I know this is unusual but I saw an interesting item on Sky News yesterday. It was about the first big Saturday for Christmas shopping. The guy from Sky was at a department store reporting on how the current financial situation is impacting sales. He was interviewing the manager of the store (a funny looking orange coloured woman) who explained that sales of lower priced products were poor, but the sales of high end items like Champagne, expensive jewellery and luxury food items were doing very well indeed.
What further proof is needed that we are not all in this together? The recession, banking crises and subsequent government cuts are having a far heavier impact on low and middle income families than the high earners.
According to Sky News the average person earning average wages expects to spend £490 on presents and entertainment this Christmas, down from £548 in 2009. There are so many people living in fear of losing their jobs over the next 12 months that they are terrified of spending cash and even more scared of using credit cards.
So while Nick, George, Dave and all their upper class and rich banking friends enjoy an opulent Christmas the rest of us will have to try and do it on the cheap.
At least the young people in our society are waking up and fighting back. The students are setting the example and it’s high time the rest of us followed their lead.
Showing posts with label Cameron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cameron. Show all posts
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Friday, 26 November 2010
New Job
I’ve managed to get a new roll at work and it’s on my current grade. I’m pleased even though it’s not exactly the sort of roll I wanted. I must confess that I’m a little bit nervous. It’s always a bit frightening starting a new job with new people.
After what the banks have done to the economy I’m just happy to have a job. The thought of being unemployed, even with a redundancy payment, was terrifying. Cameron and Osborne have announced cuts which are so severe that an estimated 1.5m people across both the public and private sector are going to lose their jobs. My heart goes out to all those people facing a very uncertain future.
After what the banks have done to the economy I’m just happy to have a job. The thought of being unemployed, even with a redundancy payment, was terrifying. Cameron and Osborne have announced cuts which are so severe that an estimated 1.5m people across both the public and private sector are going to lose their jobs. My heart goes out to all those people facing a very uncertain future.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Never had it so good
It’s been a difficult month for me. The team I was on at work was disbanded and we were offered voluntary redundancy. The redundancy package wasn’t as much as I had hoped for so I have decided to stay and I’m looking for a new role. The company have protected my wages for 6 months but if I can’t find anything on my current pay grade I’m facing a massive pay cut. I’m keeping my fingers crossed because I’ve got a mortgage to pay.
During his spending review speech in Parliament George Osborne stood at the dispatch box and accused people of getting into more debt than they can afford. He thinks people should learn to live within their means. Well I did borrow within my needs and got a mortgage based my current wages. I now face a 20% pay cut so, like thousands of others, I’m in danger of having my ‘means’ taken away from me.
The banks have spent the last 15 years lending vast amounts of money to businesses which had virtually no chance of ever making enough money to repay the loans. They have lent money to people looking to buy homes in a vastly overpriced property market. Overpriced due to the 100%+ mortgages the banks were offering people in the first place.
I would just like to say to Mr Osborne that the banks must take some responsibility. Many of the people who have taken these huge mortgages are young couples who did so because they needed a home. A large number of them now face losing their job due to the cuts and the economic disaster caused by the very same banks that landed them in unmanageable debt.
During the same period the credit card companies (owned by the same banks) were constantly increasing card credit limits. Many people will say that just because the credit is available you aren’t forced to use it. If the fridge stops working, the car breaks down, the kids need new clothes etc. but you’ve no money it’s very difficult not to use a credit card.
Most of us live in the real world not the wealthy Tory bubble. We haven’t all got rich parents to bail us out when times are hard. Unlike Mr Osborne most of us aren’t the heir to a baronetcy or have a personal fortune of at least £4m. Unlike David and Samantha Cameron most of us don’t have a combined wealth of over £30m and parents that own half of Yorkshire. These people don’t know what it’s like to make ends meet, to live on minimum wage or to face losing their home when made redundant. Even Nick Clegg comes from a rich family of Bankers (his father is chairman of United Trust Bank, and is a trustee of The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation).
When they tell us we are all in this together they are lying. They have not introduced any huge changes to the banking system, they haven’t forced corporations to pay the £40billion owed in unpaid taxes, they haven’t dealt with the ‘non-dom’ tax status of people like Lord Ashcroft and they are still hitting the poorest people hardest.
The new Tory party is just as bad as the old Tory party. They steal from the poor and look after their own kind.
“Never had it so good”, don’t make me laugh!!
During his spending review speech in Parliament George Osborne stood at the dispatch box and accused people of getting into more debt than they can afford. He thinks people should learn to live within their means. Well I did borrow within my needs and got a mortgage based my current wages. I now face a 20% pay cut so, like thousands of others, I’m in danger of having my ‘means’ taken away from me.
The banks have spent the last 15 years lending vast amounts of money to businesses which had virtually no chance of ever making enough money to repay the loans. They have lent money to people looking to buy homes in a vastly overpriced property market. Overpriced due to the 100%+ mortgages the banks were offering people in the first place.
I would just like to say to Mr Osborne that the banks must take some responsibility. Many of the people who have taken these huge mortgages are young couples who did so because they needed a home. A large number of them now face losing their job due to the cuts and the economic disaster caused by the very same banks that landed them in unmanageable debt.
During the same period the credit card companies (owned by the same banks) were constantly increasing card credit limits. Many people will say that just because the credit is available you aren’t forced to use it. If the fridge stops working, the car breaks down, the kids need new clothes etc. but you’ve no money it’s very difficult not to use a credit card.
Most of us live in the real world not the wealthy Tory bubble. We haven’t all got rich parents to bail us out when times are hard. Unlike Mr Osborne most of us aren’t the heir to a baronetcy or have a personal fortune of at least £4m. Unlike David and Samantha Cameron most of us don’t have a combined wealth of over £30m and parents that own half of Yorkshire. These people don’t know what it’s like to make ends meet, to live on minimum wage or to face losing their home when made redundant. Even Nick Clegg comes from a rich family of Bankers (his father is chairman of United Trust Bank, and is a trustee of The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation).
When they tell us we are all in this together they are lying. They have not introduced any huge changes to the banking system, they haven’t forced corporations to pay the £40billion owed in unpaid taxes, they haven’t dealt with the ‘non-dom’ tax status of people like Lord Ashcroft and they are still hitting the poorest people hardest.
The new Tory party is just as bad as the old Tory party. They steal from the poor and look after their own kind.
“Never had it so good”, don’t make me laugh!!
Saturday, 24 April 2010
A Better Society Not A Bigger Society
David Cameron’s calls for a bigger society are complete nonsense. It was his party that killed British society. Thatcher even proudly declared, “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families”.
One of Cameron’s plans is for a kind of voluntary National Service where young people do work in their neighbourhoods. He thinks it will get kids off the streets and away from petty crime and drugs. The simple fact of the matter is that the kids who will volunteer are not the ones we need to target. The kids who volunteer will be the Girl Guides and Boy Scouts. It will be the kids from white and blue collar families whose Mum and Dad will drop them off in the car. The teenagers who hang about outside my local Co-op drinking cider won’t volunteer. The smack-heads who commit 90% of the burglaries where I live won’t volunteer. The kids who are constantly in trouble at school won’t volunteer; it will be the well behaved kids.
I know I’ve got a cynical attitude and I wish I could more positive about it but I live in a run-down Northern town with high unemployment and high crime rates. I see what is going on with my own eyes. A 17 year old boy was stabbed to death yesterday on a road less than a 5min drive from my house. I don’t want to harp on about his privileged background but Cameron has absolutely no idea about what it is like in the real world. The big society plan will not solve the problems in the huge, run down and crime ridden council estates where I live. It will not solve problems in the inner-cities.
The only way to tackle the social problems in Britain is to tackle the poverty in Britain. It has been proven time and again that if you reduce poverty you reduce crime. The places with the highest crime rates are almost always the places with the highest unemployment rates. The schools with the worst attendance records and lowest exam results are also almost always in the areas with high unemployment rates.
We can improve our society by ensuring we give young people some hope. We need to show them that there are rewards for hard work and good qualifications. We need to show them that they can expect more than a life of unemployment, crime and gangs. We need to invest in their future and we can do this by increasing taxes for the rich, forcing non-doms to pay tax and introducing the Robin-Hood tax on the banks. We should then pump the money into job creation and improve wages for nurses, teachers, the police and fire fighters. Show young people that the jobs that benefit society the most are the best paid because they are the most important.
We don’t need a bigger society. We need a better society. Get people out of poverty and into fairly paid work and we will get the better society we seek.
One of Cameron’s plans is for a kind of voluntary National Service where young people do work in their neighbourhoods. He thinks it will get kids off the streets and away from petty crime and drugs. The simple fact of the matter is that the kids who will volunteer are not the ones we need to target. The kids who volunteer will be the Girl Guides and Boy Scouts. It will be the kids from white and blue collar families whose Mum and Dad will drop them off in the car. The teenagers who hang about outside my local Co-op drinking cider won’t volunteer. The smack-heads who commit 90% of the burglaries where I live won’t volunteer. The kids who are constantly in trouble at school won’t volunteer; it will be the well behaved kids.
I know I’ve got a cynical attitude and I wish I could more positive about it but I live in a run-down Northern town with high unemployment and high crime rates. I see what is going on with my own eyes. A 17 year old boy was stabbed to death yesterday on a road less than a 5min drive from my house. I don’t want to harp on about his privileged background but Cameron has absolutely no idea about what it is like in the real world. The big society plan will not solve the problems in the huge, run down and crime ridden council estates where I live. It will not solve problems in the inner-cities.
The only way to tackle the social problems in Britain is to tackle the poverty in Britain. It has been proven time and again that if you reduce poverty you reduce crime. The places with the highest crime rates are almost always the places with the highest unemployment rates. The schools with the worst attendance records and lowest exam results are also almost always in the areas with high unemployment rates.
We can improve our society by ensuring we give young people some hope. We need to show them that there are rewards for hard work and good qualifications. We need to show them that they can expect more than a life of unemployment, crime and gangs. We need to invest in their future and we can do this by increasing taxes for the rich, forcing non-doms to pay tax and introducing the Robin-Hood tax on the banks. We should then pump the money into job creation and improve wages for nurses, teachers, the police and fire fighters. Show young people that the jobs that benefit society the most are the best paid because they are the most important.
We don’t need a bigger society. We need a better society. Get people out of poverty and into fairly paid work and we will get the better society we seek.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Cameron, BA strike and unions
The Tory party has traditionally had the attitude that trade unions are the enemy. They believed the unions were representatives for a working class that needed to be ruled not governed. It seems such an old fashioned attitude these days that it’s laughable.
The Tory party of today has tried very hard to move the agenda away from issues of class. They advertise and promote themselves as the new caring middle England party. They claim to be 100% in favour of the NHS. They want us to hug a hoodie. They play the environment card. David “call me Dave” Cameron tries desperately to show himself as an everyman rather than a privileged old Etonion.
Then suddenly we have the BA strike. Suddenly David Cameron is showing his true colours. The classic Tory response to a strike is to take a stance of non-negotiation and encourage strike breaking. This is exactly the position Cameron is taking in relation to BA. I have no doubt he will be the same with the railway workers.
Gordon Brown does has a conflict of interest, due to the financial support Labour gets from Unite, but he has taken the proper stance. The only way the BA strike will get resolved is through negotiation.
Over the next few years the government are going to have to save money. At some point there will be cuts to public services and minimal pay rises for public sector workers. There is also a high chance of protracted disputes in the private sector. This will undoubtedly lead to industrial unrest and possible strike action. We will need a government who will sit with the unions and the management in order to try and reach resolutions through compromise. Our economy is so precarious that large scale industrial unrest could be catastrophic. It would be a disaster for Britain to have a government who refuse to mediate and negotiate because of an outdated ideology.
Cameron may think Union bashing is a vote winner. He may love the thought of showing how tough he is by standing up to bullying “Union Neanderthals”. I think he will lead Britain into an economic whirlwind that will make the winter of discontent seem like a warm summer breeze.
Check out the link below that leads to a brilliant cartoon in the Guardian on this subject:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2010/mar/20/david-cameron-british-airways-strike
The Tory party of today has tried very hard to move the agenda away from issues of class. They advertise and promote themselves as the new caring middle England party. They claim to be 100% in favour of the NHS. They want us to hug a hoodie. They play the environment card. David “call me Dave” Cameron tries desperately to show himself as an everyman rather than a privileged old Etonion.
Then suddenly we have the BA strike. Suddenly David Cameron is showing his true colours. The classic Tory response to a strike is to take a stance of non-negotiation and encourage strike breaking. This is exactly the position Cameron is taking in relation to BA. I have no doubt he will be the same with the railway workers.
Gordon Brown does has a conflict of interest, due to the financial support Labour gets from Unite, but he has taken the proper stance. The only way the BA strike will get resolved is through negotiation.
Over the next few years the government are going to have to save money. At some point there will be cuts to public services and minimal pay rises for public sector workers. There is also a high chance of protracted disputes in the private sector. This will undoubtedly lead to industrial unrest and possible strike action. We will need a government who will sit with the unions and the management in order to try and reach resolutions through compromise. Our economy is so precarious that large scale industrial unrest could be catastrophic. It would be a disaster for Britain to have a government who refuse to mediate and negotiate because of an outdated ideology.
Cameron may think Union bashing is a vote winner. He may love the thought of showing how tough he is by standing up to bullying “Union Neanderthals”. I think he will lead Britain into an economic whirlwind that will make the winter of discontent seem like a warm summer breeze.
Check out the link below that leads to a brilliant cartoon in the Guardian on this subject:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2010/mar/20/david-cameron-british-airways-strike
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