Ed Milliband's Comedy Turn

Labour leader Ed Milliband must be running out of ideas. His latest suggestion, that the cap on party donations from individuals be lowered beneath what the Coalition suggested, is just hilarious

Not because it isn't a good idea in itself; it is. But it's comedy gold coming from  the leader of a party that happily accepts millions in donations from the membership of trade unions such as UNITE. Who then, of course, have a stranglehold on the party and its policies. Do us a favour, Ed. Do you think we've not noticed where your party gets its money from?

Spain's new government - for now

Congratulations to new Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain's "People's Party" on ousting the Socialists and winning a decisive victory. The question is: will it make a difference?

In Italy and Greece democratically elected leaders have been booted out by bureaucrats in Brussels because the European elite didn't like their policies. In both cases Berlusconi and Papandreou have been replaced by what the media have coined 'technocrats'.

It is symbolic - if not indicative - of the EU that democracy can be so subverted in the interest of a project. The Euro project: the project that failed.

Austerity measures will follow in both Spain, as they have in Italy and Greece. Now in times of yore, when the IMF parachuted in to rescue countries like this they would impose austerity measures but balance it with the promise of devaluing the currency and making it more competitive. But of course with the Euro that's not possible. the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) should never have been allowed to join the Euro since they patently lacked the fiscal and monetary discipline. They didn't play by the rules (of deficit, etc). But they were allowed to join anyway!

Now the hubris. The PIIGS are trapped in the Euro straightjacket and there are no good options. Default and withdrawal from the Euro seems the least bad option; then the Euro can revert to what it was really designed for : Germany, France plus the Benelux countries. Keeping out of the Euro has saved Britain from even greater financial disaster but we are so exposed to the bad debt of the PIIGS that we won't get away with it. And who knows, could France be next?

So enjoy your victory, Senor Rajoy. Just make sure you do what your masters in Brussels do. Otherwise you'll be out on your ear.

You say tomato, I say health scare

Another year, another health scare. And the usual over-reaction and hysteria. When will people get a sense of perspective?




A very small number of people have fallen ill, and an even smaller number have died, from e-coli poisoning. Man the barricades and reach for your tin hats, the end of the world is nigh. We're doomed I tell you - doomed!

AV or not to AV - that is the question

I always know when a campaign is fishy when I get unsolicited mail from actors or TV 'personalities' telling me what I ought to do. Just recently I received some junk mail (in the truest sense of the word) telling me to vote 'yes' in the AV referendum. The arguments advanced were simplistic and threadbare, not because they necessarily are so but because almost all the space on the leaflet was given to photos of  'celebrities' endorsing the campaign: Steven Fry, Colin Firth, Helen Mirren and Benjamin Zephaniah amongst them. A ship of fools if ever there was one.

Labour have got lucky

Some guys have all the luck. And some parties have it too. And, despite being the progenitors of the worst financial mess in living memory, Labour have actually had more luck with the timing of economic cycles than the Conservatives.

Channel 4's report on Local Councils efforts to save money

Having just watched today's Channel 4 News article on how local councils are taking different approaches towards the cuts demanded of them, it's pretty clear that some frontline services to the public can be safeguarded if only councils make the right choices.

Senior Lib Dems express doubt about the Coalition. Big Deal!

Vince Cable has been caught out expressing doubts about Coalition policy, and saying that if he disagreed too much, he could resign. A few other Lib Dem MPs have similarly been recorded saying they are unsure about some policies, notably those on tuition fees and the cuts. The BBC has been all over the story, and rushing to interview Labour figures about it. Aside from the amazing lapses which led Cable and the others to just shoot their mouths off to total strangers, I suspect no-one outside Westminster quite understands what all the fuss is about. The nation yawns, you might say.

Germans play the economics game right

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been  pushing for bondholders to take some of the hit the next time a bank sheepishly puts its hand up and admits it's got no money. Sounds fair enough to me. Why should it be the poor old taxpayer who has to cough up every time a bailout is needed?

Ireland's pain, Euro's shame

Ireland's Celtic Tiger is dead, a stake through its heart.

Even when the ugly truth has been exposed, people still can't admit to what has gone wrong. The Euro wasn't right for Ireland (or, by extension, for the UK). How much more proof does anyone need? The cause of the Irish crisis was, in essence, that Irish banks went on an orgy of irresponsible lending to fuel an unsustainable housing bubble. Sound familiar? Oh yes....

But here's the thing - the Euro. You can't get away from it. Well, Ireland can't anyway. And that's the problem now.

Mrs Thatcher's legacy -good or bad?

The London Underground is the home of all things weird and loopy. It's every square inch of space is adorned with advertising, even to the extent that some of them are now digital so they can show several adverts at once.

Labour have made a bad joke worse

I've been watching Ed Milliband with increasing incredulity.

He and his brother look like the saddest two boys at the 6th form disco. And they look like they're still not old enough to have left it. Certainly Ed's arguments are straight from the school debating society's handbook.

Saying that he represents a 'new generation' is beyond a joke. Doesn't he understand that being younger in years - or less mature, one might say - doesn't qualify anyone as representing a generational shift? If anything Ed Milliband is going back to the past; his links with the trade unions, who handed him the leadership, will come to embarrass him more and more as industrial conflict looms. In his acceptance speech he slapped them down; well he had to really, because he knows the public won't support 70s-style strikes.

Unlike some people, I'm not so bothered about his knifing of his brother. He's a politician, what does anyone expect? But his cynical revelation that he belives that the Iraq war was a 'mistake' is pretty grubby. If that's what he thought why hasn't he been saying that for years? Like most of Labour, he followed Blair because he trusted him; then waited to see how the war worked out and what the public mood was; then seeing that things weren't going well he came out and positioned himself loudly as an anti-Iraq champion. At least D. Milliband stuck to what he believed, right or wrong.

On the only issue of the moment, the deficit and the cuts, he's not so sure. What does he stand for? What does Labour stand for? New Labour is dead, Caesar Blair has been stabbed and his heir Brown exiled and locked away out of sight like a mad old aunt that they're all embarrassed about. Ed doesn't have any policy detail on spending cuts because he and Labour don't stand for anything any more. Kind of like John Major, or his Tory successors. Diane Abbott would have been a suicidal choice of leader, but at least everyone knows where you stand with her.

The only thing Ed seems to focussed on is going after the highly paid. The Laffer curve, which says that raising taxes reduces the tax rate, and a theory that has such wide support amongst both right and left, has been ignored. (To be fair, the Coalition has done much the same.) All the talk is about 'fairness' now, which is understandable. So rich folk are an easy target for Ed. The other thing Ed has said is try to stamp his adolescent mark on politics by rubbishing the way New Labour did....everything. From the Post Office to Iraq, from their economic policy to banking, from tax policy to education policy, from anti-terror legislation to the 'nanny state', Ed carried out a bonfire of New Labour. But defining yourself by what you don't  believe isn't enough.

Time will tell. Ed has shifted to the left without defining what it is he believes in. Blair (and Cameron) knew that to be in Government you have to capture, and hold, the middle ground. Labour is unlikely to, and has a leader that will now be reduced to sniping and carping on the sidelines. The Lib Dem involvement in government condemns Labour to a lonely existence on the left. That was Cameron's masterstroke. He 'decontaminated' the Tory brand with a dose of vitamin Clegg, and Labour are left like a soggy old pudding, so bereft of talent and ideas that they will probably spend a decade in opposition. Even if the Coalition screws it all up - and they might -  Labour will take a long time to decontaminate themselves in people's memories from the deficit they left us with.

Labour Party leadership candidates

The battle for the Labour leadership is reaching its zenith. The paucity of talent on show makes Britain's Got Talent look like a procession of Nobel Laureates. It seems that David 'bananaman' Milliband will win it. As Foreign Secretary he was an absolute joke, like Pike from Dad's Army. "The world is a scary place" was the best thing he had to say about international relations. Personally I hope that Diane Abbott triumphs. She is so nutty she made Michael Portillo look positively sane on This Week. I particularly remember when she rubbished the whole concept of private education....before she promptly packed off her own child to one.  Nice. She's not averse to playing the race card when it suits her either. Well, let's hope she wins the leadership, unlikely though that is. That should kill off Labour for good.

Final Election Debate - Cameron blows it

The media analysis seems to be that Cameron had a good innings in last night's final debate. But on my blog I have no problem going against the media grain :)

Cameron has lost most in these debates. Although he did press home some good points last night his real enemy - Clegg - came through pretty much unscathed. And it's Clegg that the Tories need to fear most, for he could destroy them.

Labour deserve to lose. But do the Tories deserve to win?

When your house is on fire you don’t call the arsonist to come and put it out. So there’s no reason to vote for Gordon Brown, who has done so much to shape Labour party policy since 1997.

News Flash: Nick Clegg is actually a politician

He's not a charity worker or a celebrity campaigner like Joanna Lumley. He's a plain old politician, ie he will say and do just about anything to get you to vote for him.

Election debate and lies about Trident

Something caught my attention during the debate last Thursday. It was a big fat lie, uttered by both Cameron and Brown. Nothing new there you might say - what else are politicians supposed to do? But this concerns nuclear weapons, so as lies go it's pretty severe in its implications

2010 Election debate 1 - Review

Just watched the first ever live TV debate between the main party leaders for a British general election. Here is the review.
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Extraordinary opening statement from Cameron, praising Labour for things they had done – without specifying them! He also decided to play the ‘honesty’ card by apologising unilaterally for the expenses scandal, thereby drawing attention to it and automatically associating the scandal with the Tories. I think his strategy backfired. It felt forced.

General Election and personal finance - which party is best?

With the British general election looming I have been researching the 3 main parties' policies on personal finance. During the course of this research I have had a reply from one Victoria Crawford, who works at the office of Mark Hoban, Conservative spokesman for financial services. I also contacted the office of Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats shadow chancellor, but despite repeated promises received no reply. So for the Lib Dems I have had to rely on the research I have done myself.

I have deliberately avoided comment on areas of macro-economic policy, ie tax and spending policy. To do so would have made the article unwieldy and lacking in focus. There is already an enormous amount of material out there on the taxation policies of the 3 main parties.So I have ommitted income tax, VAT, National Insurance, capital gains tax, inheritance tax etc. I've also left out pensions.

There is not so much commentary on areas of personal finance - such as consumer rights with regards to utilities, credit cards. What policies there are tend to be swallowed up in broader announcements.

On each area of personal finance I have given the parties a score out of 10. Just to make it more fun :)

The declining pound ain't so bad

There has been lots of naysaying, hysteria and near panic over the fall in value of the pound. But I think it's time to chill out.

Firstly, one advantage of staying out of the Euro is that our currency is free to float against other currencies - like the Euro. The Greeks and the Irish can't do that, so they're a little stuck. They can't devalue their currencies.

Kraft's craftiness

It's not always pleasant to say "I told you so". Even when you have told someone so. But I did tell you so. So I'm going to say: "I told you so". Kraft's first act on taking over Cadbury's has been to close down a factory, kick out their workers and relocate somewhere cheaper.

Well I told you so here.