May V Brown - Faceoff

OK, I really can't believe that the UK could ever have a worse Prime Minister than Gordon Brown. However, has this moment now been reached?


For a quick comparison:

1) Led UK to worst financial crisis in 100 years - £200 billion cost to the economy
2) Sold UK Gold reserves at an all time low - baking in a 'loss' of around £20 billion, double the cost of the ERM debacle
3) Signed Lisbon treaty in a cupboard with no referendum or acknowledgement
4) Enabled Tony Blair to ratchet up a high spend low tax economy
5) Plotted for years to become PM, only to lose election very badly when finally fought
6) Raised taxes spitefully on the day he left office to 50%

1) Plotted for years to become Prime Minster, only to very nearly lose and election she should have comfortably won against the worst ever opposition leader
2) Campaigned for Br, exit then led the most pathetic negotiation in history
3) Made political enemies even of her best friends like Damian Green
4) Did a deal with DUP to stay in Government that resulted in Government becoming impossible
5) Anti-Immigration stance throughout her career has impacted on culture of the Country
6) Completely lost control of Parliament resulting in no Governance at all


I wrote this out live, because I really thought she was awful, then recalled what Brown did and she has a long way to go yet. Not even on the same page as it happens. Still, hard to think of any other Prime Minister who has been less effective in the last 40 years other than Brown. Major looks competent by comparison.

The power of OPM

Nick's last post highlights well the living fallacy that our politicians thrive under of hiding how much of Other People's Money they are giving away. By forcing private companies to extract taxes on our behalf, they direct the ire of the populace against capitalists, when all the while it is the socialists who are responsible for the rising taxes. It's very clever and from a realpolitik perspective, an excellent play.

Of course, the real truth is worse still. It is not just the energy companies that various Government's have hit with this wheeze;

 - Rail subsidies have been cut, still these are at least subsidies, but by reducing them steadily the Government has instead allowed RPI+1% as minimum increases in rail fares, pushing rail travel to become more expensive than air travel domestically.

- With the introduction and increase of the air passenger tax, air travel too has been made more expensive and the collection of this tax falls on the airlines. So in particular, former national industries are often hit, no doubt the socialists enmity to progress focus' them on such business.

However, it is not just the Government who like the spending on your behalf. Just this week we have seen a private sector case, which will be of little interest tot he high minded, but does get to me! BT Sports have massively outbid Sky for the rights to Champions League Football from 2015 onwards. This huge bid has been portrayed as the first real challenge to Sky since ITV's ill fated ITV Digital initiative. Sky suffered a 10% loss of share price on the back to the loss.

Worse though for punters, is that BT Sport will only offer one match per season per team free to air. So now there will be even less 'free' football on TV. Now of course this is BT's commercial right to try and compete with SKY. However, the massive over-bidding for rights, will mean more costs to watch the sport. Let alone having to potentially buy Sky and BT Services, the actual prices for the sports packages will go up.

Of course, this is a commercial decision that is up to BT, if they don't get the subscribers they will give up. But what it does mean is for 3 years there will be very little free to air champions league and then after that Sky, should BT fail, will be in a better position to not revert to offering more for terrestrial opportunities.

But then again, those football clubs, just like the Government, really do need those extra revenues. At least I can opt out of watching football, it will be harder to live without power.

Gordon's Letter to Santa

Dear Santa
I have been a very busy boy this year.I have tried to be good but have had trouble sometimes telling the truth. But I know you won't mind.
My advisers said I needed to be seen to want a lot of trendy things... I think I remembered them correctly

• A Bent Ten watch
• Artic monies empty-three download
• Quantum of physics for X-factor360
• Pravda Shirt size XL
• A Wee smurf board
• Eye Phone
• Hugo Bros aftershave
• Samson r510 lapdance

But what I really want is..

• Rubber Nokia 6610 unbreakable {carphone warehouse} -£123.12
• smile on a stick {toys r us} -£3.99
• Purple beret for Sarah {Sue Ryder shop} - 50p
• Thick of it box set {amazon} -used -£12.56
• Superman costume {Woolworths} £20.00 now reduced to £7.45
• Scientific calculator {display must go up to a trillion trillion trillion trillion} -?
• Flash Gordon DVD {HMV} -£4.87
• The Rise of political lying book by Peter Oborne {amazon} used -72p
• My very first joke book {Amazon} - £3.99
• Angela Merkel voodoo doll {shucswinter.ge} - £19.99
• Grecian 2000 formula - £6.56
• “The Audacity of Hope” Audiobook- Barak Obama {waterstones} £12.99
• Camouflage suit and tie for my trips to Afghanistan
• £1,500 billion in gold

And anything else you think I might like or need in the comments

Boing Boing Brown wins in Glenrothes

Labour win Glenrothes. A very good result for the Prime Minister with a Labour vote of 19,946 to the SNP's 13,209. A 6737 hold.Pretty amazing.

SNP struggling to put a positive spin on the result after predicting a win here.
That Iceland quote has come back to haunt Mr Salmond. He suggested that Scotland could join Iceland, Ireland and Scandinavia in an "arc of prosperity". That provoked a scathing retort from the Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy who claimed that it would have been an "arc of insolvency". Well quite.
That and some scaremongering over care for the elderly seem to have done the SNP in.

Oh, and a 1.5% interest rate cut probably didn't hurt {as the Labour candidate mentioned in his victory speech}

So well done Sarah.

Odds shortening on Mr Drew's prediction for an early election?

Gordon Brown saves Russell Brand and Johnathan Ross

The Prime Minister broke from his high level summit meeting in Paris with President Sarkozy to make this monumental pronouncement on the worrying situation currently being experienced in the United Kingdom.


"I have become a sort of political Ricky Gervais lately. Popping up on soft chat shows to give my opinion on anything and to promote myself and my book {"No time for change." Hodder and Stoughton £19.95}, and now holding press conferences about people that I have never heard of. It is difficult to exaggerate the severity and importance of these recent events. Not since the beginning of the First World War has our light entertainment budget been so close to collapse. A few weeks ago the jokes on Friday Night with Johnathan Ross and The Russell Brand show started to dry up. And then yesterday the BBC went into meltdown. "said Gordon Brown, The Prime Minister.

"A terrible serious of unfunny and puerile pranks, that started in America with the likes of Lenny Bruce and Howard Stern, and spread across the Atlantic to engulf UK DJ's such as Chris Moyles and Chris Evans led to an attack on an EU national, working in the food and hospitality industry,and has required this government to take firm action. The government drafted in its own spin doctors and joke writers and bought up 50 billion pounds worth of shares in Johnathen Ross and Russell Brand to ensure the survival of the genre. The BBC's flagship stars have been taken into temporary public ownership until the crisis passes."

He went on to say..
"Ross Kemp and chat show host Russell Harty have been earning very large salaries and getting big ratings bonuses but it has led to a culture of irresponsible risk taking that has now bought television to the very brink of the abyss. The light touch of the Furious Satire Authority [FSA] have allowed BBC Radio 2 comedy to become largely unregulated."

So, I announce today, that there is a need for more boring television and radio shows."said the PM. "The popular BBC 9pm -1am Friday night slot will now be taken up with repeats of Last of the Summer wine, My Family and Terry and June. Radio 2's 10am Saturday show will be replaced by an extended Moneybox and a Quote-Unquote special. I have also called for much tighter controls by the regulator SWCHOF on Nick Ross and Jo Brand or whatever their names are. I believe these measures will restore public confidence in the mind numbing dullness of the BBC's offerings."

The PM then grimaced for the cameras before returning to make his apologies to the President of Slovenia who's speech he had interrupted to make this statement

Johnathen King, the governor of television, believes it will be a "long, slow haul".The BBC's stars have been propped up and actions taken to stave off their collapse but for millions of households the next year will be far from comfortable. Repeats of Dad's Army, Simon Scharma's History of Railway Tunnels and endless repeats of the Antiques Roadshow. BBC Parliament MTV and that silly carboot program are the only fare as the BBC struggles to get back on an even keel.

Later the Prime Minister called on all other European Union members to follow his lead and adopt "The Magnificent Brown Plan" in their own countries. Meanwhile billions of pounds have been wiped off the value of Johnathen Ross and Russell Brand and the stars popularity still continues to fall every day.

What do we get for our recession

Continuing on a theme

Gordon Brown and the state has to spend the taxpayer's money on something. He neither knows nor can conceive of any other way of saving the economy. The New deal is coming. So given that at any moment all thoughts about restraining national debt are to be abandoned and the mother of all splurges is to be unleashed, what should the money actually be spent on? Equality advisers, firework officers and wheelie bin detectives are the usual non-jobs. But if we must spend, then isn't there something that we might actually need?

There could be 2+ million jobs required. We know Alistair Darling reads here.. {If only he was the real chancellor}. At the moment it appears to be windmills and loft insulation. The loft insulation not actually so silly.It is low cost, low tech and redundant trades people can be quickly re-trained and put back into work. But there must be something else. Something that, like cavity wall insulation, fits into the government's wider aspirations.

1]The refurbishment of schools has faltered badly. Construction was the first industry to feel the recession and those workers are the ideal ones to patch up the buildings, rubber mat the playgrounds, and expand the premises. Then move onto the armed service's homes that are a disgrace. Then the completion of the semi refurbished social housing stocks.
2] School diners has been something government is desperate to be associated with but has done very little to actively promote or even encourage. Spend a bit more and help the faltering pubs and restaurants get another string to the bow. Put kitchens back into schools linked to [1] above
3] Special Constables? With the police unable to cope with binge drinking and Home Office unable and unwilling to do anything about it, more 'officers' trained in basic policing? Able to help with Town Center policing and public dis-order.Some consider these Police as a waste of resources already.
4] Agriculture will suffer with the migrants going home. Some incentive to work the harvest next year? Another low skill area where people can be trained quickly
5] Or be smart for the future. What will tomorrows media studies graduates actually do? If money is being spent now, why not a full repayment of student loans for graduates who achieve their degrees in engineering or mathematics or medicine or whatever it is that we need? Won't help now, but will help for the future.
6] Job creation. Small business sheds workers very quickly in a downturn. Tax cuts or some sort of short term 'work grant' would keep more in work. Again, its wasteful, but the money is going to be spent anyway...
7] Future Lynx and a decent high lift capacity helicopter? A decent APC for the troops? New transport aircraft? All still waiting after years of delay from the government for the nod to go ahead.
8] There is no amount of money that couldn't be spent on the NHS. It would cheerfully swallow the bank bailout without even noticing. But there is a shortage of maternity units and midwives. Training and building needed.
9] Prison building... we could wait another decade or build some now.
10] Government funding for nursery schools would allow mother's to take those low paid jobs IF they earn more / hour than they paid in childcare costs. It sort of does it now, but only 2.5 hours/ day. What job can you get for 2.5 hours a day? Make it for 4 hours.

And..fibre-optic cables for our households.. motorway widening schemes .. old branch rail lines reopened if practical.. the military's falling recruitment due partly to pay....mining.. The estuary barrier power schemes if they have any legs.. the shocking waste of water through leaking pipes.. or maybe just for the social good the modernisation or even merging of libraries and post offices and day centres into efficient, modern, comfortable and pleasant places to go to. After all the money is going to be sent on something. Reopening all those recently closed swimming pools.
Or we could just build a giant email and telephone capturing database.

Your ideas and comments welcome as ever.

The Bank with no name

After all the turmoil of the HBoS and Lloyds TSB merger and the shocks of the last few days there is now talk of lessons being learned. But at least one lesson already seems to have been learned by the Prime Minister himself.
In the bad periods there is rarely the time for the sober measured reflection that there is in the good times. The luxury of consultations, focus groups, soundings, polls, samples, spin and reappraisals of the situation is unavailable. The job of the leader is to look at the evidence, ask advice of the experts, evaluate the options and decide on a course of action.
At last, after Northern Rock, the 10p tax cut u-turn, Vehicle excise duty flailing, Poca card account, corporation tax limits and the stamp duty holiday/non holiday announcement, the PM finally gets it.

The job of the leader is to lead.

Whether the decision to force a merger through, overriding regulations and precedents, will be judged to have been sound and wise is almost immaterial. If further adjustments or regulation is needed it can be done later.

Prime Minister Brown has learned to take action. Maybe that noose will feel just a little looser around his neck.

As Tuco said in The Good,The Bad and The Ugly

"When you have to shoot- - -Then shoot, don't talk."

Gordon: New World Order

Broon is in the news today giving some sort of foreign policy speech. I say sort of because it is a mish mash of vague ideas rather than anything concrete in terms of realistic policy.

Talk of reforming major international institutions is in my view pushing it for a man not even yet elected leader of a mere 5% of the world's GDP and 1% of it population.

However, what really struck me as odd was that the speech seemed to be based on a classic H G Wells novel, also titled New World Order.

In this book (skim it, it is free, short and here), Wells speaks of the horror of the world being slowly ruined up by an expanding global bureaucratic government. He writes brilliantly of class hatred basis of socialism. He was referring in the aftermath of the 2nd World War to the UN, Bretton Woods agreement and so forth. He saw socialism and collectivism as the death of Britain and the world as we know it, at the hands of dangerous revolutionaries.

Yet this is what Brown, in his vague way, is also suggesting. Clearly he wants the end of Britain than even I had thought. I think he may even have read Wells and as a socialist drawn the opposite conclusions.

Except Brown thinks world government expansion is all a good thing. More EU interference and more UN action. He says:

"you cannot meet the challenges of the future by simply building the present in
the image of the past."

What about failure of the UN at Kyoto, over Iraq, during the cold war, in child abuse scandals, the list of goes on. As for the EU, what are its great successes? How are either of these institutions in any way democratic and able to represent the wishes of British people?


But these institutions are to be our future governors, not all this messy democracy and representation that he has to put up with now.

A dangerous man is Gordo; statist, anti-democratic and without positive vision for the world. How sad I will be when he becomes our Prime Minister.

odd situation

Having been out of the UK for more or less a month on various trips, I have only been seeing the news occasioally.

One of the things this has made me do is think about the current siutation re our premiership,(no, not football, my beloved Leeds are in teh championship anyway). How strange the situation is that we have with Blair-Brown. How odd this seems from afar too.

It seems so unhealthy to be hanging around for a take-over by Brown and then not to have an election or some input from the British people.

The situation is a farce and should not be allowed to continue. The more I think about it the more our system needs serious refrom despite its glorious history,