All Over Bar the Shooting

Well, that's him cooked.

What a plonker. It has been clear since 1997 that he is a deeply unpleasant and intolerant man and that his attractiveness to his client state is based not upon any human qualities but upon his uber-socialist wealth distribution agenda and appetite for 65% of GDP to be his responsibility; any relaxation of government spending being "taking money out of the economy", as though the population keeping and spending a decent proportion of its own money was somehow unproductive to wealth creation and the sustainability of the country's economic footing.

Idle, having at first suggested a 40/30/20 split between Con/Lab/Lib (and then recanted), now inclines towards his earlier prediction, except that Clegg now occupies the silver medal position on the podium (in itself, a laughable concept).

Must be Dave's lucky day.

What Have You Done, Dave?

Right of centre government in Britain is on the brink of extinction. The massive swing from Cameron to Clegg, if sustained, will result in a hung parliament in which Labour, coming third with 28% of the vote, would still most likely be the largest party. The Liberals can expect to win seats from both Tories and Labour, whilst losing only a few in Southern England to the Tories.

Clegg, now almost sure to be the next Foreign or Home Secretary, will sell his favour and support very dearly. It is inconceivable that he will not make proportional representation a minimum requirement. This means that, in the least complicated of PR systems, a share of vote of 50% would be required to win a majority in Parliament. But we will get a more complicated version, won’t we? A system that somehow safeguards regional fiefdoms of Labour, such as the North East, Merseyside, the Scottish cities, Manchester and Birmingham.

Now, you may say that Clegg is a moderate and can do business with Cameron’s Conservatives; that Clegg was a contributor to the Orange Book in 2004 (remember that? – “The book - which is edited by the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman, David Laws - has just been published, and (among other things) calls on the party to be pro-market, Eurosceptic, and to partially privatise the NHS. It was written by various "reformist" MPs, including Mark Oaten and Vincent Cable.” Independent); that Clegg appears to be a realist. Well, let’s put it this way: does Clegg have more in common with the ‘successful’ era of the Conservatives, ie Thatcherite reforms, common-sense commercial efficiency and customer-orientation imposed upon government services, tough negotiations with Europe, defence of the realm in the Falklands? Or does he have more in common with the ‘successful’ era of the Labour party, ie the first two terms of Blair: tacit acceptance of Thatcher’s reforms, but a clandestine subversion of efficient government by channelling public money in record volume to favoured regions and ministries, whilst dismantling the “establishment” and replacing it with cronies?

Remember, for most of the Blair years, the Liberals had indulged in policies that were seen to be to the Left of Labour. Even if the Orange Book put an end to such nonsense, the party found itself with a support base that actually BELIEVED such drivel. The ascent of Brown has allowed Clegg to regain the ‘Centre’ position, whilst also claiming to be (because of the 90 years it has been out of power) ‘not like the two same-old parties’.

Furthermore, Brown is unlikely to be the recipient of Clegg’s largesse. If he is to share power in a Lib Lab pact, would he wish to report to Brown, vile bully that he is, or a more moderate, flexible and forward-thinking bloke like Miliband? The latter, obviously. Better still, Alan Johnson, who is known to be in favour of PR. Truly, Clegg can be kingmaker next month.

Clegg will go with the socialists unless the Tories are overwhelmingly the largest party in a hung Parliament, which looks unlikely. You may say there would have to be another election within six months, but this seems time enough for the Liberals to exact the ultimate revenge for all those years of slights from the two main parties – electoral reform to ensure that there is never – NEVER – another Conservative government in Britain, nor a Bennite Labour one.

Just a nice, consensual, liberal/social democrat Europhile Big Government, busying itself with the minutiae of our lives and charging us a hefty fee for doing so. Just like those in Western Europe. You know the ones – that have had very high structural unemployment for decades, sclerotic growth, that have porous borders, that appease rather than confront global miscreants, that dislike and distrust the Great Satan America, that are anti-semitic. Hey, they are so alike, they are pursuing political union, the practice of which is evident – an overbearing and only semi-accountable political elite bullying and cajoling bovine electorates into Big Government, Big Regulation, Big Taxation. The sort of thing a ‘Liberal Democrat’ just loves.

Seriously, folks, unless Dave shades it, which he neither threatens nor deserves to do, there will never be another right-of-centre, identifiably Conservative government again in this country. (No, I don't expect Dave to be right-of-centre or identifiably Conservative. But at least he'd keep the door open for someone who is).


UPDATE: Guido is more upbeat, fancying a civil union between the two modern metrosexual achingly with-it centrist parties.

No Planes, Full Trains and Expensive Automobiles

Idle was in Monaco last week, instead of Newmarket or the Aberdeenshire Dee. The sport, such as it was, involved the grunt of supercars rather than the poetry in motion of a Guineas-hopeful three year old thoroughbred, or the glory of playing a 20lb 'springer' from the bank of the Middle Dee.

Monaco was, well, Monaco. In other words, perfectly agreeable for two or three days, despite the concrete, most of the people (a sunny place for shady people, said W Somerset Maugham), the eye-watering cost of a bottle of decent rose, and (though less consequential), Rizla papers at a 500% mark-up on the cost in my newsagent. Dinners in a private salon in the Hotel de Paris were reassuringly expensive, as one would expect. Of course, the bank was paying for all but the Rizla papers, in anticipation of successful client meetings resulting in the conversion of plutocrat targets into plutocrat clients. If you find this all a little vulgar, console yourself that corporation tax, bonus tax and income tax will be tumbling into the bank accounts of NHS trusts up and down the country. The compact between the State and the banks is simple - depending on the cycle, politicians will either be brown-nosing bankers (that'd be you, Gordon, even with Lehman Brothers) whilst failing to regulate them, or cursing them roundly and VERY publicly, promising to tax them out of indignation and pique. But overall, politicians love banks to make huge profits, for tax income is the lifeblood of the spendthrift Chancellor.

But one bores of Monaco swiftly, and the prospect of being marooned there at crucifying expense was not a good one. Our mobiles buzzed with messages that our flights the next morning were cancelled. TGV and Eurostar had been fully booked for days. So, whilst quaffing shampoo and nibbles on Friday evening at the Empire Salon of the Hotel de Paris, overlooking an extraordinary array of supercars in Casino Square, it suddenly occurred to me that we needed a plan, and fast.

The concierge told us that hire-cars in Monaco had reached €3000 for a day, particularly if left at the other end of France. A taxi driver speculated that he could get us to Paris for €2700, but then decided he couldn't be arsed.

Resourcefulness was called for. Idle reckoned that there must be a few hundred hire cars at Nice airport with no incoming folk to pick them up. So, at 8.45pm in the Salon, we drained our glasses, cancelled dinner and went for it. Taxi to Nice Airport - 30 mins and €90. Rather modest 1.6L Opel estate - €316, to be left at Avis in Caen. 1280km, 8 and a half hours later, including several camera flashes but mercifully no gendarmerie, we sped into Caen in good time for the 0830 sailing to Portsmouth. My co-driver (2 hour stints) said the Opel managed over 200kmh downhill with a following wind on the autoroute, but I was kipping at the time and doubt it.

At Caen, we dropped the car at the station and took a taxi to the ferry terminal - €20. Lady Idle had booked the ferry online from home for us while we drove - €40 a head. On board, we found a restaurant - full English €9.60, and booked cabins with bogs and showers - another €40. The beds were made up and we managed 4 hours kip. Arrived on time, taxi to the station, train to Petersfield, wife picked up.

As we waited for the taxi at Caen, we talked to thers who had done the same from Barcelona, Madrid and Geneva. The local news this evening spoke to one determined bugger who had flown from Moscow to Istanbul, Istanbul to Spain, and driven the remainder. Dunkirk spirit, boys, Dunkirk spirit.

And the practical joke when we got back? That Cleggy, the oversexed Eurofanatic, having bullshitted his way through Thursday night with a bit of earnest charm and the odd well-thought-out oneliner, had not only breached the 20% ceiling for the LibDem vote, but was IN THE LEAD with 34%.

Cripes! I have been saying for the last year that the Cameron strategy of Liberal appeasement was a wrong-un, but evidence that it had crashed and burned quite so badly as this was unexpected.

I suspect that Cleggy's new popularity is a mile wide and an inch deep, and that he will get a nosebleed at this altitude, but a breakout poll, even if unsustained, tends to give bouyancy to a campaign. If I were a Tory candidate hoping to unseat a Lib in the Westcountry in three weeks, I would be bobbing like a turd on the Tamar.

The Idle prediction that the first poll after an election is called is a good indicator looks as safe as an Indonesian car ferry right now, but more twists and turns are surely in store. Does this country need a Lib Lab pact, keeping McBust in charge and spending money like a drunken city trader on bonus day, gifting his partners proportional representation, and ever-closer union with the corrupt and unaccountable Euro politcal 'elites'? Does it f#"k.

Brown Bombs in the Ring

The first poll I saw after the election was called was 40/30/19 in the Tories' favour, and this seems to me to be the likely outcome. The Budget was the last chance to produce a rabbit from the hat, and poor old Darling couldn't even produce a mixy one, so empty was the warren.

The danger for our disgusting PM and his ragged bunch of unconvinced Cabinet supporters was that, once the election was called and Brown no longer so much the Prime Minister, more an incompetent plumber trying to justify his expense and his handiwork, he would not be accorded a great deal of respect.

And so it has proved.

First, the number of CEOs and Chairmen of Britain's best known companies who were prepared to sign the letter making the obvious statement that increasing tax on jobs resulted in, err, less jobs, grew like a snowball. (So far, the Labour party has press-ganged one single business leader, the head of Standard Life, to support their stance. Strangely, he was a privatisation guru to Thatcher all those years ago). In the old days, you'd never have got this number on a letter, but these guys either already have their knighthoods or are happy to assume that Gordon won't be dishing out any more after his dissolution honours list, which seems unlikely, in the current climate of a suspicious electorate, to reward too many people involved in our economy.

Then there was the heckler who accorded the Glorious Leader not a shred of respect yesterday when he demanded why his children couldn't get into their choice of (non-selective) state school. Even called him 'Gordon'. Gordon slunk into his car like a deaf mute and gave no response. When asked the same question during a set interview later in the day, he answered a different question, as is his wont.

And then Humphrys this morning. Brown was treated with disdain. As an ex-PM, in fact. Or as a never-would-be-a-PM like dear old Smiffy in 2001/2. It was truly pathetic. He was pummelled. Couldn't get off the ropes. He could barely raise his hands high enough to defend himself.

He will stumble around the ring like this for another four weeks. He might not go down, but we will all feel like throwing the towel in on his behalf.

No more than 30% of the votes cast will accrue to Brown and his horrid bunch of venal losers.

Feeble - Thesaurus

Tories rule out more first year cuts
George Osborne has announced that the Conservatives would limit public spending cuts to £6.5bn in 2010-11 and no new cuts to existing budgets are planned for a year in his proposed emergency budget.

This £6.5bn, readers, whilst sounding like a lot of money, is approximately 1% of annual government spending.

1%. Jeeeesus. No more or less than a bloody rounding error. What planet are these wankers on? Which of us would consider that spending 99% in the next tax year of what we spent last year would amount to a "meaningful cut" during a financial crisis? Think of it in terms of your own household budget: what would you have to do to save a measly 1%? Would you notice?

Who, seriously, believes that 15-20% of government spending could not be axed without anything more than a few jobsworths being forced onto the labour market? Are there any amongst us who could justify the taxation of an honest worker who earns 1o grand a year, has this fact mulled over by hundreds of bureaucrats, who then hand the tax back as a "Tax Credit", having taken roughly a third of it as a handling charge?

We are in this crisis not because the government does not take enough in taxation. Oh no. We are in this crisis because the government spends too much of the nation's money. Forget about the bank bail-outs - large though they were, Lloyds is already showing a profit for the taxpayer (in-price below 64p), and we have been running a deficit every year since 2001. Osborne knows we spend too much, by a factor of about double, as does Cameron. But the strategy of liberal appeasement means that they dare not speak sensibly. They must spout gibberish, because our fellow Britons, when asked, opt for higher government spending and a reduction in personal liberty.

We will get the government we deserve on May 7th. And I will be ready to pack my bags for Geneva and do my work there if necessary.

Little George Osborne, deemed a few years ago to be the coming man of the Centre-Right. Yeah, right. Here is your online thesaurus for the word FEEBLE.

Main Entry: "FEEBLE"
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: not strong; ineffective
Synonyms:
aged, ailing, chicken*, debilitated, decrepit, delicate, doddering, dopey, effete, emasculated, enervated, enfeebled, etiolated, exhausted, failing, faint, flabby, flat, fragile, frail, gentle, helpless, impotent, inadequate, incompetent, indecisive, ineffectual, inefficient, infirm, insubstantial, insufficient, lame, languid, low, out of gas, paltry, poor, powerless, puny, sapless, sickly, slight, strengthless, tame, thin, unconvincing, vitiated, weak, weakened, weakly, wimpy, woozy, zero*