THE MEMBERS WHO VOTED AGAINST TORY/LIBERAL/LABOUR AUSTERITY

I suppose most of us would agree that there has to be some cutting back.

But cutting back on social security, pensions and in general anything that benefits the poorer in our society is hardly fair, and exactly what we expect from the Westminster coalition of three parties. 

After all, we are in this situation because a succession of right of centre governments, Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown adn Cameron, have wantonly spent money on stuff we couldn't afford and didn't need and have allowed the banks and insurance companies to play fast and loose with the financial services industry that served the country well enough until Thatcher started to deregulate.

If we need to save money, (we do), and if we really are all in this together (we're not), there are several things I'd like to see cut. 

Firstly, our nuclear weapons aren't needed. They are not even technically ours. They belong in every way (except paying for them), to America. America counts them as part of their weaponry. Whilst the French WOULD NEVER use their nukes without America's permission, the truth is that we COULDN'T even if we wanted to, because America holds the firing codes. So Cameron doesn't even have a red button!

In any case America has plenty of nukes of its own. Britain only has them for show, and to allow it to have a seat at the top table. It's a bit like the family whose main breadwinner just lost his job but they keep the Mercedes in the drive to impress the neighbour, even though they can't afford to put petrol in it adn sneak out the back to get the bus. 

So let's bin it.

A smaller saving, but one nonetheless that we could make is to rehouse all the royals into Buckingham Palace (it has over 500 rooms after all) and sell off the other palaces. Clarence House, St James's, Kensington Palace, Windsor Castle and all the other grace and favours in London would raise a fortune not to mention the vast treasures that are housed in them. And it's not like the royals would be falling over each others' corgis. They all have private houses to live in, and some of them have several. On the subject of the royals, we should slim them down to just the very top ones. The rest should go get jobs, or sign on just like other people do.

I read that the Westminster parliament buildings are falling into ruin. It seems that several billions are going to have to be spent on renovating them, and, in the meantime finding suitable accommodation for the UK parliament, both houses, including the preposterously large house of lords. 

I suggest a fairly simple building be constructed or perhaps even converted, preferably in one of the northern English towns and made available for them. I'd close their restaurants which are subsided to the hilt and they can do what most people do at lunch time and go to the shops for a sandwich... or bring it in with them and eat it at their desks. (Oh shock horror... but they really are just ordinary people with ordinary red blood. They won't die, unlike some of the people they've kicked out into the street, from queuing in a sandwich shop.)

In the interim they can use one of the vacated royal palaces with a large enough room for debates. let's be fair most of them don;t turn up most of the time anyway. (The lords will probably need beds because the old fellows/dears sleep a lot of the time.)
Then we should sell off the BBC. It's not necessary to have a state broadcaster. The BBC may have originally been meant to provide us with mind improving programmes but they long ago ceased to serve that purpose. The garbage they produce at enormous cost could easily be provided by the private sector. And let's be honest, the coalition of three parties in the UK LOVE privatizing things.

I'm going to stop there, but the list is endless...

I'd welcome any suggestions for what kind of austerity you would like to see in the 2015-2020 parliament.

Addendum:

Here's the list of New Tories that voted for £30 billion cuts. I wonder how many of them voted against their own pay rises!

List of Shame. The New Tories.
Sod the poor, we're getting 11%!

And again... you couldn't make this dame up...

And today she voted for another £30 b in cuts.
I can't think of any words for her.
Munguin can, but he's a very rude animal!

FUR COATS...

...and no knickers

It doesn't have to be like this. It really doesn't. 

But does anyone think that people in London give a damn if Scots live in these multiply deprived areas, as long as people like Cameron can brag that Britain has the forth largest military spend in the world and is, therefore, a force to be reckoned with?

I know that instead of fighting pointless and sometimes illegal wars against countries in the Middle East, I'd rather we spend our vast income on giving Scots somewhere decent to live.

After the referendum and a positive outcome, there will be a period when the Scottish government negotiates with the UK government who gets what; who pays for what.

Then, five years after the last Scottish general election in 2011, there will be a Scottish general election. 

By 2016 the Scottish branch of London Labour will have had time to break free of the policies that are designed to impress the Ukip trending, Tory voting, southern part of England.

It's unlikely that a successful party like the SNP will disappear completely, although some may rejoin the parties from whence they came. But it seems likely that we'll have at least two parties whose policies are broadly progressive. 

With the Tories similarly detached from the greedy big business London City politics that they have followed since Mrs Thatcher's day we might even have a half decent right of centre party, possibly led by someone like Murdo, who was only stopped in his tracks last time round by Cameron's (strictly against the rules) interventions on behalf of his little helper, Ruth, only a few weeks into her political career.

We will have a lot of UK debt to pay off, but we will have vast resources: resources that  will make us one of the top ten rich countries of the world. 

We could rid ourselves of the fur coats, and buy up half of Marks & Spencer's  knicker department in the first year.

This article is worth a read.

A GOVERNMENT OF ALL THE TALENTS?

Well the Cabinet is sorted now with a mix of Libs and Cons, left and right, thin and fat, male and female......!

I’ve listed the most important of them below together with a few comments:

William Hague: Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Was the leader between 1997-2002. It’s suggested he’s in the wrong job as he is so pro-America and anti-Europe. His mind would be better suited to the Treasury.

George Osborne: Treasury. Youngest Chancellor for 124 years. With all that is to come is he up to the battering he will get on the Today programme?

Theresa May: Home Office (Largely English only role). Most famous for being unspectacular at every brief she held and wearing weird shoes, she appears to be the token woman in a top position, but it’s one I doubt she’ll hold for long.

Ken Clarke: Justice/Lord Chancellor. (Largely English role). Can’t wait to see the Hush Puppies walking backwards after delivering the speech to Her Majesty. Ken’s pretty competent at everything he turns his hand to.

Ian Duncan-Smith: Work and Pensions. Big job for IDS with unemployment rising badly and no jobs on the horizon. They have promised to put people back to work, but there is none... worth a separate post soon.

Michael Gove: English Education. Close friend of Cameron. Will have to sell new schools run by parents.

Vince Cable: Business. Uncertainties over brief, and how it clashes with Treasury. Will have to do something about splitting up the big banks and getting some money back off them.

Liam Fox: Defence. No experience in service. Very dubious record on expenses and on his dealings with declaring interest. Not a nice man. Not to be trusted.

Andrew Lansley: English Health . Will have to find billions of efficiency savings which as we know always translate into deaths.

Francis Maude: Cabinet Office Minister. No idea what they do. He can come and polish our cabinets if he likes.

Thomas Galloway Dunlop du Roy de Blicquy Galbraith: Leader of the Lords. Best known for his parties with baths full of pink champagne on ice. Great. Deal is that he’ll be involved in abolishing himself. I hope he’s good at it.

Chris Hulme: English Energy. Westminster School, Oxford and the Sorbonne. Very clever guy who will have to try to keep the Tories Green.

Jeremy Hunt: English Culture. Will have to shave money off London’s Olympics.

Eric Pickles: English Communities. Says he’s at war with town hall fat cats. Good luck to him.

Andrew Mitchell: International Development. Friend of Ashcroft. Will have to rebalance the development budget from rich to poor countries.

Philip Hammond: English Transport. Going to have great cuts to worry about, including Crossrail, so look out for fireworks with the blond haystack.

Danny Alexander: Scotland. Easy job, not much to it, and he only has Spud Murphy to follow. On the other hand he has to try to stay on the right side of Alex Salmond.

Cheryl Gillan: Wales. Will have to commit to full devolution for Wales. Don’t you think the very existence of these two roles show that Scotland and Wales are unequal partners in this union? There isn’t an England Secretary which suggests that the whole thing is about England.....

Owen Paterson: NI. God help him.

Caroline Spellman: English Environment. Anne Widdecombe’s voice without her brains, and she pays her nanny out of parliamentary expenses and ends up as a Cabinet Minister. Why?

Patrick McLouchin: Chief Conservative Whip. Will have to keep the peace in the coalition. Hah!

Baroness Warsi: No portfolio. Token Muslim and female one at that, with a voice like a corncrake.

Overall, some totally uninspiring people, and a few good ones. One thing I was pleased to see is that the main ministers are from the Commons, unlike the last Cabinet.