Crony Government. Camerlot is to make it harder for residents to object to new housing developments, and encourage councils to allow building on greenbelt land. David Cameron and George Osborne insisted that more changes in planning rules were urgently needed as part of a package of reforms to restart growth in Britain’s stagnant economy. Amazing how a £3.5m donation to the Conservative Party can act as the catalyst for analysis: pandering to a screwed-up sociey and a desperate house-building sector suddenly turns out to be ‘a package of reforms to restart growth’. Anyone ever tried exporting a house? It’s alright until you get to the Sky dish. Alchemy is an amazing thing, as indeed is bribery. There is a internet site called They Work for You. It needs a new title.

Slog only 24 hours ahead of Sunday Times. On Saturday, I ran this piece pointing out the quite astonishing profits growth of CLM in their mercy dash to overrun the Olympics building budget by a quarter of a billion quid. The Sunday Rhymes made it their business lead the next day. I’d show you the evidence, but the Sundry Chimes is paywalled. With Murdoch, you can pay to see Harry’s willy in The Sun, or get it for free on the internet. And you can pay to find out about yet more terrible private finance purchasing by Sir Humphrey on Sunday, or read the same story for free on Saturday. I believe it’s called press freedom.

Weidman’s toys and Draghi’s guns, Episode 237 (rpt). As the markets wait nervously for signs of the ECB playing rag and bone man on the latin Bonds front, Berlin is already leaking that Jens Weidmann will have an epi this coming Thursday (when the ECB Board meets) if any such thing is suggested….or liquidity easing in Spain has already kicked off. Yes, it’s another crunch. Hadron collider scientists under the supervision of Mario Monti have calculated that, if the current rate of progress continues, then by September 2032 the distance between action and impasse will have been cut by 50%.

The Germans vs the Clubmeds, Episode 5,007 of the 3rd series (rpt). 75% of Germans voters think Greece should leave the eurozone, and be cut off from any further help from other countries in the currency union, a new poll by Harris for the FT finds. The study didn’t ask any Germans about the creditors were getting 90% of the bailout monies while Greek pensioners took a 25% cut in their income. But Angela Merkel can’t funk the decision about relenting in the face of Greek PM Samaras’s request for more time to get back on track, the train having fallen off and been lost 237 miles ago. After the Troika report, there’s to be a Bigwigs’ bunfight in October. Yes, it’ll be another crunch. Except that, in Italy and Spain, research showed that ordinary bank depositors were far more reluctant to leave the Greeks to their fate. So maybe it’ll be another impasse.

The Germans v The Germans, Episode 11 of the Slog’s saga. Bankfurt versus Berlin and Berlin versus Karlsruhe is back in full swing after the holidays. Gobby Economy Minister Philipp Roesler gave his full support to the opposition of Jens Weidmann to the ECB buying eurozone government bonds; but ECB board member Joerg Asmussen supports the move, while Angela Merkel sort of gurdgingly approves. Today. On September 12 – a week on Wednesday – the Karlsruhe constitutional court meets to decide whether it should notice that the ESM breaks Germany’s constitution. It’s now a year since  the Karlsruhe judges not only ruled on which aspects of the ESM were unacceptable, but also laid out criteria that any potential solution must meet. They’re hardly likely to reverse away from that now. This is a bigger deal than most observers think.

That is all. Let the onanism commence.