Spread markets point to a Tory majority of 40
May 9th, 2008
A 24 seat shift to Cameron’s party in just ten days
The spread firm, SportingIndex, has just put up its new general election commons seats spreads following the YouGov poll overnight suggesting that Labour are on just 23% - a massive 26% behind.
When we last looked at this, a week last Tuesday and two days before polling, I posed the question - “Will punters believe in a Tory majority after Thursday?”.
Well they have and the Tory spread has moved from 318-324 seats up to the latest 342-348 seats. So taking the mid-point in the spread the market is suggesting a Tory seat total of 345 seats - or an overall majority of 40.
I think that this is just about the first time ever since spread betting was launched in the UK that gamblers have been prepared to risk money on the Tories getting a workable majority.
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Looks fair enough. I’d expect their majority to be a bit up on this, at around 60-70 seats, personally.
Looking at Martin Baxter CON 42/ LAB 30 / LIB 19 gives roughly those figures.
293 previous thread - in Ave It mode:
Derby LibDems = Derby County! Doomed to lowest recorded total!!
LOL!!!
Reposted from previous thread as more relevant here…
Hmmm - well the endgame for Labour is clearly afoot. Even though it’s Yougov (and a panel poll) it’s clearly reflecting Labour’s current crisis. And I gather their Parliamentary party are in full headless chicken mode.
Is it recovereable? Yes, but given this is a Labour leadership that p1ssed up the wall 10% poll leads in just seven months then I think they have no chance. No doubt another ‘relaunch’ will be on the cards, when (as Portillo said last night) a period of silence is the best thing. If Labour were to say and do nothing until after the summer, simply got on quietly with sorting out some of the issues and came back in the Autumn with a light-touch programme then they would make progress. But they won’t because Gordon (and most of the frontbench team) just can’t resist tinkering.
As for the Tories - enjoy it while it lasts, but there’s too much self congratulation. They won’t poll 49% at the GE - just as Blair was never going to poll 50+% in 1997. And given from how far back they’re coming from 340+ seats is pretty unrealistic, so there’s money to be made on the spreads.
There is of course now no excuse for the Tories not to win C&N very comfortably - a 20% swing should easily be within their grasp.
O/T US:
Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Portland, Oregon. (Earl co-chairs the Oregon Obama campaign.)
A number of members [of Congress] are now ready to declare their support. My sense is that at least 95 percent of the super delegates know exactly who they are going to vote for, and most will support Barack.
http://www.blueoregon.com/2008/05/this-morning-in.html#more
95% of “most” should do the trick….
When does the Commons rise for the summer hols? Cant be too soon for some methinks.
6 - 22 July apparantly returning on 6 October.
An unholy alliance forming in Sefton?
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2008/05/09/sefton-council-in-turmoil-after-leader-and-cabinet-members-quit-64375-20884188/
7 - Further to that the Whitsun recess begins on May 22 and finishes on June 2.
O/T - Councillor elected last week forced to resign.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/7392023.stm
10. What an idiot.
11 - Quite.
“Conservative and Lib Dem leaders in Scotland have spoken of their serious concern over Wendy Alexander’s policy shift on a referendum on independence.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7391667.stm
13. So Wendy has managed to annoy her allies over devolution, annoy the prime minister, and made herself look stupid and confused. Well, at least she’s been working hard.
14 - Yes she has hardly covered herself in glory.
The idiots were the Local Conservative group that selected him as a candidate.
Brian Monteith (former Conservative, then Independent, MSP) considers that the Scottish Tories and Scottish Lib Dems have been lured into an ‘elephant trap’ by the Labour Party, in the shape of the Calman Commission:
“Labour had concluded that to win a referendum it should be in a position of supporting a new improved Parliament rather than the current model, even if it isn’t mentioned on the ballot paper. So the Commission was born, bringing the naive and unwitting Nicol Stephen and Annabel Goldie into its elephant trap.”
‘Bendy Wendy’s memory problem’
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Bendy-Wendy39s-memory-problem.4067607.jp
16 Shows how low the bar gets set for all parties in selecting council candidates….
“Got a pulse? Then you’re in!”
16. Isn’t it standard practice for all parties to ask prospective candidates (at least for winnable seats) “Is there anything in your past which, if it came to light, would bring the party into disrepute?” ?
United States.
I reported a few hours ago the New Jersey Clinton Super Delegate swicthing to Obama, that is now confirmed, Clinton has picked up one from Pennsylvannia and Obama another from Oregon. Overall 2-0 for Obama.
Also ABC are reporting that Obama has now overtaken Clinton in Supers. They must know something we do not.
Using CNN’s figures I make the difference 6.
In the meantime off to Crewe for a nosey.
More on Northern Rock,yawn! yawn!
This fiasco will bring down the present occupants of number 10 & 11 Downing Street.
The opposition parties should be capable of grinding out a result on this.
A hedge fund and 150,000 small Northern Rock shareholders intensified their push for greater compensation from the government following the nationalisation of the Newcastle-based lender.
SRM Global, the Monaco-based fund which held 11.5% of Northern Rock, has joined the UK Shareholders Association, representing private investors who had a 25% stake, to formally ask the High Court to investigate the legality of the conduct of the government, the Bank of England, HM Treasury and the Financial Services Authority.
Moreover, they are demanding a review of the government’s proposed compensation scheme, criticising it for mishandling the lender’s nationalisation and for acting unfairly.
The Financial Times reports HM Treasury has a firm view the statutory framework for the assessment of compensation, including the assumptions which the valuer will apply, represents ‘a fair and reasonable basis for determining any compensation payable to former shareholders’
16 - I dont think so, unless you expect the selection committees to be omniscient. You will always get the odd silly little boy or girl getting through even the most rigorous process.
3. Yes, no party is likely to poll 49% at a general election and certainly not coming from opposition (Blair might have managed it if he’d called another election in about 1998-9, though I think that even then he’d have struggled despite the polls at the time as it would have looked indulgent).
If the Conservatives are to end up with 345 seats, it implies about 140 gains (can’t remember the exact nominal baseline; it would be 147 gains going off the real 2005 result). That is almost the number of gains that Blair won in 1997, which was itself the most by any party since 1945 and by some way. Question is: is that a realistic possibility? In 1997, there were only a couple of dozen Lib Dems; there are now over sixty. Some of these will undoubtedly return to the Tory column but others look out of reach short of a landslide on the scale of the YouGov poll. That implies that other seats will need to go Coservative that havn’t been blue since 1987 or earlier.
Scotland too could present a problem in terms of possible gains. In 1992 there were eleven Scottish Conservatives; even if Cameron manages to get up to four or five, that still means more to be won elsewhere.
That said, I’ve believed this market to be overpricing the Conservatives for some time, so it’s likely to continue to do so. It looks to me like 270 is an absolute minimum the Conservatives are likely to win (and seventy gains is a lot), 300 is very much on the cards, 320 is achieveable and 350 at the very outside of the range. That’s not to say the market won’t go higher but I would question how realistic such a result would be, short of a Labour split or something equally landscape-shattering.
19. I think that or a similar question was also asked of Jeffrey Archer, though there was rather better evidence available to check out his answer. Essentially, the problem is that it’s like the selection committee asking ‘are you a liar?’. Whether they are or not they will answer ‘no’. The sort of person who has a disreputable past is most likely to be the sort not to be troubled by lying about it.
230. Agreed. What is surely likely is a situation such as Harold Wilson faced in 1964, when his party was clearly the more popular but it had to gain 50+ seats to win a majority. Cameron will probably take the Tories to largest party status or a narrow majority in 2010, then gain a much bigger majority at an election soon afterwards while the opposition is in disarray.
Sorry, that refers to 23.
One for the eurosceptics:
http://euobserver.com/13/26107
The showdown between Britain (ex-Scotland?) and its “European destiny” is now looming into view. It now seems these major new proposals for integration will be enacted with a strongly eurosceptic government in London.
There is no way a Tory government could join a European army. Something like this, therefore, will mark the end of our closer union with Europe; we will then move to an official - rather than de facto - semidetachment from Brussels.
This position will be locked in place with a referendum commitment on all future integration: a Tory government with a big majority might even write this commitment to referendums into the UK Constitution - effectively making our semidetachment irreversible.
Ergo: the UK’s EU future, and the freedom of our country, will be sorted within the next five to ten years, thank God. Then I can rant about something else.
“… in five short days Ms Alexander has boxed Labour, and a Prime Minister who wraps himself in a Union flag, into a countdown to an independence referendum.
It doesn’t matter if her idea of “bring it on” (next week, next year?) is different from Alex Salmond’s or Gordon Brown’s because Ms Alexander has set in motion events that mean a vote will take place and probably at the time of the SNP’s choosing.
Mr Brown, kicked up his Union Jack kilt by the English electorate, had plenty of pain to get over without reminding everyone of his Caledonian credentials.
After devolution, Scotland all but disappeared from the Westminster political radar but Ms Alexander’s intervention brings the constitutional settlement and its attendant baggage - the West Lothian Question, the number of Scots in cabinet, the numerical superiority of the Tory vote in England - crashing back through the portcullis.”
‘Plan that tied Labour into a countdown’
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.2258410.0.Plan_that_tied_Labour_into_a_countdown.php
28. Stuart, if you talk about something OTHER than the SNP, or Scotland, I will buy you an ice-cream.
23. yep agree strongly. My GE betting strategy is usually to look for over-optimistic spreads like the current one (preferably backed up with over-optimistic rhetoric) and profit from the fact that, come any actual election, the spreads will tighten considerably (even if Con stay this far ahead in the polls their supporters will be jittery on election night). I am only in very lightly at the moment (Con sell) but I expect this bye election will probably make things a lot more favourable.
I am completely party-agnostic but so far this has usually been over-optimism on the Conservative side. I think Con supporters are more likely to gamble on their party and I don’t think it is coincidence that this site has a majority of highly partisan, vociferous Con supporters.
28, question: if Labour backpedalled, could the SNP force a referendum through? If Labour sided with the SNP would they together have enough votes to force it through?
27. Unless Cameron chickens out.
It’s going to require a nice, serious 40+ Tory majority (to overcome absentees, rebels, opposition parties and abstainers) to force through major reform of our relationship with the EU, plus a bold single-minded PM and Foreign Secretary - aka Heath 1970.
We’ll get a taste of just how serious Cameron is about this after next years Euros, when he has to put his money where his mouth is, remove Tory MEPs from the EPP and form a new, successful grouping in the Euro Parliament.
29. But Mr Royale, a strapping lad like me needs to watch his figure! Too much saturated fat and sugar is not wise preparation for the summer hols
re 9 it does annoy me intensely when people keep referring to the late spring bank holday as Whitsun. Harold Wilson removed that link in the 1960s - how long does the change take to permeate through to people. For the record Whitsun will be the day after tomorrow.
Remember: it’s the economy, stupid.
With the UK housing market entering the long-expected meltdown, has the final nail been hammered into the coffin of Browns imaginary, debt-fuelled, “economic miracle”?
“House price crash is here, say City banks
Sam Fleming, Daily Mail
9 May 2008
Britain is now in a full-blown ‘housing crash’, two leading City banks warned in the wake of the Bank of England’s decision to hold interest rates at 5%.
Analysts at Citigroup and Dresdner Kleinwort said the UK has entered a property slump rivalling that in the US because the supply of mortgage credit has dried up.
‘A serious housing crash is now under way,’ said Citigroup economist Michael Saunders. The shocks hitting Britain from the credit crunch and rising inflation are ‘very severe’…..cont”
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgages/article.html?in_article_id=441326&in_page_id=8&ct=5
33. Ok. Stick of Broccoli? Scotch Broth? Cabbage?
C’mon… what’s your weapon of choice, help me out here.
32. I think Cameron is sincerely, but not atavistically, eurosceptic. He’s a pragmatic eurosceptic - what is good in Europe he accepts, what is bad - and avoidable - he rejects.
He will quit the EPP, because he would risk a nasty split with his own party if he didn’t. Disastrous leading up to an election.
What he does in power remains to be seen. I believe the will is there to finally reconfigure Britain’s relationship with Brussels - as long as the Tories have a big enough majority, as you say, this will be done.
There won’t be lack of opportunities to make the break. Some idiot europhiles on here are still pretending (or lying) that the Lisbon Treaty is “the end to the process”, there’s “no more desire for further integration”.
This is a great big compost heap of bollox. As we can see from the link above, the Federal EU project will rumble on, inexorably and irressitibly, as soon as Lisbon is ratified - if not before. An EU army, an elected EU president, direct EU wide taxes, a single EU UN seat, harmonised EU laws, all these are being sought ALREADY.
The fun will commence when the irresistible force of EU integration meets the immovable object of a confident Tory government, with a large majority in London.
Gonna be interesting.
35. This article is claptrap. The UK property market slump is not rivalling that in the US.
FWIW The actual vote shares in the English local elections last week were Con 37 Lab 24.5 LibDem 23.5 Others 15 . The approx changes to 2004 ( the councils holding elections are not completely comparable ) were Con + 5 Lab -4 LibDem -2 Others + 1 .
37. I think the Cons will be in disarray on this as soon as they come under real scrutiny on it. The unity on show at the moment is for the sake of current polling success.
31. Q1. No. Q2. Yes
The SLP has NOT committed itself to supporting a referendum - “no blank cheque”. No point in spending time asking about the reasons behind the tactics, probably like all things a complex combination pluc cock-up. However there are 3 possible outs (all of which are quite justifiable and have already been tabled by various members of the SLP).
a. What is the question? (they already oppose the SNP question)
b. Who can vote? (the SNP propose Scottish residents only, including foreigners)
c. What is the definition of a majority? (big area of dispute in previous votes)
In my view there is no way the SLP will support any referendum except 100% on their terms, so as usual this is a load of ****.
Note also its doubtful that everyone in the SNP wants one anyway, so definitely they won’t give into the SLP. Effectively there is no need for their party in a post independence Scotland, and a lot of these local politicos are in it for local power.
On the Tory majority it needs to be one less than the genuine Tory eurosceptic MPs - 50ish?
38 We’re about 12 to 18 months behind the US but our correction will soon rival the US housing bust and will even surpass it, because the UK house price bubble inflated considerably more than that in the US and the bust, which is now underway, will be commensurately larger. And all the huffing and puffing from Brown, Darling, and Flint won’t stop it.
39 Mark, when you say “actual”, I assume that is just a straight read-off of the numbers polled - which takes no account of these elections being very largely in Labour’s back yard. If the county shires had been included too, that would have got to the touted 44% for the Tories?
37. Cameron isn’t going to pull out of the EPP. He’ll obfuscate the matter with a vague promise of a review after the GE. The party, on the verge of a much thirsted after GE win, will fall in behind him. The Conservative party isn’t going to tear itself apart on the cusp of an election winning position over some minor EU administrative matter and Cameron knows it.
40. wishful thinking I’m afraid.
41. In the area I live a house the size I live in (4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, living room etc) was being advertised at around £200-210,000 a few months back. Now they’re down to around £180-185,000, and most of them still aren’t selling.
40. Possibly, but not probably. The Tories are now almost completely eurosceptic. The only philes left are ageing grandees - none of them has much influence.
As long as Cameron makes the right sceptic noises, and does the job on distancing us from Brussels, the next Tory government will hang together on this issue, no problem.
Indeed it is very arguable that Labour and the Lib Dems are now more disunited on things European, than the Tories.
For instance. Does Labour still want to join the euro? Who knows? Do we still have “five tests” to fulfil? Mm? Do you know? Does anyone?
By contrast, the Tory position is clear: No to the euro.
Troubles will come if Cammo tries to sneak through some integration. But I don’t think he will.
40. The European issue has been resolved in the Conservative Party. They are eurosceptic.
37. I hope so.
It will require 2-3 years of negotiation with other EU states, and heads of government, at least one full parliamentary session dominated by it, 6-12 months of parliamentary time (plus!!) in order to debate, amend, repeal, renegotiate and ratify a whole series of amendments to Lisbon, Nice, Amsterdam and, possibly, Maastrict too. Plus all the media sh1te that will thrown at the Conservative government from the BBC, Channel 4, Guardian, Independent, FT, Economist etc. for over 3 years plus every leftie in the land trying to use it as opportunity to paint the Tories (again) as “obsessed” by Europe.
In other words, it will use up muchos political capital.
But… it does need to be done. And if there’s one thing I want a Cameron government to achieve, it is that.
My own view, is that Cameron should conduct all these negotiations very much “under the radar” WRT media attention etc. and try and wrap up all the legal niceities into one amending treaty between the EU and the UK entitled; “The Treaty of London”, which specifies Britains special status as a permenant semi-detached member.
It will be very, VERY tough to pull off. But it is as achievable as the EU rebate and the abolition of the GLC - time-consuming and irritating to those on the other side, but possible.
38. Haha. I’m afraid the UK property market is in a far worse position than the US because our bubble was far bigger.
In the US a loan of only $417,000 (~£210,000) was regarded as a ‘jumbo’ super-size mortgage.
seanT @ 37 — how convinced are you that Cameron is eurosceptic? He doesn’t say much on the issue either way. Then there is the rest of the parliamentary party: the reason there have been Tory splits on Europe is that the party really is divided over Europe.
This solid, eurosceptic, Conservative government you anticipate is pie in the sky.
Cameron has kept shtum and allowed people to project their hopes onto him. It’s a successful strategy. It’s working for Obama too. But don’t count your chickens.
46, 47 - the Conservative position on the EU has been resolved as: “we don’t like where we are very much”. There is, sadly, no agreement at all about where the Conservatives want to go from here. While (for perhaps the first time) I agree with Harry that Ed is indulging in wishful thinking, the incoherence of the Conservative position will be exposed sooner or later.
41. can’t agree with that. The US housing situation has caused the current banking crisis, which in turn is putting pressure on our housikng market. There will be a correction, sure, but we have huge demand for housing on this overpopulated island, jence the well-publicised need to build significantly more houses.
What we are seeing at the moment is the housing market is slowing due to FTBs not able to get mortgages. This has directly stopped/slighly reversed house price growth of the last few years, which _may_ in turn lead to further discounting and slowing.
What they were seeing 12-18 months ago were the first signs that those criminals they indiscriminately lent millions of dollars to, each, for their new luxury mansions weren’t planning on paying any instalments. What they have now is whole neighbourhoods where every other house is standing empty, people choosing to foreclose rather than even try keeping up with the mortgage because it actually makes financial sense, etc. etc.
45. It’s not looking good for us with ageing parents in nice houses.
45 Exactly. Now that much of the credit tap has been turned off the housing market has shrunk to around a half of what it was a year ago, and this trend is continuing. House prices have just gone year-on-year negative on both Halifax and Nationwide indices and appear to be in freefall as this, somewhat crude, graph, from the BBC demonstrates:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7370727.stm
I think the party is now more euro-agnostic than -phile or -sceptic. Arguing about Europe is so ’90s. Cameron will be more Europhile if he becomes PM as he will be inevitable seduced by the prospect of eating langoustines next to Angela Merkel and a semi-pissed Sarkozy.
31. Morris Dancer - “question: if Labour backpedalled, could the SNP force a referendum through? If Labour sided with the SNP would they together have enough votes to force it through?”
Q1: Only if either the Tories or the Lib Dems backed them, or if a lot of MSPs abstained
Q2: Yes
Here is the Scottish Parliament arithmetic, so you can do the sums yourself:
Total members = 129 (128 if you exclude the Presiding Officer):
1. SNP 47
2. Lab 46
3= Con 16 (17 minus Presiding Officer = 16)
3= LD 16
5. Grn 2
6. Ind 1
31. “if Labour backpedalled, could the SNP force a referendum through?”
Unlikely - the Tories and the Lib Dems would like the Calman Commission to finish its job first, so the ‘more powers for Holyrood’ option in a referendum might actually refer to some concrete proposals.
“If Labour sided with the SNP would they together have enough votes to force it through?”
Yes, but could they agree on what the question(s) asked would be?
OK Casino Royale, you win:
“Young adults in Europe deliberately binge on drink and drugs to improve their sex lives, research suggests.”
‘Europeans get drunk ‘to have sex”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7389980.stm
56 - interestingly, if Labour were to abstain, the SNP could push through the referendum vote without the support of any other party.
51. it isn’t wishful thinking inasmuch as I couldn’t really care less what they do on Europe - but my observation is that their current choice is to say as little as possible on the subject, at least until after the election.
The extreme eurosceptic positions being expressed here are not, as far as I know, the stated policies of the Cameron-led Con party. As noted in (50.) Cameron appears to have played along with those holding those views, without actually committing himself.
I think they are likely to try to avoid the issue completely if they can.
43. We shall see. I think he may surprise us by actually doing what he promised. That would certainly make a nice change.
50. I don’t think you can be a rightwinger of Cammo’s generation and not be eurosceptic. It’s like being a Catholic Satanist. Check Boris Johnson: his friend, Bullingdon Club crony, etc - another liberal, posh, capitalist libertarian with very eurosceptic views.
I know where these guys come from, ideologically. I just know. They are my age. I know the social milieu (though I am not part of it). They are genuinely sceptic. But whether they will be able to pull off the feat of officially semi-detaching us from Europe is a very different matter, as Casino eloquently describes above. It will be difficult.
But it is the one thing, above all others, that many Tories desire. They want revenge, and they want their country back.
What is certain is that we will see no more integration under Cammo.
Cammo’s has kept quiet on this issue - very sensibly, in my view - for the precise reason that voters dislike obsessiveness and crankiness, even if they agree with the opinions being expressed.
The Tories need to win the election first, before they can do anything about Europe.
52
Demand is no good without the cash to back it up. Billions in bad debt have to unwind before the credit tap is turned back on again. Won’t be for several years.
We are looking at a reversion of house prices to historical norms IMO which requires nominal reductions from current valuations of at least 30 to 40%. It happened in the nineties and it will happen again. This time we don’t need double digit interest rates, it’s the phenomenal and unprecedented levels of debt that will do the damage this time.
If I was an estate agent or mortgage broker I would be looking around for another job.
52, no it didn’t.
The financial crisis was caused by the repackaging of sub-prime loans, which could’ve come from any source but happen to be mortgages, in Structured Investment Vehicles and Consolidated Debt Obligations in order to get rubbish quality securities Triple A status from the rating agencies.
This effectively was like polishing a lump of dung until it was shiny, and people assumed that because silver and gold are shiny and valuable the shiny dung must be too.
Then they realised the dung was in fact not quite so valuable, and to make matters worse there were little bits of silver and gold scattered about so they couldn’t be sure if the dung was wholly or only half worthless.
The banks refused to trade the goods which made them worthless, hence the attempts at a massive liquidity fund tried by Wall Street Banks.
The writedowns have led to rights issues to improve capitalisation and multi-billion pound losses from Switzerland to the US.
Because the credit markets seized up as banks hoarded cash, LIBOR has shot up above the official base rate and mortgage deals have been pulled.
In short, if the US housing market had crashed for another reason, it wouldn’t affect us that much. Because it crashed due to dodgy securities that have been traded all over the world, it’s had a massive impact.
Sorry if that was a bit waffley.
54. This graph repeats the most common journalistic (i.e. innumerate) mistake when discussing the housing market. If you note the axis you will see that the “freefall” is from large YOY % gains to small YOY % gains.
Inferring anything from that is pretty dangerous.
64. Actually now to negative YoY gains. Prices have been dropping for the last 6 months so the YoY figure will get worse and worse from here as the previous rises fall out of the index.
61. Are you a member of the party? You seem to ascribing to yourself an almost Roger like power of extra sensory perception to divine how people think. I am a member of the party and the same age as DC and I very seldom hear Europe discussed among my peers. We. Don’t. Care.
3 Mark, you wouldn’t be a Forest supporter by any chance, would you?
There have been a few comments (eg 44 Test in previous thread) saying how Plaid have suffered by being in Coalition with Labour in the WA. Just to put the record straight, regarding the recent local elections they increased their number of councillors by 33 to 207 (18% increase). They lost their only majority Council in Gwynedd to a local one-issue pressure group but will continue to run Gwynedd. They are also looking likely to add to this with control of Ceredigion & Caerffili councils as well as becoming junior partners in Cardiff, Wrexham and maybe 5 or 6 more councils!
That does not sound like a problem to me.
63. The sub-prime loans _could_ have come from any source, but they didn’t - they came from a very specific source. The US housing market. We are seeing knock-on effects, but do not have the same fundamental problems.
62. Demand will though, ensure that we do not see the same situation here as the US. I don’t doubt that there will be something of a housing downturn.
Polls taken in the wake of some disaSter, over react, having said that, things look black for Labour, the curse of the third term strikes again.
61
I do hope seant, I’ll be reading of your arrest on the first of the month when as a good libertarian, you’ll be leading the resistance too, ‘Boris the Bolshevik’s’ authoritarian decision to ban alcohol on London Transport.
You may even feature on the television news, the sight of you being dragged, kicking and screaming from a tube train, clutching a bottle of, ‘St Austell’s Best Bitter’ is something I’ll treasure.
65. You are right but that isn’t what the graph shows, nor is it necessarily an unhealthy sign that a cycical market that has had a few good years may now have some bad ones.
64 I said the graph was “somewhat crude” however I didn’t hear many complaints from the various vested interests when it showed house prices on a seemingly inexorable ride upwards
Seriously though, why try to keep on ramping the UK housing market with all that simplistic demand/supply nonsense? A UK house price crash is now a done deal. Ask Miles Shipside of Rightmove amongst others. It’s all around us.
Even here in the, relatively prosperous, and “sought-after” Cotswolds the market has ground to a halt. Prices are being slashed but still next to nothing is selling. One estate agency revealed the other day that around half that go sold subject to contract are now falling through as the wannabe buyers can’t get the finance. The tap won’t be turned on for a long time yet. The cycle has turned with a vengeance.
63 - Indeed, plus you have to factor in the UK’s large BTL market which is suffering. The high LTV’s that were until recently common. In a situation like the current one the wise person discounts the fundamentals more than usual as sentiment will be the key. If people feel that things are going to get worse they have a strange way of contriving to give it effect. Another thing to factor in is the major differences in tax structure that impact on the affordability of mortgage payments and we now have the approaching tidal wave of the spiralling oil price. The accelarating oil price is probably going to wreak havoc on disposable incomes and lead to mortgage defaults which will merge into the credit crunch narrative and general sentiment issues to create a comprehensive nightmare for the Treasury.
71. I agree that it’s not an unhealthy sign that the credit madness has come to an end but you seem deluded about just how bad these years will be for the housing market.
Lie-to-buy i.e. self-cert mortgages became endemic in the UK over the last few years.
63, the source is irrelevent. In fact, had the loans been kept as such and not wrapped up in shiny tinfoil as SIVs and CDOs the problem may not have occurred.
The problem was that they were packaged as red-hot securities when in fact they were just rubbish.
75, I meant 69. Christ, I’m getting all the numbers wrong today.
59. antifrank - “… if Labour were to abstain, the SNP could push through the referendum vote without the support of any other party.”
If Alexander (or whoever their leader then is) tried to whip their 46 MSPs into an abstention, then I suspect there would be several rebels, going both ways: some backing the SNP and some voting against. This is going to get messier before it gets clearer.
any advance on £10.50>>??
http://dizzythinks.net/
67 “Mark, you wouldn’t be a Forest supporter by any chance, would you?”
Does it show?!?!
Slightly sad that Leicester went down - all those Forest/Derby/Leicester games would have been great value.
But only slightly sad!
67 “Mark, you wouldn’t be a Forest supporter by any chance, would you?”
Does it show?!?!
Slightly sad that Leicester went down - all those Forest/Derby/Leicester games would have been great value.
But only slightly sad!
80/81 Refereee - I did not post that twice!!
72. The “UK housing market” is made up of myriad sub-markets, and those buying a 4 bed house in the “sought-after” Cotswolds are not the same as those looking for a flat in London for their new job. The national stats say, tiny YOY decrease (first time in years), and that means that for every anecdotal about prices in your area being slashed, there will be somewhere else where they are still rising.
The reason there weren’t any complaints from “vested interests” when prices were rising is that they were busy putting their money where their mouths were. For every market there is always a group of doom-mongers saying the market is on the verge of a crash - but very few consistently make money out of this viewpoint.
Superdelegate Congressman Peter DeFazio of Oregon has endorsed Obama :
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1210312510265440.xml&coll=7
77 “Christ, I’m getting all the numbers wrong today.”
Morris Dancer, you are Gordon Brown and I claim my fiver….
67. I’ve actually worked with your new Tory Mayor of London - now the most senior and powerful elected Tory in the land. I know for a fact his euroscepticism is sincere and profound.
I also know lots of rightwing journalists, who make up the chattering wing of the Tory party - they are also sincerely sceptic.
I don’t doubt that for those rude mechanicals toiling away in the engine room of the party, like yourself, the direction of the ship seems much less important than how to get those gaskets greased.
That doesn’t mean the ship ain’t sailing west north west.
74. In times of uncertainty, most will just sit tight unless they need to move.
Petrol prices may and may not come into it - at the end of the day I think most people would cut down buying petrol to pay the mortgage rather than vice versa.
78 - I have no doubt that you are right about that. My point was more that the issue could be settled even without Labour support of a referendum if Wendy Alexander completed her imitation of Nick Clegg’s approach to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, regardless of how the other MSPs voted.
re 23. David - it’s not often that I disagree with you but I do not understand your logic. The critical thing is what the projected vote shares are now - not what this would mean in historical terms. Clearly YouGov’s 26% is a reaction to last week and it will fall-off a bit. But I cannot see it, certainly in the short-term, reverting to vote shares that have the Tories at anything other than a majority.
Remember the golden polling rule - the most accurate survey when tested against real results over two decades has been the one showing Labour in the least favourable position.
Union Superdelegate John Gage has endorsed Obama :
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-obama-union,1,2397754.story
74. Of course - most people will sit tight. Most people will be ok. Most people will keep paying their huge mortgage because, after all, that’s the price they paid and they can afford it.
None of this will stop the value of their house from crashing.
85, what an insult!
I can’t be Gordon Brown, I just accurately detailed the recent events that caused the credit crunch.
If I were Gordon Brown I’d be telling you how the fundamentals are sound.
Incidentally, it was just cruel of Mike to add another post so that now my correcting post corrects the wrong one:p
72 - like that financial planner on house price crash website who sometimes appears on tv - he’s been calling a crash since early 2002 and he was so sure that he sold his house and started renting back then - what a fool he must feel now!
People who know Cameron well have confirmed to me he is solidly anti-EU integration privately (although not against being in the EU). I guarantee he would take a very tough negotiating position in future talks with the institution. The UK actually has a lot of power in this: eurocrats get nervous enough when Poland kicks up a fuss. If Britain were to threaten to do that, we would have a lot of leverage.
76. the source is obviously highly relevant. You are pressing the case that the US and UK housing markets are in a similar state, but the fact one (and only one) of them is the root cause of global financial turmoil is irrelevant?
83 I wondered how long it would be before the old “doom-monger” tag got trotted out. How predictable
It’s a credit crunch, and grossly over-inflated asset bubbles don’t survive long in credit crunches. Get over it, move on, I hear tulips are going to be the next big thing.
86. While I do think Johnson is sincerely europhilic, you need to take his views with a pinch of salt. He can convince himself of anything when he decides to strike a position, and then convince himself of the other position a few months later.
87 - Agreed, but if the general direction of travel is backwards one needs to be doing something simply to stand still. Oil prices have an impact greater than simply the pump price. It will feed into higher fuel costs across the spectrum, it will increase the cost of cargo and consequently the price of food (already increasing of its own accord). Finally the idea that fuel is largely a luxury that can be snipped out of the household budget is delusional, for many it is necessary to be mobile and therefore necessary to run a car.
93. I had already been reminded of him by the tone of this discussion! There’s one born every minute!
69 Plaid aren’t about to go into coallition in Cardiff. The new Plaid group leader and the Lib Dem leader don’t get on in the least.
Superdelegate Congressman Chris Carney of Pennsylvania endorses Hillary :
http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/05/representative-chris-carney-endorses.html
99. There’s one born every minute, but unfortunately even if they all think property is still a good investment, the banks aren’t willing to give them the money anymore. It’s game over.
98. You’re right but it makes sense to separate them out somewhat.
Oil is pretty volatile and the bubble could easily burst.
95 - Look at a map the size of the housing market is reflective of the size of the country. There would never be any percentage in packaging up UK mortgages as the values would never be sufficiently large.
92 “I can’t be Gordon Brown, I just accurately detailed the recent events that caused the credit crunch.”
That does raise the fascinating question: surely Gordon must know the fundamental reasons for the credit crunch (and his part in it) - but is he just crap at distancing himself from the blame? Or does he genuinely think that he was the most magnificent Chancellor ever and despite a little difficulty over in the US, the good folks of Britain should be showing their gratitude by giving him another five years? I suppose the answer to that might determine whether he is in No. 10 for weeks or a couple more years. If the latter, the party better ditch him now; if the former, they better get him the best team of excuse-coaches that a bankrupt party can buy.
95 76
The situations of the UK and US housing markets are different. In the US there is a large stock of unsold new homes plus empty secondhand ones equivalent iird to about 10 months supply … and new houses are still being built.
But any suggestion that the UK is going to be exempt is only driven by financial illiteracy. One look at the UK house building and new build applications says it all. Backed by McCarthy &Stone today announcing they are making 10% of their workforce redundant cos their clients - the retired and well off… cannot sell their own homes to buy a McCarthy one.
As for reciting year over year statistics to prove a trend, any one who has been is business knows monthly or quarterly are best.. Cos trends reverse quickly.
And the monthly trends say house prices down big style.
If the BOE were semi competent they would cut UK interest rates now. They are not so it’s too little too late.
94. And of course we have the other leaders of the Tory party, besides Cameron:
George Osborne, who describes himself officially as “a social and economic liberal who also happens to be an Eurosceptic.”
William Hague, who is so eurosceptic he tried to fight an entire campaign on the issue - and lost.
David Davies, who has spoken of “ending the ratchet effect of current EU changes, which make them irreversible”. In his view, the transfer of powers should be reversible.
Then there’s Liam Fox, who has come out and said “we should change the UK’s entire relationship with the EU.”
Those are the four most senior Tories, other than Cameron: all quite strongly eurosceptic.
And Brussels-bashing Bozza is now in power in London.
Anyone who thinks the Tory party is suddenly going to roll over and be europhile when it reaches government, I reckon, deluding themselves.
Anyway, off out into the sun now. Hooray.
95, you said “The US housing situation has caused the current banking crisis”
which it hasn’t. The banks operating in the US using sub-primes in SIVs and CDOs caused it. It’s a financially sourced crisis not one founded in building materials, union problems or supply and demand issues.
6/7: No, the summer recess starts at the end of July (25th?). The Commons sits normally up to then (apart from the week starting May 26).
Housing: I’ve no more insight into the future of house prices than anyone else, but the non-party briefing from the Commons library suggests that negative equity will be less common than in previous house price falls, because anyone who’s owned their house for a few years is sitting on a large paper gain, so will simply have a smaller paper gain. The position is obviously much more serious for anyone who recently bought on a 100%+ mortgage, and there is a general difficulty in getting mortgages for first-time buyers at the moment, for the reasons outlined by Morris Dancer. Whether the injection of liquidity by the BoE will change that quickly remains to be seen.
Matt J, the banks will of course still lend to secure buyers who can afford it, at historically reasonable rates too. That doesn’t mean that property looks like a “good investment” now, but for a crash on the scale of the one unfolding in some parts of the US right now, we need to see demand dropping so much that houses are standing empty.
Meanwhile we are told that the UK desperately needs 3 million new houses by 2015 or whatever it is.
108 “Anyway, off out into the sun now. Hooray.”
Here in central London, now on the eighth straight day of glorious spring weather since the voters picked Boris….
105. Using month-on-month data to read the housing market would be madness, it is highly seasonal.
110
Nothing nicer than sitting on the top of an open air bus, sipping a can of ice cold lager: enjoy!
112 - Yes but it has been banned!
108 “The position is obviously much more serious for anyone who recently bought on a 100%+ mortgage”
Remind me again, Nick - which mortgage provider was until recently the largest source of such mortgages? And who now owns that provider?
112 - That is presumably still to remain legal, since the open air buses are private transport rather than public transport.
111, right, although year-on-year the price has fallen, I think.
What’s interesting about the UK versus US in this is that we have a better supply-demand situation to keep prices up, but they have far more wiggle room for fiscal stimulus (tax cuts and rebates and the like).
Per capita, I think I’m right in saying we’re more heavily indebted than Americans, which, coupled with commodity price rises, will make it more difficult for us to keep pace with rising mortgage repayments.
112-113 Are you pair playing as a tag-team?!?
Nick Clegg wants us to bomb Burma.
With love.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7392493.stm
[289, last thread] - Mike mentioned John Denham more than once at the time of speculation about who else might be Labour leader. In a very positive light if I remember correctly. He could be Jowell’s counterpart.
114, unfair to criticise Labour for Rock’s previous misdemeanours.
Instead you should criticise Labour for Darling’s “Pretty please pass on interest rate cuts to customers and disregard the higher cost of borrowing caused by higher LIBOR so people stop thinking Labour can’t understand how economics work” plea, when Northern Rock has refused to pass on the cut to its customers.
116. It will be interesting to see if their fiscal stimulus package actually does anything though. I’d rather be in our position.
We are more indebted per capita than they are, but I think they have much more of a problem with the ones who are in debt also being the ones who can’t pay it back. Their unemployment figures are in the process of going through the proverbial roof, for example.
In the UK, we all tend to have some debts, either a mortgage or a few credit cards or whatever, and some of that will have to be reined in.
the uk housing market is bound to collapse, why do you think NRock went bust? It went bust because it has a toxic book of high LTV and liar loan portfolio at the top of the market. the other banks knew it and stopped lending to it just like they are now not lending to anyone other than prime credits. you have to think that 30-40% falls are likely given whats happened in other bubble housing markets.
120 “unfair to criticise Labour for Rock’s previous misdemeanours.”
On whose watch and under whose regulatory system did NR fail? I remain of the view that the NR Board took unreasonable risks on the back of expectation that a Labour Government could not allow this bastion of the North-east to fail; that the Govt. would prop them up if they got out of their depth.
[21] - Northern Rock may yet account for a ministerial head, but not because of disgruntled investors. There was a lot of Tory huffing and puffing over similar moves by Railtrack small investors, and I see little reason to suppose there will be any difference this time around.
Being criticised by a hedge fund is hardly likely to be wounding either.
113
I know heartbreaking isn’t it, ‘Boris the Blue Meanie’ the first Tory with any power since ‘97, his first act! is to ban something.
If Ken had done that, the Blue Harpies on this site, would have had a screaming fit, led by our own, ‘Tamar Wetback’ the, ‘Beast of Bodmin Moor’ Mr. Seant! What do we get, not a bloody word of condemnation, what a load of f***ing hypocrites.
121, I take it you mean you’d rather be in our position generally, and are not referring specifically to our relative fiscal positions?
Unemployment figures here are nonsense. There are millions ‘incapacitated’ and hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of jobs are taken foreigners. We can say we have good employment, but we can’t say we have good British employment. [Not party political, both sides enjoy using disability to ease up the unemployment stats].
123, yeah, you’re right. I do keep forgetting about the early days of Blair. I wasn’t into politics then, mostly because I was busy being a moody teenager. As opposed to a moody adult:p
SPIN are now quoting:
Cons: 344-350
Lab: 231-237
SF
Cons: 340-347
Lab: 239-246
Why are SPIN still doing the labour quasi-arb?
125 - I have no problem with banning that which is unacceptable.
126. I think our employment situation is pretty good, I’m sure there are subtleties in the way the figures are calculated, but put it this way: unemployment is not currently a national issue. In the 70s, 80s, 90s it was a major national issue.
In the US they are shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs per month, and they didn’t exactly start in a great position.
[108] - “..the non-party briefing from the Commons library suggests that negative equity will be less common than in previous house price falls, because anyone who’s owned their house for a few years is sitting on a large paper gain, so will simply have a smaller paper gain.”
Well, that all depends on how far prices fall, doesn’t it?
Past experience indicates that, as well as the economic fundamentals, psychology is important, and just as the market clearly swung too high, it is likely to overshoot any correction.
Things may even be worse than during previous cycles, because [some incredibly foolish] people have increased the size of their mortgage to spend money as prices increased. That reduces the size of the “paper gain” they can afford to lose before they are in serious difficulties if they need to move, remortgage, etc.
OT
So does anyone think Labour might actually WIN Crewe & Nantwich?
I’ve been back Labour at these prices, I’m pondering whether the “CON GAIN EVERYTHING” crowd on here are being overdismissive of Labour’s prospects.
Thoughts?
119 Yes Denham is interesting. Opposed Iraq war, represents Southern constituency, no obvious association with any recent disasters, a definite possibility if (or rather when) Gordon is disposed of.
128
Sweet!!
Define unacceptable??
Is that anything a Tory doesn’t agree with?
Latest Rasmussen Presidential and Primary Trackers :
McCain 43% .. Clinton 48%
McCain 44% .. Obama 47%
Clinton 42% .. Obama 50%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
129, millions of people are more than subtleties, I think.
Overall, I agree with you. Our situation is not as bad as America’s. However, it remains to be seen whether the softly softly approach of the Bank of England has in fact just been too little too late, or prudent.
132
Denham no chance, unless they find him a safer seat!
136, are sitting MPs allowed to up sticks and go to a safer seat?
Denham’s certainly one of Labour’s better performers.
133 - Clearly not. I do however think that treating tube carriages, or buses (bendy or otherwise) as pubs on wheels is unacceptable.
138 et al - once again… drinking on an open top bus will remain legal, since the open top buses are private ventures (ie not under TfL). Boris Johnson’s ban is only in relation to public transport.
138
Boris Johnson, a man whose made a career out of attacking, ‘Political Correctness’ the, ‘Nanny State’ etc. is now, ‘Boris the Banman’ ironic don’t you think?
Or are you just a sycophant?
134 Further. From the link Rasmussen states they will shortly be dropping the Democrat Primary Tracker on account of Obama’s impending victory.
139
For now!!
140. I didn’t realise banning one thing made him a banman. That line reminds me of the lame bojo noshow tagline that guardianistas tried to attach to him during the campaign.
53:
Too much for one off-topic post to even begin to point out in how many ways, and how much, you are wrong (many, and a lot), but look here
http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk
and learn.
Post 42 is an example of nail and head in perfect harmony.
142. Unless he changes the bylaws he can’t do much else.
136 I am working on the assumption that Gordon goes before the election. Unless there is a dramatic and unexpected improvement in Labour’s position I think he’ll be gone by the Autumn.
[27] - One idle question that arises from that is which language they’d (by which I mean the Germans, French and whoever else they can convince to join in) choose to use for operational purposes.
Would it be English?
140 - I am not a sycophant at all, but the nanny state banners tend to ban a person from doing something to help that person. This is about somthing slightly different namely ensuring that one persons freedom doesn’t restrict anothers.