Money Makes The World Go Round

The public finance figures out today aren't wholly bad since they show that the deficit has been reduced by some 25% since 2010. However Government borrowing for August is the same as last year and the deficit for the first 5 months of the fiscal year that started in April is £10.6 bn more than for the same period last year with the likelihood that the deficit for the year will be £10 bn than projected. The reason for this is down to the lack of growth and the consequent lack of sufficient increase in the revenue stream. This glitch in the plan to cut the deficit by 2015 is said by Mervyn King to be OK so long as the targets have not been met due to a global economic slowdown. It is true that there has been a global slowdown made far worse by the euro crisis which has been handled in such an incompetent way it is surprising the whole thing has not yet collapsed in disorder. Instead of breaking up the euro in an orderly solution it is being aloud to survive for some incomprehensible ideological reason and no doubt to save the faces of EU bureaucrats. Whilst on the subject of markets (which was how the EU was originally sold to us - as a Common Market) you should read Jeremy Warner's article in today's Telegraph here in which he states that the idea that there will be no war between nations that trade with each other is an illusion and he instances a book published in 1910 which supported that theory and which was proved dramatically wrong only 4 years later. Warner warns that the same thing could happen all over again. This is surely a reason why the merger of BAE and EADS should not be allowed. There are too many sensitive issues involved for this country for our independence on defence matters to be compromised in any way and the fear must be that as the bigger partner EADS will want to take our ideas and exclude us from developing them in a manner that suits us and our needs. The time for a decision to be made about our involvement in the European Defence Agency has also arrived and the answer must be 'No' to continuing as a participant. There is an interesting post about this on The Commentator blog here. If UKIP were to have an electoral pact with the Tories as proposed by Farage today then there is little doubt that we would resile from the EDA and refuse to allow the proposed merger between BAE and EADS to go through. It would also mean we'd get a simple In/Out referendum before we negotiated any new arrangement with the EU. Having an electoral pact with UKIP sounds like a good idea!