How STV could make the Conservatives competitive in Liverpool for the first time since the 1980s Maybe...
If you formed a Greater Liverpool 7-member STV seat from the seven seats of Bootle, Knowsley, Garston & Halewood and Liverpool Wavertree/West Darby/Walton/Riverside then this would have returned six Labour MPs and one Lib Dem MP in 2010. FPTP returns seven Labour MPs with majorities ranging from 18.9% to 57.7%, and all with more than 50% of the vote, so unaffected by AV.
Even in a large seven member STV constituency, the Conservatives would be 2,012 votes away from winning a seat in the Greater Liverpool area, but this would not be an impossible ambition, and it might encourage Tory voters in the city who have given up hope to turn up to the polling station.
The Lib Dems would also have a chance of winning an extra seat if they could find an additional few thousand voters, and so STV in this safest of safe Labour areas would force Labour to campaign to defend seats which are ridiculously safe under FPTP.
If the tories can;t win in a place called 'Tweeddale West', they can't win anywhere!
To be fair it's traditionally been Liberal territory. It was one of their strongest areas in the old Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale seat that David Steel held. His daughter is a councillor in the ward.
The problem is not that the rich are too rich. The problem is that the poor are too poor. Anyone who doesn't understand the difference is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I think it is understandable for people to view one as the flipside of the other.
Good points lucidly put. The left's point that the filthy rich are too rich is just about the only thing they say that I agree with.
I've yet to come across anyone, either from left or right, who has come anyway close to offering a solution to this problem.
Wealth always seems to elude draconian taxation, and the more draconian the taxation, the more it avoids it.
Then again, 'trickle down' doesn't seem to work that well either.
Absolutely. The two basic theories underpinning economic debate in the Western democracies for the last 30 or 40 years are now pretty much done for.
It's all very well telling people that there is no alternative, but if what they see the system delivering is extraordinary wealth for the few (and, boy, are they seeing it: on the internet, on the TV, in magazines, in ads etc) while their own living standards do not improve - then that is not a sustainable situation. Anger will build as opportunities to get on close down, as the cost of living continually increases, as working hours lengthen, working rights are whittled away, benefits recede and retirement is delayed. In the end, that anger will explode. It could be from the left or the right. Neither prospect is attractive. Of course, the really wealthy can flee to tax havens and to friendly countries, but there is a reason why they are not in them now and that is that they are not too much fun to live in and/or are inherently unstable. What's more, a lot of them are essentially there at the whim of larger, more powerful neighbours. Thus, it is in the interests of the very wealthy, too, to take part in this conversation, to think more carefully about their wealth and to maybe understand a little more what it is that makes most people tick. Will it happen? Hell, no. But it should. If only because In The End Something Is Going To Happen And It Won't Be Pretty (though as a lefty I would argue there are more reasons than that).
After Guardian condemns Mail for the Ralph Miliband 'offensive headline' (Mail defence: 'read the article'), defends Guardian offensive headline with 'read the article':
The problem is not that the rich are too rich. The problem is that the poor are too poor. Anyone who doesn't understand the difference is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I can't comment on anybody else's views, but I'm certainly a lot more interested in making the poor richer than vice versa. The difficulty is that most policies that are proposed to achieve this end are attacked on the basis that they will make the rich poorer.
Good points lucidly put. The left's point that the filthy rich are too rich is just about the only thing they say that I agree with.
I've yet to come across anyone, either from left or right, who has come anyway close to offering a solution to this problem.
Wealth always seems to elude draconian taxation, and the more draconian the taxation, the more it avoids it.
Then again, 'trickle down' doesn't seem to work that well either.
Absolutely. The two basic theories underpinning economic debate in the Western democracies for the last 30 or 40 years are now pretty much done for.
It's all very well telling people that there is no alternative, but if what they see the system delivering is extraordinary wealth for the few (and, boy, are they seeing it: on the internet, on the TV, in magazines, in ads etc) while their own living standards do not improve - then that is not a sustainable situation. Anger will build as opportunities to get on close down, as the cost of living continually increases, as working hours lengthen, working rights are whittled away, benefits recede and retirement is delayed. In the end, that anger will explode. It could be from the left or the right. Neither prospect is attractive. Of course, the really wealthy can flee to tax havens and to friendly countries, but there is a reason why they are not in them now and that is that they are not too much fun to live in and/or are inherently unstable. What's more, a lot of them are essentially there at the whim of larger, more powerful neighbours. Thus, it is in the interests of the very wealthy, too, to take part in this conversation, to think more carefully about their wealth and to maybe understand a little more what it is that makes most people tick. Will it happen? Hell, no. But it should. If only because In The End Something Is Going To Happen And It Won't Be Pretty (though as a lefty I would argue there are more reasons than that).
People moaning about greedy public sector workers striking over their gold plated pensions are missing that point, Southam. I'm intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich, but not so relaxed at being expected to bear the brunt of cuts, wage freezes, pension rights eroded and my standard of living falling back. We don't expect to be immune from austerity, but we're an easy target to hate.
I was being lectured the other day about how Thatcher was evil because she declared war on Africa in the Falklands war. The person in question votes Labour naturally.
I was once called a child rapist because I had the temerity to point out to someone who was ranting about Thatcher and the death of Blair Peach that the death happened under a Labour government. I found this rather odd.
I'm not sure what the Tories can do about the knowledge gap to be honest. I think they've had it long term.
They've tried to detox themselves by ditching the bits that made themselves competent such as fiscal discipline, small government and ignoring trendy lefty rubbish and it hasn't won a single vote from the Guardianista types but lost them loads on the right to UKIP.
I think their best bet is to give the impression the economy is fixed in 2015, lose in a close election (preferably getting more votes that anyone else) and then watch Labour spend their way to complete destruction.
Given that the amount of money and assets in the world is finite, it surely amounts to the same thing.
I would argue that the world is richer in an absolute and per capita sense then it was at the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917. What is at issue is how that increase in wealth has been distributed.
You could, theoretically, make the poor richer without making the rich poorer if you ensured that the majority of the proceeds of growth went to the poor rather than the rich. I think this is roughly what happened in most Western economies in the post-war period. Since the 1970s the reverse has been the case, and growth has been lower too.
Great point on this Polly smear - it's the title which is more inflammatory than the piece..... now where did we hear that recently?
"Except wasn’t the Guardian bitching and moaning about the Daily Mail’s story about “The Man Who Hated Britain”, much for the very same reason that the headline was far more shocking than the article was?"
Good points lucidly put. The left's point that the filthy rich are too rich is just about the only thing they say that I agree with.
I've yet to come across anyone, either from left or right, who has come anyway close to offering a solution to this problem.
Wealth always seems to elude draconian taxation, and the more draconian the taxation, the more it avoids it.
Then again, 'trickle down' doesn't seem to work that well either.
Absolutely. The two basic theories underpinning economic debate in the Western democracies for the last 30 or 40 years are now pretty much done for.
It's all very well telling people that there is no alternative, but if what they see the system delivering is extraordinary wealth for the few (and, boy, are they seeing it: on the internet, on the TV, in magazines, in ads etc) while their own living standards do not improve - then that is not a sustainable situation. Anger will build as opportunities to get on close down, as the cost of living continually increases, as working hours lengthen, working rights are whittled away, benefits recede and retirement is delayed. In the end, that anger will explode. It could be from the left or the right. Neither prospect is attractive. Of course, the really wealthy can flee to tax havens and to friendly countries, but there is a reason why they are not in them now and that is that they are not too much fun to live in and/or are inherently unstable. What's more, a lot of them are essentially there at the whim of larger, more powerful neighbours. Thus, it is in the interests of the very wealthy, too, to take part in this conversation, to think more carefully about their wealth and to maybe understand a little more what it is that makes most people tick. Will it happen? Hell, no. But it should. If only because In The End Something Is Going To Happen And It Won't Be Pretty (though as a lefty I would argue there are more reasons than that).
How do we make you a lecturer on the PPE course at Oxford?
Given that the amount of money and assets in the world is finite, it surely amounts to the same thing.
Given what? You don't think people could use their time more productively, for example? Or that we could better harness natural resources (both the finite ones and the renewables)?
The problem is not that the rich are too rich. The problem is that the poor are too poor. Anyone who doesn't understand the difference is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I can't comment on anybody else's views, but I'm certainly a lot more interested in making the poor richer than vice versa. The difficulty is that most policies that are proposed to achieve this end are attacked on the basis that they will make the rich poorer.
Most policies put forward in this area seem to be designed mainly to make the rich poorer rather than the poor richer. This is largely because ridiculous numbers of people regard themselves as poor and therefore deserving of state sponsorship. We see plenty of examples of that on here.
The most that the squeezed middle can reasonably expect is for government to take its tanks off their 15'x15' lawns, to put in place a stable structure within which they can live their lives and make their own life choices and to make sure that they are not vulnerable to exploitation by others. Instead, we see repeated attempts to get the rich to bankroll middle Britain's aspirations.
While a terrible name, predistribution does at least grapple with the genuine problem of people in poverty where the state is subsidising their exploitation by others.
Instead of the Sunday Times rich list we could have the government sponsored Sunday Times Scrooge list, of those who give the least relative to their wealth, or pay the least tax.
Wealthy people like to accepted in society as well as being wealthy and I think more transparency and hence more 'nudge' might be surprisingly effective.
Good points lucidly put. The left's point that the filthy rich are too rich is just about the only thing they say that I agree with.
I've yet to come across anyone, either from left or right, who has come anyway close to offering a solution to this problem.
Wealth always seems to elude draconian taxation, and the more draconian the taxation, the more it avoids it.
Then again, 'trickle down' doesn't seem to work that well either.
Absolutely. The two basic theories underpinning economic debate in the Western democracies for the last 30 or 40 years are now pretty much done for.
It's all very well telling people that there is no alternative, but if what they see the system delivering is extraordinary wealth for the few (and, boy, are they seeing it: on the internet, on the TV, in magazines, in ads etc) while their own living standards do not improve - then that is not a sustainable situation. Anger will build as opportunities to get on close down, as the cost of living continually increases, as working hours lengthen, working rights are whittled away, benefits recede and retirement is delayed. In the end, that anger will explode. It could be from the left or the right. Neither prospect is attractive. Of course, the really wealthy can flee to tax havens and to friendly countries, but there is a reason why they are not in them now and that is that they are not too much fun to live in and/or are inherently unstable. What's more, a lot of them are essentially there at the whim of larger, more powerful neighbours. Thus, it is in the interests of the very wealthy, too, to take part in this conversation, to think more carefully about their wealth and to maybe understand a little more what it is that makes most people tick. Will it happen? Hell, no. But it should. If only because In The End Something Is Going To Happen And It Won't Be Pretty (though as a lefty I would argue there are more reasons than that).
As the size of government has increased, so has the gap between rich and poor. It's been the same in the US and the UK. The corporations and landowners with their state backed monopolies have priced the poor out of a reasonable standard of living.
The solution of course will be yet more government.
Great point on this Polly smear - it's the title which is more inflammatory than the piece..... now where did we hear that recently?
"Except wasn’t the Guardian bitching and moaning about the Daily Mail’s story about “The Man Who Hated Britain”, much for the very same reason that the headline was far more shocking than the article was?"
It's also very amusing to see the civil-liberty-championing Guardian's star columnist arguing for a massive increase in state intrusion, with a restoration of the huge ContactPoint database, which was going to hold gossip and innuendo about every single family in the land.
Guardian caught out hook, line and sinker. It is indefensible. Smug lefty groupthink is wholly unappealing and often very unpleasant. Just like smug righty groupthink.
The problem is not that the rich are too rich. The problem is that the poor are too poor. Anyone who doesn't understand the difference is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I can't comment on anybody else's views, but I'm certainly a lot more interested in making the poor richer than vice versa. The difficulty is that most policies that are proposed to achieve this end are attacked on the basis that they will make the rich poorer.
Most policies put forward in this area seem to be designed mainly to make the rich poorer rather than the poor richer. This is largely because ridiculous numbers of people regard themselves as poor and therefore deserving of state sponsorship. We see plenty of examples of that on here.
The most that the squeezed middle can reasonably expect is for government to take its tanks off their 15'x15' lawns, to put in place a stable structure within which they can live their lives and make their own life choices and to make sure that they are not vulnerable to exploitation by others. Instead, we see repeated attempts to get the rich to bankroll middle Britain's aspirations.
While a terrible name, predistribution does at least grapple with the genuine problem of people in poverty where the state is subsidising their exploitation by others.
Do you really believe that people think in those terms? My guess is that they are much more interested in their standards of living. Maybe they also have a notion that the rich are as much a part of wider society as anyone else and have just as much of a stake in ensuring its success.
Good points lucidly put. The left's point that the filthy rich are too rich is just about the only thing they say that I agree with.
I've yet to come across anyone, either from left or right, who has come anyway close to offering a solution to this problem.
Wealth always seems to elude draconian taxation, and the more draconian the taxation, the more it avoids it.
Then again, 'trickle down' doesn't seem to work that well either.
Absolutely. The two basic theories underpinning economic debate in the Western democracies for the last 30 or 40 years are now pretty much done for.
As the size of government has increased, so has the gap between rich and poor. It's been the same in the US and the UK. The corporations and landowners with their state backed monopolies have priced the poor out of a reasonable standard of living.
The solution of course will be yet more government.
Umm... there seems to be rather more correlation there than causation. Are you saying that corps and landowners only did that because government got larger?
Good afternoon all. I understand the Tory candidate in the Borders Council by-election substantially increased his vote while holding the seat. I don't think that was in the script was it!
Unseating Michael Moore will be tough. John Lamont didn't achieve it last time even though he had unseated Jeremy Purvis at the previous Scottish election and went on to increase his majority in 2011. However this result will make the local Tories believe again that it is possible and that is a major weapon in any party's armoury.
Good points lucidly put. The left's point that the filthy rich are too rich is just about the only thing they say that I agree with.
I've yet to come across anyone, either from left or right, who has come anyway close to offering a solution to this problem.
Wealth always seems to elude draconian taxation, and the more draconian the taxation, the more it avoids it.
Then again, 'trickle down' doesn't seem to work that well either.
Absolutely. The two basic theories underpinning economic debate in the Western democracies for the last 30 or 40 years are now pretty much done for.
As the size of government has increased, so has the gap between rich and poor. It's been the same in the US and the UK. The corporations and landowners with their state backed monopolies have priced the poor out of a reasonable standard of living.
The solution of course will be yet more government.
Umm... there seems to be rather more correlation there than causation. Are you saying that corps and landowners only did that because government got larger?
Not sure that the endemic, grinding poverty and low life expectancy that characterised most of the lives lived on these islands until the introduction of a welfare system was caused by a state that had got too big for itself.
Guardian out of order .Hopefully the BBC will make a huge thing of it and invite the editor on so Emily Maitlis can do her barely disguised contempt look when interviewing him like she did with the deputy editor of the Daily Mail -hers is hoping
Instead of the Sunday Times rich list we could have the government sponsored Sunday Times Scrooge list, of those who give the least relative to their wealth, or pay the least tax.
Wealthy people like to accepted in society as well as being wealthy and I think more transparency and hence more 'nudge' might be surprisingly effective.
Wasn't that one justification of the honours system -- that it encourages company chairmen to chase knighthoods by restoring opera house roofs? Though even that was corrupted to supporting political parties.
Good points lucidly put. The left's point that the filthy rich are too rich is just about the only thing they say that I agree with.
I've yet to come across anyone, either from left or right, who has come anyway close to offering a solution to this problem.
Wealth always seems to elude draconian taxation, and the more draconian the taxation, the more it avoids it.
Then again, 'trickle down' doesn't seem to work that well either.
Absolutely. The two basic theories underpinning economic debate in the Western democracies for the last 30 or 40 years are now pretty much done for.
As the size of government has increased, so has the gap between rich and poor. It's been the same in the US and the UK. The corporations and landowners with their state backed monopolies have priced the poor out of a reasonable standard of living.
The solution of course will be yet more government.
Umm... there seems to be rather more correlation there than causation. Are you saying that corps and landowners only did that because government got larger?
In terms of the difficulty of obtaining planning permission then yes absolutely. Before the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act people could generally build whatever they liked. It is this false scarcity which drives up building costs and house prices and works in the favour of rich landowners that own land with housing or planning permission.
This is what large government does to people who don't play by these rules:
Large corporations get the government to grant them special privileges and also creates expensive regulations that prevent smaller companies competing. Not to mention direct government bailouts such as for the banking industry (which are a government monopoly in the first place).
''Not sure that the endemic, grinding poverty and low life expectancy that characterised most of the lives lived on these islands until the introduction of a welfare system was caused by a state that had got too big for itself.''
Indeed. I read that Gladstone, one of the great reforming philanthropist Prime Ministers, had a budget that in today's terms would be GBP3bn.
It was a different social contract though. Taxation was extremely low, but many of Victorian rich people gave 10% of their wealth to charity.
Today government budget is USD700bn...??? Public services are manifestly way better than in Victorian times, but are they GBP697bn better???
Good points lucidly put. The left's point that the filthy rich are too rich is just about the only thing they say that I agree with.
I've yet to come across anyone, either from left or right, who has come anyway close to offering a solution to this problem.
Wealth always seems to elude draconian taxation, and the more draconian the taxation, the more it avoids it.
Then again, 'trickle down' doesn't seem to work that well either.
Absolutely. The two basic theories underpinning economic debate in the Western democracies for the last 30 or 40 years are now pretty much done for.
As the size of government has increased, so has the gap between rich and poor. It's been the same in the US and the UK. The corporations and landowners with their state backed monopolies have priced the poor out of a reasonable standard of living.
The solution of course will be yet more government.
Umm... there seems to be rather more correlation there than causation. Are you saying that corps and landowners only did that because government got larger?
Not sure that the endemic, grinding poverty and low life expectancy that characterised most of the lives lived on these islands until the introduction of a welfare system was caused by a state that had got too big for itself.
The introduction of the welfare state does not seem to have improved the pre-existing trend of increasing life expectancy in the UK.
Guardian out of order .Hopefully the BBC will make a huge thing of it and invite the editor on so Emily Maitlis can do her barely disguised contempt look when interviewing him like she did with the deputy editor of the Daily Mail -hers is hoping
The issue was not the headline per se, it was Miliband's reaction to it and what that led to - including how the Mail handled Miliband's article defending his Dad. Gove needs to react in the same way to turn it into a big story, but can't now given what he said when the Mail did its stuff. I wonder if that was in the back of someone's mind at the Guardian.
Guardian caught out hook, line and sinker. It is indefensible. Smug lefty groupthink is wholly unappealing and often very unpleasant. Just like smug righty groupthink.
I agree, it's on a par with Cameron using Shannon Matthews, Edlington, Brooke Kinsella, and every other child victim he could find to use as a prop for his Broken Britain meme.
(And yes Cyclefree Blair,as he admits in his book, Bulger)
its clearly not on a par. Its a complete lie and inaccurate statement -They should be sued
@ITVLauraK: Also hearing only one big UK institution made it into top 10 in Royal Mail placings - other countries' sovereign wealth funds won out
No stone left unturned in searching out political gifts
Does she (or you) have any idea how a bookbuilding process actually works?
I spent years working with Mad Dog who is running this IPO. He'll be looking for the optimal shareholder structure, with long-term hold strategies. SWFs are more willling to commit to that than the UK long-onlys.
That's partly why you are never ever going to understand the politics.
Exactly , what pompous twaddle trying to make out how clever and serious he is understanding what the spivs do when they fleece the public. Next he will be telling us he only got where he is through hard work and that set of silver spoons counted for nothing.
Pension funds held an estimated 4.7% by value at the end of 2012
Oh. So not Pension Funds then.
Shorthand. What I meant are vehicles by which the individuals access the market
RoW is the majority - but UK funds hold a lot of international stock as well.
Direct Individuals are c. 10% of the market
Pension funds / unit trusts / investment trusts are all individual-backed
Insurance funds - different, but a good thing that insurance companies have the backing to support their policies
Other financial institionals - largely hedge funds, but usually around 50%+ of the money is from UK pension funds, charities, individuals and insurance companies
Once you back all of this out around 50-55% of the stock market is held by foreign investors and around 40-45% by individuals (directly or indirectly). The remainder is held by the public sector, banks, charities and private companies.
"The construction industry is on course to provide another major boost to the economy in the third quarter, with encouraging signs that commercial building and infrastructure spending are rising alongside an ongoing upturn in house building."
@ITVLauraK: Also hearing only one big UK institution made it into top 10 in Royal Mail placings - other countries' sovereign wealth funds won out
No stone left unturned in searching out political gifts
Does she (or you) have any idea how a bookbuilding process actually works?
I spent years working with Mad Dog who is running this IPO. He'll be looking for the optimal shareholder structure, with long-term hold strategies. SWFs are more willling to commit to that than the UK long-onlys.
That's partly why you are never ever going to understand the politics.
Exactly , what pompous twaddle trying to make out how clever and serious he is understanding what the spivs do when they fleece the public. Next he will be telling us he only got where he is through hard work and that set of silver spoons counted for nothing.
When Charles says that you can come back on it. until he does I suggest you stop putting words in his mouth and getting yourself worked up what you think he might say
Guardian out of order .Hopefully the BBC will make a huge thing of it and invite the editor on so Emily Maitlis can do her barely disguised contempt look when interviewing him like she did with the deputy editor of the Daily Mail -hers is hoping
The issue was not the headline per se, it was Miliband's reaction to it and what that led to - including how the Mail handled Miliband's article defending his Dad. Gove needs to react in the same way to turn it into a big story, but can't now given what he said when the Mail did its stuff. I wonder if that was in the back of someone's mind at the Guardian.
If it was a deliberate Guardina attempt because of Goves comments re the Daily Mail thing then its even worse for the newspaper
Good points lucidly put. The left's point that the filthy rich are too rich is just about the only thing they say that I agree with.
Absolutely. The two basic theories underpinning economic debate in the Western democracies for the last 30 or 40 years are now pretty much done for.
As the size of government has increased, so has the gap between rich and poor. It's been the same in the US and the UK. The corporations and landowners with their state backed monopolies have priced the poor out of a reasonable standard of living.
The solution of course will be yet more government.
Umm... there seems to be rather more correlation there than causation. Are you saying that corps and landowners only did that because government got larger?
In terms of the difficulty of obtaining planning permission then yes absolutely. Before the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act people could generally build whatever they liked. It is this false scarcity which drives up building costs and house prices and works in the favour of rich landowners that own land with housing or planning permission.
This is what large government does to people who don't play by these rules:
Large corporations get the government to grant them special privileges and also creates expensive regulations that prevent smaller companies competing. Not to mention direct government bailouts such as for the banking industry (which are a government monopoly in the first place).
But those aren't actions that flow from the size of government; they're actions that flow from a functioning government acting in an (arguably) corrupt way due to regulatory capture by large corporations. If you made government incapable of functioning, so it didn't enforce planning laws for example, sure, you'd get rid of the situation you describe above but I wouldn't hold your breath for it to help the poorer, rather than richer members of society.
Good points lucidly put. The left's point that the filthy rich are too rich is just about the only thing they say that I agree with.
I've yet to come across anyone, either from left or right, who has come anyway close to offering a solution to this problem.
Wealth always seems to elude draconian taxation, and the more draconian the taxation, the more it avoids it.
Then again, 'trickle down' doesn't seem to work that well either.
Absolutely. The two basic theories underpinning economic debate in the Western democracies for the last 30 or 40 years are now pretty much done for.
As the size of government has increased, so has the gap between rich and poor. It's been the same in the US and the UK. The corporations and landowners with their state backed monopolies have priced the poor out of a reasonable standard of living.
The solution of course will be yet more government.
Umm... there seems to be rather more correlation there than causation. Are you saying that corps and landowners only did that because government got larger?
Not sure that the endemic, grinding poverty and low life expectancy that characterised most of the lives lived on these islands until the introduction of a welfare system was caused by a state that had got too big for itself.
The introduction of the welfare state does not seem to have improved the pre-existing trend of increasing life expectancy in the UK.
Maybe we are looking at different charts, but there seems to be a much bigger and more consistent rise in life expectancy in the 20th century than in the 19th century (despite the two wars). The welfare state really began in 1906 remember.
Guardian out of order .Hopefully the BBC will make a huge thing of it and invite the editor on so Emily Maitlis can do her barely disguised contempt look when interviewing him like she did with the deputy editor of the Daily Mail -hers is hoping
The issue was not the headline per se, it was Miliband's reaction to it and what that led to - including how the Mail handled Miliband's article defending his Dad. Gove needs to react in the same way to turn it into a big story, but can't now given what he said when the Mail did its stuff. I wonder if that was in the back of someone's mind at the Guardian.
If it was a deliberate Guardina attempt because of Goves comments re the Daily Mail thing then its even worse for the newspaper
The comments under the polly toynbee article are fascinating.
There's a great deal of 'does not compute!' because the Baby P et al events were happening under labour, when spending largesse on public services was at its height.
For labour, the link between more money and better public services is utterly axiomatic. More spending MUST equal better services, just as night follows day.
It's just dawning on many Guardian posters that this might not be true. Indeed its possible for more money to equal a worse service (as in education under labour).
The problem is not that the rich are too rich. The problem is that the poor are too poor. Anyone who doesn't understand the difference is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I can't comment on anybody else's views, but I'm certainly a lot more interested in making the poor richer than vice versa. The difficulty is that most policies that are proposed to achieve this end are attacked on the basis that they will make the rich poorer.
Most policies put forward in this area seem to be designed mainly to make the rich poorer rather than the poor richer. This is largely because ridiculous numbers of people regard themselves as poor and therefore deserving of state sponsorship. We see plenty of examples of that on here.
The most that the squeezed middle can reasonably expect is for government to take its tanks off their 15'x15' lawns, to put in place a stable structure within which they can live their lives and make their own life choices and to make sure that they are not vulnerable to exploitation by others. Instead, we see repeated attempts to get the rich to bankroll middle Britain's aspirations.
While a terrible name, predistribution does at least grapple with the genuine problem of people in poverty where the state is subsidising their exploitation by others.
If by that you mean some kind of wage control or minimum income guarantee that is linked to a reasonable definition of living costs and/or intervention in pricing of housing, fuel and food (whether by increasing supply or regulating price), plus the provision of basic social goods such as healthcare, education, law enforcement, enough care for the environment to ensure it's still working for the next generation etc, then I guess we'd probably agree... I'd would think we should be aiming at that for all, rather than treating any of the above as middle Britain's aspirations.
I'm not sure what the additional aspirations for middle Britain are though... out of interest, what were you placing in that category? Luxuries like free schools...?
As the size of government has increased, so has the gap between rich and poor. It's been the same in the US and the UK. The corporations and landowners with their state backed monopolies have priced the poor out of a reasonable standard of living.
The solution of course will be yet more government.
Umm... there seems to be rather more correlation there than causation. Are you saying that corps and landowners only did that because government got larger?
In terms of the difficulty of obtaining planning permission then yes absolutely. Before the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act people could generally build whatever they liked. It is this false scarcity which drives up building costs and house prices and works in the favour of rich landowners that own land with housing or planning permission.
This is what large government does to people who don't play by these rules:
Large corporations get the government to grant them special privileges and also creates expensive regulations that prevent smaller companies competing. Not to mention direct government bailouts such as for the banking industry (which are a government monopoly in the first place).
But those aren't actions that flow from the size of government; they're actions that flow from a functioning government acting in an (arguably) corrupt way due to regulatory capture by large corporations. If you made government incapable of functioning, so it didn't enforce planning laws for example, sure, you'd get rid of the situation you describe above but I wouldn't hold your breath for it to help the poorer, rather than richer members of society.
Larger governments are inherently more corrupt that smaller ones. It amazes me when people call for a larger government and then act all surprised when they use their power to give themselves and their mates favours
''Charles is unable to understand how a group of public school twits chortling about a bloke called Mad Dog while they flog the taxpayers assets at way below value might look outside that circle.''
You'll be aware that those f8ckwits at the Adam Smith Institute think the Royal Mail sale was priced absolutely correctly.
Cutting the green levy is such an obvious idea.. do it...do it Cameron and Osborne.
I agree,go for it.
Govt ministers spent yesterday saying that only a very small proportion of the energy rise announced yesterday had anything to do with "green taxes". I assume they were telling the truth?
One of them was vince cable,a lib dem,you know how the lib dems love they green taxes.
Umm... there seems to be rather more correlation there than causation. Are you saying that corps and landowners only did that because government got larger?
In terms of the difficulty of obtaining planning permission then yes absolutely. Before the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act people could generally build whatever they liked. It is this false scarcity which drives up building costs and house prices and works in the favour of rich landowners that own land with housing or planning permission.
This is what large government does to people who don't play by these rules:
Large corporations get the government to grant them special privileges and also creates expensive regulations that prevent smaller companies competing. Not to mention direct government bailouts such as for the banking industry (which are a government monopoly in the first place).
But those aren't actions that flow from the size of government; they're actions that flow from a functioning government acting in an (arguably) corrupt way due to regulatory capture by large corporations. If you made government incapable of functioning, so it didn't enforce planning laws for example, sure, you'd get rid of the situation you describe above but I wouldn't hold your breath for it to help the poorer, rather than richer members of society.
Larger governments are inherently more corrupt that smaller ones. It amazes me when people call for a larger government and then act all surprised when they use their power to give themselves and their mates favours
I think we may as well file this one under "statements of faith which we won't be able to agree on" unless you can think of any sensible evidence to support your view (or mine).
As the size of government has increased, so has the gap between rich and poor. It's been the same in the US and the UK. The corporations and landowners with their state backed monopolies have priced the poor out of a reasonable standard of living.
The solution of course will be yet more government.
Umm... there seems to be rather more correlation there than causation. Are you saying that corps and landowners only did that because government got larger?
But those aren't actions that flow from the size of government; they're actions that flow fromovernment incapable of functioning, so it didn't enforce planning laws for example, sure, you'd get rid of the situation you describe above but I wouldn't hold your breath for it to help the poorer, rather than richer members of society.
Larger governments are inherently more corrupt that smaller ones. It amazes me when people call for a larger government and then act all surprised when they use their power to give themselves and their mates favours
I think you might struggle with the idea that Sweden is more corrupt than Russia, Nigeria or Mexico because its govt is bigger.
I agree I'd have absolutely terrible trouble with that idea. Fortunately it has nothing to do with the point I was making. Phew.
How do I sell my piffling 227 shares? I thought private investors had to wait til Tuesday...
You can't, unless you bought through a broker. You could probably use a spreadbetting company to short it to 'lock in' your ~£230 profit, then sell your shares & close out the bet on Tuesday. If you can be arsed.
The comments under the polly toynbee article are fascinating.
There's a great deal of 'does not compute!' because the Baby P et al events were happening under labour, when spending largesse on public services was at its height.
For labour, the link between more money and better public services is utterly axiomatic. More spending MUST equal better services, just as night follows day.
It's just dawning on many Guardian posters that this might not be true. Indeed its possible for more money to equal a worse service (as in education under labour).
It's classic leftist thinking. Socialism hasn't failed it just hasn't been given enough time to work. All those useless childrens' programmes haven't failed they just haven't been given enough time to work.
According to The Times, Vince Cable has backed The Guardian over their Snowden secret leaks.
From the BBC article:
"Meanwhile, Business Secretary Vince Cable said the newspaper had performed "a very considerable public service" - appearing to contradict his party leader Nick Clegg who described the publication of the leaks as damaging.
But former Home Secretary Jack Straw hit out at the Guardian saying its stance was "indulgent irresponsibility" which did not help protect the public."
I'm with Clegg & Straw - by all means raise questions on oversight - but theGuardian is indeed irresponsibly indulgent...
How STV could make the Conservatives competitive in Liverpool for the first time since the 1980s Maybe...
In Sefton, as a three-seater, the Tories would have a safe seat under STV, whereas they now have none, with little prospect of one under FPTP. (They used to have 2 safe seats, and in the dim and distant past held all three, pre 1945)
I am in a Dutch auction. A real one. An auction, with Dutch publishers.
Is this slightly offtopic? Sorry. Difficult to concentrate, today.
Is it on ebay this auction for your book. If so I woudl advise just selling it for a buy it now price of about £6.99! Hope this helps!!
There are simultaneous 6 way German auctions and 3 way Dutch auctions on my new book, going on right now. Rights auctions are impossible to predict. This could all fizzle out into nothing or I could make six figures - today.
Aaaaaaargh. And now my agent has just told me she's going into a meeting til 3 and won't be communicable during that time.
It's like the bit where the Apollo 13 astronauts went through the upper atmosphere, and radio silence, and no one knew if they were alive or dead for 20 minutes - ONLY THIS IS MORE TENSE.
Chin up! Less than 100 minutes until 3pm.
I could distract you with a worked example of why STV would make elections in the Home Counties more interesting, if you liked...?
Mr. Me, a discussion about the difficulty of a good rear end in F1 would prove more stimulating. We could even delve into the challenges of differential front end grip, and the problems of slippery rubber bursting this season.
Great point on this Polly smear - it's the title which is more inflammatory than the piece..... now where did we hear that recently?
"Except wasn’t the Guardian bitching and moaning about the Daily Mail’s story about “The Man Who Hated Britain”, much for the very same reason that the headline was far more shocking than the article was?"
I am in a Dutch auction. A real one. An auction, with Dutch publishers.
Is this slightly offtopic? Sorry. Difficult to concentrate, today.
Is it on ebay this auction for your book. If so I woudl advise just selling it for a buy it now price of about £6.99! Hope this helps!!
There are simultaneous 6 way German auctions and 3 way Dutch auctions on my new book, going on right now. Rights auctions are impossible to predict. This could all fizzle out into nothing or I could make six figures - today.
Aaaaaaargh. And now my agent has just told me she's going into a meeting til 3 and won't be communicable during that time.
It's like the bit where the Apollo 13 astronauts went through the upper atmosphere, and radio silence, and no one knew if they were alive or dead for 20 minutes - ONLY THIS IS MORE TENSE.
I trust you are going to fund the next pb drinks event. Least you can bloody do. Eight short years ago you were a penniless, struggling, (on benefits IIRC), semi-starving, shrouded in fear and terror by the 7/7/05 bombings. See, I can recall your virginal posts.
So give something back to the folks who never lost faith. It's called the Big Society. Bottoms up.
Writing question: does 'angry angiosperms' sound terrible? I'm going to cut or replace a line about nasty plants. I was after 'killer [something]', but angiosperms sounds (to me, anyway) more amusing.
For the first time in years, my postie had his hair brushed and his shirt tucked in. He had a spring in his step and hailed me from afar with a polite "good morning".
What a difference the private sector makes.
tim seems to think the Royal Mail privatisation is just about the money.
@ITVLauraK: Also hearing only one big UK institution made it into top 10 in Royal Mail placings - other countries' sovereign wealth funds won out
No stone left unturned in searching out political gifts
Does she (or you) have any idea how a bookbuilding process actually works?
I spent years working with Mad Dog who is running this IPO. He'll be looking for the optimal shareholder structure, with long-term hold strategies. SWFs are more willling to commit to that than the UK long-onlys.
That's partly why you are never ever going to understand the politics.
Exactly , what pompous twaddle trying to make out how clever and serious he is understanding what the spivs do when they fleece the public. Next he will be telling us he only got where he is through hard work and that set of silver spoons counted for nothing.
Charles is unable to understand how a group of public school twits chortling about a bloke called Mad Dog while they flog the taxpayers assets at way below value might look outside that circle.
Mad Dog is something of a legend - unique in the industry. A very different style to most bankers.
Value in IPOs is an art, not a science. I'm slightly surprised that they didn't price above the top end of the range, but perhaps politically difficult. Alternatively I suppose they could have increased the retail portion of the allocation (haven't checked the T&Cs but I would have assumed a mix & match was possible).
That said, giving every retail investor who applied (assuming they didn't ask for more than £10K, to why any rational person would I don't know since the scale back was clear) the same amount is a fair way of doing it. It's a pain, though, because I would have liked to have £5K invested in the name at 330p on a long term basis, but don't see much upside at 450p, which means I am left with a small holding worth £1K which is a pain to monitor but which I don't want to add to at these prices
New polling for the Wall Street Journal/NBC suggests that the Republican party rather than President Obama is paying a political price for the government shutdown. By 53% to 31% the sample put the blame on the party.
To another question the poll found that just 24% said they had a favourable view of the Republicans – an all time low.
Hardly a huge surprise considering that the tea party GOP witlessly shriek about their opponents imaginary socialism or marxism when questioned.
Comments
Maybe...
If you formed a Greater Liverpool 7-member STV seat from the seven seats of Bootle, Knowsley, Garston & Halewood and Liverpool Wavertree/West Darby/Walton/Riverside then this would have returned six Labour MPs and one Lib Dem MP in 2010. FPTP returns seven Labour MPs with majorities ranging from 18.9% to 57.7%, and all with more than 50% of the vote, so unaffected by AV.
Even in a large seven member STV constituency, the Conservatives would be 2,012 votes away from winning a seat in the Greater Liverpool area, but this would not be an impossible ambition, and it might encourage Tory voters in the city who have given up hope to turn up to the polling station.
The Lib Dems would also have a chance of winning an extra seat if they could find an additional few thousand voters, and so STV in this safest of safe Labour areas would force Labour to campaign to defend seats which are ridiculously safe under FPTP.
It's all very well telling people that there is no alternative, but if what they see the system delivering is extraordinary wealth for the few (and, boy, are they seeing it: on the internet, on the TV, in magazines, in ads etc) while their own living standards do not improve - then that is not a sustainable situation. Anger will build as opportunities to get on close down, as the cost of living continually increases, as working hours lengthen, working rights are whittled away, benefits recede and retirement is delayed. In the end, that anger will explode. It could be from the left or the right. Neither prospect is attractive. Of course, the really wealthy can flee to tax havens and to friendly countries, but there is a reason why they are not in them now and that is that they are not too much fun to live in and/or are inherently unstable. What's more, a lot of them are essentially there at the whim of larger, more powerful neighbours. Thus, it is in the interests of the very wealthy, too, to take part in this conversation, to think more carefully about their wealth and to maybe understand a little more what it is that makes most people tick. Will it happen? Hell, no. But it should. If only because In The End Something Is Going To Happen And It Won't Be Pretty (though as a lefty I would argue there are more reasons than that).
After Guardian condemns Mail for the Ralph Miliband 'offensive headline' (Mail defence: 'read the article'), defends Guardian offensive headline with 'read the article':
http://www.trendingcentral.com/toynbeeguardian-row-back-blaming-tories-baby-p-death/
Given that the amount of money and assets in the world is finite, it surely amounts to the same thing.
In order to make the poor less poor, the rich will inevitably have to become a little less rich.
If you read the comments under the article, some Guardian editor back pedalling desperately is among them.
I'm intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich, but not so relaxed at being expected to bear the brunt of cuts, wage freezes, pension rights eroded and my standard of living falling back. We don't expect to be immune from austerity, but we're an easy target to hate.
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/japan-pre-qualifying.html
Edited extra bit: incidentally, qualifying's live on the BBC at 6am.
They've tried to detox themselves by ditching the bits that made themselves competent such as fiscal discipline, small government and ignoring trendy lefty rubbish and it hasn't won a single vote from the Guardianista types but lost them loads on the right to UKIP.
I think their best bet is to give the impression the economy is fixed in 2015, lose in a close election (preferably getting more votes that anyone else) and then watch Labour spend their way to complete destruction.
You could, theoretically, make the poor richer without making the rich poorer if you ensured that the majority of the proceeds of growth went to the poor rather than the rich. I think this is roughly what happened in most Western economies in the post-war period. Since the 1970s the reverse has been the case, and growth has been lower too.
"Except wasn’t the Guardian bitching and moaning about the Daily Mail’s story about “The Man Who Hated Britain”, much for the very same reason that the headline was far more shocking than the article was?"
http://www.trendingcentral.com/toynbeeguardian-row-back-blaming-tories-baby-p-death/
We all have our rods to bear.
Social Workers slam The Guardian for blaming Gove for death of Baby P http://bit.ly/15YEhi6
http://twitpic.com/dgvgmo
The most that the squeezed middle can reasonably expect is for government to take its tanks off their 15'x15' lawns, to put in place a stable structure within which they can live their lives and make their own life choices and to make sure that they are not vulnerable to exploitation by others. Instead, we see repeated attempts to get the rich to bankroll middle Britain's aspirations.
While a terrible name, predistribution does at least grapple with the genuine problem of people in poverty where the state is subsidising their exploitation by others.
Indeed. Transparency would help though, surely.
Instead of the Sunday Times rich list we could have the government sponsored Sunday Times Scrooge list, of those who give the least relative to their wealth, or pay the least tax.
Wealthy people like to accepted in society as well as being wealthy and I think more transparency and hence more 'nudge' might be surprisingly effective.
You couldn't make it up...
The solution of course will be yet more government.
Unseating Michael Moore will be tough. John Lamont didn't achieve it last time even though he had unseated Jeremy Purvis at the previous Scottish election and went on to increase his majority in 2011. However this result will make the local Tories believe again that it is possible and that is a major weapon in any party's armoury.
This is what large government does to people who don't play by these rules:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2382684/Charlie-Hague-Megan-Williams-told-pull-hobbit-home-entirely-natural-materials.html
Large corporations get the government to grant them special privileges and also creates expensive regulations that prevent smaller companies competing. Not to mention direct government bailouts such as for the banking industry (which are a government monopoly in the first place).
Indeed. I read that Gladstone, one of the great reforming philanthropist Prime Ministers, had a budget that in today's terms would be GBP3bn.
It was a different social contract though. Taxation was extremely low, but many of Victorian rich people gave 10% of their wealth to charity.
Today government budget is USD700bn...??? Public services are manifestly way better than in Victorian times, but are they GBP697bn better???
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/resources/figure2_tcm77-291961.png
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/mortality-ageing/mortality-in-england-and-wales/average-life-span/rpt-average-life-span.html#tab-Trends-in-Average-Life-Span
Shorthand. What I meant are vehicles by which the individuals access the market
RoW is the majority - but UK funds hold a lot of international stock as well.
Direct Individuals are c. 10% of the market
Pension funds / unit trusts / investment trusts are all individual-backed
Insurance funds - different, but a good thing that insurance companies have the backing to support their policies
Other financial institionals - largely hedge funds, but usually around 50%+ of the money is from UK pension funds, charities, individuals and insurance companies
Once you back all of this out around 50-55% of the stock market is held by foreign investors and around 40-45% by individuals (directly or indirectly). The remainder is held by the public sector, banks, charities and private companies.
another major boost to the economy in the third quarter,
with encouraging signs that commercial building and
infrastructure spending are rising alongside an ongoing
upturn in house building."
http://www.markit.com/assets/en/docs/commentary/markit-economics/2013/oct/UK_Construction_13_10_11.pdf
http://www.livecharts.co.uk/share_prices/sharetrades/RMG
11/10/13 12:46pm Buy 227 435.15 987.79
11/10/13 12:46pm Buy 184 435.25 800.86
11/10/13 12:46pm Buy 227 435.15 987.79
11/10/13 12:46pm Buy 37 435.16 161.01
11/10/13 12:46pm Buy 227 435.30 988.13
11/10/13 12:46pm Buy 227 435.16 987.81
11/10/13 12:46pm Sell 227 435.15 987.79
11/10/13 12:46pm Sell 227 435.15 987.79
11/10/13 12:46pm Sell 227 435.16 987.81
11/10/13 12:46pm Sell 151 435.16 657.09
11/10/13 12:46pm Sell 227 435.15 987.79
11/10/13 12:46pm Buy 227 435.30 988.13
11/10/13 12:46pm Sell 227 435.16 987.81
11/10/13 12:46pm Sell 227 435.15 987.79
11/10/13 12:46pm Sell 227 435.16 987.81
Con 1155 (42.7%) +18%
LibDem 677 (25%) -9.9%
SNP 359 (13.3%) -8.4%
Lab 203 (7.5%) -1.9%
BP 228 (8.4%) -0.9%
Ind 43 (1.6%) +1.6%
UKIP 43 (1.6%) +1.6%
There's a great deal of 'does not compute!' because the Baby P et al events were happening under labour, when spending largesse on public services was at its height.
For labour, the link between more money and better public services is utterly axiomatic. More spending MUST equal better services, just as night follows day.
It's just dawning on many Guardian posters that this might not be true. Indeed its possible for more money to equal a worse service (as in education under labour).
I'm not sure what the additional aspirations for middle Britain are though... out of interest, what were you placing in that category? Luxuries like free schools...?
You'll be aware that those f8ckwits at the Adam Smith Institute think the Royal Mail sale was priced absolutely correctly.
What do they know?
"Leaked surveillance programme details have been the "most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever", a senior UK security expert has said.
Former No 10 adviser Sir David Omand said he assumed data leaked by ex-US intelligence worker Edward Snowden was being analysed by Russia and China.
He said the breach was worse than that by the Cambridge spy ring in the 1950s.
The Guardian has said it will continue to publish leaks by Mr Snowden, who is now in Russia."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24486649
"7/8 results in
Last nights vote share
LAB 50.1%
CON 16%
UKIP 11.3%
SNP 10.2%
OTH 6%
INDY 3.9%
GREEN 1.7%
LIB DEMS 0.8%"
twitter.com/UKELECTIONS2015/status/388608257452806144
http://labourlist.org/2013/10/mccluskey-praises-milibands-courage-and-says-this-is-no-longer-new-labour/
Deluded but not illogical.
"Meanwhile, Business Secretary Vince Cable said the newspaper had performed "a very considerable public service" - appearing to contradict his party leader Nick Clegg who described the publication of the leaks as damaging.
But former Home Secretary Jack Straw hit out at the Guardian saying its stance was "indulgent irresponsibility" which did not help protect the public."
I'm with Clegg & Straw - by all means raise questions on oversight - but theGuardian is indeed irresponsibly indulgent...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24479812
Can be fixed with this advance in science (Gulf states to "detect" gays trying to enter):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/09/gulf-countries-detect-gays_n_4065927.html
I presume the "detection" involves asking how many Kylie albums are on the traveller's ipod.
Gay detection obviously involves the use of advancements in gaydar technology.
I could distract you with a worked example of why STV would make elections in the Home Counties more interesting, if you liked...?
Should be interesting.
Officials are apparently being instructed to ask asylum seekers for their opinions on Liza Minelli.
That's not evidence, just an article of faith
In recent tests, an AESA gaydar detected a Kylie album playing at 73 miles ...
So give something back to the folks who never lost faith. It's called the Big Society. Bottoms up.
What a difference the private sector makes.
tim seems to think the Royal Mail privatisation is just about the money.
Value in IPOs is an art, not a science. I'm slightly surprised that they didn't price above the top end of the range, but perhaps politically difficult. Alternatively I suppose they could have increased the retail portion of the allocation (haven't checked the T&Cs but I would have assumed a mix & match was possible).
That said, giving every retail investor who applied (assuming they didn't ask for more than £10K, to why any rational person would I don't know since the scale back was clear) the same amount is a fair way of doing it. It's a pain, though, because I would have liked to have £5K invested in the name at 330p on a long term basis, but don't see much upside at 450p, which means I am left with a small holding worth £1K which is a pain to monitor but which I don't want to add to at these prices
To another question the poll found that just 24% said they had a favourable view of the Republicans – an all time low.
Hardly a huge surprise considering that the tea party GOP witlessly shriek about their opponents imaginary socialism or marxism when questioned.
Just like the tea party tories in fact. ;^ )
*chortle*