Recession Only Just 'Ends' With Whimper

Recession has run for cover with a piddling 0.1 percent growth. After 18 months slogging and jogging, the struggling Supreme Leader had been spinning and pinning hopes on recovery as part of the cunning election ploy. The depression may be 'officially' over for Borrowing Brown and everything hunky-dory in La-La-Land but limping out of long recession leaves a whopping bill.

Call that a recovery? Saint Vince doesn't think so nor does the Orange Party nor the public. But Daft Darling does. How can anyone in their right mind take any shred of comfort from today's shaky 'recession over' figures for the longest recession on record?

The only sure sign of the end of recession is when the final bill lands on the No 11 Downing Street doormat, swiftly passed on to taxpayers for generations to come.

And what a bill. The Bank's printed 200 billion spanking new notes and the government's borrowed £178 billion to dig the country of the mess of it's own making. Printing money brings with it the bogeyman of inflation. Borrowing billions brings down the wrath of the international moneymen.

No doubt 'recession ends' groundhog day has been fixed on the pre-election grid as part of another 'good news week' and the BBC will do its bit with cute graphics and skewed economic waffle.

Today's ONS report may well show recession 'officially' ended in the last three months of 2009 as Beleaguered Brown tries to rest on his laurels but no one gives a monkeys.

All that matters is the growth in GDP - coming in at a weedy but round 0.1 per cent. Whatever happened to 0.096?

The Orange Party's eyes will be on the next set of figures due out on April 23. So what happens if growth figures for the first quarter of 2010 show the country slipping back into recession. A quick glance at the ONS graph and it's tottering on the brink, looking decidedly delicate.

And that could put the cat among the pigeons of the election date strategists as a fag-end government put its money on a last roll of the 'recovery' dice, playing the mythical false hope game.

Honest Osborne, setting out his stall on how to stop the country going bust again, put it well: "Like an exhausted runner at the very back of a marathon race, Britain ... should finally stagger across the line that marks the end of the Great Recession.”

Every other major economy started recovering months ago. As Wat Tyler over at burningourmoney has already pointed out: "It's better that we're no longer heading down, but apart from that, there won't be much to shout about."

"We will still have lost around 6% of our GDP since the peak, and we'll be 10% below where Clown Brown predicted we'd be by now."

Red-faced economists and the media were left with egg on their faces in October as 'surprise' figures showed the recession depression hadn't ended. It was the worst ever.

Headlines and copy were hastily changed as a duped media had fallen over itself, buying into false hope and optimism, until the government statistics office (ONS) released the grim news. Today's 'growth' has been dubbed "weaker than expected" - but who'd built up the expectation?

Shame-faced Brown's deceitful promise that the UK “would lead the world out of recession” has come back to haunt him. We were one of the first in and last out. Now no one trusts New Labour's election pledges.

Voters don't believe 'good news' that the economy has turned a corner. Borrowing is still hitting record highs, inflation is lurking round the corner. A straw poll for Channel 4 News showed only 20 percent of people thought the government was responsible for the economy’s recovery.

The public has seen through the spin of the green-shoots of recovery. What do they want - debt reduction. When do they want it - now.

Borrowing Brown's flawed economics have a lot to answer for. New Labour set off on a spending spree with gay abandon in the naïve belief that borrowed cash could prop up the false feel good factor. Now the country is paying the price.

Banks are still sailing off into Galbraith's 'wild blue yonder' after trousering taxpayer's cash in the trillion pound bank bail-out con. The mountain of national debt keeps piling up. A dire economy is disappearing down a black hole.

In the real world of a real fragile economy with real people, the Deluded One has escaped by the skin of his teeth. Now he's set to take the country down a rocky road to rack and ruin and into the election with only a pathetic and shaky 0.1 percent growth for a comfort blanket.

Top picture: Scarfe, Sunday Times

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Red-Faced Recession Depression

Red-faced economists and the media were left with egg on their faces as 'surprise' figures out today showed the recession depression hasn't ended. It's the worst ever. Reverse ferrets all round. Dozy Darling is trying to put a gloss over it. Deluded Brown has some explaining to do.

"Growth will come," said the chancellor taking a chance. "But it will take time." Is that the best you can do, Darling?

Red-faced ferrets struggled to change headlines and copy. The government statistics office (ONS) had released grim news. News agency, Reuters, put it on the wires:

"The economy contracted unexpectedly in the third quarter of this year, squashing hopes of an end to the downturn and instead making the current recession the longest on record, official data showed on Friday."

A duped media had fallen over itself, buying into false hope and optimism. The BBC had cleared the decks, ready to swamp output with swathes of 'good news': that nasty bout of depression recession was just a cute little downturn after all.

Earlier The Times had a go with: 'Britain is set to climb out of recession'. The Guardian reported 'Figures show rise from recession'.

From ITN it was: 'Figures to show UK out of recession'. The myth-making Mirror gleefully reported: 'Figures show rise from recession'.

The shock ONS figures revealed GDP fell by 0.4 percent between July and September. The economy has contracted for six successive quarters for the first time since records began in 1955.

Deluded Brown was all set to announce the recession depression is officially over for him and everything's hunky-dory in La-La-Land, pinning his hopes on recovery as part of the cunning election ploy.

Many were taken in by the spinning grin. New Labour attack dogs were ready to round on Honest Osborne as a fag-end government put its money on a last roll of the dice, playing the mythical false hope game.

But figures were much worse than analysts' expectations of a 0.2 percent rise, according to Reuters. This is now the longest recession since records began.

Wriggling out of the reverse ferret, Reuters reports: "Not a single analyst out of the 35 polled by Reuters before the data had expected a negative reading."

The shocking figures make a mockery out of all the Brown sauce that "Britain is best placed to weather the global downturn”. At this rate, the UK will be the last G7 country to come out of recession.

The economy is sinking fast, despite pumping in a painful £175 billion over-hyped stimulus to prop up a decade of disaster.

Bunkered Brown and his scary grin have been forced back in hiding with only a harsh dose of reality for comfort, until the next set of 'miracle recovery' figures.

In the real world, the green shoots sham is withering. The Land Registry is set to axe 1,500 jobs as part of a cost-cutting plan. Official unemployment is topping two and a half million. Behind the fiddled figures, it's gone through the roof.

Retail sales are stuck in a rut, confounding spinners and doggedly refusing to budge. Manufacturing and construction are both taking a big hit.

Banks are sailing off into Galbraith's 'wild blue yonder' after trousering taxpayer's cash in the trillion pound bank bail-out con.

A mountain of national debt keeps piling up. A dire economy is disappearing down a black hole.

The Deluded One continues to take the country down the road to rack and ruin. His crafty plan to fool some of the voters some of the time lies in tatters.

Bottom picture: Private Eye

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Burying Bad News

With all the kerfuffle over Maggie Mandy's postal strike and the BNP rumble in Auntie's jungle, cynics would say it's a good day to bury bad news. Sure as eggs is eggs, a few choice gems crawled out of the woodwork. And what a rotten lot they are.

Man-made climate change con - Advertising watchdogs are investigating a scary £6m government 'climate change' ad over claims it's 'misleading and too "scary" for children'.

Billed as a "bedtime story", the Advertising Standards Authority has received 357 complaints about the ad made for the ridiculously misnamed 'department of energy and climate change'.

And that comes the day after government climate change figures were branded 'misleading' by the government's own UK Statistics Authority.

Fiddling crime stats - The old ones are still the best. Violent crimes have been 'wrongly classed' as 'not really a crime at all', according to policing watchdogs who say some police forces are not recording all acts of violence as, er, crimes.

The chief inspector of constabulary found officers classed some reports of violence and assault as "no crime" - just to make every one feel that little bit more safe in their beds.

Green shoots sham - The Land Registry is set to axe 1,500 jobs as part of a cost-cutting plan helping to save £92m a year. Retail sales are stuck in a rut, confounding spinners and doggedly refusing to budge, with consumers remaining a tad cautious about spending.

Brown's War - After troops got a beating in Basra, the Royal Navy is sneaking back into Iraq with around 200 Royal Navy personnel to train local forces, according to the armed forces minister. Kind-hearted Baghdad politicians have agreed to let them back in - but this time without iPods.

Tomorrow's Daily Noos? - Deluded Brown is hoping the recession depression is officially over for him and everything's hunky-dory in La-La-Land.

Time for one of his scary grins. But if ONS figures show the recession isn't really over yet, someone should report him to the advertising standards authority.

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Printing Money Is A Recipe For Disaster

Conflicting inflation figures left some confused. The borrowing debt is set to run into trillions of pounds. The government is set to start 'printing money'. Brown is a victim of his own economic spin. His past false boom years are coming back to haunt him. 

Lies, deceit and spin go hand in hand with the New Labour project but it's in the death throes of the disaster of the economy where the public feel it most. 

Brown and Downing Street have tried every trick in the book to play down the crisis because to admit the truth is to admit past mistakes. There are signs the 'narrative' is changing but it's too late for all that now. 

The real economy is already deflating. Printing money will just make matters worse.

The Retail Price Index (RPI) which includes housing costs is at a 49-year low of 0.1%. But the government's preferred Consumer Price Index (CPI) is stuck at 3%. The RPI has taken a dive because of falling property prices and sinking mortgage interest payments. 

Grave misjudgements were made in the past over which inflation figure to use. Now the Bank is being forced to target CPI to dig the country out of a hole. 

But CPI will catch up later in the year with heavy discounting which is likely to put both measures of inflation into negative deflation territory. 

Back in 2003 as chancellor, Brown switched the inflation target from RPI to the more accommodating CPI.

With house prices soaring, it made sense to spin a measure of inflation that excluded property. And that would allow the Bank of England to cut interest rates.

If the Bank had been allowed to target RPI then interest rates would have remained higher.

Either way, the inflation slump leaves the country dangerously close to outright deflation, with reports the Bank of England is to begin the abhorrent and disreputable method of 'printing money' within weeks, as a quick fix. 

Any government which has to resort to 'printing money' is on its beam ends, with the threat of a new bout of inflation always lurking round the corner.

Inflation will rise while the economy continues to stagnate. The toxic mix of high inflation and near-zero growth leads to 'stagflation'. Brown's government will be the laughing stock of the world. 

The country is hopelessly in debt and borrowing is at a record high. But the government still wants to 'print money' to fund a reckless borrowing binge and ludicrous public spending spree. Sooner or later a new government will have to confront the underlying problems in the economy.

The Orange Party believes the route out of this economic mess is easy to see but because of its past record, impossible for this government to follow. 

There's must be an end to reckless borrowing which will saddle people with debt for decades to come. Hugely expensive white elephants, vanity and legacy projects must be scrapped. UK manufacturing, which is the key survival, must be boosted and supported to kick start the economy, with proper jobs, not the New Deal sham. 

A recent C4 documentary, Dispatches, saw Brown's former trade minister, Lord Digby Jones, despair at the dire state of fiddled jobs figures and blatant, totally meaningless jobs propaganda, while the manufacturing heart of the country is being ripped out. 

Jones is in no doubt: "Brown borrows billions to bail out the banks, he is letting manufacturing fall into an abyss." 

While other countries were protecting their manufacturing skills base, here the New Labour project saw the future wealth in creative and emerging technologies - and the City. Oh dear. 

The recession depression will last for a decade or more. A government, any government, has to  take steps now to preserve jobs, skills and factories or, as Jones warns, "we could blight an entire generation with long-term unemployment and the economic balance of Britain will not be sustainable."

Instead, the government flounders and flannels around printing money and borrowing more as its only escape route, trying to make a shiny silk purse out of an old sow's ear.  

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Only A Disguise Will Stop Public Ridicule

Two million on the dole, a home secretary fiddling expenses, Brown sucking up to City pals refusing to budge on bonuses while his favourite banker is fingered for sacking a whistleblower, the country in deep recession. Who'd want to be seen as a New Labour MP? 

Public anger over bankers, jobs and the government's economic mess is turning to ridicule but ministers still bury their heads in the sand.

Today Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, told voters what they can see and feel all around them -  the UK is facing a deep recession. It's a sorry state of affairs but unlike the greedy bankers, no-one in government has the guts to say sorry.

Blair's ex-deputy, John Prescott's on-line battle of the bonuses may be capturing the mood of the nation but more importantly it's reflecting the anger and frustration of backbench Labour MPs. 

Brown needs to get a grip and stop the dithering. Just say what everyone wants to hear - bonuses must be scrapped when the taxpayer is a shareholder in any bank. 

He won't because he can't. The whole New Labour project was based on the fundamental flaw of sucking up to the City to keep them sweet and the government in power. 

Labour's born-again working-class hero, Prescott, was happy to go along for the ride if that meant power and glory. Those days are long gone. Now voters are deserting in droves and Tories and LibDems can outflank the government when the public's on their side. 

The sorry sight of the former bankers' mumbled and staged outburst of remorse before the commons treasury committee left voters cold. 

The Orange Party dozed off watching a pointless and carefully managed PR charade unfold but woke when the finger pointed at Brown, as three of the four guilty men lorded it up with their Ks and Ps on full view - all thanks to their government pals. Failure now brought ample rewards in the past. 

But it's Brown's close ties with his knighted economic advisor, Sir James Crosby, which struck at the heart of the problem, when former HBOS head of risk, Paul Moore revealed he was fired by Crosby, then the bank's CEO, after repeatedly warning about the bleedin' obvious. 

On top of all that unemployment is at a monumental high since New Labour grabbed power and two homes Smith is praying her homes scam will go away before it blows the lid off government sleaze and corruption. 

Today at PMQs Cameron has a chance on so many fronts to prove that he really is the true Mr Angry and Brown's reported "anger" is just part of the Downing Street spin. 

So what can New Labour MPs do? Backbench MP, Frank Field, has an answer: "This anger is likely to be such that the only way that Labour MPs will be able to go out in public will be in heavy disguise - such will be the public ridicule."

UPDATE 11.46am: Brown's buddy, Sir James Crosby, has quit as deputy chairman of the useless Financial Services Authority, just minutes before Cameron could get really angry, during PMQs. Did he jump or was he pushed?

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Bankers Say Sorry So What's The Big Deal?

They came, they got grilled, they mumbled the S-word through clenched teeth, in a pointless PR exercise in double standards, wallowing in self-pity and remorse. Greedy bankers have been exposed as a bunch of greedy bankers. It's all a bit too little to late.  

The BBC's Common Purpose business guru, Robert Peston and political pundit, Nick Robinson, are both on hand to explain it all to the nation. The media and politicians are having a field day, forcing the former bankers onto their knees in a day of shame.

Sure it's good to watch the bankers get a roasting, though it's a pity Vince Cable's guillotine was meant as a joke.  

Former RBS bosses Sir Fred Goodwin and Sir Tom McKillop, closely followed by Andy Hornby and Lord Stevenson of HBOS - all bar one rewarded with a K or a P thanks to their pals in government. 

Now it seems all quite happy to face the music, as the banks play musical chairs while the country slides into a deep downturn, recession,  depression depending on who you want to believe.

It seems the government is taking its own blame culture just a tad too far, treating the ex-bankers like naughty children. Shame on you, a slap on the wrists, say your sorry. That's it. After a spell on the naughty step, off they sail into the wild blue yonder with their fancy titles and a wad of pocket money. 

How they must be laughing all the way to their banks. A quick apology to Parliament and a lesson in damage limitation for the next time someone screws up big time. 

It all must serve a purpose, apart from watching them squirm but the Orange Party cannot think what. Everyone knows the lessons to be learnt. It's called greed. 

The charade is certainly not for ordinary folk who're scared stiff about losing their jobs and making ends meet while the debt-fuelled boom takes its toll on every aspect of their lives. 

Meanwhile two homes secretary, Jacqui Smith, is doing the rounds of the media, wriggling around her homes scam using the pathetic excuse that she's done nothing wrong and was only following the rules. Isn't that just the same old corrupt excuse the bankers have been making? 

And back in the other big boy's world, Brown is trying to upstage Cameron as the new Mr Angry. Cameron is blaming borrowing Brown for the economic mess and quite right too but the Tories were not exactly shouting warning from the rooftops during those bloomin' booming years. 

Now if this was Brown and his bunch of economic morons who were being brought to book and made to apologise to the nation, people would sit up and take notice. 

But it's not. It's this month's Mr Nasties, the bankers, who're in the firing line. Not the home secretary, not the deluded prime minister, not the rest of the parliamentary elite who can hide behind the rules when it suits them and milk the system and bleed the nation for all it's worth.

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Balls' Warning Was No Balls Up

His master's voice, Ed Balls, seems to have dropped the boss right in it. Brown's side-kick delivered another bout of depression for the beleaguered prime minister, warning the recession will be worse than the 1930s. But this was no balls up, this was carefully planned. 

Balls' speech to the Labour Party faithful didn't say anything new or anything which the Party and the public didn't know was happening already. But it's the timing which is important. A speech of this significance doesn't get off the blocks without Downing Street clearance.

Balls told Labour's Yorkshire conference at the weekend the financial crisis will be "more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s". That follows last week's use of the dreaded D-word by Brown in the commons, when Downing Street was quick to play down this sad 'slip of the tongue'. 

It seems to be at odds with everything government ministers have been telling the public for months. 

Either they've been telling porkies or haven't a clue what's going on - or they're getting their act together for a fresh line of attack. 

Balls and Downing Street have again tried to play down the significance with some spinning gobbledegook about the unique nature of the global financial crisis. 

The Conservatives said the remarks were "staggering and very worrying". They certainly are - for them. 

Balls is only saying publicly what ministers have known for a long time but for their own political survival have tried to play it down with first a daft downturn then a recession.

The worry has been that it could spread panic and anxiety, sap confidence, point the finger at Brown's past economic mistakes and turn away voters in their droves. 

But the public are no fools and can see what is happening all around them. The effect for Brown in particular has been to lose all credibility. 

The slide towards a US-style Great Depression has been anticipated by some political and economic commentators for a while. The Orange Party too warned of it here in January. 

The government tried it on with the spin over green shoots of recovery and fell flat on its face. 

The Brown bounce has evaporated and the government's whole economic record is on the line. 

As the Tory lead strengthens and an elections looms, Balls is reflecting a change in strategy to reposition themselves as the only Party to save the country from a scary deep Depression and a lurch to the Far Right, part of Brown's belated calls for a government of national unity - with New Labour of course at the helm. 

If you can't brow beat voters, confuse them. So expect more of this to-ing and fro-ing between green shoots of optimism and doom and gloom in the weeks to come as the government softens up voters for even tougher times ahead and their dreaded June elections. 

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More Housepriceballs

Today the BBC reassuringly reports: House prices 'up 1.9% in January'. A misleading headline but one which will be seized on by some, eager for evidence of elusive 'green shoots of recovery'. It's nothing of the sort, just part of the 'feel good factor' spin.

Another day and another fresh house price survey, each often contradicting the last.

According to the Halifax, "The price of UK homes rose by 1.9% in January, ending a run of 11 monthly falls", but closer scrutiny shows house prices falling annually by 17.2%.

The data is a snapshot, based on mortgage approvals and, like the government's own survey and those by the Nationwide, it is based only on property sales financed by mortgage lending, ignoring cash sales.

The survey is just that and only applies to those lucky enough to get a mortgage approved and in times of tight mortgages those are few and far between. 

The housing survey also ignores speculators with a huge wad of cash take advantage of auction house repossession at knock-down prices. 

The figures are often very similar, as they are based on a price agreed after a survey by mortgage customers. So that "price" is based on both customers and estate agents who have a vested interest to try for the highest price they think the market will take. 

They are surveys and not the actual sum paid out when the deal is finally signed, sealed and delivered.

Nevertheless last week, a similar survey by Nationwide suggested prices fell by 1.3% in January.

Brown's false boom years created a lot of false economics and no more so than in the trends in house prices. 

For years what you thought your house was worth and how its price would rise, was tied to how house prices compared against earnings but that was abandoned in the bubble of the boom. 

That prices to wages ratio was so last year in this new world of cheap borrowing and live now pay for the debt later.

Easy borrowing enticed by low interest rates meant repayments were quite low for the first couple of years and so it seemed house prices would continue to boom or at least hold up on price. Prices would keep on rising forever and the false sense of home security was born.  

Now back in fashion, that most basic measure of what will happen to house prices, the house price to earnings ratio, paints a gloomy picture. 

Some have suggest prices may fall a total of 50% and prices must fall at least 40% from the peak of October 2007, according to a detailed analysis in thisismoney. And that takes prices back to early 2002. 

The housing market cannot and will not improve until credit restrictions are eased so more people take out mortgages and the economy stops shrinking. 

With continuing pressures on incomes and rising unemployment that will take a very long time, as the country slips from a downturn to a recession and into Brown's 'depression'. 

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Brown Says The D-Word And Says It All

Deluded Brown let slip the D-word during PMQs, leaving voters again bothered and bewildered but not bewitched, highlighting the confused state of the State and the state of his mind. Iconic images of strikers, bankrupt Britain and soon more troops for Afghanistan. Welcome to the crazy world of Gordon Brown, cross-over politics and the rise of economic nationalism. 

Telling MPs: "We should agree as a world on a monetary and fiscal stimulus that will take the world out of r... depression ...",  the saviour of the world and banks said it all. How depressing for him and the country.

For so long Downing Street in collusion with the BBC has tried to play down the looming recession, clinging onto a soft landing of the downturn to mask incompetence. Now the world is latching onto Brown's Depression, thanks to US site Drudge featuring the Times take on the 'slip'.

The Orange Party is heartily sick of the silliness of this spinning strategy, as the recession turns into a full blown depression. Brown has dug a deep hole and now he's fallen in it. Trying to sprinkle a bit of fairy dust on a deepening problem for fear of panic only made matters worse. 

Strikes over foreign workers are now being deliberately played down as just another 'industrial dispute' with talks of a "breakthrough" and "calling it off", to take off the heat. As if it was that simple. 

At the heart is the age old issue that in times of hardship, what may be good for the country in the long term isn't necessarily good for people now, struggling with debt, scared about their jobs and how to make ends meet. 

Economic nationalism is rising, as highlighted today by David Cox, while the government buries its head in the sand, hoping it will all go away. It won't. Brown and the gang are living in the past with ideas suited only to the failed and false 'boom' years, hopelessly out of date and out of touch with the fears and anxieties of ordinary people. 

When times are tough, it's human nature to circle the wagons, man the barricades, protect yourself and no fine words about 'for the good of the country' will help. 

It's throwing left, right and pseudo liberals into a tizz. Free trade for goods across national boundaries is a good thing for the economy and the country. But ignoring the realistic fears of people worried about their jobs, struggling with debt, is a bad thing. 

The government is on a high-horse urging voters to shun protectionism and avoid a US-style Great Depression but it's the intensity of the argument which is disturbing, performed with an almost fanatical religious zeal.

The only way to prevent protectionism is to lessen the pain and hardship, so it will triumph over the vested interests of individuals. There's no evidence of that in the government's misguided and confusing rhetoric. 

Whatever the outcome of the 'jobs for British workers' dispute, the fine balance between government and people has been crossed. It will flare up again in another time and another place.

Fighting the corner is Brown's unelected deputy, Mandleson, from the safe sanctity of the House of Lords. Waving that flag of anti-protectionism and stoking the fires of anger, he's already backed the bosses and now trying to play the xenophobia and racism card. 

That pale pink hankie is like a red rag to a bull for backbench Labour MPs and workers on the picket lines, thankfully swiftly put down by Labour backbencher, Jon Cruddas and angry workers.

Traditional political divides are all over the place and no more so than in the confused and double standards of a once "Labour Party" now left with pseudo-liberal left-overs from a bygone age. 

Jamie Oliver's messianic and highly laudable food campaign to "Bring Home the Bacon" throws it into perspective. Supporting UK pig farmers and condemning vile EU pig rearing practices for profit is a good thing. But buying British bacon as a cure all, er, where does that fit in the weird world of protectionism? 

The current mess will not magically go away with the odd bail-out, debt guarantees and printing money. It's impossible to run up a budget deficit big enough to keep all the people in work. 

Over in Obamaland, the great Messiah is having to back track over his 'Buy American" clause in the trillion dollar bail-out rescue package because it smacks of that dreaded word 'protectionism'. 

Yet the clause was inserted deliberately by his own Democrat Party as they used the rescue to bundle up and push through all Democrat pet policies in one fell swoop. The BBC got its knickers in a twist over that one - but hey there's a get out clause. Apparently he was showing his "sensitive side". 

Meanwhile MoD spinners are hard at work as round the corner is a massive US troop surge for Obama's war and Brown set to be the new president's poodle in the bloody, hopeless and unwinnable war in Afghanistan.  

The spinners will have a hard job convincing voters. How strange that Bush, Blair, Iraq and invisible WMDS = Bad Thing. Now Obama, Brown, Afghanistan, invisible Taliban = Good Thing? 

The depression recession has been a wake up call for the left, right and pseudo liberals, all trying to come up with solutions. 

As the arguments rage, it's  difficult to make sense of a crazy, mixed up political and economic world. But the occasional political polemic sure as hell helps. 

Picture: Private Eye front cover,  Issue 1229 

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