The debt and borrowing forecasts in the economy are appalling. The announced borrowing of approxiimately $750 billion over five years is already astonishing, but it is predicated on ludicrously inflated economic growth rates.

Nobody outside New Labour believes in the economic growth projections of 1.25% in 2010 and 3.5% in 2011. So in fact the real borrowing figure is likely to be over 1 trillion dollars.

I am poor and I don’t worry too much about money. But if you have any savings, in sterling or invested in something sterling denominated, get out now and get it into euros. The pound is going to fall spectacularly over the next eighteen months.

Just two other points then I’ll forget the budget. For Darling to pretend that 2.5% is a real terms increase for pensioners is a plain lie. Few pensioners pay mortgages, so the large majority do not benefit from the fall in the RPI due to mortgage payment reductions. Food and energy costs feature disproportionately in their budgets, and real inflation for pensioners is well over 2.5%.

The small increase in income tax for the rich is long overdue, but the bastards nearly all have accountants who will help them avoid it.

Nick Clegg is making a very good speech indeed, but nobody is listening. I will post it tomorrow.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!

If that happens I’ll give £1,000 to New Labour and a further £1,000 to Derek Draper for his website.

At 07.00 this morning, BBC News gave a mention of less than ten seconds to the release from anti-terror questioning of the nine men they still called “terror suspects”. This was followed immediately by a non-news piece on the testing of barriers to protect us from car bombs, which gave the BBC the excuse to show two bomb explosions at 07.03, right at the front of the news. That will take people’s minds off the fact the terror plot was a fabrication, and get them good and scared again!

The BBC gave massive coverage to these innocent mens’ arrest and Gordon Brown’s and Jacqui Smith’s lying statements about them. The real story is the concoction of huge terror scares by politicians for propaganda purposes. But you won’t see it on the BBC.

Only two of the twelve people arrested in dramatic “terror raids” in the North West of England are still in police custody. Nine more were released from anti-terror detention on Tuesday. Their arrest was first headline on all news bulletins and announced by no less than the Prime Minister himself. Sky News is saying that despite the total lack of evidence against them, they are still regarded as a security threat and thus are being deported – thus getting rid of the embarassment of these innocent men being able to talk to the press..

This was the only major UK political blog which had the courage to stand against the manufactured terror panic and false patriotism, and point out that the whole Easter Bomb Plot story stunk to high heaven from the very first minute:

The reasons why these “Terror raids” might be the subject of political timing could not be more obvious. Both Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown were getting a well-deserved media pasting over the outrageous ripping off of the taxpayer for personal benefit through expense claims. The Metropolitan Police were under extreme criticism for their unprovoked killing of Ian Tomlinson.

So this morning, instead of the news headline being the disgraceful fact that the policeman who launched an unprovoked assault from behind on Ian Tomlinson has still not been arrested, the headline is that the police have saved us all from certain death.

Let me be plain. I am not saying that terrorism does not exist. I am not saying that those arrested are innocent. I do not know. I am saying that Brown and Smith’s involvement in operational police arrests, and the fact that less than 1% of those arrested under anti-terror legislation in the UK have ever been charged with anything connected to terrorism, gives me the right to be suspicious of what is undeniably, at the very least, politically very fortuitous timing.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/04/politically_tim.html

There was in fact never any intelligence that there was going to be an Easter bomb plot. And vast expenditure of police and military resources failed to find anything more sinister than sugar, and some photos of Manchester taken by students in Manchester.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/04/bomb_squad_in_d.html

The mainstream media and the so called parliamentary opposition are determined to keep the vast over-hype of the terror threat going.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/04/jacqui_plays_th.html

But it is obvious from evey internet outlet that has a comment page, that they have lost a large proportion of the men and woman in the street. The government’s desperate fallback position of branding them a security risk and deporting them absolutely without evidence, is a sickening abuse of power and evidence of a continued desire to ride a wave of xenophobia aimed at overseas students.

Being in opposition disguises the fact that the Conservatives are still a deeply split party. The huge divide on Europe actually has a close relationship to their still deeper split over the most important fault line in British politics – that authoritarian/libertarian divide.

New Labour, of course, have pinned their colours unreservedly to the authoritarian mast. We have seen the greatest erosion of civil liberties and parliamentary government since Britain became a democracy. There remain some Tories who are instinctively libertarian, like Rifkind, Clarke and Davis. But as examplified by Chris Grayling’s dreadful parliamentary performance against Jacqui Smith yesterday, many have an atavistic urge to be even more authoritarian than New Labour.

Right at the top of the Conservative Home website today is a video from Fox News supporting torture – arguing in effect that torture works.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2009/04/new-ipsos-mori-poll-puts-tory-lead-at-13.html

The Tory party in the country, and even more so in parliament, would be deeply split by those who are horrified at this trampling on ancient liberties, and those who have bought in to the neo-con agenda.

You can hide that kind of fundamental divide in opposition. You can’t in Government.

So Jacqui Smith has played the terror card in a wild bid to save her job. It is extraordinary she can warn us of grave danger and at the same time look so smug about it. She spoke in the House of Commons of a “Suspected bomb plot” despite the absence of certain key elements normally associated with the phrase “bomb plot”.

Like a bomb.

Or a plot.

This was not pointed out to her, because she was faced by a Tory idiot, Chris Grayling, who believes that the Tories can win votes by being even more resolute looking in the face of danger than Jacqui Smith. And watching less porn.

You might expect a real opposition to ask questions like:

“You told us that a serious bomb attack was planned for Easter, ten days ago. Where then is the bomb? Where are the explosives, the detonators? Are they in the same metaphysical space as the Iraqi WMD?

Instead Grayling taunted her that she had not devised a system which will stop terrorists entering the UK, if we do not know they are terrorists yet. You don’t say. The obvious answer to this is to stop anyone at all from entering the UK, and make everybody here already leave. I suggest we start with Chris Grayling.

When we have the Tories and New Labour in this downward spiral of competitive xenophobic populism, I really despair. Chris Grayling had me thinking for a minute he could be worse at the job than Jacqui Smith. That ought not to be possible.

Meantime we have this from the police:

Manchester’s counter-terrorism unit said most of the searches relating to the terror arrests had been completed and material collected was now being assessed.

“As this complex and detailed investigation continues, officers are sifting through the extensive amount of information so far received to assess its relevance to the investigation,” a spokesman said.

That is police speak for “We’ve found bugger all, but under New Labour legislation we can still hold them another fortnight to pressurise confessions or turn one against the others to make stuff up in terurn for getting out, or we can always bring in a paid supergrass from Pakistan again.”

Please note there are definitively no bombs, no explosives, no detonators, no firearms or weapons of any kind. There was no Easter bomb plot. Whether the men were really dangerous extremists is open to grave doubt at present.

After 12 days of detention the police still do not have evidence to charge anybody with anything.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8008784.stm

One of those days which is totally infuriating. I am blogging to you on a stationary train as I attempt to go to York. The train keeps stopping for long periods because, as the guard keeps saying, “There are three trains in front of us.”

We were due to get the 14.30. However the Central Line was entirely suspended, the District Line had “severe delays” and the Piccadilly Line train we eventually got sat still for a quarter of an hour in Hammesrmith before proceeding at a snail’s pace between long rests. In short, a journey that normally takes about 45 minutes between our home and Kings Cross took 1 hour and 45 minutes, and we just missed our train.

National Express then told me that our tickets had no validity on another train; they could not even be upgraded. I had to buy new ones at on the day prices, which cost me over three hundred pounds. Now their train is getting later and later. I am only escorting somebody and coming straight back. I shall now miss my reserved train back and have to buy another on the day ticket.

Our privatised train services have good rolling stock and track only because it was funded by massive taxpayer subsidies. . Meantime their on the day ticket prices are almost three times the EU average per mile.

I have foreign visitors who are completely bewildered by how bad our public transport is, how incomprehensible the fare schemes are and in general what a rip-off the system is. I fear we get too accepting.

Back in December, I posted on the appalling Sir Michael Wright, that standing rebuke to the very name of judge.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2008/12/the_disgraceful.html

I have been hoping he would haul me up for contempt, so I could use the line of Thomas Muir:

“If it be a crime to be contemptuous of you, then commit me for life, for it will be a crime without end”.

Every day for four months a continuous stream of doctors have come to this blog, straight to my post on Sir Michael Wright. They come here from this url.

http://www.doctors.net.uk/forum/viewPost.aspx?forum_id=1&post_id=3574090

Unfortunately, not being a doctor, I can’t get in to see the context of the link. But I am baffled as to how it can remain so prominent on its site that it has sent people streaming here over such a long period. And why are doctors so interested anyway?

If there is a doctor in the house, perhaps they might offer some assistance.

In the budget this week, Alistair Darling is expected to revise his prediction for the drop in GDP in 2009 from -1.2% to -3.4%. This sustains the Brown/Darling record of appalling predictions.

The CBI think it will be worse, at -3.9%. I think it will be yet worse, at -4.1%.

I spent Sunday with friends at the LSE dusting off my economic modelling skills. I should state the obvious, that the LSE is in no way associated with my predictions (though if they turn out wrong I reserve the right to blame their modelling!) It is also fair to say they found some of my methodology unorthodox, particuarly the need for a steady intake of Margaux to fuel the input assumptions.

I project GDP will fall by -4.1% in 2009 and by -1.8% in 2010. The Treasury is leaking -0.1% as their 2010 projection. Given the financial services sector is in shock and manufacturing output down by over 18% in the first quarter of 2009 year on year, I can only presume they are relying on massive expansion in the capuccino and dry cleaning industries.

I have assumed that Darling’s budget this year and next year will be close to fiscal neutrality, with a nod towards belt tightening. He has absolutely no room for fiscal stimulus and with an election in the next 15 months he can’t be too sensible.

But the fiscal position looks awful. I project a budget deficit of a massive 12.4% of GDP in 2009 rising to 13.3% in 2010. By 2011 our national debt will reach 1980s Italian proportions of 118% of GDP. Compare that to the 40% guideline for membership of the Euro.

That prospect will spark a collapse in the pound before mid-2010 leading to escalating interest rates, forced on the Bank of England as the government struggles to raise more money because the pound is such a bad bet. That will undoubtedly mean they will have to go cap in hand to the IMF within the next 18 months, but still will not be able to avoid those higher interest rates.

Inflation will come back, reaching 4.5% by April 2010 and shooting upwards after that to 7.1% by end 2010 and entering double digits in 2011. That will put an end to further quantitive easing. House prices still have a further 11% to fall before nominal prices start to increase from July 2010, but will still be falling in real terms. Unemployment will peak in March 2011 at 3.02 million.

The problem Darling faces is that he has no room for fiscal stimulus, because all the funds that may reasonably be raised have been wasted on the bottomless pit of Ponzi banking.

Because of the corner into which Darling has painted himself, and on the basis that New Labour have no stomach for radical restructuring of the economy and measures such as bank nationalisation, the only thing that would truly improve the prospect would be a radical budget rebalancing – perhaps a 2% increase in total tax yield combined with a 5% cut in public spending, over a three year period. That would reduce a raft of linked problems including interest rates, inflation, deficit and debt burden. It would accelerate unemployment and make the recession sharper, but would on my projections give something of a J curve effect.

The other thing that would help might be joining the Euro, if we could beg them on bended knee to accept us as a basket case. But the other European countries would be crazy to take us on.

I realise many people find spending cuts unpalatable. But we are in a very bad place. We are there because Brown and Darling failed to regulate casino banking, and then used all our remaining national credit to refund losses to the wealthy gamblers.

The economy is completely screwed – even worse than most forecasters and pundits are telling you, and certainly worse that Darling will admit on Wednesday.

Ayesha Hazarika is the epitome of New Labour’s contempt for the taxpayer. This former professional comedienne and PR specialist is being paid £53,882 pa by hard-pressed taxpayers to be Labour Party “Special Adviser” – or spin doctor – to Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equalities and Leader of the House of Commons.

http://www.chortle.co.uk/comics/a/632/ayesha_hazarika

That is just the comedienne’s slary. There are substantial expenses too, like the recent jolly of Harman and her delegation, including Hazarika, to look at gender issues in Ghana. If we accept that Harman needed the taxpayer to send her to look at gender issues in Ghana – which arguably has better gender equality than the UK – did Harman really need to be accompanied by her Private Secretary plus Hazarika plus her constituency secretary? How much did this jolly cost the taxpayer?

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=160592

What benefit did the taxpayer get from the jolly in general and from Hazarika’s participation in it in particular? Is Harman going to claim her constituency secretary’s fares in her MP’s expenses?

Why does Harman need not just one but two female Labour Party hacks as Special Advisers in highly paid non-jobs funded by the taxpayer? The Foreign Secretary, for example, only has one position, split between two people on a job share. Harman has Hazarika and Anna Healey – any relation?

Salaries alone for Labour Party “Special Adviser” hacks like Hazarika and McBride come to over £6 million a year in salaries alone. That is up from £1.2 million under John Major, which was bad enough already.

They do nothing for the taxpayer. Their job is to burnish their masters’ image, and they are pretty lousy even at that.

New Labour takes the view that the taxpayer will fund unlimited numbers of these hack. We will keep people like Hazarika in her highly paid useless non-job as special adviser to Harman, who herself has a useless non-job. That is an example of just how out of touch New Labour really are. They care for nothing except their own power, positions and patronage. Which is why we do not care for them.

This will annoy those who occasionally accuse me of being a closet Tory, but I have long been a fan of Malcolm Rifkind. He was the first junior minister I worked to in the FCO when I was on the South Africa desk. Apartheid was in its last throes and we were trying to kill it off. Rifkind was genuinely horrified by apartheid. But South Africa was high on Thatcher’s personal agenda and to say she was uncommitted on apartheid would be kind to her. She insisted, for example, that the ANC was a terrorist organisation. Rifkind worked away beneath her in a way that can only be described as cheekily subversive, under the benign soggy shield of Geoffrey Howe.

Anyway, I have remained a fan of Malcolm Rifkind. He made some of the best speeches on the Iraq War. I debated notionally against him at the Cambridge Union a couple of years ago, but I don’t think either of us disagreed with a word the other said, and we had a very pleasant couple of glasses of champagne together on the train back to London.

He has now made a thoughtful speech on nuclear weapons reduction, bits of which are reproduced in the Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5172912/Nuclear-weapons-can-no-longer-be-justified-even-by-Cold-War-warriors.html

If we are to succeed in stopping the ridiculous and massive waste of money and resources on Gordon Brown’s obscene determination to replace and upgrade the Trident missile system, we need to make common cause with the growing number of Tories and senior military men who see the stupidity of it.

With massive pressure on the government, and on Jacqui Smith in particular, I can tell you what will happen next. The government will play the terrorism card, just as it did last weekend.

The Great Manchester Easter Bomb Plot was a bit of a damp squib. It is only a week ago, but it seems an age, since Gordon Brown told us he had foiled “a very big terror plot” and we had dramatic police swoops and the arrests of twelve “Islamic Extremists” in the North West. Eleven of them are still held without charge.

But the Great Easter Bomb Plot lacked any bombs. Or firearms. Or detonators. They have found some photographs of Manchester and a small quantity of sugar, which we have been assured can be a component of an explosive.

The police will be under huge pressure now to come up with something else. Household bleach would be good. Or even better a confession from one of the teenagers held without charge and interrogated for over a week now, who may be persuaded to turn evidence against the others.

Expect an announcement this weekend, to move the news agenda on from Ian Tomlinson. And expect a statement from Jacqui Smith by Monday at the latest. It will go like this:

Grave terrorist threat foiled – could have been massive atrocity – imminent threat – constant vigilance – reliable intelligence indicates – communication intercepts – photographs of potential targets – possible explosive ingredients – bollocks – bullshit – bollocks.

Then expect all the “opposition” MPs to rally round and sing the national anthem, and Jacqui Smith to be saved until David Blunkett comes back in the summer reshuffle.