Government still behind the cruve again on swineflu

Take this advice current on the HPA's web site (Standard practical advice for investigating individuals with possible swine influenza infection v1 30 April 2009):

1. Which patients should be tested?
Currently we do not have transmission of swine influenza
A within the UK.
To be considered for testing a patient should have:
• Fever greater or equal to 38°C or history of fever,
AND flu-like illness or other severe illness suggestive
of an infective process
AND
• Onset within seven days of travel from an area known
to have cases of swine influenza. The updated list is
available at on the HPA website.

That means no secondary infection cases are automatically tested.

This document may have been downloaded and could be referred to for days by "health professionals".

Just a few hours ago the first confirmed human to human transmission case was identified in Scotland. Remember this case happened because someone was allowed to wonder round the country of a flight from Mexico and go out drinking with their rugby club.

If anyone from the HPA reads this here is what you need to do:

Put at the heading of each document a date by which that document should not be refered to any long and redownloaded. Currently you might like to restrict that to every 6 hours. ( Its only a little help to put a version number on because odds are the document's been printed out and is blue tacked to someone's office wall for goodness knows how long. Right now that has a real impact ).

Did no one think this stuff through ? The control of documentation is basic practice int he Engineering world, I'm just appauled by all of this. Command and control is definately lacking.

Update: They seem to have woken up in part to this on some other documents - other algorithm documents advice checking with the web site before taking action. Better to put an expired notice on it !

PS I'm told that health care professionals have had a hard time getting on the HPA web site at all today. Now maybe that's just a local internet connection thing, but maybe nobody stress tested their systems and its another sign that things have not been worked through.

The signs that the government can handle a pandemic are not good

As evidence I present:

1. The 2001 Foot and Mouth Epidemic - where eventually despite being fully prepared with loads of protocols plans etc the Military had to step in to sort the mess out.
2. Suddenly discovering you need 17 million more course of Tamiflu just as a potential outbreak starts.
3. Suddenly realising you are 30 million face masks short, and putting them on order.
4. Completely failing to deal with the health threat of people returning from the source of the outbreak, indeed letting one young girl ( who then showed symptoms ) return to school. ( Kids are very vulnerable and also the most effective transmission vector for this sort of thing).
5. Inability to distribute the supplies of Tamiflu even when you can count the number of cases on two hands, with the odd foot. R4 reported patients "flu buddy" having to go to University College Hospital in London to queue up with all the other people who have just been in contact with infectious people and might be pre-symptoms but still infectious ( so that's everyone who touches anything they did between home central London and back as potential and untraceable cases) . There was a GP on the radio bemoaning this at lunch time, and parents of friends of the poor girl in Devon whose kids were not in her class not knowing when their kids will get issued with courses of the drug.
   

And this is just the begging. If things take of, and a brief bit of thinking about the amount of time in Mexico its taken to go from 1 to 2k+ ( and lets hope its a lot of + otherwise mortality is going to be horrifying ) means it could take of int he UK in a few weeks. Hospitals won't be able to cope and the only thing keeping the lid on will be the thought that if you do get ill you will be issued with Tamiflu or other anti virals.

There are a number of self congratulatory articles in the press about us not panicking and other claiming no one will die in the UK ( I had a partial run in with one "Numerate Doctor" over at Con Home earlier int he week ). I think they are not facing up to what could be ahead of us.

Avoiding panic will require trust, demonstrated competence and strong local empowered leadership.

In short put the Army in charge if things take off.

And if there is a vaccine - which country will benefit ?

Assuming things carry on in there current direction with Swine Flu and at least epidemics, develop, and I'm hoping it doesn't, let me introduce you to the next political hot potato - vaccines, or rather their availability.

If mortality is high, how long will they be tested for ?

Not all countries are equal for flu vaccines.

The UK, I think, has a major production capability. The US doesn't.

Will the EU "order" that all stokpiles of vaccines produced must be equally shared ?

So that could lead to producer countries allowing some of their citizens to suffer so that other countries citizens don't.

Given Gordon Brown's weak caving in over the UK's over paying into the EU budget and its partial refund ( he believed the French would think about changing the EU CAP in exchange for more EUgeld from the UK and took their word for it !! Ha. ) I'd like to send someone else to Brussels to bargain for UK lives.

Of course perhaps the vaccine can only be made in France ( no question how they'll act) or Germany. In which case we'll be in the beggers position.

My guess is they will try to fix this one behind closed doors, and not even tell us about it.

Update: Fox News is now running with this in the US - since the US lacks vaccine manufacturing capacity.

And he said the United States wouldn't necessarily have the upper hand in seeking a hoard of those doses, since much of our vaccine manufacturing is done overseas -- in countries like France, Belgium, Germany and Great Britain.

"That's going to be a very delicate discussion and argument," Halsey said, when asked about how the vaccines could be distributed globally. "The countries where the manufacturing takes place are going to have some say in this."

I say again do you want Gordon Brown negotiating the number of vaccine doses we should keep ?

Andrew Lansley on the gaps the Govt has left in the UK's preparedness for Pandemic Flu

H/T To Con home and Playpolitical

Why Hatty Harperson is going to cost you money, lots of it

See this post by Neil Craig on his "A Place To Stand" blog for some indication as to why you pay so much in tax, and how Harriet "The Man Hater" Harman's plans to kill efficient business and punish men by removing their equal standing before the law and destroying their lives will also cost you money.

I know what he means I have a Laptop that when the same model was bought by a Cuncil in the North West for my sister in Law cost nearly double the price.

The government is still not acting fast enough on swine flu

Take the following notes from the US CDC (Cnetre for Disease Control ) web site, I've underlined the key part:

How can someone with the flu infect someone else?
Infected people may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 7 or more days after becoming sick. That means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick.

And yet the UK Govt is sending people home and letting them off airplanes from Mexico to wonder round the country with the advice to phone NHS Direct / their GP is they feal unwell.

It could be too late. There may now be a number of people without obvious connections to those who returned from Mexico wondering around the country shedding virus, some of whom haven't developed symptoms yet and maybe some are carriers with very mild cases.

We have confirmed cases with considerable geographic spread already and advice which might identify cases one day after they become infectious.

Things are on a knife edge right now. Perhaps the initial wave of infections can be contained. Perhaps human to human transmission will prove harder in the UK. The government has decided to gamble.

What they could have done was book a nice friendly hotel to Quarantine people in for 5-7 days on their return from Mexico.

Instead, because the guidance says so, they have let people fan out across the country.

This could yet be a very costly mistake.

There is a real lack on initiative in government right now - all they think about is how they might look to head of criticism ( hence ordering supplies which they know propoably they should have ordered years ago ).

Lets hope this doesn't take hold.

The government is forced to act on face masks - but probably too late

The Labour government are now starting to try and run to catch up. The Telegraph reports orders for 30 million face masks. ( How realistic is that at short notice with very high world demand ? But better to try than to give up ! )

I think they have just woken up to the political implications of being the only country not to be able to provide masks to its population.

And Her Majesties loyal opposition is starting to push the government. See this quote of Andrew Lansley in the Telegraph:

Andrew Lansley, Shadow Health Secretary, said: "The Labour Government were warned by the industry and urged by us for years that they needed to get a stockpile of face masks ready for front line staff.

"It is now unlikely that we will be able to get these masks by the time we need them. I only hope that NHS staff do not suffer as a consequence. This does not inspire confidence that Alan Johnson is in control of the situation."

He's quite right and this is about time.

It will take more than wheeling out the odd "expert" to say that the British don't need face masks for the "general public" to convince people that the government did a good job in not taking a relatively cheap measure to help protect the population.

For those who are intrested a set of gloves could be more important in public settings.

By the way the most use for face mask would be for preventing disease spread within families in home nursing situation ( see CDC advice here ), and given that the only way to handle the peak of an epidemic is to have people looked after at home this should have been a basic consideration. Brown tells us we are well prepared, its clearly not the case.

To those who read this who are in a position of authority - we don't want panic, but we do now want urgency, effectiveness and competence. Forget about being re-elected and if you can't handle things be honest and hand over to someone who can.

So what's the mortality rate for this swine flu ? Why the mortality in the US compared to Mexico just seems low, but isn't

The current outbreak of swine flu is clearly very contagious. It is also clearly very wide spread in Mexico, given the location foreign travellers are coming how with infections from. The two cases in the UK (Scotland) have already created a significant number of other cases of concern.

You hear case numbers mentioned on the radio, but they are very imprecise. Today's radio 4 Today mentioned 2000 cases - but is that current or in total. If its in total then 150 deaths for 2000 cases is a very alarming mortality rate. I assume there are vastly more cases which people have recovered from than are being reported. (Update Reuters have a report of world case number here - if they contain all known cases rather than current cases then mortality would seem to be indicated as high. The Mexican figures suggest 9% - all the figures I've used here are 0.5% - lets pray that in reality the number of mild and unreported cases in Mexico is far higher as we already know its very infectious.)

However if the flue kills about 0.5% of cases ( at the lower end of the 0.5-2% range UK planning seems to think likely ) then there are 30,000 cases in Mexico.

Mexico city has a population of 20,000,000 and the country 109,000,000. That would mean a final casualty rate of 272,500 - ie quarter of a million, assuming 50% of the population get infected.

The UK equivalent is 150,000 fatalities. If mortality is higher or transmission is more effective then that number goes up a lott ( the govt sees 755,000 as its top end projection ). The weak response from the UK government so far, which has consisted mostly of arrogance about being the best prepared country for the coming storm ( now where have we heard that before ? ) does not fill me with confidence.

Given the high amount of medical attention those lucky enough to be the early victims will receive it reasonable to assume mortality can be kept much lower than that initially.

None of this means the virus, which is now in the UK and US is any less deadly than Mexico.

I assume our media's science correspondents are keeping this quiet. But that's a mistake. To avoid panic people need to be assured that their government is levelling with them.

If we are to accept the decisions of doctors and civil servants about who gets treatment or a ventilator and who dies at the peak of an epidemic we need to have trust and faith that they are being open and honest. The alternative is a break down in public order just at the time that the police and military can't cope.

If the mortality rate is 0.5% then given the 40-60 cases identified outside the US we can't really tell anything about the mortality rate, except to rule out ebola type mortality. So far for the chances of a fatality to reach 50%, without medical intervention, would require 138 cases.

This is why the reports of the disease being milder else where are not reassuring.

Finally

Take a look as some pandemic flu (avian) simulations for the US and the expected profile for the UK. What you'll see is a sort of phoney war at the start, until centres of infection spread then the explosion of cases.

Also a typical curve of the profile of an epidemic from the UK govt report "Pandemic Flu" by the Cabinet office.

Update: Sad news for first US death of a child here. That's one fatality in 68 cases. Not enough yet to be statistically sure of large scale outcomes ( this would roughtly indicate a mortality of about 1.4% despite what is presumably very good health care in the US,. If sustained it would be very bad news. The other key issue is transmission rates [unknown currently] ). Cause for concern and a tragedy for their family.


PS My view has now changed from an earlier post. I think this is alarming. Most alarming of all is the thought that the same govt that couldn't control foot and mouth is now going to be responsible for trying to save my family and community.

The arrogance of government.

I've been spending a bit of time trying to get a hold on the swine flu situation and have come across the official UK planning advice.

Two things strike me:

1) The defeatism in the advice. No attempt is to realistically be made to prevent the spread of disease through air travel - yes you read that right. There are sections that talk about having to appease pesky foreign govts that haven't given up like ours has with pre departure screenings of people. After all the advice tells us that even with 99.9% drop in foreign travel ( the other 0.1% is I assume govt minister flying to Afghanistan to try and get good publicity shots ) would only delay the spread by 1 month or so.

But given the fact that a vaccine is 4-6 months away and the pandemic may come in waves, with later waves being worse than the early ones, that one month could buy a lot of lives. Not civil service or government lives you understand - as they'll be critical services like "nurses, doctors and teachers"(TM New Labour when smearing something they don't like ) and will get clinical priority. Just us ordinary folk will miss out.

2) The govt has decided that face masks are just not worth it for the general population as they " there is no evidence they are effective". How hard did they look ?

If there's a high mortality pandemic flu outbreak wouldn't you rather the govt had spent 10p out of the thousands and thousands of pounds tax you pay them to provide you with a face mask ? The govt of Mexico seems to think its a good idea. As did those in Asia during the SARS outbreak.

Even it it made no difference ( which I personally doubt ) at least people would feel better.

Only the UK civil service could come to a conclusion like that.

If things do get bad this will be a key political issue and the population will just not understand why the government must be protected, but not its people. Especially when the cost of doing so would have been so small given adequate warning.

If you really want to get depressed follow this link. Personally I'd get yourself a stiff drink before reading it. Kind of reminds me of the skills they used on Foot and Mouth, just on a larger scale.

Time to get ourselves familiar with the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 I think ....

Update: Just been told that flights some routes in the US to Mexico have been cancelled, but I can't confirm it via any other source. So its just a rumour. No news for example of Houston airport's web site or myFox Houston.

I've also seen reports via Twitter of Canadian flights being cancelled - no confirmation. Perhaps confusion between people cancelling their trips and official action.

Here we go : Just heard a Govt representative ( a minister ? ) on the radio saying that masks are no good, need changing twice a day, make people over confident (!! yes really) and are too expensive.

I just don't believe any of that. We are looking at a cost between nappies and toilet paper here. Even if the govt didn't want to provide for its citizens it should ahve allowed us to buy them if we wanted ...

Shortly they will be trying to justify leaving direct flights to Mexico and the US running, just wait.

Shouting fire in a crowded theatre

There are two likely interpretations on the current swine flu outbreak.

1) It an event with high risks, but currently the virus is only causing deaths in Mexico ( and those reports are from the city ). The Authorities are nervous in case theirs a mutation to something more troublesome ( and as the number of human hosts sky rockets the chances of that increase dramatically ). Whilst the death toll of over 100 looks big, its in a city of 20 million people. There will have been a considerable number of other deaths.

Also flights from Mexico haven't been cancelled, which surely would be the case if a high mortality Pandemic was expected. ( Whilst the experts who say the flu can't be contained are no doubt right, it can be delayed giving time for a vaccine to be developed ).

The US has not taken measures that would be required if they saw a clear threat ( schools shut etc ). Update: This is starting to happen and the US has released 25% of its federal reserves of anti-Flu drugs to areas that are likely to be affected.

I wonder if the famous poor air quality in Mexico city has contributed to the deaths. This flu is supposed to be a respiratory disease. Also I wonder if smoking isn't far more common in Mexico?

Hence vigilant but relaxed is the correct outlook.

2) Things are far worse than is being reported. The BBC seems to have a contact in a Mexican hospital who is saying this. Deaths are being hidden as the authorities wish to avoid panic.

Personally I think this is far less likely, though it would be understandable. Its hard to keep a lid on things in the Internet world, I would have thought the BBC should get more sources for their story.

If this is true the lid won't be able to be kept on events for more than a few days, which will then be followed by chaos.

The argument against free speech here is the right to call fire in a crowded theatre case. I think this is mistaken, and trust would be one of the key factors in allowing any government to handle such an epidemic. That trust has to be earned and maintained. If people think they are being routinely lied to then mass panic will be uncontainable. It would be a very bad mistake.

Right now my strong balance of opinion is with 1). Update I'm now leaning more towards 2 based on current information.

Update: Google map of reported cases here - note cases and potential cases in Spain and UK.

This subject has just been covered in some detail on R4's news at one. It makes sobering listening.

Questions are now being asked about why the picture from Mexico is so confused.

Thinking further the fatalities in Mexico rather than the US may be a function of the number of cases. It appears the virus is far more widely present in Mexico than the recorded cases suggest, and hence a low mortality rate would still yield the headline figure of deaths we've seen, but not int he US ( with far fewer current cases ) - and be the same virus.

Well said sir !

There have been a number of posts about this week Question Time, which I'm part way through listening and watching now.

A gentleman has just proposed that Ministers should be qualified for the jobs they hold ( his photo is below, I didn't catch his name ).

You know he has a good point ....

In the US, where the executive is separate from the legislature, they can appoint people who actually know something about the department they manage and are generally well qualified and capable.

In the UK we have an ever shrinking pool of MPs with any experience of business or the outside world and a government that has clearly just failed.

It would mean a shake up of the constitution, but it might be needed. ( There is a way round this inn the UK with the house of Lords, but Lords now rarely become important - unless they are political types like Lord Mandelmort ).

Good and bad news on swine flu

Reuters has reported that the US Centre for Disease Control now thinks that Swine flu cannot be contained. If it can't be contained there, then global spread must be the most likely outcome.

The good news is that the impact of the disease in the US seems to be far milder than in Mexico. ( Update Looking at the figures I'm now not so sure this is the case. US cases are relatively small and getting high grade medical care. Mortality between 0.5 and 2% is expected for Flu Pandemic - given the number of cases the absence of out of Mexico deaths could just be chance ).

This is one to watch.

Its something the UK Govt is likely to grasp like a drowning man, allow Brown to pose and convene COBRA whilst sounding solemn.

If the UK did want to try to prevent spread here then action is due now. Though from what I've seen of flu outbreak simulations on documentaries its unlikely to be effective.

Update: The Guardian is reporting a member of a BA crew from Mexico city is under observation for flu like symptoms. We all have reason to wish him well and hope its just normal flu. [ Further it turns out he's OK, but there are other suspect cases now in Scotland. ]

Further From NY Times
MEXICO CITY —President Felipe Calderón published an order Saturday that would give his government extraordinary powers to address a deadly flu epidemic, including isolating those affected by the rare virus, inspecting their homes and ordering the closure of any public events that might result in more infection.

23:46 25/4/09 I guess there is tremendous potential for rumour and damaging panic here. However some of the reports from Mexico city are mixed. The BBC has a comment ( unsubstantiated as far as I can tell ) from some saying things are far worse than is being widely reported.

Perhaps a common sense statement and sense of perspective is provided here by Dr Marc Siegel on Fox News' site.

Teaching Union condemns Conservative plans for Primary Schools - so we're onto something then !

The vested interests are up in arms about Conservative plans to improve education by freeing good performing primary schools.

Catch a load of the NASWT's Chris Keates:

"Having already announced academies will be the norm for secondary schools, this proposal for primary schools completes the Tories' blueprint for the dismantling of state education.

There is no evidence that severing the links between local authorities and schools improves standards of education, tackles disadvantage or gives parents more influence.

These plans are the naked marketisation of education and will place thousands of children and young people at the mercy of private, voluntary and independent providers."

I hope he's right, because leaving children at the mercy of the state vested interest education system has worked out very badly indeed.

There are many other things where we're at the "mercy" of the market which perform vastly better than the parasitic state with its interests in bleeding people dry for taxes and gold plated public sector pensions whilst dumping those who make wealth on the scrap heap.

PS Again this week's Economist declares Labour's education reforms have failed.

The Economist brands Brown's budget dishonest

I have long read and enjoyed the Economist and have been a subscriber for over two decades, even though it is the voice of the continuing SDP.

But I have noticed over the last day the sound of the patience of many on the soft SDP / New Labour groupie left snapping with this budget. ( The Economist doesn't even pretend to ascribe the budget to the hapless Alistair Darling ). I saw Janet Street Porter on "This Week" clearly still in shock as the real implications of Labour mismanagement and destruction of our economy have been sinking in since the budget. Grey Dyke, always an outrider for the Labour project, tried some guff about US capitalism but nobodies going to buy that excuse.

But oh the strength of the words from the economist. They have called the budget dishonest in their leader. They details the deceptions and political tactical decisions Brown has made at the expense of the country.


This weeks UK edition has the strap line "Desperate Measures" on the front and its leader finished with these words "The public is losing patience with him, and so is this newspaper".

Its time for those in Labour to admit they are not up to the job and resign and let those who could save our country try.

Update: It seems there's a petition ont he No10 web site to get Brown out. Sounds like a worth cause to me ! Go here.....

David Cameron is now going to have to run a 14 month marathon

This morning I listened, as much as you can when your getting kids ready for school, to David Cameron's interview on R4's today.

As ever I was irritated by the BBC's instance on pushing the line that Labour would have them take ( the journalistic game of this week is to get the "Tories will cut " headline for Gordon to play with ).

But I was impressed by how David Cameron dealt with the tricks, and referred back to what the Conservatives have already said and proposed to answer these questions.

Not every question deserves an answer in the terms the questioner demands.

As a young man I was always impressed by how Jesus handled trick questions from those who were trying to trap him.

David Cameron's going to need that wisdom over the long distance to the next election.

Gordon Brown, ever the partisan politician, wants and advanced copy of the Conservative manifesto so he can implement the things he can and misrepresent those he can't. He has no "vision" of his own - just a parasite grasp on the leavers of power and a determination to survive whatever the cost tot he country and its people.

This game is going to be played out until we are all sick of it - but play it David Cameron must and he must pace himself and deal with the spin, smears and lies that Brown / Balls /Mandelson will try to throw at him.

The good news, and there is so little of that these days, is he seems up to the task.

Its time to bring the government down

Things are now passing beyond just party politics towards national humiliation and disaster.

It is quite clear than Gordon Brown's government is at best incompetent and at worse insane or deliberately working to bring the country to ruin.

Its time for the "Norway debate". The country just can't go on like this, certainly not for 14 more months.

The best way would be for a vote of no confidence and for some of the Labour MPs who perhaps love their country more than themselves and their careers to throw Brown out of office.

Perhaps David Cameron needs to do a deal with the likes of Charles Clarke for a government of national unity, supported by a patriotic minority of Labour MPs.

Reading Jeff Randall's latest article in the Telegraph you just know something must be done.

We can't wait 14 months, Brown has to go now.

On the lighter side

My daughter has finally worn me down into letting her have a pet.

Given that she started of looking for a puppy I hope I've limited the damage to a Hamster ( Humphrey the hungry hamster by the looks of things ). Though I once had a Gerbil and always looked down on Hamsters ( slow and lethargic etc ) but this one seems anything but. He's already formed his own escape committee and is training for the London Marathon on his Hamster wheel at night.


Now I'm busy googling Hamster teeth and welfare as well as spending too much time blogging and not getting enough work done !

Still Humphrey's cute, but keeps scratching. Does he have mites ? I bet any vets bill is 5x the cost of buying him.

I'm busy trying to gather a set of useful web sites for looking after Hamsters at the moment.

But it takes my mind of the criminal irresponsibility of the Labour government for a few minutes, so perhaps he's worth it, after all the big bills are coming in the future from Gordon Brown.

PS Perhaps I should have got her to name him Special Patrol Group.

Top ten Brownies of the budget: Fraser Nelson

This is worth a look by Fraser Nelson.

If Labour's budget is seen as lacking credibility with the markets then the ground is going to open beneath the Treasury very shortly. Darling ( or Balls when he's replaced ) will have to come back with an emergency budget. I Wonder how they'll spin that one ?

And what news of England ?

The budget has been spun, but the news is sinking in. The Scotsman Alistair Darling, with his Scottish boss sitting next to him was careful to mention in his speech that appropriate increases in spending would be made in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for the schemes he announced.

But will the cuts be in the same proportion as the Barnett formula demands?

Apparently the Red Book has a lost of efficiency savings by department ( most of them English departments ), so will corresponding decreases in the budgets to the devolved administrations be made?

I'm guessing they won't be made in full. Watch closely.

By the way happy St George's day - the Dragon of New Labour is on its knees - we now need to finish it off.

First reaction to budget 2009

I've done my best to follow the budget debate, despite some IT issues in the Shed this morning and here's my initial response.

In summary Darling has tried to put off necessary decisions, which means dealing with his main constraint which is now his ability to borrow money in our name. Therefore he has to give the impression that debt will fall, and fall quickly in the future. To achieve this he has put forward growth forecasts that certainly caused me to have a sharp intake of breath.

The govt efficiency savings aren't worth the risk of RSI in refuting, needless to say no one believes them.

Apparently the city is currently working out that the govt intends to raise over £200 billion in debt soon, and has had to use unusual ways of placing this debt due to the clear threat it won't sell.

The revenue raising measures will be ineffective, and are really there to help cover the political risks of just raising debt with no attempt to raise income. ( Though 5p on beer is going to hurt ! ).

The budget only balances because of the imaginary figures Mr Darling has conjured up. He's far closer to recklessness than prudence, but then it appears he doesn't care any more, at least not for us.

The truth is the economy is crashing at the fastest rate since 1945, and Alistair Darling has decided to put of dealing with the facts till after the next election by humming really loud and sticking his fingers in his ears.

That's going to be really bad for the rest of us and our children as we allow him to mortgage all our futures due to weak political leadership and a complete failure of patriotism in favour of selfish Labour party careerist interests.

Update: Other people have the money to be raised this year at £220 billion and counting ....

PS Its now clear that the 5-% tax rate won't raise much but will piss off lots of people who create wealth. Still it will allow Labour to run a hate filled campaign on a class war basis, so thats all right then ....

Public debt stabalisation costs - what Brown doesn't want you to see

From the Labour truth and embarrassing fact expunged IMF report:

Table 1.8. Public Debt and Stabilization Costs, end-2009

(In percent of GDP)

	Gross Government Debt			Financial
	200S	2010	2008-2010 (Percentage point	Stabilization Costs
Country	(Percent of GDP)	(Percent of GDP)	change)	(Percent of GDP)
Australia	8	7	-1	0.3
Austria	62	73	10	7.4
Canada	64	77	13	2.8
Denmark	22	30	7
Finland	33	46	13
France	67	80	13	1.8
Germany	67	87	19	3.1
Greece	95	109	13	4.1
Ireland	43	84	41	13.9
Italy	106	121	15	0.9
Japan	196	227	30	1.7
Netherlands	53	61	9	8.0
New Zealand	19	30	11
Norway	67	67	0	0.3
Portugal	65	78	14	2.3
Spain	39	59	20	3.7
Sweden	36	44	8	7.7
United Kingdom	52	73	21	13.4
United States	71	98	27	12.1

As BOM reports the Labour govt has bullied the IMF into removing the following table from their report. ( If I heard right on the radio is revised slightly down ).

This is the utter disaster that Labour have driven us into and they would rather you didn't find out about until after the next general election.

For the country or for the Election ?

That's the choice Alistair Darling had when putting his budget together.

Has he taken the painful decision now that will give us some chance in the coming years and not steal more from the future of our children than is now necessary ?

Or will is be the sort of budget Gordon Brown would produce. Highly political with measures designed to make life difficult for the Conservatives based on his understanding of our likely manifesto ?

I'd like to believe Alistair Darling would put the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland before the Labour party, but he wouldn't be the sort of New Labour politician we have all learnt not to trust if he did.

Frightening damage is now being done to our country, and reports are that Labour minister are busy signing 15 contracts for pet projects they want to make impossible for future governments to cancel.

As with MPs expenses and Gordon Brown's laughable attempt to rehabilitate himself, our money is likely to be w=wasted on the unqualified selfish self serving Labour career politicians who have lead us into this disaster.

I don't hold out much hope for the budget.

The only question is what will they be trying to hide from tomorrows headlines in the small print this time ?

Remeber "Blair denies 'Labour smear' over Tory cuts" - 2005 ?

For those who think that the final undeniable exposure of Labour's spin and smear operation just impacts personalities and "tittle tattle " ( Copyright 2009 The Prince of Darkness , use acknowledged ) consider the impact of the Blair/Brown smear and misrepresentation in 2005 of Conservative plans to reduce the rate of expansion of public spending. ( Personally I think this one has Gordon Brown's finger prints all over it ).

Unemployment would rise by 300k ! Teachers, Doctor's and Nurses would be fired en mass. Only Labour would guarantee the fantastically useless "New Deal".

Well we are all now going to pay the price of that distortion and Gordon Brown's plan to destroy the UK's fiances pursuing his political agenda ( a combination of stealth socialism and destruction of the state and personal ambition - ably helped by McPoison, Balls et al ).

If the Conservatives had won in 2005 we would have been in a far better condition to tackle the upcoming financial disaster facing the government. Instead the cuts will be arbitrary, panicked, unplanned, wasteful in themselves ( efficiency savings in Govt almost always seem to require spending yet more money ).

Labour and especially Brown's refusual to even allow rational debate in 2005 about government spending combined with its smears on Conservative spending and immigration plans ( both of which now have been shown to be the right course of action - anyone who denies this perhaps needs to book a session with Dolly Draper, who needs the work ).

Labour clung to power in 2005 through spin, smear, poison, lies and betrayal of our nation.

GBP 15 billion efficieny savings - yeah right

The spin is on again.

Today's incredible news to be swallowed is the pre-budget leak ( ™ Gordon Brown ) - as opposed to the pre-budget report to grab more headlines - that government is going to magic £15 billion savings from, wait for it, efficiency savings. However its over 5 years (Trick copyright Gordon Brown in budgets 97,98,99,00,01,02,03,04,05,06,07), and of course any decisions are post election. ( Could they have been reading the polling that says the tax paying public, who still have jobs, want to see government make savings ? ) So is this £3billion a year really ? If so its a drop in the government ocean.

Despite even its small nature no one - and I mean no one - believes this, unless its accompanied by examples of cuts and redundancies. ( Remember Lord Digby Jones thinks you could drop the civil service by 50% and it would get better - so there's scope ).

But Labour won't do this, just as Brown and Johnson sacrificed our futures by not reforming civil service pensions before the last general election.

There can be only two reasons for this bit of spin:

1) So that eventual cuts don't seem to bad and are through the media cycle to allow cynical Labour to dictate the headlines it wants for the papers.
2) If no major savings are at least announced it will be impossible for the extra borrowing that Brown Darling announces to be financed. Indeed its announcement could cause a run on the pound and government bankruptcy.

Labour have destroyed our today and now they want to make sure they get your children too.

PS Beeboids - if you want to do your job, the headline should be £3billion per year - but you allow yourselves to be manipulated again. That's bias.

Mandelson is at the root of Liebour's evil

The Prince of Darkness ( aka Peter Mandelson - forced to resign twice from the Cabinet - sent of to Europe on a very high paid job and back for a third snout in the trough experience with Gordon Brown ) is trying the old Jedi mind trick on the media (aka spin).

He's announcing that the scandal over Labour's dirty tricks campaign run by Gordon Brown long term associates is over. And of course using standard Labour spin deceit techniques he tries to re-write history - most of which is hardly a week old. Get a load of this for pure evil and deception:

Lord Mandelson said ..... the prime minister had acted "so decisively and quickly in getting rid of him".

This is demonstrably not the case (Brown dithered and apparenetly accepted his old friends resignation only when the pressure was unbearable - when sacking for misconduct was surely required - I wonder if he keeps his gold plated public sector taxpayer funded pension as a result ? ) - but that doesn't stop Mandelson for one minute.

It will be interesting to see how all the MSM commentators who have been rushing out Damian McBride stories react to one of the Liebour Undead who hasn't yet been dispatched by Guido Von Hesling.

Remember the lies, spin deception all came in with the New Labour project and who was at its heart?

Of course the ever faithful BBC runs the story with the prominence that you would expect from the prince's favoured familiar, but unlike the old days on post 97 other views make it into the report - although way down in the article.

Update: Maybe this is the news story Lord Mandelmort is trying to bury with the above absurd statement ?

Despite all the spin and chaff being fired by Labour spin doctors the question of how the email really got out is still open. Since the effect of the email leak has been to strip Brown of man of the thugs who protected his position an internal Labour party source can't be ruled out.

Further: Seems I'm not the only one to wonder if the leaked emails aren't really a smoking gun re-starting the Blairite/Brown civil war.

Patching the gap in our democracy: Economic term limits

There is a recurring weakness in our democracy. Permission to rule for a limited time has become replaced with a mandate to rule the future through debt, and to reward current politicians at everyone's future expense.

For example Labour were never elected with a mandate to sell us all into debt.

So what is to stop a political party in power from destroying the future for most of us, without letting us know they will do it at the time they seek a mandate ?

My answer is to limit mandates to govern by temporal and economic limits.

Every party will need to make a forecast for the governments debt, as measured by an independent body, over the years it intend to govern. If the actual debt varies by say 25% then that governments temporal mandate is limited to 6 months from that point - still leaving it some room to manoeuvre. This would allow for government to continue in exceptional circumstances, but force a government which is carrying out the scotched earth policy that this one is to seek a mandate to do so.

The use of taxpayer money for "campaigning"

The following advert has been appearing at taxpayer expense ( ie you paid for it ) in the most popular newspapers in very prominent positions.

Just like the "Real Help Now" slogan, that taxpayers have to fund and Labour politicians use.

PS Does anyone think Justice Seen, Justice Done is a fair description of the Home Office after 10 years of Labour ? ( And anyway isn't there a department of Justice now ? )

Strategic economics and economic warfare against the UK

My occasional holiday with old university friends and their families was good fun ( South Derbyshire may not strike you as an obvious holiday location, but there's plenty to do with your family and we all had as good a time as anywhere we've been. Man in a Shed even had a go on "Rita Queen of Speed" at Alton Towers - 0-100km/hr in 2.2 secs - the queuing up was a terrifying wait, but once it was over I wanted to go straight back again. )

But our conversations turn more to our children's education - despair now reigning of the state education system, one of my friends resigning as a school governor after the school refused to admit it had failed pupils in one year - despite the evidence being right in front o their faces.

And then to economics, or more specifically the chemical industry. Now I know the image of the chemical industry is bad, especially away from the areas that rely on it for employment. But remember the UK was a major player int he Chemical Industry a decade ago. We had our own multinational, ICI, although one that seemed hell bent on commercial suicide. We still have major Engineering contractors in this country, but much of our industry is falling into foreign hands, and some of those hands are arms of foreign states which wish to strip out that industry and move it to their own locations.

Now those state owned companies, who are building massive (and I mean massive) infrastructure in their own countries to produce the chemicals we used to make here are buying key infrastructure here. They are running it for a few years, and now they are closing it down.

That could be economic warfare rather than the free market. Its time people started to tell the difference before its too late and ask themselves how we should conduct trade with parties who have objectives other than profit in mind.

Dangerous dogs and Gordon Brown's culpability

Just what is it with Gordon Brown and apologies ?

All he has to say is he's sorry and regrets any distress that those he selected to work for him have caused distress and offence. That's the decent thing to do, it would even improve the general public's image of him ( though not mine as I'm now beyond reconciliation with the idea that Gordon Brown is a decent honest man ).

We have Alan Johnson on the media right now with the spin de jour that ""Gordon Brown had nothing to do with this. You apologise for the things you are responsible for," see the BBC here.

Right oh Alan, lets see if I can lay this out for you:

Brown is closely, very closely, associated with McBride. He came over from the Treasury and is widely seen as an attack dog - his transfer with Brown after the coup against the elected prime minister shows he's Brown's attack dog. Brown knew what sort of man he is. (We can't tell if Browns intense interest in anti-Tory tactics had him discussing these things with McBride and Draper - who has been invited to chequers to discuss Labour's failure to control the Internet ).

If you own a dangerous dog and don't control it then you are responsible for what happens. The dog bites and savages because its in his nature - the owner is responsible.

The same goes for attack dogs.

You would have thought an ex-postman would understand that.

PS I assume the likable Mr Johnson was wheeled out today as one of the last Labour minister not universally despised in the country. He's wasting his good name on this issue.

Update: It is always worth paying attnetion to the precise meaning of words used by Labour spin doctors and their number ten tax payer funded colleagues. The Guardian reports number ten saying "Neither the prime minister, nor anybody else in Downing Street, had knowledge of these emails.".

That does not equate with a denial of knowledge or even instigation of a plan to smear senior and popular Conservatives.

Number 10 needs to make itself available for a series of questions with truthful answers ( not Gordon Browns standard issue evasions from his PMQ tractor production stats performances ) about this affair, as well as delivering a full apology.

Developing: Brown has now almost contradicted Alan Johnson, but deploying the following ploys:
1) Writing to Sir Gus O'Donnel and demanding standards are raised ( they do this every time ).
2) Saying he's written to those who were the targets of the smears (does this amount to an apology ?)
3) Claiming no ministers were involved, including the one who sits next to Damian McBride and has previous for nasty videos which made suggestion about what David Cameron would do to be popular that I'm not going to repeat here - but they were shameful . ( Has Brown asked each one individually ? Has he received assurances ? Are any of them more honest than the ones his mate Derek Drapper has given in the past ? Why should anyone believe this statement ? Will Brown resign if it turns out not to be the case ? )

As I said before pay careful attention to any weasel words you hear. They will try to imply denials with words they know will be misunderstood or construed to say something else than they actually do.

Lets remember Brown is now being forced to do what he's doing by the bad publicity and advice of political advisers. Its not the instinctive reaction of a decent man - the time for such reactions was a few days ago.

PS Expect the Labour spin machine to try and turn this one around and widen its scope to lose the focus that's giving them so much trouble. They could even try to make Tom Harris' April fools joke look like prophecy in time.....

On the positive side a number of Labour bloggers have clearly shown their disgust with these events. See Mike Ion for an example, Tom Harris or Alex Hilton. As I said earlier I'm afraid I can't share their belief in the underlying morality and decency of their leader, but the greater good will be served by the actions they suggest - even if they are forced from Brown.

Turns out - the "hand written letter of regret" that allowed Brown to spin last nights news was just a statement of regret about the damage done to politics - see Iain Dale's report here. They are beyond even the simplest decency and honesty. Are they trying to apologise, bcause it looks like they are just trying to spin their way out.

PS Beeboids - don't think we didn't notice your attempt to muddy the waters by using Michael Heselltine last night, inviting the follow on about the "New Labour, New Danger" campaign.

See also today's Telegraph view here "Gordon Brown can't pretend he did not know about the Damian McBride scandal"

Thats it - off on holiday

Normal service will be resumed in a weeks time. In the mean time I'll be firing the odd thing at twitter and use the mobile to post if the Govt does anything even more mind bogglingly incompetent / criminal than usual.

No storming the Bastille without me - I'll have my pitch fork ready for my return, nicely sharpened.

Happy Easter.

Update: Seems I missed the Labour attack dog and dirty tricks expose by Guido, but I was on my mobile's internet browser cheering you all on over a few beers.

UK needs an extra £39billion

And China only added $40 billion to the IMF last week.

Disaster awaits us all.

Just who are the current Cabinet ?

Steve Green has a good post, looking into the desire to grab money by some of our MPs etc. But what's really excellent about the post is the list of career the current cabinet had before managing to worm their way into politics.

See Daily Referendum: Become an MP for the power or the Money? Hoon?

Fining public sector organisations, conning then fining the public

Its being reported that the BBC is being fined £150k over the antics of messers Brand and Ross.

Well that's all right then, justice has been handed out by Ofcom, all is well !

Only hang on a minute, who pays the £150k again ? Is it not money from the TV poll tax ?

Not long ago a man mistreated in police custody was awarded £60k in compensation, and guess who's paying that money ? Yes its you and me though our taxes.

Hospitals kill people by neglect by the equivalent of the plane load, and they get threatened with - wait for it - fines. That leaves two possibilities - one - we pay through our taxes, or two we pay by having less health care available.

It seems to me that fines of public sector oranisations are a farce designed to protect the staff who work for them at the cost of the tax payer - who has the double insult of being deceived and having to pay for it.

What I would like to see is these fines coming out of the salaries and pensions of those responsible, not my back pocket.

Have Labour already arranged over draft facilities with the IMF ?

As ever with Brown, its the small print you need to look out for. His father may have been a honest man, a man of the cloth, but his son operates by deceit, sub-defuse, misdirection, smear and straight lies and betrayal. He is a creature of the socialist left, which doesn't seek understanding and popular ( let alone democratic ) support, just power achieved through patronage, control of information, bullying and fear.

There are reports of Peter Mandelson talking about taking away the stigma of getting money from the IMF yesterday. The G20 has also created a fund that can be drawn down from the IMF - under the cover of doing something for the third world. (Much as extreme left wing agitation now hides under the green banner. )

The current corrupted government lead by Brown has been having trouble selling our children into debt to win the next election, having to print money to buy the short terms gilts and being unable to sell the all the long term variety. More cash is urgently needed, and as inflation takes of to destroy the middle classes they hate so much, the argument of fighting deflation will no longer hold for having a cash machine which is really a printer in the Treasury. So its the IMF next, sooner or later ( which means before or after the general election as that's all they care about).

Many of us on the right assumed that the involvement of the IMF would be the final proof that Labour had failed. But no, the spin masters of "the narrative" are getting to work to try to diffuse this moment the same way that Brown betrayal of his country and oath breaking from his manifesto was "handled" when he sneaked in late to carry out his treason signing the Lisbon constitution treaty.

And of course the BBC ( no one from the centre right available for Newsnight ) and Channel 4 ( its the end of Thatcherism hurray ) will help their friends in Labour all they can.

There is going to be a real fight for the nations soul against a force and movement that hides its aims, denies straight facts, deceives, spins and tells straight lies to the voters faces.

Its a battle I wish I was more sure of us winning.

Update: This issue is now going mainstream. Those unprincipled shameless ******** who have sold us into debt are going to ruin this country for the whole life times oif anyone old enough to read these words.

Its not an election these people need to be defeated in - they should be convicted in court for criminal incompetence and treason.

Get ready for the mother of all re-annoucements

Yes Gordon's at it one more time. We're so used now to the financial disaster that Brown drove us into that we forget his other failings, the most noticeable of which in his early days was re-announcing things 2-3 times, but expecting the compliant media to dole out unthinking credit each time.

Well the G20 is about to finish and the UK tax payer is about to get the bill for hosting Gordon re-election spectacle, on top of the Gordon flies round the world for TV coverage bill. And what's going to make it all worth while ?

Why a re-announcement of what's been said already, only couched in terms that will allow everyone to interpret it how they like, and the media over 12 hours to figure out they've seen it before to buy Gordon the Headlines he craves.

Update: Well the "con is on" as Gordon tries to fool the voters that the outcome was what he always wanted. See Iain Martin on this.

Brown has enjoyed himself tremendously. It may be no exaggeration to say he's had the time of his life. We haven't seen him this happy since he was joking about each telephone call being a new bank failing.

But now comes the second party of the Brown two step con. Part one was the G20 - full of photos, hosting and lets face it acting. Part two will be the budget. That's the point when Brown decides if he his ego is worth bankrupting the country over ( here's a prediction - he'll think it is and the pathetic quisling Labour MPs are too cowardly to put the country first and stop him. )

Update Fraser Nelson has a nice summary of the tricks, spin and deciet Brown has just tried to pull here.

Peter Oborne goes yet further here, he even suggest and names civil servants who have damaged their reputations by allowing the summit communique to be released with their acquiescence.

He slates the "the dodgy and dishonest summit communique".

This is the level that the government of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland has been reduced to.

Unitary authorities - its not about saving money ....

So a number of Authorities have been merged into unitary authorities, it appears in the teeth of local opposition. The British obsession with reorganisation is being satisfied and Gaius Petronius spins in his grave again ( unless that quote was a fabrication also).

Only hold on a minute. Whilst its claimed money and posts will be saved, we all instinctively know this won't happen. ( Yes there will be reports saying it has - but we're wise to that now. Remeber Labour says its cut back the civil service after Brown's me-too promise from the 2005 election, and we know he was telling porkies then ).

So what's the real agenda ? Could it be that a layer has to be knocked out of government to allow regional assemblies in England to be created it its place ?