What's The Difference Between Ed Miliband and David Cameron? One man does things for the greater good, the other does things for his own good.
Apparently for some years now Ed Miliband like so many other caring people has given up part of his Christmas day to deliver meals to others less fortunate, Mr Miliband's office would not confirm this or confirm where he helped this Christmas day because at Ed's request he doesn't want camera's following him.
Can you imagine Ed Miliband's spin doctors? As the report says, they are probably saying if there's no publicity in it then what's the use, stay home with the family. However, here lies the real reason why Ed Miliband does what he does, he does it because he genuinely wants to help, he genuinely wants to talk to other people, he genuinely wants their opinions good or bad, he needs to now what ordinary people think and want to make their lives better.
The very fact that Ed Miliband has done this for years without publicity shows us the calibre of the man. While others have knocked him, tried to ridicule him, accused him of being out of touch, of being a rich boy and accused him of being 'Tory lite', Ed Miliband has been doing things like this. I guess Ed is what is termed as a 'doer' and the rest are mainly armchair preachers.
Visiting ordinary people on Christmas Day without fanfare, is not all he has done, I read somewhere that Ed Miliband has also visited small businesses, shops, factories, market stall holders etc unannounced without cameras so people can feel free to say what they really think and feel.
Miliband is not frightened of confrontation either, when it happens he doesn't hide it or from it, even if it is on camera, like so many other issues that come with him being Labour leader, he deals with it head on, we may not like what he decides, or agree with some of the ways he wants to develop Labour policy, but what cannot be denied is his strength, his honesty and his integrity and what is obviously his burning desire to unite the people of this country and give a voice back to the ordinary person who has felt for some years that they have been ignored by politicians.
We have seen Ed Miliband on many unannounced walkabouts, in streets, markets, shopping centres etc. We have seen the impromptu pallets whipped out and him stand in the middle and talk to passers by, we have seen him talk to those in watchers who are hostile to him and even though he may not have won them round, what he does, is something he is really good at, he talks *to* people and not at them and he allows them their say and he answers them honestly, no political flannel!
The prime minister, David Cameron by contrast never answers a single question in PMQs and if he ever bothers to speak to the public at all, it is all stage managed scripted questions which he has been supplied the scripted answers by his researchers, nothing at all comes from Cameron. We see him visit factories or supermarkets or schools and everything even the questions, are arranged before hand. The workers are always placed strategically behind him so the cameras can pick them up. But we never know what those workers actually think, we only know what those who are cherry-picked for presentation to Cameron think and what is the use of that? And the factories are always companies belonging to Tory donors, like Warburtons and JCB and Cameron always manages to get them loads of free advertising by having their logos in shot. Everything Cameron does is contrived to benefit him and the Tory party.
Even after three and half years we don't know what Cameron is, what he stands for or what he really wants to do, except he revels in the glory of being PM and revels in publicity. We know that his opinions are like Tory policy, they change with the way the political wind is blowing. If Cameron ever does slip off message it is usually to put his foot in it, he doesn't know history as his knowledge of when the Americans entered WW2 showed us. He is gaff prone and cannot do detail, his intellect is simply not up to the job. He insults people, he attacks immigrants and loves being shown and heard attacking the poor and unemployed inferring that they are all 'shirkers', idlers' scroungers' or 'benefit cheats' and the disabled are all 'swinging the lead', because he and Lynton Crosby thinks there are cheap and nasty votes to be won in this area, so he thinks nothing of appealing to some narrow minded peoples base instincts.
Whatever David Cameron does he makes sure he passes the buck to Labour, even for his own mistakes, he never excepts responsibility for anything he and his government have caused, like the appalling surge in poverty, the numbers of food banks, the fact that food banks have been forced to step in a feed over half million people these past few months and he will ensure the entire press pack and the broadcast media in tow to hear him trying to pass the buck for his own vicious and often incompetent government policies. He only grins when he's winning too For example: Last summer when the England cricket team were taking part in the Ashes test match with Australia and were winning, you couldn't keep Cameron off of TV, up he popped on every news channel and in every paper associating himself with a winning side, this time when the England team could do with a few words of encouragement because they are losing, David Cameron is nowhere to be seen. Cameron only grins when England is winning, otherwise they don't exist and it is the same with us ordinary folk, the only time that Cameron has time for us is when the election is approaching and he needs out votes and then we will not be able to get rid of him. Ed Miliband on the hand has proved he is friend in need, so is a friend in deed, he is there in the good and the bad times, not just after your vote, (although of course he does want this) he is after what you think, what you want and how you see things. Another example of this was when Ed Miliband went to Brixton to attend a ceremony for Nelson Mandela, there were no TV cameras present, just Ed Miliband wishing to pay his respects with the ordinary people of Brixton - where was the prime minister? At home; he had already got his publicity by taking a selfie at the memorial service of Nelson Mandela with the Dutch leader and president Obama, so he wasn't interested in what the ordinary folk of Brixton were doing to commemorate the passing of Nelson Mandela and I believe the sentiments that Cameron expressed over the passing of Mandela and his life were entirely false.
Number 10 had also made sure that Ed Miliband was sidelined when he attended the memorial service in South Africa. It was up to the Foreign Office and Number 10 to have made sure that the importance of Ed Miliband's presence as leader of the Labour opposition was known to the organisers of the event, after all Nelson Mandela and the Labour party have a very long history. It was the Labour party who stood with Mandela in his long fight against apartheid. While some in the Conservative party were calling for the hanging of Nelson Mandela, and David Cameron was on an all expense paid jolly to the white supremacist South Africa (for which he has never expressed contrition), it was the Labour party who stood resolutely by Nelson Mandela and worked for his freedom. Cameron knew this but Cameron also recognised he could get himself seen on the world's stage and that was more important to him than Nelson Mandela or his family. Nelson Mandela has also been a guest at the Labour party conference yet all of this seems to have been forgotten, this was a disgraceful act by the prime minister's spin doctors and office, yet the decorum of Ed Miliband as a true statesman and a true friend of South Africa towers head and shoulders above David Cameron and his publicity seeking antics.
Some accuse Miliband of being public schooled/privately educated - he wasn't. Ed Miliband went to a state primary school and a state comprehensive school and he got to Oxford university under his own merits.
This last year we have started to see the real Ed Miliband. He has stood up and spoken out against bankers and has also repeatedly said we must change the way we do business as a country, even though he knows it makes him unpopular with the Tory business owning establishment and the financial houses.
He forced David Cameron to stop dithering about phone hacking he backed Cameron into a corner and gave him no option but to hold an inquiry. and hold an inquiry and the result those badly affected by phone hacking. like the family of murdered Milly Dowler were able to get some kind of justice for the trauma they have been forced to undergo at the hands of the Murdoch press.
Ed has also stood up to Cameron, Hague and Obama over Syria and prevented the bombing of Syria and because of that Syria is now decommissioning chemical weapons.
He has stood up to the Murdoch press. He has also stood up to the Daily Mail and Dacre. He has stood up to the vested interests of the energy companies and loan sharks, he has promised to repeal the NHS, the bedroom tax. In fact Ed Miliband has been setting the political agenda this past year.
This is the calibre of the Labour leader and far from it not being recognised by the Tories and their right wing press tycoon friends (who have a vested interest in Cameron being reelected), they recognise Miliband's qualities only too well and they are doing their best to make sure that the public do not see them, it's why they tell lies about him, deliberately misrepresent him and deliberately misquote him. They know that if the public get wind of the fact that irrespective of whether they agree with everything Ed Miliband does or not, that he is decent, honest and more intellectually capable of running this country that the entire current government put together that it will spell enormous trouble for them, so they do their best to ensure the public is not informed or is misinformed and they use their Tory friends in the right wing media and broadcast media to do this.
At first the Tories underestimated Ed Miliband badly, however, their spin doctor in chief (and lobbyist of everything bad) Lynton Crosby has not made that mistake he knows that Miliband represents a huge threat to Cameron, which is why 2014 and up until the general election in 2015, the Tories will play not just dirty politics, they will employ filthy dirty sewer rat infested politics.
Ed Miliband may have breached one of the biggest unwritten rules in modern politics "if you do good things let people know", but to me this just clearly shows that at last we have a decent, honest caring man who wants to lead our country and is more than intellectually capable too, we should not pass this chance up.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Monday, December 16, 2013
Tories Casting Around For More Benefit Cuts to Fund Another Millionaire's Tax Cut!
Conservative expense 'fiddler' Nadhim Zahawi the MP for Stratford-on-Avon wants child benefit stopped for people who have more than two children.
Millionaire MP Mr Zahawi was recently discovered charging the taxpayer almost £6000 per year to heat his 20 horse stables and to heat his stable manager's mobile home. He claimed it was a mistake, however, if an ordinary person was to make a 'mistake' like this, they would be splashed across the Sun, Mail and Express, be held up as 'typical' of the working class 'plebs' referred to as 'idlers' shirkers' and 'scroungers' and hounded to within and inch of their lives and would certainly face prosecution and prison. But if you are the millionaire Tory MP close friend of PM David Cameron you get to get away with your 'indiscretion', in much the same way that Liberal Democrat MP David Laws did when he was discovered fiddling over £50,000 housing allowances, he got a slapped wrist and given a week off. Mr Laws has now been brought back into the government and rewarded for his little 'indiscretion'.
The Family Allowance Act 1945 was an Act of parliament and part of the Beveridge Report in 1942 that came into operation in August 1946, it was the first law to provide child benefit to help with raising children in the UK.
There could be a debate to be had about why anyone should be in receipt of child benefit at all in this day and age, if all people were paid a proper rate for their job and paid so they could actually support their families, there may be a case for paying out less in these kind of benefits, but as I suspect that this would force the Tories benefactors, the big companies, the corporations, the energy conglomerates and the nationals and multi nationals and the bankers who donate millions to the Tory party to pay YOU a decent wage, I suspect that this is a debate that the Tory controlled coalition government would not like to have, because it may expose the appalling anomalies that are hidden within our system, anomalies which are there to keep the poor downtrodden and in their place and ready to do any old menial work and be made to be grateful for it! Face it we are becoming cheap labour fodder. 'Social mobility'? What social mobility? It's all Tory talk.
If child benefit is to be stopped for those who have more than two children, then why does Zahawi and Cameron think it should start with the poorest in society? How would making a poor family even poorer help? How would taking money from someone who had a good job and could well afford their three children and then became unemployed through no fault of their own actually help? or are we going to go down the road of social engineering?
The truth is of course it won't help because the odious Zahawi admits that this wouldn't be done to help anyone - except for the Conservative party. Zahawi is charged with coming up with policy that will attract voters to the Tory party and this is a naked and blatant attempt to buy the 'nasty vote' for the Tories, it is being mooted in order to attract voters who seem to have forgotten they were once children themselves and whose family no doubt collected 'Family Allowance' for them.
Did David Cameron's millionaire parents collect family allowance for him and his THREE siblings?
Until recently David Cameron collected child benefit (and other benefits) for his children.
Millionaire aristocrat and Tory chancellor George Osborne collected child benefit for his children.
Probably millionaire Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi collected child benefit for his THREE children, why wouldn't he when he collected £6000 per year from the taxpayer to heat his stables, his managers home, and his own home? After all he must be really hard up, so it's 'understandable' that Tory chancellor George Osborne should give him a tax break of £100,000 and now according to the autumn statement it looks like he will be getting another huge tax break of around £100,000, when his income tax is reduce still further. Good that he is casting around looking for cuts to made so the chancellor can fund these tax cuts for millionaires!
And he is currently claiming £170,234 for his expenses and second home from the taxpayer, the man just loves to claim! He has 31 acres of land in Warwickshire, with stables run as a livery yard registered in the "Register of Members' Interests" as Zahawi & Zahawi Ltd. Zahawi is also a registered owner of a residential property in Putney, which he bought for £1.85 million in December 2005. Zahawi & Zahawi Ltd is a business consultancy company registered to the same Putney address with Companies House. He also has three rental flats in London, and is a non executive director of a London-based specialist recruitment company called "SThree", from which he had a monthly salary of £2,916,67. He also founded YouGov Pollsters and is a registered shareholder. Lynton Crosby the PM's lobbyist spin doctor also happens to be a director of YouGov.
Questions:
- Why does a man of Nadhim Zahawi's means and extensive property portfolio receive an allowance from the taxpayer for a second home in London? Why doesn't he just use one of his own properties?
- Why has so very little been made of this in the right wing Tory supporting press, when if it were a labour MP they would act as if the sky was falling in?
- Would this mean that the poor would be restricted to how many children they can have while the rich can carry on breeding with impunity?
Not to be outdone Conservative Chairman millionaire Grant Shapps aka Michael Green aka Seb Fox of 'dodgy' website notoriety yesterday waded into the argument with another 'Shappsism', he goes one step further, not only does he want to rob and bludgeon and take money off the poor with more than two children, he wants all people all are unemployed to stop receiving all child benefit. So if you lose your job and are struggling, millionaire Tory MP Grant Shapps thinks it would be cool to make your struggle even harder by taking away help with child support.
Has Shapp's 'Shappsism' found a cunning way to help plug George Osborne's black hole in his finances over his promises on the cost of the free school meals and pupil premium policies? Apart from it being a barking mad suggestion (why is Shapps even an MP he is not not even nice but dim, he's just incredibly dim), how would it work? Would it apply to those people forced to do temporary jobs and are always in and out of work - now you have child benefit now you don't - sort of thing? What about part-timers do they qualify with IDS new hours penalties? Zero hour contracts? Those forced to work for nothing on government workfare schemes, will it apply to them? The cost of these policies is assumed to be swallowed up in the overall spending envelope from 2016-17. In other words, they are NOT costed and those costs will have to be found at a later date by slashing even deeper into other spending.
And the Liberal Democrats are not much better, in fact in many ways they are worse, they are enabling this government to privatise the NHS. Cut ESA and declare terminally ill people and disabled people fit to work. They hide behind falsified unemployment figures and pretend there is a recovery when it is just an over inflating housing bubble. They are helping them pass legislation that enables them to charge poor people the bedroom tax. They help to make people homeless, they turn a blind eye to the escalating numbers of foodbanks and the fact that the Red Cross has put out an appeal for help in providing food parcels to British citizens and that Save the Children and Shelter are warning of a catastrophe in child abuse and child homelessness that has soared over the past three years. The Lib Dems of all people turning a blind eye first to the trebling of tuition fees now to the selling of student loans which means that after graduating students with or without jobs will be hounded to pay back their debt to debt recovery companies or face prosecution. The Lib Dems voted WITH the Tories to abolish EMA making it harder for kids from humble backgrounds to continue with higher education.
Power craved opportunist Lib Dems
Follow the money, there is always a 'cunning plan' to take away from the poor and now the squeezed middle and give to the rich with everything the Tories do. They give with one hand and take three times more away with the other.
First this Tory controlled coalition government came for the disabled, the sick, the poor and the vulnerable and the unemployed and you kept quiet and rejoiced at others hardship because you didn't think they meant you - now they are starting to come for you and your family and your security is at risk, what do you think now? This is just the start - still think it's a good idea to vote Conservative?
Same Old Tories.
Remember we are all just one accident or illness away from being sick and disabled and we are all just one pay day away from being unemployed.
It affects *YOU* too!
Same old stinking hypocritical, lying, deceitful, incompetent Tories!
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Is There Another Iain Duncan Smith Scandal Waiting To break?
George Osborne's housing bubble, falling living standards and cost of living crisis are not the only problems we have threatening to derail this quasi economic recovery, we also have a massive scandal in the making about statistics abuse at the Department of Work and Pensions headed by work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith (IDS).
The right wing press and even the Guardian seem to be reluctant to investigate and expose the 'strange' data concerning unemployment statistics. The Great Falling Unemployment Myth. They keep telling us that unemployment is falling, it isn't it can't be and a cursory look at the way the statistics are being compiled and abuses would only take a few minutes.
When Mark Carney became the Governor of the Bank of England (BoE) a short while ago, he made much play about how interest rates would have to rise when unemployment hit 7%. When he first said this I immediately pointed out that the government were fiddling the unemployment statistics so much and were being so successful in doing so that we would reach that figure of 7% unemployment much sooner than he expected. I said if this happened then Carney would have no choice but to row back from raising interest rates. This is now exactly what is happening. The whole country and the economy is now balanced on the top of a house of cards which has been been built on a unsustainable housing bubble, soaring debt and false and unemployment figures.
How long before it topples?
In my opinion the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) under the instruction of the Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith is fraudulently collating sets of employment and unemployment figures for the Office National Statistics (ONS) to work on and it is not IF the economy crashes, it is WHEN it crashes! If Carney was to raise interest rates on the back of falling unemployment when it is not really falling the whole lot would come crashing down and people would lose, homes. businesses and jobs.
There has been regular statistics abuse at the DWP every set of figures that IDS is involved with are wrong, they never add up. He (and other government departments and ministers) have repeatedly caught by the UK Statistics Department and publicly rebuked for misusing stats, but they still do it and not only that, they go to the House of Commons and blatantly lie about statistics. Osborne did it last Thursday when he said that our living standards were rising, it turns out that Osborne was using stats in his figures that he knows he should never have used, in a blatant misuse of statistics which was obviously meant to deliberately deceive and this amounts to an abuse of his power.
Now not only is there an abuse of statistics at the DWP it is now set to waste over a £100 million at least on IT systems that are unfit for purpose.
And how come IDS awarded Accenture the IT contracts right up until 2018, when they were the same company that failed to deliver the last government a suitable IT system for the NHS? david Mowett the Tory MP for Warrington used to be in the employ of Accenture. Mr Mowat describes his tenure at Accenture as a success, was he still there when Accenture was the company that gave up two failing NHS contracts and then tried to paper over the cracks and claimed it had all been a roaring success? Mr Mowat retired in 2006 and in 2006 after months of negotiations, Accenture handed contracts worth £2bn over to rival Computer Sciences Corporation after getting paid just £110m for spending a third of the allotted 10 years on the job. Its hand had been forced by losses of $450m it was set to make on the deal in 2011.
David Cameron has been rebuked for telling lies in a party political broadcast and Cameron and Grant Shapps, Jeremy Hunt and Iain Duncan Smith have all been rebuked for misusing statistics, yet they are allowed to carry on with impunity both in the House and outside and they are allowed to get away with it and journalists print the guff they are fed and never ask question - why? IDS has been rebuked by the Office for National Statistics for telling lies HERE.
How dangerous is Iain Duncan Smith's deliberate falsifying of the unemployment data? Ask Mark Carney BoE Governor as he is making decisions on interest rates on the back of unemployment data and if the data is untrue and interest rates rise it could herald a collapse in our economy.
Yet no one seems to be willing to investigate IDS and the obvious anomalies in unemployment, yet they are crucial to our economic recovery!
David Cameron actually sacked Iain Duncan Smith and he refused point blank to go and Cameron capitulated and allowed him to stay, extraordinary behaviour, anyone would think that IDS had some sort of hold over the prime minister? Could it be because Cameron and Osborne have been asking IDS to falsify the unemployment and employment statistics (and others) and he threatened to expose the lot if he was sacked from his job?
The question is under whose instruction is IDS doing this? Why is such an incompetent man able to exert so much power over the prime minister? Is a this scandal in the making and does it go right to the heart of British Government?
Yet the right wing press say nothing - why?
The right wing press and even the Guardian seem to be reluctant to investigate and expose the 'strange' data concerning unemployment statistics. The Great Falling Unemployment Myth. They keep telling us that unemployment is falling, it isn't it can't be and a cursory look at the way the statistics are being compiled and abuses would only take a few minutes.
When Mark Carney became the Governor of the Bank of England (BoE) a short while ago, he made much play about how interest rates would have to rise when unemployment hit 7%. When he first said this I immediately pointed out that the government were fiddling the unemployment statistics so much and were being so successful in doing so that we would reach that figure of 7% unemployment much sooner than he expected. I said if this happened then Carney would have no choice but to row back from raising interest rates. This is now exactly what is happening. The whole country and the economy is now balanced on the top of a house of cards which has been been built on a unsustainable housing bubble, soaring debt and false and unemployment figures.
How long before it topples?
In my opinion the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) under the instruction of the Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith is fraudulently collating sets of employment and unemployment figures for the Office National Statistics (ONS) to work on and it is not IF the economy crashes, it is WHEN it crashes! If Carney was to raise interest rates on the back of falling unemployment when it is not really falling the whole lot would come crashing down and people would lose, homes. businesses and jobs.
There has been regular statistics abuse at the DWP every set of figures that IDS is involved with are wrong, they never add up. He (and other government departments and ministers) have repeatedly caught by the UK Statistics Department and publicly rebuked for misusing stats, but they still do it and not only that, they go to the House of Commons and blatantly lie about statistics. Osborne did it last Thursday when he said that our living standards were rising, it turns out that Osborne was using stats in his figures that he knows he should never have used, in a blatant misuse of statistics which was obviously meant to deliberately deceive and this amounts to an abuse of his power.
Now not only is there an abuse of statistics at the DWP it is now set to waste over a £100 million at least on IT systems that are unfit for purpose.
And how come IDS awarded Accenture the IT contracts right up until 2018, when they were the same company that failed to deliver the last government a suitable IT system for the NHS? david Mowett the Tory MP for Warrington used to be in the employ of Accenture. Mr Mowat describes his tenure at Accenture as a success, was he still there when Accenture was the company that gave up two failing NHS contracts and then tried to paper over the cracks and claimed it had all been a roaring success? Mr Mowat retired in 2006 and in 2006 after months of negotiations, Accenture handed contracts worth £2bn over to rival Computer Sciences Corporation after getting paid just £110m for spending a third of the allotted 10 years on the job. Its hand had been forced by losses of $450m it was set to make on the deal in 2011.
David Cameron has been rebuked for telling lies in a party political broadcast and Cameron and Grant Shapps, Jeremy Hunt and Iain Duncan Smith have all been rebuked for misusing statistics, yet they are allowed to carry on with impunity both in the House and outside and they are allowed to get away with it and journalists print the guff they are fed and never ask question - why? IDS has been rebuked by the Office for National Statistics for telling lies HERE.
How dangerous is Iain Duncan Smith's deliberate falsifying of the unemployment data? Ask Mark Carney BoE Governor as he is making decisions on interest rates on the back of unemployment data and if the data is untrue and interest rates rise it could herald a collapse in our economy.
Yet no one seems to be willing to investigate IDS and the obvious anomalies in unemployment, yet they are crucial to our economic recovery!
David Cameron actually sacked Iain Duncan Smith and he refused point blank to go and Cameron capitulated and allowed him to stay, extraordinary behaviour, anyone would think that IDS had some sort of hold over the prime minister? Could it be because Cameron and Osborne have been asking IDS to falsify the unemployment and employment statistics (and others) and he threatened to expose the lot if he was sacked from his job?
The question is under whose instruction is IDS doing this? Why is such an incompetent man able to exert so much power over the prime minister? Is a this scandal in the making and does it go right to the heart of British Government?
Yet the right wing press say nothing - why?
Autumn Statement Just a Load of Codswallop and Reannouncements
Last Thursday was the Conservative chancellor's long awaited and much talked about Autumn Statement, which turned out to be worse than the BBC at Christmas - just another load of repeats and re-announcements of policies that have already been announced many times before.
The government used to have a buzzword for infrastructure projects, they enthusiastically describe them as 'shovel ready'. However,the truth is that the majority of these shovel ready projects announced by the government last week have already been announced - several times! And we have yet to see a single shovel being picked up let alone used! More lies and misleading from the Tory chancellor. For all this government's announcements and re-announcements about infrastructure projects, the truth is that new infrastructure projects have fallen by 3.5% in the three and a half years the coalition government have been in power. Not such good news if you are a first time buyer, or trying to rent, or waiting for a council property to become available.
Christmas is approaching fast and the cost of living is sprialling out of control, people are borrowing more money than ever before and it is not to buy festive food and drink, they are turning to expensive credit cards and payday loan sharks and borrowing money to pay their household bills, gas, electric, water, food. These are not just the unemployed 'shirkers' and 'skivers' that the government unfairly like to harangue and single out for public abuse and bullying, these are people in work in low paid jobs, some doing several part-time jobs in order to survive.
In last week's autumn statement when the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls tried to raise this issue with the chancellor, he was met with this.
Typically the right wing press have lied and misled about Ed Balls performance, it was actually quite good, but it could not be heard for the braying and jeering in the chamber which was allowed to continue as the Speaker had lost control of the House.
Ed Balls had to shout to be heard above the laughing and guffawing millionaire Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs and this braying and jeering also came from the millionaire cabinet minister government front benches. Mr Balls tried his best to raise points about the cost of living, he tried his best to represent what ordinary members of the public wanted raised, the cost of living, falling living standards, soaring energy costs, people being forced to use credit cards and turn to payday loan companies to make ends meet, but the jeering and laughing front bench and government back bench MPs refused to allow this to be raised.
When chancellor George Osborne returned to his feet, did he address the points raised by Ed Balls about the struggle of the public to live? About how people have not had a pay rise and how others are trapped on low pay in a race to the bottom? No, not a bit of it, the appalling response from the man responsible for the millions trapped in poverty and forced to use foodbanks to fee their children, many even returning food that requires energy to cook it (because they have no light or heating), was to launch into astonishing and venomous personal attacks about Ed Balls playing the piano. The chancellor clearly enjoying the fact that his MPs had denied the public the right to hear Ed Balls response, joined in the laughing and jeering, this millionaire cabinet are so out of touch, so arrogant that they think it is OK to laugh at us the public struggling to survive as a direct consequence of this chancellor's failed policies.
Anyone who saw last weeks shameful debacle in the House of Commons, it was clear that it was orchestrated to stop the public from listening to the Shadow chancellor's response and to stop the public from understanding that the Labour opposition understand their problems and are working hard trying to do something about it and are desperately trying to raise the cost of living crisis to the top of the political agenda and force the government to act. I know that Tory and Lib Dem MPs received a text message to drown out the chancellor it was called "operation get Balls", what I would also like to know is where this message originated from? My guess is that it came from Lynton Crosby, the PMs election strategist (and the lobbyist with fingers in every dirty money making scheme known to man), if it did then this is a clear and orchestrated breach of protocol which goes right to the heart of this stinking corrupt Tory Lib Dem government.
Why didn't this government want you to hear the opposition's message?
Osborne keeps saying he is balancing the books but he is trying to do so without balancing the economy, which is akin to paying extra off of your mortgage each month and not leaving enough to heat or light your home and feed and clothe your children forcing them to live in poverty or to beg and steal food or die of starvation. It is economic illiteracy, economics of the madhouse. And the utter lunacy of it all is that Osborne isn't even paying down the national debt, it is actually growing and he isn't even reducing borrowing, he will borrow more in his five years of government than the former Labour government did in their entire thirteen years and the Labour government had an international banking crisis and the worse global recession for over 80 years to deal with, what excuse does Osborne have? None, just his own failed austerity measures and his own failed policies and his own failed predictions. In truth George Osborne has failed every single target he has set himself. He inherited growth of 2.7% from Labour in 2010, now he thinks we should all congratulate him if he gets growth back up to 2.5% in 2014 (that's still 0.2% short of what he inherited from Labour back in 2010). The truth is that the British economy has gone backwards and is still going backwards.
The chancellor's autumn statement was made up of infrastructure projects that have already been announced several times, and a load of predictions and forecasts from Osborne's quasi Office Budget Responsibility (OBR) about growth, predictions from the office that to date has not got one single forecast right!
There is also serious doubt about how Osborne is going to fund the projects he has announced the next day after the autumn statement the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) tore into Osborne's statement ridiculing and backing what the shadow chancellor had tried to say over all the jeers and shrieking from out of control Tory MPs. Living standards in 2015 will be lower than they were in 2010.
The chancellor also never addressed the spiralling personal debt problem and ignores the fact that household debt in the UK has reached a record level, according to figures from the Bank of England. Individuals now owe a total of £1.43 trillion. Many people not borrowing to invest, but borrowing to get them out of trouble and to pay mortgages and rent and to meet their household bills.
We are all merrily skipping down the exact same road as led to the 2008 crash, the only difference is, that this time it is not the banks that is funding soaring out of control toxic debt unknown to the rest of us, it is the British government with quantitative easing (QE) that is knowingly funding what will (as sure as eggs is eggs) turn to be toxic debt. The banks are not lending because after the crash and because of new government regulations that insist they have a certain amount of funding on their books and this caps the amount they they have enough to lend, so Osborne has stepped in to override his own regulations and ordered the BoE to top the banks accounts up with printed money (QE), so in effect the government are guaranteeing loans and funding unsecured loans with taxpayers money and the banks are making all the profit. Again economics of the madhouse. If there is another global slow down or crash we are going to be in serious, serious trouble.
This whole so-called recovery is based on George Osborne over inflating the housing bubble and stepping in to act as guarantors for loans which people cannot afford, to enable them to obtain mortgages they cannot afford, meanwhile house prices continue to rise at the fastest pace since before the crash.
This is a housing bubble
This is a credit bubble
This is unsustainable
This is why the government were so keen to drown out Ed Balls last week, they are scared of the wider public learning just what a precarious situation it is that we are really in.
Instead of sucking up to the government and allowing the government and this dreadful 'towel folding chancellor' to get away with this appalling behaviour along with their lies and their incompetence, journalists should be tearing into this government and exposing the sewer of incompetence and corruption running just below the surface. If they fail to do this, then these journalists from these right wing papers, the Sun, Sunday Sun, Times, Sunday Times, The Mail. Mail on Sunday, the Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph etc are all going to be blamed when the Tory 'boom ends with a huge bust' (and it's already on its way) - manufacturing is slowing, exports have fallen 2.1% last month and the trade gap widens, consumer spending is slowing and the government continue to base the whole economy on a precariously perched housing bubble and QE and set after set of falsified unemployment data. The bust when it comes will make 2008 look like a walk in the park and these papers will be left looking like Tory sycophantic poodles, they will lose what little credibility they have left!
The government used to have a buzzword for infrastructure projects, they enthusiastically describe them as 'shovel ready'. However,the truth is that the majority of these shovel ready projects announced by the government last week have already been announced - several times! And we have yet to see a single shovel being picked up let alone used! More lies and misleading from the Tory chancellor. For all this government's announcements and re-announcements about infrastructure projects, the truth is that new infrastructure projects have fallen by 3.5% in the three and a half years the coalition government have been in power. Not such good news if you are a first time buyer, or trying to rent, or waiting for a council property to become available.
Christmas is approaching fast and the cost of living is sprialling out of control, people are borrowing more money than ever before and it is not to buy festive food and drink, they are turning to expensive credit cards and payday loan sharks and borrowing money to pay their household bills, gas, electric, water, food. These are not just the unemployed 'shirkers' and 'skivers' that the government unfairly like to harangue and single out for public abuse and bullying, these are people in work in low paid jobs, some doing several part-time jobs in order to survive.
In last week's autumn statement when the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls tried to raise this issue with the chancellor, he was met with this.
Ed Balls had to shout to be heard above the laughing and guffawing millionaire Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs and this braying and jeering also came from the millionaire cabinet minister government front benches. Mr Balls tried his best to raise points about the cost of living, he tried his best to represent what ordinary members of the public wanted raised, the cost of living, falling living standards, soaring energy costs, people being forced to use credit cards and turn to payday loan companies to make ends meet, but the jeering and laughing front bench and government back bench MPs refused to allow this to be raised.
When chancellor George Osborne returned to his feet, did he address the points raised by Ed Balls about the struggle of the public to live? About how people have not had a pay rise and how others are trapped on low pay in a race to the bottom? No, not a bit of it, the appalling response from the man responsible for the millions trapped in poverty and forced to use foodbanks to fee their children, many even returning food that requires energy to cook it (because they have no light or heating), was to launch into astonishing and venomous personal attacks about Ed Balls playing the piano. The chancellor clearly enjoying the fact that his MPs had denied the public the right to hear Ed Balls response, joined in the laughing and jeering, this millionaire cabinet are so out of touch, so arrogant that they think it is OK to laugh at us the public struggling to survive as a direct consequence of this chancellor's failed policies.
Anyone who saw last weeks shameful debacle in the House of Commons, it was clear that it was orchestrated to stop the public from listening to the Shadow chancellor's response and to stop the public from understanding that the Labour opposition understand their problems and are working hard trying to do something about it and are desperately trying to raise the cost of living crisis to the top of the political agenda and force the government to act. I know that Tory and Lib Dem MPs received a text message to drown out the chancellor it was called "operation get Balls", what I would also like to know is where this message originated from? My guess is that it came from Lynton Crosby, the PMs election strategist (and the lobbyist with fingers in every dirty money making scheme known to man), if it did then this is a clear and orchestrated breach of protocol which goes right to the heart of this stinking corrupt Tory Lib Dem government.
Why didn't this government want you to hear the opposition's message?
Osborne keeps saying he is balancing the books but he is trying to do so without balancing the economy, which is akin to paying extra off of your mortgage each month and not leaving enough to heat or light your home and feed and clothe your children forcing them to live in poverty or to beg and steal food or die of starvation. It is economic illiteracy, economics of the madhouse. And the utter lunacy of it all is that Osborne isn't even paying down the national debt, it is actually growing and he isn't even reducing borrowing, he will borrow more in his five years of government than the former Labour government did in their entire thirteen years and the Labour government had an international banking crisis and the worse global recession for over 80 years to deal with, what excuse does Osborne have? None, just his own failed austerity measures and his own failed policies and his own failed predictions. In truth George Osborne has failed every single target he has set himself. He inherited growth of 2.7% from Labour in 2010, now he thinks we should all congratulate him if he gets growth back up to 2.5% in 2014 (that's still 0.2% short of what he inherited from Labour back in 2010). The truth is that the British economy has gone backwards and is still going backwards.
The chancellor's autumn statement was made up of infrastructure projects that have already been announced several times, and a load of predictions and forecasts from Osborne's quasi Office Budget Responsibility (OBR) about growth, predictions from the office that to date has not got one single forecast right!
There is also serious doubt about how Osborne is going to fund the projects he has announced the next day after the autumn statement the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) tore into Osborne's statement ridiculing and backing what the shadow chancellor had tried to say over all the jeers and shrieking from out of control Tory MPs. Living standards in 2015 will be lower than they were in 2010.
The chancellor also never addressed the spiralling personal debt problem and ignores the fact that household debt in the UK has reached a record level, according to figures from the Bank of England. Individuals now owe a total of £1.43 trillion. Many people not borrowing to invest, but borrowing to get them out of trouble and to pay mortgages and rent and to meet their household bills.
We are all merrily skipping down the exact same road as led to the 2008 crash, the only difference is, that this time it is not the banks that is funding soaring out of control toxic debt unknown to the rest of us, it is the British government with quantitative easing (QE) that is knowingly funding what will (as sure as eggs is eggs) turn to be toxic debt. The banks are not lending because after the crash and because of new government regulations that insist they have a certain amount of funding on their books and this caps the amount they they have enough to lend, so Osborne has stepped in to override his own regulations and ordered the BoE to top the banks accounts up with printed money (QE), so in effect the government are guaranteeing loans and funding unsecured loans with taxpayers money and the banks are making all the profit. Again economics of the madhouse. If there is another global slow down or crash we are going to be in serious, serious trouble.
This whole so-called recovery is based on George Osborne over inflating the housing bubble and stepping in to act as guarantors for loans which people cannot afford, to enable them to obtain mortgages they cannot afford, meanwhile house prices continue to rise at the fastest pace since before the crash.
This is a housing bubble
This is a credit bubble
This is unsustainable
This is why the government were so keen to drown out Ed Balls last week, they are scared of the wider public learning just what a precarious situation it is that we are really in.
Instead of sucking up to the government and allowing the government and this dreadful 'towel folding chancellor' to get away with this appalling behaviour along with their lies and their incompetence, journalists should be tearing into this government and exposing the sewer of incompetence and corruption running just below the surface. If they fail to do this, then these journalists from these right wing papers, the Sun, Sunday Sun, Times, Sunday Times, The Mail. Mail on Sunday, the Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph etc are all going to be blamed when the Tory 'boom ends with a huge bust' (and it's already on its way) - manufacturing is slowing, exports have fallen 2.1% last month and the trade gap widens, consumer spending is slowing and the government continue to base the whole economy on a precariously perched housing bubble and QE and set after set of falsified unemployment data. The bust when it comes will make 2008 look like a walk in the park and these papers will be left looking like Tory sycophantic poodles, they will lose what little credibility they have left!
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Government's Energy Policy Omnishambles
According to news reports this morning George Osborne is going to give us all a £50 rebate off of our electricity bills? That works out to around 96p per week. Combined bills have risen by around £75 to £150 per year.
I have listened to many reports on the energy crisis and fuel poverty, yet not one single so-called political journalist has mentioned that in 2010 shortly after assuming power, and despite a firm pledge no to, George Osborne CUT pensioners winter fuel allowance between £50 and £100. Pensioners aged 60 to 79 years saw their allowance cut by £50 while those aged 80 years on saw their allowance cut by £100. The older you get the more prone you are to suffering hypothermia and unfortunately not many people are aware they are becoming susceptible to hypothermia and this is why so many elderly people perish from the cold. Is George Osborne and this headless chicken government seriously expecting pensioners to be grateful that they are being rebated £50 out of what has already been taken away from them? By my reckoning the lower scale are owed £150 while the higher scale is owed £300, which Osborne has stolen from them.
It's also worth noting that while needy pensioners were having their wither fuel allowances cut by the Conservatives and left struggling to pay their fuel bills and struggling to keep warm, the Tory chancellor was awarding millionaires with a £100,000 cheque in the form of a tax rebate. The prime minister David Cameron's advice to pensioners and others on low pay struggling to pay astronomical heating bills and struggling to keep warm and feed themselves, was to put on an extra jumper and stay in one room! Almost as bad as previous Conservative government's advice on heating costs and staying warm between 1979 and 1997, when they advised the elderly to wear a woolly hat to bed. This was in reply to criticism over the number of 'unnecessary deaths' that were happening with the elderly due to Thatcher privatising the utility companies and the resulting price hikes in gas and electricity.
Is this rebate of £50 going to be paid to everyone across the board no matter what their financial circumstances? So a person subsisting on £57 per week job seekers allowance will get a £50 rebate while a millionaire tax avoiding Tory party supporter also receives £50 off of their energy bills? Will this £50 be available to all across the country, or will it only apply to certain areas?
Since the Conservative controlled Coalition government took power in 2010, families have seen their annual incomes fall by approximately £1,600 per year as a direct result of the Tory chancellor's austerity measures and his help to big businesses to drive down wages and it's getting worse.
Poor families and those struggling with energy bills who have been placed on prepayment meteres pay more for their gas and electricity than anyone else, this is penalising the poor, will they just receive 96p per week? or will they be given real substantial help to help them cope with heating their homes and feeding their families and themselves? Some people have already seen their family tax credits cut, their child allowance cut and are already being forced to pay more in council tax and rents and some have been slapped with the bedroom tax of between £14 and £24 per week. How is 96p per week going to help them?
The government's energy policy has been exposed as a complete and utter omnishambles a complete contradiction, they haven't got the first idea what they are doing, let alone how to do it, and over something as vitally important as our energy security, it really is very frightening.
What does George Osborne say to the fact that he and his government have already raised the green levy for all energy consumers by 50% over the past three years?
What does George Osborne say about the fact that his government have already raised the carbon floor by 4% higher than they need have?
Where is this £300 million 'rebate' going to come from? A cut in green taxes and then placed on general taxation? So we are not saving anything at all, except for the millionaire Tory tax dodgers who don't pay tax so they will pay no or very little tax but will still receive the £50 rebate, while the rest of us pay for this rebate through general taxation.
ONCE AGAIN George Osborne, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have succumbed to pressure from the big 6 energy companies and placed some green taxes onto general taxation, which benefits the energy companies and penalizes the rest of us. David Cameron is dancing to the tune of the energy conglomerates, we know Cameron doesn't do detail but the coalition government's complete energy horlicks is seriously alarming!
For two months we have seen Cameron, Osborne and Clegg instead of doing something to try and help consumers affected by the cost of living crisis they have been flailing about attacking Ed Miliband and Labour's pledge to freeze energy prices for 20 months, reset the energy market and introduce a tough new regulator as - a 'con'. Instead of acting to bring the energy companies under control instead they joined in with the energy companies and have put out all kinds of scare stories, from the lights going out to the energy companies raising their prices before the freeze:
1). Well before Ed Miliband announced Labour's energy plans, the energy companies have been threatening to put the lights out and spreading stories about gas supplies running short, and they have in fact *already*cancelled billions of pounds of investment by cancelling building a new green nuclear power station and two green gas power stations because of the Tory controlled coalition government's incompetence and dithering over their energy policy on renewables etc. The constant bickering and politicking going on between the Tories and the Lib Dems at the heart of British government over their energy policies causing delays in policy already lead to cancellations of investment is what is really threatening energy supplies in this country, it is not Ed Miliband's insistence on standing up to the energy companies and stressing that we must as a country have a clear cut energy policy for the sake of the people AND the energy companies and future energy security.
2). If all the energy companies decide to put up their prices before a future Labour government implement a price freeze, then this is called a cartel and we have strict laws about forming cartels in this country, if the energy companies did this then thus would be illegal and the regulator can stop them doing it.
3). Hypocritical Cameron and Osborne accused Ed Miliband of being a Marxist and getting his energy policies from 'Das Kapital'. This was one week before Osborne went to communist China and begged their communist government to come to the UK and build a power station for us.
Cameron says we have no control over global energy costs, yet he has signed a contract with the communist government of China to set the UKs electricity prices for the next 35 years!
Cameron, Osborne and Clegg say we have no control over global energy costs, yet the energy conglomerates are both produces and wholesalers of their own product, so they set their wholesale price they pay and the have set it artificially high.
Both Cameron and Osborne have said you cannot interfere in the market while doing exactly that! They have been interfering in the Market! They accuse Ed Miliband's price freeze of being a con, yet in secret Osborne and Cameron have gone to the energy companies and have been begging the energy companies not to raise prices until after the 2015 general election - now that is not only a con, it is a huge deceit. They are virtually saying to energy companies look help us get back in and you can do what you like to energy costs after the election. It is gross misleading of the electorate and trying to gain votes and reelection by fraudulently allowing the public to believe the opposite of what is true and Cameron has form for doing this, he done exactly the same over the NHS when he said under his government there would be "no more top down reorganisations of the NHS" while secretly planning the biggest top down reorganisation of the NHS in its entire history, the man is a bare faced liar and cannot be trusted. Take this argument to the Tories logical conclusion accusing Labour's energy policy being a con, the Tories said the energy companies would raise prices before a price freeze, then if this is so what is to stop the companies massively hiking prices after their self imposed price freeze that the Conservatives have been begging for in private?
Osborne says he cannot interfere in the market but he has CUT tax for fracking companies by a huge 50% to attract them into this country at the same time as watering down environmental impact assessments for fracking companies which could lead to the pollution our water supplies! This is in addition to Osborne shedding 15% of the workforce in the Department for the Environment, he is getting rid of the very workforce whose job it is to oversee that fracking impact assessments were carried out properly!
Cameron and Osborne will claim that their cut in green levies will save households £50 per year and come just days after David Cameron dismissed green levies as "green crap", but bills will still rise as inflation busting price hikes by the energy companies will add £107 to the average bill.
Cameron announces that green levies are "green crap" yet it is his government who have raised green levies over 50% in the past three years, so this government are not only giving us back a small amount of what they have already taken, we will pay for the rebate anyway as it has been reported that the green levies will be added to general taxation. In short the government's rebate means that he is going to take £300 million which is currently paid by the energy firms, give us a 96p per week rebate and pass the cost onto us all through general taxation. (I hope he doesn't have anymore bright ideas like this!)
If the green [crap] levies are cut, who will pay for the warms homes project that funds insulation for poor people and helps local authorities to insulate their housing stock? How many jobs will be lost as a result of the government's panicking actions?
On the one hand Cameron is saying his government are going to cut the [green crap] levies, yet writes in the Guardian that that he is going to argue in favour of green jobs in the new year, does anyone know what this man is actually doing? Does he even know? The man is a walking talking contradiction in terms! If David Cameron had any intention at all of providing 'green jobs' he would not now be constantly deferring the issue, he would be facing it head on, after all he has no difficulty in touring the world with his arms dealer buddies flogging arms to small Arab countries and dictatorships, for them to pass on to Al-Qaeda to use on our troops! If Cameron had his way and ed Miliband had let him, he would have sold arms to Syrian rebels who are run rife with Al-Qaeda!
All the government are doing is trying to kick the energy problem into the long grass until after the general election in 2015. he keeps trying to spin about climate change issues, hoping that no one will notice how awful his government have been concerning green issues. He can delete all the speeches he likes because everyone already knows he promised to be the "greenest government ever" and "vote blue go green" and like his NHS promise everyone knows this was yet another huge lie. They want to delay any decisions of green policies until after the next election hoping that no one will notice their long and medium term energy policy is in tatters.
It appears that in the Coalition what we have is not a proper government, but an amalgamation of weak and utter pricks, none of them capable of making a tough decision (unless they concern bullying weak, the poor, disabled, unemployed, sick and elderly). Cameron, Osborne IDS and Clegg can stand up to the weak, but run a mile from the strong and powerful such as the bankers, hedge funds, big business and power companies any tough decisions due to be made here ends with the capitulation of the British government!
What has happened to all Cameron's big ideas? Big Society, Compassionate Conservatism, we're all in it together?
As the days and weeks pass Cameron is looking and sounding more and more unhinged, all his promises broken and disintegrated into a heap of dust, everything crumbling into a pile of lies, it's just one lie on top of another lie on top of another lie. He can make his big promises and protestations in his speeches and then try to expunge them from existence, but what he doesn't realise is that he is a busted flush no one believes him anymore, not even his own MPs! Cameron has proven himself to be totally untrustworthy, he is dishonest, he is a liar, in fact he is worse than a used car salesman because after an encounter with one of them at least we still have the car, after three years with Cameron, we have absolutely nothing, except a million more people in poverty, rising homelessness, soaring numbers of foodbanks and the Red Cross distributing aid to families inside Britain as millions of families lose the fight with the cost of living as their wages are driven down every lower by Cameron and his mates in big business.
It's one long cover up after the other, it's U-turns and now the O-turn. Incompetence is rife. The green tax levy, in the morning it was announced that number 10 had asked energy companies not to raise their prices until after the election, then by lunch time they definitely didn't and then by teatime they may have and all the while the energy companies are telling the country by radio and TV that Cameron and Osborne had definitely asked them to keep prices down and it is the same with every single policy announcement, it all ends in one huge heap of confusion. Where and what exactly is this government's green policy and energy policy? It's important its affecting millions of people who are currently making the choice between heating and eating, they have NO money for basics, while this government flails around sucking up to big business and the energy companies.
This government have now become synonymous with making policy up on the hoof and it shows, it really does show. There doesn't appear to be any clarity, no checks and balances within this government and it's structure and shape is non existent. Our energy security is vitally important and we appear to have a bunch of vacuous muppets running it. we are waiting for the Chancellor's Autumn Statement on Thursday to produce some clarity, but if his answers on the Andrew Marr show this morning were anything to go by, by Friday morning we will still be waiting for clarity. Whatever Osborne announces it should be an immediate freeze on energy costs and plans to restructure the energy market at the very least and the energy companies must pay for any rebates, this must NOT fall to the taxpayer.
Cameron's government covers up the today's errors and policy chaos, with tomorrow's errors and policy chaos and on and on it goes, it is relentless and has been the hallmark of this dreadful mongrel government over the past three years. The Liberal Democrats are no better what a weak power and awe struck pathetic bunch of poodles who are simply in government to serve the purpose of the Tories - to keep,them there, no matter what catastrophe, hardship and distress and utter chaos they cause.
Cameron is not an asset to the UK but a huge awful embarrassing drag on us all.
This is a total omnishambles of a government and we cannot go on like this.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
How Soon Will the Housing Bubble Burst?
Great to see that the new Bank of England Governor Canadian Mark Carney finally catching me (and many other concerned bloggers) up.
Many informal commentators pointed to a growing problem with personal debt, the use of payday loan companies, credit cards which seems to be fueling the upturn in consumer spending, but the chancellor, the Governor and organisations such as the BCC and CBI didn't even mention it.
How could an economy go from being at the jaws of a triple dip recession and the chancellor losing the country its triple A credit rating to growth in just a couple of months? The answer if course is Funding for Lending and Help to Buy.
Not only are people getting into debt by buying items with loaned money and credit, people are also paying bills by borrowing money.
Now it is has got to the dangerous situation where nearly nine million people in the UK are estimated to be trapped in a spiral of debt and more alarmingly some of them do not realise what a precarious situation they are in and do not realise they have a serious problem. According to the Centre for Social Justice household debt has doubled despite low interest rates and total UK debt has risen to a peak of £1.4tn. Around 8.8 million people are "over-indebted", meaning they have fallen at least three months behind with their bills in the last six months.
It is not just those on benefits who are in trouble, in fact at 20.2% they make up the smallest group. Nearly one in ten (9.8%) of those with bad debts were identified as people who are working for the first time and one in eight (11.3%) are struggling students. However, almost three-fifths (58%) of those with severe debts were found to be in employment and nearly half (48%) live in their own privately owned home.
Around 3.9 million families do not have enough savings to cover their rent or mortgage for more than one month, and poorer people are 'bearing the brunt of the debt storm'.
So the answer to this growing and dangerous debt problem was for the government and George Osborne to set up a government guarantee scheme to encourage people to get into more debt by loaning people money they have failed to save, to use as a deposit to obtain a mortgage on a house they cannot afford to buy. The repayments on an average mortgage taken out like this would be around £200 per month more expensive.
The result of this is more people are rushing to get into debt and buying houses they cannot afford and this is causing the housing market to over inflate, yet the government seem to be in total denial about the problems they are creating. The fear has always been if interest rates were to rise, what then? House prices in London have risen sharply by 10% in the past month and are rising rapidly in the south east and now right across the country. It seems that George Osborne and David Cameron have learned nothing from the crash.
Now bank of England Governor Mark Carney has issued a warning to 'homeowners' that they must find a way to pay their mortgages if interest rates rise because they will not be guaranteed a helping hand. BoE figures show that thanks largely to the government's interference in the housing market mortgage approvals hit their highest level since February 2008.
This is like a rerun of the last time the Conservatives were in office between 1979 and 1997. Under Thatcher's Right to buy people were encouraged to buy their council houses and when interest rates started to rise many found they could no longer afford to repay their mortgages or loans secured on the property. Under John Major's government interest rates rose to a frightening 15.9%. John Major then PM said there was nothing the government could do to help those facing eviction for mortgage default.
The government and the BoE have now stopped the government's funding for Lending scheme (FLS) and Carney has called on regulators and lenders to cap the size of mortgages compared to the value of the house - the so called loan to value (LTV).
However, the main instigator encouraging people to get into debt is the government's help to buy scheme (HTB) which has been left in place, under this scheme and phase two of the scheme which recently came in, people can borrow up to £600,000 with a government guaranteed mortgage for 95% of the purchase price.
Yet again the government finds itself in somewhat of an 'omnishambles' as it's own cabinet ministers were confused about the HTB scheme, when under questioning alive on air about the housing bubble Deputy PM Nick Clegg and later Tory Chairman Grant Shapps both indicated that the Governor of the BoE had the power to veto the help to buy scheme, which forced Mr Carney the Governor to write to Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee denying the BoE Financial Policy Committee (FPC) had any such powers and responsibility for HTB lies solely with the Government.
The BoE also revealed new research showing that households with loan-to-income ratios greater than five now account for around a fifth of the total mortgage debt, in the latest sign of overheating in the housing market.
How long can this situation continue before interest rates rise? What happens if the chancellor is forced to cancel the help to buy schemes as well as the FLS?
All this points to an unbalanced 'recovery', if it can be called a recovery at all.
In a post on this blog on November 17th I pointed to eight worrying factors which I believe were showing that the so called British economic recovery is not all it is made out to be. Exports it tr urns out had fallen sharply by a worrying 2.1%. yet again i pointed out the perils of HTB and at that time Mark Carney was saying nothing, yet one week later he is falling into line with what a lot of people are now pointing out.
What Mark Carney did not say last week was eight important and worrying factors with the UK economy
There may well be a pick up in retail over the Christmas and January sales period, but if thus is fueled by credit and debt this will only harm the economy in the long run.
I still remain very concerned that if Mark Carney tries to raise interest rates on the back of false falls in unemployment reaching the magical 7%, this country will be hit with the equivalent of a financial tsunami!
What I fail to understand is why so many journalists seem to have swallowed hook, line and sinker the line that the economy is looking up when it so obviously isn't.
Meanwhile the government does absolutely nothing about the 'cost of living crisis', cost of energy, food, in fact the Government have exacerbated the situation by helping to drive wages down and keep them down.
Whatever happens I believe this country will be back in recession, that is not an if, it is a when and it happens each and every time the Tories are in power - "Tory boom and bust", they never learn, only this time when it happens the consequences will be as bad as, if not worse than 2008 intentional banking crash and global recession. it is absolute insanity to encourage people to take out loans and mortgages they cannot afford, if interest rates rise they could find themselves in negative equity and the whole crazy housing cycle will be off again - thanks to George Osborne. he doesn't exactly instill confidence, every single aim he has set himself he has failed, "judge me on keeping the triple A credit rating" he said and he promptly lost both main ones and several minor ones. He has borrowed more in three years than Labour did in their entire thirteen years and the whole thing is underpinned by 'falling unemployment' which is not falling, it is most likely rising. if the magic 7% figure is reached and Mark Carney fails to increase interest rates, then we all will know why!
George Osborne and David Cameron have panicked when they saw that the economy was not going to pick up without a stimulus so Osborne invented his ready made housing bubble in the shape of 'Help To Buy', this will give a quick fix, but this is all it will give.
Question is will it last beyond the 2015 general election and will the wary British public fall for government lies?
Many informal commentators pointed to a growing problem with personal debt, the use of payday loan companies, credit cards which seems to be fueling the upturn in consumer spending, but the chancellor, the Governor and organisations such as the BCC and CBI didn't even mention it.
How could an economy go from being at the jaws of a triple dip recession and the chancellor losing the country its triple A credit rating to growth in just a couple of months? The answer if course is Funding for Lending and Help to Buy.
Not only are people getting into debt by buying items with loaned money and credit, people are also paying bills by borrowing money.
Now it is has got to the dangerous situation where nearly nine million people in the UK are estimated to be trapped in a spiral of debt and more alarmingly some of them do not realise what a precarious situation they are in and do not realise they have a serious problem. According to the Centre for Social Justice household debt has doubled despite low interest rates and total UK debt has risen to a peak of £1.4tn. Around 8.8 million people are "over-indebted", meaning they have fallen at least three months behind with their bills in the last six months.
It is not just those on benefits who are in trouble, in fact at 20.2% they make up the smallest group. Nearly one in ten (9.8%) of those with bad debts were identified as people who are working for the first time and one in eight (11.3%) are struggling students. However, almost three-fifths (58%) of those with severe debts were found to be in employment and nearly half (48%) live in their own privately owned home.
Around 3.9 million families do not have enough savings to cover their rent or mortgage for more than one month, and poorer people are 'bearing the brunt of the debt storm'.
So the answer to this growing and dangerous debt problem was for the government and George Osborne to set up a government guarantee scheme to encourage people to get into more debt by loaning people money they have failed to save, to use as a deposit to obtain a mortgage on a house they cannot afford to buy. The repayments on an average mortgage taken out like this would be around £200 per month more expensive.
The result of this is more people are rushing to get into debt and buying houses they cannot afford and this is causing the housing market to over inflate, yet the government seem to be in total denial about the problems they are creating. The fear has always been if interest rates were to rise, what then? House prices in London have risen sharply by 10% in the past month and are rising rapidly in the south east and now right across the country. It seems that George Osborne and David Cameron have learned nothing from the crash.
Now bank of England Governor Mark Carney has issued a warning to 'homeowners' that they must find a way to pay their mortgages if interest rates rise because they will not be guaranteed a helping hand. BoE figures show that thanks largely to the government's interference in the housing market mortgage approvals hit their highest level since February 2008.
This is like a rerun of the last time the Conservatives were in office between 1979 and 1997. Under Thatcher's Right to buy people were encouraged to buy their council houses and when interest rates started to rise many found they could no longer afford to repay their mortgages or loans secured on the property. Under John Major's government interest rates rose to a frightening 15.9%. John Major then PM said there was nothing the government could do to help those facing eviction for mortgage default.
The government and the BoE have now stopped the government's funding for Lending scheme (FLS) and Carney has called on regulators and lenders to cap the size of mortgages compared to the value of the house - the so called loan to value (LTV).
However, the main instigator encouraging people to get into debt is the government's help to buy scheme (HTB) which has been left in place, under this scheme and phase two of the scheme which recently came in, people can borrow up to £600,000 with a government guaranteed mortgage for 95% of the purchase price.
Yet again the government finds itself in somewhat of an 'omnishambles' as it's own cabinet ministers were confused about the HTB scheme, when under questioning alive on air about the housing bubble Deputy PM Nick Clegg and later Tory Chairman Grant Shapps both indicated that the Governor of the BoE had the power to veto the help to buy scheme, which forced Mr Carney the Governor to write to Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee denying the BoE Financial Policy Committee (FPC) had any such powers and responsibility for HTB lies solely with the Government.
The BoE also revealed new research showing that households with loan-to-income ratios greater than five now account for around a fifth of the total mortgage debt, in the latest sign of overheating in the housing market.
How long can this situation continue before interest rates rise? What happens if the chancellor is forced to cancel the help to buy schemes as well as the FLS?
All this points to an unbalanced 'recovery', if it can be called a recovery at all.
In a post on this blog on November 17th I pointed to eight worrying factors which I believe were showing that the so called British economic recovery is not all it is made out to be. Exports it tr urns out had fallen sharply by a worrying 2.1%. yet again i pointed out the perils of HTB and at that time Mark Carney was saying nothing, yet one week later he is falling into line with what a lot of people are now pointing out.
What Mark Carney did not say last week was eight important and worrying factors with the UK economy
- Retail sales fell by a surprise 0.7% in October
- Fall in exports and rising imports widening trade gap
- Manufacturing growth spurt fails to offset bad year for Britain's factories
- Credit card debt rising
- Use of payday loan companies rising
- Personal debt is rising and threatening recovery
- [George Osborne's politically motivated] Housing Bubble
- And the true numbers of unemployed is being masked.
There may well be a pick up in retail over the Christmas and January sales period, but if thus is fueled by credit and debt this will only harm the economy in the long run.
I still remain very concerned that if Mark Carney tries to raise interest rates on the back of false falls in unemployment reaching the magical 7%, this country will be hit with the equivalent of a financial tsunami!
What I fail to understand is why so many journalists seem to have swallowed hook, line and sinker the line that the economy is looking up when it so obviously isn't.
Meanwhile the government does absolutely nothing about the 'cost of living crisis', cost of energy, food, in fact the Government have exacerbated the situation by helping to drive wages down and keep them down.
Whatever happens I believe this country will be back in recession, that is not an if, it is a when and it happens each and every time the Tories are in power - "Tory boom and bust", they never learn, only this time when it happens the consequences will be as bad as, if not worse than 2008 intentional banking crash and global recession. it is absolute insanity to encourage people to take out loans and mortgages they cannot afford, if interest rates rise they could find themselves in negative equity and the whole crazy housing cycle will be off again - thanks to George Osborne. he doesn't exactly instill confidence, every single aim he has set himself he has failed, "judge me on keeping the triple A credit rating" he said and he promptly lost both main ones and several minor ones. He has borrowed more in three years than Labour did in their entire thirteen years and the whole thing is underpinned by 'falling unemployment' which is not falling, it is most likely rising. if the magic 7% figure is reached and Mark Carney fails to increase interest rates, then we all will know why!
George Osborne and David Cameron have panicked when they saw that the economy was not going to pick up without a stimulus so Osborne invented his ready made housing bubble in the shape of 'Help To Buy', this will give a quick fix, but this is all it will give.
Question is will it last beyond the 2015 general election and will the wary British public fall for government lies?
The Great Lib Dem & Tory 'Coalition' Lie
Forget David Cameron's "Broken Britain". Britain is broke! Britain is the seventh richest country in the world and yet the majority of ordinary British people are broke, they have no money, they are skint, brassic, potless - broke! For most ordinary folk the reality of being broke is being reduced to delving down the sides of sofas and into the kids piggy banks for loose change to buy food, or gas and electric, to members of the Tory and Liberal Democrat cabinet, the definition of being 'broke' is being down to the last few million quid in off-shore tax havens.
For the past three years wages have been attacked and driven down and pay rises have been virtually non existent. Many workers have seen their hours reduced from full-time to part-time, others have been blackmailed into taking wage cuts. Now we are in the midst of George Osborne's housing bubble boom and supposed "recovery" will company bosses now reinstate workers hours to their previous full time positions and restore their pay to its correct rate? Has anyone done a study to discover how many people whose work and pay was adversely affected by the 2008 global crash has had their previous hours and pay grades restored?
I believe the driving down of pay and the cuts to workers hours is permanent and that it goes right to the heart of British Government.
Using a culture of fear of unemployment, fear of being branded a 'shirker or idler or skiver' along with the so called "captains of industry" the government has been able to give a completely false picture of the British economy.
By driving down wages the government has made it appear that those on benefits are receiving much more than those working for low pay.
I believe the decision to drive down wages, cut benefits, Privatise the NHS, education and the justice system was taken by the Tories and Liberal Democrats long BEFORE a single vote was cast in the May 2010 general election.
It has been a cause of surprise to many that the Liberal Democrats have not walked away from the coalition. so why haven't they? Could it possibly be because they had already agreed to privatise the NHS, education, treble tuition fees, they had already agreed to swinging cuts to welfare and agreed to the introduction of the bedroom tax etc BEFORE they produced that coalition agreement so soon after the hung parliament result in the 2010 general election?
I have been reading this speech: "A liberal Conservative consensus to restore trust in politics" which was given by David Cameron in Bath in 2007, about 3 years before the May 2010 general election (It was one he has recently tried to expunge from our political history) and it really makes one wonder just what was going on unknown to us. Here are some excerpts from the speech (link above)
It seems clear to me where the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrat party were going in 2007. Nick Clegg became leader of the Liberal Democrat party in 2007. There is absolutely no shadow of doubt that under the leadership of Nick Clegg the Liberal Democrats have become very right wing. Clegg once declared that there is "no future" for the Liberal Democrats as a left wing alternative to the Labour party Clegg said:
Maybe not under Clegg's leadership it has become manifestly clear that Nick Clegg is Conservative through and through! It also looks as though there was every possibility that the Tories and the Liberal Democrats had come to some kind of agreement a long time prior to the may 2010 general election. I believe that even if there wasn't a hung parliament in 2010, we would still have seen Liberal Democrats in cabinet. I have not forgotten what Nick Clegg said shortly after becoming Deputy Prime Minister in 2010, when he announce that the Liberal Democrats in coalition with the Conservatives could unite to keep Labour out of power for a 100 years. Pretty odd thing for the leader of the Liberal Democrats to say! I don't think that the Tories, the Liberal Democrats or the newspapers realise just how right wing the people of this country believe David Cameron is, yet Nick Clegg and his MPs still hang on to Cameron's every word and vote through every single Tory attack on the poor, sick, disabled, students, unemployed etc at every chance they get.
My point is that if it can be proved that Nick Clegg and David Cameron conspired to bring about this coalition government, would it make the unelected Conservative controlled Coalition Government's assumption to power illegal?
If true it would make everything the Tories and Liberal Democrats said and did in the two years run up to the general election in 2010 a lie. Everything in their manifestos would be exposed as untruths, fabrications, fanciful words written with the deliberate intention to deceive the electorate, even the Coalition Agreement supposedly written after the hung parliament during those 'faux' negotiations was probably a complete lie and a farce.
We know that David Cameron lied to us about the NHS just a few weeks prior to the general election. When he looked down the camera lens directly at us and said there would be "no more top down reorganisation of the NHS" he blatantly lied, because at the very time he said this he and his then shadow health minister had already been working on plans to inflict the biggest top down reorganisation on the NHS in its entire history, in fact, the Health and Social Care Bill [Act] wasn't even mentioned in the coalition agreement, yet was being pushed through parliament just a few weeks later. It is exactly the same with the trebling of tuition fees, Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA), promising not to close Sure Start centres and then closing over 550 of them. Promising not to cut winter fuel allowances for our elderly then cutting them. Promising not to treat the poor, sick vulnerable and disabled unfairly then attacking them them all through every single way imaginable.
The sheer speed that all these policies were brought about points to them being discussed and agreed long before the May 2010 general election. Pointing to Nick Clegg, David Cameron, George Osborne, David Laws, Vince Cable etc all knowing where the Liberal Democrats were heading well before the general election of 2010 and well before they announced that the two parties were to form a coalition after the general election.
If true, then this is not just run of the mill' politicians broken promises that we have come to expect from ALL politicians, this is blatant lying, deceiving and deception carried out with the intentional act to fraudulently harvest votes on the back of deliberate lies while totally misleading the British public.
For the past three years wages have been attacked and driven down and pay rises have been virtually non existent. Many workers have seen their hours reduced from full-time to part-time, others have been blackmailed into taking wage cuts. Now we are in the midst of George Osborne's housing bubble boom and supposed "recovery" will company bosses now reinstate workers hours to their previous full time positions and restore their pay to its correct rate? Has anyone done a study to discover how many people whose work and pay was adversely affected by the 2008 global crash has had their previous hours and pay grades restored?
I believe the driving down of pay and the cuts to workers hours is permanent and that it goes right to the heart of British Government.
Using a culture of fear of unemployment, fear of being branded a 'shirker or idler or skiver' along with the so called "captains of industry" the government has been able to give a completely false picture of the British economy.
By driving down wages the government has made it appear that those on benefits are receiving much more than those working for low pay.
I believe the decision to drive down wages, cut benefits, Privatise the NHS, education and the justice system was taken by the Tories and Liberal Democrats long BEFORE a single vote was cast in the May 2010 general election.
It has been a cause of surprise to many that the Liberal Democrats have not walked away from the coalition. so why haven't they? Could it possibly be because they had already agreed to privatise the NHS, education, treble tuition fees, they had already agreed to swinging cuts to welfare and agreed to the introduction of the bedroom tax etc BEFORE they produced that coalition agreement so soon after the hung parliament result in the 2010 general election?
I have been reading this speech: "A liberal Conservative consensus to restore trust in politics" which was given by David Cameron in Bath in 2007, about 3 years before the May 2010 general election (It was one he has recently tried to expunge from our political history) and it really makes one wonder just what was going on unknown to us. Here are some excerpts from the speech (link above)
And today I am calling for all likeminded people – and especially those who have supported the Liberal Democrats in the past – to join me in a campaign to restore trustworthy government in Britain.
Liberal Conservatism
Conservatives and many Liberals want social responsibility.So let me make a straightforward argument.Gordon Brown, and the philosophy which drives him, will only be defeated if Liberal and Conservative supporters rally together behind an alternative government-in-waiting.I am determined that the Conservative Party will provide the country with such an alternative government..................................
I believe that we need a new liberal Conservative consensus on our country.Let me begin by explaining what I mean by this.Then I will get into the specifics of what a Government I lead would do.I am a liberal Conservative...............................
Liberalism and Conservatism – like Gladstone and Disraeli – are often in conflict.But at a deeper level they depend on each other...............................................
On many of the key issues, it is this balance which we need – not state control, but greater freedom and greater social responsibility.Let me touch on four in particular – four crucial areas of policy where, I believe, the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrat supporters can find agreement.........................
When I first said that my party would be more green, more local, more family-friendly, some didn’t believe it.I hope we have shown that we meant it.When I outlined a liberal Conservative approach to foreign policy, some thought I would retract it.But we have held to it, and started to broaden and deepen in.When I said we would be hardnosed defenders of freedom, some doubted it.But we have stood up for our liberties, most recently by defeating the government over their plans to restrict trial by jury.There is no doubt about where this party is going.We are optimists.We have the conviction to take the tough choices – as we have shown on multiculturalism, on family policy and on green policy.We have a philosophy – liberal Conservatism – which has the answers to the great questions our country faces.For anyone who believes in this philosophy, there is a home waiting for them in the modern, moderate Conservative Party.Together, let us work to build a new consensus to restore trust in politics.
It seems clear to me where the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrat party were going in 2007. Nick Clegg became leader of the Liberal Democrat party in 2007. There is absolutely no shadow of doubt that under the leadership of Nick Clegg the Liberal Democrats have become very right wing. Clegg once declared that there is "no future" for the Liberal Democrats as a left wing alternative to the Labour party Clegg said:
“I totally understand that some of these people are not happy with what the Lib Dems are doing in coalition with the Conservatives. The Lib Dems never were and aren’t a receptacle for left-wing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party. There is no future for that; there never was.”
Maybe not under Clegg's leadership it has become manifestly clear that Nick Clegg is Conservative through and through! It also looks as though there was every possibility that the Tories and the Liberal Democrats had come to some kind of agreement a long time prior to the may 2010 general election. I believe that even if there wasn't a hung parliament in 2010, we would still have seen Liberal Democrats in cabinet. I have not forgotten what Nick Clegg said shortly after becoming Deputy Prime Minister in 2010, when he announce that the Liberal Democrats in coalition with the Conservatives could unite to keep Labour out of power for a 100 years. Pretty odd thing for the leader of the Liberal Democrats to say! I don't think that the Tories, the Liberal Democrats or the newspapers realise just how right wing the people of this country believe David Cameron is, yet Nick Clegg and his MPs still hang on to Cameron's every word and vote through every single Tory attack on the poor, sick, disabled, students, unemployed etc at every chance they get.
My point is that if it can be proved that Nick Clegg and David Cameron conspired to bring about this coalition government, would it make the unelected Conservative controlled Coalition Government's assumption to power illegal?
If true it would make everything the Tories and Liberal Democrats said and did in the two years run up to the general election in 2010 a lie. Everything in their manifestos would be exposed as untruths, fabrications, fanciful words written with the deliberate intention to deceive the electorate, even the Coalition Agreement supposedly written after the hung parliament during those 'faux' negotiations was probably a complete lie and a farce.
We know that David Cameron lied to us about the NHS just a few weeks prior to the general election. When he looked down the camera lens directly at us and said there would be "no more top down reorganisation of the NHS" he blatantly lied, because at the very time he said this he and his then shadow health minister had already been working on plans to inflict the biggest top down reorganisation on the NHS in its entire history, in fact, the Health and Social Care Bill [Act] wasn't even mentioned in the coalition agreement, yet was being pushed through parliament just a few weeks later. It is exactly the same with the trebling of tuition fees, Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA), promising not to close Sure Start centres and then closing over 550 of them. Promising not to cut winter fuel allowances for our elderly then cutting them. Promising not to treat the poor, sick vulnerable and disabled unfairly then attacking them them all through every single way imaginable.
The sheer speed that all these policies were brought about points to them being discussed and agreed long before the May 2010 general election. Pointing to Nick Clegg, David Cameron, George Osborne, David Laws, Vince Cable etc all knowing where the Liberal Democrats were heading well before the general election of 2010 and well before they announced that the two parties were to form a coalition after the general election.
If true, then this is not just run of the mill' politicians broken promises that we have come to expect from ALL politicians, this is blatant lying, deceiving and deception carried out with the intentional act to fraudulently harvest votes on the back of deliberate lies while totally misleading the British public.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Coming Is The Winter of Our Fear and Discontent!
According to the Samaritans the numbers of suicides in the United Kingdom has risen significantly in the past few years.
The 2013 report shows that the suicide rate for males is at its highest rate since 2002. The number of suicides amongst females has also notably risen since 2007. Overall, between 2010 and 2011 there was a significant increase in the UK suicide rate.
Government cuts to benefits, low wages and fear over being able to afford the basics such as food, gas, electric and water could also be a contributory factor. On top of all the benefit cuts the Conservative Coalition government have introduced what is now widely known as the Bedroom Tax, which is causing fear and distress in as many as over 500,000 low income households. The disabled who often live in specially adapted homes are also being targeted. Having one spare bedroom will mean people could lose 14% of their entitled housing benefit and having two or more spare bedrooms means people may lose 25% of their housing benefits.
Housing chiefs are calling in the Samaritans as as the Bedroom Tax pushes more tenants to the brink of suicide - one association even reports a client attempted suicide during a phone call, by slitting their wrists.
Another person told staff they had phoned to cancel some repair work as they were going for a swim and intended to keep on swimming because they believed it didn't hurt once the lungs filled up with water. Fortunately both callers spoke to Samaritan trained housing advisers and the police were called and their lives saved.
However, Stephanie Bottrill a disabled grandmother of 57 tragically committed suicide because of fear of the government's Bedroom tax, when she was told she had to pay another £80 per month, days before her death she had told a neighbour that she just couldn't afford to live anymore. She left suicide notes blaming the bedroom tax.
Teams of suicide prevention experts from the Samaritans (an emotional support charity) are training staff at housing groups around the country to spot suicide risks and demand for sessions has shot up by over 48% in the past seven months.
Disabled and widowed grandmother Jacqueline Harris 53 and a former nurse has become the latest victim of the Conservative Coalition government's cruel cuts when she killed herself after her disability payments were stopped by the DWP on the recommendation of Atos.
Mrs Harris's family blamed the government and slammed the government's assessment of Jacqueline, who was partially sighted, required walking sticks, had a spinal condition and was in constant pain due to arthritis in her neck. Despite her debilitating conditions her benefits were cut in January after a ruling said she was fit to work and she went on to lose an appeal against the decision. On November 2 Jacqueline Harris died from a suspected overdose, just 13 days before her second appeal was due to be heard.
At a time when she needed help and support, his lady a former nurse who had worked hard and given so much to the country and her community was badly let down by this government.
What a sad shocking state of affairs it is when we have sunk so low as a country that we are allowing vulnerable, disabled, poor and sick people to end their lives, in fear, misery and pain.
The Department for Work and Pensions and Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith say their "sympathies go out to the family". I dare say the family do not want their sympathies, I dares say Mrs Botrill and Mrs Harris did not want their sympathies either, all they wanted was to be treated fairly and with dignity and given the help they deserved and had every right to expect.
These are not isolated cases either, this is now becoming the norm, how many more "unnecessary deaths" does there have to be before this government stops this cruel and vicious attacks on our most vulnerable people?
On the same day we learn Energy Companies profits increased by 75% this year we also learn that last winter 31,000 people died because of the cold weather and Winter Deaths rose by 29%. That is 31,000 'unnecessary deaths' this government is responsible for. The majority of these deaths, 25,6000 in 2012/13 were among pensioners.
While in opposition and during televised leaders live debates, David Cameron promised not to cut pensioners winter fuel payments and accused the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown of scaremongering when he said that this was what the Tories were planning to do.
In 2010 the Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne cut pensioners winter fuel allowance aged 60 to 79 it was cut by £50 and aged 80 years onwards it was cut by £100.
The government deliberately driving down wages, low wages, cuts to benefits and cuts to pensioners winter fuel allowance are forcing people into poverty and the usage of foodbanks is escalation out of control. People are now being forced to choose between heating their homes on eating a hot meal.
According to Crisis homelessness is rising in England and Wales as the result of a lack of housing and cuts to the welfare system. The number of people accepted as homeless by their local authority (statutory homelessness) in up 21 percent in England and 17 percent in Wales in the last two years.
Official statistics show rough sleeping is up 31 percent in two years in England. this is thought to be just a snapshot as the true number of rough sleepers is likely to be far higher. Figures compiled over the course of a year by outreach workers in London shown a 62 percent rise in just two years.
Emergency doctors are warning that savage Tory cuts are plunging the NHS into the worst winter crisis ever this year.
Lives are being put at risk because of a shortage of medics, slashed services, dangerous overcrowding on wards and overstretched nurses.
Nurses and doctors are already working at full stretch with too little time and too many patients and the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's answer to that is to pass legislation in parliament that will give courts the power to impose prison sentences on nurses and doctors if they slip up and make a mistake. Hospital staff are working with the equipment and within the limitations set them by the Conservative controlled coalition government, yet they are now going to pay with their freedom for the sins of this government, pushing through their botched £3 billion reforms. Reforms which Cameron promised would not happen, reforms which no one wanted and reforms that were not needed. Since the coalition came to power they have sacked 6000 nurses. Now they trumpet there will be an "extra" 3000 nurses by the end of this year, well these are not extra nurses, they are newly qualified and have yet to gain post qualification experience and there are still 3000 sacked nurses that have not been replaced. How will the NHS attract staff if nurses and doctors are scared to practice for fear of being thrown into prison should they make a mistake?
Doctors ans nurses are seriously concerned about providing a safe service this coming winter.
David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt have left the NHS on the brink of its most dangerous winter in decades. The cold stark truth is that the NHS has fewer nurses, fewer beds and fewer senior A&E doctors than they had last year. As the winter sets in proper, the service is going to be depleted and the mess the government have made out NHS 111 (formerly NHS Direct) is only going to add further chaos to an already chaotic system.
Former PR salesman Cameron has managed to dodge the bullet and avoid taking responsibility for his mistakes, but I feel the net is now closing in on him and the Conservative controlled coalition government. It was absolute insanity to plunge the NHS into the crisis it now faces as a direct result of government interference, but as I have repeatedly warned, to carry out major reforms in education, defence, policing, fire service and welfare and the NHS all at the same time is reckless lunacy beyond which any mere words can describe.
The reforms in welfare affecting the unemployed, housing, bedroom tax, disability rights and benefits to low wage earners is as I have shown causing horrendous problems ending with fear, distress, homelessness and suicides. Universal Credit is creating bureaucratic chaos and leaving people with a roof over their heads, without food and without heat and light. On top of that creating insurmountable problems within the NHS is just adding to nightmare this government have caused across this country in all departments though their gross feckless incompetence.
David Cameron and this government have shown across the board in every department in government that they are totally unfit to run this country, in fact they are shockingly dangerous. The prime minister's behaviour in parliament last week using smear tactics live on TV shrieking out that the leader of the opposition and another senior Labour MP must have enjoyed drug and booze fueled nights out with a disgraced banker, was absolutely appalling. The PM it later transpired was using parliament ti lie through his back teeth in order to smear Ed Miliband and Ed Balls. You would have thought that the PM would keep quiet about bank funding as the City banks and hedge funds etc are responsible for funding over 60% of the Conservative party.
Instead of doing something about the cost of living crisis that is harming the majority of people in this country and the mess his government are making out of all major government departments, David Cameron has been busy defending the energy companies who are ripping us off, while his chancellor has been in the EU arranging to take the EU to court in order to protect bankers mega bonuses using taxpayers money to do so.
And these feckless fools wonder why most of the people in this country do not feel like there is an economic recovery (a recovery built on a housing bubble).
The whole country is in a dire mess, we are slipping towards catastrophe and many thousands of people will die this coming winter as a direct result of this government's gross incompetence. How many unnecessary deaths have this government caused already and:
How many 'unnecessary deaths' will there be in this 'coming winter of our fear and discontent'?
Cameron will learn that not everything is about money and he will pay electorally, but many in the country will pay for his catastrophic weakness and incompetence with their lives!
The 2013 report shows that the suicide rate for males is at its highest rate since 2002. The number of suicides amongst females has also notably risen since 2007. Overall, between 2010 and 2011 there was a significant increase in the UK suicide rate.
Government cuts to benefits, low wages and fear over being able to afford the basics such as food, gas, electric and water could also be a contributory factor. On top of all the benefit cuts the Conservative Coalition government have introduced what is now widely known as the Bedroom Tax, which is causing fear and distress in as many as over 500,000 low income households. The disabled who often live in specially adapted homes are also being targeted. Having one spare bedroom will mean people could lose 14% of their entitled housing benefit and having two or more spare bedrooms means people may lose 25% of their housing benefits.
Housing chiefs are calling in the Samaritans as as the Bedroom Tax pushes more tenants to the brink of suicide - one association even reports a client attempted suicide during a phone call, by slitting their wrists.
Another person told staff they had phoned to cancel some repair work as they were going for a swim and intended to keep on swimming because they believed it didn't hurt once the lungs filled up with water. Fortunately both callers spoke to Samaritan trained housing advisers and the police were called and their lives saved.
However, Stephanie Bottrill a disabled grandmother of 57 tragically committed suicide because of fear of the government's Bedroom tax, when she was told she had to pay another £80 per month, days before her death she had told a neighbour that she just couldn't afford to live anymore. She left suicide notes blaming the bedroom tax.
Teams of suicide prevention experts from the Samaritans (an emotional support charity) are training staff at housing groups around the country to spot suicide risks and demand for sessions has shot up by over 48% in the past seven months.
Disabled and widowed grandmother Jacqueline Harris 53 and a former nurse has become the latest victim of the Conservative Coalition government's cruel cuts when she killed herself after her disability payments were stopped by the DWP on the recommendation of Atos.
Mrs Harris's family blamed the government and slammed the government's assessment of Jacqueline, who was partially sighted, required walking sticks, had a spinal condition and was in constant pain due to arthritis in her neck. Despite her debilitating conditions her benefits were cut in January after a ruling said she was fit to work and she went on to lose an appeal against the decision. On November 2 Jacqueline Harris died from a suspected overdose, just 13 days before her second appeal was due to be heard.
At a time when she needed help and support, his lady a former nurse who had worked hard and given so much to the country and her community was badly let down by this government.
What a sad shocking state of affairs it is when we have sunk so low as a country that we are allowing vulnerable, disabled, poor and sick people to end their lives, in fear, misery and pain.
The Department for Work and Pensions and Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith say their "sympathies go out to the family". I dare say the family do not want their sympathies, I dares say Mrs Botrill and Mrs Harris did not want their sympathies either, all they wanted was to be treated fairly and with dignity and given the help they deserved and had every right to expect.
These are not isolated cases either, this is now becoming the norm, how many more "unnecessary deaths" does there have to be before this government stops this cruel and vicious attacks on our most vulnerable people?
On the same day we learn Energy Companies profits increased by 75% this year we also learn that last winter 31,000 people died because of the cold weather and Winter Deaths rose by 29%. That is 31,000 'unnecessary deaths' this government is responsible for. The majority of these deaths, 25,6000 in 2012/13 were among pensioners.
While in opposition and during televised leaders live debates, David Cameron promised not to cut pensioners winter fuel payments and accused the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown of scaremongering when he said that this was what the Tories were planning to do.
In 2010 the Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne cut pensioners winter fuel allowance aged 60 to 79 it was cut by £50 and aged 80 years onwards it was cut by £100.
The government deliberately driving down wages, low wages, cuts to benefits and cuts to pensioners winter fuel allowance are forcing people into poverty and the usage of foodbanks is escalation out of control. People are now being forced to choose between heating their homes on eating a hot meal.
According to Crisis homelessness is rising in England and Wales as the result of a lack of housing and cuts to the welfare system. The number of people accepted as homeless by their local authority (statutory homelessness) in up 21 percent in England and 17 percent in Wales in the last two years.
Official statistics show rough sleeping is up 31 percent in two years in England. this is thought to be just a snapshot as the true number of rough sleepers is likely to be far higher. Figures compiled over the course of a year by outreach workers in London shown a 62 percent rise in just two years.
Emergency doctors are warning that savage Tory cuts are plunging the NHS into the worst winter crisis ever this year.
Lives are being put at risk because of a shortage of medics, slashed services, dangerous overcrowding on wards and overstretched nurses.
Nurses and doctors are already working at full stretch with too little time and too many patients and the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's answer to that is to pass legislation in parliament that will give courts the power to impose prison sentences on nurses and doctors if they slip up and make a mistake. Hospital staff are working with the equipment and within the limitations set them by the Conservative controlled coalition government, yet they are now going to pay with their freedom for the sins of this government, pushing through their botched £3 billion reforms. Reforms which Cameron promised would not happen, reforms which no one wanted and reforms that were not needed. Since the coalition came to power they have sacked 6000 nurses. Now they trumpet there will be an "extra" 3000 nurses by the end of this year, well these are not extra nurses, they are newly qualified and have yet to gain post qualification experience and there are still 3000 sacked nurses that have not been replaced. How will the NHS attract staff if nurses and doctors are scared to practice for fear of being thrown into prison should they make a mistake?
Doctors ans nurses are seriously concerned about providing a safe service this coming winter.
David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt have left the NHS on the brink of its most dangerous winter in decades. The cold stark truth is that the NHS has fewer nurses, fewer beds and fewer senior A&E doctors than they had last year. As the winter sets in proper, the service is going to be depleted and the mess the government have made out NHS 111 (formerly NHS Direct) is only going to add further chaos to an already chaotic system.
Former PR salesman Cameron has managed to dodge the bullet and avoid taking responsibility for his mistakes, but I feel the net is now closing in on him and the Conservative controlled coalition government. It was absolute insanity to plunge the NHS into the crisis it now faces as a direct result of government interference, but as I have repeatedly warned, to carry out major reforms in education, defence, policing, fire service and welfare and the NHS all at the same time is reckless lunacy beyond which any mere words can describe.
The reforms in welfare affecting the unemployed, housing, bedroom tax, disability rights and benefits to low wage earners is as I have shown causing horrendous problems ending with fear, distress, homelessness and suicides. Universal Credit is creating bureaucratic chaos and leaving people with a roof over their heads, without food and without heat and light. On top of that creating insurmountable problems within the NHS is just adding to nightmare this government have caused across this country in all departments though their gross feckless incompetence.
David Cameron and this government have shown across the board in every department in government that they are totally unfit to run this country, in fact they are shockingly dangerous. The prime minister's behaviour in parliament last week using smear tactics live on TV shrieking out that the leader of the opposition and another senior Labour MP must have enjoyed drug and booze fueled nights out with a disgraced banker, was absolutely appalling. The PM it later transpired was using parliament ti lie through his back teeth in order to smear Ed Miliband and Ed Balls. You would have thought that the PM would keep quiet about bank funding as the City banks and hedge funds etc are responsible for funding over 60% of the Conservative party.
Instead of doing something about the cost of living crisis that is harming the majority of people in this country and the mess his government are making out of all major government departments, David Cameron has been busy defending the energy companies who are ripping us off, while his chancellor has been in the EU arranging to take the EU to court in order to protect bankers mega bonuses using taxpayers money to do so.
And these feckless fools wonder why most of the people in this country do not feel like there is an economic recovery (a recovery built on a housing bubble).
The whole country is in a dire mess, we are slipping towards catastrophe and many thousands of people will die this coming winter as a direct result of this government's gross incompetence. How many unnecessary deaths have this government caused already and:
How many 'unnecessary deaths' will there be in this 'coming winter of our fear and discontent'?
Cameron will learn that not everything is about money and he will pay electorally, but many in the country will pay for his catastrophic weakness and incompetence with their lives!
Monday, November 18, 2013
A Tale of Two Britains
Britain One
Yesterday there was a report in Sunday's Independent that reported figures released that show how austerity is impacting on Britain's poorest and most vulnerable people and showing that the numbers being treated for malnutrition at hospital has nearly doubled.
Primary and secondary diagnoses of malnutrition - caused by lack of food or very poor diet - rose from 3,161 in 2008/09 to 5,499 last year according to the government's own figures released by health minister Norman Lamb. This coincides with the escalation in the numbers flooding to foodbanks because they can no longer adequately feed their families and the soaring cost of living - the country's poor and vulnerable are in crisis. In another indication of how badly the government's policies are impacting on the poor and weak, figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre show that diagnoses of rickets have also risen significantly, from 561 in 2008/09 to 702 in the past year. Norman Lamb was forced to reveal the figures after Labour MP Jim Cunningham acquired the figures in a written answer to a parliamentary question last week.
The number of food banks has risen to around half a million a year, according to Oxfam. The largest food bank operator. Oxfam are also now engaged in making emergency aid parcels up as poverty and malnutrition problem continues to increase in the UK. The use of food banks has not been collaborated exactly because as well as the big charities that offer nationwide distribution of food supplies, there are hundreds of small food banks cropping up all over the country as need soars.
People on low pay and who subsist on benefits and those who live in rural areas are among the worst hit. The situation can only get worse as government benefit cuts, bedroom tax, council tax cuts, rising food bills, rising childcare costs and rising cost of energy take their toll on already weak and vulnerable incomes and people. The new charges for gas and electric come into force today which will place further strain on household incomes, in many cases people are just going to be completely unable to absorb the new energy hikes and for those on prepayment meteres covered in depth HERE, the costs will be even greater, as these consumers are already charged more for their gas and electricity by the energy companies. It's a typical case of the poor being hit with a double whammy simply because they are poor.
This is the state of this country today, this is the country that Cameron, Osborne and Clegg are making, this is the country we are now living in, where the poor are blamed for being poor and never was it so evident than in last week's bedroom tax debate in parliament when Tory MP after Tory MP stood up to attack and berate people for being poor.
What next from the Tories and Liberal Democrats? Will they be saying the 'undeserving poor' do not need to eat? Iain Duncan Smith the work and pensions secretary at the DWP says that; "the benefits systems leaves no one struggling for their basic needs" yes that's true if you do not have to eat, or pay to light and heat your home and according to Tobias Ellwood Tory MP for Bournemouth East when he spoke in Labour's debate on the bedroom tax last week, poor people are not allowed homes anyway as he said; people living in council houses have no right to call their house their home and must be prepared to move as and when required. So that's food, heat, lighting and residence taken care of by the Tories and they've already started dismantling work on our state education system and NHS, so pretty soon all poor people will be homeless, malnourished, dying of poverty related illnesses and be unable to be educated about them, or treated for them in an NHS hospital and they will all be in the Tory and Lib Dem Coalition process of being expunged from society and hopefully from the face of the earth where they cannot bother Tory and Lib dem types ever again!
So no more need for the country's Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies to worry further about all children being given vitamins to halt the process of diseases like rickets as the country slips back to the Victorian era and abject poverty and malnutrition, and she can forget all about the fact that "child mortality rates in some of the poorest parts of England are three times higher than in rich regions. Soon we will have socially cleansed the lot and eradicated those "damned spots" on the landscapes for good.
Britain Two
David Cameron at the Lord Mayor's banquet last week, speaking from behind a gold lectern stood next to the Lord Mayoress bedecked in her gold chains of office and sunk into the plush red velvet upholstery of her ornate golden throne telling a room full of over fed, over privileged bankers, hedge funders, corporate businessmen and private health companies etc that 'austerity is permanent', after dining on a lavish dinner of fillet of beef and a celebration of British mushrooms washed down by fine wines and champagnes - Dave doesn't do paradox - obviously.
Yesterday there was a report in Sunday's Independent that reported figures released that show how austerity is impacting on Britain's poorest and most vulnerable people and showing that the numbers being treated for malnutrition at hospital has nearly doubled.
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| Rickets In Children is caused By Malnutrition |
The number of food banks has risen to around half a million a year, according to Oxfam. The largest food bank operator. Oxfam are also now engaged in making emergency aid parcels up as poverty and malnutrition problem continues to increase in the UK. The use of food banks has not been collaborated exactly because as well as the big charities that offer nationwide distribution of food supplies, there are hundreds of small food banks cropping up all over the country as need soars.
People on low pay and who subsist on benefits and those who live in rural areas are among the worst hit. The situation can only get worse as government benefit cuts, bedroom tax, council tax cuts, rising food bills, rising childcare costs and rising cost of energy take their toll on already weak and vulnerable incomes and people. The new charges for gas and electric come into force today which will place further strain on household incomes, in many cases people are just going to be completely unable to absorb the new energy hikes and for those on prepayment meteres covered in depth HERE, the costs will be even greater, as these consumers are already charged more for their gas and electricity by the energy companies. It's a typical case of the poor being hit with a double whammy simply because they are poor.
This is the state of this country today, this is the country that Cameron, Osborne and Clegg are making, this is the country we are now living in, where the poor are blamed for being poor and never was it so evident than in last week's bedroom tax debate in parliament when Tory MP after Tory MP stood up to attack and berate people for being poor.
What next from the Tories and Liberal Democrats? Will they be saying the 'undeserving poor' do not need to eat? Iain Duncan Smith the work and pensions secretary at the DWP says that; "the benefits systems leaves no one struggling for their basic needs" yes that's true if you do not have to eat, or pay to light and heat your home and according to Tobias Ellwood Tory MP for Bournemouth East when he spoke in Labour's debate on the bedroom tax last week, poor people are not allowed homes anyway as he said; people living in council houses have no right to call their house their home and must be prepared to move as and when required. So that's food, heat, lighting and residence taken care of by the Tories and they've already started dismantling work on our state education system and NHS, so pretty soon all poor people will be homeless, malnourished, dying of poverty related illnesses and be unable to be educated about them, or treated for them in an NHS hospital and they will all be in the Tory and Lib Dem Coalition process of being expunged from society and hopefully from the face of the earth where they cannot bother Tory and Lib dem types ever again!
So no more need for the country's Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies to worry further about all children being given vitamins to halt the process of diseases like rickets as the country slips back to the Victorian era and abject poverty and malnutrition, and she can forget all about the fact that "child mortality rates in some of the poorest parts of England are three times higher than in rich regions. Soon we will have socially cleansed the lot and eradicated those "damned spots" on the landscapes for good.
Britain Two
David Cameron at the Lord Mayor's banquet last week, speaking from behind a gold lectern stood next to the Lord Mayoress bedecked in her gold chains of office and sunk into the plush red velvet upholstery of her ornate golden throne telling a room full of over fed, over privileged bankers, hedge funders, corporate businessmen and private health companies etc that 'austerity is permanent', after dining on a lavish dinner of fillet of beef and a celebration of British mushrooms washed down by fine wines and champagnes - Dave doesn't do paradox - obviously.
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