Alistair Darwin evolves into a boss of something!

I remember in the sixties that there were some people who apparently did not know who the prime minister was. They knew Mike Yarwood, but for some reason Harold Wilson's name eluded them. I never really believed that. I've always thought into was a publicity stunt to make opinion pollsters look good.

These people quizzed were adults. It's not generally expected that children should know of everyone in government, let alone Gordon Brown. But I suspect the vast majority do, because of the remarks they hear about him! Should Alistair Darling be known and should he be famous? A group of six pupils, all aged nine, from Cedarwood Primary School at Kesgrave, near Ipswich, were quizzed by the BBC about money matters. This was what they thought about the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Does anybody know who the chancellor is?

E: What's the chancellor?
B: Is he the boss of the banks?
V: He is something to do with money, and the President's friend.
E: Is he...
V: ...or she...
E: ...In charge of all the banks?
Rep: He's called Alistair Darling, have you heard of him?
E: If it was Darwin then I have heard of him - he's a famous scientist.

Edward posed a good question about him being the boss of the banks. No more boss than Top Cat was of his disperate (or desperate?) group of feline felons! Gordon Brown has been as useful as Officer Dibble when it came to ascertaining the facts. Alistair Darwin is much nearer the truth. A mad scientist that let the banks grow out of control with terrible consequences.

Out of the mouths of babes......

Major warns Brown that the UK's credit rating could collapse!

Sir John Major spells it out to cloth-eared Brown "If they continue with this huge deficit, at some stage our national credit rating will collapse".



At least one former Cabinet member has realised the fudge game is up. John Hutton says, "I don't think you can go on saying we can continue to spend as if nothing has happened in the last year or so - people know something big time has changed." And even that implies the average voter is thinking through a headful of custard!

Alistair Darling, though, appears to have adopted the custard thinking process. "Gordon and I have many discussions and both of us are absolutely clear our priority now is to build our economy, to resume with great vigour the drive to make sure this is happening in other parts of the world because our future depends on that. I am very clear that things like education, health, transport, these are important matters. But as I have said time and time again, all of us are going to have to make our choices, all of us are going to have to set our priorities and the public will judge." What on earth is all that about? Waffle and piffle!

Truth will out, Darling!

Bankers get a warning from Darling

Chancellor Alistair Darling has warned that it would be "disastrous" for bankers if they returned to their old ways and repeated past mistakes. He says this -

"There are people who are too complacent in my view. Some (banks) are only operating at all because of very substantial support from taxpayers, who are entitled to tell the government we must not repeat the mistakes. If they go back to the way they were - to business as usual - without asking themselves over and over again whether they understand what they are doing, that would be disastrous for them and the rest of the world."

Sounds very good and plausible. Yes, the taxpayers are entitled to tell the government not repeat the mistakes of the past. But what if the future represents only casino banking? We have learnt nothing then. Surely as major stakeholders the Government can make sure these greedy bankers just learn to cut their cloth like anyone else. Why should they be a special case? What makes them so utterly different that they need all this money. Half what the chairmen of Lloyds and RBS get would be a decent enough package. They have sold their souls to the Devil!

Darling needs to get a grip. Play hardball with these tossers. It's no good giving sermons. We require cast iron guarantees that this finanancial rescidivists have repented and will from now on endeavour to do good for the country.

Darling gets 50% of top earners' takings!

I've not contemplated the budget in any great detail, but have chanced to read that those earning over £150,000 will have the top slice cut in half. Not exactly an Old Labour tactic, more an Up-To-Our-Necks-In-It Labour reaction. Forget about Sats and league tables at schools. All school leavers will have to use every ounce of grey matter figuring out how to pay back the dire results of Gordon Brown's reckless abandonment of Prudence. Because we are all involved and will all be involved for a very long time.

Those about to get the big bucks and bonuses creamed off the top of their pay packets may feel aggrieved. If they ever voted for this lot, then it's one big fat free range chicken coming home to roost. They should know that it always ends in tears for Labour.

The Confederation of British Industry puts it quite well when it says that this budget does not set out a "credible and rigorous" path to recovery. No, it doesn't. Gordon Brown has not been credible in much of this. Ever since the sub-prime fiasco came tumbling apart, he has sought to suggest it was all the fault of others. They were involved, certainly, but his "light touch" allowed those who should have known better to turn blind eyes, to keep quiet about dodgy dealings or to bury their heads in their hands.

He knew the economy was all going pear-shaped long before he eventually admitted it publically. How anyone could think that a further five years of a Labour government is worth contemplating, I do not know.

Darling's daring budget?

I sincerely hope that Alistair Darling recognises in his budget that we are in a mess but that we are all keen to get out of it as soon as possible. The time has past for yah-boo politics. We need to draw a line in the sand and move on. No more cover-ups, financial denial or blaming others.

He should explain, without spin, all the detail that is going to help the economy. Pure facts and not spun statistics. And he needs to keep Gordon Brown well away from it all.

If we are to get government plans, such as a car scrappage scheme, let him tell us honestly what it will cost and how it will work. We have been promised mortgage rescue schemes, business loan schemes, etc. All seem vague and wishy-washy. The funding detail is never properly disclosed.

A budget without spin or subterfuge will benefit us all regardless of our political views and our personal circumstances.

Barney Rubble ran RBS!

You couldn't make it up. The Royal Bank of Scotland saga rolls on. Sir Fred Goodwin, when he was chief executive, seemed to think he was given a bag stuffed with poker chips. He took the nickname of Fred the Shred, but he was more like the blundering Fred Flintstone. Whilst he was up to his schemes, the board was dutifully hanging around like Barney Rubble. "Yeah, good idea, Fred. Think it will work, Fred. Wait till I tell Betty, Fred." So the crazy plans were bulldozed through like a caper from the Flintstones. Where was Wilma when we needed her? "FRE...ED! Oh, Fred!"

RBS? Rubble's Banking Scams could be a new title. Be about as accurate. It's the Barney Rubbles of this world that don't see it coming. Fred managed to get out of the mess relatively unscathed. He had the indignation of sitting in front of MPs to say SORRY!, but that hardly got his adrenalin moving. The thought that his £650,000 per annum pension pot could be tampered with, well that will raise the temperature. How on earth could Brown and Darling let that one go though? Another light touch?

Gordon Brown's fingers are all over the mess, Alistair Darling is hopelessly trying to make it all sound good, but it is us, the taxpayers, who will be paying Fred the Shred and his merry much of losers.

Brown blames everyone but himself!

As I write this our devious Prime Minister is giving his assesment of the credit crisis. "It started in America!", he declares. "There was some hiding of things from the regulators" - "I support reward for risk, but there were some risky decisions" and so the snappy retorts to journalists went on. When asked who was to blame, he flinched for a moment, then continued with the obfuscations. He, of course, is to be seen as the saviour of the moment.

I hope all this works out, I really do. But Brown takes the biscuit. For ten years as Chancellor, he's been giving his old girlfriend Prudence a rough ride. He was so fond of her in opposition. If I were Prudence, I'd be leading a campaign against such abusive behaviour.

Are we to believe that he spent his days in No.11 Downing Street only looking at the door connecting the place to No.10? He must have known what was going on in the banking world. Did Mervyn King not utter one word of caution? The FSA have admitted they were asleep on the job some of the time. It beggars belief that in TEN YEARS a man's ears hear NOTHING!!!

Now we are left with a vague idea that he and Darling are going after these bonus baggers if they have done wrongdoing. But the whole thing leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Last night on television I saw a builder who had been forced into bankruptcy because his bank would not continue the regular and agreed funding for his business. A man who literally built up a business, employed people and produced what his customers wanted.

It really is the innocent suffering for the guilty!

Taxpayers' cart put before bankers' lame horse!

Last night on Channel 4 News there was a chap from the Leek Building Society talking to Jon Snow. Snow is like Paxman. He can spot waffle and weasle words. The chap in question (didn't get his name) said he thought this injection of taxpayers' money was a "start". Jon Snow, asked him how much money was required. "If you're going to drop cash in the ocean, how much is needed?" The answer seemed less than satisfactory, but he did say one thing that I thought, well, that sums it all up.

This money is to rebuild confidence. Apparently, it's all down to us, the suckers who feel we can't trust the banks. It's all our fault! We should be thinking more positively. House prices aren't falling, it's all a bad dream. But when this money finally comes across from the sticky fingers of Mervyn King and his coffer keepers, we are all to be good boys and girls. Be thankful and think good things!

Are these bankers completely devoid of a culpability brain cell? "Oh, we did no wrong. We just lent to fools like you!" So now they get bailed out by us, yes US, the taxpayers. Want to know where the 10p tax band's gone. Into the pot, to be cooked up with some other delectable ingredients, such as stealth taxes and VAT increases.

It's about time, as Ron Paul keeps telling Americans, that we took our country back. It's not Alistair Darling's money, Mervyn King's money, it's OUR MONEY!! Billions going into propping up a financial system that has all the hallmarks of the South Sea Bubble! Well, it's popped and we need to make sure they don't get greedy, risky, and reckless again.