LyrArc Article Gist
Britain's Office of National Statistics said that GDP declined by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2012 from the prior quarter. GDP declined by 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2011. This means Britain is officially in a recession, with two consecutive quarters of negative growth. The ONS said GDP was 4.3% below its precrisis peak in the first quarter of 2008. The UK registered growth of a mere 0.4% since the coalition government of David Cameron took over in May 2010. This presents problems for prime minister Cameron in tackling the UK deficit. It also shows how difficult it will be for EU countries to address their deficits without economic growth. This has come into increasing focus with recent events in the Netherlands with the collapse of the government and upcoming elections on the issue of austerity cuts, and in France with the presidential elections and the swing to parties questioning austerity measures without economic growth.

LyrArc Article Gist
Britain's National Health Service IT initiative failed because of a top down emphasis and focus on procurement. The project was started by Labor in 2002 and budgeted for 12 billion pounds. Lohr talks with Dr. David Brailer, and Dr. David Blumenthal, who headed the program for health IT in the Bush and Obama administrations, and with Richard Alvarez of Canada Health Infoway, which is the nonprofit corporation setup for conversion to electronic health records in Canada. Dr Brailer says the program in the UK was forced top down on doctors and nurses, and seen as a procurement program, ignoring the human aspects related to doctor preferences. Dr. Blumenthal empasized the need for collaborative effort all the way with doctors and nurses in a program of this kind. The confrontation that resulted from the lack of participation by health care professionals led to failure. Britain's new Cameron government ended the program.

LyrArc Article Gist
The general elections of 2015 show a nation divided, with Labor strong in the north of England and the Midlands, the conservatives in the south of England, the SNP in Scotland, and the UKIP competing for votes with Labor in the north of England. The election also raised questions about seats and representation in the voting system when SNP gained 56 seats with 1.5 million votes, half the votes cast for UKIP, and UKIP gaining only 1 seat. The Conservatives won a majority of the seats, 330 seats with a third of the popular votes. Voters distrusted both the Conservatives and the Labor party but distrusted Labor more, says Malik, and decided to stay with the Conservatives. Malik reminds readers that as late as 1992, Conservatives won a third of the popular vote in Scotland, and close to half of the votes till the 1950's. Now there is only one Conservative member of parliament from Scotland. Labor suffered a severe defeat in its base in Scotland with the SNP gaining 56 of 59 seats. Labor also lost the seat that was previously held by former prime minister Gordon Brown. On the EU the election promise of prime minister Cameron to hold a referendum on Britain staying in the EU in 2017, creates more uncertainty. David Cameron put the situation in the right words- " I want to reclaim the mantle that we should never have lost, the mantle of one nation, one United Kingdom....

LyrArc Article Gist
David Cameron and his efforts to reshape the Conservative Party and its policies and win the hearts and minds of the English people.

LyrArc Article Gist
Areas in which David Cameron shares the same thinking as Barrack Obama are generating green technology jobs, the importance of the voluntary sector and families all doing their bit so that its not just government that will be doing things. "That society should bring about change, not just government." He diagrees with Obama on the Stimulus and believes that the situation in Britain with the government borrowing 10% of national output already makes it difficult to have an extra discretionary stimulus without people losing confidence in then nation's finances. He makes some other points. Britain needs amore balanced economy so that it is not so reliant on financial services. And in Europe as awhole he says its important to deal with the huge dependence on welfare which is a drag on the economies of Europe. This has to be seen in the light of the huge emphasis placed by recent Labor governments on rebuilding the health and human serivces and infrastructure of Britain. In this crisis the social safety net provided by these services may be the reason that asmaller stimulus is needed in Europe. He talks of capitalism with a conscience, where markets are amean not an end to themselves and morality, ethics and asense of values are brough to bear at every turn. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Prime minister Cameron's visits following the general election to the Hague, Netherlands, and Paris, France, to discuss changes in the EU to accomodate Britain.

LyrArc Article Gist
In his annual budget speech to Parliament, chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, said things are much worse than appeared 5 months ago. Britain will have to borrow 57 billion more pounds, and the budget deficit is to reach 175 billion pounds or $255 billion. The British economy will shrink 3.5% thisyear instead of the 1.25 percent predicted in November, 2008 This is the highest deficit of any nation in the G-20. Britain's net borrowing is exppected to reach 11.9 percent of GDPin 2010, and finances can't be balanced before 2016. In March 73,000 jobs were lost for a total unemployed of 1.46 million. With smaller numbers of people paying income taxes, and smaller corporate tax revenues, the revenues are just not there for Britain to spend heavily to make its way out of this recession. The renewable energy projects like wind farms and biotechnology are small, and shows the government has difficulty paying for larger programs. In an effort to increase revenures the government imposed a tax of 50%, up from the current 40%, on individuals earning more than 150,000 pounds, which was promptly criticized by the British Chambers of Commerce as a disincentive to bring talent to London as a world financial center. Darling also added acar-scrapping scheme like the one in Germany. Opposition leader David Cameron said in Parliament "everyone can see the utter mess this government made of the British economy. Our children will be in poverty for decades." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
David Cameron's standing with the British public is hurt by the phone hacking scandal and his close ties with News International's Coulson and Rebecca Brooks. This has boosted the standing of Labor party leader Ed Miliband. Miliband said in an intervew with the Observer newspaper: "I think that we've got to look at the situation whereby one person can own more than 20% of the newspaper market, the Sky platform and Sky News. I think it's unhealthy because that amount of power in one person's hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organization." Miliband has called for the breakup of Rupert Murdoch's media holdings, saying News Corporation "has too much power over British public life." He told the Observer he would work to get a cross-party agreement on new rules governing media ownership that would reduce market share of News Corporation.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Leveson Report on newspaper ethics and practices in Britain calls for a parliamentary statute to support a new body to replace existing self-regulation efforts. The Press Complaints Commission would be replaced with a new body with tougher investigative powers and independent of newspaper influence, and fines ranging upto 1.6 million pounds.

LyrArc Article Gist
Who should lead the Conservative Party in 2016 till the next elections in 2020? The Economist magazine says strong negotiating skills and stamina are needed, and on this point it says Theresa May, Home Secretary, does better than former Energy minister, Andrea Leadsom, who has not done such tough negotiating and is not so well known as May. May had the support of 199 members of parliament to 84 for Leadsom, whose experience is less and was junior Treasury minister in prior position compared to May's 6 years in the position of Home Secretary handling immigration issues. Being an ardent Brexiter Leadsom has an advantage with Brexit supporters, though May handled her Brexit Remain position in a low key way and can appeal to both sides of the Conservative party. The result will come from a postal ballot to 150,000 members of the Conservative Party.

LyrArc Article Gist
As the deadline of July 22 approaches for the 160,000 members of the UK Conservative Party to elect a leader, former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and the current Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt are running for the leadership position. Boris Johnson has 68% member support with Hunt at 23%, according to YouGov survey. Both candidates are in favor of Britain leaving the European Union without an agreement. Hunt has stated he would cancel leave for Britain's 16,000 civil servants in August to prepare for the departure of Britain from the EU by October 31.  Only 27% of Conservative Party members believe Mr. Hunt can do the preparation needed for an abrupt exit after 45 years of economic integration with the European Union. By contrast 90% of members think Johnson would do the preparation needed. Preparation is needed because of food and medical supplies trucks and in flights awaiting customs at border points. The result could be chaotic without adequate preparation. Under a Johnson government many ministers would leave the government including Mr. Hammond who runs the finance ministry. He is expected to join rebel ranks in the Conservative Party that does not think an abrupt exit like this is good for Britain. If these members in the House of Commons join Labour party members they could vote to block this from happening. Britain's opposition Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn has finally decided to call for a second referendum if Johnson pushes to leave the EU abruptly, and to campaign wholeheartedly this time for staying inside the EU. During the last referendum Labour leaders did not push hard for Remain, and David Cameron as prime minister and head of the Conservatives proved to be a weak and ineffective leader using the promise of a referendum as a ploy to win votes for the Conservatives in an earlier election and then finding himself stuck with promises made in the election with his party's right wing led by Johnson. Years of austerity policies promoted by Germany in the EU after a flawed entry of southern European countries with faulty not transparent finances such as Greece too early  into the eurozone had soured Britons on the EU. The friendly migration policies of German leader Merkel for economic as well as war torn country migrants from North Africa finally not just soured Germans on Merkel policies but also soured British working class families struggling to make ends meet and seeing migration as taking British resources that were needed at home. This has split most of Europe including Britain along lines of the major cities and the rural areas plus smaller towns, and in Eastern Europe, East Germany region along the lines of the old Soviet bloc countries which with deeply conservative thinking do not favor such migration policies. These divisive changes have taken place over along period of decades and will take time to heal through economic recovery and a fairer distribution of wealth, better investment in infrastructure, health, education, public services, neglected during the Tech driven flawed investment diversion of economic resources. Yet the hope of this type of change if grasped by Britons as well as Europeans could bring new life and revive the vision of a Europe with shared benefits for all Europeans, not just a French-German project. For this to happen new leaders have to rise to the challenge inside Britain and the rest of Europe.      ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This article in the Economist points out that 84% of Britons want the 3.5 million existing immigrants to stay in Britain, even though the government of Theresa May has not given a clear commitment. May wants a reciprocal commitment for 1.2 million Britons living abroad in the EU. In 2015 330,000 immigrants came to Britain, with close to half from the EU. The Conservative government has not been able to reduce the number- a result for the most part from 10 Eastern European countries entering the EU in 2004 and 2007, says the Economist. Brexit negotiations are not likely to lead to results in migration partly because of the long negotiations with the European Union needed for changes. Other issues are that the food processing, farming and hospitality industries need low cost labor from Eastern Europe.

LyrArc Article Gist
George Osborne of the Conservative Party on Britain's finances, with deficit at 13% of GDP in 2009 and debt expected to reach 100% of GDP in 2014, says Britain has borrowed too much and is sinking in a sea of debt. His program points to tax cuts for Britain's financial district as he says everyone is being asked to sacrifice so much. It also means cutting spending on social services and public sector wage freezes.