Politics

[Christmas Tree 3997]

Prime Ministers Questions

 

Tried looking for somewhere to watch this today (as a repeat) and the usual suspects, Sky and BBC dont seem to repeat it on the day. However found this site

 

http://www.number10.gov.uk/number-10-tv/pr...sters-questions

 

Which seems to broadcast it straight away.

 

 

 

Thought Cameron was again very good today and is definitely trying to be very inclusive and straight as demonstrated by his invitation to Harriet Harman to attend a meeting with him straight after PMQ's

 

Also thought Harriet did well again and am sure Labour Grass roots must be cursing that she hasnt through her hat in the ring for Leader.

 

Bridget definitely going for the serious look and seems to struggle with the word huge. Its huge Philipa not yuge

Edited June 9, 2010 by Christmas Tree

[Christmas Tree 3997]

Bridget also made her maiden speech tonight.

 

Follow her on twitter

 

http://twitter.com/bphillipsonMP

[Christmas Tree 3997]

And George W on facebook

 

http://www.facebook.com/georgewbush#!/georgewbush?v=wall

[The Fish 8989]

Prime Ministers Questions

 

Tried looking for somewhere to watch this today (as a repeat) and the usual suspects, Sky and BBC dont seem to repeat it on the day. However found this site

 

http://www.number10.gov.uk/number-10-tv/pr...sters-questions

 

Which seems to broadcast it straight away.

 

 

 

Thought Cameron was again very good today and is definitely trying to be very inclusive and straight as demonstrated by his invitation to Harriet Harman to attend a meeting with him straight after PMQ's

 

Also thought Harriet did well again and am sure Labour Grass roots must be cursing that she hasnt through her hat in the ring for Leader.

 

Bridget definitely going for the serious look and seems to struggle with the word huge. Its huge Philipa not yuge

 

So glad you're not biased or owt...

[Christmas Tree 3997]

Prime Ministers Questions

 

Tried looking for somewhere to watch this today (as a repeat) and the usual suspects, Sky and BBC dont seem to repeat it on the day. However found this site

 

http://www.number10.gov.uk/number-10-tv/pr...sters-questions

 

Which seems to broadcast it straight away.

 

 

 

Thought Cameron was again very good today and is definitely trying to be very inclusive and straight as demonstrated by his invitation to Harriet Harman to attend a meeting with him straight after PMQ's

 

Also thought Harriet did well again and am sure Labour Grass roots must be cursing that she hasnt through her hat in the ring for Leader.

 

Bridget definitely going for the serious look and seems to struggle with the word huge. Its huge Philipa not yuge

 

So glad you're not biased or owt...

 

 

So complimenting Cameron and Harman in the same post is bias?

 

Rightyo Fishy

[The Fish 8989]

Prime Ministers Questions

 

Tried looking for somewhere to watch this today (as a repeat) and the usual suspects, Sky and BBC dont seem to repeat it on the day. However found this site

 

http://www.number10.gov.uk/number-10-tv/pr...sters-questions

 

Which seems to broadcast it straight away.

 

 

 

Thought Cameron was again very good today and is definitely trying to be very inclusive and straight as demonstrated by his invitation to Harriet Harman to attend a meeting with him straight after PMQ's

 

Also thought Harriet did well again and am sure Labour Grass roots must be cursing that she hasnt through her hat in the ring for Leader.

 

Bridget definitely going for the serious look and seems to struggle with the word huge. Its huge Philipa not yuge

 

So glad you're not biased or owt...

 

 

So complimenting Cameron and Harman in the same post is bias?

 

Rightyo Fishy

Chomp on fella, chomp on.

[Park Life 70]

When things are bad the poor pay, when things are good the rich make money.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

When things are bad the poor pay, when things are good the rich make money.

 

 

The rich make money regardless.

 

Debt collection is the market to get into

[Park Life 70]

When things are bad the poor pay, when things are good the rich make money.

 

 

The rich make money regardless.

 

Debt collection is the market to get into

 

We've probably got the highest amount of unpaid personal debt in Europe bar Greece.

[peasepud 59]

You said it was going to cost your brother a bomb.

 

It was only a trial. He doesnt live in a trial area. Trials do not always get rolled out, thats why they are trials.

 

I have nothing against any schemes like this, WHEN the country can afford it.

 

There are thousands of very worthy ideas about helping the less well off, but if we havent got the money, we havent got the money.

 

As for slagging the Tories off for not EXTENDING this trial, its not their fault the country is so in debt and overspent.

 

Had Labour reduced the debt or not overspent so much in their 13 years then the new Government would be able to increase spending (as previous Tory governments) rather than have to cut expenditure.

 

Anyone who thinks Cameron wants to be in the position of HAVING to cut public spending is stupid, beyond belief.

 

I would have thought that raising PAYE by a mere 0.1% would easily have covered this being extended, Id happily pay that extra tiny bit more to see this continue.

 

Handing out Child Benefit is one thing but that doesnt even help those kids most at risk, Id rather see them halve CB and give all school kids free breakfasts, milk and dinners. Ensure that every kid in the country gets a good start to the day, some additional calcium etc from the milk and a hot meal daily. That way you'll ensure that those most at risk ie the really poor or those with parents who would rather spend the CB on beer, tabs or drugs at least eat.

 

It would also help the school system in giving more reason for these kids to actually attend school.

 

 

Totally agree, can you not hack Camerons computer and set this as his wallpaper.

 

Yet you have no problem at all in backing the closure of a pilot which would go some way towards that because we "need to save money".

[Christmas Tree 3997]

You said it was going to cost your brother a bomb.

 

It was only a trial. He doesnt live in a trial area. Trials do not always get rolled out, thats why they are trials.

 

I have nothing against any schemes like this, WHEN the country can afford it.

 

There are thousands of very worthy ideas about helping the less well off, but if we havent got the money, we havent got the money.

 

As for slagging the Tories off for not EXTENDING this trial, its not their fault the country is so in debt and overspent.

 

Had Labour reduced the debt or not overspent so much in their 13 years then the new Government would be able to increase spending (as previous Tory governments) rather than have to cut expenditure.

 

Anyone who thinks Cameron wants to be in the position of HAVING to cut public spending is stupid, beyond belief.

 

I would have thought that raising PAYE by a mere 0.1% would easily have covered this being extended, Id happily pay that extra tiny bit more to see this continue.

 

Handing out Child Benefit is one thing but that doesnt even help those kids most at risk, Id rather see them halve CB and give all school kids free breakfasts, milk and dinners. Ensure that every kid in the country gets a good start to the day, some additional calcium etc from the milk and a hot meal daily. That way you'll ensure that those most at risk ie the really poor or those with parents who would rather spend the CB on beer, tabs or drugs at least eat.

 

It would also help the school system in giving more reason for these kids to actually attend school.

 

 

Totally agree, can you not hack Camerons computer and set this as his wallpaper.

 

Yet you have no problem at all in backing the closure of a pilot which would go some way towards that because we "need to save money".

 

 

Your point, which I agreed with, was changing the use of existing funds.

 

I could draw up a list of 10 worthy kid projects that I would like introduced but I'm realistic enough to know you can't spend what isn't their.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

Btw, what happened to the other 8 members who voted Tory?

 

It's like being the only gay in the village in this thread at times.

[Matt 0]

And todays theme is university education, now a 'drain on the taxpayer'.

 

Worrying noises- I'll be interested to see what the final outcome is.

 

Bullingdon ringfenced though.

[Dr Gloom 19822]

Btw, what happened to the other 8 members who voted Tory?

 

It's like being the only gay in the village in this thread at times.

 

more shame than you probably

[ewerk 26326]

UK cuts 'to push unemployment close to 3m'

 

 

Government spending cuts will push UK unemployment up from its current 2.5m to almost 3m, a report has warned.

 

Deficit reduction would also stall recovery in the jobs market, employment group the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) said.

 

There was little prospect of real wage growth until at least 2015, and public sector workers faced pay cuts, it said.

 

The chancellor is expected to lay out sweeping cuts to try to trim the £156bn deficit in his budget on 22 June.

'Radical re-engineering'

 

And the business group the CBI has called for £4 in spending cuts for every £1 in tax hikes.

 

It warned that the public finances should be repaired without damaging growth prospects, calling for a shake-up of public services provision to save money through job cuts and sharing back office functions.

 

"A radical re-engineering of public services is a must if damaging tax rises are to be avoided. Only an effective cost reduction strategy can safeguard future growth," CBI deputy director-general John Cridland said.

 

The CIPD had earlier suggested that the jobless total would reach 2.65 million this year.

 

But chief economic adviser John Philpott said he had now revised up his forecast, saying unemployment would climb to 2.95m in the second half of 2012, and remain close to that level until 2015.

 

About 500,000 public sector jobs would go in that period, Mr Philpott predicted.

 

Unemployment is currently 2.51m, according to the latest official figures.

 

The drastic cost-cutting, while necessary, would have serious knock-on effects for many in the UK, Mr Philpott said.

 

"Although tough fiscal medicine is unavoidable and may boost the UK's long-run economic growth and job prospects, reliance on cuts in public spending rather than tax increases as the primary means of cutting the deficit makes the short-term outlook especially bleak for those individuals and communities already suffering the greatest hardship in society.

 

"Given what we know historically about the way in which the social burden of unemployment and stagnant average income growth is shared across individuals and communities, the prospects for those already suffering the most disadvantage seem particularly bleak."

[Guest alex]

And todays theme is university education, now a 'drain on the taxpayer'.

 

Worrying noises- I'll be interested to see what the final outcome is.

 

Bullingdon ringfenced though.

Should cut the numbers though, making them centres of excellence again and re-introduce polys for more vocational courses. Won't happen like.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

Btw, what happened to the other 8 members who voted Tory?

 

It's like being the only gay in the village in this thread at times.

 

more shame than you probably

 

 

 

Definition of Shame

 

"Theres no money left" --- Liam Byrne, Labour Treasury Minister --- 17th May 2010

[spongebob toonpants 3603]

Btw, what happened to the other 8 members who voted Tory?

 

It's like being the only gay in the village in this thread at times.

 

more shame than you probably

 

 

 

Definition of Shame

 

"Theres no money left" --- Liam Byrne, Labour Treasury Minister --- 17th May 2010

 

Definition of Tory. No sense of humour

[Christmas Tree 3997]

Labour's Growth Figures 'Too Optimistic'

 

A new fiscal watchdog will set the scene for the emergency Budget by revealing today that Labour's last growth estimates were too optimistic.

 

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will forecast the economy and the public finances on the basis of no action being taken by government.

 

It is expected to downgrade former Chancellor Alistair Darling's 2011 forecast from 3.25% to 2.5% and pencil in lower figures for the following three years.

 

The estimates by the independent OBR - headed by former Treasury official Sir Alan Budd - will set a gloomy backdrop for George Osborne's Budget on June 22.

 

A downgraded UK growth forecast will ripple through the public finances, impacting tax revenues and pushing up spending.

 

"This would clearly raise the pressure on the Government to take some fairly drastic action in next week's Budget," the research consultancy said.

 

In describing the UK's deficit challenge as "formidable", ratings agency Fitch recently warned that if growth is 1% lower than forecast in 2011, the deficit could be around 2% of GDP higher than current predictions.

 

The OBR will update its forecasts alongside next week's Budget, when policy measures are likely to bring big tax rises, including the previously announced jump in capital gains tax and possibly a hike in VAT.

 

Prime Minister David Cameron said the creation of OBR was designed to "stop any chancellor fiddling the figures ever again" and has already warned that "painful" spending cuts will affect everyone over the coming years.

 

Mr Osborne will also make his first Mansion House speech on Wednesday, when he is expected to say that the Bank of England will be given prime responsibility for preventing or responding to future financial crises.

[NJS 3978]

1. I think the figures may have been too optimistic because of not taking into account the Euro shit rather than electioneering.

 

2. They'll abandon the "independent" stats once they look dodgy for them.

[ChezGiven 0]

Only half of the story, the key data being

 

But the OBR has also predicted that borrowing will be lower than expected. It says borrowing will be £155bn in the current financial year – below the £163bn predicted by Darling – with total net borrowing over the next five years £23bn lower than predicted in the budget.

 

The correct response to the deficit is expansionary fiscal stimulus yet the question still remains, why exactly are the politicians calling for fiscal austerity? What evidence do we have that fiscal austerity of the kind they’re demanding would reassure markets, even if they did lose confidence?

 

Consider, if you will, the comparative cases of Ireland and Spain.

 

Both countries appeared, on the surface, to be fiscally responsible until the crisis hit, with balanced budgets and relatively low debt. Both discovered that this was an illusion: revenues were buoyed by immense real estate bubbles, and when the bubbles burst they plunged into deficit — and found themselves potentially on the hook for large bank losses.

 

The countries responded differently, however. Ireland quickly embraced harsh austerity; Spain has had to be dragged into austerity, and still faces major political unrest.

 

So, how’s it going? This article is typical of what you read: it describes the Irish as doing what has to be done, while the Spaniards dither. And it has good things to say about how the Irish response is working:

 

Much bitterness but also stoicism; markets impressed by Irish resolve to bite the austerity bullet.

 

Well, I guess that’s right — if by “markets impressed” you mean a CDS spread of 226 basis points, compared with 206 points for Spain; not to mention a 10-year bond rate of 5.11 percent, compared with 4.46 percent for Spain.

 

So, I’m glad to hear that Ireland’s stoic acceptance of austerity is reassuring markets; it must be true, because that’s what everyone says. Because if I didn’t know that, I might look at the data and conclude that markets actually have less confidence in Ireland than they do in Spain, and that austerity in the face of a deeply depressed economy doesn’t actually reassure markets at all.

[ChezGiven 0]

The lunatics are back in charge of the economy and they want cuts, cuts, cuts Franklin D Roosevelt's mistake wasn't boosting the economy with government spending, it was heeding the advice of the deficit hawks when he sought re-election and tipping the US economy back into recession

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/ju...ankin-roosevelt

 

The Germans are doing it. The Greeks, the Spanish and the Portuguese believe they have no choice but to do it. George Osborne believes it is his patriotic duty to do it. Around the world, cutting budget deficits has become the priority for policymakers fearful that rising debt levels will leave them at the mercy of capricious financial markets.

 

Mervyn King has applauded the return of fiscal conservatism. So has the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Two months after they urged that budgetary support be maintained until recovery was fully entrenched, finance ministers and central bank governors from the G20 said they welcomed the plans announced by some countries to begin deficit cutting without delay.

 

Budget deficits are certainly high across the G20 and beyond. But they are high primarily because of the severity of the worst recession since the second world war and because of the action taken collectively by governments to prevent that recession turning into something far, far worse.

 

As things stand, a second Great Depression has been averted, but growth has ranged from the weak in Europe to the unspectacular in the United States. Banks are not lending. Unemployment is running at near double-digit levels in the US and the eurozone. The determination to cut budget deficits in these circumstances does not show that policymakers of probity and integrity have replaced the irresponsible spendthrifts of 2008 and 2009. It shows that the lunatics are back in charge of the asylum.

 

As evidence, take David Cameron's warning last week about the need for austerity. The prime minister said: "Nothing illustrates better the total irresponsibility of the last government's approach than the fact that they kept ratcheting up unaffordable government spending even when the economy was shrinking."

 

This brought the apt riposte from Marshall Auerback of the New Deal 2.0 thinktank. "So we're supposed to ratchet up government spending when the economy is growing? When it can present genuine inflationary dangers? If this is the type of policy incoherence we have in store, then God help the United Kingdom."

 

There are economically literate members of the government capable of pointing out to the PM that he is talking dangerous nonsense. Vince Cable is one. Chris Huhne is another. Sadly, though, the Liberal Democrats seem unwilling or unable to mount an argument against policies that now threaten to repeat the mistakes of Japan in the 1990s, when every tentative recovery was snuffed out by over-hasty retrenchment.

 

Let's start with a bit of history. The budget hawks like to cite Geoffrey Howe's draconian 1981 budget as evidence that fiscal tightening is perfectly consistent with economic growth. So it is, providing there is scope for an over-valued pound to depreciate and for excessively high interest rates to be cut. So it is, provided that tumbling oil prices raise the real incomes of consumers and cut costs for businesses. All these things happened in the early 1980s; none of them are likely to occur now. The pound has already fallen by 25%, interest rates are at 0.5% and oil prices show no sign of falling much below $70 (£48) a barrel.

 

The real historical comparison is not with 1981 but, as the American economist Paul Davidson notes, with the US in 1937. On arriving in the White House in 1933, Franklin D Roosevelt used government spending and tax breaks to boost the economy. The US ran deficits of between 2% and 5% during FDR's first term but, while the economy started to pull out of the deep trough reached in 1932, the national debt rose from $20bn to $33bn .

 

Coming up for re-election, Roosevelt heeded the advice of the "sound money" economists who delivered the same sort of warnings that we are hearing today: the US was running unaffordable budget deficits that would impose an intolerable burden on future generations. The budget for 1937 was slashed and the US economy promptly went back into recession. Falling tax revenues meant the budget deficit rose to $37bn.

 

When deficit spending resumed in 1938, the economy started to grow again but did not fully recover until the US entered the second world war. The deficit hawks disappeared into obscurity as the need to win the war trumped all other considerations. By 1945, the US budget deficit stood at more than $250bn or 120% of GDP.

 

But the beneficial spin-off from the war effort was that the domestic economy was humming. Resources that had stood idle in the 1930s were fully utilised and there was full employment. Strong growth brought both the annual deficits and the size of the national debt down in the 1950s. Far from being burdened with unpayable debt, the baby boomers born in the late 1940s and 1950s were the most blessed generation in history.

 

That's enough history. Just as in 1937, private demand in most advanced countries is too weak to sustain the recovery. Budget deficits are a reflection of high unemployment and low levels of private investment. They are also a reflection of the big financial surpluses that have been amassed in the private sector. Animal spirits, in Keynes's phrase, are low. Consumers are worried about losing their jobs and are having their incomes squeezed. That makes businesses anxious about investing.

 

Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research has put some hard numbers on this trend. In the US, the private sector was in deficit by 4% of GDP in 2006 but is now running a surplus of 8% of GDP. In Britain, the corresponding move was from a 1% deficit to a 10% surplus. He estimates that the global private sector surplus is now $3.3 trillion.

 

These are counter-balanced by public sector deficits that also total $3.3tn. The public sector, in other words, has been compensating for a lack of private demand. This spending was not "irresponsible", although a collective attempt to rein in deficits when the private sector recovery is so anaemic certainly would be.

 

Dumas notes: "If some countries deflate their economies in an attempt to cut their government deficits, other countries will have a larger deficit – and even the deflating countries will be partially frustrated in their endeavours. Why? Because they will induce a renewed recession that will hammer tax revenue and enforce greater relief spending." The result, he warns, "will almost certainly be renewed European recession, quite possibly a prolonged depression".

 

So why are they doing it? Is it, for all Nick Clegg's guff about "progressive cuts", that the real agenda is to complete the demolition job on welfare states that was started in the 1980s? Or is simply that the deficit hawks are simply crackers?

 

Either way, we now have the bizarre spectacle of China, Japan, the eurozone and Britain all set on reducing budget deficits while simultaneously pursuing export-led growth. This is a logical absurdity because somebody, somewhere has to be importing all the exports. If the rest of the world assumes that the US is once again going to become the world's spender of last resort it is seriously mistaken.

 

Paul Krugman calls this "utter folly posing as wisdom". Sovereign debt problems are confined to those eurozone countries that have no way to deal with their productivity problems other than to deflate savagely. Bond markets are not freaking out about budget deficits in Britain, the US or Germany, but let's see how they react to a return to the mass unemployment, protectionism and political extremism of 1930s.

• This article was amended on 14 June 2010. The word public was mis-spelt pubic. This has now been corrected.

[Christmas Tree 3997]

What makes me giggle from these posted articles are the bits like....

 

The Germans are doing it. The Greeks, the Spanish and the Portuguese.

 

George Osborne believes it is his patriotic duty to do it. Around the world, cutting budget deficits has become the priority for policymakers.

 

Mervyn King has applauded the return of fiscal conservatism. So has the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

 

China, Japan, the eurozone and Britain all set on reducing budget deficits.

 

 

So basically the majority of the worlds leaders and their highly paid economic advisors are wrong and a few blogging economists are right.

 

Go Figure.

[NJS 3978]

Did you also notice CT that the head of this new body said that Darling's March budget and Labours plans for the government term would have cut the deficit to its required level?

 

Of course they intended to cut as well but at least it was without the relish-filled abandonment of the Tories.

[Renton 17765]

What makes me giggle from these posted articles are the bits like....

 

The Germans are doing it. The Greeks, the Spanish and the Portuguese.

 

George Osborne believes it is his patriotic duty to do it. Around the world, cutting budget deficits has become the priority for policymakers.

 

Mervyn King has applauded the return of fiscal conservatism. So has the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

 

China, Japan, the eurozone and Britain all set on reducing budget deficits.

 

 

So basically the majority of the worlds leaders and their highly paid economic advisors are wrong and a few blogging economists are right.

 

Go Figure.

 

Did you have difficulty understanding that article CT?