Monthly Archives: January 2009

This Credit Crunch started when the Us authorities and the UK authorities decided to call time on the respective bubbles they had helped create in their economies. We know the UK thought it was necessary to teach those who had borrowed too much and those who had lent too much a lesson, for both the [...]

I have a current surgery case which worries me a lot. A pensioner told me how she needed a gas boiler repair. British Gas came in September and told her the boiler needed replacing, and stopped her from using the old one any more. She applied to Warm Front for a grant to help with [...]

President Obama is a thoroughly modern politician in the best and worst senses. Consider his recent outburst against the large bonuses Wall Street bankers paid themselves in 2008, at a time when their businesses were in a state of stress and in many cases reporting huge losses. The President has correctly judged the public mood. [...]

Andy Burnham came to the Commons yesterday to tell us of his plans for digital Britain. Someone had already upstaged him by briefing the press overnight, and Number 10 held a morning briefing well before the Statement in the Commons. Parliament has come to expect that kind of treatment from this government, and does nothing [...]

Yesterday I heard different senior economists give their views of the Credit Crunch and recession and what we could do to get out of it. They gave them under Chatham House rules, so I will call them Views 1, 2 ,3 and 4, grouping opinions into the four main different positions at the meeting. View [...]

The conclusions from last year’s Davos summit make interesting reading today. They put out a press release saying “we will have a resolution this year (2008)” to the Israel-Palestine conflict. They promised to make climate change the number one priority at the G8 summit and stressed its importance in all that business does. They identified [...]

It was good of the President to spend time explaining his economic package to Republicans,and to listen to their fears and alternative proposal. We can all learn sometimes from our political opponents. The Reublicans have two main points of criticism of the package. The first is that tax cuts work more quickly at creating demand [...]

Yesterday I was unable to cross examine the Secretary of State who announced the policy towards the motor industry, as he was in the Lords. More importantly, I was unable to cross examine the architects of the policy, as they were in Brussels. The package of support for the motor industry had been well discussed, [...]

People from the Irish Republic are rushing over the border into Northern Ireland to take advantage of the cheap prices in the shops as they flash their Euros. The shops in Kent and London are welcoming many continental trippers who find sterling prices cheap to them. On Sunday visiting a shopping centre in middle England [...]

Can we manufacture? Yes we can. Should we manufacture? Yes we should. As someone who has worked in private sector manufacturing, in private sector services, and in government, I feel I have an unbiased view of the worth, achievement and desirability of each sector. We need all three. My period in government confirmed my view [...]