Telegraph
"This should be an interesting weekend for euro-watchers. If the rumours in the market are correct, Greece will imminently receive the details of its emergency loan organised by euro governments in association with the International Monetary Fund. The big short-term question hinges on the level of the loan’s interest rates. Will it, as Angela Merkel seems to want, be tied to the market interest rate for Greek debt (currently somewhere north of 7pc), or will it, as Reuters is reporting, be tied instead to the IMF’s special drawing rights, and be distinctly lower? The question is important, since the level will determine how quickly the country can hope to escape recession."
Saturday, 10 April 2010
Friday, 9 April 2010
Migrant city's cry for help: Anguished letter to Brown and Cameron reveals devastating toll of immigration on schools, housing and hospitals
Daily Mail
"The councillors also voiced the local fears that immigration is fuelling a rise in crime.They write: 'We had four police houses in the ward years ago. Everyone knew and respected the local constable.'Now we have muggings, robberies, burglaries and neighbour disputes. We have prostitutes, drug dealers and an ever-increasing number of people who drive without road tax or insurance.'Some 16,000 migrants - many looking for farming work - have moved to the Peterborough area since 2004. Immigrant communities account for 64 per cent of the population growth.Details of the letter emerged a day after the Daily Mail revealed shocking figures showing that nearly every job created under Labour has gone to a foreign worker.Some 98.5 per cent of 1.67million new posts went to immigrants.In their letter, Mr Swift and Mr Sharp say the arrival of so many migrants has left Peterborough's housing system in chaos, with immigrants sleeping rough and relying on the Salvation Army for food."
"The councillors also voiced the local fears that immigration is fuelling a rise in crime.They write: 'We had four police houses in the ward years ago. Everyone knew and respected the local constable.'Now we have muggings, robberies, burglaries and neighbour disputes. We have prostitutes, drug dealers and an ever-increasing number of people who drive without road tax or insurance.'Some 16,000 migrants - many looking for farming work - have moved to the Peterborough area since 2004. Immigrant communities account for 64 per cent of the population growth.Details of the letter emerged a day after the Daily Mail revealed shocking figures showing that nearly every job created under Labour has gone to a foreign worker.Some 98.5 per cent of 1.67million new posts went to immigrants.In their letter, Mr Swift and Mr Sharp say the arrival of so many migrants has left Peterborough's housing system in chaos, with immigrants sleeping rough and relying on the Salvation Army for food."
Thursday, 8 April 2010
Euro takes a pounding on Greek fears
Daily Mail
"The euro lost further altitude and Greek bonds tumbled as sovereign default worries swirled through financial markets.The gap between Greek borrowing costs and those of the German government widened to the highest level since the euro was introduced in 1999 as investors continued to fret about Athens's ability to cope with its vast deficits."
"The euro lost further altitude and Greek bonds tumbled as sovereign default worries swirled through financial markets.The gap between Greek borrowing costs and those of the German government widened to the highest level since the euro was introduced in 1999 as investors continued to fret about Athens's ability to cope with its vast deficits."
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
UK needs 'drastic austerity measures' to prevent debt explosion
Telegraph
"Britain will need "drastic" austerity measures to prevent public debt exploding out of control, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), has declared.Interest payments on the UK's public debt will double from 5pc of GDP to 10pc within a decade under the bank's "baseline scenario" before spiralling upwards to 27pc by 2040 – by far the highest among the OECD club of developed countries. Greece fares better, while Britain's interest burden is far worse than Italy's."
"Britain will need "drastic" austerity measures to prevent public debt exploding out of control, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), has declared.Interest payments on the UK's public debt will double from 5pc of GDP to 10pc within a decade under the bank's "baseline scenario" before spiralling upwards to 27pc by 2040 – by far the highest among the OECD club of developed countries. Greece fares better, while Britain's interest burden is far worse than Italy's."
General Election 2010: The deficit will take centre stage
Telegraph
"To spend or to slash? In the 30 days from now until the General Election, that is the question. ..."
"To spend or to slash? In the 30 days from now until the General Election, that is the question. ..."
Monday, 5 April 2010
Election Exclusive: Inside No. 10 as Gordon Brown Prepares Historic Trip to Palace (*)
WSJ
"By Iain Martin
The scene: It is 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 6, and Gordon Brown is sitting in his open-plan office. He is at his desk on the horseshoe-shaped command and control hub from which he runs the country. He has on his best mauve tie. Around him are standing his loyal retainers — Ed Balls, Charlie Whelan and veteran Brown fixer and gatekeeper Sue Nye. It is eerily quiet and all that can be heard is the distant hum of conversation and some laughter from the adjoining office. Officials have set up a number of shredding machines and have been working all night disposing of documents. Gordon is in a reflective mode:
GB: “I think this is the right time, isn’t it? I mean, this is absolutely the right time, isn’t it? It’s not the wrong time, is it?”
Sue Nye (very quietly, under her breath): “Oh for God’s sake, here we go again.” .....
"By Iain Martin
The scene: It is 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 6, and Gordon Brown is sitting in his open-plan office. He is at his desk on the horseshoe-shaped command and control hub from which he runs the country. He has on his best mauve tie. Around him are standing his loyal retainers — Ed Balls, Charlie Whelan and veteran Brown fixer and gatekeeper Sue Nye. It is eerily quiet and all that can be heard is the distant hum of conversation and some laughter from the adjoining office. Officials have set up a number of shredding machines and have been working all night disposing of documents. Gordon is in a reflective mode:
GB: “I think this is the right time, isn’t it? I mean, this is absolutely the right time, isn’t it? It’s not the wrong time, is it?”
Sue Nye (very quietly, under her breath): “Oh for God’s sake, here we go again.” .....
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Lower Taxes are good economics and great politics
John Redwood MP
"The UK is over taxed. The deficit has not been brought on by taxing too little, but by spending and wasting too much. Labour’s offence is not for setting tax rates that are too low, but wasting so much money on self promotion, poor purchasing, too much bureaucracy, political correctness – and above all on far too many people out of work and living on benefits. ..."
"The UK is over taxed. The deficit has not been brought on by taxing too little, but by spending and wasting too much. Labour’s offence is not for setting tax rates that are too low, but wasting so much money on self promotion, poor purchasing, too much bureaucracy, political correctness – and above all on far too many people out of work and living on benefits. ..."
The Bank takes sides
Frank Field MP
"The Bank of England has estimated the loss of output since the great crash. At the same time it has made its most explicit proposals yet on the future of our banking system. Andrew Haldane, the Bank's Director for Financial Stability, puts the loss of output from a bank generated recession at £7.4trn for the UK. He puts the hidden cost to taxpayers of implicit support to the big UK banks at more than £50bn. No wonder he has views on banking reform - or, as he might have put it, how can we stop these banks buggering us up again."
"The Bank of England has estimated the loss of output since the great crash. At the same time it has made its most explicit proposals yet on the future of our banking system. Andrew Haldane, the Bank's Director for Financial Stability, puts the loss of output from a bank generated recession at £7.4trn for the UK. He puts the hidden cost to taxpayers of implicit support to the big UK banks at more than £50bn. No wonder he has views on banking reform - or, as he might have put it, how can we stop these banks buggering us up again."
Rebounding Celtic tiger offers UK harsh lessons in demolishing debt
Telegraph
"Twelve months ago, credit downgrades and a deeply alarming fiscal deficit prompted bond investors to include Ireland in a group of fiscal stinkers known as the PIGS – standing for Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. A year on, the Republic isn't quite smelling of roses but certainly seems to have left the sty. "
"Twelve months ago, credit downgrades and a deeply alarming fiscal deficit prompted bond investors to include Ireland in a group of fiscal stinkers known as the PIGS – standing for Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. A year on, the Republic isn't quite smelling of roses but certainly seems to have left the sty. "
Revealed: US firm issues British visas... and MPs were not told
Daily Mail
"The system – never officially announced to Parliament – means that instead of filling in a form at a British embassy and facing an interview by diplomatic staff, visa applicants are directed to commercially run ‘official’ offices around the world.And hundreds of thousands of applicants simply fill in a form on a website run by the US company....But the system has been hit by problems. An official Home Office inspection of the WorldBridge visa office in Rome last year found that it replied to customers’ concerns about delays with ‘unhelpful’ and ‘generic’ wording.And a Home Office report in December pointed out ‘higher level criticism’ of WorldBridge staff who, it said, were polite but ‘had no information and were completely useless on an expensive phone line’.It said that ‘their absence of understanding of the application process was made apparent with conflicting answers from one call to the next’, and that staff were ‘scared to tell me something [in case it wasn’t correct]’. .....Sir Andrew Green, a former British Ambassador and Director for the Middle East in the Foreign Office, says that in the past, many bogus applicants would have been spotted by immigration officers. Now they are easily circumventing the system.
Sir Andrew, who runs the pressure group Migration Watch, said: ‘The crucial interview with experienced staff has been rep-laced with a system where, as long as you say the right thing on the forms and have the right doc-uments, your application will be approved.’Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: ‘It is a revelation to discover that so much of the visa system is now controlled by two private companies.‘We have argued for a long time, particularly given all of the fraud issues surrounding student visas, that there should be far more face-to-face interviews of applicants by British diplomatic staff.‘This is the only way to ensure that applicants coming to the UK are who they say they are. This is much too important an issue not to get right.’It is also claimed that the WorldBridge system is costing British businesses millions of pounds in lost contracts."
"The system – never officially announced to Parliament – means that instead of filling in a form at a British embassy and facing an interview by diplomatic staff, visa applicants are directed to commercially run ‘official’ offices around the world.And hundreds of thousands of applicants simply fill in a form on a website run by the US company....But the system has been hit by problems. An official Home Office inspection of the WorldBridge visa office in Rome last year found that it replied to customers’ concerns about delays with ‘unhelpful’ and ‘generic’ wording.And a Home Office report in December pointed out ‘higher level criticism’ of WorldBridge staff who, it said, were polite but ‘had no information and were completely useless on an expensive phone line’.It said that ‘their absence of understanding of the application process was made apparent with conflicting answers from one call to the next’, and that staff were ‘scared to tell me something [in case it wasn’t correct]’. .....Sir Andrew Green, a former British Ambassador and Director for the Middle East in the Foreign Office, says that in the past, many bogus applicants would have been spotted by immigration officers. Now they are easily circumventing the system.
Sir Andrew, who runs the pressure group Migration Watch, said: ‘The crucial interview with experienced staff has been rep-laced with a system where, as long as you say the right thing on the forms and have the right doc-uments, your application will be approved.’Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: ‘It is a revelation to discover that so much of the visa system is now controlled by two private companies.‘We have argued for a long time, particularly given all of the fraud issues surrounding student visas, that there should be far more face-to-face interviews of applicants by British diplomatic staff.‘This is the only way to ensure that applicants coming to the UK are who they say they are. This is much too important an issue not to get right.’It is also claimed that the WorldBridge system is costing British businesses millions of pounds in lost contracts."
Friday, 2 April 2010
Buying votes is easy when the bill isn't yours
Telegraph
"Professor Tim Briggs is one of London's top orthopaedic surgeons. So frustrated did he become with the Government's failure to provide the funds to rebuild the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, north London, that he threatened to stand as an independent against the sitting MP in the Labour-held marginal of Harrow East, Tony McNulty. He almost certainly would have won.But lo, it has come to pass that with the general election just weeks away, Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, has miraculously found that he does have the necessary £81 million after all. ....So blatant was this little piece of pork-barrel politics that Mr Burnham didn't even bother to deny it when challenged in a TV interview.According to figures compiled by The Financial Times, ministers have made £7 billion of new spending pledges in the UK regions over the past two months, much of it on projects directly affecting Labour-held marginal seats, or areas bordering them.Local councils have been taken aback by the scale of the largesse – £580 million to revitalise Tyne and Wear's Metro light rail system, £81 million to extend a West Midlands tram line, £235 million for a trolleybus system in Leeds, the list goes on and on. These are all, no doubt, deserving projects, but it is money the Government hasn't got.
"Professor Tim Briggs is one of London's top orthopaedic surgeons. So frustrated did he become with the Government's failure to provide the funds to rebuild the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, north London, that he threatened to stand as an independent against the sitting MP in the Labour-held marginal of Harrow East, Tony McNulty. He almost certainly would have won.But lo, it has come to pass that with the general election just weeks away, Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, has miraculously found that he does have the necessary £81 million after all. ....So blatant was this little piece of pork-barrel politics that Mr Burnham didn't even bother to deny it when challenged in a TV interview.According to figures compiled by The Financial Times, ministers have made £7 billion of new spending pledges in the UK regions over the past two months, much of it on projects directly affecting Labour-held marginal seats, or areas bordering them.Local councils have been taken aback by the scale of the largesse – £580 million to revitalise Tyne and Wear's Metro light rail system, £81 million to extend a West Midlands tram line, £235 million for a trolleybus system in Leeds, the list goes on and on. These are all, no doubt, deserving projects, but it is money the Government hasn't got.
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Brown defied Bank of England warning over his £6bn gold giveaway
Daily Mail
"Gordon Brown rode roughshod over resistance from the Bank of England to order the disastrous sell-off of Britain's gold reserves, secret papers have revealed.Treasury documents released under Freedom of Information last night suggest that the Bank was reluctant to sign up to the sale of 395 tonnes of gold at rock-bottom prices in a series of auctions between 1999 and 2002.The deals, struck when Mr Brown was Chancellor, are thought to have cost Britain £6billion, almost double the £3.3billion cost of Black Wednesday in 1992 when the country crashed out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.Senior officials are said to have warned that the timing of the sale risked losing money for the taxpayer."
"Gordon Brown rode roughshod over resistance from the Bank of England to order the disastrous sell-off of Britain's gold reserves, secret papers have revealed.Treasury documents released under Freedom of Information last night suggest that the Bank was reluctant to sign up to the sale of 395 tonnes of gold at rock-bottom prices in a series of auctions between 1999 and 2002.The deals, struck when Mr Brown was Chancellor, are thought to have cost Britain £6billion, almost double the £3.3billion cost of Black Wednesday in 1992 when the country crashed out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.Senior officials are said to have warned that the timing of the sale risked losing money for the taxpayer."
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