Don't handicap Handy Andy

They're being unfair to Prince Andrew who should be immediately re-appointed as ambassador for British business. He's perfect for the job.Well travelled, loves America, flies helicopters, big built slightly overweight and just the right IQ.

HRH is an archetypal British businessman. Patriotic, energetic,gregarious, thick skinned, prejudiced and fairly dim. Just the type of management man that's made Britain such a great industrial power selling its products round the world.

Wot a way to ruin a railway!

Why is Labour being so timorous about renationalising the railways? The public want them renationalised. It's easy to do by taking the contracts back as they fall in. The nationalisation of East Coast, after National Express chucked it in, shows that it can be done and can make a profit. Most of them have already been renationalised, but by the nationialised railways of other countries. The German, French, Dutch and Hong Kong state railways are all running two thirds of our system and charging higher fares than they do at home.

Result? Dog's breakfast railways with ever-escalating fares in which the profitable lines, instead of producing a surplus to subsidise the unprofitable, pay out their profits in dividends leaving the government to subsidise the rest. Over £200 million a year is paid out in dividends while the state has had to nationalise Network Rail and subsidise it to keep the trains running.

To complete the nightmare it's proposed to cut right across it by creating HS2 – the British White elephant train which will reach the North in 2034 and round it off with a hypothetical HS3 across the Penine's. Labour supports both without understanding either. Time to buy a bike.

Keep the AK47 out of Britain's nurseries

Now we know. The Tory road ahead is German. It must be good for big Mercs and BMWs, but less happy for pedestrians and cyclists.

Keep the AK47 out of Britain's nurseries. Home Office guidance says nurseries must "have due regard to the need to prevent people from being driven into terrorism" and their staff must challenge extremist ideas which can be used to legitimise terrorism". Hear hear. Can't have the little buggers gunning down the vicar shouting "Allah Akbar".

Wot about the workers?

The system of economic management introduced by the Tory governments since the bad old days, and enthusiastically followed by New Labour, has been variously described as modernisation, competition and freeing markets. All, we were told, exciting, stimulating, energising. What no-one notices is how it's also done down the workers and their families.

In the bad, old social democratic days their living costs were kept down by cheap food, low-cost housing, cheap travel and low utility prices. Britain was a good place for people. Modernisation has scrapped all that - in order to make it a better place for money to live in than people.

The Common Agricultural Policy forced us to buy high-cost EU food and poured out subsidies to fat farmers. Sales of council houses, the end of big building, privatisation and the enforcement of higher rents to match the private rented sector ended low-cost housing. Privatisation and the need to pay big dividends to the new (mainly foreign) owners of the railways made travel more expensive, particularly for commuters. And the privatisation  of water electricity and gas led to higher prices and lower investment.

Policies supposed to benefit the workers have well and truly screwed them. Just in time for wage freezes, immigrant competition, and the growth of a low wage service economy as manufacturing dies to fill their cup of happiness to overflowing.

At Butlins, the redcoats used to ask "are you happy?", "yes we are " we'd reply. Wonder what they say now?

Refugees

The Government says it doesn't check police records of refugees in case it prejudices their prospects of returning home. Terminalogical inexactitude. It doesn't check them because it won't pay to join the European police record system.

TORY LIES SHOW THE WAY TO TRUTH

Cameron wasn't telling the truth in his claim to have halved the deficit. It's down by a third, but half what it was in ratio to GDP. Which points the way for Labour. BOOST GDP and you reduce the deficit in ratio to it.

Which is what we need to do. Stop the obsession with debt and realise that a stronger economy can bear more. So how do we boost the economy?  Borrow more and spend to stimulate demand for jobs, build houses and invest in manufacturing.

Public sector debt isn't like household debt. Private debt drags down. Running a deficit and borrowing to spend are what we need to do in a recession. Spending public debt multiplies jobs and stimulates the economy. Austerity does the opposite.

Which is why the clamour about debt and deficits and the competition about who can cut best is such a waste of time. Best to hope that Labour has joined this Carey Street clamour as a necessary hypocrisy to show itself respectable. Just as Roosevelt promised to balance the budget in 1932 as the prelude to the biggest Keynesian boost in history. That's the way to do it.

Thought for the day from Labour

Labour's Media Spokesperson:  "I'll be satisfied that we are where we want to be when we have a member of the traveller community as a commissioning editor at Channel 4".

REASONS TO LOOK FORWARD TO 2015

• The final proof of whether George Osborne is the greatest political strategist since Machiavelli or an insane ideologue dedicated to creating the most minimal state since Neolithic times.
  
• We'll find out whether Cameron's is a genuine recovery or just another bubble which will burst when interest rates go up after the election.
  
• It will also become clear whether HS2 is an insane waste of money or just daft and unnecessary and whether HS3 is a mirage.

WATCH THIS SPACE.