The economy shrinks whilst the population grows

Although provisional, today’s statistics released by the ONS suggest that overall the UK economy remained flat in 2012: there was no growth. However, the statistics that point to a 0.3% contraction in the economy during the final quarter of 2012 are, when taking into account demographic factors, even more worrying, for the figures relate to aggregate GDP and not per capita GDP. Given the rapid population expansion that has taken place over the past decade and a half and continues to this day, per capita economic output is shrinking at an even faster rate. This conclusion would appear to be supported by statistics released earlier this week stating that unemployment is now at its lowest in 18 months and a new record has been reached for the number of people in work. Average earnings are said to have increased by 1.5% in the year to November 2012, but given that RPI throughout this period was running at more than double this rate, they purchasing power of average wages has been falling; our standard of living in these raw terms is declining.

Worryingly, the underlying state of the economy looks weak, with the genuine foundations of wealth creation – “the production industries” – contracting at a faster rate than the economy as a whole, dropping by 1.8% in the final quarter of 2012. This represents part of an ongoing trend illustrated in the graph below, which shows that production as a whole had declined by circa 5% since the beginning of 2011, with the largest drop being witnessed in mining and quarrying which fell by over 25% during the same period. 

 The latest figures for the UK’s trade deficit released in November also reveal a grim picture, with the deficit on goods and services estimated to have been £3.5 billion. Looking beneath this surface figure, the weakness of our manufacturing and productive sector is starkly revealed by a £9.2 billion monthly deficit on goods which was “partly offset by an estimated surplus of £5.7 billion on services.”

Clearly, the economic policy of the current Government is not working, and yet, the ‘solution’ offered by the Labour Party is no better, for it focuses upon maintaining consumption through increased borrowing without addressing the trade deficit and the over-reliance upon the service sector. A radical new industrial policy is required that provides greater backing for the development of cutting-edge technologies and the industries of the future, providing jobs both for those with high-level intellectual skills in science and engineering, as well as for those working in support roles in the supply chains required to nurture and sustain this domestic revival. However, such an approach is at best paid only lip service by the globalist parties of today: Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and UKIP. A new non-globalist alternative is required to provide the support and impetus necessary to launch and sustain a long-term economic revival with a vision and programme that looks decades into the future, rather than simply to the next General Election.

George Osborne’s Autumn Statement: why more investment in London?

George Osborne’s announcement in yesterday’s Autumn Statement brought little cheer to anyone, but for all of Labour’s jeering about the Condem’s inability to set the economy back on track, it is salutary to recall that it was the reckless excessive indebtedness incurred by the last Labour administration together with its full exposure of the UK’s capital markets to the full shock of globalisation that landed us in the economic predicament in which we find ourselves. Labour may call for additional public spending – its ‘Plan B’ option – but their proposals would simply incur yet more borrowing. Already, it has been announced that the UK could well lose its triple A credit rating next year, but if Labour had been in power, it is probable that this would already have gone.

Buried amidst the general gloom of his speech were a few faint glimmers, which no doubt were intended to garner positive headlines. Thus, besides the widely anticipated announcement that duty on petrol and diesel would not increase by the planned three pence per litre early in 2013, it was declared that the Chancellor intended to boost government investment in infrastructure projects. However, a significant chunk of this money – some £1 billion – has been set aside for the extension of the Northern Line to Battersea. Why? Is such an extension worth the money? How could it possibly merit such a massive investment? Could this money not be better used to improve rail services in the regions away from the capital, where rolling stock is often overcrowded and lines closed by Beeching could be usefully reinstated, easing congestion on the roads and assisting local economies?

The Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) has identified many decommissioned railway lines which it would like to see brought back into operation. One such example would be the reinstatement of the Skipton to Colne Railway, which would serve as a link between the Airedale Line and Lancashire. With respect to the Skipton to Colne link it states:

The 11.5 mile link between Skipton (North Yorkshire) and Colne (Lancashire) would link the Aire Valley and Yorkshire to East Lancashire, Manchester, Preston and beyond. Although under increasing threat, the trackbed is essentially intact and the railway could be restored at a relatively low cost: any further incursion would destroy a resource of national value and would be contrary to government policies.

Similarly, it is estimated that it would only cost £37 million to reopen the 10-mile line from Portishead to Bristol, which would be sure to ease commuter traffic. A Portishead Railway Group has been set up to campaign for its reinstatement.  

Too much of our investment is focused upon London. We need to direct more of our infrastructure investment away from the capital with a view to assisting an economic kickstart in our regions. We, after all, were left with the multi-billion pound bill of paying for the construction of the Olympic complex in Stratford that most of us will never see and never benefit from. In general, London sucks in too much from the rest of the country, and a considerable part of its population isn’t even English. The £1 billion earmarked for the extension of the Northern Line should be taken away, and redirected to fresh regional rail initiatives instead. 

Skipton to Colne Rail Link

Economic decline and the need for changed investment priorities

Today's announcement by the Bank of England Governor Mervyn King that there will be no growth in the UK economy this year appears to be optimistic. In all likelihood, we will see the year ending with a smaller economy than at the outset. Moreover, the economic deterioration will be compounded by another likely steep increase in population, placing increased strain upon our housing stock, infrastructure and social services. The Government and the Opposition are failing the country badly, for both offer us the prospect only of continuing economic decline conjoined with falling living conditions, increasing social fragmentation and polarisation. 

For successive years, the Bank of England has predicted that we run not the risk of inflation, but of deflation, and once again today we see King predicting that inflation will fall below the 2% target by the end of 2012. We have heard this said many times previously, only to see inflation roar away well in excess of this level. Although the general crisis within the global economy appears to militate against a surge in inflation in the near term, other geopolitical events, particularly the crisis in the Middle East, could threaten to increase global oil prices which would have a significant impact on our rate of inflation. The thorny issue of Iran’s nuclear programme and hawkish rhetoric concerning a potential pre-emptive strike by Israel could lead to the disruption of shipping through the Gulf of Hormuz causing a surge in the oil price. Moreover, it also remains to be seen how Iran’s desire to entangle itself in Syria’s intensifying civil war will manifest itself, and whether this might precipitate a wider clash within the Middle East involving Israel and possibly a number of NATO states. Either scenario would be likely to lead to a surge in oil prices, irrespective of the state of the global market.

Contrary to its assertions, Labour has no solution to this crisis. Its prescription for “growth”, involving as it does boosting spending on imported products, would serve only to exacerbate our balance of payments deficit, and to reinforce the lopsided structure of our economy. It is hardly as if Ed Balls had nothing to do with the economic policy of the last Labour administration and the woes that ensued therefrom, that with its twin addiction to debt and globalisation has undermined the foundations of our economy. There is no pain free way out of this economic crisis, and it is going to take many years to reinvigorate manufacturing, and to develop the productive potential of new technologies to generate the wealth required for the long-term funding of our social services.

The process of globalisation and its attendant ideology of globalism have assisted in the generation and entrenchment of this economic crisis, and if it is to be overcome effectively at the national level, then both must be ditched as a matter of policy. Investment, instead of chasing quick wins abroad, must be directed towards our own key industrial, research and development and infrastructure projects. These vital sectors will provide us with the basis of a sound and sustainable economy, allowing pensioners to feel secure in the knowledge that their funds will be invested in undertakings directed towards the long-term, yielding wealth, jobs and a future for all of our people. This manner of investment, rather than the solicitation of Arab petrodollars or the savings of Chinese workers, is what is required to restore genuine national self-determination.

Our economic policy should not be geared towards the short-termism of the electoral cycle, but should instead be devised with the next 50 to 100 years in mind. We need to think and act on behalf not only of existing generations, but also of those to come, and to develop policies in accordance with this principle. Sustainable employment, prosperity and well-being can only be secured in a country that is not groaning beneath the weight of excess numbers, and it will be incumbent upon any rational government, to ensure that a demographic policy is devised and implemented to bring about a better balance between land and people. Do not of course expect such considerations to weigh in the decision-making processes of the existing large parties, for they find such reasoning anathema. It will be our task, to make this reasoning mainstream, and to ensure that it finds expression in concrete policy. 

Interest rates may remain low for many years, as the example of Japan testifies, but whatever level they are set at, we will have no worthy economic future if our country does not adopt a radical new course in economic policy. 

The Bank of England: Interest Rates held at 0.5%

Incomes fall whilst Population rises

In a rare moment of candour, an article on the BBC website today finally acknowledged through quoting the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that population growth (fuelled predominantly by historically unprecedented mass immigration) had contributed to a significant decline in disposable income in the UK. The average figure fell by 1% during the first three months of 2012 compared to the preceding months, with the amount of disposable income reaching its lowest since 2003.

The protracted structural economic crisis doubtless underpins this decline, but this negative economic situation is heavily exacerbated by rapid and unhelpful population growth. On a per capita basis, the report reveals that pre-tax income declined during the period in question by 0.6%. The ONS stated: 

sustained population growth led to incomes being spread across a greater number of people, and therefore further reduced the growth of actual income per head.

To describe a decline in both pre-tax and disposable incomes as “growth” is one of those peculiar particularities of conventional economics, but the wider notion of “growth” as being an essentially good thing, irrespective of what that “growth” actually consists of, is a dogma that needs to be laid to rest if we are to effect true improvements in our standard of living and quality of life in this country. The focus upon an increase in aggregate rather than per capita GDP is, in general, something that can actually lead to a concrete deterioration in both our daily lived experience and indeed in our individual incomes.

Retailers for example, are enthusiastic about a growing population, for this implies more prospective consumers to shop in their outlets; builders too, for this necessitates the construction of ever more homes (the rooms of which seem to grow smaller as average girths grow wider); an increase in the number of passengers on already overcrowded rail services may be seen as positive by various rail companies, but do we as commuters appreciate the consequences of such “growth”: nowhere to sit and often scarcely space to breathe? As the population grows the infrastructure – particularly in densely populated England possessing an average of 407 people per square kilometre according to the 2011 Census – creaks: traffic jams grow longer and more frequent; drought orders are issued sooner and take longer to lift, and we are urged to adopt water meters to conserve a precious “scarce” resource; pressure upon our housing stock grows, as do voices calling for the lifting of planning restrictions designed to protect our countryside.

For the conventional economist, population growth is therefore seen to be a “good thing”, whereas for the mortals who have to live with its consequences, the negative impact of such a demographic surge far outweighs any superficial nominal benefits that may be said to have been accrued. Yet, despite such pressures brought about by the negligent policies of the current government and the wilful design of its predecessor, few are willing to take a critical stance on this issue and call for a solution that would readily improve our lives: a rational demographic policy aimed in the long run (i.e. over the coming century or two) at reducing our national population to sustainable limits of circa 25 to 30 million. However, those who support Population Matters - such as David Attenborough and James Lovelock - are notable exceptions.

The example of the widespread failure of India’s electricity grids over the past two days should serve as a warning as to what could happen to us if we do not constrain our population at a level commensurate with the power and resources that we can practically make available. As our government is also signed up to treaties that insist upon a considerable cut in our aggregate energy consumption, the addition of millions of new citizens implies that we must all make do with far less, in other words, experience a sustained cut in our standard of living for the sake of immigrants from countries which fail to cater to the needs of their citizens. Such a reckless demographic policy must be curtailed, for otherwise, we consign ourselves to an increasingly immiserated and insecure future, in a grossly overpopulated world where demands for food, territory, energy and water become ever more intense. We need to produce more food and energy domestically, so as to enhance our national security, and to improve the lot of our people. Other nations need to turn to the needs of their citizens too, and to institute sensible demographic policies, instead of exporting their population problems to Britain and the other countries of the West.

Africa, and significant swathes of Asia, need to learn how to use the condom and the pill. It is still, just, within their gift, to choose to solve their population crises humanely and rationally, yet if they do not - which currently appears to be the greater likelihood - then the bitter Malthusian lessons of unrestrained reproduction will doubtless have to be learned through great hardship and unnecessary death on a mass scale. We have no reason to be dragged down by such folly, yet our current crop of politicians appear intent upon letting just such an eventuality unfold. Our incomes may be falling now, but if a radical change in the existing political landscape and general approach to policy is not brought about within the next decade, then the risk will be that our current economic woes will seem utterly insignificant. 

Time for a sensible demographic policy: long-term population reduction

City Centre Protests hit Leeds

Leeds is but the latest city to witness protests spawned by the ongoing economic crisis. Today, tents could be seen in City Square, flanked by elegant bronze nymphs bearing torches and baring torsos, whilst the august figures of James Watt and Joseph Priestley stared on blindly. Below, a group of mainly young people had chosen to bring their own version of the ‘Occupy’ protests to Leeds. Whereas I understand the frustration that motivates the protestors, the protests themselves I find a little perplexing, given their unfocused nature and lack of clear objectives.

For some reason, instead of protesting against the ideology of globalism and its enabling institutions such as the EU, the protesters instead elect to direct their inchoate sense of rage towards bankers alone, as if they operated in an institutional, political and legal void. This of course is not the case, and only through a popular peaceful participatory nationalism will we be able to successfully change those institutional, political and legal arrangements that currently enable predatory global capitalism to strip entire peoples of their right to self-determination and to prosperity.

A few streets away on Briggate, another group of young protesters with a rather clearer and more focused objective – to draw public attention to the scandal of the tens of thousands of avoidable deaths amongst our elderly each year from cold – unfurled a banner with the slogan ‘High fuel prices kill. Don’t take it lying down.’ Other than the two who clasped the poles of the banner, the protesters lay upon the street as if dead, dressed in winter clothes. A crowd gathered to look and take pictures as other well-heeled shoppers vanished into the neighbouring Harvey Nichols store, paying them but cursory attention. A handful of police stood by and watched, their van parked in the middle of the pedestrianised street.

It is indeed a scandal that several tens of thousands of our old people died during the last winter, solely because they could not afford to heat their homes. I would therefore like to congratulate this group of protesters for highlighting this issue, but would like to invite them, as well as those engaged in the Leeds ‘Occupy’ protest, to consider what lies at the root of this poverty: globalisation and the economic depression wrought by the deindustrialisation of our nation. The mirage of prosperity based upon a service economy should by now be clear for all to see.

How much would it have cost for our Government to have saved the lives of the estimated 25,000 people aged 65 and over who are estimated to have died during each of the past five winters because they could not afford to pay their fuel bills? Although the current administration has not been willing to tackle this issue, it freely volunteered to spend what could be up to £1.75 billion upon its intervention in Libya in the name of saving Libyan lives. Why could this money not instead have been spent upon saving British lives? If we divide this sum by the estimated 125,000 pensioners who have unnecessarily died because of fuel poverty over the past five years, we end up with a sum of £14,000 per head, or £2,800 per capita per year, which greatly exceeds any possible heating bill. Why has money instead been spent upon a conflict in which we had no interest, whilst our own vulnerable citizens have been left to die? 

Whilst the politicians of the globalist parties - Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat - may be happy to prioritise arrangements in such a way, this is something that the British Freedom Party would never allow to happen. Whatever the coming winter brings in terms of weather, we can unfortunately anticipate that many more of our elderly people will meet an early grave because of conscious political decisions based upon the ideology of globalism.   

Nymph in Leeds City Square

Newcastle's ‘Rising Against Islamophobia’

As the economic decline of the West continues, and individuals who joined trade unions look to them to protect their jobs and working conditions, many trade union activists dedicate themselves to concerns that are tangential, if not in direct opposition to, the beliefs, desires and interests of rank-and-file members. Thus it is that many union stewards and reps abuse their positions of trust to forward their own militant Leftist agenda. They undermine the job security of indigenous members by actively promoting ever more mass immigration (legal migration, ‘asylum’, recognition of the ‘right’ of illegal immigrants to remain in the country, ‘family reunion’, Turkish accession to the EU, etc) as well as subverting the identity of the country by engaging in a vigorous Kulturkampf which promotes Balkanisation under the heading of ‘diversity’, routinely brand expressions of English identity as ‘racist’ and ‘extremist’, and support the growth of the misogynist, anti-rational Dark Age belief system called Islam.

What I have written above is a statement of fact. I do not believe that there is any room for this to be disputed. That said, I do not for one moment tar all trade unionists with the same brush, and recognise that there are many excellent stewards and reps who do a good job in seeking to defend the interests of their members and do not become involved in the harmful abovementioned activities that are embedded within the official policies of their unions. It is up to people such as these to win back the trade union movement for reason, and to defend the real interests of their members rather than undermining the latter’s economic security and stigmatising their indigenous cultural identity. I call upon decent trade unionists who do not subscribe to erroneous Leftist multiculturalist dogma to make their displeasure known to colleagues about the union-sponsored UAF demonstration promoting Islamisation and supported by the Muslim Defence League (MDL) that will take place in Newcastle on 29 October this year. 

The title of the event itself – Rising Against Islamophobia – is both provocative and designed to promote the myth that objecting to Islamic doctrine and Islamisation is irrational. Indeed, the aim of the organisers is to stamp out independent thought and to impose a totalitarian line: this is the ‘truth’, and if you question it, you are a ‘racist’, ‘fascist’ and ‘far-right’. Even if you are a trade unionist who does not share my particular perspective, you ought to feel distinctly uneasy about the line and tactics of UAF.

Unison appears to be the major union backing the event, but the following campaigns, groups and individuals will also be represented: 

• Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC)
• Coalition of Resistance
• Councillor Dipu Ahad
• Enough Coalition Against Islamophobia
• Muslim Defence League 
• Northern Public Services Alliance 
• Show Racism the Red Card
• Stop the War Coalition
• Yvonne Ridley

How much will this promotion of Islam cost non-Muslim trade union members? This event will after all require funding. At a time when jobs are being lost and services being degraded, why are scarce resources being wasted upon promoting an alien and hostile creed that stands in direct opposition to the values of most ordinary trade unionists? It is time that rank-and-file members awoke to the fact that their movement has been hijacked by Trotskyites intent upon using it for purposes other than what it was established.

The EDL will be holding a counter-protest to this celebration of national self-destruction, cultural masochism and Islamisation. Let us hope that they enjoy a successful and peaceful demonstration, and that ordinary trade unionists are able to win back their movement from the harmful pro-Islamic fanatics who have subverted its noble founding principles.

White, Blue-eyed Devils: the World according to President Lula

Well, the good old BBC, indefatigable campaigner against ‘racism’, today reported Brazilian President ‘Lula’ as stating that “This is a crisis [i.e. the global economic crisis] that was caused by people, white with blue eyes”. Can you imagine what would happen if a European head of state were to say of the dangers of Islamist terror that “This is a crisis that was caused by people, brown with brown eyes”, and then follow it up with the phrase “the part of humanity that is responsible should pay for the crisis”? Would not the BBC be thrown into paroxysms of apoplexy? I think that they might just be inclined to use the r-word. Then again, would they even report such a statement?

How strange therefore that the BBC somehow didn’t notice this blatant attempt to incite anti-white race hatred. How strange too that Lula seems to think that the global banking system is run by some clique of Aryan clichés who aren’t boys from Brazil. When we substitute an alleged victim group (i.e. brown Muslims) for “white [people] with blue eyes”, we perceive the true viciousness and venom of Lula’s statement. What is even more odd, is that Lula looks pretty damned white to me (although I must concede that his eyes don’t look too blue). The Guardian too, which expends vast energies in seeking to inculcate a sense of anti-British, anti-white self-loathing through endless editorials and stories of dubious merit, failed on this occasion to spot an example of its pet topic: racism.

So, Lula states that his answer to the economic crisis is to ensure (according to The Telegraph) that "The part of humanity that is responsible should pay for the crisis." I agree. Corrupt bankers and the transnational economic oligarchy should be made to pay, but this of course, is not the target that Lula has in mind. No. Instead, he wants to lay the blame not just upon white, blue-eyed bankers, but upon the whole white, blue-eyed population. I happen to be white and blue-eyed, and I can assure Lula that I’ve had nothing whatsoever to do with the corrupt practices of a transnational oligarchy of which leading politicians like himself are an integral component.

Not only does he want to extort money from us by attempting to create some sort of collective guilt trip (which Brown and his confederates will be all too willing to admit to and pay for on our behalf), but he also wishes to ensure that western states do not place limits upon immigration during the recession, as this would further compound the suffering of the poor. This comment hints at the truly terrifying prospect of global economic dislocation causing an even greater surge of immigration to the UK, with many immigrants hailing from the Islamic world. With our open borders policy, what kind of future does this betoken?

Source materials: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7963704.stm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/5056410/Gordon-Brown-told-to-expect-spicy-G20.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/26/lula-attacks-white-bankers-crash