How investors are holding the Irish economy to ransom
Saving the Anglo Irish Bank has cost Ireland £29bn and other financial institutions (notably Irish Nationwide and the Allied Irish Bank) bring the total up to £43bn – the equivalent of a third of GDP.
The government has been forced to talk about “sharing the pain” with the banks’ creditors and “restructuring” the debt (not meeting interest payments on time).
Unsurprisingly, institutions holding Irish government debt are getting twitchy, and on Friday, Citigroup held a conference call where Finance Minister Brian Lenihan was to reassure hundreds of City of London investors.
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After tonight’s revelations, Cameron aide Andy Coulson is toast
Channel Four has a Dispatches report tonight, presented by the conservative columnist Peter Oborne, extending the phone-tapping allegations against David Cameron’s director of communications Andy Coulson.
A former colleague has said that Coulson liked to listen to the intercepted messages and read the transcripts to check the sources of stories himself.
“Sometimes, they would say: ‘We’ve got a recording’ and Andy would say: ‘OK, bring it into my office and play it to me’ or ‘Bring me, email me a transcript of it.’”
Coulson has always claimed he knew nothing of the widespread phone-tapping and culture of illegality at the newspaper while he was in charge.
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IMF admits: West stuck in ‘near depression’
If you strip away the political correctness, Chapter Three of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook more or less condemns Southern Europe to death by slow suffocation and leaves little doubt that fiscal tightening will trap North Europe, Britain and America in slump for a long time.
The IMF report – “Will It Hurt? Macroeconomic Effects of Fiscal Consolidation” – implicitly argues that austerity will do more damage than so far admitted.
Normally, tightening of 1pc of GDP in one country leads to a 0.5pc loss of growth after two years. It is another story when half the globe is in trouble and tightening in lockstep. Lost growth would be double if interest rates are already zero, and if everybody cuts spending at once.
“Not all countries can reduce the value of their currency and increase net exports at the same time,” it said. Nobel economist Joe Stiglitz goes further, warning that damn may break altogether in parts of Europe, setting off a “death spiral”.
Social media and political activism: the big debate
All debates about the influence of social media come down to this. It is just fast paper. Was anyone expecting anything else? I mention this because The Observer today contains a summary of the Gladwell v Shirky spat over the power of Twitter, and while it’s presented as an argument, both of them are basically offering versions of the ‘fast paper’ argument.
Gladwell’s thesis is that social media campaigning doesn’t change anything. Retweeting a hashtag, clicking the ‘like’ button and slapping a twibbon (ick) on your avatar are all heart-warming acts of self-congratulation – a little pat on your own back in recognition of your very fine moral nature – but they don’t have any influence on the real world.
The Shirky response is, more or less, ‘Duh.‘ Some people overstated the case for Twitter activism during the Green Uprising in Iran, but just because social media couldn’t overthrow a government doesn’t mean it isn’t good at other stuff.
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Oh no! Justine starred in a ‘notorious comedy’!
I missed this Daily Mail ‘article’ earlier today (scroll down):
All this reminds of the Daily Mail’s desperate “Clegg’s Nazi Slur on Britain” stuff during the election.
Watch: Donald Duck listens to Glenn Beck
This is truly brilliant
via @DVNJr
Why saying sorry over Iraq is the hardest word, for some
contribution by Eric Joyce MP
Following Ed Miliband’s speech in Manchester this week, Labour’s official position is that the UK’s participation in the US-led invasion of Iraq was a mistake.
Some people are finding this hard to take – our position until last week was expressed by many MPs as; “if I were presented with the same information now I’d make the same decision”. But so what?
The question for today is; “if we’d known there were no WMDs and that there would be an unforseen bloodbath, would we have voted for the war?” This is to be wise after the event, of course. But that’s the point.
Some people were wise before the event and want us to recognise that. Ed did that in Manchester; people respect it and now we can move on.
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Daily Mail’s most absurd Ed Miliband headline yet
Could the Daily Mail get more absurd?
I’m betting it will, but this is a pretty serious contender for the most absurd headline ever on the Labour leader. Poor Ed and his “unorthodox lifestyle”.
What the anti-cuts movement could learn from anti-war protests
contribution by Tim Gee
Across the country, something remarkable is happening. Spontaneously, and independently, new community alliances are emerging, to oppose the government’s cuts programme. In my own locality of Hackney, ordinary planning meetings regularly attract 50 attendees.
And the numbers involved are growing rapidly. Discussions are already showing similar differences in strategy that emerged in the anti-war movement. By far the most often questioned is the usefulness of demonstrations.
Mass demonstrations are necessary but not enough
Some believe that demonstrators automatically sideline their issue by taking to the streets rather than engaging with the corridors of power. Others believe the A to B demonstration is disempowering and counterproductive – a method of allowing people to let off steam without getting in the way of the system that oppresses them.
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Labour crosses 40% in polls; but within MoE
YouGov’s weekly poll for the Sunday Times released today has Labour at 41%, with Conservatives at 39% and Libdems at 11%.
It is the highest polling figure recorded for the party since 2007, according to UK Polling Report.
Is it post-conference bounce? Who knows, though it’s unlikely as most of the coverage then revolved around David Miliband’s deliberations.
The figure remains within the margin of error – i.e. within the +3/-3 range of earlier Labour polling.
At the minimum it shows Labour has reached the 38%-39% range.
But Labourites have to be careful before jumping for joy. As Sunder Katwala pointed out last week:
A central part of the new leader’s message to his party is that they should not underestimate the scale of the journey to reconnect with the British public. It will be important to keep emphasising this if the party is ahead in the opinion polls for much of the next year.
For now, Ed Miliband would be sensible not to place too much importance on the polls and judge his leadership by them.
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