Interesting times continue

I feel most unsettled today; I have the sense we could be on the edge of something truly momentous. A bit like those moments when you feel you're close to understanding a truth and seeing a change in your thinking - and yet the understanding and change is somehow still eluding you. Maybe that's just me.

Another amazing week with more accepted wisdom turned on its head. Firstly, Gordon Brown. Floundering leader a month ago, the new Churchill today. Yes, that was the comparison I heard on Radio 4 yesterday. Quite how this compares with thousands being killed I am not so sure but that's by the by.

Unprecedented government intervention and cross country cooperation on interest rates - and yet the panic didn't stop, although I'm sure it will pass in time. Just where did we find £400 billion pounds to unblock lending between the banks? That's an incredible sum of money.



And then, on a much smaller scale, Iceland and the impact their fate could have on the Scottish independence movement. As Brian Taylor says, Holyrood politicians may "have to slap themselves to stop muttering "Iceland" every time the First Minister mentions small nation independent status in future." A month or two ago, independence was most definitely in the air, it was coming through the back door. As I said last week, the argument for it now seems risible.

What will it all really mean? Will it blow over in a few years of pain and we'll go back to the way we've always been? Or will we change?

I like Paul Mason's Newsnight post, and this comment: The successful outcome to the next policy response will be a prolonged recession and a heavily socialized banking system. The unsuccessful outcome could be a depression. Either way take a long look at the high-debt economy...as I write students are arriving in London to run up an average £30k of debt that will hang around them for a decade, people are paying for drinks on credit cards. Taxi drivers are passing in cabs effectively the property of the Icelandic government. So look around, as Auden might have put it:


"As the clever hopes expire, Of a low dishonest decade"


And finally.... to lighten the mood, this post Tamsin has alerted me to, which has to be the funniest thing I have read in a very long time. I love this idea of Robert Peston transformed into a ball of energy and blue light, the essence of pure news. Absolutely inspired. God, we are clever bastards in this country, aren't we? Although, clearly not, in so many ways.

Interesting times

I've been meaning to blog about the last couple weeks for a while, but I've been too busy glued to my TV screen in an attempt to decipher it all. I find it incredible that we are seeing so much government intervention from the most capitalist country in the world.

Talking of incredible, the take-over of HBoS is another one. The Bank of Scotland is such an institution here. It was founded in 1695 by an Act of the pre-Union Scots Parliament and has been tied up with so much of Scotland's history, including the Darien trade adventures which saw us get in such a mess we had to sell up to England in 1707.


I do find the argument for Scottish independence rather risible in the wake of the past few weeks; we are all so interconnected, I don't see what it would bring economically, but then, it's not really an economic argument, is it?

I do find these times somehow exciting, and I know I can say this as I have nothing to lose. I really do hope it will bring a sea change in attitudes and we will rebalance some of our materialistic excesses. That is probably rather naive - I realise I am quite young as this will be the first big downturn I've lived through on the job market. It has happened before and we've gone back to being the same greedy humans as always!!

Whether I'll find these times quite so exciting when I don't get one of these jobs and have to go live with my Dad in Montrose is quite another story. Perhaps my original plans may have to be shelved for a while, and I'll need to head back to the economic power centre / vortex that is London. We'll see; all will be clearer in the next few weeks. It is so true that the only certainty in life is uncertainty and change. It's awesome.