Day 4034: Mr Holmes, It was the footprint of a GIGANTIC ELEPHANT!

Tuesday:



An update for those people who think the Curse of the BOTYs has got me at last.

Yah boo! Still here!

Daddy Richard has finished writing his book, or at least volume one (the madness never ends!). It is called "Anarchy Rules: Before Dawn". We might have a look at publishing it now. Some cover art would be nice, if anyone has any ideas. Something with chessboards, perhaps. And fractals.

We're also having a look at collecting my "Mysteries of Doctor Who" into a book as well. This involves Daddy writing some linking material, plus THREE bonus, never-before-published Mysteries, including the long-awaited answer to "What Does Timey-Wimey Mean?"

In the meantime, the Mister Moffster has knocked out another series of Sherlock. Like a deep fat fried Mars bar, it is DELICIOUS but you know it is WRONG. Why is it that these days no one seems to notice that the "scandal" in "A Scandal in Bohemia" is how Mr the King of Bohemia is treating Irene Adler and not the other way around! Honestly, it's not like Sherlock doesn't tell his majesty to basically bad-word off at the end!

At least Mr Gatiss's "Hounds of Baskerville" avoided the gender-fail of "A Scandal in Belgravia" by the expeditious method of ditching most of the female characters! (A bit of Pennant Roberts-style gender-reassignment helped cover this – making Dr Stapleton into a woman helped the back end look a bit less all male, although turning Dr Mortimer into a lady shrink barely troubled the scorers.)

Did Mr Steve Thompson's "Reichenbach Fall" redeem his "Blind Banker" from last year? I'll pass on that one. The cleverest bit, I thought, was the revelation that Moriarty WASN'T the "anti-Sherlock" after all, that in fact it was Jim who was the FAKE, using "magic tricks" to pretend that he had done something very clever indeed™ when actually it was just a case of bribing the right people. He used Sherlock's very cleverness – and the hope that he could have an equal – against him, so that too-clever-by-half Sherlock assumed that Moriarty was as brainy as he was and looked for a too-clever-by-half solution.

(Incidentally, did any "Faction Paradox" fans notice that the "key to everything" that turns out to be a canon by Bach is actually the Clockwork Ouroboros from "The Book of the War"? In an episode chock-full of Dr Who references – what, you didn't notice it was more "The Deadly Assassin" than "The Final Problem"? – I certainly didn't expect THAT one!)

And then Mr Moriarty shot himself. Yeah, right.

But speaking of suicides, we also had the spectacle of Hard Labour shooting itself in the head and missing its brain by six feet.

Really, I now have NO IDEA what Hard Labour's economic policy actually is. If it even exists. It seems that Hard Labour do not WANT their cake and are still going to EAT it.

Mr Balls says that he thinks Master Gideon is wrong and that's why he now agrees with him.

(Okay, he actually says he "won't be able" to reverse the cuts – but surely he COULD borrow more to reverse or partly reverse them; that's what he's been saying so far – borrow more, cut less. Now he says he CAN'T do that. This does seem like saying the Coalition were RIGHT but he doesn't want to take the blame.)

Mr Millipede's appearance on the Andy Marrmite show didn't make things any clearer when he seemed to say that he now opposes the cuts but he accepts them. They are wrong but he's not going to reverse them.

Still, if Hard Labour are going to ACCEPT the Conservatories' Cuts, at least the Liberal Democrats are still here to OPPOSE them. And thank goodness we are actually IN Government and able to DO something about it!

(Do you remember those thirteen years when Hard Labour were in Government and DIDN'T do anything about it? No? You may be suffering from "Millipede Syndrome" also known as "a pain in the Ed".)

And at least there are some signs that Captain Clegg IS opposing some of the more EGREGIOUS cuts.

I mean, for FLUFF's sake, what are we DOING supporting cuts to Disability Benefits? Isn't that taking "we're all in this together" to the illogical extreme! Surely a CIVILISED society would say that the very LAST people to lose their protections in a downturn should be the POORLY.

We can cope with cohabiting with PHILISTINES and IGNORAMUSES [warning: Daily Fail], but do we have to come across as SADISTS?!

SOME reforms of the Welfare State are long overdue (helping people INTO work is as important as helping them when they're OUT of work; never forget that IDLENESS was one of Mr Beverage's "Five Giants") but we're supposed to be bringing some COMPASSION to this Coalition.



Finally, it would take a heart of stone etc… on hearing that Monsieur Sarcastic the President of Franceland has had to suffer the indignity of being downgraded from Triple-A. Actually, the real tragedy is the downgrading of nine Eurozone countries, particularly Spain and Portugal, many of whom are working ever so hard to control their deficits, while struggling with spiralling unemployment, particularly among young people. These downgrades are a sign that the markets are increasingly EXPECTING a default, from Greece almost certainly, but probably from other Southern European countries too.

In other news, a huge cruise liner has hit the rocks off the Italian shore. It is difficult not to see this tragedy as a METAPHOR!
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Day 3672: No More Tears – So Farewell Then, Mr Johnson & Johnson

Thursday:


Mr Alan Johnson & Johnson, Mr Potato Ed's appointment to the role of blocking Mr Bully Balls career Shadow Chancer has resigned.

I've been meaning to write a piece about Mr Johnson & Johnson for a little while now.

Let's not dwell overmuch on his showing himself up by not knowing the Employer's National Insurance rate .

(Although it's worth reading Mr Mark Reckons on why this is important.)

But instead we should go back to Mr Evan Davis' forensic interview on the The Today Programme for teasing an actual statement of policy out of him.

That COULD have given us something worth talking about.


In the interview, Mr Johnson & Johnson:

• accepts that the size of the problem is about what the coalition says it is


• agrees that Labour would raise more in taxes than the Coalition's VAT rise


• admits that the tax of choice would be National Insurance.

Now if we could have avoided treating that as just another in a string of embarrassing GAFFES from a man woefully under-briefed for a senior job then it might have been the starting point for a CONVERSATION.

It is possible to have a GENUINE DEBATE about the relative merits of different approaches to taxation, and the balance between the relative impacts of VAT and NI is certainly not cut and dried.

The Conservatories have a well-founded dislike of raising National Insurance, not least because it conceals a DOUBLE tax rate rise, and because the employer's element increases the cost of employing people in a way that is not transparent. It impacts indirectly on workers, particularly the lower paid, because it effectively gives them a pay rise and then taxes 100% of it. And because it makes employment more expensive it reduces the number of new employees that companies take on, hence the Conservatories reactionary name for it "the jobs tax". Also, it's inflationary, as prices are forced up to cover the (hidden) extra cost of wages.

But equally, Labour's (and Liberal Democrat's) objections to VAT are sound and justified. The impact on lower earners – if not necessarily on the LOWEST earners – is disproportionately higher, making it at least as far as most people can tell a regressive tax. Habit and European law (which requires long term convergence of EU VAT rates) mean that unlike taxes on income it has a ratchet effect that only ever increases – Labour's VAT cut was only allowed because it was temporary – and anyway cuts in VAT are often absorbed as super-profits by vendors rather than passed on to customers as we saw when Labour tried it. And of course by putting up prices directly, VAT is very inflationary. There's a knock-on effect on jobs from a VAT rise too. The argument goes that even if spending remains the same less goes to companies in profits so they will employ fewer people, though I think Labour rather overstate this.

Being more open about tax and the different possible effects and outcomes would be highly beneficial. A more informed debate leads to a greater likelihood of a good policy being agreed in the end.

And being able to discuss economic policy in a way that was not reduced to: "you're cutting because you are EVIL" / "you're overspending because you are FAT and STUPID!" would be a blessed relief!

Sadly, the opportunity quickly came to nothing.


I'm sorry to say that Mr Johnson & Johnson was a nasty piece of work when he was Health Secretary and a nasty piece of work when he was Home Secretary and the shock of being ejected into opposition had not improved him. His basic lack of competence in the Treasury brief failed to mask his underlying reliance on distortion, attack and smug oppositionism.

That would NOT have stopped me wanting to TALK to him, though, to see if we couldn't reach a better policy outcome through debate and compromise.

I doubt any such opportunity will arise with his successor.
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Day 2870: MUST… NOT… LAUGH…

Sunday:


People having a scrap over a shrine in Jerusalem; that could never happen!



All hail the Prince of Peace!