Strauss and the Phoenix

Having resigned as England Cricket Captain today there is talk of Strauss standing for the Tories in the upcoming by-election in Corby and there being support for him to do so amongst the locals. The betting apparently is 25/1 that Strauss gets selected as the Tory candidate and 16/1 that he will win the by-election. Not that good odds one has to say in what is currently a Tory seat, albeit a marginal one made more marginal by the present disappointment with the economy and thus the Coalition. It is not surprising that there is disappointment with the Coalition when the Deputy Prime Minister Mr Clegg decides to demand a wealth tax. Osborne has quietly and politely poured cold water on the whole idea but must have been cursing Clegg's stupidity in private. It is quite ludicrous to think that taxing the rich with a higher tax percentage is not going to send the wealthy away. Already the road to London from France is becoming more and more crowded as a direct result of Hollande's policy of taxing the wealthy at a 75% rate. It amazes that those who seek high taxation have never learnt from the past and it makes it absolutely necessary to repeat and keep repeating that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance or to adapt Eisenhower's famous saying the price of wealth is constant reminders of the damage high taxes cause. Osborne must continue to reduce taxes for all when the results will show that we are not a nation in decline yet again but a phoenix that is soaring. That should go down well with any campaign run by whoever is chosen as the Tory candidate in the Corby by-election.

NB I am away for the next 10 days.

Harry's 'Fun' Side

Did Prince Harry get it wrong by stripping off? Would he have done it if he knew he would be photographed if he did so? Were his minders lacking in common sense in not insisting all cameras and mobile 'phones were left outside his room - probably? Boys will be boys and no harm has been done by the third in line to the throne by showing his rear end and it is difficult to understand what all the fuss is about. There is one area though about which we should all be concerned and that is the effect of the Leveson enquiry on all the newspapers - that effect being to inhibit them from publishing the pictures despite the fact that many of us had seen them online. There was one exception, which was the Sun. I do not for one minute accept the reason they gave for publishing the photos, that there was a public interest issue involved, but I applaud the much needed two fingers they gave Leveson by doing so as well as their clear commercial reason. If Leveson's report suggests some kind of privacy law then it must be ignored. We really can't have the likes of Hugh Grant tell us what can and cannot be published anymore than we can have a politician do so. There are libel laws and the wealthy can take advantage of them. It seems Cameron does not believe anything was wrong in Harry being Harry anyway. A friend of mine's son was  staying near the Camerons in Cornwall over the weekend and on running into him asked what he thought about Harry and the photos. Cameron replied with a huge grin "No comment", which to me says it all. Cameron anyway has more serious matters to worry about than Harry's photos, the conflicted Yeo and Deben for one. They must be forced to resign from their climate change positions if they wish to continue as directors and shareholders of companies directly benefitting or likely to benefit from government subsidies. With the US and Germany using shale gas and coal respectively to keep their power stations going when wind produced electricity is unavailable (most of the time) we must do the same to ensure we are competitive. This is now an urgent issue and Cameron should seize the moment and get rid of the third rate Ed Davey in his reshuffle and replace him with someone who supports Lawson's views on the global warming subject.    

Shrinkage And Gas Filled Balloons

The last quarter's figures have been adjusted and we are now told the economy contracted by 0.5% rather than by 0.7%. There are naturally all number of calls for further Government spending to kick start the economy and take us out of recession with the BBC saying the deep cuts haven't worked. As any fule no, despite Osborne's statement when he came into office that he would impose spending cuts, there have been none - indeed the reverse has been the case with borrowing increasing considerably. In its attempt to mend the economy left in extreme danger by those geniuses Messrs Blair and Brown the Coalition had hoped to increase revenue through tax increases and so reduce debt that way. No hoped for increase in revenues has arrived thus proving the point made by the Laffer Curve. All the Chancellor can do now is to do what he said he was going to do to begin with. He must now cut even harder into the boil which has festered and grown bigger since he first took over its care. He should radically reduce taxes with some of the savings he makes using the balance to reduce the deficit faster and then begin to tackle the debt. At the same time Osborne must do everything he can to speed up the extraction of gas from our shale gas fields. The US has made significant cuts in its overseas gas dependency by aggressively extracting its shale gas and we can do the same. A side effect of using shale gas in the US has been to reduce carbon emissions which for those who are climate warmists must be an unexpected and pleasing bonus (though I doubt many warmists will be satisfied until we go back to candle power). Another beneficial effect, particularly if European countries exploit their own shale gas deposits, will be to curtail Russia's power by reducing its ability to manipulate its neighbours by cutting off their gas supplies from Russian fields as they have done in the past. There is an interesting post in The Commentator blog today about the likely effect of the exploitation of oil and gas fields in Russia's neighbouring countries and also of the fields discovered in the eastern Mediterranean by Cyprus and Israel which you can read here.       

Flooding The Market

George Friedman of Stratfor takes a view that others have promoted in whole or part that Germany set up the euro in large part to protect German creditors from its customer countries inflating their way out of debt. With this in mind Friedman goes on to propound that Merkel's actions are predictable because they will all be taken to ensure the euro continues to perform that function. Thus logically Germany cannot allow even Greece to leave the free trade zone. Friedman also believes that the euro crisis was caused by Germany flooding the eurozone market with its goods and by the imposition of regulations by the EU Germany had insisted on. Friedman goes on to say that Mrs Merkel knows that eventually Germany will have to agree to pay for the cost of the crisis but in the meantime she will do all she can to ensure that the new structure is suitable to Germany above all others. If this alone is not a reason for us to say goodbye to the EU it is certainly one of the weightiest ones. There is not time for us to try and beat Germany at this game as we do not currently have enough muscle nor at the end of the day would it profit us to do so even if it is always a pleasure to get the best of the Germans. Better by far that we concentrate on getting our finances sorted out and achieve the export and other rankings in the world that are rightfully ours or would be if we worked as hard at these issues as we did at winning medals at this year's Olympics. Despite what Friedman says I do not accept that Germany specifically set out to flood the EU market with its goods as to do so would inevitably lead to a reaction. The result though of Germany's action compounded by other idiocies going on in the world like the sub-prime market bubble and the dysfunctional euro led to the euro crisis that is likely to affect us all. This year is the  twentieth anniversary of our crashing out of the ERM which released us from the strait jacket ruining our economy. Leaving the euro will have the same affect on the economy of each country that does so  despite the initial pain they will suffer and whatever the eurocrats may say.    

A Pussy Bully Jails 3 Cats

Russia has never been a world leader save in barbarism and murder. It has an idea of itself as a great nation that remains unrecognised in the rest of the world, save of course amongst those who like ideologues and tyrants - no doubt like President Correa of Ecuador and Julian Assange. This is not to say that many of its people are anything other than friendly, intelligent, passionate and open minded. Until Russia embraces the rule of law concept though it will always have trials with outcomes like the one we have heard of today with three women pop singers imprisoned for two years for hooliganism for having sung an anti Putin song in a Church. Would these women have been charged with hooliganism if instead of Putin the subject of their song had been a  rebel Chetnyan leader? Most unlikely. I believe that most people in the UK would think it wrong to use a Church or other place of worship to make a political statement and I do not know the circumstances leading to the song having been performed in the Moscow Church but the imposition of a two year sentence is barbaric and can only have been done for one reason. To put the fear of God into others minded to protest against Putin. This is a further example of denial of free speech by this unfortunate Russian government. Critics, including journalists, of the regime or specific members of it have been murdered in the last few years not only in Russia itself but also outside; witness the fate of Mr Litvinenko in the UK despite the fact he had become a British citizen. Mr Putin and his followers believe that Russia is a special nation that deserves special respect. There can be little respect though for any country which behaves as it has done and any respect we gave it for having thrown off the Soviet yoke has been diminished as a result of this return to Soviet type behaviour. Putin thinks his bullying has succeeded against the Americans but this will change when Obama leaves office. No successor US President will continue Obama's Russian appeasement policy. Only weak men like Obama murder people like Osama bin Laden and give in to people like Putin. Strong men bring people like Osama bin Laden to trial and stand up to demagogues like Putin.                

Bastion Of Freedom Ecuador Style

Ecuador is a country which is best known for its Galapagos Islands although in pub quizzes the participants frequently give ownership to either Colombia or Peru. Like all South American countries Ecuador's politics are murky and involve coups d'etat from time to time. Its current leader is Rafael Correa who is an ally of the Iranian President Ahmadinejad and intends importing Iranian oil in defiance of the ban on Iranian oil set up by most countries in the western world. Ecuador tried to block  action against Gaddafi and is now trying to block action against Assad. Correa has a history of trying to imprison journalists who try to write things about him he finds offensive yet has decided today to grant Julian Assange asylum. Assange, a darling of the Guardian and the BBC, is the man who thinks he is above any law when it comes to obtaining and publishing secret US documents even though he believes his own secrets, including those relating to financial matters, are sacrosanct. One of the US secret or confidential documents he published was from Heather Hodges, the US Ambassador to Ecuador, in which she stated that Correa had appointed someone the position of police chief knowing that person was corrupt. This inevitably led to Hodges being expelled by Correa from Ecuador. With this history it is not surprising that Correa would grant Assange asylum since Correa clearly enjoys tweaking the tail of the United States and of its main ally the United Kingdom. The latter after all has had the audacity to allow one of its courts through proper legal process to decide to extradite Assange to Sweden to face investigation for alleged sex offences committed there. Furthermore the UK refuses to bow the knee to Correa's socialist friend Mrs Kirchner the leader of Argentina and her demand that the Falkland Islands be transferred to her country. Being of the left the ordinary rules of democracy and of due process do not of course apply to people like Assange and countries like Ecuador and Argentina. If there is a legal way in which we can storm the Ecuadoran embassy and pick up Assange then this should be done but if not we will just have to wait for him to stick his nose outside and arrest him. Fortunately the Ecuadoran embassy has no forecourt that would allow Assange to climb into a diplomatic car whilst on Ecuadoran territory. He has to cross the pavement outside the embassy first! It must not be forgotten that in entering the Ecuadoran embassy Assange broke the terms of his bail. How stupid of those like Ms Kahn to stand bail for a snake like Assange.

Enthusiasm Becomes Boris

Boris Johnson has given an interview to the Evening Standard in which he said the way to get business motoring in the UK is to cut taxes, cut regulation, create the infrastructure and get behind it (by which he presumably means that everything should be done to ensure that the new infrastructure is started without the usual delays and built as soon as possible). He also revealed plans for an elevated lanes for bicycles alongside the Overground tracks and was of the opinion Osborne was in favour of infrastructure projects like the Thames Estuary Airport but criticised inertia in the Government - a dig at the LibDems who have today come out against any new runway in the London area. Other infrastructure projects Boris wants undertaken include Crossrail 2, more river crossings and a massive house building programme. He also urged Cameron to stop pussyfooting around on the airport decision  (a reference to the delayed publication of the report into Britain's airports) and by which he presumably meant that Cameron should get on with things even if the LibDems object. The Evening Standard sadly failed to ask Boris what he would he do about Government spending and the deficit. If his proposals are for infrastructure projects to be paid for by the private sector then I agree with him 100% but if any significant taxpayer funding is required then he's barking up the wrong tree. It is also sad that he did not mention energy. We desperately need someone of his stature and vigour to take the argument about oil to the opposition. There are billions of untapped 'tight' oil reserves in the United States that due to new technology can now be extracted and which it is estimated will last for 200 years. There are similar sized reserves of tight oil in other parts of the world that are waiting to be extracted as well. All this will bring down the price of oil as the price of gas in the US has been brought down due to the extraction of shale gas. We could also enjoy a gas bonanza from our large shale gas fields in Lancashire. Let's get behind this and to hell with the bloody eco fascists who want to take us back to the dark ages.