We should have a separate sweepstake on how much the markets will tank during all the uncertainty.
Curiosity wrote:
Other interesting stuff today is that the most important seat to retain for the Tories is now actually Nick Clegg's! If he loses his seat (he won't) then any Lib/Con coalition or agreement would likely be up in smoke.
MP or not he'd surely still be the leader of the Lib Dems until a leadership election, wouldn't he? Therefore you'd think he'd still be empowered to negotiate on behalf of the party in any kind of coalition negotiations.
Can you have a party leader who isn't even an MP, can't sit in parliament? How would that work? Surely it would be the deputy who would become the leader.
Well Farage isn't an MP.
And the Green woman
MaliA wrote:
the Green woman
Good title for a novel
ElephantBanjoGnome wrote:
I can't imagine having my voting intention led by the newspaper I read, but I suppose many others are which is why they bother. Odd.
Because you start to read the paper as it aligns with your worldview. As time goes by, the owners change as do the staff. Your worldview begins to drift with the newspapers as it has always aligned with your worldview. It is not a step change in outlook, more the gentle turning of an oil tanker
The turning of an oil tanker is only gentle if you aren't a dinghy in its path.
/thought for the day
#fauxlosophy
/thought for the day
#fauxlosophy
Curiosity wrote:
Other interesting stuff today is that the most important seat to retain for the Tories is now actually Nick Clegg's! If he loses his seat (he won't) then any Lib/Con coalition or agreement would likely be up in smoke.
The next few weeks will be interesting, for sure.
The next few weeks will be interesting, for sure.
Mind you, from my perspective, "interesting" as in "shit scared scarey"...
Haven't been cacking it like this for any election since '92, and in those days I was rooting for Labour...
Cras wrote:
The turning of an oil tanker is only gentle if you aren't a dinghy in its path.
/thought for the day
#fauxlosophy
/thought for the day
#fauxlosophy
Might is right
MaliA wrote:
ElephantBanjoGnome wrote:
I can't imagine having my voting intention led by the newspaper I read, but I suppose many others are which is why they bother. Odd.
Because you start to read the paper as it aligns with your worldview. As time goes by, the owners change as do the staff. Your worldview begins to drift with the newspapers as it has always aligned with your worldview. It is not a step change in outlook, more the gentle turning of an oil tanker
Yeah, whilst I think that we cerebral types on this fine board like to think we're impervious to the media, newspapers, advertising and whatever else, I suspect we're actually not, at least to some (variable) degree or other.
In other news, that Cilitt Bang stuff is awesome - only yesterday I used it to polish up a penny as good as new!
Cavey wrote:
In other news, that Cilitt Bang stuff is awesome - only yesterday I used it to polish up a penny as good as new!
You there boy, what day is it?
Well I don't read any newspapers regularly, nor do I think any of them particularly represent whatever my world view is. It's really easy to tell the bias of whatever you're reading whether you agree with it or not. I'd rather watch someone's speech, rather than the reporting on someone's speech for example.
Bobbyaro wrote:
Cavey wrote:
In other news, that Cilitt Bang stuff is awesome - only yesterday I used it to polish up a penny as good as new!
You there boy, what day is it?
I am so fucking annoyed with the right wing press at the moment.
Every single one of the gutter rags just has fucked up stupid moronic lies printed all over them, and just repeats and repeats and repeats. The Sun is using the bacon sandwich photo! Again! FFS! Of all the things in the entire universe to be concerned about!
The Daily Mail is the worst though. Half the page is slandering Miliband and how dangerous he is and what a nightmare and how you have to vote Tory as Labour will kill us all in our sleep. The other half of the front page notes that the NHS is falling to pieces and this is a terrible reflection on society.
WHO DO YOU THINK IS IN CHARGE OF THE NHS YOU GIBBERING SHITHOLES?
AARRGGHH!!
*sets self on fire*
Every single one of the gutter rags just has fucked up stupid moronic lies printed all over them, and just repeats and repeats and repeats. The Sun is using the bacon sandwich photo! Again! FFS! Of all the things in the entire universe to be concerned about!
The Daily Mail is the worst though. Half the page is slandering Miliband and how dangerous he is and what a nightmare and how you have to vote Tory as Labour will kill us all in our sleep. The other half of the front page notes that the NHS is falling to pieces and this is a terrible reflection on society.
WHO DO YOU THINK IS IN CHARGE OF THE NHS YOU GIBBERING SHITHOLES?
AARRGGHH!!
*sets self on fire*
Fuck, someone get the extinguisher into this thread; I dun fink Curio's set fire to himself!!
To be fair, tabloid rags will be tabloid rags, man. Really, what else is there to say? Not that I in any way defend any of 'em, but I suppose I could mention what a universally acknowledged mess Labour have made of running the NHS in Wales? So much for their safe pair of hands on that front, then - do we really want to replicate this more widely?
To be fair, tabloid rags will be tabloid rags, man. Really, what else is there to say? Not that I in any way defend any of 'em, but I suppose I could mention what a universally acknowledged mess Labour have made of running the NHS in Wales? So much for their safe pair of hands on that front, then - do we really want to replicate this more widely?
So another day another UKIP candidate sacked for showing everyone who they are. But if you don't already know by this point then I think you're full of shit or else so deeply ignorant and moronic that you shouldn't even get a vote. If you're voting for UKIP then you're a piece of shit with horrible views, end of.
interview here! What a wanker!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015 ... d-32595003
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015 ... d-32595003
It's certainly a good insight into what passes for normal conversation when they are talking to each other. These are the people who the Tories are so desperate to get back on side.
It's not just me, right? It is staggering that a party can run on a central election promise of £12bn of welfare cuts and then duck the question again and again about what they are proposing to cut? I mean, surely the nature of those cuts is a piece of information voters might like to know?
Charlie Brooker's 'Election Wipe' is on at 21:00 tonight.
Oh superb, I fucking love Charlie Brooker.
I will watch it on iPlayer later on in the evening, 9pm is not a good time for me.
I will watch it on iPlayer later on in the evening, 9pm is not a good time for me.
Bobbyaro wrote:
interview here! What a wanker!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015 ... d-32595003
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015 ... d-32595003
Oh man, that is almost comically racist. What a stunning fucking moron.
As usual markg is happy to presume that all UKIPers are the same, and it's a secret racist club. I don't actually believe that, although it would be an easy if not simplistic thing to say if I was interested in doing them down. It just wouldn't be a credible statement. Not least because the party never seeks to mitigate or dismiss any comments like this when they come out - they just immediately denounce and ban them. To cover up their secret racist ways, of course! ZZZzzzz.
I've said it before but I'll repeat it again, a lot of people can support a party and have drastically different ideas about what they think it represents. It probably does have some proper legit racists who think it's a party akin to the BNP that's looking to get them foreigners out, and it also probably has a wealth of people that are genuinely concerned about europe, immigration, stress on public services, and all other manner of legitimate complaints. The fact that Farage and the leadership have never been less than absolutely clear it's the latter doesn't seem to stop the lazy naysayers writing them off as racist when a handful of morons are exposed.
Hopefully it'll make a few of them think it's more trouble than it's worth and swing back to their proper Tory vote
To be fair though they do seem to suffer from more of this kind of shit than any other party. I can't imagine any high profile Tories going on about Bongo-bongo Land or whatever so something is definitely wrong here. Whether it's because they're not doing a good enough job of filtering out nutters, or because at some level the nutters think their views are acceptable, something's not right and just saying, "Well, they're not all like that." is a pretty weak response.
It does seem as if there are a frankly ridiculous number of UKIP candidates/members being suspended for their views - which doesn't bode well.
For that matter, the report says he's only been suspended, when to my mind anyone making comments of that nature should be expelled from the party altogether. *That* surely lends some credence to the idea that UKIP in general are racist bastards
For that matter, the report says he's only been suspended, when to my mind anyone making comments of that nature should be expelled from the party altogether. *That* surely lends some credence to the idea that UKIP in general are racist bastards
My grandfather did not fight in the battle of Cable Street for fascists to turn up again 80 years later in a cheap polyester suit pretending to be our friends and for me to stand idly by.
ElephantBanjoGnome wrote:
I'll repeat it again, a lot of people can support a party and have drastically different ideas about what they think it represents. It probably does have some proper legit racists who think it's a party akin to the BNP that's looking to get them foreigners out, and it also probably has a wealth of people that are genuinely concerned about europe, immigration, stress on public services, and all other manner of legitimate complaints. The fact that Farage and the leadership have never been less than absolutely clear it's the latter doesn't seem to stop the lazy naysayers writing them off as racist when a handful of morons are exposed.
That's exactly the same line Nick Griffin used to trot out. Where are all the BNP supporters now?
At best UKIP is utterly riddled with these sorts of scumbags. This one had risen through to become a parliamentary candidate. He was talking there to what he presumably thought was just another UKIP member at the meeting, why would he be talking like that if he didn't think he was "amongst friends". They constantly have to remind their membership to stay on message. They're fucking horrible and if you nail your colours to their mast then you really shouldn't be surprised when people view you a certain way.
Bamba wrote:
To be fair though they do seem to suffer from more of this kind of shit than any other party
The point UKIP make on the BBC story is relevant - the media is ALL over this any time something like this occurs. You're given a false sense of how prevalent it is relative to other parties. Councillors and members of Labour and the Conservatives are being kicked and/or jailed frequently but doesn't get anything like the same coverage.
Any party will tell you that they can't filter every single member or councillor. Sometimes they do a great job of representing themselves as a perfectly normal person and only let rip when they think they're safe.
Note this is not a specific defence of UKIP, but rather just telling you all to apply some logical reasoning to any party before you quickly decide 'Well, this PROVES they're all racists!'.
Attachment:
IMG_20150506_103146.jpg
That's from this analysis of the UK's austerity programme: http://benjaminstudebaker.com/2015/05/0 ... d-cameron/
It's a decent piece, with plenty of solid citations from bipartisan sources like the OECD (where that graph came from.)
Cavey, of course, will hand wave this away because — well, I don't know why he's always so dismissive when I post statistics and graphs. Perhaps he prefers to make economic policy on feelings rather than facts? I do not understand it.
The British people have been told a lie about austerity. Simple minded analogies to household finances have been accepted as truths when they are anything but. If any media or politician compares the deficit to a credit card bill, they are selling you bullshit and you should not buy into it. Equally, any piece that conflates the deficit and the debt – avoid. You are being manipulated.
The simplest way to think of the difference is this: if I spend less on going out so I can spend more repaying my credit card debt, then nothing else changes. But when a government does that, when a government spends less on the things governments do, then it also takes (in the analogy) a pay cut. Because a government cutting back on services will be putting people out of work, who will then contribute less to the tax man, will spend less on goods, will receive more in welfare. And maybe the private sector has plum jobs waiting for every one of those people – but that graph up there says otherwise. So maybe austerity saves more than the drop in tax income loses – but maybe it doesn't, too.
Now I'm not a raving Keynesian either. Spending more isn't a panacea, and I don't want everything nationalised. The fallacy of the broken window has some truth to it, and I even suspect Thatcher might have been right to close the coal mines (although I think it was utterly shameful more wasn't done to help the communities that were shattered.) But to pretend that in macroeconomics everything isn't interconnected, that small-state austerity cannot possibly lead to reduced economic activity, that of course austerity is the politics of common sense — that's bullshit, and it's a line of bullshit that has now become political fact trotted out by all the parties. (Except the Greens, but they're economically illiterate.)
While I don't dispute this, I can't, I am not an economist, how relevant is it to compare to the US? How linked are the factors that allow growth in terms of the EU, their control of the Euro and the rest of Europe's general collapse into which we sell a lot?
The US is completely different economical entity having an entire continent on which to make and sell things. If the UK had kept spending (and therefore making, etc) who would they have sold to if the rest of Europe wasn't buying?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but I don't think you can claim austerity as fruitless because everything is connected, then not connect the other aspects of the factors which may/may not lead to economic growth.
The US is completely different economical entity having an entire continent on which to make and sell things. If the UK had kept spending (and therefore making, etc) who would they have sold to if the rest of Europe wasn't buying?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but I don't think you can claim austerity as fruitless because everything is connected, then not connect the other aspects of the factors which may/may not lead to economic growth.
Interesting. Graph is good. Is Q3 increases due to something?
edkt: fucked if I am getting into a debate about mines 30 year back
edkt: fucked if I am getting into a debate about mines 30 year back
Shut up Bobby, he's got a fucking graph and everyone knows a graph can't be argued with. Look at the correlation!
Bobbyaro wrote:
While I don't dispute this, I can't, I am not an economist, how relevant is it to compare to the US? How linked are the factors that allow growth in terms of the EU, their control of the Euro and the rest of Europe's general collapse into which we sell a lot?
The article covers this; the US was almost as exposed to the financial sector, and hence to the after effects of the meltdown. Nor is the EU a factor in why our growth lags behind the US. Across Europe, our growth is a long way behind France and Germany. Germany has experienced growth as good as the US's in the face of significant concerns about the Euro. The UK is even fractionally behind Spain, and Spain has 20% unemployment:
Quote:
I don't know the answers to these questions, but I don't think you can claim austerity as fruitless because everything is connected, then not connect the other aspects of the factors which may/may not lead to economic growth.
I'm not, but the article I linked to -- from which I extracted merely a taster -- does cover this in some detail. Cool, sorry didn't have chance to read the article before responding (I should be a politician!)
Lagging behind Spain is pretty damning!
Lagging behind Spain is pretty damning!
MaliA wrote:
Interesting. Graph is good. Is Q3 increases due to something?
The OP claims it's when the government reduced austerity a bit. Source link isn't loading so I cannot verify. Actually, a lot of the charts aren't loading for me, how do we compare to Spain pre-2008?
Bobbyaro wrote:
Actually, a lot of the charts aren't loading for me
This link was getting passed around on Twitter a lot earlier and I suspect it's getting hammered now. plus my work internet relies on ants doing a relay with all the ones and zeroes.
Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
Bobbyaro wrote:
While I don't dispute this, I can't, I am not an economist, how relevant is it to compare to the US? How linked are the factors that allow growth in terms of the EU, their control of the Euro and the rest of Europe's general collapse into which we sell a lot?
The article covers this; the US was almost as exposed to the financial sector, and hence to the after effects of the meltdown. Nor is the EU a factor in why our growth lags behind the US. Across Europe, our growth is a long way behind France and Germany. Germany has experienced growth as good as the US's in the face of significant concerns about the Euro. The UK is even fractionally behind Spain, and Spain has 20% unemployment:
Quote:
I don't know the answers to these questions, but I don't think you can claim austerity as fruitless because everything is connected, then not connect the other aspects of the factors which may/may not lead to economic growth.
I'm not, but the article I linked to -- from which I extracted merely a taster -- does cover this in some detail.Not coming from the perspective of any allegiance on this, but...
Taking Q1 2008 as the start point does the presenter a lot of favours in this regard. 2008 (in particular, Q3) saw the highest rate of UK inflation for many years as a result of the banking crisis giving rise to imported inflation as a result of the Sterling collapse. £1 slipped from $2 to $1.39 in that short timeframe with a similar fall against the Euro (Euro:USD ran at a relatively consistent rate throughout that timeframe), and you can see this in the sharp plummet over the 2008 figures for the UK. None of the comparables will show this. This is important - as can be seen this year when inflation is nil and explained to a large degree on oil price - as this is a fundamental import that is priced in USD and therefore significantly vulnerable as we are a net importer (by some quantum)
Since then, it could be argued that the failure to recover the FX rate and hence un-import that inflationary aspect is a failure and explains the differential, but, in Jan 2008 Sterling was trading at unsustainable highs against both Euro and USD and we're now (and have been since 2010) trading at the long term average - so arguably the 2008 nadir was (in part) a correction.
Also, running to Q1 2012 - barely any chance for the current government to have impacted the outturn with cuts. Would be (genuinely) interested to see the same graph run to Q2 2015 for full comparable, and also with a rebase point as Q1 2009 instead of Q1 2008.
ApplePieOfDestiny wrote:
Also, running to Q1 2012 - barely any chance for the current government to have impacted the outturn with cuts. Would be (genuinely) interested to see the same graph run to Q2 2015 for full comparable, and also with a rebase point as Q1 2009 instead of Q1 2008.
So would I, although so far I'm having trouble finding data. Full-economy GDPs take a lot of hindsight to calculate, right? There's some 2014 figures here http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table. ... e=tec00001 but it doesn't seem to have a raw data export and I don't have time to rekey right now.
I'm going to try and stay up as late as I can manage tomorrow, as i'm "working from home" on Friday.
I took Friday off for other reasons (needed a 'me-day' to sort out tedious household stuff) then only later realised the significance of the date.
A night of self-indulgence, beer, and Dimbleby awaits!
A night of self-indulgence, beer, and Dimbleby awaits!
I would consider staying up except there was a bit on the Beeb the other day that showed how the average time at which a majority of seats have declared has slipped from about 2am in 1980 to 4am today.
In other words expect to be up til maybe 5am to get any meaningful indication. Better to face weeks of upcoming uncertainty on decent sleep.
In other words expect to be up til maybe 5am to get any meaningful indication. Better to face weeks of upcoming uncertainty on decent sleep.
There's a pub doing an all nighter that I was considering. Unfortunately need to be around at work on Friday.
Trooper wrote:
I'm going to try and stay up as late as I can manage tomorrow, as i'm "working from home" on Friday.
Meh, you'd be better served having an early night and rising early. The meat of the results won't be in until the wee small hours anyway.
Keep a bedside radio on so you can keep abreast of updates as you drift in and out of sleep.
DavPaz wrote:
Trooper wrote:
I'm going to try and stay up as late as I can manage tomorrow, as i'm "working from home" on Friday.
Meh, you'd be better served having an early night and rising early. The meat of the results won't be in until the wee small hours anyway.
Far better to just get to bed at the normal time and find out the results in the morning.
IIRC the only election I've stayed up for was when Blair first won, but that was only because I was so fucking desperate to see the Tories get kicked the fuck out.