tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-321185762024-03-07T08:41:17.264+00:00Freemania<i>Valiantly Blogging on a Number of Matters of the Utmost Importance, for the Benefit of All!</i>Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.comBlogger1534125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-30803316407251826582016-08-03T07:59:00.000+01:002016-08-03T07:59:50.950+01:00Blogging off<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglvFB9reVzGA-_iFyrWEkjcttoLN2t-XwmR3qejxer6iUVEcooeOhELYcpj26MdufFf9yomScChnuCpFVwkWZ4OWdr17VQPle7KUaiBmzkRsYOqkhXlG6esQyN2K-sIV5pbwDFpA/s1600/keyboard+smash.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglvFB9reVzGA-_iFyrWEkjcttoLN2t-XwmR3qejxer6iUVEcooeOhELYcpj26MdufFf9yomScChnuCpFVwkWZ4OWdr17VQPle7KUaiBmzkRsYOqkhXlG6esQyN2K-sIV5pbwDFpA/s1600/keyboard+smash.gif" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This blog is ten years old today, which
seems a good occasion to announce its death. This will come as no surprise to
regular readers, who have been regularly reading nothing at all for the past
year and extremely little for the couple of years before that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The cause of death is simple: I grew
bored of writing about politics. I only have so many opinions, only so many
ways to rearrange them and glue them on to the events of the day. And it turns
out that when I march a phalanx of paragraphs out to say that such-and-such
should happen, it usually doesn’t.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(Fun fact! For my first year and a half
of blogging, when I was averaging maybe 25 posts a month, I lived in a flat
with no internet. I would write pieces on my laptop and then lug it to a coffee
shop or a library or my office or anywhere with wifi to post them. That’s
dedication. Or possibly idiocy.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nowadays <a href="https://twitter.com/SnoozeInBrief">I tweet</a> instead. I also have a
<a href="https://stroppyeditor.wordpress.com/">blog about language and editing</a>, which I post on maybe once a month or so. And
if I have anything to say about politics or anything else that won’t fit into
140 characters, I’ll do it on <a href="https://medium.com/@SnoozeInBrief">Medium</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thanks to all of you who dropped by here
over the years. You made me feel welcome, you made me laugh, you made me think
again, you made me want to write better.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Particular thanks to the late <a href="http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/">Norm Geras</a>, who was very encouraging when I was starting out. He gallantly didn’t
laugh in my face when I emailed him to ask, with the carefully constructed
innocence of a newbie, whether it would be OK if I linked to his blog from mine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So that’s that. Freemania is done. I’ll
keep it online, as a warning to future generations. And I’ll leave you with a
link to the post I’m proudest of, which managed to combine <a href="http://bit.ly/IqT6zt">economic policy, theology and monster trucks</a>.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: inherit;">Take care.</span></div>
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-44641128868329613382015-05-06T13:03:00.000+01:002015-05-06T13:03:23.941+01:00The meaning of a vote<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My vote is
very nearly worthless. So is yours. And that’s a good thing.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The idea
that a single person is likely to ‘make a difference’ in an election would be a
seductive myth if it weren</span></span><span style="font-size: 13px;">’</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;">t so obviously false, because the whole point of
democracy is that one person doesn’t make much difference. If you want power in
one person’s hands, you want a dictatorship.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was
reminded of this by <a href="https://certainconfusion.wordpress.com/2015/05/02/power-and-politics/">Michael Regnier</a>, who writes:</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;">voting in a General Election is not a powerful act.
When I go to put an X on the ballot paper, it is not with a feeling of
political influence coursing through my fingers and that stubby little pencil,
it is more with a feeling like the one you get when you look at the picture
made famous by Carl Sagan – the pale blue dot that</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #262626;"> is Earth, suspended in a sunbeam somewhere in the
universe. It’s famously humbling, but also rather thrilling, in a way, to be so
insignificant!</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #262626;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;">I think
there is beauty in this. There’s something wonderful about the fact that on one
day, all the power of the state is smashed into millions of tiny pieces and given
back to its rightful owners. We each then take our own tiny piece of power and
put them together in the way we think best.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The result
can be disappointing – an awkward structure, designed by millions of people
with different priorities and different ideas. And once it’s built, chances are
that it’ll function in a way that no individual would have ideally wanted.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But
democracy has to be about more than elections. The way to make an election as
disappointing as possible is to treat it as an isolated act of individual
choice. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11582424/No-you-wont-get-the-government-you-voted-for.-Thats-the-point.html">James Kirkup</a> has a nice analogy:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;">democracy isn't a restaurant where every diner gets to
order a la carte. It's a family where there's a row about what's for dinner,
then one meal gets cooked for everyone: no one gets exactly what they want and
everyone is a bit unhappy but eats it anyway.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A vote may
be individual but an election is collective. The better the conversation we
have before the decision, the better that decision will be. As Michael says:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;">to actually wield real democratic power,
you must do more than cast a vote each time you are asked: you have to be
active, engage with other voters, listen and argue with them, and perhaps
compromise a little.</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
decision is collective. We’re not just making it each for ourselves; we’re
making it for each other.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;">Tomorrow I’ll
do my bit, my tiny little bit. It won’t mean much from a national point of view,
but it’ll mean a lot to me to be part of something big.</span></div>
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-48522474998257610682014-11-08T10:57:00.000+00:002014-11-08T13:02:30.026+00:00Victory in Europe<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Scene 1<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:
Hello, Europe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
Hello, Mr Osborne.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:
You know that recalculation of the national contributions that you do every
year?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
The one that takes into account changes to each country’s economy?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:
Yes, that’s the one. This year, we’d like you to recalculate it going back to
1995.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
1995? That’s a long –<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:
Yes, we’ve just had our economic growth revised going back to 1995, and it
turns out our economy has grown more quickly than we thought. We’re very happy!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
You do realise that this will probably mean –<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:
Look, I’m a busy man. Just get it done and don’t trouble me with details.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
Of course.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Scene 2<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
Hello, Mr Cameron. We’ve recalculated your EU contributions and you owe an
extra £1.7 billion.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">CAMERON:
What? This is madness!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
But we’re just applying the formula that you –<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">CAMERON:
Don’t give me your weaselly excuses! This will not stand! </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">[to audience] </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We shall</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We
shall </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">–</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">EUROPE:
</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">But this is just </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">–<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">CAMERON:
Shut up! I’m doing leader stuff!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">[to
audience] </i>We shall </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">fight on
the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the
fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never
surrender!</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><o:p> </o:p></div>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
</div>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Scene 3<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:
So, this payment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
Yes?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:
Does our rebate apply to it?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
You mean the rebate that applies to all your payment?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:
Yes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
Yes.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> [to audience]</i> Damn, I’m good.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And
could we get an advance on the following year’s rebate?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
That will mean that the following year’s rebate is smaller.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:
Do I look like a man who cares about the following year?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
Fair enough.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> [to audience]</i> People of Britain! I have
secured a famous victory and halved the bill!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
But that’s not –<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:
Shut up! I’m being triumphant!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AUDIENCE
MEMBER: Excuse me, why is government borrowing £50bn higher this year
than you said it would be?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:
Shut up, nobody cares! Anyway, it’s Labour’s fault. And Europe’s. And Labour’s.
The real story here is that I have secured an unimaginably vast £0.85bn
reduction to our bill! So let us –<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EUROPE:
It really isn’t a –<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OSBORNE:
Be quiet, man, I’m trying bask in my own peroration here! So let us therefore
brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British
membership of the EU lasts for a thousand more days, men will still say: <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">this was their finest hour.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span>Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-73348446365965562992014-10-19T11:34:00.000+01:002014-11-09T17:44:59.479+00:00Do leadership ratings matter more in the run-up to an election?If the public find Ed Miliband so unimpressive, why is his party ahead in the polls? This question, <a href="http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/7544">pondered</a> by <a href="http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/7687">Anthony</a> <a href="http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/8915">Wells</a> among others, is tricky. He calls it the “Ed Miliband paradox”, and says:
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Given Labour are ahead now, I think the question is whether perceptions of the opposition and the choice of Prime Minister increase in importance as the election approaches and voting intention becomes less of a way of people indicating their opinion of the government, and more a choice between two alternatives.
</blockquote>
<br />
I don’t know what will happen over the next seven months. But I can look at the past and see what happened to other leaders.
<br />
<br />
If perceptions of party leaders become more important in the run-up to an election. we would expect to see a swing to the party with the more popular leader. We can test this theory by looking at <a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchspecialisms/socialresearch/specareas/politics/trends.aspx">Ipsos MORI’s archive</a> of decades of voting intention and leadership rating polls.
<br />
<br />
In the charts below, the solid lines are how many people said they would vote Labour or Conservative, and the dotted lines are how many people said they were satisfied with each party leader. Note that the final pre-election polls didn’t ask about leader ratings, so the dotted lines stop a bit short.
<br />
<br />
<strong>1979 election</strong><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZb1Fs5eR8Cfo0fZLw3tMnswBizlAqLhs9EgTzvF8H69YFEkRHkfPlMTLnjrSlmkqSAM9ZlAHiFAfhveaVpTg6nBzy8bFZJtvGOpDBTACC0JFt15xOcT65FWL-p4sBJIGueksXMg/s1600/1979.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZb1Fs5eR8Cfo0fZLw3tMnswBizlAqLhs9EgTzvF8H69YFEkRHkfPlMTLnjrSlmkqSAM9ZlAHiFAfhveaVpTg6nBzy8bFZJtvGOpDBTACC0JFt15xOcT65FWL-p4sBJIGueksXMg/s1600/1979.png" height="165" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Jim Callaghan’s lead over Margaret Thatcher held pretty constant for about a year and a half, while the Tory lead over Labour bobbed about with no real pattern. The theory would have predicted a Labour recovery, but instead we got the Winter of Discontent, which hit Callaghan’s ratings as well as Labour’s. After that, nothing much changed.
<br />
<br />
The theory gets no support from 1979, but arguably events got in the way.
<br />
<br />
<strong>1983 election</strong><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgImfRbov_h2usPYR4A2LXwnHmz4o_6WnDPMF0Dyw3lBy9dgyjm2JMHUKNE1iAqD_UwVv-Wrw6oxmbg3TAz0aXvS6sgVNuxeW9uYzRLCQi_l0xvh4JCnZWyx9_422k2Ky_B7LH51g/s1600/1983.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgImfRbov_h2usPYR4A2LXwnHmz4o_6WnDPMF0Dyw3lBy9dgyjm2JMHUKNE1iAqD_UwVv-Wrw6oxmbg3TAz0aXvS6sgVNuxeW9uYzRLCQi_l0xvh4JCnZWyx9_422k2Ky_B7LH51g/s1600/1983.png" height="167" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The Falklands war gave Thatcher and the Tories a big boost. In the year between then and the election, the lines move around a bit but nothing really changed.
<br />
<br />
The theory gets no support from 1983, although conceivably the war made voters care more about leadership a year early.
<br />
<br />
<strong>1987 election</strong><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlUk8_HNv6_NCrjAZGoomeN0DU_CXSFrW_kvEk1PMK1SK6-HO5jKdJIZMQ5I_aQacu5NvZ7laNM2gf_Xqh1LNSHaFvZd_xSzW7fWLdlcoQ8QvxF2oi3SrUpEzswUHIcciZxgZleA/s1600/1987.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlUk8_HNv6_NCrjAZGoomeN0DU_CXSFrW_kvEk1PMK1SK6-HO5jKdJIZMQ5I_aQacu5NvZ7laNM2gf_Xqh1LNSHaFvZd_xSzW7fWLdlcoQ8QvxF2oi3SrUpEzswUHIcciZxgZleA/s1600/1987.png" height="163" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
For about a year, Neil Kinnock’s ratings were better than Thatcher’s, and his party tended to have a modest lead. But both of these things changed. The Tory vote recovery looks to have started a bit before Thatcher’s personal recovery, while Kinnock and Labour fell in tandem. There are no grounds for inferring that the change in leader ratings caused the change in voting intention.
<br />
<br />
The theory gets no support from 1987.
<br />
<br />
<strong>1992 election</strong><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlHCKmUWRq9EBT1USh356JHkM7fKutJO3IsvEn22ZGGd8OgFUyk6HTrplTjdP8S6yl_CSACO_sZjBik-c8Cwq60rukvTc_wnWQGYRvWWqEqKFYx3gWd9JoqyGdoCmKiNaRpQ7VFQ/s1600/1992.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlHCKmUWRq9EBT1USh356JHkM7fKutJO3IsvEn22ZGGd8OgFUyk6HTrplTjdP8S6yl_CSACO_sZjBik-c8Cwq60rukvTc_wnWQGYRvWWqEqKFYx3gWd9JoqyGdoCmKiNaRpQ7VFQ/s1600/1992.png" height="163" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
This chart is a bit shorter, because John Major only became Prime Minister at the end of 1990. After his honeymoon – aided by the Gulf war – his personal ratings drifted down, but the parties’ positions didn’t change significantly. The polls before this election were badly wrong, of course, but I’m assuming the wrongness was consistent across this period.
<br />
<br />
The theory gets no support from 1992.
<br />
<br />
<strong>1997 election</strong><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimoEc8d-_0vBolhju2snVY5ZD3M0-lvwSvAF40swMBe-yyrXYPXmhyUFPRM0FbYqP2lho9xc9CkEvAcKNtUjsDESFlfU-3INzk53lfgBWkO21SOWvXgJ6DT-cG0d0wNcjiiP2gLg/s1600/1997.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimoEc8d-_0vBolhju2snVY5ZD3M0-lvwSvAF40swMBe-yyrXYPXmhyUFPRM0FbYqP2lho9xc9CkEvAcKNtUjsDESFlfU-3INzk53lfgBWkO21SOWvXgJ6DT-cG0d0wNcjiiP2gLg/s1600/1997.png" height="170" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Here we have Tony Blair consistently miles ahead of Major, but voting intention actually shifts a bit from Labour to Tory.
<br />
<br />
The theory gets no support from 1997.
<br />
<br />
<strong>2001 election</strong><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV-3ZAS4gdgRJFTLSr0TnDD1uEOl7phL0atrpsAEvUlTJ4mfAb8V21VzXiukSmYLlfEIH6VUqUG48tuz3xZRfMJewYy3-m4GNQEvCYbC5U4d52U0aNI1PEkfLRC_PbGoI-rrOENA/s1600/2001.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV-3ZAS4gdgRJFTLSr0TnDD1uEOl7phL0atrpsAEvUlTJ4mfAb8V21VzXiukSmYLlfEIH6VUqUG48tuz3xZRfMJewYy3-m4GNQEvCYbC5U4d52U0aNI1PEkfLRC_PbGoI-rrOENA/s1600/2001.png" height="168" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Here, Blair remains well ahead of William Hague, apart from during the fuel protests, after which he and his party recover their previous standing There is a slight trend from Labour to Tory, although this has pretty much stopped before the last year of the parliament.
<br />
<br />
The theory gets no support from 2001.
<br />
<br />
<strong>2005 election</strong><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzAialAKTYutb0Qi_8RlrZf6wQGutPeuhViPJsdCax-m71-b-MJul4CqPdKU2MxUs_PS9-z8XqNpo6NkEs0dCfZOqOH3MZcul-6ZhW8k0RbLUH7bG3xZ0e6o0DkWNjfhyCZ3efdA/s1600/2005.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzAialAKTYutb0Qi_8RlrZf6wQGutPeuhViPJsdCax-m71-b-MJul4CqPdKU2MxUs_PS9-z8XqNpo6NkEs0dCfZOqOH3MZcul-6ZhW8k0RbLUH7bG3xZ0e6o0DkWNjfhyCZ3efdA/s1600/2005.png" height="168" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Another shorter chart, as Michael Howard became Tory leader in late 2003. This is a closer contest, but there is little discernible trend in voting intention, despite Blair pulling ahead of Howard in satisfaction ratings.
<br />
<br />
The theory gets no support from 2005.
<br />
<br />
<strong>2010 election</strong><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjteNudNVEGSBpwhO2PLnKtaWtgTaqO8FzxnFCTgw3TAILzcGyzVfFIrt2R3R2g59LXZZzIK6vxpa7UmcOAHjdqL-sflY5B3Wl9rqW7sB-2VaKvJ2mnpRuO2FEkz78XkbaXO804Ig/s1600/2010.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjteNudNVEGSBpwhO2PLnKtaWtgTaqO8FzxnFCTgw3TAILzcGyzVfFIrt2R3R2g59LXZZzIK6vxpa7UmcOAHjdqL-sflY5B3Wl9rqW7sB-2VaKvJ2mnpRuO2FEkz78XkbaXO804Ig/s1600/2010.png" height="170" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
This chart is also a bit shorter, because Ipsos MORI changed its methodology in June 2008. David Cameron is consistently ahead of Gordon Brown (although the gap narrows during the financial crisis). Despite this, in the final year there is a decent swing from Tory to Labour. As in 1987 and 1979, this movement in voting intention accompanies movement in leader ratings, but from this we can conclude nothing about causation.
<br />
<br />
The theory gets no support from 2010.
<br />
<br />
And that’s that. Eight elections, no support for the theory that perceptions of party leaders become more important for voting intention in the run-up to an election.
<br />
<br />
You can make various excuses and add caveats and say that many of these elections didn’t provide circumstances that made a good test of the theory. Fair enough; I’m not claiming to have disproved the theory, just to have shown that no evidence supports it. But if you want to hang onto some version of this theory, all you have to base it on is a hunch.
<br />
<br />
<strong>Recent history</strong><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8nbocfRZyQ0oIMhxQctPYxywXp8804nvr9vSKDgaD417ZFjWF56euvbOkPOn-NQcdYUJm3KU4YdzXtNcad3podYwtZ7HDB5g_avtLK8zMroDJFKTKtQ0iPY6d9n7ZJDkPeHKFWQ/s1600/2014.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8nbocfRZyQ0oIMhxQctPYxywXp8804nvr9vSKDgaD417ZFjWF56euvbOkPOn-NQcdYUJm3KU4YdzXtNcad3podYwtZ7HDB5g_avtLK8zMroDJFKTKtQ0iPY6d9n7ZJDkPeHKFWQ/s1600/2014.png" height="168" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
All I note from this is that when Miliband’s ratings were better, so were Labour’s. In the last year and a half, both have fallen: it could be that one is driving the other, or it could be that other things are driving both.
<br />
<br />
I share the view that Miliband is painfully unimpressive. I share the view that leader ratings matter. But other things matter too, and maybe Labour has other strengths – or the Tories other weaknesses – to outweigh this. I don’t know. We’ll see.
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-81873712437365867412014-09-09T08:23:00.000+01:002014-09-09T08:23:47.034+01:00Dear ScotlandI’m mostly English but part Welsh and part Scottish, and I don’t want my country to die. If you leave, that will cost me part of my soul.<br />
<br />
Well OK, that’s a bit melodramatic. Not very British, eh? Either way, we’ll all survive – but I truly think separation would diminish us all.<br />
<br />
Do you really find it so unbearable to be British as well as Scottish? If you do, then I won’t stand in your way. But if you don’t – if there are things about the rest of the UK that you’re glad to call your own – then you don’t have to give them up.<br />
<br />
You don’t have to accept the line that self-determination requires independence. Self-determination is you making the choice of what kind of Scotland you want: a part of the UK family, or just apart.<br />
<br />
You can stay with the rest of us and still be Scots. Three centuries of being British and you’re still Scots, and you always will be. The question is: are the other parts of this country so bad, so alien, that you need to get rid of them?<br />
<br />
Looking at Downing Street, I can see the appeal. If I could flee from this government without moving an inch, I’d be tempted. But I’d rather stand and fight, because I want my whole country to thrive. I want social justice in London, and I want it in Liverpool and Cornwall and Merthyr and Scarborough and Omagh and Inverness.<br />
<br />
While I don’t always get the government I want, I would not give up on part of my country for the sake of being able to win easier, smaller victories. So I’m with you – millions of us are – for as long as you want us.<br />
<br />
True, Scottish and English politics have their differences, but I think it’s a strength of our union that we can be together without needing to be the same. And we have a hell of a lot in common too. Two episodes from our recent history come to mind.<br />
<br />
In 1989, the Thatcher government ignored public protests and inflicted the Poll Tax on Scotland. A mean, unjust tax, its introduction was unforgivably arrogant. But do you know what was even worse? A year later, having seen the undeniable harm the Poll Tax was doing in Scotland, they went ahead and unleashed it on the rest of Britain too.<br />
<br />
They screwed us all. A British government, hurting England and Wales as much as Scotland. We were in that same mess together, and eventually we got out of it together.<br />
<br />
Sure, democracy’s a wonderful thing and all that, but sometimes an elected government just sticks its fingers in its ears and decides that it knows best. That’s true in the UK, it’s true the world over, and it’d be true in an independent Scotland.<br />
<br />
You’d have a sovereign government in Holyrood, run by… politicians. Some of them would be decent people doing their best, but others would be incompetents, cowards, liars, rogues and ideologues. And if you founded that government as a symbol of Scottish pride, they’d have the power to disappoint you more bitterly than anyone at Westminster.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, sometimes the Westminster government gets it right.<br />
<br />
The G8 summit in Gleneagles in 2005 still shines like a beacon. It was a time when government policy was in tune with the public mood, shown by a huge popular movement all around the UK.<br />
<br />
Some international agreements are warm words that quickly cool and vanish, but this one got <a href="http://www.one.org/international/policy/summit-in-sight-the-g8-and-africa-from-gleneagles-to-lough-erne/">results</a>. A big increase in aid to Africa, debt written off, and a longer-term shift in political culture towards fighting poverty. Even the Tories were reluctantly pushed to accept the need for <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/apr/03/uk-meets-foreign-aid-target">more aid</a>.<br />
<br />
This wasn’t the result of Tony Blair’s diplomatic charm or Gordon Brown’s economic arguments. It happened because they were speaking with the whole weight of the UK behind them. We did it, together, and almost a decade on I’m still proud.<br />
<br />
For all Scotland’s strengths, you would not have hosted and led a summit of the world’s major economies on your own.<br />
<br />
And if Blair and Brown could put their rivalry aside and work to make something good, there’s really no excuse for the rest of us.<br />
<br />
I don’t want us to become foreigners to each other. I don’t want to create a new class of immigrants who have done nothing more than move from one part of their island to another. And I don’t believe the problems we all face are going to be solved by creating a new border.<br />
<br />
The UK is yours as much as mine. Scots have done so much to make our country what it is, and Britishness is your birthright as much as Scottishness.<br />
<br />
I’m glad to share this country with you, and I hope we can manage to keep sharing it.
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-17937090371162692272014-01-15T11:43:00.000+00:002014-01-15T11:43:22.876+00:00Politeness and the invention of time travel<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s a
curious fact that the invention of the time machine was a feat not just of
science but of good British manners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For many
years, physicists and philosophers alike had scorned the idea of time travel,
citing the paradoxes that it would create: if you went back in time and killed
your grandfather when he was a boy, you would never be born, so you wouldn’t be
able to go back in time to kill him, so you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">would</i>
have been born and then would have gone back in time… and so on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However,
one Saturday afternoon, in a discreet and highly exclusive club in Mayfair,
frequented by ageing grandees who preferred to avoid the company of the wrong
sort, everything changed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sir
Reginald Burr, who had inherited his father’s air-conditioning fortune and then
trebled it by selling the family firm to an internet company in 1999, felt the
call of nature and rose from a chair that cost more than your house. He made
his stately way across the reading room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As he
reached the doorway that led to the bathroom, he suddenly found himself
side-by-side with Sir Mortimer Frowse, whose estates encompassed half the land
in one of the less fashionable English counties, and whose imperious bladder
was also calling for relief.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They could
not both fit through the doorway at once. One of them had to go first.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These two
fine gentlemen did, of course, loathe each other for being if not quite the
wrong sort then certainly not the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">right</i>
sort. And, of course, they were utterly determined to treat each other with unimpeachable
propriety.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thus began
one of the greatest British stand-offs in history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“After
you,” said Sir Reginald.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“No, no,
after you,” said Sir Mortimer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Not at
all. Do go ahead, dear fellow.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Why
really, I insist, old boy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This bout
of competitive politeness raged calmly for over two hours, with increasingly vicious
exchanges of deference and implacable self-deprecation. But neither could gain
the upper hand, and their need was becoming ever more desperate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is not
known which of them hit upon the idea first, but what is certain is that both
of them muttered instructions to passing stewards (they had, naturally, bought
each other drinks during the impasse, both to assert their own goodwill and to
exacerbate the other chap’s problem). These instructions were identical.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
stewards conveyed to Sir Reginald’s people, and to Sir Mortimer’s, that they
were to commit all necessary resources to the construction of a time-travel
machine, so that their master could send his rival a few seconds back in time
and thereby trick him into going through the doorway first.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sir
Reginald’s people called the physics department at Cambridge, offering generous
funding for the work. Sir Mortimer’s people made the same offer to Oxford. The
scientists protested that this was a preposterous idea, and that even if it
were possible it might take centuries. They were told that this would be fine;
once built, the time machine could simply be sent back in time for use in the
present.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
universities took the money and set up research teams.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Work was
indeed slow, but progress was aided by the Oxbridge merger of 2087, allowing
the teams to combine their efforts on the understanding that they would send
two copies of their eventual invention back to Sir Reginald and Sir Mortimer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Breakthrough
after breakthrough followed, along with a string of Nobel Prizes, and finally,
in 2231, the notorious grandfather paradox was solved, when a work experience
student suggested that it would probably be best not to give the time machine
to any deranged smartarses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The two
copies were dispatched back to the club on that distant Saturday afternoon, not
long before Sir Reginald’s and Sir Mortimer’s critically overfull bladders were
due to rupture. Each man set his device to send the other ten seconds into the
past. They pressed their buttons simultaneously.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was
a flash of light and, ten seconds earlier, they appeared in the same place,
facing each other as they had shortly been.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Assuming
that the damned thing hadn’t worked, they tried again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And again.
And again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Their fate
is unknown, I’m sorry to say. But some historians have noted in passing that
that area of Mayfair had been agricultural land until the 1680s, on account of
the rich nitrogen content of the soil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(With thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/leftoutside/status/423107386057195520">Left Outside</a> for nudging me toward the idea.) </span></i></div>
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-88868471391467431052013-10-11T08:42:00.001+01:002013-10-11T08:42:17.401+01:00Help to Sell
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Like George Osborne, I’m no
economist. But I do know that a transaction has two sides: for every buyer
there is a seller. And if I decided to sell my flat, I would want lots of
ready, willing and able potential buyers to choose from, because higher demand
increases the price.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The government’s ‘Help to
Buy’ scheme, offering taxpayer-backed guarantees on 95% mortgages for people
who are struggling to raise a deposit, will give me what I want. It will put
people who might like my flat into serious contention to buy it. I will have
more would-be buyers and so I’ll be able to get a higher price. I can pick the
one who makes the best offer, and disappoint the rest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The focus of the policy is on
buyers. They are the ones who receive the help directly and they’re the ones
who will feel that they’ve personally benefited from it. But the help they’re
getting to reach higher will also help me to start from higher. So the people
who really benefit are those of us already on the property ladder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">This isn’t really Help to
Buy. It’s Help to Sell. And while it might be good for me, I’m not so sure
it’ll be good for the economy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/inside-westminster-george-osbornes-housing-boom-will-echo-into-the-future-8869835.html">As Osborne has said</a>:</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> “Hopefully
we will get a little housing boom and everyone will be happy as property values
go up.”</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Well, at least he has learnt from
Gordon Brown’s mistake and isn’t promising to end boom and bust.</span></div>
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-85290415154461407482013-09-19T08:09:00.000+01:002013-09-19T08:09:34.189+01:00A polling analogy: 2001-05 and 2010-15
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Robert Ford, Will Jennings
and Mark Pickup <a href="http://nottspolitics.org/2013/09/05/polling-observatory-28-too-early-to-telloutside-the-westminster-bubble/">discuss</a> the habit of drawing analogies between the next
election and previous ones. They mention 1992 and 1983 as options but they don’t
seem convinced. And quite right, too: no analogy is perfect and all sorts of
things could still change between now and 2015.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">But I’d suggest a partial
analogy between the current parliament and 2001–05, although with roles
reversed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Similarities:</span></div>
<ul>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">At first, the public gave the government the benefit of the doubt but without a huge amount of enthusiasm. (In 2001 this was because Blair had already had his honeymoon; in 2010 Cameron had a much smaller and shorter honeymoon.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</li>
<li><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Satisfaction with the government gradually fell, although this didn’t lead to a significant swing between Labour and Conservative.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 10pt;">One big event caused a big swing between Labour and Lib Dem. (After 2001, this was the Iraq war; in 2010, it was the coalition deal. And of course the direction of this swing has reversed.)<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Differences:</span></div>
<ul>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">In 2001, Labour had a huge majority; they could afford to lose ground and still win the next election. Now, the Conservatives don’t have a majority and need to gain ground. In fact, they need to gain ground <em>relative to Labour</em> – which the swing from the Lib Dems makes even harder.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">UKIP are also making life much harder for the Conservatives than Respect did for Labour in 2005. Yes, UKIP have taken support from all other parties and yes, some of that support will return home. But the biggest share of UKIP support has come from the Conservatives and some of that will stay UKIP<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">So while the dynamics of the
two parliaments may have quite a bit in common, the end result – the government
re-elected – is a lot less likely this time.</span></div>
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-75176796218826300832013-08-29T13:47:00.001+01:002013-08-29T21:01:20.037+01:00The emptiness and the irrelevance of the legal case for bombing Syria<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The UK government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/chemical-weapon-use-by-syrian-regime-uk-government-legal-position/chemical-weapon-use-by-syrian-regime-uk-government-legal-position-html-version">legal position</a> on Syria say</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">s:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If action in the Security Council is blocked,
the UK would still be permitted under international law to take exceptional
measures in order to alleviate the scale of the overwhelming humanitarian
catastrophe in Syria by deterring and disrupting the further use of chemical
weapons by the Syrian regime. Such a legal basis is available, under the
doctrine of humanitarian intervention, provided three conditions are met:</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(i) there is
convincing evidence, generally accepted by the international community as a
whole, of extreme humanitarian distress on a large scale, requiring immediate
and urgent relief;</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(ii) it must be
objectively clear that there is no practicable alternative to the use of force
if lives are to be saved; and</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(iii) the proposed
use of force must be necessary and proportionate to the aim of relief of
humanitarian need and must be strictly limited in time and scope to this aim
(i.e. the minimum necessary to achieve that end and for no other purpose).</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is political waffle. One
dead giveaway it where says evidence has to be accepted by “<span lang="EN-US">the international community
as a whole”. No such entity exists. Then the talk about what is “objectively
clear” and what is “necessary and proportionate” – who decides? It doesn't say.
Not even the non-existent international community.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But then, a fair amount of
international law is political waffle, so maybe that’s OK.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The “<span lang="EN-US">doctrine of humanitarian intervention” is not
a legal document; it’s a family of related political opinions. Roughly, the
idea is that it can be justified to use force against another government when
that government is inflicting atrocities on tis own people. This upsets the
sanctity of national sovereignty, but many people – me included – think this is
sometimes justified. </span>National sovereignty
can be a bulwark against colonisers, but it can also be a cage for the subjects
of tyrants. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The key thing is that this
justification is moral or political. It is not legal. The UN charter continues
to insist that force may be used only in self-defence or when approved by the
Security Council acting under chapter VII of the charter, which covers the use
of force.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are, though, official
documents that support the principle. Most notably, <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1674(2006)">Security Council resolution 1674</a>, in 2006, which:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reaffirms<i>
</i>the provisions
of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document regarding
the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing and crimes against humanity</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the key part of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/487/60/PDF/N0548760.pdf?OpenElement">2005 World Summit Outcome Document</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> says:</span></div>
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
international community, through the United Nations, also has the
responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful
means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help to
protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes
against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action,
in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance
with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in
cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should
peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to
protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and
crimes against humanity.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is all well and good,
but it still puts the Security Council firmly in charge. And it doesn't commit
the Security Council to do anything in any particular case if it doesn't want
to. It’s just a statement of potential willingness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You might say that if the
Security Council fails to live up to the aims it has set itself, then that
makes it legitimate for others to act. But legitimate is not the same thing as
legal. The word gestures towards legality, but also towards morality and popularity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In practice, what all this
amounts to is that world leaders want to do what they want to do, and they want
to do it while claiming they’re acting within international law. They want to claim that because it will help to give the impression that what they</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">’</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">re doing is the right thing. They know that
no body will ever rule their actions illegal, so they can say more or less what
they want on that front and can dismiss any disagreement as politically motivated or subjective opinion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">None of this is to judge
whether airstrikes against Syria would be on balance good or bad. Nor is it to
endorse the Security Council as a fine collection of wise, well-intentioned, disinterested
adjudicators.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All I’m saying is that this
“legal” case is purest political humbug.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Update:</span></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></i></b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today’s
<a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/hansard/commons/todays-commons-debates/read/">parliamentary debate</a> has shown a lot of consensus on the need to pay lip
service to legality.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First,
David Cameron:</span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The very best route to follow is to have a chapter VII resolution, take it
to the UN Security Council, have it passed and then think about taking action. …
However, it cannot be the case that that is the only way to have a legal basis
for action, and we should consider for a moment what the consequences would be
if that were the case. We could have a situation where a country’s Government
were literally annihilating half the people in that country, but because of one
veto on the Security Council we would be hampered from taking any action. I
cannot think of any Member from any party who would want to sign up to that.
That is why it is important that we have the doctrine of humanitarian
intervention, which is set out in the Attorney-General’s excellent legal advice
to the House.</span></blockquote>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
agree with the spirit of this, but he really is skating on the very
edge of pretending to care about legality here. ‘That would be awful and we’d
all hate it’ is not a legal principle.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then,
Ed Miliband. Despite Labour’s disagreement with the government, on this point
they are as one:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">…there will be those who argue that in the event of
Russia and China vetoing a Security Council resolution, any military action
would necessarily not be legitimate. I understand that view but I do not agree
with it. I believe that if a proper case is made, there is scope in
international law—our fourth condition—for action to be taken even without a
chapter VII Security Council resolution. Kosovo in 1999 is the precedent cited
in the Prime Minister’s speech and in the Attorney-General’s legal advice; but
the Prime Minister did not go into much detail on that advice.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span></span> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps
because there was not much detail to go into.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nick
Clegg, of course, holds the government line, but what really struck me on the
Lib Dem side was Saint Menzies of </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Campbell,
who made his name denouncing the Iraq war as illegal. Today he said:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The effort to achieve a resolution under chapter VII is a
vital component of the doctrine of the responsibility to protect, because if no
such resolution is achieved—here, I agree with the Attorney-General—we turn to
what was once called humanitarian intervention and now is called responsibility
to protect. It is a fundamental of that doctrine that every possible political
and diplomatic alternative will have been explored and found not to be capable.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span></span> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They
all agree: Security Council resolutions are optional, and anything they do is
legal because they’re good people.</span></span></div>
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-29807155360302838072013-08-07T19:14:00.000+01:002013-08-07T19:15:54.609+01:00The paradox of forward guidance<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By saying that interest rates won’t rise until
unemployment goes below 7%, </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23588958"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mark Carney</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> hopes to reassure us that rates will
stay low for a long time. And, so reassured, the theory is that we’ll borrow
more to spend more. This will boost the economy and create jobs, meaning that interest rates will rise sooner.</span></span>Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-65689380353569356642013-05-16T08:21:00.002+01:002013-05-16T08:21:42.903+01:00The rise of UKIP
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The recent rise in UKIP
support is bigger and longer-lasting than anything in the party’s history.
Here’s a long-term view:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjYR3WnSvK_8Yticsc_LJ1cgX_lHcP29LVA9tmYQW751w9Lv6THLawOZTTont_rgftlZDQIULnNCZ1_BdGtG5jfMKF4Iy01eEPfG_LfNQkCP0krRlsFIdh8ezohtvGXjfBAWmvmA/s1600/ukip+polling.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjYR3WnSvK_8Yticsc_LJ1cgX_lHcP29LVA9tmYQW751w9Lv6THLawOZTTont_rgftlZDQIULnNCZ1_BdGtG5jfMKF4Iy01eEPfG_LfNQkCP0krRlsFIdh8ezohtvGXjfBAWmvmA/s400/ukip+polling.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">(I’ve used <a href="http://www.icmresearch.com/category/media-centre">ICM</a> and <a href="http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=107&view=wide">Ipsos MORI</a>
because they both did well at predicting the 2010 election result and they both have a series of monthly polls, with UKIP numbers available,
going back this far. It’s also worth bearing in mind that they tend to show
lower UKIP scores than <a href="http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/6810">most other pollsters</a>.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Previously, UKIP has spent
its life plodding along to very little effect until a European Parliament
election comes along (2004 and 2009) and gives it the publicity it needs to
make headway. It gets a modest but sharp boost, about half of which then
vanishes almost immediately.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">That’s not what’s happening
now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">UKIP’s vote has been rising
pretty much consistently for over a year. Whether you look at its monthly poll
rating or the six-month average, which smoothes away blips, it has been above
its 2009 peak for over half a year and is now at more than double that peak. And
this is without the benefit of a Euro-election. Next year’s will help the party
keep its momentum up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Far more people than ever
before are taking UKIP seriously, and they have been doing so for longer than
ever before. The longer the idea of voting UKIP spends in their heads, the
likelier it is to settle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">But I suspect UKIP is pretty
near its limit now. I’d be surprised if it managed more than 10% at the 2015
general election, and even more surprised if it won any seats. That said, it
could still make a difference by changing the balance between the bigger
parties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Why is UKIP doing so well?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">It’s not that people are suddenly
so much angrier about Europe and immigration. Rather, a generally culturally
conservative group of people, who initially gave the coalition the benefit of
the doubt (and gave the Conservatives the benefit of the doubt in opposition), are becoming more and more disillusioned. Look at the chart and you
can see that the dam started to break after last spring’s ‘omnishambles’
Budget.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The Conservatives and Lib
Dems have bound each other in to a mesh of governmental disappointments and
half-hearted compromises, and Labour remains deeply unimpressive and tainted by
its own time in power. These cultural conservatives increasingly think the
mainstream, ‘modern’ political class has nothing to offer them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">As <a href="http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/reflections-on-ukip/">Kenan Malik</a> argues, people
are becoming more likely to vote as a personal statement of belief or outlook
rather than as a way of choosing a government. This is borne out by the recent
rise in people voting for no-hoper minor parties:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6RpRwPXs5PoKf7M2W7Rqhjnlc5iakwUqljyyT3O6iwr2rZBTzTa3x6rZKo6FfmIXwMyZ1YdrQT7djw-gjzpFJSxpqNVbaAk9Biq59rGXnOrMhsZDN132QhMd6eE2OqaN7yzTUkw/s1600/others+vote.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6RpRwPXs5PoKf7M2W7Rqhjnlc5iakwUqljyyT3O6iwr2rZBTzTa3x6rZKo6FfmIXwMyZ1YdrQT7djw-gjzpFJSxpqNVbaAk9Biq59rGXnOrMhsZDN132QhMd6eE2OqaN7yzTUkw/s400/others+vote.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">True, when push comes to shove, some of the UKIP’s
current supporters will return to the bigger parties – but many won’t. In a
large poll last November by <a href="http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2012/12/the-ukip-threat-is-not-about-europe/">Lord Ashcroft</a>, only about half of people
considering voting UKIP said that letting their most disliked of the bigger
parties win would be a factor in their decision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The largest part of UKIP’s
new support comes from the Conservatives. From the details of the latest ICM
and MORI polls, and the daily <a href="http://yougov.co.uk/news/categories/politics/">YouGov</a> polls from the last week, UKIP is
currently taking between a fifth and a quarter of the Conservatives’ 2010 vote
and about a tenth of Labour’s. The overall effect of that is to increase Labour’s
lead over the Conservatives by 4 to 6 percentage points.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">If half of UKIP’s recently gained
support goes back where it came from by 2015, that would still leave Labour a
2-to-3-point relative boost. That could swing maybe 20 seats.</span></div>
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-26856521038985773142013-04-19T08:25:00.001+01:002013-04-19T08:50:28.550+01:00Evidence-basted policy<span style="font-size: 10pt;">A prominent economic study,
supposedly showing that growth slows down once national debt gets above a
certain level, has turned out to be based on <a href="http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2013/04/reinhart-rogff-true-keynesians.html">a few simple errors</a>.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Carmen Reinhart and Ken
Rogoff’s research was quoted approvingly by supporters of austerity around the
world, including George Osborne in a <a href="http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2010/02/George_Osborne_Mais_Lecture_-_A_New_Economic_Model.aspx">major speech</a> in early 2010. Osborne has
consistently argued that the government needs to reduce its borrowing and debt
or risk all kinds of disaster, and this research gave him a handy few
paragraphs of material.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">But he won’t now reconsider. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Politicians like us to think
– and they probably like to think themselves – that they go for evidence-based
policy. This makes them look like wise, careful, well-informed pragmatists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">But, too often, they don’t go for evidence-based policy. What they go
for is evidence-<em>basted</em> policy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Here’s how to do it:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<ol>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Choose your policy.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Scour the publications of friendly think-tanks and academics to find evidence that seems to support your policy.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">If you also find evidence against your policy, cut this off and throw it away.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Marinate your policy in the evidence that most complements its taste, and cook as needed, sealing in that delicious evidential flavour.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">When your policy is ready to serve, it will be all the more appetising.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</li>
</ol>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">All the austerity camp have lost
this week is one ingredient for their marinade. But this hardly matters to
them: that wasn’t the reason they chose this course. They’ll keep
serving it, even if it now tastes a little bitterer. A change of evidence doesn’t mean a change of course.</span></div>
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-82921088676122711362013-04-07T20:57:00.000+01:002013-04-07T20:57:42.565+01:00UK and international welfare spending<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Using OECD data from <a href="http://lartsocial.org/obscureobject">Declan Gaffney</a> (a great blog post – do read it), I’ve made the two charts below. They look
at the amount of money different countries’ governments spend on benefits, excluding
pensions and benefits in kind.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The first shows that benefit
spending in the UK has fallen as a share of GDP, not risen. Of the 18 countries
Declan compares, the UK spending fall was the fourth-largest from 1980 to just before
the financial crash, and the fifth-largest from 1980 to 2009.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih2o1VXyBDmt5TDDPZhcvDpKUr2pZu2Z4fZ8UMq95WtRFKYAOn-FkoL0UZqc6xWlloBBRrg8Rx4CNIfQZJCn2MiipWWQrvlEyNea3Zgj2i2bHU81g1QPbSC7zsbWqocofeCRDOQg/s1600/welf+spend+change.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih2o1VXyBDmt5TDDPZhcvDpKUr2pZu2Z4fZ8UMq95WtRFKYAOn-FkoL0UZqc6xWlloBBRrg8Rx4CNIfQZJCn2MiipWWQrvlEyNea3Zgj2i2bHU81g1QPbSC7zsbWqocofeCRDOQg/s400/welf+spend+change.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The second chart shows in
more detail how spending has gone up and down. To avoid a mass of
criss-crossing lines, I’ve included just six countries. This also shows that the
UK welfare state – not counting pensions – is not particularly expensive by
international standards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdf3fSBf1Bzq9PmHSuGikNVTzhhOnqMdbFXgvKKVFfWcRAio7Esu4hHFZTDc1aetSbtOebAeCn8qCH19Ava_zGxpsm3u83tJdT_PfWt0HM14k7fHhG1nzSUbAg8sxBRRF7CMozxA/s1600/welf+spend.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdf3fSBf1Bzq9PmHSuGikNVTzhhOnqMdbFXgvKKVFfWcRAio7Esu4hHFZTDc1aetSbtOebAeCn8qCH19Ava_zGxpsm3u83tJdT_PfWt0HM14k7fHhG1nzSUbAg8sxBRRF7CMozxA/s400/welf+spend.png" width="400" /></a></div>
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-69063053651599905932013-03-20T14:53:00.003+00:002013-03-20T14:53:51.863+00:00Osborne unveils Plan D
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Plus c’est la
même chose, plus ça change…</span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The
more George Osborne insists on sticking to his policy, the worse the results
become.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">He’s
like a driver who refuses to reset his faulty satnav long after it becomes
clear that the geography is nothing like what he’d expected. He’s still turning
right in 200 metres, but the turn takes him into a ditch instead of the hoped-for
motorway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">In
2010, we planned to borrow an extra £471 billion by 2015/16. Today I can
announce that we will hit this target two years early.</span></blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">He
didn’t say that, of course. But it’s true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">So imagine
what he would say about a Labour Chancellor who had presided over this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjctxTCOCjZQ22hpsDyxc2uSVHz-3IYmvIicZymVwjLqTqBmGxUj3El0IxuaMqzbO6IPedG4XdLEZVbtqpjdjCCmNjA3TJYy2VOXzTIwmzwBA5WIxGOtMc1UDWzu7sVnZzodT5K-w/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjctxTCOCjZQ22hpsDyxc2uSVHz-3IYmvIicZymVwjLqTqBmGxUj3El0IxuaMqzbO6IPedG4XdLEZVbtqpjdjCCmNjA3TJYy2VOXzTIwmzwBA5WIxGOtMc1UDWzu7sVnZzodT5K-w/s400/1.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ2oqThRdjDya-0_iBcl9vvwnBS8ArOYu1qCTxyv1gE6GkBNmifwcIaRskq25_AEDgYYQqZ7Ls6kjNEVE4R2jlxQPmNDgG27IHRZOCzLSqLLdaYWrAMU9mb983D9KRP93qZO3bHQ/s1600/4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ2oqThRdjDya-0_iBcl9vvwnBS8ArOYu1qCTxyv1gE6GkBNmifwcIaRskq25_AEDgYYQqZ7Ls6kjNEVE4R2jlxQPmNDgG27IHRZOCzLSqLLdaYWrAMU9mb983D9KRP93qZO3bHQ/s400/4.png" width="400" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKJVh5w4ZbEkmp8qYyDe3LMOMtPmxEb5e_qt4xhRaVICDHwz1qJGjiykxTUIRDjdEiF0SmMT03v8P-Qt-4_r95ef1EOTRPMblIk2r2V9kR6afHauja-bYiwXjof69LtcL8tsfvwg/s1600/3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKJVh5w4ZbEkmp8qYyDe3LMOMtPmxEb5e_qt4xhRaVICDHwz1qJGjiykxTUIRDjdEiF0SmMT03v8P-Qt-4_r95ef1EOTRPMblIk2r2V9kR6afHauja-bYiwXjof69LtcL8tsfvwg/s400/3.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQr1HM7BJhW2UqCK-Z5FJ0Kl0okkvrP7eMn1wSrHH8jaeS2L1YssVLLxTu-8H211dMW9xNqyr5locOJ2k3mVov2t_5ooH8pOfZRclyuECo5vzHoHgqy4A1eyp-rNE3AHvShgSiA/s1600/5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQr1HM7BJhW2UqCK-Z5FJ0Kl0okkvrP7eMn1wSrHH8jaeS2L1YssVLLxTu-8H211dMW9xNqyr5locOJ2k3mVov2t_5ooH8pOfZRclyuECo5vzHoHgqy4A1eyp-rNE3AHvShgSiA/s400/5.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">At
some point, the government has to take responsibility. Three years is past that
point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">(Note on data: The public finance figures are becoming
harder to unravel. The ones I’ve used above exclude the effects of various
special factors such as the asset price facility and financial transactions.
The result of this exclusion is to raise the borrowing and lower the debt in
the most recent figures. See tables 4.36 and 4.37 of the <a href="http://budgetresponsibility.independent.gov.uk/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2013/">OBR report</a>.)</span></i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-6209753700842109202013-03-18T23:34:00.000+00:002013-03-18T23:34:38.047+00:00The press regulation deal is both more and less than it seems
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">I wonder whether our
political leaders know what they are doing.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Their agreement includes a
draft <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/leveson-report-draft-royal-charter-for-proposed-body-to-recognise-press-industry-self-regulator">Royal Charter</a> establishing the new press regulation system. The Charter
states that, once passed, it can only be altered by a two-thirds majority in
both the Commons and the Lords.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">This provision is being given
legal force in an <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/03/press-regulation-ceci-nest-pas-une-statute/">amendment</a> to the </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill:</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Where a body is established
by Royal Charter after 1 March 2013 with functions relating to the carrying on
of an industry, no recommendation may be made to Her Majesty in Council to
amend the body’s Charter or dissolve the body unless any requirements included
in the Charter on the date it is granted for Parliament to approve the amendment
or dissolution have been met.<o:p></o:p></blockquote>
</div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
This amendment is
deliberately general. As David Cameron, fearful of charges that he had caved in,
<a href="http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/prime-ministers-statement-on-leveson/">explained</a>: <span style="font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This is not by any stretch of
the imagination statutory regulation of the press. Nor is it even statutory
recognition of either the independent press regulator or indeed the Royal
Charter. It is a three line clause which applies to all Royal Charters of a
particular nature from this point onwards. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Colleagues may ask whether this no
change clause could be used in future for a more aggressive approach to
regulation of the press. Because it doesn’t mention press regulation and it
doesn’t even mention this Royal Charter it is no more in danger of being used
in this way than any other piece of legislation on the statute book. <o:p></o:p></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">But the objection he didn’t anticipate
is the opposite one: couldn’t this no-change clause be used to set up other
Royal Charters in defiance of the will of Parliament?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">It looks like it could. The
Privy Council – <a href="http://privycouncil.independent.gov.uk/privy-council/privy-council-members/">which is, in effect, the Cabinet</a> – could create a Charter
regulating some other industry, and include a no-change rule that required a
two-thirds (or three-quarters, or nine-tenths) majority for its amendment or
repeal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">But there’s a but.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Enterprise and Regulatory
Reform Bill, when passed, won’t itself be subject to the two-thirds rule. It could
be amended by a simple parliamentary majority to remove the no-change clause.
So a Cabinet that tried to bypass Parliament could be reined back in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">But there’s another but.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">This also applies to the current Royal Charter. The no-change clause can be overturned by a simple
majority, and then the new press regulation system can be scrapped in the
ordinary way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">This feels like locking your
valuables in a strong safe and then putting the key to the safe in a shoebox.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">So, I wonder whether our
political leaders know what they are doing.</span></div>
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-82008731298492217952013-03-08T13:43:00.000+00:002013-03-08T13:43:00.069+00:00Cameron opposes faster cuts. But why?
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The
hole in David Cameron’s <a href="http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2013/03/Prime_Ministers_Speech_on_The_Economy.aspx">economy speech</a> is telling. Here it is:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #3c3c23; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Some say cut more and borrow less, others
cut less and borrow more. Go faster. Go slower. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cut taxes. Put them up. We need to cut through
all this and tell people some plain truths. So let me speak frankly and do just
that. There are some people who think we don’t have to take all these tough
decisions to deal with our debts. They say that our focus on deficit reduction
is damaging growth. And what we need to do is to spend more and borrow more.
It’s as if they think there’s some magic money tree. </span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">His
argument against slower deficit reduction is <a href="http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/looking-for-robust-defence-of-austerity.html">pretty</a> <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bf19ad60-8681-11e2-b907-00144feabdc0.html">feeble</a>. But his argument
against faster deficit reduction is non-existent. After the brief initial mention
of people who take this view, that’s it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">There’s
a reason for this. Any argument he makes against faster public-spending cuts is
an argument that Labour (or <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/economics/economics/2013/03/when-facts-change-should-i-change-my-mind">Vince Cable</a>, or the <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573113-british-economy-stuck-it-needs-structural-reform-looser-money-and-more-infrastructure">Economist</a>, or anyone else) can quote
against his policy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">In
exactly this way, the general points in his argument against slower cuts
are used against him by people who are urging <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/02/britain-looses-its-aaa-rating/">faster cuts</a>. But clearly, he feels either
that those people are politically insignificant or that he doesn’t have the
strength to fight on two fronts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Cameron,
Osborne and Clegg have created an arbitrary timetable of cuts and then nailed
themselves to it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">For
instance, in 2013/14, the government plans to borrow £99 billion. Why is that
the correct number? Why would £109bn or £119bn cause a market panic while £99bn
is OK? Why would £89bn or £79bn stifle the recovery while £99bn is OK?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">As
Cable says, “</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">nobody knows how the markets might respond</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">” to a change of plan. “</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The balance of risks remains a matter of judgement.”</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">I’ll
leave it to others to make the case for faster cuts. But the case for slower
cuts is not the insanity he presents it as: “</span><span lang="EN" style="color: #3c3c23; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">They say that by
borrowing more they would miraculously end up borrowing less.”</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #3c3c23; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The
case can be summarised simply: <a href="http://viva-freemania.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/pursued-by-bear-market.html">more haste, less speed</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">If
you fire public-sector workers and scrap investment projects and cut benefits
too quickly, the economy suffers. Cameron knows this, which is why he opposes
faster cuts. By making less haste at cutting the deficit, he hopes to make more
speed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The
argument for slower cuts is the same, only more so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Nobody
knows the optimum speed. But Cameron asks us to trust that the plan he worked
out with Osborne and Clegg back in the summer of 2010, based on economic forecasts that reality has torn to shreds, managed to get it right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-72295106026622359982013-03-06T19:32:00.000+00:002013-03-06T19:32:13.017+00:00The inevitability of bad predictions
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Yesterday the Guardian
published a piece of psephology by <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/tories-will-get-next-general-election">John Ross</a>. He gets one thing right
but almost everything else wrong.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">I’ll start positive. The
thing that Ross gets right is his main point: Conservative support has been in
decline for a long time. He says that since 1931, the Conservative share of the
vote has dropped by an average of 0.2% a year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">I agree. I’ve only looked
back to 1945 (covering 18 general elections rather than Ross’s 20), but I also
get an average 0.2% decline a year – with, of course, a lot of variation around
this general trend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">But what Ross doesn’t mention
is that the Labour vote has also declined, by an average of 0.2% a year (since
1945). Conversely, the Liberal/Lib Dem vote has risen over this period by an
average 0.3% a year. You can see the rough picture from this chart:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ng5VoJl8J4q65AafFEZfcwoRAFqHooUZe0dlJaPzVksaogZTHbR2T7UR4I9czwIk7sv07ubhMsYPHIyl4lMJtZtJXjfFyIPl5GZP0LdbY1kU8VBd_hzhQfPePn8WM1YuiHamlA/s1600/1945-2010+lines.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ng5VoJl8J4q65AafFEZfcwoRAFqHooUZe0dlJaPzVksaogZTHbR2T7UR4I9czwIk7sv07ubhMsYPHIyl4lMJtZtJXjfFyIPl5GZP0LdbY1kU8VBd_hzhQfPePn8WM1YuiHamlA/s320/1945-2010+lines.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span> </div>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">These numbers do, though,
depend on your starting-point. As <a href="http://hopisen.com/2013/john-rosss-electoral-projections-the-stupid-it-burns/">Hopi Sen</a> points out, 1931 was a
stunning Conservative landslide; 1945 was a Labour one. If you start at 1974,
after the first Liberal surge, the Labour trend is, on average, flat and the
Lib rise is under 0.1% a year. If you start at 1983, the Libs are in slight
decline. If you start at 1997, the Conservatives are on the up. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">But for the sake of argument,
let’s stick with the longer-term picture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Things really go wrong when
Ross looks to the future. This paragraph contains one of the highest
concentrations of wrongness I’ve ever seen:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Taking these projections, if the Tories won the
next election, they would get 34.6% of the vote, and if they lost they would
get 30.3% of the vote. As there is no doubt at present that the Tories will
lose, they will get 30.3% of the vote. As always there is a bit of statistical
noise in any calculation, so 29.3% to 31.3% would be a reasonable range, but
30.3% is the central figure.<o:p></o:p></blockquote>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">What he seems to be doing is
separating elections that the Conservatives have won from ones they have lost,
and then extrapolating the trends for both categories. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">This is a logical flub. You
don’t first ask whether the Conservatives will win and then go on to wonder
what vote they’ll get. You first ask what vote they (and other parties) will get,
and then use that to see who’ll win. Votes determine victories, not the other
way round.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">So, having established that
there are only two possible Conservative vote shares in 2015, he then says “</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">there is no doubt at
present that the Tories will lose</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">”. Might
there be doubt in the future? I guess it’s doubtful. But the interesting thing
here is that Ross <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">already has</i> the
election result predicted without even using his system. Presumably he’s
looking at opinion polls like the rest of us. So what’s the use of the system? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Then there’s the “bit of
statistical noise”: he reckons his system’s predictions have a margin of error
of plus or minus 1%. That’s a lot better than the 3% that a normal-sized
opinion poll has. I wonder how he arrives at this number? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">He doesn’t say, but if I
wanted to arrive at such a number, I’d start with this chart:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9zBJo9t_zrx5exEuhn9IXy_V-QOpZYHQVSvM8moRCE-z53nIfhsFyubxm8ESaJ2DGol2KoCmn8uhrz-jrZ_lDfDr5nPB4_jghMamUkVldwSk7fC0wETemS2rmfU39hud8sE94-Q/s1600/1945-2010+trend.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9zBJo9t_zrx5exEuhn9IXy_V-QOpZYHQVSvM8moRCE-z53nIfhsFyubxm8ESaJ2DGol2KoCmn8uhrz-jrZ_lDfDr5nPB4_jghMamUkVldwSk7fC0wETemS2rmfU39hud8sE94-Q/s320/1945-2010+trend.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span><br /></div>
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The dots are actual vote
shares and the lines are the overall average trend. The distances between the
dots and the lines show how close the model has been in the past. You’ll notice
that most of the dots are more than 1% away from the relevant lines.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">In fact, the median error is 3.8%
for the Conservative vote, 2.1% for the Labour vote and 3.6% for the
Liberal/Lib Dem vote: half the time, the model was wrong by more than these
amounts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">But bear in mind that this
model is based on a very small sample of data: 18 election results since 1945
(or 20 for Ross since 1931; adding the extra two really won’t change the
picture). So the confidence intervals of any conclusions we draw from it may
well be large. And they are. The standard deviation of the error in the
predicted Conservative vote is 4.1%, in the Labour vote 4.6% and in the Lib Dem
vote 4.3%.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Assuming a normal
distribution, two-thirds of observed results would be expected to fall within
one standard deviation of the central result. For a typical 95% confidence
interval, we need to go plus or minus two standard deviations: 8.4% for the Conservative
vote, 9.2% for Labour, 8.6% for the Lib Dems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">So, my version of Ross’s
model gives these central projections for 2015: Conservatives 34.3%, Labour 31.5%,
Lib Dems 26.4%. But all I’d be confident in saying is that the Conservatives will
get between 25.9% and 42.7%, Labour between 22.3% and 40.7%, and the Lib Dems
between 17.8% and 35%.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">Probably. Assuming that there’s
a genuine phenomenon here that will continue in the future. And ignoring all
polling evidence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">In conclusion: Yes, long-term
trends are noteworthy. But let’s not read too much into them.</span></div>
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-85672223910579417632013-01-30T09:25:00.002+00:002013-01-30T09:26:51.555+00:00Pursued By A Bear Market<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><b>A tale of fiscal policy and
self-justification</b></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The Royal Palace. The KING holds court with CAMERON,
OSBORNE and CLEGG, Lords of the Treasury, and MILIBAND and BALLS, courtiers.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King: <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Lords Cameron and Osborne,
here you stand<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">To bring us tidings of
financial woes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">You feared that those three
Fates of credit would<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Condemn us for our royal
borrowing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And curse our land so nothing
more could grow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Thus warned, we charged you
to avert this doom,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">To halt the spending of our
ministers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And raise such levies as
could bring us gold<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">So that our monstrous debts
would grow no more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Now speak! We yearn at last
for happy news.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Osborne:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">My lord, we were entrusted to
reduce<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The vastness of your annual
deficit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And now it is my honour to
declare<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">We’ve cut a quarter of this giant
sum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">That’s but a quarter – this
news meets our ears<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">With disappointment, and
familiar ring:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Was this not what you said a
year ago?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Osborne:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">It was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And now?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Osborne:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">A quarter still, my lord.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">So when will all four quarters
then be gone?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Osborne:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">I swear, my lord, within five
years from now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Was this not what you said a
year ago?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Osborne:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">It was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And what you said two years
ago?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Osborne:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">It was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And now?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Osborne:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Five years from now, my lord.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">These riddles disenchant us.
How can time<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">So dance away as we approach
each year<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And stay as distant as
horizons far?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Cameron:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">My lord, I can explain my
kinsman’s words.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">When you appointed us, we
sought to change<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The short-term thinking of
past ministers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And always turn our eyes to
future times,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Determined that they must be
better days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">We screwed our courage to the
sticking place,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">But now we find the sticking
place can move<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And so our constancy demands
we change,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">For we are bound to keep our
fiscal oath:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">‘Five years from now’, my
lord. Always five years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">How now, what craven
sophistry is this<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">That conjures strength and
virtue from a wreck?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Balls:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Methinks that ‘screw their
courage’ gets it right,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">For fools stand fast where
angels fear to stay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Cameron:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Damned knave! Your wretched insolence
is cheap<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And marks you out as low-born
scoundrel, sir.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Balls:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Such ready fury boils your
noble blood<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And gives the lie to your
play of command.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">For you have marched us all
into a swamp<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">In which our people cannot
hope to thrive<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Nor even stem His Majesty’s
great debts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And now you cannot dare to
lead us out,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">So make us all the captives
of your fear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Cameron:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">This barking oaf! He tries to
slander me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Before the very presence of
the King. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">I take no lectures from the
gentleman<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">On courage; if he seeks to
challenge me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">I’ll slit his smug, fat belly
with this blade!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Osborne:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Now cuz, hold still, for
though he is a rogue,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The temper that he slyly
sparks in you<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Is crafted to repel you from
the King,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Who cherishes good manners over
all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">So douse your voice, and
breathe until your face<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Can lose this violent hue: a
red as bold<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">As those bewitching locks of
your true love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Cameron:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The thought of dear Rebekah cools
my bile,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">But quickens yet my blood,
for how I long<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">To be with her again, at
last, to ride –<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Miliband:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Rebekah, lady once of
Wapping, stands<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Accused of treason. Hold you
her so dear?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Cameron:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">I know! I know it! And she
shall face trial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">I will denounce her crimes,
if proved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">(If not, I shall her favour
once more seek.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Pray stop this wanton prattle.
We care naught<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">For squabbles or ill-chosen
loves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Our business here is fiscal.
Miliband?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Miliband:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">My lord, we seek to build one
nation here:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Unsqueeze the middle and let
fairness reign<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Throughout the realm, as in
your own good heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">My raft of policy initiatives<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Is not quite yet constructed
to be launched<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">But, as I argued in my speech
last week<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">To that esteemèd think-tank
called –<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Enough!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Is there much more of this?
Our bones grow old.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Balls:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">If I may speak my mind, my
lord, you’ll hear<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">My language is more plain than
my wise friend’s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Your ministers have failed,
as you have seen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">When few can prosper and your
debt still grows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">They are your rivals, yet we
find it sad<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">That now you smirk; this
failure taints us all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Balls:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">I swear, my lord, it is no
gleeful smirk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">At their humiliating
haplessness,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Which surely will entail
their public fall<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And clear a path for better
men to lead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">I smile in nothing more than
humble joy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">At being granted your
majestic ear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And with this honour, I shall
now explain:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Their folly is to try to cut
too fast.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Dismissing servants of the
Crown to save<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">A penny here and there may
seem to help,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">But if too many quickly lose
their wage<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Then how can merchants hope
to sell their wares<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And earn the gold with which
they pay their tax?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And if proud Osborne asks
them to pay more,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">However can they hope to
trade at all?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">You bring to us a thrifty
paradox<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">That seems to beg we borrow
more to save.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">We would have further counsel
on this point,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">So let us hear from our Lord
Clegg now. Clegg!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Where are you, man? Come
forth! Now speak.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Clegg:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Sorry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Indeed! A sorrier sight we
never saw.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And now we see it, we have
quite forgot<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">All reason to have sought to
see. Begone!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Cameron:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">If further counsel do you
seek, my lord,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Then I, unlike that grey-faced
mope, can talk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And warn against the madness
of these two,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Whose optimistic fancies are
a dream<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">As fever’d as the mad
Caligula<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And surely as destructive to
your realm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Miliband:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Why, sir, if mad destruction
do you seek,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Then walk the streets of any
English town<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And see the pain that your
infernal cuts<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Have wrought upon the visages
of all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Cameron:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">I surely walk, and I can see
each day<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">That everyone is grateful for
my work<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">To build up our society so
big.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">But what, I ask, would you do
in my place?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">If you lack now the stomach
and the will<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">To dam the fearful flood of
royal gold,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">How long yet must we wait?
When will you act?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Miliband:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">In time, and in a very real
sense,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">But I shall not get into that
today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Instead, I say again that you
have failed:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Your recklessness has
undermined your plan;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">More haste has now resulted
in less speed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Osborne:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Your clumsy wits have led you
far astray:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">We made great haste to
guarantee great speed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And now, when it appears that
speed is low,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">This grim misfortune only
proves us right,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And heralds the necessity of
haste.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Now gentlemen, we tire of
these words<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">That tie themselves in cruel,
ingenious knots,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">To trap the earnest listener
in a noose<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">While failure wears the robes
of victory<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And solid now dissolves to
future mist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">We know from sad acquaintance
what we have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">But tell us, clear and true, what
else might be?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Balls:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">I plead for lower taxes, for
a year<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">So that our merchants may
advance their trade<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And earn a profit that they
then can spend<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Elsewhere, so new prosperity
can spread.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And when, after a year, they
all have thrived,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">We can return to levy our
demands<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Now knowing that they have
the strength to pay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">You plead for lower taxes,
for a year?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Balls:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">For just this year, then
we’ll have no more need.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">King:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Was this not what you said a
year ago?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Curtain.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-75600759323968951272013-01-26T12:21:00.000+00:002013-01-26T12:21:36.061+00:00A bad recession and a terrible recovery
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">The UK recession of 2008-09
was a bit deeper than the 1980s recession but shallower than the 1930s one –
and briefer than either. It was much deeper than the 1970s or 1990s ones: by
historical standards, it was pretty bad.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd_PS6FQAxADee5aRuQlNuHt1HF6i8ea3U9q-MfSl5H_eFr-1kMw8KO1UVgO3GI7TsvnMJHaWwJKWcIuJdWCtle8OutCfLCLryC_5KiwUy9_gCaPU5zVw1i5KXQD9iIfoyerUKzg/s1600/quarters+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="117" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd_PS6FQAxADee5aRuQlNuHt1HF6i8ea3U9q-MfSl5H_eFr-1kMw8KO1UVgO3GI7TsvnMJHaWwJKWcIuJdWCtle8OutCfLCLryC_5KiwUy9_gCaPU5zVw1i5KXQD9iIfoyerUKzg/s320/quarters+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">But what about the recovery
from recession? I find it hard to get too excited about whether the technical
definition of a double-dip or triple-dip recession has been met: the overall
picture is two-and-a-half years (so far) of stagnation. And it’s this that is
so terrible by historical standards.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbf7ijCWHuSU72Zm8TZ33X40gIJ3dQJG_4NW0LTMT0VOd0IvsM0EuWstzePiWb40NOyZYdcApgx7IMpOel5tDB2Z35i5npP7ncMlcOoYJO6ec1stVpzvhgSni6ln7iJ5IdKI-tjg/s1600/quarters+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbf7ijCWHuSU72Zm8TZ33X40gIJ3dQJG_4NW0LTMT0VOd0IvsM0EuWstzePiWb40NOyZYdcApgx7IMpOel5tDB2Z35i5npP7ncMlcOoYJO6ec1stVpzvhgSni6ln7iJ5IdKI-tjg/s320/quarters+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;">For about the first five
quarters after the end of the recession – up to autumn 2010 – it looked like a normal
recovery. And then it stalled. We haven’t seen anything like this before.</span></div>
Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-37445383210526561552013-01-06T14:00:00.000+00:002013-01-06T14:03:34.507+00:00Blind on welfareYou may remember George Osborne <a href="http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2012/10/George_Osborne_Conference_2012.aspx">explaining</a> his method for identifying his next victims:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Where is the fairness, we ask, for the shift-worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?</blockquote>
<div>
</div>
<br />
But here’s the thing: in “the dark hours of the early morning”, aren’t most of us still asleep? To get to work for 9, I don’t need to wake up until 7.30 (although I have curtains rather than blinds – I’m not sure how much of a difference that makes).<br />
<br />
And this symbolises Osborne’s bigger misjudgement. His decision to uprate most working-age benefits by 1% a year for three years – a real-terms cut – was supposed to show the government on the side of the strivers not the skivers, the workers not the shirkers, the hard-grinders not the closed-blinders.<br />
<br />
But in fact, <a href="http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/resolution-foundation-analysis-2012-autumn-stateme/">most of those hit by the policy are in work</a>, having their low incomes supplemented by tax credits and the like. Whatever kind of drapery they have.Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-39098230518088830082012-12-30T14:17:00.001+00:002012-12-30T14:17:20.266+00:00Some inequalities are more unequal than others<a href="http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/12/28/inequality-and-poverty/">John Rentoul</a> and others have been talking about economic inequality. John argues that the Gini coefficient is “the only statistical measure that captures the full extent of inequality in any population. Any other measure, such as 60 per cent of median income or the ratio between the 10th and 90th decile points, would fail to do this.”
<div>
</div>
In a sense that’s true, but for me the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient">Gini coefficient</a>’s strength is also its weakness. It gives you a single number for inequality in a population (from 0, meaning everyone is completely equal, to 1, meaning one person has everything) – but it can’t tell you whether that inequality is because the people at the bottom are a long way behind or the people at the top are a long way ahead.
<div>
</div>
For instance, these two sets of numbers both have a Gini of 0.13:
<ul>
<li>5, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29</li>
<li>21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 52</li>
</ul>
If we want to measure economic inequality meaningfully, we mustn’t treat it as a single phenomenon. If the very rich are racing ahead, then that’s quite a different thing from the very poor falling behind. These two phenomena have different causes and different consequences – and, if we want to do anything about them, different policies will be needed.<br />
<div>
</div>
So I propose that rather than looking at a single Gini coefficient for everyone, we break the population down into, say, fifths. We look at the Gini among each group, from the poorest to the richest, and see how they compare.<br />
<br />
What follows is a very crude attempt to do that (this post develops an idea I had <a href="http://viva-freemania.blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/measuring-inequality-story-with-two.html">a few years ago</a>).
<div>
</div>
I start with this chart from the <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/comms/comm124.pdf">Institute for Fiscal Studies</a> [PDF], showing household income for different percentiles of the population:<br />
<div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikAhbxFY5b-j-kIDFnmCvtkubRxd9Q4DE5fYlWxYHb0SxBDCjd9sjmxj7lJV2FDeJXkQcTj0IuD0b_atupYr0VzP12uiY7cNu6eJl_v9_gSvSCWGW-KSPv4nYOwqjl9twyAHLsbQ/s1600/IFS+chart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikAhbxFY5b-j-kIDFnmCvtkubRxd9Q4DE5fYlWxYHb0SxBDCjd9sjmxj7lJV2FDeJXkQcTj0IuD0b_atupYr0VzP12uiY7cNu6eJl_v9_gSvSCWGW-KSPv4nYOwqjl9twyAHLsbQ/s320/IFS+chart.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Unfortunately, the numbers that went into the chart aren’t given. So by measuring the size of the bars (I told you it was crude), I’ve reconstructed it:</div>
<div>
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdV7KLG1XWxn1dg8Zt1l7Ey3iPT5Wmm0cYiwCf_Y2l2ULkvchAOp-KVzcVgYC9_ft376Mtc3FuE912JiHPeojN-C3HjOS1KAdNKFRH36f1fGaZ0cF1DST2-yziukmZwzcW78-zXQ/s1600/my+adaptation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdV7KLG1XWxn1dg8Zt1l7Ey3iPT5Wmm0cYiwCf_Y2l2ULkvchAOp-KVzcVgYC9_ft376Mtc3FuE912JiHPeojN-C3HjOS1KAdNKFRH36f1fGaZ0cF1DST2-yziukmZwzcW78-zXQ/s320/my+adaptation.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It looks about right. Note that I’ve added a bar for the richest 1%, not shown in the original – perhaps because those people are hard to get data on. I’ve assumed that the gap between 99 and 100 is the same size as the gap between 98 and 99 (which I’m sure is a conservative assumption).<br />
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And, treating each percentage point as an individual, the Gini coefficient for these 100 numbers is 0.33. The IFS report gives the Gini for the whole population as 0.34, so again, I feel confident that my reconstruction of the numbers is about right.<br />
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Now I can break this down into five groups, from the poorest 20% to the richest, and calculate and compare the Gini coefficients across the spectrum:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjydRiH-UYQXlYf8MSoMu4WGWFUCAyLRoq4nQv-bPTSIc23BVjaAdE9ul6XpZPpo0VGPUSrwTy-IABOv8ssGMxjSCyh5OvjV5Zn11GgMLsGQIQ70eljmKC_T8HZaJWCjzNf8EZtsw/s1600/ginis+chart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjydRiH-UYQXlYf8MSoMu4WGWFUCAyLRoq4nQv-bPTSIc23BVjaAdE9ul6XpZPpo0VGPUSrwTy-IABOv8ssGMxjSCyh5OvjV5Zn11GgMLsGQIQ70eljmKC_T8HZaJWCjzNf8EZtsw/s320/ginis+chart.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The greatest inequalities are at the top and the bottom of the scale. To see the size of these, we can look at ratios: the Gini at the bottom is 3.6 times as high as the middle one; the Gini at the top is 4.9 times the middle one.
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It would be good to see how these ratios have changed over time, and how they vary between countries. But here I really do run out of even approximate data. If better people than me agree that this approach is worthwhile, then I encourage them to give it a go.
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One thing I feel confident in saying, though: John <a href="http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/12/28/further-complexity-in-the-equality-debate/">reproduces</a> an IFS chart showing the distributional impact of government policies, and guesses that “overall inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, would be more or less unchanged”.
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Maybe. But taking my approach, the government’s policies look like they’ll reduce the Gini at the top and increase it at the bottom and in the middle. The gap between the very rich and the fairly rich may fall, but all other gaps will grow.Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-12957302467761430252012-12-22T15:23:00.000+00:002012-12-22T15:23:04.843+00:00The sense of unease: an open letter to David Davies MPDear David,<br />
<br />
When I first saw your views on sexuality reported <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/dec/10/conservative-mp-parents-gay-children">a few weeks ago</a>, I took you to be a bog-standard old-fashioned Tory bigot who was worth no more of my attention than the time it took to write an angry tweet.<br />
<br />
But in your interview today with Decca Aitkenhead – <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/dec/21/david-davies-gay-marriage-interview">a cracking read</a> – you come across differently. You seem more like someone who’s willing to engage on the subject, and to be engaged with. So, in a spirit of seasonal goodwill, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. And, even though ‘open letters’ are generally silly and pompous, and there’s a near-zero chance of you reading this, I’m writing anyway.<br />
<br />
Because I think you do speak, in your own uncertain way, for quite a lot of people.<br />
<br />
I personally don’t understand prejudice, of whatever kind, against homosexuality. From the thug wielding a baseball bat to the priest wielding Leviticus, I just don’t get the motivation. But I think most of the people who have a “sense of unease” (as you put it) about gay people aren’t near either of those ferocious extremes. You seem to be generally well-meaning, but you don’t like the thought of gay relationships and you find it very hard to say exactly why.<br />
<br />
Here’s some of your interview:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
His big worry about gay marriage, he explains, is that it will necessitate a revision of sex education. … He looks down and shifts awkwardly. "But I suppose, at a certain level, I see heterosexual sex as being – and it's probably the wrong word to use – but the norm. I think it's reasonable to say that the vast majority of people are not gay." He hesitates, sighing. "I just worry if children are going to be taught that [heterosexuality] isn't necessarily the norm, and that you can carry on doing all sorts of other things, are we going to have a situation where the teacher's saying, 'Right, this is straight sex, this is gay sex, feel free to choose, it's perfectly normal to want to do both. And you know, why not try both out?' I mean, are we going to have that?<br />…<br />
"I suppose what I'm trying to say, in a very clumsy way, which will again probably cause offence, is that some people might be going through a bit of a funny phase between the age of 15 and 20 when they're not sure. And I'm not absolutely convinced it's a good idea to be changing sex education in school to try and say to people, 'Feel free to go out and experiment and do this, that and the other.'"</blockquote>
<br />Here’s a thought or two in response:<br />
<br />
Talking about sex can be awkward and embarrassing. Talking about sex to children is even more so. I don’t have kids myself, but if I do someday then I’m sure that I’ll spend a long time mentally cringing in anticipation of The Talk.<br />
<br />
One thing that might make that talk a little bit simpler would be if there were only one type of sexuality. Because where there’s variety, you have to explain the variations and how they differ. And then you have to start getting into orifices – so to speak – and talking about sex in perhaps more graphic detail than you’re comfortable with.<br />
<br />
But the things you’re worried about would still exist even if there were only one type of sexuality.<br />
<br />
Lots of young people have sexual partners who turn out not to be right for them. Some of these they go on to bitterly regret, others they look back on as learning experiences. It takes plenty of us a while to figure out what, or who, we really want. ‘Experimenting’ has become a euphemism for trying out a different sexuality, but in reality it covers so much more than that.<br />
<br />
And sex education could in theory take any position on promiscuity, even if we took differences of sexuality off the table. As it is, the Department for Education <a href="http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/s/sex%20and%20relationship%20education%20guidance.pdf">guidance</a> says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Effective sex and relationship education does not encourage early sexual experimentation. It should teach young people to understand human sexuality and to respect themselves and others.<br />…<br />
Teachers should be able to deal honestly and sensitively with sexual orientation, answer appropriate questions and offer support. There should be no direct promotion of sexual orientation.</blockquote>
<br />That seems fair to me (although let’s not overestimate what effect teachers can have on teenagers here). Sex education shouldn’t encourage kids to try all sorts of different things with all sorts of different people, but it also shouldn’t tell them that they ought to be a certain way and that they’re abnormal if they aren’t.<br />
<br />
This takes me on to what you said about heterosexuality being the “norm”.<br />
<br />
You struggled with that word, and it’s understandable that you did. Sometimes people use “norm” and “normal” in a purely statistical way, about whether something is common or uncommon. And, at an <a href="http://www.stonewall.org.uk/at_home/sexual_orientation_faqs/2694.asp">estimated</a> 5-7% of the population, people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual are definitely a small minority. But that’s hardly rare: one or two out of an average classroom. <br />
<br />
But “norm” and “normal” also often carry a sense of moral judgement, implying that what’s different – or abnormal – is inferior or wrong. Do you believe that? I don’t think so. In the seven byelections this year, about 4% of people turned out to vote Conservative. The fact that they were in a small minority didn’t make them wrong to do so.<br />
<br />
So when it comes to the question of what to teach children, my answer is: facts. Most people are heterosexual. Some aren’t. And as for what sorts of relationship are acceptable, we should teach children what the law says: gay and straight alike are OK.<br />
<br />
There are lots of gay people. Even 5-7% works out as 3 or 4 million people in Britain. They have friends, families, neighbours, jobs, cars, mortgages, gas bills, votes and all the things in their lives that straight people have as well. They are part of society.<br />
<br />
I think it would be best for all of us – especially any children or grandchildren you or I might have who might grow up to be gay – if our attitudes as well as our laws accepted gay people as full, equal members of society. I think that part of the way to master the “sense of unease” is to appreciate that we don’t need to share someone else’s tastes, or even understand them, in order to accept them.<br />
<br />
I’m glad you’ve changed your mind on Section 28, on the age of consent and on civil partnerships. And I applaud your openness about your doubts – there should be a lot more of that in politics.<br />
<br />
I hope that you’ll keep thinking, and that you have a merry Christmas.<br />
<br />
TomTom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-67327273303773899902012-12-16T18:12:00.001+00:002012-12-16T18:12:48.012+00:00The unspoken fallacies of the Second AmendmentThe Second Amendment of the <a href="http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html">US Constitution</a> is odd. It’s odd because, unlike all the others, it doesn’t just declare a right: it also gives a reason; it makes an argument.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.</blockquote>
<br />
Everything up to “State” is a preamble, a statement of fact (or apparent fact) that justifies the statement of the right that follows. (It’s probably best to ignore the first and third commas: people used a lot more of them back then.)<br />
<br />
This needs a bit of unpacking. The argument implicit in the Second Amendment is this:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(a) We want the state to be secure.<br />
(b) A well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state.<br />
(c) The right of the people to keep and bear arms is necessary for there to be a well-regulated militia.<br />
Therefore:<br />
(d) The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.</blockquote>
<br />(a) is unstated, but as a general principle it’s completely uncontroversial. (b) is stated, albeit in the form of an <a href="http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005229.html">absolute clause</a>. (c) is unstated, but is the essential logical link that joins (a) and (b) to (d). And (d) is stated as the main clause of the sentence. <br />
<br />
There are two obvious problems with this: (b) is not true and (c) is not true.<br />
<br />
First, (b). There are plenty of free states that manage to be secure without having a militia (something distinct from the regular armed forces). It is also hard to argue that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)">what remains of the US militia</a> really makes that essential difference to national security. <br />
<br />
Second, (c). It is perfectly possible to have a militia without the general population having the right to keep and bear arms. Local militia organisers could very easily look after the weapons and distribute them at the first sign of the invading English. Also, given that not all citizens would be in a militia, any right to arms need not extend beyond militia members.<br />
<br />
Therefore (d) is not justified: the need for the people to have the right to keep and bear arms does not follow from a platitude and two historically short-sighted falsehoods.<br />
<br />
And yet there it is, in the Constitution, in black and white.<br />
<br />
And so I come back to the oddity of the Second Amendment: uniquely, it doesn’t just state a right but also gives a reason for that right. But it doesn’t therefore follow that the right legally depends on the stated reason. <br />
<br />
My objections above are factual and logical. They are not legal objections. I don’t see that my argument justifies an interpretation of the Second Amendment that lets only members of well-regulated militias have access to guns.<br />
<br />
What I do see is that this tragic piece of law, which seemed reasonable in 1789 but is now so drenched in the blood of innocents that its existence is an ongoing threat to the security of a free state, should be repealed.Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-51140745730505354852012-12-02T14:56:00.003+00:002012-12-02T17:33:06.541+00:00Byelection resultsBecause turnout in byelections is usually so low, a handy way of looking at them is to see how much of a party’s previous vote it manages to hold onto.<br />
<br />
For instance, in Rotherham last week, the Lib Dems got 2.1% of the vote on a 33.9% turnout – that’s 0.7% of the electorate. Back at the 2010 general election, they had managed 16% of the vote on a 59% turnout – that’s 9.4% of the electorate.<br />
<br />
So they lost 92% of their previous support. On the same measure, the Conservatives dropped 81% and Labour – even though their vote share was up – dropped 53%.<br />
<br />
The other defining feature of byelections is that they’re local elections for local people, and you shouldn’t generalise from any one result. But averaging across all the byelections that happen during a parliament is a bit more informative.<br />
<br />
The chart below shows how much of their previous vote the parties lost (or, in some cases, how much they added to it) at byelections in the last eight parliaments: <br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibsAVJRWF2n8tKw-zuu3UVvLyCTg9na403Tj-6nQ0-AECisRhN_f5EdSWlWFZVHPDkFfb5coiIzSMFg-85DYFjRfpkTX3K5rX4KpxnBkJ9sg5V5iKBQbU3hZy_c4ektqEtDWHALw/s1600/byels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibsAVJRWF2n8tKw-zuu3UVvLyCTg9na403Tj-6nQ0-AECisRhN_f5EdSWlWFZVHPDkFfb5coiIzSMFg-85DYFjRfpkTX3K5rX4KpxnBkJ9sg5V5iKBQbU3hZy_c4ektqEtDWHALw/s320/byels.jpg" tea="true" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The obvious points are that governing parties do particularly badly, and the Lib Dems (or their predecessor parties) have sometimes made impressive gains. Until now.<br />
<br />
After only two years in government, the Conservatives are doing as badly as John Major did, and the Lib Dems are doing even worse. Labour are doing better than when they were in power, but not as well as during most of their last period of opposition.<br />
<br />
<em>Update: I've been asked if I could do a similar chart showing the conventional change in the share of the vote - so the Lib Dem fall in Rotherham from 16% to 2% would count as -14%. I think this is less significant, because the numbers are more easily distorted by the variability of the starting points of the constituencies that happen to have byelections.</em><br />
<br />
<em>For instance, across the 12 seats that have had byelections since 2010, the average starting point was Lab 46% Con 24% LD 19% - an unrepresentatively low start for the Tories, meaning that in these seats, there was a limit to how far they could fall. That's why I looked at how far the parties had fallen relative to their original positions.</em><br />
<br />
<em>But with that caveat, here's the chart:</em><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyh8rqnkEiqCa_2wDVZ0nfNquTzSzv_TjyUNvN3-d1eXLWGwWenkmkE3Bleucr_PwI1-y283FE5wlcMGJLRkIQjVoA3aJbjw0qtcqaQ0ndBL8EySQmJH32SnHFCZs7gLIJZiF64A/s1600/byels2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyh8rqnkEiqCa_2wDVZ0nfNquTzSzv_TjyUNvN3-d1eXLWGwWenkmkE3Bleucr_PwI1-y283FE5wlcMGJLRkIQjVoA3aJbjw0qtcqaQ0ndBL8EySQmJH32SnHFCZs7gLIJZiF64A/s320/byels2.jpg" tea="true" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>And, while I'm here, below is a version of the first chart but disregarding changes in turnout. It shows the change in vote share as a percentage of the previous general election vote share. So the Lib Dem fall in Rotherham from 16% to 2% of the vote counts as -87%.</em></div>
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Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32118576.post-13088926391512290152012-11-18T18:51:00.000+00:002012-11-18T18:51:26.557+00:00The polarisation of the US electorateSomething odd has been happening in US politics.<br />
<br />
As presidential elections have become closer nationally, most individual states have become more and more firmly aligned with one or the other party. The Republican vote and the Democrat vote have been segregating, leaving fewer and fewer swing states.<br />
<br />
I don’t know why this has been happening, nor whether it will continue, but here are the figures.<br />
This chart shows how many of the 51 states (including DC) have voted the same way in the last four (or more) consecutive elections:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw-YNgqRKghiw-z7fa5uhEJpEXLPmqpTt2ovqHWGESPsXKmNxfgEDH9UDUwhEEtI6iThru-1AP7P1UQ0lG4aYpGB4JITcqQWuGExUDCAr8S-T_fMWdTJiVlIIjFsWa-vppt-Kqhw/s1600/1+4consec+st.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw-YNgqRKghiw-z7fa5uhEJpEXLPmqpTt2ovqHWGESPsXKmNxfgEDH9UDUwhEEtI6iThru-1AP7P1UQ0lG4aYpGB4JITcqQWuGExUDCAr8S-T_fMWdTJiVlIIjFsWa-vppt-Kqhw/s320/1+4consec+st.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
And this chart shows how many of the 538 electoral college votes are held by those states (based on each state’s current electoral vote):<br />
<br />
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<br />
Either way, it’s high: 80% of states, with 78% of the electoral vote, have not swung since 2000 or earlier. And, while the Republicans had a run of good results in the 1970s and 80s, today’s peak is made of a bipartisan mix. The recent rise in reliably Democrat states has come mostly by reducing the number of swing states rather than the reliably Republican ones.<br />
<br />
If we tighten the criterion to look at states that have voted the same way for six elections or more, it’s much the same picture:<br />
<br />
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<br />
Going back through Obama, Bush and Clinton, past Romney, McCain, Kerry, Gore and Dole, 64% of states, with 65% of the electoral vote, have not changed sides.<br />
<br />
And the winning margins are rising, too. This chart show how many states have given the same party a lead of 15% or more – averaged over four elections:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH0usmndCqfYdKIP5MU9ZvKZZg7iFvERsLwjuFta09sxpMjKdsrTwrw98bvCFeE2f_he5YiO_cnVDcjXc99IIMnd7qzjCrhheNzP_1mRF379Knd8ZEaeKy4iL1b7t-PVuMhdG1Eg/s1600/5+4el+lead+st.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH0usmndCqfYdKIP5MU9ZvKZZg7iFvERsLwjuFta09sxpMjKdsrTwrw98bvCFeE2f_he5YiO_cnVDcjXc99IIMnd7qzjCrhheNzP_1mRF379Knd8ZEaeKy4iL1b7t-PVuMhdG1Eg/s320/5+4el+lead+st.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Here it is in electoral college votes:<br />
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But this is happening even as presidential elections have become closer nationally. This final chart shows the national margin of victory in the popular vote at each election and the average state margin of victory (for whichever party wins it):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh710o2mNekkfXqm_AMqlucHuqCRzywTtqimvOPnd-OSxJ5QcCiGHK9R4YOHuuJz6h7p4DucHGwCRjB86ni_hq70QnEaP2YfGn-Z4qNubp6lYCWdTFPY5xFQ1bSciyE8r9fa4fOUw/s1600/7+av+&+nat+lead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="157" rea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh710o2mNekkfXqm_AMqlucHuqCRzywTtqimvOPnd-OSxJ5QcCiGHK9R4YOHuuJz6h7p4DucHGwCRjB86ni_hq70QnEaP2YfGn-Z4qNubp6lYCWdTFPY5xFQ1bSciyE8r9fa4fOUw/s320/7+av+&+nat+lead.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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To start with, the two lines go up and down together, as you might expect. In landslides like Johnson’s in 1964 or Nixon’s in 1972, lots of states voted heavily for the winner, and in closer elections like 1968 or 1976, more states were narrowly won (by both sides).<br />
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But since the late 1990s, this pattern has broken down. A series of narrow-to-middling popular vote leads has been matched by a steady but impressive rise in the average state margin of victory – shared, unlike previous highs, between both sides.<br />
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I don’t know why this has been happening or whether it will continue. But because election campaigns mostly focus on swing states, the polarisation of red states and blue states means that more and more Americans are getting less and less attention from their political leaders.<br />
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<em>(Using data from </em><a href="http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/"><em>here</em></a><em>.)</em>Tom Freemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02997295899017354602noreply@blogger.com0