Awards For Tony Blair

It is nice that Poland think that they should recognise they efforts Tony Blair went to, at direct cost to the people of his own country to give Poles and in fact anyone from pretty much anywhere, an opportunity to take money out of the UK and help support the Polish (or some other) economy. This of course, was in addition to the increasing funds he agreed to give them via the EU.

Naturally, a number of wealthy individuals and financial institutions decided to give more direct and discreet thanks for all he did for them, often ignoring or changing British laws and regulations, to allow them to gain advantage.

And perhaps, negative things could offer an award? Although Clinton can claim to have set the ball rolling for a massive banking crisis, Blair did his part and with his economically ignorant Chancellor did an unbelievably good job of wrecking the economy. Not for him any need to co-opt the power of the Unions to destroy the country, as previous Labour administrations had to.

It would be difficult to decide though, what the award should be called? The Most Stupid Politician? The Worst Prime Minister? The Politician Most Able To Keep Morals Out Of His Every Decision? The options go on and on.

And then you need to consider the wise adage that you should know a man by the friends he keeps; in the past John Prescott, Peter Mandelson, Alistair Campbell, Gordon Brown and now, tyrants and despots the world over.

We do also, still need to know who it was that killed, or ordered the killing of Dr. David Kelly.

Double Dippy Recession

News in that the UK has had another negative quarter and for once Balls is right about something. He has said that the Chancellor needs to recognise his plan isn't working and that he needs to change tack and this is right. Whilst Osborne has talked about cuts the government has continued to borrow ever more money, so the Chancellor is actually doing what Balls has always proposed; ignore the crisis and just keep spending.

This however isn't working and so Osborne must do what he said he was going to and cut back spending. He could dodge the comedy bullets of Labour and its Union controllers, by just cutting what we don't need rather than let the Leftie bureaucrats of the Blair era pick where to cut; always the important front line.

That Osborne is starting to talk of reducing subsidies to companies employing MP's (yes Tim Yeo, that means you), is a good sign but not enough. He needs to become a realist. This means asking why we are in the EU. There isn't an answer to that. Why do we believe Green lobbyists wailing about the end of the World? We didn't pay much attention when the sandwich board man said the same thing, with identical justification.

There is no Man Made Global Warming, or Climate Change, so yes, ditch all the costly crap about carbon credits, subsidy and 'renewables' and just start using shale gas. Even then we need a miracle of government to see them ensure the massive (like 50%) drop in energy costs are passed on to consumers.

Doom And Gloom

Marks and Spencer report a profit fall and the retail sector generally seems to be in trouble. This is due to a number of reasons. The smallest and least significant is people losing their jobs. Those still in work have no reason not to 'carry on'. The major reasons are lack of disposable income and newspaper stories. On the latter, I'm surprised the media haven't accessed everyone's Facebook page and Twitter account in order to tell everyone personally and individually just how bad their life is going to be.

The papers endlessly report the end of the world and then ignore it not happening. They have no idea what is going on, so they make most of it up and guess that scaring people makes for better copy. So people hold back on spending because the papers tell them everyone else is doing the same. Not buying that dress today will, of course mean that you can pay the mortgage next month, as you are about to lose your job in the next day or so, according to the papers.

A major, real problem is rising prices. These are caused in a very small part, by producers needing to keep up with inflation. The biggest cause is either subsidies we must pay for on energy production, to allow wind turbines to be built, that will help eradicate fairies at the bottom of David Cameron's garden, or something. This is a cost without benefit. Then there is the opportunity spotted by these companies (and some others) to just increase prices, because they have realised just how stupid politicians and their bureaucrats are.

If the people who 'control' your prices believe in dragons, you should be able to charge pretty much what you like. Look at water. When we had a (government, again) generated crisis in supply, the water companies said that they were willing to meet their existing legal obligation to fix leaks, if they were allowed to put their prices up. And no-one, it seems, thought that outrageous.

Then there is increased taxation to take into account and so we have a situation where people are scared and penniless, not for any real or tangible reason, but because the government interferes and over taxes you, me and business due to their own inabilities and so the economy doesn't grow. As ever, a key indicator of a successful, or failing economy is the state of the retail trade. I wonder if Cameron can find time in his busy (games) schedule to listen to anyone other than a communist inspired pressure group, be it homosexual or environmental.