The Spectator

Barometer | 21 April 2016

Also in our Barometer column: Treasury forecasts, the Queen and life expectancy, and pay at the top

issue 23 April 2016

European bogeymen

Michael Gove said ‘remain’ campaigners were spreading tales of bogeymen. But what is a bogeyman? Appropriately enough, the concept of an imagined monster is a pan-European concept which has exercised the right to free movement for centuries.
— The boggel-mann has been terrifying children in Germanic cultures since the Middle Ages, as has the bussemand in Scandinavian countries. In Dutch, he became the boeman.
— Middle English had its bugge-man and Scotland its boggarts — the latter suggesting a possible connection with marshy ground. But possibly the earliest bogeyman was bugibu, a monster in a French poem written in the 1140s.

Reversed forecasts

A Treasury report claimed that leaving the EU would leave the UK economy 6% smaller by 2030. Can the Treasury forecast GDP a year ahead, let alone 14 years ahead? Some previous efforts:

Previous year’s prediction
2008 2.5-3%
2009 4-6 mths
2010 2.25%-2.75%
2011 2.3%
Outcome
2008 -4.2%
2009 -1.3%
2010 1.8%
2011 2.1%

After that, the Treasury handed predicting growth to the OBR.

Elizabethan age

The Queen celebrated her 90th birthday. It isn’t just the royals who are living longer.
— In 1952 life expectancy at birth was 66 for men and 70 for women. It is now 79.1 and 82.8 respectively.
— There were 300 Britons over the age of 100 in 1952. There are now 14,500, with another 527,000 over 90.
— In 1952, 1.5% of women over 65 were still working. Now, 6.5% are.

The big money

BP shareholders voted against the £13.8m pay package of chief executive Bob Dudley, although he has already been paid the money. Which FTSE bosses earn the most relative to their average employee (not accounting for part-time staff)?

Total pay in 2014
Martin Sorrell, WPP £29.8m
Simon Wolfson, Next £4.6m
Richard Cousins, Compass £5.5m
Andy Harrison, Whitbread £6.4m
Peter Long, TUI Travel £10m
Multiple of average employee’s earnings
Martin Sorrell, WPP 780
Simon Wolfson, Next 459
Richard Cousins, Compass 418
Andy Harrison, Whitbread 415
Peter Long, TUI Travel 377

Source: High Pay Centre

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