Miliband leaves a suicide note

You wonder about suicide notes. I have written a few in my head but I never get past the bit where you offer advice/excuses/reasons for the terminal action, to those nearest and dearest. In the end, you think the better of it and live.

Not so, Ed Milliband. He's not only written the note, he's had a lot of help writing it and it seems he cannot go back. I am talking about his announcements at this year's Labour conference. Now, conferences are not real events. They are as staged as the wrestling bouts between Kendo Nagasaki and Giant Haystacks used to be. But this one was different.

Milliband announced that, should Labour gain power at the next election, they will freeze energy bills for two years. It is not often that I read something and find that I am truly astonished. The immediate effect of this announcement caused shares in Centrica and others to go into meltdown. One Hundred Million pounds was wiped off their value and another firm saw a similar dip. On top of that, the energy firms are threatening to pull out of Britain altogether. That image, that seminal image of Neil Kinnock and the light bulb came into my mind. What were they thinking?

The utilities in this country, for the benefit of our colonial friends, are privately owned. It means that they operate in a free-market, at least as much as Brussels will let them. Whatever Milliband's strategy is called, it is in reality a return to a Command Economy.

Those who do not study their history are condemned to relive it. Command Economies do not work. It is not difficult to see the history or to take heed of it.

The reason that Labour's stance on this will fail is simple. Today's economic news should be a good signal, but in case anybody is in doubt, the politicians  are not in charge. Business is in charge of this country. What do you think all those Bilderberg meetings are about? The economy of the Western World is more powerful than any individual country, including Germany. How else would you get the kind of madness, the dead parrot of the European Union, propping up Greece, Spain and Italy? They did it to save their own skin.

For all we know, Centrica could bundle Mr Miliband into the back of a Cessna Citation and fly him to Cuba, where he could simply disappear. They certainly have the money and the contacts. But no. Miliband has shot himself. The money and influence will start pouring in (if it already hasn't) to ensure that Labour does not gain the upper hand in 2015. It's not democratic, and neither is it in the spirit of democracy, but it is better than a return to the days of Stalin.