657 days ago
I cannot remember which future Labour bigwigs she dated when at Oxford but Stephanie Flanders has always been the economist the left puts on a pedestal. This week, she stated that the poorest fifth of the population are now much poorer (in the UK) than most of the poorest countries in central and Eastern Europe…they would be better off in quite poor countries in the European Union.” Natch this was retweeted thousands and thousands of times. Those evil Tories they are just bastards aren’t they? Well some of them are, but on this matter the data just does not support Ms Flanders’ claim. As we live in a post fact world I suppose that does not really matter but just for the record…
1484 days ago
Layla Moran MP reckons we need lockdown until Covid is eliminated, i.e forever. But she is not, perhaps, the dimmest MP in Westminster. Labour’s Carolyn Harris reckons that banning Tesco-selling kettles in Wales is fine as that is only fair on little shops and anyhow we can all buy Kettles on Amazon anyway. Clever folks don’t become MPs. But when you encounter a member of the Welsh Assembly, the Senedd, you realise that folks like Carolyn Harris and Layla Moron are, in comparison, intellectual giants.
2314 days ago
The headline in the Independent, an online publication which was once a newspaper but is now a little read comic is clear: “Biggest rise in UK poverty since Margaret Thatcher was in power, experts claim”. In lefty bingo terms it gets better with a claim by the Indy that “The figures show the extent to which a combination of Brexit and government austerity is imposing a serious squeeze on living standards.” Thatcher, Brexit, Austerity – House! Of course it is 100% fake news
2349 days ago
I am confused. This morning the Peter Tatchell Foundation run by the great and heroic civil liberties campaigner Peter Tatchell has launched a new report and sent out the following tweet. Of course Tatch is right that any tourist spot that is homophobic is kicking itself in the gonads and it is also acting in a way that is morally unacceptable. However it is the claim that the LGBT community has far more dosh to splash than we poor straights that interests me.
2532 days ago
A couple of weeks ago BBC Question Time went to Barnsley in the Grim North and among its audience of hand picked members of Momentum was the lass below Samanatha Thompson who bleated on about how she and her family had to use food banks and this was a sign of wicked Tory austerity causing rising poverty, blah, blah, blah. I gather that Samantha has taken offence at some Tory councillor who noted that for someone claiming to be on the brink of starvation she is, to put it bluntly, very fat indeed. Miss Piggy reckons that this is offensive and wants an apology and maybe in these PC free speech denying times the poor chap will be forced by his party to grovel. Since I have no such pressure I say "Miss Piggy your are a fat blubbermonster and if you find that offensive how about you eat less and stop looking quite so much like a beached whale? Of course this story gets more ridiculous.
2542 days ago
There was a spurious report this week claiming that an extra 800,000 folks were now in poverty as a result of the wicked Tories. The liberal fake news media lapped it up. Of course it is total and utter bollocks. Folks are getting richer. That was a key takeaway from some great data (not opinion) but FACT released by the ONS this week. The presentation is below.
2546 days ago
It looks as if the double share tip video will be out on Tuesday - www speeds in Greece are just too slow to upload it. In today's bearcast I start with the leaking of failed bids, ref Elegant Hotels (EHG). Who benefits and why do it? Then I look at the fund managers accused of colluding to drive down IPO prices. I really do have some sympathy with them and explain why. Then it is onto UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) and Alba (ALBA). Finally I take apart today's ludicrous claims about growing poverty in Britain. They are pure bollocks.
2558 days ago
The Taxpayers Alliance has produced a fascinating 51 page report explaining why so many of us are "just about managing" to quote our useless Prime Minister. In short it's hard evidence that Ronald Reagan was right when he said that the scariest words in the English language are "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help." We feel poor not because of wicked Tory austerity (fauxsterity), but because of how a bloated state has distorted the economy.
2862 days ago
For the middle class Trump haters who marched yesterday, poverty is something unfamiliar so can be ignored. They can afford to view life through the prism of gender, race or sexuality. Most women cannot afford that way of looking at life. Donald Trump wants to tackle the real enemy of women, poverty. The wimmin just don't get it.
2945 days ago
This was the strap on an article posted on LinkedIn. aka facebook for really boring adults. It is a great headline which arouses interest but I really doubt that "I'm an emergency surgeon" was quite the answer you were thinking of as you hit the link. I am sure you could do better. For instance, when with the mad public sector working bunch of lefties who are the friends of my Mrs, I could come up with:
3036 days ago
The BBC and the rest of the Left wing media are seizing on this report as proof that evil Tory austerity is just...er evil. But they have not looked at the Report's methodology which is just laughably flawed throughout. Do that and you realise this is just a waste of paper by the Foundation. But the media is not offering any critical analysis and so is demanding just ludicrous policy solutions as a result as I demonstrate in today's podcast.
3534 days ago
Capitalists are the heroes of society not public sector workers. We pay for everything. We risk our capital to create jobs to create wealth and to pay for the lazy, overpaid, smug and pampered public sector. And capitalism drives social mobility, the public sector crystallises poverty whatever its hectoring cheerleaders say abiut affirmative action and equal opportunity. Yes I was at a party of with pals of the Mrs last night and this is the "blowback"
3956 days ago
Thanks to the second most politically switched on CEO on AIM (after pure crystal libertarian Richard Poulden) for sending over this piece by Russell Taylor which is so excellent I just reproduce it in full. Over to Mr Taylor.
It’s not often you get abuse for paying someone a compliment, but try telling a liberal-lefty that the poor are resourceful, resilient and capable. What a terrible accusation! How dare you suggest that they are anything other than hapless cretins, incapable of standing on their own two feet? Can’t you see that these people need help? Why not bring back the workhouses and be done with it?
To liberals, writing-off the poor as weak and vulnerable, then showering them with excuses and hand-outs, is the acme of bigheartedness. Never mind how patronising this is, or how it makes a mockery of their egalitarian pretensions; as far as liberals are concerned, it is the final word in compassion.
You can bet your bottom dollar that liberals don’t think of themselves as possessing the poor’s frailties. When they attend their chichi gatherings, to swap pieties and compare egos, they never refer to the poor as their brethren: as people who share their ambitions, their powers of discernment or their self-sufficiency. They might have all the sympathy in the world for them, but they never for a moment consider them their equals.
Liberals love poverty, because it’s a goldmine for them.
3960 days ago
The weekly video postcard this week looks at food banks where Edwina Currie is getting it in the neck for making a perfectly valid observation. Indeed the mammoth growth of food banks is based on a lie and spawns more lies – this goes to the heart of the austerity & welfare debate.
Colleagues of the Mrs don’t get it but this video explains why food banks are an unnecessary evil.
4035 days ago
The latest cunning wheeze from the Labour Party to create unemployment and send small businesses to the wall is the “Living Wage” – it is madness writ large. It will not reduce poverty it will create it.
4423 days ago
Three Good Things is the new book by celebrity cook and all-round good guy High Fearnley-Whittingstall. Hugh is a blog roll hero of mine and as such I trundled along to hear him speak on Friday lunchtime. The hall was packed. I emerged far from convinced about both the book and, I am afraid, about Hugh.
I will always delight in watching River Cottage. It is not on the BBC and it is cracking TV. The idea that one can preserve the countryside and create real food at low cost is incredibly appealing. The idea that folks must understand that to eat meat you must kill animals is one that I push to all my Townie mates but they still do not get it. Hugh is a great presenter and loves his subject. But now I turn to my concerns.
Firstly the new book
