| ||
| ||
| The issue of the Labour leadership has not gone away; it has become more acute. It seems obvious that the Labour Party ought to change its leader, indeed it ought to have done so already. This is not just because of opinion polls, though the polls are disastrous. The public has lost confidence in the Prime Minister, because they think that he has lost his grip on events. There is, as far as I know, no example of a Prime Minister who has been able to recover from Gordon Brown’s position; indeed there are very few who have reached such a dire situation. Mr Brown has not only lost the confidence of the voters, he has lost the confidence of his own MPs. The Labour Party faces the risk of its worst defeat since 1931, yet Labour MPs still refuse to take the necessary action to change their leader. One can say of the Conservatives that if they were in such a situation, they would have changed their leader at least twice by now. One can wonder who is opposing a leadership challenge and why. It does look like Lord Mandelson’s handiwork. Perhaps he wants to keep Mr Brown in office until the final ratification of the Lisbon treaty; perhaps he gives his highest priority to pearl jewelry making Tony Blair president of Europe. Labour cannot reasonably expect to win the next general election, whatever Labour MPs decide to do; things are too far gone for that. But that does not mean there is nothing left to fight for, even now. The polls make it about equally likely that there will be a Conservative landslide or that the Conservative gains will be contained. A Labour victory in 2010 would be an astonishing reversal, but a hung Parliament, with the Conservatives as the largest party, is entirely conceivable as an outcome. Indeed the next general election is already on a tipping point at which a small shift in opinion, one way or the other, would produce a large switch in seats. The most recent opinion poll was yesterday’s YouGov in The Sunday Times. It places the Conservatives ahead, with 41 per cent, Labour second with 30 per cent, the Liberal Democrats on 17 per cent and other parties, including the Nationalists, on 12 per cent. This should be good enough for a Tory victory. The Sunday Times also publishes the judgment of two election experts, Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher: “With polls predicting the Tories will get 42 per cent of the vote and factoring in boundary changes, the Conservative Party’s seats would rise from 195 to 371.” The Tories would need 325 seats to have an overall majority in 2010. However, if one looks at Rallings and Thrasher’s Media Guide to the New Parliamentary Constituencies, one can see how small a swing might decide the election result. If one takes Labour’s baseline as 30 per cent of the votes, then the Conservatives would face a hung Parliament if they only got 40 per cent, but would have an overall majority if they won 41 per cent. A single percentage point in the biwa pearl actual voting would be worth 14 seats, or 28 seats in terms of the majority. With the polls as they are, a comfortable Conservative majority and a hung Parliament can be regarded as next door to each other, and as about equally likely. This may explain why there has been so much recent interest in the possibility of a hung Parliament. David Owen has written about the possibility in The Times and Alex Salmond made it a central point in last week’s conference speech to the Scottish National Party. Salmond argues that a hung Parliament at Westminster could give valuable bargaining power to Scotland, and has urged his troops to win 20 seats at the next general election. This sheds a different light on Labour’s leadership question. If a change of leader were only worth a single percentage point in the share of votes at the next election, that could be worth 28 seats on the majority. That would not keep Labour in power, but it could result in a hung Parliament and prevent the Conservatives gaining an overall majority. If Harriet Harman or one of the Milibands could create the faintest ripple of additional support, that could be vital for the parliamentary arithmetic of the next decade. That is worth playing for. Of course, there are hung Parliaments and hung Parliaments. On the current polling figures, the likelihood of a hung Parliament in 2010 is quite high, but it would probably be a Parliament in which the Tories were the largest party. If one looks at recent Parliaments of this kind, they have not lasted long. Indeed the typical narrow Parliament in these circumstances has usually been one in which there was a small majority, too small to last a full term. That was the character of Harold Wilson’s short Parliament of 1964. The parties themselves must already be considering the possibilities of a short Parliament. They have not been uncommon in the past. Since 1945, there have been 17 parliaments, of which three were short Parliaments. These were the Parliaments of 1950-51, of 1964-66 and the first Parliament of 1974. In each case the main political issue of the akoya pearl short Parliament was a struggle to prepare for a second general election. After 1950, an exhausted Labour Government held on to office, but failed to win the 1951 election. After Harold Wilson’s victory in 1964, he was able to win a bigger majority in 1966, and after defeating Ted Heath in the first election of 1974, Wilson defeated him again in the second. The Conservatives at present have the momentum. That in itself could be decisive. It does sometimes take two general elections to establish a new government in power. If he found himself in the position of Churchill in 1951, or Wilson in 1964 or 74, David Cameron would have to convert his try into the goal of office. It is momentum that carries the incoming party to victory at a second election. The election of 2010 will be very important, but a second election in 2011 might prove even more historic. | ||
| 0 Comments | Post Comment | Permanent Link |
| ||
| hroughout the 20th century, an abundant supply of low-cost energy was the driving force behind the spread of global prosperity and development. Today, satisfying ever-growing energy demand in a sustainable way has become the world’s biggest challenge. According to BP’s projections, we will need about 45 per cent more energy in 2030 than we consume today. That will require industry to invest some $25 to $30 trillion — more than $1 trillion (£600 billion) a year for 20 years. We need a more diverse energy mix — involving greater use of nuclear power and of renewable sources as well as fossil fuels — to enhance energy security and tackle climate change. But we also have to face a few facts. First, the transition to a lower-carbon economy is a journey that will take decades. Second, it is not clear right now how we are going to pearl jewelry get there. We need a clear road-map for the transition to a lower-carbon world, with governments and the private sector working together to shape the framework for our future energy mix. Third, we should take a realistic view of the potential for alternative energy. There is a danger of promising too much, too soon. You might say that this is what you would expect to hear from the chief executive of one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies. But BP is also a significant investor in renewable resources such as wind, solar power and biofuels. The reality is that the technology, infrastructure and regulatory framework for alternative energies will take decades to be deployed at scale. At present, all of the world’s wind, solar, wave, tide and geothermal power account for only about 1 per cent of total energy consumption. Looking ahead, even the boldest forecasts say they will meet less than 10 per cent of demand in 2030. The sheer scale of the energy industry makes a rapid transition inconceivable. It takes 30 years, for example, to turn over the capital stock in the power generation sector and 15 years in cars. That is why it is so important to establish and start implementing a road-map for the transition now, based on an understanding of the existing infrastructure, changing technology and economic incentives. It is all about smart choices — about ensuring that the biwa pearl money we invest is spent to best effect. In many cases, such choices can be made on the basis of what we know now, rather than technologies still in development. And the smartest and most effective choice we can all make is to use energy far more efficiently. Take transport, responsible for 25 per cent of UK CO2 emissions. By far the most effective path to a lower- carbon road transport industry lies in making internal combustion engines more efficient. Smaller, more efficient petrol and diesel engines, combined with increasing use of hybrid technologies, will produce significant carbon savings in the next two decades. Increasing use of biofuels will help. By extracting CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow, some biofuels can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent compared with conventional petrol, according to recent studies. At BP we believe that biofuels could provide more than 10 per cent of global road transport fuel by 2030. To put this into perspective, the combination of advanced hybrid cars and quality biofuels offers comparable CO2 savings to running battery-powered electric cars from the existing UK electricity grid — but at less than half of the additional cost. Smart choices are also available in power generation, responsible for another 30 per cent of UK carbon emissions. Under EU regulations, a third of the UK’s coal-fired stations are due to be retired before 2016. A number of options present themselves to fill the gap: nuclear power, offshore wind, natural gas and clean coal. In my view we will need all of them. But nuclear expansion still faces significant uncertainties. Offshore wind is extremely costly. As for new-build coal, to meet carbon targets it would need to be fitted with carbon capture and storage — a technology that, while showing promise, still faces challenges that will take time to resolve. Commercial plants are unlikely before 2020. That leaves gas, the cleanest fossil fuel with less than half the carbon emissions of coal. It is abundantly available to the UK. Indigenous gas provides 73 per cent of UK consumption today and could still make up as much as 30 per cent in 2020. Gas is also widely available from non-UK suppliers, ranging from Norway to North Africa, as well as from the global market for liquefied natural gas. Any concerns about security of supply can be addressed by diversifying suppliers and building more storage capacity. Gas is also a necessary complement for renewable sources, given that gas-fired generators — unlike nuclear and coal-fired plants — can be readily switched on and off to back up intermittent wind and solar power. These are just some of the factors that need to be akoya pearl considered in drawing up an energy road-map for the UK. However, change on the scale envisaged will only happen if governments create the framework. Industry needs stable and enduring conditions to invest, and in the case of energy that means a transparent and uniform price for carbon. The EU has made a start with its Emissions Trading Scheme, but we are a long way from an effective, global carbon pricing regime. Until energy producers and consumers know and pay the real price of carbon, the climate for investing in a low-carbon economy will remain uncertain in the extreme. We will also need additional incentives and policies to drive technological innovation and behavioural change. In the UK, a debate is under way about what more the Government needs to do to meet its commitments on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Like others, I worry that the liberalised energy market on its own will not deliver the sustainable and diverse supply mix we need. | ||
| 0 Comments | Post Comment | Permanent Link |
| ||
| The Pakistani Government and Army have finally decided to heed the words of a former ruler: “No patchwork scheme — and all our recent schemes, blockades, allowances etc are mere patchwork — will settle the Waziristan problem. Not until the military steamroller has passed over the country from end to end will here be peace.” Did Pervez Musharraf, the former President, say that? No, it was Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, more than 100 years ago. And for both strategic and humanitarian reasons Curzon added: “I do not want to be the person to start the machine.” The inhabitants of Waziristan have resisted outside conquest since time immemorial. That is why Pakistan continued the British tradition of pearl jewelry indirect rule, and kept only minimal forces in the region. So crushing the local Taleban and establishing Pakistani authority in South Waziristan is going to be a long, bloody business in the face of bitter opposition backed by much of the local population — a population motivated as much by old tribal traditions of resistance as by support for the Taleban. This operation will cause great suffering to civilians and lead to deep unhappiness among many Pashtun troops in the Pakistani Army. That is why, like Curzon’s government of India, Pakistan has hesitated for so long before “starting the machine”. The last time it did so on a large scale under US pressure in 2004-05, it suffered humiliating reverses and was forced to make a series of peace deals. The Pakistani authorities have now decided to act again, in biwa pearl part because of pressure from the US, and from a desire to be seen to do something effective against the Pakistani Taleban to persuade Washington to release the billions of dollars in aid envisaged in the Kerry-Lugar Bill. Above all, however, they have decided to act because they have come to see the Pakistani Taleban as a serious threat to them. The decisive moment came in April, when after a peace deal that conceded the Taleban demand for Sharia law in Swat, the Taleban immediately moved into the neighbouring district of Buner, barely 60 miles from Islamabad, and threatened the Pakistani state itself. Equally importantly, for the first time the Taleban’s breach of the agreement and open aggression convinced many ordinary Pakistanis to support military operations against the militants. The Taleban had also begun large-scale terrorist attacks outside Pashtun areas. As a result, the Pakistani army in June launched a ruthless counter-offensive against the Taleban in Swat, which cleared them from the valley. Three questions hang over the operation in South Waziristan: Will it succeed? Will it help the Western effort in Afghanistan? And will it reduce terrorism in Pakistan, which has surged in recent weeks in response to the military’s actions? If the Pakistani armed forces put forth their full strength, they can gain control of Waziristan in the sense of breaking up open Taleban armed groups. This will not end the insurgency, but it will drive the local Taleban underground or across the border into Afghanistan. Will it help the fight against the Taleban in Afghanistan? Only to a limited extent and indirectly. No doubt some Pakistani militants who would otherwise have gone to fight there will be killed; but the Afghan Taleban, while linked to the Pakistani Taleban, are also separate from it, with their own bases of support in both countries. These include Jalaluddin Haqqani and his clan based in North Waziristan, and the leadership of the Taleban in the “Quetta Shura” in akoya pearl northern Baluchistan. These groups have not attacked Pakistan, and their leader, Mullah Omar, has repeatedly called on his allies to stop attacking Pakistan and concentrate on the Western forces in Afghanistan. To have a major impact on the war in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Army would have to attack the Afghan Taleban on Pakistani soil. This is what the US will expect Pakistan to do next — but Washington is likely to be disappointed. Not only are these old Pakistani allies, and the only allies Pakistan has in the unfolding Afghan civil war; but most Pakistanis draw a distinction between the increasingly condemned Pakistani Taleban and the Afghan Taleban, who are seen as gravely flawed but fighting for the liberation of their country from enemy occupation. “They can be cruel and extreme, but they have a right to fight for their country, and we should not fight against them,” an old shopkeeper in Peshawar told me in July. Attacking the Afghan Taleban in northern Baluchistan would also stir up the so far peaceful Pashtun population there and undermine Pakistan’s struggle with ethnic Baluch rebels to the south. Pakistani officials therefore hope that instead they will be able to capture some al-Qaeda leaders in South Waziristan and hand them over to Washington. That would please the US and might reduce the pressure on Pakistan. Finally, will the offensive reduce terrorism in Pakistan? In the medium term, almost certainly not. While some terrorism has been planned by the Taleban leadership from South Waziristan, there is also evidence of the growing involvement of Sunni extremist groups from Punjab, and especially the sectarian group Lashkar-e-Janghvi. But terrorism and insurgency are different things. Terrorism can exact a terrible toll, but it cannot destroy a state and may even strengthen it. What would have destroyed Pakistan would have been the extension of Taleban authority from one region to another. The Pakistani military have already proved in Swat that they can prevent this — and they are going to prove it again in South Waziristan. | ||
| 0 Comments | Post Comment | Permanent Link |
| ||
| Stick or twist? With seven minutes to go, the scores level and his team a man short, Mark Hughes made the double substitution that he hoped would drive Manchester City to victory. However, as he did so, the sight of Shaun Wright-Phillips and Carlos Tévez wearily traipsing off the pitch, looking fit to drop, might just have told him to adjust his expectations. Under the circumstances, having seen Pablo Zabaleta sent off midway through the second half for a second bookable offence, Hughes accepted that “we have to be reasonably happy, I suppose”. He supposed right, because an unpredictable Wigan Athletic had shown glimpses of the form that had done for Chelsea three weeks earlier, but it was perhaps the first time all season that City’s players had looked as if something, in this case pushing for pearl jewelry three points rather than one, was beyond them. Hughes did not whine excessively about the sending-off or about a “nailed-on” penalty appeal that was rejected late on when Wright-Phillips felt he was tripped by Maynor Figueroa. He seemed to accept that, with numerous players missing through injury and others jaded after their exertions on international duty, this represented a decent result, one that seemed to confirm their ability to challenge towards the top end of the Barclays Premier League. Certainly, as Hughes talked afterwards of his belief that City and other clubs — presumably Aston Villa, Everton and Tottenham Hotspur — were threatening the “feeling of invincibility” among the established elite, it was hard not to share his confidence. This has been a strange start to the season, one in which Liverpool have already lost four Premier League games, but City have a solid look about them — not impregnable by any means, with the defence still their Achilles’ heel, but solid. Related Links The problem for anyone trying to gatecrash the top four is that there are teams farther down who feel they are upwardly mobile. Sunderland are the biwa pearl most obvious one, but Wigan, Steve Bruce’s former club, were impressive again yesterday, taking the lead through Charles N’Zogbia, the game’s outstanding player, in first-half stoppage time and continuing to attack in search of the winning goal after Martin Petrov equalised. City had been the hungrier team at the start, with Joleon Lescott and Gareth Barry asserting themselves, Wright-Phillips and Petrov looking lively on the wings and Tévez showing the kind of class that was rarely in evidence as his confidence drained during the final months of his Manchester United career. The one disappointment for City was Emmanuel Adebayor, who did not recover from a blow to his thigh early on and limped off with 20 minutes remaining. Hughes said that the forward, like Craig Bellamy, should be fit to face Fulham on Saturday. Little had been seen of Wigan as an attacking force, but they would end the first half on a high. N’Zogbia was denied a goal in the 45th minute — he and Roberto Martínez, the manager, were remarkably restrained in saying that Alan Wiley was right to disallow his effort for the slightest of pushes with Barry — but justice was done in stoppage time as, after a header by Paul Scharner and a flick by Jason Scotland, Hugo Rodallega’s shot was spilt by Shay Given into the path of N’Zogbia, who slid in to score. When the half-time whistle was blown 30 seconds later and the euphoric strains of The Four Seasons’ Let’s Hang On! rang out around the stadium, you were left in little doubt how Wigan planned to approach the second half. But, as against Chelsea, they akoya pearl conceded a goal within two minutes of the restart, Tévez crossing from the right and Wright-Phillips cleverly leaving the ball to Petrov, who steered a left-foot shot beyond the reach of Chris Kirkland. At that point, City’s tails were up, but Zabaleta’s ill-advised lunge on Scotland, having been booked for a more trivial challenge on Maynor Figueroa, changed things. Suddenly City’s backs were to the wall, with Hughes sending on Vincent Kompany to augment the defence. Even then, it required an excellent save by Given from Rodallega, atoning for his earlier error, to secure a point. Finally, a word on the referee. Wiley did not get every decision right, but he coped well on his return to action, a fortnight after being branded “unfit” by Sir Alex Ferguson. The catcalls, though, were predictable and they will follow him everywhere until the furore finally dies down. | ||
| 0 Comments | Post Comment | Permanent Link |
| ||
| Jamie Carragher has conceded that he and his team-mates have “a mountain to climb” if Liverpool are to reinvigorate their faltering hopes of claiming the title. After three consecutive defeats in all competitions and their fourth in nine matches in the Barclays Premier League, Rafael Benítez’s side are eighth in the table and trail Manchester United, the leaders, by seven points. With questions marks regarding Benítez’s position and lingering concerns about the club’s American ownership, Liverpool face a week containing two vital home matches. Tomorrow they host Lyons in the Champions League, before welcoming United to Anfield on Sunday. In the aftermath of their 1-0 defeat away to pearl jewelry Sunderland, in which the decisive goal, scored by Darren Bent, was scored courtesy of a deflection off a beach ball, Benítez revealed that Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres are not guaranteed to be available for the visit of Lyons, the group E leaders. “I can only pray,” he said. Related Links The same applies to Liverpool’s aspirations of claiming the championship for the first time since 1990. “We have to forget those two players were not playing and think more about the players who were playing for Liverpool,” Carragher, whose own form remains disappointing, said. “We have to do much better. “There is a long way to go yet, but if we continue losing games, it will be the end. We have given ourselves a mountain to climb, but Chelsea lost as well. There is a seven-point difference with Manchester United but we can’t think about the title right now. “We have to forget about that and concentrate on the biwa pearl next league game, which will give us the chance to claw some points back. We have to restore our confidence and play much better. “We are not playing well, the supporters know that. I am sure there will be a lot of stick flying around before the Lyons game.” While Bent’s goal at the Stadium of Light should have been ruled out by Mike Jones, the referee — Law 5 states that the match must be halted in the event of “outside interference of any kind” — such was Sunderland’s dominance that objections were muted. “There are no complaints,” Carragher said. While the fitness of Gerrard and Torres remains the priority, Alberto Aquilani, Liverpool’s £20 million summer signing from Roma, is edging closer to an appearance. The midfield player’s foot complaint has prevented him from making his Liverpool debut, but he will be considered for Wednesday’s reserve-team feature against Sunderland. “Maybe he will have a chance,” Benítez said. Sunderland also have injury concerns, with akoya pearl Kenwyne Jones and Lee Cattermole carried off on stretchers on Saturday. Jones, the striker, has undergone a scan on a twisted ankle that is not thought to be significant, but there are fears that Cattermole, their midfield player, has damaged knee ligaments. | ||
| 0 Comments | Post Comment | Permanent Link |