Blog
22 january 2012, game on
Sunday 22nd January 2012
I don’t have any particular expertise in calling the us presidential campaign, but I’ve as much right as anyone to enjoy the greatest political spectacle on earth. Had obama’s first term been as transformational as it had the potential to be, or were the world’s largest economy gently humming along, the president would be unbeatable. However, as things stand, a strong centre-ground republican candidate ought to be a shoo in. How strange then that the party of lincoln, eisenhower and theordore roosevelt should have chosen this time around to indulge itself in a bout of radical ideological puritanism and bloodletting, as if it had no chance. What has become clear in the last month though, with the emergence of romney…
21 January 2011, will they or won’t they ?
Saturday 21st January 2012
Sign up to a new treaty ? It does, to start with, look like there will certainly be one, probably in march. And whatever the headlines may say, it will be an eu treaty, in every sense of the word. And the thumbscrews are already out: any member state that doesn’t sign, won’t be able to get a bail-out – which looks more weighty after a very successful auction this week. There are other carrots as well: probably a seat at the eurozone summits, for example. And there’s not really so much that is being committed to: a balanced budget rule has always had exceptions, and always will, especially as its the members states that will make the call,…
14 january 2012, over yonder
Saturday 14th January 2012
Although there's no particular special birthday coming up, mine being either some way away or a few years under my belt, I'm feeling a bit melancholy. It might be that my other half is coming to the end of her degree, that my eldest is making the jump to secondary school, or my youngest having a very strong mind of his own, or maybe it's that I've almost reached the 4-year maximum I've ever spent in one job. I'm watching the sun rise as I write this, a subtle red over the icy white on the ground, with the green across the canvas slowly emerging. The red perhaps is the fire of my ability to thaw the white of that…
5 january 2012, keeping the lights burning
Thursday 5th January 2012
Far-sighted and intellectually excellent european commissioners seem fewer and far between these days (though see 10 november 2011) but the slovenian with environment, janez potocnik, is shaping up well, and making the most of a portfolio where the eu has more relevance than most. Having managed to goad london’s mayor into action to avoid a £300 million fine, his latest foray is more philosophical, taking the traditional malthusian fear that the natural resources at mankind’s disposal are finite and identifying something of a contemporary tipping point which melds with the current economic crisis and propels it. In fact, his call for greater energy efficiency is essential, and his argument about how greater resource efficiency can make europe more competitive (by…
1 january 2012, another bric in the wall
Sunday 1st January 2012
Will 2012 (like 2011 and 2010, see 14 january) be the year of brazil, russia, china, india & the rest ? Yes. China alone is still creating an economy the size of turkey (23 november 2011) each year, and while the brics’ clip is slowing, as the western world and especially europe (that’s the uk too) dive towards contraction, the differential growth rates will widen. The big question is whether decoupling has yet taken place. Many thought it had in 2008, only to be proved sort-of wrong when their economies dipped in parallel to ours, but then they recovered quicker and faster; since then the processes of stronger domestic demand, and so less reliance on exports to the west, have…
25 december 2011, it was sixteen years ago today...
Sunday 25th December 2011
...I was in bethlehem, following through on an impulsive decision to visit the city just a day after the israeli army pulled out of what at least to the western world is the most iconic palestinian city. The oslo two agreement, implemented after rabin was assassinated, saw the army of occupation pull out from the biggest west bank population centres and the establishment of the palestinian authority. I was living in tel aviv at the time (working at its most excellent museum) and my colleagues thought the trip totally mad, but actually I had a spellbinding day in an amazing place on literally the first day of the rest of its life. Though hard to imagine now, those were heady…
23 december 2011, cut pay or headcount ?
Saturday 24th December 2011
The pay of the seven million or so people that work in the public sector is a big issue in the uk, as elsewhere, but it is not just pensions that represent an effective uplift (worth perhaps 15%) but also time worked (up to 25%) and, until recently at least, job security (and redundancy brings generous compensation). Length of service as a basis of pay rather than performance also hobbles outcomes. It was once the case that these less visible benefits counterbalanced salaries lower than in the private sector, but no more: equivalent public sector wages are now some 12% higher than private ones, although the question of formal qualifications needed, which private employers tend to be more flexible…
18 december 2011, every loser bins
Sunday 18th December 2011
Brits have something of an obsession with bins, a symbol of schizophrenia between localism and rule by stalinist decree. When I moved to germany ten years ago, I was stunned both by the efficiency of domestic recycling, and that everybody, rich or poor, divided absolutely everything into the allotted four bins. Back in stockport, things have moved on. We also now have 3 recycling bins, and a black one, half the size, for everything else. The latter, to whitehall consternation, only gets emptied fortnightly. Central government’s sensitivity to bins dates back to the winter of discontent in 1979, with its iconic images of the unburied dead and unemptied bins that did in what was left of the labour government, and…
10 december 2011, exit, stage right ?
Saturday 10th December 2011
The real question of the latest “make or break” euro summit is whether it was enough; to which paul krugman’s answer is no; while mine is, yes - until the next step is needed. All the news though in the uk is about david cameron’s “thatcher moment”, although even the iron lady never actually wielded her veto, although she bitterly regretted it after signing the single european act of 1986. Years ago, when I started this website, I wrote that the uk’s “sustained ability to punch above its weight, economically and diplomatically, is finally ebbing.” This weekend may well turn out to be a step in that direction, as however much we invoke some magical realism about the special relationship…
8 december 2011, and then there were eight
Thursday 8th December 2011
I spent the day in leeds today speaking not once but twice at a conference, in the illustrious company of the deputy prime minister nick clegg (14 september 2011; 5 february 2011), greg clarke, the almost-cabinet minister for decentralisation and planning (22 january 2011) and chuka umunna, a major league up & coming mp who is trying to fight off the “english obama” tag, though he’s rather good. The conference, on northern cities, was another launch pad for another stage of another government drive for devolution, or “localism”, or control shift perhaps, this time for the core cities, which of course includes manchester. Unfortunately, only the yorkshire post seems to have noticed. Many more noticed the night’s football results,…
3 december 2011, the european province of belgium
Saturday 3rd December 2011
It’s almost 18 months since belgium had a government (19 september 2010), but it finally looks like negotiations are about to conclude. Somewhat remarkably given that the elections saw immigrants cast in a rather negative light, the prime minister looks set to be a half-orphan of poor italian workers: the american dream in belgium. He’s also openly gay (not the first pm, a distinction that went to iceland’s johanna sigurdardottir) and even more remarkable, a french speaker, the first since 1974. That’s a bit of a blow for the richer flanders half of the country, which still looks ever closer to becoming an independent state, kosovo being the model. If brits think scotland is on the verge of independence, it’s…
27 november 2011, merkozy
Saturday 26th November 2011
I wrote my second-ever new europe column on germany, and seven years ago it was quite insightful to flag that “everything about the eu rests on germany”. Then, it was still understated: no-one coined the “kohl consensus”. Gerhard shroeder ended that culture of restraint, bringing a rather more muscular germany, its capital now berlin, its whole economy yoked to the deep sacrifice of rebuilding east germany, which brought lower wages and sent jobs abroad, lowering germany’s unit labour costs by some 20%, one of the causes of the euro’s current problems (15 october 2011). It also brought angela merkel to power. And in that time too it turned around its trade: in 1999 german exports to portugal, ireland, spain and…