Comment: We need a fiscal court in the Hague to imprison irresponsible politicians
By Godfrey Bloom
The chancellor treated the electorate to another demonstration of ignorance as he put an optimistic gloss on the disaster that is now the British economy.
Spending averages £9 billon a month more than income, as indeed it has since this rather enigmatic and bewildered individual took office.
Margaret Thatcher took incredible stick from the great and the good – academic economists steeped in the neo-Keynesian tradition of spend and borrow – when she inherited a disaster. She was mocked as an ignorant middle class housewife for daring to suggest that sooner or later a family, business or the state must eventually balance the budget.
Osborne came into office acknowledging this simple truth but he will leave office in 2015 (oh yes he will) with the country's national debt 50% higher than when he arrived. So dire is the situation that not only he but the entire coalition and opposition have simply stopped discussing it.
He could wipe out this running deficit if he had a political backbone but neither he nor anyone else in mainstream politics understands, or indeed seems to want to understand, the enormity of the problem that now faces the UK and indeed many other European countries.
These failures are not helped by the public service broadcasting system, itself funded by the state, and a press largely governed by the Conservative or Labour party. Any remaining media outlets are committed to high public spending ideologically.
Add to this deficit spending, which increases national debt at a terrifying ten per cent per annum, Osborne now indulges in money printing. What it cannot tax or borrow it fraudulently prints. The Bank of England does its political masters' will by facilitating massive government bond buying by the retail banks. This suppresses interest rates, which murders savers, pensioners and anyone on fixed incomes as well as degrading the currency. Our children and grandchildren are doomed to a new economic dark age.
I am not a politician who just carps from the back benches. Let me offer some practical solutions to a government whose leadership is hopelessly out of its depth.
The first step would be to acknowledge the enormity of the problem and tackle it with resolution and urgency. Cancel all foreign aid outside emergency help for distressed countries, i.e. Philippines. That saves £1 billion per month. Leave the absurd and corrupt EU and revert to the Europe Free Trade Association – another £1 billion per month.
Abandon 'fake charities' (Google for in-depth analysis) bingo – £1 billion per month there. Quangos! What happened to the bonfire? £3 billion per month. Most of them are only EU enforcement agencies.
Cap all public service pension benefits at 1.5 times the average national wage. Retain the TaxPayer's Alliance and the Institute of Economic Affairs to programme a serious and ruthless assault on waste. I mean really ruthless. The steps a failing business would need with no recourse to taxpayers' or counterfeit money.
We can only grow our way out of this quagmire, so we need an energy policy which facilitates this – not a policy ignored by the world with a carbon dioxide hair shirt. Politicians must feel warm inside as they munch their brown rice and sun dried tomatoes in the Cotswolds while advocating an expanding manufacturing base.
This would wipe off needless deficit spending. We need serious banking reform. Fractional reserve banking must once again be made illegal as it was in 19th Century America. There must be a return to sound money, in order to do that all political connection with the medium of exchange must be removed. It might already be too late but we simply cannot go on as we are.
Politicians must know that the destruction of the UK economy, even if it does not trigger on their watch, will be punished.
Again I call for an international fiscal crimes tribunal at The Hague to imprison those past and present for their crimes.
Godfrey Bloom is an independent member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber
The opinions in politics.co.uk's Comment and Analysis section are those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the website or its owners.
