A NEW CAMPAIGN STARTS

Back in May 2012 I sat in front of the CS&NI Conservative Association's local government committee, a panel of nine prominent local party members, after I had put myself forward for selection as the Conservative candidate for the Gipping Valley Division in the 2013 County elections.  Afterwards I felt confident I had acquitted myself well to their questioning but I was still pleased to later receive their letter advising that I was through to the next stage.  Two candidates had put themselves forward for the division and therefore the next stage would be a ballot of party members in the division.  We both had to write an A4 length paper "Why I would like to be the County Councillor for the Gipping Valley Division" and these were then circulated, along with the ballot papers.  The ballot papers were opened on 29th June (co-incidentally, my birthday) and I was relieved to hear that I was selected.

One of the questions I had been asked at the selection interview was "If you were not selected for your own division, would you be prepared to stand elsewhere?"  I had answered that quite honestly by stating that I was putting myself forward to represent my neighbours and my locality and that I would much rather do that than stand elsewhere in a 'Safe Conservative seat'. 

That all seems a long time ago but now the campaign is about to get underway.  A couple of weeks ago I submitted my nomination form signed by ten local residents and on 22nd March a letter arrived from Electoral Services advising me that my completed form "is a valid nomination".  And meanwhile I had written the wording for my first leaflet and then collected those from the printer yesterday lunchtime.

Now begins the task of sorting all these into a series of delivery rounds and then getting them through all the letterboxes of the Gipping Valley Division.

So let battle commence!  Last time in the County election [2009] I received 739 votes which was just 59% of the votes the winning candidate achieved.  So it is a very big ask - a 'seismic swing' needed.  And what I don't know yet is which other parties will be putting forward candidates.  As well as my Lib Dem opponent, will Suffolk Together and Labour field candidates again and will UKIP enter the equation for the first time?  That will have to wait until 9th April when the 'Statement Of Persons Nominated' is published.

All I know now is that I'm going to have a very very busy April!

EU RAIDS SAVINGS AND FREE PRESS UNDER ATTACK

When it comes to the European Union then almost anything it does has an April 1st feel about it.  However reading the news today that the Cypriot bail-out involves the EU skimming up to 10% from ordinary savers' bank accounts still has an unreal feel about it.

Cyprus is the fifth Euro nation to need a bail-out.  Unlike the previous four however, the EU is proposing to do this by raiding the savings accounts at Cypriot banks and confiscating up to 10%.  They are calling it a tax.  But it is not a tax on the income - a percentage tax on the interest earned.  It is not a tax on a capital gain.  It is taking a piece of savers' capital - savings that have been put aside from taxed income.  So they are calling it a tax but it is not a tax.  It is simply the confiscation of savers' capital - from ordinary people like you and me.  If you have modest savings in a bank account can you be sure in the future that the EU won't be coming after a slice of your capital?  With its democratic deficit anything is possible with the EU.

Of course the Left don't like capital.  The LibDems and Labour's love affair with a mansion tax is no different.  It would be levied without any reference to how much income an individual might have.  Not content with taking tax from income they now want to skim capital.  Why you might ask?  Its not just the desire to spend more in the public sector but it is also that most base of human instincts - the envy of others - those with savings, those with bigger houses.

The Left even call a reduction in benefit payments to those living in subsidised housing larger than they need a tax - a "bedroom tax".  The next time YOU pay your mortgage or rent perhaps you may spare a moment or two to share the outrage of the Left that others getting free housing will receive 14% less in their housing benefit payment if they have a spare bedroom.  Or perhaps like me, you don't like the idea of the government borrowing money that our children will have to pay back in order to keep some people in free housing bigger than they need.

One other bit of news......

This Monday Labour and LibDems are voting together in an attempt to end our free press.  Not just those disgraceful hacking tabloids but also newspapers like the Daily Telegraph who broke the MP expenses scandal.  And not just newspapers but also websites that include news-related material.  So this blog and thousands of others could be brought under central politician control.  Centuries of tradition of publishing freedom (at least for newspapers, obviously not this blog!) are under threat from the Left.

So in the future they could stop the reporting on such things as the NHS killing thousands by the neglect of nurses apparently "too posh to wash" and too qualified to lower themselves to provide the basic care to sick and elderly patients.  Media controlled by politicians would make politicians' lives easier but would keep the public in the dark.

If you, like me, value the individual ahead of the state then you too will shun all this crazy left-wing ideology when you're at the ballot box.


UPDATE : Horse trading and compromise appear to have been the order of the day on Monday prior to the vote on press control in Parliament.  All sides claim to have won!

Here's a fascinating article on the folly of the EU raid on Cypriot bank accounts http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1363613568.php

AN HISTORIC DAY

 

Today is indeed an historic day.  After years of patient waiting the people of the UK have finally been promised a simple In/Out referendum on the EU once an extensive re-negotiation of our relationship and obligations has taken place.
 

There is one catch to this great news.  We will need a Conservative majority at the next General Election in 2015 if we are to achieve this goal.  Only the Conservatives promise first this re-negotiation and then the resulting arrangements to be put before the people of the UK for them to have their say.  Voting UKIP will only let Labour into power.  And Labour's position is perfectly clear, as set out by Milliband in Parliament this lunchtime:-
 

He simply cannot contemplate the idea of letting the people themselves have any say on this fundamental issue.  Big Brother knows best!

And the LibDems?  They seem fundamentally opposed to any re-negotiation with the EU.  They seem perfectly happy for us to march into an ever closer political union - with each star on the EU flag representing a subjugated region of the undemocratic, totalitarian EU empire ruled by unelected Brussels bureaucrats, officials and an European Parliament in which we have little influence or any power.

My personal preference would be to have had the referendum in this Parliament and I would have campaigned for an OUT vote.  To free ourselves as soon as possible from that monster - let them get on with their political union and all the concepts that their officials support (the latest frightening idea being to only allow journalists that support 'European Values' to register and work on newspapers).  We could use the vast amount of money we send to the EU to improve services, cut taxes or pay down the deficit.  However virtually every senior Conservative that I admire (Carswell, Hannan, Redwood, Fox, even Hague, to quickly name just five) accept that the arrangements set out by David Cameron in his speech today are the most realistic and workable in the situation.  Frankly they are better placed to understand both the politics and the logistics - I'm just a humble District Councillor.

However humble, I am still proud to say that here's a photo of me taken the day after the Where's My Referendum lobby of Parliament in March 2008.  I brought the placard home with me, first on the tube and then on the overground railway back to Ipswich. Its quite a conspicuous placard to carry on public transport!  I can however hold my head up and I will be able to tell any future grandchildren that I did my little part to secure their freedom just as previous generations of Britons did their bit against German Imperial expansion or Nazi aggression during the last century.

POLITICS IS SIMPLE

My sister has just sent me an article from a local newspaper ("Valley News").  The article has been forwarded from person to person (going viral is the computer lingo) using the subject matter heading "So very true".

And as I read it my thoughts became "Politics isn't complicated, it's actually very simple"

First, here's what the article said:-

IMPORTANCE OF TAX RETURN ACCURACY

HMRC has returned the tax return to a man in Evesham after he apparently answered one of the questions incorrectly.  In response to the question "Do you have anyone dependent on you?"the man wrote: "2.1million illegal immigrants, 1.1million crackheads, 4.4million unemployable Jeremy Kyle scroungers, 900,000 criminals in 85 prisons, plus 650 idiots in Parliament and the whole of the European Commission".  HMRC responded that the response he gave was unacceptable.  The man's response to HMRC was: "Who did I miss out?".

So how do I conclude from that article that politics is simple.  Well because politics fundamental boils down to this......

The sympathy with those on the Left in politics is with all the people mentioned in the article.

The sympathy with those on the Right in politics is with the person completing that tax return.

Just think on that simple but profound analysis the next time you're asked to cast your vote.  Who is your sympathy with?



(To be strictly accurate I would dispute the "650 idiots in Parliament" - there are a few sound people there but unfortunately a minority)

THE STATES AND THE KINGDOM - UNITED?

I feel a sense of depression today off the back of the American election result.  What struck me forcefully during the course of a previous US election result, the one where George Bush squeezed through based on a few hundred Florida votes out of the many million cast nationwide, came back equally strongly yesterday.  And the thing that struck me?  Just how equally divided the population were between two very different ideologies.  It seems remarkable to me, given two alternatives, that the results should come out so close - and in terms of the public vote, as opposed to the electoral college numbers, they were close, 49% plays 48%. 

One would normally think that between two choices in anything that one of those two choices would stand out as superior and thus be chosen by a substantial majority.  Yet the United States divided right down the middle, as near as damn it 50/50, when given the choice of Republican Romney and Democrat Obama.

Let's not kid ourselves that there isn't a vast gap between the competing ideologies. When I was younger I always understood in American politics that the Republicans were right-wing and the Democrats were central-left but that there were no significant socialists in the USA.  Obama has certainly moved the Democrats to the left with his European model of big government, high spending, high taxation and nationalised healthcare.  Class warfare, "soak the rich" and an ever intrusive government seem so far adrift of the "American Dream" of hard work, self-reliance, sound money and small government which made the USA such a great and successful nation.  Yet the country collectively hasn't moved it's vision - just half the nation.  One half has gone down that route but the other half still voted for the short-term pain required to create a sound economic environment that would create long-term growth and lasting prosperity.  Truly the states of America are no longer "United" and the ideological differences between some of these "united" states are truly profound.

That brings me be back to our United Kingdom.  At the last election England voted for a Conservative government. Scotland wanted nothing to do with that and the vast majority of their votes went either to a British socialist party or an even more left-wing Scottish socialist party.  Again a nation which calls itself "United" in name is in fact truly divided. 

Logically the time must come when amicable divorces are needed in both countries.  In 'America' some states could join together to go down the European EU model - with job destroying regulation, high taxes, disincentives to work and economic stagnation whilst other states could stay with their "American Dream" and prosperity.  In the UK a small part of the population will actually have a referendum in 2014 to choose whether Scotland goes alone in a Scottish Socialist Utopia.  The tragedy is that the English have no say in that referendum - one party in a potential divorce that is disinfranchised from the decision that could be a major factor in the future prosperity of the English.  The 2014 referendum should ask the views of the entire UK.  And sorry Mr Cameron, I know which way I would vote!

DEBT AND DEFICITS

There is a great deal of confusion spoken and published in the media in respect of the national debt and deficit. Apparently only about 10% of the population clearly understand the difference between debt and deficit although the matter is at the very heart of understanding our present financial situation.

There is a fundamental difference between cutting debt and cutting the deficit and I do wonder whether some professional commentators as well as some politicians purposefully add to the confusion.  I will try in the next few paragraphs to set out clearly the difference between debt and deficit and hopefully by doing this it will become clear why understanding the difference is important.

Let's start with deficit.  All governments have income and expenditure.  The income will come from the various taxestheyt raise and collect - income tax, VAT, stamp duty, national insurance etc.  The expenditure is the outgoings on benefits and welfare, schools and hospitals, defence etc.  If a government's annual incomings and outgoings are equal then they are in balance, whereas if the incomings are greater than the outgoings then they are in surplus, or, if outgoings are greater than incomings then they are said to be in deficit.

Most countries plan to run their affairs at a modest deficit, so unlike an individual household who might sensibly try not to spend more than they receive as income, governments start with the intention to spend more than bring in.  This deficit has be financed by borrowing.  Governments borrow by issuing government bonds and pay interest on these loans.  If deficits continue year after year, these borrowings grow. The interest that is paid out on these bonds is another outgoing and in the case of governments who borrow a lot, these interest payments can be a significant level and have to keep being paid, year after year.

In the paragraph above, I used the phrase "a modest deficit" and this is generally around 2% to 3%.  So if income is £100 and expenditure is £103 that deficit of £3 is 3/100 or 3%.  As there is always the opportunity to increase tax rates slightly these modest deficits don't seem particularly scary and hence governments can find lenders who are willing to lend to them. Deficits can be reduced by increasing income (raising taxes) or decreasing outgoings (cutting spending), or a combination of the two.

So why all the fuss about deficits and debt?  Well in recent times governments of most developed countries (US, UK, and many in western Europe) have increased their annual deficits so they are now far from modest. Deficits rates (percentages) have grown to be 10% or more.

The deficits are financed by borrowing.  Just like for an individual, a government who borrows is getting into debt. Debt is defined as the size (amount) outstanding. If a government runs it finances in deficit then the amount it is borrowing - its debt - continues to grow.

So what about all these "savage cuts" that the unions and Labour (and disgracefully the BBC and left-wing newspapers) talk about on a virtually daily basis?  Aren't these just efforts to reduce our debt levels?  The answer sadly is NO!  All the "savage cuts" made to date by the Coalition Government (aka the Evil Tories aided by the LibDems) are merely well-meaning attempts to reduce the deficit.  Attempts to reduce our levels of expenditure but only to the extent that the deficit of outgoings less income narrows but is still run at a deficit.  And by any rational or objective analysis all the cuts to date have been modest.  In fact the government (apparently at the insistence of the LibDems) increased welfare and benefit payments last April by 5.2% so increasing this major expenditure when incomes (and hence income taxes) hardly changed year-on-year.  So as a nation we have had to borrow more to increase our benefit payments.  Total lunacy!

As things stand, our annual deficit which is presently running well in excess of £100billion a year will only reduce to £95billion a year by 2016.  Each year we will continue to run high annual deficits which will continue to add, year after year, to our borrowings - pushing up our high levels of debt to a yet greater and greater level.  By 2016 we will owe as a country over £1.5trillion.  This is several times more than our debt in 1997 when Labour took over running the country for the following 13 years. And running it in such a reckless fashion so that by 2010 a note was left in the Treasury to the incoming Conservative/LibDem coalition saying "sorry there is no money left".  Even then, they couldn't tell the whole truth - what they did in fact leave was an enormous debt level and a welfare and benefits system out of control thus creating further large annual deficits going forward.

Hopefully you are still with me. Its easy just to close your eyes, cover your ears, start humming and hope this awful problem will just go away. If you've got this far then next time you hear a union leader or Labour politician (or their BBC mouthpiece) talk about the cuts as something done by a nasty "evil" government you will realise that these cuts are a neccessary and vital part of getting our out-of-control national finances back, if not into some semblance of balance, at least some first steps towards that goal.

We are leaving our children and grand-children a truly appalling level of debt. Collectively we should all feel ashamed although only that relatively small percentage of the population who voted for, and continue to support Labour are the truly guilty.  Because of their actions our children will have to continue servicing the debt (paying the interest) with high taxes and thus a lower standard of living (reduced house ownership and pension provision) than ourselves.

Glossary:
Deficit - excess of expenditure over income (ie. an annual measure)
Debt - amount of borrowings outstanding (ie. at any one point in time)
Reducing the deficit - reducing the gap between expenditure outgoings and income BUT still running at a deficit and therefore still increasing the level of debt
Eliminating the deficit - bringing annual expenditure levels back into line with annual incomings but still the level of debt doesn't decrease.
Reducing debt levels - can only be done by running the nation's finances in annual surplus which frankly is politically impossible given the size of the public sector.

HOW MUCH DO THE LIBDEMS WANT FROM YOU?

There's quite a lot of talk from the LibDems about a wealth tax over these last few weeks.  That would need people to sit down each year and work out the value of all their assets to which a percentage tax would then be applied to the total.  Not easy for the taxman to audit - will he come round to check if money is being kept under the mattress?  So a few days after raising that stupidity there appears to have been a shift in emphasis.  In today's newspaper the direction seems to have changed to 'just' a new property tax.  To quote directly from the paper "Some Lib Dems are pushing for the annual charge to be levied at as much as 1.5 per cent of the property's value". 

That's an easy tax for anyone to work out - just get an estate agent to value the house then multiply the result by 1.5%.  "A house worth £200,000? - that'll be £3,000 in tax please!"  Maybe they'll let you pay it in monthly installments at £250 to make it easy for you.  Well easy if you have a spare £250 a month to add to your existing tax bill (income tax, national insurance, VAT, petrol duties, road fund licence, the charge to watch the BBC etc. etc.).

How many of you out there are cheering on the Lib Dems for suggesting this new tax?  I mean be fair, don't we need more tax revenues because the only alternative would be to reduce our public spending?  It's not like we are overspending is it?

£12billion a year in overseas aid is £1billion a month - surely you wouldn't want to cut the amount we send to India and Pakistan (their arms race doesn't come cheap) or to various African dictators (have you seen the price of top of the range Mercedes these days)? 

Public sector guaranteed benefit pension plans get more expensive each year - rather than put money aside for your own pension isn't it fairer instead to pay that money over in tax to fund the public sector pension deficit and ensure at least they can live in relative luxury when they retire?

And don't forget that the EU needs billions from the UK.  Remember only the UK and Germany are net contributors so the other 25 'nations' need your money.  It easier for several of them than bothering to collect all their own taxes.

Actually, I forgot to ask you if you own your house?  The tax will only hit you if you do.  If you are in a social or council owned property you don't need to worry.  As well as having subsidised rent you won't have to pay a penny of this property tax.  In this case its an easy calculation how much the Lib Dems want from you.  Its a big FAT ZERO.  A vote for them will cost you nothing directly.

But if you do own your home - even if you've just struggled to buy it with a small deposit or if you are in negative equity and in fear of repossession - the calculation is easy.... the Lib Dems would want 1.5% of the house value from you this year (and next year, and next year......). 

Here's a ready reckoner for you:-

£100,000 = £1,500 a year in new tax.   
£150,000 = £2,250 a year in new tax
£200,000 = £3,000 a year in new tax    
£250,000 = £3,750 a year in new tax
£300,000 = £4,500 a year in new tax    
£400,000 = £6,000 a year in new tax.

Or even easier - whenever there is an election play safe and avoid the Lib Dems!