If accurate, this reminds me of the Channel 4 debate around the Danish cartoons. They held an audience (I think) survey to see if they should show them. A majority wanted them shown. Channel 4 declined to do so anyway, because censorship/blasphemy 'laws' trump democracy and free speech.
None of which means anything of course. McDonnell doesn't care he said what he said, and how many who vote for him will care? Not many as . And how many will allow it, even if they do care, to trump why they planned to vote Labour in the first place?
Unless someone is one of those who literally believe only Tories are capable of nasty things, and only Labour people are nice, that he is capable of being nasty won't change anyone up. And in fact the sort of people that think only party x is good and only party y are bad, are also the type to excuse the bad behaviour of party x when it is directed at party y.
"most will already know about it"
"most" have no idea who he is. If it gets a wider airing, how do you think these comments will play with women voters?
a) badly?
b) very badly?
c) you want me to vote for HIM?
I think people are very good at rationalising these things away. It was in the past, I'm voting for my local candidate, or Jeremy Corbyn, others have said just as bad, it's wrong but that's not what he's generally like. Obviously everything has a certain level of impact, adds to the overall view of something, and for some few perhaps this tips the balance for them. But I see that as improbable.
If accurate, this reminds me of the Channel 4 debate around the Danish cartoons. They held an audience (I think) survey to see if they should show them. A majority wanted them shown. Channel 4 declined to do so anyway, because censorship/blasphemy 'laws' trump democracy and free speech.
I didn't watch the interview, but I suspect Andrew Marr wasn't asking McDonnell for permission to replay his comments on McVey. They wouldn't replay them if he said "Yes". I am not going to defend hate speech, but it is a bit of "When did you stop beating your wife?" question. If he says "no" he has something to hide and if he says "yes", they won't play the remarks because they are too horrible.
Is it so bad to ask a 'when did you stop beating your wife' question of a wife beater ?
It's not a useful question. I have now watched the interview and Marr asked other more relevant questions. The Hodge tweet is out of context. It comes down to whether you think John Mcdonnell is sincere when he now distances himself from the comments he repeated. Viewers will make up their own minds on that.
If accurate, this reminds me of the Channel 4 debate around the Danish cartoons. They held an audience (I think) survey to see if they should show them. A majority wanted them shown. Channel 4 declined to do so anyway, because censorship/blasphemy 'laws' trump democracy and free speech.
I didn't watch the interview, but I suspect Andrew Marr wasn't asking McDonnell for permission to replay his comments on McVey. They wouldn't replay them if he said "Yes". I am not going to defend hate speech, but it is a bit of "When did you stop beating your wife?" question. If he says "no" he has something to hide and if he says "yes", they won't play the remarks because they are too horrible.
Is it so bad to ask a 'when did you stop beating your wife' question of a wife beater ?
This will follow McDonnell for one reason - it was nasty abuse against a female politician. Marr not playing the video was inexcusable but ironically it is likely to be played more often as a result
Italy has been in trouble for a long time. The north south divide is almost unbridgeable, corruption is rife, organised crime is entrenched, there is zero respect for state institutions. The EU and immigration are but the latest scapegoats for endemic, deep-seated and seemingly unsolveable problems. Italy is as it is because of decisions Italians have taken. The same applies to all EU member states, of course - including the UK.
Taking a longer historical view, Italy is as it is because for so many centuries it was ruled by others, generating a culture of mistrust in institutions and a reliance upon personal and family connections to find a way round the system.
If accurate, this reminds me of the Channel 4 debate around the Danish cartoons. They held an audience (I think) survey to see if they should show them. A majority wanted them shown. Channel 4 declined to do so anyway, because censorship/blasphemy 'laws' trump democracy and free speech.
None of which means anything of course. McDonnell doesn't care he said what he said, and how many who vote for him will care? Not many as . And how many will allow it, even if they do care, to trump why they planned to vote Labour in the first place?
Unless someone is one of those who literally believe only Tories are capable of nasty things, and only Labour people are nice, that he is capable of being nasty won't change anyone up. And in fact the sort of people that think only party x is good and only party y are bad, are also the type to excuse the bad behaviour of party x when it is directed at party y.
"most will already know about it"
"most" have no idea who he is. If it gets a wider airing, how do you think these comments will play with women voters?
a) badly?
b) very badly?
c) you want me to vote for HIM?
I think people are very good at rationalising these things away. It was in the past, I'm voting for my local candidate, or Jeremy Corbyn, others have said just as bad, it's wrong but that's not what he's generally like. Obviously everything has a certain level of impact, adds to the overall view of something, and for some few perhaps this tips the balance for them. But I see that as improbable.
"It was in the past".
As you well know, you would be crying for some no-mark Tory MP to be driven to the Chiltern Hundreds for something he said when he was six.
Italy has been in trouble for a long time. The north south divide is almost unbridgeable, corruption is rife, organised crime is entrenched, there is zero respect for state institutions. The EU and immigration are but the latest scapegoats for endemic, deep-seated and seemingly unsolveable problems. Italy is as it is because of decisions Italians have taken. The same applies to all EU member states, of course - including the UK.
Taking a longer historical view, Italy is as it is because for so many centuries it was ruled by others, generating a culture of mistrust in institutions and a reliance upon personal and family connections to find a way round the system.
Italy has been in trouble for a long time. The north south divide is almost unbridgeable, corruption is rife, organised crime is entrenched, there is zero respect for state institutions. The EU and immigration are but the latest scapegoats for endemic, deep-seated and seemingly unsolveable problems. Italy is as it is because of decisions Italians have taken. The same applies to all EU member states, of course - including the UK.
Taking a longer historical view, Italy is as it is because for so many centuries it was ruled by others, generating a culture of mistrust in institutions and a reliance upon personal and family connections to find a way round the system.
You could say much the same of South Korea, though.
Italy has been in trouble for a long time. The north south divide is almost unbridgeable, corruption is rife, organised crime is entrenched, there is zero respect for state institutions. The EU and immigration are but the latest scapegoats for endemic, deep-seated and seemingly unsolveable problems. Italy is as it is because of decisions Italians have taken. The same applies to all EU member states, of course - including the UK.
Taking a longer historical view, Italy is as it is because for so many centuries it was ruled by others, generating a culture of mistrust in institutions and a reliance upon personal and family connections to find a way round the system.
And it is my family's favourite holiday destination
Italy has been in trouble for a long time. The north south divide is almost unbridgeable, corruption is rife, organised crime is entrenched, there is zero respect for state institutions. The EU and immigration are but the latest scapegoats for endemic, deep-seated and seemingly unsolveable problems. Italy is as it is because of decisions Italians have taken. The same applies to all EU member states, of course - including the UK.
Taking a longer historical view, Italy is as it is because for so many centuries it was ruled by others, generating a culture of mistrust in institutions and a reliance upon personal and family connections to find a way round the system.
The only thing that unites Italians is distrust of the state and language - and even that is a patchwork of dialects. In some ways it’s like one of those African countries stitched together by the imperial European powers with no regard for the reality on the ground.
Looking forward to hearing the Test selectors explaining why they didn't pick Rashid....or Hales or Buttler.
Nobody will be holding their breath.
Rashid doesn't control the ball enough in Tests.
Hales has failed in test cricket.
Buttler doesn't play enough red ball cricket.
In 2017 Gary Ballance scored more first class hundreds than Buttler has in his entire career.
Agree about Hales, but Buttler is too outrageously talented not to be somewhere in the middle order. As for Rashid, I think he's been handled woefully at test level. Control can be learned.
Think Hales deserves another go. There’s some sort of problem between Root and Rasid, isn’t there?
Perhaps, but it's the job of those who lead the team to get the best players in there and ensure they give of their best. If you can't handle a Pietersen (for example) you shouldn't be captain, or coach.
To be fair, Pietersen can’t handle Pietersen. Ego-wise
If accurate, this reminds me of the Channel 4 debate around the Danish cartoons. They held an audience (I think) survey to see if they should show them. A majority wanted them shown. Channel 4 declined to do so anyway, because censorship/blasphemy 'laws' trump democracy and free speech.
None of which means anything of course. McDonnell doesn't care he said what he said, and how many who vote for him will care? Not many as . And how many will allow it, even if they do care, to trump why they planned to vote Labour in the first place?
Unless someone is one of those who literally believe only Tories are capable of nasty things, and only Labour people are nice, that he is capable of being nasty won't change anyone up. And in fact the sort of people that think only party x is good and only party y are bad, are also the type to excuse the bad behaviour of party x when it is directed at party y.
"most will already know about it"
"most" have no idea who he is. If it gets a wider airing, how do you think these comments will play with women voters?
a) badly?
b) very badly?
c) you want me to vote for HIM?
I think people are very good at rationalising these things away. It was in the past, I'm voting for my local candidate, or Jeremy Corbyn, others have said just as bad, it's wrong but that's not what he's generally like. Obviously everything has a certain level of impact, adds to the overall view of something, and for some few perhaps this tips the balance for them. But I see that as improbable.
"It was in the past".
As you well know, you would be crying for some no-mark Tory MP to be driven to the Chiltern Hundreds for something he said when he was six.
Perhaps kle4 should have put quotes around what he thinks a hypothetical voter might think, but you seem to have gone off half cocked at someone who afaik isn't a Corbyn supporter.
If accurate, this reminds me of the Channel 4 debate around the Danish cartoons. They held an audience (I think) survey to see if they should show them. A majority wanted them shown. Channel 4 declined to do so anyway, because censorship/blasphemy 'laws' trump democracy and free speech.
None of which means anything of course. McDonnell doesn't care he said what he said, and how many who vote for him will care? Not many as . And how many will allow it, even if they do care, to trump why they planned to vote Labour in the first place?
Unless someone is one of those who literally believe only Tories are capable of nasty things, and only Labour people are nice, that he is capable of being nasty won't change anyone up. And in fact the sort of people that think only party x is good and only party y are bad, are also the type to excuse the bad behaviour of party x when it is directed at party y.
"most will already know about it"
"most" have no idea who he is. If it gets a wider airing, how do you think these comments will play with women voters?
a) badly?
b) very badly?
c) you want me to vote for HIM?
I think people are very good at rationalising these things away. It was in the past, I'm voting for my local candidate, or Jeremy Corbyn, others have said just as bad, it's wrong but that's not what he's generally like. Obviously everything has a certain level of impact, adds to the overall view of something, and for some few perhaps this tips the balance for them. But I see that as improbable.
"It was in the past".
As you well know, you would be crying for some no-mark Tory MP to be driven to the Chiltern Hundreds for something he said when he was six.
Perhaps kle4 should have put quotes around what he thinks a hypothetical voter might think, but you seem to have gone off half cocked at someone who afaik isn't a Corbyn supporter.
Indeed. I voted Tory in 2017, principally because of Corbyn (and McDonnell is much worse). Even without quote marks, I think it was pretty clear I was hypothesising how someone might react, but it could have been even more clear with them.
If accurate, this reminds me of the Channel 4 debate around the Danish cartoons. They held an audience (I think) survey to see if they should show them. A majority wanted them shown. Channel 4 declined to do so anyway, because censorship/blasphemy 'laws' trump democracy and free speech.
None of which means anything of course. McDonnell doesn't care he said what he said, and how many who vote for him will care? Not many as . And how many will allow it, even if they do care, to trump why they planned to vote Labour in the first place?
Unless someone is one of those who literally believe only Tories are capable of nasty things, and only Labour people are nice, that he is capable of being nasty won't change anyone up. And in fact the sort of people that think only party x is good and only party y are bad, are also the type to excuse the bad behaviour of party x when it is directed at party y.
"most will already know about it"
"most" have no idea who he is. If it gets a wider airing, how do you think these comments will play with women voters?
a) badly?
b) very badly?
c) you want me to vote for HIM?
I think people are very good at rationalising these things away. It was in the past, I'm voting for my local candidate, or Jeremy Corbyn, others have said just as bad, it's wrong but that's not what he's generally like. Obviously everything has a certain level of impact, adds to the overall view of something, and for some few perhaps this tips the balance for them. But I see that as improbable.
"It was in the past".
As you well know, you would be crying for some no-mark Tory MP to be driven to the Chiltern Hundreds for something he said when he was six.
Hahaha. Nope. Even without the quotations making even clearer I was providing examples of what I think a hypothetical person would say, I think it was quite obvious that is not my view. I certainly don't expect people to remember everyone else's stances, but quite where you got the impression I support the loathesome McDonnell I do not know, and you've leaped into victimhood very quickly, presuming an opponent where none exists (I voted Tory in 2017) which is a very unappealing quality.
Italy has been in trouble for a long time. The north south divide is almost unbridgeable, corruption is rife, organised crime is entrenched, there is zero respect for state institutions. The EU and immigration are but the latest scapegoats for endemic, deep-seated and seemingly unsolveable problems. Italy is as it is because of decisions Italians have taken. The same applies to all EU member states, of course - including the UK.
Taking a longer historical view, Italy is as it is because for so many centuries it was ruled by others, generating a culture of mistrust in institutions and a reliance upon personal and family connections to find a way round the system.
Good morning all.
While I agree with @SouthamObserver that Italy's problems are longstanding, there's no doubt that Euro membership has exacerbated the situation. Italy used to be the world's second largest exporter. In '91 it had a larger economy than both France and the UK. It's had almost no economic growth since 1999.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was built under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
On the topic of languages, there is no obvious reason why a British prime minister should speak French. French people under 40 have a far better grasp of English than their elders, and the largest French companies are already abandoning French for internal communications. In 50 years there will be far more speakers of French in West and Central Africa than Europe, but I expect that knowledge of English will grow there too thanks to US, UK and Nigerian influence.
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
Labour just seem a little nuts at the minute. In my neck of the woods, they are having their East Mids conference next month. A mate of mine, a true Corbynite who shares everything he can about Corbyn/Momentum on FaceBook has been moaning to me this morning about the pricing structure for passes to the conference- Young people get in for 15 quid, a standard Visitor Pass is 40 quid- but a BAME Pass is 30 quid. He wants to go, but says he ain't paying a tenner more just because he is white!
Labour just seem a little nuts at the minute. In my neck of the woods, they are having their East Mids conference next month. A mate of mine, a true Corbynite who shares everything he can about Corbyn/Momentum on FaceBook has been moaning to me this morning about the pricing structure for passes to the conference- Young people get in for 15 quid, a standard Visitor Pass is 40 quid- but a BAME Pass is 30 quid. He wants to go, but says he ain't paying a tenner more just because he is white!
Italy has been in trouble for a long time. The north south divide is almost unbridgeable, corruption is rife, organised crime is entrenched, there is zero respect for state institutions. The EU and immigration are but the latest scapegoats for endemic, deep-seated and seemingly unsolveable problems. Italy is as it is because of decisions Italians have taken. The same applies to all EU member states, of course - including the UK.
Taking a longer historical view, Italy is as it is because for so many centuries it was ruled by others, generating a culture of mistrust in institutions and a reliance upon personal and family connections to find a way round the system.
Good morning all.
While I agree with @SouthamObserver that Italy's problems are longstanding, there's no doubt that Euro membership has exacerbated the situation. Italy used to be the world's second largest exporter. In '91 it had a larger economy than both France and the UK. It's had almost no economic growth since 1999.
They had a model by which competitiveness was maintained by depreciation. Somewhat surprisingly it worked pretty well. Switching to a hard currency in the Euro has been very hard. The overly loose monetary policies of the ECB did not suit them either and they did not get boom of the Iberian peninsula.
The low interest rates since the crash should have helped for such an indebted country but it’s not been enough. Investment opportunities are too limited. With high unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, people are increasingly disillusioned. If a major country comes out the Euro it will be Italy.
I've seen Boris hold his own in French on French TV. He was weak on future tenses and had a shit accent but he did ok.
The shit accent is a reflection of the antiquated way foreign languages are taught in English schools. They are taught principally as written languages. Speaking them with a decent accent is often regarded as a secondary and almost irrelevant matter.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was built under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
I'm not a big fan of Andrew Marr, but at least he or someone else did a bit of homework.
On the topic of languages, there is no obvious reason why a British prime minister should speak French. French people under 40 have a far better grasp of English than their elders, and the largest French companies are already abandoning French for internal communications. In 50 years there will be far more speakers of French in West and Central Africa than Europe, but I expect that knowledge of English will grow there too thanks to US, UK and Nigerian influence.
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
On the topic of languages, there is no obvious reason why a British prime minister should speak French. French people under 40 have a far better grasp of English than their elders, and the largest French companies are already abandoning French for internal communications. In 50 years there will be far more speakers of French in West and Central Africa than Europe, but I expect that knowledge of English will grow there too thanks to US, UK and Nigerian influence.
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
The World Service Pidgen channel will help a lot (I’m told the French are p*ssed). Apparently, though, Cameroon Pidgen is very different to Nigerian Pidgen
I've seen Boris hold his own in French on French TV. He was weak on future tenses and had a shit accent but he did ok.
The shit accent is a reflection of the antiquated way foreign languages are taught in English schools. They are taught principally as written languages. Speaking them with a decent accent is often regarded as a secondary and almost irrelevant matter.
This is entirely correct. Phonology is just as important as grammar in being understood, yet it is never a priority.
This was brought home to me when learning Russian, when our teacher told us that if we didn’t make the right sounds we would not be understood, or the listener would think we were simple.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Britain risks being sent to the back of the queue for a trade deal with the US, according to sources close to Donald Trump, who claim his relationship with Theresa May has “soured”.
The prime minister will attempt to “clear the air” in a hastily arranged meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week after Trump ditched plans to visit Britain next month.
But those close to the US president claim he is still furious with the way he has been treated by the British government and warn his deteriorating relationship with May is likely to kill any prospect of a swift post-Brexit trade deal.
A source told The Sunday Times: “His position is that if Britain not interested in me, I am not interested in them.”
Another added: “A trade deal with the US might be No 1 on the UK’s list but it’s not top of his list of priorities. The relationship has soured. You don’t have to be a genius to see that.”
I've seen Boris hold his own in French on French TV. He was weak on future tenses and had a shit accent but he did ok.
The shit accent is a reflection of the antiquated way foreign languages are taught in English schools. They are taught principally as written languages. Speaking them with a decent accent is often regarded as a secondary and almost irrelevant matter.
This is entirely correct. Phonology is just as important as grammar in being understood, yet it is never a priority.
This was brought home to me when learning Russian, when our teacher told us that if we didn’t make the right sounds we would not be understood, or the listener would think we were simple.
I seem to remember from A Level days that something like 10% of the total marks was allocated to the oral test. Says it all really.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
Labour just seem a little nuts at the minute. In my neck of the woods, they are having their East Mids conference next month. A mate of mine, a true Corbynite who shares everything he can about Corbyn/Momentum on FaceBook has been moaning to me this morning about the pricing structure for passes to the conference- Young people get in for 15 quid, a standard Visitor Pass is 40 quid- but a BAME Pass is 30 quid. He wants to go, but says he ain't paying a tenner more just because he is white!
Odd being on a low income or on benefits or being retired doesn't get you a lower rate for the conference with Labour - the only criteria is race and age? Extraordinary.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Sorry but that is an argument of nonsense. Co tractually obliged future payments are identical to debt in their economic effect.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
No, it might have caused him negative political consequenes from a higher headline debt figure,, the economy would have been the same.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Sorry but that is an argument of nonsense. Co tractually obliged future payments are identical to debt in their economic effect.
I think he is saying that Brown wanted to spend more than the markets would let him do he indulged in off balance sheet financing and got away with it for a while
For the literary PBers, a good interview with perhaps the greatest living novelist we have (certainly the greatest US living novelist).
A political snippet:
'P.R. However prescient “The Plot Against America” might seem to you, there is surely one enormous difference between the political circumstances I invent there for the U.S. in 1940 and the political calamity that dismays us so today. It’s the difference in stature between a President Lindbergh and a President Trump. Charles Lindbergh, in life as in my novel, may have been a genuine racist and an anti-Semite and a white supremacist sympathetic to Fascism, but he was also — because of the extraordinary feat of his solo trans-Atlantic flight at the age of 25 — an authentic American hero 13 years before I have him winning the presidency. Lindbergh, historically, was the courageous young pilot who in 1927, for the first time, flew nonstop across the Atlantic, from Long Island to Paris. He did it in 33.5 hours in a single-seat, single-engine monoplane, thus making him a kind of 20th-century Leif Ericson, an aeronautical Magellan, one of the earliest beacons of the age of aviation. Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac.'
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
We did borrow that money in effect because we have to pay it back. We even borrowed it on poorer terms.
PFi can make sense if you have some reason to believe the private sector will do the thing/provide the service better. If it’s just a way of making borrowing figures look smaller, whilst paying more since the private sector can’t borrrow as cheap, then it’s a really stupid idea.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Sorry but that is an argument of nonsense. Co tractually obliged future payments are identical to debt in their economic effect.
I think he is saying that Brown wanted to spend more than the markets would let him do he indulged in off balance sheet financing and got away with it for a while
Are market analysts really that lazy not to factor in the discounted negative PV of the future obliged payments and then add it to the debt ?
On the topic of languages, there is no obvious reason why a British prime minister should speak French. French people under 40 have a far better grasp of English than their elders, and the largest French companies are already abandoning French for internal communications. In 50 years there will be far more speakers of French in West and Central Africa than Europe, but I expect that knowledge of English will grow there too thanks to US, UK and Nigerian influence.
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
Portillo for PM?
That ship has sailed. Or train has left the station!
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Sorry but that is an argument of nonsense. Co tractually obliged future payments are identical to debt in their economic effect.
I think he is saying that Brown wanted to spend more than the markets would let him do he indulged in off balance sheet financing and got away with it for a while
Thank you Charles - your explanation is more succinct
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
No, it might have caused him negative political consequenes from a higher headline debt figure,, the economy would have been the same.
No, it deferred and disguised the serious financial implications for the economy. That's the problem with off balance sheet financing - it allows you temporarily to get away with stuff that you shouldn't. Particularly when the deals you do to keep it off the balance sheet turn out to be really bad ones.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
We did borrow that money in effect because we have to pay it back. We even borrowed it on poorer terms.
PFi can make sense if you have some reason to believe the private sector will do the thing/provide the service better. If it’s just a way of making borrowing figures look smaller, whilst paying more since the private sector can’t borrrow as cheap, then it’s a really stupid idea.
I agree it is a stupid idea but Brown was full of them
Bear in mind that this was all happening at the same time Brown was crowing about managing the debt figures at every opportunity, and quoting the statistics to back him up.
It will be the January deficit (well, surplus for January itself) figures that make or break the year end borrowing, but December's figures - released this coming week - are likely to be a good indication of whether the current pace of change (£3.1 billion down on last year, year to date) or the OBR forecast (£4.4 billion up on last year, full year) are closer to the mark.
My money has always been on a moderate decrease in the budget deficit. If remaining months are strong, most importantly January's tax take - then we could easily see the deficit cut from £45bn to £40bn in nominal terms for the full year, which is actually quite a big chunk and which would us well place to zero out the deficit by 2020-1 (optimistic) or 2021-2.
Marr challenged McDonnell over his claim he is going to buy the PFI contracts out. Marr produced a PFI contract that clearly has ring fenced the contract with punitive penalties for attempts to cancel them. McDonnell huffed and puffed but had no real answer.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
No, it might have caused him negative political consequenes from a higher headline debt figure,, the economy would have been the same.
Yes - in fact the state of the public finances was actually worse since we spent more to borrow - some estimates are that it was twice as expensive. We would have been much better off borrowing the money normally.
Marr challenged McDonnell over his claim he is going to buy the PFI contracts out. Marr produced a PFI contract that clearly has ring fenced the contract with punitive penalties for attempts to cancel them. McDonnell huffed and puffed but had no real answer.
I thought he explained the water situation quite well. In layman's terms for the viewers.
Marr challenged McDonnell over his claim he is going to buy the PFI contracts out. Marr produced a PFI contract that clearly has ring fenced the contract with punitive penalties for attempts to cancel them. McDonnell huffed and puffed but had no real answer.
I thought he explained the water situation quite well. In layman's terms for the viewers.
Marr challenged McDonnell over his claim he is going to buy the PFI contracts out. Marr produced a PFI contract that clearly has ring fenced the contract with punitive penalties for attempts to cancel them. McDonnell huffed and puffed but had no real answer.
The income stream from a PFI contract must surely be a marketable asset. If, therefore, the government is prepared to stump up the cash, then a deal can be done.
I would markinally prefer that to be the case, but it is no magic bullet, because you are basically paying out the profit element now, subject only to a time-discount.
Bear in mind that this was all happening at the same time Brown was crowing about managing the debt figures at every opportunity, and quoting the statistics to back him up.
ONS should redefine figures to make this not possible. It doesn’t do our stattos any favours to produce numbers that are gameable like this - reduces public trust in information they need to make informed decisions.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
No, it might have caused him negative political consequenes from a higher headline debt figure,, the economy would have been the same.
Yes - in fact the state of the public finances was actually worse since we spent more to borrow - some estimates are that it was twice as expensive. We would have been much better off borrowing the money normally.
Brown did not think he could get away with borrowing it. Blair and Brown were responsible for 75% of PFI contracts and they share a huge responsibilty for this mess from which there seems no escape other than not using any further PFIs
Marr challenged McDonnell over his claim he is going to buy the PFI contracts out. Marr produced a PFI contract that clearly has ring fenced the contract with punitive penalties for attempts to cancel them. McDonnell huffed and puffed but had no real answer.
The income stream from a PFI contract must surely be a marketable asset. If, therefore, the government is prepared to stump up the cash, then a deal can be done.
I would markinally prefer that to be the case, but it is no magic bullet, because you are basically paying out the profit element now, subject only to a time-discount.
Yes. I could imagine in some cases there is scope for a more aggressive legal push to challenge whether companies have really met their obligations - but basically we are stuck with the situation.
If it were easy to resolve - it would have been done by now.
For the literary PBers, a good interview with perhaps the greatest living novelist we have (certainly the greatest US living novelist).
A political snippet:
'P.R. However prescient “The Plot Against America” might seem to you, there is surely one enormous difference between the political circumstances I invent there for the U.S. in 1940 and the political calamity that dismays us so today. It’s the difference in stature between a President Lindbergh and a President Trump. Charles Lindbergh, in life as in my novel, may have been a genuine racist and an anti-Semite and a white supremacist sympathetic to Fascism, but he was also — because of the extraordinary feat of his solo trans-Atlantic flight at the age of 25 — an authentic American hero 13 years before I have him winning the presidency. Lindbergh, historically, was the courageous young pilot who in 1927, for the first time, flew nonstop across the Atlantic, from Long Island to Paris. He did it in 33.5 hours in a single-seat, single-engine monoplane, thus making him a kind of 20th-century Leif Ericson, an aeronautical Magellan, one of the earliest beacons of the age of aviation. Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac.'
On the topic of languages, there is no obvious reason why a British prime minister should speak French. French people under 40 have a far better grasp of English than their elders, and the largest French companies are already abandoning French for internal communications. In 50 years there will be far more speakers of French in West and Central Africa than Europe, but I expect that knowledge of English will grow there too thanks to US, UK and Nigerian influence.
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
Totally agree - Spanish and Mandarin along with English are the languages of the future.
Why do we teach French over Spanish in our schools - far more British people go on holiday to Spain than France (especially the young) and it's the language of an entire continent (bar Brazil and Canada - I include the US as its a second language there now in many areas). Even German might be more useful.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
No, it might have caused him negative political consequenes from a higher headline debt figure,, the economy would have been the same.
Yes - in fact the state of the public finances was actually worse since we spent more to borrow - some estimates are that it was twice as expensive. We would have been much better off borrowing the money normally.
Brown did not think he could get away with borrowing it. Blair and Brown were responsible for 75% of PFI contracts and they share a huge responsibilty for this mess from which there seems no escape other than not using any further PFIs
Politically not economically. You may not realise it - but your original thought was a defence of borrowing under pfi.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
No, it might have caused him negative political consequenes from a higher headline debt figure,, the economy would have been the same.
Yes - in fact the state of the public finances was actually worse since we spent more to borrow - some estimates are that it was twice as expensive. We would have been much better off borrowing the money normally.
Brown did not think he could get away with borrowing it. Blair and Brown were responsible for 75% of PFI contracts and they share a huge responsibilty for this mess from which there seems no escape other than not using any further PFIs
Politically not economically. You may not realise it - but your original thought was a defence of borrowing under pfi.
I may not have expressed it as well as I should as there is no defence for PFI but it was Brown's way of gaming the system and it has taken Carillion's liquidation to bring it to the top of the agenda
On the topic of languages, there is no obvious reason why a British prime minister should speak French. French people under 40 have a far better grasp of English than their elders, and the largest French companies are already abandoning French for internal communications. In 50 years there will be far more speakers of French in West and Central Africa than Europe, but I expect that knowledge of English will grow there too thanks to US, UK and Nigerian influence.
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
Totally agree - Spanish and Mandarin along with English are the languages of the future.
Why do we teach French over Spanish in our schools - far more British people go on holiday to Spain than France (especially the young) and it's the language of an entire continent (bar Brazil and Canada - I include the US as its a second language there now in many areas). Even German might be more useful.
Spanish is also a very easy language to learn.
English is the language of the future, and the study of anything else is going to be a waste of time, like making everyone learn to navigate by sextant in the days of GPS/Glonass/Galileo.
"Last week, unrelated to the Carillion debacle, a new NAO report showed costs under PFI some 40pc higher than relying on government finance, not least as the state can borrow more cheaply."
On the topic of languages, there is no obvious reason why a British prime minister should speak French. French people under 40 have a far better grasp of English than their elders, and the largest French companies are already abandoning French for internal communications. In 50 years there will be far more speakers of French in West and Central Africa than Europe, but I expect that knowledge of English will grow there too thanks to US, UK and Nigerian influence.
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
Totally agree - Spanish and Mandarin along with English are the languages of the future.
Why do we teach French over Spanish in our schools - far more British people go on holiday to Spain than France (especially the young) and it's the language of an entire continent (bar Brazil and Canada - I include the US as its a second language there now in many areas). Even German might be more useful.
Spanish is also a very easy language to learn.
English is the language of the future, and the study of anything else is going to be a waste of time, like making everyone learn to navigate by sextant in the days of GPS/Glonass/Galileo.
Learning a language is useful not simply for the ability to use that language but for the skills and techniques you learn in simply learning that language. Learning for learning's sake.
Similarly to lots who go to university will learn techniques etc that broaden their mind and will help in the future despite never actually using the specific bits of knowledge acquired there.
"Last week, unrelated to the Carillion debacle, a new NAO report showed costs under PFI some 40pc higher than relying on government finance, not least as the state can borrow more cheaply."
On the topic of languages, there is no obvious reason why a British prime minister should speak French. French people under 40 have a far better grasp of English than their elders, and the largest French companies are already abandoning French for internal communications. In 50 years there will be far more speakers of French in West and Central Africa than Europe, but I expect that knowledge of English will grow there too thanks to US, UK and Nigerian influence.
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
Totally agree - Spanish and Mandarin along with English are the languages of the future.
Why do we teach French over Spanish in our schools - far more British people go on holiday to Spain than France (especially the young) and it's the language of an entire continent (bar Brazil and Canada - I include the US as its a second language there now in many areas). Even German might be more useful.
Spanish is also a very easy language to learn.
English is the language of the future, and the study of anything else is going to be a waste of time, like making everyone learn to navigate by sextant in the days of GPS/Glonass/Galileo.
Learning a language is useful not simply for the ability to use that language but for the skills and techniques you learn in simply learning that language. Learning for learning's sake.
Similarly to lots who go to university will learn techniques etc that broaden their mind and will help in the future despite never actually using the specific bits of knowledge acquired there.
If we are learning for learning's sake, then the number of speakers of Spanish or Chinese is irrelevant. French is just as capable of broadening horizons, understanding English, etc.
Indeed learning Latin might actually be the best...
Marr challenged McDonnell over his claim he is going to buy the PFI contracts out. Marr produced a PFI contract that clearly has ring fenced the contract with punitive penalties for attempts to cancel them. McDonnell huffed and puffed but had no real answer.
The income stream from a PFI contract must surely be a marketable asset. If, therefore, the government is prepared to stump up the cash, then a deal can be done.
I would markinally prefer that to be the case, but it is no magic bullet, because you are basically paying out the profit element now, subject only to a time-discount.
It is - quite a few contracts have been sold on two or three times. Which also makes applying any kind of windfall tax/grab more complicated, as you'd effectively be partially confiscating assets of (for example) some of our EU partners, rather than clawing back excess profits....
On the topic of languages, there is no obvious reason why a British prime minister should speak French. French people under 40 have a far better grasp of English than their elders, and the largest French companies are already abandoning French for internal communications. In 50 years there will be far more speakers of French in West and Central Africa than Europe, but I expect that knowledge of English will grow there too thanks to US, UK and Nigerian influence.
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
Totally agree - Spanish and Mandarin along with English are the languages of the future.
Why do we teach French over Spanish in our schools - far more British people go on holiday to Spain than France (especially the young) and it's the language of an entire continent (bar Brazil and Canada - I include the US as its a second language there now in many areas). Even German might be more useful.
Spanish is also a very easy language to learn.
English is the language of the future, and the study of anything else is going to be a waste of time, like making everyone learn to navigate by sextant in the days of GPS/Glonass/Galileo.
Learning another language is also educating oneself in another culture. Never a wasted effort.
On the topic of languages, there is no obvious reason why a British prime minister should speak French. French people under 40 have a far better grasp of English than their elders, and the largest French companies are already abandoning French for internal communications. In 50 years there will be far more speakers of French in West and Central Africa than Europe, but I expect that knowledge of English will grow there too thanks to US, UK and Nigerian influence.
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
Totally agree - Spanish and Mandarin along with English are the languages of the future.
Why do we teach French over Spanish in our schools - far more British people go on holiday to Spain than France (especially the young) and it's the language of an entire continent (bar Brazil and Canada - I include the US as its a second language there now in many areas). Even German might be more useful.
Spanish is also a very easy language to learn.
English is the language of the future, and the study of anything else is going to be a waste of time, like making everyone learn to navigate by sextant in the days of GPS/Glonass/Galileo.
Learning a language is useful not simply for the ability to use that language but for the skills and techniques you learn in simply learning that language. Learning for learning's sake.
Similarly to lots who go to university will learn techniques etc that broaden their mind and will help in the future despite never actually using the specific bits of knowledge acquired there.
If we are learning for learning's sake, then the number of speakers of Spanish or Chinese is irrelevant. French is just as capable of broadening horizons, understanding English, etc.
Indeed learning Latin might actually be the best...
The problem with Latin is that you only get half the picture. As @RoyalBlue said below, the spoken language is just as important as the written language.
"Nigel Farage has said he has held talks about new anti-Brexit campaign groups, but said the idea of a Ukip successor party was not yet “on his radar”.
The former Ukip-leader told The Independent he had been discussing a “cross-party” effort to try and increase pressure for a hard Brexit.
It follows reports that he and Vote Leave donor Arron Banks have been planning a successor party if a crunch meeting on Sunday leads to the collapse of Ukip."
Since when was Arron Banks a Vote Leave donor? He was a Leave.EU donor.
On the topic of languages, there is no obvious reason why a British prime minister should speak French. French people under 40 have a far better grasp of English than their elders, and the largest French companies are already abandoning French for internal communications. In 50 years there will be far more speakers of French in West and Central Africa than Europe, but I expect that knowledge of English will grow there too thanks to US, UK and Nigerian influence.
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
Totally agree - Spanish and Mandarin along with English are the languages of the future.
Why do we teach French over Spanish in our schools - far more British people go on holiday to Spain than France (especially the young) and it's the language of an entire continent (bar Brazil and Canada - I include the US as its a second language there now in many areas). Even German might be more useful.
Spanish is also a very easy language to learn.
English is the language of the future, and the study of anything else is going to be a waste of time, like making everyone learn to navigate by sextant in the days of GPS/Glonass/Galileo.
So no need for anyone to learn how to add, subtract, divide and multiply - we have calculators for that.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
No, it might have caused him negative political consequenes from a higher headline debt figure,, the economy would have been the same.
Yes - in fact the state of the public finances was actually worse since we spent more to borrow - some estimates are that it was twice as expensive. We would have been much better off borrowing the money normally.
Brown did not think he could get away with borrowing it. Blair and Brown were responsible for 75% of PFI contracts and they share a huge responsibilty for this mess from which there seems no escape other than not using any further PFIs
Politically not economically. You may not realise it - but your original thought was a defence of borrowing under pfi.
I may not have expressed it as well as I should as there is no defence for PFI but it was Brown's way of gaming the system and it has taken Carillion's liquidation to bring it to the top of the agenda
I was having a clearout and came across P.F.Eye, the Eye's coverage of the history of it. It was dreamt up by David 'Two Brains' Willetts. * Ken Clarke only agreed to it it if all the risk was transferred to the private sector. Labour may have thought otherwise, or at least not warned negotiators to beware of sharks who'd charge £2,000 to fit an electrical socket.
What amazes me is why the innumerate fools are still using it under another name. It's a cross-party screw-up in my view except that I'm unsure if the Lib.Dems knowingly signed up to it during 2010-15.
Issue 50 year bonds, you idiots. Last time I looked, you can do that and pay less than 2% per year interest until 2068.
Jesse Norman MP stuck his head above the parapet and said what a bad idea it was, having witnessed the construction of the PFI hospital in Hereford. A book could probably be written just on the cockups in building that one. They included the casting of a concrete floor about 40 mm too high, so that some poor fool had to grind away a lot of concrete.
"Nigel Farage has said he has held talks about new anti-Brexit campaign groups, but said the idea of a Ukip successor party was not yet “on his radar”.
The former Ukip-leader told The Independent he had been discussing a “cross-party” effort to try and increase pressure for a hard Brexit.
It follows reports that he and Vote Leave donor Arron Banks have been planning a successor party if a crunch meeting on Sunday leads to the collapse of Ukip."
Since when was Arron Banks a Vote Leave donor? He was a Leave.EU donor.
There's an even more glaring mistake. Farage holding talks with anti-Brexit groups?!
"Nigel Farage has said he has held talks about new anti-Brexit campaign groups, but said the idea of a Ukip successor party was not yet “on his radar”.
The former Ukip-leader told The Independent he had been discussing a “cross-party” effort to try and increase pressure for a hard Brexit.
It follows reports that he and Vote Leave donor Arron Banks have been planning a successor party if a crunch meeting on Sunday leads to the collapse of Ukip."
Since when was Arron Banks a Vote Leave donor? He was a Leave.EU donor.
There's an even more glaring mistake. Farage holding talks with anti-Brexit groups?!
Yes, indeed! So all up just very badly written from what's meant to be a "serious" paper.
Italy has been in trouble for a long time. The north south divide is almost unbridgeable, corruption is rife, organised crime is entrenched, there is zero respect for state institutions. The EU and immigration are but the latest scapegoats for endemic, deep-seated and seemingly unsolveable problems. Italy is as it is because of decisions Italians have taken. The same applies to all EU member states, of course - including the UK.
Taking a longer historical view, Italy is as it is because for so many centuries it was ruled by others, generating a culture of mistrust in institutions and a reliance upon personal and family connections to find a way round the system.
My Greek friends take the same view. The Greeks were ruled by the Ottomans for so long (Anatolian Greeks less than a Century) that tax dodging is not only OK, it is even a patriotic duty.
The one thing that is being overlooked is that at the time Brown put rocket boosters under PFI interest rates were very much higher so the cost would have been very much bigger than today. We are in danger of thinking interest rates have always been very low. Indeed I can remember them being at 15%
The one thing that is being overlooked is that at the time Brown put rocket boosters under PFI interest rates were very much higher so the cost would have been very much bigger than today. We are in damage of thinking interest rates have always been very low. Indeed I can remember them being at 15%
McDonnell was right though, under both Tories and New Labour it was the only way to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.
In Leicester our PFI "Pathway" was abandoned a decade ago, but as a result of no major structural investment, until our new Emergency Dept last year, we have a decrepit and inefficient estate. The running costs on two sites with modern buildings would be a lot better than 3 with a hodgepodge of old and new. We have had 20 years of planning blight. It was PFI or nothing, and PFI was a rip off.
For the literary PBers, a good interview with perhaps the greatest living novelist we have (certainly the greatest US living novelist).
A political snippet:
'P.R. However prescient “The Plot Against America” might seem to you, there is surely one enormous difference between the political circumstances I invent there for the U.S. in 1940 and the political calamity that dismays us so today. It’s the difference in stature between a President Lindbergh and a President Trump. Charles Lindbergh, in life as in my novel, may have been a genuine racist and an anti-Semite and a white supremacist sympathetic to Fascism, but he was also — because of the extraordinary feat of his solo trans-Atlantic flight at the age of 25 — an authentic American hero 13 years before I have him winning the presidency. Lindbergh, historically, was the courageous young pilot who in 1927, for the first time, flew nonstop across the Atlantic, from Long Island to Paris. He did it in 33.5 hours in a single-seat, single-engine monoplane, thus making him a kind of 20th-century Leif Ericson, an aeronautical Magellan, one of the earliest beacons of the age of aviation. Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac.'
Undoubtedly a massive achievement, but I suppose there's always a fascination with the lone aviator/yachtsman/explorer. I guess it also fits in with the US worship of individualism.
For the literary PBers, a good interview with perhaps the greatest living novelist we have (certainly the greatest US living novelist).
A political snippet:
'P.R. However prescient “The Plot Against America” might seem to you, there is surely one enormous difference between the political circumstances I invent there for the U.S. in 1940 and the political calamity that dismays us so today. It’s the difference in stature between a President Lindbergh and a President Trump. Charles Lindbergh, in life as in my novel, may have been a genuine racist and an anti-Semite and a white supremacist sympathetic to Fascism, but he was also — because of the extraordinary feat of his solo trans-Atlantic flight at the age of 25 — an authentic American hero 13 years before I have him winning the presidency. Lindbergh, historically, was the courageous young pilot who in 1927, for the first time, flew nonstop across the Atlantic, from Long Island to Paris. He did it in 33.5 hours in a single-seat, single-engine monoplane, thus making him a kind of 20th-century Leif Ericson, an aeronautical Magellan, one of the earliest beacons of the age of aviation. Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac.'
Not sure I follow Roth's thinking there. If I had to choose, I'd vote Trump over Lindbergh in a heartbeat. Better a self-obsessed unreliable narcissist than an anti-semitic white supremacist, especially in the 1930s. His personal courage is entirely irrelevant in a political context, and we are much better off not having someon like that as a respected figure.
The one thing that is being overlooked is that at the time Brown put rocket boosters under PFI interest rates were very much higher so the cost would have been very much bigger than today. We are in damage of thinking interest rates have always been very low. Indeed I can remember them being at 15%
McDonnell was right though, under both Tories and New Labour it was the only way to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.
In Leicester our PFI "Pathway" was abandoned a decade ago, but as a result of no major structural investment, until our new Emergency Dept last year, we have a decrepit and inefficient estate. The running costs on two sites with modern buildings would be a lot better than 3 with a hodgepodge of old and new. We have had 20 years of planning blight. It was PFI or nothing, and PFI was a rip off.
Not sure I follow McDonnell was right but it was the only way to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
We did borrow that money in effect because we have to pay it back. We even borrowed it on poorer terms.
PFi can make sense if you have some reason to believe the private sector will do the thing/provide the service better. If it’s just a way of making borrowing figures look smaller, whilst paying more since the private sector can’t borrrow as cheap, then it’s a really stupid idea.
I agree it is a stupid idea but Brown was full of them
Brown and Blair's ideas were simple - buy votes today with the money of future generations. It's been the curse of modern politics - borrow today and let your grandkids pay.
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
We did borrow that money in effect because we have to pay it back. We even borrowed it on poorer terms.
PFi can make sense if you have some reason to believe the private sector will do the thing/provide the service better. If it’s just a way of making borrowing figures look smaller, whilst paying more since the private sector can’t borrrow as cheap, then it’s a really stupid idea.
I agree it is a stupid idea but Brown was full of them
Brown and Blair's ideas were simple - buy votes today with the money of future generations. It's been the curse of modern politics - borrow today and let your grandkids pay.
This approach is hard-wired into our short-termist political and economic systems, and is hardly particular to the Blair years.
One of the few good ideas Trump promoted (but has yet to action) was to remove the tax deductability of debt interest. What the equivalent political solution, other than Chinese-style government, isn't so clear. PR would clearly help, at least a bit.
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
On McDonnell, Marr confronted him on PFI and that 75% of the contracts were signed by labour. He said that as far back as the 1990's he opposed PFI contracts. Marr's response - the new hospital in your constituency was buily under PFI and you did not object. McDonnell's response was that it was necessary at the time, as was the school that was built.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
If you need a hospital - and someone offers you one at a high price, take it or leave it, what do you do?
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
The real problem was that without PFI the number of new hospitals and schools Blair, and especially Brown, wanted to build could not have been built without unacceptable level of debt
Please explain how paying more than we needed to for hospitals and schools has left us with a more sustainable debt burden.
It was a decision Brown made as to have borrowed the total cost of all the hospital and schools at the time would have caused serious financial implications to the economy.
We did borrow that money in effect because we have to pay it back. We even borrowed it on poorer terms.
PFi can make sense if you have some reason to believe the private sector will do the thing/provide the service better. If it’s just a way of making borrowing figures look smaller, whilst paying more since the private sector can’t borrrow as cheap, then it’s a really stupid idea.
I agree it is a stupid idea but Brown was full of them
Brown and Blair's ideas were simple - buy votes today with the money of future generations. It's been the curse of modern politics - borrow today and let your grandkids pay.
Students Fees are from the same philosophy. Just like PFI and Sub Prime Mortgages, there will be a reckoning some day. Already the govt are projecting that most will never be repaid.
Great article..but reading it on a beautiful afternoon in Florence, after enjoying possibly the best seafood risotto I have ever eaten washed down by a light wonderful white....OK the Italians are really shit at politics, but they do other things to a very fuckingly good high standard.....
Tyson - one of my favourite cities - just wonderful
Comrade....tennis is very exciting and much less damaging to the environment than horribly polluting F1 cars often driving in a boring procession behind LH
For the literary PBers, a good interview with perhaps the greatest living novelist we have (certainly the greatest US living novelist).
A political snippet:
'P.R. However prescient “The Plot Against America” might seem to you, there is surely one enormous difference between the political circumstances I invent there for the U.S. in 1940 and the political calamity that dismays us so today. It’s the difference in stature between a President Lindbergh and a President Trump. Charles Lindbergh, in life as in my novel, may have been a genuine racist and an anti-Semite and a white supremacist sympathetic to Fascism, but he was also — because of the extraordinary feat of his solo trans-Atlantic flight at the age of 25 — an authentic American hero 13 years before I have him winning the presidency. Lindbergh, historically, was the courageous young pilot who in 1927, for the first time, flew nonstop across the Atlantic, from Long Island to Paris. He did it in 33.5 hours in a single-seat, single-engine monoplane, thus making him a kind of 20th-century Leif Ericson, an aeronautical Magellan, one of the earliest beacons of the age of aviation. Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac.'
Not sure I follow Roth's thinking there. If I had to choose, I'd vote Trump over Lindbergh in a heartbeat. Better a self-obsessed unreliable narcissist than an anti-semitic white supremacist, especially in the 1930s. His personal courage is entirely irrelevant in a political context, and we are much better off not having someon like that as a respected figure.
I read it as more as a comparison between the quality of demagogueries. Roth would have undoubtedly suffered more under President Lindbergh than President Trump, but he can at least see the the former's qualities even if they don't compensate for the deficiencies. Discerning Trump's is more problematic.
Italy has been in trouble for a long time. The north south divide is almost unbridgeable, corruption is rife, organised crime is entrenched, there is zero respect for state institutions. The EU and immigration are but the latest scapegoats for endemic, deep-seated and seemingly unsolveable problems. Italy is as it is because of decisions Italians have taken. The same applies to all EU member states, of course - including the UK.
Taking a longer historical view, Italy is as it is because for so many centuries it was ruled by others, generating a culture of mistrust in institutions and a reliance upon personal and family connections to find a way round the system.
My Greek friends take the same view. The Greeks were ruled by the Ottomans for so long (Anatolian Greeks less than a Century) that tax dodging is not only OK, it is even a patriotic duty.
The one thing that is being overlooked is that at the time Brown put rocket boosters under PFI interest rates were very much higher so the cost would have been very much bigger than today. We are in damage of thinking interest rates have always been very low. Indeed I can remember them being at 15%
McDonnell was right though, under both Tories and New Labour it was the only way to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.
In Leicester our PFI "Pathway" was abandoned a decade ago, but as a result of no major structural investment, until our new Emergency Dept last year, we have a decrepit and inefficient estate. The running costs on two sites with modern buildings would be a lot better than 3 with a hodgepodge of old and new. We have had 20 years of planning blight. It was PFI or nothing, and PFI was a rip off.
Not sure I follow McDonnell was right but it was the only way to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure.
McDonnell was right in not opposing a PFI hospital, while being against the principle.
PFI was not the only way to rebuild public infrastructure, both public borrowing and higher taxes were obvious alternatives. PFI was a political choice, and should be hung around the necks of the politicians who enforced it, like an albatross.
On the topic of languages, there is no obvious reason why a British prime minister should speak French. French people under 40 have a far better grasp of English than their elders, and the largest French companies are already abandoning French for internal communications. In 50 years there will be far more speakers of French in West and Central Africa than Europe, but I expect that knowledge of English will grow there too thanks to US, UK and Nigerian influence.
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
Totally agree - Spanish and Mandarin along with English are the languages of the future.
Why do we teach French over Spanish in our schools - far more British people go on holiday to Spain than France (especially the young) and it's the language of an entire continent (bar Brazil and Canada - I include the US as its a second language there now in many areas). Even German might be more useful.
Spanish is also a very easy language to learn.
English is the language of the future, and the study of anything else is going to be a waste of time, like making everyone learn to navigate by sextant in the days of GPS/Glonass/Galileo.
Learning a language is useful not simply for the ability to use that language but for the skills and techniques you learn in simply learning that language. Learning for learning's sake.
Similarly to lots who go to university will learn techniques etc that broaden their mind and will help in the future despite never actually using the specific bits of knowledge acquired there.
If we are learning for learning's sake, then the number of speakers of Spanish or Chinese is irrelevant. French is just as capable of broadening horizons, understanding English, etc.
Indeed learning Latin might actually be the best...
The problem with Latin is that you only get half the picture. As @RoyalBlue said below, the spoken language is just as important as the written language.
And if you are going to go to the trouble of learning something new and difficult, the possibility of a practical benefit clearly makes sense, even if for many people it might be hypothetical (and of course there are current day print, radio, television and web media to make the learning experience more interesting and hence more successful, which Latin cannot offer).
If the object is to stretch yourself, then Japanese, Hungarian and Arabic (or Hebrew) all offer significant challenges...
Comments
As you well know, you would be crying for some no-mark Tory MP to be driven to the Chiltern Hundreds for something he said when he was six.
Labour. Doing world-class hypocrisy since....forever.
You can make a case that the Republic in the 3rd century was better than the nascent empire, of course.
While I agree with @SouthamObserver that Italy's problems are longstanding, there's no doubt that Euro membership has exacerbated the situation. Italy used to be the world's second largest exporter. In '91 it had a larger economy than both France and the UK. It's had almost no economic growth since 1999.
Hypocrisy of the highest order and I cannot think of any prospective COE who was or is so unsuited to the role
On the basis that Arabic and Mandarin will be beyond most Brits, Spanish seems the logical choice. Our bilateral relationship with Spain is important for trade, tourism, and expats, plus Spanish is the most spoken language in the Western Hemisphere.
https://login.labevents.org/application/eventapplication.aspx?eventid=347&app=1673
The low interest rates since the crash should have helped for such an indebted country but it’s not been enough. Investment opportunities are too limited. With high unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, people are increasingly disillusioned. If a major country comes out the Euro it will be Italy.
Of course you take it.
The mistake was from Brown and Blair for funding it in such a stupid way.
It’s not hypocrisy to say the taxpayer paid too much for something but we needed it badly so I’m glad we got it, even if we overpaid.
This was brought home to me when learning Russian, when our teacher told us that if we didn’t make the right sounds we would not be understood, or the listener would think we were simple.
The prime minister will attempt to “clear the air” in a hastily arranged meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week after Trump ditched plans to visit Britain next month.
But those close to the US president claim he is still furious with the way he has been treated by the British government and warn his deteriorating relationship with May is likely to kill any prospect of a swift post-Brexit trade deal.
A source told The Sunday Times: “His position is that if Britain not interested in me, I am not interested in them.”
Another added: “A trade deal with the US might be No 1 on the UK’s list but it’s not top of his list of priorities. The relationship has soured. You don’t have to be a genius to see that.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trumps-anger-with-may-puts-brexit-trade-deal-at-risk-jtn0f2t9m
Say the right wingers in the PLP
A political snippet:
'P.R. However prescient “The Plot Against America” might seem to you, there is surely one enormous difference between the political circumstances I invent there for the U.S. in 1940 and the political calamity that dismays us so today. It’s the difference in stature between a President Lindbergh and a President Trump. Charles Lindbergh, in life as in my novel, may have been a genuine racist and an anti-Semite and a white supremacist sympathetic to Fascism, but he was also — because of the extraordinary feat of his solo trans-Atlantic flight at the age of 25 — an authentic American hero 13 years before I have him winning the presidency. Lindbergh, historically, was the courageous young pilot who in 1927, for the first time, flew nonstop across the Atlantic, from Long Island to Paris. He did it in 33.5 hours in a single-seat, single-engine monoplane, thus making him a kind of 20th-century Leif Ericson, an aeronautical Magellan, one of the earliest beacons of the age of aviation. Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies, devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac.'
https://tinyurl.com/yd4l4blt
We even borrowed it on poorer terms.
PFi can make sense if you have some reason to believe the private sector will do the thing/provide the service better. If it’s just a way of making borrowing figures look smaller, whilst paying more since the private sector can’t borrrow as cheap, then it’s a really stupid idea.
That's the problem with off balance sheet financing - it allows you temporarily to get away with stuff that you shouldn't. Particularly when the deals you do to keep it off the balance sheet turn out to be really bad ones.
My money has always been on a moderate decrease in the budget deficit. If remaining months are strong, most importantly January's tax take - then we could easily see the deficit cut from £45bn to £40bn in nominal terms for the full year, which is actually quite a big chunk and which would us well place to zero out the deficit by 2020-1 (optimistic) or 2021-2.
I would markinally prefer that to be the case, but it is no magic bullet, because you are basically paying out the profit element now, subject only to a time-discount.
It doesn’t do our stattos any favours to produce numbers that are gameable like this - reduces public trust in information they need to make informed decisions.
If it were easy to resolve - it would have been done by now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_flight_of_Alcock_and_Brown
Why do we teach French over Spanish in our schools - far more British people go on holiday to Spain than France (especially the young) and it's the language of an entire continent (bar Brazil and Canada - I include the US as its a second language there now in many areas). Even German might be more useful.
Spanish is also a very easy language to learn.
You may not realise it - but your original thought was a defence of borrowing under pfi.
"PFI has been a disaster for taxpayers."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/01/20/pfi-sham-gives-capitalism-bad-name-paves-way-corbyn/
Similarly to lots who go to university will learn techniques etc that broaden their mind and will help in the future despite never actually using the specific bits of knowledge acquired there.
Indeed learning Latin might actually be the best...
Which also makes applying any kind of windfall tax/grab more complicated, as you'd effectively be partially confiscating assets of (for example) some of our EU partners, rather than clawing back excess profits....
"Nigel Farage has said he has held talks about new anti-Brexit campaign groups, but said the idea of a Ukip successor party was not yet “on his radar”.
The former Ukip-leader told The Independent he had been discussing a “cross-party” effort to try and increase pressure for a hard Brexit.
It follows reports that he and Vote Leave donor Arron Banks have been planning a successor party if a crunch meeting on Sunday leads to the collapse of Ukip."
Since when was Arron Banks a Vote Leave donor? He was a Leave.EU donor.
What amazes me is why the innumerate fools are still using it under another name. It's a cross-party screw-up in my view except that I'm unsure if the Lib.Dems knowingly signed up to it during 2010-15.
Issue 50 year bonds, you idiots. Last time I looked, you can do that and pay less than 2% per year interest until 2068.
Jesse Norman MP stuck his head above the parapet and said what a bad idea it was, having witnessed the construction of the PFI hospital in Hereford. A book could probably be written just on the cockups in building that one. They included the casting of a concrete floor about 40 mm too high, so that some poor fool had to grind away a lot of concrete.
* Mr. No Brains?
The one thing that is being overlooked is that at the time Brown put rocket boosters under PFI interest rates were very much higher so the cost would have been very much bigger than today. We are in danger of thinking interest rates have always been very low. Indeed I can remember them being at 15%
In Leicester our PFI "Pathway" was abandoned a decade ago, but as a result of no major structural investment, until our new Emergency Dept last year, we have a decrepit and inefficient estate. The running costs on two sites with modern buildings would be a lot better than 3 with a hodgepodge of old and new. We have had 20 years of planning blight. It was PFI or nothing, and PFI was a rip off.
One of the few good ideas Trump promoted (but has yet to action) was to remove the tax deductability of debt interest. What the equivalent political solution, other than Chinese-style government, isn't so clear. PR would clearly help, at least a bit.
Comrade....tennis is very exciting and much less damaging to the environment than horribly polluting F1 cars often driving in a boring procession behind LH
PFI was not the only way to rebuild public infrastructure, both public borrowing and higher taxes were obvious alternatives. PFI was a political choice, and should be hung around the necks of the politicians who enforced it, like an albatross.
If the object is to stretch yourself, then Japanese, Hungarian and Arabic (or Hebrew) all offer significant challenges...