The economists are saying that, should we leave the EU or should it collapse, we’d have a tough 2-1/2 years, but everything will be coming up roses afterwards. I like precise forecasts as much as any other man, especially if they come from such a notoriously reliable group as economists. Anatole Kaletsky, my fellow Muscovite, is especially reliable: one can guarantee that, whatever he forecasts, the exact opposite will happen every time. But in this instance these chaps miss the real point, even if they are right on the economics: a tough 2-1/2 years will mean no reelection for the coalition. Can’t have that, can we? It’s much better just to stagger along, hoping to stay on the gravy train until it smashes into the buffers.
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Now, is it just me or what? Two days ago HMG said we wouldn’t contribute to the bailout fund either directly or through the IMF. Now they are saying we’d be happy to pay £40 billion through that august organisation. Two days is a long time in politics, or am I missing something?
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The other day a dimwitted young journalist working for a London paper owned by a KGB thug told me he liked the idea of communism, even though it went wrong in Russia. ‘Which idea would that be?’ ‘Well, everyone being equal and all that…’ ‘That, my dear friend, isn’t an idea,’ said I in my best haughty manner. ‘Similarly, saying wouldn’t it be nice not to have any disease at all isn’t an idea — it’s a pub rant. People aren’t equally able, which is why they aren’t equally successful. That’s the natural state of affairs, and it can only be distorted by unnatural means. Namely, violence — hence communism.’ I don’t know if the youngster thought about this afterwards, though I rather doubt it. But I certainly did, in relation to our economic woes. Usually, when a giant social experiment goes wrong, what’s at fault isn’t bad management but a bad underlying idea. In this instance, it’s the asinine hope that capitalist production (free markets) can accommodate socialist distribution (welfare state). It can’t, either economically or socially or morally, not in the long run. Thus the only way out is to get rid of the very concept of the welfare state and let the people work and invest their way out of trouble, while enabling private charities to look after those who genuinely can’t (as opposed to won’t) look after themselves. But of course this logical suggestion will get our ‘statesmen’ up in arms: ‘Are you bonkers? This is politically impossible!’ I hear them cry. That’s true. It is indeed impossible within a political system that these days fails, abysmally and universally, the most critical test, that of elevating to government only those fit to govern. Or giving the vote only to those fit to vote. Again, what’s at fault isn’t certain practices but the system as a whole, one that replaces democracy with spivocracy with the certainty of night following day. Well, now you see why a recent (favourable) review of my Crisis book described me as ‘a grumpy old man’. I take exception to the ‘old’ bit.
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In a speech of a few days ago, Putin vowed to reconstruct the White Sea Canal. His affection for this waterway is as laudable as it is understandable: the canal was built in 1930-1932 by slave labour under the auspices of the alpha dog’s parent organisation, then known as the NKVD. Considering that about 100,000 died in the process, one hopes the dog will approach the reconstruction differently. Unless, of course, nostalgia get the better of him and he goes rabid.