Charlie Windsor

BOOM and BUST

-it's in our genes



Well, well, aren't these difficult times? Just when I was banking on my big fat MP's salary, along comes a global credit crisis which throws everyone into a bit of a panic. Of course, the downside for the likes of yours truly is that rather than just analysing opinion polls about how many people are going to vote for me, I feel obliged to actually outline exactly what I think about the whole sorry mess.

First of all, what are my credentials? Why should you believe what I say? Well, I used to run a theme restaurant opposite Windsor Castle; it was a disaster, but I think you'll agree it gave me a wonderful insight into the world of global economics. Now, most respected commentators have traced the seeds of the current disaster back to the removal of controls in the financial sector which was started by Mrs Thatcher and continued by successive Tory and Labour governments. This kind of media propaganda is clearly a left-wing plot, and I wouldn't be surprised if Brian Localbloke didn't have a hand in it. Many people seem to misunderstand what the term 'free market' means. Some idiots think it relates to an economic system, which of course is crazy talk. No, 'free market' is nothing more than a euphemism for civil freedom. I expect a lot of you didn't know that. Well that's because I just made it up. Anyway, my point is that people need to be free to put their money in any bank they like, and those banks need to be equally free to tell them they can't have it back. That's the sort of freedom we all want. Those of you who are my age or older will no doubt remember what life was like before Mrs Thatcher allowed us to choose who we could buy our gas and electricity and water from. Grim times indeed. The old 'socialist electricity' was very unreliable and ruined most household appliances, and we all yearned to be able to buy private electricity and gas, and flush our toilets with private water. Thankfully Mrs T made that dream a reality, and now the energy companies are free to charge us what they like, and in doing so create massive wealth, which, of course, they are free to share with us, or share it among themselves if they prefer.

Now some of these barking mad lefties have suggested that it would have been better not to offer 125% mortgages to people who would have trouble paying it back, because it would result in spiralling house prices, negative equity and repossessions, but who wants to live a world with those kind of financial constraints? No, I'm all in favour of learning your lessons at the school of hard knocks. If your house gets repossessed it's because you are working class and should never have had one in the first place. Thankfully when these houses get repossessed there are still a few rich people around to buy them up cheaply when they don't reach their reserve price at auction. Remember - it is this freedom to speculate that is at the root of all of our wealth, although you might not immediately realise it as you hand your keys over and wonder where you're going to live. Human progress is sometimes a bit messy - take my own situation as an example - most of the time I can't even afford to use apostrophes.

Well, I'm sure these few examples will have illustrated what an excellent grasp I have of the situation and that I am well worth voting for. So, just to recap: it wasn't Tory greed and mismanagement that led to this situation, and the idea that you can have a fairer system that benefits everyone is just discredited communist nonsense. Rampant and unrestrained capitalism is by far the best system, it's just that every so often we have to stick our hand in our colective pockets and nationalise all the banks to keep everything running tickety-boo.