BLEAK FUTURE IN THE BLEAK UK

What passes for a smile at an ordinary pleb person

According to the Huffington Post, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), remember them, they are a ‘highly respected’ right wing Tory think tank, says that Mr Osborne is less than half way through his planned spending cuts after proposing to extend them up to 2019.

The influential Conservative think-tank, so beloved of Alistair Darling, has said that, despite the improving state of the economy, the chancellor will only have implemented 40% of his planned spending cuts by the end of the current financial year.

They point out that, if Osborne continues to protect the Health, Overseas Investment, and Schools up to 2018-2019, other departments would have to lose over 30% of their budgets.

Extending the fuel duty freeze beyond the next election and up to 2018-2019 would cost a further £4.2 billion.

Even the government’s own forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), predicts that Osborne will have to borrow £96 billion by the end of 2015. This is £59 billion more than he planned in 2010.

 

My future in the House of Lords needs You

The IFS further warn that the level of debt will only return to pre-crisis levels in the mid 2030s.

That kind of debt means that just paying the interest costs us nearly 4% of national income.

Now I’m not suggesting that Scotland can simply walk away from all of this. The current government says that it will accept its share of the debts in return for a fair share of UK assets. I cannot see any other government of Scotland going back on that in the future.

However, when they tell you that the status quo is safer, remember that these cuts are coming, and one excellent way of saving around £5 billion a year would be to remove the Barnett Formula from Scotland. (Of course that the same would have to happen to Wales and Northern Ireland saving even more money, but it is likely that London would escape, given its status as the capital.)

British Embassy in Paris
(next door to USA embassy, so they can keep an eye on us)

So not only would we get cuts that are coming to social security, the much vaunted defence budget (the 4^th greatest in the world), and the ever present British Foreign Office with its hundreds of embassies and thousands of consulates in every corner of the world, without which we are told we would be stranded impoverished and alone in the world (just like Denmark or Finland, the poor souls), we would also have massive cuts to our domestic budgets for health and education, care of the elderly, roads, law and order, and so on.

Ah, but the Conservative might not win the next election, you may say.  True. It is all in the air at the moment.  The current polls show that a Labour victory is possible, although the level of trust in Miliband and Balls is low.  With 15 months to go to the election, there is all to play for. But remember, Labour has promised to be just as ruthless at getting the deficit and the debt down. So don’t expect any huge difference in the two possible futures under the UK.

LIAR

And don’t for a minute think that the Barnett Formula is not doomed. Mr Cameron said he has no plans to change it. He had no plans prior to the last election to raise the unprogressive Value Added Tax, but it went up by 2.5% before Gideon's first budget. Mr Cameron’s word is not worth ****. In any case, Mr Cameron's right wing is strong, and Tory MPs want the formula scrapped.

 

A collection of Unionists on a Junket
Imagine! Despite an SNP government elected
by the people of Scotland, the UK set up a constitutional
convention which refused to discuss independence
as an option. How democratic was that?

The Calman Unionist Commission wanted it scrapped (Labour and Tories) Labour’s Johann Lamont's commission has already said that Barnett should go and money should be allocated to Scotland on a “needs” basis along with collection of Income Tax. The needs being determined, no doubt, by the Westminster government. English local authorities are also pressing for it to be scrapped.

It will go.

If we vote no, look forward to a very impoverished future, while you continue to contribute to the greater good, mainly of the life sucking south east of England and London.

Remember Scotland pours more per head into the economy than it gets out. We lose now, we'll lose a sight more if we vote no.

THE CUTS WILL DISPROPORTIONATELY HIT THE POOR

It seems that it is an excellent time to bury bad news.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has reported that the coalition’s budget has affected poor households disproportionately, but little has been made of this in the press, as Nick Clegg settles his feet under the desk for a prolonged period as acting Prime Minister.

As an aside, do you remember the derision which met Nick Clegg’s statement, made only a few months ago, that he came into politics to be prime minister .....? Eat crow people who smirked or even belly laughed!

The IFS’ assessment highlights impact of the looming cuts to public services, which will hit poorer households significantly harder than richer households. The Financial Times, no less, reckons that the IFS conclusions will put massive pressure on Liberal Democrat MPs. After all, which Liberal could honestly say that he came into politics to vote for measures that target the poor as a means of bringing down a deficit which has largely been caused by the rich?

The FT’s own calculations, based on the effect of cutting public services by 15%, showed the losses were heavily concentrated in poor families and dwarfed the effects of other Budget tax and benefit changes. Losses for the poorest 20% of households would be around 8% of income, with losses of less than 3% among the richest 20% of families. Given that the richest really do not use all of their income on a daily basis, and the poor usually do, the unfairness is compounded and will in some cases, bring real misery.

The results, interesting, contrast with the Treasury’s own analysis, which amazingly, and conveniently, does not include the effect of public spending cuts, and so shows larger proportionate losses among the richest.

Spokesmen (people) for the chancellor said that he had been “totally straight and clear” about what was included in the Treasury analysis and what was excluded. One claimed the chancellor’s boast that the Budget “was progressive” was accurate. He said the government had implemented some of Labour’s policies.

As if that were some indication of progressiveness!!!

But, in most media this was small beer compared to the Earth shattering news that, in Kernow, a wealthy lady had given birth to a baby daughter just like approximately 1,900 other women across the United Kingdom.

Awesome.