Countdown

The electorate is now clear: they do not want Gordon Brown, nor the Labour party to remain in Government beyond this Parliament. Glasgow East has started the countdown to the end of the latest incarnation of the Labour party.

The SNP are probably right to describe the result in Glasgow East as "off the richter scale". And it goes to show that the traditional campaigning methods that served Labour so well in the 1990s - the "Tories are bad" strategy - need to be dramatically revised if the party is to avoid decimation at the next general election.

As I've said before, telling the electorate that things were bad under the Tories in the 1980s doesn't wash anymore - people want to hear a vision for the country and for their communities, not a history lesson. It is embarrassing that the Labour party stick steadfastly to this antiquated mantra.

Punters at PoliticalBetting.com are currently suggesting that Gordon Brown will still be in charge on the 1st January 2009. I think this is optimistic, and would certainly be a mistake on the part of Labour MPs - many of whom now look certain to lose their jobs at the next national poll.

It is difficult to see how the Labour party will 'renew' itself from here.

• I was upset to hear the news that Carol Vorderman is leaving Countdown. Without either Vorderman or the late Richard Whiteley on the show, and given the current trend of having an almost Have I Got News For You-style of presenter changes, it is difficult to see what future the programme has.
  

About time

The 35-hour working week - introduced by Lionel Jospin in France almost ten years ago - is dead. And about time too.

The policy was originally designed to help reduce historically high levels of unemployment. However, despite recent improvements in the French unemployment rate, they have remained stubbornly high - and well above the Eurozone average.

The 35 hour working week was an ill-conceived attempt to assist the French labour market. Since its inception it has repeatedly been watered down. Its failure today demonstrates that excessive regulation is not the path to rising economic growth, and does not readily help those outside the labour market.

The balance between workers' rights and the ability for employers to respond to prevailing economic factors is difficult to strike. Despite running counter to popular French opinion, the scrapping of the 35 hour working week will redress the current imbalance and should help France recover from years of sluggish growth.

Plane Stupid

Forget gluing yourself to the Prime Minister in order to get the government to act to stem growth in airport demand, why not simply use some basic economic arguments?

Photo credit: 2747.com

I was reading an op-ed piece in the New York Times yesterday written by the US Secretary of Transportation, Mary E. Peters, which highlighted her attempts to change the way landing slots are allocated at the busiest airports in the US - the three in the New York area (JFK, La Guardia and Newark).

It also outlined the rationale for landing slot auctions - that demand should determine the price (cost) of acquiring a slot. The most lucrative departure/arrival slots would have a premium over those less popular slots, in contrast to the current allocation mechanism which sees a flat charge applied irrespective of demand (based on aircraft weight, instead).

She writes:

After all, the airlines themselves lower ticket prices to attract passengers when demand is low and then raise prices to maximize revenues when demand is high. What would happen if airlines were required by the government to charge the same ticket price for travel on Dec. 24 as they charge in the middle of September? There would either be rationing of extremely scarce seats on Dec. 24 or exorbitantly high prices for widely available seats in the middle of September. In either case, this inefficient outcome would damage the economy broadly and the aviation sector specifically.

Yet that is exactly how airports charge airlines for the use of their terminals and runways.

I was surprised to learn that landing slots were not already allocated by auction in the US. Further investigation revealed that a similar flat pricing structure is used at BAA's airports as well, determined by the Civil Aviation Authority - the industry regulator, with landing slots allocated by ACL.

Price caps are a ludicrous way to manage increasing air travel demand. Passengers and airlines alike should face the full cost of their use of airport services - after all, there exist opportunity costs of allocating scare resources.

The main benefit of auctioning landing slots is that market forces will dictate demand for slots, with prices dictated by the value of the slots to bidders.

There could be many benefits to this, which could address many of the concerns of groups such as Plane Stupid. Auctions are likely to moderate demand for slots, which could ease the need for airport expansion. Furthermore, existing slots are likely to yield greater revenue - thereby providing much needed funds for further capital investment in existing infrastructure, which could ease the need for airport expansion.

At the same time, auctions would allow the removal of 'use-it-or-lose-it' conditions, as the impact of this could be factored into pricing decisions by airlines at the point of auction. This would mean they wouldn't have to fly ghost flights in order to maintain slots.

Gluing yourself to the Prime Minister is a decent stunt. But environmental lobbyists miss the point - it is price caps, not airport expansion per se, that are plane stupid.

• Rising oil prices are already putting strains on airline business models. Increasing input costs could naturally moderate demand assuming the mechanisms to consumer fares work appropriately. Nonetheless, auctions, not price caps, are a better way of regulating use of the UK's airport services.
  

Water-way to have a good time

I was reading the New York Time earlier and spotted an article about debunking health myths. The full article is here. The most interesting - about drinking water - is reproduced below.

DRINK EIGHT GLASSES OF WATER A DAY

I had long believed that eight glasses of plain water or caffeine-free beverages a day were important to keep the body hydrated and to prevent constipation. Perhaps the toilet paper manufacturers were behind this notion. Researchers have been unable to find scientific support for it.

The Institute of Medicine recently noted that you can meet your body’s need for liquids in many ways, including drinking coffee and tea (with or without caffeine) and eating fruits and vegetables with a high water content. Two clues that you may need to drink more are thirst and the color of your urine, which should be clear like, well, water.

If you are physically very active, especially in hot weather, repeatedly sipping cold water is helpful. But beyond two quarts, you may need to also replace the salts lost in sweat — for example, by drinking a diluted sports drink or eating foods with salt and potassium.

Would glue believe it?

The BBC is reporting that Gordon Brown found himself in a rather sticky situation with an anti Heathrow-expansion protestor.

This is a rather novel protest, but it is a shame that security at Downing Street weren't keeping their eyes glued on possible security threats...

Sour grapes

Unless you hadn't already noticed, Barack Obama is currently dashing around the Middle East and Europe to try and boost his foreign policy credentials.

This has created a campaign headache for John McCain's team; one of their main lines of attack until recently had been that Obama hadn't visited Iraq in almost three years - they even had a clock on his official website counting the time since Obama last visited the country (now removed).

Obama's visit simultaneously removes that line of attack as well as boosting his credentials on foreign policy.

McCain's team is now resorting to criticising Obama for announcing the detail of his Iraq policy in advance of his visit to the country. They are also trying to portray Obama as a 'flip-flopper' (see video below) - the worst kind of smear a Presidential candidate can suffer.

Fox News was also running items over the weekend bemoaning the "liberal" media for their anti-McCain bias and heavy focus on this Middle East/Europe trip.

This seems like sour grapes to me - the McCain campaign should have anticipated that Obama would take steps to address a perceived weakness in his armory. They should have been better prepared for it. And anticipated it being headline news.



McCain may well prove to be right to want to tough the Iraq mess out. However, Iraq remains a running sore in the US - as elsewhere in the world - with the majority of US citizens now opposing the action and wanting troops home. In this light, moves to reduce and withdraw troops from the country are likely to prove popular.

In any event, the economy is likely to be a more salient issue come November. Iraq may just prove to be a distraction.

• Elsewhere, a journalist with the New Yorker, which recently printed 'that' satrical image of the Obamas engaging in a 'terrorist fist bump' - Ryan Lizza - has been barred from the Obama tour this week, presumably in retribution for the cartoon. The image was damaging, but refusing access to the trip is another case of sour grapes.
  

Not being the Tories is no longer good enough for Labour

A couple of days ago, I received an email mailshot from Margaret Curran - Labour's Parliamentary Candidate in the Glasgow East by-election.

The email implored me to give my hard earned cash to the Labour party so that she could buy leaflets bashing the SNP. The particular hook for the leaflet? - An interview given by John Mason, the SNP candidate in the by-election, to BBC's Newsnight Scotland, in which he suggested that there would be "little difference" between a Conservative or Labour administration in Westminster.

Leaving aside the substantive point about whether or not his analysis is correct, I wanted to address another point - the inability of the Labour party to move on from the 1980s.

After 11 years in Government, and despite the fact Thatcher hasn't been Prime Minister for almost two decades, the Labour party seem to believe that they can win election after election simply by invoking how difficult things were after ERM and during the Thatcher government.

They can't. The electorate wants to know what the Government will do for them now and in the future. Not how they differ from the past. Whilst Labour may be right to boast of certain achievements since 1997, they need to better address the concerns of the electorate in today's uncertain economic climate as well as offering a vision for where Britain will be in twenty years time.

David Cameron has successfully decontaminated the Tory brand. The recent by-election victory in Crewe and Nantwich suggests that the electorate are not scared of punishing Labour.

The party will have to do better than simply reminding people how tough things were twenty years ago - both in Glasgow East, as well as further afield.

• I'm in the US at the minute on 'vacation' and hope to bring some insights on the US election whilst I'm here.
  

Monster Raving Looney wins in Haltemprice and Howden

Full results here.

I still don't understand the point of it all...

UPDATE: Davis appeared on 5Live Breakfast at around 8.40 this morning and dealt with a challenge over the cost of this charade pretty badly by his usually high standards...

I'm quitting because I'm rubbish at what I do I want to spend more time with my family

Nicol Stephen, the Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader, is resigning "to spend more time with his family".

So, absolutely nothing to do with being bad at his job then...