[Clipped words of wisdom from the Nabavi of All Sussex]
You also believed Osborne had it spot on when he boasted in 2010 that growth was established
Osborne was correct to state that growth had been established in 2010. What he did not forsee, in common with the OECD, IMF and their member nations, was market pressure on the deficits and debt of peripheral Eurozone countries and on the lack of an acceptable sovereign risk management infrastructure in the EU and ECB.
This market pressure, now being caused the Eurozone crisis, forced the whole of the Eurozone into a double dip recession from which it has not yet emerged. Even Germany, which grew by 4% in 2010 and 3% in 2011 was forced into contraction in 2012-13 against its own expectations and third party forecasts and the crisis had a global impact leading to depressed growth as far apart as Japan, the US and, now, even in the BRICS countries.
So Osborne was not alone in missing the threat of the Eurozone crisis and its negative impact on growth. Where Osborne is alone is that the UK is the only major EU country not to have been forced into recession as a result of the Eurozone, albeit by the thinnest of margins. The UK was also the earliest major EU country to start exiting from the impact of the Eurozone crisis and currently leads recovery in the region by a large margin.
Thatcher gave thousands of people trapped in Labours "keep them down" Policy and gave them, for the first time in their history, the opportunity to acquire an asset..Labour still hate her for it. It would be interesting to have a poll of people who bought their houses then to see if it went well for them, there might even be a few PB'ers who went that route
And isn't that the essence of zero hours/casual work - no side is committed to anything bar an agreement to carry on/turn up when it suits or arranged. It can't be relied on from either party. If you're unhappy with what's asked/offered - you can simply say No Thanks and change.
Yes that is the real essence of zero hours contracts and casual work . Where serious criticisms arise are those cases where the zero hours contract ties the "employee" not to seek other casual work and in effect not being able to claim JSA in exchange in exchange for being placed on a list of people some of whom will be called if jobs turn up .
Yes, that's exactly right.
Schards: "Meanwhile, the Labour 41 figure merely reinforces Miliband's drag on their popularity."
Eh? More drags that helped produce that result will be entirely welcome. I think it's an outlier, but whatever it is, it's jolly good.
Ed goes missing = Labour VI goes up.
Somehow, I doubt he'll go missing during the general election campaign
What a pathetic immigration speech/stunt by Bryant/labour tomorrow,it says nothing on what labour will do about it,proberly nowt.labour the party that caused the problem.
More weasel words from labour and the 3 main parties on immigration.
[Clipped words of wisdom from the Nabavi of All Sussex]
You also believed Osborne had it spot on when he boasted in 2010 that growth was established
Osborne was correct to state that growth had been established in 2010. What he did not forsee, in common with the OECD, IMF and their member nations, was market pressure on the deficits and debt of peripheral Eurozone countries and on the lack of an acceptable sovereign risk management infrastructure in the EU and ECB.
This market pressure, now being caused the Eurozone crisis, forced the whole of the Eurozone into a double dip recession from which it has not yet emerged. Even Germany, which grew by 4% in 2010 and 3% in 2011 was forced into contraction in 2012-13 against its own expectations and third party forecasts and the crisis had a global impact leading to depressed growth as far apart as Japan, the US and, now, even in the BRICS countries.
So Osborne was not alone in missing the threat of the Eurozone crisis and its negative impact on growth. Where Osborne is alone is that the UK is the only major EU country not to have been forced into recession as a result of the Eurozone, albeit by the thinnest of margins. The UK was also the earliest major EU country to start exiting from the impact of the Eurozone crisis and currently leads recovery in the region by a large margin.
Whilst interesting and helpful to some, your analysis is of no value to tim. He starts with the answer: Osborne is a Conservative and therefore wrong, and fits his data and reasoning to fit his pre-judgement. Some of his laughable suggestions on the day of the last budget, born of a pre-judgement that it would be another Omni-shambles, were perfect evidence for his lack of ability as an analyst.
NB. above statement may be classed as "stalking"... one isn't bothered.
WRT housing policy, lost in all the bleating about imaginary housing bubbles, is the reality that this policy is designed to address the problem of it being nearly impossibility for first time buyers to get on the housing market or for next time buyers without considerable equity to move - unless of course they come from wealthy backgrounds and can be gifted the huge deposit required.
Sad to see Labour again campaigning against a policy that supports social mobility because it's politically expedient for them to do so.
The idea that stoking up house prices helps first time buyers is bullshit. Osbornes schemes extend up to £600k, and include Buy To Let subsidies through funding for lending and will include remortgaging from January. Anyone trying to buy a flat in London has fallen further behind the market than their student fee debt with just the last 12 months price rises, and the really mad subsidies have not started yet.
5% of £400,000 = £20,000
25% of £300,000 = £75,000
Even if your imaginary bubble produced a 33% increase of house prices (it won't) it will still be hugely beneficial for first time buyers wanting to get on to the housing ladder.
In reality, outside of London, there is likely to be a minimal rise in prices and the opportunity of home ownership will be available to many thousands of hard working aspiring people who don't have the benefit of the bank of mum and dad.
Whilst the first time buyer's deposit may be lower, the amount they have to borrow will be much greater. Consequently while the deposit becomes more affordable with the new scheme, the boost to house prices makes it less likely that the larger loan will be affordable and thus not granted.
Of course, much can go wrong, although one thing that certainly won't go wrong is a housing bubble, as a cursory look at the actual figures immediately demonstrates. .
So how does that work? What figures, and whatever they are how can they yield a result as emphatic as that?
Here is an Ambrose Evans-Pritchard article from back in the very dark days of April of this year.
It looks at the slump in housing markets in the Eurozone, particularly in France, Holland, Portugal, Ireland and Spain. It also contrasts the house price falls in these countries with the modest growth in Germany and the (then) stability in the UK market. Since April, it has become clear that the UK market has bottomed out in its fall in real term prices and started to slowly grow again.
AEP notes that: The UK and Holland had comparable bubbles: the difference is that stimulus by the Bank of England stabilized the market.
Now this is not evidence in figures that the UK will not experience another "housing bubble" but as a first step in the debate, it does establish a comparative and starting context.
Article here: http://bit.ly/YhaugJ [Make sure you click through to the second graphic as it has a couple of interesting and telling graphs]
And isn't that the essence of zero hours/casual work - no side is committed to anything bar an agreement to carry on/turn up when it suits or arranged. It can't be relied on from either party. If you're unhappy with what's asked/offered - you can simply say No Thanks and change.
Yes that is the real essence of zero hours contracts and casual work . Where serious criticisms arise are those cases where the zero hours contract ties the "employee" not to seek other casual work and in effect not being able to claim JSA in exchange in exchange for being placed on a list of people some of whom will be called if jobs turn up .
Yes, that's exactly right.
Schards: "Meanwhile, the Labour 41 figure merely reinforces Miliband's drag on their popularity."
Eh? More drags that helped produce that result will be entirely welcome. I think it's an outlier, but whatever it is, it's jolly good.
Ed goes missing = Labour VI goes up.
Somehow, I doubt he'll go missing during the general election campaign
Worth a shot. When you've got an election consisting of three people that the voters think are all shit, maybe the winner is whichever one has the presence of mind not to show up.
according to the PB political guru from Cheshire/Liverpool..no-one in the entire world has ever pointed at a squid, except Cameron..No politician has ever had a photo shoot..except Cameron.. this is the best political analysis the guru can come up with..astonishing. No Labour policies at all to discuss..not one.. Hey , "theres Dave pointing at a squid, in a fish market"...earth shattering stuff...
@tim,come on,where's the bloody criticism of Bryant/labour on the immigration speech tomorrow,it's just bluster and bull with no action,pathetic ,plus it goes against everything you have been posting about immigration.
And isn't that the essence of zero hours/casual work - no side is committed to anything bar an agreement to carry on/turn up when it suits or arranged. It can't be relied on from either party. If you're unhappy with what's asked/offered - you can simply say No Thanks and change.
Yes that is the real essence of zero hours contracts and casual work . Where serious criticisms arise are those cases where the zero hours contract ties the "employee" not to seek other casual work and in effect not being able to claim JSA in exchange in exchange for being placed on a list of people some of whom will be called if jobs turn up .
Yes, that's exactly right.
Schards: "Meanwhile, the Labour 41 figure merely reinforces Miliband's drag on their popularity."
Eh? More drags that helped produce that result will be entirely welcome. I think it's an outlier, but whatever it is, it's jolly good.
Ed goes missing = Labour VI goes up.
Somehow, I doubt he'll go missing during the general election campaign
Worth a shot. When you've got an election consisting of three people that the voters think are all shit, maybe the winner is whichever one has the presence of mind not to show up.
Good point. Could UK GE 2015 be the 'Who's the Least Shit?' election?
And isn't that the essence of zero hours/casual work - no side is committed to anything bar an agreement to carry on/turn up when it suits or arranged. It can't be relied on from either party. If you're unhappy with what's asked/offered - you can simply say No Thanks and change.
Yes that is the real essence of zero hours contracts and casual work . Where serious criticisms arise are those cases where the zero hours contract ties the "employee" not to seek other casual work and in effect not being able to claim JSA in exchange in exchange for being placed on a list of people some of whom will be called if jobs turn up .
Yes, that's exactly right.
Schards: "Meanwhile, the Labour 41 figure merely reinforces Miliband's drag on their popularity."
Eh? More drags that helped produce that result will be entirely welcome. I think it's an outlier, but whatever it is, it's jolly good.
Ed goes missing = Labour VI goes up.
Somehow, I doubt he'll go missing during the general election campaign
Maybe Dave will drop some of his summer stunts, holding hands and pointing at squid after pimping bereaved families for a porn filter launch doesn't appear to have worked, besides being humiliating for all concerned
Porn Filter..The only effective Porn Filter is or are the parents..Take control of the comp and you take control of the downloads..easy..It is called Parental Responsibility'
You could even teach them to turn off the lights in the West wing of the Manor, or was that the East wing..so many wings.. .
Thatcher gave thousands of people trapped in Labours "keep them down" Policy and gave them, for the first time in their history, the opportunity to acquire an asset..Labour still hate her for it. It would be interesting to have a poll of people who bought their houses then to see if it went well for them, there might even be a few PB'ers who went that route
Richard, we see the result of that nowadays, we pay landlords a fortune to house someone in an ex-council house, huge waiting lists are just filling the pockets of people who can afford to buy multiple houses. Great idea that was badly thought out and implemented. The money should have been ringfenced for new housing and caps placed on profiteering. Like all Tory sell offs we are paying plenty for what we used to own.
Probably slightly unfair to the Tories to use Labour`s best Youguv poll in days to compare last years` poll with.Gives a slightly skewed picture.
Labour needs a good cull of dead wood.I haven`t heard anything from several members of the shadow cabinet in months.While energy prices and company profits have been going up,Caroline Flint,shadow energy secretary has completely shut up.? Candidate for cull
Unfortunately Caroline Flint decided to copy a stuck record on Daybreak this Friday - abridged version below - fuller version on Politics Home.
“The truth is, the market isn’t working because it’s not transparent enough.”
“The truth is when those wholesale prices go up they put it up on our bills but when they go down we don’t see it turn the other way.”
Shouting out the same chorus doesn't help spread the message.
It's funny when I read Labour, Tory and L/Dem PBers slagging each other off. It's amusing that there is talk of Red Ed reshuffling his shadow of a shadow cabinet. It's even more amusing when dear old Dave is talking about reshuffling his actual cabinet, but never gets round to it.
As for Clegg, if he moves one cabinet member the whole lot shiver.
The sad truth that is percolating through more and more minds is that these three parties are all the same. The British people are slowly waking up to this fact. As Lincoln said: "You can fool the people.................etc. Even the British won't be fooled forever.
we are all lokking forward to Farage announcing the UKIP shadow cabinet , one big snag being there are no UKIP MPs to serve in it and no likelihood of any in the foreseeable future .
Don't be silly Mark, it doesn't become you.
Yep , I am being silly , thinking of UKIP as a seious political party with a shadow cabinet and MPs , totally crass !!!!
Agents estimate that about 60% of homes in the development [Battersea Power] were bought by overseas buyers when they came on to the market a few years ago. Of the ones that went to international buyers, three quarters were bought as investments to be rented out.
The influx of foreign buyers has been a key driver in pushing up prices. Between 2010 and 2011 many overseas investors, fearing the consequences if Greece were to quit the eurozone, bought up prime London real estate as a defensive measure, a hedge against falling prices elsewhere. Research published by upmarket estate agent Knight Frank suggests that 53% of PCL properties that sold for more than £2m in the 12 months to March of this year went to overseas buyers.
Further up the value chain, foreign buyers become even more dominant, with the proportion of PCL properties worth more than £5m sold to non-UK nationals now close to 60% [this matters because price indicies are quoted on an average price basis]
Perhaps strangely , some of the most vehement comments against zero hours contracts were on a thread on the subject on Conhome some days ago before EdM had made any comment on the subject .
Why's that strange?
Zero hours contracts aren't particularly a right/left issue
Not sure about that. Surely they are a Rightwing free-market fundamentalist / supply-sider's wet dream?
Tesco recruits cheap Eastern European workers over British staff, Labour says in attack on 'unscrupulous employers'.
More evidence for my "fuckwit focus group" theory. The parties have realized the next election will be decided by a select few percent of unbelievably stupid people. They've both gathered teams of these people, shut them up in rooms with locked windows and no sharp objects they could hurt themselves on and put them to work making policies.
Next time you hear a minister proposing letting people park on double-yellow lines, or a member of the shadow cabinet saying he wants to make everybody's internet connection be censored by default in case they have children and don't know how to look after them, which the PM then decides to implement himself instead of using it as a chance to show everyone how stupid the opposition are, you'll know where it's coming from.
Of course, much can go wrong, although one thing that certainly won't go wrong is a housing bubble, as a cursory look at the actual figures immediately demonstrates. .
So how does that work? What figures, and whatever they are how can they yield a result as emphatic as that?
Here is an Ambrose Evans-Pritchard article from back in the very dark days of April of this year.
It looks at the slump in housing markets in the Eurozone, particularly in France, Holland, Portugal, Ireland and Spain. It also contrasts the house price falls in these countries with the modest growth in Germany and the (then) stability in the UK market. Since April, it has become clear that the UK market has bottomed out in its fall in real term prices and started to slowly grow again.
AEP notes that: The UK and Holland had comparable bubbles: the difference is that stimulus by the Bank of England stabilized the market.
Now this is not evidence in figures that the UK will not experience another "housing bubble" but as a first step in the debate, it does establish a comparative and starting context.
Article here: http://bit.ly/YhaugJ [Make sure you click through to the second graphic as it has a couple of interesting and telling graphs]
Yebbut all housing markets are local markets, and the past is not the future.
There are two tsunamis of money bearing down on the uk market: Osborne's borrowers, and the cash rich whose deposits now earn, as an intended effect of Osborne's plan, derisory rates 2 percentage points below inflation. The supply of the goods they are seeking is going to increase (via housebuilding) at a much slower pace than the supply of money. If that isn't an inflationary state of affairs, what is?
MG.. More nonsense from you as usual, but quite funny..as usual. I never felt as if I owned anyone's council house..and in a lot of councils the money was put into rebuild, in fact, many councils only released properties of a certain vintage to be sold, cutting down on the mainrtenance... Not aware of any one but tenants being able to buy, maybe after resale some one could acquire, but then the long term owner had taken some money out of the system..and get this..for their benefit... something they were never able to do in the past have some dosh in the bank...Ta Maggie... I bet none of em would go back to the old system. I never lived in a council house as an adult..always bought my own. In those days , we saved the deposit, not massive by todays standards but as a % of income it was huge..took four years of staying in, no holidays, no car, to get the first deposit...Don't see much of that these days..
What a pathetic immigration speech/stunt by Bryant/labour tomorrow,it says nothing on what labour will do about it,proberly nowt.labour the party that caused the problem.
More weasel words from labour and the 3 main parties on immigration.
What a pathetic immigration speech/stunt by Bryant/labour tomorrow,it says nothing on what labour will do about it,proberly nowt.labour the party that caused the problem.
More weasel words from labour and the 3 main parties on immigration.
The kind of vile race baiting we've come to expect from Woolas' Labour.
MG.. More nonsense from you as usual, but quite funny..as usual. I never felt as if I owned anyone's council house..and in a lot of councils the money was put into rebuild, in fact, many councils only released properties of a certain vintage to be sold, cutting down on the mainrtenance... Not aware of any one but tenants being able to buy, maybe after resale some one could acquire, but then the long term owner had taken some money out of the system..and get this..for their benefit... something they were never able to do in the past have some dosh in the bank...Ta Maggie... I bet none of em would go back to the old system. I never lived in a council house as an adult..always bought my own. In those days , we saved the deposit, not massive by todays standards but as a % of income it was huge..took four years of staying in, no holidays, no car, to get the first deposit...Don't see much of that these days..
Well why do we have such a shortage of social housing nowadays , whilst lining the pockets of landlords. Certainly in Scotland Labour built about 10 houses in 10 years , and pretty sure they would be doing similar in England. As I said good idea shambolically implemented.
WRT housing policy, lost in all the bleating about imaginary housing bubbles, is the reality that this policy is designed to address the problem of it being nearly impossibility for first time buyers to get on the housing market or for next time buyers without considerable equity to move - unless of course they come from wealthy backgrounds and can be gifted the huge deposit required.
Sad to see Labour again campaigning against a policy that supports social mobility because it's politically expedient for them to do so.
The idea that stoking up house prices helps first time buyers is bullshit. Osbornes schemes extend up to £600k, and include Buy To Let subsidies through funding for lending and will include remortgaging from January. Anyone trying to buy a flat in London has fallen further behind the market than their student fee debt with just the last 12 months price rises, and the really mad subsidies have not started yet.
Stop conflating schemes that are designed to do different things. It doesn't help proper analysis of the situation.
One of the biggest risks facing the economy is the unwinding of the fixedprice deals of the last few years, with individuals trapped on SVRs. The purpose of including BTL in FFL, and allowing remortgaging is to try and ensure a continuation of the supply of credit on reasonable terms.
The alternatives are worse: either a squeeze on disposable incomes or an uncontrolled fall in house prices
Imagine Mr Farage saying this and Mr Bryant calling him a Little Englander bigot...
" Mr Bryant plans to say: “Take the case of Tesco, who recently decided to move their distribution centre in Kent. The new centre is larger and employs more people, but the staff at original site, most of them British, were told that they could only move to the new centre if they took a cut in pay.
“The result? A large percentage of the staff at the new centre are from Eastern bloc.”
Mr Bryant is then due to accuse Next, which has around 540 British stores and employs about 54,500 people, the large majority of them in the UK, of targeting cheap imported Labour using leaflets printed in Polish.
Extracts from his speech say: “Look at Next PLC, who last year brought 500 Polish workers to work in their South Elmsall [West Yorkshire] warehouse for their summer sale and another 300 this summer.
“They were recruited in Poland and charged £50 to find them accommodation. The advantage to Next? They get to avoid Agency Workers Regulations which apply after a candidate has been employed for over 12 weeks, so Polish temps end up considerably cheaper than the local workforce which includes many former Next employees.”
Just heard about Bryant's attack on Eastern European workers in British supermarkets. Disgusting Jobs-for-the-British stuff. The politics of the gutter.
As the media narrative switches into a more fulsome acknowledgement that Osborne has been right all along, public perception should also start moving; at a guess, I'd say this will begin to show through in voting intention figures in late 2013 or early 2014.
There was an interesting article in last week's Spectator arguing that Osborne's chances in a post-GE defeat leadership contest are improving with the economics. It also noted that Boris doesn't need to be an MP to participate in the leadership election (just be nominated by MPs).
Perhaps people should look to trade out of May if the competition is stronger than expected?
What a pathetic immigration speech/stunt by Bryant/labour tomorrow,it says nothing on what labour will do about it,proberly nowt.labour the party that caused the problem.
More weasel words from labour and the 3 main parties on immigration.
The kind of vile race baiting we've come to expect from Woolas' Labour.
I see Bryant has leaked elements of his attack on Eastern European supermarket employees to the Telegraph - the usual tactic when Labour wants approval from the hard Right. But my hunch is that the slander against Tesco and Next will be removed from the final draft, being possibly actionable.
“They were recruited in Poland and charged £50 to find them accommodation. The advantage to Next? They get to avoid Agency Workers Regulations which apply after a candidate has been employed for over 12 weeks, so Polish temps end up considerably cheaper than the local workforce which includes many former Next employees.”
You mean the Labour's reforms that increased the cost of UK-based temps were a bad idea?
(A wee smug bstrd aside: I got a 5.74% rise this year. And started an extra income stream.)
I see Spain's hourly wage rate fell less than the UK's - no wonder unemployment is so high in Spain.
(personally, my current job pays about 20% less per hour than the one I had in 2010)
Yes surely this is the point. If Spain has 27% unemployment surely that is saying (to a large extent) wage rates are uncompetitive versus Germany (say), - but of course they can't devalue.
To an extent the Uk has bought its 7 point something unemployment by a large devaluation combined with wage restraint. That has suppressed demand of course, but I can't see many takers for swapping with Spain.
(A wee smug bstrd aside: I got a 5.74% rise this year. And started an extra income stream.)
I see Spain's hourly wage rate fell less than the UK's - no wonder unemployment is so high in Spain.
(personally, my current job pays about 20% less per hour than the one I had in 2010)
You'd have to look at the detail to figure out what it means. For example, if you've got a lot of unemployed people in Britain but the economy starts to pick up and they get low-paid jobs, that'll drag down the wage of the average worker.
Sometimes I despair as the Law of Unintended Consequences which were bloody obvious to anyone in business.
It's the same as ramping up maternity leave etc to the point where an employer will choose a man or older woman because they pose less of cost risk.
That politicians sit round rubbing their chins and congratulating themselves on how marvellously *progressive* they are - human nature carries on regardless.
“They were recruited in Poland and charged £50 to find them accommodation. The advantage to Next? They get to avoid Agency Workers Regulations which apply after a candidate has been employed for over 12 weeks, so Polish temps end up considerably cheaper than the local workforce which includes many former Next employees.”
You mean the Labour's reforms that increased the cost of UK-based temps were a bad idea?
WRT housing policy, lost in all the bleating about imaginary housing bubbles, is the reality that this policy is designed to address the problem of it being nearly impossibility for first time buyers to get on the housing market or for next time buyers without considerable equity to move - unless of course they come from wealthy backgrounds and can be gifted the huge deposit required.
Sad to see Labour again campaigning against a policy that supports social mobility because it's politically expedient for them to do so.
The idea that stoking up house prices helps first time buyers is bullshit. Osbornes schemes extend up to £600k, and include Buy To Let subsidies through funding for lending and will include remortgaging from January. Anyone trying to buy a flat in London has fallen further behind the market than their student fee debt with just the last 12 months price rises, and the really mad subsidies have not started yet.
Stop conflating schemes that are designed to do different things. It doesn't help proper analysis of the situation.
One of the biggest risks facing the economy is the unwinding of the fixedprice deals of the last few years, with individuals trapped on SVRs. The purpose of including BTL in FFL, and allowing remortgaging is to try and ensure a continuation of the supply of credit on reasonable terms.
The alternatives are worse: either a squeeze on disposable incomes or an uncontrolled fall in house prices
Man inherits property, man supports taxpayer subsidised property inflation.
Entitlement plus addiction to the state, I'm shocked I tell you.
You would have loved the immigration speech by Bryant/labour tomorrow to have been done by the tories,we wouldn't heard the end of it from you but done by your own party,not a peep.
It goes against everything you spoken out against on immigration and you say nothing,another party worker/loyalist,pathetic.
Sometimes I despair as the Law of Unintended Consequences which were bloody obvious to anyone in business.
It's the same as ramping up maternity leave etc to the point where an employer will choose a man or older woman because they pose less of cost risk.
That politicians sit round rubbing their chins and congratulating themselves on how marvellously *progressive* they are - human nature carries on regardless.
“They were recruited in Poland and charged £50 to find them accommodation. The advantage to Next? They get to avoid Agency Workers Regulations which apply after a candidate has been employed for over 12 weeks, so Polish temps end up considerably cheaper than the local workforce which includes many former Next employees.”
You mean the Labour's reforms that increased the cost of UK-based temps were a bad idea?
Largely agree. Not that all reform is bad of course otherwise we'd still have five year olds sweeping chimneys and the like, but I often marvel at the law of unintended consequences.
A classic of the genre being the 2003 pension act designed to protect workers against more Maxwells and Allied Steel and Wires ( rightly so too, the aim was noble ) but has ended up piling so much risk on to companies that it has resulted in good workers' pensions being on their death bed having the last rites. The net result is pension provision for the private sector will be worse by far in coming decades than the past, ie the opposite of what the act spiritually set out to do.
I note you are still discussing house prices. I posted on a previous thread about this (and I will repost it again after this post). The short answer is:
"The data we have is consistent with the early stages of a boom. But because a boom has to be sustained for it to be a boom, we won't know for sure for some time. Comparisons are further complicated by the fact that housepurchase is not an instantaneous process but takes months, and different indices capture data at different stages in the process"
I can appreciate why Next is a bogeyman in Labour minds - it was founded in the 1980s and had vague connotations of Thatcherism and Yuppies. But what has Tesco done to deserve Labour's hate? Did they donate to the Tories at some point? Is it because they are successful?
There was a lively debate on the previous thread about whether there was or was not a house price bubble in progress. During this debate various indices were banded about. The problem with this is that the indices capture the info at different times as follows
1) You look at houses online (Rightmove index) 2) You go into an estate agents and mooch around (RICS survey) 3) You see a house, arrange a mortgage and put an offer in (Halifax and Nationwide indices) 4) The offer is accepted, you exchange and get the keys (Bank of England mortgage figures) 5) The solicitor registers the sale (Land Registry)
From beginning to end this takes six to eight months. So if a house price boom started in May, you'd see it in the June Rightmove index and RICS survey, then in the July/August Halifax and Nationwide indices, then in the Sept/Oct BOE figures, then in the Nov/Dec/Jan Land Registry index
We can say that the data we have is consistent with a HPB starting in May, but we won't know for sure until Xmas and (because one swallow doesn't make a summer), not even then. For a definitive answer you'll have to wait until May 2014: at which point it'll be too late...:-)
The latest (Jun/Jul) reports are given below for your perusal
WRT housing policy, lost in all the bleating about imaginary housing bubbles, is the reality that this policy is designed to address the problem of it being nearly impossibility for first time buyers to get on the housing market or for next time buyers without considerable equity to move - unless of course they come from wealthy backgrounds and can be gifted the huge deposit required.
Sad to see Labour again campaigning against a policy that supports social mobility because it's politically expedient for them to do so.
The idea that stoking up house prices helps first time buyers is bullshit. Osbornes schemes extend up to £600k, and include Buy To Let subsidies through funding for lending and will include remortgaging from January. Anyone trying to buy a flat in London has fallen further behind the market than their student fee debt with just the last 12 months price rises, and the really mad subsidies have not started yet.
Stop conflating schemes that are designed to do different things. It doesn't help proper analysis of the situation.
One of the biggest risks facing the economy is the unwinding of the fixedprice deals of the last few years, with individuals trapped on SVRs. The purpose of including BTL in FFL, and allowing remortgaging is to try and ensure a continuation of the supply of credit on reasonable terms.
The alternatives are worse: either a squeeze on disposable incomes or an uncontrolled fall in house prices
Man inherits property, man supports taxpayer subsidised property inflation.
Entitlement plus addiction to the state, I'm shocked I tell you.
You would have loved the immigration speech by Bryant/labour tomorrow to have been done by the tories,we wouldn't heard the end of it from you but done by your own party,not a peep.
It goes against everything you spoken out against on immigration and you say nothing,another party worker/loyalist,pathetic.
tim was parroting earlier from the Labour crib sheet earlier about 'standards of living'. Party stooge. I rarely bother reading.
I note you are still discussing house prices. I posted on a previous thread about this (and I will repost it again after this post). The short answer is:
"The data we have is consistent with the early stages of a boom. But because a boom has to be sustained for it to be a boom, we won't know for sure for some time. Comparisons are further complicated by the fact that housepurchase is not an instantaneous process but takes months, and different indices capture data at different stages in the process"
The very short answer is:
"Might be. Ask me again Xmas time"
Viewcode - far from a boom up here in Scotland, quite the opposite, only boom I ever hear about is in London.
I can appreciate why Next is a bogeyman in Labour minds - it was founded in the 1980s and had vague connotations of Thatcherism and Yuppies. But what has Tesco done to deserve Labour's hate? Did they donate to the Tories at some point? Is it because they are successful?
Shirley Porter's Dad (Jack Cohen - the "co") founded it.
The "tes" is T.E.Stockwell - I think they were actually a supplier to Jack's market stall and he just liked the name ;-)
That`s funny...All the fans of `Go home` vans and BME spot-checks have become fans of Tesco`s recruitment policy overnight...Better look in the mirror before making throwaway comments
Skynews was reporting that when Tesco moved it`s distribution centre,the British:EU workforce ratio changed from 70:30 to 30:70.This is what Bryant referred to.
Viewcode - far from a boom up here in Scotland, quite the opposite, only boom I ever hear about is in London.
Valid point: just as all politics is eventually local (for a given def'n of local), so is all house price data. I don't know enough about Scotland to comment meaningfully. I'd imagine any first signs to surface in Edinburgh, then travel west to Glasgow, then travel south towards the Borders and creep slowly upwards towards the Highlands, diffusing out until, by the time it hits the Islands, it's dissipated . I think Aberdeen obeys its own rules.
Sometimes I despair as the Law of Unintended Consequences which were bloody obvious to anyone in business.
It's the same as ramping up maternity leave etc to the point where an employer will choose a man or older woman because they pose less of cost risk.
That politicians sit round rubbing their chins and congratulating themselves on how marvellously *progressive* they are - human nature carries on regardless.
“They were recruited in Poland and charged £50 to find them accommodation. The advantage to Next? They get to avoid Agency Workers Regulations which apply after a candidate has been employed for over 12 weeks, so Polish temps end up considerably cheaper than the local workforce which includes many former Next employees.”
You mean the Labour's reforms that increased the cost of UK-based temps were a bad idea?
Largely agree. Not that all reform is bad of course otherwise we'd still have five year olds sweeping chimneys and the like, but I often marvel at the law of unintended consequences.
A classic of the genre being the 2003 pension act designed to protect workers against more Maxwells and Allied Steel and Wires ( rightly so too, the aim was noble ) but has ended up piling so much risk on to companies that it has resulted in good workers' pensions being on their death bed having the last rites. The net result is pension provision for the private sector will be worse by far in coming decades than the past, ie the opposite of what the act spiritually set out to do.
That`s funny...All the fans of `Go home` vans and BME spot-checks have become fans of Tesco`s recruitment policy overnight...Better look in the mirror before making throwaway comments
Skynews was reporting that when Tesco moved it`s distribution centre,the British:EU workforce ratio changed from 70:30 to 30:70.This is what Bryant referred to.
If his allegations are correct, then Bryant has potentially picked up on a problem. I only hope he's looked into what other companies may be using such tactics, and if they might end up biting his party.
If the comments are not correct, he may find himself in some legal difficulties. It will be interesting to see if the speech given is as advertised.
Cant help feeling the three big parties should just play a straight bat and admit, a la tim, the reasons why they think mass immigration is a great thing for our country. If its such a great idea, why not shout it from the rooftops? They let the immigrants in, they chose to change our country and they knew that it was unpopular with the people that lived here already, hence the lies about how many Polish would come in 2004 from Labour and the avoidance of the subject of how many Romanians and Bulgarians will come next year from the Conservatives.
Anyone who believes a "tough stance on immigration" stunt from Labour or the Conservatives is a complete idiot.
Tamara Cohen @tamcohen Withering stuff from Labour's Graham Stringer on #wato: 'deafening silence' from shadow cabinet stemming from 'lack of coherent policies'
That`s funny...All the fans of `Go home` vans and BME spot-checks have become fans of Tesco`s recruitment policy overnight...Better look in the mirror before making throwaway comments
Skynews was reporting that when Tesco moved it`s distribution centre,the British:EU workforce ratio changed from 70:30 to 30:70.This is what Bryant referred to.
I said the mobile vans were a silly idea and for the spot checks I posted they were no easy answers,get you facts right buddy.
Admit it,if the Bryant speech had been a tory idea,you would have been on here taking the P.
They're also building a tesco in my town which is in Bryant's constituency. It'll be filled with local staff when it opens.
TBF the claim quoted in the Telegraph article is about warehouses and distribution centres not supermarkets. It's probably easier to staff places where customers don't go with temporary foreign people.
Politically he's probably onto a winner in winning the votes of key floating-voting dimwits, especially if their response is to deny that they're hiring foreigners. It's quite an easy thing to convince people of, and presumably the papers will be helpful in tracking down large numbers of foreigners working in warehouses, or failing that making them up.
That`s funny...All the fans of `Go home` vans and BME spot-checks have become fans of Tesco`s recruitment policy overnight...Better look in the mirror before making throwaway comments
Skynews was reporting that when Tesco moved it`s distribution centre,the British:EU workforce ratio changed from 70:30 to 30:70.This is what Bryant referred to.
If his allegations are correct, then Bryant has potentially picked up on a problem. I only hope he's looked into what other companies may be using such tactics, and if they might end up biting his party.
If the comments are not correct, he may find himself in some legal difficulties. It will be interesting to see if the speech given is as advertised.
Are Tesco employing these British/EU workers on Zero Hours Contracts ?
I can appreciate why Next is a bogeyman in Labour minds - it was founded in the 1980s and had vague connotations of Thatcherism and Yuppies. But what has Tesco done to deserve Labour's hate? Did they donate to the Tories at some point? Is it because they are successful?
Shirley Porter's Dad (Jack Cohen - the "co") founded it.
The "tes" is T.E.Stockwell - I think they were actually a supplier to Jack's market stall and he just liked the name ;-)
I note you are still discussing house prices. I posted on a previous thread about this (and I will repost it again after this post). The short answer is:
"The data we have is consistent with the early stages of a boom. But because a boom has to be sustained for it to be a boom, we won't know for sure for some time. Comparisons are further complicated by the fact that housepurchase is not an instantaneous process but takes months, and different indices capture data at different stages in the process"
The very short answer is:
"Might be. Ask me again Xmas time"
I am forecasting a boom, not saying we are in the middle of one.
Just wondering how a bet could be framed about this. How big a year on year percentage rise counts as a boom? Should the percentage be in absolute terms or percentage over and above say CPI? Whose data - land Reg or Nationwide or what?
If his allegations are correct, then Bryant has potentially picked up on a problem.
No, he's potentially picked up the proper functioning of a free market. Maybe next he could do a thing on the outrageous shenanigans of companies that try to sell more than other companies by making better products.
Viecode..aahh stuff it then ... They can all live in mum and dads backroom, why give them any assistance at all..It's called negativism..lot of it about ..
What do you expect when all 3 main parties take the voters for fools.
What does party membership offer the average voter?
The only thing I can see with the tories is you choose the leader.
Pretty much. Can't see why anyone whose no either a long-standing member (intertia / social aspects) or a political obsessive (or careerist) would want to join.
Yebbut all housing markets are local markets, and the past is not the future.
Let us just look at housing.
Between 2000-07, i.e. pre-crisis, the average number of property transactions was 124,000 per month; mortgage approvals were 107,000 per month; and the ratio of sales to total housing stock was 0.42.
In 2012, the equivalent figures were: property transactions at 78,000; mortgage approvals at 51,000; and the sales to stock ratio was 0.23.
The market in 2012 was only very slightly more active than in 2010-11. Q1 2013 again only saw a small increase on 2012 (82,000; 54,000; 0.25).
So activity has only really started to accelerate in Q2 2013, but even here the figures are not threatening and remain well below pre-crisis levels. Here is a comparison table:
2013 Apr 79,000 54,000 0.27 2013 May 86,000 58,000 0.28 2013 Jun 84,000 58,000 0.27
With the BoE predicting mortgage approvals rising to around 60,000 per month by year end and with net mortgage lending still falling (borrowers are still paying back more than taking out), it is difficult to see any return to the housing bubble conditions of 2007 in the near to medium term future.
As to supply of new housing stock, completions are running at around 30,000 per quarter and rising (maybe to a rate of 50,000 per quarter by end 2014). So roughly at a rate of 12.5% of sales transactions. That is more than enough to prevent any inflationary pressure arising from demand exceeding supply.
So, as Richard Nabavi claimed downthread, the outturn figures do truly provide evidence that there is currently no inflationary bubble being blown by Osborne,
I can appreciate why Next is a bogeyman in Labour minds - it was founded in the 1980s and had vague connotations of Thatcherism and Yuppies. But what has Tesco done to deserve Labour's hate? Did they donate to the Tories at some point? Is it because they are successful?
Shirley Porter's Dad (Jack Cohen - the "co") founded it.
The "tes" is T.E.Stockwell - I think they were actually a supplier to Jack's market stall and he just liked the name ;-)
If his allegations are correct, then Bryant has potentially picked up on a problem.
No, he's potentially picked up the proper functioning of a free market. Maybe next he could do a thing on the outrageous shenanigans of companies that try to sell more than other companies by making better products.
I was particularly thinking of the accusation of recruiting in Poland to avoid the Agency Workers Regulations (presumably for short-term contracts).
Although even then there might be understandable reasons to do it: i.e. availability of local staff.
There is a point of view that current polling is really bad for the tories. The only opposition party in Parliament is led by a trappist monk who no one can find. The shadow cabinet are largely a bunch of Brownite left overs, barely warmed up and incapable of coherent thought. The economy is recovering, employment is at record highs, public money is being spent like it is going out of fashion and they are still 6% behind in the polls.
What does it take? Are the lefties right and the great British public just don' t like tories, even when they are repeatedly proved right?
If his allegations are correct, then Bryant has potentially picked up on a problem.
No, he's potentially picked up the proper functioning of a free market. Maybe next he could do a thing on the outrageous shenanigans of companies that try to sell more than other companies by making better products.
This rabble rousing by Bryant does at least show what an unmitigated disaster Labour's 'minimum wage' was. It's still clearly not good enough for the natives, who'd sooner languish on the dole than earn it. Let's scrap it, and if foreigners want to come over and earn less all the better. It'll make British business ultra-competitive.
MS As usual you miss the point. Tories are mean and nasty and say these things all the time, between eating infants..This is a shadow Cabinet Minister saying it, and he is in the Labour Party..got it...
Everything is bad for the Tories. If the economy picks up its bad because everyone will think Labour can turn the taps on, and if its bad Tories have failed, and every vote that matters will be LD one.
Unless of course its UKIP and they only hurt the Tories.
And... if it was this bad I'd slash my own wrists. But I think there's a huge amount of whistling in the dark going on from Labourites on PB. Their own MPs and Shad Cab members are on the airwaves bitching about their leader. And their own voters only give him a 50% approval according to a slew of polls.
Oh and they're somewhere around an average of c5pts ahead with 22 months to go.
I'm quietly cheerful for now. Tories have their own crap to sort out but its a lot shallower than I'd expect.
There is a point of view that current polling is really bad for the tories. The only opposition party in Parliament is led by a trappist monk who no one can find. The shadow cabinet are largely a bunch of Brownite left overs, barely warmed up and incapable of coherent thought. The economy is recovering, employment is at record highs, public money is being spent like it is going out of fashion and they are still 6% behind in the polls.
What does it take? Are the lefties right and the great British public just don' t like tories, even when they are repeatedly proved right?
If his allegations are correct, then Bryant has potentially picked up on a problem.
No, he's potentially picked up the proper functioning of a free market. Maybe next he could do a thing on the outrageous shenanigans of companies that try to sell more than other companies by making better products.
This rabble rousing by Bryant does at least show what an unmitigated disaster Labour's 'minimum wage' was. It's still clearly not good enough for the natives, who'd sooner languish on the dole than earn it. Let's scrap it, and if foreigners want to come over and earn less all the better. It'll make British business ultra-competitive.
I get the free market case for that but British business wasn't ultra-competitive before the minimum wage and wouldn't be ultra-competitive with it.
Unscrupulous? Blimey that's a bit OTT And of course Dagenham is in Kent...WTF? Nothing like facts getting in the way of a partisan attack on a major brand and employer...
"The Shadow Immigration Minister, Chris Bryant, had been due to use a speech tomorrow to call Tesco and Next “unscrupulous employers” who recruit cheap workers. He planned to say that the supermarket chain, which is one of Britain’s biggest employers, had moved its distribution centre to Kent where a “large percentage” of staff were from Eastern Europe.
Tesco hit back by claiming that Mr Bryant had got his facts wrong and expressed bewilderment as to why it had been targeted. A spokesman said that the supermarket did not have a distribution centre in Kent, suggesting that perhaps he had meant to refer to its new facility in Dagenham, Essex...The company said that it paid more than the minimum wage and that any recruitment agencies were strictly audited, adding that it did not actively recruit staff overseas.
Next also disputed the claims made by Mr Bryant, who had been due to say that the company used temporary foreign labour to avoid Agency Workers Regulations that apply to employees who work for more than 12 weeks. The clothes retailer, he had planned to say, had actively recruited and brought 500 Polish workers to their warehouse in West Yorkshire for their summer sale in 2012 and another 300 this year. The company said that, contrary to the MP’s claims, hiring Polish workers did not bypass the regulations. It said that it was “deeply disappointed” that he “did not bother” to check his facts before releasing extracts of his speech to a Sunday newspaper..." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3839826.ece
It's all right for Bryant who, when he's not dining at Fredericks, presumably buys his food at Fortnum and Mason, but normal, hard-working families rely on the affordable goods that Tesco can provide. Labour is made up of out-of-touch posh boys with no comprehension of living on a budget.
There was a lively debate on the previous thread about whether there was or was not a house price bubble in progress. During this debate various indices were banded about. The problem with this is that the indices capture the info at different times as follows
1) You look at houses online (Rightmove index) 2) You go into an estate agents and mooch around (RICS survey) 3) You see a house, arrange a mortgage and put an offer in (Halifax and Nationwide indices) 4) The offer is accepted, you exchange and get the keys (Bank of England mortgage figures) 5) The solicitor registers the sale (Land Registry)
From beginning to end this takes six to eight months. So if a house price boom started in May, you'd see it in the June Rightmove index and RICS survey, then in the July/August Halifax and Nationwide indices, then in the Sept/Oct BOE figures, then in the Nov/Dec/Jan Land Registry index
We can say that the data we have is consistent with a HPB starting in May, but we won't know for sure until Xmas and (because one swallow doesn't make a summer), not even then. For a definitive answer you'll have to wait until May 2014: at which point it'll be too late...:-)
The latest (Jun/Jul) reports are given below for your perusal
ONS and Academetrics also publish indices, but I've ignored them because they're not tied to a specific concept nor time.
Viewcode
You have convincingly proved that there are a number of different published data on house prices, some using differing sources and most using differing methodologies and timepoints, but where, oh where, is the evidence of an impending "boom"?
Plato.. Crosby will take Bryants statement and shove it where the sun only shines occasionally.. If you cannot get the basics right, Location, when on a mission then you are just gonna get slaughtered, and quite right too..I wonder if he will adjust his speech and try to incorporate some facts..
chris g @chrisg0000 British jobs for British workers says Nick Griffin, er I mean, Chris Bryant.
If Godfrey Bloom had said similar, would be lead story #ukip
If Grant Shapps had said similar all you pbtories would have been praising him .
I wouldn't.
No point in criticising the operation of the EU free market unless you are prepared to suggest meaningful changes. In the case of free movement of labour, I suspect exit is the only option if you don't like the implication.
Bryant is just grandstanding. Shouldn't be encouraged.
@Plato I am biased (and bored) but if people paid attention the tories would be out of sight at the moment. Not because they are particularly brilliant but because there really is no alternative.
When Maggie said that she was arguing about policy but the current opposition ( in a technical sense) are simply miles short of being able to run the proverbial whelk stall. This is not a healthy state of affairs for anyone and it really is time Labour did something about it.
Unscrupulous? Blimey that's a bit OTT And of course Dagenham is in Kent...WTF? Nothing like facts getting in the way of a partisan attack on a major brand and employer...
Tesco hit back by claiming that Mr Bryant had got his facts wrong and expressed bewilderment as to why it had been targeted. A spokesman said that the supermarket did not have a distribution centre in Kent, suggesting that perhaps he had meant to refer to its new facility in Dagenham, Essex...The company said that it paid more than the minimum wage and that any recruitment agencies were strictly audited, adding that it did not actively recruit staff overseas.
Next also disputed the claims made by Mr Bryant, who had been due to say that the company used temporary foreign labour to avoid Agency Workers Regulations that apply to employees who work for more than 12 weeks. The clothes retailer, he had planned to say, had actively recruited and brought 500 Polish workers to their warehouse in West Yorkshire for their summer sale in 2012 and another 300 this year. The company said that, contrary to the MP’s claims, hiring Polish workers did not bypass the regulations. It said that it was “deeply disappointed” that he “did not bother” to check his facts before releasing extracts of his speech to a Sunday newspaper..." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3839826.ece
This is just embarrassing. Incompetent fops. Bryant's speech writer will now be up all night redrafting the entire thing, though perhaps Bryant would be better off just cancelling and trying to forget about the entire sorry episode.
chris g @chrisg0000 @PlatoSays@ChrisBryantMP I think David Cameron needs to start waving at #Labour & shouting 'I'm over here'. Now its #Labour vs #Tesco!
It's all right for Bryant who, when he's not dining at Fredericks, presumably buys his food at Fortnum and Mason, but normal, hard-working families rely on the affordable goods that Tesco can provide. Labour is made up of out-of-touch posh boys with no comprehension of living on a budget.
Normal hard working families living on a budget would probably be shopping at Aldi or Iceland rather than Tesco if Tesco did not have a monopoly in their local area .
If you vote for parties that sign up to free movement of Labour across EU member states, you relinquish the right to complain when it happens
If you don't like it, vote UKIP. If you do like it, carry on as before.
Well said isam. And talking about UKIP new party branches are being established every week. I wouldn't be at all surprised if UKIP didn't have over 50,000 members by Xmas.
Plato.. Crosby will take Bryants statement and shove it where the sun only shines occasionally.. If you cannot get the basics right, Location, when on a mission then you are just gonna get slaughtered, and quite right too..I wonder if he will adjust his speech and try to incorporate some facts..
Plato.. Crosby will take Bryants statement and shove it where the sun only shines occasionally.. If you cannot get the basics right, Location, when on a mission then you are just gonna get slaughtered, and quite right too..I wonder if he will adjust his speech and try to incorporate some facts..
Are we not all more interested in what he will wear?
If you vote for parties that sign up to free movement of Labour across EU member states, you relinquish the right to complain when it happens
If you don't like it, vote UKIP. If you do like it, carry on as before.
Well said isam. And talking about UKIP new party branches are being established every week. I wouldn't be at all surprised if UKIP didn't have over 50,000 members by Xmas.
The zealotry of the convert.
Sweet, but can you dial down the ramping a little?
Comments
This market pressure, now being caused the Eurozone crisis, forced the whole of the Eurozone into a double dip recession from which it has not yet emerged. Even Germany, which grew by 4% in 2010 and 3% in 2011 was forced into contraction in 2012-13 against its own expectations and third party forecasts and the crisis had a global impact leading to depressed growth as far apart as Japan, the US and, now, even in the BRICS countries.
So Osborne was not alone in missing the threat of the Eurozone crisis and its negative impact on growth. Where Osborne is alone is that the UK is the only major EU country not to have been forced into recession as a result of the Eurozone, albeit by the thinnest of margins. The UK was also the earliest major EU country to start exiting from the impact of the Eurozone crisis and currently leads recovery in the region by a large margin.
Somehow, I doubt he'll go missing during the general election campaign
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2389216/Tesco-recruits-cheap-Eastern-European-workers-British-staff-Labour-says-attack-unscrupulous-employers.html
What a pathetic immigration speech/stunt by Bryant/labour tomorrow,it says nothing on what labour will do about it,proberly nowt.labour the party that caused the problem.
More weasel words from labour and the 3 main parties on immigration.
NB. above statement may be classed as "stalking"... one isn't bothered.
Whilst the first time buyer's deposit may be lower, the amount they have to borrow will be much greater. Consequently while the deposit becomes more affordable with the new scheme, the boost to house prices makes it less likely that the larger loan will be affordable and thus not granted.
It looks at the slump in housing markets in the Eurozone, particularly in France, Holland, Portugal, Ireland and Spain. It also contrasts the house price falls in these countries with the modest growth in Germany and the (then) stability in the UK market. Since April, it has become clear that the UK market has bottomed out in its fall in real term prices and started to slowly grow again.
AEP notes that: The UK and Holland had comparable bubbles: the difference is that stimulus by the Bank of England stabilized the market.
Now this is not evidence in figures that the UK will not experience another "housing bubble" but as a first step in the debate, it does establish a comparative and starting context.
Article here: http://bit.ly/YhaugJ [Make sure you click through to the second graphic as it has a couple of interesting and telling graphs]
No Labour policies at all to discuss..not one..
Hey , "theres Dave pointing at a squid, in a fish market"...earth shattering stuff...
Where's the criticism of your party tim.
You could even teach them to turn off the lights in the West wing of the Manor, or was that the East wing..so many wings.. .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23655605
(A wee smug bstrd aside: I got a 5.74% rise this year. And started an extra income stream.)
Agents estimate that about 60% of homes in the development [Battersea Power] were bought by overseas buyers when they came on to the market a few years ago. Of the ones that went to international buyers, three quarters were bought as investments to be rented out.
The influx of foreign buyers has been a key driver in pushing up prices. Between 2010 and 2011 many overseas investors, fearing the consequences if Greece were to quit the eurozone, bought up prime London real estate as a defensive measure, a hedge against falling prices elsewhere. Research published by upmarket estate agent Knight Frank suggests that 53% of PCL properties that sold for more than £2m in the 12 months to March of this year went to overseas buyers.
Further up the value chain, foreign buyers become even more dominant, with the proportion of PCL properties worth more than £5m sold to non-UK nationals now close to 60% [this matters because price indicies are quoted on an average price basis]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2389150/The-tragedy-Gordon-Brown--forgotten-Macbeth-British-politics-A-withering-portrayal-Left-wing-writer-turned-ex-PMs-failure-stage-play.html
Next time you hear a minister proposing letting people park on double-yellow lines, or a member of the shadow cabinet saying he wants to make everybody's internet connection be censored by default in case they have children and don't know how to look after them, which the PM then decides to implement himself instead of using it as a chance to show everyone how stupid the opposition are, you'll know where it's coming from.
" Extra income stream " , I bet.
There are two tsunamis of money bearing down on the uk market: Osborne's borrowers, and the cash rich whose deposits now earn, as an intended effect of Osborne's plan, derisory rates 2 percentage points below inflation. The supply of the goods they are seeking is going to increase (via housebuilding) at a much slower pace than the supply of money. If that isn't an inflationary state of affairs, what is?
I never felt as if I owned anyone's council house..and in a lot of councils the money was put into rebuild, in fact, many councils only released properties of a certain vintage to be sold, cutting down on the mainrtenance...
Not aware of any one but tenants being able to buy, maybe after resale some one could acquire, but then the long term owner had taken some money out of the system..and get this..for their benefit... something they were never able to do in the past have some dosh in the bank...Ta Maggie...
I bet none of em would go back to the old system.
I never lived in a council house as an adult..always bought my own. In those days , we saved the deposit, not massive by todays standards but as a % of income it was huge..took four years of staying in, no holidays, no car, to get the first deposit...Don't see much of that these days..
Deplorable.
One of the biggest risks facing the economy is the unwinding of the fixedprice deals of the last few years, with individuals trapped on SVRs. The purpose of including BTL in FFL, and allowing remortgaging is to try and ensure a continuation of the supply of credit on reasonable terms.
The alternatives are worse: either a squeeze on disposable incomes or an uncontrolled fall in house prices
" Mr Bryant plans to say: “Take the case of Tesco, who recently decided to move their distribution centre in Kent. The new centre is larger and employs more people, but the staff at original site, most of them British, were told that they could only move to the new centre if they took a cut in pay.
“The result? A large percentage of the staff at the new centre are from Eastern bloc.”
Mr Bryant is then due to accuse Next, which has around 540 British stores and employs about 54,500 people, the large majority of them in the UK, of targeting cheap imported Labour using leaflets printed in Polish.
Extracts from his speech say: “Look at Next PLC, who last year brought 500 Polish workers to work in their South Elmsall [West Yorkshire] warehouse for their summer sale and another 300 this summer.
“They were recruited in Poland and charged £50 to find them accommodation. The advantage to Next? They get to avoid Agency Workers Regulations which apply after a candidate has been employed for over 12 weeks, so Polish temps end up considerably cheaper than the local workforce which includes many former Next employees.”
Mr Bryant’s planned speech does not single out any other companies, although he cites the tourism industry as a whole and claims: “I have heard horror tales of hotel management deliberately cutting hours of young British workers and adding hours to migrant workers who do not complain about deductions from earnings that almost certainly take people below the minimum wage.” ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/epic/tsco/10235442/Labour-accuses-Tesco-and-Next-of-hiring-foreign-staff-on-the-cheap.html
Perhaps people should look to trade out of May if the competition is stronger than expected?
(personally, my current job pays about 20% less per hour than the one I had in 2010)
WelshRacer @Welshracer
@PlatoSays now imagine Farage in his y front underpants. #cannotbeunseen
To an extent the Uk has bought its 7 point something unemployment by a large devaluation combined with wage restraint. That has suppressed demand of course, but I can't see many takers for swapping with Spain.
It's the same as ramping up maternity leave etc to the point where an employer will choose a man or older woman because they pose less of cost risk.
That politicians sit round rubbing their chins and congratulating themselves on how marvellously *progressive* they are - human nature carries on regardless.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/10235857/Ed-Miliband-urged-to-sack-his-critics-from-Labour-shadow-cabinet.html
It goes against everything you spoken out against on immigration and you say nothing,another party worker/loyalist,pathetic.
A classic of the genre being the 2003 pension act designed to protect workers against more Maxwells and Allied Steel and Wires ( rightly so too, the aim was noble ) but has ended up piling so much risk on to companies that it has resulted in good workers' pensions being on their death bed having the last rites. The net result is pension provision for the private sector will be worse by far in coming decades than the past, ie the opposite of what the act spiritually set out to do.
I note you are still discussing house prices. I posted on a previous thread about this (and I will repost it again after this post). The short answer is:
"The data we have is consistent with the early stages of a boom. But because a boom has to be sustained for it to be a boom, we won't know for sure for some time. Comparisons are further complicated by the fact that housepurchase is not an instantaneous process but takes months, and different indices capture data at different stages in the process"
The very short answer is:
"Might be. Ask me again Xmas time"
There was a lively debate on the previous thread about whether there was or was not a house price bubble in progress. During this debate various indices were banded about. The problem with this is that the indices capture the info at different times as follows
1) You look at houses online (Rightmove index)
2) You go into an estate agents and mooch around (RICS survey)
3) You see a house, arrange a mortgage and put an offer in (Halifax and Nationwide indices)
4) The offer is accepted, you exchange and get the keys (Bank of England mortgage figures)
5) The solicitor registers the sale (Land Registry)
From beginning to end this takes six to eight months. So if a house price boom started in May, you'd see it in the June Rightmove index and RICS survey, then in the July/August Halifax and Nationwide indices, then in the Sept/Oct BOE figures, then in the Nov/Dec/Jan Land Registry index
We can say that the data we have is consistent with a HPB starting in May, but we won't know for sure until Xmas and (because one swallow doesn't make a summer), not even then. For a definitive answer you'll have to wait until May 2014: at which point it'll be too late...:-)
The latest (Jun/Jul) reports are given below for your perusal
* Rightmove (http://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/files/2013/07/july-2013.pdf )
* RICS (http://www.rics.org/uk/knowledge/market-analysis/uk-residential-market-survey/rics-residential-market-survey-june-2013/ )
* Halifax (http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/media/pdfs/halifax/2013/060813_HPI.pdf )
* Nationwide (http://www.nationwide.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/FBBFE94A-DA8F-44E9-9EF7-62103BDC9DB7/0/Jul_2013.pdf )
* Land Registry (http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/49529/HPIReport20130723.pdf )
ONS and Academetrics also publish indices, but I've ignored them because they're not tied to a specific concept nor time.
RT @TescoMedia Re: Chris Bryant's speech - the statements in relation to Tesco are untrue. We work incredibly hard to recruit from...
2/2] ... the local area and we have just recruited 350 local people to work in our Dagenham site
Did Bryant say that Tesco don`t recruit any local people?
How else has it backfired?
I had to get a mortgage buy my flat.
The "tes" is T.E.Stockwell - I think they were actually a supplier to Jack's market stall and he just liked the name ;-)
That`s funny...All the fans of `Go home` vans and BME spot-checks have become fans of Tesco`s recruitment policy overnight...Better look in the mirror before making throwaway comments
Skynews was reporting that when Tesco moved it`s distribution centre,the British:EU workforce ratio changed from 70:30 to 30:70.This is what Bryant referred to.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/parliament/2013/08/newspapers-report-conservative-membership-figures.html
What do you expect when all 3 main parties take the voters for fools.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BRFHfTtCYAAarW7.jpg:large
If the comments are not correct, he may find himself in some legal difficulties. It will be interesting to see if the speech given is as advertised.
Anyone who believes a "tough stance on immigration" stunt from Labour or the Conservatives is a complete idiot.
Withering stuff from Labour's Graham Stringer on #wato: 'deafening silence' from shadow cabinet stemming from 'lack of coherent policies'
Admit it,if the Bryant speech had been a tory idea,you would have been on here taking the P.
Politically he's probably onto a winner in winning the votes of key floating-voting dimwits, especially if their response is to deny that they're hiring foreigners. It's quite an easy thing to convince people of, and presumably the papers will be helpful in tracking down large numbers of foreigners working in warehouses, or failing that making them up.
"and we have just recruited 350 local people to work in our Dagenham site"
At the risk of starting another long Dagenham debate, how local these new employees were 10 years ago is questionable...
Just wondering how a bet could be framed about this. How big a year on year percentage rise counts as a boom? Should the percentage be in absolute terms or percentage over and above say CPI? Whose data - land Reg or Nationwide or what?
chris g @chrisg0000
British jobs for British workers says Nick Griffin, er I mean, Chris Bryant.
If Godfrey Bloom had said similar, would be lead story
#ukip
Yebbut all housing markets are local markets, and the past is not the future.
Let us just look at housing.
Between 2000-07, i.e. pre-crisis, the average number of property transactions was 124,000 per month; mortgage approvals were 107,000 per month; and the ratio of sales to total housing stock was 0.42.
In 2012, the equivalent figures were: property transactions at 78,000; mortgage approvals at 51,000; and the sales to stock ratio was 0.23.
The market in 2012 was only very slightly more active than in 2010-11. Q1 2013 again only saw a small increase on 2012 (82,000; 54,000; 0.25).
So activity has only really started to accelerate in Q2 2013, but even here the figures are not threatening and remain well below pre-crisis levels. Here is a comparison table: With the BoE predicting mortgage approvals rising to around 60,000 per month by year end and with net mortgage lending still falling (borrowers are still paying back more than taking out), it is difficult to see any return to the housing bubble conditions of 2007 in the near to medium term future.
As to supply of new housing stock, completions are running at around 30,000 per quarter and rising (maybe to a rate of 50,000 per quarter by end 2014). So roughly at a rate of 12.5% of sales transactions. That is more than enough to prevent any inflationary pressure arising from demand exceeding supply.
So, as Richard Nabavi claimed downthread, the outturn figures do truly provide evidence that there is currently no inflationary bubble being blown by Osborne,
Although even then there might be understandable reasons to do it: i.e. availability of local staff.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10204047/Hiring-UK-workers-more-important-than-profit-Matthew-Hancock-indicates.html
What does it take? Are the lefties right and the great British public just don' t like tories, even when they are repeatedly proved right?
If you don't like it, vote UKIP. If you do like it, carry on as before.
Everything is bad for the Tories. If the economy picks up its bad because everyone will think Labour can turn the taps on, and if its bad Tories have failed, and every vote that matters will be LD one.
Unless of course its UKIP and they only hurt the Tories.
And... if it was this bad I'd slash my own wrists. But I think there's a huge amount of whistling in the dark going on from Labourites on PB. Their own MPs and Shad Cab members are on the airwaves bitching about their leader. And their own voters only give him a 50% approval according to a slew of polls.
Oh and they're somewhere around an average of c5pts ahead with 22 months to go.
I'm quietly cheerful for now. Tories have their own crap to sort out but its a lot shallower than I'd expect.
"The Shadow Immigration Minister, Chris Bryant, had been due to use a speech tomorrow to call Tesco and Next “unscrupulous employers” who recruit cheap workers. He planned to say that the supermarket chain, which is one of Britain’s biggest employers, had moved its distribution centre to Kent where a “large percentage” of staff were from Eastern Europe.
Tesco hit back by claiming that Mr Bryant had got his facts wrong and expressed bewilderment as to why it had been targeted. A spokesman said that the supermarket did not have a distribution centre in Kent, suggesting that perhaps he had meant to refer to its new facility in Dagenham, Essex...The company said that it paid more than the minimum wage and that any recruitment agencies were strictly audited, adding that it did not actively recruit staff overseas.
Next also disputed the claims made by Mr Bryant, who had been due to say that the company used temporary foreign labour to avoid Agency Workers Regulations that apply to employees who work for more than 12 weeks. The clothes retailer, he had planned to say, had actively recruited and brought 500 Polish workers to their warehouse in West Yorkshire for their summer sale in 2012 and another 300 this year. The company said that, contrary to the MP’s claims, hiring Polish workers did not bypass the regulations. It said that it was “deeply disappointed” that he “did not bother” to check his facts before releasing extracts of his speech to a Sunday newspaper..." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3839826.ece
You have convincingly proved that there are a number of different published data on house prices, some using differing sources and most using differing methodologies and timepoints, but where, oh where, is the evidence of an impending "boom"?
If you cannot get the basics right, Location, when on a mission then you are just gonna get slaughtered, and quite right too..I wonder if he will adjust his speech and try to incorporate some facts..
No point in criticising the operation of the EU free market unless you are prepared to suggest meaningful changes. In the case of free movement of labour, I suspect exit is the only option if you don't like the implication.
Bryant is just grandstanding. Shouldn't be encouraged.
When Maggie said that she was arguing about policy but the current opposition ( in a technical sense) are simply miles short of being able to run the proverbial whelk stall. This is not a healthy state of affairs for anyone and it really is time Labour did something about it.
@PlatoSays @ChrisBryantMP I think David Cameron needs to start waving at #Labour & shouting 'I'm over here'. Now its #Labour vs #Tesco!
It tends to lose its impact after a 1000 or so times...
Sweet, but can you dial down the ramping a little?