Poll shows voters don't trust Brown on economy

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown is less trusted than any other major western European leader in being able to steer his country through the global financial crisis, a Financial Times poll showed on Monday.

It was the latest blow to Brown's reputation for economic competence as the housing market faces a sharp downturn amid the international turbulence.

Concern over the impact of the credit crunch is growing and mortgage lenders called on the Bank of England on Friday to increase efforts to ease the impact, warning home loans could halve from last year's levels.

In the Financial Times/Harris poll, 68 percent of Britons said they were "not confident at all" in the ability of the government to steer the country safely through tough times.

In contrast, voter confidence in their government's abilities to ride out the financial crisis was 52 percent in Germany, 51 percent in the United States, 50 percent in France, 43 percent in Italy and 36 percent in Spain.

"Gordon Brown has forfeited his trump card," the Financial Times concluded. "The mantle of economic competence, the ruling Labour Party's most potent electoral weapon, is up for grabs."

Asked if the poll's findings worried Brown, the prime minister's spokesman said: "These are difficult times for the global economy. It is entirely understandable that people are concerned about their well-being."

Brown believes Britain is well-placed to withstand the turmoil. "We were the fastest-growing economy in the G7 last year and the IMF is forecasting for us to be the fastest-growing economy this year," the spokesman said.

A Sunday Times poll showed that Brown, widely admired for steering Britain through a period of uninterrupted growth in his decade as Chancellor, suffered the biggest drop in personal ratings since polls were first taken in the 1930s.

The YouGov poll in the paper showed the resurgent Conservatives on 44 percent with Labour on 28 percent and the centrist Liberal Democrats on 17 percent.

But the biggest blow was delivered in the soundings on Brown's personal ratings -- they have fallen from plus 48 last August to minus 37.

"The collapse is the most dramatic of any modern-day prime minister, worse even than Neville Chamberlain who in 1940 dropped from plus 21 to minus 27 after Hitler's invasion of Norway," the paper said.

The Conservatives pounced on Brown's woes. Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: "Brown rested his claim to economic competence on three pillars -- stability, prudence and productivity. Those three pillars lie broken."

Brown, who took over from Tony Blair in June last year, does not have to call a national election until 2010 so time is on his side if the global economy recovers.

The leader is holding a breakfast meeting with leading executives and bankers from London's financial district on Tuesday before flying off to the United States where the global downturn is bound to dominate discussions.

He is to meet Wall Street bankers in New York on Wednesday and President Bush in Washington on Thursday.

LEGIS CANTIO CONTRA INEPTOS CRITICOS

It looks like someone didn't appreciate my little rant against the attention-seeking media whore in a local rag and wrote in to complain.

It was fascinating to read Sir C4's scatter-gun and ill-informed diatribe against MP Adam Price, Plaid, the European Union, Cuba and Carmarthenshire Council (Carmarthen Journal, March 12).

I trust his BA (Hons.) thesis was better researched and better presented.

Those of us who wish to be citizens of an independent Wales want our own membership of the EU and our own seat at the United Nations.

In this, we follow the pattern set by the Republic of Ireland as one of the most successful and prosperous nations in Europe, yet still independent, because they have embraced the realities of the 21st Century. None of this is anti-English; I am an Englishman who chooses to live and work in this country.

I wonder if Sir C4' has even visited Cuba, toured the country and met the people as I have.

Yes, there is a concentration camp on the island, where people are incarcerated without charge, without trial, and without access to lawyers, and are subject to the torture that is officially sanctioned by Washington. It is the American base at Guantanamo Bay.

If Sir C4' is reluctant to go to Cuba, he could visit Florida where five Cuban citizens, Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez, Fernando Gonzalez and Ramon Labinino, have been imprisoned in Miami for the past nine years, following a travesty of a trial, which had little to do with justice but a lot to do with US politics.

I would be happy to furnish Sir C4', or anyone else, with full details of the plight of the Miami Five, and anything else that may open closed minds.

Philip D Whitehead
Foelgastell
Cross Hands

Oh dear, I've hurt the feelings of a poor little left-wing hippy. Here is my retort:

I would like to thank Mr. Philip Whitehead for his reply (Journal, March 26) to my previous letter (Journal, March 12). I feel honoured and privileged that he took the time to defend the indefensible.

Does any rational person actually believe that the Irish Republic (or Britain for that matter) is at present a truly independent country within the European Union when it has been the openly stated goal of the EU in all it’s guises over the past fifty-one years to bring about a ever-closer economic, military and political union all the continent’s nations? The EU is the fulfilment of Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler’s shared dream of a sinister European Super-state; an Orwellian nightmare that if it is allowed to usurp our time-honoured traditions of liberty and justice, will reduce our human rights and living standards to those of Cuba (or worse still, North Korea).

I am well aware of the harm Guantanamo Bay does to its inmates and America’s reputation as the self-proclaimed leader of the Free World. I’m also sure that Mr. Whitehead would agree with me that American sanctions against Cuba (as well as Iraq and North Korea among others) have been counter-productive, as the political leadership have exploited them to further entrench their power at the expense of the people whilst simultaneously making America the scapegoats for the hardships of the citizenry.

However, despite these serious injustices and the plight of the Miami Five, the crimes against humanity committed by the Castro clan, Ernesto "Che" Guevara and their cronies cannot be overlooked or excused. Cuba viciously represses dissent against the regime, tortures and executes its people (particular minority groups such as homosexuals and until the mid-1990s, Christians) and exported mass-murder and terrorism to Central and South America, Africa and the rest of the Caribbean during the Cold War. I’m also sure that despite the rights or wrongs of what has happened to the Miami Five, they have been treated far better than poor Normando Hernández González and the fifty-eight other journalists imprisoned in Cuba.

It’s for that reason that I wouldn’t want to visit Cuba or any other third-world socialist hellhole like Venezuela, Zimbabwe and China (though I must confess a certain perverse curiosity to pay a visit to the Stalinist museum / death camp known as North Korea). Yet I can understand how hard it is for apologists like Mr. Whitehead to remove their rose-tinted spectacles (circa 1960s) and realise that all the socialist dogma they consumed with their mothers’ milk was a fatal conceit for billions of people during the last century and still is for over a billion souls to this day. He and his ilk have my pity, the organ grinders of tyranny will have to eat the metaphorically lead of my trusty scatter-gun.

P.S.: LEGIS CANTIO CONTRA INEPTOS CRITICOS.
(Incantation of the law against inept critics.)

Brilliant, don't you agree?!? Only a women's reserve team goalkeeper for Romford Hockey Club could get the better of "Mr. Marmite".

Israel Is Evil (According To Terry Kelly)

I sometimes wonder if the infamous Cllr Terry Kelly lives on the same planet as the rest of us. Take this question I asked him for example:

"Are you aware that Israel is the only true democray in the Middle East, surrounded by half-a-dozen Arab and Islamic dictatorships that would love nothing more than finish what Hitler started (not that they would admit to there being a holocaust in the first place)?

Under those circumstances, Israel has every right to defend itself against such aggression."

However, the self-appointed champion of the Palestinian people sees it differently:

"I can’t see anything or anyone in the Middle East that comes anywhere near the crimes committed by Israel."

This remark though has me questioning his sanity:

"They are not a good advert for democracy, they are the cause of the problem ."

And Cuba is?!?

Scenes of a Graphic Nature

It's been a while since I've had a go at the Gormless One, so lets do so!

Out of sheer boredom (El Tel is rather quiet at the moment), visited Gallas' official web site and clicked on the 'Cartoons' section. I was greeted by a series of crude, unflattering and even offensive images of the looney left's pet hates (Thatcher, Israel, the United States etc.). Some of the stuff wouldn't be out of place in the infamous Der Sturmer.

Quote of the Day 18.1.2008

"The usual terminology of political language is stupid. What is 'left' and what is 'right'? Why should Hitler be 'right' and Stalin, his temporary friend, be 'left'? Who is 'reactionary' and who is 'progressive'? Reaction against an unwise policy is not to be condemned. And progress towards chaos is not to be commended. Nothing should find acceptance just because it is new, radical, and fashionable. 'Orthodoxy' is not an evil if the doctrine on which the 'orthodox' stand is sound. Who is anti-labor, those who want to lower labor to the Russian level, or those who want for labor the capitalistic standard of the United States? Who is 'nationalist,' those who want to bring their nation under the heel of the Nazis, or those who want to preserve its independence?" - Ludwig von Mises; Interventionism, An Economic Analysis (1940)

Quote of the Day 9.10.2007: The 750th Post

"Terry [Kelly], now you've done it - my dander is all fired up. 'Twisting' Che [Guevara]'s words indeed!

Still, I suppose Guevara is a natural fit to the rest of Kelly's Heroes - Stalin, Fidel [Castro], [Erich] Honecker and any murdering African despot with his hands in the till.

Just a suggestion Terry, but if you added in the Yorkshire Ripper and the Glasgow/Omagh bombers, you'd have a full-house you could be proud of." - Byeck