Power Stations

The Russians are taking the piss out of the European Union by ransoming all and sundry on the price of natural gas. Our own gas resources are dwindling and will run out in the foreseeable future (5 yrs?). The Government today anounced that it has given permission for the construction of three new gas-fired power stations in the UK.

Now tell me, what sort of a fucking idiot would tie their national energy future to Russian Gas having seen how they treat their dependents? Who would do that? Your Government, that's who.

Snow Travel Metropolitan Style.

Not long ago I did an unpleasant piece on London Underground. Today they earned it in spades.

7.45 arrive at Station after perilous journey through snow.

Good Service metropolitan Line advertised on board.

Catch train (Fast Aldgate) Yippee. Phone wife, don't worry trains OK. Going to work.

2nd Stop (Harrow) This train is terminating here please change trains.

Get aboard 2nd Metropolitan Line Train. 1 stop later. This train is going out of service please change here. (Wembley Park). There will be no more Metropolitan Trains due to a signal failure at Baker Street. Please take a Jubillee line train.

Jubillee Train Comes. Full. (No... really full).

Next Train. Jubillee to Stratford. Yippeee- will get to work afterall.

Next station: This train has developed a fault and will termiante at Neasden.

Next two Jubillee trains :Full. Yes- as before.

Metropolitan Line trains passing under full steam- they dont stop here- service has clearly resumed!

Jubillee Line Train to Stratford. Yippee.

This train will terminate at Green Park.

Four trains, four terminations, none Snow related as far as I know.

Prospects of getting to work - slim.

Journey time: Eventually 2.25.

Explanations and apologies: None.

Cost : £11.00

Nature of Service: Shit.

Global Warming Climate Change Snow

It is reassuring to know that those committed to fighting global warming can hapilly identify that colder winters and crazy snow events in the UK are a sign of, and are consistent with Global Warming either through the fact that it now happens so much more rarely than it used to (argument no 1) and consequently we are less prepared than we used to be, or conversely that more and more extreme weather events are likely as we proceed down the road to climate change (argument no 2). Both of these arguments were deployed yesterday.

Those with more than one third of a brain will realise that they are contradictory and exclusive to one another. If the climate change advocates are correct and extreme weather events are to be more common then the global warming (this happens far less frequently now because things are warming up) devotees must be wrong and vice-versa. Neither however would suggest that extremely cold weather events may be proof that global warming or climate change was imaginary and that the trend that prevailed from 1980 to 2005 (temperatures have cooled since 2005) has reversed. This would be to admit that we do not have a thorough understanding of weather and climate on planet earth and that our vanity in suggesting that we could change it was simply that. Vanity.

The Economy Stupid

Well please bear with me on this one.

If the Government bails out the banks again etc it will finally have spent a decent proportion of a trillion pounds, that is a million million, on reflotaing the financial system. That equates to £18k for every man woman and child in the UK.

Er: If you did that it would give my family an extra £90 k in our pocket to weather the economic down-turn- This would put an awful lot of money back into the system but not into the hands of the banks who are morally and economically bankrupt. Businesses would prosper, manufacturers would prosper and the personnal debt mountain would be significantly reduced. People may put money into savings that could then be re-lent by the banks to business, in short a succesful bail out of the economy. (You may have to stop them from spending it on foreign goods as we don't make anything anymore).

By cutting out the stage where consumers are given the money to reduce debt, the Government have squandered the money on bailing out the banks for the dodgy (US ) securities thay took on without helping the UK taxpayer. Our personal debt mountain remains in play (as we are more likely to pay it back) whilst the US sub-prime mortgages are in effect paid off. This means that UK consumers, reeling under debt, will be reluctant to borrow any more cash (or spend it) until their long-term employment prospects improve. Something that will only happen long after the recession has bottomed. Without this return to confidence nothing will lift us out of the decline.

We can all see that this is madness but, like the cut in VAT, no one is prepared to say that to his face (that is Gordons').

Sadly I do not propose that we should give the money to the UK taxpayer but giving it to the banks who will use it to terminate or balance their books against debt overseas is the wrong choice.

If need be start a national bank. Pull the rug from the idiots who lost the money in the first place and start lending as a Government without the same profit ethic of the banks, this could be far more beneficial to the UK economy than the alternative of simply pressing the re-set button and letting the same wasters find new ways (is that derivatives?) of losing the money again. Cnuts.

The economy, Gaza or London Underground

Short post today- London Underground. Fucking hell how shit can they get?

I don't even need to explain.

What to do - the economy or the Israeli's or Gazprom

Its not too long ago that the western "democracies" of Europe were held ransom by the rising oil producing nations of the middle east and the UK and others vowed never to be so energy dependent again on one supplier. So when we now find that Europe, thankfully not including the UK, has tossed all of its apples into the Russian Gas basket and been royally shafted by the Russian government we can only look on incredulous.

Any argument that the former Soviet state has changed its ways or is now dependent upon the west for its economic success and will behave, or that we can do business with these people is madness. Thankfully the oil producing middle eastern states have turned out to be a far more honest broker than the Russians ever will. Russian actions and Russian diplomacy are no more than the machinations of the playground but on a far grander scale.

For contemporary examples of their values look no further than the BP conflict last year where in effect the state government intervened to pervert an investment in favour of Russia's finest bent oligarchs.

Look also at the invasion of Georgia, designed to prevent the "defection" of states to the Nato or EU umbrella.

Or perhaps look at the murder of Litvinenko.

We as a nation should not entertain the notion that Russia is a changed place or that Putin is a person you can deal with. He represents no more than the sick face of the same clique that has dominated Russia for the last 90 years be it under communism or the new model, the bottom line is a self interested cabal in power protecting only their own interests.

Even at a basic level the row with the Ukraine over the gas price, a year on year increase of 100%, is a direct state sponsored mission by a "private company" (a cash cow extension of the corrupt Russian leadership) to prevent the Ukraine from joining Nato. Putin has more in common with Mugabe than any other political leader as he and his cronies bleed the Russian state for all it is worth.

Economy Doing Well

Am I too cynical or would it be correct to say that Darling and Co are trying to "bottom out" the economy early by keeping interest rates high and talking prospects down so that by October and the conference season or more likely next spring we can start to talk about a recovery more quickly than may otherwise be apparent (the slide having at least been arrested).

By escalating the slide now they think that improvements can be brought forward and the corner turned more quickly. This does however mean that the slide may be deeper than is actually necessary and those being sacrificed to unemployment early for the sake of political savings in the spring time may not be grateful to the Government or the Bank of England for adopting this most savage and callous approach to economic management.

The negative approach of the Chancellor (following the example of the press) in exaggerating the down turn flies in the face of my own property companies experience of modest growth in profits and those of many other business operators I meet. A more measured response by Government reflecting what is actually happening rather than what is reported to be happening in the Evening Standard would be a more moderate approach.

Poor Darling's statement seems to suggest that he is resigned to presiding over the deepest post war recession and may be an indication of panic. Browns reassurance that they are the right people to weather this particular storm would be laughable if it were not so hollow. They claim to be implementing a planned strategy and a package of measures to ride out the recession but none of their ideas has been published, discussed or documented and it appears to be only rhetoric designed to camouflage their lurching from one fiscal disaster to the next.

Ed Balls thinks (quite rightly as it happens) that it may be better to stay in the Education Department rather than take over at the treasury. However he has failed to realise that his own political capital has already been spent in the exams and SATs debacle. Even Brown would resist the temptation to promote him to the treasury on the basis of such a poor performance.

I am resigned to this fiasco continuing for another few months yet as no one within the Labour Party has the balls (come on Milliband pull your finger out) to set the compass and choose a policy direction. The continuation of the current drift will take our economy to the brink but I trust the business leaders rather than the politicians will keep us from going over the edge until the cavalry arrive in the form of greater liquidity and lower interest rates.