Saturday with Sir Mo

Saturday evening was rather good fun.  I went to a favourite local restaurant to watch the athletics because there seemed a decent chance it would be a good night for the Brits and best enjoyed in company.  

What was rather strange was that Miss Ennis's romp to triumph was met with smiles and a sense of inevitability, while Mr Rutherford's success in the leaping game caused an almost unanimous reaction of "never heard of him".  By marked contrast Mr Farah's long trot captivated people from the start.  The telly is in the bar area of a very large restaurant divided into a number of sections, a few minutes before the race started diners moved from their tables and crammed into the bar (I was eating at the bar - I've played this game before and guaranteed myself a prime seat).  As he accelerated to victory over the last three laps the atmosphere was quite frenetic.  Lots of "come-ons", "he's in control" and similar sentiments.  When Mr Farah (or Sir Mo as he must surely become if he can nail the 5,000 metre race as well) made his final move at about 200 yards from the tape people were cheering and shouting and even I abandoned my normal reserve by applauding as he crossed the line.  

There is something about running that excites people and there is something about Sir Mo that people like.  It cannot just be his silky smooth running style or the fact that he sometimes wins the most important races.  He does it all with a smile on his face and makes it clear to everyone how grateful he is for the support he receives, that cannot be it either because others do the same. Perhaps the secret to his popularity is that he came to this country as a youngster and was given a home free of the poverty, misery and violence that dominated his early years in Somalia.  Not for him moans about discrimination and attachment to the cult of victimhood, he tells us all how lucky he feels and how welcome he has been made here. He is married to a pudgy white girl and has a pudgy brown daughter.  He is just like a normal person with an engaging air of modesty about his extraordinary sporting achievements and we all enjoy someone like him being British and running for Britain.  

The greatest thing is that his dietary advisor has the surname Fudge.  

 

An Olympic Fuss over Nothing

I'm rather keen on a nice bit of sport and the Olympic games provide a nice bit of sport.  Yesterday afternoon it was a real pleasure to follow the gentlemen's artistic gymnastics team event final and see our boys win bronze then silver then bronze.  

Gymnastics is rather like athletics in that it can be understood by anyone.  We all have experience of running and jumping and are able to look at these events from a perspective of personal knowledge (for those unfortunate few not in this boat the raspberry games will follow the real sport in a couple of weeks).  That Louis Smith performing on the pommel horse bears no comparison to a short chubby schoolboy failing to do anything more than sit on one decades ago does not diminish my admiration for his efforts, indeed it is precisely why I admire them.  

I hate swimming.  It's the water.  Gets up your nose.  Very nasty and uncomfortable.  But a smile crosses the full width of my flabby jowls when I see magnificent athletes splashing through the pool faster than I can drive to Morrisons, especially when they are like that lovely girl Rebecca Adlington who reacted to being third (rather than first as she was four years ago) with the broadest possible grin and recognition that she had achieved something very rare by winning an Olympic medal.  

Unfortunately, exposure of the British public to the Olympic games is in the hands of the BBC so there is always an agenda lurking behind the coverage.  Commenting on the sports while they are taking place gives little leeway for even the BBC to promote its editorial policy so gaps in and between events have to be utilised and they have done extraordinarily well in their "empty seats" campaign.  It was evident in the first couple of days that a chunk of seats in prime locations were not occupied by spectators, this was most apparent during the qualifying competitions in gymnastics.  It really looked very shabby and disrespectful both to the competitors and to those who had applied for tickets and been unsuccessful.  

The BBC's editorial line was apparent from the off, big business had bought the seats for fat cats who were too busy eating babies to attend thereby depriving lesbian unpartnered mothers of what was rightly theirs.  An enquiry was demanded.  Of course when the enquiry took place it was discovered that the gaps were caused not by drunken indolence on the part of rich corporate sponsors but by members of the so-called "Olympic Family" not taking-up free tickets that had been made available for them.  It's their official title, not a piss-take by me, certain people involved in Olympic sports are categorised by the International Olympic Committee as members of the "Olympic Family".  Quite sickening.  

That seats are kept aside for those the organisers consider worthy of a free ticket does not rankle with me at all, it would be extraordinary and irrational if that didn't happen.  A long-deceased comic drunk and wife-beater is reputed to have once asked the Queen whether she likes football.  On her replying that she didn't he asked if he could have her tickets to the FA Cup Final.  As far as I can recall the Queen hasn't attended the Cup Final for a very long time but there would be a seat available if she wanted to, just as seats were found for Princes William and Harry at the gymnastics yesterday afternoon.  It is a relatively small extension of the same principle for seats to be left for those of importance in various national Olympic Committees.  If they don't take the seats there will be gaps.  It's not a tragedy, it's just a few empty seats.  

Having gaps where big-wigs could be sitting has been a common feature of major sporting events for as long as I can remember.  I've seen it in person at Wembley stadium, Wembley arena (the Empire Pool as it was known the first time I encountered the phenomenon), the Docklands Arena (which, I believe, no longer exists - it used to be opposite Asda on the Isle of Dogs) and even the Royal Albert Hall.  This time a big mistake was made.  Having those seats placed immediately in front of the main television cameras covering an event is novel.  Usually they are spread around the arena in little clumps or placed en masse behind the main cameras in order to avoid exactly the fuss over nothing that has so excited the BBC. Placing the non-existent big-wigs immediately in front of the cameras gives the impression of a stadium half-empty because only 15% of the crowd is accommodated within the main shot, when they switch to a camera showing the whole arena you see it packed to the gills and can hardly notice a little bald patch.  

I am really enjoying watching supreme athletes competing at the very highest level and also enjoying those trail-blazers who have no hope of finishing their race before the winners have had time for a shower and a three course meal.  Over the weekend the rowing events included a gentleman from Niger and a lady from Iran who trailed in long after their opponents and received justified rapturous applause for having the guts to turn up and do their best.  They are a much better story for the BBC than a few empty seats.  

Let's not have a referendum

I suppose it should be mildly encouraging that the House of Commons is to debate and vote on whether there should be a referendum concerning the UK's membership of the European Union. The BBC informs me (here) that what will be debated is whether a referendum should be held giving the great British public three choices: (i) remaining in the EU, (ii) withdrawing from the EU and (iii) staying in but renegotiating the terms "in order to create a new relationship based on trade and cooperation".

My initial reaction was to wonder at the absurdity of offering three options. Nothing seems to be said about the proportion of votes required for any single option to be deemed the winner. Will it be more than one third or more than half? If the former it will lack legitimacy, if the latter it will set a very high hurdle for each option. 40% for staying in, 30% for withdrawal and 30% for renegotiation could be contrued as 70% for staying in but trying to change the unchangeable or as 60% for changing the status quo without any obligation on government to do anything about it. Either way it is completely unsatisfactory.

My second reaction was to ask whether there is any difference between the first and third options and, indeed, between the second and third options.

Staying in does not prevent renegotiation of the terms of membership, so option (iii) (if acted on by the government) merely adds a requirement to enter negotiations. What it cannot do is dictate the outcome of those negotiations because, by definition, negotiations only lead to a change if all parties to the discussion agree on a specific outcome. As I understand it an outcome in favour of option (iii) would not require the government to do anything, although it would be bad politics for them not to make at least a token gesture of trying to change the terms of EU membership. And even if they were constitutionally obliged to negotiate that would not guarantee any particular result.

Leaving the EU cannot take place in a vacuum. The UK has numerous trade treaties with countries around the globe, absent such treaties practical business cannot be conducted and just those sorts of treaties will be required if we are to deal in a sensible manner with the remaining EU nations. Withdrawal from the EU necessarily requires new treaties to be negotiated with the new, slightly smaller, EU because country-by-country treaties with EU members are not an option - the EU as a conglomerate has control over such matters. In other words, withdrawal will require negotiation "in order to create a new relationship based on trade and cooperation" - so what of option (iii)?

The terms proposed for a referendum look like a hopeless and confused committee-created fudge. A referendum on the terms proposed is likely to achieve only one thing, namely to kick the issue into the long grass for the foreseeable future. Only a straight in/out question is appropriate.

80mph? Oh no, the planet is at risk.

The government has suggested that the national maximum speed limit might be increased from 70 mph to 80 mph in two years' time, in the interim they propose a consultation exercise. Whether the outcome will be a change in the maximum permissible speed of motorcars on our roads is pretty much irrelevant to me. I have held an unblemished driving licence for decades and will not knowingly exceed a speed limit because I want it to remain unblemished. Consider me a boring prig if you will, but I prefer to live within the law whether or not I agree with it.

Today on my way back from a hack around the golf course I heard an item on this issue on BBC Radio 5 (actually not so much of a hack, I went round in 78 gross on a par 72 course, something went wrong with my usual ineffectual sporting technique - I only throw this in because I'm very proud of it and will almost certainly never do it again).

A number of statements issued by people and organisations involved in the motoring business were read and a few people were interviewed, including a former racing driver and the current Secretary of State for Transport. Some supported the proposal, some opposed it and some said it was necessary to investigate the likely consequences before changing the law. Fair enough.

What was not fair enough was that almost all contributors, including the Secretary of State, said a relevant consideration was the effect of an increase in the maximum lawful speed of motor cars on British roads on the amount of carbon dioxide exuded into the atmosphere.

It really is quite flabbergasting that the anti-carbon dioxide religion has taken hold to such an extent that a minor change in the law of England, Wales and (I believe) Northern Ireland should be thought to have a potential impact on emissions of CO2 that can be of relevance to the well-being of our planet and/or human life on our planet.

The UK (including Scotland which is in charge of speed limits through its own so-called Parliament and is unaffected by the proposed change) produces less than 2% of all carbon dioxide spewed forth by human activity. Traffic on roads carrying a speed limit lower than 70 mph will not be affected by the proposal and not all those travelling on roads to which the national speed limit applies will drive faster and spew more CO2 as a result of the maximum permissible speed being 80 rather than 70.

Against that background it is obvious beyond doubt that any additional CO2 coming from those cars that will be driven at higher speeds because of the proposed change will be such a small amount that it can make no difference to anything. It will be a small percentage (if, indeed it even reaches 1%) of the less than 2% of world emissions coming from the UK.

You can close down all human activity in the UK and the result will not have any measurable effect on the climate. Even if we accept the very direst predictions of those who claim additional human-produced carbon dioxide will cause great changes to the climate and that those changes will be detrimental to human existence, the removal of the 2% currently produced by the UK cannot affect matters to a measurable degree because other countries (especially China and India) are increasing their emissions by far more every year.

To take a proposal that might increase the UK's emissions by a tiny amount and seek to include that effect as a consideration that should affect the decision to accept or reject the proposal is, frankly, moronic.

An Immigration Fraud

Immigration is a curious issue in British politics. Twenty and more years ago it was a core issue about which senior politicians would debate vigorously on national television and gain headlines in newspapers. Today there is the occasional soundbite but nothing more than that. All parties say they will be strict on abuses of the system but put forward nothing other than generalisations about how they will do it. When the party in power changes, nothing of any real substance ever seems to change.

In one important respect there is nothing any UK government can do because citizens of member States of the European Union have an almost unfettered right to come to this country. In another important respect there is nothing they should do because genuine refugees from the grimmer areas of human habitation must always be given a safe haven.

The point of today's waffle is something called the Ankara Agreement (for a summary of the parts that matter for present purposes, see here). One provision of the agreement allows Turks to apply for permission to enter and work in the UK if they intend to establish a business and show they have the financial means to do so. It is important to understand that an applicant who meets the criteria will be given the right to come and work here, there is no residual discretion to refuse an application that ticks all the boxes. What is required of an applicant is the intention to set-up a business and the money necessary to do so. The whole thing is about allowing in entrepreneurs, joining an existing business or working for a new business set-up by someone else is outside the Agreement. One might think very few people would qualify.

A whole industry has grown up around this aspect of the Ankara Agreement. There are firms of so-called immigration consultants who formulate applications for anyone who will pay them a fee.

These firms have template business plans they print-out with little or no amendment for scores of applicants. It goes without saying that the applicants are almost exclusively young men. One business plan that has been doing the rounds is the establishment of a bicycle taxi service in the West End of London. This was devised by one of the consultancy firms and has formed the basis of applications for permission to stay in the UK by dozens of men who came initially on student visas. It should be no surprise to anyone with a smidgen of common sense that most of them were not genuine students at all, they were the nephews (or sons of friends) of Turkish people already settled here and came to be part of their established businesses. They signed on as students at a language college of greater or lesser repute and worked in the uncle's (or father's friend's) restaurant or shop and then wanted to find a way to stay here when the period of their student visa was due to expire. From the beginning they came here to work and establish a life rather than to study, the student visa was simply a means to an end.

The Ankara Agreement is also treated as a means to an end. Recently I met a friend of a friend who used the bogus bicycle taxi business plan and was refused permission to stay because the judge saw through the scam. The applicant himself was disappointed but not surprised, he knew his intention was to continue working in his uncle's restaurant in the midlands and that he would rather smear his scrotum with toothpaste than operate a bicycle taxi. He knew the application was a scam, took his chance and lost.

I know others who have been given leave to live and work here under the Ankara Agreement despite having no intention at all to set-up their own business. Some just want to live a western life rather than a repressive Islamic life, others simply want to avoid national service in the Turkish army, most want both.

When discussing this topic with local Turks it is obvious that there is no desire to harm the UK behind the fraudulent applications that are made. There is no intention to scrounge benefits or to engage in criminal activity, the intention is simply to come here, work hard and make a life in the UK rather than in Turkey. A few days ago the excellent Mr Raedwald wrote about the Turks (here), his piece encouraged me to write on the subject because his positive view of Turks is the same as mine.

In the normal run of things I would be inclined to denounce systematic fraud of the type behind the hundreds of bogus applications made under the Ankara Agreement each year. I find it hard to denounce people who come here under student visas to see whether life here will suit them and, when they decide it will, want to find a way to remain so that they can earn an honest living. Of course there is a conflict between the honest lives they want to lead and the dishonest means they use to secure a right to remain here. It could be said that they do not want to lead honest lives at all because the lies told in their applications show them to be seriously dishonest. I understand that argument entirely and part of me agrees with it, the other part of me asks why people who want to work for a living should not be allowed to do so. Although their applications are fundamentally fraudulent they are not intended to harm anyone and, as far as I can tell, they do not harm anyone.

Until a few weeks ago I had never heard of the Ankara Agreement. Since then I have been talking to a number of local Turks I have known for years, what they told me about the way the Ankara Agreement has been used for decades accorded exactly with the way it was used by people whose applications were recently allowed or refused and who allowed me to look at the paperwork. Some of it was quite astonishing, particularly the successful application of one man who applied on the basis he was planning to start a website design business when he has worked as a waiter in a Turkish restaurant since he came here two years ago and still does the same job today. He just wanted to stay here and continue his life here, the alternative was at least a year in the army followed by starting from scratch. He was lucky, his bogus application succeeded. Frankly, this country is better for having him here because he is good at what he does and benefits the business that pays him. It sould surprise no one that a Turkish restaurant keeps its customers happier by having good Turkish waiters rather than employing Wayne or Jermaine, why should there be any obstruction to a good Turkish waiter living here so that he can provide that service?

The Ankara Agreement induces fraudulent applications because it establishes an avenue for people from one culture to live a new life in a more appealing culture. Indeed, so appealing is the new culture that a whole business has developed around finding ways to use the opportunity provided by the Agreement. It is a massive fraud.

A better course would be to allow everyone in provided they pay their way - no benefits, no right to housing, no hand-outs. Earn your way or go home. The young Turks wouldn't be going home in a hurry.

Tobacco companies and open goals

Eid Mubarak.

That is the traditional greeting given at the end of Ramadan, despite having lived in an area with a substantial Turkish population for more years than I have lived anywhere else I only learned that this week. Saying it elicits the same smiley response as Merry Christmas in the middle weeks of December. Now that Ramadan is over I no longer have to abide by the dietary strictures I imposed upon myself a month ago, so tofu and cauliflower need be avoided only on the ground of their venal characteristics and not for any other reason.

Talking of venal characteristics, on Thursday I made the mistake of turning on the radio on my way to golf and was assaulted by an absurd anti-smoking zealot spouting forth on the Victoria Darbyshire show on BBC Radio 5. His name was Professor Gerard Hastings. The good Mr Puddlecote knows more about him than I do and has posted (here) on the very subject that lies behind today's missive.

I can summarise the background quickly. Professor Hastings leads a department at the University of Sterling (an establishment with a fine reputation he is doing his best to destroy). That department is funded by taxpayers and has the remit to identify every possible fact or inference that can possibly be used to argue against the consumption of tobacco products. One of his latest wheezes was a survey of teenagers with the view to ascertaining their opinions of smoking tobacco and the factors that influenced them or might influence them into taking up that particular hobby. The survey, as I understand it, comprised asking a series of questions and recording the answers.

If that is all that had been done, one might ask why it was done, but of course it is not all that was done. Once the answers were received they were "interpreted" by Professor Hastings and his merry men and conclusions were drawn. Conclusions which he is proud to contribute to public debate on the issue of what, if anything, government should add to its current panoply of anti-smoking legislation and regulation. I put it in those terms very deliberately because there is no possibility at all of Professor Hastings reaching any conclusion suggesting that anti-smoking laws or regulations should be relaxed in any way. He is paid specifically to find fault, something he is very happy to do and is perfectly entitled to do provided he does so honestly and is prepared to justify his position. His interview on the radio suggested that one result of his so-called research supported the argument for plain packaging for cigarettes - I know not what other contentions it contained but this is the one he pressed to Miss Darbyshire.

A tobacco company, which uses the trading name Philip Morris, asked for details of the facts behind the conclusions/inferences drawn by Professor Hastings and his team. The request was, of course, made to the University not to the Professor himself so I cannot ascribe the patently unlawful refusal to give any information to him, nonetheless he was keen to associate himself with it on national radio.

On this occasion the BBC also allowed time for Philip Morris to give its side of the story, and it is this that is the substance of my ramblings. A woman, whose name I cannot recall, answered the more absurd points put forward by the Professor. For example, he said the survey was conducted on the basis that the answers would be strictly confidential and that this means the answers could not be disclosed. Being a man with a fine title but no common sense, he failed to realise just how stupid a point he was making. If the answers could not be disclosed he could not publish any conclusions drawn from them because, by doing so, he was disclosing the answers. That might not be quite as stupid as his argument that his University should not have to disclose the findings of fact on which his "research" was based because it is just a university yet Philip Morris employs tens of thousands of people around the globe. Quite what that has to do with the Freedom of Information Act is beyond me. Were I a professor maybe I would understand, as things are it sounds like illogical nonsense.

Now, back to the Philip Morris woman. When asked to justify her company's request for the data behind Professor Hastings' tendentious conclusions she warbled on about a need to know "the basis of the research". This was Radio 5 in the morning. The audience could not reasonably be expected to know ins-and-outs of the way anti-tobacco "research" operates or, indeed, of how proper scientific research operates, still less can they be expected to know the heavily-nuanced phrase "the basis of the research". The good Professor provided her with the killer point but she did not grasp it and undermine his credibility as she should.

Professor Hastings wants all employees of Philip Morris to lose their jobs, he wants the company closed, he wants its business to cease to exist. He said as much when Miss Darbyshire prompted him to do so.

The Philip Morris lady's best point was to assert that her company's business is lawful, employs tens of thousands of people (some thing the Professor seems to consider an evil), contributes vast quantities of tax to the Treasury and is entitled to protect its business against unfounded attacks. So, if it is attacked, it is entitled to ask whether the attack is well-founded or not. The purpose of the request for disclosure of the data behind Professor Hastings' conclusions can only be to see whether it supports the conclusions he asserts. If it does, it does; if it doesn't it doesn't. No one can know unless they are able to see the data and analyse it for themselves. She didn't get within spitting distance of making this obvious and decisive point. It is a point that knocks all of Professor Hastings' smug self-justification into a cocked-hat.

Professor Hastings "research" led to the assertion of conclusions designed to damage Philip Morris's lawful business and put all its employees out of work. Given that this might be the result of his conclusions being adopted in legislation, Philip Morris is entitled to ask whether his conclusions are sound. That can only be known by seeing the factual evidence from which he drew inferences. He can assert until the trump of doom that his conclusions are well-founded but no sensible person should be expected to accept that merely on the basis of his assertion. Unless the raw material from which he draws inferences is disclosed, he is asking for Philip Morris's business to be damaged purely because of his subjective interpretation of material no one else can examine.

Were we lucky enough to have independent-minded people of substance in Parliament, his conclusions could be challenged there. Instead we have far too many MPs who are constantly asking whether what they do will damage their hopes of re-election or advancement within their party. Going against current accepted wisdom can damage both, so they chicken out regardless of their personal views.

I do not know whether the Freedom of Information Act allows Philip Morris access to the anonymised answers given to Professor Hastings and his team (and Mr Puddlecote is wrong in suggesting that the Scottish Information Commissioner ruled that it has such a right, he ruled that the University must either disclose the information or give a good reason under the Act why it should not do so). Whether the Act does or does not allow access to the information deflects attention from the real issue. The real issue is whether a lawful business should be damaged because someone - in this case Professor Hastings - asserts that information he refuses to disclose supports the doing of harm to that business.

In the real world occupied by fair-minded people, substantiated reasons are required before government harms a lawful business. Fairness requires businesses to be able to ask why government proposes to do them harm. To rely on nothing more than the word of a fanatical academic whose salary and department are dependent on him giving the answers government wants to hear is to replace fairness with random bigotry.

It really is time the tobacco companies fought back and pointed out that a lot of people, something over one-fifth of the adult population of this country, choose to consume tobacco products and pay blistering amounts of tax for the privilege. Narrow-minded, bullying bigots might try to stop them by producing skewed analyses of data that is statistically insignificant in any event. Professor Hastings could fall into this category, he certainly doesn't approach the subject with an open mind as he admitted freely to the dozens of people listening to his irrational rantings on Thursday morning.

People like him are an open goal for any tobacco company with guts. Maybe the prevailing narrative is that smoking is an unmitigated evil with nothing in its favour, it certainly seems to be so from my perspective here at FatBigot Towers. When a prevailing narrative is based on a fundamental flaw, it takes someone with guts to stand up and say "hold on a minute, is that right?". It is an Emperor's new clothes scenario. Tobacco companies can afford guts and they can afford to face-down those who seek to attack their lawful business by publishing conclusions that are unsound. I know not whether Professor Hastings' conclusions are unsound, what I do know is that he cannot be trusted to be objective.

We cannot expect poor quality MPs to investigate whether his conclusions are correct, and nor should we. He is attacking lawful businesses who should fight their own corner. The first step in doing so is to put forward spokespeople on national broadcasts who avoid quasi-scientific jargon and get to the point.

This is an issue on which there is a chance of common sense replacing bigoted dogma. If the tobacco companies cannot grasp the lifeline provided by the truth we might well be destined to a future of having to accept falsehoods because they are "officially" decreed to be the truth.

Nationalise money - problem solved

I pity the governments of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (the PIIGS). They are doing their best to keep the wolf from the door but at every turn private investors pose impertinent questions and scupper their initiatives.

The truth is really very simple (what follows is a distillation of many research papers helpfully collected together - here - by a fellow blogger).

Governments print money. If they run short, perhaps because of the additional overtime paid to equality and diversity SWAT teams whenever a duskily hewed homosexualite has been refused promotion, all they need do is print another few million and the problem is solved. Or, to be exact, it would be solved if it weren't for those pesky private sector investors complaining that the additional tenners swishing through the system dilute the value of their cash reserves. And why would the problem be solved? Why does the printing of more ten pound notes not cause problems to anyone other than conspiratorial facist investors? For the answer to that question we need a short lesson in very modern economic history.

You see, it's Gordon Brown. He understood and we should all learn at his feet. More government spending means more economic activity. More economic activity is good, therefore more government spending is good. Got a town that's looking a bit crummy? Simple. Print 20 million tenners and spend them in that town building skate parks, healthy eating clinics and climate awareness centres, then print another 20 million to pay salaries. A crummy town? Not any more it isn't. It has skate parks, healthy eating clinics and climate awareness centres, it has a thousand people on good salaries manning these essential front-line public services. Misery has turned to universal joy and happiness. Crummytown is renamed Brownsville and all is right with the world. We know all this to be true because this was the basis of the economic miracle forged by Gordon Brown in his decade in the Treasury.

Only one group ever argued against Mr Brown as he stood triumphant before the World. That group was people and companies who forced Mr Brown to borrow money from them rather than just continually print more on the old hand platen that has been in the back bedroom at 11 Downing Street since 1805 (it proved a little inconvenient while the Blair family lived at Number 11 but Brown had a key and he was delighted to find the printing press was in the boys' bedroom).

One might think he should have just printed more, however that was fraught with political difficulties. If Gordon Brown is one thing, he is a man of the big tent. Not for him the marginalising or exclusion of any group, least of all those who might complain that he was acting out of small-minded, party-political spite. He simply had to keep the international financiers happy, to do otherwise would strike at the essential core of inclusive humanity that defines his moral compass. Much though he hated to do so, he knew his duty - that duty was to borrow hundreds of billions on the money markets in order to prove his fair-mindedness. It wasn't a problem because he only needed to spend a few more hours with the plates and ink in the back bedroom, a task that could be undertaken at any time once the usurous financiers had been repaid.

To complete this short history I must refer to what some have called "Brown's Bunker". The theory goes that Gordon Brown surrounded himself with a small group of yes-men, working out of one room at Number 10, insulated from and antipathetic to any voices of disagreement. Papers recently disclosed by an impeccable source prove beyond doubt that the only bunker in Downing Street during the Brown years was that specially created to house the enormous printing presses and stocks of "paper" required for Gordon to stimulate the economy after the wicked international bankers had made such a mess of their businesses they had to be bailed-out.

What cannot be ignored is that Gordon Brown's economic miracle would have continued unabated, and he would now be President for Life, were it not for the nasty private sector pretending its money was as pure as that produced in Downing Street. He was a victim of his own fairness and honesty because he could not bear the thought of a single banker's child losing their pony or being deprived of lacrosse coaching. In the circumstances of the time he was, of course, absolutely right, as he remains on every topic to this day. Nonetheless, his fairness created a bit of a pickle - a pickle for which he is not in any way to blame, we know this because he tells us so every time he is paid many thousands of pounds to give a speech.

It will be a matter of great regret until my dying day that the general election of 2010 came just before Gordon Brown had the chance to put into effect the final piece of his masterly jigsaw. Having, he thought, proved that all economic ills are caused by private sector businesses, the time was ripe for nationalisation of the funds held by these wicked shysters. No need for printing presses, a simple CHAPS transfer to HM Treasury would do the trick. There would no longer be any private sector investors involved in the UK economy, everything would be under the benevolent hand of the greatest economist the World has ever known - the man who knew that every hitch could be overcome by creating more bank notes.

All across the Eurozone we now see the greatness of his wisdom. Why is Greece in a mess? It's simple, private financiers are demanding repayment of their investments with interest. What an utterly absurd state of affairs it is. All Greece need do is nationalise the money it has been lent and its problems will be over. It will owe nothing. The slate will be wiped clean. What's more, it could then turn on the printing presses and boost its economy just as Gordon Brown did to the UK economy from 2003-7. So too for the rest of the PIIGS. They are foreigners so they would face no moral impediment as Mr Brown had with the bankers.

A country's credit rating cannot be downgraded if it never borrows, even more so if there are no credit rating agencies and there would not be once the vital step to economic harmony and perpetual glee was put in place. Mr Brown understood this. All you need do is nationalise all money and the problems not just of the PIIGS but also of every nation would disappear at a stroke.