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BRITAIN’S EUROSCEPTIC UK Independence Party was thrown into turmoil last night as its leader Diane James quit, citing “personal and professional reasons”, just 18 days after her election.
“It has become clear that I do not have sufficient authority, nor the full support of all my MEP colleagues and party officers to implement changes I believe necessary and upon which I based my campaign,” James said in a statement published on her Twitter account.
“For personal and professional reasons, therefore, I will not take the election process further,” she added, explaining she would not formalise the leadership process with the UK Electoral Commission.
James said she would continue her work as a UKIP member of European Parliament, dampening earlier speculation that she would also be resigning from her EU role.
The Times newspaper said James felt shaken after being spat at on a train last week and was additionally reluctant to lead UKIP without assurances about the party’s funding.
Media reports had earlier suggested she had decided to step down due to her husband’s ill health.
UKIP Chairman Paul Oakden said he received confirmation of James’ resignation “with regret”, adding he would call an emergency meeting of the party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) to make preparations for a new leadership contest.
“Whilst the decision is unfortunate, it is one that Diane is entitled to make. We thank her for all her work as leader, and as a hard working MEP, a role she will continue with her customary vigour,” Oakden said.
Conservative MEP Sajjad Karim tweeted that he had spoken to James before news of her resignation and “could sense unease”.
The media reaction in Britain focused on the brevity of James’ reign, with The Telegraph running a clock counting the time, to the second, since the UKIP leadership election.
Farage rules out a comeback
James, 56, was elected leader on 16 September to replace Nigel Farage — one of the best-known faces of the “Brexit” campaign — who quit following Britain’s shock vote to leave the EU, saying his life’s ambition had been achieved.
Farage co-founded the party in 1993, growing it into Britain’s third biggest party by the number of votes cast at last year’s general election.
The anti-EU party won 12.6% of the vote in the 2015 election, though it only has one MP to show for it under Britain’s first-past-the-post system.
James won the leadership with 8,451 of the 17,970 votes cast.
In her acceptance speech at UKIP’s conference in September, James said the party would confound its critics.
“We are going to outwit our opponents, we are going to build on our election success that we have achieved to date and do more,” she said.
She previously served as the party’s home affairs spokeswoman and is a former pharmaceutical industry executive.
Ahead of her election as UKIP leader a September poll by YouGov found just 8% of respondents knew who she was.
Her departure raises the prospect that Farage could make a comeback, although he has ruled out such a move.
“Not for ten million dollars,” he told the Press Association.
Another possible replacement could be MEP Steven Woolfe, UKIP’s migration and financial affairs spokesman.
Bookmakers named the duo among the favourites to replace James, with Ladbrokes listing odds of 10/1 for Farage and 1/2 for Woolfe.
Woolfe was controversially barred from the recent leadership battle for submitting his application 17 minutes late. He blamed computer problems for the delay.
Speaking following the decision in August, Woolfe said he was “extremely disappointed” and branded the NEC “not fit for purpose”.
Three members of the NEC resigned in protest at the exclusion of Woolfe.
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Europe prints a bazillion euro…
Inflation explodes…
“This inflation has come from nowhere..”
@Phil O’ Meara: On the money
@Phil O’ Meara: They don’t actually print money, they buy bonds to push up their prices, thereby stimulate banks to lower borrowing rates, thereby ‘creating’ money. But since the ECB is increasing interest rates, they are also be buying fewer bonds. It’s a matter of progressive insight, with ‘the facts on the ground’ in motion. Perhaps some would say they’re making it up as they go along. Maybe they are, and perhaps you could do better.
@Mick Tobin: what are you on about? Creating money out of thin air is inflation. They are monetizing hundreds of billions of bonds, as no one else wants them. The fact interest rates have to rise a little just puts all their bond purchases under water. Huge losses of tax payer money and consequent price inflation.
ECB chief is lying. An unelected liar with a criminal track record.
@Phil O’ Meara: An exaplanation that I agreed with and copied from the Observador
—–
A decade of misguided monetary policy
The war is only the trigger, not the cause, argue entrepreneur André Alvim and finance professor José Miguel Pinto dos Santos in Observador:
“The main cause of the inflation we are seeing in Europe is the ECB’s monetary policy over the last decade. The trigger may have been the war-related problems, but even if the Russian invasion had not taken place, sooner or later another factor would have triggered the emerging inflation crisis. And if monetary policy had not been so actively lax in the past, the rising prices caused by the current problems with supply chains and commodity markets would only affect certain products and would be reversible, they would be not inflation.”
@Mick Tobin: you can’t buy €4,000,000,000,000 of domestic EU bonds and debts and expect no inflationary reaction. Lagarde has a history of missing enormous financial warning signs and then to lie about them.
QE for a decade….and inflation came ‘nowhere’!? WTF? #Chancere (en francais)
@Cathal O’sullivan: exactly. We are expected to swallow a fairytale about inflation “coming out of nowhere” after they printef casb for years. They must think we’re stupid. Increases in interest rates wont drop oil prices!!!
Inflation comes from printing money with no value, in other words no one is producing anything of value and excepting this money, it would appear the head of the European Central Bank doesn’t understand basic economics.
@kevin mc cormack: Sure send in your CV
@Bryan Smyth: he is right though
Putin planned it to come after Covid, and before he planned it to come after Brexit, because he hadn’t expected Covid. The post-Covid inflation surge was welcome for Russia; it happened because economic activity suddenly got going again with demand for everything increasing and supply lagging behind in all areas including the job market, while interest rates were low in the expectation that growth could pick up ‘naturally’.
But of course then Putin launched his plan and everything went haywire, and every recovery plan drawn up beforehand had to go straight in the bin. Eastern European countries, expecially the Baltic nations, had been warning us of this for years, but we still didn’t see it coming.
If the Ukrainians manage to seize back Kherson perhaps a way out can be found. I hope that happens soon.
Oh and by the way, of course leaving the EU will magically put everything back together Celtic Eagle. Our British friends have proved this exhaustively haven’t they.
@Mick Tobin: is sterling doing any worse than the EURO? No, you sound like someone who only reads headlines. Must try harder was a phrase you heard a lot in primary school?
@Mick Tobin: Haha some excellent stand up material there
@Mick Tobin: i think the tanks started it to be fair ..que the Russ bot comments
@Michael Nolan: yanks yank fn stubby fingers
@Mick Tobin: how do you know what Putin planned and when? Given there was three years between Brexit vote and Covid he would have had his chance. Suggest you think a little deeper. How.wpild uii explain the Crimea annexation then?
Compare the Euro performance against that of the pound over the last three months. You may be surprised too.
@Tipper Irie: he said after Brexit i.e once they left, not after the vote. How could he have planned for something after the vote when he didn’t know the outcome? (and almost everyone thought ot would fail).
@Tomás Barrett: oh dear, there was a three year gap between the result of Brexit and Covid. Why would Putin’s supposed plan only start after UK had left rather than the vote result?
@Michael Nolan: Both work….
@lumberjack: Yes it has tanked a couple of times already and is barely hanging on. The Bank of England are killing themselves trying to keep it afloat
Pre covid an economic crisis was inevitable, but covid allowed that economic reality to be artificially suspended and an alternative economic reality to be put in it’s place, in which public money leverage as future generational debt, was transferred to the wealthiest individuals and corporate entities on the planet.
With any and all objections or dissent characterised as misinformation, disinformation or conspiracy theories and the corporate entities and Billionaires heralded as heroes and visionaries instead of the carpet baggers they are.
That said, Lagarde’s ability to keep a straight face while spewing such drivel, which is now conveniently attached to Putin as the cause of everything ordinary people have to endure, is pretty impressive.
I think the main question we should be asking ourselves here is WHY was she on the Late Late Show in the first place??
It’s the only Friday night “light entertainment” show that has politicians and economists on.
Let Miriam interview her on Prime Time or whoever does that Monday night show. Y’know the actual programs that where thought up to actually deal with these kind of issues or interview these kind of people?
Oh yes, on a Friday evening after a busy and stressful week I want to listen to Christine Le Garde talk doom and gloom.
We really revel in the misery on this island. I think it’s part of the “charm”
@Darren Anthony Corr: paying license fee to hear that drivil
@Michael Nolan:
Exactly! Imagine Graham Norton or James Corden having her on their show?
It’s actually disgraceful. There’s basically all just politics and current affairs in every night now on RTÉ, even the Late Late has been consumed by it.
@Darren Anthony Corr: in fairness, I agree! What happened to the international glamour of the Gay Byrne days. Plus there’s more quantity athan quality in current affairs coverage these days.
@Ruth Mannion:
RTÉ would save themselves a fortune on presenters and branding if they just had one dedicated politics show on 7 nights a week, rather than the same programming under different names.
I don’t know what can be said on a Friday that’s not already been said from Monday to Thursday though
@Darren Anthony Corr: Ryan’s tongue was so far up her ass I was expecting it to come out of her mouth. Brutal. No questions about her corruption as French finance minister
I never seen so many incisive responses . Obviously her BS didn’t fool a lot of people. Putting the amount of money they did into the system was bound to cause inflation. Not helped by Putin. Unfortunately to curb inflation of 8% the interest rates will have to increase a lot more
@Michael Curran: Or energy prices will need to come down back to pre Covid levels.No one could have predicted that Russia will switch off the Gas Supply which is possibly No 1 reason for inflation at least in Europe. Poor decision by European leaders to be so heavily dependent on Russia for energy without any alternatives.
@Sid: One of the problems is that certain European countries, notably the Germans and the Dutch, have ended up bidding against one another in frantic efforts to get their gas supplies filled. This contributed to prices skyrocketing in no small part, but the member states seem to be finally getting their act together: buying energy collectively to prevent precisely that mechanism, just as they bought vaccines together. This seems to be cooling the market off currently, and all I can say is why didn’t we do that before.
@Sid: gas prices do not cause inflation, they are the result of inflation.
It’s all in the definition, expanding money supply above real growth rates leads to price inflation of things we need, like gas, food, shelter.
For anyone who doesn’t understand just think of a small island with fixed money and resources. If the price of one resource goes up then another has to go down.
But we live on a island (earth) with continuously expanding money supply, and fixed resources. Remember how you could buy a house for 3k in the 70’s and get the bus for 2p to school. You think the oil price shock caused the resulting 50 years of inflation? Or was it governments and central banks adding 100 trillion in new money.
@Sid: “No one could have predicted that Russia will switch off the Gas Supply.”
Nato encroaching into Ukraine and the Kiev government enacting laws against its ethnic Russian citizens while encouraging the Azov gang to shell Donbass were clues that Russia was going to act.
The big question is why did the US blow up the pipeline?
@Bramley Hawthorne: Nato are not in the Ukraine, Russia are. They caught people spying and passing state secrets to the Russians.
The US did not blow up the pipeline.
Wherever you get these “Facts” it must be net door to cloud cuckoo land
@Bramley Hawthorne: and want to put a missile system in Russias doorstep when they made a pledge they wouldn’t ..que Russ bot comments
@Gary Kearney: how do u know that they didn’t..please we dying to know
Putin..The war…The profits of the energy conglomerates…Governments including Ireland now find a good war…Wonder why they did not be so vocal when the so called good guys invaded Iraq and Afghanistan only for the same alleged good guys now human rights have been infringed ..Hypocrisy.
She doesn’t look like she is suffering that scrf and coat must be a couple of grand.. wouldn’t believe a word out if her mouth
@Michael Nolan: You hardly expect the head of the European Central Bank to show up in a tracksuit she bought second-hand in a charity shop, do you?
@Séamus MacIonnrachtaigh: last time she was hear or there she had a bag that was 7 grand …time to tighten the belt
She came across a someone not in touch with real Ireland. She don’t realize the hardships of folks with high cost of living. No wonder EU is not thriving financially.
Raising interest rates to curb inflationary pressures which are not options is ridiculous. Are people simply not going to pay their utility bills?
@Dave Harris: It’s a tried and tested method – the idea is you cut spending and hence demand to cool things off, but Turkey’s Erdogan has been lowering interest rates despite this, and their inflation has consequently passed 80% meanwhile.
@Dave Harris: look back on the 80s and the interest rates then compared to now. Those rates then are the reason why any kid born in the 70s and early 80s considered McDonald’s a treat for rich kids. It was frightening. But things such as this are like onions, multiple layers. We can’t look at just one thing and blame that. The economic world as a whole for us in Ireland is currently goosed for loads of reasons and on many levels and there are a heap of reasons why. Fecked every which way you look at it right about now. That will change, of course. I hope…
@Mick Tobin: That is for a lot of reasons mainly the president himself.
What? She actually called this an energy driven inflation crisis (which is a main part) and said raising interest rates would cool it?
So she is trying to suggest that energy prices will recede if we pay more on mortgages and loans????
Pure gaslighting
She obviously thinks we are stupid ! Inflation came out of nowhere ?? !! Nothing to do with Europe and America printing billions upon billions of Micky mouse money ?
@Celtic Eagle: Yeah because that’s working out so well for the Brits……ridiculous comment.
Inflation is man made and is only for the benifit of the rich. Keep voting the in
Just using sales prices is a crude way to measure inflation. I presume there is alot more to this inflation calculation than meets the eye. Does inflation just measure sales prices in the economy or does it measure overall spend. Also does it take into account how money is spent by different demographics and population numbers.
For example, a shop might increase the price of a Mars bar by 10% but this does not mean the demand will stay the same, it might drop so the overall money spent on Mars bars stays the same. People will cut back on demand when prices rise.
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