How to save money - the Tory way!

Anyone seen the list of 50 measures councils in England are being told they must carry out to save money?  Laugh?  I nearly cried – well actually my jaw dropped for so long I thought I had lockjaw!

For those of you who would like the same experience (!) just click here https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/39264/50_ways_2.pdf for a link to this jolly document, entitled  ‘50 ways to save : Examples of sensible savings in local government’ put together at the behest of Eric Pickles. 

To be fair there are some things listed which I actually agree with, particularly those which apply to the upper levels in any council – use more video conferencing, avoid 1st class travel, look into supplying open source computer software etc.  But a lot of them, even when on the face of it they might seem reasonable, are going to be counterproductive eg don’t quite see how you can ‘Cut spending on … agency staff’ and ‘Introduce a recruitment freeze’.  (Am I missing something?!)

Sadly but not surprisingly many would result at diluting the pay & conditions of staff such as 'Close subsidised council canteens' and 'Hot-desking' – it’s ‘little’ things like these that may seem minor but almost certainly demoralise staff.  So in any case this won’t save money but instead will eventually add to costs through increased sick leave and staff turnover. 

And would any list compiled by Tories be complete without the obligatory good old union bashing with suggestions like 'Scrap trade union posts' and 'Charge for collecting trade union subscriptions'.

But I’ll finish the real humdinger ‘Stop translating everything into a foreign language’.  Just how well will this go down in English cities like Bradford and Leicester?  The words balloon and lead come to mind (let alone all the expletives!!)

So far this list only applies in England.  Let’s just hope & pray it doesn’t cross any borders!

Les

GO getting tough with the rich? Pull the other one!

I get easily confused.

It appears that the Chancellor is finally after tax evaders and the wealthy – about time too and begs the question why didn’t he start with them instead of hounding the poorest & most vulnerable in our society!

Anyway, that’s not why I’m confused.  It’s a couple of things that apparently he will be saying in his Autumn Statement on Wednesday.  (Don’t you just yearn for those wonderful days in the past when the news really was news and hadn’t been told to us hours or days before it happened.)

He’s going to ‘slash the £50,000 annual tax relief cap on pensions to as little as £30,000’  according to The Sunday Times.  What confuses me is when he uses the word ‘slash’ when these are millionaires we are talking about.  And doesn’t that mean they will still be able to claim £30000 a year, ie more than the average salary for the rest of us?

But more confusing still is the comment from his Sun interview (although as it is the Sun maybe they’ve got it wrong?)   "Every one of my Budgets has raised more from the richest” he says.  D’oh, what about the reduction in additional tax from 50% to 45%? 

If someone can explain any of the above I’d be glad to hear it!

Les

A Future that Works?

Well, the present certainly isn’t!   Unless, of course, you are a rich Tory supporter, get a tax cut off Dodgy Dave & Dubious George, who make out that they are doing it so you have more money to spend in the UK economy, when they know full well that you are far more likely to hive it off in some tax free account abroad.

Jeff & I went on the march in London yesterday.  Like 1000’s of others I was there to show I realise how important this is, despite the fact I know full well it isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference to the way the Gruesome Twosome are ruining the country.  As long as they have plenty, which of course they do, along with the majority of the rest of the cabinet, what’s the point. 

Probably a naïve question to ask but I find myself wondering, and not for the first time, as they certainly don’t need the money, and they only seem to care about other rich people like themselves, why exactly are any of them in politics?!

Better still, what is the point of any of them?!!! 

Les

Division & Hypocracy

I feel another bout of despair coming on …

Two e-mails I’ve received recently yet again show just how extremist & appallingly unfair this Tory led government is.  Despite Cameron himself saying that ‘inequality is at a record high’ it displays all the characteristics of a rich man’s club, as it seems to be doing all it can to widen the divide between their wealthy & healthy cronies, and the poor.

The first e-mail reinforced the ‘Club’ idea, referring to a site called searchthemoney.com, where you can see how much wealthy Tory supporters donate to their elite men-only clubs which then gets its way into Tory coffers.  Apparently £7500 is the maximum someone can donate to these private clubs.  No problem for them, and no doubt it doesn’t bother them in the slightest that there are people in Britain who don’t even earn that in a year!

The other e-mail is one you may have already seen, about the truly horrendous decisions that the French company ATOS are making when deciding whether a disabled person is fit for work.  These have often lead to worsening the health of the person under investigation, and in many cases leading to suicide.  But why would this government care when that just means less paid out in benefits which is of course the idea.  And I would like to know why we are paying a French company millions to do this when surely it would be fairer and cheaper to go with whatever the doctors have recommended with regard to anyone in receipt of a disability allowance or pension.  And why a French company at all?!  But what is truly beyond belief is that this company is sponsoring the Paralympics.  Sick or what?!!!

Les

2 Points and a Pinch of Praise

Open letter to Daily Mirror columnist, Kevin Maguire 

Points first …

If Blair is so poisonous why give him any column inches?

And whilst I see some improvements I’d
like to see more plaudits for Ed please –
he’s slowly but surely emerging as good
PM material.

And wouldn’t it be nice to have someone
who’s perhaps a bit geeky looking, and
has a slightly awkward way of talking,
unlike the oil slick we currently have. 


And the pinch …

Thank you for finishing with that oh so succinct quote from Ed
“if you go out and nick £50 from Tesco you are punished; if you
fiddle lie and cheat millions of pounds then you should face the
full force of the law.”  Nuff said.

Les

All in the family

All this week I have tried to do this blog post but just haven’t been able to find the right words to react to Cameron’s inference that ‘it’s your own fault if you are poor’.  My thoughts have ranged from despair to anger, from shock almost to hopelessness.

Sweeping generalisations – what a curse these are, so often used by newspapers to save space or ‘better’ still, from their viewpoint, to create more sensational stories – you know the adage ‘never let the truth get in the way …’.  This is of course compounded when politicians don’t even tell the whole story in the first place. 

Cameron gives the impression that all well off people are decent and do good works, and all unemployed are benefit scroungers & cheats who wouldn’t do a days work even if you did pay them.  And he’s relying on the rest in the middle to believe this crap!  Divide & rule, of course.

So what about other side of this ‘story’?  What about all the rich who fiddle their taxes so they can get even richer?  What about all the countless families, increasing daily, now on benefits because the main breadwinner has lost their job through Cameron’s Cuts, far too many having to make the choice between eating or heating?  What about all the vast majority of young people now out of work after studying hard to get qualifications only to find there are no vacancies?

I could go on but you get the picture.  Cameron on the other hand either doesn’t or wont.  Oh boy, isn’t he just the Son of Thatcher!

Les

PS Interesting story in Monday’s Mirror page 2 ‘HMRC staff strike after jobs are cut’, claimng cuts ‘have ruined a crackdown on tax avoidance’.  Need I say more!

Another open letter to David Cameron

“This morning a woman on the radio was speaking about how she had more that one job in order to get by.  In particular she stated how she had to choose either use money for bus fares to get to one of the jobs or to buy food.

The chances are you will never, ever be in that situation, so perhaps it is understandable that you cannot really comprehend this happening.  But then again, I’m also lucky.  Although not quite in your league where income is concerned, I’ve never been in that dreadful predicament, nor am likely to be.  The difference is I can still manage to feel for her, and the millions of others like her who are suffering the same choices because of austerity measures which you and your pal George still insist are necessary.

So why cant you?”

Les