Tag Archives: Economics

What Labour’s 2015 Election Manifesto Won’t Be Saying

Seven years into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,  and just 3 months away from what could be the most crucial  General Election since World War 2, and the Labour Party are in deep trouble – and all because of a Bacon Sandwich!

So what can be done? What could the Labour Party possibly say in its 2015 Election Manifesto to win the day?

How about this:

Proposed Labour Election Manifesto 2015

The end of World War ll in Europe finally came with the unconditional surrender of German forces in Reims on 7 May 1945 – exactly 70 years to the day before the coming General Election of 7 May 2015.

The efforts of the Labour Party during World War 2 succeeded in “taking the profit out of war”. The 100% Excess Profits Tax, the controls over industry and transport, the fair rationing of food and control of prices all helped to win the war. With these measures the country came nearer to making “fair shares” the national rule than ever before in its history

Both World War 1 and 2 had been won by the British public. The gallant men and women in the Armed Services, Medical and Public Services , factories and offices were promised a happier future than the one that had faced so many of them after WW1.

Just two months after Germany’s surrender, a landslide victory for the first-ever majority Labour government, in the Khaki Election of 5 July 1945, ushered in a new post-war settlement of a happier future, with fair shares for all, by bringing many of the key means of production, distribution and exchange into public ownership and the creation of the National Health Service and the Welfare State,

The people made tremendous efforts to win both wars. But, after they won, they lacked a lively interest in the social and economic problems of peace, and accepted the election promises of the leaders of the major political parties at their face value.

So the “hard-faced men” who had done well out of both World Wars were able to get the kind of peace that suited them. The people lost that peace. And when we say “peace” we mean not only the Treaties, but the social and economic policy which followed the fighting.

Continue reading What Labour’s 2015 Election Manifesto Won’t Be Saying

If we want the BBC to do its job we have to complain when it doesn’t!

Over the past 40 years I’ve watched the rich and powerful greedily chomping their way through every scrap of public property they could get their hands on – from British Aerospace and British Telecom to gas, electricity, water, British Rail , the Royal Mail and now – the last remaining jewels in the Great British public’s crown –  the NHS and the BBC.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Powerful
Lifestyles of the Rich and Powerful

It’s not hard to understand why they want all this stuff.  If you sell things people don’t really need, your profits are  hostage to the whims of fashion, but if you have a monopoly on all the things people can’t live without then your profits are guaranteed for life.

Continue reading If we want the BBC to do its job we have to complain when it doesn’t!

A Peaceful & Prosperous New Year to EVERYONE!

A video Christmas Card: a load of YouTube videos mashed up with a home-made song.

“Woe is us, we”re in a lot of trouble. We’re at a point of maximum denial. People are ignoring the obvious, They’re keeping the news out of the News.”

“The oligarchic character of the modern English Commonwealth does not rest, like may oligarchies, on the cruelty of the rich to the poor. It does not even rest on the kindness of the rich to the poor. It rests on the perennial and unfailing kindness of the poor to the rich.”

G K Chesterton, 1905
Continue reading A Peaceful & Prosperous New Year to EVERYONE!

Whose tea has been spiked with LSD, the BBC’s or mine?

I saw something on the BBC News Channel yesterday afternoon (Tuesday 22 July 2015) that made me think I was losing my marbles.

Perching on the arm of the sofa, enjoying a few moments of shade after spending a glorious summer afternoon sweltering in the scorching heat of the garden, I was absent mindedly flicking  through the TV channels, when I came across an interview on the BBC News Channel between BBC Business Correspondent, Ben Thompson, and a lady from some City brokerage firm giving the usual market updates. At the end of the interview Thompson said something like:

“I suppose we can’t end without mentioning that RATHER BORING NUMBER released by the Office for National Statistics today: the government deficit for June.”

To which the City brokerage lady said something like:

Well, I don’t  think it’s boring. In fact it’s quite ironic that public sector borrowing last month was 50 percent higher than last year. When you consider that the financial crash of 2008 was caused by too much government borrowing, and total government borrowing since then has risen by another 25 percent, then when they finally decide we have to balance the books, some future generation is really going to feel the pinch.”

YOU WHAAAAT??? I was so shocked I nearly fell off my chair. Some FUTURE generation is really going to feel the pinch? Isn’t THIS generation feeling the pinch NOW! Isn’t lowering government debt what austerity was supposed to be all about?

Continue reading Whose tea has been spiked with LSD, the BBC’s or mine?

Every cloud has a silver lining – just don’t tell the kids

Every cloud has a silver lining.

That’s one of those sayings anyone over the age of 60 probably heard quite a lot when they were young but rarely hears now. Like nursery rhymes and coal scuttles, it’s a relic of a bygone age. But that doesn’t mean its not worth preserving, because what is says could be very useful in the times we’re living through now.

What that saying reminds us is that every picture has its shadows and it’s source of light. Every positive has a negative. Every thesis has its antithesis. Every bad has a good. Every good has a bad. Or, in other words, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Portrait of Sir Isaac Newton by Godfrey Kneller, 1689

To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

… is how the founder of the physical sciences, Isaac Newton, put it in his Third Law of Motion.

Continue reading Every cloud has a silver lining – just don’t tell the kids

Michael Shrimpton – Spyhunter

Here’s a video not many people have watched, or are ever likely to watch. It’s a 40 min speech given by barrister Michael Shrimpton at the Britain on the Brink conference in Winchester on 22 September 2007.

What was the Britain on the Brink Conference you might ask? Well, according to the YouTube blurb is was:

A one day Conference by and for people of all parties and of none.

Hardly the kind of catch line that’s likely to attract many YouTube hits you might think. And you know what? … It hasn’t! 

Continue reading Michael Shrimpton – Spyhunter

Income of the 100 richest people could end global poverty 4 times over!

The net income of the richest 100 billionaires would be enough to make extreme poverty history four times over.

That’s a pretty extremist statement. A headline from The Morning Star, The Socialist Worker or Marxism Today you might think? Nah. It was from an Oxfam press statement released on 19 January 2014.

Continue reading Income of the 100 richest people could end global poverty 4 times over!

What’s really going on in Ukraine?

Of all the coverage of the Ukraine situation we’ve seen so far, this report from Democracy Now makes the most sense:

It features a leaked phone conversation between top American State Department official, Victoria Nuland, and America’s Ambassador in Kiev which, according to Stephen Cohen, Professor of Russian Studies and Politics at New York and Princeton Universities, shows that the Obama administration plotted “a coup d’etat against the elected President of the Ukraine!”

WTF!!! That’s pretty important information which puts President Putin’s response in a completely different light.

Continue reading What’s really going on in Ukraine?

ScottishPower’s 8.6% price hike is a relief – well it would be, wouldn’t it!

The day after Npower beat the government into submission with a record-breaking 10.9% price hike, ScottishPower eases the pressure down to a modest 8.6%. Well they would do wouldn’t they? Npower‘s shock-and-awe attack had already won the Big Six campaign. Any more would only add insult to injury and risk drawing attention to the £8.5m ScottishPower were ‘fined’ the day before yesterday for what many might call fraud and deception.

Continue reading ScottishPower’s 8.6% price hike is a relief – well it would be, wouldn’t it!

Don’t worry about Russell Brand, worry about Jeremy Paxman

Watching Jeremy Paxman interview Russell Brand last night my first thought was that Paxman has way too much of that laconic Oxbridge arrogance the BBC thinks made Britain great, and Brand has way too much of that street-smart  wit and charisma the BBC posh boys really hate.

But the more I thought about it “in my nut today” the more I agreed with The Artist Taxi Driver when he said: “Listen to what Paxman’s saying. You can’t change things. This is how things are.”

“Jeremy Paxman is like the voice of the entire centre ground of the country, which is virtually everyone bar f****ng extremists.

Continue reading Don’t worry about Russell Brand, worry about Jeremy Paxman