Triple A

Following on from the discussion about money and Westminster, do watch the latest Question Time on iPlayer. People are still mad as hell and it looks like they want a general election now. One slight problem I have is that it would not be good to have one whilst our blood is still up. Maybe better to ensure we have cooled our jets a bit before making any decisions. The Euro elections should give us an opportunity to see which way the wind is blowing. Ironically most people think those elections matter less when in reality they probably matter about three times more (about 75% of our legislation is derived from Europe). One bloke on question time asked the assembledMP's straight out: "what do we need you for?"

Standard and Poor have "considered dropping the UK's credit rating below AAA (our first negative rating for 30 odd years). They haven't done it though. They've jsut suggested there's a one in three chance that the next time they look at us, they might have too. And the two other rating agencies haven't even gone that far. Man, what do we have to do to get those guys to weigh up our massive debt, our lack of natural resources, our lack of any kind of serious industry, our overpopulation in relation to available land, our declining skills and our predominant lack of speakers of a second language and say "that really does not make a good basis for investment, people. What acronym do we usually give when we want to suggest investors would be better off putting cash under the mattress?".

Actually they can rate us with a series of A's if they like, either 2 or 3. They just need to indicate by that that they mean we're on the hard shoulder, the bonnet is up, we're looking puzzled, some steam is coming out, the kids are restless and we're waiting for some one to tow us to a convenient location before we're scrapped (or given us for "scrappage" as whatever department is now in charge of Transport likes to call it, the philistines). S&P triple A rated the very investment instruments that caused the credit crunch in the first place. They are craven and possibly willfully ignorant. The rating they give is effectively meaningless since people are still going to buy our cheap bonds. Luckily we have a government who use sophistry to turn our burgeoning national debt into an actual triumph of attracting inward investment! Genius.