Peter Mandelson was never going to cut it as an electoral prospect after twice being asked to leave the cabinet; and, with New Labour losing Glasgow East, there is no parachute. There is only conferment of 'honour' by 'the Crown'. Equally, David Miliband of the wilting banana was never going to be able to oust the Brownian faction from their trough. Blair walked rather too high a tight rope over what is formally allowed even by our permissive laws and rules - not a comeback kid. And Brown was disadvantaged in so many ways it isn't worth making a list.
Even our cowed electorate intended to balk at another change of government without the intervening courtesy of a general election. What to do to maintain permanent, post-democratic power?
Putting Brown back among his tractor production statistics and his keepers was the only solution to maintaining the permanent power of the administrated state. He could not be left doing his 'turn' in front of the entire electorate. So Brown was returned to his comfort zone of dead numbers, elaborated lying data, and allowed to keep the baubles of title as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister of 'Britain', to keep Downing Street (though an open plan at No 12 rather than the real thing), Chequers, his new computer in Kirkcaldy, and gun-toting killers for his spouse. In return he ceded the executive powers of the United Kingdom to Peter. After all, it is his 'turn' now.
Days since his ennoblement (such feudal powers, so recently renewed under New Labour in our British Constitution) the corrupt maw of our new Leader Mandelson has engulfed the powers of the Foreign Secretary, and taken over the direction of the Treasury with a willing automaton workhorse. That leaves, of the once the great offices of state, the Home office, currently under the direction of a comprehensive school domestic science teacher.
Would you rather... be governed by a banana-waver, a bogey-eater and a cookery teacher. Or an Andreotti wannabe with a power complex and a corruption problem?
Friday, 31 October 2008
Would You Rather...
have a cash injection from a foreign sovereign wealth fund?
Or answer to an emotionally challenged, tax-grabbing freakshow pretending to high office?
Or answer to an emotionally challenged, tax-grabbing freakshow pretending to high office?
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Losing the Brightest and the Best
Oppressive and undemocratic states generate defence mechanisms in the populations they oppress. One of the worst aspects of the New Labour regime, which ceased to be democratically legitimate when Blair was ousted by the Brown faction and unelected leadership imposed, has been the seeking of safe havens for earnings and wealth and for means to hide financial and economic transactions and status.
Disagreement on the state's claims are the stuff of politics, and these are from-time-immemorial activities. But it was the post-War Labour governments that energised the determination to disengage from state surveillance of wealth and activity. The demands embodied in the Brownian notion of the proper role of the state have encouraged and consolidated a complete alternative culture. Tax havens provide cover and protection from the ever more aggressive, and ever more permanent authoritarian state.
In the United Kingdom we have reached the point where the very concept of ownership and property rights is being called into question for much of the population. Our incomes are not so much taxed as destroyed at source. And every necessity of life carries a further burden. The levels of state intrusion into our private lives have become intolerable as regime employees try to consolidate their living standards and future pension incomes and, in the case of the more unpleasant of them, further their ideological aims.
The rest of us, from corporations to private individuals, are building our alternative worlds. And probably one of the worst effects has been to strengthen the growth of means for giant companies and corporations to avoid paying their fair share to some of the poorest countries on earth. Many of us would willingly make a fair contribution to a small state run by democratic governance, but as a result of the awful bullying people had to put up with from Labour in the sixties and seventies and New Labour for the last decade, we have opted out.
That opt out has extended into many aspects of civic life and attitudes, much to the detriment of the civility of our society. Many have left all together; many, many more expend most of their social energies not in co-operating with others, but in protecting their own.
Disagreement on the state's claims are the stuff of politics, and these are from-time-immemorial activities. But it was the post-War Labour governments that energised the determination to disengage from state surveillance of wealth and activity. The demands embodied in the Brownian notion of the proper role of the state have encouraged and consolidated a complete alternative culture. Tax havens provide cover and protection from the ever more aggressive, and ever more permanent authoritarian state.
In the United Kingdom we have reached the point where the very concept of ownership and property rights is being called into question for much of the population. Our incomes are not so much taxed as destroyed at source. And every necessity of life carries a further burden. The levels of state intrusion into our private lives have become intolerable as regime employees try to consolidate their living standards and future pension incomes and, in the case of the more unpleasant of them, further their ideological aims.
The rest of us, from corporations to private individuals, are building our alternative worlds. And probably one of the worst effects has been to strengthen the growth of means for giant companies and corporations to avoid paying their fair share to some of the poorest countries on earth. Many of us would willingly make a fair contribution to a small state run by democratic governance, but as a result of the awful bullying people had to put up with from Labour in the sixties and seventies and New Labour for the last decade, we have opted out.
That opt out has extended into many aspects of civic life and attitudes, much to the detriment of the civility of our society. Many have left all together; many, many more expend most of their social energies not in co-operating with others, but in protecting their own.
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
London Paris (Rome?) Berlin
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has been asked to go to Paris, at short notice, to speak to the President of the European Union Sarkozy later today. Mr Sarkozy will see the Prime Minister at his private residence, not at the official residence of the French Presidency.
Yesterday the pound fell to its lowest level in six years and the New Labour regime was forced to abandon its fiscal rules restricting debt, centrepiece of Brown's decade as chancellor of the Exchequer under Mr Blair. An emergency cut in UK interest rates by the pseudo-independent Bank of England, another victim of Brown's chancellor years when his tripartite deregulation of finance and banking stripped it of its powers to regulate financial behaviour, is imminent.
Over the last weekend Mr Brown has spoken several times by phone to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund managing director. He has now to meet German Chancellor Merkel the day after tomorrow.
Replacing the UK government’s fiscal rules and substituting public borrowing (much of which is wholly governed by European Union regulation) to accommodate the financial crisis and economic recession will cause debt to balloon to £120 billion in three years.
The credit insurance group Coface today downgraded Britain's ratings from ’A1’ to ’A2’. The collapse of sterling makes it abundantly clear that the United Kingdom is one of the worst-placed economies in the advanced capitalist world to cope with this major recession. Although Brown led the opposition to any transparency or reasonable regulation of financial behaviour to the point of intransigence, hectoring and berating our more prudent European partners throughout his far too many years in office, it seems they are willing at least to listen to any proposals for what is to be done about the UK economy and its currency.
Yesterday the pound fell to its lowest level in six years and the New Labour regime was forced to abandon its fiscal rules restricting debt, centrepiece of Brown's decade as chancellor of the Exchequer under Mr Blair. An emergency cut in UK interest rates by the pseudo-independent Bank of England, another victim of Brown's chancellor years when his tripartite deregulation of finance and banking stripped it of its powers to regulate financial behaviour, is imminent.
Over the last weekend Mr Brown has spoken several times by phone to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund managing director. He has now to meet German Chancellor Merkel the day after tomorrow.
Replacing the UK government’s fiscal rules and substituting public borrowing (much of which is wholly governed by European Union regulation) to accommodate the financial crisis and economic recession will cause debt to balloon to £120 billion in three years.
The credit insurance group Coface today downgraded Britain's ratings from ’A1’ to ’A2’. The collapse of sterling makes it abundantly clear that the United Kingdom is one of the worst-placed economies in the advanced capitalist world to cope with this major recession. Although Brown led the opposition to any transparency or reasonable regulation of financial behaviour to the point of intransigence, hectoring and berating our more prudent European partners throughout his far too many years in office, it seems they are willing at least to listen to any proposals for what is to be done about the UK economy and its currency.
The Lisbon Treaty Could Be Irrelevant
France wants to continue holding the European Union presidency beyond the end of its six month term. Next up for the office is the Czech Republic, and then Sweden, neither of which are members of the eurozone. While they would run most of the activities the rotating presidency undertakes, (not negligible, as President Sarkozy's success in negotiating a resolution to the Russia/Georgia conflict shows), the eurozone countries would have a formal recognition of their closer alliance and interest. The two speed Europe would be openly acknowledged as extant, rather than presented as a Lisbon Treaty substitute for the future.
The eurozone countries have acted as a core group for a long time but the current levels of co-ordination demanded by coping with Europe's financial problems and now economic recession require more institutionalised arrangements. The ad hoc pressures and contortions France had to go through to agree to Brown's pleas to be allowed into a eurozone summit and be permitted to speak were not truthfully reported in the press, instead the 'saviour of the world as we know it' narrative was sung in the anglosphere. And what the eurozone governments have done is very different from what our Leader is fiddling with in the poor United Kingdom.
Wolfgang Münchau, in the Financial Times, gives a fine analysis of the factors pushing Mrs Merkel to accept the importance of eurozone-wide economic governance - something strongly resisted by Germany. The political significance of a permanent eurozone president chosen from within an inner core of member states, and the effective as well as formal powers of such an office, the relations that would need to be defined with the larger Union's six-month president, and the relations of such a permanent president with the financial administrations of member-states both within and outside the eurozone, is enormous.
The eurozone countries have acted as a core group for a long time but the current levels of co-ordination demanded by coping with Europe's financial problems and now economic recession require more institutionalised arrangements. The ad hoc pressures and contortions France had to go through to agree to Brown's pleas to be allowed into a eurozone summit and be permitted to speak were not truthfully reported in the press, instead the 'saviour of the world as we know it' narrative was sung in the anglosphere. And what the eurozone governments have done is very different from what our Leader is fiddling with in the poor United Kingdom.
Wolfgang Münchau, in the Financial Times, gives a fine analysis of the factors pushing Mrs Merkel to accept the importance of eurozone-wide economic governance - something strongly resisted by Germany. The political significance of a permanent eurozone president chosen from within an inner core of member states, and the effective as well as formal powers of such an office, the relations that would need to be defined with the larger Union's six-month president, and the relations of such a permanent president with the financial administrations of member-states both within and outside the eurozone, is enormous.
Monday, 27 October 2008
Russia Redux
Attacking Russia is no longer flavour of the month - it never was wise, as Georgia's regime discovered - but the silly pronouncements of David Miliband, our Foreign Secretary (you remember David Miliband, of course you do) that improving relations with Russia must be put on hold both for the European Union and for the United Kingdom after the vigorous exchange of views between Russia and Georgia, seem to have fallen on stony ground.
Lord Mandelson is in Moscow on an official New Labour regime visit 'aimed at improving trading relations between Russia and the UK.' (BBC). He may find the Germans very much at home, providing technical know-how, machine tools, organisational structures and general manufacturing input for all those lovely raw materials and large markets. Still, the United Kingdom isn't in a position to offer any of that so perhaps he intends to provide something else - how to win friends and influence people?
And high-ranking US military and their Russian counterparts were in Finland a few days ago, having discussions on matters of mutual interest.
Lord Mandelson is in Moscow on an official New Labour regime visit 'aimed at improving trading relations between Russia and the UK.' (BBC). He may find the Germans very much at home, providing technical know-how, machine tools, organisational structures and general manufacturing input for all those lovely raw materials and large markets. Still, the United Kingdom isn't in a position to offer any of that so perhaps he intends to provide something else - how to win friends and influence people?
And high-ranking US military and their Russian counterparts were in Finland a few days ago, having discussions on matters of mutual interest.
Global Crisis Fatigue
The scary stuff in all the papers has been going on for so long it's hard to care any more. It's even harder to grasp these gigantic numbers. Another day, another hundred billion or, for the lesser failings, thirty or forty. A single thousand million pounds is neither here nor there, doesn't even get a look in.
Who cares if banks and institutions won't lend, or might suffer a run, there's so much money lying about we seem to be wading through swamps of the stuff. And all this gloom about contracting European central economies is not borne out by casual observation or anecdotal report. Germany purrs on in spotless splendour; Russia, at least the big, western cities, is a building site, and further east whole sectors of the former soviet economies are being revived and part-finished gargantuan projects of realised socialism brought on stream. The Italians continue their trench warfare against the despoliation of their towns and countryside and coasts by the usual developer suspects. Paris is looking particularly fine, as is the south of France and, no doubt, most places in between.
Manicured fields and vineyards stretch to the horizon, a picture from every window; getting in to see David, or for a gallop past the Uffizi's glories is as time-consuming as ever and the queues for lesser-known pleasures snake for hour-consuming lengths.
It seems the New Labour regime and its conceited Leader are as irrelevant to the things that matter as they are oppressive to those who don't matter much.
Kick down kiss up was ever their way of being.
Who cares if banks and institutions won't lend, or might suffer a run, there's so much money lying about we seem to be wading through swamps of the stuff. And all this gloom about contracting European central economies is not borne out by casual observation or anecdotal report. Germany purrs on in spotless splendour; Russia, at least the big, western cities, is a building site, and further east whole sectors of the former soviet economies are being revived and part-finished gargantuan projects of realised socialism brought on stream. The Italians continue their trench warfare against the despoliation of their towns and countryside and coasts by the usual developer suspects. Paris is looking particularly fine, as is the south of France and, no doubt, most places in between.
Manicured fields and vineyards stretch to the horizon, a picture from every window; getting in to see David, or for a gallop past the Uffizi's glories is as time-consuming as ever and the queues for lesser-known pleasures snake for hour-consuming lengths.
It seems the New Labour regime and its conceited Leader are as irrelevant to the things that matter as they are oppressive to those who don't matter much.
Kick down kiss up was ever their way of being.
Sunday, 26 October 2008
Dripping Poison
Never mind aluminium tariffs, what exactly, word by word, did Peter Mandelson say to George Osborne about Gordon Brown? And what did he want from doing it?
If he wanted Brown's downfall to be given a further push then whatever he said that would help in that widely supported and popular objective should be given to the rest of us to help in the collective effort.
If he wanted Brown's downfall to be given a further push then whatever he said that would help in that widely supported and popular objective should be given to the rest of us to help in the collective effort.
Saturday, 25 October 2008
Andarsene all'Inglese
'... As Trade Commissioner Lord Mandelson cut tariffs on imports of aluminium into the EU which benefited Mr Deripaska's company Rusal – one of the world's largest manufacturers of aluminium – to the tune of tens of millions of pounds.
Under the European Union's "access to documents" regulations, upheld in the EU courts last year, the Commission should make public details of meetings between Commissioners, their officials and lobbyists.
Repeated requests by The Sunday Telegraph for details of meetings between Lord Mandelson and Mr Deripaska, under the EU's transparency "1049 rule", have been flatly refused.' (Telegraph).
Why would the European Commission have any interest in not being wholly open about Mandelson's conduct of his office of Trade Commissioner, when every aspect of his work there has been beyond reproach?
He did leave office almost overnight - from the announcement he would be rejoining New Labour's regime, to being in London full time and taking up his new job. That was unusual. There was a lot of remarking that he and Brown had been discussing it for much longer, but poor President Barroso got told late one evening, reportedly, and then Mandelson was gone. Senior civil servants don't usually up and off like that; they serve out their contract, their term, and are decorously replaced.
In such circumstances it might be expected that all requests for information and for transparency might be welcomed and expedited.
Under the European Union's "access to documents" regulations, upheld in the EU courts last year, the Commission should make public details of meetings between Commissioners, their officials and lobbyists.
Repeated requests by The Sunday Telegraph for details of meetings between Lord Mandelson and Mr Deripaska, under the EU's transparency "1049 rule", have been flatly refused.' (Telegraph).
Why would the European Commission have any interest in not being wholly open about Mandelson's conduct of his office of Trade Commissioner, when every aspect of his work there has been beyond reproach?
He did leave office almost overnight - from the announcement he would be rejoining New Labour's regime, to being in London full time and taking up his new job. That was unusual. There was a lot of remarking that he and Brown had been discussing it for much longer, but poor President Barroso got told late one evening, reportedly, and then Mandelson was gone. Senior civil servants don't usually up and off like that; they serve out their contract, their term, and are decorously replaced.
In such circumstances it might be expected that all requests for information and for transparency might be welcomed and expedited.
Friday, 24 October 2008
Whistles
'It is right'
'It is right and proper'
'The Government has made it clear'
'The Government is committed'
'The Government's insistence'
'We voice our concern'
'Highly regarded'
'Unveil'
'Commitment'
'Decisive action'
'Wide consultation'
'New measures of democratic response'
and, of course,
'Global' and
'Global response'
What is whistling to what dogs? And, as Norman Tebbit remarked:
'Lie with dogs, get fleas'.
'It is right and proper'
'The Government has made it clear'
'The Government is committed'
'The Government's insistence'
'We voice our concern'
'Highly regarded'
'Unveil'
'Commitment'
'Decisive action'
'Wide consultation'
'New measures of democratic response'
and, of course,
'Global' and
'Global response'
What is whistling to what dogs? And, as Norman Tebbit remarked:
'Lie with dogs, get fleas'.
Another Day Another Lie
Alistair Darling: “What about the depositors you’ve got who’ve got deposits in London branches?
Árni Mathiesen: “We have the [deposit] insurance fund according to the Directive and how that works is explained in this letter (to the UK) and the pledge of support from the government to the fund.”
AD: “So the entitlements the people have which I think is about £16,000, they will be paid that?”
ÁM: “Well, I hope that will be the case. I cannot state that or guarantee that now but we are certainly working to solve this issue. This is something we really don’t want to have hanging over us.”
Mr Darling told BBC Radio on October 8: “The Icelandic government, believe it or not, have told me yesterday they have no intention of honouring their obligations here.”
The Financial Times has published this transcript of Darling and the Icelandic Finance Minister, Árni Mathiesen, discussing the UK deposits in Icelandic banks on 7 October.
The deliberate misrepresentation of what had been said and determined driving of panic by the UK led to further collapse of Icelandic banks. Some people lie to further an end, others lie to self-dramatize, unable to contain their self-importance. The reprehensible regime our unfortunate country suffers under displays all the characteristics of the self-aggrandising liar.
Árni Mathiesen: “We have the [deposit] insurance fund according to the Directive and how that works is explained in this letter (to the UK) and the pledge of support from the government to the fund.”
AD: “So the entitlements the people have which I think is about £16,000, they will be paid that?”
ÁM: “Well, I hope that will be the case. I cannot state that or guarantee that now but we are certainly working to solve this issue. This is something we really don’t want to have hanging over us.”
Mr Darling told BBC Radio on October 8: “The Icelandic government, believe it or not, have told me yesterday they have no intention of honouring their obligations here.”
The Financial Times has published this transcript of Darling and the Icelandic Finance Minister, Árni Mathiesen, discussing the UK deposits in Icelandic banks on 7 October.
The deliberate misrepresentation of what had been said and determined driving of panic by the UK led to further collapse of Icelandic banks. Some people lie to further an end, others lie to self-dramatize, unable to contain their self-importance. The reprehensible regime our unfortunate country suffers under displays all the characteristics of the self-aggrandising liar.
Thursday, 23 October 2008
And It's One, Two, Three, What Are We Fighting For?
"The Prime Minister is negligent in his duties to this House in respect of not coming here on a regular basis to make a statement about the war in Afghanistan.
"British troops are engaged every day in situations of great danger, there is a constantly shifting strategic scene that General Petraeus has recently been here to discuss these matters with the Prime Minister. Nato is at odds with each other.
"This is a very dangerous situation and the Prime Minister should come to this House regularly as have all former Prime Ministers when Britain has been at war to account for the actions of the Government in the administrations of the war." Nicholas Soames in the House of Commons.
"British troops are engaged every day in situations of great danger, there is a constantly shifting strategic scene that General Petraeus has recently been here to discuss these matters with the Prime Minister. Nato is at odds with each other.
"This is a very dangerous situation and the Prime Minister should come to this House regularly as have all former Prime Ministers when Britain has been at war to account for the actions of the Government in the administrations of the war." Nicholas Soames in the House of Commons.
Sarah Brown and Her Party's Threatening Behaviour
Looking as if she had been dragged through a hedge backwards Sarah Brown went canvassing in a former mining village yesterday. The most telling part of the outing was the behaviour of Labour party minders. They manhandled and shoved anyone, reporters or interested bystanders who tried to ask a canvasser in an important by-election what the party she was canvassing for had to offer.
"I want you guys on the green," ordered the man from the Labour Party. "There will be six or seven guys with guns who will keep you away from her. You may be shot and then it won't be my problem." (Scotsman).
The Leader has used the Terrorism laws inappropriately again it seems. Perhaps they could be used to make his wife do something about her hair.
"I want you guys on the green," ordered the man from the Labour Party. "There will be six or seven guys with guns who will keep you away from her. You may be shot and then it won't be my problem." (Scotsman).
The Leader has used the Terrorism laws inappropriately again it seems. Perhaps they could be used to make his wife do something about her hair.
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Lord Mandelson's Amour Propre
Lord Mandelson takes himself terribly seriously. It seems most of the rest of the world does not. Certainly it is recognised that he can be useful, and destructive. But what he sees himself as is much more than that. Unfortunately Mr Osborne has acted unthinkingly to display what he saw Mandelson as when he met him in the summer at a friend's - present, but not on any kind of terms of privacy or within the inviolable discretions of friendship.
The aggression displayed over Osborne's chatting about a gossipy lunch is a measure of the difference in status awarded to Mandelson by Mr Osborne and the status Mandelson had awarded himself.
The aggression displayed over Osborne's chatting about a gossipy lunch is a measure of the difference in status awarded to Mandelson by Mr Osborne and the status Mandelson had awarded himself.
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
It's Not Maynard Keynes , It's Michael Kalecki
Modern macro economics foundations rest on Keynes and Kalecki. Both believed that employment was determined by aggregate demand and not in the labour market. Both looked at investment as the prime mover in the macro economy. Neither expected low interest rates to promote investment, although for different reasons. Keynes because he expected people to prefer the liquidity of cash to the risks of productive investment, Kalecki because he thought investment would be affected only by long-run interest rates, which are much harder to influence.
Today both wold have advocated an expansionary fiscal policy. The similarity ends there. Kalecki, the communist son of a bankrupted Polish textile entrepreneur would have wanted investment in industrial equipment, and an industrial policy, not just any government expenditure. Keynes, the upper class English don, the futures market gambler who died rich but ruined himself several times on the way, could not have cared less what money was spent on as long as it activated a multiplier effect throughout the economy. Keynes would have ridden the storm and taken the consequences without expecting or offering relief for failure.
Kalecki would have centred on the redistributive effects of the storm and tried to control the elements. Even in a capitalist economy he would have wanted to have his hands on the levers of economic guidance, would have veered towards planning.
Keynes would have concerted reflation world wide, through the IMF, but he died and his IMF was denatured and became an instrument of deflation. Not what we want right now. Unlike Keynes, Kalecki had no experience of the global economy that Maynard had helped to shape, and might well have approved of British jobs for British workers. We are still in the hands of Polish immigrants and of dead economists.
Today both wold have advocated an expansionary fiscal policy. The similarity ends there. Kalecki, the communist son of a bankrupted Polish textile entrepreneur would have wanted investment in industrial equipment, and an industrial policy, not just any government expenditure. Keynes, the upper class English don, the futures market gambler who died rich but ruined himself several times on the way, could not have cared less what money was spent on as long as it activated a multiplier effect throughout the economy. Keynes would have ridden the storm and taken the consequences without expecting or offering relief for failure.
Kalecki would have centred on the redistributive effects of the storm and tried to control the elements. Even in a capitalist economy he would have wanted to have his hands on the levers of economic guidance, would have veered towards planning.
Keynes would have concerted reflation world wide, through the IMF, but he died and his IMF was denatured and became an instrument of deflation. Not what we want right now. Unlike Keynes, Kalecki had no experience of the global economy that Maynard had helped to shape, and might well have approved of British jobs for British workers. We are still in the hands of Polish immigrants and of dead economists.
Monday, 20 October 2008
Cancel the Debt
Housing used as a tax-free profit-maker has ended in tears. If taxation policy had been in the hands of a sane chancellor none of this disaster would have occurred. Now we have people deeply indebted for assets which, to all intents and purposes, are worth nothing. People owe tens of thousands of pounds on mortgages that stretch as much as 30 years into their future and yet are not secure even in their tenancy of their horrible house.
No-one wants much of the housing in undesirable areas, in poor condition, in deserts of collapsed economies. The only purpose of these houses now is to provide shelter for those left holding them when the music stopped. Putting people out of worthless houses is an outrageous response to managing debt.
There are various responses to dealing with all this debt - banks being given government bonds for the part the mortgagee can't manage to be recovered when the good times roll again. But there are settlements where the good times will never roll again, that should be abandoned, as was reported by think tanks and hurriedly repudiated. The central issue is that at the moment some people are tied to 25 years of repayments for a worthless asset. And those are certainly the poorest, the least well-informed, the vulnerable to whom a duty of care is owed by the rest of us, even if we don't care for their life styles or values.
New Labour, and particularly its iron chancellor has presided over a regime that has preyed upon the most vulnerable in the interests of others getting filthy rich. For banks to hold an unfettered interest in financially next to worthless assets and pour encourager les autres, families are made to suffer for no benefit to any other part of society. Here the state could act, as the state, and properly as the state.
No-one wants much of the housing in undesirable areas, in poor condition, in deserts of collapsed economies. The only purpose of these houses now is to provide shelter for those left holding them when the music stopped. Putting people out of worthless houses is an outrageous response to managing debt.
There are various responses to dealing with all this debt - banks being given government bonds for the part the mortgagee can't manage to be recovered when the good times roll again. But there are settlements where the good times will never roll again, that should be abandoned, as was reported by think tanks and hurriedly repudiated. The central issue is that at the moment some people are tied to 25 years of repayments for a worthless asset. And those are certainly the poorest, the least well-informed, the vulnerable to whom a duty of care is owed by the rest of us, even if we don't care for their life styles or values.
New Labour, and particularly its iron chancellor has presided over a regime that has preyed upon the most vulnerable in the interests of others getting filthy rich. For banks to hold an unfettered interest in financially next to worthless assets and pour encourager les autres, families are made to suffer for no benefit to any other part of society. Here the state could act, as the state, and properly as the state.
Sunday, 19 October 2008
Slouching Along
Che Guevara argued that to build socialism it is necessary first to build socialist consciousness. In England the building of New Labour consciousness has gone on apace, beginning in the university and intellectual world and working steadily on through schools, through media and, once in power, through investment in the client base and the Third Sector of quangos, 'charities', and research centres and think tanks.
There is no need of a conspiracy theory, of secret cabals guiding chosen careers, of puppet masters working in global hierarchies. Culture goes where the money is. Money does the trick. Money and a profoundly human, deep structure networking capacity, a built-in mechanism to cluster with like minds until a critical mass is reached and able to operate in society using formal levers of power and explicitly required conformities to confer greater strength to the various kinds or aspects of the mindset required.
New Labour has induced its mindset, its consciousness, in every level of our society, and it comes to its full flowering in the House of Commons next week. A three line whip - the ugly goad 'do as you are told or be stripped of your privileges' which is now invariably present throughout our society in case the consciousness should falter in the face of guilt for what we are doing, will ensure the passing of the bill that enables, funds, encourages, glories in the creation of hybrids who will be "destroyed" before their existence becomes a large enough challenge, even to their creators, to give pause.
A further horror has been embodied in this bill, added late to avoid any Parliamentary, let alone public discussion: that 'donations' from their own bodies, to facilitate hybrid supply, from those unable to give informed consent will be assumed to have received consent.
The people in church are singing the Alleluiah as I write this. Their beliefs are not mine; their God embodies what I do not accept. But their Faith has enabled my secular culture which is part of theirs, and theirs of mine, to resist and deny the moral evil that is engulfing England's culture.
There is no need of a conspiracy theory, of secret cabals guiding chosen careers, of puppet masters working in global hierarchies. Culture goes where the money is. Money does the trick. Money and a profoundly human, deep structure networking capacity, a built-in mechanism to cluster with like minds until a critical mass is reached and able to operate in society using formal levers of power and explicitly required conformities to confer greater strength to the various kinds or aspects of the mindset required.
New Labour has induced its mindset, its consciousness, in every level of our society, and it comes to its full flowering in the House of Commons next week. A three line whip - the ugly goad 'do as you are told or be stripped of your privileges' which is now invariably present throughout our society in case the consciousness should falter in the face of guilt for what we are doing, will ensure the passing of the bill that enables, funds, encourages, glories in the creation of hybrids who will be "destroyed" before their existence becomes a large enough challenge, even to their creators, to give pause.
A further horror has been embodied in this bill, added late to avoid any Parliamentary, let alone public discussion: that 'donations' from their own bodies, to facilitate hybrid supply, from those unable to give informed consent will be assumed to have received consent.
The people in church are singing the Alleluiah as I write this. Their beliefs are not mine; their God embodies what I do not accept. But their Faith has enabled my secular culture which is part of theirs, and theirs of mine, to resist and deny the moral evil that is engulfing England's culture.
Saturday, 18 October 2008
The War that Dare not Speak its Name
The United Nations mandate that gives a fig leaf of cover to the presence of US and UK troops in Iraq expires at Christmas. After that armed foreigners become an illegal, criminal element on Iraqi soil, even by the standards adopted by the Westminster parliament and the New Labour Executive.
The current regime is trying to close the book on the attack upon Iraq as Blair's war in which Brown was in no way involved. Well, it's true he refused to pay for arms and equipment, there's lots of evidence of that in the graveyards and the hospitals. So he wasn't involved in funding, rather he was deeply, primarily responsible for lack of funding. And other than that, by his own assertion, his role in New Labour was and is central; it is the basis of his claim to occupy legitimately the office of Prime Minister. Nothing, he has boasted, was decided in New Labour's years of government, without his input and assent.
Truths that can be associated with Brown are few and usually disgraceful. One of them, true indeed to form, is his persistent, settled loathing for the armed forces of the United Kingdom and the values they represent. Because of Brown's choices, soldiers have been left to die.
And now, the remnants of the invasion force in Iraq are hutched at Basra airport waiting to be an appendix of whatever deal can be made between the Iraqi government and the United States. Or even whatever deal they can make for themselves, as they have had to do once already to get some of their number out of the city of Basra at all, and survive in their abandonment, once the elected Prime Minister had been driven out of office, by the government that sent them there.
The Stop the War Coalition must be organising right now against any attempt at a return with honour. The families destroyed by loss are ready equally to deny any of the usual disgraceful grandstanding by the man who failed their soldier sons and daughters so deliberately and abysmally.
The New Labour regime will want to move on. If we move on in this we deserve the State we will be in.
The current regime is trying to close the book on the attack upon Iraq as Blair's war in which Brown was in no way involved. Well, it's true he refused to pay for arms and equipment, there's lots of evidence of that in the graveyards and the hospitals. So he wasn't involved in funding, rather he was deeply, primarily responsible for lack of funding. And other than that, by his own assertion, his role in New Labour was and is central; it is the basis of his claim to occupy legitimately the office of Prime Minister. Nothing, he has boasted, was decided in New Labour's years of government, without his input and assent.
Truths that can be associated with Brown are few and usually disgraceful. One of them, true indeed to form, is his persistent, settled loathing for the armed forces of the United Kingdom and the values they represent. Because of Brown's choices, soldiers have been left to die.
And now, the remnants of the invasion force in Iraq are hutched at Basra airport waiting to be an appendix of whatever deal can be made between the Iraqi government and the United States. Or even whatever deal they can make for themselves, as they have had to do once already to get some of their number out of the city of Basra at all, and survive in their abandonment, once the elected Prime Minister had been driven out of office, by the government that sent them there.
The Stop the War Coalition must be organising right now against any attempt at a return with honour. The families destroyed by loss are ready equally to deny any of the usual disgraceful grandstanding by the man who failed their soldier sons and daughters so deliberately and abysmally.
The New Labour regime will want to move on. If we move on in this we deserve the State we will be in.
Government by Consent
Nationalising the banks in the United Kingdom has been presented as a magnificent success for our Leader. To further this there has been a determined pretence that what has been done in Europe to recapitalise the banking system is the same as what is being attempted in the UK. Nothing could be further from the truth, not least in the political implications that are resulting from governments standing ready to assist if needed. In the UK the element of coercion on some banks to admit government into their running is a paramount characteristic, coupled with a determination to retain powers within the banks forced into accepting government aid. In Europe there is no coercion and every encouragement to return any taxpayers' input accepted fast, so that banks and governments can retire to their respective spheres as soon as possible.
The political attitude displayed by our regime is now underlined further by the pressure to nationalise parts of the building industry, and use labour that is being shed to build social housing, that is coming from the governing party. This is being presented as a return to keynesian economic practice.
“I think he [Mr Brown] has got an appetite for this. He is attempting to minimise the impact on everyone else from banking lunacy and he’ll be looking for anything practical. It is back to Keynes, spending money in a way that creates useful wealth.” Calls are being made to 'legislate to enable reserve powers over infrastructure such as rail or property. The powers could involve “stakeholdings, recapitalisation and other matters”, (Cruddas, Dobson, Hain, Mitchell et al., reported in the Financial Times.)
There is nothing of Keynes in all this, and a great deal of state corporatism.
We have suffered already the ejection of our elected Prime Minister and the imposition of a usurper. We have suffered the imposition of ministers dismissed twice from the government shoe-horned back into office by the exercise of Executive power over part of our legislature. We have been forced to accept the ratification by the Executive of a treaty conceding the sovereignty of the United Kingdom to another power when the former government was elected on the promise of a vote on that treaty.
A programme of taking a permanent position in major UK banking institutions, and extending that model of government relations with the financial sector into other major economic sectors has never been put to the electorate for their acceptance at a general election.
If the consent of the governed to all this and more is not requested through a general election, then we must recognise that we are ruled by force.
The political attitude displayed by our regime is now underlined further by the pressure to nationalise parts of the building industry, and use labour that is being shed to build social housing, that is coming from the governing party. This is being presented as a return to keynesian economic practice.
“I think he [Mr Brown] has got an appetite for this. He is attempting to minimise the impact on everyone else from banking lunacy and he’ll be looking for anything practical. It is back to Keynes, spending money in a way that creates useful wealth.” Calls are being made to 'legislate to enable reserve powers over infrastructure such as rail or property. The powers could involve “stakeholdings, recapitalisation and other matters”, (Cruddas, Dobson, Hain, Mitchell et al., reported in the Financial Times.)
There is nothing of Keynes in all this, and a great deal of state corporatism.
We have suffered already the ejection of our elected Prime Minister and the imposition of a usurper. We have suffered the imposition of ministers dismissed twice from the government shoe-horned back into office by the exercise of Executive power over part of our legislature. We have been forced to accept the ratification by the Executive of a treaty conceding the sovereignty of the United Kingdom to another power when the former government was elected on the promise of a vote on that treaty.
A programme of taking a permanent position in major UK banking institutions, and extending that model of government relations with the financial sector into other major economic sectors has never been put to the electorate for their acceptance at a general election.
If the consent of the governed to all this and more is not requested through a general election, then we must recognise that we are ruled by force.
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Running Silently
The blatant lying that is going on about two things: that the financial crisis is American in origin and global in effect and the United Kingdom is not suffering worse than elsewhere; and that Gordon Brown is saving the global financial system - has a worrying corollary.
How safe is it really to leave savings and deposits, or allow large payments to pass through bank accounts in the UK?
Iceland has guarantees in place too. But under the assault from the UK regime's unhelpful and irrational attempts to get UK depositors' money back Iceland is now preventing the export of cash, limiting withdrawals, begging for help from the IMF and exhibiting all the behaviours of the Wilson government when the gnomes of Zurich came for that Labour government. Incidentally, Dutch depositors are being repaid after their government reached an amicable settlement at the same time that Brown's raging and blustering was undermining our officials' attempts to organise the same thing. There are open retail runs on Russian banks being reported from across the Federation, complete with full Northern Rock queues and scenes. Yet Russia's economy is well managed and its underlying, real economy position is sound.
The European press is giving sharply different accounts of what needs to be done and what is being done for the eurozone from the reports offered by the UK papers on the acclaim for the 'Brown solution'. We know that Brown is a fantasist and a show off. Disturbingly, he is humoured like an unpleasant child by those who are forced to have dealings with him. So out of proportion is the English press coverage that it is now worth considering the value of the reassurance offered under the 'Brown solution'.
The United Kingdom's real economy is in very poor shape, and coping with this long term reality, now come to a head, is a very unsatisfactory and ill-qualified leader. It's bad enough being denied the democratic vote that would remove him. To be denied access to our own money would be, for each of us, a personal catastrophe.
How safe is it really to leave savings and deposits, or allow large payments to pass through bank accounts in the UK?
Iceland has guarantees in place too. But under the assault from the UK regime's unhelpful and irrational attempts to get UK depositors' money back Iceland is now preventing the export of cash, limiting withdrawals, begging for help from the IMF and exhibiting all the behaviours of the Wilson government when the gnomes of Zurich came for that Labour government. Incidentally, Dutch depositors are being repaid after their government reached an amicable settlement at the same time that Brown's raging and blustering was undermining our officials' attempts to organise the same thing. There are open retail runs on Russian banks being reported from across the Federation, complete with full Northern Rock queues and scenes. Yet Russia's economy is well managed and its underlying, real economy position is sound.
The European press is giving sharply different accounts of what needs to be done and what is being done for the eurozone from the reports offered by the UK papers on the acclaim for the 'Brown solution'. We know that Brown is a fantasist and a show off. Disturbingly, he is humoured like an unpleasant child by those who are forced to have dealings with him. So out of proportion is the English press coverage that it is now worth considering the value of the reassurance offered under the 'Brown solution'.
The United Kingdom's real economy is in very poor shape, and coping with this long term reality, now come to a head, is a very unsatisfactory and ill-qualified leader. It's bad enough being denied the democratic vote that would remove him. To be denied access to our own money would be, for each of us, a personal catastrophe.
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