Matt T

Game - find the oldest liberal betrayal

2010-03-17T14:01:00.002Z

I saw a comment on today's Telegraph website bemoaning liberals (Wilson) for cancelling the TSR2 plane. This was in response to a piece on education. Can anyone find a recent declaration of liberal betrayal from even longer ago?

Heckling in 1964

2010-03-14T19:28:00.001Z

Good Adam Curtis find on a film about heckling.

Carla Bruni is not having an affair....

2010-03-10T21:37:00.003Z

...at least not with "Benjamin Biolay, a musician and a winner at France's recent Victoires de la Musique awards".

How do I know? Because I remember her cri de coeur, "I want a man with nuclear weapons". Benjamin Biolay does not have nuclear weapons.

Update: I guess she might have changed her mind - that a man with nuclear weapons is not all he is cracked up to be.

Britain at no.11?

2010-03-10T13:21:00.002Z

William Hague says today that by 2015 Britain will no longer be in the top 10 economies. Presumably he is basing it on this.

But is it realistic? The IMF forecasts out to 2014, and by that date it has (using current dollars) this order - US, China, Japan, Germany, France, UK, putting us in sixth position - then Italy, Brazil, Russia, India, Canada. The exchange rate assumption then is 1.61 sterling to the dollar, which is clearly about 6% higher than the current rate. The euro assumption is 1.364, so about 1% higher than the current rate. Thus on current exchange rates the IMF's numbers would be 5% lower for the UK. But our GDP is forecast then to be $2,919bn, and Italy's $2,355bn. Today it takes a 1.08 exchange rate to make Italy's GDP higher than ours; the current rate is about 1.10, so the IMF is also forecasting stronger UK growth than in Italy. History suggests this is likely (recent history at least) but if it isn't and the exchange rate v euro doesn't improve, the UK could fall to seventh. [see here for more on this comparision]

To fall to eight it must go below Brazil, and on IMF figures this would require 2 reals to the pound, up from 2.7 at present. To fall below India will need 57 rupees, from the current 68, which seems possible. Canada would require 1.08, from 1.53 at present.

So it seems likely that the UK could lose some places, on the other hand if the euro weakens it will gain two (Italy and France). It seems unlikely it will fall to 11th however.

Using PPP exchange rates makes it seem even less likely, even thoug on this measure the IMF has the UK at 7th by 2014. This is because it remains 60% higher than Canada, and and 30% higher than Italy according to IMF estimates - a large gap to make up (of course PPP estimates can be revised, but this seems unlikely between these countries). In general I think Hague is wrong.

ps [note this data is to 2014 - to 2015 makes it a little less comfortable for the UK]
pps Also Hague says: "Under a Conservative government, the Foreign Office budget would not depend on fluctuations in the exchange rate (as it does under a system introduced in 2007)". How strange to ignore the signals sent by a flexible exchange rate.

More Than Mind Games has moved

2010-03-06T22:11:00.001Z

Its new home is at http://www.morethanmindgames.com/ so type that in your browser or click here.

If Michael Foot had won...

2010-03-06T19:36:00.003Z

Yes, he's trying to be funny. But this Andrew Roberts piece really does read as if was a joint effort at 2am after too much whisky in some London club. The only thing that suggests that isn't quite what happened is it doesn't mention Rhodesia.

It's noticeable - I'm making a point Dan made recently - that Roberts has to explain who every single person in the article is. It is also - as one might expect - all the euros fault.

Defence inflation is faster than normal inflation?

2010-03-06T10:05:00.003Z

I have no idea why Lord Guthrie is taken as an independent expert on this, but:

"Defence inflation runs higher than normal inflation so when additional money has gone to defence over the years, the spending power of that money has reduced.

A paper here claims it is 3% higher than normal inflation. This however surely leads us to a rather unfortunate conclusion, which is that as that is higher than the long-term rate of GDP growth, the UK's military capacity can only be maintained with an ever increasing share of GDP going on defence spending.

Another paper here disputes the Kirkpatrick figures with the point that it ignores (or downplays) productivity and quality improvements. The difficulty with military equipment is the quality improvements over time tend to be because your opponents equipment is getting better as well, so there is no real advantage (think of the Dreadnought). But this paper argues there has been an increase in relative quality.

By they way I tend to instinctively disbelieve people who claim that their inflation rate is higher than the average, simply because so many people claim it for so many things they can't all be right.

Kray twins bingo

2010-03-04T11:07:00.002Z

Here we go, I will call out the comments to this piece and you mark them off. Shout 'house' when you win.

In order

'They were evil but they were respected for looking after locals'
'Say what you may, that was a time when your grandmother could walk the streets...'
'I would be safer if those...'
'If they were around today...'
'Legends'
'No one mugged pensioners'
'At least it was safe to walk the streets'

News

2010-02-23T16:43:00.001Z

The Telegraph's lead headline is now about George Osborne's brother. It's not hard to work out why the media is in crisis, is it?

Rawnsley

2010-02-23T08:24:00.004Z

I imagine some of his stories are exaggerated, but he has been told them in good faith and describe 'essentially' truthful scenes. The problem is in the last few days he has been a bit slippery - simple (and not that interesting) example, but I noticed it, last night when Paxman said 'you said your source could not be better', Rawnsley countered 'I said it was 24k' (implying, surely, that he didn't say it 'could not be better'). Yet he did:

Sir Gus O'Donnell spoke to the Prime Minister about his behaviour. My source for that could not be better.

I assume the point of this was to deflect from that Tweet (always a risky one) as it does imply (assuming this was a very private conversation) the source must be one of very few people - Paxman suggest it must be GO'D or GB, I guess maybe a private secretary as well? In any case 'could not be better' or not, as Robert Harris pointed out last time around, Rawnsley's 'private information' almost always means somone who was in the conversation.

But clearly there is another option, and it's one that Harris did not consider:

Andrew Rawnsley is bugging No.10 Downing Street

You heard it here first.

ps The bullying charity women is surely not a Tory front. She apparently had a bullying experience at BAE and seems genuine in her opposite.
pps Brown has said GO'D made the denial Rawnsley claims he didn't, so presumably GO'D if he disagrees will issue another statement today...

Tories worsen government debt position

2010-02-21T09:35:00.001Z

Apparently they're thinking of selling off state assets at a massive discount to their true value.

Letters from Economists

2010-02-19T14:56:00.003Z

It's been a strange week for letters from economists.

Sunday saw a letter to the Sunday Times from lots of economists saying we need more budget cuts and quickly (I believe, obviously I didn't bother to read it). The significance of this was not in its contents, however, but in the fact that it ended a period of 29 years for British Conservatives in which every single public pronouncement by an economist they disagreed was greeted with a mention of 'that time in 1981 when 365 economists wrote the Sunday Times and then immediately afterwards ever thing in the economy got better'. Now suddenly economists writing to the Sunday Times were intellectual geniuses, skewering the false arguments of the Treasury and laying the groundwork for George Osborne to become Chancellor.

Today we have a letter to the Financial Times from lots of economists saying largely the opposite (I believe, obviously I didn't bother to read it) and now economists are back in their box as idiots.

Economists, I fear, need to rethink their strategy. If you worked for a profession notorious for giving conflicting advice, this isn't the way to proceed.

James Purnell announce he is stepping down as MP

2010-02-19T11:33:00.004Z

purnell
Originally uploaded by mjtphotos

Amazing scenes.

UPDATE: The Guardian reports "Labour stunned as James Purnell announces he will quit as MP and follow in footsteps of Barack Obama". Crikey, I can predict the future!

Defence of the Realm

2010-02-18T20:00:00.001Z

A Times editorial says this:

Israel has the right to exist, to flourish and to protect itself from those who threaten its security. That is a point undisputed by the West, by this newspaper and even by a growing number of Arab states. How it protects itself and what are the threats perceived by its Government should not be the business of anyone else:

Well forget it's about Israel. Is it true that 'how' a democratic state protects itself is not the business of any other state or actor?

Olney pancake race has been ruined, absolutely ruined

2010-02-17T13:23:00.005Z

Yes, it will never be the same again. This is a story that will shock you to the core. The BBC, at gunpoint, forced the organiser of this 1,795 year old race to let their presenter, a man, take place. The Corporation also used a special form of poison gas which made all the competitors take place against the will.

"The race is not what it once was..." said local resident Geoff Bacchus. ..Another resident Sally Harris, 48, added: "It's a real shame to ruin this ancient tradition and quite unnecessary. This has always been something for the women of the town and now it has all been thrown away. It will never be the same again"

In fact I very much doubt if it's worth running next year at all. You can read more about the betrayal of all that made Britain great here.

Shopkeepers in London suffered their worst January for five years...

2010-02-16T12:05:00.004Z

No, it was almost certainly their best January ever - sales rose 3.5% from 2009. Furthermore:

London fared better than the rest of the UK where sales fell 0.7 per cent in January in the worst performance for 15 years.

I don't have the run of data to hand, but I expect it wasn't their worst performance for 15 years, but their second best performance for 15 years (might be 3rd best if 2008 was better too).*

* Update: Actually this is the same data as in my post of 9th February.

In Lunacy Poker, this might be the royal flush

2010-02-10T20:52:00.001Z

Con Coughlin, who apparently is going to blame the murder of innocent civilians on judges, rather than terrorists. If it happens. I think.

Daily Mail demands youth less law-abiding and more violent

2010-02-10T15:46:00.001Z

Rather oddly.

Tories and history

2010-02-09T12:49:00.003Z

I don't think sonderkommando is a sensible wordto use in a newsletter (I think suspension is rather harsh, but I suppose you have to do kick up a fuss as that's what they would do if the boot was on the other foot), but surely he doesn't know what the sonderkommando did and was just using it as a (wrongly) fancy word for commando?

Aha, maybe he meant this lot?

Shop sales 'worst for 15 years'

2010-02-09T08:25:00.002Z

So is the headline on this BBC piece.

Have a guess if that's true or not? That's right, it's not. In fact shop sales were the best since records began.

The article itself is more accurate, it's the 'worst growth' for 15 years. But let's put this into perspective, the rate of growth was 1.2% (like-for-like was a fall of 0.9%, but that's irrelevant in a macro sense). I don't have the figures to hand, but if GDP in January (which would have to be estimated) was 1.2% higher than in January 2009 it would be a pretty good result. And in a recession partly caused by overstretched household budgets!!

The Tories and the deficit

2010-02-06T22:12:00.004Z

The Tories seem to have got themselves into a muddle here. As far as I can see the problem is that they want to cut the size of the state, and yet everyone who knows anything about it is telling them that to do so significantly early on would send the economy back into recession.

There seems to me two coherent ways out of this). One, they could cut government spending by (say) equivalent of 2-3% of GDP (or 1% or 5% of whatever they want) in their first budget, and cut taxes by the same amount. This would leave the deficit unchanged but meet their objectives of reducing the size of the state. Or two, they could keep spending and taxation the same, but alter its composition. This would be to reduce spending on things that are ongoing, i.e. salaries, and increase it on things that can be reduced more easily; this might be direct consumption spending but in practice I think it'd be easier to do transfer payments. So sack X% of the public sector workforce or scrap Trident and give every citizen a one-off �500 (or whatever is is). This would keep the deficit the same and the 'size of the state' but make it easier to cut in future.

I'm not saying these policies would be better than the current policy or easy to implement, but I think it would show an understanding that the deficit and the size of the state are related but distinct things.

ps 24/02/10: Policy Exchange catches up!

Marr

2010-02-05T19:57:00.002Z

I think this site has led the way in being critical of Andrew Marr over the years, from the embarrassing time when he pretended to be his children's pet guinea pig, the arrogant and silly questioning of Gordon Brown, and of course the thing we're not allowed to mention.

Having said that I am enjoying his TV series on British history, which I saw for the first time tonight. I'm alarmed at his appearance though.

Razor blades

2010-02-04T14:12:00.003Z

I'm reading Short List magazine and there's an advert for Gillette Fusion Power, a newish razor. It has the strapline:

"You wouldn't drive on worn tyres. So why shave with blunt blades"

Well perhaps for the simple reason that a set of worn tyres might kill you, but a blunt blade won't? Or simply that new car tyres don't cost about ten times the cost of the car and don't wear out in about a week.?

Chess computers

2010-02-02T04:42:00.001Z

Kasparov on computers, humans and chess.

More on marriage

2010-01-18T19:46:00.002Z

Matthew d'Ancona in the Evening Standard notes that those deriding the �20/week marriage bonus proposed by some Tories (IDS's lot):

...forget how poor the poor truly are: the least affluent 10% have a disposable income of less than �90/week. So for them an additional �20/week would be no small windfall.

But can this be true? The IDS proposal is a transferable personal allowance. So the receiver gains 20% on just over �5k a year, which works out at �10/week. However to gain this surely you need to earn two personal allowances - more than �200/week.