Mr. Putney, indeed. 'tis a race to remember, amidst gleeful cackling.
Just wanted to say that I saw the Warwick Castle trebuchet in action at the weekend. Effing fabtastic! Threw a fireball the size of a space hopper three hundred feet. I was quite close to the dungeon entrance as I watched. The thinking behind a trebuchet based justice system is becoming clearer to me.
(they also had 'jousting' but that was a bit tame. Fun but touristy. No-one was in real danger of getting knocked off his mount at forty miles an hour - more's the pity)
Demonstrating an ability to joust should be a precondition before anyone is awarded a knighthood.
Tis the thin edge of the wedge Mr Rentool - next all peerages would come with a castle
Or....No peerage without first owning a castle. That would keep the top end of the property market quite lively.
Perhaps there should be a set of tests and trials for qualification for a peerage, not just one. I quite like the idea that jousting ability is integral to holding a noble title, as is castle ownership. But shouldn't also the ability to swim the moat of the castle in full armour be included?
I like your thinking – one proviso, none of that Lord’s champion malarkey doing it for them.
Just seen a fabulous docu on More4 - Spying on Hitler's Army.
Transcripts of wiretaps on POWs. Stunning stuff.
Worth finding on catch-up or recording the next broadcast.
If it's the transcripts I am thinking of, it rather puts the kibosh on the claim that the German Army was unaware of the Final Solution and the illegality of certain of the orders they were implementing.
"Hors d'oeuvres... which must be obeyed at all times without question!" - Basil Fawlty
Just seen a fabulous docu on More4 - Spying on Hitler's Army.
Transcripts of wiretaps on POWs. Stunning stuff.
Worth finding on catch-up or recording the next broadcast.
If it's the transcripts I am thinking of, it rather puts the kibosh on the claim that the German Army was unaware of the Final Solution and the illegality of certain of the orders they were implementing.
Yes, it includes intvs with the historian who came across by accident in the National Archives. The docu re-enacted the conversations verbatim.
Mine's Tim, hence the MTimT once TimT was no longer available.
Have worked with a few diplomats with only one name (i.e. no family name). And others with at least 6 names (all four grandparents christian names, plus both paternal and maternal family names)
Interesting. Actually "Prasannan" isn't a family name, per se. It's actually a patronymic, my dad's given name.
''Was the archery demonstration on? That was well worth watching when we went a few years ago. Laid a few myths about the use of the long bow - notably holding it in the aim position was physically impossible. ''
I saw something on the box that claimed there isn;t one surviving example of a British medieval longbow. They have to go on drawings, paintings, written accounts etc.
There are plenty of longbows and arrows surviving from the Mary Rose wreck. Well worth a trip to Portsmouth to see
I went to Portsmouth at the late May Bank Holiday, but Mary Rose wasn't open then. But I did see HMS Victory and Warrior, and went up the Spinnaker, and did the Island Line on the Isle of Wight,
I was speaking to a group of Labour members last night. No discernable enthusiasm for Smith and a general consensus that the MPs had behaved badly but they were all going to vote for Smith to get rid of Corbyn. Members of a certain age and class and by no means representative but the idea that this is a battle that will determine if Labour has a future is not some weird PB fixation (like AV, for example).
Yes, Smith is the only game in town for anyone vaguely sane in the party. But there are not enough such people.
So what happens next? Hope for a sub 175 seat GE outcome after which Corbyn might just resign?
There is no solution. The party is screwed.
Maybe not. The problem is the foolish decision to allow Corbyn onto the ballot in 2015. That won't happen again with any other hard left candidate. A landslide GE election defeat could be followed by a leadership contest with some half decent candidates. It is Corbyn personally who is the problem and who guarantees hard left control.
The 'foolish decision' was that of Acting Leader Harriet Harman forcing the Shadow Cabinet - which included the other three leadership contenders - to abstain on Osborne's Welfare plolicy proposals as set out in the July 2015 Budget. Had she not done that Corbyn would not have become leader - despite being included on the ballot paper.
Yesterday, went from Birmingham to Worksop via Nottingham in order to do the Robin Hood Line through Mansfield et al.
Advertised through fare was £54 return off peak, but by buying two separate tickets Brum - Notts (£18 return) and Notts to Worksop (£8.50 return), it worked out less than £27!
No, I took my wife's maiden name as an additional middle name when we got married. I didn't want to double-barrel and felt it appropriate given that she'd taken my surname.
Yesterday, went from Birmingham to Worksop via Nottingham in order to do the Robin Hood Line through Mansfield et al.
Advertised through fare was £54 return off peak, but by buying two separate tickets Brum - Notts (£18 return) and Notts to Worksop (£8.50 return), it worked out less than £27!
''Additionally skeletons of archers have been recovered from battlefield graves and show clear evidence of deformities caused by asymmetrical muscle growth. I think the archaeological evidence is pretty solid. ''
Its fascinating stuff. I once saw a documentary on the discovery of a pit full of bodies from the battle of Towton.
Many of the corpses had old, healed, injuries that suggest medieval surgeons were far more skilled than previously thought. We have a wonderful, rich heritage.
The medieval period has always suffered from bad press, partly due to Victorian sentimentality and partly due to the need to justify the idea of a renaissance. The idea that there was this wonderful flowering of civilisation and then a long period of darkness and ignorance followed by a rediscovery of arts and skills once enjoyed by the ancients is largely bollocks dreamt up by an italian bishop. If ever there was a rediscovery of ancient knowledge then it took place during and after the re-conquest of what is now spain from the Moors (a medieval event).
They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.
Yes indeed. I only passed through there on Friday afternoon - specifically to do the Derby to London train wot goes via the Sileby to Melton Mowbray curve at Syston.
I actually think recessions tend to help the incumbent. Have a look back -
2008-09 - Labour do much better than expected, enough to stop a Tory majority 1990-1991 - Major wins a massive mandate 19 80-1981 - Thatcher wins in 83 1974-1975 - election in the middle of it. 1961 - Tories did enough in 64 to reduce Labour expected landslide to 4 seat majority 1956 - nearest election in 1959 saw the Tories increase the number of seats that they had.
Obviously, other events might intervene but the one clear case was where there was an election in the middle of a recession. Everything else? Not so much.
That's logical. "Don't risk change" is the argument of an incumbent. When you feel vulnerable - perhaps because of a recession - chances are you don't want change.
But there were no recessions in 1956 or 1961 - or at anytime in the 1960s!
They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.
Yes indeed. I only passed through there on Friday afternoon - specifically to do the Derby to London train wot goes via the Sileby to Melton Mowbray curve at Syston.
Do you have track diagrams and do you mark the one's you've done with a red pen?
Yesterday, went from Birmingham to Worksop via Nottingham in order to do the Robin Hood Line through Mansfield et al.
Advertised through fare was £54 return off peak, but by buying two separate tickets Brum - Notts (£18 return) and Notts to Worksop (£8.50 return), it worked out less than £27!
Sometimes, people in public positions just say stupid things. Why on earth would you say that this is the fastest recorded speed on a Suffolk road? Isn't that just an invitation ...
Mr. Putney, indeed. 'tis a race to remember, amidst gleeful cackling.
Just wanted to say that I saw the Warwick Castle trebuchet in action at the weekend. Effing fabtastic! Threw a fireball the size of a space hopper three hundred feet. I was quite close to the dungeon entrance as I watched. The thinking behind a trebuchet based justice system is becoming clearer to me.
(they also had 'jousting' but that was a bit tame. Fun but touristy. No-one was in real danger of getting knocked off his mount at forty miles an hour - more's the pity)
Demonstrating an ability to joust should be a precondition before anyone is awarded a knighthood.
Tis the thin edge of the wedge Mr Rentool - next all peerages would come with a castle
Or....No peerage without first owning a castle. That would keep the top end of the property market quite lively.
You jest but at one time it was expected that a peer should have the means to live to his title. It's one reason (or justification, if you prefer) why Marlborough was given Blenheim Palace to go with his dukedom. I seem to remember watching a documentary that said that Nelson hadn't progressed beyond a viscountcy because there were questions as to whether he could maintain an earldom - presumably had he survived Trafalgar, he'd have been awarded a substantial cash sum to go with a further progression in the peerage.
Didn't Churchill turn down one (a dukedom) for a similar reason?
Yesterday, went from Birmingham to Worksop via Nottingham in order to do the Robin Hood Line through Mansfield et al.
Advertised through fare was £54 return off peak, but by buying two separate tickets Brum - Notts (£18 return) and Notts to Worksop (£8.50 return), it worked out less than £27!
I had a similar experience when I went to see my niece recently and again travelling to Lincoln. On both occasions buying two single tickets online and both collected from my local station worked out cheaper than buying a return.
To understand how economies really work and what wood lead to the optimum allocation of resources, and therefor the heist possible sustainable economic growth, consistent with maximising human happiness. Read up on the 'Austrian school' of Economics, the Road to Serfdom by F A Hyack, or Man, Economy and State by M N Rothbard is a good start.
The Austrian school of economics thinks that recessions can never happen.
Or to be precise the Austrian school is founded on the proposition that market actors are always rational and recessions can only happen if market actors act irrationally.
So given that recessions do happen Austrian economic theory is bollocks.
No, Austrian economics, states that recessions happen because the state, interferes with the markets for money, ether through changing the money supply, or the price of money, typically by holding interest rates to low for to long, and therefore price signals do not work and people therefor act 'irrationally'.
While external shocks may lead to some ups and downs in the economy, if markets and especially the market for money are not manipulated any recession that does happen will be short and miled, before a strong rebound.
Ah, the famed rational market actors who are completely unable to rationally act on public information.
When to can define rational to mean irrational then any theory works.
You can define Rational and irrational how you like.
If you distort information, then decisions based on that information are not going to be as good as if you didn't distorted that information.
Or in economic terms, when you compromise price signals, by manipulating interest rates rates, and/or altering the money supply, you make it disrupt the ability to allocated recourses to there optimal use, leading to poor decisions on the level of investment especially in long term projects' that will course bubbles, that when burst will lead to recessions and if the distortions continues depressions
They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.
Yes indeed. I only passed through there on Friday afternoon - specifically to do the Derby to London train wot goes via the Sileby to Melton Mowbray curve at Syston.
Do you have track diagrams and do you mark the one's you've done with a red pen?
Actually, if you are familiar with the "GENSHEET" Yahoo email group, there are two factions of track-bashers,
The "Microgricers", who are after all tracks, crossovers and platforms, and avail themselves of the detailed track diagrams.
And then what I call the "Bakerists", who just make do with the "Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland" by Stuart (S.K.) Baker, which shows routes at much less detail. I have a Baker Atlas, so I definitely fall into the latter group. Let's just say I bought two copies of his latest edition, one of which has been thoroughly defaced over the last year or so!
Mr. Putney, indeed. 'tis a race to remember, amidst gleeful cackling.
Just wanted to say that I saw the Warwick Castle trebuchet in action at the weekend. Effing fabtastic! Threw a fireball the size of a space hopper three hundred feet. I was quite close to the dungeon entrance as I watched. The thinking behind a trebuchet based justice system is becoming clearer to me.
(they also had 'jousting' but that was a bit tame. Fun but touristy. No-one was in real danger of getting knocked off his mount at forty miles an hour - more's the pity)
Demonstrating an ability to joust should be a precondition before anyone is awarded a knighthood.
Tis the thin edge of the wedge Mr Rentool - next all peerages would come with a castle
Or....No peerage without first owning a castle. That would keep the top end of the property market quite lively.
You jest but at one time it was expected that a peer should have the means to live to his title. It's one reason (or justification, if you prefer) why Marlborough was given Blenheim Palace to go with his dukedom. I seem to remember watching a documentary that said that Nelson hadn't progressed beyond a viscountcy because there were questions as to whether he could maintain an earldom - presumably had he survived Trafalgar, he'd have been awarded a substantial cash sum to go with a further progression in the peerage.
Didn't Churchill turn down one (a dukedom) for a similar reason?
Churchill certainly turned down a Dukedom offered to him by the King in person I believe. Whether he did because he was skint (he nearly always was), I am not so sure. I would prefer to believe that, as a great Parliamentarian, he did not want to be excluded from the Commons.
Yesterday, went from Birmingham to Worksop via Nottingham in order to do the Robin Hood Line through Mansfield et al.
Advertised through fare was £54 return off peak, but by buying two separate tickets Brum - Notts (£18 return) and Notts to Worksop (£8.50 return), it worked out less than £27!
I had a similar experience when I went to see my niece recently and again travelling to Lincoln. On both occasions buying two single tickets online and both collected from my local station worked out cheaper than buying a return.
Rail pricing in this country is crackers.
Ahoy Mr Llama! Could say it's piracy on the "high rails"!
They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.
Yes indeed. I only passed through there on Friday afternoon - specifically to do the Derby to London train wot goes via the Sileby to Melton Mowbray curve at Syston.
Do you have track diagrams and do you mark the one's you've done with a red pen?
Actually, if you are familiar with the "GENSHEET" Yahoo email group, there are two factions of track-bashers,
The "Microgricers", who are after all tracks, crossovers and platforms, and avail themselves of the detailed track diagrams.
And then what I call the "Bakerists", who just make do with the "Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland" by Stuart (S.K.) Baker, which shows routes at much less detail. I have a Baker Atlas, so I definitely fall into the latter group. Let's just say I bought two copies of his latest edition, one of which has been thoroughly defaced over the last year or so!
I heard a story that one afternoon the tracks into platforms 1-4 at Waterloo were out of action so the trains were running in through sidings to the south of the running lines. The train planning department at SWT emptied as they were all desperate to ride through the sidings!
''The medieval period has always suffered from bad press, partly due to Victorian sentimentality and partly due to the need to justify the idea of a renaissance. ''
Indeed, though the enlightenment of the period was extremely patchy. There's a huge contrast between the urbanity of Chaucer and the ignorance of other literature of the period, where the writer had manifestly read little except for the bible.
1) How many Labour Prime Ministers have there been with the first name 'James'? and can you name them all.
and
2) How many general elections have Labour leaders called James won? (won as in most votes)
2) James Callaghan and James Gordon Brown.
Elections won: 0
BAD JAMESES
Wrong on so many levels, Leonard James Callaghan doesn't count, and you've forgotten two other James.
2). Brown 0, Wilson 3, MacDonald 1 (but not as Labour leader)?
Yup, MacDonald won the most seats in 1929 but lost the popular vote.
1931 he was head of a Labour party that won a landslide as part of a coalition, that defeated the official Labour party
Back in 1929 winning the popular vote was less significant than today because in quite a few safe seats MPs were returned unopposed - and parties did not fight 100% of the seats. I have not checked the precise figures but it might be that Labour had more MPs returned unopposed in 1929 and also failed to put up candidates in very rural areas such as Cornwall which were still mainly Tory v Liberal contests.
To understand how economies really work and what wood lead to the optimum allocation of resources, and therefor the heist possible sustainable economic growth, consistent with maximising human happiness. Read up on the 'Austrian school' of Economics, the Road to Serfdom by F A Hyack, or Man, Economy and State by M N Rothbard is a good start.
The Austrian school of economics thinks that recessions can never happen.
Or to be precise the Austrian school is founded on the proposition that market actors are always rational and recessions can only happen if market actors act irrationally.
So given that recessions do happen Austrian economic theory is bollocks.
No, Austrian economics, states that recessions happen because the state, interferes with the markets for money, ether through changing the money supply, or the price of money, typically by holding interest rates to low for to long, and therefore price signals do not work and people therefor act 'irrationally'.
While external shocks may lead to some ups and downs in the economy, if markets and especially the market for money are not manipulated any recession that does happen will be short and miled, before a strong rebound.
Ah, the famed rational market actors who are completely unable to rationally act on public information.
When to can define rational to mean irrational then any theory works.
You can define Rational and irrational how you like.
If you distort information, then decisions based on that information are not going to be as good as if you didn't distorted that information.
Or in economic terms, when you compromise price signals, by manipulating interest rates rates, and/or altering the money supply, you make it disrupt the ability to allocated recourses to there optimal use, leading to poor decisions on the level of investment especially in long term projects' that will course bubbles, that when burst will lead to recessions and if the distortions continues depressions
Yesterday, went from Birmingham to Worksop via Nottingham in order to do the Robin Hood Line through Mansfield et al.
Advertised through fare was £54 return off peak, but by buying two separate tickets Brum - Notts (£18 return) and Notts to Worksop (£8.50 return), it worked out less than £27!
I had a similar experience when I went to see my niece recently and again travelling to Lincoln. On both occasions buying two single tickets online and both collected from my local station worked out cheaper than buying a return.
Rail pricing in this country is crackers.
When I was up north a couple of weeks ago we twice wanted single tickets and on both occasions a return was cheaper.
To understand how economies really work and what wood lead to the optimum allocation of resources, and therefor the heist possible sustainable economic growth, consistent with maximising human happiness. Read up on the 'Austrian school' of Economics, the Road to Serfdom by F A Hyack, or Man, Economy and State by M N Rothbard is a good start.
The Austrian school of economics thinks that recessions can never happen.
Or to be precise the Austrian school is founded on the proposition that market actors are always rational and recessions can only happen if market actors act irrationally.
So given that recessions do happen Austrian economic theory is bollocks.
No, Austrian economics, states that recessions happen because the state, interferes with the markets for money, ether through changing the money supply, or the price of money, typically by holding interest rates to low for to long, and therefore price signals do not work and people therefor act 'irrationally'.
While external shocks may lead to some ups and downs in the economy, if markets and especially the market for money are not manipulated any recession that does happen will be short and miled, before a strong rebound.
Ah, the famed rational market actors who are completely unable to rationally act on public information.
When to can define rational to mean irrational then any theory works.
You can define Rational and irrational how you like.
If you distort information, then decisions based on that information are not going to be as good as if you didn't distorted that information.
Or in economic terms, when you compromise price signals, by manipulating interest rates rates, and/or altering the money supply, you make it disrupt the ability to allocated recourses to there optimal use, leading to poor decisions on the level of investment especially in long term projects' that will course bubbles, that when burst will lead to recessions and if the distortions continues depressions
But all of that is public information, rational actors take account of all public information. The fact that price signals are being 'compromised' is a known piece of information that should be taken into account by rational actors.
The theoretical basis is bunkum and the empirical evidence is scant.
I'm not a massive fan of Friedman but he did the analysis that showed the Austrian business cycle stuff was bollocks and not borne out by empirical evidence (i.e. recession happened when there wasn't artificially cheap money sloshing around)
1) How many Labour Prime Ministers have there been with the first name 'James'? and can you name them all.
and
2) How many general elections have Labour leaders called James won? (won as in most votes)
2) James Callaghan and James Gordon Brown.
Elections won: 0
BAD JAMESES
Wrong on so many levels, Leonard James Callaghan doesn't count, and you've forgotten two other James.
2). Brown 0, Wilson 3, MacDonald 1 (but not as Labour leader)?
Yup, MacDonald won the most seats in 1929 but lost the popular vote.
1931 he was head of a Labour party that won a landslide as part of a coalition, that defeated the official Labour party
Back in 1929 winning the popular vote was less significant than today because in quite a few safe seats MPs were returned unopposed - and parties did not fight 100% of the seats. I have not checked the precise figures but it might be that Labour had more MPs returned unopposed in 1929 and also failed to put up candidates in very rural areas such as Cornwall which were still mainly Tory v Liberal contests.
I don't know the figures either but my impression from having looked at the history of quite a few seats local to me is that one party not contesting was far more common than an MP being returned unopposed. Where one party didn't stand, i think it was more because they wanted to back an alternative than that they didn't think the fight worth the candle (or the deposit, which was admittedly more taxing than it is these days).
They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.
Yes indeed. I only passed through there on Friday afternoon - specifically to do the Derby to London train wot goes via the Sileby to Melton Mowbray curve at Syston.
Do you have track diagrams and do you mark the one's you've done with a red pen?
Actually, if you are familiar with the "GENSHEET" Yahoo email group, there are two factions of track-bashers,
The "Microgricers", who are after all tracks, crossovers and platforms, and avail themselves of the detailed track diagrams.
And then what I call the "Bakerists", who just make do with the "Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland" by Stuart (S.K.) Baker, which shows routes at much less detail. I have a Baker Atlas, so I definitely fall into the latter group. Let's just say I bought two copies of his latest edition, one of which has been thoroughly defaced over the last year or so!
I heard a story that one afternoon the tracks into platforms 1-4 at Waterloo were out of action so the trains were running in through sidings to the south of the running lines. The train planning department at SWT emptied as they were all desperate to ride through the sidings!
This site is the Holy Grail of "unusual passenger routes":
Mr. Putney, indeed. 'tis a race to remember, amidst gleeful cackling.
Just wanted to say that I saw the Warwick Castle trebuchet in action at the weekend. Effing fabtastic! Threw a fireball the size of a space hopper three hundred feet. I was quite close to the dungeon entrance as I watched. The thinking behind a trebuchet based justice system is becoming clearer to me.
(they also had 'jousting' but that was a bit tame. Fun but touristy. No-one was in real danger of getting knocked off his mount at forty miles an hour - more's the pity)
Demonstrating an ability to joust should be a precondition before anyone is awarded a knighthood.
Tis the thin edge of the wedge Mr Rentool - next all peerages would come with a castle
Or....No peerage without first owning a castle. That would keep the top end of the property market quite lively.
You jest but at one time it was expected that a peer should have the means to live to his title. It's one reason (or justification, if you prefer) why Marlborough was given Blenheim Palace to go with his dukedom. I seem to remember watching a documentary that said that Nelson hadn't progressed beyond a viscountcy because there were questions as to whether he could maintain an earldom - presumably had he survived Trafalgar, he'd have been awarded a substantial cash sum to go with a further progression in the peerage.
Didn't Churchill turn down one (a dukedom) for a similar reason?
Churchill certainly turned down a Dukedom offered to him by the King in person I believe. Whether he did because he was skint (he nearly always was), I am not so sure. I would prefer to believe that, as a great Parliamentarian, he did not want to be excluded from the Commons.
His stated reason was that he didn't want to deny Randolph the chance of a full political career, though as his son's career had clearly hit the buffers, that may have been a smokescreen for simply not wanting to leave the Commons which would have ruled him out of becoming PM again, as he later did.
IIRC, he also turned down a KG as well and was only later persuaded to take it after it was made clear that the (new) queen would be seriously offended if he did.
Curiously, although he certainly didn't have the wealth of a duke, the post-war era was the one time when he did become at least very comfortably off, as his history of WWII sold exceptionally well. Simultaneously, the social expectations of the aristocracy became diminished as the costs of the war and high taxation bit.
Yesterday, went from Birmingham to Worksop via Nottingham in order to do the Robin Hood Line through Mansfield et al.
Advertised through fare was £54 return off peak, but by buying two separate tickets Brum - Notts (£18 return) and Notts to Worksop (£8.50 return), it worked out less than £27!
I had a similar experience when I went to see my niece recently and again travelling to Lincoln. On both occasions buying two single tickets online and both collected from my local station worked out cheaper than buying a return.
Rail pricing in this country is crackers.
Ahoy Mr Llama! Could say it's piracy on the "high rails"!
Avast, Cap'n Doc. It gets better. Since my ability to drive has been severely curtailed I have invested £30 in a senior citizen's railcard. It is brilliant. Booking online in advance I went up too see my son in Leeds first class (so free booze and food all the way up and back, stopping off overnight at Newark) in a damn near empty train, for not much more than the cost of petrol I would have put in the car. Going to see my niece in Cambridge (short journeys so I didn't bother with first class) was less than forty quid. The trains on that journey were screwed up both ways, but I don't have to worry about time anymore (providing I am in somewhere safe by the time it gets dark), so I didn't get stressed.
Trains can be crazily expensive if you have to travel at the last minute, or have to be flexible, or are aged between 25 and 60. For those of us richer in years they are a brilliant way of getting about.
P.S. Just bought my son a European inter-rail pass. All the travel he wants by train anywhere in Europe for 30 days - 313 euros (he is young so can cope with second class.
Labour's economic policy, such as it is, has remained largely unchanged from Alastair Darling -> Ed Balls -> John McDonnell. Where is this leftward drift?
The leftward drift is in the Tory policy. Corbyn and McDonnell have just been consistently stating left wing economic policy and letting the centre ground come to them.
I'm not sure you understand what the word "leftward" means. Are you saying the onward governing from the centre by the Tories is them capitalising on Labour abandoning it like a bunch of idiots?
Because yes, duh. That's the whole point. Elections are won from the centre. May knows this, Jez doesn't.
The centre ground is movable, so while parties should govern from the centre, they should also be seeking to move it towards their side. May should now be showing that right wing economics work, not endorsing Labour's economic critique and pursuing it herself.
What Tory economic policies are now right wing? Deficit reduction - dropped, Industrial Strategies - embraced, social security give aways - yep.
May can't show that right wing economics works - because it doesn't. Hence a shift to the sensible Keynesian approach that tends to work.
At the moment we have near-full employment, consistent growth and a bulging trade deficit: all characteristics of an economy heading towards a boom if not already there. I take it that you are therefore advocating that the government should be running a budget surplus (certainly in structural terms). how should it get there?
I have never thought of 2% growth as being close to boom conditions - indeed it is a little below par if anything. As for being 'near full - employment' , that fails to take account of those who are classified as in full-time employment despite working barely 16 hours per week on an involuntary basis , or those who have been pragmatically transferred to ESA/Incapcity Benefit/PIP by successive Governments since the late 1980s, or indeed those 16 - 18 year olds no longer eligible for JSA etc. Without these 'adjustments' I would suggest that on a like for like basis with the 1970s and much of the 1980s headline unemployment would still be in excess of 2.5 million. I share the concern regarding the balance of payments deficit - particularly in the context of historically low economic growth and high unemployment.
I actually think recessions tend to help the incumbent. Have a look back -
2008-09 - Labour do much better than expected, enough to stop a Tory majority 1990-1991 - Major wins a massive mandate 19 80-1981 - Thatcher wins in 83 1974-1975 - election in the middle of it. 1961 - Tories did enough in 64 to reduce Labour expected landslide to 4 seat majority 1956 - nearest election in 1959 saw the Tories increase the number of seats that they had.
Obviously, other events might intervene but the one clear case was where there was an election in the middle of a recession. Everything else? Not so much.
That's logical. "Don't risk change" is the argument of an incumbent. When you feel vulnerable - perhaps because of a recession - chances are you don't want change.
But there were no recessions in 1956 or 1961 - or at anytime in the 1960s!
The Smith campaign, which is starting to look as though its getting its act together, is focusing on electability at a general election
I'm not sure Smith should focus too heavily on this. I think he's about as electable as Corbyn.
He is much more electable than Corbyn, but much less electable than Ed Miliband.
Ed must be comforted by no longer being such an outlier.
He's not an outlier. He's keeping company with Foot, Kinnock and Brown and is ahead of Corbyn.
In its 100 years of history, the Labour Party had had 22 leaders or acting leaders. Only 4 of those have managed to win a General Election - Ramsay McDonald, Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair. Only one of those was a socialist, and he is the one known as "the accidental Prime Minister".
What were the other three?
McDonald started as a socialist but lost his faith because of the post 1929 crash and threw his lot in with Liberals and Liberal Conservatives. Wilson was a pragmatist and Blair was a Social Democrat.
Blair was a Christian Democrat really - though William Hague has labelled him a Tory..
His stated reason was that he didn't want to deny Randolph the chance of a full political career, though as his son's career had clearly hit the buffers, that may have been a smokescreen for simply not wanting to leave the Commons which would have ruled him out of becoming PM again, as he later did.
IIRC, he also turned down a KG as well and was only later persuaded to take it after it was made clear that the (new) queen would be seriously offended if he did.
Curiously, although he certainly didn't have the wealth of a duke, the post-war era was the one time when he did become at least very comfortably off, as his history of WWII sold exceptionally well. Simultaneously, the social expectations of the aristocracy became diminished as the costs of the war and high taxation bit.
I seem to recall a programme on Radio 4 which talked about Churchill's finances, post WW2. Quoting from original documents and letters it demonstrated quite clearly the lengths Churchill went to avoid paying full income tax on the receipts from the sale of his history of the conflict. If memory serves, and I cannot now remember all the details, the rate of income tax Churchill would have to pay was 19/6 in the pound (97.5% in new money) and he was unhappy about receiving just 6d for every pound his book earned him.
To understand how economies really work and what wood lead to the optimum allocation of resources, and therefor the heist possible sustainable economic growth, consistent with maximising human happiness. Read up on the 'Austrian school' of Economics, the Road to Serfdom by F A Hyack, or Man, Economy and State by M N Rothbard is a good start.
The Austrian school of economics thinks that recessions can never happen.
Or to be precise the Austrian school is founded on the proposition that market actors are always rational and recessions can only happen if market actors act irrationally.
So given that recessions do happen Austrian economic theory is bollocks.
No, Austrian economics, states that recessions happen because the state, interferes with the markets for money, ether through changing the money supply, or the price of money, typically by holding interest rates to low for to long, and therefore price signals do not work and people therefor act 'irrationally'.
While external shocks may lead to some ups and downs in the economy, if markets and especially the market for money are not manipulated any recession that does happen will be short and miled, before a strong rebound.
Ah, the famed rational market actors who are completely unable to rationally act on public information.
When to can define rational to mean irrational then any theory works.
For many actual decisions when there are innumerable factors, even more interactions, insufficient time to fully enumerate and evaluate all the available options and imperfect data, the very terms 'rational' and 'irrational' become meaningless. We fall back on heuristics, which we may or may not be able to articulate, but which is a very rational (and mostly effective) thing to do.
Yes, that's true in reality - in reality people act as a best guess at rational not wholly rational. But Austrian economics relies on market actors performing perfectly rationally.
So once again Austrian Economics fails the "any actual relationship to the real world in practice" test. It is a theoretical construct based on unreal premises with not practical application to reality.
1) How many Labour Prime Ministers have there been with the first name 'James'? and can you name them all.
and
2) How many general elections have Labour leaders called James won? (won as in most votes)
2) James Callaghan and James Gordon Brown.
Elections won: 0
BAD JAMESES
Wrong on so many levels, Leonard James Callaghan doesn't count, and you've forgotten two other James.
2). Brown 0, Wilson 3, MacDonald 1 (but not as Labour leader)?
Yup, MacDonald won the most seats in 1929 but lost the popular vote.
1931 he was head of a Labour party that won a landslide as part of a coalition, that defeated the official Labour party
Back in 1929 winning the popular vote was less significant than today because in quite a few safe seats MPs were returned unopposed - and parties did not fight 100% of the seats. I have not checked the precise figures but it might be that Labour had more MPs returned unopposed in 1929 and also failed to put up candidates in very rural areas such as Cornwall which were still mainly Tory v Liberal contests.
I don't know the figures either but my impression from having looked at the history of quite a few seats local to me is that one party not contesting was far more common than an MP being returned unopposed. Where one party didn't stand, i think it was more because they wanted to back an alternative than that they didn't think the fight worth the candle (or the deposit, which was admittedly more taxing than it is these days).
I agree with that - though there were quite a few MPs returned unopposed. I don't think Baldwin had any opposition at Bewdley in 1931 and 1935.
Mr. Putney, indeed. 'tis a race to remember, amidst gleeful cackling.
Just wanted to say that I saw the Warwick Castle trebuchet in action at the weekend. Effing fabtastic! Threw a fireball the size of a space hopper three hundred feet. I was quite close to the dungeon entrance as I watched. The thinking behind a trebuchet based justice system is becoming clearer to me.
(they also had 'jousting' but that was a bit tame. Fun but touristy. No-one was in real danger of getting knocked off his mount at forty miles an hour - more's the pity)
Demonstrating an ability to joust should be a precondition before anyone is awarded a knighthood.
Tis the thin edge of the wedge Mr Rentool - next all peerages would come with a castle
Or....No peerage without first owning a castle. That would keep the top end of the property market quite lively.
Perhaps there should be a set of tests and trials for qualification for a peerage, not just one. I quite like the idea that jousting ability is integral to holding a noble title, as is castle ownership. But shouldn't also the ability to swim the moat of the castle in full armour be included?
It used to be a requirement of peerage that the new peer had enough capital to sustain the rank through succeeding generations. In an extreme case, the new peer would be given capital to support the title: hence the gift of Blenheim Palace to support the Dukedom of Marlborough. The origin of the law lords was the need to give a peerage to clever men without having to endow a hereditary title. The first experiment (which failed) was a life peerage to Chief Baron Lord Wensleydale. When the Conmittee of Privileges refused to allow him a seat in parliament with a life peerage, he was then given a hereditary title but that was OK as he had no sons. Law Lords after him were given a new fangled title by Act of Parliament which long preceded the Life Peerages Act for non judicial life peers.
They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.
And here's a picture of them repairing the bridge as if it only needs a patch-up:
The equipment looks kind of light to repair the damage. This isn't a pothole they're fixing up
They'll just be at the leaning-on-their-shovels-as-they-suck-through-teeth-stage.
"It's going to cost you guvnor."
A few inexpert comments:
Some of the voussoirs (arch stones) have been pinned - you can see the end of the pins in the pictures. This means they've had trouble with this bridge in the past, or at least concerns. These pins are often put into prevent the structure spreading.
The spandrel wall that collapsed has not been pinned, at least obviously.
This line is due to be electrified: has there been some advance work that's destabilised it, or was it due for replacement?
There's actually a narrow tracked dumper on top of the debris. Were the roadworks there before the collapse?
Their initial task will be to check the integrity of the bridge as a whole. Only if they're happy the arches and other spandrels (plus any wing walls) are structurally safe will they look at doing temporary fixes to the spandrel.
Worst case: demolition of the bridge and closure of the road above until a replacement can be built. Someone local might know how inconvenient that would be for the natives.
Yes, that's true in reality - in reality people act as a best guess at rational not wholly rational. But Austrian economics relies on market actors performing perfectly rationally.
So once again Austrian Economics fails the "any actual relationship to the real world in practice" test. It is a theoretical construct based on unreal premises with not practical application to reality.
"The Austrian School theorizes that the subjective choices of individuals including individual knowledge, time, expectation, and other subjective factors, cause all economic phenomena"
Not sure how the words 'subjective choices' and 'subjective factors' fits with your description of the Austrian school requiring perfect rationality.
Economics is, in my view, too complex a system to be truly amenable to a perfect description based on a few interacting formulas. Even if it is, it is too complex for us to devine those formulas by empirical observation.
That said, I think both the Austrian and the Keynesian schools have added to our understanding of how individual actions and choices are aggregated into what we see as 'the economy'. I am unwilling to either accept completely or write off completely either of the school's contributions.
Labour's economic policy, such as it is, has remained largely unchanged from Alastair Darling -> Ed Balls -> John McDonnell. Where is this leftward drift?
The leftward drift is in the Tory policy. Corbyn and McDonnell have just been consistently stating left wing economic policy and letting the centre ground come to them.
I'm not sure you understand what the word "leftward" means. Are you saying the onward governing from the centre by the Tories is them capitalising on Labour abandoning it like a bunch of idiots?
Because yes, duh. That's the whole point. Elections are won from the centre. May knows this, Jez doesn't.
What Tory economic policies are now right wing? Deficit reduction - dropped, Industrial Strategies - embraced, social security give aways - yep.
May can't show that right wing economics works - because it doesn't. Hence a shift to the sensible Keynesian approach that tends to work.
At the moment we have near-full employment, consistent growth and a bulging trade deficit: all characteristics of an economy heading towards a boom if not already there. I take it that you are therefore advocating that the government should be running a budget surplus (certainly in structural terms). how should it get there?
I have never thought of 2% growth as being close to boom conditions - indeed it is a little below par if anything. As for being 'near full - employment' , that fails to take account of those who are classified as in full-time employment despite working barely 16 hours per week on an involuntary basis , or those who have been pragmatically transferred to ESA/Incapcity Benefit/PIP by successive Governments since the late 1980s, or indeed those 16 - 18 year olds no longer eligible for JSA etc. Without these 'adjustments' I would suggest that on a like for like basis with the 1970s and much of the 1980s headline unemployment would still be in excess of 2.5 million. I share the concern regarding the balance of payments deficit - particularly in the context of historically low economic growth and high unemployment.
There is also the issue of people declaring themselves self-employed (e.g, Internet buying and selling) and over-declaring income and hours to qualify for tax credits, which have far fewer hoops to get than JSA. It is impossible to know how many of the large number of new self-started businesses are genuine. Whatever, it makes the unemployment stats particularly uninformative.
Comments
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226078/We-gunned-English-women-children--great-fun-Newly-published-transcripts-private-conversations-PoWs-prove.html
http://tinyurl.com/jjkcafk
They're fortunate it came down in the early hours of the morning.
@HurstLlama
O/T
Another rail ticketing quirk for you:
Yesterday, went from Birmingham to Worksop via Nottingham in order to do the Robin Hood Line through Mansfield et al.
Advertised through fare was £54 return off peak, but by buying two separate tickets Brum - Notts (£18 return) and Notts to Worksop (£8.50 return), it worked out less than £27!
No, I took my wife's maiden name as an additional middle name when we got married. I didn't want to double-barrel and felt it appropriate given that she'd taken my surname.
https://twitter.com/MichaelLCrick/status/759845269831757824
Although you won't be able to ask for split ticketing at the ticket machine at the station,
That's exactly what I did yesterday at New Street. There was an option to ask for a fare "from another station".
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-36953439
Rail pricing in this country is crackers.
If you distort information, then decisions based on that information are not going to be as good as if you didn't distorted that information.
Or in economic terms, when you compromise price signals, by manipulating interest rates rates, and/or altering the money supply, you make it disrupt the ability to allocated recourses to there optimal use, leading to poor decisions on the level of investment especially in long term projects' that will course bubbles, that when burst will lead to recessions and if the distortions continues depressions
The "Microgricers", who are after all tracks, crossovers and platforms, and avail themselves of the detailed track diagrams.
And then what I call the "Bakerists", who just make do with the "Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland" by Stuart (S.K.) Baker, which shows routes at much less detail. I have a Baker Atlas, so I definitely fall into the latter group. Let's just say I bought two copies of his latest edition, one of which has been thoroughly defaced over the last year or so!
Indeed, though the enlightenment of the period was extremely patchy. There's a huge contrast between the urbanity of Chaucer and the ignorance of other literature of the period, where the writer had manifestly read little except for the bible.
The theoretical basis is bunkum and the empirical evidence is scant.
I'm not a massive fan of Friedman but he did the analysis that showed the Austrian business cycle stuff was bollocks and not borne out by empirical evidence (i.e. recession happened when there wasn't artificially cheap money sloshing around)
http://www.psul4all.free-online.co.uk/2016.htm
IIRC, he also turned down a KG as well and was only later persuaded to take it after it was made clear that the (new) queen would be seriously offended if he did.
Curiously, although he certainly didn't have the wealth of a duke, the post-war era was the one time when he did become at least very comfortably off, as his history of WWII sold exceptionally well. Simultaneously, the social expectations of the aristocracy became diminished as the costs of the war and high taxation bit.
Trains can be crazily expensive if you have to travel at the last minute, or have to be flexible, or are aged between 25 and 60. For those of us richer in years they are a brilliant way of getting about.
P.S. Just bought my son a European inter-rail pass. All the travel he wants by train anywhere in Europe for 30 days - 313 euros (he is young so can cope with second class.
Lack of maintenance.
Locals have been complaining for years about the bridge.
Usual definition is "2 quarters of negative GDP growth".
Qs 2 and 3 1956, Qs 3 and 4 1961.
Next you'll be telling me that there was a double-dip recession.
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/760466799091679232
Announcement tomorrow.
So once again Austrian Economics fails the "any actual relationship to the real world in practice" test. It is a theoretical construct based on unreal premises with not practical application to reality.
"It's going to cost you guvnor."
A few inexpert comments:
Some of the voussoirs (arch stones) have been pinned - you can see the end of the pins in the pictures. This means they've had trouble with this bridge in the past, or at least concerns. These pins are often put into prevent the structure spreading.
The spandrel wall that collapsed has not been pinned, at least obviously.
This line is due to be electrified: has there been some advance work that's destabilised it, or was it due for replacement?
There's actually a narrow tracked dumper on top of the debris. Were the roadworks there before the collapse?
Their initial task will be to check the integrity of the bridge as a whole. Only if they're happy the arches and other spandrels (plus any wing walls) are structurally safe will they look at doing temporary fixes to the spandrel.
Worst case: demolition of the bridge and closure of the road above until a replacement can be built. Someone local might know how inconvenient that would be for the natives.
Not sure how the words 'subjective choices' and 'subjective factors' fits with your description of the Austrian school requiring perfect rationality.
Economics is, in my view, too complex a system to be truly amenable to a perfect description based on a few interacting formulas. Even if it is, it is too complex for us to devine those formulas by empirical observation.
That said, I think both the Austrian and the Keynesian schools have added to our understanding of how individual actions and choices are aggregated into what we see as 'the economy'. I am unwilling to either accept completely or write off completely either of the school's contributions.