I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
The record after the crash was better but mixed. The refusal to have a spending review because cuts would have been a part of it undermining his campaign against Tory cuts was grossly irresponsible and dishonest. There were a number of drivers of public spending and commitments made, most obviously in terms of in work benefits, that made further growth in spending very difficult to resist. The Northern Rock situation could have been handled a lot better. But the economy was kept liquid and alive even although the collapse in GDP was substantial. What it also showed was that too much of government revenue was coming from unsustainable income flows generated by the City.
What I found most egregious about Brown was his fundamental dishonesty. The constant reanouncement of money already promised. The adding up of years of spending to produce higher figures. The manipulation of the government accounts. The destruction of our pension industry with hidden taxes. He was not the first and subsequent Chancellors have repeated some of his innovations to their discredit but he was not trustworthy.
We were in a weak position because banking and finance is a large part of our economy and we had massive regulatory failures. Brown deserves his share of the blame for that - albeit I doubt that the Tories would have done much differently.
But Brown not running a surplus post 2001 made no difference to our ability to borrow, and rates at which we can borrow have plummeted.
The interest rates may not be different but our credit lines have been largely used up making it more difficult to borrow at the same low rates during the next recession.
Mr. L, when Brown came to power the deficit was declining. He then followed Conservative spending plans and ran a surplus. After this, he followed his own judgement and ran up £153bn of deficit over about 7 years, before his regulatory system did such a good job that we had the highest ever deficit, and the deepest recession in British history.
The situation he inherited was far better than the legacy he left. The deficit was smaller when he came to high office than when he left. The debt was smaller.
And for those tempted to say it was just the financial crisis, leaving aside that the UK has quite the slice of the financial pie, I'd point out Australia suffered far less because they had better regulation. Who was responsible for the regulatory structure the UK financial sector had? Gordon Brown.
Mr. Charles, quite. It was similar, writ large, to his vindictive shit approach to the PM's salary.
The increase in the debt/GDP ratio in the years 2001-2007 was unforgiveable and put us in a very weak condition. He allowed the economy to grow rapidly in those years by a massive increase in debt and credit which is still causing us problems. If you add the PFI spending to the very large increases in public spending on the books the true level of public debt in a time of high growth was a disgrace and, directly contrary to his assertions, put us in a very weak place to deal with the crash.
What I found most egregious about Brown was his fundamental dishonesty. The constant reanouncement of money already promised. The adding up of years of spending to produce higher figures. The manipulation of the government accounts. The destruction of our pension industry with hidden taxes. He was not the first and subsequent Chancellors have repeated some of his innovations to their discredit but he was not trustworthy.
We were in a weak position because banking and finance is a large part of our economy and we had massive regulatory failures. Brown deserves his share of the blame for that - albeit I doubt that the Tories would have done much differently.
But Brown not running a surplus post 2001 made no difference to our ability to borrow, and rates at which we can borrow have plummeted.
Of course it makes a bloody difference. Firstly, the government wouldn't have borrowed anything like as much year-on-year if it had gone into the crisis with a structural balance rather than a structural deficit of £50-80bn pa. Secondly, markets will be more inclined to lend at low rates to countries with lower debt-to-GDP ratios. Thirdly, a national consensus of low debt makes a more attractive lender; Labour proved that there was no such consensus, therefore there was greater risk, therefore, higher rates were demanded. There's no need for counterfactuals on this; other countries offer all the evidence needed.
The graph here is very telling. Highlight Britain and set the years to 2000-2008.
In 2000, Britain was 11th out of 35 in the OECD (excluding the EU and Eurozone joint figures), for net budget deficit, with a surplus of 1.4%.
By 2007, Britain had dropped to 33rd out of 38, with a deficit of 2.63% - at a time when the general trend was upwards (14 countries were running surplusses at the time greater than Britain's had been in 2000).
Even now (or in 2016 - the most recent OECD stats), after eight years of spending restraint, Britain is still running the fourth-highest deficit in the organisation, albeit that 11 countries are grouped fairly closely, with deficits between 1.5% and 3%).
Agreed. The poor woman is in an impossible situation. Boris will use a soft Brexit as the perfect excuse to oust her. Of course, once that's achieved he'll sign up to the same version of Brexit himself and will probably get away with it, but that will be scant consolation for Theresa, who'll be out on her ear and barely warranting a footnote in the annals of history.
Quite true. Poor Theresa. The only redeeming legacy factor on a Boris succession is that she'll at least default one place higher on British PM's....OK she'll still be one considered one of the worst and mostly pitied, not invited to parties, given any lucrative commissions, global positions with a bargain basement memoir soon to be offered free on Kindle and such like.....
But in that great pantheon of PM's she'll be able to piss on Boris's head in due course....although to have the likes of Gordon Brown and John Major well above her is not what she imagined this time last year...
I well remember about 10 years ago there were multiple people on here loudly proclaiming BROWN IS THE MOST USELESS PM EVER....some of those people are still here, others like the late lamented Martin Day are long gone. But as a Tory voter it pains me to say that May makes Brown look like a political colossus in retrospect, and you are right that Boris or Mogg would be far worse still.
*awaits inevitable puerile rebuttal from HYUFD comparing Brown and May's electoral performance*
Brown was a terrible Chancellor/PM
But he was good at politics - he ate up the Labour Party to further his own agenda
May is doing an ok job of managing a difficult situation. But is terrible at politics.
Your regular reminder that you can back Britain to leave the EU on Betfair by 29 March 2019 at odds of over 2.4. Of course it's not a certainty but it has to be very much odds on.
I don't think it is very much odds on, and clearly neither do most punters.
The key date is 26 May 2019 - the date of the next EU election of MEPs. It will be easy to slip the Brexit date back two months from 29 March to 26 May but beyond 26 May it will be more difficult (though not impossible).
Why would anyone want to go to all the trouble of trying to get 28 countries to agree unanimously to a few weeks' delay, especially since there's almost certainly going to be a two-year transition period in which nothing changes anyway (except that the bet pays out)?
It could be pre-agreed by the 27 in the event that negotiations go to the wire with the prospect of a cliff edge exit on WTO rules which would be a lose-lose. It could also be required if the talks drag on and there are timing problems in getting the required ratifications. It is not a few weeks delay - it is eight weeks on a very tight schedule.
Your regular reminder that you can back Britain to leave the EU on Betfair by 29 March 2019 at odds of over 2.4. Of course it's not a certainty but it has to be very much odds on.
I don't think it is very much odds on, and clearly neither do most punters.
The key date is 26 May 2019 - the date of the next EU election of MEPs. It will be easy to slip the Brexit date back two months from 29 March to 26 May but beyond 26 May it will be more difficult (though not impossible).
Why would anyone want to go to all the trouble of trying to get 28 countries to agree unanimously to a few weeks' delay, especially since there's almost certainly going to be a two-year transition period in which nothing changes anyway (except that the bet pays out)?
You know how the EU works. Nearly everything of importance happens at the last minute. Unfortunately, with ratification processes, if a deal isn't done until early 2019, it might be necessary to have a short extension to prevent a limbo period where Britain is neither a member of the EU, nor has it an A50 deal in place.
What I found most egregious about Brown was his fundamental dishonesty. The constant reanouncement of money already promised. The adding up of years of spending to produce higher figures. The manipulation of the government accounts. The destruction of our pension industry with hidden taxes. He was not the first and subsequent Chancellors have repeated some of his innovations to their discredit but he was not trustworthy.
We were in a weak position because banking and finance is a large part of our economy and we had massive regulatory failures. Brown deserves his share of the blame for that - albeit I doubt that the Tories would have done much differently.
But Brown not running a surplus post 2001 made no difference to our ability to borrow, and rates at which we can borrow have plummeted.
Of course it makes a bloody difference. Firstly, the government wouldn't have borrowed anything like as much year-on-year if it had gone into the crisis with a structural balance rather than a structural deficit of £50-80bn pa. Secondly, markets will be more inclined to lend at low rates to countries with lower debt-to-GDP ratios. Thirdly, a national consensus of low debt makes a more attractive lender; Labour proved that there was no such consensus, therefore there was greater risk, therefore, higher rates were demanded. There's no need for counterfactuals on this; other countries offer all the evidence needed.
Our borrowing rates fell after the financial crisis even as our debt to gdp doubled. At present Japan can borrow money really cheaply despite having a very high debt to gdp ratio.
For a while uk borrowing rates were negative in real terms (indeed might be still). No one is worried about the uk repaying our debts and given the fact that we didn’t join the euro - no one should be worried either.
I’d be very wary about structural deficit estimates - they change hugely based on assumptions around productivity etc.
Your regular reminder that you can back Britain to leave the EU on Betfair by 29 March 2019 at odds of over 2.4. Of course it's not a certainty but it has to be very much odds on.
I don't think it is very much odds on, and clearly neither do most punters.
The key date is 26 May 2019 - the date of the next EU election of MEPs. It will be easy to slip the Brexit date back two months from 29 March to 26 May but beyond 26 May it will be more difficult (though not impossible).
Why would anyone want to go to all the trouble of trying to get 28 countries to agree unanimously to a few weeks' delay, especially since there's almost certainly going to be a two-year transition period in which nothing changes anyway (except that the bet pays out)?
It could be pre-agreed by the 27 in the event that negotiations go to the wire with the prospect of a cliff edge exit on WTO rules which would be a lose-lose. It could also be required if the talks drag on and there are timing problems in getting the required ratifications. It is not a few weeks delay - it is eight weeks on a very tight schedule.
Yeah, about a 10% chance, maybe less. The bet Alastair highlighted is the stand-out political bet in the entire market at the moment IMO. It's a classic example of odds distorted by wishful thinking. Long may that last!
So inflation coming down, GDP going up. Unemployment/employment both looking amazing.
Everything is going "TREMENDOUSLY" from what I can see.
All we need is May, Hammond and Carney out and a PM/CotE/Governor of the Bank of England who can actually present all this good news to the public rather than looking like they are the chief mourners at the funeral of UKPLC...
As a contrarian Brexiteer, it's sad that we're happy with 1.8%. Compared to long term trend growth, it's still shit. We're ten years into our recovery and this is the best we can do?
From the perspective of bashing Remainers over the head with some of the ludicrous predictions of APOCALYPSE NOW that we saw during the campaign, yes, give yourself 10 billion Internet Points. From the point of view of wealth creation, I'm disappointed.
There was a vast amount of misallocated capital to work through. We chose to do it slowly to moderate the human cost but the trade off is slower growth. Iceland chose another approach and it worked for them - but I don’t think we had the national consensus that you have made ripping the bandage off achievable
Excellent post.
As someone who works a lot in Iceland, I should say that many Icelanders would have preferred the British softly softly approach but they wearily accept that it would have been impossible in their situation. Though their recovery has been impressive it has come at the cost of a tourist invasion so enormous that it seriously impacts quality of life for many.
The tourist invasion sounds horrible; if I were them I'd impose a $50 a day tourist tax, and make being part of an English stag party a criminal offence.
If she'd waited on the reshuffle, Hammond has undermined his position
So has Boris
Boris still has fans in parliament, in the party and in the country. Boris on the backbenches is a danger to May (particularly because he'd be even more free to pick the time and subject of his interventions).
Hammond on the backbenches, by contrast, is just someone waiting for a peerage and directorships.
Your regular reminder that you can back Britain to leave the EU on Betfair by 29 March 2019 at odds of over 2.4. Of course it's not a certainty but it has to be very much odds on.
I don't think it is very much odds on, and clearly neither do most punters.
The key date is 26 May 2019 - the date of the next EU election of MEPs. It will be easy to slip the Brexit date back two months from 29 March to 26 May but beyond 26 May it will be more difficult (though not impossible).
Why would anyone want to go to all the trouble of trying to get 28 countries to agree unanimously to a few weeks' delay, especially since there's almost certainly going to be a two-year transition period in which nothing changes anyway (except that the bet pays out)?
It could be pre-agreed by the 27 in the event that negotiations go to the wire with the prospect of a cliff edge exit on WTO rules which would be a lose-lose. It could also be required if the talks drag on and there are timing problems in getting the required ratifications. It is not a few weeks delay - it is eight weeks on a very tight schedule.
Yeah, about a 10% chance, maybe less. The bet Alastair highlighted is the stand-out political bet in the entire market at the moment IMO. It's a classic example of odds distorted by wishful thinking. Long may that last!
Wishful thinking can occur on both sides.
EDIT There's nothing wrong with optimism so long as you don't get your hopes up.
Mr. Z, we should revive the concept of enlightened self-interest. Recent news reports stated that Zimbabwe has a lot of mineral wealth but can't exploit it because landowners lack the money to mine it.
We could front up the money. Zimbabwe gets tax revenue, locals get employment, the landowner makes a profit, and we make a profit too. It's good for them and it's good for us.
Why we don't do that is beyond me.
The UK has history in Zimbabwe
(But the Commonwealth Development Corporation used to exactly what you said until Brown decided making money from investing in emerging markets was unethical)
The CDC was started by Attlee in 1948, but Brown did indeed turn it into a private corporation, albeit with the government owning the shares. It is now a profit seeking entity, rather than development focussed, so not quite sure how that fits with your summary, indeed it has been criticised in development circles for excessive profiteering.
My Zambeef shares did well from a CDC investment though, so not all bad.
I may have got muddled but I thought it was sold to management and is now Actis Private Equity?
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
Brown moved bank regulation from experienced old hands at the Bank of England to a newly set up FSA who were weak, weak weak.
Bank regulation is now back with the Bank of England and we can sleep soundly in our beds once more.
Your regular reminder that you can back Britain to leave the EU on Betfair by 29 March 2019 at odds of over 2.4. Of course it's not a certainty but it has to be very much odds on.
I don't think it is very much odds on, and clearly neither do most punters.
The key date is 26 May 2019 - the date of the next EU election of MEPs. It will be easy to slip the Brexit date back two months from 29 March to 26 May but beyond 26 May it will be more difficult (though not impossible).
Why would anyone want to go to all the trouble of trying to get 28 countries to agree unanimously to a few weeks' delay, especially since there's almost certainly going to be a two-year transition period in which nothing changes anyway (except that the bet pays out)?
You know how the EU works. Nearly everything of importance happens at the last minute. Unfortunately, with ratification processes, if a deal isn't done until early 2019, it might be necessary to have a short extension to prevent a limbo period where Britain is neither a member of the EU, nor has it an A50 deal in place.
Our Brexit deal will be decided by who is in the room representing the Uk when it is one minuite to midnight. We need someone like Boris who the other side know is a bit crazy and could walk out if they don't cave in to his demands.
If she'd waited on the reshuffle, Hammond has undermined his position
So has Boris
Boris still has fans in parliament, in the party and in the country. Boris on the backbenches is a danger to May (particularly because he'd be even more free to pick the time and subject of his interventions).
Hammond on the backbenches, by contrast, is just someone waiting for a peerage and directorships.
Boris in the cabinet is an incompetent wrecker who has no real interest in doing the job he is suppose to do. At least the other incompetents who May has appointed to senior government positions for internal Tory party dynamics only mainly respect collective responsibility.
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
You’re right. Bank managements were awful. (I remember particularly Stan O’Neal at Merrill trying to persuade me than $1 trillion (yes that’s right) of exposure to US sub prime was not too much risk in one asset class)
And there was an overarching cultural issue that @Cyclefree is much more eloquent and informed about than I am.
But that doesn’t mean the people who f*cked up the regulatory system aren’t guilty as sin. They had a job, they didn’t do it and we all suffered.
They forgot the basic rule - that personal supervision and understanding of risk is what matters - as my grandfather wrote to the Guv’nor “I don’t want to fill in your forms. You don’t want to read my forms. Why don’t you come and have lunch instead?”
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
(Do all come - it’s a fantastic show. Open until 22 April)
We'll probably pop in on Saturday.
I'm adding it as an option for Feb 12-14th when we are on a trip to London to see Hamilton amongst other items...
Only an option?!
Worth coming just for the house alone (although you won’t see it’s full glory the way the exhibition is set up)
I will have my 16 year old twins with me - they have a list of things to do as long as their arms including the postal museum (for the mini train), design museum, what was the Geology museum, the V&A and a repeat of the Barbican architectural tour.
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
Brown moved bank regulation from experienced old hands at the Bank of England to a newly set up FSA who were weak, weak weak..
It was even worse than that. He split it into three parts (the BoE, FCA and Treasury), with none of them responsible for overseeing the integrity of the whole banking system. It was unbelievably incompetent.
Your regular reminder that you can back Britain to leave the EU on Betfair by 29 March 2019 at odds of over 2.4. Of course it's not a certainty but it has to be very much odds on.
I don't think it is very much odds on, and clearly neither do most punters.
The key date is 26 May 2019 - the date of the next EU election of MEPs. It will be easy to slip the Brexit date back two months from 29 March to 26 May but beyond 26 May it will be more difficult (though not impossible).
Why would anyone want to go to all the trouble of trying to get 28 countries to agree unanimously to a few weeks' delay, especially since there's almost certainly going to be a two-year transition period in which nothing changes anyway (except that the bet pays out)?
It could be pre-agreed by the 27 in the event that negotiations go to the wire with the prospect of a cliff edge exit on WTO rules which would be a lose-lose. It could also be required if the talks drag on and there are timing problems in getting the required ratifications. It is not a few weeks delay - it is eight weeks on a very tight schedule.
Yeah, about a 10% chance, maybe less. The bet Alastair highlighted is the stand-out political bet in the entire market at the moment IMO. It's a classic example of odds distorted by wishful thinking. Long may that last!
Betfair also has a separate market on exit date where you can get 4 on the 3 months following March 2019. So you can hedge that possibility if you like. Dyor - haven’t checked if rules for those markets are identical.
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
Brown moved bank regulation from experienced old hands at the Bank of England to a newly set up FSA who were weak, weak weak.
Bank regulation is now back with the Bank of England and we can sleep soundly in our beds once more.
One of the main problems with the FSA was *why* they were weak - why they were more interested in micro-regulating individual loans than assuring themselves (and others who needed to know) that the system was, for example, properly capitalised. I suspect that they were too responsive to the media and political issues of the day - which in turn might well have been in no small part down to a lack of roots, institutional self-confidence and respect from others.
(Do all come - it’s a fantastic show. Open until 22 April)
We'll probably pop in on Saturday.
I'm adding it as an option for Feb 12-14th when we are on a trip to London to see Hamilton amongst other items...
Only an option?!
Worth coming just for the house alone (although you won’t see it’s full glory the way the exhibition is set up)
I will have my 16 year old twins with me - they have a list of things to do as long as their arms including the postal museum (for the mini train), design museum, what was the Geology museum, the V&A and a repeat of the Barbican architectural tour.
Yes - -they do have a strange set of interests...
How about the Museum of London in the Barbican (my fav) or the Temple if Mithras in Broadgate?
Your regular reminder that you can back Britain to leave the EU on Betfair by 29 March 2019 at odds of over 2.4. Of course it's not a certainty but it has to be very much odds on.
I don't think it is very much odds on, and clearly neither do most punters.
The key date is 26 May 2019 - the date of the next EU election of MEPs. It will be easy to slip the Brexit date back two months from 29 March to 26 May but beyond 26 May it will be more difficult (though not impossible).
Why would anyone want to go to all the trouble of trying to get 28 countries to agree unanimously to a few weeks' delay, especially since there's almost certainly going to be a two-year transition period in which nothing changes anyway (except that the bet pays out)?
It could be pre-agreed by the 27 in the event that negotiations go to the wire with the prospect of a cliff edge exit on WTO rules which would be a lose-lose. It could also be required if the talks drag on and there are timing problems in getting the required ratifications. It is not a few weeks delay - it is eight weeks on a very tight schedule.
Yeah, about a 10% chance, maybe less. The bet Alastair highlighted is the stand-out political bet in the entire market at the moment IMO. It's a classic example of odds distorted by wishful thinking. Long may that last!
Betfair also has a separate market on exit date where you can get 4 on the 3 months following March 2019. So you can hedge that possibility if you like. Dyor - haven’t checked if rules for those markets are identical.
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
So you advocate no regulation at all, then.
So you think that the banks were blameless, then.
No, I think the political responsibility for screwing up UK financial regulation lies squarely with James Gordon Brown (with a special mention for Ed Balls in a supporting role). Banks doing stupid things (which if regulation had been sensible wouldn't have happened, or at least wouldn't have been so damaging) is the responsibility of the directors of the banks. Not hard to understand, surely?
What may be slightly harder to understand is that you can have a situation where individual banks make decisions which are reasonably prudent individually, but which add up to a systemic risk as a whole. That's why you need someone looking at the big picture, as the Bank of England used to do before Brown screwed things up. Fortunately Osborne corrected that glaring piece of Brownian idiocy.
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
You’re right. Bank managements were awful. (I remember particularly Stan O’Neal at Merrill trying to persuade me than $1 trillion (yes that’s right) of exposure to US sub prime was not too much risk in one asset class)
And there was an overarching cultural issue that @Cyclefree is much more eloquent and informed about than I am.
But that doesn’t mean the people who f*cked up the regulatory system aren’t guilty as sin. They had a job, they didn’t do it and we all suffered.
They forgot the basic rule - that personal supervision and understanding of risk is what matters - as my grandfather wrote to the Guv’nor “I don’t want to fill in your forms. You don’t want to read my forms. Why don’t you come and have lunch instead?”
The great thing about paperwork and computers is that it allows blame to be shifted to either process or if that fails someone far more junior.
As for Brown v May - except for not joining the Euro I believe history will show that virtually every decision he made was the wrong one. Heck, you could argue that his refusal to change our benefit system as freedom of movement started is the root cause of Brexit...
Your regular reminder that you can back Britain to leave the EU on Betfair by 29 March 2019 at odds of over 2.4. Of course it's not a certainty but it has to be very much odds on.
I don't think it is very much odds on, and clearly neither do most punters.
The key date is 26 May 2019 - the date of the next EU election of MEPs. It will be easy to slip the Brexit date back two months from 29 March to 26 May but beyond 26 May it will be more difficult (though not impossible).
Why would anyone want to go to all the trouble of trying to get 28 countries to agree unanimously to a few weeks' delay, especially since there's almost certainly going to be a two-year transition period in which nothing changes anyway (except that the bet pays out)?
It's just the governments that have to sign off on this, right? If you had to get parliaments to ratify things then it would indeed be a huge pain in the arse but if it's just getting people who are already in the room to agree to an extension so they can all go to bed, where's the trouble?
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
So you advocate no regulation at all, then.
So you think that the banks were blameless, then.
No, I think the political responsibility for screwing up UK financial regulation lies squarely with James Gordon Brown (with a special mention for Ed Balls in a supporting role). Banks doing stupid things (which if regulation had been sensible wouldn't have happened, or at least wouldn't have been so damaging) is the responsibility of the directors of the banks. Not hard to understand, surely?
What may be slightly harder to understand is that you can have a situation where individual banks make decisions which are reasonably prudent individually, but which add up to a systemic risk as a whole. That's why you need someone looking at the big picture, as the Bank of England used to do before Brown screwed things up. Fortunately Osborne corrected that glaring piece of Brownian idiocy.
I don't think we are going to reach a meeting of minds on this one.
Your regular reminder that you can back Britain to leave the EU on Betfair by 29 March 2019 at odds of over 2.4. Of course it's not a certainty but it has to be very much odds on.
I don't think it is very much odds on, and clearly neither do most punters.
The key date is 26 May 2019 - the date of the next EU election of MEPs. It will be easy to slip the Brexit date back two months from 29 March to 26 May but beyond 26 May it will be more difficult (though not impossible).
Why would anyone want to go to all the trouble of trying to get 28 countries to agree unanimously to a few weeks' delay, especially since there's almost certainly going to be a two-year transition period in which nothing changes anyway (except that the bet pays out)?
It's just the governments that have to sign off on this, right? If you had to get parliaments to ratify things then it would indeed be a huge pain in the arse but if it's just getting people who are already in the room to agree to an extension so they can all go to bed, where's the trouble?
The trouble is that someone amongst the 27 might want a quid pro quo or guarantee. Ireland, for example, or some country that no-one is taking any notice of at the moment.
Ozzy is, as ever, 100% correct. This part is particularly telling:
The question is this: is this the small-state Britain that the majority of the 17 million Brexit supporters, many in declining industrial towns and seaside communities and the like, voted for in 2016? Surely not.
They voted to be better shielded from the cold winds of globalisation, not to be more exposed to them.
They didn’t vote for fewer employment rights, smaller government and less welfare. They aren’t eager for a free-trade deal with China and the US, so that more Chinese steel can be sold here and big US corporates can bid for NHS contracts.
But the vote is done. There's nothing we Remainers can do to help them now. All they can hope is that the views of Rees-Mogg don't prevail and that Boris takes a softer line than his rhetoric currently suggests. Failing that, they're stuffed.
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
Brown moved bank regulation from experienced old hands at the Bank of England to a newly set up FSA who were weak, weak weak.
Bank regulation is now back with the Bank of England and we can sleep soundly in our beds once more.
The old B of E allowed Barings to fail and I think would've done no better in 2008 than the FSA. The 2008 crash was primarily a failure of senior management, many of whom did not understand the complexity of their own balance sheets and wilfully ignored the warnings of their risk management teams.
(Do all come - it’s a fantastic show. Open until 22 April)
We'll probably pop in on Saturday.
I'm adding it as an option for Feb 12-14th when we are on a trip to London to see Hamilton amongst other items...
Only an option?!
Worth coming just for the house alone (although you won’t see it’s full glory the way the exhibition is set up)
I will have my 16 year old twins with me - they have a list of things to do as long as their arms including the postal museum (for the mini train), design museum, what was the Geology museum, the V&A and a repeat of the Barbican architectural tour.
Yes - -they do have a strange set of interests...
How about the Museum of London in the Barbican (my fav) or the Temple if Mithras in Broadgate?
I'll definitely try and add the Temple of Mithras to the list but then I remember we also probably need to do the Crystal again for their GCSE Geography exams...
Your regular reminder that you can back Britain to leave the EU on Betfair by 29 March 2019 at odds of over 2.4. Of course it's not a certainty but it has to be very much odds on.
I don't think it is very much odds on, and clearly neither do most punters.
The key date is 26 May 2019 - the date of the next EU election of MEPs. It will be easy to slip the Brexit date back two months from 29 March to 26 May but beyond 26 May it will be more difficult (though not impossible).
Why would anyone want to go to all the trouble of trying to get 28 countries to agree unanimously to a few weeks' delay, especially since there's almost certainly going to be a two-year transition period in which nothing changes anyway (except that the bet pays out)?
It's just the governments that have to sign off on this, right? If you had to get parliaments to ratify things then it would indeed be a huge pain in the arse but if it's just getting people who are already in the room to agree to an extension so they can all go to bed, where's the trouble?
The trouble is that someone amongst the 27 might want a quid pro quo or guarantee. Ireland, for example, or some country that no-one is taking any notice of at the moment.
There are fairly strong social pressures for things like this that are basically procedural and work in the service of everybody being able to avoid an immediate crisis and go to bed.
So inflation coming down, GDP going up. Unemployment/employment both looking amazing.
Everything is going "TREMENDOUSLY" from what I can see.
All we need is May, Hammond and Carney out and a PM/CotE/Governor of the Bank of England who can actually present all this good news to the public rather than looking like they are the chief mourners at the funeral of UKPLC...
As a contrarian Brexiteer, it's sad that we're happy with 1.8%. Compared to long term trend growth, it's still shit. We're ten years into our recovery and this is the best we can do?
From the perspective of bashing Remainers over the head with some of the ludicrous predictions of APOCALYPSE NOW that we saw during the campaign, yes, give yourself 10 billion Internet Points. From the point of view of wealth creation, I'm disappointed.
There was a vast amount of misallocated capital to work through. We chose to do it slowly to moderate the human cost but the trade off is slower growth. Iceland chose another approach and it worked for them - but I don’t think we had the national consensus that you have made ripping the bandage off achievable
Excellent post.
As someone who works a lot in Iceland, I should say that many Icelanders would have preferred the British softly softly approach but they wearily accept that it would have been impossible in their situation. Though their recovery has been impressive it has come at the cost of a tourist invasion so enormous that it seriously impacts quality of life for many.
The tourist invasion sounds horrible; if I were them I'd impose a $50 a day tourist tax, and make being part of an English stag party a criminal offence.
Iceland is a country larger in area than Scotland and Wales combined, and has a population about the size of Ealing Borough. I'm sure it would be possible to cordon off some Magaluf-in-the-ice 'tourist zone' enclave.
Anyone know what happened to Osborne's book? Wasn't it meant to be published last year?
Presumably it's packed with so many shocking revelations that it would undermine Theresa's government even further. George wouldn't want that. Unlike sly and vindictive Leavers such as Boris, he wouldn't sabotage Theresa's standing during these crucial Brexit talks. The man is a patriot.
Ozzy is, as ever, 100% correct. This part is particularly telling:
The question is this: is this the small-state Britain that the majority of the 17 million Brexit supporters, many in declining industrial towns and seaside communities and the like, voted for in 2016? Surely not.
They voted to be better shielded from the cold winds of globalisation, not to be more exposed to them.
They didn’t vote for fewer employment rights, smaller government and less welfare. They aren’t eager for a free-trade deal with China and the US, so that more Chinese steel can be sold here and big US corporates can bid for NHS contracts.
But the vote is done. There's nothing we Remainers can do to help them now. All they can hope is that the views of Rees-Mogg don't prevail and that Boris takes a softer line than his rhetoric currently suggests. Failing that, they're stuffed.
Actually the Leave win they voted for followed by many of them voting for Corbyn and forcing a hung parliament ensures they are more likely to get what they do want ie an end to free movement and reduced immigration, restored sovereignty and an end to austerity and free trade deals that do not benefit British workers
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
So you advocate no regulation at all, then.
So you think that the banks were blameless, then.
No, I think the political responsibility for screwing up UK financial regulation lies squarely with James Gordon Brown (with a special mention for Ed Balls in a supporting role). Banks doing stupid things (which if regulation had been sensible wouldn't have happened, or at least wouldn't have been so damaging) is the responsibility of the directors of the banks. Not hard to understand, surely?
What may be slightly harder to understand is that you can have a situation where individual banks make decisions which are reasonably prudent individually, but which add up to a systemic risk as a whole. That's why you need someone looking at the big picture, as the Bank of England used to do before Brown screwed things up. Fortunately Osborne corrected that glaring piece of Brownian idiocy.
Johnson Matthey, Barings, BCCI? The Bank of England rarely had a clue, especially if the bank's directors were also in the dark. The idea that Bank of England regulation was some golden age is laughable. That is without the non-banking financial scandals like Polly Peck or Maxwell.
But it is all irrelevant to the global economic meltdown.
Pureile or not Brown left the worst economic crisis since WW2 and his 'prudence left Britain ill prepared for any crash led Labour to its lowest share of the vote since 1983. Under May unemployment is lower than it has been for decades and she got the highest Tory voteshare since 1983 last June.
For a supposedly Tory voter the fact you prefer Brown to May and dislike both Boris and Mogg places you in a miniscule segment of current supporters of the party
Right on cue!
What hell it must be for the wife and work colleagues of HYUFD. In any discussion, no matter how little you know about the subject in hand or how conclusively you have been proved wrong, you always insist on having the last word on it. Remember the discussion on President Carter's IQ? Such people do not tend to be very popular in life.
You also tend to totally misrepresent what people have said to make it possible for you to insert one of your standard soundbite responses. Nowhere did I say I personally preferred Brown to May; I said she will probably be remembered as a worse prime minister than him though obviously the jury is out as she hasn't left office yet and the verdict of history takes decades to settle.
Thirdly your tendency to tell Conservatives who disagree with you that they are part of an irrelevant tiny minority of the party is highly irritating.
Fourthly one of the reasons I find it impossible to take you seriously is your Damascene conversion from avid Remainer before the referendum to one of this site's Brexiters in chief now, endlessly attacking people for voting the same way as yourself. Talk about the zeal of the convert. There are many leavers on here who have opposed the EU for decades and defended their stance when it wasn't fashionable or popular; I don't personally agree with them but there's no questioning that Richard Tyndall, Sean Fear etc are highly principled people and I respect them for it. Of course your problem is also shared by PM May herself, as Heseltine pointed out not long ago, and I think it is the root cause of many of her problems. Brexit can't easily be implemented by those who at heart are convinced Remainers. Richard Navabi amongst others shows that it is possible to be a Remainer Tory who accepts the Leave vote without turning into a Brexit toady.
Ozzy is, as ever, 100% correct. This part is particularly telling:
The question is this: is this the small-state Britain that the majority of the 17 million Brexit supporters, many in declining industrial towns and seaside communities and the like, voted for in 2016? Surely not.
They voted to be better shielded from the cold winds of globalisation, not to be more exposed to them.
They didn’t vote for fewer employment rights, smaller government and less welfare. They aren’t eager for a free-trade deal with China and the US, so that more Chinese steel can be sold here and big US corporates can bid for NHS contracts.
But the vote is done. There's nothing we Remainers can do to help them now. All they can hope is that the views of Rees-Mogg don't prevail and that Boris takes a softer line than his rhetoric currently suggests. Failing that, they're stuffed.
Globalisation will ultimately benefit people across the world. Wealth will be distributed evenly across countries, and within countries and nations will collectively take measures to reverse the worst effects of climate change.....but it's going to take altruistic, strategic, integrated policymaking along the way to get there. Brexit, Trump, Islamism, Russian tub thumping are diversions and have left the EU and China in extremely strong positions to extend their global reach. Look at Macron...France's standing in the world has risen dramatically. China...we kind of just have to hope for the best that they behave responsibly since we do not understand much about them.
Or we could subscribe to a Bannon outlook and see globalisation as driving the world full tilt into a fourth world war....so let's ignore climate change, think only of our nation's immediate short term interest and invest in the military....
Johnson Matthey, Barings, BCCI? The Bank of England rarely had a clue, especially if the bank's directors were also in the dark. The idea that Bank of England regulation was some golden age is laughable. That is without the non-banking financial scandals like Polly Peck or Maxwell.
But it is all irrelevant to the global economic meltdown.
Banks will always fail from time to time. You have completely missed the point, which is about prudential supervision - making sure that the banking system as a whole is sound and won't collapse when something like a bank failure happens. Between the collapse of Overend Gurney in 1866, and Brown's dismantling of prudent supervision in 1997, we had a system so resilient that there was not a single bank run nor any major knock-on effect on the wider economy from bank failures. That is despite several major world financial crises during that time, and despite individual failures such as BCCI.
Agreed. The poor woman is in an impossible situation. Boris will use a soft Brexit as the perfect excuse to oust her. Of course, once that's achieved he'll sign up to the same version of Brexit himself and will probably get away with it, but that will be scant consolation for Theresa, who'll be out on her ear and barely warranting a footnote in the annals of history.
Quite true. Poor Theresa. The only redeeming legacy factor on a Boris succession is that she'll at least default one place higher on British PM's....OK she'll still be one considered one of the worst and mostly pitied, not invited to parties, given any lucrative commissions, global positions with a bargain basement memoir soon to be offered free on Kindle and such like.....
But in that great pantheon of PM's she'll be able to piss on Boris's head in due course....although to have the likes of Gordon Brown and John Major well above her is not what she imagined this time last year...
I well remember about 10 years ago there were multiple people on here loudly proclaiming BROWN IS THE MOST USELESS PM EVER....some of those people are still here, others like the late lamented Martin Day are long gone. But as a Tory voter it pains me to say that May makes Brown look like a political colossus in retrospect, and you are right that Boris or Mogg would be far worse still.
*awaits inevitable puerile rebuttal from HYUFD comparing Brown and May's electoral performance*
Brown was a terrible Chancellor/PM
But he was good at politics - he ate up the Labour Party to further his own agenda
May is doing an ok job of managing a difficult situation. But is terrible at politics.
For me she outranks Brown as a PM
Rank definitely, but probably not in the way you intend.....
Britain just becomes geopolitically less important post Brexit.
Less important to France and Germany and other European countries as a weight inside the EU.
Less important to the US for the same reason - because less able to influence inside the US’s main rival for trade and financial rule setting.
Less important to China - no longer a voice inside their main export market.
And, to all nations, we are no longer a reliable and stable route into a wealthy market of 500 million people.
And frankly, with Brexit the only show in town, we’re less able to manage an active foreign (and seemingly domestic) policy.
Britain’s global power has of course been in decline for a 100 years. We gave up pretending to be a superpower after Suez, and the 60s and 70s were all about retrenchment.
Thatcher, then Blair, arrested and reversed our decline. We were powerful players in the end of the Cold War, in the establishment of the single market, in the end of apartheid, and in the Falklands, Sierra Leone, and Yugoslavia.
Then, downhill.
Iraq destroyed our credibility. The global financial crisis removed our means. But Brexit is the final nail in the coffin. It’s a retreat not just from a global role, but from a regional one.
I will continue to be surprised that the Brexiters - who tend to be Conservatives - and therefore traditionally proud and protective of Britain’s global power - are so sanguine about its rapid decline.
But that’s cognitive dissonance for you, I guess.
Britain is still on the G7, the G20, the Council of Europe and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. However the Brexit vote was not to try and become a global superpower again but to restore sovereignty and regain control of our borders
That’s irrelevant to my point(s). Brexit, all things being equal, renders Britain less influential. And this noticeable and remarked upon by opinion formers worldwide.
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
So you advocate no regulation at all, then.
So you think that the banks were blameless, then.
No, I think the political responsibility for screwing up UK financial regulation lies squarely with James Gordon Brown (with a special mention for Ed Balls in a supporting role). Banks doing stupid things (which if regulation had been sensible wouldn't have happened, or at least wouldn't have been so damaging) is the responsibility of the directors of the banks. Not hard to understand, surely?
What may be slightly harder to understand is that you can have a situation where individual banks make decisions which are reasonably prudent individually, but which add up to a systemic risk as a whole. That's why you need someone looking at the big picture, as the Bank of England used to do before Brown screwed things up. Fortunately Osborne corrected that glaring piece of Brownian idiocy.
Johnson Matthey, Barings, BCCI? The Bank of England rarely had a clue, especially if the bank's directors were also in the dark. The idea that Bank of England regulation was some golden age is laughable. That is without the non-banking financial scandals like Polly Peck or Maxwell.
But it is all irrelevant to the global economic meltdown.
Some banks will always go bust. That is a feature, not a bug. The important thing is that those that do are relatively small and have probably engaged in dodgy practices that were hidden by criminal action (or inaction).
There is a balance to be struck and over-regulation poses serious risks to the industry just as under-regulation does (and both are in fact possible at the same time, if the wrong things are over-regulated.
Pureile or not Brown left the worst economic crisis ent supporters of the party
Right on cue!
What hell it must be for the wife and work colleagues of HYUFD. In any discussion, no matter how little you know about the subject in hand or how conclusively you have been proved wrong, you always insist on having the last word on it. Remember the discussion on President Carter's IQ? Such people do not tend to be very popular in life.
You also tend to totally misrepresent what people have said to make it possible for you to insert one of your standard soundbite responses. Nowhere did I say I personally preferred Brown to May; I said she will probably be remembered as a worse prime minister than him though obviously the jury is out as she hasn't left office yet and the verdict of history takes decades to settle.
Thirdly your tendency to tell Conservatives who disagree with you that they are part of an irrelevant tiny minority of the party is highly irritating.
Fourthly one of the reasons I find it impossible to take you seriously is your Damascene conversion from avid Remainer before the referendum to one of this site's Brexiters in chief now, endlessly attacking people for voting the same way as yourself. Talk about the zeal of the convert. There are many leavers on here who have opposed the EU for decades and defended their stance when it wasn't fashionable or popular; I don't personally agree with them but there's no questioning that Richard Tyndall, Sean Fear etc are highly principled people and I respect them for it. Of course your problem is also shared by PM May herself, as Heseltine pointed out not long ago, and I think it is the root cause of many of her problems. Brexit can't easily be implemented by those who at heart are convinced Remainers. Richard Navabi amongst others shows that it is possible to be a Remainer Tory who accepts the Leave vote without turning into a Brexit toady.
Leaving aside the personal insults from you which says more about you than me and I am not going to lower myself to respond to, the fact is you clearly asserted Brown would be remembered as a worse PM than May as irrefutable fact with no clear evidence to support it and the fact you are in a tiny minority of Tory voters (if indeed you do always vote Tory which I doubt) in your dislike of Brexit, Boris and Mogg and belief Brown was a better PM than May is an irrefutable fact whether you like it or not.
The fact what motivated working class Leavers especially to vote Leave was to reduce free movement and immigration has to be respected whether you or the small pro single market minority of Leavers like it or not
Britain just becomes geopolitically less important post Brexit.
Less important to France and Germany and other European countries as a weight inside the EU.
Less important to the US for the same reason - because less able to influence inside the US’s main rival for trade and financial rule setting.
Less important to China - no longer a voice inside their main export market.
And, to all nations, we are no longer a reliable and stable route into a wealthy market of 500 million people.
And frankly, with Brexit the only show in town, we’re less able to manage an active foreign (and seemingly domestic) policy.
Britain’s global power has of course been in decline for a 100 years. We gave up pretending to be a superpower after Suez, and the 60s and 70s were all about retrenchment.
Thatcher, then Blair, arrested and reversed our decline. We were powerful players in the end of the Cold War, in the establishment of the single market, in the end of apartheid, and in the Falklands, Sierra Leone, and Yugoslavia.
Then, downhill.
Iraq destroyed our credibility. The global financial crisis removed our means. But Brexit is the final nail in the coffin. It’s a retreat not just from a global role, but from a regional one.
I will continue to be surprised that the Brexiters - who tend to be Conservatives - and therefore traditionally proud and protective of Britain’s global power - are so sanguine about its rapid decline.
But that’s cognitive dissonance for you, I guess.
Britain is still on the G7, the G20, the Council of Europe and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. However the Brexit vote was not to try and become a global superpower again but to restore sovereignty and regain control of our borders
That’s irrelevant to my point(s). Brexit, all things being equal, renders Britain less influential. And this noticeable and remarked upon by opinion formers worldwide.
The vote for Brexit was to regain sovereignty and end free movement and reduce immigration, in or out of the EU we would still be a medium sized nation and not a global superpower
As a Blairite, I can really sympathise with the plight of moderate Tories who are getting mercilessly flogged by their extreme elements. Like Labour, the sensible sounding lot, the Chuka's and Miliband elders of the world are despised much more by elements of their own party than they could ever be by their political opponents. I ventured yesterday that Hunt, a reasonable, balanced, moderate Tory in my view would be a good, sensible choice as leader.... but HYFUD was spitting feathers. You see Tories of that ilk see the moderates as the enemy.
I don't want to create a new party a la En Marche. I am Labour. Ken Clarke was asked something similar and said he still would join the Tory party of today. Why should we be forced out of parties that are our natural home because of the extremists?
I think it's just about holding tight and weathering the storm. Ultimately the extremists, Momentum, ideological Brexiters, Trumpers and their like..they are disrupters, nothing more. And at the centre of their ideology lies a narrow view of the world, filled mostly by hatred, hyperbole and a lack of rationality. They don't offer solutions....they mostly float in invective, generalisations and an unwavering narrative that is unchallengeable. That I guess is ideology in a nutshell for you, like religion, or blind faith...you just believe it and that's that really.
Re the podcast-what's with this ageism thing? Picasso did his best work in his 80s and lived until 88.Can't see the problem.
Different rules for artists, who can work as and when they please. But even then, how much great art - in any artform - has been produced by octogenarians and older?
I'm happy to live by the maxim that if you're good enough, you're old (or young) enough - but the demands of office are greater now than ever, particularly in a parliamentary democracy (presidents don't need to lead parliament as well as the government).
Britain just becomes geopolitically less important post Brexit.
Less important to France and Germany and other European countries as a weight inside the EU.
Less important to the US for the same reason - because less able to influence inside the US’s main rival for trade and financial rule setting.
Less important to China - no longer a voice inside their main export market.
And, to all nations, we are no longer a reliable and stable route into a wealthy market of 500 million people.
And frankly, with Brexit the only show in town, we’re less able to manage an active foreign (and seemingly domestic) policy.
Britain’s global power has of course been in decline for a 100 years. We gave up pretending to be a superpower after Suez, and the 60s and 70s were all about retrenchment.
Thatcher, then Blair, arrested and reversed our decline. We were powerful players in the end of the Cold War, in the establishment of the single market, in the end of apartheid, and in the Falklands, Sierra Leone, and Yugoslavia.
Then, downhill.
Iraq destroyed our credibility. The global financial crisis removed our means. But Brexit is the final nail in the coffin. It’s a retreat not just from a global role, but from a regional one.
I will continue to be surprised that the Brexiters - who tend to be Conservatives - and therefore traditionally proud and protective of Britain’s global power - are so sanguine about its rapid decline.
But that’s cognitive dissonance for you, I guess.
Britain is still on the G7, the G20, the Council of Europe and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. However the Brexit vote was not to try and become a global superpower again but to restore sovereignty and regain control of our borders
That’s irrelevant to my point(s). Brexit, all things being equal, renders Britain less influential. And this noticeable and remarked upon by opinion formers worldwide.
The vote for Brexit was to regain sovereignty and end free movement and reduce immigration, in or out of the EU we would still be a medium sized nation and not a global superpower
If you read my original post I stated that Britain gave up pretension to global superpower status after Suez. Nowhere do I claim that the staying in the EU perpetuates or restores that status.
But like others, I have come to the conclusion that you are either a bot. Certainly, you fail the Turing test.
Britain just becomes geopolitically less important post Brexit.
Less important to France and Germany and other European countries as a weight inside the EU.
Less important to the US for the same reason - because less able to influence inside the US’s main rival for trade and financial rule setting.
Less important to China - no longer a voice inside their main export market.
And, to all nations, we are no longer a reliable and stable route into a wealthy market of 500 million people.
And frankly, with Brexit the only show in town, we’re less able to manage an active foreign (and seemingly domestic) policy.
Britain’s global power has of course been in decline for a 100 years. We gave up pretending to be a superpower after Suez, and the 60s and 70s were all about retrenchment.
Thatcher, then Blair, arrested and reversed our decline. We were powerful players in the end of the Cold War, in the establishment of the single market, in the end of apartheid, and in the Falklands, Sierra Leone, and Yugoslavia.
Then, downhill.
Iraq destroyed our credibility. The global financial crisis removed our means. But Brexit is the final nail in the coffin. It’s a retreat not just from a global role, but from a regional one.
I will continue to be surprised that the Brexiters - who tend to be Conservatives - and therefore traditionally proud and protective of Britain’s global power - are so sanguine about its rapid decline.
But that’s cognitive dissonance for you, I guess.
Britain is still on the G7, the G20, the Council of Europe and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. However the Brexit vote was not to try and become a global superpower again but to restore sovereignty and regain control of our borders
That’s irrelevant to my point(s). Brexit, all things being equal, renders Britain less influential. And this noticeable and remarked upon by opinion formers worldwide.
The vote for Brexit was to regain sovereignty and end free movement and reduce immigration, in or out of the EU we would still be a medium sized nation and not a global superpower
If you read my original post I stated that Britain gave up pretension to global superpower status after Suez. Nowhere do I claim that the staying in the EU perpetuates or restores that status.
But like others, I have come to the conclusion that you are either a bot. Certainly, you fail the Turing test.
If the only way to be a global superpower is to join the Eurozone and a Federal EU we would cease to be a sovereign and independent nation anyway
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
Brown moved bank regulation from experienced old hands at the Bank of England to a newly set up FSA who were weak, weak weak.
Bank regulation is now back with the Bank of England and we can sleep soundly in our beds once more.
The old B of E allowed Barings to fail and I think would've done no better in 2008 than the FSA. The 2008 crash was primarily a failure of senior management, many of whom did not understand the complexity of their own balance sheets and wilfully ignored the warnings of their risk management teams.
Barings failing was the right decision. Peter took his eye off the ball and the family didn't know what was going on.
Different rules for artists, who can work as and when they please. But even then, how much great art - in any artform - has been produced by octogenarians and older?
Different rules for artists, who can work as and when they please. But even then, how much great art - in any artform - has been produced by octogenarians and older?
Richard Strauss!
Granted, he did some very good stuff in his last years. But as with Picasso, it's a rare exception.
Britain just becomes geopolitically less important post Brexit.
Less important to France and Germany and other European countries as a weight inside the EU.
Less important to the US for the same reason - because less able to influence inside the US’s main rival for trade and financial rule setting.
Less important to China - no longer a voice inside their main export market.
And, to all nations, we are no longer a reliable and stable route into a wealthy market of 500 million people.
And frankly, with Brexit the only show in town, we’re less able to manage an active foreign (and seemingly domestic) policy.
Britain’s global power has of course been in decline for a 100 years. We gave up pretending to be a superpower after Suez, and the 60s and 70s were all about retrenchment.
Thatcher, then Blair, arrested and reversed our decline. We were powerful players in the end of the Cold War, in the establishment of the single market, in the end of apartheid, and in the Falklands, Sierra Leone, and Yugoslavia.
Then, downhill.
Iraq destroyed our credibility. The global financial crisis removed our means. But Brexit is the final nail in the coffin. It’s a retreat not just from a global role, but from a regional one.
I will continue to be surprised that the Brexiters - who tend to be Conservatives - and therefore traditionally proud and protective of Britain’s global power - are so sanguine about its rapid decline.
But that’s cognitive dissonance for you, I guess.
Britain is still on the G7, the G20, the Council of Europe and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. However the Brexit vote was not to try and become a global superpower again but to restore sovereignty and regain control of our borders
That’s irrelevant to my point(s). Brexit, all things being equal, renders Britain less influential. And this noticeable and remarked upon by opinion formers worldwide.
The vote for Brexit was to regain sovereignty and end free movement and reduce immigration, in or out of the EU we would still be a medium sized nation and not a global superpower
If you read my original post I stated that Britain gave up pretension to global superpower status after Suez. Nowhere do I claim that the staying in the EU perpetuates or restores that status.
But like others, I have come to the conclusion that you are either a bot. Certainly, you fail the Turing test.
If the only way to be a global superpower is to join the Eurozone and a Federal EU we would cease to be a sovereign and independent nation anyway
Mr. Z, we should revive the concept of enlightened self-interest. Recent news reports stated that Zimbabwe has a lot of mineral wealth but can't exploit it because landowners lack the money to mine it.
We could front up the money. Zimbabwe gets tax revenue, locals get employment, the landowner makes a profit, and we make a profit too. It's good for them and it's good for us.
Why we don't do that is beyond me.
The UK has history in Zimbabwe
(But the Commonwealth Development Corporation used to exactly what you said until Brown decided making money from investing in emerging markets was unethical)
The CDC was started by Attlee in 1948, but Brown did indeed turn it into a private corporation, albeit with the government owning the shares. It is now a profit seeking entity, rather than development focussed, so not quite sure how that fits with your summary, indeed it has been criticised in development circles for excessive profiteering.
My Zambeef shares did well from a CDC investment though, so not all bad.
I may have got muddled but I thought it was sold to management and is now Actis Private Equity?
I believe that was a subsidary, sold as a management buyout.
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
Brown moved bank regulation from experienced old hands at the Bank of England to a newly set up FSA who were weak, weak weak.
Bank regulation is now back with the Bank of England and we can sleep soundly in our beds once more.
The old B of E allowed Barings to fail and I think would've done no better in 2008 than the FSA. The 2008 crash was primarily a failure of senior management, many of whom did not understand the complexity of their own balance sheets and wilfully ignored the warnings of their risk management teams.
Barings failing was the right decision. Peter took his eye off the ball and the family didn't know what was going on.
And there was no systemic impact
B of E up to their necks in the failure - as well as Peter & Co
" The official Bank of England report said Nick Leeson, the Singapore-based futures trader, ran up losses totalling pounds 827m which he covered up in secret accounts and false accounting. He was allowed to do so by Christopher Thompson, a senior Bank of England official who gave Barings a special waiver to fund hundreds of millions of share deals in the Far East and who resigned last week. "
I have just poked myself in the eye with a pencil because Gordon Brown's regulatory regime does not prevent me from doing so.
Honestly, blaming the lack of regulation as being responsible for some of the world's largest banks doing stupid things is nonsense. The blame rests with the banks and their bosses.
So you advocate no regulation at all, then.
So you think that the banks were blameless, then.
No, I think the political responsibility for screwing up UK financial regulation lies squarely with James Gordon Brown (with a special mention for Ed Balls in a supporting role). Banks doing stupid things (which if regulation had been sensible wouldn't have happened, or at least wouldn't have been so damaging) is the responsibility of the directors of the banks. Not hard to understand, surely?
What may be slightly harder to understand is that you can have a situation where individual banks make decisions which are reasonably prudent individually, but which add up to a systemic risk as a whole. That's why you need someone looking at the big picture, as the Bank of England used to do before Brown screwed things up. Fortunately Osborne corrected that glaring piece of Brownian idiocy.
Johnson Matthey, Barings, BCCI? The Bank of England rarely had a clue, especially if the bank's directors were also in the dark. The idea that Bank of England regulation was some golden age is laughable. That is without the non-banking financial scandals like Polly Peck or Maxwell.
But it is all irrelevant to the global economic meltdown.
The examples you quote were not systemic risk,
Leading up to the crash in 2007/8 all the large banks were lending too much; at interest rates which were too low; with too little security. The FSA took no action.
Britain just becomes geopolitically less important post Brexit.
Less important to France and Germany and other European countries as a weight inside the EU.
Less important to the US for the same reason - because less able to influence inside the US’s main rival for trade and financial rule setting.
Less important to China - no longer a voice inside their main export market.
And, to all nations, we are no longer a reliable and stable route into a wealthy market of 500 million people.
And frankly, with Brexit the only show in town, we’re less able to manage an active foreign (and seemingly domestic) policy.
Britain’s global power has of course been in decline for a 100 years. We gave up pretending to be a superpower after Suez, and the 60s and 70s were all about retrenchment.
Thatcher, then Blair, arrested and reversed our decline. We were powerful players in the end of the Cold War, in the establishment of the single market, in the end of apartheid, and in the Falklands, Sierra Leone, and Yugoslavia.
Then, downhill.
Iraq destroyed our credibility. The global financial crisis removed our means. But Brexit is the final nail in the coffin. It’s a retreat not just from a global role, but from a regional one.
I will continue to be surprised that the Brexiters - who tend to be Conservatives - and therefore traditionally proud and protective of Britain’s global power - are so sanguine about its rapid decline.
But that’s cognitive dissonance for you, I guess.
So does that mean that British lives and money no longer need to be wasted on foreign wars ?
And I guess that means we no longer need to be an 'Aid Superpower' and so can save ourselves another ten billion a year.
Many on this board welcome that.
Names?
You really shouldn't believe what Remainers write about Brexiters......
I freely admit to being against politicians wasting British lives and money so that they can posture around the world.
But that's not the same as being against British influence in the world.
And I suspect that can best be achieved through the use of British culture (past, present and future) and British universities. I'm sure other PBers could add more such things.
I freely admit to being against politicians wasting British lives and money so that they can posture around the world.
But that's not the same as being against British influence in the world.
And I suspect that can best be achieved through the use of British culture (past, present and future) and British universities. I'm sure other PBers could add more such things.
Cool. And there is a lot of soft power in our education system and cultural industries. It’s just that it doesn’t replace the economic and trade influence we lose by Brexiting.
Oh, and Brexit also threatens both the success of our universities and our cultural sector. The first relies on increasing numbers of foreign students, and the second is supercharged by, especially, the position London developed as Europe’s de facto capital of culture.
Comments
The situation he inherited was far better than the legacy he left. The deficit was smaller when he came to high office than when he left. The debt was smaller.
And for those tempted to say it was just the financial crisis, leaving aside that the UK has quite the slice of the financial pie, I'd point out Australia suffered far less because they had better regulation. Who was responsible for the regulatory structure the UK financial sector had? Gordon Brown.
Mr. Charles, quite. It was similar, writ large, to his vindictive shit approach to the PM's salary.
https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-deficit.htm
In 2000, Britain was 11th out of 35 in the OECD (excluding the EU and Eurozone joint figures), for net budget deficit, with a surplus of 1.4%.
By 2007, Britain had dropped to 33rd out of 38, with a deficit of 2.63% - at a time when the general trend was upwards (14 countries were running surplusses at the time greater than Britain's had been in 2000).
Even now (or in 2016 - the most recent OECD stats), after eight years of spending restraint, Britain is still running the fourth-highest deficit in the organisation, albeit that 11 countries are grouped fairly closely, with deficits between 1.5% and 3%).
Must be getting close to the 48 required now?
Worth coming just for the house alone (although you won’t see it’s full glory the way the exhibition is set up)
If GDP doubles but the UK population also doubles, there is no increase in the average wealth of individuals.
The time to cheer is when GDP stays the same but the population is falling.
But he was good at politics - he ate up the Labour Party to further his own agenda
May is doing an ok job of managing a difficult situation. But is terrible at politics.
For me she outranks Brown as a PM
For a while uk borrowing rates were negative in real terms (indeed might be still). No one is worried about the uk repaying our debts and given the fact that we didn’t join the euro - no one should be worried either.
I’d be very wary about structural deficit estimates - they change hugely based on assumptions around productivity etc.
This article sets out a response to your other points better than I can. .https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/mediamacro-myth-3-2007-boom.html?m=1
Hammond on the backbenches, by contrast, is just someone waiting for a peerage and directorships.
EDIT There's nothing wrong with optimism so long as you don't get your hopes up.
Bank regulation is now back with the Bank of England and we can sleep soundly in our beds once more.
Internecine Cabinet warfare via the front pages perhaps?
Unable to reshuffle underperforming ministers?
Diplomatic failures?
And there was an overarching cultural issue that @Cyclefree is much more eloquent and informed about than I am.
But that doesn’t mean the people who f*cked up the regulatory system aren’t guilty as sin. They had a job, they didn’t do it and we all suffered.
They forgot the basic rule - that personal supervision and understanding of risk is what matters - as my grandfather wrote to the Guv’nor “I don’t want to fill in your forms. You don’t want to read my forms. Why don’t you come and have lunch instead?”
Yes - -they do have a strange set of interests...
On the third she’s delivered an ok round 1. That matters more than what the media expostulates
The Failing New York Times reported that Trump wanted to fire Mueller
Trump in Davos said that was Fake News
https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/956850643532206080
Oh.
What may be slightly harder to understand is that you can have a situation where individual banks make decisions which are reasonably prudent individually, but which add up to a systemic risk as a whole. That's why you need someone looking at the big picture, as the Bank of England used to do before Brown screwed things up. Fortunately Osborne corrected that glaring piece of Brownian idiocy.
As for Brown v May - except for not joining the Euro I believe history will show that virtually every decision he made was the wrong one. Heck, you could argue that his refusal to change our benefit system as freedom of movement started is the root cause of Brexit...
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/26/mueller-trump-obstruction-of-justice-russia-216532?lo=ap_a1
The question is this: is this the small-state Britain that the majority of the 17 million Brexit supporters, many in declining industrial towns and seaside communities and the like, voted for in 2016? Surely not.
They voted to be better shielded from the cold winds of globalisation, not to be more exposed to them.
They didn’t vote for fewer employment rights, smaller government and less welfare. They aren’t eager for a free-trade deal with China and the US, so that more Chinese steel can be sold here and big US corporates can bid for NHS contracts.
But the vote is done. There's nothing we Remainers can do to help them now. All they can hope is that the views of Rees-Mogg don't prevail and that Boris takes a softer line than his rhetoric currently suggests. Failing that, they're stuffed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5308383/Steward-jailed-smuggling-heroin-Dubai-UK.html
Once again 3 days need to be about 2 weeks long.
https://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/956873696005840897
But it is all irrelevant to the global economic meltdown.
What hell it must be for the wife and work colleagues of HYUFD. In any discussion, no matter how little you know about the subject in hand or how conclusively you have been proved wrong, you always insist on having the last word on it. Remember the discussion on President Carter's IQ? Such people do not tend to be very popular in life.
You also tend to totally misrepresent what people have said to make it possible for you to insert one of your standard soundbite responses. Nowhere did I say I personally preferred Brown to May; I said she will probably be remembered as a worse prime minister than him though obviously the jury is out as she hasn't left office yet and the verdict of history takes decades to settle.
Thirdly your tendency to tell Conservatives who disagree with you that they are part of an irrelevant tiny minority of the party is highly irritating.
Fourthly one of the reasons I find it impossible to take you seriously is your Damascene conversion from avid Remainer before the referendum to one of this site's Brexiters in chief now, endlessly attacking people for voting the same way as yourself. Talk about the zeal of the convert. There are many leavers on here who have opposed the EU for decades and defended their stance when it wasn't fashionable or popular; I don't personally agree with them but there's no questioning that Richard Tyndall, Sean Fear etc are highly principled people and I respect them for it. Of course your problem is also shared by PM May herself, as Heseltine pointed out not long ago, and I think it is the root cause of many of her problems. Brexit can't easily be implemented by those who at heart are convinced Remainers. Richard Navabi amongst others shows that it is possible to be a Remainer Tory who accepts the Leave vote without turning into a Brexit toady.
Globalisation will ultimately benefit people across the world. Wealth will be distributed evenly across countries, and within countries and nations will collectively take measures to reverse the worst effects of climate change.....but it's going to take altruistic, strategic, integrated policymaking along the way to get there. Brexit, Trump, Islamism, Russian tub thumping are diversions and have left the EU and China in extremely strong positions to extend their global reach. Look at Macron...France's standing in the world has risen dramatically. China...we kind of just have to hope for the best that they behave responsibly since we do not understand much about them.
Or we could subscribe to a Bannon outlook and see globalisation as driving the world full tilt into a fourth world war....so let's ignore climate change, think only of our nation's immediate short term interest and invest in the military....
Brexit, all things being equal, renders Britain less influential. And this noticeable and remarked upon by opinion formers worldwide.
There is a balance to be struck and over-regulation poses serious risks to the industry just as under-regulation does (and both are in fact possible at the same time, if the wrong things are over-regulated.
The fact what motivated working class Leavers especially to vote Leave was to reduce free movement and immigration has to be respected whether you or the small pro single market minority of Leavers like it or not
As a Blairite, I can really sympathise with the plight of moderate Tories who are getting mercilessly flogged by their extreme elements. Like Labour, the sensible sounding lot, the Chuka's and Miliband elders of the world are despised much more by elements of their own party than they could ever be by their political opponents. I ventured yesterday that Hunt, a reasonable, balanced, moderate Tory in my view would be a good, sensible choice as leader.... but HYFUD was spitting feathers. You see Tories of that ilk see the moderates as the enemy.
I don't want to create a new party a la En Marche. I am Labour. Ken Clarke was asked something similar and said he still would join the Tory party of today. Why should we be forced out of parties that are our natural home because of the extremists?
I think it's just about holding tight and weathering the storm. Ultimately the extremists, Momentum, ideological Brexiters, Trumpers and their like..they are disrupters, nothing more. And at the centre of their ideology lies a narrow view of the world, filled mostly by hatred, hyperbole and a lack of rationality. They don't offer solutions....they mostly float in invective, generalisations and an unwavering narrative that is unchallengeable. That I guess is ideology in a nutshell for you, like religion, or blind faith...you just believe it and that's that really.
I'm happy to live by the maxim that if you're good enough, you're old (or young) enough - but the demands of office are greater now than ever, particularly in a parliamentary democracy (presidents don't need to lead parliament as well as the government).
But like others, I have come to the conclusion that you are either a bot. Certainly, you fail the Turing test.
And there was no systemic impact
" The official Bank of England report said Nick Leeson, the Singapore-based futures trader, ran up losses totalling pounds 827m which he covered up in secret accounts and false accounting. He was allowed to do so by Christopher Thompson, a senior Bank of England official who gave Barings a special waiver to fund hundreds of millions of share deals in the Far East and who resigned last week. "
Leading up to the crash in 2007/8 all the large banks were lending too much; at interest rates which were too low; with too little security. The FSA took no action.
But that's not the same as being against British influence in the world.
And I suspect that can best be achieved through the use of British culture (past, present and future) and British universities. I'm sure other PBers could add more such things.
Oh, and Brexit also threatens both the success of our universities and our cultural sector. The first relies on increasing numbers of foreign students, and the second is supercharged by, especially, the position London developed as Europe’s de facto capital of culture.