The Madness of King Gordon

And so the sales start in earnest. Thousands of shoppers jostling each other around, in search of discounts on cheap, yet overpriced tat they don't actually need, on credit they cannot afford, with no thought about how the debts are ever going to be repaid when their jobs have disappeared into the ether.

The government, too, is keen to promote this lemming-like behaviour, the same behaviour that led us into this debt crisis, inspired by the government that set off the whole sorry chain reaction. Let us recall the terrible decisions taken by Brown that led us into this trap; The creation of a regulatory regime too cumbersome to do its job, the removal of house price inflation from interest rate decisions, the raid on pensions, the discouragement of savings, and the encouragement of debt, led by none other than the arch debtor and irresponsible borrower himself: Gordon Brown. Let us not forget, the Prime Minister led by example, running up big government debts during the boom when he should have been saving for a rainy day. Yet Brown's stealth tax on savings clearly demonstrates he has no concept of saving for a rainy day.

Now Brown pins his hopes on a pseudo-recovery, a false and temporary blip in consumer confidence underpinned by a pretty ineffectual and short-term cut in VAT, which will be reversed long before the pain has subsided and the real recovery begins. His chancellor, Darling, trots out over-optimistic forecasts of recovery in the second half of 2009, criticised, derided and even ridiculed by economists and commentators. Their vain hope is to engineer some kind of temporary blip, no matter that it will make the long-term situtation even more grave than it already is. If Brown and company can somehow engineer enough false hope, however brief, it will give them a small window of opportunity to call an election in which they might not do as badly as some have suggested. If enough gullible voters can be persuaded that there is light at the end of the tunnel, perhaps they can even engineer an hung parliament. The rest of us will already have identified the light at the end of the tunnel as an oncoming train - the British economy, driven by Gordon Brown, and picking up speed as it heads straight towards us, completely out of control. The brakes were removed years ago, allowing Brown to boast of the lowest rates for a generation.

The madness of King Gordon must go on, at least until the election is called. Spend, spend, spend! Borrow, borrow borrow! The piper must be paid, but why worry about next year? After all, you could get knocked down by a train tomorrow.

How to Avoid Taxes on Booze

The government makes a fortune on alcohol taxes. For 1 litre of vodka 40% ABV the duty is around 8 quid.

We don't have to put up with this, it takes no more than 20 minutes to knock up a gallon of very nice white wine (plus a few weeks to ferment). That's about half a dozen bottles. The cost is about £1.30.

I like to have a few drinks maybe 3 or 4 nights a week, and by brewing my own I save hundreds of pounds every year in duty alone. Money that used to go to Gordon is now earning interest for me in building society accounts. On top of that, there's no VAT or expensive brand-name advertising to pay for, so I'm saving a good 4-figure sum in total, every single year.

All you do is dissolve a 1 kilo bag of sugar in water, then let it cool and pour into a sterilised demi-john. Add a 1 litre carton of cheap orange juice, a teaspoon of yeast and a teaspoon of pectolase from Wilko. Top up with cold tap water and leave for a couple of months.

Believe me, it's as good as anything you'll buy in the supermarket and you're paying 20p per bottle instead of £2.99. Best of all, the chancellor isn't getting his hands on your hard-earned money.

German Finance Minister Rubbishes Brown

Herr Steinbrueck is correct. Having inherited a golden economic legacy handed to him a little over a decade ago, Brown has as good as bankrupted the UK. The savings ratio has collapsed as savers have been discouraged and reckless borrowing positively encouraged. Property prices trebled in a few short years before the bubble burst, and Brown ran up a budget deficit during the boom, claiming he didn’t need to set money aside for unforseen problems as he had abolished the economic cycle. “No more boom and bust” was his oft-heard cry. How hollow that now sounds.

Debt - both public and private - is out of control and Brown has no desire to exercise fiscal discipline while he has a general election to fight, in a little under 18 months or so if, and it’s a big if, he survives that long.

Passing on Cuts to Savers

While driving home from a Christmas shopping trip this afternoon, I heard a news item on Radio 4 which stated Gordon Brown was going to force banks to pass on rate cuts to customers. Not borrowers, you understand, but customers. In fact, by passing on cuts to borrowers banks have to pass them on to savers too, or they lose money. Brown knows this, but he doesn't really care much for savers, as his record shows.

Next time your building society or bank cuts your savings rates, you know precisely who is to blame.