They Blog For You

                 First we are told that providing a new loan to Greece, or Ireland, or Portugal, creates a line in the sand, prevents the contagion spreading. As each sucessive loan demand showed, that did not work. The incoming tide of debt erased the lines. The contagion spread. The mixed metaphors [...]

I am told that there is a new welcome emphasis on the public’s views at Downing Street. They are taking polling more seriously. It was worries by the public about the Health reforms that lies behind the recent decision to consult again and if necessary to change the plans. I trust [...]

Five months ago, I forecast that default within some Eurozone countries was going to happen.  Indeed, I suggested Britain ought to encourage certain countries to default - and decouple from the Euro - rather than piling up and parcelling out yet more debt.  How did I come to such a view?  With debts rising [...]

Greece, Ireland, now Portugal ....  Another bailout of the Euro dressed up as a rescue.  Another high interest loan pressed upon European taxpayers, as if that might solve the problem of excessive debt. Over the past year, we have been struggling to save a total of [...]

               Readers will know I am against the UK lending any money to Euro member states in trouble. We kept out of the Euro thanks to some of us arguing that case. Some of us  forecast the likely problems and do not see why the UK should pick up any of [...]

                        As a critic of the regulators in 2006-7 I said the banks should be made to hold more capital. In those days they were too heavily geared. The banks were allowed to lend far too much money with far too little capital to pay the losses if some of the [...]

When 250,000 people march in Central London to complain about cuts the government should listen, and should engage with their leaders in a sensible dialogue. There are many things I felt I wanted to say had I been invited to talk to them as Mr Miliband was able to do. I would [...]

The Prime Minister told the Commons today that he and his team had opposed the Euro bail out Mechanism deal negotiated by Alistair Darling, the out going Chancellor, last May. He was repeating what the Chancellor, George Osborne, told me when he said he had opposed it. Yet [...]

The £7 Billion Ireland bailout and (potential) £4.8 Billion bailout of Portugal, easily dwarf the £6.2 Billion of painful, deficit-reducing savings we've managed to make over the past year. Coalition ministers say that they were opposed to the last minute deal outgoing Chancellor, Alistair Darling, did to make Britain liable for the Euro 60 Billion [...]

How does pushing more high interest loans on Portugal "help" Portugal?  It doesn't. When the United States bailed out Latin American debtors in the 1980s, they did it by restructuring debt reducing the amount of money Latin America owed (see Brady Bond graphic on the left). [...]

                    The Portuguese government has fallen because it was unable to push through yet another austerity package. The  bond market demands ever higher interest rates to lend money to the ailing country. The economy remains mired in poor performance. Now all the talk is of another EU led bail out. [...]

CARDIFF West MP, Kevin Brennan, has called on the UK Government to reverse their VAT rise on fuel after statistics reveal Wales has seen a higher increase in the price of fuel than any area of England.Mr Brennan is joining Ed Ball’s campaign to reverse the VAT rise on petrol [...]

   Where are the consoling voices of Friday?  It was ‘nuclear expert’ Malcolm Grimsom who cooed that nuclear safety was proved because only one reactor had problems in Japan. The following day he said that the first explosion may have been a good thing in some ways. Today the Army tried to dump water [...]

It was a bracing interview this morning with someone named Ian. A pal from campaigning days in the early 80s contacted me with the message ‘Just like old times’. In 1980 a small group of us met in Aberystwyth to establish the Welsh Anti-nuclear Alliance (WANA). This morning’s interviews on Radio [...]

                            When oil prices first soared in 1973-4 they were blamed for the recession and collapse which occurred in western economies. In practice there were other things wrong with the economies then, with banking difficulties and a switch from easy money to tight money at the same time. It is [...]

Delyn MP and Shadow Treasury Spokesman David Hanson is calling on the Chancellor George Osborne to...

Delyn MP and Shadow Treasury Spokesman David Hanson is calling on the Chancellor George Osborne to reverse the government’s VAT rise on fuel. The hike in VAT to 20 per cent in January has added nearly 3p to the price of a litre of petrol and will raise £700m for [...]

Every so often you read a piece of news that seems to cheer you up for no apparent reason.  I can't quite put my finger on why, but the announcement that the Queen is to visit Ireland pleases me enormously. Perhaps it is a sense that at last our two countries can get along as [...]

            We are about to discover how worthwhile voting is if you are both in the EU and in the Euro.  The Irish election threw out the ruling party, which crashed to third place. A new Coalition is likely, made up of parties who wish to renegotiate the terms of [...]

    An eerie silence from the farming  lobby hides a new denial of information. Not only are there no cuts in the sumptuous farm subsidies but they might even get a handsome increase in the 2.9% increase in EU payments. No-one is saying. There is media omerta on the worldwide increase in [...]

                   To judge by the row over Barclays corporation tax payments many people in the Uk think British business gets off lightly. They argue that  if only business was stopped from avoiding tax, the deficit could come down with no painful decisions.                 Many have pointed out that Barclay’s low corporation tax [...]