A Sad Day

Ireland's heroic efforts to sort out their finances have come to naught. They have been forced to apply for a bailout despite the fact that they had sufficient funds until the middle of next year to pay for interest on Government borrowings etc.. John Redwood seems to think that the reason for insisting that Ireland take a bailout is because the European Central Bank (ECB) would prefer to lend to the Irish Government rather than continue making advances to Irish Banks, which because of their parlous state the ECB has been supporting for months now. The Irish Banks concerned presumably have still not worked out what their losses on sub-prime etc. are, which if true is unbelievable.

A sad day also to learn that the New Zealand miners have still not been rescued. What is happening? Why are the rescuers taking so long to find out if any of the miners are still alive. It is astonishing that no one has been inside the mine to investigate. Considering the poisonous gases swirling around in the mine it is a given that anybody who did go inside would have to be wearing breathing apparatus. Surely though some attempt to make an exploratory expedition into the interior should be made even if, as has been reported, there is a small fire. Is the real reason why nothing is happening one of UK type health and safety regulations? I sincerely hope not.  It would be dreadful to think that people are dying who could otherwise have been rescued but for health and safety reasons.

There is no reason why taxpayers should support any political party. That is why a week or so back I was glad to hear that the Coalition had decided to stopped further payments to the Union Modernisation Fund.  It is widely believed such payments  were used by the Unions to support Labour. I had also thought the Coalition had stopped payments to the Union Learning Fund but I gather that taxpayers are still paying into this fund to the tune of £14 million a year. This is an outrageous scam as it is the cynical opinion of many that the money is again being filtered through to the Labour party. If the Unions want to learn anything they can pay for it out of their own pocket although there are plenty of bodies like the Adam Smith Institute that I imagine would be more than willing to teach them something about economics.