Author Archives: Andreas Paterson

Andreas is a Labour activist based in Norwich, he’s organiser for his local ward of Town Close. He works as a software developer and being the mercenary soul that he is has found himself working in the insurance, financial services, electronics and marketing industries at various points in time. He blogs at CitizenAndreas.

Economic Roundup, Friday 15th May 2009

15May09 – 13:49

Economic commentators this week have been attempting to outdo each other with recession shapes this week. Beyond L shaped, V shaped and W shaped we have Stephanie Flanders suggesting square root shaped, Moodys suggesting hook shaped and Deutsche Bank suggesting diminishing sine wave shaped recovery.
There's a fair amount of talk about green shoots, the Bank [...]

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The Apostasy Slot: Abolish Prime Minister’s Question Time

14May09 – 12:00

Today's Apostasy slot comes courtesy of Labour blogger Dave Cole, who reckons that Prime Minister's Question Time is a stain on our democracy and it should be abolished.
Ask most people what happens in Parliament and they will describe PMQs. They will describe it as overgrown public school boys cheering their side and shouting down the other side. [...]

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What are your policies?

10May09 – 22:45

Prem Sikka has a few questions for David Cameron.

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Economic Roundup, Friday 8th May 2009

08May09 – 17:41

With apologies for the delay ladies and gents...

Information about the US banking stress tests is slowly being released, it's been suggested that an individual is selectively leaking certain details. The results are apparently better than expected, Bank of America needs another $34 billion, Citgroup needs another $50 billion, a few other banks also need smaller top ups.
A [...]

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Fiscal Positioning

06May09 – 17:54

Don Paskini wrote this post, over on Liberal Conspiracy suggesting that the Tories economic record for all their endless boasting, actually the Conservatives economic record was pretty appalling. Naturally, I suspect this is a sentiment that many of my comrades would agree with. In the midst of the comments, one of the standard Tory arguments [...]

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Number Crunching, David Cameron Edition

06May09 – 12:59

£1.7 billion
amount raised per year by the 50% tax, described by David Cameron as a "pathetic piece of class war posturing" and "distraction burglary"

£0.22 billion
amount saved per year by scrapping ID Cards and ContactPoint, as part of David Cameron's "return to traditional public spending control" and "new culture of thrift in government"

From David Cameron's spring [...]

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Economic Roundup, Friday 1st May 2009

01May09 – 13:45

This week we learn that relatives of US Vice President Joe Biden (but not Joe himself) have become embroiled in a news story regarding some iffy hedge funds, details here, here, here, here and here. (hat tip: Zero Hedge)
The US has been subjecting it's banks to stress tests, it appears that a number have been [...]

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Goodbye ID Cards?

29Apr09 – 17:40

There's a lot of noise being made at the moment about the government potentially scrapping ID cards. Sunder is hopeful that recent headlines mark the end of ID cards, personally. Looking at the issues I'm not so sure...

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