All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The most impressive moment in yesterday’s PMQ’s came courtesy of an unlikely source – Nick Clegg. The Lib Dem leader generally toed the “we’ll cooperate with the Government” line, but he also stirred in a punchy addendum: that some of the money Brown’s splashing around might be better spent on reducing the tax burden for low-income earners. I happen to agree with him, but
Lots of people are mocking the Tories for being concerned about bankers’ salaries; Simon Hoggart ribs Cameron for sounding like a Trot at PMQs yesterday. But the Tory position is actually entirely reasonable. As long as these banks were getting by without state aid it was up to them and their shareholders how much they paid
Ben Brogan in today’s Daily Mail goes on precisely the right theme: translating these squillions into the real money – £16,000 per punter. The “that’s our money” anger picked up in the vox-pops around the country from members of the public has no echo in Parliament. This worries me – there’s something like £400 billion
As Vince Cable pointed out yesterday, events sure are fast-moving. The latest is that over 20 councils have cash sunk in troubled Icelandic banks. And that’s aside from organisations such as Transport for London, which – according to Boris – has £40 million at stake here. Accordingly, the various heads of these local bodies are
Robert Chote, the director of the IFS, does the invaluable job of totting up in today’s Telegraph just how much debt the country has racked up recently. “In September last year, public sector net debt stood at just under £515 billion or 36.8 per cent of national income. Since then, the nationalisation of Northern Rock
Rod uses the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto to give Chesterton an airing. Grand stuff. But Mr Dreher also has this to say: Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, the 1571 grand naval battle that saved Europe from Ottoman Turkish conquest. The victory — one of the greatest ever in naval
Well, campers, if it’s Wednesday you know it’s Disappointment Time. Yes, John McCain and Barack Obama are “debating” again tonight. This time in an all-holds barred “town hall” format. Can you contain your excitement? Well, for those of you who remain, despite all previous warnings to the contrary, demons for punishment, fret not we’ll be
There’s plenty one could say about National Review’s blog The Corner. If nothing else it affords a grim panorama of the decline of the American conservative movement. Decline, at least, in as much as NR is considered the house magazine for mainstream Republicanism. Here, for instance, is Andrew McCarthy on last night’s debate: Now, as
Sweden really does rule. What Mervyn King and Gordon Brown have agreed today is, essentially, the Swedish 1992 bank bailout plan, (NYT write-up here). It was authored by the same conservative government which introduced the voucher school model that the Tories are proposing to replicate. While the UK bailout is comparable to the Paulson plan
In an interview with Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian, Rowan Williams has a nice little dig at Dawkins – he’s calmly patronising, seemingly by accident. “As he escorts me from his study, he tells me he admires Dawkins. “There’s something about his swashbuckling side which is endearing.” He invited atheism’s high priest and his wife
Westminster is convinced that Gordon Brown is the political beneficiary, at least in the short-term, of the current financial turmoil. Brown looks more energised and confident than he has in a long time, the rebellion within the Labour party has been quashed, and the Tories are in a bind. They have to be supportive of
The Tories tried to make political capital out of the International Monetary Fund’s latest growth forecasts in today’s PMQs. You can see them on page 2 of this pdf. What’s so significant about them? Well, they’re pretty gloomy for starters – they put the UK’s economic growth at only 1.0 percent for 2008, and -0.1
Three thoughts on the bailout… 1) Should the Lloyds-HBOS deal still go ahead? Originally, Brown agreed to waive the competition concerns because HBOS might collapse on its own – but after today’s deal, there’s no danger of that. The bailout gets HBOS out of the very particular pickle it was in. As Robert Peston notes,
Today’s WSJ reports that almost one in six US homeowners now owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth. 16 percent now do so compared to 4 percent in 2006. Among those who purchased their residence in the last five years, the figure rises to 29 percent. One wonders what the equivalent UK
Had six central banks not agreed to cut interest rates by the same amount today –50bp – I suspect the Bank of England would have gone lower. We’re at 4.5% now but we’re probably on a downward track to 3.5% or even 3.25%. Great news if you’re on a variable mortgage anchored to the base rate,
It’s unfair to say Brown “won” PMQs because Cameron decided not to play. There was a distinct air of national crisis to PMQs which, of course, helps Gordon Brown. Few amongst us would be so bold as to think the taxpayer will see this £50 billion again, but David Cameron was not going to point
1157, Peter Hoskin: Welcome to Coffee House’s live blog of the first PMQs of this Parliamentary session (you can watch it here). Expect a lot of back-and-forth about the £50 billion bailout, all in a spirit of aggressive cooperation. And stay tuned for Fraser’s detailed report later. 1204, PH: Here we go… 1204, PH: Brown confirms
We’ve uploaded a Web Exclusive report by Lloyd Evans on the latest Spectator / Intelligence Squared debate: “Heathrow needs a third runway”. You can read it here.
On this morning’s Today Programme Alistair Darling came as close as I reckon he’ll ever come to setting out his stance on guaranteeing bank deposits. He said: “What we do in relation to that will differ from institution to institution…what I will do is in every single case and every single instance…I have been very
You can watch Brown’s statement on the bailout here. It’s full of the usual reminders about “global problems” which “started in America”, and platitudes about “fresh and innovative intervention” and “long-term challenges”. But, to be honest, this is an arena in which Brown thrives. His dour bank manager shtick lends itself to talk about liquidity, assets and guarantees. The question now
What to make of Brown and Darling’s £50 billion rescue plan for the banks? As with so much during this financial crisis, there’s a distinct air of uncertainty around it. There are potential upsides: it should help restore some degree of confidence in the banking system, help banks lend to each other, and stabilise the markets. But
As Kevin Rudd’s press gallery romance sours, Turnbull sharpens his knife Mr Rudd pursed. Mr Rudd rearranged his pencils, first by height, second by colour, third by the order in which they displeased him. Mr Rudd was out of sorts. His sermon to the UN, on the world’s crises, as they related to Mr Rudd,
Which is why blogging has been non-existent these past few days. However my new MacBook arrived half an hour ago and, all being well, we’ll be back up to speed pretty soon. *OK, I snorted liquor all over the keyboard in response to something preposterous she, or one of her cheerleaders, said. I forget which.
At Culture11 there’s some advice for the candidates before tonight’s “debate.” It’s unlikely much of it will be taken. At her own blog Kerry Howley adds this: I’ll just add that there is a massive gap between Obama’s actual rhetoric and the conservative portrayal of him as some sort of naive, starry-eyed internationalist. There is
The polling news for the McCain campaign right now is grim. Yesterday, two polls in Virginia had Obama over 50 percent and ahead by double-digits; McCain pretty much has to win the Old Dominion to get to 270. Nearly all the toss-up states are now leaning to Obama, while states where McCain had a mild
Hold the front pages. Brown’s just called a “crisis meeting” with Alistair Darling, Mervyn King and Adair Turner, the head of the Financial Services Authority – three people he should be (and is?) in round-the-clock contact with anyway. Of course, our PM’s been milking this financial crisis for every drop of its theatrical worth all along – few
Prepare for the next round of one of Westminster’s favourite parlour games of the past few months: “Will Alistair Darling get the sack?” After all, our Chancellor’s hardly excelled himself over the past few days — his statement to the Commons yesterday was less-than-inspiring and did nothing to reassure the markets, whilst his behind-the-scenes work
Much of the talk about bank bailouts blithely presupposes there will be good times just around the corner – and the state will sell the dodgy assets at a profit to the taxpayer as happened in New Zealand, Hong Kong etc. It’s the “buy on the dips” mentality – the idea that what goes down
As Matt notes, there is now a truce in the Labour party; the reshuffle has earned Brown the right to die another day. When you look at the reshuffle it becomes clear that Brown has appeased every faction in the Labour party: the Blairites get Mandelson back and McBride moved upstairs, Compass get Jon Trickett
Having finally caught onto what the banks want, it seems that Alistair Darling is going to dance to their tune and speed up plans for a recapitalisation package. According to the Standard, around £50 billion could be pumped into the sector “within days”. Sure, the dither-o-meter has just receded a notch. But now comes the separate
The declaration by George Howarth, the Labour MP for Knowsley North and Sefton East, that “hostilities are over” may not resonate outside the Westminster village but it is highly significant for Gordon Brown’s chances of survival. A Privy Councillor, former junior minister, and select committee stalwart, Howarth is precisely the sort of middle-ranking parliamentarian, little
Yesterday, I suspected that Alistair Darling’s obfuscating language meant that HMT didn’t really have a clue about how to deal with the market turmoil. But the hope was that, behind the confused – and confusing – rhetoric, there lay substantive action. It would seem not, if the reports of the Chancellor’s meeting with bank officials
As Mike Smithson points out over at the indispensable Political Betting, it’s a year to the day since Gordon Brown called off an Autumn general election in an interview with Andrew Marr. Watch the footage below to see the moment CoffeeHousers voted as that “where it all went wrong” for our Dear Leader:
So there we have it – at close, the FTSE share index had dropped by 7.85 percent, its largest one-day fall since 1987. The banks were, predictably, the big losers. HBOS plummeted by 20 percent; the Royal Bank of Scotland by 20 percent; and Barclays by 15 percent. Meanwhile, Alistair Darling gave a statement in Parliament (watch it here) which