0138 Hrs GMT London Wednesday 18 March 2009:
KHOODEELAAR! evidential point about the ingrained stupidity and idiocy and dishonesty of the ‘mainstream’ media in the UK as typified in the piece we reproduced below from today’s London INDEPENDENT..
We do so to show again the ignorance of the alleged mainstream media in Britain …
The INDEPENDENT has been one of the main pluggers of Big Business CRASSrail.. In common with all the other ‘mainstream’ media titles, the INDEPENDENT has peddled the crass slogans for Crossrail without showing any evidence in justification.. The INDEPENDENT has repeated the lies for Big Business Crossrail as originated from the City of London and as released via Ken Livingstone and other agents...
At no time has the INDEPENDENT shown any regard for the objective evidence on transport. As it has equally failed to examine the existing transport infrastructure and the urgent needs for investment in upgrades and repair and maintenance in that...
[To be continued]
Britain will be only nation still in recession next year
IMF says every other major economy will be growing again by 2010
By Sean O'Grady, Economics Editor and Andrew Grice, Political Editor
Wednesday, 18 March 2009SHAREPRINT ARTICLE EMAIL ARTICLE TEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
The British economy is heading for its worst year since the Great Depression, according to the latest predictions from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Related articles
RBS used 'elaborate ruse' to pay Sir Fred's pension
Income gap between men and women falls
Margareta Pagano: A recession made for Sir Alan Sugar
Jeremy Warner: Here's one approach to miscreant banks – just break them up
King warns EU of danger of caution as crisis mounts
Jeremy Warner: Bank Governor's reverse ferret may be wrong
Brown ally says PM should apologise
The Sketch: This scandal will make revolutionaries of us all
US buoyed by housing starts as Fed meets to discuss next move
Thousands more set to lose their homes
Debenhams defies the gloom on the high street
China's shopping spree
Friends is wary on bond defaults
Credit crisis diary: Time for bankers to do the decent thing
The fund shocked analysts during a briefing in which it was revealed that the UK will see its economy shrink by 3.8 per cent in 2009, and a further 0.2 per cent in 2010 – the only large economy predicted to still be in decline next year as well as this.
Some believe that the scale of the downturn signals the UK moving from recession to depression.
The IMF expects the global economy to contract by 0.6 per cent this year, with the most frightening situation developing in Japan, with a 5 per cent slump predicted there. The IMF had previously thought the world economy would fall by 0.5 per cent.
Behind the raw statistics are some grim economic realities. A downgrade of growth of these proportions means that the UK is set for a much sharper decline in its fortunes than in any of the previous recessions since the Second World War.
It will mean an even worse rise in unemployment, widely expected to breach the two million barrier today before hitting more than 3 million this time next year. Property values, consumer spending and the public finances will all be badly affected.
The revelations will prove acutely embarrassing to the Prime Minister as he prepares to host the G20 summit of the world's largest and fastest-growing economies in London on 2 April. Gordon Brown's ambitions to lead the world response to the economic crisis will be undermined if his own economy is demonstrating such feebleness in response to policy measures he and the Bank of England announced in recent months, in an effort to fix the banking system. The Prime Minister, say critics, will have presided over a "boom and bust" economy.
George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, said: "These IMF forecasts show that Britain is set to have the longest recession of all the major economies. It is further evidence that Gordon Brown's economic model is fundamentally broken and his policies on the recession aren't working. Thanks to Labour the recession in Britain will be longer and deeper."
Government sources accused the IMF of "moving the goalposts" and dramatically revising the forecasts it made in January. They said that what mattered at such a volatile time was the data on Britain's actual performance, and so far it had been affected less badly than the US, Germany, Japan and Italy. Officials said the IMF had made much larger reductions for 2009 for other countries, with Japan moving from minus 2 per cent to minus 5 per cent since January. For 2010, the downward revision for the UK since January was 0.4 per cent and for the US 1.4 per cent. For 2009 and 2010, the UK's growth has been downgraded from minus 2.8 per cent and 0.2 per cent to minus 3.8 per cent and minus 0.2 per cent respectively.
The UK seems to be suffering from a peculiarly nasty cocktail of factors. First is the size and weakness of the UK's banking system and a previous reliance on financial services. The credit crunch has thus restricted lending and seen more bank failures here than in some other nations.
Second, and partially as a result of that, the UK's property boom has turned to bust more dramatically than in many other places, as the supply of home loan finance has evaporated. Third, the UK depends for about 17 per cent of its income on exports, which are being battered by the global collapse in demand.
All this has meant that Britain's manufacturing, construction and finance sectors have haemorrhaged jobs. Only the public sector is showing any signs of resilience.
The numbers will prove a problem to the Treasury as it prepares for the Budget next month. The public finances are already severely squeezed under the existing Treasury assumption of a contraction of about 1 per cent in the economy this year. Borrowing – forecast to peak at £118bn next year – will soar even higher.
The IMF says the US economy will shrink by 2.6 per cent this year, compared with a January forecast of a 1.6 per cent contraction. The eurozone economy, dominated by Germany, is expected to contract by 3.2 per cent, down from January's forecast of a 2 per cent decline. In recent weeks the director general of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has called the slowdown the "Great Recession".
3.8%
The amount the British economy is predicted to shrink by this year, according to figures from the IMF.
Tuesday 17 March 2009
KHOODEELAAR! told Simon Jenkins so!
KHOODEELAAR! TOLD YOU SO! Simon Jenkins IN EFFECT invoking Eddington, rejecting Gordon Brown’s failure...
By © Muhammad Haque
2125 Hrs GMT
London Tuesday 17 March 2009
Today’s confession by Simon Jenkins could not be published in a more appropriate place. The Crossrail scam-peddling London EVENING nostandards STANDARD.
BOTH Jenkins and the London EVENING nostandards STANDARD have been peddling the CRASSly conceived Crossrail.
This has been despite the fact that the demands for urgent repair and upgrade on the EXISTING transport infrastructure in London have been recognised even by the Government's own ‘investigator [appointed by Gordon Brown when he was UK Finance Minister]’. Rod Eddington had said in 2006 what Simon Jenkins is only saying today!
And what KHOODEELAAR! has been saying for over five years.
[To be continued]
-------
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23663029-details/You’ve+brought+the+Tube+to+its+knees%2C+Gordon.+Now+take+the+blame/article.do
"
You’ve brought the Tube to its knees, Gordon. Now take the blame
Simon Jenkins
17.03.09
London's transport network is approaching bankruptcy and nobody has a clue what to do about it. A £1.4 billion hole has developed in Transport for London's budget of some £5 billion, largely as a result of the chaotic consequences of Tube privatisation. The Treasury, indisputable father of that progeny, has disclaimed parental responsibility and told the Mayor, Boris Johnson, he will have to find the money himself.
This he cannot do. He is already carrying some £3 billion of debt from the Tube subcontractor, Metronet, which went bankrupt in 2007. He could double Tube and bus fares, but they are already the most expensive in any city in the world and passenger numbers are now falling in the recession. He could cut buses and abort his various pledges for Crossrail, looking a more reckless venture by the day. But this is not enough, and he cannot hope to raise his council tax precept by enough to bridge the gap.
London transport is like RBS. Its losses are so gargantuan as to be unfinanceable yet equally the prospect of failure is unthinkable. Hence the lethal game of bluff now being played with the Treasury. The transport minister, Lord Adonis, said no to any refinancing last November. I gather this has since been repeated by the Treasury, as the financial year nears its end.
There is much about London's mayoral finances that can be laid at the door of the former mayor, Ken Livingstone, but not this. Blame for the financial chaos now afflicting the Underground lies squarely with Gordon Brown and the Treasury. Part privatisation was pushed through by Brown after 1997 against bitter opposition from within London and from the rail industry, culminating in Livingstone taking the case unsuccessfully to court.
The so-called PPP scheme involved letting lucrative franchises to private contractors, the essential feature of which was that profit went to them while risk was borne by the state. The first of the two companies, the Metronet consortium, made good profits for its owners, who with Treasury permission happened also to be its subcontractors and could thus fix its own prices.
After five years of chaotic management Metronet went bankrupt but was allowed to shift £3 billion of its borrowing to Transport for London while absorbing less than £350 million in losses itself. Many of its subcontracts remain in being. So much for risk transfer.
There is now ominous talk of the second contractor, Tube Lines, also heading for trouble. It runs the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, and its contract review is up this year. Since TfL is bound to impose new service obligations under the act, Tube Lines will be able to declare bankruptcy (or demand large new payments which London cannot afford) and dump another mess on London's plate.
Tube privatisation was probably the most lunatic public sector contract in British history. Had it been crafted by a local authority, it would have been blasted out of existence. As a child of the Treasury, its creators were honoured by the Queen. Its devisor was the Treasury's Sir Steve Robson, who went off to become a director of RBS as the bank lurched towards collapse. He handed over to Shriti (now Lady) Vadera of UBS Warburg, who is now the government minister presiding over the collapse of the entire banking sector. The two of them must together have broken all records for the squandering of public cash.
That the Treasury can turn round and tell Londoners that this financial ruin is not its responsibility is outrageous. In 2001 it point blank refused to allow Livingstone and his transport commission, Bob Kiley, to set up a proper public company for London transport, following the advent of the mayoralty. Brown's belief in privatisation - and his reliance on Vadera - led to sound advice being suppressed in a display of ideological madness and control freakery.
Should this all end up in court, the concession in February last year of the then transport secretary, Ruth Kelly, is significant. She admitted fault in handing over £2 billion from the Government's reserve to pay Metronet's debts. It is difficult to see that a penny of added value was gained by London passengers for that £2 billion, much of which vanished in profits, write-offs and impenetrable banking and consultancy fees. Nobody has taken responsibility for this fiasco.
What to do now? London's transport is drawing down billions of pounds in public subsidy, beyond anything imaginable in the good old days of nationalisation. As a director of London Underground in the Eighties, I must declare an interest: the company had atrocious labour practices and was woefully backward on investment but at least it made money.
Already Johnson has raised fares and abandoned some of Livingstone's zanier projects. The Thames Gateway bridge has gone. So have the cross-river and Oxford Street trams. We can forget the Docklands Light Railway Dagenham extension. There can be little justification for retaining a £600 million subsidy to keep empty buses circulating in central London, let alone buy a new fleet of hop-on-hop-off platform buses in place of the bendies - much as they are craved by Londoners.
Then there is that Mary Celeste of London projects, Crossrail. The Mayor is committed to finding £2.7 billion in borrowing "against future fare revenue" from within his transport budget. There is no such sum available as yet, any more than there is the promised £250 million from BAA or £100 million in "voluntary contributions" from City banks or a special business rate to raise a further £3.5 billion beginning next year. There is not even a statute to permit this.
The resignation of Tim O'Toole as boss of London Underground is believed in part to reflect his despair over the huge sums going into Crossrail at a time when the quality of the core Tube was so in need of attention. I was once told that rush-hour overcrowding on the Central line would be reduced by 30 per cent if someone just made the drivers leave their depots on schedule. The truth of the matter is that when Whitehall seizes control of local government, glamour prestige projects like the Olympics get the goodies while necessities are ignored.
London has a good transport network and one that, by hook and by crook, will survive its impending financial collapse. But the 10 years it has spent under Brown's cosh have been a disaster. He owes a debt to all who have struggled to make the best of his bad job, and that debt starts with a cheque for £1.4 billion, due by the end of next month.
By © Muhammad Haque
2125 Hrs GMT
London Tuesday 17 March 2009
Today’s confession by Simon Jenkins could not be published in a more appropriate place. The Crossrail scam-peddling London EVENING nostandards STANDARD.
BOTH Jenkins and the London EVENING nostandards STANDARD have been peddling the CRASSly conceived Crossrail.
This has been despite the fact that the demands for urgent repair and upgrade on the EXISTING transport infrastructure in London have been recognised even by the Government's own ‘investigator [appointed by Gordon Brown when he was UK Finance Minister]’. Rod Eddington had said in 2006 what Simon Jenkins is only saying today!
And what KHOODEELAAR! has been saying for over five years.
[To be continued]
-------
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23663029-details/You’ve+brought+the+Tube+to+its+knees%2C+Gordon.+Now+take+the+blame/article.do
"
You’ve brought the Tube to its knees, Gordon. Now take the blame
Simon Jenkins
17.03.09
London's transport network is approaching bankruptcy and nobody has a clue what to do about it. A £1.4 billion hole has developed in Transport for London's budget of some £5 billion, largely as a result of the chaotic consequences of Tube privatisation. The Treasury, indisputable father of that progeny, has disclaimed parental responsibility and told the Mayor, Boris Johnson, he will have to find the money himself.
This he cannot do. He is already carrying some £3 billion of debt from the Tube subcontractor, Metronet, which went bankrupt in 2007. He could double Tube and bus fares, but they are already the most expensive in any city in the world and passenger numbers are now falling in the recession. He could cut buses and abort his various pledges for Crossrail, looking a more reckless venture by the day. But this is not enough, and he cannot hope to raise his council tax precept by enough to bridge the gap.
London transport is like RBS. Its losses are so gargantuan as to be unfinanceable yet equally the prospect of failure is unthinkable. Hence the lethal game of bluff now being played with the Treasury. The transport minister, Lord Adonis, said no to any refinancing last November. I gather this has since been repeated by the Treasury, as the financial year nears its end.
There is much about London's mayoral finances that can be laid at the door of the former mayor, Ken Livingstone, but not this. Blame for the financial chaos now afflicting the Underground lies squarely with Gordon Brown and the Treasury. Part privatisation was pushed through by Brown after 1997 against bitter opposition from within London and from the rail industry, culminating in Livingstone taking the case unsuccessfully to court.
The so-called PPP scheme involved letting lucrative franchises to private contractors, the essential feature of which was that profit went to them while risk was borne by the state. The first of the two companies, the Metronet consortium, made good profits for its owners, who with Treasury permission happened also to be its subcontractors and could thus fix its own prices.
After five years of chaotic management Metronet went bankrupt but was allowed to shift £3 billion of its borrowing to Transport for London while absorbing less than £350 million in losses itself. Many of its subcontracts remain in being. So much for risk transfer.
There is now ominous talk of the second contractor, Tube Lines, also heading for trouble. It runs the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, and its contract review is up this year. Since TfL is bound to impose new service obligations under the act, Tube Lines will be able to declare bankruptcy (or demand large new payments which London cannot afford) and dump another mess on London's plate.
Tube privatisation was probably the most lunatic public sector contract in British history. Had it been crafted by a local authority, it would have been blasted out of existence. As a child of the Treasury, its creators were honoured by the Queen. Its devisor was the Treasury's Sir Steve Robson, who went off to become a director of RBS as the bank lurched towards collapse. He handed over to Shriti (now Lady) Vadera of UBS Warburg, who is now the government minister presiding over the collapse of the entire banking sector. The two of them must together have broken all records for the squandering of public cash.
That the Treasury can turn round and tell Londoners that this financial ruin is not its responsibility is outrageous. In 2001 it point blank refused to allow Livingstone and his transport commission, Bob Kiley, to set up a proper public company for London transport, following the advent of the mayoralty. Brown's belief in privatisation - and his reliance on Vadera - led to sound advice being suppressed in a display of ideological madness and control freakery.
Should this all end up in court, the concession in February last year of the then transport secretary, Ruth Kelly, is significant. She admitted fault in handing over £2 billion from the Government's reserve to pay Metronet's debts. It is difficult to see that a penny of added value was gained by London passengers for that £2 billion, much of which vanished in profits, write-offs and impenetrable banking and consultancy fees. Nobody has taken responsibility for this fiasco.
What to do now? London's transport is drawing down billions of pounds in public subsidy, beyond anything imaginable in the good old days of nationalisation. As a director of London Underground in the Eighties, I must declare an interest: the company had atrocious labour practices and was woefully backward on investment but at least it made money.
Already Johnson has raised fares and abandoned some of Livingstone's zanier projects. The Thames Gateway bridge has gone. So have the cross-river and Oxford Street trams. We can forget the Docklands Light Railway Dagenham extension. There can be little justification for retaining a £600 million subsidy to keep empty buses circulating in central London, let alone buy a new fleet of hop-on-hop-off platform buses in place of the bendies - much as they are craved by Londoners.
Then there is that Mary Celeste of London projects, Crossrail. The Mayor is committed to finding £2.7 billion in borrowing "against future fare revenue" from within his transport budget. There is no such sum available as yet, any more than there is the promised £250 million from BAA or £100 million in "voluntary contributions" from City banks or a special business rate to raise a further £3.5 billion beginning next year. There is not even a statute to permit this.
The resignation of Tim O'Toole as boss of London Underground is believed in part to reflect his despair over the huge sums going into Crossrail at a time when the quality of the core Tube was so in need of attention. I was once told that rush-hour overcrowding on the Central line would be reduced by 30 per cent if someone just made the drivers leave their depots on schedule. The truth of the matter is that when Whitehall seizes control of local government, glamour prestige projects like the Olympics get the goodies while necessities are ignored.
London has a good transport network and one that, by hook and by crook, will survive its impending financial collapse. But the 10 years it has spent under Brown's cosh have been a disaster. He owes a debt to all who have struggled to make the best of his bad job, and that debt starts with a cheque for £1.4 billion, due by the end of next month.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
