Where to start?
How about Fuel? There is a potential strike by tanker drivers - why? - It is hard to find out the cause. BBC Newsnight interviewed a driver who spoke of not being able to spend much time with his family, except at weekends (not sure how that differs for most of us!) and then there was some muttering about health and safety and training. The latter seems to be the key, as far as I can ascertain. The issue seems to be that transport companies are outsourcing deliveries and the claim is that these drivers are less well trained. My guess is that they are also likely to not be members of the Labour-party supporting Unite union but it would be mischievous to suggest that this has any connection!
Don't mis-understand me. I think that the government has very ineptly handled the whole issue. The advice from Francis Maude, about storing fuel at home, was plain silly and potentially dangerous and it's retraction was to tardy. The comments about topping-up were ill-judged and clearly unnecessary.
However, look to yourself and your neighbors - how many of us rushed sheep (or is it lemming) like to put fuel into a car? Queuing to do so and using more fuel in the process. I would suggest that when hysteria breaks out - all are culpable.
The incident with the woman who decanted a fuel can, inside a house, where naked flames were present, is horrific but what would we be saying, about the incident, if there had been no suggestion from the government? I wonder if we might be questioning the common sense of the woman?
Granny Tax? Unless I am mistaken, the proposal is to not index-link tax free allowances for OAPs. Hardly a tax! This will over time, put pensioner earnings on a par with those of everyone else, as regards taxation. Exactly what is wrong with that? If the Tories were really anti-OAP, they would have means-tested benefits like free bus passes and the winter-fuel allowance - it can't be right that wealthy pensioners receive these universal benefits, when they clearly don't need them!
Pasties? Give me strength! All this talk about ambient temperature is plain rubbish. Tax them, level the playing field for other hot food providers and move on!
Reminder - The UK has troops on active service in Afghanistan and we have recently lost personnel to terrorist activity. This is a newsworthy story - not fuel, pasties or grannies! You won't see Ed Miliband and his Labour fools having photo-ops at Brize Norton! They are too busy scoring silly and cheap political points at Greggs!
Everything else - We still have a sick economy and growth is fragile. I personally think that the change in Corporation Tax will have better than predicted medium to long term benefits. The accelerated increase in personal tax allowances is very welcome and should provide some impetus (kudos to the Lib-Dems!).
My view is that the economy and its recovery should be the absolute key focus of the government. For those government departments not in the front line (other than Treasury) then the focus must be on getting out of the way of economic growth.
- Granny Tax?
- Fuel?
- Pasties?
- The Economy?
How about Fuel? There is a potential strike by tanker drivers - why? - It is hard to find out the cause. BBC Newsnight interviewed a driver who spoke of not being able to spend much time with his family, except at weekends (not sure how that differs for most of us!) and then there was some muttering about health and safety and training. The latter seems to be the key, as far as I can ascertain. The issue seems to be that transport companies are outsourcing deliveries and the claim is that these drivers are less well trained. My guess is that they are also likely to not be members of the Labour-party supporting Unite union but it would be mischievous to suggest that this has any connection!
Don't mis-understand me. I think that the government has very ineptly handled the whole issue. The advice from Francis Maude, about storing fuel at home, was plain silly and potentially dangerous and it's retraction was to tardy. The comments about topping-up were ill-judged and clearly unnecessary.
However, look to yourself and your neighbors - how many of us rushed sheep (or is it lemming) like to put fuel into a car? Queuing to do so and using more fuel in the process. I would suggest that when hysteria breaks out - all are culpable.
The incident with the woman who decanted a fuel can, inside a house, where naked flames were present, is horrific but what would we be saying, about the incident, if there had been no suggestion from the government? I wonder if we might be questioning the common sense of the woman?
Granny Tax? Unless I am mistaken, the proposal is to not index-link tax free allowances for OAPs. Hardly a tax! This will over time, put pensioner earnings on a par with those of everyone else, as regards taxation. Exactly what is wrong with that? If the Tories were really anti-OAP, they would have means-tested benefits like free bus passes and the winter-fuel allowance - it can't be right that wealthy pensioners receive these universal benefits, when they clearly don't need them!
Pasties? Give me strength! All this talk about ambient temperature is plain rubbish. Tax them, level the playing field for other hot food providers and move on!
Reminder - The UK has troops on active service in Afghanistan and we have recently lost personnel to terrorist activity. This is a newsworthy story - not fuel, pasties or grannies! You won't see Ed Miliband and his Labour fools having photo-ops at Brize Norton! They are too busy scoring silly and cheap political points at Greggs!
Everything else - We still have a sick economy and growth is fragile. I personally think that the change in Corporation Tax will have better than predicted medium to long term benefits. The accelerated increase in personal tax allowances is very welcome and should provide some impetus (kudos to the Lib-Dems!).
My view is that the economy and its recovery should be the absolute key focus of the government. For those government departments not in the front line (other than Treasury) then the focus must be on getting out of the way of economic growth.
- Cut Red Tape - all departments to review legislation, such as HS&E and all legislation to be costed. Do this within a given (short) time frame - 3 months - it's that urgent! Then repeal all that which has no net positive benefit and implement as a single, very short act of Parliament, within 12 months.
- Close Quangos (a real bonfire not a flash in the pan). I have a list of suggestions!
- Abandon the foolish Climate Change policies which are hurting the UK consumer for no real environmental benefit (I would suggest that the contrary is true, including the very real damage to the physical environment)
- End the Minimum Wage legislation requirements for employees under the age of 21 and then apply a sliding scale, up towards the current level, for those aged 21 to 25.
- Escalate the repatriation of our armed services personnel from Afghanistan - complete by the end of the year.
- Vigorously oppose all additional spending by the EU Commission and scrutinize existing spend.
- Don't get distracted with un-required legislation for homosexual 'marriage' or with so called reform of the House of Lords. These are 'navel gazing' exercises which will add nought to the economic recovery nor to making the UK a better society.
- Do proceed with implementation of the Welfare and Health reforms.
As part of a growth strategy I'd also like HMRC to look at getting rid of x number of pages of tax law a day until we're down to a sensible level.
ReplyDeleteWe have the longest tax code handbook (11,520 pages) in the world. This cannot be a sensible way to run a tax system, have taxes low and simple - tax breaks for industries are the result of special interest groups lobbying for them, tax credits are just a wasteful and circuitous way of giving me back my own money.
I think the focus on quangos is unnecessary, they are incredibly wasteful but in the big picture they make up a tiny amount of total government spend, focus on large scale changes.
I also think the focus on the 50p tax band in the post-budget analysis was ridiculous, surely the most important change in it was the accelerated cut in the corporation tax rate, the sooner we have Irish corporation taxes the better :).
Yes the tax code needs massive simplification. The spending on quangos seems to be somewhere between £30 and £64 Billion. That would help to take a whole lot of people out of tax and the top rate down to 35%. Remember when to be Conservative meant to be aspirational? 35% top rate is a good starting point!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/key_issues/Key%20Issues%20Quangos.pdf
ReplyDeleteUp to £120BN spent by quangos... Ok, yeah, could definitely do with some significant trimming there.