Gordon is as "bogus as a fourpenny bit"!

I have always been a fan of the much-maligned John Major and his article today in The Times reinforces my opinion. His analysis of the wreckage that Gordon Brown has made of the UK economy over the last 11 years is clear and concise.

"In the days of the late-lamented Prudence, the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, promised an end to “boom and bust”. As Prime Minister that promise must haunt Gordon Brown, for he knows that - as Chancellor - he was culpable for the domestic circumstances that contribute to our dire economic plight.....


"Last year, at the Mansion House, the Prime Minister spoke of “an era that history will record as the beginning of a new golden age for the City of London”. Nemesis must have smirked. Within months there was the first run on a UK bank for 100 years, and the collapse of Northern Rock. Since then, the taxpayer has been called upon repeatedly to rescue our once-secure banking system.

"Yet ministers foresaw nothing of what was building up and, to judge by their inaction, understood even less. Their failure to do so is one reason the future is bleak for so many who did not profit from the boom, but will surely suffer from the bust.

"House prices are falling at the fastest rate since records began. Every home is losing value, but the plight of the elderly is especially heart-rending. Many who planned to boost their retirement income by trading down to release a cash nest egg have had their hopes dashed. The soon-to-retire face a double whammy: not only has the value of property fallen, but their pension funds - already weakened by tax levies - have also been cut in value by 30 per cent or more. Hundreds of thousands of elderly people did everything possible - without state benefits - to secure their future. Now, the crisis cut in interest rates is likely to reduce their income even further.

"At the heart of the troubles is debt. Debt has been this Government's biggest growth industry. Annual borrowing - even at the beginning of the recession - is at record levels: no comparable country is in a worse position. When Mr Brown claims that national debt is lower than many such countries, he is being less than candid. He knows he is excluding long-term liabilities such as £100 billion of private finance debt, our unfunded public sector pensions and the debts of Network Rail and Bradford & Bingley. Once these are taken into account, our true debt is nearly three times higher - at a shocking £76,000 for every household. The figures the Government uses to reject the charge of financial incontinence are as bogus as a fourpenny bit."


How can the British people trust or rely on Gordon Brown to get them out of the hole he has dug for us?

UPDATE: This article by Jeff Randall in The Daily Telegraph on 14/11/08 shows why Major is so right.

The ignorance of lemming-like Labour MPs

It's probably unfair to single out this post by Tom Harris MP on his eccentric blog to illustrate the ignorance of the foot soldiers of the Labour Party - or is it the blind obedience of lemmings falling over the cliff? - but I'm going to do it anyway!

There’s a certain kind of smugness and self-satisfaction about Harris's post that makes me feel quite queasy about the way Labour regard their electoral prospects. They think that by continually harking back to events of the 1980s and early 1990s they can discredit and ridicule any new ideas that the Conservatives put forward to the electorate. This type of spinning and Mandelsonesque manipulation of the facts may have worked pre-1997 but it is well past its sell-by-date. But this is all they have left in their armoury after 11 years.

The Great Leader and his acolytes are the ones who have been responsible for the disastrous economic mess that we find ourselves in - note, I didn’t say Gordon Brown has caused it but certainly his policies over the last 11 years have put the UK in the worst possible position to deal with it.

The only defence Labour appears to have is to say that nearly 30 years ago when the Tories came into power faced with the economy wrecked by a Labour government in only five years of power is that unemployment touched nearly 3 million. Since they came back in 1997 they have squandered all those hard won improvements of the ’80s and ’90s by an irresponsible tax and spend policy.

Now we have the former “prudent” Chancellor - the king of the stealth tax - with his “golden rules” - the man who claims to have reduced the national debt - telling us it is “the right thing to do” to borrow even more in order to make some relatively small and misdirected tax reductions. Some say this will end up with the taxpayer being lumbered with well over £100 billion to be paid back over the lifetime of our children and grandchildren.

Oh bliss! What irony! The man who told us he would only ever borrow to “invest” over an economic cycle to maintain economic stability. The man who told us we were best placed to weather this global crisis is now claiming to have the blueprint that the rest of the world should follow.

It is fairly likely that the number of unemployed in the UK will reach 2 million in the next few months and be possibly over 3 million withn the next year. I suppose, to be even more cynical, you could add in the 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit. “Labour’s not working”?

Labour MPs should also remember too that at the end of the 1980s the Labour Party (including Gordon Brown) fully supported Nigel Lawson’s strategy of shadowing the deutchmark (against Thatcher’s better judgement) which led to the Major/Lamont debacle in 1992 and the higher tax and borrowing levels than were planned.

What did for the Conservatives in 1997 was not the economy - they had sorted it out by then which allowed the Glorious Chancellor to build up his war chest for excessive spending in subsequent years. No, what did for the Conservatives was so-called “sleaze” and the electorate being ready for “change”. Sound familiar? Who says history never repeats itself - no matter how much the Labour spin machine tries to re-write it?

Despite Tom Harris's assertion that David Cameron does not really care about people being unemployed as a result of the deep recession we are being thrust into because of Brown's incompetence what he has actually said is: “…the Conservatives have a moral obligation to help people who are laid off, or are at risk of being so.”

That sounds like “compassionate Conservatism” to me and today's proposals from Cameron and Osborne demonstrates they have the vision and commitment to articulate this into sensible and effective policies which, no doubt, Brown will rubbish and then plagiarise as his own.

Obama is just like you and me!

Barak Obama is (almost) normal according to this list which tells us, amongst other things, that he's left-handed, he reads Harry Potter, he's got big feet, and he doesn't like coffee. And he likes basketball - so do I.

And he still smokes! Well, he's a man after my own heart. Mind you, Bill Clinton liked a good cigar, didn't he?

Time to pull the plug?

As the Financial Times reports, the much vaunted Connecting for Health computer system that the Government has claimed will help to improve the NHS has run into trouble.

As it explains: "Progress on the £12bn computer programme designed to give doctors instant access to patients’ records across the country has virtually ground to a halt, raising questions about whether the world’s biggest civil information technology project will ever be finished.

"In May this year, the National Audit Office said the project was running at least four years late but still appeared “feasible”."

"Feasible?" "The world's biggest civil information technology project"!

Jesus! If this incompetent Labour lot can cock up this then imagine what will happen if they ever get a chance to try to install a national ID card system.

I wouldn't trust this band of event organisers to arrange a social gathering in a beer-making establishment let alone get their hands on my biometric measurements.

It's time to pull the plug on these Labour incompetents!

Buddy, can you spare a rouble?

Ruth Lea writing on Centre Right asks the question: "Does the Prime Minister really think he can spend his way out of recession?"

"....when it comes to the management of the domestic economy, our Prime Minister has been no hero. He has been wilfully spend-thrift with the nation’s finances. Public borrowing may be as high as £65bn this financial year (compared with the budget forecast of £43bn) and up to £100bn next year (compared with a forecast of £38bn). These are huge sums and we can only hope that overseas investors are still prepared to buy British Government debt in large tranches. Mr Brown really should not push ahead and try to spend his way out of recession. It would be highly costly and irresponsible. And hasn’t he wasted enough money already?"

Same Old Labour, same old boom and bust.

Oleg, Peter, Nat, George and I are just good friends - honest!

I am sorry to disappoint you all but there is no truth in the stories circulating in the media that I have ever had relations with Oleg, Peter, Nat or George.

I have never been to Corfu and I have never been on a yacht owned by a Russian and I have never solicited a donation to any political party.

Why don't you believe me? (See photo.)

George Galloway says something sensible!

"No more loathsome piece of flotsam has floated to the surface of Scottish New Labour than the lumpen piece of wood that is Tom Harris.”

Not often I can say that "Gorgeous George" has got it spot on this time!

Now for the "Caravan Park" revolution?

Forget about Peter Mandelson's appointment in Gordon Brown's last (and probably his only?) Cabinet re-shuffle. The most radical move that has happened is that Margaret Beckett has been appointed as Housing Minister.

Obviously, this means he recognises that his much vaunted plan to build 3 million new 'eco-friendly' homes was never going to work. So, he is relying on Margaret to come up with a new approach. My guess is that this will involve a vast expansion of caravan parks!

Think about it: they are mobile; they use relatively little energy; they don't need any expensive infrastructure connection costs; people will be able to get back to nature and enjoy living in these "new" communities; and maintenance costs are low. They will be able to move on easily (no mortgage needed!) when they need to find new employment.

I don't know about you but I'm going to be buying caravan manufacturers shares for some time. (Of course, in a few years time I will probably be investing heavily in those banks that will then be offering sub-prime mortgages to all those people who have got fed up living in all the "trailer parks" that Margaret will have created!

Update: The ever indispensible Jim Pickard has noted that the blessed Margaret is keeping her powder dry on the question of the 3 million target for additional eco-friendly homes. I am still convinced that she will eventually be strongly promoting trailer parks to house all the new mobile workforce which will be required to lag the roofs of those people who have managed to hang on to their homes. It is also interesting to note that Australia has already kicked off the trend as their own housing slump begins.

Another prick in the wall?

The last word from Charles Clarke on The Politics Show today went something like: "If we don't change our leader now we will walk into a wall".

For some reason the following quote from John Major in his darkest days as Prime Minister came to mind. "When your back is against the wall the only thing you can do is turn around and fight." We all know what happened to him.

So what is Clarke really suggesting? That Gordon Brown should reverse into the wall?

It seems to me that, either way, he is trapped against a wall. A wall of unpopularity that is likely to be so wide it is impossible to breach. To adapt William Shakespeare: "Fill up the wall with our English dead and just hope that the Scots give us a majority".

Has Clegg given Cameron a clear run-in to victory?

The latest poll from IpsosMori shows the Conservatives breaching the 50% barrier for the first time since Margaret Thatcher was in power. Whilst Labour's share is unchanged on 24%, the LibDems have dropped five points to 12%.

This poll was carried out between last Friday and Sunday so included the heavily hyped £20 billion of "tax cuts" that Clegg and his disparate band have said they would offer when they are elected to government. As this is likely to be sometime in the future - remember that his stated aim as leader is to double the number of LibDem MPs over the next two general elections - I think we can safely assume that he will not be forming the next government. In fact, if this poll was proved to be accurate then he would be lucky to retain his seat after the next general election!

The key point though is that by adopting a tax cutting agenda, coupled with talk of reducing public spending, he 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.

Go to it David!