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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Local By-Election Results : January 21st 2016
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Local By-Election Results : January 21st 2016
Bushey North (Con defence) on Hertfordshire
Result: Conservative 881 (53% +9%), Liberal Democrat 333 (20% +6%), Labour 286 (17% -2%), UKIP 176 (11% -12%)
Conservative HOLD with a majority of 548 (33%) on a swing of 1.5% from Liberal Democrat to Conservative
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Labour are reissuing their old lie that the Conservative party in Opposition backed Labour borrowing plans and advocated light touch regulation of the banks or even deregulation of the banks. They have always wished to duck responsibility for the great crash that occurred on their watch in 2007-8
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5917/labour_s_denial_about_the_2008_crash
'chestnut said:
Public sector net debt excluding public sector banks at the end of December 2015 was £1,542.6 billion, equivalent to 81.0% of Gross Domestic Product; an increase of £53.2 billion compared with December 2014.
Just £53.2bn higher than a year previously ???'
My suggested clarification (quoted from ONS) -
''Public sector net borrowing excluding public sector banks decreased by £11.0 billion to £74.2 billion in the current financial year-to-date (April 2015 to December 2015) compared with the same period in 2014.''
''Central government net cash requirement decreased by £17.2 billion to £63.1 billion in the
current financial year-to-date (April 2015 to December 2015) compared with the same period in 2014.''
''Due to the volatility of the monthly data, the cumulative financial year-to-date borrowing figures provide a better indication of the progress of the public finances than the individual months.''
There should be some surplus months between now and end of March.
I think their apology is a non-apology because they fail to accept that their failure effectively to understand one of our major sectors, what it did, how it did and what its real purpose is - it is there as a service for others not as an end in itself - meant that:-
(a) they failed to regulate effectively;
(b) they allowed it to grow disproportionately with consequent harm to the rest of the economy and the proper allocation of resources within the wider economy;
(c) they became so dependant on its revenues that they did little or nothing for any other part of the economy. Look at what happened to the manufacturing sector during Labour's time in office; and
(d) they believed their own bullshit and spent the money rather than using that windfall productively.
This all meant that the economy as a whole was being very badly run. It was skewed to and dependant on one volatile and poorly understood sector. Economic mismanagement is what they should be apologising for and that mismanagement is much wider and more profound than financial regulation and an excessive deficit.
I'm no defender of crooked and incompetent bankers but they have become a convenient whipping boy for governments and, frankly, for individuals who were very content to borrow and spend quite as incontinently as Brown and who then turn round and blame banks for somehow forcing them to do so.
And right at the outset a Conservative shadow minister warned that Browns system (which stripped the BoE of responsibility) would probably fail its first test.
And of course it did.
Its really bad news that Labour are still living in a make believe world.
Trump 59% Cruz 29%
Trump 64% Rubio 27%
Trump 68% Bush 22%
Trump 72% Kasich 15%
Trump 69% Christie 19%
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnzogby/2016/01/21/new-zogby-poll-trump-leads-cruz-by-32-points-nationwide/#55ae75397b32
Northern Maryland is making me think of the lead up to or aftermath of Gettysburg. Were those manoeuvres around your patch?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/bank-of-england/11329046/Revealed-Bank-of-England-files-finally-shed-light-on-financial-crisis-meetings.html
''The documents show how the response to the collapse of Northern Rock in September 2007 and the subsequent credit crisis was marred by political motivations, failures to take responsibility, and a lack of effective oversight.''
''The documents – from meetings of the Bank of England court – reveal how the “tripartite” system of financial regulation devised by Labour’s chancellor Gordon Brown was exposed as wholly inadequate.''
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2009/06/02/the-tripartite-system-was-responsible-for-the
''The tripartite system put in place by New Labour to regulate the economy was responsible for the financial crisis, according to a devastating new report by the House of Lords economic affairs committee.''
''We need to acknowledge that the regulations and their application contributed to the crisis, and made it worse when it came, because among other things, they had a pro-cyclical bias, did not pay enough attention to liquidity, and were wide open to regulatory arbitrage''
''It is also clear that in the UK the tripartite authorities of the Bank of England, FSA, and the Treasury failed to maintain financial stability, in part because it was not clear who was in charge in a crisis and because not enough attention was paid to macro-prudential supervision - oversight of the aggregate effect of the actions of individual banks - in the period when 'boom and bust' was mistakenly assigned to history.''
Mr. Lilley
"Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with these comments about that approach: A blanket approach, the creation of a 'super-regulator', won't do. I know that it makes for convenient shorthand but the idea that if all the regulators are rounded up and put into one building then we will have a system that will solve all our problems simply won't wash"?
HOC - November 1997
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1997/nov/11/bank-of-england-bill
Labour were warned the year they were elected. Brown knew best, he didn't . Browns responsibility and Labours.
Hence the fairy story about paying for everything from taxes on bankers' bonuses that EdM was peddling or McDonnell's current nonsense. They simply do not have any sort of economic policy - and that was the case for Brown as well. They have absolutely no idea what a well run economy might look like or what the government's role in creating/enabling this should be.
It's a long long time since I heard any Labour economic spokesman talk any sense about the economy. Sure they can make effective criticisms now and then. We all can. But other than point the finger of blame at others (bankers, Amazon, tax "gaps", tax avoiders, hedge funds etc) who was the last Labour figure who could give you any sort of coherent picture of what a social democratic economy would look like and how to get there, what the balance of state and private what be, what the role of taxation should be, what is / is not investment, the balance between inflation and employment, the balance of payments etc etc?
Healey, maybe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monocacy
Thanks. The news channels are talking it up as an historic storm. But we are only expecting 30" at worst. In 2010 we had 36" on Feb 6 and then, with that still on the ground, another 20" on the 9th. That was bad. Figure I hand shoveled 30 tons of nasty wet snow to free up the gates to the paddocks so we could feed the horses. Had nerve pain in the left elbow for 6 months afterwards. Not expecting anything like that today through Sunday morning.
Before Corbyn was elected LOTO all Labour had to do was at least put their hands up and admit they got it wrong. Yes would have hurt them of course but cleansed in some way and this pain was necessary.
Ed Milliband had the golden opportunity, fluffed it completely to gasps of the audience then for good measure fell off the stage.
Labour are and remain (with the present bunch) economically incompetent, they cannot accept responsibility and should be kept as far away from government as possible. As I said it's not the first time, it happens every time they make No 10.
EDIT They have
as muchpoweras they are ever going to get...Its good that these companies are based here. However when you read that Googles UK business has revenues of $6.5 billion and hardly pays any tax you can see where it becomes difficult to equate UK GDP with a suitably appropriate level of tax revenue. This is the same for all governments of all political parties and all nationalities.
Interesting also to read that ''Last year our compliance activities yielded £26 billion in extra tax, including £7.3 billion from the largest and most complex businesses''
I do not believe in high taxes or extortionate taxes, but I know what is fair and moral for a company or individual to pay.
PS
Given that Putin is no more than a petty gangster who happens to run a country - maybe it will be the taxman that gets him in the end.
I'm guessing you can commute between Washington and Richmond today!
http://www.britishrailwaystations.co.uk/newhavenmarine.html
I too would like to visit Gettysburg, but these days I doubt that I ever will. Its a battle that was full of incident and controversy, and personality too. Quite a large number of 'what ifs'.
It should be remembered though that even following Gettysburg it was almost a year before Grant launched his Overland Campaign and it was over a year after that to Appomattox.
:-)
If the film 'The big Short' is accurate which I suspect it is then governments unless they had a crystal ball had very little reason to foretell the events that caused the economic collapse of 07/08. The mortgage bundles that brought down the US banks were all given 'triple A' ratings by the rating agencies and the rules had been in place for about 30 years so it's difficult to see what Brown or Bush should have been aware of?
Until they admit this they will get nowhere. They may still get nowhere but at least it would be a coherent case of a sort. They would still need to explain how an economy with a large state would function and how it would function well. These are not givens.
But they do not have a clue. They went from the "tax and spend" of the 60's and 70's to the "tax the banks and spend" of the 97-2010 period to, well, what now?
I just need to work the opening of the film into an upcoming thread
'Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry.'
Every day that passes makes me more aghast at what Labour is doing to itself.
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=corbyn bike
Our now-forgotten history
It lies so smothered now in myth
or scattered like Ed's monolith
If the rest of the EU (its members and institutions) act rationally, I think they would conclude:
1) The UK leaving is really really bad
2) The best hope of preventing that is to give Cameron a plausible-looking deal sooner rather than later (which fits with what you're saying)
The impact of the migration crisis, which had been so much discussed here today, is no secret. Nor are the polls. It's obvious that Cameron has a real fight on his hands. If you want to stave off Brexit you need to cut a deal quickly.
However, people don't always act rationally. Also, I'm not sure if everyone agrees with point 1.
Lending money on property to people who cannot pay it back has been at the heart of many busts in my lifetime let alone longer than that. It's pretty bog standard stuff. Of course governments should have asked questions about (a) the increases in banks' balance sheets; (b) to whom they were lending; (c) what all these fancy instruments were; (d) why they were being bundled up; and (e) to whom they were being sold.
And that's only some of the questions to be asked.
Let's take the last one: banks were selling these products as a way, at least initially, of getting the risk off their books. Personally, I'd be very wary indeed of any bank which says it has got rid of risk because a bank that doesn't understand that you can never get rid of risk, you can only manage it is one dangerously stupid bank.
What banks were doing as the market in these products grew was that they were selling them to each other. Rather than minimise risk they were increasing it. They were taking stuff on without realising it and without understanding it. And the very same process happened in the insurance market in London - in Lloyds - some years earlier. So not only was it foreseeable. It had happened. And in the City. And there was plenty of information around about how it happened and what the risks were.
Everything that happened in the 2007 crash has happened in my lifetime, sometimes more than once, maybe not in exactly the same sequence or in precisely the same combination. But it has all happened. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to financial crashes.
Brown, Bush, Greenspan and all the rest of them did not see because they did not want to see, because they believed their own bullshit, because they did not have the courage or brains to ask some obvious questions.
It would take me at least 2 days to 'do' Gettysburg
(BTW - try walking 85 miles with no shoes in June)
Also, I've read that Vicksburg is no longer on the river, thanks to the vagaries of the Mississippi itself. Still, it would be on the list, obviously.
Sherman's March Through Georgia - there's not much to see other than some historical markers. There's almost nothing left of the battle of Atlanta except Kennesaw Mountain.
It surrendered on 4th July and it never celebrated Independence Day for years and decades after that.
My understanding was that Davis was from Mississippi and knew the area well. He picked the wrong man to command at Vicksburg.
I believe Chickamauga has stuff worth seeing.
Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta is worth a visit too. They have a large Confederate section, not to mention Margaret Mitchell, Bobby Jones (take a golf ball to leave on his grave) and folks from the Great Locomotive Chase (immortalized in Buster Keaton's "The General"). The locomotive itself is on display in Kennesaw I believe.
"Everything that happened in the 2007 crash has happened in my lifetime, sometimes more than once, maybe not in exactly the same sequence or in precisely the same combination. But it has all happened. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to financial crashes."
If the crash was so easy to predict why didn't more people make a killing out of predicting it? As I said when talking about the film-which claims to be true-the morality of the premise is very suspect.
It's about one fund manager who convinced the housing market would collapse made a fortune out of correctly predicting it.
In the meantime he could get no one to believe him including his clients his partners the five leading banks and uncle Tom Cobley and all.
If it was common knowledge among you and the PB betting fraterity it's odd that no one shared it and then we could all have made fortunes
Reminds me of that old Tommy Cooper joke - I asked the doctor if he had anything for wind and he gave me a kite.
I did very accurately predict the deficit explosion though, criticising the government for running an unnecessarily high deficit.
I have read the book. Being aware that things are not right is a long way from trying to make money out of your views.
The main reason more people did not speak up is because lots of people had a vested interest in what was going on, lots of people wanted to believe that we had reached some sort of economic nirvana and Cassandras - and there were some - are rarely popular and even less rarely believed. And those who did point out the problems were poo-poohed. Look at all those IMF warnings to Brown.
It's the same old story in pretty much every crisis.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=12116574&cc=12083568
Indeed even his advance to Atlanta was relatively bereft of battles as Johnson tended to withdraw to keephis army in being. Kennesaw Mountain was a rarity as Sherman tended to try to outflank Johnson.
The main big battle of that period was between Hood and Thomas at Nashville.
Love to visit those sites one day ;-)
In so far as we can tell anything at all from a tiny handful of local results...
The Conservative vote is holding up well. We've passed peak-UKIP. The Lib Dems still haven't hit bottom. Labour are continuing to lose ground in straight fights against the Conservatives or SNP, but have mildly benefited from former UKIP voters returning to their old affiliations.
That said, the Newington/Thanet result was heavily driven by the Manston Airport issue. Labour was previously hammered in the area for having the temerity to suggest that it might not be worth a taxpayer bailout for an airport which had never managed to keep its head above water financially since it was sold off by the RAF. UKIP and the Conservatives both promised that if they got in, they would use the magical powers of rainbows, pixies and unicorns to re-open the airport. UKIP got in, quickly realised it couldn't deliver on its promise and is now being castigated for its U-Turn (it's turned into a localised version of the Lib Dem tuition fees turnaround).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvQq_tqB0jA
I've not been to Bhutan but it's culturally similar to Nepal . My advice would be:
Take some iodine and a dropper bottle,dead cheap from a pharmacist. 6 drops per litre in the water and leave for half an hour, kills all the nasties. Some Americans we met had very expensive and heavy kit which didn't work.
Don't eat salads, local curried food which has been boiled for ages is best. Eat what the locals eat.
Places will offer fancy food, best to avoid as it either is very fuel innefficient to make just one or two dishes or is not properly cooked. Rain forest is the source of energy. For the same reasons try to either have cold showers or use places with solar panels.
If you come to a mani wall with prayer wheels, pass on the left hand side spin the wheels and chant om mani padme hum. There are few emergency services so this is your insurance policy for a safe journey.
Greet people by hands together as if praying, bow head and say namaste which means "I worship the God within you".
Take lots of pictures and prints of life in the UK. Just ordinary things like roads, shops, trains, houses. Nothing over fancy as everything will be better than they have.
Pens and pencils for the kids but refrain from sweets. There are few dentists. Toothbrushes could be a useful gift.
Drink tea, not coffee. The water has to be boiled or the tea tastes wrong. Besides they know a lot about tea!
Tibetan tea is disgusting but to refuse without good reason is an insult. One of the Everest team thought he had the answer; he told them that his God had spoken and he had to climb the highest mountain in the world forgoing all luxury on the way. This was accepted, the trouble was he succeeded so he was assured that his God was very pleased and allowed double rations on the way back.
Beer is fine and the local spirit is good for killing leeches.