Friday 27 January 2012

Costa Concordia

Some people just don't get it, do they? I see the wife of the captain of the Costa Concordia has said, loyally in his defence, that he is a 'brilliant navigator' and a 'maestro'. Events however, would seem to fairly powerfully contradict her. When a crowd has gathered in the street to look at the rubble that is all that remains of your collapsed house, that is not the time to tell everyone what a talented DIY'er your husband is. The armed robber who shot himself in the foot as he ran from his crime, is not a criminal mastermind.

Pot, Kettle

Well, unbelievably the headline in today's Telegraph online is that Dave Hartnett, head of HMRC wants us to understand that paying tradesmen in cash is 'diddling the country'. Firstly, to be true it requires every tradesman to be a liar, inasmuch that he is saying they all don't pay their taxes, which I don't doubt is largely true but still potentially libellous.

Secondly and much more importantly, I think the head of the tax office letting large companies off billions of pounds of tax (and interest) owed is a far more serious situation, perhaps requiring a slightly more serious word than diddling to describe. There has been some talk recently about the decline in moral standards in Britain (with some correctly understanding this is directly connected to the overt corruption of Tony Blair's gang) and I think this clearly fits into it.

Economically literate types (e.g. not Labour) understand the Laffler curve effect on taxation. If you tax highly, people look for ways to avoid paying it. At a lower level everyone pretty much agrees it is something they should pay and also low enough that they can't be bothered to see if they can avoid any of it. So you get more by lowering the rate of tax (as long as you don't have someone lunching with big company bosses from the tax office).

The kind of deceit Hartnett refers to has always been tacitly accepted, but much of the moral decline is due to more unsavoury behaviour by New Labour than just their incessant raising of taxes. The lying (and obvious lying) by the PM and his MP's sent a message that it was OK for everyone to do it. And with binge drinking, which is also part of the NL culture a little lying fits in pretty well. No personal responsibility, you see.

There was a comedian (I believe) on QT last night who was quite brilliant with his left liberal deceit. He started off by saying that the top 1 percent of Footsie 100 executives had increased their pay recently (during a recession) by 49%. He then contrived to link this to the £26,000 benefit cap, proposed by the coalition government and then had a stab at Melanie Phillips for being concerned about the 'working poor'. He was applauded well for this diatribe by the audience.

I wonder though, if they listened to the words and not the delivery they would have thought 'hang on, that doesn't make sense'. The working poor do get a bad deal. If you can't afford another child on your wages you don't have one. The state doesn't find you a nice, larger house, because you have decided you need ten child benefit payments, to meet your needs. More should be done for those that help themselves. Similarly, the well paid executives wouldn't offend me if they earned it, but too often they are paid highly 'by arrangement'.

One set of executives sit on a remuneration committee for another set and award generous salaries and bonuses for success or failure. The favour of course, is returned. This is what we must stop.

It is rich however (no pun intended) to watch politicians spout on about nasty bankers when a) the bankers did what they did following the leadership of Blair and the financial pushing from Brown -two particular idiots, a perfect storm of politicians. And b) the MP's were finding ever more openly criminal ways to enhance their salaries, but how many of them paid a price for their behaviour? The message over MP's expenses was writ large and clear; we are corrupt, we acknowledge that we have been caught, but we don't really care what you think, we will carry on doing whatever we want and only the small will go to jail, if anyone must.

There should have been serious police intervention, with large scale arrests and, from what we know quite a lot of imprisonments. However, when one force cannot decide what happened when the Deputy PM was filmed assaulting a member of the public and when another force agonises over what to do, when presented with clear testimony supporting a charge of perverting the course of justice against a Cabinet Minister, then I guess we couldn't expect much from the Constabularies, who are clearly corrupted themselves.

If we think a political party of any colour will offer a fair system of taxation and do substantive good to support the working poor, when senior members of their ranks are not prosecuted for lying in their declarations to the tax office and parliamentary officials, then we are deluding ourselves.

Wednesday 25 January 2012

MoD

I see the reports coming in confirm my suspicions about 'cuts' in the MoD. Front line troops who risk life and limb on low pay are considered dispensable, but office workers with their higher pay, safety, pensions, bonuses and payouts for 'stress' cannot possibly be lost. It is becoming clear that in the not too distant future we will have offices across the country brimming with staff employed at public expense, but who don't actually do anything.

There will be no binmen, no nurses or doctors, no police on the streets or fire service. Instead there will be senior officers in their headquarters with staff and secretaries, all busily running no-one. If you have no frontline, why do you need a bureaucracy? Only those in government, paid from the public purse could answer that one. It is what they are largely doing today.

We are paying for endless reams of talking shops; government departments that talk to Quangoes who hire Management Consultants. Outcome? Usually more tax to pay for more of the same and misery for anyone trying to achieve anything themselves, for their activity attracts the attention of the bureaucrats. You present them with an opportunity, an opportunity to interfere.

Tuesday 24 January 2012

Justice? And A Bad Idea

My favourite quote was from a couple of days ago when the news reported someone (I didn't catch the name) who objected to the proposed welfare cap, by saying that it would force people out of their current house into one they could afford. Mind you, even Duncan Smith kept referring to people 'earning' £26,000 of benefits.

Just after a judge, hearing how remorseful a lawyer reckoned her thug client was that he inflicted lasting harm on a man by attacking him, for no reason at all, we hear a juror has been jailed for wrecking a GBH trial (completes the irony), by researching the defendant on the internet. So now we know. Crimes of violence are OK with judges, but they get mighty upset if you disrespect their court.

Socialism - The Ideology Of The Lazy

Life is not lived by people, it is an individual experience. Everything you know, everything that happens to you exists inside your head. I am not you and I have never seen the world through your eyes. We may live and love another person, share experiences and care deeply, but in the end it is just you. That is not to say you are selfish, but at root, you do what suits you meaning no harm to anyone else. That is the nature of a society; it is also the essence of what Thatcher meant when she said there is no such thing as society.

True Conservatives believe in the rights of the responsible individual, that by gaining what you want and need you can co-exist peacefully with others doing likewise. Otherwise, no constraints need be placed upon you. It is the polar opposite of a police state. What organs of government exist do so as a service to the community, not as masters of their charges.

Socialism deals in lumpen masses, it pretends to care but cannot do so as it never addresses the individual. Instead this lazy creed talks of 'the working class' and the hated 'upper class' and accords types and categorisation to these hordes. A socialist is someone who feels they care for others and know that many injustices exist and that something must be done about it. Beyond that things get a little hazy and maybe it is teatime, or the hippy trip is starting to work, or at the adolescent end, the thought alone is sufficient.

A socialist requires other people to do a great many things for them, as their benign nature cannot be denied and implementation is difficult. At first, they are right; this is something that must clearly be understood. Their ideas are not only right, but pure and good. This is the start point for the defining tenet of socialism; intolerance. Anyone who disagrees with a socialist is not only wrong but dangerous as they oppose A Socialist Idea, which is a heresy and incomprehensible behaviour.

So socialism sees the proletariat as a mass, the enemy as a mass and their ideas are for massive control, state control needless to say and that state must be run by them, due to their undeniable goodness. At no point does a socialist stop and ask what the practical application of their ideology is, as it impacts on individuals who then react as individuals do.

Welfare is not an evil, but when applied thickly it has unintended consequences. An employed person considers their position before having children and will seek to limit the number by affordability. The welfare recipient is paid more per child, has no need to act responsibly and as such has their basic character modified. The worker submits to a discipline, has respect and pays his way. The welfare dependent has no fear of losing a job, of losing their home, no need to rise early or look after their kids, many of whom they didn't want if they don't actively despise them.

Welfare suppers tend towards aggression because it keeps others away from questioning what they do; teachers, social workers and increasingly the police, leave them alone as they do not relish the encounter and their authority is undermined from above. For socialists it is imperative that there are poor people as it is their constituency. Like Greenpeace and Oxfam they do not plan to see themselves out of work, their objectives are political and their aim is to stay. and stay in control. An effective way to help a starving nation is to turnaround their own food production, so Oxfam fly in bags of food and do small infrastructure projects to placate.

Socialist know that education is the route by which people climb out of the pit designed for them, so our education system has been systematically destroyed. It is no coincidence that the state control of schools leads to lower standards, that government intervention tends to reward lowered standards and that as a consequence we have some of the poorest educational standards in the developed world and maybe beyond that.

Socialism is lazy because it seeks to deal in stereotypes and overviews, in mass rather than at the individual level. It has an idea, spouts it, expects it to be adopted and walks away. A living embodiment of this was an encounter I had whilst a Special Constable. I was in a unit doing a fixed task (cycle coding) and a woman came up to me and, pointing to a stray dog that was clearly undernourished said that I should deal with it. She declared herself a former member of the RSPCA and that 'something should be done about the dog' and with that, conscience salved she washed her hands of it and walked away. It never occurred to her that she was ideally placed to deal with it, rather than an already occupied police officer.

For her, an order had been given and it was the pure goodness of her heart that gave her the undoubted authority to order someone else to do something she felt no compunction, despite her compassion to do herself. Socialism is a child of a rich society, one that can tolerate such idle wasters and socialism, on being rejected by the society it exists in relentlessly seeks poor and ignorant nations on which to inflict its miserable ideology: the Russian peasants, South East Asian peasants and the poor of South America. Strangely, this ideology that arrives to help 'the masses' to rise up against some undefined group known as 'the masters', seems instead to keep them poor but now under the rod and rule of people demanding comfort and obedience.

Yes, capitalism can lead to injustices and a society must have some checks and balances in place, but because it is not an ideology, rather it is an extension and structuring of natural human behaviour, it is capable of doing much good. It allows people to achieve. Socialism, because it is an ideology is too inflexible and too often the root for intolerance and injustice, for lies and destruction, just as is the case with the 'Green' movement. The 'environmental' idea is childish and uses socialist conditioning (denial of debate on the grounds that they are, right; from the outset) in an effort to achieve its goals. It is in fact true that some pretty smart people, believe some pretty dumb ideas. Because they don't think enough and that is socialism.

Monday 23 January 2012

Rip Off Gov

I mentioned in an earlier post that a large part of Rip off Britain is due to the Government. Well, here is something more to chew on; in the Eighties the Thatcher government sold off a number of the utilities and other nationalised entities. Now putting aside whether this was good or bad, do you feel better for it? I mean better off?

Large amounts of money was sprayed at these 'companies' as they were rarely self funding. But now we don't own British Gas, or British Railways, where is the benefit? Where the reduced taxes? Government it seems continues to need ever larger amounts of cash (our cash) to do less and less. Or more accurately to achieve less and less. To cover the gross incompetence of his administration, Blair placed more responsibilities onto local government, without the corresponding funds and Brown borrowed more.

Where does it all go? We know that, even without corruption, government is an inefficient and wasteful entity so it would make eminent sense if the government just did less. This is just one of a long list of reasons for smaller government, but our politicians shouldn't worry about their wealth and status. Those can be confirmed by bringing back powers from Brussels, which in itself can be achieved by leaving the EU and casting them adrift. An old Soviet style trading block, with rigid rules and unelected functionaries is a recipe for disaster, politically, economically and socially. And in this age of the internet, the end can be very swift when the people finally grow tired, as the Middle East is showing us.

Police And Prescott?

The Mail is today reporting that John Prescott is considering a role as a police commissioner. I think he may have misunderstood (wouldn't that be strange?), the idea is that we get better policing, not the old crony based policing of his days in 'High Office'. The idea is that people who go around fighting in the street don't get special treatment because of the position they hold.

Tony Blair had special reasons for having a half wit as a deputy, the nation and the police have their fill currently and aren't looking for any more. In fact, the new elected posts have a key remit of eradicating the stupid non-policing that is the vogue for senior officers at present.

Can you imagine how Prescott would spend his time as a police commissioner? None on things that matter, 80% out of the office, sunning himself at public expense or playing bowls and 20% insisting Labour party members don't get prosecuted.

Friday 20 January 2012

Our Political Parties

It is well known now that the problem with politics, the reason for the disconnect with the public (and often reality), is the party system. This quite sensible idea, to draw like minded people together to form policies they all support, has been completely corrupted and is now anti-democratic. When we bother to vote, we elect politicians who merely turn up in parliament to receive their orders from party HQ and to vote on legislation as directed, rather than as their constituents may have wished.

MP's and particularly PM's are sometimes indignant when their rule is questioned, when perhaps a referendum is suggested. It is their right, they say, to govern as they have been given a mandate to rule. The people have entrusted decision making to them for 5 years. And this might be so, if the parties didn't lie so routinely before elections and then, by the control they exercise over their MP's, effectively dictate.

So, if the parties are out of control, what do they claim to want and represent as of today? Here is how they appear to me.

The Greens. Obviously an actual irrelevance, I mention the Greens because of Caroline Lucas who is the Greens (should that be Green?) Lucas is possibly an alien who has landed on Earth and learnt our ways so as not to stick out. If so, you have to say she has made a good stab at it. To many people she looks and sounds quite normal, unless she is talking about politics. Here it is clear she comes from a world where some elite group controls every action of the lesser beings that she unfortunately has to share a planet with.

Lucas is a Stalinist of the first order, by which I mean she seeks the state to own everything and the people to work for the benefit of the state. Usefully, she excludes herself from such a scheme, as, being an elite she can share the fruits of others' labour (on QT last night her disdain for the Queen was all too evident, a drain on the public purse, which presumably she doesn't think she is, an inversion of reality). This attitude is the bedrock of most current 'socialist' thought, from left wing politicians to the supposedly scientific environmental groups and race/gender communities. The state will tax you to organise how the 'nation's' wealth (definitely not yours, despite you creating it, working for it) and spend it as they see fit, being benign, intensely clever and caring people.

Seizing absolute control like this, not only perpetuates their power and keeps the people in check, but also gives a reason for the state (and an enormously bloated one at that) to exist. The only 'sustainable' form of government! As Lucas proved again on QT last night she has absolutely no idea what goes on around her and still thinks we are all in thrall to her global warming scam ('the greatest threat we currently face'). She frames her output absolutely around this adolescent ideology and tries to fit reality into it. Not having a strong imagination, she fails quite spectacularly.

But this Stalinist view of ideal politics, as I said earlier, defines much of our politics and background political agitation. Hence the Labour Party are in such turmoil. Having been seduced to let a conman lead their party, just because he could get them into power, they have been seen as a very right wing party, pursuing personal wealth through the worst corruption a capitalist system can provide, where the legislators are corrupt. This pleased many like Mandelson who only like politics for the games they can play, for the power itself and the wealth it attracts. This disgusted many of the Old Labour persuasion.

Old Labour yearned for power so they could push their agenda of division and hatred through complete state control. These are the people, not just politicians, who turn up and say that capitalism is evil and causes most of the misery in the the world and can be ended by adopting regimes like those of Soviet Russia and North Korea. Despite the abject failure of these societies, the ideological Labour party cannot see or accept that they would bring such destruction and death to the UK. Though many of them do know and don't care.

Currently Labour have Ed Miliband as their figurehead, a man who was supposed to be a puppet of the Unions. Instead, he has turned out to be his own man, with no clear ideas on anything and consequently not much liked by anyone.

The Lib Dems are now a joke, a comedy party. For all my life they were always spoken of as spouting fine sounding claptrap on the sound reasoning that they would never get into power and so be tested on it. Then, oops a daisy, they found themselves in a position to share power with the Conservatives and all of a sudden they were ditching keenly held beliefs and policies like a wet dog shaking. Naturally, their long term supporters now hate them and everyone else, who previously thought them a joke, realise they are actually dangerous Stalinists.

Look at Chris Huhne. With an IQ determined by his collar size, he preens and pouts and connives, being the unreliable toad he appears on first viewing. Nick Clegg of course has clearly completed the clown training and recognising a big top when he sees one is giving us the full routine. Yes, we know that state control would be much better in your view Nick, but when do you order the extra guns for the police? When people start to realise what you are up to or earlier than that? Sometimes people just don't appreciate what you are trying to do for them, do they?

Lastly, the Conservatives. Tony Blair may have called his boastful book 'A Journey' (though maybe, 'so long and thanks for all the fish' is closer to the mark), but it is actually David Cameron who is on a journey. Having decided he quite liked the idea of socialism, but the people he generally came into contact with talked about the Conservatives, he kind of joined that gang, by accident. As PM he thought he could cure the raging predatory capitalism that New Labour had promoted to the exclusion of all else, with some cuddly Conservatism that would make everyone feel better.

But, little by little, as reality slaps him in the face like an unexpected icy wind on opening the front door, he is having to adopt genuinely Conservative thinking. Soon, he may even realise that the EU has been an enormous con and was merely an attempt to build a sovietised economy run by unelected elites for their own benefit. Which isn't really what Conservatives believe in. Over all, a Conservative is what generally considerate people would be, left to their own devices. It is really the party of small business, which is also the main driver of a (free) society. Cameron is not there yet, but he is showing some good signs, though I'm not as convinced as Fraser Nelson is, in today's Telegraph.

When Cameron starts actually shrinking the size of government and addresses the other left over issues from Blair and Brown, such as entrenched inequalities and moribund social mobility, by which much socialist strategy survives, then we will know Britain is on the way back to recovery. Don't hold your breath.

Thursday 19 January 2012

This Is Life

Stunning news today that the Met police spent over £100,000 on directory enquiries and the speaking clock(!) This in an age when the accuracy of your wristwatch, or mobile phone even, is to a degree of seconds a month and phone numbers are available, free, online. These are the people who are supposed to protect us and chase down criminals. There may not have been an actual rise in crime, maybe it is just that these dimwits can't prevent or catch.

Doctors are planning to strike, for the first time in 30 years. It is tough today for the medical profession, as politics takes up so much of their time. Not just the meddling of central government, but their own wheeling and dealing for advantage. No longer the preening Consultants who demand respect and sweep through hospitals like gods, but salary seekers, ever concerned with their pay, the new arbiter of prestige. GP's are formidably better off now than ever before and offer the lowest service ever.

Hospitals can no longer treat patients, or in fact even see them. Nurses are too important to actually do the job they are employed for and doctors sit in little specialisms, warring with each other and with management, with no application of the principle of treating the 'whole patient'.

And now we hear of the latest turmoil in the financial world. Well the political/financial world. The markets aren't too sure about the IMF's $1 trillion fund. We seem to have a strange disconnect as we are constantly told what the politico's think should be done and then 'the market' gives its reaction as if a) it were sage (no pun intended) and b) not self serving. The market can make money by betting on failure as much as saying 'ooh, that's a good idea'.

Because papers don't pay journalists to think and most of them seem happy to oblige, we are led to believe a great many contradictory things. So let's keep it simple. The EU is destroying world finances because you cannot have independent countries tying their currencies together. The ignorant approach of politicians in France and Germany trying to prop up a political empire is pure farce. Whilst the Euro is held as an ideal state for European finances there can be no resolution.

The IMF and the World Bank are irrelevant. The sums they talk of don't exist in a single place and it isn't a credible stance. Countries supposedly 'supplying' their share, simply won't. They haven't over Greece and they won't ever. Printing banknotes is a cover, not a cure. There are way too many idiots in politics today and politicians just talk to themselves, they have forgotten what their real role is, whilst concentrating on their own importance.

Until these people come back into the real world nothing will improve and both predatory capitalists and socialists will stalk their prey. Which is you and me. Socialists seek to control, over money, lives and  every aspect of life. Capitalists just want to get rich and the more chaotic society is, as a result of socialism trying to take over, the better they like it. No one is watching them.

Wednesday 18 January 2012

In The News Today

Ed Miliband, who is apparently the leader of the Labour party, says today that his new crusade is against rip-off Britain, which is I think an old New Labour chant that they didn't do anything about when they could. His targets don't seem to include the real rip-off artists such as the utilities companies, railways, local and central government. These are all things the government is already involved in, as could be guessed by the fact that they are all out of control.

Elsewhere reports of severe cuts to the RAF and the Ghurkas mention these as 'MoD cuts', when in fact they are front line cuts. I bet the MoD in Whitehall haven't been touched, as they continue to order kit we don't want from companies that can't supply, but charge anyway. Oh and award themselves bonuses for turning up, or not. When did it become impossible to get rid of the bit that doesn't work?

The Scottish civil service chief says that the Scots should prepare for independence. Presumably he will be issuing advice on how to treat yourself for a range of injuries once the hospitals have to close, how to avoid cholera when the bins aren't emptied and that it is still illegal to burn itinerants or even family members who have passed away, no matter how cold you get. At least it will stop the nation being a welfare state, as they also won't be paying any benefits, after what money they can borrow has been spent on essentials like a fleet of limousines for Alex, a private jet, a refurbished palace and hot dinners.

And the captain of the Italian cruise liner currently reposing on its side in the Ligurean Sea seems to be preparing to defend his actions, by saying that it was dark. Captain Tremulous left the ship as soon as he thought he might be in danger and figured that his job was to be in charge of the ship only while it was sailing, not while it was sinking. Had he left it much longer, he would have had to push women and children out of his way to escape and how unseemly would that have been?

The coastguard ordered him back on board to collate information about those in peril, but Captain Jelly countered that it was dark and he felt he could help much better by being on a rescue boat. It was interesting to hear the exchange with the coastguard, gabbling in that excited way we expect of Italians and the captain maintaining the calm demeanour of one who knows he has just dodged a dangerous situation by leaving, at the earliest possible opportunity. To say the man is a disgrace and a stain on the Italian nation, is to promote him.


Tuesday 17 January 2012

Scotland

The tourist destination, Scotland is being pushed by radical socialists towards 'independence'. Like most of the recent decisions by its comedy parliament, this is not something it can afford, nor is it being cried out for by the Scottish people. It speaks volumes, I think, when a larger percentage of the English want rid of the whining region than Scots want independence.

But then, the not-very-trustworthy Alex Salmond isn't actually offering independence as such. He just wants a bigger role for himself and the actual running of the country will be handed over to the EU, if he is allowed to join. And he also seems keen to adopt the Euro. The strategy, if such a grand word can be used in the context of this ignorant man, is for Scotland to become more like Ireland and Iceland. It is an old strategy.

You may notice that there is no 'I' in Scotland, but fear not Salmond is resolving that personally. I think that Scotland should be proud of its place in the United Kingdom and its people should stop believing the lies they have been fed by socialists for so long. Scotland has been reduced to a dependency status by politicians who want to keep them down, in their place to allow easier political control. And these are Scottish politicians.

Scottish people are better than that, we know this as a historical fact, but they have been prone to listening to whinging, left wing rabble-rousers, who like Scargill with the miners have no interest in the people they mislead. Such people as Salmond are responsible, directly for much of the industrial wastelands and poverty in Scotland, both financial and moral poverty.

Murder On The Sales Floor

The bad news from retailers continues to roll in and the papers continue to pump it up. But is it so bad? Round here the shops looked as busy as ever. M&S and JL's report decent trading. So what does that tell us? That when things get a little tight, people look for quality. They do not want to risk their money with rock bottom retailers but want stuff that will last.

Those suffering are those that don't pay attention to this. Obviously Argos and Comet, but strangely Dixons too. Why, in their position would a company decide to ignore the evidence and pursue a rush to the bottom? Is it because they have a Tesco mentality? OK so they are not as cynical in dealing with their customers as 'the nations favourite grocer', but they do love the word 'sale'.

Personally, I probably get caught by the 'half price' tag that is routinely used as much as anyone, but then get really annoyed when it is half a price they made up and pretty much the same as everyone else charges. But me being annoyed doesn't register. If the con works sometimes then stick with it, they seem to be thinking. If the annoyed move away from that retailer, then something happens that they hadn't contemplated.

It appears that there is an entrenched mindset at Dixons and nothing will cause it to change. 'Well, we've always done it like that'. I see that part of the success at Dixons has been Dr Dre headphones, which are basically over-hyped, over-priced mediocrity, so how to explain the sales? Might be that brand image and suggestion of higher quality (they aren't crap, but you can get better sound cheaper -though not with the image admittedly!)? But Dixons move up market and address their core customers? Wow! What a lot for a retailer to take in.

No, the rudderless ship continues on its way, though hardly alone. The current breed of CEO's seem to be focussed on grand schemes for European expansion (without realising what a bad idea 'Europe' is), borrowing exorbitantly and rather less on raising their game as a functioning business.