Do they know what they're doing?

Obviously not.  CityAM reports:

It is astonishing how quickly policy-makers have been performing U-turns, and then U-U-turns on all of this. During the bubble, the establishment was absurdly relaxed about high loan to value mortgages, including some at well over 100 per cent; they were equally happy with people who borrowed many times their income. Then came the financial crisis, and the inevitable backlash. The regulations were changed and banks were forced to hold much more capital, drastically reducing their incentive to extend mortgages with low or no deposits. Their own beefed-up risk assessment systems also made them much more reluctant to lend out too much on the back of uncertain collateral, especially when house prices were still falling.

But the government gradually began to realise what it had done, and panicked. It started shouting at the banks, and when that didn’t work launched a number of initiatives to subsidise credit, including with help to buy. Its right hand sought to undo the impact of the regulatory changes that its left hand had pushed through; it was the very opposite of joined-up government.

All seemed well for a while – until the government started to panic again. House prices were rising too fast. The two main state-backed banks suddenly pushed through a maximum loan to earnings cap of four times on homes worth £500k or more. But the real U-U-U-turn came last night, with Osborne giving the Bank of England the power to cap loans, even though the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street had previously said that it didn’t actually want to be given such authority.

Government by lurch, over-correction, then back to lurch.

FIFA

Cameron's dream

The Telegraph reports:

For the first time in his political life, Dave had a sense of “the vision thing”. People accused him of lacking inspiration. He was pretty good at seeming like an affable, reasonably competent sort of chap. But he’d never had a dream that would inspire the average man or woman in the street.

Now, though, he was on to something. Three times in the past, Tory prime ministers had delivered an entire continent from the yoke of tyranny. Lord Liverpool had saved Europe from Napoleon. Churchill had saved Europe from Hitler. Now he, Dave, would save Europe from Juncker.

He would stand up before the British people and say, “I won’t allow this federalist nonentity from Luxembourg to condemn us to standardised bananas and vast hordes of invading Bulgarians. I will argue for a marginally reformed Europe that still lets Germany call the shots, while giving us a few meaningless opt-outs that the French don’t object to.”

“And if that’s not a dream,” he thought, “I don’t know what is.”

Sad but true.

Quote of the day

From The Guardian (here):

IMF head Christine Lagarde ruled herself out of the race for the presidency of the European Commission. Here is her response in full.

"I'm not a candidate and the reason I'm not a candidate is that I have a job. It's a job that I happen to think is rather important at the moment, which the United Kingdom was kind enough to support me for at the time, which I have to do and which I intend to complete. 

As my young son would have said: 'Mum when you start something you've got to finish the job'.

Sensible woman.

Rockall

Rockall, a hitherto uninhabited island in the Atlantic some 300 miles west of Scotland, has been occupied by an Englishman.  Ownership of the rock is a matter of dispute among the UK, Ireland and Denmark (on behalf of the Faeroes),

But, according to the Island of Rockall Act 1972, it is a part of Scotland (specifically, part of Inverness-shire).  Accordingly, if Scotland were to gain its independence, it could be the start of a Scottish Empire.

Does it matter?  Probably not.  According to the UN Law of the Sea, the rights to economic exploitation of the seas around uninhabited islands are severely limited.

The Gracious Address

The Guardian sums up the Queen's Speech:

So, what have the undynamic duo Cameron and Clegg got planned for us? Hold on to your hat!

Hat held. Changes to pension annuities!

The ones that were announced in the Budget? Yes.

Three months ago? In March? Yes. And alterations to the funding of workplace pensions.

Anything besides changes to bloody pensions? A new state-funded childcare subsidy replacing the existing employer-subsidised scheme.

Ah, does it benefit poorer households? No.

So nothing new there. What else? Reforms! To speed up infrastructure projects, including measures to allow fracking firms to run pipelines on private land without prior permission.

I'm still not overwhelmed by the novelty. Five pence charges for carrier bags in shops?

As announced at last year's Lib Dem conference? Do you see where I'm going with this? No. Also: "This Queen's speech is unashamedly pro-work, pro-business and pro-aspiration." Cameron said so.

As opposed to all those other speeches that are anti-work, anti-business and pro-groping about in gutters? Gosh, yes, that is new. You see? All is well. All is well.

No wonder a pageboy fainted.

Music of the week

My critics have suggested that I am an irredeemably soppy old romantic.  They are probably right.

Jumping the gun

The Independent appears to think that it will be straightforward:

The Scottish referendum in September. This is possibly the most important event of Cameron’s time as Prime Minister. The official campaign, during which spending limits apply, started on Friday. All politicians say that there is no room for complacency. This invites the question: why does complacency take up so much space? You might have thought that neurotic anxiety about imminent defeat would need a clear area for pacing up and down. Still, I am not a politician, and my complacency is quite compact: I think Scotland will vote to stay in the United Kingdom.

If so, that would be a great vindication for Cameron. He will be recognised as an astute judge of high politics, which he hasn’t always been. This is not the place to list all his errors, but he got the initial response to the banking crisis wrong; he allowed Nick Clegg to sabotage the boundary changes that would have equalised constituencies; and he cut the top rate of income tax, fatally undermining the Government’s “all in it together” rhetoric.

But if Scotland votes to stay in the UK, all that will fade a little against the brilliance of his triumph. His assessment that he could not be seen to stand in the way of the Scottish people will, after the event, be regarded as obviously right. I do not see how any prime minister could have refused to allow the referendum to take place, but a different one might have tried to delay it or to impose conditions. Cameron seems to me – although what do I know? I’m Scottish but I don’t live in Scotland – to have handled it exactly right. His tone has been respectful, statesmanlike and reasonable.

Aye, vindication would be a wondrous thing.  But what if the yes vote carries the day?  Then it will be goodnight sweet prince.  And, even more probably, what if the no vote sneaks home by only a whisker?  Then the prospect of neverendum looms.

In the circumstances, it might be wise to avoid counting chickens ...

At last

So the Edinburgh trams are finally up and running:



I see that my senior citizen's buspass will allow me free travel on the trams - so doubtless the early months will provide endless opportunities for me and my fellow oldies to have a hurl.

It would be churlish to dwell upon the cost of the system.

 

A new euphemism

The Guardian reports:

Nick Clegg is facing a fresh dilemma over whether to kick Lord Rennard out of the Liberal Democrats after the peer apologised for possibly encroaching on the personal space of four female activists.

...

The statement said Rennard recognised that he may have encroached upon "personal space" and would "therefore like to apologise sincerely for any such intrusion and assure them that this would have been inadvertent"

And thus, allegedly, he was an inadvertent personal space encroacher, rather than a common-or-garden creep.

   

.

Who knew?

It may not add much to the sound and fury surrounding the independence referendum but some of us are learning about the Scottish economy.  For example, The Guardian points out that Scottish GNI is rather less than Scottish GDP:

By the GDP measure, Scottish government data gives every Scottish citizen an amount of $39,600 per head. As Salmond argues, that puts Scotland comfortably ahead of the UK in the OECD rankings – the UK comes 17th at $34,800 per head - and above other major economies such as France and Japan, based on 2012 figures. But that ranking has been challenged by the study by University of Glasgow economists John McLaren and Jo Armstrong. Drawing on their previous work at the Centre for Public Policy for Regions, they confirm that the wealth actually held in Scotland – its national income – is lower, and that makes a significant difference to Scotland’s rankings and standard of living.

Using gross national income (GNI) – a more accurate measure of wealth, which assesses the money kept inside a country, rather than GDP, which measures overall economic output – Scotland’s actual wealth per head slips by $2,000 to $37,400. However, it falls by about $5,000 to $34,600 using a more robust alternative measure, as applied by McLaren and Armstrong, whose methodology includes discounting the profits and share dividends earned by foreign companies. Scotland is a prosperous country, with significant natural resources and industries, but the high level of external ownership in key industries has reduced the wealth held in Scottish hands. That means that while Scotland’s GDP was £144.7bn in 2012, its GNI, using the lower alternative measure, was £125.5bn.

Not likely to grab hearts and minds, but interesting, I think?

 

Manna from heaven ...

... at least for the SNP.  The Financial Times reports:

Ministers in London have misled Scottish voters over how much it would cost to set up an independent government in Edinburgh, according to the man whose analysis underpins the Treasury’s case for Scotland remaining in the UK.

Patrick Dunleavy, politics professor at the London School of Economics, told the Financial Times the Treasury had manipulated his research to make the one-off costs of setting up a new government look ten times larger than they were likely to be.

His claims undermine part of the Treasury’s case for staying in the union, a day before Danny Alexander, the Treasury chief secretary, is due to unveil his final estimate of how much independence could cost Scottish taxpayers.

Prof Dunleavy said: “The Treasury’s figures are bizarrely inaccurate. I don’t see why the Scottish government couldn’t do this for a very small amount of money.”

Is it so difficult for the Westminster government to produce realistic estimates and to avoid scaremongering?  They are letting the side down for those of us who would prefer Scotland to remain part of the UK.

It's no' so bad

A couple of glasses of Mahou (at £1.20 a pint) on the sunlit terrace of my local dispelled my early morning dyspepsia, while the aerial ballet of the swifts - wheeling, plunging, screaming, cavorting - against a deep blue sky lightened my soul.

But still,  UKIP?  The sassenachs know no better.  But how can one in ten of my compatriots put his trust in these charlatans?

 

Oh woe, thrice woe ...

What a depressing weekend:  Hibs were relegated, UKIP won a seat in Scotland after winning 10% of the vote, and SAGA made an inauspicious start to its stock market launch.

He's not really xenophobic?

Worse things happen at sea

Look, it could have happened to anyone (or at least to anyone daft enough to separate the organisation running the trains from the organisation responsible for the track and stations).  But The Guardian has to make a song and dance about it:

Name: Le Train

Age: Very new.

Appearance: At a standstill.

Le train. Let me guess – French trains are in the news? Quel cleverness, mon petit chou! Yes, they are.

Et pourquoi? Because the French train company SNCF just took delivery of the 2,000 new trains it ordered at a cost of £12.1bn and discovered that they are too wide for more than 1,000 regional stations.

Merde! How did that happen? Apparently the national rail operator RFF gave SNCF the wrong dimensions.

Me, I blame the fat controller.  C'est magnifique mais ce n'est pas le chemin de fer.

Nice work if you can get it

The Guardian reports:

Royal Bank of Scotland has handed its new finance director almost £2m in shares on his first day in the job at the bailed out bank.

Ewen Stevenson was awarded 584,506 shares, which will be released to him over three years to buy him out of pay deals he left behind at his previous employer, Credit Suisse.

He is on an annual package worth £1.9m a year, made up of an £800,000 salary, £280,000 in pension contributions, £26,250 in benefits and £800,000 in "allowances", a vehicle used by banks to get round the EU bonus cap.

Because he's worth it?


 

Atletico Madrid 1 Barcelona 1

The gangster does it again.  The multi-millionaires of Barca fail to stop Atleti from securing the title.  And so La Liga falls to the unsung, the impoverished, the under-rated Atletico Madrid.

Music of the week

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt

Investment for wrinklies

Useful advice:


But it won't prevent me from seeking to buy the shares.

Quote of the day

The Guardian summarises the content of the new movie about Princess Grace of Monaco:

"Should she return to her selfish, shallow life in Hollywood or build a new shallow, selfish life in Monte Carlo?"

 

Panic stations

CityAM reports:

TWO POLLS don’t make a trend. But something seems to be going on in British politics right now, and it’s not good news for the Labour party. For the past two years, opinion polls have consistently put the Tories behind Labour – until yesterday, when not one but two polls gave David Cameron’s party a lead for the first time since 2012.

First came a poll by Lord Ashcroft which put the Tories on 34 per cent, Labour on 32 per cent, Ukip on 15 per cent and the Lib Dems on 9 per cent. Then came an ICM/Guardian poll: it put the Conservatives on 33 per cent, Labour on 31 per cent, Ukip on 15 per cent and the Lib Dems on 13 per cent.

It is certainly not good news for Labour.  Nor is it good news for those who want Scotland to remain part of the UK.  The prospects of another five years of Tory rule in the UK will drive voters into the Yes camp for the independence referendum.


   

Quote of the day

From The Guardian (here):

Michael Gove is a man who would find it difficult to walk past a fire without pouring petrol on it. A man who has repeatedly and rigorously questioned the brilliance of his own ideas and found – much to his delight – that he and they are every bit as brilliant as he first thought. A man whose instinctive reaction to any challenge is to come out fighting.

...

Some Labour MPs made the mistake of referring to free schools as a vanity project. For Gove this is a compliment. He may not have a lot to be personally vain about, but he is assiduous in cultivating those few areas where vanity is possible. He is a dandy manqué. A showman. His clothes, his theatrical delivery, even his policies are expressions of his personality. Vanity. All is vanity.

   

Look, they have to write about something

The Telegraph again.  This time it's dwelling in fantasy land:

England must not win the football World Cup. For the sake of the Union and its survival, defeat for England in Brazil is imperative.

England winning would rescue Alex Salmond, who is, despite all his grinning and bluster, behind in the independence campaign. A World Cup win – with the London-based sporting media going nuts demanding a dukedom for Stephen Gerrard and banging on about football coming home, the boys of 1966 and all that – would be guaranteed to infuriate the Scots and swing it for the Nationalists.

If I were the bold Alex, I would not allow my hopes to be raised over much.  Still, it's an entertaining thought to consider that, for once, the nationalists might be supporting England's efforts at the World Cup.

Punctuation

You don't expect a sentence like this to be published on The Telegraph website, but there it is - in all its illiterate glory:

Footballers have refused to wear it's logo on their shirts; a recent twitter campaign accused the firm of wanting to own their customers’s souls.

There are just no standards any more ...

The power of public opinion?

You know that feeling when you've opened up a can of worms?  You just wish you had never started it in the first place.  The Pfizer boss must be feeling that way this morning.  Sure, he may still win, but it is likely to be a pyrrhic victory.  The Guardian reports:

Ignore, for the moment, the rights and wrongs of Pfizer's attempt to buyAstraZeneca. This column's view was made clear last week: the US group is untrustworthy, its proposal rests on a dubious tax arbitrage and UK interests are threatened. In short, the deal stinks. But will it happen?

A hard-headed assessment a week ago might have put the probability at 90%. Might prevails nine times out of 10, even when national tempers are inflamed.

...

A week on, though, the story looks less simple. Cameron and his cabinet are suddenly all over the place. The prime minister now declares himself "not satisfied" with the assurances and wants more. Business secretary Vince Cable talks vaguely about a public interest test. Meanwhile, Labour leader Ed Miliband has woken up, understood there is a threat to UK science and is arguing (rightly) for just such a public interest investigation.

The scientists are up in arms. Sir David Barnes, former AstraZeneca boss, caught the mood best when he called Pfizer a "praying mantis" on account of its grim record of cutting research and development after acquisitions. Sir Richard Sykes, former GlaxoSmithKline boss, cuts a lonely figure as a supporter of the bid. Swedish politicians talk bitterly about Pfizer's broken promises after buying Pharmacia.

US politicians are also unhappy as they contemplate the threat to the US tax system if companies follow Pfizer's plan to move its tax domicile to the UK via a so-called "inversion". The US rules allow such a soft-shoe shuffle on tax if shareholders in the non-US company end up with at least 20% of the new entity. Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate finance committee, wants to raise the bar to 50% immediately. "Corporations must understand that they won't profit from abandoning the US," he wrote in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. The tax inversion, though, is a "key driver" of Read's pitch to AstraZeneca.

But Read's biggest problem is the apparent lack of enthusiasm for the adventure among his own shareholders. By mid-afternoon on Friday, Pfizer's shares had fallen 7% since the proposal was published, meaning its £50 offer in cash and paper was now worth a shade under £48.

It's a tangled web alright.  And all of the main players seem more or less out of their depth.

 

Music of the week

Nice lady with big hair and fiddle - what's not to like?

Well yes but ...

In some ways, it is amazing that the possibility of the unionists losing the independence referendum is even being contemplated.  The Daily Mail reports:

David Cameron has insisted he will not resign if Scotland votes for independence despite warnings from senior Tories that a ‘yes’ vote will plunge his premiership into unprecedented crisis.

The Prime Minister has told friends he has ‘no intention’ of quitting if the Scots vote for independence in the referendum he agreed with Alex Salmond.

Some senior Conservatives believe that Mr Cameron will face a clamour to quit if he is Prime Minister who presides over the loss of the 300-year-old Union.

‘If Scotland goes it is going to be very difficult. He might have had little choice but if you are the Prime Minister that calls [Scottish First Minister Alex] Salmond’s bluff and loses, it’s unthinkable,’ said one.

As I have hinted before, I rather suspect that, if yes wins, all hell will break loose.  It is not beyond rational thought that the present (UK) coalition government might be replaced by a cross party alliance to deal with the crisis, with next year's general election postponed.  The Tories and LibDems, having lost the confidence of the nation (however it may be defined), would be in no condition to negotiate the terms of the impending divorce.  And the prospect of a UK-wide general election, leading to either a Labour government dependent on Scottish Labour MPs or a Tory government unable to command a majority in the Commons, is unlikely to clarify matters.

I find it difficult to believe but, just to maximise the possible disruption, the present coalition is apparently refusing to undertake any contingency planning ...

   

Going pear-shaped

You can bet that, when The Daily Mail puts on the tackety boots, the Government is in deep doo-doo:

The naivety of the Cameron government in accepting the promises of asset-stripping U.S. drugs giant Pfizer in its effort to take over Britain’s AstraZeneca is breathtaking.

At this early stage in a bid battle, before a formal offer has been posted to shareholders, it is outrageous that the Government and Whitehall should think they have a role in smoothing the way for a deal.

If, as Chancellor George Osborne has said, big mergers with overseas firms should be settled ‘on commercial grounds’ and by the markets, then the Government should keep its nose out of such matters. 

What it certainly should not be doing is giving an overseas predator - which in the recent past pulled thousands of jobs out of Britain - open access to government ministers so it can forge private deals out of sight of investors.

Sickening

Labour leader Ed Miliband —who has accused the Government of acting as a ‘cheerleader’ for Pfizer’s £63 billion offer for AstraZeneca - has, for once, struck the right note.

Yes, his comments may be sheer hypocrisy since it was under Labour that great swathes of British commerce (including four of the big six energy groups) were abandoned to overseas control.

But the sight of the Government grovelling to an overseas corporation, seeking to merge with one of our most highly successful science-based companies, is little short of sickening.Conservative justification for supporting what would be the biggest foreign takeover of a British company is, to my mind, based on short-sighted political point-scoring.

A little over the top, perhaps; but the point is taken.

Viva Espana

The gangster

defeats the special one

Music of the week

Cos it's magnificent:

Nothing should stand in the way of the City making money?

Yet another beacon of British industry faces foreign takeover and what is the City's main interest?

CITY investment banks could be in line for a $240m (£143m) jackpot after America’s biggest drug company confirmed it had reignited bid talks with its UK rival, opening the door for the largest ever foreign takeover of a British company.

Pfizer, which makes drugs like Viagra and Centrum, unveiled an audacious bid to buy AstraZeneca, in a deal that could cost more than $100bn (£65bn).

The deal is the latest in a string of buyouts in pharmaceuticals, with reports emerging last night that botox-maker Allergan could be ready to bid for UK-listed Shire. Allergan itself is the target of a $46bn hostile offer from Valeant and activist investor Bill Ackman, and may seek a tie-up with Shire to fend off its suitors.

Seven banks on the Pfizer-AstraZeneca deal, including Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, are set to pocket between $200m and $240m if it gets over the line, according to Thomson Reuters, adding to the swelling pot of M&A fees collected on pharma deals so far this year. A record $190bn of tie-ups are now on the table, including GlaxoSmithKline’s deal with Novartis announced last week.

And God forbid that UK politicians should interfere with the City's craving for fillthy lucre:

Politicians should only intervene in takeovers if they threaten national security. North Koreans should not be allowed to buy a UK nuclear power station. But such instances are extremely rare; in all other cases, shareholders should have the right to do as they wish with their assets, and that includes being allowed to sell them to whoever is willing to pay the highest price.

Shareholders make lots of mistakes, as do executives. But they make fewer than politicians whenever they attempt to run companies. It’s about incentives (shareholders’ and bosses’ are better aligned to the pursuit of economic efficiency), knowledge (information and know-how is dispersed and better harnessed by markets than planners) and creative destruction (markets encourage it, politicians seek to discourage it, slowing down change, progress and growth).

Never mind about the longer term impact on jobs or on the UK's capacity for R and D.  Grab the money and run.  Jam today and forget about tomorrow.

 

Being nasty about Cornwall

The Guardian twists the knife:

Five months from now it's possible that Scotland will pack up and ship off – if only to spite John Barrowman, in which case good for them – and then last week Cornwall was granted official minority status as well. If the edges of the country keep being shaved away like this, there's every chance that Britain will soon exclusively consist of David Cameron and Prince George bickering on the roof of a Waitrose in Thame as they listlessly fend off the broken-toothed savages of Aylesbury and Bicester with a sharpened broomstick.

If I sound a little depressed, it's because I am. Call me naive but, by and large, I believe in the power of union. Not in an aggressive "Hello brown people, you work for us now" British empire way, but more of a self-determinist Star Trek Federation way, where everybody moves as a single unit to advance society (while killing all the dirty Romulans for having weird skin and talking funny). I'd like to think that Britain, and Europe, and everyone else, can achieve more by pulling together than by erecting barriers.

But make no mistake, I only think like this because I'm jealous. If I came from an area as well-defined as Scotland or Cornwall, maybe I'd want to go it alone too. When you think of either region, you're immediately presented with its defining image. Scotland, full of beautiful countryside and majestic red deer. Cornwall, full of rich arseholes from Islington called Sebastian who've got crap ginger dreadlocks and septic wounds where their nasal piercings used to be. Scotland and Cornwall have strong, proud, established identities that are distinct enough to encourage independence.

   

Getting interesting?

The Independent reports:

Downing Street last night refused to comment on mounting speculation that David Cameron would be forced to resign if Scotland votes for independence in September.

Very wise.  If Scottish voters knew that a yes vote might topple Cameron, then rather more of them might vote yes than would otherwise be the case.


 

The intolerable questioning the unbearable about the utterly trivial

Syntactic structures

Noam says YES!  Although his actual utterance may be subject to linguistic intterpretation.  Is there a deep structure there?

It wasn't only the anarcho-syndicalists who got excited. In lending his support to Scottish independence, Noam Chomsky generated a palpable buzz among yes activists: "Noam" even started to trend among Glasgow's twitterati.

"My intuition favours independence," Chomsky told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, adding that he had "been following the debate with interest". But that, apparently, was the limit of his contribution. Voters looking for further nuance might have been left a little underwhelmed, not least by the expectation that world-famous analytic philosophers tend not to rely on anything as touchy feely as intuition. 

A muddle or a guddle?

Whatever.  Either way, the CBI is all over the shop:

British business lobby the CBI has petitioned the Electoral Commission to cancel its registration as an official supporter of the no campaign in theScottish independence referendum.

The sudden switch in policy came after more than a dozen organisations, including major universities such as Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee, government agencies in Scotland and the broadcasters STV and BBC, resigned from the CBI to protect their neutrality in the independence debate.

The CBI had registered as a supporter of the no campaign, allowing it to spend up to £150,000 before September's referendum, on legal advice because it planned to make clear that it opposed independence at its official events and functions.

It has now promised the Electoral Commission it will not take an active role in the referendum – a move likely to be seen as a blow to the no campaign and a boost for independence campaigners.

Surprising really.  Iain McMillan, the canny boss of the CBI in Scotland, would surely have handled matters much more carefully than the London HQ.


   

Them and us

Oh yes, the banks get it in the neck, once again.  The Guardian reports on Barclays annual general meeting when the shareholders get to hold the directors' feet to the fire:

The annual general meeting is the only day the Haves are obliged to meet the Have-A-Lot-Lesses. It's what passes for accountability in the boardroom but is, in reality, more of a futile gesture because all of the important issues – the reappointment of directors and their remuneration – have been stitched up well before the AGM by the proxy votes of the large financial institutions who hold most of the shares. Those who complain about trade union block votes have never been to an AGM.

Still, the chimera of democracy has to be seen to be done and even if the small shareholders don't have any actual influence they do get a couple of hours to let the directors know exactly what they think of them and the directors are obliged to suck it up. Some do it with a forced smile, others with a scowl and Mike Ashley, who was seated closest to the wings, did it by pretending to be dead. He didn't move or blink throughout.

And there was a lot of sucking to be done. If it's bad enough that Barclays is a bank and everyone hates banks, what's really intolerable to many of its investors is that it's a fairly rubbish bank: its profits are down by 32%, its share price has fallen, it's been shamed by the Libor-rigging scandal, it's been forced into a £6bn rights issue to raise capital and has paid its staff more in bonuses than it has to its shareholders in dividends.

And after it all:

The riff-raff headed for the free sandwiches in the lobby. The directors made for the stage door where a fleet of shiny chauffeur-driven Mercs was waiting.

Good old-fashioned hammering of the privileged.

Heaven knows I'm miserable now

The Independent reports:

Quitting the daily grind for a new life on the Costa del Sol might seem a tempting option. But Britons who chase the sun and migrate to the Mediterranean are actually less happy than if they had stayed at home, an academic study has found.

Almost 3,000 Britons move abroad each week, with around five million now living outside the UK.

However our inability to adapt to the language and culture of these sunkissed new homes means the search for a better lifestyle has made British migrants unhappier.

Aye, sure enough, it's a hard life here on the Costa del Sol.  All that sunshine, the cheap booze and fags, the lower cost of living, the good food.  I don't know why I put up with it.

 

La chute

I do not usually feel sorry for sacked football managers but the vilification poured over Mr Moyes seems excessive.  While his fall may be cushioned by a reported £5 million pay-off, the damage to his reputation seems likely to be long-lasting.

And, at the end of the day (to indulge myself in a favoured football cliche), it is harsh for one man alone to carry the burden of failure, especially when that man appears to have behaved decently and responsibly, without resorting to the antics of certain of his peers.

It is easy to forget that even football managers are just people.  People with families, people with lives set between humdrum tedium and quiet desperation.

Football - not such a beautiful game ...

 

Don't spend it all in one shop

At last, the growth in wages exceeds inflation.  Well, maybe:

There was good news for British households as wage growth finally started to outpace inflation after years of falling living standards, and unemployment fell to its lowest level in five years.

Annual pay growth including bonuses rose to 1.9% in February, above the 1.7% inflation rate in the same month.

Over the three months to February, pay rose by 1.7%, just ahead of the March inflation rate of 1.6% published by the ONS on Tuesday.

So you may have an extra penny or two to spare.  Provided of course that you are an average earner (which you probably are not) and that your spending exactly matches the basket of goods against which inflation is measured (which it probably does not).  Oh, and bear in mind that the above inflation figures do not take account of housing costs.

Still, rejoice - if you can.

Kinda pointless

Scaremongering?  Maybe not, but of no real value.  CityAM records:

AN INDEPENDENT Scotland would have the second highest fiscal deficit of all the world’s advanced economies in its first year, new analysis by the Treasury has calculated.

Only the US would have a deficit that, as a proportion of GDP, was higher than in Scotland.The new nation would be hit with a £9.5bn or £1,760 per head deficit in 2016-17, according to Treasury officials using International Monetary Fund figures. This is over £1,000 per head more than is forecast for the UK.

The deficit would be the equivalent of 5.5 per cent of GDP, only very slightly below the expected level in the US.

Broadly speaking, the fiscal deficit is the difference between government spending and government income.  In order to estimate a future deficit of an independent Scottish government, you need to make all sorts of assumptions about the levels of spending and about the levels of income.  Even if these could be assessed as realistic (and who in turn could pronounce them to be so?), the result is the difference between two very large figures, an outcome which is of its nature extremely variable. And citing per head figures is utterly ridiculous.

Such an exercise is doomed to be futile.

   

What is the world coming to (part 29)?

Incomprehensible:

Benches installed in the centre of a seaside town have been deliberately designed to be uncomfortable, council bosses have admitted.

Labour-run Dover town council said it was hoped the wave-shaped benches would deter "extended sitting".

The benches, which are made of seven curved strips of metal to blend in with the shape of the waves, do not have a back or armrest so that shoppers only sit on them for a few minutes.

  

I blame the Chelsea tractors

Sometimes it's tough being rich:

Kensington and Chelsea has the most polluted air in the United Kingdom, with more than one in 12 of all deaths in the London borough attributable to tiny particles of soot largely emitted by diesel engines. The only other borough with similar pollution levels is nearby Westminster.

The statistics, collated by locality for the first time by Public Health England – an agency of the Department of Health – suggest that London and south-east England have by far the worst air in Britain, largely due to traffic levels. In London, 3,389 people died of air pollution and 41,404 "life years" were lost in 2010, while in south-east England, 4,034 people died and 41,728 years were lost.

They should move up north ...

What is this thing for v-neck sweaters?

The latest fashion trend for football managers:

 

   

It's not easy being an expat

The Guardian gets it wrong?

At last.  We're all getting tired of reading about it.  She's gone.  But The Guardian misses the point:

There had been signals for months that the newspapers, especially the Daily Telegraph, were going to be tough on Miller when the standards committee reported last Thursday. No 10 already knew – because the Telegraph had revealed this – that Miller's special adviser had foolishly flagged up the link between its coverage of her expenses and the Leveson inquiry.

The pre-eminent issue over the past week was simply Miller's expenses, but there was also an element of a wider trial of strength between No 10 and the anti-Leveson press.

Given that fraught background, no one in No 10 seems to have thought to tell Miller that she needed to co-operate with the standards committee inquiry at every point. Instead, she prevaricated and sounded irritated. If the privilege of self-regulation was to work, MPs had a real duty to co-operate with that system.

Once found guilty of non-cooperation, she would have had to make more than a perfunctory, 30-second apology; instead, surrounded by supportive cabinet ministers including Sir George Young, the chief whip, she struck entirely the wrong tone.

No-one in No 10 thought to tell Miller?  She's not a child.  A grown-up politician is supposed to be aware of political niceties.  One could almost feel sorry for No 10 for having to cope with cabinet ministers of such incompetence - were it not for the fact that No 10 made the appointment in the first place.

A little over the top

To whom is he addressing his hyperbole?

George Robertson, the formerly UK defence secretary and Nato chief, has claimed Scottish independence would have a "cataclysmic" effect on European and global stability by undermining the UK on the world stage.

The Labour peer told an audience in America that a yes vote would give succour to separatist movements across Europe, risk destabilising Northern Ireland and embolden dictators and "annexers" around the world.

In the most aggressive and pessimistic speech yet by a senior figure in the no campaign, Lord Robertson said many Scottish voters were unaware their decision in September's referendum had implications far beyond Britain.

A breakup of the UK would weaken its global status and a yes vote would leave the UK government embroiled in a complex internal dispute about the terms of Scottish independence just as "solidity and cool nerves" were needed on the world stage. The "loudest cheers" after a yes vote would come from the west's enemies and other "forces of darkness".

"What could possibly justify giving the dictators, the persecutors, the oppressors, the annexers, the aggressors and the adventurers across the planet the biggest pre-Christmas present of their lives by tearing the United Kingdom apart?" Robertson said at the Brookings Institution on Monday.

Can it really be true that the leaders of Russia, North Korea, Belarus and Syria give tuppence for a referendum decision either way on a Scottish independence?  Or is George just worried that we might get rid of his beloved nukes?

Some of us are actually worried about the prospects of independence.  But this kind of nonsense adds nothing to the debate.

   

It makes me wonder ...

The dismal science lets me down again.  Just when you think you know what is happening, the authorities re-jig the figures to leave you in the dark.  The Financial Times explains:

For the first time in 15 years, the Office for National Statistics is preparing to rip up the way it measures Britain’s economy, with the new techniques showing a huge increase in the size of the economy, a higher level of public debt and a much increased savings ratio. There is also a good chance that the statisticians will significantly revise up growth recorded in the economy in 2012 and last year.

The reforms will have the potential both to overturn Britain’s reputation as a spendthrift nation and significantly improve the poor productivity performance of the past few years.The ONS will introduce new global accounting standards to gross domestic product and related measures in September, following similar changes already introduced in the US, Canada, Australia.

Under the new system of accounts, research and development spending will count towards GDP rather than being seen as a cost of production, and building aircraft carriers and other weapons of war will also add to the size of the economy. The ONS said the change would add between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent to the level of GDP, adding £40bn to £75bn to the total.

One of the largest changes, announced by ONS officials on Monday, arises from how savings are measured. From now on, the official figures will count future pension rights as if they were present income.

With Britain one of the few countries to have a large funded defined-benefit pension system, the change will significantly raise measured household incomes, thereby increasing the savings ratio.Officials said the savings ratio would rise “by around 5 percentage points”, practically doubling the current 5.1 per cent and putting it around 10 per cent, far closer to those seen in other European countries.

And, just like that, all you thought you knew is overturned.  There are few certainties in this world.

   

Responsible lending?

We are doomed - apparently - to learn nothing and forget nothing.  Is this sensible?

The Post Office yesterday unveiled its new range of mortgages using the Help to Buy loan guarantee scheme. Using the government support it will offer 95 per cent mortgages to house buyers with small deposits saved up. Its two-year loans will be on offer with an interest rate beginning at 4.95 per cent. The new loans come at a time when the scheme is under fire for boosting the housing boom. But lenders have hit back, noting that most borrowers are outside London’s hotspots.

Doesn't matter where the houses are located,  When interest rates rise and house prices fall, the borrowers will be in financial doo-doo.

   

The things you meet in Waitrose

A little extra protein:

A woman had a rather unwelcome surprise when she tucked into a Waitrose salad of watercress, spinach, rocket – and locust.

Berenice Baker was just about to enjoy the lunchtime meal when she made the unsavoury discovery, having already added chicken and rice to the mix.

It could have been worse - she might have come across the Prime Minister:

David Cameron picked an odd location to air his view that you are more likely to have an interesting conversation in Waitrose than any other supermarket. “I have got a piece of supermarket sociology, which is that there is something about Waitrose customers... they are the most talkative,” he told the staff today. “I found that if I shop in Waitrose it takes me about twice as long, as everyone wants to stop you and have a chat. Whereas in other supermarkets I find I can dart round very quickly and get everything. It is something about your customers, they are very talkative, engaged people.”

He said this during a visit to the North-west, presumably hoping to persuade people in that region to vote Tory. There are a lot of people living in the region, but very few Waitrose customers.

You get a better class of locusts in Waitrose.

 

Quote of the day

Simon Jenkins on the Royal Mail privatisation (here):

The Royal Mail offer was 24 times oversubscribed. The 330p price soared 38% to 455p within hours. More than £750m drained into the pockets of speculators. Never can the British taxpayer have been ripped off so soundly in so short a time.

Within weeks of the sale, Goldman Sachs's own analysts were predicting a price of 610p, almost twice what the "advisers" had been advising. The government had been shockingly ill-advised. As the price went up past 600p, Cable kept dismissing it as "irrational exuberance, froth, speculation". He indicated everyone should wait until the price came down. It is now 562p. Worse, he had allocated bundles of shares to 16 City institutions on a "gentleman's agreement" that they would hold them as "a core of high-quality investors who would be there in good times and bad". Within weeks, over half this stake had been sold, and to precisely "the hedge funds and other speculators" that Cable had pledged to keep out. Just four of the 16 are still big shareholders.

Cable was massively naive. On Tuesday he protested that he was merely showing caution against "risk of failure". I can hear the City laughing.

 

April fool?

Look, in order to make an effective April fool, the story has to have a semblance of truth.  Just enough to suggest that the story might possibly be true.  But who would believe this effort on the part of The Guardian?

Osborne said: "Today I'm making a new commitment, a commitment to fight for full employment in Britain – making jobs a central goal of our economic plan."

 The iron chancellor?  Full employment?  It's neither credible nor funny.