Random moans and observations

"Getting on with the job" Gordon has recently been ruminating on the privations many people will face this winter when they have to choose between eating properly or freezing to death. His solution to this dilemma is everything that we have come to expect from him and his ilk: dense, both because it is difficult to penetrate and because of its stupidity, inadequate and costly to implement and administer. Doubtless it will keep legions of minor functionaries occupied and well-remunerated but is unlikely to do much for the pensioners and other vulnerable groups it is designed to help.

As ususal, Not -so -flash Gordon is going for complexity at the expense of accessibility. Instead of simply reducing the taxes people have to pay on fuel; instead of clobbering the foreign energy companies who are using the British to subsidise fuel consumers in their own backyards; instead of bringing pensions into line with the true cost of living, Gordon has decided to provide grants for people to insulate their homes more efficiently. In other words, they won't wake up one day and find that the government has given them back some of the money it has previously siphoned out of their pockets. Those in work are unlikely to find a nice little tax refund in their pay slip, either. That would be far too simplistic.
No, what will happen is that a large packet will drop with a dull thud on their hall mats one morning. Inside it will be a glossy coloure brochure with some gerundian heading like; "Making energy work harder for you" written by some 18 year old copy writer whose cutting edge agency will charge the Government £200 per hour for his time and brilliance. There will also be a pious statement by Gordon or Hilary Benn about their commitment to improving the UK's energy efficiency AND making lfe more comfortable for its more vulnerable citizens. Finally, the piece de resistance will be a form that claimants will have to fill in to qualify for the home insulation grant. In common with all other benefits' forms, this will be so eye-wateringly difficult that only those with a BSc in form filling - and Nigerian benefits fraudsters - will be able to complete it satisfactorily. Most will take one look and decide it's too complex. Others will get half-way through, lose the will to live and go to the pub for a pint. The clever ones will do one or other of the above then roll the paperwork into a small log and burn it once the weather turns really parky. It's about the only way that Gordon will provide them with any comfort at all this winter.

Even those who pass GO and manage to get a grant might find it difficult to use it anytime soon. According to the Government's own figures, there could be up to 2 million vulnerable people whose homes need better insulation. The Yell.com website says it has 832 listings for insulation contractors in the whole of the UK. Let's say that, on average, these contractors could handle 20 houses each per week. That adds up to 16.640 between them. If it runs true to form, the weather turn cold enough to represent a threat to vulnerable people in early November. So, assuming the scheme were to get going immediately, by the time that winter starts to get us all in its icy grip, around 100,000 homes might have been insulated; leaving the other 1,900,000 vulnerable citizens, presumably, trying to decide whether to risk turning the central heating on or warming up another tin of baked beans. That's what I call really getting on with the job, Gordon.

You might think that I would be very happy to see the back of Gordon Brown. If that's the impression I give, I apologise. Gordon might be proving to be by some distance the most numbingly inept PM this country has had to endure. But, in all honesty, I would rather he stayed where he is than risk handing the country over to one of his so-called rivals. The thought of David Millimetre making decisions about our collective future only becomes less scary if you replace that image with one of Harriet Harperson in Number 10. Some pundits are promoting Alan Johnson as a safe pair of hands. They either have short memories or are blessed with a gold-plated pension. This is the man, after all, who is so steeped in traditional class hatred that he bowed to Union demands for public-sector workers to retain the right to retire at 60 while the rest of us - lording it up with our fat-cat salaries and pensions in the private sector - are condemned to hard labour until we are 65 now and 68 in the not-too-distant future.

Gordon is, if only by default, the only Prime Minister this country needs at the present. Unless, that is, he calls a General Election. Then he can bugger off with the rest of his chums into another 20 years in the political wilderness.

This country still needs 3 million new homes to accommodate all the extra people we have allowed to settle here in the last 10 years. So, despite the turmoil in world markets, the shortage of mortgages and the impact of the stupid and pointless HIPS on the housing market, house prices are never going to go into complete free-fall. People who, two years ago would have bought a property are now having to settle for renting. Nonetheless, whatever they rent still occupies land and that is a commodity that becomes scarcer every year. As Mark Twain said: " Buy land. They can't invent any more".