baldysblog.co.uk

Recent events have been truly extraordinary for the current Government, as of now they seem totally doomed and we are just talking about say the last couple of weeks although and obviously, the starting point in each instance came far earlier in this decade of misrule. The public demise of Gordon Brown is running in parallel with that of Amy Winehouse who seems hell bent on self destruction by any means but at least, she can sing and has talent, Cyclops has none, clearly.

We start with the ill-fated Jackie Smith and 5,000 illegal immigrants cleared to work in providing Government security. To be fair, she wasn’t even in the job when all this came about but, she was responsible for the cover-up until it was blown by e-mails sent to a David Davis subordinate who gave it to the press before his boss so, Davis went easy on her to avoid his subordinate getting the brownie points – if true, rather sad Mr Davis, please do grow up.

We have the on-going saga of Northern Rock a company who borrowed short to sell long (mortgages), in times when there was lots of cheap money available but American sub-prime put a stop to that so that they then had to go to the Bank of England to borrow money at rather higher rates. The Government stepping in to guarantee depositors money fully, stopped the run on the bank which seemed a sensible thing to do. Chancellor Darling having consulted Wendy and Peter Pan, decided that taxpayers money was safe because underlying any loans was a solid mortgage book, or is it ?

It is possible that Northern Rock lent heavily to “buy for let” borrowers and those that needed 100%+ loans on very high multiples of earnings, it is therefore likely that should properties become difficult to rent out and mortgage interest rates rise, the market could see a flood or properties coming onto the market with a consequent substantial drop in property prices. Whilst the drying up of “cheap money” might be put down to being ‘unfortunate’, the mortgage book value shrinking by say 20% or more, would be considered ‘careless’ and a major disaster for all but especially for Gordon Brown’s personal reputation for fiscal probity.

If we now add to this tale of misery and woe the “loss” of two DVDs containing the details of 7.5 million claimants that apparently equates to 15 million people in the UK claiming child benefits including their addresses and bank account details, I guess things have just got considerably worse for Dear Darling. What has come out during the course of the afternoon is the way in which these were lost which demonstrates all too clearly that both Government and the Civil Service are culturally incompetent in dealing with computer data. It therefore must follow as night follows day, that the ID scheme must be abandoned immediately because by design and everybody in IT knew this long ago, it is totally flawed and will merely be a “one stop shop for identity fraud” by any criminal so minded as to bother.