Vote Labour - There's Nothing to Lose But Your Freedom

So Labour will now tell us when we can sell our Assets?

So today Ed Miliband announced that Labour reject the guarantees from Pfizer ahead of the AstraZeneca takeover.

Am I the only person wondering what it has to do with Ed Miliband? Surely the situation is that there are many shareholders who own shares in AstraZeneca and as such if they hold them or sell them, is up to them?

If I want to sell my car it is between me and the buyer. I wouldn't be happy with the government stepping in to prevent me from selling. No idea why Labour think it is their place to tell me how to manage my assets.

But I am not surprised, after all they have already said I am not smart enough to manage my pension and that they should control what Bank I use and what Energy Company I am supplied by.

Labour rejects Pfizer bid guarantees http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27403777

The Left Wing Immigration - Unemployment Paradox

In a conversation with a left leaning friend of mine I raised the idea that two main left ideas may well be incompatible.

Basically we were discussing unemployment and particularly his belief that most people who were unemployed wanted a job but that there were simply not enough jobs available for them - and therefore that Labour's new jobs for kids policy is set to magically solve unemployment. This led me to question another conversation we had at an earlier date that immigration is not detrimental to the UK, particularly the lower paid sections of the country.

My argument went that if as he claimed the majority of people that are unemployed want to work and are therefore unable to work as there are no jobs available then it stands to reason that one contributing factor is immigration, in fact with unemployment standing at 7.1% and foreign born (Employable) residents of the UK standing at 11.5% it necessarily follows that unemployment would be solved if it wasn't for immigration.

However if Immigration isn't an issue and the immigrants are coming here and doing jobs that nobody else wants then it necessarily follows that the unemployed are at least partly unemployed by choice. It should be a case that it is always easier to hire local staff over foreign staff as they have the language, cultural and society awareness that will aid in training and working life. 

Miliband says No 2 to EU referendum - As he thinks we're all stupid

 

Was nice, but rare, to see Ed Miliband open his mouth without wiping millions of the stock market. This time he was joining the debate about an EU referendum by confirming, what we all new in the first place, that Labour would not be interested in going to the polls.

It is an interesting position for the official party of opposition to take, before he spoke the parties stood roughly where The Conservatives would hold an Referendum and the Lib Dems will only hold a referendum if further powers were passed to Brussels. Now Labour have set the cat amongst the pigeons by lining up directly behind the Lib Dems. Hardly a decisive new policy.

But my scorn for Miliband's ability as a politician aside what I found most interesting about his statement is his complete mistrust of the British People, he clearly believes that the British people are so stupid that they can not make a simple decision (But then I guess most of the voters he meets are Labour voters so I'm not that surprised.:-) ) The reason I say this is that Miliband stated in his speech that there is an "overwhelming economic case" for EU membership. So if the argument is so overwhelming why not let the people know it and trust them to make the sensible decision. As I see it there can only be two possible reasons for this:

1) The reasons are not really overwhelming (In which case Miliband is clearly lying)

2) Miliband has such a low opinion of the British People that he thinks they can not handle a real decision.

As if his turning up to the debate 6 months too late wasn't a sure enough sign that Miliband is atrocious at picking the big issues of the day his claim that he was setting out a "Clear Lead" - By copying the Lib Dems policy - is perhaps the biggest sign yet of his ineptitude, although where Miliband is concerned there is a great deal of competition for this category.

Scottish Independance Makes Business Nervous

With the big vote coming up in September on Scotland's status in the UK there have been several people speaking out on the matter recently, ignoring the clearly biased views spouted by the likes of Alex Salmond (Wants to be King of Scotland) and Alistair Darling (wants to ensure Labour don't lose the seats in Westminster) a few interesting points have come out in the last few days.

Firstly Mark Carney governor of the Bank of England spoke out about what independence would mean from a technical monetary position. before Bob Dudley, CEO of BP spoke out about the uncertainty that comes from being unsure what the Union would look like at the end of the year, although he still stated that BP were going to invest £10Bn in Scotland.

Basically these neutral viewpoints are going to be the most interesting as we head through into what I think may well become a really nasty campaign full of scare tactics and accusations where assessing what Scottish independence means may become difficult.

Personally I support Scottish Independence as I am very interested in what will happen next (I would imagine that not much would change to be honest.) My only worry is that if there is a Yes vote then we will be stitched up when it comes to negotiating the settlement with Scotland taking all of the North Sea Oil Revenue and taking on none of the National Debt. But that is more my fear in the ability of our politicians to negotiate than a fear of independence itself.

Forget the Government what about the Champagne Socialists

With all the talk of the Coalition being out of touch you would think that the Labour front bench all grew up in deprived areas and struggled daily to make ends meet, after all the Conservative ministers are all toffs so of course they are out of touch - or so the Socialist Mantra goes.


Of course this article by the Spectator tells a slightly different story.

With Miliband sitting on a £2.3 Million pound house,
Margaret Hodge who with an £18 Million pound inheritance is reckoned to be the Richest Woman in Parliament and
Shaun Woodward selling around £30 Million of property in recent time.

Maybe the reason the Labour Front Bench disagree with the Coalitions "We're all in this together." mantra as they are worried it may mean that they have to give up some of what they have.

Of course a special mention has to go to chief recovery denier Ed Balls as not just is he a Millionaire Class Warrior but his vast wealth is all 100% Tax Payer funded.

"Labour :- Don't let the truth get in the way"

#CostofCameron More like #CostofMiliband

I Posted a few days ago about Miliband's ridiculous idea to make me change Bank Services Provider even if I am perfectly happy with who I currently use. I was wondering how bad for the Economy Miliband actually is so I thought I would look at the effects of his words.

The Twittersphere is awash with the #CostofCameron being pushed by Labour at the moment, essentially Labour pushing the myth that if they had stayed in charge then despite constant rises in the previous 13 years prices would have suddenly stopped going up somehow. And please don't be deceived in thinking that Labour want to keep down inflation, inflation in an economy is only used to reduce the size of government debt, therefore the party who is the biggest debt addict will also necessarily be the biggest inflation addict.

Anyway, as I said, I wanted to know exactly how bad Ed Miliband is for the UK economy, bear in mind this is only as "Leader" of the Opposition, Were Labour to get control of the economy this would only get worse.

Before Ed Miliband started to leak the details of his "Forced Bank Moves" policy then the UK top four Banks had a combined market capitalization of £617 Billion, After he had finished and the news had been discussed widely the Market cap had fallen to £608 Billion.

Therefore the #CostofMiliband is around £8.979 Billion per speech.

Now I know that many people may think that this is just the Rich being hit so why should we care, but don't forget that less than 1% of shares are held by individuals, If you have a pension, then Miliband just made you poorer.

Even more directly he has also reduced the value of the Government's investments (80% of RBS and 33% of Lloyds) the effect of Ed Miliband's speech on the coffers of the Government were:
Value before speech £38.533 Billion (Actually £38.533.518.240)
Value now £37.346 (Actually £37,346,059,216)

Therefore the Direct #CostofMiliband is £1,187,459,024 

To add some context, according to The Guardian this would be enough to build 23 Hospitals or 39 Secondary Schools - Or Heaven forbid, actually pay off some of the debt taken out by Labour in the first place.

So next time you hear that the #CostofCameron is £1,600 after three years in power, remember that Ed Miliband cost us all (Well anyone with a Pension, Savings or who pays Taxes) £8 Billion just by opening his mouth.

Just to make things more transparent, here are the figures I used.

Is Idea to Break Up Banks Milibands worst yet?

So Miliband has now come up with his latest anti-business idea and it really is the worst yet.

Firstly, you can't Ignore the fact that if Miliband did look at breaking up the banks it will lead to many years of legal battles as the people whose investments are affected will no doubt sue the government - and before you think "oh well it's just the rich" don't forget that the non-government parts of the banks are about 70% owned by pension funds, so the people affected are anyone with a pension.

There is also the issue that I am with my bank as I like my bank. I had an account I wasn't happy with so I changed my bank, now Miliband wants to decide for me that I should change again. I don't understand how he thinks it will help me as a consumer to remove my personal choice? He wants more competition but surely this is about helping people identify the best account for them, not forcing them to join a different bank regardless of what they want. Additionally if a bank excels themselves by being better than the rest then in a free market they will get more customers but under this system you surely no bank would try and give a better product than their peers as they will be broken up - Labour punishing success again?

Finally, Miliband thinks that this will increase competition but the simple fact is that the government don't increase competition, customers do, there are alternatives to the big banks and if people want to use them, they can. If people don't want to use them again that is up to them. If Labour want to increase competition they need to make it easier to run a bank not try and disable the banks that are already there. But then at the end of the day challenger banks will only come from customers who want to change. If my account is moved to a different bank I will simply close my account and move back again which may cause the bank to hit the government's cap again, I can only forsee a never ending cycle of bank changes for no other reason that Miliband decided that if he weakened the banks (and lost the country millions) then the coalition wouldn't be able to off load the shares labour bought. Once again making the people of the UK suffer for political greed, it's just the Labour way.

UK Inflation falls to 2%

So after being told we were going to have a triple dip recession it turns out we didn't even have a double dip.

After being told we would lose our AAA credit rating we were marked down by only one of the three agencies.

And now after being told that we would have unrestrained inflation we have - Inflation back to the 2% target.

Now obviously I wouldn't expect  Labour at any time to actually admit to being wrong, wrong and wrong but at least the economy is on the mend.

I guess at least they can still talk about the cost of living crisis and pretend that prices today would be the same as in 2010 had they stayed in power - of course I am not sure quite how this claim works as prices were going up at quite a rate before 2010 but at least this is one of Labour's claim which can't be shown up as scaremongering.

p.s. I hadn't planned on this being an anti-labour post more about the good news for the economy, the trouble is that pointing out Labour lies is just too much fun (and quite easy)

Is Immigration Good or Bad for the UK?

With the opening of the EU to Bulgarian and Romanians there is a great deal of talk over immigration and the argument always seems to fall on the question of "Is immigration good or bad for the UK?" 

Personally my answer to this would be Yes, of course immigration is both good and bad for the UK, after all just about everything that happens will have a positive and negative effect depending on who you are and what you are looking at. Immigration brings many wonderful things with it it terms of diversity and bringing in hard working people that are able to contribute to our society. However there is also potential for it to have negative effects especially for people who are out of work and now have a wider pool of competition and there will obviously be strains on a local economy if we have a situation where there are not enough houses being built for the demand, it is obvious increasing demand would have a negative effect if supply is not also increased.

I do think it is quite funny however when I read articles like this one from Left foot forward and they make the claim that immigration is not a bad thing as

2) Migrants from Eastern Europe are less likely to claim benefits than indigenous Britons
*Not a direct quote as I spell checked it first

Now this "fact" doesn't surprise me at all as I have never believed that people will travel halfway across the world just to live on benefits as after all being an Immigrant takes guts and determination and these are not the qualities of people who want a life on benefits, I think it is much more likely that the migrants who are on benefits came here looking for a better life but instead were sucked into our welfare poverty trap.

My issue with the fact is that if they are saying migrants are less likely to claim benefits than indigenous Britons then are they saying that those indigenous Britons are claiming benefits instead of working, as a life choice? Surely if we are to look at the fact that migrants are in work and not claiming benefits as a success then we should surely recognize that the swing side of this is that indigenous Brits are choosing not to work.
After all if British people are being forced onto benefits due to immigration then this benefit bill needs to be offset against the tax revenues paid by migrants (If the unemployed British were working then the tax revenues would be the same.)

To be honest this backs up what I have found from my own experience so I am not surprised however I have often read from Left Wing commentators that nobody wants to be on benefits but there aren't enough jobs to go round - surely this would therefore create a direct negative to having migration.

Unfortunately I think the truth is that many people who hold both of these incompatible opinions is that:

Migration is good as migrants tend to vote for left wing parties and unemployment is good as the unemployed tend to vote for left wing parties.

For my two-pence worth, I think migration is a great thing and should be encouraged and the answer to the concerns of overcrowding is that we should be getting out there ourselves and understanding a bit of the world outside our own borders. 

False information in Political Life

I have just been reading a blog post on the site of Duncan Crow (Conservative Councillor for Furnace Green on Crawley Borough Council) about a misleading mailer put out by Labour in the local area

Now whilst I don't know the in's and out's of this particular case from my experience with the Local Council it is really not a surprise, I have always found the comments made in many political flyers to be very misleading at best and downright deceptive at worst. When I was campaigning I regularly read things that entirely mislead the reader and encountered many tactics like the one Cllr Crow mentioned where something that can not be accepted is proposed simply so it has to be turned down.

I have always wondered how effective this kind of dirty tricks campaigning is as I would hope that the general public would be too smart to go for this, but then as the people who do it keep getting elected I guess my faith in mankind may be a little too idealistic. But anyway my main reason of bringing this up is to say isn't it time that the contents of Political literature is checked for accuracy? I find it crazy that the Advertising Standards Commission do not have the power to check these things for accuracy, in fact you can make any outlandish claims you want and to hell with the truth (I call this the Lib Dem Model)

Going forward I would like to see not just the leaflets checked for honesty (With very harsh penalties for deliberately misleading voters) but I would also like to have all politicians held to account for the contents of their manifesto with an annual review where they would have to update the electorate on progress against what was promised, this doesn't mean that plans can't change as that would obviously hamstring the council to a policy that may be 3 years out of date but at the very least if they are not keeping their promises they need to stand up and say why.

Oh the Irony as Denis MacShane is jailed

It is not without a small amount of Irony that Labour MP Denis MacShane is jailed for expenses fraud.

MacShane who submitted false receipts for over £12,000 was forced to resign when he worked for the BBC for making a hoax call accusing then Home Secretary Reg Maudling of being a crook.

Maybe it was his belief that Government was full of crooks that got him involved in the first place!

The Campaign for Elected Police Commissioners Starts Here

Once again it would appear that a significant political event is looking like it may occur unnoticed, as the title of this piece would lead you to understand I am talking about the elections in November to elect police and crime commissioners (PCC). For me this is a massive change in the political spectrum and one that I have personally supported for a long time, I am disappointed however that such a seismic switch in the political landscape should come without a referendum and a mandate from the people (As is happening for the elected mayors) obviously as a supporter of the idea I would have voted for it however there is a certain argument that could be put forward that the police service should not be accountable to politicians and that the Police must be free to uphold the law without being subject to the whims of the majority (Don’t forget that both Racial Segregations and Fascist Governments have been brought in by popular vote) so it would have been nice to have the debate first.

All that being said this is now going to be one of the most important locally elected officials, I think you could actually say the most important after all this one person will have a real effect on crime and disorder in your area and this is something that will affect everyone, for the most part the local council services are passive to use where as when it occurs crime is intrusive – If you try you can basically ignore what the council is doing where as crime can affect anyone at any time. So for this reason I am going to give the Sussex campaign as much attention as I can so at least my two readers will know a bit more about what is going on.

I am also looking to leave any party political bias out of my writing of these campaigns, my personal ideal of an elected police commissioner would be for an independent, in fact I think these roles would be ideally suited to someone with Job knowledge who also knew how the political games worked, for example Ray Mallon who is the Mayor of Middlesbrough.

In the Next Few Days I will be reviewing the people who have so far thrown their hats into the rings but for now here is the information I obtained from the Police Foundation.

But as a start here are the people that are looking to stand in the election.

Name: Paul Richards
Party: Labour
Website: http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2012/01/13/power-to-the-pccs/
Occupation: Labour Author and Commentator
Political Experience: Losing Parliamentary Candidate in Lewes

Name: Ian Chisnall
Party: Independent
Website: http://ianforpcc.wordpress.com/
Occupation: Works extensivly in the voluntary Sector including working with Brighton Street Pasters and Sussex Churches Together
Political Experience: 2004 - 2009 Member of the Sussex Court Board, Since 2004 Member of he Independant Advisory Board.

Name: Peter Jones
Party Conservatives
Website: www.votepj.com/news.aspx
Occupation: Worked in Investment Banking and was a non-executive director for a number of companies, he retired in 1994.
Political Experience: Peter Jones was elected as an East Sussex County Councillor in 1997 and leader of the council from 2001, Peter was chairman of the Sussex Police Authority from 2005 – 2007 he was also Deputy Chairman of SEEDA
Other: He is married to Ex-Conservative MP Jacqui Lait (MP for Beckenham until 2010)

Name: Paul Dendle
Party: Conservative
Website: http://www.pauldendle.blogspot.com/
Occupation: Paul was Managing Director of Avro PLC until he sold the company in 1995, in his websites profile he lists his business interests as varied among travel, technology and property.
Political Experience: Paul was elected to Arun District Council (Arundel Ward) in 2003 and has been cabinet minister for central services since 2006.

My Thoughts on Alternative Vote

I have been engaging people in several discussions recently on the AV referendum and my stance on it so I thought I would write an entry on AV (Alternative vote also known as Instantly Transferable Vote) just to give a bit of background on a) What it is, b) What it isn’t and c) why I am against it.

I will start as I do with each article I write which is to declare my bias, I am not saying that I will not try and be fair in my summery but it is important when reading my post to realise that I am against AV and there is a chance that this will colour my view, although I will endeavour to make sure it doesn’t until the final section (Why I am against it.)

WHAT IS AV?

AV or Alternative Vote is a system of polling where the voter lists the candidates in order of the preference in which they want them to be elected. So assuming we have 5 candidates

Mrs C Tory Conservative Party, Mr A Socialist Labour Party Miss B Eco Green Party Mr R Racist British National Party Mr A Comrade Communist Party of Britain

Now when people vote they will list the order of anyone they want to vote for, and leave blank whoever they don’t want to. So someone may list their votes as: 1 - British National Party/2 – Communist Party/3 – Labour Party/4 – Green Party/Blank – Conservative Party

Now if after the first round of counting (Votes numbered 1) we have the following results 10,000 Conservatives; 8,000 Labour; 1,500 Green Party; 600 Communist Party; 490 British National Party

With a total amount of 20,590 voters no one would have a majority (Over 50% of the votes) therefore the lowest amount of the votes is disregarded and they get their second choice so with the BNP being out the votes are recounted (Our fictional voters vote will therefore now be for the communist party)

After the second round then the votes sit at 10,010 Conservatives; 8,300 Labour; 1,550 Green Party; 730 Communist Party

Still no one would have hit 50% of the vote so the votes of the Communist Party are now disregarded and the votes are counted again. Our Voter is now classed as a Labour Voter 10,010 Conservative Party; 9,000 Labour; 1,580 Green Party

Still no clear winner so the Green party are kicked out and their votes are now rolled down to the next level.

Our final round of voting therefore will end up 10,200 Conservative Party; 10,390 Labour Party and the Labour Party candidate would become the winner.

Obviously this is a very simplistic view but that is intentional as I want to clarify the system more than show a true representation of what could happen.

WHAT AV ISN’T

I just wanted to write a quick piece on what AV isn’t just to try and stop any misconceptions, Alternative Vote is not Proportional Representation (PR), PR is a system where everyone votes and then the results are added up and each party receives the percentage of seats in keeping with that percentage of votes, PR is the system that we currently use to decide the European Elections.

Under PR you would no longer vote for a person but rather for a party and they would decide who gets to be elected. PR is considered, by voting reformers, the fairest way of deciding an election. However what it does is drastically remove the loyalty of an elected official to the electorate. Already in our system it is actually more important that you are popular inside your party than with the voters as an MP who is in good standing in his party will be given an easy seat, and if that fails there is always the unelected Lords (Peter Mendelson for example, who was unelected by the voters and then last year was actually placed in charge of the country during Gordon Brown’s holiday.)

Switching to PR will force a system where an elected official will owe everything to the party list (The only way of getting a seat will be to prioritise your party over your constituents) If you want an example of this I suggest you see how many people around you know can name your MP, and then try with your Euro MP – I would predict that the amount of people who can your name your MP is pathetically low but will be huge compared to your Euro MP.

WHY I AM AGAINST AV

Now I wanted to say why I am going to be voting No on May 5th obviously this is just my opinion and I don’t claim that this is the view of anyone but me, simply my reasons for voting no.

1) One Person, one Vote My main reason for being against AV is that it is a core principle of our democracy that there should be 1 person 1 vote, under the example I gave above as a Conservative voter I would have 1 vote, however the BNP voter was instead allowed 3 attempts to vote. Apparently this is fair but I personally do not want my vote to be worth the same as a BNP supporter’s third choice.

2) Doesn’t achieve its goals We are told that AV will break up the dominance of the Main 2 Parties however I really do not think that this will be the case, I can not see a time where the BNP or Communist Party receive over 50% of the vote (At least I hope not) so it will simply be an aggregation result – effectively what you are saying is “We know you want to vote for a smaller party, but which of the big two do you really want to vote for.” In fact using my home county of Sussex (East and West) as an example we can see that only Crawley and Brighton would have needed recounts the rest all going to Conservative with 1 Lib Dem. Also there is a very real chance that Caroline Lucas the Green Partys only MP would have lost her seat on subsequent recounts actually strengthening the hold of the main parties.

3) Time Spent Counting On a personal note, I really enjoy election night, I love watching the votes come in and I love seeing the situation unfolding, already there are often some votes which spill over to the next day but in any constituency where there is not a 50% winner (So obviously not too much of an issue in Sussex) in the first round this will start to necessitate second rounds, combine this with recounts (Possibly even recounts of the smaller parties to see who get removed next) and it is not uncommon for AV systems to still be counting a few days later.

4) Stepping Stone to PR Above I outlined my problems with PR, even the people I have met who are out actively campaigning for AV have suggested that it is a stepping stone to a “fully representative system” what they mean is PR, This is a very dangerous road as although PR may be in their eyes fully representative as I stated above it actually removes representation as people are no longer answerable to the people. It also encourages “Inertia Voting” This is where people vote the same way they always have regardless of what they are voting for. You would be shocked if you knew how many people are voting based on what they believe parties stand for and how few of them can actually say what that is or which policies back up their beliefs.

5) Gordon Brown would still be Prime Minister The final point that should not just make you vote no but to wake you up in fear every night is that under AV it is widely predicted that Gordon Brown would still be Prime Minister, Labour left office with the country bankrupted, debts piling up and millions deliberately trapped in poverty. After having spent all of our money, then borrowing billions more the outgoing Labour government still pledged millions they didn’t have on projects that were not necessities. Losing the election was the best thing to happen to Labour (and the country for that matter) as five more years would most likely have brought the country to its knees and ensured that Labour would have endured many years out of government. For the Conservative Party allowing Labour to hang themselves would have been preferable to taking the tough decisions of repairing the country, but unfortunately it is unlikely the country could have made it.

Of cause we need NHS reform?

There has been quite a vast amount of discussion in the last couple of days around NHS reform with the government’s critics and multiple “self-interest” groups attacking the coalition’s plans to reform the NHS. It would have been very funny were it not such a potential danger that the opposition party can not see any need to reform our health system despite the fact that the NHS is the worlds third largest employer and that the budget for the NHS actually accounts for more of the nations tax income than any other service (I seem to remember reading somewhere that the NHS actually costs more than is collected via Income Tax, but I can’t remember where so it’s just here say.) Anyway to have the Shadow Health Secretary claim that plans to reform the NHS are driven by ideology is a chilling indictment that Nu Layb’r seem to think that all of the issue caused by their incompetence are now all forgotten, There seems to be from these people a denial of the problems that they have caused which does not just extend to their usual trick of “Not our fault gov.” and start to point towards an actual policy of “Let’s prevent anyone from trying to improve it.” A policy which could well end up being Labour’s greatest legacy to the anarchic state formally known as the UK.

Anyway the reasons for the reform for the NHS are simple so I will not spend to long labouring the point.
1) It’s too Big
2) It Costs too much
3) It does too much
4) It wastes too much
Now as a resident of the United Kingdom I love the NHS, I think deep down so do most of us, however it IS unsustainable, if you as an individual were in as much debt as the Country is and you were renting a Lamborghini at £2000 a month, it would not be considered very prudent for you to cut your £10 a month newspaper bill (Although I would advise that you also cut out the non-essential items.) instead you would be suggesting that this imaginary person got rid of the Lamborghini and got something more reasonable like an Astra. The problem faced by the UK however is that we are paying for the Lamborghini and have got an Astra, albeit an Astra that is staffed by a professional driver but the hard work of the dedicated workforce still can’t make the Astra a Lamborghini.

So if the problem is not the money going in why would Labour think that the solution is to keep adding more money, if it hasn’t worked for the last 13 years I am at a complete loss to see why they think it would work now – but I guess that kind of thinking is how they got us into this mess in the first place! – The time has not just come to reform the NHS, but has come and passed several times, and if the NHS is to be reformed isn’t it infinitely better that it is driven by local medical professionals based on the needs that they see everyday rather than going the “Labour” way and bringing in another level of management to help push the decisions back into the centre where a Bureaucrat can sit with his medical insurance plan and decide that an old lady in Lancashire doesn’t need access to a drug as it will only extend her life by five years!

Where is Gordon Brown

Just been reading www.order-order.com which has a very interesting article about our former Prime Minister, according to research undertaken by Guido Fawkes since losing the election and standing down as Labour leader Mr. Brown has only attended parliament on two occasions, one to vote and the other to be sworn in - in other words to make sure he continues to get paid.

Now I would be the first to point out that the role of an MP extends far beyond parliament, to receive pay for 6 months, yet only attend twice is clearly going to cause comment, especially as the main task undertaken by the government in this time is to try and solve many of the problems caused by Gordon's government, surely as the man who filled the two top roles in this government should be lending his expertise.

To be honest it would seem to me that his decision is probably one of three scenarios:

1 Gordon Brown knows this entire mess is his fault and that by attending he will simply give too much fuel to his opponents.

2 Ed Miliband has stopped him from attending as he fears he will be overshadowed by his old boss and wants to distance himself from the old government which he is hoping people will forget he was part off.

3 This is just one more example of how Gordon Brown wants to stick his fingers up at the tax payer one last time.

Whatever the cause I would suggest that if the former prime minister is a man of principle as he claims that he should resign as soon as possible, or start to attend parliament and actually in some ways make amends for the 428% (of GDP) of External debt he has saddled us with.

The Budget Cuts have Landed

Well the cuts are out there, well to be honest the actual details will be coming out over the next few weeks but we know the kind of cuts we are looking at.

Immediately the usual complaints started, The Unions asked why the Public Sector were the hardest hit, Labour asked why young families were the hardest hit, Age UK asked why pensioners were the hardest hit, Disabled groups asked why the disabled were the hardest hit - all whilst at the same time it actually turns out that the top 2% are actually the hardest hit and the top 15% stand to be 10k a year worse off. On top of all this several analysts have actually come out suggesting that Osbourne has not gone far enough. So what does this all mean?

Personally I think that this is probably proof that the cuts are, as Osbourne has been saying, spread across the board surely if everyone is complaining (Well not the middle class as after all there is no one to speak up for the silent majority.) then it means that the cuts are spread out.

Now obviously there are going to be complaints that the poorest are the hardest hit, but as I posted previously that is unfortunately unavoidable, when the country has run out of money it will be the people who are net costs to the state who will be hardest hit. It is very simple maths, if you receive more money from the state than you give then you will be at risk, for those of us who are net contributors then we will simply have to give more, there is a clear limit to what the government can withdraw from me and that is limited to Child Benefit as that is after all the thing they give me, in actual fact it goes to my wife so personally the government can not withdraw anything from me as they do not give me anything in the first place.

The only question that remains to be asked of the government is can they get all of the disparate groups who are feeling like the victims to see the suffering that is being spread around. If the coalition can not give a sense of empathy to the public then we may see that, as predicted by Socrates over 2300 years ago, Democracy is doomed to fail. Socrates stated of the Athenian Democracy Project that Democracy is always due to fail as the demos will always vote in their own interest at the expense of society, eventually resulting in a society which is unable to support itself (Sound familiar?)

Sir Philip Green Set to Save us £20Bn

Sir Philip Green has completed a review into public spending and has announced that he can save the country £20bn a year in efficiency savings based on procurement and economies of scale, apparently the owner of Top Shop suggests that there is a possibility of saving 6-700M in telecoms alone. This is really just confirmation of what we have known about the Labour Governments attitude to our money all along, The attitude seems to have varied from “It’s not our money so why worry.” All the way to “We need to spend as much as possible otherwise we won’t get as much next year.” And it is this attitude as much as the actual waste that needs to be challenged if we are to ever get a real chance of closing the budget gap, and this is not just the civil servants but has been led from the politicians from the top and the Unions who seem to feel their members have a right to waste this money.

Now this £20Bn saving, if it is achieved will help protect many front line services, unfortunately it will not mean a lot in helping the Quangos and other bodies already facing cuts as after all the deficit last year was £159.8Bn so a further £139Bn of cuts are needed (Just to break even, this will not even start to pay off our now 1 Trillion of debt (or 71% of GDP) simply stop us building up anymore debt and interest. But it is 20Bn less to need to spend than if Labour had been allowed to carry on their policies of waste. After all despite what the last administration seem to believe and the attitude of many people currently living off the state – This is our Money, It comes from our hard work and taxes and it is about time someone started to look after it!

What is best nickname for Nu Layb'R Leader

Last Post gave me an idea for a Poll:

Which is the best nickname for the Nu Layb'R Leader, My personal favourite is Lill' Mill.

The ones I have come up with are

Miliband Junior
Ed Milibland
Red Ed
Redward
Lill’ Mill
Miliband the Younger
Reddy Eddy

Have a vote in the poll or leave your own.

The Launch of Nu Layb'R - Soft on Crime, Tough on the Victims of Crime

A strange thing happened to me this morning as I watched sunrise on Sky News, I actually gained a great deal of respect for Mr. Miliband, Not Ed obviously but David, I felt on Monday that his speech was very well written and delivered, much better than the excuse for a speech given by Miliband Junior yesterday, But what increased my respect for David is the comment he made to Harriett Haman during his brothers speech, whilst Edward (or should it be Redward?) was trying to pretend that the Iraq war had nothing to do with the Labour party David turned to Labours Deputy Leader and said ‘You voted for it, why are you clapping?’ finally a member of the Labour party who actually remembers that a great deal of the issues they are so upset about are problems of their own making.

As for Miliband the Younger’s Speech I think it was a weak speech, weakly given in which Jr tried to be a soundbyte to all people and ended up being a politician to no one. I actually gave an audible laugh to the comment he made about how New Labour had realised they had to be tough on crime as well as tough on the causes of crime, and they were right to do it!! Right to do what exactly? How out of touch can the Labour party be if they honestly believe that we live in a society where the man on the street believes that there is justice and the streets are safe, I would perhaps suggest that Labours mantra really should be “Soft on Crime, Tough on the victims of crime!” He came out with another claim to be the next generation of Labour (I know that Red is a little bit of a non-personality but surely people remember that he was in the last cabinet, so not exactly a fresh start, and surely if Ms. Harman is still involved we will still get the constant stream of ridiculous ill thought out edicts.) We have had Labour then New labour so I guess Lill’ Mill must be announcing the launch of Nu Layb’R

I think the real question is that when Ed Milibland (Yes I can keep coming up with new names.) gives a speech to the TUC what will he use as his entrance music? “Puppet on a String.” Or “A little help from my Friends”?