Honesty doesn't pay

I like to think I'm an honest man, opinionated yes, but I'd like to believe if I found a bundle of money in the street or on someone's premises, that I'd hand it in...
Well at least until today I did...
Mail.

An honest builder who handed in nearly £18,000 in cash to police after he found it stashed in a fire-damaged flat will go without any reward following a High Court judge's ruling.
Steven Fletcher found the hoard of 'neatly bundled' notes in a metal box in a burnt-out property he was renovating in King Street, Leicester, in September 2011.
The £17,940 cash haul - all in £20 notes and neatly packaged into £1,000 bundles - was concealed under a kitchen unit.
The flat had been empty since a fire gutted it six months earlier and Mr Fletcher immediately handed in his find to police.
But a High Court judge has ruled Mr Fletcher does not have any right to the cash after police failed to trace its origins.
Police experts and forensic analysts examined the mysterious hoard. Drug-testing was, however, 'inconclusive', although some notes showed minute traces of cocaine.
Magistrates nevertheless ordered forfeiture of the cash under the Proceeds of Crime Act after Leicestershire's Chief Constable, Simon Cole, successfully argued that it probably came from 'unlawful criminal conduct'.

I was always under the impression that lack of evidence doesn't constitute proof, though it does appear that the legal system of the UK operates under different rules (surprise, surprise)
Now it may well be that the cash was being used for criminality, or was the proceeds from criminal activity, but there's no evidence that it was (or wasn't)
There is of course the drug traces, however as the Mail itself told the world back in 2010...

Every bank note in the UK is contaminated with cocaine within weeks of entering circulation, experts have revealed.
Police have stopped testing notes for traces of the drug in criminal investigations as the contamination is so widespread.
According to the Forensic Science Service the results are now meaningless as every note tests positive for cocaine.

So, other than the fact that the police were suspicious about the way that the notes were carefully sortied into bundles of one denomination which meant they were 'unlikely to be the profits of legitimate cash trading in their eyes and in the eyes of the court. This along with the fact that no-one came forward to claim the cash meant they felt justified in keeping it.
I'd be willing to bet the next time Mr Fletcher or anyone else reading the Mail article finds a wad of cash hidden away, handing it in to the police will not figure in their thought processes.

Time to drop the subsidies.

Subsidies are a form of bucking the market, as with any measures to buck the market they inevitably fail, though that doesn't stop governments from wasting taxpayers money on them and enriching those receiving the subsidies. That's not to say that there might not be a case for a limited subsidy in developing new technologies, just in order to get them off the ground, however limited ought to mean that by a certain amount of time it's sink or swim time...
Not that governments seem to have grasped this basic point.
Express.

HARD-UP families could see energy bills double to a ­whopping £3,000 a year, experts warned last night.
The forecast came as millions of households face rises of up to £140 in electricity and gas bills within weeks.
The current average dual fuel bill stands at £1,420. But, with the way prices are continuing to soar, this figure is set to double by 2020.
Mark Todd, of energy­-helpline.com, said: “Over the next seven years we could see bills hit £3,000 if current trends continue. This is a very big rise and is going to hit people extremely hard.”
Another round of price hikes is thought to be “imminent”, with firms expected to slap an extra five to 10 per cent on the annual bill.
It means that hard-pressed families will have to find up to £140 more a year as gas and electricity bills soar to £1,560.
Energyhelpline’s Mr Todd said a new wave of price hikes are likely before the beginning of winter.
He blamed investment in green energy and rising wholesale and transport costs for the rocketing bills.
Prof Fells said: “It is inevitable that the price of energy will rise, and I blame this on the huge investment in renewable energy. If the Government pursues this expansion of green energy, it will cost the bill-payer.”

 Yes, the government is wasting our money on renewable energy to face a crisis that doesn't exist save in the minds of bureaucrats, politicians and the hard of thinking leftist watermelons. With the bureaucrats and politicians I suspect it's just a means to pocket public money as part of directorships in renewable energy companies. With the watermelons I suspect that it's all just part of a plan by their leadership to take us all back to the stone-age save for a technical elite living high on the hog, I doubt it has anything to do with the good of the planet, more to do with the good of the enviroloony leadership.
People are going to die because of the government of both stripes lunacy in sticking it to us in the form of green subsidies on fuel. Our old, our sick/disabled and our very young are being sacrificed on the alter of the cruel and unforgiving green religion. That there are alternatives to renewables is known, hence the anti-fracking protests at an oil drilling rig for some reason or another. They'd rather we died in the cold than have cheap energy, their cruel god demands it, destruction of the West as a civilisation has always been at the core of leftist/watermelon policy, hence their lack of protests at what India and China do.
One day we'll kill them all though...

 

It's still our money, not yours!

Foreign aid under the Tories has always been an unfunny joke, especially as it was ringfenced to increase when some other budgets were cut. Most suspect that it was to avoid accusations of being the 'nasty' party, though God alone knows Labour and its socialist roots have caused far more misery to millions in the UK than the Tories have ever done.
Mail. (Usual caveats)

Foreign aid is to be diverted through British companies to prevent it falling into the hands of corrupt and wasteful regimes.
Firms will use the money to win infrastructure contracts and boost struggling economies in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
The radical move, to be announced by International Development Secretary Justine Greening next week, is being seen as a victory for common sense in the bitter controversy over the £11billion international development budget, which has been ringfenced while other departments face cuts.
It follows years of criticism that the nation’s ballooning aid budget is being squandered by Third World governments on ineffective projects, or lining the pockets of corrupt officials.
Prime Minister David Cameron was said to be ‘hugely enthusiastic’ about the shift of emphasis from simply fighting poverty with handouts to economic development.
In future, a significant portion of the aid budget – adding up to billions over the years – will be used to secure contracts for British firms to build roads, railways and key buildings such as schools and hospitals.

Thing is, there's only the hint of 'a significant portion' of the aid budget going into bribes to get UK firms to build stuff. Where's the rest of it going? And why is my/our money still going to line the pockets of kleptocracies worldwide and not being spent to pay off Labours years of ruinous debt?
Charity in hard times has to begin at home and giving our money away without it being of benefit to us is not something we should be doing. It's ok if it's voluntary, but taxation and government spending isn't they refuse to let us have a say other than at elections, yet wonder why they become increasingly unpopular when they do things like this.
Add to this the billions we give to French farmers via the Common Agricultural Policy and other EU boondoggles and it adds up to quite a bit of our money goes to some very unworthy causes.
It would be so good to just get one party into Parliament who would just say ENOUGH!

I wouldn't hold your breath though.

Follow the money

For years now we've had global warming climate change global climate disruption rammed down our throats by the government in its attempts to get us to stump up for something we neither need nor want. The government and ministers with interests in energy scam renewable energy schemes have taken us to the cleaners to the point where so called energy poverty is a major factor in most peoples lives. They have driven many to the point in a cold winter of having to decide whether to stay warm or eat. people have died from hypothermia as the vulnerable in our society have been culled by various government ministers and their attempts to make themselves rich by using taxpayers money to subsidise companies and organisations they are on the board of or in the case of the boy Clegg, his Mrs.
Mail.

Like all MPs, Tim Yeo is paid £65,000 a year. But he never has to make do with just that. Last year alone, three ‘green’ companies paid the Conservative MP for South Suffolk £135,970.
For this, he usually did just a few hours’ work a month. Yet he may be the firms’ most valuable asset, as Mr Yeo is chairman of the Commons Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change, and so plays a key role in shaping the green economy in which his sometime employers – AFC Energy, Eco City Vehicles and TMO Renewables – operate.
And he may be about to perform his most valuable service yet.
Mr Yeo has moved an extraordinary amendment to the Energy Bill that would set a crippling and binding target for the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by generating power in 2030. It would transform the electricity industry and bring huge benefits to the business sector, which has so generously rewarded Mr Yeo.
For the rest of us, however, the effects will be very different. It will cause already high energy bills to soar further and could lead to more power cuts. The effect on business is likely to be even more dramatic.
Yet despite the considerable drawbacks, the amendment is likely to be passed into law. Following intense campaigning by an alliance of dozens of green pressure groups and renewable-energy firms, the move has won the support of Labour, many backbench Liberal Democrats and some Tories, which may be enough to push it through Parliament.
‘Even without the amendment, the long-term consequences of the Bill will be horrible,’ said Professor Gordon Hughes of Edinburgh University, one of Britain’s leading experts on energy economics. He issued a strong warning the ‘surreal’ amendment could spell the end of British industry. ‘It’s a recipe for deindustrialisation,’ he said.

Yet I doubt Tim Yeo gives a flying fart as to whether there are no jobs left or that people will die because of his greed, he'll be alright living it up somewhere warm whilst this country goes down the tube, most of those involved in the scam will. The enviroloons won't mind either, their end game is a massive population die down and a return to a medieval economy where a rich elite lords it over an impoverished masses who struggle to survive, but at least it will be a green economy. Pity that Brazil, China and India won't play the game, but at least they can wreck this country as an example to others of allowing an idea with no basis in truth, sanity or reality to take root in the minds of an avaricious elite.
There is no global warming, there never was other than the feverish imaginations of enviroloons seeking funding and power. Well they found a good match with UK politicians who saw the fear factor as a way of making lots of money.
They even know the game is up, but are determined to milk us for a few more years. One day I hope we'll have them in our power, I have my doubts though, like rats, they always know when to leave the ship. The ones we'll get will be the fall guys and that will never be enough...

The consequences of not using joined up thinking...

The government may or may not put up the minimum price of alcohol, Cameron seems to favour it, though he seems to have a problem convincing his EU masters that it somehow doesn't breach their rules. However the consequences of driving up the price of a product that many of us legally enjoy is now being felt by those who sell it...
BBC.

UK tax authorities are not doing enough to tackle alcohol duty fraud, claims a leading off-licence chain.
Bargain Booze told the BBC that the number of stores telling HM Revenue and Customs that they face illegal competition is rising.
Last year HMRC received over 600 reports to its tax hotline relating to alcohol fraud.
The Revenue said it acted on every piece of intelligence, but admitted investigations could take years.
The government has given HMRC £17m to tackle the gangs behind the fraud.

The obvious solution is of course to reduce the price of duty to make it not worth the illegal traders time, but governments never think that way, their solution is always regulation and enforcement, aka jobs for the boys.
What they won't do is tackle the actual problem of people who go out and get blotto, nor even study as to why it's happening, possibly because they suspect the problem is actually them and that people will drink themselves into oblivion to try and forget all the shit that the government and life has foisted upon them. Perhaps is the government would butt out of our lives or improve our way of life and standards of living (pipedream I know) then they wouldn't have people getting so concerned over drunken behaviour. As it is we have laws which can deal with drunken behaviour, though too few police to deal with them and no social mechanisms in place to control it, mostly due to state interference in peoples lives by restricting the ways we can deal with law breaking and lawbreakers. That's why ordinary people end up getting arrested whilst criminals get away with it essentially, we don't know the rules, they do.
Still for as long as the government believe that putting the price up on anything that we enjoy then there will be those in the criminal fraternity that will provide those services at a much cheaper price (though not necessarily the quality) than the legal commodity.
It's called market forces, something no politician (or bureaucrat) really understands as they so rarely have to deal with the folly or consequences of their actions, except to put it on expenses.

Realistic

I don't think the word realistic means the same to David Cameron as it seems to mean to the rest of us. Mind you he is talking about attempting to negotiate with the EU which has totally different ideas on negotiating anyway, more on the lines of give us what we want or else.
Telegraph.

David Cameron will today fight for a "tough but realistic" deal on EU budget, amid reports that Brussels may be prepared to cut spending by more than expected.
He will meet this morning with Herman Van Rompuy, the EU president, who is proposing a deal that would cut the overall budget, but reduce the value of Britain’s annual rebate.
Speaking this morning Mr Cameron said he would be “negotiating hard” against an "unacceptable” EU spending increase and defending the British rebate.
The PM said it was “quite wrong” for the European Commission to propose increased Brussels budgets at a time of national austerity.
"These are very important negotiations. Clearly at a time when we are making difficult decisions at home over public spending it would be quite wrong - it is quite wrong - for there to be proposals for this increased extra spending in the EU.

The EU seem to believe in the rob Peter to pay Paul principle in offering a budget reduction, but only if we give up our rebate. No doubt Cameron believes himself to be between a rock and a hard place with his every instinct telling him to give in, but knowing it will be political suicide for him if he does.
As the post title suggests, Cameron's idea of realistic probably does not match my, or indeed pretty much anyone's idea of realistic save only the rabid EUphiles in the Tory party and the Lib Dems.
Quite frankly the sooner we leave the better, no one, but no one, believes the EUphile lies about going it alone, we're a trading nation, we'll trade plus there's a deficit of trading advantage to the EU against us so those who believe the EU will stop trading with us will have to think again.
We can and will be better off out that Cameron and many politicians can't see this is to the UK's extreme detriment.

If we did this we'd be prosecuted and jailed

Seems that child molesting isn't the only scandal to be happening in Rotherham under its MP's nose. Though again, that nose would appear to have been firmly in the trough to take much notice of what was going on under his watch. Besides in the wonderful world of socialist politics, minorities (apparently) do not come under the same rules as the rest of us. Nor it would seem do MP's either (though we already knew this)...
BBC.

Former Labour minister Denis MacShane is facing suspension from the Commons for 12-months.
A Parliamentary committee found he had submitted 19 false invoices which were "plainly intended to deceive" Parliament's expenses authority.
The committee said it was the "gravest case" which has come to them for adjudication.
Mr MacShane, who has been suspended from the Labour Party, said he was "shocked and saddened" by the move.
The MP for Rotherham had been suspended from the Labour party while police investigated his expenses claims, but he had the whip reinstated when the criminal inquiry was dropped.
The committee's report described Mr MacShane's false claims as "far from what would be acceptable in any walk of life" and "fell far below the standards of integrity and probity expected of every member of the House".
The false invoices related to work Mr MacShane carried out in Europe and he was particularly criticised for his use of public money for European travel.
The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards said the "real mischief" of Mr MacShane's actions was submitting invoices that bypassed the "checks and controls" of the House and "enabled Mr MacShane to spend public money as he thought fit".

As the post title says, if you or I had tried such a thing with our employer and been caught then the criminal investigation would not have ceased, we would have been suspended, enquiries made, sacked, arrested, charged and possibly imprisoned.
What made it worse is that this was our money, we're the employers here, not the  Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, who are supposed to work for us. Yet as ever the old boys network came into play, MacShane will not be sacked, not banned from public office and after a year it will be as if nothing ever happened. We probably couldn't even trust the voters in Rotherham to kick him out as the 'Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire' is notorious for voting in donkeys provided they wore a red rosette.
The people of Rotherham who don't vote for the likes of MacShane and who have seen their towns name dragged through the mud due to the authorities looking the other way whilst muslims of Pakistani origin were raping under age young girls supposedly in their care on almost a factory production line have my sympathy. Those who voted for the likes of MacShane and the various council members under whose watch corruption and abuse festered seem to have gotten the representation they deserved.
Pity we cannot sack him, pity we cannot bring those authorities to justice, but those in power seem to have made sure we can do no such thing...

The magic money tree

The public services and quangos are profligate with taxpayers money, usually under the belief that apart from budget constraints (often ignored) it's a bit of a magic money tree in that somehow or other it will never run out. Not even the usual threat of an incoming government to somehow get control over the nations finances seems to faze them, carefully negotiated deals with golden handshakes and redundancies mean it's usually more trouble than its worth to sack them or remove them, so the spending spree simply carries on...
Mail.

One of Britain’s best-known quangos has spent millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on redundancies, while hiring more than double the number of staff that it let go, figures reveal.
Information released under Freedom of Information laws shows that Ofcom, the communications watchdog, has spent £9.4million making workers redundant over the past five years.
But over the same period it has hired 598 staff – more than twice the 223 who have been let go.
The 2012/13 budget for Ofcom – which is run by Ed Richards, a former member of Tony Blair’s policy unit, on a salary of almost £400,000 – is £121.4million.

No company in the private sector would behave like this, no company could afford too and there are ways to shed staff by natural wastage, redundancy is only ever used as a last resort. But in the public sector? Well the magic money tree means never having to say we've run out of cash and we can't afford to do this. Yet here we have a publicly financed organisation paying 223 people off whilst taking 598 on. Someone (or some people) are seriously taking the piss here in the sure and certain knowledge that the government will let them get away with it. You can tell pretty much by the sinecure of the head of the 'firm' that this is one of Blair and Labours jobs for the boys where drones and parasites are given large sums of taxpayers cash as a way of looking after them without them having to do anything like what should be required to earn that sort of cash. No head of any taxpayer funded institution be it national or local is worth £400,000 same with chief executives in local government. A ceiling of £100,000 ought to be enough, I'm pretty sure even at that amount they'd be inundated with takers.

Value for money?

It's still staggering that MP's though nervous over the criticism of the foreign aid budget can't quite seem to grasp what true value is. True value is not collecting the budget off our taxation, value represents spending it on the people of the UK who need it. It really is that simple in my eyes, though for the life of me, MP's just cannot grasp this...
Express.

BRITAIN’S overseas aid effort should focus on helping poor countries collect their own taxes so they become less dependent on UK ­taxpayers, a report out today says.
A cross-party committee of MPs says a reliable flow of cash from income, sales, property and company taxes, offers developing nations a much better way out of ­poverty than handouts from Britain or other countries.
It urges the Department for International Development and HM Revenue and Customs to help ensure that unofficial workers and unregistered businesses are brought into tax systems in countries that receive aid.
Governing “elites” and multinational corporations should also pay – and be seen to pay – their fair share.
Britain’s aid spending is set to rise from £12billion this year to £14billion in 2014 to meet international targets, after DfID was spared the austerity cuts wielded on most other departments.
International Development Committee chairman Sir Malcolm Bruce said: “It represents excellent value for money, for the countries concerned and for UK taxpayers.”

No, it does not represent excellent value for money, it does not represent value for money full stop! Much of the aid is siphoned off by kleptocracies and in other countries like India it helps them fund their Mars mission, something our country cannot afford. We'll have pensioners dying of the cold this winter, our education and benefits system is a shambles and please, please don't get me started on the NHS.
The foreign aid budget is for when times are good, when times are hard it's slashed and either the money not collected as taxation, or spent on UK projects such as educating kids and keeping pensioners warm.
Charity begins at home, those bastards in Westminster have never bothered to ask us where we want our money spent, I doubt they'd like the results of that question anyway (which is why I suspect they don't ask) If I want to give to charity that should be my choice, not the imbeciles in Westminster and not by taxation, not now, not ever!

Entitlement

Every so often a story rears its head that beggars belief, most of them are how the native population are being treated by those in power who seem to believe our views can be either taken for granted or run over roughshod by their current pets in the name of diversity and multiculturalism. Object and you're more or less labelled a racist, fascist or bigot by the powers that be and the various legions of the damned twitterati (that well known socialist media format will hound you and expose you to the world. Yet every so often one of their protected species simply goes too far...
Mail.

‘I am entitled to live in a house like this’: Jobless mother-of-seven insists her family ‘deserve’ £1.25MILLION taxpayer-funded home they 'trashed'

• Manal Mahmoud moved into the Fulham address following a £76,000 refit
• 'I deserve to live in a nice house and get benefits,' she said.
• Council says the family's behaviour has been 'appalling' and it must improve
• Claims doors are missing, wallpaper has been ripped off, driveway tiles have been smashed and furniture has been left strewn in the garden
• Mrs Mahmoud insists she has 'right to live in a nice house and claim benefits'

An unemployed refugee on benefits who has allegedly wrecked her £1.25million townhouse paid for by the taxpayer says she is 'entitled' to live there.
Mother-of-seven Manal Mahmoud moved into the upmarket Fulham address almost three years ago, but have since been branded the 'family from hell'.
'I deserve to live in a nice house and get benefits. I deserve this house because I am human. In this country, it is our right to live here. It is important for my kids to have space to play,' she said.
Ms Cummings, who agreed to let council tenants live in her home in the leafy street close to the River Thames, apparently found doors missing or hanging off and walls written on.
The driveway had also been smashed up, wallpaper was off and carpet worn through, the Sun said.
Outside, the lawn was overgrown, furniture left in the front garden and rubbish and motorbike parts strewn around.
However, Mrs Mahmoud, who has five young daughters and two teenage sons, insisted she had the right to live in the house - which only underwent a £76,000 refit - half of which was paid for by public money - three years ago.
All of her children live at the address apart from her oldest son who is in prison for drug dealing.
She told Sun reporters: 'I deserve to live in a nice house and get benefits. In this country, it is our right to live here.'

There are people who were born here, work here and who contribute to society whom I would say had more right to have a chance to live in a house like that. Sadly though the fact that they do work and do contribute pretty much makes them ineligible to be housed in a property like that. Sadly that sort of chance only seems to go to the feckless and workshy, those who have either come here to sponge from abroad.
Again and again bloggers on the right of the political system have stated that if you come from abroad unless you have contributed to the system you should get nothing from the system. No housing, social or health benefits at all either for a fixed period of time or until you have contributed a fixed sum to the system. Sadly those on the liberal left have yet to acknowledge this wisdom, indeed they accuse those who object as bigots, racists and fascists.
So in my view Mrs Mahmoud isn't entitled to anything at all, no house, no benefits no nothing, she's taken shameless advantage of the system like many others and it needs to come to a halt. Immigrants and refugee status seekers should pay their way before they get anything at all back, it's only fair.

So what happened to payment in advance?

I'm finding it increasingly hard to keep my temper over this little scam piggybacked onto us by the EU where 'foreign' students qualify for cheap student loans then vanish without a trace after they have done their course.
Mail.

Thousands of European students who attended British universities are failing to repay taxpayer-backed loans worth £75million.
Of 8,700 graduates who have moved abroad, just 800 are currently making repayments.
The whereabouts of a further 9,900 EU students are unknown. Officials are waiting for them to provide their financial details.
The revelations follow the release of official figures, which also show how total outstanding student debt owed by British and EU graduates has ballooned to £40.2billion.
The figure has nearly doubled in four years – and will spiral even more sharply from September, when the upper limit for tuition fees is raised from just over £3,000 to £9,000 a year.
Students from EU member states have been eligible for special low-interest loans from British taxpayers to cover tuition fees since 2006, but cannot claim maintenance loans.
British-based graduates pay back their student loans automatically through the tax system once their earnings exceed £15,000.
However, there is no equivalent mechanism for those who move abroad. They are required to set up direct debits, or remember to pay online.

The problem is that the EU demands that anything we offer our own is applicable to their countrymen as well. This is why EU students get free education in Scotland whilst the English don't and why EU students qualify for taxpayer backed loans in England yet are expected only 'remember' to pay them back. No, this doesn't happen in any other EU country as they restrict their universities to those who pay, in advance and don't offer loans to help them do so. So guess what happens? Yes 'impoverished' EU students come here, get cheap guaranteed loans and then bugger off without paying them back, after all, what's not to like from their point of view? It's not like we're even making an effort to try and keep tabs on them.
Once again the government and the EU have conspired to rob the UK taxpayer blind.
Can we please just leave?

Jobsworths

One of the more irritating aspects of the so called commercialisation of the NHS was the introduction of parking fees at most major hospitals. Take my own local hospital, Medway Maritime, yes there is a problem with the sheer number of people wanting to park there, but that doesn't detract from the problem of people having to shell out a fee if they park at the hospital either for treatment or to visit a sick relative. Reducing the number of spaces for visitors in order to increase the number of staff parking places didn't help either but that's another issue. Unfortunately most hospitals put their parking controls in the hands of private companies and some are over zealous (to say the least)
Express.

A KIDNEY-SWAP patient had 10 parking tickets plastered on her car at a hospital while she was having surgery.
The woman had legitimately parked in a disabled bay and left a note on the windscreen saying she was in for transplant care.
But her Mini was blitzed by an “overzealous” warden at the ­University Hospital of Wales in ­Cardiff with tickets adding up to £300 in fines.
Yesterday the tickets were finally removed from the car after high-profile calls for private firm Vinci Park UK to show compassion. ­
Andrew Davies, Tory leader in the Welsh Assembly, said: “While I understand parking regulations and their enforcement are a necessity, some compassion would not have gone amiss.
“The issuing of 10 tickets is a ­little overzealous, to say the least.
“Everyone using a hospital car park is already under a certain amount of stress and anxiety.”

A tad OTT wouldn't you say?

Now this might be a set up, however the fact that the company or its representative bit just highlights a problem where those seeking treatment are being held over a barrel by those seeking their cash. Hospital visits are not particularly pleasant affairs for many anyway and this sort of thing simply adds to the stress factor.
I suppose you could insist on people using public transport to get to the hospital, though considering just how inconvenient public transport can be at times plus the lengthening of journey times coupled with the price of said transport does not make it a favourable option for many. In my case I can drive to the hospital in ten minutes, were I to go by bus, you're talking about at least an hour there plus an hour back complete with extortionate fares even if I buy a day ticket, it's pretty much the same price as parking for 24 hours at the hospital anyway.
Oh I'm sure there has to be some form of traffic and parking management for hospitals, I'm just not sure that the way it's currently being done is in anyone's best interests.

A close shave

One of the things that some men do is shave, I'm one of them and it costs me. It costs me because I have to buy razor blades at around about £3+ a packet and they don't last forever. I don't have the most modern razor in the world for that matter, but it still came as a bit of a shock that the blades themselves only cost 10p to make.
Mail.

The price of razor blade cartridges has surged by as much as 99 per cent in just three years – driving many men to adopt designer stubble.
The cartridges cost less than 10p to make, but shoppers are being charged as much as £3.49 each.
The biggest player, Gillette, has imposed a stealth price rise by cutting the number of replacement cartridges in its Mach3 Turbo packs from five to four.
The smaller pack did not bring a corresponding cut in the price, leaving men paying at least 20 per cent more.
At Asda, the price per cartridge has risen by 99 per cent over a three-year period.
In 2009, the chain condemned razor manufacturers for their high prices and won plaudits for slashing the cost of a five-cartridge pack of Gillette’s Mach3 blades from £8 to £5.
However, it has since pushed the price back up, to £7.99 for a smaller pack of four, which means the cost per cartridge has risen from £1 to just under £2.

I suppose it's a case of the price being that of the market and I like many others use the damned things far longer than the manufacturer recommends too. It's not like there aren't alternatives out there too, though the initial cost of an electric shaver often puts people off. I suppose I could always grow a beard too, though my last attempt did not look so good looking somewhat akin to a man eating a badger with its arse hanging out.
Still, for a long while now I've been fairly convinced that I was being ripped off in the pricing of blades, at one stage it was actually cheaper to buy a razor itself with 3 free blade packs than to buy a new set of blades.
Still, charging £8 for something that costs 10p does leave a sour taste in the mouth.
 

Money for nothing (and your chicks for free?)

There really is something wrong with a society that pays people to do a job then lets them get away with not doing it. It was Guido who first alerted me and others to the problem of Union Pilgrims and the drain on our taxes and rates that they represent. The squeals from the unions after having been caught with their fingers in the till were of no moment, these people do not represent value for money for the taxpayer and if the unions want full time members then it's up to them to pay for them, not you and not I.
Express.

AT LEAST £13million of taxpayers’ cash has been used by councils to pay teaching union officials who are now threatening strike action.
Figures released under Freedom of Information laws yesterday show councils pay more than 360 staff to work full time for the NUT, NASUWT or ATL.
The total bill for union organisers, whose duties could include planning strike action, is £13.3million a year. Of the 152 councils asked about staff with union duties, 120 responded.
The figures are based on their responses, calculated as if across all of them.
Tory MP Gavin Williamson said: “Taxpayers will be angry at the prospect of more unjustified industrial action.
“Irresponsible union leaders and their taxpayer funded helpers should think again.”
The details emerged as the NUT’s annual conference in Torquay passed a resolution calling for “mass resistance” to plans for regional pay rates.

 So, not only are we paying for some of them to do nothing but union business, they are planning mass disruption which will no doubt cost parents (and taxpayers) a lot of cash as well as they have to work around the disruption. I've also a sneaking suspicion that the ordinary members really haven't a clue as to what they'd be protesting about, especially as ordinary people would have been unlikely to be at the NUT, NASUWT or ATL conferences, just moronic leftist activists (some no doubt paid for out of our pockets) Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against unions in general, so long as they keep to their role in negotiating for their members, I'm just as pissed as hell that they somehow feel that they are justified in taking my money to pay twice for someone to work full time for them and another to do the job they are supposed too!
They want full time members then they should adjust their duties to their members to reflect this and see how many members they keep. They should never ever get a single penny from taxpayers and ratepayers to do it.

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?

Reinforcing a culture of failure

I was always under the impression that if there were a bonus scheme available, that it is a reward for success. I'm also pretty jaundiced towards any bonus schemes in the public sector as they seem to measure success by an entirely different criteria than the private sector, plus they pay out their bonuses from taxpayers money.
So this made my blood boil...
Express.

STAFF bonuses at the Met Office rocketed by a third to £3.3million last year – despite failing to predict the coldest winter in memory.
Workers at the Government-owned organisation were handed the perks despite a series of forecasting failures.
The big freeze of December 2010, the coldest in over 100 years, saw Britain grind to a halt, costing billions of pounds and jeopardising the recovery.
But staff still pocketed £3,368,000 in bonuses during 2010-11, up 30 per cent from the £2,593,000 handed out the year before. In the past five years, Met Office staff have been awarded £13.9million in bonuses – with last year’s payments averaging around £1,800 between 1,900 people.
Democratic Unionist Party MP Sammy Wilson, who obtained the information, said: “It’s a bit ironic that, in the week the Prime Minister has talked about ending the bonus culture and bonuses for failure, a Government body has awarded staff a 30 per cent hike in bonuses.’’ Business Minister Ed Davey, whose department oversees the Met Office, said payouts were “in line with reward principles”.

This strikes me as paying out a bonus simply for doing your job and doesn't seem dependent on any results, after all the Met Office are still convinced that Global Warming Climate Change Global Climate Disruption is actually happening and is something humanity can do something about. Which is why their long term models are no longer published owing to the fact that they'd become a laughing stock over the sheer inaccuracy of them. In a sense here, what is happening is the reinforcing of a culture of failure after all, next day temperature predictions are only 87 per cent right and its daily forecasts are only right six days out of seven.Which essentially means that there's only a one in seven chance of the forecast being right on the actual day they pronounce it! With all the equipment they have you'd expect a somewhat higher percentage than that. As for the long term forecasts, well unsurprisingly enough they don't count in the bonus scheme as they are for research purposes only which rather suggest that the weather does not still co-operate with their climate models. Not that this or last years weather was particularly easy to predict, certainly the seasons seem slightly out of kilter with an unusual mildness over the last 3 months though it was pretty cold this morning with the first frost of the year in Kent.
A bonus scheme is only really suitable in a company that makes money not in the public sector, the criteria for success is not judged in the same way nor are the business models even slightly similar. If Cameron et al want to go after the private sector and their bonuses, they really ought to clean up their own acts first.

Not so quietly abolished

Suckling at the state teat has become a truly outlandish business for various "experts" in all sorts of fields where they can pronounce their current bias against anything the public seem to enjoy doing. Of course, when a new government gets in and starts threatening the finance you can hear the squeals in the press, even if it was supposed to be something supposedly quietly abolished.
Telegraph.

A panel of advisers on tackling obesity has been disbanded over claims the Government was too sympathetic to the food and drink industry.
Members of the advisory group, which was set up under Labour, said the Government preferred to consult food and drink firms than scientific experts over Britain's obesity crisis.
The decision to dissolve the panel was taken some weeks ago but was not revealed until this week, according to the Financial Times.
Experts were disappointed with Health Secretary Andrew Lansley's approach to "nudge" people to make better lifestyle choices.
Klim McPherson, a member of the panel, told the FT: "Ministers were more inclined to involve food and drinks companies than scientific experts."
He said the health issue was as big a problem as global warming, adding: "An obesity epidemic cannot be prevented by individual action alone and demands a societal approach."

I suspect the food and drink industry has its own scientific experts too, considering how likely it might be that they'll get sued if they cause problems with peoples health. But the main reason that this lot had to go was the fact that it really isn't the governments job to hector people over what they eat, it should also not be the governments job to hector people over what they drink or smoke either, but we're still working on that one.
Another clue that the people involved are just placemen was the raising of the old shibboleth of "global warming" clearly someone has not been outside in the real world for far too long otherwise they'd know that the warmist industry has had to change its tack to "climate change" and then "global climate disruption" or whatever it is they're trying to scare us with these days.
I wonder how much these panelists were claiming, I suspect it was far more than the minimum wage, I suspect it was far more than the average wage. I doubt we'll miss them, the IQ of the various public services probably went up a notch or two when they were disbanded. 
Still, that's only one down, probably thousands to go, but good riddance all the same.

40 billion reasons why we should just leave now

It's smash and grab time for the rapidly failing EU, in order to raise the €1 trillion they need to stave off the inevitable they've told the various EU states to cough up (I'm sure there's an or else in there somewhere too) Which pits David Cameron in a bit of a quandary.
Express.

DAVID Cameron will come under pressure this week to block a fresh European Union bid to grab £40billion for its budget.
Eurosceptic MPs say they will try to force the Prime Minister to use his veto to stop the increase which would saddle British taxpayers with a colossal bill for the rest of this decade.
MPs will have the chance to debate proposals that would increase the EU’s budget for seven years covering 2014-2020 to one trillion euros (£898 billion).
It would amount to a 4.9 per cent rise on the funding for 2007-2013 – a rise of some £40billion.
Britain, France and Germany all say the budget increase, proposed by the European Commission, is unacceptably high.
It comes a week after 81 Conservatives rebelled against the PM to back a call for a referendum on UK membership of the European Union.
The Commons will be asked to back a Government motion that supports ministers’ “ongoing efforts to reduce the commission’s proposed budget”.
But it is likely that Tory MPs will demand that Britain uses its veto to block the increase.
Chris Heaton-Harris, one of the Tory referendum rebels, said: “Voters realise that if the EU’s budget goes up at a time when national governments are imposing cuts, then something is going wrong.”
Mr Cameron is already under massive pressure over Britain’s membership of the European Union.
Polls have suggested that two-thirds of the public – and 80 per cent of Tory voters – agreed with the referendum revolt last week.
Philip Hollobone, also one of the 81 rebels, said: “Many backbenchers think that the seven-year EU budget is a very good opportunity for the government to use its veto if it does not get what it wants.”

 Cameron has already wound his backbenchers up with his heavy handed control freakery on the referendum debate and now has to go cap in hand to the commons to ask them to cough up for the EU (or else, I'm certain there's an or else) He'll need the support of the Lib Dems (normally a given on the EU) and quite possibly the treacherous Labour party and even then I suspect he's not going to get it, nor will he be able to repatriate powers back from the EU as he doesn't seem to know which powers he wants back (Hint, all of them Dave)
I'm fairly sure now we're approaching the straw/camels back moment, though it will be interesting (from a watching a train crash perspective) on just how badly the damage will be before it does collapse and the Germans finally invade France (again).
We are living in interesting times.

Money for nothing

Once again the looters as Richard North of EU Referendum calls them are making off with our hard earned cash without any regrets or shame.
Mail.

Quango chiefs are pocketing payoffs of up to £250,000 each as their discredited agencies are wound up.
Nine bodies set up to boost local economies are to be scrapped next year after being criticised as wasteful and bureaucratic.
Figures obtained by the Daily Mail reveal the generous deals for senior executives at the Regional Development Agencies created and championed by John Prescott.
Advantage West Midlands admitted that one unnamed official received £200,000 to £250,000. The body’s corporate director Tim Gebbels also walked away with £109,512 when he left.
To date, 15 senior quango executives have received payments of more than £100,000.
Seven of the quangos have so far revealed that they have laid off 799 staff at a total cost of £23.4million, equal to almost £30,000 each.
But the top officials are getting much more. Stacy Hall, director of communications and tourism at One North East, received £120,890 when she took voluntary redundancy last September.
Stephen Peacock, enterprise and innovation director at the South West RDA, was handed £113,701 in a taxpayer-funded deal. In many cases, senior staff appear to have been given the equivalent of a year’s salary.

 One thing the Mail fails to mention is that many of these looters then move onto another well paid sinecure at another Quango or local authority and the whole ghastly process of robbing the taxpayer begins again.
What they seem to forget is names are being taken, faces remembered and lengths of hempen rope and/or piano wire being imagined around their necks for the inevitable day our patience breaks and our wrath is forthcoming. Every day brings it closer and the more they rob us the greater it becomes.
All we need is a powercut during the X Factor final and we'll have the bastards...
Well I can dream can't I?

Living high on the hog

They still don't get it and it's looking increasingly unlikely this side of the revolution that they ever will, because there are no consequences really to their actions. I'm talking about various public bodies spending taxpayers cash like it's an inexhaustible fountain, which I suppose to them it really is as no government in recent memory has actually tackled the bastards and made them accountable to both the government and the public. Take the Audit Commission (please) in any ordinary set of circumstances you'd expect the people there to have a tight rein on what they are spending our cash on, after all it's supposed to be their job to keep an eye on what every other government department is spending our cash on.

Telegraph.

Senior figures at the Audit Commission, which polices spending at local authorities, NHS trusts and other government bodies, spent almost £20,000 of public money over the past two years on luxury goods and services.

The body is thought to be the first government organisation to release details of spending on taxpayer-funded credit cards. Thousands of other civil servants also have the cards, which have been used for spending of about £1  billion, leading to warnings of a public funds scandal.

The credit card receipts disclose that Audit Commission executives enjoyed meals costing more than £600 at L’Escargot and Coq d’Argent in London. Hundreds of pounds were also spent at a brasserie owned by Raymond Blanc, the French chef. In total, £11,390 was spent on fine dining in two years.

Executives also made 30 purchases at florists, costing more than £1,300, and also bought goods from HMV and Thorntons, cinema tickets and doughnuts.

The details were released to Eric Ollerenshaw, a Conservative MP, and will be officially disclosed to the House of Commons this week. 

A government insider said that another “MPs’ expenses-style scandal” could emerge if details of credit card expenditure across government were published. Senior mandarins are understood to be privately seeking to block such a release.

The government procurement cards are Visa cards issued by several banks for small office expenditure, including travel. Some Whitehall departments insist that the cards are used for all spending of less than £5,000, which is automatically paid off from public funds.

It really beggars belief at times the profligacy and corruption of taxpayers cash at the top of the public services, if anyone tried that in my company their feet wouldn't even touch the floor as they were kicked out and means set in motion to recoup the money through either civil or criminal courts. Though most expenses wouldn't even be allowed to reach the stage that these troughing pigs have managed, they'd just look at the receipts and say we're not paying that. But in the weird world of the public services such basic safeguards don't seem to have a place in the culture of waste and mismanagement at the top of the tree, though I suspect the junior ranks might just struggle to get a replacement paperclip from the stationary store such would be the paperwork involved.
It will be interesting to see if senior mandarins in the civil service do manage to block the release of credit card expenditure on their Visa government procurement cards after all, they can spend up to £5,000 on them and it's paid off automatically no questions asked, well at least until now, people like Eric Ollerenshaw MP are asking and seem to be trying to get to the bottom of the foetid stink of corruption that emanates from senior civil servants.
Will he succeed? We can hope so. Will heads roll? We can hope so too. What we can be sure of is that the senior mandarins will fight like trapped rats to prevent even a hint of their largesse ever coming to the attention of the public or even MP's if they can help it. It's one of the reasons they have to go, or be strung from the lampposts as and when we get around to them after hanging the MP's and lawyers etc.
It's a long list and it just keeps getting longer and possibly always will at least until they show a lot more respect to the long suffering taxpayer and really start giving value for money.