More tax more state more thieving from children

Alastair Darling released the Brown government’s last ever Pre Budget Statement (let’s be honest it wont be a stunning victory for Labour at the next election) and what does it bring? The Times tells all and the ledger goes like this.

In terms of restraining state spending there is:
- A senior civil service pay cut worth a paltry £100m
- Treasury approval needed for government appointments earning more than £150k;
- 1% cap for public sector pay settlements other than the Armed Forces;
- State contributions to public sector pensions to be capped by 2012;
- Bingo Duty (yes really) cut from 22% to 20% in 2010;
- Deferral of corporation tax increase for smaller companies;
- Electric cars exempt from company car tax (!) for five years.

Pathetic really. Political pablum, leaving the hard decisions to the Tories.

How about new or higher taxes?
- VAT to return to 17.5% on 1 January (buy before then);
- Threshold for top tax rate not to rise for one year after 2012;
- National insurance increased by 0.5% of income in 2011;
- Inheritance tax allowance frozen for one year (not increased);
- 50% one off tax on banking sector bonuses over £25k;
- 10% Corporation tax on patent income in the UK;
- 50p a month tax on phone lines to subsidise rural broadband.

Again, more tax, taking more from the economy because Labour is limp wristed on cutting spending, when it should be ruthless. These bastards can’t keep their hands out of people’s pockets. What’s truly disgusting is how they are going to spend MORE, so basically stealing from people’s children in debt to buy some votes as follows:
- 2.5% increase in state pensions in 2010 (go on old folk embrace Labour stealing from your grandchildren and great grandchildren);
- Guarantee scheme for bank loans to small businesses to be extended;
- £200m more money for a “Strategic Investment Fund” stealing from productive businesses to bribe new ones;
- 6 month extension of welfare to help the unemployed with mortgage payments, effectively propping up housing prices and rewarding those who don’t buy mortgage repayment insurance;
- 10,000 undergraduates from poor (Labour) backgrounds to be subsidised into jobs;
- Guaranteed training or education for all 16 and 17yos, and all under 24 who are out of work for more than 6 months are guaranteed work or training;
- Child benefit increase of 1.5% in 2010. This isn’t means tested so children of the wealthy mean a £20 benefit a week for the eldest and £13.20 for each other child. Welfare for every family;
- Four carbon capture and storage demonstrations to be paid for;
- £200m more to subsidise home energy efficiency (rather than letting energy companies raise prices);
- 125,000 homes subsidised to get more efficient heating boilers;
- Extend free school meals to half a million primary school children of poor parents;
- Rail electrification between Manchester, Liverpool and Preston (can't have fare payers paying);
- Minimal increases in education, health and police spending;
- £2.5 billion for Afghanistan;
- £5m to help ex. Service personnel set up own businesses.

Other than the last two items, this is just more bribes using stolen loot. Not surprising, but certainly disgusting. Profligacy and waste in health and education remain rewarded, picking winners through subsidies is the order of the day, and next to nothing done to confront net debt reaching 78% of GDP by 2014/2015.

A chance that Darling had to acknowledge he wont be doing this a year from now, and he could make the hard decisions to cut spending, was wasted. Why? Because the Labour Party just wants to keep their people in Parliament by bribing voters with their children's money.

So voters will face an election which will probably see the Tories win, hopefully see the Tories engage in serious cuts in spending to take Britain away from risking debt default, and saddling generations with debt.

Then Labour will say how mean and cruel and heartless they are for cutting spending on “vital services”. Yes ladies and gentlemen, if this isn’t an example of the lead up to an advance auction of goods, stolen from children, I don’t know what is.

For shame. How soon can the UK be rid of this tired vile socialist oriented big government regime?

Oh and for now, just don't remind me of what the other lot are like. Can they seriously make it any worse?

What more reason do you need?

Dr Jan Pryor has a non-job. She is Chief Commissioner to the sop to Peter Dunne Families Commission. Her organisation benefits the families of those working for it, and causes a tiny amount of harm to those who have to pay for it.

Not only that, but she has an inferior brain and believes that people of a certain class, race and sex are also inferior. Given she said she couldn't explain the Whanau Ora concept in one of her parasitical waste of money organisation's documents according to the NZ Herald:

"I am putting a caveat around it for the simple fact that I am a middle class, white woman. And so I don't feel that I should be giving definitive answers"

Are middle class white women incapable of explaining things? Is reason and analysis related to race? Oops hang on, the Nazis are on the phone, they want their race theories back.

I do like National list MP Hekia Parata's response though, as the Herald reported: "Ms Parata said she must be limited quite a lot in a whole range of areas. Dr Pryor said it was important to be aware of her own background."

You "don't feel" Dr Pryor? Well start thinking instead, it's a good idea. Why does background count? Are you inferior, can you not learn?

Clearly you are.

What more reason does the government need to shut this bloody useless office down and push Dr Pryor out into looking for a real job, instead of bleeding others of their money?

Yes Peter Dunne will huff and puff, but why should that be the slightest bit of interest to anyone? Go on Peter, convince Ohariu voters that they should support you to "bring back the Families Commission".

Tory disgrace over Heathrow

BA CEO Willie Walsh has come out a blazing against the Conservative Party's opposition to a third runway at Heathrow Airport.

"I want to know, if the Conservatives don't want to build a third runway, how are they going to position the UK economy to compete on a global scale in the future?..."We will look back years from now and say, what a disgrace. We expect governments to have policies that are coherent. I don't see this as coherent."

Dead right Willie. The policy is a mindless kowtowing to the anti-growth luddites of the environmental movement, as well as residents of West London who want their property values enhanced by the removal of Heathrow.

Curiously, Steve Ridgway, Virgin Atlantic's CEO agrees of course. Since it hinders both BA and Virgin Atlantic from growing. Although we shouldn't forget how eager Sir Richard Branson is at pushing environmentalism. This is what happens when you realise those you try to appease are uninterested in you.

Conservative spokesperson Theresa Villiers has said "We are absolutely convinced that the environmental costs of runway three, in terms of air pollution, noise and carbon emissions, significantly outweigh the alleged economic benefits"

Because you're idiots. Who gives a damn whether or not you think there are economic benefits. You are politicians, interfering with the private sector, trying to make money by providing services and therefore providing employment.

You don't create money, you seek to spend other peoples.

Get the hell out of the way of a foreign owned private company investing in new infrastructure in the UK that the taxpayer need do nothing about.

Throw off this pandering to both NIMBYism to win electorates in west London, and neo-Marxist environmentalism. Otherwise some of us will find enough reason to throw our votes away on an alternative.

What Copenhagen wont discuss

One of the leading climate change sceptics, Christopher Booker writes in the Daily Telegraph about what wont be said at Copenhagen:
- The phenomenal cost of taking the sort of measures proposed to reduce CO2 emissions. In the UK it is estimated at £18 billion a year or £725 per household. Of course what will the benefits be of this? Nobody will say;
- The targets (UK promises an 80% cut in 40 years) would mean nearly shutting down most energy and transport systems in the UK, no politicians have any idea how to achieve this;
- How will the differences between crippling developed countries and letting developing countries do what they like be bridged? Quite simply crippling the rich world wont be enough if you believe the rhetoric, China, India and Brazil all have to act too, but none of them are the slightest bit interested;
- The science is still questionable, as "in the run-up to Copenhagen we have been subjected to an unremitting bombardment of scare stories: how the ice caps and glaciers are melting much faster than predicted, how sea levels will rise much higher than anyone imagined, how we face ever more hurricanes, droughts, floods and heatwaves. Yet every time one of these scares is subjected to proper objective scientific examination it can be found either that these disasters are not happening as claimed or that they have been exaggerated far in advance of anything the evidence can justify. "

He concludes "Far from Copenhagen being the end of the debate, the real debate is only just beginning."

As it should be.

Third Heathrow Runway "ok" on CO2

Why should that matter you might ask of me? After all, it is a privately owned airport, not seeking a pound of taxpayers' funds to expand, the business case is overwhelming and it is purchasing land for the purpose of the runway. So let it be. Especially since competing airports in Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt are all expanding or have recently significantly expanded runway capacity (but don't let that get in the way of reason).

However, the Brown government has a quasi-religious view on climate change, believing, brothers and sisters that the UK must lead the world in crippling economic growth and self sacrifice cutting emissions, even though the UK doing so wont make a jot of difference. So it decided to investigate whether a third runway at Heathrow, and the extra flights it could accommodate (besides reducing the very wasteful queuing at present) would have a negative environmental impact.

The Times reports a UK government committee has said that 60% MORE people can fly by 2050 and still meet the government's CO2 emission targets. In other words, rather than the luddite like "stop flying" nonsense trotted out by the environmental movement, someone has actually looked at the figures and determined how much expansion is "ok". Now it's not all good, it is based on taxpayers' being forced to pay for a high speed railway network to take some people from air to rail on domestic trips, and draconian taxes on flying, as well as assumptions of ongoing improvements in fuel efficiency. Because, you see, without any such kleptomania, apparently demand would double by 2050.

So even if you don't take a fully pro-capitalist view on this, it can still be argued that aviation expansion is not incompatible with ongoing reductions in emissions, in part because technology and commercial pressures will encourage this.

Of course the usual religious zealots have come out bemoaning this. Friends of the Earth enemies of humans wants an end to airport expansion (in the UK). Expect more of the typical rabid "planes bad, trains good" nonsense from environmentalists. Then of course you'll understand why more and more people are more and more sceptical about the true motives behind such activists. It's a form of ascetic nationalist environmental extremism, which happily will let the UK economy be stagnate, whilst letting China, India and even France, Germany and the Netherlands expand.