In London, they have won 2 selections (Foxcroft and West) and lost 2 (Bermondsey and Enfield North). In North West, they have won Chester and lost Bury North, Manchester Withington, Warrington South, Weaver Vale, Wirral West. In SE, they won Kemptwon and lost Hove. In SW, they won Plymouth and lost Bristol South. In West Midlands, they won North Warwickshire, Halesowen, Wolverhampton SW and lost Yardley In Yorkshire, they have lost Hallam.
In some cases, I would suggest the outcome is more due to the candidate rather than the union support (Foxcroft, West, the 2 former MPs in Wolverhampton and Warwickshire, Platts in Kemptwon)
The important thing about the Unite selections is in the outcome of a small Labour majority or Labour led coalition. Even if they are only 20 in number, if they operate as a block, they could be hugely influential.
Candidates they support in the remaining selections:
Ilford North: Mike Hedges Finchley: Alan Or Bach Brent Central: Kate Osamor Lancaster: Cath Smith Burnley: Julie Cooper Pendle: Azhar Ali Blackpool North: Chris Webb Kingswood: Rowenna Hayward Stourbridge: Pete Lowe Dudley South: Natasha Milward Sherwood: Lachlan Morrison Amber Valley: Julia Long Cleethorpes: Ian Grant Pudsey: Jamie Hanley Rothwell: Veronica King Dewsbury: Paula Sheriff Dumfriesshire: Archie Bryburgh East Dunbartonshire: Alan Moir Falkirk: Karie Murphy Cardiff Central: Jo Stevens
The Bank of England holds interest rates at 0.5% and keeps its quantitative easing stimulus programme unchanged at Mark Carney's first meeting as governor.
"Pre war the major regional cities all could hold their own. It's really been since the Thatcher era and the rise of financial services that the discrepancy has crept in"
I thought the decline of the northern and western cities had more to do with the fact that in trade relations terms, we left the Commonwealth when we joined the EEC. Our previously successful trading cities were then either on the wrong coast, denied their advantageous raw materials / finished goods markets, or both.
It's essential the same reason Chatham isn't a naval base any more. It was useful for fighting the French, Dutch and Germans, i.e. the Eastern Approaches; less useful as an anti-submarine base serving the Western Approaches.
Then of course there are other factors such as the rise of air travel putting the skids under the Liverpool and Southampton passenger shipping businesses.
The rise of London and the decline of, say, Bristol, Liverpool or Manchester do not seem to me to have been causally linked. Had we had a Callaghan win in 1979, it seems entirely plausible that London would gave declined as well for reasons that would not have produced any offsetting benefit elsewhere.
Fully agree on shale fracking and nuclear (Thorium please). Let's just get on with it.
I'm not sure we are obliged in perpetuity to accept so many refugees / asylum seekers from the middle east. We could certainly achieve full control of our borders if we left the EU and may never be able to properly while we remain. But I do accept that there are degress of 'leave well alone' - and we should opt for the most remote engagement feasible.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Pre war the major regional cities all could hold their own. It's really been since the Thatcher era and the rise of financial services that the discrepancy has crept in"
I thought the decline of the northern and western cities had more to do with the fact that in trade relations terms, we left the Commonwealth when we joined the EEC. Our previously successful trading cities were then either on the wrong coast, denied their advantageous raw materials / finished goods markets, or both.
It's essential the same reason Chatham isn't a naval base any more. It was useful for fighting the French, Dutch and Germans, i.e. the Eastern Approaches; less useful as an anti-submarine base serving the Western Approaches.
Then of course there are other factors such as the rise of air travel putting the skids under the Liverpool and Southampton passenger shipping businesses.
The rise of London and the decline of, say, Bristol, Liverpool or Manchester do not seem to me to have been causally linked. Had we had a Callaghan win in 1979, it seems entirely plausible that London would gave declined as well for reasons that would not have produced any offsetting benefit elsewhere.
I suspect there was no one single factor. The loss of old markets, the decline of traditional industries in major cities, archaic work practices. London got a break with Big Bang and exploited it to the full. The regional cities for whatever reason didn't get their acts together.
Hmmm: Kay Burley @KayBurley 1m Really big story breaking at 2pm which I know many of you will want to know about. Tune in to #skynews for our lead story then ... #embargo
I see the Bank of England is content to continue effectively stealing money from savers
I noticed you've reverted to Red & White from Purple & Yellow - have you renounced UKIP or just fancied a different colour scheme?
Well, it's complicated. I am sympathetic to the BOOer principles of UKIP*, but not too sure about their social policies. I am broadly in favour of gay marriage, for example. I'm probably 90% certain I'll lend them my vote in 2014, but I'll have to think carefully when it comes to 2015!
* If I had my way, I have a more elegant solution given our relationship with both the EU and the Commonwealth - and that's to annex all EU nations** to the Commonwealth, given that English is an official language of the EU!
** or at least all those EU nations where, to the best of my knowledge, there has been an English or British military or administrative or peacekeeping presence in the past - which rules out only five states: Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania
Fully agree on shale fracking and nuclear (Thorium please). Let's just get on with it.
I'm not sure we are obliged in perpetuity to accept so many refugees / asylum seekers from the middle east. We could certainly achieve full control of our borders if we left the EU and may never be able to properly while we remain. But I do accept that there are degress of 'leave well alone' - and we should opt for the most remote engagement feasible.
Are you proposing to leave the United Nations as well? The EU is not the source of our basic law on asylum seekers or refugees. The ECHR has clearly had an effect but the underlying law remains our obligations under the 1951 Convention.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
The issue with 1997 was that the economy was no longer enough when people could vote who did not even remember the last Labour government. That won't be the case in 2015.
Labour have pinned everything last few years on "where is the growth" so if Cameron can go to the country with the fastest growing nation in Europe then their argument will be well and truly shot.
If inflation and interest rates can stay low then that will stay as a boon too. Biggest economic risk to popularity now I see is if the economy booms so much that interest rates start rising fast - that could make a lot of mortgage holders face trouble they've not adjusted to.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
@david_kendrick1 - So the game plan is to engineer a Labour government, on the off-chance that (a) Miliband will promise a referendum, and (b) that he'll actually deliver it, in stark contrast to Labour's previous record. If that all works, you might get a referendum, but with no renegotiations or reform of the EU, a referendum which you'll then lose. The end result will be that we are left with the Europhiles taking the referendum as a mandate for ever-closer union, and a Labour government which will move Britain in precisely the opposite direction to every single thing UKIP supporters want.
Great plan.
A referendum has become a totemic rather than actual demand. It signifies their dislike of modern "society" whether that be immigration, the EU, windfarms, unsolicited sales calls or England's failure to win and retain the World Cup.
They don't really care about it (oh they would like one but actually it is just one item on the list). What they really want is to give someone who cares a bloody nose. Labour doesn't care so that leaves the Cons.
But of the approx. 12-14% of them at the moment, at least half will return to the Cons in GE15 leaving a core 4-6/7% sulking all the way to the ballot box come the day. And of those, some will be former Lab supporters.
I am guessing that Lab=>UKIP switchers are younger than Cons=>UKIP switchers.
Spot on!
I was reading the comments on ConHome yesterday (Andrew Lilico's piece) and the first comment was some guy - apropos of nothing in the Lilico article - railing at the injustices of UK2013, at immigration, at schools as 'holding cells for children' etc etc. A proper, Daily Mash satirical rant. Apparently the guy who wrote it is 20. I was thinking WTF? It must be a hoax, surely. But then reading the other comments I realised it wasn't. Some people are actually that angry.
The comments in the DT are more angry - even Cameron's head on a plate wouldn't be good enough for most of them, its quite unhinged and I say that as someone who has some sympathy.
Frankly, these bombastic folks are really off-putting to more moderate types like me. Perhaps more moderate voices from the Kippers would help to balance things out - as it is, these posters are making UKIP look like a very angry, anti-gay, women should be at home, anti-everything bar what they want mob. A stereotype if ever there was one.
I think some of these people are like road-ragers. Perfectly normal and nice and decent when not behind a screen, but angry and irrational when shielded or anonymous.
I never meet anybody who talks about these issues. Personally, the EU is something I reflexively dislike, because it seems unaccountable and undemocratic. But I don't think I have ever spoken to anyone about it. And would I choose to leave?? On the whole I feel it must do more good than bad, but it worries me that Europhiles never make a case for it, they are either too scared, too willing to scaremonger or there is no case to make.
One thing that is obvious around here is vitriol toward benefits scroungers. They are a target in South Wales because they are visible and everyone knows everyone. There are often outbreaks of joy on FB at someone being 'shopped'. All very unedifying, but hey - and I don't really care who's tricking the system - you live by the sword you die by it ('single mothers' claiming housing benefit when they actually live with their partner is a regular trick, but people are more often getting caught now). Anger against Islamic terorism is also quite outspoken round here. Probably because muslims are less visible, and lots of soliders from round here have served etc, and the Lee Rigby case really got some violent responses. Again, not very edifying, but I suppose Islamic terror or militant Islamic hatred of the UK goes against the way people from these parts feel. We are community driven, patriotic, old-fashioned family-values types and the veil of terrorism challenges and threatens the 'heads down, let-us-just-get-on-with-our-lives' mentality.
But I've never met an anger-driven Daily Mail or DT or ConHome commenter-type. Neither have I met a hand-wringing, money-tree type out of the Guardian mould. I think most people I meet are reality based. They know money is scarce, they'll get away with what they can get away with, their attitude towards governance is that choice between LabLibCon is unlikely to affect them and they are fairly happy chancing their arm at life. This idea that there is a some great UKIP-shaped saviour or that exit from the EU will pave our streets with gold just doesn't exist.
Which makes me think some of these commenters are just hoaxing!?
Mark Carney just talked up inflation and the pound down by two cents.
I have no doubt that seeking to guide the pound lower will be a part of the policy mix. We still have an unacceptable trade deficit and need exports to grow in fairly depressed markets.
I see my slightly throwaway comment about the southeastward drift of wealth and the creators of wealth has started a few hares running.
No one is suggesting actively impairing the economic growth of the SE but there's nothing wrong with an economic policy predicated on improving the wealth of other parts of the country.
As others have said, the situation was much more balanced in the past with the great cities of the North emerging from the Industrial Revolution and the resulting transport infrastructure (canals, then railways). The decline and fall of that manufacturing base has decimated the North economically while the SE has prospered from the boom in Services especially financial services. Indeed, there are those who advocate separating London from the UK and see the resulting city-state competing as a European version of Hong Kong or Singapore and the economic arguments for that are compelling.
The possibility that the development of shale gas might re-vitalise the northern economy has to be taken seriously and must be a key argument for moving forward. The potential benefits of developing this source of energy will be enjoyed by all though I believe these benefits to be somewhat overplayed by the advocrates of shale gas development.
There is also a strong argument that Britain has become too centralised and it's always interesting to hear those droning on ad nauseam about the re-patriation of powers from Brussels to Westminster staying much quieter about the equally vital re-patriation of powers away from Westminster and to elected local authorities.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
@david_kendrick1 - So the game plan is to engineer a Labour government, on the off-chance that (a) Miliband will promise a referendum, and (b) that he'll actually deliver it, in stark contrast to Labour's previous record. If that all works, you might get a referendum, but with no renegotiations or reform of the EU, a referendum which you'll then lose. The end result will be that we are left with the Europhiles taking the referendum as a mandate for ever-closer union, and a Labour government which will move Britain in precisely the opposite direction to every single thing UKIP supporters want.
Great plan.
A referendum has become a totemic rather than actual demand. It signifies their dislike of modern "society" whether that be immigration, the EU, windfarms, unsolicited sales calls or England's failure to win and retain the World Cup.
They don't really care about it (oh they would like one but actually it is just one item on the list). What they really want is to give someone who cares a bloody nose. Labour doesn't care so that leaves the Cons.
But of the approx. 12-14% of them at the moment, at least half will return to the Cons in GE15 leaving a core 4-6/7% sulking all the way to the ballot box come the day. And of those, some will be former Lab supporters.
I am guessing that Lab=>UKIP switchers are younger than Cons=>UKIP switchers.
Spot on!
I was reading the comments on ConHome yesterday (Andrew Lilico's piece) and the first comment was some guy - apropos of nothing in the Lilico article - railing at the injustices of UK2013, at immigration, at schools as 'holding cells for children' etc etc. A proper, Daily Mash satirical rant. Apparently the guy who wrote it is 20. I was thinking WTF? It must be a hoax, surely. But then reading the other comments I realised it wasn't. Some people are actually that angry.
The comments in the DT are more angry - even Cameron's head on a plate wouldn't be good enough for most of them, its quite unhinged and I say that as someone who has some sympathy.
Frankly, these bombastic folks are really off-putting to more moderate types like me. Perhaps more moderate voices from the Kippers would help to balance things out - as it is, these posters are making UKIP look like a very angry, anti-gay, women should be at home, anti-everything bar what they want mob. A stereotype if ever there was one.
I think some of these people are like road-ragers. Perfectly normal and nice and decent when not behind a screen, but angry and irrational when shielded or anonymous.
I never meet anybody who talks about these issues. Personally, the EU is something I reflexively dislike, because it seems unaccountable and undemocratic. But I don't think I have ever spoken to anyone about it. And would I choose to leave?? On the whole I feel it must do more good than bad, but it worries me that Europhiles never make a case for it, they are either too scared, too willing to scaremonger or there is no case to make.
One thing that is obvious around here is vitriol toward benefits scroungers. They are a target in South Wales because they are visible and everyone knows everyone. There are often outbreaks of joy on FB at someone being 'shopped'. All very unedifying, but hey - and I don't really care who's tricking the system - you live by the sword you die by it ('single mothers' claiming housing benefit when they actually live with their partner is a regular trick, but people are more often getting caught now). Anger against Islamic terorism is also quite outspoken round here. Probably because muslims are less visible, and lots of soliders from round here have served etc, and the Lee Rigby case really got some violent responses. Again, not very edifying, but I suppose Islamic terror or militant Islamic hatred of the UK goes against the way people from these parts feel. We are community driven, patriotic, old-fashioned family-values types and the veil of terrorism challenges and threatens the 'heads down, let-us-just-get-on-with-our-lives' mentality.
But I've never met an anger-driven Daily Mail or DT or ConHome commenter-type. Neither have I met a hand-wringing, money-tree type out of the Guardian mould. I think most people I meet are reality based. They know money is scarce, they'll get away with what they can get away with, their attitude towards governance is that choice between LabLibCon is unlikely to affect them and they are fairly happy chancing their arm at life. This idea that there is a some great UKIP-shaped saviour or that exit from the EU will pave our streets with gold just doesn't exist.
Which makes me think some of these commenters are just hoaxing!?
Did I not catch a reference in your excellent post last night about your education to playing golf? I don't indulge myself but have always presumed that the writers of these comments spend a lot of time in golf clubs with a G&T in hand and probably a blazer. Lazy stereotyping on my part no doubt.
Imagine, writing to people to thank them for taking a principled stand on an issue you care about. Truly this is exposing Unite worse than the PMQs briefing notes exposed Ed yesterday.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I wouldn't descibe Brown as on the right by any measure. I suspect you have taken what I said in the wrong context. There is no economic challenge to the Left of GO atm, they've signed up to his plan bar some facing saving tweaks. The debate Osborne has is with reformists who question why he has done little to get the real engines of growth back to full stretch. Would you rather Osborne used his political capital on comprehensive tax reform or defending pasties ?
"....their strategy makes no sense. Split the vote by standing against Tories who are the only Big Party to want a referendum?"
This strategy surely does make sense if you start from the normal UKIP view that the Tory party - its leadership, at least - is actually lying about wanting a referendum. It's thus indistinguishable from the alternatives, except in being more mendacious.
This is not an insupportable position. First there was the welshing on the Lisbon referendum, from when dates the Tory poll decline of 2009 to date. Then there has been the disingenuous nature of the sops to UKIP actually on offer: "we'll renegotiate and then vote on it" .
Every UKIPper knows this last cannot happen. From which there can really be only two conclusions. Either the Tories don't know this, hence are ignorant, and nothing will change; or the Tories do know this, hence think UKIPpers are ignorant, and think that UKIPpers will supprt them and then just accept it when they find they've been conned.
Neither inference augurs well for the Tories' ability to lure UKIPpers back. FWIW, I think the only approach to a referendum that even a UKIPper would accept as evidence of Tory sincerity is if Cameron agreed to
1) hold an In/Out referendum, 2) campaign for an Out vote in that, 3) take the resulting Out vote to Brussels and demand change, and 4) implement the Out vote if denied.
I don't see any of that happening save the first, and not in a way that gives an actionable basis for exit. Not doing 2 to 4 are acts outright hostile to UKIP.
There is anyway a pragmatic point, which is that with the current and likely seat tallies, Cameron can't even get as far as doing 1).
The UKIP approach is, surely, that if the any party leader concedes 1 to 4 - which in fact probably requires there to be a different Tory leader - then he'll get most of UKIP's support. Only the Tories need this support to achieve a majority. Labour back in, or another coalition, offer no prospect of a referendum.
The Cameron problem is that whereas most previous post-Heath Tory leaders would have quite liked to have the ace of an Out mandate up their sleeve when dealing with Brussels, Cameron gives no sign that he'd be equally glad of this. As has been said upthread there's no evidence of even an iota of sympathy for the UKIP cause.
In London, they have won 2 selections (Foxcroft and West) and lost 2 (Bermondsey and Enfield North). In North West, they have won Chester and lost Bury North, Manchester Withington, Warrington South, Weaver Vale, Wirral West. In SE, they won Kemptwon and lost Hove. In SW, they won Plymouth and lost Bristol South. In West Midlands, they won North Warwickshire, Halesowen, Wolverhampton SW and lost Yardley In Yorkshire, they have lost Hallam.
In some cases, I would suggest the outcome is more due to the candidate rather than the union support (Foxcroft, West, the 2 former MPs in Wolverhampton and Warwickshire, Platts in Kemptwon)
So if you are a liberal secular democratic minded chap in some Islamist hellhole and you decide to escape and seek asylum where do you go? Italy's alot closer. So's Greece. Maybe you could go to Turkey. Or France. Where's furthest away and least easy to get to? UK? Norway?
There must be something about our laws, benefits culture, etc that makes the UK a leading choice. Maybe this is something to be proud of. It's certainly something we would wish to be very consciously in control of and making decisions with eyes wide open. And with the consent of the British people.
Myself I'm broadly in favour of helping genuine asylum seekers who face a truly grim alternative back home. I'm also very much in favour of finding ways to weed them out from the 'my own country's a shithole so I'm coming to yours' crowd. Let us offer protection to the oppressed but not a welfare cheque the economic migrant.
Mark Carney just talked up inflation and the pound down by two cents.
I have no doubt that seeking to guide the pound lower will be a part of the policy mix. We still have an unacceptable trade deficit and need exports to grow in fairly depressed markets.
Inflation + consumer debt + low interest rates + mortgage subsidies. Inflate away the deficit and pump up a housing bubble. Lets hope a lower pound can help exports before we go pop again.
Good time for Dave to be encouraging foreign students to come though, maybe he knows what he's doing all of a sudden
Inflation is and has remained incredibly low Tim. Either QE just doesn't work or there are significant deflationary forces in the economy. The figures out this week showed that the cost of all goods bar food in the shops is falling. So a little currency depreciation is a good risk at the moment.
The housing market and the consequential lack of house building over the last 5 years is an aggravation of a long running problem of lack of supply and needs to be encouraged. There are some signs it is working.
As for students if only the last government had not been so incredibly incompetent and turned a blind eye to so many coming to "colleges" above chip shops without classes. Quality education is a market for this country as anyone who has attended Eton will know very well from personal experience.
@david_kendrick1 - So the game plan is to engineer a Labour government, on the off-chance that (a) Miliband will promise a referendum, and (b) that he'll actually deliver it, in stark contrast to Labour's previous record. If that all works, you might get a referendum, but with no renegotiations or reform of the EU, a referendum which you'll then lose. The end result will be that we are left with the Europhiles taking the referendum as a mandate for ever-closer union, and a Labour government which will move Britain in precisely the opposite direction to every single thing UKIP supporters want.
Great plan.
A referendum has become a totemic rather than actual demand. It signifies their dislike of modern "society" whether that be immigration, the EU, windfarms, unsolicited sales calls or England's failure to win and retain the World Cup.
They don't really care about it (oh they would like one but actually it is just one item on the list). What they really want is to give someone who cares a bloody nose. Labour doesn't care so that leaves the Cons.
But of the approx. 12-14% of them at the moment, at least half will return to the Cons in GE15 leaving a core 4-6/7% sulking all the way to the ballot box come the day. And of those, some will be former Lab supporters.
I am guessing that Lab=>UKIP switchers are younger than Cons=>UKIP switchers.
Spot on!
I was reading the comments on ConHome yesterday (Andrew Lilico's piece) and the first comment was some guy - apropos of nothing in the Lilico article - railing at the injustices of UK2013, at immigration, at schools as 'holding cells for children' etc etc. A proper, Daily Mash satirical rant. Apparently the guy who wrote it is 20. I was thinking WTF? It must be a hoax, surely. But then reading the other comments I realised it wasn't. Some people are actually that angry.
The comments in the DT are more angry - even Cameron's head on a plate wouldn't be good enough for most of them, its quite unhinged and I say that as someone who has some sympathy.
Frankly, these bombastic folks are really off-putting to more moderate types like me. Perhaps more moderate voices from the Kippers would help to balance things out - as it is, these posters are making UKIP look like a very angry, anti-gay, women should be at home, anti-everything bar what they want mob. A stereotype if ever there was one.
I think some of these people are like road-ragers. Perfectly normal and nice and decent when not behind a screen, but angry and irrational when shielded or anonymous.
I never meet anybody who talks about these issues. Personally, the EU is something I reflexively dislike, because it seems unaccountable and undemocratic. But I don't think I have ever spoken to anyone about it. And would I choose to leave?? On the whole I feel it must do more good than bad, but it worries me that Europhiles never make a case for it, they are either too scared, too willing to scaremonger or there is no case to make.
One thing that is obvious around here is vitriol toward benefits scroungers. They are a target in South Wales because they are visible and everyone knows everyone. There are often outbreaks of joy on FB at someone being 'shopped'. All very unedifying, but hey - and I don't really care who's tricking the system - you live by the sword you die by it ('single mothers' claiming housing benefit when they actually live with their partner is a regular trick, but people are more often getting caught now). Anger against Islamic terorism is also quite outspoken round here. Probably because muslims are less visible, and lots of soliders from round here have served etc, and the Lee Rigby case really got some violent responses. Again, not very edifying, but I suppose Islamic terror or militant Islamic hatred of the UK goes against the way people from these parts feel. We are community driven, patriotic, old-fashioned family-values types and the veil of terrorism challenges and threatens the 'heads down, let-us-just-get-on-with-our-lives' mentality.
But I've never met an anger-driven Daily Mail or DT or ConHome commenter-type. Neither have I met a hand-wringing, money-tree type out of the Guardian mould. I think most people I meet are reality based. They know money is scarce, they'll get away with what they can get away with, their attitude towards governance is that choice between LabLibCon is unlikely to affect them and they are fairly happy chancing their arm at life. This idea that there is a some great UKIP-shaped saviour or that exit from the EU will pave our streets with gold just doesn't exist.
Which makes me think some of these commenters are just hoaxing!?
I'd say much the same is true here just a degree different. It's a nettle that UKIP has grasped and is clearly capitalising on.
"....their strategy makes no sense. Split the vote by standing against Tories who are the only Big Party to want a referendum?"
This strategy surely does make sense if you start from the normal UKIP view that the Tory party - its leadership, at least - is actually lying about wanting a referendum. It's thus indistinguishable from the alternatives, except in being more mendacious.
This is not an insupportable position. First there was the welshing on the Lisbon referendum, from when dates the Tory poll decline of 2009 to date. Then there has been the disingenuous nature of the sops to UKIP actually on offer: "we'll renegotiate and then vote on it" .
Every UKIPper knows this last cannot happen. From which there can really be only two conclusions. Either the Tories don't know this, hence are ignorant, and nothing will change; or the Tories do know this, hence think UKIPpers are ignorant, and think that UKIPpers will supprt them and then just accept it when they find they've been conned.
Neither inference augurs well for the Tories' ability to lure UKIPpers back. FWIW, I think the only approach to a referendum that even a UKIPper would accept as evidence of Tory sincerity is if Cameron agreed to
1) hold an In/Out referendum, 2) campaign for an Out vote in that, 3) take the resulting Out vote to Brussels and demand change, and 4) implement the Out vote if denied.
I don't see any of that happening save the first, and not in a way that gives an actionable basis for exit. Not doing 2 to 4 are acts outright hostile to UKIP.
There is anyway a pragmatic point, which is that with the current and likely seat tallies, Cameron can't even get as far as doing 1).
The UKIP approach is, surely, that if the any party leader concedes 1 to 4 - which in fact probably requires there to be a different Tory leader - then he'll get most of UKIP's support. Only the Tories need this support to achieve a majority. Labour back in, or another coalition, offer no prospect of a referendum.
The Cameron problem is that whereas most previous post-Heath Tory leaders would have quite liked to have the ace of an Out mandate up their sleeve when dealing with Brussels, Cameron gives no sign that he'd be equally glad of this. As has been said upthread there's no evidence of even an iota of sympathy for the UKIP cause.
Right so the terms are Cameron becomes your bitch ? No sane political leader would sign up to that, I doubt the insane ones would either.
The Bank of England holds interest rates at 0.5% and keeps its quantitative easing stimulus programme unchanged at Mark Carney's first meeting as governor.
@david_kendrick1 - So the game plan is to engineer a Labour government, on the off-chance that (a) Miliband will promise a referendum, and (b) that he'll actually deliver it, in stark contrast to Labour's previous record. If that all works, you might get a referendum, but with no renegotiations or reform of the EU, a referendum which you'll then lose. The end result will be that we are left with the Europhiles taking the referendum as a mandate for ever-closer union, and a Labour government which will move Britain in precisely the opposite direction to every single thing UKIP supporters want.
Great plan.
A referendum has become a totemic rather than actual demand. It signifies their dislike of modern "society" whether that be immigration, the EU, windfarms, unsolicited sales calls or England's failure to win and retain the World Cup.
They don't really care about it (oh they would like one but actually it is just one item on the list). What they really want is to give someone who cares a bloody nose. Labour doesn't care so that leaves the Cons.
But of the approx. 12-14% of them at the moment, at least half will return to the Cons in GE15 leaving a core 4-6/7% sulking all the way to the ballot box come the day. And of those, some will be former Lab supporters.
I am guessing that Lab=>UKIP switchers are younger than Cons=>UKIP switchers.
Spot on!
I was reading the comments on ConHome yesterday (Andrew Lilico's piece) and the first comment was some guy - apropos of nothing in the Lilico article - railing at the injustices of UK2013, at immigration, at schools as 'holding cells for children' etc etc. A proper, Daily Mash satirical rant. Apparently the guy who wrote it is 20. I was thinking WTF? It must be a hoax, surely. But then reading the other comments I realised it wasn't. Some people are actually that angry.
The comments in the DT are more angry - even Cameron's head on a plate wouldn't be good enough for most of them, its quite unhinged and I say that as someone who has some sympathy.
Frankly, these bombastic folks are really off-putting to more moderate types like me. Perhaps more moderate voices from the Kippers would help to balance things out - as it is, these posters are making UKIP look like a very angry, anti-gay, women should be at home, anti-everything bar what they want mob. A stereotype if ever there was one.
I think some of these people are like road-ragers. Perfectly normal and nice and decent when not behind a screen, but angry and irrational when shielded or anonymous.
I never meet anybody who talks about these issues. Personally, the EU is something I reflexively dislike, because it seems unaccountable and undemocratic. But I don't think I have ever spoken to anyone about it. And would I choose to leave?? On the whole I feel it must do more good than bad, but it worries me that Europhiles never make a case for it, they are either too scared, too willing to scaremonger or there is no case to make.
One thing that is obvious around here is vitriol toward benefits scroungers. They are a target in South Wales because they are visible and everyone knows everyone. There are often outbreaks of joy on FB at someone being 'shopped'. All very unedifying, but hey - and I don't really care who's tricking the system - you live by the sword you die by it ('single mothers' claiming housing benefit when they actually live with their partner is a regular trick, but people are more often getting caught now). Anger against Islamic terorism is also quite outspoken round here. Probably because muslims are less visible, and lots of soliders from round here have served etc, and the Lee Rigby case really got some violent responses. Again, not very edifying, but I suppose Islamic terror or militant Islamic hatred of the UK goes against the way people from these parts feel. We are community driven, patriotic, old-fashioned family-values types and the veil of terrorism challenges and threatens the 'heads down, let-us-just-get-on-with-our-lives' mentality.
But I've never met an anger-driven Daily Mail or DT or ConHome commenter-type. Neither have I met a hand-wringing, money-tree type out of the Guardian mould. I think most people I meet are reality based. They know money is scarce, they'll get away with what they can get away with, their attitude towards governance is that choice between LabLibCon is unlikely to affect them and they are fairly happy chancing their arm at life. This idea that there is a some great UKIP-shaped saviour or that exit from the EU will pave our streets with gold just doesn't exist.
Which makes me think some of these commenters are just hoaxing!?
Did I not catch a reference in your excellent post last night about your education to playing golf? I don't indulge myself but have always presumed that the writers of these comments spend a lot of time in golf clubs with a G&T in hand and probably a blazer. Lazy stereotyping on my part no doubt.
That's my mental image of them too!
And yeah, I played golf as a kid. But I was mainly a rugby player so I kept breaking fingers and thumbs. I got down to a handicap of 11.3 which is middling at best. I needed to scrap nd work to shoot high 70s/low 80s. My brother, who is two years younger than me, was much better. One of those lazy tramps who would saunter onto a golf course, ill-prepared, and be disgusted with himself for shooting a 74. He played off about 4 without ever applying myself. Tosser!
Incidentally, I hadn't played golf for two whole years (can't justify it with the two little uns) but I went on a golf trip to MonteCastillo golf club (Spain) in May and really enjoyed it. Had a great time and played okay too. But came home with seriously blistered hands.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I wouldn't descibe Brown as on the right by any measure. I suspect you have taken what I said in the wrong context. There is no economic challenge to the Left of GO atm, they've signed up to his plan bar some facing saving tweaks. The debate Osborne has is with reformists who question why he has done little to get the real engines of growth back to full stretch. Would you rather Osborne used his political capital on comprehensive tax reform or defending pasties ?
There is no economic challenge to the Left being made vocally officially - but then Brown signed up to Clarke's plans theoretically. How'd that work out.
There is a very real and very active threat to the Left of GO atm. Just because they're not saying what they'll do now so they don't scare the horses does not mean that I'll believe for a second that once they're in power they won't act as Left-wing as all Labour governments have ever done. Brown's tried this ploy before and we've seen how it ended up - with near penury.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
As for GO I'd rather he gets on with the job as well as he can within the real constraints he has from his LD partners - which he's doing. I'd rather he go faster, but what comprehensive tax reform could he get past Clegg, Cable and Alexander?
Eric Joyce MP @ericjoyce 1h @MichaelMcCannMP Try to be your own man, Michael. As a former PCS official, ur don't NEED to plan ur future around a Unite/PCS merger.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I wouldn't descibe Brown as on the right by any measure. I suspect you have taken what I said in the wrong context. There is no economic challenge to the Left of GO atm, they've signed up to his plan bar some facing saving tweaks. The debate Osborne has is with reformists who question why he has done little to get the real engines of growth back to full stretch. Would you rather Osborne used his political capital on comprehensive tax reform or defending pasties ?
There is no economic challenge to the Left being made vocally officially - but then Brown signed up to Clarke's plans theoretically. How'd that work out.
There is a very real and very active threat to the Left of GO atm. Just because they're not saying what they'll do now so they don't scare the horses does not mean that I'll believe for a second that once they're in power they won't act as Left-wing as all Labour governments have ever done. Brown's tried this ploy before and we've seen how it ended up - with near penury.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
As for GO I'd rather he gets on with the job as well as he can within the real constraints he has from his LD partners - which he's doing. I'd rather he go faster, but what comprehensive tax reform could he get past Clegg, Cable and Alexander?
Ah Coalition. Where would the blues and yellows be if they couldn't blame each other ? Doesn't it strike you as a bit disappointing that such consummate politicians with PPEs and MBAs can't actually negotiate what they want between themselves ? Or could it be it's just the default excuse for stuff they don't want to do ?
This is not an insupportable position. First there was the welshing on the Lisbon referendum, from when dates the Tory poll decline of 2009 to date. Then there has been the disingenuous nature of the sops to UKIP actually on offer: "we'll renegotiate and then vote on it" .
WHAT welching on Lisbon referendum?
That was promised for the manifesto for the election of 2007. AKA the election that never was. Gordon Brown cancelled the election and changed the facts on the ground by ratifying Lisbon, at which point Cameron had no choice but to change the policy.
By the election of 2010 the manifesto commitment was different and that manifesto commitment has been honoured.
Judge a leader by the commitments he makes prior to the election, not prior to a different election which was subsequently cancelled. There can not be a single individual who voted for a welched Lisbon referendum at a General Election so nobody can have been deceived.
So if you are a liberal secular democratic minded chap in some Islamist hellhole and you decide to escape and seek asylum where do you go? Italy's alot closer. So's Greece. Maybe you could go to Turkey. Or France. Where's furthest away and least easy to get to? UK? Norway?
There must be something about our laws, benefits culture, etc that makes the UK a leading choice. Maybe this is something to be proud of. It's certainly something we would wish to be very consciously in control of and making decisions with eyes wide open. And with the consent of the British people.
Myself I'm broadly in favour of helping genuine asylum seekers who face a truly grim alternative back home. I'm also very much in favour of finding ways to weed them out from the 'my own country's a shithole so I'm coming to yours' crowd. Let us offer protection to the oppressed but not a welfare cheque the economic migrant.
Well first I would want to go somewhere safe with respect for the rule of law. Secondly, I would want to go where some of my family or community already are, particularly if they are treated with respect there. Thirdly, I would want to go somewhere I can speak at least some of the language and English is probably my second or third language. Fourthly, I would want to go somewhere where there was a decent chance of a decent job.
There may be more points but my guess is that the UK is probably going to be my number one target in Europe. Of course as a proud Brit I may be very biased in this assessment.
The ubiquitous Nigel Farage, leader of a protest party with zero MPs and a manifesto comprised entirely of bits of old Jeremy Clarkson jokes, has been on 8 times.
Question Time is like doing a jigsaw - a pointless way to pass the time until you die!
When I look back at political discussions in the 70s/80s they are head and shoulders above what we are dished out now. That Andrew Neil and StraightTalk was binned despite being the ONLY long form intv prog spoke volumes. I hate hate hate his stupid show after BBCQT - its like the The One Show for nerds at 23:30. And the moronic guests - jeez.
I agree, "This Week" has become unwatchable. Mainly due to having partisan people such as the Labour representative instead of the version of Diane Abbott, before she took the shadow minister "shilling". The LD lady Miranda also sticks to the party line and even Portillo is more on message for the Cameroons than he was pre 2010. As to the celebs - maybe that is Andy Neil's way of getting into Annabels?
PS In case that's not clear enough the guarantee (made before the expected election) was a cast-iron guarantee that Lisbon wouldn't be ratified by a Conservative government without a referendum. Key word: Ratified.
After cancelling the referendum and ratifying it himself Brown made that null and void. You can't hold a referendum on ratifying something that has already been ratified - that is not legally possible. Which Cameron acknowledged and went into the election that actually happened with a new commitment instead, one that has been made into law.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
"...It sounds so depressingly familiar – again and again, we read of the same old tropes. I acknowledge that there has been a significant improvement in the quantity of coverage of those with an anti-EU point of view. But there are still many occasions when the BBC will say to me, “Well, if you can’t do it Nigel, then we won’t cover it”, despite being offered perfectly able and competent replacements. I have become a BBC totem in some ways (just think of all those Question Time appearances).
But, and this is the point, I am not the Eurosceptic movement. I am merely one man, and the broad mass of the population is hardly represented by me. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows those who wish to leave the EU are the majority, yet if were to judge by the BBC, you would get the impression it was just me. I am the get-out clause. “Well we had Nigel on,” they will trumpet.
And that is just on the European Union. When it comes to Immigration the bias is even clearer. They cover themselves with this idea that they are nice, and other people who differ, who believe that migration has gone too far, are in some way nasty....Maybe so if, like the average BBC executive, your experience of migration is a cheap au pair, cleaner, and a fascinating little restaurant down the road, but that is not the experience of this country’s majority.
...And of course it isn’t just in news coverage. In popular drama, those who oppose mass migration are bigots, stupid, physically ugly; those on the other side are sensitive, beautiful, intelligent. It goes on and on. The problem is now, as it has been for decades, a simple one, and one acknowledged in this report: the BBC draws its staff by and large from a single well.
Increase in demand from historic lows can only mean - DANGER ! BUBBLE
"The rise in UK car sales contrast with falling sales in other European countries.
David Raistrick, UK automotive leader at Deloitte, said: "The need to compete by providing the low finance rates highlights the increasing importance within Europe of the UK market as the level of sales in Germany, France, Italy and Spain continues to contract."
Increase in demand from historic lows can only mean - DANGER ! BUBBLE
"The rise in UK car sales contrast with falling sales in other European countries.
David Raistrick, UK automotive leader at Deloitte, said: "The need to compete by providing the low finance rates highlights the increasing importance within Europe of the UK market as the level of sales in Germany, France, Italy and Spain continues to contract."
Credit - did you say credit ? More borrowing too far too fast ! Bubble !!
Having read the Unite political report it is unsettling to read about the use of union money to fight one factional view point within a major political party against the "Blairites". Using millions of pounds in this way will have a corrupting influence on the Labour party but Milliband's Leadership seems to have adopted the Wilson/Callaghan/Foot view on these matters and not those that Neil Kinnock had when dealing with Militant. The current leader of Unite is a former member of Militant.
If Unite does continue to wield this level of influence it will create the conditions for an SDP type of split. Also watch out if Unite, the UK's largest trade union does merge with Mark Serwotka's PCS, the main civil service union, then we get Labour's biggest donor merged with a union unaffiliated to Labour and dominated by socialists.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
What supply side reforms do you want GO to do to get business back in business?
One of my favourite least-mentioned reforms GO has done is to tackle our previously ridiculously-high Corporation Tax rates. Brown left it at 28% and by the next election GO will leave it at 20%
To take that rate that has put off investment or ensured multinationals avoided paying it here and paid it in European nations with sensible rations and reduced it by well over a quarter has been a quietly managed supply side reform.
Most supply side reforms unfortunately cost money in the short term and there isn't much of that available right now. He's doing what he can though - and doing a very different job to what Brown/Balls would do. There is a real choice at stake even if Labour disingenuously refuse to say what they'd inflict on us.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
What supply side reforms do you want GO to do to get business back in business?
One of my favourite least-mentioned reforms GO has done is to tackle our previously ridiculously-high Corporation Tax rates. Brown left it at 28% and by the next election GO will leave it at 20%
To take that rate that has put off investment or ensured multinationals avoided paying it here and paid it in European nations with sensible rations and reduced it by well over a quarter has been a quietly managed supply side reform.
Most supply side reforms unfortunately cost money in the short term and there isn't much of that available right now. He's doing what he can though - and doing a very different job to what Brown/Balls would do. There is a real choice at stake even if Labour disingenuously refuse to say what they'd inflict on us.
yes they do cost money short term. I went off GO after the first year when it was clear that he wouldn't grasp the nettle and put the political and economic cycle in sync. Reforms made in 2011 would now be starting to feed in to the economy by 2015 and every year thereafter. As it is we've had to spend more money anyway and still haven't got the reforms.
Banks, tax code, less regulation, government current spending versus capital, rebalancing the economy.......
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
What supply side reforms do you want GO to do to get business back in business?
One of my favourite least-mentioned reforms GO has done is to tackle our previously ridiculously-high Corporation Tax rates. Brown left it at 28% and by the next election GO will leave it at 20%
To take that rate that has put off investment or ensured multinationals avoided paying it here and paid it in European nations with sensible rations and reduced it by well over a quarter has been a quietly managed supply side reform.
Most supply side reforms unfortunately cost money in the short term and there isn't much of that available right now. He's doing what he can though - and doing a very different job to what Brown/Balls would do. There is a real choice at stake even if Labour disingenuously refuse to say what they'd inflict on us.
yes they do cost money short term. I went off GO after the first year when it was clear that he wouldn't grasp the nettle and put the political and economic cycle in sync. Reforms made in 2011 would now be starting to feed in to the economy by 2015 and every year thereafter. As it is we've had to spend more money anyway and still haven't got the reforms.
Banks, tax code, less regulation, government current spending versus capital, rebalancing the economy.......
There have been reforms made (more than just the Corporation Tax slashing I've mentioned). But there is a majority in the commons against reducing regulations when its been proposed.
The economy is being rebalanced. Private sector employment is increasing every quarter and public sector employment is falling. The ratio of private:public in 2015 will be different to 2010.
"Right so the terms are Cameron becomes your bitch ? "
Well, not mine because I'm not a UKIPper myself. I have some sympathy with their view of the EU, and think that if we left, others would follow, making the remains of it fundamentally less significant anyway.
What I am suggesting, though, is that Cameron / his successor should, logically, be either neutral or should campaign for an Out vote in any referendum, not because they want out but because having an Out vote in his hand secures him the best available negotiating position all round.
He gets an Out vote, he goes to Brussels and says See this? Give me what I want or I'll leave."
It helps him not at all if the EU side can then say "You don't mean that, and you won't. Nothing doing. Your move." What does he do then?
If he voted for Out he says "You're wrong, we leave." The EU deal team shits itself and folds.
If he voted for In, he either goes home with nothing or he leaves. He can't really then say to UKIP "I tried" because they'll then say "No you didn't" and the issue remains alive.
If you are negotiating, you have to be prepared for there not to be a deal. There is a point at which you walk away. Having an Out vote moves that point much closer to your side of the table.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
What supply side reforms do you want GO to do to get business back in business?
One of my favourite least-mentioned reforms GO has done is to tackle our previously ridiculously-high Corporation Tax rates. Brown left it at 28% and by the next election GO will leave it at 20%
To take that rate that has put off investment or ensured multinationals avoided paying it here and paid it in European nations with sensible rations and reduced it by well over a quarter has been a quietly managed supply side reform.
Most supply side reforms unfortunately cost money in the short term and there isn't much of that available right now. He's doing what he can though - and doing a very different job to what Brown/Balls would do. There is a real choice at stake even if Labour disingenuously refuse to say what they'd inflict on us.
yes they do cost money short term. I went off GO after the first year when it was clear that he wouldn't grasp the nettle and put the political and economic cycle in sync. Reforms made in 2011 would now be starting to feed in to the economy by 2015 and every year thereafter. As it is we've had to spend more money anyway and still haven't got the reforms.
Banks, tax code, less regulation, government current spending versus capital, rebalancing the economy.......
There have been reforms made (more than just the Corporation Tax slashing I've mentioned). But there is a majority in the commons against reducing regulations when its been proposed.
The economy is being rebalanced. Private sector employment is increasing every quarter and public sector employment is falling. The ratio of private:public in 2015 will be different to 2010.
Well yes, but it's a question of scale and pace. GO has scratched the surface rather than undertaking anything substantive. He could have for example presented a revenue neutral budget in 2011 which simplified the tax code and removed a swathe of loopholes at the same time to pay for it.
The Unite document gives very specific information on their plan to run campaigns to get people to vote Labour in marginals, detailing the organisation they intend to put in place (1 'constituency captain' plus ten field organisers, in each of 100 marginal seats), and mentioning £10K per constituency expenditure (it's unclear whether this includes the staff costs, but I think it's additional).
It makes a complete nonsense of the Electoral Law limits on campaign expenditure, effectively giving Labour yet another advantage. I haven't noticed the Guardian campaign against this manifest abuse of democracy, but maybe I haven't been paying attention.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
I have a lot of sympathy for your position as I think you know. But it is a lot easier to be radical when things are going swimmingly as Lawson had for the second half of the eighties. (Having a brain like his is no disadvantage either). You can compensate the losers when you simplify taxes, you can afford to abolish taxes instead of looking to squeeze out every last penny when you are running a surplus and you can take risks in the knowledge that the economy is fundamentally sound.
Osborne does not have any of these advantages and his priority is keeping a highly leaky vessel afloat. So, for example, I think that RBS should have been broken up in 2010 regardless of what Stephen Hester thought. But if that had further disrupted an already fragile credit supply the economy could have reacted very badly indeed. Caution ruled.
This started with the prospectus I think the government will be able to offer in 2015. If I am right about that then that will be a solid 7/10 in the circumstances, arguably an 8.
"You can't hold a referendum on ratifying something that has already been ratified "
Sure you can. You rescind the ratification, with whatever consequences that may have. It was unconstitutional anyway - no Parliament may bind its successor.
Whether you agree with this or not it is crystal clear from the polling that Cameron's poll slide began in November 2009, exactly when he went back on that promise.
"Right so the terms are Cameron becomes your bitch ? "
Well, not mine because I'm not a UKIPper myself. I have some sympathy with their view of the EU, and think that if we left, others would follow, making the remains of it fundamentally less significant anyway.
What I am suggesting, though, is that Cameron / his successor should, logically, be either neutral or should campaign for an Out vote in any referendum, not because they want out but because having an Out vote in his hand secures him the best available negotiating position all round.
He gets an Out vote, he goes to Brussels and says See this? Give me what I want or I'll leave."
It helps him not at all if the EU side can then say "You don't mean that, and you won't. Nothing doing. Your move." What does he do then?
If he voted for Out he says "You're wrong, we leave." The EU deal team shits itself and folds.
If he voted for In, he either goes home with nothing or he leaves. He can't really then say to UKIP "I tried" because they'll then say "No you didn't" and the issue remains alive.
If you are negotiating, you have to be prepared for there not to be a deal. There is a point at which you walk away. Having an Out vote moves that point much closer to your side of the table.
It's a matter of timing. With your way he says to us: "I have achieved very real reforms in our relationship to Europe so I won't use your "No" vote."
The current plan means that we get to judge whether those reforms are "very real" and so a "No" vote would be more binding.
"Right so the terms are Cameron becomes your bitch ? "
Well, not mine because I'm not a UKIPper myself. I have some sympathy with their view of the EU, and think that if we left, others would follow, making the remains of it fundamentally less significant anyway.
What I am suggesting, though, is that Cameron / his successor should, logically, be either neutral or should campaign for an Out vote in any referendum, not because they want out but because having an Out vote in his hand secures him the best available negotiating position all round.
He gets an Out vote, he goes to Brussels and says See this? Give me what I want or I'll leave."
It helps him not at all if the EU side can then say "You don't mean that, and you won't. Nothing doing. Your move." What does he do then?
If he voted for Out he says "You're wrong, we leave." The EU deal team shits itself and folds.
If he voted for In, he either goes home with nothing or he leaves. He can't really then say to UKIP "I tried" because they'll then say "No you didn't" and the issue remains alive.
If you are negotiating, you have to be prepared for there not to be a deal. There is a point at which you walk away. Having an Out vote moves that point much closer to your side of the table.
tbh I don't think there's anything Cameron or indeed the wider Conservative party can do to placate the kippers. For the kippers the issue is too emotive to be negotiated in a rational way.
We need to see a rebalancing away from public sector jobs to the private sector that pays for it. Excluding the FE transfer which is debatable I believe:
In Q1 2010 there were approximately 3.5 private sector jobs per public sector job. By Q1 2013 there were over 4.2 private sector jobs per public sector job.
That rebalancing is happening but needs to continue.
"You can't hold a referendum on ratifying something that has already been ratified "
Sure you can. You rescind the ratification, with whatever consequences that may have. It was unconstitutional anyway - no Parliament may bind its successor.
Whether you agree with this or not it is crystal clear from the polling that Cameron's poll slide began in November 2009, exactly when he went back on that promise.
No you can't rescind ratification as the EU that existed pre-ratification no longer exists. Cameron's article prior to the election that never was said that "Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations. No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum." He never became PM prior to the ratification.
That date is also when Cameron and Osborne were being very upfront and honest about the need of austerity and spending cuts (rather than "sharing the proceeds of growth"). People don't like austerity or cuts and Labour scaremongered about it, but by the next election it'll be good that they were honest beforehand. Like they were honest beforehand about Europe. The 2010 manifesto had no Lisbon commitment.
Right so the terms are Cameron becomes your bitch ? No sane political leader would sign up to that, I doubt the insane ones would either.
Yes: and it's an insane 1-4 in any case.
There are around five positions on Europe
1. Further integration 2. No more, no less 3. A renegotiation, with repatriation of a certain number of powers 4. EFTA / EEA 5. Complete independence
It is not clear whether UKIP supports 4 or 5. (Most, I suspect support 5.) The country as a whole is probably at 3, while the Labour Party and the LibDems are 1s. In the event of a referendum, tomorrow, on 1/2 vs 4/5, there would probably be victory for 1/2 because 'better the devil you know' would kick in.
So, it should be an easy win for the Conservative Party. Yet, somehow, an urge to replicate the Judean People's seems to kick in. I feel the Cameron is actually well in-line with the population at large. And I also suspect that a large portion of Northern and New Europe (and even some of the Club Med countries) could well be happy with a more formally defined Eurozone / Non-Eurozone split, which would mean less central (Brussels) control over the non-Eurozone countries, in return for allowing the Eurozone to integrate more fully within the existing structures.
BTW: would anyone like odds on 2015 economic growth? I will offer odds of 3/1 that the UK will be the fastest growing economy in Europe in '15. I'll take sums up to £10k.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
What supply side reforms do you want GO to do to get business back in business?
One of my favourite least-mentioned reforms GO has done is to tackle our previously ridiculously-high Corporation Tax rates. Brown left it at 28% and by the next election GO will leave it at 20%
To take that rate that has put off investment or ensured multinationals avoided paying it here and paid it in European nations with sensible rations and reduced it by well over a quarter has been a quietly managed supply side reform.
Most supply side reforms unfortunately cost money in the short term and there isn't much of that available right now. He's doing what he can though - and doing a very different job to what Brown/Balls would do. There is a real choice at stake even if Labour disingenuously refuse to say what they'd inflict on us.
yes they do cost money short term. I went off GO after the first year when it was clear that he wouldn't grasp the nettle and put the political and economic cycle in sync. Reforms made in 2011 would now be starting to feed in to the economy by 2015 and every year thereafter. As it is we've had to spend more money anyway and still haven't got the reforms.
Banks, tax code, less regulation, government current spending versus capital, rebalancing the economy.......
There have been reforms made (more than just the Corporation Tax slashing I've mentioned). But there is a majority in the commons against reducing regulations when its been proposed.
The economy is being rebalanced. Private sector employment is increasing every quarter and public sector employment is falling. The ratio of private:public in 2015 will be different to 2010.
Well yes, but it's a question of scale and pace. GO has scratched the surface rather than undertaking anything substantive. He could have for example presented a revenue neutral budget in 2011 which simplified the tax code and removed a swathe of loopholes at the same time to pay for it.
What the more supine PB Tories are conveniently forgetting is that Osborne convinced himself, for the first 18 months of this government, that he had established growth and had got the deficit under control.
It was only really in the autumn of 2011 he realised he'd messed it up and had to think about measure to stimulate growth.
I suppose now for the first time at least we have a coherent strategy of inflating away the deficit, devaluing the pound and pumping up house prices/household debt. Hardly new, but it's more coherent than his previous "growth through austerity" fantasies.
Versus your idea growth through spending money we don't actually have?
The flaw with using GDP to measure growth is that all government spending counts as "growth" whether it can be afforded or not. But then you end up like Greece or France.
We're not interested in fake growth. Any growth we'll get is real and sustainable while we deal with your mess that you should be ashamed of. How's your mate Hollande doing with his growth?
'The current plan means that we get to judge whether those reforms are "very real"' - the trouble with this that there is no mechanism for bilateral reforms. Everyone knows this, but some Tories think UKIPpers don't, and so if the party lies to them they can be conned out of enough votes to scrape through a GE.
Won't happen. Picking through the bile in the DT comment threads, this is what leaps out as the basis of the animus towards the Tories.
'tbh I don't think there's anything Cameron or indeed the wider Conservative party can do to placate the kippers. For the kippers the issue is too emotive to be negotiated in a rational way.'
If you changed 'can do' to 'will do' in your first sentence I would agree. I think something is doable, but won't be done. A UK government trying to renegotiate, rather than terminate, our EU membership is entirely powerless to effect any change whatsoever, unless it has the nuclear button of an exit vote to hand.
Signalling that you don't want that in hand tells UKIPpers you are not serious about renegotiating.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
I have a lot of sympathy for your position as I think you know. But it is a lot easier to be radical when things are going swimmingly as Lawson had for the second half of the eighties. (Having a brain like his is no disadvantage either). You can compensate the losers when you simplify taxes, you can afford to abolish taxes instead of looking to squeeze out every last penny when you are running a surplus and you can take risks in the knowledge that the economy is fundamentally sound.
Osborne does not have any of these advantages and his priority is keeping a highly leaky vessel afloat. So, for example, I think that RBS should have been broken up in 2010 regardless of what Stephen Hester thought. But if that had further disrupted an already fragile credit supply the economy could have reacted very badly indeed. Caution ruled.
This started with the prospectus I think the government will be able to offer in 2015. If I am right about that then that will be a solid 7/10 in the circumstances, arguably an 8.
I'd challenge that statement in one respect David. It's easier to force change when things are going really right or really wrong. Average is harder ! GO through no fault of his own inherited a really wrong economy,however he surrendered the difficult times narrative too early both politically and economically. By keeping the narrative right I reckon the country would have faced taking some harsher medicine if it could see it was for the best.
Like you I'd like to see the banking oligoply broken up and real competition restored he could have got away with it earlier by accepting a banking clean up and the public would have cried out but accepted it. Instead we have death by 1000 profit warnings and the big banks getting back to keeping competition away from the doorstep.
'The current plan means that we get to judge whether those reforms are "very real"' - the trouble with this that there is no mechanism for bilateral reforms. Everyone knows this, but some Tories think UKIPpers don't, and so if the party lies to them they can be conned out of enough votes to scrape through a GE.
Won't happen. Picking through the bile in the DT comment threads, this is what leaps out as the basis of the animus towards the Tories.
'tbh I don't think there's anything Cameron or indeed the wider Conservative party can do to placate the kippers. For the kippers the issue is too emotive to be negotiated in a rational way.'
If you changed 'can do' to 'will do' in your first sentence I would agree. I think something is doable, but won't be done. A UK government trying to renegotiate, rather than terminate, our EU membership is entirely powerless to effect any change whatsoever, unless it has the nuclear button of an exit vote to hand.
Signalling that you don't want that in hand tells UKIPpers you are not serious about renegotiating.
An exit vote at the end?
You mean like promising an in/out referendum at the end? You mean like Cameron has already done? You mean like Cameron has promised by a specific date and not just a vague "at the end".
Yet Cameron won't do anything. Yes sure, clearly 'can do' was right in the first place since he's already done what you asked for.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
What supply side reforms do you want GO to do to get business back in business?
One of my favourite least-mentioned reforms GO has done is to tackle our previously ridiculously-high Corporation Tax rates. Brown left it at 28% and by the next election GO will leave it at 20%
To take that rate that has put off investment or ensured multinationals avoided paying it here and paid it in European nations with sensible rations and reduced it by well over a quarter has been a quietly managed supply side reform.
Most supply side reforms unfortunately cost money in the short term and there isn't much of that available right now. He's doing what he can though - and doing a very different job to what Brown/Balls would do. There is a real choice at stake even if Labour disingenuously refuse to say what they'd inflict on us.
yes they do cost money short term. I went off GO after the first year when it was clear that he wouldn't grasp the nettle and put the political and economic cycle in sync. Reforms made in 2011 would now be starting to feed in to the economy by 2015 and every year thereafter. As it is we've had to spend more money anyway and still haven't got the reforms.
Banks, tax code, less regulation, government current spending versus capital, rebalancing the economy.......
There have been reforms made (more than just the Corporation Tax slashing I've mentioned). But there is a majority in the commons against reducing regulations when its been proposed.
The economy is being rebalanced. Private sector employment is increasing every quarter and public sector employment is falling. The ratio of private:public in 2015 will be different to 2010.
Well yes, but it's a question of scale and pace. GO has scratched the surface rather than undertaking anything substantive. He could have for example presented a revenue neutral budget in 2011 which simplified the tax code and removed a swathe of loopholes at the same time to pay for it.
What the more supine PB Tories are conveniently forgetting is that Osborne convinced himself, for the first 18 months of this government, that he had established growth and had got the deficit under control.
It was only really in the autumn of 2011 he realised he'd messed it up and had to think about measure to stimulate growth.
I suppose now for the first time at least we have a coherent strategy of inflating away the deficit, devaluing the pound and pumping up house prices/household debt. Hardly new, but it's more coherent than his previous "growth through austerity" fantasies.
Well yes tim, but the criticism is easy, the question is how do you make it better ? Ed and Ed are currently signed up to the same agenda bar some window dressing about "fairness".
The Left isn't exactly grabbing the economic debate with better proposals.
The Unite document gives very specific information on their plan to run campaigns to get people to vote Labour in marginals, detailing the organisation they intend to put in place (1 'constituency captain' plus ten field organisers, in each of 100 marginal seats), and mentioning £10K per constituency expenditure (it's unclear whether this includes the staff costs, but I think it's additional).
It makes a complete nonsense of the Electoral Law limits on campaign expenditure, effectively giving Labour yet another advantage. I haven't noticed the Guardian campaign against this manifest abuse of democracy, but maybe I haven't been paying attention.
Isn't there proposed legislation about this? Many on here like to crow about the superiority of the Labour ground game but this is the reality. It has funding and organisation the tories cannot really dream of.
What has been interesting in Dundee (and more than slightly worrying from the referendum point of view) is how this can fall apart when the gap between the union paid staff and the members becomes too great. We have seen nothing like the sort of organised canvassing etc we used to get in Dundee and the SNP have filled the gap. Hence they now have the seats.
'The current plan means that we get to judge whether those reforms are "very real"' - the trouble with this that there is no mechanism for bilateral reforms. Everyone knows this
There was no mechanism for an individual country to get a rebate either.
In any case, your premise is irrelevant. There are plenty of countries in the EU who have chosen not to go down the Eurozone route, and where there is plenty of political pressure for repatriation of powers. And even in Germany, there is a great deal of desire for the EU to take its nose out of labour issues.
The UK would not, in any case, negotiate with 'The EU'. It would negotiate - probably with Sweden and Denmark by its side - with the other countries in the EU and see if there was anything all could agree on. The Germans, the Poles and the Dutch and the Austrians, etc., would be very keen to see the EU not become more Southern/Periphery dominated, so would probably be quite open to making the EU more to our liking; because if we left it would become less to their liking.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
I have a lot of sympathy for your position as I think you know. But it is a lot easier to be radical when things are going swimmingly as Lawson had for the second half of the eighties. (Having a brain like his is no disadvantage either). You can compensate the losers when you simplify taxes, you can afford to abolish taxes instead of looking to squeeze out every last penny when you are running a surplus and you can take risks in the knowledge that the economy is fundamentally sound.
Osborne does not have any of these advantages and his priority is keeping a highly leaky vessel afloat. So, for example, I think that RBS should have been broken up in 2010 regardless of what Stephen Hester thought. But if that had further disrupted an already fragile credit supply the economy could have reacted very badly indeed. Caution ruled.
This started with the prospectus I think the government will be able to offer in 2015. If I am right about that then that will be a solid 7/10 in the circumstances, arguably an 8.
I'd challenge that statement in one respect David. It's easier to force change when things are going really right or really wrong. Average is harder ! GO through no fault of his own inherited a really wrong economy,however he surrendered the difficult times narrative too early both politically and economically. By keeping the narrative right I reckon the country would have faced taking some harsher medicine if it could see it was for the best.
Like you I'd like to see the banking oligoply broken up and real competition restored he could have got away with it earlier by accepting a banking clean up and the public would have cried out but accepted it. Instead we have death by 1000 profit warnings and the big banks getting back to keeping competition away from the doorstep.
I think breaking up the banks would be devastating to our economy as much of the business are banks pay tax on are from overseas so they could just emigrate. HSBC could easily relocate its head office to Hong Kong rather than London.
Much of Thatcher's best reforms came in the second term not the first. By 2018 our narrative can change from bad to good and we can have the reforms we both want.
Or we can have the reforms tim, Eds and Gordon want and end up back having another disaster.
I think your analysis is likely right, but the problem with it is that while 3 is what most people - perhaps even most UKIPpers - would like, it is simply not available. It cannot be done short of exiting and rejoining on new terms.
So that leaves us with 1/2 or 4/5 as available options. In reality, 1 and 5 are fringe positions, with 1 being loonier than 5 in my view. But the nature of the EU is that we would have to vote for 5 for 5 to become feasible, and we'd also have to vote for 5 for for 4 or 3 to become feasible too.
My point, then, is that Cameron professes to want 3; to get 3, he should first get a mandate to do 5; and he then negotiates 3 and says right, final answer - do you still want 5 or would you like my 3?
I think your analysis is likely right, but the problem with it is that while 3 is what most people - perhaps even most UKIPpers - would like, it is simply not available. It cannot be done short of exiting and rejoining on new terms.
So that leaves us with 1/2 or 4/5 as available options. In reality, 1 and 5 are fringe positions, with 1 being loonier than 5 in my view. But the nature of the EU is that we would have to vote for 5 for 5 to become feasible, and we'd also have to vote for 5 for for 4 or 3 to become feasible too.
My point, then, is that Cameron professes to want 3; to get 3, he should first get a mandate to do 5; and he then negotiates 3 and says right, final answer - do you still want 5 or would you like my 3?
At which point we would all vote for 3.
The question in the referendum would have to be "If we fail to get substantial concessions from the EU, do you the UK should leave?"
BTW: would anyone like odds on 2015 economic growth? I will offer odds of 3/1 that the UK will be the fastest growing economy in Europe in '15. I'll take sums up to £10k.
I had already forecast that downthread but pointed out the competition is not great.
'The current plan means that we get to judge whether those reforms are "very real"' - the trouble with this that there is no mechanism for bilateral reforms. Everyone knows this, but some Tories think UKIPpers don't, and so if the party lies to them they can be conned out of enough votes to scrape through a GE.
Won't happen. Picking through the bile in the DT comment threads, this is what leaps out as the basis of the animus towards the Tories.
'tbh I don't think there's anything Cameron or indeed the wider Conservative party can do to placate the kippers. For the kippers the issue is too emotive to be negotiated in a rational way.'
If you changed 'can do' to 'will do' in your first sentence I would agree. I think something is doable, but won't be done. A UK government trying to renegotiate, rather than terminate, our EU membership is entirely powerless to effect any change whatsoever, unless it has the nuclear button of an exit vote to hand.
Signalling that you don't want that in hand tells UKIPpers you are not serious about renegotiating.
can do, will do
why should they do anything ? It's for the kippers to convince not the Conservatives, and the kippers are only happy attacking the enemy they know they don't really attack anyone else. It's a bit of a lazy plan to get someone else to do the hard work for them.
This McCann news should have very little political impact however I would suggest that should at last resolution be found for the family which is the main hope, a very very small pb-aside would be to make tim's multiple negative cammo-related points on this sad case look all the worse in judgement.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
I have a lot of sympathy for your position as I think you know. But it is a lot easier to be radical when things are going swimmingly as Lawson had for the second half of the eighties. (Having a brain like his is no disadvantage either). You can compensate the losers when you simplify taxes, you can afford to abolish taxes instead of looking to squeeze out every last penny when you are running a surplus and you can take risks in the knowledge that the economy is fundamentally sound.
Osborne does not have any of these advantages and his priority is keeping a highly leaky vessel afloat. So, for example, I think that RBS should have been broken up in 2010 regardless of what Stephen Hester thought. But if that had further disrupted an already fragile credit supply the economy could have reacted very badly indeed. Caution ruled.
This started with the prospectus I think the government will be able to offer in 2015. If I am right about that then that will be a solid 7/10 in the circumstances, arguably an 8.
I'd challenge that statement in one respect David. It's easier to force change when things are going really right or really wrong. Average is harder ! GO through no fault of his own inherited a really wrong economy,however he surrendered the difficult times narrative too early both politically and economically. By keeping the narrative right I reckon the country would have faced taking some harsher medicine if it could see it was for the best.
Like you I'd like to see the banking oligoply broken up and real competition restored he could have got away with it earlier by accepting a banking clean up and the public would have cried out but accepted it. Instead we have death by 1000 profit warnings and the big banks getting back to keeping competition away from the doorstep.
I think breaking up the banks would be devastating to our economy as much of the business are banks pay tax on are from overseas so they could just emigrate. HSBC could easily relocate its head office to Hong Kong rather than London.
Much of Thatcher's best reforms came in the second term not the first. By 2018 our narrative can change from bad to good and we can have the reforms we both want.
Or we can have the reforms tim, Eds and Gordon want and end up back having another disaster.
By whichever level you look the UK has had less competition and choice in banking than 20 years ago. We now have a corporatist oligolpoly in the sector. Personally the Bigco economy is not my vision of dynamic. You can have that if you want to go to France where the big companies are extensions of the Civil Service.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
I have a lot of sympathy for your position as I think you know. But it is a lot easier to be radical when things are going swimmingly as Lawson had for the second half of the eighties. (Having a brain like his is no disadvantage either). You can compensate the losers when you simplify taxes, you can afford to abolish taxes instead of looking to squeeze out every last penny when you are running a surplus and you can take risks in the knowledge that the economy is fundamentally sound.
Osborne does not have any of these advantages and his priority is keeping a highly leaky vessel afloat. So, for example, I think that RBS should have been broken up in 2010 regardless of what Stephen Hester thought. But if that had further disrupted an already fragile credit supply the economy could have reacted very badly indeed. Caution ruled.
This started with the prospectus I think the government will be able to offer in 2015. If I am right about that then that will be a solid 7/10 in the circumstances, arguably an 8.
I'd challenge that statement in one respect David. It's easier to force change when things are going really right or really wrong. Average is harder ! GO through no fault of his own inherited a really wrong economy,however he surrendered the difficult times narrative too early both politically and economically. By keeping the narrative right I reckon the country would have faced taking some harsher medicine if it could see it was for the best.
Like you I'd like to see the banking oligoply broken up and real competition restored he could have got away with it earlier by accepting a banking clean up and the public would have cried out but accepted it. Instead we have death by 1000 profit warnings and the big banks getting back to keeping competition away from the doorstep.
I think breaking up the banks would be devastating to our economy as much of the business are banks pay tax on are from overseas so they could just emigrate. HSBC could easily relocate its head office to Hong Kong rather than London.
Much of Thatcher's best reforms came in the second term not the first. By 2018 our narrative can change from bad to good and we can have the reforms we both want.
Or we can have the reforms tim, Eds and Gordon want and end up back having another disaster.
Most of our banks have paid no tax since 2008. Most of them don't even pay tax on their dividends because they don't have any. The right to cancel all of their tax liabilities by applying their accumulated losses is yet another way they are subsidised by the tax payer.
Those that earn a lot of money overseas will have the benefit of double taxation arrangements too which means the taxable income in this country will be a lot more modest than it might appear.
We urgently need banks that are genuinely interested in lending to SMEs in this country. Our super banks are entirely focussed on shrinking their balance sheets and improving their capital ratios to meet Basel II. Their legacy of doubtful and non-recoverable debts make it almost impossible for them to lend new funds. Hence the credit available to business falls every month.
This has been the biggest single drag on growth for the last 5 years. It is what makes the 2008 disaster different from other recessions where these problems did not exist to any material extent. It needs action. It needs opportunities for new players to enter the market. It needs a bad bank to free the RBS from its chains.
There are plenty of countries in the EU who have chosen not to go down the Eurozone route, and where there is plenty of political pressure for repatriation of powers. And even in Germany, there is a great deal of desire for the EU to take its nose out of labour issues
The hitch is that although some countries want some powers to be national not EU - for example, the Dutch want to keep the EU out of flood defence - they're all different powers. Passing treaties to centralize things is a big PITA with very little short-term upside, so in any given case it only gets done in the first place if there's a super-majority in favour of the EU doing it.
There are also some basic governance issues with opt-outs, especially when the country that wants to opt out is a producer of something that the rest of the EU consumes. It's better not to let Detroit opt out of federal automobile standards, and it wouldn't have been a good idea for Thatcher to let Yorkshire make the rules governing its own coal mining industry, much as it would probably have liked to. London would probably like to keep the EU out of financial regulation. Hell, they'd probably rather keep the UK out, and do the whole thing themselves. But the UK and the EU would be mad to let them.
You mean like promising an in/out referendum at the end? You mean like Cameron has already done? You mean like Cameron has promised by a specific date and not just a vague "at the end".'
Not convinced that UKIP actually want an EU referendum,as the closer they get to one the more road blocks they put up.
Maybe its just Farage posturing and as in the past it will be UKIP donors that decide deals & policy.
Used to be fun voting for them at Euros,but if this circus continues I won't bother.
"There was no mechanism for an individual country to get a rebate either."
But then Margaret Thatcher was a formidable negotiator, and not a person you wanted to bluff or intimidate. Look in comparison at Blair, who gave up the rebate in return for reform of the CAP. Right...that's the example UKIP can point to of where you end up if you are seen through, rightly, as not a serious negotiator.
"There are plenty of countries in the EU ... where there is plenty of political pressure for repatriation of powers." Which will not be acceded to, because if ignored, those countries will have to simply lump it.
"The Germans, the Poles and the Dutch and the Austrians, etc., ... would probably be quite open to making the EU more to our liking; because if we left it would become less to their liking."
The UKIP argument being, though, that as there is no prospect of our leaving, the EU does not need to make itself more to our liking.
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
"Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it"
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Right versus Right? You think that Gordon Brown was right-wing with his spending sprees?
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
I think Alanbrooke's point is that neither Balls nor Brown have anything of interest to say on the economy at all. The debate is between moderates such as Osborne who want to tiptoe out of the wreakage and radicals who want to bring in a demolition squad before starting again.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
Well now David who said anything about a wrecking ball. that's just silly. The reformists like myself would argue that we've had 16 years of political chancellors and it's time for a reformer. Fiscal consolidation is only part of the answer and we're not doing that very well. Growth isn't generated by borrowing and raising taxes, it comes from getting businesses back in business and to date that's not been something GO has been very good at.
I have a lot of sympathy for your position as I think you know. But it is a lot easier to be radical when things are going swimmingly as Lawson had for the second half of the eighties. (Having a brain like his is no disadvantage either). You can compensate the losers when you simplify taxes, you can afford to abolish taxes instead of looking to squeeze out every last penny when you are running a surplus and you can take risks in the knowledge that the economy is fundamentally sound.
Osborne does not have any of these advantages and his priority is keeping a highly leaky vessel afloat. So, for example, I think that RBS should have been broken up in 2010 regardless of what Stephen Hester thought. But if that had further disrupted an already fragile credit supply the economy could have reacted very badly indeed. Caution ruled.
This started with the prospectus I think the government will be able to offer in 2015. If I am right about that then that will be a solid 7/10 in the circumstances, arguably an 8.
I'd challenge that statement in one respect David. It's easier to force change when things are going really right or really wrong. Average is harder ! GO through no fault of his own inherited a really wrong economy,however he surrendered the difficult times narrative too early both politically and economically. By keeping the narrative right I reckon the country would have faced taking some harsher medicine if it could see it was for the best.
Like you I'd like to see the banking oligoply broken up and real competition restored he could have got away with it earlier by accepting a banking clean up and the public would have cried out but accepted it. Instead we have death by 1000 profit warnings and the big banks getting back to keeping competition away from the doorstep.
I think breaking up the banks would be devastating to our economy as much of the business are banks pay tax on are from overseas so they could just emigrate. HSBC could easily relocate its head office to Hong Kong rather than London.
Much of Thatcher's best reforms came in the second term not the first. By 2018 our narrative can change from bad to good and we can have the reforms we both want.
Or we can have the reforms tim, Eds and Gordon want and end up back having another disaster.
Most of our banks have paid no tax since 2008. Most of them don't even pay tax on their dividends because they don't have any. The right to cancel all of their tax liabilities by applying their accumulated losses is yet another way they are subsidised by the tax payer.
Those that earn a lot of money overseas will have the benefit of double taxation arrangements too which means the taxable income in this country will be a lot more modest than it might appear.
We urgently need banks that are genuinely interested in lending to SMEs in this country. Our super banks are entirely focussed on shrinking their balance sheets and improving their capital ratios to meet Basel II. Their legacy of doubtful and non-recoverable debts make it almost impossible for them to lend new funds. Hence the credit available to business falls every month.
This has been the biggest single drag on growth for the last 5 years. It is what makes the 2008 disaster different from other recessions where these problems did not exist to any material extent. It needs action. It needs opportunities for new players to enter the market. It needs a bad bank to free the RBS from its chains.
I posted this a few weeks back. In Germany the major banks have only paid 8% of total bank taxes in the last decade. The big multinats like Deutsche Bank are leaving the small regional banks to pay the nation's bills.
Now now, you should know by now there havent been any cuts and Osbornes "savings" have increased spending, particularly on benefits.
You're still telling porkies, tim.
Once again, the facts:
Public Sector Aggregates: Total Managed Expenditure ---------------------------------------------------------------- Year Nominal Change | Real Change | GDP Ratio Change £ bn % | £ bn % | % % ---------------------------------------------------------------- Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling
Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling increased spending in real terms every year of the 2005-2010 government. The ratio of TME to GDP in the period rose from 40.8% to 47.3% the highest level since the early 1980s.
George Osborne has reduced spending in real terms and on 2012 forecasts will have reduced it further in 2015 by -3.8% in the 2010-2015 parliamentary term. The TME to GDP ratio will have fallen from Brown's legacy of 47.3% to 42.2%.
Please apologise immediately to everyone on PB for continuing to spread your disinformation.
The UKIP argument being, though, that as there is no prospect of our leaving, the EU does not need to make itself more to our liking.
Again: we do not negotiate with "The EU". The EU has nothing to give. We negotiate with other sovereign states who make up the EU. There is no need to sit down with José Manuel Barroso because he has nothing he can offer. We negotiate with Frau Merkel, and M. Hollande.
The UKIP argument being, though, that as there is no prospect of our leaving, the EU does not need to make itself more to our liking.
Again: we do not negotiate with "The EU". The EU has nothing to give. We negotiate with other sovereign states who make up the EU. There is no need to sit down with José Manuel Barroso because he has nothing he can offer. We negotiate with Frau Merkel, and M. Hollande.
The UKIP argument being, though, that as there is no prospect of our leaving, the EU does not need to make itself more to our liking.
Again: we do not negotiate with "The EU". The EU has nothing to give. We negotiate with other sovereign states who make up the EU. There is no need to sit down with José Manuel Barroso because he has nothing he can offer. We negotiate with Frau Merkel, and M. Hollande.
It is tradingeconomics that is cherry-picking, tim. Their graphs show "public spending" to be around £80 billion per quarter or £320 per annum. I suspect, without checking, that they are based on Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL) which make up less than half of public sector Total Managed Expenditure (TME).
After noting the invalid source for the figures, I have not studied them further and have no comment to make on the trends shown.
It is tradingeconomics that is cherry-picking, tim. Their graphs show "public spending" to be around £80 billion per quarter or £320 per annum. I suspect, without checking, that they are based on Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL) which make up less than half of public sector Total Managed Expenditure (TME).
After noting the invalid source for the figures, I have not studied them further and have no comment to make on the trends shown.
I suspect they are simply mistaken, rather than actually cherry picking. They make their money selling data, so it's not like they have anything to gain by pushing a particular agenda.
"You can't hold a referendum on ratifying something that has already been ratified "
Sure you can. You rescind the ratification, with whatever consequences that may have. It was unconstitutional anyway - no Parliament may bind its successor.
Whether you agree with this or not it is crystal clear from the polling that Cameron's poll slide began in November 2009, exactly when he went back on that promise.
Yes you could hold a referendum on a treaty that's been ratified but if the treaty was rejected by the UK parliament it would have no effect on the treaty in Europe where all others had signed up. For the rejection to have any effect in the UK we would have to leave the EU, which is a different kettle of fish.
The facts appear to show that Brown had government spending constant as a share of GDP, until the economic crash came along.
Not quite the reckless spender he is often accused of being.
Oh dear. So what happens if you borrow without end, spend spend spend and inflate a huge credit bubble? Erm....GDP grows because public spending is part of GDP and the private sector grows because credit is irresponsibly cheap. And where does that inevtiably take you? Yes, to the crash bit. You make the 'until the economic crash came along' sound like it's not a direct result of the spending and bubble bit.
Comments
Ilford North: Mike Hedges
Finchley: Alan Or Bach
Brent Central: Kate Osamor
Lancaster: Cath Smith
Burnley: Julie Cooper
Pendle: Azhar Ali
Blackpool North: Chris Webb
Kingswood: Rowenna Hayward
Stourbridge: Pete Lowe
Dudley South: Natasha Milward
Sherwood: Lachlan Morrison
Amber Valley: Julia Long
Cleethorpes: Ian Grant
Pudsey: Jamie Hanley
Rothwell: Veronica King
Dewsbury: Paula Sheriff
Dumfriesshire: Archie Bryburgh
East Dunbartonshire: Alan Moir
Falkirk: Karie Murphy
Cardiff Central: Jo Stevens
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/
GBP loses 1.5c against USD.
"Pre war the major regional cities all could hold their own. It's really been since the Thatcher era and the rise of financial services that the discrepancy has crept in"
I thought the decline of the northern and western cities had more to do with the fact that in trade relations terms, we left the Commonwealth when we joined the EEC. Our previously successful trading cities were then either on the wrong coast, denied their advantageous raw materials / finished goods markets, or both.
It's essential the same reason Chatham isn't a naval base any more. It was useful for fighting the French, Dutch and Germans, i.e. the Eastern Approaches; less useful as an anti-submarine base serving the Western Approaches.
Then of course there are other factors such as the rise of air travel putting the skids under the Liverpool and Southampton passenger shipping businesses.
The rise of London and the decline of, say, Bristol, Liverpool or Manchester do not seem to me to have been causally linked. Had we had a Callaghan win in 1979, it seems entirely plausible that London would gave declined as well for reasons that would not have produced any offsetting benefit elsewhere.
Ladbrokes Politics @LadPolitics
Len McCluskey is 200/1 to be next Labour leader. bit.ly/17lc0Cc
Fully agree on shale fracking and nuclear (Thorium please). Let's just get on with it.
I'm not sure we are obliged in perpetuity to accept so many refugees / asylum seekers from the middle east. We could certainly achieve full control of our borders if we left the EU and may never be able to properly while we remain. But I do accept that there are degress of 'leave well alone' - and we should opt for the most remote engagement feasible.
No interest in the economy??
In 2015 Cameron will be going to the country with the fastest growing economy in europe (admittedly a rather low bar), an economy that has not been in recession for 5 years despite what he inherited and which has been growing moderately well for better than 2 years, a substantial increase in employment, a moderate reduction in unemployment, a substantial reduction in public sector employment, a deficit of less than half of what he inherited (if still too high), government policies that have greatly assisted with credit for business, have helped the housing market and increased housebuilding and despite it all kept inflation low.
Some of this you might say is despite government policy rather than because of it. In some areas (banks and energy especially) things undoubtedly could have moved faster but a strong prospectus on the economy is now pretty much in the tin unless something truly horrendous happens internationally.
This may well not be enough. I remember 1997. But Ed is no Tony Blair and the country will be a lot less confident about the future than they were then.
Kay Burley @KayBurley 1m
Really big story breaking at 2pm which I know many of you will want to know about. Tune in to #skynews for our lead story then ... #embargo
* If I had my way, I have a more elegant solution given our relationship with both the EU and the Commonwealth - and that's to annex all EU nations** to the Commonwealth, given that English is an official language of the EU!
** or at least all those EU nations where, to the best of my knowledge, there has been an English or British military or administrative or peacekeeping presence in the past - which rules out only five states: Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania
Now that's funny!
Labour have pinned everything last few years on "where is the growth" so if Cameron can go to the country with the fastest growing nation in Europe then their argument will be well and truly shot.
If inflation and interest rates can stay low then that will stay as a boon too. Biggest economic risk to popularity now I see is if the economy booms so much that interest rates start rising fast - that could make a lot of mortgage holders face trouble they've not adjusted to.
Of course I do and I say it pretty regularly, you should rejoice in the fact. As I try to point out the UK economic debate is not Right versus Left, it's Right versus Right. The Left have looked at their hand and folded.
You can tell me that Cameron had a hard hand to play and I'd agree, but I just don't think he's played it very well. He's undertaken no significant supply side reforms in this Parlt and he has spent his political capital on gimmicks when he could have used it for meaningful change. Would I rather he took the beating and the hits on getting the banks straightened out or on Leveson ? No contest to my mind.
Greg Hands @GregHands
The Unite political strategy doc talks about congratulating Labour MPs who voted the *correct* way
http://www.scribd.com/doc/151676732/Unite-National-Political-Committee-Political-Director-s-Report-June-2013
I never meet anybody who talks about these issues. Personally, the EU is something I reflexively dislike, because it seems unaccountable and undemocratic. But I don't think I have ever spoken to anyone about it. And would I choose to leave?? On the whole I feel it must do more good than bad, but it worries me that Europhiles never make a case for it, they are either too scared, too willing to scaremonger or there is no case to make.
One thing that is obvious around here is vitriol toward benefits scroungers. They are a target in South Wales because they are visible and everyone knows everyone. There are often outbreaks of joy on FB at someone being 'shopped'. All very unedifying, but hey - and I don't really care who's tricking the system - you live by the sword you die by it ('single mothers' claiming housing benefit when they actually live with their partner is a regular trick, but people are more often getting caught now). Anger against Islamic terorism is also quite outspoken round here. Probably because muslims are less visible, and lots of soliders from round here have served etc, and the Lee Rigby case really got some violent responses. Again, not very edifying, but I suppose Islamic terror or militant Islamic hatred of the UK goes against the way people from these parts feel. We are community driven, patriotic, old-fashioned family-values types and the veil of terrorism challenges and threatens the 'heads down, let-us-just-get-on-with-our-lives' mentality.
But I've never met an anger-driven Daily Mail or DT or ConHome commenter-type. Neither have I met a hand-wringing, money-tree type out of the Guardian mould. I think most people I meet are reality based. They know money is scarce, they'll get away with what they can get away with, their attitude towards governance is that choice between LabLibCon is unlikely to affect them and they are fairly happy chancing their arm at life. This idea that there is a some great UKIP-shaped saviour or that exit from the EU will pave our streets with gold just doesn't exist.
Which makes me think some of these commenters are just hoaxing!?
I see my slightly throwaway comment about the southeastward drift of wealth and the creators of wealth has started a few hares running.
No one is suggesting actively impairing the economic growth of the SE but there's nothing wrong with an economic policy predicated on improving the wealth of other parts of the country.
As others have said, the situation was much more balanced in the past with the great cities of the North emerging from the Industrial Revolution and the resulting transport infrastructure (canals, then railways). The decline and fall of that manufacturing base has decimated the North economically while the SE has prospered from the boom in Services especially financial services. Indeed, there are those who advocate separating London from the UK and see the resulting city-state competing as a European version of Hong Kong or Singapore and the economic arguments for that are compelling.
The possibility that the development of shale gas might re-vitalise the northern economy has to be taken seriously and must be a key argument for moving forward. The potential benefits of developing this source of energy will be enjoyed by all though I believe these benefits to be somewhat overplayed by the advocrates of shale gas development.
There is also a strong argument that Britain has become too centralised and it's always interesting to hear those droning on ad nauseam about the re-patriation of powers from Brussels to Westminster staying much quieter about the equally vital re-patriation of powers away from Westminster and to elected local authorities.
Or do you think that Ed Balls would be the polar opposite of Gordon Brown if he ends up in the Exchequer?
"....their strategy makes no sense. Split the vote by standing against Tories who are the only Big Party to want a referendum?"
This strategy surely does make sense if you start from the normal UKIP view that the Tory party - its leadership, at least - is actually lying about wanting a referendum. It's thus indistinguishable from the alternatives, except in being more mendacious.
This is not an insupportable position. First there was the welshing on the Lisbon referendum, from when dates the Tory poll decline of 2009 to date. Then there has been the disingenuous nature of the sops to UKIP actually on offer: "we'll renegotiate and then vote on it" .
Every UKIPper knows this last cannot happen. From which there can really be only two conclusions. Either the Tories don't know this, hence are ignorant, and nothing will change; or the Tories do know this, hence think UKIPpers are ignorant, and think that UKIPpers will supprt them and then just accept it when they find they've been conned.
Neither inference augurs well for the Tories' ability to lure UKIPpers back. FWIW, I think the only approach to a referendum that even a UKIPper would accept as evidence of Tory sincerity is if Cameron agreed to
1) hold an In/Out referendum,
2) campaign for an Out vote in that,
3) take the resulting Out vote to Brussels and demand change, and
4) implement the Out vote if denied.
I don't see any of that happening save the first, and not in a way that gives an actionable basis for exit. Not doing 2 to 4 are acts outright hostile to UKIP.
There is anyway a pragmatic point, which is that with the current and likely seat tallies, Cameron can't even get as far as doing 1).
The UKIP approach is, surely, that if the any party leader concedes 1 to 4 - which in fact probably requires there to be a different Tory leader - then he'll get most of UKIP's support. Only the Tories need this support to achieve a majority. Labour back in, or another coalition, offer no prospect of a referendum.
The Cameron problem is that whereas most previous post-Heath Tory leaders would have quite liked to have the ace of an Out mandate up their sleeve when dealing with Brussels, Cameron gives no sign that he'd be equally glad of this. As has been said upthread there's no evidence of even an iota of sympathy for the UKIP cause.
BTW, greetings from Ilford East
So if you are a liberal secular democratic minded chap in some Islamist hellhole and you decide to escape and seek asylum where do you go? Italy's alot closer. So's Greece. Maybe you could go to Turkey. Or France. Where's furthest away and least easy to get to? UK? Norway?
There must be something about our laws, benefits culture, etc that makes the UK a leading choice. Maybe this is something to be proud of. It's certainly something we would wish to be very consciously in control of and making decisions with eyes wide open. And with the consent of the British people.
Myself I'm broadly in favour of helping genuine asylum seekers who face a truly grim alternative back home. I'm also very much in favour of finding ways to weed them out from the 'my own country's a shithole so I'm coming to yours' crowd. Let us offer protection to the oppressed but not a welfare cheque the economic migrant.
The housing market and the consequential lack of house building over the last 5 years is an aggravation of a long running problem of lack of supply and needs to be encouraged. There are some signs it is working.
As for students if only the last government had not been so incredibly incompetent and turned a blind eye to so many coming to "colleges" above chip shops without classes. Quality education is a market for this country as anyone who has attended Eton will know very well from personal experience.
Market thinks they will rule out interest rate rises for a long time.
See zerohedge for more details on how Carney is a lizard double agent for Goldman Sachs.
And yeah, I played golf as a kid. But I was mainly a rugby player so I kept breaking fingers and thumbs. I got down to a handicap of 11.3 which is middling at best. I needed to scrap nd work to shoot high 70s/low 80s. My brother, who is two years younger than me, was much better. One of those lazy tramps who would saunter onto a golf course, ill-prepared, and be disgusted with himself for shooting a 74. He played off about 4 without ever applying myself. Tosser!
Incidentally, I hadn't played golf for two whole years (can't justify it with the two little uns) but I went on a golf trip to MonteCastillo golf club (Spain) in May and really enjoyed it. Had a great time and played okay too. But came home with seriously blistered hands.
Personally, I think Osborne is right to take the monstrosity created by the last government apart piece by piece, watching carefully for unintended consequences, but I can understand those who are frustrated by that approach.
There is a very real and very active threat to the Left of GO atm. Just because they're not saying what they'll do now so they don't scare the horses does not mean that I'll believe for a second that once they're in power they won't act as Left-wing as all Labour governments have ever done. Brown's tried this ploy before and we've seen how it ended up - with near penury.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
As for GO I'd rather he gets on with the job as well as he can within the real constraints he has from his LD partners - which he's doing. I'd rather he go faster, but what comprehensive tax reform could he get past Clegg, Cable and Alexander?
Michael McCann MP @MichaelMcCannMP 4h
Joyce Urges Action On Unite Claims - I don't kick ppl when they're down but Eric's lost the right to comment http://news.sky.com/story/1111255/eric-joyce-urges-labour-action-on-unite-claims …
Eric Joyce MP @ericjoyce 3h
@MichaelMcCannMP It's my constituency, dimwit. U another MP scared shitless of Unite's leadership?
Michael McCann MP @MichaelMcCannMP 2h
@ericjoyce ever heard of counting to ten?
Eric Joyce MP @ericjoyce 1h
@MichaelMcCannMP Try to be your own man, Michael. As a former PCS official, ur don't NEED to plan ur future around a Unite/PCS merger.
That was promised for the manifesto for the election of 2007. AKA the election that never was. Gordon Brown cancelled the election and changed the facts on the ground by ratifying Lisbon, at which point Cameron had no choice but to change the policy.
By the election of 2010 the manifesto commitment was different and that manifesto commitment has been honoured.
Judge a leader by the commitments he makes prior to the election, not prior to a different election which was subsequently cancelled. There can not be a single individual who voted for a welched Lisbon referendum at a General Election so nobody can have been deceived.
There may be more points but my guess is that the UK is probably going to be my number one target in Europe. Of course as a proud Brit I may be very biased in this assessment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23181867
I blame Osborne....
After cancelling the referendum and ratifying it himself Brown made that null and void. You can't hold a referendum on ratifying something that has already been ratified - that is not legally possible. Which Cameron acknowledged and went into the election that actually happened with a new commitment instead, one that has been made into law.
"...It sounds so depressingly familiar – again and again, we read of the same old tropes. I acknowledge that there has been a significant improvement in the quantity of coverage of those with an anti-EU point of view. But there are still many occasions when the BBC will say to me, “Well, if you can’t do it Nigel, then we won’t cover it”, despite being offered perfectly able and competent replacements. I have become a BBC totem in some ways (just think of all those Question Time appearances).
But, and this is the point, I am not the Eurosceptic movement. I am merely one man, and the broad mass of the population is hardly represented by me. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows those who wish to leave the EU are the majority, yet if were to judge by the BBC, you would get the impression it was just me. I am the get-out clause. “Well we had Nigel on,” they will trumpet.
And that is just on the European Union. When it comes to Immigration the bias is even clearer. They cover themselves with this idea that they are nice, and other people who differ, who believe that migration has gone too far, are in some way nasty....Maybe so if, like the average BBC executive, your experience of migration is a cheap au pair, cleaner, and a fascinating little restaurant down the road, but that is not the experience of this country’s majority.
...And of course it isn’t just in news coverage. In popular drama, those who oppose mass migration are bigots, stupid, physically ugly; those on the other side are sensitive, beautiful, intelligent. It goes on and on. The problem is now, as it has been for decades, a simple one, and one acknowledged in this report: the BBC draws its staff by and large from a single well.
This is illustrated perhaps best by the recent publication of figures detailing the corporation's purchase of newspapers. In 2011-12 it bought 68,307 copies of the Guardian, 59,490 of the Times and 57,763 of the Telegraph and not forgetting 50,398 copies of The Independent. Which, given that the Telegraph outsells the Guardian by more 2 to 1 nationally, rather gives the game away... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10159310/Nigel-Farage-The-bloated-BBC-bullies-those-who-disagree-with-its-liberal-bias.html
David Raistrick, UK automotive leader at Deloitte, said: "The need to compete by providing the low finance rates highlights the increasing importance within Europe of the UK market as the level of sales in Germany, France, Italy and Spain continues to contract."
If Unite does continue to wield this level of influence it will create the conditions for an SDP type of split. Also watch out if Unite, the UK's largest trade union does merge with Mark Serwotka's PCS, the main civil service union, then we get Labour's biggest donor merged with a union unaffiliated to Labour and dominated by socialists.
One of my favourite least-mentioned reforms GO has done is to tackle our previously ridiculously-high Corporation Tax rates. Brown left it at 28% and by the next election GO will leave it at 20%
To take that rate that has put off investment or ensured multinationals avoided paying it here and paid it in European nations with sensible rations and reduced it by well over a quarter has been a quietly managed supply side reform.
Most supply side reforms unfortunately cost money in the short term and there isn't much of that available right now. He's doing what he can though - and doing a very different job to what Brown/Balls would do. There is a real choice at stake even if Labour disingenuously refuse to say what they'd inflict on us.
Banks, tax code, less regulation, government current spending versus capital, rebalancing the economy.......
The economy is being rebalanced. Private sector employment is increasing every quarter and public sector employment is falling. The ratio of private:public in 2015 will be different to 2010.
"Right so the terms are Cameron becomes your bitch ? "
Well, not mine because I'm not a UKIPper myself. I have some sympathy with their view of the EU, and think that if we left, others would follow, making the remains of it fundamentally less significant anyway.
What I am suggesting, though, is that Cameron / his successor should, logically, be either neutral or should campaign for an Out vote in any referendum, not because they want out but because having an Out vote in his hand secures him the best available negotiating position all round.
He gets an Out vote, he goes to Brussels and says See this? Give me what I want or I'll leave."
It helps him not at all if the EU side can then say "You don't mean that, and you won't. Nothing doing. Your move." What does he do then?
If he voted for Out he says "You're wrong, we leave." The EU deal team shits itself and folds.
If he voted for In, he either goes home with nothing or he leaves. He can't really then say to UKIP "I tried" because they'll then say "No you didn't" and the issue remains alive.
If you are negotiating, you have to be prepared for there not to be a deal. There is a point at which you walk away. Having an Out vote moves that point much closer to your side of the table.
It makes a complete nonsense of the Electoral Law limits on campaign expenditure, effectively giving Labour yet another advantage. I haven't noticed the Guardian campaign against this manifest abuse of democracy, but maybe I haven't been paying attention.
Osborne does not have any of these advantages and his priority is keeping a highly leaky vessel afloat. So, for example, I think that RBS should have been broken up in 2010 regardless of what Stephen Hester thought. But if that had further disrupted an already fragile credit supply the economy could have reacted very badly indeed. Caution ruled.
This started with the prospectus I think the government will be able to offer in 2015. If I am right about that then that will be a solid 7/10 in the circumstances, arguably an 8.
"You can't hold a referendum on ratifying something that has already been ratified "
Sure you can. You rescind the ratification, with whatever consequences that may have. It was unconstitutional anyway - no Parliament may bind its successor.
Whether you agree with this or not it is crystal clear from the polling that Cameron's poll slide began in November 2009, exactly when he went back on that promise.
The current plan means that we get to judge whether those reforms are "very real" and so a "No" vote would be more binding.
In Q1 2010 there were approximately 3.5 private sector jobs per public sector job.
By Q1 2013 there were over 4.2 private sector jobs per public sector job.
That rebalancing is happening but needs to continue.
That date is also when Cameron and Osborne were being very upfront and honest about the need of austerity and spending cuts (rather than "sharing the proceeds of growth"). People don't like austerity or cuts and Labour scaremongered about it, but by the next election it'll be good that they were honest beforehand. Like they were honest beforehand about Europe. The 2010 manifesto had no Lisbon commitment.
There are around five positions on Europe
1. Further integration
2. No more, no less
3. A renegotiation, with repatriation of a certain number of powers
4. EFTA / EEA
5. Complete independence
It is not clear whether UKIP supports 4 or 5. (Most, I suspect support 5.) The country as a whole is probably at 3, while the Labour Party and the LibDems are 1s. In the event of a referendum, tomorrow, on 1/2 vs 4/5, there would probably be victory for 1/2 because 'better the devil you know' would kick in.
So, it should be an easy win for the Conservative Party. Yet, somehow, an urge to replicate the Judean People's seems to kick in. I feel the Cameron is actually well in-line with the population at large. And I also suspect that a large portion of Northern and New Europe (and even some of the Club Med countries) could well be happy with a more formally defined Eurozone / Non-Eurozone split, which would mean less central (Brussels) control over the non-Eurozone countries, in return for allowing the Eurozone to integrate more fully within the existing structures.
Congratulations to @Nancy_Platts selected in Brighton Kemptown as Labour candidate - a great Unite candidate
Arf!!
The flaw with using GDP to measure growth is that all government spending counts as "growth" whether it can be afforded or not. But then you end up like Greece or France.
We're not interested in fake growth. Any growth we'll get is real and sustainable while we deal with your mess that you should be ashamed of. How's your mate Hollande doing with his growth?
'The current plan means that we get to judge whether those reforms are "very real"' - the trouble with this that there is no mechanism for bilateral reforms. Everyone knows this, but some Tories think UKIPpers don't, and so if the party lies to them they can be conned out of enough votes to scrape through a GE.
Won't happen. Picking through the bile in the DT comment threads, this is what leaps out as the basis of the animus towards the Tories.
'tbh I don't think there's anything Cameron or indeed the wider Conservative party can do to placate the kippers. For the kippers the issue is too emotive to be negotiated in a rational way.'
If you changed 'can do' to 'will do' in your first sentence I would agree. I think something is doable, but won't be done. A UK government trying to renegotiate, rather than terminate, our EU membership is entirely powerless to effect any change whatsoever, unless it has the nuclear button of an exit vote to hand.
Signalling that you don't want that in hand tells UKIPpers you are not serious about renegotiating.
Like you I'd like to see the banking oligoply broken up and real competition restored he could have got away with it earlier by accepting a banking clean up and the public would have cried out but accepted it. Instead we have death by 1000 profit warnings and the big banks getting back to keeping competition away from the doorstep.
You mean like promising an in/out referendum at the end?
You mean like Cameron has already done?
You mean like Cameron has promised by a specific date and not just a vague "at the end".
Yet Cameron won't do anything. Yes sure, clearly 'can do' was right in the first place since he's already done what you asked for.
The Left isn't exactly grabbing the economic debate with better proposals.
* The guy who got his sums wrong by £120Bn in 12 months.
What has been interesting in Dundee (and more than slightly worrying from the referendum point of view) is how this can fall apart when the gap between the union paid staff and the members becomes too great. We have seen nothing like the sort of organised canvassing etc we used to get in Dundee and the SNP have filled the gap. Hence they now have the seats.
Lord Ashcroft @LordAshcroft 8m
Were those PMQ answers for Ed found in the toilet cos it's one of the few places he knows what he is doing? #justsaying
In any case, your premise is irrelevant. There are plenty of countries in the EU who have chosen not to go down the Eurozone route, and where there is plenty of political pressure for repatriation of powers. And even in Germany, there is a great deal of desire for the EU to take its nose out of labour issues.
The UK would not, in any case, negotiate with 'The EU'. It would negotiate - probably with Sweden and Denmark by its side - with the other countries in the EU and see if there was anything all could agree on. The Germans, the Poles and the Dutch and the Austrians, etc., would be very keen to see the EU not become more Southern/Periphery dominated, so would probably be quite open to making the EU more to our liking; because if we left it would become less to their liking.
Metropolitan Police launch official investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance.
Much of Thatcher's best reforms came in the second term not the first. By 2018 our narrative can change from bad to good and we can have the reforms we both want.
Or we can have the reforms tim, Eds and Gordon want and end up back having another disaster.
I think your analysis is likely right, but the problem with it is that while 3 is what most people - perhaps even most UKIPpers - would like, it is simply not available. It cannot be done short of exiting and rejoining on new terms.
So that leaves us with 1/2 or 4/5 as available options. In reality, 1 and 5 are fringe positions, with 1 being loonier than 5 in my view. But the nature of the EU is that we would have to vote for 5 for 5 to become feasible, and we'd also have to vote for 5 for for 4 or 3 to become feasible too.
My point, then, is that Cameron professes to want 3; to get 3, he should first get a mandate to do 5; and he then negotiates 3 and says right, final answer - do you still want 5 or would you like my 3?
At which point we would all vote for 3.
Otherwise, a vote for 'Out' is a vote for 'Out'.
why should they do anything ? It's for the kippers to convince not the Conservatives, and the kippers are only happy attacking the enemy they know they don't really attack anyone else. It's a bit of a lazy plan to get someone else to do the hard work for them.
Do you live in the South East ?
Dan Hodges@DPJHodges4m
The fact the Met are opening a new investigation into Madeline McCann is an utter disgrace.
Those that earn a lot of money overseas will have the benefit of double taxation arrangements too which means the taxable income in this country will be a lot more modest than it might appear.
We urgently need banks that are genuinely interested in lending to SMEs in this country. Our super banks are entirely focussed on shrinking their balance sheets and improving their capital ratios to meet Basel II. Their legacy of doubtful and non-recoverable debts make it almost impossible for them to lend new funds. Hence the credit available to business falls every month.
This has been the biggest single drag on growth for the last 5 years. It is what makes the 2008 disaster different from other recessions where these problems did not exist to any material extent. It needs action. It needs opportunities for new players to enter the market. It needs a bad bank to free the RBS from its chains.
There are also some basic governance issues with opt-outs, especially when the country that wants to opt out is a producer of something that the rest of the EU consumes. It's better not to let Detroit opt out of federal automobile standards, and it wouldn't have been a good idea for Thatcher to let Yorkshire make the rules governing its own coal mining industry, much as it would probably have liked to. London would probably like to keep the EU out of financial regulation. Hell, they'd probably rather keep the UK out, and do the whole thing themselves. But the UK and the EU would be mad to let them.
'An exit vote at the end?
You mean like promising an in/out referendum at the end?
You mean like Cameron has already done?
You mean like Cameron has promised by a specific date and not just a vague "at the end".'
Not convinced that UKIP actually want an EU referendum,as the closer they get to one the more road blocks they put up.
Maybe its just Farage posturing and as in the past it will be UKIP donors that decide deals & policy.
Used to be fun voting for them at Euros,but if this circus continues I won't bother.
But then Margaret Thatcher was a formidable negotiator, and not a person you wanted to bluff or intimidate. Look in comparison at Blair, who gave up the rebate in return for reform of the CAP. Right...that's the example UKIP can point to of where you end up if you are seen through, rightly, as not a serious negotiator.
"There are plenty of countries in the EU ... where there is plenty of political pressure for repatriation of powers." Which will not be acceded to, because if ignored, those countries will have to simply lump it.
"The Germans, the Poles and the Dutch and the Austrians, etc., ... would probably be quite open to making the EU more to our liking; because if we left it would become less to their liking."
The UKIP argument being, though, that as there is no prospect of our leaving, the EU does not need to make itself more to our liking.
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/ueberblick-grossbanken-zahlen-wenig-steuern-in-deutschland-12238035.html
Once again, the facts: Conclusion:
Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling increased spending in real terms every year of the 2005-2010 government. The ratio of TME to GDP in the period rose from 40.8% to 47.3% the highest level since the early 1980s.
George Osborne has reduced spending in real terms and on 2012 forecasts will have reduced it further in 2015 by -3.8% in the 2010-2015 parliamentary term. The TME to GDP ratio will have fallen from Brown's legacy of 47.3% to 42.2%.
Please apologise immediately to everyone on PB for continuing to spread your disinformation.
Not quite the reckless spender he is often accused of being.
After noting the invalid source for the figures, I have not studied them further and have no comment to make on the trends shown.
The facts appear to show that Brown had government spending constant as a share of GDP, until the economic crash came along.
Not quite the reckless spender he is often accused of being.
Oh dear. So what happens if you borrow without end, spend spend spend and inflate a huge credit bubble? Erm....GDP grows because public spending is part of GDP and the private sector grows because credit is irresponsibly cheap. And where does that inevtiably take you? Yes, to the crash bit. You make the 'until the economic crash came along' sound like it's not a direct result of the spending and bubble bit.