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The British Bankers Association hasn’t had a good press over the past few years.

And today they presented more bad news – revealing that a pitifully small 33,000 mortgages were approved in July, down from 66,000 in July 2006.

Many people (politicians / public / mortgage-seekers) express frustration that the banks are simply avoiding loans so that they can build up their balance sheets after the massive losses from the crash.

However, if you dive into the detail of all bank lending, which includes all UK mortgages, personal loans, credit cards, overdrafts and other business loans, then the actual rate of lending can be tracked. So, by taking the average of all these (which the BBA helpfully make available at http://www.bba.org.uk/statistics/article/july-figures-for-main-high-street-banks) you get this chart of lending for the past 12 years :

So, contrary to current moaning thinking lending is merely flat, not dropping.

But as can be seen , the rate of lending growth was above 12% for much of the previous twelve years – Was that sustainable ? Clearly not.

As the polls close in Australia, here’s my latest podcast before I head off for the national tally in Canberra.

Still in Melbourne, listen to my interview on the Australian election with Melbourne University Politics Professor Verity Bergmann. We discuss the differences between the campaigns, possible outcomes and Julia Gillard’s Welsh roots.

Part One

Part Two

The election takes place on Saturday.

It might be the silly season for news – but the headline revealing that a Carmarthenshire school will take 12 months to close is still shocking.

Leighton Andrews tweeted yesterday that the decision was “Bonkers”, the Council has claimed that there is a procedure which must be followed.

This raises a key question of whether the procedure gets in the way of action – which is often a fair accusation of the public sector.

Sometimes, there is a reason why things take so long – maybe because it’s the right thing to do (for instance, if you want to close a popular busy school, then it is right to hear a range of views and take a considered opinion, because the decision may not be clear-cut) or because the law states a minimum period of time.

In the case of this school, neither seems to have been the case, so the Welsh tax-payers are entitled to keep asking the same question until an answer is found : “Why ?”.

So here’s how it might work :

Inquisitor “Why is this school not closed ?”

Council “Because it takes a year to undertake the consultation”

Inquisitor “Why ?”

Council “Because we spend 3 months setting up the plan, 6 months to ask the questions and 3 months to analyse the answers”

Inquisitor “Why ?”

Council “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it”

Inquisitor “Why ?”

Council “Because it’s too difficult to change”

Inquisitor “Why ?”

Council “Can I go now please ?”

WE jumped on the bandwagon last month when we promoted the Newport State of Mind Youtube viral – which also promoted a vigorous debate. Well now Marcus Warner gets some key support in his camp…

This is one of the cleverest “political” rebuttal pieces you’ll ever see.

Meanwhile elsewhere on the net another ode to a Welsh town, Ruthin, has appeared which is also rather amusing (with thanks to Dylan Jones-Evans for pointing it out.)

Since the author doesn’t even disguise his Pontypridd roots, it can only be a matter of time before a further rebuttal piece is produced by someone actually from the North Wales town?

G’DAY. Welcome to the first of my podcasts from the other side of the globe. Enjoy.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/163698-postcard-from-australia-i

A MONTH ago Welsh-born Julia Gillard became leader of the Australian Labor Party and Prime Minister of Australia. And next month WalesHome catches up…

Keep the home fires burning...

House prices have, so far, had a good year, with the Nationwide House Price Index showing a 3% rise in the first half of 2010. The peak (£186k in October 2007) saw a drop to £146 in Feb 2009. Now we’re back at £170k.

Unemployment has stabilised, and this week’s GDP figures showed a startling 1.1% monthly increase.

The UK 10-year bond price is 3.50%. Comfortably distant from Italy (3.98%) Spain (4.18%) and {cough} Greece (10.25%)

Even the BBC has replaced its doom-laden-down-pointing “the Recession” backdrop which accompanies Stephanie Flanders with a sprightly-upward-pointing “the Recovery”.

Whew – So it’s all OK now then ?

Well, not really.

A friend of mine was stuck for a couple of nights in the snow once at a remote cottage. Once the coal and wood had been used on the fire, he dismantled an old unused wooden bed and burned that – that kept him warm at night and then the weather improved. Our situation in 2009 was to burn all the beds, the furniture and the books. The stash of cash under the floorboards was being kept for a rainy-day, so we burned that as well. While the fire was burning, it was all OK.

And that’s just what’s happened with the housing markets and stock markets. Of course the FTSE, S&P and other stock markets would rise; the governments were forcing money back into the economy with printing presses working 24hours and 0% interest rates. That cash was used to buy stuff, and reflate the economy which was the entire point. Mission Accomplished.

There might be a double-dip recession, in my view it’s more likely that the GDP growth with muddle-through at between 0 and 1% for 3-4 years. And that is not enough. It won’t pay for the public sector pensions or for relative UK wealth compared to India / China / South Korea / Brazil.

It won’t encourage companies to create new jobs – The recent Ford profits were remarkable, especially since they seem to have been achieved without replacing the layed-off workers who lost their jobs in 2008.

One last (miserable) thought… let’s just hope that there isn’t another recession, because we’ve used up all the firewood.

YESTERDAY I received two emails directing me to quite the funniest Youtube video I have seen in a very long time. Today two more have arrived. And the senders in the main didn’t even know I was going to spend yesterday afternoon in the great city of Newport.

If you haven’t seen this video yet, you’re obviously not receiving emails from the right people.

Take five and enjoy…

HA! bet you came on thinking that this was Barnett-related, or that we’d uncovered yet another example of our unsympathetic neighbours doing the dirty on us.

Nah, not really. Friday afternoon finds the WalesHome crew in a frivolous, flippant, nay even foolish mood, and we wanted to share a joke with those of you who didn’t get this morning’s email entitled ‘England’s new sponsor‘.

Enjoy your weekend.

This no funny

"I am become death, the shatterer of worlds”

FOR a society that marks every kind of anniversary with increasing diligence, we can be pretty good at missing the biggies. Today is the 65th anniversary of the infamous Trinity Test, otherwise known as the birth of nuclear era. It’s hard to think of any single event in recent history with such profound implications – both potential and actual – for mankind.

Not surprisingly, the nuke has had a fascinating journey through our popular fiction and culture. We did a piece on that last year, to coincide with another anniversary, that of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s here.

The nuclear bomb may have reached pensionable age today but, despite important developments in reductions talks between the US and Russia, this fearsome and awesome weapon shows no sign of retiring and every sign of proliferating to parts of the world that should cause us all great concern. It started on this day 65 years ago, but we don’t yet have an expiry date.

A big programme

ALL THINGS must come to an end, both good and bad, and this week the One Wales Government moved into the closing stage of its mandate with the unveiling of its legislative programme for the final year of its mandate. Well, not quite a year, really. Actually there’s really just six working months left because we now have a two month recess period before any new legislation is formally introduced; and when the Assembly returns in September all business will need to be concluded by March next year when the Assembly election is called.

This tight timeframe was acknowledged by the First Minister in unveiling the programme this week when he said:

“In recognition of the capacity of the Assembly in the remaining weeks before the Assembly elections to scrutinise any new legislation, we have had to temper our ambitions for this final programme. We will aim to provide the Assembly with as much time as possible to scrutinise these items of legislation, while optimising the capacity of the Assembly to deliver our legislation and realise important changes for the better for the people of Wales.”

This is perhaps the most optimistic statement he has yet to make as First Minister and the pressure to deliver will be considerable. Four brand new pieces of legislation were announced this week and will all have to be dealt with in the six month time block. Three of these are Measures that follow on from primary powers recently gained, dealing educational collaboration and improved standards; school transport; and also a wide Measure which will enact the new powers of the Housing LCO which finally finished its Parliamentary passage this week. These are sizeable items of legislation which will need to be considered both thoroughly and quickly.

An even larger piece of legislation, though, is the Local Government (Wales) Measure which was laid this week and represents the last item from the previous legislative cycle. It is not the only Measure yet to complete it passage: the Mental Health Measure, Carers Strategies Measure, Welsh Language Measure, Waste Measure and Rights of Children and Young Persons Measure all need to complete their final stages during the coming months too. They are hangovers from the last Assembly year and, although they have moved relatively quickly, all of them need significant Plenary and/or Committee time to complete their passage.

On top of this is the new WAG request for a Legislative Competence Order on devolving the powers over organ donation to Wales. This is a complex area with differing opinions and has already begun to attract media attention. More particularly, though, no LCO has yet gone through in under six months. WAG may have previously consulted on the issue and this may speed up the early stages of the process, but it is still going to be a tall order (excuse the pun) to get this through within six months, especially if there are significant objections at a Westminster level.

To take a full picture we need to add in too the Measures and LCOs that arise from Committees of backbench member ballots. Both Dai Lloyd’s Playing Fields Measure and Ann Jones’ Proposed Domestic Fire Safety (Wales) Measure need to complete their course, the latter only being laid this week; while there are also draft LCOs and Measures from a range of other backbenchers to consider too from Jeff Cuthbert’s Measure on training rights for those with Additional Learning Needs through to Joyce Watson’s LCO on Hard Surfaces.

In the round this is a huge programme to complete and it can be predicted with confidence that the bulk of Assembly time will be devoted to legislative scrutiny in the coming months.

Indeed, because of the backlog, which mainly arises from the very dysfunctional way both the LCO and Measure systems operated in the first eighteen months of this Assembly, there will be huge pressures on all AMs to complete this stated programme. And it won’t be easy just to blame the LCO process: the vast bulk of the work that needs to be completed is in respect of the Measures over which the Assembly has sole legislative competence.

Far from being a programme in which ambition has been tempered, in reality because of the sheer amount of unfinished business it is the busiest legislative plan yet attempted in the National Assembly. Don’t believe the non-hype.