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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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13 August 2008 |
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John Coates, the Australian swimming coach, is a well known loud mouth but he's quite right to say that British swimmers in Beijing have done quite well for a country with no swimming pools and very little soap. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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11 August 2008 |
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The basic rule in economice (Mitchell's Law) is that it's the exchange rate wot done it. Observe:-The Euro is going up and will go higher. So the powerful German exporting machine falters and slows. It still dominates the EU market but demand from other countries is falling. So Germany will stagnate QED. The dollar is coming down. So the American exporting machine is doing better and will pull the economy along. Britain has suffered because the pound has been far too high for far too long. Now it's coming down and manufacturing will benefit. The one thing holding it back is that the Bank of England is determined to keep sterling as high as possible by high interest rates. Reduce them to American levels and we could have us a party. Quad Erat Demonstrandum.
Read, learn and inwardly digest. Gordon..
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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08 August 2008 |
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Election campaigns force the parties to set out their policies so the people can choose. Obama has set out Democrat economic policy. Centre pieces are $l50 billion investment in alternative energy to generate jobs and end oil dependence. Support for the automobile industry to develop l50 m.p.g cars. Support for the development of battery technology. Development of clean coal technology. Building fast rail (why the hell don’t they have this in such a big country?)
An attractive manifesto which the Republicans can’t cap. It’s also one which Labour should offer now because it will wrong foot the Tories and more important it would work and generate jobs here. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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06 August 2008 |
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We should have a new rule. No one should criticise Gordon unless they can tell us how they’d deal with the economic crisis which has made both Blairite and Brownite policies irrelevant.
Otherwise hold the noise lads. Fortunately they all will anyway because the Blairites have all gone on holiday abroad. The Brownies are holidaying at home, while we backbenchers hide in pill boxes in our constituencies.
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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31 July 2008 |
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The local papers here publish the police log each day. I quote:
“July 15 Police responded to a disturbance outside a flophouse in the 200 block of Beach St. Logs indicated that they arrested a 39 year old woman for local felony and misdemeanor warrants, for as Confucious say ,person with high bail best not have big mouth. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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31 July 2008 |
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Now it can be told. Pretending to go on holiday incognito in Cleethorpes I’ve given the slip to the press pack following me round to try and get hold of my top secret advice to Gordon and fled the country heavily disguised as a senior citizen and come to California to a little seaside town called Cayucos whose only claim to fame is that nothing ever happens. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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31 July 2008 |
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Gordon’s daft decision to go on holiday to Southwold (aka Chelsea on sea) stems from the same kind of lunacy as Bill Clinton doing a public opinion poll on where he should holiday. It’s a pathetic piece of pandering to show himself as English, patriotic and carbon clean. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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28 July 2008 |
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The surprise discovery of old Radovan Karadzic disguised as a New Age Guru, preaching love, peace and acupuncture (by needles not bullets), even to Muslims, raises two questions. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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21 July 2008 |
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Everything’s going the Tories way at the moment but that hides their awful problem. They don’t have an alternative.
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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14 July 2008 |
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I don’t believe the growing fear that Bush will bomb nuclear installations in Iran or authorise Israel to do his dirty work for him.
It would destabilise the whole area, disrupt oil supplies and push the oil price up to astonishing levels and bring China and Russia right into the arena.
Barmy. Which is why I don’t believe it. But then I didn’t believe we’d invade Iraq either. So I can be wrong.
Which is why we should immediately announce that we will not countenance every such outcome. If it is done our troops will be immediately withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan.
* * *
Welcome back David Davis. Cameron’s refusal to re-appoint him is petty and vicious.
But I can’t understand why David D opposes the National ID card data bank. Imagine the usefulness of having everyone’s personal details available in any part of the country. Depending which train they’ve been left on. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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14 July 2008 |
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Don’t let them kid you about “no recession here”, “stronger than the US” etc. All Balls. Both Ed and spherical.
This is a financial crisis. We’ve put all our eggs into the Financial Services basket and left it unregulated to attract foreign companies and funny money. So we’re more exposed.
The American productive base is strong and doing well through exports as the dollar goes down. We’ve knackered ours.
As the crisis develops we’ll suffer most. Q.E.D.
Because of the folly of the banks they’re over-extended and won’t lend. That and falling house prices mean builders can’t build and consumers won’t spend. Unemployment then increases. Tax receipts fall. Spending goes up and there are no jobs for the million disabled we’re forcing back into work. Down we go hands tightly clasped round each other’s necks. Brown says he’s Heathcliffe but winters were cold and miserable at Wuthering Heights. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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10 July 2008 |
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It’s madness to call by-elections so soon after the departure of the previous Member that there’s hardly any time to pick a candidate. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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09 July 2008 |
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My period of Blog silence on part hasn’t be appreciated. It’s been enforced. A Tory Banana Skin group has set out to sabotage Labour’s insurgent left. Jon Cruddas has been tripped and torn a ligament. I’ve got a black eye and a broken rib. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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08 July 2008 |
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It is wrong to say that my black eye is the result of persuasion to vote for 42 days detention. Nor are they waterboarding (see Vanity Fair, August pp.46-49 and vf.com for the full honour – but don’t tell Tommy McAvoy). I voted for it entirely voluntarily and out of my own deep stupidity. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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25 June 2008 |
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There comes a time in every government’s life when it makes a futile gesture. We’re at it. Our gesture is deflation. The Governor of the Bank of England tells us we need eighteen months hard with high interest rates to “defeat inflation”. The Chancellor has produced an incomes policy for public servants: inflation over 4% but pay increases of 2%. Gordon wants MPs and Cabinet Ministers to freeze pay. Soon the calls for sacrifice and “seeing it through” will ring and we`ll be in full scale confrontation with every union available. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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23 June 2008 |
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How do you tell a government at the end of its tether? It reaches for a dollop of deflation, it doles out sermons, it preaches sacrifice. The last resort of failure. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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16 June 2008 |
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I didn’t expect Miliband One to come out singing “If You’re Irish Get out of the Parlour. There’s no Welcome Here for You” but his statement on their vote stands high in the history of Euro-gabble. “We must pass the Treaty. Because the Irish have rejected it”. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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13 June 2008 |
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Ireland`s killed the Lisbon Treaty. Mustn`t gloat. Wrong to gloat. Can`t gloat, as Willy Whitelaw said. But, boy, am I gloating. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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13 June 2008 |
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I voted with the government on 42 day detention. I didn’t like myself for it. I’d dithered for a week over whether to vote against or abstain. In the end, I decided that I should vote for it to save Gordon Brown for the nation.
Had he lost Gordon’s position would have been untenable. The Labour government, which I want to go on, would have been damaged. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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11 June 2008 |
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How long do we bang up Baddies?
Today, Wednesday, is the great vote. Do we extend 28 day detention for terrorist suspects to 42. .How should I vote? 42. The government wants 42, Tories and Libs don`t.
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