Happy St George’s Day everyone. Well the lily livered, spineless Chancellor let us down big time.
This Budget was supposed to have led us out of recession, instead of that he tried to retain the few Labour voters left in the country.
He lied about the speed of economic recovery, he predicted that the economy would shrink by 3.5% this year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it will shrink by 4.1%. He said that the economy will grow by 1.25% next year, the IMF says it will shrink a further 0.4%. This leads to an all time record borrowing of, wait for it, £175 billion.
To salve the Labour faithful, he hammered the higher earner, gave the pensioners a few coppers more and increased child credit. In a populist move, he only increased alcohol and tobacco by the usual pennies.
The most ludicrous thing to come out of this budget is the grand opening of ‘Honest Al’s Car Sales’ where Al will give you £2000 for your old banger, (no sir, he didn’t mean your wife), against a new car.
Hang on a minute, I’ll give Al a call.
Me: “Hello, is that Al’s”
Al: “Yes sir, how may I help you?”
Me: “I hear that you will give me £2000 trade in against my old car, if I buy a new one.”
Al: “ Mmm, well that’s not strictly true sir. I will give you £1000 towards it and the poor motor company, you know, the one that’s sinking faster than the ‘Titanic’, the one that’s already slashed it’s prices to the bone, will give you the other £1000. You can pay the balance with your redundancy pay and Job Seekers Allowance. We are also doing a special offer, 2p ON a litre of fuel.”
Me: "I'll get back to you on that one, NOT!"
Gordon, I think it’s time you traded Alistair in!
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Buddy Can You Spare a Grand?
Two stories grabbed my attention on this bright and sunny Budget Day, ‘UK suffers first signs of deflation’ and ‘Royal Mint privatisation closer’.
This is the stuff that makes the train of thought pull out of the station.
What if the deflation gathers apace and turns into hyper-deflation? Will we need coins, ergo, will we need a Royal Mint or are they going to mint £50 and £100 pound coins? Will £1 buy you 5 Euro cents?
The old man shaking his tin cup in the High Street may well be asking, “Spare a £1000 for a cuppa, guv!”
Turning back to deflation, the last time the UK was in this state was way back in 1960.
I guess that most working people now, wouldn’t remember those heady days, so to give an idea of the distance in time, Harold Macmillan was the UK Prime Minister, JFK was going through his election campaign in the US, nobody had ever heard of the ‘Beatles’, the whole country was waiting with bated breath to see the first ever episode of ‘Coronation Street’, which was transmitted in the December of that year, and yours truly was in the last year of his teens!
We survived that recession so I suppose we will manage to come out of this one alive.
Today’s Budget should prove to be the most interesting one in history.
If darling Alistair doesn’t give us some bad tasting medicine to get us through this, if instead he chases the populist vote with a few mamby pamby cuts here and meaningless concessions there, I think the best thing that Mr Brown can do for his Queen and Country is to give him a revolver and tell him to do the honourable thing!
This is the stuff that makes the train of thought pull out of the station.
What if the deflation gathers apace and turns into hyper-deflation? Will we need coins, ergo, will we need a Royal Mint or are they going to mint £50 and £100 pound coins? Will £1 buy you 5 Euro cents?
The old man shaking his tin cup in the High Street may well be asking, “Spare a £1000 for a cuppa, guv!”
Turning back to deflation, the last time the UK was in this state was way back in 1960.
I guess that most working people now, wouldn’t remember those heady days, so to give an idea of the distance in time, Harold Macmillan was the UK Prime Minister, JFK was going through his election campaign in the US, nobody had ever heard of the ‘Beatles’, the whole country was waiting with bated breath to see the first ever episode of ‘Coronation Street’, which was transmitted in the December of that year, and yours truly was in the last year of his teens!
We survived that recession so I suppose we will manage to come out of this one alive.
Today’s Budget should prove to be the most interesting one in history.
If darling Alistair doesn’t give us some bad tasting medicine to get us through this, if instead he chases the populist vote with a few mamby pamby cuts here and meaningless concessions there, I think the best thing that Mr Brown can do for his Queen and Country is to give him a revolver and tell him to do the honourable thing!
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Will Twenty Be The New Thirty?
After my Easter break, what do I come back to? I‘ll tell you what. Headlines that say “Plans to cut traffic speed limits.”
The Government want to introduce reductions in the speed limit from 30mph to 20mph in urban locations.
I’m no boy racer but isn’t this a bit OTT. Are they questioning our braking reactions? Do they think that our disc brakes aren’t capable of bringing us to a halt in a matter of inches at 30mph?
In this age of environmental awareness they want us to drive around in third gear, burning fuel like it was water and emitting all kinds of nasties into the atmosphere.
Why not enforce the 30mph law by taking the offenders license away for two or three months. That would be more effective than sticking up a sign post saying 20mph!
The Government want to introduce reductions in the speed limit from 30mph to 20mph in urban locations.
I’m no boy racer but isn’t this a bit OTT. Are they questioning our braking reactions? Do they think that our disc brakes aren’t capable of bringing us to a halt in a matter of inches at 30mph?
In this age of environmental awareness they want us to drive around in third gear, burning fuel like it was water and emitting all kinds of nasties into the atmosphere.
Why not enforce the 30mph law by taking the offenders license away for two or three months. That would be more effective than sticking up a sign post saying 20mph!
Sunday, 5 April 2009
Jade Goody-bye
I’ve seen everything now. Yesterday, the Sky News channel devoted at least seven hours covering the funeral of Jade Goody.
I’ve never had much time for publicist Max Clifford, but anybody that can engineer a stunt like that for a commoner, has got to be a hero!
Natasha Richardson, a true international celebrity with internationally famous grandparents, parents, siblings, husband, uncles, aunts and cousins, died four days before Jade and we never learned of her funeral until the day after it took place. Max obviously wasn’t on the case!
I dare say Sky’s coverage took up more air time than Princess Di’s or the Queen Mum’s did.
Thousands lined the route, throwing what was possibly the entire stock of flowers from New Covent Garden at the hearse.
I spotted one wreath on the hearse that dipped its O Level English, ‘Gran Daughter’ . There were floral tributes with Jade’s comical sayings such as ‘East Angula’ and ‘Minging’, I must have missed the one that said ‘Shilpa Poppadum’, and one depicting a jar of ‘Marmite’, because like the yeast extract, ‘you either liked her or hated her’.
With Jade gone, which non-celebrity are we going to like or hate now?
Goodbye Jade, rest in peace. It’s been fun writing about you.
I’ve never had much time for publicist Max Clifford, but anybody that can engineer a stunt like that for a commoner, has got to be a hero!
Natasha Richardson, a true international celebrity with internationally famous grandparents, parents, siblings, husband, uncles, aunts and cousins, died four days before Jade and we never learned of her funeral until the day after it took place. Max obviously wasn’t on the case!
I dare say Sky’s coverage took up more air time than Princess Di’s or the Queen Mum’s did.
Thousands lined the route, throwing what was possibly the entire stock of flowers from New Covent Garden at the hearse.
I spotted one wreath on the hearse that dipped its O Level English, ‘Gran Daughter’ . There were floral tributes with Jade’s comical sayings such as ‘East Angula’ and ‘Minging’, I must have missed the one that said ‘Shilpa Poppadum’, and one depicting a jar of ‘Marmite’, because like the yeast extract, ‘you either liked her or hated her’.
With Jade gone, which non-celebrity are we going to like or hate now?
Goodbye Jade, rest in peace. It’s been fun writing about you.
Saturday, 4 April 2009
Starvation and the Nation
Some hard-up families are facing the prospect of malnutrition due to the recession and soaring food prices, the charity ‘Save the Children’ has warned.
I beg to differ. This has more to do with other factors than with the recession.
Agriculture.
Successive governments have moved the UK away from being an agricultural nation into being a (failed) industrial nation. Cheap fruit and vegetables are now, and forever will be, a thing of the past.
Consumerism.
The UK is a consumer society that, must have a 42 inch plasma TV hanging on the wall, must have two weeks a year in Orlando, Florida, must have a state of the art mobile phone, must have a brand new leather three piece suite. How are you going to manage to buy food after you have paid for all of these essentials?
TV Cookery Programmes.
If you can’t afford plain food like filet steak with white truffle sauce and potatoes boulangere washed down with a nice bottle of Chateau Neuf du Pape how are you going to stop yourself from falling through your ribs?
TV Gardening Programmes.
You must have well manicured lawns in both your front and back gardens and what’s the use of patio doors without a patio? God forbid that you should ever dig these up and plant cabbages and potatoes. You’d rather starve to death than lower the tone of the neighbourhood!
Lack of Inventiveness.
Ready meals, take-aways and frozen chips have contributed to robbing modern woman of her creativity, but the main culprit is the discontinuation of domestic science classes in schools for the last couple of generations.
My wife can skin and gut a rabbit and fillet fish with the best of ’em. She can turn the cheapest cut of meal and a couple of vegetables into a gourmet meal. Without learning these skills, the nuclear family have no chance.
Both my wife and myself were born and raised during WWII and we came out the other side fit and healthy even though food then was really scarce.
So why doesn’t today’s government try to promote these ideals today by re-issuing posters like ‘Dig on for Victory’ and pamphlets like the old Ministry of Food’s ‘How to Plan Meals for Children’?
They could even rake out some of the old public service films of the time and show them on TV. Perhaps then the end of the world won't be so nigh!
Lead by example, I say.
I beg to differ. This has more to do with other factors than with the recession.
Agriculture.
Successive governments have moved the UK away from being an agricultural nation into being a (failed) industrial nation. Cheap fruit and vegetables are now, and forever will be, a thing of the past.
Consumerism.
The UK is a consumer society that, must have a 42 inch plasma TV hanging on the wall, must have two weeks a year in Orlando, Florida, must have a state of the art mobile phone, must have a brand new leather three piece suite. How are you going to manage to buy food after you have paid for all of these essentials?
TV Cookery Programmes.
If you can’t afford plain food like filet steak with white truffle sauce and potatoes boulangere washed down with a nice bottle of Chateau Neuf du Pape how are you going to stop yourself from falling through your ribs?
TV Gardening Programmes.
You must have well manicured lawns in both your front and back gardens and what’s the use of patio doors without a patio? God forbid that you should ever dig these up and plant cabbages and potatoes. You’d rather starve to death than lower the tone of the neighbourhood!
Lack of Inventiveness.
Ready meals, take-aways and frozen chips have contributed to robbing modern woman of her creativity, but the main culprit is the discontinuation of domestic science classes in schools for the last couple of generations.
My wife can skin and gut a rabbit and fillet fish with the best of ’em. She can turn the cheapest cut of meal and a couple of vegetables into a gourmet meal. Without learning these skills, the nuclear family have no chance.
Both my wife and myself were born and raised during WWII and we came out the other side fit and healthy even though food then was really scarce.
So why doesn’t today’s government try to promote these ideals today by re-issuing posters like ‘Dig on for Victory’ and pamphlets like the old Ministry of Food’s ‘How to Plan Meals for Children’?
They could even rake out some of the old public service films of the time and show them on TV. Perhaps then the end of the world won't be so nigh!
Lead by example, I say.
Friday, 3 April 2009
The world's greatest whip-round.
Leaders of the world's largest economies (and Britain) have agreed to tackle the global financial crisis with measures worth $1.1 trillion.
If you write this figure down in numerals it looks more like binary code than a number.
Mr Brown and his Chancellor, Mr Darling have thrown so much money at the banks and other financial institutions recently I’ve calculated that Britain can only afford to chip in to this fund with something around a fiver!
Gordon, mate, as a country, we’re on the edge of bankruptcy ourselves, so don’t go making anymore rash promises, there’s a good boy!
If you write this figure down in numerals it looks more like binary code than a number.
Mr Brown and his Chancellor, Mr Darling have thrown so much money at the banks and other financial institutions recently I’ve calculated that Britain can only afford to chip in to this fund with something around a fiver!
Gordon, mate, as a country, we’re on the edge of bankruptcy ourselves, so don’t go making anymore rash promises, there’s a good boy!
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Climbing the G20 Summit
Tomorrow, Wednesday April 2nd is the big day, the start of the G20 summit in London. World leaders are meeting to discuss plans to tackle the economic crisis.
The Metropolitan Police reckon that the security alone will cost £7.5m. Add this to all the other costs, ferrying in the delegates from all over the globe, feeding, watering and entertaining them, it’s going to cost more than a pretty penny, more like a penny with looks to die for.
With homes and businesses boarded up, it doesn’t look like the local economy is going to make a brass farthing out of this exercise.
This is the technological 21st century, so wouldn’t it have been easier, cheaper and safer for all concerned to sit back in their favourite armchair, in the warmth of their own homes and do the whole thing by video conference?
The Metropolitan Police reckon that the security alone will cost £7.5m. Add this to all the other costs, ferrying in the delegates from all over the globe, feeding, watering and entertaining them, it’s going to cost more than a pretty penny, more like a penny with looks to die for.
With homes and businesses boarded up, it doesn’t look like the local economy is going to make a brass farthing out of this exercise.
This is the technological 21st century, so wouldn’t it have been easier, cheaper and safer for all concerned to sit back in their favourite armchair, in the warmth of their own homes and do the whole thing by video conference?
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