Jest Magic!

You might not believe this, but I was in the company of an erstwhile fund-raiser for the Labour party today. Yes, I know, very uncharacteristic.

He is, however, properly speaking, a dirty rotten capitalist, but also quite a nice chap, and we have business dealings with him that generally work out well.

We were chatting away when he suddenly broke off.

" Ya know, Kingy, I have to tell ya this. I'm this close to voting for that David Bluidy Cameron of yours. He's jest magic!"

There could be no more ringing endorsement...

PLEASE take us back to the '80s, not the '70s

I know my reader doesn't like it when I mention politics, but this is a slightly off-topic mention with a bit of a sideswipe.
Depicting David Cameron as Gene Hunt has to be the stupidest thing this Labour Government has ever done - and it's done many many stupid things.
Of course, it's stupidity has a purpose - to make us all more dependant on the State. Even taking away the tax break on pension dividends was designed in the long term to make more people reliant on the State - and turkeys don't vote for Christmas.
But DC as GH harks back to a period which many regard as a golden age. From the 70's we were a bankrupt, nonentity of a country, until we regained pride in ourselves again and in our country. Labour, of course, destroyed that pride before, and have done it again. Reagan did the same with America - it had lost it's faith in itself, and Reagan gave her it back.Clinton and Obama have thrown it away again and Americans will come to regret their retreat.
Labour talks of taking tough decisions, but in reality take none - bar to set up another quango and deliberate.
Many years ago, one of the heads of Nestles, that great multinational, told me that in many ways it didn't matter what decisions he took - by the time it mattered it would be long after it was relevant. The same is true in any field - what matters is having a decision so that plans can be made. The problem is none of the present slew of national or local Labour politicians have a clue about that - they've never taken any decision beyond where their next meal is coming from.
And before you tell me they have taken decisions, in general they are disastrous.
So back to Gene Genie. If you are a man, wouldn't you like to do away with all the PC claptrap and just say what you really think without being mealy mouthed?
And if you're a woman, even if you are a feminist, I can't help but think you just might like that hint of danger...

Labour achievements

You may not believe this but I have been really busy for the last week, both in London and in Romania. Hence the lack of posts, and too much to tell, much of it of no interest to readers.
I did catch this mornings news on bbc.co.uk as I like to know what has been happening whilst I am away, so that I do not appear entirely ignorant when I return.
Even the Beeb is talking of a fin-de-siecle feeling in the Labour conference, and I spotted the following information in one of the papers:
Spending on the NHS has doubled since Labour came to power. Yet the number of beds run per administrator has dropped from 12 to just 5. And nurses? They now look after 10 beds as opposed to 6. Real progress there then.
Similarly, the education budget has doubled. We have slipped to 16th in the OECD table of reading 'riting and 'rithmetic - from 4th.
Oh, and we have the highest percentage of year 1 drop outs at University of any country in the world.
What achievements!

Plus ca change...

" I am extremely anti-Labour. They are so far apart from fairies and owls and bluebells and Americans, and all the things that I like.
If they agree with me I know they are pretending - in fact I believe everything is pretence to them."
This was written in 1924, and could equally be true today, and, I would venture, equally true of the majority of this country's views at the moment.
Of course, the person writing these words was rather special.
It was Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, quoted in Shawcross's new book.

Bribe the electorate!

I know you all hate it when I talk about politics, but something happened today which made me stop and think for a few minutes.
I went to buy a train ticket ( within Scotland) and proffered my senior citizen railcard. The booking clerk ( God, that ages me doesn't it?) flung a pamphlet at me.
" £13 return"
" Er what's the pamphlet for?"
" Well you're over 55, so you can travel anywhere in Scotland, return, for £15 - and as you have a railcard you get an extra £2 off, so, £13."
" And what does joining the over 55 club cost?" I asked suspiciously.
" Nothing - it's free. You just have to mention it when you buy your ticket. And you don't need to book in advance, there's no conditions and you can even book just before getting on the train."
I read the pamphlet and sure enough, it was all as he said. So a ticket I had expected to pay £32.80 for was £13.
Middle Ms. Lear was horrified to hear that her taxes were going to fund my travel bug, and that's what made me think.
Despite the general disgust and revulsion, the distrust and the loathing this government inspires, it is spending gigantic sums of our money bribing the electorate.
They don't have the money of course, but at some point it will have to be paid.
It reminds me of the Bird and Fortune skit before the 1997 election when they were discussing money that was being " given" to the man in the street. It isn't really given of course, the Government merely lends it - then takes it back in taxes.
Fortune, as the interviewer, says, " Of course, the average man will see through this and know its just an electoral bride."
" Absolutely, " says Bird ( as the ubiquitous George Parr)," Of course he's thinking - this is just a cynical bribe. But he's also thinking, as bribes go, it's a bloody good one."
And in a way, that's just what Labour has been doing for the last year - trying desperately to bribe us with our own money, and no pretence they they are trying to do better for the poor.
Which, of course, they have massively and signally failed to do.
PS
They can't even do it properly like the Afghans....

Get on your bike and get a job.

I have thought recently that Peter Schiff over on Takimag.com had gone off a bit recently but today he has an excellent post which defines precisely why we have millions of non-working people in developed countries.
In essence, Labour Unions have insisted on minimum wages, which effectively price people out of the first rung of the employment ladder, which means they a) never have the discipline of work b) never learn some skills and c) have no incentive to get off the State handouts. Why would you?
The point he makes, of course, is that the bottom rung of the ladder isn't intended to support a family. Its a first job that young people get - like, as he says, pumping gas or serving table. The gas pumpers are long gone, but the serving table still exists, though here in the UK its usually Poles or Romanians who are doing it. Once you have earned something ( including perhaps self respect) you get a better paid job and then start thinking about supporting that family.
Fraser Nelson has a good post today about how Labour has completely reversed its raison d'etre, creating more inequality, poverty and joblessness, which reinforces Schiff's points.
As Schiff says at the end of his article:
"Since our leaders cannot even grasp this simple economic concept, how can we expect them to deal with the more complicated problems that currently confront us?"

Correlation

I'm not really supposed to let this out the bag, but you will have noticed one Ms. J.Smith has resigned along with Mr. T. Watson.
Far be it for me to mention I was in London today.....

Still waiting...

Waiting for Godot has a line: Pozzo's 'Dance first, think later; that's the natural order of things.'
We are all now indeed "Waiting for Godot".
In this case, Godot is the end of Labour and Brown.
But we still have to wait as they dance on our lives....

Dirty Tricks

Now I have no idea if the Tories have been misusing the Commons system as much as it would appear Labour have been.
What I would say is, from my memory of the last year of John Major's Government, the "Tory Sleaze" was largely external, i.e. it was people bribing ( too strong a word surely, lets say paying as a gift) certain MPs to do certain things. OK that's kind of corruption in my book.
But it's not fraud, and it's not ripping off the tax payer.
It does seem to me that Labour have brought that to a refined art....
And as for suggesting that the revelations are a Dirty Tory Trick.. I think John Redwood nails that beautifully.

Spin, lies and manipulation

Middle Ms. Lear is a member of an association that holds awards every year. This year she is on the judging panel, and has been underwhelmed by how it works.
In essence people nominate themselves ( and the organisers nominate a few) and lo and behold those who have been trained by the organisers end up on the short list.
Ms. Lear is of course having none of it. The people put forward should be judged on their model and how well it is implemented, not on whether or not they took a course.
It does beg the question though of how things are now organised in this country.
Dizzy has another attack on Labour's "consultation" exercises, which, bullied and cajolled, deliver the predetermined result.
Or if they don't they are simply ignored. The regional assembly debacle is a case in point.
Clearly in NuBritain we are all left with manipulation as the only way forward.
I have long said that Labour has no principles and hence no guide as to what it should do - beyond the Stalinist tendency to force more and and more stifling legislation down our throats. This is amply demonstrated by the fact that there is virtually no legislative programme for MPs to debate. That, of course, is partly because Brown has effectively bypassed Parliament as where laws are made - orders in council account for something like 70 times more legislation than Parliament.
It's time a little boy stood up and said " The Emperor has no clothes".

Smeargate

Amidst all the continuing spin and lies around "Smeargate", I was struck how Draper continues to lie and lie again. Calling the emails juvenile is the spin word trying to deflect from the baseness of their content. Saying his private emails were hacked ( Guido insists they weren't and Dizzy says the way they were sent was the electronic equivalent of a postcard) is trying to deflect from his own position in it all. Saying they were never meant to be published is given the lie by his saying they were brilliant and he would speak to Andrew about timing and technology and run with them asap. Saying they were done in McBride's own time is trying to deflect the fact that McBride was a civil servant paid for by you and me who shouldn't be doing anything for a political party.
And finally - although I fully expect further revelations and resignations - for now, as Iain Dale has pointed out, Draper lied about the Dale Racism row.
No wonder they have no time to sort the economic mess they created.
Further revelations:
Both Draper and McBride have publicly stated that the smears " were never intended to see the light of day".
In that case, why is Nadine Dorries all over the BBC, GMTV and Sky saying she was contacted some months ago about the allegations regarding herself? See Iain Dale...
PS
Youngest Ms Lear insists McBride was not a civil servant. He may have been once but as a Spad he is not. Civil servants ( proper ones) send back stuff that has political implications.
The problem is clearly some people are less honourable than others....

Gimme gimme gimme...

I had a most edifying meeting with a lady from Glasgow District Council yesterday, whose sole task was to make sure I was claiming all I was entitled to, now that I am over 60.
I pointed out to her that actually I didn't claim anything, but she said her job was to make sure I did, and also what I would be entitled to from age 65.
The point she was making was that nearly £3 billion of benefits for the elderly go unclaimed every year, and in general terms, they have paid for it through their taxes over the years. The problem was the more elderly were very averse to claiming - and apart from anything else the forms they have to fill in are so obtuse and lengthy that most of them fall asleep half way through. So her job was to contact the "younger" element and get them hooked into the system as early as possible.
She told me that her method of getting people in was to talk about Council Tax. This was the most hated element of what people spent money on. As she said, once she got them fulminating about that, she could get them to sign up to pretty much anything.
What did strike me though was that this is another example of Liebore extending its tied estate - gerrymandering in truth. After all, if you are getting a few hundred quid from someone you tend not to vote against them - or at least think twice where there's a chance the other side might take it away.
So next time you think about claiming a benefit, just remember who gave it to you - and then vote for a change from the present government.
PS
And before you ask, my own bet would be that the visit will cost me money rather than giving it back to me...

Labour still isn't working

According to Iain Dale:Fact of the Day: Did you know that every single Labour government in history has left office with unemployment higher than when it started. Looks like they're not going to buck the trend this time, doesn't it?
And don't forget they are the party of the working man.
Yeah, right.

Going cheap..

Mandy: Unauthorised Biography of Peter Mandelson (Hardcover) by Paul Routledge (Author)
Amazon have 32 new and used from 1p

Cassius writes..and so does Matthew Parris

Cassius Writes has this piece.
Matthew Parris writes this.
What they say is absolutely correct. All those of us who have moaned intermittently about the freedoms we have lost have been sleepwalking to a totalitarian state.
When I started this blog I indicated that many of the things that Blair and Brown were then doing mirrored rather too closely for comfort those acts which defined Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler. These included suborning the legislature, the police, the legal profession and many other seemingly unconnected areas of our lives.
The effect was two fold. Firstly, more and more power became dependant on the office of Prime Minister and Chancellor - though now Brown is PM, I suspect the latter is being downgraded again.
Secondly, the ability and will of people to resist has been sapped and debased, as NuLabour has created literally hundreds of new offences for which you can be arrested and detained. David Davis gave us all a wake up call when he resigned, but, until now, we have all rather shrugged this off as a stunt. We forget that orders in council ( ie made and enforced by Prime Ministerial fiat) outnumber laws made in Parliament by more than 100 to 1.
It's not a stunt any more. It's deadly serious. Brown and Government members have NOT sought to uphold Parliamentary supremacy, something they are bound to do as sitting MPs.
If there is not an immediate and full enquiry, AND the perpetrators of Green's arrest made to apologise to Parliament, then I'm afraid we can kiss goodbye to British Democracy forever.
Brown is cynically waiting to see how much he can get away with.
I mentioned that just before I left Romania a Professor of History was saying Cromwell was one of our greatest Britons.
I had not intended to repeat other things he mentioned, but I think they have become rather too relevant for comfort.
During Ceausescu's time, any dissent was immediately suppressed. After he was removed, in the forests in the North, dozens of mass graves were found. It's estimated that more than 10,000 political opponents disappeared - it always happens when power devolves to one man, and there are no effective checks and balances.
In 1985 the Professor's brother, by no means an active opponent of the regime, was listening to a radio broadcast and took exception to what was being said.
So he went out into the street and started shouting about it. No one looked out when within a couple of minutes a car drew up and he was bundled into it.
He was never seen again.
In 1995, his widow and the Professor tried to find out what had happened. They were told no records of such things had ever been kept. A squad was sent to deal with it.
And, chillingly, they did.

La La Land

I've now managed to read up about Alistair Darling's PBR of yesterday, and I can only say I'm staggered.
Not only is he actually taking more tax back than he is giving away, he has blatantly gone back to the old Labour orthodoxy of taxing the rich. It didn't work then and it won't work now.
I would expect droves of wealth creators in the UK to leave. I really do. I can't imagine why anyone would want to come to the UK to set up a business. Our inward investment will dry up and with it the value of the pound.
And the recession more than half way through? Don't make me laugh.
PS
I just spotted the following on FT.com:
The bond markets will ultimately decide whether these new rules are credible or whether sterling will come under fresh pressure. There were some initial signs of concern in bond markets and it is now cheaper to insure Unilever’s debt against default than the UK government.
Did you understand that? Unilever is more credit worthy than the British Government.
God help us all.