Quotes of 2008

Here is a little collection of my favourite quotes from 2008. I am fairly sure that I have remembered them correctly and that none of them happened in dreams but I can't guarentee it so don't expect to find any of them on Wikipedia. Then again...

“Of course the UK economy will continue to grow this year. Those who say otherwise are guilty of talking us into a recession...oh, wait.” Gordon Brown.

"The fundamentals of America's economy are strong. Not like in my day – back then we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and lick the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife." John McCain

"You have to understand that I was completely strapped for cash" - Max Moseley

“You can put lipstick on a pig but it’s tail will still not be uncurly” – John Major declaring his opposition to the first woman to stand for vice-chairperson of the Huntingdon Cricket Club

“Those who talk about the exchange rate are irresponsibly risking a run on the pound...oh wait.” Gordon Brown

“The country is groaning and moaning and screaming for change. Just like you would be after a night with me, baby” Bill Clinton telling the pretty girl in the front row why he endorses Barak Obama.

“You can’t let Sarah Palin be Vice President. A good VP needs to be a strong, experienced character, especially when the President has little executive experience himself. I mean, George W Bush didn’t have much experience when he became President so he appointed Dick Cheney as his VP and look how well that worked out.” Joe Biden.

"This is from the widows, the orphans, and those who were killed in Iraq. They had a whip-round and got you these for a surprisingly reasonable price" – Iraqi shoe-thrower Muntadhar al-Zeidi

"You can put lipstick on a pig, as many of you lonely farmers have discovered" - Barak Obama on the stump in Alabama.

“You know what they say about the difference between a hockey-mom and a pitbull – that’s right, a pitbull has more foreign policy experience” – Sarah Palin

“I am proud to have been the Chancellor who abolished Boom and Bust…oh wait.” Gordon Brown.

All Nationalities Welcome....Especially Lapps and Poles

I visited the allergy unit at my local hospital today to deliver a small donation. It is a cause that is dear to my heart as my own sister suffers from hayfever and diabetes. It is important to keep her spirits up, I think, so I buy her little presents. Nothing special, you know, just flowers and chocolate. She's a bit asthmatic as well – I suggested that she take up tennis, just for a bit of a wheeze.

When I got home and read the paper I had a bit of a shock. The headline read, “Lapdancing clubs have been set up by schools, minister admits.” My first thought was that perhaps this was a welcome outburst of entrepreneurial spirit by the schools in question. Then I thought that perhaps it was a work experience project. I was outraged – haven't these people heard that banks all over the city have been sacking staff and cutting bonuses? Who the hell can afford lapdancers these days?

To my relief, I discovered that I had misunderstood. It was merely a bit of disgracefully poor grammar and they meant that lapdancing clubs had been opened next to schools. The poor use of English is something which angers me. Some people don't even know the difference between a colon and a comma. Those of us who had the benefit of a public school education and three years at Oxford know that a colon is used to inform the reader that what follows proves and explains, or simply enumerates elements of what is referred to before while a comma is when you are knocked unconscious for a long time after a bang on the head.

Feathering the Nest

There has been a welcome outbreak of entrepreneurship in the States A chap called Rod Blagojevich (pictured to the right) has shown commendable enterprise in these hard times by attempting to raise a bit of pocket money by selling off a seat in the Senate which used to belong to Barak Obama, who no longer needs it now that he is running the “Office of the President-Elect”. Incidentally, I understand that John McCain has got himself a new podium sign saying “Office of the President not-Elect” and Hillary Clinton has had one made up which says “Office of the President, Vice President, Secretary of State-Elect”. Some would say that Mr. Obama is being a bit presumptuous but President Bush seems to have lost interest in the whole running the country thing and has taken to playing dodge the shoe with his Iraqi friends.

Anyway, Governor Blagojevich's inventiveness has not been appreciated as the Feds seem to think that flogging seats in the Senate is a bit crooked. Of course we in Britain banned the practice back in 1832, when John McCain was still having his first mid-life crisis. But what about the cash-for-honours affair? I hear you ask. Well, the difference was that instead of being paid for seats in the Upper House of Parliament, the Labour Party merely accepted loans which they won't ever pay back, it being 21^st century Britain after all.

The whole Chicago episode might even cause problems for the President-Elect himself, as Blagojevich had been having conversations with Barak's chief of staff, a man called Rahm Edwards. And what a fine job Rahm's parents did in naming him. Impressive imagination.

Save the Cheerleader.....

Gordon was generally deemed to have made a bit of a fool of himself when he claimed in the House of Commons that he had 'saved the world' no less. The story was that this had been a slip of the tongue - he had meant to say that he had saved the banking system. However, my sources tell me that he actually meant it. Indeed, if you listen very carefully to the recording you can hear him say, 'we not only saved the world, we also saved the cheerleader!' Alert readers will remember George W Bush's college cheerleading days. A coincidence? I think not!

Gordon's global leadership has been accepted even in Germany, from where the last few pockets of resistance to the Era of Gordon have been pursuing their quixotic campaign to convince us that spending trillions of borrowed money that we don't have might not be the best idea. The Germans have agreed to sign up to Gordon's Single European Financial Stimulus Plan. I am not sure they have quite got the hang of saving the planet, though. They are insisting on spending money that they actually have rather than borrowing money that they can't afford to pay back. Oh well, they'll soon learn.

Luckily, George Bush seems to have got the right idea and is now preparing to start throwing money at the American automobile industry. This is in answer to prayers said in churches across that great nation for divine intervention to save the big car makers. A correspondent of mine wrote to me this week about a moving sermon he had heard in which the pastor reminded his flock of that Bible passage in which Our Lord cast the moneychangers from the Temple, after which they were given cushy jobs in Pilate's administration and had considerable success in reconstructing the Jerusalem camel trading industry upon which so many Judean jobs depended.

Oh God!

I read a story this week about a little 12 year old girl in Devon who got into trouble with her school for insisting on wearing a purity ring. Apparently this isn't a euphemism but rather something that young people sometimes wear to symbolize their commitment to abstain from sex. The girl, or rather her parents, think that this amounts to religious discrimination. You remember that bit from the Sermon on the Mount (and I make no apologies for using the King James Version). It comes just after that bit about the meek.

“And Blessed is she who dost wait for the One and who gaineth the approval of her father and doth marry before lying with a man, and who doth symbolize her commitment by purchasing a ring which doth look great and which can be purchasethd online for a reasonable price”

The school refused on health and safety grounds, citing the many ring injuries suffered in Devon every year. Ironically, none of these were caused by abstinence.

My own religious beliefs are old fashioned Church of England. During my political career, of course, I always managed to keep my religious beliefs to myself, never allowing exhortations to love thy neighbour to interfere with completing the latest arms deal or cutting unemployment benefits. Only once did I have doubts – I dabbled with Atheism back in the Sixties. Sadly, my faith just wasn't strong enough and I soon lapsed. Even now I can't quite bring myself to believe that Richard Dawkins really exists. Luckily, today's politicians have more faith than I did, which is why they can keep a straight face when they suggest that the way to fix a recession brought about by reckless borrowing to buy things we couldn't afford is to encourage everyone to buy things they can't afford with money that they have borrowed recklessly. It makes me giggle every time. And that is why I am not Prime Minister and Gordon Brown is!

Let the Good Times Roll!

Up in space, NASA have made yet another invaluable contribution to the future of humanity by inventing a system for recycling urine into drinking water. And what a fine use of public money, even at this time of great austerity. Previously if I wanted to drink my own piss they'd have called for the men in white coats. It is certainly an improvement on blowing it out the airlock.

I understand that the fight against obesity may be close to a breakthrough. My young niece tells me that scientists are working on a supplement which will trick the body into creating a hormone that will suppress appetite. This is certainly an improvement on the Gordon Brown / George Bush approach to the obesity epidemic which is to destroy the economy to the point where we have to reintroduce rationing and round the clock soup kitchens.

On that theme, many of us have been reassured by young Barak Obama's appointments to his new cabinet. We had feared that he might fall into the trap of bringing in new faces with original thinking just because they might know what they are doing. We shouldn't have worried – he is instead following Gordon Brown's lead by packing government with as many of the people responsible for the economic crisis as possible. Quite right too. They can't be trusted to run loose. Who knows what damage they might do?

The Chinese, meanwhile, are getting worried. I had the great pleasure to share lunch with an old business acquaintance yesterday and he explained how the Chinese economy works. It seems that they've been telling their people to invest the pittance they earn for working fifteen hours a day in a sweatshop in bonds which are issued by American banks which was then used to lend money to Americans and Europeans who can't pay it back so that they can use it to buy cheep stuff that they don't need and which is made by those same Chinese sweat-shop employees. I know, it is impossible to see the flaw in this plan but apparently it is not going so well now that no one in the West can afford to pay back their loans. So you can see that it is even more important than you thought that you go out and spend as much money as you can like the government wants you too. So spend, spend ,spend! The future of the world depends on it!

Darling to the Rescue

I had lunch today with Toby, an old friend who works for one of the investment banks in the City and who is well connected with the Treasury. I wanted to pick his brain about Alistair Darling's newly announced prescription for the ailing British economy ie. Borrow a fortune and hope that everything will be all right.

'The main thing,' he told me, 'is to protect the irresponsible lending industry which has made Great Britain what it is today. The Government must take the lead before it is too late! I mean, how will anyone afford a new BMW if they can't borrow the money against the value of their home? They can't all have an accident at work and sue their employer!'

I asked him just how much he thought the Government would end up borrowing. He wasn't sure but he thought it was roughly equal to around three quarters of the entire economic output of the planet. I suggested that this sounded like rather a lot. 'That's nothing', he said, 'the American will soon owe about four times the entire economic output of the solar system. Apparently they are having to invent a new number to express it.'

There was just one thing I didn't understand, however. Who are we actually borrowing all this money from? Toby wasn't certain. 'The Chinese, I think. Probably.' But doesn't this put the Chinese in rather a powerful position? 'Only if we pay it back' he said with a smile.

Come Dancing

Britain was rocked this week by the scandal involving the continued participation of John Sargeant in the celebrity ballroom show Strictly Come Dancing. John is a hopeless dancer but the viewing public, who are now chronically and in my view very healthily unable to take telephone votes seriously, kept voting for him to continue in the show. His competitors complained, suggesting that the show was all about the dancing (which is why they hired a bunch of b-list celebs instead of actual dancers) and John was forced to fall on his sword. The whole episode brought back bad memories for yours truly. Yes, a similar thing happened to me back in the 50s when I was disqualified from the National Hokey-Cokey championship for putting it in when I should have been shaking it all about.

Further down the news schedules, naturally, I have noticed numerous government ministers, Labour Party backbenchers and various apologists have been working hard to rechristen the dog's breakfast that used to be the British economy 'the global financial crisis which started in America.' This is known in the trade as the 'I never done nuffink, honest' defence (it is similar to the 'A bigger boy made me do it' defence which they used after the Iraq war went pear shaped), and it is popular amongst governments of all stripes because it lets you blame the Americans for everything. For the millionth time I find myself thankful that the government no longer employs spin since Honest Gordon took over.

Gordon has been accusing the Tories of 'lacking compassion' for pointing out that it might not be wise to respond to a crisis caused by irresponsible borrowing with a massive splurge paid for with irresponsible borrowing, as someone might ask for it to be paid back. I have a great deal of sympathy for Gordon's view. My own family has suffered quite severely recently thanks to some dubious investments and I shall be attempting to cheer them up by buying them fabulously extravagant Christmas presents. I can't afford this, obviously, but I have solved this problem - I have already stolen their credit card details and that will easily cover the cost!

Polling

The financial crisis is causing problems for the organizers of the London 2012 Olympics who fear that they may have to scale back on their plans. I was speaking yesterday with one of Boris Johnson's advisers about some of the cost-cutting schemes that are being considered. Shockingly, they are even contemplating changes to the events themselves. The Boxing will now include all other forms of packaging. On the same theme we will be stockpiling decommissioned barbed wire from Guantanamo Bay once it has been closed to be used in the Fencing. And the athletics will now climax with Underarm Javelin. He also passed on a bit of gossip about the British women's Badminton champion. He says that she has had a difficult year – it has been all shuttle and no fun at all.

Meanwhile, I visited one of our local Territorial Army bases earlier in the week to mark Armistice Day. While I was there, I met a young female soldier. Now you may think that this would be a problem for an old traditionalist like me, but you would be wrong. Back in the last war, I served with several admirable women officers when I was being trained to handle bazookas. So are meeting went very well, despite one small misunderstanding when she misheard something I said while I was reminiscing about my wartime experiences. All was well, however, when I explained that I had said V.E!

I had a little shock this week when I discovered that my Personal Assistant Jemima has joined the Liberal Democrats and has been helping out with in local constituency ahead of an upcoming by-election. It is a strong Tory area, of course, so there is little hope of making an impact; indeed she says that she and the elderly prospective candidate have been doing a lot of polling together and that he expects to lose his deposit!

Onwards to the Future!!

 Well, with Barak Obama’s Presidency of the United States in sight, I’m pleased to see that he is getting down to business. He is already putting into practice his first scheme to raise funds with which to fill the hole in the public finances. He has gone into business as a flag salesman albeit with a fairly limited range – you can see some of them in the picture to the right.

The race is already on for a share of the spoils. I shared a train carriage yesterday with a Democratic Party official with whom I am acquainted and I took the opportunity to ask which names I should be looking out for. It seems that another old acquaintance of mine, Laurence Summers, is in line for the job of Treasury Secretary. I remember sharing several enjoyable evenings with Laurence, and Lady Collar of course, back when I was advising the government of the day on waste disposal policy, engaging in some blue skies thinking over dinner as to how to deal with the growing rubbish mountain. On one occasion I’m afraid I had rather too much Port and opined that we should send all our garbage to the Third World! It’s funny the things you say, isn’t it. A little later, when Lady Collar had gone to bed, I shared with him my grandfather’s theory, from the days when he lead the brave fight against those dangerous extremists in the Suffragettes, that the real reason why woman did not appear in positions of power and influence was because they didn’t work as hard as men and because they weren’t very good at arithmetic and so forth. How we laughed! I often wonder why he lost his position as President of Harvard but it seems that the University’s loss will be America’s gain!

Laurence has served his country before, of course, as one of Clinton’s Treasury Secretaries. I’m pleased to see that, like Her Majesty’s government, Barak Obama can see that the way to get out of the financial crisis is to employ as many as possible of the people who got us into it. In this spirit, he is also considering employing Timothy Geithner, who is the current head of the New York Federal Reserve bank and who helped to dream up the idea of giving the banks $700 billion to pay to themselves as bonuses. Some have argued that appointing Geithner would be failing to deliver change. This is nonsense. Geithner will have changed from a very rich banker into a very rich government minister. What more can you ask?

The Labour View - The Most Meaningful Moment in History

I had the great fortune to be able to speak today about the week's momentous events with an old Civil Rights Activist from the Southern State of Mississippi who happened to be in Britain this week. 'I never thought,' she told me with a tear in her eye, 'that I would live to see the day when Gordon Brown would win a by-election!' She went on to tell me that she thought Labour's win in Glenrothes was probably the most meaningful event ever.

The voters of Fife voted for Change, wisely recognizing that having Gordon as Prime Minister is totally different from having Gordon as Chancellor of the Exchequer – just as the Russians bravely voted to change President Vladimir Putin for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin earlier in the year. The rest of the world has responded to this brave lead – the people of New Zealand have elected a new government and apparently the Americans have done too. The new President is Barak Obama, and he is the first man ever to win an election by not being George W. Bush. Of course his opponent, John McCain, isn't George W. Bush either but the People could see clearly that he was less not George W. Bush than Obama is. Now all we have to do is hope that all of the problems of the world actually were Dubya's fault so, fingers crossed everyone!

I don't think I'm breaking any confidences if I tell you that one of Barak's first acts as President Elect was to receive a call from Gordon Brown himself, who gave valuable advice on how to solve the credit crisis. This involves cutting interest rates so that the banks can borrow money cheaply from other banks and lend it to people who can't afford to pay it back so that they can buy houses which they can't afford and start pushing house prices back up to levels that can't be sustained because that will make everything all right again. The only problem is that none of the banks have any money to lend to the other banks. Gordon has shown the world that this is easy to solve; simply give them lots of taxpayers money. Gordon is confident that Barak will see the wisdom of this little work of genius. As I always say, fight fire with fire, and fight irresponsible lending with irresponsible lending!

Incidentally, I hear that Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula 1 supremo, and dedicated tobacco promoter has been offering Gordon Brown some presentational advice. He suggested that Gordon should capitalize on the success of Barak Obama and Lewis Hamilton by blacking up and wearing a curly wig. 'Everyone would understand that it was just a little joke,' explained Bernie, 'and it is not like he'll be getting whipped by five prostitutes or anything like that.'

Election Campaigns are Great

An election, you say? In America? Well, they kept that quiet! Yes, it is true. In just two more days, campaigning begins for the 2012 election for President of the United States. And we already know what the key question of that election will be;

Canvasser : Will you be voting for Sarah Palin?
Voter : Sarah who?

I was actually approached during the week to offer some advice for the Palin for President 2012 campaign. I suggested a couple of possible slogans. “Palin – she puts the Ass in Alaska!” and “Vote Palin, or she'll shoot!”

Meanwhile, I have been chatting to one of my City chums about the government's ongoing attempts to rescue the banking industry. He is most appreciative of Gordon Brown's efforts. He says that the few jobless bankers who have not been given jobs in the government will soon be gainfully employed by the new beefed-up regulators. I asked him if he agreed that a lack of regulators had helped to cause the credit crunch. He was surprised at the question. “Of course not,” he said, shaking his head at my ignorance, “the regulators didn't intervene because they all thought the bankers were right. How were they supposed to know that letting the banks lend money they didn't have to people who couldn't pay it back might not be the most prudent idea?” No, it seems that the push to put lots of new regulation in place is in fact a clever taxpayer-funded job creation scheme for. This is a very clever idea, I must concede. After all, lets face it, they are unqualified to work in any real industry and it would cost substantially more to retrain them to work flipping burgers or stacking shelves.

I also heard this week that scientists have been working as hard as ever and have discovered that love and hate is caused by the same chemical in the brain. I already knew this. The chemical is called alcohol and it is one of nature's greatest miracles!

The Nuclear Option

I spent a very pleasant lunchtime today with one of the few people in the country who is making any money. He works for British Energy, which is owned, naturally enough, by the French and which stands to benefit greatly from the UK government decision to build lots of new nuclear power stations. This is being sold as a way of fighting climate change but is really because we shall soon run out of power and will be reduced to the level of Burkina Faso or California.

He completely denies the more colourful rumours about the dangers of nuclear power. I asked him if it might be the case that living in proximity to a nuclear power station might increase he risk of infertility in men. “Bing,” he told me in a reassuring tone of voice, “I have spent my entire working life at Sellafield and Sizewell B and I can assure you that my testicles function as well as ever. All three of them.”

I was still a bit worried about the environmentalists. He wasn't concerned. In fact, he was quite pleased with himself over the cunning plan to pass this off as being environmentally friendly instead of being the harbinger of the apocalypse. And just in case the greens get all stroppy again they have a backup plan which involves putting windmills on the cooling towers, which will be able to power ever single emergency exit light in the plant for twelve hours per day so long as it is windy. They won't be able to argue with that!

The Truth is out There

Good News! The United Kingdom has made yet another invaluable contribution to humanity's exploration of Outer Space. Bravely ignoring the fact that that no trace of alien life has been found by anyone outside the American Midwest and Gloucestershire (which is the British equivalent), a scientist called Doctor John Elliott has convinced somebody to give him funding for his new Alien Language Translation programme. This will allow us to communicate with aliens, should they exist and should they even speak a language at all. Personally I think Dr Elliott might be wasting his time. If Aliens do arrive somewhere over our little island I can confidently predict that we will try to communicate with him/her/it by speaking slowly and loudly in English and expecting him/her/it to understand, in the time-honoured fashion.


I had a deeply disturbing shock when I spoke to one of my Irish friends today – I had telephoned to ask if he knew any good banks in which I might hide some of my money in an attempt to exploit the Irish Government's savings guarantee. He told me to pour a stiff drink and sit down before he told me his news – and how grateful I was for the warning! It turns out that Irish ministers have betrayed their counterparts around the world by voting to take a 10% pay cut! Yes, you did read that right. It is appalling. Or so I thought. It turns out that they have also massively increased tax rates on the rich, the poor and the middle classes so they'd probably never have seen that extra 10% anyway.


Before I go, I had an interesting request to support an important and consequential campaign – take a look. Proof, if it were needed, that the world's crackpots and wierdos aren't going to let the small matter of the end of capitalism distract them from what's really important!

Out of the Frying Pan

It has been another dodgy week for the economy. The only people who have made any money at all have been photographers taking pictures of despairing city traders.

I have been chatting this weekend to an old friend of mine who 'retired' from his banking job in the City last year, with an adequate pension and several useful little share options after a small piece of bad luck when his firm hired the last scrupulous accountant in London and the wretched man told the shareholders what was really going on. As it happens, he is an acquaintance of the newly minted Lord Myners, Minister for the City and, entirely coincidentally, donor to Gordon Brown's campaign to become leader of the Labour Party in an uncontested election. (I understand that Labour's election strategists are considering the slogan 'I can't believe its not Democracy!')

Anyway, my former banker chum has been filling me in on the gossip from the Prime Minister's new National Economic Council, also known as the real government of the UK. I understand that the first idea they considered, proposed by Labour's fundraising unit, was to raise additional capital for the banks by selling off seats in the House of Lords. This was rejected on the grounds that they've already sold so many of them that you can get one for a hundred quid down Camden Market, or twenty if you're prepared to make do with a shoddily made Vietnamese copy.

The next idea, proposed by keen football fan Alistair Darling, was to find a rich Arab, Indian or even Russian to take the country over in the manner of a Premier League football club, many of which have almost as much debt as the country. Alistair even proposed that the deal could be sweetened by changing the country's name slightly to Kingdom United – hardly anyone would even notice. You might think the idea of buying a country is silly but the USA once bought Alaska, and had they not then the world's last great superpower would have been deprived of the singer Jewel, the wolf-themed movie classic White Fang starring Ethan Hawke, and the comedy politician and power-abuser Sarah Palin. But this plan was scuppered too – somebody pointed out that if an Arab wanted to take over a country he could pick Iceland up for next to nothing. Plus it is tidier than Britain, it is getting bigger every year due to volcanic activity, and the women are both taller and blonder. Except for Bjork, who my PA Jemima tells me is a popular singer like Nana Mouskouri or Helen Shapiro.

Then, just as they were beginning to lose hope, they turned to the great man himself, Lord Myners. And so the greatest idea in modern British history was born. The banks got us into this mess by lending money they didn't have to people who couldn't pay it back. The government will get us out of this mess by lending money they don't have to banks who can't afford to pay it back. And so the circle of life is complete!

I asked my friend if he thought this plan would work. 'Of course,' he said, 'it certainly made me rich!'

It's that man again!

Gordon Brown has, in what can only be regarded as an act of genius (insane genius, perhaps but genius nonetheless) moved decisively to tackle the financial crisis. He says he wants to invent a new way of governing, apparently by replacing the elected government with an appointed one.


Spearheading this new dawn will be none other than Peter Mandelson. This has caused some surprise due to the well known animosity between the great man and the Prime Minister. They both acknowledged that they have 'had their ups and downs', in rather the same way that Stalin had his ups and downs with Hitler.


But, I hear you ask, how can Peter be brought back into government when he is no longer a Member of Parliament? Well, this small problem has been solved by making him into a peer of the realm in accordance with the old British tradition of ennobling failed politicians who the current leadership thinks it needs for some reason. This saves him the bother of getting elected and, as an additional bonus his seat in the House of Lords is, thanks to the Labour Party's far-sighted reforms, a salaried position. After all, who can get by on a mere Minister's salary these days? Especially when your chances of a nice directorship in the City are fading faster every day. They can't even afford to employ useful people anymore!


Lord Mandelson is, of course, uniquely qualified to deal with the current crisis, having once had to resign from government after lying on a mortgage application for a house he couldn't possibly afford.


Also elevated to the House of Lords and given a job in the government is a chap called Paul Myners. His qualification for a job in government is that he is the only person left in the country who has any money – he is the director of a hedge fund firm who have made a fortune at everybody else's expense by short selling shares in banks in a welcome demonstration to the rest of us of how to get by in hard times. He also gave £12700 to Gordon Brown's campaign to become leader of the Labour Party. Some might say that this was rather a large donation considering that there was no actual leadership election as Gordon was the only candidate, so you might think that Paul can't have needed to spend all that much. I hear that the chaps in the city were wondering if he might have lost his knack for making money. How wrong they were! Seats in government don't come cheap, you know! And even a seat in this government is more secure than a job in the City.


Incidentally, for those of you unfamiliar with aristocratic rank, a lord is somewhat lower than a prince but slightly higher than a prince of darkness, so in Peter's case that makes it a promotion.

History Repeating

We live in a terribly cynical age but I for one do not believe that McCain was merely trying to score points when he announced that he would be breaking off his campaign to work on the credit crisis. After all, he is old enough to remember the terrible consequences of that other great stock market crash, when the South Sea Bubble burst in 1720. You can see a young John pictured to the right.

Of course back then people got into trouble by thinking they could get rich through investing in companies that wanted to make guns that fired square cannonballs or buying up the Irish Bogs. There was even a company which convinced speculators to invest £2000 “For carrying on an undertaking of great advantage but nobody knows what it is.” So you can see that people in the eighteenth century made much more sensible investment decisions than those at the start of the twenty first. Of course the big difference is that back then the trouble started as a cunning plan to reduce government debt while this time we are trying to solve the problem by massively increasing government debt. The other difference of course is that back then hundreds of politicians lost their shirts while this time they have cleverly ensured that the taxpayer will carry the can. We've come a long way in three centuries!

The weeks events have had the effect of making the Chinese into the western world's main creditor and they have been celebrating this new status with their flashy new space program. This week they conducted their first ever spacewalk, boldly going where no man has gone for a couple of weeks, successfully dragging the country into the 1950s. Still, it's considerably more impressive than us Europeans. We've had to make do with a chap from Switzerland flying across the English Channel strapped to a jet powered ironing board. You can see him here!

As for myself, I enjoyed a small party at home. My PA Jemima offered to provide the entertainment – she she has been taking dancing lessons and wanted to show off what she had learned. I was a bit concerned when she told me she was going to do the dance of the seven voles. “Don't you mean veils?” I asked. “That's funny,” she replied, “That's just what the man in the pet shop said!” Mind you, I would love to know how she got those voles twirling in both directions at the same time!

It's a Rich Man's World

It's been a tough week in the city, and indeed on Wall Street and around the world, all summed up in the Financial Times' headline on Thursday, “We're all F*****d!!” However, I am happy to say that the worst is over.

I must say that it is very wise of the taxpayers on both sides of the Atlantic to bail out those poor chaps in the financial sector who have had such bad luck lately. After all, if it had not been for the generous lending practices of these great financial institutions many of those same taxpayers would never have had the experience of owning their own home, nor of having that home repossessed. Lending non-existent money to people who can't afford to pay you back may seem like criminal stupidity to the untrained eye but you must remember that bankers have their trophy wives to pay for and the bonuses one makes when one restricts oneself to sane practices just don't cut the mustard. One doesn't want to have to make do with a Filipino. Besides, if the banks go out of business then the government won't be able to borrow the money they need to prop up the banks! Then where would we be?

Some of the chaps have lost their jobs, though. We shouldn't feel too sorry for them, however. After all, they apparently were not very good at it and they will probably all be much happier following careers running whelk stalls, or in politics. The recruitment agencies have been busy – there was great excitement when a rumour went round that there may be one now former banker from Ireland who once successfully organized a piss up in the Guinness factory. Sadly, the story turned out to be apocryphal.

The Labour View - Trouble in Paradise

It has been a traumatic week in the Labour Party. Things cannot go on as before. Decisive action is called for. That is why some of us have grasped the nettle and taken the bull by the horns (not both at the same time, obviously) Already a number of senior figures have joined this bold move - like Joan Ryan and Barry Gardiner. I looked them up – apparently they are both in the Labour Party! Joan held the vitally important role of Gordon Brown's envoy to Cyprus (I hear she spent a very week there in 1976) and Barry was Gordon's forestry envoy, as he has a lovely apple tree in his back garden. Anyway, all of us are united in the belief that we need the party needs to act and we have decided on a course of action. We have written to the Party asking for nomination forms to be issued for an new election for the leadership in the hope of, um, provoking a debate over the future direction of the government or something like that. Hopefully one of the Party's big names like..oh what's he called..ah, yes, David Miliband will respond by throwing his hat into the ring. Incidentally, David has had some success recently in his quest to find someone who has heard of him. He has revealed that he had a lively exchange with the Russian foreign minister who accused him of having, “No F*****g idea about Russian History”. David was pleased, remarking that his Russian counterpart seems to know everything about him!

Not that our actions this week should be seen as an act of disloyalty. No! Gordon is a fine leader, one of the finest this country has ever been lucky enough to have. He has been badly let down, in my opinion, by the voters, who seem unable to appreciate his qualities. I suspect he is the victim of hidden racism against his Scottishness – he is just like Martin Luther King, really!

That said, my intervention has certainly struck a chord. My inbox is bulging. I have already received an e-mail from a T. Blair congratulating me and wishing me luck, one from a Mr. B. Obama wanting to know if I would be interested in hosting a neighbourhood fundraising coffee morning and one from a Mr. Bankole from Lagos offering me a large amount of money if I give him my bank details. I forwarded this last one to the Treasury – I think it could become the centrepiece of our new economic policy!

Proper Jobs

I was talking the other day to a friend of mine who owns a recruitment company. He was telling me that he had been contacted by a local council who wanted to recruit something called an Education Centre Nourishment Production Assistant. This turned out to mean a dinner lady at a local school. Really! In the old days people had proper jobs like Miner, Engineer and Lord Privy Seal! No wonder the country is such a mess!

Meanwhile, I see Gordon Brown has been doing his bit for the McCain campaign by giving Senator Obama the kiss of death by praising him in a magazine article. Obama immediately protested about Brown's intervention and insisted that Gordon issue a statement of support for John McCain. I telephoned an old friend of mine in New York to ask him what he made of this. He said, 'Gordon who?'

I also noticed an interesting story from Morocco where a chap has been jailed for writing in a blog criticizing the king. As if this were not bad enough, another Moroccan is languishing in prison having set up a facebook profile, whatever that is, in the name of one of the King's brothers. Imagine, someone being dishonest enough to impersonate a dignitary on the internet in this way! Appalling! It would never happen in this country!

One thing we have learned this week, though, is that you can put lipstick on a pig but it will still be a pig. Except that it will be considerably more attractive and capable of achieving high political office!

Hope from the Frontier!

Since American politics went all Monty Python last week, I hear that the Labour Party have been busily trying to copy John McCain's masterstroke in bringing in Sarah Palin to liven up his campaign. Harriet Harman has, apparently, booked snowmobile lessons, Hazel Blears has been seen toting a massive sub machine gun around the Department for Communities, whatever that is, and I hear that Dawn Primarolo has renamed her children Avenue, Handbag and Cat-flap, all in imitation of the Alaskan Wonder. They've also sent a delegation to the Shetland Islands after hearing about a fundamentalist gun-nut who came second in the Miss Lerwick contest in 1978 and who only wears clothes that she has trapped herself, hoping to offer her the Deputy Prime Minister's position. She turned out to be a Scottish Nationalist and told them to get stuffed.

I was reading today about the disgrace that has fallen upon my Alma Mater, Harrow school, who have had to expel their head boy for drug taking. This would certainly never have happened in my day. No! One might Tolley up before Trials, spend extra time in the Ducker trying to get into Torpids or wear one's Bluers, Greyers and Dossers but one would never want to make the school look foolish in this way! Besides, how would you know what the hell everyone was talking about if you were off your face?

I was discussing this the other day with an old school chum called Oliver who went into Advertising, although he is now celebrating the tenth anniversary of his lucrative early retirement. I asked him what he though of the state of his old industry; not much, as it turned out. As evidence of its decline, he offered the following example. Pizza express had a recent campaign which claimed that, “nothing says I love you like a pizza” - Oliver says he once meet a man who claimed that he had taught his dog to say “I love you” and frankly that had impressed him rather more. I disagreed with him. My PA Jemima says that she had a delightful evening last Valentines day when her boyfriend, having seen this advert, took her to Pizza Express and offered her a meat feast!

Python for President

Having dipped my toes in the festering waters of US politics, I feel duty bound to offer a Republican comment by way of balance. Luckily, John McCain has actually managed to do something surprising enough to get a bit of notice in the press. He has named his own Vice-Presidential candidate. Her name is Sarah Palin, the niece of the famous Monty Python satirist Eric Idle. With a firm grounding in the 1960s satire boom and a successful television and movie career before writing one of the most successful musicals to hit Broadway in decades, Sarah makes a welcome addition to the Republican ticket. She would surely be the best qualified Vice President since internet-inventor Al Gore. There is no truth in the rumour that celebrity non-Vice Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has exploded.

Meanwhile, back in Blighty, nothing much has changed. The Foreign Secretary David Milliband has been in the Ukraine, trying to find somebody who has heard of him. Gordon Brown, meanwhile, has wisely been keeping well clear of the Russian Business and has instead been enjoying the delights of China, hobnobbing with gold medal winning Olympians and hoping that some of the Boris Johnston magic will rub off on him.

My contacts tell me that he has a new plan for regaining the political initiative. He hopes to acquire one of those big booming microphones that make Barak Obama's emptiest platitudes sound deeply profound. This would allow Gordon to win the next election without going to the trouble of thinking up any policies. I fear, however, that this his plan is doomed to failure – Cameron has already got there before him! Ah well, as Sarah Palin would say - "Always look on the bright side of life!"

VP?

I normally refrain from commenting on American politics – not my area of expertise, you know – but I see that young Barak Obama has picked an old acquaintance of mine as his running mate for the Presidency. I remember meeting Joe Biden back in'87 when I was visiting America and he was running his own Presidential campaign. He asked me if I had any good ideas for a speech. I was a bit jetlagged, I must admit, and I fobbed him off with some piece of guff I'd heard from Neil Kinnock – well, I wasn't going to give him any of the good stuff, was I? I never heard how that speech went for Joe.

Kinnock, of course, went on to lose the unloseable election. I'm sure it won't be an omen, though. In adding Joe to the ticket, Barak has recruited a man who is so electorally popular that ,when the votes in the Iowa Caucuses were counted, he managed to poll almost a whole percent.

Meanwhile, the Olympic Games are bound for Great Britain! And what a fine display the British Olympic Association put on during the closing ceremony in Beijing! It was a stroke of genius – who better to sum up Britain's youthful energy and creativity than that young popular musician Jimmy Page? And who better to sum up British sporting prowess than the celebrity 'footballer' David Beckham whose performance in watching the European Championships from his home in LA was so impressive during the summer? And to think that some people are worried about London's ability to live up to Beijing!

As the credit crunch continues to bite, I have decided to offer a few more tips as to how to weather the storm.

1) Have an accident at work; fall off a ladder or fall over a piece of carelessly discarded packaging for example. Then you can sue your employer for a few hundred grand. You needn't feel guilty – it is your right and they'll be driven out of business before long by the high oil price anyway. I recommend my son's new law firm. If you are a home owner, he can also arrange you a no-questions asked loan should you want to take a holiday, fill your tank with petrol or pay off all the other loans that you got even though you couldn't afford to pay it back.

2) Open a law firm specializing in convincing people to sue their employers over insignificant accidents that were nobody's fault.

3) Start offering dodgy loans to people who can't afford them – even if things go tits-up the government will bail you out for the good of the economy.

4) Get elected as an MEP – there is no money in being at Westminster any more. If you are Labour and in favour of keeping the John Lewis list then you've only got a few months till you're voted out and if you're a Tory then Cameron is going to make you give up your expenses! And just because that's what the taxpayers want! I really don't know what has happened to this country. If you are in the European Parliament the everyone knows you are corrupt but nobody can muster the enthusiasm to give a stuff so you are on the pig's back!

The Labour View

Hello loyal readers! Let me introduce myself – Harry Collar, great-nephew of the great Sir Bingham. When I decided to follow the family profession and go into politics in the nineties, Bing (or uncle Sir Bingham KBE, as I know him) wisely advised me to join the Labour party, having seen which way the wind was blowing ie. Ineffectually, from the mouth of Norman Lamont. As a result of following this wise advice, I have enjoyed a long career at the heart of power as a Special Adviser (spin doctor to you) to various Labour ministers. I could have been a minister myself but decided that I wanted to be able to wield some actual power.

Anyhow, Sir Bingham, in the interests of fairness (something we take very seriously here in the UK), has asked me to offer a few thoughts about the current political landsacpe. Well, it has been a very difficult few months for those of us who work for the Labour Party – although obviously none of it is our fault. The irresponsible news media we now have has been blaming us for things over which we have no control. Take Ed Balls' problems over the SATS tests which has been entirely blamed on Ed just because he is the minister responsible for schools.

This really is most unfair - Ed has had to take the blame for something which is clearly the fault of ETS - the private company contracted to do the marking. The whole point of such outsourcing responsibility to whatever bunch of gangsters produces the glossiest brochure is so that ministers don't have to take the blame! But do the press understand that? No. They want to blame the government just because we were elected to run the country and it was our idea to sell the contract in the first place. And, as a result, Ed will not be in a good position to succeed to the leadership should Gordon have to stand down – robbing the country of one of the finest political leaders of his generation. However, I believe the British people won't be fooled and will continue to support Gordon. I have already suggested the slogan for our next general election campaign - “Labour got us into this mess, Labour will get us out of it!”

It is true that, thanks to the childishness of the press, the leadership has become an issue. There is no denying it. Sir Bingham has asked me to run the rule over the contenders now that Balls is out of the running; Miliband, Harman, Straw and Johnson. Once I had looked them up in 'Who's Who' I came to the conclusion that any of them would make an equally fine leader and I have been diligent in contacting each of them to let them know, as well as e-mailing the PM's office to reassure them that this in no way contradicts my belief that Gordon is one of the finest leaders this country has had since Tony Blair; one who could continue in high office for many years yet. That said, I have been particularly impressed by Miliband's performance on the world stage as he has visited numerous countrys on Britain's behalf to meet foreign dignitaries and tell them who he is. Once I had looked him up, I also remembered that I once had the pleasure of accompanying Alan Johnson on a visit to my local hospital where he met some nurses and told them who he was. Harriet Harman, meanwhile, seems just lovely and Jack Straw wears glasses, which always makes someone look impressively intelligent, I think. Any one of them could be a terrific Prime Minister – as good as Gordon Brown, in fact. Yes, the future looks bright! Things can only get better!

holidays

Gordon Brown is off on holiday, sensibly showing how in touch with the common man he is by remaining in Britain instead of swanning off to stay at some sun-drenched luxury villa owned by Silvio Burlosconi or Cliff Richard or one of the Bee Gees like Tony Blair used to. Unfortunately this only serves to remind everyone that they are now too poor to be able to holiday overseas and are having to put up with Margate or Bognor Regis. What Gordon doesn't understand is that people in this country want their leaders to be aspirational – even if all they aspire to is to live like a king at someone else's expense.

I discussed this today over lunch with my old friend Ted, a stalwart of the Labour Party in the great days of the seventies when he wouldn't have been seen dead having lunch anywhere other than a greasy spoon which served tea in mugs – this being how one displayed one's connection with the common man in the old days. Luckily, a few years as a New Labour Peer has done wonders for his taste. Incidentally, I once asked him about the irony of an old socialist like him being an unelected member of parliament but he stoutly defended his position, arguing that by replacing the hereditary peerage with a system of patronage for sale the Labour Party had successfully dragged the House of Lords out of the middle ages and into the eighteenth century – an excellent example of modernization! He takes the same position towards outsourcing and PFI. Selling off the right to run prisons and so on worked perfectly well when Walpole was Prime Minister, he says, so why not now? Besides, if you don't let the private sector run things then you have to let ministers do it, and most of them couldn't run a bath. You can't argue with reasoning like that, can you?

I took the opportunity to ask him who he thought would be the next leader of the Labour Party; Milliband, Harman, Johnson or Straw? Once I had reminded him who each of them is, he offered the opinion that it didn't matter who it was so long as the Labour Party won. “After all,” he said, “Labour is the party of the poor and there are a lot more of them about now!”

Great Political Leadership

I see that nice Barak Obama has been in Britain hoping that some of the Gordon Brown magic will rub off on him. They had a two hour meeting in which Gordon treated the young Senator to a run down of his greatest achievements as head of government. The pictures released afterwards displayed Barak's remarkable ability to keep a straight face – a quality that him will serve him well if he wins the presidency and has to be polite to George Bush in public. In the interests of political impartiality, Barak was careful to acknowledge all of Britains national political parties. His visit was split into three parts. There was the Labour visit, the Conservative visit, and tea and biscuits.

The Labour Party have, while all this has been going on, been running the rule over prospective new leaders, still convinced that they are not really unpopular at all, it is just Gordon Brown's fault. They are trying to think of ways to get Gordon to resign. Plan number one appears to be to get Geoff Hoon to tell him he should leave. Once Gordon has remembered who Geoff Hoon is, he would listen to Geoff's message that only a great statesman such as Gordon would have the courage to stand down in the interests of party and country, following those great wartime leaders, Neville Chamberlain and Anthony Eden. They would then be able to draw a veil over the whole Brown leadership, assuming Jack Straw doesn't object. Jack is, in fact, seen in some quarters as the energetic young leader that the country needs (John McCain is said to be watching the situation closely, although he suspects that, at 61, Jack might benefit from another thirty years experience just to make sure he's ready). The other option is Alan Johnson – a man who is such a charismatic natural leader that he came second in the race to replace John Prescott! Go on Labour Party, I dare you!

Awkward Questions

Children ask the most awkward questions, don't they. I was watching the news at lunchtime with my little grand-nephew – they were reporting on Radovan Karadzic's welcome arrest. He asked me, “Why is that man disguised as Santa Claus?” An excellent question, I thought. I assume it is because he intends to defend himself and, as he will be incarcerated and will not have the opportunity to purchase a barrister's wig and presumably intends to weave one out of beard hair.

The little chap then asked me why old men wear their trousers higher than younger men, which was a bit close to home. Not to mention the armpits. It is true though...I have an uncle who has to breathe through his flies.

Then he asked me why people tie tin cans to newlywed's cars? I explained that this was because it causes a fuss when they tie them to hearses.

Grown ups ask much more sensible ones. To illustrate the point, a friend of mine asked me the other day why women don't faint as much as they used too. That one was easy. I said it was because it isn't as big as it used to be!

Too much of a good thing?

In the Telegraph on Sunday there was a piece headlined “Heroin, crack and Prada shoes”. I was surprised. I had thought that the Tory Party conference wasn't due to start until October! Reading on I discovered that I had been mistaken. It was instead a heart-rending exploration of the problems experienced by rich drug addicts. These tortured souls are much worse off than than their counterparts on the country's inner city estates, the article explained. Apparently this is because the poor either run out of money or get put in prison before they die. The rich are doomed to snort, smoke and inject themselves into oblivion without once benefiting from the advantages of a spell sleeping in somebody's doorway to get them back on the straight and narrow. How gratifying to see the liberal media for once acknowledging the problems of being rich!

Data

I see that the Ministry of Defence has had to admit to losing hundreds of computer disks, memory sticks and suchlike, the latest in a long line of data to be lost by the government. This is no bad thing. In my days at the Ministry it used to be only senior Civil Servants and Ministers who could read reports on the state of the nation's defences, intelligence reports on M.P.s and so forth, normally when we wanted to have a good laugh. Now, everyone who travels by train can help themselves! I recommend the 11.23 to Edinburgh, as this is where most government ministers live these days. Just last week I was able to peruse the Treasury's latest economic forecasts, written almost entirely in red ink, as well as a memory card on which I found Gordon Brown's plans for turning around his government's fortunes. Amazing how small they can make these devices, isn't it?