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Sunday Review: The Road from Ruin, by Matthew Bishop & Michael Green

13/02/2011, 01:16:32 PM

by Anthony Painter

There are two fallacies about economics. First, that it can explain anything other than the bleeding obvious. It is not difficult to look back at last year’s growth, add or subtract a quarter of a percent or so, then say that will be this year’s growth rate. It would be useful to know if the economy is going to collapse by 5%. Economists don’t see those icebergs.

The second fallacy is that it is difficult. It’s not; it’s dead easy. Some people describe economics as the “dismal science”. They are being generous. It is not a science. See fallacy one for an explanation of why.

In increasing acts of desperation, economists are casting around other academic disciplines to: (i) explain why economics has been getting it so wrong; (ii) try to regain our trust so that they can get it wrong again; and (iii) say something new and clever-sounding given that everything else they’ve been saying is so bleeding obvious yet often wrong.

Psychology is the first victim of this “great plundering”. Hence “nudge”, irrational exuberance and all the rest.

So when Matthew Bishop and Michael Green write, “this crisis brings with it a tremendous opportunity [for economics] to help policymakers, financiers, business leaders, and other practical people do better”, forgive me for ploughing all my savings into the safest, most secure asset I can find. Futures on sales of Keynes’ General Theory would seem to be a good bet. (more…)

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Raising the state pension age hits the hard-working the hardest

11/02/2011, 11:43:46 AM

By John Hannett

Any increase in the state pension age has the biggest impact on those who cannot afford to retire without it. Predominantly men in low-income jobs and women.

That is why Usdaw member, Barbara Bates, has set up a petition against the Tory-led government’s plans to speed up the increase in the state pension age to 66 by 2020 for both men and women:

http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/handsoff

Barbara’s story sets out how she feels that ministers have robbed her of two years of freedom, and of over £10,000 of state pension that she has been working for since the age of 15. (more…)

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Shadow cabinet goal of the month

11/02/2011, 08:00:56 AM

by Atul Hatwal

Three moments of magic from the shadow cabinet

A few years ago, the newsreader Martyn Lewis made a plea for more positivity in the news. His Jerry Maguire moment was greeted as, well, Jerry Maguire’s was.

For Lewis, there wasn’t a redemptive ending; he wasn’t vindicated and every time he read the news subsequently, you couldn’t help but think he was a bit odd.

But somewhere in what he was saying, was a grain of something. Not quite common sense, because clearly no one is going to be interested in news that reports everything is just fine. But in his own slightly pompous and mistaken way, he was articulating a desire that most of us have for some light to provide a bit of contrast to the constant shade.

Politics is a dark place at the moment. The coverage reflects this. The sun isn’t shining for Labour and things are far from how they should be. But there are flashes of light. And it’s as important to recognise these as the mistakes which deepen the gloom. Otherwise there’s no basis for hope and no route back from opposition to power. (more…)

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How the Tories talk down consumer confidence

10/02/2011, 04:00:34 PM

by Richard Horton

There has been much talk in the business pages of a two speed economic recovery. A recovery that sees the economies of the developing world grow quickly while the developed world sluggishly heaves itself out of the remnants of the financial crisis. The long and painful rebalancing of a number of Europe’s economies, the UK’s included, is forecast. And yet life, or should that be economics, is not that straightforward. Within the developed world and especially within Europe, we are witnessing our very own two speed economic recovery.

Economists at ING Group describe how “a deep economic chasm” has formed between core euro-zone countries and the rest. The UK may well sit outside the euro-zone but that does not mean that it sits outside of Europe’s two speed economic recovery. At first glance, the GDP figures for the fourth quarter of 2010 may point to the UK being firmly rooted on the sluggish side of the European chasm. But what is more telling than GDP figures or manufacturing production numbers is consumer and business confidence.

Two weeks ago, the BBC reported the findings of a social research survey published by GfK NOP. The results showed how consumer confidence between December and January had plummeted by its largest monthly fall since 1994. UK consumers were not just more worried about their current financial situation compared to a year ago but they were also more concerned about the future of the economy compared to a year ago. In contrast, and on the other side of the European chasm, the same survey indicated that German consumer and business confidence had reached a four year high in January. (more…)

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A practical, popular, socialist policy on high pay

10/02/2011, 12:00:43 PM

by Dan Cooke

It does not seem unfair to suggest that Sir Peter Tapsell, first elected on the coat-tails of Harold Macmillan in 1959, is not an obvious candidate for Ed Miliband’s “new generation”. By the same token, this enduring embodiment of the squirarchy would not commonly be associated with notions of “levelling down”, the “politics of envy” or – in language less likely to be heard within the walls of the Carlton Club – action on excessive pay.

Yet in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Sir Peter – wittingly or otherwise – took the first major step in sketching out a meaningful prospectus for the high pay commission promised under a future Labour government. A prospectus that the Labour front bench has signally failed to provide so far.

In the Labour leadership contest, the proposed high pay commission was a signature issue for Ed Miliband: a sign that he would lead Labour away from the era when senior ministers were “seriously relaxed” about serious riches to a position where the party could take a stand against fat cat remuneration. When Ed said that the gap between rich and poor matters for all of society, and that excessive pay was a moral issue, it was not so much an applause line but a swoon line for many of his fans. (more…)

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Loneliness Kills

10/02/2011, 07:00:16 AM

by Peter Watt

Loneliness is bad for your health. In fact, loneliness kills. According to the world health organisation, loneliness is a higher risk to your health than lifelong smoking. If Beveridge set out to fight the “five giant evils” of ignorance, idleness, want, disease and squalor, then perhaps now is the time to tackle a sixth modern giant, loneliness, with the same vigour.

Last week saw the launch of a campaign that calls on individuals, the voluntary sector and national and local government to work together to end loneliness. Loneliness, according to the campaign to end loneliness, is:

“a psychological state, an emotional response to a perceived gap between the amount of personal contact an individual wants and the amount that they have”.

The group that is the most vulnerable is, of course, older people. The campaign marked the launch by publishing a report, safeguarding the convoy, that sets out the harsh reality for many older people: (more…)

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The death of our civilisation

09/02/2011, 01:43:26 PM

By David Seymour

It seems hard to believe, but this lot are worse than Thatcher. She thought there was no such thing as society and destroyed working-class communities to prove it. But she left intact most of the social structure of what the middle classes think of as British.

David Cameron says there is such a thing as society but he patently hasn’t got a clue what it is. I didn’t used to accept that his highly privileged upbringing – and those of most of his cabinet – meant he was divorced from reality, but I was wrong.

He has attacked such sacred cows that he has unleashed an extraordinary backlash from the middle classes who feel that crucial foundations of our civilisation are under threat. Listen to Radio Four’s You and Yours on the closure of libraries. Look at the people who have gone on demonstrations against the sell-off of forests. Consider why so many previously contented young people are taking to the streets. (more…)

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Sergeant Watson sends a postcard home from Barnsley

09/02/2011, 07:00:50 AM

by Tom Watson

I always find it amusing to be described as “Scottish” in the newspaper columns written by famous people I have never met. I think Jackie Ashley started the trend. Back in 2006 she described me as “burly, Scottish and a former engineering-union official….most people’s idea of the archetypal Brownite”. She was spot on, except that I am neither Scottish nor a former trade union official, though I did work in the political department of the AEEU and some may describe me as “burly”. Had she written, as Ann Treneman once did, that I was a “down market Billy Bunter” she would have been more accurate.

Actually Jackie, I’m a Yorkshire man. South Yorkshire. With heritage in mines and steel that stretches generations. That’s why it’s so great to be in Barnsley helping Dan Jarvis win for Labour.

I think there’s going to be a by-election here soon. And the climate here is a gift for the political campaigner. The people on the doorsteps are writing the slogans. “I want you to go to London and tell that David Cameron that I’m already sick of ‘im, me love”, said a kindly pensioner who voted Tory last May. (more…)

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Should Compass open its membership beyond Labour?

08/02/2011, 12:00:26 PM

by Ruth Lister

Compass is currently balloting its membership on the question of whether it should allow people who belong to political parties other than Labour to be full voting members. Not surprisingly, this move is controversial. It is, nevertheless, a move which I strongly believe Compass should take.

I’ve been involved with Compass since the word go, before it was formally established in 2004. Since then it has grown in both size and influence to an extent we could not have envisaged. I was recently co-opted on to the management committee. In many ways, I see it as my political home. And one reason why I feel so comfortable there is its non-partisan approach to politics. (more…)

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Why do we tolerate these preachers of hate? Because we are British.

08/02/2011, 07:00:22 AM

by Dan Hodges

Sitting in a Luton hotel room on Saturday, listening to members of the English Defence League chanting boastfully, and slightly implausibly, about how they had, “fucked all of Allah’s wives”, my thoughts drifted to the issue of multiculturalism. Being surrounded by a couple of thousand tanked up Islamaphobes can do that to you.

My musings were given structure by the words of David Cameron, delivered that morning to the Munich security conference. British prime ministers have a poor record of departing that particular German city with the security of their nation enhanced, and I perused his speech with some scepticism. Once I’d finished it, scepticism had changed to bewilderment.

There must be a reason why the queen’s first minister chose to deliver a speech on the perils of Islam on the day a significant number of her subjects descended on a town with a large Muslim population and malice in their hearts. It was just that at that moment, as the first beer bottles started to land, and the riot squad began to don their helmets, I couldn’t for the life of me think of one. (more…)

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