Balls' bankruptcy of economic ideas

The trailering by Ed Balls and the Labour Party of the concrete measures to handle the nation's grave economic crisis their party largely caused, spread around Twitter last evening, was completely absurd.

According to the BBC, the one concrete move to halt payment of the winter fuel allowance to wealthy pensioners will save considerably less than one  billion pounds. Ridiculous enough, albeit to my mind a significant first step against universal benefits, which is much to be welcomed, where then is Labour's embracing of universal means testing?

This winter, living in France as I do, the EU suddenly made me eligible as a UK pensioner to receive the UK fuel allowance. I wasn't going to claim, but on reading that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne was claiming as Parliamentary expenses the central heating costs on a farmhouse he owned somewhere or other, I decided so to do and a payment was duly made.

The thought occurs that as I am a non-taxpayer in the UK, could not wealthy UK residents escape to the EU, pay their taxes there and thereby defy this sudden new levy?

Is this yet another example of a purely cosmetic tax adjustment, made entirely for show and doing nothing to address the real grave issues faced by the economy of the country?

Can MPs really contemplate months of hols with Pay Day loans at 1737%

A week ago today, the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, to which MPs have devolved what little power remains in the country from that abnegated to the EU, decided to create yet more billions of pounds from thin air to hand to the largest banks in the land at zero cost.

Last evening, watching a TV programme on the underground railway called Crossrail, from the expiring and choked dinosaur that is Heathrow Airport to the soon to be the greed and EU and FTT destroyed wasteland that will become London's supposed new financial centre at Canary Wharf, we were frequently bombarded by childlike adverts, amongst others, to take out a pay day loan at an advertised APR of 1737%. Yes that rate is correct, I did not miss a decimal somewhere in the middle, I checked online this morning see here.

So Mandarins, Ministers and MPs should maybe think twice before taking off on their weeks of holidays. While many MPs are innumerate there can be no excuse to plead ignorance that when creating money for nothing to give as a free gift to the banks who will then charge desperate consumers, (unable to feed, clothe or shelter themselves between paydays, because of the currency devaluation, inflation and general misery brought about by the policies of successive governments,) at interest rates of 1737% APR, YOUR fellow citizens, MPs' voters and YOUR constituents are being right royally screwed. YOU will bear the blame, were I you I would refuse to quit Westminster while this outrage continues.

If MPs do depart and leaveve the growing crisis to care for itself, then I suggest they take time to run their hands round the neck of those tight collarless summer T shirts we all seem to don at this time if year - tight and uncomfortable are they not, worse still were they hemp, which surely must be what they are now quickly approaching deserving.

Here is a reminder of last week's QE announcement from Mervyn King, wasting anothe £50 Billion to now make a total £375 Billion imaginary digitally created cash, solely existing to defer the day these crooks are all brought to account! At least in the intervening six days we have identified another culprit, namely tennis loving fat-cat Sir Mervyn's side-kick, Paul Tucker!

Balls delivers deathblow to English Language as a tool of Political Debate

There are lies, damned lies, and beyond that, a string of words conjoined to form complex series of mixed untruths as was uttered by the new Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ed Balls, on the Andrew Marr show yesterday. A video of his appearence on the programmeyesterday morning is linked here and the full stupefying transcript is available from here.

If some means could be found for eliminating every single atom, perhaps by shooting this man into the heart of the sun or feeding him round and round a particle accelerator and thereafter capturing and somehow transporting to another universe the resulting quarks or whatever else makes up this container of the mental mess controlling this supposed human being, I doubt the english language could ever fully recover from this disgusting assault on both truth and common sense.

When even words can be made to depart from their own inherent meaning, what hope can there be for any of us.  Ed Balls achieves the previously apparently unthinkable, making the Prime Minister, David Cameron, appear straightforward!

What new lies will Wednesday bring from New Labour?

Treasures from the threads - Number Eight

Simon Heffer in his Telegraph column todays hits out at Ed Balls, linked here. The following contribution came from Anne Palmer at 0734: Maybe a word can be changed in Hansard but the deeds that are happening "Today in Parliament" and what will be written down in Hansard forever will cast a shadow that will stain the future of this Country, because it cannot all be altered. That famous verse of Cicero "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within" is spoken now more than it ever was in his 'own time'. Just add up Simon, the 'wages', vast expenses, second home perks so recently revealed, the cost of the extra layer of Regional Assemblies, Councils etc, then the EU Commissioners, ALL the MEP's, plus expenses, the overseas visits-you get the idea, the list is endless,and then ask yourself, just how much longer are the general public going to continue to pay the politicians here in the UK for a Job they no longer can do, or in the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty obviously they no longer want to do? We see "our Leaders" in The EU scraping the barrel having to cook up ways of raising yet more taxes from people though means of "saving the planet". It became obvious when "smoking was banned' in so many places that there would be a need to raise taxes in other ways. What could be better than saving the planet? Our newspapers and TV haven't shown the dreadful weather, the freezing temperatures in other parts of the world just across the Atlantic for one because it would not be helpful to their plans. This Government that has ignored the people, must make a decision and make it soon. Does IT want to Govern this Country? Does IT really think that the people will continue to accept ALL that THEY, our own MP's are doing, and NO, they are not doing it in the people's name, for they know without doubt, that the people do not want further integration into the Union. ALL this cannot be altered in Hansard. Hansard must record the treachery that is taking place in those magnificent buildings, because the people know for sure, that both sides in the argument re the Treaty of Lisbon cannot both be right, can they? We will remeber this Government all right Simon, but not as "Great Warriors", actually not as "Great" anything. Posted by Anne Palmer on March 15, 2008 7:34 AM