Can we burn the fiddlers yet?

"Swedish unemployment suddenly jumped from 5.9 per cent to 8.1 per cent"

Seasonally adjusted?

Anatole Kaletsky sounds an optimistic note concerning the world economy. Personally I'm a pessimist, but mainly relating to the UK economy. Others around the world will continue to grow as the banks reign in UK spending and the housing market goes way way down.

Yet what is interesting to me about the Swedish statistics is that they are so dramatic. I suppose it could be a routine matter, relating to the end of university courses in June/July, but if so then why is it highlighted?

The more I see of statistics in governments, the more I question. Of course I know there are lies, damned lies, etc, but I think that that very truism has been exploited to the limit. After all, when statistics are massaged- and dahhling they obviously are- you're left to "trust" the masseurs. But the truth is that at the end all statistics mean something concrete to someone somewhere and are not just means of manipulating paltry currents of franchise- ie. voters.

An interesting thing that Kaletsky points to is the division between economists and financiers- the latter being the pessimists- " The consensus view among economists, as opposed to financiers, at present is that the United States is experiencing, at worst, a mild recession"... . It occurs to me that that's because financiers are the ones who are performing the sums and to whom these sums have real-life consequences. Declining fortunes are real-life enough. Future income opportunities are real-life enough.

It all brings me nicely to Richard North's post about data manipulation. It rather disappoints me (naive as I must be) that people resort to crude data manipulation. It's a brutal but effective way of coralling those you distrust and dislike, and it doesn't require a terrible deal of intellect. Most boring and most damaging- I think it will be seen as most criminal too, in the long run.

That UK Janus face again

Complicated country, Britain.

As we enter a new year, Mark Steyn picks up two stories which show the two sides of Britain:

The NHS worshipping side, and the martially soaring spirit.

See, what we need is to divert a little of the latter to rip into the former, and then we'd be kicking, so to speak.

Economic woes.

There is a list of things as long as your arm that could outline what Gordon Brown has done to bring the British economy to its current perilous pass. Of course, listing them here would require a little too much Googling for today... (If the state of Gordon-critiquing were better I am sure I would have them off the top of my head by now. (dis)Honourable mention here for the BBC for being such a good shill for Gordon over the years. It's what they do, you know).

The Telegraph notes, in an article typically headlined according to the personality involved, "The banking crisis of 1973 was one of the key factors that led to Mr Heath's government losing the 1974 election."

Mmm. 1973. Here we go again.

Britain overspun

Today saw Mrs Thatcher visiting Downing Street, welcomed by Gordon Brown. Gordon has clearly learnt a few things from Tony Blair.

This convenient publicity gives Gordon the chance to wrong-foot the Conservatives, that much is clear. It also, I think, demonstrates that the repeated disloyalty of the Conservatives to the substance of the 80's transformation means that Mrs T. has no reason to side with them against Gordon.

Mrs Thatcher, it's true, was barely middle class in the context of Britain when she was growing up. Middle class for Grantham, yes, but that was a town well down the pecking order of desirable societies.

So if Mrs T. welcomes opportunities to have meetings with the marketising socialists, it's no real surprise. She isn't a Tory, like Cameron, after all.

But if she imagines that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown actually oversee a real continuation of her approach to society, she's quite misled (and anyway, we know there's no such thing as society). Not surprising, at her age.

One interesting indicator of Gordon Brown's approach came today as the UN adopted a treaty on "native rights". There was a very plain group of countries voting against- the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Is it conceivable that under Margaret Thatcher Britain wouldn't have voted with them? Well, almost, but only as a tactic and a short term one at that.

It's not clear whether the UK might have abstained, and it is a non-binding agreement , but it's interesting to note that many countries who have at least as much to lose as the four who voted against the agreement must have voted for it. Countries in South America, for instance. Heaven knows what "indigenous peoples" might mean when applied to Europe.

And that's the thing- most of the countries that voted for the agreement would lose something were they to follow the rules they sign to- non-binding really just means that there will be no mechanism for enforcement. Thus it must be, either we have a lot of selfless neighbours in the world, or most have signed in blithe bad faith. The latter is my guess, which is why we need the anglosphere. Which is why it really means something when we ignore them. Which is why I say that the direction of this country is basically heading towards hunkering down in a hypocritical, two-faced, socialist Europe. That sucks, actually.

Gordon's feet of clay.

It has pained me to see people writing Iraq off as a failure. Recently, it has pained me even more to see Prime Minister Gordon Brown give the orders for the British to get ready to leave Iraq.

It does seem foolish to leave at a time when this can be construed as failure, when our allies still need us, but even more so when it is considered that Iraq may be on the verge of a breakthrough.

Yesterday GW Bush met with his own secretaries of Defence and State, his Generals in Iraq, and the Iraqi Gvt.- all in the province of Al Anbar which has been the principle sphere of conflict for most the period since 2003.

Was this a symbolic act a gesture that the US is not beaten in Iraq, before a gradual withdrawal? Maybe. But maybe it was both a practical move and a political one, which shows that there is nowhere, and no group, that cannot be tamed and brought into the political process of Iraq- except Al Qaeda in Iraq.

So, Gordon Brown chooses now to back down from Tony Blair's commitment to Iraq? Nice one, Gordy. Rather like selling gold at the bottom of its price cycle (this Gordon Brown also did). Just when you could reap the rewards of a steadfast ally, you choose to remind the US that their worries are their own, and not to be shared beyond a certain arbitrary and unpredictable point. The British people aren't with you George, says Gordon, as George begins to scent a victory parade and an appreciation (well-deserved) that will be as rapturous as his critics were rancorous.

The only upside is that if Gordon's feet are this clayey, they will probably crack and fall apart by the time he comes to call an election (he won't have the nerve in the next few weeks, I think, if he is true to form).

I feel a pattern emerging...

Maragaret Hassan, Ken Bigley, the British navy servicemen, Alan Johnston, the five contractors kidnapped in Baghdad. Horror. Manipulation. Cat. Mouse.

When a comment is a rebuttal.

Matthew Parris has one of those typically high-handed moments of his, concealed under his trademark upper-class self-deprecation, as he debates the insufficiency of democracy.

A commenter sets him straight:

If you can't trust democracy, who can you trust? For the last 900 years (approx) in England we have been moving towards greater democracy because of the failures of kings (King John, Charles I, James II and others). Our rulers are not necessarily wise.

Taxation without democracy is nothing more than demanding money with menaces.

For a democracy to function, the electorate must be fully and impartially informed. Therefore the press must be free and impartial. I am not sure how this could be achieved but could the owner of this newspaper please take note.

Ian Wyld, Marlborough,

I agree with almost all of this, but it seems pretty clear how a "fully and impartially informed" public could be achieved, and that is by imposing a free market on the UK media through the progressive privatisation of the BBC. Naturally legal powers would need to be buttressed against monopoly interests (which should be the number one priority of the Government of the land in all sectors), and obviously the public would perforce have to wake up to the idea that there is no "given" view to be held, but all this would be to the good, and democracy the winner.

Scary and real

I had this article about Britain's coming disillusion pointed out to me, and it really struck home. The fiddling of figures in the UK has reached desperate proportions; the imperative to deceive out of control. From immigration to education to unemployment there has been a general whitewash of data, leading to a bubble of false confidence and false alarms to go with it.

All due to burst sometime soon, according to a book written by former Guardianistas Elliot and Atkinson, reviewed by Jeff Randall.

Yes, they're Daily Mail themes, and yes, such things sell books, and no these authors are not the only two good apples in the rotten basket. In fact though, the greatest disservice done by our fetid media, as well as our fetid politicians, is that they have so promiscuously oversold the truth, mingling it with their little lies to such a point where truth and lies are indistinguishable. I won't be reading the book, I don't think, but it seems to me that it's a truth in this case only slightly oversold.

So, I logged in to Blogger and...

They asked me if I wanted to upgrade to BetaBlogger. Being a little bored I thought, "why not?", and before I knew it sweeping changes had unfolded. I apologise to commenters as Haloscan seems to have been swept away in the general tsunami of change. I will see what can be done about that. But not now. Now, as was the Almighty on the seventh day, or as one might have thought he was, I am tired. So I shall rest.

In the meantime, take a look at this terrific Hotair video from Robert Spencer on Blair's slinking retreat from multicultiism. Stirring stuff for a Brit, I'd say, and a rare degree of insight from across the Atlantic. But then that Robert Spencer is quite a remarkable man all round.

"we may hope that [Britain] will re-emerge not just as Blair's geographical location for anything at all and nothing in particular" indeed.

I blinked. I rubbed my eyes.


I was looking at a BBC report which showed the level of unemployment in the UK rising to 1.7 million. Rather high, I thought, since I remember when it was tipping 1 million not so long ago. And then I looked at the percentages nationwide. The rate for London was HIGHER than for any other part of the UK, at 8 percent. I've never seen that before; the only explanation I can think of is something immigration related. If so, then it shows just how radical are the changes in demographics in the UK since already very high levels of immigration were combined with the EU open doors policy. Come to think of it, I was talking to a Czech guy tonight: professional, settled, yet considering getting a job in the UK... just because.

I don't know if this figure of 8% in London does relate to a jobs market flooded by (im)migrants, but it could. I'd like to know.

nb. I should point to this from the BBC as exhibit A:

"However, the rise in the UK population led to the number of people actually in work increasing by 56,000 over the quarter to 28.9 million."

Also, I noticed a classic tell-tale sign of a Government on the run. Says the Gvt. spokesman:

"The Bank of England should take care not to undermine the government's strong record on job creation."

Heh.