David Miliband/Ed Balls/Ed Milliband/David Balls - the new face of New Labour

Responding to a question from Peter Allen on BBC Radio 5 Live , Balls claimed that the £6 billion UK emergency budget cuts announced today would cost ‘hundreds of thousands of jobs.’ When asked to clarify, he repeated that the £6 billion cuts – many of which are earmarked to cull quangos, civil servants’ travel expenses and the like, would result in many hundreds of hundreds of thousands of  job cuts.

In perspective, UK unemployment increased by 53,000 over the past quarter alone to reach 2.51 million, the highest figure since the three months to December 1994 (three years before the New Labour project). By this reckoning, the Balls boys could have fixed the economy and romped home at the election for less than the price of an RBS bailout.

But they didn’t.

Oxbridge taught me the value of a banana. Let me lead you.

Balls had the further audacity to claim that the Lib Dem/Tory Coalition was bent on doing ‘what the Germans have told Greece to do’ – as if this was some sort of madness on the part of those whacky spendthrift Krauts. He furthermore blamed the UK recession on global economic conditions but claimed we were better off than most because we entered with lower levels of debt – oblivious to the fact that New Labour inherited a budget surplus from the Tories but have left the UK in its most indebted state since the Second World War.

As most people in the real world know, the £6 billion cuts announced today are a prelude to very scary and probably destructive slash and burn measures later this year, as the world’s credit markets, under pressure from Euro defaulters and other scallywags, take an increasingly dim view of Britain’s Stalinist-inspired cardboard economy and question our ability to repay burgeoning debts with exports of talent shows, sweary celebrity chefs and private equity Ponzi schemes.

Keep that banana away from me. I know it's not Fair Trade.

There is no question that we cannot continue to run a balance of trade deficit and public sector debt on anything like existing levels, but the question facing the Coalition is how to stimulate export trade in what increasingly looks like another downturn while enacting necessary cuts without choking off the domestic economy. By anyone’s definition, the UK is in crisis. Anyone but Balls, that is.

Andy Burnham: turned out nice again? No, it hasn't

The Rocky Horror Show

New Labour, meanwhile, is staging a talent show of its own. Ed Balls, running on the Gordon Brown’s posterior ticket is jostling with Banana Boy David Milliband, running on the Blair Duke Nuke ‘em ticket, Ed Milliband, running on the Eco-by-gum Worzel Gummidge ticket and Andy Burnham, running on the George Formby Blackpool tram ticket. Diane Abbott, running on the black, proud-to-be-working-class and never mind about sending my kid to public school ticket and other, yet-to-be-revealed whack-jobs may yet emerge to remind us that our politicians are a reflection of the economy – weak, preening, deluded, second-rate.

The one thing they all have in common is that they all went to Oxbridge, as did 18 members of the Coalition Cabinet. What does this tell us? This is Britain, where every middle class white person (and the occasional VERY CLEVER and VERY PUSHY black person) has the right to become elitist, useless and destroy the economy. All you need to do is blag your way into Oxbridge.

I have very little confidence that the Coalition will do the right thing and enact genuine efficiency initiatives, sensitively protecting the jobs and services provided by front line workers while cutting the cadres of overpaid middle managers who have mismanaged the public sector to its present parlous state. I know this because they are incapable of listening to the people who know how to get the work done, and cannot possibly empathise with the people for whom the work needs to be done. That’s because they were educated in dreaming spires from which they never saw the need to emerge. How do I know this? because I went to Oxford. I left after a term, though that’s no excuse.

Oxbridge is the problem, not the solution. Maybe the cuts should start there. But they won’t.

Tomorrow belongs to me. Shirtsleeved Dave and his fragrant Chloe. Meet the new Blair, same as the old Blair?

The Tories overturned a 5459 Labour majority by 7,348 votes in the Norwich by-election on Thursday in a decisive and pivotal victory. Their turnout was 6% lower than expected, but 70% of the Labour constituency stayed at home watching Big Brother. The Lib Dems came third as usual, giving the lie to those who perennially hope that disillusionment with the two main parties will translate into a third way. Chloe Smith, 27, a fragrant middle class girl, will become the youngest Tory MP for more than 30 years and poster girl of ‘New’ Conservatives. Gordon Brown declared it ‘a bad night for everyone’ – another breathtaking example of Cnutian self delusion. Tory leader David Cameron disagreed, as well he might.  A 16.5% swing, nationally extrapolated, indicates a landslide General Election victory margin of up to 240 seats. Whether it is achieved by Labour voter disillusionment will be academic to the victors. The Hartlepool monkey would stand a good chance against Grim Gordon and Mandy the Mendacious.

Norwich North came up for grabs early because the incumbent MP, Ian Gibson, resigned having been barred by Labour from standing in the next election, having sold his taxpayer-funded flat to his daughter at a heavily-discounted price. Casting round for something to spin, Labour-leaning pundits – there are still plenty – argue that this qualifies the result as exceptional, that when the electorate awake to the full horror of an Eton claque slashing public sector budgets and effectively putting the emergency brake on the gravy train, they will ‘come to their senses’ and support ‘New’ Labour.

This ‘argument’ ignores the almost-universal rule that elections are lost by the incumbent rather than won by the opposition, especially after a long period in power and definitely if the country is economically decimated, the wealth gap has widened, unemployment rampant, parliamentary scandal and cronyism is rife and it is involved in one or more unwinnable wars. No offence to Chloe, who looks and sounds sincere and will probably do a good job, but Labour voters sat on their hands in Norwich (and Nantwich last May) because they cannot abide the current leadership and the unholy mire into which the country has sunk. The New Labour strategy of wallowing in the fudgy centre leaves undecided voters and radicals with even less choice than before. Those who can be bothered will vote for change for its own sake.

Thus, barring a miraculous economic recovery which will reduce the record £600 billion national debt, itself requiring an equally miraculous reversal of the record trade deficit, unemployment falling from a projected 3 million next May to less than 2 million (ditto conditions apply), ‘victory’ in Afghanistan, peace in Iraq, obliteration of the Taliban, Al Quaeda, repatriating over 1 million ‘illegals’ demonised in the phony War on Terror and collective amnesia about the destruction of civil liberties which has been the hallmark of the Blair/Brown years, the Eton boys’ brigade will be ruling Britain next year. Despite this record, recividist Hounhyms still ‘believe’ that electoral boundary changes introduced since 1997 will make it impossible for the Tories to achieve anything greater than a hung Parliament. They bluster that Cameron needs a swing of 6 percent to draw level, rising to 11 percent to achieve a working majority, while the Tories need a 40 percent share to get near to Blair’s margin of victory in 1997. This tells us more about the desperation in the Labour war room and the enduring capacity to favour fantasy over fact than it does about the state of the nation.

The facts are thus: the Tories won the Crewe and Nantwich by-election last May with a swing of 17.5%, again on a reduced turnout. The recent European MEP elections put Labour in third place, 12% behind the Tories and 43% behind the combined votes of the Tories and the single issue UK Independence Party, most of whom would vote Tory in a General Election. Euroscepticism cost Tories votes in the past: in the next election, this will be an advantage. Were an election to be called tomorrow, the two leading opinion polls give the Tories a 16% lead over Labour. Most polls indicate a projected 40% share, and have done so for several months. Labour’s share would be 24%. This translates as somewhere between a comfortable Tory working majority and a landslide, despite what Labour’s frantic Panglossian spinmonkeys would have you and I believe. A big majority would be bad for Britain, but that’s another story.

No shows will count as a vote against Labour. There is little to choose between Tory Tony and Tory Dave. Gordon IS a moron. Mandy is (fill in the blanks). Next question, please.

John J Kelly

Gordon Brown looking sad in Helmand. 'This is paradise compared to Brussels'

We heard this morning that UK Gordon Brown has broken off his constructive discussions with EU leaders to appear in Afghanistan to mourn the death of four British soldiers, killed in two bomb incidents, one where a 13 year old suicide bomber killed 3 Royal Marines. We also heard that yesterday’s government announcement that UK knife crime had plunged by 14 per cent in a month was based on fraudulent statistics and that the ‘decision’ to withdraw the remaining 3000 British troops in Iraq was leaked to the press but not announced to Parliament (therefore might not happen). We heard that the jury in the de Menezes inquest returned an ‘open verdict,’ having been barred by the coroner to return a verdict of Unlawful Killing, but had rejected the mendacious accounts of the Metropolitan Police murder squad. We heard, we heard . . .

Head shot of Cressida Dick of the Met SO13 Shoot to Kill team. Scary name, scary hair, scary job in an institutionally racist, sexist force with no real accountability. Just plain scary, in fact. Dumb dumb bullets all round.

We heard former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, break his (unusually protracted) silence to state that he sincerely hoped this setback would not affect the promotion prospects of Cressida Dick, the Calamity Jane in charge of the Operation Kratos SO13 Licence to Kill gang. Last Thursday we heard of a foiled Al Quaeda plot in Belgium to allegedly blow up the EU Ministers gathered this weekend, a potentially huge outrage, but, mysteriously, having categorically stated that the target was Gordon Brown, the UK press have subsequently virtually ignored the story (including omitting to mention that 8 of the 14 suspects have been already released). The international press had no such emphasis on Gordon Brown. Apart from signalling the return to full fighting form of spinmeisters Mandelson and Campbell, all this whirling might mean that Brown intends to ease out of Iraq with a diplomatic cough (‘mission accomplished?’) but almost certainly ‘redeploy’ the troops to Afghanistan. On the basis that the War on Terror is continuing to pose clear and present danger to the UK we can expect continued pressure to proceed with the Identity Cards project and lots more sirens in the middle of the night to keep us in a state of fearful preparedness for – a UK general election. While in Afghanistan, Brown pledged a whopping £6 million to ensure free and fair elections (less than the cost of a Mayfair townhouse for an Afghan warlord) but nearer to home, the Tories are applying pressure for an early election. In the fog of war, we seem to forget that the glorious leader of the free world was not himself elected by the UK populace.

John J. Kelly

PS. THUS POLICY STATEMENT. My new policy is to byline opinion pieces (most of THUS falls into this category) since it is counter to free speech to hide behind anonymity when making speculative comment. We try to attribute sources wherever possible, hence the plethora of references to sources in the public domain but it’s mostly just me spoofing around acting the giddy goat. Believe nothing, believe me.

Oor Jill let the Polis in, said Gorbals Mick

The good news is that Jacqui Smith didn’t issue a warrant. The bad news is that Plod didn’t ask for one. Michael Martin, aka Gorbals Mick, embattled Speaker of the UK House of Commons, admitted today that the Police had no warrant to search the office of Tory MP Damian Green.  Jill Pay (the first woman to wear the Sergeant-at-Arms’ skirt, black tights and buckled pumps in Parliament’s long history) neither informed the Speaker of the search nor asked whether the police officers were authorised. The implications are damning either way. Cabinet members are still sticking to their threadbare soundbite that in a democracy, the police should be allowed to go about their business in the way they see fit ‘without fear or favour.’ If this includes sifting through the Opposition Shadow Minister’s constituency files with no warrant, then their definition of ‘democracy’ needs to be explained to the nation.

On the grounds that this story is now big news and in the public domain, and not strictly THUS, I’m moving on, with the observation that I first made. This is bigger than a tribal squabble. We still don’t know what was leaked, apart from the story that 5000 illegal immigrants were given security clearance to guard government people and premises. The degree of obfuscation, filibustering and high-risk deflection tactics on the part of the Home Office suggests that one or more of the remaining 20 papers which fell into the hands of the Tory Front Bench (not a terrorist organisation) was politically sensitive. The police, as represented by acting Met Chief Sir Paul Stephenson, have characteristically exonerated themselves from any operational blame while stating that no consultation took place with Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary. If no warrant was obtained, presumably none was requested. If Mr. Green and the civil servant in question were spied on and bugged without authorisation and the government still insists this is permissable police operational procedure, then we have our answer as to what type of democracy we are building in Britain, if we don’t already know.

PS. This couldn’t have anything to do with NL and Police fixation with ‘Immigration’ could it? The ‘routine enquiries’ of the investigating officers were carried out by members of the anti-terrorist squad.

Frankly, we give too much credence to the image of the overbearing nanny state sold to us by the political right. Politicians are now terrified to allow the limbs of the state to wiggle into the family home. Baby P is at one end of a sliding scale of failure in the hands-off British system of care: at rock bottom we let a child die before meddling in private lives. One step up, we intervene early enough to save a child’s life, but not soon enough to prevent grievous and permanent harm. Much, much further up the scale, a child matures to adulthood within an abusive, violent, family and we effectively avert our gaze (this kind of thing is happening in every local area in the UK, and has done forever, as the new Christmas book lists, filled yet again with the latest compelling autobiographical accounts of childhood trauma, demonstrate).

In Helsinki in Finland, one per cent of the child population is in care at any one time. There, social services are alerted if parents routinely fail to collect their children from school on time. If there are genuine signs of neglect or abuse the child is removed pretty quickly, the parents interviewed and assessed and then, if there is a lack of clarity about whether neglect or abuse has actually taken place, they are monitored, closely, and usually offered some form of therapy or support. The child will not be returned if neglect is identified. If this sounds shockingly nannying and disrespectful to parents, consider the estimated number of children experiencing neglect and abuse right now in the UK (between 7 and 11 per cent). 

The point at which a social care system kicks into action to protect a child is clearly at least partly determined by the national culture in which it operates. One in which respect for the rights of parents and adults is paramount would obviously suggest later intervention and a more hands-off British type of approach. One in which child wellbeing is the priority would produce a system more like the Finnish. I want to live somewhere where a child’s wellbeing is considered more important than a parent’s privacy.

Of course another deciding factor is whether being taken into care actually improves the life of a neglected child. British children in care do very badly relative to their peers – even a short stint in care is associated with poorer life chances – so it does not always seem the best solution. In Finland, being raised ‘by the state’ has almost no negative associations. I’ve visited state care homes in Finland and they are cheery and cosy, with friendly, buxom staff. But i don’t think that is the explanation for the success of their system. 

As a country, there is no doubt that we are both appalled and fascinated by the idea of child abuse. Rather than become increasingly animated about the latest autobiographical offering from the publishing industry, we should consider why as a society we prioritise our privacy over child protection. And rather than demonising Haringey, the government – or someone – should launch an international review of national social care systems and work out why some of them work so well when ours doesn’t: this is a national, not local problem. When we have a care system which genuinely improves the lives of the damaged children it looks after, I imagine we would all feel a whole lot better about removing at risk children sooner.

Oh, you are naughty, Mr. Plod. But I like you.

The awful events in Mumbai overshadowed a serious breach in democratic principles in the UK on 29 November, 2008. Nine counter terrorist police stormed the Kent home and Westminster offices of Conservative Shadow Minister Damian Green, searched his home, constituency and Westminster offices and detained him under the Official Secrets Act. The MP was bailed after several hours of interrogation on a putative charge of ‘aiding and abetting misconduct in public office.’ David Cameron MP, Leader of the Opposition, immediately decried the actions as ‘heavy-handed’, ‘unnecessary’  ’Stalinesque’ and redolent of ‘Zimbabwe.’ We heard little from the government until today, when Harriet Harman, Deputy Prime Minister and defender of the nation’s freedoms and morals (Thus passim) categorically denied any government involvement but conceded that, though MPs were not above the law, it was a worrying sign if the police were allowed to rampage through Whitehall riffling through MPs’ correspondence. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith admitted that the Cabinet Office had initiated the investigation into the ‘leaks’ and that a civil servant had been arrested as far back as November 11. It beggars belief that no discussion of tactics had taken place.

Ms Smith, defender of the State’s right to taser and tag (Thus passim) took a different but familiar line on flagship BBC political TV show, the Andrew Marr Programme. While (evasively) denying that anyone in the government knew anything whatsoever, before, during and after a well-resourced and highly politically-sensitive operation, she defended the rights of the police to act unilaterally ‘on information received’ as a sign of their democratic independence and refused to apologise in any manner to the Opposition MP. The argument is Orwellian, rather than Stalinesque, and disconcerting on several levels.

Firstly, if the Home Office was completely unaware of this action, relating to leaked information that, amongst other things, up to 5000 ‘illegal immigrants’ were unwittingly employed by government agencies in positions which could compromise the security of, amongst others, the Royal Family, then we have a problem. This fact was admitted by the government (after a leak) in November 2007. Ms Smith admitted that the Home Office was aware of the ‘leaks’, but claimed she and her department were unaware of the impending police action. Secondly, if nobody in the Home Office, up to and including the Home Secretary, was informed or even asked to provide a view as to the necessity of the high profile arrest and detention of the Opposition Spokesman on Immigration, then nothing has been learned from the systemic and endemic failures which led to the departure of John Reid, the previous hardline Home Secretary with, let’s say, distinctly ‘Stalinesque’ tendencies, whose reign of terror, conducted largely in the name of the War on Terror, split the Home Office in March 2007 and left it in disarray.

Thirdly, if the Home Secretary seriously believes that the nation will believe that there was and is no ulterior or political motive in the manner or execution of this operation, she is still living in the dark, spinning, leaking David Kelly days of Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell, who coincidentally, have recently returned to positions of influence. Damian Green received information whose disclosure, whether damaging to the reputation (if that’s the right word) or not of the Home Office Immigration Office appears to be pertinent, urgent and appropriate, especially at this tense time. It is also damaging to the credibility (if that’s the word) of the government. The police raid coincidentally occurred on the last day in of Labour-supporting Metropolitan Police Chief, Sir Ian Blair, sacked by Boris Johnson, a high profile Tory who carries a huge amount of executive power as Mayor of London and Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority. If any link is suspected, action is required. If the government tacitly supported such plainly extreme action – a phone call would have sufficed – then it needs to explain why.

Ms Smith refused to confirm or deny that she or her department had signed authorisation to bug Mr Green’s phones and Blackberry mobile phone device. If it is subsequently proven that devices or premises were bugged by the police or other agents of the state, then the previous Home Office farragoes will pale into insignificance.

The issue of ‘police operational independence’ lies at the heart of this incident. If we are to believe that there was no co-ordination in an assault on the civil liberties of a high ranking Opposition Shadow Minister, so far not resulting in charges and, moreover, breaching Parliamentary privilege by entering the Houses of Parliament and searching his office, then we are looking at the green shoots of a Police State. If the Home Office was aware and, formally or informally, colluded, we are looking at a full grown Triffid. Deputy Prime Minister Harriet Harman, appeared to contradict Ms Smith by conceding that questions would need to be asked as to how Parliamentarians could expect to function if breach of privilege without sanction, is allowed. The Police know who authorised what, when and how. They should whistleblow, or take the blame if any or all of this is proved to be abuse of power. Cameron should continue to apply pressure for an official enquiry, (pressure has already yielded a Commons statement).

1984 was literally a bad year for British democracy. The Miner’s Strike and IRA Terror introduced breaches of democratic and constitutional principles which Labour in opposition were powerless to oppose. We could be facing a constitutional crisis which transcends tribal politics. This time round, Labour, even in its senescent state, should know better than to think we’ll be fooled into acquiescence by mutterings of things beyond our ken.

Up the workers

Last week the government claimed that ‘over 80%’ of sex workers were slaves, a claim hotly denied by the English Collective of Prostitutes. Harriet Harman, Deputy PM, spoke on Woman’s Hour urging Womens’ Institute (WI) members to report newspapers carrying escort advertisements, since the oriental and East European escorts on offer may be the victims of trafficking. They may also be illegal immigrants.

UK Local Community Minister Hazel Blears bangs on about the need to prosecute men (‘punters’ or ‘Johns’) who attempt to have sex with a woman who is employed to have sex by a third party (pimp). Sweden recently introduced this law but it is too early to tell whether it has stamped out illicit sex. They also have a law against drinking too much in public. You see a lot of drunken Swedes abroad.

Profiting from immoral earnings and ‘keeping a bawdy house’ has been a UK criminal offence since the time of Moll Flanders. There is logic to the argument that if women can be prosecuted for soliciting, men should be fined for responding. But given the obvious difficulty of proving who did what, to whom, when, and under what circumstances, even for a government which introduced an average of 2633 new laws per year under Tony Blair, 2823 in Brown’s first year, 64% more than under ‘Iron’ Lady Thatcher, there is more logic in decriminalising than trying to do a King Cnut. 

Degrading, exploitative and disturbing image of Hazel Blears

Driving sex out of the classified ads, telephone booths and newsagents’ windows is a publicity stunt too far. 2.3 million UK citizens view sex sites in the UK every day. A simple Google of ‘London escorts’ produces a cornocupia of sordid personal services advertising galleries of females, most of them foreign. Those WI members who aren’t already gaga will most certainly have a funny turn if they intend to hunt down all the thousands of ’sex workers’ in cyberspace. 

The UK middle classes like to claim moral superiority on the grounds that they are unmoved by basic instincts. Dr Jekyll turned into the debased Mr. Hyde when he left his comfortable professional home in search of illicit pleasures. ‘No sex please, we’re British’  was a phenomenally successful stage play and (dreadful) film. Harrogate WI members famously raised profile and money by posing naked for a calendar, made into an emetic film about middle class ladies baring all in the name of charity. ’Secret Diary of a Call Girl,’ a mainstream drama, sponsored by Legal and General Insurance, attracted the station’s biggest non-terrestrial audience. The ‘latter-day Moll Flanders’ heroine, played by ex teeny singer and Dr Who girl Billy Piper with her tarted-up girl-next-door looks, living the high life, is a role model for aspiring sex workers. Sexy ads for the second series currently adorn UK bus shelters.

Sex trafficking destroys lives. Prostitution is not a good career choice for young people of either sex (we never hear much from MPs about rent boys, unless they’re caught with them). Forced and arranged marriages are infinitely worse, since the women are imprisoned for life and forced to bear children and do housework. I wonder why the police and immigration authorities cannot do more about this problem? Nothing to do with political correctness, of course.

Turn curb crawling districts into permanent ‘no waiting’ zones for cars, patrolled more than once in a blue moon by uniformed police. Give the saddos a traffic violation fine – several times more expensive than the streetwalker they intend to violate. (Taser their asses, adds Jacqui Smith). This will get it off the streets but will not stop people buying and selling commodity sex. At the budget end, poverty, abuse at home and narcotics are root causes. At the ‘Call Girl’ end, I’m sure there is a degree of pimping, but we need to listen to the views of the women on the sharp end, so to speak, not Hatty Harman, who I presume, like me, has no direct experience on either side of the world’s oldest commercial transaction.

Judge Dredd is ultimate law

My earlier advice about recruiting Pikey police has clearly fallen on deaf ears. The nation was stunned – not literally, yet – by today’s news from our own Sarah Palin, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, that 10,000 tasers would be issued and 30,000 police trained in their use. Amnesty International report that 300 people have died as a result of tasering since 2001, not entirely surprising given that these playful plastic guns deliver upwards of 50,000 volts via barbs. Since the government has not tired of telling us that crime has dramatically fallen on their watch, I for one am puzzled as to why we need to restyle (un)PC Plod as Judge Dredd. Ms Smith, who incurred general ridicule after confessing herself fearful of walking the streets of South London then issued a sound bite to say that she had bought a kebab in Peckham, might consider carrying one herself, except it would be illegal. Let’s hope against hope that none of these weapons of mass electrocution go astray or are left in Starbucks’ toilets by forgetful officers (Thus passim).

Are you feeling lucky?

Mace, tasers, coshes, whips, canes, tear gas, rubber bullets and other weapons of severe corporal punishment in routine use by police forces conjure up images of a fascist police state, which of course is the opposite of our happy, freedom-loving democracy. It’s a very sad day when escalating violence on either side of the criminal divide is given a shot in the arm – or, in this case, 50,000 volts in the chest – by attention-seeking authoritarian wierdos. And I don’t mean the BNP. Please think again. Don’t give plod these nasty toys, which he’ll start testing out on drug dealers (black people) and suspected terrorists (Asian kids) or gangs (white underclass). It’s crass and desperate. And we don’t think it makes you look hard, Jacqui.

Wilkins Micawber, new Labour economics guru

Before spreadsheets enabled geeks to assume they could manipulate the economic weather, we knew that if we spent too much, we’d run out of money. If we ran out of things to sell or do in return for more money, we’d be in trouble. If we borrowed money at unrealistic interest rates, we’d be in even more trouble. If we borrowed money with no intention of paying it back, we’d be beggars and pariahs.

If we intend to borrow money for a ‘fiscal stimulus package’ when most of the developed economies are scrabbling to do the same, we will need to demonstrate that we’re a better bet than the other guys, offer a higher yield to the lenders or form an international syndicate – effectively what Brown is trying to do. Going it alone is risky. According to the IMF, British external debt is hovering around £UK 6 trillion. Net assets are around £350 billion. Gross domestic product (GDP) is around £357 billion and falling.

Gordon Brown is hassling the part-nationalised banks, tied to a 12% interest rate, to repay their government bailout loans, to start lending to businesses without further ado before it is clear where the backstop cash is coming from. They are ignoring him: losers don’t lend to other losers. Meanwhile, who does he strong arm to lend to UK Plc? The Americans have £13 trillion debt and troubles of their own. They might need to turn a tad protectionist. We’ve been routinely horrid to Europe over the past eight years, even though we’ve been net EU contributors. Unsurprisingly, the majority of our trade is with the Eurozone.

Back to the syndicate idea. The European Central Bank is sort of a pompous mutual savings and loan organisation. The once-stern criteria for entry into the Euro – sound fiscal policy and limits on public spending as a proportion of GDP – have probably been breached by the majority of its members of late. Regardless, as a result of Eurozone membership, Greek bonds are likely to be more attractive than those offered by the UK and even the US. (Thank you, Stilpon Nestor, late of OECD, for this insight. We had lunch today. Thank goodness we didn’t drink or this would be even more mazy).

This might be a good time to start thinking about how to get back into the Euro club. It may require a degree of grovelling and scraping. Labour still has an outstanding election pledge to give the electorate a referendum vote on the Constitution (‘Treaty’) but the Irish have given us all a breather. Europe should be a big ticket item on the forthcoming election agenda. The Tories have a recent history of Europhobia, which is ironic, since Ted Heath took us into Europe and the Iron Lady signed the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. The UK took part in European Monetary Union from 1990 until recession and George Soros forced an undignified exit in 1992. Incidentally, Britain was the fifth, not the first currency to be forced out. It is a mistake to compare EMU, an exchange rate mechanism, with a merged currency such as the Euro and it was an accident waiting to happen to peg our exchange rate, at an all-time high, to a falling Deutschemark. But no such problems now. Sterling is so low we could enter with ease. They might even welcome us back, prodigal style. We are a big, if obese, economy with Europe’s best financial markets.

The alternative is to carry on pretending we have a special relationship with the US. The problem with this approach is that it implies continued reliance on a busted economy and a falling dollar. Or we can go cap in hand to the IMF. Remember 1979?

We will need to have some sort of ‘fiscal stimulus’ unless we want to do a Hoover (the president, not the failed vacuum cleaner company, although there are similarities) but to do that we need allies, since we’re basically skint. There is an obvious mutuality with our European neighbours, and the Euro makes for a better spread bet than a single national currency. Labour and Tory will need to be explicit about their respective positions. Both have been suspiciously tight-lipped. Make sure you ask them what they think about Europe when and if you are called upon to vote, which I think will be next November, by crisis more than design.

Feel free to tell me if some or all of this is wrong. I’m not proud. I’m not an economist, but I’m Irish and was educated by Jesuits. It’s what I’d do.

We agreed that Brown would lose the next election whenever he called it, unless the economy miraculously turned round in the next month. The chances are that it won’t do anything like that before 2010, and will almost certainly get worse as the Polonium cocktail of tax cuts, increased borrowing and increased public spending takes hold. Brown might narrowly win a snap election, but he is not a gambler and will have to be pushed off the diving board into the deep end. We agreed that Cameron had finally done the right thing in abandoning a fudgy Middle Way in favour of a straightforward alternative: no tax cuts and a curb on public spending in order to balance the books. It gives the public a straight choice.

The room, by a tiny margin, didn’t agree. They thought that Gordon would call an early election and would probably win on the basis that public perception still held him to have been a sound Chancellor, if not an inspiring leader. Cameron was an untried entity. I disagreed that Brown’s audacious economic strategy was a ‘new paradigm’ but agreed that lowering taxes while increasing public spending and expecting the bond markets to back Britain in a global credit crunch was unusually fruity for a son o’ the Manse.

To survive, Brown needs to convince a battered and cash-strapped electorate that he was responsible for the ‘good’ times but that ‘global economic conditions’ were to blame for the mess that the UK economy finds itself in. He might also tell us why he was obliged to sell our gold reserves and tax pension funds into the Stone Age during these halcyon days. He will also need to explain why and how we intend to pursue and persist with a costly and impossible policy of ‘liberal intervention’ in Afghanistan and Iraq and how we expect to pay for the crazy Private Finance Initiatives and Public Private Partnerships, which will haunt public finances for decades. I’m not a Tory, but I can’t vote Labour under the present lunatic circumstances. We’ve given this gang too many chances. They have widened the wealth gap and given us the highest levels of national debt for 50 years.

Don't sup with Russian sailors, George.

Whether or not I like it, the next election is for the Tories to lose. Labour can’t and shouldn’t win on their record. The Tories may need to redeploy their accident-prone Shadow Chancellor and keep his replacement away from Matthew Freud, oligarchs and yachts. Ken Clarke’s too old. William Hague would be a sound choice: he knows about making money and has a regional accent, even if it’s a bit spooky and, like me, he’s a slaphead.

Postscript: I’m not a Tory – tell me I’m not a Tory – but on the Andrew Marr TV show at 9 am yesterday Cameron said more or less the same thing as my Friday blog about ‘fiscal stimulus’. He said nothing about Europe, though.