652 days ago
The tweet below is from Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves but I also cite Lib Dem leader Ed Davey for spouting equal tosh this morning. I start with BP (BP.) and windfall taxes. Then it is onto Tintra (TNT) with two more bombshell exposes today. My target price here is now officially 0p. Then it is onto another Dominic White, of the fraud Supply@ME Capital (SYME) infamy, MaxRets Ventures (MAX). En passant I mention DeepVerge (DVRG).
1422 days ago
Death, like taxation and the sheer awfulness of Mrs Brown’s Boys, is something that cannot be avoided or denied and must be confronted by all of us in the end. When you bring a child into this world, you know that one dreadful day you will have to explain to it that he or she will in the end die. It is awful and unavoidable. We all die in the end.
3581 days ago
Prompted by the words this week of Crispin Odey (see here) but also by the unedifying spectacle that was Question Time in Wrexham I ask why cannot the political class tell the truth about the NHS, pensions, welfare and the appalling fiscal mess we are in. Instead they just lie to us and tell us what we want to hear. I despair.
3582 days ago
As part of the dirty tricks campaign waged by the Labour party, the Mrs left me off the electoral register thereby denying me the opportunity to vote. I am sure that Ed Miliband is profoundly grateful to his one loyal supporter in this household for this act of electoral sabotage.
As luck would have it, the Mrs is away, and a letter from Bristol City Council has landed on the doormat. It stresses that “Your vote matters, make sure you’re in.” Keen to ensure that the sanctimonius eco-Nazis at Bristol City Council do not target me for disobeying them I have done as they urged and registered online to vote and applied for a postal vote at the same time. I have now filed the letter and envelope in the correct recycling bin.
But can Bristol prove that my vote matters? As far as I can see none of the main parties, and I include UKIP and the Greens to humour any fruitcakes or eco-smellies who are reading, are prepared to be honest with the electorate about the deficit and debt. None are prepared to fess up that with an ageing population we just have to extend the retirement and pension age by a decade and a half, to slash welfare spending and to accept that we cannot any more afford an NHS giving free healthcare on demand.
But no politician is honest about this. They all tinker
3651 days ago
I start this week's video postcard with a couple of comments on life at the Greek Hovel. Pictures will follow. But the main focus is on the Rochester fallout. UKIP and immigration is a mess and I explain why. Equally the comments of Emily Thornberry, the snobbish Labour prig from Islington are a symptom of an out of touch and despised political class.
3835 days ago
And so the old parties run by the political classes are running scared of UKIP. After UKIP wins the Euros on Sunday there will be more hand wringing and talk of “we must listen.” Of course they will not. UKIP is not going to win the Westminster elections and so there is a pretence of listening to the voters but it is a sham. Which is why UKIP may not win any or many Westminster seats but it will not go away.
LibLabCon could neutralise it at a strike with just two announcements which negate the poisonous issues of sleaze and Europe.
3841 days ago
Reading this morning’s press I am inundated with reports about the latest “UKIP car crashes” and the mainstream press now questions first whether UKIP will win Thursday’s poll and second, if it does win, how soon the bubble will pop. About the only person calling this right is Tim Stanley in the Telegraph.
I write this as someone now almost 99% certain NOT to vote UKIP, more on that later.
The “car crashes” are in reality nothing of the sort. Some chap in Gloucester has made a comment about shooting a “pooftah” to get the others to turn straight, another fellow in Sussex seems to have an unusual degree of sympathy with the Third Reich and both are standing in the local elections for UKIP. So what, there are a few fruitcakes in UKIP. What’s new?
Nigel Farage was given a good duffing up in an LBC Radio interview. He lost his temper as did his PR man and he sounded a little less clear cut than usual. The interviewer ruffled him. But again so what? 99% of the population did not listen and since Farage was banging on (yet again) about immigration one suspects that his general theme probably played well with many anyway.
What Tim Stanley flags up is something those inside the political and media bubble in Westminster just do not appreciate. The great unwashed, that is you and I and the other plebs and peasants, are sick to the back teeth
3879 days ago
And so finally the greedy pig Culture Secretary has quit as a minister. This vile woman is an expenses cheat. Someone who has stolen taxpayer’s cash for vast personal enrichment. In the private sector she would not have been demoted (from minister to MP) but fired. And then prosecuted. And would never worked in her chosen career again. But she is an MP so it is different. The greedy pig Miller will be back.
Who says so? Call Me Dave Cameron says so. He looks forward to welcoming her back to Government. Like David Laws and many others before him the thief gets a temporary demotion and when we poor saps, the plebs, the peasants, the taxpayers who pay for this stinking farce have become a bit less angry, the crim will be allowed back into Government. Cameron has said so explicitly.
I am not sure what makes me most angry. Is it the thievery of Miller? Is it the way
3882 days ago
My weekly video postcard covers greedy pig sleazy minister Maria Miller and the corruption of the political classes – this is not just about Miller although why she has not be fired escapes me it is about the whole system.
Next week I am in Delphi, I shall try to get footage home but like many things in Greece, the internet does not always work.
My weekly financial video postcard covers the fireworks at the UK Investor Show and can be viewed HERE
4022 days ago
You would have thought that greedy MPs have by now decided to err on the side of caution when it comes to expenses. Oh no. Think again.
Before we start on that I hope you can see that I now sport a 17 day old Movember moustache and if you care to sponsor my Movember efforts you can do so here.
This MP scandal is over office rents. And it goes to the heart of the battle between the political classes and we mere plebs.
4064 days ago
It is perhaps not the greatest film ever made but for those of us who instinctively mistrust and despise the political class it is worth watching at least once a year and with November 5 approaching now is as good a time as any.
The squalor of the 3p expense claim made by Liam Fox MP (personal wealth estimated at £1 million) just reminded me how much I loathed those who rule us. Fox wants to restrict abortion, he opposes gay marriage, he voted for a smoking ban (and then against), he voted for the illegal war in Iraq, he thinks he has a right to tell us how we should live our lives, what we should do with our own bodies. And then that we should recompense him three frigging pence because he cannot be bothered to walk 100 yards down the road.
Fox is by far and away not the most despicable member of the political class. He is merely one of many despicable members of that class who trough it big time as they make our world ever more authoritarian and unpleasant.
If you have never seen, the speech from V for Vendetta have a butchers and then get the whole movie out on DVD in time for Guy Fawkes night.
4064 days ago
Last year Liam Fox MP had to pay back £3,000 of fiddled expenses. This year the sum under discussion is 3p but in many senses it is worse. The 3p expense claim is legitimate but none the less horrendous.
The claim was made for a car journey in his constituency of 100 metres. This begs one obvious question of Mr Fox, who does not look to be exactly anorexic: “why are you such a lazy bastard – might you not have walked?”
Apart from the fact that sleazy Fox is an idle lard-arse, he also shows a total disregard for taxpayer’s cash. Surely he is aware that the costs of processing his claim for 3p will be several pounds? Does he really think that the taxpayer should be faced with such a burden so that he can reclaim three measly pence?
Of course he does. Fox may talk the talk on cutting the Government deficit but that means cuts for other folk not for the greedy political elite. He - like all the rest of those in the Westminster bubble swilling their taxpayer suibsidized booze while lecturing us on the need for minimum alcohol pricing reckon that austerity is only for "ordinary" people.
Fox. You are a scumbag. Just like the rest of the political class. As we approach November 5th I once again think warmly of the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions.
4120 days ago
In the 1950s the Tory Party had 3 million members. When Call Me Dave was elected leader it had 258,000 members. These days the Tories won’t say how many members they have but it seems that the number is sub 100,000. And with an average age of almost 70 and each year seeing Councillors (the main local recruiters) lose seats won during the hated Labour Government that number will carry on falling.
Some blame call Me Dave for pissing off traditional Tories
4128 days ago
My father says that the daughter of Sir George Young (his brother in law) let it be known at a recent family gathering that she was cross with me for writing on this blog a suggestion that her Dad was not virile. I do not know what she was smoking but I have never discussed the virility of Sir George here or anywhere else. The parastical political classes seem to think that the rest of us have an interest in that sort of thing. We really don’t give a damn..
I did opine that since he was not middle aged, Sir George, could not have been one of the Downing street lovers ( they were identified early on as both being middle aged). But as to what Sir George is like in the sack, I know nothing and care even less.
4154 days ago
I noted here six days ago that MPs (who earn between 4 and 7 times the national average wage) reckon that if they don’t get a £10,000 pay rise they will be forced to fiddle their expenses again. But of course I got my sums wrong. It is even worse that I first thought.
For we learned at the weekend that 150 of the Westminster swine are claiming £50 a week for transport costs for their kids. That is deemed a legitimate expense. £2,500 a year tax free – that is worth £4,500 as a higher rate taxpayer. How many other "little" fittles like that are there which are all 100% legit under rules created by the MPs themselves? One suspects quite a few. And it all adds up.
As a bonus we also discovered that speaker John Bercow managed to claim £84 travel expenses for a journey of exactly one mile. Ironically it was a journey to visit the body set up to oversee MP’s expenses.
The political classes are right now thrashing about in a row about how Labour is bankrolled by Unite and the seeming corruption within Unite designed to fix election meetings. I do not give a damn about this. Or about the various corporates and dodgy hedge fund managers who bankroll the Tories. The real issue is that the entire political class is venal, corrupt and out of touch.
The battle is not between Labour and Tory or between Call Me Dave and Miliband. It really makes no difference who is in charge. Both accept the ultimate supremacy of the Evil Empire, pander to the moral sensibilities of a metropolitan elite and are happy to see the deficit remain out of control as Britain goes bankrupt every more quickly.
The battle is between the political classes who are robbing the citizenry, making Airstrip One ever less free while feathering their own nests and the rest of us.
Every time a new expenses scandal emerges or there is another episode of beltway sleaze newspaper columnists (part of the political media beltway class and inveterate expense fiddlers themselves) write “they still don’t get it do they?” Er… they never got it and they never will and any pre-election suggestion otherwise is mere pretence.
4156 days ago
Am I missing something from afar? I read that the Unite Union gives Labour vast amounts of money and now stands accused of trying to rig selection meetings in safe seats so that crony candidates who believe in thinks like workers’ rights and all those terribly passé concepts of the 1970s get picked. Heck so what is the news?
We always knew that Labour was bankrolled by the Trades Unions. It must have been a bit galling for the Unions to pony up only to see a bunch of Middle Class privileged young men ignore a vast amount of what they were promised. And so the Unions now want to ensure that MPs they bankroll can be relied upon to do the right thing. I.e. the wrong thing.
It is almost amusing to see Ed Milliband reporting his biggest backer to the Old Bill. But these are squabbles among the political classes. During the past thirty years Union membership has fallen off a cliff – outside the public sector they are pretty irrelevant. Political party membership and voter turnout has fallen off a cliff too.
I spotted the other day a CV of a contemporary of mine from Oxford.
4163 days ago
Over on Shareprophets.com my financial weekly video postcard this week looks at the small resources stocks. It explains why there traditional sources of funding have been cut off and asks how many of them are actually already at a near zero real cash position and asks why they cannot be more transparent about it.
You can watch that video here.
My political postcard covers two topics.
In that vein my next video postcard here on TomWinnifrith.com will come to you from Greece
Video
4187 days ago
Speaker John Bercow is in many ways a horrible little man. However for once I have to applaud him for stating what is a self-evident truth on the matter of immigration – something which the mainstream parties have lambasted him for as they grub for votes.
Bercow stated: "I want to underline the fact that there has been an important wave of immigrants that came to Great Britain from new member states and in many cases they came with aptitudes and a commitment, an involvement we haven't always seen in our labour force.”
He is bang on the money. The growing success of our Real Man Pizza Company restaurant in Clerkenwell sees us again hiring for another waitress/sous chef position. It is hard work and if you play the benefits system well you are better off not taking the gig. Once again the advert goes up and once again I have received a flood off applicants from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe, all keen and in London looking for work.
However the idea of working for £6.50 an hour or may be £7 really does not appeal to native Brits. I have received absolutely ZERO applicants from British born workers. And how many unemployed young Brits are there in London?
Real Man currently has one part time waitress who is British and killing a few months before heading off to set up a scuba diving school. She is the only British applicant (other than one who was utterly illiterate) I have had recruiting for 5 staff posts since Christmas. I have had hundreds of European applicants. Most have degrees and qualifications and are well spoken and presentable.
Bercow is bang on the money. Our welfare system has created an attitude amongst far too many of our home grown “talent” that they will wait for the “right job” or forever and live off welfare. Thank God for immigration.
Bercow is attacked
4190 days ago
Recorded on the occasion of the first anniversary of this site, a day when it attracted a record 42,020 page impressions, this is a short message of thanks but also on one of my big themes of the past twelve months: free speech and the increasingly Orwellian nature of Britain
I start with the Downing Street affair and what it says about how the establishment want certain information kept within the political classes and the “bubble.” I do not care who shagged who but I care that “they all know” and are using taxpayers cash to stop “us” knowing. They will fail.
I move onto Secret Courts and the way the Police are used to clamp down on freedom of expression in Airstrip One.
Thank you for watching.
My weekly financial video postcard appears on Shareprophets.com here
4190 days ago
It seems as if Panorama and The Telegraph have nailed three Lords as well as Sir Patrick Mercer MP for asking questions in Parliament in return for cash. In a just world all would lose their titles and would be charged with something and resign at once. But will the political classes allow four of their own to face real justice? There is not a cat in hell’s chance of this.
Apparently Mercer took 24 hours to decide the “honourable” course of action after the sleazy pig knew that he was to be exposed. And even then he got it wrong. The honourable thing would be to quit as an MP at once without compensation and pay the cash he trousered to a good charity. Instead he keeps the cash and will stay in Parliament for two more years (albeit as an Independent not an Official Tory) trousering a vast wage plus expenses and then get a big payoff.
Mercer – you are not in the slightest bit honourable, you are a sleazy scumbag. But in your defence you are not alone.
How many other MPs are taking cash for arranging passes, asking questions in Parliament and assisting various companies without declaring it? In the Westminster political/media bubble other names crop up again and again. It is just that it is either hard to stand these things up or no-one can really be bothered as when you are all part of the same club, exposes make life just a bit too complicated.
If you think this story ends with Mercer or Labour’s Lord Jack Cunningham (whose dad was also done for political corruption, it is a family trait) you are sadly naïve. All the established parties know that there are rotten apples waiting to be exposed with a blue, red or yellow rosette. This scandal is not one that shows the divisions between the “mainstream” parties but the divisions between a political class united in protecting a corrupt system and their own vested interests, and the rest of us.
4190 days ago
You kind of thought that cash for questions was just a bit nineteen nineties. that after the expenses scandal the Westminster stable had been cleansed. Wrong! Those greedy mothers in parliament, not content with gunning for inflation busting pay rises are at it again, taking bribes for asking questions. Panorama has exposed not only Patrick Mercer MP but also three Lords for taking cash for asking questions about Fiji on behalf of a bogus lobbying company.
Other MPs lined up to join Mercer's all party Fiji Group, one asking if he could take his wife on the first "fact-finding mission." Mercer described most of the recruits as freeloaders. I'd describe the entitre political class as freeloaders.
Right now the political class is taking yet another well earned holiday. But the MPs and Lords will be back soon. And in that vein I ask for captions to the picture below. Post your captions in the comments section below.
For what it is worth my entry is "At the annual AIM awards dinner the Jim Ellerton and the directors of Motive TV and Verdes Management tuck into the main course and discuss how important it is to remunerate senior staff appropriately in order to attract the right talent"
Post away....
4192 days ago
Sleazey Tory Patrick Mercer MP has been caught red handed by Panorama taking money from a bogus lobbying firm to ask questions in Parliament about matters relating to Fiji. He did not declare his interests. He is a bribe taking common crook. Yet…
He has resigned the Tory whip to "avoid embarrassing his party" and says he will not seek re-election in 2015. But until then he will carry on trousering a vast salary and expenses and at the end of it get a gold plated pension. His fellow Parliamentarians seem to think this is the “honourable” thing to do. Bollocks it is.
In the private sector such behaviour would result in instant dismissal without compensation. But this is the cozy club of the political classes where the old boys all stick together. One imagines that Mercer is not the only MP who is still taking cash for asking questions.
This should not be a matter on honour but a point of law. If an MP is “on the take” he or she should be fired without compensation at once. The refusal of the political classes to accept this is just another reason they are held in such contempt by the rest of us.
4203 days ago
We are all in it together said Call Me Dave as he warned us about life in austerity Britain. But some, it appears, are more equal than others. In a rare display of solidarity, the political class is united in deciding that the basic pay of MP’s has to increase from £65,000 to £75,000. We all know there are numerous other perks.
We also know that for every seat that is remotely winnable that is an enormous line of potential applicants to fight that seat for the main parties. Would that line be any shorter if there was no pay rise? Of course not. So this is not about “attracting the right talent.” This is about a venal and corrupt political class, which does not give a damn about the views or problems of we plebs, has bugger all experience of life outside the Westminster bubble and which is happy to extract as much cash from the taxpayer as it can.
After UKIP’s spectacular success in the local elections the political class all said they would start to listen. And a few weeks later they show once again that they do not give a damn.
Incidentally would UKIP be any better? I doubt it. How about a manifest pledge from Farage: reduce the number of MPs by 50% at once by merging seats and reverse this pay rise for the ones that remain? That would show that UKIP is listening and really is different.
4213 days ago
No I had never heard of this pig before today either. But he is a career politician knighted for his services to the establishment who is being taken to court by the Commons expenses watchdog over £54,000 of taxpayers cash which Sir Stewart wants to use for his second home but the watchdog reckons he is not entitled to. Sleazy MP Sir Stewart says he is being victimised.
No! Sir Piggy Wiggy, it is taxpayers who are being victimised having to fund parasites like you. And as long at ALL THREE establishment figures continue to protect and promote pigs like Jackson who regard taxpayer’s cash as their own to plunder the more folks will say “a curse on all your houses” and vote UKIP. The political classes still don’t get it. A UKIP vote is about policy but it is also about saying that we plebs have just had enough of a venal, self-serving and out of touch political class.
4220 days ago
David Cameron: an out of touch, principle free, liar – a Godsend to UKIP
147 net gains for UKIP on Thursday was a political earthquake. The political classes are scared. They do not like it up ‘em.
Like most folks I was first attracted to UKIP over the EU. It wants out of the Evil Empire and so do I. Does it have any other policies? Yes. Do I agree with all of them? No. But where we disagree on matters like immigration UKIP at least accepts that the current system (easy entry + free welfare) is a joke and unworkable. UKIP would make entry impossible & keep welfare, I would make it automatic but scrap the welfare.
My point is that UKIP is instinctively right in that it sees – as do – most folks in Britain – that there is a vast problem. In its DNA UKIP is on the right track. The established parties have – for years – made it clear that the immigration system needed minor adjustments. They have lied about the scale of immigration, tarred anyone who questioned the system as a racist and then occasionally made tiny changes which stop skilled workers coming here ( who we want) in order to win grubby votes and Daily Mail headlines.
And so when David Cameron or Ken Clarke or any of the other mainstream politicos of all three parties tarred UKIP as racist in the past they meant it. That is what they actually believed. When they now say they are “listening” and must “connect with the views of those who voted UKIP” it is just another big fat lie. It is a lie born out of desperation.
And that brings us to David Cameron
4225 days ago
Just for the avoidance of doubt I am not a UKIP party member and will not be voting at all on May 2nd. However I cannot say that I am put off UKIP by Tory Grandee Kenneth Clarke labelling its leaders as clowns and anyone voting for it as a racist. In fact such a pathetic attack merely makes me think even less of Call Me Dave’s Tories and of the fat old fool that is Ken Clarke.
Clarke states that UKIP is largely a protest by folks against the established parties. He may be correct. The established parties have produced a political class which has engaged in systematic expenses fiddling and extraction of ever more cash from the public purse. And on issues such as the EU they are almost united in ignoring the wishes of most voters. They are an out of touch elite. And with his cushy non-executive directorships as a sideline and having supported every doomed Euro project from the ERM to Britain’s membership of the Euro, the fat complacent Clarke is a typical member of that class.
Rightly many of us view the lot of them with contempt. If the political class get a bloody nose from UKIP in largely irrelevant local elections on May 2nd they deserve it.
As it happens I disagree with UKIP on immigration. Listening to Nigel Farage’s speech at UKInvestor Show I winced as he touched on the issue and also on that of gay marriage which I support. My partner (female and British Asian) has real problems with UKIP on these sort of matters and I can understand why.
But the EU is an important matter for me as is the way that the mainstream parties are all committed to pissing away billions on tackling the non-issue of global warming and are failing to tackle the appalling finances of Bankrupt Britain. And I do hold the entire political class in contempt for their corruption. And so
4254 days ago
The Idiocy of press laws in the internet age – ref 82 year old arrested in Saville Enquiry in paedoBritain
Last week an 82 year old entertainer was arrested in Berkshire as part of the Savile enquiry. We are told that he is Australian but cannot name him. You do not need to be Sherlock Holmes to work that one out. Think of Aussies who were famous in the 1970s and 1980s for appearing on British TV and find out how old they are on wikipedia and hey presto. I bet you guessed already.
Now go do a google search for “82 year old arrested xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx (fill in the name you had probably guessed anyway) and hey presto there are 40,100 web pages coming up in 0.32 seconds. Of course under the new British terror laws (sorry Royal Press Charter) none of the mainstream press is naming this chap.
I have no idea what xxxx is accused of and it seems as if most of those arrested so far in this multi-million quid enquiry are not being charged at all so frankly his arrest ( for a second time – he was also arrested on November 29th as part of this enquiry) proves absolutely sod all.
But what exactly is the point of laws that just do not work? I might add that a former senior minister in the Thatcher regime
4284 days ago
The Lib Dems held on but UKIP was surging. A couple more days and UKIP would have snatched it. In the end it was wasted Tory votes that let the Lib Dems in as Call Me Dave’s party came third in what is his 40th target seat. Labour was always irrelevant here, its own disaster is not an issue.
The Lib Dems will be greatly relieved to have held onto what should be one of their safest seats albeit in very tough circumstances: Chris Huhne off to do porridge and the current sex scandal. For now Clegg hangs on but if he is shown to have lied about his knowledge in the sex pest cover up he may still face the chop. This is not the start of a Lib Dem recovery, Rennardgate may well still drag that party to Thorpe style lows.
UKIP is now coming second in both leafy southern towns like Eastleigh but also GMSH’s like Rotherham. There is a growing disgust with the entire political class and UKIP is the big winner from that. All the established parties should be worried but they are so arrogant and out of touch that the corrupt establishment will not change tack.
But the big losers right now are the Tories. As long as Call Me Dave stays as Tory leader it is only a matter of time before UKIP gains an MP. For the Tories are in trouble.
4401 days ago
Last night Newsnight said it was going to expose a top Tory who was a serial and active paedophile. But it did not name him. Well as it happens we all know of one dead senior Tory (Peter Morrison) and most of us know a far more famous dead leading Tory in this camp. As for the one still alive: I do also know at least one name but in paedo-obsessed Britain no doubt others will emerge. I say will emerge … they are already out there.
I have just been sent a link to a blog outing 4 senior Tories as part of a paedo-ring. I have no intention of landing in Court over this since I am 99% sure that at least two of those named are 100-% innocent but you can find it without too much bother if you wish. Meanwhile #Newsnight on twitter throws up a few other candidates for this week’s Jimmy Savile prize, Westminster edition.
4462 days ago
Prime Minister David Cameron has responded to criticism that he is a “mouse” with a firm commitment to end “dithering” in Britain. I gather that Ed Milliband will respond with a manifest pledge to create a culture of decisiveness. Nick Clegg will respond with a cast-iron promise to “make Britain bold again.”
Actually I made up the Clegg/Milliband responses
