Primrose Hill and machine guns
I was wandering around Primrose Hill yesterday at lunchtime and walking down Fitzroy Road there's a rather unexciting flat which is guarded by two policemen with machine guns.
I presume it is something like where the Israeli ambassador lives, but it seemed a bit small.
Labels: London
The London Mayor
Well that was almost easy. As I scanned the ballot paper I saw the fascists, the man who apparently is in alliance with fascists, the one who looks like a fascist, and then the one who just might be a fascist. And then I saw it - it said "Vote Matt". The ballot paper was speaking to me. Here was my candidate.
He's a bit disappointing, however. You can't have much confidence in a man whose election literature has a more
prominent picture of another party's politician than of the candidate and who apparently has already dropped out of the race. Oh, and apparently he's a Father4Justice. So a 2nd preference then.
For the London Assembly candidate I went with my traditional policy of voting for the candidate who lives closest to me. This was a Lib Dem.
ps Why in the
'about Matt O'Connor' section does he get a good write up from so many men's magazines such as Esquire and GQ? Does the F4J play well with their readers. But..."“Captain of Dad’s Army”, GQ Magazine, 2005" - is surely nonsense? The Captain of Dad's Army was Captain Mainwaring.
Labels: elections
Blogging will be light to non-existent for the next month
...personal and professional commitments...need a break...got other things to prioritise...er yes I've bought Grand Theft Auto IV!
Labels: computers
The Mayor election
Ken Livingstone may well lose to Boris Johnson next week. If he does, he should not blame Labour's national difficulties.
says the Guardian.
Now we only have polls to go on at the moment, and the polls are very erratic, partly this is because the 2nd preference votes are hard to estimate with any precision (as noted in the Economist this week) but even the 1st preferences are showing big differences.
But if we average them out, then it suggests Livingstone is performing better relative to the Labour Party than he did at the last election. Then he got 35.7% of the first preferences, when the opinion polls put Labour on 34.6%. This time he is polling an average of 40% when the opinion polls put Labour on 30.6%.
Of course the polls might be overstaing his share of the vote, although the above holds true even for the most pessimistic poll. And the London share of the vote for Labour might be higher than the national share of the vote, or more accurately might be higher relative to the rest of the UK share of the vote than it was back in 2001.
But if the polls are even nearly right, then Livinstone appears to be running about 10% above the Labour share, compared to 1% last time.
Labels: London Mayor
Old colour pics of Britain
From the Daily Mail - I'm not sure how new
these are but they're good quality. Any idea where the London residential street with the house with the new looking conservatory is?
UPDATE: Letters page today tells us it is Grimston Avenue in FOLKESTONE.
Labels: London colour
Children kick-boxing
Not sure what to make of
this, it looks like something Chris Morris would dream up.
Labels: Daily Mail
Was World War II pointless?
asks Peter Hitchens. I was looking forward to this article when I saw the headline, but soon in he mentions Patrick Buchanan, and the heart sinks. Also I think there's some dodgy facts - Churchill's anti-semitic article (about which Hitchens expresses doubt) was to some extent dealt with
here, and whilst it is true the Soviet Union did a lot of fighting in WWII, I don't think you can say the UK did 'most' of it compared with the USA.
Hitchens conclusion is that we fought the war against Germany, but Germany now dominates us through the EU, the Empire is gone, and the US has 'supplanted us forever'. This critique isn't that new, as wasn't it John Charmley's argument in 'End of Glory'? To some extent also it is slightly outdated, to the extent Germany ever 'dominated' the EU (with France, presumably) it does so less today, and the UK's relative economic strength vis-a-vis it is the highest since 1990.
But of course British's global power has been declining almost ever year since 1945, a process that has accelerated in the last decade. But that seems to me an inevitable consequence of having only 60m people in a world of more than 6bn, one which unless the Empire was maintained, was always going to be the case at some point. And the Empire was never going to be maintained - it was dying before World War II after all.
Labels: World War II
One lawn MOWED!
I think my lawn is about 9m by 3m, and yet I still find it absolute exhausting the first time its mowed after the winter.
Anyway at least it looks nice now in case Prince William pops by for a cup of tea, or 10 pints of Stella.
Labels: lawn mowing, Monarchy
Residential care for the elderly
The enormous house price inflation the UK has witnessed since Labour took office has created large windfall gains for homeowners, gains which decline the more recently they purchased their house. The generation, then, that is likely to die in the next 20-30 years has been the biggest winner, and it seems Tory policy is to do anything to let them, or more accurately their children, keep hold of those gains. First we had plans for cuts in inheritance tax, at the expense of higher taxes elsewhere, and now we have suggestions of
free (after a time limit) residential care for elderly people who can't look after themselves (and neither can/will their children).
I can see arguments in favour of this policy, but more against it. As normal it will mean higher taxes elsewhere, i.e. mainly on people aged 20-40 today. I would suggest a compromise in which the cost can be deferred until after death, and come in the form of a special inheritance tax (which otherwise won't be levied given the tax changes).
Labels: inheritance tax, Taxation
The 10p starting rate
Robert Chote, of the IFS, has a
good article on what is going on. Basically its the policy that Labour have followed since 1997 - support for pensioners and households with children, at the expense (or at least without benefitting) single adults. There is of course a good case for this as Chote notes -pensioners and children have the least ability to do anything about their own income. But it perhaps doesn't feel like that if you are a poor to relatively poor single person.
Labels: economics, Taxation
