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We are at an amusing moment in this election campaign but “A Week is a long time in politics”. This mornings news in one poll was that Clegg and the LibDems were ahead of the Conservatives with Labour trailing third and if that were true, a “Hung Parliament” would be a certainty which would have serious and immediate financial consequences for the people of these Islands.

David Cameron’s view of a hung parliament is pretty spot on as there would most certainly be another General Election within the year and from the first day of a new Parliament, all the parties will be ‘positioning’ themselves for that rather than taking care of business. Westminster would fiddle whilst the UK burnt.

The Problem

Some people might imagine that Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats are the “problem” but I don’t think that the “immigration” issue or Clegg’s tenuous grasp on Nuclear Weapons and appropriate policies to get rid of them or even his totally supine views on the EU are the key issues in this election, it is all far simpler than that, the public are being “mushy brained” and infantile.

In reality the public have only two choices, vote Labour for 5 more years of Brown (I doubt he last the course and would be replaced rapidly if Labour won), or vote Cameron and the Conservatives. Now whilst that may not seem the most desirable choice to some, it is the reality. What people have to understand is that this election is not about ‘Politics’, it is about ‘Economics’.

The Economics

If we have a “Hung Parliament”, Sterling will collapse, expect petrol and any energy supplies to have doubled in a couple of months, food, clothing anything imported will be unaffordable except to the rich and NO, forget holidays abroad. British pensioners who retired to Continental Europe will be in desperate circumstances. If Germany won’t bail out Greece which is in the Euro-zone, nobody will bother too much with helping us for sure.

The electorate need to wake up and grow up. It may be fashionable right now to “despise politicians and bankers” but we need them both right now as much as in war, we need soldiers. Brown has screwed up catastrophically on the British Economy. Not the Banking Crisis, every Nation has had to deal with that and it is possible that the taxpayer may get their money back in a decade or so but the real problem is the “Structural Deficit” which is around 70bn a year.

This is where Brown has spent money on various pet “Benefit Schemes” for which and even in good economic times, there is insufficient tax revenues available to fund them. And beyond this we have the twin time bombs of PFI and Public Service Pensions, people we are in a mess, up Shit Creek without a paddle would best describe it.

It Is Known

All of this is known by both Labour and the Conservatives but they teeter on avoiding it for fear of “talking down” Sterling plus as has become clear by the shrinking Tory poll lead, the electorate don’t want to hear bad news, let alone the truth. Unless come May 6th, people vote sensibly, it looks right now as if we are sleep walking into a disaster of major proportions still, a Country always gets the Government it deserves in the end.

On the plus side, I suppose if things get that bad, it could solve the immigration problem because who would want to come here ? Mind you, living in poverty in Sub-Sahara Africa may well better equip illegal immigrants to survive a Britain plunged into high inflation and rising crime.

An Objector

Having published my above views on the Independent, I picked up someone who objected and said that I was “…ridiculous fearmongering…” so, a response was in order because people do have to get a clear eyed view of where the UK is today. I suspect you should be able to pick up the ‘objections’ from my answer:

Sorry but I think that you are missing the point entirely. To talk of German Coalition Governments is particularly silly, it is quite usual for them to have them ie.it is expected, politicians are used to dealing with it and therefore it is quite ‘normal’ unlike in this Country where it is not. Additionally, Germany is a far stronger economy unlike the mess we are in. Who would you be keener to lend money to, Merkel or Brown ?

My point is that this is an election based upon “Economics” not “Politics” and in that context your a “borrowing crisis” in a few years time is childish, I’m afraid that an economic crisis would follow pretty swiftly and no, this is not scaremongering. The last similar crisis was 30 years ago when Thatcher came to power and although bad, she didn’t have the awful situation that faces the next Government.

Since then the mechanisms for buying and selling “Sovereign Debt” are far more sophisticated today than then but at the same time, the focus has moved Eastward and the UK is not as important today as it was then so, expect no favours. You really must grasp the concept of the “Structural Deficit” that has built up under Labour and is roughly today twice the annual Defence Budget per annum, it has nothing to do with the “Banking Crisis”, annual interest on just this bit alone will be around 3bn a year = one new Aircraft Carrier.

Minority Government

In a sense Cameron got it right when he warned about the dangers of a “Hung Parliament” or in fact a minority Government which is far more likely than a coalition and we only have to go back to the Heath-Wilson era to recall that. Forget other countries, you need to look at this from a “British perspective”, that is how the Markets will. There will be another election within the year and precious little will happen to sort the current problems, each party will be too busy ‘positioning’ themselves for the next election.

Finally you must realise that “Quantitative Easing” was the Bank of England printing money to buy back British Government debt which was always like a dog eating it’s own puke, post election reality will strike. If all of this makes you uncomfortable, I’m sorry but I didn’t make it up or cause it, it does exist though. Vote for who you like but to play it safe, even if you hate them, vote Labour or Conservative

A slight update to underline the last point strongly:

“Vote for who you like but to play it safe, even if you hate them, vote Labour or Conservative”

My point here is actually not “Don’t vote LibDem”. If the LibDems had substantially squeezed the Labour vote over these past two years so that it was obvious that Labour had well and truly been pushed into third place on say 17-18 percent, I would be saying:

“Vote for who you like but to play it safe, even if you hate them, vote LibDem or Conservative.”

Same point applies, “Don’t vote for a Hung Parliament, it is not a sane economic proposition.” But then again if 2.50 a litre of petrol is okay with you, do what you like, you will pay for the privilege, one way or another.