"...At the centre was a huge swimming pool, high above which a half-naked woman was being dangled in painful positions from a strip of red curtain. Hundreds of leathery, bald men with ponytails stood gawping up at her, occasionally applauding. At least, from the telltale rapid pressing together of their hands one assumed they were clapping, for the sound was not audible above the ear-bleed of the dance music.
At a mezzanine level, above the pool, was a bank of Jacuzzis with their outer wall made of glass, so that as one pushed through this Satyricon of debauchery towards dinner, one’s eyes were fixed upon the lower half of a great many fat men slouched in warm water, their hairy legs stretching and jiggling, their hands occasionally reaching into their Speedos to untangle troubled piping. “Nice,” said my wife.
Inside the restaurant, swirly monochromatic columns lent a note of “migraine” to the place, while the effect created by the opening and closing of the doors to shut out and then let in the dance music, every few seconds, gave a sense of what the throes of a terminal fit might feel like, if suffered without ear protectors in the cockpit of a spiralling fighter jet...It took them maybe an hour to bring the food. I, too, would have been hesitant. For in the spotlit glare that gave to our table the atmosphere of a tented crime scene investigation..."
What Henry misses is that Carney's move makes it much less likely that Labour will be in power. By tying interest rates to unemployment the likelihood is that they will not rise until after 2015. Thus, the man who employed him on such a lucrative contract will not have to worry unduly about higher mortgages as he plans his pre-election budgets. Combined with higher house prices, at least partially encouraged by government policy, this is bound to create something of a feel-good factor, which is likely to translate into Tory votes. Home owners have essentially been freed up to spend, so we can expect a credit card based consumer boomlet.
Tying interest rate decisions to increases in zero hour and minimum wage jobs, as well as growing low-return self-employment - instead of inflation and/or sustained growth - is not necessarily the best idea, to say the least; while delaying rate rises makes them more likely to be quite big when they do arrive. The government also now has less incentive to implement job-creating policies. But these are all issues that will not have to be dealt with until after May 2015, which in politics is all that really matters.
What Henry misses is that Carney's move makes it much less likely that Labour will be in power. By tying interest rates to unemployment the likelihood is that they will not rise until after 2015. Thus, the man who employed him on such a lucrative contract will not have to worry unduly about higher mortgages as he plans his pre-election budgets. Combined with higher house prices, at least partially encouraged by government policy, this is bound to create something of a feel-good factor, which is likely to translate into Tory votes. Home owners have essentially been freed up to spend, so we can expect a credit card based consumer boomlet.
Tying interest rate decisions to increases in zero hour and minimum wage jobs, as well as growing low-return self-employment - instead of inflation and/or sustained growth - is not necessarily the best idea, to say the least; while delaying rate rises makes them more likely to be quite big when they do arrive. The government also now has less incentive to implement job-creating policies. But these are all issues that will not have to be dealt with until after May 2015, which in politics is all that really matters.
It would be enlightening to know how Labour plan to move us to an economy free from low paid jobs and zero hour contracts. Allied to their pain free cuts plan it should be quite the vote winner! So wrong have Labour called it on the economy that they are now reduced to complaining about the wrong kind of jobs and the wrong kind of growth.
What Henry misses is that Carney's move makes it much less likely that Labour will be in power. By tying interest rates to unemployment the likelihood is that they will not rise until after 2015. Thus, the man who employed him on such a lucrative contract will not have to worry unduly about higher mortgages as he plans his pre-election budgets. Combined with higher house prices, at least partially encouraged by government policy, this is bound to create something of a feel-good factor, which is likely to translate into Tory votes. Home owners have essentially been freed up to spend, so we can expect a credit card based consumer boomlet.
Tying interest rate decisions to increases in zero hour and minimum wage jobs, as well as growing low-return self-employment - instead of inflation and/or sustained growth - is not necessarily the best idea, to say the least; while delaying rate rises makes them more likely to be quite big when they do arrive. The government also now has less incentive to implement job-creating policies. But these are all issues that will not have to be dealt with until after May 2015, which in politics is all that really matters.
It would be enlightening to know how Labour plan to move us to an economy free from low paid jobs and zero hour contracts. Allied to their pain free cuts plan it should be quite the vote winner! So wrong have Labour called it on the economy that they are now reduced to complaining about the wrong kind of jobs and the wrong kind of growth.
Maybe he should flag Tim M and Lord Ashcroft as well. As they are asking this question every - single - day.
But it has massive implications. A membership under 100,000 is a disaster for the Tories. A real disaster. What we don't know is how far under 100k it is. It could be under 90k for all we know.
I think we need a book on when UKIP membership will over take Tory membership.
On present trends it looks around 2016/7 but could be as soon as 2015.
Not only are the PB Tories silent on this subject I see Charles is flagging comments related to Tory membership figures as off topic
Just because he's posted it several times today and it's rather dull.
It's fine for Ashcroft to ask it every day - he's playing his own games. We all know he's asking the question, and we can all draw our own conclusions about the silence. It doesn't need endless repetition
Has Andy Burnham given any interviews today on the back of delivering that ultimatum to Ed Miliband in his Guardian article? He hasn't even tweeted a link to his own article today.
What games Charles? I would be interested to know if that is an insight there.
And as for repetition? You obviously have never had to put up with the PB Tories.
I don't know what Ashcroft is up to. I assume he is doing it to irritate someone in the Tory hierachy, but beyond that your guess is as good as mine. As a rule, though, he doesn't do things without a reason.
Other posters may sometimes be wrong, but they tend not to just post repetitive memes liek you do. They try to be more thoughtful in their analysis.
What Henry misses is that Carney's move makes it much less likely that Labour will be in power. By tying interest rates to unemployment the likelihood is that they will not rise until after 2015. Thus, the man who employed him on such a lucrative contract will not have to worry unduly about higher mortgages as he plans his pre-election budgets. Combined with higher house prices, at least partially encouraged by government policy, this is bound to create something of a feel-good factor, which is likely to translate into Tory votes. Home owners have essentially been freed up to spend, so we can expect a credit card based consumer boomlet.
Tying interest rate decisions to increases in zero hour and minimum wage jobs, as well as growing low-return self-employment - instead of inflation and/or sustained growth - is not necessarily the best idea, to say the least; while delaying rate rises makes them more likely to be quite big when they do arrive. The government also now has less incentive to implement job-creating policies. But these are all issues that will not have to be dealt with until after May 2015, which in politics is all that really matters.
It would be enlightening to know how Labour plan to move us to an economy free from low paid jobs and zero hour contracts. Allied to their pain free cuts plan it should be quite the vote winner! So wrong have Labour called it on the economy that they are now reduced to complaining about the wrong kind of jobs and the wrong kind of growth.
So in what way is my analysis wrong?
For a start I can't see why the government would be less incentivised to create jobs. I'd have thought that rising unemployment is far more electorally damaging than a small rise in interest rates. Given that it is highly unlikely that under any circumstances unemployment will dip below 7% before the election I very much doubt George Osborne is currently thinking up ways to reduce job creation.
As I said, genuinelly intrigued to hear the easy answers Labour has to getting everyone a high paid job and creating the right kind of growth.
Maybe he should flag Tim M and Lord Ashcroft as well. As they are asking this question every - single - day.
But it has massive implications. A membership under 100,000 is a disaster for the Tories. A real disaster. What we don't know is how far under 100k it is. It could be under 90k for all we know.
An extra 20k old buffers who swig gin and moan down the Con club ? Useless.
on Topic .. Unemployment,, So Burnham has pitched for the Boss's job.. how long will it take for EdM to find the guts to fire him..from wherever he is hiding..
What games Charles? I would be interested to know if that is an insight there.
And as for repetition? You obviously have never had to put up with the PB Tories.
It's pretty clear what Tim Montgomerie's game is. He wants to undermine David Cameron and see him replaced by a more ideologically pure leader. It doesn't take a genius to work that out. Along with much of the Con Home team his career has largely composed a series of paying hobbies, hence his detatchment from the real world and attachment to rigid ideology devoid of pragmatism.
More jobs = higher interest rates. That's not an attractive proposition with an election less than two years away.
I have no idea how any party is going to create a plethora of well paid jobs. What I do know, though, is that a society in which only a minority can hope to enjoy meaningful rises in living standards is not a sustainable one. As I have said before on here many times, I don't think any party has begun to think about this, let alone advocate policies to deal with it.
What games Charles? I would be interested to know if that is an insight there.
And as for repetition? You obviously have never had to put up with the PB Tories.
It's pretty clear what Tim Montgomerie's game is. He wants to undermine David Cameron and see him replaced by a more ideologically pure leader. It doesn't take a genius to work that out. Along with much of the Con Home team his career has largely composed a series of paying hobbies, hence his detatchment from the real world and attachment to rigid ideology devoid of pragmatism.
What's pragmatic about Mr Cameron's attachment to making people's energy bills higher?
Just saw this advert on the telly after Clarkes wicket... thought they were singing the Romford Recorder Most Wanted list!
LOL - I can't believe its taken so long for cuddly toys to be used as a PR stunt again. Esso used to do it with tigers - I still have one from about 20yrs ago. NatWest did it with collectable piggy banks.
Virtually all governments change tack and engineer a spending/housing boom the year before a general election. That's modern politics. Yet we have predictable moans from the opposition supporters. "Look, they're doing exactly what we did last time. It's evil!"
I'm used to the total hypocrisy, but I still get annoyed at the lack of self-awareness.
I think you are wrong on Tim M. Everything he calls Cameron out for is usually correct such as not getting what an aspiring voter wants or cares about.
Charles.
I would like to point out I have been talking about the ground game long before the Tories decided to panic buy in a £1 million signing. Also the smarter Tories are realising that a majority ain't gonna happen when they have less than 30 members in some marginal seats.
Our bowling attack is exceptional and has been for a while. It deserves a better batting unit.
Interesting how England's bowling attack is so successful without having what you might call an out-and-out fast bowler. When I first started watching cricket in the 1990s Devon Malcolm was the team's strike bowler; he was genuinely fast but unfortunately not particularly accurate most of the time, with a few famous exceptions.
Our bowling attack is exceptional and has been for a while. It deserves a better batting unit.
Interesting how England's bowling attack is so successful without having what you might call an out-and-out fast bowler. When I first started watching cricket in the 1990s Devon Malcolm was the team's strike bowler; he was genuinely fast but unfortunately not particularly accurate most of the time, with a few famous exceptions.
This Australian batting line up is widely regarded as their worst in modern history
They scored 527/7 against our bowling attack at Old Trafford
I think you are wrong on Tim M. Everything he calls Cameron out for is usually correct such as not getting what an aspiring voter wants or cares about.
I'm shocked, shocked I say that you agree with everything he says that is critical of David Cameron!
I would just point out that his website was responsible for this cracker of an article.
Come on one article doesn't doom a diverse site. But I think Tim realises that it only damages the Tories if they hide their membership. And the fact that Cameron has lost over 50% of members is incredible.
To go from 250,000 to under 100,000 is outstanding. And he didn't even win them a majority for it..
Yes, opinion with the party has moved sharply against further privatisation, though not for tearing up existing contracts, which people see as not feasible. It's partly that we feel we bought into it on a misleading basis. I supported it for the reasons Morris says - e.g. Ilkeston Hospital brought in an excellent South African eye team who hoovered up the waiting list in short order and provided a pretty good service. Fine. But not in order to gradually privatise all provision.
Looks like the same approach as will be proposed for the railways: private provision bad, mistakes made by previous governments, ourselves included, stuck with existing contracts etc. etc... gradual reversion to public provision, social ethic, non-profit-making, for passengers/patients not shareholders... blah, blah
Clever as technical arguments against will be rebutted as the evil Tories looking after their corporate friends...
The problem is that ideology is a stupid way of deciding policy. Instead of looking at the current system, noting what works and what does not, and looking at ways to improve it, some people jump straight to an answer (which for the left is almost always private=bad, public=good, and for the right private=good, public=bad).
Nationalisation and privatisation - and the gamut in-between - are tools. In any particular area one might work better than the other, and the balance may shift over time. Blindly following one ideology as a religion is foolhardy.
We have seen this with railways - some on the left jump on an ideological bandwagon and scream that renationalisation and public ownership is the answer, without asking themselves the basic questions. That idealogical route is destined for long-term failure.
In the case of the railways, renationalisation may be the answer. But the people proposing it have not even started to make the case beyond their ideological one.
The questions that should be asked of any proposed change are: 1) What problems are you trying to solve. 2) What problems will be introduced by your potential solution 3) How can those introduced problems be mitigated. 4) Are the immediate and long-term costs of that change worth it?
Our bowling attack is exceptional and has been for a while. It deserves a better batting unit.
Interesting how England's bowling attack is so successful without having what you might call an out-and-out fast bowler. When I first started watching cricket in the 1990s Devon Malcolm was the team's strike bowler; he was genuinely fast but unfortunately not particularly accurate most of the time, with a few famous exceptions.
Control is key for sustained bowling success as it is less demanding on the body, while raw pace on its own rarely leads to consistent wicket hauls as top class batsmen like the ball to come through at a decent lick. It's a killer on wickets with bounce though. Malcolm was brilliant at places like the Oval, but less effective on most wickets. And because it was all about maximum speed he could never really slow it down to focus on difficult lines etc. Too much shoulder, not enough wrist.
I think you are wrong on Tim M. Everything he calls Cameron out for is usually correct such as not getting what an aspiring voter wants or cares about.
Charles.
I would like to point out I have been talking about the ground game long before the Tories decided to panic buy in a £1 million signing. Also the smarter Tories are realising that a majority ain't gonna happen when they have less than 30 members in some marginal seats.
Ok, tell us how it went in Cornwall then.
(And it's fine to talk about the ground game - that can be interesting. Mindlessly asking questions that no one can answer is just dull).
Virtually all governments change tack and engineer a spending/housing boom the year before a general election. That's modern politics. Yet we have predictable moans from the opposition supporters. "Look, they're doing exactly what we did last time. It's evil!"
I'm used to the total hypocrisy, but I still get annoyed at the lack of self-awareness.
Quite. The only difference this time is that GE2015 will almost certainly happen then not 2014 which fits with the 4yrs pattern we see from most HMG's trying to get re-elected.
Come on one article doesn't doom a diverse site. But I think Tim realises that it only damages the Tories if they hide their membership. And the fact that Cameron has lost over 50% of members is incredible.
To go from 250,000 to under 100,000 is outstanding. And he didn't even win them a majority for it..
I think an article as monumentally stupid as that probably does.
As for the Tory membership numbers I'm amazed at how everyone is talking about it. Only topic of conversation last night. You'd think people would be interested in the economy, the health service, policing and the like. But not a word of it.
The way in which the national Tory membership number is hidden from view is a bit of an anachronism IMO. Very convenient for the leadership of course, especially when things are going badly.
Come on one article doesn't doom a diverse site. But I think Tim realises that it only damages the Tories if they hide their membership. And the fact that Cameron has lost over 50% of members is incredible.
To go from 250,000 to under 100,000 is outstanding. And he didn't even win them a majority for it..
The other possibility here is that they genuinely don't know how many members they've got. I'd love to hear the inside story of what's going on with their IT systems.
"Tony Hill has not has the best match. But you clearly can't be given out on an umpire's call if the umpire didn't make that call in the first place. That would involve a batsman being given out on the basis of a judgment that was never made, something that, if Back to the Future is any basis, could rupture the fabric of the universe and send us spiraling into a timeline tangent in which Biff is corrupt, powerful, and married to your mother, and in which this has happened to me! England celebrated when they saw that lbw replay and were miffed when the decision was reversed but it's not the umpire's fault if the players don't know the rules."
This is true and they're IT systems are notoriously dreadful. But you can approximate from the income figures roughly where it is. And it is definitely in and around the 100k mark. The recent acceleration of membership lapses means it is probably under 100k.
Five batsmen averaged over 50, three of them in the 60s, one over 100
And that's why they are the best team in the world. They can bat and bowl.
That's true.
I think you are really overdoing it with the criticism of our top five. They havent performed in this series, against a very well regarded attack, but the stats just say you are wrong.
Do you really think Cook, Trott, Pietersen and Bell wont go down as England legends? They are the most successful English batsman ever in terms of Ashes won, runs scored, batting averages etc.. they have done it in almost all circumstances, & under pressure in big matches. Pietersen is one of the most exciting players ever, Cook is going to rewrite the record books... I just cant see how you justify saying they are weak, fragile and our bowlers deserve better.
Some people might say Australia hit our bowlers round the park last time, and that a No11 scored 98 against them!
I think we are a decent all round unit, nothing against the bowlers, but I just cant see what makes you think the bats are so bad... compared to who?
Virtually all governments change tack and engineer a spending/housing boom the year before a general election. That's modern politics. Yet we have predictable moans from the opposition supporters. "Look, they're doing exactly what we did last time. It's evil!"
I'm used to the total hypocrisy, but I still get annoyed at the lack of self-awareness.
It's like when governments accuse oppositions of talking the country down.
If your comment was aimed at me you have misinterpreted my comments. The point I was trying to make is that in his article Henry talks about Labour probably being in power after 2015. My argument is that Carney's decision actually makes that much less likely. I happen to believe that focusing on jobs numbers is hugely risky and from what I can tell from the US, which is where I am currently, so do many others on both the left and right (including DavidL and Avery on this thread), but that is by the by.
On the subject of Conservative party membership, yes it is a large internal issue which will impair the GE2015 campaign. Regarding Tim Montgomerie, he left the ConHome website some months ago to go to the Times. The issue of membership numbers is being driven by the Conservative activists. Not by opponents. Cameron will have to cave in on it just like he did over the referendum. He should do it quickly and then move on. Personally I expect Ed Milliband to be under more pressure during the party conference season than Cameron. However it is possible that Clegg's situation may steal the headlines if the left wing of the Lib Dems explodes.
This is true and they're IT systems are notoriously dreadful. But you can approximate from the income figures roughly where it is. And it is definitely in and around the 100k mark. The recent acceleration of membership lapses means it is probably under 100k.
"This is true and they're IT systems are notoriously dreadful."
We know that there are some people who work in the black market but still claim unemployment benefit.
Is it possible that 1 in 100 people of working age are doing this?
If so, the current 7.8% unemplotment rate is actually 6.8% and below the B of E's 7.0% trigger point.
Similarly what is the 7.8%, 7.6% of? If it is 7.8% of the working population up to age 65, changing the working age to 68 will change the number, probably making it higher.
Edmund This is true and they're IT systems are notoriously dreadful. But you can approximate from the income figures roughly where it is. And it is definitely in and around the 100k mark. The recent acceleration of membership lapses means it is probably under 100k.
"This is true and they're IT systems are notoriously dreadful." Sources?
Reliable commentators on ConHome posting under real names have stated that their "Merlin" system has problems. However the lack of local troops supporting a distributed database with 650 units , reduces the recent VI numbers and updated electoral records, as Eastleigh showed.
Five batsmen averaged over 50, three of them in the 60s, one over 100
And that's why they are the best team in the world. They can bat and bowl.
That's true.
I think you are really overdoing it with the criticism of our top five. They havent performed in this series, against a very well regarded attack, but the stats just say you are wrong.
Do you really think Cook, Trott, Pietersen and Bell wont go down as England legends? They are the most successful English batsman ever in terms of Ashes won, runs scored, batting averages etc.. they have done it in almost all circumstances, & under pressure in big matches. Pietersen is one of the most exciting players ever, Cook is going to rewrite the record books... I just cant see how you justify saying they are weak, fragile and our bowlers deserve better.
Some people might say Australia hit our bowlers round the park last time, and that a No11 scored 98 against them!
I think we are a decent all round unit, nothing against the bowlers, but I just cant see what makes you think the bats are so bad... compared to who?
Individually the are good, and in the case of Cook and Pietersen very good. But as a unit the top 6 fails to deliver far too often. Averages are all that we have, but they hide a multitude of sins and scenarios. Big scores against poor bowling attacks do not negate giving your wicket away or the inability to deal with decent spinners. We do not get enough first innings big totals for our collective unit to be considered anything other than mediocre.
"Part of the reason for UKIP’s success is that it is clearly led by people with this fairly nuanced, human view of the world, who don’t fit this false dichotomy where everyone is either an approved anti-racist or a racist. Just like the vast majority of people around the world, in fact. Nigel Farage's criticism of the van has been called clever triangulation, but I'm guessing it was heartfelt - his argument is that there is no need to be nasty while dealing with immigration effectively. "
At Eastleigh even the LDs were making do with paper lists as they went round canvassing. I thought that at least they would be using computerised databases in conjunction with iPads or other mobile devices.
In the Eastleigh election they didn't even have a functioning database.
One problem does not make something 'notoriously dreadful'.
Unless you're inclined to think so for political reasons.
As was discussed last week, the problems at Eastleigh are the sort of things that effect many companies - without more details, it just seems like a failure in crisis management rather than a database problem per se. Although that opinion may change if/when more information comes out.
In the past I have had to deal with people who outright refuse to use new computer systems, or hate new ones for perverse reasons. A classic example in my field are source control systems, from people who prefer a different system to the one being used, or refuse to use them at all.
The point is that it will be the perception that for all the talk of "escape velocity" and "full recovery" from the acolytes of Osborne and for all the Stakhanov-esque publication of new car statistics, most people will not "feel" better off in 2015 compared with 2010.
The dubious advantage or cynical rationale behind Carney's statement was the message it sent to many families with mortgages - "go out and spend, your mortgages won't be going up until 2017". When you get used to paying 0.99% or whatever on your mortgage, the rise to say 3.5% will come as a shock and that's one thing the Coalition know will lose them the election.
So the Government, aided and abetted by the BoE, artificially keeps rates down and pours our money into gilts and QE rather than accept a return to normal monetary policy. Current monetary policy impoverishes and discourages savers and saving so we start building another consumption-fuelled debt bubble. In so many ways, Osborne's policies aren't a change from Darling's but a continuation.
It's no wonder Labour has no coherent response to Coalition economic policy.
"If more than 50 per cent of economic legislation comes from the EU and is having an impact on British businesses, something needs to be done
Sir, On the knotty issue of how much UK legislation with “significant economic impact” originates in the EU, may I suggest Mr Brewer (letter, Aug 8) probes deeper into the October 2010 House of Commons Library paper, “How much legislation comes from Europe?”, which he cites.
This paper clearly quotes Lord Triesman, then a Foreign Office minister, saying “many EU regulations have a purely technical or temporary effect. We estimate that around 50 per cent of UK legislation with a significant economic impact has its origins in EU legislation”. He said this in January 2006 and it is likely that this proportion has increased since.
Ruth Lea Economic Adviser, Arbuthnot Banking Group
My comments weren't particularly aimed at you. You may be like me, an ex-labour and ex-LD voter, somewhat peeved with them all. It's a catch-22 situation really. Honest politicians don't get elected, and so a successful, elected politician isn't one I'd vote for.
My view is that the new MPC guidelines are less a change in policy than a change in how the Bank's policy should be expressed and 'explained' to markets and the public.
tim downthread talked, somewhat flippantly, about an "intellectual cover" to rationalise [and obscure] covert policy goals. This implies the 'engineered pre-election boom' which you too are suggesting is Osborne's and Carney's motive.
I don't agree this is the case. However, there is definitely more intellectual analysis being revealed.
Mervyn King was more reserved and detached in public. He was happy to justify not changing the rates on the basis that the causes of higher than desired inflation were beyond the control of the bank. Whatever intellectualisation that went on was behind closed doors.
Carney is much keener to show the workings and arguments of the MPC and to subject its internal decision making processes to public and professional scrutiny. He is open about the uncertainty of future outcomes and their causes.
What he is saying is that the bank may be wrong in its assessment of future inflation, but it has to adopt policies and make decisions based on most likely outcomes. He accepts there is no universal agreement on forecasts or causes, even within the MPC, so policy on interest rates and asset purchases has to be a judgement call based on a plurality of support.
Carney sets out the arguments for and against each policy option and tries to quantify associated risks with each. His conclusions, all of which are arguable, are that maintaining current interest rates and asset purchases level over a three year period are, on balance, unlikely to cause the inflation rate to get out of control and prevent its medium term return to its target level.
But he also accepts the downside risks of these assessments being wrong and has built into the new policy "knockouts" which enable the bank to change policy if inflation outcomes or financial risks are higher than forecast.
The probability of Carney being right is quite low but it is marginally higher than him being wrong. The intellectualisation though is bona fide and robust. Inflation at 2% remains the bank's target at minimal cost to economic growth and employment. The goal is not and has never been interfering with electoral outcomes.
Mrs Newman, some of us can make decisions based on more important issues than under-graduate identity politics. Women (like myself) will vote for UKIP for the same excellent reasons that men will. To leave the EU. To secure our borders, protect our sovereignty and national identity. To reduce immigration. And so on.
"But where Burnham is wrong is when he suggests that the Labour leadership has until Spring to put our cards on the table. Spring is too late. There’s already a sense of drift in the party. MPs are beginning to wonder what Ed Miliband’s leadership is for. We don’t have a clear election strategy – or a strategist. We lack headline policies that are easy to explain – meaning activists are being sent naked onto the doorstep. And it’s not about shouting louder, as Burnham suggests, because we’ve had plenty of noise from the party but precious little worth shouting about.
Shouting louder about our timid plans is a recipe for failure, not victory.
There needs to be a clear sense that Labour has the policies and the political will to change Britain for the better. At the moment that is lacking, and if it’s still lacking after conference, we’ll look like we have nothing to say – and it will be time to panic. Spring? If we’re still in this position in Spring, the General Election may well be lost already.
The whole party needs to up its game now – another six months of treading water would be madness."
"But where Burnham is wrong is when he suggests that the Labour leadership has until Spring to put our cards on the table. Spring is too late. There’s already a sense of drift in the party. MPs are beginning to wonder what Ed Miliband’s leadership is for. We don’t have a clear election strategy – or a strategist. We lack headline policies that are easy to explain – meaning activists are being sent naked onto the doorstep. And it’s not about shouting louder, as Burnham suggests, because we’ve had plenty of noise from the party but precious little worth shouting about.
Shouting louder about our timid plans is a recipe for failure, not victory.
There needs to be a clear sense that Labour has the policies and the political will to change Britain for the better. At the moment that is lacking, and if it’s still lacking after conference, we’ll look like we have nothing to say – and it will be time to panic. Spring? If we’re still in this position in Spring, the General Election may well be lost already.
The whole party needs to up its game now – another six months of treading water would be madness."
... Lots of scope for lies, damn lies and statistics.
The unemployment rate used by the BoE is closely defined, It is the International Labour Office (ILO)- defined unemployment rate as calculated from the results of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) carried out quarterly by the ONS, The LFS is itself closely defined and used internationally and consistently in all EU countries.
The biggest variable in the employment statistics is the proportion of working age population who are inactive and not seeking work. Over the first few months of this year we saw UK employment reach record levels but the unemployment rate remain relatively unchanged. The reasons given were that there were large transfers of individuals from the economically inactive classification to job seekers, matching and sometimes exceeding the numbers moving from job seeking to employment.
The impact of this variable is more marked in the US. Take for example this extract from the BoE Inflation Report:
US non-farm payrolls have risen by around 200,000 a month in recent quarters. But over the recovery as a whole, employment growth has been modest, leaving the employment rate broadly flat. The number of people who are neither in work nor actively seeking a job has, however, risen significantly, reflecting both cyclical and structural factors. The resulting decline in participation has contributed to much of the fall in the unemployment rate, which fell from its peak of 10% in October 2009 to 7.6% in June 2013.
The UK recently has seen the opposite effect. Compare and contrast with the passage on the UK:
One reason why unemployment has been persistently high, despite robust employment growth, is that participation — the number of people in work or actively seeking employment — has held up. Delayed retirement by older people has supported participation, partly offsetting the downward trend from an ageing population. In addition, some of those who were previously inactive have joined the labour force, prompted, for example, by changes to the benefits regime.
Individually the are good, and in the case of Cook and Pietersen very good. But as a unit the top 6 fails to deliver far too often. Averages are all that we have, but they hide a multitude of sins and scenarios. Big scores against poor bowling attacks do not negate giving your wicket away or the inability to deal with decent spinners. We do not get enough first innings big totals for our collective unit to be considered anything other than mediocre.
This Aussie bowling line up are generally considered to be pretty good, the batting line up the worst in decades.
In the case of Cook & Pietersen I think it goes beyond very good. They will probably be the top two all time run scorers in test cricket for England soon.
I think to describe our current bowlers as "exceptional" and batsmen as "mediocre" is a very extreme view, one that will not be shared by many people who know anything about cricket.
Averages contain great scores against poor attacks etc for all batsman since cricket began, hence the "average" over all tests being the definitive resource for judging a player. If you choose to think they are misleading, that's down to you. Again, it is an extreme view that would be dismissed by most people as plain wrong.
I don't think Carney is seeking to engineer a pre-election boom. However, Osborne would have been well aware of Carney's views well in advance of appointing him and no rises in interest rates combined with rising house prices before the GE certainly suit the Chancellor very nicely. I doubt it is all a coincidence and I worry it will cause problems further down the line because jobs in and of themselves are a poor measure of economic performance (as you explained) and because it may well mean more precipitous rises when they do come. That's before you throw in the increased danger of debt-fuelled consumer spending. As I said the other day, I now expect the Tories to win most seats in 2015, but to be facing something of a crisis around the time of the EU referendum. Obviously, I hope I am wrong on any number of levels.
Until recently, I was of the view that there was a 10% chance that the next general election would see an unravelling of the Labour economic position during the campaign on a truly epic scale. The sort of horror show that will be discussed in politics, internationally, for decades to come.
... Lots of scope for lies, damn lies and statistics.
The UK recently has seen the opposite effect. Compare and contrast with the passage on the UK:
One reason why unemployment has been persistently high, despite robust employment growth, is that participation — the number of people in work or actively seeking employment — has held up. Delayed retirement by older people has supported participation, partly offsetting the downward trend from an ageing population. In addition, some of those who were previously inactive have joined the labour force, prompted, for example, by changes to the benefits regime.
That is an intended or unintended consequence of the disruption of normal monetary policy coming from the downturn. People are realising they cannot afford to retire - the modest savings and rises in asset values which did their parents so well have simply not yielded the returns required for many older people to stop working and enjoy the lifestyle to which they aspire or have become accustomed.
Investments and savings with virtually no interest mean real falls in income so how can individuals retire ? Answer , they can't so they stay in work. The corollary of this is that organisations trying to make older and longer-serving people redundant realise the huge problem that causes in redundancy payments and pension payments.
I don't think Carney is seeking to engineer a pre-election boom. However, Osborne would have been well aware of Carney's views well in advance of appointing him and no rises in interest rates combined with rising house prices before the GE certainly suit the Chancellor very nicely. I doubt it is all a coincidence and I worry it will cause problems further down the line because jobs in and of themselves are a poor measure of economic performance (as you explained) and because it may well mean more precipitous rises when they do come. That's before you throw in the increased danger of debt-fuelled consumer spending. As I said the other day, I now expect the Tories to win most seats in 2015, but to be facing something of a crisis around the time of the EU referendum. Obviously, I hope I am wrong on any number of levels.
You are still being over-suspicious, SO.
The BoE extended stimulus is as much caused by Osborne as the financial crash was caused by Gordon's elevation to PM in 2007. Much fun though it is to argue both, they are rather boringly more coincidental than causal.
George definitely has luck behind him. Gordon entered became PM just before a cyclical crash (however deep and accelerated by prior fiscal policy it was still coincidental) and George's [first] term as CoE is likely to end with two years of cyclical upturn (however fast and early the upturn is relative to the UK's main competitors).
If you dig below the surface of the 'new' BoE monetary policy it is clear that unemployment is only being used as a guide and composite indicator rather than a target. There are so many other metrics which will weigh in on future policy decisions that we needn't worry too much about artificial distortions caused by the headline policy.
And anyway, for all the theorising and policy definition, if the Fed and ECB ratcheted up their interest rates the BoE would quickly follow with a duly announced intellectualised rationalisation.
Which of course makes tim 15% right 15% of the time. A good mark for a Scouser.
... Lots of scope for lies, damn lies and statistics.
The UK recently has seen the opposite effect. Compare and contrast with the passage on the UK:
One reason why unemployment has been persistently high, despite robust employment growth, is that participation — the number of people in work or actively seeking employment — has held up. Delayed retirement by older people has supported participation, partly offsetting the downward trend from an ageing population. In addition, some of those who were previously inactive have joined the labour force, prompted, for example, by changes to the benefits regime.
That is an intended or unintended consequence of the disruption of normal monetary policy coming from the downturn. People are realising they cannot afford to retire - the modest savings and rises in asset values which did their parents so well have simply not yielded the returns required for many older people to stop working and enjoy the lifestyle to which they aspire or have become accustomed.
Investments and savings with virtually no interest mean real falls in income so how can individuals retire ? Answer , they can't so they stay in work. The corollary of this is that organisations trying to make older and longer-serving people redundant realise the huge problem that causes in redundancy payments and pension payments.
Certainly, that is one of the causes often advocated for the participating workforce holding up.
I think though fiscal policies have had more influence. The jump in self-employed numbers where earnings are reported at the threshold levels necessary to reap the optimum in work benefits is remarkable. The much missed G! or Nicomachus linked to a blog by a full time musician and part time economist which very ably advocated this trend as a cause of high labour force participation and low productivity.
I have also seen arguments that maternity benefit changes have encouraged more women to return earlier to active participation.
But the whole productivity fall, active/inactive participation issue is full of theories and absent of consensus as to cause. But it will increasingly become a topic for public debate especially now the BoE has linked monetary policy, at least in the eyes of the public, to falling unemployment rates.
"Part of the reason for UKIP’s success is that it is clearly led by people with this fairly nuanced, human view of the world, who don’t fit this false dichotomy where everyone is either an approved anti-racist or a racist. Just like the vast majority of people around the world, in fact. Nigel Farage's criticism of the van has been called clever triangulation, but I'm guessing it was heartfelt - his argument is that there is no need to be nasty while dealing with immigration effectively. "
Most kipper sympathisers that I know have a zero nuanced view of the world. They would demand particular actions without acknowledgement of the collateral consequences. I see nothing nasty about the government's recent activities on immigration, just firm actions and statements. ConHome has been a refuge for kippers for many years. Some kippers in the Mail think we should invade Spain ref Gibraltar!
The BoE extended stimulus is as much caused by Osborne as the financial crash was caused by Gordon's elevation to PM in 2007. Much fun though it is to argue both, they are rather boringly more coincidental than causal.
I think Northern Rock was the seminal political and economic event of this period and the ramifications it had on policy-making are with us to this day and have guided Government response to the financial downturn both from an economic and political standpoint.
Northern Rock showed the enormous potential destabilising effect of a sizeable financial institution collapsing. Just as the fuel crisis of 2000 showed how vulnerable modern societies were to a disruption of petrol, so Northern Rock showed how vulnerable we were to a disruption in the supply and availability of money.
Having a major bank such as an RBS, HBOS or a Lloyds collapse, with queues in the streets and ATMs switched off and the potential social and political consequences of such an event, became unthinkable and so the bailout was conceived. All significant public-facing financial institutions would have to be rescued if they got into trouble, all depositors would have their savings guaranteed to a significant level to prevent a panic.
The problem is there was at that time no mechanism to allow a bank or a major financial institution to be wound down or wound up without significant consequences elsewhere in the sector as the collapse of Lehman Brothers demonstrated.
Northern Rock not only forestalled Brown's plans for a snap Autumn election but it coloured the response of his Government to the growing crisis and committed the British public to an involuntary investment of billions of pounds via the backdoor nationalisation of key banks.
The 2011 riots showed just how ill-prepared the authorities were for a significant disruptive event - modern societies function on a number of key factors - the availability of money is one of them. I strongly suspect that had a Conservative Government been in power at the time of Northern Rock, its response would have been identical.
Interesting figures - One poll, published by an American website, ranks French president François Hollande number one on a Top Ten list of the World’s Worst Politicians, ahead of Italy’s disgraced Silvio Berlusconi (2), and ousted Australian PM Julia Gillard (4). The other poll, published last weekend by France’s leading Sunday newspaper, declares Hollande’s predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, the most popular influential political figure in France. He came 20th in Le Journal du Dimanche’s bi-annual Top 50 poll, 24 places ahead of Hollande.
The BoE extended stimulus is as much caused by Osborne as the financial crash was caused by Gordon's elevation to PM in 2007. Much fun though it is to argue both, they are rather boringly more coincidental than causal.
George definitely has luck behind him. Gordon entered became PM just before a cyclical crash (however deep and accelerated by prior fiscal policy it was still coincidental) and George's [first] term as CoE is likely to end with two years of cyclical upturn (however fast and early the upturn is relative to the UK's main competitors).
It was not a cyclical crash. Brown had actually been reasonably successful in avoiding those, leading of course to the hubris of "no more boom and bust" even while presiding over a boom in house prices (borrowing against which, and then spending, might have helped avoid the busts).
George Osborne has, I think, been cleverer than you (or most pundits) allow. Carney provides intellectual cover for a growth strategy without the Chancellor needing publicly to concede Plan A has failed.
As to Henry's OP -- it really ought not to be too difficult for HMG to direct some investment at Conservative marginal seats in the north. As part of a one-nation growth strategy -- we're all in this recovery together -- and not for vulgar, vote-grubbing reasons, you understand.
Lord Levy on Ed Miliband - 'Not brilliant, not very bad...just so-so'
On Blair -' “I had come to recognise that for all his attractive qualities, his talent for friendship, his acts of personal generosity, his genuine religious faith, Tony was, at the end of the day, a politician. On some level, it seemed to me, Tony really was just in it for himself.”
I strongly suspect that had a Conservative Government been in power at the time of Northern Rock, its response would have been identical.
At high level, yes. A Conservative Government would have intervened to ensure continued liquidity and operations.
But at tactical level, the Labour Government made a number of avoidable mistakes, not least of which was the leak to the press that the BoE was propping up NR's liquidity in August 2007. It was this which caused the run on deposits and queues outside closed branches.
Also the follow-up was clumsy with most of the original directors resigning in September, a new Board appointed with the task of drawing up a rescue plan which was then frustrated by shareholders at an EGM in January 2008, causing an pre-emptory takeover by Darling and yet another new Board appointed in March.
It should be remembered that Northern Rock's operations were potentially solvent at the time of its troubles arising in August 2007. This was confirmed in a letter by the Chairman of the FSA to Darling and King. (The Tripartitie regulatory arrangement - joint decisions by Treasury, BoE and FSA - was also a clumsy structure with which to deal with financial crises)
NR was a victim of two events beyond its control: the failure of interbank lending (10% of NR's funding) and the collapse of the mortgage backed securities market (US originated and accounting for 40% of NR's funding).
In this climate, it would have been difficult for the government to persuade NR to sell out to a large bank with a stronger funding base: all banks at the time were very nervous. So a medium term funding arrangement through the BoE would have been the answer (but without a leak).
As it turned out NR was just the tip of the iceberg and even had it been quietly saved it would not have averted the financial crash and crisis with the bigger banks in 2008-9.
And none of this is to suggest that NR's business model of high growth, high risk lending and a dependency on financial markets and securitisation for 50% of its funding requirements was prudent.
All this, of course, is now being solved with new regulatory and capital adequacy requirements ultimately imposed by a single body, the Bank of England. But the Coalition government did have the benefit of hindsight before sorting this out, even if a minority of Conservatives (Peter Lilley in particular) sounded the warning knell as far back as 1997.
In other news, we're in Boston now at the end of our great American road trip. It has been stupendous. We fly home tomorrow and but before we do we are off to Beantown's finest steakhouse, Abe & Louie's, for lunch to eat our weights in high grade meat. Warning: I may post pissed later. If I do, will anyone be able to tell the difference??
In other news, we're in Boston now at the end of our great American road trip. It has been stupendous. We fly home tomorrow and but before we do we are off to Beantown's finest steakhouse, Abe & Louie's, for lunch to eat our weights in high grade meat. Warning: I may post pissed later. If I do, will anyone be able to tell the difference??
Today's Avery is getting very bored with being serious.
He needs some good news with which to wake Nick Palmer up.
In other news, we're in Boston now at the end of our great American road trip. It has been stupendous. We fly home tomorrow and but before we do we are off to Beantown's finest steakhouse, Abe & Louie's, for lunch to eat our weights in high grade meat. Warning: I may post pissed later. If I do, will anyone be able to tell the difference??
Comments
"...At the centre was a huge swimming pool, high above which a half-naked woman was being dangled in painful positions from a strip of red curtain. Hundreds of leathery, bald men with ponytails stood gawping up at her, occasionally applauding. At least, from the telltale rapid pressing together of their hands one assumed they were clapping, for the sound was not audible above the ear-bleed of the dance music.
At a mezzanine level, above the pool, was a bank of Jacuzzis with their outer wall made of glass, so that as one pushed through this Satyricon of debauchery towards dinner, one’s eyes were fixed upon the lower half of a great many fat men slouched in warm water, their hairy legs stretching and jiggling, their hands occasionally reaching into their Speedos to untangle troubled piping. “Nice,” said my wife.
Inside the restaurant, swirly monochromatic columns lent a note of “migraine” to the place, while the effect created by the opening and closing of the doors to shut out and then let in the dance music, every few seconds, gave a sense of what the throes of a terminal fit might feel like, if suffered without ear protectors in the cockpit of a spiralling fighter jet...It took them maybe an hour to bring the food. I, too, would have been hesitant. For in the spotlit glare that gave to our table the atmosphere of a tented crime scene investigation..."
Tying interest rate decisions to increases in zero hour and minimum wage jobs, as well as growing low-return self-employment - instead of inflation and/or sustained growth - is not necessarily the best idea, to say the least; while delaying rate rises makes them more likely to be quite big when they do arrive. The government also now has less incentive to implement job-creating policies. But these are all issues that will not have to be dealt with until after May 2015, which in politics is all that really matters.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10234640/Millions-face-higher-bills-under-plans-for-compulsory-water-meters.html
I suppose it did rain relentlessly for about a year.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BRTTHtxCQAEpXWK.png:large
On present trends it looks around 2016/7 but could be as soon as 2015.
http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1185119/paddy-power-expands-brand-team-double-appointment
But it has massive implications. A membership under 100,000 is a disaster for the Tories. A real disaster. What we don't know is how far under 100k it is. It could be under 90k for all we know.
http://www.freecakesforkids.org.uk/
It's fine for Ashcroft to ask it every day - he's playing his own games. We all know he's asking the question, and we can all draw our own conclusions about the silence. It doesn't need endless repetition
And as for repetition? You obviously have never had to put up with the PB Tories.
Other posters may sometimes be wrong, but they tend not to just post repetitive memes liek you do. They try to be more thoughtful in their analysis.
As I said, genuinelly intrigued to hear the easy answers Labour has to getting everyone a high paid job and creating the right kind of growth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfTsTvP93LU
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/23642354
More jobs = higher interest rates. That's not an attractive proposition with an election less than two years away.
I have no idea how any party is going to create a plethora of well paid jobs. What I do know, though, is that a society in which only a minority can hope to enjoy meaningful rises in living standards is not a sustainable one. As I have said before on here many times, I don't think any party has begun to think about this, let alone advocate policies to deal with it.
5 of the best 32 English batsman ever, the 5 best in the last 30 years!
http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Records/England/Test/Batting/Highest_Career_Batting_Average.html
Virtually all governments change tack and engineer a spending/housing boom the year before a general election. That's modern politics. Yet we have predictable moans from the opposition supporters. "Look, they're doing exactly what we did last time. It's evil!"
I'm used to the total hypocrisy, but I still get annoyed at the lack of self-awareness.
I think you are wrong on Tim M. Everything he calls Cameron out for is usually correct such as not getting what an aspiring voter wants or cares about.
Charles.
I would like to point out I have been talking about the ground game long before the Tories decided to panic buy in a £1 million signing. Also the smarter Tories are realising that a majority ain't gonna happen when they have less than 30 members in some marginal seats.
England: 8/11
Australia: 7/5
Draw: 10/1
http://www.paddypower.com/bet?action=go_betlive_event&ev_id=5625953
They scored 527/7 against our bowling attack at Old Trafford
I would just point out that his website was responsible for this cracker of an article.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/parliament/2013/01/if-the-conservatives-are-too-frightened-to-make-jacob-rees-mogg-a-minister-they-dont-deserve-to-surv.html
Conservatime Home. The website where reality goes to die.
Come on one article doesn't doom a diverse site. But I think Tim realises that it only damages the Tories if they hide their membership. And the fact that Cameron has lost over 50% of members is incredible.
To go from 250,000 to under 100,000 is outstanding. And he didn't even win them a majority for it..
Nationalisation and privatisation - and the gamut in-between - are tools. In any particular area one might work better than the other, and the balance may shift over time. Blindly following one ideology as a religion is foolhardy.
We have seen this with railways - some on the left jump on an ideological bandwagon and scream that renationalisation and public ownership is the answer, without asking themselves the basic questions. That idealogical route is destined for long-term failure.
In the case of the railways, renationalisation may be the answer. But the people proposing it have not even started to make the case beyond their ideological one.
The questions that should be asked of any proposed change are:
1) What problems are you trying to solve.
2) What problems will be introduced by your potential solution
3) How can those introduced problems be mitigated.
4) Are the immediate and long-term costs of that change worth it?
(And it's fine to talk about the ground game - that can be interesting. Mindlessly asking questions that no one can answer is just dull).
As for the Tory membership numbers I'm amazed at how everyone is talking about it. Only topic of conversation last night. You'd think people would be interested in the economy, the health service, policing and the like. But not a word of it.
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/records/averages/batting_bowling_by_team.html?id=6884;team=3;type=series
Five batsmen averaged over 50, three of them in the 60s, one over 100
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/hot-spots-inventor-blames-bat-coatings-20130810-2rotm.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2388634/Gas-electricity-bills-rise-140-winter-households-warned-despite-energy-companies-enjoying-3-3bn-profits-election.html
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/aug/10/ashes-england-australia-live-obo
This is true and they're IT systems are notoriously dreadful. But you can approximate from the income figures roughly where it is. And it is definitely in and around the 100k mark. The recent acceleration of membership lapses means it is probably under 100k.
I think you are really overdoing it with the criticism of our top five. They havent performed in this series, against a very well regarded attack, but the stats just say you are wrong.
Do you really think Cook, Trott, Pietersen and Bell wont go down as England legends? They are the most successful English batsman ever in terms of Ashes won, runs scored, batting averages etc.. they have done it in almost all circumstances, & under pressure in big matches. Pietersen is one of the most exciting players ever, Cook is going to rewrite the record books... I just cant see how you justify saying they are weak, fragile and our bowlers deserve better.
Some people might say Australia hit our bowlers round the park last time, and that a No11 scored 98 against them!
I think we are a decent all round unit, nothing against the bowlers, but I just cant see what makes you think the bats are so bad... compared to who?
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/teenager-injured-in-zanzibar-acid-attack-says-thank-you-to-supporters-as-she-receives-treatment-in-london-hospital-8755475.html
If your comment was aimed at me you have misinterpreted my comments. The point I was trying to make is that in his article Henry talks about Labour probably being in power after 2015. My argument is that Carney's decision actually makes that much less likely. I happen to believe that focusing on jobs numbers is hugely risky and from what I can tell from the US, which is where I am currently, so do many others on both the left and right (including DavidL and Avery on this thread), but that is by the by.
Sources?
Is it possible that 1 in 100 people of working age are doing this?
If so, the current 7.8% unemplotment rate is actually 6.8% and below the B of E's 7.0% trigger point.
Similarly what is the 7.8%, 7.6% of? If it is 7.8% of the working population up to age 65, changing the working age to 68 will change the number, probably making it higher.
Lots of scope for lies, damn lies and statistics.
There are hundreds and hundreds there
http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/if-breaking-bad-took-place-entirely-on-facebook
In the Eastleigh election they didn't even have a functioning database.
You don't want to ever use IPads and other mobile devices on the doorstep as it looks terrible in my opinion.
Always print on to paper. The Lib Dems did what they needed to do. As most Lib Dems in the south will do.
Unless you're inclined to think so for political reasons.
As was discussed last week, the problems at Eastleigh are the sort of things that effect many companies - without more details, it just seems like a failure in crisis management rather than a database problem per se. Although that opinion may change if/when more information comes out.
Flicking through Google, it seems that there is a fair amount of noisy dissatisfaction from some activists about it, but there's also a few like this:
http://votingandboating.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-magic-of-merlin.html
In the past I have had to deal with people who outright refuse to use new computer systems, or hate new ones for perverse reasons. A classic example in my field are source control systems, from people who prefer a different system to the one being used, or refuse to use them at all.
The point is that it will be the perception that for all the talk of "escape velocity" and "full recovery" from the acolytes of Osborne and for all the Stakhanov-esque publication of new car statistics, most people will not "feel" better off in 2015 compared with 2010.
The dubious advantage or cynical rationale behind Carney's statement was the message it sent to many families with mortgages - "go out and spend, your mortgages won't be going up until 2017". When you get used to paying 0.99% or whatever on your mortgage, the rise to say 3.5% will come as a shock and that's one thing the Coalition know will lose them the election.
So the Government, aided and abetted by the BoE, artificially keeps rates down and pours our money into gilts and QE rather than accept a return to normal monetary policy. Current monetary policy impoverishes and discourages savers and saving so we start building another consumption-fuelled debt bubble. In so many ways, Osborne's policies aren't a change from Darling's but a continuation.
It's no wonder Labour has no coherent response to Coalition economic policy.
"If more than 50 per cent of economic legislation comes from the EU and is having an impact on British businesses, something needs to be done
Sir, On the knotty issue of how much UK legislation with “significant economic impact” originates in the EU, may I suggest Mr Brewer (letter, Aug 8) probes deeper into the October 2010 House of Commons Library paper, “How much legislation comes from Europe?”, which he cites.
This paper clearly quotes Lord Triesman, then a Foreign Office minister, saying “many EU regulations have a purely technical or temporary effect. We estimate that around 50 per cent of UK legislation with a significant economic impact has its origins in EU legislation”. He said this in January 2006 and it is likely that this proportion has increased since.
Ruth Lea
Economic Adviser, Arbuthnot Banking Group
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/theashes/10231889/Ashes-2013-England-v-Australia-fourth-Test-live.html
SO,
My comments weren't particularly aimed at you. You may be like me, an ex-labour and ex-LD voter, somewhat peeved with them all. It's a catch-22 situation really. Honest politicians don't get elected, and so a successful, elected politician isn't one I'd vote for.
I think your misrepresent me here, SO.
My view is that the new MPC guidelines are less a change in policy than a change in how the Bank's policy should be expressed and 'explained' to markets and the public.
tim downthread talked, somewhat flippantly, about an "intellectual cover" to rationalise [and obscure] covert policy goals. This implies the 'engineered pre-election boom' which you too are suggesting is Osborne's and Carney's motive.
I don't agree this is the case. However, there is definitely more intellectual analysis being revealed.
Mervyn King was more reserved and detached in public. He was happy to justify not changing the rates on the basis that the causes of higher than desired inflation were beyond the control of the bank. Whatever intellectualisation that went on was behind closed doors.
Carney is much keener to show the workings and arguments of the MPC and to subject its internal decision making processes to public and professional scrutiny. He is open about the uncertainty of future outcomes and their causes.
What he is saying is that the bank may be wrong in its assessment of future inflation, but it has to adopt policies and make decisions based on most likely outcomes. He accepts there is no universal agreement on forecasts or causes, even within the MPC, so policy on interest rates and asset purchases has to be a judgement call based on a plurality of support.
Carney sets out the arguments for and against each policy option and tries to quantify associated risks with each. His conclusions, all of which are arguable, are that maintaining current interest rates and asset purchases level over a three year period are, on balance, unlikely to cause the inflation rate to get out of control and prevent its medium term return to its target level.
But he also accepts the downside risks of these assessments being wrong and has built into the new policy "knockouts" which enable the bank to change policy if inflation outcomes or financial risks are higher than forecast.
The probability of Carney being right is quite low but it is marginally higher than him being wrong. The intellectualisation though is bona fide and robust. Inflation at 2% remains the bank's target at minimal cost to economic growth and employment. The goal is not and has never been interfering with electoral outcomes.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/10231661/Ukips-Godfrey-Bloom-Why-on-earth-would-a-woman-ever-vote-for-Ukip-the-ultimate-old-boys-club.html
Esmerelda Weatherwax
Yesterday 09:16 AM
Mrs Newman, some of us can make decisions based on more important issues than under-graduate identity politics.
Women (like myself) will vote for UKIP for the same excellent reasons that men will.
To leave the EU.
To secure our borders, protect our sovereignty and national identity.
To reduce immigration.
And so on.
"But where Burnham is wrong is when he suggests that the Labour leadership has until Spring to put our cards on the table. Spring is too late. There’s already a sense of drift in the party. MPs are beginning to wonder what Ed Miliband’s leadership is for. We don’t have a clear election strategy – or a strategist. We lack headline policies that are easy to explain – meaning activists are being sent naked onto the doorstep. And it’s not about shouting louder, as Burnham suggests, because we’ve had plenty of noise from the party but precious little worth shouting about.
Shouting louder about our timid plans is a recipe for failure, not victory.
There needs to be a clear sense that Labour has the policies and the political will to change Britain for the better. At the moment that is lacking, and if it’s still lacking after conference, we’ll look like we have nothing to say – and it will be time to panic. Spring? If we’re still in this position in Spring, the General Election may well be lost already.
The whole party needs to up its game now – another six months of treading water would be madness."
Lord Ashcroft @LordAshcroft
@Markfergusonuk @TimMontgomerie Mark. Start to practice panicking now!
If Andy Burnham’s Guardian interview had a target, it wasn’t Ed Miliband - it was Ed Balls labli.st/199X081
The biggest variable in the employment statistics is the proportion of working age population who are inactive and not seeking work. Over the first few months of this year we saw UK employment reach record levels but the unemployment rate remain relatively unchanged. The reasons given were that there were large transfers of individuals from the economically inactive classification to job seekers, matching and sometimes exceeding the numbers moving from job seeking to employment.
The impact of this variable is more marked in the US. Take for example this extract from the BoE Inflation Report:
US non-farm payrolls have risen by around 200,000 a month in recent quarters. But over the recovery as a whole, employment growth has been modest, leaving the employment rate broadly flat. The number of people who are neither in work nor actively seeking a job has, however, risen significantly, reflecting both cyclical and structural factors. The resulting decline in participation has contributed to much of the fall in the unemployment rate, which fell from its peak of 10% in October 2009 to 7.6% in June 2013.
The UK recently has seen the opposite effect. Compare and contrast with the passage on the UK:
One reason why unemployment has been persistently high, despite robust employment growth, is that participation — the number of people in work or actively seeking employment — has held up. Delayed retirement by older people has supported participation, partly offsetting the downward trend from an ageing population. In addition, some of those who were previously inactive have joined the labour force, prompted, for example, by changes to the benefits regime.
It's Gordon's in work benefits, innit.
What if he misses?
Will the Labour Membership numbers fall by 13,000?
I'm pleased to see that he isn't going into the dustbin quietly.
What do you think Dave should do to stop numbers falling. Tory numbers could well be sub 75k by 2015.
Too much to expect of a Labour Govt. Every Labour Govt. has left office with unemployment higher than when it entered office.
Maybe they should consider a name change?
BTW, good to see Andy Burnham joining those realising Ed Miliband will never be Prime Minister.
@SouthamObserver
Individually the are good, and in the case of Cook and Pietersen very good. But as a unit the top 6 fails to deliver far too often. Averages are all that we have, but they hide a multitude of sins and scenarios. Big scores against poor bowling attacks do not negate giving your wicket away or the inability to deal with decent spinners. We do not get enough first innings big totals for our collective unit to be considered anything other than mediocre.
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This Aussie bowling line up are generally considered to be pretty good, the batting line up the worst in decades.
In the case of Cook & Pietersen I think it goes beyond very good. They will probably be the top two all time run scorers in test cricket for England soon.
I think to describe our current bowlers as "exceptional" and batsmen as "mediocre" is a very extreme view, one that will not be shared by many people who know anything about cricket.
Averages contain great scores against poor attacks etc for all batsman since cricket began, hence the "average" over all tests being the definitive resource for judging a player. If you choose to think they are misleading, that's down to you. Again, it is an extreme view that would be dismissed by most people as plain wrong.
Tories are a sturdy lot.
Surby might even refer to them as burly.
I don't think Carney is seeking to engineer a pre-election boom. However, Osborne would have been well aware of Carney's views well in advance of appointing him and no rises in interest rates combined with rising house prices before the GE certainly suit the Chancellor very nicely. I doubt it is all a coincidence and I worry it will cause problems further down the line because jobs in and of themselves are a poor measure of economic performance (as you explained) and because it may well mean more precipitous rises when they do come. That's before you throw in the increased danger of debt-fuelled consumer spending. As I said the other day, I now expect the Tories to win most seats in 2015, but to be facing something of a crisis around the time of the EU referendum. Obviously, I hope I am wrong on any number of levels.
I now put that at a 15% chance.
Investments and savings with virtually no interest mean real falls in income so how can individuals retire ? Answer , they can't so they stay in work. The corollary of this is that organisations trying to make older and longer-serving people redundant realise the huge problem that causes in redundancy payments and pension payments.
The BoE extended stimulus is as much caused by Osborne as the financial crash was caused by Gordon's elevation to PM in 2007. Much fun though it is to argue both, they are rather boringly more coincidental than causal.
George definitely has luck behind him. Gordon entered became PM just before a cyclical crash (however deep and accelerated by prior fiscal policy it was still coincidental) and George's [first] term as CoE is likely to end with two years of cyclical upturn (however fast and early the upturn is relative to the UK's main competitors).
If you dig below the surface of the 'new' BoE monetary policy it is clear that unemployment is only being used as a guide and composite indicator rather than a target. There are so many other metrics which will weigh in on future policy decisions that we needn't worry too much about artificial distortions caused by the headline policy.
And anyway, for all the theorising and policy definition, if the Fed and ECB ratcheted up their interest rates the BoE would quickly follow with a duly announced intellectualised rationalisation.
Which of course makes tim 15% right 15% of the time. A good mark for a Scouser.
Many Times readers think Giles needs to get a dog.
I think though fiscal policies have had more influence. The jump in self-employed numbers where earnings are reported at the threshold levels necessary to reap the optimum in work benefits is remarkable. The much missed G! or Nicomachus linked to a blog by a full time musician and part time economist which very ably advocated this trend as a cause of high labour force participation and low productivity.
I have also seen arguments that maternity benefit changes have encouraged more women to return earlier to active participation.
But the whole productivity fall, active/inactive participation issue is full of theories and absent of consensus as to cause. But it will increasingly become a topic for public debate especially now the BoE has linked monetary policy, at least in the eyes of the public, to falling unemployment rates.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BRUN4KBCYAAtVJs.jpg:large
Most kipper sympathisers that I know have a zero nuanced view of the world. They would demand particular actions without acknowledgement of the collateral consequences. I see nothing nasty about the government's recent activities on immigration, just firm actions and statements. ConHome has been a refuge for kippers for many years. Some kippers in the Mail think we should invade Spain ref Gibraltar!
Northern Rock showed the enormous potential destabilising effect of a sizeable financial institution collapsing. Just as the fuel crisis of 2000 showed how vulnerable modern societies were to a disruption of petrol, so Northern Rock showed how vulnerable we were to a disruption in the supply and availability of money.
Having a major bank such as an RBS, HBOS or a Lloyds collapse, with queues in the streets and ATMs switched off and the potential social and political consequences of such an event, became unthinkable and so the bailout was conceived. All significant public-facing financial institutions would have to be rescued if they got into trouble, all depositors would have their savings guaranteed to a significant level to prevent a panic.
The problem is there was at that time no mechanism to allow a bank or a major financial institution to be wound down or wound up without significant consequences elsewhere in the sector as the collapse of Lehman Brothers demonstrated.
Northern Rock not only forestalled Brown's plans for a snap Autumn election but it coloured the response of his Government to the growing crisis and committed the British public to an involuntary investment of billions of pounds via the backdoor nationalisation of key banks.
The 2011 riots showed just how ill-prepared the authorities were for a significant disruptive event - modern societies function on a number of key factors - the availability of money is one of them. I strongly suspect that had a Conservative Government been in power at the time of Northern Rock, its response would have been identical.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nicolas-sarkozy/10233493/Sarkos-biding-his-time-he-wants-revenge-on-Francois-Hollande.html
George Osborne has, I think, been cleverer than you (or most pundits) allow. Carney provides intellectual cover for a growth strategy without the Chancellor needing publicly to concede Plan A has failed.
As to Henry's OP -- it really ought not to be too difficult for HMG to direct some investment at Conservative marginal seats in the north. As part of a one-nation growth strategy -- we're all in this recovery together -- and not for vulgar, vote-grubbing reasons, you understand.
The master strategist could yet win this.
On Blair -' “I had come to recognise that for all his attractive qualities, his talent for friendship, his acts of personal generosity, his genuine religious faith, Tony was, at the end of the day, a politician. On some level, it seemed to me, Tony really was just in it for himself.”
Was Levy hung to dry by the man he admired?
“There are moments when one feels upset,” he offers. “I was upset. I’ve known Tony a long time. Tony’s a good friend. It was tricky but if you’ve got a good friendship it can survive difficulties. And it was a very difficult moment. '
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10234674/Lord-Levy-interview-Miliband-Not-brilliant-not-very-bad...-just-so-so.html
I strongly suspect that had a Conservative Government been in power at the time of Northern Rock, its response would have been identical.
At high level, yes. A Conservative Government would have intervened to ensure continued liquidity and operations.
But at tactical level, the Labour Government made a number of avoidable mistakes, not least of which was the leak to the press that the BoE was propping up NR's liquidity in August 2007. It was this which caused the run on deposits and queues outside closed branches.
Also the follow-up was clumsy with most of the original directors resigning in September, a new Board appointed with the task of drawing up a rescue plan which was then frustrated by shareholders at an EGM in January 2008, causing an pre-emptory takeover by Darling and yet another new Board appointed in March.
It should be remembered that Northern Rock's operations were potentially solvent at the time of its troubles arising in August 2007. This was confirmed in a letter by the Chairman of the FSA to Darling and King. (The Tripartitie regulatory arrangement - joint decisions by Treasury, BoE and FSA - was also a clumsy structure with which to deal with financial crises)
NR was a victim of two events beyond its control: the failure of interbank lending (10% of NR's funding) and the collapse of the mortgage backed securities market (US originated and accounting for 40% of NR's funding).
In this climate, it would have been difficult for the government to persuade NR to sell out to a large bank with a stronger funding base: all banks at the time were very nervous. So a medium term funding arrangement through the BoE would have been the answer (but without a leak).
As it turned out NR was just the tip of the iceberg and even had it been quietly saved it would not have averted the financial crash and crisis with the bigger banks in 2008-9.
And none of this is to suggest that NR's business model of high growth, high risk lending and a dependency on financial markets and securitisation for 50% of its funding requirements was prudent.
All this, of course, is now being solved with new regulatory and capital adequacy requirements ultimately imposed by a single body, the Bank of England. But the Coalition government did have the benefit of hindsight before sorting this out, even if a minority of Conservatives (Peter Lilley in particular) sounded the warning knell as far back as 1997.
In other news, we're in Boston now at the end of our great American road trip. It has been stupendous. We fly home tomorrow and but before we do we are off to Beantown's finest steakhouse, Abe & Louie's, for lunch to eat our weights in high grade meat. Warning: I may post pissed later. If I do, will anyone be able to tell the difference??
He needs some good news with which to wake Nick Palmer up.
And England need a bloody wicket.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-23638527