A dystopian future of disenfranchised workers
In the interests of scientific enquiry we need to ask if George was completely stupid when they packed him off to halls but managed to exit only stupid, having lost the 'completely' tag by the end of his classical studies into the economics of Ancient Greece.
George's parents will not be able to get their money back if their claim for compensation challenges the inadequacy of their son's curriculum. Indeed, studying the economics of Ancient Greece would have served anyone slightly less stupid than George very well as Chancellor of the Exchequer. After all, Greece was an elitist society par excellence, work of every description was carried out by slaves, yes, to be Greek in Greece, even for stupid Greeks was jolly fine. However, being completely stupid, George failed to grasp the subtlety that societies based on slavery cannot progress. And neither can societies based on the’ gig-economy’, the slaves in this circumstance are willing, although, perhaps confused by the word gig? It is easy to get confused into believing you are a self-employed, independent free agent, just like a gigging musician - with no pension, holiday or sick pay and no guaranteed work. By golly, it was not exactly Ancient Greece but it was certainly close to 18th century.
Baronet in-waiting George continued to insist that Britain was booming and to make ridiculous claims on debt reduction and private sector job creation. Yes, George told the world that the budget deficit would disappear by 2015 and when that did not happen he blamed the EU for their poor economic performance.
Throughout his tenure George made visits to factories that make things, to make his announcements seem grounded in Britain's industrial resurgence. He dressed for the occasion, with overalls and hard hat although there was little under the hat that required protection from heavy falling objects. By 2014, George had an idea, leastways he claimed it was his idea; the Northern Powerhouse. What was it, the BBC asked on behalf of licence payers everywhere. Cynical types asked where it was? Well, it did not actually exist but it did make George look interesting. This lifted his gloom, he became all self-congratulatory; he told the public sector workers to expect another year of pay freezes, created a housing boom with his return to 95% mortgages and sold Royal Mail for a song.
When something is 700 times over subscribed it tells you the chumps who did the valuation got it wrong. Actually, it was only seven times over subscribed but there's nothing wrong with a little bit of exaggeration, ask the Daily Mail. Vince Cable and Co. treated the sell off of the Royal Mail like fire damaged stock. This sell off ranks with the BT and Gas giveaways of the Thatcher years and once again the bulk of the shares went to institutional investors - to make another killing. The Royal Mail's pensions deficit was transferred to the taxpayer. You know it makes sense, after all, the Kuwaiti royal family wouldn't want their profits eroded by the postmans pensions.
Child killers and banker bashers
At the beginning of April 2013, George somehow managed to connect up the murderous behaviour of child killer Mick Philpott with the necessity for benefit cuts. Apparently, Philpott's benefit fuelled life-style was what the cuts to the welfare budget were all about, to stop underclass scum killing their children.
Yes, said George, the Philpotts of this world must be put a stop to. Witless George was untroubled by the statistics, which attest to the fact, that a Philpott, like a Black Swan, is a rare event in Britain - even more rare than the collapse of a banking system.
Let's remind ourselves that it was George who told us, towards the end 2011: "The time for banker bashing is over. We need to move on.” Unfortunately for George his buddies at the banks are recidivist criminals to the core, with a unparalleled talent for self-delusion, full of greed and totally lacking any social purpose. Every day their criminality is front page news, for five minutes, these guys could teach the mafia a thing or two - no sensible person would ask us to forget and forgive the crimes of those who pick the pockets of the gullible and the elderly, as well as, those too busy to read the sneaky deceiving small print.
New Regulatory Framework
George has his regulators to oversee the City cutpurses. Wasn't it silly George who put in place a rebranded regulatory system with two quangos to replace the failed and infamous FSA. Yes it was, we now have the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. And are we supposed believe that this new crop of investigators into wrongdoing are shinier tacks than the dullards at the FSA - well no, they are the same people. Here is what they are supposed to do:
The Financial Conduct Authority
Their website says: "We have rule-making, investigative and enforcement powers that we use to protect and regulate the financial services industry." and "We also encourage transparent pricing that’s easy for everyone to understand".
The Prudential Regulation Authority
"The PRA is a subsidiary of the Bank of England. It works alongside the FCA and has two statutory objectives: to promote the safety and soundness of banks, building societies, credit unions, insurers and investment firms and to secure protection for policyholders."
We are all safe now then, well, not quite. It was these guys who were overseeing the disastrous failure of the Coop Bank, under the seriously flawed stewardship of the so-called Reverend Flowers, who you might need reminding was accepted by the regulators, as long as he was shepherded by two chosen experts selected by the regulators.
And here the regulators might need reminding that it was they who ignored their own in-house experts when they told them that the take-over of 600 Lloyds branches was a bad idea. They said it was a bad idea because the Coop didn't have the management to handle a doubling of the bank's size. Neither did it have the finance to make the acquisition but that was something else the regulators ignored. They also ignored the misinformation that was being put out by the Coop Group (owners of the Coop Bank). There were also issues arising from a lack of information about the Coop Bank's intentions for their bond holders.
Only a very silly person would believe that changing the name of a useless regulator, and dividing its functions between two new regulators, then filling it up with the same useless people would achieve anything - except confusing the public.
So silly so far but it gets worse
George's biggest piece of silliness is his advocacy of low interest rate policy, which is supposed to be good because it will encourage people to borrow to invest in British business.
For George's information, business investment at the time (Nov. 2013) running at the same level as it was in 1955. So it looks as if the supposed link between interest rates and business investment is not doing the trick. What the low interest rate policy is doing is robbing the frugal to subsidise those burdened with debt. Paying nothing on saving accounts to keep mortgage rates low - genius!
And worser...
Back in 2010, attempting to look like a man of the people, George allowed himself to be photographed putting the finishing touches to his genius economic plans, with a strategically placed, half eaten burger to one side. It transpired it was not one of McDonalds 99p masterchef classics, no, the burger in question came from the high class Byron Burgers, price £10. Why? "Because McD do not deliver." Wonderment abounds, prey tell, why didn't George send one of his fags off to get a McD for him?
Disabled groups in Wales heaped criticism on George after he was pictured, at Magor services station on the M4, with his chauffeur-driven Land Rover parked in a disabled parking bay. He popped in for some sandwiches but George does not have a blue badge, he also clearly didn’t have much regard for disabled people.
Osborne told an audience at the British Museum in 2010: "I am delighted that Lord Stern has agreed to advise us on the creation of this green investment bank." Silly George, Stern was at the time advising the Labour Party.
Next came Pasty-Gate
George’s silliest moment: The 2012 budget levied a 20% tax on food designed to cool down, like the humble pasty. Well, the Pasty Club lobbied harder than hedge fund managers and George Osborne backed down. A Labour MP asked George when he last ate a Cornish pasty. George said he couldn’t remember. The press said George was not a man of the people.
Mark Carney: Osborne's Phantasmagorical Creation
After Pasty-Gate, no one expected Chancellor George Osborne to make an even bigger fool of himself. However, going to the best schools equips one with creative sensibilities - must be all those cold showers.
Last week, Boy George introduced the world to his comic book creation, Mark Carney, as the soon to be Governor of the Bank of England. Osborne told the press: Carney was the "outstanding candidate" for "avoiding big bail outs and securing growth."
Carney's record
This was supposedly whilst Carney was in charge of the Bank of Canada. There's only one thing wrong with Osborne's gushing praise, he made it up. Carney didn't avoid big bail outs, there was no need since Canada was not exposed to the nasty antics of the banks to anything like the US and UK - so no bail outs were required. And worth noting, Carney arrived at the Bank of Canada in 2008, by then, any 'saving' policy was already in place, so no action required on behalf of George's superhero. Also, in terms of growth, resource rich Canada has done very nicely over the past five years with the rise of China and India, hence growth required no intervention by Carney.
We do know that Carney was very active during his time at Goldman Sachs, advising the Russians over their financial crisis in the late 1990s, however, he failed to notice that his own company were betting against the Russians sorting their problems out or was it that Goldman thought that Carney was less of a superhero than Boy George thinks he is.
The question has to be asked, is Carney is the right man for the job, as the man in charge at the Bank he will now be responsible for regulation, as well as, running the biscuit committee and printing money but can we trust a man who failed to notice what he's own company were doing?
However, once installed as the new Governor, Mark decided to put his own stamp on things. He introduced something called ‘forward guidance’, we think that means giving everyone plenty of notice of interest rate rises. He announced that an interest rate rise would not be considered until unemployment fell to 7%, probably not before 2017 he confided. When unemployment fell to 6.7% in April 2014, he said the 7% figure was not really a hard and fast decision making rule. All very confusing for the common man, that is, trying to work out what genii and super heroes mean. However, even the Times newspaper were starting to question Carney’s confusion on so-called interest rate policy. There’s no confusing, Carney is just a stooge.
Garden CitiesGeorge Osborne announced his plan for 15,000 new homes at Ebbsfleet in Kent and strangely described it as a new Garden City, "the first for 100 years". More silliness, no garden city has ever been built according to the specification set by Ebenezer Howard.
Ebenezer Howard's original vision of slumless, smokeless cities' was a part of a campaign for co-operative development, land reform and land capture. One school of thought describes Howard's vision as radical and socialist but another suggests that it was reactionary, that is, a reaction to the overcrowding and industrial pollution of growing Victorian cities and a call for a return to pre-capitalist forms of production.
Ebenezer wrote in 1898:
"Human society and the beauty of nature are meant to be enjoyed together," and "Town and Country must be married, and out of this joyous union will spring a new hope, a new life, a new civilization." The first and only garden cities ever built were Letchworth and Welwyn, built in the first quarter of the last century did not quite match up to the ideal and soon became nothing more than dormitory towns.
There was no place in Ebenezer's scheme of things for absentee landlords and speculators; his scheme is about self-sufficiency, with industry and services providing for the needs of the local community, with profits ploughed back into community development.
George's Ebbsfleet plan describes no more than another dormitory town, the plans for which have been in place as far back as 1996. In 2012, the government and local councils agreed with the developer, Land Securities, to build 22,000 houses at Ebbsfleet. (Must have missed George announcing that one.) The fact of Land Securities's involvement clearly rules out applying a 'garden city' tag to Ebbsfleet. And let us not overlook the £4000 per house subsidy that George is kicking in, just to encourage Land Securities to build on a low-lying swamp.
And the only reason there is a HS1 train station at Ebbsfleet, in case you have ever travelled to France and wondered why you are stopping at a station where no gets on and no one gets off, is because Michael Heseltine once dreamed of building a financial centre there. Well, that did not happen but promises have been made to the builders and HS1 needs the revenue. The high speed line has been a flop and George is now promoting it as a commuter line "just 19 minutes to St.Pancras".
Asked why Ebbsfleet had been chosen as the location, Osborne gave the Andrew Marr show a pathetic set of reasons for choosing the location:
"In Ebbsfleet there is the land available, there is fantastic infrastructure, with a high-speed line. It's on the river, it's in the south-east of England, where a lot of the housing pressure has been, and, crucially, we've got local communities and local MPs who support the idea."
In fact, the government have already considered far more desirable locations for new building. A Whitehall report recommended they be built in Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire or Oxfordshire. The report was drawn after Cameron gave a speech in support of reviving the idea of garden cities to address 21st-century housing needs. Nick Clegg gave his support to the report, "As a government we are committed to publishing a prospectus on garden cities, which I very much hope we will do as soon as possible." Nick may have got his copy but the rest of the world is still waiting.
In seems clear that this report will not be seeing the light of day, Dave would not want to upset all those Tory voters, especially those in Witney. And in case you are wondering, the swamp dwelling denizens of Ebbsfleet are unmoved by the prospect of a new housing development, their idyll of 18th century arts and crafts living was crushed with the building of the Blue Water shopping centre.
Postscript
George's parents are still locked in a legal battle with St Paul's over their claim that the school missold the benefits of private education - citing George as proof.
George Osborne's mum and dad are asking for their money back from St Paul’s, the best education that money can buy, apparently not. George's parents may have a case for their claim in that the school did not adequately facilitate their son's passage from complete stupidity to acceptable upper class stupidity. In fact, their son did not manage to attain the status of an upper class twit. The question is, were the failings of his education responsible for this. Did his tutors spot early enough how stupid he was and devise suitable study programmes to hone and refine his stupidity.
The jury is out, is George now merely stupid or still as completely stupid as the day he was born? We can say, with some certainty that he is a no-mark on the international stage. Barack Obama, at the 2013 G8 meeting confused him with the black 1980s soul singer Jeffrey Osborne, not once but three times.
The silliness of George Osborne continued apace but the British Psychiatric Society still refused to acknowledge his silliness as a mental disorder. Back to Sunak
