Giving the Government a Kicking

Having voted for them in elections past, I came to the conclusion some time ago that I would be doing something to help get Labour removed from office at the next election. Voting for the party that came second in the seat where I live is one thing, but I've decided to take things a step further and seek to discourage others from voting for the party that put this proud country in such a horrible mess.

A year or so ago, there was a big fuss about lots of regional Post Offices closing. Many MPs put themselves in the glare of the media, insisting that they would campaign to stop the closures. My local Labour MP was one of them, and got herself on the front page of the local papers, photographed with demonstrators who were holding placards. She made it pretty clear in her comments in the accompanying article that she would fight for the Post Offices to remain open. So it came as a surprise when I checked http://www.theyworkforyou.com/, and found that she had gone back to Westminster and voted to close them. So, I duly wrote to the local paper, and informed its readership of her treachery. I shall be reminding readers of various local publications of her actions at various point over the coming weeks. It could well end up costing her votes.

Not all MPs have abused their expenses, so this is another way to use a Labour MP's incumbency against them at the election. I would urge anyone who wants to see the back of an MP to consider doing something similar. You don't even have to put pen to paper, many newspapers have websites, and allow you to submit letters electronically. It only takes a few minutes, and every letter is a nail in the coffin of Gordon Brown.

Targetting the Middle Classes

I read elsewhere that in their quest for votes, Labour are now targetting the middle classes.

They've been doing that for years. Actually, victimising is more like it.

Dishonesty

The Iraq enquiry is underway.

Regardless of whatever conclusions will eventually be reached, one thing is already clear: we were lied to by our government. Regrettably, you cannot take any of their claims seriously any longer. After they lied to us about Iraq and got away with it, they realised they could do so again and again. They're addicted to it, as if it will solve all their problems. They're still lying whenever it suits them, most recently insisting that Spain is a member of the G20 when it clearly isn't. I know it's embarrassing having to admit that the UK is the last G20 nation left in recession, but is it honestly worth telling such blatant whoppers and taking a hit to your (already battered) reputation for honesty?

What happened to the honest and decent Labour party of old? When did it lose its way, and where did it all start to go wrong? That the likes of Mandelson are welcomed says much about the party's descent into the political sewers. Labour was once an honourable party of which members could be proud. These days it is not a cause for which it is worth getting out of bed.

A Marriage of Inconvenience

Miliband is saying that Labour should listen more to trades unions. In reality, I don't think they have much choice any more.

In order to save the Labour Party, it was all but married to Unite last year. Yes, that's right. We heard a lot about building societies being bailed out by Nationwide, and banks being taken over by others because of their debts. All marriages of convenience, of course. What we heard less about was Labour almost going under with their crippling debts. Unite stepped in and promised to honour Labour's debts. For ever.

So, no pay freezes in the public sector in the (extremely unlikely) event of a Labour election victory. Forget the efficiency savings, and necessary cost cutting. It would be full steam ahead and spend, spend, spend - and let the private sector take all the pain.

Another marriage made in hell. I hate to think what they are already discussing in their pillow talk:

"A word in your ear, Darling"
"Yes, sweetie?"
"Let's have massive tax rises right across the board - how about a basic rate of 40%?"
"But the voters will never swallow that, dearest"
"Oh, who cares? We've got a whole parliament ahead of us, and remember who holds the purse strings. Let's have an 80% top rate too."
"Oh, okay, then. Er, isn't that a bit much also?"
"No, it's too lenient if anything. Perhaps we should go for 90% instead."
"You know best, dear."

Well, maybe not. But there is much talk of dishonesty about public spending at the moment. We have no choice, cuts need to be made, and I have little doubt that the Tories will make them. Probably by more than 10% too. Actually, so will Labour. So maybe Brown's talk of Tory cuts and his pretence that these cuts won't happen under him is just to appease Labour's new bedfellows?

Expect more lies, damned lies and statistics from all sides all the way up to the election.

The Superiority Complex

Politicians, on the whole, are an arrogant bunch.

They lie. They cheat. They make promises in their manifestos which they never intend to keep - stand up Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown - then when the time comes to deliver, they turn around and tell us that because they know better than us their manifestos no longer apply and they won't be fulfilling those commitments. It's not just Labour and the Lib Dems, I have little doubt that Cameron too will break promises once he is elected.

They claim for ridiculous items on expenses in order to increase their income, because they think they are worth more than the sixty-odd grand they are paid per year, when most of us would dearly love to earn half their salaries. Then they force us taxpayers to subsidise their drinks in the houses of parliament, while the rest of us plebs have to pay ever bigger duties on alcohol. No wonder our pubs are dying. Still, as long as the bars in the Commons are still going, who cares about the great unwashed?

Politicians have a superiority complex. They think they are better than us.

Mad Pig Disease

We’ve already had mad cow disease - Bovin Spongiform Encephalopathy - now it’s Porcine Spongersform Expensesapathy. Yes, that's right, mad Westminster porkers running around higgledy piggledy in a state of panic at the impending election, wondering if anybody is going to vote for them. Unfortunately for them, they’re really sty-mied this time as there's a hog roast this weekend.

The best solution, of course, is to remove the brain and spinal column of the infected porker. Regrettably, it has been painfully apparent these last few years that very few of these piggies are in possession of a brain, and even fewer a backbone. These are clearly hopeless cases.

Now all that is required for history to come full circle is for the John Selwyn Gummer moment, where some unfortunate cabinet minister is trotter-ed out before the cameras (remember, Brown doesn’t DO bad news) to feed shredded expenses forms to their offspring while insisting everything is perfectly safe. Yum-yum! Ham on the bone? Just feed it to the dog, then claim for the dog’s bowl on expenses.

Piggin' 'ell!

The Poisoned Chalice

Pointless speculation is everywhere. Will Brown face a leadership challenge following the local and European election results? Who are the frontrunners to take over? Frankly, who cares?

Nobody can save Labour now, they are doomed to defeat. Backbenchers may continue to drop hints to hacks as ever more ridiculous names are paraded in the media in the hope that the public will find one that is acceptable, but it is a forlorn and desperate hope. These selfish lobby fodder continue to plot in order to save their own hides when the day of reckoning comes, oblivious to the fact that the country no longer cares who leads the Labour party. All we want is a general election, as soon as possible.

Who would drink from the poisoned chalice now? The young pretenders suggested so far have many years front-line politics ahead of them if they wait until after the election. There seems little point in going over the top early, when the election could be over within a matter of months. Let's face it, somebody has to call time on this rotten parliament soon. Waiting until 2010 will only increase the scale of the defeat, as the calls for an immediate general election grow louder.

Doing the Honourable Thing

A quote from Kelvin MacKenzie:

“Gordon should take a bottle of brandy and a gun, go to a quiet room, have a drink, then blow his brains out. “

Admirable sentiments, but I fear Kelvin hasn’t thought that one through properly. Such is Gordon Brown’s competence that if tried to shoot himself, he would miss. In truth, Gordon is a local politician with delusions of adequacy who has been promoted way above his station. I fear much the same applies to the rest of the current cabinet. In Gordon’s favour, he has had a couple of years in the job, and that experience alone lifts him above those in his own party who plot to succeed him - though there is still very little between the hopeless and inept array of nonentities and numpties that make up the current government.

A change of governing party or parties is long overdue.

World owes US a debt - Gordon Brown

It's funny how Gordon Brown is trying to distance himself from the credit crunch. Apparently, it all started in America, or so he claims. The fact that other countries blame Britain just as much is something to be glossed over.

Brown was not always so keen to distance himself from Bush's policies. Not that very long ago he was going around telling everybody who would listen that the whole world owes the US a debt. That was, of course, back in the days when people were still listening to Gordon. In fact, I've just chanced upon an old BBC article along those lines:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6920877.stm

So you see, the world used to owe the US a debt. Now the US and the UK owe the rest of the world, and here in the UK it will take decades to pay that off.

Smeargate

There is something very rotten in the heart of Gordon Brown's Downing Street. The more I see of the man, the more I believe it is Gordon Brown himself who has the rotten heart. More obsessed with spin than Blair's government was, he is reportedly most upset that cartoonists portray him as overweight. His first thought at all times is not "how can I best run the country", or even "how can I best portray my party in a positive light", but "what can I do to put one over on the Tories today". Brown looks - to my mind at least - to have condoned this sort of approach. It is nasty stuff, and a government should be above all of this. Even Michael Howard did not stoop to such tactics in his frequently unpleasant 2005 election campaign.

Politics is a brutal game at times, but playing the man rather than the ball is not acceptable. Gordon has built up a spite-ridden regime reliant on smears, lies and instant rapid rebuttals. This isn't about running the country, but about trying to kick the Tories. It is immature student politics. Gordon MUST come out of hiding and make a statement. No ifs, no buts, he is accountable this time and risks further damage to his already battered reputation with every hour he delays.

Where are you, Gordon?

Are You Running Out of Ideas?

Are you a world leader who has failed on the domestic stage? Have your regulatory regimes failed, your policies been exposed and your record been ridiculed? Are you running out of other people's money, or ideas about what to do next about your failing economy? Then why not try hosting a new and improved G20 Meeting!

Yes, that's right! You too can mince around the world stage, where you haven't yet fluffed your lines, and your trousers have yet to fall down. You too can look important, and talk about how awful things are, and give the appearance that you know what you are doing (even if you don't), along with the ministers of up to 19 other countries. Yes, this once-in-a-strifetime opportunity allows you to sit at a big table with foreign bigwigs, and talk cobblers and argue the toss until the chavs are thoroughly convinced you are doing something. You can even pretend to your own national media that you are leading the world, even though foreign newspapers won't waste a single line on you. Yes, all this and much, much more!

Try new formula G20 today. A great substitute for not knowing what else to do.

Is Brown Bonkers?

It looks like I was ahead of public opinion, then. Since my last post about Brown needing to apologise, the narrative has moved on from Bankers, and people have been calling for Brown to apologise himself. Ministers first hinted at regrets, then Brown finally came out with a non-apology, while making it clear he had nothing to apologise for.

The trouble is, even if he were to apologise, and he hasn't come anywhere near, he still needs to admit to himself and to the rest of us that he bears some of the responsibility for this mess. I don't think he will ever do that now, because with every interview or public appearance his statements and proclamations get more ludicrous, more detached from reality, and more deluded. He even seems to believe he is entirely innocent for the bubble in the UK.

Has Brown lost all sense of reality? I realise that Guido Fawkes has been suggesting this for some time, but it is becoming rather obvious nowadays that Gordon Brown is increasingly detached from events. Does he honestly believe he's some sort of Churchillian figure, striding around the world stage, solving a problem the Americans caused and that only he can put right? Or is this just Gordon's inept attempt at spin?

Brown Should Apologise Too

Of late, much has been made in the media of apologies by bankers who were partly responsible for this crisis. While the bankers, and the FSA were largely culpable for this whole mess, it seems that the politicians who encouraged it all are still trying to pretend it was nothing to do with them. Rather than apologise, the former chancellor is still trying to pin the blame on others, and especially American bankers.

Part of the process of recovery from this mess involves admitting that mistakes were made, recognising what those were, and promising not to repeat them. So far, we have heard nothing from the government on that front. I for one am not prepared to give the cretins who instructed the BoE to ignore house price inflation another chance, because clearly they haven't learned from their mistakes. What's more, their efforts during this financial crisis seem only to be targetted at making the situation worse, ie encouraging people to blow their savings or take out more unaffordable debt. That is not an option for most of us as we increasingly fear for our jobs, and in some cases - targetting savers - government policy appears little more than nasty and spiteful.

Consequently, I've now stopped listening to anything the government has to say. I don't necessarily believe the Tories or Lib Dems will be great, but they'll be better than the vindictive pension thieves and savings wreckers who are presently determined to drive us all into the ground. A simple apology from Brown, recognising his part in encouraging the massive unsustainable debt bubble in this country, and assurances that he will do all in his power to encourage the savings culture, would go some way towards opening my mind again. Sadly, I cannot see the present pig-headed and narcissistic Labour party going down that road.

Lib Dems' Odd Literature

The Lib Dems are distributing some very odd leaflets in Geoff Hoon's Constituency. Their literature displays a large bar graph showing the following election results for Ashfield:

Lab 16,735
Lib Dem 12,773
Con 5,406

All over the leaflets are plastered phrases like "The Conservatives can't win in Ashfield", "The Tories cannot win here!", and "Everyone knows the Conservatives cannot win in a constituency like Ashfield". They seem to be implying that only the Lib Dems can unseat Geoff Hoon.

Funny, that. Here are the last election results for Geoff Hoon's seat in 2005:

Lab 20,433
Con 10,220
Lib Dem 5,829

The Lib Dems' bar graphs are actually showing local election votes from a number of council seats across the area which were contested in 2007, yet at no point on the leaflet do they mention this. They always come a very distant third in the parliamentary election for Ashfield.

Of course, if the Tories "Cannot win here", what chance do the Lib Dems have, given that they barely scrape half as many votes? Perhaps most importantly, they might split the anti-Hoon vote if enough people take their misleading literature at face value, just as Geoff Hoon's own vote is collapsing...

Labour List

The LabourList site has been set up as a response to the dearth of good the left-leaning blogs. Good Luck to them.

Unfortunately, it requires an email address to register, presumably so that one might receive a daily email from the site's sponsors. While most sane citizens will decline, no doubt preferring to watch BBC1 for government propaganda, I have briefly turned my thoughts to the subject matter that may be contained within these regular briefings. As such, I wonder if the following text, or a variation thereof, might be considered:

"Dear Sir,

I write on behalf of my ailing client, a Mr. P. L. Party. Mr. Party is due to come into some money, donated to him by his unwitting patron, Mr. U. K. Taxee. However, in order to receive these funds, my client requires a 4th period in office to facilitate the transfer of the money. We urgently require your savings account details to complete the process of paying off our debts and securing another term in office, when we can arrange the transfer. In return, we will subsequently transfer to your savings account a sum of money to revive the economy. Alternatively, we can arrange for wheelbarrows of freshly-printed money to arrive in due course once the process of "quantitative easing" begins and the real money runs out.

Please indicate you are able to assist in this matter at the earliest opportunity.

Sincerely Sincere,

J. Brown A.Rse (Hons)"

Well, it's just a suggestion...

Selling Gordon Brown

Gordon Brow's tour of the constituencies which stand a chance of voting Labour at the election (ie those with Labour majorities of 5,000 and over) began today. I've just witnessed some dreadful footage on East Midlands Today.

Meeting the public, my foot. Nothing more than another piece of advertising, trying to sell us more unsaleable crap. New Labour Pedigree Chump, specially selected chunks of Labour-voting boneless jelly, in combination with mechanically-recovered Scottish corned beef. Tripe. Dog food, way past its sell-by-date. Brown mush, unfit for human consumption, relabelled by Alistair Campbell's Condensed and souped up for teatime. Best eaten with a wooden spoon.

Brown on Tour

I see the pensions thief is off on a three day tour of England and Wales to see the effects of the recession for himself. I wonder which constituencies and businesses he will be visiting?

This puts me in mind of a Spitting Image sketch many years ago, where, worried that his opinions might be out-of-touch, Prince Charles sent a flunky out into the street to find a "typical" member of the public. The flunky returned hours later, with a pearly king, remarking that it had been difficult to find someone who was really "typical" that day. On quizzing this most atypical subject, the Prince came to the conclusion that his views still echoed public opinion.

I'm guessing it could well take Gordon's planners the whole three days to find a "typical" business...

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.