Categories
Options
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Nighthawks is open
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Nighthawks is open
Why not relax, and converse into the night on the day’s events in PB NightHawks.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
The Tories are completely and utterly stupid to have to refuse to have the OBR review Labours proposals. Madness. They are clearly going to have to u turn on this. I bet you within a week of the first PMQs back.
Not at all IOS.
Balls is not looking for the OBR to "review" a total spending plan. He is looking for third party endorsement for specific spending measures. He wants to shut out Treasury and Conservative Party criticism of his proposals.
The charter functions of the OBR are not to act as a referee or an adjudicator in a party political electioneering battle. The OBR was set up to provide forecasts based on published government budgets and spending reviews and to advise the public on whether they meet pre-determined long term fiscal policies and goals.
No opposition is ever in the same position as the government to prepare the level of detail that budgets and spending reviews require. These tasks absorb a very large part of the existing Treasury, Government Department and Civil Service resources.
So simply throwing an idea at Robert Chote and asking "what do you think?" is completely outside the charter scope and current capabilities of the OBR.
And even if this didn't apply, the OBR is already stretching its resources to meet its current functions and is still learning its business. It needs to be left to mature as a organisation into delivering more robust forecasts and commentary before it starts to embark on any extension of its brief.
If Balls wants an independent assessment he can buy it from a major accountancy/consulting group, or specialist think tank or even contract with a trans-national economic agency such as the OECD.
"Labour is the only party for women; that was the message of its conference launch last weekend. Every step towards equality had been made by the red team, it was claimed.
Of course there was no mention of Maggie, the first (and only) female PM. Indeed, the party had to overlook the fact that it has never even elected a female leader. Harriet Harman and Margaret Beckett have both been leader by default, before being replaced by the newly elected male leader.
Speaking of which, Ed Miliband recently had Messrs Rawnsley and Helm of the Observer round to his house in Dartmouth Park for a natter. Katherine Rose, a freelance photographer (pictured, above), was with them. Ed offered the blokes a cuppa, but ignored Ms. Rose. Bit of a boob, you might say. As Greg Whitmore, the Observer’s picture editor, later tweeted: ‘how to lose a woman’s vote’! Ill manners are so revealing of a politician"
Twitter
Glen Oglaza @glenoglaza1 9m
Been bumped off @stv scotland tonight by @campbellclaret who knows a lot more than me about spin !
Matthew Hancock @matthancockmp 2m
Economy started to turn corner, business creating jobs, economy top of people's concerns - so @Ed_Miliband proposes a tax rise #Milishambles
Louise Mensch @LouiseMensch 1m
Miliband plans attack on jobs, pension funds, by raising corporation tax. Obviously serious about that "socialist" thing
On Saturday i reported that whilst the obvious suspects were Al Shabaab that some of the accents of the attackers suggested a wider scope than purely a 'we hate Kenya' strike.
Today investigations are looking into no less than four possible nationalities involved amongst the attackers. Whilst nothing is confirmed, if its proven it wont only verify early reports but also suggest this was not only a sectarian attack on non Muslims but also one deliberately against Western & Israeli targets.
Today's assault effort did go well, some attempted entry channels look to have been thwarted giving the terrorists within the complex yet more time. This is a classic Al Qaeda handbook attack where the damage measured is not just in the kill rate but also in the incident time dragging out.
As yet it is unclear if 3rd party special operations units have got involved directly. They are certainly kitted out in Nairobi not just to observe but to get involved. Nighttime is really the time to go in if they do so.
"Labour has a problem with spin. I am not, as it happens, referring to the gory revelations in Damian McBride’s memoirs, which remind us of Gordon Brown’s reliance on duplicity and character assassination to secure and hold power. True, spin is a word that will be forever associated with the party that Tony Blair built and Gordon Brown nearly destroyed. Spin made New Labour, spin finished it off, and in Brighton this week spin continues to be the poison that eats at its heart.
The kind of spin I have in mind, though, is the one that all parties rely on to get their message across in a noisy, unruly and increasingly crowded public arena. I mean spin in the acceptable sense of the term – the thing that transmits politics and policies from politicians to electors. I won’t push it by pretending spin can be honourable. But there are certain tactics that all leaders must master to make sure their message is heard and understood above the din of the competition. And in that sense Labour is in trouble, because the Tories these days are better at it."
FPT: Mr. T, cheers for that answer. Clowns are creepy as hell.
Ah, I remember that Sion Simon article from when the election-that-never-was became a reality. We had such larks, pb.com was rather calmer, more civilised and less McBridified, and I had never placed a bet.
Very easy. The Tories give Labour credibility by not letting the OBR look over their plans. Labour gain credibility if the OBR say they're fine.
Of course Labour has its credibility destroyed if the OBR says its plans are unaffordable. If the Tory spinner on here really believed Labours plans had black holes they would be seizing on Labour's suggestion.
But they aren't. Because they are.
All a matter of perspective I’d imagine – I’d posit that as the new CofE, Darling could no longer maintain Brown’s charade that the finances of UK plc where ship shape. Darling wanted some degree of honesty - and that is why McBride was permitted to ‘unleash the forces of hell’ upon him.
A lot better than some of the absolute non entities that Plato and Scott repost. And at least Fitalass has a go at offering some of her own opinions, unlike the always failing ScottP
Surely you could develop an algorithm to check over Ed's figures?
Mr. Rag, thou art an astroturfer.
Amusing. If you look at the marginal polls you will see those algorithms are ruining the Tories. Labour are heading for a comfortable majority as you will see after the next election. At least you have 20 months to continue making your little points.
It's very easy. They watch the debates and see Cameron looking shifty.
Let me try: "we're frit because the plans might check out".
Dire positioning by the Tories. Labour can just keep asking too.
HS2 is forecast to cost £50 billion over 25 years. or roughly £2 Billion per year. The multiplier effect would be minimally different between the two (bad for railway engineers, good for builders).
The new houses would need transport links also.
So the question is: how many houses can be built for £2 Billion per year, and where would they be built?
It does sound like we need more capacity. So, if you're doing that, why not make it high speed?
Enormous infrastructure projects do need cross-party consensus, as this isn't Japan and the same party won't get elected for 60 years in a row. I wonder what Labour would do regarding the existing line reaching capacity. If a standard line (rather than high speed) is substantially cheaper that could be an option, but if the cost is fairly close then it would seem silly.
F1: Alonso reckons the tyres have cost Ferrari, due to the mid-season change. Interesting, given he's finished 2nd in the last 3 races.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/24213571
Yup. And Cameron will eventually give in. Why oh why he does this I do not know.
I think not.
Being more serious, it's hard to take someone seriously when they're so very on-message. Mr. M could never be considered anything other than Labour, but he at least acknowledged the good economic news we've had recently.
Mr. Bobajob, isn't allowing the Opposition access to Government resources effectively negating the point of short money?
Just saying like.
Twitter
The Telegraph @Telegraph 5m
Gordon Brown refuses to answer @jonswaine's questions about @dpmcbride's book http://fw.to/iJ4F5Dj
As we all know, having lost the argument on the economy as a whole, they're now trying to shift the ground on to the failure of average household incomes to keep track with inflation (although quite why anyone is surprised that sorting out a 33% government overspend leads to a few years of retrenchment is a mystery). Unfortunately, as Rentoul points out, Balls is already on record as praising this necessary wage restraint:
Balls, who was shouted at from the floor when he refused to reverse some coalition tax rises and spending cuts, told Cameron that "you have to put jobs before pay", as he argued that wage increases would be paid for with job cuts. "Jobs have to come first and I think that is the right choice at the moment," he said.
"We cannot say that the first priority is more pay for existing workers when hundreds of thousands of workers are losing their jobs," he added, referring to estimates that 700,000 state-backed jobs will go by 2015.
Balls's response was criticised in a followup question from Janice Godrich, national president of the Public and Commercial Services union. She said: "I found your answer to public sector pay extremely disappointing. I would like to see the Labour party standing up for public services and standing up for public sector workers."
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/sep/11/ed-balls-heckled-tuc-pay
F1: been contemplating next season. Ladbrokes appears to have taken down its 2014 title markets, which were very mean anyway, but I'm wondering if Mercedes might be the team to back.
@Flockers_pb
We've replaced selection by merit with selection by postcode which of course means money.
It is not the OBR's job.
Even if it were, the OBR are not up to the job.
Ed can publish his plans and crowd source comment.
Enough for a quarter of a million Balkan migrants, provided they take up the spare bedroom subsidy.
ALP. It is a bit "back of an envelope" but will my sums above save the OBR the effort?
If ColinW's mum does appear, do pass on my fond regards.
You have written Robert Chote's P45.
Did you catch the thread last night where we were discussing the now denied Labour plans to withdraw benefits from parents who refused to MMR vaccinate their children?
It got quite detailed, with Grandiose in particular, quoting legal principles which might make such a policy illegal in human rights law.
A question I had for you - and we sent out a search party to no avail - was whether statute has ever mandated a medical intervention. Are there any procedures or treatments which doctors are required to provide by law regardless of a patient's or guardian/parent's wishes?
Would be interested in your comments on this.
Both the pressure from the unions and the need to buy votes will instead see Labour yet again target the money on personal consumption via increases in public sector pay and welfare payments.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/gordon-brown/10329510/Gordon-Brown-refuses-to-condemn-McBride.html
Love that moral compass
doesn't work anyway, he can't find the commons
It's also not £50 billion, but let's leave that to one side.
That leaves £1 billion a year for 20 years. It is difficult to build a modern house for under £100,000, given current housing regulations and desires (where people want to live), the price of land and other factors. But as well as a house, you also need roads, shops, business parks, transport links, green recreational spaces, and a plethora of other items that make up a community - it's a mistake to think just of building homes, as that will lead us to repeat the mistakes of the 1960s and 1970s.
So say we build lots of flats instead of detached or semi-detached houses. Say they cost £150,000 each once you have factored in the other costs mentioned. That will be an absolute minimum for mass construction for 'nice' houses with good infrastructure.
That makes a little under 7,000 homes a year.
If you go for £100,000 a home (which is wildly unrealistic for the reasons given above), then think of 10,000 homes a year. To give you an idea of scale, new starts (not planning permits, actual start of construction) are at about 100,000 a year (1). So it'd be good, but a minor part of the housebuilding industry.
SO if we go for he best-case: all the £2 billion a year, and £100,000 homes: that would lead to only 20,000 new homes. One fifth of the current total of new builds.
To conclude: we need to build communities, not just homes. And we don't get much home for our bucks.
(1): http://www.propertywire.com/news/europe/uk-new-house-starts-201308158122.html
But both your examples would require an application to a competent court to obtain authority.
The real question is whether there is any precedent for making MMR vaccination compulsory by law (with provision for defined exemptions)?
‘Every time we thing we’ve seen the last of the Draper emails, we see another one. I would be a little bit concerned,’ he said.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2430167/They-entirely-innocent-Unrepentant-McBride-rounds-Miliband-Balls-accuses-party-wrecking-conference-bungling-response-memoirs.html
Most suburban MARTA stations here have parking lots attached where you can park for free.
I'm just saying that a government of the Eds will not launch this huge housebuilding program you keep trying to convince yourself of.
Deep down you know it.
As I know it and Richarnd Nabavi knows it and anyone with any sense or the ability to look at Labour's record on this issue knows it.
Governments are interested in buying votes not building houses.
Yes, looks as if the British government introduced compulsory smallpox vaccination by statute in 1853.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#cite_note-65
To save Bobajob I am not going to give you a three post reply.
But some of your assumptions need questioning. I list some observations:
1. House prices are only marginally sensitive to increases/decreases in new housing stock.
2. Rental yield and capital value have an inverse relationship: if capital prices rise rents tend to fall and vice versa.
3. Housing benefit bills need to go up to market rental levels allowing the social housing sector to become profitable and self-financing. Self-financing includes provision for 'owners' to generate sufficient funds to service borrowing at market rates for the purposes of building new stock.
Almost all British cities seem to have been psychotically designed to be anti-car. And that's probably a good thing for the people who have to live and work in them.
tim? The precedent you need?
BBC1 10pm - Lab got 6 minutes starting at 10.13pm - mainly HS2 but also featuring Union leader saying pay freeze must end as well as a bit on childcare.
ITV 10pm - Lab was 3rd after Rolf Harris - didn't see start of report but finished with quite a chunk on Damian McBride.
Obviously Ed M will be lead story tomorrow but Conference as a whole hasn't had as much publicity as normal.
Not true, according to my hospital doctor friend. Doctors can overrule on the spot in case of emergency - they have a legal eagle on hand for greyer areas however.
Say £150,000 per home, with the extras I mentioned below.
That's £30 billion per annum. Or a full HS2 every one-and-a-half years, or two Crossrails..
Even saying £100,000 per home, that's £20 billion per year.
That won't happen, and it leaves aside where they go, planning issues, transport links, employment, and all the other things.
Do you think that's feasible or realistic?
An agnostic sort of question: if a government in 2015 were to cancel the project, how much money would already have been spent/committed? In other words, would be be saving X (£50 billion or whatever we decide it to be) or N% of X?
According to this site, " Major capital funding is not anticipated until 2017/18 and is likely to be spread over 6-10 years."
http://www.go-hs2.com/AboutHS2/Costs.aspx
Bear in mind also that the initial phase is just London to Birmingham, which is only a smallish part of the whole cost.
Like Trident, it's certainly not a 'Get Out of the Fiscal StraitJacket Free Card' for Labour in the next parliament.
Tonight SNP's Stewart Hosie debated with BT's George Robertson at Abertay University with 250 attending.
Results Before Debate
21% Yes, 59% No and 20 % D/K
Results after debate
51% Yes, 38% No, 11% D/K
Even a cursory google search will bring up year after year Gordon promising 200k homes a year, 3 million new homes by ...., etc etc etc.
But scrapping HS2 may not saving anything, because something will need to be done about the railways. If not, there will be other, negative costs, for instance in terms of congestion.
I'm surprised you're agnostic given the constituency you're hoping to re-represent. Surely your would-be constituents deserve leadership on an issue that will impact them so heavily? Tim's also agnostic, strangely enough. It's like you're both waiting for instructions from above or something ...
"Messrs Balls and Brown certainly failed to show the remotest commitment to prudence in Labour’s second and third terms, managing to run a colossal deficit even while raking in the candyfloss revenues of the credit boom. For all his bluster yesterday, the shadow chancellor has done nothing to convince the voters that he deserves another try."
Prescott when he was 'in charge' of housing started a project for architects/engineers to come up with a £60,000 cost per dwelling for social housing.
The target was never reached (although some enterprising architect came up with units based on recycled shipping containers which came in on cost - and they were good if not suitable for mass deployment).
So given inflation and a more acceptable specification today's cost per unit is around £80,000 for a very basic one bedroom flat in a mutiple unit building.
JJ has then added all the associated infrastructure costs (roads, utilities, urban planning niceties etc) which I guess would be around £30,000. You then have financing costs to add. So a unit price of £120,000 - £150,000 sounds about right.
Labour have a deep understanding of all things house building related. Can't you remember the stunning success of John Prescott's Pathfinder Scheme
"More than £2 billion of taxpayers' money has been wasted demolishing thousands of homes without any discernible benefit that a rising housing market could not have achieved by itself, the National Audit Office has said.
Some 10,000 homes have been bulldozed, 1,000 new homes built and 40,000 refurbished in nine run-down areas of the Midlands and the North of England under the controversial "pathfinder" regeneration schemes, according to the Office's report."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3313642/MPs-condemn-disastrous-pathfinder-scheme.html
I'd love it if you could do similar posts to the ones I've given below, detailing what you think are realistic costs. But even if each house cost just £50,000, it would still be £10 billion per annum. And there's also the planning and other issues.
Can we agree on one thing: any new social housing (indeed any housing) has to be of good quality and learn the lessons from the 1960s and 1970s? We want them to be good homes, not more Ronan Points.