Monday, February 23, 2009

AreYouEverWrongMrBrown

There are many things wrong in the world today, and one of the most annoying is the failure of people to admit that they’re wrong. Arise chief culprit, Prime Minister Gordon Brown. This is the same man who, when things were going well when he was in charge of the economy claimed all the credit for the country’s success. Now that it is going very wrong it has nothing to do with him.

It goes further than this. This weekend he announced that he was looking at new legislation to stop financial institutions from issuing 100% mortgages or allowing them to people unable to prove sufficient earning multiples. This is called locking the door after the horse has bolted.

It is laughable that the Prime Minister should seriously announce that he was going to stop such mortgages when no such mortgages are available.

His time would be better spent making sure his pronouncements regarding the banks easing credit for small to medium businesses and individuals actually happened at ground level since at present this is not the case. His entire government continually tells us that they have made funds available for this specific purpose, but there is a massive blockage in the pipeline. The money is simply not getting to its intended recipients.

I have spoken with many small businessmen recently and they all report pressure from the bank at best and withdrawal of facilities is a common occurrence. The little men and women are fighting for their financial survival and they are not being helped, despite the bank having received huge sums of our money via the government for this purpose. Our leaders had better get out of their luxurious offices and stop listening to their fat cat civil servants or the troubles we’re now facing will get much more intense. People are rightly getting very angry.

I am grateful to the correspondent who sent me the winning entry in an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term:

This year's term was Political Correctness.

The winner R. J. Wiedemann Lt. Col. United States Marine Corps (Retired) wrote:

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

Remind you of anyone Mister Brown?