Ms Pond has a Moat

‘Ms Pond has a moat’ – now why do I find that funny?

Well lots of reasons but mainly to do with the hypocrisy over the MPs expenses scandal of the Labour and LibDem parties.  But also to do with the equally hypocritical attitudes of the media.  It has taken the goodly Iain Dale (admittedly with both a political and local interest) to point out the joke.

Meantime I see that Gordon Browns ‘its deflation stupid’ (sort of) remark has still to come to pass.  The Times reports RPI inflation actually rising and that CPI is still  above the government target and has fallen by far less than economists expect.

“Economist expect … “,  now there’s another funny thing.  But more seriously the news that the BoE is not to immediately expand its programme of quantitative easing has, according to the Telegraph seen,

“The benchmark 10-year gilt yield leapt by almost a fifth of a percentage point as traders abandoned UK government debt, fearing that the Bank may soon abandon its purchases of them altogether”

It’s a bit worrying that the main deriving force for buying government debt seems to be the government itself printing money to give to our debtors to buy our debt in the first place.

But then I am not an economist … or a labour politician.

Ultimately the joke will indeed be on us, especially us dumb mortgage payers. ‘City sources’ point out

“The decision underlines the likelihood that at some point in the coming year attention will turn instead to so-called exit strategies from QE, which could involve selling off some of the gilts or raising borrowing costs.”

Browns gimmicky self serving obsession with ‘deflation’ has as usual turned out to be a mistake and with billions of printed money sloshing around our good friend inflation will have to be hit on the head by the Bank.

The Great Dictator Apologises

The Spectator is pointing out that Bernie Ecclestone is seeking to apologise for his crass remark, “apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he was in the way that he could command a lot of people able to get things done.”

Bernie misses the point in oh so many ways.

It’s because of the useless “way that he could command a lot of people able to get things done” that Germany lost the war.

If people had been able to say ‘no’ to him (without being shot) then Germany would probably still be sole ruler of Europe even now — instead of having to share that role with a liberated France.

Bonfire of the Press Offices

The extended final set battle to determine who can manage, destroy or banish the need for our vast body of quangos drags on through the TV studios, the newspapers and the blogosphere.

The inestimable Guido Fawkes is one, and he delights in listing ones the Tories will ‘create’  -  as opposed to wind up..  Unfortunately he uncritically lists a number kindly provided by the Labour Party.

Well, you need to take claims from a Labour press office with a pinch of salt Mr Fawkes (they are after all the Great Satan).  Looking a little more deeply into their list shows that not quite all is as it might seem.  Here goes ….

Office of Tax Simplification – comes from a suggestion by Lord Howe, not official policy.  God knows we need it.

Office of Budget Responsibility — a damned good idea.  But then it does come from George Osborne.

Free national financial advice service – this comes from the ‘Thoresen Review of Generic   Financial Advice’, — it was, wait for it  Commissioned by the government.

‘Sports Commission’ (Australian model) — this comes from a Conservative discussion document which suggests  — “Conservatives would create a cross-departmental Cabinet Office Committee on sport, based on the Australian Sports Commission, to streamline the delivery of sport and act as a champion for sport in government”.  ummm, not a quango.

Office for Civil Society – the BBC report, “David Cameron plans to create the office by replacing the current Office of the Third Sector, although he argues the new office will be put “at the heart of government” to fight for the interests of charities … “  Errr … replacing a quango.

Social Investment Bank – Hmmm…   Darling championed one in his last budget. Reports say its part of Tory policy to replace the Office of the Third Sector (again). (Oh, thats charities to the rest of us).  An attempt to help charities seems good idea to me.

Military Quangos – In the current military climate I think it would be harsh to criticise the motives behind the 3 military organisations.  Unless you are the Labour Party that is.

International Aid Watchdog –  The Guardian reports, “The government is to create an independent watchdog to monitor the effectiveness of the fast-rising overseas aid budget, the development secretary Hilary Benn said yesterday.  .After pressure from the Conservatives, he said he was establishing a seven-strong body of experts to help him ensure the £7bn a year spent by the Department for International Development was being properly spent.”  Ho hum – a definite forked tongue from the Labour Press office there…

Innovative Projects Agency –  The Times Higher Education Supplement point out it is an idea from a Tory Study Review which, “would take on the work of the existing Technology Strategy Board, the Department of Trade and Industry’s knowledge-transfer programmes, the innovation budget, the UK high-technology fund, a slice of the Government’s £1.6 billion research and development budgets and parts of the science and technology budgets of the regional development agencies.”  ‘take the work of’ … Ho hum again.

National Foundation for STEM –  assume this is related to the Tories, ‘Science, Engineering, Technology & Mathematics (STEM) Task Force’ .  The report says, “Overall we conclude that there needs to be a single voice in the public sector championing STEM – one which brings some co-ordination, discipline and focus to the many overlapping yet diffuse initiatives in this field. Hence we have proposed a new Agency to be a champion for STEM in the public sector and across society as a whole.”
‘a single voice’ implies getting rid of other multiple voices.  Indeed the report says “We anticipate that the agency would incorporate the work and most of the staff of the existing Council of Science & Technology, the Science and Society section of the Office of Science & Innovation in the DTI and the public engagement part of Research Councils UK.”    ….  Well what the hell, we are in the 21st century!

“HealthWatch” – yep its a Tory idea, and yes it looks like a quango to me.  “And we will ensure that the voice of patients is listened to through the creation of a national consumer voice: HealthWatch”   BUT “In this plan, scrapping targets and bureaucracy will free up resources to frontline care.”

Export Services organisation – “We will streamline the procurement process to ensure the speedy delivery of equipment to the front line. And we will immediately reinstate the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO) to ensure a healthy UK defence sector.”  ‘Reinstate’. I cannot fault this.  What do the French do I wonder?

All Age Careers Service – Well just how do you want to end the curse of NEETs? The Tories point out – “The Skills Commission says: “there has been a decline in the quality of careers guidance since Connexions replaced the Careers Service [in 2001].” ” …. “That is why we will introduce a £180 million independent careers advice service for all secondary schools. ….  And it will be an all-age careers service, to help those who are already NEET and missed out on good advice at school.”
Sounds like it will replace this ‘Connexions’ – good idea since its spelt wrongly.

Voluntary Action Lottery Fund -  Tory policy is to “Replace the Big Lottery Fund with a Voluntary Action Fund dedicated to the voluntary and community sector”  –  Err that’s ‘replace’ — again.

A development agancy for libraries —  ??  You got me there.
But  …  former bookseller and now good library advocate Tim Coates (his elder son, Sam, is political correspondent for the Times) did give a speech to the ‘Conservative Party Forum on Libraries’ (its good to know I support a literate party)  — he said, “It is timely for the Conservative Party to articulate a Vision for public libraries”  “The Conservative party has a tremendous opportunity to take the lead in this matter immediately.”   ” For as long as I can remember the officers of the MLA and the London Libraries Development Agency have been on the point of trying to resolve the political and technical questions that would make such progress possible.”
So we ALREADY have a libraries development agency in London !  Does Ken Livingstone know?

In summary?  Well I see nothing here that shouts hypocrisy or dispels the basic good sense of the Conservative Party’s (quite frankly cautious) policy aims.

But hey –   that will not stop the blind gullible media (and Mr Fawkes) from taking a few easy shots.  All at the expense of good honest debate of course.

Carrier Farce?

The Royal Navy’s proposed 2 new aircraft carriers are said to be vulnerable to cuts and its cost have risen by £1 billion to £5 billion.

But can we really believe that these cost will stop there?  The new Daring class destroyers (light cruisers really) with a total tonnage between the 6 ships of 40,000t are projected at £6 billion.

The total tonnage of the new aircraft carriers is about 120,000t.

Even allowing for differences such as radars and missiles – do these sums really add up?  And this is on the assumption that these carriers do not in fact have a catapult launcher.  The next generation of American aircraft carrier, of some 100,000t, is speculated to be $11 billion.

My betting is that as a Nation even if we can afford the carriers we will not be able to afford the planes to fly off them.

Plan 9 Frpom Outer Space

I’ve been searching for a metaphor for the dogs breakfast that is passing for Brown’s government reshuffle.

But I can’t.  It seems to me there was more logic and coherence to ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’.  The tag line for which was …

“Unspeakable Horrors From Outer Space Paralyze The Living And Resurrect The Dead!”

Hmmm …

Well to be fair, it does seem Labour are having great difficulty hammering their very own Criswell back into his coffin.

Defenceless

Its odd, considering that I am apathetic to the EU, that I increasingly find EU Referendum too strident sometimes and certainly too sanctimonious.

However – their point about the attendance in Parliament for the Defence Debate is well made.  There looks to be just one Labour backbencher and no LibDems.  Conservatives not much better.  As Ann Winterton says, an …

“insult to our armed forces”

Tabling a Defence Debate on polling day is a disgrace.  But then so is Brown, using PMQ’s as an excuse to read out the names of our dead.

Ann Winterton has been caught out by the “Mr and Mrs” expenses scandal and will soon be no more in Parliament.  A pity since she has been in the forefront of exposing the lack of proper equipment for our troops in Afghanistan.

On a similar topic Richard North has published his account of our intervention in Iraq, which after a good start has to be said ended in an ignoble fashion.  Its not likely that the mainstream media will admit to this but we must hope that the defence establishment realise it, otherwise our presence in Afghanistan (which I support) will end in even more wasted lives.

Man of Straw

In a TV interview today Justice Secretary Jack Straw has blamed bad management of the London Probation Service for all the problems which culminated in the horrible murder of 2 French students.  The chief of the service resigned some months ago.

Shades of the sacking of the chief of the Prison Service by Michael Howard several years back.

Yet back then in October 1995 it was Straw himself who saw fit to move the following motion in Parliament …

“That this House deplores the unwillingness of the Secretary of State for the Home Department to accept responsibility for serious operational failures of the Prison Service”

Straw was happy to stand up in Parliament and accuse …

“The Secretary of State has continually sought to evade his responsibility for the proper running of the Prison Service.”

Now in office himself and following a shocking break down in the operation of the Probation Service ( not to mention police and the Crown Prosecution Service ) he is happy to duck the same responsibility he was earlier keen to heap on his predecessor.

He was opportunistic then and is shameless now.

Dizzy with exitement

The decline of the Brown government along with the Great Leaders own persona has continued apace.  Its hard to know where we are right now.  Uncharted territory.  On the edge of an electoral black hole where the laws of political physics break down.

There have of course been lots of comments in the ‘blogosphere’ and just lately its Dizzy who has been hitting the nail in the head.

His perception of todays PMQs is I think the best I have read. He points out for instance

Incredibly, Brown started banging on about helping mortgage holders. The thing is, the Government revealed two days ago that only two families have been helped by the £285m Mortgage Relief Scheme since January. The subject then came up later about this figure and Brown denied it was the case.

Dizzy has also pinned down the Telegraph over its comments on the Blears resignation (and it would seem forced a climbdown) and caught it out spinning for No10.

…if you were a complete idiot and failed to pay attention to what was said at the time; or perhaps are taking a line being briefed to you from those with an interest in discrediting Blears before she publicly attacks them.

And from the sublime to the ridiculous Dizzy even has time to make play with the vanguard of that monstrous regiment of Blairite wimmin. Gordon’s (fallen) Angels.  Try as I might though Dizzy, I am afraid that Flint woman does nothing for me.

And where next? Whoever is leader of the Labour party they are going to find it hard to avoid an election before October. My thinking?  This crisis is not over yet. Our spending is still outof control and the public finances are heading ever deeper into the red. Everything is coming out of left field and that does not preclude Crisis Part Two in August. Could Labour really survive an emergency Budget without being forced into a subsequent election?

Thrown to the wolves

Amazingly, despite its professed desire to prevent unemployment and promote British manufacturing industry the government seems determined to do all it can to destroy Jaguar Land Rover.  Certainly to destroy an prospect of those cars being built in Brtain.

As the Birmingham Post points out it is demanding Shylock like terms merely for guaranteeing bank loans to help the company develop new models and survive the recession.

Interestingly the Post article points out

Either way, it is apparent to me that there has been serious disagreement between BERR and the Treasury on the whole issue of JLR loan guarantees to the point of even suggesting that Prime Minister Gordon Brown has lost control of the Treasury.

Furthermore …

‘The government has decided to block full access to available EIB loans worth £340 million’  and  ‘the government has told Tata that it will only guarantee £175 million of the available EIB’  and  ‘if this loan is taken up they must immediately pay 15 per cent to the UK government in the form of a charge’   and  ‘The Government is apparently demanding significant management control of JLR in that  it requires to choose a chairman and to have a permanent seat on the management board’  and  ‘Ministers are also seeking a veto over all decisions taken by the company management, including investment, day to day matters and employment issues’.

This attitude is indeed so draconian, so bereft of any serious intent and interest, as to make one wonder just what the Treasury think the purpose the object of their existence and activities really is.

Its hard to see just what the government hope to achieve with all this except to completely alienate their voting base in the Midlands.

Has life in the Bunker ever been so divorced from reality? In another article the post suggests an answer …

…there is nothing coherent about whatever passes for Gordon Brown’s industrial policy.

.

Clear Blue Water

This blogpost and the accompanying pictures say all there is to be said about the current scares over ‘melting’ polar icecaps.

There can be no doubt that if pictures like the one above had been taken yesterday rather than 50 years ago there would have been an almighty outcry over man made global warming.

As it is its clear that ice cover fluctuated wildly in the past.

Interestingly even The Independent starts to question the influence the Sun might be having on our world temperatures.

Is this the big chill?

Could the Sun play a greater role in recent climate change than has been believed?

No living scientist has seen it behave this way. There are no sunspots.

Our Sun is the primary force of the Earth’s climate system … It lies behind every aspect of the Earth’s climate … When the Sun has gone quiet like this before, it coincided with the earth cooling slightly … it could alter all our predictions of climate change … our understanding of climate change might not be anywhere near as good as we thought.

The Daily Telegraph environment correspondent (report 22 April) is happy to unquestioningly follow the line that ‘global warming’ has stopped because of pollution. And happy to take on board that it is pollution that is allowing plants to absorb more CO2, rather than perhaps natural mutation and adaptation.

Nowhere does she mention that current declining activity of the Sun in an extended Solar Minimum just might be having an effect, just as higher Solar activity caused temperatures to rise previously. We are now told, against all previous propaganda, that Antarctic sea ice is expanding, though she still peddles the factual untruth that Arctic ice is ‘melting’.

Incredibly she is trying to persuade us that, “The increase in the amount of carbon dioxide…may have helped to slow global warming”, yet still says further CO2 emissions will cause increased global warming. She and the global warming brigade are clearly between a rock and a hard place, with their predictions becoming hopelessly unravelled.

Their might just be a simple and sound explanation for temperature changes; our Sun. To admit that though would ruin the tax raising plans of politicians worldwide, the carbon swap profits of Al gores friends and the lucrative grants of opportunistic scientists and universities

Another day …

A budget which announces more debt fthat was necessary to win the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War and World War Two. Combined. And adjusted for inflation.

12 men released from custody after no evidence available to arrest them for alleged terrorist offences.  This after the Prime Minister had claimed to have uncovered a massive terror plot.

Former head of the SATS schools tests programme accuses 2 ministers of lying in testimony before a House of Commons Committee.

All in a days work for Gordon Brown’s government.

Graffiti is Art?

As a break from the dizzy whirl of lost billions and trillions to the economy, Newsnight is reporting on Muslim graffiti ‘artists’ in Mosley, Birmingham.  One in particular who is highly sought after goes by the name Mohamed Ali.  Seems a nice Brummie.

An energised and enthusiastic LibDem councillor is certainly seems to think his art floats like a butterfly.  Some of these people he says are the future Damien Hirsts.

That bad eh?  In truth I have grown tired of people apologising for Muslims, their medieval religion and their current predicament.  But now I find my heart going out to a nice Muslim chap who has only the fate of being considered ‘another Hirst’ to look forward to.

Perhaps I am not all bad after all.

Stop breathing you are poisoning us all

CO2 is set to be labelled a “public endangerment” by the Obama Administration.

The US environment Protection Agency …

is proposing to find that the current and projected concentrations of the mix of six key greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations. This is referred to as the endangerment finding.
The Administrator is further proposing to find that the combined emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O, and HFCs from new motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines contribute to the atmospheric concentrations of these key greenhouse gases and hence to the threat of climate change. This is referred to as the cause or contribute findings

So be aware that when you breath out you are endangering the environment, destroying the planet.  No joke there’s 6 billion of us and rising.  Rising so much that environmentalists are suggesting we halve our population.  No guesses for who would be last on the list to be euthanased.

But interestingly the EPA do not mention the biggest green house gas component.  Water Vapour.  That would stop you boiling the kettle or going out for a jog.

CO2 of course is a nutrient.  Trees breath it in and breath out oxygen.

A whole range of biomatter gives out CO2 every day in massive quantities – dwarfing that which humans give out.  Strange that this outpouring is said to be in ‘balance’ somehow, but human emissions are ring fenced out of the carbon cycle.  The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is 380 parts per million.  PER MILLION.  Put 1 million ping pong balls in a swimming pool – take out 380 of them, paint ‘em red and throw them back in.

Go ahead find them.  That’s the scale of the problem.

Oh and the small matter of the fact that temperatures have actually fallen over the last 10 years, in sterling defiance of the flawed models of the beleaguered warmists.

‘What a swelligant elegant party this is’

Do Labour do irony?

I’d be upset if they missed the point.