Ivan Lewis is what used to be known as “Not Safe in Taxis” (Damian Green is another one) always sniffing around young women. So it is no surprise that he was leering over a 25 year-old young girl working in his office. After all he broke up with his wife after having an affair with a local Labour Party councillor behind her back.

Why has the News of the Screws story come out now over a year later?

Ivan Lewis has been a little too outspoken about Gordon’s failings, accusing Brown of being out of touch, it was remarkable that he escaped censure at the time. If there is one thing the Brownies excel out, it is malevolence. That the girl isn’t quoted means it is not kiss and tell for cash. A few other ministers will be worried that their office darlings could be exposed by vengeful Brownies. This is a warning to other ministers and a score settled…

UPDATE : Have just noticed this story about Lewis’ former assistant was hinted at in the comments on Guido’s story hinting at his affair with Maggie Gibb on June 25, 2006. Fair amount of reading between the lines required with these type of stories. Always difficult when if they both deny it, you are scuppered, you have to read these stories carefully for the hint..

The Old Labour backbench was cheering and singing the Red Flag when the enabling legislation to nationalise Northern Rock was passed. Guido said at the time it was the return of seventies socialism.

Now we have a situation where £100 billion of taxpayer’s money has been bet on the UK property market as it goes south. Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling repeat the mantra that the public’s money is secured against the bank’s assets. The bank’s assets are what exactly? The equity in mortgagor’s homes belongs not to the bank, it belongs to the homeowners. The only properties Northern Rock has an interest in are it’s own branches and offices. The only homes it owns are those where it forecloses, usually and increasingly at a loss due to negative equity (remember all those 125% offers).

Northern Rock is selling off any assets of value to pay down the government debt. Essentially the government is asset stripping what it can and like many an asset stripper before it is sacking staff. Unlike capitalist vultures it will not make a profit, the government will be left with billions of bad debts. This half-year’s losses are £585 million, £20 per taxpayer. Mortgage arrears have doubled, repossessions are up another 50% on already bad figures – and the worst is yet to come. The Rock’s bad debts will be borne by taxpayers.

Watching Darling spluttering explanations for abolishing the 10p rate this morning it is clear that the Brownies can’t see that their preference for taxing with one hand and then paying benefits back with the other hand, is a wasteful bureaucratic merry-go-round that doesn’t work – except on paper.

Darling says “tax is complicated”. Who complicated it? Simplify it by raising thresholds dramatically. Why should people on earnings of less than £10,000 pay any tax? They only have to fill out endless forms to get it back in welfare payments. Crazy. Raising the threshold on the low paid will incentivise people to come off benefits and work. It will reduce the cost of collection which is disproportionately higher on low incomes.

The Tories are too timid, the mood of the public has changed. New Labour has always referred to “unfunded tax cuts” and demanded to know how many hospitals and schools would correspondingly be cut. The Tories should be pointing to Labour’s “unfunded spending commitments” which have given Britain the highest budget deficit in the Western world. We can’t afford Labour’s reckless spending commitments – they are literally mortgaging our children’s taxes to pay for current spending. It is the economics of the “never, never”.

This is how John Major started to crumble. When even Ministers are getting in on the act you know it is bad. Gerry Sutcliffe follows Ivan Lewis as another ministerial critic…

UPDATE : Just noticed that Ben Brogan has posted almost the exact same thought.

Masses of broadcast and print media coverage for the campaign to bar Alistair Darling from pubs. First photo of a pub displaying the “Barred” poster comes from the Jolly Brewer in Lincoln. So no chance of Alistair Darling getting a round in there. Was there ever a chance of him getting a round in?

Send more poster sighting pictures to Guido.Fawkes@Order-Order.com.

Print out the downloaded the poster (pdf) from here. Some cracking entries already in for the sing-a-long campaign song competition. Closes Friday, 5pm.

Picture via John Trenchard.

Cameron picked up on this at PMQs as has the BBC and the Telegraph. Guido first saw it on the Devil’s blog, he hat-tips the Reactionary Snob. The Wardman Wire has an amusingly po-faced audio report from the BBC. The Devil-designed A4 poster download is suitable for pub windows. The mandatory Facebook group is up here.

Guido will give a prize of a copy of John McCain’s new book Hard Call: Courageous Decisions by Inspiring People to anyone who comes up with a decent campaign sing along in a pub song. Entries in the comments…

Guido wishes he had bought his daughters more gold each when they were born. Still with gold at $1030 an ounce, tripling in three years is satisfactory. Thanks Gordon for depressing the price.

When Brown and Darling try to present themselves as the safe pairs of hands in this coming time of economic crisis, remember that Brown was the financial whizz who sold Britain’s gold reserves at the historic low for dollars. Now as the dollar goes into freefall the total loss from that idiotic decision (he even told the market to get short before he sold off the reserves) will dwarf the few billion lost by the Bank of England on White Wednesday. Brown’s judgement is neither good or timely.

We have yet to have the final reckoning for Northern Rock, where some estimate that over 20% of the loans are to mortgagees with negative equity. The Fed arranged the sale of Bear Stearns in comparable circumstances over this weekend. It took dithering Brown months to make the wrong decision on Northern Rock. Remember how Lloyds TSB was interested in buying Northern Rock in much the same way Morgan Chase has just bought Bear Stearns?

The Tory benches are full of people who have worked in financial markets, Letwin, Redwood, even Andrew Mitchell and many more understand the markets far more than the student union activist turned TV producer cum PM and the dull barrister ever will. Faced with the worst financial crisis since the seventies what did they do? Implement a pre-emptive growth package in the budget? No, they threatened to tax plastic bags and put up car duties and taxes for those on lower incomes. Pathetic.

UPDATE : The LibDem benches, it has been pointed out in the comments, also have their fair share of brains acquainted with financial markets – Cable and Laws to name two. The Labour benches are devoid of experience.

Buried in the small print are some hefty increases on car taxes. Not just big cars either – ordinary family cars are getting whacked as well. The Taxpayers Alliance have put it all online for some 4000 car models in a handily digestible downloadable format. Once again middle-class families bear the brunt of Brown’s unfunded spending commitments…

Quick, you have only until Sunday to get hammered before beer is up 4p a pint, wine 14p a bottle and spirits 55p. These Calvinistic bastards would tax smiling if they could…

In 1975 Britain was told by Tony Benn that the nationalisation of British Motor Holdings and the Leyland Motor Corporation would be “partial”. Alistair Darling today says the nationalisation of Northern Rock will be “temporary”.

It is worth taking a moment to reflect on how we got here. When Northern Rock’s troubles became critical there was no systemic risk to the financial system. There was a risk to 6,000 regional jobs which was a political risk in a period of election fever in Labour’s North East heartlands.

If Northern Rock had been put into administration the shareholders and probably the employees would have lost out. No mortgage holders would have been worse off, depositors would, since we are told by the government the bank’s assets are good, have got their money back.

The only cost to the taxpayer would have been the unemployment benefit payments to redundant Northern Rock staff – most may have kept their jobs with new owners of the business (Lloyds TSB was said to be interested). Instead of the normal commercial and legal run off process taking its course, the government intervened. The result is the biggest nationalisation of the century.

Many would argue convincingly that depositors would have not been able to extract their money in the event of a liquidation, or at least not in good time. The government could have in that case guaranteed the deposits and collected the money back as a normal creditor. For a moment in the beginning that did seem to be a real possibility. That would have been a much smaller risk to the taxpayer.

Now we have a situation where £100 billion of taxpayer’s money is being bet on the UK property market as it teeters on the edge. Gordon Brown repeats the mantra that the public’s money is secured against the bank’s assets. The bank’s assets are what exactly? The equity in mortgagee’s homes belongs not to the bank, it belongs to the homeowners. The only properties Northern Rock has an interest in are it’s own branches and offices. The only homes it owns are those where it forecloses, usually and increasingly at a loss due to negative equity (remember all those 125% offers). The other major asset the bank owns is it’s profit stream from the spread it makes on lending versus borrowing. That has disappeared because of the credit crunch. Right now there is no profit stream to speak of, that is why the bank is bust.

What is most disturbing about the new legislation being proposed is that it will empower the state to nationalise more banks. Which seems to contradict Darling’s claim that this is a “temporary and exceptional” measure. It has always been the objective of British socialists to nationalise the banks. Thirty years ago they wiped out the British owned car industry, now they are coming for the banks. New Labour is dead. Socialism is back…

UPDATE : Anatole Kaletsky agrees – wind-up the bank.