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“And does Labour have a charismatic leader?” His prediction, based only on the fact that “you have had a rough several years economically”, is that David Cameron will not be re-elected.
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Best advice the experienced Blairites could give Cerise is how he can help the bankstas create a gigantic ten-year credit bubble which he can surf on top of until it bursts and ****s the world up.
Trouble is those bubbles are generally on a 70-year cycle so he better eat up all his greens.
On the one hand, people aren't going to feel the Government has fixed it - there will be rival sets of stats but the bottom line is that people won't feel things are really much better. On the other hand, they aren't going to be convinced that Labour has a brilliant plan either, and it's rather obvious that it's to a large degree an international problem anyway. The efforts of both sides to portray their rivals as bonkers will fail.
So the economy will be seen as important but not decisive for voting intention. What will be decisive is which parties people feel are most in touch with them - a nebulous battleground but one on which Cameron and Osborne are particularly weak.
App -29
Cons VI: Men -9; Women -6
The evidence is that the economy will have turned the corner by 2015 and be on a steady, if unspectacular, path of recovery. In some ways, that's the ideal position for the Conservatives, who can argue that the policy's working, Labour consistently argued against it, were wrong and have no sensible alternative, but that the country still needs the Tories to finish the task.
Yes, the country will have been through five tough years but Labour's still being given the blame for this. Will that last? It may well, if the coalition keep hammering home *why* austerity has been necessary, and while Labour keep promoting spendy-borrowy policies.
The next election is very much open. UKIP remain a huge unknown factor and will remain so while there's very little positive support for any party. But that fact makes Labour's own lead soft - it's not votes for them but against the coalition finding a home. Should Labour or Miliband also become unpopular, that lead will melt (to whom is a different question).
It took years of New Labour preparation to convince the public that they would run sound finances in 1997. Having Brown shred that reputation makes the job much harder, so it needs to be a central theme of their message for the next two years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NopAq6tUHVk
I think the lesson is that what he's doing in the US isn't just number-crunching. He can do sensible things with the numbers because his understanding of the political forces at work is very good, too.
She's never going to parliament anymore
For she gave her life for others, while doing down the brothers,
And now she's in St. Pauls, where she'l lay.
My Ode to Maggie; with a nod to that old song.
Congrats to Cardiff on finally getting promoted, and big win for Leicester to be back in the playoffs.
The Championship is crazy league this year. It looks as if 70 points will make the playoffs and low fifties will get relegated. Lots of poor football everywhere, with all the playoff teams on bad runs. Leicester never do it the easy way. Final match against Forest away could be a massive game for both teams.
The moral is, even a poor performer can win when the opposition is also crap. The next election is still up for grabs.
Raisin d'être? You're talking nuts.
Dave's love affiar with the ladies continues in today's YouGov.
"raisin d'être" - is that what winemakers have ?
I'm sure there are equally good election predictors of PR systems too - but being good in one field or an expert on the national politics of one country doesn't transfer to another. I'd liken it to being great on grass, but poorer on clay.
Nice to see a thread that isn't about The Funeral - I will tune in for a few mins just to get a feel for the crowds lining the route, but otherwise I think its a bit weird to watch someone's funeral on TV.
"Sorry but I think Nate is trying to apply US politics to the UK - and now we're wrestling with 4 parties vying for votes using FPTP - this is totally different to the Red/Blue contests in the States."
I absolutely agree. I actually read the article in the Times and it was full of tosh and whimsical prophecies. I'm sure Nate is very good at elephant v donkey politics in the US but will need a lot more time here to understand UK politics.
Still he is probably right that Cammo won't be re-elected.
RT @labourpress: Join our voluntary press regulator or we will make you, Harman tells newspapers http://t.co/wb8H9O7dJS
Another classic Mail headline:
I was acting in self-defence, says drunken fan on disabled benefits who threw punch at a police horse
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2310139/I-acting-self-defence-says-drunken-fan-disabled-benefits-threw-punch-police-horse.html#ixzz2QhQYIYUl
Am on Bryher in the Isles of Scilly today for my cousin's wedding. Stunning, absolutely stunning. I can hear big Atlantic waves crashing against the rocks just a few yards away. There's a heavy mist. Proper weather. I do love this country!!
"Labour needs to explain what their version of austerity looks like fairly soon."
For some of us this coalition government has been good. The stock market has soared and everything else has remained pretty much unchanged. So we feel richer.
Unfortunately for the Tories this isn't most people's experience. Most are having a harder time than they've had for decades.
Labour's time for the most part is remembered as a time of plenty when people-particularly the young-could walk in and out of jobs and where our city centres were places of plenty with cafes and shops overflowing.
This is what people see as labour's legacy and people want it again. This is why I'm convinced Labour will win and win well. It's human nature
Tories=Grimsby on a cold Tuesday. Labour=Monaco every day of the week
Grimsby = Labour fiefdom Monaco = ultra blue territory
I'm entering you for the bad marketing award.
It is true that the economy's performance over the preceding 5 years will have been less than stellar although if the current forecasts are right (and that has surely got to happen sometime) and Britain is set to outperform France and Germany over the next 2 years this will give the goverment something to shout about.
Where I think Labour have a problem is that they are not offering a sensible alternative. The "too far, too fast" line is now hopelessly confused with the "well the cuts are increasing expenditure" line. If the latter were true would that be a good thing? Why is the economy not doing better then?
The economy is still going to be peoples' number one concern and by a distance. To change government they need to have a choice. Labour have some serious work to do in making one. Brown was a total disaster but his efforts to look credible, sound, responsible etc in 1995-7 were immense. Clarke was a brilliant chancellor but people had a choice and they took it. Will Balls be able to do the same? Not so far. At the moment their effort looks more like 1992.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BICD3hJCYAA821A.jpg:large
Bit of hyperbole there as I think 'as important' as economy is supported by the numbers (77 & 79 respectively)
St Paul's Dean: Even if I may find her hard to like nonetheless I have to accept she's one of us. She's a human person
Thank you......I'd like to thank my parents for making me the way I am.....
...and my daughter and her hedonistic friends for showing me where their black and white view of politics is leading them
Nate Silver's saloon bar observations are of much less interest. But since he didn't exactly say what the Times said he said, I'll give him a bit of a break here.
Economy:
Con: +6/=
Lab: +1/+5
LibD: =/-1
UKIP: -1/-5
Immigration/Asylum:
Con: +10/+6
Lab: -10/-4
LibD: -14/-12
UKIP: +24/+26
The UKIP numbers are down from the last poll, when the immigration numbers were +35/+32
"She was a particularly divisive figure in Scotland, where you'll struggle to find anybody with a good thing to say about her"
I'd say that makes her a particularly unifying figure in Scotland. Bloody BBC idiots.
1. Monaco for a week on the credit card,
2. Grimsby for the other 51 weeks of the year [with the EUSSR controlling the fishing "rights"]
Do we know how many will line the route? 1million?
Anyway - Ugh.
I am not saying that the voters want austerity, who does? What I am saying is that if Labour campaign by pretending that it will be wine and roses instantly, then the campaign risks being exposed as ridiculous. If they gain power by pretending they can spend their way out of austerity they will experience a Hollande type crash in the economy and a collapse in the polls.
They do not need to publish a manifesto, but do need to be clear that there will be austerity, gaining power on false pretences could destroy them. To his credit NP seems to accept this, but I am not convinced that Balls does.
And an observation about Thatcher - a positive one - I'm in every agreement with:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/16/mass-hysteria-boston-terrorists-greatest-weapon
Austerity is the policy causing the damage.
As Ashcroft warned - spelling out the alternative, the correct path, is a hard sell. But that doesn't mean caving in to Tory over-simplicities and wrongheadedness or "accepting" austerity.
There are lots of examples in life where things are true that don't make intuitive sense. Science is stuffed full of them.
Macro economics is another. Destroying the facile Tory myth equating government budgets to that of a household is a necessity or else we'll never get out of this hole.
"Do we know how many will line the route? 1million?"
The ramping has started already
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/SLIDESHOW-Ed-Miliband-hits-campaign-trail-in-Cambridge-20130415160716.htm
You should be scanning the faces lined up along the procession route looking for a 14 year old future Prime Minister.
The only question is whether the rude awakening is before or after the election.
off to work now.
I don't see anything in the post you seem to be replying to that says he doesn't wasn't think that anyone isn't won't didn't propose increased debt. As anyone with an understanding of the difference between debt and deficit knows, didn't wasn't isn't increasing debt isn't hasn't not been an option until the deficit weren't not having been paid off.
I hope that's as clear as your post
I can't find it anywhere.
"I don't care what the Dean's political views are but at a funeral he should remember that he should be providing comfort to the bereaved and commending the soul of the departed to God not giving his views on her policies."
Perhaps if she'd chosen to have a more humble affair like Clement Atlee she could have had a minister of her choosing and not one supplied by the Cathedral and what's more if her opinion of herself was such that she could muse with her daughter Carole whether 'her place in history was assured' then I can't see anything wrong with the person charged with burying her also having a review of her life.
If I'm in denial, please can you point to data points, any practical examples or studies suggesting Austerity is or has been successful anywhere?
You must be able to. I'm the one in denial, remember?
They still are, there's been no reduction in wealth consumption.
Retail spending is at an all time high, government spending is at an all time high, imports are at an all time high.
If you want to see where the depression is being felt then you need to leave the city centres and go to the industrial estates.
The Dean should STFU. Its none of his business. He is there to provide succour to the bereaved , not slag off the deceased..
Perhaps of more relevance will be the productivity numbers we should also get.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/world/europe/used-to-hardship-latvia-accepts-austerity-and-its-pain-eases.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
A harder sell is how it's supposed to work when everybody does it at the same time.
You don't need an Excel spreadsheet to know you can't borrow your way out of debt.
What next?
Blank Powerpoint slides from EdM?
An Access databasa of UKIP members?
No one would choose austerity unless it was needed. The problem that all governments are wrestling with is how to create growth when it's not based on cheap debt.
"If you want to see where the depression is being felt then you need to leave the city centres and go to the industrial estates."
I'm judging it by the time you have to wait for a table at the Ivy.
The ironically named 'financier' has just flagged one of my posts with 'troll' and I'm bemused.
There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
James IV:12 (NIV)
Has to wait an hour and a half for her inlaws to arrive.
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Someone has flagged a post of mine as "off topic".
I was under the impression that the London rich were still doing very well but perhaps that's not so.
Maybe they do need that top rate tax cut after all.
By comparison all the McDonalds and Weatherspoons I've been to recently have been doing a roaring trade.
;-)
I trust you noted that the household savings ratio fell for the first time in many months in Q4 2012. Signs of increased consumer confidence in the economy and signposting the Q1 uplift in retail spend.
Not a consumer boom but evidence of life in the economic patient.
This and his ridiculous "subprime" line is just laughable.
http://www.economicsuk.com/blog/001853.html#more
"From £239 billion at the beginning of 1987, household debt saw a more than fivefold rise to a peak of £1,550 billion at the end of 2008. Roughly £1 trillion occurred from the end of 1996. Though inflation played a part, debt rose from under 100% of annual household income to a high of 167.5%.
Times have changed. Household debt does not normally fall. In cash terms it carried on rising through the recession of the early 1990s, before regaining momentum as the recovery gathered strength.
This time, it has fallen. Not much, but it has fallen. At the end of 2011, household debt was £21bn lower than three years earlier. Though it has edged up a little since, it remains below its pre-crisis peak."
Someone should have the guts of standing up and saying, 'we don't expect growth for many years until we sort out our problems.'
Currently the only way in which (certainly in the Eurozone and us) to generate growth is via government spending and cheap debt bubbles. IE a return to the old days.
The magic growth formula would be to create growth without a debt bubble (either consumer or government), and no government has even got close to working out how that's possible yet (if indeed it is).
It took Labour a very long time to work out, why they had failed in 1979, and why they divided in two in 1981. They were unelectable in 79, and too unstable and extreme to supplant her in 83.
RIP Mrs T,
"The Help to Buy scheme unveiled by George Osborne in the budget takes it further and has produced a curious reaction. The centrepiece of the scheme - £12bn of government guarantees to support £130bn of new mortgages over three years - seeks to address the mortgage famine that has so depressed housing activity.
Some of the criticism, suggesting it will create a sub-prime crisis in Britain, is preposterous. If we see mortgage lenders doling out loans to borrowers with no income, no jobs and no assets, America’s infamous Ninja borrowers, you might believe it. But that is not going to happen."
"Will not government mortgage guarantees lead to the household debt burden rising? No. Even if Help to Buy results in £130bn of new mortgages over three years, which may be optimistic, the household debt ratio would not rise, based on what has happened to incomes in recent years. Nor is it likely to produce a new house-price boom: the scale is not there. Net mortgage lending was rising by well over £100bn annually before the crisis. £130bn over three years is small by comparison.
Should not people be encouraged to run down their debt further? There has already been unprecedented deleveraging and household balance sheets are healthy. Household assets are large in relation to income - 8.5 times according to the OBR - meaning that household net worth is 700% of household annual income.
That is not a bad position to be in. Some people took on too much debt in the run-up to the crisis and the overall level rose too quickly. But household debt, typically 25-year debt, of under 150% of annual income is sustainable. Encouraging it down much further will simply deprive the economy of the demand it needs."
And once again it is broadly good news.
Key findings as follows:
• The employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 for December 2012 to February 2013 was 71.4%, virtually unchanged from September to November 2012. There were 29.70 million people in employment aged 16 and over, little changed (down 2,000) from September to November 2012.
• The unemployment rate for December 2012 to February 2013 was 7.9% of the economically active population, up 0.2 percentage points from September to November 2012. There were 2.56 million unemployed people, up 70,000 from September to November 2012.
• The inactivity rate for those aged from 16 to 64 for December 2012 to February 2013 was 22.2% (the lowest since 1991), down 0.2 percentage points from September to November 2012. There were 8.95 million economically inactive people aged from 16 to 64, down 57,000 from September to November 2012.
• Between December 2011 to February 2012 and December 2012 to February 2013 total pay rose by 0.8% (the lowest growth rate since September to November 2009) and regular pay rose by 1.0% (the lowest growth rate since records began in 2001).
There are lines of genuine concern with GO's approach tim - but this aint one of them.
Something for everyone. Netanyahu and his wife. This thing is becoming macabre
Car sales figures released this morning show UK output and sales growing while they are contracting in the rest of Europe.
How long will ben and tim bang on about austerity is not working when the fruits of George's success are falling in abundance around their feet.
March data from the ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers' Association) showed car sales plunged in Europe, although the UK broke the trend with solid growth.
According to the data, European demand for passenger cars slumped for the 18th consecutive month, as new car registrations declined 10.2%. Germany (-17.1%), France (-16.2%), Spain (-13.9%) and Italy (-4.9%) saw demand decrease, yet the ACEA noted that “the UK remained a resilient market, posting a 5.9% growth”.
For the first quarter, the UK managed to increase new car registrations by 7.4% from the prior year. This compares to the 9.8% drop in the larger European Union.
Hollande WINNING here
Nice one, Cammo.
Immigrants or scroungers thrown off disability ?
RT @BBCHughPym: Claimant count down 7,000 in March...
employment down 2,000 in three months to Feb
yet
RT @BBCHughPym: Unemployment up 70,000 in three months ending in Feb.
There were 8.95 million economically inactive people aged from 16 to 64, down 57,000 from September to November 2012. 57,000 who had not been actively seeking a job started to look for work.
There were 2.56 million unemployed people, up 70,000 from September to November 2012. From that we can deduct the 57,000 (since we're using this as an indicator of overall strength) to get 13,000.
There were 29.70 million people in employment aged 16 and over, little changed (down 2,000) from September to November 2012. Employment didn't change, and unemployment is up by 13,000, implying we grew by 11,000 new workers in the period.
Nothing that indicates the sort of rise that we've been waiting for. The move from economically inactive would, I think, be considered a success by the government since it would be considered an aim of the welfare changes.
Avery thinks its broadly good news.
I must be in a parallel dimension.