talking online last night, 3 good friends, who are firm labour supporters and open enough to reveal it, told us that they would never vote conservative and denied some of the clear facts, on our previous "new" labour government.
indirect and reactive government are a dangerous mix for any country, this is what we have just got rid of in the UK.
indirect government - is to shift any any blame from the government's door, but allows them to take credit for anything that goes well. reactive government - is short sighted and lets the country tick along, but does nothing groundbreaking, this type of government is revealed when it needs to show it is working.
examples of this: The state of the UK's borrowing - the banking world and "global" factors are blamed for a financial crash not seen since before the war, in the great depression of the 20s and 30s my friends and labour supporters everywhere state that its a "global" problem and that the regulation would have been the same under a conservative government... not true!
the banks in the UK can only operate under UK business laws - prior to a "new" labour government, the laws stated that if a bank was borrowing too much money - to lend to their customers to make more profit on - then the bank of england could step in and stop them borrowing more, until the individual bank could cover its borrowing losses in the event of a crash. labour and only labour, removed this power from the bank of england, and gave it to the FSA - a new banking body filled with labour people - to give the impression of an independant bank of england whilst maintaining control. when the bank of england dramatically cut interest rates and kept them down to fight off recession, labour attempted to take credit for it, as they made them "independant" had the BofE really been independant, it would have curbed bank borrowing years earlier, and provision would have been in place to protect the banking sector... the FSA who had these powers, did precisely nothing.
as the FSA were tied in with labour supporters, it was revealed by those that quit the FSA, that they were put under pressure by the new labour government, not to act or use their powers to step in and prevent bank borrowing from over stretching - as the government had an interest in a booming banking sector for their popularity with voters.
severe flooding in parts of the country heavy rain of course was the main factor in the disastrous flooding that we have seen in recent years... but why have we had this flooding, in areas quite often that hasnt seen flooding before or flooding but not on this scale? prior to a "new" labour government, there were strict laws governing the building industry, especially underground. it defies belief that today, there are now no laws that govern what building developers install underground!
because of the removal of laws and in conjunction with the government allowing rain water and sewerage to go into the same pipework, developers have been fitting smaller storm drains under ground. an example of this, came far too close to home where i live. up the road, developers built about 40 flats and a few houses on the fields at the back of us. once put up, they then dug up our street for two weeks to install the drainage for these new builds. all filled in and road repaired... all was well until a month later, when heavy rains fell. the result was our street was flooded out, for the first time in more than 30 years!
the developers had put in storm drains half the size of the ones that were in place for our estate when it was built in the 50s - as we live under high hills without trees, they are essential for drainage.
after an outcry locally, they were forced to dig up again and replace the storm drains with the correct size. they may not have been used often, but when it rains heavily, they are essential to avoid flooding in the area. who is to blame? the developers for cutting corners with the development? or the government for removing laws allowing them to do this? the developers can only work under the rules/laws that the government have or have not set in place, so the blame lies with the "new" labour government!
there are endless examples of indirect government from labour - ever wondered why train fares have more than trebled? those mean and nasty profit making private train companies... or could it be that the train companies are locked into 7 year contracts and now have to pay network rail increased prices for maintainence and lines etc. network rail is owned by taxpayers like you and me... they used to be called railtrack, owned privately, and their charges for track, stations etc, were locked once a 7 year contract was agreed with the train operators.
the "new" labour government broke it up, renamed it, and put it in taxpayer ownership, then got rid of the fixed fees to train operators, then more than trebled the prices, what do you think the train operators did then? of course, locked into 7 year contracts, they were forced to increase the prices to customers - the customers (or voters) then blamed the train companies for being greedy... when all the time it was the government behind the scenes, who had caused the increases to come about, to raise more revenue for other schemes they wanted to throw money at!
i was always taught to take responsibility for things i had done...... the outgoing labour government were forced out by the people's votes, otherwise they would never have gone!
the media harping on about who "could" be hit in any perceived cuts in funding or tax rises everyday for months now, lets try to illustrate the size of our deficit (the money we borrow each year) and the sheer size of the debts we have run up on the UK credit card:
The UK borrowed more than £9 BILLION in april 2010 - all the cuts coming in 2010 claw back a total of just £6 Billion pounds - this is LESS than just one month's borrowing!
IF we see a rise in VAT to 20% (or higher) - this will claw back just over £11 Billion - a drastic step, but a mere drop in the ocean when in the last financial year, the UK had to borrow more than £160 BILLION pounds just to stay afloat (this doesnt include the interest the UK will have to pay each year on this debt!
More than 20 MILLION people now need to claim a form of tax credit - an astonishing statistic, and one that cannot continue
The UK has borrowed the equivilent of over £24,000 pounds, PER VOTER!
Major cuts are coming - there has been no doubt about this - but trying to scare people about where they will fall is doing the british people is simply wrong.
Nothing should be exempt from cuts and savings, recession protection or not, the state of our books is disgraceful! To say that certain groups of people may suffer is plain wrong... the fact is that ALL the people in the UK are having to pay for all the borrowing done in the last 13 years, when the same british people, received not one single penny piece of the money!
a good friend of the clan here at hoover towers, sadly passed away today.
Boo Boo as he was known to us, was one of those salt of the earth people who had the wit, to completely fool people, without them even realising it.
an average chess player hehe - you only ever beat me once boo! - a very talented piano player, who taught me that if you can play the piano, then youll never pay for a drink in a pub where they have a piano P
a selfless chap, who after a long distinguished career in the civil service, worked for years as a volunteer, providing transport for cancer sufferers to and from having their treatment. generous to a fault, he was much loved in our little part of the world, in all the years ive known him, i have not heard a single cross word from him about anyone or anything. he was always "a people person" with a quick wit, that could shoot down even the most hostile of "gobshites" and enlightened many with his extensive knowledge on many subjects. young and old alike, he always made the effort with people one of the old school, boo used to always be brewing in the back kitchen, the entrance which was always used. in recent years, he was a fountain of knowledge on all things internet hehe, well travelled, he loved to recall his time on foreign shores, from poland to st louis to ireland, he has friends and family everywhere.
he lived in the same house as his father did, coming home from london just before his father's passing.
i will remember him best for his sense of humour and kindness, he never asked for anything, but would have given you his last penny piece. rest in peace Boo, who else on the street will understand our gags now? more to the point..... how will they get that piano out of your front room??? xxx
with the vast amounts of spam to the penny pinchers forums, all the info from the site is gradually being moved across to our newish http://www.frugalways.co.uk website.
the forums will be scaled down here, the amount of gormless spammers really does defy belief. weve been receiving more than 300 spam memberships per month, why? answers on a postcard please, some trying to advertise their website, but the vast majority listing completely made up names and website links that do not exist.
which brings me to the next change..... the title for my inane ramblings. ive heard the phrase "get a grip" so many times now... so this is what it shall be here. i will still be grateful for any feedback.... even the abusive ones serve a purpose, but for anything that helps others to save money or not be ripped off, or a tip or trick that could help others... please post to Frugal ways website
muchos grassyass
Denz on 05.20.10 @ 01:08 AM CST [link]
Monday, May 17th
Labour party public history being re-written
the beauty of website blogs - this one included - is that they capture the writer's thoughts/opinions at that precise moment in time. just as in printed articles in the newspapers, official report/review findings, once "out there" in the public domain, they are a direct way to reflect a person/company/government view, but there is a difference.
in print, any views are permanent... as we have already seen in the run up to the general election, blogs and website reviews/opinions of official records, are open to being changed!
back in January 2010, i was reading through some public comments on the BBC forums, one poster there (ive no reason not to believe them) stated that he himself had worked as a civil servant, on a review a couple of years earlier. He had a copy of a government report, but wanted to get the "links" included in that report, to check some figures. When he went to online version fo the report, he was amazed to find that the details of that report had vanished! the report's details online, had been removed and replaced with a summary of the government's view to some of the findings, the report had been doctored.
my own thinking was in agreement with that of the poster of the comment, to question why online information was being changed and adapted to give a viewpoint, by the sitting labour government or people working on its behalf? i know full well that even this little old blog receives regular "hits" from someone over at labour hq - going back to 2006-7 - weve been visited every couple of weeks or so.
im not so ignorant to recognise that in the run up to the election and during the campaign itself, seemingly personal blogs of election candidates were not personal views at all, but under the control of labour paty hq graham jones mp - who won hyndburn and haslingden' seat for labour is a great example.
in the run up to and during the election, his personal blog was updated every couple of days - as the election drew closer, some of the comments became more and more synical, accusing constituents of being either conservative voters or socialists! (bizarre, as the labour party are supposed to represent socialism?) then as the election was called, a complete list of "labour achievements" was posted as graham jone's own post... complete with website links to other pages of labour's own website. it was clearly not graham jones own work! comments started to disappear, or were not authorised and published... they just vanished into thin air.
now, the election is over, all the thoughts and opinions and promises of graham jones mp, on his blog have been deleted. heaven forbid he might have told his constituents prior to being voted in as an mp, some things that he did not want on record! the same can be said of greg pope, former labour mp, who's blog and posts have vanished altogether! (obviously a man of conviction)
many people are not aware, that websites/blogs etc, are not the same as newspaper articles, they can be editted at anytime, and by anyone... things are not always what they seem, they should be taken with a pinch of salt!
our voting system: it used to work well, why are people so critical of it, and not the party that sets the rules? all criticism points at the electoral commission... but who sets the rules for it? the government!
it stuns me why people are so amazed that there are increasing numbers of irregularities with voting in recent years - legal cases being heard because of postal voting fraud is vastly on the increase - this time, we have mostly council workers counting the votes instead of banking staff, stories of incomplete postal votes being collected by political party workers and then being filled out, people not being able to vote, voting registers not being updated, mysterious boundary changes which see a party win a larger percentage of the vote than the previous winners - yet not be able to gain enough seats to form a majority, when the previous winners vote resulted in a healthy majority. polling stations running out of ballot papers, etc, the stories of failure continue to be reported.
why is no one questioning this? boundary changes that dont make sense... safe wards for opposition to the government, being moved to a neighbouring constituancy, which is miles away and a relatively safe government seat. MP seats made up of only 35000 voters is ludicrous! every MP seat should have 65000 possible voters give or take a few hundred, it cant be that hard to do, as it was done this way prior to 1997, so why not now?
i read a blog post comment about 8 weeks ago, which said that the public should be thankfull that they are even getting to have an election... it wouldnt surprise the poster if an emergency way to postpone a general election was used to prevent an election being held under less favourable conditions for the government. it wasnt like this before labour got in! - the system isnt failing because its out of date, its failing because its being manipulated by the government in office for the past 13 years.
running a close second to this madness, is a simple question: what does gordon brown have to do, before some people vote against him?
i fully support a person's choice, you decide and all that, but it would appear gordon brown could shoot children in front of the TV cameras and STILL win votes..... its truly bizarre
under the blair/brown governments, we have seen record levels of debt, record levels of borrowing, record levels of people living on a form of benefit, record levels of immigration, record levels of people being dependant on taxpayer subsidies just to live. we have experienced businesses collapsing, manufacturing destroyed, school leavers pushed into higher education and on to nothing courses at university, just to keep them off the jobless figures, and paying vastly inflated sums, from future earnings, where it used to be free
there has been the ludicrous way businesses can pay shareholders a dividend and state they are in profit, when they have vast amounts of debt hidden off their books, the choice for customers on everything they buy and use has collapsed, the legal system doesnt protect the consumer anymore, the customer is no longer always right.
there are vast numbers of quangos producing report after review of nothing, distorting selected figures and arguing points, not based in fact, that we the public, are all paying for. you cant do this idea... as this report says that wouldnt work, etc etc it wasnt always like this!
we have people paying into pension funds for 30 years and more, coming to retire and finding firms have been allowed to use their funds, that should have seen them comfortable in their old age, for machinery and paying off debts, just before the company is sold or goes bust, the man on the street is left with nothing. when a person dies, their assets when passed on are taxed again, pension funds have to pay 5% of any profits to the government, taxation levels are at record levels now..... what happens when we try to raise cash to pay off the country's debts/deficit?
more than 20 million people have to rely on the taxpayer funded working and child tax credit system, if the minimum wage and living costs were good enough to live on, why the need to subsidise each and every one of those 20 million people? public transport costs have more than trebled, revenue raised by this government, from the motorist - in the name of "green" taxes and public transport projects - sees less funding than is being raised... more than £40 Billion raised in 2007-08, from the motorist, yet less than £9 Billion spent on the projects the government stated they were being taxed for. it hasnt always been like this!
personal information being sent to countries not under the law of the data protection act, and nothing is done about it, as its sold around the world for profits and taxes for the government, legislation introduced, bringing in snooping and id cards by the back door, making id cards voluntary in the worlds eyes, yet without an id card, workers cannot work, security being used to prevent legitimate protests of more than two people. should someone dare to voice their opposition whilst the prime minister is in earshot of the tv cameras or press, its ajudged perfectly acceptable to drag them to the floor and take them away..... shocking treatment of the people! mrs duffy, treated with utter contempt by the prime minister, who then proceeds to spin through his advisors (that we are all paying for) that it was a slip of the tongue, during a stressful day... yeah right!
even after a heavy defeat in the election, still brown acts as if he is prime minister, where others have gracefully stepped down and allowed those who have attained more seats to step in, brown clings to 10 downing st like its his devine right to be there
there are many more examples of the sheer disrespect that blair/brown show towards the voting public, and yet people still vote for them.... its beyond belief. i ask again - how bad does gordon brown have to be, before someone who normally votes labour, votes for another party?
today's comments from labour party supporters and lords and MPs, are a joke. "yes gordon didnt win the election, but neither did the tories as they dont have enough seats to take control... so the public didnt want them either!"
its so sad really...... we look like getting another decade of damp squib government, until one of the parties stumbles upon a conviction politician, who has the balls to stand up and say at an election.. this is where im going, you either like us or dont... in the meantime, everybody, fan or not of the labour party, suffers.
after claim and counter claim, promise after promise... the day of the general election is finally here.
its been a long drawn out 4 weeks, even longer in my area as labour started leaflet dropping in late january, at last, its now down to us, the people to place a simple cross beside which ever candidate we choose.
im already well into middle age, yet this will be only my 5th general election vote... and it will be my vote, i always vote without fail, its a right i have, and regardless of wether or not people believe that first past the post system is best or proportional representation is the way to go, the message from me is the same:
"if you dont vote, then you cant complain about anything elected parties bring in!"
there is no such thing as a "wasted vote" - a vote for your local independant candidate could help them regain their deposit and encourage them to stand again in future giving you more choice in elections to come.
most important of all - a vote cast for any party or individual, increases voter turn out which makes those in power in councils or westminster, take more notice of your immediate area, and your area will benefit from more investment and more consideration from those who work for us.
i dont give a fig who you vote for, just PLEASE USE YOUR VOTE.
if you mess up in the booth when you goto vote, ask the officer for a replacement slip if you missed your postal vote date for sending in, take your postal vote form along to the voting office and the officer will allow you to cast your vote.
exercise your rights to vote tomorrow, with a smile on your face.
Denz on 05.06.10 @ 02:20 AM CST [link]
P
