Archive for July, 2009
Posted by michael on July 31, 2009
The Centre for Economics and Business Research are a think-tank who looked at possible ways that the UK economy could develop.
They come up with unemployment rising from 2.4 million(!) to 3.8 million. The National Debt could, in this scenario, rise to £2 trillion.
Their ‘not so bad’ scenario would have the unemployment level over £3 million.
Of course people need to be careful of what is meant by ‘unemployed’ or even ‘employed’. For example, those people who are on benefits but are expected to particapate in training schemes or charity work. Are these people unemployed or employed in the governnment statistics?
I would say ‘unemployed’ but they have been moved off the unemplyment register so the figures won’t show them as unemployed.
The same for disabled people. There are approximately a million disabled people, many of whom would like to work, if only for a few hours a week, but are not counted as unemployed.
However bad the economy ends up being, it is not going to be good for many people in the UK.
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, Lib Dems, UK Economy, economy, labour | Tagged: conservative, david cameron, gordon brown, government, recession, UK Economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on July 30, 2009
So the Iraq enquiry may last into 2011. Does that surprise me? NO!
Gordon Brown was the chancellor whilst the Labour government under Blair was pushing the country to go to war in Iraq. From memory, Brown stayed very quiet on the subject of going to war. He kept out of the public view and I don’t remember him giving any statements supporting going to war.
Blair gave a number of justifications for going to war. They were all very weak, as far as I was concerned, and if they were now given as an excuse to going to war then I believe the people in the UK would not accept such weak justifications for war!
I believe, it’s my view folks!, that Blair saw himself as some sort of world saviour and ‘freeing’ Iraq from Saddam was part of some vision of greatness that he had. Remember that Blair had taken our soldiers to war in other countries before Iraq!
I would guess that the last thing Brown wants now in the build up to the next election is for the people of the UK to see that the justification for the Iraq war was almost non-existant. I don’t actually believe that Saddam ever had any weapons that could threaten the UK. The ’40 minutes to being bombed’ was never anything that could have been done by Iraq.
The fact that a high school paper that had been on the internet for quite a while, was then claimed as the ‘intelligence’ that exposed what Saddam was up to, was just a con trick on the British people!
Remember when Blair had tanks at Heathrow and around London? Why were they there? In my view it was simply to scare the British public into accepting his claims that we had to go to war!
The result of Blair’s actions? The UK is now threatened by Islamic terrorists. We have to have extra security in place at all times in our country. The actions of New Labour under Blair were, in my view, the reason why this has happened.
It’s my view that Gordon Brown cannot afford a really open and full inquiry. He could not afford to have the enquiry results before the next election!
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, Euopean Union, Lib Dems, UK Economy, afghanistan, iraq, labour, military, soldiers, war | Tagged: afghanistan, conservative, david cameron, gordon brown, government, iraq, iraq war, labour, UK Economy, war | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on July 28, 2009
I feel that I need to ask this question because, in my view, what this government says about our soldiers is not backed up by what they do!
Following the debacle with helicoptors and the Prime Minister seeming to overide the military leaders on whether or not there are sufficient helicoptors in the battle field, we now have the Ministry of Defence trying to significantly reduce the compensation awards to injured soldiers!
In my view this Labour government have an appalling attitude towards our soldiers. It is quite shameful that charities, such as Hope for Heroes need to raise money for our injured soldiers.
The arguments about helicoptors and body armour are symptomatic of this government’s attitude. How can a prime minister override senior military leaders and say that they are wrong and that he was right about the need for helicoptors!
It is quite disgraceful that compensation levels for our military personal are well below that of civilian awards.
The fact that Brown has recently doubled the maximum lump sum payment to £570,000 for the most severely injured soldiers, in addition to providing an index-linked monthly income for life, actually condemns him and his party for their attitude to compensating soldiers with less severe injuries; for example those who are just blinded, or just lose limbs or are just left with debilitating injuries for life!
Our injured soldiers should not suffer because our government appears to have almost bankrupted the UK. Just because we have huge, huge debts to pay off over the next 30 years is not an excuse to refuse to care for our injured soldiers properly!
Posted in Blogroll, afghanistan, iraq, military, soldiers, war | Tagged: afghanistan, david cameron, gordon brown, government, iraq, iraq war, new labour, UK Economy, war | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on July 28, 2009
There is a lot of hypocrisy in our government claiming to be concerned that the banks are not lending money and overcharging us when they do condescend to give out loans and mortgages!
Darling and Brown have ordered the banks to increase their profits and to increase their reserves.
Do our leaders not understand that this means that the banks will behave exactly as they are doing now!!!.
The banks are protecting their own interests and doing what Brown and Darling have told them to do!! So why are our leaders crying crocodile tears about the lack of lending and the high charges involved if they do condescend to lend us money.
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, UK Economy, credit crunch, debt, financial, recession, tax | Tagged: bankers, banking, banks, david cameron, government | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on July 26, 2009
What are New Labour proposing?
The Mail on Sunday has details of a new tax on anyone who lives in a house, unless there are no redeeming features at all of the house or the view from the house!
William III introduced a window tax in 1696. That is why some of the windows in older houses are bricked up. Just to avoid the tax!
Charles Stuart II introduced a Hearth or Fireplace Tax in 1662. The tax had to be paid for each fireplace in a property.
The significance of this new New Labour tax is that it is not based on absolutes, At least the Kings of old actually taxed something that was useful to the householder!
You may not like the view from your house. You may be fed up with the bus stop outside your gate because of the noise at night and the mess left around your gate. But you will still have to pay this tax!
We already pay council tax on our properties, the amount paid depends upon the value of the property in question. But the factors that determine the value of a house include the size of the house, the area the house is in, the views from the house, the presence of patios and conservatories, garages and the availability of parking.
In fact the new envy tax from New Labour is based on many of the factors that establish the council tax band.
This is a second tax on top of the council. We are being taxed TWICE for the same property assets!
No wonder New Labour like this tax! Right down their street! They should be taxed fr the idea!
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, Lib Dems, UK Economy, council tax, credit crunch, labour, recession | Tagged: abuse, brown, conservative, cost of living, council tax, credit crunch, david cameron, debt, gordon brown, government, greedy, household, labour, more taxes, new tax, recession, stealth tax, tax, tax increases, UK Economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on July 25, 2009
I have not fully understood the message that the courts gave to us all with it’s verdict on the couple that found a lottery ticket which turned out to be a winner.
What I don’t understand is that the court has ordered the couple to repay all the money from the £30k that has not been spent by the couple.
But they have not been ordered to pay back the money from the winnings that has been spent already!
What is going on here? It looks like people can fraudently claim that the ticket is actually theirs, yet they are entitled to keep all the money that they manage to spend before getting caught!
Viv Nicholson became famous for her 1961 lottery win of the equivalent of £5 million, when asked what she intended to do with the money, she replied “I’m going to spend, spend, spend!”
The lesson that many people may take from this current case is that if they find a winning lottery ticket then it would be best if they followed the example of Viv Nicholson!
Posted in Blogroll, debt | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on July 24, 2009
I heard a labour minister talking on tv about the Norwich result. He said that it was disappointing but that it was a bad result for cameron!
Really! Apparantly the swing to the Conservatives was nowhere near high enough to win an election. He said that he was happy that New Labour could keep quite a lot of seats at the general election if this was a representative result!
So what planet was he on? There are two options here.
One was that he did not understand that a similar swing in a general election would give the Conservatives a majority of 190 seats!
The second was that he was happy to spout misleading and wrong information on tv in order to hide that fact that New Labour have very little support even in their own seats!
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, Lib Dems, labour | Tagged: brown, conservative, david cameron, election, government, labour, UK Economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on July 22, 2009
This issue with Gordon Brown saying that the military in Afghanistan have enough helicopters is developing into a crisis for Brown and New Labour.
The majority of the people in the UK support our troops (even though they clearly do not support the war or our involvment in this war!).
So it is interesting that Chancellor Alistair Darling has said that ‘the Treasury has never refused requests for more equipment or troops‘.
But what does the above statement actually mean? I would guess that the military leaders would not go directly to the Treasury for money for helicopters or any equipment.
They would be working with the ministry of defence not the Treasury! But I would be surprised if Treasury officials were not kept aware of all the ongoing discussions involving major funding.
Official requests for money to the Treasury for any project, military or otherwise, would only be issued once the government department in question had agreed that the funding should take place.
So this statement from the Treasury is truthfull but, in my view, is intended to give the wrong impression.
It is true because all funding requests agreed with Whitehall departments will be accepted by the Treasury.
It is not truthful because Whitehall departments will not issue funding requests that have not been approved.
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, Lib Dems, UK Economy, labour | Tagged: afghanistan, conservative, david cameron, gordon brown, government, labour, UK Economy, war | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on July 21, 2009
So the UK gets a recession which was allowed to happen by this lamentable government with it’s complete failure to regulate the financial industry in a proper manner!
Of course, our government knows how to get us out of recession! Borrow, borrow and borrow and use the money, mainly, to take public ownership of the UK banks and building societies who got themselves and the UK into trouble!
The conservatives said that this was the wrong thing to do! But they are not in power at this time so there was not a lot they could do. (But Brown still rubbished the Conservative’s lack of plans to get the UK out of recession.)
Now Brown and New Labour have to justify to the people of the UK the debt levels that they have built up. These debt levels are not insubstantial! The total aamount of UK debt is £799 billion (56.6% of UK GDP).
This debt amounts to an average of £13,000 per person in the UK. What is staggering about this is that each person in the UK has to pay £13,000 of tax in order to clear that debt.
And it must not be forgotten that interest accrues on this debt. The longer it takes to pay off, the higher the amount due to be paid!
And this the background which Brown claims that there will be no tax cuts in public services!
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, Euopean Union, Lib Dems, UK Economy, credit crunch, debt, financial, labour, recession, tax | Tagged: conservative, credit crunch, david cameron, debt, families, gordon brown, recession, UK Economy | Leave a Comment »
