Protect and survive

With two weeks to go, the doorstep vibe agrees with the bookies. Labour to win with a 70 seat majority.

Hopefully, between now and 5 May this can be whittled down to a Callaghan-style LibLab gridlock. But the punters aren't convinced.

So we need to batten down the hatches for a bumpy few years.

First of course, taxes will ramp up again. The IMF agrees with the Wat Tyler envelope- £12 billion for starters. Say, another 1.5p on uncapped NI contributions for employers and employees. The archetypal tax on jobs.

But it won't be enough, and government borrowing will bust right through that old golden rule, pushing up borrowing costs for everyone. The virtuous public finance circle of Gordo's early years will go into reverse as tax revenues sag, and debt interest payments notch up.

Current housing market weakness will intensify, and negative equity will return to stalk the land. Consumers will retrench by hiding under the stairs, and refusing to answer calls from the bank's Indian call centre. Rivers of blood will flow down the High Street, with the CEOs of M&S, Sainsburys, Boots, Woolies, Smudger Smiths etc etc all found hanging from lamp posts.

Emergency spending cuts will follow, although obviously they won't be called that.

Unemployment will rise as public sector jobs are frozen and more private sector jobs head East. The economic engines splutter and flame out, and we plunge down towards the icy grey waters of the North Atlantic...

What to do?

Now.

Not when it's too late.

First, sell the house, and repay all debts.

Second, ship all remaining assets into an offshore account.

Third, move into the cash economy.

Fourth, dig up the lawn and plant subsistence crops. Or perhaps specialist cash crops such as opium.

Fifth, arm yourself.

You will have to last out until 2010 at the earliest.

Comments

[snafu]

Arm yourself like the BNP want!?!

[EU Serf]

We need a managable Labour majority with a good increase of conservatives. Then as Gordon's incredibly inept socialist ideas start to really bite, we just wait for the next election.

Shame we won't have a referendum next year, we could have really hurt Labour.