By the way rcs, here are the number of 15-24 year olds in the work force for Ireland.
2007 Q3: 393,300 2013 Q3: 227,400
Like I said, emigration.
I completely agree with the comparison from 3Q07 to 3Q13. My point is that in the period from 4Q12 to 4Q13 there has been a modest improvement in the number of people employed.
At an annual rate, the Irish economy probably grew 4% in 4Q - substantially faster than the UK
And if you look at the GDP-per-capita numbers, we've really done no better than Ireland:
I wish more British politicians had affairs. If they were kept busy in the bedroom, perhaps they wouldn't have time to come up with so many hare-brained ideas.
Your theory falls apart in two words:
John, and Prescott.
I don't recall him ever having any ideas.
Oh, he did.
Who can remember the hideousness of Pathfinder, which Labour and Miliband seem to have whitewashed from their memory whenever they talk about housing?
How in God's name did Prescott ever become DPM? I mean, can anyone actually defend the guy?
His main job was to keep the peace between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He was one of the more effective members of the last Government, given the challenges he faced in that role.
Thanks Rod - much appreciated. Will have a thorough read through that in due course and no doubt come back to you with detailed questions. (Like how do you deal with By-Elections)
It did get worse (I cant quite remember when) but it was always terrible.
As you know, I was being flippant.
It seems the Irish site gives users access to a database query front end, similar to, say, the OECD.
These online databases can have their own frustrations but the ONS would be much improved if they were to introduce this service.
Where the ONS is strong is in providing multi-format downloads for offline data, but then you need to run your own front ends/database apps to use the data efficiently, Fine for regular users but not so good for occasional use.
The change in rate is thus mainly down to a shrinking labour force. And that's only looking at that year's change. It doesn't account for the fact that 3,300 has a much bigger effect on the rate, because the total size of the labour force is smaller, having been shrinking for years.
I wish more British politicians had affairs. If they were kept busy in the bedroom, perhaps they wouldn't have time to come up with so many hare-brained ideas.
Your theory falls apart in two words:
John, and Prescott.
Didn't John Major come up with the railways arrangement while he and Edwina were ......?
The change in rate is thus mainly down to a shrinking labour force.
Yes, employment grew year-over-year. It will have grown more y-o-y in 4Q because (a) the Irish economy is growing very quickly currently (see Markit survey data), and (b) it has an easier comparison. If the forecast is right, there will be a c. 12,000 increase (reading off the chart rather than looking at the actuals), in 4Q, so it will no longer be the case that labour force reduction was a larger component than emigration.
Look, I agree that emigration has played a role.
However, the evidence is very clear - on any one of a number of metrics - that the Irish economy is in full grown recovery right now (although no one is going to claim it has recovered). It should even see total government debt-to-GDP fall by the end of this year.
On the comparison with the UK, I don't think we've done particularly well either, with both countries flat-lining in recent years. But you need to use constant terms rather than current terms, where Ireland had a bigger drop, so it should be easier to break out from. Also our population has been growing, while Ireland's has been shrinking.
On the comparison with the UK, I don't think we've done particularly well either, with both countries flat-lining in recent years. But you need to use constant terms rather than current terms, where Ireland had a bigger drop, so it should be easier to break out from. Also our population has been growing, while Ireland's has been shrinking.
However, the evidence is very clear - on any one of a number of metrics - that the Irish economy is in full grown recovery right now (although no one is going to claim it has recovered).
Industrial production up 13.2% in the year to end November '13. Even construction PMIs approaching 60.
I wish more British politicians had affairs. If they were kept busy in the bedroom, perhaps they wouldn't have time to come up with so many hare-brained ideas.
Your theory falls apart in two words:
John, and Prescott.
Didn't John Major come up with the railways arrangement while he and Edwina were ......?
As far as I'm aware, their affair ended before he became PM; it was in the mid-1980s. Privatisation occurred well after that.
Besides, ISTR reading that his preferred system was gong back to the Big Four, but was persuaded otherwise.
Some advice from a humble Rosbif to the PRESIDENT OF FRANCE
1.Start behaving like the President of a great country. 2.Apologise publicly to the First Lady,she belongs to France too. 3.If not too late, try to rescue her dignity. 4 Stop hiding behind the Diplomatic Immunity wall, makes you look even more of a tit. 5,Stop being a total tit. 6.Be a little more subtle. 7.If all else fails, get some new zips for your trousers.
On the comparison with the UK, I don't think we've done particularly well either, with both countries flat-lining in recent years. But you need to use constant terms rather than current terms, where Ireland had a bigger drop, so it should be easier to break out from. Also our population has been growing, while Ireland's has been shrinking.
There is an interesting article on Bloomberg today about the recovery of the property market in Ireland. Very similar statistics to the UK, with average annual increases to November of 5.6% this year and 7% forecast for next. Dublin, even more than London, has increased at higher rates, 14% this year and the same increase forecast for next.
The main difference between the UK and Ireland is in the extent of the post crash fall. Property values fell over 50% in Ireland whereas in the UK the fall was limited to 20-25% on average. Ireland's current prices are still 47% below peak whereas UK prices are less than 10% below, with London prices having mostly passed their 2007 peak.
Germany does it by being in a currency union with terrible economies, meaning they effectively have a currency that's hugely undervalued.
So presumably the Euro has been weaker than sterling since the GFC?
Actually, the Euro has been significantly stronger than sterling, so that argument doesn't really hold.
EDIT:
Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that.
If you count the GFC as starting in on 1/1/2008, then a Euro has strengthened from buying 67p to buying 83p, but in that period it's also bought a whole pound, so it's a little hard to hang your hat on it and say the Euro has been consistently strong.
You are answering the wrong question. The point is that the German part of the Euro is undervalued while, for instance, the Greek part is overvalued. Tbh, I've never understood why our pro-Euro campaigners (north and south of the border) do not say that our exports will be boosted by the same mechanism.
Exactly right. The reason pro-Euro people don't mention this is that it isn't clear which side of the divide we would be on. We'd presumably join at a market rate, and then diverge one way or another from there over time. It's not persuasive to say "we could get down to 4% unemployment" when the flip side is that we might equally go up to 20%...
The left's argument on boosting public spending to get out of recession, parroted on here by the likes of BenM endlessly 18 months ago, has now been destroyed utterly.
I wish more British politicians had affairs. If they were kept busy in the bedroom, perhaps they wouldn't have time to come up with so many hare-brained ideas.
François Hollande seems to have no trouble finding time for both.
“I have had no contact with David Wildstein in a long time, a long time, well before the election... You know, I could probably count on one hand the number of conversations I’ve had with David since he worked at the Port Authority. I did not interact with David.”
- Chris Christie at his press conference
Now it turns out he was with the guy on the third day of the bridge closure:
I wish more British politicians had affairs. If they were kept busy in the bedroom, perhaps they wouldn't have time to come up with so many hare-brained ideas.
No., Just no.
Imagine the hare-brained ideas they'd come up with about bedrooms ...
Thanks. I have (very) quickly skimmed. Who is the intended audience?
Well, I think we discussed in 2010 that Conservative Electoral Reformers might find it of particular interest...
;-)
Thanks for this again. As someone who has previously been somewhat avid about Multi-Member STV being the 'right' answer I can see that your proposal has the potential to be even better in my mind.
The only obvious question (and it's a theoretical one) is the issue that parties which are regionally strong in England, but not strong enough to achieve a quota in specific seats, get eliminated by being swamped with the rest of England, but this is not true of the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists. (eg a strong Wessex Regionalist party would be spread over 10-20 multi-member constituencies, so would struggle to achieve a quota in any particular seat, but nationally they would be diluted by the rest of England and so not achieve any seat under proportionality either. I am ignoring Merbyn Kernow as Cornwall would likely be only 2 seats, so if they were strong enough over Cornwall as a whole, they are likely to achieve quota in at least one of the two seats if not both).
There isn't really an answer to this, and it isn't really a problem that is worth solving (As doing so would cause other issues) but occurred to me that as a party you either want to be super-local, or very broad, and something in the middle doesn't really help you.
Out of interest how many of the London winnable labour selections have been won by the favourite? Don't think Old Southwark or Greenwich and Woolwich were? Dawn Butler possibly. I get the feeling being the frontrunner means you are also out in the lead for enemies!
I think that Len Duvall was the early favourite when the G&W selection started but he lost to Pennycook in the end. Vicky Foxcroft was the favourite in Lewisham Deptford and got it.
I would say Hendon, Enfield North (but there was a vocal anti Joan Ryan faction), Battarsea, Brentford and Hornsey were won by the favourite. Maybe also Ilford North.
but you are right on your last point. Generally being a prominent polician in an area for many years usually means you have made some enemies in the meantime. There was an anti Ryan faction in Enfield, an anti Butler faction in Brent, etc.
And GLA members (for those who don't follow, the Fiona in question is Fiona Twycross) have not been particularly good in switching to Wesminster in recent time. Duvall lost selection in Greewnich, Shawcross in Croydon North, Qureshi in Brentford.
Out of interest how many of the London winnable labour selections have been won by the favourite? Don't think Old Southwark or Greenwich and Woolwich were? Dawn Butler possibly. I get the feeling being the frontrunner means you are also out in the lead for enemies!
Just a quick note on economics to say where I'm coming from, and why I'm saying what I'm saying :-)
I believe the Euro caused many of the problems in peripheral Europe, specifically by reducing the cost of debt in already booming economies. (I say many, because I'm not sure you can blame the policy makers in Brussels for the willingness of the Greeks to lie about government spending, debt and deficit levels.)
This inappropriate monetary policy threw fuel on the property markets in Ireland and Spain, and caused their economies to become completely out of kilter. At the height of each country''s building booms, you saw one-in-five employed people in Spain working in construction and construction related activities and similar numbers in Ireland. You also saw banks - in both countries - who had made massive loans to property developers. Private sector debt-to-GDP swelled in both cases to north of 200% of GDP.
Then came the global financial crisis, and the excesses of these countries came back to haunt them - excesses caused largely by their membership of the Euro.
When I'm analysing countries - for investment purposes - I look at five factors to help me see if there are problems ahead:
1. Current account deficit and/or trade deficit 2. Private sector debt-to-GDP (and direction thereof) 3. Wage rates relative to economic output 4. Government spending as % of GDP 5. Labour market flexibility
By late 2007, all three of those indicators were in the red zone in almost all the PIIGS. (The exception being trade deficit in Italy, which was merely in the yellow).
Since 2007, in Spain and Ireland, those indicators have all gone green. In Portugal, most are green. In Italy it's a mix.
I believe that flexibility of the labour market and the level of government spending are far more important than exchange rates to economic growth. This is because we've had very substantial periods in the last 100 years with fixed exchange rates, and we're largely able to exclude their effects. Essentially, Thatherite economics work - and they work whether you're in Madrid, Lisbon, Dublin or London.
This is why I'm very bullish on the outlook for Ireland in 2014, pretty bullish on Spain, and a little bullish on Portugal. France, by the way, is the country showing a lot of red on my five factor chart right now - and that's the one that really worries me. 56% boys and girls... 56%...
Smke has been seen coming from the battery compartment of a JAL 787 Dreamliner. Fortunately it was on the ground. Which is where the rest of them should perhaps be until they sort the issue.
As Tessa's retirement was much a given even before her official announcent, I thought about potential runners and riders months ago..and one woman I identified as a potential contender (she finished second in Deptford and is a Southwark Cllr) ended up being deselected as Cllr for this year's selections...so yes, favourites and competitors can also not be so straightforward.
Let's see who will run. Lambeth Cllr Florence Nosegbe has run for a couple of seats in the past and she obviously has parliamentary ambitions. She lives in the constituency. She's well connected (run for NEC in the Progress slate last time). However, I also note that she's the next in line on London GLA list in case somebody (Twycross) resigns earlier.
Thanks for this again. As someone who has previously been somewhat avid about Multi-Member STV being the 'right' answer I can see that your proposal has the potential to be even better in my mind.
The only obvious question (and it's a theoretical one) is the issue that parties which are regionally strong in England, but not strong enough to achieve a quota in specific seats, get eliminated by being swamped with the rest of England, but this is not true of the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists. (eg a strong Wessex Regionalist party would be spread over 10-20 multi-member constituencies, so would struggle to achieve a quota in any particular seat, but nationally they would be diluted by the rest of England and so not achieve any seat under proportionality either. I am ignoring Merbyn Kernow as Cornwall would likely be only 2 seats, so if they were strong enough over Cornwall as a whole, they are likely to achieve quota in at least one of the two seats if not both).
There isn't really an answer to this, and it isn't really a problem that is worth solving (As doing so would cause other issues) but occurred to me that as a party you either want to be super-local, or very broad, and something in the middle doesn't really help you.
If you want PR for micro-parties, choose the Israeli or Dutch system! In fact, come to think of it, even they would probable not deliver Mebyon Kernow a seat....
PR^2 has been designed specifically to be the closest thing to FPTP, while delivering significant benefits with (hopefully) the fewest possible objections.
There are two ways of winning seats.
i) by having a significant national vote tally. In England 2.4%, although an explicit threshold of 5% could be employed. ii) by being sufficiently concentrated in a limited number of seats to exceed the quota.
The Hospital chappie from Bromsgrove would stand a chance under PR^2. It's neutral (no better or worse) for the likes of the BNP, and fairer to "major" minor parties like the LibDems and UKIP.
Smke has been seen coming from the battery compartment of a JAL 787 Dreamliner. Fortunately it was on the ground. Which is where the rest of them should perhaps be until they sort the issue.
Yes absolutely,they did not get to the bottom last time,they merely contained and made more fireproof the existing arrangement. Not solved,just trying to live with the problem.
Its clear that whatever the outcome the results will be messy. The southern working class seats - north kent and south essex rivieras and the southern new towns are places where UKIP could be as much of a problem for labour as the Tories, and could in fact be decided by differential loss to UKIP (or even won by UKIP in some cases). Alot of local factors as well - labour have done well in Council elections in Gravesham but not so much in Medway or Dartford. Bet CCHQ would like Boris to shut up about the Estuary Airport.
I agree with much of what you say. However, how do you account for the economic success of places like Sweden, with their level of government spending?
It really still feels to me like some in Labour are just nervous at appearing complacent at how easily they might get back in, so are attempting to dial back expectations so people don't get overconfident/
Its clear that whatever the outcome the results will be messy. The southern working class seats - north kent and south essex rivieras and the southern new towns are places where UKIP could be as much of a problem for labour as the Tories, and could in fact be decided by differential loss to UKIP (or even won by UKIP in some cases). Alot of local factors as well - labour have done well in Council elections in Gravesham but not so much in Medway or Dartford. Bet CCHQ would like Boris to shut up about the Estuary Airport.
Opinion in S Essex was divided when the idea of a Thames Estuary Airport was first mooted. Yes, employment prospects would be boosted. However, the area is already over-populated.
It really still feels to me like some in Labour are just nervous at appearing complacent at how easily they might get back in, so are attempting to dial back expectations so people don't get overconfident/
Opinion in S Essex was divided when the idea of a Thames Estuary Airport was first mooted. Yes, employment prospects would be boosted. However, the area is already over-populated.
They hate it in Medway - cross party antipathy. I think the only semi-realistic proposal is the Grain one isn't it? Would basically urbanise the last semi rural part of Medway.
I agree with much of what you say. However, how do you account for the economic success of places like Sweden, with their level of government spending?
Well, Sweden had a major crisis in the early 1990s, the consequence of which was a major deregulation of the labour market, and a clean out of the banks.
Since then, they've had a little bit of a boom, with borrowing doing a lot of the lifting. Household indebtedness is one of the highest in the world now (up 70% of GDP or so in the last yen years), and that's showing bright, bright red on my risk chart.
Boost for Ed as the Morning Star attacks him from the er left..
Nick Sutton @suttonnick 13m Wednesday's Morning Star front page - "Miliband loses his classes" #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/NDF87cuEcm
I agree with much of what you say. However, how do you account for the economic success of places like Sweden, with their level of government spending?
Well, Sweden had a major crisis in the early 1990s, the consequence of which was a major deregulation of the labour market, and a clean out of the banks.
Since then, they've had a little bit of a boom, with borrowing doing a lot of the lifting. Household indebtedness is one of the highest in the world now (up 70% of GDP or so in the last yen years), and that's showing bright, bright red on my risk chart.
In Denmark, consumers owe their creditors 321 percent of disposable incomes, a world record that the Paris-based OECD said in November demands a policy response. In Sweden, debt by that measure is close to 180 percent, a level the government and central bank say can’t be allowed to rise. Norway’s central bank has struggled to find a policy mix that addresses its 200 percent private debt burden.
From a Bloomberg article written after Paul Krugman gave an interview in Copenhagen on 9th January. If Krugman is worried by Nordic household debt, then we all should be!
Boost for Ed as the Morning Star attacks him from the er left..
Nick Sutton @suttonnick 13m Wednesday's Morning Star front page - "Miliband loses his classes" #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/NDF87cuEcm
Brilliant headline which looks funny on twitter. Can we look forward to crossover between Labour and Respect? (sadly wishful thinking on my part).
Opinion in S Essex was divided when the idea of a Thames Estuary Airport was first mooted. Yes, employment prospects would be boosted. However, the area is already over-populated.
They hate it in Medway - cross party antipathy. I think the only semi-realistic proposal is the Grain one isn't it? Would basically urbanise the last semi rural part of Medway.
I do wonder whether resuscitating the Foulness idea would be a runner. It would tie in with the Essex side of the Thames Gateway project.
Comments
At an annual rate, the Irish economy probably grew 4% in 4Q - substantially faster than the UK
And if you look at the GDP-per-capita numbers, we've really done no better than Ireland:
https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&hl=en&dl=en&idim=country:GBR:USA:IRL#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:GBR:IRL&ifdim=region&tstart=1010966400000&tend=1326499200000&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false
It seems the Irish site gives users access to a database query front end, similar to, say, the OECD.
These online databases can have their own frustrations but the ONS would be much improved if they were to introduce this service.
Where the ONS is strong is in providing multi-format downloads for offline data, but then you need to run your own front ends/database apps to use the data efficiently, Fine for regular users but not so good for occasional use.
They don't have Q4 2013, but here's Q3 to Q3:
Labour force: -10,400
Employment: +3,300
The change in rate is thus mainly down to a shrinking labour force. And that's only looking at that year's change. It doesn't account for the fact that 3,300 has a much bigger effect on the rate, because the total size of the labour force is smaller, having been shrinking for years.
Look, I agree that emigration has played a role.
However, the evidence is very clear - on any one of a number of metrics - that the Irish economy is in full grown recovery right now (although no one is going to claim it has recovered). It should even see total government debt-to-GDP fall by the end of this year.
;-)
Besides, ISTR reading that his preferred system was gong back to the Big Four, but was persuaded otherwise.
Aberdeen North: Open shortlist
Glenrothes: AWS
Stoke North: AWS
Blackburn: AWS
St Helens South: AWS
Dulwich: AWS
Aberavon: Open
1.Start behaving like the President of a great country.
2.Apologise publicly to the First Lady,she belongs to France too.
3.If not too late, try to rescue her dignity.
4 Stop hiding behind the Diplomatic Immunity wall, makes you look even more of a tit.
5,Stop being a total tit.
6.Be a little more subtle.
7.If all else fails, get some new zips for your trousers.
The main difference between the UK and Ireland is in the extent of the post crash fall. Property values fell over 50% in Ireland whereas in the UK the fall was limited to 20-25% on average. Ireland's current prices are still 47% below peak whereas UK prices are less than 10% below, with London prices having mostly passed their 2007 peak.
Full article here:http://bloom.bg/1eQ87oN
Are we on this Farage bet????
£100 at 9/4 he takes part in a leader debate GE 2015
I accept I was wrong about population. The rest holds though.
Exactly right. The reason pro-Euro people don't mention this is that it isn't clear which side of the divide we would be on. We'd presumably join at a market rate, and then diverge one way or another from there over time. It's not persuasive to say "we could get down to 4% unemployment" when the flip side is that we might equally go up to 20%...
I think it's Fiona who is the early favourite
The left's argument on boosting public spending to get out of recession, parroted on here by the likes of BenM endlessly 18 months ago, has now been destroyed utterly.
- Chris Christie at his press conference
Now it turns out he was with the guy on the third day of the bridge closure:
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2014/01/14/christie-official-who-arranged-bridge-closures-together-during-fiasco/
There will be a former female Southwark Labour councillor's reunion in the House of Commons after the next GE.
http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Hull-mum-raped-son-told-attacking-boyfriend-m/story-20433200-detail/story.html
The only obvious question (and it's a theoretical one) is the issue that parties which are regionally strong in England, but not strong enough to achieve a quota in specific seats, get eliminated by being swamped with the rest of England, but this is not true of the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists. (eg a strong Wessex Regionalist party would be spread over 10-20 multi-member constituencies, so would struggle to achieve a quota in any particular seat, but nationally they would be diluted by the rest of England and so not achieve any seat under proportionality either. I am ignoring Merbyn Kernow as Cornwall would likely be only 2 seats, so if they were strong enough over Cornwall as a whole, they are likely to achieve quota in at least one of the two seats if not both).
There isn't really an answer to this, and it isn't really a problem that is worth solving (As doing so would cause other issues) but occurred to me that as a party you either want to be super-local, or very broad, and something in the middle doesn't really help you.
I'm not even sure Dan Hodges can spin that one.
Vicky Foxcroft was the favourite in Lewisham Deptford and got it.
I would say Hendon, Enfield North (but there was a vocal anti Joan Ryan faction), Battarsea, Brentford and Hornsey were won by the favourite. Maybe also Ilford North.
but you are right on your last point. Generally being a prominent polician in an area for many years usually means you have made some enemies in the meantime. There was an anti Ryan faction in Enfield, an anti Butler faction in Brent, etc.
And GLA members (for those who don't follow, the Fiona in question is Fiona Twycross) have not been particularly good in switching to Wesminster in recent time. Duvall lost selection in Greewnich, Shawcross in Croydon North, Qureshi in Brentford.
Just a quick note on economics to say where I'm coming from, and why I'm saying what I'm saying :-)
I believe the Euro caused many of the problems in peripheral Europe, specifically by reducing the cost of debt in already booming economies. (I say many, because I'm not sure you can blame the policy makers in Brussels for the willingness of the Greeks to lie about government spending, debt and deficit levels.)
This inappropriate monetary policy threw fuel on the property markets in Ireland and Spain, and caused their economies to become completely out of kilter. At the height of each country''s building booms, you saw one-in-five employed people in Spain working in construction and construction related activities and similar numbers in Ireland. You also saw banks - in both countries - who had made massive loans to property developers. Private sector debt-to-GDP swelled in both cases to north of 200% of GDP.
Then came the global financial crisis, and the excesses of these countries came back to haunt them - excesses caused largely by their membership of the Euro.
When I'm analysing countries - for investment purposes - I look at five factors to help me see if there are problems ahead:
1. Current account deficit and/or trade deficit
2. Private sector debt-to-GDP (and direction thereof)
3. Wage rates relative to economic output
4. Government spending as % of GDP
5. Labour market flexibility
By late 2007, all three of those indicators were in the red zone in almost all the PIIGS. (The exception being trade deficit in Italy, which was merely in the yellow).
Since 2007, in Spain and Ireland, those indicators have all gone green. In Portugal, most are green. In Italy it's a mix.
I believe that flexibility of the labour market and the level of government spending are far more important than exchange rates to economic growth. This is because we've had very substantial periods in the last 100 years with fixed exchange rates, and we're largely able to exclude their effects. Essentially, Thatherite economics work - and they work whether you're in Madrid, Lisbon, Dublin or London.
This is why I'm very bullish on the outlook for Ireland in 2014, pretty bullish on Spain, and a little bullish on Portugal. France, by the way, is the country showing a lot of red on my five factor chart right now - and that's the one that really worries me. 56% boys and girls... 56%...
Smke has been seen coming from the battery compartment of a JAL 787 Dreamliner. Fortunately it was on the ground. Which is where the rest of them should perhaps be until they sort the issue.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101335257
They need to get to the bottom of this, pronto.
Let's see who will run. Lambeth Cllr Florence Nosegbe has run for a couple of seats in the past and she obviously has parliamentary ambitions. She lives in the constituency. She's well connected (run for NEC in the Progress slate last time). However, I also note that she's the next in line on London GLA list in case somebody (Twycross) resigns earlier.
PR^2 has been designed specifically to be the closest thing to FPTP, while delivering significant benefits with (hopefully) the fewest possible objections.
There are two ways of winning seats.
i) by having a significant national vote tally. In England 2.4%, although an explicit threshold of 5% could be employed.
ii) by being sufficiently concentrated in a limited number of seats to exceed the quota.
The Hospital chappie from Bromsgrove would stand a chance under PR^2. It's neutral (no better or worse) for the likes of the BNP, and fairer to "major" minor parties like the LibDems and UKIP.
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2014/01/14/labour-in-key-seats-retreat/
I agree with much of what you say. However, how do you account for the economic success of places like Sweden, with their level of government spending?
Good luck Max.
They hate it in Medway - cross party antipathy. I think the only semi-realistic proposal is the Grain one isn't it? Would basically urbanise the last semi rural part of Medway.
Since then, they've had a little bit of a boom, with borrowing doing a lot of the lifting. Household indebtedness is one of the highest in the world now (up 70% of GDP or so in the last yen years), and that's showing bright, bright red on my risk chart.
Nick Sutton @suttonnick 13m
Wednesday's Morning Star front page - "Miliband loses his classes" #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/NDF87cuEcm
From a Bloomberg article written after Paul Krugman gave an interview in Copenhagen on 9th January. If Krugman is worried by Nordic household debt, then we all should be!
Full article here: http://bloom.bg/1dt2vUn
That's fine for labour flexibility, but what about their large size of the state? They've managed to grow just fine with it.
I do wonder whether resuscitating the Foulness idea would be a runner. It would tie in with the Essex side of the Thames Gateway project.
Respect/Respected, geddit?