Questions for Labour

How about some straight answers to some simple questions. Don't bet on it!

• What exactly does your party stand for now?
• Why is it acceptable to promise holding a referendum on a new EU Treaty, then break that promise?
• Why is it acceptable for a government to be elected on the promise of its leader that he will serve a full third term, then break that promise.
• Why do we treat our prisoners better than our soldiers?
• What happened to John Prescott's 10 year Transport Plan?
• Where are the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
• Why does the government waste so much money?
• Why has the tax credits system been so inefficient and expensive to administer?
• Why does it necessarily make something better just because you spend more money on it? Does it not matter how and where excatly that money is spent?
• Why are so many of our hospitals ridden with fatal diseases after the the record amounts of money lavished on the health service?
• Why has NHS dentistry effectively been privatised?
• Why can Scottish MP's vote on laws which affect only English people but the reverse isn't true?
• Why do voters in Scotland receive over £1,000 more per head than those in England?
• Why are voters in the north of England effectively heavily subsidised by the rest of the country. Is it a conincidence that all these areas are Labour strongholds?
• Why is the average size of a Labour MP's constituency significantly smaller than those for other MP's? Is that fair?
• Why, in spite of record amounts spent on education, are so many young people unable to read, write or add up properly?
• Why have an additional one and a half million people people started receiving incpacity benefit over the last ten years? Is it a conincidence that this makes the official unemployment figures look better?
• Why has the civil service been politicised?
• Why are the levels of violent crime on the city's streets so high? Why has it become tacitly acceptable for young people to walk around carrying knives and guns?
• Why has the police force become so ineffective, putting their own bureaucratic policies and procedures before protecting the public?
• Why are we fighting a war in Afghanistan? What precisely are we trying to achieve?
• Why is it acceptable for soldiers to lose their lives becasue they do not have the right equipment?
• Why does Gordon Brown say there will be no more spinning before trying to lamely pretend that him calling off an election had nothing to do with opinion polls?
• Why does Gordon Brown think he has a mandate to rule the country without anyone actually electing him?
• Why should the public believe anything you say because your words and promises are cheap and empty?
• Why should people take you seriously when collectively you have been serially misleading and dishonest?

Strikes

There's a postal strike on at the moment. It is affecting lots of people, costing them lots of money. But it wont cost those dinosaurs who enforced the strike anything. Well it should do. Sure they might have some grievances and a right to protest, or even withdraw their (admittedly rather reduced anyway) labour. But why should it have to affect the rest of us? Why should we have to pay a penalty for something they've chosen to do?
Its the same on the tube in London. Anyone who 'works' for London underground probably has one of the cushiest jobs going - lots of holiday, not too many hours for a handsome wage, big fat pension, early retirement etc. They only need someone to not clean their lockers properly or shut down a vending machine and they selfishly decide to cripple London's transport network. For what purpose exactly?
Perhaps the next time the likes of Bob Crow need to travel somewhere in a hurry (say on a flight out the country for one of hus luxury holidays) maybe the public of London should take it upon themselves to detain him indefinitely. Then he can see precisely and intimately the very consequences of his irresponsible, childish, outdated and selfish politics.

Tax and Spend

Spend Spend Spend. It is the mantra that few politicians dare to deviate from, the solution to everything. its funny how you never hear Tax Tax Tax, or Waste Waste Waste instead.
What is it with politicians making promises and pledges about how much money (not actually their money) on various things. There's something very old fashioned about the sort of ocmpetitive boasting: 'We're going to spend X Billion more than you are'. It all gets dutifully reported by the media.
But all too rarely do we stop to ask the question: Just becasue you spend more money on something, even a lot more, does that automatically make it better? Does it not matter how wisely that money is spent rather than the impressive sounding amount of it. Afterall, the same principle can be applied to anytime we spend money on anything.
Just because you pay a small fortune for an expensive meal say doesn't necessarily make it good value for money. The same applies to buying a car, some new clothes or a house. Those who spend large sums of money can be incredibly wasteful as well as frugal. But the more money spent, the higher potential for vast waste and mis-management. Look at the NHS.
Look at the complexity and inefficiency of our tax system. Great for accountants, bureaucrats and lawyers, but not for ordinary taxpayers. Look at the system for tax credits, Gordon Brown's pet policy - the government takes huge amounts of money off people then hands it back to them, obviously at great expense and unnecessary complex adminstration. Why not just let people keep more of their own money in the first place and decide for themselves what they would like to spend it on? Ah but that would be dangerous because it remove control from the centre. A command and control economy, that is Gordon Brown's creation, where people cannot make their own decisions.
And council tax, why is it so high? What value for money do we get for it. Many people cannot even rely on their rubbish being collected regualrly or the road to be proeprly maintained. But there's lots of fancy new warning signs and rising salaries for anyone who work on the council. Funny that.
Alistair Darling is Gordon Brown's malleable lackey, the most charismatic things about him being his jet black eyebrows. Everything else about him and his political style is deadpan grey. It is designed to send us to sleep, so we stop noticing the economic holes the government has got into and the woefully poor value for money achieved during the last 10 years. You find me someone who doesn't think this country is extortionately over-priced and I'll promise to splurge billions on him or her.