[tomtom]

The whole thing was a bit staid but it seems the format might be changed for the next two.

Hopefully they will all come on stage to a slightly misjudged combination of dry ice, strobes and theme music like darts players. Who do you recon will go for PJ&Duncan's "Lets Get Ready To Rhumble"?

   I can see some sort of dancing on ice show... Leaders in Lycra.

The best part would be if they had a green room cam (they may have to re-name it) where you could watch Brown muttering to himself deep in his notes with a glass of scotch, Cameron playing with his my little ponies and Clegg meditating (ooooooooooooommmmmm - apparently he's into TM).

OK, thats a bit dull (they all are) lets have a big brother type show so we can see a showdown at the fridge over who had too much orange juice.. hmm actually thats even duller. Lets face it they are politicians and you can't polish a turd....

The worst bit of the debate was that the audience wasnt allowed to twitch. You suspect someone even nodding would get taken outside and shot.

[Jaspersharpe]

The Guardian and Telegraphn independent?  Are you on drugs?  The Times is only independent when Murdoch forgets to tell them how to think.

Exactly! Which is why it's so telling that across the board they say Clegg romped it. From Grauniad to Torygraph.

[tomtom]

Shite paper - funny headline....

Interesting news about Wayne & Fab mind.... 

[tomtom]

 

[Jaspersharpe]

That's class.

[Jaspersharpe]

Decent viewing figures.

[stone]

I wish the political debate was more about what concrete changes would make the City more suited for meeting the needs of the companies that needed capitalization and less just a zone for speculative rip-offs. A lot of the regulation that there currently is seems to be a way to give the hedge-funds and investment banks an edge over the pension funds so that the pension funds are sitting ducks for speculative rip-offs. Basically speculators want very volatile prices with the ability to buy and sell instantly and ahead of the bulk of the market. The regulators seem to have given them the perfect set up. My guess is that curbs on liquidity would remedy this. Berkshire Hathaway previously made big efforts to reduce the liquidity of their shares. The whole shift to private equity also seems to me just a way to avoid liquidity and so get stable, predictable, capitalization.  This makes me very wary of the ‘more liquidity the better’ idea that seems to pervade everything.  I’d love to hear from people who actually know about all of this though.

[Stu Littlefair]

Bloody hell Stone, I agree that it's an important issue, but I couldn't understand a bloody word of that, which is probably why you don't hear Cable banging on about it.

The LDs argue that splitting the banks up into banks devoted to a single activity will make it easier to have a banking sector that supports investment in british business. I'm not sure about that; at best I can see it making it more obvious that we don't have one.

[Andy B]

I wish the political debate was more about what concrete changes would make the City more suited for meeting the needs of the companies that needed capitalization and less just a zone for speculative rip-offs. A lot of the regulation that there currently is seems to be a way to give the hedge-funds and investment banks an edge over the pension funds so that the pension funds are sitting ducks for speculative rip-offs. Basically speculators want very volatile prices with the ability to buy and sell instantly and ahead of the bulk of the market. The regulators seem to have given them the perfect set up. My guess is that curbs on liquidity would remedy this. Berkshire Hathaway previously made big efforts to reduce the liquidity of their shares. The whole shift to private equity also seems to me just a way to avoid liquidity and so get stable, predictable, capitalization.  This makes me very wary of the ‘more liquidity the better’ idea that seems to pervade everything.  I’d love to hear from people who actually know about all of this though.

If I read that really slowly, I feel like I'm at Pinches Wall.

Excellent.

[dave]

but no mention of zebra fish embryos.

[Johnny Brown]

Personally I have a lot more faith in politicians if the live debate was about that level, rather than the lowest common denominator we get now.

[Jaspersharpe]

Yeah but you wouldn't get nine million people switching over from Eastenders to watch it. Unfortunately.

[tomtom]

Personally I have a lot more faith in politicians if the live debate was about that level, rather than the lowest common denominator we get now.

One thing Gordon Brown does seem to know is his numbers and facts (whether or not you agree with what he does with them!) whereas David Cameron seems to have a good knowledge of his soundbites but not much else. When it came to talking about figures/economy/balancing spending you could see DC shrinking and GB growing (in confidence). I'm not sure where Cleggy fits into that.. he said alot of sensible things, but I'm not really sure there was a huge volume of substance in what he said.... 

In many ways I agree with you JB a more detailed intellectual debate would switch off some of the electorate but might reveal how clever (or not) the candidates are!

To meld this with the TV game show fixation maybe we could have a Leaders Debate Krypton Factor special...

[Jaspersharpe]

Clegg fits into it by being the only one with an actual set of figures showing where cuts are to be made and how the budget balances. The other two refuse to say what is to be cut and are being deliberately vague on the matter. This is one of the major reasons I'm supporting him.

[Yossarian]

Yeah but you wouldn't get nine million people switching over from Eastenders to watch it. Unfortunately.

I think the fact that 9 million people were watching Eastenders in the first place perfectly sums up the terrible, irretrievably hopeless state to which this nation has sunk...

[tomtom]

Yeah but you wouldn't get nine million people switching over from Eastenders to watch it. Unfortunately.

I think the fact that 9 million people were watching Eastenders in the first place perfectly sums up the terrible, irretrievably hopeless state to which this nation has sunk...

Are you voting UKIP? 

[Jaspersharpe]

The worst bit of the debate was that the audience wasnt allowed to twitch. You suspect someone even nodding would get taken outside and shot.

 

Yeah but you wouldn't get nine million people switching over from Eastenders to watch it. Unfortunately.

I think the fact that 9 million people were watching Eastenders in the first place perfectly sums up the terrible, irretrievably hopeless state to which this nation has sunk...

I don't actually know how many watch Eastenders. I was just using it as an example to make the point.

[Jaspersharpe]

From Twitter..........

Gary Barlow's supporting Cameron. So he's trying to go one better than Mark Owen and fuck everyone in Britain.

[Yossarian]

Are you voting UKIP? 

On the contrary, I imagine UKIP holding up Eastenders as a representation of a particular type of Britishness that rejects the interference of the world outside Walford and thus perfectly illustrates what their particular utopia might be like.  Namely, a bunch of cretins with silly accents sitting around all day moaning over cups of oversweetened tea.

I would rather dress in a union jack suit and be run over with an Atco mower on Wimbledon centre court than vote UKIP...

[tomtom]

Are you voting UKIP? 

I would rather dress in a union jack suit and be run over with an Atco mower on Wimbledon centre court than vote UKIP...

  indeed, I feel the same!

[andy popp]

Bloody hell Stone, I agree that it's an important issue, but I couldn't understand a bloody word of that, which is probably why you don't hear Cable banging on about it.

In a nutshell, they're in it for the short term profit. This is an accusation that has been levelled at the City (with some justification) for over  a century. City based financial institutions have historically shown much less interest in long term investment in the national economy, esp. manufacturing, than their counterparts in say Germany or Japan - where banks and industry are heavily networked (and markets for hostile takeovers/asset stripping much less developed). I think Stone's argument is that recent regulatory changes have exacerbated this tendency. This seems hard to deny.

The other side of the argument is that Britain has been a service (esp. financial services) economy since the late C19th anyway and thus we are only concentrating resources in those areas we have a competitive advantage.

Mention of Berkshire Hathaway reminds me of a great quote from Buffett I saw recently: "If there's a class war then its sure as hell my side that's winning" (or words to that effect). I should imagine it was said with a degree of regret.

[Bernard Jefferies]

Are you voting UKIP? 

I would rather dress in a union jack suit and be run over with an Atco mower on Wimbledon centre court than vote UKIP...

Talking of UKIP, did anyone see 'Have I Got New for You" the other week where Nigel Farage (UKIP) was on, absolute bell end I thought.

[andy popp]

Are you voting UKIP? 

I would rather dress in a union jack suit and be run over with an Atco mower on Wimbledon centre court than vote UKIP...

Talking of UKIP, did anyone see 'Have I Got New for You" the other week where Nigel Farage (UKIP) was on, absolute bell end I thought.

Similarly I caught their 'director of policy' (or something) on Today during the week. I've never heard such utter bollocks spoken with so complete confidence and sang froid. It was a quite magnificent performance in many ways.

[stone]

The other side of the argument is that Britain has been a service (esp. financial services) economy since the late C19th anyway and thus we are only concentrating resources in those areas we have a competitive advantage.

Surely though the difference between speculative gains and investment gains is that speculative gains are just a transfer of  money from losers to winners. We could have our whole economy based on speculation with the losers being in other countries. That seems to be the vision of New Labour. I can't imagine the rest of the world going along with such a set up for long though. I kind of wonder whether the vision of the Chinese communist party is for world domination by letting the West believe that  we can go along such a route and so letting us dig our own grave. I thought the scenario was summed up well in http://www.slate.com/id/2245328/pagenum/all/.

[slackline]

I can't be arsed finding the thread these were being posted in (no recollection of the title) but just clocked this one and thought it was rather good