Monday 23 April 2012

MORE AUSTERITY TO BE ANNOUNCED


There are yet another £16 billion in spending cuts to come (so shortly after the daft budget in which Osbum got everything wrong). The Treasury has ordered government departments to save another 5% of their budgets as the economy continues to go down the sink.

Danny Alexander will be warning us all (aren’t you glad we’ve got him and his financial genius?) of the need for even greater austerity measures today as he tells all departments to put aside more money. 

"These new controls are not just a tweak to the Whitehall machine," Mr Alexander will say according to advance reports of a speech he is set to make to the Institute for Fiscal Studies today. "They are another signal of our unwavering determination to deliver the fiscal consolidation we promised. When we look at the mess Britain's finances were allowed to get into, we say: 'never again'."

Never again? Funnily enough, that’s just what we were thinking, Danny

I wonder if this even greater austerity will be hitting the Westminster glitterati in any way.

I mean, will Lords’ allowances go down? 

Will canteens, sorry dining rooms, be subsidised less? 

Will bars start charging commercial prices for the drink that they clearly all consume in such vast quantities (how else to explain the drunken way the whole government operates)? 

Will MPs’ pensions reduce in line with the devastation of ordinary people’s pensions (and lives)? 

Will some of the expense of the Jubilee be reigned (see what I did there) in?

Will some of the frills for the Zil class at the Olympics be cut? 

Will they reverse the cut in the 50% rate of tax? 

Will they sell the crown jewels to some Chinese, Arab, Indian, Brazilian or Russian trillionaire and spend the money on infrastructure renewal?

Will they admit now that Britain is too wee, too poor and too stupid to have nuclear weapons and sit as a permanent member on the security council?

Nope? None of these? Thought not.

But, in an admission that the London executive is worried that Whitehall will be unable to keep spending down to the new levels of austerity, all departments will from now be required to report their figures to the Treasury on a monthly basis. (Not that Dan doesn't trust the useless cabinet members or anything, you understand.)

I would say that the UK is a bankrupt state as well as a bankrupt idea. Let's start splitting it up now, so that Scotland can deal with the financial pressures of the 21st century with a proper finance minister at the helm. I'd trust John Swinney any day over the buffoon at number 11. If we had been left in his hands, I suspect that, like Iceland, we'd be well over the worst of this.

(Click on illustration to enlarge.)

11 comments:

  1. I was watching the Politics Show on Sunday morning, they were discussing lords reform. Andrew Neil was interviewing the Tory MP Mark Pritchard who opined that no one was interested in House of Lords reform and the conservative party, by offering the opportunity for debate and a possible referendum on the subject runs the risk of becoming 'out of touch' with the wishes of the country.

    Its the 'becoming' bit that I had a problem with, it infers that at the moment they're not out of touch. The irony of his view has an elaborate cyclical nature to it.

    I posted something similar on my facebook wall or timeline or whatever its called and not one bugger commented, where-as, if I write something about how much I hate smooth pebbles (I dont hate smooth pebbles as it happens,) they're all over it.

    I was trying to make a satirical political point and it fell on deaf ears.

    More on-topic. There are opposers of independence who still deploy as an argument the notion that Scotland would be poorer if it wasn't part of the UK. Sadly, this is one of those things where with some people, if you had to explain, they'll never understand.

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  2. I think I'd prefer Donald Trump to run our economy rather than John Swinney.
    At least we wouldn't have any more windmills wasting billions and we might keep the lights on.

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  3. If only I had known folding towels (Osborne)or having an affinity with mountains (Danny, I have no idea if he ever managed to get to the top or if he just looked from afar) were a prerequisite to having such power I would have applied myself

    Dannys' elocution lessons are having an effect his accent is becoming more mooth fu'o' bools by the day Not that he is able to string a sentence together yet but he is trying (very)

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  4. Heaven forbif that the Tory party would ever, ever be out of touch with Mr Tout le Monde, Pa.

    That would just never do!

    I heard the same argument tonight on PM on the radio.

    I'd agree that it's probably not what most people worry about before they go to sleep every night...but having a chamber of nearly 1000 (the second biggest in the world), that the government rides roughshod over when it opposed government legislation, is a bit of a waste of money.

    We are constantly told what a good job they do, and in some cases this is true. But if the Commons just walks all over their amendments, any good they have done is undone.

    They are a waste of money. It's simply a retirement home for failed or aged MPs. Absolute nonsense.

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  5. Well Monty (fancy you mentioning windmills!!!)... I rather think that Mr Trump is good a making money for Mr Trump. I suspect he might be less good with OUR money.

    He suddenly very environment conscious (terrible to spoil the beauty of the coastline), but he wasn't so when he was tearing away at birds' and beasts' homes so that he could make his golf course and all that lovely money.

    I'm not sure if I fancy Trump developments all over the place.

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  6. Ah fairfor, I suspect that our Dan may be preparing himself to be a Tory MP, given that he's unlikely to be a Liberal one for much longer. This, for obvious reasons, will mean relocating to the Home Counties, and lord knows the Blue Rinses don't want some highlander as their member... hence the new vowels...

    Vowels, with a V...

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  7. tris..talking about greenie issues have you seen the new SNP party political broadcast ?
    One of the actors puts a black bin bag into a green bin. Won't that kill a polar bear or something ?

    Hey you will like this from Nadine Phwoar. "Dave and Gideon are two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of a pint of milk". Tell us something we didn't know blondie....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LkDfBn5QHfE

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  8. I liked Daniel's comment CH:

    This fiasco cannot go on much longer, it is a complete corruption of Capitalism. The Real economy is starved of investment,leading to unemployment ,while the bubble pretend economy of the Financial sector is consuming itself slowly but surely. There is an almighty reckoning coming down the pike.
    Bring it on and lets get the pain over with. I cannot wait to see these ‘Too Big to Fail’ sociopaths come crashing down.
    Then we can build a real industrial banking system from the ashes.

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  9. Lordy Monty... bin bags in multi colours. Can't wait to see it. The last one was REALLY awful. This doesn't sound like much of an improvement.

    As for Nadine, cut her some slack; she takes a while to catch on...

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  10. Actually Monty, Nad's pretty much right in that video. They don't want to know; they don't care... as long as they have what they want we can suffer. And if we kick off about it, they use the full force of the law against us, because they can... because, at least in England, it's THEIR law!

    Remember the lad who got 6 months for pinching 2 bottles of water. He'd only have got a few months more if he'd murdered someone.

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