YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS: BRILLIANT

THE DARK DAYS REFERRED TO BY ARCHBISHOP JUSTIN COULD GET MUCH DARKER THIS YEAR

If Cameron thought that appointing Justin Welby as the new Archbishop of Canterbury would bring him a friend in Lambeth Palace, then he will take no comfort from Dr Welby's final sermon in his old post as Bishop of Durham.

In it the archbishop elect talks of Britain's dark days, of children going hungry and churches organising food distribution centres for the poor, reminding us of a previous Bishop of Durham, David Jenkins  who pointed out during a previous Tory government in the 1980s that some children in his diocese went to school with no shoes, just like it was in the Hungry 30s!

Of course Dr Welby's remit is England, but the same thing is happening here in Scotland. And while the poor get poorer, the rich appear to be adding to their wealth.

During 2013, when the Housing Benefit cuts come into force, we can expect to see people, particular from the richer and more expensive parts of the union, being forced out of their homes, and banished to live in lower cost areas, (where, incidentally, there will be even fewer jobs and no available housing) cut off from their families and support, without the financial means to get their worldly goods transported. So, in other words, chaos. 

(The Scottish government, thank goodness, has found money for at least a year to offset the worst of the Housing Benefit cuts.)

Added to this, if people like Max Keiser and Michael Portillo are to be believed, interest rates are set to rise, possibly quite steeply, in the not too distant future, because of the falling Bonds Markets and the diminishing value of the pound against the Dollar and the Euro.  Relatively steep devaluation of the pound is likely to follow. If, or rather it seems when, interest rates rise,  people on Tracker Mortgages, or those with mortgages about to be renegotiated, will find the cost of their homes sky rocketing. Some will clearly not be able to afford to pay, having taken on far large mortgages than they could in reality afford. They will fall into arrears and will subsequently be evicted. That's business. That's the free market.

In the meantime the queues at the food distribution centres, soup kitchens if you like, will grow and grow. And in some places you can expect to see people living on the streets. And that's no joke. 

A many of you will know, after Edinburgh, Paris is my favourite capital city. I hadn't been there for several years, and 2 years ago, after 4 years of the malevolent rule of president Sarkozy, I returned to the city I love to find it strewn with "clochards" sleeping on the streets (in November) and begging for money. It was a heart breaking sight, and frankly, for the first time ever, I was glad to get away from Paris. It's coming to a town near you.

This, people, is how much Better it is Together.

....EHRR... IS THE MANAGER IN, PLEASE?

The newspapers in the UK today are full of praise for the Great British Bulldog, David Cameron. His own right wing are having a love fest, along with the City and the usual suspects in the Press (Mail, Express and yesterday's Sun* which carried the picture below). 

So what has he done, this British Bullshit, sorry dog? 

The way I see it, you may be able to stand alone when you are strong. But the UK is the most indebted country in the West. The banks, the government and personal debt through mortgages, bank loans and credit cards, are in debt to 1000% of GDP. 

How long will it be before one of these rating agencies come after Britain? And then what. Remember the UK makes Greece look solvent, and there's hardly any gold, because McCavity sold it off cheap.

I'm obliged, as I so often am for my stories, to Cynical Highlander. He pointed me in the direction of Max Keiser. 

Max pulls no punches.

Both Cameron, whom in comparison to Angela Merkel he considers to be a little boy playing at the grown ups' table, and Gordon Brown come in for  total ridicule.

Just how come we have been so badly governed all my life?

*I quote yesterday's Sun; there is, for the moment, no Sunday paper from that stable, because it (The News of the World) was shut down in a cynical and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to stop the inquiry into phone hacking  digging deeper and deeper into the sordid business of tabloid newspapers in the UK.