How seriously should we take this?
October 9th, 2008
On the Betfair next chancellor market the Lib Dem treasury spokesman, Vince Cable, has moved into the favourite slot after speculation by the Mole Column in the First Post that he could be the next chancellor. As of the time of posting he was at 2.15/1. Wow.
The Mole, who I generally quite rate, writes: “..Would Brown do it? Those advancing the idea reckon that his current mantra that he will do “whatever it takes” is a political as well as an economic statement. And he has form in this area..In the salad days of his administration, as he sought to fulfil his promise of creating a Government of All the Talents (GOAT), he offered a Cabinet post to former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown. He was rebuffed after Ashdown consulted the Lib Dems’ acting leader - Vince Cable. They reckoned it was born of pure political calculation.”
The big question would be how the Lib Dems and Cable himself would respond. You could see Vince very much liking the idea but it would cause real problems for Nick Clegg. The last thing the Lib Dems need to do is to be seen to be propping up a lame-duck Labour government.
Maybe it could be part of an overall package that includes things like electoral reform - but that would do little to put sticking plaster over the splits that this would create in the Lib Dems.
We shall see. My view at the moment is probably not - but Brown has shown that he can surprise us.
Mike Smithson
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First? I hardly ever come on here either
I wouldn’t rule it. I think the Lib-Dems would be mad to go for it, but you never know. These are crazy times.
[OT & Repost from the last thread re the "big" McCain policy announcement]
@207. The next Hail-Mary-Pass was overdue. Here we go.
I’m wondering about the timing, though. Friday, there will be news of Palin’s Troopergate investigation. By assuming that today’s announcement, whatever it will be, serves the dual purpose of diverting attention away from McCain’s debate performance and from that, one is pretty much on the safe side, I guess. Now, what if the results from Troopergate are damning and McCain actually drops Palin? It’s extremely unlikely, but would certainly be a great twist!
Brown only acts in his own best interests.
Vince would be a fool to become a Brown puppet. He would never be allowed to become a real Chancellor.
It would mean that the next election would be vote Lib Dem and get 5 more years of Labour.
Anyone who thinks that would be a good plan is probably called Roger or Gabble.
It wouldn’t suprise me. Vince Cable comes across as extremely vain. He wasn’t the only person to see this crisis coming he merely shouted the loudest at every advantageous opportunity.
Mike, that 2.15 you quote means nothing. Nobody’s backed him at that price, no-one would. It just means that the few crumbs that were up there have been taken on the back of this rumour. There has been £16 traded and the last price anyone took was 22.0.
Cable warning about the debt bubble in 2004 ;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2004/feb/09/creditanddebt.business
re-post:
Mike is famous for yet another 15 minutes:
“However the mathematics – as Mike Smithson over at PoliticalBetting.Com points out… “
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/09/labour.conservatives
1 Huw. Yes !! …. and carry on Huw. Mmhhh is that a 1960’s Welsh comedy film.
Come on Huw, lurk no longer !!
I think this is a real possbility as it allows Brown to achieve two things at once - bolstering his government’s reputation on the economic front while causing massive dissent and infighting within Labour’s rival on the left, the Lib Dems. Imagine the reactions of the Lib Dems on here who have been hailing Cable as a saint-like figure in recent months - ouch.
Would Cable accept? Possibly, although in my view he would be crazy to do so given the tidal wave of economic bad news now bearing down on this government. I got £2 on at 20ish to 1. Reckon those were fair odds.
Cable is overrated and reminds me of a funeral director. Anyway, isn’t his reputation in tatters after the Fink exposed some ludicrous, opportunistic flip-flop over Bank of England independence?
On topic:
Interesting! Can’t see it though.
Mind you, I’ve just remembered that’s what I said when I read your first piece about Barack OBama.
Rob
As a university lecturer in 1970, Vince first ran for parliament in posh Glasgow Hillhead. He lost and became a Glasgow councillor, knew Gordon Brown slightly and did not spot his potential. He wrote a chapter (Glasgow: Area of Need) in Brown’s Red Paper book. He joined the diplomatic service and worked in overseas development. In the late 70s he was even a special adviser to Brown’s patron and mentor, the late John Smith, then trade secretary in the Callaghan government.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/feb/20/vincentcable.liberaldemocrats
They first met in Scottish Labour politics in the 1970s and even co-wrote a book.
“I was a Glasgow councillor when he was rector of Edinburgh University. We did a book called the Red Papers for Scotland. It was a series of essays by people who were active at that time on the left of politics in Scotland. I was one of the authors, as was Robin Cook. I wrote about inner city deprivation and poverty, from my experience of being a councillor in an inner city ward in Glasgow. Gordon wrote the theoretical overview,” he said. “He was obviously a very clever guy.”
Mr Cable says this early insight into Mr Brown’s motivations has helped expose lapses of logic in his argument today. “He was clearly quite intense and very idealistic and very preoccupied with issues of what we now call the social justice agenda,” he says. “That’s why I now tease him about how is it that a politician with such an obvious commitment to fairness and social justice is presiding over a tax system where the bottom 30 per cent are paying more in tax than the top 30 per cent?”
Mr Cable is a peer of a generation of Scottish politicians, including Robin Cook and Donald Dewar, who scaled the heights of Labour politics into government. At only 25, he became an economics lecturer at Glasgow University, and some say he could have risen up the Labour ranks with comparable ease. But the economist abandoned such prospects when he left Labour to join the SDP and later the Liberal Democrats.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/vincent-cable-the-dancecrazy-politician-aiming-to-match-gordon-brown-step-for-step-575920.html
New Strategic Vision poll for Georgia :
McCain 50% .. Obama 43% .. Barr 2%
http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/georgia_poll_100908.htm
Vince Cable has had the soundest judgement this past year.
He was right about NR and nationalisation.
Brown was frighntened of the word,and the reaction too it.
Tories especially Cameron and Osborne ideoligically against still stuck in a previous thatcherite era and hadn`t realised the world was moving on.
Cable deserves a place at the top table.
It depends how seriously you think the situation is. I think it is still very serious - the real economy has stopped dead.
If the Liberal Democrats are going to squeezed at the next election anyway, a selfless act in the interest of the country might well be appreciated by the electors. The big change to me in the past 10 years has been that Lib Dems are seen locally as players and not just a protest vote - If they could get into government in Westminster then our credibility would increase in the national elections.
Oh and having Vince running the economy would be good for the country - he could write one of those notes to the MPC to tell it not to worry so much about inflation (decorating the lounge when the roof has lost all its tiles!). We need 3% or lower interest rates now!
“The last thing the Lib Dems need to do is to be seen to be propping up a lame-duck Labour government.”
Been there, done that. Scotland 1999 - 2007, etc
From last threas
no ad agency required at next election
Gordon Brown ” an end to boom and bust”
Gordon Brown ” I will not let house prices get out of control”
by Nemtynakht (formerly known as ChrisP) October 9th, 2008 at 11:57 am
JC - you should have heard the guy from Kent County Council this morning on Today programme. Very impressive. Their argusment is that they followed government guidelines, used professional advisers who used the governements own bank rating scheme and they have their money spread thinly around all UK based banks about 20 top rated. Therefore when 3 go out of business, they think they should be covered as have follwed government recommended best practice. No problems for labour run council - you would have to run a surplus to have a problem.
by Nemtynakht (formerly known as ChrisP) October 9th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Ah yes, here’s Finkelstein’s expose of Cabel’s hypocrisy and gall:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/10/following-the-s.html
This would be a dismal plan for the Lib Dems, regardless of Cable’s merits. All it would mean is there would be even less point to vote Lib Dem than before.
16. You seem to think Brown is not going to invite the Lib Dems into government en masse. I don’t think that is the intention at all. This is about defection.
Answer - I don’t think that he has done anything so bad to deserve being made chancellor and therefore scapegoat for labour.
I would welcome Vince going home (Labour). This is just chatter and I doubt Brown could credibly do this after just having a reshuffle - seems like he is just dithering again!
6 - yes, please please please stop quoting betfair back prices in illiquid markets, Mike - it really undermines the betting credibility of the site, and might encourage inexperienced punters to take some appalling value bets.
O/T - Is it just me that is finding ConHome dead?
I watched PMQs and the Darling statement live in the chamber yesterday and what struck about Cable was how nervous he appeared. His hands were shaking like crazy before and as he rose to speak. He also looked a bit older in the flesh than he does on TV.
But he’s got a great voice and a great presence and people do listen.
But what a problem for Clegg if Brown does make a move.
He should reject it and call for a GE
25. Has it ever been alive?
Surely helping to prop up a Labour Govt. in its death throes is now the only way Cable could lose his Twickenham seat? Why would he do it - if he wants glory, there is more likelihood of him getting that by taking his party over from Calamity Clegg. The cynic in me wonders whether Nice Uncle Vince might be doing a bit of spinning of his own here, towards bigging up his own credentials for a push for the “LibDem top job” (if that isn’t an oxymoron!).
If Brown did it like his GOAT idea it would be brilliant short term but suicidal in the longer term. For Brown he would have a very hacked off Darling allied to the Labour faction who hate the Lib Dems more than the Tories. An explosive mix. Plus unless Cable defected individually he would be asking a huge number of Labour MPs to sign their own electoral death warrants by voting for PR. With less than 18 months to go even the Parliament act may not be enough as the Tories will fight it all the way.
As for the Lib Dems if they didn’t get PR they would face annihilation in Southern England. Even with it yoking themselves to Brown could be presented as stitch up by the Tories and generate a backlash. And of course at that point you probably would see some Lib Dem MPs cross over to the Tories. Very very risky idea.
Can’t decide how to react to this story in betting terms - whether to lay Cable on the “Next Chancellor” market at the ridiculous odds of just over 2-1, or to sell LibDems at 44 seats on the “Next GE Seats” market on the basis that their price already looks too high and this would really do for their prospects on the vote yellow, get Brown argument.
But what a problem for Clegg if Brown does make a move.
It would certainly open the way for a Huhne Putsched!
Seriously though it could cause some LD’s serious problems in LD/ Tory marginals like Sheffield Hallam! Cable seems to have wider recogition & presents than the LD leader - very strange state of affairs.
14 Can’t see any cross-tabs on that Georgia poll, Jack. Wonder what they are using for % of A-A voters…..
McCain is going big on the Obama Ayers link.
Slogan:”Obama too risky for America?”
He is going much further than the Swift boat crew.
I’d be interested to know how Test views McCain now?
Tory Councils who have screwed their Council Tax Payers
Westminster City Council - Hardly suprising. Westinster the most barking Council in England.
Kent County Council
Havering
Sutton
Barnet Council
Brent Council ( Tory Lib Dem )
Hillingdon Council
Dorset County
Ipswich Borough
Bromley
Transport For London - isnt that on Boris’s Watch
“”Council Tax freeze anyone”"
Wasnt Eric the pig Pickles demanding Tory councils stop cooperatring with central gov a few months ago.
Maybe Darling ought NOT cooperate with pig boy
31 - whether to lay Cable on the “Next Chancellor” market at the ridiculous odds of just over 2-1
Good luck trying to do that, Peter, the lay price is 150…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/09/labour.conservatives
Yet another hilarous piece in the guardian. Yes the tories skewed the will of the people who deseved a labour MP. Yeah right.
I would like to know the following.
How much Ashcroft has given compared to Sainsbury / Unions / Other large labour donours? Probably much less.
How much Labour has spent on ‘government advertising’?
How much the labour party has spent on constituency newsletters compared to other parties?
How much money has been laundered through the government grants to the unions and back to labour party?
Seems to me that Labour are the last people who should be talking about a level playing field.
O/T Can anyone explain why people bother with offering 1.01 (on Betfair) on events which are almost certain to happen? I can see it in sport - it’s very hard to judge, for example, how likely a remarkable comeback is.
But the Democrats are surely going to win Illinois and Mass. Maybe a 1 in a 1000 chance that they don’t? So why give away a few quid which could be better used elsewhere?
35 JC - you should have heard the guy from Kent County Council this morning on Today programme. Very impressive. Their argusment is that they followed government guidelines, used professional advisers who used the governements own bank rating scheme and they have their money spread thinly around all UK based banks about 20 top rated. Therefore when 3 go out of business, they think they should be covered as have follwed government recommended best practice. No problems for labour run council - you would have to run a surplus to have a problem.
The Lib Dems haven’t wielded any power in generations, they must be sorely tempted.
So, Cable’s renowned for one thing only, his stupid call to nationalise Northern Rock.
So, I suppose in Gordon’s eyes that makes him overqualified.
Vince Cable accepting any role in this Government would be a disaster for the LibDems; having only recently been perceived to have jumped off Labours coat-tails, anything less than an out right denial would cement once and for all in the public’s mind “Vote LD get GB”
If you think the LibDems are being squeezed in the polls now just watch what will happen come polling day.
I would take the article very seriously but the odds are too cramped for me.
This all hinges on whether Vince will “get the nod” from Peter Mandelson.
I will keep you updated if I hear any further news.
On thread- bringing in Cable would be a stroke of genius- good for the country, for Brown, for Cable- everyone wins.
35 So that is today’s line the Bunker have given you to push is it? Not really their best for you to get you teeth into, eh? Not much traction to that one. Still, beggars can’t be choosers….
‘Activist closes blog for being a risk too far’
Kezia Dugdale, a Holyrood parliamentary researcher who works for Lothians MSP George Foulkes, was behind the blog called The Soapbox.
She was recently shortlisted as Labour’s candidate for the forthcoming Glenrothes by-election, but lost out to Kirkcaldy High headteacher Lindsay Roy.
In an interview on rival blog “SNP Tactical Voting”, Ms Dugdale said: “Blogging has become too much of a risk. I have an inclination that the vast majority of my readership are SNP activists just desperate for me to trip up spectacularly… I have to make a judgement about whether or not blogging almost daily for the next three years, in the run-up to the next Scottish elections, is good for me personally, for my career and for the Labour Party.
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Activist-closes-blog-for-being.4574547.jp
keziadugdale.blogspot.com/
‘What Kezia Dugdale’s retirement says about blogging
- Scottish Labour’s only voice in the blogosphere has called it a day’
“It’s a blow to the Scottish political blogosphere for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Kezia was a great blogger in her own right. But perhaps more significantly she was one of the few Labour bloggers in a field that is increasingly dominated by nationalists.
She was not quite the only Labour blogger. There are a few others, but mostly centred around Edinburgh Council…
Kezia was THE Scottish Labour blogger.
In the meantime, there is a huge void in the Scottish blogosphere. Who is going to stick up for Labour now?
http://doctorvee.co.uk/2008/10/08/what-kezia-dugdales-retirement-says-about-blogging/
Of course, the Lib Dems only get a look in when New Labour have gone so far beyond the pale that the liberal media feels obliged to start scratching around for alternatives. Witness the war in Iraq. Ming was never off the TV when it became clear that Blair was a zealot and a warmonger. Likewise, if the economy was doing all right it would just be the Gordon and Alistair show and no one would give a poke about Vince’s opinions.
Who did you hear it from? Campbell, Mandleson and Draper? Also did you meet Gabble whilst there?
Darling, Vince.
Maybe, but not a real story, just some nonsense probably spread by from Irish man and citerzen Guido. Nice story though
No interset in Gideon I see. ( Hardly surpising ) the Tory Council Tax freeze, which would have been targetted at Tory councils only, has been shot down in flames
Ladbrokes will have a price up for this shortly. It will be better than 2.15/1.
FTSE seems to be drifting away from its earlier gains - presumably waiting on direction from Wall Street. I see this as a really key day there. If there are continuing jitters over the Paulson warning of further failures, we could see another tricky episode….
Overnight Sterling LIBOR 5.42% VS 5.83%, BBA says
Three Month Sterling LIBOR 6.28% VS 6.27%, BBA says
Sterling 3-mth LIBOR/OIS spread widens to 207.8bp vs 199.4bps Weds
Dollar 3-mth LIBOR/OIS spread widens to 346.1bps vs 317.2bps Weds
Euro 3-mth LIBOR/OIS spread widens to 175.8bps vs 162.9bps Weds
Doesn’t look like the money markets are coming back anytime soon.
49. this story could easily have been put out by Lab spin machine - it highlights “bipartisanship” of the govt. without having the inconvenience of doing it.
the idea must worry the LDs (who would split down the middle if it happened).
and it highlights how the LDs (not the Cons) have been the most credible opposition voices in this mess.
33 MM. Likely they used past voter model which from early voting returns in the state will substantially under represent AA’s.
36 I take your point Aaron, based on Mike’s intro to this thread I assumed he was actually being traded at such a price. In fact, I discover that his lowest price traded was 18/1 and that a grand total of £16 has been traded on this market with Betfair!
50.Good as I am looking at at least 9/2 before plunging in.
For those following Obama’s chances in Georgia, an excellent post on Daily Kos on the change in the voter demographic and early voting so far. Suggestion that the polls just aren’t picking up the true change happening there. Look at the two pie charts midway down:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/9/43319/1832/703/624770
49 - what a numpty - if you actually know something you might be dangerous. Where a council has followed ‘government guidelines’ for financial management, it really does not help to blame them.
And as for the council tax freezes - I would pay more attention to the admittedly few and far between tory policy proposals, than anything labour now suggests - it knows that it will not have to deliver before they get kicked out in 18 months.
53. Yes - hence their enormous advance in the opinion polls.
54 Jack W, quite likely - seem my post 57
53. Maybe Brown is going to sell out the unions and Labour party members and invite the yellow peril into his sinking ship? Brown does not think decisions through properly or his advisers so it would seem. The unions and Labour left would really want Cable in government!
This is a none story and Brown is just doing what he did with the election that never was! A load of Cobblers!
35. It is unlikely Labour run councils will have much exposure to this issue because they are precious few of them left!
Ed - I would not be suprised if tories had suggested cable for chancellor line for the following reasons.
Lumps the authoritarian left with the liberal left.
Highlights possible splits within both parties if it was accepted.
People talk about gordon brown being unable to give away any power.
Talk about Libdems being desperate as they need PR to keep seats.
Talk about political nature - labour will need someone to blame for recession. The old construction industry trick - it’s not the achitects fault (brown) - it’s the tenant’s fault (Cable)
Local councils etc really should read the FT before investing with Iceland banks.
Please note the date on this article.
I would hope for widespread dismissal notices to be handed out to the incompetents in charge of this at the respevtive local authorites.
Icelandic krona suffers amid turmoil
By Chris Hughes and Sarah O’Connor
Wednesday Mar 19 2008 17:00
The Icelandic krona touched a record low against the euro yesterday amid continuing concerns about the exposure of the country’s closely knit financial sector to the wider market turmoil.
The currency fell as much as 6.2 per cent against the euro, with one euro worth IKr127.96. It has fallen almost 25 per cent this year and 17.2 per cent this month.
The fall came as the cost of credit protection for the country’s three top lenders eased slightly after hitting record highs on Tuesday.
60 MM. Seen, Thanks.
62 - Perhaps Brown had a cunning plan 10 years ago - if he could mastermind ruining the economy in 2007 / 08 when labour would be on the wane, he might be able to wipe the oppositions supporters funds by causing the banking system to fail.
Could Brown sack Darling and bring in Vince Cable?
There are two different questions there, and they have two different answers.
Could Brown bring in Vince Cable? Yes. He’s shown with Ashdown and Mandelson that he is prepared to make bold moves when it comes to Cabinet appointments.
Could Brown sack Darling? I think not. He knows where far too many bodies are buried and he simply cannot make him the scapegoat for his own failure to fix the roof. Sacking Darling would simply create a Geoffrey Howe situation.
I don’t think it’s entirely beyond the bounds of possibility though that Darling might chuck it in of his own accord though once the situation has stabilised a bit. He has talked before about leaving politics early and it can’t be much fun doing what he’s doing at the moment.
In those circumstances, Brown might very well offer the Exchequer to Cable, but as other posters have pointed out, he would have to be clinically insane to accept it.
Kezia Dugdale interview:
What was the low point?
The Sturgeon Affair during the Glasgow East by-election. My source is still absolutely adamant that it happened but I don’t believe for a second that Nicola Sturgeon would take the trouble to email me if her side of events wasn’t the truth.
I have a huge admiration for Nicola Sturgeon - take the politics out of it - she’s a cracking role model for young women in Scotland.
How relevant is blogging to modern-day Politics as a whole?
Extremely. Blogs, comments forums, phone ins, letters pages, YouTube, all collectively set the mood music for Scottish Politics… the SNP know that and they utilize it very effectively.
http://snptacticalvoting.blogspot.com/2008/10/kezia-dugdale-retires-from-blogging.html
63. yep, fair enough. so either or both sides might have spun it without foundation.
conclusion: non story
GrahamH on the previous thread. You bet Cable’s Fable on a Guardian article from 2004 and I raise you another from 2004.
Michael Howard dishing it out to Brown.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2004/mar/17/budget.budget20046
How prescient was Howard:
Three years ago, in his 2001 budget, the chancellor (Gordon Brown) forecast borrowing, over five years, at £30 billion. By 2002 just a year later that forecast had risen to £72 billion. Today he’s predicting borrowing of over £140 billion. He is on course to borrow this year alone four times as much as he forecast at the time of the last election.
And this is at a time when he claims the economy is doing well! How much would this chancellor be borrowing if the economy went into a downturn? The truth is that this is a credit card budget from a credit card chancellor. The borrow now, tax later budget from the borrow now, tax later chancellor. If he has his way the country will pay for it later in Labour’s third term tax rises.
Surely it was Campbell who blocked Ashdown’s appointment. Cable didn’t become acting leader until last autumn.
64 - All I would say is that the guy from Kent CC on Today this morning stated that they had followed government guidelines fully, and had only lodged money with highly rated (vie credit rating system) banks. This meant they had spread money thinly around approx 20 banks rated as such in the UK. They had done this also taking advice from professionally qualified advisers, who presumably will follow government guidance to the letter through their professionally approved quality assurance system.
25.”O/T - Is it just me that is finding ConHome dead?”
No. I don’t even bother to venture past the front page most days now, if I visit at all.
26.”I watched PMQs and the Darling statement live in the chamber yesterday and what struck about Cable was how nervous he appeared. His hands were shaking like crazy before and as he rose to speak. He also looked a bit older in the flesh than he does on TV.”
Mike, I was hoping that you might do some sort of article on your trip to PMQ’s yesterday, with a possible angle on comparisons between being there and what we see on the 6pm news edited bits.
Tribune to close if no buyer found:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/09/pressandpublishing
Very unlikely IMO - I’m not a regular Mole reader, but haven’t been impressed by his speculation in the past. Amusing to see the Tories here rushing to rubbish him just in case, though - reminiscent of the way they jumped on Miliband before the Labour conference.
I also don’t think there’s going to be a clearcut “the package worked/didn’t work” outcome. We’re going to have alternating period of alarm and relative calm as all the effects of events up to now work their way through - and that’s implausibly assuming that there aren’t any more “events”. But Darling seems to me to be having a good war - his “worst crisis for 60 years” comment was one of the first by a major figure in authority here or abroad to recognise the gravity of the situation, and insofar as the rot can be stopped by British action, he’s had a good shot at it so far.
The question to ask before Gordon Brown appointed Vince Cable is how he would justify sacking Alistair Darling. What is it that Vince Cable could do that no MP in the Labour party could do?
In the circumstances envisaged by the Mole, it would offer a patina of national unity. In other circumstances, it would look like crude politicking.
So really, this is a bet on the banking crisis getting worse and Gordon Brown not being ousted in those circumstances. Even then, the USP of Gordon Brown is his experience. Implicitly he would be saying that it was after all time for a novice.
It would be a gift to the Conservatives. Place your money on the assumption that Gordon Brown would make such a mistake, but I don’t think he’d do it.
Finally, Gordon Brown surprised us by bringing back Peter Mandelson, but there has been a fair amount of press comment suggesting that this was under pressure from his ministers. I can’t see any Labour minister pressing Vince Cable’s case.
So, given we’ve got an extra £500bn going on borrowing what taxes will Brown and Darling have to put up in next years budget? What services will have to be slashed? Clearly theres going to have to be a lot of pain in the short term, for this financial meltdown?
69 - agree non story as it does not seem to benefit either party. It could come from the labour side who want brown out though - an opportunity to stab him in the back after cunningly distracting him with an economic issue!!
By the way, the post at 46 is a bit sad (in the traditional rather than the street slang sense), isn’t it? It’s probably true that people who comment on a daily basis in the electronic media are giving hostages to fortune. But the logical conclusion is that open discussion is a career handicap in politics, and that is the road to “authorised lines to take”, which strangles serious debate.
‘Campaign Day has city Labour ‘fighting like ferrets in a sack”
Long-standing activists are known to be unhappy with the speed with which candidate Cammy Day was chosen, as well as alleged interference from the party hierarchy.
It is understood some supporters have refused to campaign for Mr Day ahead of polling day in the Forth ward on November 6.
In the letter to party “colleagues”, one unsuccessful short-listed candidate wrote: “… During his speech to conference, our leader [Gordon Brown] proudly proclaimed ‘fairness is in our DNA’. If that is indeed the case, I hope I can now look forward to seeing swift action taken.
“Some (members] have said they will not work for the candidate in the forthcoming by-election.”
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Campaign-Day-has-city-Labour.4574464.jp
Of course all is peace and harmony in the Glenrothes and Baillieston Labour campaigns…
Latest Research 2000/DKos tracker :
McCain 41% .. Obama 51%
Note - No change, however first polling post debate on Wednesday was O +12.
Crosstabs to follow.
34 Obama/Ayres (tyson).
Are you sure? I’ve not been following this closely but there
are reports that McCain is already dropping this line of attack.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015082.php
We’ve seen it before and we’ve seen it here that what your side’s young turks think is a major scandal just doesn’t phase the wider electorate.
re 57 fascinating but hard to project the odds of Obama actually winning Georgia. I’d like the Rasmussen figures to be a bit closer before betting against them
75 “Amusing to see the Tories here rushing to rubbish him just in case, though - reminiscent of the way they jumped on Miliband before the Labour conference.”
Worked though, didn’t it Nick!!!
76 Agreed - note to Mike we need a Recommend button like Comment is Free has for posts we agree with/say what we would post.
9. I am slowly emerging from the woodwork
OMG- just watching Fox this morning whilst working at home. It is outrageous. Going big time on Ayers, Michelle Obama’s links with Ayer’s wife, interviewing a child who was the victim of an Ayer’s bombing, calling Obama a liar, effectively calling Obama a terrorist;
going big time on Acorn too- effectively accusing directly Obama of voter fraud, links with felons.
I have never seen it go this far.
77 - I hate labour as much as the next man. But to say there is a liability of 500 bln is a bit much - there is a huge liability but not that much.
87 tyson. Pretty standard red meat from Fox.
82- just watching fox, and have seen the McCain AD which is brutal/ though it is a rerun of this morning’s show.
Nice to see your thoughts might come true. Maybe this was the true plan for the NEC. More likely is that GB and AD ask Cable and Osborne to participate full time in the NEC so that they can shoulder some of the blame.
I thought the NEC met yesterday. Surely they decided something then or was that just a smoke screen meeting. Or did they decide that the it was just another meeting to decide upon another committee to decide upon another meeting before asking Uncle Vince if he had a clue.
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/10/07/is-labour-recovering-in-places-where-it-doesnt-matter/#comment-800290
75.”But Darling seems to me to be having a good war - his “worst crisis for 60 years” comment was one of the first by a major figure in authority here or abroad to recognise the gravity of the situation, and insofar as the rot can be stopped by British action, he’s had a good shot at it so far.”
The Falklands again, that quip from a member of the PLP pointing out that Brown’s ratings were worse than Chamberlain’s must have stung.
Or, would the present government like to be looked upon in the same way as Thatcher and her team during the Falklands? The cynic in me wonders whether this new found love of all things military from 25 years ago is a slap in the face to the soldiers who have, and continue to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan on behalf of this government. Always ignored by Brown&Co, that is, unless there is any political gain to be had out off them?
Or maybe the new press team won’t to make sure that the term Labour’s Black October does not gain as much traction as Black Wednesday did?
79. ‘But the logical conclusion is that open discussion is a career handicap in politics, and that is the road to “authorised lines to take”, which strangles serious debate.’
Oh the irony…remind us which party you are a spinner for, Mr.Palmer…
NP said *But Darling seems to me to be having a good war - his “worst crisis for 60 years” comment was one of the first by a major figure in authority*
Nick is right when he says that things are not going to change overnight, they won’t and this is why IMO Labour will not benifit electorally from yesterday. It was a one day wonder - bit like a budget. Indeed this is worse for Labour as the benifits are completly intangible whereas the costs may well be seen in higher taxes. Why do i say this, if it works and i hope for all are sakes it does - nothing will have changed: There will still be most of the banks and things will go on as they did before. If it fails then we are all doomed economically anyway. So i don’t think there is an upside for Labour as jobs will go, businesses will close, houses repossesed and credit limits cut.
My reading of the situation is yesterday may have been a sunny day for Labour - but the sun is going down and it is mid winter! Cold night ahead!
79. Nick Palmer MP - “But the logical conclusion is that open discussion is a career handicap in politics, and that is the road to “authorised lines to take”, which strangles serious debate.”
Indeed? You may be finding that out for yourself, the hard way.
Not many (in fact no) tears have been shed for Kazia’s blog in any Labourite blogs:
“There have been many, many blog postings on the retirement of Kezia’s soapbox, too many to link to and they cross all political colours. All, that is, except red.
… but is it telling that not one of Kez’s Labour colleagues Ewan Aitken, Andrew Burns, Yousuf Hamid or Matt’s Mic felt moved to leave a message or tribute?”
http://snptacticalvoting.blogspot.com/2008/10/is-mandy-watching-over-us.html
88. Well I’m just going by the figure I saw on the news last night.
To be fair it does seem to vary between £300-500bn depending on which news programme you watch and which newspaper you read.
In any case, the questions I asked are still pertinent. What taxes will have to go up next budget? Where will be spending cuts come from? Newsniht tried to pin Dalring down on where the money would come from to pay for this, and he skillfully avoided answering, but I think we can be assued there will be a hefty price to pay in the months to come?
77. You’re guilty of September 10th thinking; we’re in a new world now where the old certainties are as much use as an Yvette Cooper fleshlight. All that public and private debt is going to melt away like the last snows of winter before the inferno of inflation and the fine old Labour party tradition of a currency devaluation. Live in the now.
26 His hands were shaking like crazy before and as he rose to speak.
His hands always shake thus, usually exaggerated by a violently flapping piece of paper he is holding at the time. In fact in the hand shaking department, he ranks second only to Brown, who conceals this by depressing his hand in a claw-type position hard against the despatch box, a luxury not available to Vince Cable.
On a personal level, Vince would be a fool to take it.
He doesn’t have the anwsers and he ought to know it.
Clegg is in trouble whether he is ’seen’ to agree or not.
If not, the party is diminished and split and probably tainted anyway as it would blunt any attack Clegg made on Labour. And give the Tories bags of ammunition.
If he agreed, it would allow a LibDem Chancellor to be identified with all the pain and job losses to come.
Then when Brown ducks out/is knifed by Mandelson before the next election, Labour could pass the buck on to Gordon and his LibDem Chancellor.
I posted a piece from Anthony yesterday where he set out the polling evidence suggesting the tactical voting portion of the LibDem vote is much higher than that of other parties.
All the Tory or anti-Government element would be lost.
The battle against Labour in marginals would be neutralised.
They would be left ‘fighting’ Tory only seats where the return of those ‘missing’ Tory voters would have caused problems even without this.
Tories would like some voters in seats where they are currently 3rd to start voting for them.
At the risk of sounding like a parrot, ‘That’s the way to do it.
#79 Yesterday you said:
The main test of the package is (a) whether it avoids banks collapsing
Now you are saying:
I also don’t think there’s going to be a clearcut “the package worked/didn’t work” outcome.
Which is it?
97. You think we’ll see a run on the pound and devaluation? Will we see Brown doing an emergency broadcast talking about “The pound in your pocket?”
16/1 Vince Cable next Chancellor now available. Do not rush, please form an orderly queue.
We’ve also got some prices up for Next US Treasury Secretary.
re 73. I was going to do a piece but I had a very good lunch in Westminster washed down with some interesting Spanish agricultural produce and the first thing I did when I got home was to go to sleep.
Heavy duty QT panel tonight:
John Denham, Ken Clarke, Chris Huhne, the Bishop of Rochester and Ruth Lea.
Vince given the night off!
‘Sharia courts set to bring Muslim law to bear in Scottish cities’
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Sharia-courts-set-to-bring.4573444.jp
“Last night, someone on InTrade bet $140,000 that Obama will lose.”
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGIzNjU3YzUzNGRjOWY3NjM5MjI0MmI4MmJjOWY5MGU=
103 Just like the old says then Mike, with the legendary BBC expense account?
104. One might have hoped Daring would turn up on Newsnight to explain to people whats happening. Sadly he seems to be taking the view of his predecessor and avoiding Question Time like the Plague.
103.
Maybe a belated article when there is a lull in the economic and political upheavals world wide?
101. He doesn’t have to say anything as we don’t have exchange controls any more the pound is worth what it’s worth. The debate has moved on now. The four olds of prudence, de-regulation, BoE independence and controlling inflation must be harshly criticised. We must embrace the four news of public debt, nationalised banks, political control of interest rates and Sarah Brown’s VPL.
Only heroes can quell tigers and leopards
And wild bears never daunt the brave.
Plum blossoms welcome the whirling snow;
Small wonder flies freeze and perish.
Oh and for the record, and Nick P, he is overrrated, a fact that Tories have said for some time and something I am sure you are aware of.
As for Evan Davis’ recommendation, he is the bloke who has been saying that Government debt levels would need to be reigned in ‘next’ year - for about the last four years.
Crosstabs for the R2K tracker :
http://www.dailykos.com/dailypoll/2008/10/09
Yes I saw your post very late last night Sally re tacting voting %’s by party . What you do not take into account though is that 28% of Libdems tactical votes represents a rather smaller number of actual voters than 12 or was it 14% of Conservative voters at current polling levels .
On topic , sorry cannot see this happening under any forseeable circumstances , Cable and LibDems generally may accept him as C of E introducing LibDem policy but not GB Labour policy and Labour I doubt would accept it even vice versa - It’s a no no .
107 says = days
I am going off to ToryHome. Wish me luck.
Latest Battleground tracker :
McCain 45% .. Obama 48%
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/RCP_PDF/BG_100908_2-way-ballot-trender.pdf
Mike, a thought has just occurred to me: that YouGov sub-sample showing Scottish Labour at 43% - There is no mention whatsoever of the SNP in the YouGov datasheets - it just says “Other” 29%.
My question is: were the SNP given as a named option to the Scottish respondents? Or was it just Lab, Con, LD, other? That would certainly depress the SNP figures.
My understanding is that YouGov always gives the SNP as a named option, so it is very odd that the SNP is missing from the latest datasheets - there is usually a separate SNP line.
115 Sally C. Brave, brave soul.
oh, what a laugh we had…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7660287.stm
119. Lunacy. Sheer lunacy.
re 117. My guess is that Yougov would have followed their usual practice for Scotland and listed the SNP specifically on the first screen. I agree that it is odd that the SNP number is missing from the data sheets. I will drop them an email.
121. Thanks Mike.
Right, I’m away to get some fresh air and daylight…
No chance.
115.Good Luck SallyC, but don’t expect to find any Tories there, they have all moved here.
119,120 …. and this story half-inched from PB no doubt, where it first appeared yesterday.
119. Probably won’t cause Labour any damage, but he hadn’t better make a gaffe like that during an election campaign.
Sorry GIN - it’s just that it is poor reporting on the news. I think the same with Northern rock etc. OK there was no market for the mortgages, but in general they were still being paid, the loss being any losses irrecoverable through sale of assets. The whole exposure argument does not really wash with me. It was hardly like everyone who had a northern rock mortgage would suddenly stop paying, more like a failure of regulation relating to risk management, when risks not understood about the collateralised products.
119 - That moment of jocularity will return to haunt Brown.
119: ‘oh, what a laugh we had…’
Considering this is Brown’s ‘Falklands moment’ wouldn’t that be like Thatcher tittering ‘Oh, is that another British destroyer exoceted?’. Utterly tasteless!
104. Heheheheh, Ken Clarke is going to have a field day.
“Brown finds bank failures a laughing matter”
Not waving, drowning…..
If you want Vince Cable as Chancellor, you know how to vote. Agree with Tabman that if offered, Vince should call for a GE instead. The Tories have offered absolutely nothing to combat the financial crisis, so no surprise that the whispering is towards Vince; if Darling has had a good war then Vince has been the star commander.
I can’t imagine Nick Clegg going for it, unless he believes that Darling would bring Labour down in fury leading to a GE which they can claim they caused.
127. So we should be spared tax rises/spending cuts?
Electoral reform?
We’re about to get PR.
Beware the old goat McCain.
In all reality, outside of a major league scandal, he hadnta huge amount more to drop.
I believe Lord JackW reckoned last night that McCain might spike and he’s probably right. Last week I didnt give him a hope in hell and set out wheher I think he needed to be with a week to go which is nowhere near), BUT in the last 24-36 hours mulling it over, I got the feeling McCain had indeed bottomed out and would probably show some clawback. Its pure feeling in the bone stuff.
On more important items, I genuinely still dont believe that the stock market is actually quite the predictor of real economy reality but I think, as I posted this morning and a little heat has gone out of the inter bank credit crunch.
I dont think Brown Darling plan is a work of genius, it was simply necessary and major cost implications down the line but it may well have brought a little bit of sense and combined with interest rate cuts has calmed things down. More improtantly, I think we are getting a bit of a mood chaneg amongst the financial opinion makers and calmer voices are coming forth in public. Stock market types read the newspapers, the web and watch the TV liek everyone else. Is the taxpayer commitment worth it? No idea, it will probably prolong recession because of the sheer taxpayer commitment involved and the banks have done a relatively decent negotiating job in limiting the government nose getting into their affairs. October is not the best month for the London stock market anyway and I suspect a downward trend into December. The dramatics however, have been overdone and one can only hope that the government can get the vast amount of cash back. If the net total government deficit over this was say £20billion it probably wasnt a bad bet.
134. Highly unlikely.
The sad thing is that the bank bail out is just going to temporarily unbung bank lending between each other. its not going to restore the credit boom which had seen overinflated asset prices, investment (and therefore employment) in businesses that werent’ viable ; to name but 2 things.
This bubble is deleflating in a specatular fashion, and there is going to be an enormous amount of collateral damage - those who understood how securitisation was a flawed model can see this - but at least those with cash, should , for now, still be able to get cash from their banks cashpoint. It will be the cash they’ve already paid in their taxes lest we forget. But that’s about all the positive spin you can put on it is.
Expect many more “spectacular” business and banking failures as we go through the next few months, and while i expect the cash points to keep running for those with cash, a hell of a lot of people are going to be put on the scrapheap with very little. If Gordon Brown had bothered to properly regulate we could have avoided the worst excesses of this bubble. All we can do now is take cover and hope.
136. I know but it would fit.
A doomed Labour choosing a Lib/Lab coalition.
Vince for No 11
Ken for Brussells?
http://www.jonworth.eu/ken-livingstone-to-the-european-commission/
139 - Anything, if it stops him whinging about losing the Mayoralty…
137 - ‘I will not let property prices get out of control’
I think even if Labour get a poll boost, it is not necessarily going to last. Yesterdays we’ve solved it moment will have the uninformed thinking it’s all OK again now. The burst bubble effect will lead to job losses and asset deflation. So if you mark labour up on yesterdays performance then presumably when the recession kicks in that will be reversed.
Nemtynakht My understanding is that the half trillion is the total at risk if everything goes belly up.
The experts will put me right but I understand 50 billion is immediate cash spend for shares in banks that need capitalisation, 300 billion to cover guarantees for banks borrowing from banks (lucky them, poor old local councils) and 200 billion or more of the Bank of England lending banks money against increasingly dodgy assets including mortgage lending.
If you want to be cheered up this is what Robert Chote of the Institute for Fiscal Studies says:
we can be pretty confident about will probably see net debt heading well beyond £700 billion in the next few months, equivalent to around £14,000 per adult in Britain or around 50 per cent of national income. This is well above the ceiling of 40 per cent of national income that Gordon Brown set himself on becoming Chancellor in 1997. Indeed, we have not seen a figure that big since the last Labour government was forced to borrow from the International Monetary Fund in 1977.”
So, still fairly risky. And as this does not cover depositor guarantees then it really is higher, as we know the government had to lend the bankers’ scheme 14 billion to cover their obligations to BandB customers. So further bank failures like the icelandic will have the depositor guarantees paid by whom? Well, well, the tax payer again.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2207761/the-debt-were-in.thtml
If the national debt does rise to 50% the budget deficit will widen too and then the government will be breaching the EU rules. What then?
138 - Coalition of what? Labour has a majority. Whats the point? Trying to ensure greater irrelevence after the next election after libdems poll more votes than them. I would really have to think who to vote for in that case.
137. Another big looming problem for Labour is how they will respond when large-scale corporate failures begin. Why cash for the banks but no cash for industrial firms? Why save City workers’ jobs but not those of ordinary folks in the heartlands?…oh dear…
I see Gordon Brown has now attempted to steal Cameron’s clothes on banker remuneration which some were mocking the Tory leader for after PMQs.
Why have the brown plastic replica, have the real thing.
Wasant Vince Cable the man who said one day this week that interests rates should be dramatically cut, and then the next day saying they shouldnt???
147 MTF I am sure he also suggested more taxpayers’ money down the well was also essential.
It would be an excellent development for the Tories. First, it would rumble Cable completely as an inconsistent buffoon who’s contradicted himself at almost every turn. Second, it would provide excellent ammo against him and Broon as he goes to work for Mr Bean. Third, it would sideline and humiliate Clegg. And fourth and best of all, it would also drive home better than Cameron ever could that, as always, a vote for the LibDems is a vote for Labour.
142 - Yes - I think if we lose the 500bln then we are all pretty much screwed anyway. I note the prescient comments of Michael Howard above, if the tories are not already coming up with the advertising for a GE then I would be very suprised. I know there is a bit of argument between tories and libdems about who warned about massive debt first. Frankly it doesn;t matter to me, they can both run with it as far as I am concerned, if it gets rid of the odious Brown, Balls, Cooper et al.
Their lies will be exposed, and hopefully the argument about cuts to services will not arise again. I could spend 1 gazillion pounds on benefits, infrastructure schools etc, it doesnt mean I should. GBs golden rule should have been live within your means. Does he think it will be good for schools and hospitals that they have had all had large funding simultaneously - hence they have created excess demand for services, hence the will have overpaid, and now they will have to cut back, causing further problems to construction and associated. He has created his own boom and bust.
143. Naturally the government would change the rules.
144. Introduce pr and there could be a non Tory Government.
Labour will not have a marority after the next election.
147 - this is posturing - he can now say he called for either depending on what the right answer was in the future - an old trick
147 no, he said that BoE independence had to be safeguarded at the Lib Dem Conference then proposed it be taken away (temporarily) earlier this week to impose interest rate cuts.
147. Like most Lib Dems it is a case of ‘whichever way the wind is blowing’.
152 Introduce PR and create the greatest tory GOTV ever.
154
Yes but I got it the wrong way round. This is on Ian Dales blog
Vince Cable at the LibDem Conference
“The Government must not compromise the independence of the Bank of England by telling it to slash interest rates and generate another dangerous inflationary ‘bubble’.”
Vince Cable on Sunday
“What is required is for the chancellor to write to the governor saying that on a temporary emergency basis the committee should assume a central role in countering the crisis with a large cut in interest rate.”
Our grateful thanks to Danny Finkelstein for bringing this to our attention. Maybe now the media worship of Vince Cable will start to dissipate.
147, 155 - tsk tsk, whatever next? David Cameron saying there’ll be no political interference one day on City bonuses, then demanding they be reduced the next?
Cameron’s approach is sensible and he spells it out here
FREEDOM OF SPEECH PLEASE
159 you beat me to it i was googling for it
156. It would be the highest turnout in decades.
Without pr Labour is doomed for eons, they thought about it when out of power, It could save them now.
The MPC has to do what it is told in a letter from the Chancellor. The Chancellor just has to write new letter.
159… DID HE HAVE HIS FAKE SERIOUS FACE ON !!!!!
Can somebody well versed in finance clarify something for me. Has Libor actually gone up since this announcement? Sky News seems to think it has.
Gabble sends his apologies but will be off sick today; his last request as he was stretchered from the bunker was to his night shift colleague one ‘JC’ aged 17; blinking against the bright light of reality and gasping for air, he raised a pale wizened hand and said “make a prat of yourself, loser” …or words to that effect.
Finding any remaining value on the US State betting markets is becoming increasingly difficult. One possibility, however, is to back the Democrats with Boylesport.com to win Virginia at 4/9, or 0.44/1, where 538.com rates them 89% likely to win.
The same bookie is offering a 5/6 either way bet on the US election turnout being +/- 60%.
I don’t think Brown will ultimately gain much benefit from the current bank crisis - a good perfromance now will stop him sliding further and possibly a small recovery to around 30 / low 30s in polls. It is however “the economy, stupid” (not “the stockmarket, stupid”) and whilst in London this might readily equate to banks and the City, the rest of the country is somewhat unimpressed by the large sums of taxpayers money being spent on banks, if accepting of the necessity. Many voters will not understand why spening £400billion on banks is essential but spending £10M to keep open the local factory is impossible.
From here on, every time a business closes (and there will be a lot) you can guarantee that there will be somebody on the TV asking why can’t they support our business like they did with all those bankers? And that is a message that will linger long after the current spasms in the city pass.
The next election, in 18 months, will be about inflation, house prices / negative equity, energy costs and unemployment.
As a purely anecdotal point, I met with 4 ex-university friends at the weekend. Of the four, one will lose his job next March when the firm closes its local plant, another’s firm has just gone into liquidation wiyth an uncertain future and the father of a third has just lost his job as his firm went into liuquidation (he was a year away from retirement and lost most of his pension and he cannot now easily sell the house to make up for the loss). These are the stories that will dominate in the longer term; not laughing about £400,000,000,000 bailouts of banks.
A final point (sorry this is longer than intended) - is nobody else concerned that we now have effective negative interest rates (4.5% v inflation of 5+%)??
JC posting in capitals is shouting on the web, and those who shout tend to be annoying and ignored.
Ave it is an exception, of course, as he is a maniac.
YES 159, Great cambo qoute
“We have taken a lead in defending the interests of taxpayers”
…is he going to repeat that to the 10+ Tory run councils who just lost 100’s of millions.
Very very weak article, classic double facing coupled with a hint of dog whisltle politics…Yawn
169 Ave it 08 however is endearing nevertheless
170. I’m sure Labour councils would have lost money to if they happened to control any.
Jc it may have escaped your notice but council funds are from taxpayers. Shortfalls will have to be made up by………. the taxpayers.
170 JC.. more like AC
Well Witan….
Did Camera On have his silly “I’m so serious face on”. Tie no tie.
Brown would be stupid to sack Darling.
Darling would be silly to leave his job in the middle of this economic crisis.
Cable would be mad to take up such a position.
Or maybe offer Cable a peerage and make him spokesman in the Lords?
Libor Dollar Rate Jumps to Highest in Year; Credit Stays Frozen
By Anchalee Worrachate and Gavin Finch
Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) — The cost of borrowing in dollars for three months in London soared to the highest level this year as coordinated interest-rate reductions worldwide failed to revive lending among banks for any longer than a day.
Indeed 173 …
But hang on a sec, arent Tory councils supposed to be flag ships of good housekeeping and financial prudence…Yawn.
They are in fact lying buggers who have hoarded OUR cash in overseas banks.
158 - not his words I think you’ll find.
He actually said “this week” - relating to tory conference. Hetalked about city bashing - asking if the government as a shareholder will have a say on executive pay where it rewards failure is surely not city bashing, note he asked about poorly run institutions.
165. Different rates. I think longer term rates have gone up, short terms ones such as overnight lending reportedly eased.
143. Nothing because no other EU country will be subject to the rules until this settles either.
… and is Kent Councils roof broken, surely they should have fixed it with the 40m sunny shiney cash they had Squirrelled away
169 Yes. But it makes it easier to scoll past.
158 David Cameron’s Conference speech “Many bankers in the City were quite simply irresponsible.They paid themselves vast rewards when it was all going well and the minute it went wrong, they came running to us to bail them out.”
That is consistent, unlike Cables change of heart, with what he said on bonuses to reward failure. Saying that those who drove their businesses towards bankruptcy should not get taxpayer funded rewards isn’t a “cheap jibe” at bankers but sensible. Saying the BoE should have a wider remit while remaining independent, as Osborne proposed some time ago, and Vince Cable now accepts, having rejected it only weeks ago, is sensible.
While I don’t quite agree with Mr Nick Palmer that JC is ‘lucid’ his presence here should be welcomed. Those Lefties who continually whinge about their being ‘under represented’ on this site might look at JC’s contributions and conclude that this may not be such a bad thing.
171 He is, MTF.
His style is unique and deceptive. You’d think it would be easy to imitate, but it isn’t. Try it some time.
He’s the Jackson Pollock of PB.com. Looks crazy. Looks easy to do. But only the authentic Ave It achieves the desired effect.
165. No, the Libor rate has fallen, just not by as much as the base rate:
news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/LIBOR-Rate-Falls-First-Sign-Of-Trust-In-The-Banks-For-City-Bankers/Article/200810215116825?lpos=Business_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15116825_LIBOR_Rate_Falls_Firs
Latest Diageo/Hotline tracker :
McCain 41% .. Obama 47%
Note - yesterday M-44/O-45. Huge post debate bounce.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/hotline/dailytracker/
184, you neglected to mention that his electoral forecasts for London and local councils have proved staggeringly accurate.
156 - Try to introduce PR now and there’ll be riots. And I’ll be at the front.
177 - No they are responsible having taken professional advice and set aside money in the good times for harder times, a lesson central government should have learnt.
165 Overnight Libor has reduced by about 0.4%, 3 month Libor has increased by 0.1%.
3 month Libor is what banks borrow at, this is the fundamental issue that the package is supposed to resolve - it has actually made it worse. Overnight Libor is irrelevant to business transactions, it is a theoretical measure that no one uses for deals. It has reduced by 0.5% to reflect the interest rate cut, but increased by 0.1% to reflect the increase in the real cost of bank borrowing (3 month Libor). Overnight Libor fluctuates too much to base deals on, where as 3 month Libor is a steadier long term indicator of bank confidence so is used to base deals on.
This is the real story - overall the package has not helped one iota. The market had already priced in a 1/2% cut in interest rates.
187. Jack - I’m sure I heard that it was due to bounce anyway because, guess what, they’ve changed their methodology. Do you think this Ayers stuff has any traction? My instinct is that if it didn’t work before, it ain’t going to work now. The GOP are starting to look shrill and desperate.
Flip flop flip flop.
We love Bankers - We hate Bankers.
Good pay and bonuses good - Good pay and bonuses bad.
Our job is to hold gov to account - Our job is to Coop.
Tory councils value for money - Tory Councils lost your money.
Eric Pickles no coop with gov - Eric Pickles Darling can you help us out
167: Been finding the same thing (other than that Dems-Colorado willhill line someone posted, thanks!). Even states like Indiana are at best evens. Georgia and Montana are 3/1, and McCain is miles ahead in both
Even longer odds shots are rare, the only vaguely plausoble one is Texas at 8/1, and it’s hard to see Obama clawing back 10pts from now.
187. and that still includes the data from that day this week mccain polled really well doesn’t it?
MM - a word of caution on Georgia. There may be a differential between early voting and election day voting. If AA voters and the Obama campaign is more energised it may result in high levels of early voting that diminishes on election day. It does mean the campaign can focus on getting swing/ more marginal voters out.
I’d expect AA turnout to be up from 26% to 29-31% and if Obama has an 8-point national lead he has a decent chance of winning the state.
191. Thanks for that, very informative. So if the early signs are that this package isn’t going to thaw the money markets then what is Plan B?
To our new friend, JC - it is simply grand to have another pro-Labour poster on the site, and there are no complaints about political allegiance.
I would humbly suggest that maybe a different tactic would win over a few more people than current attempts at shouting them down. Good to see some fire in the belly, but I reckon you’d become a more valued poster if you went for quality not quantity. Twenty posts seeking to pick a fight are not worth one with some real insight, or even a betting tip.
Anyhow, that’s my suggestion, FWIW.
185 - Post of the week, PtP!
I am bullish about today and am gonna buy the dow now at 9348. Still holding QQQQ from yesterday.
193 half term’s early this year JC?
To 198, this site PB is a Lib Dem site.
Classic Tories on a Lib Dem Site complaining about Labour Trolls.
YOU..are the Trolls
193. Pickles is on thin ice. He has been flip-flopping wildly on this Iceland issue: not only did he only a few weeks ago urge Tory councils to avoid co-operating with the Government; he also backed this Osborne idea of freezing council taxes.
Now he says, we may need to raise taxes and is asking the Treasury to bail out the town halls for a poor investment in this Icelandic lender.
Not to worry: he’s due to be moved upstairs anyway although I’m not sure when that’s due to happen.
Unconfirmed Ras tracker - M-45/O-50. O -1 from yesterday. No bounce !!
……………………
192 benbobjim. Diageo changed again ??
The Ayres stuff has been running with the GOP 527’s for weeks in battleground states to nil effect.
201 - Sunshine, this is a non-partisan site, and a non-partisan editor is telling you to both stop posting like a troll, and to stop calling other people trolls.
I’d listen.
202, I don’t know the detail of what he’s said, however it is worth remembering that the last few weeks have been the most dramatic and turbulent in the financial world perhaps since 1929.
The government doesn’t have a plan B - thats the problem! As this current deal is fundamentally flawed, you must assume that this is not Plan A but actually Plan Z. Plan A would have been to police the city correctly, plan B would have been not to spend too much public money on non-jobs and the like, plan C would have been to manage the currency properly, plan D not to increase teh national debt……eventually you reach Plan Z - lets throw money at it and see what happens.
173..there will be a number of finance directors resigning,no doubt!
Short of a National Government - a three party coalition - I can’t see any possible reason for Labour to change their implacable hostility to the Lib Dems or for the Lib Dems to do other than maintain as great a distance as possible from Labour (and the Tories). The three way mutual loathing is intense and obvious.
(And I don’t really think we have quite arrived at the conditions that would suggest a National Government, have we?)
JC you are a complete numpty - what argument have you got? The fact is that councils have to put aside money for capital projects etc, and also hold money as supplied from central government and local taxpayers until it is needed. As I understand it they have FOLLOWED GOVERNMENT GUIDELINES FOR BEST PRACTICE. That’s central government - the labour government. I don’t blame labour - it’s just if you spread around the money to minimise the risk you are also more likely to lose some if something fails.
If you actually have proof that technically the councils have done anything wrong I would like to know - it would be wrong if any council had not followed government guidance, but you seem to be doing the following logical progression. Tory council + lost money = hahahahaha. It should be Tory council +following government guidelines + lost money = bad news all round.
Note when rattled they all start complaining about the poster.
Yawn…. Come on Tory Boys and Girls, defend Kent and all the other Tory councils who have lost all that cash. No didnt think so.
This is just too easy, srcatch the surface, and Tories never fail to show their nasty side.
Well. Mc Cain for president ah Tories, or how about George using his real name Gideon.
That must be the 21st post. Is this a PB record on a single thread Its sooo Labour , shout and repeat continually and hope people will eventually believe it. They don’t and won’t.
196 Kieran. If AA turnout in Georgia is only around 30% then that’s their demo. Not likely is it ??
203. So Ras has gone down one for Obama – therefore can we conclude that Gallup will erm, go up one? They seem to be moving in different directions.
As for Diageo, yes I think it is the one that does not have voter ID hence the crazy swings.
The bigger question is why is a booze company doing an opinion poll?
206. So it really is batten down the hatches time then. I can’t wait for Brown to explain his way out of this one.
209.. Oh silly me.
There are 600+ councils in the UK.
Also 209, dont all Tory councils complain that they have no money, and point the finger at Darling…oh dear.
Furthermore good old true brit tories sending our money abroad..oh dear
213 - Advertising - the polls cost comparitively nothing, and yet the corporation gets mentioned free on every political programme etc for months. If you have a corporate name that needs to be better known (ie everyone knows Smirnoff and Jamesons, but maybe not Diageo), this is a good way to do it.
Yes good luck JC! I used to love Tyson’s polemics but was heart broken last night to see that he’d become one of the ‘Urrgghh this political brawling stuff is sooooo unseemly now where’s my betting tip’ brigade.
210
Bored of this troll, kick it now.
Market opening and we are gonna fly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps if we all completely ignore a certain troll it will get bored and go away.
Finance directors wont resign - they will just say that the banks had AAA ratings from the “professional” ratings agencies.
I do not understand why local authorities dont have accounts with the BoE (paying interest if you like0 this would reduce the govs borrowing requirement. Why give profit to the banks?
192-Not sure about the Ayers thing. Think all is fair in an election campaign, but it’s different from it being “relevant” to it being true.
Did he have contact with Ayers? Seems yes.
Does it matter? Probably not.
Will it sway the voters? Probably not.
For comparison had McCain been close family friends with an ex-Nazi bomber we can imagine the Dems frothing at the mouth. Guess the difference was Ayers was the poster boy of 1960s middle class radicalism and so “endearing”/”had his heart in the right place”/etc. We’ve seen it all before.
Aren’t we due Revd Wright’s book sometime in October?
“Now he says, we may need to raise taxes and is asking the Treasury to bail out the town halls for a poor investment in this Icelandic lender. ”
Since the councils in question followed the Treasury’s own guidelines, I’d say they have a reasonable case.
Do wonders never cease.. I note that PB.com has uncovered someone even more idiotic than Gabble, even more economically illiterate than Roger and even more in denial than N.Palmer MP.
Perhaps the moronic and inarticulate JC is a committee of the three of them (a la Jack W).
This crisis is Brown’s Black Wednesday and he will pay a very heavy price for it in the early summer of 2010. The rest is just noise and sad lefties raging against the coming electoral storm for Labour.
Latest Rasmussen tracker :
McCain 45% .. Obama 50%
Note - Yesterday - M-45/O-51
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
197 Don’t judge too early, the plan hasn’t yet been implemented in any real fashion just announced. There really isn’t a Plan B as the Government & Bank of England will make nearly an additional trillion dollars available in capital, loans and insurance on loans, and its hard to see what else they will be able to do.
It does seem to have halted the run on banking stocks and made bank failure in the UK far less likely, which after Monday was a key objective. Relaxing the tightened credit market will take time. I really hope it works because otherwise it will be a deep recession/depression.
214 - I think that is the thing most of the BBC Labour luvvies have missed. Brown has painted himself into the corner by using Plan Z - if it backfires he will have to resign as he has no more room for manouvere (terrible spelling but doenst matter under this gvmt). He doesn’t have anywhere else to go. I have started to read his apparent newfound confidence as demob happy. The thing is, he has yet to realize just how soon it will become apparent that Plan Z cannot work.
194 Andrew - I think I’ve found some value for you.
Paddy Power have put up a Battleground 6 Pack market:
“George Bush won each of these ‘Six-Pack’ states in 2004. How many can McCain hold onto? (Six-Pack states = Colorado,Florida,Nevada,North Carolina,Ohio,Virginia)”
None 13 - 8
One 4 - 1
Two 10 - 3
Three 5 - 1
Four 7 - 1
Five 10 - 1
Six 9 - 1
On current trends, the best hope for McCain is North Carolina, where Ladbrokes are best priced 8/11 for the Democrats.
Now of course, these 6 States are all related contingencies. If McCain doesn’t win NC, he’s very unlikely to win any of the others. Take the ‘None’ option and you are effectively getting an
8/11 shot at 13/8. OK, there’s alittle extra risk, but I still reckon it’s value.
Sadly, PP would only let me have £21. They seem to have my card marked. You may be able to do better.
On a related theme, I notice that World Famous Odds Compiler and PB Sponsor, Shadsy, has put up some EV prices. He goes 2/1 about 370+ for the democrats.
Now we all know what a shrewdy Shadsy is and I reckon his odds are about right. But what does that tell you about the spread numbers? SPIN now have Obama’s EV price at 318-324.
If the Great Shadsy is anywhere near right, the 324 is a steal.
Fill yer boots, PBers!
213 benbobjim. Diageo has party id Dem +2.
220 I’m not sure either; Government bodies (including “arm’s length” ones like quangos) are required to bank with the BofE through Paymaster. I don’t think they get interest though.
Hmmm unless my ‘ol eyes are failing me!
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23569747-details/A+cheaper+house+within+yards+of+1m+home+paid+for+by+council/article.do
Nowhere in that article does it mention that Ealing is Conservative controlled, still apparently its the Government’s fault, at least its not Ken’s.
Good ‘ol Standard.
225 The run on banking stocks finished before the announcement - this was because of them being value and not because of the announcement. The FTSE fell after the announcement.
You don’t have to implement all plans to see if they are good or not. Otherwise you would never bother planning. The point of a plan is to assess whether the intended outcome is realistic. No-one knows the intended outcome of this plan, so it cannot be measured.
It is a last chance saloon misguided stab in the dark, not a plan.
227. Interesting - might it make sense on that basis to bet on none and on ‘five’ and ’six’ as well?
Never ever fail to amaze me.
PB is an open blog in a free society.
Some one defends the Gov, or PM, or just merely agrees with a policy – they are a automatically a troll from Lab HQ. Paranoid loonies.
All the Camera On luvies “””you are the trolls, tory trolls””
Sorry peps but this might shock you – you are not always right, and everything you say isn’t always correct , that’s called arrogance, no surprise there.
Darling and Brown just saved the banking system from Tory voting, Thacther loving wide boys of the square mile. It wasn’t the govs duty to micro manage banks, but then if they had been you would be ranting about red tape and reds…flip flop flip
226, if the plan works, we still have recession. If it doesn’t, Brown will go down in history as the worst Chancellor AND worst Prime Minister.
Labour are stuffed, and guffawing rows of backbench socialists will find themselves out of employment come 2010.
The scale of the probable Conservative victory will be dictated largely by the Lib Dem performance. Over the longterm the Lib Dems need to position themselves as anti-Labour, and now represents a good opportunity to do that (not immediately, due to the consensus over the rescue package).
However, that may jeopardise many of their southern seats.
As regards the question of the thread: never going to happen. Brown won’t ask Cable, Cable wouldn’t accept, Darling could wreak havoc in a resignation statement.
232. Which five do you possibly think he can win?!
168 Yes that is right, but you have to remember that recessions do not neecessarily make people rush and buy new things - and that applies to politics as well as other things. People become averse to change and there is a tendency to “hold on to nurse” - as happened in 1992. I would expect Labour to make a permanent recovery in the polls on the back of this week’s events. This will probably not get them back to an election winning position, but the Tories now have a lot to do in finding an economic narrative that will differ from the government’s - talk of “sharing the proceeds of growth” and tax reductions will be laughed out of court in the circumstances in which we now find ourselves.
JC - what don’t you understand about followed government guidelines - seriously!
You clearly have no idea about how council funding works in relation to revunue and capital funding.
JC said “209.. Oh silly me.”
Well, you got that right, anyway.
Come back Gabble, all is forgiven!
JC reminds me of someone sitting in a call centre with their prepared lines laid out in front of them. Its like a scene from the The Thick of It, JC a little cog in Malcolm’s press engine astro turfing away on his given patch(PB.com), and sticking to the script with no imagination or hint at any real humour.
JC - your are dolly drpaer and I claim my 5 pounds
You can still get 1.57 on the Democrats to win Nevada on Boylesports, great value. If you feel like hedging you can get 3 on the Republicans with Ladbrokes, leaving a glorious 3% profit at full hedge (wouldn’t bother with that personally!).
Closing my Dow buy at 9396. Nice profit.
Is this a record. JC has posted pretty much the same dross 25 times and has taken up over 12% of all the posts.
232 Yes, Runnymede. If you think McCain can turn it round, that makes sense. The value is at the extremities.
All I’m pointing out is that if the current polls and betting markets are right, this is a very good way to get a big value bet on North Carolina.
Backing ‘One’ at 4/1 also looks value to me, and could be combined with a bet on ‘None’ if you are a bit on the risk-averse side.
196 Kieran, I would agree that early voting is not normally representative of the final result. However, my understanding is that in the US, early voting is generally disproportionately favourable to the Republicans. I think all we can adduce is that th A-A vote is determined to engage in the process like never before.
I do wonder whether - as with some spectacular LibDem by-election victories - polls get a sense of a movement, but for some reason (sample construction, past voter weighting, whatever) they get completely blind-sided by the sheer scale of the voter movement. I just wonder that might be happening in 2008 in the US. Bear in mind that the media narrative is always for a close horse race. Obama 20 points ahead doesn’t get readers/viewers —> sell advertising. Some of the polls seem to give evidence that their voter sampling is constructed to give that nail-biter outcome (eg undercounted (or no!!) A-A or other ethnic voters in the sample; Democrat and Republicans being given near even weightings). The biggest loser in the 2008 election could yet be the polling….
228. Makes that poll look even worse for Macca then – as nationally I think Dems are around +5?
Still I have a feeling it was +5 GOP on Sunday/Monday. It’s a weird poll that I think is largely fluid (excuse the pun) depending on who they happen to get on the phone that particular day.
BTW, is the Ayers stuff McCain’s “big announcement” : it’s totally lame if so.
PtP@227: nice spot, but as soon as you mentioned paddy my heart sank, max 97 pence! (paddy took a bit of a hammering during the baseball season, way too many soft late lines with nice large stake limits).
Still, means there’s lots of money going on it so others are agreeing with you - paddypower lines are pretty slow to move, i think they wait on manual approval.
233
You’ll soon get to realise that the ‘Blue Harpies’ love free speech, provided that you use that freedom to praise Dave and all his works.
re 227 Nice work, PtP. Hope you profit. Just need to bear that 8/11 Obama wins NC doesn’t look like value to me, even though Obama is spending big time there. I’d still say it’s odds against McCain losing the lot…but 13/8 is value.
233 gets a respone via 240.
I rest my case
Of course Cable could become the next chancellor. Clegg would demand the Home Office and the right to scrap ID cards, Steve Webb would take Ed Miliband’s place and introduce the Lib Dem fiscal package, Susan Kramer would take transport and scrap Heathrow’s third runway, and David Laws would take education and introduce the pupil premium. Paddy Ashdown could take over international development with a special interest in Afghanistan. There would also be a commitment to introduce STV for the next Commons election and for local government, presided over by Jack Straw at the MoJ.
If Brown is desperate enough to accept those terms then everything could work out fine. Anything far short of those terms would almost certainly harm the Liberal Democrats at the next election.
ohhh….the PB site is full of tory trolls today…yawn
234. I agree with you. Gordon may put out the fire, but people will still want to know why he was playing with matches. *psst* Dave, don’t forget to post the 1997 budget speech through every letterbox.
253, aye, and jesting about banks collapsing should become a mainstay of Tory party politicals during the next election.
245-Are you confusing early voting with postal voting? Probably not.
But postal voting is overwhelmingly Republican (all those military guys).
O/T
Nobel prize for literature goes to JMG Le Clezio.
For those that have not read him yet, his work is centred on criticism of the materialist western society. The Nobel academy had their timing right on this one…
Jack W - You’re right, I didn’t realise the AA population was around 31%. Given that I’d estimate turnout of 32-34% i.e. lower than early voting indicates. While there is clearly upside for Obama we need to be careful. I would be surprised if AA turnout is more than 10 percentage points higher than white turnout. Would love to see the early voting replicated on election day but not sure it will.
233 JC may be a touch partisan but it is ironic that those bankers and cityboys who have basked for years in the “master of the universe” image and prattled on endlessly about how untramelled free markets would lead to ever-rising prosperity (particularly for them) are now to be found on their knees begging the public sector they despise to bail them out.
JC
l
Listen to Morus. He is right.
I came on here when the Tories were behind in the polls and we were facing defeat. There were some howling gloating lefties and some more thoughful ones.
This site would be less without Tyson, Malcolm and nickc. They engage with you.
If you constantly disparage others, how can you expect respect? [she says rather hypocritically having just picked a fight on Tory home]
2. Rule 2 Rule one doesn’t apply to ToryHome, LibDem Voice or Labourhome
Interest rates fall - tory trolls cannot hid their annoyance.
Inflation has probably peeked - tory trolls cannot hid their annoyance.
Unemployment is unfortunatly rising - tory trolls cannot hid their joy.
252. JC, you seems to be under the impression that only Tory-run councils had money in failed Icelanic banks… on the local news this lunchtime it listed several councils in this position: one I remember (as I reside within the boundaries) is Wakefield, with £9m in these banks.
255 I’ll try and burrow into how “postal” and “early” voting are differentiated. I think there has been quite an extenson of early voting this year - a few new Democratic Attorney-Generals at State level seem to be more inclined to assist voting than prevent it….
234 Don’t agree that the Lib Dems “hold the key” to the margin of victory. The scale of Lib Dem losses will be important to them, but irrelevant to the Tories who can win a sizeable majority just on the basis of Labour losses.
JC is doing a very good impression of a Tory doing an impression of an excitable left winger
258.. Yes indeed. On Tuesday, the last bastion, the little traces or hints of free market thatcherite ideology died.
Brown and Darling did not micro manage the banks, hardly their fault
264… as I have said paranoid… are all the Tory troll worried.
261 .. No I dont, but 99% are either Tory or Tory/Libdem NOC’s….. Fact
258 - see how the city boys “are now to be found on their knees begging the public sector they despise to bail them out” when they will reject the government offer of help.
I cannot recall a single instance of the city asking the government for help. The government has swaggered into the city uninvited and made ridiculous suggestions. The city boys only take them up if they gain (e.g. the Lloyds TSB / HBoS merger), not when they will lose in the long run (i.e. the current offer).
Cable story is nonsense.But what would have made this none story more ridiculous would be if the roumour was that brown were to ask Gideon… That would have confirmed the story as total fantasy !!!!
256 - There’s a first time for everything. The Nobel Prize for Literature must have more clunkers in it than all the rest put together (including Peace).
260 ….and Troy trolls cannot “hid” their disdain of J “Jerk” C.
245 - An argument in your favour is the Selzer poll in Indiana. She had Obama up by 3 when all others had him marginally behind. She is the only pollster who correctly predicted the changed electorate for the Iowa caucuses (and was criticised heavily beforehand). Her numbers suggest a changed electorate.
The AA population is clearly fired up and will turn-out in record numbers. The only question is how much they will years. My interest has largely shifted to how this will affect down-ballot races (barring a major event Obama will win the Presidency). The Senate is particularly interesting. The chances of not just 60 seats but 61/62 seats are growing with Obama’s lead. GA and MS in particular could be won by the Democrats with Obama’s coat-tails.
267 – 99% are either Tory or Tory/Libdem NOC’s….. Fact
[citation needed]
264 Oh don’t you try that.
He’s definately not one of ours.
Dow puking.
267. Erm, after the 2008 local elections, the Tories had overall control of 213 local authorities I think, and God knows how many they are in coalition in.
Labour controls 51.
These councils were following Government guidelines - you are pulling the wool over your own eyes.
Guido has ‘gorn off’ Dave and about everyone else, apart from Heff that is!
http://www.order-order.com/
Oh dear I seem to have rattled the blue noses..
Come on fellas all together now “” McCain McCain McCain “”
or how about “Westminster council Tory flag ship delievering excellent sound financial stwardship of local tax payers money.
or my favourite Pickles begging Darling for a life ring after only a few weeks ago trying to snub the Treasury.
271 - just check out other political blogs with posters like DES and Monkey. You’ll spot a rather common theme, with very common words and syntax, very very quickly
It’s either a Tory on a windup or Draper’s work experience kids
264 People have genuinely tried to give you a break here.
I made a cock up on one of my first days on PB.
I apologised when I realised I had made a claim that was not correct.
When you are in a hole stop digging.
277 Guido gone off Coke boy Dave surely not.
281. Boring, at least other trolls have had some entertainment value.
258 Who can blame those exuberant claims when they were supported by the Greatest Chancellor Ever.
He said in June 2006 “In 2003…. many who advised me including not a few newspapers, favoured a regulatory crackdown.
I believe that we were right not to go down that road… and we were right to build upon our light touch system .. fair, proportionate, predictable and increasingly risk based… committed to reducing regulatory administrative burdens ”
He proclaimed in June 2007 that his 10 years in office were “an era that history will record as the beginning of a new golden age for the City of London….I believe it will be said of this age, the first decades of the 21st century, that out of the greatest restructuring of the global economy, perhaps even greater than the industrial revolution, a new world order was created.”
JC = zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
282. Entertainment !!!!
What is more enteraining watching Pig Pickles begging. A truly awful man, who harks back to the days of work houses ( him being the work house owner).
He wobbles himself about stuffing pies into his arrogent fat face while splutters phrases such as ” Tory councils are well run , and financially astute”
How to make friends and influence people?
“But JC is more lucid and no more partisan than plenty of familiar faces here, and adds a welcome bit of balance to the weathercocks of this world.”
by Nick Palmer MP October 8th, 2008 at 12:28 am
278. For your info I am a Tory, and support Obama, alwaya have. If Hilary had won the Democrat nomination I would probably have supported the Republicans - I think McCain’s too old and Palin is hopeless.
285 - Sizeist.
285. Nope, still not funny.
285. “He wobbles himself about stuffing pies into his arrogent fat face while splutters phrases such as ” Tory councils are well run , and financially astute””
Whilst you are the picture of couthness, are you not JC?
278 JC
Such nonsense discredits you not just amongst Tories, but just about anybody who cares for the Site.
It’s a betting Site, for heaven’s sake, not a graffitti wall for political partisans. There are plenty of other Sites that cater for that sort of stuff, if that’s your bag.
268 But the banks have already accepted government help - they had done that even before Tuesday. All of them will use the guarantee scheme becuase if they don’t they will have higher risk premiums on their debt. Most of them are already borrowing from the special liquidity scheme. Not all may use the equity capital scheme, but some will have to.
Had the banks not accepted help from the public sector the UK financial system would have collapsed and we would be looking at a slump worse than the depression in the 1930s.
Guys, just ignore JC.. er, Monkey…. er, DES. Once his mother returns to his mansion from her bridge playing she’ll take back her computer to check on their Icesave account
285 Are you referring to Eric Pickles? Campaign Manager for Crewe & Nantwich? I can see why you despise him. He can beat you in your own back yard.
285 - Please buy a dictionary, you illiterate troll.
The banks have not had any government help. Can you state some facts. Just a link to a single news item where a bank has asked for help or have taken on some of the new deal? I am happy to be proved wrong, I just haven’t see it myself.
If NP is the Marie Antionette of the Labour Party, JC is it’s Madame Thérèse Defarge.
so when Osborne was talking about freezing council taxes, who would have thought he meant sending all the proceeds to iceland?
“But JC is more lucid and no more partisan than plenty of familiar faces here, and adds a welcome bit of balance to the weathercocks of this world.”
If any of you have ever read posts by an ex-Labour councillor from Stoke called Gary Elsby, you’ll recognise that JC’s posts are in the same mould.
297 …. and gabble is the Scarlet Pimple.
296 Can’t do links - I’m IT illiterate - but I refer you to the hundreds of news stories about the Special Liquidity Scheme (under which the Bank of England lends to commercial banks on favourable terms which they can’t get elsewhere) which have been published since the scheme began last Summer. I think the total that has been loaned so far is about £100bn, and yesterday another £100bn was offered.
JC @ 35 You really ar an ar*e. (on a good day)
Sutton is LD run (and hardly to blame either in either event)
In the meanwhile you appear to have also ‘accidently’ overlooked a high profile North London Labour controlled Borough said to be in cash flow problems because of the debacle.
Wise up. Loser.
298. Did you not see my post upthread on Labour councils having done the same?
260. Why is it that all the Labour astroturfers on this site are unable to spell? Are they all recruited from sink schools in Hackney?
299 - ‘an ex-Labour councillor from Stoke called Gary Elsby’
Did lose his seat to the BNP?
296
Just caught something on BBC24, apparently the ‘Bankers on Wall Street’ are now pressing the US government for a deal based on the British model.
Hope the UK government has taken out copyright!
303. i can’t make the same rubbish gag about that unfortunately - feel free to try one
306. not surprised. the US one really is a bad deal for the taxpayer - Paulson having one final blowout on behalf of his chums at GS
JC, I strongly advise you to maybe inject some more quality than quantity. I defended you when Sean Fear bizarrely attacked you after about 5 posts earlier in the week, but now I’m beginning to think he may be correct.
306 if they have the Swedish Government might sue them
303 - George Osborne’s offer wasn’t restricted to Tory councils.
Was Kerry Katona the harbinger of doom?
Dow is puking its guts out. This is looking nasty as the shorts are back on fins stocks.
310 LOL so the answer is no you can’t. The special liquidity scheme began in April 2008, not last summer. Do you think it has helped liquidity then?
“Banks will be able, at the discretion of the Bank of England, to renew them each year for, at most, a total of three years. After that, the scheme will close. The length of these transactions will provide banks with the certainty about liquidity that is needed to boost confidence. During the lifetime of an asset swap, banks will be required to pay a fee based on the 3-month London interbank interest rate (Libor).”
“Given its scale, the Scheme is indemnified by the Treasury, but is designed to avoid the public sector taking on the risk of potential losses.”
Mmm. 3 month Libor still at a standstill. All risk now in the public sector. The government have handled this brilliantly.
Here we go Gabble…… Enjoy
http://thecrownblogspot.blogspot.com/2008/…-at-moment.html
Last night Gordon’s speech is interrupted by a mobile phone ringing. At this time of national crisis, when investors are fearful of losing their life savings, Gordon thinks it is a good time for a joke.
What a disgrace.
It reminds me of Lamont singing in the bath or his ‘je ne regrette rien’ comment
——————–
http://thecrownblogspot.blogspot.com
PB contributor, ‘Letters from a Tory’ isn’t that enamoured of Dave either.
So is that the end of it? Are you going to happily skip along hand in hand with Gordon Brown as we stumble through this financial nightmare? Your strategy is admirable for the most part, but the long-term impact on voters is much harder to judge. Ok, so you have called for no bonuses to City execs and demanded slightly tougher conditions for the banks than the government appears to be proposing, but think of it from our point of view. You have spent the last year telling us how badly Gordon has got it wrong, and now you are going out of your way to tell us he is getting it right. The last 12 months have been full to the brim of Labour’s mistakes, errors of judgement, dithering, faltering and incompetence - but all of a sudden you are declaring to the nation that they’ve got this one pretty much spot on.
305 So he did, Abbey Green. I have to say that is one of the very rare occasions where a BNP winner is actually of higher calibre than the defeated incumbent.
313 - 301 not 310
You just have to laugh at JC attracting complaints as a Labour troll for making too many posts on one thread . The complainants may be a number of different posters ( or poster names ) but every thread they post one after the other the same turgid CCHQ inspired dross .
309. Quailty…. What planet are you on.
My I suggest you read the drivel from Tory Trolls.
218 - Market opening and we are gonna fly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
by EDW October 9th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
South?
277: ‘Guido has ‘gorn off’ Dave and about everyone else…’
I think Guido is right. While I can just about excuse Cameron - it would be woeful politics to sink to revolting Brownesque politicking at this time of crisis - the capitulation of many in the pro-capitalist brotherhood has been horrifying. They became intellectually flabby. They were taken in by shysters like Blair and Brown (I was myself for a fleeting period) and thought the battle was won. The battle is never won. As we’ve seen, it only takes a squall for all the socialists, interventionists and levellers to crawl from the woodwork and attempt - yet again - to bring about their dark ends. The greatest system of economics has taken a hit this week but it is still standing. Next time, if we are not fully prepared, its enemies may be able to give it that final shove.
319. Your uninformative and repetitive posts are starting to fall into the same category.
Mirthios / EDW. What figures are you looking at? The markets are all up according to BBC.
319. I’m starting to think these spelling mistakes are deliberate.
321:
Hmmm, quite pleased with that battle hymn. Think I’ll post it at Guido’s to cheer the old boy up…
318 No 318
The problem is this The Blue noses think they own blogland, it is their personal space to spill their blue blue spleens…Well guess what…it isnt.
By default you become a Lab Troll if you dare cross coke boy dave, support gov policy or announcent etc etc. I think the rescue plan is a good thing, I think IR falling is a good thing, I think Tory councils losing millions is a diaster ( for them anyway ).
But no matter what you post, there will never ever be a reply, just a comment about being a troll ..yawn Yawn.
Etch in bold font across the top of your PCs
‘Rallies are selling opportunities until further notice’
I’ll update you in 6 years time if the trend changes.
Remind me when the Nikkei peaked and when .. maybe it can’t happen here because we’re that much cleverer and better educated !?
Tin hats. Stay liquid. No exceptions.
A very strange story, that Cable might be invited to prop up this Labour Government.
I wonder where it came from? Who could possibly think up a non-story like this and get it planted in the media? And get all our Tory friends into a real tizzy, taking it seriously?
Anything to bury bad news…
Campbell? Or Mandelson?
326. Well, I have my fair share of run ins with Tory posters on here, but there are also a lot who will give you a sensible response and add to the debate.
287. Yep: Palin must rank as the single worst VP pick in US presidential election history.
329 - It does no harm destabilising Lib Dems either. You could be right. Given how silly the story is, it’s the best explanation I’ve seen so far.
I think Local Authorities’ excuse that lending to Icelandic Banks was in line with government guidelines is a very lame indeed. If LA Finance Directors were lowly paid clerks following prescribed detailed procedures it would be fair enough. But FDs presumably read the FT and exercise their judgement. That is what my daughter did - she isn’t financially literate but she reads the papers and she moved her savings from ICESAVE in good time. “We were following Government guidelines” is simply ar*e covering. Moving money out of Icelandic banks would not have broken the guidelines. It would have been financially prudent - what they are paid for. Heads should roll.
“It’s a betting Site, for heaven’s sake, not a graffitti wall for political partisans. There are plenty of other Sites that cater for that sort of stuff, if that’s your bag.”
Do you want to get rid of all people who just post random Labour/Brown-bashing then? You wouldn’t have a lot of posts left on some days.
330 - Not quite:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Eagleton
326. “But no matter what you post, there will never ever be a reply, just a comment about being a troll ..yawn Yawn”
I have tried to reply to you about this councils in Icelandic banks, and the every-Tory-supports-McCain line you’ve been repeating, but your not actually taking any notice.
Ed - excellent joke - more illuminating than a days worth of posts from idiot JC.
I support Obama over Mccain. I have voted mainly libdem and occasionally tory. But as soon as you say you hate the government you are a tory troll. It would be great to have some intelligent policy debate, but I am sure most of the centre left are demoralised and are not coming out to play.
As it is I hate the government even more since it is probably stuffed with head in the sand JC types.
Credit where it is due, the governments bail out seems to be the best of a bad bunch of options. First time in a long time - they might even come with a policy at some point!!!
323 - Albion - Bloomberg. Markets very volatile, but at 15:40 UK time Dow shown down 38.63 having been up 190 earlier and FTSE up 16.2 having been up well over 120 at one stage. Current movement, therefore, generally down. May well change in the next hour, of course.
326
Errrm You may be behind the news on that one, it looks like, ‘The world and his wife’ has got their money on Icelandic Banks. Everything from: Councils, Police Authorities, Charities, you name it, they’re in there.
p.s.
But its OK ‘cos I bought Iceland on ebay, for £4.99p and I’m open too offers.
313 But my point is that the banks have accepted government help. Your pevious post denied that this was the case.
335 - Oh my god - it;s our great and wonderful leader!
Dow Jones slides into negative territory.
334 - very enlightening
“Eagleton had promised to bring his medical records for McGovern’s review, but he did not. He initially concealed the fact that he was on Thorazine, a powerful anti-psychotic and when he did disclose his use of the medication he noted that it couldn’t be discovered by the press because it was issued under his wife’s name. McGovern spoke to two of Eagleton’s doctors, both of whom expressed grave concerns about Eagleton’s mental health. Ultimately, a portion of Eagleton’s medical records was leaked to McGovern, at which point McGovern saw a reference to “manic depression” and “suicidal tendencies.”
Sounds like someone I know. Initials GB. On the telly a lot at the moment. In the “manic” phase of his depression.
337 Thankx
To Jack W-out of interest Jack will those supporting Nader/Barr impact votes from Obama or McCain.
341 - FTSE joins it
332.Don’t want to be rude, but unless your daughter had a few million tied up for a fix period, I don’t think its comparable.
Hey, I tell you what really annoys me, and that’s the unfounded posts about Brown being ‘crazy’.
[MODERATED]
332. bit harsh, but agree that questions should be asked - it is arse-covering.
347. hug-a-hoodie?
332 All Councils follow government targets on ‘best value (discuss!)’ and financial management of assets.
All base their Investment decisions on Internationally renowned (discuss !)Credit rating agencies.
We are all in the very early days of a brave new world. The old order as changed forever. Only Gods and complete *anker* pretend to be wise with hindsight.
History suggests worryingly marginal minor parties flourish in situations such as this.
From a betting perspective they are definitely a ‘buy’ on a seat basis if this recession deepens from here (and possibly are already at these levels)
Sad but I fear true.
340. “335 - Oh my god - it;s our great and wonderful leader!”
I’m presuming you didn’t mean me!
[MODERATED]
339 Even if the banks have accepted the limited deal that the government offered it hasn’t made the slightest difference to the liquidity of the markets. So has it helped the banks? No. Would they have been any worse off now if the government hadn’t given them £50 Billion back then? No. I still don’t believe any of the banks have used the package, and as you are unable to provide evidence that they have we will have to agree to differ.
I am afraid you are falling into the Labour spin trap; spending taxpayers money and doing things is different to achieving things. This deal effectively tried to give the banks cheap credit which they may have used up (or not); it has not had any of the deisred outcomes. The banks had a liquidity problem, the government gave them £50 Billion. The banks still have a liquidity problem.
267 et al
Just because you write “Fact” does not make it necessarily so.
The BBC lists 70 councils affected. Of those 37 (or 53%) are Tory controlled. 7 are Labour and 5 Lib Dem including Sutton which you stated was Tory.
For the avoidance of doubt the seven Labour councils are
Derwentside District Council
Gateshead Council
Lancashire County Council
North Lincolnshire Council
Nottingham City Council
Rhondda Cynon Taff Council
Wakefield Borough Council
Of the 21 NOC councils, six have Tories as largest party, six Labour, six Lib Dem and one each SNP, Plaid and Independents.
For the avoidance of doubt the NOC (Labour) Councils are as follows
Flintshire Council
Ipswich Borough Council
North Ayshire Council
Oxford City Council
Redcar and Cleveland Council
South Lanarkshire Council
So 16/70 of the councils named have Labour as the largest party (23%)
Adding the Tory NOC councils to the Tory councils we get 43/70 or 61% Somewhat short of your assertion “99% are either Tory or Tory/Libdem NOC’s….. Fact”
349
Agree absolutely!!
345.
The FTSE
Coming up a little - Quick call Peston - it’s another “rally”
304 Oi, Runnymede! Wotchit.
I went 2 skool in Acne. Nuffink rong wiv my speling, mayte.
Live cash quotes from IGindex
Or get chart from here.
http://www.livecharts.co.uk/MarketCharts/futsee.php
Am seriously worried about PRU in US.
352. it is far too early to say either way.
352 Sorry to (respectfully) nuance this, but ..
I’m not certain that ‘liquidity’ is the problem any more.
It’s surely (at least as much) down to ‘confidence’ at this stage ?
347, Absolutely! Calling Gordon Brown a manic depressive, autistic, etc. etc. is considered absolutely fine. Not a word of censure will be forthcoming from anyone.
Start personally abusing any member of the shadow cabinet however, and suddenly you’re not welcome here (it’s a betting site don’t you know) and are roundly abused by about fifteen different people.
347 - Funnily enough, David Cameron was done for child sex offences recently:
http://www.wsiltv.com/p/news_details.php?newsID=5685&type=top
355
If Peston suddenly disappears, it’ll be because either, someone in the City has taken out a contract on him, or he’s irritated a viewer (probably me) to murder!
347 Mental illness is an illness which many people suffer from. Being a paedophile is a criminal offence of the worst kind. I don’t think the two are comparable. Gordon Brown does display ticks, shakes, and verbal cues that he has some form of mental illness. Cameron does not display paedophile tendencies.
As someone with children I am disgusted by your post. Laughing at paedophiles is similar to laughing at bank collapses. but much much much worse.
332 - Not really ar*e covering - if the council wants to get a good CPA (council ofsted) rating then they have to follow government guidelines for best practice in order to achieve a high rating.
It’s like saying to a teacher that they should know that the national curriculum doesn’t really educate children and should teach them something else, then reprimanding them, and demoting them.
363, using mental illness as a term of abuse is equally bad in my book.
[MODERATED]
Is “JC” aka “Dirty European Socialist”? Either way, English clearly isn’t his first language.
Can we calm this down. Posters who do not operate within the ethos of the site will not be allowed to publish instantly on the current thread.
359 But how can confidence be a problem. The Special Liquidity Package, which has helped our banks according to our left wing friends, was designed to “provide banks with the certainty about liquidity that is needed to boost confidence.”
Nice finesse. Or is that nuance?
364 - but lots of councils followed government guidelines and did not put their money in Icrlandic banks .
347 I’d advise against it.
363 - “As someone with children…..”
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LO5dD0DjW0I
353.,. Whay hay a Tory bites back ohhhhh.
99% I agree, just being a bit silly.
But you will find that the Vast Majority are Tory run. And the VAST and Largest amount of money lost has been Tory councils.
Get your little calc out again Mary, of the total lost by councils how much of it (including % ) were Tory run.
Ill start you off with Kent and Bonkersminster ( 40 + 17 )
333 Dave H
Of course not.
Many posters on this Site never have a word to say about betting, but the Site wuld be all the poorer without them - not to say exceeding thin.
How though do you discourage mindnumbingly dull, partisan tubthumping without also discouraging the many witty, elgant, informative and entertaining posters who make this Site such a treasure?
There’s no easy solution; perhaps there isn’t one at all; perhaps we all just have to live with it.
Incidentally, I usually try to ignore the tubthumpers. I made an exception for JC, because he seemed to be such an extreme example of the genre.
369 - Yes, but presumably the guidelines aren’t specifically to put money in Icelandic banks as such. Rather they are to spread money around a number of banks (eggs, baskets etc…)
367 - I would have thought blatant lies (i.e. the Cameron is a paedophile) comment would be caught by the moderators? Given the list of apparently innocent banned words, could you add this one?
Kiddie hospice lost money in viking bank, tfl, police.
Dow jones puke bad gonna lose 9000 today and throw in towel.
CAPITULATION COMING, BE AFRAID.
Incidentally, if JC would like us to call George Osborne ‘Gideon’, can we also and for the same reasons call Keith Vaz ‘Nigel’?
373 True , hence those that chose Icelandic banks as part of their portfolio have only themselves to blame not and government guidelines .
I have to agree with Charlie about the underhand descriptions of Brown. There is no need to criticise his mental capacity - just criticise his decisions, motivations etc, these are the products of his collossal brain.
After JCs deluded rantings today I am unsuprised that we now find out that a great deal of councils across the spectrum have been caught out after following gov guidance to spread it thinly. Genius! I extend the same sympathies to all the councils - follow the government guidelines and you won;t be held to account - the government should be.
364 To repeat :
Only Gods and complete *anker* pretend to be wise with hindsight.
Many Councils of different political persuasions have travelled this route.
Why weren’t you concerned enough to mention the problem ahead of yesterday ?
347. I suppose not talking to a man working in the office of your boss for 10 years for no reason is normal behaviour.
Please leave JC to post. It’s rather like having Margaret Beckett in the room - it makes us all look so much better.
Sorry 364 .. 379 was direcetd at Mark Senior
On Boylesports there is a market for ‘number of electoral votes Obama will win by.’ 80 or under is 8/1, which seems great value. And what will happen if he doesn’t win, will this qualify?
367 - I have to admit JC has stirred the pot today with his delusional rantings - I would desperately love to ignore but I would be coming on the website if I was that type of person.
I don’t think Cameron is a paedophile, you utter idiot. It was to prove a point that it is fine for you to all laugh about Brown’s supposed mental ability (I’d be willing to bet he’s far more intelligent than you), but as soon as a similarly unfounded allegation is penned about Cameron, you are immediately up in arms.
My point is proved.
When I was at work, I was surrounded by, ‘Hindsight Professors’ I see they still exist.
Changing the subject from the tubthumpers, a betting note. Had a glance at the betting markets to see what they make of the US scene, and there’s an arb for those who want it (I think). Bet £35 on Obama at Spreadfair, currently 21.6 (upside 119, downside 406), and lay him for £436 at 1.05 on Betfair (upside 436-5% commission=409, downside 109). You win £10 net if wins and £3 net if he loses. Of course, it’s barely worth tying up £435 for a month, but those of you who have lower Betfair commissions may find it helpful.
373. Quite. I have to say I think the defences being mounted on behalf of councils who have put their cash in Icelandic banks are pretty unconvincing. The risks have been widely picked over in the financial press for many months. Ignorance is a reasonable excuse for old grannies, but not for council financial staff. They are guilty of dereliction of duty.
A hospice providing long-term care for terminally ill children and their families has £5.7m invested in one of the troubled Icelandic banks.
Naomi House in Winchester said the money was deposited with Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander.
The hospice needs £2.5m every year to provide 24-hour care. It said it would still open its new £12m hospice for over 18s, but would be “stretched”.
383. Can someone confirm if they think this is good value before I jump in, thanks!
388. Everyone is ignorant of something
388 Very sweeping statement Runnymede…
When would your personal cut off opening investment date mark the difference between either a sound or reckless decision ?
385 - Now you’re the one who’s being prejudiced about mental health issues. Mental health and mental ability are totally different things – GB’s intelligence is utterly irrelevant.
382 The buck stops with those who get paid for carrying it , if those responsible for investing council’s money do it well they justify their salaries , if not , they should pay the price and not try to pass the buck elsewhere .
385 Charlie. Your definition of “an utter idiot” appears to be someone who doesn’t think its OK to call someone a paedophile. That says more about you than me.
Gordon Brown probably is more intelligent than me, although I know I have more academic qualifications, more life experience and more social intelligence. I don’t care. I don’t feel the need to compare myself with others. A sign of inner confidence you should learn.
FYI David Cameron probably has some personality traits that are not attractive. The difference is is does not affect my daily life because of the way he runs the country based on those traits.
382 Sorry to have to ask this..
Do you have the slighest concept or working knowledge of how local governments or wider markets work ?
352, 368 Had the government not announced the bailout RBS would have collapsed and taken all the other banks, perhaps excluding HSBC, with it. Millions of people would have lost their savings, jobs and pensions. The “confidence” that has been restored is the confidence that no high street bank will go under. We now face merely a recession, not the cataclysmic disaster that would ensue if the financial system collapsed.
Sorry..396 is again to Mark Senior
390 Haven’t time to do the sums, Noisy, but be careful. You have to work out precisely which States you expect to go red and blue.
Because of the ‘lumpy’ nature of the way seats fall, you may find the value is illusory.
re 383. That is by far the best bet I’ve seen. 8-1 on the winning ECV margin being less than 80. It covers for not that much money my spread positions.
397 That’s largely where I’m coming from (ish)
388 - But this a credit rating problem - it does not matter what rumour and innuendo have been in the press - the government still rated them at Double AA. If guidelines state that they should seek the best return in a double aa rated bank they have to do it unless the will be caned at inspection time. From what I heard on the radio they will have had professional advisers, but I would expect that if the advisers were following official guidance then they would be deemed to have acted professionally. If you want a lesson in how government bureaucracy in this respect works I advise you to go and look at the website for the office of government commerce.
397 - Yes and we were 3/4 hour away from destruction until we invaded Iraq. Labour is the boy who cried wolf once too often.
394 Mark,why leave all this money with local authorities, anyhow. Any large company would pool all the deposits and manage them centrally. Why does this not happen, here. The money could be in BoE accounts to be drawn down as required. The funds could attract a rate of interest so councils with the largest deposits would benefit most.
I t seems silly to expect every council to have the treasury skills to manage the large sums involved. There should be headcount savings as a result of centralisation.
386. Do you have 20-20 hindsight?
with respect to councils and islandic banks, I notice that Bristol City Council is 20m down. But how many councils had moved money out before last week?
404 Good point well made.
now 5/1, that was quick! feel better that I stuck some on now
383. I need to hedge my McCain bets: do you have a link?
392. Icelandic banks have been subject of serious concerns for more than a year. There has been ample time for even the most tortoise-like local authority to quietly shift their funds elsewhere. I’m sorry, but there really is no excuse for this foolishness.
376 - Or Gordon Brown ‘John’? Though Anthony Charles Lynton (Blair) has to be the winner!
On topic, if there was any suggestion of Cable joining the government, all the same questions that applied to the Ashdown situation would apply again. Is this a formal coalition with a programme formally agreed between two parties? If the answer is, as it surely would be, ‘no’, then how is collective cabinet responsibility supposed to be enforced? Would the Lib Dems effectively be asked to permit Cable to accept the Labour whip for his period in office? And why on earth would they ever consent to such an outrageously unequal arrangement? Unless of course Brown agreed to electoral reform - but we all know he’s far too tribal to ever agree to anything that would hinder Labour’s chances of winning an outright majority in the future.
381. On the subject of Margaret Beckett - why has GB made her the new housing minister. Is it because of the collapse of the housing market and GB’s realisation that his Government’s policy on the provision of millions of new homes will now need to be targetted on ensuring there will be sufficient mobile homes and caravan parks to accommodate the huge numbers of people who have recently lost or are about to lose their savings, pensions or jobs?!
396 - Yes I have but in any case it is irrelevant . The same principle applies to any employed person including myself , a job has various responsibilities for which you get paid . If I get them badly wrong I am in serious danger of losing my job . The exception of course is executives of major companies who even when they f**k up leave with a massive financial payout .
409 If you are correct, why were the credit agencies so slow to react ?
390…80 or under is a bad bet. i am,however,one of those who believes that Obama will “landslide” this election.
412 Easy Goupillon, were all trailer trash now …
394 - Mark Senior I think you will find that this is not the case. The professional advisers will be working both a regulatory and advisory (guidance note) environment. The councils will have appointed them on the basis of meeting these requirements (normally for professional services via an ojeu notice). The professional advisers will then meet this requirement by following the guidance. It depends on how the guidance / regulations are structured but a professional adviser has to take ‘reasonable’ care, which means following the guidance. This does not mean moving deposits (and probably losing interest payments) from double a rated institutions.
Again - councils are inspected through a Corporate Performance Assessment CPA, which looks at how they do this. If audit picked up wild movements in moving savings about, I am sure they would be looking for fraud rather than prudent management.
413 You completely miss the point.
How can you be said to f**k up if you’ve scrupulously obeyed the rules ?
“In the salad days of his administration, as he sought to fulfil his promise of creating a Government of All the Talents (GOAT), he offered a Cabinet post to former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown. He was rebuffed after Ashdown consulted the Lib Dems’ acting leader - Vince Cable.”
Perhaps this has already been pointed out but I’m pretty sure the Mole is wrong about that last point - Menzies Campbell was still leader at the time (hence the suspicions that Campbell’s personal closeness to Brown might lead him to waver).
I see the BBCi Headline “Shares Rally… ” has become “Stocks Falter as Fears Persist”.
394 - I should also note that if you provide goods then they are looked at differently in a way defined as fit for purpose. So if I sell you a house(estate agent) and things go wrong I need to prove I took reasonable steps (i.e. followed guidance), whereas if I build you a house then it must be fit for purpose, a much higher requirement. This is a legal distinction, because for example a consultant can only provide advice on the basis of what is known at the time, and speculation in newspapers does not contribute knowledge. Official guidance from government, professional bodies does.
306, 310 - It appears that the TARP legislation passed by the US last week doesn’t necessarily do what it says on the tin.
It is true that the wording of the bill precludes a Swedish style recapitalisation. And this was the intention when the bill was drafted early last week - after all nationalisation of the banks isn’t very American.
However late last week opinion in Washington had changed - congressional leaders now thought that recapitalisation was necessary. This gave them a problem as there wasn’t the political will or time to rewrite the legislation - any delay would have spooked Wall Street.
Their solution to this was for the leaders of the house to get a Representative Moran of Virginia to ‘clarify’ on the record that the intent of the bill was to allow recapitalisation - contrary to what a careful reading of the legislation would lead you to believe.
This seemed to me (if true) an interesting insight into how legislation actually gets passed. Maybe if I was less politcally naive though I’d just have thought “oh that’s how things always work - here as well in the US”.
Since I don’t have any contacts in the corridors of power in Washington my source for this story is a website :-
http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/253956/how_authorization_to_recapitalize_banks_via_public_capital_injections_partial_nationalization_was_introduced_-_indirectly_through_the_back_door_-_into_the_tarp_legislation
(You have to register to read the whole thing).
403 This is not a credible position. The banks themselves - along with just about every economist and city commentator going - were banging on the Treasury’s door. To suggest that the panic was all got up by Labour spinners is absurd. Are they also responsible for the bank failures in the US, Iceland, Belgium, Germany etc etc etc? Of course not.
404.
The Law of public service re-organisation: Centralisation and economy of scales do not produce savings, reduce employees or improve service provision.
FTSE down and Libor still frozen. Another £50 billion please Mr Brown!
418 It is you have completely missed the point . The guidelines give a range of options for which banks(s) a council can invest it’s mobey in . A council employee is then employed to make a decision as to which of those banks to use . If that person is not then responsible for those decisions you may as well do away with his position , save the expense of his salary and use a computer generated program to select at ransom the banks in which the council is going to invest .
New thread - The bail-out: Is Labour reaping the benefit?
Barclays 242p ugh. I think i will go bankrupt this week!
410 – Not forgetting John Cable, of course.
Also GB is actually James Brown. That’s right, our glorious leader is in fact the Godfather of Soul……
422: That’s interesitng. In British courts, and I’d think in US ones too, statements made on the record in the chamber *are* considered relevant. Many probing amendments are intended (often helpfully) to get the minister to clarify the inteniton behind a particular clause. However, it doesn’t stretch to allowing the clause to mean the opposite of what it says! In the US, since Ministers are not members of congress, I’d think it’s a bit harder to treat statements by members as authoritiative.
423 - The banks were not banging on the Treasury door. The strong ones (HSBC, Lloyds TSB and Barclays) would have survived this. It is the weak banks the taxpayer is saving. They have spent our money, now they want the taxpayer (through the government) to provide more money to save them. It is effectively a call on shareholders, without the shareholders receiving anything in return. Do you think even £500 Billion will make or break this crisis? Lloyds TSB alone have £500 Billion in assets already. The size of these companies dwarfs anything the government can offer. When this all unravels and it becomes apparent the government have got this wrong, do not then say “its easy to comment with the benefit of hindsight”.
426. Good heavens, for once I agree with Mark Senior.
426 Doh…. Whatever.
426 - But if the council has employed professional advisers (normal practice) then this is not the case. Also from what I have heard in order to meet government best value targets they had to lodge with the highest return of double aa rated institution, whilst also not putting all eggs in one basket.
I think it is easy to criticise from afar (as you are finding) without having any knowledge of how things work. Common sense in these situations does not always apply.
For example if the guidance says
Invest money in highest returning account where
:- institution is double A rated
:- ensuring only 20% is retained in one institution at one time.
The person will then look at all double A rated institutions and rank on returns on a periodic basis. They will then move money in accordingly. Only upon guidance from prfoessional body or government would mean that they would move from icelandic banks. If this process is not followed then council will be deemed to be poorly performing affecting grants available from central government. The way the system is set up means it is more important to follow government guidance than find a system that works better.
434 Quite so of course…
I sense you are hosing into the wind however.
There are none so blind.
430 - Ultimately, I imagine in both countries it will be the judiciary that would resolve the ‘meaning’ of the legislation. What stuck me (when working in DC years ago) was that US Bills are written in simple plain english compared to the complete gobbledegook emanating from our Parliamentary draughtsmen!
Bank Liquidity
The Bank Bailout is only remotely to do with liquidity. It’s a smokescreen.
By any normal ( reasonable expectations of loans being repaid ) most UK banks are bust. Period.. Of course they may be repaid: 20 years late… But in the meantime the loans will be be non performing - and therefore should be written off.
As far as Iceland and Council losses, ANY COMPETENT FD looks regularly at whom he banks with to ensure his money is safe.
Anyone who left money in an Icelandic bank after July was grossly negligent. Period.
See BCCI. It has happened BEFORE.
Rule 1 of saving: Your money has to be safe.. Also rules 2-9. Then rule 10 is ease of access. Rule 11 is income.
If you cannot withdraw all your money in an Instant Notice Account immediately, the bank is in trouble.
There appear to be some banks trading in the UK who are in trouble.. I expect more to go pop. Within 2 months or even much sooner.
434 If what you say is true , then you are saying that the majority of councils who did not invest in Icelandic banks and lose money were not following the government guidelines . I do not accept your argument at all .
434
If what you right is correct, all councils would be like lemmings - investing in the same banks. They do not…obviously.
So its is likely the rules allow a fair degree of interpretation..and lattitude.
Otherwise, why not just give them all a list of banks? Anyone not on the list cannot be used..
I also belive “just blindly following orders” is not an allowable defence…
353. Beeb reporting that Nottingham City Council apparently had £42m in Icelandic banks.
411 no problem at all none
Nigal vaz
Anthony Blair
No problem, as long as George becomes Gideon, his real name up until only a few years ago.
He changed it by deed poll to become a Tory MP. Gideon, his words, was too posh, and might not look right…How very camerooonie
I have learnt my lesson not to ‘diss’ these ‘about as likely as an asteroid falling on Hampstead Heath’ stories, as Smithson has a bit of finding stories which, while not exactly coming to fruition, soon seem not to be as unlikely as one might have thought..
Cable is vastly over rated and is never pressed by the ever so compliant BBC.
And if local authorities but their money out of banks and into bonds then its melt down monday part 2
@19
Did you, er, read the comments, Stark Dawning? They were rather damning of Fink’s powers of research.