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Instead of soft and hard the tyres will be medium and hard.
http://www.espn.co.uk/bahrain/motorsport/story/105739.html
But I expect the BBC will spend most of the day interviewing BBC reporters about whether the BBC coverage has been fair and balanced.
Furthermore, it looks like teams dictating a change.
Probably just raging against the dying of the light while their hero was in town.
In any case, what would they suggest doing differently? Ceding ground to the Tories on the economy / austerity? It's no coincidence that Tories are urging Miliband to heed their advice.
Further, the very fact that they're all talking about the best way to secure victory is testament to Miliband's leadership so far.
The Good News Keeps on Coming!
did you run out of ink to add the next bit in the report?
"[The IMF] sees the 17-country euro area shrinking 0.3 percent" (downgraded from -0.2%)
Thank goodness for George.
He is single-handedly *ucking the country !
@ChrisGiles_
IMF's Blanchard names only one country that should consider easing fiscal policy further now - the UK
"And, although, the UK suffered the sharpest downgrade, the IMF still expects the country to grow faster than Germany and France both this year and next."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/9997935/IMF-slashes-UK-growth-forecast-and-urges-George-Osborne-to-slow-austerity.html
Oh, and they think we are going to grow faster than the OBR this year too.
You also do have to wonder if the IMF actually read the budget. Their primary recommendation was that there should be a slow down in the rate of fiscal consolidation. Did they not notice that the deficit was going to remain at roughly the same level for 3 years? Did they not wonder why that was?
"South Shields by-election: Notice of election issued:
http://www.southtyneside.info/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=17145&p=0
Close of nominations is 4 PM on Friday and polling day is 2 May."
http://vote-2012.proboards.com/posts/recent##ixzz2QdILGWDu
Can you also give us next year's Grand National winner while you are at it?
http://edconway.tumblr.com/image/48117988224
starter for 10:
if EZ countries have the appropriate degree of fiscal consolidation, why is it not delivering growth this year?
Whilst a 12% downgrade in the 2014 growth forecast is "markedly weaker"
I must have misunderstood the meanings of "marginally" and "markedly"
How anyone can with a straight face argue that Osborne has misjudged things is a total mystery. From the worst starting position of any major European economy, he's avoided all the big pitfalls, despite the Eurozone.
Whatever the BBC does tomorrow it won't be as fawning, or as syrup-dripping deferential as it should be for many Tory anti BBC loons.
Osborne is not only getting the big picture catastrophically wrong:
@JBeattieMirror
Shares for rights, planning free-for-all and funding for lending all slated and all stem from the Treasury. #blamegeorge
You are quite right Ben, it is good news for Osborne and the UK
2013
World Output 3.3%
Euro Area -0.6%
Germany 0.6%
France -0.1%
Italy -1.5%
Spain -1.6%
UK 0.7%
US 1.9%
The UK and George Osborne lead the way in Europe even beating Germany.
try looking at the 3 year record. The UK is flatlining, how we can be pleased about that is anyone's guess, and that "growth" is on the back of substantial borrowing. The UK still hasn't hit it's peak output from the last cycle. What's to celebrate ?
The Austerity strategy is one long, slow motion car crash that continues to do tremendous damage to the government and will do so right up to the 2015 election.
It's a drip-drip-drip of economic poison that erodes any claim the Tories have towards economic competence.
As soon as the Tories think Labour are catchable thanks to some mid term polls, some dire economic numbers will come out and they're immediately pole-axed again.
UK GDP growth forecast for 2013 was 0.9% now 0.7%
EU17 growth forecast for 2013 was -0.2% now -0.3%
Perhaps a few adjustments have been made at the last minute to get back at Bloomberg!
Still very good news for the UK.
How exactly has George got the big picture 'catastrophically wrong', given that unemployment has been less bad that most of our trading partners, growth is better than the EU as a whole, and we can still borrow at very low rates despite Labour leaving us with public finances so disastrous that in 2010 we were running out of money at the end of the third week in every month? Do you even know the meaning of the word 'catastrophically '? If not, I suggest you read the history of the economic crisis of 1976. That was what getting things catastrophically wrong looks like.
Yes, to borrow a metaphor from the chief fop-
This is an 800m race. The starting gun went three years ago and thanks to the Tory team the UK is gasping and about to be lapped before getting to the second bend.
But according to Tories that's ok, because we're now running at the same pace as everyone else!
"No - but I can read the IMF forecast, the topic under discussion....."
Ah, I see.
These would be the same forecasters that so accurately predicted the financial crisis?
I mean, some people think I'm a bad tipster but compared to those guys....
Based on their track record it would seem a pointless exercise
I note the joy of tim and co at reporting the forecast.
Can people not get their heads round what danger we were in, with public spending 33% over tax revenue? And, what's more, to be stuck with this nightmare at a time when our main trading partners are also in dire straits.
This was never going to be easy. It will take five years, maybe even more, to get back to sanity.
The UK is located in Europe and 50% of its trade is with the EU. The EU is and has been for over a year in deep recession.
In the circumstances, positive growth at 1.1% above the EU average and higher growth than all our large EU competitors including Germany is a good performance.
This particularly applies given the level of fiscal consolidation that has been undertaken by the government over the past three years.
This is not Gordon growth fuelled by borrowing. Public Sector Net Borrowing has fallen by 33% over this period.
"Stan Worby has now found himself on the other side of the law after being arrested and charged with burgling a garage.
In a further twist, he is accused of carrying out the crime with the very suspect he took to the police in his caped crusader costume.
Mr Worby, 39, a Chinese takeaway delivery driver, made headlines around the world after he was unmasked as the slightly paunchy Bradford Batman.
He revealed that he had driven Daniel Frayne, 27, a friend who was wanted on warrant, to the police station in February after returning from a football game which he had attended in superhero fancy dress.
At the time Mr Worby said: “I got some strange looks when I got to the cop station… One policeman looked at me and just laughed. I said to the policeman, ‘I deserve a medal, I'm a caped crusader’.”
The pair came to the attention of West Yorkshire Police again when their vehicle was stopped by officers just after 4am on Sunday morning.
They were arrested and charged with stealing power tools worth £770 from a garage in Bradford...." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9998022/Bradford-Batman-charged-with-burgling-garage.html
The current economic crisis is a good illustration.
And yes, the IMF was as typically inaccurate as most.
Osborne's already stretched that to 7 years and it will be 8 by the time this financial year ends.
yes lots of people can get their heads round it except perhaps GO, who keeps on spending. And as for the main trading partner argument well it's hardly a surprise we've lived with it for 3 years now and in that time HMG has dabbled with counter measures but not actually done anything substantive to offset it. So while we all know it was never going to be easy currently we have a CoE giving us pain without gain. The next government will still have to tackle the issues Osborne has ducked. 5 years wasted.
I am not too often prone to repeating myself but I will do so for your benefit now as you both seem to be playing a convoluted game of Mornington Crescent instead of addressing the IMF forecasts:
why, if the EZ countries have adopted policies of appropriate fiscal consolidation, are those policies not expected to deliver growth this year?
I don't think that the figure is going to be significantly different to 0, but the non significant deviation from that figure announced by the ONS, either positive or negative, are going to have a disproportionate impact on the media narrative.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22094936
You cannot accept that some are content with the economic performance - a very gradual return to modest growth is the optimum course for the country and was the best to be hoped for given the duration and scale of the period of uninterrupted growth up to 2008 (aka the boom). I'm an adherent to the Austrian school of economics, so I guess you'd consider me illiterate on that subject too. If there is to be a criticism of Osborne it is the flirtation with the underwriting of property loans.
Granting an application by Lord McAlpine, the judge ordered that there should be a preliminary hearing on what was the actual meaning of the words used in the tweet - both a natural and ordinary meaning and an innuendo meaning.
https://twitter.com/WikiGuido/status/324162567742320640/photo/1
You will note that the UK under both governments has performed well against its major EU competitors, if not well against hopes. The folly of debt fuelled growth is shown however by Spain, which had a bigger boom and bust than is dreamt of in Gordon's philosophy.
I think we can conclude that the economy is not flat-lining even if we can rightfully be disappointed at its level of growth when compared to regions outside Europe.
Borrow your way out of debt. What could possibly go wrong?
Personal spending? The group think of the population is not to take on debt right now, so funding personal spending is tilted towards liquidating assets, reserves and less than is usual from debt.
Corporate spending? The same applies here as to personal spending.
Government Spending, there is no money.
Tim tells us Immigration increases GDP, so that is one way to do it.
Exports, well, into declining markets is tough, so target the new expanding markets.
And what can GO (or any other cofe) do to alter any of it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuyCRsxlFOc
From a strictly economic perspective, though, the negative externality is the result of the hiring decision of the company imposing a cost on the rest of society. May be subsidising is just the easiest way (perhaps as simple as paying the company a percentage of the benefits the individual would receive (say 75% year one, 50% year 2, 25% year 3, repayable if they are sacked within 3 years of the last payment)? Just trying to think if there is a more creative way.
The perspective I am coming from is that a company can only flourish in the long-term (multi-generational) as part of a thriving community. Purists claim that companies should be entirely distinct from the society in which they exist, but I'm not sure this is either realistic or healthy.
Others:
- HurstLlama: many of those restrictions already apply (my wife needed a work permit as an American and it was non-trivial)
- DavidL: I agree. Wasn't thinking (yet) about consistency with EU rules, just musing on the overall topic
- tim: pointless comment, again. By your logic the country would be better offer if all Brits were unemployed and all work in this country was done by foreigners who added greater economic value. Perhaps, from a very narrow economic perspective, but society would cease to function fairly quickly. Just look at the Spartans and Healots!
'Further, the very fact that they're all talking about the best way to secure victory is testament to Miliband's leadership so far'
Were some of them previously talking about the best way to secure defeat?
But be realistic. Osborne can't perform miracles. He is merely a master strategist.
We are getting there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXcLVDhS8fM
Developing a comprehensive medium-term deficit reduction framework remains the top policy priority in the United States. Despite the progress made so far through discretionary spending caps and modest tax increases, a comprehensive plan is needed that includes entitlement reform and additional revenue-raising measures to put public debt on a sustainable footing. Such a comprehensive plan should place fiscal consolidation on a gradual path in the short term, in light of the fragile recovery and the limited room for monetary policy
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/pdf/text.pdf
Page 70
The other forecast which is very striking is that they don't see any relief in the Eurozone unemployment figures - they forecast Eurozone unemployment will remain at 12.3% for both 2013 and 2014 (7.8% for the UK for both years). Given that that 12.3% will be disproportionately tilted towards Southern Europe, that's a grim forecast.
I can only assume that the minority of Death To Thatcher t-shirt wearers and their older fellow travellers who largely seem to hale from the education sector and hard left [those who could be called Christine Blower for example] are clearly in a minority using any reputable yardstick.
Even Ding Dong failed to make it to #1 - that must have hurt - Thatcher haters still couldn't win by paying 79p [how fitting given her first GE win].
What I cannot understand is why Osborne has not resigned given that the OBR now forecasts that we will borrow more than £100bn during every single year of this Parliament, the 2014-15 forecast now standing at £108bn.
The Coalition government was formed with one overriding purpose - to bring the deficit under control. The constituent parties look likely to face the next election having failed to do this.
By the very standards that they set for themselves they have failed. Perhaps they were impossible standards, but if that were the case they shouldn't have spent most of 2010 and 2011 telling everyone what a disaster it would be if they weren't met.
@JeffRandallLive: IMF says global economy is expected to continue mending "gradually" projecting 3.3% growth in 2013, and 4% in 2014
Oh.
Here are the key findings of the House Price Index - February 2013 ONS bulletin released this morning.
With CPI running at 2.7%, please point me to evidence of house price "stoking". House prices have fallen in real terms every year since the financial crisis. Only certain areas of London have seen price rises above inflation.
• In the 12 months to February 2013 UK house prices increased by 1.9%, down from a 2.2% increase in the 12 months to January 2013.
• House price growth remains relatively stable across most of the UK, although prices in London are increasing and prices in Northern Ireland are falling.
• The year-on-year increase reflected growth of 2.1% in England and 4.1% in Wales, which were offset by declines of 1.2% in Scotland and 7.7% in Northern Ireland.
• Annual house price increases in England were driven by a 5.9% rise in London and a 2.4% increase in the North East.
• Excluding London and the South East, UK house prices increased by 0.6% in the 12 months to February 2013.
• On a seasonally adjusted basis, UK house prices were unchanged between January and February 2013.
Just because a task turns out to be even more difficult than expected is not a reason to give up, still less to give up in favour of those who propose not even bothering to try.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6721709.stm
"There were strikes, blackouts and piles of rotting rubbish in the 1970s, but was there a revolt, asks Andrew Marr, right, whose TV history of post-war UK continues on Tuesday.
The biggest issue facing Edward Heath when he took office in 1970 was the economy. British productivity was pitifully low compared to America or Europe, never mind Japan.
The country was spending too much on the glossy flood of new consumer goods and not nearly enough on modernised and more efficient factories and businesses. [Does this sound familiar, hmm?]
Inflation was particularly worrying. Prices were rising by 7% and wage earnings by double that. This was still the old post-1945 world of fixed exchange rates which meant that the Heath government, just like those of Clement Attlee and Harold Wilson, faced a sterling crisis and perhaps yet another devaluation.
Britain not only had heavy levels of unionisation through all the key industries but also, by modern standards, an incredible number of different unions - more than 600 altogether. Unofficial and wildcat strikes meant that even leaders of large unions had only a wobbly hold on what actually happened on the factory floor. It was a time of political militancy in the movement, a heady mix of left-wing idealism and naked greed.
Heath immediately faced a dock strike, followed by a big pay settlement for local authority dustmen, then a power workers' go-slow which led to power cuts. Then the postal workers struck. The mood of the government was less focussed and less steely than it would be nine years later when Margaret Thatcher came to power.
Much of the country was simply more left-wing than it was later. Socialism was popular with millions of working class people and was making fast inroads in the Labour Party.
The unions, having defeated Wilson and Barbara Castle, were more self-confident than ever before or since.
Many industrial workers, living in still-bleak towns far away from the glossy pop world of the big cities, did seem underpaid and left behind. The faster growing economies of France and Germany were a living rebuke to Whitehall. Scandals and satire had had their effect.
What finished off the Heath government was the short war between Israel and Egypt in October 1973, the Yom Kippur war. It sparked an international oil crisis and demands from the miners for increased pay.
The national speed limit was cut by 20 miles per hour to 50mph to save fuel. Then in January 1974 came the announcement of a three-day working week... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6721709.stm
@JohnRentoul: "You seem to argue we cd borrow less if only we borrowed more. After nrly 50 yrs in business I know a tough sell when I see one." M Ashcroft
@JohnRentoul: "You can’t expect voters to move towards you if they can’t tell where you are" Michael Ashcroft to EdM http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/04/a-memo-to-ed-miliband.html
' Although Labour's one-point slippage from last month is not in itself significant, his lead in the Guardian/ICM series has now halved from 12 to six points in the two months since February. Worse, his personal ratings are sinking deeper into negative territory – a majority of 51% say he is doing a bad job, as against just 28% who think he is doing well.
That gives a net approval rating of -23, almost double his negative May 2012 score of -12, and worse even than the -17 he notched up in December 2011, when his party was behind in the polls overall and his leadership appeared insecure.'
The additional capital requirements are mostly required due to the extent of mortgage lending on the main high street banks' books. Osborne and the BoE are working on plans to extract large chunks of mortgage assets from the banks' balance sheets so that new capital requirements are lowered and existing capital is freed for lending.
The restructuring will also improve share value and bring forward the opportunity for the government to sell its share holdings in the 'nationalised' bank groups.
Part of the restructuring is likely to involve the creation of new retail banks, some focussed on specific regions which would benefit from a local lending focus.
All that you ask for is being done, Mr. Brooke.
I bet you can't wait for your breakfast eggs to boil for three and a half minutes in the morning.
But given that he knifed his brother who then chose to be elsewhere instead of EdM's wedding reception - that takes an enormous amount of fraternal animus. Yet he has shown an absence of such willingness to stand up/be that unpopular to his union backers and to my view is a bit of a puppet leader/paper tiger who doesn't stick to his guns at all when the chips are down.
Labour under EdM has gone 'core vote' over welfare reform despite his actual *Working* Class voters disliking the old system, has mealy mouthed on immigration which is another bone of contention and failed to address any of the wider economic issues as he shakes the money tree.
Apart from some micro win for Guardianistas re Leveson/Hacked Off/riots whatever - does this explain why his personal rating is at an all time low for his leadership?
He seems to be doing a bit better/less shouty at PMQs and got a thumbs up for his response to Mrs T's death - but its not cutting the mustard at all.
Perhaps being the son of a Marxist Primrose Hill prof isn't the right man for the job either, if Mrs T can wipe him out 3yrs into a 5yrs term.
If I still voted Labour - I'd be very worried at what the public were saying, rather than Labour supporters shouting the opposite in desperation.
I have set out the current outlook for the housing market and housebuilding sector. In other words, house prices are falling in real terms and have been since 2008.
George's stimulus is aimed at stabilising not inflating house prices.
Silly, silly boy!
Is this a Warwickshire speciality?
The issue, fundamentally, is what is good for a company is not necessarily good for the current residents of the UK. How do you close that gap?
Do you think that a commitment to build affordable housing as a condition of a planning consent is a fine?