Two steps forward, three steps back

This title might summarise a horribly difficult late-summer and autumn period for me, where I have made some bad mistakes. Worst has been following quite heavy share purchases by directors of Northern Rock. This alone has lost me more than £10k - my largest ever losses on a single share. My purchases of financials has also proved too early and cost me dearly. My outperformance of the (pathetic) FTSE has disappeared making this my worst year since 2001. As at 2nd Nov:

Me - 5.6%
FTSEAllShare - 6.4%
FTSESmallCos - -1.5%

The reduced market values of UK banks now seem to far exceed even a worst-case scenario of sub-prime infection - see here. So I have continued buying. In the short-run this has been painful.

I should add that I am more pessimistic about the UK economy than hitherto. It is being emasculated by the creeping (creepy) socialism and rampant (and intolerant) political correctness of the Labour government. I was happy to see Gordon Brown and Ed Balls exhibit their idiocy over the election-that-never-was. At least I made some money on betting against there being an autumn election. I have also bet on the UK election being postponed until 2010.

Unfortunately, this all imples two-and-a-half years more damage being inflicted by these high-spending clowns. Against this background, I have recently invested more in overseas markets and reduced holdings in shares dependent on the domestic UK market.