From the Corus crisis to the tragedy of Teesside

It is devastating to hear the news that the Corus plant in Redcar is going to be ‘mothballed’, perhaps signalling the death knell to the area’s steel industry and highlighting what a sorry state the economy, and industry in general, is in in this country.

A Labour Government has overseen a far greater decline of industry than there was under Margaret Thatcher. Isn’t that a grim indictment of this dreadful Brownite government?

The Corus crisis has been going on for some time now. The British Steel works, at their peak, employed tens of thousands of people. Now the last 1,700 have been given their marching orders, as owner Tata has decided to close the plant, complaining about the failure of the consortium to come to a solution.

Declining demand is only part of the problem. We have a Government that is more interested in keeping its pals in the City of London banks happy by having uncompetitive exchange rates that’s good for speculators and those who dabble in foreign exchanges, derivatives, and so on.

The London fat cat has got fatter at the expense of the worker in places like Redcar and elsewhere.

There are 1,700 workers, and many families with their kids facing a bleak future this Christmas thanks to this dreadful news.

It’s not just the jobs, it’s the symbolism of the closure of the steelworks, that has cast a further shadow over a once great industrial area.

People lining their pockets elsewhere have colluded in the dire state of our economy that’s led to this situation. We need a mindset change from government in terms of how it handles industry.

After all, if we don’t make anything that adds any value, and keeps decent working people in jobs, and all we do is shuffle money around the world and get paid commission and bonuses (and many of those involved in that profession are far from decent, we must admit), then what as a country are we for?

It’s no use saying “oh, let them take benefits”. Jobs and economic renewal is what places like Teesside and other parts of the North, and of the Midlands, need.

This Government, despite being Labour and formed for the people, isn’t going to deliver that; all they will deliver is more expenses wheezes and other ways of making as much money for themselves as possible.

It’s an absolute disgrace.

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When will Lord Mandy ever learn? The postal crisis should be taken seriously

After his notorious attack on the trades unions in the “British Jobs for British Workers”, or no British need apply, scandal at the Total factory at Lindsey, Lord Mandy has now told the postal unions to “wake up”. Union leaders have rightly highlighted how Ministers have been “sulking” and, in return, Mandy – who met Qadaffi’s son while on holiday at Rothschild’s villa this summer – has attacked the Communication Workers Union.

But who engineered the decline of the Royal Mail? Why, that would have been the European Union of which Mandy was once a Commissioner. And now, after his stint running the country from the Rothschildodopoulous Estate in Corfu, and being “PM as PM” (what a joke), he has now decided to have a go at the salt of the earth postal workers who deliver our mail despite Government animosity and hostility. Mandy is trying to make the postal workers Brown’s mineworkers, thinking that will somehow win back Middle England.

But the EU, by semi deregulating the industry, allowed private companies to cream off the best of the postal business, leaving the Royal Mail in a crisis. Of course postal workers should strike, given the way that they have been treated by Labour, which once would have stood up for them. But then big business, which David Cameron rightly promised to stand up to 4 years ago when he became leader, call the shots in the Labour party now, not the unions.

Labour is so determined to please its corporate cronies and pals that it will run yet another important British industry into the ground. It is Mandy , Brown and the rest of them in the Cabinet who need to wake up and smell the cappuccino, not the unions. After all, no self-respecting union man would mistake mushy peas for guacamole; but then Lord Mandy is so detached from the real working-class people of this country, despite once being the MP for ‘Poolie, that there is no chance of him waking up any time soon.

We need rid of this Labour rabble (which is again betraying its own people ), so that social and economic progress can be resumed at long last.

Part-privatising the Royal Mail? Digging its grave? Lessons not learned?

That ex EU Commissoner Lord Mandy is doing the EU’s bidding in part-privatising the Royal Mail is not in the slightest bit surprising.

Labour backbencher John Grogan said three cabinet ministers had told him they opposed the plan and told the BBC:

“Is this the time for the Labour government, which is going through hard times at the moment, to completely split the Parliamentary party down the middle?

“Over 100 Labour MPs have signed a motion against these proposals – it’s going to be Peter Mandelson against a big bulk of the Parliamentary Labour Party.”

Lord Mandelson, who has come under fire for choosing to introduce the bill in the House of Lords, said he was sorry for the “political pain” that the proposals were causing in Labour ranks but vowed not to “walk away” from the proposals.

Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski told the BBC he would vote against the plan, because he was concerned deliveries to rural areas, like his Shropshire constituency, would be under threat if Royal Mail was run by a private company.

Good on these MPs for standing up to the élites of  the EU and skunks like Lord Mandy and the Government who are rubbing working people’s faces in the mire yet again. How many postmen and other Royal Mail workers (and their families) will suffer, in the current Brownian Depression, because of this?  They will not vote Labour again.

It was the EU that forced competition onto the Royal Mail, which is one national institution in which the free market simply doesn’t work, because delivering certain items and to certain locations are “uneconomical” and, therefore, have to be subsidised.

Lessons have not be learned from the deregulation of the buses, where rural services were axed (forcing many country folk into cars, and others – especially the elderly – into isolation), or for that matter the Beeching of the Trains (not privatisation – just butchery).

So, in digging the grave for the Royal Mail, the EU – which has no accountability or mandate to the British people – has forced part-privatisation and rats like Mandy are lapping it up.

This does not only mean misery for many Royal Mail workers, but it also will damage even further OUR postal service and OUR deliveries (they’re not Labour’s, remember). There would still be 2 deliveries a day, with mail by 7.30am, if it had not been for allowing private mail firms to cream off the best of the business.

The empathy vote: “Mess with our mothers and fathers and we won’t vote for you”…

I had an epiphany on a doorstep in Crewe in May last year. A lady’s grandson had committed suicide, because he couldn’t find a job, she told me. She said that there was no way she – or anyone else in her family – would vote for the Party responsible. After I left the doorstep, I felt pretty sad for what had happened to a young man who had lost hope.

This lady’s story is a particularly extreme case. But there are countless other examples in the current climate where people are switching their vote from Labour or Tory because of what’s happened to a relative or friend (or switching from Lib Dem to Tory to put Labour out, for the same reason).

We may be a country of millions of single households – but we still have family ties, and we have friends – and if you mess with our spouses, or our kids, it’s one thing.

But mess with our mothers and fathers…

I wonder how many other elderly people had the shock my mum and dad had today when they opened their electricity bill and saw how much it has soared.

There’ll be plenty of other sons and daughters, who may even have to help their parents out financially as a result of soaring energy etc prices [whichever statistician made up the figures that imply inflation is slowing is taking the mick], and they have lost patience with Labour.

And these are just some of the things which explain why Labour is doing so absolutely abysmally in almost every social group, gender, and location. Its policies have hurt so many people, but they know many others who are suffering and they are voting accordingly: we shall call it the empathy vote.

The only way to repair the system is to rid it of the parasite – the Brownian Labour Government – that is causing the “toxic debt” that is destroying large swathes of our economy and society.

“A weak currency arises from a weak economy which in turn is the result of a weak Government” – Gordon Brown.

Edmund Conway, on p 21 of today’s Telegraph, quotes Brown when he criticised the Tories in 1992 at the time of the disastrous Major/Clarke/Lament era…

Brown was right to say this then, and the quote is even more apposite today.

It’s just a pity he didn’t live by it, and has made even bigger mistakes than the Tories did then.

Today we are officially Recessionary

The official figures released today show two consecutive quarters of economic decline or contraction.

Which will stop the ‘downturn’ lie …

… But also remind us what a sorry state Brown has got us in.

Suspend the National Minimum Wage? NO.

Julie Hepburn, the next MP for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth & Kirkintilloch East, highlights the scandalous and outrageous proposal by the British Chamber of Commerce’s Mr Frost (or is that Scrooge?) to suspend (or freeze) the National Minimum Wage.  

Frost isn’t very festive when he makes this suggestion.  While businesses (particularly those in the retail sector) are suffering during the current recession, it is their workers who are facing uncertainty and hardship. Making a profit is important to firms, but business ethics is just as important to society at large – and the individual workers who would be affected by an unethical suspension of the NMW. 

Freezing (or Frosting) the National Minimum Wage would equal a reduction of low income workers’ wages in real terms.  With inflation and the current low returns on savings, wages should be increased – not frozen. Also this proposal would affect women, many of whom work in minimum wage retail jobs, disproportionately – so it would be sexist.

Let’s see whether Labour, which as the Bishops rightly said is “beguiled by money”, caves into Mr Frost’s ludicrous demands.

Under Labour — even Woolworths has gone under.

I remember as a small child, and as a medium-sized child, and as a tween, and as a teenager, and as a twentysomething … etc … going into Woolworths.

If anything is going to sink Labour, it’s the fact that on its watch Woolworths has now gone under.

Robert Peston (who else?) has found out that Woolworths is filing for administration, with the potential loss of TENS OF THOUSANDS of jobs on the High Street…

The board will meet at 6pm to take the formal decision. …

The collapse of Woolworth is likely to lead to the closure of hundreds of stores across the UK.

And it is also likely to lead to many thousands of redundancies.

Woolworth has 815 stores. The store chain employs 25,000 and Entertainment UK employs 5,000.

People will be furious.  There won’t be riots, but people will fume privately – then they will vote Labour out.  It may be Woolworths that finally does for Labour…