CAMERON, LYING CONNIVING LITTLE GIT? YOU DECIDE

Regular followers of this blog will recall the short series I posted about 12 months ago trying to explain the perilous state of the UK economy in plain english.

If you missed them and want to catch up, they still remain valid and accurate in their conclusions and can be found here:

http://tonyclarkeindependent.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/its-economy-stupid.html

http://tonyclarkeindependent.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/its-economy-stupid-part-two-micawber.html

http://tonyclarkeindependent.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/it-economy-stupid-part-3-around-world.html

The point I and indeed many others were making throughout these and similar posts is that the coalitions reckless cut and burn anti growth budgets would inevitably lead to the strangling of any green shoots of recovery,  and that as a result we would still be borrowing huge amounts year on year, and in doing so getting ourselves ever  more debt than when we started, this in fact, coupled with the then Euro crisis was the only probable outcome of the coalition governments cut and burn policy..

But to listen to the Chancellor and the PM, they would have you believe that WE not THEY are in the wrong.

So what do you call someone who knowingly tells an untruth? or is being economical with the actualite? someone who tells porkies? whose language is dishonest?

In my world you call them a lying conniving little git, but let's be kind and let you be the judge as to who is lying to who

On the 23rd January 2013 in a scripted party political broadcast on behalf of the Conservative Party the Prime Minister David Cameron said the following:

"So this government has had to make some difficult decisions, we are making progress, we're paying down Britain's debts"

Very clear there then, and when he came into office our debts were about £750 bn. So what has he paid them down to after 2 years of austerity ? when asked by the Tories in the same party political broadcast the public said it had perhaps gone down by about 2%, before being told by the Tories it ihad actually reduced by 25%! This 25% reduction figure would put the debt now at around the £562 bn mark or perhaps given the lack of growth it's not quite that good and we still owe £600 bn?

Now if you agree with any of the above then unfortunately you and the Prime Minister are both well dillusined and way out in your mathematics.. You see our debt today in 2012 is in fact £1,100bn.

SO UK DEBT SINCE THE COALITION CAME TO POWER HAS IN FACT RISEN BY £350 bn

Or in other words it has grown by almost 50%, now that wasn't mentioned in the broadcast!

The 25% reduction figure they mention is nothing more than the reduction in the total annual borrowing amount (the deficit, between income and spending)  We are simply borrowing 25% less each year as we cut public spending on services and pay more out on welfare, at this rate our borrowing will have risen to £1,500 bn by 2018, or in other words doubled since 2010

For clarity here are the official figures from the ONS (Office for National Statistics) as at Dec 2012

Not wanting to be left out the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, desperate as always to match the PM gaffe for gaffe made his own statement saying that the government is:

"wiping the slate clean of debt"

Well Nick, just how clean will it be by the time you leave office in 2015? as according to the ONS below we will be £550 bn more in debt than when you took up your office!

All of the above was revealed in the usually Tory friendly Spectator, who also helpfully told us that those who have fallen for the government's wicked deceit are in fact in the majority, as just 6% of the public actually know that the national debt is rising not falling.

Should we congratulate the government on getting away with such a whopping great falsehood? or be angry at them and the press for allowing such a deception?

I am in the later camp and I believe that the standard of political integrity and honesty has fallen to an all time low, and it;s high time the UK press got off its knees and told the British public the truth.

Our children and grandchildren will not thank us for closing our ears to the truth or swallowing the untruths of the great and the good, for all their sakes it's time for a bit of good old fashioned unbiased honest political commentary.

WHAT FLASHMAN DID NEXT...............

"Flashman, be it said, was big and strong of his age. He played well at all games where pluck wasn't much wanted, and managed generally to keep appearances where it was; and having a bluff off-hand manner, which passed for heartiness, and considerable powers of being pleasant when he liked, went down with the school in general for a good fellow enough. Even in the School-house, by dint of his command of money, the constant supply of good things which he kept up, and his adroit toadyism, he had managed to make himself not only tolerated but rather popular amongst his own contemporaries; although Young Clegg scarcely spoke to him, and one or two others of the right sort like old Binner's showed their opinions of him whenever a chance offered. But the wrong sort happened to be in the ascendant just now, and so Flashman was a formidable enemy for small boys. This soon became plain enough. Flashman left no slander unspoken, and no deed undone, which could in any way hurt his victims, or isolate them from the rest of the house. One by one most of the other rebels fell away from them, while Flashman's cause prospered, and several other fifth-form boys began to look black at them and ill-treat them as they passed about the house. By keeping out of bounds, or at all events out of the house and quadrangle, all day, and carefully barring themselves in at night, the poorest boys managed to hold on without feeling very miserable; but it was as much as they could do. Greatly were they drawn then towards Old Labour, who, in an uncouth way, began to take a good deal of notice of them, and once or twice came to their study when Flashman was there, who immediately decamped in consequence. The boys thought that Old Labour must have been watching.

David Cameron's apparent uneasiness with comparisons between one public schoolboy and another (him and flashy) have I am told led to some angry exchanges in the House and it is it seems a charactonym far too close to the truth for him to bear. But if this is really so, then why does he continue to try so hard to live up to his Tom Brown Schoolboy soul mate so much in his actions and deeds?

Cameron in recent weeks in an attempt to rid himself of the omnigaffe and u-turn blues has taken once more to the open mouth before engaging brain persona that had troubled him so when first entering number 10, do you still remember his grovelling speech in the States when he referred to the UK being the USA's "Junior Partner" in the Second World war? or his assertion in Turkey that "Iran has a nuclear weapon"?

Well this time he chose his home ground on which to make a fool of himself. Jimmy Carr's Tax avoidance is of course morally repugnant, and I for one have lost a tremendous amount of respect for the comedian now I know how little he cares for paying his taxes, but was it really David Cameron who was preaching to all who would listen as to how wrong all this was? It was a TV spectacle equivalent to watching Dot Cotton launch an anti smoking campaign for the NHS or listening to Jeremy Clarkson in praise of women only shortlists. We just couldn't take it in as believable.

Here was a man whose father and father in law have both been exposed as tax dodgers engaged in siphoning off money overseas, a man whose party is kept afloat by deputy chairman,  Lord Ashcroft who it is reported has avoided paying over £127m in taxes over a ten year period during which he himself donated £11m to the Tory party! And what about his fellow cabinet members who are also allegedly involved in tax avoidance? Just why oh why the PM started throwing rocks and boulders about in such a home owned greenhouse is anybody's guess. Perhaps like Flashman he is simply happy to preach to his fags as to what they should and shouldn't do whilst privately refusing to acknowledge even to himself that his own position as head boy has been bought completely by outside privilege and favour from a wealthy family.

And so having been caught out and found out by an electorate far more astute than Dr Arnold, the schoolmaster from Thomas Hughes's novel,  Flashman "Call me Dave" reverts to type and starts bullying the oiks. And so it is today that we witness another attack on the young and vulnerable,  labeling them all as workshy benefit scroungers undeserving of our care and thus proposing to cut Housing Benefit to all under 25 years olds.

He of course is talking to a specific audience of voters when he speaks, those who want any safety net completely pulled from underneath the have nots, but it is his knee jerk "nasty party" commentary thats leads sensible people to question whether or not his rantings are even partly sensible?

In one fell swoop he is saying that all parents must keep their young at home until they are 25 unless they can afford to move out, and don't think for one minute that his target is just the workshy, of the 210,000 under 25's claiming Housing Benefit a very high number are already in work and claim benefit as a top up to satisfy the ridiculous levels of private rent to private landlords, creaming it in (and probably avoiding paying tax on the profit) due to the failure of successive Governments to provide decent social housing for our young.

Even within the coalition the questions on what is dodgy policy are stacking up

Tim Leunig, chief economist at the Liberal Democrat Centre Forum think tank, poses five questions for Cameron:

• Does this mean all parents have a legal obligation to house their children until they are 25? What sanctions will be placed on parents who refuse to do this?

• If there is no such obligation, where are low income and unemployed under 25s supposed to live? Will the state provide "young adult homes" akin to children's homes for people whose parents refuse? What about those who have no parents? How much will this cost taxpayers?

• Will parents of people aged under 25 be able to claim housing benefit on a bedroom for their under 25, even if the under 25 has moved out, in case they need to move back? How much will this cost taxpayers? Or will there be a legal obligation on social and private renters to move to a different sized house every time their adult children need to move in, or choose to move out?

• Which parents have a legal obligation to house a married couple aged under 25 in low income work? Do the young couple have to split up and live with their own parents? Can they choose? Do they have to alternate?

• Who has a legal obligation to house a couple under 25 with children?

"I say Flashy" said Osbourne the upper fifths swag carrier "Do you not you think the young pups have had enough" "We have taken all their jobs and wages, without having to crash them out of the dorm" "Nonsense" said Flashman "lets roast them, teach them a damn good lesson once and for all, GROWTH and JOBS they ask for, how dare they, they can fag for the rich and have their privileges docked and if they as much as whimper we will thrash them"

Cameron's proposed cut to Housing Benefit for the under 25's will do nothing to slow down the ever growing rise in the welfare bill. only growth and employment will do that. It is a cut which will punish all under 25's even those who are working and put added pressure on the poorest families to keep them at home. It will add as a break to growing up for our young and make them more dependent not less. It will discourage work if the state is not prepared to reward those making an effort. It will disrupt the lives of thousands of young couples with children who if the wage earner is made redundant are then forced to up and move house  and school to return to live with parents.

Like his comments on taxation Cameron's schoolboy recent rants on Housing Benefit were best left unsaid as they are borne out of indifference, insensitivity and class ignorance.

"Well done Flashman old boy" said Boris, "Lets smash the oiks"

A XMAS HOPE AND A NEW YEAR WARNING

Due to far too much Christmas Spirit and even more festivities and family visits approaching I rely this year on Lefty Lucy from the "Ask a Socialist" website http://freedomroad.org/askasocialist/ for providing me with a Xmas message for the blog.

Merry Christmas one and all, see you in the new year which promises to be truly awful, and for my own plagiarised contribution to proceedings After Lucy's great piece on Xmas below I have left you with an only slightly updated version of that infamous Kinnock Speech to preview with trepidation the year ahead of us

Do you hear what I hear? It’s the socialist messages of Christmas 

On the surface, Christmas appears to be an overblown capitalist orgy. Starting as early as October, we’re told to spend, spend, spend. But I’m here to tell you about the Socialist messages that have been smuggled into the Yuletide season. Yes, Christmas is just a delicious, sugar-sprinkled part of the Communist conspiracy.

Christmas history: A primer

Due to the inevitable cross-pollination that comes with colonialism, most of the modern Christmas traditions have their roots in pagan customs. Like Saturnalia, the Roman winter festival which permitted slaves and servants to dine with their masters. It was topsy-turvy day, when you could flout power dynamics and class codes. The social contract was formally abandoned for one night to allow raucous merrymaking among the underclasses. It was sort of the precursor to office holiday parties where you’re allowed to get drunk on egg nog and make fun of your boss.

Caroling can be traced back to the Mummers rituals of old Europe. Somewhere around Solstice time, villagers would travel from house to house, performing songs, dances, and pantomimes in exchange for food or money. They occupied each dwelling in the neighborhood with their drum circles and chants, in a lighthearted, insistent demand for cake and wassail.

"Profiting King Wenceslas" would not make a very good song.

It seems that the classic aspects of the holiday season were born out of traditions of empowering the poor. Don’t tell Goldman Sachs! Then there’s all the messages of caring, sharing and peace on earth. Not exactly the stuff of imperialist profits.

Scrooge is a reformed Capitalist who promises to share the wealth with human and Muppet alike. 
 
But the greatest purveyor of leftist ideals, the most radical agitator of them all, is Jolly Old Saint Nicholas. If you listen to those Bing Crosby tunes, you’ll learn that Santa, like time, is apparently the great equalizer. He brings glad tidings and gifts to all. According to one song, “he doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, for he loves you just the same.” But I know his heart’s really with the 99%. He wears red from head to toe. He redistributes the wealth, chimney by chimney. He bears a striking resemblance to Karl Marx. And those North Pole elves are probably unionized in a worker collective.

Dreaming of a Red Christmas

Amidst the clanging consumerist bells of Christmas at the mall, there persists a reminder to care for the less fortunate and to extend goodwill to everyone, especially those who are most in need. So as the lefties that we are, let’s take the charitable spirit of the season a step further and think of how we can build a world where nobody needs to depend on individual charity, where not a creature is stirring in the shelters, bunkers, or prisons, because we’ve managed to put an end to war and poverty.

It’s a fantastical dream, but custom allows it this time of year. Let’s dream of a red Christmas. We can be like the holdouts of all the raided Occupy encampments, braving the winter cold because we want social justice and “we won’t go until we get some.”

A new year warning

If David Cameron continues as Prime Minister for another year then, I warn you

I warn you that you will have pain–when healing and relief depend upon payment.

I warn you that you will have ignorance–when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right.

I warn you that you will have poverty–when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can’t pay.

I warn you that you will be cold–when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don’t notice and the poor can’t afford.

I warn you that you must not expect work–when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don’t earn, they don’t spend. When they don’t spend, work dies.

I warn you not to go into Northampton's darkened streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light.

I warn you that you will be quiet–when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient.

I warn you that you will have defence of a sort–with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding.

I warn you that you will be home-bound–when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up

I warn you that you will borrow less–when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

If Cameron and Clegg continue in this Con Dem Coalition then–

- I warn you not to be ordinary

- I warn you not to be young

- I warn you not to fall ill

- I warn you not to get old.

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST

Anyone reading today's Sunday broadsheets would wonder whether or not the news teams were regular readers of this blog as they all fell over themselves to warn the UK public of the pending economic doom due to the Tory government mismanagement of the economy and also of the ever shortening road to war in Libya due to step by bloody step engagement by UK troops into the civil war in that country.

But it was Danny Blanchflower's comments in the Observer which hit home hardest with me as they echoed the very points I was making about Tory ideology in the Council Chamber last year when nobody else wanted to listen.

This Danny Blanchflower didn't play for Tottenham and Northern Ireland, instead he was a former member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee and in today's press he had some strong words for the Tories after it has been confirmed that government borrowing is rising and the growth and the economy are shrinking.
 He told the Observer

"How come George Osborne isn't the most hated man in Britain? He should be. It was never necessary to do this. I hold Cameron, Clegg and Osborne responsible for the collapse of the British Economy when it was never bankrupt. Consumer confidence collapsed, and the date of the collapse was April 2010 during the general election campaign"

He went on to criticise the government for having no plan B and no courage for a u-turn and added

 "The public finances are going to be in awful shape. I think this is a fundamental attempt, driven by ideology to shrink the state"

So its official, it's hurting, but it's not working and we are getter poorer as a nation with rising debts and will have a government borrowing more than the last one to simply keep people on the dole after decimating the public services we all rely on, who said Thatcherism had had it's day?

WHAT SHARE PRICE DO WE PUT ON THE TRUTH?

The most valuable things in life are not to be measured or bought and sold as commodities or luxury goods, we all know this I thought? houses, stocks and shares, land, cars and pension funds can never replace love, friendship, trust, confidence, empathy or faith right?

Wrong I am afraid and BP's response to the oil spill and explosion off the coast of Louisiana on the 20th of April and the muted response of so called World Leaders to act collectively or even unilaterally against the Oil Magnates interests are proof positive if we ever needed any more that the world's capitalist masters have finally dismissed any final sense of doubt or shame  that they felt in treating the earth and all it's inhabitants human and animal as nothing more than collateral damage in their race for greed and avarice. They they should be feeling ashamed at the damage they have inflicted on our planet! they should be throwing whatever money they have at stopping the deadly flow of oil from Transocean's shattered pipeline, but instead they are dealing in spin, deceit and press and government management, before no doubt leaving the public to fund the clean up in higher oil prices at the pump.

"10,5000 barrels a day we are now stopping from leaking out of the pipeline" they told us today, but conveniently failed to mention that twice that amount is leaking out of the pipeline in the first place.

And if we are to believe David Usborne (Independent) and I am inclined to believe him a lot more than the ramblings of BP CEO Tony Hayward, then even the press are being played and lied to. 10 days ago he was at BP's Houston HQ to interview Mr Hayward on BP's "top kill" plan to force mud down into the leaked pipe to reverse the outward flow of black gold spewing from the ruptured pipeline.

Two BP representatives Bob Dudley (MD) and Andrew Gowers (Hayward's spokesman) told Usborne just before noon on the 27th May that "The top kill operation continues" "the fluid right now is going in two directions" In the control room he was told Hayward together with Stephen Chu (US sec of Energy) were personally monitoring progress. "They are both down there now tracking this minute by minute" Usborne bought the line given to him and so did the rest of the press and on American TV the "Top Kill" successes were being praised by none other than Admiral Thad Allen of the US Coast Guard!

Needless to say this good news went down well on Wall Street. In New York BP's shares went up by 6.25% in London the rise was 5.9% on the day.

Only later, much later, did the world learn that "Top Kill" had been stopped the night before Usborne's (and others) visit. No mud was being pumped into the pipeline whatsoever when all the "monitoring" and "right now" action was being reported to the press.

When Usborne challenged Andrew Gowers as to the line he been given and to his statements being wrong and factually incorrect Mr Gowers simple response was "We cannot offer blow by blow commentary on something as difficult and delicate and market sensitive as this"

So there you have it folks in their own words BP's duty to it's investors to protect market value and its overriding concern about cash and stock and paying out dividends are all a higher priority than their commitment to our planet and to the damage caused to the environment off of the Louisiana coastline. And of course all those with investments and pensions invested in BP will be equally torn between what is morally right and what is being done in all our names.

But just where is the International leadership coming from to take on the oil giants? Obama? not so far. Who is going to be the first to challenge BP by asking them how it is they have the technology and investment cash available to drill for oil in such places but seemingly have no cash or technologically advanced system for stopping it? Shouldn't we at least this side of the water join Obama in calling a halt to all deep sea drilling until a solution is available?

The Transocean pipeline is drilling at around 5,000ft below sea level The US Navy has just three subs which can operate at 2,000ft It's nuclear fleet can only operate safely at 950ft without risking its hulls imploding (at 1,450ft) So how are we to stop leaks at 5,000ft below sea level!!

When prices at the pump rise as a result of all this international spin doctoring and press manipulation and over protection of the stock market price in "British Petroleum" (remember when we were proud to use their full title?) Then I wonder what the Cameron/Clegg angle will be?

Will the Tories remind us that market forces must be allowed to find their own levels? Or will the Liberal line be more environmentally tempered? I wonder if the Welsh Farmers and Lorry drivers will be so keen to blockade the oil terminals? and I wonder if by then there will be any Brown Pelicans left in the Gulf of Mexico?

Having been saved once from the brink of extinction I wonder now if they will simply be a casualty of political mud slinging and oil pumping?