quote:

Britain's headline measure of inflation may be modified to include housing costs, after a top Bank of England official revealed it had held further talks with the Treasury about switching to a more “useful” gauge of price rises.
Andy Haldane, the Bank’s incoming chief economist, told MPs on Wednesday that Bank staff had held technical discussions with the Treasury to assess whether it would be appropriate to switch the Bank's 2pc target from the consumer prices index (CPI) to the new CPIH measure, which was introduced in March 2013. CPIH includes housing costs such as mortgage interest payments, which represent about 10pc of consumer spending.

...

CPI inflation stood at 1.6pc in March, compared with CPIH inflation of 1.5pc. The retail prices index (RPI) measure of inflation, which is no longer classed as an official statistic by the ONS, but is still used to calculate pay deals and fare increases, stood at 2.5pc.

quote:

The average price of a house in England could double in the next decade and hit more than £900,000 by 2034, unless there is a radical new housebuilding programme to provide nearly a quarter of a million new homes a year, a report claims today.

...

The report urges the next government to take a series of actions which Shelter and KPMG say could make a difference within a single parliament. The key measures include giving planning authorities the power to create "New Homes Zones" where there would be no development tax and landowners would be able to invest their assets in exchange for shares in any future increases in value. Other measures suggested to ease the property market include unlocking stalled sites by charging council tax on homes that should have been built after a reasonable period; and introducing a new National Housing Investment Bank to provide low cost, long-term loans for housing providers.

quote:

So, to all the parents getting those phone calls from their former babies glumly announcing they’ll ‘need to move home for a while’, don’t automatically assume it’s because of the housing crisis. Because if these cunning kids are anything like my friends and I, it’ll actually be because they were too lazy to find a flat and they just fancy some free lodging and veggies. I hope my mum isn't reading this.

KKKlean Energy posted:

Lost amidst the sandwich chat:


This is excellent but I'm having trouble interpreting it, probably because I'm thick. What exactly is the zero-to-nine stuff in columns F-AG?

twoot posted:

On the subject of property bubbles The Torygraph has a translation of China's biggest property developer talking about their property bubble situation; http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100027199/chinese-anatomy-of-a-property-boom-on-its-last-legs/

Anti-corruption measures leading to the elite offloading their ill-gotten properties at enormous discounts, facilitating the bursting of a property bubble. There goes our fake recovery.

Renaissance Robot posted:

Also the beeb did one of their stupid opinion spots the other day, asking people (mainly commuters it seemed like) on a ferry to France "have you had enough of the EU". For some stupid loving reason they decided to show a majority answering yes.

Renaissance Robot posted:

I won't bother making a bet that whoever buys the place will do exactly that in order to turn a quick profit; nobody here would take it.

quote:

27 AGENDA COMMITTEE to be proposed by WILTSHIRE That conference:
(i) believes that general practice is unsustainable in its current format
(ii) believes that it is no longer viable for general practice to provide all patients with all NHS services free at the
point of delivery
(iii) urges the UK governments to define the services that can and cannot be accessed in the NHS
(iv) calls on GPC to consider alternative funding mechanisms for general practice
(v) calls on GPC to explore national charging for general practice services with the UK governments.

27a WILTSHIRE That conference believes the time is right for a fee for service for general practice.
27b AVON That conference calls on GPC to explore with the Department of Health the alternatives to a completely free at the point
of access system.
27c GLOUCESTERSHIRE That conference believes the time has come to impose a national charge for consultations as part of a
strategy of demand management.
27d KINGSTON AND RICHMOND That conference believes that alternative funding mechanisms for general practice must be explored
in order to preserve universal general practice.
27e GLOUCESTERSHIRE That conference requires the GPC to consider a fundamental change to the contract, such as an alternative
system of funding, as for instance that used in Guernsey.
27f MID MERSEY That conference believes as with dentistry and ophthalmology services, it is no longer viable for general practice to
provide all NHS services free at the point of delivery for all patients.

quote:

The idea is to deter patients from missing consultations – a problem that costs £160million a year. The fees – possibly between £10 and £25 – would be the first since the NHS was founded in 1948.
One GP said an entire morning's work was lost when 14 patients failed to turn up. Others believe the free care offered by the Health Service is unsustainable in the face of an aging and increasingly obese population.
It is feared however that charging would stop patients seeking help or encourage them to go to overstretched casualty units.

...

It is likely that the elderly, children, pregnant women and others will be exempt or charged less.
Patients could be charged when they book an appointment – an incentive to turn up.
The GP practice would pocket the money – as happens with charges for writing letters or signing forms – to be reinvested into services.

...

Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the British Medical Association's GP committee and a family doctor in North West London, said: 'The BMA policy still is that we do not support charging patients because it is against the NHS's care being provided at the point of delivery. Anyone who is ill should not have to consider cost as a barrier to seeing their GP.'

...

Dr Nigel Watson, chief executive of the Wessex local medical committee, which is proposing the motion, said: 'Personally I feel that services should be free at the point of access.
'The problem we have at the moment is that the resources that are available don't meet the demand. This is about having a debate about how we move things forward.
'General practice is still seen around the world as one of the strengths of the NHS. To continue this and to build on out-of-hospital care we need more resources.
'If that can't be obtained by taxation it's going to have to come either from closing hospitals down – which is incredibly difficult – or resources need to come from elsewhere.
'Many of us wouldn't want it to come from charging patients but that's why we need a debate.'

Thrasophius posted:

Wait I thought halal meat was just when the animal was killed in the name of Allah? So killing a chicken in the exact same way you normally do but saying Allah a few times is inhumane? I seriously wonder what is going through the minds of these people.

quote:

Barclays is to cut 14,000 jobs this year - half of them in the UK - as part of a new strategy, the bank has said.

The number is higher than the 10,000 to 12,000 jobs that the bank said earlier this year that it wanted to cut.

The investment bank, which has been hit by a slowdown in the demand for government and company debt, will lose about 7,000 jobs by 2016.

In total, there will 19,000 jobs lost at Barclays by 2016, with about 10,000 to go in the UK.

Barclays will also set up a "bad bank" which will eventually sell or run down £115bn of non-core operations.

These include £90bn of investment bank assets and all of its European retail banking operations, amounting to £16bn of assets.

Trickjaw posted:

Actually, quick question, with UKIP saying about immigration discriminated against New Zealand, Canada, etc for braain wizardry, what is the policy for immigration from commonwealth countries? Or is that just a loose trade agrrement and a club of the Queen's mates?

quote:

Labour are to call a vote in the Commons in an attempt to ban letting agents from charging fees to tenants.

Party leader Ed Miliband said people buying a house do not pay agents, but people who rent do and Labour was standing up for "generation rent".

The proposal will be tabled as an amendment to the Consumer Rights Bill in the Commons on Tuesday.

The Association of Residential Letting Agents said it was "deeply concerned" by Labour's proposals.

...

But Ian Potter, managing director of the Association of Residential Letting Agents, said Labour's plans could have an "adverse affect on tenants".

He said: "The challenge we have today is an unregulated market and a worrying lack of supply.

QuantumCrayons posted:

I would assume that you become in the running for EU president either by being super pro-federalism or being super anti-EU, depending on the climate for the group as a whole. I can't see someone being a candidate and saying "well I like the EU but I don't want us to be too close" which is what the main three parties all are (except possibly the Lib-Dems?).

Coohoolin posted:

Do it in Scotland for chrissakes.

IceAgeComing posted:

They'd be nicking one from the Tories I imagine. 2 SNP/2 Labour are guaranteed: the fights are between SNP/Labour for a third one and between the Tories/UKIP for the final one...

Seaside Loafer posted:

I was just thinking practically. The couple of pence I might make in interest will be allot less usefull than the 30 quid fine I get for going overdrawn, make sense?

Seaside Loafer posted:

To make it clear, I'm simply suggesting that if you are piss poor like me this is the go to account type. No you don't get any interest but it would be gently caress all anyway but if you cock up you don't get a fee. That sounds perfect to me.

TinTower posted:

They're called the Labour Party.

quote:

Tax and benefit changes implemented between May 1997 and April 2010 represent a net
‘takeaway’ from the public or a boost to the government’s finances of £7.1 billion, costing
each household about £270, on average, in 2010---11, relative to the conventional ‘unchanged
policy’ baseline the Treasury uses in Budgets and Pre-Budget Reports.
• The £7.5 billion ‘giveaway’ in Labour’s first term and the £6.4 billion ‘takeaway’ in its second
were highly progressive relative to this same ‘unchanged policy’ baseline, significantly
reducing the incomes of richer households and increasing those of poorer ones. The £8.1
billion takeaway in Labour’s third term comes mostly from the richest households, with the
incomes of the rest little changed on average.
• Labour’s measures have particularly benefited low-income families with children and
pensioners receiving tax credits or means-tested benefits.

Alecto posted:

They also engaged in a lot of privatisation (prisons, NHS, planned the Royal Mail privatisation), huge deregulation of the financial sector, were ridiculously fond of PFI, presided over a rise in inequality (some of which has to be attributed to their complacency over redistributive tax and tax avoidance), egged on the housing bubble, introduced workfare, introduced academies. Then of course the really, really big one, for which they deserve to be unelectable for a generation, Iraq. They weren't conservative, they were generally better than the modern Tories (on quite a few issues worse than the pre-Thatcher Tories, though), but they weren't leftist either. If you want centrist liberalism, then that's fine, but I think most here want something a good deal more leftist than that, and I don't think we should start snarking people for being dissatisfied with New Labour; there's a wealth of reasons to be.

Alecto posted:

Well, I strongly disagree that their regulation increases were at all 'significant'; they were evidentially minor, or the crash would obviously have looked very different for us. Sitting and watching a house burn might not be as bad as starting the fire, but I'm not going to delude myself that I should be grateful for that. You could at most say they chucked a couple of watering cans onto the fire.


I have little sympathy for a government too scared to lead, especially after the kind of win they saw in 97, instead opting for an ill-thought out and risky scheme that left many public services not only insolvent, but abetted their privatisation.

Look, someone who was on, say, the left of the '70s Labour party is so far to the left of the modern Labour party, that from their perspective there is not significant difference between them and the Conservatives.

Oh dear me posted:

John Major squeaked a small majority, and his government was subsequently plagued by corruption scandals, Black Monday, Euro-quarrels and stupid campaigns about highway cones and back to basics. Labour could have won in 1997, pretty much whatever they said.

Zephro posted:

I think you're underselling the problems of PFI...

Alecto posted:

This is more than a little revisionist. Everyone forgets John Smith...

The core of New Labour's campaign was that they would do essentially what the Conservatives had been doing, but with less scandal and less infighting over Europe. Whether the other bits like tax credits and the minimum wage level were dabbling round the edges or hugely important is, yet again, a matter of perspective. Given that, 'New Labour and the Conservatives are essentially the same' is an opinion that someone could legitimately hold, just as 'New Labour and the Conservatives are very different' is also a legitimate opinion.

...

Politicians should just all sit in the centre and do whatever the gently caress flies through the mind of the average Joe this week, none of this leading, persuading, educating nonsense. Just like Thatcher, she certainly didn't secure a big election win off of a radical platform, nor did she do anything radical while in office. Yep, centrism is truly the only way to go.

Painfully over the top sarcasm aside, are you really going to deny the relativity of a spectrum and simply say people not in the middle have different opinions because they're stupid? You can't tell people that their perceptions are wrong, only have your own differing ones.

ronya posted:

I struggle to believe that the PPPs were only ever intended as a temporary measure to acquire bonds, given the way they were set up (as long-term partnerships, but with aggressively narrowed options and existence outside of state discretion). I mean, acquiring funding through a credible commitment to only use it for infrastructure rather than welfare/military/generalissimo's Swiss account etc. is a legit public goal, but it's also one with a well-known solution, i.e., a national development bank. Having the supposedly insolvent/incredible state conduct detailed intervention into the behavior of PPPs via contract would undermine the supposed bond-inducing credibility.

Alecto posted:

It is important to remember John Smith because it damages the Blairite line of 'my way or unelectability'. It doesn't kill it, but it definitely damages it; if it can't be said that Smith would definitely win (it can't), then it also can't be said that he definitely would have lost. Therefore, it can't be said the Blair was definitely the only leader who could win in '97.

ronya posted:

The degree of micromanagement of PPPs in the UK indicates that the governments (Tory then New Labour both) were not really pursuing a surrender of control in order to obtain credibility to creditors, inasmuch as pushing debt off the common fisc and onto specific PFIs in order to use the debt to discipline the PFI public partner and its choice of agents. The NHS and the LEAs can't keep demanding funding for specific projects (which would make it easier for them to summon a political coalition in favour, even if that particular project is not sensible), rather they are given a lump sum and have to maximize its use over the next 30 years.

was there ever a credibility problem? The yields on Treasuries across the 90s were pretty darned high, but they were lower than in the late 80s. And PFIs never had interest rates that were dramatically lower than treasury yields.

quote:

Letting agents will be required to publish full details of the fees they charge under plans announced by government ministers today (13 May 2014). The move ensures a fair deal for landlords and tenants, closing off the opportunity for a small minority of rogue agents to impose unreasonable, hidden charges. The common sense approach avoids excessive state regulation which would push up rents for tenants.

Currently, the Advertising Standards Authority only requires letting agents to list compulsory charges to the tenant upfront in the process. Those letting agents who are found to have imposed hidden charges face little more than being “named and shamed” on the Advertising Standards Authority’s website.

But the government wants to go further than this, and will require all letting agents to publish a full tariff of their fees - both on their websites and prominently in their offices. Anyone who does not comply with these new rules will face a fine – a much stricter penalty than currently exists.

Today’s plans add to the work the government is already doing to offer stronger protections for landlords and tenants in the private rented sector, whilst avoiding excessive regulation which would force up rents and reduce choice.

Housing Minister, Kris Hopkins, said:

The vast majority of letting agents provide a good service to tenants and landlords. But we are determined to tackle the minority of rogue agents who offer a poor service. Ensuring full transparency and banning hidden fees is the best approach, giving consumers the information they want and supporting good letting agents.

Short-term gimmicks like trying to ban any fee to tenants means higher rents by the back door. Excessive state regulation and waging war on the private rented sector would also destroy investment in new housing, push up prices and make it far harder for people to find a flat or house to rent.

Gonzo McFee posted:

So with the Bank of England talking about rising inflation that's pretty much Osbourne's housing bubble hosed, right?

quote:

The Bank of England appeared to quash speculation of an early rise in interest rates, leaving its growth and inflation forecasts unchanged.

Policymakers at Threadneedle Street used the Bank's latest quarterly inflation report to signal that it remained in no rush to raise rates, with the first rise expected around the time of the general election in the second quarter of 2015. Bank rate has been on hold at the all-time low of 0.5% since March 2009 and the governor Mark Carney said on Wednesday any rate rises would be "gradual and limited".

The report said it was not yet clear whether the recovery was on a sustainable footing. The forecasts showed members of the rate-setting monetary policy committee still believe there is 1-1.5% of spare capacity in the economy to be used up, following the UK's below-par performance at the onset of the crisis in 2008.

Gonzo McFee posted:

He probably went to find out what happened to the housing bubble after Mark Carney left to go to England to prop up our housing bubble.

Trickjaw posted:

At least Ben Gummer can blame those cjd burgers his Dad made him eat.

quote:

Lending to landlords up 69pc in a year
Buy-to-let is the fastest-growing part of the mortgage market, according to lenders' latest data

twoot posted:

the only seat which is in play will be between the Tories and UKIP. Nobody else really has a chance unless something weird happens with the turnout.

twoot posted:

The later would happen if the polls have been overstating the SNP's share, which could be the case if their ex-Lib Dems don't turn out. But I'd bet that it goes 3/2/1 with the Tories keeping their seat.

Obliterati posted:

Given we're talking about UKIP, it would be interesting to note that surveys suggest UKIP voters aren't all disaffected Conservatives:

I think it's been said before that fascism is curdled socialism, but it might actually be possible to engage with these people sensibly from a left-wing position: basically Labour is to the right of its own base and people are turning to strange bedfellows. It reminds me of how in economic terms the BNP used to be to the left of Labour.

Kegluneq posted: