Monthly Archives: May 2009

Both the Brown and the Obama administrations seem united in one thing – the pursuit of lower living standards for all. The Brown regime will seek to improve on the falling economy by imposing higher taxes which will deter enterprise and send people packing. He will follow that up with extra regulations, as with the [...]

Contrary to common belief, Ken Clarke does not set, influence or seek to change Conservative policy towards the EU. He does, however, have an important position when it comes to Conservative policy on the Post Office. He is leading the Shadow Cabinet’s response on that. The government looks as if it is lost in the [...]

It is always bad news when a car company thinks the answer to its problems is state aid. As a long standing customer of Jaguar, I have never known the company offer such poor responses as it does today. I have answered several of their surveys, but never once had a proper reply to the [...]

Where are the Competition Authorities when you need them? I predict both the expensive EU and the useless UK Competition Authorities will wave through these mega mergers. It will be bad for jobs, bad for factories, bad for customer choice. It might even end up as bad for Fiat shareholders as well, but that’s their [...]

When waste, needless programmes, stupid jobs, pointless regulation, poor efficiency and rampant feather bedding are rife in an organisation, cutting costs is not only easy but rapidly makes the service better. In the Sunday papers there was talk of having to cut 10% off total spending. That would not be difficult, nor need it be [...]

Hazel Blears says the government is not getting its message across. On the contrary, Hazel. The last few weeks have been brilliant for letting the public see the true face of Brown’s regime. The message of authoritarian control, stifling of freedom, class war, attacks upon success, feather bedding the public sector elite and the air [...]

How much damage is this crisis going to do? If the downturn is contained to a loss of 5% of National Income as the government hopes, that means a loss of £1250 for every man, woman and child in their share of National Income, or £5000 for a family of four. We will feel grateful [...]

Under new “liquidity” rules the main banks are going to have to lend loads of money to the government. Convenient that, for the government, at a time when it is short of a pound or three. Does it make any sense for the banks? Does it help strengthen them and get them closer to be [...]

First came the £5 billion per annum tax. Then came the regulation. Pension funds were crippled. Most private sector companies closed them to new members. Some went on to stop future contributions from existing members. Some went bust. Some pension funds needed so much extra money from their sponsor companies they threatened to bring the [...]