Bradford Goes West

Respect taking more than 55% of the vote in a bog-standard safe Labour seat is bad news for all the main political parties.  Electorates are voting tactically with remarkable outcomes. It takes a long time to convince voters that in first-past-the-post systems the vote should be cast against the target candidate, not for the preferred Party necessarily.  To have a charismatic and highly communicative candidate set against the target candidate is a bonus.

Thoughts turn at once to the elections for the London mayor but this is a very different election; not first-past-the-post, with inner city  and outer suburban electorates voting  markedly differently, and with both parties represented by non-standard candidates who, each in their own way, can be seen as a maverick.  Except the qualities that make Boris a maverick are very much more attractive than the maverick qualities of Ken Livingstone.  Indeed so unpleasant has Livingstone so amply shown himself to be, he has succeeded in losing many of the Party votes that might have accrued to him on party loyalty grounds.

It is the relatively safe seats in constituencies everywhere that are going to be touched by the Bolton West effect.  Harriet Harman has said Labour will be working out what happened and why.  So should the other mainstream parties - hurriedly.  Labour was the first to get the vote-savvy effect in the neck, by 2015 it will  be everywhere.

Unless minds change in a hurry over single constituency, first-past-the-post voting.  It wouldn't be a bit surprising if a brief, all-party supported bill nipped through Parliament in the next 18 months and we had a proportional, party-list system after all for our next expression of 'democracy' .

Eating Ice Cream

Offered an ice cream cornet:  remove your gloves; take one of those teeny, multi-coloured plastic spoons from the assistant and use it to attack your ice cream, do not use your tongue or any other part of your anatomy; help yourself generously to paper napkins from the dispenser, and  stand still.  Do not walk about,  trying to eat ice cream;  least of all leave the ice cream shop and eat your ice cream in the street.

Should there be concern about the Prince of Wales's fingers?

Second Thoughts on the Budget and Showing a Bit of Egalitarian Ankle

"The failure of a disastrous model of economic growth" is the Chancellor's succinct account in his budget speech of what happened to the UK under Labour.  It was matched in Ed Miliband's equally revelatory response that the United States economy was growing under that model, growing under stimulation and 'investment' policies that should have been persisted in by the UK,  even as it was brought down by unsustainable state debt.

The United States is the World power.  It cannot go bankrupt.  It is an enormous economy beside which it is pointless to place the economy of the United Kingdom.  As the government copes with the devastating results of  hubris,  Atlanticist intellectual fawning, and failed policies aimed at the disruption of European integration rather than at the withdrawal of the UK from the Union, Labour displays poverty of understanding, poverty of personnel, poverty of proposals for the sensible pursuit of debt-reduction and economic growth.

All they offer is those worn-out faces with their worn-out policies.  "Be like America.  The economists we cite have won Nobel prizes."  While all around them the people of the UK are hanging on like grim death to their housing and their jobs  and their shrinking public services because of vile experiments practised on their economy by those incompetent, bamboozled, economic idiots with a nasty line in state and Party control.

And as for the poor pensioners: pensioners are not a homogenous group.  Of course  the final salary, comfy house bought for small multiples of annual income on endowment mortgages that actually returned a profit,  university free-at-the-point-of-use, free travel pass toting generation should cough up.  They  are the 'rich' and many are 'rich' on state employee unfunded pension payments.  We are all in this together, particularly those who retired at 60 or even earlier and have quarter of a century of largesse yet to finish consuming.  If a pensioner hasn't a large enough income they won't be paying more tax.  There is a certain schadenfreude in reading of their shock at discovering that this time the gate came down in front of them, and not behind their cohort.   

What pension 'raid'?  Income is income and tax is tax.  Everyone should be handing over for agreed outgoings - the wider the tax base the more government expenditure can be controlled by interested tax-payers.  Something on the lines of that old, progressive chestnut 'everyone should use state educational and health services so that they benefit from the sharp elbows of the middle classes'.

Pity there wasn't a wealth tax introduced; inter-generational inequalities are far too embedded.

First Budget Reaction

It had been said many times that Ed Miliband is more than inadequate, he is nuts, but I had assumed it was a weakish expression of distaste for a fratricidal, union puppet.

On the evidence of Miliband's response to the Chancellor of Exchequer's budget speech it can be considered a kind evaluation.   There was no response to the 2012 budget; most of the detailed response was to what had been announced in the 2011 budget.  It was a response that displayed no intellectual capacity to speak to the arguments and information just laid out in the Chancellor's speech. 

It had the kind of refrain that occurs in  dreadful English folk songs - a sort of hey nonny no about same old wicked Tories - which he chanted every couple of sentences.

The man is stupid. 

Cameron Gets It

"... our post-war predecessors had the right idea, embodied in the visionary plan prepared by Patrick Abercrombie in 1944.  His plan underpinned the Southeast’s economic success by proposing well planned and well located new towns, which would in time become new engines of economic growth.  And he twinned that vision with proposals for a new London green belt to prevent sprawl. Now, while everyone celebrates the success of the green belt, far fewer people celebrate the contribution that the new towns made to maintaining it intact.  Some people feel we’ve lost the art of creating great places with the right social and environmental infrastructure.   .... in the last century private and social enterprises also created places like Hampstead Garden Suburb, Letchworth, Welwyn Garden City, not perfect, but popular, green,...."

And there are schools like this too:

 

At this time of year we would be singing, 

'There  is a green hill far away'  in Assembly.

Not so grandly as these chaps 30 miles up the road perhaps;  we did  'enthusiastic attack' in our Hall.

Narrowing the Field for the Presidency of the World Bank

Under the pretence of widening the field for the presidency of the World Bank the usual pseudo-keynesian, 'progressive'  suspects are pushing for choice to be narrowed.  The FT publishes what is effectively a letter posing as a multi-authored article  calling for a President who is: not necessarily American; not necessarily from the developing economies; is a proponent of a particular economic (read political) ideology; and their arguments are made with the usual holier-than-thou moral and ethical stance that only the 'left' is capable of achieving the Good.

Let us thank Goodness, then, that 'diplomatic and managerial skills' make the criteria cut.
 
A  'distinguished record as an economic policymaker, outstanding professional background, familiarity with banking and finance, ... [and] solid knowledge and experience of development policy' might be claimed by some lacking self-awareness, repentance, intellectual humility, and currently seeking a new World role.    Be afraid.
     

Drought

Widespread reports that south and southeast England are suffering a drought of 1976 proportions raise interesting problems, not least: who owns the water delivered to a consumer?  Quite draconian limitations upon water  use have been published: no garden-watering, car-washing etc;  even our windows are to maintain a steadily increasing layer of dirt.  But are there unspoken limitations on what we do with our water after we have used it?

In a country with hot, dry summers, not to mention a reasonable if needs-driven level of eco-consciousness,   everyone has installed, or will instal at the next refurbishment,   means to collect the acque chiare - rain water, kitchen run-off, shower and basin waste.  This water is theirs to use as they choose.  Bought and paid for at an ever higher price the greater the consumption.  In an eco-house the water system is almost enclosed; much of the water coming in stays.  It does not set off down the drains to be recycled by the water company and resold.

Is that the case in England? Or are we paying our bills to rent the use of water which is then mostly returned to the companies for re-renting after clean-up?   It's difficult to tell from the media announcements but they do take the form of specific prohibitions  - 'banned'  activities rather than banned mains water usage (you can leave your kitchen tap running and there's no  penalty).

Somehow it is all reminiscent of the television license fee:pay to own the set even if  BBC-watching enters the 'cruel and unusual punishment' category.  Pay for the water but you can't do what you like with it and you might as well hand it back as all the activities you would use recycled water for are banned.

Get Your Glad Rags On.....

Or at least your desert, cover-up garb.

'International politicans have thrown their weight behind Kuwait’s bid to move its economy forward, with former British prime minister Gordon Brown giving the country his backing to host the World Economic Forum in 2013, according to the Kuwait News Agency.

Perhaps they don't know; but Angels could have sworn  that the concept of  jettatore is carried,  is profoundly understood,  in Arab cultures.

World Bank Race

And they're off...names (cf the FT) are circulating,  opinions are being given on who may or may not stand, rules - spoken and unspoken - are being dusted off, while that old local authority recruitment injunction 'canvassing will disqualify' might never have existed.

Angels are for Condoleeza Rice.

Such a clever woman:  civilised, pragmatic, competent, successful yet discreet.  Ideally qualified as a political scientist with a profound understanding of the former Soviet Union  (more underdeveloped than that is hard to beat);  there are enough economists in the World Bank to sink a battleship and it's politics that matter in the world right now, not economics when we all know what needs to be done and where.   It's the doing  it that needs outstanding expertise.

Condoleeza for President of the World Bank!

UPDATE
The Bloomberg editorialist is calling for non-Americans to be in the running:

 "... it should go without saying that many extremely able candidates are available for the World Bank  job [Job?  This isn't a job - it's the presidency  of an institution wielding American power.  Why on Earth (seeing as we're coming over all global) should America have to find and nurture a suitable poodle?  Go for the real thing.]   who don’t happen to be American. To exclude them at the outset is indefensible. Obama should see this as an opportunity not just to appoint an excellent new leader of the World Bank but also to start a new chapter in global economic governance."

And  'a new chapter in global economic governance' wouldn't start from the World Bank now, would it?  And if it could then America is not going to have a non-American in charge, are they?

Further Update

The Observer seriously puts forward the candidacy of Geoffrey Sachs.

It doesn't happen often, but words fail me.  Conceited, superficial, boastful, intellectually under-powered....... as I said - words fail me.  

Moody Judges

Florence has been down-graded by Moody's.    The city, its citizens, its region of Tuscany have been found guilty of spending that which does not belong to them: guilty of spending on beauty, truth, history, politics, the Renaissance; guilty of banking  offences.

Their representatives, appearing before the Moody judges, caused instant protest.

"The guy over there is naked,  and the boy in the little boots with the tip of his hat-feather up his ass is little better.  Actually the women are half-naked, at best, too - Cover them up!  Officer".

"Tried that, Sir.  The clothes make them look- well, more suggestive - They go about like this all the time, everyone knows what they look like, so covering-up makes people  kind of look more."

"They're part of this PIGS movement I expect.  OK. Moving along - Is that a lion they've brought in?"

"Listen up.  You are here for sentencing.  (Can they understand? Speak American? We need translators here?)".

"Couldn't say, Sir.   The one in the long skirt with the dark curly hair - he's a man, Sir,  name of Machiavelli, - he's told them to be realistic and to lie to advantage  when asked anything by the court."

"Don't want to get into questions of gender, or ethnicity or morals here - they wouldn't grasp it anyway.  We'll just go straight to the sentencing.  Are these the ones who burned our agent Savanorola   after he tried to get them to cut their spending? Those terrorists? There's no statute of limitations on terrorism, 1498 or no.  Right.

You will be taken from here to a place where your children will receive a good, moral American  education.  There they will learn to wear clothes and sing the national anthem with their hands on their hearts. 

(Do they sing?  Can they hold a tune?) 

There you will learn that you must give to the world as well as take; that you must balance the books; and you will learn the meaning of debt.

You are condemned to spend the rest of your lives in Florence, Oregon.

And may God have mercy on your souls."

Golden Zlotys

Within the eurozone countries it is relatively easy to assess risk and gauge it against return.   Yields and spreads are  constantly available, a real time ready reckoner.   It may be uncomfortable but it's certainly transparent, and effective in causing  policy adjustment.

However, rating agencies are always behind the curve  (as was noted in the FT yesterday) and 'vanno prese cum grano salis'  (as the Prime Minister remarked on the telly last night); a sentiment echoed with considerably more vehemence in the Telegraph today by Jeremy Warner.

Interestingly, Warner went on to make a a point made by the Governor of the Austrian Central Bank ("Mervyn King buys 80% of new government issues") last year:

 "Bond yields are close to historic lows almost anywhere with its own currency and central bank; while in the UK, benign gilt markets are as much the result of the Bank of England’s printing presses as the Government’s fiscal strategy."

So what is a Girl to do when our Italian bond holdings have come bleating home like little lambs and  fresh investment decisions must be made?   If Eurozone sovereign bonds are bought at least I know where they stand, all the time, and have been standing, and why they moved, and can take a view rather than rely on undergraduate economics essays by ratings agency staff.

What of the safe havens?   German bonds are safe alright -  but paying to hold them?   And as for the United Kingdom sovereign debt,  how do I rate  Osborne and  King in comparison with, say,   Monti and Draghi?  Mervyn King is a fine economist but is subservient to George Osborne (oh yes he is, there is no independent Bank of England, remember who set it up) who is not.   Nope.  Not England.  I can't 'see' England.

What's needed is a sovereign with a growing economy, high employment levels,  highly educated population, entrepreneurial,  technologically sophisticated, stable and competent political leadership: resilient, multi-lingual, god-fearing Europeans.

Poland rides to the rescue.   Again.  [Nice wings.]

Valentines

A bit heavy-going but makes for a smile.

(from Leiter Reports)

Ecco

Representing the United Kingdom in Christendom

These remarks from Baroness Warsi are an embarrassment.  It is not just the jejeune language she hopes will:

'ring out beyond the Vatican walls', 

it is the incomprehension displayed with such artlessness:

'It seems astonishing to me that those who wrote the European Constitution made no mention of God or Christianity.'

and the arrogance in all its ignorance:

'I will be arguing for Europe to become more confident and more comfortable in its Christianity.'

She will  lead a rag tag and bobtail delegation of junior and peripheral ministers which will be shepherded by the Archbishop of Westminster.  She goes to discuss the importance of  faith
with the former Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith  - an office he held for quarter of a century;   an office formerly known as Grand Inquisitor of the Inquisition.

Let us hope he doesn't have her put through her paces but gives her the comfy chair, with a cushion.

We Must Not Abandon Greece

Here is a map of the European Union and surrounding countries.

Bearing in mind that the EU is the politico-economic expression of  a defensive organisation -  NATO- which countries would you be loathe to lose?  And which would you not mind about if they stayed, went, or joined?

Angels would be loathe to lose Greece,  Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Sweden, and the Iberian peninsula; would like to add Ukraine, Belarus, the Balkans, Norway and Switzerland; doesn't mind about the United Kingdom and Iceland.

Of course this Europe,  core Europe and its surrounding states, is Christendom.

This Christendom

 

not the 'Jesus wants me for a sunbeam' with tambourine accompaniment Christianity so dear to other parts of the world.

Greece is not only or even primarily an economic problem.  Greece is one of us and, as such, has an absolute claim on our solidarity through its political distress and false turnings: the exploitation of its people and the illegal export of its wealth,  poor leadership,  and all the violence of lost causes making their last stand.

Snow on Snow on Snow

For those closed in by the cold and ice here you can gaze at the Rome of the early 18th century portrayed in prints and water colours.  A piece of the  grand tour for a winter's day.

The Extent of the Threat of Scottish Independence

The reverberations (if not first indications of volcanic upheavals) from a vote on Scottish independence are being felt in Ireland.  Calls for a referendum in 2016 [no need to explain the significance of that date, Ed.] on the uniting of the six counties of Ulster with the rest of Ireland are being resisted by the UK government.

Under the Good Friday accords such a referendum will be called by the secretary of state for northern Ireland if there is clear evidence of a majority of the people in northern Ireland supporting Irish unity.

Owen Paterson ['Owen'? Is he Welsh? Ed.] has stated that recent polls show no such inclinations.  They might after a successful referendum in Scotland though, and with four years of campaigning.  No wonder the Westminster government wants any Scottish referendum sooner rather than later; and is even more keen on yes/no rather than a devomax evolution that is implicit in the devolution models used by parliamentary draftsmen when Labour so unwisely tried to divide-up the UK into Conservative-proof chunks. 

The people of the north-east of England voted 5 to 1 against a regional 'parliament' there. But even that cry is being taken up again by the 'the North has no voice under the wicked English Tories' sections of the Labour party.

If Scotland chooses independence the fragility of the rest of the federal United Kingdom will be wholly exposed.  

Munich

The Munich Security Conference is so much more fun than Davos.  Saturday's sessions were particularly interesting - or at least they sound it;  but where are all the rolling blogs, the bated-breath, excited reporting, the WEForum style hype?

In the discussions of power, who's got it, and what they intend to do next  with it, Munich has not just the edge but the entire battleground.   US troops withdrawing  at last  from central Europe ( though unfortunately settling in Australia);  discussions of tactical nuclear weapons in the European theatre [surely not, there must be some mistake, we're not using Europe as a battlefield ever again, much too beautiful and valuable, Ed.];  war expressed as a euro crisis; transatlantic arrangements (not necessarily friendly after that assault on our currency, I imagine).

Best of all no re-hashing of dull economics 101 by has-been politicians with delusions of economic and financial genius.  All the attendees are very much in power right now.   And are discussing the need to get their act together on the European defence/war front just as much as on the welfare/social spending/ labour costs too high per unit of output and the left-over-institutional-defences-of-that -situation front,  which has resulted in such naughty levels of peripheral sovereign debt.

Europe has lines to assert, instal and defend both within its societies and around its borders, as well as the protection of its interests and resources elsewhere.   We can do global - in the European  interest -  and it really wasn't nice to try and bring down the currency and the Union.

Atrocities of the Second World War

The court at the Hague has ruled; and individual citizens of Italy cannot act against the German State.  The ruling re-asserts the status quo and does more than reject the ruling of Italian courts: it requires that Italy should reinstate the law and prevent any further attempts, by these means, to recompense Italians for War  crimes.

Less coverage has been given to the statements of the Foreign Ministers of Italy and Germany who emphasize that further efforts are underway to ameliorate and expiate the brutal acts giving rise to the legal actions.

Civitella in Val di Chiana - the words release a roar of emotion and distress.  Even now.  But what happened there happened the length of Italy as Kesselring's armies retreated, betrayed from Berlin and suddenly in enemy territory as, during the Italian civil war,  Mussolini was overthrown and the Italian army fought with the Allies.  Unfortunately the long-term bitter opposition to Fascism, the partisans, rose too, behind German lines and, encouraged by Badoglio (who had changed sides without warning Italian forces, leaving them unready when German forces sought to disarm them)  attempted to assert their control over local territories.  Inevitably civilian populations paid the price of guerilla actions.

Worse, local fascists did not give up lightly and, using German punitive actions, pinpointed those for execution.  There was bitter anger against 'partisan' activity that resulted in the slaughter of whole villages, and the destruction of infrastructure and communities in larger settlements.   The assaults on retreating German troops were used to precipitate executions of political, class and personal enemies.

Nothing could sort out the morass of vicious score-settling after more than 20 years of violently authoritarian rule that went on then -  not now, not ever.   Of all the uses of religious belief and its rituals, perhaps ceremonies for the repose of the souls of victims, and of reconciliation between descendants of actors in the violence,  at least  these should be recognised.

Certainly the law  gives cold comfort and no respite.

The Member for Eastleigh

There's something about the Liberal Democrats and their precursors that yields titillating evidential puzzles.   This time the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said that having reviewed the evidence, the Crown Prosecution Service believed there was enough to bring charges:

"The essence of the charges is that, between March and May 2003, Mr Huhne, having allegedly committed a speeding offence, falsely informed the investigating authorities that Ms Pryce had been the driver of the vehicle in question, and she falsely accepted that she was the driver."

So we have an alleged speeding offence;  false information offered on the driver's identity; and a false acceptance of that false information on the identity of the driver.

She drove.  Yes, I drove.   Both assertions are stated to be false.

Who drove?

Rarely is attracting police attention a good idea.  If caught doing something that would be far worse if all the circumstances were discovered, take the lower penalty and shut up.   The car having been caught speeding Huhne should have coughed up, including for taxis and drivers for a bit, and let well alone.  Now he says:

"I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts and I am confident that a jury will agree."

It is difficult to imagine any outcome to this trial that is good news for Huhne if he succeeds in showing he was not the driver of the car.  At the very least he hasn't got the sense he was born with and isn't going to be invited back into any serious political role.

The voters of Eastleigh seem most unfortunate in their elected representatives.