Congrats to Cara Hilton. Her victory has certainly shaken things up north of the border.
But more importantly: congratulations to Sunil. Hope you enjoy your new opportunity.
Beggars belief that people actually voted for this stupid airhead. Listening to her on TV she is so stupid it is hard to believe. Does not bode well for Scotland.
Stupidity has rarely been a disqualification for public office.
Jack, Nowadays it seems to be compulsory. But fun aside I do despair that people like this are being put in positions of power, I may be forced to go over the water the way things are going.
It seems a bit rash to decamp to Orkney but at least you'll have the benefit of "Hammer of Salmond" - Carmichael as your MP !!
Chortle ....
Jack , LOL, I get enough rain and wind here on the west coast , a longer journey was on my mind. He does look he would be a nice chap to have a refreshment with mind you.
Shetland ??? .... a longer journey certainly and still within Carmichael's Empire of the Isles.
Jack, please suggest somewhere the sun shines more than a week or two a year
I'm tempted to say according to SNP legend up Alex Salmond's arse .... but I wouldn't suggest such a vulgarity !!
The only sneering on PB this morning has come from MacolmG towards the people of Dunfermline. He poses as a nationalist and patriot but seems to loathe and despise Scots.
A distinct lack of self-awareness from PB's No. 1 misanthrope
Bob you are better whinging about marginal tax or tube tickets. Just a Labour welfare junkie who wants everything subsidised, almost certain you work in public services, shoudl have hosen tube and it would have saved you whinging..
All noise but better than 2Q so story is growth accelerating. Us Blues (sorry, Phil, not you) need a bit of good news to round off a not entirely successful week.
Thanks @Josias. Of course, the entire concept of having a bloke give you a bit of paper that you then have to keep about your person or be fined hundreds of pounds is anachronistic in the extreme and should be summarily dumped as part of any restructure. Send a barcode to your email and phone with your name and have done, alternatively introduce some sort of national Oyster Card or credi card NFC scheme.
What do you make of this Labour renationalisation stuff?
The only sneering on PB this morning has come from MacolmG towards the people of Dunfermline. He poses as a nationalist and patriot but seems to loathe and despise Scots.
A distinct lack of self-awareness from PB's No. 1 misanthrope
Bob you are better whinging about marginal tax or tube tickets. Just a Labour welfare junkie who wants everything subsidised, almost certain you work in public services, shoudl have hosen tube and it would have saved you whinging..
Chill malcolm, I think BAJ was referring to Monica.
Indeed. But we are years away from a surplus and only one party is actively contemplating it. There's alot of money printing to go between now and then. Buying gold remains a good long term plan!
(and FWIW I think there will be a major market correction within the next few months - the disconnect between values and fundamentals is becoming outrageous. Bond yields will rise across the indebted world. The whole world is facing a grand 'correction' and the politicians are not doing anything much to prepare).
If this correction comes before March 2014, what do you think will happen in the EuroZone and its heavily indebted nations?
They're fucxed. The Eurozone has been playing 'extend and pretend' since the beginning. But nothing has been done to fix the fundamentals. The Euro is unworkable without reform (superstate or split). Their banks are still horrifically over extended. When the equity crash comes it will bring a market panic, interest rates will spike and the banks will not escape and nor will the sovereigns. We're going to have another major financial crisis but we're much worse prepared for it this time. The UK will suffer dreadfully. The Eurozone faces an existensial crisis.
Of course David nothing could be as generous as the existing system, which receives four times the public subsidy it ever did under BR. Generous indeed.
I wouldn't disagree but given that BR was hardly a model of efficiency, that also goes to show how much long-term-necessary, medium-term-discretionary spending wasn't happening - and capital investment is one of the easiest things for governments to cut. (Admittedly, it's also an easy thing for struggling private sector concerns to cut too but those firms will at least look more equally at all their costs, as INEOS are proving).
And it could have been even better, according to BBC twitter
ONS chief economist Joe Grice says that third quarter GDP was depressed by a fall in oil and gas output. Without that fall, GDP would have grown by 1%, he said.
"The humbling of David Cameron: This outbreak of petulance may cost the PM dearly"
Odd article by Rentoul. On the one hand he says PMQ's was a car crash for Cameron suggesting that he might not recover then goes on to say it achieved what he and Crosby had planned and Labour had suffered from it.
Ooh 1.5% annual growth in the govts fourth year, let's party
Sour. Grapes.
Low.Expectations.
@IanDunt: George Osborne has done so well that economic growth is now at the same level as it was when he came to power http://t.co/6O05bLkJX7
That's one of the problems with the web. It is home to a vast repository of out-of-date information. The current ONS figures give GDP growth of 0.4% for the 3rd quarter of 2010, not the 0.8% "confirmed" in November 2010.
The only sneering on PB this morning has come from MacolmG towards the people of Dunfermline. He poses as a nationalist and patriot but seems to loathe and despise Scots.
A distinct lack of self-awareness from PB's No. 1 misanthrope
Bob you are better whinging about marginal tax or tube tickets. Just a Labour welfare junkie who wants everything subsidised, almost certain you work in public services, shoudl have hosen tube and it would have saved you whinging..
Chill malcolm, I think BAJ was referring to Monica.
I was indeed! I work in the private sector, for the record.
The bucket system (sell a cheap "bucket" of ticket, then sell a less cheap one, etc.) is common for airlines too, of course, and seen in other walks of life too (theatres, for instance). Businesses like to get what in another context we might like to call their baseload early and will sell it cheaply. If they're doing well then the price for the remaining tickets shoots up - e.g. on my recent trip to Shanghai, I noticed that the price for the main airlines more than tripled from £700 to £2300 in a few days, which is why I went Aeroflot, who don't seem to have caught on to that wheeze and seem otherwise just as good.
I don't think that one can expect private companies or indeed state-owned companies to stray from the model unless they are specifically ordered to do so by politicians in order to benefit commuters with uncertain timetables - and it's not obvious that would be a positive example of government intervention at the expense of bottom line. Many commuters travel at the same time every day and would lose out to commuters with varying timetables but also the people travelling on a whim.
Yep, there might be good reasons to do it that way. But that does not alter McNulty's findings, and that is why I have more than a little sympathy with Bobajob's position. The current system is overly complicated and difficult to understand, a situation that has worsened since privatisation. I'm unsure if the coalition have taken that part of McNulty's report forwards - it deserves some attention, as the report itself says.
But I doubt we'd get anything less complex than the system that we had at the end of BR days.
So the optimistic forecasters were right. It means that the UK economy is now 2.5% below the peak of output before the downturn. The service sector has fully recovered and is now 0.4% above its pre-downturn level, but manufacturing is 8.9% below it and construction is 12.5% lower.
And it could have been even better, according to BBC twitter
ONS chief economist Joe Grice says that third quarter GDP was depressed by a fall in oil and gas output. Without that fall, GDP would have grown by 1%, he said.
I assume the fall in oil and gas output can solely be attributed to 'fop' Osborne?
And it could have been even better, according to BBC twitter
ONS chief economist Joe Grice says that third quarter GDP was depressed by a fall in oil and gas output. Without that fall, GDP would have grown by 1%, he said.
That's not what the ONS excel spreadsheet says. IHYQ and KLH8 are identical at 0.8%.
Cameron would be well advised to follow the advice of the of the great sages of advertising- David Ogilvy
'When the client moans and sighs, Make his logo twice the size. If he still should prove refractory Show a picture of his factory. Only in gravest cases Should you show the clients’ faces.'
As others have pointed out, the comments under Blair's peace piece in the Guardian are a sight to behold. Lot's of "murderer" and "warmonger", of course, but I quite liked this hysterical little godwin:
That was a good comedy read, now waiting for the next on the series J. Mengele – "what I've learned about healing people"
RT @afneil: So far economy has grown by 0.4% Q1, 0.7% Q2, 0.8% Q3.
Only a matter of time until we get a Q which down on the last Q and then the red line will be flatering economy, Govt must do more, phone-ins etc - are we heading for another recession...
RT @afneil: So far economy has grown by 0.4% Q1, 0.7% Q2, 0.8% Q3.
Only a matter of time until we get a Q which down on the last Q and then the red line will be flatering economy, Govt must do more, phone-ins etc - are we heading for another recession...
Charles Crawford @CharlesCrawford Desperate top-end spin! RT @georgeeaton: Why the return of growth doesn't prove that Balls was wrong bit.ly/1dmSgAE
At Grangemouth which needs INEOS whilst INEOS does not need Grangemouth, will Jim Ratcliffe having forced Unite to retreat totally, drive home his advantage by imposing more rigorous terms or even require wee Eck to cough up a major capital grant?
If I was in his shoes, I would give with one hand and take with the other. If he just takes then it will be perceived as opportunistic and he will come under a lot more general criticism.
From the workers, perhaps you look to extend the agreement, not with a pay freeze, but say moderate pay rises pre-agreed for the period after the freeze expires (that will offset the risk of any catch up)
The other way to play it would be a capital grant from the taxpayer - as I understand it they were proposing to make a chunky investment, so perhaps they can persuade Salmond to cough up some of it in return for guarantees over keeping the plant open until, say, the end of 2014 ;-)
And it could have been even better, according to BBC twitter
ONS chief economist Joe Grice says that third quarter GDP was depressed by a fall in oil and gas output. Without that fall, GDP would have grown by 1%, he said.
That's not what the ONS excel spreadsheet says. IHYQ and KLH8 are identical at 0.8%.
OK. Moral is never trust the Bolschevik Broadcasting Company.
CPS Think Tank@CPSThinkTank2m 'likely that UK economy recorded fastest quarterly growth rate within the G7 in Q3." Samuel Tombs from Capital Economics to @BBCNews
CPS Think Tank@CPSThinkTank2m 'likely that UK economy recorded fastest quarterly growth rate within the G7 in Q3." Samuel Tombs from Capital Economics to @BBCNews
"Mr Hollande speaks for all of the Labour Party when he says 'merde'"
So the optimistic forecasters were right. It means that the UK economy is now 2.5% below the peak of output before the downturn. The service sector has fully recovered and is now 0.4% above its pre-downturn level, but manufacturing is 8.9% below it and construction is 12.5% lower.
Using 2010 = 100, current values for a few interesting sectors of the economy are:
Manufacturing = 100.4 Construction = 96.6 Distribution, hotels and restaurants = 106.4 Business services and finance = 106.9 Total economy = 103.1 Total excluding oil & gas = 104.0
And specially for tim: Government and other services = 102.6
TV 30 Years Ago @tv30yearsago BBC1 5.40 Sixty Minutes 6.40 Angels 7.05 Harty 7.40 Don't Wait Up 8.10 Dallas 9.00 News 9.25 Stan's Last Game (play) 10.30 Film: Puzzle
This is the first time we've had two consecutive quarters of GDP growth of 0.5% or greater since the first half of 2010.
The timing is not an accident.
Good to see the PB Tories cheering growth driven by increased govt spending, rising household debt and a housing bubble though
On and on and on he drones. You're going to have to get used to a lot more good news before May 2015, sour chipmunk.
Just as Osborne finally gets growth your party starts to lose the politics. Rentoul is a big Cameron fan, but he recognises the fact that the PM is potentially the problem, and all Labour needs to do is help him destroy his own brand, and without Cameron besting Miliband you have nothing, your party is still toxic.
Labour have lost the economic argument, and are reduced to personal attacks.
It's worked so well with everyone else, hasn't it?
This is the first time we've had two consecutive quarters of GDP growth of 0.5% or greater since the first half of 2010.
The timing is not an accident.
Good to see the PB Tories cheering growth driven by increased govt spending, rising household debt and a housing bubble though
On and on and on he drones. You're going to have to get used to a lot more good news before May 2015, sour chipmunk.
Just as Osborne finally gets growth your party starts to lose the politics. Rentoul is a big Cameron fan, but he recognises the fact that the PM is potentially the problem, and all Labour needs to do is help him destroy his own brand, and without Cameron besting Miliband you have nothing, your party is still toxic.
...And still he drones on and on and on. It's becoming unaturally habit-forming.
And ever more incoherent. Now calm down a bit - I know it's been a terrible morning for you with confirmation that the UK is now one of the highest perfroming economies - but you really, and I mean really, and endeavour to avoid orgasm just because Cameron had one piss-poor PMQs (which he did).
Politics isn't your strongest of subjects, is it? Have you tried flower arranging?
Labour have lost the economic argument, and are reduced to personal attacks.
It's worked so well with everyone else, hasn't it?
To be fair, Labour have not just lost the economic argument. They also lost the argument on welfare, education, police and are struggling on NHS coverups.
What strikes me about it is not so much the headline itself, which is not much of a surprise, but the reaction in terms of what the effect might be on tuition fees:
Higher Education Minister David Willetts told Newsnight it would be wrong to pass on the cost of higher pensions to students.
"Universities are independent autonomous bodies and they know one of their financial responsibilities is to stand behind their pensions and tackle their deficits," he said.
"It would be wrong to expect students to bail out pension deficits to support pension schemes that are far more generous than students are likely to enjoy when they're older."
What is happening here is that problems which used to be swept under the carpet and the bill picked up, without any discussion, by the taxpayer, are now out in the open.
Thanks @Josias. Of course, the entire concept of having a bloke give you a bit of paper that you then have to keep about your person or be fined hundreds of pounds is anachronistic in the extreme and should be summarily dumped as part of any restructure. Send a barcode to your email and phone with your name and have done, alternatively introduce some sort of national Oyster Card or credi card NFC scheme.
What do you make of this Labour renationalisation stuff?
Many people don't have access to the correct sort of mobile phones, or have them charged, or use email. Little pieces of paper will be around for a long time - just witness the London Underground, although I don't know anything about the way such schemes have worked in other countries.
I'm ambivalent to renationalisation of the railways. However, Labour's proposal is brain-dead, as is often the case with politician's schemes when they are based in ideology rather than reality.
Want I would like to see is an honest investigation into the problems and advantages of the current system (and there are plenty of both), and then come up with solutions to those problems, without neutralising the advantages. If that leads to renationalisation, good. If it leads to a concessionary rather than a franchise system, good. If the current system is tweaked, good. But you must ask the questions before you come up with the answer.
What some in Labour are saying is that renationalisation is the answer, without considering the problems. That way spells disaster and significant problems, as happened with the ideological privatisation is the first place.
For the first time in fifty years, we have a growing network, in terms of route-miles, passenger numbers, passenger miles, and freight tonnage. This miraculous change (I well remember people saying the railways should concentrate on managing a declining network) has coincided with privatisation. Correlation does not mean causation, but they are powerful figures. Maybe they would have happened without privatisation. Personally, I doubt it.
Investment is key. BR was always starved of funds by government, and I see no reason why a renationalised system would do the same. Sadly, Nick Palmer's recent blog indicates the same thing might happen again, with investment money that could go to the railways being redirected to (say) tax credits to win more votes.
BR performed best under sectorisation in the 1980s, when the Thatcher government was mostly disinterested in the railways. If they are renationalised, it should be back to some form of sectorisation.
It will *not* be back to the good old days of BR. Because they often were not good.
CCHQ Press Office@RicHolden21m FSB: "For 3rd quarter in a row, growth has come from all sectors. Points to a rebalancing economy and should make for more stable recovery."
This is the first time we've had two consecutive quarters of GDP growth of 0.5% or greater since the first half of 2010.
The timing is not an accident.
Good to see the PB Tories cheering growth driven by increased govt spending, rising household debt and a housing bubble though
On and on and on he drones. You're going to have to get used to a lot more good news before May 2015, sour chipmunk.
Just as Osborne finally gets growth your party starts to lose the politics. Rentoul is a big Cameron fan, but he recognises the fact that the PM is potentially the problem, and all Labour needs to do is help him destroy his own brand, and without Cameron besting Miliband you have nothing, your party is still toxic.
...And still he drones on and on and on. It's becoming unaturally habit-forming.
And ever more incoherent. Now calm down a bit - I know it's been a terrible morning for you with confirmation that the UK is now one of the highest perfroming economies - but you really, and I mean really, and endeavour to avoid orgasm just because Cameron had one piss-poor PMQs (which he did).
Politics isn't your strongest of subjects, is it? Have you tried flower arranging?
I'm sure the presence of all those who get elections wrong on here supporting your opinion will be a great comfort as Cameron turns his brand to dog shite.
Now, now, dearest pimplemousse, no need for petulance. LoL
Thanks @Josias. Of course, the entire concept of having a bloke give you a bit of paper that you then have to keep about your person or be fined hundreds of pounds is anachronistic in the extreme and should be summarily dumped as part of any restructure. Send a barcode to your email and phone with your name and have done, alternatively introduce some sort of national Oyster Card or credi card NFC scheme.
What do you make of this Labour renationalisation stuff?
That way spells disaster and significant problems, as happened with the ideological privatisation is the first place.
A case can be made that the Post-WWII nationalisations were pragmatic rather than ideological - having been run flat out with minimal maintenance for 5 years there was little likely prospect of the private rail companies finding the finance required to get back on their feet.
Nationalising them now would be much more 'ideological'.....
Great night for Labour! Looks like Labour is doing even better in real elections than it is in national opinion polls, Leader Ed Miliband is going from "Red Ed" to "White Fang" chasing down Cameron.
The swing from the 2007 notional results (an election the SNP won, let's not forget, even if only just), was about 0.4% from Lab to SNP. Labour had a 12.8% lead over the SNP in 2007, and an 11.9% lead yesterday. Considering local factors, that's not a result to set the world alight.
Shhhhh David! Last night was a triumph for the Scottish Labour Party. Surely even you can see that? They are *really* popular with the voters again, and are now guaranteed to see Johann Lamont elected FM in May 2016. The IndyRef was in the bag long ago remember. Devolution didn't kill nationalism stone dead, but the IndyRef will. Scotland's union with England is a towering triumph of redistributive social democracy, and with Scotland still in the Union they can govern the English as well, for several decades to come.
The future is glorious for the triumphant Scottish Labour Party. If in doubt, just watch the stellar political career awaiting Cara Hilton.
Of course the smart Tories will know they should downplay today's GDP figures and make little comment on what is at first glance good news for them but really isn't which if they are smart they will know.
They will recognise they need May to be installed henceforth as PM and Chancellor & then know they should rename themselves UKIP2IFUWANTTO and be assured of success against any other party which exists out there but which smart Tories should pay no attention to at all.
Helen Pidd tweets: All 5 Bradford councillors from George Galloway's Respect have quit, accusing the MP of defamation & lack of transparency. More soon.
@tim - You're assuredly correct that I am enjoying this morning rather more than you are. And am ever more confident that when the sun rises on the morning after that fateful night in May 2015, my enjoyment will be richly enhanced by the financial pleasure of doing business with your good self.
@tnewtondunn: Interesting that 3rd quarter saw 2.5% rise in construction, and across all sectors - biggest since Q2, 2010. Help to Buy Pt 1 responsible?
Oh no, building houses on the increase. It's a DISASTER!!!
A case can be made that the Post-WWII nationalisations were pragmatic rather than ideological
Hmm, I don't think that stacks up. The 1945 Attlee government was quite extreme in its socialist ideology - nationalising coal, rail, steel, canals, electricity, gas, Cable & Wireless, hospitals (which no-one expected), even road haulage. Many of the more extreme measures were gradually dismantled later (alas, not the nationalisation of hospitals), but of course many blighted our economy for decades, until Maggie came to the rescue.
Thanks @Josias. Of course, the entire concept of having a bloke give you a bit of paper that you then have to keep about your person or be fined hundreds of pounds is anachronistic in the extreme and should be summarily dumped as part of any restructure. Send a barcode to your email and phone with your name and have done, alternatively introduce some sort of national Oyster Card or credi card NFC scheme.
What do you make of this Labour renationalisation stuff?
That way spells disaster and significant problems, as happened with the ideological privatisation is the first place.
A case can be made that the Post-WWII nationalisations were pragmatic rather than ideological - having been run flat out with minimal maintenance for 5 years there was little likely prospect of the private rail companies finding the finance required to get back on their feet.
Nationalising them now would be much more 'ideological'.....
Absolutely. The railways were knackered, physically and financially in 1945. Formal nationalisation (effective nationalisation came during the war anyway), was both a necessary and moral policy in the circumstances. They are not, however, the circumstances of today.
So the optimistic forecasters were right. It means that the UK economy is now 2.5% below the peak of output before the downturn. The service sector has fully recovered and is now 0.4% above its pre-downturn level, but manufacturing is 8.9% below it and construction is 12.5% lower.
Using 2010 = 100, current values for a few interesting sectors of the economy are:
Manufacturing = 100.4 Construction = 96.6 Distribution, hotels and restaurants = 106.4 Business services and finance = 106.9 Total economy = 103.1 Total excluding oil & gas = 104.0
Make up your own mind as to what that means.
It means rebalancing failed and Osborne is relying on a housing bubble and increased govt spending to save the Tories in time for the election.
Has it? I thought you were in favour of lots of construction output. Now we see construction output growing very rapidly.
There's no doubt GDP per head, by May 2015, will be signifcantly above its level of May 2010.
Helen Pidd tweets: All 5 Bradford councillors from George Galloway's Respect have quit, accusing the MP of defamation & lack of transparency. More soon.
The story has been out for quite a while this morning.
A case can be made that the Post-WWII nationalisations were pragmatic rather than ideological
Hmm, I don't think that stacks up.
I was talking about the railways - do you think they could have quickly re-established themselves? If so, why did it take nearly half a century to get them back into private ownership?
@tim - You're assuredly correct that I am enjoying this morning rather more than you are. And am ever more confident that when the sun rises on the morning after that fateful night in May 2015, my enjoyment will be richly enhanced by the financial pleasure of doing business with your good self.
I'm quite happy betting against your prediction that there will be no swing against the Tories and that they'll lead among women. What does surprise me a little is your inability to spot the decline in Camerons usefulness to your cause that began with Syria.
Syria? I've noticed you chart the towering genius that is Ed Miliband to Syria? Have you become so utterly and insanely deluded? Boy, you should start that flower-arranging course soon.
Cameron would be well advised to follow the advice of the of the great sages of advertising- David Ogilvy
'When the client moans and sighs, Make his logo twice the size. If he still should prove refractory Show a picture of his factory. Only in gravest cases Should you show the clients’ faces.'
Excellent Roger.
Personally I am a little disappointed at Q3. The surge in growth that we saw in July and August seems to have tempered somewhat. We are now trundling along at a fairly reasonable pace but are not obviously accelerating.
I think the problem is once again exports and once again the EU. There were some horrendous forecasts for the next few years from Citigroup this week. If they are even close to correct full scale debt restructuring in Italy, Portugal and Greece (again) is inevitable with all the economic disruption this causes.
I fear that more of our growth is going to have to be home grown than is ideal given that we have not run a trade surplus since 1997.
Thanks @Josias. Of course, the entire concept of having a bloke give you a bit of paper that you then have to keep about your person or be fined hundreds of pounds is anachronistic in the extreme and should be summarily dumped as part of any restructure. Send a barcode to your email and phone with your name and have done, alternatively introduce some sort of national Oyster Card or credi card NFC scheme.
What do you make of this Labour renationalisation stuff?
That way spells disaster and significant problems, as happened with the ideological privatisation is the first place.
A case can be made that the Post-WWII nationalisations were pragmatic rather than ideological - having been run flat out with minimal maintenance for 5 years there was little likely prospect of the private rail companies finding the finance required to get back on their feet.
Nationalising them now would be much more 'ideological'.....
I'm not an expert on this, but weren't the railways owed a massive amount of money from the government for war-work that was not paid for? Add in the damage to the system, and lack of maintenance from the war years.
Some say that the 1923 Grouping was done for the same reason - so the government could avoid paying the railways for the war-work.
By the late 1980s, BR had got the hang of managing a shrinking network. It makes you wonder what would have happened if privatisation had not occurred: would BR have received the investment to cope with the massively increased traffic?
Cameron would be well advised to follow the advice of the of the great sages of advertising- David Ogilvy
'When the client moans and sighs, Make his logo twice the size. If he still should prove refractory Show a picture of his factory. Only in gravest cases Should you show the clients’ faces.'
@tim - You're assuredly correct that I am enjoying this morning rather more than you are. And am ever more confident that when the sun rises on the morning after that fateful night in May 2015, my enjoyment will be richly enhanced by the financial pleasure of doing business with your good self.
As someone who gets elections right may I assure Hersham's Dogged Emissary to PB that you will indeed be partaking of "tim's" coinage as Labour's goose is indeed in the political oven and is on slow cook for the next 18 months !!
I was talking about the railways - do you think they could have quickly re-established themselves? If so, why did it take nearly half a century to get them back into private ownership?
Maybe not, but my point was the motivation was ideology, not pragmatism. If it had been a pragmatic decision based on the condition of the railways, that might have been fair enough, but it wasn't, it was part of an ideological programme to nationalise every major industry and many smaller ones, even those (like road haulage or hospitals) where there was no justification whatsoever.
Just watching P2. Hulkenberg's front left tyre (soft) is pretty ripped up. Wonder if that'll point to a significant drop off/tyre explosions in the race.
3-4 laps before it starts going away, according to Vettel and his engineer.
After that, times improve but the tyre doesn't last long - Gary Anderson.
@tim - You're assuredly correct that I am enjoying this morning rather more than you are. And am ever more confident that when the sun rises on the morning after that fateful night in May 2015, my enjoyment will be richly enhanced by the financial pleasure of doing business with your good self.
As someone who gets elections right may I assure Hersham's Dogged Emissary to PB that you will indeed be partaking of "tim's" coinage as Labour's goose is indeed in the political oven and is on slow cook for the next 18 months !!
I rather like cranky, flustered, cantankerous tim. He doesn't do adversity very well, does he?
Any growth is the wrong sort of growth for Ed Balls and cheerleaders.
Don't be a d*ck.
Growth fuelled by £100billion pre-election borrowing was good back in 2009-2010.
And rising govt spending is good now you tell me?
No it isn't and I'd never argue that it was. But back then, every sensible economist (including your mate Al Darling) was saying we were heading for bankruptcy but Brown kept on borrowing and spending and promising jobs and promising aircraft carriers and more public sector jobs and ad infinitum because he had an election to get through.
And you cheered him on despite knowing it was unsustainable, largely because you knew the Tories would have to tackle the promises when in office. Borrowing was an inevitable (and forecast) problem through this parliament. It could've been a lot easier if Brown hadn't engaged in scorched earthing pre-election. But Brown - and I can't blame him for this - calculated that many voters are thick enough to believe Brown = growth, Tories = evil cutting ideologues.
Borrowing will eventually go down and rebalancing is happening. I fear that living standards will never reach their early 2000s peak though. And perhaps they never should. We all now know the consequences of living well beyond our means.
This is the first time we've had two consecutive quarters of GDP growth of 0.5% or greater since the first half of 2010.
The timing is not an accident.
Good to see the PB Tories cheering growth driven by increased govt spending, rising household debt and a housing bubble though
It seems to have been driven more by growth in manufacturing output, construction, and business services than government expenditure.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam 33m Services responsible for 0.6% points of the 0.8% Q3 GDP figure: ONS chart: pic.twitter.com/8EBXrUrOIe
Manufacturing and construction are way down on peak
CPS Think Tank @CPSThinkTank 50m UK economy 2.5% below peak before downturn. Services fully recovered, 0.4% ^ pre-downturn level, manufacturing 8.9% construction 12.5% lower
There's your rebalancing
In the latest quarter Manufacturing, and Construction both grew faster than services or government spending, which both grew more slowly than growth overall.
While the last three years as a whole have been crap, the last two quarters have been a lot better.
We have to wait and see if the next year or so is more like the last three years as a whole or the last two quarters in particular.
@tim - You're assuredly correct that I am enjoying this morning rather more than you are. And am ever more confident that when the sun rises on the morning after that fateful night in May 2015, my enjoyment will be richly enhanced by the financial pleasure of doing business with your good self.
As someone who gets elections right may I assure Hersham's Dogged Emissary to PB that you will indeed be partaking of "tim's" coinage as Labour's goose is indeed in the political oven and is on slow cook for the next 18 months !!
I rather like cranky, flustered, cantankerous tim. He doesn't do adversity very well, does he?
Reminiscent of a third rate Russell Brand in a Newsnight interview.
This is the first time we've had two consecutive quarters of GDP growth of 0.5% or greater since the first half of 2010.
The timing is not an accident.
Good to see the PB Tories cheering growth driven by increased govt spending, rising household debt and a housing bubble though
It seems to have been driven more by growth in manufacturing output, construction, and business services than government expenditure.
Faisal Islam @faisalislam 33m Services responsible for 0.6% points of the 0.8% Q3 GDP figure: ONS chart: pic.twitter.com/8EBXrUrOIe
Manufacturing and construction are way down on peak
CPS Think Tank @CPSThinkTank 50m UK economy 2.5% below peak before downturn. Services fully recovered, 0.4% ^ pre-downturn level, manufacturing 8.9% construction 12.5% lower
There's your rebalancing
Don't suppose you could split the figures into peak to May 2010, and May 2010 to 2013Q3?
I posted the year 2010 to current quarter figures at about 10am. You can work out the rest from there, pretty much, or get the figures from the ONS website.
@tim - You're assuredly correct that I am enjoying this morning rather more than you are. And am ever more confident that when the sun rises on the morning after that fateful night in May 2015, my enjoyment will be richly enhanced by the financial pleasure of doing business with your good self.
As someone who gets elections right may I assure Hersham's Dogged Emissary to PB that you will indeed be partaking of "tim's" coinage as Labour's goose is indeed in the political oven and is on slow cook for the next 18 months !!
I rather like cranky, flustered, cantankerous tim. He doesn't do adversity very well, does he?
Indeed so old friend.
However poor "tim" will simply have to suck it up. Week in, week out, month on month until that fateful "Basildon 1992 moment" takes a grip of him come May 2015 - It'll not be a pretty sight !!
A case can be made that the Post-WWII nationalisations were pragmatic rather than ideological
Hmm, I don't think that stacks up. The 1945 Attlee government was quite extreme in its socialist ideology - nationalising coal, rail, steel, canals, electricity, gas, Cable & Wireless, hospitals (which no-one expected), even road haulage. Many of the more extreme measures were gradually dismantled later (alas, not the nationalisation of hospitals), but of course many blighted our economy for decades, until Maggie came to the rescue.
The polling shows that when the govt comes to get rid of East Coast Rail in the election run up, in their crazed ideological belief that any govt can own British infrastructure so long as it isn't the British one, the people will oppose it and regard that as the extreme ideological position. Particularly after the Royal Mail rip off, the West Coast fiasco,and the fact that East Coast shows a return for the tax payer
As I've told you in the past, and you routinely ignore, the East Coast franchise is unusual, and not just because it is nominally in public ownership. That particular franchise has two competitors on the route - Hull Trains and Grand Central.
Good luck trying to work out if it's profitability is due to nationalised ownership, increased competition, or simple increased usage. (*)
And it's not as if East Coast is alone - from memory, South West Trains have returned over £800 million to the taxpayer over the last four or five years.
Looking at recent by elections caused by disgraced occupants, at this one the SNP were fighting to keep the seat of a thoroughly disgraced MSP for actions worse than Huhne's. Their vote share dropped 7.02%. That looks like a good result for the SNP under the circumstances of a Govt in office and a disgraced occupant. At the Eastleigh by election the Lib Dem vote dropped -14.4%. At the Rotherham by election the Labour vote dropped by just 1.8% (although LDs dropped 13.9% and Conservatives 11.4%.)
The nationalised railways were a wasteful, huge sums wasted on BR Standard steam locomotives, 999, with working lives of under 15 years, coupled with large orders for useless diesel designs. The pre-war GWR had plans for electrification of its main line - 70+ years on it has recently started. Very debatable that wartime Coalition paid anything like a price for fair wear and tear. Unions played their part in destruction of freight side, consider impact of 1955 rail strikes.
Nationalisation by Atlee's government was a disaster for the UK, helped foster lack of focus on customer needs. The men in Whitehall did not know best.
@tim - You're assuredly correct that I am enjoying this morning rather more than you are. And am ever more confident that when the sun rises on the morning after that fateful night in May 2015, my enjoyment will be richly enhanced by the financial pleasure of doing business with your good self.
As someone who gets elections right may I assure Hersham's Dogged Emissary to PB that you will indeed be partaking of "tim's" coinage as Labour's goose is indeed in the political oven and is on slow cook for the next 18 months !!
I rather like cranky, flustered, cantankerous tim. He doesn't do adversity very well, does he?
I'm delighted with the way the politics are going at the moment actually.
Not a lot you can say to that (guffaws unseemingly). It's the way he tells 'em.
What would the increase of GDP would be like if Cameron was serious about reductions in Green Taxes on gas, electricity, petrol, diesel coupled with removal of greenwash regulations?
@tim - You back on that crap again - are you truly THAT desperate? LR mid term mean sod all. Not my fault you fell for the wind-up: I thought that might have been obvious even to you.
Up your game, man, I'm beginning to feel your pain and that's mildly alarming.
I'm happy to entertain bets on any of my polling predictions regarding the popularity of East Coast Rail franchising when it happens if you are interested.
The politics of HS2 are far far bigger, as the PB Tories have not yet grasped
So what is Labour proposing as an alternative to significantly increase Rail Capacity, if they scrap HS2.
As for East Coast most people won't care. Remind me again of the great nationwide outcry when Labour privatised the operations of the Tyne and Wear Matro.
Comments
Thanks @Josias. Of course, the entire concept of having a bloke give you a bit of paper that you then have to keep about your person or be fined hundreds of pounds is anachronistic in the extreme and should be summarily dumped as part of any restructure. Send a barcode to your email and phone with your name and have done, alternatively introduce some sort of national Oyster Card or credi card NFC scheme.
What do you make of this Labour renationalisation stuff?
Bad night
'Ooh 1.5% annual growth in the govts fourth year, let's party'
If only Labour could have achieved that between 2005 - 2010.
0.8% more than those economic titans, Brown and Darling, managed between 2005 and 2010.
ONS chief economist Joe Grice says that third quarter GDP was depressed by a fall in oil and gas output. Without that fall, GDP would have grown by 1%, he said.
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4024/4486832262_8ca3c7c022_z.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/conservatives/4486832262/&h=343&w=640&sz=95&tbnid=A2fdH0oliDEdbM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=168&zoom=1&usg=__Z4QxgclTLpxMr5T46QDOyHMGZuY=&docid=ZIjkbARbSbrMBM&sa=X&ei=ry9qUpudG6WT0AWAtYGYAw&ved=0CDAQ9QEwAA
"The humbling of David Cameron: This outbreak of petulance may cost the PM dearly"
Odd article by Rentoul. On the one hand he says PMQ's was a car crash for Cameron suggesting that he might not recover then goes on to say it achieved what he and Crosby had planned and Labour had suffered from it.
But I doubt we'd get anything less complex than the system that we had at the end of BR days.
So the optimistic forecasters were right. It means that the UK economy is now 2.5% below the peak of output before the downturn. The service sector has fully recovered and is now 0.4% above its pre-downturn level, but manufacturing is 8.9% below it and construction is 12.5% lower.
"Fire up the Quattro!"
Cameron would be well advised to follow the advice of the of the great sages of advertising- David Ogilvy
'When the client moans and sighs,
Make his logo twice the size.
If he still should prove refractory
Show a picture of his factory.
Only in gravest cases
Should you show the clients’ faces.'
That was a good comedy read, now waiting for the next on the series J. Mengele – "what I've learned about healing people"
Desperate top-end spin! RT @georgeeaton: Why the return of growth doesn't prove that Balls was wrong bit.ly/1dmSgAE
From the workers, perhaps you look to extend the agreement, not with a pay freeze, but say moderate pay rises pre-agreed for the period after the freeze expires (that will offset the risk of any catch up)
The other way to play it would be a capital grant from the taxpayer - as I understand it they were proposing to make a chunky investment, so perhaps they can persuade Salmond to cough up some of it in return for guarantees over keeping the plant open until, say, the end of 2014 ;-)
'likely that UK economy recorded fastest quarterly growth rate within the G7 in Q3." Samuel Tombs from Capital Economics to @BBCNews
On and on and on he drones. You're going to have to get used to a lot more good news before May 2015, sour chipmunk.
YouGov @YouGov
YouGov/@Cebr_uk's latest research shows consumer confidence grew for the tenth month in a row in October y-g.co/1bkZ50W
Manufacturing = 100.4
Construction = 96.6
Distribution, hotels and restaurants = 106.4
Business services and finance = 106.9
Total economy = 103.1
Total excluding oil & gas = 104.0
And specially for tim:
Government and other services = 102.6
Make up your own mind as to what that means.
Etc.
Another triumph for Clegg after the lib dem vote almost halved in Dunfermline last night. We can only speculate on the kind of dizzy heights the lib dems will reach next May now that little Danny is chancellor. ;^ )
TV 30 Years Ago @tv30yearsago
BBC1 5.40 Sixty Minutes 6.40 Angels 7.05 Harty 7.40 Don't Wait Up 8.10 Dallas 9.00 News 9.25 Stan's Last Game (play) 10.30 Film: Puzzle
No comments have been picked yet.
LOL
Now that meme has run its course, Cameron is the useless,,,etc., etc., etc.
Spin. Cycle. Repeat ad nauseum.
It's worked so well with everyone else, hasn't it?
And ever more incoherent. Now calm down a bit - I know it's been a terrible morning for you with confirmation that the UK is now one of the highest perfroming economies - but you really, and I mean really, and endeavour to avoid orgasm just because Cameron had one piss-poor PMQs (which he did).
Politics isn't your strongest of subjects, is it? Have you tried flower arranging?
"Grangemouth: 'Unite were naive'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-24667205
University pensions black hole 'even worse than thought':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24657049
What strikes me about it is not so much the headline itself, which is not much of a surprise, but the reaction in terms of what the effect might be on tuition fees:
Higher Education Minister David Willetts told Newsnight it would be wrong to pass on the cost of higher pensions to students.
"Universities are independent autonomous bodies and they know one of their financial responsibilities is to stand behind their pensions and tackle their deficits," he said.
"It would be wrong to expect students to bail out pension deficits to support pension schemes that are far more generous than students are likely to enjoy when they're older."
What is happening here is that problems which used to be swept under the carpet and the bill picked up, without any discussion, by the taxpayer, are now out in the open.
That is a huge improvement.
I'm ambivalent to renationalisation of the railways. However, Labour's proposal is brain-dead, as is often the case with politician's schemes when they are based in ideology rather than reality.
Want I would like to see is an honest investigation into the problems and advantages of the current system (and there are plenty of both), and then come up with solutions to those problems, without neutralising the advantages. If that leads to renationalisation, good. If it leads to a concessionary rather than a franchise system, good. If the current system is tweaked, good. But you must ask the questions before you come up with the answer.
What some in Labour are saying is that renationalisation is the answer, without considering the problems. That way spells disaster and significant problems, as happened with the ideological privatisation is the first place.
For the first time in fifty years, we have a growing network, in terms of route-miles, passenger numbers, passenger miles, and freight tonnage. This miraculous change (I well remember people saying the railways should concentrate on managing a declining network) has coincided with privatisation. Correlation does not mean causation, but they are powerful figures. Maybe they would have happened without privatisation. Personally, I doubt it.
(cont.)
Edith Balls/Ed Piaf:
“After three damaging years of flatlining, it’s both welcome and long overdue that our economy is growing again."
http://press.labour.org.uk/post/65031828116/after-three-damaging-years-of-flatlining-its-both
BR performed best under sectorisation in the 1980s, when the Thatcher government was mostly disinterested in the railways. If they are renationalised, it should be back to some form of sectorisation.
It will *not* be back to the good old days of BR. Because they often were not good.
CCHQ Press Office@RicHolden21m
FSB: "For 3rd quarter in a row, growth has come from all sectors. Points to a rebalancing economy and should make for more stable recovery."
Nationalising them now would be much more 'ideological'.....
The future is glorious for the triumphant Scottish Labour Party. If in doubt, just watch the stellar political career awaiting Cara Hilton.
They will recognise they need May to be installed henceforth as PM and Chancellor & then know they should rename themselves UKIP2IFUWANTTO and be assured of success against any other party which exists out there but which smart Tories should pay no attention to at all.
Oh no, building houses on the increase. It's a DISASTER!!!
There's no doubt GDP per head, by May 2015, will be signifcantly above its level of May 2010.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/25/bradford-respect-party-councillors-resign-george-galloway
Personally I am a little disappointed at Q3. The surge in growth that we saw in July and August seems to have tempered somewhat. We are now trundling along at a fairly reasonable pace but are not obviously accelerating.
I think the problem is once again exports and once again the EU. There were some horrendous forecasts for the next few years from Citigroup this week. If they are even close to correct full scale debt restructuring in Italy, Portugal and Greece (again) is inevitable with all the economic disruption this causes.
I fear that more of our growth is going to have to be home grown than is ideal given that we have not run a trade surplus since 1997.
Growth fuelled by £100billion pre-election borrowing was good back in 2009-2010.
Some say that the 1923 Grouping was done for the same reason - so the government could avoid paying the railways for the war-work.
On sectorisation and the profitability of BR, some may like to read the following article:
http://turniprail.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/no-steven-norris-in-1990s-british-rail.html
By the late 1980s, BR had got the hang of managing a shrinking network. It makes you wonder what would have happened if privatisation had not occurred: would BR have received the investment to cope with the massively increased traffic?
3-4 laps before it starts going away, according to Vettel and his engineer.
After that, times improve but the tyre doesn't last long - Gary Anderson.
Desperate retweeting of any old rubbish.
And you cheered him on despite knowing it was unsustainable, largely because you knew the Tories would have to tackle the promises when in office. Borrowing was an inevitable (and forecast) problem through this parliament. It could've been a lot easier if Brown hadn't engaged in scorched earthing pre-election. But Brown - and I can't blame him for this - calculated that many voters are thick enough to believe Brown = growth, Tories = evil cutting ideologues.
Borrowing will eventually go down and rebalancing is happening. I fear that living standards will never reach their early 2000s peak though. And perhaps they never should. We all now know the consequences of living well beyond our means.
While the last three years as a whole have been crap, the last two quarters have been a lot better.
We have to wait and see if the next year or so is more like the last three years as a whole or the last two quarters in particular.
However poor "tim" will simply have to suck it up. Week in, week out, month on month until that fateful "Basildon 1992 moment" takes a grip of him come May 2015 - It'll not be a pretty sight !!
Good luck trying to work out if it's profitability is due to nationalised ownership, increased competition, or simple increased usage. (*)
And it's not as if East Coast is alone - from memory, South West Trains have returned over £800 million to the taxpayer over the last four or five years.
Another view:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/martin-griffiths/rail-nationalisation_b_3973007.html
(*) Besides, using 'profitability' when NR's massive government subsidy is not counted is rather disingenuous.
At the Eastleigh by election the Lib Dem vote dropped -14.4%.
At the Rotherham by election the Labour vote dropped by just 1.8% (although LDs dropped 13.9% and Conservatives 11.4%.)
Nationalisation by Atlee's government was a disaster for the UK, helped foster lack of focus on customer needs. The men in Whitehall did not know best.
It's a cracker..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24656533
Up your game, man, I'm beginning to feel your pain and that's mildly alarming.
"We were squeezed a bit"
Actually they lost more than half their vote share!
http://www.libdemvoice.org/dunfermline-byelection-win-for-labour-disaster-for-snp-and-lib-dems-hold-3rd-place-36905.html
As for East Coast most people won't care. Remind me again of the great nationwide outcry when Labour privatised the operations of the Tyne and Wear Matro.
Con 933 LD 472 UKIP 253 Lab 196