A Place to Stand

-----------------------------------------------------------

 

      In "promising" long term pensions for an independent Scotland larger than for the UK the SNP have gone beyond exaggeration to outright dishonesty. Scotland has a slightly older population than England and with less immigration it is aging faster so our pensions will cost more. Oil, while a long way from running out, is in long term decline while with oil reserves worldwide increasing it is likely to drop in price so that, over decades, we must expect less money from it.

 

      If the economies of both stay the same it is inevitable a separate Scotland will have less money, per person, for pensions.

 

      In theory, if we had a progressive government committed to maximising growth through free markets, like, my own, UKIP, or as Ireland had for 2 decades, we could easily achieve the average growth of the non-EU countries which is 6%. In which case matching UK pensions 10 years from now would be easy. Equally a united UK government could do the same - separation is far less important than economic competence.

 

      However we don't. During one TV debate the Green leader, sharing the Yes vote platform assured us that "nobody should vote Yes in the expectation that we will have any growth in the next 10 years" & Ms Sturgeon, sharing his platform made no move to disagree, though I, speaking from the audience, disagreed vehemently with that programme. Subsequently I wrote both to the SNP organisation and to Mr Salmond personally asking them to disagree with that promise but they didn't and the SNP's "100% renewable by 2020" promise makes even zero growth extremely optimistic.

 

       If we are going to have more pensioners, less oil, and zero growth, or worse, simple arithmetic shows that a promise of higher pensions simply cannot be kept.

 

Neil Craig

 

       The stuff in italics was edited which includes the stuff about UKIP and the reference to the TV debate. It is reasonable an English paper would have no interest in the debate but inexplicable that the Scots ones don't.

 

       Perhaps one of the Scottish papers will say what reason, apart from censoring No campaigners, or possibly just UKIP No campaigners, persuaded them not to publish this letter.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to Clark Cross for notifying me of this in the Scottish Daily Mail on Thursday. This is how I wrote it:

 

Sir,

       We have seen political hay being made by a promise of dinners for children.

 

      At a cost in delivery of £600 million but when you remember that there are costs in collecting taxes and in administering payments and in practice a certain amount of slippage into other projects we are talking about roughly £1 billion on taxes. That is about 0.3p on income tax or some direct equivalent. this is not an impossible amount but it is significant

 

       Perhaps the benefit to the kids means we should be doing it anyway. Perhaps not. The problem is that there is no case for discussing only the state payment side of the question in isolation. You cannot reach a sensible conclusion if you don't use  the entire equation. Yet this is precisely what the state owned BBC and the most of  rest of the media who follow their lead, are doing.

 

       If the Pseudo Liberals* are going to go into the next election promising to increase income tax by a manageable 0.3p or indeed to come up with other such policies and acknowledge the higher total then that would be honourable.

 

       For Scots, as a rule of thumb every penny in income tax raises £330 million here. If every bit of new spending was honestly presented in such terms we would have a much more adult political debate here.

 

Neil Craig    

UKIP Glasgow secretary

 

* I have to say "pseudo liberals" because I was expelled from the party some years ago on a charge of being an economic liberal (& supporter of nuclear power and opponent of illegal war). I am, by any definition the originators of the term understood, proudly a liberal.

----------------------------------------------------  

A few minor editings - they changed "dinners" to "school lunches" which may be clearer, "kids" to "children" - nothing serious.

 

The serious and unexpected bit was putting my bit about the liberals, which I added only for background, into the letter. Previous experience had shown me that mention of that was unmentionable.

 

Also unexpected was keeping my status in UKIP in. Probably the latter makes the former more newsworthy.

 

All in all I am proud of this one. The point that all political spending promises cost taxpayers more than is spent is vital. I didn't commit to not spending the money but only to putting thought into the process.

 

And still the Herald/Scotsman aren't publishing such letters.

 

Ed Miliband's Conference Speech

I have taken out most of the anecdotes about people who liked him and the "caring" crap which shortens it considerably:

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I want to start today with the simplest of thoughts...Britain can do better than this....a politics that hears your voice – rich and poor alike – accepting their responsibilities top each other. One Nation, we are going to make it happen, and today I am going to tell you how.


I want to start with leadership...I when I became leader I faced a decision about whether we should stand up to Rupert Murdoch. It wasn’t the way things had been done in the past, but it was the right thing to do so I did it. And together we faced them down. And then the other week I faced an even bigger decision about whether the country should go to war. So I said no.....

And he said to me, "Is anyone ever going to do anything about those gas and electric bills that just go up and up, faster than I can earn a living?" He wanted someone to fight for him. ....For generations in Britain when the economy grew the majority got better off. And then somewhere along the way that vital link between the growing wealth of the country and your family finances was broken.... this goes beyond one party or one government.....

{Cameron} has been Prime Minister for 39 months and in 38 of those months wages have risen more slowly than prices. That means your living standards falling year, after year, after year. So in 2015 you’ll be asking am I better off now than I was five years ago? .... Now of course it would have taken time to recover from the global financial crisis [there never was a global crisis, there was no "world" recession] he thinks for Britain to win the global race you have to lose, lower wages, worse terms and conditions, fewer rights at work. But Britain can’t win a race for the lowest wages against countries where wages rates are pennies an hour and the more we try the worse things will get for you. Britain can’t win a race for the fewest rights at work against the sweat shops of the world and the more we try the worse things will get for you. And Britain can’t win a race for the lowest skilled jobs against countries where kids leave school at the age of 11. And the more we try the worse things will get for you. It is a race to the bottom. Britain cannot and should not win that race.

.... to make Britain better we have got to win a race to the top, not a race to the bottom. A race to the top which means that other countries will buy our goods the companies will come and invest here and that will create the wealth and jobs we need for the future but we are not going to be able to do it easily.... It is going to be tough; it is not going to be easy. And I’m not going to stand here today and pretend to you it is. We are going to have to stick to strict spending limits to get the deficit down. We are not going to be able to spend money we don’t have and frankly if I told you we were going to you wouldn’t believe me, the country wouldn’t believe me and they would be right not to believe me. ... let me tell you how. It is about the jobs we create, it is about the businesses we support, it is about the talents we nurture, it is about the wages we earn and it is about the vested interests that we take on. Let me start with the jobs of the future. The environment is a passion of mine because when I think about my two kids who are 2 and 4 at the moment and not talking that much about the environment ..... In 20 years’ time they’ll say to me ‘were you the last generation not to get climate change or the first generation to get it?’ That is the question they’ll be asking.

But it is not just about environmental care. It is also about the jobs we create in the future. You see some people say, including George Osborne, that we can’t afford to have environmental at a time like this. He is dead wrong. We can’t afford not to have an environmental commitment at a time like this. That is why Labour will have a world leading commitment in government to take all of the carbon out of our energy by 2030. A route map to one million new green jobs in our country. That is how we win the race to the top. [in fact he knows that for every "Green" job created 3.7 jobs in tthe real economy are destroyed so that is a promise to destroy 2.7 million real jobs] we’ve got to support the businesses of the future. Now many of the new jobs in the future will come from a large number of small businesses not a small number of large businesses. And this is really important. If you think 15 years ahead, the rate of change and dynamism is so great that most of the new jobs that will be being done will be by companies that don’t yet exist. Now that changes the priorities for government. When this government came to office, since they came to office they cut taxes for large business by £6 bn but raised taxes on small businesses. Now I don’t think that is the right priority. Yes we need a competitive tax regime for large businesses but frankly they’ve short-changed small business and I’m going to put it right. If Labour wins power in 2015 we will use the money that this government would use to cut taxes for 80,000 large businesses to cut business rates for 1.5 million businesses across our country. That is the way we win the race to the top. One Nation Labour. The party of small business. Cutting small business rates when we come to office in 2015 and freezing them the next year benefitting by at least £450 a year [the AOLs that barely existed 15 years ago didn't grow beccause government returned £450 to them]. ....we’ve also got to nurture the talents of the next generation. The skills of people. There are so many brilliant businesses in our country who provide amazing training for the workforce, but look, we have got to face facts, leading businesses say this to me too which is there aren’t enough of them and we have got to work to change that so we will say if you want a major government contract you must provide apprenticeships for the next generation. And we’ll also say to companies doing the right thing, training their workforce that they will have the power to call time on free-riding by competitors who refuse to do the same.

... If the school system fails our young people they shouldn’t be ending up on benefits. They should be ending up in education or training so they can get back on the road to a proper career.

.... we want every primary school in Britain to have the breakfast clubs and after school care that parents need and that's what the next Labour government will do.[nothing about actually improving education]

To win the race to the top we've also got to deal with the issue of low pay. The National Minimum Wage, one of the last Labour government’s proudest achievements,.. The minimum wage has been falling in value and we’ve got to do something about it.

..... there are some sectors which actually can afford to pay higher wages,... the banks. So we've got to look at whether there are some sectors where we can afford a higher minimum .... the next Labour government will strengthen the minimum wage to make work pay for millions in our country. That’s how we win the race to the top.

.....Rogue landlords, putting 15 people in tied housing - it's a race to the bottom; not under my government.....

Take the gas and electricity companies. We need successful energy companies, in Britain. We need them to invest for the future. But you need to get a fair deal and frankly, there will never be public consent for that investment [which means it will all be state investment] unless you do get a fair deal.....

If we win the election 2015 the next Labour government will freeze gas and electricity prices until the start of 2017. Your bills will not rise. It will benefit millions of families and millions of businesses.....Now the companies aren’t going to like this because it will cost them more but they have been overcharging people for too long because of a market that doesn’t work. [so preumably he accepts the private sector won't invest]... So we will pass legislation in our first year in office to do that, and have a regulator that will genuinely be on the customers’ side but also enable the investment we need.

.......we'll say to private developers, you can't just sit on land and refuse to build. We will give them a very clear message - either use the land or lose the land, that is what the next Labour government will do.

We'll say to local authorities that they have a right to grow, and neighbouring authorities can’t just stop them. [I assume this means high spending Labour Councils will have an automatic right to take over and plunder surrounding councils] We'll identify new towns and garden cities and we'll have a clear aim that by the end of the parliament Britain will be building 200,000 homes a year, more than at any time in a generation.

......National Health Service, the greatest institution of our country....Just putting a £50 grab rail in the home stops somebody falling over, prevents them ending up in hospital

　

we can’t just be a party of 200,000 people. We have got to be a party of 500,000, 600,000, or many more. .... not satisfied that 33% of Labour MPs are women, they want it to be 50% and they are right. ....devolution works.... I’ll be the Prime Minister who repeals the bedroom tax.

the easy path for politics is to divide, that’s the easy part [which is by definition what class war is]. I’ll lead a government that fights for you.

[Which reduces it to a short speech but you aren't missing anything but platitudes and cheesy anecdotes)

    Having yesterday blogged about how the Pseudo-Liberals' default blogging position is censorship I would like to draw attention to a thoughtful post from one of their bloggers, David Boyle, on the Godfrey Bloom case. He is not being supportive of UKIP, nor should one expect him to, but he makes a good point (even with an aside about Bloom's age which is unworthy of him) and warns us of a road of PCness down which he accepts his own party have wandered for decades. Underlinings added:

        "Anyone who doubts the Farage phenomenon should watch this clip of his speech to deeply uncomfortable looking German bankers in the European parliament, taking what seems to me to be a genuinely liberal line on the euro crisis.  Politics does need people like that.

But what I wanted to say was this.  I realise I must be the only person in the world, apart from Farage's colleague Godfrey Bloom, to feel sorry for Godfrey Bloom.

There he is making a deeply unwise comment about women not cleaning behind the fridge in a fringe meeting, and the next thing he knows, he is out on his ear.

And of all the things that Farage might need to apologise for - his brand of populism, his strange other-worldly policies on crime, military spending and immigration  (they have to speak "fluent English" apparently) - what really upsets him is that Bloom has not realised that the word 'sluts' has changed in meaning since he was a boy, some centuries ago.

Personally I don't clean behind my fridge.  I've never actually been there.  It is uncharted territory.  It may be a black hole sucking in dark matter for all I know.  No doubt Godfrey Bloom would forgive this on the grounds that, as a man, I ought to be outside slaying things.

But what this strange incident tells me is that UKIP has started worrying about political correctness.  It has started agonising about the impression it gives beyond its core support.  It means they are just like other political parties - and that will blunt Farage's straight-talking. like nothing else
First, you complain about your colleagues understanding of four letter words.  The next thing you know, you are dissembling like all your opponents.  It is a slippery slope and it is fascinating to see that UKIP are now on it."
-----------------------------------------------------

       I think UKIP are quite aware of this problem, made, as I say in comments, far worse by the fact that our state owned media monopoly, is clearly trying to do everything possible to puff up smears against us - something the Pseudo-Liberals obviously do not suffer from. How this tightrope is ultimately walked is, fortunately not up to me. I think our reaction is nearly right though if asked I would say that game theory suggests counter attack is usually better, in the long term, than turning the other cheek.

        In that vein Nigel did speak during the conference about the incident where Bloom hit Michael Crick. Crick is a nasty lying little fascist prostitute who well deserves hitting, but Bloom should not have hit him.  He should have stuck to saying that in mentioning one UKIP photo which, as is bound to happen sometime by random chance, showed only white people Crick and the Channel 4 were showing themselves to be racist - which is undoubtedly true. This was reinforced when Farage later pointed out several other photos in that conference book had coloured people in them and with some irony, that if Channel 4 had actually opened the book they would have known this.

        I strongly suspect that, at least once, some C4 researcher must have opened the book. in which case Crick was not just being racist, he was being deliberately dishonest, presumably on C4 instructions. If at all honourable Channel would apologise for thus lying in the totalitarian cause.

       I'm sure they won't apologise but the very fact that C4, the BBC et al felt they had to run with the story of the word rather than of the reporter being hit suggests they believe the public would think he well deserved it. Which in turn means they know they are close to being rumbled as some of the most biased and totalitarian broadcasters in the world.

       From my comment on David's blog:

     "The problem is that UKIP know that the media, led by the BBC, legally required to be "balanced" but in fact one of the most slanted totalitarian broadcasters in the world, is looking for any smear it can. As you say the word was not intended to be, nor taken by women in the audience as, insulting and the media certainly know it.

But UKIP have to ensure we give no hostages to these propagandists.

Most of the reason they have to rely on smears is because they know perfectly well that in virtually every instance UKIP's policies are both far more sensible (at least for parties with the nation's interest in mind) and far more popular than those of any faction of the totalitarian cartel in charge.

This was shown in the "bongo" case where. to attack him, the media had to actually explain a little of what Bloom actually said and found that most people agreed that giving increased "aid" that only enriches corrupt politicians was not a good thing after all.

You only have to play the man when you can't play the ball and it is quite obvious that this is the position your totalitarians are in."

      David did not disagree with any of that.

       I am going to have to disagree with David's opinion of our policies - "populism" if it simply means being popular rather than adopting policies purely because they are popular, is not a bad thing. By the alternative definition there have been many attempts by the old parties at populism of the other sort, not least the nominal hardening of Pseudo-Liberal immigration policies since Eastleigh; I agree with seriously opposing crime; I see nothing strange about wanting immigrants to be fluent in English; while was not enthusiastic for UKIP policy on increasing military spending it is clear that we are now moving to doing better rather than more expensive (eg getting rid of most of the 70k MoD procurement clerks who have procured so much stuff that was late, overpriced and doesn't work) and that seems sensible to me (though if the X-prize budget were to be given some of the military budget, like DARPA in the US, I would be ecstatic).

Disgruntled Liberal - censored
-----------------------------
Caron's Musings - censored http://carons-musings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/syria-what-do-liberal-democrats-want.html#gpluscomments
-----------------