Miliband Doth Protest Too Much

Labour clearly think they are on to a good thing by raising an urgent question about Hunt and thus obtaining an emergency debate this afternoon in the House of Commons. What a complete and utter waste of time and if Ed Miliband and Ed Balls think the electorate will be impressed by what happened this afternoon they should think again. No doubt they thought the debate would be seen as a demonstration by Labour of mach politics but this kind of witch hunt is not something the electorate likes as it smacks of schoolboy tactics and hypocrisy - of Labour protesting too much. The history of the crony and frankly creepy and indeed undesirable relationship between Murdoch and Labour is too well documented to give Labour the moral high ground (which is an oxymoron in any case where Ed Balls is involved). Everyone knows Labour would have done anything to keep Murdoch's support and that was why Brown was so upset when he learnt that he had lost that support when Murdoch for good commercial reasons changed sides. Murdoch wanted approval for his BSkyB purchase and when he guessed that Labour were going to lose the election and would not be there to make the appropriate ruling he naturally made himself agreeable to the party that would be dealing with his application. Miliband thinks we have all forgotten this but he's wrong and it is something the Tories should remind us about at every opportunity. Ed Miliband knows he is not a favourite of Murdoch as he would much have preferred the brother to have won the Labour leadership election and perhaps calculates that he has nothing to lose but he's wrong. We will remember this afternoon's performance and although it will have no effect on the outcome of the local elections it will have an effect on the bigger picture when it comes to the general election.  

Murdoch and Hunt

Does the Murdoch media control the UK political scene? It is fair to say that it does to a degree as it was without doubt the cheerleader for Thatcher, for Blair and to a lesser extent for Cameron but I agree with those who maintain that rather than lead its readers it reflects the views of the majority of them and thus of the voters. The majority knew that the only way to get this country on its feet again was by voting for Thatcher so that Parliament could take power back from the unions. The Murdoch press supported this idea. God knows why the majority voted for Blair but the feeling that after 17 years of Tory rule it was time for a change was also reflected in the Murdoch papers but how wrong Murdoch was to vilify Major who ran both a more decent and a better government than Blair and was no more wrong over Europe than the Labour government proved to be. Murdoch regards Blair as his friend and what a sorry state such cronyism has got us into with Brown and Cameron trying to become Murdoch's best friend too. Brown was seen by everyone as having one penny short of a shilling and the Murdoch press followed along as well which inevitably led to their support of Cameron in the 2010 election. Murdoch therefore takes the line that will sell most newspapers and from a business or commercial point of view he's right. There is no doubting his business ability. When it comes to television he recognised that in the States all the main channels take left of centre views and that there was a huge space in the market for a right of centre channel which could be exploited. He has filled that space admirably and very successfully with Fox News. The BBC (a monopoly organisation with 60% of the broadcast market in the UK) and its left of centre soul mate the Guardian are both scared witless by the thought of Murdoch entering the UK broadcast market with a UK version of Fox News. They don't like the competition not only from a commercial point of view but from the political point of view. They both take the view that democracy is good but only if the left wins all the time. That is why they will do literally anything together with their friends in the Labour party and in the Lib Dems to stop Murdoch buying the 60% of BSkyB that News Corp does not already own. They believe that if Murdoch were to own BSkyB it would be turned from a somewhat vapid left of centre channel into a right of centre one with the same success as Fox. There is after all a gaping hole in this country for a right of centre TV station that is ready to be exploited. At some point if Murdoch doesn't fill it someone else will. No wonder the left is screaming for Hunt's scalp.

FIGs and Zombies

Even the Germans are beginning to think that it may be all over for the eurozone if just one country seriously tries to re-negotiate the terms of the well named FU treaty. Thus the Irish could scupper the whole thing by recording a 'no' result in their referendum. I would vote 'no' if I were Irish as they are being asked to support those EU banks which are effectively bankrupt as a result of the 2007/2008 financial crisis caused by too much debt and the concomitant property bubbles. Ireland is paying for its own debt mountain and burst property bubble but why does it have to support German banks and the like simply because the German banks would go bust without that support and thereby cause huge damage to the sovereign debt of Germany and other countries in a similar position to Germany. Dan Hannan has a blog on this subject which you can access here and I particularly recommend you view its first YouTube video in which the arrogant German from the EBC fails to answer the question put to him by an Irish journalist on the very issue about why the Irish should support non Irish EU banks. The EU was conceived by conmen and has remained a scam ever since - alright if your German or French but a boil on the back of the serfs i.e. the rest of us. What is it about our politicians that they can't see this? What is it about our politicians that they don't understand what's being done to us and why are they so pusillanimous about standing up for our country? Are they on some special drug or are they being paid or have they been promised other delights? They must be since it is incomprehensible that anyone other than a zombie (like a Lib Dem) wouldn't see the danger of remaining in the EU and do everything to get out.    

Renewable Energy and Other Laughing Matters

Global warming has morphed into climate change apparently without any of the warmists blinking an eye. The evidence shows there has been no warming over the last ten years but the weather pattern has changed back to more like I remember it to be in my youth say 50 years ago. In those far off days we knew the weather pattern was a cyclical event and just got on with it. Those born later seem to think the gods have sought them out for special treatment which is a bit arrogant of them I think. What is so special about them that they are being subjected to climate change rather than a cyclical change in the weather pattern? Is it because they know so much more, are better educated or are infinitely more intelligent? Whatever it is it was somewhat depressing to listen to Cameron's speech to the Clean Energy forum today. Somewhat because he did not deny that we need power from clean coal (what is the clean coal he was referring to), oil and gas, shale gas and nuclear energy sources but he did lay particular emphasis on renewable sources of energy such as wind farms, solar panels and bio mass. Listening to Cameron as he banged on about green energy one wondered if the penny will ever drop that the renewable energy he is talking about cannot be relied upon under any circumstances save at the very periphery. It is not only grossly inefficient but very expensive and he is doing great damage by making us pay for some worthless dream. Our money needs to be steered into growth projects not in paying subsidies for so called renewables which never get past the drawing board stage as a serious competitor to the more traditional sources of energy. If other countries want to delude themselves about renewable energy programmes and spend billions on experimenting with this one and that then let them but leave the British taxpayer out of it - if it is possible to do so under EU rules. Mention of the EU brings to mind the EU budget. A far more important topic than the media/political class navel gazing about bloody Murdoch at all. What does the EU think it's doing increasing its budget by 7% when at the same time it is telling each country to reduce its budget. the EU says the increase is in part to pay for the increase in the EU Foreign Office. The EU is not a country and does not need a Foreign Office so it should wind up whatever it calls its joke version and save us money.

In Recession

We are back in recession again. What is more worrying is that we have not bounced back from the noughties financial crisis in the way we did in the 1930s and 1980s. Did Labour really stuff the country that badly? All the evidence suggests that they did and in such a way that it is going to take us a long, long time to recover from their malicious negligence. If there was any doubt about the mental make up of the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, it was dispelled today by Rupert Murdoch who in evidence he gave to the Leveson Inquiry said that Mr Brown was not in a balanced state of mind on learning of the Sun's decision not to support the Labour party at the 2010 General Election. I doubt that  Gordon Brown's mind has ever been in balance and Blair, the Charlatan and friend of Murdoch, knew it and failed his country by funking sacking Brown. Iceland have just put their Prime Minister on trial for his part in the Icelandic fiscal fiasco. Why haven't we put Blair and Brown on trial as well? If not a trial then at least an inquiry into what went wrong and from which our politicians may learn something useful for the future. Such an inquiry would be infinitely more relevant than the Leveson circus. All in all though the figures that came out today are not surprising. We have been told that the recovery will be rocky. We have also been told that the figures may be wrong and may be revised upwards. What is encouraging are the unemployment figures as well as the number of those in work. Do these two sets of figures presage the beginning of the long haul back to better times?    

Wind Up the BBC

Another day another blow to the Government. Hunt is accused of leaking information relating to the Murdoch bid for that part of Sky they did not already own. Hunt denies he was personally involved and we shall see what the result may be. In the meantime we have the depressing news that Miliband is more popular with the electorate than Cameron. I told you my fellow countrymen show symptoms of madness sometimes. It is though a strange old world as two Labour peers, first Lord Sugar and now Lord Winston, have come out against Livingstone as Mayor for London. Do they know something about Livingstone that is not yet in the public domain? With Hunt's relationship with the Murdochs now in the public domain it will be most interesting to read the reply from the BBC to Shapps's letter to them of today about the Newham letter on housing benefit. The BBC tried shortly before midnight to get a Minister on the Today programme this morning to refute Newham's charges but not surprisingly found everyone in bed. How arrogant of the BBC to think it is so important that it can at close to midnight expect someone to be waiting to take its request for a Minister to appear before it in the morning on what is after all hardly an urgent story. This whole episode yet again demonstrates that the BBC has ceased to be impartial, should no longer be funded by the taxpayer, should be broken up and its bits sold off or closed. Shapps himself has questioned the BBC's behaviour and asked them three highly pertinent questions. You can read his letter here. Because of the BBC's behaviour it is evident that the only way to have an impartial media is in fact to have various partial entities competing for customers as they do in the USA. Sky is hardly to the right of the BBC but no doubt if the BBC were abolished to allow space for others there would emerge a TV station that did represent the conservative element in this country.   

Who's Mad?

There are occasions when I think my fellow countrymen are mad. If, despite the hypocrisy of the man, his record whilst in office, his anti semitism, his closeness to people who are less than savoury and his lies that have been fully exposed in the media, Ken Livingstone wins the London Mayoral election then this will be one of those occasions. I look up round at other countries to see how they are faring and the only one that currently gives me any hope is the United States where it is still possible that a third rate President with socialist tendencies will be ousted and replaced by a man who understands business and economics and who, one suspects, has a greater understanding of foreign policy. Nearer home one only has to look at the French Presidential election to realise that the French are completely mad. Sarkozy and Hollande are both socialist in British terms but of the two it has to be said that Hollande is the scarier. No doubt if he wins office he will moderate his policies but he is definitely likely to reject most of the German economic medicine that Sarkozy has already half swallowed. Hollande's rejection of the German austerity pill will lead to seismic strains within both the French economy and the eurozone and inevitably lead to its early break up. It is the best outcome for this country in the long run although the acrimony and the collateral damage the break up will cause in the way it will happen will be painful in the extreme. The government are seeking further cuts of 5% as they must know a cold wind is about to blow through Europe. This is a good move in any event and something they should have done last year but better late than never. Will it be enough though? Quite likely not. This is an encouraging sign that the government still has its eye on the ball. Who else are mad? Why citizens of those eurozone countries that are still convinced the euro is a good thing.