Not so bad

Hey, it could have been a lot worse:

The FTSE 100 fell more than 2% in early trade, and by the close was still down 133.22 points, or 1.97%, at 6,620.48.

As it is, we are merely back to where we were at the beginning of the year, as this graph demonstrates:

Furthermore, the recovery has already begun in Asian markets:

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 share index was up 0.36% at 20,181.55 points.

...

In Australia, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.25% at 5,436.10 after closing down more than 2% on Monday.

In South Korea, the benchmark Kospi was up 0.25% at 2,065.69 after suffering its biggest daily percentage fall since late May on Tuesday.

...

In Hong Kong, the benchmark Hang Seng index was in positive territory however, up 0.54% at 26,100.74.

So, reasons to be cheerful.

   

Quote of the day

From CityAM  (here):

Yes, the Greeks lied about their numbers to get into the Eurozone in the first place; but the creditor states didn’t much care. Yes, Athens should not have borrowed money like a drunken sailor, but German and French banks were more than happy to lend it to them. Yes, Greeks should not get to retire in their 50s with German-sized pensions (and without German productivity), but Greek economic fecklessness is hardly a new phenomenon Brussels was unaware of.

Finally, yes, Tsipras and his even more overrated finance minister Yanis Varoufakis are pathetically hiding behind their people in proposing a plebiscite on the creditor’s terms, rather than leading as statesmen ought to do. But the long commented-upon democratic deficit in EU institutions means such a cowardly strategy actually has some merit.

The bell is tolling for Tspiras and his Syriza party, who will surely squander the benefits of the upcoming devaluation of the new drachma relative to the euro in a series of Marxist fantasy policies, when what they ought to be doing is collecting taxes and launching structural reforms (which they will never do). Greece will become just another poor Balkan country; and that is a tragedy.

But the bell is not just tolling for the Marxist schoolboys in Athens. By failing to master a crisis that ought to have been dealt with ages ago (debt relief for structural reforms, anyone?), Europe has destroyed any claim it might have had to be the future; frankly, it now becomes an open question as to whether Europe has a future, as it surely has proven it simply cannot take effective decisions in a crisis.

Bad to worse

No fun being Greek.  The Guardian reports:

In a brief, televised address to the nation, Tsipras threw the blame onto the leaders of the eurozone. But he did not say how long the banks would remain shut, nor did he give details of how much individuals and companies would be allowed to withdraw once they reopened.

Greek banks will not open until July 7 in an attempt to avoid financial panic, after ECB capped the emergency funds keeping them running.  

It later emerged that the banks would be kept shut until after the referendum on 5 July and withdrawals from cash machines would be limited to €60 – about £40. Cash machines are not expected to reopen until Tuesday.

Greece’s finance ministry later announced that the strict withdrawal limits would not apply to holders of credit or debit cards issued in foreign countries.

How long, do you suppose, before the machines run out of notes?

Meanwhile, we can expect a bloody day on the markets:

Share prices began to plummet across Asia on Monday as hopes dwindled for a resolution to the Greek debt crisis.

Japan’s Nikkei stock average briefly fell by more than 500 points in early trading, while the euro dropped more than 3% to 133.80 yen, its lowest level for five weeks. The common currency fell as much as 1.9% to $1.0955, its lowest level in almost a month.

The Nikkei fell 2.1%, while MSCI’s broader index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 0.8%. US stock futures dived 1.8%, hitting a three-month low, while US Treasuries futures price gained almost two points.

More than $35bn was wiped off the Australian stock market in the first hour of trading on Monday as investors brace for an increasingly likely Greek exit from the eurozone.

The BBC has the latest exchange rate for the euro against the £ at 1.4267 (which means that my lunchtime pint in my Spanish local now costs me the equivalent of less than a £ - it's an ill wind that blaws naebody any guid),

EU solidarity?

Extraordinary report in The Observer of last week's European Summit:

Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, was incensed by the refusal of several countries, including Hungary, which has taken in 60,000 refugees since the beginning of the year, and the Czech Republic, to agree to take part in a compulsory refugee-sharing scheme to help ease Italy’s burden. Cameron kept fairly quiet. The UK has opted out of EU asylum policy and Renzi, who was in an emotional state, did not need to be reminded of its non-participation. But others took up the cudgels as the row intensified across the table. Dalia Grybauskaite, the Lithuanian president, told Renzi in no uncertain terms that her country would not take part either. Bulgaria, one of the EU’s poorest countries, took a similar line. Disputes flared. European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, prime mover behind the idea of compulsory burden sharing, and council president Donald Tusk tore strips off each other over what should be done, as inter-institutional solidarity broke down.

Angela Merkel said that the migration challenge was the most serious and difficult she had encountered in the EU during her time as German chancellor (Greece is also somewhat on her mind) as Renzi railed against fellow leaders for betraying the EU’s values. A voluntary scheme was all that was agreed. “Do as you like,” Renzi protested. “If this is your idea of Europe, keep it for yourself … you do not deserve to call yourself Europe. Either we have solidarity or we waste our time!”

These guys are not getting enough sleep.

 

Crunch time?

Is the Greek crisis nearing resolution?  I am beginning to doubt if there is a means by which the Greeks can avoid default.  And Tsipras' decision to hold a referendum next Sunday seems more like an act of defiance to throw in the teeth of EU finance ministers.

Meanwhile, Draghi and the ECB are between a rock and a hard place:

The ECB has been providing life support to Greece for months by supplying billions in liquidity to the Greek banks. If Draghi pulls the plug, he could be held responsible for potential riots on the streets of Athens and national unrest. If he keeps the funding channels open, he will be accused of acting illegally and overstepping his mandate by financing a eurozone government.

In all the circumstances, it is increasingly difficult to see how some kind of agreement could be patched together.

An apology to my Italian friends

Yes, I regret to say that it is part of Scottish culinary practice to bake macaroni in a pie.

And, yes, I am sorry to say that the decision by a fast food emporium to desist from selling this less than savoury amuse-bouche was greeted by a howl whimper of protest, to the extent that the matter was raised in parliament.

The only consolation in this sorry affair is that Greggs (for they are the business concerned) remain steadfast in their intention to banish the macaroni pie from their shelves.

You can read about it here.

   

Donald duck

Puerile schoolboy humour

Prime Minister's Questions, yesterday:

Dave just can’t help letting himself down, either with the failure of his internal logic – employers have been gagging to get rid of tax credits so they can increase salaries – or by being a sucker for a bad gag.

“You don’t want FFA, full fiscal autonomy,” he sniggered at the SNP’s Angus Robertson, “You want FFS, full fiscal shambles.” FFS! Dave had got FFS into Hansard. High fives and lols all round in Downing Street. Coming next week, WTF. Working Tax Fraud.

Pretty pathetic.

 

Dirty work at the crossroads?

Was Buck House being naughty?  Was it the old bait and switch routine?  The Guardian reports:

On Tuesday the official in charge of the Queen’s accounts, Sir Alan Reid, expressed his worries about the implications for the royal household of a decision to allow Holyrood to control nearly all crown estate assets in Scotland.

On Wednesday Reid, the keeper of the privy purse, issued an unreserved apology, saying that a briefing on royal accounts that he hosted was “never intended to be a criticism of Scotland or of the first minister or to suggest that the first minister had cast doubt on the continued funding of the monarchy”.

He said: “As we made clear at the briefing, Scotland contributes in many ways to the Treasury’s consolidated fund – out of which the sovereign grant is paid.

“We said explicitly that to imply Scotland would not pay for the monarchy was simply wrong and we accept unreservedly the assurances of the Scottish government that the sovereign grant will not be cut as a result of devolution of the crown estate.”

If the palace hoped to divert attention from the meagre sums given by Treasury to support the royal establishment or the disgraceful state of Buckingham Palace, they probably succeeded.  But someone twigged that they had gone too far  Hence the retraction?

   

Game theory

The London press remains obsessed with Nicola.  CityAM believes in a conspiracy theory:

,,, there are differences between Scotland and Greece. The Scots, for example, have shown themselves to be much more adept practitioners of the esoteric discipline of game theory. Yanis Varoufakis, former academic turned Greek finance minister, specialised in the subject. A sound knowledge of game theory can often be very useful. Chris Ferguson, for example, winner of no fewer than five World Series of Poker championships, teaches game theory at UCLA. The deluded Greek Trotskyist, however, seems to have convinced himself that his theoretical knowledge would give him a decisive advantage in the negotiations with the Troika of the IMF, the ECB and the European Commission. But he seems to have forgotten that the purpose of playing a game is to win.

...

Nicola Sturgeon and David Cameron have manoeuvred themselves into a lucrative strategy of co-operation. The game began during the election campaign. The SNP needed to destroy Labour in Scotland. They trumpeted their intention to help Ed Miliband get into Downing Street. The Conservatives seized on this and used the SNP bogeyman to frighten the voters in marginal seats in England.

The game goes on. Cameron needs to make some concessions to Sturgeon so she can boast about them to the Scottish electorate. But the SNP also needs to maintain a set of grievances, which is the party’s raison d’etre. Neither side actually wants to redress them, so that both continue to gain and keep Labour out. Practical politicians are often much better game players than so-called expert theorists.

Rather fanciful, I would suggest ...

 

Music of the week

Pedantry up with which we are prepared to put

At last. somebody has made a stand for proper grammar:

Michael Gove, the justice secretary, has issued his civil servants with detailed orders on using good grammar, two years after he circulated similar “golden rules” to officials in the Department for Education.

The senior cabinet minister has wasted little time since his appointment after the general election in telling his staff how he wants them to draft letters and briefing papers.

The instructions tell officials to write “make sure” instead of “ensure” and to avoid using the word “impact” as a verb. He is also unhappy with the use of contractions, such as “doesn’t”, and the deployment of “yet” and “however” at the beginning of sentences.

About time, too.  There's far too much slipshod writing around.  And things have been getting worse in recent years.  However, I don't suppose it'll make much of a difference ...

 

Quote of the day

Are we reaching the end of the line?  Or is a twelfth hour deal on the cards?  The Guardian speculates:

So what might the deal look like? The usual can-kicking exercise, in all likelihood. In Brussels, the talk is of Greece being prepared to offer some compromises on pensions and tax in exchange for enough money to meet its immediate needs, along with the promise of debt relief later provided it sticks to its reform programme. This would resolve little. Greece’s economy will continue to struggle, the government will go slow on reform, and its bailout money will be depleted. Tickets for the new autumn production of the drama will shortly be going on sale.

 

The Pilton-Moldova Connection

The biggest bank robbery in European history?  $1 billion nicked from three Moldovan banks?  With the involvement of limited partnerships based in an Edinburgh housing scheme (not usually noted as a centre of financial expertise)?

The BBC has part of the story:

According to the Kroll report, based on Moldovan National Bank records, the equivalent of $498m in loans was transferred to three Scottish limited partnerships.

All have partners registered in offshore tax-havens, and all allegedly deposited the money in a single bank in Latvia.

Meanwhile the collection rights to those loans - and to others made to companies registered in Northern Ireland and Hong Kong - are said by Kroll to have been acquired by another Scottish limited partnership - Fortuna United LP.

The total sum owed to Fortuna United is $1bn - equivalent to the complete proceeds of the alleged Moldovan bank fraud.

But, surprisingly, the partnership shares an address with 420 other companies - including 258 other limited partnerships - at a flat in Pilton, the district of north Edinburgh famous as the setting for "Trainspotting", the novel about heroin addicts.

Extraordinary stuff.  Where can I get hold of the movie rights?

 

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes

Down to the wire; The Guardian reports:

... the chances of a Greek default are now higher than they have ever been. The IMF called its negotiating team home from Brussels last week because the talks were going nowhere. Attempts to get them going again were abandoned on Sunday after less than an hour. The rhetoric has become angrier and angrier as positions have hardened.

Normally, the choreography that precedes a euro fudge would see the two sides edging closer together. The officials that prepare the ground for a deal would be piecing together 90% of the final agreement, leaving ministers the other 10% to haggle over on Thursday. That does not appear to be happening, which is why both sides are preparing for a default.

Can it be prevented? Yes, but it would either require the troika to moderate their key demands on pensions, tax and labour market reform, or for Tsipras to cross his red lines on the same issues. Neither looks likely.

Even so, it is difficult to believe that they will not cobble together some kind of agreement that will allow the can to be kicked a little further down the road.

   

Music of the week

La nostalgie de la boue:

Quote of the day

From The Spectator (here):

David Mundell, the somewhat improbable Secretary of State for Scotland, had at least one good line yesterday: “The SNP are asking for something they don’t really want, but of course they will complain if they don’t get it.”

     

Blackmail?

CityAM reports:

HSBC moved a step closer to leaving the UK yesterday, piling pressure on chancellor George Osborne to take action to persuade the bank to stay.

Chief executive Stuart Gulliver set out details of HSBC’s review of the location of its headquarters, looking at 11 different criteria, including taxes, the government’s attitude to finance, and the stability of the economy and regulatory environment.

I trust that Chancellor Osborne will tell them to bugger off if that's what they want to do.  Does HSBC really wish to entrust itself to the tender mercies of the New York regulatory authorities?  And a move to Hong Kong would bring it under the aegis of Beijing, hardly an improvement on London.  Furthermore, given their sanctions-busting, money-laundering, tax-avoiding history, who would want HSBC on their patch?

Better than expected

The way it's going to be

The Guardian's report of yesterday's debate on the Scotland Bill:

We’re giving you everything you want and more, Mundell [Secretary of State for Scotland] reiterated time and again. “We will be implementing the Smith Commission in full.” Scotland would be God’s paradise on Earth, a land of milk and heather where anything Holyrood wanted, it could have – except the bits it couldn’t.

For some reason, the SNP members were disinclined to take him at his word and frequently interrupted him. “Isn’t it the case that the bill would allow the UK parliament to veto anything Scotland did that it didn’t like?” asked Peter Wishart.

“Heavens no,” sobbed an utterly distraught Mundell. “The word veto is such an ugly word.” And he only wanted to speak in happy, fluffy words. “There is no veto. Just a right to disagree so strongly you can’t do it.”

Up stepped Alex Salmond. “The Scottish Daily Record argues that the proposals go nowhere near to implementing the Smith Commission,” he said. “They do, they do,” Mundell replied, “But even if they don’t, then that’s why we’re having the debate so you can make some amendments."

Difficult to imagine Mr Mundell sitting in cabinet.  He is the living proof of the Peter Principle.

 

Music of the week

Why the World Cup went anywhere other than England

The Sunday Times reports:

One thing has become very clear from the scandal engulfing Fifa. England is simply not punching its weight when it comes to handing out bribes. When we were bidding for the World Cup, the most our lot could manage was to bung the wives of the crooked and thick-as-mince delegates a few Mulberry handbags.

...

Our bribes were so half-hearted it makes you ashamed to be British.

I think he means English ...

   

Round and round the mulberry bush

The BBC's Peston casts an interesting light on the Greek demands for a bailout (my emphasis):

Greece desperately needs those few billions of euros to pay its maturing debts to... the IMF and the European Central Bank.

With 300m due to the IMF on Friday, and a further 1.3bn euros later this month, this has always been a row about book-keeping entries and the accounting treatment of debts.

It is a dispute about whether the eurozone's creditors will release funds so that they can pay themselves and avoid having to call Greece in default.

Or to put it another way, it is all about whether the IMF and eurozone can keep up the pretence that Greece is a sound and solvent debtor.

But doesn't it normally tell you something pretty important about those who owe you money when you have to lend to them so that they can keep up the payments to you?

History suggests that at some point the IMF, ECB and eurozone will have to recognise that Greece's 320bn euros of sovereign debts is a lot of spilled milk that will have to be cleaned up.

I rather doubt if our teutonic friends would see the matter as essentially about book-keepiong and accountancy.  For them, it is a question of moral hazard - the Greeks have been naughty and must be punished.  But, as Mr Peston points out, it is difficult to see a way out of the impasse without some element of debt forgiveness.

 

A bit late for me

Twenty years ago, I might have qualified.  The BBC reports:

Young women are getting into the "Dad Bod" - but some think it's a recipe for laziness - while others are calling for a celebration of the female equivalent.

When 19-year-old university student Mackenzie Pearson wrote an article extolling the virtues of the slightly out-of-shape man, the reaction was huge - tens of thousands have been chatting about it on Twitter and Facebook.

"In case you haven't noticed lately, girls are all about that dad bod,"she wrote. "The dad bod says, 'I go to the gym occasionally, but I also drink heavily on the weekends and enjoy eating eight slices of pizza at a time.'"

I fear that I have reached the stage of the grandad bod, which young women are most unlikely to "get into" ...

   

Getting a bit heated?

The Times reports:

Nigel Farage has become a “snarling, thin-skinned, aggressive” man who is making Ukip look like a “personality cult”, the party’s campaign director has claimed in a devastating attack.

Patrick O’Flynn, the party’s economics spokesman and one of its most senior MEPs, breaks cover today to warn that the Ukip leader’s recent behaviour risked depicting the party as an “absolute monarchy”.

In an interview with The Times, Mr O’Flynn lit a match under tensions within Ukip over Mr Farage and his closest advisers. He claimed that the party leader had in recent months moved away from being a “cheerful, ebullient, cheeky, daring” politician, and blamed Mr Farage’s team of “aggressive” and “inexperienced” aides.

...

Ukip has lurched through a series of calamities since polling day. Having made good on a promise to stand down as leader if he failed to win his own Westminster contest, Mr Farage was reinstated after three days because his party rejected his resignation.

Less than 24 hours later, Douglas Carswell, the party’s sole MP, clashed with allies of Mr Farage over £3.5 million of public money available to the party. He accused Ukip officials of seeking to claim more “Short money” than it needed. The party said last night that the two men had met to discuss the issue but had yet to reach agreement.

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people ...

   

Exciting headline of the day

From CityAM:

     What the election means for accountants

If you can resist the utter boredom, you can read the article here.  Aye, and don't mock.  Some poor soul had to write the damn thing.

 

Not necessarily the evil witches of the north

Surprisingly favourable comment from CityAM, not an organ which usually takes a sensible view on matters Scottish:

The City has well-developed relationships with Westminster’s established powerbrokers, but less experience working with Scottish nationalists. Some might feel concerned that a party with such populist support, which has won hearts and minds in traditionally working class, left wing areas, will now be so prominent in Westminster politics. 

And make no mistake, influential they will be. The SNP was already represented on the Treasury Select Committee and will now be seeking places on the Business, Energy, and Defence Committees among others.

So what exactly can the City expect?

First, the SNP group will not be a destructive force at Westminster, as some commentators have suggested. They may not believe in the institution they’ve been elected to, but under leader Nicola Sturgeon, her deputy Stewart Hosie MP, and Westminster leader Angus Robertson MP, they respect Parliament and will seek to play a constructive role in holding the government to account.

They recognise the need to be responsible and will speak to business to understand the matters of state they now have to scrutinise. The party’s Holyrood track record shows that it is keen to work with business in order to support economic growth, and so doors should be open both ways.

Second, the new caucus of SNP MPs contains some experienced businesspeople like former Deutsche Bank executive Ian Blackford and ex-Standard Lifer Michelle Thomson, while economist George Kerevan, lawyers Joanna Cherry QC and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, and of course former first minister Alex Salmond bring intellectual rigour. They, and others in the party, can be allies for business.

Salmond will inevitably be a major figure, possibly chairing a Select Committee such as Energy, which would meet his own political interests and would also give Scottish energy businesses a voice at Westminster, albeit not in government. But make no mistake. Sturgeon is the SNP leader, so overlook her at your own risk.

    

Quote of the day

Sour grapes (?) from Rawnsley in The Observer:

This government will not be popular for long. In fact, the Tories were not popular on polling day: 63% voted for someone else. The Tories are not liked, even by quite a lot of those who voted for them. Many did so only because they fancied the alternative even less. His fragile majority will be acutely vulnerable to rebellions, ambushes and blackmail by a handful or two of backbenchers. That will get worse when the majority is eroded as byelection losses take their toll. By announcing that he has fought his last general election, he has put a sell-by-date on his premiership.

A vanishing majority, dissipating authority, a lot of cuts to come and expensive promises to keep, a fractured kingdom and an EU referendum that will split the Conservative party asunder. David Cameron should savour his “sweet” victory while he can. History tells us that it will turn sour.

Music of the week

Quote of the day

From The Guardian (here):

... the last post rang out over Whitehall at 3pm to mark the 70th anniversary of VE Day. There they all were, lined up for a final encore. Nick and Ed had little trouble keeping their heads bowed in solemnity. Dave looked to his right and clocked the SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon.

But his biggest threat was standing just behind him. Boris Johnson is the one Tory who is not quite so thrilled by Dave’s success as the others. Boris hasn’t come back to Westminster just to run some two-bit government department. Dave looked pensive. Strange as it may seem, it was slowly dawning on him that winning an overall majority might just turn out to have been the easy bit.

   

Why the SNP won

Three less than wise monkeys - all three are pale, male and stale ...


   

It's not all bad ...

... but it's not particularly good.

Worth noting that the Tories are likely to end up with an absolute majority - but a wafer-thin one, with Labour and the SNP together forming a substantial anti-Tory bloc.

Cameron will need to keep his right wing in order, a far from easy task.  And the LibDems reduced to irrelevance, so a period of relative silence from Clegg will be welcome.

But still, a miserable night ...

 

Democracy, more or less ...

Philomena explains it all:

Forecasts

From The Spectator:

Latest seats forecasts

	Con	Lab	SNP	LD	Ukip	Oth
YouGov	272	276	52	24	3	23
Election Forecast	281	266	52	26	1	24
Electoral Calculus	282	275	52	18	1	22
Ladbrokes	279	265	53	26	3	24

Knife-edge!

   

I disagree with Nick

So Clegg thinks that a minority government would be unable to survive until Christmas.  The BBC reports:

The UK could be poised for a second general election by Christmas if either Labour or the Conservatives try to form a minority government after 7 May, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has warned.

He argued that only another "stable and strong" coalition involving his party could save the country from a re-run.

I would suggest that he is under-estimating the difficulty in actually triggering a general election in such circumstances.  According to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, there are only two ways to call a general election outside of the usual five year term.  First, the House of Commons votes by a two-thirds majority for there to be such an election; or, second, the House of Commons passes a motion of no confidence in the Government, and an alternative government cannot be established within two weeks thereafter.

Given the expected parliamentary arithmetic after Thursday, where neither the Conservatives nor Labour have an overall majority, it seems to me that the Conservatives and Labour would actually have to agree that neither of them should continue as a minority government before they could call a general election.  That is of course possible but seems improbable in the short term.

I don't see why a minority government of one colour or another should not limp along indefinitely.

   

Fashion update

See that Ancelotti.  His annual salary may be more than 7.5 million euros but he still wears the same old cardy to every match.

       

Subverting democracy

The New Statesman explains how it may happen:

The Tories declare victory if they have the most seats, regardless of the parliamentary arithmetic. Key supportive newspapers endorse this line and pressure is put on the broadcasters to follow suit. The Tories begin publicly reassembling their coalition with the Lib Dems within hours of the polls closing, despite knowing they have no majority in parliament, in order to cement the image that they remain the legitimate government.

In the run-up to the Queen’s Speech on 27 May – with David Cameron remaining as Prime Minister – the media campaign against the SNP will make the current onslaught look timid. Amid political uncertainty, a falling stock market and the value of  the pound are used to build an atmosphere of national emergency. A handful of right-wing Labour MPs – the likes of Rochdale’s Simon Danczuk, perhaps – are wheeled out on TV to echo the line of illegitimacy, helping to construct a narrative of growing Labour turmoil. Moves to depose Miliband are encouraged. The aim will be straightforward: to make it politically impossible for Labour to form a government even though left-of-centre parties have a parliamentary majority, and to pave the way for new elections against a backdrop of right-wing hysteria.

Not so implausible?

 

Photo of the day

H/t  Heather

Getting it on ...

Music of the week

Latest

Here it is:

According to the Guardian’s latest projection of polls, the Tories are projected to win 276 seats, Labour 267, the SNP 55, the Lib Dems 27, the DUP nine, Ukip three and the Greens are set to retain their one seat.

Both Cameron and Miliband would need the votes of other parties if they are to command the confidence of the House of Commons.

And as things stand, the arithmetic is to the advantage of Miliband.

This is because the sum of the “anti-Tory” bloc – those parties that have said they would vote a Tory government down – currently adds up to 329 seats: a majority. Tallying up all the possible sources of support for a Cameron-led government yields 315 votes.

Probably too close to call ...

 

Cutting off his nose to spite his face?

CityAM reports:

LABOUR leader Ed Miliband unequivocally ruled out a deal with the SNP last night, telling an audience in Leeds that he would rather give up the keys to Downing Street than team up with Nicola Sturgeon after 7 May.

“If it meant we weren’t going to be in government, not doing a coalition, not doing a deal, then so be it,” Miliband said in a live BBC Question Time election special. “I am not going to have a Labour government if it means deals or coalitions with the Scottish National Party.”

Really?  Rather the Tories back in Downing Street?  Or is he just saying it?

 

The ba' is on the slates

Hard to believe, I know, but the latest poll makes dire reading for Labour and the LibDems.  The Spectator sums it up:

Just when Scottish Labour didn’t think it could get any worse, a new poll suggests they are now facing total wipe out next Thursday. According to Ipsos MORI/STV News, the SNP is now up to 54 per cent of the vote share — up two points since their last poll in January. Punching these numbers intoElectoral Calculus suggests the Nats will win all 59 seats and wipe out the other parties. Another prediction website, ScotlandVotes, suggests that this vote share would leave one Liberal Democrat MP after polling day.

Bye bye Messrs Murphy and co?

   

Quote of the day

From the usually snarky Marina Hyde in The Guardian (here):

To South Queensferry, with the magnificent Forth bridges as a backdrop, where a small walkabout by Nicola Sturgeon passed off in what seems to be typical style. Builders shouted words of support from scaffolding. Babies were pulled from their pushchairs by their mothers, selfies with the Scottish National party leader abounded and she was presented with presents including a specially gift-wrapped scone and jam, a nice flowery jotter pad, some Scottish tablet and a model of the SNP logo which a boy had built out of Lego. It’s all somewhat … unusual.

...

Unlike the Westminster leaders, Sturgeon has walked endlessly among the voters, tweeted them back and appeared in their photos. It is as if the SNP medium has become the message.

In turn, that message becomes the movement. As the old showbiz saying goes: when you’re hot, you’re hot. If the Scottish Labour leader, Jim Murphy, were to walk along a balance beam in his stockinged feet, it would look like the desperate act of a man wobbling to obliteration. When Sturgeon does it, she’s walking the line, she’s holding her nerve, she’s acing the highwire. When you’re hot, you’re hot.

And yet another London journo has fallen under her spell ...


   

Irony

The Times reports:

David Cameron has told voters that they have “ten days to save the United Kingdom” in his strongest attack so far on the possibility of an Ed Miliband government supported by the Scottish National party.

Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, wants the “best for Scotland and the rest of the UK can go hang”, the prime minister said as he echoed stark warnings issued in the final days before the Scottish referendum seven months ago.

Of course, the one thing that would be certain to endanger the Union would be another Tory victory -leading to continued austerity and a British exit from the EU.

   

Sounds a bit forced

CityAM reports:

DAVID Cameron was in the City yesterday morning, and he bounded on to a stage to announce that he was “pumped up”. He was speaking to an audience of small business owners, trying to convince them that he is on their side – as well as trying to convince the broader electorate that he is passionate about what his party has to offer.

“If I’m getting lively about this, it’s because I feel bloody lively,” he bellowed. Frankly, it was all a bit much for first thing on a Monday morning.

The question was raised as to what our pumped up PM had eaten for breakfast. Porridge, it turned out, not three shredded wheat. (They’ve got him into trouble before when speaking about how many terms he might serve as PM. Not three, anyway).

Not really Cameron, is it?  They always make fools of themselves when trying to be something they're not.

   

Quote of the day

From The Times (here):

The more you hear about them, the harder it is to like them. Quite what the agenda is when HSBC’s bankers are threatening to quit the UK is not immediately obvious: a dislike of an EU referendum, the Labour party, paying their dues?

In this post-financial crisis world it is easy to forget that the bank levies are not being foisted on the likes of HSBC by a mad bunch of Bennite lefties but by a Conservative chancellor trying to repair the deficit. What part of “all in this together” does HSBC not get?

But if they wish to trust their future to the regulators in Hong Kong, supervised - however distantly - by the communist authorities in Beijing, then hell mend them ...

Re-writing history

Remarkably (but perhaps not surprisingly), the BBC manages to produce an entire article on the Gallipoli remembrance event without ever mentioning that it was Winston Churchill's idea.  An idea that he pushed for and which went terribly wrong.

The Guardian acknowledges as much:

The Gallipoli campaign, badly planned and appallingly executed, was conceived by Winston Churchill, the ambitious First Lord of the Admiralty, in early 1915, with the war on the western front in deadlock. 

   

Compare and contrast

Cameron in a cowshed, mobbed by a myriad of supporters:

The same event, seen from a more distant perspective:

Not quite so impressive ...

     

Music of the week

Lyrics here

Quote of the day 2

More from The Guardian:

If everything hinges on Cameron’s popularity and Miliband’s improbability, something is shifting. Cameron grows more distant as Miliband becomes more familiar. Though neither of them radiate competence in the way that Nicola Sturgeon does.

The temper tantrums are beginning. No one, Labour or Tory, seems to be able to accept that people in Scotland will vote for the party they want to represent them, and they continue to portray democracy in action as an actual threat to democracy. Tories and Lib Dems are preparing to challenge a Labour-SNP alliance as unconstitutional. That will be chaos. By claiming such a state of affairs to be illegitimate they are pushing Scotland to vote yes in any future referendum.

This Tory panic, though, is real. The two parties are broken. The re-emergence of Major reminds us that it is 23 years since the Conservatives got a majority and they may never do again. We will see a terrible scurrying about behind closed doors after this election, further locking out the voters. And the man who was prime minister just because he could be will have to show some passion beyond disdain for democracy. By then, though, it may be too late to activate the reluctant Cameron, who now appears little more than a political spambot.

No, I don't know what is a spambot, but I doubt if it is a compliment ...
 
 

Quote of the day

The Guardian is complaining about Cameron's self-imposed isolation from real people:

A couple of days ago it was thought that a Google Streetview camera had managed to capture a historic image of the PM having an unstaged encounter with a voter, but it turned out to be just the Loch Ness monster.

Of all the unedifying sights I’ve seen so far this campaign, the sorriest has to be Cameron’s entourage forming a protective huddle round him on a busy platform at Bedford station on Wednesday morning, while the prime minister’s eyes darted nervously about, wondering where his late-running train was.

   

Yorkshire calypso (or something)

h/t Paul

Must be love

The British political press appears obsessed with a woman who is not actually standing for election to the British parliament.  Here, for example, are the headlines on four separate articles in today's Guardian:

Nicola Sturgeon challenged on spending plans as SNP backs Labour on tax

SNP's Nicola Sturgeon admits she is a Borgen fan

Nicola Sturgeon is in majestic form on the campaign trail in Edinburgh

Sturgeon facemasks can't hide flaws in Tories' Scottish policy

Even the cartoonists are  getting in on the act:

Steve Bell on the Scottish National party – cartoon