If only we could bottle all the hot air spouted by our two candidates for number 10. Surely there is enough hot air to heat the nation’s homes this winter.
(oh, and whilst we are here……don’t get me started on the new leader being democratically elected by 0.3% of the population)
Sadly, the Lizzie and Rishi show has failed to address the elephant in the room……an energy price cap hitting…..(insert figure…..then double it……and then add a bit more) this winter.
Of course, securing cheaper energy supply is a long-term game that the Government has failed to play for decades.
Up to now, Lizzie’s key contribution has been to undo Rishi’s rise in national insurance that will give the average worker just £170 a year. As for Rishi, he’s proposing a cut to VAT on domestic energy bills creating a saving of £160 a year.
For context on the wider issue……
10 million people in the UK have savings of less than £100. The poorest 25% of households have average savings of just £2,000 (scraped together over entire lifetimes). And all of a sudden an additional £3,000 - £3,5000 needs to be found a year for fuel?
I doubt many politicians have yet grasped what is about to happen. They just don’t get it and will have to go much further.
Is it too much to expect our future great leader to have worked that out?
The Numbers
Luckily us Brits are renowned for our sense of humour. So at least we can have some fun debating which of these is the biggest joke……the Government, Ofgem or the Bank of England.
It’s a tough call but there is a pretty good case that Guv’nor Andrew Bailey and his eight monetary policy committee chums at the Bank of England have been more laughable. They literally have just one job……to meet the 2% inflation target in a way that helps to sustain growth and employment. That’s it.
I’m now at the stage that every time Andrew Bailey and the Bank of England says or does anything, I simply roll my eyes and scratch my head at the absurdity of all they do and stand for. Benny Hill in his prime would do a better job than this shower.
The Bank of England increased the base rate by 0.5% to 1.75% to continue the 6 months in a row of interest rate increases. This was the biggest single rise since 1995 and their latest effort to control inflation……which is now at a 40 year high of 10.1%.
But here’s the thing……this interest rate rise will make no difference to inflation. It is already baked in and the Bank of England is now predicting inflation to hit 13.3% in October when the UK receives their winter energy bills.
To repeat……the increase in interest rates will make no difference to inflation and simply lead to more businesses (and people) struggling. By their own estimates, unemployment will now reach 6.3% on the back of a predicted recession that will last over a year and shrink the economy by 2.1%.
In what other job can you miss your only target by a factor of six and still take home Bailey’s £575,338-a-year pay?
The strength of the Bank of England’s comedic performance should not overshadow the risible efforts of Ofgem. The energy regulator has breezily presided over the collapse of more than 25 suppliers and is now engaged in a ‘deckchairs on the Titanic’ routine with the price cap for Autumn……a move that can only add to the pain.
Which logically brings us to consider the announcement of BP’s biggest quarterly profit in 14 years. The energy giant saw underlying profits hit £6.9 billion……more than triple the amount it made in the same period last year and the second highest quarterly performance in the firm’s history.
So how do we feel about this?
On the one hand we live in a capitalist society that is dependent on enough companies making taxable profit and providing taxable income to the mases.
On the other, the same high oil and gas prices emptying the pockets of consumers are filling those of the companies that sell it.
Simply hitting these companies with a windfall tax isn’t the solution. BP and Shell were losing billions a few years ago and nobody was offering to subsidise their losses then.
The solution has to start with the new PM throwing out conventional thinking and being creative. But both candidates held senior positions in Government over the past few years and there is little sign that either is an economic Tony Hart.
And just to show how laughable the Government are……a report released this month showed that the Government is spending more than £5 million a week to store PPE in warehouses. 14.2 billion items of PPE were languishing in storage……which is slightly less than the 17.3 billion items that were delivered to frontline doctors and nurses during the whole of the coronavirus pandemic. The total value of this unused PPE is £8.6 billion.
It’s not funny but the Bank of England, Ofgem and the Government are a joke.
Trump of the Month
Lots of worthy candidates this month……all of which should be acknowledged for their commitment to lunacy.
MP Nadine Dorries is a verbal accident waiting to happen. Just give her the opportunity to speak and she never fails to thoroughly disappoint. This month’s example came at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. “I don’t think we’ve had a sense of occasion in the UK like this since the 2012 Olympics.”
Presumably she’s completely forgotten that Glasgow hosted the games in 2014 or she hasn’t yet worked out that Scotland is part of the UK. My money is on both.
The Trump made a very welcome return to the madness…...and there promises to be much more lunacy as he is the overwhelming favourite to be the Republican’s next Presidential nominee in 2024. The Trump gave a 2 hour speech waxing lyrical about his favourite subject……himself.
He reeled off a list of why he’s so great which included his own fortitude, boasting that his former White House doctor (Ronny Jackson) “loved looking at my body. It was so strong, powerful and he said I’m the healthiest president that’s ever lived”. Presumably the doctor is around 250 years old and conducted a thorough physical examination of George Washington also?
So there you go……a perfect reason to vote for another 4 years of mayhem with The Trump at the wheel. (I secretly miss him……don’t you?)
Despite being in hiding since his resignation, a leaked video of the first dance at his wedding celebration kept BoJo in the media. You would have thought that, given the number of parties he attended during lockdown, he could bust a move or two.
See for yourself……
(****WARNING**** This video contains very disturbing scenes of a constipated middle aged man).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FncWUKjxpa0
Then there is Andrew Bailey of the Bank of England. My goodness……where to start. See my comments in ‘The Numbers’ above and then shake your head repeatedly.
However, the worthy winner of the Trump of The Month award for August is……Keir Starmer
I’m no marketing guru or political strategist but given the widespread dislike of all things BoJo and what he stood for morally, surely the opposition leader should simply adopt an approach that is the complete opposite?
It’s not difficult is it……do the things that people think are pretty important as a leader……be honest, transparent and follow a sound ethical code.
We’re not asking for a lot are we? Come on……we didn’t even ask for the last PM to be able to form a coherent sentence. Just don’t take the mickey and be honest. That’s it……that’s all we are asking.
Which is why I find the report finalised this month that Keir Starmer breached MPs' code of conduct eight times astonishing. The leader of the Opposition failed to register eight interests that included Premier League box seats and the sale of a plot of land.
When the investigation commenced in June following a complaint, Keir Starmer said that he was "absolutely confident" he had not broken the MPs' code of conduct.
But the commissioner found he failed to register eight interests - five more than the ones alleged in the original complaint.
Now I’m not too sure what I am most concerned about here.
Is it the leader of the opposition not knowing how he needs to behave to meet the code of conduct (we’ve had a few years of that already with BoJo and we’re bored with it now)……or is it the Committee on Standards finding that "breaches were minor and/or inadvertent, and that there was no deliberate attempt to mislead".
How do we know that it was not a deliberate attempt to mislead? This wasn’t one episode and if there was no complaint, it would have gone undetected.
The culture amongst MP’s is broken……the attitude of their watchdog is not fit for purpose.
I appreciate that this might be a little basic, but could someone please point out that our leaders set the standards for the rest of us to follow.
What a shambles.
Trump Lunacy Rating: 10 / 10
And Finally……
“The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.”
Ray Kroc
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