Tag Archives: david cameron

That Dog Won’t Hunt

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The Americans have a very appropriate saying for something that does not ring true, ‘That dog won’t hunt’, and given her dog walk analogy, this fits perfectly when applied to Julie William’s myopic piece in last week’s Spalding Guardian (Thurs 21st April).

She suggests that, apart from a few people, who through no fault of their own, have found themselves homeless, everything is all sweetness and light when it comes to the huge increase in population our area has seen since the previous government’s foolhardy throwing open opening of the immigration door several years ago.

Her narrow focus on the lack of law breaking, as proof that all is well, totally ignores the real concerns that local people have about the massive strain that has been placed on local services such as our hospitals, schools and doctors, not to mention our police and social housing. 

Even if it is only a few miscreants, their impact is significant and disturbing when witnessed by local people attempting to go about their everyday life, particularly in Spalding town centre. 

Local politicians, including John Hayes MP, would be remiss in their duty to taxpayers of all nationalities, if they did not make their concerns known and suggest that urgent solutions were required. 

John Hayes has been consistent and honest in raising these concerns over the years and far from being right-wing rhetoric, I think his words will ring true with many people, whatever their political persuasion. 

Indeed, one could suggest that only those blinded by their own political dogma, or maybe even by their embarrassment at being supporters of those who caused of the issue, would seek to criticise those now endeavouring to find pragmatic solutions.

Firm talk is not enough on EU budget proposals

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Whilst I agree completely with David Cameron in his opposition to the EU budget increase, I find the wording used, ‘completely unacceptable’, feeble in the extreme.  He might as well of said, ‘I say old bean, that’s not cricket!’, for all the good it will do.  Read more on this here

Far stronger words and possibly even actions are required to make these people listen.  The tail wagging the dog is becoming the standard in the EU, with those member countries who make the largest net contributions, being completely ignored, by their money grabbing smaller and poorer partners in this corrupt and inefficient gravy train called the EU.

I supposed it should come as no surprise that Janusz Lewandowski, the EU budget commissioner who is Polish and therefore from a country that is literally raking it in along with many of his eastern european neighbours, is staunchly defending the proposed rise.

Come on Dave time for firm action not wet words.

Where there’s blame there’s a claim!

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It looks like, having accepted (on our behalf?) that all the troubles of the world are the fault of the British, or should that be just the English (devolution and all that) David Cameron is now determined to use taxpayer’s money to fix things.

Apparently, whilst Pakistan is busy spending £1billion on submarines we, the taxpayers, will be generously giving them £650m of our money, so that an extra 40,000 children can go to school.  Nothing wrong with kids getting an education, but can their government please do it with their own, obviously plentiful, cash.

It’s almost a perverse form of the no win, no fee system we have in this country, except that these ‘victims’ don’t have to prove anybody is guilty (call me Dave’s already done that) or even put in a claim, in order to get a nice big payout.

Closer to home, the taxpayer will be hit, along with all the other burdens being imposed by increased taxation, increased NI, government sponsored inflation, increasing food prices, etc, with a further cost in the form of a carbon tax on energy companies.  Apparently this slipped in under cover of the rest of the Budget, compliments of George Osborne.

This will add hundreds of pounds to the average energy bill, as the companies will seek to pass it on to consumers.  This tax, which will be unique to the UK, will not only hit ordinary people in the pocket, it will have a direct impact on the competitiveness of British businesses, just when many are struggling to survive.  It would seem that whilst the rest of the world suffers natural disasters, our government have decided to be proactive and create its own.

I’m having a colour crisis!

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There’s an advertisement running in cinemas at the moment, for Orange mobile phones, that has relevance to the way I’m seeing my politics at the moment.  The advert has an animated parrot in it that starts off blue and is then turned orange by the off screen voice that’s controlling things.

My emerging association with this piece of imagery comes about because of statements from ‘call me Dave’, about how he’s going to revolutionise local government (for revolutionise read, kick the guts out of it) and the words of caution from Nick Clegg in today’s Daily Telegraph.

In other words, my Tory blue, whilst not quite turning into LibDem orange, is definitely feeling a bit on the pale side at the moment.  Nick Clegg has gone on the record today, saying about Dave’s latest idea for privatised policing, “Replacing a public monopoly with a private monopoly achieves nothing but reduced accountability” – I wish I’d said that.  All that education hasn’t been wasted after all.  Seriously and somewhat annoyingly, I find myself in agreement with Nick Clegg’s views on this, hence my colour clash.

It may seem somewhat simplistic on my part, but I still cannot see how a shift from an organisation that only has one goal – delivering services, to one that has making a profit by delivering public services, is a sound way forward.  As Gordon Brown once said, I agree with Nick!

Clearance Sale Now On!

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For Sale! One set of well cared for public services – any offer considered.

David Cameron intends to break the state’s monopoly on service provision by opening it up to the commercial and voluntary sectors.

As a science fiction geek, I can’t help but find parallels from the world of film in real life and what is being proposed by David Cameron, especially when it comes to big business taking over some of ‘the states’ functions, is one of them.

Even is you’re not in to sci-fi, I’m sure most of us can think of at least one film where the story revolves around big business pulling the strings of government and government appearing to be unable (or unwilling) to do anything about it.  One of my all time favourites is Harrison Ford’s Blade Runner, where the big corporation is run by a shadowy genius, who never leaves his penthouse, whilst wielding power over almost everything and everyone (including the police).

Today’s reality is not so stark.  However, spare a thought for all those services that used to be, but are no longer, controlled by government.  Gas, electricity, water, telephones, the post office, and the railways – I’m sure readers could think of a few more.  Most people would immediately say that things are far better now, as these private companies bring the much needed investment to industries starved of it by government.  I would agree with the last point, whilst questioning the first.  Apart from the pathetic telephone services that existed in this country prior to privatisation, just about everything else seemed to work pretty much as advertised and just needed leadership and investment.  Even more worrying and call me xenophobic if you must, many of the companies with their fingers on the light switch are now owned by foreign interests.

Government now wishes to farm out all the remaining services, whilst at the same time believing it can keep some level of control over the quality and cost to the end user.  Standby by for more Ofwats, Ofgems, Ofcoms, etc, etc.  Anybody think these regulators are doing a very good job for us?

Even more alarming is the government’s record on doing deals with the commercial world. The private finance initiatives used to build hundreds of public buildings, such as schools and hospitals, would be worthy of the world’s greatest conman, Bernie Madoff and his $50billion Ponzi scheme.  Likewise, the MOD was a cash cow for the defence industry, that is only now being culled.   This government bailed out the banks, continues to own large chucks of them (on behalf of taxpayers remember) yet remains unable to control their behaviour effectively.  When it comes to dealing with the commercial world, time and time again, government seems to take a tiger by the tail, without having a clue how to get to the business end to put on the collar.

A bit like the Royal Air Force, this latest proposal means that local government has probably had its day.  Of course central government will still need a local mechanism to deliver its agenda, but this will be no more than a contract monitoring office, staffed mainly by lawyers, bean counters and clerks.

Elected members can then be dispensed with, as an unnecessary encumbrance to what, without their interference, would be a straightforward set of business transactions.  After all, if localism is about giving local people control, why would you need elected members to be advocates on behalf of the people who now have control?

The public service ethos will be maintained by exploiting the willingness of local voluntary groups to deliver those services the commercial world finds unattractive, because they don’t make the right level of profit.

Finally, any political representation required, to give the few people that actually bother to vote something to do, would be provided by the directly elected mayors, that will be imposed on us at some point in the future.  This role will involve glad-handing, pretending to listen to the community and keeping an eye on the lawyers as they churn out all the contracts.

Just to finish on the sci-fi theme.  David Cameron has said that the judiciary and security are not up for grabs.   Robocop is all about an outsourced police force, where the dedicated cops on the street spend all their time being dropped in it because the greedy corporation that employs them, starves them of resources in order to increase profits.  Never say never Dave!