Southdown honey and an airport on King's Cross

I bought some old Picture Posts from a second-hand bookshop dating in the early 1940s. On p.2, 1942 issue, we have an advert from Gales Honey, which tells us:

Before the war Southdown Empire Honey had the larges sale of any honey in the UK. During the war we have had to distribute such honey as was available. All of it was good honey but not up to Southdown standard. hence we discontinued the 'Southdown' name rather than associate it with a less than perfect product. As soon as normal conditions return Southdown Empire Honey will reapper. Meanwhile Gale's Honey is the best in the shops to-day.

Well Gale's is still with us, presumably as inferior as ever.

In June 1945, CR Purser, Oakhurst, Sussex has an idea:

When the opportunity arises to enable the LNER to rebuild King's Cross and St Pancrase it would be a great pity if these two stations are not merged into one. As the area to be covered would be extensvive, the roof should be flat and of steel, supported by stanchions. The roof would then make a first-class airport in the centre of London.

This seems quite a common desire, but I can't help think it might be extremely dangerous.

Osborne's so useless they wouldn't let him reply to the Budget

I noticed a comment on the BBC website (by a reader) saying that "Osborne's response could make or break him" or something like that. Obviously I thought that was unlikely, but then I realised that I did not know why it is the Leader of the Opposition who replies to a Budget speech, not the Shadow Chancellor. Wikipedia does not explain either. I found this (page 2) which basically says no-one knows, but it might be because the LoO is a hack, and the SC is an financial expert.

Game - find the oldest liberal betrayal

I saw a comment on today's Telegraph website bemoaning liberals (Wilson) for cancelling the TSR2 plane. This was in response to a piece on education. Can anyone find a recent declaration of liberal betrayal from even longer ago?

Heckling in 1964

Good Adam Curtis find on a film about heckling.

Carla Bruni is not having an affair....

...at least not with "Benjamin Biolay, a musician and a winner at France's recent Victoires de la Musique awards".

How do I know? Because I remember her cri de coeur, "I want a man with nuclear weapons". Benjamin Biolay does not have nuclear weapons.

Update: I guess she might have changed her mind - that a man with nuclear weapons is not all he is cracked up to be.

Britain at no.11?

William Hague says today that by 2015 Britain will no longer be in the top 10 economies. Presumably he is basing it on this.

But is it realistic? The IMF forecasts out to 2014, and by that date it has (using current dollars) this order - US, China, Japan, Germany, France, UK, putting us in sixth position - then Italy, Brazil, Russia, India, Canada. The exchange rate assumption then is 1.61 sterling to the dollar, which is clearly about 6% higher than the current rate. The euro assumption is 1.364, so about 1% higher than the current rate. Thus on current exchange rates the IMF's numbers would be 5% lower for the UK. But our GDP is forecast then to be $2,919bn, and Italy's $2,355bn. Today it takes a 1.08 exchange rate to make Italy's GDP higher than ours; the current rate is about 1.10, so the IMF is also forecasting stronger UK growth than in Italy. History suggests this is likely (recent history at least) but if it isn't and the exchange rate v euro doesn't improve, the UK could fall to seventh. [see here for more on this comparision]

To fall to eight it must go below Brazil, and on IMF figures this would require 2 reals to the pound, up from 2.7 at present. To fall below India will need 57 rupees, from the current 68, which seems possible. Canada would require 1.08, from 1.53 at present.

So it seems likely that the UK could lose some places, on the other hand if the euro weakens it will gain two (Italy and France). It seems unlikely it will fall to 11th however.

Using PPP exchange rates makes it seem even less likely, even thoug on this measure the IMF has the UK at 7th by 2014. This is because it remains 60% higher than Canada, and and 30% higher than Italy according to IMF estimates - a large gap to make up (of course PPP estimates can be revised, but this seems unlikely between these countries). In general I think Hague is wrong.

ps [note this data is to 2014 - to 2015 makes it a little less comfortable for the UK]
pps Also Hague says: "Under a Conservative government, the Foreign Office budget would not depend on fluctuations in the exchange rate (as it does under a system introduced in 2007)". How strange to ignore the signals sent by a flexible exchange rate.

More Than Mind Games has moved

Its new home is at http://www.morethanmindgames.com/ so type that in your browser or click here.

If Michael Foot had won...

Yes, he's trying to be funny. But this Andrew Roberts piece really does read as if was a joint effort at 2am after too much whisky in some London club. The only thing that suggests that isn't quite what happened is it doesn't mention Rhodesia.

It's noticeable - I'm making a point Dan made recently - that Roberts has to explain who every single person in the article is. It is also - as one might expect - all the euros fault.

Defence inflation is faster than normal inflation?

I have no idea why Lord Guthrie is taken as an independent expert on this, but:

"Defence inflation runs higher than normal inflation so when additional money has gone to defence over the years, the spending power of that money has reduced.

A paper here claims it is 3% higher than normal inflation. This however surely leads us to a rather unfortunate conclusion, which is that as that is higher than the long-term rate of GDP growth, the UK's military capacity can only be maintained with an ever increasing share of GDP going on defence spending.

Another paper here disputes the Kirkpatrick figures with the point that it ignores (or downplays) productivity and quality improvements. The difficulty with military equipment is the quality improvements over time tend to be because your opponents equipment is getting better as well, so there is no real advantage (think of the Dreadnought). But this paper argues there has been an increase in relative quality.

By they way I tend to instinctively disbelieve people who claim that their inflation rate is higher than the average, simply because so many people claim it for so many things they can't all be right.

Kray twins bingo

Here we go, I will call out the comments to this piece and you mark them off. Shout 'house' when you win.

In order

'They were evil but they were respected for looking after locals'
'Say what you may, that was a time when your grandmother could walk the streets...'
'I would be safer if those...'
'If they were around today...'
'Legends'
'No one mugged pensioners'
'At least it was safe to walk the streets'