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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A year after being touted as Maggie Mark 2 the coming reshu
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A year after being touted as Maggie Mark 2 the coming reshuffle could be a big moment for Liz Truss
For those Tory MPs elected in 2010 who aspire to high office this is a big moment and a key question will be whether any of them make it to the cabinet.
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Good morning, everyone.
Mr. P, be fair. After the Speaker stated Romanians were much nicer than horrid British people his wife had to do *something* to regain the title of Most Obnoxious Bercow.
In other news Microsoft decides it hasn't insulted enough those without internet connections or who have other issues with the Xbone (previous efforts include the job-endingly bad tweet "Deal with it" and "Backwards compatibility is really backwards"). Today's quotes:
"Fortunately we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity. It's called Xbox 360," he said.
'Hey, I'm on a nuclear sub.' I don't even know what it means to be on a nuclear sub but I've got to imagine that it's not easy to get an internet connection," he continued. "I can empathize, if I was on a sub I'd be disappointed."
--
It's worth pointing out that even huge swathes of America has either no broadband or patchy broadband, and the same applies to Europe. And the console doesn't work if it loses an internet connection for 24 hours [assuming everything's always ok at Microsoft's end]. *sighs*
So the effect would have been reduced quality for parents yet no reduction in costs to parents.
Fortunately parents and providers are smart enough to understand when they are being sold a dud.
But I do like her, she's from Yorkshire and she saw off the Turnip Taliban.
Crikey - a game console that only works with an active BBand connection for 24hrs? Well that's asking for it. My line regularly goes AWOL every day [it loses its link to the DNS server] so only P2P works.
Sorry, but I'd never heard of her before the child-minding farce. But wanting to make us comparable to Scandinavian practice seemed to bring out all the hysterics and showed modern media at its worst. All the vested interests got all the air-time they needed to claim that the world would end so I immediately concluded that it was a good idea.
Tim will be against as it won't fit his fop meme. For that reason it would be a good political move to promote her, so Cameron probably won't.
The Xbone will still sell millions (through Halo fans alone) but hopefully it'll get trounced in the console war.
Would you say she has Norfolk n Chance?
I use this
http://www.simpledns.com/
which runs on even the crappiest hardware (15 year old Thinkpad 770) or you could probably use a Raspberry Pi as a caching name server these days
You will be amazed at just how many DNS lookups occur
Besides I become a resident of Yorkshire again a week on Friday.
Tories launch web assault on Labour and Lib Dems to put pressure on MPs to 'Let Britain Decide' on Europe http://dailym.ai/11eGeiI
"All the research"?
Tim, what is called research nowadays is usually some teenager being told to ask the nest three people what they think. Or a politically-motivated apprentice-wannabe trying to work things out on the back of a fag-packet with a blunt pencil.
So if the argument is that reducing the need for so many child-minders will cost money, why not use all the unemployed in that capacity?
And yes, I know I'm in a stroppy mood this morning.
Australian opener David Warner has been stood down for a game after being involved in a physical altercation with an England player.
The player is understood to be England batsman Joe Root and it's believed he was not injured in the altercation.
Australia is playing New Zealand in Birmingham in Champions Trophy match on Wednesday night. It's believed alcohol was a factor.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/warner-stood-down-over-altercation-with-england-player-20130612-2o431.html#ixzz2VzCzqhzL
Indeed, as usual, the Tories set out to decieve, especially on Europe.
https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/
(although I wonder if there is not actually a fault in your "box" which probably includes a caching DNS server -- you might ask your ISP about a replacement, since it seems unlikely their own DNS servers would go down so often)
UK figs at 0930.
"Spending on Mr Balls’ office credit card has been released covering the period when he was Schools secretary from 28 June 2007 to 11 May 2010.
The lavish spending has echoes of the credit card bill run by the private office of Lord Prescott when he was deputy Prime Minister.
The details of the spending on the government procurement card were released following a Freedom of Information request from Tom Watson MP, the Labour party’s deputy chairman.
Mr Watson had asked for the spending for the past two years – covering Michael Gove’s time as education secretary – however the Coalition decided to release credit card spending figures going back to April 2006.
In all the disclosures showed that Mr Balls’ office spent around £9,000 during his three years in office, with most of the cash going on travel receipts..." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10113562/Ed-Ballss-office-passed-fine-dining-bills-to-taxpayers.html
Australia's stand-in captain George Bailey wants England's methods for gaining reverse-swing monitored, hinting one of the home side's bowling trump cards for the Ashes may be pushing the rules boundaries.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jun/12/george-bailey-england-australia-reverse-swing
I've heard both went downhill in later series - but were very strong otherwise. Any thoughts?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/10113582/Rent-controls-are-madness-we-need-to-build-more-homes.html
Is someone attempting to bury bad news with this drivel?
"The list of cuts Mr Balls proffered up were almost hilariously inadequate. In 2015, when Labour hopes to take office, it would inherit a tax base of 38 per cent of national income and a spending bill representing 43 per cent. This is a vast gap. You could take out all defence spending and all of the police and still not be half way there. Or you try closing all schools and still fall short. Britain wants a US level of taxation with European levels of spending and this is not sustainable.
Labour would also inherit the responsibility for the serious review of future public spending that the coalition has made impossible, the Liberal Democrats being unwilling to agree plans beyond the first year of the next Parliament.
If, therefore, the Labour leadership is serious in any way about agreeing to George Osborne’s spending path it has committed itself to a fundamental reshaping of the State. That is what the figures mean. It is what they will require. Abandoning the argument against the spending plans means abandoning much of the Left’s argument against the Centre Right’s view of the size and shape of government..." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/danielfinkelstein/article3788806.ece
tim,
My son lives in Copenhagen where the child care arrangements would supposedly make our hysterical media-luvvies (and you) cringe.
I didn't notice too many ragged urchins roaming the streets.
Lets be totally honest now, Labour sometimes have good ideas, the Tories sometimes do, and the LDs sometimes do, and often the opposition is based totally on self-interest or politics. I suspect this is the case here.
"Earlier this week, the London Assembly’s housing and regeneration committee, a Labour and left-wing dominated sub-group, called on Boris Johnson to adopt a pilot scheme for “rent stabilisation” – in other words, rent controls.
The Tory members of the committee rightly put out a dissenting report, cogently arguing that such a policy would chase away the investment in extra rental properties – especially by large institutions seeking to professionalise the market – that is so desperately required to bring rents down and improve security of tenure."
I usually find when I read the original research papers that the press people quoting them didn't understand the conclusions and give their own warped interpretation or extrapolate them on to something inappropriate.
I read the original Wakefield paper at the time and guess what happened?
Although the Lancet got a well-deserved kick up the wotsit.
As for social "sciences" ... it's MMR with knobs on.
I really think Cameron wants to do this once more so this reshuffle should be his election line up subject to a stray Routemaster/ sting. That should focus his mind on the priorities.
Redmond now has a scant few months to start turning their Microsoft supertanker away from the rocks and some of those near the top may have far less time than that.
Either way, Microsoft's dreams of becoming an Apple like gatekeeper for digital content delivery spanning software, games, TV, movies and other media, look to have been completely shattered. Rightly so. They have proven themselves to be ill-suited and comically unprepared to take on such a role.
In 2010 Lab said private sector couldn't make up 4 public sector job losses. Over last 3 years 3 new private jobs for every public job lost
Employment up 24,000 to reach a new record high. Over the last 3 years: 1.37m more private sector jobs, 453k fewer public sector jobs
Job vacancies up 19,000 to highest level since 2008
norman smith @BBCNormanS
Private sector employment up by 40,000 say ONS
UK unemployment fell by 5,000 between February and April to 2.51 million - PA
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00421/brookes_12_421714c.jpg
Unless the figures are misleading, of course. Which way will you be betting?
That graph is really remarkable. Hard to imagine anything like that in the last 50 years.
There must be a limit to the extent to which even the heroic British consumer can come riding to the rescue on these figures. Plan A is still exports and import substitution.
Public sector employment in the first three months of this year fell by 22,000. But private sector jobs up 46,000 over same period.
And, agree, £3k pa for travel with a few meals doesn't sound unreasonable in the circumstances.
Outsource them all - every single one.
Rents are the new Tory women for Tim methinks.
There must be some niche figure or subset you can cling too ? Bearded men over 45 ?
People called Colin from Essex ?
http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/labors-falling-share-everywhere.html
Tories - not as bad as they're made out to be by some.
Monthly unemployment figure for April is horrendous after a very good March.
Tories all over twitter celebrating zillions of McJobs and showing off their usual statistical illiteracy on the overall employment rate (went down and still way down on levels seen under Labour).
http://www.economicsuk.com/blog/
"Something interesting may be happening on pay. The February-April picture remained subdued, up 1.3% on a year earlier for total pay, 0.9% for regular pay. But for April alone total pay was up 3.3% on a year earlier, or 4.2% in the private sector."
The situation on employment hides many truths - the man who cooks my breakfast can't make his business pay so he has another job in the evenings to survive. Two jobs but one person doing them. Counting the number of jobs, counting the number of people working, counting the number of people not working - each statistic can be used to argue a position or support a political viewpoint, none of them in isolation convey the truth.
The latter figure does suggest that the latest quarter is somewhat below trend and a bit disappointing but given what is happening in the EZ having a positive figure is a remarkable achievement.
Hopefully as growth and confidence pick up the figures will improve at a more rapid rate again. The continued increase in the number of vacancies is a good early indicator of this.
LEAP @LEAPeconomics
Real evidence of bonus pay being deferred until 45% rate kicked-in, from #ONS pay stats today #taxavoidance
They are like David Warner in a wine bar.
Individuals with second jobs has been on a downward trend since 2011 and had a substantial 4.5% fall in the last quarter.
No surprise there.
It is not "way down" on levels seen by Labour. It is current 69.6%.
When Labour came to power, it was at 67.5, and took until 2002 to hit 69.6% (save for one month in 2000), spent 2002-2006 hovering around 70%, dipped under 69.6% in 2007, rose to a peak of 70.5% in 2008, then fell to 69% in time for the election.
Overall, the current figure is higher than typical for 1997-2001, typical for 2001-2005, lower than 2005-8 (by about 0.6-8%) and mid range for 2008-2010.
Wait - you think as yet uncollected tax on large bonuses will be bad news ? Oh dear.
Borrowing dropping despite delayed bonuses - more revenue to come.
I wonder why anyone would use the term McJobs. Having gainful employment is surely better than no job. I'm sure many Labour voters are quite happy to be employed in the service industries, in clean/safe conditions with prospects/training and a uniform. It's no different to working in a biscuit factory like Carol in the Liverbirds - but I guess that doesn't count...
There is no evidence it will be less by dropping the rate. I'm sure a Laffer denier like you will never agree - however if 50% raises more tax why did Labour wait 13 years to introduce it ? And will Labour revert to 50% if they win in 2015 ?
Some serious revenue has been delayed - and yet to be counted in the figures - whether it is more or less than some fictional number which can never be proved is only important to those with a serious chip on their shoulder.
I'm not sure how many builders on £150k plus there are although looking at the figures, both regular pay and bonuses in the construction industry seems to be up substantially from previous months for both March (50% rate) and April (45% rate) so not much evidence it is a tax related spike but perhaps indicative of renewed growth in construction.
It is what I call the Bottomley fallacy, after the former SoS for Health who trumpeted spending figures over ward closures (and lost the election) -- the concentration by politicians on skewed statistics which do not reflect real world conditions.
And of course there was a rise in the personal allowance for basic rate tax payers so perhaps alot of those delaying bonuses were basic rate payers.
Total UK PSE reached its highest level of 6.365 million in Q3 2009. When the effects of the reclassification of the English further education colleges and sixth form college corporations have been removed, the total UK PSE headcount fell by 463,000 between Q3 2009 and Q1 2013."
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pse/public-sector-employment/q1-2013/stb-pse-2013q1.html#tab-Public-Sector-Employment-by-Sector-Classification
From the data tables the bonuses aren't a simple tax-avoidance by deferral, more a tax-avoidance due to a resumption of payouts that weren't made previously. For example here are the bonus payments from Feb 12 to April 13 for the hated financiers:
65
74
87 - April 12
69
71
80
81
70
68
66
70
69
66
69
143 - April 13
As you can see rather than March falling, it is simply April increasing much more than it did last year.
I think Heath/Smith are right, but in the wrong way. All sectors of the economy (bar nationalised banks) saw a spike in bonuses in April. But this doesn't seem to be a deferral from March, rather a longer deferral.
So maybe your theoretical construction boss hasn't had a bonus for 2-3 years and is now getting a biggie. But yes if they have that money then things can't be as bad as made out.
Relative to our EU chums the picture is even better though - as they are pretty much all going backwards now. I also note that the UK to Rest of EU economic ties are weaknening. We trade less and less with them and more and more with the rest of the world.
Extrapolate these trends. The UK is becoming more powerful and more independent of the EZ. I wonder where that might take us in a decade or so?
Suggests bosses were squeezing pay as much as possible either side of xmas and unleashed the taps (relatively) in April. So is that pattern in REGULAR pay because of the 50p rate? Not remotely likely. Or the personal allowance? Possible, but why would bosses care what staff personal allowances are? Or something broader? Surely the squeeze on pay, whether regular or through a bonus, can only go on so long.
Also the April numbers will be very positive for Q2 GDP on the Income account.
Is this too hard to follow?
The question of whether there should be such a bonus culture in the public sector is of course another matter. At least it is not pensionable.
“It’s outrageous — my new book has been blackballed by the Hay-on-Wye literary festival.” ...The credit for this wonderful little cri de coeur comes from the author David Goodhart, hitherto a fixture among the self-congratulatory liberal middlebrow elite at Hay, until he wrote his new book about how immigration to this country had been, on the whole, not a terribly good thing, frankly. Now he has found the gates to this gilded world bolted shut and he has taken his complaints to the pages of our national newspapers, with great anguish...
So: OK, fair enough. This is not necessarily the greatest crisis our country has faced, taken in isolation. But it is interesting and indicative of the absolutist mindset of those who have been appointed, or have appointed themselves, the guardians of our culture. In short, it is the absolutism of the modern, well-dressed, metropolitan liberal, and the only surprising thing is that Goodhart did not see it coming...
They will brook no argument, these people. There is no argument to be had: immigration is a good thing and there’s an end to it. And those who argue otherwise become a sort of non-person. It is the same mindset that afflicted all our main political parties in the last decade and from which they are only now recanting, as they watch UKIP closing in..." http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/rodliddle/article1267745.ece
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10114502/NHS-trusts-spend-2m-to-stop-staff-speaking-out.html
The problem is that they are helping the management, not helping the patients ...
Can anyone give a good reason why such gagging orders are a) just, b) good for patients and c) good for taxpayers?
Falling unemployment and rising pay and bonuses - incredible that people try and spin as bad news.
I think that Cyclefree was the winner. If that's not correct then let me know ASAP. Mail me at Mike at politicalbetting dot com
76
72
78
78 - April 11
79
85
96
76
74
72
72
65
60
62
67
To you view the whole dataset, showing just how anomalous April 13 is:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/datasets-and-tables/data-selector.html?cdid=K5CV&dataset=lms&table-id=15.1
Why bonuses would be paid to such a large (and unprecedented) degree at 45%, but not in 2001-08 when the rate was 40%, I don't know. But I like interesting puzzles such as that which defy easy explanations.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22868901