Friday 30 December 2016

How Government Does What's Right

Is Britain bankrupt? We all know in the back of our minds that the national debt is huge and it's rising inexorably, even if the deficit comes down in tiny increments the debt continues to rise and not slowly. Some propaganda from certain parties tells us 'this is a rich country, we can afford...' whatever it is that party wants money spent on.

Truth is we cling to this idea that we're one of the world's great powers whilst getting deeper in debt, devaluing our currency and with overseas relations and trade facing more challenges than a polar bear without ice.

One of the results is no money for local authorities, who, like the NHS trust car parks, use ever more devious ways to separate people from their hard earned money. An elderly couple on our street needed a ramp for wheelchair access in the last months of their lives. The local authority kindly said they would put one in for EIGHT THOUSAND pounds.

A commercial firm, presumably making an honest profit did the job for one thousand, seven hundred pounds. And you thought government was there to serve the people? Maybe you also thought Europe was the problem, maybe you should think again.

All you can really do is try and take care of yourself until sanity returns.

Thursday 29 December 2016

Mrs May's Real Christmas Message

That nice Mrs May gave us all a Christmas message about coming together and uniting. Who does she think she is? We already have an un-elected head of state and her Christmas message was somewhat more inspiring.

If Mrs May wants us to come together she had better show some leadership, stop representing fifty two percent of the population only, pay some attention to the sixteen million, one hundred thousand plus who are angry at the lies and destruction, the devaluing of the pound at a time of burgeoning national debt, the threat to human and workers rights and the social pariah status of the UK in Europe.

While she's at it she could get rid of the blatantly dishonest Foreign Secretary and the rest of his ilk. Her message actually is cave in and be controlled.

Independent thinkers might want to consider this!


Wednesday 14 December 2016

You Were Cute, But Inappropriate

Wonder Woman, originally a superhero from a comic and later a childrens', (I imagine anyway, it can't have been for adults can it?) TV show, is to be sacked as the UN ambassador for women, but not until Friday. I don't know what she will achieve in these last two days of Aleppo's suffering.

The UN has lost its way, and not recently in my view. It has spread disease through negligence and claimed diplomatic immunity, it has failed utterly to protect the vulnerable in many places and is powerless in creating a peaceful world. It needs to start over with a constitution written for the post Cold War world.

Members of the ridiculously named Security Council are the biggest sellers of arms in the world and the most likely to use them, in person or by proxy. It is not just Wonder Woman who needs to get the sack!

Time for a brave new world if ever there was one.

Tuesday 13 December 2016

Says Mrs May, You Can Pay, While Boris Plays

Care homes and the care system generally is in crisis we are told. There's probably quite a lot of truth in that even if it does vary in intensity by region. Don't worry though, Mrs May's government has just given you permission to pay for it to get fixed.

The funding gap can be traced back to Gordon Brown's debt which we cannot really service, let alone pay down. He also attacked pensions, making it much tougher for people who would like to, to pay for their own care. That would be a socialist Chancellor and Prime Minister supporting ordinary folk.

One of the steps the Tories took to try and get the debt under control was to cut funding to local authorities. Maybe they thought that would also see an end to local authority waste. I'm no fan of politicians and local politicians could be the only thing worse than national politicians, but in this case I have a small, make that tiny, degree of sympathy. That's because government mandates things local authorities MUST do, but it doesn't want the bill thank you very much.

There is no money in this country, or any other, besides that which the people create. A country may be rich in natural resources but people have to extract the ore, oil, minerals and make them into something, it may have fertile land, but someone must farm it. Politicians produce NOTHING.

What they are supposed to do is create the conditions in which we can all flourish and produce the wealth we all need. Unfortunately they're not very good at it and they're not very honest. Many of the elderly people needing care will have believed that millions of pounds every week would be coming back from Europe; not that the debt would be hugely harder to service due to the inevitable drop in the value of pound. Or that we would see the return of inflation. Well done Boris.

And so it is that Mrs May has just given councils the power to raise more, from us, in council tax. And if you think you'd like to retire somewhere else and not pay UK council tax, well, that right is about to be stripped away too. You can stay here till you rot and die in penury and they still won't have got rid of the debt, or sorted the care system.

There is a minimum age for voting, there should be a maximum, they can take my vote away at seventy I wouldn't give a fig, people who won't be affected should possibly leave the decisions to those who will be affected. Drive me into unnecessary poverty by seventy and I will be upset.

They should raise the age at which a person can run for Parliament though. Leaving university with a degree in politics might help you understand the system, but you need life experience and better yet business experience and acumen too. Otherwise you'll likely make things worse not better.

Strangely we still have the borrowed money for American made nuclear weapons. Many countries do not indulge; one wonders how their citizens sleep at night, and yet they seem to. Boris and May will stick with the programme because they believe we're one of the 'great powers' and we have a seat on the UN security council. We can convene a meeting! The people of Syria must be thrilled.

Given the uncertainty of the times, you may want to make Christmas pay for itself. Don't click the link if you voted for Brexit I'd like to help the responsible people. Thank You.

Monday 12 December 2016

Boris Comes To Heel

Isn't it great to have a Secretary Of State For Foreign Affairs, to give him his full grandiose title, who is unfailingly honest, has a strong moral compass and always does what is right - for Boris Johnson.
I refer of course to the fact that Boris has responded, under Mrs May's heel, now there's an image for you, and come to the brave conclusion, especially courageous while he's in Saudi Arabia in person, that so long as the Saudis' buy their weapons from Britain then it must be morally correct to use them on their neighbours. It's ok to ignore human rights, starve women and children, all that good stuff, so long as the money goes towards reducing the UK's enormous debt. Which it isn't, but it is making a modest contribution towards preventing it from growing quite so jolly fast.

Console yourself it's Christmas and support this blog here!

Friday 9 December 2016

A Toast To Gina Miller

Gina Miller had the courage to take the government to court. No mean thing on its own. She has described herself as the most unpopular woman in the country and has, wisely in the light of the Jo Cox murder, hired bodyguards. Well, Brexit does attract the nutcases to its cause and given the rhetoric I have to believe the Brexit campaign purposely grandstanded to them.

So, Gina Miller, I for one salute you, you are not unpopular with more than sixteen million Remain voters I shouldn't think and you should not be unpopular with Brexit voters who actually understand the constitutional considerations. I wonder how many of those there are.

Brexit itself already hands huge powers back to Westminster, abolishing all those checks and balances Europe created. However, by allowing the cabinet, appointed and controlled by the Prime Minister to trigger Article 50 on its own, then the power we would be handing to one person by creating such a precedent would in fact be pretty worrying. To me anyway. Medieval Royal Prerogative be damned.

Mrs May has already shown us what she thinks of the human rights of Yemenis and Shias this week. Even if the Supreme Court upholds the High Court's wise decision the government will rush a bill through and cowardly MPs cowed by the referendum, as false as it was, will see it through. No way back Brexit will probably be held up not at all. A hollow victory then. No, not entirely, in constitutional terms a very important thing indeed.

What could hold up Brexit is which decision the court comes to regarding the devolved rights of Scotland and Northern Ireland in particular. Wales of course inexplicably voted for Brexit, despite the huge funding it gets from Europe, then immediately and fittingly started bleating about not losing a single penny please, to be replaced from the coffers of debt ridden England.

The Supreme Court decision will not be until January, so, in the meantime if you're still thinking about Christmas gifts...

Thursday 8 December 2016

British Principles? Not in May

Now that we're leaving the EU with its emphasis on decency and human rights our principled Prime Minister is on a whistle stop tour of the Gulf States, united in their disavowal of human rights, so that we can continue, maybe even increase our arms sales. So that countries like Saudi Arabia, which don't even allow women to drive and where kids can be tortured and executed can bomb neighbouring Yemen and starve yet more innocent people.

Britain has abandoned its standards and lost its way. The sight of Mrs May flirting with Arab leaders is about as degrading as it gets. Opportunist and preferring expediency over ethics Mrs May is #notmyprimeminister and certainly not a citizen of the world. Something she is proud of apparently. She would do well NOT to embroil us in the Sunni Shia schism, but that fact seems to have passed her by too.

While the rest of the world turns to retail therapy, why not sell them something other than weapons!

Wednesday 7 December 2016

Mrs May, The New Star Of Batman

That nice Mrs May, our opportunist, un-elected Prime Minister might best be compared with The Riddler from Batman. 'Brexit means Brexit' and 'a red, white and blue Brexit', what a load of old twaddle. Grow up woman or leave the stage, you'll get what you're given and you know it.

On a happier note, turn your hobbies to your advantage and forget The Riddler for now!

Friday 2 December 2016

You Thought 2016 Was Shocking? Now Here's A Thought!

Did Mrs May promise to unite a divided country or did I dream it? For a politician you ignore sixteen million plus people at your peril, even if seventeen million plus want something else they've been lied to about. Bye bye NHS, hello loneliness, the best that I can get. Mrs May hasn't just ignored forty eight per cent of us, in fact she's dismissed us and trampled on our beliefs at every opportunity. That then is the face of unity in Britain.

So, finally some good news; the people of Richmond have said that the sixteen million plus people with some common sense should still have a voice and they've elected a Lib Dem MP in place of silver spoon in mouth Zac Goldsmith. The Tories chose not to divide the Tory tendency by opposing Zac and it gives them the opportunity to claim they didn't run, but truth be told the last thing they wanted was a Lib Dem victory. Well done Sarah Olney.

I cannot imagine what gave Zac the idea that he could identify with enough Londoners to become mayor, lets hope this is the end of his political career once and for all. Zac resigned and prompted the by-election, confident that he would be re-elected as an independent, another miscalculation.

Our rabid media want Brexit for reasons best known to themselves, the power of propaganda should never be underestimated, but bear in mind it took a lot less than sixteen million one hundred thousand votes to get Cameron into number 10. If those who want a joined up, cooperative and peaceful world vote Liberal everywhere there's a chance for a common sense, middle ground government at some stage in the next few years. Hell, we'll even welcome Brexit voters who've seen it for what it truly is.

The problem with the referendum, well, one of them, was that a leave vote leaves no way back, a remain vote would have left the media and the Trump, Farage, Murdoch level of intelligentsia braying for another one sooner or later and probably ad infinitum. If I was the leader of just one of the other twenty seven I'd veto everything until the time runs out and let Britain fall off the cliff, that's all it would take.

Brexit voters voted for something intangible, they don't know what they'll get, so by extension they don't really know what they want. They don't even entirely know what they don't want since they all have different opinions on the EU and what they think is wrong with it. Given that particular situation they will be divided, to coin a phrase they will remain divided, as divided as a UKIP leadership contest. 

The best hope for Britain's future is that WE all come together as one behind the Lib Dems and really give British politics and our un-elected Prime Minister a genuine, feel the earth move under their feet SHOCK.

Thursday 1 December 2016

Which Way Do You Want It Mr Carney?

Mark Carney and The Bank Of England are suddenly worried about unsustainable levels of household debt. They're right, too much debt is a problem for families, just as it is for nations, looks like we have a double whammy as they say.

Given the intelligence of the recent referendum, people being silly isn't a big surprise. HOWEVER, with its quantitative easing and continual interest rate cuts the Bank Of England encouraged people to spend, to keep the economy buoyant AND disincentivised saving.

If you now want people to stop borrowing and start saving then raise interest rates, inflation is on its way back anyway. Of course those who have already borrowed too much will scream and shout, but if you do nothing the credit boom will continue. Your choice Mr Carney, for now.

Individuals can be creative about making money though, maybe give it a go!