Nov 06 2009
A very bad week
The problems are now accumulating fast.
The death rate in Afghanistan is horrifying. The lack of clarity over the government’s strategy whilst we await President Obama’s decision is undermining confidence in the whole mission. Latest polls show now a majority share the view of this site that we should not be fighting a war in Afghanistan, and that we cannot capture enough territory and garrison it on a sufficient scale to bring victory by such means. The deaths this week even damage the notion that we can confine ourselves to a training role in support of the civilian power. The failure to hold a convincing election and to choose a government that can command consent across this very large and diverse country leads our electorate to question why we are supporting the current regime.
The second collosal bail out of RBS shows how wrong the first bail out strategy was. As again readers of this site will know, it was never likely the bank nationalisation would work. It has delayed tackling the real problems in RBS. They should have dismembered the bank more than a year ago, selling off the bits that can be sold and closing down the bits that could lose us more money, whilst protecting the interests of depositors. Throwing printed money after borrowed is a very bad idea. Sometime they are going to have to undertake or complete the patient work of deciding what can be saved and what has to be written off. Until they do so RBS cannot perform as a proper bank making a full contribution to our economy or to the economies of other countries where it operates.
Today we learn that the government is brieifng that there will be no climate change deal at Copenhagen, after they have spent considerable political capital on saying how important one is. I will write separately about this later.
This week the government has acquiesced in driving through the Treaty of Lisbon. Their failure to allow the British people a vote on this will long sour our country’s response to this bad Treaty. The unpleasant reply of our fellow members in the EU to Conservative wishes to belong to a grouping of independent democratic states rather than to a proto large centralised state called Europe shows how far this government has allowed the EU to go in the wrong direction against the wishes of most British people.
Yesterday the government allowed the Bank of England to begin printing another £25billion. This is simply going to permit further delay in correcting the large public deficit ahead of the election. It will not help lending to the private sector, as two banks remain distressed and all banks are under tight controls from regulators making it difficult for them to lend more. It is a damaging policy.
Meanwhile the government’s system of the Kelly Review and IPSA means there is unlikely to be a clear lower cost system for MPs expenses up and running before the Election.
12 Responses to “A very bad week”
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
“This week the government has acquiesced in driving through the Treaty of Lisbon.”
This week the Conservative Party has acquiesced in driving through the Treaty of Lisbon.
Reply: As someone who voted against it, voted for a referendum on it, and has spoken out against it, I find that offensive. If the electorate persists in electing a federalist UK Parliament we will continue to give away our rights of self government.
Two other points:
1. I am just back from Euroland reeling from the effect of the devaluation of pound. We need the Government to evaluate the effects of devaluation – both good and bad – and tell us what they mean for the economy.
2. UK Plc needs to be re-focussed. We are far too dependent on both financial services and imports. Now that imports are so costly because of the devalued pound, it is obvious we need to grow more, manufacture more and import less. Where is the Government’s strategy to encourage such a trend?
SimonD said: “Where is the Government’s strategy to encourage such a trend?”
This govt does not do “strategy”. It only does short-tem, anti-tory, dividing-line tactics.
That is the basic problem
Action in Afghanistan was always a daft idea. It’s always been an impossible place to “control”. The forces deployed are overachieving with what they have been tasked, but the basic question is about whey they were sent in the first place.
There are parallels in the banking crisis. The problem should not have been allowed to develop as far as they did before action was taken, and even then the action was wrong.
However, we can’t turn back time, and have to move forwards from the mire in which the current Administration has enveloped us. The thing that worries me at the moment is the way that the Conservative front bench appears to accept being painted into a corner. Each occasion makes them seem closer in policy to the despised Labour leadership, and you can see a strong Conservative mandate (after the next election) slipping from their grasp.
A very bad week indeed but sadly just one of many. Brown and Labour have been disastrous for this country and potentially they have another seven months to wreak even more damage.
A bad week indeed, but in the coming months it will probably get worse as Brown & Co think up even more short termism actions to try and shore up their crumbling Party before the General Election, which I predict will be before the next set of tax rises click into place in April.
I have been a passionate believer in the Afghan campaign as an abuse of our Armed Forces. I would be grateful if you allow your readers the opportunity to visit my blog on this issue.
John, can I ask your opinion on Lisbon’s provision for citizens initiatives? As you may know, there is a grassroots campaign to utilise this lever to make the EU more fair, more pro-free trade and more responsive to its citizens’ wants at http://www.right2bet.net – don’t Lisbon’s democratic structures afford *some* way to affecting change? Shouldn’t we be using them?
Marc
The masochists on this site may want to have a look at the latest RBS Accounts. You may teach yourself how not to run a bank. Start with the income statement:-
http://www.rbs.com/microsites/gra2008/financial_statements/cons_income_statement.html
Then work your way through the balance sheet. Read the notes for the big numbers, you will need a financial dictionary. Have a look at the notes for “debt securities” and “derivatives”. See all those MBS securities?
Then click on to the cash flow statement. When a company is hovering on the verge of insolvency it is the cash that counts. And remember these accounts only go up to Dec 2008; before the fun really started. Can’t wait to see the 2009 accounts.
Thanks for your reply, including “As someone who voted against it, voted for a referendum on it, and has spoken out against it, I find that offensive.”
I do not wish to offend and apologise for causing you to take personal affront. My point is that, imho, the Conservative Party as a whole and as led by Mr Cameron has not done enough in previous months and years to prevent the present debacle. If you test me as to what should have been done, I would not be capable of an expert or detailed response, but the leadership has consistently given the impression the EU issue is just a nuisance which it wishes to keep away from public discussion, rather than it raising the subject at every opportunity and ramming home the message both to the government and ourselves in the public.
There isn’t going to be any correction of the very large public sector deficit this side of the election – as least no painful actions.
Labour’s strategy is becoming clear. They have more or less given up on winning the next election and are concentrating on leaving the incoming Conservative government a poison pill of massive proportions, so that the Conservatives are in power just for one term.
Government between 2010 and 2015 is going to be exceptionally difficult:
- Reducing the public sector deficit by £40bn a year for five straight years while trying to limit the increase in unemployment;
- Keeping the Euro-federalists, who have been significantly empowered by the Lisbon “Treaty”, at arms length;
- Getting the next generation of power stations built and on line;
- Getting population control onto the climate change agenda in the teeth of opposition from organised religion;
- Dealing with the rapid escalation of the number of over 65s from 2010;
- Reattaining control of our own foreign policy and the choice of which foreign wars WE want to fight.
We will not only have to govern well but we must also pin the blame on Labour for Labour’s failings. We want them out of power for at least 30 years; the damage they have done is tremendous.
Just two comments.
In the Telegraph today, we read in a letter that the RBS is extending credit to anyone and everyone in both Indonesia and Singapore without any assessment of creditworthiness. Remember that it is we taxpayers who are the guarantors of each transaction.
In Afghanistan we should never have been talked into the mad idea of confusing the Holy Koran with the American Declaration of independence.
But now we are there, it is becoming very obvious that, no, the Muslims are not prepared to give up their faith for the American Way of Life. Perhaps it might be a good idea to seal the borders (is that possible?) and just limit ourselves to what we can reasonably expect to do.
Can we really afford the loss of face when NATO drifts home with our tails between our legs? The Vietnamese remained Communist Indo- Chinese, after all. The Somalis remained independent pirates. The dominoes did not fall…….