign policy since 1992. I said so at the time, I even wrote a paper on it, the problem was and remains reliance on the ME as a source of energy. However, technology has now given us the chance to do what we should have done twenty years ago.
Get fracking, guys, and BAe can find their profits elsewhere.
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
Yes.
On certain population forecasts the UK could have a bigger population than Russia by 2050 something I'd never have thought possible.
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.
After a particularly painful experience with my phone and broadband provider I have been looking for a provider with a UK call centre.
I have done the same with my mobile phone and have changed to Tesco. I have had to call them a couple of times and the service has been outstanding.
Going with a cheap provider who have offshored all of their support services is fine until you encounter a problem. It is usually easier to skip the offshored call centre and make a complaint which is dealt with in the UK.
It depends on the company and perhaps the individuals. I've had outstanding service from Dell from people based in Bangladesh (remote diagnosis step by patient step, and organising a next-day delivery of a spare part in Britain), and dreadful service from UK-based NatWest Business Banking (delays so long that they ended up having to pay compensation, and I asked for advice on where a family property company should put investments for a few months: their adviser suggested things like getting an account that would "give you a discount buying food in supermarkets"). I've also had excellent UK-based service and rubbish overseas-based service. Not sure you can generalise.
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
Russia is still the largest nation on earth by landmass, has oil and gas, even if diminishing, and a large nuclear arsenal and as we have seen its intentions impact on eastern europe.
that assumes a bunch of drunks on Zimmer frames can hang on to it.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
Russia is still the largest nation on earth by landmass, has oil and gas, even if diminishing, and a large nuclear arsenal and as we have seen its intentions impact on eastern europe.
Landmass is not the be all and end all. Capital is more important than land, which is why the UK could rule the globe from an island.
Russia doesn't just have short-term economic problems but it also has appalling demographics which is only going to make the economy worse over the longer term. The UK has good and improving demographics compared to almost all the developed world apart from the USA, which is why we'll overtake Germany as Europe's largest economy before too long.
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.
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
Russia is still the largest nation on earth by landmass, has oil and gas, even if diminishing, and a large nuclear arsenal and as we have seen its intentions impact on eastern europe.
that assumes a bunch of drunks on Zimmer frames can hang on to it.
We shall see, though Putin has also been meeting the Saudis recently, concerned over US moves towards Iran, and maintains his links with Assad
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.
The look of consternation on Miliband's face when Cameron declared that he would not be coming back to the house on Syria said it all. His silly JCR stunt had blown up in his face - party before country is never a good look....
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.
Comrade Felix!
Ancien Regime propaganda aside, how was his post-election resignation "despicable and self-serving"??
Contrast with Nick Clegg's gracious resignation for a start. Also contrast with the way that Howard sucked up the post-election defeat in 2005 and stayed on for a few months giving the Conservatives time to have a mature reflection on what went wrong, ultimately resulting in the victory of the electable David Cameron rather than the initial favourites.
Miliband should have stayed in place for months while the election took place, giving Labour space to have a mature debate. If he'd stayed in place it would have been him rather than Harriet who responded to Osborne's budget and he would have done so as the outgoing leader, rather than the ludicrous situation we had of a caretaker trying to enforce abstentionism between leaders.
Hague resigned swiftly in 2001 and the Tories got IDS, also elected in September
Hague was wrong, Howard was right.
However Howard only resigned after a third defeat, this was Labour's second
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.
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.
ulture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
Russia is still the largest nation on earth by landmass, has oil and gas, even if diminishing, and a large nuclear arsenal and as we have seen its intentions impact on eastern europe.
that assumes a bunch of drunks on Zimmer frames can hang on to it.
We shall see, though Putin has also been meeting the Saudis recently, concerned over US moves towards Iran, and maintains his links with Assad
Given I'll be well in to my nineties and more gaga than usual, I suspect I'll not be able to see how it turns out. :-)
Mr. T, even Blair is splitting. He said he recognised his piece would backfire, but wrote it anyway.
He's more concerned with rescuing his legacy, being seen by posterity as being on the 'right' side rather than actually doing what is best for Labour.
If Tony Blair wanted a legacy, he should have told George Bush to fuck right off...
..and IDS.
IDS was a peripheral player in Iraq. A fascinating counter-factual is whether Blair would have gone against an anti-war Ken Clarke if he had been Tory leader? Would he have appealed to Tory MPs over Clarke's head - and would they have backed him?
If you think a Clarke Tory leadership might been a factor, then de facto an IDS one did. IDS was gung ho more than a year before any of the dodgy dossier and yellow cake uranium bollocks.
We're putting too much explanatory power in the hands of Tory leaders rather than the party and missing the major point about Iraq. Voting against could've genuinely split the party because it wasn't as controversial as it now is - an awful lot of people, including the British public, backed get rid of Saddam in principle. Now, that the post-war plans were so shoddy is a disgrace which has cost both Blair and Bush their reputations and influence, but it has littlee to do with the principle. I think most of the Tory Party would've voted with Blair and it would've been the end of Ken Clarke had he been leader.
If the Chinese were sensible they'd let America do all the global policing (and shoulder all the costs) while quietly getting richer (and quietly overtaking America).
Indeed that is the policy China has smartly pursued up to now. But they are beginning to swagger, just a little. Perhaps inevitably.
It depends on what sort of global policing. The United States' global policing in Latin America, despite a lot of missteps, has still resulted in Latin America becoming predominantly free market democracies. As a result, they share the values of the West, and are naturally aligned with us, rather than China. On the other hand, global policing in the Middle East has resulted in many more anti-Western regimes coming to power.
I still wonder whether the best thing to do in Iraq, Syria and Libya would have been to divide them along ethnic/religious lines so they form nation states along the European model. But if we aren't prepared to properly reformat these societies, we should probably just stay out of the Muslim world. Let them fail on their own, without us getting the blame for it.
Disengagement from the ME should have been a cornerstone of British Foreign policy since 1992. I said so at the time, I even wrote a paper on it, the problem was and remains reliance on the ME as a source of energy. However, technology has now given us the chance to do what we should have done twenty years ago.
Get fracking, guys, and BAe can find their profits elsewhere.
But the ME is now part of Europe. There are 25m Muslims in the EU, many of them with extremely illiberal views; a significant minority is actively hostile. We can't disengage from THEM.
No but we can engage with them. There are a significant minority of Catholics, Protestants and others who either have or have had extremely illiberal views or hostility towards others too.
I don't disagree with that, since productivity is a pretty dynamic process.
Where I object to some of the issues that were pushed in the noughties were they were fads and people who should have known better went along with accelerating the erosion of our economy for no reason.
Msany of these jobs could be had back if HMG put it;s mind to doing so. As I often point out our BOP problems are not so much with low cost countries with low tech products, but with high cost countries selling us medium tech products - european cars, fridges, Korean TVs etc.
You cannot just blame HMG though, Mr. Brooke. Most of the decisions to go along with the fad were taken by high paid CEOs looking for a quick fix, perhaps to ensure their bonuses. It is not often I agree with Mr. Observer, gent of this parish, but on the subject of the quality of British management at senior level, he has it spot on - most are rubbish and grossly overpaid.
However, until the UK sorts out a system of corporate governance fit for the 21st century that is unlikely to change. So perhaps the best thing HMG can do is not build roads and all that easy stuff but actually change how companies are owned and run. In the process they should re-introduce by statute, as no bugger will do it otherwise, the link between risk and reward for big company CEOs and the equivalents in the public sector.
If the Chinese were sensible they'd let America do all the global policing (and shoulder all the costs) while quietly getting richer (and quietly overtaking America).
Indeed that is the policy China has smartly pursued up to now. But they are beginning to swagger, just a little. Perhaps inevitably.
It depends on what sort of global policing. The United States' global policing in Latin America, despite a lot of missteps, has still resulted in Latin America becoming predominantly free market democracies. As a result, they share the values of the West, and are naturally aligned with us, rather than China. On the other hand, global policing in the Middle East has resulted in many more anti-Western regimes coming to power.
I still wonder whether the best thing to do in Iraq, Syria and Libya would have been to divide them along ethnic/religious lines so they form nation states along the European model. But if we aren't prepared to properly reformat these societies, we should probably just stay out of the Muslim world. Let them fail on their own, without us getting the blame for it.
Disengagement from the ME should have been a cornerstone of British Foreign policy since 1992. I said so at the time, I even wrote a paper on it, the problem was and remains reliance on the ME as a source of energy. However, technology has now given us the chance to do what we should have done twenty years ago.
Get fracking, guys, and BAe can find their profits elsewhere.
But the ME is now part of Europe. There are 25m Muslims in the EU, many of them with extremely illiberal views; a significant minority is actively hostile. We can't disengage from THEM.
No but we can engage with them. There are a significant minority of Catholics, Protestants and others who either have or have had extremely illiberal views or hostility towards others too.
"Broadly speaking, between 40% and 45% of European Muslims have fundamentalist religious ideas, that is they agree with the three definitions of the term. Austria is the country with the highest percentage, 55%, while Germany has the lowest, 30%", explains Koopmans.
According to the study, Islamic fundamentalism prevails in Europe if compared to Christian fundamentalism, in which only 4% of Christians shared the ideas of the three statements of the definition.
Mr. T, even Blair is splitting. He said he recognised his piece would backfire, but wrote it anyway.
He's more concerned with rescuing his legacy, being seen by posterity as being on the 'right' side rather than actually doing what is best for Labour.
If Tony Blair wanted a legacy, he should have told George Bush to fuck right off...
..and IDS.
IDS was a peripheral player in Iraq. A fascinating counter-factual is whether Blair would have gone against an anti-war Ken Clarke if he had been Tory leader? Would he have appealed to Tory MPs over Clarke's head - and would they have backed him?
If you think a Clarke Tory leadership might been a factor, then de facto an IDS one did. IDS was gung ho more than a year before any of the dodgy dossier and yellow cake uranium bollocks.
We're putting too much explanatory power in the hands of Tory leaders rather than the party and missing the major point about Iraq. Voting against could've genuinely split the party because it wasn't as controversial as it now is - an awful lot of people, including the British public, backed get rid of Saddam in principle. Now, that the post-war plans were so shoddy is a disgrace which has cost both Blair and Bush their reputations and influence, but it has littlee to do with the principle. I think most of the Tory Party would've voted with Blair and it would've been the end of Ken Clarke had he been leader.
Clarke might not have been against the war if he was leader. It is easier to speak one's mind from the back benches.
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
The problem China has in its world takeover is that nobody likes them.
I'd be interested to see your evidence A) that positive opinion has an impact on the rise of nations and B ) it's a valid generalisation that 'nobody likes' China. My immediate response to both assertions would be to think they're utter rubbish.
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
Going to be? You think we're currently more powerful than Russia?
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
The problem China has in its world takeover is that nobody likes them.
I'd be interested to see your evidence A) that positive opinion has an impact on the rise of nations and B ) it's a valid generalisation that 'nobody likes' China. My immediate response to both assertions would be to think they're utter rubbish.
If liking a nation was a key determinant of power than Ireland and Canada would be superpowers!
No but we can engage with them. There are a significant minority of Catholics, Protestants and others who either have or have had extremely illiberal views or hostility towards others too.
"Broadly speaking, between 40% and 45% of European Muslims have fundamentalist religious ideas, that is they agree with the three definitions of the term. Austria is the country with the highest percentage, 55%, while Germany has the lowest, 30%", explains Koopmans.
According to the study, Islamic fundamentalism prevails in Europe if compared to Christian fundamentalism, in which only 4% of Christians shared the ideas of the three statements of the definition.
Agreed, we need to tackle fundamentalism head on. Hence why I said engage. We need to stop denying fundamentalism's existence and kowtowing to certain self-appointed "Community Leaders" would be the very first step.
Stop speaking about "community" full stop. As Thatcher said, there's no such thing as community, just individuals. Reprehensible individuals need to be dealt with. Positive individuals need to be encouraged.
Given all polls suggest the Liberals will at least be a strong third compared to last time I would expect an NDP minority government even if the Tories recover a little
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
Going to be? You think we're currently more powerful than Russia?
Going to be meant in the future. As for currently - I'd say arguably so. It will be unarguably so in 50 years time though. "Drunks on zimmerframes" is a great analogy for Russia's future.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
Russia is still the largest nation on earth by landmass, has oil and gas, even if diminishing, and a large nuclear arsenal and as we have seen its intentions impact on eastern europe.
Landmass is not the be all and end all. Capital is more important than land, which is why the UK could rule the globe from an island.
Russia doesn't just have short-term economic problems but it also has appalling demographics which is only going to make the economy worse over the longer term. The UK has good and improving demographics compared to almost all the developed world apart from the USA, which is why we'll overtake Germany as Europe's largest economy before too long.
Indeed, and like Russia we are also on the Security Council. However, even on the best estimates on population if we reached 80 million and Russia fell as low as 80 million we would still be tied and on the UN Security Council we tend to side with the US, Russia tends to go its own way, often more aligned with China or even France
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.
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.
ulture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
Russia is still the largest nation on earth by landmass, has oil and gas, even if diminishing, and a large nuclear arsenal and as we have seen its intentions impact on eastern europe.
that assumes a bunch of drunks on Zimmer frames can hang on to it.
We shall see, though Putin has also been meeting the Saudis recently, concerned over US moves towards Iran, and maintains his links with Assad
Given I'll be well in to my nineties and more gaga than usual, I suspect I'll not be able to see how it turns out. :-)
Well, you never know, Dennis Healey is 98 today and still has his mind intact
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.
Where are these new LLs with capital coming from? And why would the put unleveraged capital into London property with less-than-the-bank returns while Osbo is tinkering with confidence? If prices are to be pressured by fiddling with the system then there is only a risky capital return. New capital to come from pension pots. But I agree that London returns are so poor that is unlikely to be where they spend it unless they expect the capital growth to out pace the UK.
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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
The problem China has in its world takeover is that nobody likes them.
I'd be interested to see your evidence A) that positive opinion has an impact on the rise of nations and B ) it's a valid generalisation that 'nobody likes' China. My immediate response to both assertions would be to think they're utter rubbish.
If liking a nation was a key determinant of power than Ireland and Canada would be superpowers!
Quite. In fact in many ways I'd say the less 'threatening' the nation is, the more liked it becomes - as with people.
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
Russia is still the largest nation on earth by landmass, has oil and gas, even if diminishing, and a large nuclear arsenal and as we have seen its intentions impact on eastern europe.
Landmass is not the be all and end all. Capital is more important than land, which is why the UK could rule the globe from an island.
Russia doesn't just have short-term economic problems but it also has appalling demographics which is only going to make the economy worse over the longer term. The UK has good and improving demographics compared to almost all the developed world apart from the USA, which is why we'll overtake Germany as Europe's largest economy before too long.
Indeed, and like Russia we are also on the Security Council. However, even on the best estimates on population if we reached 80 million and Russia fell as low as 80 million we would still be tied and on the UN Security Council we tend to side with the US, Russia tends to go its own way, often more aligned with China or even France
We'd be tied on population yes but on a per capita basis we earn more per capita than Russians and that's accelerating which means we'll be miles ahead on the economy which is what matters.
Our economy in nominal terms is already well ahead of Russia's. Hell even Australia is close to overtaking Russia on current trends!
I don't disagree with that, since productivity is a pretty dynamic process.
Where I object to some of the issues that were pushed in the noughties were they were fads and people who should have known better went along with accelerating the erosion of our economy for no reason.
Msany of these jobs could be had back if HMG put it;s mind to doing so. As I often point out our BOP problems are not so much with low cost countries with low tech products, but with high cost countries selling us medium tech products - european cars, fridges, Korean TVs etc.
You cannot just blame HMG though, Mr. Brooke. Most of the decisions to go along with the fad were taken by high paid CEOs looking for a quick fix, perhaps to ensure their bonuses. It is not often I agree with Mr. Observer, gent of this parish, but on the subject of the quality of British management at senior level, he has it spot on - most are rubbish and grossly overpaid.
However, until the UK sorts out a system of corporate governance fit for the 21st century that is unlikely to change. So perhaps the best thing HMG can do is not build roads and all that easy stuff but actually change how companies are owned and run. In the process they should re-introduce by statute, as no bugger will do it otherwise, the link between risk and reward for big company CEOs and the equivalents in the public sector.
I'm not blaming HMG for the offshoring, though one could argue the Blair govts were cheer leaders for the trend as they basked in the glory of their "new" economy.
Where I disagree with current lot is their inability to try and get some sense back into the economic equations. In the not so distant past the DoI\BIS would have made a sustained effort to attract work to the UK now it seems like too hard to do.
However like you and Mr SO, I'm fully signed up to our CEOs have lost the plot and until we have a decent shake up on corporate governance we're stuffed. But then you'll get me in to the City, Oxbridge and people who have forgotten what leadership entails.
Why on earth should we feel shame? If Germany really wants to welcome refugees (as opposed to the stunts of a few people at footer matches), that is terrific news for us. Pop over to Calais and hand out train tickets to Munich, Dusseldorf etc.. Job done, problem solved and everyone, including the Germans, are happy.
Going to be meant in the future. As for currently - I'd say arguably so. It will be unarguably so in 50 years time though. "Drunks on zimmerframes" is a great analogy for Russia's future.
I think you've crossed the border of optimism and are making good time for delusion.
I don't disagree with that, since productivity is a pretty dynamic process.
Where I object to some of the issues that were pushed in the noughties were they were fads and people who should have known better went along with accelerating the erosion of our economy for no reason.
Msany of these jobs could be had back if HMG put it;s mind to doing so. As I often point out our BOP problems are not so much with low cost countries with low tech products, but with high cost countries selling us medium tech products - european cars, fridges, Korean TVs etc.
You cannot just blame HMG though, Mr. Brooke. Most of the decisions to go along with the fad were taken by high paid CEOs looking for a quick fix, perhaps to ensure their bonuses. It is not often I agree with Mr. Observer, gent of this parish, but on the subject of the quality of British management at senior level, he has it spot on - most are rubbish and grossly overpaid.
However, until the UK sorts out a system of corporate governance fit for the 21st century that is unlikely to change. So perhaps the best thing HMG can do is not build roads and all that easy stuff but actually change how companies are owned and run. In the process they should re-introduce by statute, as no bugger will do it otherwise, the link between risk and reward for big company CEOs and the equivalents in the public sector.
No the government has no role in deciding how our companies are owned and run. It is upto the market and companies to determine that and competition will find the best ways to proceed as it always has. Those that sacrifice long term planning to seek a quick buck don't survive the long term.
No but we can engage with them. There are a significant minority of Catholics, Protestants and others who either have or have had extremely illiberal views or hostility towards others too.
"Broadly speaking, between 40% and 45% of European Muslims have fundamentalist religious ideas, that is they agree with the three definitions of the term. Austria is the country with the highest percentage, 55%, while Germany has the lowest, 30%", explains Koopmans.
According to the study, Islamic fundamentalism prevails in Europe if compared to Christian fundamentalism, in which only 4% of Christians shared the ideas of the three statements of the definition.
Agreed, we need to tackle fundamentalism head on. Hence why I said engage. We need to stop denying fundamentalism's existence and kowtowing to certain self-appointed "Community Leaders" would be the very first step.
Stop speaking about "community" full stop. As Thatcher said, there's no such thing as community, just individuals. Reprehensible individuals need to be dealt with. Positive individuals need to be encouraged.
How the F are you going to "tackle fundamentalism head on". It's like saying "I'm going to tackle 14th century Catholicism head on".
Fundamentalism is PART of modern Islam in a way effete liberals just don't understand. The failure of the atheist metropolitan elite to grasp the tenacity and power of primitive faith - and how it will endanger our own culture - is one of the great disasters of the age.
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.
From that perspective, is there any real reason for those people not to vote for Corbyn, even if he's totally unelectable?
And Blair, even the career politician, laser-focuses on electability and power above all else, ignoring that, for most people, a party in power is not the means to an end in of itself. The best argument that Blair can muster for getting Labour in power is that, essentially, they're the lesser of two evils. Inspiring stuff.
He also ignores his government's, and successive Labour leadership's, role in alienating those on the left of the party. There's a "vast wave of feeling" against the failures of the last Labour government, along with Labour's failure to defend their record, and their willingness to trade away their basic principles at the drop of the hat.
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.
Please explain the point of elections to me, then, (other than betting opportunities of course) if "you cannot buck the real world".
And has this always been true (if so, how did Labour ever get started?) and if not, when, in your judgment, did it become true?
The point of elections from a political party's perspective is to win them. But winning the Labour leadership election should be a step on the path to winning a general election, not an end in itself.
Corbyn is not starting a new party.
But equally there is not much point in Labour seeking to win an election simply to carry out Torylite polices which is what we got from Blair - Minimum Wage excepted. His government was far to the right of the Tory Governments of 1951 - 1964 and 1970 -1974 - indeed Blair was well to the right of Baldwin and Chamberlain.
No but we can engage with them. There are a significant minority of Catholics, Protestants and others who either have or have had extremely illiberal views or hostility towards others too.
"Broadly speaking, between 40% and 45% of European Muslims have fundamentalist religious ideas, that is they agree with the three definitions of the term. Austria is the country with the highest percentage, 55%, while Germany has the lowest, 30%", explains Koopmans.
According to the study, Islamic fundamentalism prevails in Europe if compared to Christian fundamentalism, in which only 4% of Christians shared the ideas of the three statements of the definition.
Agreed, we need to tackle fundamentalism head on. Hence why I said engage. We need to stop denying fundamentalism's existence and kowtowing to certain self-appointed "Community Leaders" would be the very first step.
Stop speaking about "community" full stop. As Thatcher said, there's no such thing as community, just individuals. Reprehensible individuals need to be dealt with. Positive individuals need to be encouraged.
How the F are you going to "tackle fundamentalism head on". It's like saying "I'm going to tackle 14th century Catholicism head on".
Fundamentalism is PART of modern Islam in a way effete liberals just don't understand. The failure of the atheist metropolitan elite to grasp the tenacity and power of primitive faith - and how it will endanger our own culture - is one of the great disasters of the age.
I think too many people think that Muslims are "like Christians but different", as it were. But they couldn't be more wrong.
At the heart of Christians' teaching is "turn the other cheek", "first will be last", etc. Islam (I think) is more about a set of rules to follow and a belief that the Muslim is superior to the non-Muslim, which causes a lot of the problems.
Of course, many individuals don't believe that, but those that do can be the problem.
Going to be meant in the future. As for currently - I'd say arguably so. It will be unarguably so in 50 years time though. "Drunks on zimmerframes" is a great analogy for Russia's future.
I think you've crossed the border of optimism and are making good time for delusion.
IMF figures for GDP in 2014: Russian GDP: $1.857 trillion British GDP: $2.945 trillion
Russian GDP per capita: $12,926 British GDP per capita: $45,653
Call me optimistic if you will but I'd rather be British than Russian.
Germany's having a full scale crisis on immigration. The main issue seems to be dumping immigrants in poor areas in the East. where the locals don't want them Mutti Merkel is struggling to put a nice face on it.
On the other side of the equation there was a full scale riot from the immigrants 10 days ago in a hostel. Someone ripped a page from a Koran, the islamonutters went nuts, police tried to break it up and then all sides turned on the police.
I hope the Germans realise what they're signing up to.
Why on earth should we feel shame? If Germany really wants to welcome refugees (as opposed to the stunts of a few people at footer matches), that is terrific news for us. Pop over to Calais and hand out train tickets to Munich, Dusseldorf etc.. Job done, problem solved and everyone, including the Germans, are happy.
If the Chinese were sensible they'd let America do all the global policing (and shoulder all the costs) while quietly getting richer (and quietly overtaking America).
Indeed that is the policy China has smartly pursued up to now. But they are beginning to swagger, just a little. Perhaps inevitably.
It depends on what sort of global policing. The United States' global policing in Latin America, despite a lot of missteps, has still resulted in Latin America becoming predominantly free market democracies. As a result, they share the values of the West, and are naturally aligned with us, rather than China. On the other hand, global policing in the Middle East has resulted in many more anti-Western regimes coming to power.
I still wonder whether the best thing to do in Iraq, Syria and Libya would have been to divide them along ethnic/religious lines so they form nation states along the European model. But if we aren't prepared to properly reformat these societies, we should probably just stay out of the Muslim world. Let them fail on their own, without us getting the blame for it.
Disengagement from the ME should have been a cornerstone of British Foreign policy since 1992. I said so at the time, I even wrote a paper on it, the problem was and remains reliance on the ME as a source of energy. However, technology has now given us the chance to do what we should have done twenty years ago.
Get fracking, guys, and BAe can find their profits elsewhere.
At current oil and gas prices, UK onshore energy is not economic. Even if you passed a law saying that there were no restrictions on fracking, then there would still be essentially no activity.
In the US, the rig count (i.e. the number of oil and gas rigs drilling) has more than halved since November. And, in the US, costs are massively lower, the population is less dense, the infrastructure is in place, and the geology is better understood.
The only way you could get people to invest today in on-shore energy in the UK, would be a government subsidy scheme. (Interestingly, the Norwegians effectively have such a scheme for off-shore. IIRC, if you drill, and it's a "dry hole", you get 78% of the money back from the government.)
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.
From that perspective, is there any real reason for those people not to vote for Corbyn, even if he's totally unelectable?
And Blair, even the career politician, laser-focuses on electability and power above all else, ignoring that, for most people, a party in power is not the means to an end in of itself. The best argument that Blair can muster for getting Labour in power is that, essentially, they're the lesser of two evils. Inspiring stuff.
He also ignores his government's, and successive Labour leadership's, role in alienating those on the left of the party. There's a "vast wave of feeling" against the failures of the last Labour government, along with Labour's failure to defend their record, and their willingness to trade away their basic principles at the drop of the hat.
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.
Please explain the point of elections to me, then, (other than betting opportunities of course) if "you cannot buck the real world".
And has this always been true (if so, how did Labour ever get started?) and if not, when, in your judgment, did it become true?
The point of elections from a political party's perspective is to win them. But winning the Labour leadership election should be a step on the path to winning a general election, not an end in itself.
Corbyn is not starting a new party.
But equally there is not much point in Labour seeking to win an election simply to carry out Torylite polices which is what we got from Blair - Minimum Wage excepted. His government was far to the right of the Tory Governments of 1951 - 1964 and 1970 -1974 - indeed Blair was well to the right of Baldwin and Chamberlain.
No but we can engage with them. There are a significant minority of Catholics, Protestants and others who either have or have had extremely illiberal views or hostility towards others too.
"Broadly speaking, between 40% and 45% of European Muslims have fundamentalist religious ideas, that is they agree with the three definitions of the term. Austria is the country with the highest percentage, 55%, while Germany has the lowest, 30%", explains Koopmans.
According to the study, Islamic fundamentalism prevails in Europe if compared to Christian fundamentalism, in which only 4% of Christians shared the ideas of the three statements of the definition.
Agreed, we need to tackle fundamentalism head on. Hence why I said engage. We need to stop denying fundamentalism's existence and kowtowing to certain self-appointed "Community Leaders" would be the very first step.
Stop speaking about "community" full stop. As Thatcher said, there's no such thing as community, just individuals. Reprehensible individuals need to be dealt with. Positive individuals need to be encouraged.
How the F are you going to "tackle fundamentalism head on". It's like saying "I'm going to tackle 14th century Catholicism head on".
Fundamentalism is PART of modern Islam in a way effete liberals just don't understand. The failure of the atheist metropolitan elite to grasp the tenacity and power of primitive faith - and how it will endanger our own culture - is one of the great disasters of the age.
I think too many people think that Muslims are "like Christians but different", as it were. But they couldn't be more wrong.
At the heart of Christians' teaching is "turn the other cheek", "first will be last", etc. Islam (I think) is more about a set of rules to follow and a belief that the Muslim is superior to the non-Muslim, which causes a lot of the problems.
Of course, many individuals don't believe that, but those that do can be the problem.
One of the most disturbing parts of Islam is how the scholars divide the world into the "Land of Islam" and the "Land of War".
I don't disagree with that, since productivity is a pretty dynamic process.
Where I object to some of the issues that were pushed in the noughties were they were fads and people who should have known better went along with accelerating the erosion of our economy for no reason.
Msany of these jobs could be had back if HMG put it;s mind to doing so. As I often point out our BOP problems are not so much with low cost countries with low tech products, but with high cost countries selling us medium tech products - european cars, fridges, Korean TVs etc.
You cannot just blame HMG though, Mr. Brooke. Most of the decisions to go along with the fad were taken by high paid CEOs looking for a quick fix, perhaps to ensure their bonuses. It is not often I agree with Mr. Observer, gent of this parish, but on the subject of the quality of British management at senior level, he has it spot on - most are rubbish and grossly overpaid.
However, until the UK sorts out a system of corporate governance fit for the 21st century that is unlikely to change. So perhaps the best thing HMG can do is not build roads and all that easy stuff but actually change how companies are owned and run. In the process they should re-introduce by statute, as no bugger will do it otherwise, the link between risk and reward for big company CEOs and the equivalents in the public sector.
No the government has no role in deciding how our companies are owned and run. It is upto the market and companies to determine that and competition will find the best ways to proceed as it always has. Those that sacrifice long term planning to seek a quick buck don't survive the long term.
So the diverse companies acts that have been enacted over the centuries were part of the market were they? Grow up! HMG has always, rightly, had a view as to how companies are owned and run, not least because experience showed that if they didn't the population at large would be defrauded.
As for your final sentence, just explain how much the executives involved in the financial crash suffered, will you? Or what about that twat who bankrupted GEC/MArconi? The rewards for these fantastic captains of industry are enormous, the risks non-existent. If you are true to your capitalist posturings you must see that is wrong and unsustainable.
Going to be meant in the future. As for currently - I'd say arguably so. It will be unarguably so in 50 years time though. "Drunks on zimmerframes" is a great analogy for Russia's future.
I think you've crossed the border of optimism and are making good time for delusion.
IMF figures for GDP in 2014: Russian GDP: $1.857 trillion British GDP: $2.945 trillion
Russian GDP per capita: $12,926 British GDP per capita: $45,653
Call me optimistic if you will but I'd rather be British than Russian.
So would I, one 100 percent, but my patriotism leads me to look rationally at the circumstances with a view to supporting future improvement, rather than deluding myself.
One of the most disturbing parts of Islam is how the scholars divide the world into the "Land of Islam" and the "Land of War".
What's hilarious as an atheist is that I see far more similarities (both good and bad) between Islam and the other Abrahamic religions it has evolved from. Many of the quotes both the "Islam is good" and "Islam is bad" crowd selectively quote are really translations of passages from the Old Testament.
Islam shares more with Christianity than either side is willing to admit. Both for good and ill.
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 ool 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
Yes, the numbers will be there, I just think culture plays a huge part. I think India is a wonderful, family oriented culture, but an unlikely superpower. By contrast, the Chinese are determinedly planning their world takeover - not just the leadership, the man on the street too.
The problem China has in its world takeover is that nobody likes them.
I'd be interested to see your evidence A) that positive opinion has an impact on the rise of nations and B ) it's a valid generalisation that 'nobody likes' China. My immediate response to both assertions would be to think they're utter rubbish.
If liking a nation was a key determinant of power than Ireland and Canada would be superpowers!
Quite. In fact in many ways I'd say the less 'threatening' the nation is, the more liked it becomes - as with people.
To an extent though it us possible to be liked and powerful and the reverse
India is a nuclear power too, as well as the US, China and India will be the superpowers of the 21st century with Russia still pushing at the edge
Russia is not going to be any more powerful than the UK. They are heading backwards fast.
Russia is still the largest nation on earth by landmass, has oil and gas, even if diminishing, and a large nuclear arsenal and as we have seen its intentions impact on eastern europe.
Landmass is not the be all and end all. Capital is more important than land, which is why the UK could rule the globe from an island.
Russia doesn't just have short-term economic problems but it also has appalling demographics which is only going to make the economy worse over the longer term. The UK has good and improving demographics compared to almost all the developed world apart from the USA, which is why we'll overtake Germany as Europe's largest economy before too long.
Indeed, and like Russia we are also on the Security Council. However, even on the best estimates on population if we reached 80 million and Russia fell as low as 80 million we would still be tied and on the UN Security Council we tend to side with the US, Russia tends to go its own way, often more aligned with China or even France
We'd be tied on population yes but on a per capita basis we earn more per capita than Russians and that's accelerating which means we'll be miles ahead on the economy which is what matters.
Our economy in nominal terms is already well ahead of Russia's. Hell even Australia is close to overtaking Russia on current trends!
On a per capita basis yes but I was not just looking at economics but geopolitical influence which Russia still has in Eastern Europe and the Middle East
Going to be meant in the future. As for currently - I'd say arguably so. It will be unarguably so in 50 years time though. "Drunks on zimmerframes" is a great analogy for Russia's future.
I think you've crossed the border of optimism and are making good time for delusion.
IMF figures for GDP in 2014: Russian GDP: $1.857 trillion British GDP: $2.945 trillion
Russian GDP per capita: $12,926 British GDP per capita: $45,653
Call me optimistic if you will but I'd rather be British than Russian.
So would I, one 100 percent, but my patriotism leads me to look rationally at the circumstances with a view to supporting future improvement, rather than deluding myself.
It is not delusion to say we are arguably more powerful than a nation that we have 50% more GDP than. If we're not more powerful than a nation with less than two-thirds of our national income then we have a problem - and if you're unwilling to see the truth from the propaganda then you have a problem.
One of the most disturbing parts of Islam is how the scholars divide the world into the "Land of Islam" and the "Land of War".
What's hilarious as an atheist is that I see far more similarities (both good and bad) between Islam and the other Abrahamic religions it has evolved from. Many of the quotes both the "Islam is good" and "Islam is bad" crowd selectively quote are really translations of passages from the Old Testament.
Islam shares more with Christianity than either side is willing to admit. Both for good and ill.
Right.
So why are so many muslims heading for rich Christian countries rather than the rich muslim ones on their doorsteps ?
One of the most disturbing parts of Islam is how the scholars divide the world into the "Land of Islam" and the "Land of War".
What's hilarious as an atheist is that I see far more similarities (both good and bad) between Islam and the other Abrahamic religions it has evolved from. Many of the quotes both the "Islam is good" and "Islam is bad" crowd selectively quote are really translations of passages from the Old Testament.
Islam shares more with Christianity than either side is willing to admit. Both for good and ill.
And if both faiths manage to kill millions more in the coming years, they may even catch up with atheism in the head count stakes.
I don't think India really has any advantages over China.
Here are three off the top of my head:
1. Demographics: the 1979 one child policy means that China's working age population starts declining from 2017. In addition, there are too many boys, particularly in rural areas, which means that the problem will not be easily fixed. Sure, it's a long-term issue, but it does mean there are going to be lots of old people in 2060, with surprisingly few young people.
2. Imbalances: most developed economies in the world have Gross Capital Formation levels of around 20%, for developing, it's usually around 30%. China is at 48%. That is a country with excessive levels of investment, and because investment returns diminish beyond a certain point, it almost certainly means there is gross capital misallocation.
3. Sustainability of fiscal model: the Chinese provinces have mostly funded themselves by selling land to developers. So long as house prices kept rising, this was a fabulous system that kept local taxes low to non-existent. (The effect of this was to move local government debt into the hands of developers, for it was developers loans that were funding local services.) It will be a painful transition in many provinces to a proper fiscal system, and it is likely there will be a lot of bad property loans in the Chinese banking and WM system that need to be worked out.
If the Chinese were sensible they'd let America do all the global policing (and shoulder all the costs) while quietly getting richer (and quietly overtaking America).
Indeed that is the policy China has smartly pursued up to now. But they are beginning to swagger, just a little. Perhaps inevitably.
It depends on what sort of global policing. The United States' global policing in Latin America, despite a lot of missteps, has still resulted in Latin America becoming predominantly free market democracies. As a result, they share the values of the West, and are naturally aligned with us, rather than China. On the other hand, global policing in the Middle East has resulted in many more anti-Western regimes coming to power.
I still wonder whether the best thing to do in Iraq, Syria and Libya would have been to divide them along ethnic/religious lines so they form nation states along the European model. But if we aren't prepared to properly reformat these societies, we should probably just stay out of the Muslim world. Let them fail on their own, without us getting the blame for it.
Disengagement from the ME should have been a cornerstone of British Foreign policy since 1992. I said so at the time, I even wrote a paper on it, the problem was and remains reliance on the ME as a source of energy. However, technology has now given us the chance to do what we should have done twenty years ago.
Get fracking, guys, and BAe can find their profits elsewhere.
At current oil and gas prices, UK onshore energy is not economic. Even if you passed a law saying that there were no restrictions on fracking, then there would still be essentially no activity.
In the US, the rig count (i.e. the number of oil and gas rigs drilling) has more than halved since November. And, in the US, costs are massively lower, the population is less dense, the infrastructure is in place, and the geology is better understood.
The only way you could get people to invest today in on-shore energy in the UK, would be a government subsidy scheme. (Interestingly, the Norwegians effectively have such a scheme for off-shore. IIRC, if you drill, and it's a "dry hole", you get 78% of the money back from the government.)
As someone said at a conference I attended a couple of years ago, the cheapest source of shale gas in the UK is likely to be LNG imported from the USA.
If liking a nation was a key determinant of power than Ireland and Canada would be superpowers!
It is just one of many determinants. Power is, of course, defined by the ability to influence events to your liking. In international relations, a major part of that is by having a web of alliances. Among democracies, the most common political system in the world today, those alliances are determined to a large degree by how positive people feel about you. Despite the USA and China having similar sized economies, the USA has more power currently because many more medium-sized powers feel the USA shares similar values to them than China does. This is the reason why Western Europe has been in the USA camp for a long time. It is the reason why Eastern Europe has flocked to be in the USA camp. And it is the reason why a bunch of East Asian nations are looking to the USA for protection from China. When the USA had George W. Bush at the helm, and no-one wanted to be associated with him, the USA became weaker. Since he left, the European-US alliance has become stronger again. Because the USA is more liked again.
Of course, being liked is not much good on its own. But on top of economic and military strength, it is a powerful thing.
I don't disagree with that, since productivity is a pretty dynamic process.
Where I object to some of the issues that were pushed in the noughties were they were fads and people who should have known better went along with accelerating the erosion of our economy for no reason.
Msany of these jobs could be had back if HMG put it;s mind to doing so. As I often point out our BOP problems are not so much with low cost countries with low tech products, but with high cost countries selling us medium tech products - european cars, fridges, Korean TVs etc.
You cannot just blame HMG though, Mr. Brooke. Most of the decisions to go along with the fad were taken by high paid CEOs looking for a quick fix, perhaps to ensure their bonuses. It is not often I agree with Mr. Observer, gent of this parish, but on the subject of the quality of British management at senior level, he has it spot on - most are rubbish and grossly overpaid.
However, until the UK sorts out a system of corporate governance fit for the 21st century that is unlikely to change. So perhaps the best thing HMG can do is not build roads and all that easy stuff but actually change how companies are owned and run. In the process they should re-introduce by statute, as no bugger will do it otherwise, the link between risk and reward for big company CEOs and the equivalents in the public sector.
No the government has no role in deciding how our companies are owned and run. It is upto the market and companies to determine that and competition will find the best ways to proceed as it always has. Those that sacrifice long term planning to seek a quick buck don't survive the long term.
So the diverse companies acts that have been enacted over the centuries were part of the market were they? Grow up! HMG has always, rightly, had a view as to how companies are owned and run, not least because experience showed that if they didn't the population at large would be defrauded.
As for your final sentence, just explain how much the executives involved in the financial crash suffered, will you? Or what about that twat who bankrupted GEC/MArconi? The rewards for these fantastic captains of industry are enormous, the risks non-existent. If you are true to your capitalist posturings you must see that is wrong and unsustainable.
It has been sustainable for centuries and will continue to be so. HMG provides an outline and corporations evolve within that. The executives may not suffer as much as we like but the investors do suffer and learn a lesson for next time. If corporate structures are fixed then innovation is blocked too.
Going to be meant in the future. As for currently - I'd say arguably so. It will be unarguably so in 50 years time though. "Drunks on zimmerframes" is a great analogy for Russia's future.
I think you've crossed the border of optimism and are making good time for delusion.
IMF figures for GDP in 2014: Russian GDP: $1.857 trillion British GDP: $2.945 trillion
Russian GDP per capita: $12,926 British GDP per capita: $45,653
Call me optimistic if you will but I'd rather be British than Russian.
So would I, one 100 percent, but my patriotism leads me to look rationally at the circumstances with a view to supporting future improvement, rather than deluding myself.
The Russian economy is going to be hammered by low commodity prices, as it was in the 1980s. The Soviet Union fell because commodity prices were in the dumps in the 1980s.
It is the great shame of the Putin years, that he has totally failed to build up any non-commodity related businesses in Russia.
One of the most disturbing parts of Islam is how the scholars divide the world into the "Land of Islam" and the "Land of War".
What's hilarious as an atheist is that I see far more similarities (both good and bad) between Islam and the other Abrahamic religions it has evolved from. Many of the quotes both the "Islam is good" and "Islam is bad" crowd selectively quote are really translations of passages from the Old Testament.
Islam shares more with Christianity than either side is willing to admit. Both for good and ill.
And if both faiths manage to kill millions more in the coming years, they may even catch up with atheism in the head count stakes.
I doubt that atheiest states never caught up. Crusades, conquistadors, thirty years war, the umayyad conquests - and the rest.
Comments
I do feel sorry for the people at the other end. I am sure they are intelligent, well educated and doing their best but my time is too precious to me to spend talking to people who can only work to a script and with whom, through no fault on either side, I frequently have difficulty in understanding and getting them to understand.
Mind you, UK based call centres also have problems caused by penny-pinching management. "We are experiencing an unusually high volume of calls", is one message that seems to be on permanently in some organisations regardless of the time of day, so is clearly a lie. "Your call is important to us", no it isn't if it was you would provide sufficient staff to deal with it. And so on...
Would this last intervention not have more chance of doing something if it was all 3 of them signing it or a redraft version of it rather than these individual inputs?
It would appear their own animosity even stops them putting on a united front against the peril they see in Corbyn.
Also China is 93% Han Chinese, India is 40% or so Hindi-speaking (although Hindi is part of a dialect continuum including Urdu spoken in Pakistan).
But the bulk of jobs let go in the noughties are still the kind of jobs that can be more than adequately done in this country and fit in with high skill high productivity economy political parties used to espouse..
Currently the work platform we have isn't paying the bills and shows no sign of doing so in the foreseeable future.
Ancien Regime propaganda aside, how was his post-election resignation "despicable and self-serving"??
Unlikely to be the institutions, as returns are just too low especially in. London. They need large projects like the Olympic village to be efficient enough with some pretty major tax breaks.
And never mind the rampaging regulation now happening in London to the PRS.
Where does that leave the personal buyers who do need mortgages?
Osbo imo is after letting prices fall in real terms while making sure the Treasury benefits most.
I thought he spoke a great deal of sense in his latest attempt to shake some sense into them. The Cobynista Bubble is a very noticeable one.
But there's this bloke, I fancy
I don't want to two time you,
so it's the end for you and me
Who's this bloke I asked her
Je-e-ezza, she replied
Not THAT puff, I said dismayed
Yes but he's no puff she cried
and so on.
One can say the same thing about Blair and his Iraq "dossier"
http://www.cityam.com/223271/cash-dead-long-live-cash-quarter-people-think-cash-will-disappear-next-five-years
I have done the same with my mobile phone and have changed to Tesco. I have had to call them a couple of times and the service has been outstanding.
Going with a cheap provider who have offshored all of their support services is fine until you encounter a problem. It is usually easier to skip the offshored call centre and make a complaint which is dealt with in the UK.
Where action by HMG is essential he prevaricates and cuts where HMG should keep its great nose out he intervenes and in both cases he adds complexity and cost.
If a job has gone overseas as it can be effectively done for 50 cents an hour by a Chinese labourer then I see that as not the sort of income we should be making. Better to export that sort of menial labour and have more productive labour onshore. If the income is worth 50cents an hour then that's an income we can do without and should form part of our Balance of Payments.
The problem was previously that no distinction was always made between productive and unproductive work, while the tax, red tape and political environment was not conducive to what we needed. High value work absolutely we can and should be able to do on shore.
I still wonder whether the best thing to do in Iraq, Syria and Libya would have been to divide them along ethnic/religious lines so they form nation states along the European model. But if we aren't prepared to properly reformat these societies, we should probably just stay out of the Muslim world. Let them fail on their own, without us getting the blame for it.
http://europe.newsweek.com/islam-most-popular-religion-young-chinese-329967
Miliband should have stayed in place for months while the election took place, giving Labour space to have a mature debate. If he'd stayed in place it would have been him rather than Harriet who responded to Osborne's budget and he would have done so as the outgoing leader, rather than the ludicrous situation we had of a caretaker trying to enforce abstentionism between leaders.
Where I object to some of the issues that were pushed in the noughties were they were fads and people who should have known better went along with accelerating the erosion of our economy for no reason.
Msany of these jobs could be had back if HMG put it;s mind to doing so. As I often point out our BOP problems are not so much with low cost countries with low tech products, but with high cost countries selling us medium tech products - european cars, fridges, Korean TVs etc.
Get fracking, guys, and BAe can find their profits elsewhere.
On certain population forecasts the UK could have a bigger population than Russia by 2050
something I'd never have thought possible.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4537989.ece
Russia doesn't just have short-term economic problems but it also has appalling demographics which is only going to make the economy worse over the longer term. The UK has good and improving demographics compared to almost all the developed world apart from the USA, which is why we'll overtake Germany as Europe's largest economy before too long.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_in_the_Canadian_federal_election,_2015
Ours is rapidly rising and sustainably will.
However, until the UK sorts out a system of corporate governance fit for the 21st century that is unlikely to change. So perhaps the best thing HMG can do is not build roads and all that easy stuff but actually change how companies are owned and run. In the process they should re-introduce by statute, as no bugger will do it otherwise, the link between risk and reward for big company CEOs and the equivalents in the public sector.
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/how_prevalent_is_islamic_fundamentalism_in_europe_its_alarming-152350
"Broadly speaking, between 40% and 45% of European Muslims have fundamentalist religious ideas, that is they agree with the three definitions of the term. Austria is the country with the highest percentage, 55%, while Germany has the lowest, 30%", explains Koopmans.
According to the study, Islamic fundamentalism prevails in Europe if compared to Christian fundamentalism, in which only 4% of Christians shared the ideas of the three statements of the definition.
Stop speaking about "community" full stop. As Thatcher said, there's no such thing as community, just individuals. Reprehensible individuals need to be dealt with. Positive individuals need to be encouraged.
https://twitter.com/paul1kirby/status/637954116241723392
Our economy in nominal terms is already well ahead of Russia's. Hell even Australia is close to overtaking Russia on current trends!
Where I disagree with current lot is their inability to try and get some sense back into the economic equations. In the not so distant past the DoI\BIS would have made a sustained effort to attract work to the UK now it seems like too hard to do.
However like you and Mr SO, I'm fully signed up to our CEOs have lost the plot and until we have a decent shake up on corporate governance we're stuffed. But then you'll get me in to the City, Oxbridge and people who have forgotten what leadership entails.
I think too many people think that Muslims are "like Christians but different", as it were. But they couldn't be more wrong.
At the heart of Christians' teaching is "turn the other cheek", "first will be last", etc. Islam (I think) is more about a set of rules to follow and a belief that the Muslim is superior to the non-Muslim, which causes a lot of the problems.
Of course, many individuals don't believe that, but those that do can be the problem.
Russian GDP: $1.857 trillion
British GDP: $2.945 trillion
Russian GDP per capita: $12,926
British GDP per capita: $45,653
Call me optimistic if you will but I'd rather be British than Russian.
On the other side of the equation there was a full scale riot from the immigrants 10 days ago in a hostel. Someone ripped a page from a Koran, the islamonutters went nuts, police tried to break it up and then all sides turned on the police.
I hope the Germans realise what they're signing up to.
In the US, the rig count (i.e. the number of oil and gas rigs drilling) has more than halved since November. And, in the US, costs are massively lower, the population is less dense, the infrastructure is in place, and the geology is better understood.
The only way you could get people to invest today in on-shore energy in the UK, would be a government subsidy scheme. (Interestingly, the Norwegians effectively have such a scheme for off-shore. IIRC, if you drill, and it's a "dry hole", you get 78% of the money back from the government.)
As for your final sentence, just explain how much the executives involved in the financial crash suffered, will you? Or what about that twat who bankrupted GEC/MArconi? The rewards for these fantastic captains of industry are enormous, the risks non-existent. If you are true to your capitalist posturings you must see that is wrong and unsustainable.
Islam shares more with Christianity than either side is willing to admit. Both for good and ill.
So why are so many muslims heading for rich Christian countries rather than the rich muslim ones on their doorsteps ?
1. Demographics: the 1979 one child policy means that China's working age population starts declining from 2017. In addition, there are too many boys, particularly in rural areas, which means that the problem will not be easily fixed. Sure, it's a long-term issue, but it does mean there are going to be lots of old people in 2060, with surprisingly few young people.
2. Imbalances: most developed economies in the world have Gross Capital Formation levels of around 20%, for developing, it's usually around 30%. China is at 48%. That is a country with excessive levels of investment, and because investment returns diminish beyond a certain point, it almost certainly means there is gross capital misallocation.
3. Sustainability of fiscal model: the Chinese provinces have mostly funded themselves by selling land to developers. So long as house prices kept rising, this was a fabulous system that kept local taxes low to non-existent. (The effect of this was to move local government debt into the hands of developers, for it was developers loans that were funding local services.) It will be a painful transition in many provinces to a proper fiscal system, and it is likely there will be a lot of bad property loans in the Chinese banking and WM system that need to be worked out.
Of course, being liked is not much good on its own. But on top of economic and military strength, it is a powerful thing.
*millennia
It is the great shame of the Putin years, that he has totally failed to build up any non-commodity related businesses in Russia.