Make Labour History

Tony, whose Cogito Dexter blog won my sincere admiration many months ago, has asked us all to join him in his campaign to Make Labour History.

He has my full support to that end. If you really do want to secure a prosperous, free, pluralist and debt-free future for your children, in the finest traditions of our great country, Tony should also be able to count on yours.

I promise that I will do as much as I can to bring about that desirable, and, for everyone in Britain, and for the nation itself, that desperately vital outcome in this Year of Change, 2010.

Bottom line: if you want to save yourselves, your economy and your nation from total socialist destruction, then Vote Conservative - and make Labour history. After thirteen years of hurt, it's very much more than Labour deserves, and it's what we and our country so desperately need.

(Tony: sterling work, compadre. Outstanding.)

The Deflation Myth

Deflation, as demon, is a myth. At the very worst, it is a natural but potentially very painful bursting of a bubble, itself a metaphor for that desperately dangerous illusion that is fake growth. But the real danger is inflation, as this truly great economist reminds us.

I wonder if Brown, the man who really has put Britain on the road to serfdom after that terrible decade of his Chancellorship, which saw him deliberately overheat the economy, itself enabled by his precipitate deregulation of the banking industry, while he also indulged in politically motivated deficit-spending, has ever even bothered to read him. I very much doubt it. And if he has, it's clear Brown had no interest in comprehending him, even if he could.

It's certainly the case that St John of Deficit (Keynes), darling of the Left but totally misunderstood by them, would agree with Hayek, not Brown, on how to deal with the current slump which Brown, an economic illiterate, helped enormously to create. Printing money, route one to the creation of an inflationary timebomb, is not the answer. Facing reality and cutting back intelligently is.

I hate to think what Hayek himself would have to say about Brown's current, suicidal expansionism. It would be polite, but it would not be kind!

Labour Leadership Rumours, Chapter 112

One positive thing that can be said about the Left media, I suppose, is that you do get a better quality of inside info., especially on the epic, Tolstoy-esque Brown [lack of] leadership saga. Just flipped through the web-pages of the Observer, (which is actually the same as the Guardian online but we are supposed to pretend it's the Observer when it's Sunday, which I happily do - I like the quaintness of this challenge), and stumbled upon an article penned earlier today by Toby Helm. It concerns the latest plot (allegedly) brewing against our poor, deeply depressed PM. He writes (rather well, actually - although in typical, Graun/Observer style, there seems to be some side-debate going on about how to spell the word "install"):

There are new and potentially fascinating developments on the Labour leadership front, I hear. Serious plans are being formed by some Labour MPs to install an "anti-Brown" candidate as the next chairman of the parliamentary party. It is all part of a fresh attempt to oust the prime minister before the general election.

The MPs – including several former ministers – are urging senior figures including the education select committee chairman, Barry Sheerman, to put themselves forward to replace the current PLP chairman Tony Lloyd, who is seen by rebels as too much of a Brown loyalist.

Sheerman, a very senior figure in the PLP, has turned against Brown recently and would be seen by the whips as a de facto stalking horse, no less. Crucially, the PLP election, which will take place when parliament returns next month, will be conducted by secret ballot, meaning MPs do not have to own up to their choice.

Last night, Sheerman refused to comment but friends made absolutely clear he could and would be persuaded to stand if they could provide him with evidence that he would get sufficient support. Soundings will be taken among MPs at Labour's conference in Brighton later this month.

One backbencher said a challenge to Lloyd from Sheerman would throw the party into another period of "prolonged and vicious" leadership infighting.

The rebels are clearly trying to gain a foothold in positions of authority to try to persuade people from within that the game us is up for GB.

"An anti-Brown candidate like Sheerman would be supported by the 60 to 70 or so hardliners who are known to want Brown out, that is for sure," said one Labour MP.

"The question would be, how many more would join? That would depend on how things go over the conference season. The whips will pull out all the stops to prevent this. If it happens it will be ugly."

During the last coup attempt against Brown in June, Sheerman, who described himself as a "serialist loyalist" by nature, suprised colleagues with vehement criticisms of the prime minister.

He said he believed the parliamentary party was no longer listened to and he was not sure Brown was the right man to lead the party into the next election.

Sheerman complained to Lloyd about the way MPs such as Ian Gibson, who was forced out of Norwich North seat because of the expenses scandal, had been treated by the party machine.

The rebels are also planning to field their own candidate for one of the seats on the influential parliamentary committee, which conveys the views of the parliamentary party to the prime minister in regular meetings held in deep secrecy.

Some senior Labour figures who want Brown out, believe that if they keep up the pressure, and instal their people in positions of influence at the top of the party, then they might be able to persuade Brown to leave No 10 of his own accord. One theory is that Brown might cite his declining eyesight as a reason for leaving before the election.

The difficulty for the rebels is that they still have no candidate with whom to replace Brown. Alan Johnson, the home secretary, is still regarded as the best choice by most MPs but he has insisted he will not move against Brown and does not want the job.

Another backbencher said that despite Johnson's comments, the intention was to leave him with no option. "If things go according to plan, Johnson will come under intense pressure in the next few weeks."

Ed Miliband, who was tipped as a successor to Brown by Unite's joint general secretary Derek Simpson on the eve of this week's TUC Congress, is also being talked up as a possibility although he, also, remains loyal to the prime minister.

Combine this with thrusting new Speccy editor, Fraser Nelson's, devastating article this fair morn, citing an earlier, even more devastating article by Trevor Kavanagh from the same publication, about the personal responsibility Brown bears for the decline in just about every area of British existence, and you have to say that James Forsyth's question yesterday, "Can Brown make it through December?" is looking a tad optimistic. I'm beginning to wonder whether he's going to "make it" much past the Labour Party conference.

It simply can't go on like this - not in terms of Labour (who cares what happens to them?) - but in terms of the country. Someone has to say it out loud: we have no functioning government in the UK right now. It's leading to corrosion and decline at home and humiliation abroad. And for what? So a clinically depressed, medicated incompetent without a shred of decency in him can keep the job for which he is so patently unfit right up to the bitter end.

I've said it before and I'll say it again until that wicked, unelected fool is gone: even if they don't give a toss about the damage Brown has done/is doing to the country, someone in the Labour party better wake-up to the damage Brown is doing to their party and get rid of him with all convenient speed or the electorate will never, never forgive them for putting some wrong-headed, short-term form of self-interest before the needs of the nation they are supposed to serve.

But if Helm and the others are right, then we won't have much longer to wait until Brown is finally, finally, gone.

Hallelujah!

Dale Is Wrong About Brown

Iain Dale is suggesting that we should somehow have "compassion" for Brown - assuming that he really is suffering from clinical depression. He finishes a long and winding post with these puzzling remarks:

I have several friends who suffer from depression from time to time. Life is often lived on the edge. They just don't know when the black dog is going to strike. If our Prime Minister is indeed suffering in this way he deserves our compassion, not insults.

'Fraid that won't wash, old boy. Aside from the baffling tone (I assume Dale's regular readers, of whom I am one, are not children) probably all of us have friends who suffer or have suffered from depression. I certainly do, and worse. But the difference is that none of them is Prime Minister. It's a private matter if it happens to be part of your private life. "Leaders" are never afforded that luxury. That is what they exchange for power. It's the old Antigone question - you know, the crisis caused for a king when his public and private realms collide. Dale, I think, knows this. So I believe he's being rather dishonest here - for reasons known only to himself.

Ollie Cromwell (he of "The Red Rag" blog fame) makes a strong point in an open letter to Dale/comment on the original blogpost:

Iain, I would of course have compassion for anyone suffering any illness who then finds it exacerbated by a stressful job. That is unless that person had smeared and backstabbed his way to it, not caring who he destroyed along the way, and then clung onto it at all costs even when it is abundantly clear that he does not have the capacity for it. I will reserve my compassion for the employees who have to put up with his abuse, flying mobile phones and rages.

I will offer Mr Brown compassion when he is in convalescence after standing down for the sake of his health and the nation’s. Until then I will insult him as he insults us with his lies and incompetence.

I believe the Lib Dems are looking for bleeding hearts.

Exactly.

US Economists: UK Budget Wrong

US financial newsblog, Intermex Power, has published a powerful article this evening by Brian S. Wesbury, chief economist, and Robert Stein senior economist at First Trust Advisors in Wheaton, Ill, who write a weekly column for Forbes. They have described the tax hikes combined with the huge levels of borrowing in the UK budget as a perilous error on the part of the government which will certainly not head off the potential credit downgrade.

...we need only look at the U.K., where the threat of a downgrade comes despite the large tax increases already built into their budget. It offers an example we shouldn't follow.

They warn the US government that to follow Brown's plans to borrow and print more money to finance ballooning levels of public debt would cripple the US economy by hammering the value of the dollar. The Standard and Poor's recent decision to 'review' the UK's AAA credit rating was not only intended to force the government to wake-up to the risks they're taking with unsustainable debt but to warn the US and the world that debt was a major danger. As the authors put it, the review of the UK's AAA status was...

...a shot heard 'round the world [and] happening despite [Gordon Brown's] planned tax hikes, because [the UK's] debt burden was to rise to 100% of gross domestic product.

So much for Brown's great lie, then: his la-la land 'global consensus'. The warning is clear: the government's policies are not only wrong, they are dangerously wrong. As Peter Hoskin of the Spectator noted earlier today

... Professor John Taylor's article for the FT today extrapolates from Standard and Poor's recent assessment of the UK's creditworthiness [and] delivers a warning about the rising national debt in America. This passage jumped out at me: that we are now in totally uncharted territory thanks to the government's mishandling of the economy year after year.

"While there is debate about whether a large deficit today provides economic stimulus, there is no economic theory or evidence that shows that deficits in five or 10 years will help to get us out of this recession. Such thinking is irresponsible. If you believe deficits are good in bad times, then the responsible policy is to try to balance the budget in good times. The CBO projects that the economy will be back to delivering on its potential growth by 2014. A responsible budget would lay out proposals for balancing the budget by then rather than aim for trillion-dollar deficits."

Taylor's point also applies over here. By the Treasury's own (optimistic?) forecasts, we'll still be running a budget deficit of 5.5 percent of GDP in 2014. Going off their current plans, that deficit would be similiar under the Tories. So unless the next government undertakes bolder fiscal consolidation than is currently being mooted, we may again be lamenting a failure to "fix the roof while the sun was shining.

The message for Brown and Darling, coming now from experts all over the world, can't be any more clear: you must cut spending or cause an even deeper crisis for the UK economy. Of course, they will not - but not for economic reasons, for political ones. Launching the essential raft of cuts in public spending would mean they would be unable to attack supposed 'Tory cuts' and thus in their uncomplicated minds lose their 'unique selling point'. As this appears to be the main (only?) plank of their political strategy it would also mean their having to work-out (very quickly) exactly what, if anything, this government is now for. I can provide the answer for them right now: this government is [good] for precisely nothing.

What voters simply must finally realise from all this is that the cynical - and severely flawed - political calculation behind the tax-borrow-and-spend 'policy', and behind triggering an insane debt explosion, is the only motive for Brown's reckless actions. It's the sheer desperation of a man (deservedly) threatened with the end of his political career and willing to devastate the UK economy in a last-ditched and deluded attempt somehow to 'save' himself. He's attempting to trick the electorate into backing him by generating a fake recovery for early 2010 which itself will result in the dreaded 'double dip' recession and then years of stagflation.

This country is currently at the mercy of a very dangerous man. The press better wake up to this fact and help people with a campaign to have him removed - immediately. It's the only option left.

The Radical Fix

'Renegade Economist' Fred Harrison has seldom been wrong about where our governments, particularly this one, utterly failed to 'go right'. Last month I wrote this little piece about his plan for a radical fix. This time, I'll just leave it to him to explain what we have to do as a nation to get ourselves out of the mire - and avoid the Thirties solution, which was World War II.



I don't entirely agree with him on the land tax issue (there are over-population and transition factors he doesn't seem to take into account with any rigour in his daring escape plan), but I totally agree with him on at least one thing: the first step is to cast off this government and force the next one to get it right. I also agree heart and soul that debt is our real enemy, and a powerful one at that. To defeat debt, the radical fix has to begin right away.

PS: And if you really care, read this (even though he's wrong about Thatcher).