4257 days ago
The thoughts of my old friend the one and only and truly great Robert Sutherland Smith…
I stand on the jetty gazing onto the cold grey waters of the ponds on Hampstead Heath, a stiff breeze blowing against, around and seemingly through me, directly from somewhere deep in the Russian Arctic region - surely more than a marketing exercise by Gaszprom in promotion of the gas they sell us for warmth, at economically indefensible prices? My darting, uncomforted gaze fails to be met by that of any bobbing coot or duck. They have wisely gone elsewhere; or simply not bothered to turn up.
The place is empty and silent. I stand there a swimming trunk clad standard bearer for the a dead nineteenth century English public school tradition of privation, physical self denial and cold showers - not that I attended any such establishment myself - knowing that the late Dr. Arnold of Rugby School, no doubt now sitting on the right hand of the Creator Himself, would be proud of me! Flashman, I conjecture, now reincarnated as a minister of the Crown, will probably be turning over in a warm bed somewhere, sleeping off too much champagne from the night before and in his case, no doubt, after a sound flogging by some dominatrix in a steel lined corset.
It is strange what thoughts visit your imagination, when swimming here? March they say, comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Not this March I venture! If it makes any concession at all, it will to be to go out as a polar bear. It is April that is described as the cruelest month. But (I hear Dr. Arnold sigh as I wilfully commit the impropriety of starting a written sentence with a co-ordinating conjunction) in 2013 AD April can scarcely prove crueller than this raw and bitter March.
As I prepare to push off for a rapid dash through fowl abandoned waters, I luridly think that this forlorn scene reminds me of the Chancellor’s March ‘Autumn’ budget. If he wishes to put himself in contention as the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer of the past century, he has made a powerful case for himself.
4267 days ago
Dear Mr Osborne.
You are in a mess. The left attacks you for wicked cuts. Those with half a brain know that you are not cutting at all. Your budget this week is your last chance and so I offer you a radical set of suggestions to sort out Britain’s ills once and for all. And unlike anything from Vince Cable my ideas stack up.
Your three priorities are:
1. To slash the £100 billion plus budget deficit
2. To encourage those on welfare to take low paid jobs
3. To encourage employers in the private sector to hire aggressively.
As such my first two proposals will initially increase the deficit. To deal with point two you should, at once, declare that all annual incomes under £20,000 should be tax free. Thereafter you pay the standard rate (30%) up to £30,000 and then a higher rate of 50%. National Insurance is not a hypothecated tax and should therefore be scrapped and included in income tax – let us make the system simple and open. This would be tax cuts for all, a huge admin saving by abolishing NI and the tax cuts would be targeted at the lowest paid.
