143 days ago
The headlines today are clear. Two successive quarters of GDP shrinkage means that the UK is officially in recession. Cue all sorts of comments which usually say more about those making the comments than about what is going on. Let’s start with Brexit.
517 days ago
I can show that there is in individual running two operations here on the Welsh English border who has all the hallmarks of someone dodging large amounts of tax. There is no company behind either site and, posing as a potential customer, I was offered the option of paying a basic fee in either cash or a bank transfer to the individual’s account. All ancillary goods or services are bought on site for cash. Workers appear to be paid in cash. It strikes me that with UK taxes at 70 year highs, going after those avoiding corporation tax, payroll taxes, enabling staff to avoid income tax, etc would be something the Government would want to do.
1349 days ago
The graph below is pretty clear. Having lockdowns as a way to fight covid does not work. It looks at age adjusted excess deaths per million. You will see that Sweden, no lockdown, does pretty well, far better than the UK with a draconian lockdown. Florida with a very lax lockdown does marginally worse that California with a very tight lockdown, but not that much worse. Lockdown jihadists, mainly from the “tolerant” left, have repeatedly warned that Republican run Florida was heading for Armageddon. Many of those fanatics lived in New York with a far more draconian lockdown. Look how it fared…
2865 days ago
The Democracy hating Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael opined on last night's Question Time that the Tories wanted to make the UK outside of the EU a low tax low regulation "Singapore without the sun". As the fat oaf sat back smugly smiling at his own wit, the lefties in the audience lapped it up and applauded his pithy vision. But has this poltroon actually done a fact check or does he assume that folks out in Asia must be poorer than we whities here in Europe?
3315 days ago
Thanks entirely to the courageous investigative journalism of the snot gobbler Dan “microscopic cojones” McCrum at the FT, ex Globo (GBO) boss Costis Papadimitrakopoulos is now formally in the soup – the company has reported him for fraud to “the appropriate law enforcement agencies in the UK, Greece and Cyprus.”
Meanwhile, after the event the chocolate teapots at the FCA have said that they are investigating Globo. Hmmm, fear not my fraudulent Greek friends, being investigated by the FCA is like being
3922 days ago
UKIP supporters are frothing madly at data showing that 600,000 EU citizens are living in the UK claiming welfare – the answer according to the fruitcakes is to stop them coming here. It is a populist line but a nasty one. On twitter I am lambasted: “You diss non-working Brits and ex-pats, but then defend benefit claiming EU folks.” Of course I do nothing of the sort. It is just that I am not an economic illiterate.
Do I enjoy EU citizens turning up her to claim benefits? Of course not. But I am minded that there are many British ex-pats living in the EU enjoying a range of state benefits paid for by the taxpayers of France, Spain, etc. This is not a one way matter as UKIP tries to pretend.
But there is a bigger issue. I am equally disgusted by our home grown welfare bums on Benefits Street. Frankly I “diss” all welfare bums equally wherever they were born. The way to deal with all welfare bums living in the UK is to drastically scale back the level of largesse of the British welfare state – reinvesting the savings in increase sing the thresh-hold at which all workers pay tax.
The answer is not as UKIP pretends simply to stop other EU citizens claiming welfare payments and State benefits (such as the NHS) here. Aside from the problems that would cause our ex-pats when other countries showed reciprocity, it would deter those from outside the UK who wish to come here to work but might take a few weeks to find work.
For the reality is that British workers simply refuse to take low paid jobs. Those jobs are filled by migrant workers from the rest of the EU. Adopt UKIP policies and British businesses would not be able to employ workers who would allow them to remain profitable. We would all be worse off – something Nigel Farage has admitted.
Showing real compassion to those who wish to work (by arguing for tax cuts for them), but also a grasp of basic economics (I'd like British businesses to thrive) I find myself concluding that UKIP is increasingly a party of populists, economic illiterates and frankly just very nasty people.
