Rate this postEveryone I meet who is even minimally interested in the EU, knows that Cameraman’s EU negotiations have been pointless from the start. The charade continues to be supported by the BBC and most journalists because “the story” fills up the time available for news broadcasts and keeps everyone busy. There is no reason at all to link the date of the promised referendum to what Cameraman is doing. Yet this is being presented as being a necessary step!
Rate this postThis article is a timely update to one I wrote about the dangers of China in February 2014 China the elephant in the room. This Tory government has learned nothing from Thatcher’s disastrous reign of myopic, crass decision making or that of New Labour’s 13 incompetent years at the helm. It cannot see beyond Cameraman’s departure two years hence (yes – two) and is making huge errors of mismanagement in three vital areas of Britain’s future. These are: 1) future
Rate this postI am greatly amused by the frantic anti Jeremy Corbyn campaign being waged by the other three Labour party leadership contenders. 😉 They simply do not understand why Corbyn is so popular with many Labour supporters, and many of us. The reason is, that Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper (AKA Mrs Balls) are still speaking and thinking poli-balls. They have not twigged that we the people don’t like it. (Ed: I wonder why Ms Cooper uses
Rate this postOur dumbed down BBC news A BBC reporter was interviewing one persistent, but unsuccessful, immigrant on the recent death of his friend. “How are you feeling?” she asked. They were in a tent, “in the Jungle” the Calais camp site, where he had been living for the last month. “Oh it must be so sad for you to still see his shoe on the floor over there…” said the reporter, interviewing the man who cousin died last week
Rate this postAt London Conference of 1953, the Greek Minister of Finance signed a treaty agreeing to cancel 50% of Germany’s debt! How times change! While the idiotic posturing of Jean-Claude Juncker (a banker friendly supporter of globalisation and an expert in tax avoidance for multi-nationals) waits for Greece to agree to ridiculous demands to pay back the banks who were daft enough to loan a third world economy buckets of cash in the first place, Greece’s Prime Minister (and
Rate this postTheresa May today underlined why so few of us will be voting for one of the main parties on May 17th. She played the usual game of not answering any question put to her, avoiding any semblance of honesty and straight speaking that we, the people, so desire. The same criticism applies to Millibean and Clegg too, so I am not being partisan! The original Right to Buy policy, brought in by that dreadful 1980s Thatcher government, is
Rate this postToday the government is accepting applications for licenses to explore potential fracking sites. The contracts that will be eventually signed will not contain clauses to clean up contaminated water supplies or clauses insisting upon insurance to be taken out to pay in the event of a natural disaster. Instead, here is what the government says to fracking companies “when things go wrong”:- “How operators manage incidents if something goes wrong:- Operators must prepare a safety document with an
Rate this postNobody has ‘agreed with Nick‘ for three years. Now, even Vince ‘the’ Cable has joined that club of pollishituns who have shafted the public and refuse to take responsibility by resigning. Vince Cable, the man who foresaw the financial disaster of 2008, is no more, and should resign after his disastrous mishandling the Royal Mail privatisation. He still speaks, but his words are mealy-mouthed establishment twaddle. In every privatisation of public assets, since Thatcher’s dark days in the
Rate this postEd Miliband as leader of the Labour Party? Ed Miliband has never found his way into our hearts since becoming leader of the New / Old / Labour party. The labour party faithful just cannot accept that he is simply not leadership material. He sounds odd and looks weird. If that seems unkind, well tough, it’s simply true! Not PC but true. Millibean’s latest desperate pronouncement on not supporting a referendum just shows how incapable of rational thought
Rate this postChina’s economic miracle is to be feared Everywhere I look in today’s news, I see that few see China, as one of the biggest problems in our globalised world. Most commentators see China’s “economic miracle” as something to be admired! In my view, China’s miracle is an example to be feared and then understood. Then dispatched to the history books as a colossal error by the human race. I see, as does dear Robert Peston, who has done
Rate this postAir traffic requirements for Britain are today’s PoliNews*1 subject and, for once, Boris is right. Dave, as usual is wrong and incapable of vision. This blog, and my book ‘The Normal Curve‘, are largely about how and why the party political system is incapable of rational thought. We need, instead, a system of infrastructure and resource planning that can think 30-50 years into the future. Time after time cockups of such gravity have been made and none of
Rate this postParty conference poppycock 2013 Part 1 – the Lib Dems. Vince Cable Business Minister, remember him? He ‘s the chap who foresaw the banking crash, the credit crunch and says that George Osborne is wrong about signs of economic recovery. He is still seen by everyone as someone who has principles and vision. Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, remember him? He’s the chap who lied about his principles to students and forever lost any trust the public might
Rate this postCan it really be that politicians are listening to the people? It may just be so here in the UK perhaps even so in the USA?. Pity about France … I hope Congress and President Barak Obama have the balls to say “No” to any more intervention in the Middle East. Let us instead promote the values and reason of the European Enlightenment upon which the USA was founded and wait 500 years while the Middle East catches
Rate this postApart from being good news for the £ (of which more later*), the lack of a majority for any one Italian party, in yesterday’s general election, is giving the political classes the same lesson that they failed to learn in 2010. “We the people” have nobody credible to vote for. When an Italian comedian can get 25% of the vote, then I think we may say that conventional political parties have been rumbled as the comedians. The lesson
Rate this postSpecial relationship? Pah There is no special relationship In meBook, sadly as yet unpublished, I explain in some detail that the USA has never really been a friend to Britain and has in fact treated us as an easily exploitable business asset, occasional cannon fodder and for the rest of the time just screwed us in every business / economic deal we have ever made with it. The fabled “special relationship” lives only in the minds of politicians
Rate this postEU now says it wants a federal Europe, controlled by the EU Last December I said there was no more to say about the ridiculous EU; just lately I have had to say more, mainly after José Manuel Barroso said the EU needs to become a Federation urgently! Baroso former PM of Portugal with a stupefying record of economic incompetence is now in charge of the EU project … words fail me … If you, like me (a
Rate this postMay I present the latest example of the blitheringly obvious being missed by politicians and their slimy attempts to blame anyone but themselves! First Group’s winning bid was based on revenues growing by 10% per annum for years to come! That was headline news some weeks ago. To any first year student of politics, accounting or indeed anyone who lives, or has lived, in the real world this was obviously bollocks nonsense! Oh, and by the way, this
Rate this postSocial housing in expensive areas of England should be sold off and the money used to finance the building of new homes in cheaper areas, the think tank Policy Exchange says. Neil O’Brien, (PPE Oxford – say no more …) director of the think tank Policy Exchange, said he does not believe anybody “has a right to live in the most expensive parts of town.” “People do have a right to be housed but not in the very
Rate this postBob Diamond resigns as CEO of Barclays Bank which itself has been, so far, fined an estimated £200 million by the UK’s FSA and USA institutions as a direct result of the senior management team fraudulently fixing the LIBOR interbank lending rate. In three separate penalties, Barclays will pay the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.K.’s Financial Service Authority a total of $454 million. In the CFTC’s settlement, Barclays traders – with the assistance of
Rate this postBaldrick: “What I want to know Sir, is, before there was a Euro there were lots of different types of money that different people used. And now there’s only one type of money that the foreign people use. And what I want to know is, how did we get from one state of affairs to the other state of affairs” Blackadder: “Do you mean, how did the Euro start?” Baldrick: “Yes Sir” Blackadder: “Well, you see Baldrick, back
Rate this postThis is yet more madness delivered by visionless, asset stripping, incompetents (AKA the Tory party) …first OUR water, then OUR electricity grid, etc. etc. and now, our roads. How can a private company doing the job be cheaper? Let me think, … Ah yes … Cut wages costs & therefore quality? Cut materials costs & therefore quality? Keep public sector pension provision levels? HeHe, err … noooooo … Charge the users? YES – that’s the way to do it !! There are
Rate this postOsborne’s gone NATS, selling our air to Germany Thatcher sold our water supply in 1989 which means that there can be no sensible policy to share out UKs water supply from the areas of plenty (the West & North West) to the areas of need (the South and South East). Those who now own the water do not live here so they just don’t care. The list of idiotic, incomprehensibly incompetent “policies” dreamt up, mainly by the Tories,
Rate this postHere we go again, what is it with our politicians How can they be so consistently stupid? Privatisation may be good for some activities but not for soft public services like education, health etc. How can the profit motive provide a better police or health service at a cheaper cost to the public? The answer is not blowing in the wind – it is simple, ‘it cannot be’. That politicians are congenitally incapable of rationality which is explained
Rate this postHere is the latest in the long tradition of cock-ups by those who are paid to know better than ‘we the people’, you know, Government Ministers …sigh The ‘Feed in Tariff’ green initiative started by the last unspeakable Labour government (don’t get me wrong, this one is dreadful too – I’m not being partisan!) and continued by the coalition (subject to a current legal challenge). What is so infuriating to me is that most people think that the
Rate this postName that gnome -> I am so very fed up with the utter nonsense that our political leaders are spouting about the damn EU – day after boring day. Clegg – a disappointment – a disaster of a man – wake up you idiot! Cameraman (no- not a spelling mistake) – out of his depth – a shallow man with no understanding or clue. Osborne – sigh Milliband – a tragic mistake in Labour’s history (as was Brown,
Rate this postI have no money but take my body if you must says David Cameraman … In Berlin today Merkel will still ask for a 5% increase in the Euro budget and in the same breath tell Cameraman that she can’t afford to bail out the weaker members of the Eurozone – “Well my Dear …” (I can hear him saying), “you can’t have it both ways!” He should also remind Chancellor Merkel where all the money came from
Rate this post The casual hypocrisy of George Osborne:- 09/01/2009 – “QE is the last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed” – George Osborne in opposition The U turn 06/10/2011 – “QE is an appropriate tool” – George Osborne (reported on politics home) Yes it is par for the course for politicians to lie and spout bollocks – this is a jolly good example. Here is some sanity from my favourite BBC economics commentator, Stephanie Flanders, who blogged “Some say that
Rate this postEven now, when it is obvious to everyone but politicians, journalists and most economists, that “bailouts” don’t work – cannot work – never in a million years would work, do we have emergency meetings between, France, Germany and Greece “to sort out the ‘crisis’”, again. These meetings, being held today, won’t work either because of the refusal to face reality. The reality is that Greece is totally bust, Portugal, Italy and Spain are almost bust and therefore the Euro is
Rate this postThe AAA rating, by Mr Micawber’s definition (and that of reality and your grandmother) is earned when your income just exceeds your expenditure and that future prospects are stable. Neither of these simple criteria apply to any country in Europe, including Germany, and certainly not to the USA or to Great Britain. So why all the excitement when the USA which has not met these criteria for years (as indeed, we have not) loses the AAA rating? Politicians have been
Rate this postAll “bail outs” of failed economies in the Eurozone are prohibited by EU law, but … Did you know that when Italy and Greece joined the Euro, they failed several of the main criteria set up for countries joining the Euro? You may have heard that we (residents of Great Britain – the UK …) are in a bit of financial bother and that for every £4 we spend we have to borrow £1, at around 3.0% from China.
Rate this postSub-title: Sell your Chinese “Emerging Market”stocks soon – you heard it here first. 😯 It hasn’t rained much this year. In fact it is looking like being one of the driest years ever and the trend is probably going to continue. The UK water supply should be owned by the UK A significant majority of British people believe that the water supply is so vital that it should be run as a not-for-profit public service. However, the Westminster
Rate this postThere was a discussion on the BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ program this morning which is probably the most important issue for Britain today and probably the world. (Blimey – pompous or what?) “A conference exploring ways to develop British manufacturing will be held at Cranfield University today. Sir Alan Rudge, chairman of the ERA Foundation which funds and advises technology research, and Justin Urquhart Stewart of Seven Investment Management, debate whether more manufacturing would heal our economy or
Rate this postTory government’s privatisation plans to free ministers from blame for NHS failures The NHS “reforms” proposed by the new Tory government are not reforms, they are simply a politically expedient way to remove future responsibility from central government by putting private companies in charge. The same principle applies to the schools system started by that self-obsessed idiot Blair and continued by ‘gormless’ Gove and ‘Couldn’t care a less’ Cameron. All we hear from Cameron is how necessary the
Republic’s goal is simple: replace the monarchy with an elected head of state and more democratic political system. Instead of a king, we want someone chosen by the people, not running the government but representing the nation independently of our politicians.
A monarchy should not exist in a democratic society. The majority of us believe in democracy, and think democracy makes for a fairer, more prosperous society. Who of us think the British version of democracy is working well?
Too much power in the hands of government, it’s too difficult to hold people to account We see corruption and cronyism everywhere, especially the Lords and in the honours system.
