UK News

from FaithWorld:

Pope, ending his British trip, recalls Nazi terror in WW2

Pope Benedict on Sunday expressed "shame and horror" over the wartime suffering caused by his German homeland and said he was moved to mark the 70th anniversary of a key air victory with Britons.

On the last day of a four-day visit to Britain that drew the biggest protest march of any of his foreign trips, the pope also beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman, one of the most prominent English converts from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism.

The pope was seen off from the airport by Prime Minister David Cameron who said Benedict had challenged the "whole of the country to sit up and think" about issues such as social responsibility during his four-day state visit.

On Sunday, Britain commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the air conflict that doomed Hitler's planned invasion of Britain. "For me as one who lived and suffered through the dark days of the Nazi regime in Germany, it is deeply moving to be here with you on this occasion, and to recall how many of your fellow citizens sacrificed their lives, courageously resisting the forces of that evil ideology," the pope said in his sermon to more than 50,000 people attending the open-air mass.

"Seventy years later, we recall with shame and horror the dreadful toll of death and destruction that war brings in its wake, and we renew our resolve to work for peace and reconciliation wherever the threat of conflict looms."

In the early 1940s, the former Joseph Ratzinger was briefly a member of the Hitler Youth when membership was compulsory. During the war, he was assigned to an anti-aircraft battery in Bavaria and then sent to Austria. After returning to Bavaria, he deserted and, at the end of World War Two, he was a U.S. prisoner of war. The pope has said that as devout Catholics, his parents rejected Nazi ideology.

Read the full story here.

from FaithWorld:

Excerpts from Pope Benedict’s sermon on Cardinal John Henry Newman

Pope Benedict declared the 19th century English Cardinal John Henry Newman blessed -- the first step on the road to sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church -- at a ceremony in Birmingham on Sunday.

Here are excerpts from his sermon:

“…This particular Sunday also marks a significant moment in the life of the British nation, as it is the day chosen to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain. For me as one who lived and suffered through the dark days of the Nazi regime in Germany, it is deeply moving to be here with you on this occasion, and to recall how many of your fellow citizens sacrificed their lives, courageously resisting the forces of that evil ideology. My thoughts go in particular to nearby Coventry, which suffered such heavy bombardment and massive loss of life in November 1940. Seventy years later, we recall with shame and horror the dreadful toll of death and destruction that war brings in its wake, and we renew our resolve to work for peace and reconciliation wherever the threat of conflict looms…”

“… In Blessed John Henry, that tradition of gentle scholarship, deep human wisdom and profound love for the Lord has borne rich fruit, as a sign of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit deep within the heart of God’s people, bringing forth abundant gifts of holiness.

“Cardinal Newman’s motto, Cor ad cor loquitur, or "Heart speaks unto heart", gives us an insight into his understanding of the Christian life as a call to holiness, experienced as the profound desire of the human heart to enter into intimate communion with the Heart of God. He reminds us that faithfulness to prayer gradually transforms us into the divine likeness…

“The definite service to which Blessed John Henry was called involved applying his keen intellect and his prolific pen to many of the most pressing "subjects of the day". His insights into the relationship between faith and reason, into the vital place of revealed religion in civilized society, and into the need for a broadly-based and wide-ranging approach to education were not only of profound importance for Victorian England, but continue today to inspire and enlighten many all over the world. I would like to pay particular tribute to his vision for education, which has done so much to shape the ethos that is the driving force behind Catholic schools and colleges today. Firmly opposed to any reductive or utilitarian approach, he sought to achieve an educational environment in which intellectual training, moral discipline and religious commitment would come together. The project to found a Catholic University in Ireland provided him with an opportunity to develop his ideas on the subject, and the collection of discourses that he published as The Idea of a University holds up an ideal from which all those engaged in academic formation can continue to learn…

from MacroScope:

UK GDP: Should have gone to Specsavers?

Markets are getting used to volatile swings in economic data since the financial crisis set in three years ago. But UK GDP figures for Q2 were so eye-poppingly strong they caused confusion on trading floors.   

"Should have gone to Specsavers??" wrote Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec, referring to British television commercials lampooning myopic citizens who desperately need a new pair of corrective lenses.

"Perhaps critics will suggest that the ONS has got it wrong again, but traders' initial suggestions, calling into question the accuracy of the newswire reports -- and this author's eyesight -- proved to be misplaced," wrote Shaw.

The 1.1 percent quarterly growth the Office for National Statistics reported for Q2 was nearly double the 0.6 percent Reuters consensus forecast and blew out the highest forecast polled, 0.8 percent, by a significant margin. The fact it came a half hour after news the German Ifo index saw its biggest one month surge since reunification in 1990 made it all the more shocking.

from MacroScope:

It’s all Germany’s fault

It is fairly commonplace at the moment for U.S. and UK financial analysts -- what continental Europeans call the Anglo-Saxons -- to predict the collapse of the euro zone,  a project they were mostly sceptical about in the first place.  MacroScope touched on this on two occasions in March.

The latest foray into this area comes from Alan Brown,  global chief  investment officer at the large UK fund firm  Schroders. But he does it with twist,  blaming what he sees as the eventual  collapse of the euro zone not on the structure itself nor  on the profligacy of peripheral economies, but on Germany's response to the crisis.

Brown reckons countries like Greece cannot do what is needed.

If Greece does all that it is asked to do, it’s debt/GDP ratio will rise to around 150 percent as debt continues to accumulate and the denominator declines as a result of a renewed recession and deflation. With debt at 150 percent and real interest rates anywhere near today’s level, Greece would have to run a primary surplus of around 8 percent  of GDP just to stabilise its debt ratio.

In the best of worlds, Brown says, German and other northern euro zone countries would solve the problem by stimulating their own economies to offset the deflationary impact of measures to improve public finances in the profligacies.

Increased demand from Germany (and other Northern European countries) would boost demand for goods and services from the South helping to maintain growth in the euro zone region as a whole and to reduce the current chronic current account imbalances.

Brown says the trouble is  that is not likely to happen. Germany has actually done the opposite, launching its own austerity programme.

from Reuters Soccer Blog:

England defence crumble in German masterclass

England coach Fabio Capello would do well to take a transcript copy of Germany coach Joachim Loew’s post-match press conference – because in it he would find all the simple reasons why his side were trounced 4-1 and sent packing from the World Cup on Sunday.

In it, Loew rather clinically explained to the international press sat before him that his side were instructed to target John Terry, pull him out of position and pretty much walk into the huge gaps created in England’s snail-paced central rearguard.

It worked. England will forever talk about the Frank Lampard ‘goal’ that, quite incredibly, was not given despite bouncing a full yard over the German goal line with the score balanced at 2-1, but even if they had equalised, the final result would not have waivered.

Germany were breathtaking at times, able to break at will with electrifying pace and switch the play seamlessly from left to right to leave the England defenders in a state of dizziness and goalkeeper David James no chance between the sticks.

Thomas Mueller, Man of the Match and a real find at Bayern Munich, was superb. Playing on the German right wing he decided to cleverly leave England left back Ashley Cole to his own devices and instead cut into the huge space between England’s midfield and defence time and again.

That, combined with Podolski providing width down the left and Klose running England defenders Terry and Matthew Upson ragged, proved all too much for the Three Lions side.

from The Great Debate UK:

Getting to grips with the post-Cold War security threat

The fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9, 1989, was one of history’s truly epochal moments. During what became a revolutionary wave sweeping across the former Eastern Bloc countries, the announcement by the then-East German Government that its citizens could visit West Germany set in train a series of events that led, ultimately, to the demise of the Soviet Union itself.

Twenty years on, what is most striking to me are the massive, enduring ramifications of the events of November 1989. Only several decades ago, the Cold War meant that the borders of the Eastern Bloc were largely inviolate; extremist religious groups and ethnic tensions were suppressed, there was no internet (at least as we know it today) and travel between East and West was difficult. The two great Glaciers of the Cold War produced a frozen hinterland characterised by immobility.

Today’s world is a vastly different place. When one of the great Glaciers - the former Soviet Union – melted it helped unleash a potential torrent of security problems. We now live in an era characterised by huge mobility and instability, in which issues such as mass migration, international crime and international terrorism have a much higher prominence.

The end of the Cold War, together with subsequent conflicts across Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East, for instance, has led to many millions of people migrating the globe in hope or fear. In the West, this has given rise to pressure on jobs, healthcare, education, housing and cultural identity, causing local populations to feel threatened.

While international migration has generally been culturally enriching and beneficial, it has nonetheless also increased the range of threats to our societies. For instance, the 48 radical Islamicists implicated in terror plots in the United States between 1993 and 2001, including the 9/11 hijackers, all used legitimate immigration devices (e.g. "green cards", student/tourism/business visas, and amnesty and asylum) to get into the country.

Getting to grips with this specific threat is a major challenge and the reason why, as UK Home Secretary, I placed so much emphasis on the need to overhaul our immigration system. Key elements of the changes I championed include a new points-based system -- which represents the biggest reform of UK immigration procedures for more than half a century; electronic border controls (all UK entry visas, for instance, are now based on finger prints); and the National Identity Scheme which features compulsory fingerprint biometric identity cards for foreign nationals.

from The Great Debate UK:

Vauxhall future is headache for Mandelson

- John Bowker is Reuters’ UK transport and defence correspondent. The opinions expressed are his own -

Lord Mandelson was in buoyant mood on Thursday night.

The future ownership of British car-maker Vauxhall had finally been decided. U.S. giant General Motors agreed to sell its European unit -- which includes Vauxhall -- to Canadian car parts maker Magna and its Russian backers. According to Mandelson, this was good news for the Vauxhall's 5,000 British workers as it removed the uncertainty over their futures. Everyone can get back to work making cars and live happily ever after.

But for Mandelson the game is only just beginning. He is putting on a brave face now but he must know it is not that simple. He says Magna has assured him to his face that the British plants in Luton and Ellesmere Port will remain open. But for how long? He cannot say. And at what cost? Again -- the details are yet to be finalised.

The union leader at Ellesmere Port tells me that an earlier draft of Magna's business plan called for 830 job cuts at the plant, about 40 percent of the work force. This will be tied to lower output and changes to the pension scheme. Meanwhile, both Ellesmere Port and Luton have no entitlement to build the newer 'green' cars that have become a staple condition for future state support. Ellesmere Port will build the new Astra from this month, but what about next decade?

It is hard to overstate how much political wrangling has gone into the GM deal. It has involved Washington, Belgium, Spain, Poland -- but particularly Germany, where around half of GM Europe's workers are based. Magna secured Germany's support by promising not to close any German plants -- so who will take up the slack?

Mandelson is obliged to provide state support to Magna in return for keeping Vauxhall afloat. But there is no way the deal will go through without at least some job losses - possibly many hundreds. That means the Business Secretary will be putting up millions of pounds of taxpayers money to support a company intent on cutting British jobs. Where's the fairness in that?

from Global News Journal:

Germany’s Finance Minister takes aim at the City

Has German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck finally said what many world leaders think but are afraid to say? That the British government won't sign up to meaningful reform of financial markets because it is too worried about what it would mean for the country’s most famous cash cow, the City of London.

The City, which accounts for around 35 percent of global foreign exchange turnover, has been a popular target for critics of capitalism for years. But it has rarely been singled out so bluntly as a problem by one of Britain’s close allies.

Even for a man not known for holding his tongue, Steinbrueck’s remark on Wednesday that Downing Street was impeding reform because it had “practically aligned” its interests with the City, was unusually undiplomatic. Just days before global leaders meet at a Group of Eight summit in Italy, Steinbrueck suggested the British government was plotting a “restoration” of the pre-crisis order to protect its own interests. The United States, by contrast, was now open to reform, he said.

from MacroScope:

Watch out for the G20 spin

Be careful this week about buying wholeheartedy into any G20-related spin about supposedly savvy, free-spending Britain and America doing more to combat the world economic crisis than supposedly stubborn, overly cautious Germany and France. The actual figures show it is much more complex than that.

A Reuters calculation on discretionary fiscal stumuli and the International Monetary Fund's assessment show that, if anything, Britain is the significant laggard and that German spending almost matches the United States over the next two years. Here are the IMF's numbers (% of GDP):

                                                          2009                     2010

 Germany                                             1.5                       2.0  France                                                 0.7                      0.7  UK                                                      1.4                     - 0.1  US                                                      2.0                       1.8

Just to add to the complexity, discretionary spending estimates do not include bank bailouts (which would boost UK and U.S. anti-crisis spending numbers)  But nor do they include automatic economic stabilisers such as existing social welfare schemes and safety nets (which would boost Germany and France versus the U.S.  where such things are rare to non-existant).

There is bound to be some squabble over who is doing what when the G20 starts on Wednesday. Just remember the numbers.