Sunday, April 3, 2011

Osborne's Insane Gambles Are NOT Working!

Osborne Cannot Even Add Up
Repeatedly Gets his Sums wrong
I disagree with most things this supposed "coalition" government  are trying to do, will do and have done it is totally bewildering, chaotic and confusing.  I am a child of the 60's and am not in the least antipathetic to change and progress.  I have seen much change some of it good, some very good and some excellent, but a lot of change has also been bad and detrimental to people and their lives, it has hurt and often caused confusion and deep anxiety and in some cases has put innocent law abiding citizens in prison simply for having no money, I cite former Conservative pm Margaret Thatcher's fatal poll tax as a prime example of how government can seriously damage the people. However, even for allowing for the fated poll tax,  I have never witnessed such radical change being carried out like this and in such an extensive and reckless way. We are currently witnessing ideological change that will end up suiting no one except the self-aggrandisement of those in power who are inflicting it, who in this case happens to be David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg and the rest of the Tory-led government.

Most things this government say and do should carry some sort of warning - Buyer beware; Grave risks attached; Purchase at your own peril; Sold as seen, in fact this Tory government should carry a serious physical and mental health warning. I could go on to list but this time I will resist the temptation to tell you in detail about the serious harm this government is about to inflict upon the disabled, chronically sick, the young, the elderly, and the unemployed etc. See my roll of Conservative Broken Promises for some kind of idea what the ordinary person in Britain today is up against. To read the shocking truth about how this Tory government are a brutally attacking  the rights of disabled people read Diary of a Benefit Scrounger.

Everything it appears that this Tory-led government are doing carries serious risks and is a reckless gamble with our lives and livelihoods. They are driving a coach and horses through peoples "lounges" and lives with absolutely no regard for the distress, pain and damage they are inflicting. If anyone gets in their way either by accident or design they simply try to bull-doze them or bully them into submission. We are currently being led by a prime minister without a conscience, a grossly inept man struggling with his competence and brief as  prime minister of Britain, he so wanted this job, he lusted after it but when somehow he managed to get it he has turned out to be totally unfit for the post and high office . David Cameron is a man who is clearly out of his depth and his comfort zone and is systematically incapable of answering questions if he has not first been supplied with the answers. The question of exactly how competent David Cameron is, is beginning to reverberate, not only in the "corridors of power" but in the country as a whole. I now believe that it has reached the stage where it could have a long-term impact on him and the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats, as well as the coalition as a whole, but more importantly the ordinary people of this country.

Cameron is constantly struggling to answer questions and appears unable to work extemporaneously, this is a failing of some magnitude for someone in Cameron's position and already people have begun to notice, the whispering campaign has started and there are dark and worried "mutterings" from local newsagents who are put out about how much less people are spending in their shops, right through to the City where there are increasing jitters about Cameron's competence and Osborne's [in]abilities.

It is impossible to include each and every risk, gamble and failing of this government, who seem to u-turn at the drop of a hat and then when the fuss dies down, they try to u-turn on their u turns, it really is quite extraordinary. Currently they performed a u-turn over the sale of forests and now last week it starts trickling through that the Government may still go ahead with plans to get rid 15 per cent of UK woodland - the maximum allowed without changing the current rules! This government is proving to be undemocratic and profoundly duplicitous, whatever it says and promises to the contrary it remains insistent on getting its own way, even if that way is deeply flawed and seriously problematic.

The NHS, welfare, the police, defence, the economy, unemployment, education, university funding, social housing, housing benefit, not to mention we are due to vote on the AV referendum that most people do not want and could not care-less about to the tune of £100 million, and are now being forced into yet another war costing us upwards of approximately £50 million per day and this government has not been in power for a year yet!

The Government are attempting to carry out massive reforms in every department vital for the welfare, safety and health of our people, they tell us we have no money, yet the chancellor borrowed £10 billion to loan to Ireland (which we will never get back) Osborne appears to be creating a little "toxic debt pool" of his very own, knowingly borrowing money for a third party that he knows they will never be able to repay. This Government are spending millions per day interfering in another country's civil war, wasting a £100 million on a referendum and on top of it all the prime minister David Cameron has commissioned a report costing further millions where we are all to be asked how happy we are!

We are told that ministers are working on watering down their promises to wipe out child poverty, it beggars belief because this Government are actually in the process of increasing child poverty (and old age poverty). The UK Conservative government have actually become the cause of the problem and are making plans to get out of solving.  A new law says child poverty in this country must be eliminated by 2020, but instead Barnardo's say it will rise! The government's excuse for this beginning to sound like a stock response to everything they are challenged over "we are changing the system so it will be easier to target those in need of help". This Government are doing too much of changing the system, they are changing the system on everything, whether it needs changing or not! They would have us believe they are doing it for the greater good, but are they? How does it help already greatly disadvantaged children to be impoverished more by their very own government?
From the 1st January this year, the Government abolished the child trust fund ISA savings account (Child Trust Fund) for every child in the UK. The CTF accounts matured as young people turned 18 and the loss of this nest egg was a particularly painful blow for those children in the care system.

The Government has saved £500 million pounds per year by abolishing the child trust fund ISA and have instead replaced it with a voluntary ISA scheme for parents to pay into if they wish. For the majority of children in care who have little or no contact with their parents, they are likely to receive nothing. Yet this is the government that wants to empower people to stand on their own two feet? If this is so it would be a good idea if they stopped kicking out the legs attached to those feet, because without help children in our care system who already have next to nothing thanks to the Tories will now have even less.

This Government are inflicting cuts that will have a savage impact on homelessness. The Tories and the Lib Dems are starting off a whole chain of events that will see thousands of people pushed out onto the streets where they will have no choice but to sleep rough, having done this Westminster Tory council has decided to fine people that operate soup runs for rough sleepers in their borough. Conservative-controlled Westminster council is to outlaw charity-led "soup runs" for homeless people at the same time as fresh evidence has emerged that spending cuts will have a savage impact on services around the UK aimed at keeping homeless people off the streets.

We have a Government that is totally incapable of understanding that their actions have consequences, if they scrap one policy, scrap one law or change it, or take away red tape, they find they either have to fill the gap with even more regulation or they simply ignore the problems they have caused and hope they will go away appearing completely incapable of understanding the knock on domino effect of their very own actions.

How can a government that almost every day proves itself incapable, be allowed to endanger the safety and well-being of the British people? Not only is it showing an inability to govern, this government is displaying breathtaking arrogance, if it is not David Cameron at the dispatch box being rude, arrogant and disrespectful towards others, it is one of his key cabinet advisers Oliver Letwin sneering that the people of Sheffield should not go on holiday by saying; "we don't want more people of Sheffield flying away on cheap holidays", the insult came in a row between Letwin and London Mayor Boris Johnson over the building of new airports. Once again showing the complete disarray and chaotic cabinet splits over another major government policy. Letwin thinks people from Sheffield are from the lower classes and they should not have the chance to take cheap holidays. This is not a smear released by a Labour spin doctor, it was revealed by the Conservative London Mayor, Boris Johnson. It is ministers who think like this who are slashing the incomes of half a million people on sickness benefit.

Each time the prime minister turns up at the dispatch box he acts like he is doing us and the House a big favour and he is barely able to disguise his contempt at being there and being forced to answer questions about his government's actions and effects of those actions. He was annoyed last week because he was dragged away from playing war games with his new bestest friend President Sarkozy, I heard the two of them watched the PMs favourite film "Where Eagles Dare", making it about the 20th time Cameron has watched it, in English of course as Cameron cannot speak French like his alter-ego Tony Blair.

How will the country fair under this Tory regime of hatred for us and hatred of anyone they deem as weaker and insignificant than they? How are we going to stop this certifiably insane government privatising the NHS, privatising education, putting university education out of the reach of us "lower classes", totally gutting welfare forcing  sick people off of the register and back to work to find jobs that simply do not exist? How do we cope with the fact that this government are taking great delight in bullying and scaring genuinely disabled people, taking their DLA away from, taking their ILA away from them forcing them to lose what little independence they had? Not mentioning the fact that they are also taking away the mobility component from people who reside in homes, which means in many cases they are taking their motorised scooters and electric wheelchairs away from them. What do we do about this government's insistence on making youngsters and whole families homeless by taking away their  housing benefits? Or cutting funding to the hostels that housing vulnerable youngsters? Is it too much to ask this government to slow down the pace and depth of these cuts because all the evidence is pointing to the fact that they are making the economy worse? Do they not understand that everyone of those jobs lost since the Tories came to power is like a wrecking ball crashing its way through the lives of individuals and families? Do they not "get it" that the Tories brutal cuts are killing off our high streets as consumer confidence reaches and all time low with record job losses, growing job insecurity,  record food and fuel costs, soaring utility bills, rising inflation and plunging standards of living are all causing a record low in consumer confidence. sales in the high street and in corner shops in villages alike are being hit hard by families reigning in thier spending as they struggle to cope with all of this as well as government cuts and frozen wages. The retail sector has fallen off a cliff since January. M&S, John Lewis, Argos, Dixons, Laura Ashley, Mothercare are all expected this week to show a drop in profits. Strangely enough, these shops are amongst those who signed up to the Tories misleading round robin letter over national insurance contributions during last year's general election. When the Tories promised that they would not impose a NICs rise, what they did not say however was that they would not impose it for their mates the Tory financial backers who signed the letter, they have however raised national insurance for workers, which in turn along with being clobbered by all of the above AND the rise in VAT, will further dent their pockets and their ability to spend in the shops, just when we need it the most.

Latest figures show that a record one on seven shops are standing empty with a further 10.000 due to close their doors this year!

This ladies and gentlemen is George Osborne economics at work!

Osborne has already damaged the British economy more than any chancellor in living memory and he has only been in the job 11 months! His budget 2 weeks ago which Cameron billed would be the "most pro-growth for a generation - wasn't" in fact the chancellor opened up the budget debate by actually downgrading growth. The Nationwide Consumer Confidence Index is now even lower than it was in 2009 at the depths of the banking crisis credit crunch and the deepest global recession since the 1930's. In addition to all of this real household income fell by 0.5% last year, which is the worst reading in 20 years, all the signs are that consumers are feeling the pinch right now and this is even before the real cuts start to bite. What is even more worrying is that besides all of this dreadful economic news, manufacturing has showed a sharp slowdown in the new order of growth. while mortgage defaults also rose more than expected last week.  Remember that manufacturing is where George Osborne is taking the unprecedented gamble with our economy, livelihoods and children's futures. He (Osborne) has gambled on manufacturing growing at an unprecedented speed and outstripping all growth records before it to help the UK out of this economic gloom, now manufacturers are saying they can no longer absorb the rising costs of fuel, gas and electric and raw materials etc, and that they will have to pass this rise on to the customer, this will inevitably lead to fewer orders and less inward investment into the UK.
So perhaps the chancellor will now tell us where all of these private sector jobs which are to take up the numbers this Tory government are throwing out of their public sector jobs are going to come from?

All this and a collapse of spending on the high street is inevitable going to push the UK back into recession, it is now not a case of 'if' but 'when' and this is what you get when you hire business leaders to advise on how to run a country. By comparison the States which is by and large following the Gordon Brown model is slowly climbing out of recovery, their unemployment is falling, manufacturing increasing etc, just like Britain's was when the Tories took over from Labour last year, unemployment falling, inflation low, growth accelerating and consumer confidence rising, now unemployment and inflation are rising and growth is negative. I hope all those Tory backing business leaders that did much to persuade the people of this country to vote out the only chance we had of full economic recovery realise what they have done, not only to themselves but to all the people who work for them.

How much more proof of Osborne's gambles are not winning do people need before we stick together and insist this feckless and criminally reckless government calls a general election? How long before the Liberal Democrats stop messing about and stop propping this government up because what they are doing now is NOT helping the country, it is not working and if they really do want to help this country and the people they need to pull out of this coalition now. Osborne keeps gambling, betting with our money and our livelihoods but he is not winning. how are we supposed to have faith in a chancellor that cannot add up, that tries three times to guess the price of fuel and his very own tax take and fails? This chancellor has now managed to alienate the oil industry who are now threatening to halt further investment, simply because Osborne did not bother to consult with them BEFORE he made up policy on the hoof, when he was panicking over his budget. So much for the party of business.

The Tories Are NOT Working!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think you speak for the majority of the country especially when you talk about causing deep anxiety

Take those who are sick and disabled on housing benefit they could find themselves being kicked out of their home if they cant come up with the shortfall in their benefits

It is not right at all that for the first time in years all vulnerable across the country at this time are worrying about their future what sort of society is that

David Cameron has said many times you'll be OK but the message coming out is I'm going to attack you and finish you off hence everyone is worrying some may say needlessly but none the less worry they will