In 1998, our ever trusting Canadian cousins bought four ex Royal Navy submarines for C$750m (about £470m at today's exchange rate).

Bad move!

The Canadians bought rust buckets and have spent a fortune getting them ready to put to sea.

Only now – 14 years after the purchase – is the re-fitted HMCS Windsor ship-shape. Well, sort of.

I’ve been following the fortunes of these submarines for over a

Read more...

The Toronto Star reacquaints its readers with George Galloway following his surprise by-election victory in Bradford last week.

Olivia Ward describes the firebrand MP as 

a grizzled Scots-Irish scrapper with a pugnacious style and pumped-up ego

The Canadian Government banned Galloway from entering the country in 2009 but the decision was overturned by the Courts the following year.

Here is Galloway telling an admiring crowd in Toronto in October 2010 how Canada has lost its way on its Middle East policy.

Doctors for Fair Taxation

Most political parties freak out at

Read more...

Canada’s Budget

Today, we await the Federal budget when Canada’s Finance Minister traditionally sports a new pair of shoes.

Jim Flaherty’s Budget has been well trailed and everyone expects a raft of austerity measures and a hike in the retirement age to 67. 

In the last Federal Election in May last year there wasn’t even a hint of this happening.

No point having an election on the real issues that matter to people!

Meanwhile, the minority Liberal Government in Ontario delivered its Budget on Tuesday, vowing to eliminate

Read more...

Somehow, I don't think this will be quite so easy.

NDP elects Mulcaire

Canada’s left of centre NDP has a new leader.

After a gruelling seven month leadership campaign, the fluently bi-lingual Quebec MP, Thomas Mulcaire, is now the leader of the Official Opposition and – with a little stretch of the imagination – the Prime Minister in waiting.

Mulcaire follows in the footsteps of Jack Layton, the revered leader who brought the NDP from third party also-rans to become

Read more...

He is wanted in connection with allegations of corruption and money laundering.

Misick featured in the recent BBC Panorama programme about the tax cheat Lord Ashcroft in which the peer’s financial interests in the islands were put under the microscope.

So far there is no indication that Ashcroft will be suing the BBC for defamation.

He wouldn’t dare.

Instead, the usually litigious Ashcroft wants to know if there is an audit process to ensure the BBC is

Read more...

Two years ago, the American Supreme Court bizarrely ruled that Corporations are persons and, as such, can make political donations to candidates of their choice.

This eccentric decision is about to fuel the most expensive Presidential election in the nation’s history.

Now people in Vermont want to change the US Constitution to make it clear to all (including Justices of the Supreme Court) that corporations are not persons.

Despite the encouraging response from voters in Vermont, this noble effort is, alas, doomed to fail. The US Constitution is notoriously difficult to change.

In the meantime, the Republican Presidential

Read more...

So a London pensioner retiring to, say, Jamaica gets an uprated pension but her neighbour who retires to, say, Trinidad sees her pension frozen from the day she leaves the UK.

Unfair?

I’d say so.

UK Pensioners living abroad are naturally angry and upset about this. But they had great hopes that things would change with the arrival of Lib Dem, Steve Webb, in the Department of Work and Pensions.

After all, Professor Webb is the pensions expert.

And he signed an

Read more...

We are told he left before the brawl began.

Just as well. 

Imagine the headlines if he had been caught up in the melee.

Delicious!

The Toronto Star colourfully observes 

While visiting the Mother of all Parliaments in London, the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, Andrew Scheer, just missed the mother of all punch-ups between two British MPs.

Can’t recall ever seeing a fight in the Strangers bar myself but, then again,

Read more...

If they disagree, says Toews, they are siding with the child pornographers.

Whoa! Steady on.

The Globe and Mail’s distinguished columnist, Margaret Wente, goes into print today declaring that, on this one, she is with the child pornographers.

Such has been the reaction in the on-line community that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is pausing to reflect.

A perfect storm is engulfing Canada's Conservative Government with

Read more...

Tomorrow, 10 February is Barclay's Bonus Day. That’s when we find out how much Bob Diamond will be getting.

In 2010, Diamond’s total remuneration was a cool £9,000,000 but other top bankers also hit the jackpot. (see attached note)

Move Your Money suggests people with Barclays Accounts should take this opportunity to do something.

They could close the account. Or write to Bob Diamond. Or, perhaps, do something a bit more inventive.

Move Your Money and its sister organisation in the United States encourage people to bank with their local financial institutions and credit unions.

There has never been a better

Read more...