Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

But you can always trust a con party rep.

fred - stop cluttering up the place with your Beano cartoons .... you are of course welcome to disagree with all and anything i write, as is indeed your wont!

I am on a train to Birmingham, then onto sunny west Wales to collect my son and the junk that he acquired at uni. The WiFi is not bad on the train.

What evidence do you have that UK housing starts are on the way up, Cyners?

There's nothing whatsoever in Table 208 to suggest it's turned, although I do acknowledge it's a lagging indicator.

The latest national statistics on house building in England were released on 21 February 2013.

The main points from this release are:

seasonally adjusted house building starts in England numbered 26,830 in the December quarter 2012, 1% higher than the previous quarter
completions (seasonally adjusted) numbered 27,890 in the December quarter 2012, 2% higher than the previous quarter
private enterprise housing starts (seasonally adjusted) were 2% higher in the December quarter 2012 than the previous quarter, while starts by housing associations were 10% lower
seasonally adjusted private enterprise completions increased by 5% and housing association completions fell by 5% from the previous quarter

Haystack,

Firstly, that data is one quarter out of date. It has been superseded by the 16 May release. Secondly, I think I'm right in saying that the data you refer to is only estimated at this stage, as it takes much longer to obtain the actual figures.

What those figures don't say, however, is that actual starts in Q4 2011 (from Table 211) were 28,640. So, if the provisional data is correct, Q4 2012 estimated starts were actually down 6.3% on the corresponding period a year earlier. Given that housebuilding is seasonal (you can't lay bricks when there's a frost), it's misleading to compare one dataset against the dataset from the previous quarter and, because it takes a year or two to turn even a small start into a completion, it's even more misleading to compare starts vs completions which is akin to comparing apples against pears.

Manuel,

When I read yours posting more often than not, I think of they are at Beano level.

But as I have pointed out, if you don't like, don't read it or squelch.

Also, I consider the cartoons point out quite succinctly, what a pile of rubbish the policies of this government are, but which you and Hays seem frequently and blindly support.

Also, I have seen no reason for your self appointment of yourself as a moderator.
You are becoming more inflated than your "dear leader".

--------

The result of the of the Cameron and Osborne economic policies is stagnation, or damn near to it.

His policies are creating more misery for many people than is necessary.



Hays, manic support and distortion base on "falsified" data is risible.

Yours is little better.

Like you and Hays the only achievements, which the present con leadership show is grandstanding and then flopping.

Interesting to see the result of the con party's former leading clown, I D Smith, has on Europe. Heard he is being laughed at in Brussels as much as he is in the UK.


----------------

Have a look at the NHS and how "it is safe in our hands" is showing signs of failure.

Waiting times retreating to the Thatcher and Major period.

The public will tally up the bills for this calamitous coalition government.

UIKIP will fragment the tories and rightly so.

hilary - i think that the results from TW and the rest give exactly that indication .... certainly the property market in general is also slowly coming back to life

fred - i have never squelched anyone, not least because i refuse to be bullied into so doing ..... and merely as an aside, my post was pretty impartial; i would have written similarly whichever party was in power .... on the other hand, i suspect that you would have continued being your usual boring slagger of all and sundry, even though you consider it just faaaar toooo bourgeois and boring to bother to vote for any actual party

Cyners,

Just because a housebuilder is demonstrating positive earnings growth, that doesn't necessarily run hand-in-glove with a recovery in the property market as a whole. As it happens, I've known one or two hairy-arsed builders over the years who have been smart enough to be able to turn a profit during tough times when the sales market itself has been flat or contracting, through measures such as cheap funding, hard bargaining, general cost cutting and 11th hour purchasing.

Construction PMI is, importantly, still below the 50 level which indicates the construction industry is still contracting and very much under the weather. Why do you think the chancellor is introducing his crazy Help to Buy scheme if the sector doesn't need a shot in the arm?

you asked me about newbuilds .... if i want to know about the property market in general, i use my eyes around here and also talk to my older son who lives in yorkshire; we'll leave central london out altogether, as it has a life of its own, driven by different factors

the construction industry (road building and the like), should not be confused with house construction .... that is why they fall into different indices ..... and if the gov't help-to-buy scheme gives further stimulus, and probably helps first-time buyers the most (i hope), then so much the better

Hilary
The figures I posted do say seasonally adjusted.

Fred
The NHS is fine. The A&E problems are historical and due to increased use. The other cause is the stupid contracts that Labour allowed the GPs where they could opt out of evening and weekend cover.

The idiotic tory party were warned 3 years ago and could have change contracts during this period.

They didn't listen to advice and operated on outdated ideology.

It suits them to have chaos and they are unable to undertake their responsibilities and unfit for government.

Do you mean the outdated ideology of the Labour party that set up the system and did nothing to fix it for all those years? Or was it the idiotic Labour party that spent all our money and laughed about it? Perhap it was the stupid Labour party that wants to borrow even more to pay off the debt. Maybe it was the crazy Labour party that appointed a shadow Chancellor without GCSE maths. Is it possible it could be the nutty Labour party that is not trusted by its own supporters and not even by its biggest doner...............................

so fred, you smartarse who sits in his padded armchair and pontificates, what party do you suggest IS fit for gov't, and will you then get off your bum and actually vote for them?

How can he get off his bum when his head is up it. :-))

he rolls across the floor

lol

Cyners,

Yes, I know that I asked what evidence you had that housing starts were on the up. I only asked because the data I look at doesn't suggest that it is on the up.

I'm also well aware that general construction and house building are different, and when I suggested that I knew one or two hairy-arsed builders, I was actually being a little sarcastic and very economic with the truth. But, hey, that's no problem.

Haystack,

Yes, I know the publication you quoted refers to seasonally adjusted figures. Data is normally seasonally adjusted by taking average historic seasonal difference which tend to occur at the same time each year over, say, the last 10 or 20 years. Even so, it's impossible to adequately determine the localised differences which may or may not be relevant in any one particular year.

For instance, the construction industry traditionally closes for 2 weeks over Christmas and the new year. One year, building firms might finish on the 19th or 20th December for instance. Another year, because of how the days and dates might fall, those same firms might not close until the 24th December. Because Q4 ends during the Xmas shutdown period, there is a potential 3% or 4% difference in Q4 productivity from one year to the next, which won't be reflected in the seasonal adjustment.

Similarly, firms may or may not defer purchases and starts on the run up to Xmas until the new year. There is no point in them taking delivery of materials that need to be paid for, if those same materials are going to sit around unused for a few weeks.

I'm not saying that Q4 seasonally adjusted figures are wrong. I'm simply saying that they could be unreliable and it's important to look at longer term trends to get a clearer picture.

The major legacy of your darlings Thatcher, and to a lesser degree Major governments, was that of a state of dilapidated buildings of the Schools, some of the Universities, the hospitals with antiquated laboratories and other services, as well as other institutions and the country’s decaying infrastructure, in a disgusting state of dilapidation.

The foolhardy treatment of the Technical Colleges and money raising initiatives by the Universities was based on fallacious judgement.

This suited the Thatcherite philosophy and the tory ideology of that period, who rather that using the “cash” raise from North Sea Oil and Gas to repair the period of decay in services they squandered it and tax perks to “friends” and other stupidities.

Even a decent Tory ex-prime minister Macmillan criticized the greed and corrupt practices with a lack of future planning and lack of compassion for society as a whole.

Money was spent by labour on trying to revert that period of decline, which was camouflaged by a give way of the National Silver by the previous tory government.

Did Labour spend too much? Probably yes, and as has some suggested more should have been done to pay down “debt”, but somebody had to repair the roofs. (Those living in castles may have been comfortable, but those living in tents were less than happy.)

But the main fact is that the state of public institutions were repaired and improved, but once again they are being neglected by a tory government, which is once again squandering of state money on their ideological pie in the sky dreams.


I think you are sniggering at Alan Johnson.

I have to admit the more I hear him speak and read what he has written the more respect I have for him.

Although, I disagree with some of his thinking, I believed that he is highly intelligent and from the disadvantage base he originated from, has achieved a tremendous amount.

Also, can see how his thinking and career developed and he shows this in his manners and respect for all sections of society.

I find him to be one of the few sincere thoughtful politicians in active UK political life.

In the roles he played in the cabinet and ministries he ran under the previous administration he appears to have successful.

As far as his “qualifications” are concerned, in comparison with those you seem to think highly qualified i.e., Cameron and side kick Osborne he shows common sense, while the latter are responsible for our stagnating economy.

Again in comparison with Johnson, what have you achieved, coming from a probably more privileged part of society.
======

Manuel,

Get back to your dishes.