THERE aren’t many sure things in this life. Death and taxes, people often say.
Certainly the latter — haven’t made my mind up about death, yet. But here’s another thing you really can be sure of.
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If you read an economic forecast from the OECD, it will be utterly wrong. You can just about bet your life on that.
The OECD is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It’s a kind of economic think tank for the Western countries. It predicts what’s going to happen with the unerring confidence and inaccuracy of a village idiot. Always has done.
So it completely missed the terrible banking crisis almost ten years ago. This was the one organisation which you might have expected to see the flaws in buying up loads of bad debt.
Nope. Instead it “repeatedly over-estimated growth . . . and failed to spot the slow down”, according to experts. The banking crisis came as a bigger shock to the OECD than it did to the rest of us.
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An OECD report on inequality in 2014? “Howlingly bad” according to the respected US business magazine Forbes. Got all of its conclusions wrong, embarrassingly so.
Brexit? A vote to leave would mean an immediate drop in foreign investment here, the OECD stated in April 2016. Nope. We voted leave — and foreign investment increased. So did our exports.
Then it said there would be an immediate recession here. Nope, dingbats, wrong again. At least it admitted it was wrong that time.
But now this bunch of stunted munchkins are at it again. It has just predicted that if we had another vote on Brexit and decided to remain in the EU, all of our wildest dreams would come true. We would be richer than Roman Abramovich. Money would fall from the sky. Birds would sing and happiness would reign for ever more.
But if we continue on our exit route, swarms of killer bees and locusts will ravage the country, and all of your children will be killed.
Well, something like that, anyway.
Have to tell you, this report cheered me up no end. Just on the Liddle Certainty Principle — if the OECD says something is going to happen, it definitely won’t.
It’s no surprise, of course, that the OECD is hugely pro-EU. Along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), these monkeys have a vested interest in the existing establishment.
They hate the idea of change.
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They like everything to carry on as normal. And then look shocked when a banking crisis happens, or the British economy actually does quite well after the Brexit vote.
Problem is, economics calls itself a science. But it’s about as scientific as reading the dried entrails of a dead chicken.
But the OECD does play into the hands of the Remainers in Theresa May’s Cabinet. In particular the two class clowns of Chancellor Philip Hammond and the trilling nonentity of a Home Secretary Amber Rudd.
These two undermine our Brexit negotiations at every step of the way. Both of them have said recently that we MUST get a deal from the EU before Brexit. Not to have one would be “unthinkable”, Rudd said.
Well, it would be better to have a deal, sure — providing it is a good deal.
But Hammond and Rudd are harming our chances of achieving that by their constant attempts to sabotage Theresa May.
It is time the Prime Minister gave it to them with both barrels. Sack them, now.
Firstly because they’re useless. And secondly because they are sacrificing the UK’s future for their own political agenda.
most read in opinion
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Give pests a sharp shock
HARVEY WEINSTEIN is rightly having his world turned upside down for being a fat, lecherous pig.
And rightly he may well face criminal charges. But now millions of women have got involved under #MeToo, including Gillian Anderson.
Many of the accounts are harrowing, but reading some of their complaints I’m not sure they are not devaluing the real misery occasioned by Weinstein.
A rather abrupt propositioning over dinner is not quite the same as a rape or sexual assault, in my book. Nor a hand placed briefly on a woman’s knee.
The answer, in these sort of circumstances, is to say to the man: “P*** off. Do that again and you’ll either get a fish fork in your gonads, or I’ll call the police. Your call.”
Not to wait 25 years and suddenly claim it’s ruined your life.
Put lags on crime time TV
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SAD, isn’t it? The BBC is getting rid of Crimewatch.
No longer will we be able to look at those mugshots and work out what percentage of the wanted men are actually able to tie their own shoelaces.
I liked it best when Nick Ross, pictured, did it and, at the end of the show, urged us all to get a good night’s sleep and not worry too much.
Then he’d wink and I’d feel unaccountably safer in my bed, knowing Nick was watching over me.
I think they should revamp the series and maybe have it presented by hardened criminals.
— GOOD news – the Austrians have just elected a government which is going to be very tough on the issue of asylum seekers.
They won’t be told what to do by the European Union. This revolt against mass, uncontrolled immigration is spreading from the East.
Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and now Austria have had more than enough. We should give these countries our support.
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— THE swallows have only just flown back to Africa.
And yet it’s reported that MILLIONS of mince pies have already been bought and devoured by people who are, quite simply, wrong ’uns. Eating mince pies in October should be against the law.
It’s like eating a crème egg in January. Don’t worry, Christmas will be with us soon enough. And will seem to last for ever.
Wear what you like, Malala
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ISLAMIST trolls have been making the life of Malala Yousafzai a misery.
She’s the brilliant women’s rights campaigner who won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Taliban scum shot her in the head in her native Pakistan when she was just 15 years old. They objected to her demanding education for Pakistani girls.
Now the same thugs from the dark ages are complaining about her choice of clothing.
Malala, is at Oxford University and dresses like . . . well . . . a student. And so she’s been vilified on social media for not wearing the usual attire of some Pakistani women – a Darth Vader outfit or sackcloth and ashes.
Don’t worry Malala. Dress how you like. You’ve left those primitives long behind you.
Smash crash course
SORRY I missed you last week, I was in Lisbon.
And driving from the airport to the city there was a minor hold-up on the motorway. Three cars had crashed into one another. There were ambulance and police in attendance.
And do you know what? The Portuguese had simply taped around the two lanes where the crash occurred and allowed all the other cars to drive through on the third lane.
That would be unthinkable in the UK. The entire road would have been closed for half a day, causing mayhem and enormous inconvenience to thousands of people.
A road I use a lot – the A19 – was shut for ages recently, traffic tailed back for miles. When eventually we were allowed through we saw that the accident had been on the OTHER carriageway.
At last our Government is getting to grips with this and begging the highways authority not to be so hasty in closing roads. Well done transport minister Jesse Norman!
It’s reckoned that these road closures cost British industry nine billion quid per year. I bet they do. Next step, Jesse – stop lorries overtaking on hills
— THEY live just like the rest of us, don’t they?
Conservative MP Tim Loughton, above, has revealed he cannot start the day without an hour-long soak in the bath. It helps him to relax, you see, and gives him time to think.
I assume he is then towelled dry by nanny and carried to the House of Commons on a litter by naked dwarves which have been spray-painted gold.