I can't believe how free and easy some people are with public money. Today both the newspapers and the TV news are full of LibDem former leader, Lord Ashdown, talking about voting against the proposed benefit cap of £26,000pa. For a person prepared to work and support themselves and their family, they need to bring in about £35,000 a year before tax to have the same standard of living as a family at the proposed benefit cap. Half the population don't make that sort of money. What incentive to work is there for some one of only modest earning capacity when they can rake in £26,000 just sitting on their sofas watching their mates on the Jeremy Kyle show? But even that cap is too low for Lord Ashdown. Labour were obviously happy for families to get £50,000 or even significantly higher in overall benefits. Indeed they set up the system to disguise the total by creating a plethora of individual benefits and an ever increasing army of public sector employees to administer all the handouts.
Give Nick Clegg his due - he's woken up and smelt the coffee. He realises the present benefit system is both unfit for purpose and financially ruinous for the country. But how many of his rank and file are behind him and how many are cheering on Lord Ashdown? How many commuters travelling into London long to live in places like Kensington and Chelsea but instead have to buy homes outside London then endure an hour or more each way to get to work. Meanwhile the combined taxes of several of these hardworking families are needed to pay the housing benefit to let one family, making no contribution to the public purse, live in Central London.
UPDATE: On the above theme, Iain Duncan Smith is quoted in Monday's London Evening Stardard saying "The purpose of this is not to punish people but it is to give fairness to people who are paying tax, who are commuting large distances because they can only afford to live in the houses that they have chosen". (Click on the word "saying" above for a link to the article, which also includes "some households have been living on benefits of more than £100,000 a year in affluent areas of London" [New Labour, New Excesses?]).
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Sunday, 1 January 2012
A HAPPY NEW YEAR
The first day of 2012 and my best wishes for "A Happy New Year" to anyone reading this posting. Although individually there may be happy 2012's it is looking very bleak collectively. After the Merkozy Junta just managed to keep kicking the can down the road in 2011 I suspect events will come to a head in 2012. Apparently the UK Treasury is doing some worse case scenario planning based on the premise that some countries after defaulting and with the euro collapsing will have to physically close their borders as well as put a halt to all money flows across their borders. UK holiday makers could find themselves marooned abroad with ATMs not working and will need to be repatriated.
This whole situation of over-indebted countries facing collapse can perhaps be best explained by the following:-
Despite it being a self-evident truth it seems that politicians of the Left and so many voters continue to fail to grasp it.
This whole situation of over-indebted countries facing collapse can perhaps be best explained by the following:-
Despite it being a self-evident truth it seems that politicians of the Left and so many voters continue to fail to grasp it.
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
BORROWING AT 2.2% INTEREST RATES - A RECORD LOW!
In the news this morning is the fact that the Government today sold £3billion of new 10 year debt at a 2.2% interest rate. A record low rate of interest! What an amazing vote of confidence by international investors in the UK and this government just days after we are supposedly "isolated" and "a pygmy nation". Contrast to Italy and Spain who paying 6%+ on their new borrowings. If we still had a Labour government and had not implimented an austerity programme then our borrow costs would be like Italy and Spain. That £3billion of debt alone would have cost us more than £100million a year in extra interest - more than £1billion over the 10 years!
Can you imagine the sort of income tax and VAT rates needed to fund Labour's spending policies and to pay the resulting penal rates of interest on our borrowings? Both coalition partners can be proud of the economic policies they have put in place since the last General Election that have brought us back from the Labour road to ruin.
Can you imagine the sort of income tax and VAT rates needed to fund Labour's spending policies and to pay the resulting penal rates of interest on our borrowings? Both coalition partners can be proud of the economic policies they have put in place since the last General Election that have brought us back from the Labour road to ruin.
Sunday, 11 December 2011
A NIGHTMARISH, TOTALITARIAN, FEDERAL STATE
Although I've supported the Conservatives since my school days, I never was a true fan of David Cameron. When all party members were given the choice between Cameron and David Davies I firmly put my cross in favour of the latter. However since last Friday morning I've had to totally revise my opinion of our Prime Minister. For the first time in forty years we have a Prime Minister who has stood up for Britain's interests and used the veto rather than give in as usual with concession after concession as the continent moves ever closer to a single federal entity with a serious democratic deficit.
I really never believed that he would have the strength of character to say "No!" when alone and totally outnumbered. That takes real guts! Well done Mr Cameron! The 9th December 2011 may go down as an pivotal date in our nation's history.
Of course no sane organisation would ever hold its important meetings during the early hours of the morning. The fact that the EU chooses to do its business that way merely sums up what a completely ludicrious creation it is. Can you think of any other organisation that would choose to start proceedings with an evening meal and then effectively lock its participants in a room through the night until a decision is reached. Totally barmy!
With hindsight it is easy for some commentators to say that the veto outcome was obvious. The French established a set of conditions designed to push our PM into a corner. One of their key goals is to marginise Britain within Europe. Cameron was naive in thinking that he could negotiate an agreement - but that is the mistake that all previous British PMs have made. The EU doesn't do negotiations that in any way align with Britain's national interest - the EU just dictates and demands agreement on its own terms. Perhaps a weasily worded and worthless tit-bit is offered as a fig leaf but never anything of real consequence. Thank goodness that Cameron was wily and astute enough to see the truth.
Where does that leave the UK if the other 26 move ever closer to fiscal union and a single federated European state? Someone has described it as being left on the dock as the Titanic set sail. Others use the analogy of being locked outside a burning building. With the EU now accounting for less than 15% of world GDP we can start to lift our eyes to the wider horizon and the 85% of world GDP beyond. Its a shameful disgrace how we turned our backs since the 1970s on our kith and kin in the Commonwealth. The Queen always knew who our true friends were even if politicians couldn't, or wouldn't see it. Plus China, Brazil - well the list could go on and on - are the future for commerce and trade. True, they are further away than our European neighbours but economically they are the future. Germany may be an economic powerhouse and increasingly the dominant master of the EU but a lot of its perceived 'strength' has been built from the inbalances between itself and other EU states arising from the single currency. In the long term these inbalances are unsustainable - witness how it has left Greece, Italy, Portugal etc.
So the EU (excluding the UK) moves on to a Fiscal Union - a federal single state dominated by France and Germany and controlled out of Brussels. All the other 'nations' will have to get their annual budgets first scrutinised and approved by a non-elected group of commisionaires in Brussels before putting it in front of their own parliaments. Nations (strictly speaking, better now called regions) with less autonomy than Suffolk County Council or even our local Mid Suffolk District Council! Regional leaders that won't toe the line will be replaced as we have already seen in Greece and Italy. That is the nightmarish, totalitarian result that has arisen from the EU attempts to preserve its single currency ideology - a soviet union of Western Europe.
Thank goodness we in the UK are on the sidelines. The whole global economy will suffer when the Euro project ultimately collapses - we can't be immune to that - but with our own sovereignty, own currency and own democracy we can mitigate many of the effects from that fallout. Or, when the democratic deficit in the new EU State finally leads to a civil war within it, again thank goodness we are on the sidelines. The protests seen so far in Athens and Rome are a mere prelude to what's to come in the bleak EU future.
I really never believed that he would have the strength of character to say "No!" when alone and totally outnumbered. That takes real guts! Well done Mr Cameron! The 9th December 2011 may go down as an pivotal date in our nation's history.
Of course no sane organisation would ever hold its important meetings during the early hours of the morning. The fact that the EU chooses to do its business that way merely sums up what a completely ludicrious creation it is. Can you think of any other organisation that would choose to start proceedings with an evening meal and then effectively lock its participants in a room through the night until a decision is reached. Totally barmy!
With hindsight it is easy for some commentators to say that the veto outcome was obvious. The French established a set of conditions designed to push our PM into a corner. One of their key goals is to marginise Britain within Europe. Cameron was naive in thinking that he could negotiate an agreement - but that is the mistake that all previous British PMs have made. The EU doesn't do negotiations that in any way align with Britain's national interest - the EU just dictates and demands agreement on its own terms. Perhaps a weasily worded and worthless tit-bit is offered as a fig leaf but never anything of real consequence. Thank goodness that Cameron was wily and astute enough to see the truth.
Where does that leave the UK if the other 26 move ever closer to fiscal union and a single federated European state? Someone has described it as being left on the dock as the Titanic set sail. Others use the analogy of being locked outside a burning building. With the EU now accounting for less than 15% of world GDP we can start to lift our eyes to the wider horizon and the 85% of world GDP beyond. Its a shameful disgrace how we turned our backs since the 1970s on our kith and kin in the Commonwealth. The Queen always knew who our true friends were even if politicians couldn't, or wouldn't see it. Plus China, Brazil - well the list could go on and on - are the future for commerce and trade. True, they are further away than our European neighbours but economically they are the future. Germany may be an economic powerhouse and increasingly the dominant master of the EU but a lot of its perceived 'strength' has been built from the inbalances between itself and other EU states arising from the single currency. In the long term these inbalances are unsustainable - witness how it has left Greece, Italy, Portugal etc.
So the EU (excluding the UK) moves on to a Fiscal Union - a federal single state dominated by France and Germany and controlled out of Brussels. All the other 'nations' will have to get their annual budgets first scrutinised and approved by a non-elected group of commisionaires in Brussels before putting it in front of their own parliaments. Nations (strictly speaking, better now called regions) with less autonomy than Suffolk County Council or even our local Mid Suffolk District Council! Regional leaders that won't toe the line will be replaced as we have already seen in Greece and Italy. That is the nightmarish, totalitarian result that has arisen from the EU attempts to preserve its single currency ideology - a soviet union of Western Europe.
Thank goodness we in the UK are on the sidelines. The whole global economy will suffer when the Euro project ultimately collapses - we can't be immune to that - but with our own sovereignty, own currency and own democracy we can mitigate many of the effects from that fallout. Or, when the democratic deficit in the new EU State finally leads to a civil war within it, again thank goodness we are on the sidelines. The protests seen so far in Athens and Rome are a mere prelude to what's to come in the bleak EU future.
Friday, 28 October 2011
SO YOU THINK THE EU IS DEMOCRATIC? WATCH THIS VIDEO!
Since writing the headline and posting the video on Saturday there has been a dramatic development. The Greek Prime Minister has called for a referendum of the Greek people to approve or otherwise the bailout conditions. So a little bit of democracy finally comes to a little bit of the EU.
However the Greek PM is getting serious grief from the other eurozone leaders for putting the matter to the people. It is a fact that the delay until the referendum result is known will create a great deal of uncertainty and events in the market may well overtake the referendum. And it does seem that he has sprung this referendum without telling the other leaders about it first. However, given the choice - either year, after year, after year of austerity and mass unemployment or the really short sharp pain of a default, leaving the euro with the massive devaluation of a new greek currency but the chance to rise again like Argentina (8% growth for a number of years post the default and devaluation) - the odds must be on the greek people choosing the latter.
Where will that leave the people of Ireland and Portugal who retain 100% of their debt burden, the yoke of the euro and years of austerity? That's the trillion euro question.
Update 3/11/2011 Referendum called off. Less than 24 hours after the Greek PM was called by his masters to meet them at the G20 Cannes, he has called off the referendum. The people again denied their say in EU matters. The Franco-German axis crushes Greek democracy.
Monday, 24 October 2011
WHIPPING BOYS (AND GIRLS)
As someone who believes strongly in the freedom of the individual one of the very first questions I asked my party before standing as a district councillor was "Do you have '3 line whips' at council meetings like they do at Westminster?". I found it very comforting to be told that councillors could vote according to their conscience although as a matter of good manners they should inform the leader if they are going to vote against a group recommendation. At the very first group meeting after the election this was reiterated. How very civilised and what a contrast to the situation at Westminster where the backbencher EU debate arising from the e-petition is being subject to a 3-line whip by all the major parties.
David Cameron has tried to defuse the situation with his own backbenchers by suggesting that treaty changes arising from the failed euro project could lead to some renegotiation and the return of some of Brussels powers back to Westminster. Well that would be a first in forty years! But Cameron's hands are tied being part of a coalition. To quote today's London Evening Standard website:-
"...he [Cameron] was immediately plunged into a furious public row with his Liberal Democrat coalition partners who do not support the repatriation of powers from Brussels."
The LibDems continue to be enraptured by the EU despite the euro project leading to rioting on the streets in southern Europe, frighteningly high levels of unemployment, stagnation, inflation and Berlin dictating economic policy to other 'sovereign' countries. Two things the EU certainly isn't - liberal and democratic!
Meanwhile, if you are still unclear of where I stand in regards to holding a EU referendum perhaps this photograph will clear things up!
I attended a Referendum demonstration at Westminster several years ago. I was handed this placard. I actually brought it home with me, as a sounvenir, on first the Tube and then the overground line to Ipswich. I felt rather self-conscious but proud.
At some stage in this country's future I truly believe they will erect statues to the freedom fighters against this evil EU Empire.
POSTSCRIPT : 111 heroes. 101 from across all three UK main parties, 9 from Ulster and 1 watermelon (green on the outside, red on the inside). No one representing Suffolk though.
David Cameron has tried to defuse the situation with his own backbenchers by suggesting that treaty changes arising from the failed euro project could lead to some renegotiation and the return of some of Brussels powers back to Westminster. Well that would be a first in forty years! But Cameron's hands are tied being part of a coalition. To quote today's London Evening Standard website:-
"...he [Cameron] was immediately plunged into a furious public row with his Liberal Democrat coalition partners who do not support the repatriation of powers from Brussels."
The LibDems continue to be enraptured by the EU despite the euro project leading to rioting on the streets in southern Europe, frighteningly high levels of unemployment, stagnation, inflation and Berlin dictating economic policy to other 'sovereign' countries. Two things the EU certainly isn't - liberal and democratic!
Meanwhile, if you are still unclear of where I stand in regards to holding a EU referendum perhaps this photograph will clear things up!
At some stage in this country's future I truly believe they will erect statues to the freedom fighters against this evil EU Empire.
POSTSCRIPT : 111 heroes. 101 from across all three UK main parties, 9 from Ulster and 1 watermelon (green on the outside, red on the inside). No one representing Suffolk though.
Monday, 9 May 2011
THE AV CAMPAIGN
With such a resounding NO vote in the AV referendum I'm sure there will be no post-mortem by the NO campaign group. And those campaigning for a YES vote may well just take some comfort in deciding that the NO side "played dirty".
Alternatively, and more sensibly, they may decide to take a closer look at how their side ran their campaign. I've found a very well written analysis prepared on how the YES campaign was run. You can find it here.
Don't ask me how I came to be reading a "Liberal Vision" website - the beauty of the world wide web is that it can take you, link-by-link, to all sorts of places.
Alternatively, and more sensibly, they may decide to take a closer look at how their side ran their campaign. I've found a very well written analysis prepared on how the YES campaign was run. You can find it here.
Don't ask me how I came to be reading a "Liberal Vision" website - the beauty of the world wide web is that it can take you, link-by-link, to all sorts of places.
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