2. economics

China’s future and ours; lessons from Covid-19?

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For the last 40 years or so, China’s financial, business, political and cultural effect on our world has been a disaster.

A disaster both  for the Chinese themselves and for most of us.

This is a real live pangolin, I have to say I thought it was a toy at first! The Chinese pangolin and the Sunda pangolin, are the most endangered of all the pangolin species and valued for their meat & assumed medicinal properties.

The corona virus is just the latest of many diseases produced by China’s cultural attitudes to selling “fresh” food and the hugely increased exports from China over the last 40 years..

SARS and MERS are almost forgotten but they were both created in the same way and the lessons have NOT been learned..

Fresh, wriggling and fluttering food is sold all over China in open market conditions that would make most of us, in the west, feel ill.

The cruelty to live creatures, let alone the insanitary practices employed, are the root cause of the Covid 19 (Corona virus).

The source of Covid 19 is most probably the pangolin, a live one is pictured just above.

Read all about this endangered animal here. Pangolin scales are sold illegally all over China to solve erectile dysfunction and almost every other disease known to the average Chinese mind.

However, diseases are not the only exported problem from China.

We, in the West, have been ensnared by the extraordinary expansion of a greedy totalitarian regime which exhibits the very worst aspects of capitalism. But most of us do seem to like their iPhones 😉

Chinese expansion is a disaster in the making that has been blitheringly obvious, to me and many others, for years.

Here are just some of the real problems stated, yet again, in plain simple English.

The disaster for China:-

  1. China’s own rivers have been largely destroyed by pollution driven by mindless industrial expansion by former communists latterly converted to capitalism.
    • I have written about this before, several times, here in 2014 and here again in 2014.
    • The Yellow river (now orange with pink and green tinges by the way) has not met the sea since 1972.
    • The Yangtze is even more polluted than the Yellow River but still just manage to reach the sea but not for much longer.
  2. China’s totalitarian communist party has effectively destroyed freedom of speech by incarcerating anyone who dares to criticise the ‘party’.
    • China does this more than any other country in the world.
    • Here I include such countries as North Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Dubai and Scotland (just joking Nicola 😉 )
    • Deng Xiaoping was the chap in charge when China decided to murder hundreds protesters in Tienanmen Square in 1989. Thousands more protesters were injured for asking for more freedom and democracy.
    • We in the West hardly mentioned it at all. News of those atrocities committed by the Communist Party are still suppressed in China even today.
  3. The traditional family unit in China was also destroyed by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980’s. He decided to follow Margaret Thatcher’s disastrous deregulated, debt fulled economic growth model and Covid-19, Mers and Sars are the result.
    • Parents of young children were and still are separated for months at a time by having to move from their villages to the new super cities.

The disaster for the world:-

  1. China’s debt fuelled expansionist disaster has yet to hit the world financial markets and when it does, the current stock market drops will seem quite benign.
    • There are hundreds of cities the size of Birmingham built since the 1990’s but most are empty
      • see here
      • and here in a Youtube video from Australian journalists
      • and many others; just search for Chinese ghost cities and you will see what I mean
  2. Chinese culture and weird, to us at least, medicinal beliefs have caused many rare species all over the world to be placed on the globally endangered list. The prices that the Chinese are prepared to pay for tiger’s testicles, pangolin scales etc. have funded worldwide illegal poaching on a huge scale.
  3. China has financed many airports over the world, most of which are yet to be used by anyone other than the Chinese military.
    • Several examples spring to mind, the main one being …
      • Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, the second-largest in Sri Lanka, is designed to handle a million passengers per year. It currently receives about a dozen passengers per day. Read all about here in the New York Times magazine; a fascinating but scary analysis of China’s long game of global domination.
  4. Dear Boris “Why do you think that Huawei’s price for installing our new 5G network infrastructure is so very cheap?”
    • Please read my previous blog article written just before your daft decision was made.

A final question to consider, “Is unfettered globalisation a good thing for homo sapiens?“

Our leaders’ decisions are mostly bonkers, why?

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Reading the news, since the 12th December election, has been quite illuminating but equally depressing.

Dominic Cummings isn’t as daft as he looks and I hope Boris is actually listening to him – he speaks sense.

I’m not talking about global warming, plastic waste pollution or the ever increasing ability of our politicians to “take responsibility” by just saying the words but remaining in place.

I’m talking about the ridiculous decisions being taken, about to be taken, not taken or avoided by those whose job it is to make competent decisions.

Many of the decision making processes used by our clever political and educational leadership elite are simply bonkers.

The decisions made as a result of theses bonkers processes produce long term errors that will be hugely costly to correct; that is, if they ever are or can be.

Here are ‘6 of the worst’, but there are so many more it is quite worrying.

 

  1. Why allowing Huawei into our G5 networks is bonkers

    • Huawei is so closely controlled by Xi Jinping’s bonkers totalitarian Chinese state that any decision by our government to let them anywhere near our proposed 5g infrastructure is just bonkers silly.
    • I realise Donald Trump is an ignoramus and largely bonkers, but in the case of Huawei he is quite right!
    • Let’s hope Boris is using silence on this point to get a good trade deal with the USA.
    • Boris could then quietly agree to drop Huawei at the last minute and work with the USA to build our own 5g system.
    • OK, it may arrive one to two years later than Huawei’s system, but we would be in control and the money is spent in the UK & Britain. Obvs! Simples!.
    • Final point; China is actually ahead of the West in developing Quantum computer technology; implying truly unbreakable encryption.
      • we should send some of our students over there to nick their technology … 😉
        • My point here is that the Chinese have been pinching our secrets for years just by paying student fees for their spies to become embedded in our best research laboratories.

  2. Why male to female Trans people demanding to use female loos is bonkers

    • A female Oxford history Don has been “no-platformed” because of her stated disagreement to male trans users demanding to use female loos. This is the latest example of academic liberal academic nonsense rapidly destroying freedom of speech in our universities.
    • Those supporting trans people are simply bonkers.
    • Why?
      • My answer is based on common sense as opposed to recent but growing liberal ideology, which appears to be the new “PC”.
        • If you have still have a penis then you use male loo.
        • If you have a vagina then you use the female loo.
        • If you have both sets of genitalia there are so few of you that I don’t really see a problem – use either.
        • Most of “wee the people” do not mind.

  3. Why HS2 is bonkers

    • HS2 will make journeys to and from London faster to some cities in the north of England.
    • It is that link which is being done first.
    • This is bonkers, here’s why.
    • It makes most sense to the dysfunctional HS2 Ltd management who are earning ludicrous sums of money for making bonkers decisions.
      • They need the first tranche of profits to be made South of Birmingham because that is easier. Because that is where they have been looking first being Londoncentric money men.
    • In order to actually create the much proclaimed northern powerhouse you have to make northern east west journeys easier first!
    • Simply doing the southern part first just makes the whole thing London centric which misses the point entirely.
    • Here is where the main problem is and where the main benefit should be felt first..
      • Connect Liverpool to Sheffield etc.
      • Listen to those in York and on Humberside. Get them connected first with better rail links.
    • This complete cock-up is being made because those influencing the decision are going to make most of the money, completely missing the real reason for improving our railway connections.
    • The most laughable reason, stated last week, for going ahead with HS2, is that “we have spent so much money on preparations so far we can’t stop now” .
    • Well, most of that cost is land purchase, so just sell it back! Simples!
    • Finally, the cost overruns are out of control; HS2 Ltd directors are just making bonkers money for crass decision making.
    • We need to scrap HS2 Ltd, sell off the land for forestry and agriculture.
    • Then we can start again by putting the railroad, trains and time tabling all back together in one new corporation.
    • I don’t really mind if it is run by private enterprise or nationalised BUT it all needs to be together! Obvs.
    • We could even call it British Rail … 😉

  4. Why potential Labour leaders are still bonkers

    • Actually I can’t tell you why the main leadership contenders are so blinkered in their continued support of the Corbyn legacy.
    • The main contenders are either ex-remainers or Trotskyists. All are bonkers and in complete denial of their recent election disaster.
    • I watched Emily Thornbury in last Thursday’s Questiontime. She was told quite clearly that she was deluded and bonkers by one panel member and several in the audience.
    • That’s what happens when you believe your own hype and only listen to others who are as deluded as yourself.
    • The winner is being announced on April 1st…;-)
    • Labour: RIP

  5. Why the EU and Macron in particular are bonkers

    • President Macron of France wants 25 years of free access to the UK’s fishing waters or he won’t play.
    • This is the EU’s opening salvo in the coming trade negotiations.
    • My answer, to quote Maggie Thatcher, is “No, No and no.”
    • The EU has missed the main fact which is that we don’t have to listen to their bonkers announcements any more.
    • Hurrah!

  6. What programs are the BBC planning to cut to save cash?

    • Celebrity nonsense on BBC 1, 2 and 3? Nope.
    • Celebrity Antique road show? Nope
    • The One Show? Nope
    • Victoria Derbyshire current affairs? Yup
    • Newsnight? Yup
    • Shorter Today on Radio 4? Yup
    • The 50% of their megalithic website that nobody uses? Nope
      • BONKERS

 

General election Q & A – Happy Maastricht ;-)

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Yippeee! Another general election 😉 the third since the five year fixed term parliament act came into err “force” in 2011.

Your Christmas General Election quiz starts here. Just 10 questions to answer.

There may be prizes (Ed: I doubt it …)

The biggest question left for me is “does this Boris Johnson’s exit deal actually give us freedom from the EU?”.

My current understanding is that it still ties us into EU rules (for some years) and we continue to pay the EU £billions. £39 billion?

I don’t know yet, even having read the bill, it is still unclear to me. No deal is still the option if we get to 31st January 2020 without agreeing ‘the deal’.

That means that probably “no deal” is almost certainly the best result for the United Kingdom of Great Britain in the long term.

Why? Because it removes politicians from the mix 😉 and after the last 3 years of irritating and pointless fluff I think most of us can raise a glass to that!

Businesses will have issues, of course, and things will not be as favourable as they currently are.

BUT, the simple fact is this, European businesses will still want to sell us their stuff in return for us selling them our stuff; that was always the case.

OK then here is your quiz.

A unified defence policy is one of the main aims of the EU, introduced on page 3 of the Maastricht Treaty signed by John Major in 1992.

Q1) Can you imagine twenty seven (Ed: 26?) countries agreeing on a united stance against Russia when Germany so heavily relies on Russia for gas?

Most commentators think that the eventual creation of a united European army could never be met.

So then, if your answer is no (Ed: Obvs! (Sorry about him, but he’s been getting out a bit more lately)) then you have to vote for Boris Johnson’s Tory party on 12th December 2019.

Just one of many examples of how Maastricht is just potty; to put it mildly. More examples follow.

But, before we go on to more questions, I must share two videos from Margaret Thatcher; they are both just over one minute and well worth a listen.

As many of you will know, she is not my favourite politician but here she speaks with a clarity that should make any remainer stop in their tracks.

In one minute twenty seconds Margaret Thatcher calmly explains why the Maastricht Treaty will take the EU in a direction that the UK should not follow.

This was just before she was ousted as PM by her personal “night of the long knives”.

Q2) Do you want our foreign policy to be decided in Brussels by the next version of Herman Von Rompuy? (Ed: Who he? Me: Look it up)

That was another main aim for the EU introduced in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. (Page 4)

If your answer is no then you have to vote for Boris Johnson’s Tory party.

Q3) Do you really want 70 trucks to continue to move the EU parliament from Brussels to Strasbourg each month?

This at an annual cost of 114 million Euros (at 2014 prices). The MEPs + staff + cooks & bottle washers stay there for four days and they all come back to Brussels again.

The Strasbourg EU parliament building. This is used for 4 days a month then deserted for the next 27. ;-(  It only cost €470 million to build. What a bargain!

€

€

€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This stupid state of affairs has been there since the establishment of the Iron and Steel Community in 1952.

(Ed: Really didn’t know that? (Yes that move really has happened each month for the last 67 years).

67 years @ €114 million per year = € 7,638,000,000 in wasted cash – your cash 😉

For your amusement please read my source here.

If your answer is no then you have to vote for Boris Johnson’s Tory party.

Q4) Do you never, like me, want to see that piggy faced (apologies to all pigs everywhere) SNP MP bore spout the same old undemocratic bollocks nonsense again and again? He’s the one banging on and on about Scottish independence because, when he had a referendum on that, he lost. He’s the one who ignores the simple fact that Scotland is in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and is not – nor ever will be a separate country with the Euro-haggis as a currency.

Most of us, including the Scots, want Scotland to stay in the UK and do not want two more referendums on Brexit & Scottish independence which is Labour party policy.

The official result of the Scottish Independence Referendum on a turnout of 84.6% was:

Yes 1,617,989 (45%) No 2,001,926 (55%)

If you can still remember the question, and your answer is yes, then you must vote for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party BUT not this time.

Q5) Do you want eventually to replace the pound with the Euro? Maastricht (Page 3). Currently we have an opt out that costs us dearly.

If your answer is no then you have to vote for Boris Johnson’s Tory party.

Q6) Do you really want free unregulated movement (people and capital) to continue? This also means that citizenship is regulated by the EU. Both on Page 6 of the Maastricht Treaty.

If your answer is no then you have to vote for Boris Johnson’s Tory party.

Q7) Article 104 b (page 27) prohibits the EU taking on the financial commitments of a member state; effectively prohibiting bailouts.

However, the EU has ignored that rule 12 times to the tune of €544 billion (of your money) as at 2018.

So do you want to be party to an organisation which breaks its own rules regularly and so spectacularly?

If your answer is no then you have to vote for Boris Johnson’s Tory party. (Ed: Obvs.)

Q8) Page 73 Article 188(b) is a wonderful pile of garbage. This sets up the “Court of Auditors”. Yup – the EU does its own auditing, but get this: for the last 21 years the auditors of the EU have identified serious shortcomings in in the “veracity” of the figures. The consequence of which is err nothing. Throughout the Maastricht Treaty you may read the words “Recommendations and opinions shall have no binding force.'” This applies to the auditors and therefore renders them toothless. Also applies to the European Central Bank.

So do you think that is a good way to manage your money?

If your answer is no then you have to vote for Boris Johnson’s Tory party. (Ed: Obvs.)

Q9) Page 3 creates the Euro to establish a monetary and fiscal union; ‘one currency to bind them all’.

This means that all members of the Euro have the same fiscal (tax) policy. If you think that makes sense then I suggest that you do a bit of economic analysis of each member state before bursting out with laughter. First term lecture two or three of any economics course would have put you right.

Then, if you think still that the Euro works as well for Greece as it does for Germany, then you must vote for Jeremy Corbyn or Jo Swinson.

Q10) Page 200 ensures that “1. Each Member State shall ensure that the principle of equal pay for male and female workers for equal work is applied.”

If you think that is going well, after 27 years of “member states ensuring” that it happens, then you must vote Liberal Democrat. Jo Swinson becomes our next Prime Minister. ;-o

I thought I should finish with a joke (The line just above this one just in case you missed it).

One could go on and on …but one won’t (Ed: thank you).

Conclusion

This election is just about achieving our clean departure from the EU and nothing else, despite what Corbyn is trying to say.

The least worse of our party leaders is, for me, Boris Johnson. He ain’t perfect but his time is now and he is exactly who we need to get us out of the pile of poo that is the EU.

The Maastricht Treaty, signed by John Major in 1992 is a woolly pile of legalese which converted the EEC, which was a trade union (which sort of made sense), into a political and monetary union (which makes no sense at all). Derogation is a word that means “an exemption from or relaxation of a rule or law” which is mentioned 48 times in the treaty and basically means that if a rule within the treaty is broken by a member state they are told off very firmly but their two hour lunch continues unabated.

A final point of interest:

My spell checker corrects ‘Maastricht’ into ‘Christmas’ – funny old world eh?

Happy Maastricht!

 

 

 

 

Go BoJo! Who are the Pro Rogues now?

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May I try to put the childish, irrelevant “furious backlash“, as reported today by the BrBC (British remoaning Broadcasting Corporation), into some logical context?

A view from Winston Churchill – he never envisaged that we would be a part of a political union

You may have guessed that I am for leaving the EU by now 😉

The remainers have been told effectively to shut by Boris.

Hurrah for him!

This is why: our MPs are simply ignoring the wishes of the British people.

In 2016 the people were asked by our government to make the decision, for the government, to either leave the EU or to remain.

This simple question was easy to answer.

More people voted in that referendum than had voted in any general election since had Noah floated across the Straights of Hormuz.

Those of us who voted to to leave won, or so we thought.

Back in 2016 we didn’t know or care about about “a deal”. We just assumed our politicians had the job of competently removing us from the pile of poo that is the EU.

Back in 2016 we had never heard about the Customs Union. We didn’t know the implications of a deal or no deal.

Back in 2016 we didn’t even think or care about the Irish border complexities. Our dear competent politicians would sort that out.

Back in 2016 we just assumed that the politicians would calmly and competently remove us from the disastrous future created by Maastricht in 1987.

Back in 2016 we did not know why we were being ruled Herman Von Rompuy, or who he was. We did not know, or care, who the President of the EU was, or why there were 4 other parts of the EU that made the whole thing completely undemocratic, by design!

There were many other things about the EU that we did not know about either, we did not care. We just wanted out!

It had nothing to with economics or most of the argument we later heard ad nauseam from the remainers who could not accept that they had lost the most direct form democratic of vote we have.

The following describe my reasons for leaving the EU.

The EU:-

  • was in 1975 an trade union (we had a referendum to decide that). The EU became a political union in in 1987 (Maastricht: no referendum on that!)
  • is undemocratic by design, more so after Maastricht,
  • is faceless (go on, tell me who Herman Von Rompuy is?),
  • is financially incompetent,
  • has disregarded failed audit reports for over 20 years,
  • is intent on creating a federal European state ruled from Belgium (Maastricht),
  • is intent of creating a European Army (Maastricht),
  • is intent on supporting global business to the detriment of the people’s benefit,
  • is run (until last month) by a corporate tax avoidance specialist; Jean Claude Juncker
  • is designed to support Germany first, France second and everybody else third (the Euro created by Maastricht),
  • has created agricultural subsidies that make no sense unless you are French or German

Finally a few words from Daniel Hannan MEP. A touch of humour to cheer you all up!

 

 

 

Is democracy dead? Are you bothered? Am I?

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There are a few simple truths at the heart of our disillusion with politics & politicians

  • No political party has dared to tell us that we can’t afford to pay for all our pensions, the NHS, social care and all those public services that we now demand “as of right”.
  • The welfare state has weakened the government’s ability to break even? It was never envisaged, back in 1947, that is was to become such a huge part of the economy. Discuss.
  • Our government has only broken even seven times in the last 110 years. (Ed: Not a lot a people know that.)
  • The depressing figures for the last 10 years are here on the government’s own statistics web site (ONS).
  • The party political system is flawed too, because it does not allow politicians to plan for long term solutions.
  • All political parties are demonstrably rubbish at financial planning.
  • It can also be argued that is our fault and that we are “in this mess” because so few of us vote.
    • (Ed: Except in the EU IN/OUT referendum!)  😉
  • The clincher for me is the simple fact that we were asked to decide the EU issue.
    • We were promised by our government that our answer would be honoured.
    • Our answer however was the wrong answer and David Cameraman ran off to hide in his posh new caravan.
    • Following on from the EU’s own answer to answers they don’t like, our politicians’ answer is to lie, ignore democracy, try to ask the same question again and talk bollocks for nigh on three years.

Are we bothered enough to do something about it?

We, the people, can’t be really be bothered to be bothered any more?

It seems we are not bothered enough because:-

  • Those who are well off want to keep the status quo.
  • Those who are “just about managing” haven’t got the time to shout about it.
  • Those who really are poor have no voice and no party to speak for them.

Great Britain, and most the the West, has developed a strange form of democracy wherein the views of the majority of people can now be completely and safely ignored.

Change UK (Ed: Who they?*1) has yet to realise that their name should actually be “No Change UK” or perhaps “Love EU“. I predict a huge election failure looming for these deluded, myopic, self interested twerps, because we will be bothered to vote in the next EU election and it will be for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party that we will vote.

Annunziate Rees-Mogg joins the Nigel Farage’s new Brexit party

Hurrah for Annunziata Rees Mogg & Ann Widdecombe and the new Brexit party.

Those who govern us don’t really need to be bothered to be competent either! Why not?

Over the last 25 years, government ministers have been quietly transferring their own valid responsibilities to Quangos (Quasi non-governmental organisations).

This avoids ministers having to give difficult answers to awkward questions when things go wrong. “It wazzn me guv, you need ask the regulator”.

Quite sickening, in my opinion, but quite accepted, normal and largely unchallenged. Because we can’t be bothered?

We the people have been frustrated, bored and ignored into submission …

… by those who love their government jobs and their desire for power more than anything else.

The reason for this is our flawed voting system and Tory & Labour parties fear of introducing proportional representation (PR).

For example, if we had PR, Nigel Farage’s UKIP would have had 46 seats in parliament in 2015!

This all started when we began to notice that whoever was in power couldn’t think in terms longer than 3 years and didn’t do much for our benefit.

So the upshot of all this is that most of us now feel that we have nobody worth voting for.

They simply refused to listen to us when we gave the wrong answer on the Brexit decision.

How did this all happen?

This  was not such an issue when there were two very distinct parties fighting for clearly different visions of government. That situation died in the 1980’s.

First we had Thatchers mad years of selling off anything the British people owned by right (our water supply, means of electricity distribution, etc. & etc.).

Her banking and financial deregulation policies lead to a debt driven growth causing the 2007 financial crisis from which we may never recover.

Those who bankrupted us were never called to account and we the people have been paying the bill ever since.

In the good old days, the Tories ruled for a few years until we spotted that they were nasty sex mad corrupt capitalists (John Major’s hypocritical years).

So we gave the Labour party a go until we spotted that they were driven by union bosses more interested in themselves than rights for the workers. (Callaghan’s useless government).

Then we had the Blair years where a religious despot so full of himself that he destroyed the Labour party by creating the second Tory party.

Then we had a few Brown years where he nailed New Labour’s coffin firmly shut.

Then we had a coalition which privatised the NHS, our forests and a few other things we didn’t notice.

Then Nick Clegg destroyed the Liberal Democrats by lying to two generations of students and by believing that the EU was better for the United Kingdom of Great Britain than was our own government.

Then for a few years more we still couldn’t bother to be bothered until we were asked, by David Cameron (Ed: Who he?), to vote either IN or OUT of the EU.

Then parliament decided that their voice should heard because they not like our answer to the question they asked us to rule on.

Well, what are you going to do about it?

Nigel Farage then came along and spoke in words that we understood and spoke about things that we actually cared about! We might not like him very much but his words connected!

It was he who forced David Cameron into giving us a referendum on membership of the EU.

We the people suddenly woke up and voted in numbers not seen for decades, but…

Then, for the last 3 years, we have been professionally ignored all over again and we have all lost the will to live.

Another truth is that most of the power now lies outside of the political process and is held by corporate entities who are bigger than most small to medium countries.

So, now it really does really matter that we can’t be bothered, because nobody we can vote for can do much about it. They aren’t really bothered either.

So there is nobody left for we the people to vote for.

Unless somebody else wakes up and err, does something about it.

Is that you?

Nah, you can’t be bothered and neither can I 😉

We get the leaders we deserve and since we can’t be bothered …

*1 Chukka Umuna, Anna Subrey & several other twerps.

My last post on Brexit; even I can take no more

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It is not about you MPs – it is about the 17.4 million of us!

The sight of those silly school girls & boys skipping down the road away from their political parties was just sickening.

The new excited but deluded Remainer party who have nowhere to go after 29th March . Brussels perhaps?

Who do those adolescent MPs, who have never created anything of worth, think they are? It is simply not about them or their failed political parties.

It is about us, the 17.4 million of “We the People” remember them / us / we?

Qualification for MPs?

Most of our MPs are obviously ignorant of business, economics, democracy and history, yet they are given all the air time, on the damned BBC, to spread their unfounded opinions. But it was nice to see them firmly criticised, by the audience, on last week’s Any Questions, ;-).

Most of our MPs are completely unrepresentative of the people’s referendum result of 2016 and are trying their deluded best to reverse that referendum result.

They are so upset that OUR decision to leave bypassed them; that is what this is all about. For the future we need MPs who have done real jobs before they are allowed to stand as an MP. (Ed: what a good idea!)

You haven’t read Maastricht yet? Gosh, here’s your chance 😉

Please read the first 9 of the 260 pages of the Maastricht Treaty – it will take you 3 minutes, after which you will understand what I have been banging on about for the last 7 years! Fine but meaningless words – the reality falls at every post.

Our Remainer government has wasted two years on purpose

Our Executive (our so-called government) have been talking about the wrong thing and to the wrong people, for over two years.

Anyone who has actually started and run a business for more, than ten years, would have told the EU politely but firmly where to go!

A withdrawal agreement (who owes what to who, security collaboration, joint funded projects etc.) should have taken our civil servants a maximum of six months to sort out, had they been so instructed.

Then our civil servants could have started working on our import / export arrangements and would have finished those a year ago, had they been so instructed.

Our businesses would then have had the clarity they desperately needed a year ago. They would have had the time to prepare properly.

But faced with our career party politicians, who have never had to smell business reality, the EU just stuck to their desperate guns, firing blanks.

No real shots were fired and yet our pathetic negotiators capitulated!

What utter crap! I can feel Churchill and Atlee (and yes, even Margaret Thatcher) rolling over in their graves.

This last year should have been about putting people and mechanisms in place to cope with the EU’s intransigence.

Perhaps a hearing aid might improve matters?

Instead, our loopy PM, Theresa May, rolled over and agreed to spend two years talking about an agreement that the EU told us we had to sign, or else. (Ed: Or else what, we wonder?). That agreement was never needed and means NOTHING!

The EU is bust

We do not want to be part of a federal Europe run by Germany, again. They tried twice last century using force and are trying again using political and economic bribery.

The simple fact is that the EU is bust. The level of debt in Greece, Italy, Germany, France Portugal and Spain is simply eye-watering.

The debt was created by the EU creating Euro cash and calling it loans, rather than the bailouts*1 as they most assuredly were. They did it several times, twice to Spain and three times to Ireland.

Those loans bailouts will never be repaid, a simple fact that will inevitably finish the EU project once and for all.

The EU Central bank (ECB) actually charges its customers to put their money in; unbelievable! They started negative interest rates in 2014 and they are still doing it now(currently -0.4%)!

The EU is a failed project that is fighting for its life using smoke and mirrors and your money.

We must leave on the 29th to save our own economy first, or else I will invade Brussels!

Acknowledgements: Peter Brookes for his ever spot-on cartoon commentary on British poli-bollocks.

*1 – Bailouts are specifically ruled out in the Maastricht Treaty, “but never mind – lets call them loans 😉 and nobody will notice“.

“‘No bail-out’ clause Article 125 of the Lisbon treaty makes it illegal for one member to assume the debts of another. It has led to fears that Germany’s constitutional court could strike down EU bail-outs.” My source is the Financial Times

 

Brexit, echoes of PeterLoo & referenda

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MPs are now so disconnected from the public that the current situation echoes events just prior to PeterLoo* in 1819. I saw the film PeterLoo last Friday and the political & economic similarities are hard to miss. Parliament and the Prince Regent (the King was mentally ill and incapable at that time) sent cavalry into a crowded Manchester square.  Sixteen people were killed and seven hundred were seriously injured. The discontent of the people? Pah, send in the cavalry!

Two months is a long time in politics, memories fade with age and increasing confusion of age – see the wonderful front page of my copy of this month’s Private Eye below… 

Today, the Tory, Lib Dem & Labour parties are arguing amongst themselves and the 2016 referendum result has been twisted into polibollical claptrap.

MPs may not have sent in the cavalry but being ignored is worse!

Every facet of our so-called parliamentary democracy is at stake here; our self obsessed MPs will destroy it if they manage to remove No Deal as an option.

MPs should not be the issue here. That view is ignored by the, once upon a time impartial BBC and is bypassed by all those with a voice.

The voice of ‘We the people’ is being ignored by our deaf MPs, BBC journalists and the government.

Referenda & their purpose

The responsibility for the Brexit decision was passed from the government, by the government, via the 2016 referendum, to ‘We the people‘.

‘We the people’ then made that decision, not you.

The executive (i.e. the elected government, not you MPs)  promised to implement it.

I know that’s annoying for you, but you are, or should be, largely irrelevant to the process of Brexit.

But, that is exactly what the consequences of that referendum should have been.

Sadly, the 2016 EU referendum result was not legally binding on the government. David Cameron implied that it was binding and I’m sure most of us thought it was, back in 2016; most probably still do.

Interestingly, well OK not interesting at all really, the previous, and entirely stupid, referendum held in 2011 was binding.

Remember that one?

No, nor do most people, because it was an irrelevance to all but a few Lib Dems. They actually wanted a referendum on the introduction of PR(Proportional Representation). They had to accept the nonsensical compromise of AV (Alternative Vote) because that is what powerless politicians have to do.

My advice to parliament ( Yes, I know … 🙁 )

Dear MPs, take two months unpaid leave and give the government, what’s left of it anyway, some peace to sort out this incompetent and pathetic mess.

You might then begin to earn back some of the respect that the office of Member of Parliament once had.

Who let her out again?

The government could then use that two months of peace to sort Brexit, avoid our lights being turned off next year, cancel the ill conceived HS2 and use the money saved to nationalise the railways, the National Electricity grid and reclaim our water supply.

But it won’t. Grr.

THE END

* The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter’s Field, Manchester, England, on 16 August 1819, when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000–80,000 who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.

Growers of corn and wheat were being allowed to charge extortionate amounts for bread while imports of cheaper corn were banned by the protectionist landowners, many of whom were MPs. The people were quite rightly angry and, were we more like the French, would have made revolution, chopped off the heads of the Prince Regent and many of those landowners.

 

 

Project fear refuted …

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There are many serious and rational voices in support of a No Deal, despite the BBC’s overwhelming Project Fear coverage, and, to my surprise, by Channel 4’s Jon Snow (more on this below).

Two stupid, dangerous, hypocritical, weird, and probably mentally ill men (see Dr David Owen’s book Hubris Syndrome) who made it to PM Time for a change methinks

The pity is that these views are hidden from our view, but they are there, if you look.

So then, who are these misguided, treacherous, thick, ill educated No Deal supporters?

I have collected a few of the best arguments supplied by these well hidden voices below.

  1. The Mayor of Calais, surprising a BBC Today program interviewer two days ago; please listen here
    • “we are ready and have been preparing for no deal for over 12 months, and there is no problem”
      • as are Rotterdam and several other European ports
  2. Lord Anthony Bamford (Chairman of JCB – One of our oldest and most successful multi-national exporters) “A No Deal Brexit would end business uncertainty” read in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph Page 4
  3. Leeds University students surprising Jon Snow in his Channel 4 televised debate – see here
    • Shock horror, not all young people have swallowed the Project Fear offensive
    • “So you are all leavers?” I quote Jon Snow’s incredulity at being faced down by so many rational 20 year erudite students!
  4. Sir Rocco Forte (Forte Hotels) “What we are not being told by the harbingers of doom is that inward investment into the UK in the first half of 2018 was the second highest in the world after China, but ahead of the US and Germany. We are not told that 94 per cent of businesses in this country are not trading in Europe.”
  5. Margaret Thatcher. See her famous speech (now all but forgotten) in 1982 railing against the formation of the EU and saying why she thinks the EU is a pile of poo (Ok “poo” is my word, not hers) – watch here
  6. Tony Blair in his 1983 pre-election address, before he started being paid by Europe and being told that one day he would become President of the EU.
    • Now then, that’s what I call a proper U turn 😉
  7. …and finally me, or anyone who has taken the time to read the Maastricht Treaty or even a summary. Read a very good, balanced, summary here in the Independent which is a quite rational and readable examination of the failure of Maastricht.

No Deal is far far better than any deal with the EU. The so called negotiated “agreement” is, and always has been a criminal waste of time by the Mother of Parliaments ignoring the wish a democratic majority. Quite sickening in my view.

This is exactly what our pathetic government has been doing for the two wasted years!

May’s deal is just criminally stupid, argued by someone who has never made anything, of worth, happen.

The time to pull the plug was two years ago, our dear leaders never saw it & still do not. Think about this image for at least 30 seconds – it sums everything up perfectly

Question: Who would I put in Orwell’s room 101?

Answer: All career politicians.

Why?

Politics original definition from the OED* “of the people, for the people“) is far too important to leave it to those who are clueless about the real life most of us (“we the people”) live. They think it means “of the politicians, for the politicians”

My evidence?

The last two years of party political idiocy arguing with the “unarguable with” (the EU bureaucrats and each other)”, who live by a rule book that nobody in the EU ever followed, other than the United Kingdom of Great Britain, of course ;-(

One despairs…

 

 

 

 

 

 

*OED : Oxford English Dictionary definition

Today’s definitions:

  • Party politics discussed by journalists feeding their insane desire / need for endless short term media massage
  • Discussing, endlessly, what some politician said and whether or not this affects their credibility

Acknowledgements:

  • Peter Brookes – for 45 minutes cartoon.
  • Also the Trouble Shooter’s creator, but sadly could not find out who that was, but Thank you

 

The Brexit smokescreen unmasked & let’s see more of …

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… the back of Theresa May

A short constitutional overview

A referendum is the most powerful democratic tool we have. It is, and was in 2016, a direct call to ” we the people ” to have our say.

But our confused party politicians hate that level of direct democracy because it sidesteps what they think is their job 😉

This explains why around 500 members of parliament are doing all they can to reverse the clear instruction given to them in 2016.

Our voice is now seldom heard because our weird, quasi democratic, party political system plus the BBC’s blatant preference in support of the EU. We could learn a lot from Switzerland on the use of referenda.

The smokescreen trying to confuse us all

The “Remain lobby” is winning the media presence battle and is relying on the ignorance of the majority of “we the people”. Most of us don’t have the time to read things like the Maastricht treaty and the Localism Bill.

I have read them both and  both stink to high heaven.

The summary of both, presented to us and the MPs, is and was a party political statement rather than an accurate summary of legal intent.

We are now being faced with a media smoke screen, mainly  provided by the BBC’s coverage and our MPs who are completely unrepresentative of their constituents.

Why the smokescreen?

Because we gave the wrong answer in their referendum and they dare not say out loud that the EU is a failed project, because they signed us up, in 1982 to the disastrous Maastricht Treaty. That utter twerp, John Major, signed the damn thing in direct opposition to Margaret Thatcher’s lucid understanding of what the EEC was about to become!

Probably one of the few things she ever got right! (Sorry Peter…(private long running joke))

Their smokescreen demystified

  • May repeating robotically that “there is no other or better deal”
    • but there is, its called NO DEAL; just requires a PM with the balls to inform the EU
    • a monstrous change from her previous mantra of “No deal is better than a bad real” (Remember that one?)
  • Parliament asking for all the legal advice on May’s ridiculous deal, completely missing the point
    • lawyers will argue for ever and never see the wood for the trees – whoopeee, 5500 pages to read and advise upon, “Oh, that’ll be £100,000 please”.
  • Endless repetition of “a disastrous Cliff edge fall if we have no deal”
    • nonsense, it doesn’t
  • Remainer MPs calling for us to remain in the EU rather than accept May’s pile of poo agreement
  • Remainer businesses calling for a second referendum; their campaign largely financed by George Soros (The only guy to make £1 billion out of the 2002 ERM crash, another pile of EU poo)
  • Remainer businesses demanding security (Mainly the huge global corporates run by bean counters).
    • How dare they demand security? Small growing businesses never have security; that’s just called taking risks!
Hmm – what to do? Lemme think ….

A few facts

I’m making these few simple points today because our media driven political class are making Brexit appear to be a disaster for Britain.

It is not.

The vast majority, 480 of 650 MPs, voted to remain in the EU.

My source is a Press Association survey.

More people voted in the 2016 referendum than in any general election since WW2.

The leave vote was 52% and those who wanted to remain made up 48%.

4% in a general election is enough to give the winning party a majority of 26 in parliament.

That is twice what she has while the DUP still support her.

We have been “handled” yet again.

My prediction

The EU & the Euro will disappear within 20 years. Just Google “how long will the EU survive” for a range of well argued reasons.

PS: Grr

PS2: By the way where are you Jacob?

Brexit on Theresa May’s terms would be the worst of all worlds

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I am quoting Daniel Hannan an MEP writing in the Telegraph (on-line) a few days ago. Daniel is a Conservative MEP and someone who has been very critical of the EU’s systemic hypocrisy, inefficiency and financial incompetence for many years, as have I.

Daniel Hannan – Our next PM?

Whether or not you are or were a remainer or leaver, this current policy direction is beyond daft; it is criminal incompetence from Theresa May who is either so confused by what she thinks she ought to be doing or has gone bonkers!

I’ll just give you two paragraphs from his article, the rest you can read for yourself on-line here.

“Allow me 60 seconds to explain why staying inside the EU’s customs union would be catastrophic for a trading nation like Britain. It’s not just that the customs union uniquely penalises us as the only EU state that trades more outside than within the bloc. Nor is it that just that the customs union would give Brussels 100 per cent control of our trade policy with zero per cent input from us. No, it’s something worse than that. 

Under international trade rules, if Britain joined a customs union with the EU, it would be obliged to match any concessions made by the EU in trade agreements with third countries. But, critically, those third countries would not be obliged to reciprocate vis-à-vis Britain.

Suppose, for example, that the EU struck a trade deal with India. Britain would have to copy every consequent change that the EU made in its procurement rules,  technical standards and so on. But India’s equivalent concessions would apply only to the EU 27, not to Britain. The UK’s home market – the fifth largest in the world – would become a bargaining counter for Brussels negotiators to exchange for benefits to their own countries.

If you voted Leave and now object that staying in the customs union “would be Brexit in name only,” then I have bad news for you: the reality is far worse than that. Staying in the customs union as a non-member would place us in a new and uniquely powerless position. Labour spokesmen used to oppose such an outcome precisely because of the asymmetric position in which it would place Britain, obliged to do whatever the Brussels decided, but excluded from the EU’s trading partners’ matching concessions. Labour’s sudden volte-face in February was the most cynical thing I have seen in my 20 years in politics.“

Yes, this has become a complex issue to resolve, but it never needed to be. Both the Labour and Tory parties have let down the United Kingdom of Great Britain by their pathetic “party” political infighting.

Jeremy Corbyn has been a Euro sceptic for the last 30 years, until he found power. The same is true of Tony Blair; but just writing his name makes me feel sick!

Theresa May was always for staying in the EU so why are we surprised? She has not grasped what Daniel has so elegantly explained.

Parliament, and all party political leaders have failed our nation.