Category Archives: Uncategorized

Banking on a better system?

Posted on by
Reply

As DG Markt Director General Jonathan Faull writes to the FT about the lobbying of Basel III and European Commission, and politicians and protesters with their “Banker Wanker” posters (and worse) blame the banks alone for the recent crisis and current financial climate…
the more windows get smashed or buildings occupied… I just wonder whether any of us really know what banks are for?

Put in really basic terms, banks basically do two things: they take in short term deposits and give out long term loans.  This is known as a “maturity transformation”.
But it seems that the major issues that caused banks to collapse were inability to properly manage this basic maturity transformation:

1)  running out of funding (like Northern Rock)
2) running out of cash (like Lehman Brothers)
3) inadequate risk management regarding quality of loans (primarily a problem in the USA).

We’ve heard a lot about the last bit, complex packages of bad debt and whatever.  Gordon Brown as PM blamed this third issue for the whole of the banking crisis.  But it is really quite simple: loans are things like mortgages, car loans, student loans, the sorts of everyday loan we can get our heads around.
Everything else is just a different way of packaging these up – e.g. as bonds to flog on the market.  That gives a different product which attracts a different sort of investor and therefore more money to be paid as interest, borrowed by those needing it etc.  Is this an inherently risky business?  Or is it the lack of transparency and understanding about what’s in the packages that’s risky?
I can’t help thinking it’s both the quality of the original loan and also management of the maturity transformation that are crucial here.

So banks borrow short and lend long.
Northern Rock basically seems to have run out of funding for its 25-year mortgages – for which it was borrowing a month at a time.  D’oh.
Lehmans, meanwhile, ran out of cash – a liquidity problem. As a bank you need to be able to pay up at all times.  Many deposits are repayable on demand, and banks have to assume they will be asked to do and if they can’t, the bank goes bust.
You can imagine Lord Sugar on The Apprentice shaking his head in disbelief that these simple concepts cannot be grasped by the self-proclaimed business experts standing before him.

While in the EU we were affected by the US sub-prime loans, unlike the US where these things were not really regulated, in the EU it was.  It’s not that banks don’t have capital standards – the existing Basel standards have been around for about 20 years.
So the Basel Convention and the European Commission are trying to design two metrics for the other two crisis causes to stop all this happening again.
There’s going to be a Lehmans Ratio – so that payments out can always be made for a month – and a Northern Rock Ratio (known as a Net Stable Funding Ratio) for a year’s funding.  And these new standards are being drawn up in just a couple of years.

Real care needs to be taken that the standards set are not so demanding that they will have a negative effect on the economy.
For example, one impact of the Northern Rock Ratio is that it reduces the amount of maturity transformation i.e. there’s more matching of assets against liabilities.  That means it is more difficult to fund long term.
Good, we might think – that means the wrong people won’t get loans.
But what about large scale infrastructure projects?  If we can’t fund them through banks, other sources of funding will need to be sought, such as the market.  And that brings a whole load of other insecurity…

While banker bashing is fun, it is not going to fix the system.  Nor will breaking up the banks fundamentally tackle this, merely making banking more expensive for consumers.  All these things really do is make it look as though the failure is distanced from the political decision making process – which of course it never can be.  Choosing not to act, failure to regulate or supervise effectively is a political decision just as much as choosing to do so.

The key question is whether our primary aim is to have processes for handling banks when they fail, or whether we should be focusing on building an economic system that doesn’t presuppose this.
As for the idea that if taxpayers don’t have to bail out the banks, we don’t have to pay, that’s to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of our economy.  If a bank fails and we pay for nationalising it through our taxes, it’s a visible cost.

But the overall increase in costs from politically attractive but economically risky metrics also affect us all – as shareholders, as mortgage borrowers facing increased interest rates or higher entry hurdles, as entrepreneurs with start-up needs or business owners looking to expand through loans, and crucially through our pensions.  Yes, you did read that right, reduced bank profits means reduced dividends which directly affect our pensions pots.
Ah, but not every one is affected, right? Mortgages, shares, workplace pensions… not everyone has them and this way the poorest don’t have to pay for the greedy bankers?  But given the lowest paid have been lifted out of tax, they wouldn’t have been hit that way anyway, so that’s just disingenuous.   We all pay.

And we shouldn’t, you may say.  Let the bankers pay!
Bankers get million pound bonuses!  Yep, some do.  In the UK, according to former City minister Paul Myners,  last year it was 5000 bankers out of a million people working in financial services.  Well, if we want to debate the inherent unfairness in pay and reward structures in our capitalist economist, and the value to the economy of farmers,  call centre workers, teachers -v- say, premiership footballers who merely kick a ball around a field for 90 minutes, that’s a whole other blog post.I think we need to differentiate between our sense of social injustice and convenient scapegoating of the bankers.

If we are to think about an economy that is about economic growth and not on bank failure,  then we need to move away from the assumption that nothing can be done and these things just happen – somehow bubbles that burst bringing down the economy are an inevitability.
Alan Greenspan had a mantra that it is cheaper and easier to mop up after an economic bubble bursts.   He’s been proved wrong.
What we really need is a more mature way of thinking about bubbles.
Bubbles are very rarely economy-wide.  So if it’s a property bubble, we need to have targeted measures aimed at deflating that sector.  How do we tell if there’s a bubble?  Loads of economic analysts argue over this, but essentially it’s a bit like pornography – almost impossible to pin down but you know it when you see it…

Is there a bubble at the moment?  Well, not easily seen.
But some food for thought – LinkedIn was recently valued at what equates to $100 a user.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve not put $100 into my LinkedIn use and would withdraw my details before seeing them sold – so unless some people are putting in thousands of dollars, I can’t see how that worth is derived.  Is this a new 1990s style internet bubble?   Who knows?

But will all this activity make the banking system less likely to fail in future? Don’t bank on it.

Comic Relief Doctor Who

Posted on by
Reply

Doctor Who season 6 (of New Who) starts this Saturday. But if the trailers are anything to go by, while my son’s been able to watch most of the previous series thanks to judicious use of fast forward (I’m sure he thinks all Cybermen move at super speed), I’m not convinced there’s going to be anything in the new one that’s good for him. All the better for me of course, but hard to explain to him.

So instead, here’s the specially-written for Comic Relief sketches. He’s too little to get the glass floor and short skirts jokes, but he likes the idea of the TARDIS in the TARDIS… In the meantime, please do donate to Comic Relief: http://www.comicrelief.com/
Because sometimes its other people that are worth it.

On the road again

Posted on by
2


(image c/o www.drivingkillz.co.uk)

So today, for the first time in years, I had a driving lesson.
I’ve had the jokes about losing licences etc. – I didn’t.  I simply didn’t drive regularly for several years and lost my confidence.  I was also injured in a car crash when my husband was driving, and became more than usually aware how dangerous cars actually are.

Today, I got into the driving seat without actually hyperventilating.  This may have been because of the dual controls, or perhaps the fact that my driving instructor is very positive and enthusiastic – just as they should be.

I then proceeded to drive perfectly competently around roads I’ve been avoiding for the last year or so.  I managed roundabouts, roadworks, overtaking, and cycle lanes.

I’m nervous parking, not comfortable above 40 miles an hour, but actually that’s no worse than a lot of people on the roads.  Next week, I’ll brave country lanes, the motorway and car parks…

Of course the car I’m learning in is a Vauxhall Corsa, and I passed my test in one of those.  Driving our car is a different challenge all together, and that’s one I need support to conquer. The last thing I need is exasperation and shouting.  I’ve had P plates recommended to me – so I’ll try to get hold of some, and hope my husband doesn’t take the P.

Is it really possible…

Posted on by
Reply

…to post on my blog via an Android app? Well, I’m giving it a go, and my first thought is that-  contrary to the research at present that says that the under-30s have had their hands changed by texting and mobile phone use and will now use their thumbs more naturally than index finger for tasks such as ringing doorbells- anyone attempting to blog via the WordPress app risks index finger RSI!
I’m quite deft, but prolonged screen typing makes me wonder if it would be a good idea to invest in a usb keyboard. Or the fat finger app. Ah. Actually just turning the phone horizontal helps…

Daddy Days?

Posted on by
1


In a rare treat for my son a couple of weeks ago, my husband took a day’s holiday to spend with him.
While a 24-hour tummy bug scuppered plans to go swimming, they seem to have had all sorts of fun.  I’ve not yet asked why toddler’s sunhat is wedged in the cherry tree…

I’ve always wanted my husband to play a big role in bringing up my son.  But although he, like me, has a legal right to request flexible working he’s felt unable to do so.  While prior to our son’s birth we pretty much had income parity, he changed job to increase his pay and opportunities and the world he now works in appears to be pretty much 24/7 if you want to be “taken seriously”.
This seems to be a common problem of perception. In some recent research two-thirds (66%) of parents expressed some concern about making a request to work flexibly to their current employer which might prevent them from doing so. Around a third (32%) thought that if they made such a request that it might mark them out as being uncommitted to their job and just under a quarter (23%) thought that such a request may affect their promotion prospects. Parents aged 18-34 were more likely to feel this more acutely – around 75% were concerned about asking (but quite a lot did it anyway).

That fits with research carried out by McKinsey which identified that the age of 30 was the point at which career aspirations start to consolidate – those over 35 may have reached their pinnacle before having children, or have decided it mattered less than actually having a child, and therefore be less concerned about what often amounts to a choice between part-time work plus nanny, or dropping out of the labour market, unless they can start flexible working.

So when we divided up our household income/ childcare balance, it made sense for me to be the one that went to part-time hours, not least because my employer is generally very accommodating.  However, this compounds the difference between us.  We’re not unusual in having made that split:  according to research for the Government Equalities Office, more than half (53%) of working parents feel their job prevents them spending the amount of time they would like with their children. Mothers who work full time are more likely than fathers who work full time to agree that their job prevents them spending the amount of time they would like to spend with their children (72% and 59% respectively).

I’m not saying my husband does nothing.  He does his fair share of transportation to our childcare, but the hours he works often mean that our son is already asleep when he gets home, or that they’re frankly tired and grouchy when they are together.

Does it matter?  There are probably a lot of people out there who’d argue that they never saw their dads other than at weekends when they were tired, or in the holidays, and it never did them any harm.
But my dad, as a teacher, was able to be around in the school holidays and I think there were benefits for us as a family, and also for my brother in learning what it is to be a man.

That sounds a bit pathetic?  Well, look at the evidence from the inner cities where charismatic youth leaders are working hard to replace the older boy gang members as the male role models in the life of fatherless younger boys, or even government endorsed programmes like REACH. Having men around in the lives of small boys matters.

Also there seems to be a growing amount of evidence that boys and girls learn differently – Gareth Malone (of the community choirs fame) is investigating this in his BB2 School season show “Gareth Malone’s Extrordinary School for Boys” on Thursdays, also on BBC iPlayer.

I’m incredibly lucky.  My parents (both retired teachers as it happens) are very active in my son’s childcare so he has a second decent male role model regularly available to him.  It’s very funny to watch my son run to the tool box to find spanners and screwdrivers to follow my dad around, to see him carefully sort through a bag of screws to find the right size one to help build furniture (without a thought of eating any of them), chase my dad around the garden being lions – he wouldn’t really do these things with my mum, except for the chasing – and it’s sweet to watch him copy my dad’s body language.
But if he’s feeling a bit off colour, it’s grandma that gets the cuddle.

Small children do stereotype – he said to me the other day in an imaginary transport game “mummy, I boy, I do the driving. You LADY”.  (Re-learning to drive is certainly going to help squash that particular impression…)
Even so, I am slightly concerned about the sheer number of women in my son’s early life – none of his nursery nurses are male, and the stories in today’s press suggest that this will not improve when he’s old enough for school.
This is not about role models – I gather that boys don’t necessarily equate male teachers with role models in any case.

But it feels wrong that just 12.5 per cent of primary school teachers are men, and a quarter of primary schools have no male teachers at all, according to a report from the General Teaching Council.
Academics blame concerns over paedophilia, low pay and the cultural idea that teaching small children is “women’s work” – the reception teacher in particular seen as a kind of substitute mother weaning children away from their home lives and out into the world. Here’s just some of the recent press coverage: Professor Alan Smithers, Centre for Education Research: “There’s a danger that boys could grow up thinking education is sissy.”
Sue Palmer, academic and author:“People look at men funnily if they want to hang out with kids”.
Jamie Wilson, literally the only man under the age of 25 working in a state-run nursery: “For some young children I am the only male figure in their everyday lives and I feel that is important.”

That’s not to say that men are better teachers than women, or that women can’t teach boys.  It’s not saying that men will teach through football to promote male-bonding. There is rightly concern that scarcity value means any man in primary school teaching will do, any man will get promoted simply because he’s a man, or that he can be the figure for discipline in a school.  All of this is silly stereotyping and not in the interests of anyone in education.

But to overcome the idea that school is “sissy” and the self-reinforcing idea that primary teaching is the preserve of women, what’s needed is a much more equal number of men in primary schools- a visual reminder that teachers can be men as well as women.
So here’s an idea.  In the 1960s primary teaching was specifically promoted as good for women with small children.  I know it’s a bit different now with mountains of paperwork and long hours before and after the school day, but the impression continues.
So if that’s the case for women, why is it not the case for men too?
Think about the up-sides: a decent-ish salary (made more decent if you consider that it’s largely term-time only – my brother-in-law used to think of it as a £30k a year job with unpaid holidays), time to spend with your own kids and the professional experience to help them get the most out of their learning in the increasingly competitive education system. Plus you can try to work locally to home, cutting your carbon footprint (although not so close that you see your pupils all the time when you’re not at work). What’s not to like?
Sure, it is going to be tough teaching the kids that are not inspired by the subject you love and don’t want to be there. Sure, discipline in schools seems to be more problematic than my memory suggests it was when I was at school.  Sure, as you get older and more experienced, and as school seek out money saving options, you can be bypassed for promotion for someone less good but cheaper – not necessarily the best thing for the school but that’s no different to the rest of the working world?  The only problem is if more teachers can’t be afforded due to the economic climate…

Fathers of the UK, our children need you.
But if you’re not inspired to go and be a primary school teacher, why not step away from the computer now and build a wooden brick tower/ play a ball game outside/ help make that fort the kids have been on about?
If it’s fun, think about doing it on a Monday instead of being in the office or the factory or whatever. 50% more time at home, 20% less work.  It’s got to be worth thinking about…

Justice? No, it’s criminal lack of foresight

Posted on by
1

image from www.yourkenttv.co.uk

I know this is an age of austerity but it’s amazing what these cutback look like on the ground.  It’s also worrying the lack of joined up thinking amongst those with the power to make the cuts.

Don’t worry, I’m not naive.  I know there’s no masterplan, no overview of how and on what cuts are made.  That’s the problem in believing in local decision-making though, is that you do kind of expct some sort of consistency in the local area.  I’ll show you what I mean.  As you may have noticed because I’ve blogged about it a bit, Ashford in Kent is one of the growth towns in the UK.  Here’s what Ashford’s regeneration agency “Ashford’s Future” has to say about it:

Key facts about Ashford:
The fastest growing town between London and the Continent
Plans to create 31,000 homes and 28,000 jobs by 2031
Around £2.5 billion planned investment
37 minutes to London via the high speed rail link
Paris in 2 hours and Lille in under 1 hour from Ashford International
Exciting shopping opportunities in the extended County Square shopping centre and the Designer Outlet
Some of the best leisure facilities in the South East including a multi-million redeveloped leisure centre and international standard athletics stadium
Excellent and expanding education facilities including a multi-million Ashford Learning Campus for further education
2 million sq ft of commercial office development
Office rents 68% lower than in London and 40% lower than in the South East
House prices 28% cheaper than in London and 14% cheaper than the South East average
Fantastic countryside, including part of the Kent Downs area of outstanding natural beauty and extensive areas of woodland
Easy access to beautiful countryside, charming villages and the south coast
And – 85% of Ashford residents value the quality of life in Ashford

So what’s the problem?  Out on Saturday, I heard the story of a 15 year old, wrongly arrested for shoplifting in Ashford Town Centre. As ths is town gossip, I’d be delighted to have facts corrected, of course.

The police cells at Ashford police station have been closed.  This means that said 15 year old was apparently taken all the way to Folkestone for questioning. The way the story was told to me, once it had been acknowledged that it was a case of mistaken identity the 15 year old was released.  But he’s in Folkestone, 20km (12 miles) from where he was taken.  Fortunately he was sensible enough to point out that he was under 16 and get the police to get his parents to come and collect him.  But carting a 15 year old 12 miles from home on a mistaken basis, with no obligation to return him to his original location?  That doesn’t seem like an intended consequence, nor in line with the standards of child protection we’d expect from public authorities.

So then we learn that the closure of the custody suite is to be used as a justification for closing Ashford’s magistrates court.  Describing the court as “underused“, the money saved by not doing maintenance recently is also given as a reason for transferring magistrate court functions from Ashford to Folkestone and Dover.

But a letter in this week’s Kentish Express (not online, will see if it is still available) from a former Magistrate sets out the cost errors in the assumptions that this would save money, including the extra fuel and travel time of all the Ashford-based solicitors alone (NB there are only a couple of solicitors firms handling court work in Folkestone, and none in Dover).

One local solicitor pointed out the propensity of magistrates to grant bail to those kept waiting long in the day.  Another firm, Griffin Law, which is involved in the campaign to save the courts says:

The closure of a [...] Magistrates Court in Ashford is particularly ill thought through, given the government’s intention to grow the population of Ashford and surrounding villages.

And that’s exactly the point.  While it might be a short term saving to close the older magistrates court based in Ashford, it is Ashford, not Folkestone, which is well placed in terms of transport links (road and rail), Ashford that is designated the growth town, Ashford that is to expand so substantially.
It is therefore not the case that the population of the south east kent area is best served by moving the justice functions to Folkestone. Even now, Ashford is bigger than Folkestone.

This is a short-sighted decision, exactly the sort of thing that the level of cuts needed in public spending are likely to bring about, but without the careful holistic thinking that we might have hoped would be in place given the amount of time and warning the various different public bodies involved have had to think about it all.

It would also be great to see Ashford’s MP taking a leading role in fighting this sort of nonsensical decision that could potentially affect quality of life in Ashford.

Oh, and the international standard althetics complex Ashford’s Future mentioned?  That’s not being used properly – no compatitions etc. being attracted to the area – so that’s in line for closure too.  What a waste.  The Facebook campaign on this one is here.

Doing the job: debating the top euroblogs?

Posted on by
5


Well, if the Waagener Edstrom list of the most influential euroblogs was designed to provoke debate, it certainly has done amongst the eurobloggers.

Jon Worth, the fifth most influential according to the list, had to invite himself to the study’s launch.
Nosemonkey, whose authoritative, informative blog is regularly nominated for best blog awards finished outside the top 10.

Eurogoblin, Mathew’s Tagsmanian Devil(top 20!) and EURoman (a site I’ll admit I’d never heard of before today have all critiqued in a lot of detail.

For me, a few thoughts:
1)  the USA is being held up as the model against which to judge how influential the EU blogosphere is – but is that a realistic comparison?
Is it actually what people writing euroblogs are aspiring to?

Importing a methodology used in the US and the comparisons with the US blogging scene as if this something that the Euroblogosphere should be aspired to become like may also have added to the distortionary effect.

The EU is not the USA, and I don’t think it’s right to say one if  ahead of or more advance than the other.  The US doesn’t have the multicultural, multilingual diversity of the EU at its federal level, so while an English-language blog in the US might have a widespread influence, one in Brussels might have a lesser impact, similarly one in French, German etc. as the potential audience reading in that language for interest and pleasure is smaller.
Plus with Jon Worth announcing he’s moving to London, Nosemonkey in London, ghost blogger Julien Frisch until recently in Germany, Joe Litobarski in Italy, is labelling it  the “Brussels Blog” survey really getting the full EU blogging picture?  I agree with EURoman Christian, local interpretation of EU stories is definitely an important factor.

I’m also not convinced that there has to be “a purpose”- the best euroblogs from my reading perspective are those where the author’s found something of interest and run with it because they are interested, not because they are paid to do so, or are single purpose.

Eurobloggers that are most interesting to me tend to be amateur rather than professional journalists – that’s why the alternative views can prevail.

While the excellent bloggingportal team tries to galvinise us into something more coherent, the actual effect has been a bit like trying to herd cats.

2)  What are Eurobloggers writing about?
While in the US the Washington world is probably exciting enough to fully occupy bloggers, most EU blogs I read seem to also have interest in other things – whether that’s Jon Worth’s sportsblog or Joe Litobarski’s musings from Ethiopia.

I’m an occasional euroblogger, who, through a combination of not-covering-some-things-because-I-value-my-job and blogging on things other than the EU (primarily parenting, feminism, local issues and faith), is never going to make it high up the Euroblog rankings.

That’s fine by me – I was flattered to even be listed in Fleishman-Hillard’s citizen blogs list for just that reason-

4) Where did the blogs under consideration come from?
While I understand that my own blog’s too random to fit the primarily EU-focussed criteria, I’m a bit surprised that none of the blogs of the EU girl geeks appear even to have been in consideration: where was Europasionaria? Euonym? Lino the Rhino?
Or did I just miss the longlist of blogs that were considered?

3) Twitter is where it’s at…
While eurobloggers do try to take time to comment on each other’s blogs, as Eurogoblin points out, it’s Twitter where we really talk to each other, share information, views, debate and discuss.  And all in 140 characters.
The last great Euroblogger meet-up online was hosted on Skype in the end, with Twitter and Googlewave elements.
So we have to ask – to shape debate in social media- whether our individual blogs are the place where that’s done most effectively is a debate for another day…

Liking, learning, languages

Posted on by
1

Looking at the Petit Filous ads, I wonder – can you get a lifestyle from a language?

One of the great things about Facebook is that you ccan get back in touch with people. Today, I’ve been looking at the photos of my Frnech friend’s new born son.
French friend? Yes, I apologise for the turn of phrase.
When I was younger, we made friends with the people staying in the next door gite, while on holiday near Colmar.  As it turned out, they actually lived about 40 miles from us and I spent my teenage years learning French with a purpose.  It all seems so much more worthwhile when you have someone you want to be able to talk to.
Through this I enjoyed what we shared as culture, and  the differences too.  I gained access to a whole different way of thinking and a way of looking at the world.

I also speak some Spanish.  I chose to do so because my 13-year old self thought that it was better to learn a language spoken so widely in the world rather than German, spoken in only one country.  Now I’ve several Germna speakers in my circle of friends, and no one Spanish speaking.  I keep feeling embarrassingly monoglot.

So when it comes to teaching my son languages, I want to start early.
After all the theory behind language lessons in primary schools was about cutting money and improving GCSE results by not requiring a lang- I’m sorry, was about children soaking up languages more easily early on so that they learn a love of them (I guess this is the same theory of learning that leads to atheists saying that children should not learn about God’s love until they are old enough to decide to do so…)

But while it is natural to me as a francophone that my son should learn to speak the language of our neighbours, is it rational?  Is it the most useful thing he could do?
What about Spanish?  My theory still holds, plus I found travelling in California that it was very useful to speak Spanish. Even Gerorge W Bush spoke Spanish.
What about the language of the BRICs?  As Europe and the US decline as world powers, surely there’s a point to learning Hindi, Chinese, Portuguese, even Russian?

We’ve decided to start with what we know.
After a few goes yesterday, learning in English and French, my son now sings:

Fairer Jacker, Door May Voo, Sonic May A Tina, Ding Dang Dong!

Which isn’t bad for a first go.

We have the Muzzy VHS tapes in French and Spanish too.
These were given to us by a lovely B&B owner in Salisbury (we’d highly recommend a stay there, and please also make a donation to the Meningitis Trust if you have some spare pennies).
We need to dig out the video from the roof to be able to play them, but we think it might be time to get them going…

There are apparently lovely Fench clubs here in Ashford too, including holiday clubs for toddlers, so may be starting with what we as parents know, and starting with French.

Then the rest! Ciao…

New Who…

Posted on by
2

…woohoo!

 (amazing regeneration wallpaper from www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho)

Yes, pleased to report that I enjoyed the Eleventh doctor’s first outing “the Eleventh hour” (available on BBC iPlayer here).

Thanks to my son’s perhaps unsuitable addition to sci-fi TV programmes (the Sarah Jane Adventures, MI High etc.) I’ve had the opportunity recently to rewatch the Christopher Eccleston era Doctor Who episodes in the last couple of weeks (the less scary ones at least).  I remember now how I feared that the actor that played the singing policeman from Blackpool and the young Casanova couldn’t surely be a better Doctor than the one-that-looks-a-bit-like-my-husband?  But after the slightly disappointing “Christmas Invasion” (worst line?  “This new hand?  It’s a fightin’ hand!” in a cod Wild West accent), David Tennant became the best Doctor Who that I can remember, and I remember back to Tom Baker… well, the repeats at least.

I was one of the five people that watched and enjoyed Party Animals (the series which made Matt Smith’s name :) ), so I was actually quite pleased when he was cast, and didn’t respond “Doctor Who?” (hohoho).  Though I have to admit I was bothered about being older than the Doctor for the first time.  The friendship with the companions is important and I was a bit afraid that a younger Doctor meant more romance stuff and less exciting adventures.  The wedding dress (which I guessed was coming) at the end of the episode suggests that Stephen Moffat might have thought about this too… 

I was genuinely enthusiastic about Stephen Moffat taking over at Doctor Who and I’m glad to say, so far it’s lived up to my expectations. 

There are reviews galore online and I’d rather you watched it and formed your own views. But some highspeed random thoughts:
- new titles – great graphics, not so sure about the theme remix;
- liked the kid with the talking bedroom wall, hated the praying to Santa business (yes, we know the writers are atheists, but this felt petty);
- liked the not-quite-done-yet Doctor and the revamped tardis;
- liked the “corner of your eye” business and the camera technique of  “what did I see?”;
- liked the references to earlier themes and incarnations: the William Hartnell library card, the stealing clothes from the hospital (Paul McGann does that!), the inability to know when exactly he’s returning to (like the Girl in the Fireplace);
- loved the “village” atmosphere of Leadworth where everyone knows Amy…

The monsters were scary enough to mean that my son certainly won’t be seeing it for a few years (prisoner zero and the prison guard ships i can’t remember the name of), and the Doctor as the protector of earth theme was pleasingly in place. 
The dialogue is quick-fire and less “Coupling” than the Blink episode from series 3 (where both heroine Sally Sparrow and even Martha Jones sounded suspiciously like Sally Harper at times), and the oneliners are thick and fast. 

Essentially, >>jealous<< that I’m not writing it.  Though that means I get to watch it and get the enjoyment from that. Can you see the grin from here?

(And – given the random groups of people that read my blog – having read two thirds of the Ben Cook/ Russell T Davis email correspondence that forms “Doctor Who: the Writer’s Tale” and seeing the struggle going into Torchwood: Children of Earth, if series 4 gets the go ahead, email me via the contact sheet if you need a new writer…)

Very much looking forward to next week!

Don’t panic! It might be a hung parliament!

Posted on by
Reply

button image from www.isportacus.com

A survey quoted on Channel 4 news just now said that 56% of the civil service are expecting a hung parliament.  Civil servants of course know no more more about the results of any forthcoming elections in advance than any other intelligent observer, but nevertheless it may given an indication of what the general buzz in the Westminster village might be.

This was immediately followed by a report about the economic implications of a hung parliament.  But watching the report I’m quite concerned about the constant pumping out of the message about how a hung parliament is unpopular with the market, could lead to a market attack on sterling and will be bad for the UK economy.
It’s an eyecatching line but it doesn’t seem to be a universally held view – the Evening Standard on 16 March listed Namura, Citigroup and Forex supporting this stance, with Capital Economics (described in the Evening Standard as “cooler heads”) and Moody’s rating agency less concerned and pointing out that they would be expecting action to address the deficit from just about any government formed.  

The general gist seems to be that when the UK last had a coalition government, in the late 1970s, the ultimate result was an IMF bailout. 
But the situations are not really comparable, because the world is a very different place and not just a bit more complicated but massively more complicated in terms of potentially affecting factors. And the last two recessions accompanied by large fiscal deficits have taken place under single party governments in the UK.

If markets prefer a strong government with a workable majority of seats, then they have to be confident that the fiscal policy being pursued is the right one. 
That said, having also watched “Ask the Chancellors” this week, I’m not sure that it is clear that there’s that much difference of approach on offer in terms of a fiscal recovery plan – and that should surely be reassuring? 
The main issues of difference seems to be whether to cut tax or to cut spending, and the speed of doing it. 

In addition to this, the economy can surely not be helped by the threat to downgrade the UK’s soverign bond rating, which would raise significantly the cost of financing government debt.  Basically who ever finds themselves in power needs to be impressive on fiscal plan to keep AAA rating, but this threat in itself should focus minds.
But there’s no reason why a coalition government couldn’t come up with a strong plan that could be delivered? Julian Astle, Director of CentreForum quoted in the same edition of the Standard pointed out that:
“the broader the political support for fiscal retrenchment , the broader the likely level of public support. Around the world, coalition and minority governments have proven entirely capable of dealing with debt.”

So I don’t really see that a hung parliament should necessarily mean that we should all be panicking, nor that the markets should do so either. 
Unless our politicians are incapable of doing what their opposites in other EU Member States are able to do and find ways of working together despite labels?   But that would be ridiculous.  After all, as the Spectator pointed out, UK political parties are indeed broad churches, or, to put it another way, coalitions themselves, so presumably they are used to needing to work to balance different interests and perspectives…   

I read last week that some UK politicians believe that the public prefers strong government (politicians certainly do!) and are expecting that all the talk of hung parliaments should spur the small “c” conservative electorate into giving either Labour or the Conservatives a workable majority. 
That may be the case, but there’s what I like to think of as the Jedward factor that comes into play here – we also love a novelty here, sometihng a bit different. 
At least until we get fed up with it (like October 1974 all over again…)