Is the UK Economy Getting A Little Better?
There has been a few positive articles this weekend, which indicate the economy is getting better.
For a start, the BBC is saying that UK retail sales are rising.
And Philip Wighton in yesterday’s Times says that clothing companies, like River Island, are moving manufacturing back to the UK, as this gives shorter lead times. Let’s hope others follow their example.
The Times also says that B & Q have brought in a new range of toilet seats called Tonic, that are selling way above expectations. Is this a business going up the pan?
Give Mothers tax break for home help, Cameron told
This was the headline on the front page of The Times today.
Lt is not a new idea, as I heard it from a senior civil servant in about 1980.
He was in the Department of Employment and had proposed that if you employed someone properly out of your salary and paid their taxes accordingly, then you would get tax relief. It wouldn’t be just for cleaners, babysitters and gardeners as in the current plans, but for any legitimate purpose.
Thus, if you were in a high paid job and perhaps felt, you’d like to start a small business, then you could employ someone to investigate if it was feasible.
As it says in today’s front page, it would cut the black economy and raise extra revenue.
It was eventually dropped, as the government’s model of the economy had no knowledge of the black one.
I hope they do now!
Is The Economy Getting Better?
I’m not sure, but there have been some good stories today.
On the BBC this morning there was a piece about how small exporters were doing well.
I know it’s a Japanese car company, but this article on the BBC about Nissan can’t be seen as anything but positive. It’s also in an area of high unemployment, where they need every job they can get.
John Lewis also reported a 6.2% like-for-like increase in sales during the Christmas period. As the company have branches in most parts of the UK, it can’t be anything other than a good thing. Next too is on target, but other retailers aren’t doing so well. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as customers are picking up a few bargains. I bought a new pair of boots from Blacks at a very silly price.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been to several places on the trains, like Reading, Blackfriars, Cambridge and others, where the fruits of investment seem to be coming through. You can argue, that these were planned by the previous government, but it does seem that progress has speeded up in the last year or so. I will say that some of the developments in the London area, seem to have benefited from better engineering and project management, with the professionals being given targets by the politicians, who then have not interfered at the micro-management level. We could probably do even better with Network Rail, if they were controlled in the same way as Transport for London.
And lastly today, this piece about the pound has come in, showing it has risen against a failing euro. That may not be a totally good thing for exporters, but it shows that the world thinks our economy is on the mend.
The Solution’s Behind You
The BBC were interviewing Ed Balls today at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. He was pontificating on the solutions, that he would do to could Britain out of the financial mess, that largely his party got us in.
Who is right or wrong on the solution is a matter for the future.
Butb I think, that the solution to our problems was behind Ed Balls in his BBC interview. But then politicians never look behind themselves, except to see where the knife is coming from.
Over the last twenty years or so, Liverpool has been transformed, from a basket case, to one of the most vibrant cities in the world, by developing the city in a professional and quality manner. Liverpudlians will point to the European City of Culture in 2008, as a catalyst for a lot of the change, but in some cases it just gave developers a reason and possibly an excuse to invest.
London too, is changing and has been greatly improved over the last few decades. The development of Docklands started it and now the Olympics is pushing the city to new heights.
You could also argue, that Manchester got a kick start from the 2002 Commonwealth Games, but just as with Liverpool and London, the process was going to happen anyway and perhaps these events were just advertising for the place on a wider scale. Wikipedia says a lot about how the Games got Manchester moving after the 1996 IRA bombing. One might even say now that Manchester’s driving force is football.
Liverpool is getting a lot of publicity over the next couple of days, and how many will think about going there for a weekend break? When I was there last, I met a plumber who had come to the city for the day to ride his bicycle along the Mersey. Liverpool is almost becoming a seaside resort!
These three cities have benefited from a process that could best be described as Infrastructure for All.
I could also add how Newcastle has benefited from the waterfront developments along the Tyne. Other cities, like Leeds and Birminghamhave also been improved to everybody’s benefit.
I should also ask, if Glasgow is seeing the benefit for the 2014 commonwealth Games yet.
We must do this more in our run-down cities and districts.
Even on a local basis, Dalston has improved a bit in the year I’ve been here, mainly because of the opening of two new railways, that got built early because of the Olympics. But even if the Olympics hadn’t happened, they would have still gone ahead.
So we should look at all the infrastructure projects on the stocks and do those that are most valuable as soon as finances allow.
Priorities should obviusly go to those that give the greatest benefit. I would start with.
Housing, which would provide homes for our ever increasing population. It should be energy efficient and hopefully built, so that people who live there, don’t need to own one car per person, as we must wean ourselves off our own personal travelling spaces, they cost everyone else dear.
Selective rail projects, to remove bottlenecks and level crossings, improve stations and add a few new ones. In Suffolk, they are adding a new loop at Beccles so that more trains can run from Ipswich to Lowestoft. How many more Beccles-like problems are there out there, that need urgent removal. Many of these projects would have positive knock-on effects in other areas. Some level crossings, like the one in the centre of Lincoln, would have enormous benefits to road traffic, if they were removed.
Rail freight projects, which remove trucks from the roads. This would mean a few more interchanges such as Radlett, but the benefit to roads like the A14 and M1 would be high.
Personally, I would add a better bus network, with much better ticketing and disabled-friendly, information rich two-door buses, like you have in London. I have a free pass for buses, so why do I have to be issued with a ticket when I use a bus in Cambridge. It should be just touch in on all buses.
And of course, it’s important that we create interesting places for people to go. Some sports clubs have been trying to build new grounds for years and this process should be speeded up. And we don’t want any more stadia, like Coventry, Scunthorpe and the Rose Bowl designed solely to be driven to. They should be built near the transport hubs., which in itself would probably make them more financially viable.
You will notice, I’ve missed out new roads.
In many ways they are not infrastructure for all.
Some may need to be built or widened, but our priority should be to get unnecessary traffic off the roads.
I believe that we are seeing a drop in the number of trucks from the roads, as more and more container traffic is diverted to the trains. But this process needs some selective action at rail junctions, and it also needs more rail-based distribution centres near large conurbations. But the Nimbys don’t like these. Some also object to freight trains passing through at night.
There has been talk for years about taxing foreign lorries in this country, just as the Swiss do. The last time I drove the southern part of the M25, it was full of trucks registered aboard. We have the Channel Tunnel and goods to and from Europe should go through it on container trains, just like most of the freight goes in and out of the ports at Southampton, Felixstowe and Liverpool.
Every truck removed, is an increase in road capacity.
We also need better interface between the roads and rail. How many cities build large car parks in the centre, when perhaps building them on the outskirts and providing a tram or rail link to the centre? Cambridge was very much derided by doing this with a guided busway, by many including myself, but they now seem to be making a success of it.
The Greeks Can’t Spell Tax
Just heard David Bewick of BGC Partners on BBC Radio 5.
He said the above in a rather far-reaching appraisal of the economic state of the world.
He said two other points of note.
- The Greeks have no commerce or manufacturing of note.
- When did you last hear a profits warning, from a company that wasn’t a bank?
It was all very entertaining.
I’ll add some good news of my own. In July, I earned 5.88% before tax on the money I have in Zopa. In August, it was down to 5.40%. So what has been my return for the first 24 days of September? It’s back up to 5.88%! They always say about investments that they can go down as well as up.
We Need Rebekah’s Law
Popbitch is starting a campagn, so that we can all know if we have any former red-top editors living near us. Here’s the gist.
Rarely does Popbitch get on its soapbox
but recent events have stirred us up.
Inspired by the News of the World, we
demand the right for the public to know
if there are any ex-News International
execs living near us.
As the NOTW once said on its cover
“Everyone in Britain has a sex offender
living within one mile of their home”.
This is surely just as true of ex-
News of the World editors too.
And, like Mrs Brooks, we vow to name and
shame any politician who impedes our
crusade for tougher laws against
former red-top editors.
We need… Rebekah’s Law!
Come on, join our campaign.
It’s what she would have wanted.
I’m now getting very much towards feeling that all of this tabloid wrongdoing is all rather irrelevant and that stories like the multiple killings in Stockport and the financial problems in the eurozone are much more important.
I certainly won’t be venturing anywhere near Stockport or Greece in the near future.
Now Brown Wants to Bankrupt the World
It has been reported that Prudence wants to be head of the IMF. Talk about putting an alcoholic in charge of a brewery!
At least David Cameron appears to be trying to block the move according to this report.
Reasons To Be Hopeful
This was the headline across the front page of The Times today. They gave it three sub-titles :-
- Growth surprises City
- Advertising soars
- Strongest ewbound since the War
They also talked about how a new shopping centre at One New Change in the City of London, nicknamed the Stealth Bomber is virtually fully let to retailers.
Let’s hope that this is not a false dawn! But visiting Cambridge as I do regularly, I have a feeling that it is not!
The Anonymous Widower 