Reflections From Brum

As we've noted before, the main function of member attendees at party conferences is as walk-on extras in a giant mediafest. This year, with the party in power, the media were more pervasive than ever. According to Birmingham council, there were 2000 of them buzzing around, vastly outnumbering the 800 police reportedly guarding the event.

Now, Tyler discovered that all the UK's commercial radio stations were being served by just one reporter (who also doubles up as a station manager). Which raises the obvious question as to WTF the rest of them were all doing? Especially the legions from the BBC.

One thing was wining and dining each other, presumably on expenses. Mr and Mrs T were themselves seriously unsettled by a close encounter with the Bishop and Pol enjoying a candle-lit dinner a deux.

But mainly - as always - the media kept themselves occupied by manufacturing stories about party splits.

This year's big split story was over George's Child Benefit announcement. There was supposedly a "backlash" from Tory activists against this "vicious attack" on the middle class.

Backlash? The only backlash Tyler could discover among activists was the one against the media making up stuff about backlashes ("you wonder which conference they're reporting on"). Without exception, everyone Tyler asked thought it was mad to pay CB to those on £40k pa and wanted George to press on asap.

Yes, of course, the CB change as announced was pretty crass inasmuch as the details have clearly not been thought through. And sure, the announcement was only made because politically George needed to counterbalance the announcement of his cap on total welfare benefits per household. But there's plenty of time to refine it before implementation in 2013.

The key point is that CB will no longer be a universal benefit. George has broken the spell. CB will be means tested just like most other working age welfare. And that means there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be rolled into IDS's Universal Credit (see this blog).

The best bit of previous conferences was the fringe - the side meetings that take place outside the main event to debate specific policy issues. Often they were attended by shadow ministers and you got to challenge them face-to-face on the stuff that had been bugging you. Sadly, this time through most of the fringe events attended by Tyler had no ministerial representation. Speakers mainly comprised think tankers, lobbyists, and familiar talking heads, repeating arguments that are already familiar to most of us.

The best of the fringe was undoubtedly the bit taking place outside the main conference altogether. This was organised by the Freedom Association in conjunction with the TPA, and for the second year running featured an all-day programme as an alternative to the main conference proceedings. There were many fascinating sessions featuring the best of the centre right - Redwood, Carswell, Murray, Dan the Man, and our star local councillors - ie the ones who have managed to cut spending.

And Cam's Big Society? No, it certainly hadn't gripped anyone Tyler spoke to, despite hours of worthy attempts to explain what it might actually mean in practical terms.

The reason everyone struggles with the concept of course, is that we don't yet know how the space vacated by a shrinking government will be filled.

According to the BBC and the rest of the left, nothing will fill the space other than disease, ignorance, and giant snakes. But for those of us who believe in markets, the space will soon be filled by the education and healthcare equivalents of M&S, Tescos, and BUPA. Oh, BUPA fills part of the space already - that's handy.

This is a key point to grasp. The left's argument that parents will have to work all night running the new schools themselves distracts us from the reality. The reality is that private companies will have to come in - just like they've already done under the US and Swedish school reforms. Gove doesn't want to say that right now because of all the media flak he'll take, but that is the reality.

Because under a market based approach, there is no clearcut masterplan you can announce upfront. You can never be quite sure ahead of time precisely how things will pan out - you only discover that once the market has done its magic work. And for many people, that's a very scary prospect.

So while choice and competition is the only way to drive better value in our public services, and the only way of delivering better services for all, Cam has the tricky job of navigating us from here to there without scaring everyone back into the arms of Millie.

Hence the comfort blanket.

Hence The Big Society.

PS Did  you see Jezza Hunt on Newsnight telling us straight that people shouldn't have children they couldn't afford to pay for out of their own pocket? Blimey. We thought unmarried three child Paxo was going to explode with righteousness. How dare taxpayers seek to limit the number of welfare kids they have to support? And then this morning some woman on R4 Today told us taxpayers should be happy to pay for these welfare kids because it's an "investment in the future". Not a burden that escalates from one welfare generation to the next, but an investment. No wonder we're in this mess.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: politicos, welfare

Heading For The Honey Pot

By all accounts this year's Tory Conference will have the highest attendance for years. Despite the recession, commercial sponsorship has reportedly boomed. Now why might that be?

Anyway, Mr and Mrs T are heading to Brum wondering whether senior Tories will be as accessible to us ordinary members as they were before inheriting their ministerial limos. Will they still need us, will they still feed us, when they're the masters now? We rather suspect not.

George in particular will be keeping his head down. Whereas you could once ask him direct what he would do about sharing the proceeds if growth failed to materialise, the chances of a similar opportunity this year are zilch.

Not that you can blame him really. He's in the middle of the toughest public spending round ever, and he's not about to show his cards to us.

This will be our sixth conference, and they've all had a slightly different flavour.

The first back in 2005 was gripping because it had the leadership horse race featuring Cam's famous noteless speech.

But the most memorable by far was 2007 in Blackpool. We all went up there expecting imminent annihilation at the hands of the Big Clunking Fist (see this blog). But then on Monday morning George stood up and sensationally announced his intention to slash inheritance tax. The entire world changed in an instant. The Clunking Fist imploded, and by the time Cam made his second famous noteless speech on the Wednesday it was all over - Labour were finished. An unforgettable week aboard the Blackpool roller-coaster.

So what does this week hold?

Not triumphalism surely. Cam may be PM, but only courtesy of the LDs. And for most Tory activists the LDs are still indistinguishable from the anti-Christ.

IRA/Islamic bomb plots aside, Tyler suspects it may actually be a bit dull. Yes, there are suggestions of crowd pleasing policy announcements from IDS, but as we blogged yesterday, he's still short of substantive detail. And ahead of the cuts announcements there are limits to what any of the spending ministers can promise.

Still, the sun always shines in Brum, and this year there should be plenty of free honey.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: politicos

Dear Chris...

He'd love to hear from you

As the spending battle reaches its climax, public sector bosses from the cops to the profs to the jolly Jack Tars, are starting to fight dirty. Cam and George need to be resolute.

The leaker of Doc Fox's letter to Cam is reportedly being tracked down by the very latest and highly sophisticated MOD drones. But given that the leaker pretty well has to be someone at the top of the MOD itself, it will be a miracle if the drones find anyone.

Still, there's no reason why we should stand by idly while the battle rages. We can help the good guys by at least showing them we're on their side.

And in that vein, the TPA has written to Energy Secretary Chris Huhne to urge the abolition of the useless £118m pa Carbon Trust. The letter neatly summarises why the Trust should be added to the quango bonfire, and the TPA suggests we all add our voices by e-mailing chris@chrishuhne.org.uk or writing to him at

Chris Huhne

Department of Energy and Climate Change

3 Whitehall Place

London

SW1A 2AW.

Well, what are you waiting for?


PS Grown-ups, eh? Of course we can all understand why Milli snr has stomped off in a huff because baby bro was given the biggest slice of cake (which of us can honestly say, etc). But the point about these people is that they're not supposed to be like the rest of us. They're the ones who reckon they are so grown-up that they deserve to be put in charge and to tell the rest of us how to behave. And talking of infantile behaviour, did you clock Milli jnrs' speech yesterday? Either he really believes all that tired old boilerplate crap about "a new generation" is actually meaningful - in which case he needs to grow up - or he thinks we'll have fogotten about the thousands of other manipulative chancers who've used exactly the same pitch - in which case he needs to grow up. Here's the benchmark performance - nobody has ever delivered it better, and to make it stick properly you have to die before your high flown promises turn sour... and not fall out with your bro:

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: eco wibble, politicos, TPA, waste

Severe Shortage Of Millionaires

Wrong message - we need more millionaires

With Red Ed at the controls, we can expect Labour to target the undeserving rich just as stridently as they ever did back in the day. But the middle class, no, they won't be squeezed. Labour under Ed will cherish and protect the middle class. It's those rich bastards who'll have to pay.

But who exactly are those rich bastards, and are there enough to go round? Robbing from the rich to give to the poor is one thing, but robbing from the rich to give to the teeming middle class requires the rich to have an awful lot of riches in the first place.

If we define the rich in terms of income, then the official stats tell us that the top 10% of households get 30% of the income (ie gross market income going to the personal sector before taking account of government transfers - welfare etc). Which at first blush might sound like an ideal target for Ed's Robin Hooding.

But he needs to understand a couple of key points. First, the top 10% are already paying more than their share of the taxes - 27% at the last count - and they might not take kindly to paying even more (like, they might down tools and leave). And second, the gross income level that takes a household into the top 10% is around £50,000 pa, which in London and the South East at least is viewed as a middle class income - certainly not "rich".

If instead we define rich in terms of wealth rather than income, we find an even greater concentration in the hands of the top 10%. According to the ONS, immediately pre-Crash, total household wealth amounted to £9 trillion. And of that, nearly £4 trillion (well over 40%) was owned by the top 10%:

A concentration like that looks much more promising for Ed. Taxing wealth is arguably less damaging to growth than taxing earnings, and those rich bastards would surely not miss the odd trillion.

Except that when we look closely, we can see that the biggest single chunk of this wealth comprises the value of pension entitlements, a golden pot that already took a severe walloping from Ed's mentor, the Great Helmsman. With occupational pensions now a thing of the past (at least outside the public sector) it has become a wasting asset.

What's more, the second biggest chunk of wealth comprises property assets, which again, have taken a serious walloping since the ONS compiled its numbers.

In fact when you focus in on the actual cash and other readily realisable assets owned by the rich - ie the financial wealth that Ed could actually grab and redistribute - you find it is very much smaller, at around £0.5 trillion. What's more, because it is so liquid, any attempt by Ed to grab it would swiftly result in its disappearance out of harms way.

The real problem is that there simply aren't enough millionaires to go round. According to the 2010 World Wealth Report, the UK has around 450,000 so-called High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs), which sounds like quite a few. But a HNWI is defined as a dollar millionaire in terms of cash and other reddies, and these days even the average punter earns more than that over his lifetime. In terms of robbing the rich , it's pretty slim pickings.

No, whatever Ed may claim, robbing the idle rich could not possibly raise enough cash to protect the middle class from the squeeze. The reason that successive governments rob the middle class is simply because that's where the money is.

In  the real world outside Ed's fantasies, the only way the middle class can even hope to escape is if Cam and George push on with their spending cuts.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: politicos, politics of envy, tax

"**** My Victims"

You're going down Bliar

"**** my victims. I carried them for 20 years, and now I'm doing 150 years."

What a brilliant Cagneyesque line. Never mind that he broke the law, Bernie Madoff fingers his greedy victims as the real culprits. He tells a fellow prison inmate:

"People just kept throwing money at me. Some guy wanted to invest, and if I said no, the guy said, 'What, I'm not good enough?' "

You've got to love him. Here's a man who lied and cheated and ran the biggest Ponzi scheme America has ever seen. When the scam finally imploded, his punters were ruined. Yet it turns out he was the real victim himself.

It's like say... oooh... I dunno... suppose some bunch of snake oil politicos promised a bright new dawn of plenty for all, got elected by a gullible public, spent borrowed money like there was no tomorrow, got elected again, spent even more, and carried on like that for years. Obviously when the scam finally imploded, the public would turn on them, sling them out of office and into jail.

Those politicos would probably feel like victims too. After all, if the stupid voters hadn't fallen for the fantasy hook line and sinker, they would never have insisted on such fraudsters staying in power for so long.

Of course, in the real world that could never happen. Failed fraudster politicos don't go to jail. They go to the House of Lords.

PS So just why are busted disgraced Labour getting so much uncritical airtime? Ex-gay marriage and keeping us out of the Euro, every other single thing they touched has turned into a major disaster we now have to somehow sort out. And yet the humbugs currently standing for the Labour leadership - people like the arch-hypocrite Abbott - are treated as if they're perfectly reasonable and respectable members of the community. As for their attempted volte-face on mass immigration, and their stated belief that it's perfectly OK to assassinate Tory leaders... don't get me started.

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Feet Of Clay

The Pru's soon-to-be-ex-CEO in conference with St Bob

Here on BOM, we write a lot about mendacious self-serving politicos and overpaid incompetent public sector managers. They're our stock in trade - the dreadful people who consume half our national income.

Cynical? Well, we long ago learned that even the brightest and the best of these people have feet of clay. When by some chance we've enthused about one of them, more often than not, that person promptly lets us down (eg see our many posts on boonie king Sir John Bourn, the now disgraced ex-head of the National Audit Office).

The depressing case of David Laws is a prime example. Here was a man we praised at the start of last week - praised for his clear grip on the most difficult problem we face, and his apparent willingness to take the political heat in order to promote the national interest. A man to admire.

The next thing - blow me down - it turns out our shining new hero has been up to his grubby haunches guzzling in the trough. Sure, he may have been shopped by dark homophobic forces working to undermine the coalition, but that's no excuse - he's the one that did the guzzling.

Worse, it seems his emergency replacement - who let's face it, is only just out of secondary school and obviously knows next to nothing about matters fiscal - may have already been involved in second home flipping and rinsing his travel perks.

Feet of clay. But still daring to stand in authority over the rest of us.

Yes, we can all see that.

But what to do?

Our prescription is simple - break up the public sector, privatise where possible, localise where necessary.

Simple, yes, but surely there are just as many egregious plonkers running private companies. Why should anyone believe they'd be any better than the lot running the public sector?

Yup, there's definitely some truth in that. And as it happens, we've just witnessed a Grade A case in point.

You will have seen that the Prudential's hugely overpriced $35bn bid for AIG's Asian business has collapsed in ignominy and bitter recrimination. The Pru's Chairman Harvey McGrath, and Chief Exec Tidjane Thiam, are widely seen to have brought this fine old British company to the point of catastrophe through their Fred the Shred style mix of arrogance and incompetence.

They may have talked a great story of sunlit uplands and plenty for all, but when it came down to it, they were apparently quite prepared to sacrifice the financial interests of their shareholders to further their own vaulting and vainglorious ambitions.

Unsurprisingly the shareholders are furious - especially since they now understand the CEO was actually trying to dump them:

"Thiam faces a bigger charge: forgetting that although the money and deal was Asian, crucially it depended on a vote by British investors. Thiam's proposal was to create a vast new Asian-focused insurer where the shares and the value of the company would be in Asia, at the cost of the existing shareholders.

As one expert observer said: "Tidjane wanted to fire his current investors and get some new ones. He just forgot about the vote."

Now, we know some other people who'd like to fire their traditional supporters and get some new ones, don't we. It's no surprise that the ambitious Thiam has already had one spell as a politico, and that according to one rumour, as a French citizen, he has set his ultimate sights on the Presidency of La Belle France itself.

It's all so very very like the behaviour of our own dear politicos.

And yet there are some key differences.

First, these jokers have been stopped by their voters (aka the shareholders). Under the Pru's constitution they could not proceed with the lunacy without holding a referendum to get shareholder support. And there has been a shareholder rebellion the like of which the City has not seen in many a year*. If only we voters had such a lock on our Westminster politicos.

Second, there will be consequences both for the management of Prudential and probably the company itself. Private sector companies that screw up like this tend to get eaten by rivals who haven't. Choice and competition mean that evolutionary rules apply. Unlike one-size-fits-all Big Government, private sector companies cannot make huge and wasteful mistakes with impunity. Nature ensures change and improvement.

So yes, feet of clay exist all over.

But only in government do we carry on pretty well along the same old road irrespective of whose feet are on the control pedals. We desperately need to break it up.

*Footnote - As others have pointed out, the Pru shareholder rebellion could be a turning point in UK corporate governance. For the first time in living memory, institutional shareholders have flexed their muscles and said no to a high-rolling high risk management team. That's precisely what the textbooks say they should do, and precisely what they didn't do during the great financial bubble. Maybe there is hope for the future after all.

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Words and Deeds

They seem to have cracked the words bit

Thank you to everyone who commented and emailed yesterday telling me not to be so depressed about the Condem Coalition. As you pointed out, instead of moaning about the destruction of the old Tory Party, we ought to be looking at what the coalition is promising to do.

Fair comment.

So let's pull ourselves together and take a look at the joint Con-LD manifesto. And guess what - a lot of it turns out to be stuff we support. Although a lot of BOM's priorities are still missing:

1.  Deficit Reduction - they are promising to "significantly accelerate" Labour's deficit reduction plan "with the main burden of deficit reduction borne by reduced spending rather than increased taxes", to cut that contentious £6bn this year, to cut some middle class welfare, and to base their forthcoming budget on independent forecasts produced by the new Office for Budget Responsibility. All of which gets a great big tick, both from us, and by the sound of it, the Governor of the Bank of England. MISSING: although they promise "long term deliverability", there's no mention of quantified fiscal rules - including that all-important "third rule" to limit spending.
2. Spending Review - there's now an even longer list of protected areas- the NHS, schools, overseas aid, Trident, and restoration of earnings-linked state pensions. MISSING: detail on what gets cut.
3. Tax - partial rescinding of Labour's jobs tax (but not as much rescinding as the Tories promised), and a pledge for "a substantial increase in the personal allowance from April 2011". Both good. But against that, CGT is being whacked up, and the promised IHT cut is being ditched. MISSING: there is a worrying silence about VAT. Plus there is no acknowledgement of the vital need to reduce the overall tax burden built up under Labour.
4. Banks - new bank levy (aka liability insurance premium), and restoration of the Bank of England's supervisory powers. Both good. Euro entry ruled out, although given the rioting PIGS and the squealing German taxpayers, anything else would have been preposterous. MISSING: nothing substantive on splitting our too-big-to-fail megabanks.
5. Immigration - cap on non-EU economic migrants - good. MISSING: any limits on other non-EU migrants like those overstaying students (eg see this blog).
6. Political Reform - widely discussed elsewhere - fixed term Parliaments (but sensibly subject to a Commons override), referendum on AV, MP recall. MISSING: English parliament, radical reform of the Barnett Formula, fiscal decentralisation (ie decentralisation of tax raising).
7. Pensions and welfare - bring forward increase in state pension age to 66, simplify welfare to work programme, stronger incentives for private contractors to get claimants back working, and tougher line with dole scroungers - all good. MISSING: concerted attack on middle class welfare, abolition of welfare incentives to breed, increasing state pension age to 70 soonest.
8. Education - full free-school Gove with brass LD knobs on (ie pupil premium for poor kids). Hurrah. MISSING: explanation of how we fund pupil premium.

There are also various other headings, but as we can see, most of what the document says, we can support.

The problems come with the missing bits, especially the lack of content on spending cuts and just how we're going to manage our future public finances to deliver the lower tax burden vital to our future prosperity. NHS reform - one of Labour's biggest failures - also remains a complete mystery.

All of which is concerning. Because when it comes to spending cuts, the devil is always in the detail.

The joint manifesto's words say the coalition is starting off pointing in the right general direction. But only by their deeds shall we really know them.

PS The word fairness got a lot of use yesterday. Cam included it in his strapline pledge - "freedom, fairness and responsibility". To Tyler, fairness is a motherhood word that totally fails the opposites test - ie you cannot imagine any politico of any persuasion ever arguing for the opposite, which makes it pure waffle. But yesterday evening when Tyler suggested this to a non-Tory friend, he was told that actually there is a politico who would be prepared to argue the opposite: to wit, Lady M Thatcher. Is that right? Did she argue for unfairness? Can't say I remember it, but this friend seemed pretty sure. Must look it up, but whether she did or not, it just goes to underline how tough spending cuts always are. Because there are always losers, and it's impossible to ensure everyone takes the same hit. We may all be in this together, but some are going to suffer more than others, and whatever words Cam may use, they most definitely will not consider it fair.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: 2010 Election, fiscal policy, politicos

Happy Now?

On Sunday Tyler attended a get-together of local Tory activists to celebrate the victory of our new MP. We had crushed a strong Lib Dem challenge, with our man winning over 50% of the votes. Hurrah!

Yes, hurrah. Except of course, these activists were not exactly whooping with joy. They were concerned about our mixed local council results, and the stark fact that the party had not won nationally.

So here we are in coalition with the very people we've just spent a month slugging it out with. Hmmm.

Look, we all understand we're always ruled by coalitions. The Tory party itself is a pretty loose coalition, stretching all the way from Tyler to Oliver Letwin. And Tyler has about as much in common with Letwin as he does with Michael Meacher.

And we understand that not all Lib Dem ideas are bonkers - their aspiration to break the poverty trap by hiking the personal tax allowance to £10 grand is one we wholeheartedly support (even though we won't afford it any time soon).

But there are huge differences between our core philosophies. Not just the well known ones on Europe, crime and immigration, but also more fundamentally on the role of the state. You see, Lib Dems are social democrats. They believe a big state is necessary to share out the proceeds of growth.

Funny, that sounds oddly familiar.

Oh...

Mmmm...

You know, I've just realised why I'm feeling so depressed about all this. Cam's coalition marks our final arrival in FinkWorld. The long-threatened realignment of the right in which the Tory party transforms itself into the baby blue SDP.

Can that be right? Am I exaggerating? Don't think so - I'm just listening to William Hague - Hague FFS! - on BBC Today describing their coalition in exactly those terms - a realignment of British politics. And bigging up the fact that we're locked together for a fixed term of 5 years.

No, this is too depressing to contemplate. In five years, Cam will have reshaped the Tory party completely. The right will have been cast to the winds, and we'll have Fink's SDP respray.

It sure ain't something those local activists have asked for. And you have to wonder how many will stick with it.

Frankly, it's all too depressing to contemplate.

I'm going out for a long walk.

I may be some time.

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Beneath Contempt

We need to keep this as a reminder of what they really think

It's amazing listening to those metro-media prog con pundits seeking to excuse Brown's abominable behaviour in Rochdale. Apparently, we all get angry about things, he's under a lot of stress, and he was just having a bad day.

But that's not at all what the rest of us heard. What we heard was a two-faced bully who holds even his own supporters in contempt. Contempt for the perfectly reasonable concerns of a perfectly reasonable woman facing up to the real problems millions like her encounter in their day-to-day lives.

And whether Brown likes it or not, they are concerned about immigration. He may not want to discuss it, but out here, it's A Very Big Issue.

We've blogged this many times, so we won't do so again here. But there is one point worth reiterating.

Quite a bit of the commentary we've heard over the last 24 hours has focused on the point that we can't do much about immigration, because of our EU membership. But that is nonsense.

The truth is that from 1997 to 2008 (the most recent year for which we have comprehensive ONS stats), net migration into the UK totalled 2 million. Of that, just 0.5m came from the EU - including the new members like Poland.

Moreover, during that same period, a net 0.8m UK citizens left. Which means that net migration from countries outside the EU totalled an extraordinary 2.2 million:

And that is all migration we could stop.

Yes, of course we would want to make exceptions for genuine asylum seekers. And we might want also to make exceptions for some high skill workers (although we could just give them fixed-term work permits).

But that is nothing to do with our EU obligations.

In truth, the EU point is a cop out. It's yet another convenient argument for closing down discussion on immigration. Metropolitan prog cons don't want to discuss it, and they hold those that do in contempt.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: Gordo, Immigration, lies, politicos

Frankly, We Get The Government We Deserve

Millie Senior was on yesterday, attempting to explain why anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together could possibly believe Labour's new pledge card (Ollie Cromwell's excellent version above). And all he could come up with was "frankly". As in "frankly, these pledges are frankly pledges to which we frankly pledge ourselves".

But shouldn't they be running on their record? Given that they've been in power for 13 years, and all.

"Well, frankly, our record is something we can be frankly proud of."

Oh yes?

As you will recall, the last time they dropped a steaming great pat of their pledges on us was in the 2005 election. And their Number One Pledge then was "Your family better off". Since when, GDP per head has fallen by 2%.

So why aren't the Tories 20 points ahead? Just why are we still taking Millie's hopeless corrupt exhausted has-beens seriously?

You really can't avoid the conclusion that it's Tory failure. Failure to seal the deal, get the message across, put the ball in the net - whichever cliche you prefer. But more fundamentally, and more worryingly, still nobody seems quite sure what the deal/message/ball actually is. What does it look like?

Yesterday Cam had another go at explaining. He certainly delivered a good bash at Labour - Mrs T was on her feet cheering in front of the Big Telly - and he reiterated his three familiar headings - mend our broken economy, mend our broken society, and mend our broken politics. But after that it started to go a bit fuzzy.

The clearest and most compelling bit by far was where he covered the Gove schools plan - "busting open the state monopoly in providing schools" (see this blog). A real plan for delivering improvement via choice and competition, and a real break from more of the same under Labour. So hurrah for that.

But when it came to say taxes, or the NHS, or welfare reform, it all sounded pretty much like biz as is. Everybody talks about reforming taxes to help small businesses; everybody talks about undying commitment to a somehow more efficient NHS; and everybody talks about cracking down on benefits scroungers. In other words, to the first approximation, it won't make a blind difference whether we have Cam or Brown at No 10.

In fairness, there are a couple of other key policy differences between the Tories and Labour, but, unless I missed it, Cam never mentioned them. Like for example the Oz style cap on non-EU immigration, which is Tory policy, and which polling suggests is a clear vote winner (Labour is only offering an uncapped points system). Unfortunately, Cam's morbid fear of nastiness prevented him even acknowledging it.

 Which brings us to the excellent Janet's piece in today's Sunday Telegraph. She says that the Tories should stop being so scared of spelling out their true vision, which is one BOM readers will immediately recognise:

• Big government is hopeless at running anything - it wastes huge amounts of our cash, drags down our prosperity, and ends up deploying Stalinist methods to enforce its will;
• Decentralisation and personal responsibility deliver much better results in terms of overall efficiency;
• Contrary to socialist mythology, decentralisation and personal responsibility can also deliver much better results in terms of fairness - remembering that fairness does not have to mean Marxist equality of outcome

And Janet puts her finger on the nub of the issue:

"This is normally the point in the argument when the Tory spokesman loses his nerve. Unable to assent to anything that would repudiate "fairness", the party retreats on to Labour's ground instead of standing its own. What it could be saying is, "Let's look at how successful Labour's approach has been. Has central government, with all its determination to deliver social equality, actually reduced deprivation and increased opportunity for the poor?" No, it hasn't – and the figures exist to prove it. Inequalities of educational achievement, health outcomes and earnings have not diminished under Labour.

So maybe the overweening, overspending, over-intrusive state isn't the answer. Perhaps, contrary to paternalistic, Left-wing myth, it is poorer communities that would benefit most from local self-determination. Perhaps deprivation is as much linked to passivity, defeatism and despair as it is to material poverty, and giving people more responsibility and power over their own lives would enable them to see a future for themselves that was not hopeless."

Spot on Janet.

There is a real argument to be mounted here - that despite all the expense and the waste, Labour's big government approach has failed utterly to deliver the fairness they themselves promised. And by undermining personal responsibility, it's made the situation of Britain's underclass ten times worse.

Once or twice in the past, Cam has summoned up the nerve to move onto this territory, and it really hit the target (eg see this blog including the vid).

But there's no denying it requires nerve. With much of the news intermediated by the BBC, anything that even hints at removing state support from the so-called disadvantaged can so easily be spun into that tried and tested nasty narrative.

Which is the very point currently preoccupying the Major. According to him and his brainy friend Herr Doktor Professor Kuntz, 13 years of Labour misrule have left Britain emasculated not only economically, but also politically.

The state has wormed its way into all aspects of our lives. 25 million voters are now directly dependent on the state for all or part of their incomes (see here) - that's over half the electorate. Our political establishment have been bought wholesale with lavish troughing rights and Zils. And the left's state subsidised media hegemony feeds the people an unbroken diet of Big Government propaganda, making it impossible for dissenting voices to get a fair hearing. We are therefore consigned to live under the yoke of state socialism for ever.

Unless, that is, we act to throw off that yoke. The Major has lately been trying to persuade me to join what he calls his "balloon group". He tells me that he and a band of like-minded patriots are preparing for the day when said balloon goes up. "We get the government we deserve, Tyler, and it's no good just sitting around hoping for the best. The time has come for those of us who care deeply for the future of this once great nation to act."

He refuses to tell me what "acting" might entail, but I do know he's been in touch with the regiment, as in "you know, The Regiment".

Talk about the 70s. Back then, we had a weak Labour government way out of its depth amid a massive economic and social crisis. And back then, patriotic majors set up balloon groups, mercilessly (albeit amusingly) mocked by the BBC:



Fortunately, back in the 1970s we were eventually rescued. Rescued by a strong Tory leader prepared to lay it on the line, and to tackle the real issues however nasty the BBC said she was.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: 2010 Election, politicos

Wasting Time

You wouldn't think we're facing the worst fiscal crisis since 1815. According to Darling, the economy is on track for 3.5% pa growth, and we don't need to cut government spending anytime soon. There's time to bash people buying mansions, but no time for a proper review of departmental budgets.

Actually, you know what? I can't be bothered to waste any more time analysing this appalling sham. The only budget that matters is the real one to be delivered (hopefully) in early July.

So I'll just rip off what the Bloke wrote for the TPA this afternoon.

************

Government Debt - Fiddling While Taxpayers Burn

Although the budget has revised down the government's forecast of borrowing and debt, in terms of the big picture it has made virtually no difference. Total debt is still forecast to rise to £1.4 trillion by 2014-15, which is £56,000 for every household in Britain.

What's more, the government's definition of debt excludes a number of items that add hugely to taxpayer liabilities. These include public sector pensions, PFI debt, Network Rail debt, and of course the liabilities relating to the bank bailouts, which extraordinarily are omitted from the official debt total. Adding in all of those items increases our total debt by around £1.4 trillion.

However, even setting these Enron style debts aside, the official public debt on its own is going to impose a substantial and increasing burden on taxpayers over coming years.

Hidden away in its detailed tables, the Budget projects an increase in public sector debt interest payments from £31.5bn this year to £73bn in 2014-15, a rise of 130%. Which means that in four years time, the average household will have to pay £3000 pa in tax just to pay the government's debt interest bill.

And debt interest will be eating up an increasing share of the government's income. Instead of going to fund public services, a bigger slice of our taxes will be paying debt interest:

So whereas over most of the last decade the public sector was spending 5-6% of its income on debt interest, by 2013-14 it will exceed 10%. That takes us right back to the 70s, when debt interest was a constant drain on the public finances.

Worse, the budget assumptions on government borrowing costs (gilt yields) may well be too optimistic. The Treasury is assuming yields remain in the range 4-4.5%. But given its continuing need for substantial borrowing throughout the forecast period, plus the fact that the Bank of England will probably not be repeating its huge gilts purchases last year (Quantitative Easing), there is a real risk that gilt yields move higher. And that would increase debt interest costs.

To gauge the possible additional costs, we have looked at three alternative scenarios for gilt yields: that yields move 1%, 2%, or 3% higher than assumed by HM Treasury in the budget. Some may argue that a 3% increase to over 7% is extreme, but we should remember that yields have been far higher than that in the past - as high as 17% in the 70s.

And if yields did increase to 7%, we project that debt interest costs reach £94bn by 2014-15, adding the best part of another £1000 pa to the average household's tax bill:

Taxpayers are about to rediscover the costs of deficit financing. Whether we believe the Treasury's rosy assumptions on gilt yields, or expect an increase, we are facing a massive escalation in debt servicing costs. And the budget has done nothing to contain it.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: debt, politicos

The Cost Of Denial

Maybe it was another false alarm

The story so far: Britain stands on the edge of an abyss: Labour has created the biggest fiscal hole anyone can remember; a bigger deficit than any other developed country, even the PIGS; the only reason the bond vigilantes have not yet mounted a raid is because they think the coming election will produce a government committed to national defence of the public finances; within weeks we face a make-or-break trial; yet for most people, the crisis still seems far away: gas-masks were issued months ago but they haven't been needed, and now they're stuffed away in the back of some cupboard; people are questioning the need for any wartime restrictions, and our politicos don't feel inclined to argue; leadership has fled overseas.

Now read on...

Yesterday, thinktank Reform had another go at rallying support for a serious package of fiscal salvation. Pointing out that current plans leave our overall indebtedness (debt-to-GDP ratio) rising for years - maybe decades - to come, they call for a bigger retrenchment than any of our politicos are currently contemplating. By 2013-14 they say we should have reduced annual borrowing from 12% of GDP to 4.5%, and that the vast bulk of the action should comprise spending cuts rather than tax rises.

The headline figures are a £100bn pa fiscal squeeze, £87.5bn of which falls on spending (ie 7 pounds out of every 8, mirroring the successful Canadian programme in the 1990s). Here's their summary comparison against the Labour, Tory, and LibDem plans (click on image to enlarge):

Clearly, the Reform programme requires much bigger public spending cuts than any of the politicos will admit to - £85.7bn vs Labour's planned £57.8bn - but it sounds much closer to what we need. As we all know, the only thing that will rescue us in the long-term is growth, and tax rises will kill growth stone dead.

And Refom also reiterate a couple of points we've made here many times. First, to make spending cuts on the required scale will mean all programmes (including the £110bn pa NHS) have to take a share. And second, much of the cutting will have to fall on the £200bn public sector paybill, and the £200bn pa welfare bill (including the estimated £31bn pa currently spent on middle class welfare). Taken together the paybill and the welfare bill account for nearly two-thirds of public spending.

As a benchmark, Reform have also looked to see what other heavy deficit countries are doing to tackle their crises. From Ireland, to Greece, to Spain, to Portugal, to France, they find some consistent themes:

• Public sector pay freeze/cuts
• Public sector recruitment freeze/cuts (both France and Portugal have imposed a "2 out for 1 in" recruitment rule)
• Public sector pension entitlements cut/employee contributions increased
• Welfare entitlements cut

All very sensible, and the sooner we get started the better.

Ah, but... those discarded gasmasks... where's the politico who's going to speak truth unto the people?

And frankly, where's the politico who's even going to grip the problem post the election? Even if there's a 50 seat Tory majority is that nice Mr Cam really going to cut spending by £87.5bn? Is he really going to attack teachers and nurses and old people and babies and fluffy little lambs?

Or is he going to fall back on that good old British standby - muddling through? Yes, we stand for fiscal discipline and tough decisions, but no, of course we won't attack fluffy lambs... we'll leave that to someone further down the chain of command.

Because that's what happens when Westminster politicos fail to take the really tough decisions - they get passed all the way down to the frontline where decisions have to be taken. And in the heat of battle, in impossible circumstances, those decisions are often the wrong ones.

History tells us that top politicos sitting in their grandiose Whitehall offices can in extremis be persuaded to cut spending - ie budget allocations. But what they're much less good at is making decisions on which particular fluffy lambs will be sacrificed to realise those cuts.

We have a couple of good examples in the news today - both sadly familiar to BOM readers.

First, the Public Accounts Committee reports a £36bn black hole in the defence budget. Under Liar Brown's stewardship, the MOD has never had sufficient funding for all the various requirements landed on it by the government, and now faces a £36bn shortfall. According to the soon-to-be-retired-and-sadly-missed PAC chairman Leigh:

"Matters have worsened to the point where the department will have to take difficult decisions, such as to cancel whole equipment programmes."

And we all know how that ends - British troops literally on the frontline being forced to dice with death because inadequate budgets mean they don't have the right kit for the task they've been given.

Second, the College of Emergency Medicine says a key NHS target - to treat people visiting accident and emergency units within four hours - is compromising care and patient safety. Sure, the College has got an axe, inasmuch as their members don't like being pressurised by targets. But as we've blogged before, the NHS target regime has long record of producing perverse results - the tick-box targets get met, but only at the cost of extensive resource diversion from untargeted activities, even where they are also essential. In other words, politicos have passed the tough decisions right down the the frontline, which is where the fluffy lambs have to be dealt with.

How much better it would be if the politicos had the balls to make the real decisions on priorities right there, where the buck ought to stop - with them.

But instead of that we seem to be drifting yet further into a replay of the 70s script, which in case you need reminding, goes like this:

The politicos fail to take decisive action to correct the budget deficit; the market vigilantes attack; the politicos are finally forced into action, but without the breathing space for proper planning; their emergency measures involve big tax rises and big spending cuts; the cuts are across the board, lacking detail on what specific services should go; far down the chain of command, right out at the sharp end, public infrastructure decays, class sizes increase, hospital waiting lists lengthen, and soldiers die.

Don't miss the next exciting episode.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: cuts, politicos

Labour's Fiscal Fantasyland

Public sector efficiency experts on the job

As they keep reminding us, Labour's Big Fiscal Pledge is to halve the deficit by 2013-14. In Darling's own words:

"Backed by legislation... the Government will ensure public sector net borrowing, as a share of GDP, falls every year and is more than halved by 2013-14."

And according to their latest numbers that is precisely what they will achieve - Public Sector Net Borrowing (PSNB) falls from 12.6% of GDP this year, to 5.5% in 2013-14.

But even if the markets can live with that speed of retrenchment - and many think it's not fast enough to maintain confidence - there is still a serious problem. Because Darling's projections are based on a range of assumptions that bear virtually no resemblence to the real world - it is a fiscal fantasyland.

Part of the fantasy is their assertion that they can achieve their projected retrenchment without cutting so-called frontline services, and without increasing taxes beyond what they've already announced. As we've blogged many times, given their abysmal track record on public sector "efficiency" that's going to be impossible. Moreover, so far they have even failed to specify where their assumed "savings" are coming from - which specific spending programmes are going to face the budget axe?

But there is another even more dangerous strand of fantasy - their assumption that Britain's economic growth will soon bounce back to 3.25% pa:

So according to the Pre-Budget Report, over the five years from 2010-11, GDP growth is supposed to average 3% pa. But in a world of over-indebtedness, zombie banks, and tax increases, that is extremely unlikely. Consider:

1. The average of independent forecasts for more or less the same period (2010 to 2013) is just 2% pa - and that was collected and published by the Treasury itself (see here page 18).
2. Last time we had to tackle a fiscal crisis even remotely like the current one - in the 70s - GDP growth was pretty close to zero for the following five years: in fact between 1976 Q4, when the IMF arrived, and 1981 Q1, when Geoffrey Howe finally completed the necessary fiscal consolidation, UK growth averaged just 0.4% pa.
3. Japan's notorious Lost Decade of stagnation, following the collapse of its financial bubble in 1989, lasted... well... a good decade.

So what happens to Labour's halving of the deficit when their fantasy GDP growth doesn't materialise? Because as we all know, growth is the vital driver of fiscal health. Without growth, tax revenues remain depressed, welfare spending increases, and Darling's borrowing pledge won't be worth the legislative paper it's printed on.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies attempted to answer this vital question in their recent Green Budget. They are naturally too polite and circumspect to accuse the government of spinning a fantasy, but they did take a close look at the fiscal consequences of slower growth.

The model a range of possible GDP scenarios - all more pessimistic than Darling's growth assumption.

Their central case is that GDP growth will average 2% pa over the next five years rather than Darling's fantasy 3% pa - pretty much the consensus view among independent forecasters. And on that basis they project that the 2013-14 borrowing requirement will be about 1.7 percentage points of GDP bigger than Darling forecasts - ie 7.2% of GDP (see page 125). Which means Labour miss their solemn and binding pledge to halve the deficit.

Personally, Tyler reckons 2% pa GDP growth still sounds too optimistic, and is more convinced by the IFS's pessimistic case. That assumes average growth of just 1.3% pa over the period - more than we got following the 1976 IMF visit, and more than Japan got in the 90s, but closer to the likely outcome than the IFS central case.

And on that basis, the IFS project that borrowing in 2013-14 will be around 8.2% of GDP - way higher than Darling's 5.5%. Far from halving the deficit, Labour would only have cut it by one-third. We'd still be having to borrow £120 - 130 bn pa, and our official national debt would be well in excess of £1.5 trillion. We'd have long since ceased to be a AAA credit, and the likely level of gilt yields doesn't bear thinking about.

So is Darling going to correct his fantasy projections in the forthcoming budget?

No sorry, that's another stupid question.

The real question is WTF does anyone believe them? Why doesn't everyone just laugh at such preposterous nonsense?

Because if these clowns somehow get re-elected, I tell you, we won't have much to laugh about then.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: fiscal policy, politicos, spin

Her Majesty's Worst Ever PM

Little did she know...

[Many apologies - the initial version of this post omitted PM Heath altogether. Can't imagine how I left him out]

You can't help wondering what Her Majesty thinks of the arrogant dunderheads she's had to deal with since her Coronation in 1953. Since she came to the throne she's had 11 Prime Ministers, and almost without exception, they have all fallen short.

In her name, and without a shot being fired, they have surrendered large chunks of national sovereignty to a fascist superstate ruled over by the very people we'd spent the previous thousand years defending ourselves against. They have taken Britain into illegal wars bringing nothing but pain. They've watered down our criminal justice system and permitted a massive upsurge in lawlessness. They've dumbed down our education system, destroyed our work ethic, and undermined our cultural integrity. Her Majesty's great-great grandmother would have been seriously unamused.

But until now, she has at least been able to console herself with the thought that her subjects have benefited from an unprecedented rising tide of material prosperity. With one or two slight hiccups along the way, living standards have risen continuously throughout her reign. Overall, GDP per capita has trebled, an average annual growth rate of 2% pa. It has been an achievement without parallel in British history.

Moreover, every one of her Prime Ministers - every single one - has left average incomes higher than they found them.

Well, every Prime Minister until now, that is.

For the first time ever, Her Majesty has a Prime Minister who has presided over a fall in GDP per capita - and not a small fall either. Since the idiot Brown took over less than three years ago, per capita GDP has fallen by a catastrophic 5%.

Here's the complete Prime Ministerial record up to end-2009 (per capita GDP at basic prices; ONS data and BOM calcs):

Churchill (1953-55) +7%
Eden (1955-57) +2%
Macmillan (1957-63) +15%
Douglas-Home (1963-64) +4%
Wilson (1964-1970 and 1974-1976) +15%
Heath (1970-74) +12%
Callaghan (1976-1979) +7%
Thatcher (1979-1990) +26%
Major (1990-97) +13%
Blair (1997-2007) +27% (yes, on this measure, he beat Thatcher)
Brown (2007-2009) -5%

Please take a moment to absorb that list. Brown's record is miles worse that Callaghan's - despite all those Red Robbo strikes and the Winter of Discontent. And it's miles worse that Eden's - widely reckoned to be our worst post-WW2 PM.

Indeed, the damage suffered under Brown has been so extensive, average incomes have now fallen back to their level five years ago - the most dismal five years we've seen since the Coronation.

HM is no fool. She must be well aware what a complete dud Brown is. And just like the rest of us, she must watch the news, wondering HTF such an idiot can possibly be catching up in the polls.

But unlike the rest of us, she can't really leave if he gets back.

Instead, she'll have to sit there listening to another five years of his bullying lectures as her kingdom sinks into the abyss.

Off with his head!

PS The 1953 Coronation is Tyler's first memory. He watched it in a community hall alongside maybe a couple of hundred others. All staring at a 12 inch black and white telly. Kids today - they don't know they're born.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: economy, Gordo, politicos

Sticking With Stalin

Tyler has just finished reading Andrew Roberts' new history of WW2. It's actually rather disappointing, but as always there are bits of history that jump right out as being the tragic first run of some current farce.

Take the wartime exploits of Comrade Stalin. In 1941, this supreme bully presided over a government and army so weakened by his horrific mismanagement that it pretty well imploded when confronted with the German invasion. As the German forces swept deep into Russia, Stalin - who had arrogantly ignored all previous warnings of the invasion - suffered some kind of breakdown. He was terrified that his fellow commissars would mount a coup against him and have him shot - just as he'd done with countless fellow citizens. The country was left leaderless in its hour of greatest peril.

Yet the coup failed to materialise. His fellow commissars dithered and ducked and left the wounded monster in power. He may have spent the previous 10 years throwing mobile phones at them, he may have given the nation public services so hopeless they couldn't protect the country against invasion, and he may have bankrupted the economy with insane mega-projects that would never work. But they stuck with him. Or rather, by failing to act, they ended up getting stuck with him.

Now, as it turned out, that was the probably the correct call. Well, it was probably the correct call if you didn't mind being one of the 26m Soviet citizens who died in the war, or one of the hundreds of millions of people who spent the next 50 years under a repressive dysfunctional Soviet dictatorship.

And so to our current little problem.

We surely all understand by now that Comrade Bean chucks mobiles, presides over appalling public services, and has bankrupted the country. We also understand that most of his fellow commissars believe him to be a liability. But neither they - nor it seems we - are prepared to shoot him. How can that be?

How can the Tory poll lead be collapsing? Or to put it another way, how can Dave be so ineffective at capitalising on Bean's disasters and offering a clear alternative?

There is a school of thought - to which Tyler has subscribed - that says we need to see the actual invasion before we'll be convinced. We need to see that much-trailed collapse in market confidence, complete with sterling plunge, huge hike in bond yields, and Darling frozen in the TV lights outside HMT.

But Tyler's now beginning to wonder. Would that actually do it? What if Comrade Bean held an immediate morale boosting parade in Red Square (as Stalin did in November 1941)? Comrade Mandelsonski nodding gravely by his side, he reminds us that such a moment of national destiny is no time for a lightweight novice from the PR industry flip-flopping all over the place.

He, the Great Helmsman, has learned from previous mistakes, he will now always listen to his generals, and he stands ready to form a government of national unity with Comrade Cleggomov and St Vincenzo. It is time for all True Patriots to set aside past differences, to rally to the flag, and to defend the Motherland!

With panzers at the gates we need a fighter not a lover.

PS Please God we don't sleepwalk into this. If we do, the Tylers will be following future developments from some neutral country far far away.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: 2010 Election, politicos

The Art Of Lying Big

"In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves... would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.


Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."

So said one of the foremost experts on lying*. For real impact and lasting effect, you have to lie big.

And boy, has Labour lied BIG.

This morning brings the latest revelations concerning their Big Migration Lie. For years Labour told us that we needed mass immigration in order to make us richer. There was never any serious evidence to support the argument, but ministers routinely spouted it. It now seems that the economic case was always just a Big Lie, and their real reason for encouraging the influx was to irreversibly transform British culture and society.

We've blogged this before (eg see here), but this morning MigrationWatch have released a smoking gun in the shape of previously unpublished sections from a government report in 2000. MigrationWatch's Sir Andrew Green says:

"...In the executive summary, six of eight references to ‘social’ objectives were cut from the version later published...


...It seems there was a project led by Downing Street political advisers to introduce a secret policy of mass immigration. Their economic arguments surfaced in an obscure research document but the social objective of greatly increased diversity was entirely suppressed for fear of public reaction – especially from the white working class.

... One point to consider is the impact on the electorate. It is not generally realised that Commonwealth citizens legally in Britain acquire the right to vote in general elections as soon as they put their names on the electoral register. In Labour years we have now seen an additional 300,000 from the Old Commonwealth and about one million from the New Commonwealth.


They may well have been conscious that they have much stronger support among the ethnic communities than their Conservative rivals. Given that mass immigration is heavily in Labour’s electoral interest, they may have thought that they could get away with it."

It's so outrageous, you just know it's true. An almost exact replay of the old economic snow job that took us into the EU: we were sold the EU on the basis that membership would make us richer, whereas in truth, the ruling elite wanted us in so they could be part of the new Superstate, continuing to enjoy a seat at that all-important top table.

And then there's the Great Global Warming Lie. As we've blogged many times, nobody seriously doubts the climate is changing - it changes all the time - but by promoting the unproven assertion that it's man/capitalism that's responsible for frying the planet, Labour has sought to validate its entire agenda of state control and high taxation. This is socialism disguised as saving the planet.

Worse, even though much of this lie is now unravelling in the face of climategate and the dodgy IPCC reports, ministers and their supporters at the state broadcaster are still spouting the same old stuff as if nothing had happened. Just like good old Doc Goebbels advised, they're trying to spin the issue into one of dark forces seeking to extinguish the sacred torch of truth.

Of course, the Global Warming Lie pales into insignificance beside the damnable lies concocted to justify the Iraq War. In another performance straight out of the Doc's playbook, they justified an illegal war on the basis of the dodgiest of dodgy dossiers presented to us as being "beyond doubt".

But the important things about the Iraq lies is that they have come back to bite the perpetrators. The Major was immensely encouraged to see the odious spinmeister Campbell breaking down on the Andy Marr show. Confronted with the facts, Campbell slumped into embittered victimhood, losing any final shred of authority and credibility in the process. Or as the Major put it "they can dish it out, but they sure can't take it".

Which is why we need to see much more of this. We need to see the Big Liars confronted and humiliated. We need our politicos to understand that Big Lies have big downsides. We simply can't afford another government like this one.

*Footnote Yes, you're quite right: it is indeed Hitler's Mein Kampf.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: lies, politicos

Please Tell Me

"Can you please tell me who will stop this happening and I will vote for them."

So says Mr Tony Nicholls in a comment under Christopher Booker's latest ST column today.

Booker (along with Richard North) has made another valiant attempt to unravel just how much of our tax money is being flushed down the bog of the global warming industry. It's not easy, as regular BOM readers will recall from our own attempts. Indeed, there is every indication that government departments deliberately mislead us.

For example, Booker describes how Defra paid £1,436,000 to fund the international working group that produced the last IPCC report - the one that included such lies as the melting Himalayas. Yet they later claimed in a report to Parliament that the cost was only £543,816 - only around one-third of the true cost.

Indeed, as Booker points out, when it comes to tax funding for the increasingly discredited global warming industry, official behaviour bears all the classic hallmarks of money laundering:

"Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs... lists 26 "suspicious indications" which should attract attention to the possibility that a financial transaction might need investigating. These range from "checking identity is proving difficult" or "reluctance to provide information requested" to "unnecessary routing of funds through third parties" and "transactions having no purpose" or "which seem to involve unnecessary complexity".

It's clearly outrageous, and not at all what any of us want. But as Mr Nicholls' comment highlights, we don't seem to have much choice. All three of the mainstream Westminster parties are committed warmists, pledged to go on with Operation Barbarossa however bonkers it may be, and whatever the catastophic impact on our prosperity.

Which brings us to the conversation Tyler is having with increasing frequency round the leafy glades of Surrey. It goes like this:

The Major (or Mr Scott, or Mrs Fitzgerald): "But why should I vote Tory when they're going to be just the same as Labour? Why shouldn't I stay at home to show what I think of them all?"

Tyler: "Well, because if you do that, the LibDems will get in all round here, and we'll either end up with Brown scraping back or a hung parliament. And if that happens, the markets will tank within weeks, there'll be the emergency budget to end all emergency budgets, taxes will go through the roof, and you'll end up in an even worse situation than now. Is that what you want?"

The Major (or Mr Scott, or Mrs Fitzgerald): "No of course not, but it may be we just have to go through it. I mean we never got Maggie until Heath had gone down and the country had experienced some serious pain. Right now we seem to be wandering around in a daze... nobody seems to understand what a grave situation we face, and Cameron isn't prepared to stick his head above the parapet to tell us. And even if he gets in, do you seriously imagine he'll get a grip? He'll be just like Heath... drifting along until we hit the rocks."

Tyler: "Hmm... well... Cam and Osborne are bright boys. They must know what happened back in the 70s, and they won't want to preside over a replay. Once they're in - assuming they can get a majority, that is - they'll have 5 years to sort things out. And whatever they say or don't say ahead of the election, they know they'll have to get a grip right away in order to give the economy the best possible chance of returning to growth by 2015. They're not dumb."

The Major (or Mr Scott, or Mrs Fitzgerald): "You think so, huh? And do you believe in fairies as well? Frankly, it isn't just the economy that worries us about Cameron, it's the whole deal - from hugging hoodies right through to this global warming nonsense. I mean, whatever happened to the traditional Tory party? Whatever happened to Tory values?"

Mr Farage (rudely butting in): "They all went off and joined UKIP."

*****

It's very difficult all this, isn't it. The horrible fact is, there isn't actually anyone we can vote for who will stop this happening. Sure, there are people we can vote for who will promise to stop it, but that's a different thing - under our grotesquely unfair first-past-the-post Westminster system of government, such people will never get the chance to actually implement their promises. Tyler's constitutional reform package includes separation of the powers and a directly elected President, but absent that, our real world choices are indeed very limited.

Which is why we will be out campaigning for the Tories again this time. They sure ain't perfect, and we share many of the Major's concerns, but in terms of forming a government to replace Brown's disaster, they're all we've got.

And what we can say is that from Tyler's personal knowledge, a good number of the new Tory candidates who will hopefully become MPs in May do share our belief in small government. Yes, they are all susceptible to the murky compromises that condemned souls make for power, but they are at least starting out on our side.

What we must do - all we can do - is to carry on campaigning outside of Westminster for the things we believe in. Believing that one day, when the tide of public opinion has turned far enough, our once and future king/queen will again step forward to wrench that sword from the stone.

It may not be much, but right now my friends, I'm very much afraid it's all we've got.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: 2010 Election, eco wibble, electoral reform, politicos

For Real

Circle of unreality

According to the Major, the crisis has moved way beyond the handling capacity of our dysfunctional democracy.

"Here we are, the country bankrupt, ruled by a Scottish communist, stuck in a war we can't win, overrun by mad mullahs nobody does anything about, and our only alternative is a lightweight PR man. Gah! We need a leader - someone who can get a grip." He fixed me with those bloodshot eyes of his, and tapped the side of his nose meaningfully. "It won't be long now - you just wait."

Well, obviously the Major is a tad right of centre, but he sure ain't the only one casting round for Another Way. And watching PM's Questions today, you can see why.

What exactly is the point of PMQs?

"Will the Prime Minister admit he's crap?"

"I'll tell him who's crap! The party opposite is crap, crap, crap!"

"Once again, the Prime Minister has ducked the question. The IMF says he's crap, the OECD says he's crap, and even his own personal Hoon says he's crap! Why won't he admit he's crap?"

"The only crap round here is the party opposite. It's crap! And if it was left to them, we'd be in the crap!"

Errrrugghh...

I've just read the Treasury Select Committee Report on the preposterous Pre-Budget Report. Here's what it says:

• The GDP assumptions underpinning the PBR's fiscal projections are ludicrously optimistic
• The unemployment assumptions are ludicrously optimistic
• The housing market assumptions are ludicrously optimistic
• The bank lending assumptions are ludicrously optimistic
• The projection of the structural fiscal deficit is ludicrously optimistic

The Committee - Labour dominated, remember - also highlights the shameful lack of information on the government's future public expenditure plans:

"There is a sense that the Treasury are using uncertainty to suit themselves. Despite substantial uncertainties they still produce some forecasts out to 2014-15 and illustrative projections out to 2017-18. We can see no good reason for the Treasury failing to produce illustrative figures for future expenditure... We recognise that there will be uncertainty in these figures, but they are produced as part of the Spending Review process so there appears to be no argument of principle against their publication."

To summarise, the Committee is saying the government is not levelling with us over the true magnitude of our fiscal crisis, and the full horror of the medicine we'll have to take.

Why is that?

Well, because they figure if we knew the truth, we'd never re-elect them.

Fine. But couldn't Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition tell us the truth?

Well, no, because if they did, we might associate the nasty medicine with them, and not elect them either.

So we're stuck.

And you know the really worrying bit?

Once Cam is in No 10 - once he's Seen The Books - he'll have to decide whether he can risk telling us the truth without us turning on him. And judging by the evidence to date, you'd have say that's a longshot.

Instead, we'll get an update of the preposterous PBR, slightly tweaked in the direction of reality, and with slightly more information on spending. But it won't be the unvarnished truth. We won't get that until we run into the inevitable sterling/gilt market crisis and the IMF pitches up on the redeye from Washington.

It will be Obamba Part Deux all over again - yes, it's a fresh new start with me, I'll close Gitmo, and everything will be cool... OMG, you mean these are the secret files... OMG... what should we do? ...we haven't closed Gitmo yet, have we?

Is it black-hearted deception, or simple naivety? You know - if we just whistle to ourselves and carry on as if everything is OK, then maybe something will turn up.

Yeah. That must be it.

Remind me, what's the point of our politicos again?

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: debt, fiscal policy, politicos