Archive for the ‘Europe’ Category
Posted by michael on May 28, 2009
The Government hasn’t got any money!! It has spent it all over the years and we now have huge debts that will take many years to pay off from extra taxes on our incomes! There has to come a point where the government has to come clean and admit that it cannot afford to subsidise everyone who needs it. Of course they could abandon schemes such as the ID cards and some of the other hugely expensive computer systems that they are planning! We cannot spend money that we do not have!
Posted in Conservatives, council tax, credit crunch, debt, economy, Europe, financial, labour, Lib Dems, recession, tax, UK Economy, Uncategorized | Tagged: abuse, bills, borrowing, brown, conservative, credit crunch, david cameron, debt, economy, gordon brown, government, greedy, labour, recession, repossession, UK Economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on May 9, 2009
When ‘Fred the Shred’ got his company pension when the bank he managed almost collapsed from huge debts, Gordon Brown promised that ‘he would not keep his pension’.
Not only has Sir Fred Goodwin still got his pension, but the bank is still promising huge bonuses to certain staff (according to the Mail – may 9th).
Now the government, acting as our agent, holds 70% of the shares. Yet they seem totally incapable of managing to do what they said that they wanted to do!
Is this just another example of the incompetence of this government?
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, credit crunch, economy, Europe, financial, recession, tax, UK Economy | Tagged: abuse, bank, banker, bankers, brown, credit crunch, debt, economy, gordon brown, government, greedy, labour, recession | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on February 19, 2009
So the home secretary has said she is “very disappointed” the European Court of Human Rights has awarded compensation to the radical Islamic preacher Abu Qatada.
I am confused as to why she is disappointed! Here is a man who has not been charged with anything illegal but has been held both in Belmarsh high security prison and at home under a 22-hour home curfew. Was it not absolutely inevitable that the European Court would rule that his rights had been breached and that we would have to pay compensation!
I do not support this bloke, I would like to see him thrown out of the UK and I don’t really care what happens to him after that, but we have a legal system in the UK that both protects us and punishes those who trangress the law.
I believe that our legal structure is an essential part of our free society. The Home Secretary would seem to believe that the Law is there to support whatever policy she and the Labour government think would suit them at the time!
There appears to be no legal grounds for imprisoning this man. That would suggest that he had not broken any laws in the UK. So why did they imprison him in Belmarsh and then imprison him in his own home? Wht is worse is that they must have known that they would end up losing the legal battle and end up paying him compensation for breaching his human rights!
I think that they took on this hard but illegal line because it suited them politically. Could they not forsee how ridiculous this would inevitably make them look! The New Labour cabinet should pay this compensation from their own pockets and not from the public purse!
I am not supporting this radical Islamic preacher. But if the government is prepared to ignore the law in his case, then who is next?
Perhaps people who blog against the policies of this government?
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, Euopean Union, Europe, labour, Lib Dems | Tagged: abu qatada, abuse, european court, government, human rights, labour, law, strasbourg, uk | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on February 11, 2009
Gordon Brown has fired one of his top advisers. The reason is apparantly that this man, who was the deputy chairman of the Financial Services Authority, had sacked a person who had warned that the banks were heading for disaster!
This adviser was knighted by Gordon Brown who also said today that the adviser had only written two reports for him! Is this all it takes for Labour to award a knighthood?
Or was it his performance as the deputy chairman of the FSA?
Either way this person clearly held a very senior position so the accusation that he fired the employee and subjected him to a gagging order is very significant.
In the few years up to 2004, there was a lot of discussion where I was working about going into recession. This was a manufacturing company but a number of people there had the view that the economy was going to crash. It seemed obvious that the rapidly increasing personal debts, particularly from credit cards, was going to bring the economy down.
It is inconceivable that ordinary office workers could see the consequences of the way that the economy was going yet it seems to have come as a big surprise to the UK government and the UK financial watchdogs!
I can understand that the banks would fail to see the consequences of their lending. After all the more people borrowed and the more debt that they incurred then the higher the bank’s profits and the greater the bonuses that the bosses recieved!
It would seem to me that the people who run the banks are partly to blame for the recession that we are now in.
But most of all, in my view, New Labour are to blame for a catastophic failure to regulate and manage the UK economy over the last 10 years. It is their job to manage and protect the UK economy, and since we are now in recession they have clearly and spectacularly failed to do this!
It doesn’t matter what their excuses are. The fact that the UK is in a recession means that they have failed.
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, credit crunch, debt, economy, Europe, financial, labour, UK Economy | Tagged: abuse, bank, banker, bankers, banks, conservative, credit crunch, debt, economy, government, James Crosby, labour, recession, repossession, UK Economy, whistleblower | 1 Comment »
Posted by michael on January 31, 2009
I quite often hear people saying that there is no point voting, either the party they support in their constituency cannot get in or they see all the parties as the same.
But it is worth getting involved and voting for what you want or even voting against what you don’t like!
Your opinion does matter, but not if you are the only person in the world who knows what it is!
And you can influence or even change things by speaking out, writing letters, going to your MP and your local councillors.
Many of the government announcements are attempts to see how people react before they go ahead with legislation. New Labour are scared of people’s reactions – that is why so much stuff is announced quietly or hidden away in some other legislation. For example recently hiding the law changes to allow local councils to charge for recycling and bin collection charges. We are in a democracy (!) but New Labour hide law changes and sneak them in without us knowing.
Another example recently was the vehicle excise duty changes for new cars. They announce changes that most people would have thought were quite reasonable. And then once people had accepted these ideas, they quietly changed the legislation to cover cars up to 10 years old!. What a mess ensued, lots of people lost a lot of money on the value of their cars!
If a government upsets you greatly then vote it out of power as soon as you can. Do the same with your local council. Stand for your local council if you really want to oppose what they are doing.
Join a political party that you feel that you can support. Do what you can to change things. And if the wrong people still get into power then that is democracy in action. As a last straw you can always emigrate!
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, economy, Euopean Union, Europe, labour, Lib Dems, tax, UK Economy | Tagged: benefits, cost of living, council, councils, families, government, green, green tax, household, local council | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on January 31, 2009
In Europe all the barriers are down between the European states.
ha, ha, that was a joke although it is not that funny!
The UK is one of the most expensive places in Europe in which to live. Everything seems cheaper in Europe compared to the UK. I don’t think that people in the rest of Europe pay as much of their earning in tax, whether direct or indirect (but I am happy to be corrected on this)
We recently saw the builders flocking in from Europe, in particular Poland, to work for much less than the British builders. It put a lot of builders out of work!
Of course companies who tender for private and government building contracts will use cheaper labour if they can. It reduces their costs and they can therefore submit tenders for work at lower prices than the British companies can. It is not a level playing field!
And also, the companies and the workers will probably be paying their taxes in Europe. The workers will be only spending a small amount of money in the UK, most will go to their families in Europe.
The UK loses in every way and it may also have to pay benefits to those British workers who are unable to get work.
No companies should be allowed to bring workers from Europe just because it is cheaper than employing British workers. Surely this goes against everything that Europe should stand for. Or is Europe really just a sham, lots of ideals but very little actually gets done!
Posted in Blogroll, Conservatives, credit crunch, debt, economy, Euopean Union, Europe, labour, Lib Dems, recession, tax, UK Economy | Tagged: building project, cheap, cost of living, credit crunch, foreign worker, labour, low cost, recession, tax, uk, UK Economy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by michael on November 4, 2008
A European Commission six-monthly report has suggested that the European Union itself was in, or was close to, recession. They also say that:
Britain will be hit the hardest by the recession compared to the other European leading economies.
Only Estonia and Latvia will suffer deeper recessions than Britain!!!!!
This contradicts the UK government statements that Britain is ‘well placed‘ to withstand a recession!
So why are we getting these contradictory reports? Surely The European Commission has the full facts of the state of the UK economy. Surely the government doesn’t have a ‘second set of books’ which they use to run the UK economy.
It doesn’t make any sense to me that the European Union officials will have a different view of the state of the UK economy than the government since both sets of people are working from the same data!
Posted in Blogroll, Euopean Union, Europe, financial, UK Economy | Tagged: economy, recession, uk | 1 Comment »
