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Economy And Family At Top Of Queen's Speech
The Queen's Speech has identified how the Government hopes to focus on economic reforms and family-friendly policies in the year ahead.
Addressing MPs and peers, Her Majesty said measures would be taken to improve the regulation of banks, while reforms to the Enterprise Bill will make life easier for businesses.
The Queen opened her 69th Speech by saying it would be ministers' "first priority... to reduce the deficit and restore economic stability".
She went on to talk about voter-friendly measures, such as improving the lives of children and families.
"My Government will propose measures to improve provision for disabled children with special educational needs.
"New arrangements will be proposed to support children involved in family law cases, reform court processes for children in care and strengthen the role of the Children's Commissioner.
"Measures will be proposed to make parental leave more flexible so both parents may share parenting responsibilities and balance work and family commitments."
After last week's drubbing by Labour in the local government elections, both Conservative and Lib Dem ministers are hoping the Speech will relaunch the coalition Government.
So the aim is to promote a series of voter-friendly measures, such as curbing electricity prices and protecting farmers and grocers from rip-offs by big supermarket chains.
As expected the Queen also said the Bill to reform the House of Lords would be brought forward - despite a Tory backbench revolt.
The Government will also push ahead with the introduction of controversial new surveillance methods that will give authorities access to communications data under strict safeguards.
"My Government will introduce legislation to strengthen oversight of the security and intelligence agencies," the Queen said.
"This will also allow courts, through the limited use of closed proceedings, to hear a greater range of evidence in national security cases.
"My Government intends to bring forward measures to maintain the ability of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access vital communications data under strict safeguards to protect the public, subject to scrutiny of draft clauses."
She finished on a lighter note, detailing her plans for the coming months.
"In the year of the Diamond Jubilee, Prince Philip and I will continue to take part in celebrations across the United Kingdom.
"The Prince of Wales and other members of my family are travelling widely to take part in festivities throughout the Commonwealth.
"Prince Philip and I look forward to the London Olympic and Paralympic Games and to welcoming visitors from around the world to London and venues throughout the country."
Some bitterly controversial proposals did not feature in the Queen's Speech, however.
Legislation on high speed rail, fiercely opposed by many Conservative MPs whose constituencies will be affected, will be introduced next year, as was always planned.
And a law on gay marriage, strongly backed by David Cameron and George Osborne but bitterly opposed by many Conservative MPs, will also come later, since it is still at the consultation stage.
In the Commons clash between the party leaders after the Queen's Speech, Ed Miliband is expected to claim that voters in the UK have had enough of austerity, just like those in France.
Comment
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Comment by Ms.Dalla Mae Isaac Matlock on May 9, 2012 at 3:57pm -
Euro and CFA: Hanging in the Balance?he euro zone continues to falter as uncertainties surrounding the fiscal actions of Greece and Italy, skyrocketing unemployment figures and living costs lead to an even gloomier prediction. Conversely, most African economies are increasingly recording impressive growth rates in GDP and in other yardsticks.
One sore point of convergence in the Euro-Africa recession and growth dichotomy, however, is the Franc Zone. That is, those former French colonies still under the economic protection of France as evidenced by their use of the CFA franc as a unifying currency. While the rest of sub-Saharan African countries have in recent times recorded between 5 – 11% growth rates, the CFA franc zone has lagged behind at 2 – 3% and even less.
The CFA originally meant Colonies Francais d’Afrique or French Colonies of Africa and as the name implies was the currency imposed upon France’s colonies at the end of WWII. Several years after Independence, the name CFA has remained and only seemingly amended to now mean Communaute Financiere Africaine, or the African Financial Community.
In practical terms, and apart from the mere exchange of the wordings of the letters C and F, not much has changed in the operating system of the CFA franc. From creation until present times, the CFA franc exchange rate was fixed and pegged to the French Franc, until France pledged allegiance to the European Union. France immediately transferred the loyalty of her franc zone protectorates by pegging the fixed exchange rate of the CFA franc to the Euro.
The reason for the creation of the CFA in 1945 remains the motive behind its enthronement in French West and Central Africa till date. WWII had bastardized the French economy leaving the French franc seriously devalued. The French Treasury came up with the idea that it would make sound economic sense to create a separate currency for its colonies. A currency that will be of a higher value than the valueless French franc will yield much returns to French exports of manufactures to the colonies, and increase the profits accruable to the numerous French companies operating in the colonies. Couching this far-from-altruistic action in the usual colonial humanitarian rhetoric, Rene Pleven, French Finance Minister announced that “in a show of her generosity and selflessness, metropolitan France, wishing not to impose on her far-away daughters the consequences of her own poverty, is setting different exchange rates for their currency.”
Over the decades that followed, the CFA franc was variously unilaterally devalued by France, the latest being in 1994. With the switch of allegiance to the Euro in 1998, the CFA franc now became intertwined with the ups and downs of the Euro currency.
France continues to gain overwhelmingly from the continued existence of the CFA franc. French companies still make-up the greatest share of the private sector of the franc zones, and are awarded most public contracts. The CFA fixed exchange rate, pegged to the Euro and overvalued, makes it possible for these French companies to be shielded from the Euro depreciation. As the CFA franc is overvalued, franc zone countries are at best incapacitated in their ability to build home grown industries to compete effectively with their French counterparts. This is made worse by the fact that the French Treasury mandates all countries using the CFA franc to remit 50% of their foreign exchange reserves to France.
When viewed from the lenses of the prevailing international monetary conventions, the continued pegging of the CFA franc fixed exchange rate to the Euro smacks of double standards. The United States has consistently chided China for pegging its currency to the dollar, declaring it a practice that destabilizes the global trading arrangement. The United States has however ignored France and the EU’s pegging of the CFA franc fixed exchange rate to the Euro.
With its December 2011 front cover “Africa Rising,” The Economist retracted its May 2000 cover story, “Africa, the Hopeless Continent.” The revered international magazine came rather late, to recognize and extol the growth of businesses, investment opportunities and a conducive transactional climate in Africa. But the magazine forgot or ignored the fact that almost the whole franc zone has remained stagnant and exempt from this surprising and celebrated turn in Africa’s economic situation. The CFA franc domination of French West and Central Africa has all but ostracized the countries involved from the increasing intra-African trade and economic buoyancy.
Apart from the grave and debilitating social-psychological effect of continued dependence on one’s former and current exploiter for economic sustenance, the seemingly intractable Euro zone crises has made the franc zone a misnomer amidst sub-Saharan Africa’s exponential progress.
For the fourteen CFA franc zone countries to record success like the rest of Africa, they must resolve to collectively take a decisive action against one of the major sources of their continued economic backwardness, the CFA franc. But that would almost amount to handing the franc zone a gun to hunt in a forest filled with lions or choose starvation instead.
France is feared in the CFA zone. Severe and deadly covert manipulations aside, France holds enormous political influence over its former territories and has made it clear in the past that it would employ whatever means possible to maintain the status quo.
But in the face of starvation, the franc zone must realize that death must come one way or the other and it is only wise to die hunting for food than to die avoiding death. What the zone needs is enormous political will, the kind exercised by President Kagame of Rwanda when he booted France out, changed the official language from French to English and joined the Commonwealth. This kind of political will calls for radical actions on the part of the franc zone, specifically, a coup against the CFA by the issuance. Make no mistake about it; France will fight like a wounded lion. The franc zone is its last hope in terms of economic returns and exploitation. But there seems to be no easy way out for the franc zone, they must unite and fight to take back their currency, their future and their lives.
By Chika Ezeanya
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Comment by Ms.Dalla Mae Isaac Matlock on May 9, 2012 at 1:42pm
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Elections in France and Greece yesterday did not just bring down the incumbent governments in these two countries. They also mean the return of insecurity to the eurozone.
In France, the election winner, socialist François Hollande, campaigned on the promise to put an end to the dictate of austerity, prescribed under Germany’s leadership as a cure to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. In Greece, the two main parties, the socialist Pasok and the conservative New Democracy, will not be able to continue their governing coalition without the inclusion of smaller parties, who have announced their intentions to renegotiate the conditions for the bailout package which keeps Greece from defaulting on its public debts.
Observers in Germany see the election results in France and Greece as a refusal of the voters to follow the course of categorical austerity, hammered out in month-long, painful negotiations between eurozone leaders.
“There are hard times ahead for the euro and for European markets,” says Anastasios Papakostas, chief economist at K&P Invest, a Frankfurt-based consultancy firm . “We have just experienced a massive shift to the left in European politics, and that means re-negotiating the deals and agreements which were meant to solve the eurozone debt crisis.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, seen as the main driving force behind the eurozone’s austerity program, was quick to reject any suggestions for a change of course.
“The fiscal compact is not negotiable,” she said in a press conference this morning, referring to the treaty that was signed by most EU members in March and which obliges member states to have a balanced budget. The Chancellor conceded that growth in Europe was necessary, but added that it should not come at the cost of new debts.
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Comment by Ms.Dalla Mae Isaac Matlock on May 9, 2012 at 1:16pm
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FTSE 100 5,484.06 
-70.49-1.27% DAX 6,414.30 -30.44-0.47% CAC 40 3,089.38 -35.42-1.13% TR EUROPE 120.74 -2.22-1.81%
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Comment by Ms.Dalla Mae Isaac Matlock on May 9, 2012 at 12:55pm
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UK risks longer recession as retail, jobs data weigh..........
Retail sales fell at their fastest rate in more than a year in April and jobs growth slowed, nudging the economy closer to a third quarter of contraction and raising the chance of another cash boost from the central bank.
The gloomy figures also threw the spotlight on a government pledge to see through unpopular austerity measures after the two parties in the ruling centre-right coalition performed poorly in local elections, reflecting voters' concerns about rising prices, meagre wage growth and job insecurity.
FREE GUIDES AND REPORTS FROM DIANOMIADVERTISEMENTThe Bank of England will have to weigh the latest signs of economic weakness - as well as renewed turmoil in the euro zone - against stubbornly high inflation when it decides on Thursday whether to give Britain another dose of monetary stimulus to counter the recession.
The British Retail Consortium said on Wednesday that sales at stores open for at least a year fell 3.3 percent in value terms compared with April 2011, after a 1.3 percent rise in March.
The reading, the weakest since March last year, was well short of forecasts for a 0.5 percent increase.
Although retailers' takings were squeezed by rainy and cold weather, the poor returns will make it harder for the economy to eke out growth in the second quarter after it shrank between last October and March.
Meanwhile, the number of people placed in permanent jobs rose at the slowest pace since January, a survey for consultancy KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) - which represents recruitment agencies - showed.
The REC's monthly index ticked down to 51.9 from 52.4 in March, with readings above 50 indicating growth.
Deutsche Bank economist George Buckley said the BRC survey and the softer labour market highlighted the risks to his view that the Bank would not extend its quantitative easing programme of asset purchases on Thursday.
TOUCH AND GO
Both readings suggested the economy remains fragile and vulnerable to further shocks, including risks from the political upheavals threatening to halt the euro zone's slow march towards recovery.
But the turmoil in Europe - where concerns are rising that Greece may be forced to leave the euro zone - also gave the government's tough debt management programme a boost as it kept the country's borrowing costs at ultra-low levels.
An auction of 30-year bonds drew strong demand on Wednesday as investors sought a safe haven away from the common currency, and yields on 10-year gilts hit a record low.
BRC Director General Stephen Robertson said the wettest April in Britain since records began had hurt sales of summer clothing and outdoor products, while a long Easter weekend early in the month meant some Easter shopping was shifted into March.
Shopping in March received an extra boost from unusually warm weather, which contributed to the biggest increase in retail sales in more than a year, according to the latest Office for National Statistics figures.
"It would have been difficult for this April to outperform April 2011 even with favourable weather, but these numbers are still disappointing," Robertson said.
"April last year was boosted by the royal wedding and the accompanying extra day off for people to shop or celebrate."
But some retailers had cause for celebration.
J Sainsbury, Britain's No. 3 grocer, posted higher annual profits as it lured cash-strapped shoppers to its cheaper own-brand ranges and tapped into growth areas like convenience stores and internet shopping.
For the economy, the picture for the coming months looks mixed.
A poll by the Confederation of British Industry showed late last month that British retailers reported the best outlook for the following month's sales in more than a year.
Jobseekers may also fare better as, according to the REC/KPMG data, in April overall vacancies maintained the pace of growth recorded in March - the strongest since July.
But April surveys of purchasing managers showed slowing growth across Britain's services, manufacturing and construction sectors.
(Editing by John Stonestreet)
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