I noticed that The Times keep referring to what he was going to say in the past tense...
Yes, Bryant's text will now be heavily edited overnight after today's mishaps. Too late now though. That's what happens when you choose to leak exclusive excerpts to the Telegraph in order to curry favour with the xenophobic hard right.
Mr Bryant has form for this sort of wishful thinking - he had to retract some entirely untrue claim that the Royals disapproved of some Tory - maybe Mitchell?
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.
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?
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?
Good question.
OK, first bit: which index should we use? Let's lop off the extrema: Rightmove has zero lag but is fantasy houseprice land (it measures asking prices). At the other extreme is Land Registry (which measures nearly all actual transactions) but is incredibly laggy and doesn't cover the whole UK. So if we lose those and RICS, that leaves us with Halifax and Nationwide. I'd also like to bring in the ONS index here. So: we have three indices that cover the whole of the UK, have regional breakdowns, and are middlingly laggy (2-3 months ish).
OK, second bit: nominal or real? Since we are measuring asset inflation, i'd prefer nominal.
Third bit: how big is a boom? Off the top of my head, I'd say that 5%pa or less is not a boom, it's just ordinary inflation. So more than 5%pa is consistent with a boom.
Fourth bit: start and end. Easter was in April in 2013 and 2014, so we're OK with using May 2013 and May 2014 as our start and finishing lines.
So. My (entirely unofficial) thought is that if the UK house price in the ONS/Halifax/Nationwide report for May 2014 is >5% above the UK house price in the same report for May 2013, then the data is consistent with a boom. If it is 5% or less, then it isn't.
(Edit: for the avoidance of doubt, the May reports are the ones FOR May, not the ones published IN May)
Totally agree - watching Labour drowning in their own barrel can be amusing but its not how HMG should be held to account.
EdM's had THREE YEARS in the job for Heaven's sake - and there's almost nothing to show for it. He has managed to pick a fight with his biggest donors though. Great - and that was all prompted by Falkirk and a drunk MP.
@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.
As Charles notes down thread the only thing tory members get is a vote for the leader. I am not a member and see no reason to become one . The move to slavish conferences was a mistake for all parties in retrospect. The tories did it first but the others were not far behind.
Derek Brooks @buryvoice 2/2 Zero Hrs. Contracts: Press failed to mention that CIPD said that only 14% of emp'ees on them said that they weren't getting enough hrs.
As Charles notes down thread the only thing tory members get is a vote for the leader. I am not a member and see no reason to become one . The move to slavish conferences was a mistake for all parties in retrospect. The tories did it first but the others were not far behind.
All this talk by the Labourbots about falling Conservative Party membership is just preparing the ground for their own Party taking a big hit when Ed's war with Len results in a crash in subscription levels.
They want to justify the fall by saying "Well, it is not as bad as the Tories".
As Charles notes down thread the only thing tory members get is a vote for the leader. I am not a member and see no reason to become one . The move to slavish conferences was a mistake for all parties in retrospect. The tories did it first but the others were not far behind.
Question - would the tories ever go down the road on party members voting on policies ?
Mr Bryant has form for this sort of wishful thinking - he had to retract some entirely untrue claim that the Royals disapproved of some Tory - maybe Mitchell?
CPS will be releasing a study into BBC coverage...
"The result of this analysis is stark: of the left-of-centre think tanks we look at — the Social Market Foundation, Demos, the New Economics Foundation and the Institute for Public Policy Research — only one (the Institute for Public Policy Research) received a health warning more than 10% of the time and another (the Social Market Foundation) never received one.
In contrast, of the five right-of-centre think tanks in our sample — the Centre for Social Justice, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies, Policy Exchange and the Adam Smith Institute — the lowest proportion of health warnings was about 25% and the highest was above 60%. In other words, the BBC seems to treat right-of-centre views as being more “extreme” and in need of caveats than roughly equivalent left-of-centre views.
There is a similar story when we look at how often these think tanks had their views reinforced by being referred to as “independent” by the BBC. Three of the four left-of-centre think tanks in our sample received the “independent” treatment at least once, whereas only one of the five right-of-centre think tanks did. Again the implication seems to be that the BBC sees left-of-centre views as being more reliable than right-of-centre ones. Overall, the picture is that the existing accusations of bias at the BBC are supported by a more dispassionate, quantitative analysis." http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/article1298511.ece
"We then compare this with the coverage given to these same think tanks by The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph newspapers. As long as you assume that 1) news organisations give more coverage on average to views they agree with and 2) The Guardian is a more left-wing publication than The Daily Telegraph, then finding that the BBC’s coverage is “more similar” to The Guardian’s than The Daily Telegraph’s represents evidence of (perhaps inadvertent) slant in its coverage.
And that is exactly what we found. The coverage that a new idea from a think tank receives from The Guardian is a much stronger predictor of how much coverage it will receive on the BBC website than is its coverage in The Daily Telegraph.
Our results suggest that, if a think tank is mentioned in 10 articles in The Guardian during a particular time period then you can expect to see seven mentions of the think tank on the BBC website over the same timeframe. In contrast, 10 articles about a think tank in The Daily Telegraph would be associated with only three mentions on the BBC website."
That seems pretty unless of course you don't like the data.
"Bias at the Beeb, to be published by the Centre for Policy Studies next month...uses objective, quantitative measures to look for evidence of slant in the BBC’s online reporting. Our results suggest the BBC exhibits a left-of-centre bias in both the amount of coverage it gives to different opinions and the way in which these voices are represented."
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"?
Sorry. My point was that it's too early in the cycle to tell pro or con. I've set out success/failure criteria in my post upthread to Ishmael_X - if the UK house price in the ONS/Halifax/Nationwide report for May 2014 is >5% above the UK house price in the same report for May 2013, then the data is consistent with a boom. And if it isn't, it isn't. Given that they'll be published in June/July 2014, I'm content to wait until then.
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 .
"We then compare this with the coverage given to these same think tanks by The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph newspapers. As long as you assume that 1) news organisations give more coverage on average to views they agree with and 2) The Guardian is a more left-wing publication than The Daily Telegraph, then finding that the BBC’s coverage is “more similar” to The Guardian’s than The Daily Telegraph’s represents evidence of (perhaps inadvertent) slant in its coverage.
And that is exactly what we found. The coverage that a new idea from a think tank receives from The Guardian is a much stronger predictor of how much coverage it will receive on the BBC website than is its coverage in The Daily Telegraph.
Our results suggest that, if a think tank is mentioned in 10 articles in The Guardian during a particular time period then you can expect to see seven mentions of the think tank on the BBC website over the same timeframe. In contrast, 10 articles about a think tank in The Daily Telegraph would be associated with only three mentions on the BBC website."
That seems pretty unless of course you don't like the data.
"Bias at the Beeb, to be published by the Centre for Policy Studies next month...uses objective, quantitative measures to look for evidence of slant in the BBC’s online reporting. Our results suggest the BBC exhibits a left-of-centre bias in both the amount of coverage it gives to different opinions and the way in which these voices are represented."
I don't mean to be unsympathetic, but as with the complaints about Polish workers taking jobs in Britain in front of British people, this is to be expected surely?
To think that a public sector tv station wouldn't reflect the viewpoint of people that are pro public sector more than those that are anti seems far fetched given what we know about human nature.
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 .
Tesco is cheap. You may be thinking of Waitrose.
Yes Tesco is certainly cheaper than Waitrose and M and S but certainly not as cheap as Aldi or Iceland . Tesco Express is certainly not cheap if that is your local Tesco alternative .
Mr Bryant has form for this sort of wishful thinking - he had to retract some entirely untrue claim that the Royals disapproved of some Tory - maybe Mitchell?
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 ..
So. My (entirely unofficial) thought is that if the UK house price in the ONS/Halifax/Nationwide report for May 2014 is >5% above the UK house price in the same report for May 2013, then the data is consistent with a boom. If it is 5% or less, then it isn't.
Prices are the wrong measure to look at in determining a boom: you should look at affordability and the rate of change.
Take the average (ex-London) house price of £201,646 [Jan-Mar13]. Using the median wage [2011] for the UK of £26,500 gives you a multiple of around 7.6x [in fact it will be higher as the wages in London are included so the ex-London median wage is lower]
Arguably, if you look back over the long term, we are still in a bubble. It has deflated somewhat over the last 5 years, but not sufficiently (although a faster decline would be painful for everyone). Some of this is justified by lower interest rates in a global economy (even at 5% these would be low vs most of the post war period), but not all. So whether we are in a boom or not is largely irrelevant - house prices are too high and it's a question of how you make the adjustment without too much pain.
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 .
Tesco is cheap. You may be thinking of Waitrose.
Tesco is cheaper usually than Sainsburys which is cheaper than Waitrose or M&S [I've never shopped there and wondered who could afford it!]
Aldi and Lidl are a bit cheaper but aren't as ubiquitous - Iceland and Coop ditto [the quality in Coop is very patchy].
Blaming Tesco for being successful strikes me as very odd. We've a new ASDA immediately opposite a new Tesco and I don't go in unless I need a self-esteem boost ; ^)
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 .
Tesco is cheap. You may be thinking of Waitrose.
Tesco is cheaper usually than Sainsburys which is cheaper than Waitrose or M&S [I've never shopped there and wondered who could afford it!]
Aldi and Lidl are a bit cheaper but aren't as ubiquitous - Iceland and Coop ditto [the quality in Coop is very patchy].
Blaming Tesco for being successful strikes me as very odd. We've a new ASDA immediately opposite a new Tesco and I don't go in unless I need a self-esteem boost ; ^)
Tesco is trading off its reputation for value - it lifted prices pretty sharply and customers noticed. Hence the painful discount programme at the moment.
You are doing yourself a disservice if you "never go in" to Asda. Even if it is only for household products you could save yourself money.
So. My (entirely unofficial) thought is that if the UK house price in the ONS/Halifax/Nationwide report for May 2014 is >5% above the UK house price in the same report for May 2013, then the data is consistent with a boom. If it is 5% or less, then it isn't.
Prices are the wrong measure to look at in determining a boom: you should look at affordability and the rate of change.
[snip]
If you're telling me houses are too expensive, you're preaching to the choir. But the question I was asked was for betting purposes, so a simple yes/no criterion was required.
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 .
Tesco is cheap. You may be thinking of Waitrose.
Tesco is cheaper usually than Sainsburys which is cheaper than Waitrose or M&S [I've never shopped there and wondered who could afford it!]
Aldi and Lidl are a bit cheaper but aren't as ubiquitous - Iceland and Coop ditto [the quality in Coop is very patchy].
Blaming Tesco for being successful strikes me as very odd. We've a new ASDA immediately opposite a new Tesco and I don't go in unless I need a self-esteem boost ; ^)
Tesco is trading off its reputation for value - it lifted prices pretty sharply and customers noticed. Hence the painful discount programme at the moment.
You are doing yourself a disservice if you "never go in" to Asda. Even if it is only for household products you could save yourself money.
Because mine are literally 20yrds apart - the prices are very similar. It's like the Eastbourne stores for Comet and Curry's being immediately next door to each other. You'd park in front of both maybe 50ft away, walk into one - pop next door to compare prices and eh voila!
The CPS stuff ignores the possibility of what statisticians call intervening variables - reasons other than political bias why a Telegraph piece might seem less convincing than a Guardian piece. Personally I find the Telegraph a bit less heavyweight - willing to analyse in depth. The Times - now more Tory than at any recent time under its new editor - would probably be a fairer comparison.
Similarly, they imply that all research bodies are equally in need of health warnings. That's clearly not the case - both MigrationWatch and ActionAid have clear agendas that, say, NIESR doesn't.
On which index to use, I would go for ONS as it uses Registry data as its source and then reworks data to make sure that it is representative of a balanced basket of property types within each area.
This avoids the risk, say, of claims that London prices are growing out of control when all the volume of sales is coming from prime property sold to foreign investors in a limited number of boroughs. Newspapers, the Express and commuter papers being the worst offenders in this kind of sensationalism.
I would also question whether your definition of boom as above 5% annual price rises is the right metric. What the economy needs to avoid is a bubble which bursts causing fallout damage to the wider economy. Remember that investment in private sector dwellings accounted for 3% of GDP but the post crisis falls in house prices caused 15% of the fall in the general economy.
So the real question. Is the housing market overheating to the extent that it threatens financial stability and overall growth in the economy.
To do this we need to look at a range of metrics.
Credit supply. Is net bank mortgage lending increasing or decreasing? Are households paying down their mortgage loans at a greater rate than new borrowing? A danger point indicator would be if net lending is increasing a noticeably faster rate than money supply as a whole.
Lending Risk. Is the financial system and household sector properly protecting against individual credit risk (rate of possessions) and general economic risk of catastrophic house price falls (bank loan to value ratios, bank capitalisation, deposit requirements in market products, government guarantees).
Affordability. What are the house price to earnings ratios and house value to rents ratios? How do they compare historically (e.g. the price to earnings ratio was over 8 times price to earnings at its 2007 peak and is now just over 6 and falling)? How do they compare to other countries (UK around third quartile mark of OECD countries).
What is the volume of sales in the market (sales to stock ratios)? Price increases mean little if they are not accompanied by volume sales.
What are the regional variations and variations within the different types of dwelling?
I could go on but all I am trying to do is make the point that assessing the risk of a housing price bubble is much more complex than just registering rises or falls in house price indices.
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 .
Tesco is cheap. You may be thinking of Waitrose.
Tesco is cheaper usually than Sainsburys which is cheaper than Waitrose or M&S [I've never shopped there and wondered who could afford it!]
Aldi and Lidl are a bit cheaper but aren't as ubiquitous - Iceland and Coop ditto [the quality in Coop is very patchy].
Blaming Tesco for being successful strikes me as very odd. We've a new ASDA immediately opposite a new Tesco and I don't go in unless I need a self-esteem boost ; ^)
Do Aldi and Lidl offer a full range of groceries? The ones I've seen seem to just have a hodgepodge of stuff.
Asda seem to have the best prices for fruit at the mo.
isam - sure, I'm not sure I'd say that free movement of labour has been entirely positive, but I'd argue it's had lots of positive effects and anyway it's perfectly obvious that none of the big parties including mine want to do the only thing that would end it, namely withdraw from both EU and EEA. The Tories like to pretend they'll do something - they feel your pain etc. Not sure that's preferable to us just saying that ending it just is not going to happen under any mainstream government.
On which index to use, I would go for ONS as it uses Registry data as its source and then reworks data to make sure that it is representative of a balanced basket of property types within each area.
This avoids the risk, say, of claims that London prices are growing out of control when all the volume of sales is coming from prime property sold to foreign investors in a limited number of boroughs. Newspapers, the Express and commuter papers being the worst offenders in this kind of sensationalism.
I would also question whether your definition of boom as above 5% annual price rises is the right metric. What the economy needs to avoid is a bubble which bursts causing fallout damage to the wider economy. Remember that investment in private sector dwellings accounted for 3% of GDP but the post crisis falls in house prices caused 15% of the fall in the general economy.
So the real question. Is the housing market overheating to the extent that it threatens financial stability and overall growth in the economy.
To do this we need to look at a range of metrics.
[snip]
I take your point, but as I said to Charles earlier, the question I was asked was for betting purposes, so a simple yes/no criterion was required.
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 .
Tesco is cheap. You may be thinking of Waitrose.
Tesco is cheaper usually than Sainsburys which is cheaper than Waitrose or M&S [I've never shopped there and wondered who could afford it!]
Aldi and Lidl are a bit cheaper but aren't as ubiquitous - Iceland and Coop ditto [the quality in Coop is very patchy].
Blaming Tesco for being successful strikes me as very odd. We've a new ASDA immediately opposite a new Tesco and I don't go in unless I need a self-esteem boost ; ^)
Sainsbury's is cheaper than Tesco nowadays almost every time and shelves are full unlike Tesco which has gone downhill over last year or two.
isam - sure, I'm not sure I'd say that free movement of labour has been entirely positive, but I'd argue it's had lots of positive effects and anyway it's perfectly obvious that none of the big parties including mine want to do the only thing that would end it, namely withdraw from both EU and EEA. The Tories like to pretend they'll do something - they feel your pain etc. Not sure that's preferable to us just saying that ending it just is not going to happen under any mainstream government.
I would say the Tory approach of pretending they don't like it but "our hands are tied" would be less preferable to Labour promoting a positive vision of EU membership and free trade/movement of Labour, but they don't really do that do they?
I would have far more respect for Labour if they too the 'tim approach' of bigging up the positive effects of mass immigration and letting the voters decide if it tallied with their own experiences/anecdotes, at least it is vaguely honest
When I was a Labour voter, I was pro immigration and telling everyone how great a United States of Europe would be, how old fashioned the notion of British ness was... I even thought there should be no such thing as passports... safe to say Ive changed my mind!
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 .
Tesco is cheap. You may be thinking of Waitrose.
Tesco is cheaper usually than Sainsburys which is cheaper than Waitrose or M&S [I've never shopped there and wondered who could afford it!]
Aldi and Lidl are a bit cheaper but aren't as ubiquitous - Iceland and Coop ditto [the quality in Coop is very patchy].
Blaming Tesco for being successful strikes me as very odd. We've a new ASDA immediately opposite a new Tesco and I don't go in unless I need a self-esteem boost ; ^)
Do Aldi and Lidl offer a full range of groceries? The ones I've seen seem to just have a hodgepodge of stuff.
Asda seem to have the best prices for fruit at the mo.
very poor for organics though, as Charles said their household products/tins are very competitive but poor if you want organic vegetables.
I take your point, but as I said to Charles earlier, the question I was asked was for betting purposes, so a simple yes/no criterion was required.
Fair enough.
A good event to bet on might therefore be whether and/or when the Help to Buy scheme is withdrawn by the Treasury and BoE before it has completed its original term.
From Sunday Times "The coverage that a new idea from a think tank receives from The Guardian is a much stronger predictor of how much coverage it will receive on the BBC website than is its coverage in The Daily Telegraph."
"Our results suggest that, if a think tank is mentioned in 10 articles in The Guardian during a particular time period then you can expect to see seven mentions of the think tank on the BBC website over the same timeframe. In contrast, 10 articles about a think tank in The Daily Telegraph would be associated with only three mentions on the BBC website."
"Bias at the Beeb, to be published by the Centre for Policy Studies next month...uses objective, quantitative measures to look for evidence of slant in the BBC’s online reporting. Our results suggest the BBC exhibits a left-of-centre bias in both the amount of coverage it gives to different opinions and the way in which these voices are represented."
isam also points out that we should expect public sector workers (BBC) to favour the views in the main public sector newspaper. The Guardian also has more subscriptions at the BBC than any other "broadsheet".
The real question is will Cameron do anything about it? Probably not, as he fails to grasp the insidious effect a left wing news outlet has in dominating the whole media.
@MichaelLCrick: What's most striking about 2012 Tory membership figures is that in dozens of Labour seats they don't have a single member, or only 1 or 2
Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg spent an afternoon working incognito as a taxi driver in Oslo, he has revealed.
Mr Stoltenberg said he had wanted to hear from real Norwegian voters and that taxis were one of the few places where people shared their true views.
He wore sunglasses and an Oslo taxi driver's uniform for the shift in June, only revealing his identity once he was recognised by his passengers.
His exchanges with his passengers were captured on a hidden camera.
The footage - made in collaboration with an advertising company - has been posted on the prime minister's Facebook page and made into a film which will be used as part of his campaign for re-election in September
"It is important for me to hear what people really think," he told Norwegian media.
"And if there is one place people really say what they think about most things, it's in the taxi." www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23655675
Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) 11/08/2013 16:06 UK Independence Party (UKIP) think the tax system can be used to encourage strong family units and would make tax... fb.me/1BIX3Ckb8
Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg spent an afternoon working incognito as a taxi driver in Oslo, he has revealed.
Mr Stoltenberg said he had wanted to hear from real Norwegian voters and that taxis were one of the few places where people shared their true views.
He wore sunglasses and an Oslo taxi driver's uniform for the shift in June, only revealing his identity once he was recognised by his passengers.
His exchanges with his passengers were captured on a hidden camera.
The footage - made in collaboration with an advertising company - has been posted on the prime minister's Facebook page and made into a film which will be used as part of his campaign for re-election in September
"It is important for me to hear what people really think," he told Norwegian media.
"And if there is one place people really say what they think about most things, it's in the taxi." www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23655675
I believe Prince Philip owns a black cab.
Passengers in London should always exercise caution before conversing with the driver.
I'm thinking the Tories have had enough and are certainly pushing back on being more interrupted, the default critical language used/aping Labour's tactics like Bedroom Tax etc.
There's probably something once a week from them recently saying Bugger Off to their bias. I hope this gathers pace and the BBC start to actually challenge their own self-perfection.
I'd rather it was made subscription bar core public service stuff that was also available by bid to ITV et al. Generally speaking ITV is more upbeat, more balanced and more diverse that the BBCs. I much prefer it to the Beeb's carping.
"Bias at the Beeb, to be published by the Centre for Policy Studies next month...uses objective, quantitative measures to look for evidence of slant in the BBC’s online reporting. Our results suggest the BBC exhibits a left-of-centre bias in both the amount of coverage it gives to different opinions and the way in which these voices are represented."
isam also points out that we should expect public sector workers (BBC) to favour the views in the main public sector newspaper. The Guardian also has more subscriptions at the BBC than any other "broadsheet".
The real question is will Cameron do anything about it? Probably not, as he fails to grasp the insidious effect a left wing news outlet has in dominating the whole media.
I was corned by an old dear in the cat food aisle earlier today - she started off asking for recommendations for Mr Fussy and this rapidly degenerated into her views on vets, euthanasia, Miami's shocking issues/it'll all fall into the sea/WW3, the evils of feminism and immigrants.
It was a most entertaining 20 mins I hadn't anticipated.
Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg spent an afternoon working incognito as a taxi driver in Oslo, he has revealed.
Mr Stoltenberg said he had wanted to hear from real Norwegian voters and that taxis were one of the few places where people shared their true views.
He wore sunglasses and an Oslo taxi driver's uniform for the shift in June, only revealing his identity once he was recognised by his passengers.
His exchanges with his passengers were captured on a hidden camera.
The footage - made in collaboration with an advertising company - has been posted on the prime minister's Facebook page and made into a film which will be used as part of his campaign for re-election in September
"It is important for me to hear what people really think," he told Norwegian media.
"And if there is one place people really say what they think about most things, it's in the taxi." www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23655675
I believe Prince Philip owns a black cab.
Passengers in London should always exercise caution before conversing with the driver.
Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg spent an afternoon working incognito as a taxi driver in Oslo, he has revealed.
Mr Stoltenberg said he had wanted to hear from real Norwegian voters and that taxis were one of the few places where people shared their true views.
He wore sunglasses and an Oslo taxi driver's uniform for the shift in June, only revealing his identity once he was recognised by his passengers.
His exchanges with his passengers were captured on a hidden camera.
The footage - made in collaboration with an advertising company - has been posted on the prime minister's Facebook page and made into a film which will be used as part of his campaign for re-election in September
"It is important for me to hear what people really think," he told Norwegian media.
"And if there is one place people really say what they think about most things, it's in the taxi." www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23655675
I believe Prince Philip owns a black cab.
Passengers in London should always exercise caution before conversing with the driver.
So does Stephen Fry!
Imagine hailing a a black cab only to be lectured on the unfairness of the Russian education systems attitude to homosexuals by the driver
I was corned by an old dear in the cat food aisle earlier today - she started off asking for recommendations for Mr Fussy and this rapidly degenerated into her views on vets, euthanasia, Miami's shocking issues/it'll all fall into the sea/WW3, the evils of feminism and immigrants.
It was a most entertaining 20 mins I hadn't anticipated.
Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg spent an afternoon working incognito as a taxi driver in Oslo, he has revealed.
Mr Stoltenberg said he had wanted to hear from real Norwegian voters and that taxis were one of the few places where people shared their true views.
He wore sunglasses and an Oslo taxi driver's uniform for the shift in June, only revealing his identity once he was recognised by his passengers.
His exchanges with his passengers were captured on a hidden camera.
The footage - made in collaboration with an advertising company - has been posted on the prime minister's Facebook page and made into a film which will be used as part of his campaign for re-election in September
"It is important for me to hear what people really think," he told Norwegian media.
"And if there is one place people really say what they think about most things, it's in the taxi." www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23655675
I believe Prince Philip owns a black cab.
Passengers in London should always exercise caution before conversing with the driver.
Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg spent an afternoon working incognito as a taxi driver in Oslo, he has revealed.
Mr Stoltenberg said he had wanted to hear from real Norwegian voters and that taxis were one of the few places where people shared their true views.
He wore sunglasses and an Oslo taxi driver's uniform for the shift in June, only revealing his identity once he was recognised by his passengers.
His exchanges with his passengers were captured on a hidden camera.
The footage - made in collaboration with an advertising company - has been posted on the prime minister's Facebook page and made into a film which will be used as part of his campaign for re-election in September
"It is important for me to hear what people really think," he told Norwegian media.
"And if there is one place people really say what they think about most things, it's in the taxi." www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23655675
I believe Prince Philip owns a black cab.
Passengers in London should always exercise caution before conversing with the driver.
So does Stephen Fry!
Imagine hailing a a black cab only to be lectured on the unfairness of the Russian education systems attitude to homosexuals by the driver
I was corned by an old dear in the cat food aisle earlier today - she started off asking for recommendations for Mr Fussy and this rapidly degenerated into her views on vets, euthanasia, Miami's shocking issues/it'll all fall into the sea/WW3, the evils of feminism and immigrants.
It was a most entertaining 20 mins I hadn't anticipated.
Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg spent an afternoon working incognito as a taxi driver in Oslo, he has revealed.
Mr Stoltenberg said he had wanted to hear from real Norwegian voters and that taxis were one of the few places where people shared their true views.
He wore sunglasses and an Oslo taxi driver's uniform for the shift in June, only revealing his identity once he was recognised by his passengers.
His exchanges with his passengers were captured on a hidden camera.
The footage - made in collaboration with an advertising company - has been posted on the prime minister's Facebook page and made into a film which will be used as part of his campaign for re-election in September
"It is important for me to hear what people really think," he told Norwegian media.
"And if there is one place people really say what they think about most things, it's in the taxi." www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23655675
I believe Prince Philip owns a black cab.
Passengers in London should always exercise caution before conversing with the driver.
@MichaelLCrick: What's most striking about 2012 Tory membership figures is that in dozens of Labour seats they don't have a single member, or only 1 or 2
What sane Tory would want to live in place with a Labour MP anyway? They're all impoverished backwaters in the northern rust belt or inner-city hell holes. Every northerner I know with sense has moved to the south east.
@MichaelLCrick: What's most striking about 2012 Tory membership figures is that in dozens of Labour seats they don't have a single member, or only 1 or 2
Where does Crick live by the way? I'll wager it's somewhere with a Tory MP or some citadel of Luvvie-dom like Hampstead.
Comments
How he was ever a vicar amazes me.
OK, first bit: which index should we use? Let's lop off the extrema: Rightmove has zero lag but is fantasy houseprice land (it measures asking prices). At the other extreme is Land Registry (which measures nearly all actual transactions) but is incredibly laggy and doesn't cover the whole UK. So if we lose those and RICS, that leaves us with Halifax and Nationwide. I'd also like to bring in the ONS index here. So: we have three indices that cover the whole of the UK, have regional breakdowns, and are middlingly laggy (2-3 months ish).
OK, second bit: nominal or real? Since we are measuring asset inflation, i'd prefer nominal.
Third bit: how big is a boom? Off the top of my head, I'd say that 5%pa or less is not a boom, it's just ordinary inflation. So more than 5%pa is consistent with a boom.
Fourth bit: start and end. Easter was in April in 2013 and 2014, so we're OK with using May 2013 and May 2014 as our start and finishing lines.
So. My (entirely unofficial) thought is that if the UK house price in the ONS/Halifax/Nationwide report for May 2014 is >5% above the UK house price in the same report for May 2013, then the data is consistent with a boom. If it is 5% or less, then it isn't.
(Edit: for the avoidance of doubt, the May reports are the ones FOR May, not the ones published IN May)
EdM's had THREE YEARS in the job for Heaven's sake - and there's almost nothing to show for it. He has managed to pick a fight with his biggest donors though. Great - and that was all prompted by Falkirk and a drunk MP.
Derek Brooks @buryvoice
2/2 Zero Hrs. Contracts: Press failed to mention that CIPD said that only 14% of emp'ees on them said that they weren't getting enough hrs.
They want to justify the fall by saying "Well, it is not as bad as the Tories".
"The result of this analysis is stark: of the left-of-centre think tanks we look at — the Social Market Foundation, Demos, the New Economics Foundation and the Institute for Public Policy Research — only one (the Institute for Public Policy Research) received a health warning more than 10% of the time and another (the Social Market Foundation) never received one.
In contrast, of the five right-of-centre think tanks in our sample — the Centre for Social Justice, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies, Policy Exchange and the Adam Smith Institute — the lowest proportion of health warnings was about 25% and the highest was above 60%. In other words, the BBC seems to treat right-of-centre views as being more “extreme” and in need of caveats than roughly equivalent left-of-centre views.
There is a similar story when we look at how often these think tanks had their views reinforced by being referred to as “independent” by the BBC. Three of the four left-of-centre think tanks in our sample received the “independent” treatment at least once, whereas only one of the five right-of-centre think tanks did. Again the implication seems to be that the BBC sees left-of-centre views as being more reliable than right-of-centre ones. Overall, the picture is that the existing accusations of bias at the BBC are supported by a more dispassionate, quantitative analysis." http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/article1298511.ece
"We then compare this with the coverage given to these same think tanks by The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph newspapers. As long as you assume that 1) news organisations give more coverage on average to views they agree with and 2) The Guardian is a more left-wing publication than The Daily Telegraph, then finding that the BBC’s coverage is “more similar” to The Guardian’s than The Daily Telegraph’s represents evidence of (perhaps inadvertent) slant in its coverage.
And that is exactly what we found. The coverage that a new idea from a think tank receives from The Guardian is a much stronger predictor of how much coverage it will receive on the BBC website than is its coverage in The Daily Telegraph.
Our results suggest that, if a think tank is mentioned in 10 articles in The Guardian during a particular time period then you can expect to see seven mentions of the think tank on the BBC website over the same timeframe. In contrast, 10 articles about a think tank in The Daily Telegraph would be associated with only three mentions on the BBC website."
That seems pretty unless of course you don't like the data.
"Bias at the Beeb, to be published by the Centre for Policy Studies next month...uses objective, quantitative measures to look for evidence of slant in the BBC’s online reporting. Our results suggest the BBC exhibits a left-of-centre bias in both the amount of coverage it gives to different opinions and the way in which these voices are represented."
To think that a public sector tv station wouldn't reflect the viewpoint of people that are pro public sector more than those that are anti seems far fetched given what we know about human nature.
I know two CoE and a happy clapper Evangelical.
I find the latter a bit culty - the other two are 60+ and standard grey beards.
Take the average (ex-London) house price of £201,646 [Jan-Mar13]. Using the median wage [2011] for the UK of £26,500 gives you a multiple of around 7.6x [in fact it will be higher as the wages in London are included so the ex-London median wage is lower]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/uk_house_prices/html/houses.stm
Arguably, if you look back over the long term, we are still in a bubble. It has deflated somewhat over the last 5 years, but not sufficiently (although a faster decline would be painful for everyone). Some of this is justified by lower interest rates in a global economy (even at 5% these would be low vs most of the post war period), but not all. So whether we are in a boom or not is largely irrelevant - house prices are too high and it's a question of how you make the adjustment without too much pain.
Aldi and Lidl are a bit cheaper but aren't as ubiquitous - Iceland and Coop ditto [the quality in Coop is very patchy].
Blaming Tesco for being successful strikes me as very odd. We've a new ASDA immediately opposite a new Tesco and I don't go in unless I need a self-esteem boost ; ^)
You are doing yourself a disservice if you "never go in" to Asda. Even if it is only for household products you could save yourself money.
Wedding rings of Holocaust victims
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BMkBu94CQAAk4wS.jpg:large
Similarly, they imply that all research bodies are equally in need of health warnings. That's clearly not the case - both MigrationWatch and ActionAid have clear agendas that, say, NIESR doesn't.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BRZaRONCYAAqShB.jpg:large
Sajid Javid MP @sajidjavid
Much more to do, but cheered by The Sunday Times "Reasons to be cheerful" #britainontherise pic.twitter.com/CoGHQBANEX
Housing boom and house price indices
On which index to use, I would go for ONS as it uses Registry data as its source and then reworks data to make sure that it is representative of a balanced basket of property types within each area.
This avoids the risk, say, of claims that London prices are growing out of control when all the volume of sales is coming from prime property sold to foreign investors in a limited number of boroughs. Newspapers, the Express and commuter papers being the worst offenders in this kind of sensationalism.
I would also question whether your definition of boom as above 5% annual price rises is the right metric. What the economy needs to avoid is a bubble which bursts causing fallout damage to the wider economy. Remember that investment in private sector dwellings accounted for 3% of GDP but the post crisis falls in house prices caused 15% of the fall in the general economy.
So the real question. Is the housing market overheating to the extent that it threatens financial stability and overall growth in the economy.
To do this we need to look at a range of metrics.
Credit supply. Is net bank mortgage lending increasing or decreasing? Are households paying down their mortgage loans at a greater rate than new borrowing? A danger point indicator would be if net lending is increasing a noticeably faster rate than money supply as a whole.
Lending Risk. Is the financial system and household sector properly protecting against individual credit risk (rate of possessions) and general economic risk of catastrophic house price falls (bank loan to value ratios, bank capitalisation, deposit requirements in market products, government guarantees).
Affordability. What are the house price to earnings ratios and house value to rents ratios? How do they compare historically (e.g. the price to earnings ratio was over 8 times price to earnings at its 2007 peak and is now just over 6 and falling)? How do they compare to other countries (UK around third quartile mark of OECD countries).
What is the volume of sales in the market (sales to stock ratios)? Price increases mean little if they are not accompanied by volume sales.
What are the regional variations and variations within the different types of dwelling?
I could go on but all I am trying to do is make the point that assessing the risk of a housing price bubble is much more complex than just registering rises or falls in house price indices.
Asda seem to have the best prices for fruit at the mo.
I would have far more respect for Labour if they too the 'tim approach' of bigging up the positive effects of mass immigration and letting the voters decide if it tallied with their own experiences/anecdotes, at least it is vaguely honest
When I was a Labour voter, I was pro immigration and telling everyone how great a United States of Europe would be, how old fashioned the notion of British ness was... I even thought there should be no such thing as passports... safe to say Ive changed my mind!
(I forget if it was a 360 or 180 u-turn!!!)
A good event to bet on might therefore be whether and/or when the Help to Buy scheme is withdrawn by the Treasury and BoE before it has completed its original term.
The real question is will Cameron do anything about it? Probably not, as he fails to grasp the insidious effect a left wing news outlet has in dominating the whole media.
Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg spent an afternoon working incognito as a taxi driver in Oslo, he has revealed.
Mr Stoltenberg said he had wanted to hear from real Norwegian voters and that taxis were one of the few places where people shared their true views.
He wore sunglasses and an Oslo taxi driver's uniform for the shift in June, only revealing his identity once he was recognised by his passengers.
His exchanges with his passengers were captured on a hidden camera.
The footage - made in collaboration with an advertising company - has been posted on the prime minister's Facebook page and made into a film which will be used as part of his campaign for re-election in September
"It is important for me to hear what people really think," he told Norwegian media.
"And if there is one place people really say what they think about most things, it's in the taxi." www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23655675
11/08/2013 16:06
UK Independence Party (UKIP) think the tax system can be used to encourage strong family units and would make tax... fb.me/1BIX3Ckb8
Passengers in London should always exercise caution before conversing with the driver.
There's probably something once a week from them recently saying Bugger Off to their bias. I hope this gathers pace and the BBC start to actually challenge their own self-perfection.
I'd rather it was made subscription bar core public service stuff that was also available by bid to ITV et al. Generally speaking ITV is more upbeat, more balanced and more diverse that the BBCs. I much prefer it to the Beeb's carping.
I was corned by an old dear in the cat food aisle earlier today - she started off asking for recommendations for Mr Fussy and this rapidly degenerated into her views on vets, euthanasia, Miami's shocking issues/it'll all fall into the sea/WW3, the evils of feminism and immigrants.
It was a most entertaining 20 mins I hadn't anticipated.
Imagine hailing a a black cab only to be lectured on the unfairness of the Russian education systems attitude to homosexuals by the driver
The previous one involved a chappy who regaled me with his entire medical history whilst stood next to the biscuits.
I kept trying to divert him onto the virtues of ginger snaps but to no avail...