David Cameron, we are listening!

Okay, okay Mr Cameron, has got our attention, but precisely what is it he wants to say? The majority of the public know that, whatever Gordon Brown says, at some stage we will have to ‘cut our cloth’ in the form of a meaningful reduction in public spending. Moreover, we know that this must be sooner rather than later, otherwise we are all going to face some very hefty tax increases. However, no matter how eloquent David Cameron is on the podium, he must tell us what his plans are if we were to entrust his party with our votes.

Cameron is right to make clear that Conservarive Ministers would be judged on what they deliver, not who they know or how chummy they are with the press. Ministers will be required to deliver more for less, its not that difficult of course, the private sector has been doing it for years. Similarly, civil servants will be held to account, they too will have to deliver results. But, this is okay for a ‘vision’, but contrary to what Cameron thinks, this is NOT a plan and that is what we are all waiting for.

On Channel 4 news on Sunday, William Hague stated that the public do not want detailed policies from the Conservatibes, instead, he argued, we just want the vision. I would like to know who the hell he has been talking to, because everyone I know and talk to say that they want meat on the bones. David Cameron needs to understand that he is at serious risk of becoming yesterday’s man, because he is too frightened to tell us what his plans are. One thing is for certain, he does have some sort of plan, he just doesn’t want to share it with us….yet! However he is missing the point, as well as a golden opportunity. He has the public attention, now he must now use this fact to turn empty rhetoric into a deliverable action plan and then sell it to us. But why won’t he?

This is a missed opportunity and the biggest challenge he now faces is, we are all getting tired of being stalled, of waiting for that golden nugget that demonstrates in clear terms that his team is the one that should be trusted with our futures and votes. If he doesn’t move quickly, I suspect that he will start to lose the momentum he has gained, people will start to believe that he is unsure of himself, lacks confidence and self-belief and if that happens, no matter how far ahead in the polls he is, the Conservative party will lose. Few people want another week, much less another term of this pathetic New Labour government, however, we cannot afford to risk our futures with a party that lacks confidence, depth or ideas. Enough stalling Mr Cameron, tell us what you are going to do if, or when, we trust you enough to vote for your party.

British Public will not accept higher taxes

David Cameron has made much about the fact that he cannot make any commitments in terms of tax cuts and he has also said that he cannot rule out tax increases. The reality is he probably thinks this makes him look tough, honest or maybe even sincere. But there is another harsh reality that he ignores at his peril. That is, the current Labour administration has constantly hammered the taxpayer to fund new initiatives, to invest in health, education and to deal with child poverty. We will no longer tolerate another attack on our finances, particularly given the current state of the economy and the failures of the current administration to get value for our taxes.

The Labour administration has used stealth taxes to increase the tax take, this is equivalent to 3% of GDP, or if you prefer, the equivalent of a further 10p in the pound on direct taxes. David Cameron’s government would benefit from this situation. Yes, I fully accept that as a result in the slow down in the economy and the high level of borrowings, that tax cuts may not be a short, or even medium term reality, but tax cuts must remain a long term commitment.

If we work hard, we are entitled to retain more of our hard earned money. The conservatives must, instead, look to address the public sector, which is so bloated, that it now employs one in 5 of our working population. They must look to ensure that we get more ‘bang for our buck’ the current Labour administration has spent £billions on consultants, spin, marketing and failed projects. Some estimates put their waste at over £100bn in 11 years. Any future government that does not accept that savings can be made in how taxpayers money is being spent, does not deserve the opportunity to lead this country.

The ‘something for nothing’ society needs to be addressed. There are 2.5m people claiming invalidity benefits, up by 1.5m during Labour’s reign, this must be addressed. Those with genuine needs must be supported, the rest must be forced to accept work. The taxpayer does not want to pay someone to sit at home on their backsides if they have a bad back, instead they can get an office job and make a contribution to society.

Any government, current, or future, would do well to consider the fact that the British public, or more specifically, the taxpayers, contributing to this society, are fed up with being made to pay more and more of our money in taxes. It is accepted, that it is far easier to introduce more stealth taxes or increase existing ones, than it is to deal with our bloated public service sector, our something for nothing society or our government waste, but deal with it is what they must do.

As a people, we have a moral responsibility to help those that are not able to help themselves, but we should not be encouraging people to simply help themselves to our tax money. Grand initiatives are okay, but only if we can afford them, we should for example, slash our overseas aid budget, which is currently costing the UK taxpayer some £5bn per annum. We should call a halt to the policy of cancelling third world debt without pre-conditions, which serves only to allow the rich elite of these countries to further prosper at our expense and the expense of their own people.

If Cameron, or anyone else for that matter wants my vote, they do not have to promise tax cuts, but they must promise not to increase taxes. Instead, they must get on with the job of reducing their overheads, getting rid of waste, exactly the same as every working family in the country is required to do in these difficult times.

Government must lead by example, and David Cameron should take note, that the last thing the taxpayers of this country needs is another government that is pilfering our money and then frittering it away. Arguably, taxes are a privilege, not a right.

Tories vow to address the health and safety culture

Not before time, a UK political party has committed to address the almost farcical health & safety culture that has built up in the UK, not least its affect on the ability of the emergency services to do their jobs.

I remember discussing the case of Jordan Lyon who drowned last year with an ex-fireman. This young boy drowned even though two Community Safety Officers were on the scene, because these ‘officers’ did not have the appropriate training. The ex-fireman told me that the fire service is also tied up with Health & Safety red tape, to the extent, that if a fireman was to enter the water to save someones life, without the requisite support, then he could have faced losing his job and pension. I was appalled. If you take on the job of a police office or a fireman, you know that at times, you will have to risk your life to save others, very often, it is a judgement call, to have that decision made by health & safety officials is deplorable.

Imagine the situation if all our armed forces were forced to consider the health & safety risks before they went into battle. When you join the army, you know that you may be called upon to fight for your country and lay your life down in that service. You are entitled to expect senior officers to complete a risk assessment and not waste young lives, but not a health & safety officer! Yet here we are, with health & safety officers placing a raft of conditions on police officers and fireman. The public are entitled to expect the emergency services to help us when we are in need, they have chosen that vocation, are paid to do the job and they know the risks. They should not be prevented from doing their jobs through red tape.

Clearly this government does not understand the implications of all this, although that is not particularly surprising, given they are so out of touch with the people of this country. I normally have a lot of time for Home Office Minister Tony McNulty, but here is what he had to say about the conservative proposals. “The lives of police officers and Police Community Support Officers are as important as those of the people they serve, and this government will back the police service in the day to-day operational decisions they make in protecting the public against crime and terrorism. “And we will ensure that the criminal justice system is firmly weighted in favour of the victim, not the criminal.” Yes, but these officers know the risks and they are paid to do a job, they should be allowed to get on with it.

I would suggest he ask the rank and file members of our emergency services as to whether or not they are in favour of all of these health & safety rules, whether they see it as the government protecting them, or unnecessary interference, in as much as it prevents an officer from making a safety assessment on the spot. There are 167,000 police officers in this country, yet we feel less safe than we did 20 years ago, why is that, could it be something to do with the fact that in many cases, police officers are prevented to go into a dangerous situation, unless they have back up?

We are constantly told that the emergency services deserve good salaries and pension schemes, because of the risks they take to protect the public, yet more and more, they are required to take less risk. Our police officers and firemen should not be risk averse, they must be brave, they are charged with protecting the public and they must be allowed to do so. With this health & safety culture of ours, we will never know whether lives are lost because officers don’t have the backbone to go in, or if they are simply following health & safety rules. I would hope that these officers are not hiding behind these rules, I am sure they are not, but unless they also make it clear that they do not want these restrictions, what is the public to think?

On top of all this, I believe there needs to be a very clear definition of ‘reasonable force’, it is currently very vague. There is a need for the public to act in cases when their are no police officers around, or the police are not allowed to act for fear of losing their jobs. Where the public do act, they must be protected by law, they should not live in fear of prosecution. In my view, reasonable force is any act necessary to prevent the threat and the benefit of doubt should always be given to the member of public that has intervened where a police officer couldn’t or wouldn’t.

But the conservatives should also deal with health and safety regulations in the workplace, this has gone so far, that it is simply killing small business who must either employ and health & safety officer or use the services of a consultant. Yes there must be rules because the public and employees are entitled to be protected, but health and safety has now turned into a massive industry and it is costing every single one of us. There needs to be balance. Once again, I hope the conservatives will be bold in their policies, there is no point in meddling, Health & Safety Regulations need wholesale reform.

We need wholesale tax and benefit reform, not meddling

The news that the Liberal Democrats wants to reduce income tax for middle and low income earners is welcome news, albeit the chances of them getting sufficient votes to deliver on this commitment is unlikely. However, it does appear that they are willing to fill the void left by the current reincarnation of the Tory party.

The conservatives have traditionally been a party of tax cuts, not something that is always justified, but nonetheless, for the most part that is how they are perceived. David Cameron does not seem to want to make this commitment, because he is justifiably concerned that the Labour party will scream that the conservative party will hit schools and the NHS to fund the tax cuts. Rather than fighting this unsubstantiated claim, David Cameron is avoiding the fight and in my view, showing how incredibly weak he is, both as a person and a politician.

Gordon Brown said in 2004 that he could save £20bn per annum in an efficiency drive within high spending departments. He has not delivered on that commitment in fact, quite the reverse, we have actually seen an increase in public sector spending. Neither the LibDems nor the conservatives are willing to look to fund tax cuts from an efficiency drive, yet only an imbecile would claim that government departments are efficient or not guilty of waste. There have been numerous reports lately claiming that £billions have been wasted.

What we need is wholesale reform, not tinkering, backed up by a firm commitment to reduce taxes. The government, and it has to be said, the opposition parties believe it is okay to keep taking more and more of our money, every time they screw up, they either borrow, which lets face it, we will have to pay for, or they will introduce more stealth taxes. It has to stop. Under this Labour government, more and more people believe that they have an automatic right to look to the state, more accurately the tax payer, to provide them with an income, housing etc. There are nearly 870,000 people claiming unemployment benefits and 2.5m on some form of disability benefit. That is 3.4m people that require some form of tax payer funded benefits.

Now I accept that there are people with genuine disabilities and they should receive our support, but how much longer can the tax payer be expected to fund 3.4m people (and rising), that are making no contribution? I have deliberately ignored pensioners given many have contributed to state pensions for most of their lives.

Someone needs to say it how it is. There are just too many people expecting too few tax payers to fund their living costs, subsidise housing costs, as well as provide free education and health. Enough now, some of these people, probably that vast majority, can help themselves and they must. In these difficult economic times, those working have to make significant cuts, or take on extra jobs, or both. Why? Because we are expected not only to cover our own cost of living increases, but also the rises faced by those who make no contribution, in other words we pay twice.

Uncontrolled immigration places a further burden on the tax payer. It does not take a genius to work out that the contribution in taxes and national insurance made by many immigrants seeking work in the UK, does not cover the free education and health benefits received by their offspring. So, what happens? There are fewer jobs available for the 870,000 people claiming unemployment benefit, so we have to keep forking our our hard earned money providing them with tax payer funded benefits. Whilst the people coming into the UK and accepting low paid work, cannot possible pay enough tax and national insurance to cover the free benefits they receive.

There is nothing wrong with immigration, provided they can make a genuine and a net contribution to the UK economy, not simply provide employers with a source of cheap labour, which in itself is exploitation of the individual and the tax payer. There are many people that have genuine disabilities that prevent them from taking any work, but this is by no means the majority, those genuine claimants are entitled to our help, because that is our way. The rest must find some form of gainful employment, even if it is part-time. There will always be people unemployed and of the 870,000, some of these may be between jobs, but once again, they are likely to be in the minority. The others, well some will have never held a job and they must be required to make a contribution.

Redistribution of wealth may be a fine goal, but not if the hard pressed tax payers are simply expected to reward people that are making no attempt to make a contribution to society. Successive government have failed to grasp the nettle, but they must, we need to urgently reform our whole benefits system, so that the genuinely needy receive an appropriate level of help and support and the others, those that refuse to make a contribution are forced to go to work.

Very wealthy people are able to employ clever people to avoid paying too much tax, but the rest of us, who do not have that luxury are expected to make up the balance, simply because we are the easier target. It is far, far easier to hit the lower and middle income earners than it is to get the long term unemployed back to work, to determine which of the 2.5m people are genuinely unable to work and tackle those guilty of extravagant and complicated tax avoidance schemes.

Think about it for a moment. We tax and insure our cars, because if we didn’t, we could expect to be arrested, charged and fined, because we are, for the most part, law abiding tax payers. The others, well they won’t tax or insure their cars, if they are arrested they skip bail, if they get caught by a camera, then it doesn’t matter, because the car won’t be registered in their name. It is estimated that there are 1m uninsured and untaxed vehicles on our roads. We tax payers, received our pay, with tax and national insurance deducted, why, because we are law abiding citizens, the others, well they work cash in hand, because the chances are they won’t get caught? Why, because it is just too difficult to track and too costly to enforce?

We need wholesale reform, after all, any money earned, starts off as our own. That’s right, when you apply for a job, you get told how much your employer will pay you. Then the pimp, sorry the government comes along with hand extended and says, well you have a “social responsibility” and we are going to-redistribute some of your income to those less fortunate than you and to pay for things like health, education and pensions. We all sit there and take it, why, because we are law abiding and of course, we don’t have any choice? If government gets it wrong, no matter, they will just come back for more, perhaps in the form of direct tax, such as that on petrol, energy, insurance, vehicles etc.

Some people don’ realise this and of course the government won’t tell you. But when you buy petrol or a new car for example, the government add the duties and then VAT to the duties. How bad is that, not only do we pay VAT on the cost of the goods, but we also pay VAT on the duties! No wonder they think we are a bunch of mugs.

Someone, perhaps a political party, needs to stand up for the hard-pressed tax payer. Accept that there is a disproportionate amount of money taken from us and that the system needs serious reform. The LibDems have suggested that they could provide some tax cuts by tackling waste, but they have set the barrier way, way too low, even if this is a paradigm shift by the LibDems. If you are going to take flack for suggesting that we can keep some of our hard earned money by the government tackling waste, why not also target abuse, not just the wealthy, but those happy to receive tax payer funded benefits?

We need a party for wholesale reform and they need to tackle the people that are registered as disabled, but are able to work. After all, those that use or abuse the system are just taking it away from the genuinely needy, who should receive our help. Those claiming unemployment benefit must be required to work within a given period or lose all benefits. It is enough now, for far too long we have heard (and have allowed to pass unchallenged), people on benefits saying that they would be “worse off if they went back to work”. Surely this means that the benefit payments are too generous?

Why can’t lone parents group together, so that some can go to work, whilst the others look after the children? In the real world of the tax payer, that is what we do. What makes lone parents any more deserving? Why should someone that has never contributed anything in the form of income tax, be entitled to housing, benefits, free furniture, free health and free education? If they have an automatic entitlement to receive these benefits, what incentive do they have to work and make a contribution? Successive governments have added to the notion that everyone is entitled to state aid of some sort. Why should these people not be encouraged to help themselves, rather than helping themselves to the hard-earned money of honest tax payers.

Unemployment figures have been massaged by this government by allowing more and more people to claim that they are unable to work through disability, there are currently 2.5m in this category. It is a fair bet and some government ministers have alluded to this, that as many as 1.5m are able to do some form of work. So is the true unemployment figure actually 2.4m? Those that are workshy as opposed to genuinely disabled, must be identified and should be forced back to work. If necessary, through a steady decline in the benefits they are receiving, if that means that some become homeless, so be it. They always have a choice.

I accept, that if there are no jobs available, then we must take that into account, but whilst there is, those able and capable of working must be dissuaded from claiming benefits. Not incentivised, because that is morally wrong, they must be dissuaded through a steady fall in their tax payer funded benefits. We must also change some of our language, for example, state benefits should be changed to tax payer funded benefits, which is a more accurate statement. The state is faceless, but everyone know someone who is a tax payer, they will invariable be the people looking knackered without the ability to buy a pint in their local.

Many low paid workers are claiming that they need more money to deal with the rising cost of living, well firstly I should like to point out that the problem is not uniquely theirs and it is wrong to play the victim as if it is an exclusive right, everyone is suffering. But, more importantly, they need to approach it from another angle, they should not be looking for more money funded, in the case of public sector workers, by the tax payer, instead, they should be entitled to keep more of their own money. By tackling government waste and making more people contribute, we can all see a reduction in our taxes, we will all feel better off and this country will prosper again.

I cannot see any of the political parties tackling this issue. The LibDems have moved from a party of higher taxation to one that is now talking of reduced taxes. Albeit it without the support of the entire party and, it has to be said, with a limited remit in terms of what aspects of abuse they will tackle. The conservative party has consistently refused to address taxation as if it is a poisoned chalice, because they don’t want to take on the current government on regarding waste, and abuse of the benefits system. Then the Labour government, who, through their self-righteous programme of re-distribution have built up this waste and allowed a situation where even they know that there is no more money to be had from the hard pressed tax payer. What hope is there for us with such weak politicians?

I am not advocating that everyone who is claiming unemployment benefit should lose, it, nor am I suggesting that everyone in receipt of disability benefit is workshy, far from it. I am arguing that unless we reform our tax and benefits system, this country will be bankrupt. We already have a massive accumulated deficit in public sector pension schemes, an aging populating and high borrowings. We also have hugely expensive PFI schemes that need to be paid for over the next 20 years. The tax payer is straining under the additional burden placed upon them by this government’s failure to tackle the issues in case they lose some of their core vote. However, unless we address the issue of those that are contributing little of nothing in the form of income tax and national insurance, then we will reach a stage where those currently funding this largess will no longer be able to cope themselves.

There needs to be a reduction in those claiming tax payer funded benefits, a corresponding increase in the number of people contributing income tax and national insurance and a halt to immigration unless or until they can demonstrate that they can provide a net contribution to the UK economy, taking account of their needs, such as free health and education…the government has no right to exclude this cost when making statements about how they contribute. If we don’t, we will reach the point of no return, where we have to borrow more and more money just to fund our pensions and benefits system, until one day, our government bonds will have the same status as junk bonds. By then, it will be too late and there will be considerably more people that will need some form of tax payer funded benefits, but with no-one left to turn to. Doomsday scenario or basic economics, you choose?

 

UK Politics

Visit this group