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Britain?s stuttering economy: Double-dip trouble

AN APPALLING month for David Cameron?s gaffe-prone government took a turn for the worse this week with the revelation that the economy has not, after all, clawed its way clear of recession. Preliminary figures released on April 25th showed that GDP shrank by 0.2% in the first three months of 2012 (at an annualised rate of 0.8%), following a drop of 0.3% in the last quarter of 2011. When Britain emerged in 2009 from the deep recession that followed the financial crisis, the hope was that the economy had enough momentum to maintain a modest recovery, even while the fiscal deficit was being dealt with. But growth, never robust, has stuttered since the fourth quarter of 2010 (see first chart). Now it has stalled, leaving output lower than it was in late 2010.

Nobody expected miracles, but the figures were surprisingly poor. On the basis of earlier surveys,...
The Leveson inquiry: Fatal attraction

Press regulation?s poster boys
THE problem with Rupert Murdoch and his clan, most critics would agree, is that they are too close to politicians. Ministers and opposition leaders have long cosied up to News International, his British newspaper company?and the attraction is mutual. But this week, at Lord Justice Leveson?s long-running inquiry into press misconduct, the intimacy gave way to bunny-boiling acrimony. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, was the main victim.Mr Hunt?s misfortunes stem from the Murdochs? bid to acquire full control of BSkyB, a British satellite broadcaster, beginning in 2010. News Corporation already controlled the company through a 39% shareholding. But politicians and media rivals fearful of the firm?s heft (it owns four national British newspapers) fought hard against the purchase. Some wanted it blocked on the ground that it would erode media plurality. Others called for the bid to be referred to the Competition Commission?a slow, unpredictable process that the Murdochs were anxious to avoid.E-mails and text messages published on April 24th by Lord Justice...
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The Britain section will soon be choosing an intern to work for several months this summer. Applicants should send a letter and an article of about 600 words that they think would be suitable for publication. A small stipend will be paid. Applications must reach britainintern@economist.com
by May 31st.
Bagehot: The pen is mightier

WHEN Britain?s biggest tabloid claimed credit for a Conservative general election victory with the front-page headline ?It?s the Sun wot won it?, its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, was not pleased. Giving evidence on April 25th to a public inquiry on press ethics, Mr Murdoch explained that he had administered ?a terrible bollocking? to the Sun?s then editor, Kelvin MacKenzie. A ?tasteless? claim, he said. ?We don?t have that sort of power.?The inquiry?chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, a judge?this week shone a light on ties between the media and politicians. The most dangerous revelations were e-mails apparently detailing contacts between News Corporation, Mr Murdoch?s company, and David Cameron?s government during the firm?s abortive bid to buy BSkyB, a satellite-television outfit. The relationship was sometimes friendly, sometimes tense, but always close?and rarely craven on the part of the media firm.Another milestone in the Sun?s political coverage does not seem to have earned a proprietorial rebuke. It happened in 1992, on the night that...
Local elections: Day of dread

Look out behind you, Mr Johnson
SINCE the budget provoked a din of disapproval last month, Downing Street has been looking forward to May 3rd. The losses likely to be sustained in elections across 180 local authorities would be modest for a mid-term government, they calculated. And those losses would be sidelined by the re-election of the Conservative Boris Johnson (pictured, with Labour?s Ken Livingstone) as mayor of London.The government now dreads polling day. It is no longer afflicted by minor embarrassments over the taxation of hot snacks and charitable donations, but by grave questions over the future of Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, and its own economic credibility following Britain?s re-entry into recession. The Tories? plummeting national poll ratings?the party trails Labour by a double-digit margin in some surveys?is dragging down Mr Johnson. Polls tend to show him modestly ahead of Mr Livingstone, but they have become erratic. Defeat for the incumbent would heighten the impression of a government under siege.Moreover, the Tories are likely to be mauled in local...
Crowdfunding football: Buy this team

FOOTBALL fans are used to being squeezed by their beloved clubs through rising ticket prices, regular strip changes and stiff charges for food and programmes. They have rarely been asked to bail out the clubs directly. In Britain?unlike Germany, say?football clubs are generally limited-liability companies, the top ones often owned by rich foreigners. But fans of Portsmouth Football Club hope to change that tradition.Portsmouth was relegated from the Premier League in 2010, and will plunge to the third division next season. The club went into administration in February 2010 and again in February 2012. The Pompey Supporters Trust is now canvassing for interest in a takeover of the club by supporters. Fans are asked to put �100 ($160) into an escrow account. If enough do so, a community share scheme to buy the team will be created, with shares at �1,000.Until an arrangement has been reached with creditors, it is not clear how much a community buy-out will cost. But a quick survey outside the team?s ground before a recent game found fans in theoretically generous mood: ?�1,000? and ?as much as I have? were common...
Northern Ireland: Thin skins, thick bills

WELL-CELLARED bile is the mainstay of political memoirs and can attract lawsuits from those who recall events differently. But ?Outside In? by Peter Hain, Labour?s Northern Ireland secretary from 2005 to 2007, is making legal history.Mr Hain is being prosecuted in Belfast on the antique charge of ?scandalising the court?. The case concerns his account of an arcane twist of the peace process in 2006 when he appointed a policeman?s widow to report on the scope of a proposed new victims? commissioner. Aimed at assuaging people outraged at the release of paramilitaries, the move was contested in court?a common event in a system that long lacked its own political institutions.In his book Mr Hain skates over the details of the case, which he terms an ?irritating sideshow?. But he lets rip at the ?lucrative lawyers? industry? created by the local penchant for judicial review. And he attacks Lord Justice Girvan as ?off his rocker?, ?high-handed? and ?idiosyncratic? in asking the attorney-general to investigate whether Mr Hain perverted the course of justice. He recalls wondering if a new property-tax reform had annoyed the judge; and he briefly hesitated before confirming his promotion to the appeal court.Published in January, Mr Hain?s account made only a modest splash. But it did bring an incendiary response from the province?s most senior judge, Sir Declan Morgan. Far from being...
Urban design: Road warriors

You?ll never walk alone
FITTINGLY for a free-trading nation, Britain imports a lot of policy wheezes from overseas. One can now be seen in Exhibition Road, a west London street that contains the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. At a cost of almost �30m ($47m) and over three years, this 800-metre-long thoroughfare has been converted into the country?s largest ?shared space?. Road markings and kerbs have mostly gone, and it is no longer entirely clear what is pavement and what is road.The approach, which was pioneered by Hans Monderman in the Netherlands, is supposed to promote safety and ease congestion. Removing bossy signs, traffic lights and the distinction between road and pavement prompts drivers and pedestrians to pay more attention to each other, or so the theory goes. Towns and cities in Denmark, Germany and Sweden have abolished such distractions and reported fewer accidents.In some ways the British version is half-hearted. To reach the South Kensington museums, visitors must still cross a busy four-lane road using traffic lights....
The battle for Glasgow: Two left feet

IT IS not merely a party stronghold, but a place where history was made. Glasgow was one of the cities in which Labour began to take shape a century ago. The party has ruled the city council for the past 32 years. If Glasgow is seized by the Scottish National Party (SNP) in local elections on May 3rd it will be an acute humiliation for Ed Miliband, Labour?s leader?worse even than the party?s trouncing by George Galloway, an independent left-winger, in a parliamentary by-election in Bradford West last month.Labour?s local problems first emerged in 2007. The introduction of proportional representation on the single transferable vote system to Scottish council elections that year ended the tradition by which Labour won roughly nine-tenths of the council?s 79 seats. But Labour still managed to get 45 councillors elected, a comfortable enough majority. The SNP was in second place with 22 seats.Then things began to go seriously wrong. Faced with spending cuts, Labour accelerated a programme of devolving services, including housing and building work, to arm?s-length bodies that were meant to run things more commercially. But opponents and the media soon began questioning the contracts, and pointing out that Labour councillors were earning fat salaries on the boards of those bodies. The council leader resigned in 2010, citing exhaustion. In the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections...

The Economist: Britain Thu, 26 April 2012 15:02:44 GMT