Where's the growth?

To first-quarter growth figures were revised down today to just 0.5%, suggesting that Greatest Chancellor Of All Time (henceforth known as GCOAT, or Billy for short) won't meet his growth forecast for this year.

But more interesting was the breakdown of those figures. The only sector of the economy showing any significant growth was government spending, with a rise of 0.7%.

The real economy gets smaller, while the government keeps getting bigger. Even Billy will have trouble keeping that going. Soon there won't be anyone left to tax.

Speeding ..It's About Money!

Speeding ..It's About Money!

The Queen's Speech included a new law on speeding. To quote the Department of Transport, because "there are many more speeding offences being detected", the government "feels it is appropriate that the penalty point system is altered so that punishment takes a better account of the level of offending." In effect, they'll still fine you, but they won't take so many points off your license.

But, hold on. If speeding is as dangerous as they say, shouldn't those drivers be banned?

The trouble is, when you ban them, they don't speed any more, and you can't issue any more tickets. So the answer is simple, just keep on issuing the speeding tickets, but not the penalty points. That way they can keep whizzing along the roads…and pay money to the Government.

Very New Labour…

The Money Is Running Out (Part 1 )

Unemployment has now risen for three months in a row - this month it rose by 8,100. Modest, true, but then most trends start modestly. Don't expect it to stop climbing anytime soon. In the UK, 16% of all jobs are in retail. And, in case you hadn't noticed, the retailers have all be announcing terrible figures. When the tills are empty, you don't need so many people behind them.

At this rate, even the Poles will be going home soon.

The money is fast running out. What will the greatest Chancellor of all time do then?

The Nosepegs Are Twitching

All those people who decided to 'hold their noses' and vote for Tony one more time are must be feeling a bit queasy after seeing what's in the Queen's Speech. ID Cards and draconian anti-terror legislation mean what few civil liberties remain will be ended: schools will plunged into chaos with private firms bought into run them: incapacity benefit will be attacked.

The left will be mortified - although that serves them right for being fooled into voting for him on the basis that Gordon Brown would be PM by last Monday. The right, meanwhile, will have to live with New Labour stealing much of their rhetoric, whilst completely messing up the implementation, so destroying the chance for genuine reform.

As usual, Blair manages to let everyone down.

And I haven't even got to the proposed new law on speed cameras yet. Don't get me started….

Get the Lifeboats Ready

Did I miss something during the election? In the days since the vote, there seems to have been an avalanche of bad economic news. Retail sales have collapsed. Personal bankruptcies have hit a record. Repossessions are a decade high. The Bank of England has scaled back its growth forecast.

And yet, only a week ago, New Labour was campaigning in the strength of its economic record.

Did Honest Gordon not know about any of these figures?

Were they held back until after the election was over?

Perish the thought. He wouldn't do something like that....would he?

Springtime for Tony

This bright May should belong to the victorious Tony, just as it did in 1997. But he can hardly be full of the joys of Spring. Despite what The Sun says, New Labour just isn't sexy anymore.

Tony must be thinking back to his 'honeymoon' of eight years ago, and fondly recalling how he used to screw party, parliament and people five times a day and get away with it every time.

Blunkett's Back

So, David Blunkett is back in the cabinet as the minister in charge of work and pensions. Does that mean that all the pensioners can now get free first-class rail tickets?

I'm Buying A Nosepeg Factory

So, in the end, a lot of people got out their nosepegs and voted Labour. They seem to imagine that a chastened Tony Blair will now stop scrapping civil liberties, stop invading countries, and gracefully make way for Gordon Brown within the next few months.

I don't know what planet they are on, but it's not in this solar system.

If I were Blair, I'd sack Gordon Brown tomorrow, then invade Iran on Monday. That would teach them. He may not go that far....but he is still Tony Blair. He will betray the people who voted for him on Thursday, the same way he betrayed anyone who ever trusted him. The extraordinary thing is that some of them still imagine he won't.

The conclusion? I'm buying a nosepeg factory. All those Labour voters are going to need them to survive the smell of the next five years.

2009

The next election will be The Battle of the Bloggers.

So Gordon Brown Watch Out ! We are on your case !

London pays for Northerners to vote Labour

Labour are getting a kicking from the Conservatives in Red Ken's London (as of 3.30 am). But they are clinging onto life better in the North.

Why? Labour's been pouring money into the North where the economy is, as Matthew has pointed out, 60% dependent on Soviet style Central Planning and taxpayers' money. Who has been paying for this great transfer of wealth? The good taxpayers of London who don't yet live on handouts .

But not so many people live in the North, which is why Labour will win with a smaller percentage of the popular vote than in any election in history. Let's recall, John Major got more votes in 1992 than Blair got in 1997. New Labour has never been that popular.

The real winner

Blair has just re-won his seat in Sedgefield. He looked liked he was making his resignation speach. A grim Cherie was grey faced and about to burst in tears, it seemed (or perhaps she was shagged out).

But New Labour are on course to win this election. So why does Blair look so terrible?

He knows he's finished. The real winner is Gordon Brown.

String 'Em Up !

Tony and Cherie Five Times A Night

Just in case you don't read The Sun, here's the Tony (TB) and Cherie (CB) joint interview -


The Prime Minister and Cherie cuddled under the cherry blossom in the No 10 garden as Mr. Blair joked he was a "five times a night" man."
Sun Royal photographer Arthur Edwards asked the PM - just voted Torso of the Week by a magazine, left, - to take off his tie for the pictures.
TB: I'm not doing anything cheesy Arthur, so don't ask.
CB: Oh, come on Tony, strip off. Let's see that fit body we've been talking about.
TB: You can keep you hands to yourself, Cherie!
AE: So how fit are you Tony?
CB: Very!
AE: What, five times a night?
TB At least, I can do it more depending how I feel.
AE Are you up to it?
CB: He always is!
TB: Right, that's enough - interview over. And I'm not doing any kissing pictures! Come on woman, time to cook my dinner!


New Labour Scandals Says: Perhaps Tony will be corpse of the week by Friday.

New Labour's Virtual Reality

Even New Labour Scandals confesses to being a little bored by the endless questioning of Blair over the Iraq War.

There are so many more New Labour fibs that we should be discussing. The whole New Labour project is built on the Clinton Doctrine of virtual reality. A timely book by Peter Oborne, 'The Rise of political Lying' details many, many, many New Labour lies. Here are a few, lest we forget.

New Labour spin doctors denied that Blair was ever a member of CND and called this biographical fact a 'lie.' But he had been a member, and he had even put it on his own CV. This was at a time when Tony was establishing his 'new' credentials.

In the 1997 election Blair and New Labour claimed that Tories planned to scrap the state old age pension. The message was repeated again and again. Labour canvassers found that old people were so distressed that some of them had to back peddle and assure the pensioners that even the Tories would not be so heartless as to make them destitute. But the lie was very effective and widely believed.

When the story broke about Robin Cook's extra marital affair, New Labour spin doctors cooked up a rival 'sensation' to knock it off the front pages. They invented a story about Chris Pattern leaking MI6 secrets. It was a complete fabrication.

Numerous spending plans have been re-announced and double counted to win easy popularity with Radio 4 listeners. In July 1998 Brown proclaimed £21 billion of 'new' spending plans on health and £19 billion on education.. The truth was that he re-counted the previous annual increase each year, accumulating a £21 billion figure over three years using an arithmetic progression. Here's an example of Brown Maths at work totting up 'new' Health Spending:

£3 billion in 1999
£ 9 billion in 2000 (a new £6 billion + £3 billion from previous year)
£ 12 billioon in 2001 (£9 billion from 2000 + £3 billion from 1999 even though there would be no increase that year he still included this in his figure for 'new' money).

He played a similar trick on the education figure. In plain language, it was a a monster lie.

In 98, The Evening Standard was on to the story about Mandelson's dodgy interest free home loan supplied by the Paymaster General, Geoffrey Robinson. Mandelson personally rang Max Hastings, the editor of The Standard, to assure him that the story was not true. Hastings pulled the story. Later it all came out.

In 2002 Jonathan Dimbleby repeatedly asked Blairite Transport Secretary Stephen Byers if he had anything to do with the sacking of his press secretary Martin Sixmith. He repeatedly denied it. Sixmith said that he knew for a fact that Byers was involved. Two days later Byers admitted he might have created a 'misleading impression.' He was defended by education minister Estelle Morris who claimed it was not really a lie because it was so transparently untrue to anyone who understood how government departments work.

Europe Minister Keith Vaz was found to have received cash payments from a solicitor whom he had recommended for an honour, although he had denied this to the Standards and Privileges Committee. Eight other accusations against him were left hanging because of his refusal to cooperate. Blair claimed to gullible Radio 4 listeners that Vaz had been enquired into many times and each time had been cleared (sounds familiar?).

I could go on, but the Iraq War lies have overshadowed most recent fibs. Just one more - Blunkett denied that he had speeded up his Nanny's visa. An email turned up proving that he had.

Of course, politicians have fibbed in the past. But why New Labour is so different, is that there is a pervasive culture of lying and New Labour politicians do not even consider that fibbing is wrong, so long as it is for the good of The Cause.'

Blair and Brown - as they keep telling us - believe in 'values'. They do not seem to believe in facts.

In the past we used to debate values but facts were reasonably well established. Following the modernisation of truth by New Labour, that sort of meaningful debate is not longer possible, which explains why this has been such a vapid election.

Oborne has some interesting theories about New Labour's 'Post modernist' thinking on fact and reality and how Blair squares this with his religious belief that George Bush is God. Whatever you think about Tony, something pretty wierd must be going on in his mind.

Can Somebody Send Tony On An Economics Course

In his interview with David Frost on Sunday morning Tony Blair was asked about the shocking figures that 60% or more of the GDP in regions such as Wales, Northern Ireland the North-East was now made up of government spending - a figure that is higher than some of the Eastern European countries before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He just shrugged and said, "Well, I don't really know what these figures mean."

For 'Confused of SW1,' here's a quick explanation of what they mean.

1. Your Government has been taxing and spending too much.

2. Too much money has been shovelled into traditional Labour-voting areas.

3. Large parts of the UK now have effectively a socialised, command economy - and all the economic evidence ever collected shows that will end in disaster.

4. The private sector of the economy will not be able to sustain that burden - a fact that is already evident in the trade and government deficits.

At some point, Blair's complete lack of interest in what is happening to the economy will surely prove his undoing.

Lame Duck

Here's an interesting blog. Naked Translations.

Currently it's looking at the origins of the term 'Lame Duck'. Should make interesting reading for Tony.