The Bewilderness

Call in the IMF now

I watched the Chancellors debate with some unease; the unease that one always feels when the statists get round a table. Why am I not surprised that they did more to agree than disagree? When George Osborne robbed New Labour of its rhetoric, clothing himself in the guise of the "many" rather than the "few", I knew that the cycle of crossdressng was complete.

A faint echo of fiduciary duty is not the same as a debate about liberty and the size of government. The ideological roots of popular capitalism had been replaced by token managerialism. And was the populist Vince Cable, his stance redolent of the shallow roots within the Liberal Democrats, channel MacMillan in his reference to the "family silver"?

On reflection, he annoyed me most of all. For he was the most reactionary, perhaps due to his age, harking back to some golden era of Butskellite consensus: the last time we got into this farce.

But we sat three statists who have to cut the state back. A crisis seems inevitable.

Listening to "Any Questions" last night,  I was appalled at the fatuous comments of David Miliband. The wet Andrew Lansley is a poor ambassador for the Conservative Party, but he did allow Miliband to demonstrate true incompetence.

How can we elect a government where one of its chief Ministers praises a fall in productivity within the NHS. And when challenged, makes an illiterate comparison between hospitals and banks.

Labour makes a virtue out of waste. Just a pity that Lansley was unable to think on his feet.

Otherwise the whole programme was the usual collection of illiterates.

National Space Boondoggle

Once we had the British National Space Centre. This was based in swindon and was funded to the sum of 230 million pounds, most of which formed Britain's contribtion to the European Space Agency. Not much that was national there. This has now been replaced by a National Space Agency, centralising all space expenditure. Accrding to the move, this is a first for Britain, and was probably announced for the PR effect.

When we see that the private space industry is worth six billion pounds, one must demand the privatisation of the space centre. Should it not be a privately financed association? That is 230 million pounds for deficit reduction...

Enviroporn and pseudoscience

A good introduction to the political economy of scares is the article in Forbes on the subject of enviroporn. Environmental activists undertake media-friendly acts that appear to approximate science and are then taken up and publicised by sympathetic media. Essential is the public appearance of scientific activity that confers authority.

How else to explain a book in which the authors, two longtime Canadian environmentalists, expose themselves to products containing chemicals such as phthalates and then have their blood analyzed to show how dangerous putting on cologne is?

The activity is meaningless, but resembles the action of a political cargo cult. Replicating the skin of a science without undertaking the epistemic core (because it is too hard and they are too ignorant!), and stealing the authority to join pseudoscience with political agitation. This is even more dangerous than enviroporn.E

Old Holborn: Donate to Old Holborn's Election Fund

Ok, worthy readers. I am asking for a Penny for the Guy to overthrow the State, put corrupt MPs on their arses and give us the opportunity to let an honest man with honest intentions enter Parliament. At last.Under blah blah rules, subsection 20, blah blah, I am not able to take donations of over £50 from abroad and am forced to return them, but other than that, feel free to pile in using the paypal button at the side.As an indication, I'll need 30,000 A4 Flyers to litter the streets of Cambridge (£300), 1,000 A2 Posters to hang from lamposts and frighten the children (£400), 100 V for Vendetta Masks (£500), rent for an office for 6 weeks (£1000) and loads of other unorthadox stuff to make the first Blogosphere in Parliament campaign in the UK a stunning and highly visible success.Every penny counts and will only be spent on bringing back the House of Commons to us. The People. At lastGive generously, tell all your friends and expect a massive bang for your buck when it kicks off shortly. If I say I can do it, then I can do it. More to the point you can do it. As you have proved.PS. I'm also looking for volunteers who like to make a scene and get on the tellybox and in the papers and stuff. Email me if you can help with ANYTHING AT ALL.* Holding a referendum on the status of the UK within the EU * Setting up an English Parliament * Reducing the number of MPs by a third (from 650 to 433) * Changing Commons elections to proportional representation * Requiring referendums on petition by 5% of the electorate * Limiting government borrowing to 10% of expenditure * Protecting bank customer deposits from casino banking * Limiting benefits to 80% of the after tax minimum wage * Sentencing violent criminals to 'army style' punishment * Limiting UK troops in Afghanistan to the NATO average * Requiring private medical insurance for non-EU citizens * Establishing a 10 year residence requirement for UK Citizenship * Allowing state schools to opt out from local authority control * Requiring stores to let customers leave excess packaging* Making myself the biggest pain in the arse to Parliament I canBE PART OF ITREAD THIS

via www.oldholborn.net

Here I thought Old Holborn was radical: sounds like a reheated Tory from the 1970s who hasn't read enough Gabb.

Cut, cut and cut again if you wish to collapse the political class.

Another six weeks of this shite

The first glimmerings of the budget are beginning to be reported in the newspapers. Like the freezing of parts of the state pension, Labour will proceed to raise tax without provoking headlines. Milton Friedman famously regretted the creation of PAYE tax systems and Labour have exploited that subtle perception of net that downgrades awareness of tax. But the erosion of disposable income in April, caused by a freezing of the tax bracket and a rise in national insurance contributions will be noticed.

Moreover, this will hit the poor. Fiscal drag will bring more into the tax system accompanied by the usual bleats of tax credits. None of this reached left-wing bastions, of course, where Darling's podcast is lauded for telling everyone what a good job they have done and here is some money for a Green Investment Bank.

But let's not mention the debt, the deficit or the recession. I shall expect the markets will demand more than "efficiency savings" or moves towards the top quartile in crap performance. It takes the biscuit when they say they will reduce marketing spend: not much need when the election is out of the way and your agitprop is no longer required.

Even at the last, they just cannot abandon deceit and shite promises that no-one believes.

ECB in a mood over rating monopoly

The Eurozone, like the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, in the United States, is toying with the idea of establishing their own rating agency. Spiegl reported some days ago that Eurozone Ministers were concerned that Greece depended upon the rating of a single agency.

The first objection to this obtuse proposal is one of conflict of interest. Why would buyers of debt take heed of a rating agency controlled by the debtors? Well, they wouldn't...

And their objection to a single rating agency is less than it appears. There was competition, but the other two agencies had already junked Greece's ratings:

Under existing rules, the ECB can only accept euro-zone sovereign bonds as collateral when lending money if at least one of the three main rating agencies gives the country issuing the securities an A- rating or better. Moody's is now the only main rating agency that still gives Greece an A2 rating; Standard & Poor's and Fitch have already lowered their grades to the BBB level....

"It is a very unfortunate situation that a single agency has got so much influence over whether the ECB accepts a security as collateral or not," Deutsche Bank chief economist Thomas Mayer told Handelsblatt.

Moody's have, inadvertently, gained a monopoly through the rules set by the European Central Bank, and they don't like it. So, they would rig the rules and allow debt ratings to drift from their true price through a pet rating agency. They don't distrust monopoly, just one they don't run.

Squeeze for sleaze until Parliament runs dry

There is plenty of sleaze tonight after the expenses revelations. “Cab's here” Byers has finally been suspended along with Hoon and Hewitt, crippling the disaffected section of the Blairite rump. The targets of the Sunday Times investigation map the contours of Blairite dissent within the Parliamentary Labour Party. Coincidence?

They have now been suspended from the Labour party pending investigation. Yet, we see no examination of the allegations aired:

Gordon Brown refused to allow an inquiry into his comments, rejecting claims that Mr Byers had influenced government policy over the railways and food labelling. The Prime Minister accepted assurances from the permanent secretaries of three Whitehall departments that there had been no improper influence.

The government is holding the line tonight that assurances from civil servants are sufficient and that the comments from all three ex-ministers were probably some form of power trip caused by the stress of leaving office.

The BBC break their scandal on hospitality rules tonight: an odd time, given that the news will soon be expunged by the Budget: does it take some of the heat away from the government with Theresa Villiers and Liam Fox fingered for enjoying unregistered hospitality.

Time for our Augean clean to reach Brussels

Whatever government is in power will take some pleasure out of blocking an increase in the European Parliament's budget. The whole package is concocted from a political class that wants to bite the hand. A few samples of their troughing:

The artificially created European political parties in the parliament will receive £75 million,under the projections while spending on information about MEPs work rises to £72.5 million, including £8m for the parliament's own web-based television channel.

The spending allowance for MEP staffing will rise to almost £220,000, a provision that costs £11.8 million. The figure increased event though MEPs were forced to pay back over £3 million in "unduly paid" claims.

Controversial "brown envelope" cash payments, handed out without receipts, to groups visiting the parliament will increase to GBP26 million, a rise of GBP4.6m.

Another £4.5 million is earmarked to be spent on "connectivity" and mobile internet services for MEPs, taking the parliament's bill for IT services to over £90 million.

The parliament is also determined to press ahead with a grandiose multi-million pound state-of-the-art "House of European History".

Do they want the European Council to wield the knife and cut their budget? This list puts such surgery within popular reach. One can only hope that a few scandals are exposed in the Sundays and an Augean clean-out is achieved of at least British MEPs.

It would be amusing if Labour, Lib Dems and Conservatives had to withdraw the whip from the majority of their MEPs....

The slow stagflation

One of the strongest reasons for booting Labour out of power is the amount of money that they rob from us and their breach of trust in wasting the earnings that they have seized. Even when they add taxes, they rely on your ignorance to defraud you.

Mike Warburton, of accountants Grant Thornton, said: "Even after recent falls in revenue, the taxman now takes almost twice as much as in 1997. Stamp duty, CGT and council tax have more than doubled.

"It is surprising that duties have not done so – but don't be fooled. The motorist is paying heavily. It is duty on alcohol, tobacco and betting that have fallen behind inflation – arguably because this is what matters to many core Labour voters.

Further tax rises are in the pipeline, though the tolerance for tax, no matter what the polls say, is nearing its limit. Tax increases and falling incomes are a toxic limit and low interest rates have disguised this. A quick adjustment has been replaced by the slow stagflation.