Wednesday 26 January 2011

Double Dip already?

Most Economists predicted 0.2%-0.6% growth in the last quarter of 2010,  I thought I was sticking my neck out a bit predicting 0.2-0.4% and stating we would go into negative growth in 2011. However despite being being convinced we will go into double dip, I was very much taken back when Oct, Nov and Dec of 2010 growth figure was -0.5% growth!!
As we can see from the graph this is serious, it is more of a dip than at the beginning of the credit crunch. I decided to plot the Prime Ministers and parties onto the graph, it highlights mainly that David Cameron inherited an economy in recovery and has now knocked it down into near to a double dip. This graph also highlights how John Major managed to recover GDP from the 1990s recession and then hand the boom over to Tony Blair who kindly have Gordon Brown the bust! 
It seems that Fiscal policy is more important than George Osborne hoped, lets hope that this is just teething problems for Crowing out theory. Theoretically all this negative growth means is more surplus capacity for new businesses to expand into as the public sector contracts..
Yet to say that GDP is all a result of Government policy would be wrong though. Its easy to blame Gordon Brown for the credit crunch but in reality it was not his fault. Equally to colour in this dip blue and blame it on the coalition is also naive. George Osborne has blamed the fall in GDP down to the cold weather. 
If we break down the figures it is true that construction was the driving factor behind the fall in GDP however to say it was all down to bad weather I think is also being naive, there have been many Government construction projects canceled in the wake of budget cuts, this also could have hurt construction. According to this BBC article the ONS said: '...even if the weather impact had been excluded, activity would have been 'flattish'"  So even the snow can't explain the poor performance!
All in all wether the negative growth was the Governments fault or not going down a road of fiscal contraction during a period of negative growth is reckless.  

Were to draw the line and what ever happened to left wing

In the recent General Studies paper it asked something along the lines of:
'Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems, they are all the same, theres no point in voting' 
Discuss wether it is worth while having different political parties. 
The entire premise of my EPQ is about the different philosophies and policies of different parties so this question spurred me into some what of a frenzy of defining political parties, historical examples. Hopefully which will give me quite a good grade at the end, although you can never tell with General Studies and most peoples view on the subject (not mine) are summed (if not a bit roughly) by youtuber: RichandPoor


Yet upon coming home I noticed this article: 


Lord Owen 'could vote for Labour' under Miliband

Lord Owen was one of  the key founders of the SDP party that broke away from labour in the 1981s to eventually merge with the Liberal party to found the Liberal Democrats. The fact that he would not support the Labour party makes a complex situation more difficult. 
There was a time when Labour and the Conservatives were clear cut (not that i was alive to remember it)  and it was not too hard to define the Lib Dems but now drawing the political line is very hard! 
Historically Labour were left wing, Conservatives were right wing and the Lib Dems were central left yet right now the Lib Dems are in coalition government with the right wing Conservatives. 
Oh but how right wing are the Conservatives, replacing a flaming touch with a green tree signalled a so called reinvention of the Tory party to the centre. David Cameron trumped the 2010 emergency budget as 'fair' and progressive, but their  polices don't seem to much of a far cry from Margate Thatcher. Experimental economic policy (crowing out theory and PSNCR priority) and downsizing the public sector is classic Tory policy.  Even the Conservative command acknolages this,  this we know thanks to Wikileaks. 
Yet tweaks to the Conservatives to make them friendlier and more electable seem like nothing compared to Tony Blairs New Labour. The reinvention of Labour Party sifted the party of the Unions into a central  Party to Govern Briton for just under 13 years. Tony Blair was named 12th most infuential right winger in the telegraph! Nick Clegg leader of the 'central-left' Liberal Democrats came 3rd!!
What happened to left wing!?
Well Mr Milliband is not leader of the labour party and it seems he is brining back the left. Elected by the Unions Ed is not new labour which means he could just be left of centre? 
If your looking for the true left wing its actually within the right wing government, if you ask me I would say it those Liberal Democrats that risked peerage to vote against the tuition fees. In time we could see the end of the coalition, if the Lib Dems don't break under pressure they will dissolve back into two parties! 

Saturday 15 January 2011

BUS WARS: Chapter 3: Attack of the Monopoly

Stagecoach is an example of a business that has expanded through external growth and successfully! Founded in wake of the deregulation of the 1980s just like Preston bus and the all the other small bus firms, yet Stagecoach would grow into one of the market leaders. In the UK Stagecoach would be come one of 5 oligopoists however locally Stagecoach would be one of the most aggressive monopolists in recent history.
Stagecoach entered the market as a completely new firm (yet previously dealing in minibus hire). At first Stagecoach offer bus hire, with a personal service then it quickly began  growth and the first firm to be bought out by Stagecoach was McLennan Of Spittalfield. This allowed Stagecoach to move from merely operating hire services out of their home of Perth (Scotland) into operating local services to Glasgow under the name Magicbus. 
This was the beginning of huge growth for Stagecoach, through out the late 1980s. Along with rivals Arriva, Stragecoach opted for an aggressive take over strategy. Stagecoach took over maybe bus services including: East Midlands, Cumberland, Southdown and Ribble.
Stagecoach took over Ribble bus in 1988 and instantly moved for dominance across the North West. 


Stagecoach renamed Ribble bus to Stagecoach Ribble and soon began buying up other bus local companies. Stagecoach took over Barrow Borough Transport and created Stagecoach Cumbria out of the Cumbrian bus services. The Northwest was just one if the regions Stagecoach targeted, it grew to dominance across various regions all across  the UK and even bought out bus operators globally buying up UTM in Malawi. 


By the 2000s Stagecoach and bough up many smaller bus companies and had strong market share across major cities such as Manchester, London, Newcastle and Liverpool. There 1990s diversification into the rail industried  captured a significant market share and expansion globally was large scale. In 2001 all of the Northwest bus groups were merged into the group Stagecoach North West but it was not until 2006 that the bus wars truly began.

In 2006 Stage coach formed Stagecoach Preston Citi, its goal: to directly compete with Preston Bus! 











Main sources:  Stagecoach Group: History, Wikipedia: Stagecoach Group, Stagecoach Northwest

Friday 7 January 2011

Ed Miliband Receives Grilling on Jeremy Vine

In brutal interview did Ed hold his nerve?



The interview:
The Previous Government: After a blazing intro Jeremy gave Mr Miliband a chance to blame the past Labour Government and differentiate away from them, to which he defended the past Government. To the argument that they spend to much he said it was wise investment, although not prefect. He said the borrowing was responsible and said he paid off debt.
A caller attacked Mr Miliband first off in a petty manner about his voice then moving on to state the previous Labour government brought the country to its knees saying Labour wasted the governments money. He responded pointing out investments like the NHS to which she responding saying her mother had died of MRSA. Despite the onslaught he kept his cool using rational arguments such as 'for the most part people feel they have a good standard from the NHS' then twisting it to a Conservative jibs like their cuts to the NHS.
Others placed the sole blame for the financial meltdown on him which was also implied by Jeremy, he held off and stuck to the argument that it was not their fault because it was global.
His personality: When a calling with an alternative political view asked Mr Miliband to show some passion and heart in fighting the precent government, he said he would fight harder and picked up on her arguments backing them up, arguments such as 'we will never get playgrounds back'.
He was then accused of being faceless and 'shafting' his brother. He said his and his brother were best to stand against each other and fight fairly rather than back door deals such as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He said that both of them 'had something to say'.
When questioned about not being on his childs birth certificate he put death to such rumours by saying he is now and it was due to not being married to the mother (his partner) and responded to why he was not married by saying he plans to but he did not want to marry for political gain.
Tuition fees: His response to tuition fees to was push forward his graduate tax. He said that the Conservatives were ruining the next generate which he would not. He said he did not join the marches because he had other means of protesting such as in parliament. He also again reached out to the young party by saying he supporting votes for 16 year olds.
Banks: He said he would help the working family by not implementing the VAT and benefit cuts by getting money from elsewhere such as higher bank levies. He offered an interesting solution to bonuses by saying further regulation of banks by making them disclose more information would reduce bank bonuses by letting share holders know more and thus putting them off from paying out. This is an interesting idea, although to me this just seems like shifting pay from bank workers that actually work to shareholders that don't.
War: He supported the Conservative policy on Afganistian and said that it was right because many terrorist bases were around that region.
Religion: When asked to stop faith schools he pointed out that many faith schools pre-date public schools and said most do a good job.
Finally interesting Jeremy was attack for attacking Ed on personal grounds not political, to which Ed responded by asking the caller to explain why he voted Lib Dems rather thus letting Jeremy off the hook.


 My response:
Ed held his nerve, no slips ('bigot') even against deep personal jibes and hard questions. He has some interesting and inventive policies although the idea he is too vague still holds up. Its refreshing to see him agree with some Con-dem policies and just valid defences. I agree that the finical crisis was not labours fault and investment is good, although perhaps running such large deficits is not responsible, its clear to make the destinction that an economy is not like a household and debt if very different to nations.
At very least I can say he is a good politician although  he appears to have developed that catchphrase 'let me just say'.


From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00d4khs - (disappears on 13th of Jan)