So much for the "Golden generation" of England footballers. The only shame about Sunday's drubbing by Germany is that the ludicrously disallowed goal by Frank Lampard is giving Fabio Capello a ready-made excuse. Mi scusi, Fabio: refereeing screw-ups don't explain why your team was so dire in the three group games, nor do they cover up the fact that you could easily have been four goals behind yesterday by the time the ref had his little brain cramp.
Well, at least England avoided going on to meet Argentina and another possible exit at the Hand of God. This time we were done for by our very own Band of Clods.
Here's the thing, though: qualifying for the 2012 European Championships starts in less than three months. Are we going to try to qualify for that tournament with the same over-the-hill gang of malcontents and shirkers that stunk the place out on Sunday? We may not have any choice, because Capello has done almost nothing to develop players for the future. In fact, he tried to delve back into the less-than- glorious past to an astounding degree with his decision to bring back Jamie Carragher and his attempt to lure Paul Scholes back into the fold. Carragher did exactly what anyone would have expected, given his career of clumsy thuggery: two games, two yellow cards, a suspension. Scholes, meanwhile, must be thanking his lucky stars that he avoided tarnishing his reputation by associating with this congeries of onanists.
It seems to me that a two-stage clearout is needed. There's some obvious dead wood that needs to go right away:
Carragher (see above)
John Terry (not the player he was, and disloyal to boot)
David James (honourable discharge)
Aaron Lennon (try a game that doesn't involve a ball, and grow your eyebrows back!)
Gareth Barry (overrated and seriously found out this time)
Emile Heskey (semi-honourable discharge for the non-scoring striker)
Joe Cole ("creative" only in finding new blind alleys to run down)
Matthew Upson (not international class)
Then there are players who can probably be relied on the make it through to Euro 2012, but will probably need to be replaced by the time World Cup 2014 comes around:
Steven Gerrard (though not on yesterday's showing)
Frank Lampard (the only guy who did look like scoring yesterday)
This means the core of the team for the medium term is Joe Hart; Ashley Cole; Glen Johnson; James Milner; and, despite an awful time in South Africa, Wayne Rooney. So the immediate problem, for Capello or whoever is in charge, is central defence. After that, which maybe means after Euro 2012, it's the midfield that needs fixing. Given the lack of proven young talent (which I'd attribute about equally to Rupert Murdoch's death grip on the game's finances and Capello's failure to offer opportunities), it's a big ask. It's not hard to see England failing to qualify for either the 2012 or 2014 tournament.
Lastly, a question for the FA. Fabio came to you just before the World Cup began, and offered to remove the "shotgun" clause in his contract that would have allowed either side to call the whole thing off in a 14-day period after the tournament. You agreed to do so. Did you think his offer meant he was confident of winning the damned thing?
Monday, 28 June 2010
Just as good as in 1966....
....Stevie Wonder, that is, closing the Glastonbury Festival last night. Heck, he even managed to sing "Fingertips" in a convincingly prebubescent voice. Great work by the BBC on the visuals and the sound too. I wonder if the latter owed anything to the two sub-woofers that one of Stevie's backing singers appeared to be carrying under her outfit.
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
"Tory times are hard times"
That's an old Canadian adage, that is, but today's emergency budget is set to bring it a lot closer to home -- and so far, we've only seen half the picture, at most.
It's an old rule in politics to get the bad news out of the way early; that way you can blame the previous mob for all the nasty things you're doing. The coalition government has given itself so little time to prepare this budget that it hasn't been able to get all the bad news out at once. Not that there isn't plenty to be going on with. On the tax front: a steep but delayed VAT rise (probably inevitable), a big jump in basic personal income tax allowances (good), higher capital gains tax for higher income earners (likely to provoke squawking from the Tory rank-and-file); tinkering with indexation (sneaky but very productive in revenue terms); and a levy on the banks.
On the spending side, there's a planned £11 billion cut in welfare spending, but that's likely to be only the tip of the iceberg. With the entire benefits programme up for review, there's surely a lot more chopping to come here in the coming months. Likewise on non-welfare spending. After the cuts announced last week, the budget left things unchanged, but with an ominous warning that non "ring-fenced" programmes (that is, everything apart from the NHS and overseas aid) face real cuts of 25% over the next five years. The real pain here will only be felt once the details are announced in the spending review, scheduled for 20 October. (Doesn't seem as if anyone in Whitehall will be getting much time off this summer!)
Then there's public sector pay and benefits. The Chancellor is "asking" public sector unions to accept a two-year pay freeze, but is exempting those earning less than £21,000 per year. He intends to roll back the bonus culture in the public sector by limiting the earnings of top executives to 20 times the wages of the lowest-paid. (Good -- I've never understood why it suddenly became a good idea in the last few years to pay hospital bosses hundreds of thousands of pounds to do a job they had previously done quite contentedly for much less. It's not as if there are lots of employers competing with the NHS for their services). But unless I've missed it, there's nothing very specific about public sector pensions, even after all Nick Clegg's recent rants about them being "gold plated". There is surely "reform" (i.e cuts) to come here too.
Inevitably, last week's much-trumpeted OBR forecasts have had to be revised downwards. GDP is now expected to grow by only 1.2% this year and 2.3% in 2011 -- recall that the Labour government's last budget saw growth of 3.25% in 2011. It would be no surprise at all if growth was higher than the new forecast this year, as consumers rush to beat the VAT increase. That could lead to some surprisingly rosy fiscal numbers for the current fiscal year, followed by a downturn in both the economy and in tax revenues early next year.
Although the OBR sees some revival in growth after 2012, the forecast net effect of the budget is for significantly lower GDP over the life of this Parliament than either Labour or (up until today) the OBR had expected. Yet the deficit is projected to fall much faster than Labour was forecasting, with the "structural" deficit eliminated by 2015 or 2016. It's a risky strategy: as Harriet Harman noted in her initial response in the Commons, the Tories can't claim to be basing their plans on Canada's successful escape from a fiscal mire in the 1990s. Canada benefited from low interest rates and strong growth in its major trading partner, the US. The UK will have no such luck. (I've been saying that for months, so it's good to find someone in Parliament picking up on it. Too bad it had to be Harriet Harman).
Hard times it is then -- and the squeals of pain will only get louder once the details of the spending cuts emerge in October.
It's an old rule in politics to get the bad news out of the way early; that way you can blame the previous mob for all the nasty things you're doing. The coalition government has given itself so little time to prepare this budget that it hasn't been able to get all the bad news out at once. Not that there isn't plenty to be going on with. On the tax front: a steep but delayed VAT rise (probably inevitable), a big jump in basic personal income tax allowances (good), higher capital gains tax for higher income earners (likely to provoke squawking from the Tory rank-and-file); tinkering with indexation (sneaky but very productive in revenue terms); and a levy on the banks.
On the spending side, there's a planned £11 billion cut in welfare spending, but that's likely to be only the tip of the iceberg. With the entire benefits programme up for review, there's surely a lot more chopping to come here in the coming months. Likewise on non-welfare spending. After the cuts announced last week, the budget left things unchanged, but with an ominous warning that non "ring-fenced" programmes (that is, everything apart from the NHS and overseas aid) face real cuts of 25% over the next five years. The real pain here will only be felt once the details are announced in the spending review, scheduled for 20 October. (Doesn't seem as if anyone in Whitehall will be getting much time off this summer!)
Then there's public sector pay and benefits. The Chancellor is "asking" public sector unions to accept a two-year pay freeze, but is exempting those earning less than £21,000 per year. He intends to roll back the bonus culture in the public sector by limiting the earnings of top executives to 20 times the wages of the lowest-paid. (Good -- I've never understood why it suddenly became a good idea in the last few years to pay hospital bosses hundreds of thousands of pounds to do a job they had previously done quite contentedly for much less. It's not as if there are lots of employers competing with the NHS for their services). But unless I've missed it, there's nothing very specific about public sector pensions, even after all Nick Clegg's recent rants about them being "gold plated". There is surely "reform" (i.e cuts) to come here too.
Inevitably, last week's much-trumpeted OBR forecasts have had to be revised downwards. GDP is now expected to grow by only 1.2% this year and 2.3% in 2011 -- recall that the Labour government's last budget saw growth of 3.25% in 2011. It would be no surprise at all if growth was higher than the new forecast this year, as consumers rush to beat the VAT increase. That could lead to some surprisingly rosy fiscal numbers for the current fiscal year, followed by a downturn in both the economy and in tax revenues early next year.
Although the OBR sees some revival in growth after 2012, the forecast net effect of the budget is for significantly lower GDP over the life of this Parliament than either Labour or (up until today) the OBR had expected. Yet the deficit is projected to fall much faster than Labour was forecasting, with the "structural" deficit eliminated by 2015 or 2016. It's a risky strategy: as Harriet Harman noted in her initial response in the Commons, the Tories can't claim to be basing their plans on Canada's successful escape from a fiscal mire in the 1990s. Canada benefited from low interest rates and strong growth in its major trading partner, the US. The UK will have no such luck. (I've been saying that for months, so it's good to find someone in Parliament picking up on it. Too bad it had to be Harriet Harman).
Hard times it is then -- and the squeals of pain will only get louder once the details of the spending cuts emerge in October.
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Memo to Roy Hodgson
If I were you, Roy, I'd stall a bit on returning those phonecalls from Anfield. There could be a bigger job available in a few days time.
Friday, 18 June 2010
Broken Pipe, Barack's Petulance, Braying Politicians...
It's almost impossible to feel sorry for BP as it wrestles with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and tries to defend itself from the bloodlust of US politicians and media. Even before the current catastrophe, the company had an appalling track record in the US, what with the Texas City oil refinery explosion a few years back and the shambolic deployment in the Gulf of the $1 billion "Thunder Horse" rig , which promptly capsized like some modern day Vasa.
Still, the persecution of the company, led by a plainly panicking Barack Obama, is reaching absurd levels. By any reasonable measure, BP is far from the only party responsible for the disaster. Ever hear of TransOcean? It's a US owned company (although Swiss resident for tax purposes) that both owns and operates the rig where the explosion took place. You'd think it might bear some responsibility, but it's getting a free ride in Congress. Or what about Anadarko Petroleum, an American company which owns 25% of the venture (BP has 65%)? It's just announced a dividend payment, unlike BP, which has suspended its own payouts until at least the end of the year. It's even seen fit to start slagging off BP for its management of the project. Or there's good old Halliburton, which installed the failed safety equipment on the wellhead (though, to be fair to them -- as much as that pains me -- they do appear to have tried to warn BP that the safety measures the latter was prepared to pay for were inadequate).
It's not altogether surprising that British politicians and media are starting to kick back against US attempts to portray BP (or British Petroleum, as nobody had called it for twelve years until the well blew up) as the only villain. The foreign press is starting to notice, too -- see this piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail. The Tories are taking the lead here, typified by this quote from Lord Tebbit, in full Chingford skinhead mode:
“The whole might of American wealth and technology is displayed as utterly unable to deal with the disastrous spill,” he said, “so what more natural than a crude, bigoted, xenophobic display of partisan, political, presidential petulance against a multinational company?”
You go, girl. (Makes you wonder, though, who the old-line Tories like Tebbit actually like at the moment. Europe? Never. America? Nope. Persons of darker complexion from the former Empire? Probably not.)
It's surprising that nobody has thought of reminding the Americans ever so gently of the rather different approach they took when one of their own multinationals, Union Carbide, unleashed all kinds of hell at Bhopal three decades ago. People died there, not just gulls. Probably wouldn't do any good though. BP is going to have to take its lumps, and we're just going to have to watch. And while watching the Congressional hearings yesterday, I couldn't help thinking that the company is not being well served by the appearance of its CEO, Tony Hayward. His default expression -- in fact, almost his only expression -- is a supercilious smirk, which must be irking the Congresspersons no end. Still, in the unlikely event that someone decides to make a blockbuster movie about all this, Michael Sheen basically casts himself in the lead role.
Still, the persecution of the company, led by a plainly panicking Barack Obama, is reaching absurd levels. By any reasonable measure, BP is far from the only party responsible for the disaster. Ever hear of TransOcean? It's a US owned company (although Swiss resident for tax purposes) that both owns and operates the rig where the explosion took place. You'd think it might bear some responsibility, but it's getting a free ride in Congress. Or what about Anadarko Petroleum, an American company which owns 25% of the venture (BP has 65%)? It's just announced a dividend payment, unlike BP, which has suspended its own payouts until at least the end of the year. It's even seen fit to start slagging off BP for its management of the project. Or there's good old Halliburton, which installed the failed safety equipment on the wellhead (though, to be fair to them -- as much as that pains me -- they do appear to have tried to warn BP that the safety measures the latter was prepared to pay for were inadequate).
It's not altogether surprising that British politicians and media are starting to kick back against US attempts to portray BP (or British Petroleum, as nobody had called it for twelve years until the well blew up) as the only villain. The foreign press is starting to notice, too -- see this piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail. The Tories are taking the lead here, typified by this quote from Lord Tebbit, in full Chingford skinhead mode:
“The whole might of American wealth and technology is displayed as utterly unable to deal with the disastrous spill,” he said, “so what more natural than a crude, bigoted, xenophobic display of partisan, political, presidential petulance against a multinational company?”
You go, girl. (Makes you wonder, though, who the old-line Tories like Tebbit actually like at the moment. Europe? Never. America? Nope. Persons of darker complexion from the former Empire? Probably not.)
It's surprising that nobody has thought of reminding the Americans ever so gently of the rather different approach they took when one of their own multinationals, Union Carbide, unleashed all kinds of hell at Bhopal three decades ago. People died there, not just gulls. Probably wouldn't do any good though. BP is going to have to take its lumps, and we're just going to have to watch. And while watching the Congressional hearings yesterday, I couldn't help thinking that the company is not being well served by the appearance of its CEO, Tony Hayward. His default expression -- in fact, almost his only expression -- is a supercilious smirk, which must be irking the Congresspersons no end. Still, in the unlikely event that someone decides to make a blockbuster movie about all this, Michael Sheen basically casts himself in the lead role.
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Make of it what you will
I was underwhelmed when George Osborne announced he was hiving off the task of fiscal forecasting to a new Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR). There's nothing in the OBR's first report, or in the initial reaction to it, to convince me that I was wrong. Many private sector forecasters seem convinced that the OBR, just like the Treasury before it, is too optimistic about the future, while the media and the politicians are using the report selectively to back up their preconceptions. No change there, then.
The downgrade in the growth forecast for 2011, to 2.6% from the 3-3.5% projection in the final Labour budget, has been widely reported as evidence that the previous Government was cooking the books. Truth to tell, in forecasting terms it's only a minor statistical adjustment. Both forecasts imply, almost certainly correctly, that the recovery from the credit-induced recession will be far from robust; the tenths of a percentage point shaved off the forecast are mere details.
A more alarming implication of the OBR forecast is that the credit crunch has permanently reduced the trend rate of growth of the economy, with an anaemic pace of expansion set to continue through the middle of the decade. I've even seen it reported that the economy will "never" recover the ground lost in the recession. I'm not sure what this can possibly mean. After all, real GDP will surpass its previous peak by about the end of 2012, if the OBR's forecasts are correct. It may be true that the structure of the economy will never be the same as it was back in 2007, but as the economy is always evolving, it's impossible to say a priori whether that's a good or a bad thing.
Alastair Darling has seized on the OBR's fiscal projections to demand an apology from the new Government for its frequent claims that Labour left the national finances in an unholy mess. On one level, he has a point: the actual deficit numbers for the last fiscal year were significantly lower than Darling forecast in his final budget statement. Despite its reduced growth outlook, the OBR projects a slightly less dire trajectory for the deficit (and hence also for the national debt) than the Treasury had forecast. In fact, the OBR report implies that Labour's claim that its measures would reduce the deficit by half over the course of the new Parliament was justified, which is certainly not what Osborne wanted to hear.
Naturally Osborne and his LibDem friends see this rather differently. They are pointing instead to the OBR's calculation that the "structural" portion of the deficit -- the part that won't go away as the economy moves back towards full capacity -- is somewhat higher than previously claimed, at about 8% of GDP rather than 7.3%. Calculating the structural deficit is such a complex matter that the difference between these numbers is relatively trivial, though that won't stop Osborne and pals from using the higher estimate to justify more aggressive fiscal tightening.
So, the stage is set for next week's emergency budget, and an early test of the usefulness of the OBR, all of whose new economic forecasts are based on the fiscal policy projections in the last Labour budget. If Osborne announces higher taxes and lower public spending for the next five years, those forecasts will be out of the window. If fiscal tightening significantly lowers the growth outlook, and thereby undermines the tax base, Osborne could easily preside over an era of pain with little gain -- slower GDP growth than the OBR is now expecting, with only nugatory improvements in the public finances compared to what Labour was set to achieve. So the main thing I'll be looking out for in the budget is the projected impact of the fiscal tightening on the growth outlook. Well, that and the possibility of a higher VAT rate on my still-pending car purchase.
The downgrade in the growth forecast for 2011, to 2.6% from the 3-3.5% projection in the final Labour budget, has been widely reported as evidence that the previous Government was cooking the books. Truth to tell, in forecasting terms it's only a minor statistical adjustment. Both forecasts imply, almost certainly correctly, that the recovery from the credit-induced recession will be far from robust; the tenths of a percentage point shaved off the forecast are mere details.
A more alarming implication of the OBR forecast is that the credit crunch has permanently reduced the trend rate of growth of the economy, with an anaemic pace of expansion set to continue through the middle of the decade. I've even seen it reported that the economy will "never" recover the ground lost in the recession. I'm not sure what this can possibly mean. After all, real GDP will surpass its previous peak by about the end of 2012, if the OBR's forecasts are correct. It may be true that the structure of the economy will never be the same as it was back in 2007, but as the economy is always evolving, it's impossible to say a priori whether that's a good or a bad thing.
Alastair Darling has seized on the OBR's fiscal projections to demand an apology from the new Government for its frequent claims that Labour left the national finances in an unholy mess. On one level, he has a point: the actual deficit numbers for the last fiscal year were significantly lower than Darling forecast in his final budget statement. Despite its reduced growth outlook, the OBR projects a slightly less dire trajectory for the deficit (and hence also for the national debt) than the Treasury had forecast. In fact, the OBR report implies that Labour's claim that its measures would reduce the deficit by half over the course of the new Parliament was justified, which is certainly not what Osborne wanted to hear.
Naturally Osborne and his LibDem friends see this rather differently. They are pointing instead to the OBR's calculation that the "structural" portion of the deficit -- the part that won't go away as the economy moves back towards full capacity -- is somewhat higher than previously claimed, at about 8% of GDP rather than 7.3%. Calculating the structural deficit is such a complex matter that the difference between these numbers is relatively trivial, though that won't stop Osborne and pals from using the higher estimate to justify more aggressive fiscal tightening.
So, the stage is set for next week's emergency budget, and an early test of the usefulness of the OBR, all of whose new economic forecasts are based on the fiscal policy projections in the last Labour budget. If Osborne announces higher taxes and lower public spending for the next five years, those forecasts will be out of the window. If fiscal tightening significantly lowers the growth outlook, and thereby undermines the tax base, Osborne could easily preside over an era of pain with little gain -- slower GDP growth than the OBR is now expecting, with only nugatory improvements in the public finances compared to what Labour was set to achieve. So the main thing I'll be looking out for in the budget is the projected impact of the fiscal tightening on the growth outlook. Well, that and the possibility of a higher VAT rate on my still-pending car purchase.
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