Friday, July 18, 2008
What's the Belgian for chutzpah?
Extraordinary:
The European Commission is planning to block almost $1bn in funds for Bulgaria as a penalty for failing to tackle corruption and organised crime.
The commission's nine-page report, due to be published next week, is possibly the most scathing ever written by the EU executive about a member state.
It concludes that Bulgaria "has to make the commitment to cleanse its administration and ensure that the generous support it receives from the EU actually reaches its citizens and is not siphoned off by corrupt officials".
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
"Despite the Commission's repeated requests for improvement of the management and control systems, within reasonable deadlines, the Bulgarian authorities... have not fully explained or clarified the situation surrounding the irregularities and have not taken all necessary steps to correct them".
Oh mercy! Stop, you're killing me!
The document alleges there is a political umbrella protecting corruption, saying there are "powerful forces in the Bulgarian government and/or other state institutions" who are not interested in punishing the corruption.
For God's sake, why not try getting your own accounts signed off before lecturing others, you disgusting fucking hypocrites?
Labels: Burning our money, Euroweenies, Hypocrites, Sleazebags
Brownonomics
Fraser Nelson in the Spectator has for some time been warning that, with defeat in the next election looming, Gordon Brown would adopt a "scorched earth" policy - what Polly and her cronies like to refer to "locking in Labour reforms for a generation" but most of the rest of us would call spending money like a drunken sailor on 24-hour shore leave with a raging boner to try and detonate.
Reader, I must confess that I had a little bit of difficulty believing this; surely not even these loathsome fucktrumpets would be quite so egregiously cuntish as to balls up the economy simply in order to screw the incoming Tories. But today, with the news that the Treasury may be about to relax the "golden rule" on borrowing, we have confirmation of the charge.
The Treasury said the news was "pure speculation, based on comments that are over three months old".
Any seasoned observer of this government will immediately recognise this as the signal to unbutton their trousers, grab their ankles and await the searing pain. "Speculation" is, of course, the code that New Labour acolytes adopt when someone has guessed correctly what the government is going to do in advance of the official, carefully stage-managed announcement.
And on the Spectator blog, Fraser nails it:
Brown has realised that if the Tories win the next election he is now spending with Cameron’s Gold Card – every by-election bribe, every union sellout will be funded by borrowing with the bill sent to D. Cameron Esq. Cameron will have to tax us to pay for what Brown is today spending.
Danny Finkelstein said on Newsnight that this will undermine the whole New Labour project. My take is that Brown doesn’t care, not any more. Like a retreating army, he doesn’t want the advancing Cameroons to have any advantage at all. Debt is a boring subject, but it means we’ll all pay more taxes for longer. I have blogged here before about Brown’s existing ballooning debt, and here about how Britain over the last decade ramped up debt while properly-run countries vastly reduced it. This is big, serious and a problem: the consequences will be with us for years.
When times are tough, any sensible person looks at their income and outgoings, and rejigs them until they balance up. The alternative is to run up the credit card bill; utterly painless in the short term but, if you don't have the means to pay it off, utterly ruinous in the longer term. But Brown isn't going to be around in the longer term - let alone the ridiculous Darling, who'll surely be booted out on his arse before the leaves in his beloved Morningside start falling. No, people are, instead, going to look at that nice Mr Osborne and wonder why he's embiggening their taxes when he said he would cut them. More Tory lies, they will say. Maybe we made a mistake.
I think Fraser is right. I think Cyclops doesn't care. Fuck "prudence" and fuck "the right long-term decisions"; the essence of Brownonomics is that if at first you don't succeed, announce an extra £4 billion for it in the next Budget, and the next, and the next, until the numbers you are bandying about are too big for any sane person to grasp, and any unfriendly journalists who might have queried the wisdom of your decisions have all fucked off to the pub. And when, inevitably, the Tories are stuck with the bill for all this borrowing, Broon will sit in his retirement dacha in Fife smiling, because he'll have fucked them and anything they had hoped to do with their term in government. Shame he'll have fucked the rest of us, too.
Labels: Burning our money, Nu Lab
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Just give us your money and shut up
The mind really does boggle.
Days after the High Court ordered the publication of every receipt submitted by MPs, a committee reviewing parliamentary expenses is proposing that they should be able to claim the full £23,000 second-home allowance automatically as an annual “block grant”.
This would end the principle whereby MPs are compensated only for “costs incurred” and give nearly 250 MPs who claim less than £23,000 a substantial tax-free income boost.
MPs are also preparing to reopen the battle over salaries, arguing that it is unfair that they are paid £10,000 less than head teachers and £40,000 less than equivalent roles in the private sector. A report on parliamentary pay commissioned by Gordon Brown should be submitted by the end of next month. Senior MPs on the House of Commons Commission have recommended a salary rise from £61,820 now to about £75,000 after the next general election, expected in 2010.
To my eye, there are two possibilities here. Perhaps our politicians really don't realise how despised they are, as a class; don't understand that the colourful fates dreamed up for them by right-wing bloggers (lampposts and nooses, cockroaches, nailguns, the propellors of DC-3s) are far closer in tone to the way ordinary people talk about them in the pub than the strained apologias of establishment lickspittles like "Sir" Michael White.
Perhaps they don't realise, when they sound off about feral media and whining bloggers, that it is they who must bear the lion's share of blame for the catastrophic breakdown in trust between government and governed. Perhaps there really is a false consciousness at work here, insulating our MPs from the gravity of the situation they have helped to create.
But I think they do realise. I think they know full well that the cork that keeps our anger in is held in place by the rustiest of wires; that the public see their taxes and cost of living rising, inexorably, like a tide of sewage, threatening to overwhelm them at any moment, while at the very same time our political class is demanding a tax-free, audit-free bung to keep their property portfolios ticking over, and people make the fucking connection, because they - we - are not stupid, and can see that we are being taken for a ride by people whose interest in themselves far outweighs their concern for us. They see this, but they go ahead and ask for the money anyway, because they don't give a flying fuck about you, your anger or your problems, and they don't even care if you know it, because their contempt for you is total.
We see, to take an example at random, that Labour MPs didn't give a shit about the abolition of the 10p tax rate when they were ahead in the polls last spring; but fast forward a year, and a 20-point deficit to the Tories, and suddenly - behind a dusty, grubby pane marked "conscience - break glass in emergency only" - a warning light begins to blink. Shit! says our fictional hero - probably a lifelong union hack and party apparatchik turned MP from somewhere in the East Midlands - I didn't realise how serious this was! I'm going to lose my fucking job! And now the panic begins to set in, because he hasn't done an honest day's work in 20 years, and he's not sure if that Diploma in Grief Counselling is going to cut much ice in an edgy job market, and besides have you seen what they're paying public sector workers these days?
Only then does the Hon. Cunty McFuckwipe, our doughty defender of the poor and underprivileged, swing into action - and demand a lump sum, no-questions-asked cash payment to keep his fat, ugly wife supplied with handbags and eclairs which, with a symmetry too exquisite, surely, to be anything but a calculated "fuck you" to the electorate, is almost exactly equivalent to the average wage on which less fortunate individuals must try to struggle by. I repeat for emphasis; this man is asking for an expense account the size of your entire annual paycheck with which to furnish his second home. Oh, and by the way, he wants it tax-free, too.
We see all this, and we do not forget. In a less "civilised" country, these people would have to live behind stockades, with phalanxes of armed guards to protect them from the righteous rage of the poor bloody voter. (What do you mean, have I seen the Palace of Westminster recently?) In a less "developed" nation, our hero would have to make sure no-one knew where his publicly-funded second home actually was, lest a deranged taxpayer get it in their head to sneak into the back garden and see for themselves what £23,000 of John Lewis fixtures and fittings looks like. (What do you mean, they keep this secret, too?) No, thank God we live in a democracy, where we have the constitutional right to dismiss these useless parasites from any further conduct of our affairs without having to resort to Madame Guillotine or her like.
But what does he care, ultimately? Once you've finally seen through him and chucked him out at the next election, he'll have two homes paid for and furnished at your expense, not to mention an index-linked pension and a fat sinecure on the East Midlands Rural Development Agency, and you'll still be fucked. Who's the stupid one now?
They're laughing at us. Can't you hear them?
Labels: Burning our money, Gravy train
Talk about a Damascene coversion...
Long overdue, this:
In 1960 a worker on average unskilled manual earnings paid only eight per cent of his income in tax. By 1970 that had risen to 20 per cent, and it has stayed high ever since. [...] Granting more autonomy and control over individual lives is best done by providing the material means to achieve this emancipation.
And how can tax cuts be funded? By cutting spending.
A welcome statement of the obvious, from... the Labour MP for Rotherham, Denis McShane? Really?
Maybe the Heffers and Daleys of this world are right. If even Labour ex-ministers are talking about cutting taxes and public spending, maybe sanity is beginning to return to our politics.
Let's hope someone shows this to the Leader of the Opposition.
Labels: Burning our money, Nu Lab
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
It's time to face facts, Darling
The Institute of Fiscal Studies have been out and about this morning, pointing out something that I'm surprised hasn't been the object of more critical attention.
Alistair Darling's decision to raise the personal allowance - an excellent idea in itself, of course, but done for totally the wrong reasons - is a one-year-only deal, which means that presumably next April the allowance will fall back again (or at the very least, be frozen). Darling is therefore merely putting off another potential political storm until this time next year.
Robert Chote, the IFS director, said: "By announcing a big one-off increase in the personal tax allowance, Alistair Darling has not only created millions of winners this year: he has created millions of potential losers next year.
"On the evidence of its recent decisions, the government may well be afraid to take their gains away. If public sector borrowing ends up permanently higher as a result, it will further undermine the credibility of the government's management of the public finances and increase the probability of future tax increases or spending cuts, perhaps soon after the next general election."
So having identified the raising of the personal allowance as a quick and simple way to leave people with more money in their pockets in a time of belt-tightening, they are likely to return to the complex and wasteful tax credit scheme to compensate those at the bottom of the pile - though not, of course, before making them jump through plenty of hoops - while ordinary basic rate taxpayers find themselves having yet more money screwed out of them to get the government out of a hole.
Fraser Nelson has described this as the beginning of Labour's "scorched earth policy" - leaving the public finances in a horrendous mess does at least have the benefit of fucking an incoming Tory government good and proper. Surely no-one could be so cynical?... Watch this space.
Labels: Burning our money, Nu Lab
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Raising the personal allowance - now there's an idea!
Belatedly, Darling acts:
I believe that a rebate scheme would be complex and expensive to administer. It would also take time to set up and changes to the eligibility for tax credits could not be introduced this year. [...]
Mr Speaker, raising the personal allowance is simpler than other solutions.
It retains the benefit of a simpler tax system and it also allows basic rate taxpayers to see the benefits as soon as possible, and for the whole of this financial year.
Some of us have been saying this for a decade, you badger-browed bastard. So why do you introduce the "simpler" solution as a short-term panic measure, but retain the "complex and expensive" tax credit scheme in the long run?
If anything, shouldn't it be precisely the other way round?
Labels: Burning our money, Nu Lab
Monday, April 28, 2008
Olympics: "The educational value of good example"
So, that laugh-a-minute Olympic torch relay is still going...
How is it getting around? You guessed it, by plane - an Air China A330 custom painted with the Olympic logo and color scheme. The A330 burns 5.4 gallons of fuel per mile. That translates into 462,400 gallons for the entire trip. With Earthlab estimating that every gallon of jet fuel burned produces 23.88 pounds of CO2, the Olympic Torch Relay is adding about 11 million pounds of carbon to the atmosphere. That's 5,500 tons.
We did some digging around to put that number in perspective, and here's what we came up with: A round trip flight between New York and Los Angeles produces 2.4 tons of C02, driving 12,000 miles in a 2006 Ford Explorer, 7.83 tons. The British Virgin Islands emit 84,000 tons of C02 per year, the European Union 3.1 billion, and the United States 6 billion.
Oh, and "torch" is a slight misnomer:
As in past relays, runners get to keep the torches they carry. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 torches will be needed to complete the Olympic flame's tour.
It's just as well I don't give a shit about carbon footprints, I suppose. Still, we're apparently promising to have a carbon-neutral flame in 2012, which is a relief - though they're careful not to claim that the relay itself will achieve carbon neutrality. If it's as bloated and drawn-out a farce as this year's, it seems unlikely.
I wonder if the principle of carbon neutrality extends to this, too?
Top hotels in the West End have been block-booked for visiting senior officials and bosses of the London organising committee, Locog, are to pay half the bill.
Rooms earmarked for foreign dignitaries included 345 presidential suites at up to £3,000 per night, offered at a 50 per cent discount.
In the biggest block-booking seen by the London hotel industry, 2012 chiefs reserved 1,925 rooms in Park Lane, including the whole of the Dorchester and suites at the Hilton, Metropolitan, Grosvenor House, Four Seasons and Intercontinental.
You could be forgiven for thinking this a mite excessive, particularly if you remember - as if you could forget! - the first principle of Olympism (pdf):
Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.
A good example indeed.
Labels: Burning our money, Hypocrites, Sport
Thursday, April 17, 2008
"Running costs"
One of life's small mercies is the knowledge that, however badly we are governed, there's always someone somewhere who's worse off. Step forward the people of Kenya:
Kenya's expanded new government will spend 80 per cent of the entire national budget on luxury vehicles, inflated salaries for ministers and general running costs, a local anti-corruption group claimed on Wednesday.
Of Kenya's annual budget of £5.4 billion, more than £4.3 billion will go on 93 ministers and their government's general running costs. Only £1.3 billion will be left for roads, schools and hospitals for Kenya's 38 million people.
And I thought our set of bastards were bad. Still, this has a familiar ring:
"It appears as if the government has ceased to have a development function and exists only to tax Kenyans and spend their money on recurring costs," said Mwalimu Mati, the director of the Mars Group, an anti-corruption body.
Join the club, mate.
Labels: Burning our money
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Get Darling Barred - the campaign continues (updated Wednesday lunchtime)
I'm delighted to say that [as of Tuesday afternoon] the Snob's campaign to get Alistair Darling barred from every pub in the land has now crossed over, with today's Edinburgh Evening News covering the story.
News of the first pubs to take action is also now trickling in. Let's just say I wouldn't go to Lewes on my summer hols if I were him.
WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Hitting the big time. A small sidebar in today's super soaraway Scottish Sun: a larger piece planned for the national edition tomorrow, I believe. Matt Wardman has the audio clip from the BBC Radio 4 news and, as you can see above, the BBC website have a big feature on the Scotland pages. The Guardian comes on board, as does the Telegraph.
Licensee website the Morning Advertiser carries the story (and claims credit for starting the campaign). Darling's spokesman is forced to respond, and Al Murray is ruminating over our offer to front the campaign. You've created a monster, Snob...
WEDNESDAY LUNCHTIME UPDATE: We've made it onto PMQs. Cameron uses it as a stick to beat Brown and Darling with. Which is nice. If anyone can stick that up on YouTube that would be even nicer. In the meantime the BBC has PMQs up here (9min in)
And, in a neat demonstration that he needs little excuse to nip down the pub in the middle of the day, Nigel Farage has even taken our little campaign to the heart of Brussels, as this picture illustrates:
In addition, Radio 5 Live will be reporting on the story tonight [Wednesday] at 6:35pm.
I guess the lesson is this: in the age of the internet, you don't need to climb onto the roof of the Palace of Westminster or stand outside Downing Street with a loudhailer to tell your politicians what you think of them. All you need is a free blogging platform and a bit of time. Et voila! Alistair Darling is left in no doubt; everyone thinks he's a dick.
A shame we can't get our media to exhibit similar interest when lives are at stake.
Labels: Burning our money, Campaigns, Nu Lab
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Bloggers of Britain, unite!
My good friend the Reactionary Snob has alerted me to this splendid piece of news:
The landlord of the Easter Road bar and eatery, Utopia, has placed a poster in his window, warning Alistair Darling to keep off the premises.
It shows a noose above Mr Darling's head, with "Barred" above his picture and "Not Welcome In This Pub" below. It is owner James Hughes' personal protest against new duties on beer, wine and spirits in this month's Budget.
The Scotsman's diarist is careful to reassure us that he "does not in any way condone the idea of a necktie party for the Chancellor". Inhabitants of the political blogosphere observe no such proprieties. But, while we wait for the happy day when Darling and his fellow ministers tapdance on air in front of cheering crowds of drunken revellers on St Stephen's Green, we can at least take some small steps towards restricting their freedoms as they are so keen to restrict ours.
And so a meme is born. Bloggers of Britain, rise up and petition your local watering hole! Most of you are alcoholics like me, and will doubtless be on first name terms with the manager. Persuade them to put up "Not Welcome" posters in their window. Let every bar, pub and drinking den become a no-go area for this badger-browed bastard. Let bouncers be issued with mugshots and service refused from Penzance to Peterhead. Even Gorbachev never succeeded in his war on booze.
If you live in Westminster or Morningside we particularly want to hear from you. Send in your photos!
UPDATE: DK has created a splendid graphic. Click on it and you will bring up an A4 version which you can press into the hands of a willing publican. Print off and do likewise...
Labels: Burning our money, Memes, Nanny state, Nu Lab
Friday, March 14, 2008
If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear
A shaft of light:
Detailed expenses claims of all MPs dating back to 2004 look set to be published, the BBC has learned. [...]
Total figures claimed per year are already published, but Commons authorities had resisted giving detailed breakdowns, arguing they could intrude on MPs' privacy.
I must remember this. I shall ask my boss for £100 to buy "essential office supplies", and when he asks for the receipt, I shall argue that to provide one would "intrude on my privacy". I'll let you know how I get on.
But last month it lost a Freedom of Information case and was told to publish details of claims by 14 prominent MPs, including Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Conservative leader David Cameron and former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell, including receipts and bills where they exist.
That "where they exist" is a delightful touch. Given that the level of financial documentation required of our leaders would shame the stallholders of a Marrakesh souk, I wouldn't expect much in the way of receipts.
The BBC has learned that Commons authorities have been advised there are no legal grounds to appeal against the information tribunal's decision.
It is likely they will be flooded with Freedom of Information requests for details of other MPs' claims and it is understood that senior MPs from all sides believe it would be better to publish all claims by the end of the year.
So, having fought tooth and nail to keep these details of their lifestyles out of the hands of those who fund them, they are finally relenting, on the "pulling off the bandage in one movement" principle.
As ever with these people, though, there's a sting in the tail:
In return MPs are likely to demand higher salaries or a £160-a-day allowance.
I feel the anger rising in my gut now. Finally a thin, watery shaft of light intrudes on the murky world of MP's expenses: finally we poor mugs - we that pay for these fuckers - will be allowed to peep in and see what our hard-earned cash is being blown on. In the glare of the floodlights, they are being forced to raise their snouts from the trough, however briefly; MPs expense claims under the new transparent regime will surely be lower, now they know we can see them gorging themselves. Even pigs have a rudimentary sense of shame. But, in return, we must up the flow of swill that these greedy cunts can consume through other avenues, unreceipted and undocumented and out of the glare of public scrutiny.
No, fuck you. It is I who will make the demands of you, not the other way round. If I am to pay for your coffee machines and your whirlpool baths, then I absolutely fucking demand to see a receipt. And I fucking know you have one, so cough it up. You will not get a no-questions-asked per diem, and you will not get more money; since you have outsourced most of your legislative functions to Brussels anyway, we should be paying you less in any case.
That they treat the British public as a cash cow for their stupid government schemes is bad enough; expecting us to keep their wives in upholstered deep-pile luxury, and put their sons and daughters through university via non-existent jobs funded through the public payroll, is worse; and demanding that we stop asking awkward questions simply shows them up for the grasping scumbags they are.
DK notes that the John Lewis list does not seem to contain allowances for either ropes or gibbets. Very well; we shall have to supply them ourselves.
Labels: Abuse, Burning our money, Gravy train, Hypocrites, Liars, Scumbags, Sleazebags
The "John Lewis" list
The "John Lewis list" was released under the Freedom of Information Act after weeks of pressure.
The list of allowances is used by finance officials to pass or reject MPs' expenses claims for decorating their second homes and buying household items. If the House of Commons had not released the information by Monday, it would have been in breach of the Freedom of Information Act. [...]
MPs can claim for items on the list under the £22,000-a-year additional costs allowance for maintaining a second home in London near to Parliament in addition to their constituency residence. [source]
This is one of those moments when mere abuse is inadequate. I reproduce the list, therefore, without further comment. Remember: you have paid, and continue to pay, for all of these items.
This is the "John Lewis list" of claims MPs can make:
New kitchen - £10,000
New bathroom - £6,335
Suite of furniture - £2,000
Bed - £1,000
Sideboard - £795
Television set - £750
Hi-fi/stereo - £750
Wardrobe - £700
Gas cooker - £650
Dining table - £600
Fridge/freezer combi - £550
Bookcase/cabinet - £500
Drawer chest (5) - £500
Dressing table - £500
Washer dryer - £500
Dishwasher - £375
Washing machine - £350
Rugs - £300
Free-standing mirror - £300
Air conditioning - £299.99
Recordable DVD - £270
Tumble dryer - £250
Coffee table - £250
Food mixer - £200
Book case/shelf - £200
Nest of tables - £200
Lamp table - £200
Dining armchairs - £150 each
Workstation - £150
Coffee maker/machine - £100
Bedside cabinet - £100
Dining chairs - £90 each
Shredder - £50 [a nice touch, this - E]
Carpets (sq m) - £35
Underlay (sq m) - £6.99
Carpet fitting (sq m) - £6.50
Labels: Burning our money, Gravy train
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The Moonshine Chancellor
This is rather curious.
The Chancellor was at the centre of a Budget storm last night, as it emerged that his plan for a huge rise in whisky duty may not raise a single penny for the Treasury.
Despite adding 59p to a bottle of Scotch, Alistair Darling's own figures reveal falling sales will cancel out any gain.
Treasury figures show the package of levies Mr Darling slapped on alcohol will raise an extra £400 million in the year from April. Some £300 million will come from the 14p on a bottle of wine, while £100 million will be generated by 4p on a pint of beer and 3p on a litre bottle of cider. But the tax take from spirits, including whisky, will remain unchanged at £2.3 billion.
The Scotsman's rather tabloid "not a single penny" is a wild exaggeration - after all, there are a lot of pennies between £2.3 billion and £2.4bn - but, sure enough, look at the official Budget report and there it is (PDF, p187): £2.3bn for 2006-7, and £2.3bn estimated from both this year and next. So Darling is planning to fuck the whisky industry but doesn't expect to get more than loose change in return.
The blustering response of the "Treasury spokesman" was one to savour, too:
"We are dealing in billions here," he said. "Figures are being lost in the roundings. But we don't have anything more specific right now – these are all estimates."
It would be hard to encapsulate this government's approach to public spending any more succinctly.
Labels: Burning our money
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Liveblogging the Budget
13:26 Right, I'm never doing that again. Time for a cup of coffee, a nap, then another cup of coffee. After all, I can't afford a drink any more. 55p on a bottle of this stuff? That's cultural vandalism.
13:23
"A Government review concludes that motorists could save money on fuel bills by buying smaller cars"
Well, fuck me.
13:21 Politicalbetting.com were discussing yesterday what the buzzwords for Darling's Budget would be. The clear winner so far - at least of that portion that I have been awake for - is "1997". A sign of how bad things are, I'd say - like that bit after a rapid flurry of wickets where the cricket commentators start recalling England's lowest ever one-day scores.
13:16 This, from Conservative Home, is a joy:
1.10pm: Will investigate how Britain can move to an era where long-term fixed term mortgages are the norm.
Meanwhile, Mr Eugenides will "investigate how he can move to an era" where regular poontang is the norm. Equally fucking meaningless.
13:11 Government is going to set up a fund "to encourage female entrepreneurs". Why not just pay Cadbury to install chocolate machines in every office?
13:07 "By 2011, every school will be an improving school." Every single one? What?
What's in that tumbler, anyway?
13:04 "The focus for the next decade on the NHS will be creating world class services." What the fuck have you been doing with our £90bn a year for the last decade, then, you cunts? God, I hate these people.
12:58 This man is ridiculous-looking. I bet there won't be a tax on Grecian 2000. And what is it with the fucking eyebrows? Time to dust off the old Rogue's Gallery:
12:54 Awake to find head slumped on keyboard, space bar drenched in drool. Liveblog continues.
12:31 Priorities for government are stability in a turbulent world economic cli/ 6sopdgh po8ghpsdg8po
12:30 Alistair Darling stands up and begins his first budget.
Labels: Burning our money, Nu Lab
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Common sense quote of the day (updated)
[Originally posted Monday morning]
The "Business and Enterprise" Secretary, John Hutton:
"Aspiration and ambition were natural human emotions - not the perverted side effect of primitive capitalism. Rather than questioning whether huge salaries are morally justified, we should celebrate the fact that people can be enormously successful in this country. Rather than placing a cap on that success, we should be questioning why it is not available to more people.
Our overarching goal that no one should get left behind must not become translated into a stultifying sense that no one should be allowed to get ahead... any progressive party worth its name must enthusiastically advocate empowering people to climb without limits, free from any barrier holding them back."
As a general rule of thumb, the more commonsensical the statement, the louder the howls of rage from the Labour dinosaurs. By that measure, the roars in the Guardian offices will be deafening this morning. Expect Neal Lawson and Polly Toynbee to be sharpening their pens as we speak.
TUESDAY MORNING UPDATE: Didn't take long, did it? Neal and Polly, right on cue.
Labels: Burning our money, Nu Lab
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
A matter of perspective
On the BBC's plans to spend £25m setting up an Arabic channel to compete with Al-Jazeera, among others:
[Abdel] Bari Atwan, the editor of the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Quds, said he feared the channel could become a "mouthpiece" for the British Government.
"Look at the BBC coverage during the Iraq war. It was a disaster. Nothing more than propaganda for Tony Blair's Government," he said.
You what?
Labels: Burning our money, Idiotarians, Middle East mayhem
Monday, March 03, 2008
What a difference a few months make
Iain Dale lays into the UK Libertarian Party today for their suggestion that income tax could be completely abolished whilst still leaving more money for the government to spend than was contained in the budget for 2001/02 - a policy which I may immodestly claim to have inspired in an email to Devil's Kitchen a year or so ago.
Here's Iain's rather sniffy response:
I am sure we can't wait. I am all in favour of low taxes, but let's deal with reality here, shall we? We can all play fantasy politics, but in the end if you're serious about politics these sort of indulgences can't really form part of the debate.
Which is a wee bit disingenuous. Because here was Iain's response when DK last mentioned it on his blog, five months ago:
I'm a bit slow off the mark with this, but I have just read the most fascinating post on tax by Devil's Kitchen. He calculates that if we went back to 2002-3 spending levels we could in fact abolish income tax completely. Now there's a thought. Memo to George...
Of course, back then it was only a blog post, not a policy from a nascent political party that might one day potentially siphon off Conservative votes.
Labels: Burning our money, Random observations, Tories
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Spending unnecessary pennies
What fresh lunacy is this?
The desperate dash to find a public loo on Britain's high streets could be eased with a plan to pay businesses to open their toilets to non-customers.
Pubs and restaurants across the UK will be encouraged to open their toilets in exchange for as much as £600 a year.
The government is expected to urge local councils to adopt the scheme in order to address a national shortage.
But the British Toilet Association said the idea is only part of the answer to a problem plaguing the nation. Richard Chisnell, director of the association, said the review of the public toilet situation by the Department for Communities and Local Government is supposed to be released early next month.
Mr Chisnell said he worries that the DCLG is not being forceful enough when it comes to pushing local authorities to fulfil a "moral duty" to offer clean, accessible toilets to members of the public.
This really is extraordinary. These are the priorities in the Age of Change? Paying businesses out of public funds to let you take a dump? I mean, what?
Here's a suggestion. If you're passing through Edinburgh any time soon, drop me an email. For a tenner, I'll give you Alistair Darling's address, and if you're caught short on the way home from the pub, you can piss through his letterbox. He pisses money up against the wall every day, so he's unlikely to mind.
In fact, instead of bribing private businesses with my fucking cash, I have a better idea. If local councils are really so concerned about the lack of toilet facilities in our towns and cities, they should fucking step up to the plate themselves. Why don't we require councillors to open their homes to anyone with a full bladder? Let every MP's constituency office be fitted with swing doors to welcome emergency urinators 24/7; let the foyer of every government building be equipped with hand dryers and pot pourri for the convenience of passing punters. Let a thousand pissoirs bloom.
This is your tax money at work, people. And they are now quite literally flushing it down the toilet. As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the head of the British Toilet Association, I seem to see the River Thames foaming with much piss...
Labels: Burning our money, Nu Lab
Thursday, February 21, 2008
A great reckoning in a little and secret room
A secret European Parliament report has uncovered "extensive, widespread and criminal abuse" by Euro-MPs of staff allowances worth almost £100 million a year.
Senior Euro-MPs and European Union officials have tried to hush up an internal audit that found severe problems and endemic misuse of funds worth at least £98.4 million a year, more than £125,000 for each of the 785 Euro-MPs.
No, not the revelation that MEPs have their snouts in the trough - not exactly a fucking shock - but rather the lengths to which our European masters will go to ensure we do not find out the full extent of the graft at the heart of Brussels:
Only Euro-MPs on the parliament's budget control committee are allowed to see the report.
To do so, they must apply to enter a "secret room", protected by biometric locks and security guards. They may not take notes and must sign a confidentiality agreement.
Short of recruiting Ving Rhames and Tom Cruise to abseil into the "secret room" and hack into the mainframe, it's hard to see how we're ever going to be permitted to read the report for ourselves. And you may be fairly sure that the membership of the budgetary control committee is itself carefully controlled. In fact - let's face it - it's probably the only thing that is.
But relax; we needn't worry.
Herbert Boesch, an Austrian socialist in charge of the budgetary control committee, played down the report.
The seriousness with which the European Parliament takes budgetary control may be gauged by their decision to put a socialist in charge.
He said it was an "internal audit" that under parliament's rules is not permitted to be made public and that he is not even supposed to comment on it.
Herr Boesch's reasoning is a small masterpiece of obscurantism:
"I suspect that there is not one suspicion of fraud because then the document would have to be, following the rules, immediately sent to OLAF [the EU's anti-fraud office]."
In other words, if there were widespread fraud we'd be investigating it. But we're not investigating it, so obviously there's no fraud.
Stands to reason, really, doesn't it?
Labels: Burning our money, Euroweenies, Sleazebags
Monday, February 04, 2008
Enforcement of Scotland's smoking ban could be put at risk by a new local authority funding deal, environmental health officers have claimed.
The Scottish Government is ending ring-fenced funding as part of a deal with councils. The body representing environmental health officers said some local authorities might remove funding for enforcing the smoking ban. [source]
God forbid.
Labels: Burning our money, Nanny state, Scotland
