Matt T

Is Wales still with us?

2009-06-30T11:48:00.004Z

UK GDP fell by 2.4% in Q1 09 over Q4 08 [1][2], which following on from a 1.8% decline in Q4 08, 0.7% in Q3 08 and 0.1% in Q2 08, means a 4.9% year-on-year decline.

To put this in some context, it is as if the entire Welsh economy had ceased to be plus a bit of Cornwall.

[1] Seasonally adjusted, otherwise it's nearly a 4% quarterly drop.
[2] Biggest since 1958 all the papers are saying, which suggests the ONS briefed them on it, but all the data I have says Q1 1974 was slightly larger.

Dumbing down

2009-06-23T16:04:00.003Z

There's something a little strange reading about 'dumbing down' in the Daily Telegraph.

I can't quite put my finger on it...

Volatility in British poltics

2009-06-22T07:28:00.002Z

Peter C challanged me a few weeks back on my statement that the concept of 'record swing' was less important as political trends had got more volatile. He noted that parties seemed to retain power for longer now than they used to. I'm still not backing down, but my initial attempt to prove this hasn't worked. Using this excellent resource of Guardian ICM polls back to 1984, and filling in a few monthly gaps by interpolation (only about four polls in the mid 1980s and strangely February this year) the following chart shows the average monthly change in the Conservative share of the vote over the past year. I've used absolute values, so if the Conservatives over the past year went up 1%, down 1%, up 1%, down 1% and so on, that would average at 1%, not 0%.

Anyway in the year to Feb 2009 the Conservative vote share has been more volatile on this measure than at any time since May 1989, but on the other hand in Feb 2006 and then before in Feb 02 it was less volatile than any other period, and if there is a trend it probably is towards less volatility (dividing the % change by their vote share doesn't make much of a difference, by the way). I suppose this is partly because a lot of this period they have been down to their core support, but that of course is not helpful to my theory either.

[Larger image here]

I might share the same dishwasher as Tony Blair

2009-06-18T11:46:00.002Z

Siemens, �515, it sounds very similar.

Rather dodgy this claim of his, although the Telegraph's trying to confuse leaving No.10 with leaving Parliament, surely?

You have to pay money to save money

2009-06-18T10:34:00.002Z

George Osborne claimed �40 for DVDs of two of his own speeches on 'value for money' for taxpayers. Which is quite lovely. [via the Stoa]

The Real Cost of Living Index is BACK!!!

2009-06-16T12:20:00.002Z

And apparently prices are down 10% year-on-year. Full credit to the Telegraph for still publishing this, I'd assumed it would be allowed to die a death.

The BNP and other parties

2009-06-15T14:42:00.003Z

Google trends tells us that the areas where "British National Party" is searched most relative to other searches are Luton, Bradford, and Maidenhead, Nottinham, Leeds and Hull. Then Bletchley, which crops up a lot in these google trends things. UKIP, however, are from Maidenhead, Liverpool, Brighton, Nottingham and then Cambridge (with good old Bletchley coming up). The English Democrats are from Bristol, Croyden, and so on.

Nick Griffin

2009-06-14T11:18:00.002Z

The Times' profile is interesting - among other things it claims he has two dogs called Anne and Frank.

Football transfer fees

2009-06-11T12:25:00.003Z

The BBC gives us a handy (not sure about the accuracy) chart of world record transfer fees in sterling (note it's slightly different in euros) back to 1905.

Ronaldo's, if it happens, is by far the largest, even if you adjust for inflation. Zidane's in 2009 prices is about �57m, Shearer's �21m. Rossi, at �1.75m in 1976, is equivalent to �9.4m today, Cruyff's �922k, �8.3m today. On these figures the first �1m player was Jeppson (�52k) in 1952, but Ferreyra in 1932 (�23k) was only just short at �950k.

Current records are far in advance of anything seen before, even in real terms and even as a % of national GDP. Spain's purchase of Ronaldo for about 70m euros makes it 0.007% of Spanish GDP. Looking at Italian transfers in the 1950s, the record was about 0.001% of GDP, rising in the 1970s to about 0.0023% and by the early 1990s to about 0.0032% of GDP.

British business sells �80m of goods to Spain

2009-06-11T09:46:00.003Z

Ah, that explains why Sterling has been so strong today.

The most unpleasant story of the year

2009-06-10T11:32:00.001Z

Mouse found in maltloaf. With a picture.

Poor arguments against PR

2009-06-10T11:07:00.005Z

"It lets parties like the BNP get seats"

David Cameron just made this argument (and Gordon Brown somewhat supported it). I've never understood it. If 5% of the country supports the BNP, it hardly makes the problem go away to design an electoral system to give them no representation in a parliament. It's the voting stage which is where their appeal needs to be beaten, not at the distribution of parliamentary power.

Furthermore FPTP doesn't give voters anymore power to remove bad governments than any other system. It does give voters the power to remove bad MPs more than, say, a party list PR system, but not more than many other forms of PR, indeed STV can give more.

Also Gordon Brown is as 'unelected' as any other Prime Minister, and as 'unelected' as David Cameron will be, unless David Cameron is proposing massive constitutional change.

No, you are joking

2009-06-09T11:35:00.001Z

and it's moderately funny.

A general election every day

2009-06-08T22:31:00.004Z

I think I've got it. I was toying with the idea that it would be sensible to copy the Senate, and re-elect a third of parliament every two years. It would certainly keep the government on its toes, but would surely also mean constant electioneering. And then it struck me - constant electioneering - what an idea. Why not re-elect every seat equally staggered over five years? Five years multiplied by 51 weeks (Christmas break) is 255, so if we have two a week, say Sunday and Thursday, that makes 510 MPs. This is slightly fewer than have we now, so we could either reduce the number of MPs, or there could be simply be another on Tuesdays of every other week.

Think of the benefits. 'Political junkies' would actually come to resemble real junkies, having stayed up to 4am two or three times a week for the results. Opinion polls would become unnecessary, as there would be a real election every day. A government in trouble, like now, would be able to count the number of weeks until it lost its majority (about 20 weeks at this rate) and would be forced to make ever more ludicrous efforts to turn the country around. And countless more advantages.

Labour in London

2009-06-08T15:00:00.002Z

The Labour vote held up better in London than elsewhere (down 3.5% points, or about 1/7th). Is this related to something the BBC mentioned last night about votes where there were also council elections saw a higher turnout and lower Labour vote than where it was just Euro-elections (which was the case in London). Or is there another reason?

A bigger swing than ever before

2009-06-08T12:43:00.002Z

Why do news organisations, and in particularly the BBC, think that it is relevant or interesting that the Tories need the largest swing since whenever to get a majority? It's not as if the 2005 votes are bought out of storage and put in the ballot boxes and then the election is about trying to add to them or remove them. Each election is essentially a blank slate. In any case political trends have got more volatile (partly because of third parties and similarly I guess because of less attachment to the main parties).

Euro election results

2009-06-07T06:09:00.004Z

Of course Labour's share of the vote will be pitiful, they only seem to have put candidates up in the UK region. But what time will we get the results? Do they slowly release them from about 3am to give it a feel of a normal election night?

It is a Blairite plot

2009-06-07T05:37:00.004Z

Is this important? Surely it was pretty obvious there was some co-ordination of things. I guess it makes it harder for any new leader to even provide a figleaf of unity. Also it makes a lot of the punditry around in the sunday papers look a bit foolish, for example in the same newspaper that reveals the co-ordination their political columnist declares there was no co-ordination.

A naked former Czech prime minister

2009-06-07T05:36:00.002Z

Political scandals in other countries are just better than ours, aren't they?

A solution to the current crisis

2009-06-06T19:43:00.003Z

My friend suggested Johnson as PM, Johnson (Boris) as Chancellor. Johnson and Johnson would sponsor it for 100 years at $100bn, and hence all would be OK.

But I prefer this idea. Alan Johnson says to Gordon Brown that he'll appoint him Chancellor if he steps down and supports Alan Johnson. Ok, it's not perfect. But then AJ calls an election for October 25th (a Sunday, sensible day for an election) and everyone is happy.

Ps On taxation. I've never quite understood the excitement that lower taxes brings, as the amounts just seem quite small. Say taxes are now about 40% of GDP. The most anyone can expect is taxes are cut by about 5% of gdp (in fact the chance of this is very small). Even such a hefty cut would give you an extra 1/12th income, which is the equivalent of 3 hours work/week. Which doesn't seem worth the huge amount of time and effort people spend demanding it.

Mandelson

2009-06-06T08:06:00.005Z

The peculiar irony of New Labour's endgame is that it was all foretold by an accidental prophet named Tony Blair. "My project will be complete," he once declared, "when the Labour party learns to love Peter Mandelson."

And lo, it has come to pass. As the Hazel Blearses of this world appear to be communicating messages of infinite fatuity via their accessories, virtually the only senior politician of any stature is Peter Mandelson.

Politics is back, declared Simon Sebag Montefiorie*, something I rather scoffed at, but in fact what with expenses and Gordon's last few days he is on to something. I went to a lovely dinner party last night, in which for the first time in my life, despite in some ways having flirted with the edges of this for six years, I found myself inbetween, albeit not taking part in, a real world** full-on argument between a Eustonaut (not that he'd heard of the Declaration or Alan NTHS) and a warforoiler. My protestations to the excellent host of 'I seen this online, I know where it headed, steer it off now by talking about the Chelsea Flower Show' were (rather wickedly, she seemed keen on a good punch-up) ignored, and I could only limply try to defuse things by raising a toast - of the rather excellent Berry Brothers and Rudd Cremant de Limoux, have I mentioned that? - to Richard Cheney.

* Yes, it's true. The BBC***, in a moment of sheer madness, have decided to ape Dragon's Den for the election with something like Pundit's pit (it's not that, but I can't remember what it was) and their experts are SSM, Greg Dyke, Shirley Williams and a PR person no-one's ever heard of. The mind truly boggles.

** And there were girls there. If any bloggers are interested I might give a talk about it sometime.

*** Did anyone else notice how rude David Dimbleby was to Jeremy Vine, at least between 5am and 8am Friday morning?

A man from Newport writes

2009-06-04T21:29:00.001Z

Having been a Labour supporter all my life, I now reluctantly will not vote for them again.Hearsay evidence is now admissible in court -the target culture rules and we are constantly under surveillance.The economy is in ruins - where is our Gold?We need a STRONG Govt.- not this lot.

Fed-up, Newport, U.k

James Purnell

2009-06-04T21:20:00.005Z

Can this really be true?

In a letter to the Sun and the Times, the work and pensions secretary said he was not seeking the leadership but wanted to trigger a debate.

I'm not sure I can quite believe that (and a check of the Times' website doesn't clarify things). Surely a government minister would act a little bit better than that? The Sun?

But bloody hell, James Purnell and Alan Milburn. We really need an election, it's sad to say.

ps Nothing in the Guardian about it, I think the BBC must have got it wrong. I think it was leaked to the Sun, which is slightly different.

History in the making

2009-06-04T20:41:00.002Z

Letter in today's Metro:

I walked to work this week surrounded by women who were clearly making the most of the summer sunshine. They had ditched their normal smart office attire and chosen instead to wear flip-flops, Birkenstocks and sandals, along with loose-fitting T-shirts and shorts or short, floating dresses. I wondered later, as I sat steaming in my regulation suit, shirt, and tie, is this equality in workplace in action? Would it be acceptable if I were to give my legs and feet a well-deserved airing in sandals and shorts. I supect the answer is no.

M.C., Surrey

The changing price of alcohol, part II

2009-06-04T14:30:00.003Z

Ok, so again to give us a base 'Measuring Worth' tells us that 1 shilling in 1909 (12 old pence, 5 new pence) has the same purchasing power as �3.74 does today (so 75 times as much) and to earn a shilling in 1909 is like earning �19.68 today (so 394 times as much).

Champagne

You could in 1909 get a Saumur, which is presumably a Cremant de Loire, for 2.5 shillings/bottle, and today the Limoux is �8.05, which is 67 times as much, so about the same in real terms.

Champagne proper, of the non-vintage, Veuve Clicquot is 8 shillings a bottle as is Pommery, with Mumm the cheapest at about 5.5 shillings/bottle. In real terms this is �30 and �21, and in fact Veuve Clicquot is still sold, at �30, so absolute no change, and their cheapest champagne today is �18, so a touch cheaper.

Of the vintage stuff, an 1898 Pol Roger went for 9 shillings/bottle, equivalent to �34 today, whereas now for a 1999 Pol Roger you would need to pay �45, rather more, a premium I am going to call a Winston Churchill tax, at least in Britain. However an 1899 Louis Roederer sold for 8.50 shillings/bottle then, today a 2000 sells for �51, so in fact perhaps vintage champagne has just got more expensive. The dearest champagne back in 1909, at least in the price list, was an 1892 Veuve Clicquot at 40 shillings a bottle, equivalent to about �150 today (though in hours the average worker would need to work that's more like �700); today's it's Cristal 2000 at �214.

Wine

Lots of Claret in 1909, a Chateaux Lafite from 1899 at six shillings, or about �22, compares with the same from 2001 today for �301! In fact the price of Bordeaux reds has gone loopy - the dearest in 1909 was an 40 years old Lafite for about �60, today they'll sell you a Latour for �1470/bottle, and that's only if you buy 12. Over in Burgundy the dearest Nuits St Georges sold for 5 shillings in 1909, about 18 pounds today, and there still is one for �20 today although they go up to �55.80.

Summary: Basically booze from Berry Bros & Rudd is much the same price in real terms as it was back in 1909, which means in terms of the number of hours the average person need to work to buy it, it has fallen by about 4/5ths. The exception, and it is a big one, seems to be the top-end wines, at least from Bordeaux, the price of which appears to be insane. I suppose this is something to do with the investment market or snob value.