Returning to the topic, alternatives to May would have to come from the ruling Conservative Party. Which of Cameron, Gove, Johnson and Leadsom would realistically have done a better job on Brexit than May?
Cameron is our worst prime minister since Lord North. Sorry Theresa, you cannot even claim that record.
Leadsom and Boris might have made more attempt to forge a consensus, and reach out to opponents where necessary.
Gove would have been just as bad as May. Both nail their colours to the mast; neither compromises; both subscribe to the Brian Clough dictum: we sit down and discuss it over a cup of tea, then we agree I was right. He might not have called a snap election, I suppose.
I still find it hard to blame Cameron for a decision he told us not to make. Ok one can be mad he gave us the choice but the public decided to ignore his advice.
The Conservative spending plans that Labour followed for two years were absurdly tight - I think Ken Clarke admitted he would have not followed them if they had won in 1997. Labour's fiscal policies after 1999 (that the Tories said they'd match) were not a significant contributor to the crisis. Lax regulation of the City (that the Tories criticised for not being lax enough) was a bigger contributor. A US-centred global recession, caused by the failure of Lehman Bros, years of too dovish Fed policy, and an unsustainable housing and construction boom in the US and elsewhere, assisted by a whole load of lax underwriting standards in the US mortgage market, was the reason. The failure from a UK fiscal policy point of view was not to envisage that after the boom was over tax revenues would be lower, but that was a failure of Economic planning, I have no doubt that the Tories would have made the same mistake (like they did in the late eighties). Fiscal policy during 2010-15 made more mistakes than Brown did, IMO. Way too tight, and ultimately largely counterproductive.
You do know that the UK was in recession six months before the failure of Lehman ?
Perhaps the near trillion quid of household borrowing which happened during the Brown years might not have been sustainable.
As I mentioned, too lax global monetary policy was certainly part of the problem. The US was also in recession before Lehman, but that made it much much worse.
This is entirely missing the point. Lehman (and Bear Stearns before it) failed because of plunging house prices caused by people defaulting on their mortgages, which occurred due to then losing their jobs due to the economic dip. That in turn wiped out the value on the MBSs Lehman was holding, which pushed them into bankruptcy. The recession was necessary in order to cause the credit crisis, never the other way round.
The collapse of Lehman created panic that worsened things. I was living in the States at the time. There was a real fear there would be no money in the Atms, that was fatal for confidence. The big declines in global GDP were in early 2009.
US person takes a mortgage to buy a house. Thousands of these bundled up into a mortgage backed security. That is a DERIVATIVE. It is tradeable.
That's not a derivative.
Technically you're right, in the sense that you actually own a stake in the underlying product, but it doesn't really affect the point he's making.
If you instead use a definition of something like "second order asset whose price is dependent on the price of the asset it's based on", which is wrong, but I think usefully wrong, then you can include MBSs. I think CDOs are in either way.
Bundling them up into a 'security' may not be a derivative but it amounts to selling the loan to another party. After that, I presume that the bank that granted the original credit is allowed to make another loan (up to its limits in relation to depositor and shareholder capital, which I think are set by BIS). Rinse and repeat ...
In the distant past, I don't think that loans were sold on much or at all. They remained with the original bank that granted them. So today's system appears to amount to the magic money tree (aka commercial banking) growing a bit so that banks are allowed to create more money out of thin air than they were in the 1950s-70s.
Will listeria ridden, chlorinated chicken count as fresh food? If so, everything will be fine.
You seem to make the basic mistake of equating the Americans wanting to sell it to us with us wanting to buy it.....
We bought Eastern European horse burgers because they were a few pence cheaper than the beef alternative. I'm not convinced we're price inelastic enough to decline chlorinated chicken.
Hammond on Marr says he will offer his resignation to May as Chancellor before she herself resigns as PM on Wednesday if Boris wins the leadership on Tuesday as he will never support implementing a No Deal Brexit.
If Hunt wins he might reconsider but he thinks although he has got on well with Boris and on issues beyond Brexit he cannot accept leaving with No Deal on October 31st but he will support both in trying to get a new Deal but does not think that possible before October 31st
The Conservative spending plans that Labour followed for two years were absurdly tight - I think Ken Clarke admitted he would have not followed them if they had won in 1997. Labour's fiscal policies after 1999 (that the Tories said they'd match) were not a significant contributor to the crisis. Lax regulation of the City (that the Tories criticised for not being lax enough) was a bigger contributor. A US-centred global recession, caused by the failure of Lehman Bros, years of too dovish Fed policy, and an unsustainable housing and construction boom in the US and elsewhere, assisted by a whole load of lax underwriting standards in the US mortgage market, was the reason. The failure from a UK fiscal policy point of view was not to envisage that after the boom was over tax revenues would be lower, but that was a failure of Economic planning, I have no doubt that the Tories would have made the same mistake (like they did in the late eighties). Fiscal policy during 2010-15 made more mistakes than Brown did, IMO. Way too tight, and ultimately largely counterproductive.
You do know that the UK was in recession six months before the failure of Lehman ?
Perhaps the near trillion quid of household borrowing which happened during the Brown years might not have been sustainable.
As I mentioned, too lax global monetary policy was certainly part of the problem. The US was also in recession before Lehman, but that made it much much worse.
1998 UK trade balance turns negative 1999 FTSE100 market peaks 2000 UK industrial production peaks 2002 UK government finances turn negative 2003 UK home ownership starts to fall 2005 UK unemployment starts to increase
Eh ? Surely Boris would have priced in an Armageddon message from the Sir Humphreys
I'm sure he has in truth, but let us remember this is the man who blustered against the WA for 6 months then finally voted for it when he realised it really might be that or no Brexit. Something everyone had been told a million times over those 6 months but which he, someone who clearly thinks a lot of his own intellect, only just noticed. An admission of being too dumb to notice that point is not encouraging, but hopefully he will surprise.
Hammond on Marr says he will offer his resignation to May as Chancellor before she herself resigns as PM on Wednesday if Boris wins the leadership on Tuesday as he will never support implementing a No Deal Brexit.
If Hunt wins he might reconsider but he thinks although he has got on well with Boris and on issues beyond Brexit he cannot accept leaving with No Deal on October 31st but he will support both in trying to get a new Deal but does not think that possible before October 31st
Hammond knows he is going to be sacked by either Boris or Hunt so he is going before it happens
Will listeria ridden, chlorinated chicken count as fresh food? If so, everything will be fine.
You seem to make the basic mistake of equating the Americans wanting to sell it to us with us wanting to buy it.....
The greedy food companies will buy it by the barrowload if cheap enough and include it in their peasant's ready made processed food etc, cheap takeaways. Not a threat to anyone with cash for sure.
Poor Damian Green. He's on Pienaar's Politics. If these people knew how bad they sound when they blatently lie in order to keep in with their new boss they would risk everything not to do it. Hancock is the most egregious example but people like Damien could aleays scratch a living doing the odd radio interview sounding like an old sage.
Let's imagine Boris is scared off a no deal, and ends up winning the contest to be PM (both eminently possible).
What's he do?
Could try and get the deal with cosmetic differences through (it's not Theresa May's Terrible Deal, it's Boris Johnson's Lisbon Deal. Totally different. Look, they even changed the font).
Does that get Remainers/Labour to back it?
Probably not.
So then what? Leave with no deal? Referendum 2, choice being between the Deal and Remain? Potentially. But a gutsy move for a man who chose to hide under a table in Afghanistan rather than resign over a runway (though he'd have more to lose/gain in this scenario than the past).
General Election? What for? Unless he can win significantly, and a pre-departure GE having attempted to get the deal through again, would lose Boris his apparent advantage of being tough on leaving, with BP gobbling up votes aplenty. I imagine the Lib Dems would do very well but it wouldn't help the Conservatives.
Straight revocation? Can't see it.
A good summation. The thing is he has to do something. Will he be able to renogiate the WA? That's highly unlikely, he may get a new form of words but that won't fool many anybody. It certainly won't fool the DUP and they could withdraw support. If he crashes out with No Deal he still has to have some sort of deal in order to trade with the EU, WTO won't do for long and the electorate will see how bad it is pretty quickly. So leaving with No Deal isn't an end in itself, it just continues the problem but from a worse position. He will however be Prime Minister. Would he want to become a short-lived PM, as is a distinct possibility if he called a GE? Maybe he'll risk that. So, perhaps a new referendum would be his best bet. If the rsult is again to Leave we'd all be back where we were again. However if the result is to Remain, then Boris could continue being PM with DUP support plus a couple of returners from ChangeUK. If the result was a decisive win for Remain, he could get a relief bounce. The Tories could even win in 2022.
Generally very good summary. However, I cannot possibly see a way a second referendum with a Remain win leading to a Tory GE win in 2022. No way. Not least because it is probably the dream scenario for Labour, healing at a stroke one of their fissures.
Hammond on Marr says he will offer his resignation to May as Chancellor before she herself resigns as PM on Wednesday if Boris wins the leadership on Tuesday as he will never support implementing a No Deal Brexit.
If Hunt wins he might reconsider but he thinks although he has got on well with Boris and on issues beyond Brexit he cannot accept leaving with No Deal on October 31st but he will support both in trying to get a new Deal but does not think that possible before October 31st
Hammond knows he is going to be sacked by either Boris or Hunt so he is going before it happens
A lesser man might have spent the last few weeks quietly reflecting on what that says about the job he's done. Rather than salting the earth as he retreats.
But enough semantics. A more interesting question is whether the American government, if it had bailed out Lehman Brothers, might have prevented the liquidity crisis, in the same way our government stepped in to guarantee all deposits and end the run on Northern Rock. If lenders had not been scared off, perhaps the interlocking cog-wheels of the interbank derivatives markets might not have seized up.
Northern Rock should have been allowed to go under as Lehmans was, if capitalism is not allowed to run its course and all banks know they can always get bailouts no matter how bad the decisions they make then it will be more likely to happen again
IDS on Marr says the Trump administration had offered US assets to protect British shipping in the Middle East and questions must be asked of the British government as to why the offer was not taken up
If only we were able to put more than one ship in the area we perhaps could have averted the disaster
So the point being that rather than the business driving the bonuses, it was the bonuses driving the business.
Turn 1 dollar of fundamental into 50 dollars of ephemera. That's 50 times the commission and 50 dollars worth of stuff to trade.
Even better, all the profits from the trading pay positive bonuses whereas the losses do not pay negative ones. Being no such thing.
Bottom line - the more you can pump the balloon the more the players can loot.
Therefore keep pumping - the loans get bigger and worse - the derivative structures get wilder and more convoluted - risk management and compliance get ever more sidelined - until ...
The Conservative spending plans that Labour followed for two years were absurdly tight - I think Ken Clarke admitted he would have not followed them if they had won in 1997. Labour's fiscal policies after 1999 (that the Tories said they'd match) were not a significant contributor to .
All correct and to which I would add - the madness in the wholesale credit markets, the crazy proliferation of derivative structures, the explosion in value and volumes, the abdication from any semblance of prudent risk management.
Root cause being the venal bonus culture on Wall St and in its slavish imitator, the City of London.
An example -
US person takes a mortgage to buy a house. Thousands of these bundled up into a mortgage backed security. That is a DERIVATIVE. It is tradeable.
Worried about the bond defaulting? OK, buy a Credit Default Swap (CDS). It pays out in that event. The CDS itself is tradeable. It is a DERIVATIVE on a DERIVATIVE.
Seller of the CDS (e.g. the notorious AIG) earns an income stream from the premiums charged for the CDS. Insurance basically. Want to get hold of the future income now? OK! Securitize the future cashflow and turn it into yet another bond. Being now a DERIVATIVE on a DERIVATIVE on a DERIVATIVE. And - you guessed it - it is tradeable.
Net result - $1 of US housing loan ends up as $X of total asset/liability exposure, where X is a very big number indeed, scattered across many books, players, markets, locations.
Whole system is poisoned - so when those mortgage dollars start to default the entire banking sector has to be bailed out by the only thing big enough to do so - the government, aka ordinary working people.
Utter utter scandal. And the perpetrators got off entirely without consequence. Everybody else paid - and is still paying and will continue to do so for quite some time yet.
There ought to have been a riot. If people truly understood what happened there would have been.
The other problem that is not mentioned is that is not the working class that took the big hit, it was the professional class who bought multiple property as part of their pension plans. When the bottom dropped out of the market, the house keys went into the swimming pool and the owner walked away. In many states, for the mortgage company to reclaim the property, the original signed mortgage document had to be provided to the court, no copies, electronic or otherwise could be accepted. In the rush to sell the properties, the retention of the paperwork was not seen as a priority, and has been mentioned, ownership of the mortgages had been split into many different packages.
The professional class, who had anticipated a relaxed financially secure old age, paid for with a pension backed by bricks and mortar (or chipboard and paint) are significantly poorer.
Eh ? Surely Boris would have priced in an Armageddon message from the Sir Humphreys
I'm sure he has in truth, but let us remember this is the man who blustered against the WA for 6 months then finally voted for it when he realised it really might be that or no Brexit. Something everyone had been told a million times over those 6 months but which he, someone who clearly thinks a lot of his own intellect, only just noticed. An admission of being too dumb to notice that point is not encouraging, but hopefully he will surprise.
My favourite was Mogg discovering Brexit was a process not an event over two years after PBers had come to that conclusion.
So the point being that rather than the business driving the bonuses, it was the bonuses driving the business.
Turn 1 dollar of fundamental into 50 dollars of ephemera. That's 50 times the commission and 50 dollars worth of stuff to trade.
Even better, all the profits from the trading pay positive bonuses whereas the losses do not pay negative ones. Being no such thing.
Bottom line - the more you can pump the balloon the more the players can loot.
Therefore keep pumping - the loans get bigger and worse - the derivative structures get wilder and more convoluted - risk management and compliance get ever more sidelined - until ...
... heads I get a bonus, tails I get a bailout.
Of course all those bonuses then get spent in the real economy and all those bonuses lead to a lot of income tax.
So the point being that rather than the business driving the bonuses, it was the bonuses driving the business.
Turn 1 dollar of fundamental into 50 dollars of ephemera. That's 50 times the commission and 50 dollars worth of stuff to trade.
Even better, all the profits from the trading pay positive bonuses whereas the losses do not pay negative ones. Being no such thing.
Bottom line - the more you can pump the balloon the more the players can loot.
Therefore keep pumping - the loans get bigger and worse - the derivative structures get wilder and more convoluted - risk management and compliance get ever more sidelined - until ...
It was the shit governance that was the problem, greed is obvious and understandable, the Bank of England and the shit governance policies setup by Brown were the cause of the problem.
Hammond on Marr says he will offer his resignation to May as Chancellor before she herself resigns as PM on Wednesday if Boris wins the leadership on Tuesday as he will never support implementing a No Deal Brexit.
If Hunt wins he might reconsider but he thinks although he has got on well with Boris and on issues beyond Brexit he cannot accept leaving with No Deal on October 31st but he will support both in trying to get a new Deal but does not think that possible before October 31st
Hammond knows he is going to be sacked by either Boris or Hunt so he is going before it happens
A lesser man might have spent the last few weeks quietly reflecting on what that says about the job he's done. Rather than salting the earth as he retreats.
He’s a necessary, but probably not sufficient, sacrifice to propitiate the death cult. It says nothing about Philip Hammond, any more than the ending of the Wicker Man said anything about Sergeant Howie.
But enough semantics. A more interesting question is whether the American government, if it had bailed out Lehman Brothers, might have prevented the liquidity crisis, in the same way our government stepped in to guarantee all deposits and end the run on Northern Rock. If lenders had not been scared off, perhaps the interlocking cog-wheels of the interbank derivatives markets might not have seized up.
Northern Rock should have been allowed to go under as Lehmans was, if capitalism is not allowed to run its course and all banks know they can always get bailouts no matter how bad the decisions they make then it will be more likely to happen again
But enough semantics. A more interesting question is whether the American government, if it had bailed out Lehman Brothers, might have prevented the liquidity crisis, in the same way our government stepped in to guarantee all deposits and end the run on Northern Rock. If lenders had not been scared off, perhaps the interlocking cog-wheels of the interbank derivatives markets might not have seized up.
Northern Rock should have been allowed to go under as Lehmans was, if capitalism is not allowed to run its course and all banks know they can always get bailouts no matter how bad the decisions they make then it will be more likely to happen again
You can't equate the two. Those at risk from Northern Rock were homeowners, small business owners and retail account holders. They had far less ability to withstand the shock than the mainly corporate clients of Lehman. For similar reasons, there was no way AIG could be allowed to go under, given its share of the US personal lines insurance market.
There was also the systemic risk to be considered. Lehman and Bear Stearns could be isolated. Northern Rock and AIG could not.
Poor Damian Green. He's on Pienaar's Politics. If these people knew how bad they sound when they blatently lie in order to keep in with their new boss they would risk everything not to do it. Hancock is the most egregious example but people like Damien could aleays scratch a living doing the odd radio interview sounding like an old sage.
The one quibble I might have is the suggestion that our economy is faltering. The rate of growth has reduced but I think that we have had a pretty good run and we probably have a bit to go before international pressures drive us to anything like a recession. Europe is slowing again which is a potential problem for us, Brexit or no Brexit. Trump is desperate to keep his bubble going until his re-election but looks to be struggling. I think that he is learning that his bull in a china shop attitude to trade is not working and damaging his own prospects (the most important thing) but who knows. And now we have Iran.
My critique of her government on the economy is that the useless passivity of Hammond has done very little to address our structural problems other than the deficit. We have not had the infrastructure spending we need, we have not addressed our appalling savings rate with the result we continue to run a very high deficit, our problems with productivity have got worse on the back of very little incentive to invest, we have created a major headache going forward by not addressing the ever increasing problem of student debt, he has done nothing to simplify our ridiculous tax code and address its patent deficiencies by which investment income is taxed more lightly than earned income. Hammond really should have been moved on some time ago and I will be glad to see him gone.
It is extraordinary how quickly the Tories are circling the wagons around Hammond with the rifles pointing inwards. Do they send press releases to members with targets drawn on particular politicians?
Iain Dale was on radio 4 blaming Hammond for the failure of Brexit yesterday. Possibly the only sane senior Tory. He said his running of the economy was deliberately designed to make Brexit fail. Someone must be feeding Dale his lines?
Hammond on Marr says he will offer his resignation to May as Chancellor before she herself resigns as PM on Wednesday if Boris wins the leadership on Tuesday as he will never support implementing a No Deal Brexit.
If Hunt wins he might reconsider but he thinks although he has got on well with Boris and on issues beyond Brexit he cannot accept leaving with No Deal on October 31st but he will support both in trying to get a new Deal but does not think that possible before October 31st
Hammond knows he is going to be sacked by either Boris or Hunt so he is going before it happens
A lesser man might have spent the last few weeks quietly reflecting on what that says about the job he's done. Rather than salting the earth as he retreats.
He’s a necessary, but probably not sufficient, sacrifice to propitiate the death cult. It says nothing about Philip Hammond, any more than the ending of the Wicker Man said anything about Sergeant Howie.
That analogy only works if you either think Howie had made a mess of his investigation prior to being sacrificed, or conversely if you think Hammond has been a good chancellor, independent of the Brexit-related nonsense going on around him.
It does not look as if Hammond is willing to vonc Boris
It was always very unlikely however I still wouldn’t rule it out . Bear in mind a VONC doesn’t inevitably mean Corbyn in charge .
Essentially Bozo could stay in charge , the rebels could say get the extension and we’ll then support you which means you can go back to the Queen and say you have the confidence of the House .
The only way Corbyn becomes PM is if the Tory rebels agree to support him longer term which isn’t going to happen .
I don’t expect a VONC to even happen . Bozo just doesn’t want to be seen to be asking for an extension without being forced to .
He can do a u turn saying right , we’ll have an election during the extension . To get a mandate for no deal .
But enough semantics. A more interesting question is whether the American government, if it had bailed out Lehman Brothers, might have prevented the liquidity crisis, in the same way our government stepped in to guarantee all deposits and end the run on Northern Rock. If lenders had not been scared off, perhaps the interlocking cog-wheels of the interbank derivatives markets might not have seized up.
Northern Rock should have been allowed to go under as Lehmans was, if capitalism is not allowed to run its course and all banks know they can always get bailouts no matter how bad the decisions they make then it will be more likely to happen again
Capitalism (or at least our modern versions of it) depend on capital being made available. We ordinary folk put our money into the bank and Charles and his mates use those deposits ten-fold to lend to companies and entrepreneurs (or too often, buy-to-let landlords or the derivatives casinos) which expand the economy, employ and pay workers, who buy goods and put their savings into the bank. It is a virtuous cycle.
If the bank, any bank, goes bust, then rather than risk any more of my hard-earned, I'll leave my savings under the mattress, so Charles can't lend to entrepreneurs to start new companies, or to existing companies to invest in new machinery and expand into new markets. We enter recession. The tax take falls. The benefits bill rises. It is a vicious circle.
I yield to no-one in my distaste for big swinging dicks in red braces spaffing champagne and icing sugar up the wall because they've confused leverage with genius, but the alternative is worse.
The thing is a small group of Tory rebels can wield huge power. Bozo can threaten them with an election but if they’re willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice then that doesn’t work .
The only way the Tories would risk as election is if they had an agreement with the BP.
The problem there is that alienates a bunch of Tory MPs and Tory voters .
But enough semantics. A more interesting question is whether the American government, if it had bailed out Lehman Brothers, might have prevented the liquidity crisis, in the same way our government stepped in to guarantee all deposits and end the run on Northern Rock. If lenders had not been scared off, perhaps the interlocking cog-wheels of the interbank derivatives markets might not have seized up.
Northern Rock should have been allowed to go under as Lehmans was, if capitalism is not allowed to run its course and all banks know they can always get bailouts no matter how bad the decisions they make then it will be more likely to happen again
Capitalism (or at least our modern versions of it) depend on capital being made available. We ordinary folk put our money into the bank and Charles and his mates use those deposits ten-fold to lend to companies and entrepreneurs (or too often, buy-to-let landlords or the derivatives casinos) which expand the economy, employ and pay workers, who buy goods and put their savings into the bank. It is a virtuous cycle.
If the bank, any bank, goes bust, then rather than risk any more of my hard-earned, I'll leave my savings under the mattress, so Charles can't lend to entrepreneurs to start new companies, or to existing companies to invest in new machinery and expand into new markets. We enter recession. The tax take falls. The benefits bill rises. It is a vicious circle.
I yield to no-one in my distaste for big swinging dicks in red braces spaffing champagne and icing sugar up the wall because they've confused leverage with genius, but the alternative is worse.
Modern banks dont lend much to business as far as i can tell. The vast majority is to prop up house prices with cheap govt subsidised loans.
It was the shit governance that was the problem, greed is obvious and understandable, the Bank of England and the shit governance policies setup by Brown were the cause of the problem.
This was greed and incompetence - systemic and on a mindboggling scale.
Brown was suckered by it along with almost every other politician and regulator. It was the prevailing culture. The markets know what they are doing. The tax is nice. Let them be. He ought to have taken a lone and heroic stand against it. Alas he was not such a man.
'Sánchez’s stated reason for not wanting Iglesias in the government is the latter’s support for a referendum on Catalan independence and his insistence that the leaders who have been in custody for nearly two years while on trial for their part in the unilateral declaration of independence in 2017 are political prisoners.'
Imprisoning politicians still a cross party tradition in Spain I guess.
IDS on Marr says the Trump administration had offered US assets to protect British shipping in the Middle East and questions must be asked of the British government as to why the offer was not taken up
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
IDS on Marr says the Trump administration had offered US assets to protect British shipping in the Middle East and questions must be asked of the British government as to why the offer was not taken up
Because an invitation to join Trump's unpredictable fun party are regarded with understandable caution, especially as British and US policy towards Iran diverge quite fundamentally. This may change with the new UK administration, though I hope not.
Poor Damian Green. He's on Pienaar's Politics. If these people knew how bad they sound when they blatently lie in order to keep in with their new boss they would risk everything not to do it. Hancock is the most egregious example but people like Damien could aleays scratch a living doing the odd radio interview sounding like an old sage.
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
The natural order is so fcuked up that currently Liam Fox may be a 'possible'.
But enough semantics. A more interesting question is whether the American government, if it had bailed out Lehman Brothers, might have prevented the liquidity crisis, in the same way our government stepped in to guarantee all deposits and end the run on Northern Rock. If lenders had not been scared off, perhaps the interlocking cog-wheels of the interbank derivatives markets might not have seized up.
Northern Rock should have been allowed to go under as Lehmans was, if capitalism is not allowed to run its course and all banks know they can always get bailouts no matter how bad the decisions they make then it will be more likely to happen again
Capitalism (or at least our modern versions of it) depend on capital being made available. We ordinary folk put our money into the bank and Charles and his mates use those deposits ten-fold to lend to companies and entrepreneurs (or too often, buy-to-let landlords or the derivatives casinos) which expand the economy, employ and pay workers, who buy goods and put their savings into the bank. It is a virtuous cycle.
If the bank, any bank, goes bust, then rather than risk any more of my hard-earned, I'll leave my savings under the mattress, so Charles can't lend to entrepreneurs to start new companies, or to existing companies to invest in new machinery and expand into new markets. We enter recession. The tax take falls. The benefits bill rises. It is a vicious circle.
I yield to no-one in my distaste for big swinging dicks in red braces spaffing champagne and icing sugar up the wall because they've confused leverage with genius, but the alternative is worse.
Modern banks dont lend much to business as far as i can tell. The vast majority is to prop up house prices with cheap govt subsidised loans.
Yes, that is a problem. Compare our and the Americans' performance over the last couple of decades. The new global tech giants are almost all American. Their economic growth dwarfs ours even though we were keeping pace under Labour.
Why is that? Our tech nerds are as clever as theirs. We too have universities in the world's top 100 lists. More investment capital and protectionism (often disguised as national security, see also China).
The thing is a small group of Tory rebels can wield huge power. Bozo can threaten them with an election but if they’re willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice then that doesn’t work .
The only way the Tories would risk as election is if they had an agreement with the BP.
The problem there is that alienates a bunch of Tory MPs and Tory voters .
The thing is a small group of Tory rebels can wield huge power. Bozo can threaten them with an election but if they’re willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice then that doesn’t work .
The only way the Tories would risk as election is if they had an agreement with the BP.
The problem there is that alienates a bunch of Tory MPs and Tory voters .
If a few more Tory MPs resign the Whip this week, the outcome of a VNOC will no longer be dependent on the support of Government rebels.
The one quibble I might have is the suggestion that our economy is faltering. The rate of growth has reduced but I think that we have had a pretty good run and we probably have a bit to go before international pressures drive us to anything like a recession. Europe is slowing again which is a potential problem for us, Brexit or no Brexit. Trump is desperate to keep his bubble going until his re-election but looks to be struggling. I think that he is learning that his bull in a china shop attitude to trade is not working and damaging his own prospects (the most important thing) but who knows. And now we have Iran.
My critique of her government on the economy is that the useless passivity of Hammond has done very little to address our structural problems other than the deficit. We have not had the infrastructure spending we need, we have not addressed our appalling savings rate with the result we continue to run a very high deficit, our problems with productivity have got worse on the back of very little incentive to invest, we have created a major headache going forward by not addressing the ever increasing problem of student debt, he has done nothing to simplify our ridiculous tax code and address its patent deficiencies by which investment income is taxed more lightly than earned income. Hammond really should have been moved on some time ago and I will be glad to see him gone.
I disagree. The economy is faltering badly. The phone at work has stopped ringing - We sell curtain fabric and if people aren't moving then they don't need to buy new curtains. Car sales are collapsing. John Lewis department store (inc online) sales are down 1.5% in last 24 weeks (despite House of Fraser and Debenhams' problems). House prices are about to crash and inflation is likely to soar with the collapse of the pound.
Probably what the country needs is a Boris to spend, spend, spend and justify it with a confident feel good smile. He will need to con the nutters into accepting a deal equivalent to customs union with the EU, probably calling it anything but a customs union.
Whether Boris can do this I am not sure-he may have painted himself into a corner but like Bunter he is good at getting out of scrapes that he has created.
It does not look as if Hammond is willing to vonc Boris
He cannot support a no deal that Boris appears to be threatening but does not sound like he intends to no-confidence Boris (which yes I agree it did sound like from the interview).
But he may find it hard to reconcile both those positions, a bit like the proverbial cat with a slice of buttered toast on its back spinning madly in the air just above the ground because it can't decide whether the cat lands on its feet or the toast lands butter side up.
Unless he is thinking maybe of an abstention in a confidence vote rather than full on no-confidencing? But I rather got the impression he is pinning his hopes on something happening first that will mean he does not have to consider what way he'd vote in a VONC. The Marr comment about him talking to Blackford, not denied by Hammond, was interesting - I turned over to whatever Scottish politics opt-out was on after it and Gordon Brewer was referring to about a Blackford/Swinson plan to introduce a new Bill, although I missed exactly what the intention of the bill would have been but presume it was about stopping a no deal?
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
The natural order is so fcuked up that currently Liam Fox may be a 'possible'.
What times we live in. But as has been noted, he has actually moderated somewhat, remarkably.
'Sánchez’s stated reason for not wanting Iglesias in the government is the latter’s support for a referendum on Catalan independence and his insistence that the leaders who have been in custody for nearly two years while on trial for their part in the unilateral declaration of independence in 2017 are political prisoners.'
Imprisoning politicians still a cross party tradition in Spain I guess.
To be fair, though, they've eased off on the torture and executions of late.
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
This govt has had one flagship policy Brexit. Hammond has consistently undermined the Govts policy by releasing reports saying it is a bad idea. The Treasury forecast, that he has never allowed the full report with the assumptions is to be released, is the whole basis of the opposition MPs sitting in TV studios. Their message the Govt is rubbish because there is not one form of Brexit that means the economy will be better off, do not believe me the CoTE report says it.
No person has done more to make this Govt look incompetent than Hammond, if he did not want to implement Brexit and felt he could not support the Govt then he should have resigned.
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
How many from the Shadow Cabinet? Possibly Starmer. Thornberry at a push.
It does not look as if Hammond is willing to vonc Boris
He cannot support a no deal that Boris appears to be threatening but does not sound like he intends to no-confidence Boris (which yes I agree it did sound like from the interview).
But he may find it hard to reconcile both those positions, a bit like the proverbial cat with a slice of buttered toast on its back spinning madly in the air just above the ground because it can't decide whether the cat lands on its feet or the toast lands butter side up.
Unless he is thinking maybe of an abstention in a confidence vote rather than full on no-confidencing? But I rather got the impression he is pinning his hopes on something happening first that will mean he does not have to consider what way he'd vote in a VONC. The Marr comment about him talking to Blackford, not denied by Hammond, was interesting - I turned over to whatever Scottish politics opt-out was on after it and Gordon Brewer was referring to about a Blackford/Swinson plan to introduce a new Bill, although I missed exactly what the intention of the bill would have been but presume it was about stopping a no deal?
As a matter on interest, how can opposition parties introduce a bill
But enough semantics. A more interesting question is whether the American government, if it had bailed out Lehman Brothers, might have prevented the liquidity crisis, in the same way our government stepped in to guarantee all deposits and end the run on Northern Rock. If lenders had not been scared off, perhaps the interlocking cog-wheels of the interbank derivatives markets might not have seized up.
Northern Rock should have been allowed to go under as Lehmans was, if capitalism is not allowed to run its course and all banks know they can always get bailouts no matter how bad the decisions they make then it will be more likely to happen again
Capitalism (or at least our modern versions of it) depend on capital being made available. We ordinary folk put our money into the bank and Charles and his mates use those deposits ten-fold to lend to companies and entrepreneurs (or too often, buy-to-let landlords or the derivatives casinos) which expand the economy, employ and pay workers, who buy goods and put their savings into the bank. It is a virtuous cycle.
If the bank, any bank, goes bust, then rather than risk any more of my hard-earned, I'll leave my savings under the mattress, so Charles can't lend to entrepreneurs to start new companies, or to existing companies to invest in new machinery and expand into new markets. We enter recession. The tax take falls. The benefits bill rises. It is a vicious circle.
I yield to no-one in my distaste for big swinging dicks in red braces spaffing champagne and icing sugar up the wall because they've confused leverage with genius, but the alternative is worse.
The only constant winner in your circle is Charles and his ilk ( also his chums in power ). They have milked the system set up by their chums forever.
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
The natural order is so fcuked up that currently Liam Fox may be a 'possible'.
I'm not a non-partisan (are there many on here?), but surely Stewart and Gove (and possibly Rudd) are all higher up the list than Fox?
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
This govt has had one flagship policy Brexit. Hammond has consistently undermined the Govts policy by releasing reports saying it is a bad idea. The Treasury forecast, that he has never allowed the full report with the assumptions is to be released, is the whole basis of the opposition MPs sitting in TV studios. Their message the Govt is rubbish because there is not one form of Brexit that means the economy will be better off, do not believe me the CoTE report says it.
No person has done more to make this Govt look incompetent than Hammond, if he did not want to implement Brexit and felt he could not support the Govt then he should have resigned.
'Sánchez’s stated reason for not wanting Iglesias in the government is the latter’s support for a referendum on Catalan independence and his insistence that the leaders who have been in custody for nearly two years while on trial for their part in the unilateral declaration of independence in 2017 are political prisoners.'
Imprisoning politicians still a cross party tradition in Spain I guess.
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
How many from the Shadow Cabinet? Possibly Starmer. Thornberry at a push.
I'd add McDonnel to those two. But that is about it from that source. I might stretch to Gove as well if Thornberry is in.
She is such a donkey , would be poetic justice for the Lib-Dems if they voted her as leader. Mind you as we know Lib Dems will change any principle or promise for a government car
It does not look as if Hammond is willing to vonc Boris
He cannot support a no deal that Boris appears to be threatening but does not sound like he intends to no-confidence Boris (which yes I agree it did sound like from the interview).
But he may find it hard to reconcile both those positions, a bit like the proverbial cat with a slice of buttered toast on its back spinning madly in the air just above the ground because it can't decide whether the cat lands on its feet or the toast lands butter side up.
Unless he is thinking maybe of an abstention in a confidence vote rather than full on no-confidencing? But I rather got the impression he is pinning his hopes on something happening first that will mean he does not have to consider what way he'd vote in a VONC. The Marr comment about him talking to Blackford, not denied by Hammond, was interesting - I turned over to whatever Scottish politics opt-out was on after it and Gordon Brewer was referring to about a Blackford/Swinson plan to introduce a new Bill, although I missed exactly what the intention of the bill would have been but presume it was about stopping a no deal?
As a matter on interest, how can opposition parties introduce a bill
I'm not entirely sure, I only caught the very tail-end of the discussion having just caught up on the rest of the Hammond interview. It was just interesting that Marr had asked Hammond about speaking with Blackford and then separately Brewer discussing something Blackford obviously had said earlier on that segment.
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
How many from the Shadow Cabinet? Possibly Starmer. Thornberry at a push.
I'd add McDonnel to those two. But that is about it from that source. I might stretch to Gove as well if Thornberry is in.
If the criterion is knowing your brief, and not egregiously putting your foot in it every week, rather than any political value judgement, then yes., probably McD and Gove. Hunt maybe too, when he isn't talking bollocks in the pursuit of back woods votes.
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
The natural order is so fcuked up that currently Liam Fox may be a 'possible'.
I'm not a non-partisan (are there many on here?), but surely Stewart and Gove (and possibly Rudd) are all higher up the list than Fox?
'Sánchez’s stated reason for not wanting Iglesias in the government is the latter’s support for a referendum on Catalan independence and his insistence that the leaders who have been in custody for nearly two years while on trial for their part in the unilateral declaration of independence in 2017 are political prisoners.'
Imprisoning politicians still a cross party tradition in Spain I guess.
Yup in Spain even politicians can go to jail when they break the law.
The other problem that is not mentioned is that is not the working class that took the big hit, it was the professional class who bought multiple property as part of their pension plans. When the bottom dropped out of the market, the house keys went into the swimming pool and the owner walked away. In many states, for the mortgage company to reclaim the property, the original signed mortgage document had to be provided to the court, no copies, electronic or otherwise could be accepted. In the rush to sell the properties, the retention of the paperwork was not seen as a priority, and has been mentioned, ownership of the mortgages had been split into many different packages.
The professional class, who had anticipated a relaxed financially secure old age, paid for with a pension backed by bricks and mortar (or chipboard and paint) are significantly poorer.
That's an interesting point. Although I think plenty of non professional types went BTL bonkers too. To steal the JP Morgan (was it?) quote - "when the plumber who came to fix my flush starts telling me about his third investment property ..."
From the Observer - which quotes a report from the Sunday Times. 'The paper also reported that up to six Tory MPs were considering defecting to the Liberal Democrats should Johnson beat Hunt and enter No 10 – leaving him with no majority in the Commons.'
Were that to happen , the Tories would be reduced to just 306 MPs.
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
How many from the Shadow Cabinet? Possibly Starmer. Thornberry at a push.
I'd add McDonnel to those two. But that is about it from that source. I might stretch to Gove as well if Thornberry is in.
If the criterion is knowing your brief, and not egregiously putting your foot in it every week, rather than any political value judgement, then yes., probably McD and Gove. Hunt maybe too, when he isn't talking bollocks in the pursuit of back woods votes.
Yes I'd have him too. I'd forgotten he was in the cabinet. Getting ahead of events.
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
I don't mind that Damian Hinds. I can watch and listen to him without coming out in a rash. Or at least without making it worse.
'Sánchez’s stated reason for not wanting Iglesias in the government is the latter’s support for a referendum on Catalan independence and his insistence that the leaders who have been in custody for nearly two years while on trial for their part in the unilateral declaration of independence in 2017 are political prisoners.'
Imprisoning politicians still a cross party tradition in Spain I guess.
Yup in Spain even politicians can go to jail when they break the law.
Are elected politicians committing peaceful political acts who are arrested and imprisoned before trial (including long periods of solitary confinement) political prisoners or not?
'Sánchez’s stated reason for not wanting Iglesias in the government is the latter’s support for a referendum on Catalan independence and his insistence that the leaders who have been in custody for nearly two years while on trial for their part in the unilateral declaration of independence in 2017 are political prisoners.'
Imprisoning politicians still a cross party tradition in Spain I guess.
Like the UK, Spain has an independent judiciary. And, as in the UK, politicians are not given a free hand to pick and choose which laws to follow. My guess is that if several Catalan separatists had not fled the country instead of submitting to the charges levelled against them, the ones that did stay would not have been considered as being high-risk bail-jump possibilities.
This is entirely missing the point. Lehman (and Bear Stearns before it) failed because of plunging house prices caused by people defaulting on their mortgages, which occurred due to then losing their jobs due to the economic dip. That in turn wiped out the value on the MBSs Lehman was holding, which pushed them into bankruptcy. The recession was necessary in order to cause the credit crisis, never the other way round.
Yes, but recessions come and go. They only lead to the implosion of the financial system if the system has first been fatally compromised - as in this case it had been by the greed and fecklessness and complacency of its core participants over many years.
You can't pin all the blame on a single person, obviously, but if gun to head I had to I would go with the Fed Chairman, the Poodle of Wall St, a certain Alan Greenspan.
They don't want to work with anyone, they can get more protest votes that way. How they expect that to work if they are kingmakers in a hung parliament, as is quite possible, I do not know. Certainly they will not enter a coalition again - they don't want to try to convince their supporters that compromise is a good thing ever again - but cooperation of some king will likely need to happen an d will annoy some supporters.
'Sánchez’s stated reason for not wanting Iglesias in the government is the latter’s support for a referendum on Catalan independence and his insistence that the leaders who have been in custody for nearly two years while on trial for their part in the unilateral declaration of independence in 2017 are political prisoners.'
Imprisoning politicians still a cross party tradition in Spain I guess.
Like the UK, Spain has an independent judiciary. And, as in the UK, politicians are not given a free hand to pick and choose which laws to follow. My guess is that if several Catalan separatists had not fled the country instead of submitting to the charges levelled against them, the ones that did stay would not have been considered as being high-risk bail-jump possibilities.
If they are independent then they are a bunch of gangsters, only justification for the state of the Catalan jailings, police violence etc is that they must be puppets of the regime, otherwise a strange view on justice and democracy.
I see that in shock news the claims all over the press this morning that various EU countries looking to 'compromise' in a desire to avert new deal, amounts to them holding exactly the same positions that they have had for the last 9 months and wondering if the UK is going to come to its senses.
Doesn’t rule out a confidence and supply deal . Equally if Labour said support us to get a second EU ref then for the Lib Dems not to do that would trash their main message .
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
The natural order is so fcuked up that currently Liam Fox may be a 'possible'.
I'm not a non-partisan (are there many on here?), but surely Stewart and Gove (and possibly Rudd) are all higher up the list than Fox?
Doesn’t rule out a confidence and supply deal . Equally if Labour said support us to get a second EU ref then for the Lib Dems not to do that would trash their main message .
Is it absolutely certain she is going to win ? Whist I will always support the woman candidate if the contest is between one male and the other female, she has hardly been inspiring.
'Sánchez’s stated reason for not wanting Iglesias in the government is the latter’s support for a referendum on Catalan independence and his insistence that the leaders who have been in custody for nearly two years while on trial for their part in the unilateral declaration of independence in 2017 are political prisoners.'
Imprisoning politicians still a cross party tradition in Spain I guess.
Yup in Spain even politicians can go to jail when they break the law.
Are elected politicians committing peaceful political acts who are arrested and imprisoned before trial (including long periods of solitary confinement) political prisoners or not?
Suppressing Parliamentary votes and illegally diverting taxpayers' money into pet causes may be peaceful and political, but they are very serious contraventions of the law, not only in Spain but in any democracy.
It does not look as if Hammond is willing to vonc Boris
He cannot support a no deal that Boris appears to be threatening but does not sound like he intends to no-confidence Boris (which yes I agree it did sound like from the interview).
But he may find it hard to reconcile both those positions, a bit like the proverbial cat with a slice of buttered toast on its back spinning madly in the air just above the ground because it can't decide whether the cat lands on its feet or the toast lands butter side up.
Unless he is thinking maybe of an abstention in a confidence vote rather than full on no-confidencing? But I rather got the impression he is pinning his hopes on something happening first that will mean he does not have to consider what way he'd vote in a VONC. The Marr comment about him talking to Blackford, not denied by Hammond, was interesting - I turned over to whatever Scottish politics opt-out was on after it and Gordon Brewer was referring to about a Blackford/Swinson plan to introduce a new Bill, although I missed exactly what the intention of the bill would have been but presume it was about stopping a no deal?
As a matter on interest, how can opposition parties introduce a bill
The Opposition can propose amendments to any bill as ling as the Speaker accepts it. That's what happened to the NI bill.
She is such a donkey , would be poetic justice for the Lib-Dems if they voted her as leader. Mind you as we know Lib Dems will change any principle or promise for a government car
Would they back Scottish Independence if it helped them gain power ?
This is entirely missing the point. Lehman (and Bear Stearns before it) failed because of plunging house prices caused by people defaulting on their mortgages, which occurred due to then losing their jobs due to the economic dip. That in turn wiped out the value on the MBSs Lehman was holding, which pushed them into bankruptcy. The recession was necessary in order to cause the credit crisis, never the other way round.
Yes, but recessions come and go. They only lead to the implosion of the financial system if the system has first been fatally compromised - as in this case it had been by the greed and fecklessness and complacency of its core participants over many years.
You can't pin all the blame on a single person, obviously, but if gun to head I had to I would go with the Fed Chairman, the Poodle of Wall St, a certain Alan Greenspan.
We're in broad agreement there, although I'd place more of the blame on regulatory failure than the core participants, who are supposed to try new things in pursuit of profit. The culture of effective risk management simply wasn't in place, and you have to blame the regulator for failing to instill that.
My point, however, was that saying that Lehman's collapse didn't cause the recession is daft, since Lehman couldn't have collapsed until the recession hit.
Will listeria ridden, chlorinated chicken count as fresh food? If so, everything will be fine.
You seem to make the basic mistake of equating the Americans wanting to sell it to us with us wanting to buy it.....
The greedy food companies will buy it by the barrowload if cheap enough and include it in their peasant's ready made processed food etc, cheap takeaways. Not a threat to anyone with cash for sure.
Most greedy food companies are making poor margins having seen prices rise and retail prices fall. Supermarket chains are woefully inefficient compared to the German discounters and that leads to them denouncing greedy manufacturers and demanding we fill in their profit holes
Comments
Bundling them up into a 'security' may not be a derivative but it amounts to selling the loan to another party. After that, I presume that the bank that granted the original credit is allowed to make another loan (up to its limits in relation to depositor and shareholder capital, which I think are set by BIS). Rinse and repeat ...
In the distant past, I don't think that loans were sold on much or at all. They remained with the original bank that granted them. So today's system appears to amount to the magic money tree (aka commercial banking) growing a bit so that banks are allowed to create more money out of thin air than they were in the 1950s-70s.
If Hunt wins he might reconsider but he thinks although he has got on well with Boris and on issues beyond Brexit he cannot accept leaving with No Deal on October 31st but he will support both in trying to get a new Deal but does not think that possible before October 31st
1999 FTSE100 market peaks
2000 UK industrial production peaks
2002 UK government finances turn negative
2003 UK home ownership starts to fall
2005 UK unemployment starts to increase
All the fault of Lehman ?
Not a threat to anyone with cash for sure.
Not least because it is probably the dream scenario for Labour, healing at a stroke one of their fissures.
How we chortled.
Turn 1 dollar of fundamental into 50 dollars of ephemera. That's 50 times the commission and 50 dollars worth of stuff to trade.
Even better, all the profits from the trading pay positive bonuses whereas the losses do not pay negative ones. Being no such thing.
Bottom line - the more you can pump the balloon the more the players can loot.
Therefore keep pumping - the loans get bigger and worse - the derivative structures get wilder and more convoluted - risk management and compliance get ever more sidelined - until ...
The professional class, who had anticipated a relaxed financially secure old age, paid for with a pension backed by bricks and mortar (or chipboard and paint) are significantly poorer.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/07/20/boris-johnson-cant-get-country-brexit-logjam-no-one-can/
Of course all those bonuses then get spent in the real economy and all those bonuses lead to a lot of income tax.
There was also the systemic risk to be considered. Lehman and Bear Stearns could be isolated. Northern Rock and AIG could not.
Iain Dale was on radio 4 blaming Hammond for the failure of Brexit yesterday. Possibly the only sane senior Tory. He said his running of the economy was deliberately designed to make Brexit fail. Someone must be feeding Dale his lines?
Essentially Bozo could stay in charge , the rebels could say get the extension and we’ll then support you which means you can go back to the Queen and say you have the confidence of the House .
The only way Corbyn becomes PM is if the Tory rebels agree to support him longer term which isn’t going to happen .
I don’t expect a VONC to even happen . Bozo just doesn’t want to be seen to be asking for an extension without being forced to .
He can do a u turn saying right , we’ll have an election during the extension . To get a mandate for no deal .
If the bank, any bank, goes bust, then rather than risk any more of my hard-earned, I'll leave my savings under the mattress, so Charles can't lend to entrepreneurs to start new companies, or to existing companies to invest in new machinery and expand into new markets. We enter recession. The tax take falls. The benefits bill rises. It is a vicious circle.
I yield to no-one in my distaste for big swinging dicks in red braces spaffing champagne and icing sugar up the wall because they've confused leverage with genius, but the alternative is worse.
Good news.
The only way the Tories would risk as election is if they had an agreement with the BP.
The problem there is that alienates a bunch of Tory MPs and Tory voters .
Brown was suckered by it along with almost every other politician and regulator. It was the prevailing culture. The markets know what they are doing. The tax is nice. Let them be. He ought to have taken a lone and heroic stand against it. Alas he was not such a man.
Where was John McDonnell when we needed him?
'Sánchez’s stated reason for not wanting Iglesias in the government is the latter’s support for a referendum on Catalan independence and his insistence that the leaders who have been in custody for nearly two years while on trial for their part in the unilateral declaration of independence in 2017 are political prisoners.'
Imprisoning politicians still a cross party tradition in Spain I guess.
But we would have been better paying them to dig holes in a field and then fill them in again.
You have been given the job of putting together a government of all the talents from the current House of Commons. How many of the current cabinet would you select?
I can only think of Hammond.
Why is that? Our tech nerds are as clever as theirs. We too have universities in the world's top 100 lists. More investment capital and protectionism (often disguised as national security, see also China).
Probably what the country needs is a Boris to spend, spend, spend and justify it with a confident feel good smile. He will need to con the nutters into accepting a deal equivalent to customs union with the EU, probably calling it anything but a customs union.
Whether Boris can do this I am not sure-he may have painted himself into a corner but like Bunter he is good at getting out of scrapes that he has created.
We will know by the end of September.
But he may find it hard to reconcile both those positions, a bit like the proverbial cat with a slice of buttered toast on its back spinning madly in the air just above the ground because it can't decide whether the cat lands on its feet or the toast lands butter side up.
Unless he is thinking maybe of an abstention in a confidence vote rather than full on no-confidencing? But I rather got the impression he is pinning his hopes on something happening first that will mean he does not have to consider what way he'd vote in a VONC. The Marr comment about him talking to Blackford, not denied by Hammond, was interesting - I turned over to whatever Scottish politics opt-out was on after it and Gordon Brewer was referring to about a Blackford/Swinson plan to introduce a new Bill, although I missed exactly what the intention of the bill would have been but presume it was about stopping a no deal?
No person has done more to make this Govt look incompetent than Hammond, if he did not want to implement Brexit and felt he could not support the Govt then he should have resigned.
https://twitter.com/RogueCoder250/status/1152888602369691649?s=20
'The paper also reported that up to six Tory MPs were considering defecting to the Liberal Democrats should Johnson beat Hunt and enter No 10 – leaving him with no majority in the Commons.'
Were that to happen , the Tories would be reduced to just 306 MPs.
NHK reports that the Protect The People From NHK Party looks likely to win a seat.
You can't pin all the blame on a single person, obviously, but if gun to head I had to I would go with the Fed Chairman, the Poodle of Wall St, a certain Alan Greenspan.
My point, however, was that saying that Lehman's collapse didn't cause the recession is daft, since Lehman couldn't have collapsed until the recession hit.
https://twitter.com/ft/status/1149621660099547136