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.