So that would be a *no* then on levelling with us George

Well that was all very predictable ( except perhaps the disgusting nature of the Lib Dems barefaced betrayal of their coalition chums with their poisoned press releases ).

Of to work to work on an export to Brazil to help pay for all this nonsence - take a look at Mr Allister Heath for the truth of yesterday ....

Hemlock for your morning coffee

H/T To Wildgoose for putting me onto this in the comments earlier.

Link to the report here - perhaps easier to read in that form.

Also the original source over at Tullet Prebon and the author Tim Morgan.

There's a lot to think about in this report... and a lot that isn't making mainstream media analysis - or more worryingly government action.

The economic argument is as important to the long term as fiscal action now is.

Some times Conservative commentators pull their punches. They've learnt to do this as their opponents have used their former strengths against them.

See: "Wanting to cut", "enjoying cutting" - etc coming out of the Labour party / broadcast by the BBC just now.

So an attempt is made to triangulate and some times obscure. And worse they fail to deflect and counter the lies, smears and misdirections of the left.

Currently the left is setting up the "double dip" as the test of failure ( ref almost any BBC broadcast recently ). But the odds are the momentum for this sort of thing has already been set and international events will play big in this also - so it really isn't that much of a determining test.

The left continue to argue for debt, more debt - using the argument that economic growth will reduce it latter and here' the really spurious part that the time to pay it back is when the private sector is doing well !

What shows this argument to be false is how they behaved when the private sector last seemed to be doing well - they ran a structural deficit and argued that anyone who wanted to slow the rate of growth of spending was heartless and wanted to sack nurses / doctors / destroy "front line services" and drown kittens.

Its quite clear that Labour would be politically incapable of reigning back spending during the good times, as its been their main strategy to hold and secure power for themselves.

There really is no alternative - and Conservative commentators need to nail this message home.

The likes of the disgusting Ed Balls will try to rewrite history with his spin and reliance on the ignorance of others as he did last night on Question Time trying to group the 1930's and 1980's together. He needs to be taken on directly and forcefully. His bullying debating style needs to be rebuffed - and his gaming tactics of always interrupting other people need to be outed as the thuggish bullying they represent.

The temptation for team Cameron is going to be to try to deflect the arguments about fairness and cuts rather than addressing the central arguments and winning the case. If we are unable to convince the public that the current disaster was made in the good times by Labour then we are doomed to repeat the whole thing in about 15 years time.

We must win the long term argument and well as the short term battles.

Today's recommended reading: "Farewell, free stuff"

I need to get on today, but given all the news about Greece and the IFS's warning about all parties plans to deal with the rising national debt let me recommend reading the article "Farewell free stuff" in the Bagehot column of the Economist a few weeks ago ( I flagged it then - but its worth a read given today's headlines ).

I heard David Miliband repeating Gordon Brown misinformation campaign on the economy on the radio today. Labour will keep on doing this - but look to the quotes I have on the right of this blog to see the eventual consequences.

Lets be clear - the next few months need a strong government to sort out the economic crisis that most people are keeping quiet about.

A hung parliament held to ransom by Lib Dem triple lock internal party wrangling won't do it, and will most likely lead to a political and economic crisis. ( The only question will be which destroys the resulting government first ).

Lib Dems reverse course on fiscal responsibility to use debt to buy votes

You knew it was unlikely to last. Nick Clegg has just performed a humiliating U turn as the Lib Dems back using debt on future generations to pay for votes for themselves and Labour.

Typical Lib Dems ! ( Perhaps the letter to the Guardian by his MPs to disassociate themselves from his policies won't be needed this time. )

Remember there is no substantial recovery - and the signs are that a second dip of the recession and a credit crisis in private industry are very likely. There is very unlikely to be a recovery strong enough to give a good time to stop mainlining on debt. All the while debt floods the compartments of the ship of state, which shortly may sink suddenly in a financial crisis.

Vote Lib Dem - get Gordon Brown's economic destruction of the country continued !

No Change at all with the Lib Dems then !

See also Do the LibDems want to cut spending or not? Daniel Hannan.
Vacuity That Works For You Burning Our Money
Vince wants it both ways Iain Dale

Trouble ahead ?

This article by Robert Peston made the running on Radio 4 this week, but were so tied up with the attempts to dominate the media by party spin merchants that reporting gets drowned out by the noise. I bet most people didn't internalise the implications.

Its worth reading what Mr Peston has to say - on this occasion about Bank Funding.

Gordon Brown will want to show the bailout of the Scottish Banks as going well for the tax payer - so expect no honesty there.

Again, as I've asked, the question is "what if things don't pick up" ?

All the scenarios getting aired in politics right now are sunny day scenarios where we argue with Labour over when to stop over-spending money we don't have and must borrow. ( With the Lib Dems doing their usual in-between act ).

But the case for immediate action becomes overwhelming when you consider what happens if the rain keeps falling.

This is a point Conservative politicians could do with making.

Greece shows us one potential future tragedy for the UK

The Greek Socialist party won their recent general election on a set of blind refusals to accept reality that look a lot like Gordon Brown's refusal to own up to the staggering debt crisis he's created.

Their chickens are now coming home to roost very quickly indeed.

There is an ongoing debate in the UK about spending plans not adding up. Labour tried to claim Conservative plans don't add up - by making them up from Labour figures and with highly questionable use of civil servants time. Its of course laughable to take a lecture on this from Labour, but they know that - they are just trying to create a sense of general despair out of fear uncertainty and doubt.

Until the snow coup this week Labour were again in denial about the need to cut the public sector budget to reduce the deficit ( they are not even targeting reducing debt due to an economists trick of expecting GDP to grow so that whilst debt may expand or stay stationary as a proportion of GDP ).

Now Alistair Darling seems to have won the concession, extracted from Gordon Brown over the barrel of this weeks events, but he's sticking into the carry on digging till the debt hole till after the election strategy.

My guess is that Labour are now going to have to go long for the general election, and the risk of a currency/gilts crisis is now very real - and Darling knows he has to signal to the markets that Labour are lying to the electorate just to win votes (at least that line's credible), but will pay back the creditors when returned to power.

So perhaps Labour, as they are now reconfigured , may make some vague future promises in the budget they still claim to want to stage. But a few weeks before a general election it will be a purely political affair that makes the PBR look like an exercise is selfless statesmanship.

But still the bills must either be paid, or no more money will be leant. The UK is now reduced to its ability to borrow more money to put of facing up to the structural deficit Labour has run for almost a decade.

I imagine their will be riots and violence in Greece, and wouldn't rule out the same thing here.

How Labour will balance the books if it gets re-elected

We have the pantomime of Alistair Darling trying to outline a hole in the Conservative plans for spending. ( And it seems the journalists are getting pretty fed up with being treated as fools - except for those from Mirror group of course, who perhaps don't realise that's what's going on . )

But what if Labour won the general election ?

We all know that taxing the rich, without Marxist boarder controls to imprison your population, won't work ( except with your innumerate base vote perhaps ).

So how will Labour square the massive cuts it will be forced to impose with the daily lies coming out of the mouths of senior minsters ?

The answer is simple. They will blame the IMF.

Its the IMF and evil international fiance that made us do it gov.

We wanted to print money and increases spending for ever and ever but those unreformed capitalists at the IMF have insisted that the loan needed to employ Labour voters at Sure Start centres has to be paid for.

Nearer the election it will be time to make Labour answer questions on the IMF and if they will promise to resign and call a new general election if they have to call them in.

Confessions of a shopaholic

Every so often Man in a Shed gets outnumbered by the females in his life, and is unable to watch science fiction movies under the excuse that they actually are just Pride and Prejudice, set in space.

Christmas has been one of those occasions.

So I was completed to watch "Confessions of a shopaholic". But to my great surprise its a highly moral movie. The urge to spend to make yourself happy is explored along with the lies and hurt that those who are captured by any form of compulsion hand out to their nearest and dearest.

The analogy I was think about was the great British electorate - that keeps authorising Labour to run up the nations debts ( though the most recent and far reaching transactions have never been presented to a vote ). People get the short term high of more "public spending" on "vital services".

But the public hasn't admitted to its addiction on something for free. That's why the bash a banker scheme by Labour impressed the voters so much in the PBR - everyone thinks someone else should pay and the hits of more spending should come for free. Until that adiction and self deception is named and admitted to no progress can be made.

But just like the film ( plot spoiler alert ) the debt collector is closing in. This debt collector is not just going to ruin the party but humiliate the nation and destroy its future. All because voters have insisted we spend over our means, and the evil credit card companies/Labour have enticed them on.

Let no one fool you - the return to financial honesty and integrity is going to hurt and destroy reputations.

But in the end TINA's back (There is no alternative - for those under 35 ), and how strict she is going to be will depend on how long the denial and credit card debt keeps rolling.

David Cameron and George Osborne need to get the public to accept its part in the current crisis. The public has been a spendingfornothingholic and needs to own up to itself, the denial has to stop. Gordon Brown may be the evil supplier of credit and factilitator of debt, but we won't make progress until the public addiction to something for nothing is named and renounced.

PS Read this to sober up for the new year. Also the Heff on the lies that saw in a decade of debt.

PPS I really am going to try to take things easy over the next few days.

Update:

See also

And Insane spendaholics are mortgaging our future by Camilla Cavendish in the Times in March 2009. I think spendaholics has it about right.

Will Labour put party and ideology before country ?

The rumours are that the Brown inspired pre Budget Report ( free publicity for the governing party - as you know how much he likes to reannounce stuff ) will essentially be for the benefit of one Gordon Brown.

Labour accuse Conservatives of being for the few ( which is vastly hypocritical and untrue as Labour are the vampires who perpetuate misery and poverty to keep their election numbers good ).Gord

But today we may be able to say Labour is for the One.

Gordon Brown - surely the most expensive man in UK history.

Just think of the thousands and tens of thousands of pound better of we would all be without him.

Update The Speccie is promising to update its debt counter after the Brownies come out this afternoon.

Update: The answer would appear to be NO - Labour have decided to carry on wrecking the country - which will probably mean printing more money as who will lend us money with these insane policies ?

Labour are using the bankers as a smoke screen to escape their responsibilities

Its good politics bashing bankers. Its probably even a reasonable thing to d, since they are now trading on sovereign guarantees actual and implied.

But its not responsible.

Its not sincere either, as Labour control half of the banks and have the ability to enforce their edicts if the chose. But that would mean taking responsibility for the outcome and they are very keen on avoiding any of that.

Unfortunately its a side show in the economic sense of the spectacular disaster Labour have prepared for us all. We are broke, very broke. Its just we don't realise it yet, and they are keen that we don't before the next election.

So a good staged fight against Gordon Brown's until very recently best friends that he destroyed effective regulation to support is just what the Labour spin doctor ordered.

But its killing the country.

And here's the thing, many Labour MP and supporters must be smart enough to know that's true also. But they reckon they will do better personally in power than queuing up at Job Centre-plus's with their former constituents wondering where all the Diversity Officer non-jobs on £70k+ went.

In my view it socially and morally unacceptable to be a member of a party that betrays its people so blatantly and with such callous self interest.

Given how much is claimed to rely of "fighting global warming" why isn't the evidence and its supporting arguments made in the open ?

The political line being spun by Labour right now is that we can't stop destroying our economic future right now by maxing up on debt because that would put the recovery in jeopardy.

However Brown and co are happy to campaign for the economic lobotomy that they claim their approach to "fighting global warming climate change" requires.

But the leaks from the CRU hack show us there is considerable uncertainty about what we have been told. Moves have been made to deny freedom of information requests to get at the base data. You also need the code used made available to check what is going on.

Now there are often arguments against releasing data and code, but given the claimed mass life and death cataclysms we are threatened with on the media every week by them and the economic sacrifice the Warmists demand we make, is it not time to get all the facts and arguments out in the open ?

This blog recommends that an incoming Conservative government makes a policy decision only to have its actions influenced by climate advice that comes from 100% open data and computer code sets. It may amaze you that this isn't currently the case !

Anything less will always be assumed to be a conspiracy, and may very well be the most costly error this country has ever made ( except perhaps electing Labour and having Gordon Brown in charge of the nation finances which is the biggest peace time disaster ever ).

Its time to come clean on climate change.

PS If you think this is a bit paranoid then you should nip over to Watt's up with That and look at some of the alleged CRU emails etc ( here's a good start point ) , and also research how government has been using propaganda to avoid even having a debate and to manipulate school children ( I'll be coming back to that latter in the week ).

Update: Lord Lawson is making the first step along the road to opening up the climate modelling debate by calling for an inquiry into the CRU data manipulation. See report in the Daily Telegraph here.

Also I recommend DK's skip through some of the controversy on the code comments here.

I have personally worked in a University software environment and moved into professional software engineering and what amazes me is that anyone ever thought that the scientists would be doing a better job than this. I suspect part of the problem is we don't have enough post graduate level engineers and scientists in politics.

Its easy to produce great looking graphics and startling predictions - much harder to question them and hold them to account and that needs to be done at a political level as well as scientific level ( the short comings about which are made all too obvious right now).

Further: There are growing demands for all the data and meta data and code to be placed in the open, see here.

Brown refuses to stop national debt rising

So Labour have used their play on words (in Brown's speech ) to give the impression they will do something about the government's financial crisis by saying they will shrink the "deficit" knowing that most people will assume this means the national debt. It doesn't.

National debt will continue to rise - the interest on it will increase as our credit rating is reduced and even more savage spending cuts will be forced on future generations - all to for fill Gordon's childhood dream of winning an election as PM.

If Labour win in 2010 then the IMF will be in to help drag us out of an Argentine style financial disaster.

The silent demise of the British chemical industry

Largely unreported in the MSM the British chemical industry is being bought up from over seas and now some is being shut down.

Vast new chemical complexes in the Middle East are being built ( many designed in the UK ), but not reported.

In the north east at the old ICI Wilton complex the new owners, Dow, of the Ethylene Oxide plant are shutting it down, its the last one in the UK and moving production to Kuwait. (new plant opening soon ) So what I hear you ask - well chemical plants don't exist in isolation. They are fed by other plants and their products are required by other manufacturers.

A plant that uses say, excess steam, that closes may also make the plant that produces the excess steam uneconomic and a domino effect kicks in.

In Wilton and Billingham vast chemical complexes existed, but their British owners have sold or are now more. The Saudi's, Dutch and Germans now operate them, and they are very much biased in terms of production from their how countries.

When I left school I chose to work in the Chemical Industry as it was one of the only manufacturing sectors which was strong. ICI, Shell, BP and others all lead the world. Now ICI is no more and what's left of its plants are owned by various people, Shell is looking at selling its last UK refinery and cutting its workforce by 15% next week and its just a matter of time before BP becomes a US company in fact as it is in business terms already.

How much marketing and media studies is the UK going to have to sell the world to pay for all the things we buy abroad now ( ie nearly everything ) ?

The capture of the imagination of the country by the green suicide lobby even extends to The Institution of Chemical Engineers. In their house magazine the editorial; talks about the lose of this capital intensive bulk chemicals production being inveitable and that the green jobs will come to save us and new high tech plants.

Well the Saudi's & Kuwaitis are building those too, on a price no object basis. They have large populations they need to buy industries for and the money to do it.

And some the country that gave the world the industrial revolution is hollowed out.

There are lots of engineering in this country 40+ who cut their teeth in our chemical industry and the North Sea. Many earn money for this country by consultancy, working for UK engineering contractors and working aboard, but they won't be replaced ( though of course the courses will still run at Universities, but there will be few jobs for their graduates ) and just like the last TV set to be manufactured in the UK - where TV was invented - the capability will pass away into history.

What is it we do that the world wants to keep shipping electronic goods and food to us for again ?

Lets hope those nice people in the middle east never want to impose sanctions on us, because soon we will be reliant on them for more than just crude oil.

Needs must when the devil drives

Labour are getting their pre -announcement spin in today on "halving the budget deficit".

Now often trailed major announcements from Labour turn out to be nothing of the sort. We have learn't through painful experience that Labour tries to dominate the headlines with its chosen phrase whilst sneaking the reality in a very small bit of print hidden away in long reports.

Its who and what they are.

However we should perhaps not dismiss the idea that the Treasury may really be under the threat. Shell - a vastly better run organisation the UK under Labour - had its credit rating downgraded recently. Its not clear the UK could survive with its current spending profile if our credit rating was reduced or if the Bank of England didn't keep printing money to buy our own debt.

The money printing must end soon, and the real challenge will then be to persuade enough foreigners to lend us their money on the promise that our children will pay it back, by forgoing vital health care and social services just to win Brown a few more votes today.

Perhaps the crunch is much closer than we have been lead to believe.

Perhaps Labour are trying to make a virtue out of a necessity.

Perhaps they have been told they can't carry on with the policies of bribing the voters by selling their children into debt.

But as ever don't believe a word these people say. Check the facts, check the details. They have form for deceit and untruths and should not be trusted.

Here we go: Dalring is now talking about borrowing at a slower rate sometime in the future when there lots of money around. ( Remember last time there was "lots of money around" it was because consumers were loading themselves with insane amounts of debt - which the govt was helping itself to in terms of VAT, stamp duty and taxation on the increased economic activity )

I should point out also that The Budget Deficit and The National Debt are not the same thing - even though Laboutr spin and dedciert masters would like you to think so. Halving the budget deficit just means diggign the hole of debt salvery slightly slower, not filling it in. And every year there will be the interest to pay on that debt ....

UK needs an extra £39billion

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

Disaster awaits us all.

How long before Brown subverts and steals private pension schemes also ?

It can't be long now. It will of course not be described as what its is. Something on the lines of the government has added the innovation for pension scheme to invest of the safe haven of government debt. But it will mean Brown gorging himself on the last remaining supply of cash in the private sector.

The Conservatives need to take radical action now to stop him.

My suggestion is this:

To state that beyond June 09 a future Conservative government will not honour debt taken out by the Labour government, unless a general election is called.

This can be justified as by no stretch of anyone's imagination does Brown have a democratic mandate for the enslavement of the nation that he is busy arranging now.

"The sad truth is that pensions savings are going to be what pays the price for these efforts to bail out the economy in the short term."

One of the effects of the shock waves of the Bank of England decision to start increasing the money supply, by supply the money, looks like being drastically damaging private pension schemes - as the price of annuities becomes very unfavourable. This may in turn kill of the remaining final salary pensions schemes.

Add to that the worries over the re badged Norwich Union Aviva solvency - well it worries me as much of my pension is with them - and only the public sector gold plated pensions are standing.

Perhaps the government is going to need those troops on the streets after all.

What we are seeing is the systematic confiscation of private wealth by the government, though future taxation to repay debt, tax on pensions, devaluation of annuities and the low interest rates. No wonder Gordon smiling so much.

I'm not sure any of us will be able to afford to grow old.

* The quote in the post title is from Tom McPhail of Hargreaves Lansdowne from an article in the Telegraph.

Brown guilty of putting political pressure on FSA to allow reckless lending

The Telegraph reports: "Gordon Brown helped fuel Britain’s banking crisis by pressuring the City regulator not to intervene and stop reckless lending, Lord Turner, the head of the Financial Services Authority, said. " Full article here by Robert Winnett.

On any other day this would have caused a storm that could have sweeped the prime minster from office.

Gordon's finger prints have now been identified at the scene of the crime and a witness has identified him as leaving the scene. How long can it be before the jury of public opinion finds him guilty ?

Governments are going to make it worse

Protectionism is already back, just until this week is was by stealth. ( The US Congress is just about to kick of a trade war with its mindless set of conditions on the US fiscal socialism package ).

Quietly and in ways designed not to trigger the EU's competition laws states have been preventing creative destruction taking place. In the Netherlands the state pays some of certain businesses wages, in the UK there's some odd credit scheme to keep the car manufacturing supply chain functioning. You can be sure that all the other countries with car plants in competition with ours are doing similar deals.

As a result tax payers will fund idle capacity, instead of the worse firms going under and being replaced by firms we want.

The story of the 1970's was of the undead corporations, in this country the nationalised industries. Those who were to big and important to fail, even if they didn't sell anything you wanted to buy. ( False patriotism was used then also with "Buy British" campaigns. )

All these corporations continued to destroy wealth and value up till the point when government could hold the line no longer and the market based reforms of the 80's became necessary.

Lets be clear those reforms saved the UK.

But they were far more painful than they needed to have been. Not because of the heartlessness of Margret Thatcher, but because of the short sightedness and selfishness of those who had governed before.

We risk making the same mistake, but not allowing creative destruction in our financial and manufacturing economy.

The attempts to buck the market made by the government risk instead stopping its function and condemning us to years of stagnation to come.

This is why Ronald Regan was right about government help and Obama is wrong.

Government should of course help people, but what I fear is a form of jobs trade war with each government wanting to keep everything the way it was, funded by budget deficit and debt, and none of them allowing the economy to adjust as it so clearly needs to.

In short, just like the 1970's, government is going to make it worse.