Having lost my grandmother, an uncle and Queen Elizabeth within 24 hours, it’s fair to state that I took mourning to a whole new level in September.

I read so many great pieces about the Queen’s life of service and the leadership she showed throughout. Consistently showing grace, dignity and setting the standard for the rest of us to follow.

Already there is an absence and the sense of a nation bereft. A fragile female in her nineties had, by virtue of her role and example, become so much more than a head of state. She had become a reminder that, despite our differences and mutual animosities, we had something in common. Something precious.

It seemed somewhat fitting that the biggest, grandest and most globally resonant funeral we are ever likely to witness was held.

The BBC is reporting that 5.1 billion people watched the funeral……around 63% of the world’s population and the largest single event watched or streamed in history.

I had the TV on from 6:00am and didn’t miss a millisecond of the funeral. And when it was over some 12 hours later, I watched a full recap of the very same funeral I’d been watching all day. I felt morally obliged to bear witness to such history.

I have nothing but admiration for our new King as he was shunted into a reality show to end all reality shows. One man filmed 24/7 at the height of personal crisis with billions of eyes boring into his back. His mother would have been proud.

The Queen was a majestic guide to growing old gracefully. The same could be said for my own grandmother.

“We look before and after, And pine for what is not” Shelley wrote.

The Numbers

Aside from the passing of Queen Elizabeth, the news was dominated with Liz Truss being voted our new Prime Minister……our fourth in 6 years. Now when I say voted in, Lizzie was elected to lead the country by getting 81,326 votes. For context, 85,100 postal workers voted for strike action. 

Lizzie being Prime Minister is like when Apple made everyone have that U2 album they didn’t want in their iTunes library. Oh, how I long for a return to a world where U2 giving a free album to everyone is the worst thing to happen to society.

Lizzie set her message and intention to be very much ‘go big or go home’

Firstly, she announced a limit to energy bill rises for all households for two years to try to prevent widespread hardship. A typical household energy bill will be capped at £2,500 annually until 2024. The huge support scheme could cost up to £200 billion.

Secondly, there was a mini-budget that was anything but small. The new Chancellor (the third in as many months), Kwasi Kwarteng, pretty much ripped up and u-turned on previously announced Conservative tax increases. The major headlines from the Canceller (get it!!) included:

- Basic Rate Income Tax to reduce from 20% to 19% from April 2023.

- A reversal of the 1.25% increase in National Insurance

- The previously announced Corporation Tax increase next April is scrapped and will remain at 19% instead of rising to 25%.

- A cut to stamp duty rates with no stamp duty to pay on the first £250,000 of a property purchase (£425,000 for first time buyers).

However, the headline grabbing tax cut was the reduction from 45% to 40% for those earning over £150,000. The headlines jumped on this as a stereotypical play by the Tories of looking after the wealthy rather than those most in need.

According to Kwasi, taxing billionaires is actually worse for the economy. If you don’t believe him, just ask a billionaire……they all agree. Kwasi also informed us that “we need a new approach for a new era, to break away from the vicious cycle of stagnation and low growth”. He forgot to mention that this was caused by 12 years of his party in Government.

It was the biggest package of tax cuts (at a cost of £50 billion) in 50 years as Lizzie gambles her premiership on boosting growth at all costs.

There was an immediate lack of confidence in Lizzie’s plan with the reaction of the exchange rate telling us all we needed to know……the pound plunged below its all-time low against the dollar to $1.03 and caused havoc on investment markets. Such was the scale of panic, the Bank of England had to take action to the tune of £65 billion as there was “material risk to financial stability” with the pension sector within hours of a ‘Northern Rock’ scenario. A ‘mini’ budget this was not.

It really was quite the fall out from the mini-budget within just a few short days. There will be huge new borrowing at the same time as cutting taxes, all aimed at growing the economy. I really hope it works. I really worry about what will happen if it doesn't.

 

Trump of the Month

Despite a time of national mourning and outpouring of grief, I was spoilt for choice for worthy candidates.

It seems idiocy and lunacy wait for no man (or Queen).

Lots of worthy candidates this month……all of whom should be acknowledged for their commitment to lunacy.

BoJo (remember him?) had the answer to the energy crisis. If you're worried about being forced to pay thousands of pounds more for your energy bills, then fear not.

BoJo Link

What I find quite incredible is that people were questioning Carrie Johnson’s choice of clothing for the Queen’s funeral but did not feel her choice of husband was slightly more questionable. Just a thought.

Edwina Curry also got in on the act with revolutionary ideas to address the cost of the energy issue. She went full on ‘Blue Peter presenter’.

“Here’s my tip, put some of this behind your radiators” as she showed off a 10 metre roll of Waitrose own tin foil (extra strong obviously).  

Which left me to consider……does tin foil improve the efficiency of a cold radiator? If I insulated my loft it won’t boil my spuds for dinner will it. 

On the same day Rishi went all wobbly on me and melted. 12 months ago he was my man……but he turned out to be as flaky as a BoJo party sausage roll during lockdown. Rishi told This Morning that if he goes to McDonald's with his daughters they all get the breakfast wrap. I’m no breakfast wrap aficionado (I’ve not been in such a gaff since I got caught short on the way back from Scunthorpe in 2014) but I am reliably informed that they were taken off the menu in March 2020 due to Covid and never returned!

I honestly thought he was better than that.

Whilst all worthy idiots, this months’ Trump of The Month can only go to the man himself……The Trump.

Ivana Trump, The Trump’s first wife, died in July. But it has come to light this month that she was laid to rest in an obscure plot near the first hole of The Trump’s golf course.

She lies looking like a cruel afterthought, in a stark grave that it turns out supplies her ex-husband Donald Trump with some handy tax breaks. Under New Jersey state tax code, any land that is dedicated to cemetery purposes is exempt from all taxes, rates and assessments.

There are goldfish who have been buried with more apparent dignity than poor Ivana Trump received.

We can all expect much more lunacy as we lead up to the 2024 Presidential elections. The Republican Party's top two candidates (The Trump and Ron DeSantis) are both under criminal investigation.

What a world, eh? What a way to live. What a man.

Trump Lunacy Rating: 10 / 10

 

And Finally……

“Cowards falter, but danger is often overcome by those who nobly dare”.

Queen Elizabeth II

 

The Month That Was......August 2022

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