Random Mousings

Top Dotty

2012-02-02T13:48:00.001-08:00

Sad news for the House of Commons. Top Toddy' has been banned from the Strangers bar because of an objection by Labour MP Kate Green.

Apparently Ms. Green was 'disturbed' at the sight of the beer and complained to the leader of the Commons, Sir George Young. She called for a debate on "dignity at work in parliament" and tweeted that the beer "demeans women". It was promptly removed from sale.

Kate Green likes to boast that she has "not step foot in" the Strangers bar in the eighteen months since she was elected to be an MP. I'm not clear how you can be demeaned by something that happens in a room that you don't visit and since when did drinking beer involve 'dignity at work'?

Top Totty is an award winning beer brewed by Stafford-based Slater's and was first introduced to the Strangers bar in 2007 as a guest beer. It was so popular that it sold out after 3 days.

Kate Green was selected to run for Labour in an all-woman shortlist. She won the seat of Stretford and Urmston with 48.6% of the vote in 2010. She serves as the "chairman" of the Women's Parliamentary Labour Party. She is a member of the GMB and Unite trade unions, the Fawcett Society and the Fabian Society.

I'm not sure how well banning an award winning beer based because it 'demeans women' will go down in the male dominated unions, but it will probably go down better with the Fawcett Society which campaigns for womens rights. Sadly, men have no rights in the Labour party.

It seems that in some circles, the right of a drinker (male of female) to drink a beer is trumped by the right of a woman to object to a cartoon picture of another woman, even if she is clothed in a bikini. You would think that if any women object to the beer they could simply not drink it, but that is not enough - they need to stop others enjoying the award winning taste too.

Top Totty is described as "a stunning blonde beer, full-bodied with a voluptuous hop aroma". That sounds like a beer worth drinking to me.

Maybe they are objecting to the name.

Totty is defined by the Urban Dictionary as:

Totty:
- means a good looking person
- can be either male or female
- eg. "phew, he's a right bit of totty"

Judging by the meaning and the above picture of Ms. Green, maybe we can find one reason why she might object to the name. Mind you, being good looking is not a crime, neither is being ugly.

Urban Dictionary also have the definition:

Totty:
- To be unsteady on one's feet.
- eg. 'After five pints Bill was very totty'.

That is a great name for a beer. People do not drink it to help them stand up.

Another definition by Cambridge Dictionaries Online is:

Totty:
- tot·ty
- adj \ˈtätē\
- archaic : dazed, fuddled

Maybe that is why she objected. It sounds like a perfect description of Kate Green.

Rewarding failure

2012-01-31T10:51:00.000-08:00

Ed Miliband thinks that "it right Fred Goodwin has lost his knighthood". I can see his point.

He thinks that "it is only the start of the change we need to see". I agree with that too.

I have already suggested that Sir Callum McCarthy should be next. He let the banks run wild as boss of the FSA. He should pay the price of failure, not be allowed to get away with his crimes.

I have already argued that Labour should set an example by giving up their unearned bonuses that they received on leaving office. They too should not be rewarded for failure.

Here is another example of rewarding failure.

John Prescott was made "Baron Prescott, of Kingston upon Hull in the County of East Yorkshire" in July 2010 after serving as Labour party deputy leader and Deputy Prime Minister.

John Prescott was responsible for building 9 purpose-built regional fire control centres to replace the 46 Fire and Rescue Service's local control rooms across England. They were to be linked by a new IT system.

The only problem: they didn't work and the IT system was never delivered.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) acted to cut its losses by ending the contract in December 2010, seven years after it had begun, but at least £469 million will have been wasted, with eight of the nine new regional control centres remaining empty and costly to maintain. Some estimates put the final cost at over £650 million.

I would call that a disgraceful waste of tax payer money.

I would call that a failure.

I would call that a massive failure.

Giving John Prescott a peerage was rewarding that failure. It is only fair that in this new age of responsibly that he should give up that peerage.

Ed Miliband says "this should not be about individuals, it is about taking the right steps now to create a more responsible capitalism". I think he needs to add "and a more responsible government" at the end of the sentence.

I think that John Prescott should be defrocked. I am pretty sure that Ed Miliband agrees with me.

The Euro isn't working

2012-01-31T09:54:00.000-08:00

The latest European Union unemployment statistics are out. Things are not looking good.

The unemployment rate for the EU-27 was 9.9% in December 2011, up from 9.5% in December 2010.

In the Eurozone the rate is even higher - it was 10.4% in December 2011, up from 10.0% in December 2010.

That is a whopping 23.816 million men and women out of work in the EU, 16.469 million of which live in Eurozone countries.

The UK unemployment rate was 8.4%, well below the EU-27 and Euro average and a full 1.5% below France. If you listened to Labour you would think that we had the highest unemployment in the world. We don't, even after the million+ jobs lost by Labour's Big Recession.

Lets look how the unemployment rate in the Eurozone:

Spain	22.9 percent
Greece	19.2 percent
Cyprus	14.8 percent
Ireland	14.5 percent
Portugal	13.6 percent
Slovakia	13.4 percent
Estonia	11.3 percent
France	9.9 percent
Italy	8.9 percent
Slovenia	8.2 percent
Finland	7.6 percent
Belgium	7.2 percent
Malta	6.5 percent
Germany	5.5 percent
Luxembourg	5.2 percent
Netherlands	4.9 percent
Austria	4.1 percent

Top of the list are the PIIGS countries. They are clearly suffering under the Euro. They have huge budget imbalances and their only hope would be devaluation to bring down their deficit and put people back into work. The Euro prevents them for doing the only thing that could save them.

Near the bottom of the list is Germany. Germany wins big from being in the Euro, but refuses to allow a real fiscal union (the treaty that they just agreed does NOT deliver fiscal union) where wealth would be transferred from rich countries like Germany to poor countries like the PIIGS.

The high unemployment in the PIIGS countries is due to fiscal imbalances, not the failure to meet the EU budgetary rules (remember: Germany and France broke those rules too). The treaty that they just signed just repeats the existing EU budgetary rules, but still has plenty of wriggle room because they still don't apply if there are exceptional circumstances (like a recession or credit crunch).

This is why Germany wants to save the Euro, even though (or perhaps because) it is destroying the competitiveness of the other Eurozone members.

The Euro isn't working. It is time for it to be given up as a bad experiment. Here are 16.469 million reasons for doing so.

The exceptional Rachel Reeves

2012-01-30T14:51:00.000-08:00

Rachel Reeves MP, Labour's Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has just been on Newsnight attacking bank bonuses.

She said 'bonuses are for doing "something exceptional". In fact, she repeated it several times. Well, that means she must be right.

Rachel Reeves is well qualified for her job. From 2000 to 2006 she worked as an economist at the Bank of England.

Every year the Bank of England give out bonuses for people who did "something exceptional".

During fiscal year 2006-2007 they gave out bonuses worth £4.8 million to 1606 out of 1744 people. That must have been a whole lot of "something exceptional"!

This was the year before the credit crunch.

I guess she was right. Destroying the economy is "something exceptional" and Rachel Reeves deserved credit (and a bonus) for her part in the story.

Sadly I can't find public information on her bonus payments at her next job.

Between 2006 and July 2009, she worked as a business planner and analyst for Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS). HBOS was taken over by Lloyds Bank in 2009 to save it from bankruptcy. Still, I'm sure she did "something exceptional" at HBOS and got a bonus there too.

Will Labour follow Hester's lead?

2012-01-30T12:37:00.000-08:00

Labour believe that you should not be rewarded for failure. They say that being paid large sums when ordinary people are suffering is wrong.

I agree.

In May 2010 voters fired the last Labour government for incompetence, yet they received one-quarter of their annual salary as a severance payment.

Total severance payments by Department

Department	£
Business, Innovation and Skills	54,626
Cabinet Office	37,464
Communities and Local Government	55,339
Culture, Media and Sport	27,302
Children, Schools and Families	75,870
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs	37,464
Foreign and Commonwealth Office	37,464
Health	75,870
Home Office	73,421
International Development	37,464
Ministry of Defence	55,546
Ministry of Justice	53,832
Northern Ireland Office	10,162
Scotland Office	51,448
Transport	52,177
HM Treasury	170,146
Treasury Solicitors	44,884
Wales Office	27,302
Work and Pensions	73,421
Total	1,051,202

Notes:
- this is not redundancy pay. These people were replaced not made redundant. If you or I were fired we would not get paid this money.
- this is just for ministers who stayed in the commons. Those who did not received even more money.
- this does not include gold plated pensions.
- Source.

Now that Stephen Hester has given up his bonus (which he actually deserved because he was doing a good job) I assume that we will see Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper etc. pay back their severance pay (which they didn't deserve because they left our economy in an absolute mess).

Up yours, Sarkozy

2012-01-30T09:56:00.001-08:00

The 'little man' of Europe speaks! French President Nicholas Sarkozy said that the UK has 'no industry' on French TV. Is he right? Lets look at the numbers.

Here I compare the UK with France and industrial powerhouse Germany.

Industrial 'value added' as % of GDP

The UK actually has a higher industrial output than France, but both are lower Germany.

If the UK has 'no industry' then France has less than none.

Services 'value added' as % of GDP

France is more dependent on services than the UK, and both are more dependent on services than Germany.

Agriculture as % of GDP

France is by far the most dependent on agriculture, which explains their refusal to reform the EU's Common Agricultural Policy - they are too scared to take on their farmers.

Exports as % of GDP

The UK exports more than France.

Imports as % of GDP

But it also imports more than France.

Overall, both France and Britain have much to learn from Germany.

Nicholas Sarkozy made the claim when trying to defend his raising of VAT by 1.6% to 21.2% and creating a Toobin tax on financial transfers of 0.1%.

David Cameron's government also raised VAT to 20%, but he lowered income taxes for the poorest at the same time and plans to gradually lower corporation tax in the future.

Cameron has made it very clear that he will not impose a Toobin tax on London so Sarkozy's financial transaction tax will destroy jobs in France and create them in Britain.

One final graph:

Tax revenue as % of GDP

France is the highest taxed country.

Sarkozy plans to match his tax rises with payroll tax cuts. That might help create French jobs in the long run, but it is clearly more of a plan to try to gain support in the upcoming elections. So too was his slanderous statement on the British economy.

Bonus culture or Bully culture

2012-01-30T04:51:00.000-08:00

Labour have succeed in bullying the boss of RBS, Stephen Hester, into giving up his bonus.

They said that he should be stripped of his bonus. What they don't say is what he actually did wrong to deserve it.

RBS failed and was bailed out before Hester even took the job. He was brought in to try to salvage a profitable business from the wreckage, and it was a Labour government that hired him to do it.

Remember, it was Labour who created the failed banking regulation system that led to the collapse of RBS and the other banks. Even Ed Balls admits that. Why do the people who helped destroy RBS now want to punish the person that they hired to come in and fix it?

When he was hired his employment contract said that RBS would be run as an independent business, not a government department. RBS executive pay was to be set by the board of RBS and it would be set high enough to attract talent to the company. They would offer performance related bonuses to encourage those executives to do a good job.

Stephen Hester was in line to receive 60% of his bonus. That says that he is doing a good, but not great job. The bonus is there to work harder and encourage him to do better.

Now that Labour are out of power, why do they think that this arrangement should be changed?

I guess the real question is: how good a job is Hester doing? Did he earn his bonus?

I looked at the latest RBS accounts and they seem to be slowly returning to health.

Here is a summary of the latest 9 months compared with a year earlier:

	Sep-11 £M	Sep-10 £M
Income	22,158	25,203
Operating expenses	(11,834)	(12,629)
Profit before charges	10,324	12,574
Insurance claims	(2,439)	(3,601)
Profit before impairments	7,885	8,973
Impairment losses	(5,747)	(7,115)
Operating profit	2,138	1,858
Non-operating items	(3,144)	(1,841)
Profit/(loss) before tax	1,210	(391)
Taxes	(1,436)	(637)
Profit/(loss) from continuing operations	(226)	(1,028)
Profit/(loss) attributable to shareholders	(199)	(1,137)

Observations:
- Income is falling. That is because they are unwinding their business to take them out of unprofitable/risky areas. That is a good thing.
- Insurance claims are uncontrollable. You can't blame Hester for them, as long as they earn more in insurance fees than they give out in claims (which they do, but that is not shown here).
- Impairments are falling. They are losses from writing down bad loans inherited from pre-crash times. That is good.
- The operating profit is rising. That is good.
- Non-operating items shows a loss. That is because they are writing down bad loans inherited from pre-crash times.
- They have moved from a pre-tax loss to profit. That is good.
- They are paying more taxes because they making profits. That is good for the tax payer.
- Their post-tax losses are decreasing. That is good.
- The loss to the share holders (tax payers own 82% of the bank) is falling. We are losing less money on our investment. That is good

Now lets look at how the tax payer is doing:

	Sep-11 £M	Sep-10 £M
Taxes paid	1,436	637
Loss on shares (@82%)	(117)	(932)
Total	1319	(295)

So, compared with last year, the tax payer has gone from losing £295 million to earning £1.3 billion. That seems like a great job to me. That man deserves a bonus!

The real fat cats

2012-01-30T04:49:00.000-08:00

Now that Labour have bullied Stephen Hester into not taking his bonus, despite the fact that he earned it, it is only fair to compare his role and pay to that of Labour politicians.

Tony Blair took a job with JP Morgan as a part time adviser. More recently Tony Blair set up his own financial services company in Mayfair

Peter Mandelson joined investment bank Lazard as a senior adviser.

There is no public information about how much Mandelson is paid, but we do know how much Tony Blair earns. Lets compare Stephen Hester with Tony Blair.

Stephen Hester is full time CEO at RBS.

Tony Blair is (was?) a part time adviser at JP Morgan (he spends the rest of the week bringing peace in the middle east).

Stephen Hester runs a major public company.

Tony Blair spends a few days a week consulting.

Stephen Hester is responsible for 148,500 jobs, mostly in the UK.

Tony Blair employs 26 people.

Stephen Hester is responsible for generating £billions in profit for the UK taxpayer owned bank.

Tony Blair is responsible for using the connections that he made as British Prime Minister to setup meeting with the rich and powerful to bring in $billions of work for the US investment bank.

Stephen Hester gets £1.2 million/year from RBS (and no bonus thanks to Labour).

Tony Blair gets £2.5 million/year from JP Morgan (plus around £10 million more from his other jobs).

RBS paid over a £billion in corporation tax profits in the many £billions.

Tony Blair paid £315,000 in tax on an income of £12 million.

Who is the real fat cat?

A traditional marriage

2012-01-28T04:08:00.000-08:00

Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, is in the news damanding that David Cameron not allow the marriage of same sex couples.

He says "marriage must remain a union between a man and a woman" and David Cameron will be "acting like a dictator if he allows homosexual couples to wed".

That is a strange thing to say - I thought dictators told you what to do, not let you do what you want.

Dr Sentamu tells ministers that they should not overrule the Bible and tradition by allowing same-sex marriage. But wait a minute - since when did marriage belong to the Christian church? People were getting married before Christ was even born. How can the Christian church claim ownership over the matrimony? How can the bible tell us how and when people can marry when most religions don't use it?

Dr Sentamu says:

I don’t think it is the role of the state to define what marriage is. It is set in tradition and history and you can’t just [change it] overnight, no matter how powerful you are.

Well, Dr Sentamu is powerful - he is the second most senior cleric in the Church of England. The Church itself may be a shadow of it's former self, but it remains a powerful voice.

Lets look at the tradition and history of marriage.

- the institution of marriage pre-dates reliable recorded history

- historically a marriage is not necessarily between just two people - some societies allow one man to marry many women (polygyny), one woman to marry many men (polyandry) or even group marriages of more than one member of each sex

- some societies limit marriage based on the ages of the participants, pre-existing kinship, and membership in religious or other social groups.

- in ancient Greece marriages traditionally happened between men in their 20s and women in their teens.

- some societies limit when marriages happen (some think marriages should be during a full moon, others that marriages should happen in winter).

- some societies require women to divorce their husbands if their father dies without male heirs so that she can marry her nearest male relative.

- many societies make the wife subject to the authority of the husband - 'to honour and obey'.

- in some societies married women are restricted to bringing up children and maintaining the home.

- some societies have a minimum age for marriage, others allow arranged marriages as early as birth.

- some societies require that the wife take the husband's name

- some societies require that the husband ask the permission of the wife's family or the church

- some societies require the Church to register the marriage. Some allow the church to do so. Some make it the responsibility of the state. Some don't require the registration of marriage at all.

- some societies require the wife's family to give a doury.

- some societies require witness to the marriage, others don't.

- some societies allow divorce, others do not. The absolute right of two married partners to consent to divorce was only recognized in western nations in recent decades - ie. in America in 1989.

- some societies allowed slavery and the marriage of the slave required the permission of the owner.

So which of these traditions from history does Dr Sentamu want us to follow?

He could argue that we live in England and he represents the Church of England (even though he was born in Uganda!) so we should follow English history.

England allowed arranged marriages in the middle ages and they were even part of diplomacy - prince and princes were pledged for marriage at birth to obtain preferential treatment by our allies. Today David Cameron's government is fighting against arranged marriages in immigrant communities. Presumably the Church of England wants the woman to be the property of her father.

England required the wife to take the husbands name in the 12th Century. England required the husband to get parental consent in the 16th Century. The traditional wording assumes that the wife must 'honour and obey' the husband. Presumably the Church of England wants the wife to become the property of the husband on marriage.

English churches used to register marriages (which was not obligatory) and the state had nothing to do with them. Marriages were adjudicated in ecclesiastical courts, not by the state at all. This role was taken away from churches by the Protestant Reformation when we split from the Roman Catholic Catholic Church and the Church of England was created. Why did the Church of England ignore 'history and tradition' then when it grabbed the powers from the Catholic pope? Presumably the Church of England wants to take the whole marriage business back from the secular state.

Before Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753 marriage did not require a ceremony. After the act it did. Wasn't this a move against 'history and tradition'? The act did not apply to Jewish or Quaker marriages. Presumably the Church of England only wants to get involved in marriage when that marriage happens at a Christian Church, so it would be happy if same sex marriages happened in other churches?

Civil marriages have been recognised since 1837 (according to the Marriage Act of 1836) - before then only church marriages were. Presumably the Church of England wants us to go back to the traditions before 1836. In fact, can it tell us exactly when in history it wants to take the traditions from?

There is actually a long history of same sex marriages around the world. It is believed that same-sex unions were celebrated in Ancient Greece and Rome, some regions of China, such as Fujian, and at certain times in ancient European history.

In fact, from the 5th to the 14th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church conducted special ceremonies to bless same-sex unions of marriage. Does the Church of England want to go back to that historic tradition?

Well, we should probably forgive the Church of England it's confusion over marriage. It was only created so that Henry VIII could get divorced so that he could re-marry. It owes it's existance to the need to change the tradition and history of marriage in this country.

In fact, it it was not for Christian led social reforms (ie. changing traditions), Dr Sentamu would more likely be a slave than a Church of England Archbishop. He would have need the permission of his slave owner to get married at all, and that marriage would have to be with a black woman.

I believe that we should look to more recent history to guide us. Instead of listening to the founders of the Protestant Church like Marin Luther we can learn more from more recent Church leaders like Martin Luther King.

Dr King told us:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

When Dr King told us that he believed 'that all men are created equal' I don't think he meant all straight men.

When Dr King told us that we are 'free at last' shouldn't that include the freedom of men to marry men?

Can we not extend those freedoms to include the right for the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners to marry each other if they so desire?

I think that Dr Sentamu could learn a lot from Dr King.

Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring -- when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children -- black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics -- will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Greece annexed by the EU?

2012-01-27T15:38:00.000-08:00

In the 20th Century, war involved soldiers, planes and tanks.

In the 21st Century, we seem to have done away with the bloodshed and war involves inviting a country to join you in a single currency, lending them billions that they can never afford to repay, forcing their economy into the ground to pay the debt, removing their democratic government and then taking them over in exchange for lending them even more money.

Reuters reports that Germany (hmm, I remember that name from a history book that I read once) plans to insist that Greece give up financial and budgetary control and give them to the EU.

This follows on from the last plan, where Greece would default (but not call it default) on it's debts, but only for the private sector, not the German controlled ECB.

Greece has already been bailed out once. They have failed to meet the commitments that they made in the first bailout where they promised to cut their government deficit year on year. The austerity program forced on Greece actually made the deficit worse, not better.

Greece was then forced to give up democracy (even though they invested it!) and the legitimate government was replaced by a technocratic alternative.

Next they demanded that the private sector 'voluntarily' give up all claims to most of the money that was lent to Greece as a condition for a second bailout will not work. Not surprisingly, asking somebody to give up tens of billions of Euros 'voluntarily' did not work.

Now the EU wants to give up on the pretence of letting Greek citizens run their own country. They want to take over the single most important function of government - the ability to decide how to tax and spend the money from the Greek people.

Not only that, but they want to insist that repaying the EU loans takes precedence over all other spending - that means paying back money to the EU is more important than paying the Greek people wages and benefits from that taxes collected from the Greek people.

Germany basically wants to turn Greece into Scotland - no responsibility for taxation, only spending what money is given to them by their masters.

Meanwhile the SNP is desperately trying to turn Scotland into Greece. Doing so would force Scotland into the Euro and probably hand over control to Germany in about ten years time.

Any regular reader of 'Random Mousings' shouldn't be too surprised - I predicted this in September. I did give them an alternative suggestion to avoid it but I don't get many hits from Greece (maybe they can't afford the internet any more).

Here is the leaked text of the formal declaration of takeover, together with a plain English translation (hat tip zerohedge.com).

Assurance of Compliance in the 2nd GRC programme

I. Background
According to information from the Troika, Greece has most likely missed key programme objectives again in 2011. In particular, the budget deficit has not decreased compared to the previous year. Therefore Greece will have to significantly improve programme compliance in the future to honour its commitments to lenders. Otherwise the Eurozone will not be able to approve guarantees for GRC II.

The last set of demands that we made of you made things worse, not better. We blame you, not us.

Even though we made your economy worse by forcing austerity on you, we won't give you any more money unless you give in to our demands.

II. Proposal for the improvement of compliance
To improve compliance in the 2nd programme, the new MoU will have to contain two innovative institutional elements on which Greece will have to commit itself. They will become further prior actions for the second programme. Only if and when they are implemented, the new programme can commence:

Here are our demands. If you don't agree to them then you don't get a penny more from us, and we both know that you don't have much choice in the matter.

1. Absolute priority to debt service.
Greece has to legally commit itself to giving absolute priority to future debt service. This commitment has to be legally enshrined by the Greek Parliament. State revenues are to be used first and foremost for debt service, only any remaining revenue may be used to finance primary expenditure. This will reassure public and private creditors that the Hellenic Republic will honour its commitments after PSI and will positively influence market access.

You must become our debt-slaves. Your money is now our money. Paying our money back comes first, before paying your own wages, pensions, benefits, public services (like hospitals).

Your parliament must sign this agreement in blood. This is because we don't trust you.

We will let you keep your democratic name, but you know and we know that you are our bitch.

De facto elimination of the possibility of a default would make the threat of a non-disbursement of a GRC II tranche much more credible. If a future tranche is not disbursed, Greece can not threaten its lenders with a default, but will instead have to accept further cuts in primary expenditures as the only possible consequence of any non-disbursement.

We don't trust you to repay your debt (which we got you hooked on by giving you interest rates that were too low).

You have been threatening not to pay our banks if we don't lend you more money and we don't like that. In future don't do it again - if you can't afford to repay them then stop being greedy and spending money on food etc.

2. Transfer of national budgetary sovereignty
Budget consolidation has to be put under a strict steering and control system. Given the disappointing compliance so far, Greece has to accept shifting budgetary sovereignty to the European level for a certain period of time. A budget commissioner has to be appointed by the Eurogroup with the task of ensuring budgetary control. He must have the power a) to implement a centralized reporting and surveillance system covering all major blocks of expenditure in the Greek budget, b) to veto decisions not in line with the budgetary targets set by the Troika and c) will be tasked to ensure compliance with the above mentioned rule to prioritize debt service.

We don't trust you to stop spending money on wages, pensions, benefits and public services (like hospitals) so that you can afford to pay us.

We demand that you get a grip. In fact, because we don't trust you to do that, we will get a grip for you. We demand that you put one of our 'heavies' in charge of how you spend money. We will say that this is a temporary measure, but we both know that you will never recover.

Our guy in Greece will report back to us on how well you are doing at paying us back. He will tell us if you do anything stupid, like trying to buy food when you could be paying us back. He will stop you spending our money (from your tax payers) on anything we don't like. He will make sure we get our money back even if you don't like it.

The new surveillance and institutional approach should be formulated in the MoU as follows: “In the case of non-compliance, confirmed by the ECB, IMF and EU COM, a new budget commissioner appointed by the Eurogroup would help implementing reforms. The commissioner will have broad surveillance competences over public expenditure and a veto right against budget decisions not in line with the set budgetary targets and the rule giving priority to debt service.” Greece has to ensure that the new surveillance mechanism is fully enshrined in national law, preferably through constitutional amendment

Here is what we want you to say in your surrender document.

You must write the surrender into your constitution so that those pesky judges and any future politicians can't renounce your surrender or get in the way of us extorting our money from you and your people.

Labour hypocrisy on bank bonuses

2012-01-27T14:14:00.000-08:00

Labour are trying to make the Government look bad over RBS boss Stephen Hesters' bonus worth nearly £1 million. They say that David Cameron should step in and take away the bonus.

Well, lets look at what Labour did in government:

- Labour refused to take away the bonus of Hesters predecessor, Sir Fred Goodwin.

- Labour hired Stephen Hester and wrote his employment contract.

- They gave him a relatively high salary and bonus scheme because he gave up an even bigger one with his previous employer when he took the job.

- Labour claim that the government can take away his bonus, but it is written into his employment contract - which they wrote.

- Labour seem to think that the owners of a company can take away a bonus. They can't - that is why there is an employment contract in the first place, to protect the employees rights.

- Labour claim that the government should restore the banker bonus tax, even though Alistair Darling said that it would only work for one year when he first introduced it.

- Labour say nothing about the banking levy, which George Osborne introduced and which earns more for the tax payer than the bankers bonus tax did.

- The bonus is paid in shares, so the value is linked to how good a job he does.

- Much of the bonus will be taken away in taxes anyway.

The PM can't do anything about individual banker bonuses. Don't believe it? It was not this government who said that, it was Alistair Darling talking about Gordon Brown!

Ed Miliband accused the prime minister of a "disgraceful failure of leadership" over the issue.

Stephen Hester's bonus is only 60% of the full amount to which he is entitled. He has made it clear that he would leave the job if he did not receive the money to which he is entitled to. Any replacement capable of running RBS would insist on a similar deal, so denying Hester his money will just throw the bank into crisis and make it more likely to lose money. It could very well lose billions for the sake of not paying a million or so. Given that we own 82% of the bank (thanks to Labour's failed banking regulation and subsequence bailout) the people who would lose out would be us tax payers.

Ed Miliband would throw away billions of our money for the sake of a good headline. How is that for leadership? Is it any wonder that more Labour supporters think David Cameron would make a better PM than Ed Miliband?

GDP: Stormy weather

2012-01-25T13:32:00.000-08:00

Headline GDP figures show a 0.2% fall in the last quarter of GDP. This is a provisional figure and is subject to change, but it is a disappointing figure none the less.

However, lets look closer at the numbers:

	Q4	YOY
Agriculture+Fisheries	0.1	11.5
Mining+Quarrying	-1.1	-13.2
Manufacturing	-0.9	0
Energy	-4.1	-8.3
Water	0.2	1.7
Construction	-0.5	1.3
Distribution+Hotels+Restaurants	-0.5	0.7
Transport+communications	-0.1	-0.1
Business Services+finance	0	2.1
Government+other services	0.4	2.5
GDP	-0.2	0.8

The year-on-year (YOY) figures give a better view of where we came from and the Q4 figures give us the most recent picture of where we are at now.

The high value YOY for agriculture reflects the very cold weather in the Q4 2010, although agriculture is only 0.7% of GDP so it does not affect the GDP number very much.

The big falls in mining+quarrying and energy are probably down to changes to commodity prices. There is not much that the government can do about that - it reflects the fact that global demand is contracting.

Labour blame the bankers for the state of the economy when financial services are actually growing faster than the rest of the economy. They would tax the banks and destroy any growth in financial services. That represents 29% of our GDP and would be a disaster.

Labour are blaming the return to negative growth (it won't be a recession unless there are two quarters of negative growth in a row) on the government. If you look at the numbers you can see that the biggest areas of slow down are due to the global economy/commodity prices.

Labour say the government are cutting 'too fast and too deep' but the figures show this to be completely wrong. The government part of GDP is actually growing (+0.4% Q4 and +2.5% YOY), so they have that part completely wrong.

The government part of the economy is not being cut, it is growing. That itself is not good for our long term economic health but it is good for the GDP numbers.

If we want to get back to real positive growth the only solution is to weather the storm and cut government so that the private sector can start growing again.

Fact checking Fact-Checkers

2012-01-25T09:53:00.000-08:00

Channel 4 likes to give fact-checks on their blog for claims made by politicians. Their most recent one concerns the total number in employment in the UK.

David Cameron said

“There are more people in work today than there were at the time of the last election”

Channel 4 claim that since the election total employment has fallen from 29,145,000 to 29,119,000. They base their claim on official government employment statistics from this ONS website.

Well, looking at the data I can see these numbers:

May-Jul 2010 total employment 29,145,000
Sep-Nov 2011 total employment 29,119,000

This is a net loss of 26,000 jobs.

However, these were seasonally adjusted numbers. The actual unadjusted numbers are:

May-Jul 2010 total employment 29,128,000
Sep-Nov 2011 total employment 29,178,000

This is a net GAIN of 50,000 jobs.

So FactCheck got their facts wrong and David Cameron got his right. There ARE more people in work than at the last general election. They are real jobs, not artificially adjusted ones.

Channel 4 say that:

...the only people Mr Cameron is managing to keep firmly in employment is the FactCheck team.

Well, if they want to keep their jobs may they should learn how to read the statistics before quoting from them.

Update:

It seems that Ed Miliband got his facts wrong too.

Obama's final State of the Union?

2012-01-25T08:52:00.000-08:00

President Obama gave his (hopefully final) State of the Union address last night. Here is the full text. I believe this picture was taken from the section where he describes how much he has added to the deficit.

Here is a word diagram for his speech:

And here is a word diagram showing what he really wants to do:

Indecent Germans

2012-01-25T07:11:00.000-08:00

Bloomberg reports that senior German coalition lawmaker Michael Meister says that the German government will oppose any attempt to make the European Central Bank accept a writedown on its Greek bond holdings.

He said:

“I can’t imagine that European politicians would allow third parties to make such an indecent claim on our central bank. That contradicts our philosophy.”

Germany is the lead player in the Greek bailout talks which require private sector banks to take a 'haircut' of over 50% of their loans to bankrupt Greece.

What they are basically saying is that it is 'decent' for British savers to pay for Greece's problems but 'indecent' for German tax payers to do the same.

Private investors hold about 60 percent of Greece’s 350 billion euros ($454 billion) of debt. Germany wants them to accept losses of nearly 70% on those loans and for the ECB to keep 100% of theirs. British banks, British savers and British pension schemes would be hit by the losses.

The UK is not part of the Euro because we said that a single currency requires a single government and huge transfers of wealth from the wealthy parts of the currency zone to the poorer parts.

The German politicians did not listen to us and went ahead and created the Euro anyway. Now they say that it is 'indecent' for them to pay for their own failure and expect us to pay for them.

I don't know what the German word for 'decent' is, but I'm sure it has a different meaning to the English equivalent.

Bishops vote to make themselves richer

2012-01-23T11:19:00.000-08:00

The governments benefit cap policy has been defeated in the House of Lords. An amendment made by a bishop passed 252:237 with support by Labour (who recently said that they support the idea of capping benefits).

If this amendment stays then families will continue to receive benefits of more than £26,000 (possibly as high as £50,000 for some families), allowing them to live in houses that the people who pay taxes to fund those benefits can't afford for themselves. Many of those homes are in expensive areas of London where normal tax payers could never afford to live.

These people on welfare have their rents paid for them and have no incentive to hold down rents. That pushes up rents for everybody else and prices working people out of homes.

The Church of England bishops (who are the only church to have special representation in the unelected House of Lords) receive pay and pensions from the Church Commissioners investment fund. This fund owns a lot of residential property in London and benefits from higher private sector rents.

According to the latest published accounts, the Bishops over £27 million took from the investment fund in 2010. That is more than 4 times what was spent on Cathederals (£7 million) and almost half of what was spent on all the rest of the Clergy (£46.8 million). Note this is not the only money that goes to Bishops - the suffragan bishops costs are paid for by the dioceses.

They also break down how that money was spent. There are 113 bishops in the Church of England and the payroll part of the bill came to £5.1 million, so each Bishop cost the Church over £45,000 per year on average. Now those are averages - over £1.4 million of that goes to the Arch Bishop of Canterbury and his staff. The Church Commissioner's report states that their highest paid worker is paid £300,000 + benefits so presumably a lot of that goes to one man.

No wonder they think that it is OK for the tax payers to spend £26,000 on benefits for the "poor" - they take far more than that themselves.

You would think that at that level they could afford to pay for their own homes, but the Church of England spent a further £5.4 million on their houses, offices (which are often the same) and gardens, so they spent a further £47,000 on average on their housing costs.

I guess that to a bishop who doesn't have to pay his own rent it makes perfect sense for the lucky few on benefits not to have to pay London rents either.

These are 2010 figures and represent a 8% rise on the 2009 figures, so while the rest of the country suffers from reduced living standards at least the bishops are doing well.

Now not all of that money comes from their residential housing portfolio - they also own many big shopping centres and profit from investments made abroad and in farm land, but they are very efficient at maximising the return on investment of all of their funds, especially by raising rents to market levels.

The Bishops have just increased the rent for people who work, reduced the amount of money available to many welfare benefit recipients who live outside London just so that a few can live in big houses in expensive London areas. They then pay themselves out of the profits they make from charging high rents on homes owned by their pension fund. Those profits will be higher if the welfare state pushes up rents by subsidising people who could never afford to live in these expensive areas. In effect, the bishops have voted to increase their own income.

Not surprisingly, the Bishops themselves are against an elected House of Lords. 26 Bishops from the Church of England sit in the Lords. Other faiths have no equivalent rights, even though the Church of England is losing parishioners at a rapid rate and more people attend Catholic churches regularly than Church of England churches.

Still, declining Church of England attendance is not a problem for the Bishops. When churches close they are sold off and the proceeds put into the Church Commissioners investment fund. That is then used to buy more residential property in London to rent out at a profit and the profits given to the Bishops who let the attendances fall.

It seems that the unelected elite in this country will get richer if they do a good or bad job.

Update:

The amendment was proposed by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Rt Rev John Packer.

He received £134,624 from the CofE investment fund in 2010 (up from £116,091 in 2009, a 15% increase).

Part of that money came from:
- the sale of empty churches (the profits of which go into the fund)
- higher London rents
- higher food prices (via high and rising farm rents)
- higher retail prices (from high shopping centre rents)
- higher UK unemployment (from competition from foreign jobs created by foreign investments by the fund)
- poor countries like Vietnam (which receive Foreign Aid from the tax payer but pay out profits to the investment fund) etc.
- tax avoidance (by claiming to be a charity but still operating to make profits rather than doing good work)

Degradation from knighthood

2012-01-19T13:46:00.000-08:00

David Cameron has announced that Sir Fred Goodwin, AKA Fred the Shred, has been referred to a parliamentary committee to look into the stripping of his knighthood after banking regulator Financial Services Authority (FSA) wrote a report damming his performance as head of disgraced bank RBS.

Sir Fred was the target of a media campaign after he received a multi-million pound pay off after the failure of RBS and the subsequence multi-billion pound bailout.

I think this sends a good message that failure at the top will have consequences, even if it is just symbolic (jail would be more appropriate) but what about the other people who created the conditions for the financial crisis.

What about the FSA themselves?

The FSA was created by Gordon Brown when the Bank of England became independent. It took over the role of financial services regulator and ran the loose banking regulation framework that put the whole banking system at risk.

The FSA was led by Sir Callum McCarthy from 2003 until 2008, when he retired just as the banking system that he was responsible for regulating collapsed. He left just after Northern Rock needed to be nationalised and just before the systemic failure that led to Lloyds taking over HBOS and itself becoming a victim of the banking crisis.

Sir Callum was allowed to retire in 2008 at the end of his first term as FSA chairman with his reputation intact by the Labour government, because admitting failure by the FSA would have be an admission of failure by the Labour government and in particular Gordon Brown, who created the FSA.

Today even Labour leader Ed Miliband admits that there were mistakes made in the regulation of banks during the Labour years, although he does not name names.

Sir Callum left to re-join the private sector. Today he works for JC Flowers, a private equity company. JC Flowers was one of the bidders for the assets of Northern Rock, but they lost out to Virgin Money. Quite right too, because allowing one of the 'great and good' of the City of London profit from the remains of a bank that he allowed to implode through lax regulation would have been a national disgrace.

This year he was announced as the the figure head of JC Flowers' new property fund, Castle. This fund aims to profit from any new property boom, but given the state of the property market it is more likely to loose millions for investors while making millions for JC Flowers and Sir Callum in fees. It is basically a way to rip off uneducated investors looking for a return on their money. Castle is currently waiting for regulatory approval from... the FSA.

The move to take back Sir Fred's knighthood is a welcome step, but isn't it about time to admit what really created the banking crisis that led to the biggest recession since World War 2? Isn't it about time that Sir Callum was added to the list?

Historically removing a knighthood is called 'Degradation from knighthood'. Because the office of knighthood was treated with so much regard, taking on aspects of holy devotion, to be forsworn and stripped of knighthood was a purposefully traumatic experience.

The king could make the determination to remove knighthood from a man, as could certain courts.

In nearly all instances, the degraded man’s spurs were ‘hacked from his heels’, his sword broken (sometimes over his head), his cote of arms burned, and his shield hung upside down in a church or other public place. Often this disgrace was matched with a death sentence, for such knights were often charged with and found guilty of treason.

Sounds about right to me.

Treason, cowardice, and being forsworn were reasons often cited for the degradation, though it appears to have been rarely used. Maybe it is about time it came back into fashion.

FrAA+nce downgrade in pictures

2012-01-13T10:36:00.000-08:00

France is being downgraded by S&P to AA+ from AAA.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy is in crisis talks with his ministers:

Meanwhile in London David Cameron is holding a party with his ministers:

Germany says that Britain should also be downgraded but David Cameron replies that no matter what they say we don't have any money to bail them out.

Desparate to save the Euro, Sarkozy is planning to bring in outside help:

Danger: Unexploded Bombs!

2012-01-11T13:36:00.000-08:00

Oh dear, it wasn't supposed to happen like this. Ed Miliband is a victim of an unexploded political time bomb left for the Tories.

Today in PMQs Ed Miliband tried to detonate the 'Train Fare' bomb. During the Labour years rail ticket prices went up above inflation year after year except for one. In their last year of power Labour capped ticket price increases. They did so by adding a clause in an agreement with the train companies to hold the ticket price rises to 1% for one year. A second clause explicitly said that the limit would only apply for one year and that the train companies could continue to raise prices afterwards. Of course, when that happened they would want to rise them even faster to make up for the year of restraint, but Labour knew that by that time that they would be out of office.

Ed Miliband tried to set off this political time bomb by blaming the current government for letting rail prices rise above the rate of inflation, but David Cameron threw the bomb straight back at him. With today's bloggosphere it is getting harder to get away with tricks like this - Guido has the truth here.

This is not the only unexploded political time bomb either:

- In the middle of the financial crisis with the biggest deficit in the western world Labour found money for a £50 rise in the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners. At the time this was described as a temporary measure, but today you will hear Labour MPs complaining that this government cut the WFA by £50 because they followed Labour's plans and restored the WFA to its previous level.

- In an attempt to stimulate the economy the Labour government introduced a scheme which gave a payment for trading in old cars which could be used to pay for a new car. When this scheme wound down new car sales fell through the floor and partially explains why growth is so slow today.

Even the record deficit was a time bomb. It was an attempt by Labour to buy their way out of an election defeat using our money. The damage to the economy and the cuts were not caused by the Coalition, they were not caused by the banks, they were not caused by the credit crunch. They were caused by political calculations about the interest of the Labour party, not the interest of the British people.

These politicians played games with our futures to save their own jobs. That is why Labour are not fit to form a government and why Ed Miliband will never be a Prime Minister.

Equality Rules

2012-01-06T08:03:00.000-08:00

Just one day after Diane Abbott got in trouble for making a racist comment insulting white people as racists who want to 'divide and rule', she is back in the news for insulting taxi drivers as racists.

I am surprised that she has not insisted that we repaint all of London taxi cabs because painting them black is racist.

I am sure that what Diane really wants is rule by equality. We can never have that while the head of state can only be a white person.

Maybe she would prefer this type of rule:

And this is the new postage stamp:

Note: this is not the 'penny black' but 'penny ethnic minority'.

Jamaica is looking for a new Queen. Maybe that is Dianne's goal after losing the Labour leadership contest.

Can I have a P please Bob?

2012-01-06T06:04:00.000-08:00

RIP Bob Holness, 1928-2012, star of Blockbusters.

For your entertainment - a classic Blockbusters episode from 1983.

Can you imagine today's teenagers answering these questions without the internet?

Divide and rule

2012-01-05T13:07:00.000-08:00

Dianne Abbott is in the news for making a racist comment. She tweeted this:

Is this a racist comment? Well, the definition of 'racism' is:

rac·ism (rszm)
n.
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

Well, she believed that white people had a different human character and she was showing prejudice against white people.

I am white. I do not want to 'divide and rule' people by race. In fact, I think of all people as equals and judge them on their own actions, not the colour of her skin. She is prejudiced against me and people who happen to share my skin colour. She is a racist.

I actually agree with Dianne. In 2010 she commented on a Guardian article and said this:

The Labour Party should never get involved in the politics of racial division.

Today, a front bench spokesman did exactly that. That is why she should go and go now.

The problem for Labour is that they rely on 'divide and rule' to get elected.

- Labour try to divide by class (remember "Tory Toffs" - as a Conservative supporter who grew up in poverty I am deeply insulted by their class slurs)

- Labour try to divide by sex (witness how they focus on rising unemployment figures for women when the real scandal is that more men are unemployed in every single constituency in the UK)

- Labour try to divide by race (witness today's storm in a tweet-cup)

For Labour, politics is about redistribution from those who do not vote for them to those who do. That requires division into 'them' (who pay) and 'us' (who get the money).

Conservatives, on the other hand, stands for individualism.

- Conservatives believe in aspiration for everybody, because people who aspire to more can achieve more.

- Conservatives believe in individual choice - choice of school, choice of health treatments, choice of local services, choice of how to spend your own money.

- Conservatives believe in merit. We don't care what who you are or what social group you belong to but what you can contribute.

For Conservatives, politics is about helping individuals achieve success. We don't look at who you are or where you came from, only where you are going and how to help you get there.

The first step of fixing Labour's in-built 'divide and rule' mentality must be to change their name. The very name 'Labour Party' is divisive - it says that they are the party of the workers against the employers.

May I suggest 'Social Democratic Party'. Not only would that represent a modern left wing political party that exists to solve the problems of the early 21'st century rather than early 20'th century, but it would help them take voters and politicians from the Liberal Democrats too, and finally let them get over the schism of the 1980s.

Somehow I think that might be an idea too far for Ed Miliband. His party is too divided by his rule.

Top jokes of 2011

2011-12-31T14:36:00.000-08:00

The top jokes of 2011 all came in the last few hours of the year. They are all in the form of what the left wing media jokingly call 'journalism'.

Andrew Lansley plans to stare at womens breasts. Nice job if you can get it.

Hospitals told they should 'speed up' treatment for the elderly. Presumably so that they can be counted for the hospital targets before the patients die.

Jeremy Hunt rejects calls for 'austerity' Olympics. It is a bit late now that they have spent £9.3 billion and sold all of the tickets for top prices to rich foreigners.

New Year honours list reflects my aims for 'big society', says David Cameron. So now we know what Big Society is all about - meeting the Queen to get a medal.

Patients with unhealthy lifestyles must be warned, say experts. Presumably lazy fat alcoholic smokers need experts to tell them that they are unhealthy. As if the doctor has not already done that.

And the funniest of them all:

Euro could become world's leading currency. That assumes that it is still around by the end of 2012.

And finally:

Labour attack BBC for pro-coalition bias. The Guardian happily printed the Labour party press release. Ed Miliband's low ratings have nothing to do with him being useless then.

Did nobody tell him that journalism is a joke in this country?

Let he who is without sin

2011-12-28T10:36:00.000-08:00

The Pope used his Christmas message to call for an end to the bloodshed in Syria.

The Archbishop of Canterbury used his Christmas Day sermon to warn of the social damage and breach of trust caused by the summer rioters and the bankers who brought the country to the brink of financial catastrophe.

Who are these people who lecture us about moral values?

Today we learnt that Christian priests also like to indulge in a little rioting:

Jesus told us "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone". I don't think he meant that as an excuse for priests to use broom handles to attack each other at the site of his birth.

What social damage does it do when the people who are supposed to tell us the meaning of God indulge in violence against each other?

I have already talked about how the leaders of the Church of England have no right to lecture us about the sins of the rich when they pay a salary of £300,000 + benefits.

Nor should they lecture the bankers when they themselves run a financial institution that takes from the poor instead of giving to them and avoids paying taxes on the profits.

Neither does the Christian church have the moral right to lecture us when their own report detailed 10,667 allegations against 4,392 priests accused of engaging in sexual abuse of a minor between 1950 and 2002 and yet they tried to cover up the scandal rather than punishing those involved.

Jesus also said "... go, and sin no more". If there are any Christians reading then please forward his message to your priests because they have lost their way.

Piers Morgan's doctored picture

2011-12-20T08:52:00.001-08:00

Piers Morgan admitted to doctoring a picture at the Leveson enquiry. Is this the one?

Was he was laughing at Gordon Brown's joke or was Omarosa right about him after all?

France to veto the EU treaty?

2011-12-12T10:07:00.000-08:00

Oh dear!

Sarkozy's plan to bully Cameron into vetoing the EU treaty so that he had somebody to blame for the fact that the treaty won't actually fix the Euro seems to have hit a little snag.

The next President of France, Francois Hollande, has just announced that he would renegotiate the treaty agreed just last week.

Hollande says that he feels that the contract negotiations between France and the Euro countries should not stand, and if (when) he wins the Presidential election next year he will renegotiate the treaty.

Hollande is demanding the introduction of Euro Bonds, direct intervention by the ECB and a much bigger emergency bailout fund. It is good to hear that the future President understands the issues at hand, even if the current President is a clueless German poodle.

Sadly the French presidential elections will not be held until April-May 2012. With France about to be downgraded by the ratings agencies and the markets getting ready to demolish the Euro his election will come too late to save the global economy.

Now we know that:

a) David Cameron will not support a treaty if our national interest is not protected.

b) Nick Clegg and the LibDems agreed the negotiating position that led to David Cameron vetoing the treaty if our national interest was not protected, even if they are not happy about the outcome.

c) Even France is not behind the treaty because it is not in their national interest either.

What we do not know is whether or not Ed Miliband would have signed us up to a treaty that was not in our national interest and which would not fix the Eurozone problems.

Clutching at straws

2011-12-08T13:26:00.000-08:00

The latest news from the Euro Summit is that they are considering a plan to grant a banking license to the ESM bailout fund.

I'm trying to work out the real meaning behind their cunning plan.

Is their hope that by making the ESM a bank it could make fantasy finance instruments like CDSs and CDOs that American banks made so much money from before the first Credit Crunch?

Is their hope that by making the ESM a bank it will be a candidate for bailouts? The ECB has said that it will not pay into the ESM (and actually it is probably not allowed to by law) but they thought it might pay into the Bank of ESM.

Is their plan to move the ESM to New York or London to get the American FED or Bank of England to bail it out like other banks?

Thankfully even Germany's Angela Merkel realises that this one is just too silly and has vetoed it.

Also rejected:

- making the EFSF and ESM run simultaneously (the ESM is supposed to be a permanent replacement for the temporary EFSF).

- common Euro bonds (Germany does not want to pay for the Euro, but the Euro can't continue without it)

The grasping at plastic drinking implements continues...

Occupy the North Pole

2011-12-08T10:59:00.000-08:00

Finally, there is an Occupy event that might be worth supporting:

The 99%

The elves currently “occupying” the North Pole are previous toy makers now protesting their sole reason for existence. Elves claim Santa’s corporate influence must end. He “undeservedly” gets to be the poster boy for Christmas while they do all the work. Thanks to the Occupy elves, Santa’s workshop is on the verge of shutting down and Christmas Spirit has hit an all-time low.

The 1%

Santa Claus works tirelessly delivering goods and services across the globe without the slightest hiccup. What’s more, he works for the approval of well-behaved children and will only accept a few cookies and glasses of milk as compensation. Regardless, the Occupy North Pole elves claim he is the epitome of the greedy 1%. To them, Santa is little more than a jolly fat-cat who takes off every year in his luxury reindeer-utility-vehicle to enjoy an exotic, one-night vacation.

Personally I'm with Santa. What the elves don't realise is that he has no money because he gives it all away in the form of presents to avoid paying taxes. It is all perfectly legal.

On the other hand, the followers of Jesus only work one day a week yet earns million from their investments while they avoid paying taxes by claiming to be a charity.

Finland kills the Euro

2011-12-08T07:53:00.000-08:00

David Cameron asked for a Big Bazooka to save the Euro. Is Finland about to deliver a Big Bazooka to kill it?

Germany is arguing that restating the Maastrict stability rules for the Eurozone constitutes the fiscal union that others had been demanding. Well, that is a clear lie, but lets put that aside and look at Euro member Finland's opinions on another Euro rescue bid - the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

The ESM is a pooled fund that is intended to stop the spread of fiscal contagion from the failing periphery of the Eurozone. All Eurozone members contribute into the ESM (Labour signed the UK up to it but thankfully Cameron got us out of it) and the money is lent out to failed states like Greece to stop them defaulting on their debts and brining down the whole Eurozone economy (and the global economy too).

The ESM is very unpopular in Finland, where they fear the plan could jeopardize their control of their own government. To overcome those objections Finland insisted on adding a clause in the ESM that would force private sector involvement in any future bailout.

That would mean private sector banks taking a loss whenever their taxes were lent to bailed out countries. That in turn would risk the economies of France because it would put their AAA rating at risk because losses by the banks would need to be paid for by nation states bailing out the banking system.

To head off such interference in their Eurozone rescue plan, The Beast has insisted that ESM will be subject to majority voting, so are denying Finland's right to a veto.

Eliminating Finland's power to veto ESM agreements would infringe on the rights of Finnish taxpayers and be against their constitution.

Fiscal Union requires that member states give up power over taxation. Wikipedia describes fiscal union as:

Fiscal union is the integration of the fiscal policy of nations or states. Under fiscal union decisions about the collection and expenditure of taxes are taken by common institutions, shared by the participating governments.

For example, in federal nations such as the United States, fiscal policy is determined to a large extent by the central government, which is empowered to raise taxes, borrow and spend.

Thus, if the Eurozone was a fiscal union then the Eurozone would take decisions on tax matters, which is against the constitution of Finland. The Finnish people would be unlikely to accept such an unpopular move.

This is why Fiscal Union requires Political Union. Political Union replaces the sovereignty of the Eurozone member states and creates one single nation with one constitution. It is the only way that the majority of citizens of the Union can overrule the interests of the minorities in rich countries to save the whole system.

The Beast has already tried this. They created a European Constitution and it was rejected by the people of Europe. They brought the same Constitution back as the Lisbon Treaty and passed it, but they do not have Political Union or Fiscal Union which are essential for a single currency to work.

It took lost referendums by the French and Irish people to kill the EU Constitution.

The single currency that goes with it will be killed by the people of Finland (and Germany who also have a constitution that forbids fiscal union) to kill the Single Currency.

The Beast

2011-12-08T06:18:00.001-08:00

The picture above was stolen from zerohedge, but it was so good I had to take it.

The name of the Beast is Drakozel. It represents both the beast that created the economic mess that we are in and the only power that can get us out of it.

The name Drakozel comes from the three most important people in Europe right now:

- Mario Draghi - head of the ECB
- Nicholas Sarkozy - French President
- Angel Merkel - German Chancellor

Sarkozy was elected by about 19 million votes in 2007 (53% of eligible French voters)

Merkel is the leader of the German CDU party which won about 13 million votes in 2009 (13,852,743/32.0% constituency and 11,824,794 votes/27.3% party list), although she is in coalition with two other parties (CSU and FDP).

The EU has a population of about 500 million, of which I estimate the electorate to be about 350 million, so the two elected heads of the EU achieved power with 5.4% (Sarkozy) and 3.7% (Merkel) of the EU voters.

Draghi was not elected at all. He was appointed by the other two, but he holds the purse strings.

It is not as if there is no kind of democracy in the EU. The European Parliament of 736 MEPs was elected by the voters of the EU (or at least the 45% of them who bothered to vote).

The European Parliament is sham democracy to cover up the fact that Europe is really undemocratic. They have no control over the actions of the Beast.

Not only is the Beast undemocratic, it actually eats democracies - just ask Italy and Greece. It is anti-democratic.

When the Euro was created the British Conservative party said that it cannot work without political and fiscal union.

There is no political union. The EU is now being run by a three headed Beast which only 9.1% of the European people voted for.

They are not creating a fiscal union, despite their claims that repeating the Maastrict rules will create one.

As predicted the Euro does not work and will never work until the day it collapses or the Beast is slain.

Generous bankrupts

2011-12-07T13:55:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we saw how the Bundesbank is out of money to bailout the Eurozone.

Today we hear that the IMF is broke too. It needs $120 Billion in its reserves to help finance countries facing potential cash shortages.

The US Congress is making plans to block any new American loans to the IMF. The UK has said that it could be willing to lend a few billion to the IMF but it is up against a hard limit on lending and the Conservative party would probably block any increase in that limit.

China was asked to contribute to the EFSF and refused, saying that it should be up to the IMF.

It is not looking good for the Euro.

Meanwhile, the European Investment Bank (EIB) is busy giving out money. It is funding the building of a water desalination plant in Israel at a cost of EUR 120 million. This is not the only desalination plant that it is funding in Israel either.

Last time I checked Israel was not in the EU-17 or the Euro-27.

It is not as if the project is being built by European companies to create jobs for unemployed Europeans. The loan is to Mekorot Development and Enterprise Ltd, an Israeli company.

Israel is a fairly rich country - their GDP per head is $28,500 where ours is $36,100. That is higher than the poorer European countries like Poland ($12,200), Portugal ($21,400), Greece ($26,900) and just below Spain ($30,500). The difference is that Israel is growing (4.7% in 2010) where the Eurozone countries are entering a recession.

The EIB is also funding the building of solar power plants in India.

It seems that while both Israel and India can afford nuclear weapons they both need European money to help build water and power supplies. In effect the EIB is subsidising their nuclear weapon programs.

No doubt the Eurozone countries will be holding out their begging bowls to India soon.

Lets step back a minute and look where this crazy financial system has gotten us:

The IMF is asking for money to bailout the Eurozone.

The Eurozone is asking for money to lend to the bankrupt Eurozone countries.

The bankrupt Eurozone countries need money to give to their bankrupt banks.

The bankrupt European banks are lending money to the EIB.

The EIB is funding projects in foreign countries.

The foreign countries are using the money they save to fund nuclear weapons.

So, basically, the IMF is asking for money to pay for nuclear weapons. It is laundering the money through the Eurozone and at each stage there is a (probably bankrupt) bank taking a cut in transaction fees.

Brother, spare a Euro?

2011-12-06T14:57:00.000-08:00

In a very technical post on the voxeu.org website they have some worrying news. Germany has run out of money to lend to Europe.

The Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, used to hold billions in assets that borrowers had deposited in return for loans.

After the European Central Bank (ECB) was created the Bundesbank's role as Germany's central bank was partially taken over. It still held hundreds of billions worth of assets that were collateral for loans to financial institutions. When Greece and the other PIIGS were bailed out the Bundesbank ran down those assets to find money to lend to the PIIGS.

The blue line is the Bundesbank's loans to financial institutions.

The purple dashed line is the Bundesbank's bailout lending to the PIIGS.

The yellow line is the Bundesbank's gold. There is no way it will sell that.

In 2010 the Bundesbank became a net borrower from financial institutions for the first time.

Germany is down to about 21 billion Euros worth of assets that it can liquidate. That means no more easy bailouts for the PIIGS.

Worse, the European central banks have an agreement to lend to each other should there be a run on the central banks of any single country. In the past, say the markets did not believe that Greece could pay its way then Greece could borrow money at short notice to protect their system while formal bailouts were arranged. The whole system was protected by easy access to emergency liquidity from Germany. Now that liquidity has gone.

In 1992 it was the Bank of England running out of liquidity that forced Britain out of the ERM. If the markets decide that the political solutions to the Eurozone problems will not work (very likely) then European central banks will have real problems fending off the markets. Now the markets know this which will make it more likely to happen because it makes betting against Europe a one way bet.

Going Postal

2011-12-06T03:40:00.000-08:00

Zero Hedge have a graph showing that although US postal prices have increased exponentially over the years they have remained fairly constant in real terms since the 1960s.

I did a little research and here are the cost of UK first and second class stamps since 1971 (I couldn't go back further because of decimalisation).

And in 2011 prices:

If you here people complaining about the price of a stamp now you can tell them that it was worse in 1975.

The trend in real prices is fairly flat, but there are some noticeable trends.

Prices seemed to fall in real term in the 1990s and rise again from around 2004.

I the first is due to an increase in number of letters sent, and the second due to the rise of the Internet, e-mail and text messaging.

If you look at the number of letters sent through the post (the red line on the graph below) then historically they grew with the economy, but since 2000 it stopped growing and since 2008 has actually been falling.

The trend does seem to be accelerating as inflation takes off and the recession stops people sending all but the most important mail.

As the number of letters fall the prices goes up to pay for the postal system. As the price goes up the number of letters falls further. The postal system is in a downward spiral.

In America they are talking about reducing the frequency of deliveries. As the total number of letters decreases then I wouldn't be surprised to see the same happen here.

If there are any postmen reading then here is a message for them:

Have a Merry Christmas Mr Postie, because your new year won't be quite as happy.

Good news from America?

2011-12-02T06:39:00.000-08:00

Some good economic news at last? The US jobless rate has fallen to 8.6% from 9.0% as America created 120,000 new jobs in November. The US unemployment rate had been stuck at between 9.0% and 9.2% since April, so the US economy is finally turning the corner.

Yahoo news paints an even better picture. They say that Unemployment rate falls to lowest since March 2009.

That is not good news. That is great news!

Or is it?

Over on the zero hedge blog they tell the real story.

The number of Americans in the work force has fallen from 64.2% to 64.0%, which is the lowest level since 1983:

The number of Americans looking for work rose by 192,000 to a record 6,595,000:

The average time spent unemployed rose from 39.4 weeks to a record 40.9 weeks:

President Obama has failed to sell his job saving plan. Instead, he is resorting to cooking the books to make it look like he is creating jobs when in fact he is hiding the real unemployment problem from American voters.

I wonder where he got that idea from?

Skiing holidays for all

2011-11-30T10:48:00.001-08:00

Ed Miliband used a little class warfare to attack the government today. He accused the Chancellor of taking an expensive skiing holiday (which in fact he did not pay for) worth the same as a cleaner earns in a week.

David Cameron missed a trick in responding to the false accusations. In fact George Osborne has cut taxes for low paid cleaners.

I did a little research. A cleaner is typically paid somewhere between £11,000 and 20,000 per year. Lets assume that the cleaner gets a lower figure of £12,000. Thanks to George Osborne the cleaner will pay £905 income tax and £572 National Insurance and take home £10,522. That is £318 more than the same person would have taken home last year.

You can get a cheap 7 night half board skiing holiday in Borovets, Bulgaria from £178. I'm sure that with a little research you could find one a lot cheaper.

Now admittedly George Osborne also put up VAT and the cost of living is high at the moment, but still, George Osborne saved the low paid cleaner enough to afford a skiing holiday.

That price is based on four people sharing, so the cleaner will have to travel with someone else. The good news is that George Osborne also raised the state pension by £275 per year so their parents or grand parents can join them.

Thanks George, but I prefer sunny Bournemouth.

Class warfare

2011-11-30T07:27:00.000-08:00

Ed Miliband tried to play the class warfare card at today's PMQ's.

He tried to make a point of the fact that George Osborne took a skiing holiday that cost the same as a cleaner's weekly wage. He couldn't even get that right - he meant to say annual wage.

This is class warfare from the person who lives in a £1.6 million house, which he acquired by (legally) avoiding paying tax on selling other properties.

This is more class warfare from the Labour party, who like to divide us into working and upper class. The Conservative party are the party of the classless society where it doesn't matter where you came from but where you aspire to go and it doesn't matter what you have but what you can give.

George Osborne may have taken an expensive skiing holiday to get away from the pressures of having to deal with the mess left behind by the Labour government, but if it means he has more energy to get our economy moving then why should it be a problem? With a £150 billion deficit and unions striking to keep their unfair pay and pensions then he needs a holiday now and again.

Lets remember what happened to his predecessor as Labour Leader of the Opposition.

Tony Blair is looking to buy a villa in Barbados to add to his £15 million property portfolio. That is for when he is not holidaying on his friend's £150 million luxury super yacht.

Ed Miliband made a big thing of rich people spending the equivalent of a weeks wage for a cleaner. This is from the man who spent the equivalent of four weeks wages for that cleaner on an operation to stop him snoring!

Now don't get me wrong. I think that Ed Miliband deserves a holiday too. If he likes to take his family on holiday in this country then it is none of our business. If he wants to spend a few nights on a super yacht then that is his business too.

Mind you, it is a good sign that he takes the opportunity of time away from politics to do a little reading. He was spotted taking books like 'Leadership On The Line: Staying Alive Through The Dangers Of Leading' with him on his last one. Based on his recent performances, I don't think he had time to read it.

Them and us

2011-11-30T05:57:00.000-08:00

The unions don't like it when the people in the private sector complain about their selfish behaviour. They tell us that it is not a case of 'them and us' but giving more to people who deserve it.

Well, they might not like to talk about the facts, but it is a case of them and us.

They are striking for better pay and pensions for them and it is us who pays for it.

Historically public sector pay was lower than private sector pay because they had better job security. If a company runs into financial difficulty then people lose their jobs. If the public sector runs into trouble then the government just borrows more money.

That changed in the early 1990s. The public sector now enjoy better pay than the private sector.

The private sector suffered in Labour's big recession. Millions of private sector workers lost their jobs or had their pay cut and the public sector continued its hiring spree and giving out wage rises. Private pay was cut by 8% in 2009 and public sector pay increased by 4% in the same year.

The public sector not only get better pay but they also get better pensions than the private sector. The fact is that a lot more people in the public sector get pensions than in the private sector.

The percentage of men in the private sector who have pension schemes fell from just over 50% in 1997 to under 40% today. The percentage of men in the public sector has remained at over 87%.

The unions claim that public sector women are being made to suffer, but it is private sector women who have suffered under Labour. The percentage of private sector women with pension schemes has fallen from around 36% to around 28% under Labour, while the percentage of public sector women with pension schemes increased from 75% to around 82%.

Private sectors not only get paid less, we are a lot less likely to benefit from having a pension scheme. Under Labour private sector fell behind in wages AND pensions, and we were already a long way behind in pensions anyway.

Public sector women now get 28% higher pay than private sector women. They are not striking to get better pay, they are striking to keep the better pay that they already enjoy.

Now public sector workers are on the whole better educated, so some of that pay differential is explained by education. Even allowing for that, comparing similarly qualified people in the public and private sector, public sector men get 4.3% higher pay than their private sector equivalents and public sector women get over 10% higher pay than their private sector equivalents.

The public sector pay freeze is not punishing public sector workers, it is removing their pay differential. It is making the pay fair.

This unfair pay advantage in the public sector is not new, but it has been made worse by Labour's big recession.

The unions are not striking because they are being treated unfairly, they are striking to keep their unfair pay and pensions.

The current pay freeze was announced by the Labour government and is being implemented by the coalition government.

Under the proposed plan the public sector workers are getting an even better deal in 2011-12 but holding down the rate of pay for public sector workers allows private sector workers to catch up.

The average public sector wage is currently about 7.5% higher than the equivalent private sector wage. Under the current plans this will be eliminated by 2016-17. That is fair.

The figures given are an average. They do not apply to all workers. In particular, public sector workers in the South East get lower pay than private sector workers in the same region.

If the unions want fair pay for all they will agree to scrap collective wage negotiations and allow pay to be set on a regional basis, so that public sector and private sector enjoy the same benefit from society. However, they oppose making the pay fair for all.

Keeping the current over generous public sector wages is unfair to the private sector. They should not be striking to keep unfair pay.

Note: the graphs and figures in this article are taken from the IFS based on ONS data.

Children did not cause the deficit

2011-11-30T03:43:00.000-08:00

Children did not cause the deficit, so why do the unions want to make them pay?

Our children have the right to the best education that we can give them, so why are the teachers striking and depriving them of one?

The public sector pension schemes are unfunded, which means that today's pensions are paid for by today's nurses. If contributions do not go up then when today's nurses retire then the children will end up paying for their pensions.

Borrowing today means making our children pay tomorrow. It is intra-generational theft.

The children did not cause the deficit, Labour did. If they want better pay then why are the unions giving money to Labour?

Autumn Statement 2011 in words

2011-11-29T05:26:00.000-08:00

George Osborne's Autumn Statement 2011

The full documents can be found here.

Let me start by placing squarely before the House of Commons and the British public the economic situation facing our country.

Much of Europe now appears to be heading into a recession caused by a chronic lack of confidence in the ability of countries to deal with their debts.

We will do whatever it takes to protect Britain from this debt storm, while doing all we can to build the foundations of future growth.

Today we set out how we will do that:

By demonstrating that this country has the will to live within its means and keep interest rates low;
By acting to stimulate the supply of money and credit, to make sure those low interest rates are passed on to families and businesses;
By matching our determination on the deficit with an active enterprise policy for business and with lasting investment in our infrastructure and education, so that Britain can pay its way in the future.
And at every opportunity helping families with the cost of living.

The central forecast we publish today from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility does not predict a recession here in Britain.

But they have, unsurprisingly, revised down their short term growth prospects for our country, for Europe and for the world.

They expect GDP in Britain to grow this year by 0.9% – and by 0.7% next year.

They then forecast 2.1% growth in 2013; 2.7% in 2014.

Followed by 3% in 2015 and 3% again in 2016.

The OBR are clear that this central forecast assumes – in their words – “the euro area finds a way through the current crisis and that policymakers eventually find a solution that delivers sovereign debt sustainability”.

If they do not, then they warn that there could be a “much worse outcome” for Britain.

I believe they are right. We hope this can be averted.

But if the rest of Europe heads into recession, it may prove hard to avoid one here in the UK.
We are now undertaking extensive contingency planning to deal with all potential outcomes of the euro crisis.

Like the Bank of England and the OECD yesterday, the OBR cites the chilling effect of the current instability as one of the central reasons for the reduction in their growth forecast.

And I want to thank Robert Chote, and his fellow Committee members Steve Nickell and Graham Parker, and their team for the rigorous work they have done.

Their forecast today demonstrates beyond any doubt that their independence is unquestioned.

But if we accept their numbers we must also pay heed to their analysis.

And in addition to the Eurozone crisis, the OBR give two further reasons for the weaker forecasts.

First, what they call the “external inflation shock”, “the result of unexpected rises in energy prices and global agricultural commodity prices”.

Their analysis is that this explains the slowdown in growth in Britain over the past 18 months.

Second, the OBR show new evidence that an even bigger component of the growth that preceded the financial crisis was an unsustainable boom.

And that the bust was deeper and had an even greater impact on our economy than previously thought.

The result is that the OBR have significantly reduced their assumptions about the spare capacity in the economy – and the trend rate of growth.

And this increases their estimate of the proportion of the deficit that is structural – in other words, the part of the deficit that doesn’t disappear even when the economy recovers.

So our debt challenge is even greater than we thought because the boom was even bigger, the bust even deeper, and the effects will last even longer.

Britain has had the highest structural budget deficit of any major economy in the world – and the highest deficit in the entire history of our country outside of war.

This OBR analysis feeds directly through to borrowing numbers that are falling but not at the rate that had been forecast.

In 2009-10 borrowing was £156 billion a year.

Last year that fell to £137 billion.

This year the OBR expect it to fall again to £127 billion.

Then £120 billion next year;

Followed by £100 billion in 2013-14;

£79 billion in 2014-15.

Then £53 billion in 2015-16;

And £24 billion a year by 2016-17.

However, I can report that because of the lower market interest rates we have secured for Britain, debt interest payments over the Parliament are forecast to be £22 billion less than predicted.

The House might also like to know – given the economic events described by the Office for Budget Responsibility – what would have happened to borrowing without the action this Government has taken.

The Treasury today estimates that borrowing by 2014-15 would have been running at well over one hundred billion a year – and Britain would have borrowed an additional hundred billion pounds in total over the period.

If we had pursued that path, we would now be in the centre of the sovereign debt storm.

The crisis we see unfolding in Europe has not undermined the case for the difficult decisions we’ve taken, it has made it stronger.

We held our deficit reduction budget on our own terms last year – not on the market’s terms this year.

In that Budget we set out a tough fiscal mandate – that we would eliminate the current structural deficit over the five year forecast horizon.

We supplemented the mandate with a fixed debt target – that we would get national debt as a proportion of national income falling by the year 2015-16.

To be cautious, I set plans to meet both these budget rules one year early.

That headroom has now disappeared.

But I am clear that our rules must be adhered to.

And I am taking action to ensure that they are.

As a result, the OBR’s central projection is that we will meet both the fiscal mandate and the debt target.

The current structural deficit is forecast to fall from 4.6% of GDP this year to a current structural surplus of 0.5% in five years time.

And the debt to GDP ratio – which is forecast to stand at 67% this year – is now set to peak at 78% in 2014-15 and be falling by the end of the Parliament.

So borrowing is falling and debt will come down.

It is not happening as quickly as we had wished because of the damage done to our economy by the ongoing financial crisis.

But we are set to meet our budget rules.

And we are going to see Britain through the debt storm.

Mr Speaker.

There is a suggestion from some that if you spend more, you will borrow less.

This is something-for-nothing economics.

And the House should know the risks that we would be running.

Last April, the absence of a credible deficit plan meant our country’s credit rating was on negative outlook and our market interest rates were higher than Italy’s.

Eighteen months later and we are the only major western country which has had its credit rating improve.

Italy’s interest rates are now 7.2%.

And what are ours?

They are less than 2.5%.

Yesterday, we were even borrowing money more cheaply than Germany.

Those who would put all that at risk by deliberately adding to our deficit must explain this.

Just a one per cent rise in our market interest rates would add £10 billion to mortgage bills every year.

One per cent would mean the average family with a mortgage would have to pay £1,000 more.

One per cent would increase the cost of business loans by £7 billion.

One per cent would force taxpayers to find an extra £21 billion in debt interest payments, much of it going to our foreign creditors.

In other words, one per cent dwarfs any extra government spending or tax cut funded by borrowing that people propose today.

And that’s the cost of just a one per cent rise.

Italy’s rates have gone up by almost 3% in the last year alone.

We will not take this risk with the solvency of the British economy and the security of British families.

The current environment requires we take further action on debt to ensure Britain continues to live within its means.

This is what we propose to do.

First, there is no need to adjust the overall totals set out in the Spending Review.

Taken all together, the measures I will set out today require no extra borrowing and provide no extra savings across the whole Spending Review period.

Second, I am announcing significant savings in current spending to make the fiscal position more sustainable in the medium and long term.

But in the short term – over the next three years – we will use these savings to fund capital investments in infrastructure, regional growth and education as well as help for young people to find work.

Every pound spent in this way will be paid for by a pound saved permanently.

This includes savings from further restraint on public sector pay.

For some workforces, the two year pay freeze will be coming to an end next spring, for most during 2013.

In the current circumstance the country cannot afford the two per cent rise assumed by some government departments thereafter.

So instead, we will set public sector pay awards at an average of 1% for each of the two years after the pay freeze ends.

Many are helped by pay progression – the annual increases in salary grades that many people are entitled to, even when pay is frozen.

It is one of the reasons why public sector pay has risen at twice the rate of private sector pay over the last four years.

So while I accept that a 1% average rise is tough; it is also fair to those who work to pay the taxes that will fund it.

I can also announce that we are asking the independent Pay Review Bodies to consider how public sector pay can be made more responsive to local labour markets – and we will ask them to report back by July next year.

This is a significant step towards creating a more balanced economy in the regions of our country that does not squeeze out the private sector.

Departmental budgets will be adjusted in line with the pay rises I have announced, with the exception of the NHS and the school budgets – where the money saved will be retained in order to protect those budgets in real terms.

This policy will save over £1 billion in current spending by 2014-15.

The deal we offer on public sector pensions is also fair to both taxpayers and public servants.

The reforms are based on the independent report of John Hutton, a former Pensions Secretary, and he says “it hard to imagine a better deal than this”.

I would once again ask the unions why they are damaging our economy at a time like this – and putting jobs at risk.

Call off the strikes tomorrow, come back to the table, complete the negotiations – and let’s agree generous pensions that are affordable to the taxpayer.

Let me turn to other areas of public spending, starting with overseas aid.

This Government will stick by the commitments it has made to the poorest people in the world by increasing our international development budget – and the whole House should be proud of the help our country is providing to eradicate disease, save lives and educate children.

But the spending plans of the Department for International Development meant that the UK was on course to exceed 0.7% of national income in 2013.

That I don’t think can be justified and so we are adjusting those plans so we don’t overshoot the target.

Turning to welfare payments.

The annual increase in the basic state pension is protected by the triple lock introduced by this Government.

This guarantees a rise either in line with earnings, prices or 2.5% – whichever is greater.

It means that the basic state pension will next April rise by £5.30 to £107.45 – the largest ever cash rise in the basic state pension and a commitment of fairness to those who have worked hard all their lives.

I wanted to make sure that poorer pensioners did not see a smaller rise in their income.

So I can confirm today that we will also uprate the pension credit by £5.35 – and pay for this with an increase in the threshold for the Savings Credit.

I also want to protect those who are not able to work because of their disabilities and those, who through no fault of their own, have lost jobs and are trying to find work.

So I can confirm that we will uprate working age benefits in line with September’s CPI inflation number of 5.2%.

This will be a significant boost to the incomes of the poorest, especially when inflation is forecast to be considerably less than that by next April.

We will also uprate with prices the disability elements of tax credits, and increase the child element of the Child Tax Credit by £135 in line with inflation too.

But we will not uprate the other elements of the Working Tax Credit this coming year.

And given the size of the uprating this year, we will no longer go ahead with the additional £110 rise in the child element, over and above inflation, that was planned.

By April 2012, the Child Tax Credit will have increased by £390 since last May.

The best way to support low income working people is to take them out of tax altogether – and our increases in the income tax personal allowance this year and next will do that for over one million people.

Let me turn to future public spending.

Today I am setting expenditure totals for the two years following the end of the Spending Review period: 2015-16 and 2016-17.

Total Managed Expenditure will fall during that period by 0.9% a year in real terms – the same rate as set out for the existing period of the Spending Review, with a baseline that excludes the additional investments in infrastructure also announced today.

These are large savings and we will set out in future how resources will be allocated between different areas of government.

I am also announcing a measure to control spending is not for today or for next year or even for the next decade.

But it directly addresses the long term challenge Britain and so many other countries face with an ageing population.

Our generation has been warned that the costs of providing decent state pensions are going to become more and more unaffordable unless we take further action.

Let’s not leave it to our children to take emergency action to rescue the public finances; let’s think ahead and take responsible, sensible steps now.

So starting in the year 2026, we will increase the State Pension Age from 66 to 67 – so we can go on paying a decent pension to people who are living longer.

Australia, America, and Germany have all taken similar steps.

This will not affect anyone within 14 years of receiving their state pension today.

And by saving a staggering £59 billion it will mean a long term future for the basic state pension.

We are showing a world sceptical that democratic western governments can take tough decisions that Britain will pay its way in the world.

That is the first thing government can do in the current environment – keep our interest rates low and protect our country from the worst of the debt storm.

But we need to make sure that those low interest rates are available to families and to businesses.

It is monetary and credit policy which is – in a debt crisis – the principal and most powerful tool for stimulating demand.

Last month the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee decided to undertake further quantitative easing, and I have authorised an increase in the ceiling on their asset purchases to £275 billion.

This will support demand across the economy, but we must do more to help those small businesses who can’t get access to credit at an affordable price.

We have already extended the last government’s Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme – and we are today expanding it to include businesses with annual turnovers of up to £44 million and accrediting new lenders like Metro Bank.

But this scheme is by itself not nearly ambitious enough – and never will be within the constraints of state aid rules.

So the Government is launching a major programme of credit easing to help small business.

We have set a ceiling of £40 billion.

At the same time, I have agreed with Mervyn King that we will reduce by £40 billion the Asset Purchase Facility the previous government gave the Bank to buy business loans.

Only a small proportion of the facility was ever used.

I am publishing my exchange of letters with the Governor today.

So we are launching our National Loan Guarantee Scheme.

It will work on the simple principle that we use the hard-won low interest rates that the Government can borrow at, to reduce the interest rates that small businesses can borrow at.

We’re using the credibility we’ve earned in the international markets to help our domestic economy.

New loans and overdrafts to businesses with a turnover of less than £50 million will be eligible for the scheme – so it stays focussed on smaller companies.

We expect it will lead to reductions of 1 percentage point in the rate of interest being charged to these companies.

So a business facing a 7% interest rate to get a £5 million loan could instead see their rate reduced to 6% and their interest costs fall by up to £50,000.

We have developed with the Bank of England a mechanism to allocate funding to different banks based on how much they increase both net and gross lending to firms.

And there will be a clear audit trail to ensure the banks comply – for we will use the experience of the European Investment Bank’s Loans for SMEs programme here in the UK to ensure it works.

We are getting state aid approval so that the National Loan Guarantee Scheme will be up and running in the next few months.

Initially £20 billion of these guarantees will be available over the next two years.

Alongside it we are also launching a £1 billion Business Finance Partnership.

This is aimed at Britain’s mid-sized companies – a crucial part of our economy, neglected for too long and now identified by the CBI Director General and others as a future source of growth.

The Government will invest in funds that lend directly to these businesses, in partnership with other investors like pension funds and insurance companies.

It will give these mid-cap companies a new source of investment outside the traditional banks.

If the Business Finance Partnership takes off, I stand ready to increase its size.

And we will develop further partnerships ideas and ideas for new bond issuance to help Britain’s small and medium sized firms.

No government has attempted anything as ambitious as this before.

We will not get every detail perfect first time round – but we don’t want to make the best the enemy of the good.

With the strain on the financial system increasing, the important thing is to get credit flowing to Britain’s small businesses.

The Government can use the low interest rates we’ve secured to help young families too, who want to buy a home but can’t afford the very large deposits that banks are now demanding.

We will use mortgage indemnities to help 100,000 such families buy newly built homes.

We will also help construction firms that can’t get bank finance with a £400 million fund that will kick-start projects which already have planning permission.

And we are going to reinvigorate the Right to Buy.

This was one of the greatest social policies of all time. It brought home ownership within the reach of millions of aspiring families.

It was slowly and stealthily strangled, as discounts were cut and cut again.

We will bring it back to life.

Families in social housing will be able to buy their own homes at a discount of up to 50%.

And we will use the receipts to build, for every home purchased, a new additional affordable home.

So new homes for families that need them.

New home ownership for families who aspire to it.

New jobs in the construction industry so we get Britain building.

That’s what our new Right to Buy will bring.

Mr Speaker, in the years leading up to the crash, our economy became dangerously over-dependent on the success of a poorly regulated City of London.

Meanwhile employment by businesses in a region like the West Midlands actually fell.

So by 2007 the government was relying on finance for one in every eight pounds raised in taxes.

That left Britain completely exposed when the banks failed – and I can confirm that next month we will publish our response to the report we commissioned from John Vickers to protect taxpayers better.

And it is this Government’s policy to ensure we remain the home of global banks and that London is the world’s pre-eminent financial centre.

That is why we will not agree to the introduction of an EU Financial Transaction Tax.

It is not a tax on bankers; it is a tax on people’s pensions.

Instead we’ve introduced a permanent bank levy to make sure the banks pay their fair share.

I have always said that we wished to raise £2.5 billion each and every year from this levy.

To ensure we do that I need to raise the rate of the levy to 0.088 per cent. This will be effective from 1st January next year.

We will also take action to stop some large firms using complex asset-backed pension funding arrangements to claim double the amount of tax relief that was intended.

This will save the Exchequer almost half a billion pounds a year.

Mr Speaker, financial services will always be a very important industry for the UK.

But we have to help other parts of the private sectors in other parts of the country grow.

That means uncongested roads and railways for businesses to move products, that cannot be reduced to a screen on a City trading floor.

It means providing secure power sources at reasonable prices.

It means creating new superfast digital networks for companies across our country.

These do not exist today.

See what countries like China or Brazil are building, and you’ll also see why we risk falling behind the rest of the world.

So we are publishing the National Infrastructure Plan.

For the first time we are identifying over 500 infrastructure projects we want to see built over the next decade and beyond. Roads, railways, airport capacity, power stations, waste facilities, broadband networks.

And we are mobilising the finance needed to deliver them too.

The savings I’ve announced in the current budget have enabled me today to fund, pound for pound, £5 billion of additional public spending on infrastructure over the next three years.

New spending by Network Rail, guaranteed by the Government, will bring a billion pounds more.

And we are committing a further £5 billion to future projects in the next spending period, so the planning can start now.

This is public money.

And by exploring guarantees and letting city mayors borrow against future tax receipts we are looking for new ways to deploy it.

But we need to put to work the many billions of pounds that British people save, in British pension funds, and get those savings invested in British projects.

You could call it – British savings for British jobs.

The Government has negotiated an agreement with two groups of British pension funds, to unlock an additional £20 billion of private investment in modern infrastructure.

We can today give the go ahead around the country to 35 new road and rail schemes that support economic development.

In the North West.

We will electrify the transpennine express between Manchester and Leeds, build the Manchester Airport and Crewe link roads and work with Merseyside to turn the vision of the Atlantic Gateway into reality.

In Yorkshire and the Humber, there will be new stations and new tram capacity – and we will halve the tolls on the Humber Bridge.

I want to pay tribute to my HFs the Members for Beverley and for Brigg and Goole for campaigning with other local MPs over many years to make this happen. Under this Government it has.

In the North East we will bring forward investment on the Tyne and Wear Metro.

In the Midlands, the A45, the A43, the A453 link, the Kettering Bypass, and the M1 and M6 will all be improved.

In the South West, the Bristol link road and the A380 bypass will go ahead.

And for families across that region facing the highest water charges in Britain, the Government will cut the household bills of all South West Water customers by £50 a year.

In the East of England, we will make immediate improvements to the A14.

In the South East, we will build a new railway link between Oxford, Milton Keynes and Bedford that will create an estimated 12,000 new jobs.

Start working on a new crossing of the Lower Thames.

And we will explore all the options for maintaining the UK’s aviation hub status, with the exception of a third runway at Heathrow.

Right here in London we will work with the Mayor on options for other new river crossings, for example at Silvertown.

And we will support the extension of the Northern Line to Battersea in partnership with the private sector. This could bring 25,000 new jobs to the area.

Devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will get their Barnett share – and we’re working with them to improve the links between our nations, such as the M4 in South Wales and the overnight rail service to north of the border.

This all amounts to a huge commitment to overhauling the physical transport infrastructure of our nation.

We will match it by overhauling the digital infrastructure too.

The Government is funding plans to bring superfast broadband to 90% of homes and businesses across the country, and extend mobile phone coverage to 99% of families.

This will help create a living, economically vibrant countryside.

Our great cities are at the heart of our regional economies.

And we will help bring world leading, superfast broadband and wifi connections to ten of them – including the capitals of all four nations.

We will go ahead with the 22 Enterprise Zones already announced – plus two further zones in Humber and Lancashire confirmed today.

And I can also confirm that capital allowances of 100% will be available to encourage manufacturing and other industries into the zones in Liverpool, Sheffield, the Tees Valley, Humber and the Black Country.

Those allowances will also be available to the North Eastern enterprise zone – and we will consider extending to the Port of Blyth to create new private sector jobs there.

This Government’s new Regional Growth Fund for England has already allocated £1.4 billion to 169 projects around the country.

For every one pound we’re putting in, we’re attracting six pounds of private sector money alongside it.

I am today putting a further £1 billion over this Parliament into the Regional Growth Fund, with support as well for the devolved administrations.

For if we don’t get the private sector to take a greater share of economic activity in the regions, then our country will become more and more unbalanced – as it did over the last ten years.

Government should not assume that this will happen by itself.

We must help businesses to grow and succeed.

We can do that at a national level too.

With our commitment to British science.

At a time of difficult choices, we made ours last year when we committed to protect the science budget.

Today we’re confirming almost half a billion pounds for scientific projects, from supercomputing and satellite technology to a world-beating animal health laboratory.

And government can encourage many more of our small firms to export overseas for the first time.

So we’re doubling to 50,000 the number of SME we help and extending support to British mid-caps who can sometimes lack the overseas ambition of their German equivalents.

We will make it easier for UK-based firms to compete for government procurement contracts and make new applications out of government data.

We will provide funds for smaller technology firms in Britain who find it difficult to turn their innovations into commercial success.

We have listened to the ideas from business groups about encouraging innovation in larger companies, and we will introduce a new ‘above the line’ research and development tax credit in 2013 that will increase its visibility and generosity.

And we will give particular help to our energy intensive industries.

I have not shied away from supporting sensible steps to reduce this country’s dependency on volatile oil prices and reduce our carbon emissions.

I am the Chancellor who funded the first ever Green Investment Bank and introduced a Carbon Floor Price.

Our Green Deal will help people insulate their homes and cut their heating bills.

But I am worried about the combined impact of the green policies adopted not just in Britain, but also by the European Union, on some of our heavy, energy-intensive industries.

We are not going to save the planet by shutting down our steel mills, aluminium smelters and paper manufacturers.

All we will be doing is exporting valuable jobs out of Britain.

So we will help them with the costs of the EU Trading Scheme and the carbon price floor, increase their climate change levy relief and reduce the impact of the Electricity Market Reforms on these businesses too.

This amounts to £250 million package over the Parliament.

And it will keep industry and jobs here in Britain.

It is a reminder to us all that we shouldn’t price British business out of the world economy.

If we burden them with endless social and environmental goals – however worthy in their own right – then not only will we not achieve those goals, but the businesses will fail, jobs will be lost, and our country will be poorer.

Our planning reforms strike the right balance between protecting our countryside while permitting economic development that creates jobs.

But we need to go further to remove the lengthy delays and high costs of the current system, with new time limits on applications and new responsibilities for statutory consultees.

And we will make sure that gold plating of EU rules on things like Habitats aren’t placing ridiculous costs on British businesses.

Planning laws need reform. So too do employment rules.

We know many firms are afraid to hire new staff because of their fear about the costs involved if it doesn’t work out.

We’re already doubling the period before an employee can bring an unfair dismissal claim and introducing fees for tribunals.

Now we will call for evidence on further reforms to make it easier to hire people, including:

Changing the TUPE regulations;
Reducing delay and uncertainty in the collective redundancy process;
And introducing the idea of compensated no fault dismissal for businesses with fewer than ten employees.
We will cut the burden of health and safety rules on small firms – because we have a regard for the health and safety of the British economy too.

This Government has introduced flexible working practices and we are committed to fair rights for employees.

But what about the right to get a job in the first place?

Or the right to work all hours running a small business and not be sued out of existence by the costs of an employment tribunal?

It’s no good endlessly comparing ourselves with other European countries.

The entire continent is pricing itself out of the world economy.

The same is true of taxes on business.

If we tax firms out of existence, or out of the country, then there won’t be any tax revenues for anyone.

We’ve set as our ambition the goal of giving this country the most competitive tax regime in the G20.

Our corporate tax rate has already fallen from 28% to 26%, and I can confirm that it will fall again next April to 25%.

We’re undertaking major simplification of the tax code for businesses and individuals, including this autumn consulting on ideas to merge the administration of income tax and national insurance.

We’re publishing next week rules on the taxation of foreign profits, so that multinationals stop leaving Britain and instead start coming here.

And we will end low value consignment relief for goods from the Channel Islands – which has been used by large companies to undercut shops on our high streets.

We’ve supported enterprise by increasing the generosity on the Enterprise Investment Scheme.

Today, we are extending this Scheme specifically to help new start-up businesses get the seed investment they need.

Even at the best of times they can struggle to get the finance they need – and in the current credit conditions that struggle too often ends in failure.

So from April 2012, anyone investing up to £100,000 in a qualifying new start up business will be eligible for income tax relief of 50% – regardless of the rate at which they pay tax.

And to get people investing in Start Up Britain in 2012 – for one year only, we will also waive any tax on capital gains invested through the new scheme.

We can afford this with a freeze on the general capital gains tax threshold for next year.

I also want to help existing small businesses who find the current economic conditions tough.

Business rates are a disproportionately large part of their fixed costs.

In the Budget, I provided a holiday on business rates for small firms until October next year.

I am today extending that rate relief holiday until April 2013.

Over half a million small firms – including one third of all shops – will have either reduced or no rate bills, for the whole of this year and for the whole of next financial year too.

And to help all businesses, including larger ones, with next year’s rise in business rates, I will allow them to defer 60% of the increase in their bills to the two following years.

I also want them to help any business seeking to employ a young person who is out of work.

The OBR forecasts that unemployment will rise from 8.1% this year to 8.7% next year, before falling to 6.2% by the end of the forecast.

Youth unemployment has been rising for seven years and is now unacceptably high.

It’s little comfort that this problem is affecting all western nations today.

The problem is – of course – primarily a lack of jobs.

But it is made worse by a lack of skills.

Too many children are leaving school after eleven years of compulsory education without the basics they need for the world of work.

Our new Youth Contract addresses both problems.

With the offer of private sector work experience for every young person unemployed for three months.

After five months there will be weekly signing on.

After nine months, we will help pay for a job or an apprenticeship in a private business.

Some 200,000 people will be helped in this way.

But as the Deputy Prime Minister has said – this is a contract.

Young people who don’t engage with this offer will be considered for Mandatory Work Activity, and those that drop out without good reason will lose their benefits.

But if we’re really going to change the economic performance of this country and tackle Britain decades long problems with productivity, then we have to transform our school system too – so that children leave school prepared for the world of work.

My RHF the Secretary of State for Education is doing more to make that happen than anyone who has ever done his job before him.

The last government took six years to create 200 academies. He’s created 1,200 academies in just 18 months.

Supporting his education reform is a central plank of my economic policy.

So today, with the savings we’ve made, I am providing an extra £1.2 billion – as part of the additional investment in infrastructure – to spend on our schools.

Half of this will go to help Local Authorities with the greatest basic need for school places.

The other £600 million will go to support my RHF’s reforms – and will fund 100 additional free schools.

These schools will include new Maths Free Schools for 16-18 year olds.

This will give our most talented young mathematicians the chance to flourish.

Like the new university technical colleges, these Maths Free Schools are exactly what Britain needs to match our competitors – and produce more of the engineering and science graduates so important for our longer term economic success.

And to ensure that children born into the poorest families have a real chance to become one of those graduates, we will take further steps to improve early education.

Last year, it was this Government that not only expanded free nursery education for all three and four year olds – but also gave children from the poorest fifth of families a new right to 15 hours of free nursery care a week at the age of two years old.

I can tell the House today that we can double the number of children who will receive this free nursery care.

40% of two year olds, 260,000 children, from the most disadvantaged families, will get this support in their early years.

Education. Early years learning. That is how you change the life chances of our least well off – and genuinely lift children out of poverty.

That is how you build an economy ready to compete in the world.

It will take time. The damage we have to repair is great.

People know how difficult things are – how little money there is.

But where we can help with the rising cost of living, we will.

I have already offered councils the resources for another year’s freeze in the Council Tax.

That will help millions of families.

I want to do more.

Commuters often travel long distances to go to work and bring an income home.

Train fares are expensive – and they’re set to go up well above inflation to pay for the much needed investment in new rail and new trains.

But RPI plus 3% is too much.

The Government will fund a reduction in the increase to RPI plus 1%.

This will apply across National Rail regulated fares, across the London Tube and on London Buses.

It will help the millions of people who use our trains.

But millions more use their cars to go to work, and pick up the children from school.

It is not a luxury for most people – it is a necessity.

In the Budget I cut fuel duty by one penny.

The plan was for fuel duty to be 3 pence higher in January and 5 pence higher by August next year.

That would be tough for working families at a time like this.

So despite all the constraints that are upon us, we are able to cancel the duty increase planned for January and for fuel duty from August to be only 3 pence higher than it is now.

Taxes on petrol will be a full 10 pence lower than it would have been without our action in the Budget and this autumn.

Families will save £144 on filling up the average family car by the end of next year.

In these tough times, we are helping where we can.

Mr Speaker, all that we are doing today.

Sticking to our deficit plan to keep interest rates as low as possible.

Increasing the supply of credit and money to pass those low rates on to families and businesses.

Rebalancing our economy with an active enterprise policy and new infrastructure.

Help with the cost of living on fuel duty and rail fares.

All this takes Britain in the right direction.

It cannot transform our economic situation overnight.

People in this country understand the problems Britain faces.

They can watch the news any night of the week and see for themselves the crisis in the Eurozone and the scale of the debt burden we carry.

And people know that promises of quick fixes and more spending this country can’t afford, at times like this, are like the promises of a quack doctor selling a miracle cure.

We do not offer that today.

What we offer is a Government that has a plan to deal with our nation’s debts to keep rates low;

A Government determined to support businesses and support jobs;

A Government committed to take Britain safely through the storm.

Leadership for tough times – that’s what we offer.

And I commend this statement to the House.

Occupy vs the Unions

2011-11-28T12:44:00.000-08:00

Unite, one of the largest unions in the country, are supporting the Occupy movement and even letting them use their offices.

The Occupy movement have a meeting to show their support for the November 30'th strikes.

Are these movements really on the same side?

Should the Occupy movement support the strikes?

The unions are striking for better pensions.

Better pensions means bigger pension funds.

Bigger pension funds means more money invested in banks and bonds and more fees for the pension fund managers.

The pension fund managers are the 1%.

If the strikes succeed the 1% will get richer and most of the 99% will get poorer because they will have to pay higher taxes.

Should the unions support the Occupy movement?

The occupy movement want the 1% to pay more taxes.

The pension fund managers are part of the 1%.

If the pension fund managers pay more tax then they will charge more fees.

More fees means smaller pensions.

If the Occupy movement succeeds then union members will get smaller pensions.

These strikes are not about pensions - they are about politics.

These people are clearly not looking out for the people they claim to represent.

We the 99% who pay the taxes do not want unions to take even more of our money to pay for better pensions than we can afford for ourselves.

An Occupy movement that wants to put up our taxes to give to others richer than ourselves does not represent us.

Racist bigots

2011-11-28T10:08:00.000-08:00

The twitter is aghast at the racist ranting by some white woman on a train. They are up in arms about her bigoted behaviour as shown in this youtube video. Some are even calling for her deportation, which is a bit strange because she was born here and the people she was ranting about were not.

When this sort of thing happens during an election campaign and the woman who makes racist comments is a hero and the person she makes the racist comments to is a criminal.

The Mirror report that the racist bigot woman has been arrested. She was a 34 year old from New Addington near Croydon, South London.

Actually, that was a picture of Gillian Duffy's house. She was the 65 year old racist bigot from Rochdale. It was the other racist bigot who was arrested.

It is a funny old world that we live in.

Update: Apparently the racist bigoted woman likes Ed Miliband, even though she wanted David Miliband as leader of the Labour party.

Dear Victim

2011-11-24T15:37:00.001-08:00

The government are experimenting with making burglars write apology letters to learn from and show remorse for their crimes. This was such a great idea that the Labour party have decided to copy it and write to every voter in the country.

Exclusively I can show you a draft of the letter.

Dear ~~Victim~~ Voter,

I do not know why I am writing this letter to you. My spin doctors forced me to do it because my poll numbers are looking like Kinnock's.

To be honest I don't care that you threw us out of government. I don't care that we made a mess of the economy. I don't care that we opened the doors to anybody and everybody. I don't care if we took money from the banks.

Basically, it was your fault for believing us when we said that we could be trusted.

I'm going to run you through the dumb mistakes you made.

Firstly you believed us when we said we would not raise your taxes. You know us. We always raise taxes, even if we are getting better at hiding it.

Then you believed that all those nice things we gave you were because we had abolished boom and bust. I mean, every politician says that when he wants to raise spending when he should be paying off the debt.

Why did you keep on voting for us? We put up the price of petrol and you revolted, but you still voted for us. We gave away your sovereignty so that we could get some gravy train jobs in Europe and you still voted for us. We invaded a foreign country and you still voted for us. We gave you the biggest recession ever and some of you still voted for us. I wouldn't have done that in a million years. In fact, I didn't - I voted Tory so that they would cut my taxes.

But anyways, we got rid of Gordon because he was, you know, a bit mad. Now I'm in charge and we all know that we haven't changed our ways, just our faces. I wrote the manifesto that you hated. I put up your energy bills. I'm letting the unions pick our policies. Now I'm not about to show any sympathy or remorse.

Yours Sincerely,

Ed (the one with the white hair, not the fat one).

UK population to hit 1 billion

2011-11-24T08:50:00.001-08:00

The UK population is on track to hit 1 billion people. That would be more than America and the rest of Europe put together and put us just behind China.

Don't worry though, by the time it does we will all be dead. At the current population growth rate of 650,000 per year it won't happen until the year 3451.

If you think I'm being a little dramatic then, well, yes I am. My excuse is that I'm just following the same logic as the Daily Mail. Today they gave us this shocking headline: High immigration could drive Britain's population to 77 million by 2035. Not to be outdone, the Sun reports that it will hit 80 million by 2050.

At the same time the population of Germany is actually falling - it lost 200,000 people in 2010. It will actually be empty sometime around 2410 so we can always borrow some of their land if we run out.

On the positive side, at least the Germans won't have to keep on bailing out the Eurozone for too much longer.

Equality in Schools

2011-11-20T13:53:00.000-08:00

The Guardian have an interesting extract from the memoirs of David Lammy MP. While talking about the causes of the riots he makes a great point about the lack of role models for children growing up in modern Britain.

One shocking statistic that he brings up is that one in four primary schools has no male teachers.

In fact the number is 27.2% (down from 27.8% last year). Only 12% of primary school teachers are male, compared with 38% of secondary school teachers. In Scotland the numbers are worse - only 8% of primary school teachers are male, while about 15% are male in Northern Ireland.

Now if that statistic was reversed and one in four primary schools had no female teachers I'm sure that David Lammy's colleagues in the Labour party would be up in arms, but thanks to 13 years of Labour running our education system men don't count in the equality, only women.

Is it any wonder that discipline is a problem in schools?

Is it any wonder that boys do worse at school than girls?

When I think back to all of the teachers that I had in school the good ones that stand out in my memory are all men. The few bad ones were generally women. Maybe that is because I was a boy and related to men better, but to me the reason why the good teachers were men was because they inspired me rather than talked down to me. They reasoned with me instead of expecting me to do as I was told simply because they were adults.

I have made a very successful career in technology and I would put that down to a very good teacher that I had at age 10 who made me believe that I had a special ability in electronics and maths. I was not the only child in the class to be treated in that way. Those who were good at art were given art projects and were made to believe that they were good at something too.

When I went on to secondary school I excelled at science and I had some very good male teachers who made the subject interesting rather than book based academic learning. I also had some good form teachers who taught the reason for good behaviour in class rather than just shouting at the poorly behaved kids.

When I look back at bad teachers I remember being made to feel small and stupid by my female English teacher at age 10 and I remember my careers teacher at age 16 who was more interested in promoting unions than equipping me with the skills that I needed to function in the jobs market. This was at the time of Margaret Thatcher and I had seen for myself the damage that unions did to our country so I just zoned out in careers lessons. I don't think she even noticed the children in her classroom unless they talked about unions in a positive way.

I hate to think what it must be like growing up as a boy in today's Britain. Many children come from single parent homes, usually with a mother and no father. Now we find out that many don't even have a male figure in their first six years of schooling. By the time they enter secondary school they are out of control and not used to behaving in class or accepting discipline.

Is it any wonder that children resort to gang culture or rap music? They offer the only positive male role models to boys growing up in many inner city areas. Is it any wonder that so many are tempted to crime?

I have realised for some time that so much of today's problems stem from a failed education system, but I never realised how bad it has gotten and how early the problem starts. The current government has introduced the 'pupil premium', wide adoption of academies and free schools, which are all good policies.

However, too much focus is on reforming secondary schools because that is where exams are taken. It is now clear that schools urgently need some equality. They should make sure that every child gets taught by male teachers at primary schools, and to do that will require positive discrimination in hiring men to teach there.

Michael Gove is working on the problem (the number of schools without a male teacher went down from 27.8% to 27.2% in the last year) but we need to make much faster progress. The proportion of men entering the profession has risen slightly, with men making up 25.6% of newly qualified teachers, up from 24% last year, but there needs to be a major change to recruiting before the situation can start to be resolved.

For the sake of the children, particularly boys but also girls, and in the name of equality we urgently need more male teachers in our schools.

Of course, if Gove actually achieves this he will be criticised by Labour for making life worse for women.

One rule for the rich...

2011-11-19T16:30:00.000-08:00

I am not a rich person. In fact, if the minimum wage applied to self employed people then I would have to take myself to court to get my wages increased.

That being said, I have been known to mix and mingle with rich people. One of my claims to fame is that I have shaken hands with the son of one of the richest men on the planet. Many moons ago I attended a dinner party that Peter Buffett also attended.

Peter Buffett's father is Warren Buffett, the famous 'Sage of Omaha'. Warren Buffett is the main share holder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. In 2008 he was the richest person on the planet, although he has since slid back to third place. Berkshire Hathaway is credited as having made an average return on investments of 20% every year for the past 46 years.

Warren Buffett is also a close friend and supporter of President Obama. In fact, Obama even named his tax plan after Buffett. The 'Buffet rule' would apply to all Americans earning over $1 million per year, or 450,000 Americans, and would increase taxes on the wealthy to ensure that they are taxed at the same rate as the less wealthy.

You would think that Warren Buffett would be happy to pay taxes himself given that the rule is named after him. Well, actually, he is not. NetJets, a company owned by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, is suing the IRS over a $642.7 Million tax bill. The tax is due because NetJets failed to pay the so called 'ticket tax', an excise tax on payments made in exchange for air transportation.

NetJets claim that "The ticket tax was not intended to apply to private aircraft owners and the fees they pay to maintain and operate their aircraft". In other words, because the company operated private jets for the rich and famous they should not be paying tax, only normal people who use regular airlines should have to pay.

It is reported that one of the people who used the services of NetJets was Warren Buffett himself.

It is one rule for the rich.... and another for the filthy rich.

We need an end to tent cities

2011-11-17T14:35:00.000-08:00

The Occupy protests world wide are under thread of eviction. Their tent cities are being cleared.

Maybe now is the time to look at whether occupying our cities is really helping.

In London they are quite happy in their tent city

They have even become a minor tourist attraction, although the bottles of piss probably turn away more visitors than it attracts.

They continue their protest in the original city at Occupy Wall Street

Elsewhere in American middle class kids live in tent cities to listen to music.

Meanwhile in other American cities like Reno..

And Sacremento...

People are living in tent cities because they were made homeless by the recession.

This is nothing new. It happened in the Great Depression too.

In Haiti they live in tent cities because their homes were washed away

In India they live in tent cities because they are really poor.

These pictures all look very similar. If I hadn't given you labels then I'm not sure you could tell which was which without a close inspection.

The Occupy movement is not about poverty, it is about some social rejects trying to get out of paying their fair share of taxes.

The Occupy movement is not about jobs, it is about trying to tax the people who create jobs.

If the Occupy movement want to help then they should be setting up soup kitchens for the poor, not taking donations away from a church.

We need an end the scandal of tent cities in countries all over the world, and by that I mean the real tent cities that hold really poor people, not a bunch of social rejects with too much time on their hands.

Occupy know who the enemy is

2011-11-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

An Occupy protester has been arrested for attempting to assassinate President Obama.

Now, that is a strange thing for a protest claiming their democratic right to free speech, and nobody can accept that murder is the correct solution, but at least they seem to have realised who the real enemy is.

It is politicians who caused the credit crunch.

It is politicians who spent all the money.

It is politicians who want to raise taxes to save their own jobs.

Instead of occupying Wall Street they should be occupying the White House, but please somebody tell them not to bring guns to a peaceful protest.

A message from the 99%

2011-11-05T13:05:00.000-07:00

As #Occupy are spending another night in the freezing cold outside a Church in London I'm nice and warm indoors.

From my window I can see and hear people burning money all around me. How can the #occupy protesters claim that the 99% are held in poverty while the 1% have all the money be true when everybody seems to have so much money that they can afford to burn it?

The true symbolism of the day is the fact that the 99% are burning effergies of Guy Fawkes.

Lets remember who Guy Fawkes really was. He was a religious terrorist, comparable to the modern day ones who blew up the Twin Towers in New York and trains in London. Just like some of our domestic terrorists travelled to Afghanistan to fight a foreign war, Guy Fawkes travelled to Spain to fight protestants before returning to fight the legitimate government of the day.

Guy Fawkes was an anarchist who planned to assassinate the rightful King of England and replace him with his own preferred alternative. Luckily for us his plan failed, but the people of Great Britain are so happy that he failed that even today, over four hundred years later, we celebrate his failure by burning his effergy.

Which side are the #occupy movement really on when they take the face of Guy Fawkes and make it their own?

Our country has moved on from 1605. We now have a democratic government elected by the 99%, yet the small minority huddling in their cold tents seem to want to overthrow that government.

Well, we the 99% have a message for you people in your cold tents.

We the 99% don't support a minority trying to overthrow the will of the people.

We the 99% elected a government to govern the country in our name, and we want it to do its job, not you.

We the 99% may not be as rich as we thought we were, but we threw out the last government for letting that happen. We did that without closing a single church or preventing a single person from worshipping their God. Now we are moving forward to make a better future. We do not want a return to the past.

All over our country we the 99% celebrate the survival of our political system. All over the country we gather together to enjoy the fireworks and the warmth of the bonfire. Yet the true meaning of tonight is this: we don't like anarchists who want to harm our country or our way of life.

We the 99% have a way of dealing with anarchists. We burn them on bonfires.

The Friar Tax scandal

2011-11-02T14:29:00.000-07:00

In 2010 the UK gave £50 million to Vietnam in foreign aid out of our taxes.

In the same year the Church of England took nearly £8 million in profits from their investments in residential developments in Vietnam and avoided paying taxes on it.

The money went towards Church of England pensions and paying staff salaries, including a top salary of £300,000 + benefits. The head of the Church of England and Church Commissioners is Rowan Williams.

Is that what Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams means when he says that he supports a Robin Hood tax? Does that make the Williams 'Friar Tax'?

Meanwhile Easter celebrations were banned in Vietnam this year.

Worshipping Money

2011-11-02T06:16:00.000-07:00

The Archbishop has joined with the Occupy movement to call for new taxes on the bankers.

He says:

“The best outcome from the unhappy controversies at St Paul’s will be if the issues raised… can focus a concerted effort to move the debate on and effect credible change in the financial world.”

The archbishop said he supported the main proposals of a recent report from the Vatican calling for widespread financial reform. He is advocating a 'Robin Hood tax' for all financial transactions in the UK.

What he does not seem to understand is this is not a tax on bankers is a tax on everybody. We own the banks through our pension schemes. If we were to introduce a 'Robin Hood tax' then all of our financial services industry would move to countries that did not have the tax. The banks employ hundreds of thousands of workers at normal wages. This tax would be on our pensions and jobs. It would destroy tax income, not generate it.

I have a better idea. If we want to tax the rich lets look elsewhere for parts of society that have too much money.

Lets look at the Church of England.

The COE was created by Henry VIII so that he could get divorced. When he did so the country was largely Catholic. The Catholic church was extremely rich and was a core part of the political system.

Henry VIII dissolved most of the monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland. He sold off the gold and land and used it to pay for government.

Over the centuries the COE grew. It acquired land. It built churches. Many of these things were paid for by rich donors, possibly as a way of getting into heaven, possibly as a way of avoiding tax.

In modern times the COE has been in serious decline.

Weekly attendance has halved over 40 years.

The number of people being baptised into the faith has dropped by two thirds.

The congregation is getting older and older.

As they die out the church dies with them.

In the mean time the Church has changed. It is no longer just a place of worship, it has sold off much of its land and closed thousands of churches. It has created a modern investment fund to replace the lost income from a decline in the donations from worshippers.

The modern day COE is not as rich as the Catholic church was in the days of Henry VIII, but it is still very rich. The Church of England spends around £1.2 billion per year, around two thirds of which comes from donations. Around 17% of the remainder, or £202.5 million in 2010, came from profits from the 'Church Commissioners' investment fund.

In its last accounts the 'Church Commissioners' fund was worth £5.3 billion. While still technically a charity, the Church of England is effectively running a financial institution.

Their annual report describes them as:

The Church Commissioners manage an investment fund of
£5.3 billion, held mainly in property and shares. The fund and
the obligations attached to it derive from the Commissioners’
parent charities of the 18th and 19th centuries, respectively
Queen Anne’s Bounty and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners,
which were set up to improve the incomes and housing of
clergy and to extend their ministry into new urban areas.
The Commissioners’ work today supports the Church of England
as a Christian presence in every community.

Profits from the Church Commissioners are spent on:

- Supporting poorer dioceses with ministry costs
- Providing funds to support mission activities
- Paying for bishops’ ministry and some cathedral costs
- Administering the legal framework for pastoral reorganisation and settling the future of closed
- church buildings
- Paying clergy pensions for service prior to 1998
- Running the national payroll for serving and retired clergy

To this end they claim to provide:

The Church’s network of around 13,000 parishes, 16,000 churches and 20,000 ordained and lay ministers offers spiritual care for all who might wish to engage with matters of faith and community action in a Christian context.

The Church of England has been closing churches as the number of worshippers declines. Since 1969 they have closed nearly two thousand churches. Of these:
- 463 were demolished or disposed of
- 342 were preserved (with state funding)
- 276 were turned into residential housing
- 163 were turned into monuments or museums
- 150 where turned into civic or community causes
- 160 were given to other Christian bodies
- 58 were turned into offices or retail

Over £47 million has been raised since 1969 from disposing of closed churches and the related land.

The Church Commissioners is not just a financial institution, it is a very successful financial institution. They aim to return 5% more than inflation over the long term. They managed to outperform the WM All Funds universe, averaging 6.3% a year compared with 4.5% for WM. In 2010 the fund achieved a total return of 15.2%.

The fund is run by the Church of England, but that does not mean that they invest all of their money in England. Non sterling-denominated assets made up 43.7% of investments at the end of 2010. Over the last 10 years they have invested in:

UK shares	3.3%
Non-UK shares	4.4%
Bonds	6.5%
Commercial	8.2%
Residential	15.6%
Rural land (let)	17.0%
Rural land (strategic)	14.9%
Global indirect	7.4%
Loans	7.5%

The Church Commissioners are a charity yet they are run as a profit centred investment fund. The fund has a large portfolio of property that it rents out.

- It owns many residential properties in the expensive London market, where it is increasing rents by 3%.

- It owns a large portfolio of investments in UK retail park and shopping centres.

- Its retail tenants include Jimmy Choo Couture, Cocomaya (fine chocolatier and artisan bakers), Casa Malevo, an Argentine restaurant, De Roemer (specialist cashmere jewellery and handbags) and Viola, an independent fashion boutique.

- The Church is supposed to be about worshipping god, yet it holds a 'Christmas shopper event' to drive people to worship consumerism so that it can make a profit out of a holy holiday.

- It owns a lot of farm land and is increasing rent by a whopping 14.5%.

- It buys a lot of land purely for investment purposes. It then sells it at high prices. Purchasers include private sector housing estates, a Marks & Spencer flagship store and an energy from waste facility.

- It invests in foreign real estate, including investing in North
America, Central Europe, Singapore and Vietnam. It made a profit of £7.9 million on an investment in residential developments in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

- It profits from owning and running care homes in the South East of the UK.

- It owns large areas of forest from which it produces timber, focusing on North America.

The Church Commissioners is a registered charity, so they are exempt from taxation on their income and gains which are spent on charitable purposes. As such, they use tax avoidance.

Running a successful investment fund requires high quality staff. In 2010 it employed 158 people (down from 162 in 2009) plus a further 82 managing the property portfolio. 42% of the staff are women and 16% are from ethnic minorities.

These staff do not come cheap. The total spending for 158 staff was 8.4 million, which breaks down to an average cost per employee of over £50,000.

It employs 18 people on salaries above £60,000 (over twice the national average salary):


£60,001 to £70,000	7
£70,001 to £80,000	3
£80,001 to £90,000	1
£90,001 to £100,000	1
£100,001 to £110,000	1
£110,001 to £120,000	1
£120,001 to £130,000	-
£130,001 to £140,000	2
£140,001 to £150,000	1
£300,001 to £310,000	1

Note: these figures do not include very generous pension schemes.

The Church is closely linked to the political class. Sir Stuart Bell MP was a commissioner for many years, but has recently been replaced by Tony
Baldry MP.

So where are we.

We are being lectured by Rowan Williams FRSL, FBA, FLSW, Archbishop of Canterbury, Metropolitan of the Province of Canterbury and Primate of All England. He tells us that the rich need to pay more taxes.

At the same time Rowan Williams is responsible for a very wealth and very successful investment fund which avoids tax by claiming to be a charity.

This fund invests nearly half of its money abroad, creating jobs for foreigners while it's congregation suffers from unemployment.

This fund invests in the expensive London property market, where it pushes up prices and rent.

This fund encourages the worship of consumer goods by funding shopping centres and holding Christmas shopper events when it should be promoting the worship of god and Jesus. It is proud of the fact that it rents shops to up market chocolate makers and fashion boutiques.

The fund invests in farm land, selling it off at a profit to developers or renting it out to farmers at ever increasing rents, pushing up the cost of food for the poor.

This so called charity employs 158 people at an average cost per employee of over £50,000. It employs 17 people on salaries over £60,000, with the top salary of over £300,000.

Williams was previously Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales, making him the first Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times not to be appointed from within the Church of England. He spent much of his earlier career as an academic at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford.

Rowan Williams should not be lecturing the 1% to pay more taxes on behalf of the 99%. He is the 1%.

In the mean time the Church of England is becoming less and less relevant to the daily lives of the people of England. The Church has lost over half of its congregation over 40 years and the number of people being baptised into the faith has fallen by over two thirds. It is on its way towards extinction.

There has been much speculation that the Anglican Communion is on the verge of fragmentation. Is it any wonder?

If Rowan Williams wants to help the 99% then lets start by removing the charitable status from the Church Commissioners investment fund.

Lets then focus it on improving the living conditions of the English people who donated to the Church of England, not handing out massive salaries to the people who work for the Church.

Lets create jobs for the needy by investing 100% of the wealth in this country so we can create English jobs, not investing nearly half of the wealth in far off lands and creating jobs for foreigners.

Lets provide food for the needy, not push up rents for farmers so that food is more expensive.

Lets provide housing for the needy, not push up residential rents to pay for church pensions.

Lets enrich the lives of the English people, not try to enrich the Church by encouraging the people to buy from Church owned shops selling things that we don't need.

Lets focus the Church on making Christmas about Jesus, not profits.

Above all, lets make the Church of England about worshipping God, not about worshipping money.

If Rowan Williams does not agree to all this then I'm sure that we can learn a few lessons from Henry VIII.

A perspective on Growth

2011-11-01T10:06:00.001-07:00

The latest growth figures are out and the economy grew 0.5% in Q3 2011.

The BBC are downplaying the latest numbers. They say 'Some growth is better than none'. Is 0.5% really just 'some growth'?

0.5% sounds like a small amount, but it is a figure for the quarter not the year. If the economy grew at the same rate for a whole year then the growth number would be more than 2%, which is probably above the long term trend growth rate.

Ed balls says:

The economy has been bumping along the bottom for months - flatlining when we need strong growth.

So lets look at how David Cameron and George Osborne are doing compared to their predecessors (1).

PM/Chancellor	time in office (from-to)	Ave Q growth
Wilson/Jenkins	Q1-67 to Q2-70	0.79%
Heath/Barber(2)	Q3-70 to Q1-74	0.65%
Calaghan/Healey(3)	Q2-74 to Q2-79	0.67%
Thatcher/Howe	Q3-79 to Q2-83	0.00%
Thatcher/Lawson	Q3-83 to Q4-88	0.99%
Thatcher/Major	Q1-89 to Q4-90	0.09%
Major/Lamont	Q1-91 to Q2-93	0.13%
Major/Clarke	Q3-93 to Q2-97	0.83%
Blair/Brown	Q3-97 to Q2-07	0.73%
Brown/Darling	Q3-07 to Q2-10	-0.29%
Cameron/Osborne	Q3-10 to Q3-11	0.28%

The average quarterly growth since 1967 is 0.55%, only just above the recent value of 0.5%. This is a provisional GDP figure and it could very well be revised upwards in the future.

Lets rank the PM/Chancellor teams in order:

Thatcher/Lawson	0.99%
Major/Clarke	0.83%
Wilson/Jenkins	0.79%
Blair/Brown	0.73%
Calaghan/Healey	0.67%
Heath/Barber	0.65%
Cameron/Osborne	0.28%
Major/Lamont	0.13%
Thatcher/Major	0.09%
Thatcher/Howe	0.00%
Brown/Darling	-0.29%

Some observations:

Ed Balls was a senior advisor to Gordon Brown who along with Alistair Darling were the only team to leave office with a smaller economy than they started with. Slow, bumpy growth is a step up from the legacy of the Balls/Darling/Brown years where the economy collapsed.

Thatcher/Lawson get the crown for best growth, although it was paid for by the hard work of during the Thatcher/Howe years. This is proof that if you get the economy right by taking the pain of slow growth you create the conditions necessary for longer term growth in the future.

Gordon Brown's economic miracle years as Chancellor under Tony Blair were actually not as good as Ken Clarke under John Major. Ken Clarke achieved this growth at the same time as cutting public sector borrowing at close to the current rate that Osborne is making cuts! The next time Labour start claiming that they oversaw a period of record growth then they should be reminded that they started with a golden economic legacy of even stronger growth, and that was without taking the credit crunch into account.

Some of the Labour figures are bumped up by election booms. In Q2 1970 the economy grew by 2.3%. In Q2 1979 it grew by a whopping 4.3% in a single quarter (after the winter of discontent). Even the Brown/Darling negative growth figure was bumped up by a Q2 2010 election boom growth of 1.1%. Labour are masters at manipulating the economy to get re-elected even if it does causes problems in following quarters (as we are seeing today).

0.5% growth sounds small, but is actually pretty average. We are suffering now from a global collapse in growth. There is nothing that George Osborne can do but tough it out and set the stage for a full recovery when the global economy gets over the worst effects of the credit crunch.

Cameron/Osborne are doing OK given the circumstances - not bad, but not good. This is just the start of their period in office so we can expect their growth figures to improve over the next couple of years as the global economy improves.

(1) the raw data comes from here.
(2) Includes 1 month of Iain Macleod as Chancellor
(3) Wilson was PM at the beginning of the parliament

Exclusive: Greek referendum details

2011-11-01T06:08:00.000-07:00

The Greek government has announced that they will hold a referendum on the EU/IMF bailout proposal.

The referendum is not due until January, but thanks to MI6(*) I can exclusively reveal the question that will appear on the ballot paper:

My preferred option would be 5 but I suspect that they will pick 1.

(*) MI6 = Mouse Intelligence 6, our foreign spy network

Dear Jim

2011-10-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

Dear Jim,

Please Fix It for the BBC to let us choose what to watch on our TV sets. We used to have great shows presented by great characters like yourself. Now our screens are full of repeats and lowest common denominator programs designed to sell to Americans.

We know that the BBC have to show more repeats, but please Fix It for them to have a website so that we, the viewers, can pick what repeats get shown. They have a massive archive of classic shows yet they give us repeats of recent programs that we have already watched or never wanted to watch in the first place.

We want to see repeats of the great old programs, not bland new ones. Let's start with some classic 'Jim'll Fix It's.

Yours,

Nonny The Mouse

PS. I'd love a 'Jim Fixed It For Me' badge too.

RIP. Sir Jimmy Saville, OBE, KCSG. A truly great entertainer and proof that we British love eccentricity. Without you our colour TVs we be a little less colourful.

Good news Bad news

2011-10-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

Good news! Europe has a solution to the Euro meltdown.

Bad news! Their solution is to stop telling you bad news.

The European Union's executive may ask for powers to censor credit ratings for countries in crisis.

"These rating agencies should probably be considered one of the causes of this crisis," said Michel Barnier, the former French foreign minister who is now the EU commissioner in charge of regulating finance."

Well, no, actually. It is European Union politicians trying to make a single currency work across a continent with fast and slow growing countries without having a system to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor.

Shooting the messenger will not change things. Try this if you are so stuck for ideas, not this:

Merkel & Sarkozy sitting in a tree

2011-10-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

K.I.S.S.I.N.G.

I don't think they can go on being 'just good friends' or 'business partners'.

I wish Merkel & Sarkozy would just admit that they are an item. You can tell just by looking at them that they are heading towards marriage.

If Germany and France want the Euro project to succeed then it requires Germany and France to grow closer and closer. They are the engine that drives Europe. Every other country in the Euro Zone is a bystander, waiting to hear what comes out of their private discussions.

We learn today that they need one more summit before announcing the formal pact to get us out of the Euro mess. Even then, we are unlikely to see much improvement on the 'smoke and mirror' bailout package given the political situation. The trouble is that this is not enough to save the family.

Germany is the lead partner because Germany is an economic powerhouse. However, politically Germans are unwilling to use that power and pay for fixing the Europe project.

France is willing but is economically irrelevant. France has high debt and has not run a budget surplus since the 1970's.

The European Union of 27 members or Euro area of 17 is too big to make decisions. Two people can agree to something but getting 17 or 27 to agree is infinitely more difficult.

So we have one partner who is able but is not willing and one who is willing but not able. Surely the answer is to marry the two in the expectation that you will get a single country that is both willing and able.

At the start of World War 2 there was discussion of Britain and France unifying as a single country to fight Nazi Germany. It never happened (and won't happen - Britain would never get back together with it's ex), but it took a global shock to make it even thinkable.

Today we have a global economic shock, and we have two partners who are in love. This is the perfect time to think about marriage between Germany and France.

What would they call the new country? Germance? Franmany? It doesn't really matter.

What does matter is that with the existing couple only dating they are never going to get to where both partners want to be, which is a working Europe. Things can't go on as they are because they are scaring the children.

Now this would of course affect the children. The UK is old enough to go it's own way, just returning to share in the single market. Others are younger and need love and attention, like Greece. Some in the middle are big enough to help out with the chores, but the parents need to make the decisions for the whole family.

Who gets to ask the question? Normally it is the man (Germany) rather than the woman (France), but in this case I suggest they throw away convention and let the woman propose it. This is no time to worry about convention.

Sarkozy has just become a father. Isn't this the perfect time for a marriage, even it it is a marriage of convenience?

Exclusive: Gaddafi grave stone picture

2011-10-20T05:55:00.000-07:00

Muammar Gaddafi is dead.

Rest in Pieces

Meanwhile, his closest friends mourn his loss.

Off with his head!

2011-10-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond is quoted as saying:

“There is no one on the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, apart from Eilidh Whiteford [SNP MP for Banff and Buchan] that has a mandate to say anything about a referendum, apart from the fact that they are opposed to it. The only ones with a mandate to say or do anything are the ones sitting in the Scottish Parliament.”

Can I remind Mr Salmond that he is only a regional political leader in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He does not have authority to make changes that effect the whole country.

Even the Prime Minister, who runs the whole country, only does so at the pleasure of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.

According to the royal website:

Since 1999 Scotland has had two Parliaments: one in Edinburgh for devolved, domestic matters, and the other at Westminster for UK-wide issues.

The Scottish Parliament can introduce primary legislation and is responsible for a portfolio which includes education, health, law, environment, economic development, local government, housing and police. It also has the power to vary the basic rate of income tax by up to three pence in the pound.

Under legislation which established the Scottish Parliament, Members of the Scottish Parliament take the oath of allegiance to the Crown.

The Queen also receives a weekly report from the Scottish Parliament on its business, given its specific legislative role.

The Queen appoints the Scottish First Minister and has regular audiences with him or her to keep up to date with Scottish affairs.

The Scottish Parliament building was opened by the Queen. The First Minister was appointed by the Queen. He took an oath of allegiance to the Crown, as did all of the members of the Scottish Parliament.

There is no mention of powers to hold a referendum that affects the whole country. UK wide powers (which includes what powers to devolve to the regions) are decided in Westminster, not Hollyrood.

Even then, such powers are subject to Royal Assent.

The Queen of England shall decide whether or not there will be a referendum in Scotland, subject to advice given to her by her Prime Minister.

Not some jumped up local bigwig.

Ed Miliband answers my question

2011-10-19T07:50:00.001-07:00

Ed Miliband held one of his #askedm Twitter sessions today and he actually answered one of my questions:

I asked if Gordon Brown had helped him pick his Shadow Cabinet. As you can see, I got a short but precise answer - no.

Not surprising really, Gordon is rarely seen in the Westminster village these days. I will blog about that soon.

Sadly he did not answer any of my other questions, and I asked a large number of them.

My main line of questioning was about Jim Murphy and whether or not his links with lobbying organisation BICOM was appropriate, or if him taking money from defence supplies was either. Along the same lines I asked if he believed in nepotism given the close family like links between adviser Joe Carberry and Peter Mandelson.

Sadly, Ed did not feel able to answer these questions. I asked if Ed was 'fully behind' Murphy or if Murphy had his 'full confidence'. No answer. I'm thinking that Murphy had better watch his back. After all, Murphy did support brother David instead of Brother Ed for leader.

I also asked Ed questions about Labour's funding links to ambulance chasing lawyers who took money out of the NHS. No answer. Legal issues?

On behalf of my #Occupy followers I quizzed Ed about the #occupy movement.

I asked if would follow Obama and support #OccupyWallStreet. No answer.

I asked which he thought was more important - #OccupyLSX or iPhone4s. No answer. I suspect that he is a Blackberry fan.

So sadly, we are no closer to knowing how he feels about taxing the rich. You would think that with all the money that Tony Blair is earning these days he would be all for it.

I asked several economic questions, but I guess that Ed Balls was busy this afternoon.

I asked Ed if he wanted to apologise for Labour letting youth unemployment double from 11% to 20%. No answer.

I asked if he thought we should scrap the minimum wage to put our youth back to work. No answer.

I asked if Rachel Reeves was qualified for the job. No answer.

I asked if he thought the 'smoke and mirror' bailout would save the Euro. No answer. Probably doesn't want to put that future EU job in jeopardy.

I asked if we should get Corfu in return for bailing out Greece. No answer.

I asked how we could stop banks like Barclays from playing Fantasy Investment games with our money. No answer.

I asked if he agreed with Alistair Darling that Mervyn King should go. No answer

I know that Ed had a lot of questions to answer and that I was lucky that he answered one of mine, even if it was one of the easy ones. I can't blame him for not being able to answer all of them.

Looking through his answers to other people's questions he seemed to parrot the existing policies like his 5 point plan rather than engage people when they asked difficult questions. In particular, he failed to answer Guido when he asked about Roland Rudd.

For a little light relief I asked if he had fired the social media adviser who came up with the idea for #askedm. No answer. Maybe the social media guy hid the question from him.

One thing I did notice about #askedm was that, judging from the Random Mousings logs, many of the visit came from outside the UK, especially America. A political 'engage with the voters' social media session is a bit pointless if the people taking part can't vote for you. Still, I guess it helps make you look 'contemporary', even if you aren't doing anything useful.

Ed ended with the following tweet:

@Ed_Miliband Thanks to everyone for their questions. see you soon. #askedm

In gratitude for answering my question, I replied:

No, thank YOU @Ed_Miliband

What I failed to include due to the 140 character limit was:

... on behalf of the Conservative party for being the worst leader since your mentor, Neil Kinnock.

I'm sure that Ed Miliband reads this blog (most thinking people do!) so I'm sure that he will get the message, although sadly he does not follow me on Twitter yet - do you?

@mrnonnymouse

Labour and the elite

2011-10-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

The Guardian are still trying to beat a dead fox. They tell us that:

Adam Werritty bankrolled by three pro-Israel business tycoons

Well, lets look at the other side of the coin.

Labour Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy has just been on BBC News trying to keep the Fox story going, even though he has already resigned.

Jim Murphy himself is not exactly squeaky clean in the way his advisers are paid for.

Jim Murphy has an advisor called Claire Pryor. According to the Register Of Interests Of Members' Secretaries And Research Assistants she accompanied Jim Murphy to Israel on 6-9 June 2011. Return flights, transfers and some hospitality were paid for Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM).

BICOM are a ~~lobbying firm~~ independent British organisation. I have not been able to out much about where BICOM get their funding, except for this dinner (which Liam Fox also attended). Presumably it comes from wealthy donors such as British or Israeli business tycoons.

The links between BICOM and Jim Murphy/the Labour party date back to 1992:

Jim Murphy was President of the National Union of Students Scotland from 1992 to 1994. Murphy was unexpectedly elected as a Labour MP in 1997.

BICOM CEO Lorna Fitzsimons (red head in the above picture) served as President of the National Union of Students from 1992 to 1994. Lorna was elected as one of the youngest Labour MPs in 1997.

Lorna Fitzsimons is reported to have said that 'public opinion does not influence foreign policy in Britain. Foreign policy is an elite issue'.

Presumably the reason why she paid for Claire Pryor's flight was to influence Jim Murphy. It certainly seems like Labour think that foreign policy is an elite issue. Why else would ex-Labour MP running a ~~lobbying firm~~ independent British organisation pay the costs for the adviser of a Labour shadow Secretary of State.

Labour, it seems, think that they are the elite.

Jim Murphy has a political adviser called Joseph Carberry (on the right in the above picture).

Carberry and Murphy visited the Paris Air Show as part of defence policy review. The register shows that a company called MBDA provided transport and some hospitality and a Mr Graham Cole met hotel costs.

They also flew to Washington DC on 18-21 July 2011 as part of defence policy review. Cellcrypt provided return flights, hotel accommodation and some hospitality.

MBDA is an international defence supplier.

Graham Cole used to be Managing Director at Agusta Westland which secured a £570 million deal with the MOD before he retired.

Cellcrypt is an American company that claims to be the leading provider of military-grade voice call encryption for smart phones.

Interestingly, Carberry appears to be the godson of Peter Mandelson. Indeed, Mandelson is described as being 'like a second father' to him. Carberry is certainly party of the Labour elite, and he works for Jim Murphy. I suspect that we will be seeing more of that shy boy in the photo.

So lets put this into perspective.

- If businessmen pay for Liam Fox's friend to work as an unofficial advisor it is headline news in the left wing press.

- If a lobbying firm (probably funded by businessmen) pays for Jim Murphy's adviser to fly to Israel it is ignored by the left wing press.

- If several defence suppliers funded trips for the Shadow Secretary of State and his political adviser it is ignored by the left wing press.

I wonder if any of the people above want to join the Labour elite? Can I suggest joining the NUS and running for president if they are not a Labour family member?

Watch out for pickpockets

2011-10-18T13:59:00.001-07:00

President Obama has just announced that he is on the side of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

He compares the Occupy protests (who want to tax the rich so that they don't have to pay themselves) with the T-Party protests (who want government to stop wasting our money in the first place).

Who's side is Obama really on? His own.

Obama wants to waste another $450 billion on a stimulus package to save his job. That money will come out of American tax payers pockets.

Don't trust a man who comes up beside you and pretends to be your friend. He is often a pickpocket.

Smoke and mirror bailouts

2011-10-18T12:18:00.000-07:00

Here is the first one. €1,999,999,999,999 more to go?

The Guardian reports that France and Germany are ready to spend €2 Trillion to rescue the Euro.

The whole of the EU budget is supposed to be €862 billion for the seven year period 2007–2013. They claim to be spending twice that in one bailout, and there is no evidence that this will be the last bailout that is needed because it does not address the fundamental problems within the Euro.

What they don't tell you that are not planning to spend their own money. The EFSF bailout fund remains at €440 billion, but using smoke and mirrors they will pretend that it is really €2 trillion.

Where does the rest of the money come from? The banks. The same banks which need bailing out.

They expect private institutions (ie. banks) to cough up the money and they will in effect offer an insurance policy using the EFSF money. What happens when the money runs out but the banks need more? We don't know.

They also expect banks to take a 30%-50% 'haircut' on the existing loans, up from the 21% in July. Who owns the banks? You and me, through our pension funds or the government. They are stealing from OUR pensions and we do not even use their currency.

At the same time they will raise the capital requirements for banks to 9% (see my previous post 'were doomed'). Credit Suisse thought that would require €400 Billion in new capital. Using further smoke and mirror techniques France and Germany are trying to tell us that it will only cost €100 Billion. Presumably the rest will come from the markets, ie. our savings. Would you invest in a bank like this?

Meanwhile Euro countries like Greece continue to spend more than they raise in taxes. They continue to rack up debt and continue to be at risk of bankruptcy. Greece has already failed to meet their deficit reduction targets which were only set a few months ago. They got the handouts anyway.

We don't live in France or Germany. Why should we pay to bail out their currency system (which we told them would never work)? Why should our banks lose money when Greece has plenty of assets that it can sell?

Europe is not a nation, it is a group of nations. How can decisions which effect the whole of the EU be made by two politicians from two countries out of the 27? Where is the democratic mandate for this package? What gives them the right to steal our wealth?

There is no solution to the underlying problem of a non-functioning currency system. They have made no changes to make it work. They have tackled the short term symptoms (Greece, Ireland, Portugal defaulting, banks defaulting) but done nothing to tackle the disease (one interest rate for slow and fast growing countries, no way of transferring of wealth between poor and wealthy countries).

There is no new money. The same €440 billion EFSF fund that everybody told them was insufficient is still the only money on the table, and German voters will not let them have any more.

There is no guarantee that this is the end to the bailouts - in fact if countries like Greece continue to spend beyond their means then there will no doubt need to be more bailouts within a year or two.

Of course, the people who are selling us this package will be long gone by the time that happens (or so they hope).

This is a smoke and mirror bailout. The Euro area is still on fire and they have done nothing to put the fire out.

How Labour take money from the NHS

2011-10-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

Earlier I showed how Labour profited from 'ambulance chasing' by referring personal injury claims to legal company Flint Bishop LLP.

Now lets look at where some of that money comes from.

Flint Bishop offers legal advice for how to make money by claiming from the the NHS:

When treatment from doctors, dentists, hospitals and others has not come up to an acceptable standard, our dedicated medical negligence team is here to help.

Their helpful services include:

Whether you will be able to bring a claim in time
What you will need to prove to pursue your claim
The value of your claim
How to fund your claim
Representation at inquests

Now we all trust the NHS to do their best, but we also know that they are not perfect. Do we really want to take money away from them when they don't meet some arbitrary definition of 'acceptable standard'? Surely, that money will just make it harder for them to give good service to future patients.

Here are just a couple of cases. NHS Litigation Authority payments to Flint Bishop:

£50,000 - 2011/1/6
£29,000 - 2010/5/27

So who pays for those claims? You and me, via the taxes that we thought we were paying for the NHS to treat sick people.

The NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) is a Quango which pays people who sue the NHS.

Chief executive Stephen Walker CBE gets paid a salary of £180,000 (plus lump sum pension of £200,000 on retirement) and CFO Tom Fothergill gets a salary of £150,000 (plus lump sum pension of £95,000 on retirement).

Digging a little further we find that the number of clinical claims recorded against the NHS in 2010-11 rose by 30% to 8,655 up from 6,652 the previous year.

The (NHSLA) paid out nearly £1 billion in 2010-2011. They also have liabilities of around £17 billion for future payments for past claims.

The NHSLA paid out £257m in legal costs relating to clinical negligence claims during 2010-11 - a 58% increase on the previous year. £200m (76%) of that went to claimant lawyers like Flint Bishop.

That is a quarter of the payments meant to go as damages for people suing the NHS ending up in the hands of the legal profession.

Labour told us that the money that they were putting into the NHS was for nurses and doctors. They did not tell us how much was going out via law suits. They definitely did not tell us that some of that money is syphoned off in the pockets of referrers like the Labour party!

Personal injury is not the only way that Flint Bishop profit from the NHS. They also help people avoid paying for their NHS care through estate planning.

If you don't want to pay for your own care should you need long term care from the NHS then Nelissa Hicks of Flint Bishop LLP will help you avoid having to sell your home.

So Flint Bishop stop money going into the NHS, take money out of the NHS, and give it to the Labour party.

There you have it: the NHS - safe in the Labour party's solicitors hands.

So who created this culture of 'ambulance chasing' that the Labour Party is benefiting from? Well, Labour did of course!

It was introduced in the 1999 'Access to Justice Act' by Tony Blair.

Tony Blair was a pupil barrister at a law chamber founded by Derry Irvine (who was Blair's first Lord Chancellor). It was here that he met his wife, who was also a barrister. She even practiced law while her husband ran the country. Conflict of interest, anyone?

Should we really be surprised that Labour are taking advantage of 'no win no fee' laws when they were introduced by senior Labour politicians who were members of the legal profession?

'No Fees, No Win' actually means 'Tax payers pay the fees, Labour Win'.

Labour profit from your misery

2011-10-18T06:08:00.001-07:00

Want to know why your car insurance is so high?

Well, maybe this story from the Daily Mail might explain things:

Labour is raking in hundreds of thousands of pounds in commission from ambulance-chasing lawyers who force up the cost of car insurance.

The party’s coffers are swollen by ‘£250 plus VAT’ every time it refers a supporter who is seeking accident compensation to a friendly firm of solicitors.

Officials have also received more than £350,000 in direct donations from controversial personal injury lawyers who pursue ‘no win, no fee claims’, the Mail can reveal.

They are referring to this website. This is not a political website, it is clearly a commercial one, but it uses Labour Party branding and has links to and from the main labour party website. "Labour Legal Servics" is run by Flint Bishop LLP, who also have several other websites dealing in personal injury claims.

Car insurance has rocketed by 40% over the last year. It is estimated that banning referral fees could save motorists up to £150 on their policies. Labour oppose such a change to the regulations.

Personal injury lawyers advertise on TV promising to let you earn thousands from accidents on a 'no win, no fee' basis. What they don't tell you is that everybody pays higher insurance premiums because of spurious claims like these. Now the Labour party are trying to earn £250 plus VAT for every referral that they give. Labour oppose such a change to the regulations.

A Labour spokesman said:

In common with many voluntary organisations, the Labour Party offers a number of benefits to members.

What they don't say is that the Labour party profits from the misery of others.

Mind you, I thought we all knew that anyway.

We are the 46%?

2011-10-17T16:26:00.000-07:00

The London Evening Standard have a poll asking if Londoners support the OccupyLSX protesters.

So much for "We are the 99%". New banners are being printed as we speak.

"We are the 46%" doesn't quite have the same ring, does it?

Barclays Bank Fantasy Investments

2011-10-17T15:26:00.001-07:00

Barclays Bank has an exciting new game that you can play on their website:

The Fantasy Investment Game lets you:

Experience investing with the Barclays Fantasy Investment Game for the chance of winning £10,000, plus other great prizes, without having to invest your own money.

Now many banks are good at investing without their own money, but Barclays were one of the few banks to not take a government handout during the first credit crunch (as opposed to the second one which is about to start any day now).

We are told that the game should not be confused with real investing. The big differences are that:

• When investing for real you can actually lose money (unless you are a bank, in which case the tax payer will bail you out)
• Past performance is no indicator of what might happen in the future (unless you are a banker, in which case it probably will)
• In real life, investment funds are designed to be held for the medium to long term - that is, five to 10 years. If you sell earlier you're more likely to lose money (unless you are a banker, in which case you invest to get the highest bonus)
• Annual management charges are excluded from the pricing within the game (as are the cost of the bankers bonuses or you would not see any profits)

Barclays themselves are good at making Fantasy Investments.

They have just lent $11.5 billion to junk-rated Kinder Morgan Inc. to help pay for a $21.1 billion purchase of El Paso Corp., the largest pipeline takeover in history.

Kinder Morgan’s current debt is at its Kinder Morgan Kansas subsidiary and currently rated BB by Standard & Poor’s, two steps below investment grade. Leveraged loans and high-yield bonds are ranked below Baa3 by Moody’s and less than BBB- by S&P, or anything below investment grade.

Barclays acquired one of the biggest investment banks in the oil sector through its 2008 purchase of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s North American operations. In case you have forgotten, Lehman Brothers was the investment bank whose collapse brought the whole banking system to the brink of failure.

Barclays will share as much as $60 million in advisory fees with Evercore Partners Inc. This means that in order to book a few tens of millions of revenue they are willing to risk billions in a non-investment grade company.

Barclays Bank is one of the banks listed on Credit Suisse list of banks which will need to be bailed out if Greece defaults. Credit Suisse think that they will need around €13 Billion in capital should that happen. That is about the same amount of capital that Barclays have just lent to Kinder Morgan.

Casino banking has not gone away. Banks are supposed to be taking advantage of the easy capital lent to them through Quantitative Easing to build capital reserves in case of economic turmoil. Instead, Barclays at least seems to be using it to take risky punts on companies that the rating agencies do not think are worth investing in.

Should you want to do a little Fantasy Investment yourself, the registration deadline for the game is 12:00 noon on Monday 31 October 2011. You must submit your initial portfolio selections before this time to be eligible for the main prizes. You can still join after this date and be eligible for the monthly prizes. However, I would not bank on being able to receive those prizes should you win. Barclays Bank may go the way of Lehman Brothers and cease to exist by then.

Alternatively you could buy some shares in Barclays Bank itself. Don't worry - if you don't fancy that because you consider Barclays to be non-investment grade then I'm sure Mervyn King will buy some on your behalf any day now.

We're doomed!

2011-10-16T11:31:00.001-07:00

This summer we were told that UK banks had all passed the stress tests and were capable of handling a Greek default. A more recent report by Credit Suisse claims that 66 banks have failed the stress test and need €400 Billion in new capital.

British bank RBS leads the pack, despite the UK government (i.e. you and me) owning 84% of it after we bailed it out in 2008. Barclays and HSBC are also on the list.

After the party

2011-10-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

We all enjoyed the party during the last decade, even if some enjoyed the party more than others.

Now we all need to help with the clean up. How can it be fair to expect a small minority pay for the clean up when the top 10% already pay over 50% of the cost?

No, the 99% do not have an excuse to get out of their responsibilities. The 99% voted for a Labour government. The 99% believed the 'no boom and bust' lies.

The 99% used the public services that were paid for by taxing the banks. The 99% borrowed to buy crap that they didn't need as well as elect a government that borrowed to create public sector non-jobs that nobody needs.

The 99% all enjoyed the party and now they too will pay the price.

Pray for the 99%

2011-10-16T04:48:00.000-07:00

In the UK the top 1% pay 25% of all tax. In the USA the top 1% pay 40% of all tax.

The reason is that the USA has more rich people per head of population.

If the #OccupyLSX protesters want the 1% to pay more taxes so that the 99% can pay less tax then they need the rich to get richer, not poorer.

Peter Tatchell wants a 20 per cent emergency tax on the richest tier in Britain. If he did that then the wealthy would be less wealthy, so they would start paying lower taxes. That means that we end up paying more tax, not less.

If anything, rather than taxing the rich we should be encouraging them to become richer by lowering taxes.

Is this why they are protesting at St Paul's?

The Lords Prayer (OccupyStPauls version)

Our Wealthy who art in Wall Street, hallowed be your wealth.

Our taxes come, from what you've done, in America as in Britain.

Give us this day our daily benefits, and pay us our bills, as we have become your debtors.

And lead us not into poverty, but deliver us from the tax man.

For thine is the money, the jobs, and the economy, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Dibs on Corfu

2011-10-15T15:39:00.000-07:00

The Guardian reports that George Osborne is thinking of donating billions more to the bailout of bankrupt Greece via the IMF. In theory we might be liable for 4.5% of any new IMF funds going towards a Greek bailout.

Holland, Finland and Austria are allied with Germany in calling for private investors, including large European banks and US investment funds, to take bigger losses on their loans to Greece as part of an overall rescue package.

If the banks take losses on their Greek loans then the tax payer will have to bail out the banks instead of the Greek government.

If an individual or company can't pay their bills then they are declared bankrupt and their assets are sold.

If Greece is bankrupt then instead of transferring the problem to the banks and bankrupting the banks (is that why they call it "bankrupt"?) why is Greece not being forced to sell off its assets?

Greece owns a collection of over 6,000 islands and islets. Only 227 of the islands are inhabited, and only 78 of those have more than 100 inhabitants. Surely these are something that can be sold?

The Euro is a problem for the Euro countries and we are not in the Euro (thank you John Major). Germany and France are the major economies in the Euro area and the problem is theirs. If Greece defaults then it risks spreading the pain to other Euro area countries like Italy and Spain and if they fall then we all fall just like dominoes.

If Germany and France won't put up the money to save their own currency then why should we?

Let us not forget that when we were in desperate need of money during World War 2 we sold off many of our assets to America. Without that help we would all now be under the control of Germany.

Instead of giving them money through the IMF why don't we offer to buy some of those nice islands.

We need to tell them that Britain has dibs on Corfu, and we don't care if the Germans put their towels on the chairs first.

#OccupyLSX hate Steve Jobs

2011-10-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

What do they mean by 'Tax Millionaires' and 'Jobs not cuts'?

Just a few days ago Steve Jobs died and the media was full of articles saying what a genius Steve Jobs was. He created computers, phones and tablet computers that they love. We bought his products in large numbers.

#OccupyLSX claim to represent the 99%. Steve Jobs was worth around $9 Billion when he died. Steve Jobs is part of the 1% that #OccupyLSX hate and want to pay for our economic problems.

#OccupyLSX hate Steve Jobs.

If we want more jobs then we need more people like Steve Jobs, not to tax them out of the country.

Don't worry Steve, 99.998333% of us still love you. Thank you for my selling me the iPad.

Bankers go on strike

2011-10-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

#OccupyLSX claim to represent the 99%. I'm part of the 99% and they don't represent me. As I showed earlier, they should really be called the 0.0016666%.

The common theme amongst the demands of the #occupy protesters seems to be that bankers are evil and need to pay more tax.

Well, as Dan Hannan shows in the Telegraph, the top 1% pay 25% of our taxes and the top 10% pay over 50% of all taxes.

The wrong people were protesting in London today.

Maybe the bankers deserve those high bonuses for all the flack that the receive from the loony left. It was politicians who caused the deficit, not the bankers.

Bankers in India have the right idea. The picture above shows some of the 1 million Indian bank workers who went on strike earlier this year.

They are not the only ones. Here is a picture of Greek bankers striking.

That is what will happen here if #OccupyLSX get their way.

What the 99% really want

2011-10-15T13:16:00.001-07:00

Spot the difference?

One is a photo of the #OccupyLSX protest.

The other is a picture of people queuing up for a new Apple iPhone 4S.

London had 1000+ people with £499 to spare for a new smartphone (and that was just one day at one store) and 1000 people protesting because they have no money within a couple of days.

To me it looks like the iPhone launch had more people. I wonder how many people were at both events?

What do we want? No food!

2011-10-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

What are OccupyLSX protesting for?

Boy, do these guys look serious. Better take their demands seriously then.

No to common purpose I thought they were protesting on behalf of the 99% against the 1%. Maybe they realised that they were only the 0.00166666% and had to make changes. I'm all for people gathering at ~~the London Stock Exchange~~ St Paul's Cathedral with 1000 of their friends to show that they are individuals and not part of the crowd.

No to the banking elite No banking means no money means no jobs. So they are protesting against work? I thought they would be protesting for more jobs, not less. If that is what they want then I'm sure that it can be arranged.

No to the Codex Alimentarius This one is cryptic. Presumably they mean this Codex Alimentarius - the book of food. They appear to be against food. If they want to go hungry then not having money or a job will help.

No to Agenda 21 More cryptic demands. This appears to be the UN program for sustainable development. They appear to be against environmentalism. I guess that is why they are gathering in the city and not in the nice green English countryside.

No more corruption Fair enough. Corruption is bad.

No more lies Fair enough. They might want to think about changing those 99% banners to 0.00166666% though.

So they want to do their own thing, without money or jobs, because they are not hungry and do not enjoy the countryside.

Now I get it.

The 0.00166666%

2011-10-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

They wanted to be the 99%.

There are 60,000,000 million people in the UK.

There are about 1,000 people at #OccupyLSX.

That means that they are actually the 0.00166666%

That won't look quite as good on the poster, will it?

Billy Bragg on his way to OccupyLSX

2011-10-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

Billy Bragg has just tweeted that he is on his way to OccupyLSX.

In 'The World Turned Upside Down' Billy sang:

The sin of property
We do disdain
No man has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain

I'm not sure why his website has an online store. Maybe selling crap t-shirts for extortionate prices is OK. Really, £18.00 for a T-Shirt? You can buy a blank one for £0.99. Billy, you have sold out.

Later he sang:

The clergy dazzle us with heaven
Or they damn us into hell
We will not worship
The God they serve

I hope that doesn't mean that we will see a fight between Billy Bragg and Jesus!

If there is a fight someone please take a photo so that I can put it on a T-Shirt and make a mint.

Jesus at OccupyLSX

2011-10-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

Jesus did throw out the money lenders.

Matthew 21:12

Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.

I'm not sure what the doves have to do with it.

He was also friends to the tax collectors.

Luke 5:27-31

Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”

Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

So why do the people at OccupyLSX want the top 1% to pay all the taxes? Surely they should love the tax collectors and pay their own fair share. After all, the top 1% of tax payers pay 25% of all tax collected, so it is not as if they are not already doing their fare share.

#OccupyReality

2011-10-15T07:48:00.000-07:00

#OccupyWallStreet seems to be spreading. Now they are #Occupying the London Stock Exchange.

On a Saturday.

When it is closed.

In this spirit of community activism I would like to announce a new campaign:

Our campaign is for the 99.9% of people who are at home getting on with life while the 0.1% go out and complain about it.

Our campaign is for the people who understand that we all enjoyed the good times so we all have to pay during the bad times.

Our campaign is for people who care about people in real poverty who can't afford to eat, not the smart phone owning protesters who don't like being less affluent than others.

Our campaign is for the people who understand that to become richer we need to work harder, not try to take it from people who have become wealthy from working hard.

Our campaign is for people who understand that finding jobs for the unemployed is more important than fighting for better pensions and higher wages for those in work.

Our campaign is for the people who realise it is the government taking nearly half of our money in taxes, not the bankers.

If you want to join our campaign against people who make pointless protests then please go to the Facebook page and hit 'like' or follow us on Twitter by following @Occupy_Reality

Justine Greening will make a great Transport secretary

2011-10-14T10:10:00.001-07:00

Except for the fact that she appears to be scared of flying.

Fox: I'll be back!

2011-10-14T09:54:00.002-07:00

Cameron delivers the bad news

2011-10-14T09:49:00.003-07:00

Sorry Liam, but for you it was a one way journey.

One person is happy that Liam is leaving

2011-10-14T08:42:00.001-07:00

The letters

2011-10-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

Dear David,

As you know, I have always placed a great deal of importance on accountability and responsibility. As I said in the House of Commons on Monday, I mistakenly allowed the distinction between my personal interest and my Government activities to become blurred. The consequences of this have become clearer in recent days. I am very sorry for this.

I have also repeatedly said that the national interest must always come before personal interest. I now have to hold myself to my own standard. I have therefore decided, with great sadness, to resign from my post as Secretary of State for Defence – a position which I have been immensely proud and honoured to have held. I am particularly proud to have overseen the long overdue reforms to the Ministry of Defence and to our Armed Forces, which will shape them to meet the challenges of the future and keep this country safe.

I am proud also to have played a part in helping to liberate the people of Libya, and I regret that I will not see through to its conclusion Britain’s role in Afghanistan, where so much progress has been made. Above all, I am honoured and humbled to have worked with the superb men and women in our Armed Forces. Their bravery, dedication and professionalism are second to none.

I appreciate all the support you have given me – and will continue to support the vital work of this Government, above all in controlling the enormous budget deficit we inherited, which is a threat not just to this country’s economic prosperity but also to its national security.

I look forward to continuing to represent my constituents in North Somerset.

Yours ever,

Liam

Dear Liam,

Thank you for your letter.

I understand your reasons for deciding to resign as Defence Secretary, although I am very sorry to see you go.

We have worked closely for these last six years, and you have been a key member of my team throughout that time.

You have done a superb job in the 17 months since the election, and as Shadow Defence Secretary before that.

You have overseen fundamental changes in the Ministry of Defence and in our Armed Forces, which will ensure that they are fully equipped to meet the challenges of the modern era.

On Libya, you played a key role in the campaign to stop people being massacred by the Gaddafi regime and instead win their freedom.

You can be proud of the difference you have made in your time in office, and in helping our party to return to Government.

I appreciate your commitment to the work of this Government, particularly highlighting the need to tackle the deficit, and the relationship between Britain’s economic strength and our national security.

You and Jesme have always been good friends, and I have truly valued your support over the years. I will continue to do so in the future.

Yours ever,

David

The fox has gone

2011-10-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

Dr Liam Fox has resigned, so my prediction of a dead fox was right.

As I said then:

Now that the media have sensed red meat they want to kill a fox.

The media got their fox.

Liam Fox has done a great service for his country by sorting out the 38 billion mess that Labour left us with and in helping to win in Lybia. Now that the hard part is done what we desperately need is to sort out the procurement system and cut down the number of generals and admirals to suit the new look armed forces.

Hopefully Liam Fox will be back after some time on the bench. If David Cameron is reading then he would make a very good party chairman to replace Baroness Warsi in a couple of years time.

Now for the reshuffling of the decks. Rumour has it that Hammond will go from Transport to Defence. Will that mean a retreat over HS2?

Wanted: A Labour Werrity

2011-10-14T02:18:00.001-07:00

The Fabian Society is currently advertising for an intern.

Job Title: Internship

Working For: Fabian Society

Location: London

Salary: The interns posts are voluntary, although London zones 1-6 travel expenses and a lunch allowance of £5 per day are paid.

Job Details: Internships at the Fabian Society can give you an idea of typical day in and around Westminster. Some days you may get to sit in on a meeting with a Minister, others may include setting up events or the more mundane administrative tasks. ...

The Fabian society (a Labour think tank) want an unpaid intern who sits in on ministerial meetings.

The Atlantic Bridge (a Conservative think tank) supplied an unpaid bag carrier who sat in on ministerial meetings.

Labour are calling for an inquiry for one of these. Which one do you think it is?

Well, presumably it is the first one because Ed Miliband signed a pledge to make sure that all interns get the minimum wage.

Labour don't care about men

2011-10-12T08:54:00.001-07:00

As well as attacking David Cameron for youth unemployment (even though Labour created the problem) he attacked him for female unemployment.

Lets look at the figures for male and female unemployment (full data here):

Region	Male	Female
North East	7.1%	3.3%
North West	6.0%	2.9%
Yorks & Humb	6.2%	3.0%
East Mids	4.8%	2.5%
West Mids	6.5%	3.3%
East	3.9	2.2%
London	5.3%	3.5%
South East	3.4%	1.8%
South West	3.5%	1.8%
Wales	5.6%	2.6%
Scotland	5.7%	2.5%
Northern Ireland	7.5%	3.2%

Male unemployment is about twice the level of female unemployment in all regions of the UK. In fact, male unemployed is higher than female unemployment in every single constituency in the UK.

Men are traditionally the bread winners who are supposed to provide for their families. If men cannot provide for their families then women and children in those families suffer.

Surely equality means caring about both male and female unemployment. Why do the Labour party care more about women than men?

The traditional Labour party of the working class man has been hijacked by feminists. Unemployment is highest in the North yet Labour choose to highlight female unemployment over the problems faced in their own areas. Is it any wonder that their core vote is abandoning them?

The sad fact is that Labour allowed jobs to go in traditional male dominated fields such as manufacturing. They allowed uncontrolled immigration which gave all the new jobs to non-British workers despite calling for "British jobs for British workers". They created government non-jobs for women paid for first by taxes from casino banking and then from borrowing.

Labour destroyed jobs for men and created jobs for women and immigrants. Why should men trust Labour to get them working?

This is yet more proof that Labour doesn't work!

Labour doesn't work

2011-10-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

Ed Miliband attacked David Cameron on the government record on youth unemployment today. Coffee House have an article about youth unemployment (they suggest getting rid of the minimum wage). It contains this graph:

Notice anything?

Youth unemployment fell from 17% at the start of the records in 1993 to 11% when Labour stopped following the Conservative economic policies, brought in the minimum wage and opened up the doors to immigration in 2001.

It then rose to 15% in 2007. It fell for one year to 14% thanks to Labour's credit boom in 2008, then it then rocketed up to around 20% in 2009.

Youth unemployment is still rising, but it was under Labour that youth unemployment became a problem.

Here is an updated version of the classic poster:

Causes of poverty

2011-10-12T04:59:00.000-07:00

Do these women look like they need jobs?

New unemployment figures are out and they do not look good. Lets look behind the numbers. It is well know that unemployment differs across the different regions of the country and within specific areas within each region.

However, lets look at the data differently - by race instead of by region.

This data comes from the Annual population survey on the government Nomis database website. It is not the latest data but we can spot trends.

First lets look at the ratio of employed people to economically inactive people (aged 16-64 so this ignores children and pensioners). The higher the ratio the more people there are in work to pay taxes to support those who do not work. The lower the ratio the more poverty there will be.

	Employed	Inactive	Ratio
All	27,826,800	9,153,700	3.039951058
White	25,765,600	7,915,600	3.255040679
Mixed	172,400	81,300	2.120541205
Indian	520,300	212,500	2.448470588
Pakistani	328,900	348,400	0.944029851
Black	493,100	258,400	1.908281734
Other	523,200	328,900	1.590757069

What does this tell us? The ratio is highest amongst whites. It is very low amongst those of a Pakistani (includes Bangladeshi). In fact, there are more Pakistani/Bangladeshi people not working than working.

Now lets break down that data by men and women.

Men	Employed	Inactive	Ratio
All	15,026,000	3,190,000	4.710344828
White	13,844,300	2,755,600	5.024060096
Mixed	83,300	33,100	2.516616314
Indian	301,000	77,500	3.883870968
Pakistani	241,700	99,600	2.426706827
Black	243,000	92,600	2.624190065
Other	299,000	128,200	2.332293292

Clearly more white men work than other races, but Pakistani men are not much different to the other non-white races.

Women	Employed	Inactive	Ratio
All	12,800,900	5,963,700	2.146469474
White	11,921,300	5,159,900	2.310374232
Mixed	89,100	48,200	1.848547718
Indian	219,300	135,000	1.624444444
Pakistani	87,200	248,800	0.350482315
Black	250,100	165,800	1.508443908
Other	224,200	200,700	1.117090184

The ratio of women working to not working is lower than men as you would expect (because they are stay at home mothers). What is striking is the extremely low ratio of Pakistani/Bangladeshi women. There are three times as many women not working as working, the opposite of the ratio for the other races.

Presumably this is largely due to their religious beliefs.

Now I don't want to be racist - I don't care what the colour of your skin is, which country you came from or which god you worship. I have great respect for the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (although less respect for the teachings of those who followed him).

The British Pakistani population has grown from about 10,000 in 1951 to roughly 1.2 million today. There are an additional 300,000 of Bangladeshi origin.

British Bangladeshis and British Pakistanis have the first and second highest relative poverty rates in Britain.

The causes of that poverty are not racism. It is not because men do not work. It is because Pakistani and Bangladeshi women do not work. This creates ripples across generations as children in these communities are brought up in poverty.

We cannot solve poverty in this country while at the same time importing poverty from abroad. Large scale immigration from Pakistan or Bangladesh will not work if those who come here gather in a small number of areas rather than integrate with the rest of Great Britain. It will not work if those who come here for a better life remain poor because they keep their old social values. It will not work if women are prevented from taking jobs.

Labour like to claim that they care about poverty, but they have created poverty by allowing uncontrolled immigration. Labour like to claim that they care about women, but they allow immigrant women to live here without them being able to work. Labour like to claim that the reason we need immigration is to fill skill shortages, but immigrant women are not finding jobs.

The fact is that to reduce poverty in the UK we need to slow down immigration and make those who have come here integrate into our society. The first place to start is to get immigrant women working, especially those from Pakistan or Bangladesh.

Exclusive: Mary Portas in new show

2011-10-11T11:27:00.000-07:00

Mary Portas, star of "Mary, Queen of Frocks", has been in the news.

Mary Portas is a TV presenter, retail guru and adviser to David Cameron.

Presumably being an adviser to the prime minister qualifies her to judge the female members of the cabinet as being 'an ugly bunch'. Miss Portas said she would relish the chance to restyle them and ‘put a bit of sex and glamour in there’.

Today, Random Mousings can exclusively reveal her next project:

From what we understand the show involves Mary visiting various MPs and giving them a 'make over'. First up (as seen above) will be Theresa May.

Labour power dresser Yvette Cooper is also on the list of MPs for the Mary Portas treatment, although we are not sure if the picture below is a before or after shot.