Parish Notice

I'm off to see my Dad over the next couple of days as he's been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He's on chemo and hopefully this will extend his lifespan by a couple of years. We're also off to see Lady QM's step brother who also has terminal cancer though his outlook is not so good.



Back Saturday but will probably not blog till Sunday

A slip of the tongue?

Sometimes it's the slip of a tongue which gives away the greatest details. Now I think the BBC is biased in  being left leaning and all the political upholstery that goes with that sort of thinking and no I don't accept the argument that because the far left complain just as much as the right do that somehow this means that the BBC are somehow treading the middle ground. Impartial after all does not mean running down the middle, it means showing lack of favouritism or being free from undue bias or preconceived opinions and sadly the BBC fails in spades with either of those definitions.
However what director general Mark Thompson admitted to the Leveson inquiry appears to show an arrogance that goes beyond all I've suspected from the BBC over the years.
Express.

THE BBC has spent £310,000 of taxpayers’ money on private detectives – including a convicted ­investigator – director general Mark Thompson revealed for the first time yesterday.
He told the Leveson inquiry into press standards the corporation used Steve Whittamore, who in 2005 was convicted of illegally accessing data. In total, BBC staff used investigators 232 times between 2005 and 2011, Mr Thompson said.
The inquiry heard the BBC was mentioned in documents seized during the investigation into Whittamore’s activities known as Operation ­Motorman. A current affairs journalist asked Whittamore to supply details about whether a paedophile was on a flight to Heathrow in 2001. The programme, never broadcast, was about whether people with ­convictions for child sex offences in the UK could get jobs giving them access to children in other countries.
Mr Thompson maintained the case was in the public interest. In July last year, Mr Thompson commissioned a wide-­ranging review of the BBC’s editorial practices but it found no evidence phone hacking or improper payments to police officers.
He said the probity, integrity and ­conviction of BBC journalists was “not to be questioned”.

So we are not to question the probity, integrity and ­conviction of BBC journalists?
To paraphrase Inigo from the Princess Bride, "You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means."
I'm fairly sure he meant beyond reproach, though even that might be pushing it a bit on the BBC's political bias and certainly doesn't come anywhere near the truth in their reporting of the Middle East, but it does give an insight to the type of thinking that goes on in the BBC and like you I suspect I don't think any journalists BBC or no, are beyond reproach or should ever be in a position where their probity, integrity and ­conviction cannot be questioned. Yes sources need to be safeguarded, but if you are tapping phones illegally or even using private detectives to source information, you'd better make damned sure you are operating within the law. After all despite the public's supposed need to know, the end does not always justify the means.

None of our business

Why is it that under the most stringent cut backs in military spending that politicians keep coming up with pledges to send in the troops if necessary to places we have no business being?

Telegraph.

Britain could send military reinforcements to the Gulf if the dispute with Iran escalates, according to Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary.
He said the decision to send HMS Argyll as part of an international flotilla of warships through the sensitive Strait of Hormuz on Sunday sent a "clear signal" to Tehran.
The deployment defied explicit Iranian threats to close the waterway. It coincided with an escalation in the West's confrontation with Iran over the country's nuclear ambitions.
Iran has threatened to close the strait – through which 35 per cent of the world's tanker-borne oil exports pass – in retaliation for sanctions against its oil exports.
The EU agreed an oil embargo on Monday against Iran as part of sanctions over its nuclear programme.
The measures include an immediate embargo on new contracts for crude oil and petroleum products while existing ones are allowed to run until July.

 Yes I know Iran has nuclear ambitions, yes I know they could make a real nuisance of themselves in the Straits of Hormuz if they wanted too, but frankly the amount of ships we could send compared to the Americans is minuscule and would be much better deployed elsewhere say like the Falklands or off the coast of Somalia hanging pirates from the yardarm.
Our armed forces have been gutted by the politicians in Westminster in both this government and the last and quite frankly it's time we brought them home and had a major rethink in just what it is we want to do with them vis home defence and force projection. Should we have them out in Afghanistan keeping the peace or should we simply leave that place to go back to barbarism again with occasional flattening of terrorist camps as and when we find them by cruise missiles, after all, it would be far more easier simply to declare the place a no go zone and allow India to deal with the Pakistani problem.
Our troops and navy should only be where they are wanted keeping an eye on aggressors to us, yes Iran is a problem, but it's a problem easily solved by simply funding its enemies right on its door, not by sending warships into restricted waters. Same with Afghanistan, simply play the tribes off against each other and fund them to attack Pakistan and Iran.
We could and still will need a professional and reasonably large set of armed forces, but we need them closer to home or in areas where we have obligations, the Middle East and Afghanistan don't count for either of those criteria.

 

Must?

The boy Clegg does come out with some corkers, the latest one being that we "must" give more to the IMF to save Europe.
Express.

NICK CLEGG has sparked fury after insisting Britain must contribute more to the International Monetary Fund to aid the ailing world economy.
The UK is expected to be asked to put in more funds as the IMF seeks to raise an additional £320billion.
Britain is liable for 4.5 per cent of the IMF’s £256billion lending capacity. The rise means we could be in for donating another £17billion.
The Deputy Prime Minister said the Government must respond positively, claiming: “We always must be strong supporters of the IMF. It is a linchpin in creating stability.”

You sort of come to expect this from the Cleggmeister, after all his EU pension does depend on there actually being an EU around to pay it, which is probably why he's so free with the "we must" utterances as he's under an obligation to defend the EU at all costs. His pro European stance is echoed by his family ties too as he's married to a  Miriam González Durántez, from Valladolid, Spain and they have three sons: Antonio, Alberto and Miguel so you can see where his sympathies lie and it isn't in or for the UK.
Thing is though that the £17 billion will have to come from government borrowing and we (the taxpayers) will have to stump up the payments for it as for the life of me I cannot see the EU recovering to the stage where they'll ever pay it back, it's a bit like throwing good money after bad. Doesn't matter how much we throw in, it's still going down the tubes. If anything it's far more likely that we'll get dragged down with them as our debts and means of repayment go spiralling out of control as well.
The time has come to simply say no, sort yourself out. Yes it will be painful for Europe, it might even be catastrophic for some Eurozone states, but supporting them by giving more money is simply staving off the inevitable and might end up making it worse.
If anything the case for leaving now before it all goes under is even stronger.

Punishing success

Vince cable marched back to his socialist roots (again) yesterday by calling for a "Mansion Tax" on any homes valued at more than £2 million. Lot of people will no doubt fall for it as the rich are an easy target in the socialist politics of envy doctrine. Problem is of course is what happens if or when they do this, I doubt Vince has given much thought to this, but as a socialist he wouldn't so he'd probably be gobsmacked at the amount of people with money who will simply up and leave. It's the same with the Tobin tax that socialist politicians desire, they see it as a way to grab some easy money and they think (or don't care) that either the tax wont be passed on to the customer or the companies involved will simply move somewhere that doesn't tax them so much quicker than you could say Laffer curve.
Telegraph.

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, is pushing for a mansion tax to be introduced on properties worth more than £2million in this year’s Budget.
While the policy is likely to be opposed by George Osborne, the Chancellor, Mr Cable said that he had spoken to Conservative MPs who backed the plan.
“A mansion tax is still very much on the agenda – it is a very good idea,” Mr Cable told The Sunday Telegraph.
“It is good for two reasons,’’ he said. ''It would constitute a tax on wealth rather than income, which we believe to be right, and also in economic terms it creates the right sort of incentives for the property market.”
Mr Cable added that it was “perverse” that rich “foreigners” could buy expensive properties in Britain and contribute just £1,000 a year in council tax towards the public finances.

Usual stuff from the man féted as an economic expert but only really famous for a one liner about Gordon Brown and Mr Bean. The thing about foreigners is that they'll simply go elsewhere, you know that and I know that, they'll simply stop paying UK tax rates sell their properties and an undervalued amount and sack all the people maintaining it plus putting out of work all the small businesses like plumbers, electricians and landscape gardeners they pay to do the jobs they can't. The point Cable doesn't get (and never will) is that for all these people pay low taxes to live here, they spend their money here too, probably a lot more than they'd pay in taxation as oddly enough the rich have a tendency to be quite generous to those who work for them.
I often run across this tax the rich thing, even from people who really ought to know better, if we tax them too much, well they are rich enough to simply pack up and leave, guess who will have to make up the difference in taxation then? Because I can assure you, the government wont cut back on its spending.
The more millionaires we can attract to live here and spend their money here the better off we'll be and people like Cable will simply drive them off to spend their money elsewhere.

Bribery and corruption

I frequently criticise the foreign aid budget ass I'm a great believer of charity beginning at home, don't get me wrong, I assume some good does come of the various projects undertaken, however it's the cash paid to countries like India (a nuclear power and has its own space program) Pakistan (a nuclear power) and the various kleptocratic states of Africa that really gets my ire, we have enough problems here without lining the pockets of various countries who really ought to be doing something for their own people and not getting handouts from us. If the cause is deserving enough, we'll dig into our pockets to help, as it is though, times are hard. However this one was a new one on me, apparently the foreign bribe aid program keeps us safe.
Telegraph.

Spending on projects such as getting more girls into school in Somalia “contributes directly to our security” and should be a source of national pride like the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee, he said in an interview while on a visit to Nepal.
Even as most Government departments’ budgets are being cut, aid spending is rising by more than a third to almost £11billion in 2014-15 as the Coalition aims for a United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of GDP. The aid pledge is controversial among some Conservatives, who say the money would be better spent at home.
Mr Mitchell accepted that a smaller aid budget might have meant fewer cuts elsewhere, but insisted that development projects also helped protect Britain.
“Our security is not just provided by soldiers and tanks and fighter jets, it is also provided by training the police in Afghanistan, by building up governance structures in the Middle East and by getting girls into school in the Horn of Africa,” he said. “Those things are all part of what makes us safer.”
Mr Mitchell conceded that the “difficult” outlook made the aid budget harder to sell to voters, but said Britons should take pride in helping those people living in poverty.

Yes, he really does appear to think that Danegeld works, that rather than simply say banning Somali's and Afghans from entering the UK and sending the navy to blow the Somali pirates out of the water that helping them train their police (some of whom have killed our soldiers) and teaching Somali schoolgirls (wonder what Rhea Page thinks about trained Somali schoolgirls) actually stops them from coming over here as asylum seekers and causing no end of bother.
This man though a Tory MP, is clearly another Chris Huhne, utterly bereft of common sense as it's applied to the real world. What the leaders of those countries respect, is strength and what they respond too is fear as far as they are concerned training their police and running their schools just gives them more cash for Mercedes and gold plated AK 47's Or in the case of India, helping running their space program.
Bribes don't keep us safe, the fear of a devastating response if they step out of line will, it's time we stopped lining the pockets of 3rd world dictators, we could simply spend the money arming their rivals and playing them off against each other.
Charity begins at home, we have too many problems here without giving away taxpayers cash to foreign tinpot states and countries who simply do not need it.

Gender neutral

'All I want to do is make people think a bit.' The words of Beck Laxton who decided that for 5 years they would bring their child up gender neutral alternating between girls and boys clothing and keeping a lot of people guessing.
Mail.

A couple who concealed the sex of their child and raised it as ‘gender neutral’ for five years have finally revealed - it’s a boy.
Beck Laxton, 46, and partner Kieran Cooper, 44, decided not to reveal Sasha’s gender in the hope it would let his ‘real’ personality shine through.
They referred to him as 'the infant' and allowed him to play only with ‘gender-neutral toys’ in their television-free home.
For the past five years Sasha has alternated between girls’ and boys’ clothes, leaving friends, playmates and relatives guessing.
However Beck and Kieran, from Sawston, Cambridgeshire, decided to reveal Sasha's masculinity to the world after it became harder to conceal when he started primary school.
Yesterday Beck, a web editor, said: 'I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping.
'Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?
'It’s like horoscopes. What could be stupider than thinking there are 12 types of personality that depend on when you were born? It’s so idiotic.
'Gender affects what children wear and what they can play with, and that shapes the kind of person they become.

I suspect "the infant" might just have quite a few serious issues in the years ahead relating to one sex or another if only because gender rolls are a source of tension for kids.
Kids as a group tend to be merciless little savages when dealing with anyone different amongst their peers and no amount of supervision is ever going to change that. All most teachers can do is try to keep a lid on things in the classroom, outside of the classroom though, it's a bit of a jungle and I suspect this kid will struggle to cope with the differences as he'll have no idea of just how real life works.
Beck and Kieran strike me as being either amongst the most selfish people on the planet or the biggest idiots and what they've done is tantamount to child cruelty as they've imposed an artificial awareness on their child that bears no relation to real life. Sure we all like to protect our kids and keep them safe, but this hasn't kept him safe, it's kept him in ignorance. Still we can all hope that as kids do that he'll be able to soak in the necessary gender cues to at least help him survive without becoming a neurotic basket case.
No, this isn't about him becoming gay (if that's what happens) it's about dealing with an important part of society and being able to relate to it. If he can't and he has had no opportunity to do so, then he's in for several shocks and quite possibly a world of pain as he gets older.
I might be wrong, but I cannot for the life of me see this going well for the poor little chap.

Good riddance, though still not enough

I expect there were screams of anguish from the Green Luddites who seem to infest the corridors of power via various lobbying groups when Huhne the buffoon finally came out with a written statement about the solar tariffs being cut from April for all new installations fitted after march 30th. This is because the tariff subsidy has been proven to have been far too generous to those who chose to install them.
Telegraph.

Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, said in a written statement that the tariff paid to customers who generate their own electricity will be cut from April 1 for all installations completed on or after March 3.
If the Government wins its appeal, however, the current December 12 cut-off date will stand. "We continue to stand by our original proposal," Mr Huhne said. "However, I know that the uncertainty while we await the court's decision is difficult for the industry.
"If the court finds in favour of the Government's appeal, we intend to stand by all our consultation proposals, including an earlier reference date, subject to the Parliamentary procedure and consideration of consultation responses."
Friends of the Earth and two solar panel installers, Solarcentury and HomeSun, took the Government to court over its decision to halve the amount home owners with newly installed panels will receive for every kilowatt hour generated. The total per unit will fall from 43.3p to 21p per kilowatt hour, but the 'export' tariff of 3.1p for energy sold on to the National Grid will not change.
However, the environmental charity and the industry protested that the Government had not given enough notice for the change, which was implemented before the consultation period even ended. Thousands of customers who had already signed contracts missed the deadline, meaning that they will receive less for the electricity that they generate.

Whilst I do feel a smidgen of sympathy for those who rushed to cash in on this ludicrous scheme, anyone trusting the government to keep its word deserves everything they get. The only way the panels could pay for themselves in their lifetime was only if they were massively subsidised by the taxpayer, this is assuming (and it's a big assumption) that they maintain their power output for their 25 year life, as any engineer or even a weatherman could tell you this is highly unlikely. Frost, Sahara dust, snow, bird poo, traffic pollution will all take their toll over the years and reduce the original output by up to 25% at least possibly more depending on their location, after all if they are on your roof, you can't wipe them clean. This was also on top of their poor output in English conditions, so that the only way they could pay was if everyone else via taxation made them economically viable. Which is why in these hard times, the government has reluctantly stepped in to cut the tariff in half, which is a shame really as I'd have just gotten rid of it entirely, same for the bird mincers. Most of the energy budget as far as I can see should go to conventional power generation (as in reliable) and if you wanted to go carbon free then you go nuclear, as it is I'd have put all the money into shale gas extraction which is cheaper and would leave us with a good century or two to come up with something better.
As it is, the government in its pathetic attempts to be green has ripped off the taxpayer (again) and even now refuses to accept that green power generation is nothing more than a massive con designed to wreck the West's economy and turn us into an economic basket case and back to a middle ages economy with a technocratic elite in charge.
Btw, when is someone actually going to charge Huhne over his driving offence?

Money money money

I always suspected that when Osborne paid out all our cash to the IMF that sooner or later they'd be back for more. The problem is that far too many countries out there who have gotten themselves into financial problems have simply taken the IMF money and not cut back on their spending by any sort of sane amount to get their finances into the black. Hence various EU countries credit status being downgraded last week.
Express.

BRITAIN is facing an extra £17.5billion bill to help prop up the eurozone as the International Monetary Fund looks to boost its debt fund to $1trillion. As unemployment figures in the UK hit a 17-year-high, the IMF announced that it was set to raise its debt fund to $1trillion in a bid to rescue the eurozone.
International Monetary Fund manager Christine Lagarde said yesterday that she was looking at ways to 'increase its financial firepower to deal with Europe's debt crisis.
In a speech at the Washington State Department, she said that if Europe's debt crisis wasn't resolved, the world economy could face rising protectionism and isolationism.
The rise in the amount given by Britain will force Chancellor George Osborne to ask parliament for permission for the extra £7.5billion.
Britain has already set aside £30billion to the fund with an extra £10billion contingency.

Thing that always gets me is that this is money we could be using to stimulate our own economy, particularly at the expense of our overspending EU partners. The problem is, that Europes debt crisis will not be resolved by giving them money, but by them stopping spending the money that they don't have. It's a bit like alcoholics and drink, you don't get an alcoholic to stop by buying in another round, you stop them by removing access to booze.
Yes the end of the Euro and the collapse of the Eurozone will be a terrible thing, but the entire situation has now gone far too far for anyone to stop it, it has the inevitability of a steamroller running over a snail. The time to have sorted out the flaws in the Eurozone system was before it came into being. Not during it's Götterdämmerung stage.
What the IMF are proposing to do is throw good money after bad, perhaps it's time to let the financial institutions which caused the damage pay the penalty. Crops will still be grown and goods made, other means of finance will come into being. Perhaps even a few politicians, lawyers and banker will be hung for good measure.
But it will happen, there's no way to stop it now and grabbing more of our cash will not help save to make the inevitable even worse.

You what?

Why is it that certain people have what amounts to a get out of jail free card? If I were in a pub and glassed some woman who I suspect was eyeing me up (I know, I know, I should be so bloody lucky, but bear with me here) I'd expect to go to prison and I'd expect no mercy from the judicial system. I very much doubt a case of claimed sexual harassment at work would help me much either.
However, reverse the genders and hey presto I would get a get out of jail card for the same excuse...
Mail. (usual caveats, but the basic facts are correct)

Judge refuses to jail woman plumber who glassed nightclubber who smiled at her 'because she had been sexually harassed during training'

• Attacker walks free after judge says harassment was to blame for her behaviour
• Judge describes her harassment as 'intolerable' and says she is 'impeccable character'
• Victim was described as being in the 'wrong place at the wrong time'

A woman who glassed a male clubber that smiled at her - and then blamed the attack on the fact she was sexually harassed at work - was spared jail by a judge.
Sheona Keith threw her glass at a man in a nightclub who she thought was 'eyeing her up', in an unprovoked attack which resulted in him needing hospital treatment.
However, a judge refused to give her a custodial sentence after accepting that earlier sexual harassment she suffered at work was the reason behind her behaviour.
Instead, 22-year-old Keith - who admitted a charge of actual bodily harm against James Kirkham - was given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay £400 compensation by Judge Philip Wassall when she was sentenced at Exeter Crown Court.
Describing Keith's case as 'unique', Judge Wassall said she had an 'impeccable character' and that the sexual harassment she had suffered was 'intolerable'.At one point he said that she threw the glass 'without knowing' it was in her hand and described the victim as being 'in the wrong place at the wrong time'.

I'm sorry, but seriously is there any excuse for this sort of action other than they started it and you were in fear of your life? You throw a glass into someone's face causing them to need hospital treatment and blame it on the fact that you'd lost your job and were drowning your sorrows due to sexual harassment???? The guy was just looking at you!!!! God alone knows what might have happened if he'd wandered over to say hi.
Can anyone imagine a guy getting similar treatment off a judge?
Fair enough, sexual harassment is a terrible thing for some people, but there are proper channels for dealing with it, glassing a human being for looking at you is not one of them, doubly so if they are a complete stranger.
The judge in this case seems to be some sort of gullible idiot and easily swayed by a feminine sob story, yet justice is supposed to be blind.
Sheona Keith should have been starting a prison sentence today, pretty much any male who did what she did would certainly be.
In this case the law (well the judge) is an ass.

Tom Harris’s downfall

I don't like socialists, I don't like the left and I don't like the Labour Party, but that's a group thing, as individuals they tend to be fine save for those on the more extreme fringe. When it comes to scandals involving humour or Nazi party regalia though I'm more or less indifferent in the same way I was completely indifferent to Aidan Burley who was simply at a party where someone wore it.
One of the internet memes of recent years has been to mock your opponents via the "Downfall" scene in the Fuhrerbunker, some are funny, some are tasteless, but mostly it's a case of sticks and stones etc. Save when it comes to politicians as Tom Harris found out.
BBC.

A Labour MP has stepped down from his internet adviser role after he posted a joke video portraying First Minister and SNP leader Alex Salmond as Hitler.
Tom Harris, who ran in the Scottish Labour Party leadership race last year, apologised for his actions.
He had been given the post of the party's new media guru after Johann Lamont was elected leader.
The SNP called the video "tasteless" and said it was "hugely embarrassing" for the Labour Party.
The controversial video takes footage from 2004 movie, Downfall, featuring Hitler's German voice with subtitled words from Mr Salmond.
The clip has been used to mock a number of well-known names, including former prime minister Gordon Brown.
Mr Harris published his version of the video, titled "Joan's Downfall", following a row involving SNP MSP Joan McAlpine who claimed that Labour and the Lib Dems were being "anti-Scottish" in their attitude to the planned independence referendum.
The Labour MP for Glasgow South said: "Having spoken to Johann, I have decided to step down from leading the party's social media review.
"The video I posted has been a well worn joke used to parody a range of public figures.
"However, context is everything and in the context of Johann's and my desire to improve the level of political debate on social media and the context of Joan McAlpine's much more serious statements about all political opponents of the SNP being anti-Scottish, my actions have been an unhelpful distraction for which I apologise."

Personally I think the SNP should grow a pair, after all they like to throw insulting rhetoric around too as do all politicians and after all, Joan McAlpine's assertion that Unionists are anti-Scottish started the whole affair. I doubt anyone cares to be called a traitor in a country they love. Though Scot's themselves have a bit of a problem in some areas with Anglophobia which is apparently not as big a problem as Islamophobia and it's this strain of bigotry which drives some nationalists into the name calling business as they see the UK government as somehow being an English government, though God alone knows why considering how Westminster actually treats the English. Still I guess it's a useful tag to hang your prejudices on.
Was it a bad taste video? Possibly, should Tom Harris have had to apologise and resign?
Judge for yourself...

 

 Personally I think some Scots should get a sense of humour or a thicker skin.

And naturally, here's the riposte


H/T Guido.

The magic money tree creed

Ed Millipede is in trouble, not his usual trouble of being totally out of touch with what actually needs to be done to put the economy back on track. Nor is it the usual problem of having abandoned your core group of voters in order to suck up to immigrant groups. No, the Millipede is in trouble because the left have sussed that he no longer believes in the magic money tree.
Mail.

Embattled Ed Miliband was told by Labour MPs last night to stop copying David Cameron and start showing some leadership of his own.
The Labour leader sparked a furious backlash after the party abandoned opposition to the Coalition’s public-sector pay freeze and refused to reverse cuts.
The U-turn was unveiled by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, who insisted the party had to set a ‘credible’ alternative to the Coalition and be ‘honest with the British people’.
But Labour MPs accused the two Eds of caving into the Tory agenda.
Labour veteran Austin Mitchell attacked ‘barmy’ Mr Balls’s cuts somersaults and also lambasted ‘weak’ Mr Miliband.
He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘This is a desperate attempt to get respectability but it’s barmy. Miliband is acting out of weakness. We are not the Government and we will get nowhere by going around wearing a hair shirt like this.’
And Blyth Valley MP Ronnie Campbell said: ‘The activists are livid. We are dancing to the Tory tune. We’ve been opposing their cuts, now we’re saying we agree with them. We don’t know whether we’re coming or going.’

This sadly has always been the problem of the left, they actually don't know (or in a lot of cases don't care) exactly where the money to pay for things comes from. As far as they are concerned money comes from a magic tree that pays for everything, not from hard pressed taxpayers who are sick to death of paying for things like public sector pensions, people who wont (not can't) work, translation services, diversity co-ordinators, racial awareness committees and all the various things that socialist policies have left us in their poisonous legacy of the Blair/Brown years. Not that I think the Millipede actually grasps this, but he will have been told that such policies as cutting back the public sector is popular with voters, so lets go for it. This of course puts him into conflict with the dinosaurs of the left who as far as they are concerned think that the rich should pay for everything, rich being anyone in a job as far as I can see. Nor do they see the problems the UK faces as anything other than someone else's fault, that the massive levels of public spending have made recovery very difficult as they aren't contributory to wealth creation, in many cases they are entirely the opposite.
They never learn, the magic money tree is their religion and like a lot of false religions it blinds its followers to the obvious. Thatcher had them sussed though with her comment that "Socialism only works till someone else's money runs out." Well the money has run out, but not the mindset of the left who want us to carry on spending what we don't have.