“And the next time a Labour politician bangs on about Thatcher having destroyed Britain’s manufacturing base, remember this: under new Labour, manufacturing output has contracted by 1.2 per cent every year, down to around 12 per cent of GDP. Britain’s finances were in deep structural deficit before the crisis hit — one reason why, even with aggressive fiscal pump-priming, it has taken Britain longer than any other major economy to start emerging from recession.”

Rosemary Righter

“Class attack is an inherently discourteous and unpleasant way of conducting yourself. Voters and the news media already have an image fixed of the viciousness and spite that [Gordon Brown] and those around him show to enemies both within and outside their party.”

Matthew Parris

 “What has become evident in the run-up to [the climate change conference in] Copenhagen is that every time someone comes up with some ludicrous, self-flagellating proposal, yet another chunk of the population becomes disenchanted with the whole issue. There can hardly be a farmer left in Britain who has any truck with fighting climate change after being told last week that 30 per cent of the livestock in this country needed to go.

The failure of the “experts” to understand the situation was staggering. They clearly did not know that 60 per cent of our farm land is grassland, suitable only for rearing animals. The environmental damage that would ensue should this be ploughed up for cereals and legumes would be catastrophic.”

Charlie Brooks

“When Thatcherism destroyed organised labour and unleashed free market fundamentalism 25 years ago, the middle-class professions cheered, wearied of power cuts and grateful for tax cuts. But the bell tolled for them too. ‘Professionals’ replaced miners as the ‘enemy within’; they too had to be neutered as one of the remaining bulwarks against the power of the state and untrammelled markets. And so the assault began, through privatisation, commoditisation, the sweeping away of restrictive practices, and an obsession with costs and targets at the expense of amorphous ‘value’.

That the status of professionals should have diminished in consequence was only to be expected.”

Editorial – Law Society Gazette

“The brazenness with which Mr Brown reduced the election ahead to a battle between the rich and the rest has one advantage at least: it exposed the fraudulence of his claim to govern for all the people, or whatever the phrase was that he used when he first took over in 2007. He governs for himself and his party, first and always.

And, like the Russians retreating before Napoleon, Mr Brown pursues a scorched earth strategy. Its purpose is two-fold: to put the Tories on the spot as an Opposition by driving them towards difficult policy choices that can then be demolished, while doing everything to ensure that if they do get in, they will find the wells have been filled and the fields ploughed with salt.”

Benedict Brogan

“Labour’s hopes of avoiding a general election rout at the hands of David Cameron’s Tories will be boosted today as a new poll shows a sharp fall in the Conservative's lead, raising the possibility of a hung parliament”

reports The Observer  today.  The figures show Conservative support slipping to 37% - only six per cent ahead of Labour.  However, the field work for this “new poll” conducted by Ipsos MORI was undertaken between 13^th and 15^th November 2009, the same period as The Guardian’s ICM poll published six days earlier.  The Guardian/ICM poll disclosed the Conservatives as being thirteen points ahead of Labour.

One of these polls looks like a rogue.  Now let me think…which one?

Yesterday, discussing why it would be suicidal electorally for either of the main party leaders to holiday abroad in a hot clime this Christmas Steve Richards of the Independent explained,

“The case of Cameron is more revealing. Unlike Blair he would be taking a big risk if he headed for somewhere hot this winter, and the reasons highlight better than any opinion poll why he has not “sealed the deal”, to apply the accurate cliché.”

Four days earlier Julian Glover of the The Guardian reported the result of the latest Guardian/ICM poll under the heading, “Cameron closing deal despite Labour boost – Guardian/ICM poll”. According to the poll, as well as indicating that Labour had lost its crown as the champion of the poor,

“Cameron appears to be cementing his reputation with voters on key issues of character – suggesting that voting Tory isn't just about being fed up with Labour, but is now being seen as a positive move.”

If the facts don’t fit your argument, ignore them.

Enough of this nonsense about David Cameron not having “sealed the deal”

So Labour held Glasgow North East in yesterday’s by-election.  This was hardly a surprise, particularly as the Labour Party was likely to throw everything into the fight to retain the seat.  As reports The Times today,

“So desperate was Labour to hang on to this seat that the party flooded the constituency yesterday with hundreds of activists from all over Britain.”

Now, they are not going to be able to repeat that concentration of their remaining activists at every vulnerable seat during a General Election, are they?

In The Sunday Times on 1^st November 2009, Andrew Sullivan wrote,

 “And my bet is that in a decade’s time, the banning of cannabis will seem as strange as the banning of alcohol.”

This is not the first time I’ve heard that sentiment expressed.  Indeed, it was a common view at my school.  In 1971.

“…Mr Cameron and his close allies are proper, robust Eurosceptics. The Tory split on Europe at the beginning of the last decade was always misunderstood. The party was not split down the middle. The vast majority were on the Eurosceptic side. The row came because a relatively small, senior and ageing group at the top of the party was intent on resisting the stance that everyone else wanted to take. So in Mr Cameron’s generation almost everyone is a Eurosceptic. His position was, and remains, standard on the British centre Right.”

 

Daniel Finkelstein

And while you’re at it you should read this, too.

Addressing The Sun newspaper on 26th September 2007, David Cameron announced,

 “Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations.

 

No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum.”

To highlight the obvious, Gordon Brown signed the Treaty of Lisbon on 13^th December 2007 thereby completing, in effect, the ratification process on behalf of the United Kingdom.  Today, the last outstanding signatory, President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, signed the Treaty. Ratification by all member states of the European Union is now complete.  It is all over bar the shouting.

The referendum pledge by the Conservatives envisaged that the Treaty had not been ratified – “No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum”. We now know that the ratification process was accelerated (and according to some conspiracy theorists, a General Election delayed) to avoid the prospect of a Conservative Government throwing a spanner in the works. The Conservatives have little choice but to give up on the Lisbon Treaty referendum.  It has been overtaken by events.

Labour and its Media fellow travellers will now no doubt present the Conservatives as having reneged on their promise.  That would be worse than disingenuous.

“We have seen from alcohol and tobacco exactly what legalising certain substances can do to health, so why on earth add others?”

Ann Widdicombe

“All peoples possess a culture, but this does not mean all cultures are equally valid and commendable.  Some values and ideas are better than others.”

Peter Tatchell

“Policy-based evidence making”

It’s what Labour do.

Hat Tip to Obnoxio

According to The Sunday Times today,

“Gordon Brown is planning a final public spending spree to help pull the economy out of recession and put pressure on the Conservatives over their plans for deep cuts….

....Brown also hopes the stimulus package will open a new dividing line between Labour and Conservative plans over the public finance.  “At the next election we need a clear story to tell about how Labour will support the economy through investment while the Tories would choke off the recovery with draconian cuts,” said a cabinet source.”

The report continues,

“However, the proposals have caused alarm among Treasury officials who fear any increased spending could upset the financial markets, making it harder to service the growing national debt.”

Just how much long term damage is the Labour Government prepared to inflict upon the British economy in return for a small amount of political gain against the Conservatives?

The problem with pointing out that Polish MEP Michal Kaminski has a splinter in his eye when he doesn’t is that as well as damaging Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s credibility; it also causes attention to be drawn to the plank in Labour’s own.

This is yet more proof that Labour cannot even run an effective smear campaign anymore.

Accusing Euro-sceptics of anti-Semitism is the most shameful tactic yet

As should be expected, the “progressive” Media has roundly condemned the removal of Professor David Nutt from his position at the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.  In essence, the pro legalisation of “recreational drugs” lobby approve of what Professor Nutt has to say, so it is outraged by his treatment by Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

As an adviser who has suffered the rejection of sound advice, I can commiserate to a small degree with the Professor but at the end of the day he is paid to give an opinion and his “client” is entitled to accept or reject it, notwithstanding that he is a high and mighty academic.  It is the Professor’s paroxysm at the rejection of his advice and reaction that shows, to my mind, that the Home Secretary was right to ask for his resignation.

Sacked drugs adviser accuses Gordon Brown of meddling in cannabis decision

Sacked – for telling the truth about drugs

Sacked adviser criticises Brown

Do you really want to help Labour divide and conquer?

As usual, someone else expresses my thoughts better than I ever could, so today I quote Dominic Lawson (with my emphasis),

“People seldom seem more pointlessly pompous than when they declare a joke to be "not funny"; and as for [Jimmy] Carr's career being at an end, I suspect he will still be doing successful stand-up long after everyone has forgotten who Patrick Mercer is – assuming that they knew in the first place.

 

Above all, I am certain that Jimmy Carr will be much more popular with the squaddies out in Iraq and Afghanistan than any of the politicians who sent them out there into harm's way. This is not least because Carr, unlike Ainsworth apparently, has been a regular visitor to the Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham and the neighbouring rehabilitation unit Headley Court, where maimed British soldiers – hundreds each year – are treated within the NHS.  He will have witnessed for himself the amazing moral and physical strength required to recover from appalling injuries and trauma – and also the remarkable skills of the medical teams giving the hope of some sort of tolerable life to men who in previous wars would have had little possibility even of survival.”

 

“David Cameron could find old regime partisans sniping at him from the hills; the people who sit on boards and commissions, hold chairs and run reviews: the whole well-intentioned infrastructure of progressive society that, almost like royalty, remains in place from one government to the next.”

Julian Glover

Labour’s fifth columnists

The Conservatives winning the next General Election is not the half of it

“…in the past six years, I have risen several hours earlier than I used to in my innocent bachelor days and, in consequence, I now go to bed at the hour I used to start going out….”

Michael Gove

So, Gordon Brown says that the British economy will be growing again by the turn of the year, according to his podcast yesterday.  Taking into account that the next quarter will include the Christmas trading period and the figures for the most recent quarter showed a slowing contraction of the British economy, I suppose he might be proved right, technically.  In any event, one “good” quarter would not make a recovery, especially if it is followed by indifferent figures, let alone figures showing further albeit small, contractions of the economy. A weak recovery is little better than no recovery at all, except for the purpose of temporarily boosting moral, unless prolonged.  In fact, the prospects for real sustainable growth in 2010 are not good.  A stall of “the recovery” in the first quarter of 2010 is more likely than not, notwithstanding the Labour Government’s attempts to engineer a phoney uplift in the economy during the months preceding the next General Election.

This recession is unfortunately, another struggle that will not “be over by Christmas”.

This is the crux of the issue, isn’t it?

“They feel [uncontrolled immigration] diminishes their chances in life.

 

It threatens their jobs, they believe. Ten years ago, a self-employed painter and decorator in, say, Barking might have earned £120 a day, enough to get a reasonable mortgage and sustain a modestly secure family life. Today, after the Government underestimated the number of Eastern Europeans likely to come here by almost 20 times, he would get £70 or £80. If his ailing father pays regular visits to hospital, he may be denied a bed because so many foreign women are giving birth. If his child has special needs, he may find the local school neglects them because it is desperately trying to teach English to children who do not speak it at home. If his brother is a soldier, he may return from risking his life to be insulted on the streets of his country by people who hate it.

 

…If they complain, they are told they are racist. It is not surprising that they say things like “My country is being taken away from me”. They are not completely mistaken.”

 

Charles Moore

 

“It should have been laughably straightforward for the panellists to debate with and destroy Griffin’s arguments. Instead, inflated by their outrage, the other speakers repeatedly interrupted, spoke over and cut short the BNP leader. They could have given him all the rope he needed to hang himself. By treating him as a pariah not even granted the liberty of finishing many of his sentences, never mind a particular proposition he was beginning to elaborate, they showed precisely the disregard for others and their views that they condemn in Griffin’s party.

Nearly one million people voted for the BNP in the Euro-elections. Whatever one thinks of their party’s platform, they have a right to be heard. Some parties cannot be more “legal” than others. That is a consequence of living in a democracy and it is part of cherishing the right to free speech. You persuade such people that they are wrong by discussion of what they say; and that means exactly what they say, not what it can be distorted into sounding like...”

Sholto Byrnes

________________

“Was there nobody to restate, with the relaxed confidence that philosophical certitude should bring, the only available position for a modern British liberal: that this is a free country in which a range of highly diverse opinions may be held and, if held, published, subject to the law? Full stop. Yes, full stop; for heaven’s sake, full stop.”

Matthew Parris

“The Foreign Secretary accused the public yesterday of lacking a sense of urgency in the face of the potentially devastating consequences of climate change.”

We don’t pay much attention to religious cults when they tell us the world is going to end next week, either.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband accuses public of climate change apathy

 “Economists today cast doubt on official data showing that British gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 0.4 per cent between July and September, claiming the surprise fall is far worse than economic reality.

The shock figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that the country remained mired in recession during the third quarter — the sixth consecutive quarter of contraction, signalling the country’s longest downturn since records began in 1955.

Economists had widely expected that the country had emerged from recession between July and September.”

Oh dear.

Economists revolt over surprise recession data

This morning The Daily Telegraph's  Benedict Brogan provides another reason why the Conservatives are not as far ahead in the opinion polls as certain (Labour supporting) media commentators believe they should be at this stage of the game.

“From the beginning, when [David Cameron’s] leadership campaign struggled to attract the support of commentators, he learnt to do without…

 

....He is more at ease in the media salons of London than Mr Brown. But he has so far managed to resist the pressure to trade policies for headlines. That may explain why he has yet to secure the kind of fawning coverage from the press that Tony Blair enjoyed in 1996.”

 

And you can cut the bunkum about “Tony Blair having had a more substantial opinion poll lead than David Cameron at the same point in the electoral cycle”, too

Enough of this nonsense about David Cameron not having “sealed the deal”

They're at it again

“[Sarah Brown] calls [Gordon Brown] a hero but she is considered a heroine for conquering her nerves and standing up publicly for her beleaguered husband. Actually she is an incredibly astute PR woman. She has exploited Twitter more effectively than any British politician or celebrity, overtaking Stephen Fry as the country’s foremost Twitterer. She wanders round Glastonbury with Naomi Campbell, organises photo shoots of the G8 wives for Vogue and is seen squeezing President Obama’s hand, just as the special relationship comes under scrutiny….

.....This is no meek housewife, it’s a woman who is enjoying the limelight more than her husband.”

Alice Thomson

Of the Labour Party Max Hastings remarks today,

“This is a Party in such dire straits that Peter Mandelson, a man with the moral compass of Dr Faustus, is perceived as its most plausible saviour.”

 

I have a problem with all this nonsense involving the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland.  Her mitigation is being spun currently on the basis that her “technical breach” of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 was merely an oversight by way of her not photocopying her housekeeper Loloahi Tapui’s documentation. Thus it is argued that she did not knowingly employ a person who did not have the right to live and work in this country.  Might I ask what documentation it was that Baroness Scotland omitted to copy?  It has been established that Ms Tapui had no right to remain in this country, so she could not have possessed any relevant papers to copy.  The Attorney General failed to read the documentation she was purportedly shown, or failed to read it properly before failing to copy it as the law required.

All this from someone who is the chief legal adviser to the Government and responsible for all Crown litigation, yet she does not resign nor is she dismissed.  Incredible.

Baroness Scotland must now stand down

In The Times yesterday Carol Midgley, a High Priestess of Vegetarianism and self confessed proselytiser for the Cause, was remarking upon the story of Marcus, a lamb that was raised and finally slaughtered as part of a school project. It was her view that,

 “many of those weeping for this sheep across the country are carnivores who seldom give serious thought to animal welfare standards as they throw another bacon vacuum pack in the trolley”.

The term “carnivorous” is applied to  animals who naturally prey on other animals, the carnivora most readily coming to mind being cats, dogs and bears. Humans are not carnivores, they are omnivores. Omnivores feed on all kinds of food.  The average meat-eating individual will consume more fruit and vegetables than meat.   It is as wrong to call meat-eating humans carnivore, as it would be for vegetarians to be described as herbivore.  Perhaps the vegetarian lobby should consider choosing their nomenclature for the rest of humanity a little more carefully.

I have had little time for George Monbiot ever since I read his vituperative correspondence in an exchange with Dr David Bellamy in The Guardian some years ago, concerning the issue of alleged man-made climate change.  Mr Monbiot’s recent spat with The Spectator regarding his participation in a debate about the same subject has reinforced my opinion. A writer’s equivalent of the stiletto blade not doing justice to this case, I endorse Rod Liddle’s baseball bat retort in response to the spat,

“You pompous, monomaniacal, jackass. The unchallengeable certitude with which Monbiot treats his second favourite subject, and the viciousness with which he denounces anyone who disagrees, reminds me a little of the hard-line creationists you find jabbering in the backwoods of the Appalachian Mountains: there is no argument, we are not qualified to argue, man-made climate change simply IS, and let there be an end to the debate. It is this very certitude, and the response to critics, which makes me doubtful.”

 

“The [ContactPoint] databases are a darkness at the heart of state; a belief that if we could just know everything about everybody, everything would work.”

Jenni Russell - Another invasion of liberty. And only the Tories are alert

“On Friday a BBC journalist announced on breakfast television that “a million children are being abused”.

Where do these figures come from? How do we know? Are we feeding the paranoia that stops a grandfather taking a picture of his nine-year-old grandson playing football? Surely this cannot continue. Someone needs to put things back on an even keel.”

Former Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Stevenson

Earlier in his article for The Times Mr Stevenson, the officer in charge of the Soham murder investigation, remarked,

“As a result of poor intelligence, [Ian] Huntley was appointed a school caretaker in Soham. Did that give him access to children? Yes, hundreds. Did he abuse them? No. In fact he reported to the head teacher that several teenage girls had made inappropriate comments. What Huntley did to Holly and Jessica was as bad as it gets, but did he come into contact with them through being a caretaker? Not exactly — he was caretaker of Soham Village College, a school for the over-11s. The two girls attended St Andrew’s Junior School. Different building, different caretaker. Huntley had contact with them because [his partner Maxine] Carr was employed at St Andrew’s as a classroom assistant. She worked in a class with Holly and Jessica, who both liked her. Holly’s mother sent Carr a box of chocolates on the last day of term to say thank you for helping her daughter.”

He concludes,

“How do we prevent such chance encounters happening? We can’t. No amount of legislation, record keeping or checking could prevent this type of crime completely. Thankfully it is extremely rare. Children are far more likely to be killed by a family member or on the roads.”

 Well now, we cannot have that sort of talk.  Something had to be done. Anything.

“Alan Clark was not wonderful. He was sleazy, vindictive, greedy, callous and cruel. He was also a thorough-going admirer of Adolf Hitler, although his sycophants persisted in thinking that his expressions of reverence for the Fuhrer were not meant seriously. They absolutely were.”

 

Dominic Lawson

It is my considered opinion that Clark’s account of the struggle between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany Barbarossa: The Russian German Conflict, 1941-45 is overrated, too.

Of the latest dire opinion poll ratings for Gordon Brown and Labour published in The Times today, Peter Riddell and Philip Webster comment,

“The Tories are, however, doing less well than Labour in opposition in 1996 (on 50 per cent) or the Tories in 1978 (48 per cent).”

I have already touched briefly upon the importance of comparing like for like.  Selective use of opinion poll results is also unhelpful.  It should be recalled that 1978 is the year the myth spinners would have us believe Jim Callaghan would have defeated Margaret Thatcher had he possessed the judgement to call a General Election.  In the summer of 1978, the Conservatives were marginally ahead of Labour in the opinion polls, but five per cent behind by the following October/November.

It follows that at this stage of the game, it is not significant that David Cameron has failed to poll Tony Blair’s fifty per cent or Margaret Thatcher’s forty-eight per cent, particularly as the Conservatives have maintained a healthy overall lead in the opinion polls since October 2007.

“[David Cameron] will also find, as Mrs Thatcher did, that Labour has used appointments to senior quango jobs both as patronage and to spread its ideas of what is politically correct.”

Cameron will have to fight the quangocracy 

The Conservatives winning the next General Election is not the half of it

Mr Ghulam Rabanni, the General Secretary of the Harrow Central Mosque criticized the anti-racism campaigners from Unite Against Fascism who ignored the mosque's pleas not to hold a counter demonstration against the English Defence League in Harrow today.  Said Mr Rabanni,

“All these people have come from outside the area to start up trouble in an area that has never had any racial tension. It is very sad.”

“But the incontinent expansion of the State’s reach degrades its grip. It undermines legitimacy, lowers confidence and breeds disregard. Twelve years of new Labour’s flabby-minded growth in the public sector, and the bloating of its claims on individuals’ lives, have begun to rot the whole idea of something the Left ought to believe in, and the Right do: society, and the public good.”

Matthew Parris

“UKIP appeals to a palaeolithic section of the Conservative vote, which — lacking any courage in its withdrawalist convictions — rightly understands that its interests are better served by Tory anti-EU rhetoric than by actually pulling out of Europe.”

David Aaronovitch

Professional photographer Andy Craddock caused a furore by taking photographs of semi-naked models at St Michael Penkivel Church in Cornwall. One photograph showed a model reclining on an altar.  The Diocese of Truro threatened to launch a legal action against him for trespass and not having permission to take photographs, as it was perfectly entitled to do.  Sensibly, the Church has decided not to press the matter any further.

Mr Craddock apparently takes erotic fetish snaps during secret photo shoots at churches across the United Kingdom. He ignored the Diocese's solicitor’s letter before action, claiming that they were powerless to stop him, defending his photographs as “art”.  He admits that his photographs could cause offence, but only to a minority of people.

It is implausible that Mr Craddock could have been unaware that had he informed the church authorities of his proposed photo shoot and the nature of that shoot, he would not have been granted permission. He trespassed upon property the sole purpose of which was for worship.  He must also have known that the compositions he arranged would universally offend the people who would frequent such an establishment. To them, “a sacred place was profaned”.  For Mr Craddock, the pursuit of Art trumps all.

In my book, it all comes down to a lack of respect for others and their beliefs.

Sky News    The Daily Mail   Run that past me again

Says Paul Waugh,

“…Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley got into hot water this year for musing idly that “the recession can be good for us”. He was pointing out that people smoked and drank less and spent more time with their families — but that didn't stop the Prime Minister ridiculing his online gaffe…”

 In a slightly different context Daniel Hannan wrote recently,

“Then, around about 40 years ago, journalists began to develop the idea that if Person X disagreed, on the record, with Person Y, it was a “gaffe” (a word that exists only in newspapers, never in ordinary conversations).”

Can it be right to describe a comment as a gaffe when it resonates with the public as being true or eminently reasonable?  Patently not, I think.

“A 2008 federal-funded survey conducted in New Jersey, where Megan’s Law¹ originated, concluded it had done nothing to deter the repeat offenders it is designed to target. It only made them easier to track down when they had reoffended….But a register is a knee- jerk response to the cry of “something must be done,” and that done, we are all too happy to do nothing more.”

Catherine Philp

___________________________________

¹ A law requiring information to be made public concerning registered sex offenders.

“One in three teenage girls has suffered sexual abuse from a boyfriend and one in four has experienced violence in a relationship, according to an in-depth study published today”

reports The Guardian.

The research was undertaken on behalf of the NSPCC at the Centre for Family Policy and Child Welfare, University of Bristol.  The Centre describes itself as “one of the leading national and international research centres on child welfare and child safety issues.”

The survey of 1,353 teenage girls and boys from across the United Kingdom found that nearly ninety per cent of these teenagers aged 13 to 17 had been in an intimate relationship. A quarter of the girls claimed to have suffered physical violence, including being slapped, punched or beaten by their boyfriends. Ninety-one teenagers were questioned at length and of these, one in six of the girls claimed that they had been pressured into having sex and one in sixteen claimed to have been raped.

A previous report from Bristol University published in late August 2009 concerning domestic violence declared amongst other things that,

“men abuse more than women do but women are three times more likely to be arrested” (my emphasis).

Having been involved in a professional capacity at the sharp end of domestic violence for a sufficient number of years, it was my experience that the overwhelming majority of individuals arrested were male.

It makes you ponder how representative of the general population were the samples relied upon for this latest research.  If sample data is not sound then neither is the conclusion drawn from that data; or as a computer bod would say, garbage in, garbage out.

“It is frankly a scandal that any kind of taxpayer-funded person should be conveyed about London in a taxpayer-funded car, adding to congestion and pollution, and insulating them from the vital need to upgrade the Tube and build Crossrail. It is time for the incoming government to end this outrage, axe the ministerial cars, and if necessary equip ministers with a lovely red ministerial bicycle with EIIR on the saddle.  Or else we will know that nothing has changed.”

Boris Johnson

“Almost exactly a year ago The Guardian carried an interview Alistair Darling in which he warned that the economic cataclysm which was just starting to engulf us would be “arguably the worst in 60 years”. How we jeered, how the accusations of gaffe and blunder were hurled at the poor fellow.  We learned that Gordon Brown was infuriated by the Chancellor’s candour - Mr Brown being a politician who has never done candour - and the air was thick with speculation that Darling’s days were numbered. But of course he was right, bang on the money”

avers David Hughes in The Daily Telegraph today.

That is not how I remember it.  I recall that HM Government was playing down how serious an economic mess it had caused, and the Chancellor’s gaffe was to have let the cat out of the bag, rather than to have told us something that neither the Government nor we then knew.  Whilst Darling was right in his assessment of the state of the economy, so was everyone else who predicted that we were in danger of suffering potentially the most serious recession in fifty years, if not a century.

I have noticed how this story of Alistair Darling being an all-seeing prophet concerning the economy has gained ground during the course of the mainstream media’s silly season. Even if the Chancellor had been uniquely prescient as is now (falsely) claimed, he does not deserve any credit in the light of his almost immediate “clarifying” of what he had told The Guardian as reported in the The Daily Telegraph the following day, 31st August 2008.

Not long after assuming power in 1997, the Labour Government changed the method of calculating unemployment such that a significant proportion of unemployed people were hidden from the official figures (designating a large number of individuals as long term sick rather than unemployed, being one device).  By this means, the Labour Government was always able to compare favourably their jobless figures with those of the proceeding Conservative administrations.

Today the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that the number of households with no one over the age of sixteen years old working has increased by two hundred and forty thousand over the past year to a total of 3.3 million. Furthermore, the ONS recorded that the number of working-age people in workless households rose to 4.8 million in the year to June 2009.

Put like that, it doesn’t look good, does it?

“The reality is people are bored with it.  Even at Channel 4 the vibe among staff is that if you like Big Brother you're not cool.”

Big Brother “to be scrapped”