Banking on Ken

Now that 2009 is well under way, it's clear that things are just getting worse and worse for the hard pressed people of Britain. Today, Gordon Brown-Trousers, our unspeakable Prime Minister, looks set to unleash another £300 billion of bailout cash to our banks, just weeks after tossing a mere £500 billion their way amid claims that he had saved the world.

Well, no, actually, he hadn't. He didn't save it then, and he isn't saving it now. All he is doing is pouring away hundreds of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money. Of course, he's used to doing that, what with robbing our pensions and flogging off gold reserves, so it won't come as any big problem to him.

It will be one hell of a big problem for the rest of us, though, long after the McBean is evicted from Downing St, either by ballot or pitchfork. We are going to be paying for his mindless folly for decades, and I'm starting to wonder whether he's just deliberately creating chaos for his successors, in the fairly certain knowledge that Crazy Cameron and his merry men will be taking over any minute now.

Even if he holds out for the full term, Brown-Trousers hasn't got a hope of staying in office. Ordinary men and women, without a particularly political bone in their body, are feeling the pinch. Even staunch Labour voters, who would normally make excuses for our apology of a government, are telling me they will be voting blue next time round. Of course, a lot can change in 18 months or so, and it probably will - for the worse. Real jobs, belonging to real people, are vanishing fast, and those who are still in work are very, very worried that will be next to go.

As far as I can tell from talking to the real people I meet on my daily rounds, the feared deflationary spiral is already here. People are unwilling to buy items today because they will be cheaper next week or next month. At the moment it's only applying to larger items over, say £150, but it won't be long before that changes. How long will it be before the pundits notice that it's now a reality instead of a feared bogeyman and start writing about it in those terms? Probably not too long, and when they do, the effect will snowball. The British economy is in very deep trouble, exacerbated by the antics of a token Chancellor, an idiotic PM and the Prince of Darkness, Lord Sleaze himself.

Speaking of whom, I see Crazy Cameron is set to announce the return of Ken Clarke as the Tories' Shadow Mandy. Not, I think, a brilliant move. True, Clarke was a pretty good Chancellor, he's promised to keep his pro-Europe views to himself, and he's a sharp orator. But is he any match for the fresh piles of steaming deciet deliverd direct from the Government's spin doctors, via Mandy? At first I doubted it, but it may be that his blunt, straight style is just the thing to counter the double talk. We shall see.

Billy Seggars.