The Porn Ultimatum

The Telegraph had a gem of a front page this week. The lead picture on 22^nd Feb  featured ex Home Office Minister, Jacqui Smith, in the neon lights of SoHo on the pretext of investigating the porn industry. In the death throes of a political career here was Jacqui Smith’s last chance to make it in the “meedja”. 

From the make-over in 30 minutes show to ridiculous plot lines we go along with for the sake of being entertained, conceits exist everywhere in the media.  But despite her protestations about getting to the bottom of this issue I can’t help thinking Jacqui Smith too is pulling the wool over our eyes? How unacquainted with porn is she? The fact her husband was buying it on expenses without her knowing doesn’t mean she didn’t know what it was.  Secondly she was a Minister of the Home Office – surely Law and Order meant she had to have some handle on it? Being photographed in SoHo may make great promotional material but frankly two hours at a PC would tell her everything she needs to know (and I suspect she does). 

Who’s playing who here? I’m starting to feel used. Should I  expect Michael Grove to take a PGCE after failing to sort out our schools? Will Liam Fox quit to learn how to shoot guns? Will Vince Cable admit to knowing nothing about economics (or maybe he is already doing that)? 

A career after politics is hard – ask Lembit Opik – but rebuilding on the very platform that helped end your career seems an interesting starting point. It seems even though she may not like it she understands porn well enough to know that sex sells.

King plays his own game but the government holds the aces

There is much gnashing of teeth at the creeping increase in inflation and Mervyn King’s ostensible refusal to do anything about it. I believe Mervyn is engaging in sensible economic management rather than inflation management but his motives for doing so are very different from mine. For me, with fragile economic recovery underway sporadically across the UK, the current policy delivers a dose of inflation that will inflate away our debt and low interest rates will protect vulnerable home owners bracing themselves for the public sector cuts. Banks can borrow for next to nothing, lend at higher rates and restore balance sheets. Savers? – well at least they will not be homeless.  Meanwhile politicians of all persuasions are grateful for a steady hand on the tiller while they set about righting the fiscal situation of UK PLC.

 Mervyn knows all this but he harbours another ambition. Politicians’ gratitude for Mervyn’s safe pair of hands has blinded them to the deleveraging programme he has embarked upon. By taking the wind out of the sails of every asset class –  but in particular property –  Mervyn is administering medicine we probably all need but frankly we are not going to like. Furthermore, ethically I am not sure an unelected official should be doing this without the nation’s mandate. We are going to fell poorer for a long while to come.

 So will Mervyn get his way?  Mervyn is due to notch up ten years in 2013, just in time for a new man to take the helm with two years to run to the General Election. By this time the coalition will be at war – with both parties positioning themselves as the success story of the last three years. What Dave and George will have realised is that Mervyn’s secret plan to deleverage every asset type will not have made any of us feel any richer and that will win votes from noone. In an indebted society, monetary policy is the single biggest thing to make us feel richer or poorer – the government will realise this at election time. Expect a new man (or woman) to be more understanding.