UK News

from Matt Falloon:

It’s snow joke

Snow or no snow, these GDP figures are a nightmare for the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government and throw up the risk of a self-fulfilling spiral of gloom.

When the shock 0.5 percent drop in economic output at the end of 2010 hits television screens on Tuesday night as families sit down to dinner, already-cautious consumers will feel more than a winter chill.

These numbers are likely to knock confidence just when the government needs businesses and households to step up to the plate.

Will businesses unleash investment and take on hoards of new staff now, or will they wait for signs of improvement?

Will families, facing a hike in VAT sales tax and high inflation, flash the credit card on big purchases or tighten their belts and hope for cheaper prices in the future?

If either of those scenarios play out over the next few months, Britain's economy faces a real risk of stagnating or worse -- and that doesn't even start to take into account the spending cuts waiting in the wings this year.

Even without the snow, the economy still ground to a halt in the last three months of 2010.

Oldham could be shape of things to come

As voters drifted towards polling stations on a damp winter’s night in Oldham East and Saddleworth, it was hard to find anyone bursting with good things to say about Britain’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.

Even some Lib Dems, who came so close to beating Labour in this marginal seat in May, seemed to be voting out of a sense of duty rather than conviction, hoping to limit the shame of defeat to a Labour party still struggling to assert itself in opposition.

“I did vote for them, but I’m not happy with them,” said 59-year-old Lib Dem supporter Lorraine Marner.

The Lib Dems are in danger of losing their way — and perhaps chunks of their core support — in government.

Party aides insist it is better to be involved in making policy than not, in spite of the inevitable compromises, but the risk is that the Lib Dems emerge from the coalition in 2015 as the fall guys, shielding the larger Conservatives from the fall-out of five years of austerity.

There is also the possibility that sustained pressure on the Lib Dems might destabilise the coalition.

Family drama grips Labour Party conference

Just when the Labour Party thought it had got over the long feud between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, it has been gripped by an even more compelling drama worthy of prime-time TV – the tale of two brothers who reached the top of British politics only to see their ambitions collide.

Delegates at the Labour Party conference in Manchester are just getting over their surprise that Ed Miliband, 40, pipped his brother David, 45, to be Labour leader. David had long been favourite to win and Ed’s shock victory on Saturday brought gasps from delegates.

David Miliband had received the loudest applause when the leadership candidates strode into the hall to hear the results and there were no euphoric celebrations of Ed’s victory. That’s because many in the hall had not backed him.

To have knocked out the former foreign secretary long seen as the heir to Blair and Brown felt like regicide to some.

David Miliband’s wife Louise Shackelton was reported to be distraught at her husband’s narrow defeat, seeing Ed’s decision to stand against him as disloyal.

David Miliband won the support of more Labour activists and members of parliament but strong union backing saw Ed over the line, raising questions over whether he will steer the party leftwards.

Ed Miliband must rebuild Labour’s confidence after it lost the May election and will lead the opposition to the deep spending cuts proposed by the coalition government.

Has the Blair backlash gone too far?

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair must feel like a hunted man. And that’s probably what his vocal critics want. First, he postpones his planned book signing because of possible protests and now a private party planned for the Tate Modern gallery has gone the same way.

The obvious cause of the anger prompted by Blair can be summed up by one word: “Iraq”.

Yet, he led Labour to a historic three successive election victories — the last one in 2005 coming when the conflict in Iraq had already turned bloody.

It’s all a far cry from 1997 when Blair was hailed as a bright new star who would guide Britain out of the grey years of the Major era. And maybe that’s the rub — so many put their faith and trust in him, that the disenchantment runs deeper than normal. Perhaps he could compare notes on the subject with President Obama next time he is in Washington.

But have things gone too far? Is there a freedom of speech issue here that means that Blair should be allowed to appear in public even if people have long tired of his message and his style?

from The Great Debate UK:

Cameron tasked with changing Brits’ expectations

-- Mark Kobayashi-Hillary is the author of several books, including ‘Who Moved my Job?’ and ‘Global Services: Moving to a Level Playing Field’. The opinions expressed are his own --

After thirteen years, it’s all over. The New Labour project is dead. Or is it? Tony Blair brought British politics to the centre-ground and ensured that a single party could support free-market economic policies as well as social justice.

And that’s what most people want today, a government that can help the citizen without hindering the economy through the dogma of dated ideology. The old notion of socialists waging war on small-government-right-wingers feels somehow quaint. Clearly Tony Blair knew that David Cameron would be his successor in the New Labour project, but nobody told Gordon Brown.

Now the back room deals have been done between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, and the cabinet post announcements are being released from Downing Street, the real work has to begin. I don’t just mean the public sector cuts. Any new government would have to cope with the deficit, though many in Labour are probably grateful that it’s the Tories who are going to be seen slashing public services.

I mean that we need to change the attitude of a generation that has only known affluence, constant growth, and easy borrowing secured against property that has only ever increased in value. British people are going to have to spend within their means, no matter how unfashionable that might seem in a society obsessed with the latest dress or jewellery worn by Cheryl Cole.

The boom of the eighties led to a mighty recession, yet memories of that time feel mild compared to recent events. Many high street banks in the UK remain in public hands and when they are returned to the private sector will they ever really be private again, or will they continue to operate safe in the knowledge that the government safety net will always be there to stop their fall? It seems that banking may have changed forever.

And don’t forget that much of the nineties now resembles a dream. A popular American president, the emergence of a popular British leader, the growth of the Internet, and constant economic growth that had apparently led to the death of the boom and bust cycle. The dot com crash felt like a blip to most property owners.

How long can the negotiations go on?

It should have been all over now. But no, we’re on day five and no one really seems to know which way things are going to go.

All over Westminster, people are looking tired. Journalists, politicians, aides and most of all the 24-hour news anchors.

You only had to watch Sky News’ Adam Boulton going at it with former Blair spin doctor Alistair Campbell live on air on Monday night too see that tempers are clearly getting frayed.

So how much longer? Nick Clegg says soon but nothing seems imminent. The LibDems are still talking with Labour. They may talk more with the Conservatives too.

“It’s too early,” said one Conservative source. “It”s finely balanced,” said a Labour one.

In the meantime, huge numbers of reporters are staking out Portcullis House, the new adjunct to the Palace of Westminster.

But it’s slim pickings. David Cameron walks through. So does George Osborne. But for now they’re just waiting too.

The big rescue package has bought the politicians some time

They promised us market meltdown if there was a hung parliament. That was the Conservative pitch before the election.

That isn’t quite what happened. The pound did fall a bit, so did gilts and stocks but most losses were made up by the end of the first day after the result became known, which had been widely expected.

Attention, anyway, had moved elsewhere. There was already mayhem in global markets when British voters were going to the polls on Thursday. One hedge fund manager described it as seven or eight out of 10 when compared with the peak of the crisis.

Things were getting even more hairy on Friday and over the weekend it became clear that the European authorities would have to act to prevent the problem in Greece and they duly did, leading to stocks and the euro rallying as risk appetite  returned.

The $1 trillion global emergency rescue package has calmed things for now and the UK story may have moved to Page 4 from  the front page for global markets.

Talks are still going on between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats over possible power-sharing but so far no end remains in sight.

Both sides keep saying they are making progress but at the moment there is precious little detail and in reality all options remain wide open.

Elections don’t get more exciting than this

It’s going to be a long night! Cliffhanger, nailbiter, whatever you want to call it — it doesn’t get more exciting than this.

Polls closed just over two hours ago and the exit polls show we are clearly in hung parliament territory. The Conservatives are projected to have the most seats at 305, but that’s 21 seats short of an overall majority.

Labour, meanwhile, are shown with 255 and most interestingly the Liberal Democrats with just 61, one short of what they got in 2005 — when they and everyone else were expecting a surge of support.

If the exit poll is proven right, even a Labour/LibDem coalition would be short of a majority.

Here in Kirkcaldy, Brown’s constituency, aides are keeping cool. The Labour projection is clearly better than the wipeout that so many were predicting just a week ago.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are insisting they have the right to govern with this mandate. With Gordon Brown having first call on trying to form a government in the event of a hung parliament, it will be important for the Conservatives to establish hey should be in charge.

Adding to the complications of the night are reports of people being turned away from polling booths and thus being unable to vote. Whatever happens, expect people to complain the election was stolen from them.

Twitter users still agree with Nick

One the eve of the general election, our exclusive Twitter analysis of political sentiment shows that while the latest opinion polls point to a late rally by Gordon Brown’s Labour Party, users of the micro-blogging site still favour Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats over the other two main parties.

US market research firm Crimson Hexagon (on behalf of Reuters.co.uk) has been archiving all tweets on British politics since March 22 and analysing them for positive and negative sentiment. All parties have had their ups and downs, most notably in the aftermath of the first leaders’ debate (which led to a spike in support for the LibDems and the hashtag #iagreewithnick trending on Twitter) and Gordon Brown’s “bigot” gaffe in Rochdale,which gave us the highest percentage of negative tweets for any party during the campaign.

Just hours before the nation goes to the polls and with so many voters apparently still undecided, it’s worth taking a look at the latest numbers.

The graphic below shows positive tweets for each party up to May 4. The LibDems come out top on 20 percent, with pro-Labour sentiment on 12 percent and pro-Tory lagging behind on five percent.

The next graphic shows negative tweets for each party. Again the numbers favour the LibDems; negative sentiment for Clegg’s party is on just eight percent. Negative Labour tweets are at 16 percent. Meanwhile, despite a lead in the opinion polls, David Cameron’s Tories are the least popular on 25 percent. The highest percentage of tweets we have seen (a massive 42 percent) occurred when Gordon Brown called pensioner Gillian Duffy a “bigoted woman”.

from Matt Falloon:

Brown soldiers on

If a car slams into a bus stop just yards away as you launch a last-ditch election offensive, you might be forgiven for thinking that the gods are not on your side.

But even after the nightmare week British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has had, such portents of doom have little visible effect on the self-proclaimed underdog in this, one of Britain's most closely fought parliamentary elections for 25 years.

Brown and his cabinet colleagues, unveiling campaign posters in a windswept car park on Friday when the sound of screeching brakes made everyone jump, ploughed on with their attack on the centre-right Conservatives, warning that a vote for the opposition would put British economy and families at risk.

"You have got to have this inner reservoir of resilience to fight back when anything happens to you," the Labour leader told students later in an athletics hall at Loughborough university. "That's what I've got to do in the next few days anyway."

Even a man who has survived two coup attempts from within his own party since taking over from Tony Blair in 2007 could not have expected such bad luck in the days before the May 6 election.

Behind in opinion polls for much of his three-year tenure at the top, this was meant to be the week Brown fought back.

The third, and final, televised leaders' debate was on the economy -- a godsend for a man who helped spearhead the response to the global financial crisis and served as finance minister for a decade before taking over from Tony Blair in 2007.