Labour threaten to attack our young people – as if Uni-party had not damaged them enough

Youth unemployment – rising in your area soon!

Published on 31st March 2025

Introduction

A new offensive has been opened in Labour’s civil war against the British nation. The next group of soft targets are those well-recognized ‘enemies of the people’: the young.

Rachel Reeves used a recent appearance on Sky to read out the judgement passed on them […]

Contempt for voters is the new democratic norm

My recent comments about the release of the German Debt Brake

Published on 25th March 2025

Introduction

Ruling elites are perfectly happy to go along with constitutions, electoral systems, timing of elections and all the other paraphernalia of democracy as long it suits them and lands them or their peer group back at the controls of power.

‘Peer group’ […]

Tactics to remove German Debt Brake would make Hermann Göring blush

Daily Express article with my comments

Introduction

The plan to remove Germany’s Debt Brake has been widely hailed as a tremendous breakthrough, wonderful for Europe and for the Eurozone.

However, the means to get it through the Parliament with the required 66% majority (as it is a change in the constitution) demonstrate that Europe’s elite politicians have lost […]

T2 Disaster Recovery arrangements are synthetic, befitting a synthetic currency

Screenshot of ECB website

T2 (formerly known as TARGET2) is a systemically-important payment system and the Real-Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) for the euro. As such it should be a ‘5-nines’ system, enjoying 99.999% availability during its scheduled operating hours.

On 27th February it went down from 10:15 until 18:00 CET, according to the operational update message […]

Carney appointment weakens democracy – and undermines Charles’ legitimacy as Head of State

From the Government of Canada official website

11th February 2025

Introduction

The appointment of Mark Carney as Prime Minister of Canada lacks democratic legitimacy. It exemplifies emerging devices to escape accountability and bypass the voter, thereby demonstrating contempt for the voter.

Appointment not election

One device is appointment by other politicans rather than election by voters: Rishi Sunak and two […]

UK payments – now officially a ‘state-directed’ activity, not an industry

Annoucement of the nomenklatura appointed to direct UK payments for the state

26th February 2025

Payments is now an area in which the public policy agenda dominates

The National Payments Vision Committee and Vision Engagement Group are now in place as the forum within which the future of payments in the UK will be decided, in a process […]

What a surprise: the UK’s self-employed and microenterprises are in the mire – but don’t blame Labour (yet)

24th February 2025

Introduction

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s ‘Commentary on the Public Sector Finances: January 2025’, issued on 21st February 2025, contained a statistic that has horrified the august bodies that oversee the nation’s finances, although the statistic oracle itself – the Office for National Statistics, issuer of ‘Public Sector Finances, UK: January 2025’ – maintains […]

What is EU GDP actually?

18th February 2025

Eurostat estimates for Q3 2024 of Eurozone and EU General government gross debt

My recent research on the shadow liabilities of the EU member states threw up an extraordinary question: what is EU GDP actually?

You can download the full research here.

For my 2021 book on th subject of the shadow liabilities I backed EU […]

EU shadow borrowing increases

My 2023 book

13th February 2025

The EU’s shadow borrowing has continued to increase, as is shown by a high-level update on the 2021 figures which were the basis of my book ‘The shadow liabilities of EU Member States, and the threat they pose to global financial stability’, which was published by The Bruges Group in 2023.

You […]

Open Banking – a classic example of a ‘state-directed’ activity which is not an ‘industry’

Open Banking’s activity statement

3rd February 2025

Introduction

Vyne has folded its tents in the UK, or rather it has closed its Open Banking portal, apparently one offering a top customer experience and with traction into a large customer base:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vynes-withdrawal-uk-open-banking-supplier-proves-dead-bob-lyddon-6xk3e

This does not augur well for this activity area: a top player cannot make Open Banking work financially. That […]