Grandiose (10.41am), Osborne's speech was directed at the party faithful. It had an eye on the next Tory leadership election and the need to head Mr Gove off at the gulch.
From the telegraph this morning: "Latest figures show Italy's unemployment rate rose to 12.7pc in November, a new record high. Youth unemployment, at a staggering 41.6pc, is also at its highest ever."
Anyone who thinks the EZ crisis has gone away is kidding themselves. I really don't know how a society can sustain youth unemployment at those levels.
Sooner or later another crisis in the EZ involving Italy, France or both is going to disrupt our export trade once again. It will take some of the shine off our growth when it does.
Yes, Italy unemployment numbers are bad - particularly youth unemployment. Youth unemployment is particularly high because Italy (like France) has very restrictive working practices, and it is difficult to fire people. When times are difficult (like now), that means that young people are simply not employed - firms simply don't want to take on staff if they are worried they will not be able to let them go.
When Italy begins to free up its labour market, as it must do, then the initial impact will be for the unemployment to go up further. When you relax labour laws - as we did in the early 1980s and Spain did over the last three years - then firms fire the unproductive staff. I wouldn't be surprised to see Italy's unemployment rate top out in the high teens.
Italy also has some spectacular regional differences. Around Verona and Milan, unemployment rates are more like 7-8% (and youth unemployment is better, but still not great). If you go to Southern Italy and Sicily, unemployment is 30% and for the young it is north of 50%. Crudely, Italy is Southern Germany plus Albania, with Rome the dividing line.
The good news for bond investors (or those worried about the finances of Italy) is that the Italian government deficit is less that 3% of GDP. Given nominal GDP is growing (albeit very slowly) this means that the overall government debt-to-GDP will have worsened by perhaps 1% from the previous 127%.
Personally, I am more worried about France than Italy. For a start, the Italians are running a trade surplus, while the French are in deficit. Secondly, the Italian government deficit is lower. Thirdly, there is no private sector debt problem in Italy and (Banca de Monte Pashi de Siena excepted) the banks are solvent. Fourthly, Letta is - albeit slowly and grudgingly - moving to open up the labour markets in Italy.
My dishwasher packed it in in October. The repair guy said it was probably some small element in the heater. The manufacturer however only sells the replacement part in a whole unit assembly.
Fundamentally this is a matter of design. With good design you could make something that was easy to repair. Though it is possible that there would be trade-offs, and this would make it more expensive to manufacture.
The problem is that there is no economic incentive to make things easy to repair. The consumer these days has little trust that an item is built to last, and so will rarely pay more on that basis.
We also live in a disposable society culture and never mind expect, perhaps we desire that things don't last as we expect to upgrade to a newer / better model in x years, even if the old one was working perfectly adequately. (Not that this culture is universal).
I think we must be close to the point where we slow down buying every new TV at least. They seem to advance every year, and to be honest, who among us can truthfully say that this years TV is noticeably better viewing than last years, or the year before that model? Also, we'll have to start redesigning new houses, just to fit the bloody things in the lounge! The traditional TV position between the chimney breast and the front wall of the house is just too small to accommodate them now!
In my more paranoid moments I wonder if HDTV really is any thing other than the old picture being made fuzzy and the HD being normal tv left unfuzzy!
Mini USB seems pretty universal to me, leads are cheap (although I think cheap leads can seem to charge and transfer data slower? Not sure, might be one for Josias) Its only really Apple who like to make you pay for proprietary peripherals.
Mini USB seems pretty universal to me, leads are cheap (although I think cheap leads can seem to charge and transfer data slower? Not sure, might be one for Josias) Its only really Apple who like to make you pay for proprietary peripherals.
General Election 2010: Wythenshawe and Sale East[3] Party Candidate Votes % ±% Labour Paul Goggins 17,987 44.1 -8.0 Conservative Janet Clowes 10,412 25.6 +3.3 Liberal Democrat Martin Eakins 9,107 22.3 +0.9 BNP Bernard Todd 1,572 3.9 N/A UKIP Christopher Cassidy 1,405 3.4 +0.4 TUSC Lynn Worthington 268 0.7 +0.7 Majority 7,575 18.6 Turnout 40,751 54.3 +3.1 Labour hold Swing 5.9
A fairly safe labour seat... a no-win situation for them there.
The thing I dislike about new tellies is that when the signal is a bit ropey you get stuttering sound and the picture becomes worthless. With analogue, the sound quality remained fine most of the time and the picture, although fuzzier, was still discernible.
re Italy - there is one other thing that makes me less concerned regarding the overall government debt than I might otherwise be: the Italian government simply has not sold assets (privatised) in the way that the British, French, Spanish or German governments did in the 1980s and 1990s. About two years ago, I got an intern to total up all the things that were still in public hands in Italy, that were privately owned elsewhere: water utilities, and stakes in power stations, and railways, etc. Adding up the value of all these stakes was enormous - something like 40-50% of GDP. Now, that doesn't mean the government will do anything with them, but a sensible process of privatisations - combined with keeping the budget deficits under 3% - could get debt-to-GDP down to 90-100% in a couple of years.
We did the same exercise with Greece, and discovered there was very little 'in the cupboard' for them to sell, which frightened the living daylights out of us.
General Election 2010: Wythenshawe and Sale East[3] Party Candidate Votes % ±% Labour Paul Goggins 17,987 44.1 -8.0 Conservative Janet Clowes 10,412 25.6 +3.3 Liberal Democrat Martin Eakins 9,107 22.3 +0.9 BNP Bernard Todd 1,572 3.9 N/A UKIP Christopher Cassidy 1,405 3.4 +0.4 TUSC Lynn Worthington 268 0.7 +0.7 Majority 7,575 18.6 Turnout 40,751 54.3 +3.1 Labour hold Swing 5.9
A fairly safe labour seat... a no-win situation for them there.
The question will be what UKIP can do.
I'm not sure if UKIP have any organisation on the ground but second place looks achievable on those numbers.
General Election 2010: Wythenshawe and Sale East[3] Party Candidate Votes % ±% Labour Paul Goggins 17,987 44.1 -8.0 Conservative Janet Clowes 10,412 25.6 +3.3 Liberal Democrat Martin Eakins 9,107 22.3 +0.9 BNP Bernard Todd 1,572 3.9 N/A UKIP Christopher Cassidy 1,405 3.4 +0.4 TUSC Lynn Worthington 268 0.7 +0.7 Majority 7,575 18.6 Turnout 40,751 54.3 +3.1 Labour hold Swing 5.9
Sad news about Goggins and commiserations to his family and friends.
However, as a by-election seat, I don't hold out much hope for any, other than Labour, to win this seat.
re exports to Italy, even if they were to do very poorly, I wouldn't worry about them having too much effect. We export surprisingly little to Italy - it ranks well below (for example) Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, the US, and France. The rapid economic growth in Ireland (probably running at an - admittedly unsustainable - annualised rate of 4% in 4Q) is of far more important to the exports of the UK than Italy.
General Election 2010: Wythenshawe and Sale East[3] Party Candidate Votes % ±% Labour Paul Goggins 17,987 44.1 -8.0 Conservative Janet Clowes 10,412 25.6 +3.3 Liberal Democrat Martin Eakins 9,107 22.3 +0.9 BNP Bernard Todd 1,572 3.9 N/A UKIP Christopher Cassidy 1,405 3.4 +0.4 TUSC Lynn Worthington 268 0.7 +0.7 Majority 7,575 18.6 Turnout 40,751 54.3 +3.1 Labour hold Swing 5.9
Sad news about Goggins and commiserations to his family and friends.
However, as a by-election seat, I don't hold out much hope for any, other than Labour, to win this seat.
Is anyone giving odds - I would back UKIP at anything better than 3/2
Grandiose (10.41am), Osborne's speech was directed at the party faithful. It had an eye on the next Tory leadership election and the need to head Mr Gove off at the gulch.
I disagree. It was aimed clearly at Labour and was implicitly asking them whether they still believe in the magic money tree.
I don't expect either Osborne or Gove to be the next Tory leader: neither is sufficiently voter-friendly.
General Election 2010: Wythenshawe and Sale East[3] Party Candidate Votes % ±% Labour Paul Goggins 17,987 44.1 -8.0 Conservative Janet Clowes 10,412 25.6 +3.3 Liberal Democrat Martin Eakins 9,107 22.3 +0.9 BNP Bernard Todd 1,572 3.9 N/A UKIP Christopher Cassidy 1,405 3.4 +0.4 TUSC Lynn Worthington 268 0.7 +0.7 Majority 7,575 18.6 Turnout 40,751 54.3 +3.1 Labour hold Swing 5.9
Sad news about Goggins and commiserations to his family and friends.
However, as a by-election seat, I don't hold out much hope for any, other than Labour, to win this seat.
Is anyone giving odds - I would back UKIP at anything better than 3/2
General Election 2010: Wythenshawe and Sale East[3] Party Candidate Votes % ±% Labour Paul Goggins 17,987 44.1 -8.0 Conservative Janet Clowes 10,412 25.6 +3.3 Liberal Democrat Martin Eakins 9,107 22.3 +0.9 BNP Bernard Todd 1,572 3.9 N/A UKIP Christopher Cassidy 1,405 3.4 +0.4 TUSC Lynn Worthington 268 0.7 +0.7 Majority 7,575 18.6 Turnout 40,751 54.3 +3.1 Labour hold Swing 5.9
Sad news about Goggins and commiserations to his family and friends.
However, as a by-election seat, I don't hold out much hope for any, other than Labour, to win this seat.
Is anyone giving odds - I would back UKIP at anything better than 3/2
General Election 2010: Wythenshawe and Sale East[3] Party Candidate Votes % ±% Labour Paul Goggins 17,987 44.1 -8.0 Conservative Janet Clowes 10,412 25.6 +3.3 Liberal Democrat Martin Eakins 9,107 22.3 +0.9 BNP Bernard Todd 1,572 3.9 N/A UKIP Christopher Cassidy 1,405 3.4 +0.4 TUSC Lynn Worthington 268 0.7 +0.7 Majority 7,575 18.6 Turnout 40,751 54.3 +3.1 Labour hold Swing 5.9
Sad news about Goggins and commiserations to his family and friends.
However, as a by-election seat, I don't hold out much hope for any, other than Labour, to win this seat.
Is anyone giving odds - I would back UKIP at anything better than 3/2
I'll offer you 2/1?
£100?
So you win £200 if UKIP come 1st, I win £100 if they don't? If so, deal.
General Election 2010: Wythenshawe and Sale East[3] Party Candidate Votes % ±% Labour Paul Goggins 17,987 44.1 -8.0 Conservative Janet Clowes 10,412 25.6 +3.3 Liberal Democrat Martin Eakins 9,107 22.3 +0.9 BNP Bernard Todd 1,572 3.9 N/A UKIP Christopher Cassidy 1,405 3.4 +0.4 TUSC Lynn Worthington 268 0.7 +0.7 Majority 7,575 18.6 Turnout 40,751 54.3 +3.1 Labour hold Swing 5.9
Sad news about Goggins and commiserations to his family and friends.
However, as a by-election seat, I don't hold out much hope for any, other than Labour, to win this seat.
Is anyone giving odds - I would back UKIP at anything better than 3/2
I'll offer you 2/1?
£100?
So you win £200 if UKIP come 1st, I win £100 if they don't? If so, deal.
Personally I hate the consumerism of buying the latest domestic gadget,I also get great pleasure in repairing most things. Parts are usually plentiful on ebay,and youtube is full of "How to" videos. The problem is the labour cost. I just spent 4 hours repairing sons pressure washer,parts were a tiny plastic valve costing only a few pounds,but 4 hours labour at commercial cost would make it unviable. My son was very pleased,as he had been told it was impossible to strip the pump and would need a new pump@£70. Anyway todays project,parking sensors on the Gas guzzler,new sensor £19,main agent quote £200,or £70 diagnostic check to find which one of 8 sensors faulty.
Grandiose (10.41am), Osborne's speech was directed at the party faithful. It had an eye on the next Tory leadership election and the need to head Mr Gove off at the gulch.
I disagree. It was aimed clearly at Labour and was implicitly asking them whether they still believe in the magic money tree.
I don't expect either Osborne or Gove to be the next Tory leader: neither is sufficiently voter-friendly.
Exactly. I think much of PB has come down with Mike-itis in building Gove (and Osbo) into some great machiavellian schemer. He is passionate about what he does, and in his way is analagous to Boris, in that he doesn't pull punches which in turn stems from a confidence in his own views.
And none of his opponents can lay a hand on him (aside from a perception which of course is difficult to counter) so they resort to ascribing to him leadership ambition, etc, etc..
General Election 2010: Wythenshawe and Sale East[3] Party Candidate Votes % ±% Labour Paul Goggins 17,987 44.1 -8.0 Conservative Janet Clowes 10,412 25.6 +3.3 Liberal Democrat Martin Eakins 9,107 22.3 +0.9 BNP Bernard Todd 1,572 3.9 N/A UKIP Christopher Cassidy 1,405 3.4 +0.4 TUSC Lynn Worthington 268 0.7 +0.7 Majority 7,575 18.6 Turnout 40,751 54.3 +3.1 Labour hold Swing 5.9
Sad news about Goggins and commiserations to his family and friends.
However, as a by-election seat, I don't hold out much hope for any, other than Labour, to win this seat.
Is anyone giving odds - I would back UKIP at anything better than 3/2
I'll offer you 2/1?
£100?
So you win £200 if UKIP come 1st, I win £100 if they don't? If so, deal.
Exactly. I'll email you confirm
Grand. How do we do that? I really don't get the Vanilla thingy.
David MacKay's a good egg, and a very knowledgeable person that I generally listen to, even if I don't agree with him (annoyingly, he's more often right than my initial instincts allow).
However, he's going a bit far on this. For one thing, the network of repair-people are not out there - the days when firms had people travelling around to fix things are long gone. Now it's more a case of sending the faulty item back, and getting a new one returned.
Secondly, the cost of spares and labour can easily exceed the cost of a new appliance. Our 8-year old LCD TV is developing bands on the top-third of the screen when left on for more than five hours - thankfully a rare occurrence. I've investigated, but they quoted more than the cost of a new TV for the LCD panel alone. In other words, they cannot be bothered, or the spares aren't available.
Answer: we'll leave it until it gets annoying and buy a new one.
Says the man who has a builder in (*) fitting a new washer-dryer this very morning ...
(*) A very nice Peruvian man who has a science PhD. Blooming immigrants, coming here and fitting kitchens ...
Not sure I agree with you JJ. I've been getting appliances repaired for years because it annoys me to throw out something which is still largely working. It is possible to find people to repair stuff. The best VCR I ever had was a very old one which got repaired several times and lasted years; ditto re my gas cooker which, until relatively recently, was the gas cooker which my parents got when North Sea gas came in. It's amazing the amount of stuff you can find in skips which can be put to good use, too.
The throwaway society offends me on some visceral level - probably because I'm the child of parents who, having lived through the war, made use and reuse of everything.
Osborne, following Gurria at the OECD, opted for a fiscal consolidation plan with a ratio of tax rises to spending cuts of 20:80. This was at the top end of the splits adopted by other developed countries with similar deficit/debt problems to the UK.
Osborne then imposed the tax rises immediately, mainly through his VAT rise and applied the spending cuts gradually. More accurately he extended his tax cutting plans from an initial five year period to a full two terms, meaning that by the General Election we will be less than half way towards the levels of cuts needed to 'balance the budget'.
Osborne's gradualist approach to spending cuts has been clever both politically and economically. On the economics front, he has been able to optimise growth and thereby lessen the future burden and impact of spending cuts.
Politically he has done enough to prove the credibility of his economic plan without having to apply excessively unpopular austerity. In 2015, the job will be half done and there will be a clear and relatively easy path to its completion.
I don't see how you can regard postponing spending cuts until the year before an election as politically clever. It's not.
Wythenshawe & Sale East is made up by 5 Manchester wards and 3 Trafford wards. Labour have.4 out of 5 Manchester wards have all Labour Cllrs. The 5th Manchester ward still have a LD elected in 2010 (given that Labour won the ward with a 50% majority in May 2012, I don't think the poor LD has much chance of survival this spring). 2 of the 3 Trafford wards are Labour while the final ward in Conservative.
Total votes cast in 2012 locals (UKIP didn't stand in the 3 Strafford wards) Lab 57.6% Con 22.1% LD 6.5% Green 6.3% UKIP 6.1%
Ukip could have a sniff there - LD v Con to see who finishes 3rd.
Really? Would think that the Tories will outpoll the LD's comfortably in a seat in which the Libs won't really be bothered / will work elsewhere. I would suggest something like Lab 35%, UKIP 30%, Tories 20%, LD 10%, Others 5%
i live in wythenshawe and sale east.Its in the south of Manchester,home to Manchester airport. its made up of 2 distinct bits the large area of Wythenshawe which used to be Europes largest council estate. and 3 council wards from Tory controlled Trafford.huge majorities for Labour in the Manchester seats in the locals.in recent times Labour have made gains in 2 of the 3 Trafford seats. A Labour hold on a very small turnout.The only battle will be for second place between the Tories and UKIP.I have a feeling the UKIP may well do it.
General Election 2010: Wythenshawe and Sale East[3] Party Candidate Votes % ±% Labour Paul Goggins 17,987 44.1 -8.0 Conservative Janet Clowes 10,412 25.6 +3.3 Liberal Democrat Martin Eakins 9,107 22.3 +0.9 BNP Bernard Todd 1,572 3.9 N/A UKIP Christopher Cassidy 1,405 3.4 +0.4 TUSC Lynn Worthington 268 0.7 +0.7 Majority 7,575 18.6 Turnout 40,751 54.3 +3.1 Labour hold Swing 5.9
Sad news about Goggins and commiserations to his family and friends.
However, as a by-election seat, I don't hold out much hope for any, other than Labour, to win this seat.
My rule of thumb was that if half of the liblabcom vote was higher than the current winner's vote then it could potentially be a close one. Not very scientific though.
Osborne, following Gurria at the OECD, opted for a fiscal consolidation plan with a ratio of tax rises to spending cuts of 20:80. This was at the top end of the splits adopted by other developed countries with similar deficit/debt problems to the UK.
Osborne then imposed the tax rises immediately, mainly through his VAT rise and applied the spending cuts gradually. More accurately he extended his tax cutting plans from an initial five year period to a full two terms, meaning that by the General Election we will be less than half way towards the levels of cuts needed to 'balance the budget'.
Osborne's gradualist approach to spending cuts has been clever both politically and economically. On the economics front, he has been able to optimise growth and thereby lessen the future burden and impact of spending cuts.
Politically he has done enough to prove the credibility of his economic plan without having to apply excessively unpopular austerity. In 2015, the job will be half done and there will be a clear and relatively easy path to its completion.
I don't see how you can regard postponing spending cuts until the year before an election as politically clever. It's not.
Not sure that I have understood your comment correctly, aD, but there is no plan by Osborne to increase the rate of spending cuts significantly in the 2014-15 fiscal year. Essentially it will be continue as before on the expenditure side although I can see some fiscal stimulus coming in the March budget to keep the momentum of GDP growth going and to accelerate the rate at which household disposable incomes recover.
UKIP Daily @UKIPDaily Yesterday we had the most traffic to http://www.ukipdaily.com that the site has ever seen. Can we top it today? Come and take a look.
UKIP Daily @UKIPDaily Yesterday we had the most traffic to http://www.ukipdaily.com that the site has ever seen. Can we top it today? Come and take a look.
I like UKIP Daily, the articles are fairly wide-ranging and quite often interesting and well-written. If the big 3 had similar sites that would be nice, LDV and others need to up their game.
If George should be sanctified, Danny definitely deserves beatification.
Latest from Bloomberg:
The public in the U.K. will be able to apply for government land and property to be released for sale starting today, with profits going toward paying off the budget deficit.
Under a new “right to contest,” individuals and businesses can challenge the use of central-government land and property, both vacant and occupied, when previously only local-authority assets that were empty or under-used were eligible, the Treasury said in an e-mailed statement.
“We certainly should not act as some kind of compulsive hoarder of land and property that could be better used for things like housing and local economic growth,” Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said in the statement. Government sites that could be put to better economic use may be sold “back to the community and local businesses at a fair price.”
My dishwasher packed it in in October. The repair guy said it was probably some small element in the heater. The manufacturer however only sells the replacement part in a whole unit assembly.
Fundamentally this is a matter of design. With good design you could make something that was easy to repair. Though it is possible that there would be trade-offs, and this would make it more expensive to manufacture.
The problem is that there is no economic incentive to make things easy to repair. The consumer these days has little trust that an item is built to last, and so will rarely pay more on that basis.
Design is certainly part of it, but there's also the matter of manufacturers not really wanting to support spares ( hence premium pricing ) and hoping this will drive new product sales.
There are loads of websites where you can get spares for pretty much everything.
TVs are stupidly large so have no intention of upgrading. Who cares whether you can see Huw Edwards in Super-Duper Smell-O-Vision or whatever?
The one thing that does annoy me is trying to find one of those large (there are 5 of us, all having mugs of tea all the time) metal teapots with a hinged lid which does not bloody well leak. Seems impossible. How difficult can it be to design something that simple which works?
Ditto re chairs: surprisingly difficult to find comfortable chairs for putting round a kitchen table.
Sometimes I think that I will have to design and build stuff myself. Too much "design" does 't fulfill even its most basic function of doing what it is supposed to be doing, as opposed to looking edgy. An uncomfortable chair is not a chair but a waste of wood.
As for furniture, it is usually better value to buy antique furniture. (Or to have it made by a proper carpenter.) There's lots of it about, some very nice indeed, well made and much nicer than the usually more expensive rubbish found in most stores.
Mr. 1000, whilst football isn't my thing it'd be astounding, to me, if it were rebid. They'll try and change the date. If I were an Aussie then I'd be very pissed off that the terms were up for change (in that scenario) after the contract had been won.
UKIP by-election results in Greater Manchester after May 2013
Salford Swinton South 14.7% Bolton Harper Green 17.6% Manchester Ancoats and Clayton 8.2% Wigan Winstanley 23.7% Manchester Ancoats and Clayton 9.4% Salford Weaste and Seedley 18.5% Salford Weaste and Seedley 22.7% Oldham Alexandra 18.8%
Locals can tell us if some of the wards resemble demographically to parts of Wythenshawe & Sale East.
He stood in the Oldham by-election three years ago. (scored 6%).
Seems the reasonably obvious choice for UKIP, unless they want to highlight another 'rising star' who is more local to the area (cf Eastleigh).
Would also be interesting to see if the Pirates put up a candidate - certainly the organization appears relatively strong in Manchester - but probably not the most natural territory for them.
Not sure I agree with you JJ. I've been getting appliances repaired for years because it annoys me to throw out something which is still largely working. It is possible to find people to repair stuff. The best VCR I ever had was a very old one which got repaired several times and lasted years; ditto re my gas cooker which, until relatively recently, was the gas cooker which my parents got when North Sea gas came in. It's amazing the amount of stuff you can find in skips which can be put to good use, too.
The throwaway society offends me on some visceral level - probably because I'm the child of parents who, having lived through the war, made use and reuse of everything.
I'd love to have things repaired, but it simply isn't always possible, and that's a situation that's getting worse.
I think the key is that the things you mention are 'old', and therefore possibly made at a time when a) they were simpler, and b) they were designed to be fixed.
As a (hopefully not boring) example: say I run a company that builds a £100 digital radio. What does it comprise of? A case, some buttons/rotary encoders, speaker(s), all of which rarely go wrong. An LCD display, antennae, and some wires connecting the bits together, which are slightly more likely to go wrong.
The main item is a little module - often less than half the size of a credit card - that contains the baseband chip (analogue), the digital chip (sometimes the two are combined in one chip), plus an f'load of discrete components, all covered in an RF can. See the images at:
(Note: I have no immediate connection with that company, but I know their works).
If anything goes wrong, it will probably be in that module. And you just can't realistically do any field work on that - it has to be a module-for-module replacement. And that means that even if it's just a blown capacitor, you need to replace the lot. The manpower to diagnose a fault and fix the faulty components means, that unless you're trying to find out why things are failing, it is pointless even trying.
It's hard enough to do the work on them in a lab, apparently - thankfully that's not my field, and all I ever manage to do when someone's unwise enough to want me to use a soldering iron is create a burnt pork smell...
My dishwasher packed it in in October. The repair guy said it was probably some small element in the heater. The manufacturer however only sells the replacement part in a whole unit assembly.
Fundamentally this is a matter of design. With good design you could make something that was easy to repair. Though it is possible that there to repair. The consumer these days has little trust that an item is built to last, and so will rarely pay more on that basis.
Design is certainly part of it, but there's also the matter of manufacturers not really wanting to support spares ( hence premium pricing ) and hoping this will drive new product sales.
There are loads of websites where you can get spares for pretty much everything.
TVs are stupidly large so have no intention of upgrading. Who cares whether you can see Huw Edwards in Super-Duper Smell-O-Vision or whatever?
The one thing that does annoy me is trying to find one of those large (there are 5 of us, all having mugs of tea all the time) metal teapots with a hinged lid which does not bloody well leak. Seems impossible. How difficult can it be to design something that simple which works?
Ditto re chairs: surprisingly difficult to find comfortable chairs for putting round a kitchen table.
Sometimes I think that I will have to design and build stuff myself. Too much "design" does 't fulfill even its most basic function of doing what it is supposed to be doing, as opposed to looking edgy. An uncomfortable chair is not a chair but a waste of wood.
As for furniture, it is usually better value to buy antique furniture. (Or to have it made by a proper carpenter.) There's lots of it about, some very nice indeed, well made and much nicer than the usually more expensive rubbish found in most stores.
I can well understand how an enthusiast like yourself can find what he wants at a good price. For the rest of us that's often not an option as you say the hourly cost of a service engineer ( round here it's sort of £30-50 quid an hour ) quickly makes the economics all wrong.
I find it hard to believe that the tone of Osborne's speech,one of hopeless despair,indicates his capacity for inspirational leadership.His other problems are his immaturity,apart from towel-folding experience, and the fact that even despite the new haircut,the way his eyes swivel have the tendency to make him look evil.Lay,lay,lay.
Presumably the ever rising number of Academy or Free School teachers are pretty happy with the state of things. These schools are wildly popular with parents.
Do you have numbers to substantiate that? I'm genuinely interested.
The academy I'm most familiar with is one run by the United Learning Trust. It is bottom of the schools in the town in question (based on five A*-Cs at GCSE), and is generally regarded as a basket case; those primary school parents who care generally try to get their kids into one of the town's other secondaries.
The primary nearest to me, meanwhile, continues to get excellent results as an LA school. Its parents (as governors and as the PTA) are actively resisting pressure from the (Conservative-run) LA to become an academy.
This is mere anecdata, of course, which is why I'm interested to know if there is real data on this.
Ukip could have a sniff there - LD v Con to see who finishes 3rd.
Really? Would think that the Tories will outpoll the LD's comfortably in a seat in which the Libs won't really be bothered / will work elsewhere. I would suggest something like Lab 35%, UKIP 30%, Tories 20%, LD 10%, Others 5%
Presumably the ever rising number of Academy or Free School teachers are pretty happy with the state of things. These schools are wildly popular with parents.
Do you have numbers to substantiate that? I'm genuinely interested.
The academy I'm most familiar with is one run by the United Learning Trust. It is bottom of the schools in the town in question (based on five A*-Cs at GCSE), and is generally regarded as a basket case; those primary school parents who care generally try to get their kids into one of the town's other secondaries.
The primary nearest to me, meanwhile, continues to get excellent results as an LA school. Its parents (as governors and as the PTA) are actively resisting pressure from the (Conservative-run) LA to become an academy.
This is mere anecdata, of course, which is why I'm interested to know if there is real data on this.
Most of the schools that have become academies since 2010 have in practical terms had very little say in the matter. There are many ways in which they can be "persuaded" to do so.
I find it hard to believe that the tone of Osborne's speech,one of hopeless despair,indicates his capacity for inspirational leadership.His other problems are his immaturity,apart from towel-folding experience, and the fact that even despite the new haircut,the way his eyes swivel have the tendency to make him look evil.Lay,lay,lay.
The fact that, as David Herdson says, he is proposing £25 billion of additional spending cuts in order to discomfit Labour tells you all you need to know about Osborne as potential leadership material. Being PM is not a game.
Mr. Observer, not sure I can recall a PM who didn't see it as a game to be played. (I was too young/disinterested to pay attention to Thatcher or Major).
Edited extra bit: worth mentioning Balls' dark ways and Miliband playing politics over war and peace (Syria), given the context.
I thought Labour would stay at least at 40%. Unless they really mess up with the candidate selection.
You're probably right - I was slightly assuming that Labour moved the writ ASAP and that there was shockingly low turnout in inclement weather, allied to non-Lab voters having a somewhat higher propensity to turnout than Lab ones...
I think you're right about Osborne; he reminds me of Ed M as well, all tactics and no strategy. They prefer cunning little plans to get one over on their opponents. That's why neither should be leaders.
I find it hard to believe that the tone of Osborne's speech,one of hopeless despair,indicates his capacity for inspirational leadership.His other problems are his immaturity,apart from towel-folding experience, and the fact that even despite the new haircut,the way his eyes swivel have the tendency to make him look evil.Lay,lay,lay.
The fact that, as David Herdson says, he is proposing £25 billion of additional spending cuts in order to discomfit Labour tells you all you need to know about Osborne as potential leadership material. Being PM is not a game.
There must be very few people who view Osborne as a potential Prime Minister.
You're probably right - I was slightly assuming that Labour moved the writ ASAP and that there was shockingly low turnout in inclement weather,
Postal votes alone ought to result in a higher turnout than 16%. I'd have thought double that ought to be ballpark for a February by-election in Wythenshaw unless there's a snowstorm or some such on the day, with at least 9k votes needed for a win.
A predictable but slightly poor hold for Labour, Down to 38%. UKIP close but no cigar ~30% maybe Conservatives a mediocre 17% Greens keep deposit and poll a respectable 6% Lib Dems to lose deposit. 3% 6% for assorted indies.
Mr. Observer, not sure I can recall a PM who didn't see it as a game to be played. (I was too young/disinterested to pay attention to Thatcher or Major).
Edited extra bit: worth mentioning Balls' dark ways and Miliband playing politics over war and peace (Syria), given the context.
Re Wythenshawe, I'd expect a major Lib Dem collapse there, all Lib Dem activity in that part of the world is focussed upon holding Manchester Withington in 2015.
I find it hard to believe that the tone of Osborne's speech,one of hopeless despair,indicates his capacity for inspirational leadership.His other problems are his immaturity,apart from towel-folding experience, and the fact that even despite the new haircut,the way his eyes swivel have the tendency to make him look evil.Lay,lay,lay.
The fact that, as David Herdson says, he is proposing £25 billion of additional spending cuts in order to discomfit Labour tells you all you need to know about Osborne as potential leadership material. Being PM is not a game.
He's not doing it to discomfort Labour; he's making the cuts because he believes (rightly IMO), that there's still a substantial structural deficit that needs closing.
The reason he's being so up-front about it, on the other hand, is a PR / political exercise and is in no small part about smoking about Labour as to where they stand on the cuts / taxes / borrowing / deny-its-an-issue options.
For those starved of real elections to brood about, you may not have noticed that there's a LibDem deputy leadership election in progress (gosh). Only MPs can vote. Here's an unofficial list of possibles:
I saw Lorelei Burt attacking the Tories a couple of days ago, haven't seen anything else. Can one of our resident LDs tell us more?
Hi Nick et al. Looks like a bit of a damp squib, both because it's a bit of a non-job, but also because it looks like being uncontested. Lorely Burt has 24 nominations and there's a winning post of only 29 MPs (half the parliamentary party) So looks near impossible for a credible challenger to make it competitive. I don't detect any stop-Lorely campaign (she's not the sort of person to make enemies) so think it will be uncontested. The presidential position is up in the summer - far more open, couldn't even give you a tip on that at the moment, but it's been used as a leadership launch pad in the past (and probably future given that the incumbent is Tim Farron.)
Presumably the ever rising number of Academy or Free School teachers are pretty happy with the state of things. These schools are wildly popular with parents.
Do you have numbers to substantiate that? I'm genuinely interested.
The academy I'm most familiar with is one run by the United Learning Trust. It is bottom of the schools in the town in question (based on five A*-Cs at GCSE), and is generally regarded as a basket case; those primary school parents who care generally try to get their kids into one of the town's other secondaries.
The primary nearest to me, meanwhile, continues to get excellent results as an LA school. Its parents (as governors and as the PTA) are actively resisting pressure from the (Conservative-run) LA to become an academy.
This is mere anecdata, of course, which is why I'm interested to know if there is real data on this.
Most of the schools that have become academies since 2010 have in practical terms had very little say in the matter. There are many ways in which they can be "persuaded" to do so.
The school where I was a governor chose voluntarily to convert to a sponsored academy. It was a good-performing school given its intake and we were confident about continuing its upward trajectory were we left to our own devices. However, Bradford LEA has been an incompetent, bureaucratic interfering shambles in one form or another for decades. Given how many other secondaries were converting - whether out of choice or not - we had no desire to be one of the few LEA schools left, which would inevitably lead to unnecessary and unhelpful micromanagement from City Hall. Being able to get out of the LEA's deeply defensive and scared-of-the-unions HR advice was another advantage.
Mr. Observer, not sure I can recall a PM who didn't see it as a game to be played. (I was too young/disinterested to pay attention to Thatcher or Major).
Edited extra bit: worth mentioning Balls' dark ways and Miliband playing politics over war and peace (Syria), given the context.
As I've said a few times on here, Labour is just as bad. Both front benches approach politics and running the country in the manner that you would expect of people who have done very little in their lives but play political games at one level or another. To all intents and purposes the Oxbridge Labour and Conservative clubs are in charge of us.
Fine tributes to Paul Goggins from the PM and LotO
Nice while it lasted.....tho Miliband seems to have continued the measured tone.....but not sure why he's going on betting terminals which is a Labour mess and is to be debated today anyway......
Amazing how far the immigration debate has moved on in the last year.. We have Sajid Javid and Chuka Umanna falling over each other to say "its nothing to do with race!!"
re exports to Italy, even if they were to do very poorly, I wouldn't worry about them having too much effect. We export surprisingly little to Italy - it ranks well below (for example) Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, the US, and France. The rapid economic growth in Ireland (probably running at an - admittedly unsustainable - annualised rate of 4% in 4Q) is of far more important to the exports of the UK than Italy.
Robert, thanks for your comments downthread which I read with interest. I was not directly concerned with exports to Italy which I agree are small but more the indirect consequences of further disruption in the EZ as a whole.
I would agree that France is the greater concern simply because it is on the wrong path and things are getting worse rather than better but the fundamental problem with the EZ is that we need inflation and a surge in demand in Germany to offset the deflationary forces elsewhere whilst countries try to devalue internally and the Germans are simply not up for it. This means that if one of the major players such as France or Italy run into problems continental wide deflation with a consequential collapse in demand is a real risk.
The proportion of our exports going to the EU has been falling and will, I think, continue to fall but we cannot escape a significant impact from this. Together with an ever more dodgy banking system in China I think this is still top of the external risks we face.
Comments
When Italy begins to free up its labour market, as it must do, then the initial impact will be for the unemployment to go up further. When you relax labour laws - as we did in the early 1980s and Spain did over the last three years - then firms fire the unproductive staff. I wouldn't be surprised to see Italy's unemployment rate top out in the high teens.
Italy also has some spectacular regional differences. Around Verona and Milan, unemployment rates are more like 7-8% (and youth unemployment is better, but still not great). If you go to Southern Italy and Sicily, unemployment is 30% and for the young it is north of 50%. Crudely, Italy is Southern Germany plus Albania, with Rome the dividing line.
The good news for bond investors (or those worried about the finances of Italy) is that the Italian government deficit is less that 3% of GDP. Given nominal GDP is growing (albeit very slowly) this means that the overall government debt-to-GDP will have worsened by perhaps 1% from the previous 127%.
Personally, I am more worried about France than Italy. For a start, the Italians are running a trade surplus, while the French are in deficit. Secondly, the Italian government deficit is lower. Thirdly, there is no private sector debt problem in Italy and (Banca de Monte Pashi de Siena excepted) the banks are solvent. Fourthly, Letta is - albeit slowly and grudgingly - moving to open up the labour markets in Italy.
Has OGH regained control of his Log In?
The question will be what UKIP can do.
We did the same exercise with Greece, and discovered there was very little 'in the cupboard' for them to sell, which frightened the living daylights out of us.
However, as a by-election seat, I don't hold out much hope for any, other than Labour, to win this seat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wi8Sg_KqSY
re exports to Italy, even if they were to do very poorly, I wouldn't worry about them having too much effect. We export surprisingly little to Italy - it ranks well below (for example) Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, the US, and France. The rapid economic growth in Ireland (probably running at an - admittedly unsustainable - annualised rate of 4% in 4Q) is of far more important to the exports of the UK than Italy.
I don't expect either Osborne or Gove to be the next Tory leader: neither is sufficiently voter-friendly.
Parts are usually plentiful on ebay,and youtube is full of "How to" videos.
The problem is the labour cost. I just spent 4 hours repairing sons pressure washer,parts were a tiny plastic valve costing only a few pounds,but 4 hours labour at commercial cost would make it unviable.
My son was very pleased,as he had been told it was impossible to strip the pump and would need a new pump@£70.
Anyway todays project,parking sensors on the Gas guzzler,new sensor £19,main agent quote £200,or £70 diagnostic check to find which one of 8 sensors faulty.
And none of his opponents can lay a hand on him (aside from a perception which of course is difficult to counter) so they resort to ascribing to him leadership ambition, etc, etc..
Gove is definitely winning this one.
The throwaway society offends me on some visceral level - probably because I'm the child of parents who, having lived through the war, made use and reuse of everything.
Total votes cast in 2012 locals (UKIP didn't stand in the 3 Strafford wards)
Lab 57.6% Con 22.1% LD 6.5% Green 6.3% UKIP 6.1%
its made up of 2 distinct bits the large area of Wythenshawe which used to be Europes largest council estate. and 3 council wards from Tory controlled Trafford.huge majorities for Labour in the Manchester seats in the locals.in recent times Labour have made gains in 2 of the 3 Trafford seats.
A Labour hold on a very small turnout.The only battle will be for second place between the Tories and UKIP.I have a feeling the UKIP may well do it.
R.I.P.
UKIP Daily @UKIPDaily
Yesterday we had the most traffic to http://www.ukipdaily.com that the site has ever seen. Can we top it today? Come and take a look.
He stood in the Oldham by-election three years ago. (scored 6%).
http://www.ukipdaily.com/day-ukip-became-working-mans-party/#.Us014csgGK0
Latest from Bloomberg:
The public in the U.K. will be able to apply for government land and property to be released for sale starting today, with profits going toward paying off the budget deficit.
Under a new “right to contest,” individuals and businesses can challenge the use of central-government land and property, both vacant and occupied, when previously only local-authority assets that were empty or under-used were eligible, the Treasury said in an e-mailed statement.
“We certainly should not act as some kind of compulsive hoarder of land and property that could be better used for things like housing and local economic growth,” Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said in the statement. Government sites that could be put to better economic use may be sold “back to the community and local businesses at a fair price.”
TVs are stupidly large so have no intention of upgrading. Who cares whether you can see Huw Edwards in Super-Duper Smell-O-Vision or whatever?
The one thing that does annoy me is trying to find one of those large (there are 5 of us, all having mugs of tea all the time) metal teapots with a hinged lid which does not bloody well leak. Seems impossible. How difficult can it be to design something that simple which works?
Ditto re chairs: surprisingly difficult to find comfortable chairs for putting round a kitchen table.
Sometimes I think that I will have to design and build stuff myself. Too much "design" does 't fulfill even its most basic function of doing what it is supposed to be doing, as opposed to looking edgy. An uncomfortable chair is not a chair but a waste of wood.
As for furniture, it is usually better value to buy antique furniture. (Or to have it made by a proper carpenter.) There's lots of it about, some very nice indeed, well made and much nicer than the usually more expensive rubbish found in most stores.
Salford Swinton South 14.7%
Bolton Harper Green 17.6%
Manchester Ancoats and Clayton 8.2%
Wigan Winstanley 23.7%
Manchester Ancoats and Clayton 9.4%
Salford Weaste and Seedley 18.5%
Salford Weaste and Seedley 22.7%
Oldham Alexandra 18.8%
Locals can tell us if some of the wards resemble demographically to parts of Wythenshawe & Sale East.
Would also be interesting to see if the Pirates put up a candidate - certainly the organization appears relatively strong in Manchester - but probably not the most natural territory for them.
I think the key is that the things you mention are 'old', and therefore possibly made at a time when a) they were simpler, and b) they were designed to be fixed.
As a (hopefully not boring) example: say I run a company that builds a £100 digital radio. What does it comprise of? A case, some buttons/rotary encoders, speaker(s), all of which rarely go wrong. An LCD display, antennae, and some wires connecting the bits together, which are slightly more likely to go wrong.
The main item is a little module - often less than half the size of a credit card - that contains the baseband chip (analogue), the digital chip (sometimes the two are combined in one chip), plus an f'load of discrete components, all covered in an RF can. See the images at:
http://www.frontier-silicon.com/venice-65-0#.Us01sfRdX5E
http://www.toumaz.com/verona#.Us02EfRdX5E
(Note: I have no immediate connection with that company, but I know their works).
If anything goes wrong, it will probably be in that module. And you just can't realistically do any field work on that - it has to be a module-for-module replacement. And that means that even if it's just a blown capacitor, you need to replace the lot. The manpower to diagnose a fault and fix the faulty components means, that unless you're trying to find out why things are failing, it is pointless even trying.
It's hard enough to do the work on them in a lab, apparently - thankfully that's not my field, and all I ever manage to do when someone's unwise enough to want me to use a soldering iron is create a burnt pork smell...
The academy I'm most familiar with is one run by the United Learning Trust. It is bottom of the schools in the town in question (based on five A*-Cs at GCSE), and is generally regarded as a basket case; those primary school parents who care generally try to get their kids into one of the town's other secondaries.
The primary nearest to me, meanwhile, continues to get excellent results as an LA school. Its parents (as governors and as the PTA) are actively resisting pressure from the (Conservative-run) LA to become an academy.
This is mere anecdata, of course, which is why I'm interested to know if there is real data on this.
Edited extra bit: worth mentioning Balls' dark ways and Miliband playing politics over war and peace (Syria), given the context.
Question is what will 'Old Labour' bods do. Do they stick with Labour or go to UKIP ?
I think you're right about Osborne; he reminds me of Ed M as well, all tactics and no strategy. They prefer cunning little plans to get one over on their opponents. That's why neither should be leaders.
Good on him. Now let's hope we can have a gay player openly playing football...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25628806
Fifa has completely ruled out any prospect of the Qatar 2022 World Cup being played in the summer.
President Sepp Blatter had already said the tournament would be in November or December but organisers had still hoped to host it in June and July.
But Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke says it could take place between 15 November and 15 January.
"The dates for the World Cup (in Qatar) will not be June-July," Valcke told Radio France.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25653594
A predictable but slightly poor hold for Labour, Down to 38%.
UKIP close but no cigar ~30% maybe
Conservatives a mediocre 17%
Greens keep deposit and poll a respectable 6%
Lib Dems to lose deposit. 3%
6% for assorted indies.
• Former Aston Villa, West Ham and Everton player comes out
• I have never been ashamed of it, says former midfielder
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jan/08/thomas-hitzlsperger-gay-announces-homosexual
They may just hold it and Paddy may offer better. Bit finger in the wind on this one ;D
1. Cameron
2. Clegg
3. Balls
4. 38%
5. 20%
6. 27%
7. 10%
8. 28%
9. Rouseff
10. Modi
11. Republicans
Labour 34-41%
Conservative 32-37%
Lib Dem 11-16%
UKIP 7-17%.
Sure.
The reason he's being so up-front about it, on the other hand, is a PR / political exercise and is in no small part about smoking about Labour as to where they stand on the cuts / taxes / borrowing / deny-its-an-issue options.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/england-cricket-stars-matt-prior-and-stuart-broad-save-man-in-suicide-bid-from-sydney-bridge-9046166.html
Did they remind him that he could be an England cricket team player :P ?
Just in case your entry is over looked in the thread, wouldn't want you to miss out etc.
*** Nostalgically remembers the days when non-high-rollers like myself used to talk in units of entire bitcoins... ***
He'd make Boris Johnson look like a paragon of virtue.
Fine tributes to Paul Goggins from the PM and LotO
Must be worried about his dire leadership polling.
Amazing how far the immigration debate has moved on in the last year.. We have Sajid Javid and Chuka Umanna falling over each other to say "its nothing to do with race!!"
Could have told you that years ago
I would agree that France is the greater concern simply because it is on the wrong path and things are getting worse rather than better but the fundamental problem with the EZ is that we need inflation and a surge in demand in Germany to offset the deflationary forces elsewhere whilst countries try to devalue internally and the Germans are simply not up for it. This means that if one of the major players such as France or Italy run into problems continental wide deflation with a consequential collapse in demand is a real risk.
The proportion of our exports going to the EU has been falling and will, I think, continue to fall but we cannot escape a significant impact from this. Together with an ever more dodgy banking system in China I think this is still top of the external risks we face.