English Opinion

It has taken me until now to calm down enough to write about the vital 2009 Budget that was announced today. In effect, it is the fiscal policy that will dictate the British economy actions and events until at least November this year and possible May next year should Alasdair Darling, the Chancellor decline to revise the budget beforehand. I cannot help thinking that we are all in a quagmire that is none of our own doing and the incompetant, UNELECTED Prime Minister in his previous role as Chancellor has effectively dragged us into the worst economic period in British history since World War II.

Britain’s domestic borrowing this year will amount to £175 BILLION. Who can even envision how much money that is? Bearing in mind our 60 million population and relatively modest GDP in terms of that of other countries and you will see just how far this reaches. We will be paying for it for years to come and so will our children. The unborn will undoubtedly suffer because of a deluded idiot that has somehow managed to cheat his way into power (at least, if you believe the allegations about smear campaigns coming from emails sent by his closest former advisor, Damien McBride). 

I really begrudge watching the Budget and seeing Gordon Brown’s smarmy face smiling as if he actually thinks he is doing us a favour by announcing measures that will get us deeper into debt as a nation and ultimately lie firmly at his door in terms of blame. Although public spending has not been cut as yet, Brown has used it as a tool to beat the Conservatives with. Public spending cust have been announced, most notably from the NHS, but will not come in until AFTER the next general election, meaning that the Torys will have to take the flack for it when they get in. He is also applying a 50% tax to those earning over £150,000. I really object to this. I earn nowhere near that much (trust me I wish I did) but why should people that have worked bloody hard to get to where they are have their salaries cut in half when the government and banks are to blame for the mess we are in? I know the argument - they can afford it etc etc but that is not the point. Would you like it if some politician knocked on your door, demanded half your salary, blamed you for a national debt that he caused and then got on the phone to his buddy in Whitehall who happened to be fiddling his expenses for him at that very moment? No! A bit melordramatic maybe but  I am so angry right now a rant seemed the only way to go!

Oh, and before some Labourite starts to comment on how wrong and pro-upper class I am I would just like to say that this is MY opinion, I am not a Conservative supporter and actually voted Labour when I was 18 (for my sins), I am allowed to object to a government that is ruining my country, I am from a working class background and I DID NOT ELECT Gordon Brown as my leader! I wouldn’t put him in charge of a goldfish let alone a country. Brown kissed butt and stabbed people in the back to get where he is and no member of the electorate has ever elected him… hopefully nobody ever will.

Rant over!

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!

Both the UK and the US seem to be caught up in major political corruption scandals at the moment and I have to say that it really makes you wonder how the other half live. Last week news broke of peers in the House of Lords taking money for making amendments to various laws and now Rod Blagojevich has been impeached from his role as the Governor of Illinois after trying to sell Barack Obama’s former Senate seat. Of course that has been an incredibly long saga but it just highlights how much money rules the laws we live by in many ways.

The House of Lords scandal and the Rod Blagojevich scandal both highlight the fact that our public servants are no longer serving the public at all but are, on the other hand, definitely looking after their own bank balances. Money has long ruled the world and will undoubtedly continue to do so. None of those involved in either scandal believe that they have done anything inappropriate or fundamentally wrong but they have. They have betrayed the people whose best interests they are sworn to look out for. However, there is a silver lining. The Senate demonstrated no qualms when they convicted Blaojevich and I hope the House of Lords will do the same. For the UK now and in the future, those 4 money-grubbing peers have to be shown the same moral standard and go. There is no way to make them leave their posts as yet, but hopefully there will be a way to do so in the very near future should they be proven corrupt!

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.

 

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

                              - Martin Luther King Jr.; August 28, 1963 

 

I only wish that Martin Luther King, the man instrumental in advancing black civil rights in the 1960s, would have lived to see today. I wish that he could see what his hard work and sacrifice yielded in the end. Unfortunately he did not live to see his dream realised but so many others did and, not to be too melordramatic, today is the day that the world changed forever. The most powerful man in the world is now a black man, and African American, and deservedly so. He doesn’t deserve to be President because he is black, no more than previous presidents merited election because they were white, but Barack Obama does deserve to be President because he is incredibly intelligent, hard working, honourable and has the best interests of the American population at heart.

Barack Obama is now the 44th President of the United States and I think he will be incredible in the role. I believe he will make history in more ways than one and I also believe that he will help to make the world a better place, far more than his predecessors have.  Now that George W Bush is finally out of office, I’m suddenly feeling hopeful. Although the world will not change overnight, I believe that I will be blogging in 4 years reflecting on the positive steps that have been taken by Barack Obama. If his inauguration speech is anything to go by then I think the world will be a better place.

His health care reform plans are long overdue. It comes to something when someone in the advanced stages of cancer has to go to a free emergency clinic just to get something to alleviate the pain. The rich in America that believe that their health system is the best in the world are right because it is… as long as you have money. If you don’t then you are basically left to fend for yourself and that is fundamentally wrong in a First World country. Everyone has a right to health care regardless of their bank balances. As such, I welcome his proposals and hope he can fend off the greedy pharmaceutical companies to pass a fairer system for all.

I also welcome his Presidency because I feel that he is far better placed to put the world economy back on track, end the persistant and wasteful wars, create a fairer and more equal society and at least alleviate some of the prejudices that still exist in society. Maybe I am being too optimistic. Maybe I am looking to one man for more inspiration than I should. However, the fact that he got elected in the first place, something that many African Americans thought impossible, shows that the world is ready for change. It gives me hope, which is something I feel the world has lost. Now is the time to regain that hope and leave the past behind. It’s time to move forward and contribute to a better world.

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!

Get this for a news story - people are going out and stockpiling lightbulbs! I wish I was kidding but I’m not. When I saw the headline on a news site I decided I was going to post about it today because it really is ridiculous in itself. However, when I delved a little further into it I decided I would post it for another reason. Unfortunately the ridiulous is becoming a staple of UK society at the moment because the nanny state we live in under New Labour and Gordon Brown. Not only is he ruining us financially but now he is telling us what type of lightbulbs we can and cannot use in our own homes!

Traditional 100W lightbulbs are apparently going to be banned within the next few years because the European Union has decided that we all have to have the energy saving kind in our homes instead! Yes, you read that right. We are going to be restricted as to what lightbulbs we can use in our own homes. The British government is just passing down the ruling from the EU’s initiative to offset carbon emissions and climate change. Although the government can discourage stores from stocking them at the moment, they cannot force them to stop selling them until 2016 so everyone has a while before they disappear for good.

Although energy efficient bulbs use one fifth of the energy that traditional bulbs do, that adds up to just £7 a year saving and removes free choice. We have them in our home but I have to admit that I hate them. I got some free with a couple of offers available on the Internet and have one in my home office. However, I have to switch it on and leave the room for 10 minutes until it warms up and shines brightly because when it is dim it gives me a headache. If I had to pay for them then I would choose to have them because they are not only expensive to buy but make me feel ill.

There are strong objections to the ban of lightbulbs in favour of energy saving light bulbs because they have been proven to make the 1 in 10 people that have migraines suffer them more frequently. It has also been proven that they can make poor eyesight worse, which may be the reason behind my problem with them. I have a rare eye disease that is a result of a genetic blip, meaning there is no cure for it and I have no choice but to deal with it. However, energy efficient lightbulbs do make my eyes worse! Furthermore, they have been proven to cause seizures because of the constant flickering in the bulb. As such, I feel that the EU and Labour alike are passing down poor health to people as well as laws about lightbulbs!

I’m all for saving the environment but I find some of the legislation and rulings on the issue absolutely ridiculous. For example, environmentalists say the positives of this outweigh the negatives but I cannot see it. I would never sacrifice someone’s health for the sake of statistics, which is all the lightbulbs are. How much of a difference will they make if they use little energy and only save homeowners £7 a year? They are dim, migraine and seizure inducing… and the £7 you save on energy bills will be eclipsed by the extra money you have to spend when you buy them because they’re so expensive! Furthermore, they have no right to tell us what we can and cannot do in our own homes. They’re lightbulbs for crying out loud! Ridiculous!!!

I would say that we’ll all be forced to use candles instead soon enough, but then I suppose they “experts” will find that candles give out some sort of gas that’s harmful to the environment when lit as well so bang goes that theory!

You would think that the government and the people that seem to be ruling our lives in the European Union would prefer to focus on bigger issues like the global recession and individual crumbling economies but apparently not!

I read through some of my posts earlier and it really seems like I’m moaning a lot lately. Well, I’m going to continue moaning if these idiots prefer to focus on telling us what to do than helping us to survive the credit crunch. After all is it not against our human rights to dictate our choices in life and what we can do in our own homes? Human rights… now there’s an issue I’ll probably moan about in the coming months as well! 

Today marked a new era for the United States. President elect Barack Obama, although already elected, took one more step towards the presidency today as he and his family moved into the Washington area. Amid physical preparations for his move into the White House, Obama and wife Michelle have ensured that they are ready before their official move so that their children can start school on time. Although no political decisions are his just yet, it makes it clear that Americans only have to put up with George W Bush for a few more days before saying goodbye to one of the most idiotic presidents in history.

I make no apology for saying that I have no idea why people would choose to have George Bush in office in the first place given that his geography is sketchy to say the least and the guy managed to provide the media with more blooper clips than every other president that has ever taken up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Looking in from across the pond, I can only imagine it was his family connections that got him into politics in the first place because surely nobody would have accepted him without the Bush name? I’d be more likely to vote for Kermit the Frog. At least Kermit speaks sense every now and again! Apologies to Republicans but he is an idiot… and the laughing stock of the world… or at least he is until you turn your attention to (drum roll please…) Downing Street!

Gordon Brown has today made it clear that an election in 2009 is the furthest thing from his mind and so will no doubt refuse to call one. The scheduled election is not until 2010 but our unelected Prime Minister is determined to hold onto power for as long as he can. I would love nothing more than to see Mr Brown move out of Downing Street but unfortunately we’re stuck with him for the forseeable future… and I think I’m going to need a wall chart to keep track of his mistakes and messes over the coming years. Not only did he say that there will be no election this year, but Mr Brown also decided to defend the action he’ taken to improve the economy in the last few weeks. You know the action he’s talking about… that action he took to stop people losing their jobs and sack the bankers that have gambled our money for too long and the taxes he cut to help us out… Oh wait, I think that must have been a dream! He did none of those things and the country continues to decline.

Just hold an election Gordon Brown and we will happily show you how much we appreciate you by enabling you to move to a brand new house… away from the power that you relish and lord over the little people by ruining us all for generations to come.

Every time I hear a story about benefits cheats and how hard it is for those on benefits to get back into work I feel my blood boil and find it extremely difficult to keep my cool. I have extremely strong opinions on the topic, which is only compounded by watching chat shows like The Jeremy Kyle Show every morning.

Before I go any further I want to clarify that this article is not referring to the millions around the world that have been made redudant as a result of the credit crunch. My husband has been made redundant in the recent past and I fully empathise with all households trying to make ends meet. The pressure in our houshold is immense and we don’t have children so I can only imagine what it is like for those people. Neither am I talking about legitimately disabled people or the retired.

Anyway, on with the opinion…

I have worked since I was 13 when I had a newspaper round. I attended university until I finished my Master Degree and worked all the way through that too, coming home to do three night shifts at the local nursing home over the weekend. I am now self-employed and work harder than I have ever worked before but I could not imagine sitting around doing nothing all day. Worse still, I could not even contemplate sponging off the rest of the country’s taxpayer money without earning it. I’m too proud to do that because it is against everything my parents taught me.

I am working all hours God sends to make ends meet at the moment and all of my friends are too but it really riles me when I hear of people that have been on the dole for years and years without even trying to get a job. My taxes are paying for them to sit on their backsides and do nothing all day when the rest of us have to work hard all our lives and pay for everything from dental treatment to rent to prescriptions. It is absolutely disgusting that we are effectively penalised for wanting to earn a living. Furthermore, benefits cheats that can work complain when they are encouraged to find a job because they just might have to lift a finger every now and again.

Now the government has announced that they are going to implement measures to prevent benefits cheats claiming millions of our taxpayer money every year. Wow! It’s taken them 11 years and what will they do about it? Well, they will stop people from claiming benefits that do not even try to get a job. That’s it! So effectively if you do try to get a job then you can carry on living at my expense.

I read a BBC article today that just typifies the attiudes of benefits cheats and those that just cannot be bothered to get a job. And I quote: “But it’s not that easy to get a job straightaway, you’ve got to write out your CV and everything and then hand it in to places” Whoopie doo… is that what you have to do to get a job? How ever did we who work hard for  living cope? I have the utmost contempt for the family in the article. They typify everything that is wrong with the country, socially and monitarily. The full article can be found here.

I sympathise with some people that genuinely struggle to work, such as those that look after genuinely sick relatives, but the rest sicken me. Reforms need to be hard hitting. They need to be comprehensive and they need to have no loopholes. Get a job or starve should do it. However, those people would then take jobs from the unfortunate that have lost ther jobs when their employers have gone under in the credit crunch, who of course deserve to work far more.

This then begs the question of why the government did not do it when the country was financially sound. Now Labour can save money by forcing people back into work they actually care. Well, it’s too little, too late and the damage is already done.