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Status issues slump Tories |
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Written by French Cream
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Wednesday, 03 March 2010 |
Relocate your vocational tanks to the private healthcare lawn - a Tory government is said to be nigh: Dave 'n George will be providing the brains and recalcitrant offshorer Lord Ashcroft the cash. Like a mid-size accountancy firm's move to the newest trading estate in Cannock, we're assured it's going to be great. But don't cut the blue ribbon just yet. Apparently Cameron's face (no airbrushing required) and the likelihood of a tight-fisted approach to funding a recovery (unless it's incentives for people like themselves) have dented their ratings in the polls, and the keyword now is hung. Brown has barely thrown a fruit in anger to see his dead cats bounce.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 03 March 2010 )
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Blair at the faith fountain |
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Written by I, Creation
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Wednesday, 30 September 2009 |
Quick! QUICK! Get the train down to Labour's Pardee Cunfrenz to attend an exclusive, almost-certain-to-be-one-off event on ‘faith in the marketplace' hosted by The Tony Blair Faith Foundation.
Dubbed as the ‘sort of whet Tory window dressing that would make Julian Critchley moan with pleasure' by analysts, Blair Shall Be the first to make the non-existent connection between City gambling and the sacraments, notwithstanding arcane Corporation of London ceremonies. And no, this is not just about ‘keeping faith' in inherently corrupt and self-interested systems that bring virtually no benefit to the wider economy, unless you count a load of lunch monkeys ‘regenerating' Canary Wharf as progress. It is also not a reference to the hit 1987 George Michael album.
Rather, the whole sin and forgiveness thing is well and truly in Tony's remit these days. He needed the Lord's help when he was launching his just and not-so-just wars, and now it's payback time: "Just tell me when, Lord." As Tony will tell us think it's important to remember that faith is between a man and conscience. Tony obviously feels sullied by his prime ministership (just look at his facial degradation in the picture attached) and is touching himself up with a bit of public penance.
Expect a bespoke package of Catholic futures, Ratzinger options and the infamous ‘Lourdes Bonus' to be rolled out for the dumb and blind at the Brighton conference.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 30 September 2009 )
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Written by Den Dildo
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Tuesday, 28 April 2009 |
"I spied an Islamicist taking a dump facing Makkah the other day. I was sure there were bombs strapped to the evil conspirator's pajamas. Needless to say i sped dialled the local anti-terrorist unit and had him arrested and pilloried in the liberal media before you could say 'extraordinary rendition'. Naturally, I also blamed Pakistan for that and twenty-four unrelated issues."
Douglas Murray authors and commentates for himself and the Centre for Social Cohesion, a set of guys in thrall to a Nick Cohen view of the world - promoting 'greater social cohesion' by an unhealthy and extremely excluding obsession with d'Islamists out there.
Who's backing them? Why, those proper reasonable types at Civitas: Total Phillipine approval has been gained by the CSC and yet they are still frequently described as 'right-leaning' rather than the more accurate 'swivel-eyed, right-wing freedom fondlers'. I saw Mel Phillips and Joshua Rozenberg skateboarding to Starbucks in Chelmsford the other day. When they stopped she unfortunately burped and a cog fell out of her head. Josh grinned for a bit.
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'Dubai is Market Fundamentalist Globalisation in One City' |
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Written by Al Miraaj
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Tuesday, 21 April 2009 |
Neo-colonialists; excrement in the sea; alienable human rights; leaks in prestige hotels; divided society; slave labour; debt = 107 per cent of GDP; use of precious resources for surplus activities - emirate as moribund oasis.
Appeared in early April but it's never too late to link: The Independent's Hari all-encompassing in his observations of the capitalist illusion that is the desert state of Dubai.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 21 April 2009 )
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Written by Toxik
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Friday, 28 November 2008 |
Cull is signing off in the midst of a ‘global financial crisis' that emerged fully formed from the subprime securitisation frenzy and the banks' general mania for risky assets that could be lied about to the accountants, sorry, marked to market. Capitalism will eat itself, if states allow it, which they can't as that would generate an even deeper nadir and, oh, would put the very livelihoods of swathes of decent people (and lots of bankers too) on the brink.
But that won't mean proper regulation is coming back.
To recap, during a few crazy early Autumn weeks, Bear Stearns bit the dust, Lehman Brothers effectively went bankrupt and the good bits went for sale, AIG went to the FED for a bailout, the Fed said it's going to create a Toxic Bank to deal with the shit (which is probably not going to happen), and there was flurry of UK banking recapitalization from the govt and merger and acquisition activity, which may well not happen either (Northern Rock excepted, but it would be worth £288 for every person on the planet, according to freesheet Metro). And now Iceland, Citigroup, Woolworth's, Dubai - you name it - all the borrowers who pooh-poohed capital adequacy are fucked. All this downturn finally affected global demand, in turn dropping prices - crude at $55/barrel now when it was $147/barrel in July - so the complacent have at least ruled out inflation and postponed the end of history for a bit.
So blind leading the blind, govts have to step in not really knowing what they're doing as it has been official practice to practise Greenspan light-touch regulation for some time.
"The stock of regulations must be reduced: we should trust people to make their own mistakes and learn from them. And the flow of new regulation from the EU must also be reduced: our aim should be to take back control of employment and social regulation"
D Cameron, 2005
Or as Gerrald Nicksen of Surety Management put it: "The FSA are simply jealous of us City boys and the genuine benefit we bring to ourselves, while EU regulation is there to stop Britain from being the Britain we know and cream, sorry, care about."
We were always told we should trust banks and financial wizards to make their own mistakes (How foolish of the ill-informed public. Unfortunately these mistakes have been massive and the majority of new regulation from the EU is there for a reason. Betting/hedging/speculation/offsetting is never a secure, risk-free way to make money.
Now we're in a situation where the governments really have to generate indigenous wealth rather than rely on very offshore capital and the services industry - Darling's rejigging of the numbers in the PBR will only do so much - and with the emphasis now on tax cuts, it's going to take them a lot of time to relearn.
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Engineering works scheduled – will last decades |
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Written by The Ansa Fransa
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Friday, 28 November 2008 |
The ‘just... must... make a profit...' culture overriding the social impacts of such cuts has been here for decades - just take the railways and the cuts made by Dr Beeching in the 60s.
The complete love affair with the roads and under-investment in railways, as evidenced as in Hislop's documentary on regular BBC2/BBC4 repeat at the moment, was pretty depressing stuff, all short termism to save money. Now it's the Royal Mail and other key public service providers.
Beeching is an example, as is the current Post Office predicament, of where some reform of a public service is needed but maniac cuts and distorting economies are imposed which disfigure and ruin the service in question. Tory Transport Minister Ernest Marples and his tarmac business represented no conflict of interest whatsoever, of course. He appointed Beeching and was Transport Minister for the full five years of Macmillan's last government - why wouldn't a road builder do that?
The amazing conflict of interest in this historical example was hilarious. Anyone who worked the lines during this period knows it pretty clear that there was never enough money spent and the money that was spent was on all the wrong things, Beeching should have paid more attention to that. Plus, the majority of the decisions made were not based on long-term strategy. That's why it was quicker to get to Sheffield from London in the 50s than it is today, and why you can be sure that the oedIpod soft furnishings and soft entertainment of the Virgin northwest service will never compensate for a journey that frequently diverts pasts the work to stop at every major city on the way down.
The closest to Beeching and his ilk now are those fabulous Powerpoint consultants that without any prior experience of running a railway and not wanting to listen to those persons involved in running it put their management methods to the test.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 28 November 2008 )
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