A fine summer morning: enjoy while it’s still tax~ and VAT~free
There’s still one more week to go until the current PM is out of No 10, with more ‘reports’ on what the incoming one, now certain to be La Truss, is going to do, accompanied by pronouncements of whatever ‘expert’ the MSM can dig out to fabricate more outrage. Rest assured: the MSM are preparing us for an autumn and winter of ’emergencies’ because that’s what they love best. A look at this morning’s papers confirms this (link). Cool analysis? Forget it.
Meanwhile Mr Johnson seems to be given licence to spout nonsense without being questioned. The DT leads their Bank Holiday online edition with a report on what BJ will say later this week in his ‘farewell message’. The headline already needs a health warning: “Boris Johnson: Don’t give up on green energy – Prime Minister insists UK can still pursue Net Zero while taking sting out of heating bills” (paywalled link). He would say that, wouldn’t he! Do check the lapel pin he’s wearing for proper outrage – this is the screenshot gracing the top of that report:
Yep – that’s half of the Union Jack so the ukrainian flag can be added. Words fail me! Meanwhile his farewell gift of another £54m to the Ukraine isn’t even mentioned any longer. Perhaps we might ask if such munificence, added to the millions “we” have already spent on that war, has played a role in the shameful breakdown of the Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier ‘The Prince of Wales’ which is now sitting in the Channel near the Isle of Wight (link).
Perhaps we might ask if maintenance shortcuts took place because ‘there’s no money’. Clearly, Britannia is no longer ruling the waves, not when modern ships break down as soon as they leave the harbour, not when dinghies can be used as invading craft, ferrying thousands of illegal migrants – sorry: ‘poor refugees’ to our shores. I wonder when the RN and BorderFarce will be forced to stop their taxi service because they can’t afford the price of fuel.
Remarkably, the whole of this government is still silent about the ‘cost-of-living’ crisis. We are being told that Miz Liz ‘has plans’ though. At the moment it’s cutting VAT and/or income tax, but ‘no decision has yet been made’ (paywalled link). Never mind, Trussie, The Times has already dug out an ‘expert’. There’s the click-bait headline “Liz Truss’s plan to cut VAT would crash economy, warns expert” (link, paywalled). What this ‘expert’ really means is explained in the first paragraph:
“Liz Truss would “completely crash the public finances” if she pushed ahead with tens of billions of pounds of tax cuts, a senior economist has warned.” (link, paywalled)
‘The economy’ is now just the economy of ‘public finances’, i.e. what we pay to the public sector. Obviously, Sunak had to put his oar in as well. He’s ‘against it’ because:
“Cutting VAT will benefit higher-income households more, leaving very little to no benefit for lower-income households who will need the most help this winter,” a spokeswoman for his campaign said.” (link, paywalled)
There’s no explanation why ‘Teh Rich’ would benefit more from VAT cuts than others, but in my naive way I can see why they’re against it: a cut in VAT means less income for the Treasury which can then not provide graceful hand-outs to ‘the deserving’.
Of course, less money flowing into the Treasury coffers means less dosh to go round, especially for yon Sacred Cow where one of their directors has already uttered a warning which should be greeted with a loud “Yay – moar lockdowns!”:
“NHS hospitals may need to resort to the measures imposed during the peak of the pandemic to cope with the winter crisis, a senior health boss has warned. Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation lobbying group, told Times Radio yesterday that the health service might be unable to provide some of the services it would like to and urged the public to understand the pressures on staff.” (link, paywalled)
Well, they’ll certainly not provide ‘services’ to patients, but they will provide ‘services’ in-house, as it were, to make sure that the NHS management is well-trained in ‘diversity. The DT had a report for their Saturday edition showing who really benefits from our money:
“More than a dozen NHS trusts are hiring diversity managers despite a government review suggesting the roles should be cut back. An investigation has found at least 17 open jobs for diversity and inclusion roles across the country, budgeting up to almost £1 million in annual salaries. It comes after a landmark report this summer set out plans for a shake-up of NHS management, including reducing the number of equality, diversity and inclusion roles over time. Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Trust is advertising for an interim associate director of equality, diversity and inclusion with a salary of up to £77,274 a year.” (paywalled link)
Some animals, especially the ‘diverse’ ones, are certainly more equal! God forbid that cutting down on VAT means these people cannot be employed to insure ‘Our NHS’ isn’t slacking in ensuring ‘diversity’! Better by far to let the families on middle incomes suffer under ever more taxes and energy prices: we all must bear the burden of Net Zero and diversity!
Meanwhile the Trade Union bosses are gearing up for a ‘hot autumn’. One of them told Starmer to ‘get a spine’, but not in the way you think. Oh no, this is not about standing up and demanding that government scrap green crap and VAT – it’s about ‘standing with the strikers’:
“Union bosses have piled pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to support a wave of strike action as the Labour leader prepares for a showdown with his principal donors at the party’s conference. Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the Unite union, said that the Labour leadership needed to “get a spine” after Starmer banned shadow ministers from appearing on picket lines in support of strikes.” (link, paywalled)
There’s more. Savour this (my emphasis):
“Unite, which has 1.4 million members, is one of a number of unions threatening walk-outs in the coming months as public sector employees face real-terms pay cuts because of high and surging inflation. Along with Unison, a union with 1.3 million members, Unite will table a motion at a meeting of the Trades Union Congress next month to coordinate the strike action in order to wreak maximum havoc.” (link, paywalled)
Yes, let’s accelerate the crash of the economy by ‘creating havoc’! The tax-paying people will surely appreciate it even more when their taxes rise because someone has to pay – for that ‘havoc’ and for the other hand-outs.
Let’s not worry that tax revenue will drop when small businesses have to close down because they cannot afford to continue under the energy costs. Let’s not worry about the consequences the exorbitant energy prices have for manufacturing. Who needs fertilisers when farmers are throwing in the towel, when food rots in the field because people cannot be asked to work.
Why worry that even more pubs are giving up, with breweries having to close in consequence. “We” did very well without pubs during lockdowns, didn’t we , and never mind job losses and ensuing loss of revenue. After all, pubs are dangerous places where people drink – the horror! – and exchange dangerous opinions not sanctioned by the MSM, by ‘experts’ or politicians. “Social Media” are so much easier to control.
Meanwhile, ‘experts’ tell us why something can’t be done rather than what to do. Meanwhile, we must prepare to cower in our homes, wrapped in blankets, not daring to fall ill. Meanwhile, Trade Unions think creating havoc will help with inflation. Meanwhile green crap promoters like the outgoing PM believe ‘saving the planet’ is worth more than saving this country while any spare resources are shovelled into prolonging ‘that war’ rather than make our Armed Forces fit for purpose.
If politicians in the EU and the USA weren’t promoting these same policies I’d weep for our country. As it is, the Western Nations are in unison, driving their countries happily into the abyss. Didn’t someone say that misery loves company? What fine company we’ll be in!
It’s another beautiful summer morning – enjoy it, it’s still tax~ and VAT~free.
If we continue to rely on fossil fuel, things will just get worse.
Oh, alright then we’ll all become clones of the great and marvellous Harold Armitage alias Harryagain, have our roofs covered in solar panels even if it does cost an initial £9,000 outlay for installation, have an electric three wheeled Sinclair C5 parked in the garage and grow Peas and Tomato’s in our window boxes. On second thoughts perhaps not, too bland and boring……….
Here is an interesting post I read today which seems to explain very well what has been going on the last 2 1/2 years.
“There is an easily recognisable and quite logical kind of symmetry around this whole picture. And it all flows from a starting point that even the simplest of minds can readily understand.
That starting point is a comparatively small number of people who, whether through cunning ingenuity, outrageous good fortune or crooked dealing, or any combination, but always with single minded and utterly ruthless ambition, have acquired absolutely staggering levels of wealth. The sheer magnitude of that wealth then completes the corruption of their minds and souls, that were already travelling in that direction (as evidenced by the ruthless ambition), until they realise that they really can buy anything they want. Which, in their minds, also includes buying anyone they want. Even to the point where they believe they are within reach of achieving the ultimate dream of every megalomaniac in history: the opportunity to play God, in real life and on a global scale.
Now place that vaunting desire for power, and the intoxicating certainty that they have the means to achieve it, alongside the total contempt that such corrupt and arrogant individuals have for the rest of the human race, whom they regard as nothing but ignorant and inferior serfs who do not deserve any place in the grand world of their plans; and you have the perfect stage for their determined bid to accomplish their dreams.
And by what method does every bully boy who has ever lived, seek to get what he wants? By the weapon of fear. If you can get the herd cowering in terror, you have them in the palm of your hand. And when you do get them cowering in terror, why that completely vindicates what you have believed all along; that they really are ignorant and inferior, with no right to any kind of existence on the lofty plain that is reserved for the great and mighty like yourself.
Put a handful of such people together and let them mutually reinforce their massive egos and their certainties that they truly are the Chosen Ones above all others, and it will not take long for them to construct their own bubble within which they will concoct plans to take over every organ and agency they need to exert total control.
The big problem however is the fatal flaw of all those who worship money and power above morality: their failure to understand that there are others in the world who don’t. And their failure to understand that among even the little people, there are those who are at least as clever and determined as they are, and maybe more; but also with greater strength of character, who cannot be either bought or silenced.
The thing that bullies most fear is someone prepared to fight them tooth and nail. It’s high time the rich, global bullies of this world were pulled into such a fight. Then we will see just how godlike they really are.”
The bullies; aka the WEF, WHO and UN, all supported by BoJo & Co.
And Bojo & Co were voted into power (supported ) by who? Plenty of commentators on this site I fear.
Jake………You need not fear on my part. Admittedly I did vote Conservative back in December 2019, in order to get our Independence from the dreadful European Union over the line, but I have advised you of this several times. Without doing so we would not have got Brexit of any sort. Having said that, had Nigel Farage had the courage to persevere with The Brexit Party and all the candidates stand without withdrawing 317 of them, I would have voted The Brexit Party because at the time I was a Constituency Campaign Organiser. To get a party candidate elected especially one standing for parliament that party needs a big team supporting the candidate to not only leaflet and canvass every residential address in the constituency, but have sufficient numbers to get the vote out on election day and man every polling station around the clock and staff the all important committee room. However, The Brexit Party didn’t have anywhere near the numbers of activists to enable this to occur, and our candidate only had five helpers in addition to me, and most of those were very part time to say the least. Nothing much has changed since the party reformed to Reform UK as I understand it, and is just as disorganised as it was back in 2019 with few activists and no money to do anything as the party is run centrally. We didn’t know back in December 2019 just how much of a disaster Boris Johnson would turn out to be as prime minister and how he would drag his feet to ensure that we had 100% independence.
Jake…….And, and this is the big ‘And’, had we done as have you have suggested and voted for one of the smaller parties including UKIP, the country would have been lumbered with Jeremy Corbyn whose Brexit strategy was all over the shop and in all probability we would still be in the EU and what is more, still talking about it. Apart from that UKIP only had a handful of candidates standing at the 2019 general election and the same applied to the other smaller parties as well. As it has turned out, the majority who voted Conservative like me thought we would get a conservative government with conservative policies, but instead we have a party in government which is conservative in name only, where the blond waste of space has plonked the party somewhere between the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party. What we have lumbered with until the 5th September 2022 is Jeremy Corbyn mark 2 which indicates how far to the left Johnson has taken the party.
Back in the 1960’s we had a world beating motor manufacturing industry. (BMC/British Leyland),
Destroyed by unions and endless strikes.
60,000+ jobs gone West.
History repeating itself.
Jobs went East don’t you mean?
Harryagain…Where is your replica Sinclair C5 manufactured then? Oh, I forget, yes its China.
Doris’s legacy
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=598016605332287
Nobody should really be that surprised as to what Boris Johnson says and does anymore. Apart from being a full time buffoon he is also an utter twerp who doesn’t seem to have grown up since his Bullingdon Club days and shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the keys to 10, Downing Street. The man is thoroughly discredited and should be ashamed of his behaviour as prime minister, but then to be a politician one has to have a thick skin and in his particular case it is thicker than most and extends to his head which is devoid of common sense and full of hot air. He is on his last legs now thank goodness and on his way out, and hopefully on a permanent basis. Good riddance I say. He promised so much but delivered so little. I wonder whether he has been measured up for his clowns outfit yet, in readiness for his new role in the big top, and at Billy Smarts no doubt.. On another note Nick Robinson, that dire BBC journalist is ‘disappointed and frustrated’ that Liz Russ has pulled the plug on the interview with him. Oh diddums. I have no sympathies with him at all. If I was Liz Truss I wouldn’t want to be interviewed by Nick Ross or any other untalented muppet journalist employed by the BBC. Time for Robinson and Co to enter the real world, get a life, and get a proper job.
Will Bill Gates be the first person to visit the new PM to let him/her know how the world works.
Boris’ lapel badge..? Perhaps it’s one of the conditions for his receiving his 10% kickback on the £billions of our money diverted to his pal Mr.Ze…
A good summary of our (Western) predicament can be found here:- https://thesaker.is/gullivers-travels/, Well worth the time it takes to read it
Dean Swift makes a pleasant change from Orwell
“NHS hospitals may need to resort to the measures imposed during the peak of the pandemic to cope with the winter crisis, a senior health boss has warned.”
Er, how have we arrived at the point where ‘the winter crisis’ is a fact of life, inevitable?
The job, one would suppose, of a senior health boss, is to run the service to be able to avoid crises. Instead he abrogates any responsibility and blames all those damned ill people who will keep turning up expecting to be treated. It’s so unfair. They still think the NHS is there to save them, and not vice versa. More propaganda please; they haven’t got the message.
Very true Phil O’Sophical.
Nothing wrong with the NHS. Ask a spin Doctor.
Thanks Viv. Somethings come right at this end, computer wise.
It doesn’t feel like Summer to me though.
O.M.G. Think I’ve got Covid Omicron! (NOT). More likely a bacterial infection, which my innate immune system will probably cope with!
Hope you are doing O.K. dogwise.
Thanks, Pauline: I’m doing fine, dogwise. We’re both ‘learning each other’, so that makes for a lively day.
So, Boris Johnson is concerned about his legacy. Well he might be, given his disastrous managment of public finances and promotion of the green cult. One of his first decisions, recall, was to endorse the continuation of HS2 notwithstanding a projected cost in excess of £100 billion even though just about everyone could think of better things to do with the money. The project has since been curtailed somewhat but not abandoned. It makes the dispute about Sizewell C, a mere £20 billion, look bizarre especially when nuclear power generation is now part of the green cult agenda (having previously been declared ungreen but now found to be green after all).
It is five years since Theresa May gave Philip Hammond a £1 trillion heart attack to secure her legacy and still there is no coherent plan, just broad brush wishful thinking. Underlying this is the absence of economic theory. It beggars belief that there is old fashioned monetary theory slogging it out with new monetarism (i.e no theory of money at all). John Redwood thinks public debt does not matter because we own the Bank of England – I attended a talk by him at the IEA pre-pandemic when inflation was assumed to be confined to history – overlooking that a quarter of public debt was index linked and payable overseas and so vulnerable to inflation, and Truss, the self-proclaimed heir to Thatcher has her approach arse over tit. Thatcherism was sound public finances before tax cuts (Sunak is more Thatcherite than Truss) and George Osborne, he of the austerity years, was the last chancellor to fully believe in sound public finances. May started the rot but Johnson made economic illiteracy the centre piece of his government.
The abandonment of any long term vision for the economy, of steering by reference to theory (any theory at all), is having calamatous consequences. It is not just Johnson who is a shopping trolley with a wonky wheel crashing from side to side. That is the state of politicians today who just react to events as the consequences of their capricious policies unfold, policies that are no longer underpinned by vision based on any economic theory about public finances which just continue to spiral out of control.
Our problems are now so great, so complex and intertwined, that they are probably beyond the intellectual lightweights who now govern us. Membership of the EU diluted nationial responsibility and proper planning, and allowed the irresponsible to rise. Much as they may try and deflect responsibility by pointing the figure at Putin etc, the fault is truly theirs. The result, as Macron has declared, is that the age of abundance is over. It did not need to be like this but it probaby is irreversibly so now.
“One of his first decisions, recall, was to endorse the continuation of HS2.”
Truss has now done the same; does not bode well. One blonde buffoon gives way to another.
No Stout at 10.09am. I really can not agree with you there.
I do not claim to be an economics expert but just about everything I have read of John Redwood’s opinions on the economy and finance, have made good sense to me.
The reason May was toppled is that her version of Brexit was nothing like the Brexit we voted for in the referendum. It was not to do with how OUR economy should be run.
Thatcher probably did start by thinking ‘sound public finance before tax cuts’ but then she realised that private enterprise, given a freer rein was the way to INCREASE the available ‘pool of money’ to be taxed.
Boris is a total numpty on all matters of policy, or worse he is a mad dictator who thinks there is a magic money tree that will grow and bear fruit so long as it is starved of carbon dioxide !!
Thatcher believed (correctly) that a large state crowded out private enterprise which was why tax cuts were part of a plan but not an immediate reflex. Sound public finances were part of ‘rolling back the frontiers of the state’ followed by tax cuts to incentivise investment. Thatcher knew the dangers of finacing tax cuts with more borrowing. She did not suddenly discover that private enterprise increased the tax take and changed her plan. Her approach was determined at the outset with the help of Sir Keith Joseph. The resistance she met even in her own party was from people who could not think long term.
As to Redwood, he is no more infalliable than anyone else. And people should not be idolised. I too agree with much of what he says, but I was there at the IEA when he made his remarks about the Bank of England. Now that inflation is underway he may well say something different. The cost of servicing the national debt is about to increase substantially and so reduce the money available for government spending.
Tax cuts now are a species of handout to ameliorate the cost of living crisis for consumers. The kind of cuts being considered – VAT or cancelling the NIC increase – are directed at consumers and nothing to do with a coherent plan to promote growth.
Pauline Redwood may talk sense on many issues but that sense will never, ever see the light of day from the Tory Party. If he was a man of real principle he would have walked away from the Tory Party years ago.
Well said Stout Yeoman.
“Western Nations are in unison, driving their countries happily into the abyss.”
All, no doubt, in support of the globalist’s aims.
Just checking. Yes I can comment.
And yes I agree Jack T. It does look like ‘the globalist’s aims.
Lockdowns:
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/08/28/lord-sumption-the-truth-about-lockdown-is-becoming-impossible-to-deny-it-was-a-disaster/
Time for retribution; a pay cut for the senior civil servants who were responsible and the MPs who failed to oppose it. 10% would be a good start; they need to feel the pain felt by those affected by it. As for those civil servants working from home and refusing to return to the office – notice of termination unless they return by the end of the week.
True enough Jack Thomas and it is very noticeable that ‘The Opposition’ totally FAILED to oppose it!
But let’s face it, under Bojo’s leadership the Con Party has made even more disastrous mistakes.
I liked the comment by ‘Stewart’ and fully agree with him.
“ I’m available to write the article “I f***ing told you so” to Lord Sumption on hehalf.of those of us who stood firm on the the jabs and the abomination of vax passports.
I’m not going to forget how he not only rushed off like a lemming to get a jab but then spoke about vax passports as a price worth paying for getting society back to sone semblance of normality.
Sorry, but the man is a twat”
This then is what Blairs century of socialism looks like with millenials running everything across the west, meanwhile elsewhere the rest of the world looks on in as their amazement turns from incredulity to hilarity as the UK’s biggest naval target which cost billions of pounds to build breaks down off th I.O.W still at least it managed to sail past those ‘warships’ still tied up due to engine failure .
Well this is a fine mess you’ve got us into Mr Johnson & Mr Blair millions spent on wars that we need not got involved in and an aircraft carrier that can not go to sea.
The Russians must be having a good laugh at us, if they arrived in rubber boats
would we put them in hotels.I think the Dorchester is quite good.