Not M&S anymore. Are they going to close down their stores when the wind stops blowing? This man obviously didn't pay his bribes to the right people ... and this oneDavid Mills took one from the wrong guy. A correspondent observes that, in his commuting days, when travelling up to London by train on Monday mornings and back on Friday afternoon/evening, he was amazed at the number of military officers doing likewise. It is not easy to get to a story before the boss does but I think I managed it this time. Glenn Reynolds has linked to this Times article that tells us a great deal about our own greenies and their hypocrisy. Green for thee but not for me, is the motto. I am shocked, I tell you, shocked. And this does not even list the number of times luminaries such as Gwyneth Paltrow and her unspeakable rock-star husband fly around the world in private jets. (Have you noticed that there are never any plans to tax those extra hard, only the cheap airlines?)Tuesday, February 17, 2009
BS
COMMENT THREADNothing changes …
We are told that the real story is too complex to expect any non-Italian to understand it. Half of the courts of Italy are trying to nail Berlusconi and get rid of him. David Mills is only a casual victim of this absurd story.
The Italian justice system is in a state of total anarchy. Half the prosecutors are trying to bring down the government (they have done that already a few times in the last 15 years). The other half is either trying to build a career on preposterous trials or trying to eliminate competing magistrates.
Our informant tells us that it would be ridiculous, if it was not tragic.
COMMENT THREADArmageddon Jones
We've kept off the financial crisis for a while, not least because it's too depressing. But another good reason is that, since no one seems really to know what is going on – still less what to do about it – we saw no great reason to add our ha'porth of ignorance to the pot.
Fully paid-up member of the sky-is-falling-in-brigade is, of course, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, whose columns would have us permanently hiding our heads under the pillows.
Unfortunately, Ambrose is right enough times – albeit on a longer time-scale than he usually predicts – for it to be easier to mock than take him seriously. That way, at least, you don't see the bus that hits you and you can be happy right up to the time of your oblivion. That, I suspect, is the way most people feel about the gathering crisis. And hey! It might never happen!
What has a horribly ominous ring to it though is Ambrose's latest piece which tells of Eastern European currencies crumbling as a wave of fears take over, buoyed by a mounting of debt crisis. Where have we heard that before?
Putting form on the fears, Ambrose tells us that Hungary's forint fell to an all-time low on Monday, and Poland's zloty slumped to the lowest in five years on plunging industrial output. Half of all loans to the private sector in Poland are in foreign currencies so borrowers face a severe debt shock after the 40 percent fall of the zloty against the euro since August.
Then we get Hans Redeker, currency chief strategist at BNP Paribas, observing: "We're nearing the level were things could get out of hand."
The problem here is that the main backer of Eastern European debt is Germany, so the debt crisis has the potential to undermine what is traditionally Europe's strongest economy. And, as we all know, 'cos we're all experts on this, when German economies go down the tubes, the whole of Europe suffers in very nasty ways.
The sheer scale of the crisis, as it unfolds, is blunting the senses. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is saying that East Europe may need as much as €400bn to help it refinance its loans and inject fresh capital into the banking system. That is such a huge amount of money that it is beyond imagining, yet it is chicken-feed compared with some of the figures being touted.
No doubt, someone will come up with yet another imaginative rescue package, that no one understands and no one believes will work, all to stave off what everybody believes inevitable, the collapse of the monetary system and with it the euro.
It is getting to the point where it is rather like an crowd in the street, watching the interminable drama of a potential suicide standing on a roof above, threatening to jump. After a while, the crowd loses patience and the chant goes up: "Jump! Jump! Get it over with!"
The trouble is that we are all on that roof, shackled together – one goes, we all go. Let's hope there is someone out there with a bloody big net. Ambrose seems to think we might need it.
COMMENT THREADThe name of the game
They were attending the MoD for defence procurement exercises that ended up years late and miles over budget. There were sufficient of these guys to have manned another war.
This completely misses the point.
COMMENT THREADSurely not
Lost before it started – Part 3
In Part 1, we saw that Tony Blair had committed the bulk of the UK's long-term deployable forces to the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF). Part 2 saw the 2003 Defence White Paper, heralding a "major restructuring" of the Army and the official emergence of FRES, in order to meet the commitment – just at a time when the Army was taking on the occupation of Iraq and needed to keep its options open.
We also saw the Army enthusiastically embrace the restructuring, using it to reactivate an 80s equipment project and acquire a fleet of new armoured vehicles. General Sir Mike Jackson then started reshaping the infantry to accommodate the new equipment – even though it would not be available for many years. With this going on, the war in Iraq took second place, the Army there having to make do with 14-year-old second-hand Land Rovers.
In Part 3, now up on Defence of the Realm, we see a new Chief of the General Staff take over – General Sir Richard Dannatt. And the madness goes on.
COMMENT THREAD
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
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