A little while ago I put up a little poster made (I believe) by the blogger Guido Fawkes, which drew numerous comparisons between Brown and Mugabe, and now it seems another comparison can be drawn. Mugabe has now released the $Z10 billion dollar note which is apparently worth about £13. Well, it’s worth £13 right now but it seems likely the Pound will be rushing to catch up. Labour’s tinkering with the economy and pursuing this excellent idea of spending more money to get out of debt has only served load us with some extra tens of billions to pay off. National debt currently stands at 160% of GNP. They’ve failed, and now going the predictable route of bankrupt countries, are preparing to print more money. Last night, on Have I Got News for You, they showed a film clip of a government spokesweasel talking while smoke rose behind her. The initial joke was ‘Liar liar pants on fire’ but Ian Hislop surmised that was the smoke from pensioners burning pounds to keep warm. Look forward to the time you’ll be using your carrier bags to carry money on the way into the supermarket.
Tag: In the News
Smoking Ban.
A website here blowing all those ASH and government (same organisation really) anti-smoking ‘facts’ out of the water. Here’s an interesting bit about the effect of the ban on our pubs: The financial analysts Goldman Sachs – hardly a “pro smoking organisation” – recently stated that the smoking ban has reduced average pub profits by 10% . Scottish & Newcastle, the UK’s largest brewery estimated a 8% fall in beer sales in January and since then beers sales in the UK have fallen to their lowest level since the Great Depression. But most devastating to the ASH version of events are the statistics for pub closures which accelerated dramatically in 2007. The trade journal The Morning Advertiser blamed this squarely on “the savage impact of the smoking ban and spiralling costs” and the figures require little comment:
2005: 2 a week 2006: 4 a week 2007: 27 a week Those non-smokers who were, apparently, driven from pubs by all those nasty smokers, better hurry and get back before the pubs are all gone.
Brown: Financial Genius.
Something quite simple to consider next time you hear Brown waffling about this ‘Global credit crunch caused by the miss-selling of sub-prime mortgages in America’: if it is the case that it’s global and the finger of blame points squarely across the Atlantic, why is the Pound plummeting against the Euro? Why is it that a year ago 1000 Euros equalled £660 and now equals £880? (Or rather, £1000 now with the commission) Why isn’t Europe suffering quite so badly?
One comment I came across:
“The problem is the UK economy doesn’t have a leg to stand on,” said Peter Spencer, economic adviser to the Ernst & Young Item Club. “It’s very hard to know where the floor for sterling might be when there’s nothing to support it.”
This is entirely the point. We’ve got buggerall industry here and buggerall productivity, apart from piles of bureaucratic shite in the public sector. Now think about this: one in five people in this country work for the state with an average salary each of about £25,000. Do the math. This means every year the average payout per worker who actually contributes to our GNP is over £6000 to support this lot. Then take into account that every pound going through the Treasury comes out at the end of the convoluted bureaucratic process worth 30 pence. Then take into account gold-plated public sector pensions… How does this work then? Really, unless there’s a sudden worldwide demand for Diversity Managers and Outreach Workers we’re not going to be out of this hole for a very long time.
As for Brown’s wonderful financial brain (with which he has apparently saved the world), even German socialists are wondering if he’s lost the plot. The idea of borrowing more money to get out of debt seems more like something a council estate loan shark would recommend. Brown is quite a few beads short of the full abacus.
New Face Book Group.
Battlefield Laser.
Still, a lethal laser that can reach full power in less than a second may cause Northrop Grumman’s stock to rise and the phones to ring off the hooks. “We are ready to deliver on the promise of defense at the speed of light with FIRESTRIKE,” Wildt said.
My brother just emailed me about this neat device. So, not only do we now have pain rays and stun guns, we’ve got a battlefield laser. I wonder if mainstream literati pricks will ever cease their ‘sci-fi nonsense’ cries? Probably not.
Back in Good Old Blighty.
Ah, back in the land of politically-correct wank and bureaucracy for less than 24 hours and already I want to turn round and climb on the next plane out of here. My hackles started to rise in Stanstead Airport where apparently some new legislation applies which dictates that ‘No Smoking’ signs must be placed no more than twenty feet apart, though some variation of their contect is allowed: Smoking is illegal, Smoke here and we’ll take you to a political correction cell and beat the soles of your feet with a rubber hose. However, my hackles really stood up upon sight of the big blue ‘UK Border’ sign with its pale zit-encrusted officials gathered underneath. Beyond the sheer fucking arrogance of that I just knew that beyond it everything was going to go further down hill. I wasn’t wrong. After going into shock for a while with the cold, the endless roundabouts and traffic, we finally got home to immediately put on the central heating, which took about five hours and probably a new mortgage to take the temperature up to somewhere bearable. For the night, hot water bottles were dusted of cobwebs and filled. Today, since the car was in cobwebs for a while too, it was necessary to get an MOT. As we discovered on our last return trip here everything costs no less than £50, and this was no exception. Whilst the MOT was being conducted we headed off down the pub … another mistake I won’t make again. No smoking of course, so the four customers and one of the two bar staff were outside smoking whilst a pub capable of holding hundreds had one person inside. Outside we put our cigarettes out in ashtrays filled with water which was not there to stop the ash being blown about by the hot meltemi wind. The glasses weren’t out of a freezer, since that was hardly necessary. On our way away we noted that the pub seemed as ragged, run-down and as fucked-over as the country it occupies. No money to repair the damaged toilets or paintwork; that was all spend on the unused wheelchair lift to convey chairs over the three steps into the restaurant area.
10p Tax Rate
It’s really enjoyable watching Brown and Darling squirming over this 10p tax rate furore and you have to ask yourself how Brown, lauded as a wonderful chancellor, managed to fuck up so badly. Well Brown started fucking up the moment he stepped into that job when he sold off a lump of our gold reserves to finance ideological change. He’s presided over a massive expansion of bureaucracy, pissed billions up the wall, overcomplicated the tax system and gone low-profile when any shit has been heading towards the fan. Don’t expect him to do any different now he is in the Mugabe-like unelected position of head honcho. The Labour Party, once the champion of the working classes now doesn’t give a fuck about them. It is concerned with trying to push bankrupt ideology of the kind that classifies lazy welfare scroungers and criminals as victims, and anyone working and generating income as a cash cow. But the main concern of those presently in power is staying in power and gathering more power to themselves. Okay, so at a certain wage level some are paying £200 more each year, but they can get it back in tax credits! This is about making the citizens of this country clients of the state: we’ll take money off you but if you ask us nicely and do precisely what we say, we might give you a little back.Then again, maybe not, since they’ve thrown a 100 billon at Northern Rock, 50 billion at other banks, and will be throwing over 20 billion at the Olympics. And that’s on top of all this lot (note the large pink chunk better named the ‘feckless fund’):
(oh, as an aside, who thinks of Black Adder upon hearing the Chancellor’s name, and who else doesn’t think some of these Labour MPs appropriately named what with the man of straw and Ed Balls-up?)
Smoking Wheezes.
Picture the scene: it is a grey cold and colourless day and we focus on an old lady motoring down the pavement on her mobility scooter and gazing miserably at the big CLOSED sign outside the local bingo hall. Then, suddenly, she is on a Caribbean beach, she is happy, wearing sunglasses and bright clothing, her mobility scooter painted in bright colours too. Everything is palm trees, pinacolatas and sunshine. And why? Because she played Lotto Bingo, obviously. Hey, isn’t it nice to know that after driving numerous bingo halls out of business with the smoking ban that the government is cashing in? The other smoking wheeze (excuse the pun) from our government is to force shopkeepers to take cigarettes off display and hide them under the counter. This is to discourage under-age smokers, apparently. Funny, I thought it was against the law for anyone under 18 to either buy or smoke cigarettes. Again, in the typical New Labour manner: more new legislation and laws rather than ENFORCING THE LAWS WE ALREADY HAVE!
More of the Same.
There IS a problem with global warming… it stopped in 1998
God is not Great — Christopher Hitchens
Having watched, listened to and enjoyed numerous video clips of Christopher Hitchens on You Tube I decided to buy his book God is not Great (How Religion Poisons Everything) and now, being about a third of the way in, I can make some comparisons between it and the Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion. In essence the two writers have assaulted the same territory and the books are very similar, but they have approached it from different directions. Dawkins is a scientist used to conveying his ideas in an as clear and concise a manner as possible and, having donned some literary garb, is still doing the same thing but in a much more palatable way for the general reader. Hitchens has approached the whole territory from the literary side and is more focused on that angle than the sometimes quite arid and exact scientific viewpoint, which certainly comes out when you hear Dawkins speak. Certainly Hitchens is just as sincere and strong in his opinions as Dawkins, but he’s also more concerned with writerly flourishes and probably the opinion of the literary critics in his circle. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still enjoying his book’s pyrotechnics immensely, and recommend it, however, thus far I prefer The God Delusion.