The financial crisis awakens while too many are blaming the powerless

The tories have exposed the UK to global instability

In the last few months there have been no shortage of signs that another financial crisis is coming. Osborne and the tories will probably blame it on Labour while they are responsible for steering the nation through it:



Yet this government are happy to prostitute our resources, markets and workforce to any country as long as the right people are reaping the benefits:

• Our railways are actually two-thirds nationalised but not domestically - the German, French & Belgian states run large swathes of it. So the supposedly patriotic, Queen & country flag-waving tories are essentially saying "any state can run our railways as long as it isn't the British state."
• Immigrants that our elites seem to like, Russian oligarchs and the new super-rich Chinese, are welcomed to inflate property prices for locals & citizens who've paid a lifetime of tax only to be priced-out.
• As we know from 2008 our financial services industry is more open than ever under Osborne's light touch.

Our hyper-globalised economy can be a good thing, but not when run so unfairly for minority vested interests. While true that everyone is dependent on faltering China, the source of the turmoil but the tories seems to enjoy our status as one of the most globally exposed economies. If we had more control over our markets we could make decisions of economic sovereignity.

Anti-EU types seem to pick and choose when they speak about this lack of sovereignty, the much nastier global institutions of the G7 / G20 / IMF / WTO / TTIP are hidden from the spotlight - as is predatory global finance in general.

Stuttering growth is toxic for an unbalanced economy about to take a global hit. The graph below should have the tories apologising and using evidence-based economic solution instead of the austerity delusion. Yet they indulge in the rhetoric of empty triumphalism.





Domestic retail slowdown:

Weak figures over the 2015 Christmas shopping period do not present a optimistic future. The tories even had the gaul to blame it on mild weather. Seem to remember they used cold weather for a similarly disappointing yuletide results.

Meanwhile the supposedly anti-tax tories persevere with their ridiculous burden-on-the-poor VAT rate of 20% having raised it from 17.5% in 2011. Under the Labour it was 15% at one point encouraging consumer spending and liquidity after the 2008 crash.

UK productivity is one of the lowest in the G7 This particularly telling because it shows the lack of attention the tories pay to bottom-up long-term solutions. If there was a plan to incentivise small marginal gains for low-waged workers than the benefits would ripple-up. Instead trickle-down carrots do not permeate further than a small group, which as we know from wider economics.


Tories act as if certain groups are not essential parts of the economy:

While UK steelworkers suffer under market volatility the government does nothing. It appears they are completely at ease with skilled manual labourers losing employment through globalisation and ending up in the local Aldi for pitiful wages. While tax-take goes down it is also a complete waste of experience and expertise which tends to impact already-marginalised communities.

They sit on their hands apologising for dodgy Chinese market practices and provide no answers. No real surprise from the party who callously smashed the miners contributing to the regional issues in the first-place.

Meanwhile the Northern powerhouse has been moved from Sheffield to London. There are no words.

And the corporate media are up to their usual smoke & mirrors by again by failing to scrutinise the institutions which govern our lives. 

When the financial crisis strikes again we will finally realise the extent of media distraction #marr #bbctbq #bbcsp pic.twitter.com/hyTzbvZGG9

— JeSuisFedUp (@JeSuisFedUp) January 31, 2016

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The establishment groupthink at the heart of the BBC

Print journalism was famously called 'the Fourth Estate', a remark attributed to MP Edmund Burke at the 1787 introduction of press reporting in parliament. He was emphasising the importance of holding government to account with complete independence - unlike the 3 other estates of the time (the Commons and two Lords).

The following highlights the conflict of interests within the supposedly culturally diverse BBC undermining Edmund' Burke's tenet of democracy in the contemporary media landscape. 

James Harding, Head of BBC News

• Went to same independent school as George Osborne.
• Went to Cambridge.
• Worked as a financial journalist.
• Worked at The Times owned by Rupert Murdoch.
• During his time at the paper he had to apologise for withholding information to the High Court during the Leveson inquiry.

Laura Kuenssberg BBC political editor

• From a well-connected family. Relatives include the last Governor-General of colonial Nigeria, a High Court Judge and the founder/president of the Royal College of GPs.
• Worked at ITV

James Landale, BBC News Deputy Political Editor

James Landale in David Cameron's kitchen

• Went to Eton with David Cameron.
• Worked at The Times.

Andrew Neil, presenter on the BBC Daily Politics

 Andrew Neil with David Cameron, Grant Shapps and Spectator editor Fraser Nelson

• Tutored by Vince Cable during his University of Glasgow days, who he would later interview many times.
• During university was a member of the Conservative Club.
• Worked for Rupert Murdoch as Sky's chief mover in the early days.
• Worked at the right-wing free market Economist and right-wing Sunday Times.

Andrew Marr BBC Marr Show presenter and ex-Political Editor

• Married to Jackie Ashley from another mostly establishment media org The Guardian and daughter of a Labour life peer. Life peers are a thing that exists in 21st century Britain
• Made use of a High Court super-injunction to prevent the media reporting the truth, nevertheless he continues to be regarded highly as a journalist in mainstream circles.
• In April 2003 made the report below celebrating  Blair's illegal Iraq invasion.

Allegra Stratton, BBC Newsnight reporter

• Cambridge alumnus
• Married to James Forsyth political editor of the right-wing The Spectator magazine owned by tax exiles the Barclays Brothers, who also own the right-wing Daily Telegraph

Nick Robinson ex-Political Editor 2005-2015, now at BBC Radio 4 Today show

• Founder member of Macclesfield Young Conservatives
• ex-Cheshire Young Conservative Chairman
• Former Young Conservative National Advisory Committee member
• As a student he was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association

The BBC Board of Trustees

Rona Fairhead, Chairman of Trust

Rona Fairhead being questioned about financial irregularities

• Cambridge alumnus
• Also works for HSBC and PepsiCo
• Declines to answer questions about Swiss banking irregularities.
• Admitted failings when her bank received a fine for money-laundering 
• Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for 'services to industry'

Roger Carr, Vice Chair

• Worked in the City
• Business background at Thames Water, arms company BAE systems & energy giant Centrica
• Knighted

What does this mean for any public interest issue that challenges the weaknesses in their inevitable consensus. It doesn't have to be conspiracy for decision-making to be influenced by mostly privileged backgrounds. All homogeneity by definition has blind-spots.

Would James Harding ever take aim at his powerful old boss about his bigotry or non-dom status?
Would Allegra Stratton ever scrutinise on the financial matters of the Barclays Brothers?

Would Rona Fairhead ever green-light an investigative series on the workings of HSBC, a bank that has already proven to be corrupt and a major part of our economy?

The names are inter-changeable, the outcomes similar.

Below is some background to journalists at The Times I published previously here

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