English Opinion

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The news shows I watch every day have been all doom and gloom for some time now thanks to knife and gun crime, drugs, the government and the world economy but this week it’s seemed worse than it has been for a while. With the bank bonuses under scrutiny and allegations of fat cats lining their own pockets before thinking about us little people, the February Blues have well and truly kicked in. It’s become apparent that it’ll take a lot more than is being done right now to survive the credit crunch in one piece!

One thing I have noticed though is that the local communities don’t seem to be pulling together as much as they used to. Certainly around here the message from most people seems to be pull the ladder up Jack and sod the rest! I don’t like that at all. After all, in the good years we become more selfish  and introspective because it’s human nature to make the most of it while the going is good. When times get rough, people should be able to rely on each other.

As we head further into this “depression”, I think we all need to pull together as bloggers, readers and members of the world community to make each other smile, to offer tips that could help others out (saving money, how to find work, surviving on a budget etc) and to generally comment to form a community for support. Leave your comments, jokes, poems etc here and help someone smile if nothing else!

Sir James Crosby, the man hand picked by Gordon Brown to act as one of the chief regulators of the City, has today resigned from his post at the Financial Services Authority after his previous judgement has seriously been brought into question. When he was the head of HBOS, Crosby was warned by his Head of Risk, Paul Moore, that the bank was taking unacceptable risks and growing too fast. Moore was effectively a whistleblower when he advised Crosby and his cronies that their policies would ultimately lead to the downfall of the bank and indeed it has. Moore alleges that he warned Crosby repeatedly and that, when they did not like what he had to say, they simply got rid of him. In fact, Moore was just trying to safeguard our best interests whilst Crosby was trying to safeguard his.

One question remains though - if Moore saw the crash coming then why did nobody else?

Following this news, David Cameron rightly accused Gordon Brown of being just as reckless with the taxpayer’s money as Crosby had been himself. After all, Brown was relying on Crosby for financial advice and expected him to regulate the bankers and their extortionate bonuses. He was trusting a man that sacked an advisor that dared to question the bankers’ greed and advise against it! If this does not point to corruption in the UK government and finance system then I don’t know what does! Unsurprisingly, Brown refused to comment and avoided Cameron’s questions

In other news, the head of the Bank Of England, Mervyn King, commented on the state of the UK’s financial state today and basically said that we’re heading into deep recession. The recession, according to Mr King, is far worse than the Bank of England initially anticipated to the point at which interest rate cuts will not be enough to drag us out of it. Batton down the hatches people because we’re going to be in for a rough few years!

When the credit crunch hit the UK, it was only a matter of time before the unrest that the country has been experiencing for some time manifested itself in a more demonstrable way. There have been mutterings here for some time about foreign workers that have arrived in the UK since the unification of the European Union taking the jobs of British workers. In some cases they have filled job vacancies that Brits neither have the skills necessary to fulfil or those vacancies that far outweight the number of people that can fill them. Medical professions are prime examples of that. However, in manufacturing industries it is a well known fact that foreign labour is cheaper than British labour and so companies have chosen the former rather than the latter. In years gone by, when the economy was booming, this did not matter that much as unemployment rates were low, but it did cause some resentment. However, now that resentment has turned into bitter emnity.

The wildcat strikes that have been going on for a little under a week started at Lindsey Oil Refinery in Licolnshire because a major new contract was awarded to an Italian company by plant owners Total. This in itself is not significant but the fact they brought Italian labour over to fulfil it was. After all, they could have employed British workers to do the same job at the same price given the number of people unemployed at the moment. In the past week, people from all over the country have walked out in wildcat strikes in solidarity. Now it appears that half of the jobs will be awarded to British people in a compromise stemming from the talks that have been in progress for a couple of days.

I wasn’t at all surprised to see the wildcat strikes, especially when Gordon Brown had been spouting on about British jobs for British workers. He has since hypocritically condemned the action but opened the door to begin with. It was bound to happen sooner or later because very little of Britain is left as it is with stupid PC laws and those removing our identity because it may offend someone. Well, I hope the workers of the wildcat strikes do get their own way. I also hope that the government starts taking notice because enough is enough. We have all had enough of being dictated to by Brussels. Anyone that was born in the UK has a fundamental right to work here unimpeded and bringing workers in specifically to do jobs that we can do is not on. People have the right to keep a roof over their heads and support their families. This country should look after the hard working as much as it looks after the benefits cheats it is supposed to be cracking down on.

I am British and proud of it and it really is about time that we all started making our presence felt again. I’m with you boys!

We are in the midst of the credit crunch here in the UK and it seems that more and more people are being put out of work every single day through no fault of their own. Today it was announced that Corus, a premier steelmaker here, was to cut 2,500 jobs soon, thus forcing more people out of work. The rate of repossession of homes stands at one family every 10 minutes now and that may well get worse as we head deeper into recession.

In a few hours, we will all face another Monday. Most of us will get up as normal and go to work with the fear that we will be told we are no longer needed when we get there. Some will wonder how they are going to pay the bills on the minimum wage jobs they have had to take following the loss of their £20,000 plus a week job. Some may even wonder how far they can make the petrol stretch in their cars given that they haven’t got enough money to fill up the tank.

Gordon Brown and his Labour government are our “public servants”. We are counting on them to get us out of the mess that they and a few greedy bankers have gotten us into. We elected them to do what is right by us and apparently they are… by getting us into hefty debt and squandering our money on themselves.

This week may well be the week that we can read all about what our hard earned cash goes on when they claim expenses. Millions of our pounds every year are used to pay family members a wage that they do not work for, for furniture for their second homes, for expensive cars and luxurious hotels. The list could go on.

So spare a thought for MPs when you hear to work this Monday morning people! After all, the government’s privacy is about to be compromised and the British public is too stupid to understand why the public servants need second homes when they don’t even have one. Neither can we understand their cushy lifestyles when we’re making every penny do the work of two. Spare a thought for their corrupt ways when you are told that you are no longer needed because they will never be out of a job.

These are the people that are supposed to serve us but the only people that they serve these days are themselves. It makes me sick.

Just a quick thought for the day today… It was announced that British Gas have released information that they are to slash prices of their energy services in February by 10%, which marks a huge saving on what we are paying for our gas at the moment. I have to admit that it does sound good from the information given at first glance because I’ve read little about it… but then I got to thinking…

Yes, slashing gas prices by 10% is a good thing so well done British Gas for being the first one to do so but isn’t it a little late? How many elderly people have died because they couldn’t afford to put on their heating? How many people have sat wrapped in blankets to avoid putting their central heating to good use because it was too expensive? These changes will come into force when the two coldest months, December and January, are over and done with. Coincidence? I think not! Gas prices fell slightly in December but now people will be cutting back on the heating as the cold starts to subside, you don’t have to pay as much for it.

Having said that, I suppose we have to take what we can get given the extortionate rates we have to pay at the moment and the fact that other providers are resisting the change. Good job I’m already with British Gas!

Yes, you read the title of this post right! The Royal Bank Of Scotland was today announced to have made a loss of £27 billion in 2008! When you consider that these people actually look after our money for us it is really quite shocking and it beggers belief that they would be allowed to do that job! Their announced losses were £7 billion but RBS lost a further £20 billion thanks to their disastrous takeover of ABN Amro last year. They are record losses and the share prices fell by 67% to 12p each to reflect this, but it is more apparant than ever that these people and their greed played a major part in welcoming the credit crunch with open arms. Considering that tax payers have bailed them out not once but twice now and the above figures are fact and not fiction, I find it a bit rich that the banks still won’t lend to business in desperate need of a financial boost to ride out the storm.

These figures were announced just before Prime Idiot Gordon Brown announced that we were to bail out the banks AGAIN so they could be insured against bad debt. We are to pay for their stupidity and greed yet again to get business moving again as a result of this “state insurance”. The idea is to get them lending again by providing insurance against bad debts so we would be paying for loans and credit lines for companies that fail in the coming years. Again, the banks get away with not paying a penny for their mistakes.

I understand the need for credit to get industry and businesses going again but the success of this venture all depends on Gordon Brown’s ability to encourage banks to start lending again and there is nothing to say that they have to at all. By law, they can do just as they please… and undoubtedly have in the past! Furthermore, this is fast becoming a time bomb. Brown is writing cheques that he is never going to have to cash. We are. We are going to be heavily taxed for years to come so my generation (I’m 27) and my children’s generation are going to have to pay for the mistakes of today in the years to come. That is not fair at all. Although something has to be done, Brown cannot keep announcing these initiatives, which incidentally keep failing to have the desired or indeed any effect, and adding more debt to our future tax bill without consequences.

And there has to be consequences in the next election or God help us all!

Apparently the UK is heading for a “Depression” type recession within the next year or so, according to leading economists. They have announced that they expect the credit crunch to increase the unemployment figures to around 3.4 million by the end of 2009 alone as more and more businesses go under. This would be the largest ceconomic contraction in the UK for 1946 and it certainlymakes incredibly gloomy reading.

I think every single negative word has been used to describe the credit crunch in recent months - depressing, alarming, scary and indeed terrifying. Well, no doubt there will be a few more choice words as well from homeowners because housing prices are also set tofall by a predicted 22% within 12 months. I’ve been a little sceptical when reading various reports that have been released in recent months predicting just how bad the economy will get because the predictions have always been a little off but I am starting to notice a pattern. The predictions are off in a rather appalling way because they are predicting figures that are better on paper than actually occurs in reality. As a result, we may find that homes actualy reduce by far more.

Although another report released today has predicted a massive boom when we get out of this credit crunch mess, that is a dim and distant possibility right now. In fact, there is absolutely no point releasing information like that because it does not help those that have lost their jobs or face repossession of their homes. Neither does it help the businesses that cannot get credit. The only people it helps are those Labour phonies in government that have blatantly lost touch with us all and have no clue what we’re going through. Focus on getting us out of this mess then tell us how good life will be in 2017!

New broke today that Manchester City had made a bid to bring AC Milan star Kaka to the Premiership. That in itself is a little ambitious given the fact that Manchester City are just 2 points off the relegation zone at the moment, but it is the proposed fee that has made eyes water everywhere - £90 million… for one player! Furthermore, if Kaka does agree to sign for Manchester City it is thought he would get a massive £500,000 A WEEK. It makes the minimum wage look like a penny in your hand! It has been reported that Kaka will refuse the move because he wants to stay at AC Milan, meaning that he obviously cares about the level of his career and the game more than money, but football has well and truly gone mad!

Kaka is a fantastic player and Manchester City are the richst club in the Premiership but when you look at the economic conditions around at the minute it is no wonder that the story has made huge headlines. The credit crunch is sending families under. They are losing their jobs, losing their homes and losing the will to live in some cases… and yet a football club can offer £90 million for one player? Something really is wrong with that picture. I’m a huge football fan and wouldn’t know what to do on Saturdays if I couldn’t go to Villa Park every time Villa play, but I really don’t agree with the wages players receive and the silly money that is paid for them in the first place. They kick a ball for a living. They don’t save lives or revolutionize the world. They are not superior beings that deserve to live in the lap of luxury. OK, so they have short careers and need to make their money whilst they can but what happened to playing for the lovve of the game and earning a decent living (and not an extortionate one) doing it.

As I said, I am a massive football fan and worship at the alter of Martin O Neill, but the economic situation at the moment should put this all in perspective. Maybe they could put the £90 million towards helping Mancunians by creating jobs instead? I doubt it but it would be nice! Kaka can wait but many families will not.

I have to say that I’m sick of seeing Gordon Brown’s face on the news every single lunchtime and evening at the moment. Every day he seems to be giving the green light to new initiatives that will ultimately lead nowhere. Every day he makes promises that any fool can see he can’t keep. Every day there is another news story about redundancies and absolutely nothing is being done to halt the credit crunch at all. Well, it’s time to put up or shut up because the credit crunch got a whole lot worse when economists asserted today that not only is the economy at its worst level since the 1970s but also that it is heading towards meltdown not seen since the end of World War II. Then there was a major excuse. Now all we have are sorry excuses for politicians and bankers that got us into this mess in the first place.

In the last couple of weeks there have been numerous companies announcing redudancies - JCB, Nissan, Marks & Spencer, Barclays, Wincanton, Wedgewood, Land Of Leather, Woolworths, Adams, MFI… the list goes on. All are massive companies, but small businesses are faring just as badly. All this points to the next set of unemployment figures that are published exceeding the 2 million mark and there is still no end in sight. The banks still will not lend despite the bail out being paid for by the people that need to borrow money. The High Street is still suffering via falling sales. The national economy is now expected to fall by 2.4% rather than the previously predicted 2.2%… and still there is no national recovery plan. The future is bleak and cold and incredibly scary, and yet that idiot of a Prime Minister continues to make promises and initiatives that are useless to us.

None of the politicians in charge of this country know what it feels like to go to bed early to save electricity. They have no clue what it feels like to toast bread that is stale to try and save on the food budget. They are not huddled in their living rooms wrapped in blankets rather than putting on the heating. They have no idea what it’s like to trawl free samples websites to find stuff that they can use instead of spending money. They don’t have to do any of the above and so simply patronise us when they say they know how we’re feeling because they don’t. If I sound angry it’s because I am angry… and I’m fed up of seeing hard working people ground down by life, losing their homes and struggling to feed their children when this is none of their fault. The credit crunch is down to the fat cats that took one too many risks.

The worst thing about it is that I can’t see any end to it and neither can economists. It’s going to get a hell of a lot worse before it gets any better. That, aside from death and taxes, is the only thing that is certain in British life at the moment.