Silly cow!

That useless Jaqui Smith has been trying to convince the population of Manchester that ID cards will give them - and, in particular, young people - greater protection in the future. "The cards, which will contain details of a person's fingerprints, National Insurance number and address, will then be offered to the rest of the population from 2011."

No they won't. They will be a total waste of taxpayers' money and they will never happen anyway because there will not be a Labour government in 2011. In fact, Jacqui Smith will not be an MP at that time as she will have been kicked out of office on the back of the Brown implosion that is about to happen!

Is Labour about to create a new generation of council-owned ghettoes?

There is a fascinating article in The Times today. It claims that "Gordon Brown orders thousands of new council houses - (the) biggest building programme since the 1950s"

Interestingly, it seems that "Mr Brown has the support of Margaret Beckett, the Housing Minister, in pushing through new regulations.....but Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, is said to be resisting proposals that could add billions of pounds to public debt."

Good for Alistair, I say. This another example of the muddled and ill-thought out initiatives that Brown seems to spout every time he opens his mouth these days.

Who still votes Labour?

ConservativeHome are reporting another YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph tomorrow that shows the Conservatives in an 11% lead. The results are as follows:

Conservatives - 43%
Labour - 32%
Lib Dems - 16%

Looks like the lead is established for the Conservatives but should there be a concern that it is not rising towards 50%?

"Only the market can save us from the crisis"

Great article in the Telegraph yesterday by Sir Terry Leahy, chief executive of Tesco on the need for governments around the world to avoid actions that would impede free trade.

You should read it yourself but this section jumped out at me:

"Siren voices, calling for ever more regulation and intervention, must be ignored. That way lies the rocks, and the reason is simple enough. The more we regulate business, and the more that a government spends, the greater the burdens on the private sector – companies of all sizes that employ many millions of people, and whose taxes pay for public services. The higher those taxes are, the less there is for companies to invest, the fewer jobs they can create, the longer and darker the recession will be."

Lord Turner: new international standards on finance would have made little difference

Interesting little snippet via the FT Westminster blog suggesting that Lord (Adair) Turner, chair of the Financial Services Authority, believes:

"...international standards and better co-ordination would have made little difference to the course of the credit crisis. It would not have improved the Federal Reserve’s regulation of Citigroup or the FSA’s regulation of Northern Rock."

This is despite the fact that Gordon Brown has made huge political capital out of his desire to reform the international system of bank regulation. He has regularly implied this could have prevented the downturn... and it was something he has been arguing for (apparently) for over a decade.

Apparently, No 10 responded by saying the PM had actually said: "we did need better global co-operation".

So no disagreement there, then?

That call from Obama

Nice little spoof from the new blogger, Events dear boy, events.., where he imagines what the President said to the "saviour of the world" (ie Gordon Brown).

Particularly liked this bit:

"BO: I thought I should tell you that my economic team have been in touch with someone called George Osborne. He has come up with some good ideas that we may take on board. Do you know him?

GB: (trying to control his emotions). Slightly, but we will give you all the…"

Very promising stuff.

"Glumdog in Despair"

Can't resist pinching this from Guido Fawkes.

This is an extract of an exchange between Alan Duncan and Harriet Harman earlier today:

It would appear that the Prime Minister has lost confidence in his own Cabinet and, it would seem, even in himself. He has complained that his Cabinet members are ducking interviews and leaving him to look like the Minister for the recession, yet today, curiously, we have learned that Labour MPs have been instructed by the Whips not to talk about the economy at all. So who is going to win the parliamentary BAFTAs—the “Glumdog in Despair” in Downing street or the Basil Fawltys on the Back Benches shouting, “Don’t mention the recession”? Put simply, when is this country going to get honesty from the Prime Minister about the severity of our plight?

Absolutely brilliant!

I agree with Hitler - XP was better than Vista!

Inflation targeting has been a failure

Fraser Nelson, on the Coffee House blog, has written an impressive piece explaining why Gordon Brown, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was wrong to pursue his strategy
of inflation targeting. His central argument, as I understand it, is that "....inflation targeting was right for the 1990s when the Tories introduced it. But it was wrong after 2000. And it was Brown's arrogant belief that he had cracked it, found the philosophers' (or economists') stone, that inflation targeting was the be-all-and-end-all, that led us into the economic calamity now unfolding."

As someone who was very sceptical at the time Brown made the Bank of England "independent" and who was concerned that we were returning to a "one club" economic policy similar to Nigel Lawson's reliance on linking sterling to the value of the deutchmark in the late 1980s, Fraser's conclusion makes me think my gut instinct was right:

"So this wasn't "market failure" as Brown pretends, but government failure - the failure of government to regulate the supply of money. The same basic failure that lay behind the entirely avoidable 1930s depression. Truth is that the BoE had the wrong instructions: inflation targeting was right for the 1990s when the Tories introduced it. But it was wrong after 2000. And it was Brown's arrogant belief that he had cracked it, found the philosophers' (or economists') stone, that inflation targeting was the be-all-and-end-all, that led us into the economic calamity now unfolding."

The tragedy is that the damage that Brown (once hailed as the greatest Chancellor of the Exchequer for 250 years) and his supporters have done to the country will take many years to reverse.

Another example of Brown's boom and bust

As Guido Fawkes puts it: "He plundered your pension than Crash Gordon worked his magic on the stock market. To mis-quote Neil Kinnock, "I warn you: don't get old, don't invest your pension in the stock market". One long Tory boom, two Labour "boom to busts"...

One of his many commenters said: "The shape of the graph in the 'Bust' is exactly that - and a couple of photos of tits underneath for good measure." Priceless!

(NB: Click to enlarge graph)

Are "warmists" alarmists?

As a confirmed doubter about the "truth" of so-called anthropogenic warming of the planet myself, I was interested to read the ever vigilant co-conspirator Christopher Booker's article in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph.

"The vast mass of Antarctica, all satellite evidence has shown, has been getting colder over the past 30 years. Last year's sea-ice cover was 30 per cent above average."

I know it's not popular to say this but why the f**k do we continue to bang on about global warming being a man-made phenomenon? I wrote this blog last year about James Lovelock, (pictured) the man who developed the "Gaia" theory that the Earth is a living organism with self-healing powers that, for the most part, are beyond the power of us humans to control.

It was interesting to watch the "Explorer" programme on BBC2 last night which had a segment on a glacier in Argentina that refuses to conform to the stereotype of the IPCC reports that are pumped out regularly by the lazy media. (In fact, it was film of this glacier "calving" into the sea that had been used by Al Gore in his infamous film despite the fact that it had not reduced in size for any time that it has been measured in the past 18 years. On the other hand, we were told about another glacier that has shrunk by a kilometre in the last four years. OK, but why the difference in the two?)

I'm all in favour of conserving resources, re-cycling and cutting energy consumption but please don't try to convince me that the world will come to an end if I don't pay more taxes. My children and yours have enough to worry about as a result of the disastrous Labour government's mismanagement of our economy

Mandelson is an alien life form!

By George, Labour has no backbone!

"When these invertebrates are booted out of office, they will have no one to blame but themselves."

Who said this? Some ranting right-wing blogger? The German finance minister? The Duke of Edinburgh? (OK, the last one was just one of my fantasies!)

No, it was that uber-greenist and leftie George Monbiot! He who opposes the third runway at Heathrow (amongst many other things) and suggests that many people will vote Conservatives at the next election purely to ensure it doesn't go ahead.

I just hope he is right.

Beware of false gods!

hattip: Paul Linford

The Stig exposed?

It can't be true, can it? The Stig's identity has been outed according to Cato's blog.

If this report in the Daily Mail is right then the mystique that the Top Gear "franchise" has built up over the years is shattered. What a shame.

Diablo is now Ted Foan

The next stage of the "re-making of the Diablo blog" - thanks Mr President for that phrase - is now (almost) complete. Those of you astute enough will quickly spot that it is simply a change of name.

But, for me, it is more than that. Whilst I have enjoyed using a nomme de plume for the last few years to peddle my views in the blogosphere - not least because I did not want to embarrass my previous employer or, indeed my old colleagues - the time has come to speak in my own name.

It will be interesting to see if anyone actually notices! Even though I seem to have lost a bit of it! Working on getting it back!

Update: Have changed template and found the other bits!

Is this Brown's epitaph?

First it was the gold - now it's the pound sterling!



Remember that it was Rogers (and George Soros) that made so much money out of forcing the UK out of the ERM in 1992. This man knows value when he sees it!

So much for Brown's claim that we are best placed to weather the economic storm. Who will rid us of this man?

Are we killing our soldiers?

It is a while since I posted on the terrible conditions that our armed services, particularly those serving in Afghanistan, are having to face - not least because of the way they are supplied with inappropriate equipment.

Now, we are told by the head of the army - General Sir Richard Dannatt - that "soldiers ...the strain they and their families were under was 'unacceptable'. We have seriously stretched our soldiers to the very limit. Many families and marriages have unfortunately fallen victim to the relentless pace of operations."

When are Brown and this failed government going to realise that there is just so much that the military will stand?

What's to hide, Harriet?

As instructed by Iain Dale, I'm publishing this blog to show unity with all other right-minded people (and I don't mean right leaning people on this occasion) who abhor the action taken by Harriet Harman, the Leader of the House of Commons to prevent it being a requirement that MPs (and peers) should provide (and publish) receipts to back up their claims for expenses.

Frankly, I have always found it amazing that they are allowed to claim expenses for anything without a receipt. In the forty years or so of my working life I was never paid a penny by my employers unless I could substantiate it with a written record in some form or another. OK, sometimes there were occasions when it was possible to claim a standard subsistence rate for an over night stay and I stayed in a cheaper B&B or with friends. But I was not breaking any rules and it usually meant I spent the "profit" on a better meal or in the bar or buying my friends a take-away or a few bottles of wine.

It'll be interesting to see if the vote on Thursday supports the Harridan's view.

Is this a trend?

The Ipsos Mori poll tonight is the third in a row that show's a significant shift back to the Conservatives. The figures (with the change from the last poll in brackets) are CON 44%(+5), LAB 30%(-5), LDEM% 17%(+2).

This gives David Cameron and his team a 14% lead and puts them back firmly in the mid-forties. Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report writes: "Clearly it shows a very substantial shift in support from Labour to the Conservatives. Normally I’d advise some caution in any poll showing a big switch in voting intention and advise people to wait to see it confirmed in other polls, but in this case, while the extent of the switch in support is rather larger, the trend is the same as we’ve already seen from Populus, YouGov and ComRes. The boost in Labour support we saw last year appears to have gone into a sharp reverse."

What's your maths like?

I only ask because, having read this piece by Jim Pickard on the FT Westminster blog, and tried to understand the responses to it, I am still completely at a loss to comprehend how Brown has contrived to lose yet another £5 billion of taxpayers' money.

Is it another "selling-off-the-gold-at-a-loss" moment or is it just how the arcane rules of re-financing a failed bank work? Either way, Gordon appears to have cocked it up yet again.

Or have the merchant bankers (see photo) conned us again?

Sooty sweeps the board?

I was pleased to note one of the other findings of the YouGov poll in the Sunday Times. The race relations industry seems to be no more than another glove puppet of the politically correct leftists that have dominated our lives for far too long.

"YouGov also asked a couple of questions about the royal family and racism on the back of the Prince Harry story. A large majority of people backed Harry - 68% agreed with the statement “it was used in a good-natured way and wasn’t racist”, 19% said it was unacceptable. An even larger percentage of respondents - 78% - were unconcerned about Prince Charles calling a friend “Sooty”. 66% of people said the royal family were not racist, 17% thought they were."

Is it about time we are again allowed to tell our kids about the Golliwogs that are still part of the Mexican culture and are sold throughout the world?

Peter Mandelson is a head banger - it's official!

Poor old Peter, brought back into government by Gordon Brown to counter-balance his lack of emotional intelligence (remember his propensity to throw mobile phones against the wall?) now finds himself frustrated with Labour's inability to forge a united front on the third runway at Heathrow. Apparently, the Prince of Darkness was so angry he actually banged his head on the Cabinet Room table.

If tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph report is to be believed ".... an unnamed minister, expressing concerns over the runway, said: 'I realise the point I am making is irrational.'....There was then, sources said, an "audible thump" as Lord Mandelson, an enthusiastic supporter of the project, banged his head on the polished wood of the large, oval table....".

Oh well, never mind. It ain't going to happen anyway if the Conservatives win the next election. The latest YouGov poll in the Sunday Times puts the Conservatives on a 13% lead over Labour and the ComRes poll in the Sunday Independent has them 9% ahead. Both polls represent significant moves back to the Conservatives and suggest that Brown's so-called bounce is about as dead as a dead cat bouncing on a... well, a concrete runway.

Is the third runway the final betrayal?

Well who'd have thought it? George Monbiot says "A Labour government approves the expansion of Heathrow – why, it's almost enough to make you vote Tory."

I hope so. Go on - bite the bullet - you know you want to!

Labour peer not sure about democracy

I had begun to warm to Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Office Minister, over the last few months. He is an experienced operator in the field of diplomacy and speaks with an assuringly moderate tone. He especially impressed during the Burma crisis last year.

However, his reputation has dropped like a stone following this prouncement on Eire's position in relation to the Treaty of Lisbon:

"With 24 countries having approved the treaty, I am not sure whether the voters of Ireland should have a right of veto over the aspirations of all the other people of Europe. I am not sure whether that is, or is not democracy."

Well, Lord Pillock-Brown, I am not sure it is democracy that the British people have been denied the right to vote on whether they wish to approve it despite the Labour government's manifesto expressly promising that a referendum on a new EU Constitution would be held. (OK, tell me it's not a new constitution even though it is 90% the same as the previously proposed constitution that was vetoed by Holland and France!)

The One Show In town?

I was pleasantly impressed by David Cameron's appearance on the BBC's "One Show" last night and thought his willingness to agree that Gordon Brown's favourite recipe was very tasty was very magnaminous of him!

(You will need to fast forward to about 28 minutes or so before you see him pretending to die!)

Good for the Conservatives? I think so.

Labour MPs frightened by David Cameron

Tom Harris, my favourite Labour MP blogger, has stuck his neck out again. This time he is agitated by David Cameron's promise that the number of MPs sitting in the House of Commons would be cut by at least 10% - around 60 seats would disappear.

But dear old Tom Harris, sitting on an 11,000 majority for Glasgow South is not happy. "This kind of promise - like the one made by his predecessor, Michael Howard, before the 2005 election – is lazy and cynical. Also popular, which is why he made it."

Well Tom, we have to ask you what's lazy about looking at the current system and deciding it needs changing? Not just because it has an inbuilt bias for the Labour Party. (That would be cynical - and Labour doesn't do cynical, does it? My arse!)

No, the real reason is that the HoC has been packed with a raft of journeymen (and journeywomen - don't want to offend Harriet!) since 1997 who would better placed to be local councillors and union representatives for the increasing numbers of people in the state sector.

It's time for change. If this country is going survive the Brown-induced recession we need less central government and more people who are capable of dealing with local issues.

Just think how much more efficient the economy would be if half of the current Labour MPs returned to their old jobs after the next general election. I'm sure this would be a very popular change for most of the electorate.

Conservatives take the lead once again

In recent months I have refrained from commenting on opinion poll results but this latest one in the Times is interesting as it appears that the so-called "Brown bounce" has ended.

Early days yet - it may be a rogue poll - or it maybe the start of a trend. But as ConservativeHome reports: "Mr Brown and Mr Cameron are tied on 37 per cent over who is the right leader now to deal with the recession, though the Prime Minister had a 52 to 32 per cent edge only two months ago. Mr Cameron is now ahead by 43 to 31 per cent in leading Britain forward after the next election."

The more voters think of the future, the bigger the Tory majority is likely to be.

Kick out Labour now - before it's too late

This will resonate with a lot of people in the coming months.

Twitter bugs!

I joined up to that Twitter thing too just so I could follow Iain Dale's every word but gave up after a couple of days. Boring!

Obama ain't no clone of Brown!

Fraser Nelson over at the Spectator Coffee House blog exposes the likely strategy that Gordon Brown will employ to convince the poor bloody UK public that he is able to defy gravity by reducing the worst effects of his economic mess and minimise the rise in unemployment by taking exactly the same action that Obama is proposing for the USA.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As Fraser points out: "....Obama is focusing far more on tax cuts than many sceptics (including myself) would have predicted – the scale of them is at least three times bigger than he indicated in his election campaign....Obama seems to be undertaking a fusion of tax cuts and spending splurges, hedging his bets. But his appointments indicate he thinks tax cuts will be more effective measure. He is standing apart from his party, and as a result drawing criticism from the right and the left."

Watch out for lots of Labour spin that Brown is Obama's best friend and they are both singing from the same hymn sheet. You have been warned!

Nasty!

This little vignette from Donal Blaney is typical of the man's humour but leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth!

Preparing for the coming storm

Unlike Gordon Brown who failed to mend the roof in the good times, Diablo (pictured left) has begun working on re-modelling this blog so it will be better placed to add to the assault on this abysmal and failed Labour government over the next few months and drive it out of office. What more noble enterprise can there be?

It might take a little while before you see any significant changes but the new layout is a start. Hang in there! Things can only get better! (As someone once said!)

The truth about Hamas - in their own words

Despite the immense harm and bloodshed that is being inflicted by Israel on the people of the Gaza Strip, this clip is required viewing for anyone in any doubt about the true motivations of Hamas.



You will notice that the Roman Catholic church and its followers get a fairly prominent mention in the long list of "enemies" of Allah. So that's Ireland, Italy, Spain and most of South America that are going to be wiped off the map after Hamas has dealt with Israel.

EU to take "power" from the UK?

Whilst I am not a supporter of UKIP or Nigel Farage, their leader in the EU Parliament, this piece by him is most concerning.



If what he says is true about the Commission trying to 'mutualise' the UK's natural gas and oil supplies under the guise of the yet unratified Treaty of Lisbon then this must surely be the time when we all say "enough is enough".

Sarah Palin - aah! Bless her.

She's a misunderstood lass!

Print - and be damned!

Ruth Lea provides a salutary reminder in this post of just how bad the economic position is for the UK and just how badly placed we are to weather the storm.

She makes the point that "as people in the private sector lose their jobs, the public sector continues to expand. Indeed it is government policy that it should continue to do so – even though the public borrowing figures are appalling and the productivity record in the public sector is frankly disgraceful, thus dragging down the overall performance of the economy.... In the third quarter of 2008 public sector employment rose by 14,000, compared with a fall of 128,000 in the private sector. Given the substantial increase in public sector employment since 1997 (it was 5.2 million in 1997 and is currently nearly 5.8 million), there should surely be room for cost savings and belt-tightening, which could help finance tax cuts and stimulate the wealth-producing private sector. But our Prime Minister doesn’t see it that way."

One of the commenters on Ruth Lea's post (Steve Tierney) makes a telling point: "Could I draw everyone's attention to the 2008 Banking Bill which proposed the abolition of the weekly return: 'Section 6 of the Bank Charter Act 1844 (Bank to produce weekly account) shall cease to have effect'. The effect of this change was essentially to make it unnecessary for the bank to publish details of new printed money. Interesting minor change in the Bank Charter Act that dates back to 1844, isn't it? I wonder why they did it? Hmmmm."

Can you hear the whir of the printing presses?

Time to give George Osborne some credit?

This speech given by George Osborne to Policy Exchange today is one of the clearest examples of the Conservatives detailed responses to the "do-nothing" tag that Brown and his sad band of acolytes have been trying to pin on them.

It's about time that some of the more sensible members of the Labour Party who slavishly follow the Mandelson/Campbell spin to stop and think: "actually, the Conservatives' ideas have the merit of being more likely to shorten the length and reduce the depth of the recession than the current hotch-potch of knee-jerk reactions we've had from Brown and Darling and which are failing to address the central problem of lack of credit in the economy".

Of course, what will happen is that Brown will delay and dither and then pinch the basic ideas and dress them up in other words. But, in the end he will fail yet again to understand the basic principles that underlie them. All he is interested in is his electoral prospects.

Nissan sheds 1200 jobs but you can still get a GCSE with fries

This report by Jim Pickard on the FT.com/Westminster blog contains a quote from that very self-confident John Denham, Secretary of State for Skills only last December: "We know that companies that invest in training are two and a half times more likely to survive a recession than those who don’t. I would urge any company, large or small, which is considering short working to follow the example of Nissan... to talk to their local FE College or LSC to see what training they can offer their staff during downtime. Companies like Nissan...tell me that they can already see improvements in their business as a result of the training.”

Not wishing to minimise the devastating effects that the announcement by Nissan will have on individuals and families in Sunderland and those supplier companies that will be put in jeopardy, I have to say that the Labour Government seems to be more concerned with protecting their electoral prospects by plying the line that the Conservatives did nothing in the early ’90s recession to get people back into jobs.

I was made redundant in that recession and was overwhelmed with the support I was given to get back into work. I had training opportunities coming out of me ears as well as advice about how to 'market' myself and build up a network of contacts. Needless to say I was back in work within a few months with a better salary and a career ladder.

But it must be remembered that a feature of that recession was that there were still major structural changes going on in the old ’smoke stack’ and heavy engineering industries. Now, the world is a very different place and yet it is still necessary for McDonalds to offer so-called “apprenticeships” (at a £1,000 subsidy per employee by the Government) simply to get them through GCSE English and Maths! Why should it be necessary to spend taxpayers' money on giving these young people the education they should have received while at school? Why? Because this Labour Government has created a web of deceit and concealed the truly devastating destruction of our educational system whilst they have been in power.

If there was any justice in the world, Gordon Brown (and Tony Blair) would be swinging on a gibbet in front of the Houses of Parliament whilst the baying mob chant “Education, Education, Education”!

Some day soon that other Labour disaster, Ed Balls, should also be left hanging by a particular part of his anatomy. A bit extreme? So what!

Brown getting ready to print more money?

According to Joe Murphy's blog in the Mail OnLine the Government will print more money if the next drop in interest rates does not work.

'We are looking at the issues,' a senior Treasury source told London's Evening Standard. 'No decisions have been taken.'

Yeah, of course they haven't, Gordon!

Brown drives people out of their homes!

Fantastic! Now local councils are driving families into homelessness by their draconian rules on unpaid council tax at the same time that Gordon Brown makes great play of his efforts to persuade banks to be more lenient on mortgage defaulters.

In this report from the Times which says that "Thousands bankrupted over unpaid council tax" the real incompetence of his government is exposed once again. It is said that pensioners and poor families have had to sell their homes to meet huge legal costs arising from bankruptcy orders that dwarf the original debt.

This is happening under the man who says he is guided by a moral compass. This is the man who claims he gets up every day thinking about how he can help people to weather the economic storm. What kind of world does he live in?