Tuesday 26 February 2013

The great lie of our times: The Left wail about 'ruthless' cuts. But the reason Britain's credit rating was downgraded is that government spending hasn't fallen by a penny

Daily Mail
"Ever since George Osborne became Chancellor nearly three years ago, it has been the received wisdom, thanks to shroud-waving unions and the Left-wing establishment, that he and his Treasury team have imposed ‘ruthless’ cuts on the state sector. The constant cry from Labour, the public sector unions, local authorities and many commentators is that the cold-hearted Coalition is engaged in a ‘slash and burn’ policy that will end in the wholesale destruction of the welfare state. It is a cynically dishonest analysis which aims to make us believe that the reason Britain is suffering a painful period of austerity is because of the draconian effect of ‘cuts’ to welfare payments, the NHS and all manner of public services, from libraries to the arts. The truth is that this is utter nonsense. In fact, Britain’s monstrously swollen state still devours almost half the nation’s output. Total state spending and borrowing has not been cut in absolute terms at all. Indeed, the burden of debt, the accumulated amount of borrowing made by governments down the years, is rising relentlessly. It was an understanding of this stark truth that led to Britain losing its AAA credit rating last week. The world’s market monitors finally lost patience with our inability to control our borrowing and lack of economic growth. As the credit analysts at Moody’s point out, Britain’s burden of debt will keep rising until 2016, when it is expected to reach a staggering peak of 96 per cent of GDP of total output. Even that horrifyingly large sum will not be the true figure. For the Government is guilty of a sleight of hand by trying to make the statistics look more healthy by boosting the Exchequer’s ledger (with the help of an unexpected windfall worth billions from the Bank of England’s policy of printing extra money). This amounts to a piece of accounting trickery that makes the volume of debt look smaller than it really is. The fundamental truth remains that most areas of state spending — particularly welfare payments and social security — are still growing uncontrollably."

Monday 25 February 2013

Labour is responsible for AA Britain

Telegraph
"Sadly, Britain deserves to lose its AAA rating. The Moody's downgrade is the delayed fallout from Gordon's Brown fiscal bubble. Whether he believed his own propaganda or was just steering state patronage to Labour voters in public services, the elemental fact is that he ran a budget deficit of 3pc of GDP at the top of the cycle. He must have been told many times that Britain has a highly cyclical economy and tax system, leveraged to the ups and downs in the global economy. The boom flattered tax revenues. The apparent success was a sham. Other countries ran budgets near balance or in surplus at the peak. Spain had a surplus 2pc of GDP, and Finland even higher. This is why Britain is now in deep trouble. Brown was gunning fiscal policy at 5pc of GDP over the safe speed limit, and he did so long enough to embed an unsustainable structure into the economy. His fiscal excesses made the household credit bubble even worse – not helped by 120pc mortgages, home equity withdrawal of 4.5pc of GDP each year, and other idiocies – leaving the economy with a deleveraging crisis that will grind onto into the 2020s."

Sunday 24 February 2013

Trade protectionism looms next as central banks exhaust QE

Telegraph
"Officials at the US Federal Reserve may be more worried than they have let on about the treacherous task of extricating America from quantitative easing. This is an unsettling twist, with global implications."

Nigerian president 'spent $1million of aid money meant for poverty-stricken country on star-studded festival featuring Beyoncé and Jay-Z'

Daily Mail
"The Nigerian president spent $1million of aid money to entice international popstars such as Beyonce and Jay-Z to perform at a music festival in the poverty-stricken country, a media source reported. A letter stamped and signed by Bayelsa State officials in 2006 revealed that President Goodluck Jonathan, then the Governor of the state, released 150million Nigerian Nairas from the state’s poverty alleviation fund for the inaugural ThisDay Music Festival in the city of Lagos in 2006, according to SaharaReporters. The document surfaced after reality TV star Kim Kardashian was reportedly paid $500,000 (£329,695) for a fleeting appearance in Lagos last week, angering Nigerian commentators."

Sunday 17 February 2013

Owen Paterson has taken control of the EU meat crisis

Telegraph
" The real drama behind the ongoing story which for the past two weeks has been leading the news across Europe has been almost wholly missed. From the moment when, 10 days ago, Findus told the Food Standards Agency that it had found horse meat in beef lasagne packaged in Luxembourg, from meat processed in France after being bought from an abattoir in Romania, Owen Paterson, our Environment Secretary, has played a blinder.
While everyone else floundered about, chasing every little new bit of the scandal as it came to light from one end of the EU to another, Mr Paterson was the one politician who immediately grasped the nature and scale of the problem. He saw what needed to be done and he marshalled all the key players, right up to the time when he instigated a top-level emergency meeting in Brussels on Wednesday evening, for himself and six European food ministers, to agree with the relevant EU Commissioner a Europe-wide plan of action that he was proposing to address the crisis.
What Mr Paterson recognised from the start, unlike any other politician in Britain, was that the root of the problem lay in what had followed when, a decade ago, the EU took over all “competence” to make food law from national governments. It promptly introduced a new set of rules across Europe, to replace the old dependence on regular inspection and testing of foodstuffs with a radical new system. The EU’s version of what is known as HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) is based on a trail of paper, whereby any food product, as it passes along the chain from one firm to another, must be acccompanied by a piece of paper certifying its nature and contents. "

Saturday 16 February 2013

'We want to get into your country before someone locks the door': Shocking investigation into the coming wave of immigration from Romania and Bulgaria

Daily Mail
"Under a loophole in EU immigration rules, Big Issue sellers can claim ‘self-employed status’, thereby gaining a National Insurance number and, with it, an instant legal foothold in the British labour market. .....after New Year’s Day 2014, when all 29 million citizens of Romania and neighbouring Bulgaria will gain full rights to live, work and claim benefits in Britain under EU ‘freedom of movement’ rules. .......Last year’s census revealed Britain is now home to 1,114,368 Eastern Europeans, and Polish is our second most popular language. So could history be about to repeat itself with Romania? The Government won’t — or can’t — say. But 40,000 Romanians are currently moving to the UK a year thanks to the ‘self-employment’ loophole and allowances for certain industries. A recent study by the think-tank MigrationWatch UK estimated that number will increase to 70,000 in January, and stay elevated for the next five years, increasing our population by ‘the same as a city the size of Plymouth or Newcastle’.

Sunday 10 February 2013

Wednesday 6 February 2013

You can't pick 'n' mix your cultures when living in the UK, immigrants told

Daily Mail
"Immigrant communities cannot adopt a ‘pick ’n’ mix approach’ to living in a liberal democracy, a Home Office minister will insist today. Liberal Democrat Jeremy Browne will attack multicultural doctrines which have meant the state turning a blind eye to so-called ‘honour crimes’, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. He will condemn ‘misplaced cultural sensitivities’ for a failure to tackle such issues in Britain."

Is this the future for Britain? German cities plead for help from Berlin as 'social peace' is threatened by large number of Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants

Daily Mail
"German cities facing 'significant costs' as a result of poverty migration - Dortmund, Hanover, Duisburg, Berlin and Hamburg all struggling to cope - Chaos in classrooms with native children being held back, report claims - Roma families with ten children 'receiving payments for each from the state'- Reports of Romanian crime gangs sending children and women out to steal"

Saturday 2 February 2013

Lord, give me austerity but not yet.

TPA
"Much more of the fiscal tightening has been undertaken by tapping up taxpayers for more. The Treasury are engaged in a concerted large-scale campaign of adjustments to tax rates, thresholds and reliefs right across the tax system aimed at quietly emptying taxpayers’ pockets. Figures we released on Tuesday revealed that the total number of these rises already implemented is 254 with another 45 already planned for before the election, an astonishing 299 in total. In contrast, the number of tax cuts is just 119, leaving a difference of 180."

For Australia's sake, we need to ban the burqa

Brisbane Times
"The burqa is no longer simply the symbol of female repression and Islamic culture, it is now emerging as a disguise of bandits and n'er do wells. In Sydney this morning a man was robbed by a burqa wearing bandit who further disguised his (or her) identity by wearing sunglasses. The bandit was described by police as being of "Middle Eastern appearance". Well of course he was (assuming it was a he) because the only characteristics the victim could see were the burqa and the sunglasses. Now unless the sunglasses had 'made in Iran' stamped on them, it's fair to say that the 'Middle Eastern appearance' line was attributed to the head to toe veiling of the Islamic burqa. In my mind, the burqa has no place in Australian society. I would go as far as to say it is un-Australian. To me, the burqa represents the repressive domination of men over women, which has no place in our society and compromises some of the most important aspects of human communication. It also establishes a different set of rules and societal expectations in our hitherto homogenous society.

....Equality of women is one of the key values in our secular society and any culture that believes only women should be covered in such a repressive manner is not consistent with the Australian culture and values. Perhaps some of you will consider that burqa wearing should be a matter of personal choice, consistent with the freedoms our forefathers fought for. I disagree. New arrivals to this country should not come here to recreate the living environment they have just left. They should come here for a better life based on the freedoms and values that have built our great nation. The burqa isolates some Australians from others. Its symbolic barrier is far greater than the measure of cloth it is created from. For safety and for society, the burqa needs to be banned in Australia."