Despatch from Blighty

[Mega]

Hi Gang
Ok, 48 hours to go & it seems a cert that your looking @ a hung result. If i had to guess the hourse trading is already done. I suspect a Lib/Lab pact (we had one 1974..it ended badly).

So, Lib/Lab pact.........Brown will NOT be PM, he go.....not sure who take over but they be VERY well adviced to send in the IMF to go though the books & see JUST how much debt is hidden off the balance sheet!

Rather then make the same mistake as Obama & try to carry on the lies it would be far better to pin it ALL on Brown!

Things very much on a knife edge here, every "Expert" (the ones whom didn't see this coming) thinks housing market if fine & in recovery....Here in Blighty we have NOT had the big house price falls you had in the US.

However:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...e-lending-down

Its about to happen......
Mike

[jiimbergin]

Re: Despatch from Blighty

Thanks for the update. You and your Mother are in my prayers.

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: Despatch from Blighty

Hi Gang
Ok, 48 hours to go & it seems a cert that your looking @ a hung result. If i had to guess the hourse trading is already done. I suspect a Lib/Lab pact (we had one 1974..it ended badly).

So, Lib/Lab pact.........Brown will NOT be PM, he go.....not sure who take over but they be VERY well adviced to send in the IMF to go though the books & see JUST how much debt is hidden off the balance sheet!

Rather then make the same mistake as Obama & try to carry on the lies it would be far better to pin it ALL on Brown!

Things very much on a knife edge here, every "Expert" (the ones whom didn't see this coming) thinks housing market if fine & in recovery....Here in Blighty we have NOT had the big house price falls you had in the US.

However:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...e-lending-down

Its about to happen......
Mike

I'm going to attempt to translate this for the American audience not versed in British events or "Mega" ( feel free to chime in if I am getting it wrong ):

Ok, 48 hours to go

The British ( English? Scottish + some of the Irish ? don't know the details) are having an election ( I know this because I have taken to reading a right wing British newspaper, otherwise I would not have a clue what this is about).

it seems a cert that your looking @ a hung result.

Great Britain ( or England , or possibly the British Isles, but not all of them, or something ) are ruled by a hereditary Monarch who permits the public to think that they can vote for an elected parliament, but actually retains feudalistic control over the country. The Parliament consists of a "House of Commons" ( people not born to a hereditary noble family ) and a "House of Lords" ( Persons of Noble birth, who enjoy the right power of life or death over their serfs ). Although these days many of the "Lords" are elected to office, the old system still persists ( If you don't believe me read the wikipedia article on this :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords ).
A "hung" parliament is a unusual situation where no political party has an majority. This situation is familiar in the USA, but the British ( English? Irish? peoples of the British Isles, but not all of them?) are not used to it.
Three political parties are running candidates in the elections "Labour", Conservative and , liberal Democrat. Despite the colorful names, looking over the web pages for these guys, they all look about the same. Pretty much the same distance between them as between a Obama and a Bush. All three of them for example seem to support the war(s).

Brown will NOT be PM, he go

Gordon Brown is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom ( Just so you're clear: "The guy that runs things while the Queen is out of town" ). Brown has been running England ( or something ) since 2007. Before that he was Chancellor of the Exchequer (Think treasury secretary), where he made a name for himself by giving away all of England's gold.

not sure who take over but they be VERY well adviced to send in the IMF to go though the books & see JUST how much debt is hidden off the balance sheet!

Mega what is this about? Did Brown stuff bonds in light fixtures and under tables? Also Did you go to grade school? What is with the grammar and spelling? I'm a functional illiterate and I can do better than that.

Here in Blighty we have NOT had the big house price falls you had in the US.

This doesn't seem to hold water:
http://www.economist.com/business-fi...ry_id=14438245



-G

[Fiat Currency]

Re: Despatch from Blighty

Here's a perspective from The Globe and Mail. Since we (Canada & UK) share a lot of history and a similar Parliamentary & Electoral structure ... many people here follow the UK elections.

How the different British parties are trying to win the vote

Unless days of near-identical polls are suddenly upset by happenstance, on Friday British politics will be transformed into a jealous love triangle. Neither the ruling Labour Party nor the opposition Conservative Party seem poised to gain enough seats in Thursday’s elections to form a majority government.

That’s because a canny third party, the Liberal Democrats, has become a major force and a possible second-place winner after their young leader Nick Clegg galvanized the nation in televised debates.
Britain’s leadership may well be decided not by the election on Thursday night, but by long days of political seduction and post-electoral sparring beginning on Friday.

That has turned the campaign into a hall of mirrors as parties deploy tactics to woo their opponents into potential future coalitions, manipulate the electoral system to produce less onerous landing pads, and urge their voters to create circumstances other than total defeat, even if that means getting in bed with someone else.

Gordon Brown’s strategy

*Tell voters to go tactical

Tuesday three Labour ministers suggested, in indirect but clear language, that their party’s supporters in ridings that had become Tory-Liberal Democrat races should vote for the Liberal Democrats in order to deprive the Tories of a seat and thus make a national Labour victory more likely. Such voters should “vote with their heads, not their hearts,” Labour minister Peter Hain told the Independent newspaper Tuesday . “Voters are intelligent and they know what the real fight is in their own constituency.” This thrust proved unpopular in some corners of the Labour Party, and not just candidates who awoke to discover their party urging loyalists to vote against them: Former prime minister Tony Blair, on the hustings for Mr. Brown Tuesday , said he thought tactical voting was a bad idea.

*Use Her Majesty’s office

As sitting Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has the privilege of going to the Queen and asking to form a government – even if he receives fewer seats than the Tories (Canada uses the same system). Mr. Brown has pledged to do this, and he has given himself a generous window of time by scheduling the next sitting of Parliament on May 18. If current polls prove correct, Labour may win the largest number of seats but come in third in number of votes – meaning that he would need the firm support of the Liberal Democrats to avert an ethical crisis.

*Court the Liberals

Labour, unlike the Tories, has publicly suggested a coalition government with Mr. Clegg’s party. Mr. Hain yesterday spoke of a “partnership government” with an “agreed program and an agreed timescale.” Ed Balls, a senior minister considered one of Mr. Brown’s closest confidants, went on TV Tuesday to declare that “We and the Liberal Democrats both agree that the Tory cuts would be a disaster,” hinting that Labour would be their natural partners.

Nick Clegg’s strategy:

*Commit to nothing

Mr. Clegg Tuesday night told a rally that Britons “have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do something different.” That message, his main campaign plank, is starkly contradicted by the facts: Even if the Liberal Democrats win more votes than any other party, they won’t get enough seats to form a government. Backing one of the big parties, either in a coalition or in a Canadian-style vote-by-vote arrangement, is their only hope. But Mr. Clegg has responded to Labour calls for supporters to vote Liberal Democrat by lashing out at the major parties for their hypocrisy: “This is a sign of the utter desperation of the Labour Party that they’re now trying to tell people how to vote,” he said Tuesday night.

*Make Labour ditch Brown

Last week, Mr. Clegg broke his silence on forming coalitions by telling an interviewer that he would consider negotiations with Labour if they won the most seats but got the fewest votes (a likely scenario) – under one condition. “I think, if Labour do come in third in terms of the numbers of votes cast, then people would find it inexplicable that Gordon Brown himself could carry on as prime minister.” His staff confirmed that this would be his condition for a Labour-led coalition: Mr. Brown would have to go.

*Demand electoral reform from the Tories

The Conservatives have not got off easily, either. Mr. Clegg has insisted that any coalition with Mr. Cameron’s party would be made on the basis of one vital policy plank: A national referendum on a switch to a proportional-representation voting system. This European-style ballot, in which people vote for party lists rather than candidates, would turn the Lib Dems into a possible governing party – but it would mean that the Tories would never again be able to form a majority government.

David Cameron’s strategy

*Seek coalition partners

Mr. Cameron spent Tuesday struggling to get a flight across the ash-clogged Irish Sea so he could campaign hard in Northern Ireland – a province he had previously ignored, and in fact had suggested ought to be deprived of its “communist-level” government grants. But now that he is 14 seats short of a majority government, suddenly Mr. Cameron badly needs the Ulster Unionists, a Protestant party loosely allied with the Tories. The two to four they’re likely to win could make all the difference, so suddenly Mr. Cameron has become a green-eyed Irish charmer, pledging to keep Sinn Fein at bay and uttering no more words about that funding cut.

*Call out Labour’s strategy

By going tactical and telling their voters to consider a Lib Dem ballot to keep the Tories away, Labour left itself open to an obvious Tory attack, and Mr. Cameron’s boys took advantage: “So the Lib Dems have been saying all along that a vote for them is a vote for change,” Tory candidate Liam Fox told the BBC Tuesday , “and now Labour is telling you the truth – that a vote for the Lib Dems will put Gordon Brown in Downing Street for another five years.” This message got louder all day, and likely will become a refrain in Wednesday’s campaigning.

*Play the rebel

Tuesday, Mr. Cameron vowed to break convention, if his party wins more votes than Labour but falls short of a majority, and try to prevent Mr. Brown from going to the Queen and forming a government. How, exactly, isn’t clear: His door-knock at Buckingham Palace would not likely be answered. But his party began its campaign against a rump Labour government Tuesday, , with a senior Tory telling the Guardian that Mr. Brown using his contingent privilege would be “straight out of the Victoria and Albert Museum.”