November 4th

If you are reading this then you are probably one of those people that care to know what is going on in your world.  That's not to say that this blog is the fount of all knowledge, just that it seeks to provide a view which can add to and inform your overall opinion.

So, you care!

Well come Tuesday November 4, caring isn't enough.  You need to get out and vote on Tuesday and to vote the Republican ticket, all the way.  I have posted here just how important these elections are.  At the risk of repeating myself all Republicans need your vote.  Even if they are RINOs, you need to get out and vote Republican.  Even if they are a 'shoo in' you need to get out and vote Republican.  You need to contribute to sending the strongest possible message to Obama and the Democrats that 'enough is enough!'  The votes for Republicans need to be an expression of America's anger with the damage that Obama has wrought on America.  You have no voice in the media, save for Fox News, so get out and vote and get your family to do so, as well.

Patriot Americans need to take back America.  You can't sit on your hands and say, we will take America back in 2016.  Think of what two more years of damage can be done to your great country, in those 24 months.  Think of the allies that will lose patience with a weak USA and seek new partnerships with other countries.  Think of the people that will die because of the failings of Obamacare or the open door policy to illegal immigration and to Ebola-infected countries.  Do you really want your kids or grandkids to suffer two more years of Common Core?  Do you really want more Americans to die, as they did at Benghazi or as a result of Fast and Furious or more Marines to be incarcerated in Mexican jails because America has a President who is more concerned with his back-swing or follow-through or fund-raising rather than with looking out for the interests of America?  Do you really want your priest's or your pastor's sermons to be investigated because they conflict with a politician's ideas on sexual mores?

At the end of the day, it comes down to this.  If you care for America, then vote Republican on Tuesday.  That is the day that 'We the people' say 'enough is enough!'

Please re-tweet this to all right-thinking people.

Public Sector strikes

If you are of a socialist persuasion, please look away now.  This will likely seem hurtful.

In fact if you are of a Conservative ministerial persuasion, also look away, as you probably won't like this, either!

I have posted here before about public sector strikes  http://bit.ly/1jj5yCz and here about the tube strikes http://bit.ly/1oMwA4o but essentially the problem comes down to two things.

Firstly, 'pilgrims'.  I have written before, here http://bit.ly/XHPGin  and here http://bit.ly/1qQ7e7y about these.  For those that don't know, a 'pilgrim' is a union official that essentially works full time on union business while employed (and paid)  by a public sector organisation.  This costs the taxpayer, twice.  First to pay for the union organiser and second to pay someone else to do the job that he/she was actually hired to do!  The cost to the taxpayer is estimated to run into the 100's of £millions level.  That is money that could be used to reduce taxes for working people - people like those that struggled to get to work yesterday, because of the public sector strikes.  Money that could repair potholes, or provide adequate care for the UK's elderly - but please, after Mid Staffs, not in the caring or their version of the word, NHS - or money that could reduce the debt burden that the country has.

Just as importantly, if action is taken on pilgrims, then the public sector workplace might actually become a place of work!  Somewhere where the class warriors of the union movement have to actually do some work rather than sit around agitating for change and salary increases.

So, Angus Maude, George Osborne and David Cameron - Action Please!  This shouldn't require an act of parliament - there was none passed to get these parasites into place.  What is needed is clear guidelines sent to all ministers and Permanent Secretaries that this practise must cease forthwith and, no later than August 31, all such posts to have been abolished.

Yes the unions will howl.  So will their paid lobbyists - Labour MPs - but here's something for Angus, George and David to consider, my money is on you never being able to get their votes, anyway!  So be like Nike.  Just do it!

Re-reading the above, I realise I have just wasted 15 minutes of my life!  Maybe I have the makings of a pilgrim or union official myself!  Why wasted?  Because Conservative politicians simply won't tackle this issue.  Just like they won't tackle the high salaries paid in the public sector nor the cosseted pension schemes that public sector workers enjoy.   

Face it, we have Conservative politicians - certainly the leadership - that do not follow Conservative policies or pay only the flimsiest of lip-service to same.  In the USA, people have a term for those Republicans that act in a similar fashion.  They call them RINOs - Republicans in Name Only.  What can we call such British Conservatives?  Polite answers only, please!

Opinion polls regularly show that the people of Britain 'get it'!  They understand that, as a country, we have been living beyond our means, for years.  They know that change will be painful.  They know too, that taxing the 'rich', ever higher amounts won't be sufficient, in the long run.  The cause of the government debt problem isn't on the revenue side.  It is on the spending side.  Deep cuts need to be made in welfare, health and local government spending.  Let me repeat that - deep cuts.  And these cuts MUST be on personnel levels.  These cuts need to be made to the bureaucracy not to the front line - so in health, tear out layers (plural) of management not nurses or doctors, -  in education, remove all of those local officials, yes all, provide direct funding to the school governing body at an agreed figure - let's call it £5,000 per pupil per year and then let the headmasters/mistresses and the school governors decide how to utilise those funds - in local government abolish planning departments, abolish community outreach departments in fact abolish and abolish.  Just leave local government with a few basic tasks - repairing local roads, administering social housing (until this can all be sold-off), collecting household waste and, no that's it.  Just those basic tasks.  These wouldn't require a bloated and over-paid bureaucracy.

This isn't about bashing the unions.  Seeing them with a significant reduction in membership (they mostly represent public sector employee) would be a happy by-product.  Seeing them having to use their own funds to pay for these pilgrims is a scandal that must be righted, immediately.

This though, is about having the courage to do what Britain so desperately needs - a strong government doing what is right for today's and tomorrow's Britons.  Not sure that the Conservatives have the stomach for it so it will probably need to wait for the inevitable financial crunch to happen.  Then we can blame outside forces and the 'gnomes of Zurich' and the Euro and all the rest - anyone but our spineless politicians and the rest of the elite, not forgetting of course, the biggest culprits - ourselves for letting this happen!.