The coming General Election

It is clear that an election is imminent (and closing in on being a Constitutional necessity) but it hasn't actually been announced yet. That hasn't stopped party leaders acting as if it has been called. Might this be because there is a cap on spending during an election campaign? The government (e.g. the Labour Party) have massively upped the amount of advertising it has been doing over recent months, usually to give the impression that it is doing a stonking job, running the country. Our everyday experience would suggest otherwise of course.

Today we have business leaders saying they don't fancy a tax rise, amazingly, which gives a boost to the Tories as it amounts to support for their objection to increasing company National Insurance contributions. None of that is surprising, but the Labour response is I feel. The ludicrous Peter Mandelson (who is risibly the Business Minister) says the Tory suggestion that they would reverse the NI hike on businesses if elected, is like a child in a sweetshop who is grabbing sweets without any idea how he is going to pay for them. Well, in Opposition a party cannot know the full figures for the economy so there is a certain amount of guesswork, but stupid ideas still are stupid ideas whether you need to raise tax somewhere or not. It is however, a fairly accurate analogy of what Gordon Brown has done when Chancellor and having max'd the nations credit card, he turned (in his new PM/Chancellor role) to inventing money. And Mandelson's further assertion that there is a hole in the Tories figures is pretty rich coming from a Party that have created a massive hole in reality and also have no solid plans to cure it, or in fact to rein in the reckless spending of their PM/Chancellor. The man with the title Chancellor, but whose only role is to bring serious eyebrows to the delivery of the Party message, suggests that the whole nation will be saved by the efforts of the private sector and the increased tax revenues from their activities. Then carries on oblivious to the damage he does by increasing the burden on the private sector, by increasing the size and cost of the detrimental state sector and pushing up the interest bill like some addled gambling addict. We certainly are beyond the Age of Reason.