Gillian Duffy collars Nick Clegg over Coalition policies

Gillian Duffy is shocked again!

"It's all gone wrong," opines Gillian Duffy, the feisty pensioner who took on Gordon Brown at the general election last year. As she encountered the Deputy Prime Minister today she gave him her ten pence worth of Labourite thinking. The fact that it was under the fading star of New Labour that the bubble burst was something she conveniently forgot. Mrs Duffy is Old Labour to the core. Money grows on trees and the rich can get stuffed!

Here she is in action -

List of axed quangos published

Quangos indeed! They sound rather odd and for most of them they were behavingly rather oddly too for most of their existence. They could be creatures that deserve a documentary to themselves. Rather like dingos, with commentary by Sir David Attenborough. We'd learn all about their habits and their peculiar social interaction. All from a standpoint that 192 of them were in the same evolutionary void as the dinosuars and the dodo.

I always thought that quangos were sort of sinecures plus. You didn't have to worry about too much and you needn't get too het up and bothered about much. Now they face the axe. 192 of them. My only concern is where the jobless quango workers will go. Some will be redeployed, but many will not.

Perhaps the government could tell us how many useful, properly funded jobs this country can afford both public and private. I bet the answer is way below the number that is needed to keep all and sundry happy.

Your country needs you, says David Cameron

David Cameron today has given a rousing speech in Birmingham about the future and how we all tackle this debt problem.

The "beating, radical heart" of the government was shifting power away from the centre to ordinary people, allowing them more choice over services, greater transparency about state spending and greater ability to get involved in running and shaping local services in their communities, he said.

"We are the radicals now, breaking apart the old system with a massive transfer of power from the state to citizens, politicians to people, government to society," he told the conference. Cameron also warned banks that they must "repay the favour" from taxpayers who had bailed them out by restoring lending to British businesses. "There's another way we are getting behind business – by sorting out the banks," he said. "Taxpayers bailed you out. Now it's time for you to repay the favour and start lending to Britain's small businesses again."

I do hope he's got the bottle to deal with these money-changing leviathans. Business needs a government that will be capable of instilling confidence in society. No good having a Big Society if those making it up are all quivering at the knees. Sorting out the banks? Well let's get to grips with what these gamblers are doing whilst sitting at their computers all day, schizophrenically counting bonus bucks as they watch thin air money whizzing past their eyes.

Transparency, honesty and accountability. Maybe this is the chance for the Rev.Stephen Green, formerly of HSBC, to stand up now, as his country needs him, to purge banking of its Las Vegas promiscuity and return it to an honourable estate.

Budget taxes but no flights of fancy

I knew we would be given the stick first and carrot second. It doesn't appear too bad all round. The Coalition should not worry about upsetting people. Most sensible people are resigned to the fact that the deficit needs to be removed as quickly and efficiently as possible. If anything is going to upset the taxation applecart it will be the media. They can't help trying to drive a wedge between the Tories and LibDems. It's OK for Harriet Harman to snipe away. That's her job as she sees it. But I think it's a bit rich for the BBC to harp on about who is sitting beside whom on the front bench etc, etc.

Given the media frenzy before the budget was even delivered I half thought Ryanair's chief executive Michael O'Leary was going to be chancellor for the day. £1 off this and that but VAT on breathing! As Michael Winner might say, "Calm down, my dears. Calm down".

The Coalition has its fans. I'm one of them. Better a coalition than a washed out Labour administration. If the prime minister is to get any trouble, though, it won't be from the opposition. It will be from some on his own side and from some in the media. I've noticed that Tories who favour the coalition call their LibDem colleagues "honourable friends" and those that don't call them "honourable gentlemen" (or ladies, of course!). It works equally well from the LibDem perspective. An easy way to spot possible troublemakers.

The media seem to be uncertain about coalition politics. It's taking their mindsets some time to adjust. They also have a difficulty with the opposition. Harriet Harman is sometimes described as the Leader of the Opposition and sometimes as the Acting Leader of the Labour Party. It all depends on what point is trying to be made.

Anyway, austerity times apart, I think it may well work out rather well.

UK economy emerges from recession

We're out of recession, quip the economists. They were touting this last night. Actually, figures showed the economy had grown by a weaker-than-expected 0.1% in the last three months of 2009. Miniscule, I'd say, but at least it's going in the right direction.

Such a plus figure of tiny proportions needs working on. I have in mind Casanova knocking on the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street's door and asking if she wants to come out for a good time. She's only opened it a millimetre - giving him enough space to squint at her finery.

It's going to be hard work keeping up the strength to get the public finances in order. Oh, well!

JP Morgan Chase - Thin Air Specialists

Wall Street bank JP Morgan Chase has reported profits of $3.3bn (£2bn) for the last three months of 2009. Considering they got a hand-out from the American taxpayer, this seems like they are living in a land where "bust" is not in their vocabulary for themselves but it is for the poor American entrepreneur.

Banks can make money out of thin air - literally. It's called fractional reserve banking, whereby some invester places $10,000 in at the front desk only for a whizzkid to lend it out on the basis of it being $100,000. It's not exactly banking. It's more like Monopoly meets cyberspace. Only those crunching the numbers (or the angel dust) at the money shops know what's going on. The American government thinks it is dealing with businessmen when it invites the four squaddies from the banks to testify. They are nothing of the sort. It's about time we reigned these characters in.

The real question for us all is who exactly is in charge. Is it those guys on Wall Street or is it the President of the United States and Congress? Because if it's "those guys" we've been trussed up like a chicken, allowing them to feed off our bones!

Recession? The penny hasn't dropped yet!

Yesterday most financial commentators were beside themselves because Britain is still in recession. I don't give much credence to all their computer calculating and number crunching excercises. I prefer a more simple method of comprehending whether we are out of recession.

When Gordon Brown was over-gulping on the air and telling us that he had abolished boom and bust I regularly spotted coins dropped on paths and pavements as I walked about. Outside the post office, in car parks, by the telephone kiosk, outside the boozer and so on. I once picked up a pound! Then we had the start of the credit crunch and the pennies stopped dropping from heaven or wherever. I still peer at the ground. Once in a blue moon I spot a coin. But it's a rare occurrence.

When those coins start being dropped again with gay abandon and caution being thrown to some economic growth wind I will believe that we are out of recession. Until then, it's just a hard slog and a determination not to say too many rude things about bankers and Brown!

GM Chairman Says Bankruptcy Looms

It doesn't seem to be getting much better for the car industry. GM Motors teeters on the edge looking bankruptcy in the face. I would have thought it best to let them fall off the cliff. The wreckage will be a lot less difficult to salvage than it would be to keep the present show on the road.

It's not as if Americans won't buy cars again. They just don't want the ones that cost too much to buy and to run. A new phoenix rising from the tangled mess will be a far better beast. Perhaps a couple of phoenixes or more.

People will only buy cars if they feel good about it. At the moment they don't. But as the Indians have shown, if you price it right you will keep the market. And we should not forget that Sam Walton (pictured above) got rich driving old bangers about and wearing Wal-Mart clothing!

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.

Solihull Council contributes £1M plus to recession!

It is estimated by the Federation of Small Business that Britain loses £1 billion a day in lost productivity due to the inability to cope with the snow. Last week Solihull Council, or at least the chief executive, shut schools down three days out of five. At a conservative estimate, this weak-willed decision has contributed at least £1 million from Solihull alone. You'd think these well-paid chief executives would be there to think instead of panic. Because panic is all that there is to show for it.

Tuesday was a complete waste of time. Money down the drain as very little snow fell. Thursday was a blanket closure and Friday was a joke day. That was when we all turned up only to be told the staff had snow phobia and were trying to maintain the assinine line put out by the chief executive. Now here's a man who used to teach special needs children. There have to be some special needs that he urgently requires, along with all the other local government chief executives who are taking the shilling but delivering very little.

First, they need forward planning. Find all those teachers living in cottages at the end of farm tracks without cars and check whether they can actually be bothered to attempt getting in. Second, ask the independent schools how they do it. Third, get the playgrounds cleared of snow. Fourth, stop wingeing about health and safety and begin to take responsibility for once.

I'm not against having fun in the snow. If we want to take a day off when it snows, let the country have snow days. However, I don't see that happening any more than I can see these cretinous council officials actually sitting down to unravel their own warped logic. After all, the chief executive and his minions got in so why not the school community?

We have got to a stage where, as the country's finances sink down the toilet, we are led by pusillanimous people with "agendas". Geoff Hoon is the Transport Secretary. He's about as helpful as a snowflake in Hell. As a trite retort to those who claimed he was ineffectual, he suggested people go out and buy snow chains for their cars. Now these might be a great help in Canada, but they would crack up our roads in no time. What then? More cost in rectifying the damage!

On the Andrew Marr show this morning, the weather forecaster was standing in the snow in Devon. "All the roads have been closed!" he said. Whereupon a van went by with no problem. Unaware of this, he prattled on about the "problems" to come. The BBC, the council chiefs and Buff Hoon himself, are all forecasting problems. Don't these people realise that common sense and a sense of proportion are required? I'm waiting to see if the odd snowflake comes our way tonight! I cannot take seriously and I have virtually no respect for this nonsense. We must get them to see sense or ask that the desist from their moronic ways.

We cannot allow billions of pounds to drift out of the economy, especially at this time, because some crazed "rationale" is driving their furrowed brows to hold some health and safety dogma up for sanctification!

Gordon Brown gradually begins to see sense

It took him a long time. The Prime Minister is beginning to recognise the damage done to the economy by all this "leveraging". He is now in a position where limited words would help. He has been saying that he saw the recession coming, but that doesn't sit so well with his past performance. It is more fantasy than downright lying, but Gordon Brown's first objective in 1997 was to unseat the grinning imposter settled in next door at No.10. His second was to stoke the economy with funny money so that sycophantic Labour MPs could go into TV studios to say that we had the best chancellor ever! Now it's all come crumbling down.

He still blames others ("it all started in America"), but, unless he had cloth ears for the past year and a half, he would have known that this cuckoo economy was going to crash. Is there a New Labour version of Monopoly? Someone should get one out soon, if not!

Brown has decided to tour the country. "It is more important than ever for us to talk to people right across the country about what they are going through". My heart bleeds! Crocodile's crying comes to mind. I heard Sir Stuart Rose and Simon Wolfson on the Today programme this morning. Perhaps it might not be a bad idea to replace Brown and Darling with them and get some real progress in tackling this crisis.

Personally, I have no confidence in this tour unless people tell it as it is. Then it will be a case of burnt ears replacing the cloth ones.

More drop off the wall into the mire

My post about Ten Big Businesses Hanging on the Wall is now about to be realised quite soon. It is a very sad reflection on our society that businesses that would normally be viable are in such a precarious position. We are living in a giant South Sea Bubble, which is still being blown up.

As Woolworths was the first major casualty, we now have MFI, Whittards, Zavvi, Adams, Officers Club and fashion retailer USC. All are in adminstration but Whittards and USC are doing deals to save parts of these businesses.

Yesterday it was announced that those with Zavvi gift vouchers (received at Christmas) could not use them in stores. They were effectively useless. However, Zavvi continues to trade. So it is OK to take cash now, but not to honour cash taken in advance of a purchase. I have to hand it to these accountants. Remember, receivers are in a recession-proof business. They have ring-fenced, copper-bottomed, and diamond-tipped their stash! They get their money before anyone else does.

It is interesting to note that these so-called experts were so dilatory in warning us all of the nonsense of the sub-prime fiasco and all the other "accounting practices". Perhaps it is all self-fulfilling? Create a giant mess and then gorge on the results.

Am I being too unkind to them?

Deloittes not a delight in Woolies "sale"!

I'm not alone in thinking that Deloittes have been acting in a rather cavalier manner regarding the disposal of Woolworths. They, of course, have ringfenced their fees before they even think of anything else. Today, shoppers have been going to various stores hoping for knockdown prices. Instead, the discounts were as before.

Deloittes is not acting any differently from any other coroporate entity in this country. The ethic is "stay as quiet as you can". This method of manure treatment only feeds the grapevine. Staff in my local Woolworths knew nothing of the final sale until they saw the TV news. I'd say it was no way to treat people, but it is par for the course.

If Deloittes get their hands on another recession casualty perhaps they will be a bit better in the news department. We don't want to know all the confidential details, but a bit of civility wouldn't go amiss!

This what shoppers think of Deloittes "sale" (although they may not have known who was responsible.

"Not me Gov!" Brown tells reporter

Gordon Brown is taking two prizes at once. Not that the prize giving is very worthy. His latest wheeze is to tell all reporters and commentators that "everyone knows that this crisis started in America and..." and he goes on to explain how well he and his Chancellor have done in clearing up the mess. That is porky number one. He tries to come across as a genial janitor who has to contend with sorting out the rubbish left after others have been enjoying themselves recklessly.

I mentioned Brown's body language in a previous post. His new habit of engratiating himself with a two-second grin in the middle of a serious discussion fools nobody, I think. We all know he was Chancellor for ten years. Unless he stuffed cotton wool in his ears, he must have heard noises about the level of indebtedness, the peculiar mortgage models being peddled by the likes of Northern Rock, and the obscenely large bonuses paid to rough and ready gamblers. If he didn't, then we must assume he was utterly derelict in his duty to enquire and to lead with honour.

The second prize is for political amnesia. What possessed him to bring back the odious Mandelson beggars belief. Mandelson is a creep with a very dubious disposition. He appears to be a man who can charm and cajole at the same time. Brown was probably convincing himself that Mandelson would save him from doom. As it happens, Mandelson is up to his neck in controversy (nothing new there!) and Brown is ploughing his own furrow through the financial field. So it all begs the question, "Why bring him back anyway?".

Gordon Brown should have have come clean from the start. His FSA, Bank of England and Treasury tripartite arrangement failed to keep abreast of things. By suggesting that he has solved problems as they happened is fanciful. We have a recession on our hands. All he has got now is a loose cannon and a very bad scriptwriter. He must get rid of the loose cannon and replace his "everyone knows" routine with his own words based on...............

HONESTY AND TRUTH!!