Profligate is good.
Gordon Brown has been sounding like a cracked record of late, stuttering his way through Prime Minister’s Question time, pausing only to expose his slack tongue in the floor of his open mouth in that curious manner reminiscent of the village idiot, to the obvious delight of his mimics.
“We now know that the Tories want to cut public spending by a savage 10 per cent.”
In the parallel universe inhabited by Gordon and his cronies, cutting spending when you are up to your eyes in debt IS A BAD THING.
It can only be achieved by cutting the very things government should be spending on, teachers, nurses, soldiers, policemen. Otherwise known as education, health, defence and law and order.
It positively cannot be cut by failing to provide IVF to Afghani one legged transvestite single mothers, nor can it be achieved by ignoring pleas for funding by raddled feministas with a mission to see men changing babies nappies, nor loons consumed with a belief that second hand smoke is damaging your parrot’s health. Nope, you can only achieve these cuts by leaving the elderly out on a cold Welsh mountainside to meet their fate, feeding premature babies to the sea lions at London zoo or sending our soldiers out to Afghanistan in second hand Playboy bunny outfits.
Our, we, the taxpayers, trouble stems from the disconnect between the consumer, and the payer. Our MPs are supposed to be the barrier between the one eyed King’s tax raising incursions on our honest labour, and ourselves.
Profli-Gate has shown that far from being a barrier, they are part of the problem. Their financial survival depends, not on us, but on supporting the one-eyed King. Thus they are blind to his lunacy.
This morning The Times has published the latest public borrowing figures. Almost £20 billion in May, the highest figure thus far recorded.
Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, said: “Tax revenues continued to be decimated across the board by contracting economic activity, declining corporate profitability, elevated and rising unemployment, markedly reduced bonus payments, the VAT cut, and low housing market activity and prices. Meanwhile, significantly higher unemployment is also resulting in increased benefit claims, thereby pushing up government expenditure,” he added.
Gordon Brown said yesterday that he was determined to get the public finances back on track without cutting spending.
“I will continue to do whatever is necessary to ensure sustainable public finances, reducing borrowing and debt — while continuing to invest in public services and infrastructure,” he said.
Ask the public what they would like to see cut, Gordon, because we would like to see cuts, not just to get ourselves out of debt, but because we never did agree with half the hair brained schemes you squander our money on. Let us just spend on education, health, defence, and law and order for a while. Skeleton spending. If any of us feel strongly enough regarding the plight of those childless one legged transvestites, we’ll just have to dip our fingers in our own personal pockets, and stump up for their IVF. It’s called charity, not the fake kind, real charity, and the British used to be rather good at it.
Let’s see some figures, from you and Cameron, for the state of the economy if we stop spending on all the fripperies, get back to basics, as Major used to say. Let us decide.
Ah, whoops, that’s an election, though, isn’t it? You don’t do elections.
Anna is the landlady of the Raccoon Arms. She lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France and still takes a keen interest in British politics.
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Ouch! Who’s had several cups of Sharp-Tongued Coffee this morning, then? A joy to read.
P.S. I’ve got an old Playboy Bunny costume going begging, a little overstretched at the seams, but if it’ll help the troops, then ….
I know a former Bunny Girl and she’s a Scouser too!
Now, about the economy – what debt? ;0)
…..oh, and get over to the DT quick!!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/cabinet-expenses/
Martin Wolf in the FT today has an interesting article on the fiscal situation, and the difficult choices to be faced. But on the whole, I would rather you didn’t give the Government ideas. I have been on cold Welsh hillsides in the past, and do not wish to repeat the experience. In any case our local hospital has a national reputation for seeing off the elderly, at least in heated, albeit infected, wards.
“If any of us feel strongly enough regarding the plight of those childless one legged transvestites, we
I abhore the reliance on charities to provide that which should be paid for by the governemtn via the taxpayer.
Raise taxes, ban charities and encourage anyone who is feeling charitable to go it alone. That way the government will be forced to take responsibility for everything for which it actually bears responsibility.
Spot on Anna.
I give a third of my income to charities, and nobody even knows. That’s real charity.
I find it very annoying when the government announces with song and dance each fiver it (with our money) donates to ‘worthy causes’ and some of the causes are debatable. What you do Anon is indeed real charity.
I used to give reguarly to charities, back when they were genuine charities.
Then the professioanl fund raisers arrived, and the commissions were paid out, and I becasue aware of how the salaries were ‘to attract the right people’ and I smelt a rat.
When my aunt was ‘seriously indisposed’ and I wanted to change the executors of her will, who had already taken a thumping great percentage of her husband’s estate in order to hand it over to her, I discovered that I could not change the executors without technically ‘asking the official solicitor to reconsider the will’.
The Donkey charity that was due to inherit a very sizeable sum, hired private detectives to track down the original witnesses and advise them that ‘her niece is declaring her insane so that she can alter the will’……….you can imagine how upset these old friends were. The implication was obviously that I wanted to change the will in my favour – they never mentioned the rip off that had occured with the first solicitors.
I went ballistic! It taught me a lot about charities. They’ve never had a penny out of me since, I make my charity privately, doing things, and giving things to people known to me and cutting out the thieving middlemen.
Do excuse my typing tonihgt, typing ith one hand and full of pain killers, so not my usual self.
They say ‘Charity begins at home’ and I find myself parting with every spare farthing I have to two home-based charities on a daily basis; one is 15 years of age and the other is 13. Any coppers I find down the back of the sofa I use to buy food for two apparently starving cats whose constant cries of hunger are heart-rending. Also, a dishevelled tramp turns up each evening expecting a hearty meal, a session on e-bay and then a comfy bed for the night and after 20 years, I feel I can’t just turn him away.
The last ‘organised charity event’ I had the misfortune to witness was that frightful Comic Relief which the 13-year old charity case wished to watch all night. I was amazed by the millions of pounds donated despite, not because of, the endless stream of egotistical, vacuous non-ebrities turfing up to perform a badly written sketch while the noughts just kept adding themselves to the running total. Those trusted to ‘compere’ the evening on a sincerity-shift basis were the most needy and desperate of all, as demonstrated when they swarmed on stage to ‘dance’ along to a number and they behaved like the very worst of the very worst of the audience at the very worst of the very worst of the Top of The Pops; looking for the camera and going into their best dance and most fun-loving smile, then moving across the stage to be in the next shot and doing it again. Revolting. I couldn’t bring myself to think what they would be getting paid to ‘appeal to the public’. Yeuch.
Sorry to hear you’re feeling bad, Madame Raccoon. Hope you feel better very soon.
Theeth payn killers r pretty good.
I went off charities many decades ago when I was involved with supplying millions of pounds worth air conditioning to an enormous brand new building owned by a national charity. I have nothing against charities providing comfortable working conditions for their staff but at the time I thought they were taking the piss.
Generally, like AR and many others, I prefer to give my time and/or money privately where it can be appreciated in total rather than in a miniscule fraction of an original contribution.
There’s nothing wrong with my hand but I seem to missing words all over the place. D’oh!
Our dear leader, good ole Gordie, gives an interview, well it was a couple of weeks ago, telling the Guardian of his pain and how he could pack it all in tomorrow – it’s never today is it??
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/20/gordon-brown-guardian-interview
great insight into the workings of a man who doesn’t know WHEN to fuck off and leave us all alone.
Anna Raccoon,
Your brief comment on charities at 7.55 p.m. on the 19th June is excellent – almost as good as the original post on government spending.
I take a considerable interest in the charitable sector, and support many charities. Like you, I have seen and heard a lot about certain charities, particularly well known ones, that has not impressed me – and to be honest, I would not consider giving to most of the well known charities in this country. However, not all charities are the same. Before I give, I research. It takes time and effort, but if one is going to give, it is worth that time and effort.
That’s why I do give to a small private project run by a friend and her friends. I support two intelligent kids in Nepal that go to school and have board, food and clothing. It’s amazing how much can be done with modest money and I know that every single penny is spent the best way possible. They both want to be doctors …
Good points.
If he were honest Gordon would admit that, should Labour actually manage to get re-elected, they will have to make cuts also.