Have the Tories stuck their heads in the sand – or somewhere else the sun doesn’t shine?
Get your coat, Gideon! If only this photo was showing Mr Osborne departing from politics forever. If he did that, not only do I think the credit ratings agencies would drop any plans to slash the UK’s triple-A rating, we might see an immediate economic upturn as confidence starts to return to British industry!
Just when you think you’ve heard it all, you can always count on Tories to come up with an idea so hare-brained it makes you wonder whether they belong to the same species as the rest of us, or to some bizarre, inbred offshoot of humanity where evolution gave up on them after realising their logic runs backwards in comparison to everybody else.
If you’re wondering what has provoked this rare torrent of invective from my normally mild-mannered keyboard, I’ll tell you:
I was wandering through internet news coverage of yesterday’s events, partly in search of something to write about, partly out of interest in what other commentators had to say about the latest economic downturn (the latest? Have we become so casual about it, so quickly?), but mostly out of a desperate need to find an observation about the situation that hadn’t already been thrashed out in front of Joe and Jane Public a thousand times already.
It was disappointing work and I was starting to give up hope. Mostly I was reading that Gideon was “under pressure” to change his cuts agenda (heard it before!); that he told everyone to get stuffed (again!); that he wants further spending cuts to come into play during 2015-16 (boring! But also psychotic!); that Nick (We’re Sorry) Clegg has admitted cuts in capital spending early in this Parliament were a mistake – but he isn’t going to do anything about it (windbag!); that Boris (Zipwire) Johnson (windbag! Oh– sorry, I got carried away there; forgot I hadn’t actually mentioned what he’d done) has tried to show what a man of the people he is by saying there’s huge potential in the UK, if people are given a feeling of confidence – and then blew it all by talking about a “hair-shirt, Stafford Cripps agenda”. Cripps was a Labour chancellor under Clement Attlee, who tried to use taxes and rationing to control economic growth. I’m a Labour Party member and I didn’t know that, so what chance anybody else has, I don’t know. I do know that, by using that reference, Boris stuck his foot right in his mouth (windbag! No – wind-zeppelin!); and that David (Flashman) Cameron wants to be the Prime Minister who secured Britain’s place in a newly-democratic European Union, or some such nonsense, showing yet again that he is completely divorced from the reality faced by you and me every day.
Then I read this, in a Guardian article:
“Osborne is also under pressure from rightwing thinktanks which want him to offer tax cuts to boost consumer spending, with money taken from departmental efficiency savings and deeper welfare cuts.”
Interesting!
– but only because it’s so whacko-Jacko that it could only come from a right-wing think-tank.
Tax cuts to boost consumer spending? Firstly, if you’re thinking that means a cut to the base rate of income tax, please get a grip. They mean more tax cuts for the richest in society – the people who actually have all the money.
(There’s loads of it around, by the way. Oodles and boodles of the stuff. It’s sitting in banks, in tax havens all around the world and also in the Channel Islands. It has to go somewhere, and it’s been going to the rich. That’s what Conservative policy does, whether the Liberal Democrats are hanging on the coat-tails or not.)
The most obvious problem with that is, the richest in society don’t actually need tax cuts to put more money into society. They can pay their way perfectly well as matters stand. Consumer spending won’t budge if they get another fat rebate (remember, the top rate of Income Tax is already dropping by a fat five per cent, and Corporation Tax has plummeted by a quarter since the Tory rabble got into the Treasury).
Behind that is a worse problem – that it implies less money will go into the Treasury, to be spent on public services. As a result, those services will suffer. Starve something and it will wither and die. You can check the truth of that by depriving a plant of water. Before you know it, you’ll have a dried-up stem where your beloved dahlia used to be, and nobody to blame but yourself.
If idiots like George 0sborne do that to public spending, we’ll only have ourselves to blame, because we’re the ones who gave the Tories enough of the vote to allow them to Con their way back into power (collectively, I mean. I didn’t vote for them and I don’t think I know anybody who’ll admit that they did). What will we end up with? A withered economy; shrivelled-up and useless.
But no! They say the tax cuts should be funded with money taken from departmental efficiency savings and deeper welfare (I prefer “social security”) cuts.
Clearly it has skipped their notice that 0sborne has been having a hard time finding efficiency savings within government departments – they were, in fact, pretty much down to the bone when he turned up at Number 11 (if we’re to believe certain commentators, anyway) – so the bulk of the bill will end up being paid from the social security budget.
In other words, it’s yet another attack on the poor.
They clearly haven’t realised – even yet! – that it’s the poor who have been paying for their good times, ever since the Coalition got into power back in 2010. They’ve been propping up their useless economic model with money taken from the most vulnerable of us – in fact, particularly targeting the most vulnerable, presumably in the hope that they will die off before anyone important wakes up enough to realise what’s going on and stand up for them. Sadly, it’s a policy that has worked, so far, thanks to copious support from the right-wing media, who’ve managed to persuade many of the poorer sectors of society that turkeys should, in fact, vote to support Christmas.
It’s mad.
Almost as mad as having a slap-up meal in a swish place like Davos, the day before figures are published showing that the economy you’ve designed has tanked. Again.
And all the time bleating that £64,000 per annum plus expenses plus a taxpayer funded second home, probably with spare rooms so the family can have a good time in London for free and a food allowance much, much greater than most benefit claimants have to live on, and subsidised meals isn’t enough.
Reblogged this on HUMAN RIGHTS & POLITICAL JOURNAL.
I think it is time to tell Parliament and ALL its inhabitants that the Taxpayer has had ENOUGH and wants.. no.. DEMANDS that THEY take a real-term cut of at least 17% in salary and a cut of up to 21% in ‘allowances’ with a fixed Parliamentary Term Guarantee that they (The House) will NOT discuss, table or amend ANY Bill concerning THEIR Expenses, Salaries or Gratuities! Period. Let’s see if we really ARE “All in this TOGETHER?…”
Welfare payments do not disappear or build up in claimants’ bank accounts, they are spent quickly, locally and on goods and assistance which help to prevent people needing more expensive services- care homes, prisons, hospital treatment, and foster care. Cuts in benefits are contributing to the death of “real” high street shops selling basic essentials, leading to unemployment. This also reduces the additional VAT, PAYE and national insurance payments the government receives when incomes rise.
£40 per pizza in that Davos restaurant ? just what the fuck was the topping?
Gold?
Tears of homeless children?
We demand to know
As usual i agree with your comments, but unfortunately, where the poll tax of Thatcher the whole or most of the country was against it..
We now have a situation where we are watching our friends and neighbors to analyse if they are working..Everyone who isn’t is claiming benefits illegally. In all government dept including local government Labour controlled it makes no difference the unemployed or sick are classed as workless and the challenge is not to get the the unemployed back to work but to cure the worklessness in society. .
Now it might be agreed that this is just semantics i do not agree where has this word come from maybe they meant worthless
,I also believe that little would change with a labour government ,” we are all in this together”reminds me of Orwells Animal Farm”.
“All animals are equal some animals are more equal than others”
Once again i do not believe that the labour party is against the cuts to welfare and i write as a party member. They hired Artos and the ESA
I enjoy your mails
Regards
Dickie Jones
Well, Dickie, yeah, in some this you are so right- so right as to embarrass the current administration and the so-called opposition, the so-called Labour party.
This is the politics of fascism- betray you neighbour; betray your friend; betray anybody and you get a slice of our [my] pie. But in reality, you won’t get a bigger slice- you may eat a little better, maybe a slightly juicier bone- thrown from the table of the plutocrat but while you gnaw on the bone of prosperity, the wealthy, the bankers- and yes, the politicians enjoy the marrow.
If benefits are being slashed for the sick and disabled why did MPs expenses rise by 29per cent during 2012 to £98.5 million
These people are just a riot waiting to happen!
i came across this comment in the guardian yesterday, It is so brilliant and accurate that I had to share it with you all
George s story:
“When young George was about six years old, he was made the wealthy master of a hatchet of which, like most little boys, he was extremely fond. He went about chopping everything that came his way.
One day, as he wandered about the garden amusing himself by hacking his mother’s pea sticks (and pulling the legs off insects), he found a beautiful, young English cherry tree, of which his father was most proud. He struck the edge of his hatchet on the trunk of the tree and cut the bark it so that it died.
Some time after this, his father discovered what had happened to his favorite tree.
Just then George, with his little hatchet, came into the room.
“George,” said his father, “do you know who has killed my beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?
“Father, I cannot tell a lie, said the lying little shit as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. It was Gordon Brown…and the civil service bureaucrats…and the public sector…and the
and the banks…and the wrong kind of snow…and employment tribunals…and trade unions…and energy prices…and the royal wedding…and the extra bank holiday…and the Eurozone…but it definitely wasn’t me”
“Well George, you are a mendacious little twat, aren’t you” said his father, relieving him of his hatchet. “I would ask you to grow me another tree but I don’t think you know the first thing about growth. In fact, I don’t think you could grow anything even if I gave you a fistful of seeds and a sack full of horseshit…now, fuck off out of my sight””
The private sector are on strike.. refusing to invest their estimated 700bn in savings because of a lack of demand. As you say, tax cuts for the rich will not increase demand. The only sector that can is the government. Commentators keep saying that Osborne has borrowed as much (or more) than the LP plan but no-one makes the distinction between good and bad deficits. Osbornes borrowing has increased because of lost tax receipts and the increased benefits bill ie ‘bad’ deficit spending. What the UK needs is ‘good deficit’… investment in jobs, housing and mitigating climate change/peak oil.
But I’m taking Osbornomics at face value when it seems clear that this government is just using the deficit as a con to privatise public services and put more profits in the hands of the bankers and super-rich. His aim is a low-waged, low-welfare economy with high unemployment and private health/education. Osborne is a tea-party Republican!
BROKEN BRITAIN UNDER TORIES – THE GREY VOTE OAP’s
PENSIONERS outnumber any other type of voter even by race ,religion or age .WHEN ARE PENSIONERS GOING TO WAKE UP ! WE HAVE THE POWER TO SHAPE LEGISLATION – all we need is the willpower to do so .
POLITICIANS PAY ATTENTION ! Entitlement my ar*e ,I have paid good money for my State Pension and other Benefits ,just because you’ve borrowed that money it doesn’t make my Benefits some sort of CHARITY or HANDOUT .Gold plated pensions for MP’s and Civil Servants plus other benefits – free health care ,outrageous retirement packages ,67 paid holidays ,20 weeks paid vacation and unlimited paid sick leave .THATS WELFARE ! And you have the nerve to call me a GREEDY PENSIONER and my retirement an entitlement .
We are supposed to be broke and can’t help our own Pensioners ,the Vulnerable ,the Sick ,Vetrans ,homeless ect but spend £1.2 billion for G20 events .Billions on Illegal WARS and still have money to interfere in others domestic stuations .In the last few months we have spent Billions on foreign aid .Our retiree’s live on a fixed income and they call OLD AGE SECURITY and HEALTHCARE an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now through successive Governments incompetence when it’s time to collect were told the coffers are bare .Anything to do with Brown robbing the PENSION FUND of £5 billion .
MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD….PROTEST LOUD AND CLEAR ,SPREAD THE WORD .
http://www.brokenbritainundertories.com
BROKEN BRITAIN UNDER TORIES – POLITICAL ENIGMA
There seems to be something fundamentally amiss on the political front nowadays .Most of the population of Britain would to some degree find that Welfare Reform is unfair and belongs in Dickens days .It is well established that Thatcher was involved with UNUM the mastermind behind ATOS .Blair continued with the Welfare Reform proposals guided by UNUM and Cameron through his attack dogs ID Smith and Grayling ,both known liars and public purse thieves put the whole package into practice .
Where have Labour been throughout the anguish and misery caused by ATOS and other Welfare changes ,their silence has been deafening .Why are Cameron and Osborne so sure of themselves having inflicted on the British Public the most draconian social change in over 50 years .Was Cameron’s catch phrase “were all in it together” meant as a reference to all parties .
We are Governed by a virtual Totalitarian Authority with no opposition leaving the British Population without a voice .How can we the Public redress the balance of this anti democratic situation – WAKE UP! With the exception of a few MP’s they are all in it for themselves .
I personally see no other option but to make a protest vote to prove we are not SHEEP and will have our say .The major Parties think it will be a two horse race ,when you vote remember neither Labour nor Tories are there for our benefit .The only man to enter Parliament with good public intentions was GUY FAWKES .
http://www.brokenbritainundertories.com