Midnight in Paris

Misery following the French win over England in the Rugby World Cup this morning and then joy seeing Midnight in Paris this afternoon. Schizophrenia? Midnight in Paris is one of Woody Allen's best films or at least one of those I have enjoyed the most. His two most disappointing films were the London ones because in my view he never quite captured the subtlety of English humour and the way class works. His view of class was of a pre '60s stereotype. Anyway I enjoyed watching Midnight in Paris infinitely more than the England/France game. As always in a Woody Allen film the acting was a joy to watch, even Carla Bruni did her bits well. A pity that her husband has been such a disappointing President, shown up particularly badly by the euro crisis where instead of leadership he has shown cowardice. He should have  taken France out of the euro together with the rest of the Latin countries or alternatively he should have insisted Germany and the northern states leave to set up their own monetary union. As it is the global economy is heading for the disaster that even Mervyn King sees looming down the track with the rest of us on the sidelines looking at a slow motion train crash. Will we never learn that what sounds too good to be true always is? The EU in theory sounded like a good idea but it has turned out to be exactly as the sages predicted. The euro to many, many people sounded like a bad idea but to the idealistic dreamers who believe in central planning it was always going to work because they had the will, if not the solution, to make it work. However the dreamers try to resuscitate it the euro is dead or soon will be. Pretension is giving way to reality as it always has to.    

Grrr.

I hate to say it but I am deeply disappointed, nay angry, that a Conservative Chancellor can have given the go ahead for more quantitative easing. The QE that has already taken place has done nothing to encourage growth. Indeed the reverse as it has brought inflation in its wake and thus has made goods more expensive, led to diminished sales and slowed the economy. Already Mervyn King is somewhat of an iffy economist having been one of those opposed to Mrs Thatcher's economic medicine all those years ago and been proved comprehensively wrong. Osborne should have stood up to him and the other members of the Committee which still has on it members chosen by Brown. There will be no bright dawn now and if the opposition were not so discredited themselves there would be no likelihood of a Conservative victory at the next election. The Tories will be seen as having got their economic policy massively wrong and voters will wonder which of the parties is the bigger disaster on this vital issue. Until this moment there would have been no doubt that they would have viewed Labour as economic illiterates but now they will have to choose which is the lesser illiterate of the two main parties. Up until this moment I was quietly pleased with the way the Conservatives in government were behaving and indeed on schools, welfare, the Home Office issues, foreign affairs, planning and defence they are still doing well. It is on the economy, health, climate change and the EU where they are going sadly wrong. Oh yes and on privatising the Forestry Commission. Grrr.  

Like Henry's Speech before Agincourt?

I did not watch or listen to Cameron's speech but read it instead as I had done with Osborne's speech. It was a well crafted speech and its emphasis on leadership could equally have been on character. To me "overcoming challenge, confounding the sceptics, reinventing ourselves" is about character. This is what will be needed in the months ahead and in particular to control the flow of idiotic directives flowing out of Brussels of the kind Cameron referred to and will not be done without renegotiating our relationship with that institution which is the antithesis of the country Cameron wants Britain to be and a huge brake on our development. Cameron was right to refer to the need for fast transport and broadband but what is he going to do about airports and about the challenge to Dover by Calais? The other grouse I have is Cameron's seeming total acceptance of the green agenda. Scepticism is sometimes a conservative virtue particularly when those pushing their own agendas tell you things like 'the science is settled'. A sure sign that those who say those kind of things are trying to pull the wool over your eyes. The science is not settled any more than it's certain I can play a par round of golf. Nor can I accept that we should be spending more and more on the NHS year in and year out. The NHS is hopelessly overstaffed, bureaucratic, wasteful and thus far too expensive. If we are to be stuck with the existing NHS structure then we should at least make a determined effort to make it more efficient and drive down costs by introducing real competition and use the savings in part to reduce what the taxpayers pump into it and in part to fund new equipment. For example I understand that in France and Holland they are able to pick up cancerous polyps when they are at a size that our scanning machines are unable to identify. Possibly this is more to do with the radiated molecules injected into the patient than the scanning machinery? Cameron's speech was otherwise a great success and entirely suitable for these dangerous times. A bit of Henry's speech before Agincourt.        

Service and the NHS

My wife had a mammogram today at a large London hospital. Needless to say when she arrived and wanted to ask directions from reception the receptionist was too busy talking to a friend of his about his weekend to deal with her and became somewhat shirty with her when she tried to interrupt. She had to wait until he'd finished his conversation before he deigned to tell her where to go. Furthermore on arrival at the mammogram reception when she asked how long the wait would be before her turn the nurse or whoever told she would have to wait as long as it took. So much for the NHS which is supposed to be so wonderful. It isn't wonderful since the vast majority who work in it have a vested interest in it remaining as it is. A place for them rather than for the patients. Monopolies are all the same be they government or privately owned. The NHS would improve significantly if it were subjected to real competition but that is never going to happen for ideological rather than any other reason. Any change to the NHS will always be resisted in case the cosy vested interests have to change their ways to provide a proper service. This must surely be recognised by the mainstream media (apart of course from the BBC which is a monopoly too) but why do they always scream when even the minimalist changes the government wishes to introduce are discussed? One has to rely on blogs and specialist journals like the Spectator to get a more reasoned view. The end does not justify the means and so what a pity those opposed to any reform misrepresent the benefits that change can bring.  

Osborne's Speech

I did not watch or hear Osborne's speech but I read it and it reads well. Whether credit easing for small and medium size businesses will work remains to be seen and there are some who fear it risks devolving into a crisis like the sub-prime loans crisis. The details will not be announced until late November so we will not know until then how risky the idea might be. Osborne made clear that he does not believe in tax cuts at this time since it would involve increasing borrowing to make up the lost revenue. I do not agree with this since there are plenty of funds waiting to be invested in business but which are being accumulated instead because of the current economic uncertainties. A tax reduction would leave more money in the pockets of taxpayers, give them confidence to spend part of it and thereby increase trade thus giving more confidence to investors to put at least part of their accumulated funds into businesses. Instead we have a freeze on council tax worth £72 which is a little disappointing although in these hard economic times is better than nothing. Osborne's views on quantitative easing and global warming remain very worrying since one is an inflation booster (making the cost of living worse) and the other is based on unproven science (best postponed altogether until we have scientific certainty). Osborne did though announce a review of our climate change policies to ensure we cut our carbon emissions no faster and no slower than other EU countries and I suppose we have to give thanks for the smallest of mercies.

The Cost of Building

I do not know if it's true but I was told this afternoon that one reason why new house builds have been so disappointing in recent years is because Prescott introduced a requirement that a significant percentage of new housing developments had to be for affordable housing and that the housing associations to whom the affordable housing was to be transferred had to be sold at a significant discount to market price. This apparently has so skewed the economics of developing a site that, in the present financial state we find ourselves in, many developers are not prepared to risk their financial future by carrying out a development, particularly on brown field sites which can be expensive to prepare for building. It is thought however that developers will be likely to take the risk of carrying out a development on a green field site once the changes to the planning laws proposed by the government have gone through as the cost of acquiring and preparing a green field site for development is often significantly less than the cost of buying and preparing a brown field site. If this is so and in order to encourage further house building on brown field sites why doesn't the government change Prescott's policy so that the cost of building on brown field sites is made sufficiently profitable to attract the developers? The government could at the same time make building on green field sites more expensive and thereby mollify its opponents to its plan to make our planning laws less prescriptive. Perhaps the government already have changes to Prescott's regulation in mind. I do hope so. The government did not change the planning permission though for the tower being built near Vauxhall Bridge (known locally I'm told as Prescott's Prick) and reduce its height to something more reasonable. I suppose we have to be thankful that it had already been reduced from 63 floors to 50 but once built it will alter London's skyline as will the other towers for which permission to build cannot now be refused. The huge site in and around Nine Elms Lane and now being prepared for development will no doubt contain many tall buildings.  

Growing Pains

Frankly does it matter whether or not Louise Mensch has had a face lift? Does it really matter to us that Michael Jackson's doctor is on trial for involuntary manslaughter? It beggars belief though that the Guardian would think we would be interested in Louise Mensch's face, attractive though it is, or in Sky's continuous coverage of the Michael Jackson's doctor's trial. What matters much more is the economy and whether or not Andrew Tyrie is right in calling for tax cuts. We are told that you can't have tax cuts and reduce borrowing but you could if you cut faster and deeper. The talk of increased borrowing following on as night follows day from tax cuts is a bit of red herring. The whole point of tax cuts is to leave people wealthier and feeling better off. People feeling better off will likely feel like spending more and people spending more must improve our GDP. I think Tyrie is right and that we should cut taxes to encourage growth. Osborne has said he is not for turning but is also reported as saying that he is prepared to be flexible. Seems to me to be a slight contradiction in terms. ConservativeHome have been running a poll  which indicates that 41.6% of those polled believe that the cuts should be faster and deeper. Sadly it seems unlikely that Osborne will take much notice of the poll. Fiddling around with the length of time before which you can take your boss to a tribunal, though welcome, is not going to help growth by much. Nor is a further bout of quantitative easing which will bring with it a real risk of high inflation. Reducing the minimum wage might help but again this is fiddling at the edges and is not on offer anyway.