This is a Coup!

Ulster Protestants always remember and celebrate July 12th  because of what they see as William of Orange's victory over a 'papist ruler'.

Now July 12th will be remembered by many other Europeans and especially by the Greeks, as well.  The cause of the remembrance will be the coup that is being imposed upon the people of Greece.

The terms offered to Greece are unacceptable to any democratic country.  Not least, that future laws must first be reviewed and approved by Eurocrats.

Make no mistake, what is happening is that the Eurocrats are imposing rule by unelected EU officials and Greece must place,  in some kind of escrow, in a Luxembourg company, allegedly controlled by Wolfgang Schauble, the German Finance Minister, assets that are to be privatised.

• Did Greece over-borrow? - Yes but this is a coup
• Has Greece been over-spending for many years? - yes but this is a coup.
• Did banks and the Troika over-lend? - Yes but this is a coup.
• Did Goldman Sachs cooks the Greek books? - Yes but this is a coup.
• Did the governments of the EU know about GS antics? - Yes but this is a coup.
• Can the Greeks repay it's debt without a write-off? - No but this is a coup.

In the book and the film of The Godfather, there is a comment by Vito Corleone where he says' today people go into banks with guns to rob it but in the future, they will go with briefcases in and rob the bank'   Now we see that taken to its logical conclusion where these people are robbing not just a bank but a whole country!

The United Kingdom has elected a government that is committed to re-negotiating the terms of UK's continuing membership of the European Union.  I have been mildly in favour of exit but was open to persuasion.  If David Cameron was able to negotiate better terms, which brought the EU back to a looser grouping based on free trade, rather than the undemocratic and nanny-state interfering body that it has become, then I might move towards voting in favour of remaining in the EU.  Not any more.  Now I am firmly in the #Brexit camp.

In the year when the UK, and free people across the world and particularly, in the Anglo-sphere, celebrate the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta, we in the UK must, for the sake and preservation of our democracy, reject the EU and all that it now stands for.

The question I suppose is, will the EU, emboldened by its take-over of Greece, actually allow the UK to leave?

Fortunately the UK stills has an independent military.  Is still an island and has a growing economy, so perhaps we are strong enough to withstand the German-led anti-democratic juggernaut that is rolling across Europe, however, time is running out.  This movement will get Greece out of the way and then swat the Spanish and move on, aided by a supine media, to crush UK opposition,

The people on Twitter talk of the actions against Greece as being perpetrated by the German Fourth Reich.  No doubt Germans would be offended by this but the German people have put their wallets and savings ahead of any kind of solidarity with the people of Greece and Europe and German politicians have initiated a coup against an elected government.  It is ironic that Greece, the so called cradle of democracy, should be brought down by a government that has such a bad memory of what fascism entails.  A German government that is aided and abetted by the Dutch, who, like the Greeks, know a thing or two about German occupation.  The Dutch seem to have forgotten about the Honger Winter, which is what the Greeks have been facing for a number years, with ever increasing severity.

When, in future, the media bleat about 'freedom of the press' check out their credentials on the Greek crisis.  You will likely find that they have toed the EU line and parroted the lies put out by the Eurocrats because they are in the pockets of them.  They have been bought and paid for.  I stand to be corrected by any journalist reading this but only by their actions not by their words of rebuttal.

Shame too on Rupert Murdoch who, it seems is now in favour of the European Project  and will bring his media empire to bear on the side of anti-democratic forces.

Truly, July 12 2015 has been a very black day for Europe's peoples.

The United Kingdom has only one choice.  We must exit the European Union.  The referendum should be called very soon and the UK can shake of the shackles of anti-democracy.

Oh, and UKIP and others get very excited about the UK's International Aid budget of £12 Billion.  So here's an idea, let's find a way to give sums of this to the people of Greece in a direct way - food banks, for example.

Aid and debt

I posted previously about George Osborne's Autumn Statement and and the International Aid budget.

I will send this blog, via Twitter, to George Osborne and David Cameron.  The same sentiments though, apply in the rest of the European and the USA.  However, I don't really expect common-sense to suddenly break-out in the upper reaches of the UK Government.

How, even in the crazy world in which we find ourselves, can it possibly make any sense for a government to borrow money, so that it can give this money to another country?

Think about that.

Would you borrow money, so that you could donate it to charity?  Indeed, would you do so, knowing that it is your children and your children's children and their children that would have to pay the interest on it?

I have heard all of the stuff about 'rich' countries having a 'duty' to share the wealth with the poorer ones but how do we define 'wealthy' and 'poor'?

Is a country 'wealthy' if it has debt close to 100% of its GDP?  For that matter, is a country 'poor'  if it can dispatch rockets into space?

In 2013, the UK gave aid to the value of £249M to Nigeria.  In case you missed it, Nigeria has huge oil reserves but the almost endemic corruption means that the country has to import fuel to illuminate homes, cook food and drive vehicles.  Does it really make sense for the UK to borrow money to send to Nigeria?

Britain gave £104M to Ghana, which is in the midst of an oil fueled boom!

Crazy as that sounds, Britain also borrowed £946K to give to Argentina.  The same Argentina that constantly threatens Britons in the Falkland Islands.   The same Argentina that invaded the Falklands and now requires Britain to retain a military presence on the islands.  I am not making this up!

Then there is Brazil £5.5M and India, receiver of a whopping £269M of aid.  These are the very same countries that are supposed to be the emerging economic powerhouses!  Brazil is actually running a budget surplus, at the moment.  The UK is borrowing money  to give to Brazil.  The UK is running a deficit of 3.6% of GDP and a country that is running a surplus of 1.6% of GDP.  This is the same Brazil that has a GDP which is the seventh largest in the world!  The UK?  The UK is the sixth largest in the world.

Yesterday, in the Houses of Parliament, Member's of Parliament voted on a bill which will enshrine, in law, a guarantee that the UK will donate 0.7% of GDP to international aid.   Doesn't matter what state our economy is in.  We donate 0.7%.  Doesn't matter if people are dying on the streets of the UK.  We donate 0.7%.  This is the  liberal idiocy equivalent of Nero's antics with a fiddle!

In what world can it make sense to guarantee, by statute, that we will always donate 0.7% of GDP to international aid?

If you need an example of just how out of touch politicians are, how remote the 'Westminster bubble' has left them, then this is it.

Over to you, George and David!  

Osborne's last chance

Maybe the title isn't strictly true.  There is always the April 2015 budget but tomorrow, when Chancellor George Osborne delivers the government's Autumn Statement, he has to get it right as this will set the tone and the battle lines for the 2015 General Election.

I have already posted here and here on what I think should be happening but I wanted to have a last- minute rant or contribution to the debate, depending on your view, on what George Osborne should be saying, tomorrow.

First and foremost, the UK is broke.  I'll say that again. The UK is broke.  We are more than £1.4 Trillion in debt.  How much more than £1.4 Trillion?  Nobody knows.  That £1.4 Trillion is just the admitted debt.  It doesn't include unfunded liabilities like future pensions to be drawn by civil servants, local government employees and MPs.  It doesn't include the more than £350 Billion of NHS Private Finance Initiative debt nor lots of other 'off Balance Sheet' financing of the type in which Gordon Brown's Labour Treasury, excelled.  Note, when companies like Enron used such accounting techniques, they were, rightly, pilloried and ended up being declared for what they were - bankrupt!  However, for entities like HM Government, the rules get suspended.

So, with a 'broke' UK, the opportunities and choices are limited.

We cannot afford HS2 - so we scrap that and save, more than £50 Billion.  Let's be clear though, that isn't really a saving - as it is just a reduction in future borrowing needs.  Also, for the sake of clarity, everyone knows the £50 Billion number is just the starting point.  The final number will be much higher, if we were to proceed.

We cannot afford International Aid.  Sorry Bono but Britain simply cannot borrow money so that we can give it to others - no matter how genuine and heart-wrenching their need may be.  It cannot be about Britain sitting on the big table and lording it over others like China, because we meet the aid obligations and they (and other nations) don't.   The money we give to other countries is ultimately funded, on an interest bearing basis, by those same Chinese!

Britain must cut back on overseas ventures.  I would dearly love us to be able to project a strong military presence around the globe and demonstrate the strength and value of our democracy and traditions but we simply don't have the money.  Today, the biggest foreign investor in Africa is China and yet how much do you think they are contributing to fight the spread of Ebola?  Britain does have a strategic interest and, to some extent a local one, in the fighting in Syria and Iraq but the major beneficiaries of holding back ISIS are Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia and other neighboring countries.  If Britain is to fight on their behalf, then they should pay us top dollar for doing so.

Now to domestic matters.

All government spending must be cut.  That is all as in all.  No ring fencing, no special cases, no phasing in.  Simply put, no, no, no!

Or another way, cut, cut, cut.

Firstly, and this helps Cameron cut the Gordian Knot about immigrants, immediately announce a cut in welfare payments to all non-native born Britons.  If you do not have a British passport, or the right to one, then you get no welfare.  Zero, nada, zilch.  I know that Human Rights lawyers and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and all of the others that want Britain to spend money it doesn't have, will scream and shout and threaten all sorts of retribution but that's all they can do.  We must pass legislation to immediately end our association with the ECHR and abolish the Human Rights Act.  Another advantage of doing this is that it will end the Coalition and the Conservatives will have to govern alone, without the dead, interfering hands of the Lib Dems on the tiller.    I would think that George Osborne could even sell raffle tickets, for the benefit of the national debt of course, for the winner to tell Vince Cable he is fired!  I would buy a ticket for a fiver.  Hell, I might even buy two just for the chance to see the look on the face of a man who has taken sanctimonious 'prattishness' to new Olympian heights.

Secondly, as said before, tell the NHS, that funding is cut by say 20%.  This can be reduced to 15% if they abrogate their PFI deals and get significant reductions in their PFI payments.

Thirdly, All other government departments a significant cut in expenditure plans as outlined in my earlier mails.  Though, the more I think about the unsustainable deficit and the increasing debt mountain, perhaps deeper and faster cuts are required.

Clearly, some people will suffer from these cuts.

 Foreigners who take advantage of our overly generous welfare payments.  Financiers who gulled a spend-freely Socialist government into excessively generous PFI deals, and NHS back-office staff and civil servants who allowed this to happen - 'because at the end of the day, the Government will pay'.  They will suffer loss.  hard as it sounds, I don't think that is our concern.

So too though, will Britons suffer loss and therefore the tax cuts side of the equation needs to be put in place.  Accelerated raising of the tax threshold, immediate reductions in fuel duty and abolition of asinine 'Green' taxes will be a start.  Here's a further idea.  Use some of the money that  is saved by not funding International Aid, to promote charitable giving at home.  Allow  people tax-relief on up to say £1,000 of a contribution that they make to any charity that supports UK based charities that only work in the UK.    So nothing for contributing to Oxfam, Band Aid or Save the Children but full relief, up to £1,000 for money or goods given to a local food bank, for example.

This should be the thrust of the Autumn Statement but, scared by UKIP and bullied by their Coalition partners, the Lib Dems and in thrall to the Labour dominated media, Osborne's speech will likely mean more borrowing, more debt and the sound of cans being kicked down the road.