Monthly Archives: December 2008

When you are in as big a mess as the UK is in, it is vital those in authority begin with an honest review of where we are, and honest analysis of what is possible. Instead every day I read in the media half truths and lies about the financial position. We need to start [...]

Every year since I have been an MP I have gone to my local Post Office around 6 am in the morning near Christmas, to thank the postal workers for their extra efforts over the Christmas season, and to wish them a happy Christmas when they reach it. Many of my colleagues do the same. [...]

Jaguar does not need state subsidy. It needs more customers. Management needs to have more feel for the brand and for what people want from it. I want the management to fight successfully in the market place so the jobs can be saved. My thoughts are with the employees. There can be no future for [...]

I worried preamturely that the government’s wish to borrow so much would cause strains in the government debt market. Indeed, I underestimated their intelligence in this respect. Forecasting a huge surge in government borrowing from the £43 billion for 2007-8 heralded in the Budget to around £120 billion, I discovered that the government now thinks [...]

Yesterday I met people in the West Midlands, to take the temperature of manufacturing. The sound of very little going on was eerie. My journey to and from by the M40 was all too easy. The inadequate roads were for once more than adequate for the reduced traffic. The Birmingham ringway gave me unusually free [...]

Metals, oil and food prices have tumbled on world markets. As predicted here, the story of early 2009 will be price falls, disinflation, deflation. The Central banks were so wrong to worry about inflation earlier this year, as they tightened the noose around the necks of easy credit. It’s making it so much more difficult [...]

In this new world where the all powerful state can take on any financial obligation, I guess nationalising the Post Office pension fund deficit is small beer. After all, a one percent loss on the gross assets of RBS is three times the size of the pension fund obligation we read we are about to [...]

Financial businesses are different from most other types of business. They entail sending your money to someone else to look after, on the promise they will give it back to you at a later dtae, preferably with some improvement in its value. Because of this I have always favoured two types of regulation for financial [...]

According to the news media, RBS may have lost £400 million in the Madoff investment funds. That’s not quite how I wanted the government to spend the tax money I and my constitutents send them.