Good afternoon,

The military-installed government has pushed its borrowing budget bill through the House of Representatives and now advances it to the Senate – some members of which are offering to provide more rigid scrutiny. That remains to be seen, of course, but the problems, if they arise, are the legacy of decades of murky, opaque money-politics in which budgets are divided between coalition party members who consider themselves to have the right to divert some portion of it for projects of their own devising. Since the military and then judicial coups of the last couple of years has restored money politics at the expense of ideology, then the same snouts in the trough are at it again – under the common circumstances, it is clear that Thailand needs money for a properly-targetted stimulus package but time is dragging on.

The coalition itself may be coming to an end – one of Thailand’s many courts has decided to give a verdict in the rubber saplings ‘corruption’ case in August and one of the many people involved is Newin Chidchob, who is the chief instrument behind the coalition (he is banned from politics but banning only applies to some people). The case concerns a plan under a previous (democratically-elected) government which involved buying millions of rubber plant saplings to plant in Isan – a very sensible plan to provide cash crops, reduce flooding and droughts and improve quality of life for many thousands of Thailand’s poorest people. However, someone has presumably brought forward evidence (of which I am not aware) that not just might there be irregularities in the purchasing but that the policy is some kind of mega-conspiracy involving dozens of the Kingdom’s leading politicians conducted in the full glare of public scrutiny (well, quite). If, heaven forfend, political considerations come into the court’s decision and Newin or his associates are found guilty of whatever the charges are, it is hard to imagine that he will permit the current coalition to continue and, presumably, that will be the end of the Abhisit regime (it is an ill-wind etc).

Forecasts for economic contraction for this calendar year are now around 5% - with the tourism sector set to be among the most badly affected because of lack of money, H1N1, southern insurgency, state-sanctioned violence used against pro-democracy demonstrators and so forth.

Back on Monday, I expect.

It is in the nature of the Chokers to choke – it would have been more surprising had they held their nerve in a low-scoring game (taking pleasure at the expense of others when own team is no good is a low game but the only one in town).