Whilst the right wing press work themselves into a lather of pre-budget hysteria, some on the left are taking a more sober approach, notably looking at the question to what extent the Chancellor is in hock to the bond markets. Will Dunn in the New Statesman and Tom Belger in LabourList both have explainers and assessments of the operation of the bond markets. The striking point here is that a) the bond market never fails to make money regardless of the profligacy (or lack of it) of government spending and b) much of the money invested in government debt comes from the pensions and insurance industry. It is tempting to imagine that the whole thing is just a big circular money machine. The question that arises must be where is the value added? Where is the lasting benefit? I could perhaps say at this point that one benefit of the proclivities of the bond market was the defenestration of Liz Truss. But that kind of experience could equally well have befallen a Corbyn-led government for precisely the same reason—fear of unfunded promises. The only fiscal question that should matter is how much are we prepared to pay for our debt, not that we incur debt in the first place. I’m not aware of any government that actually does ‘balance its books’ or runs without a deficit. Nor do most businesses. The danger is that the debt becomes so large that the country defaults on its repayments and the consequences of that can be dire (ChatGTP provided me with sufficient evidence of that, with a handy table). Greece defaulted in 2012 to the tune of $264.2 billion. Other countries—Argentina, Venezuela, Lebanon, Russia, some African countries have all defaulted in relatively recent times. But they are comparative minnows. Large ‘developed’ economies do not default—they can, where necessary just change the rules, as did France when it exceeded the EU’s borrowing rules.
 
I think bond markets quite enjoy a bit of government economic incompetence, the general rule is that capitalists find ways of making money out of instability—but not to the extent that they want to lose their shirts, or as the terminology has it, ‘take a haircut.’ Hence the world’s largest economy, the USA should technically be in default with a government debt of $38 trillion. Yes, no doubt they are paying more to maintain such indebtedness, but there is no clamour that I can detect to rein it in—least of all from Republicans, who historically have been some of the worst for ringing the tills (whilst proclaiming their fiscal conservatism).
 
The question we should be asking ourselves is, is the debt incurred by government spent wisely? And the answer generally from Treasury bods will be ‘yes, always.’

+What is the right response to our current times? A nutter is in the White House. A barely capable middle manager is ‘running’ the UK. A chap with imperial tendencies resides unwanted in the Élysée Palace. An inscrutable expansionist is president for life in Beijing. A diminutive Tsar reigns in Moscow (and putintively in Kiev too). The great left hope in the UK is splintered even before birth and is, I predict headed to oblivion. At times like these, perhaps an appropriate response is provided by Charles Baudelaire (1821—1867) who also lived in interesting times:
 
GET DRUNK
 
ONE SHOULD always be drunk. That’s the great thing; the only question. Not to feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and bowing you to the earth, you should be drunk without respite.
 
Drunk with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please. But get drunk.
 
And if sometimes, should you happen to awake, on the stairs of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the dreary solitude of your own room, and find that your drunkenness is ebbing or has vanished, ask the wind and the wave, ask the star, bird or clock, ask everything that flies, everything that moans, everything that speaks, ask them the time; and the wind and the wave, and the bird and the clock will all reply: “It is time to get drunk! If you are not to be the martyred slaves of Time, be perpetually drunk! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please!”
 
(Paris Spleen, New Directions Paperback edition 1970 p.74) 
 
So what’s it to be? Wine or virtue? Or both? (Always worth bearing in mind of course that Baudelaire didn’t live very long.)*
 
+Talking of martyrs, the exiled former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina Wazed has been condemned to death. She served as PM for a surprisingly long time given the usual mortal game of musical chairs of Bangladeshi politics, which resembles a long running family feud between two mafia dynasties. I met her in 2009 and gave her a report on climate change. Leading a country which is one of the world’s most vulnerable to climate change related sea level rise I thought such things would be uppermost. Clearly not. Preserving the dynasty probably made a more pressing call on her time. Still, it’s not every day you get to shake hands with somebody who has been sentenced to death.
 
FACTCHECK: Bangladesh’s population is 171 million on a land mass of 54,000 sq. miles. England’s population is 58 million on a land mass of 51,000 sq. miles. And we’re overcrowded? Think again! (India is wise to this—they’ve built a barrier which encircles Bangladesh. No free movement there.)
 
*Other options are available

I am pleased to say that my petition (see yesterday) re: Trump v. BBC has garnered the required number of signatures to be checked by the parliamentary petition checkers. It cannot be ‘officially’ launched until this process is carried out. For the sake of clarity there is no fast track here for ex-MPs. That surely merits a petition of its own. It seems that most legal experts agree that Trump has little chance of success in his libel action, which is probably—inside his own head—more to do with winning the ‘culture war’ than anything else, and of course his legal team will already be winners, although they may care to remember how hard it was for Rudi Giuliani to get paid for his services for Trump. Meanwhile, if Donald wants to discuss my petition with me he is welcome to call. I’d be happy to discuss terms.

I want to start a petition – will you sign it?
Sign the petition
Prevent BBC license fee income paying any libel damages to President Trump
Government should a) advise Trump his libel action will be resisted and if necessary b) enact legislation to make any such payments ultra vires
Should Trump's libel action proceed and be successful it could destroy the BBC
Sign the petition

+It is a sign of the government’s political incompetence that they are holding the Budget a month short of Christmas. The media (and not necessarily just of the right wing sort) will make ample use of the word ‘scrooge’ when it comes to describing the floundering Chancellor of the Exchequer’s statement. It seems so many bad news kites have been flown to test the water (apols) to see how much horror could be inflicted on the British public that regardless of whether Rachel Reeves does anything nasty it won’t make any difference. The public’s gloom is already well entrenched. Now give him his due, Trump showing his usual political acumen has announced a $2,000 dollar payment to citizens (except the very wealthiest), although if this gets paid before Christmas may be another question. When Budgets were announced in the Spring I think bad news could be more easily accommodated as people began to see the light (literally) of Springtime. The Starmer/Reeves message of hopelessness is unlikely to evaporate anytime before Armageddon (2029 at the latest) and we might be tempted to ask ‘what actually is their game?’

+Sad to see Lord Mandelson going to the dogs. Photographed relieving himself in public against a millionaire’s balustrade in Notting Hill, whilst according to press reports ’looking worse for wear’ after having spent a ’jolly’ evening at George Osborne’s house reminds us all that we are all too human. My deepest compassion is extended to Mandy. Or maybe the whole thing is an AI generated scam? Who would choose to do such a thing to the Noble Lord?

+I attended Scarborough’s traditional Remembrance Sunday service today. Although there was a crowd of maybe 300 or 400 people at the lifeboat station, this is a tiny minority of the population. Of course, many may have been commemorating the event in other ways, but I suspect as the years go by fewer people will sense any connection with the sacrifice of their forebears—or the injustice of it all. The worst part of this however is how the whole thing is turned into praise of ‘God,’ who sent His ‘only son etc etc.’ to save us all from ourselves. I think a majority of the crowd, judging by their inability to recite the Lord’s Prayer will have thought WTF.

+Canadians need to ask how resilient their southern border is from invasion. Given the sensibility of the Blond Bully down south, jokes like this (below) could spark serious retribution (sent to me by a kindly Canadian cousin):
​

The Chancellor’s ‘unprecedented’ pre-budget speech today is all about building stronger foundations, making the economy fairer and cutting the public debt. Repeat after me, building stronger foundations, making . . . well, maybe I won’t repeat the mantra as Rachel Reeves did it for us several times. But what does it all mean? Almost certainly a crafty couple of dodges on income tax such as extending the tax allowance freeze and increasing income tax (balanced for ‘working people’ with a cut in National Insurance). Smaller revenue items like alcohol duty will bring in bits and pieces (stock up now), but I am willing to bet that fuel duty will be left untouched, although Vehicle Excise Duty will go up. More of that on the new monster cars, I say.

Apparently the deficit this year is around £25 billion and Rachel tells us that £1 in every £10 of government income is spent on merely servicing the debt. But do ordinary people have to pay the price and cover the whole gap? How come Reeves did not once mention wealth inequality, a rather better defined term than the word ‘fairness.?’ Must we be fair to billionaires? An alternative to her taxing ordinary people, workers or pensioners is available, and was succinctly summed up in a letter to the Yorkshire Post on Saturday, referencing non-HM Treasury economist, Richard Murphy’s suggestions that ‘aligning capital gains tax with income tax, adding VAT to finance, taxing investment income like wages, stopping paying interest on bailouts to banks from 2008—could raise £78bn a year’ (letter from Simon Honey). The Treasury is too much in hock to orthodox City thinking to countenance anything so productive - and reasonable.

As Rachel blathered on, she said (and this is how speeches are written these days):

‘For a long time, commentators have talked about Britain’s ‘productivity puzzle’.  

But it’s not a puzzle.  

The causes of our economic underperformance are well understood. 

The chronic stop-go cycle of public investment has left us with roads full of potholes, high energy prices and unstable conditions for vital business investment in skills and technology…
 
…and long-term failure to invest in our regions has built growth on a narrow base - with some parts of the country forging ahead while others fall behind. 

[political redaction]’

I’ve mentioned in a previous blog how London and the South East under HM Treasury ’Cost Benefit Analysis’ rules determine where it is deemed public investment will produce the biggest return, very much to the North’s detriment. So one thing to look out for in the Budget is whether Reeves will actually reform how CBA rules will work in the future. If she doesn’t mention the subject, we will know once again that she’s talking crap—and that the Treasury rules.  (Or maybe that’s what, in the transcript, ‘political redaction’ refers to.)