It's not going to happen

Probably impractical, but even if it were possible to re-establish a Scottish Stock Exchange, it would probably be immediately acquired by London, American or European interests.  The Guardian reports:

As the vote on independence approaches, a report shows that a notional index of 100 Scottish companies currently listed on the London Stock Exchange would have grown by 5.7% in real terms (with dividends reinvested) since 1955.

But it would have been outperformed by stocks from the rest of the UK, which rose 6.8% over the same period. The difference is due to the predominance of financial companies in the "Scotsie 100", and in particular the near collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS in the banking crisis. Without this, it would have outperformed the UK index by a small margin.

The report, by the London Business School and consultancy Walbrook Economics, uses the location of a company's headquarters to judge whether it is Scottish or not. Apart from financial companies such as banks and investment trusts, the Scotsie index is dominated by utilities, and oil and gas companies. The largest are energy business SSE, insurer Standard Life, Royal Bank of Scotland, FTSE100 engineer Weir Group and Aggreko, the generator manufacturer.

Wot, no mention of A G Barr plc (maker of our other national drink)?  The bigger whisky companies belong to multi-nationals of course, as do most of the bigger breweries - for example Tennents is owned by the Magners company - though the Caledonian Brewery (Deuchars and Caley 80/-) remains independent.

 

Quote of the day

Trust.  Aye. well maybe.  The Observer contemplates:

Trust me, I'm a banker. Don't think so. Trust me, I'm a doctor. Did you ever work at Mid-Staffs? Trust me, I'm from the intelligence services. And what did you have to do with rendition and torture? Trust me, I'm a police officer. How many innocent people did you shoot or stitch up to today? Trust me, I'm a bishop. Catholic or Anglican? Child abuser or investor in Wonga? Trust me, I'm a supermarket. How much horse is there in your burgers? Trust me, I'm from the newspapers. When does your trial begin? Trust me, I'm from the BBC. And what did you know about Jimmy Savile? Trust me, I'm a celebrity. How much tax are you avoiding? And were you mates with Rolf Harris?

Trust me, I'm a politician. Now, you're really having a laugh.

Sad, really.

   

Quote of the day

The otherwise estimable Lucy has a balanced view of the considerations underlying the imminent referendum:

There are those who argue against it, of course. Scotland should stay just as it is! Independence, nivver darken our doors! Caledonian nationalism, like all nationalism, is a terrible idea spouted by the worst, most morally and psychologically incompetent people ever to have battered a Mars bar. Think of the ethno-chauvinism it will unleash: the small-mindedness, the petty sense of superiority, the alienation, bile and gracelessness that will wash over the land, poisoning e'en unto the last crystalline Highland spring, you sunless goons!

But I say, "Tish tosh!" to such dour preoccupations. I think the "ayes" have it right, and not just because it's short for "aye, have ye no' seen wha's in charge of England the noo? Jes' a wain, wi' a face lik' a bloated haggis an' a mind mair sleekit, cow'rin an tim'rous than any wee mousie ye ivver saw! They'll aw be greetin' afore he's done". This line is carved into every shovel currently being smuggled down to Hadrian's Wall, so that the digging can start on polling night, and the country rowed 4ft north by sun up on 19 September.

 

Look after the pennies ...

Look, I suppose they need the money.  The Telegraph reports:

One Cabinet minister has claimed the cost of paying for an 11p ruler on his expenses.

Kenneth Clarke, the Cabinet Office minister, charged the taxpayer for an 11p ruler, according to the latest release of MPs’ expenses claims.

Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, was found to have claimed 43p for scissors.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, claimed the cost of a £4.68 glue stick and 8p for a box of clips.

Latest figures for MPs expenses revealed some of Britain’s most senior politicians, are repeatedly submitting claims for trivial items.

Triumph and disaster

Vamos muchachos!

They're getting excited:

Earth has not anything to show more fair

It's the end of an era.  I don't suppose that I would ever again have travelled on a London bus but I certainly will not now.  City AM  reports:

London buses will no longer accept fares paid in cash in a move that Transport for London (TfL) says will save the capital £24m a year.

From today, passengers will only be able to pay for bus fares using an Oyster card, contactless credit or debit card or travelcard ticket.

It also means that most of the jokes in this fine rendition will be meaningless to those of tender years:

Quote of the day

From Rawnsley in The Observer (here):

David Cameron once grasped that its reputation as a party of the rich was a serious impediment to the Tories. In opposition, when he was trying to give his party a detox and present himself as a different kind of Tory leader, he made several speeches challenging big business, attacking high finance and swearing that he would never be the mouthpiece for either of them.

In the wake of the financial crisis, he went so far as to deplore "markets without morality", rhetoric that could fit snugly into any of Mr Miliband's speeches arguing for a new form of more responsible capitalism.

Now Mr Cameron hosts fundraisers heaving with financial speculators. Perhaps he never really believed a word of it when he used to denounce them. Perhaps he has concluded that the public belief that the Tories are "the party of the rich" is just too indelible for him to shift. So he might as well make his cynical, if demeaning, best of it by stuffing his party's campaign war chest with cheques from Russian bankers who think a game of tennis with him is worth 160 grand.

   

Music of the week

A reminder to men everywhere not to take their spouses lightly.

How the City gets it wrong

CityAM reports:

PUB AND brewing giant Greene King yesterday reported record annual sales and profit.

The company said its revenues were up 6.9 per cent to £1.3bn and its pre-tax profit was up 7.4 per cent to £158.2m.

The group added 48 new sites during the year as part of a five-year plan to increase its estate to 1,100.

Following the acquisitions, profit for the retail business grew 12 per cent compared to the prior year.

But the City thought it should have done better.  As a result:

Shares in FTSE 250-quoted Greene King fell 3.6 per cent yesterday to close at 816.5p.

A not atypical over-reaction.  They don't recognise a good thing when it stares them in the face.  But, as I used to enjoy a pint of Belhaven (now owned by Greene King), I have put my money where my mouth is and bought some shares,  We will see - over the next few days and weeks - if my bet is justified.

 
Update:  After the market has been open for 40 minutes, the shares are now priced at 830 pence, an increase of 1.65%, which is enough to give me a modest capital gain (even after allowing for stamp duty and admin fees).  Now do I take my modest profit?  Or hang on for better things?  The latter, I think, comfortable in the knowledge that the shares will in any case deliver annual dividends of over 3%.

Further update:  Share price now (9.22 am) over 840p.

This is becoming boring:

   

Cartoon of the day

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2014/jul/03/george-osborne-avoiding-maths-question-steve-bell

Whoring?

Is there anything these guys will not do for money?  The Guardian reports:

A game of tennis with David Cameron and Boris Johnson has been sold off by the Conservative party for £160,000 to the banker wife of a former minister in Vladimir Putin's government.

The extraordinary prize was the star lot at the Conservative party's summer fundraising ball on Wednesday at the Hurlingham Club, Fulham, west London, and was billed as giving the successful bidder the chance to play "the ultimate tennis match". The auction winner was Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, who was Russia's deputy finance minister during Putin's first term in office.

She is a banker, and according to Electoral Commission records had once been declared an "impermissible donor" in April 2012 when she attempted to give £10,000 to the party. However, since then Lubov Chernukhin – who is British – has made a further three donations worth a total of £5,500, which have all been accepted.

 

Aeroplanes

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his soul"

Though TB's soul was probably lost a long time ago.  But he'd better have a long spoon handy.  The Guardian reports:

Tony Blair has agreed to advise the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who came to power in a military coup last year, as part of a programme funded by the United Arab Emirates that has promised to deliver huge "business opportunities" to those involved, the Guardian has learned.

The former prime minister, now Middle East peace envoy, who supported the coup against Egypt's elected president Mohamed Morsi, is to give Sisi advice on "economic reform" in collaboration with a UAE-financed taskforce in Cairo – a decision criticised by one former ally.

The UAE taskforce is being run by the management consultancy Strategy&, formerly Booz and Co, now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers, to attract investment into Egypt's crisis-ridden economy at a forthcoming Egypt donors' conference sponsored by the oil-rich UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Blair's decision to become involved in Gulf-financed support of the Sisi regime, which is estimated to have killed more than 2,500 protesters and jailed more than 20,000 over the past year, has been attacked.

Quote of the day

From The Guardian (here):

In a gesture as eloquent as it was symbolic (or as empty as it was crass), Ukip's 24 MEPs turned their backs on the EU's flag and unofficial anthem during the opening session of the European parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday. As a chamber orchestra played Beethoven's Ode to Joy, Britain's largest single contingent of Euro-parliamentarians stood solemnly facing the other way, looking defiant and ever so slightly silly.

Bunch of fruitcakes.

It's a tough old life

As a result of one of the many minor miracles of modern technology, I have added a widget to this blog.  If you look at the top right-hand corner, you may discern a small box showing the current temperature (in Fahrenheit, as I still think in old money) of my local community.  At present, despite it being after 9 o'clock, it is still well over 70 degrees.

This is, nevertheless, a welcome diminution from the temperatures of earlier this afternoon, when it was over 90.  Great, if all you have to do is sit in the sun by the swimming pool or drink beer under the umbrellas on the terrace of the local bar.  Not so much fun if you have to trek round the supermarket or deal with the ever increasing mound of ironing.

Still, mustn't grumble ...

 

Procrastination

It's official.  The answer to the West Lothian Question is to stop asking it,  Or so the coalition government believes.  The Guardian reports:

Plans to restrict the voting rights of Scottish MPs at Westminster have been scrapped after splits emerged in the UK government before September's independence referendum.

Senior sources say the coalition has dropped plans to tackle the so-called West Lothian question because of fears it could fuel Scottish resentment, but also because the Tories and Lib Dems cannot agree on whether voting restrictions on MPs are fair.

Moves to restrict Scottish MPs' votes – by limiting their rights to vote on England-only legislation – have also been fought off by Labour and by senior Lib Dem figures, who plan to increase devolution to major cities and regions within England.

Nevertheless, I rather doubt if the issue will go quietly to bed.

Who made what?

The distribution formula depends partly on results and partly on the size of the home market.  As ever, and to misquote Voltaire, God may not be on the side of the big battalions, but UEFA certainly appears to be.

   

Hungry

Diplomatic language

The Poles were supposed to be our allies in Europe but Cameron appears to have lost them.  The Guardian reports:

The gulf between Britain and its key European allies has been highlighted by the leaking of an expletive-laden transcript of secretly taped conversations in which the Polish foreign minister accuses David Cameron of having "fucked up" his handling of the EU.

As the prime minister braced himself for an embarrassing defeat on Friday in his campaign to block Jean-Claude Juncker from becoming European commission president, Downing Street was forced to defend Cameron's handling of the EU after he was accused of resorting to "stupid propaganda" to appease Eurosceptics. Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, who is close to many senior Tories and who as an Oxford University student was a member of the Bullingdon Club at the same time as Boris Johnson, made the comments in a conversation with the former Polish finance minister Jacek Rostowski.

In a conversation that may have been related to Cameron's plans to curb EU migrants' access to benefits or to his plans to restrict freedom of movement, Sikorski is quoted as saying: "It's either a very badly thought-through move or, not for the first time, a kind of incompetence in European affairs. Remember? He fucked up the fiscal pact. He fucked it up – simple as that. He is not interested. He does not get it. He believes in the stupid propaganda. He stupidly tries to play the system."

On the tape, printed in Monday's edition of the news magazine Wprost, Sikorski is quoted as criticising what he sees as Cameron's attempt to appease British Eurosceptics with soundbites. "You know, his whole strategy of feeding them scraps in order to satisfy them is, just as I predicted, turning against him; he should have said, 'Fuck off,' tried to convince people and isolate [the sceptics]. But he ceded the field to those that are now embarrassing him."

In another secretly taped conversation, the spokesman for the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, claims Tusk "fucked him [Cameron] up good" during a conversation with the British prime minister over plans to curb access to benefits in the UK. The tapes were leaked as Cameron acknowledged that he was on course to lose his battle to prevent Juncker from being nominated by EU leaders as the next European commission president at a summit in Brussels later this week.

If this is what the Poles are saying, imagine the conversation in Madrid, Rome, Paris and Brussels.

Conversation of the week

From The Telegraph (here):

“FOR you, Dave, the World Cup is over,” said Angela Merkel. “Now the triumph of our glorious team, die deutsche Fussballnationalmannschaft, is inevitable. I think, maybe, you should learn from that.”

“Well, we’ve got a very young team, Madam Chancellor,” said Dave. “I’m sure we’ll do better next time.”

“Oh, Dave … Dave,” said the most powerful leader in Europe, almost regretfully, as if talking to a small boy so pathetically stupid that he could not be blamed for his painfully obvious failings, “are you not aware of what Gary Lineker once said?”

“Was it something about Walker’s crisps?”

“No, Dave, it had nothing to do with mass-produced schnackfoods. Herr Lineker observed that football is a simple game in which 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and in the end the Germans always win. Exactly the same principle applies to European Union politics. Twenty-eight member states pursue their own national interests and in the end we Germans always get what we want.”

And don't mention the war ...

 

Quote of the day

Tweet twoo.  Now that the Labour Party has promised owls for everyone, The New Statesman has some questions:

Who-whoo do I contact if my owl is defective? Will I have to raise my owl from a chick, feeding it tiny little gross bits of mouse and mince, or will it be presented to me personally by the council on the day Miliband swoops into power? Will the unemployed have to turn up at the Raptor Centre twice a week in order to keep their owl? How long will asylum seekers have to wait until they receive an owl of their own? What if some people, perhaps because of cultural differences, might prefer a different bird of prey, say a buzzard or a crested goshawk? Will small boys in Northern towns be allowed to keep their kestrels? If we must have an owl, can we choose what kind?  The public demands answers.

 

Fanning the flames

A sensible suggestion?  If you had booked a foreign holiday and were waiting for a passport, what would you think?  The Guardian reports:

People caught up in the passport backlog should consider holidaying in Britain instead of going abroad, the tourism minister, Helen Grant, has said.

And, just to rub salt in the wound, Ms Grant - the Marie Antoinette of Westminster - is at present in Brazil for the World Cup.

 

Eats shoots and leaves

Overheard in an Edinburgh pub:

“Who is this Mr Li Keqiang then?  And why does he want the UK to remain united?  He’s the bloke that sent us they pandas in the zoo.

And why does he care about oor referendum?  Mebbes he’s worried about how the pandas will get along under big Alex without a Union Flag above their enclosure.  Ah mean, the Scottish government could impose a massive import tax on bamboo shoots.

Still, Ah’m a wee bit bothered by all these furriners tellin’ us what tae dae.  If it’s no Mr Li, it’s yon Hillary or that Argentinian guy in Rome.  Take it as a sign of how important our wee nation is to the future of the world.  If we didnae matter, people like Obama  widnae keep bangin’ on aboot it.

Aye, and that nippy-sweetie Nicola’s gone and published a constitution n’all.  So we’ll ken whit the government can and cannae dae in our brave new world.

It’s no gonnae help us get tae the World Cup, is it?  Look it’s independence we’re after - we’re  no gonnae achieve miracles.

Music of the week

From the days when rock was fun.  Turn the volume up, plug in the headphones, and maybe bop a little:

World Cup on telly

BBC or ITV?  In an anti-competitive cartel-like arrangement, the matches have been carved up between the two national broadcasters so that the punters are obliged to put up with the idiocies of both.  The Observer comments:

The BBC has settled on their first-choice lineup: Gary Lineker and his trusted sidekick Alan Shearer, joined by new faces Henry and Rio Ferdinand. Everything about their production is as smooth as the Stevie Wonder track that plays over the opening titles. All is polished and shiny: Lineker's shoes, the studio floor, Shearer's crotch.

…

On the BBC, there is deferential genuflection towards Henry, whose cardigans are set to become as iconic as José Mourinho's overcoat. On ITV, a Fast Show-style "Ted and Ralph" dynamic is developing between Chiles and Cannavaro. "The four of us are going for a dip after this is finished," announced Chiles on Friday. "I hope you've got your trunks on underneath there, Fabio."

Cannavaro smiled beatifically and said nothing. Not for the first time, he didn't seem to know what Chiles was going on about.

For entertainment value, try counting the number of times Andy Townsend refers to “a little bit” (as in “they need to pull themselves together a little bit” or “he’s a little bit one-paced”).  That is, when he remembers to speak into the microphone.

They wiz robbed!

Quote of the day

From El Pais (here):

El gran campeón se desangró en su regreso a la escena que le hizo legendario y se llevó una zurra monumental tras un partido de los que dejan boquiabierto al universo. Peor que la peor pesadilla imaginable para una España que jamás desde 2008 había recibido en Eurocopa o Mundial más de un gol. En Bahía, el colapso fue total, un infierno. Un cataclismo en toda regla. España recibió una descarga holandesa de las que hacen época y en un caótico segundo tiempo acabó en el lodo. Y pudo ser mucho peor. El castañazo, con esa diferencia de goles, deja a España con un camino con mucho más que espinas. Su pase al segundo tramo del campeonato peligra a la primera.

(My emphasis)

Tension mounts

Marina endeavours to resist the creeping optimism:

A dodgy brown pitch is a boon to England, isn't it? We can't pass anyway, so it couldn't matter less to us, but if the Italians can't pass on it, and if they cleave to their traditions of slow tournament starts with a draw, and we … but no. Oh my God, no. I can feel a stirring, even though I know that way madness lies. It starts with allowing yourself to read the phrase "green crystals", and quickly mushrooms to you becoming an expert on tropical fungus. Suddenly, you're speculating about a draw with Uruguay and beating Costa Rica 2-0, and plotting routes to the quarters. But you know, you have to think that we could beat whatever winner or runner-up Group C shakes down out of Colombia, Greece, Japan or Ivory Coast, don't you? Don't you?

Must … stay … strong. I'm sorry. We'll wind up here, so I can avail myself of a Post-it note – a thousand Post-it notes, perhaps, to be stuck anywhere I might look over the next few days – on which I will write a friend's most treasured footballing crutch: ENGLAND HAVE NEVER BEATEN A MAJOR FOOTBALL POWER IN A WORLD CUP KNOCKOUT MATCH ON FOREIGN SOIL.

Sometimes, you have to feel sorry for the English ...

 

Everybody has a view

Not a good week for the Yes campaign, with interventions by President Obama, Hillary Clinton and JK Rowling, and now - arguably - the Pope.

Anyone else want to join in?  Prince Charles, Roy Hodgson, Angelina Jolie?  Might as well get the outside interventions over with ...

   

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.