I noticed this comment from Malcolm G on Political Betting. I hope he won’t mind me copying it here. It sums up for me just how completely useless the government in London is. He’s talking about the riots in English cities and Cameron’s (and I suppose other's) reaction to them, dithering about whether or not to come back from holiday:
"It once again shows how inadequate Cameron is and what a pathetic leader he is, no matter what happens he is always behind the curve and forced to act. He seems to have no clue and whilst he can talk plenty it looks like he would have trouble running a bath never mind a country. Having surrounded himself with a bunch of similar types who will have been unlikely to have to even dress themselves so far in their lives never mind understand what is going on in the world, we seem to lurch from gaff to gaff. This lot are useless."
The unfortunate thing for Londoners is that the Metropolitan Police is similarly cursed with leadership you wouldn’t wish on a playgroup.
Cameron’s other great gaffe this week, rather less important perhaps, and one that should never have reached the press in my opinion, was the Italian café incident. He made his order at the bar and asked the girl to bring it out to the terrace. She replied that she was too busy, and he declined to leave a tip (which he was entitled to do if he thought the service substandard). However, ever the PR man, when he heard that the matter had caused what we call a “stooshie” in Scotland (a bit of bother), he went back, tipped her massively and had his photograph taken with her. Awwww. Of course, firstly, it is quite possible that, like in some French cafés, you will only be waiter served if you sit inside; if you sit on the terrace, its self service, so he may have been asking a busy barmaid to do something that was not her job. However, that may not be the case in Italy, at least in the upmarket cafés the likes of Cameron would frequent, and he may have been correct not to tip. If so, why did he go back and do a PR exercise? Dithering idiot.
Two questions on the financial crises in the world, that this economics illiterate finds puzzling :
Firstly, who or what is Standard and Poor? They are one of three credit agencies, so if they downgraded the US economy to AA+, why haven’t the other two? Who is right? On the basis of two to one seems to be that S&P isn’t! Does it have an agenda?
Secondly, if the € is in such a mess, how come it is more or less holding its own against the £?
