A question over that pay rise

Right, so MPs have given themselves a 2.33 per cent payrise when unemployment keeps on rising because this government have fucked up the economy?

What really irritates me about this (one of the things) is that student loans still attract the old RPI interest rate of some 4.4 per cent according to my last bill. Now the real interest rate - not this EU regulated CPI bullshit - is at bugger all. Yet not only have the government not replied to Bob Spink's question about this but they've used the reason they gave as to why they were charging the RPI rather than the CPI (because wages were based on it) but they've ignore it with their own pay rise. If they'd stuck to theor own rules they wouldn't have a payrise.

Now, they have access to far too much public money already, but why, when so many people hate them, do they continue?

Britblog roundup 215: Harry Potter and the YouTube video

Apologies for the late arrival of this weeks Britblog and for the fairly surly and rushed tone it will be delivered in: I'm ill, and I hate being ill. I also have a cat sitting on my keyboard.

The big story this week was that people finally worked out there was a Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg. It's true, chaps, but don't tell the MSM or they might get upset. At least the world has blogs, ready to catapult their latest darling into the stratosphere.

Young Dan Hannan was the man who caused all the rumpus, and the video was praised by all and sundry forcing even the national media to comment on it. Sort of. Trixy has heard it's caused all sorts of goings on within Tory HQ and a certain seat in Woking which may have a new Tory candidate. But it's all unsubstantiated tittle-tattle and, Lord knows, I'm not one for gossip myself.

The other big story was the news that our beloved Home Secretary, fond of a kebab herself, has apparently been paying for her husband to have some of his own. One wonders how long it will be before a paper with a large circulation actually decides what the long game is and has a sensible campaign to reform MPs expenses rather than the usual drivel?

Sticking with lady vixen parts for one more entry...

Moving swiftly on from that unpleasant image of two-bellies and her husband to some other stories gracing the blogosphere this week.

It seems that Richard Curtis can’t bring himself to stick to historical facts in case he upsets some of his chums.

Meanwhile, go read Craig Murray’s most important post he’s ever written. His words, not mine. And it probably is regardless of whether you’re in the FCO or some guy on the street who has to pay for it all.

Someone’s defending Eric Pickles! He was shit on Question Time and he owns two houses at a time when repossessions are increasing and young people can’t afford to buy even one house. So what’s the solution? Go read it and find out.

What a start to the Formula One season! Can Ross Brawn represent us at the G20 instead of Brown, I wonder? At least he has a proven track record of success...

Scrambling away from that costly PR exercise to a slightly cheaper and more amusing one: Lynne Featherstone has a titter-inducing video and possibly too much time on her hands considering she’s a Member of Parliament. Not the blog, no: MPs telling us what they're up to is a novel thing and I like it, just go and look. I seem to recall seeing something on ‘You’ve been framed’ or similar when I was a wee Trixy.

A lady with mental health problems: no, not the PMT stuff which can be solved with a daily milk (I really want a dairy milk now) but the stuff that needs decent and urgent assistance. Alas, as I have experienced myself, the NHS does rather hamper this.

There’s a huge gulf between a dairy milk and scotch eggs. The former I want, the latter is making an ill Trixy feel worse. If you’re not a fan, there’s also a nice book review and another example of an incompetent council.

A quick hop down the deli counter and we’ve moved from scotch eggs to circumcision. It doesn’t sound that nice, but chaps, at least it’s not done with a spoon as some young girls have to experience in Africa. (that’s not a nice video, by the way)

Hammersmith Bridge: It’s green, it crosses a river and it has one of those great stories about British people in the face of adversity.

The Daily Maybe on the problems that social networking sites can cause. A question: If you twitter, does that make you a twit?

His Grace has a truly excellent post on the MCB and the astonishing news that The Little Chipmunk has done something right. Gosh. Whilst we're talking about the MCB and their unpleasant deputy head, Heresy Corner also has something to say.

Curly dips his toe into the world of uniforms albeit in a different way to Mr Smith of Reddich.

Someone almost as stroppy as me has a thing or two to say to the Archbishop.

And finally, because I'm feeling really ill again, one of my favourite blogs with some news on how it might be worth sending your child to private school.

And that's the last time I ask for entries from my fellow britbloggers: there were millions. Sorry to those who wrote wonderful things which I didn't include but I'm about to vomit on the carpet.

Next week Charles is hosting us all. I do hope he remembers the nice biscuits for his premiere.

Pip pip

Trixy

A note on dress codes

I will not have my attire dictated to me by a transient bunch of second rate university drop outs intent on causing trouble and attacking people who have been funding their benefit scrounging lifestyle for the past few decades.

If you start causing trouble because I have a job and you are a moron, I will retaliate.

And I'm quite tough.

The worm that turned

Wow. Dan Hannan's gone viral.

Those of us who've been following 'debates' in the European Parliament initially were wondering how come it was that one speech out of the many hundreds given by decent eurorealist MEPs over the years got people so interested.

Hannan is hardly new to the world of politics and when it comes to people who make forthright speeches in the European Parliament, he's not alone. It's just that the media haven't really got up to speed.

So what was it about this which grabbed the attention and sparked the interest of so many?

I'm going to nail my colours to the mast whilst I throw my hat in the ring and say that it's because he's really the first Tory to actually sound like he would have done anything different.

On the same day as that speech, Hannan's leader David Cameron was making a meaningless speech about the need for a slightly different amount of financial regulation. He'd completely missed the point, of course, but that's because Cameron knows as much about financial regulation as I do about the inner workings of a combustion engine.

The public don't want to hear about the FSA because to the average person, they're an irrelevance. They're self policing grey suited bureaucrats who won't do anything especially different whether it's Brown or Cameron in power. There's no such thing as 'light regulation' and this supposed 'transparency' they've brought about has resulted in such situations as a run on a national bank when a quiet word in a shell-like would have done the job perfectly a few years ago.

Brown - the enemy - was in Strasbourg, the beating heart of our surveillance society and a black hole for democracy and our money. The cameras were on, the world was watching. Stop a moment, Dave, and think about it.

And then something happened: something that millions of people in the UK and beyond have been wanting to hear for a long time. A Conservative politician standing up and telling our unelected Prime Minister that, to paraphrase, he's an economically retarded cretin who views the British people, judging by his behaviour, as fools.

In his interview on Fox news he went even further, saying what millions of people across the country would have loved Cameron to have said: that we want government to do less.

There are three developments I can see which this episode has brought about:
1. People will realise that the European Parliament exists and is worth watching. And it is. My favourite speech is still this one:


2. That the media is no longer a place for a politician with a press release to dominate. The success of two speeches in the European Parliament has become a story in it's own right because despite the media ignoring Hannan and Farage, we the people, we the voters, we the paymasters wanted to know more. The BBC, with their own desks, crews and Europe Editor there, could have led the pack on this. And what did they do instead? They didn't even stay to listen. They've heard it before - just because the rest of us haven't did not appear to matter.

3. The Cameronistas won't be happy. Indeed, young Trixy has already heard of developments within the Tory party ensuring that the young whippersnapper doesn't get above himself. Ignore the fact that he's an intelligent man with a following who is addressing a huge wing of the party virtually alone, this is not the green, left wing agenda that Cameron has worked so hard to achieve.

And Cameron clearly realised when he was running for leader of the Tories that Dan was a man not to be ignored: That tricky EPP pledge did not spring from the mind of a man who thinks that the EU is so important to our economy that he cannot even entertain the idea of an independent and democratic Britain. With Hannan being told by senior party figures that only an MP could be leader of the party this unkept promise was a way of securing the support of a talented and popular figure in the party.

But libertarianism, independence from the EU, a - wait for it - smaller state do not appear to be part of the current package which preaches 'schoolsnhospitals' with the best of the social democrats.

So will a safe seat be winging its way towards our hero?

Unlikely, my whispers tell me.

For while the traditional right wing elements of the party are gleeful at these developments and for someone breaking out of this policy-less, drab straitjacket which Cameron appears to have imposed on his MPs, the powers that be are not.

The subject which split the party in the 90s has reared it's ugly head again. No one can really deny that Cameron wants the EU off the agenda: apart from the Lisbon Treaty it's a sore point and a real divide between the party and the members. But with more and more people aware of a potential leader who breaks the mould we've come to expect and despise from our MPs, how long can that situation remain?

One thing's for sure: Fear the power of YouTube and fear the power of the voter.

Iraq

Look, you don't need a full blown inquiry into Iraq, and certainly not now when the troops are there.

All you need are the minutes from the cabinet meetings because the rest of it is on the internet under 'minutes from UN security council'.

If students can manage it then I fail to see why politicians couldn't.

more financial bullshit from the Conservative Party

From Cameron's speech today:

"Without proper financial regulation, there will be no lasting financial confidence, and without lasting financial confidence, there will be no lasting recovery,"...

"People don't want to abandon markets, they want us to reform markets so they work properly...

"What they want is a sense of order and social responsibility brought to the operation of the financial markets. And that is a task for the modern Conservative Party.

"We are the party of law and order. So we are the party to bring law and order to the financial markets. We are the party of social responsibility. So we are the party to bring social responsibility to the financial markets.

Of course, they were the party who invented the financial regulation in 1986 under Francis Maude.

Godfrey Bloom MEP, who used to be the Chief Executive of Mercury life and worked for many years at TBO investment, was on the advisory panel and said at the time that the regulation wouldn't work.

Ever since then we have seen the collapse of a variety of companies.

I'll paraphrase my conversation with me, because unlike Cameron, Brown and Darling, I like to speak to people who actually know what they are talking about.

"I don't know how they've got the nerve to pontificate on financial regulation when it's perfectly obvious from their performance over the last few years that they have no idea what they are talking about." he said.

"There's no such thing as 'light regulation' in financial services: the FSA write their own rules, collect and keep any fines and are above the law. It's a system a banana republic would be proud of.

"And currently, the FSA is being run by friends of Gordon Brown, and not even clever ones. This is an industry which used to make up 40% of GDP and it should be in the hands of people who know what they are actually talking about.

"Would you let your family members go for heart surgery performed by a taxi driver? Then why should the heart of our economy be managed by people who don't have a clue?"

I still can't understand how everyone let the Tories (and most politicians to be fair) get away with blaming 'mark to markets' except, I suppose, that most people writing about it didn't understand. Mark to Market wasn't to blame, that was just something which happened because the previous system of mark to model had overvalued so much.

How the man who is likely to be our next Prime Minister can get away with speaking such utter hog wash as to blame collapse of markets on a system of pricing is, frankly, dangerous.

Polly Toynbee was blathering away today in the Guardian about the need for 'good journalism' - not something one could accuse her of - to regulate the political system. Here's an example of how we really have a long way to go before most of her chums can even be classed as 'competent' or 'responsible', let alone good

Of course, her moaning was just a cry from a sinking ship for more of that tax payers money she loves to talk about wasting. I wonder if she thinks that her colleagues at the Daily Mail should also be assisted, or aren't they allowed because they don't love all things left?

great news!

The pro-Lisbon Topolanek has lost a vote of confidence as Czech Prime Minister which means that the fabulous Vaclav Klaus, who has 4 1/2 years left of his presidency, can appoint a new Prime Minister.

And guess what? My Czech sources tell me that it's going to be someone who is against the Lisbon Treaty. Whodathunkit!

When it comes to the EU, apart from the masses of legislation passed this lunchtime which was completely ignored by the media, it's been a good day.

Things you'd love to say to Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown was in Strasbourg today, kissing the arses of a group of politicians who despise democracy. To be fair, they love the fact that he lied to the people and bulldozed through the Lisbon Constitution on a lie, so he was in pretty good company.

Not that you'd hear it on the news, or probably even read it in the newspapers, but there were two blinding speeches yesterday from two of my favourite people: Nigel Farage and Dan Hannan.
Amusingly, the lovely Dan was the only British Conservative to speak whilst Gordon Brown was in the chamber because, of course, the others who weren't kicked out for having a pair had Joseph Daul (see posts past for his delightful background) speaking on their behalf.

This situation is all the more amusing on the day that Christopher Beastley Beazley, a man one can find tired and emotional* in Brussels and Strasbourg, said that he wouldn't leave the EPP because it would mean less influence.

Like not using secretarial allowances to fund the yes campaign in France, The Netherlands and Ireland, perhaps?

Anyway, enjoy.


followed by


Shame Mark Mardell walked out to give a one sided view of the performance to News 24 whilst these speeches were being made. It's not like there isn't a huge screen with the current speakers and the next two speakers after that.

*There was a rumour about assistants collecting any left overs from 3rd floor receptions but it's completely unsubstantiated.

6 nations: a summary

So, now the 6 nations are over and England finished far higher than they really deserved to given their stupid errors, I thought it time to produce some proper analysis on it.

Ireland did well, hurrah. Well done, etc. England need to get down the gym and behave. Scotland have improved so much, it's great. I don't like Wales (long story involving ex boyfriends and mad ex housemates) and the other two are Johnny Foreigners.

However, friend and I did notice some huge changes in elements of the teams which we felt needed commenting on.

First up is that the England team used to be hot, and now they're not.
We did have a whole selection of yummies, including

And Josh Lewsey, Ben Cohen...ah, they were a good looking squad.

Now the best we're supposed to offer is that chap Kelly Brook is going out with and he's no match for the World Cup winning team.

However, help is at hand. The Scottish team are so yummy that it's worth moving up to Edinburgh just to hang around Murrayfield on the off chance.

Take a look at this young whippersnapper:


Wouldn't mind him tackling me, etc, get into a scrum and he could try it on with me any day. Okay, I'll grant you he went to an English school and used to play for England, but now he's firmly in the grasp of the SRU and I envy them. Hell, I even envy the guys that got to tackle him on Saturday.

Ireland have a fairly ripe young fly half too, which certainly makes their games worth watching.


France. Well, they have the calendar:


Italy...erm....I didn't really notice, to be honest.

And Wales. Well, Wales have this:


Nice body, but he does look more like someone who should play association football, really...

And I was told he shaves his legs and he looks orange. Orange isn't a good look for anyone.

So there we go. Ireland may have won the grand slam but in terms of who would win in the Trixy 6 nations, I'm going to be belting out 'Flower of Scotland' for the foreseeable future.

watch this

Pointless survey

For pointless 'green' stunt.

WWF have taken a survey of which star people would most like to have dinner with in order to raise awareness of a stunt where people turn their lights out for a bit on Saturday.

Johnny Depp tops the poll along with singer Cheryl Cole. The latter holds double appeal: as well as being a beauty one could also nick her chips.

Britblog roundup, innit

It's here, even on Mothering Sunday.

Making me feel a bit heartless, actually, all that 'caring about other people' stuff.

But never mind: the pig is dead.

I'm hosting round up next week so get your nominations in to thelovelytrixy [at] gmail [dot] com or the britblog gmail.

Make them good, not like half the shit I've been writing about these last few weeks.

Lovely quiz thing with prizes to win!

Yes! Even in a recession!

Out of the frying pan...

I watched the news for a considerable time this morning and yet it was only a chat later on this evening that I find out that there has been a Conservative policy announcement.

Alas this morning my channel hopping to find out what was going on in the world was a futile effort since that media obsessed reality tv bint had died. It's fucking appalling that the news that someone who was going to die had died was rolling on every single channel: did she make any difference to our lives in the way we are governed, taxed, our liberties and the way we interact with other countries?

No.

The only thing she did was provide a clear example of how comprehensive education has failed, ensuring that there are people in the world who have been at school for many years who are what one can only class as dumb.

Okay, so she did have a slight impact on foreign affairs: In 2006 when I was in India with DK the newspapers had a decent amount of coverage after she proved that she was nothing but a loud mouthed, ignorant oik and that India had produced a lady with intelligence and class.

What I would have liked to have known this morning was that the next administration were planning on making the recession worse. Someone has clearly burnt the only economics text book in Tory HQ as Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has said today:

Increasing income tax for top-earners to 45% from 2011 would be "difficult to avoid", shadow chancellor George Osborne has said - a stance backed up by Mr Clarke and foreign secretary William Hague.

Joy.

But at least good old Boris has some sensible views on it:

But the Conservative Mayor of London Boris Johnson has said the move would stifle British enterprise,

Oh, wait: through a cloud of smoke and a munching of pies I can hear some bullshite being uttered...it's, oh...it's the Shadow Business Secretary Ken "twat" Clarke:

...a view Mr Clarke said was "just wrong".

Alas, with all left wingers, as Mr Clarke is (the man thinks the EU is one big jolly party, he's not going to have a sensible through in his head now, is he) it doesn't stop there:

Cutting inheritance tax would not be a high priority for an incoming Tory government, Ken Clarke has said.

Note to voters: It looks like the Tories won't just not be cutting taxes but they'll be putting the fuckers up. They want to make a recession worse. They think they can spend your money better than you, despite every example of the opposite.

Run, run for the hills. At the next election the only parties with a serious chance of forming the next administration are awful or fucking awful.

I'll leave you to decide which one is which.

Save our Pubs

It's nice and simple. 39 pubs a week are closing and it's the fault of politicians, mainly.

Click here and register your support for smoking rooms in pubs and stopping ridiculous taxes on alcohol.

Not that the great and good know who makes most of those laws, as we found out this week.

Go on! Off you trot!

Ye olde Brite Blogge round-up

here

phoar, tis a scorcher.

EU and booze

You could say that the EU have 'saved the day' when it comes to the suggestions by Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson.

Because the proposals to have a minimum price on a unit of alcohol are, you'll never guess, against EU rules:

Mr Farage said "This would be an unlawful restriction on inter-community trade under Article 28. Whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing is another matter entirely, but it's simply not in the competence of the UK government to do such a thing.

"It falls under the 75% of our laws that are made by foreigners in Brussels and which we have to obey whatever we think about them."

Mr Farage added: "Perhaps the British government should have a word or two with their senior civil servants and people like the Chief Medical Officer, to remind them how much of the power to make law in this country they've already given away?"

Note the date on that, too. yesterday. Plenty of time for some of our public broadcasters and large national publications to read it.

Look! A fact! Try use it!

Comic Fucking Relief

Red Nose Day: I'm not bloody laughing

So it's that time of year when lots of celebrities do things of varying levels of amusement and people around the country do really stupid things, like sit in baths of baked beans to highlight the number of starving people in the world. Pretty insulting, haphazard way of raising money, but each to their own.

I, personally, don't do anything for comic relief. If I were to do something, though, I would try cut out the middle man and buy a gun and put it in a boat and send it to whichever despotic African regime will get propped up this year.

I think there are many worthwhile charities out there but I have never wanted to give money to these charities which allow people like Mugabe to stay in power.

Trade I'm all for. And Democracy. Bring it on.

But aid to countries where the leaders live in luxury whilst the people live in squalid conditions just seems to me to be letting the nasty bastards get away with it.

But hey, that's just my view and I'm in an even worse mood than usual.

And charitable giving's all about making the person who gives the £2 feel better, really.

Bah, humbug.

We simply can't afford EU

Blissfully unreported developments in Strasbourg this week.

Yes, another £200million down the swanny, paid for by your good selves. Hope you feel you've got your money's worth.

she inhaled our kitchen

I understand that today is No Bloody Smoking Day.

Fuck Off.

To quote the fabulous Absolutely Fabulous:

They don't have a 'no being a boring old fart day' or a 'no wearing bloody awful clothes day'.

Yet.

Andrew Duff: Is he a spastic?

Libertas in some varied UK form launched yesterday in the UK:

The group, founded by Declan Ganley, hopes to field 72 candidates in the 12 electoral regions across the UK in June's European elections.

On Tuesday, it announced that the UK arm of its operation would be spearheaded by former soldier Robin Matthews and that it is attempting to recruit other candidates. Libertas, which led the successful 'no' campaign against the treaty in Ireland, will launch in France today

As I've said before, I don't see the point of it in the UK. Why don't they just make some agreement with the Tories, as they both have this naive, misguided view that the EU can be reformed in some way.

Lib Dem MEP Andrew Duff, a man who appears to like the EU more than he likes women or beer, once again showed how completely out of touch, retarded and blinkered he is:

"Ganley wants the EU to stick with the present, clumsy and inefficient Nice treaty but voters want a stronger and reformed EU," said Duff.

I've written before on how to be a Lib Dem: the main theme of the party is misguided inconsistency brought about by the sad truth that no one really gives a fuck long enough to bring them up on it.

But to represent a country where the public are crying out for a chance to have a say on their future in the EU, who returned more withdrawalist MEPs than the other EU countries put together, who have as their MEP a man who President Klaus and his aides considered to be the "number one" in the European Parliament and think that it's a country who want more EU is criminal. The man deserves to be put in the stocks at the very minimum and pelted with all the fruit from the 1990s which had to be left to rot so not to upset the French.

This is a man who comes from a party who have to lie to the public to get votes.

A man so dumb he can't read a newspaper, or watch the news or any of his constituency correspondence or he'd know that this view is so selfish that he should chop off his own hands in a vain attempt to try represent the views of the people who pay his wages.

On a final note, I was at a dinner party the other day with someone who decided to bend my ear about the UK department of Fibertas. He told me that the chap in charge (sounds like Army Media Ops) didn't really know what he was doing and could I help?

Well I can, as it happens.

Don't fucking bother. Where's your niche? If you lie to the British people about what you really stand for there'll be fucking hell to pay when a group of outraged bloggers hunt you down.

You're not eurosceptic, you're not withdrawalist, don't fucking pretend that you are. The country is suffering enough from lying politicians without adding you to the mix.

Job Spec, anyone?

I've got a right old grump on at the moment. And it's really not being helped by waking up, listening to the Today programme and hearing glaring inaccuracies even before I know where my elbow is.

Geraldine Smith: are you a fucking moron?

EDM 428 proposer Morecambe MP Geraldine Smith said: ‘Royal Mail managed to make a profit for years and years.

‘Governments got millions of pounds from Royal Mail, they should have invested the money.

‘If you’ve got bad management, you sack the management, you don’t sell the business.’

Oh dear fucking God, woman.

Can I introduce you to this man who may be able to tell you a thing or two about Post Offices?

Are you that mentally retarded that you don't even know that the Maastrict Treaty places severe restrictions on State Aid which result in the majority of applications needing approval from the European Commission? Because when you were bumbling on the radio this morning, being allowed to fill the airwaves with your incorrect nonsense untamed by the interviewer, you seemed to think that not only did the Government have an endless supply of cash, but that they could use it where they liked.

If you don't know this, why are you an MP? Aren't you supposed to know about these things, what with it being your job?

And BBC: come on, now. You get huge amounts of public money to be an informed source of information and yet, even when you have an interview with this information on ready to be played, you refuse to mention it. Why? It is negligence. The media are the best way of the people being able to hold the government to account but if you don't know your arse from your elbow then it's going to be a harder job than it would be if only you'd write what was actually happening in the world.

It's not too much to ask, is it? That people who get paid well above the average salary, not to mention a license to have their greedy little trotters snaffling up expense afer expense like an Ethiopian at a tray of canapes, and I think that in return they should actually look at some legislation occasionally. The stuff that governs us. The stuff that comes out of the EU who, even though Richard Corbett won't admit it, make over 75% of our laws.

I'm going to have to start getting more use out of my whip, otherwise. Dress in leather and spiked heels and start beating up MPs.

Except that they'd probably enjoy it.

It's a campaign to make my mornings more peaceful and I think it's a worthy cause.

Britblog roundup

It's here.

I have been fucking awful in posting these because I'm usually at the gym on a Sunday night. Better late than never and since I've made the effort can you please all go and bloody read it.

I'll be testing you at a later date and there'll be a whipping for those of you who don't get the required score.

Why I hate Harridan Harperson part, ooh, a million

I'm all in favour of free and fair competition but what I don't like is when politicians lie even when faced with a clear truth. Once again, it's the Royal Mail and this part privatisation of the Post Office which for some reason Labour MPs are voting against. Why? They support the EU and their colleagues voted for it, so why the U-Turn?

Notice in this video, though, that Harridan does not say 'No, it isn't'. I might write and ask her if that's because it's true.



One could have a look through complaints by TNT , the people who will be buying the post office up now Mandelson is back to force the legislation through, to the European Commission.

There are little things in economics called market failures. Providing communication facilities in Little Wychwood for Mrs Snooks for the price of a stamp which can be purchased anywhere is just one of them. But a relevant one, in this case.

Custard Chuckers

That's rather rude.

But oh my, I could watch that vile disgrace of a human being have things hurled into his face. Far be it for me to suggest alternatives to green custard (assault, my arse. I've been served food by French waiters with less grace than that knicker knitter) for that would no doubt be breaking some law.

But can you imagine if instead of a dyed foodstuff it was brick, or acid, or anthrax? Polonium, even? Because then we might have to do without Mandelson as our controller, and then where would we be?

On the subject of pointless green issues:

Downfall

I was looking for a spoof 'Downfall' of the RBS pension thing, hopefully featuring Harridan and her disgraceful disregard for the law when I veritably tripped across this one I hadn't seen before. At least, I can't remember seeing it before:

a little late, but

I am a little late in commenting on this story:

"The Prime Minister has said it is not acceptable and therefore it will not be accepted.

It might be enforceable in a court of law this contract but it's not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that's where the Government steps in," Ms Harman told BBC1's Andrew Marr show.

As the lovely, if slightly toothy clown, says:

I can, quite literally, not believe what I am reading here. A senior minister of the government of the United Kingdom is brushing aside the rule of law and opening the door to the rule of the wishes of the Prime Minister and / or that of the baying mob.

In my experience it makes a change for them to want to change the law to please the great unwashed. There was me thinking Harridan was in training to take over from Baroness Irrelevant in June come the next European Commission appointments.

After all, arbitrary law changes and a complete disregard for anything but self promotion is the founding principle of the European Union

A post on why I don't trust people in power to make sensible economic decisions

Listening to the PM programme on Radio 4 I heard the statement that printing of money as a stimulus 'had never been used before'.

It has, actually, and with dire consequences. It's one of the reasons that Henry VII was known as a miser, such was the state of the Treasury when he came to the throne in 1485. His son, alas, didn't learn either and the debasement of the coinage along with an influx of bullion and silver from the mines caused mass inflation and unrest.

Okay, we're in a different society now (although my experience at a bus stop in a dodgy part of London would lead me to say that it's not definitely better these days) but as one who is a supply side economist rather than a monetarist (tracking M3 didn't do us much good a few years ago) telling people you're going to inject money into the economy doesn't seem like a foolproof plan.

Back in the good old days before the hateful harbinger of doom was in No. 11 we were lucky enough to have gold reserves to back up our currency. Take a look at a note (It's going to be a £5 one for me) and it says 'I promise to pay the bearer the sum of £x'.

As unlikely as it is that someone popping into the Bank of England before Brown decided to flog the family Silver would be given a speck or two of gold, at least it was able to happen. Now we're on dwindling supplies of everything but hatred towards our esteemed MPs and, as much as I would like it to be otherwise, that isn't going to keep us in Chinooks and nurses.

The gold has been sold, our main export market is fucked and the threat of an EU financial regulator will have an even more devastating effect than the Nazis did on Coventry. And our M0 is going to be worth less. Surely?

I'm open to ideas here, chaps, except anyone telling me that either Labour or the EU is a good idea. Does one have to be a monetarist to see how this will work? Because I would like us to be out of this mess at some point soon.

Bent over a Barrel

Interesting, if not unsurprising, report in the Telegraph today by the excellent Bruno Waterfield

Hungary warned the growing split threatened to provoke outbreaks of social unrest and a flood of unemployed immigrants travelling to Western Europe in search of jobs.

Ferenc Gyurcsany, the Hungarian prime minister, called for a £169 billion bail-out of Eastern Europe to prevent a major crisis that would reverberate across the continent.

A source I won't reveal did inform me that in the pre European meeting Sunday before last at which European Parliament President Hans Gert Pottering was present, representatives of the 'Eastern bloc' informed the President that they wanted not even a loan, but a lump sum gift from the EU (for that read the UK, Netherlands and Germany) to help them through this recession.

In a six-page letter to European leaders meeting for a crisis summit lunch, Mr Gyurcsany made dire predictions about the consequences of letting Eastern Europe, the EU's poorest countries, bear the brunt of a recession.

He warned that if EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe faced a severe downturn, then other European countries would feel the knock-on effect of social unrest and an influx of millions of migrants.

Can I remind you all that the previous influx resulted in hundreds of thousands of people eligible for the social services paid for by the tax payer and the ridiculous situation where people working in Britain could claim child benefit for their offspring living in other countries.

To be blackmailed by this joker is unacceptable and yet by virtue of our membership to the European Union it is entirely acceptable.

The weak pound has seen our payments rocket to £5bn in 2011 and what exactly do we get from this fucking organisation? The privilege of our democracy being raped, our opinions counting for nothing and our historic relationships with the Commonwealth turned to dust.

We have to leave if we want any financial prosperity and self respect.

June is not far off, chaps. Let's not vote for parties who support this current situation and ones who would also see Turkey, Croatia and Serbia join in to feed at the trough we keep filling.

Just for Trixy

A shoe-related advert that's rather good!