Why the soaring price of fuel?

Fuel prices are soaring and look set to reach an all time high and it looks like motorists will again be walloped when the budget comes around next week. Prices have reached £1.15 a litre at supermarket pumps across Dundee that’s up from 90.7p only a year ago.

Things look set to get worse with petrol costs soaring above the all time record of £119.7 a litre that was set in July 2008. The price hike back then was caused by the soaring price of a barrel of oil which back then stood at £97 a barrel. It is currently £53 a barrel.

So why this latest price hike? Well it is mainly to do with the excellent and prudent management of our economy by Messers Brown and Darling, which has caused the pound to slump against the dollar (and God knows the dollar is not doing all that well). And as we all know the price of oil is set in dollars.

If you remember back in 2008 Gordon decided that to help struggling motorists he would cancel the fuel escalator that always comes around at budget time and ensures that the cost of petrol and diesel in this oil rich nation is the highest in the world. As yet there is no sign that a similar bribe might be forthcoming in light of the looming Westminster election.

But don’t put it past the powers that be in No 10 to trot something of that kind out (and by the powers that be I don’t mean Brown and Darling, but Mandelson and Campbell).

Brown Freezes Top Pay as MPs Receive 1.5% Increase

Gordon Brown has announced that he is going to freeze the pay of top civil servants, judges, generals and doctors to save £3 billion in defiance of the recommendations of an independent salary review which recommended small increases.

The armed forces will get a 2% rise and junior doctors will also be given a small increase.

In what seem to me to be a blatantly electioneering a speech to the City audience Brown announced his intentions to freeze the pay of senior civil service staff, military, the judiciary, senior managers in the health service and the pay of consultants, GPs and dentists.

He says that the measures will save money immediately and by 2013/14 save more than £3 billion.

He also announced that the Budget will be in two weeks’ time on March 24, which suggests that the election for Westminster will be held on May 6. The Times predicts that manifestos will be published during the week beginning April 12 and the controversial presidential debates on Thursdays each of the three full campaign weeks.

The Times suggests that Brown, along with Mr Mandelson, Balls and Ed Miliband, have looked at the possibility of holding the election earlier but have rejected it.... presumably on the basis that May 6 coincides with the English council elections and there is only so much politics the average Englishman can stand.

The pay freeze for the “top” people was justified by a Cabinet Office spokesman suggesting that it was right that senior staff should show leadership.

However, Jonathan Baume, general secretary of the First Division Association, said that the government was insulting hard-working public servants by rejecting proposals from the independent review body to raise the minimum pay for senior civil servants to address long-standing anomalies.

I’d be the last to advocate pay rises for the so-called “top” people. After all many already earn vast amounts that put them on a different planet from the rest of us. They will trot out the old chestnut that they could earn more in the private sector, which begs the question..... why don’t they go do that if the money means that much to them?

However, it’s a bit rich that Brown is prepared to over-rule the pay increases recommended for these people and let the MPs’ increases go ahead. And it is farcical for the Cabinet Office to suggest that senior staff should show leadership whilst MPs bury their snouts deeper in the trough.... AGAIN.

Incidentally, I was pleased to read in the Courier that Dundee East’s SNP MP Stewart Hosie has announced that he will not benefit from the pay increase, but will instead give the money to local charities. Labour’s Jim McGovern, MP for Dundee West, has declined to take his pay rise.

I think that both these men should be congratulated on their stance, and I hope that many other members will follow their good example.



(Pictured is Bill Cockburn CBE Chair of the Senior Salaries Review Body)

WHO SHOULD CHOOSE A CIVIL SERVICE CAREER? SOMEONE WITH THE HIDE OF AN ELEPHANT PERHAPS

It is beginning to look like the “In the Thick of it” image we have of Whitehall (the English and Union Civil Service) is really a lot more realistic than the sedate “Yes Minister” of yesteryear.

Today, following the “Gordon Brown is a bully” allegations which have dominated the news, Peter Baume, general secretary of the First Division Association, which represents “top” people in the Civil Service alleged that bullying is rife across Whitehall and that staff had little power to respond to abuse by politicians and their special advisers.

He said he was not commenting about the Andrew Rawnsley book but confirmed that he knew of a number of cases where staff had been bullied. The victims had, he said, little option but to tolerate it or resign.

"Too often politicians have little idea about what is acceptable in a modern workplace and the behaviour of some ministers and special advisers falls short of what is acceptable on occasions," he said. "Every Government department has clear and unambiguous anti-bullying policies. In theory these should cover ministers. However, in practice no civil servant is likely to make a formal complaint against a minister. Instead, concerns about ministerial behaviour are dealt with through informal channels."

Mr Baume went on to say that if these channels failed, there was nothing the member of staff could do. (I’m not sure what he means by “informal channels”. Could it be that ministers are above the law? I’m not sure why. As Robin Day once said they are “here today and gone tomorrow” functionaries.)

David Cameron responded to the allegations of bullying by asking for an inquiry. He has suggested that Philip Mawer, who is in charge of policing the ministerial code, be asked to look into it.

However, Mr Mandelson, First Secretary, ruled out an inquiry, saying the allegations were "acquiring a slight odour" of being politically motivated.

I don’t know the politics of Andrew Rawnsley, or whether his book was politically motivated. It sure as hell will be motivated by political gain when Cameron has grabbed it and is running with it all the way to the line. But Brown and Mandleson really need to see that you can’t turn on tears for family tragedy, and follow up with tears for your dead mother, and rub your hands with glee as your opponents slip 4 points in opinion polls, and then expect that they won’t seize every opportunity to get even. To such depths has London politics sunk. But if you can’t take it don’t dish it out.

We have discover this last year just how much our MPs have been fiddling. We have seen the tip of the iceberg about how much the Lords are stealing. We are seeing what Anon calls “beeboids” are allegedly entitled to for doing a recreational job, and most recently we discovered that council chiefs are ashamed to let us know how much they pay themselves for fear of reprisals given the appalling quality of service they deliver in return.

Now we are finding that ministers treat staff like punch bags and that there are no formal way of dealing with this..

What on earth is this Union about?

You should read this article over on J Arthur MacNumpy's blog. It's spot on about the current level of political debate.

.............

A FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE ELECTION...

As we draw near to the next General Election the gap between the Tories and the incumbents is dangerously close. There are those, me amongst them, who think that Cameron is light and most of the shadow cabinet even lighter. In particular I have the impression that if you didn’t nail him down, Osborne would float away.

So we seem to be faced with the choice of the current bunch of tired, idealess, failed, tainted, third raters, or a bunch of untried, tainted, lightweights. Hard choice.

Over the next few months we are going to suffer the most horrific onslaught of politicking from all of them. They will tell us lies, they will jerk our emotions. They will do what they said they would never do by using their families, and in one case already upon us, their family tragedies, to try to show what good men they are.

It will be sickening. Much of it of course will go over people’s heads. Remember that under our system of government around ¾ of the seats in the London parliament are completely safe. They never change hands. After a while even people like me, interested in politics, will turn off. Some of it will be too sickening to watch or to listen to.

In Scotland both the Tories and Labour have told us that it is a two horse race. Either Brown of Cameron will be the next Prime Minister. The SNP, and for that matter, the Liberals are insignificant; they don’t matter.

Not true. They matter very very much. Although our political system is flawed badly (remember Blair had a HUGE majority with around 35% of the vote), it still does matter who you vote for.

I understand that the Civil Service chiefs and Buckingham Palace big wigs have been undergoing training as to how to deal with the prospect of a hung parliament. It looks, at this point very possible that that may be the outcome.

If things really are that close, then votes for the Liberals or the SNP are anything but wasted. Whilst it would be impossible (I think at least) for the SNP to form any kind of coalition with either party, the Liberals certainly could. This could make a massive difference to the way that the country is governed. But it is equally important that Scotland has a real voice in the London parliament. We must show them that we intend to be heard, and that the half hearted devolution settlement, or indeed most of what was proposed by Calman will not do. We can’t do that if we do not have a sizable SNP party in their parliament.

Over the last year the London Parliament has been disgraced by over half of its elected members stealing from us on a lax expenses system. (The unelected part has done its fair share of fiddling too, but there is nothing we can do about them.) There will be a strong temptation not to bother voting, because “they are all the same”.

But we must remember that, even if we all stay at home and the politicians’ families are the only ones to vote for them, we will get the politician with the biggest family as our representative...

HOON THE (EXPENSIVE) DOORMAT GIVES EVIDENCE TO CHILCOT INQUIRY

Today’s appearance of Geoff Hoon before the Chilcot Inquiry was always going to attract much interest after the release of his letters a week or so ago. From the report in The Times, it seemed that the star turn did not disappoint.

In his evidence Hoon admitted he worried Britain would struggle to take part in a full-scale land invasion and admitted delays in ordering equipment led to shortages of armoured vests, desert boots and clothing. Emergency Treasury funding was used to prepare soldiers in the months before the invasion because the Ministry of Defence had been told to reply on efficiency savings to buy new equipment, he told the inquiry. Gordon Brown, then Chancellor, only approved the additional money five months before the start of the war.

Mr Hoon reported a further delay in ordering equipment because Tony Blair refused to allow active war preparations as they might have harmed diplomatic efforts to secure the United Nation’s resolution used to justify the invasion. Hoon admitted he considered that the Army was stretched to deploy a division to Iraq when they were already committed in Afghanistan. He proposed more limited involvement by way of air and naval support for a US invasion but he was overruled.

Mr Hoon said had been unaware of a series of private notes sent by Blair to Bush in which, according to earlier evidence by Alastair Campbell, he assured him of Britain’s support if it came to war.

Because of the delay in preparing for the invasion some kit failed to reach the front line in time for the start of the war in March 2003. Mr Hoon said. “There were complaints about desert combats. Quite a lot of soldiers went into action in green combats and they didn’t like it. Some soldiers did not have the right boots.” A shortage of enhanced combat body armour had been the cause of deaths.

Mr Hoon revealed that he opposed Mr Blair’s decision in July 2004 to commit British forces to southern Afghanistan. The concerns were shared by the military chiefs who wanted to be clear that they weren’t going to be involved in two substantial operations simultaneously.

It also emerged that the Attorney General had warned Hoon during the run-up to the war that it would be difficult to justify military action. However, Mr Goldsmith eventually gave his legal backing just before the invasion.

Edward Davey, the Liberal’s Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, demanded that Mr Brown appear before the inquiry before instead of after the Election.
“Once again we can see Gordon Brown’s fingerprints all over this, but no sign of the man himself,” he said. “The Prime Minister should appear before the Iraq Inquiry before the election to give voters an informed choice. Instead we are being left with a huge Gordon Brown-shaped hole in the evidence.”

It seems to me that there was little point in us having a Secretary of State for Defence, and paying him a salary, when whatever he said was discarded and overruled. Some might say that a bigger man would have stood up to Blair and resigned if necessary. That said, the Military chiefs appear to have been utterly against a further involvement in Helmand, but when Blair walked all over them they too folded their tents.

Brown and Blair must be formidably frightening people if they can scare the life out of the Military chiefs and the Secretary of State for Defence en masse. Or is it just the threat of the withholding of honours that is frightening?

LEAKED LETTERS SHOW BROWN REFUSED TO SPEND MONEY ON VITAL HELICOPTERS

Former defence secretary, Geoff Hoon who was behind last week’s attempted leadership coup and now has nothing much to lose (there’s never going to be a Lord Hoon), looks set to do further damage to Gordon Brown with the disclosure that he (Brown) vetoed the purchase of vital military helicopters.

Leaked letters show that, when chancellor, Brown prevented Hoon from ordering life-saving battlefield equipment for Afghanistan and Iraq. Hoon, who was dismissed as an embittered traitor by Brown’s allies (?) for the failed email plot, has the potential to further undermine his leadership in the run-up to the general election.


According to the Sunday Times, the leaked letters show Brown personally overturned earlier Treasury assurances that the Ministry of Defence would be free to spend extra cash on troop-carrying helicopters. Hoon had warned that, if Brown refused to back down, “We would have to scale back on major equipment programmes.” He went on to claim that the helicopter programme in particular would suffer.


Last night, Hoon refused to comment on the letters, passed to The Sunday Times by Royal Air Force sources, but this is hardly important now, as the Sunday Times has it splashed over its front page. It is likely that Hoon, who is due to give information to the Chilcot inquiry, will now be asked in detail about the letters.

The leaked letters show how Brown’s actions from 2002 to 2004 meant that the military were unable to buy new helicopters which could now be in service in Afghanistan. The lack of air support has forced British troops to take dangerous journeys by road, exposing them to deadly Taliban bombs.

Military chiefs have long complained that the Treasury under Brown starved them of resources.

The revelations will be personally embarrassing to Brown, and damaging to the image of a Prime Minister who has waved the union flag and lectured us at length about showing support for the troops who are fighting (so he says) to keep the Taliban off the streets of England (by which he really means is London).

LABOUR’S CENTRALISED CONTROL AND TARGET SETTING REMINISCENT OF THE USSR

Jenni Russell has an excellent article in today’s Times in which she points out the sadness and irony of the prime minister’s attempt to sell Labour as the party of optimism in his New Year message, particularly in light of Labour’s fundamental lack of optimism about human beings and what they are capable of. She points out the party’s controlling, centralising, mistrustful approach which has let down large numbers of former supporters. Particularly, I imagine those in England who are natural Tory supporters but who moved to Labour when Blair came along.

She talks of people from various walks of life disillusioned by the way that the Brown administration micromanages: a consultant who has resigned from the health service because his policy of seeing every patient in need within 24 hours broke all his targets for clinic numbers and readmission rates, and his hospital managers ordered him not to continue; an experienced teacher who gave up her job because she saw bewildered children fall behind, yet the straitjacket of the national curriculum left her no time to help them; a woman in Devon who saw the old-age home where her mother lives closee because its Grade-II listing means it can’t meet new regulations on space and access.

She points out that the disenchantment goes beyond Brown’s feeble leadership and people’s anxieties about the economy. It comes from the experience of living with Labour’s ideas about how society should be organised, and finding them mean and thin.

Mrs Thatcher tried to run the country like she ran her household, not realising that a household and a country are not the same. Russell maintains that Labour’s fundamental mistake has been to manage the country, its people and its institutions as if it were running nothing more than a collection of factories and businesses. But it has trusted no one to do the job correctly and so, to manage everything, has instituted a series of targets and checks so that nothing individualistic can ever be done. No one can fit the job to the needs of the consumer. It reminds me of reading of the USSR in days gone by. They have been obsessed with delivering efficiency and accountability measured in numbers. But there’s more to delivery of services than that.

I’ve said before here that when the target becomes the job, the customer goes by the wayside. You can see it in education where pupils who cannot deliver good results for the school are pushed aside while those who can are factory farmed to bring in a table topping place for the Head. In hospitals patients’ needs are secondary to throughput. And not only do pupils/patient/customers suffer. Those members of staff who pride themselves in giving value resign (if they can afford to) or work through miserably until they make themselves ill from stress.

Whatever the next government brings, may someone preserve us from another bunch of stupid target setters.

I borrowed the excellent cartoon for the site at :

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/directory/t/the_labour_party.asp

which is well worth a visit.

A DISMAL CHOICE.... BUT AN OPPORTUNITY FOR SCOTS TO SHOW THEM HOW LITTLE WE TRUST THEM

The latest Yougov poll, the last of 2009, shows the Tories with a 10% lead over Labour, and the Conhome Poll of Polls suggest a possible Conservative majority of 48 in the new parliament according to Conservative Home.

But this is not a good result. With the last years of disastrous government; the catastrophic wars; the complete collapse of the UK economy (despite all the rubbish that Brown has spouted about leading the world out of recession and saving all the banks, not to mention climate change), why on Earth aren’t the Tories 20 or 30 points in the lead? Why is there even the slightest chance that either there will be a hung parliament (heard all the lamp-post jokes thanks) or worse still a Labour majority after May?

Is it because despite the fact that almost no one has a single good word for Brown and his hapless bunch of second raters, no one has that much confidence in Dave either?

If you look at what Labour has done, how much different would it have been if the Tories had been in government? Would they have reigned in the greedy speculating banks? Would they have stopped the bonus by results? Would they have seen the danger of the Housing Bubble? Would they have warned us that it would burst sooner one day?

Did they not vote wholeheartedly for both the wars, despite being allowed access to secret information on a Privy Council ‘need to know’ basis? Would they have succeeded where Brown failed miserably at Copenhagen? What would they have done differently about terrorism? Were they not equally culpable in the expenses scandals? Would the really have tackled tax evasion and non-doms?What, in fact, is different about them?

Oh yes, when they get in they will slash public spending. That’s not a lot different from what Labour will do in reality, but the Tories have been honest about their intent. The truth is of course that, just like Thatcher, Cameron will not be able to slash public spending by nearly enough to make a difference, because if he does he will bring public services to a standstill, everyone will be out on strike and the UK will continue its downward spiral. Everyone knows that a Tory government will bring hard times for all (except the super rich) because they told us they would. Labour will bring pretty much the same thing, it was just that Brown was smart enough to lie and tell us he wouldn’t.

It is possible that even if the Tories do get in with a small majority, they will wreak such havoc that after 5 years Labour will be back. Remember Thatcher only got back after her first assault on us because “she” won a war. The only wars that we shall have in the future we shall almost certainly lose because they will be against terrorists, and they never surrender.

There is a solution for Scots though.... Let's show them without any doubt that we have no trust in either of their parties. Let's make sure we have at least 20 members in Westminster come June this year and get another foot on the ladder of independence.

SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR BROWN AND CABINET

It has been announced that the Chilcot inquiry in to the invasion of Iraq will not now call Mr Brown or his ministers to give evidence until after the General Election.

The plan to summon Mr Brown to give evidence was revealed in a statement from the inquiry team working for Sir John Chilcot.

The statement listed witnesses who will be called to give evidence to the inquiry next year, who include Tony Blair, the former prime minister, and Alastair Campbell, his former spokesman.

Sir John’s committee will hold new evidence sessions in January and February, before pausing during the general election campaign that is expected to start in March.

The statement also explained that witnesses who are currently serving as ministers will not be called until after the election. It said the decision has been taken to ensure that the inquiry's work cannot be used for political purposes.

It seems to me that, before we make our choices about who should govern the country for the next up to 5 years, we should really be appraised of the part of these people in the war that killed and maimed so many of our soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens. There would be no reason not to call the members of the opposition parties who were also involved in decisions on a Privy Council basis, in order that no political advantage or disadvantage could be seen to fall to any party.

And there were we rather naively thinking that the Chilcot Inquiry was to be open, fair and independent of government.... silly old us.

The Wonder of Woolas

If Mr Brown had had anyone at all that he could have used as a replacement minister responsible for immigration, it would have been a good idea to have sacked the present incumbent pretty soon after he was made to look like a complete and utter muppet by Joanna Lumley over his ridiculous misreading of the “court of public opinion” concerning the Ghurkhas’ case.

Clearly, having trawled the back benches in the Commons and the Lords, and looked around anywhere and everywhere, under park benches for all I know, looking for someone, anyone, from anywhere, that could take the job, he has failed (again).

And that is why we were all entreated yesterday to listening to the unlovely Phil Woolas (OK, I’ve heard all the jokes... probably?), rumble on about how perfectly reasonable it was, in the current economic climate, for him to pay out bonuses of around £10,000 each to the senior executives of his Border Controls Agency.

He claimed that they were very brave men and women who put their lives on the line for us.

WHAT?

Firstly, I don’t want to put down the work that some of the members of that department do. There are hands-on people working undercover trying to find traffickers, indeed people who probably do risk life and limb in the pursuance of a good result. But we’re not giving them bonuses. The people who are getting the ten grand extra of our money are senior management.

Mr Woolas told the Today Programme “We’ve got a superb management team that is getting on top of what is probably the most difficult public policy area in political life. There are 285 million people who visit the United Kingdom every year, and organising that mass movement of people to protect our borders from the people who have bad intent is a huge job.”

He indicated that to do that job of protecting our borders from all these people with bad intent he needed to get the best people. Apparently, unless you pay massive bonuses to managers they just won’t do a hand’s turn. I’ve often wondered why governments of all political shades seem to find it necessary to pay vast amounts to get good managers (otherwise you just get rubbish), but seem content to have one of the lowest minimum wages in the EU for ordinary workers.

(In any case, it seems that all that extra money hasn’t really made any difference at all. We all know that the government’s immigration policy and practice went off the rails years ago. We have no idea how many immigrants are here; we have no idea how many released from prison are not deported... indeed, we have no idea......... of anything. Oh, and another thing, whilst it is relatively important to guard the borders, I'd think it was a bit of an exaggeration to think that it was the "most difficult public policy area in politics". Hmmm, talk about being up your own Woolas!)

Anyway, he added insult to injury by making the remarks on the day that the 100th death of a British soldier in Afghanistan this year was reported. Of course, I don’t make any distinction between the 100th and the 99th or the 3rd, but there is for some at least a symbolic importance to the number 100.

These front line troops are entitled to a bonus after 6 month tour of duty. It amounts to somewhere in the region of £3,500 for a normal infantryman out there fighting the Taliban. Now I wonder if Mr Woolas would like to compare and contrast the various dangers that a soldier in Afghanistan, on the front line faces with those of a typical manager in the Borders Agency moving his desk to that side of the room, or arranging his flowers on the coffee table we provide him with....

Like I said at the beginning, surely, surely in the whole country (coz Brown has long since given up trying to appoint ministers from the Commons) there must be someone with just a little more savvy that this dim-witted placeman, whose foot seems to reside permanently in close proximity to his mouth. He’s not even likeable; he comes across as a smug, self satisfied, supercilious moron. Phil Woolhead would be every bit as appropriate a name for him.

DO YOU REALLY WANT THIS MAN AS THE PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL OF MINISTERS?

As time goes on it becomes more and more likely that the Czech president will sign into law the Lisbon Treaty, albeit against his better judgement, but in line with Czech law, and his duty. And as time goes on, it seems equally more and more likely that we shall have as the first President of the European Council one Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, millionaire and ex-Prime Minister of the UK.

There have been many reasons offered as to why Blair should President:

*That he is known all over the world;
*that he has clout;
*that he is a consummate negotiator.

Equally many reasons have been offered as to why he should not be President:

* that his home country is one of the least EU-friendly counties;

* that when he was Prime Minister he was not particularly EU positive;

* that his home country does not use the single currency, that is to say that there may be a conflict of interest;

* that his home country is not a member of the Schengen group;

* that his potential status as a war criminal is enough to preclude him. There's an investigation going on which could potentially call him out on that. Of course we know it won't and he will be found to be whiter than white and it will be everyone and anyone's fault but his. But the truth is that, whatever the result of the whitewash, we know that he went to war on the flimsiest of pretexts, when experts advised against it, and because George Bush told him to. We know too that Shock and Awe killed, injured and maimed tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians for no gain whatsoever. It’s not like Sadam was going to still be in Baghdad when all that was going on....just like Blair and the Queen would not have been in central London if the boot had been on the other foot;

*that his fascination with America and his propensity to do what the President of America instructs could provide yet another conflict of interest.

Whilst researching this piece I came across this information in an article in the Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/6418553/Why-boys-are-turning-into-girls.html

“Yet gender-benders are largely exempt from new EU regulations controlling hazardous chemicals. Britain, then under Tony Blair's premiership, was largely responsible for this – restricting their inclusion in the first draft of the legislation, and then causing even what was included to be watered down. Confidential documents show that it did so after pressure from George W Bush's administration, which protested that US exports "could be impacted".”

I hope that Mr Blair does not become the President of the European Council. I’m not particularly pro-Europe these days, but it is where I live, and I would have to live with the consequences of this man’s appointment. I believe he will bring dishonour to the role and the Union if he is “elected”to it.

James of “Scot goes Pop” and I have already had some chat on his blog about this and he makes interesting points. I’d be interested to hear what others think.


Update: I hear on the news that Mr Blair's chances in the race to become President have become unstuck or derailed or scuppered. I attribute this in part to the wise words of this article, doubtless read by all the leaders, but far more to the fact that yesterday evening Gordon Brown (the loser) spoke up for him.... Revenge is a dish best eaten cold Gordon, isn't it?

LIAR LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE

Way back in 2007 when things started to go wrong, the bottom started to fall out of the stock market, the pound began to lose value against the dollar and the euro, Brown refused to even countenance the word “recession”.

Eventually, of course, the inevitable happened, and although everyone else had been talking about it for weeks, Brown eventually stuttered the word for the first time at question time in the Commons. Of course it was nothing to do with him at that point. Oh no sir. It had started in America. Then it had spread to France and Germany, and, as I recall, a list of other countries as long as your arm before daring to show its face on these shores.

The proud boast of the Prime Minister that he had beaten “boom and bust” with his “prudent” policies had turned out not just to be wrong, but to be disastrously and monumentally wrong. In fact just about as wrong as you could get.

While other countries were suffering a light or medium recession (mainly caused by the knock on effect of America’s serious downturn) the UK with its disastrous light touch policies on the massive financial centres in Edinburgh and London, the house price boom (which MPs had been so quick to exploit) and credit card lending on a scale previously unknown, fell deeper and deeper into depression.

With it being impossible to refute, Brown had admitted that policies needed to be put into place to deal with the financial situation, but he dithered as always and many of the policies remained just that. Of course there wasn’t that much to fix in Britain so he decided that he had to “save the world” (which of course involved a shed load of grandstanding with the Presidents of China and the US). He even, at one stage, told us that he had, in fact, done just that. Doesn’t it make you....erm .... proud?

The reality is that it was all in his dreams. His government’s handling of the crisis, in fact, was lamentable and all the more amazing when you consider that he imported so-called City experts into the government (and thus the aristocracy) in order to advise him.

Still he told us that Britain, because of his prudent policies, was better placed than other countries to come out of the recession early and in better fettle than our partners in the EU.


The reality of the situation is, of course, that whilst our continental neighbours have started to come out of their medium depth recessions, “the [British] economy shrank for a record sixth quarter in a row between July and September, new figures showed today. Forecasters had predicted slight growth but their hopes were dashed and the UK remains mired in the longest period of continuous decline since records began in 1955”.

Wouldn’t it be nice if just once in a while you could believe something the Prime Minister says? And wouldn’t it be nice if somewhere in this population of 60 million there was someone who knew something about running an economy for the good of the people, not just a few troughing bankers, MPs and Lords.

What a dirty little tyke

What a dirty old man the prime minister of Italy is. Ok, I admit Michelle Obama is a site for sore eyes by anyone's standards, and I accept that she's quite tall and he's, well.... he's quite short. But it was pretty obvious what the dirty old git was looking at... and .... what is he doing with his hands? What is priceless though is the look on the President's face.

Mr Obama has a very expressive face and he should watch it. It gives him away.

His expression when he was standing just behind Brown today when he was talking about... well, to be honest I haven't a clue what he was talking about because, as usual when Brown comes on, I turned the sound off so that at least I don't have to listen to him patronising me.... anyway, the expression on Obama's face was just incredible. Somewhere appropriately between disdain and disgust. I wish I could find a pic of that to share.

.....And Sent Him Homeward, Tae Think Again......

One step behind

According to the Daily Telegraph (and a considerable number of other sources) Mr Brown has been roundly snubbed by President Obama.

The American President has found time to meet with the Russian and Chinese Presidents, not unreasonably as along with him they are the real powers of the world. He was also prepared to drop a level and hold talks with the new Prime Minister of Japan.

However, according to the Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/6224813/Barack-Obama-rebuffs-Gordon-Brown-as-special-relationship-sinks-to-new-low.html

“British officials made five attempts to secure official talks with the US President and even agreed to a policy change in an attempt to land a joint appearance between the two leaders said diplomatic sources.”

Not only does this fool have British officials groveling and making fools of themselves in order that Jimmy can be seen with Mr Obama to “increase his popularity”, it seems that he is prepared to change British policy in order that it can be done.

OK. Here’s a wee bit of advice Toom. It would take one hell of a lot more than a wee photie of you and the President together to make you popular. It’s a lost cause. Probably no one in the whole world likes you. Not the country, nor the members of your party. The only people who may have some sort of strange affection for you will be Mr Cameron, Mr Clegg and possibly Mr Salmond. By being as awful as you are, you make their lives just that wee bit easier.

According to the Telegraph, the President is angry with Brown over the Lockerbie situation.

Well, I’m sure that, for political reasons Mr Obama must show some dismay over Mr MacAskill’s decision. American law appears to prefer vengeance to compassion and it may be difficult for the average American to understand the Scottish decision. I doubt if Mr Obama, a compassionate man, really feels that, but Mr Obama is not just a compassionate man, he is also a lawyer and an extremely clever lawyer at that. I find it impossible to believe that he would be unable to understand that the decision was a Scottish one and nothing to do with the London Executive (given that crime and punishment is largely a matter that is devolved from Federal to State government in his own country).

British Prime Ministers of both parties have banged on about a special relationship between America and Britain for as long as I can remember. I suspect that it will, despite this horrific snub, survive for the simple reason that, as an American mate of mine pointed out....

“The special relationship is built on the fact that our President tells the Brits he wants something done, and they do it. In return they get to play at being semi important.”