A Month Is A Long Time

I am happy to say I have enjoyed a month away from writing as I have been lucky enough to become a father for the first time at my ripe age. It's been a very rewarding time.

Not much has changed around us, if truth be told. I thought Gordon Brown's performance in the Chilcot Enquiry was cynical beyond belief when even ex-Ministers, let alone ex-heads of Services, have already told everyone that the UK troops have been denied vital equipment through budget restraints. It just seems that lying to the Enquiry is perfectly acceptable and Brown is playing a 'It's your word against mine' routine. I just hope that documents to be reviewed by the Enquiry actually discover what actually went on and that the word of a defunct PM is not taken as gospel.

Brown has told us that we still have a long road to go on the economic crisis and cuts should not be implemented right now for fear of upsetting the delicate recovery. His precise judgement, which has served us so dreadfully in terms of a ballooning budget deficit which is growing faster than he predicts each month, is that at approximately midday on 10 May will be the exactly time when a tumult of cuts will be finally be required - uncannily that is almost certainly to be one day after the election result is known. How spookily cynical is that?

Meanwhile, the IOD and CBI have urged the Government to start making cuts immediately as the budget deficit seems to be completely on its own spiral with Alistair Darling completely unable to predict where it will be month on month let alone in 2014. It's laughable but somehow on the back of this and the appalling news in Afghanistan and the lies about Iraq, the Government has closed the gap in the Polls to just 2 points.

The old Mandelson Magic is at work - our brains are washed. If we really do think things are ok, then we are barking mad.

Oh What A Lovely War!

There is yet another new push in Afghanistan's Helmand Province, this time advertised as a 'final' push against the Taliban.

Bob Ainsworth, our bungling Defence Minister, has warned us all to expect more casualties. On the same day, we hear that British hospitals are struggling to cope with the growing numbers of seriously injured servicemen arriving back from Afghanistan. It really makes you wonder if anyone, anywhere actually talks to one another. Then again, different to the troops in Afghanistan, being in the MoD or Government is just an ordinary 9 to 5 day job with nothing to fear except not having your bonus paid.

On Radio Five Live this morning, Sheila Fogarty interviewed Mrs. Jane Hurry (I believe that was her surname) whose son Ross is a Lance Corporal in the Royal Engineers. Yesterday, Ross returned to Brize Norton to go back to Afghanistan for a second tour of duty after two weeks R&R. He will take part in Ainsworth's new campaign and the family shed tears on their return home after saying their goodbyes.

Ross' mum is not a political lady - she does not concern herself with why or how we are in Afghanistan but she does has great admiration for what our troops do and how they do it. She is clearly very proud of her son but equally fearful for his safety.

During his R&R, Ross visited his Captain who suffered terrible wounds and is recuperating in Selly Oak. Ross was deeply disturbed by what he saw, not just the extent of his captain's wounds but of the amount of others suffering from equally horrific injuries. I cannot believe that such thoughts and memories will not dwell upon him when he returns to duty and in the quieter moments before the battles he is about to face. Ross is a professional and he does his job to the best his ability, but there is only so much people can take in such conditions of fear and danger.

So it must not help when he reads of defence cuts, merging of armed forces and the stress on hospitals to deal with wounded. It cannot help when he looks at the Chilcot Inquiry and finds Ministers trying to justify their decisions with flawed intelligence and Government suspending democracy in order to make the biggest of decisions to follow different agendas. It cannot help him when he sees that Osama bin Ladin continues to taunt us with videos and messages. It cannot help him when he sees his comrades getting blown to pieces for the lack of armoured transport and the right kit or helicopters when we spend £1.3 trillion to save banks whose staff continue to award themselves massive bonuses which we foot the bill for.

If we are going to fight a war in such hostile territory, history shows us that you have at least to be fully committed even to stand a chance. Lady Elizabeth Butler's famous painting depicts the return of Dr. William Brydon as the sole survivor of a 4,500 troop of British soldiers after a battle - he was arriving in Jalabad after the retreat from Kabul (called 'Remnants of an Army'). The history of this region shows that no modern army has held it and yet we are fighting with effectively one arm behind our backs. An excellent blog on this is by Dr. Richard North.

Incompetence, hubris, lack of priorities, lack of plans, lack of strategy and lack of objectives have achieved only two things in Afghanistan - terrible casualties and a corrupt new Government.

We ought to hold our heads in shame - our brave soldiers on the front deserve more than the donkeys leading them from the staterooms and offices of Whitehall and Westminster.

Crocodile Tears

I hear that Alistair Campbell was filled with emotion on today's Andrew Marr program on the BBC when asked if Tony Blair had misled the nation on the case to go to war with Iraq.

He took time to compose himself before answering to defend his old sidekick and 'that' dossier in making the decision to go to war. He felt that the question kept being raised by those who wanted to 'settle old scores' while Blair had been an 'honourable man'. Clearly, being asked this question again was angering Campbell who felt that enough was getting enough. Referring to Blair's assertion at the time that the case for Hussein having WMD was 'Beyond doubt', if it was subsequently proved by the Chilcot Inquiry that there was doubt, then could it be construed that Blair misled parliament and the people?

In answering Campbell went into a long monologue about being 'vilified' and that enough was enough over this. Blair was an honourable man - draw a line. He even inferred that those who kept asking such questions were just ignorant of the case for war with Iraq.

That struck the main notes for me as, clearly, sceptics like me 'don't get it'. In my eyes, it is Campbell and Blair who don't get it. You see, we were ignorant of the case for war in Iraq as all of us were led to believe there were WMD. Even then, the case for war was slim in international law and a second UN resolution should have been sought. Then, as now, I suspected a sub-plot which was beyond the notion that Hussein was an evil man - we knew that from the Gulf war and his many atrocities against his own people. But the case for regime change does not lie on the whims of minorities of world leaders - that just defeats the cause of the UN and international peace. Perversely, it legitimises Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, over which he seemed to think he had a sovereign claim. Once you decide to break international law or break with it, then you are no better than the evil ones, no matter how 'honourable' you think you are.

Then there was the total under-estimation of the job at hand, as in Afghanistan. Ill prepared, under provisioned troops have laid down their lives for upholding what Blair and Campbell believed in - since the invasions. What Blair and Campbell don't get is that all British citizens are to be held culpable for their actions - we voted them in, the decisions were made by our sovereign and elected Government and the troops bore the insignia of our Queen. The blood is shared equally on all our hands thanks to their 'honourable' beliefs.

We need to find out the truth of what went on and why. How did Britain get so far from the democratic process in its governing? Why did so few people make this decision and where was the real debate of the real evidence to make the decision to send us to war? Why did we allow Blair and his inner sanctum to make these decisions in isolation on, frankly, cooked up evidence rather than 'sexed up'?

Campbell needs to understand that we live in a democracy where we have a right to demand transparency and get to the truth. There is little doubt that Blair was and is a sincere man - but we want to know was that sincerity driven by the wrong motives.

Until we get truthful answers, he had better keep answering the questions. If he things its rather stressful, go talk to the injured kids lying in our forces' hospitals and the families of those who lost relatives. Stress is something they know at first hand.

Problems With Sums

There are many things about life that you simply could not make up yet reality has much more of a fictional feel to it these days.

Think about it - on the one hand we make bold claims that we want more maths graduates, engineers and doctors to help make Britain great again and then we fine universities £3,700 per student over quota they go (or at least Peter Mandelson does). With university applicants up by 12%, many students are finding arbitrarily unfeasible entrance requirements being asked of them to discourage intakes. It means that universities will shun UK students and pack in more, fee-paying foreign students. That's really joined up thinking by the Government who cut funding to universities last year and will do so again this budget.

Meanwhile, in cuckoo land, RBS is clocking up £7bn of losses and the Government is set to sign off a bonus tab of £1bn for the RBS investment banking arm. How does that work when we own over 80% of the bank's shares and simply cannot afford the money? Some may argue we get some of it back through the windfall tax - but bankers are wily sorts and will make sure that is minimised while I would pose an argument that we should simply save £1bn and not pay any of them a penny.

On another note, Sir Jock Stirrup former head of the Armed Forces, has foretold that parts of the armed forces will merge before long in order to save money. Super thinking as we are fighting two major wars with many more likely - run that by us one more time. I heard John Nicholl, the former Tornado navigator shot down and paraded on TV in the First Gulf War, this morning. He made the point eloquently. Arguably with the exception of Iraq lately, all of the major conflicts which have occurred in recent times have been completely out of the blue and unanticipated.

So if we had used Jock's logic, after the first Gulf War we would have contracted the army as the whole war was virtually fought and won by aircraft. But then we could never have invaded Afghanistan if we had done so - conventional thinking is that we no longer need heavy armour as lightly armed, specialist troops are required. Tell that to the kids with arms and legs blown off and no armoured vehicles. From where we stand now, why do we need a decent Navy as wars are in major countries - but that presupposes that we never have a Falklands situation again.

The point here is that you either plan for all eventualities or none as you never know what is going to happen next or where the next threat comes from and in what form. Certainly, there is no point telling TAs to not drill or train with live rounds and then send them into battle situations - you may as well paint an arrow on their backs to a sign saying 'Greenhorn, please shoot at freely'.

It's all about non-joined up thinking and stupid logic. What is the point of paying banker bonuses when the company makes a massive loss and then telling nurses and doctors they have no pay rise? What is the point of paying off sitting MPs who are under legal investigation for fiddling expenses when they should be paying them back? And what is the point of allowing ancient protection to be misused to help them avoid legal charges? This surely shows just how guilty the people are in their squalid attempts to avoid justice.

It's a world gone crazy - the loonies are running the hospital.

Short on Credibility?

It was keenly anticipated, but Clare Short's turn at the Chilcot Inquiry has already slipped to the back water pages of the internet news sites.

Despite some stunning revelations which confirmed much of the thinking that Tony Blair did much of his decision making outside Cabinet, ran the country with just a few hand-picked, non-elected advisers, spun the truth and somehow got the Attorney General to change his tune, miraculously in favour of an all-out war when a few weeks before the legal case was nil - despite all this, there was something tawdry and sleazy about Short's evidence.

Part of it was that Alistair Campbell had already laid his marker on her when he gave 'evidence'. He had effectively marginalised her by making her appear 'unreliable', suggesting she was a loose cannon and a potential threat to us all. Further, the whole saga of her resignation was an on-off affair and it appeared she wavered about her decision, loyalty and, perhaps, ambition. Did she go because she could not get what she wanted or because she had a conscience? With Robin Cook it was unequivocal; with Short it was questionable. All the more pity that Cook is not around to give his view, as indeed Dr. David Kelly is also not around too.

Clare Short said a lot of damaging things but her colloquial and slangy style made her sound, frankly, unintelligent and, not a little, vindictive. She came across as having an axe to grind - Campbell's careful depiction of her was at the front of my mind when she referred to the country being run by 'Blair and his mates'. Great pub talk but hardly the accurate description for a major Inquiry. She made the Attorney General's volte-face on the legality of the war sound just like the nation's view of 'how could he move so far in just a few weeks' but there was no substantiation of her view and therefore it was no better testimony than that of you or I in this matter.

But what the whole performance did illustrate, if nothing else, was that the country was in the hands of a very small number of mainly unelected people, that Cabinet was just an 'For Your Information Only' pool, where there was little debate, and Parliament was for mere ratification - with the landslide majority effectively stifling any questions or any chance of democracy.

No matter when and where or for what reason Blair decided to go to war, once he had done so there was no turning back and he just made sure that it looked as though it was necessary. Looking back at the evidence that was presented to the Cabinet, Parliament and the nation, it now looks a laughable attempt to provide an excuse for such action akin to a young school kid making up a story of why it was late to class.

What Clare Short's evidence produced, along with Campbell's and Blair's, is how little real thought went into the whole process of decision making, how little debate was invoked and how trivialised were the thoughts, views and consciences of the British people. We were the last people to be considered and the least. Our vote had been cast long ago and was now a chip in the game of world power. By allying with the US, Britain was at the Top Table of international power and that was vital for Blair's future beyond being Prime Minister. He had suddenly found his raison d'etre, his legacy and his future in one go. He would forever be known as the hero who rid the world of Saddam Hussein.

To use a boxing analogy, Hussein was a former heavyweight who still thought he could fight and was lured into the ring with no training and no fitness. He was a spent force. All he had left was his country's oil, it's proximity to Iran, and that he would make a good butt for the vengeance of the United States for 9/11 even though it was clear he was no more a threat to the US than a defenceless old boxer. The United States had a symbolic war it could win.

But they didn't. Iraq, like Afghanistan, has been a fiasco that has cost $billions and many lives at a time we could afford neither. The legacy will be seen as two zealous, power-hungry fools wanting to make a strike for their faith and their egos.

The only thing Short confirmed yesterday was the image of a dictatorial pseudo-President running our country and that democracy had been suspended. If that is not a case for wholesale electoral reform, then I don't know what is.

What Happened To Labour?

I am not sure what has been the most obvious in the last 24 hours, a) the fact our economy is about as healthy as a 40 a day smoker or b) that the gap between rich and poor has not been as high for 40 years.

Either way, it begs the question - what happened to Labour? In my youth, I may not have agreed with the rantings of Neil Kinnock, Michael Foot, Dennis Skinner, Arthur Scargill or Tony Benn but you could not fault them for their deep conviction that there was a fundamental inequality in our society. Now, after 12 years of a Labour Government, we find we have the usual defunct economy but also the largest gap between richest and poorest, the least opportunities for our children, and an apparent breaking, if not broken, society that still makes distinctions between sex and gender despite there even being an Equalities Minister and employment laws as tight as a duck's backside.

The reality is that we sit passively reading that bankers at Goldman Sachs will have to make do with only £1m per person this year, we look on with indifference that bosses' average pay is now over five times that of the wages of their average worker and despite the presence of a myriad of laws employers still discriminate on the grounds of race, religion and sex. We may think things are different - but they aren't. You only have to see the rise in the BNP to understand that Britain is not moving forward in its thinking or the clamour to congratulate France on banning the wearing of Burkas by Muslim women.

Then again, we are at war with Muslims and their way of life. We are currently occupying two Muslim countries and we are having another eternal inquiry into why we invaded one of them as it posed no threat to our nation. It's little wonder why people in Britain remain largely anti-foreign, let alone racist.

We convince ourselves that the Taliban are the epitome of pure evil because of the way they treat women and hold them back, yet the recently released figures show clearly that as a society we fundamentally undervalue the contribution of a woman doing the same job and that the opportunities to progress for women are far less than those for men. We have even made the white male worker a class that is oppressed in the media.

I can't say that I know answers to such a complex situation because on the one hand I want a safe place to live, more opportunities for local people to work rather than have more migrant workers in this country, employ the people I think can do the job rather than be told that I must favour certain sections of society, earn as much as I am able and pay less for the failings of others. On the other hand, I know that I am part of the problem. I sit hear and listen to the spoutings of a Government that has failed us through window dressing policies and talk but did little to rectify the underlying problems and I think to myself, 'Well at least I'm ok, despite how much I disagree with their so-called achievements.'

And that about sums it up - as long as we have our Sky TV, a place to live, iPods, 42" TVs, places to eat and pubs to drink in plus the money to support it, we are fat and happy. Who cares about the kids in poverty in this country or the starving in Africa when partners at banks average £1m a year and are furious they are being victimised? It seems Labour doesn't - that party of social equality of old has wooed and knighted bankers as good as anyone and footed the bill when they got so greedy that they broke the country.

We are a society that will gladly fight for the right to watch violent films, make sure our kids have the latest PC games extolling the virtues of stealing cars and defending the right of anyone to do what they want on the internet yet criticise people for having beards, wearing Burkas and being tough on criminals. We are a society that will happily go to war based on false information, then cook the story to justify it when the lie is discovered yet allow countries we 'free and democratise' to have corrupt Governments because it suits our agenda.

The fact is, as a society we haven't really moved very far forward at all. The Labour Party, which once had a passion to tackle such issues, has got as fat and as happy as the society it governs.

I would hate us to get back to the old days of rampant strikes and high powered, politicised Unions that dominated Labour's rise which contributed to the death of the British manufacturing base but I can't help thinking we needed some of those old principles about a better society, because what we have is more polar, discriminatory and broken than it has ever been.

The Shape of Things To Come

Two things I read over the weekend caught my eye about the future. The first was the Ernst & Young Item Club report about the economic outlook.

The second was about spending reviews for the Armed Forces which will now take place after the election - of course, low priority matters like soldiers being blown to pieces can wait for preening politicians to have their jamboree.


The Item Club, stuffed full of clever economists who could not predict the Credit Crunch and the depth of the recession, are now calling how it will be on the 'upside'. Their predictions are not encouraging as they forecast a mere 1% growth for the economy this year. For once their predictions are based on some sound observations as they focus on Britain decreasing its dependency on consumer and debt to fuel growth, and to focus more on exports. As we don't have much of a manufacturing base left, this will be a long hard slog but I cannot agree more about the assertions on debt.


However, I think the Government have other ideas. The vast growth we enjoyed in the last 12 years came directly from leveraged consumers who took plentiful and cheap credit and spent like no other generation. Unsecured debt is at perilously high levels and is only slowly creeping down. In the next few years, it should be the aim of the Government and consumers alike to manage this debt down as it will be crucial in the ability of the Government to force new taxes upon the nation and get them collected - the real threat of increasing bankruptcies and hardship could hamper the ability of HMRC to collect taxes.

It will be a year when the eyes of the financial world will be watching us very carefully for signs of weakness and inability to service or repay our debts and as each day passes with no action on cuts or tax then the uncertainty grows.

The second thing was about the Armed Forces. General Sir David Richards believes that the 'Rules of war have been re-written' and so advocates greater emphasis and money on sophisticated equipment such as spy planes and cyber-defences as the name of the game is fighting insurgency who work by different rules. To be honest, such insurgent armies work on infinitely weaker budgets than the might of the US and UK and still work very effectively. It has been a feature of modern warfare that in the absence of massive engagements on mapped out battlefields that war is becoming a game of cat and mouse and the mouse is superbly equipped to inflict severe damage on a waringly small but regular scale. While the numbers in each incident are low, the toll of kills or injured mount over the course of a year and now we have lost more British forces in the Afghan conflict than we did in the Falklands.

This is not rocket science. We have seen it in Northern Ireland - a relatively small, hidden and resourceful army with deep convictions and little fear can inflict terrible wounds which are difficult to stem over time that saps morale and instills fear. The wiser way to handle such conflicts would be simply to not engage and make no theatre of war for them to play in. Such armies are not mobile, they cannot travel far and they have limited ways of communicating, but concentrate them in small areas where they can focus their attention and they become lethal.

The pressure on us as a country as we attempt to pay the price of awesome economic failure is to fight a war we cannot win and we cannot afford. Our aspirations of being some kind of world superpower are dwindling as fast as our bank balance and the two things are incongruous.

Britain faces an austere year and a year where our ambitions should be reviewed on all fronts.

The Unlikely Plotter

Let's face it - Geoff Hoon was an unlikely plotter. He was a useless Defence Secretary that lacked guts, leadership and vision. He went onto to be a central figure in the MP Expense scandal and so there are also deep questions over his integrity too.

So if anyone was to plot against a useless PM then Hoon would not have been the ideal choice. That about sums up Labour's alleged 'deep divide' - on the one hand you have a clueless and bumbling PM and on the other side you have no credible alternative. David Milliband has apparently settled his score with Brown and has now publicly backed him with some kind of positive statement after dithering and equivocating - like many Cabinet Ministers - but it is clear that in the background Peter Mandelson and his cohorts have cracked the whips and the party has stepped back in line.

Then comes this morning's Times. Hoon has come out fighting(!?) - something he clearly found impossible to do when he was in Government. Besmirched, belittled and beleaguered after Wednesday's pathetic attempt at a coup, he has decided to kiss-and-tell and harry Brown with small knife attacks to his back.

This morning's revelations probably will not surprise anyone. Allegedly (supported by leaked letters to prove it) as Chancellor Brown vetoed several attempts by the MoD to buy new troop-carrying helicopters for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It all makes the recent scramble by Bob Ainsworth, another useless Defence Secretary, to cobble together some new orders look very 'previous' and far too late as the death toll in 2009 rose dramatically with commanders, troops and bereaved families singing the same tune about lack of transport and armour. It appears that 2009's problems stem back to under-investment at the time when Brown himself controlled the purse strings and denied the MoD and commanders what they needed.

But this cannot possibly damage the PM. It has already been capably proven that the British public does not have the intellect to link past events to present as no one has really twigged that it was under the lengthy Chancellorship of Brown that the current financial problems brewed and amid his hubris and arrogance that he allowed the situation to blow up in our faces and cost no less than £1.3 trillion of mop up which we will all pay for until 2032. Quite the contrary. Thanks to his theatrics once the cork was out, his desperate attempts to deal with the problem, which have had little real effect, have given him a near 'superman' status.

So I doubt very much that one angry man 'possibly' telling the truth about Afghanistan will make a difference. Careful handling of the spin and repositioning of the history will deal with the problem. You have only to look back on the whole Iraq invasion affair to understand how history, that we all experienced and lived through, has been manipulated and changed. In the build up to Blair's testimony to the Chilcot Inquiry, already we have the master at work to groom us ready to believe whatever pious rubbish he spouts. The fact remains, the public still eat out the Government's hand - we still believe everything they say and we still believe that Brown would never have vetoed new helicopters to Afghanistan even if he came out and said he did, because he would deliver some made up fact to make us all believe this was a great idea at the time and serves us well now too. Just as Blair is doing over Iraq.

The other interesting pattern is this. Brown is interviewed in the 'News of The World' (NOTW) today to say that this week's plot was a 'Bit of silliness' while Hoon chooses the Times to 'Savage the PM'. Guess what? The vast majority will read the NOTW and will believe it - the people who read the Times are not only in the minority but have already pieced together the truth. The different newspaper has been well chosen by the Party to deliver their message. Of course, you will have to look really hard to find the Brown interview amid the shock-horror story of an Eastenders' split up and the lurid affairs of Tiger Woods but somewhere it is there. Because that's the level of importance this country really puts on it all because that's how the Government wants us to perceive it - the positioning is masterful.

Until we get a modicum of intelligence, the people of this country will continue to believe only what they are told by the Government. Hoon has blown his miserable political career on an ill-conceived coup plot. Even his own constituency are looking for a 'No confidence' vote to get rid of him. And good riddance - he couldn't even get a coup right.

If he had any guts or courage he would have stood up to Gordon Brown when it really mattered - when Brown vetoed the purchase of new helicopters for Afghanistan when he was Chancellor. Rather than using this information to try and save his political and vindictive skin now, Hoon might have saved a lot of lives of killed and wounded servicemen in 2009 if he had revealed this information at the right time - we might even have thought him a better man for it than the miserable wretch we perceive of him today.

But as usual in politics, it's self-interest that takes precedence. At the critical time Hoon was more concerned with preserving his job, his nice pension and all those wonderful expenses. His conscience was clear because servicemen then, like now, did not matter.

Happy New Year 2010

The Noughties are over and we are in 2010, whatever we call this decade.

Happy New Year to all who read this blog and I hope 2010 brings you success and all you hope for.

It's hard to say what the year will bring - many people are finding it difficult to call this year. Cautious, slow recovery perhaps? Certainly, I think this year will mark the ascendancy of China as a dominant economy and currency but what does it hold for the UK?

As we head into the run up for an election there are two things that could really strangle us - 1) a Labour win and 2) a hung Parliament. I think in both cases it will create market chaos particularly with our bonds for National Debt. This may sound anti-Labour but realistically they seem to have no plan, other than vain hope for massive economic growth to be conjured out of nowhere, to cut our debt. They have put off spending reviews, they have not tackled any public sector cuts, they have not targeted any inefficiencies - they have simply ignored the fact that come the end of Quantitative Easing our bonds will have to be bought by investors with real money and they must trust in our plan to repay. There simply is not one.

A hung Parliament is even worse as even I would imagine that Brown and his crew really do have some idea of what cuts they have to make and tax increases beyond the headline grabbing bank windfalls and on higher earners that frankly make no dent in the pile of money we owe and does not go anywhere near the interest payments we have to make. If there is no result at the election, then there will be a period of bargaining, power broking and total inertia as everybody works out how to agree on things and make anything happen. It could be a period of hiatus that literally finishes this country. So with Labour clambering back up the polls, the likelihood of a hung Parliament increases and that's bad news.

Of course, there is a curve ball. The rumoured growing rift between the arch-powerbroker, Peter Mandelson and Gordon Brown has Blairesque overtones. Once again, we see the puerile stance by Brown on the subject and there is a rumour of even a leadership challenge possibly before the next election although you would have to think that Labour would be effectively committing political suicide if that happened. Worse, it could happen after the election and we once again have an unelected leader at the helm. That would be a disastrous blow for democracy and if Labour think Brown is as bad as the rest of us thinks he is, then get him out now and let's see the mettle of the new man - whoever that may be.

Mandelson is apparently aggrieved that, having saved the political skin of Brown, he is being increasingly marginalised on decision-making and his position of 'most powerful man in Britain' is diminishing. Not surprising really, Mandelson has been behind some of the most ineffective of schemes which have talked of big money help and delivered nothing in the economy. Scrappage was an idea nicked from Germany and France while the VAT decrease had nothing to do with him. The grand Enterprise Loan Guarantee scheme and credit top up did have something to do with him and neither have really helped anyone. The £2.3bn car industry boost never materialised with not a penny used since February last year and all Mandelson seems to have done is to travel all over the place, talk and get green custard thrown on him.

So the big question is, 'Will Brown survive?' You know, I have a sneaking suspicion that the man who wrecked our economy, who dithers on foreign policy, who has no idea on how to get us out of the economic mess he put us in seems lucky enough to actually get away with it. Even if the electorate votes him back, I think his own party will ditch him.

How democratic is that? Makes Afghanistan look positively fair.

Happy 2010!

Merry Christmas

Bookies are expecting to pay out on a White Christmas as more snow is forecasted for Scotland and the North East - at least something good comes of the bad weather.

For those who read my blog, I would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and hope that 2010 is a fantastic and successful new year.

For me, in February, I will become a dad for the first time at the ripe old age of 50. I already know this will be a momentous year for my family. No matter what else is in store for me, I cannot wait.

However, it is at these moments when I realise life is not the same for everyone. After the missed opportunity for future generations at Copenhagen, I fear for African nations and the people who look on in disbelief as we spend billions to save our way of life while they starve. I think of the brave soldiers in Afghanistan who may get turkey but they will not be with their families and loved ones this Christmas.

As we tuck in and relax amongst our friends and family this Christmas, please spare a thought for all those who are not as well off as us. And let's hope that 2010 is a year of real hope and progress for them.

Have a great Christmas.

500 Not Out and The Rise of The Machine

I was a little staggered to realise that this is the 500th post on my blog. For those who know me, I have always had a lot to say on many things but I never thought I would write so much in such a short time.

Then again, a lot has happened. When the history of the period is written, it will be hard to know where to start - we are in the aftermath of several major terrorist atrocities attributed to the deadly but unseen Al Qaeda, led by an equally unseen leader, Osama bin Ladin. He has remained at large although the American Dyslexic Rangers thought they had him early on when they surrounded Debenhams after a tip that Bed Linen was inside.

To a large extent we can explain why we went into Afghanistan but the trail of reason stops there. It is a vast and mountainous country with tribal factions which has not been annexed effectively since Alexander the Great (Kandahar is a version of is name). Modern British and Russian Armies have been defeated there and still we persist against history - and how history repeats itself as we under-equip and fail our brave forces in what is fast becoming a pointless war.

The aftermath of Iraq is finally taking us to the real reasons why we invaded. It started with Bush's 'Axis of Evil' speech and then came the charades of WMDs. Blair concocted a reason - any reason would have done as he has now confirmed - and we spent years opening a new front for those with a gripe against the West to come try their luck and stoke up the hatred of Islamic fanatics for the next century. There has been no good to have come out of Iraq, and no WMD were ever found.

Then came the financial meltdown. After years of trading largely fictional products amongst themselves, the financial people got caught by their own scam - rather than see their companies go belly up like anyone else who has traded effectively illegally, these people held us all to ransom. The scam was so big and widespread that the entire banking system was at risk and so the taxpaying people of the world had no choice - we had to bail them out. UK Government borrowing to do this has escalated and currently our national debt is 69% of our total GDP and rising faster than everyone predicts. Billions and trillions have been lost in supporting a thin wedge of people who were already extremely rich. At the Copenhagen Summit of Climate Change, African nations express their disbelief that rich nations could throw away so much money and yet not have a few million to help them as they starve. But that is the crux of the issue - there were no real profits made over the 12 years leading up to the crash, it was all fiction. We settled the gambling debts of a few 'gifted people' and reloaded their pockets to do it all again.

It proves that you cannot have Capitalism and a global conscience - and so Africa will always be Africa and poor.

At the nadir of the Crash and the ensuing recession came the trivial yet infuriating revelations about MP Expenses. We got the claims for duck houses, blatant 'flipping' of residences to profit and avoid Capital Gains Tax, manure, kit kats, toilet ducks, second homes in London for London MPs - the list was almost endless and staggering how the taxpayer has been abused. Then came the contrition and now the fight back. Despite doing tit for tat claims on second homes with her husband, Julie McBride, having said she would stand down, has decided that the public really think what she did was morally right and will stand again. Meanwhile we have a whole cast of cynical 'Zombie MPs' who will shuffle off in shame but will not be sacked or resign as they get a pay off for being elected off at the next election. You really could not make this all up it is so disgusting. We now have several MPs moaning that the rules have been changed and applied retrospectively - welcome to the real world, I say. Sadly, at the next election, I think we will have forgotten the sleaze and many will get re-elected because of our own ignorance.

The Rise of The Machine

The rise of the machine has been amazing. Since 1997, a million more jobs in the Public Sector have been created and during this recession, as over one million extra have been dispatched to the dole queue, still the Public Sector has not been affected and continues to recruit at a fearful rate. Over one in five jobs are in the Public Sector now but that does not tell the whole story as so many are not reported as they have been outsourced - the picture is much closer to one in four jobs in the Public Sector. And top end salaries have risen enormously - throughout the recession, the Sunday Times Appointments Section has been devoid of Private Sector jobs but full of top level jobs at £200k packages for the Public Sector. Layers of Government have been introduced with fat salaries and little power - the First Ministers in Scotland and Wales earn as much as and more than Gordon Brown - then there are the armies of Assembly members, flunkies, MEPs, Commissioners. The machine is vast and getting bigger - we are being spoon fed what to think and do by more layers of Government than you can shake a copy of '1984' at. The bill for all this is crippling us.

Spin has dominated this country for the last 12 years and we have listened and believed all that has been said. Careful angling of Public Enquiries have delivered no change time and again and then come the 'big plays' which are designed to show how the Government has delivered. The rise of the 'Target' in the Public Sector has thrown us off the track as to what is important - more kids get top grades in exams but can't add or write, the NHS has no queues but is obsessed with trivial treatments to score. Then we have grandiose schemes like the Asset Protection Scheme, the Automotive Protection Scheme, the Credit Top up, the Enterprise Loan Guarantee schemes none of which have delivered any good anywhere.

Stark facts elude us. We have remained in recession longer than any other G20 nation, it is a record length and depth of recession, we will continue to repay our borrowings long into the next generation of working kids. The world is changing in front of our eyes and we deny it - instead of lowering our carbon footprint, we trade it. What idiots we all are.

It's my 500th post and I have covered a lot, as well as issues and help for small businesses. But I am hopeful of a good 2010. We will emerge finally from recession, we may not have learnt any lessons from the Credit Crunch but at least it has exposed a poor, laissez faire Government for the sham it was - perhaps we will get a decisive vote at the election but that will depend on the quality of the opposition and, frankly, it is not good enough at the moment. At least we have found that a couple of our sports stars are only human after all - Tiger Woods is as weak as the next man, Gareth 'Alfie' Thomas, ex-Lion Captain (for one test) has proven gay people can be amongst the best in the most macho of sports.

I hope for one big thing. I hope that the next Government will not have a 167 seat majority on just 34% of the vote. The impregnability of this last Government has been the massive drag on progress and it has been a period of missed opportunities. I hope that does not happen again.

Bingo or Afghanistan or Education or The NHS? Bingo, Please.

In a fairly odd Pre-Budget Report (PBR), it did not get more bizarre than the cut in tax on Bingo.

What was really odd about it was that it was so specific and announced with such gravity that it seemed every citizen in Britain would derive some benefit - hence its headline billing in the PBR. There were no free prescriptions for everyone, no free hospital parking, no extra help for working mums, no lowering of the dental fees on the NHS or boosting the availability of dentists to people. No new kit for the army, no new armoured vehicles, no new bullets for the TAs, no new police on the beat - but there was a boost for Bingo.

It is hard to believe that we are actually in financial dire straits, with a record post war budget deficit which is legally pledged in the Fiscal Responsibility Bill, farcically passed in the Queen's Speech, to halve by 2014. Here we are handing out money for people to play Bingo.

If a Martian landed on earth today and looked at the priorities of this Government they might think it odd, but if you are an earthling you would think it bizarre to the point of absurdity.

It's as if as the Titanic sank, people debated whether the Foie Gras was game enough.

Maybe I'm the daft one here - perhaps my wife and I, our immediate family and entire entourage of friends are the odd ones out in that not one single one of us has ever stepped into a bingo hall let alone played it. Maybe we are the out of date ones that don't see that the crucial mood and well being of bingo players is vital to the financial recovery, health and education of this nation. Maybe the Government knows something that I do not - maybe all bingo players are in fact mathematical maestros who underpin the design of our health system or are intelligence officers who are secretly guarding us against the growth of terrorism from within. Perhaps bingo players are capable of launching Weapons of Mass Destruction within 45 minutes and therefore this is a move to appease them.

There has to be some reason. Or is it just that John Prescott's wife plays bingo twice a week and he still has Brown by the short and curlies? Or was it a misprint in the report that Darling read out and should have said, 'Drop income tax for everyone and BINGO we win the election.'?

I haven't run the figures yet but of the £31 bn boost to spending this PBR represented I am not sure what decreasing the tax on bingo actually contributed to the bill but I am sure there must have been a corresponding multiple in benefit for the nation carefully calculated. For instance, it must outweigh the cost of one new heavily armoured vehicle sent to Afghanistan or another helicopter, or a better bullet proof vest, or some more food or even just a poster for the barracks wall that says, 'You may not think it but you boys dying in Helmand are worth more to us than people who play bingo.'

You could not make this crap up, frankly, and I apologise for my crudeness but it is the only word that describes it adequately. In the deep mire of financial mess and the blood of Helmand province, the best thought leadership of this nation came up with a 2% decrease in tax on Bingo and announced it to the country as if it was crucial to our global recovery plans.

Even Brown's cartoon character hero, Superman would have a laugh. This is a pointless Government doing pointless things at a time of crisis - Jim Callaghan and his 'Crisis? What crisis?' Government would be so proud of New Labour.

Stoic Britain in 2009?

I think we all need a pat on the back. 2009 has to be one of the worst years in terms of crises for many a long time, yet the average person in the street, young or old, took it all with a traditional British stiff upper lip.

We have endured 6 successive quarters of GDP contraction. We have endured 4 years (and more) of serious decline in household income, with 2009 being by far the worst. We have added well over 1m to the dole queue and there are still more to come on that. We have seen major companies try to impose draconian cuts on staff at banks, the Royal Mail and BA as good examples; we have seen the loss of major household names like Woolworths, MFI, Threshers, Borders. We have seen the near collapse of the financial system, with 5 household named high street institutions falling largely or wholly into public hands. We have seen the exposure of long term, systematic abuse of the taxpayer by MPs on their expense claims with some stepping way beyond the point of common decency and into the world of crime. We have seen more deaths in Afghanistan in one year than all the previous years of that engagement added together - and totalling now as many as those lost in the Falklands conflict. Even as we watch with horror as that seemingly pointless engagement continues, that still our troops are not being given the right support, numbers and equipment to do the job they are asked to do. As the official inquiry into Iraq starts, it is already clear that the public were grossly misled into supporting a war that had no legal grounding - making Britain no better than a rogue state intent on imposing its will on others because it wants their assets.

Why have we put up with it all? Even in the Glasgow East by-election, the status quo was endorsed. During the year there was much talk of discontent amongst workers and potential riots in the streets as Britain suffered from the depths of the recession. We have seen that wile private firms have suffered badly from the effects of the recession and the credit crunch, the public sector has enjoyed an unscathed path with hardly any job losses, no major cuts, good salaries and fantastic pension rights as more private firms close their final salary schemes.

For many we have seen our assets corrode at an acidic rate - the stock market has regained ground but most of us look at our pension and savings statements with fear and depression. Our homes have lost some 25% in value and although they are back on the rise, many people are now in the mire of negative equity or under the cloud of delayed payments. Many firms have deferred their tax under the government schemes and face a big cash call soon that may yet send more companies under. The VAT reduction to 15% will be reversed as of the end of this month and prices will rise sharply.

And perhaps most depressingly, we have been shielded from the true cost of the massive bank bail outs we have been party too. The National Audit office have now fixed the current running total as £850 bn and rising - a spend totally unanticipated by anyone and we are still worried about further liabilities as now the next wave may not be sub-prime mortgages but sub-prime national debt as whole states or countries like Greece and Dubai start to falter on debt repayments. The result is that we are likely to be paying for the huge borrowing on all this until 2032 although Government calculations seem to be wrong each month as the borrowing requirement keeps exceeding estimates.

In amongst all this bad news - terrible news - the population seems to be unfazed and carries on regardless. Even terrible disasters like the Cockermouth floods seem to move us little anymore as we become numb to the pain around us. Perhaps we are in denial - all this bad news is being locked out so that we can focus on existing in our way. After all, there are no food shortages, we still have credit and we still have means of getting what we need. Indeed, the travel industry, with the exception of BA, reports that holidays have not fallen off at all - for most of us, life goes on.

One theory why we have not been up in arms and rioting in the streets is that we have a focus for our fury. The one benefit of the bizarre banking drama has been that we can collectively and unreservedly hate the people who caused the mess we are in - the bankers. The issue just won't go away. Even as the money still pours in from the taxpayer creating an artificial market condition where every bank in the world can make vast profits quickly with little investment and cost, they are demanding bonuses for effectively just pocketing our cash. They are not even demanding it - they are blackmailing us for it.

At one point in the year, I advocated that we do not pay our tax as enough was enough - why should we give our money and see the direct result as being MPs cheating us for cash and bankers queuing to buy shiny new sports cars? Why can't we see more care homes for the wounded returning from Afghanistan or better equipment and transport for them so that they can be protected against the unseen enemy? If money was so easy to be handed out, why did we have to pay so much tax before, if debt was so good for us?

I can only put it all down to the old spirit of survival and stoicism by the British people. At the direst moments we had the surreal moment of an open racist on prime time TV telling us that Hitler had a point in so many words. And still we carried on.

I think as the year closes, we should all pat ourselves on the back for our courage, fortitude and downright ignorance of what is going on around us. By putting our heads in the sand, young kids in Afghanistan will continue to die and rich people in the City will continue to earn a fortune off the back of our mindless handouts and behave as if they earned and deserved it. Why, when history is rewritten, we will find that the likes of Goldman Sachs, RBS and the other banks saved us, not we them.

And we will believe every word of it, just as we did of the rewritten history in the TV program, 'The Blair Years'. The one thing that Mandelson and Brown got right in the last year is that the public was stupid - the rest they got totally wrong.

Public Service Is The Place To Be

One of the most recession proof areas of the last 2 years of crisis has been the Public Sector. Makes you think we are a bunch of mugs in the private sector.

As unemployment hurtles upwards, very few jobs have been lost in the public sector as private firms have borne the brunt of the downturn in terms of laying people off and cutting costs. There are few firms in the private sector which have grown to any great degree while many have contracted or even disappeared. Meanwhile, despite a colossal budget deficit and borrowing now at 59% of GDP and rising, the public sector shows no sign of having to rein itself in - except of course if you are in the Armed Forces where there have been many crazy cuts as we attempt to fight two wars and have suffered as many casualties in Afghanistan as we did in the Falklands War.

The Sunday Times Appointments Section, barometer of how the job market is in terms of investment, has for some time been packed full of senior public sector appointments with salary packages that would make most business people look at least twice. The recruiters in this sector, like Rockpools, have been making a mint and the market for Health Interims is more healthy than the industry they supply - it's big, big business. Executives in the public sector are paid very well - far more than many of their private counterparts considering they create no wealth. Then there are the pensions. Let's not go there - I had a recent statement on my plans and frankly the prospect of retirement depresses me greatly. I can see myself never being able to stop work.

Workers in the Public Sector just don't get that point as they hassle for more pay citing the private sector as the yardstick.

It's not just redundancies - the public sector is like a vast sponge for money and it just keeps expanding. Latest estimates show that almost 1 in 4 jobs in the UK are in the public sector while the sector just absorbs more money and wastes a vast proportion of it on projects that deliver little and continually over run. In the MoD there is dreadful control of assets, huge contract overspends and then too few people at the business end with little enough equipment to do the job, while the civil servants back home pocket a share in a £48m of bonus payments. Injured troops or the families of the dead get precious little compensation for their losses when clerks in the MoD can sue for massive payouts for little than a bit of bullying or stress - try Helmand province for a bit of repetitive stress. MPs consume vast expenses for little to show for it and cannot see why the public is at odds with them - indeed, they want more pay and to continue to stand at the next election. The NHS is full of padding and overspends yet vital drugs are not given due to cost. Education is delivering mathematically sub-standard and illiterate graduates who cannot even get jobs - the list goes on. Yet we have not saved a penny despite a huge borrowing crisis.

Now we have the final insult. As soon-to-be 84% owners of RBS, we (the public) watch in sheer horror as traders and executives are to be paid over £1.5bn in bonuses from making profits that we (the public) have created for them by bailing them out and giving them free money to re-capitalise, none of which they have passed on to the economy.

It's a story that you could not write it's so idiotic and unbelievable. Globally £15 trillion has been spent on saving the banks and all we have done is lined their pockets by giving them profits as easy as spearing fish in a barrel. As Gordon Brown enjoys a resurgence in public opinion even though the public do not understand why we fight wars, his crony, Lord Myners, says that, 'Bankers should get into the real world'.

Let's just remind ourselves, this is the same Government that told us we could not get caught up in recession as our economy was so strong, then it would not hit us so bad for the same reason when it did and now of the G20 richest nations we are the only one still in recession which is the longest on record for the UK. Let's also remind ourselves that WE own a huge stake in most of the high street banks and WE are the major shareholders of these companies. WE have the capability to demand how they pay their people.

The Government continues to sit on the fence and just lob insults - as they should have done to have avoided the crisis we are in, they should ACT now. To hell with competition, stop the bonuses and reform banking.

Cut One's Budget Deficit

Amid a ceremony which might have been required some 300 years ago, the Queen will today effectively be the puppet to Lord Mandelson and read out what he thinks the General Election will be fought on next year.

There will be the grandstanding and total impracticality of a bill designed to curb bank bonuses which you can almost guarantee that it will not make it to law but if it does it will just cause chaos because it is so ill thought through and irrelevant. Then there is the superbly named 'Fiscal Responsibility' bill which will be a Government pledge to cut the budget deficit by half over four years.

The chances of the latter making it to law in the 70 or so business days left for the existing Parliament are virtually nil but should it actually get enshrined in law then it will probably be meaningless. By 2014, it is predicted by authorities like the IMF that Britain's borrowing will be over 90% of its GDP. The only thing that could decrease the budget deficit by half would be an incredible upswing in the UK economy so as to wipe out the requirement for further borrowing over that period - the sort of suicidal growth the country does not need or swathing cuts to public expenditure which the Government tells us it will not do.

Other than that, the whole thing is a complete con trick to make you think that the sad bunch has an iota of knowledge about what it is doing. That has been decisively been proven to be not the case in the last two years, though arguably for the last 12.

There are important things that need to be attended to between now and May of next year. Yet again, we have a missed opportunity to get to the heart of some the real problems in Britain for the sake of leading us down the vote decision making path as early as possible. The opposition are up in arms, maybe be rightly, as they don't get the same opportunity. But the howling shame will be that, despite Harriet Harman's lie the 'most' of it will be come law before the election, hardly any of it will actually get on the agenda to become law.

We now have one of the Milliband's spouting off to tell us that we will hang about in Afghanistan until the Taliban are no longer a threat, condemning our Armed Forces to an interminable new Northern Ireland - a tour of duty no one will want as it is where an unseen enemy can take potshots and hone their killing skills on you without much you can do in return. Such a vague strategy has been at the heart of the issue - what is it we want out of Afghanistan as illegal drug production is at a peak, the violence is getting worse and the democracy there - which we sponsored - is a sham amidst a corrupt regime?

The Queen's Speech is about as irrelevant as the content of it - the only important thing to note is that she and the Commons will be summoned to Mandelson's feet in the process.

Bonus For The Desk Jockeys

The rasping attacks by former heads of the Services are still ringing in their ears but the Government still seems hell-bent on lurching from one dumb scandal to the next.

Hardly has the dust settled on the stupidity of not allowing the TAs to train properly in order to save £20m, we find that the faceless civil servants behind the desks in the MoD have shared in £47m of bonuses. We hear of project overruns, inflated prices for contracts, kit gone missing, not enough protective armour or troops and transport, whole regiments being disbanded, training without live ammunition - we hear of over 90 heroes dying this year alone and hundreds injured - and who gets the plaudits for an 'excellent job'?

It makes you absolutely sick - Alan Johnson, the would be PM and his inadequate henchman, Bob Ainsworth, plus the PM are a shocking disgrace.

"Succeed or Fail Together"

Is it me or does Bob Ainsworth, our Defence Secretary, sound like Mr. Gumby of Monty Python fame?

He is some card - in the face of claims of letting of troops down in Afghanistan, he claims numbers have gone up to nearly 9,000 and an extra 500 are pledged if certain conditions are met. It is not clear what those conditions may be - the weather perhaps or when Mr. Ainsworth's new TV turns up - but there are conditions. Most likely the biggest condition is to see if the US puts in a further 40,000 troops - a ratio of 50:1.

Meanwhile, while Lord Foulkes has sniped away at discrediting the Armed Forces commanders by calling them disloyal because they speak up for the troops they command, having had no experience of either armed forces or war himself, now the PM has said that "we will succeed or fail together".

Talk of failure was not what the troops had in mind when they are already questioning the Government's commitment to them and the war they are fighting - pledging that £1bn has been spent on armoured vehicles since 2006 is cold comfort when roadside bombs continually blow them to pieces. While Lord Mandelson wheels his shopping cart around buying things for the armed forces, allegedly, it may be an idea to have a Minister for War who is isn't play acting for the public and is dedicated to the cause - and perhaps someone should tell Mandelson who won't find arms in Tesco. It may also help if those in charge of re-equipping our troops are not nine to five Civil Servants in the Ministry of Defence but armed forces personnel working war hours.

What is clear is that whatever the strategic objectives of the entire campaign are, we risk failure they way we are going about it now. Further, it appears the Taliban are getting stronger, we have supported a corrupt 'democratic' Government and the heroin supply has gone up despite all those pledges 8 years ago. Laissez faire Government has been the hallmark of the last 12 years and we have lost more lives in service in this year since the Falklands conflict 27 years ago for which Thatcher got roundly vilified for. Limbless heroes break our hearts but over 90 have died this year alone. And finally, the PM cannot even spell a soldier's name right when writing to the bereaved family.

I watched a program called the Somme on Saturday night - it should be compulsory viewing for ministers who think they now how to run a war because politics and war don't mix.

Our brave troops deserve more than this.

Litigious Britain?

They say we are becoming a litigious society.

Perhaps the scandal of MP Expenses and daft Government policies would suggest we are not litigious enough. Between the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, where it is clear we are sending troops into dangerous situations without adequate numbers, armour and transport, a few hundred have lost their lives while we do not even get a sense of how many have been maimed, badly injured, wounded and psychologically affected by the wars. Already it is legally dubious under UN rules that we ever should have invaded Iraq while our participation in abetting torture of those captured has put our leadership into the spotlight but no one seems to have the guts to challenge them legally.

On top of this we hear that slack immigration rules as reported in the Sunday Times has meant that we have almost certainly allowed in potentially dangerous people into Britain without proper checks. It could be a ticking clock as to the next homeland atrocity but would the Immigration Service and the Government be legally culpable for negligence?

This week we also learned that last year over 39,000 serious assault offences which would normally carry up to 5 years in prison for the offenders, if found guilty, have been allowed to go by with mere cautions - no wonder the crime figures seem so low. What if the next victim of one of those cautions is not so lucky to be seriously injured or even killed by lapse rules and target-led policing?

I am not one for a litigious society but some policies are just barmy and are asking for trouble. Perhaps ministers should be exposed to the power of the law for their most stupid of mistakes that leave people in direct danger?

Fighting For Democracy

Gordon Brown was one of the first to congratulate Hamid Karzai for his 'walkover' win of a second term as President of Afghanistan as the only candidate withdrew, knowing he endangered the lives of his threatened citizens if he continued.

I am sure there will be celebrations at Barracks all over the country to see this great piece of democracy that so many brave people have died for.

It's not worth writing any more on the subject but the whole election was a fiasco and rigged - now we have the culprit back in power to run the corrupt regime again.

As we learn of the death of another brave British soldier killed on the last day of his tour of duty by a roadside bomb he was defusing, it was predictable and cynical that our PM phoned his congratulations to Karzai than call the wife of Olaf Smit to console her.

We are all very proud of men like Olaf and all those who have died or been injured in the line of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq - today was a body blow to their fight for us, on top of the controversy about whether they are adequately supported in terms of kit, transport and reservists.

Bring them home, now.

'At Every Point, We got it Right'

Gordon Brown must prepare for bed each night mumbling this simple mantra to himself and perhaps he sleeps with one of those nighttime self-help tapes playing the same message from under his pillow. That way when he wakes up each day he has actually convinced himself that what he has done in the face of the economic obvious has been right.

It must come as some surprise then that despite all his evening preparations that the reality each morning is somewhat different. I mean, take away the spiteful snapping terriers in the other Parties who constantly fail to appreciate his economic genius, there are those daft sets of figures that just doggedly won't seem to tell the truth.

This week has been yet another bad one in a long succession but the news that Britain still wallows in contracting quarters GDP-wise was bad enough, then there was the news that Italy's economy is now bigger than ours while they are also set to announce the end of their recession, then Brown's good mate, Barack Whatsisname, has prevailed over a US economy that did not just emerge from recession but actually grew at a very acceptable 0.9%.

Britain remains in the dunce's corner.

The saving grace is that no one seems to think that the policies followed by our Government were wrong. From the day Northern Rock was saved, Brown seems to think every subsequent event was met with the right action and that Britain benefited for it. And guess what, it seems the public have agreed. True, there are those annoying issues like bankers earning stunning bonuses having caused the whole crash and the Postal Workers seem to defy all best advice to surrender their jobs, but on the whole the disaster of The Sun not supporting Labour has been averted and Britain believes Brown is the best man in a crisis.

Well that's what the tapes say.

What perhaps was not part of the script was that this week Brown had to go to Europe and start campaigning for Tony Blair to be EU President when patently he would prefer to sit in a bath of hungry piranhas with bovril smeared on his private parts. That was certainly not part of any script but it is the price you pay when you have been 'rescued' by Peter Mandelson. It's almost as bad as having to repay £12,500 on expenses for dry cleaning and such while McNulty, Smith, Blears et al get away scot free in the expense bonanza affair for selling houses.

That's the trouble with reality - it tends to be, err, reality. We could all like to keep saying the same things over and again to our bosses about how well we have done and how things are just around the corner, but there is no arguing with reality. If you do your job badly, reality says that the outcome is rubbish. For all the PM's self-help mantras and tapes, the fact remains that our economic position was nothing like how he described and has not responded to the stimulus he gave it afterwards.

Quantitative Easing (QE) is a classic example. The economic patient lay critically ill on the bed and intravenously money was fed in. Sadly it never got to the vein as an unforeseen valve led the money away to different bank vaults who have just used the money to go play 'casino banking' again and shore up their balance sheets as the FSA wanted them to do while hardly any of it has got into the real world where it was needed. Indeed, this week the Broad Money supply called M4 showed that the amount of money in the country is falling, showing QE has effectively gone down a drain. It has propped up our Government Debt market and that could be equally dangerous when the whole thing finally ends before we descend into being a banana republic.

Our real stimulus money for the wider economy was VAT decrease and scrappage plus a few minor things. Loan Guarantees are a mess because the Government has used the same criteria to lend as banks and the decisions still lie with banks anyway. Reams of form filling and economic data has meant many businesses have just given up on it. Oh, numbers look fine with some 200,000 businesses allegedly going for it but again reality says it was banks just getting the Government to underwrite existing debt - nice fiddle.

Meanwhile Toxic Debt has been the biggest winner. Thanks to our loans, guarantees, insurance and capital, banks have been able to write down debt positions to the point where it all looks cheap again. Guess what? Reality bites and all the banks are making hay by trading in them once more and bonuses are up again.

Our whole strategy was to save the banks and that's what we have done making rich people richer on the back of their failure. The rest of the country has suffered. Meanwhile heroes in Afghanistan die as we equip them poorly while fighting our wars, don't give them enough of the right transport and propose to send untrained reservists.

It's a script you could have been hard pushed to write as it was so patently wrong. Yet that's what happened and our PM still claims he was right. Despite the 47% rise in coffee houses in Britain in the last year, he still can't smell any.

Perhaps the whiff of Government Bull is too overpowering.