10/08/2009 by Steve Tierney.

Delusion On A Grand Scale
News from America was “good” this week.  Apparently, the increase in their unemployment rate has slowed.  249,000 lost their jobs in the U.S.A. in the last quarter which was much “better” than expected, being a lower amount of new unemployed than recent quarters. 

Pundits and experts <cough> were rolled out to hail that the American economy was “past the worst” and had “turned a corner”.  Well that’s okay then.  Time to go out and get a few more credit cards and a personal loan, I suppose. 
   
You have to wonder if the 249,000 American new unemployed are excited about the recovery they are experiencing? 
   
The idea that a massive fall in the amount of people paying taxes (and an increase in folk on welfare) is somehow good news because its not as massive as last month is whistling in the dark of the worst kind.  By that same logic if you reached zero employed that would be good news, because every month thereafter there could be no “new unemployed” at all and that would surely mean the depression recession was over.

Only in the special moon-pie and fairy-lights land of Quantitive Easing, Trillion Dollar trade imbalances and being in hock for everything you own including the shirt on your back to growing Eastern giants does a quarter of a million new unemployed equal anything other than more absolutely horrible news.
  
Meanwhile, here in the UK, all is apparently well.  The papers continue to find new “green shoots” every week, regaling us with stories of how we’ve “past the worst”, “reached a plateau” and are looking at excellent prospects of returning to “growth” in the last quarter of 2009.
  
The evidence for this bout of good news?  Some banks made some money.  The pound gained a little ground.  Houses prices didn’t fall again.  A couple of sectors showed some slightly higher figures than expected.  The FTSE has risen somewhat.
  
Funny so few choose to mention some other useful facts:-

1. UK Production levels are below the levels of 1998.
2. Unemployment continues to rise - frighteningly fast.
3. Tax receipts have fallen off a cliff - requiring ever greater government borrowing.
4. The highest levels of government debt ever recorded by this country.
5. Trade balance of goods and services remains negative.  We are still consuming more than we produce.
6. GDP remains negative.

Anybody in the manufacturing industry (you know the people who actually make things to generate wealth for the country) will tell you just how “green” the shoots look.  A moldy dark green.  Like you find under an old fridge in a squat.

Any sort of brief ‘upturn’ there might be right now is the result of the government inventing money from thin air and using it to fund its activities.  All those billions had to trickle into the economy eventually.  If this seems like a good idea now, wait until the effect of the initial £125Billion and last week’s new £50Billion fully settle.  This undermining of sterling is a stealth tax of the worst kind and it will be coupled with a need to repay the interest (and capital, we can only hope) of a debt mountain unlike any we have ever experienced before.  And don’t get me started on the coming inflation…

Meanwhile, some estimate the country already owes £1Trillion Pounds.  Add in the personal debt of the citizens and we might have another £1.5Trillion on top of that.  The figures are so large they lose their meaning to many of us.  But their meaning will become all too clear in due course. 

The Labour Party have presided over a SNAFU so large that the seventies look almost tame.  Gordon Brown is always telling us this is a global crisis.  It feels pretty damn local to the people who have lost their jobs, watched their savings crumble or tried to keep their struggling businesses afloat. 

(Hat-tip Cynicus Economicus)

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04/04/2009 by Steve Tierney.

“I’m Just Nipping Down The IMF For Some Milk & Cheese”
In the 1970s, the Labour Party had so thoroughly trashed the economy of Great Britain that we sat on the verge of bankruptcy.  Strikes plagued our nation.  Working hours were curtailed while people struggled to pay their bills in the face of rising unemployment and hardship.  The Labour government, shame-faced and craven, stumbled weakly to the International Monetary Fund with their begging cap in hand and asked for help to bail us out.  It was an embarrassing, desperate fall for a country that had once been the most powerful trading nation in the world.  It spelt the end of Labour’s reign, paving the way for Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives to sweep in and quite literally save the country from destruction.  To this day some sections of society loathe Thatcher and this is because she had to make very painful and radical decisions to ‘fix’ the economy, cleaning up the mess left behind by her predecessors.  But fix it she did and Britain was returned to prosperity.  It wasn’t perfect, of course.  We had problems.  But we could afford to buy our groceries and pay our mortgages again.

Flash forwards to 2009.  After more than a decade at the wheel Labour have presided over yet another financial disaster.  It’s true that some elements of this one are global in origin.  But where is our manufacturing base?  Where are our entrepreneurs?  Where are the wealth-creators that are necessary to ride in on their white horses and save the day?  They’ve been taxed and over-regulated and demonised into oblivion.  It is not good enough that Labour always want to blame somebody else.  They have been in power since the last century! They have had ample opportunity to prove that a progressive left government can work and they have failed.

For the last few months I, and some other sceptical commentators, have been suggesting that Britain’s finances are even more dire than the government would like us to believe.  We’ve said that the country is already slipping into a state of technical bankruptcy, that we have been for some time, and that it is only a monumental credit bubble and some complex spin operations which have covered this up.  Time and again spokesmen and media have assured us: “This is not the case”.  Only a couple of months ago Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown both laughed off the idea that a new visit to the IMF would be necessary for the United Kingdom.

This week the Daily Telegraph has a story with the headline: “Britain should not fear asking for IMF cash.”  Following a briefing from a senior Labour cabinet member it argues: “Britain should not be afraid or ashamed of taking money from the International Monetary Fund.”  Apparently, the IMF is all different now.  There should be no ’stigma’ attached when one of the once-richest countries in the world has to beg for help.  Again.  It’s just a loan after all.  Another loan.  So, there we have it.  Full circle.  The Labour Party have mismanaged their way back to bankruptcy and begging and they are trying to fool the voters into thinking it doesn’t mean anything.  It’s just a little household shopping trip, apparently. 
“Darling!  I’ll be back soon.  I’m just nipping down the IMF for some milk and cheese.  Do we need anything else?”

We do need something else.  A new government.

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03/04/2009 by Steve Tierney.

G20 Hype
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s all about the G20. Obama this and gazillion fiscal stimulus that. It’s very exciting, all the stocks are riding high on the optimism of it and yet its still almost completely worthless. What we needed was some good old-fashioned common sense, a little protection for the poor, some belt-tightening and a bit of community spirit. You know, the stuff the British used to be good at. Famous for, even. What we got was yet more great buckets of cash poured down whatever black hole fund the IMF fancies next week. And where will all that new money come from, because most countries sure as hell don’t have it? The printing press. Of course. What scares me is that the current leaders of the free world don’t actually seem to have any ideas between them. Well, none that don’t involve conjuring up money that you and I will have to find for the next decade or more. It’s a sad day when I thank the French for having the common sense to say “non” to Yet Another Massive Global Stimulus, but that’s where we are. Of course, it’s all just a huge media stunt anyway. Gordon Brown Saves The World again. Just in time for his specifically-delayed budget to bribe his core electorate and a few floating voters to gift him another ‘bounce’. If it wasn’t all so horribly predictable it might almost be funny. For Gods Sake get this madman off the levers of power. He’s like the Wizard Of Oz, all flashing lights and impressive colourful shows … covering a grand illusion. When the curtain comes down it’s just going to reveal a sad man, bereft of any true strength, fighting to retain the pretence of power that was never truly his to command.

Youth Activism
Where are the Young People engaging with politics? It’s never been a ‘youth’ activity per se, but each year that passes the die-hard faithful get scarcer and, quite frankly, they get older too. Despite the fact that they have been campaigning sometimes for several decades, they still provide all the verve and the passion in local politics. Political parties must get younger people involved. By that I don’t just mean the Camerons and the Cleggs - the people who are in politics as a career. I mean the earnest, hard-working people who leaflet and canvas and debate simply because they care about where their nation is going and want to be part of the solution… whatever that might be. When the brave ‘old guard’ are no longer able to fight the good fight, who is going to be active in politics then? Those brave politicos will leave a gaping void if nobody has come up behind them, learning from them, gaining wisdom from their association. Sure, each of the main parties has its ‘youth group’. Most colleges and universities have active political scenes. But we need more than the ideologists and the intellectuals, we need the youths from normal working families, small towns and villages across the country. It’s called balance. It makes a difference.  Some people seem to think that the death of old-fashioned party politics and ‘tribal’ voters is a good thing.  They think that the way is paved for some new political nirvana.  If that’s so I have yet to see the evidence.  Rather, we seem to be sliding towards a miserable world where nobody cares about anything except their ‘five minutes of fame’ or their latest fix of reality TV.  A world without a passion for freedom and good governance doesn’t sound like heaven to me.  It sounds horrible.

Dan Hannan
Many people will have seen MEP Dan Hannan’s excellent speech from a week or so ago. It became an internet phenomenon literally overnight. That’s partly because Dan said things to the Prime Minister that many of us have wanted to say. It’s partly because Dan is a good speaker with charisma and gravity. But mostly it’s because he clearly means every word he says. He’s genuine. It’s so refreshing in these days of spin and glitz and fakery that people feel drawn to it. This is how politics sounds when it’s done right. And by right I do not mean that I agree with his comments (although I do.) I mean that politicians must have the surety and the integrity to mean what they say and stand by it. Too often, of late, people doubt that is true. If a change is coming then politicians like Dan Hannan will be at the forefront of it.

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09/03/2009 by Steve Tierney.

The ‘REAL’ IRA
This weekend the news broke that Sappers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar were shot dead by dissident republicans in Antrim, Northern Ireland. We had all hoped we had seen the end of these sort of horrific attacks by lunatic Irish extremists. It’s been twelve years since members of our armed forces were last subjected to this kind of assault in Northern Ireland. The question on everyone’s lips, of course, is: “Is this an isolated incident orchestrated by some fringe players, or is this the start of renewed hostility?” (Although I accept the actual words on people’s lips might not be as long-winded as that.)

There has been such progress in Northern Ireland that it would be absolutely tragic if things were allowed to deteriorate again. Our government and security forces must tread a delicate line; making sure the perpitrators are caught and properly punished, while not tarring those who want peace with the same brush. We must quickly bring these evil terrorists to justice, while taking great care to protect the optimistic peace which has developed in the troubled region. Let’s play hardball with the men who did this by all means, they deserve the heaviest penalties the court’s have available. But let’s try not to let this derail the region. That’s exact what the terrorists want.

Sorry Is The Hardest Word
My young son was a little naughty the other day and I had to put him in his room for a while to calm down and think about what he’d done. After a while I went in and we had a chat. I explained to him why what he’d done was wrong and I told him it was time to come down and apologise. I explained that this is how ‘good guys’ behaved (he’s four, this is language he ‘gets’) He did so in that earnest way that only young children really can and to be honest my heart melted. When somebody says sorry and means it, it takes a hard heart not to forgive them.

Gordon Brown could take a lesson from my Son. He can’t possibly believe he’s perfect, can he? He must accept that he is, in some part, responsible for our current economic woes. After all, he’s been at the helm in one form or another for over a decade. Now we can argue all day about just how much of it is Labour’s fault and how much of it is a ‘global phenomenon’. At this point, I’m not sure it matters. What does matter is that people all over the country are finding things very tough and are becoming very angry about the state of our nation.

I’m not suggesting that if Gordon Brown says sorry it will magically ‘fix’ everything. Of course it wont. In fact, I’m of the opinion that the current administration do not have the skills to begin the job of getting us out of our national hole. But when you apologise you don’t do it because you think it will ‘fix’ what you did wrong. You do it because its the right thing to do. If Gordon Brown expressed his sincere and genuine regret for his part in the crisis he thinks it will be a weapon that can be used against him by the opposition and the press. And he’s right. But he should still do it because that’s the way ‘good guys’ behave. Didn’t his father tell him that?

Jury Team
A new political party (organisation) was formed this weekend that made the news with some fanfare. Called JuryTeam their website says that they are:
a political movement created with the goal of making politics more accessible, politicians more accountable and political institutions more transparent.
Which is all well and good. Their ‘method’ for achieving this is apparently to avoid the need for political ‘parties’ by supporting independents across the U.K. and getting them elected. Independents are important to our political system, it is the ability for ‘anybody to stand’ that makes democracy what it is. But I’m a little sceptical as to how a group of people who may have diametically-opposed political views can possibly stand under the same ‘banner’. I can see that if a lot of JuryTeam MPs were able to get elected it would force the government in power to properly justify their actions and would hold them to account by circumventing the power of the whips. But on the flip side, doesn’t this mean the elected government will find it difficult to achieve the aims for which they were elected due to the impossible task of trying to convince a bunch of independents who all want completely different things for the country?  It seems like a bit of a ragtag idea to me, but I’m keeping an open mind about it.  Fresh ideas can’t hurt, can they?

Leverington Action Group
Road safety in our villages is something which matters greatly to all of us. Despite hard work on the part of the Conservative council there is always more we can do! That’s why it’s so great to see people united in working for safety and security in our area! In Leverington, a group of concerned homeowners are forming an action group to deal with places that are known as local trouble spots; most particularly Leverington Common. The group will act in a concerted way to represent their concerns to the District and County Councils, the police and to other relevant agencies. Led by Caroline Benincasa, assisted by veteran campaigner Tony Kiddle and my humble self, a group of dedicated villagers will make their case over the coming months to ensure something is done to reduce the problems and potential for injury in local black spots! This is the sort of positive, sensible action that gets things done. I met with the organisers of the new group last Saturday and was very impressed by their knowledge, enthusiasm and dedication. Local Activism is vital for the health and success of our society. Government should be there for a few specific national jobs, everything else is best decided at the most local level.

Posted in Parliament, Recession, Family, Leverington, Credit Crunch, Conservatives | No Comments »

23/01/2009 by Steve Tierney.

The Recession Is Here
Is there anybody who didn’t already know this? The official figures have finally forced the government to admit what everybody has been more than aware of for the last few months. We are officially in recession. People who have read my blog (and moreso if they’ve seen my comments on the FensCF bulletin board) will know I’ve been making economic predictions for several months now, only to see them come true one after another. I find it absolutely terrifying that the self-styled Economic Guru that is our Prime Minister actually seems to have no understanding of economics whatsoever. You cannot cure a debt-bubble by accumulating more debt. You cannot compete with unregulated countries in an international free market if you over-regulate and over-tax your own companies. You cannot (the words of ancient economist John Maynard-Keynes nothwithstanding) create wealth through government spending. Governments do not create wealth. They only redistribute it. You have to have some to redistribute in the first place!

Gordon Brown needs to stop wishing on a star and start taking urgent action. If he does not, Britain will be bankrupt. The IMF will be called in (and even they may not have enough money to bail us out this time). I just hope that the people of Britain will choose wisely next time and elect a Government that understands that money cannot be magicked into existence. If Gordon Brown decides to try and solve his woes by turning on the printing presses and churning out money then all bets are off! Hyper-Inflation here we come! Just In Case, I’d recommend stocking up on canned goods and candles. With this madman in charge it could still get much, much worse.

The Banks
I’m not going to get into the blame game right now. Anybody who thinks: “All this is the banks fault,” is dangerously oversimplifying. The banks have done some really stupid things, but the Banking Crisis is not the disease. It is just a symptom of the disease. The real ailment is a simple one: too much borrowing. You, me, the government, the banks, the world. Too much borrowing, too much debt, too much risk. We have all (by which I mean a large section of the Western World) chosen to live beyond our means and financed that with a decade of finance. Now, our government’s solution is to punish the few people who have done the sensible thing (avoided borrowing and saved) by crippling their savings and borrowing against their future.

The UK is like a teenager who leaves school and accepts three credit cards. For a while, the teenager looks wealthy and successful, buying anything that is required with a swipe. But when the cards hit their limits and the bills come due, the truth comes out. That’s where we are. The sad thing about the banks is that they are mostly structurally bankrupt. And they know it, which is why they can’t lend, and why they wont lend to each other. They must be allowed to rebuild, which cannot be achieved by forcing them to make even more risky loans. And certainly can’t be achieved by putting moronic government ministers in charge of their business plans.

Gorefield Conservative Branch
It was a pleasure last night to attend the Annual General Meeting of the North-East Cambs Conservative Association - Gorefield Branch. First and foremost, its quite unusual for a pleasant little village like Gorefield to even have its own association! But then when you see how hard they work and how much they achieve you have got to admire them! I watched the AGM and then the Committee Meeting thereafter with much appreciation. They put forwards fund-raising ideas and planned events. They all offered to pitch in and do the work required (not a single one of them was anything less then dedicated, as far as I could see). This is the sort of community- and activist-minded group that we need much, much more of. But best of all, they all seemed to be enjoying it and having a great time! A wonderfully positive attitude!
The current Chairman of the NE Cambs Conservative Association Pam Potts addressed the AGM eloquently with her own frank admiration for the work they have done and continue to do. Debbie Clark (Organising Secretary) was no less grateful.

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