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?

Tax and spend: the weather starts to change

This blog by Iain Martin on Three Line Whip is very interesting in the conclusion it reaches that the public's apparent "views on tax and spending are undergoing a transformation and new attitudes are being forged in the furnace of financial crisis". This follows the latest ComRes's poll where they asked those polled how they would vote if the Tories advocated at an election a lower level of public spending than Labour and said "they would try not to raise taxes". Up rockets the Tory lead to 17 points (49-32-11).

I wrote something similar following an Ipsos MORI poll result back in September when the Conservatives breached the 50% barrier for the first time since Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. "The key point.... is that by adopting a tax cutting agenda, coupled with talk of reducing public spending, he (Nick Clegg, Leader of the LibDems) has opened the door for the Conservatives to speak more openly about their economic programme without being accused of wanting to "slash and burn" the public sector."

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, when taken at the flood, leads on to greater things", to probably misquote the Bard (and split the infinitive)!

Can the Conservatives float the boat of public opinion and take advantage of this rising tide in their favour? Yes they can!

How to defend a wafer thin majority - Labour style

The Daily Telegraph reports that "A certain Richard Timney has taken to writing letters to his local newspaper, the Redditch Advertiser, extolling the virtues of the constituency MP, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary. Mr Timney's epistolary forays also extend to defending controversial policies such as ID cards and to launching vigorous attacks on the Conservatives. Well, it's a free country and lively political letters are meat and drink to local newspapers.

"It's just that Mr Timney also happens to be not only the Home Secretary's husband, but also her £40,000 a year 'senior researcher/parliamentary assistant'. What a perfect parable of New Labour. It combines jobs for the boys with taxpayer-funded party propaganda, all conducted in a not entirely transparent way. Alastair Campbell would approve."

Couldn't have put it better myself - although I did point out back in July that she is unlikely to get re-elected.

Gordon's housing bubble - just more hot air?

OK, the photo may give you a clue but who do you think said this in October 2005?

"We will have the strength and resolution to take the right long-term economic decisions too.

"Why has it been that at every point since 1997 faced with the Asian crisis, the IT collapse, a stock exchange crash, an American recession, last year a house price bubble, this year rising world oil prices, why has it been that at every point since 1997 Britain uniquely has continued to grow?

"In any other decade, a house price bubble would have pushed Britain from boom to bust.

"In any other decade, a doubling of oil prices would have put Britain first in last out and worst hit by a world downturn.

"I tell you, it is because with Bank of England independence, cutting debt, fiscal discipline and the New Deal this Labour government has shown the strength to take the tough long-term decisions, that inflation is low, interest rates are low, growth has been sustained in every year, and we are closer than ever to the goal which drives us forward: the goal of full employment for our generation.

"Labour, the natural party for economic strength in our country today."

This is the man who has told us that he had brought an end to boom and bust. This is the man who told us that the UK was best placed to weather a global economic meltdown. This is the man who has lied to us for the last 12 years about the economic miracle he has claimed to bring about.

The full video can been seen here on the BBC site. The bubble section is about 5 minutes and 20 seconds in. (Warning: the link is a bit wonky but persevere!)

How confident do you feel in his hands now?

Fred tells it like it is!

You have to watch the video clip on Guy Fawkes' blog. It beautifully encapsulates how Brown's government will be seen as the sky falls in on the British economy.

Obama says "yes we can" - as his country's economy falls apart. Brown says "we are best placed to weather the economic storm" - as unemployment heads to record levels.

Who are these people trying to fool? This recession will take years to resolve. There is a lot of pain ahead.