This is from the latest Private Eye. It promises a real winter crisis in heating our homes – and in the middle of a pandemic, when self isolating – or at least working from home is widespread: It is difficult to feel optimistic about families that cannot afford these additional heating costs – especially when… Read more
Category:
Politics
Renoir’s ‘The Staff Meeting’, 1881
No, I hadn’t realised either… (In fact it is ‘luncheon on a boat‘.)… Read more
Damaging the economy
I am appalled by the number of times I hear from a politician, scientist or interviewer, that we want to avoid ‘damaging the economy’. It is at best lazy thinking and at worst demonstrates misunderstanding about life and resolutely puts the cart before the horse. First the Economy is not a God or a Religion… Read more
Oven ready Brexit now defrosted – yet still not done
Well educated perhaps, but I cannot call him intelligent, Lord Frost seems to have been a basic mercenary, happy to regurgitate in the interests of whoever is paying him – be that the diplomatic service, the Scotch whisky Association or the Johnson government. That he should now be resigning on the basis that he did… Read more
Is all money debt?
This is an interesting question when today’s coins seem to have absolutely no debt or asset base. Of course, in modern times, there are rules as to how you pay in coinage and indeed whether or not you can pay in coins at all. I suggest it would probably be difficult to pay taxes in… Read more
Monster Raving….
many a true word… Indeed the Monster Raving Loony Party probably have at least as many well thought through policies as the government. At least the North Shropshire bi-election result may have given the government reason to reflect. I’d love to think that the result reflected a rejection of the current government’s disregard for the… Read more
We are unaffordable
The latest Johnson press conference seems to tell us all that government feels that there is a great need for more restrictions but that the government cannot get together the political numbers to organise them – and even if it could Rishi Sunak couldn’t possibly afford them. That is what our government thinks of us…. Read more
A message to Cressida
The voice over is apparently by Adrian Dunbar, who, appropriately, has played Superintendent Ted Hastings in all of the BBC TV series about Police corruption – ‘Line of Duty’. It is a nice touch to take the message to the woman – sorry ‘Dame’…… Read more
Why it is called a tax ‘return’
I thought this was a good explanation of terminology we all use, rather unthinkingly. If we thought about it we should all have wondered why it is called a tax RETURN. Because of course it returning money to the government that the government has issued, Revenue itself comes via the French revenir – to come… Read more
Today’s Conservatism explained:
I loved this paragraph from an article in West Country Bylines. It is all worth reading – but particularly this: For some years now, the Conservative Party has functioned essentially as a machine for turning power into money, and vice versa, for the benefit of [the] crony elite. The way this particular cosa nostra works… Read more