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
Le Cafe Anglais
I went
here for my birthday lunch today. It isn't my birthday, that was back in January. But we'd hadn't gone out then, and as we were sat in the restaurant I fancied a glass of champagne, so making someone else pay seemed intelligent.
It's a somewhat strange location, at the top of Whitely's shopping centre and (although it is enclosed) on the food level with the Cafe Rouges, and Yo Sushis. But it's nicely done out, looking a bit like an old-fashioned French bistro, and the Chef Rowley Leigh seems intent on making a nice atmosphere - he was either walking around chatting to the customers or drinking a large glass of red wine. The food was pretty good too - we had a lot of fish - kipper pate and mackarel teriyaki for starters, and fish pie and mackarel and rhubarb as mains. Anyway I'd probably recommend it, especially if there's a big group of you.
Labels: Food/drink
Gordon Brown in America
Time magazine has an article. This seems a good time to reflect on what was behind
Nick Cohen's argument, "Why it is right to be
Anti-American".
...
...Nope, I've read it again and I still don't agree with him that it is 'right' to be Anti-American.
Labels: Nasty anti-Americanism
The UK economy
I had a conversation on email with a UK journalist yesterday who said that although his newspaper editors knew that the stories they were putting out on the economy weren't particularly accurate, to be perfectly accurate wasn't newsworthy.
It's worth noting then that the IMF
forecasts that the UK economy will be the fastest growing of the G7 in 2008. I have no idea whether the IMF will be right or not, but I certainly cannot offer a better forecast, and I am surprised so many people in the media believe they can. Unemployment
fell in March, albeit by just 1,200, and so although it is clear there are bad times ahead, it is somewhat strange that the news media has decided we are already in an economic crisis. Reading the BBC website the other day I half expected to see some men from Jarrow marching past the dooar. I think it's basically to do with the fact that in the UK press - at least the national one - there is amost no distinction made between City news and economic news. Obviously what happens in the City is of enormous importance to the UK economy, but it is not the same thing.
Labels: The Emergency
Hurrah!
The
beta of the new Daily Mail website is here. I think I should add - oh the irony - that generally the mail website probably isn't safe for work for those of you who have strict internet controls.
Labels: Daily Mail
Private property unless it's a nice house
Classic Nimbyism here, or perhaps plain 'idiotarianism' (or more likely the pressure of overbloggin). Tim Worstall rants away in the Spectator
blog about someone not being allowed to destroy their own property anymore, and it being the end of private property etc. Here he
demands action to stop private property being demolish (there's a weak justification in the comments about light, which doesn't really seem to have any foundation). Nick Cohen wasn't fooled.
Labels: Not a Tim Worstall paid blogging spot
YouGov mayor polls
YouGov has been a tremendously successful company - just look at its share price. I'm sure there are many reasons for this, but one must be that its polls have been consistently accurate. I have no reason to believe this is not the case in the London Mayoral election - the latest shows Johnson 6% ahead with 45% to 39%.
It has been noted (by Adam Boulton) that their weighting for the over 55s was very strange. In their poll conducted between the 12-14 March, out of 1005, the poll was weighted so 382 represented the over 55s, which is 38%. The one on the 20-28 March had 1051 people, which was weighted to 408, which again is 38%.
Apparently this was an error, and YouGov then changed their weighting, so the 2nd-4th April poll had 1003 people, of which 281 were over 55, and the latest one, between 9th and 11th April, 1031 people, of which 290 were over 55. This is 28%.
Peter Kellner
told Political Betting that the error made no real difference to the results, as other weighting factors (such as Party ID) compensated for it.
Fair enough. In other words it shows that the age weighting is only part of the weightings and doesn't do much on its own.
However another thing I noticed was that this error seems to have not only crept into the weighting, but the raw sample. Now YouGov's panel, who answer email questions, is not designed to be perfectly representative, and even if they ask a selection of people who are, they cannot guarantee those who reply will be. Nevertheless clearly it is helpful to get a reasonably similar age distribution in responses as you intend to weight to, as it means less statistical manipulation is required.
So looking again at the over 55s:
Respondents to YouGov Mayoral surveys who are over 55
2007
19/12 = 498/995
2008
19/02 = 517/1003
12/03 = 503/1005
20/03 = 557/1051
02/04 = 380/1003
09/04 = 335/1031
These are actually who replied to their survey. So for the first four London Mayoral polls, more than 50% (53% on the 20th March!) of respondents were over 55, not far off double London's real figure and much higher than even their wrong weighting they were aiming for (38%).
Now one can imagine that the near-retired and retired have more time to fill out the surveys, and this would explain why, since the weighting mistake has been pointed out, the no. of over 55s replying to surveys (or presumably who have been asked) has fallen quite sharply, but not back to 27%.
Nevertheless one has to wonder how much statistical manipulation has to be done to a poll when those surveyed are half over 55, when the proportion of the population (in London) is 27%. This again is not necessarily wrong - it is to some extent the way in which the company works. Yougov polls are not random samples, in which the idea is that it is going to be representative of the country, but instead (as far as I understand it) occasionally repeated samples of people of whom they know key characteristics, and therefore from that they can extrapolate about the opinions of others.
Labels: Polls
RICS survey
The Guardian doesn't report
this very well. Yes, the survey shows that the no. of surveyors seeing falling prices exceeded the number who were seeing rising prices by the most since 1978. But that does not mean "house prices are falling at their fastest rate for 30 years'" - more information is required. The article should be balanced by the findings of the FT, Halifax, and Nationwide surveys, and an understanding of what the report means.
Labels: house prices
The weather
What nice weather.
Labels: Weather
The End of an Era
I imagine some of my readers are already sleeping outside a Camden newsagents to make sure they are first in line, but for those not so up to speed with modern music trends prepare yourselves for a momentous announcement:
Stars is considered by many to be Simply Red's finest album and next week The Mail on Sunday is giving it away absolutely free.
Don't believe me? Click
here.
Obviously in one sense I am upset - no-one will enter my competitions any more.
[A big shout out to J.D for alerting me to this event of historical significance]
Labels: Hucknall, Stars
London buses
Also courtesy of
Diamond Geezer,
how London buses got their numbers, with some nice photographs including a good colour one of Totteridge station, which hasn't changed
much (there's still an estate agent) but somehow doesn't look as nice.
Labels: London
London mapped
This is quite groovy - you can see how many Welsh people live near you, or where you area goes from being deprived to very deprived. That sort of thing, with google maps.
Labels: Statistics
Would a few thousand French troops really beat the Taliban in one day?
The Sun declares it to be the case. Any defence experts on hand to say whether this is pratical?
Labels: Afghanistan, France
Will Tories pledge house prices will never fall?
Reading
this story I thought an obvious vote-winner for the Tories, and one which they seem to think is possible, would be to pledge that under a Conservative government the Halifax House Price Index will never show a monthly decline.
They could link it to large gates at Dover. If the Halifax House Price Index started to head towards showing a monthly rise of less than 0.5%, the gates would open and let millions of immigrants flooding in, thus boosting the housing market. When the HHPI (I'm not typing it again) rose above 1% monthly gain, the gates could start to shut, and a 2% they could become electrified. The Houses Immigrant Price Stabliser (HIPS).
Labels: house prices
Diana ultras again
I don't like to dwell on the
man with Diana painted on his forehead, but the BBC
report does contain the rather amusing line from the Coroner's summing up to the Jury:
"No one except you and I and, I think, the gentleman in the public gallery with Diana and Dodi painted on his forehead has sat through every word of evidence," said Lord Justice Scott Baker
Labels: Diana
Yikes, I'm financially illiterate!
It is a “well-established fact” that “a substantial proportion of the general public in the English-speaking world is ignorant of finance,” writes Niall Ferguson, an historian at Harvard University, in his forthcoming book about the history of finance, “The Ascent of Money”. He produces a long list of evidence to support this conclusion. According to one survey last year, four in ten American credit-card holders do not pay the full amount due every month on the credit card they use most often, despite the punitive interest rates charged by credit-card companies. Nearly one-third said they had no idea what the interest rate on their credit card was.
I suppose the point is that even if people want to borrow they should get a personal loan, which will be at much lower interest rates, but I'm not sure it always works like that even. I think this is more worrying:
Often borrowers did not even realise that their monthly payment would rise if interest rates went up, says Mr Bryant
All this from this, which I believe is a worthy
project. although I could see how if introduced here it would quickly turn into a promotional campaign for various banks.
Back to Niall:
Financial illiteracy is not limited to subprime mortgage borrowers, then; it is pervasive in all age groups, income brackets and countries. “Subprime is a mere symptom,” says Mr Ferguson, noting that many of the students he has taught in the “best universities in the world, including MBA programmes, don't even know the difference between the nominal and real interest rate.”
Ah ha! A real interest rate is expected nominal interest rates over your time horizon deflated by the expected inflation rate.
Labels: finace
