BRITAIN'S RULING CLASS FOR TOP CLASS COCK-UPS

Few ruling classes have got things quite so wrong as ours: In France they planned for growth and got it. Germany powered ahead. Japan and the young tigers built powerful exporting economies. Only Britain which had won the war made such a disastrous series of mistakes that it ends up now a third class nation pretending still to be Premier Division but unable to pay the rent.

This has happened because our ruling class, anxious always to be punching above Britain's fast diminishing weight led a gullible public down one dead end street after another in its desperate search for greatness on the cheap with each daft decision making the position worse.

First was to keep the pound too high for too long pricing our exports out of markets and bringing in floods of imports.

Second was to believe that we could get back on the top table by joining the EU too late to shape it in our interests and on bad terms only discover that it didn't want to be led by us and only compounded our problems.Our trade with Europe was in surplus before we joined and has been in ever rising deficit from then until now, when over a third of our overseas deficit goes to pay for the membership of a club that damages us. We're borrowing to belong, a bad habit with credit cards, disastrous with the EU.

Third was Margaret Thatcher's conversion to the belief that phoenixes rise from ashes so the best way to regenerate was to create more ashes by closing down swathes of British industry.The First Nation to de-industrialise so as to earn its living by financial services.

Fourth was New Labour's belief that it could create a new paradigm by keeping interest rates high to defeat inflation and de-regulating and cutting taxes to attract business.

Fifth was New Labour's decision to outsource defence and foreign policy to the Americans which led us into death and disaster in Basra and then Helmand and kept us spending more than we could afford and more than our competitors on defence and nuclear systems we could never use. 

Sixth was George Osborne's belief that the best way to grow was to roll back the state, cut taxes on wealth  and squeeze benefits and investment and impose austerity to cut the debt.

Each misguided decision has compounded the downhill slide, weakened the economy and particularly manufacturing which no longer pays our way in the world, slashed demand and increased debt yet each has been welcomed by the media claque as the path to regeneration and renewed strength.

Such the rewards of city year of folly.The one thing Britain is great at.

TWEEDLE DUM VERSUS TWEEDLE DUMMER

The thing that most pissed off our pissed off electorate about two party politics is the way each blames the other for its own failures. When in doubt attack the other side. PMQs is the main forum for this.The only part of parliament most people see and the worst.

Has the government cocked it up again? Labour did it first. Has some Minister cocked up? (again)? Labour people are worse. Is the government being bought by millions from vested interests? Labour gets money from the trade unions. All pure farce played on the assumption that the public are stupid.

Now that same strategy is being made the basis of the Tory election campaign. Lynton Crosby has told them to have a few central themes to bang on about by endless repetition (again on the assumption that the public are stupid) The government has no strong policy offerings beyond hopes for the future.So make the Labour Party the issue .Conceal government's policy nakedness by attacking for not wearing a fig leaf.

So what are the centre pieces of the Tory election campaign? Here's their pledge card

1) Miliband's a North London geek. He looks like a panda, is weak as water and can't make up his mind. In total contrast to Cameron's Churchillian roach steady steadfastness in constantly changing his policies to suit UKIP

2) Labour will borrow more and create a financial mess. In contrast to Osborne's failure to reach his borrowing targets, the fact that borrowing has risen because tax receipts have fallen due to the recession he created.

3) Labour will increase taxes and ruin this government's long term economic plan. In contrast with a government which increased VAT when it said it wasn't going to and had no economic plan beyond slash and burn until the Bank of England saved it by low interest rates and £375 billion of quantitative easing. Government hopes that a remake of its 1992 hit "Labour's tax bombshell' will conceal its 2015 Tory cuts bombshell until it can be exploded on them.

4) Labour won't mend the roof when the weather improves. In contrast with the Tories who've ripped it off in bad weather, slashed every investment proposal in 2010, and is only now restoring investment without saying how it's going to be paid for.

5) Labour will create uncertainty for business which it hates. In contrast with the Tories whose referendum on EU membership and renegotiations will create a long uncertainty about stay or go.

6) Everything that's wrong is Labour's fault and everything the public dislikes was begin by Labour and nothing to do with irresponsible banks, over charging by bullying utilities tax fiddling by multinationals or excessive austerity, all of which show only fear of Labour in the first place.

7) Labour doles out money to scrounges, idle lay abouts, immigrants and crooks where Tories give it to charities like S4C, A4E, Crapita,Price -Waterhouse-Coopers dodgy Free schools and other such deserving causes.

8) More of the same . Ad infinitum.

That's the way to win elections. Who needs the truth when the press are on your side!

DISS-COMFORT

Britain is a country run by comfortable cartels. Each exploits it's area, excludes the troublesome, and allows the members to get on with their job of making money. Selfish but smooth, exclusive but comfortable, conservative but cash rich.

The cartels are all dark suited , conservative, and cautious but always secretive, self protective, and utterly respectable. The Law Society , the Bar council, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the universities, the City, the BBC , the TUC and its affiliates. You name it there's a cartel for it, and most irritant of all Westminster home of the two party cartel which has always ruled the country.

There fortunes rise and fall: unions  in the seventies until they fucked their nest ; City dominant today. Some face competition from American intruders: Americans have taken over the City, accountants have lost the control of the Big Four, Lawyers have out-priced themselves but only the Westminster cartel has bust its own flush and is now challenged by small parties battling to get onto the scene.and by the people who're fed up of the lot of them

The result will be to disturb the power of all by passing power to the people who've been excluded from the comfortable considerations of the cartels and got so little out of it. Now they want to know why.

++++++++++++++

Michael Cockerill's attempt to make the Commons endearing by remaking Westminster Man hasn't gone down too well.The explanation is that you can't make the arcane loveable and heckling the steam roller is much less fun when the steamroller driver just heckles back because he's a better heckler than a driver

650 folk in search of a role.

++++++++++

Miliband's strength is shown by the fact that he's proved Cameron's equal at Question Time a contest the Prime Minister  of the day should win easily and second by his ability to stand to the deluge of shit showered in him by the Tory Press. This boy's tough and getting tougher. Stand firm Ed!

Of course Labour's in favour of business but it's also in favour of businesses workers too many of whom are underpaid and its customers many of whom are cheated and its contribution to society which all too many dodge by avoiding paying due taxes. Business always does better under Labour than under Tory austerity and if it's too dim to realise that it deserves to fail. Business will be tret as business does.

Start of the Week

Monday 2 February

BRITAIN UNDER FOREIGN OWNERSHIP

A century ago good socialists rallied at the one percent of landowners and aristocrats who owned Britain. Today they'd have to rail in German, Chinese, Arabic, and a lot of other languages because Britain is slipping steadily into foreign ownership. Indeed they're beginning to rail back as the boss of Boots speaking probably from Monte Carlo did against Labour

Our railway companies have been renationalised to German, Dutch, and French nationalised railways. Our car plants are nearly all foreign owned. Ditto our steel plants and our airports. Heathrow is Spanish owned. Cadbury is American owned-which is why they've changed the contents of their eggs and Rowntrees by the Swiss which is probably why Kit Kats aren't made here any more

Many of those business chiefs denouncing the Labour Party run foreign owned companies. Boots was built as a British company founded as the poem goes on the "shrewd cash chemistry of Good Sir Jesse Boot", it was taken over by Alliance which loaded it with debt, transferred it to Switzerland to dodge tax, and allows the foreign chief executive to live in Monaco ,which is some little way from Nottingham. From there he now attacks Labour as threatening to business and, presumably, dodging taxes.

The big multi-national corporations which make big profits here have headquarters in Luxembourg or Dublin so that can make the profits here and pay their tax there. Even what remains of that great British company ICI is now foreign owned.

This happens because every year now we run an overseas deficit. It was 6% of GDP last year  meaning that we not only import far more manufactured goods than we export but our investments overseas which used to be enormous earn more than foreign investments in Britain, all of which export their profits which reduces  demand and investment in this country

We pay for this gap and balance the budget by getting the foreigners we owe to to buy up companies, houses, land, and football clubs. Government then boasts that investment is flooding in because foreigners have faith in Britain. Not true. They're buying ups bankrupt stock, which is the nation's way of going to the pawnbroker.What happens when we've nothing left to sell?

Tuesday 3 February

TIME STAMP DAY, WESTMINSTER HALL DEBATE

A quarter of a century ago I took a young fund manager who'd been fired for blowing the whistle on the way his banks exchange traders stole price points when they did deals for his clients to see Eddie George the then deputy governor of the Bank of England.

Eddie lied to us. He said this point skimming wasn't happening when it was. He said the Bank had conducted an enquiry when I later found he'd merely asked the bank to investigate itself. Which it had and announced that it smelled of roses.

Then I found that the FBI had  operated a sting called Wooden Nickel which led to 47 indictments for point skimming while the Virginia State employees pension fund was suing New York Mellon Bank for billions for fiddling it's foreign exchange transactions.

The answer I pointed out was to time stamp every foreign exchange transaction so that clients knew the rate the dealers were buying or selling at and weren't forced to accept the often fictions rate they were told to fiddle them. They time stamp share deals, exchange transfers between banks, and even Starbucks coffee.

This would stop dealers fiddling themselves a fortune at the expense pensioners whose money they were trading. It would enforce honesty and inform customers. To my amazement the Bank of England told us that time stamping wasn't a priority for them while the Financial Conduct Authority said it wasn't necessary at all. They've just fined the banks billions for rigging the interest rate market but they don't want to prevent further fraud by this simple proposal.

They said they'd consulted the interested parties and they were against it. In other words they trust the people who've just been fined billions more than they trust the pensioners who're being ripped off every day. 

Remember that the foreign currency exchange trade is huge, $5 trillion a day in the US and even more here, so that a few points skimmed off every trade will make dealers very rich very quickly.

The Minister who replied to my debate basically said that pensioners were too stupid to know and wouldn't know enough about prices to find out. That's  how the financial interests gang up with each other to rob we lesser fry! I'll not stop fighting for time stamps. We'll win but how many more millions will have been stolen by dealers by then? Message to the Bank of England: not to take this simple measure to prevent theft is to condone crime by making it so easy.

Wednesday 4 February

NATIONAL CAKE THROWING DAY AND THE 300 STOOGES

It's Wednesday so it's National Cake Throwing Day (aka PMQs) in which 100 stooges blossom, the PM is allowed to make prepared statements and Ed Miliband tries in vain to get answers to a serious question of why Trust Funds have been allowed an exemption from stamp duty no one else gets so that they'll continue to do their dirty work here rather than move to Luxembourg.

Much praised by fools and much viewed in America ( where they think their presidents aren't smart enough to cope with it) PMQs is the only Parliamentary routine which gets much of an airing on telly but has been turned into a low level farce by being used as a platform for electioneering rather than a serious check on the executive.

Questions are handed out by the whips on both side to help members make petty party points. They're then briefed  by ministers and shadow ministers and the prime minister is told what's coming from his own side so that he can give his own people a little cheer, read out announcements he wants to make, and  give a little mention of "the government's long term economic plan" or some other happy formulation which has to be regularly re-iterated in case people forget it (easy to do because there isn't one) Nevertheless it got four mentions.  Mention it enough and people will assume that it actually exists

Today's was a good illustration of this carefully calibrated spontaneous event. Six stooge questions from Labour and six Tory stooges plus three more real questions designed to allow the PM to put on his glasses and read prepared announcements spontaneously, four harmless questions from minor parties and one marginally good joke by the PM "Bill somebody isn't a person, it's Labour's policy."

The only real high point therefore was Miliband's rather good question (repeated five times) on why hedge funds have been exempted from stamp duty. no answer of course  just a lot of insults and endless repetition of the wonderful things the government has done. Script by Lynton Crosby

There's got to be a better way though I can't think of one offhand. Perhaps a health warning in the corner Warning! PMQs  may damage your brain.Watch with discretion.

HERE'S HOW IT IS

The banks and financiers caused the Great Depression which has done so much damage, They've neither been punished nor reformed  for it . TheTories came in, ended Labour's stimulus and investment programme and slashed demand by cutting employment benefits and public spending making things worse.They're now claiming a reward for that.

Labour's task now is to reverse all that, regulate to prevent it happening again and restore the social balance by returning power and money to the people and their institutions, the the unions, the universities, local government and communities and by rebuilding the state as the protector and friend of the people.That means all the people middle class and working class.

Banging on about deficits and debt has nothing to do with all this It's all about rebuilding  a strong economy which can serve the needs of our people and pay the nation's  way in the world Nationalism is the key not respectability, caution or timidity and elections are won not by being nice to business but by offering hope and appealing to the spirit of the nation. QED

HYSTERICS ALREADY.TOTAL INSANITY BY 7 MAY

The denunciations of Ed Milliband in the Tory press have reached such a pitch that the Mail on Sunday is putting on extra pages to get them all in.The ex Mayor of Doncaster is dredging them out for the third week  probably to tell us that Ed did'nt know what a cake was in the Chip 'ole. Worse at the retired Big Beasts brigade including Blair (who to be fair is always misquoted )

Don't blame them.Their day has gone and the only way ex MPs can get attention is by rubbishing their own party. But big beasts produce big turds.

At least it shows that Labour as the party of ideas bubbles with argument.The Tories don't cos they're the party of prejudice  and like the American Republicans  they've become ever more United round neo-liberalism, tax cutting and rolling back the state.Where are the wets now? Where are the Whitelaws or the Heseltines? Singing from one hymn sheet makes it easier to win elections but harder to govern in a changed world.

Policy Plea

POLICY PLEA

Gerald Kaufman described our 1983 manifesto as the "longest suicide note in history" This year's won't drive anyone to suicide because it's the most soporific in history. Anyone contemplating suicide will find it difficult to stay awake.

A winning manifesto should inspire hope and excitement: "we fight elections in poetry but govern in prose".We've decided to fight in fudge. Renationalise the railways as the public wants? Well we might allow public sector bids which aren't likely to win against big foreign railways. End student fees?  No but we'll give them a third off-not even a two degrees for the price of one offer.

No populism.We love business even as it overcharges chisels and cheats.No class war. Mustn't frighten the middle classes. No nationalism- Couldn't fit that in among all the Euro-enthusiasm But there'll probable be a pledge card commitment to balance the budget.That should bring em thronging out to vote for us.

It's all a bit disappointing. John Cruddas in charge of policy is an interesting original thinker strong on issues like decentralisation and bringing power down to the people. We've had a long and earnest policy review. The policy forum was a good idea to take it out of the dead brains of the NEC. The mountains have laboured but only a ridiculous mouse has been born.

There's a lot of rethinking to do after the failure of financial capitalism in 2008, the failure of neo-liberalism  and the failure of austerity. But no Crosland to do it. The effort to shape socialism to the new society has begun, but too late in the day to give us an inspiring manifesto. Michael Meacher's book last year and another collective effort on policy coming soon. Peter Hain's future of socialism revisited.  Kelvin Hopkins' pamphlet onEurope, and next month Bryan Gould and John Mills on running a competitive economy for growth, but none of this has been heeded

We're right to fight on the NHS and to attack the damage done by Osborne's cuts  and to urge investment and higher wages to boost demand but we also need to offer an exciting alternative to the combination of low wages, minimal state and Klepto-capitalism the Tories are building. Labour is about hope and betterment or it fails.