Another stealth tax from Labour

Do you realise that fuel duty is about to rise by 2p/litre? Have a look at this and add your comments.

You can also vote on whether you think that this rise is being pushed through very quietly ahead of an exceptionally late Budget.

"What's That Terrible Smell?"

That was the question being asked all over the country yesterday.

The official explanation was that it was the result of farmers in Europe carrying out their annual muck-spreading operations. It is quite normal for them to use the copious amounts of brown stuff produced by their heavily-subsidised livestock, particularly pigs, to increase crop production.

Some of us choose to believe that it is too much of a coincidence that this event occurred on the very day that Gordon Brown returned from the USA after his no-profile visit. After all, isn't he shitting himself about what to do about his inept handling of the elimination of the 10p tax band?

Watch My Lips, Balls - "It's The Economy, Stupid!"

Interesting comment on the Sky News - Boulton & Co blog about the puerile and very revealing behaviour of Ed Balls, that sad NuLabour wannabee.

A chap called Trevor said "as someone who has for years been 40% deaf in both ears and long inclined to subconsciously lip-read, I can absolutely assure the world that Balls said "So what?", and that there is no way that he said any of the alternative comments hastily invented and offered. The lip movement for "weak" and "what" are totally different. In one case ("weak") the lips spread sideways, in the other ("what") they move downwards, so the pathetic attempt to change the facts of what he said simply won't wash."

Hopefully, Balls will soon regret his ill-advised heckle of David Cameron after his abysmal party are voted into the oblivion they deserve. (Oh, I feel better after that!)

No More Rubbish Taxes!

We have weekly collections in my North Midlands town. One week it is non-recycleable waste (grey wheelie bin) and the next it is recyceable items (garden waste and cardboard in a green wheelie bin).

But we also have a fortnightly "blue box" collection of glass, metal and batteries (in a separate recyclable bag) as well as a "blue bag" for (news)paper - but not envelopes because of the glue!

However, we have to take all our plastic packaging to a recycling point. For us this is not really a problem as we can drop it off (about once a week) when we visit our favourite supermarket.

We also compost all the vegetable waste, tea bags, egg cartons, egg shells, etc that we can. It is all added to our garden soil which we use to grow flowers, shrubs and a few vegetables and herbs.

As far as I am concerned my family can do no more to recycle. The system in place in our town seems to work reasonably well. If we were to be charged extra by our local council for the quantity of waste they take away from our house I would regard this as just another attempt to apply a stealth tax.

Let's get all this "green" stuff in proportion. There are limits to what responsible individuals can do to save the planet.

What? No Policies?

Christ almighty! If I hear anyone else say that the Conservatives have no policies I will poke Iain Dale in his eyes with a compass.
Just give me a hint what Labour's policies are, lads? Sure - they are doing things, reacting to things, ignoring things, back tracking on things and avoiding doing things (eg a referendum on the EU treaty) but what is their message, their vision? Everything is OK, don't worry we've got it all under control?
As far as I can see they have done most of the things they set out to do in 1997 and most of it is all buggered up now and they have no new ideas. They're tired and the only "good" thing Brown can do is get us out of Iraq PDQ and scale down our involvement in Afghanistan. Pouring aid (ie our taxes) into Africa might make him look like Mother Theresa - come to think of it he is getting a bit wrinkled - but unless this is linked to expansion of free trade it's money down the tubes (SNAFU).
Brown's foreign "policies" will disguise Labour's complete failure on the domestic front.
I heard David Blunkett on Radio 4 this morning saying the original plan was always to increase the prison population to 80,000 and then introduce programmes to educate and rehabilitate prisoners so they did not re-offend and, thus, be "tough on the causes of crime". He admitted they had failed to deliver on the last bit!
Brown, as the "most successful Chancellor for 250 years" was, at the very least, party to all these failures to deliver not least because of the draconian way he controlled all expenditure and tax-raising decisions.
I won't start on tax credits because you've probably already stopped reading. But please, if anyone knows, let me know what Labour's policies are.

How to make a small fortune

In a previous life I was (for a very short time) a financial adviser associated with a very prestigious merchant bank which was long ago absorbed into the globalised banking industry. (I hasten to add that I never mis-sold a pension and actually helped a lot of people improve their long term financial position.)

But the standing joke with my colleagues at the time was "How do you make a small fortune? Invest a large one with our bank!"

Ring any bells? Gordon Brown has been "investing" your money for the last ten years and what have we got to show for it? Answers on a postage stamp please!

The United Kingdom used to be recognised as one of the richest nations in the world. Under this New (Brown) Labour government this country has dropped down this list and we should remember:

• There are five million people of working age not in work
• The poorest people in Britain have got poorer under Labour
• There are more young people not in work or full-time education than ten years ago
• We have one of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe
• Most European countries recognise marriage in their tax system; Britain doesn’t.

The list could go on but it would only reinforce the abject failure of Gordon Brown and the erstwhile Blair to use your money to improve the fortunes of this once great country.