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The Ipsos-Mori issues index for May is out now, the fieldwork finished nearly a fortnight ago, on the 19th of May.
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Thus, the central issue affecting the UK is, was and has been for120 years - Europe.
That many/most people fail to make the connection is a damning tribute to the venality and incompetence of our political class: because of decisions taken over the last 40 years they have little or no power to affect the course of the UK's economy and our citizen's lives any more - powerless puff-merchants seeking power fro power#s sake.
Whilst Europe does effect our economy, our own internal decisions and the wider world economy have a much greater effect. If we were in the Euro, I would have much more time for your argument.
1) Concerns about the economy shot up in 2008, and while it has come off its peak, it remains by far the biggest concern. The story in relation to unemployment is similar.
2) Concerns about race relations and immigration are rising, but are still not at the levels often reached in 2002-8.
3) Concerns about the NHS have faded sharply in salience since the year 2000.
4) Concerns about law and order have been in longterm decline since 2007.
All this is a longwinded way of saying what JosiasJessop said as the opening post of the thread.
Our power is amongst the cheapest in the world: it is cheaper than any country in continental Europe, it is cheaper than in New Zealand or Australia (the latter of which is certainly no believer in global warming), it is cheaper than Japan, it is even cheaper than some parts of the US. In fact other than the US and Canada (which benefit, as you might expect, from both incredibly cheap domestic coal, and the shale gas boom of the last five years) you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere in the world that has unsubsidised electricity that is cheaper than ours.
The price of electricity - for the UK - is set by the cost of imported gas, because that is the marginal producer of power. And the price of imported gas (mostly LNG) is not in our control. As an aside, there isn't such a thing as 'cheap coal' anymore. The rise of China and India has meant the two countries are sucking up an increasing portion of the seaborne coal market. The benchmark price for seaborne coal is 'Newcastle Coal', and over the past decade it has risen from $20 a tonne to almost $100 a tonne.
Only around 5% of the electricity we use comes from wind, and a much smaller proportion comes from solar (I don't know the exact number, but I'd guess less than 1%). And the price that the generating companies pay for this wind is not at that much of a premium to baseload electricity pricing (from memory, it averages about 70 pounds per megawatt hour, against a current baseload price of 54 pounds). So, yes, the focus on renewables has raised our electricity prices, but by no more than 2.5% or so (in fact, the true number is almost certainly smaller, as generation costs are only half the cost of the kilowatt that reaches your home).
One point though: whilst coal has increased over the last decade, how has oil increased in comparison (I find it rather surprising that we still have some oil-fired power stations here in the UK, even if some are dual-fuel. I would have thought there were much better uses for oil, even heavy oil).
Coal prices have fallen sharply since 2008: http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/coal/5-year/
My understanding is that this is because America has basically replaced their previously large coal consumption with shale gas.
We certainly should be using this coal more at the present time to reduce energy costs.
Slightly startled to note that 40% of our electricity came from burning coal last year. No wonder our energy is relatively cheap!
Note, IANAE.
Of course, the vast majority of the solar electricity generated will be used locally, in the building the solar panels sit on top of, so measuring how much solar in aggregate is generated is difficult.
Also, just to play devil's advocate on your argument about price: is it possible that one of the reasons electricity is so relatively cheap in the UK is that the electricity companies have been running down existing assets, rather than investing in the new build that we will need to provide electricity over the next 30-50 years?
What is the world coming to?
Do you think Dave secretly put them up to it to force the working classes back into work and restrict their leisuretime?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/30/ukip-gunning-labour-ed-miliband
The failure of the UK to develop after WW2 in the way that some other (mainly N European) countries have done is largely due to the lack of strategic investment in the UK - our C19th- era infrastructure has been, and remains, a damning indictment on successive Govts - of all political colours - who have failed to see beyond the next election.
The effect of this chronic short-termism is that Govts have chosen to borrow to buy votes (Welfare State) rather than borrow to create a world-class infrastructure. Until 1979, the State provided your gas, electricity, coal, many of your white-good appliances, your post, telephone, ports, airports, roads, rail home (in many cases directly, in many more cases by controlling supply through planning); your health care and education - and even holidays (via Thomas Cook).
For many years, the amount of money you could take abroad was strictly limited too.
Now, under such Soviet-style centralised State control is it any wonder that the UK has lagged so badly behind other nations?
Time to have our Govts run by people, not with a sub-5 year outlook on what constitutes 'long-term' but by those with a generational view: bring back rule by an unelected House of Lords, staffed by hereditary Peers (mainly)?
[Ducks}
On the issue of coal, burning as much as possible until we have sufficient nuclear to provide all our base-load AND export power for 12+ hrs a day seems sensible: subsiding ANY one source of power whilst taxing others is a recipe for economic impoverishment, mass unemployment - and revolution (ultimately): if the State ran food as they run our roads, we'd all have starved years ago.
liberalconspiracy.org/2013/05/30/the-ten-most-cringingly-bad-guardiancoffee-tweets/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/30/ukip-gunning-labour-ed-miliband
The only thing they don't mention that they ought to is that we have already seen this happen in the UK when the DUP started as a tiny party and subsequently destroyed the conservative party in NI (official unionists), largely over one issue, sovereignty, the same issue that drives UKIP.
Now the politics of resentment bubbling under the surface of British politics has started to erupt. Ukip strategists are pointing to a coalition of disgruntled social conservatives, who are mocked on the right as "swivel-eyed loons" and dismissed on the left as unbearable bigots. Now screening their candidates, Ukip offers them what the toxic far right couldn't: a populist outlet that does not force them to compromise their democratic principles. Ukip has no grand ideological vision. Its narrative is simple but effective. Enough is enough. No more immigration. No more Europe. No more cosmopolitan condescension from liberal London elites."
Well I do declare!
As a working class man who has only ever voted Labour but recently joined UKIP I completely agree with the article, particularly the above quote.
I seem to have been making this point on here for about three or four months, and yes, Labour posters have constantly accused me of misrepresenting the working class and being a bigot for not being socially liberal enough.
Well it seems I'm not the only one who feels this way.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22723384
If this is right, this poses problems for both the coalition and Labour. The coalition, because we're hardly looking forward to milk and honey any time soon. Labour, because it's hard to argue that the government is driving the country onto the rocks.
There are going to be a lot of grumpy voters out there at the next election. The question is who can most effectively get their grudging consent to govern next time.
The country is currently haemorraghing from the aftermath of two crises: the global financial crisis, and the Eurozone crisis. The policies that were the cause of both them were supported by the liberal London elite. It's thus pretty obvious who really deserves condescension.
Still most of these numpties aren't bright enough to realise who was to blame even after it's obvious, so I'm not expecting them to wake up any time soon.
An authoritian, dogmatic, exclusive clique that see themselves as edgy and progressive, yet are mindnumbingly out of touch with real people
Yes, your coal price is wrong. You are looking at CAPP coal, which is US Appalachian coal. You need to look at Newcastle coal, which is the benchmark for seaborne coal.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/parliament/2013/05/by-mark-wallacefollowmarkon-twitter-in-october-cchq-announced-that-it-was-launching-a-4040-strategy-aimed-at-winning-the.html
OT - @classicpics worth a follow for an interesting/eclectic mix. Two from yesterday:
https://twitter.com/History_Pics/status/340253657872355329/photo/1
https://twitter.com/History_Pics/status/340255280967331841/photo/1
What does "redistributive" even mean? I agree UKIP need to add one extra band to their flat tax, but I don't think an outright "take money from the rich to give to the poor" is what their target market want. Most don't expect hand me downs from the rich, they just want a decent job, to get back what they put in to the government, and to have their concerns listened to.
"Ed Miliband managed to attend Google’s Big Tent conference. There, he gave a lecture on business ethics that held up Willy Wonka as the model of a successful modern entrepreneur and attacked Montgomery Burns – a character from The Simpsons – as a representative of the predatory capitalism that is our biggest contemporary problem..." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/10089425/Ed-Miliband-is-a-blancmange-in-a-hurricane.html
and OUCH
"There are certainly men and women with ideas in the Labour Party. Jon Cruddas and Maurice Glasman are gifted, fascinating thinkers, but are held in scorn by Balls and the Brownite restorationists. Between them stands, or rather hides, Miliband, incapable of choosing when he should be eager to lead, inconstant and vacillating when he should be backing the idealists, seeking refuge in a world where Willy Wonka and Montgomery Burns seem relevant because he cannot bear too much reality. "
Not necessarily. There's two ways that the less well off can get more cake, one is to cut it more equally, another is to make a bigger one. As Socrates points out earlier, most people want a decent job. Those people should be cheered on. There are some people who can't work, through no fault of their own (e.g. genuine illness, disability). We should care for those too.
It would certainly be interesting if UKIP outflanked the Tories on a living wage.
On the state stuff, I'm not convinced. Obviously such people want social security and a decent pension, but they don't expect it to be funded by others, they just want to get out what they feel they have already paid in.
Sky stand on a crossroads; on the cusp of wholly re-inventing the UK local media landscape. All of which would appear to be news to OfCom, GNM and Co… http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2013/05/30/sky-stand-on-a-crossroads-on-the-cusp-of-wholly-re-inventing-the-uk-local-media-landscape-all-of-which-would-appear-to-be-news-to-ofcom-gmg-and-co/
More than half a year after his election loss, Mitt Romney is putting a tentative foot back onto the public stage. Romney said that he plans to re-emerge in ways that will "help shape national priorities.
As a first step, the former Republican presidential nominee plans to welcome 200 friends and supporters to a three-day summit next week that he will host at a Utah mountain resort. He is considering writing a book and a series of opinion pieces, and has plans to campaign for 2014 candidates. But he is wary of overdoing it.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324682204578515422189492536.html
Newcastle prices have been falling for some time, pretty much 3 years now: http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=coal-australian&months=120 There is a lot of moaning about it: http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1452895/pain-mounts-as-coal-price-falls/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-03/coal-seen-stalling-after-best-quarter-since-2011-energy-markets.html
As US shale oil output surges there is likely to be even more cheap displaced coal to buy. I was very disappointed when we gave up on the clean coal/carbon capture technology. We may come to regret that even more than I thought at the time.
CAPP is to coal as WTI-Cushing is to oil, and Brent to oil as Newcastle is to coal ?
My guess, and it is only a guess please don't try and pin me down to micro details, is that the flat tax will be dropped in favour of a two tier tax with no NI... Farage hinted on QT that it would be 25% and 40%... and no tax on the minimum wage... Godfrey Bloom still seems to want a flat tax with none paid until £13500, that's why there is no official policy at the moment.
I think you are right that they have been caught on the hop a little by their popularity with working class ex Labour voters and are trying to accommodate them more than previously. Diane James and Mehdi Hasan on QT last night agreed on everything bar immigration, and the new PB is meant to be aimed at WWC types so it seems to be something they are working on.
Hope so, as my family were thinking of me as a bit of a turncoat I think, and now maybe they will understand its ok not to vote Labour.
Dorothy Parker "To Newcastle"
I met a man the other day-
A kindly man, and serious-
Who viewed me in a thoughtful way,
And spoke me so, and spoke me thus:
"Oh, dallying's a sad mistake;
'Tis craven to survey the morrow!
Go give your heart, and if it break-
A wise companion is Sorrow.
"Oh, live, my child, nor keep your soul
To crowd your coffin when you're dead...."
I asked his work; he dealt in coal,
And shipped it up the Tyne, he said.
Coal pricing, especially in relation to natural gas, is a fascinating topic. Unfortunately, I'm on my phone so am not able to give you sensible responses right now. I will attempt to do so when (and if) I get a working Internet connection on my computer
As I've been saying for a while, a key question is whether Labour defectors to UKIP will behave differently to Conservative defectors when it comes to the GE. The other key question of course will be the geographic distribution of those defectors; it may be that UKIP get a good number of ex-Labour voters in safe Labour seats and ex-Tory voters in safe Tory seats, thus having little electoral impact overall. But there are also some marginals with a mix of traditional working-class Labour areas and leafier suburbs (for example in the Midlands and in the Southampton/Portsmouth areas), where UKIP's effect may be significant and lead to some surprises.
Yes,lots of bogus students have been cut.
'500 bogus colleges closed in UK in 18 months - IBNLive
ibnlive.in.com/news/500-bogus-colleges-closed-in-uk.../302071-2.html
Oct 25, 2012 – British immigration authorities have closed down an estimated 500 bogus colleges operating in the country over the last 18 months, affecting a ...
I wouldn't be surprised if Farage stood in Thurrock... PP not quoting him so maybe a decent price.. if anyone can get on mail me!
http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politics/other-politics/uk-politics?ev_oc_grp_ids=1011276
Moreover, in addition to the limited direct economic contribution, they put significant strain on limited infrastructure and other services - freeing up capacity has its own value (e.g. reduced congestion) which I doubt you are considering fully.
The UK needs to be a high-value added, premium focused economy. We can't compete on the volume game: we're a small country with a relatively high fixed cost base.
Back New Zealand to win the first ODI.
Jade Dernbach is playing, that's England doomed.
And why are we playing in all red?
We're not Lancashire!
(Says the Lancashire CCC member)
Two, as this thread is my thread, Mr Smithson is blameless.
The issue isn't even that English Language College students don't add value, its that alot of them were simply using that route as a means to work in the UK rather than study
"When the Labour government’s points based system (PBS) was first introduced in 2008, student applications had to be temporarily suspended in some parts of South Asia amid fears that the dramatic rise in applications was fuelled in part by fraudulent applications. In the first year of Labour’s Points Based System (PBS) alone the National Audit Office estimated that between 40,000 and 50,000 ‘students’ entered the UK to work and not study.
And just last year the Home Office found that 48 per cent of Pakistani students and 59 per cent of Indian students who were interviewed as part of a pilot scheme would have potentially been refused a visa on credibility grounds.
The vast majority of these potential refusals were applying for further/higher education and not university."
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/05/why-once-again-a-fall-in-student-immigration-is-good/
Still I think this NZ have been worn down and they are now missing one of their best bowlers through injury. I think England will do it despite the extra 20 runs Dernbach will give them.
"The Ipsos-MORI Issues Index is unique because the questioning is unprompted & is seen as best test of the salience of issues"
Seen by who? Mike Smithson?
I really don't get this logic at all. Imagine you ask people what their favourite films are, and they say:
"Inception is probably my favourite. Django Unchained I thought was brilliant. Skyfall was really awesome too."
"Did you like Pulp Fiction?"
"Oh! I loved Pulp Fiction. That was better than Django thinking about it. Definitely in my top three."
It would be fairly absurd to judge from that conversation that the person didn't really like Pulp Fiction that much, because the question was prompted.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket/dernbach-to-pay-for-costly-odi-displays-8460934.html
Additionally, it is entirely reasonable for the UK government to establish a policy saying (a) we only want to accept a limited number of immigrants, either permanent or temporary, and want to ensure those places are allocated to the individuals who add the greatest value to the country. This would tend to focus attention towards universities (both under and post graduate) at the cost of language colleges. Fundamentally there is fixed capacity in much of our infrastructure and we need to decide how best to use it.
Can you tell me how you fact capacity implications (say for public transport) into your calculations? Over-crowding on the tube, for example, is significantly unpleasant and delays can have an economic cost.
As for New Zealand and the number of overseas students, it depends on the population, spare infrastructure capacity, the focus of the country's economic strategy and the probability of temporary migrants looking for a long-term residency. Just to point to the headline number is entirely specious.
Still I think this NZ have been worn down and they are now missing one of their best bowlers through injury. I think England will do it despite the extra 20 runs Dernbach will give them.
I thought Vettori would be back for the one-dayers? NZ really missed him during the test series.
His ODI batting average is 2.83, amusingly.
"Popping down to #guardiancoffee later on to order a 'Toynbee': short, rich and intensely bitter"
Weeps softly.
Even the left are getting a bit restive about Ed's lack of policies.
England to win though - all in.
I thought Vettori would be back for the one-dayers? NZ really missed him during the test series.
Yes its a shame. He is good to watch and has a truly magnificent beard.
If you are going to drag an anchor behind you it's better to be fit than fat. See France as the bloater of Europe.
1. Allow local Council to accept planning applications from Sainsbury and Waitrose (both on green-field but within town boundary sites).
2. Council takes very extensive soundings, both firms canvas local residents and >800 people wrote in to the Council - split 70% Waitrose, 20% Sainsbury, 10% neither (roughly)
3. Both firms, but Waitrose particularly, produce very, very detailed plans with great consideration given to the feed-back they've received.
4. Town now has 2 x Co-op 1 small one in High St and one medium sized one (similar to Aldi/Lidl stores) on what was edge-of-town but is now surrounded by houses. Hence no choice - >70% of residents go to other towns to shop - mainly Morrisons or Tesco.
5. After endless debate, lobbying, soundings etc, the Council have a long (3hr+) meeting and vote unanimously to support the Waitrose proposal.
6. 24hrs later you, as local MP, unilaterally refer the matter to Pickles for no other reason that anyone can understand other than that you personally prefer Sainsbury (or their option).
Result? Local people's clear wishes ignored,. local Council decision over-ridden, 'localism' exposed as a sham - and lead story on local radio this morning - AND all that everyone (genuinely, everyone I'm seen or met today - around a dozen) are ABSOLUTELY furious.
At the very very least, there will be a delay of years in getting a definitive decision...
The right option, obviously, would be to vote through BOTH proposals, knowing full well that the town is scheduled to expand considerably over the next decade and that
a) The High St Co-op will become a Tesco Express
b) The medium-sized Co-op will become and Aldi/Lidl
With Waitrose AND Sainsbury as well, all tastes and shopping preferences would be catered for and competition would ensure that prices were kept low and quality maintained high - better for absolutely everyone.
No wonder the political class as so despised and loathed: UKIP have gained (they claim!) a number of new recruits for future elections - including a couple who have been avid Conservative canvasser/leafleteers in the past.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timwigmore/100219500/the-return-of-alistair-darling-would-shut-the-tories-up/