OBAMA ATTEMPTS TO INFLUENCE UK's EU REFERENDUM

The news that President Obama is preparing to plead with Britons to stay in
EU (Times report, February), does nothing to strengthen the case for doing so.

A free-enterprise economy operating in an open, representative democracy
led to the rise of the United States as the pre-eminent global power. It has
underpinned the defence and economies of Western countries since the
Second World War.

These values represent everything that the EU is not. Its Commission, far
from representing the will of the people, represents an unelected and
unaccountable elite. The introduction of the flawed single currency, the
monumentally wasteful Common Agricultural Policy, largely unaudited
capital transfers to the 26 net recipient countries, funded by Germany
and the UK, are manifestly antithetical to what the US has always stood
for.
In  warning the UK against leaving the EU, perhaps President Obama
reflects a possible drift of the US Government into the kind of mindset
that US republicans fear. For economic and other reasons the President
may have come into line with the social, political and economic values
of the US's main trading partner, using its 'special relationship' with the
as a convenient means to an end. This could be a real possibility if a
more left-leaning democrat such as Bernie Sanders were returned to
the White House.
This poses potential risks. With all Western economies virtually flatlining,
how long before the EU Commission begins to insinuate its social objectives
into US policy as a quid pro quo for trade, with predictable economic and
geo-political consequences?

PRIZE OF ECONOMIC FAILURE

Gordon Brown's appointment as a senior wealth creation
adviser to Pimco, the global asset management company, is 
triumph of apparent nepotism - Ed Balls's brother is the company's chief 
investment officer - over breathtaking incompetence. Between
1999 and 2002 Mr Brown sold off over half the UK's gold reserves
at a fraction of their subsequent value. The move was indicative of a 
mindset that appears to run counter to Pimco's view that gold is important
part of an economic portfolio.

The sell-off happened in order to protect the solvency of major US banks,
which had become dangerously over-exposed in the gold derivatives
market. The cost to the UK taxpayer amounted to billions. It occurred
at the behest of Gordon Brown without any consultation reganrding what,
turned out to be the squandering of taxpayers' money. The decision was
announced well in advance, thus achieving the US banks' objective: the 
lowest possible gold price.

This disastrous decision adds to Gordon Brown's lasting legacy of profligacy
and near national bankruptcy. Under his chancellorship there was rampant
public spending during a period of brisk growth, unsustainable consumer
debt and frequent extensions of the business cycle in an attempt to balance
the books. He continued with his reckless borrow and spend policy, while
making the absurd assertion that he had abolished boom and bust. I am at a
loss to know what qualifies him for the role at Pimco.














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WOMEN ON BOARD

The under-representation of women
in manufacturing and engineering,
clearly requires a cultural shift in
education, in order to encourage more
girls to study mathematics and the
sciences.

Only a fifth of female students take physics
at 'A' level and one third mathematics. This is
reflected in those studying the subjects at
university. It is, therefore, unlikely that many
women will be qualified to rise to the levels of
seniority in engineering and technology, which
meet EU demands for more gender balance in
the boardroom.

Change the perception of young women that
manufacturing is a man's world. That is the first
step in establishing a pipeline from which women
will emerge to take up senior positions on
merit, rather than political correctness. Vacuous talk
of glass ceilings and EU-imposed gender quotas
will do little to develop the vital contribution that
women can make to the economy and the UK's
ability to pay its way.

THE SCANDAL THAT IS THE BBC

It is right that John Whittingdale has been appointed
to look into the national scandal that is the BBC.

Anyone looking at the TV schedules - I have counted
as many as eighteen repeats a day, some fifty years'old
- may come to the conclusion that the £3.5bn the BBC

receives annually from the licence fee represents

increasingly poor value for money.

The BBC has become a powerful metaphor for arrogance, 

incompetence, profligacy and worse. Senior executives 

found wanting are never dismissed, but merely moved to 

more senior positions with seemingly meaningless titles. 

Those who leave appear do so with extraordinarily 

generous compensation.

The Corportion appears to have all but abandoned the 

role Lord Reith intended: an impartial public service 

broadcaster, educating and enriching the fabric of our 

society. Instead, it has become a number of 

disfunctional and unaccountable feifdoms, 

contemptuous of any criticism of how it spends 

public money in competing with the commercial media. 
The £100 bn wasted on the abandoned digital archive
is but one example.

Savile and other big names with ludicrously expensive 

contracts illustrate the folly of needlessly seeking to 

boost audience figures in the ratings' war. 

The appointment in 2010 of the former Labour cabinet 
minister, James Purnell, as Head of Digital and Strategy,

on a salary £295,000 - the post unadvertised - strengthens
the perception that the BBC has a growing left-

wing bias. Its recent coverage of the general election merely
merely confirms this.

LABOUR'S DAMASCENE CONVERSION

Labour's defeated MPs and their instant Damascene conversion
back to the values of New Labour will, come the 2020 general
election, have little traction with sceptical voters'
ingrained memories of the catastrophic economic failure of the leftist Brown
government. Had David and not Ed Miliband been
elected in 2010 by democratic process instead of union
diktat, the younger sibling would not have had his "I'm
not Tony Blair" moment and the  outcome of this general election could
have been different. Free-market economic liberalism and
wealth creation - marks of New Labour - will always triumph over Marxism in the
fiercely competitive global economy. Growing the size of the national cake
is more productive than cutting it into ever smaller pieces.

LABOUR - THE THERE'S NO MONEY LEFT PARTY

THOUGHT TO PONDER AS WE APPROACH THE GENERAL ELECTION


NOTE FROM LIAM BYRNE, LABOUR'S FORMER CHIEF SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY
LEFT AFTER ITS DEFEAT AT 2010 GENERAL ELECTION


"I'M AFRAID THERE'S NO MONEY LEFT."


LABOUR - THE THERE'S NO MONEY LEFT PARTY WHICH HAS CREATED

ECONOMIC CHAOS EVERY TIME IT HAS BEEN IN OFFICE.

Financial black hole left by Clarkson

The BBC's possible liquidation of Top Gear, the corporation's £50m
flagship, is a worrying example of its mismanagement of creative

talent and licence fee income.

Jeremy Clarkson is an original and unpredictable talent, who has given
the programme such wide appeal. Inevitably, we should now 

expect that this will lead to an even poorer quality and range of programmes -

the result of the corporation struggling to repay the millions received from

global broadcasters, in advance, to televise the series.

It will certainly come as no surprise if they do not accept the option of

alternative presenters, who would be unlikely to attract the same 350m

audience around the world.