Matt T

The Tories and the deficit

2010-02-06T22:12:00.003Z

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.

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.

Really, Nick?

2010-01-17T10:33:00.002Z

Nick Cohen in today's Observer:

they ought to know that you never level an accusation you can't substantiate because you make life too easy for your targets when you do.

Is he taking the piss?? His attack (naturally retracted a few weeks later) on Nick Davies is only the most recent example of his own form here.

"Yo! Blair"

2010-01-12T13:50:00.004Z

David Aaronovitch ticks people off for still believing Bush said "Yo Blair" not "Yeah Blair". But is it so straightforward? Wikipedia sits on the fence, but Aaro's certainty presumably comes from this John Rentoul post, based on this Simon Hoggart piece.

The sound clip Hoggart plays is hard to get to load as its Real Player, but it's the same one as heard here at 18 seconds. It's pretty clearly "Yeah Blair, what are you doing". But there's the problem with this cliip - the transcript was "Yo Blair, HOW are you doing". "How" and "what" are not hard to distinguish, and as clip never goes past the "doing" bit, I don't see any proof that its the same clip.

World's highest BASE jump

2010-01-09T12:50:00.002Z

Has been made off that tall building in Dubai.

Isn't this a bit like the world's tallest dwarf and the world's shortest giant? Or the hottest winter?

Cameron

2010-01-08T08:50:00.002Z

What is all this non-tie wearing? My local Conservative candidate is also doing it on his posters dotted all around the area. With Cameron its how I imagine he dresses when on holiday.

The leadership challenge

2010-01-07T00:53:00.003Z

The Guardian reports:

Just before 10.45am today, Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary and chief whip, sent out a blank email to members of the parliamentary party.

Is this a well-known tactic? I've always assumed when I received a blank email that someone has pressed send too quickly.

The Thames as a tube line

2010-01-06T14:13:00.002Z

I was somewhat surprised to read this article last night by Andrew Gilligan on turning the Thames into a transport line equivalent in journeys to the Hammersmith & City line. Apparently it's based on a report by Police Exchange.

Has anyone read it? I assume it's based on highly unrealistic assumptions and dodgy statistics and that's not just because its by Policy Exchange.

Marriage and tax

2010-01-05T17:26:00.001Z

I think Chris Giles in the FT rather destroys any argument for giving married couples tax breaks.

I suppose the policy is more about sending a signal to your supporters than actually promoting marriage.

The New York Times gets electric light

2010-01-04T15:51:00.005Z

A piece from 1882 about Edison's introduction of (direct current) electric lighting to the New York Times (for some reason this is not now opening in Firefox when I try, the original article that links to it was from two years ago when the DC was finally turned off and is here).

(via in a roundabout way, here, where Edison 'proves' AC is dangerous by electrocuting an elephant)

JOHN GUMMER IS STILL AN MP!

2009-12-30T12:18:00.000Z

News just in. More details here.

The UK's 10 busiest and least busy stations

2009-12-20T08:28:00.003Z

Back in 2005 we looked at these with data from 2004/2005 (and read comments for an explanation of how it is done), this has now been updated to 2007/2008. I expect methodologies have changed slightly as well and so the figures can't really be compared, but here they are. The raw data is available here.

London Waterloo	London	50,161,215
London Victoria	London	38,357,578
London Liverpool Street	London	29,024,930
London Bridge	London	26,993,824
London Charing Cross	London	19,383,274
London Euston	London	14,735,665
London Paddington	London	14,734,923
London Kings Cross	London	12,391,967
East Croydon	London	11,629,312
London Cannon Street	London	11,028,516
Crosskeys	Wales - Cymru	3
Llanhilleth	Wales - Cymru	4
Denton	North West	18
Dorking West	South East	18
Tees-Side Airport	North East	22
Reddish South	North West	22
Coombe Halt	South West	29
Doleham	South East	36
Buckenham	East	50
Barry Links	Scotland	69

Wine prices again

2009-12-19T10:31:00.003Z

The Economist has an article on the British and Claret, and gives us this paragraph:

Sir Robert Walpole, Britain�s first prime minister, used navy ships to smuggle his favourite wines from France. The most expensive one he bought was old burgundy, but that�as now�was available only in tiny quantities. So he relied largely on claret, buying four hogsheads of 24 dozen bottles of Margaux and one hogshead of Lafite every three months. In a single year his wine bill amounted to over �1,200 (�100,000 today).

As Felix notes, assuming the Economist's conversion is correct this comes to about �17/bottle (24 * 12 * 4 * 5 = 5,760 bottles), yet to buy it today will set you back about �300/bottle. Interestingly �17/bottle is not that far off the �22/bottle (in today's money) that I found Berry Bros. & Rudd were selling Lafite for in 1909.

In fact if you take it back into money of the day, we have five shillings in Walpole's time (the early 1700s), six shillings in 1909, and 6020 shillings today.

London in 2010 from 1990

2009-12-14T15:44:00.000Z

Over here.

tax freedom day

2009-12-10T09:52:00.000Z

Ive not done detailed calculations but looking at a chart of tax as a percent of gdp I think tax freedom day will be earlier in 2010 than it has been in decades.

Tax Returns

2009-12-05T11:15:00.001Z

I have to say the Inland Revenue's online tax return filing system is really quite impressive for a piece of government software - simple to use, robust, and easy to understand. I'd set aside a whole morning and it took 10 minutes!

[I'm in a good mood as they owe me tax]

US debt

2009-11-29T14:12:00.003Z

I'm not too sure about this Liam Halligan argument (my bolding).

The dollar fell particularly sharply last week, though, as traders were reminded of the patently obvious � that the White House actually wants the dollar to fall. US Treasury officials have lately taken to staring into the TV cameras, puffing out their chests, then stating: "We are committed to a strong dollar." That's nonsense, of course, because a weaker currency boosts US exports and lowers the value of America's external debt.

Surely if you're debt is denominated in foreign currencies a weaker local currency increases the value of your debt in your own currency, and if it is denominated in your own currency (as is the case with almost all of the US's foreign debt) it makes no difference? I think perhaps he is thinking of inflation. I suppose it decreases that value for (say) the Japanese in yen terms, so perhaps they will care less about getting it repaid? Or is there something I've missed?

The pound in your pocket hasn't devalued

2009-11-20T21:22:00.005Z

When Harold Wilson said something like that it was obviously a lie. I've commented a few times on the somewhat bizarre return of the 'devaluationists' in economic commentary, led by Ambrose Evans Pritchard, who I seems to believe that every country in the world can, and should, devalue at the same time.

But anyway, the point of this piece was I just bought four bottles of Champagne from the local off-licence for �40. So perhaps Wilson was right after all as its pretty good stuff.

update: Ooh, my head. Bloody Alistair Darling.

David Horowitz, of all people, emails me:

2009-11-10T17:31:00.000Z

Is America losing its mind?

Letters of condolence

2009-11-10T08:25:00.004Z

I don't really want to post on this as it's a pretty wretched subject, but I see now the newspaper in question has got the bereaved mother taping private conversations (a breach I believe of civil law if it's made public..) four of the top five coments on their own website are suggesting the story is dragging on to long.

It appears what they are after to show more respect is to get a secretary to type out the letters in future and borrow Donald Rumsfeld's signature machine.

The sloppiness of Henry Porter's research makes one despair of the Sunday Times

2009-11-08T13:48:00.003Z

Here.

Are eurosceptics unrealistic in their expectations?

2009-11-06T10:12:00.002Z

If Dan Hannan matures from his present rather aloof juvenile lead mode to be a plausible, and warm, leader then that might be possible in the next 10 years.�

Yes, I think they might be.�