Hilariously Ironic e-Petition

Third one down.

Tee hee.

How To Cut The Public Sector Pay Bill, Give Them More Money To Pay For Higher Pension Contributions & Reduce Headcount

No, Not Via The Jeremy Clarkson Method

It seems everybody is doing it these days; my wife did it yesterday; it seems highly likely my work colleagues will be doing it next Friday and it is not entirely out of the question that my wife may be called to do it again in the very near future without resolution: I am of course talking about having some sort of naughty intercourse with a loved one despite the thrill being long gone.

Or striking due to pensions; I cant remember which as I have had very little sleep in the past few days.

In both cases my view on the subject has changed little (my feelings on the content of the arguement on both sides are a different matter): the government has been keen to kick this particular ball into the long grass well into the future for decades and a considerable ratcheting up of the public sector liabilities in terms of wages, pensions and perks is now being challenged by a massive financial crisis in major part caused by the kind of intervention perpetrated by those self-same civil servants. However, those civil servants did sign a contract in good faith with their paymasters with a view to getting a particular benefit in return for the sweat of their brow; if there paymasters wanted to change the terms of their pay for new employees then that would be fine but that is not what is being offered: as this BBC Q&A on the pension strikes shows what we actually have is an attempt to change the goal-posts midway through.

Irrespective of what libertarians think of the public sector pay, scope and conditions (here is an excellent example) I cant help but think we should see this from a contractual point of view - they offered a service for  which the expected returns are now being renegotiated; however you feel about the supposed fore-knowledge of those self-same unions and workers about the likelihood of their fields continued expansion and the ability to meet the ever increasing wage and pension bill, the coercive autocracy that Labour became (ever was?) that perpetrated this massive expansion knowing full well that history would regard them as heroes and the incoming conservatives as monsters stealing milk and pensions and stuff and would forget about the actual detail such as the former government having no credible plan to pay for any of it or the actions of a few rogue bankers intent on derailing the whole socialist utopian exercise by employing cutting-edge financial instruments that mainly focused on the financial powerhouses of black men in string vests' - for the record I think it's a combination of all 3 of the above (the bankers in question being central bankers, not, as is obviously assumed, entirely at the doorway to commercial banks, though undoubtedly not helped); you need just look at the asinine suggestions of union leaders over the last few years - government has Ponzi'd all our pension contributions away on Cherie Blair's human rights law firm and Gordon Brown vanity projects? Pension fund has been scuttled by poor pension investment vehicles? I know! Soak the rich! shut down global trade! charge people for sending/receiving spam! To me that sounds like a good reason to linch your paymasters, not rob the productive and successful.

Anyway, coming back off tangent, how do we solve the problem? I have a 3-point plan on how to deal with the problem that is both elegant, simple, non-fattening and would prove almost universally popular by all but the most left-wing, swivel-eyed sociopathic, diversity mung-bean, poy-dance coordinator (so am guessing about half of them): it would enable:

1. The public sector by and large to get a pay increase.
2. Enable them to also afford the new pension contributions being asked for.
3. Reduce the overall headcount of some of the British public's least favourite aspects of the public sector with little or no fuss from the remainder.

My idea?

The public sector pay average as of January this year out-stripped the private sector at £23,660 compared to £21,528 (and I am certain this figure doesn't take into account the other perks such as the final salary pension schemes etc. so the difference has some ancillary factors pushing this even higher); this means that net an average public sector employee takes home approximately £17,470 according to my shiny Listen to Taxman app on my iPhone; just short of £1500 a month spare. To give them a "happy" pay rise lets assume we match inflation - call it a 5% pay rise + 3% for the additional requested pension contributions for simplicity: that would mean the take home pay increase should be ~£1575 a month or an extra £1400 extra a year.

So again Tom get to your point - what's your idea?

Simple: immeadiately reduce public sector pay by 6-8% and make the remaining income-tax free (NICs, student loans and pension contributions etc. remain).

The difference in the cut wage bill and the increased take home pay + pension contributions would be more than enough to keep the workers happy; you could then renegotiate new and recent starters' pension schemes with less fuss kicked up by those lucky enough to have a final salary pension, perhaps by ending national pay scales and paying new recruits weighted against their predecessor.

This also carries the advantage of making the public sector the most vocal group on the reserve to argue against increasing income taxation and high NICs - it would not be tolerated for long were the public sector wage bill to rise again and the issue of "fairness" would be thoroughly abandoned by those self-same groups with their massive advantage over taxation.

This also just makes sense; why on earth do we think it's a good idea to pay our employees only to take a portion of the cash back in order to pay other employees? Why not just pay them less, code them differently  in the tax system and remove them altogether?

But what about the higher paid local council millionaires Tomrat I hear (myself?) scream? Fair enough - charge them a high rate of national insurance and/or remove any upper maximum take; failing that  stop voting for spineless politicians and ask for real, bloody reform of the system that allows the mass looting of public finances. Similar rant but this time about QuANGOs? They aren't public sector bodies or the tax code doesn't apply - as such they are subject to whatever rules for taxation the rest of us put up with but would find themselves with all the problems of a rapidly reducing pension pot; the pressure will be on the government to fold them back in and reform/remove their role.

The only people who should be out of work at the end of this exercise should be a couple of thousand HMRC admin staff who are surplus to requirements as a large number of tax returns, PAYE forms and ancillary documentation will simply cease to be processed.

As far as I can see this government has missed a vital opportunity to argue for reform of the public sector by instead focusing on reduction of the bill they will always lose the latter arguement because without addressing the former civil servants will reduce at the coalface, not the back offices and executive suites; the managers are not going to vote for less management. All that is left to this current government if they want to make an impact is elegant, unarguable changes to the system that are both exercises in reform and compromises on the subject of money; a subject the state seems constantly fixated on.

Gah!!!

At work I now enter the period of the year when I'm trying to make sense of the ongoing chaos: what has been spent, what has been ordered and what has been requested and present it to all the people who pay my wages and decide if the whole thing is worth doing next year or not.

And I just had my laptop stolen from my car.

And as a security measure I've had IT account access suspended until a new one arrives; I've got to request desktop access in the interim.

My Christian patience is being tested this morning.

Yes Mr. Cameron But How?

Laugh it up. Assholes.

 David Cameron has said increasing UK contributions to the International Monetary Fund "does not put Britain's taxpayers' money at risk".

The PM said it was "in our interests" to support the IMF but stressed again that the money would not support a eurozone bailout.

Riiii'ght. So he can absolutely guarantee that te ex-French Finance Minister now head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, halining from the very country up to it's eyeballs in Greek-debt, will not be dipping her hands in the till to shore up her countries precarious financial failings?

And how, might I add are you going to stop this? You seem to be pretty sure of yourself that you can convince the G20 but the IMF is a transnational entity; it doesn't have to listen to a word you say - it is beyond your feeble control CastPig-Iron Dave, and what will you do when it hands the cash over to French banks? Reduce our contributions next time?

He also suggested any increase would not be put to a vote in the Commons.

So you know you are going to lose so you have decided mp's don't get a say? How very Blairesque of you.

When I asked my MP to vote for a plebiscite on our Eurozone membership the other week and was promptly told no I had promised her that I would make it a hobby, nay, a favourite past time to bring it to everyones attention in her constituency just how much she has cost us by her towing the party line, greasy-pole climbing actions and see if her less than 25% of the electorate will keep her in power.

What makes you think Mr. Cameron that I will any less easy on any of your candidates in Leeds? Most are in precarious positions as it is and I will see them lose to a Labour'ious candidate before I allow you to circumvent parliament. 

You will pay for your promise breaking to the electorate in small cuts and I promise I will contribute to that humiliation.

You and Osbo the Clown started out mediocre at best but at least in the right direction; you have now sold off all the savings made from your cuts for international recognition and praise by players who wouldn't sooner wipe their dog-shit stained shoes on you. 

There is a reckoning coming.

One Before Bed

Have just finished watching Thursday's BBC Question Time in which Mark Littlewood from the IEA gave an impassioned defence of free market economics in a hall of question time's usual swivel-eyed left-wing lunatics.

What was particularly interesting was the rousing debate on the future of the NHS - it doesn't take much to raise the ire of the assembled state-paid paper shufflers, diversity coordinators & 5-a-day managers.

What was particular interesting was the widespread detachment from reality about the state of our healthcare; it soon degenerated into "no, the NHS's outcomes are better than [insert evil private/any other healthcare system]'s".

He pointed out that he was not going to bite into the usual canard of "you just want the NHS to be the US healthcare system" and pointed to other systems like Singapore's, only to be shouted down saying it was even worse.

Apparently the WHO disagree; it ranks Singapore at #6.

The UK? Number 18.

Emotionalism aside how about we go for reductionist's approach: we simply copy what the WHO's #1 healthcare system is doing: France.


So how does this system work then (note: links wikipedia, emboldened/underlined text my own)?

France has a system of universal health care largely financed by government national health insurance. In its 2000 assessment of world health care systems, the World Health Organization found that France provided the "best overall health care" in the world.^[1] In 2005, France spent 11.2% of GDP on health care, or US$3,926 per capita, a figure much higher than the average spent by countries in Europe but less than in the US. Approximately 77% of health expenditures are covered by government funded agencies.^[2]

Great so let's spend more money on healthcare! A chorus of praise for this action goes up amongst of Britains established medical monopoly!

Oh wait:

Most general physicians are in private practice but draw their income from the public insurance funds. These funds, unlike their German counterparts, have never gained self-management responsibility. Instead, the government has taken responsibility for the financial and operational management of health insurance (by setting premium levels related to income and determining the prices of goods and services refunded).^[1] 

So the government operates a virtual monopsony on healthcare spending just not on healthcare provision ("we are willing to pay this for that treatment"). It also garners the costs back from people in a manner in which they only pay what they can afford, very progressive.

The French National Health Service generally refunds patients 70% of most health care costs, and 100% in case of costly or long-term ailments. Supplemental coverage may be bought from private insurers, most of them nonprofit, mutual insurers. Until recently, coverage was restricted to those who contributed to social security (generally, workers or retirees), excluding some poor segments of the population; the government of Lionel Jospin put into place "universal health coverage" and extended the coverage to all those legally resident in France. Only about 3.7% of hospital treatment costs are reimbursed through private insurance, but a much higher share of the cost of spectacles and prostheses (21.9%), drugs (18.6%) and dental care (35.9%) (Figures from the year 2000). There are public hospitals, non-profit independent hospitals (which are linked to the public system), as well as private for-profit hospitals.
Average life expectancy in France at birth is 81 years.^[3][4]

The average, reasonably healthy health consumer has to pay some of their costs, ensuring that that consumer is at least  sensitive to the price of it, either in noticing which way their health premiums are going or how it hits the wallet if they have to pay the difference, and as we know human beings are very sensitive creatures - they want to command the maximum number of high quality goods or services they can with the resource available to them (this is actually the real definition of wealth - getting something more valuable in return for something less; in this case lower healthcare costs for same/better healthcare). Those who can't pay or will have chronic long term costs are fully covered.

And the state doesn't massive intervene in who provides the healthcare.

I think we could with that level of choice too; let's hope that Lansley's tome goes some of the way to providing that. Not holding my breath.

Those Scoundrels? Or Blaming The Wrong Schlebs

Profit margins at the ‘big six’ energy firms have leapt more than 700 per cent as millions worry about keeping warm this winter.

 Those fiends! they are casting our elderly, our infirm and our poor into the oblivion of an icy, cold winter freeze, doomed to die.

The average amount of profit per  customer has risen from £15 a year to £125 in just a few months, according  to the industry regulator Ofgem.

Wait wait wait - so before a few months ago the blood, sweat and tears of business men in the energy sector only roped them £15 profit for every piece of business? Wait - it was even worse before?

via The Daily Mail - why are we getting so mad at this?

Up to Aug 2009 the margin on energy prices were negative; energy companies were losing money versus rising costs, particularly in wholesale energy costs and "other" costs.


"Other" costs is a little disengenuous - if wholesale costs are approx 45%, then we add in the costs that you cannot drop - i.e. operating and network costs - this comes in at 29% (74%) then you add in the net margin for the company: 9%. 9. per. cent.; so 83% of the bill isn't up for negotiation and is intrinsic to the cost (and let's be fair if you know a plumber who would work on a margin at 9% give me his number - I have a few jobs I'd like him to do around Tomrat Towers) then 17%, or ~£230 of the highest domestic bill recorded, is going to these guys:

That's right; you are giving a collective £6.7Bn of your energy bills to these smoes.


It is only right that the energy companies should be hitting back; it is long overdue (and not just for the energy companies) - it is not an unfair that a company providing a service should expect a decent profit; when you consider that 9% of the bill goes to the company in profit is paltry compared to double that figure taken in taxation/government and "green" initiatives, not to mention the very likely additional efficiency losses due to the monopoly on transmission that the National Grid, a de facto state monopoly, has.


We really need to shut this particular shit down.

Less Ignoring & More Obfusticating

The subject of the first e-petition to prompt a Parliamentary debate has been ignored by MPs when the debate took place.The online petition - signed by more than 240,000 people - called for those convicted of involvement in the summer riots to be stripped of their benefits.
The three-hour debate in Westminster Hall covered the wider response to the riots, but did not touch on benefits.

To me this is less about ignoring the issue and more about confusing it; the prediliction for public outcries to incite "something-must-be-doneism" in our politicians has probably done more to allowing the destructive behaviour of the last 15 years than anything else; if it wasn't Diana shrines popping up to appease Daily Fail readers it was Blair's law-a-minute approach whilst ignoring perfectly good but unenforced laws or Brown's purple banana's.

During the hearing, MPs shared their views on the causes of the riots, the police response and the impact on their constituencies

....
Nick Raynsford, Labour MP, said eviction should not be used as a secondary means to punish people who should have already been punished by the law.

Conservative MP Gavin Barwell said when one person in a family was repeatedly antisocial, this could be considered a proportionate response.

And both are right - in general it is unlikely that many of the rioters were not indulging in their first offence and fewer still are probably recidivists who belong in jail; it is these few that add nothing to society who need their benefits stopping and the largesse of an increasingly pressed and tired society curbing, preferably following a period in jail.

Do not get me wrong - the e-petitions website is a good thing but it is not, should not, be there so that the public at large dictate the nitty gritty of the law making process - that is what we pay MP's for; remember: Blair's pandering to the masses allowed him to bypass in a multitude not only the rule of law for himself and his crony capitalist buddies but also damage the spirit of the law too: we have judges who rule against parliamentary law in favour of alien authorities like the EU, statutory instruments designed to fine tune ancient acts of parliament steam-rolling over it's mechanisms of introducing new laws or putting them in front of elected representatives and a political clique so disconnected from the boring job of ensuring a simple, enforcable system of law is suitable for it's time that it concerns itself with trivialities.

We need to keep pushing for e-petitions like this, don't get me wrong; but more importantly if we feel we are capable of writing the law we should be standing for parliament - at the very least asking our elected representative for their views on this and making it known that without their support for reform of our dessicated government, the state and the systems we have for "dealing" with these kinds of problems they will not see our votes or that of anyone else we will be actively convincing.

Incidentally if you want to support a petition I think we can all believe in click here.

So Much For The Arab Spring

Remember how the media was rejoicing at the rise of protests across the Arabian peninsula and uprisings in Egypt which ultimately led to Mubarrak's downfall, and how this was to usher in a new era of brotherly love?

Apparently not:

At least 23 people have been killed and scores injured in the worst violence since Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February.

Clashes broke out after a protest in Cairo against an attack on a church in Aswan province last week which Coptic Christians blame on Muslim radicals.

What the media doesn't report is the ongoing persecution of Christian minorities across Africa and Asia by Muslim groups, particularly in places like Nigeria - one group we were supporting build a school finished only to have a governor-backed Muslim protest group raze it to the ground.

As vicious as the last lot were in T'gypt they weren't down with widespread beatdowns of minorities.

No doubt though Old Holborn will justify this as perfectly acceptable considering the persecution of Arabs in Palestine, or some other faux-victim group.

The Best £7 You'll Ever Spend

As I lay in bed recovering from the lurgy I cannot believe many of today's tabloids main stories:

Ministers are locked in battle over a Liberal Democrat plan to splash out £5billion to boost the economy.

As the International Monetary Fund slashed economic forecasts, Vince Cable stunned colleagues by claiming there is ‘flexibility’ within austerity plans for public spending on road schemes, business parks and faster broadband links.

He was responding to an IMF report which said growth will be ‘anaemic’ and warned the world was in a ‘dangerous new phase’, with Britain facing a one-in-six chance of slipping back into recession.
...
However, the proposals for substantial public spending on infrastructure deals – referred to as ‘Plan A-plus’ – are clearly being talked about and the Business Secretary insisted that the Lib Dems were not backing away from the Coalition’s commitment to cutting the budget deficit.

The story is similar across several papers, and whilst the amounts talked about in the grand scheme of things are paltry*, it is indicative of the fatal conceit our ministers have that any problem they have is solvable if you only coat it in paper money and hope it sticks.

Which is why I think we need to remind Osbo the Clown of a few basic economic realities and logic; it is growing increasingly obvious he was more stuck on the PP side of his PPE course when he attend toffee-nose college at Oxbridge-on-sea or wherever and thus is up to us his masters to beef up the E.

Let's send him this, Henry Hazlitt's finest work (the link goes to a free copy for your own benefit). The tome explains in big shiny, easy to understand words the futility of what we have come to know as "Keynesian Economics"** - something we used to originally call "Village Idiot Speak" - it explains eruditely the contrary folly of many types of public spending and regulation in a way even Ed Ballsup could understand***.

Let's do this on some key date in the near future: how about Henry Hazlitt's birthday? November 28th sounds like as good as any date. You could send them a print out of the tome from the link above but it might be more striking if you bought a copy: Amazon are selling it pretty cheap at the moment.

As someone who took part in LPUK's (RIP) 1984 campaign - giving every MP in the last parliament a copy of George Orwell's 1984 with a word of advice not to treat it as an instruction manual - I know that these kind of campaigns work; I'm sure after the first couple of hundred copies Georgie will start handing them out/leaving them in Whitehall loos/propelling them into tue Thames - in any case likely every mp will see one before the years out.

Go on you know it makes sense.

* = incidentally what have they been spending money on if they haven't been improving infrastructure over the last 15 years? WTF are we paying out half our GDP for if they are having trouble keeping the sodding lights on?

** = yes I'm aware that Keynesian economics isn't nearly as simple as that but only in so much as I am also aware that the left-leaning intelligentsia and elites in government essentially treat it as code for hacking the valve off the spending facet.

*** = in fact if you can get hold of 2/3 copies pretty sure Balls and Cable could both benefit from owning a copy.

Dead Island - The Gamers Crack Cocaine

Dead Island: Better Than Your POS.

Not since Fallout 3 have I felt such wonderful levels of surprise and satisfaction with game, its depth, complexity and that wonderful "X" factor that is missing in so much of what is being churned out.

Despite the really bizarre opening and the irritating bugs (which have at least been addressed and are being repaired) Dead Island is a gem; from it's story, which, if there is any justice, should stand proud in the hgher echelons of cult zombie stories, to it's incredibly clever combat system round the game off wonderfully - it is obvious why it was delayed for so long and the game's producers were right to do so.

Dead Island takes place on the fictional paradise island of Banoi - you awake as one of the 4 in game characters to find the hotel* you are in in chaos; baggage strewn everywhere (which, game producers, it is not okay to loot before you know what is going on) people diving off of higher floor balconies and, eventually, a substantial hoard of the infected, a runner-class of zombie, bearing down on you.

It is also at this stage that you find out that you are immune (yay!) to the plague, but not invulnerable to the rather hungry and violent carriers.

The combat system yields some interesting dilemmas; like the Dead Rising series it can be extremely useful to lay down projectile weaponry - which is lucky as it tends to be quite rare - in favour of melee; the speed of the walkers and their relative ruggedness towards small arms fire makes the best option a combination of melee combat combined with rapid, crazy foot stomping action; my character (pictured above) recently found herself without a working bladed weapon so had to resort to kicking the walkers over, then stamping on their necks.

To make matters really interesting no single melee weapons themselves degrade over time, but unlike the Dead Rising games you can repair weapons, upgrade them so they last longer and trick them out so they develop unique and powerful secondary effects; I had a wonderful machete which electrocuted walkers on critical hits until my idiot brother Buffrat tried my game out, threw it at a thug-class walker, a giant type zombie incredibly resilient and tough, then proceeded to walk off into a new game zone, losing it in the process - bringing another unique (and in this particular case irritating) feature of the game - the save game jots checkpoints along the game at regular intervals but does not allow you to save at points; in other games this would appear like quite a piss-poor way of doing this but in Dead Island this actually compliments the pace and evolution of the game itself.

As your character improves so too does your mastery of different weapons and skills; your choice of characters makes you skilled in particular weaponry and levelling up leads to clever ways of adapting to weapons making themselves stronger; as a result you can grow quite attached to particular weapons as you improve yourself with them (just as I was with my brilliant machete till idiot boy threw it away, bastard.) The fact that game nurtures a sense of care and attention, that if you look after your weapon, spend resources and time improving yourself and it, it will care and attend to your needs, is a very, very nice touch.

This game is a joy to play; I hope someone will do the right thing and make it into a movie, at the very least it should get a sequel, sans the bugs.

Score: buy full price. Now. Heck, buy this version in case the zombie apocalypse does come.

Awesome Hackers Are Awesome

Can't put it any better myself than the subject line from my friends email:

Dr Conan T. Barbarian was ripped from his mother's womb on the corpse-strewn battlefields of his war-torn homeland, Cimmeria, and has been preparing for academic life ever since. A firm believer in the dictum that "that which does not kill us makes us stronger," he took time out to avenge the death of his parents following a sojourn pursuing his strong interest in Post-Colonial theory at the Sorbonne. In between, he spent several years tethered to the fearsome "Wheel of Pain", time which he now feels helped provide him with the mental discipline and sado-masochistic proclivities necessary to sucessfully tackle contemporary critical theory. He completed his PhD, entitled "To Hear The Lamentation of Their Women: Constructions of Masculinity in Contemporary Zamoran Literature" at UCD and was appointed to the School of English in 2006, after sucessfully decapitating his predecessor during a bloody battle which will long be remembered in legend and song. In 2011/12, he will be teaching on the following courses: "The Relevance of Crom in the Modern World", "Theories of Literature", "Vengeance for Beginners", "Deciphering the Riddle of Steel" and "D.H. Lawrence". He strongly objects to the terms of the Croke Park agreement and the current trend for remaking 1980s films that he believes were perfectly good enough in the first place.
He is happy to hear from potential research students with an interest of any of these topics, but applicants should note that anyone found guilty of academic misconduct or weakness in the face of the enemy will be crucified as an example to the others.
Email: conanb@tcd.ie

Brilliant. Let's hope he gets tenured.

As We Enter Silly Season

Conservative party members enjoying last years conference. Probably.

Something to take on board in case you are the type to tow tribal lines:

Politicians who can take supporters for granted will do precisely that, particularly when taking supporters’ issues seriously would require upending the status quo.

Matt Welch in this months Reason Magazine; this goes doubly strongly for all those on UKIPs train.

Quote of the Day

Old but brilliant:

'I may not agree with what you say, but I'll bayonet every bastard on the planet who says you can't say it, and then I'll riddle their Stasi - Fascist - Anti-Freedom Corpse with bullets for your right to say it...' (I think that's how it went anyway)

Erudite as only the Skip Licker can be. Gawd I missed him...

Why Habitat Went Bust: Tomrat's School of Business 101 pt1.

There is something very wrong with your business model if you charge £15 for a box of disposable cutlery.

QED

Killing Aunty Beeb

Gawd bless my lil Sis; convinced her to get me a subscription to Reason magazine for my birthday and she pulls through (a little over 6 months late but who's counting.

Anyway a brilliant column on the makeup of new agencies and how this correlates with the behaviour of the host state:

In a paper published in the spring issue of the journal Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, Pal analyzed data from 98 countries. Her goal: to see if there were statistically significant correlations between press freedom and seven measures of instability, including ethnic tensions, external and internal conflicts, crime and disorder, military participation in government, and religious tensions. An increase in press freedom, she concluded, reduces all seven measures of instability. (emphasis mine)

Now I think we are far from being able to say explicitly that one causes the other; more likely there are synergies at play that won't show up on an initial analysis but the results are compelling: greater press freedom skews attempts at government at closing down alternative lines of debate (why I feel the internet is so important and rightly feared by our current political elites).

This is particularly interesting though:

Pal also noted that state ownership of media is associated with higher corruption, weaker civil liberties, insecure property rights, lower education and life expectancies, and higher infant mortality and malnutrition.

And yes I realise that Aunty Beeb is not technically state owned, but it does derive it's powers of coercion from the state so will be less likely to bite the hand that feeds it (nibble mildly in the case of the Squandervative coalition maybe, but only because they lack the prerequisite spine to do anything about it).

Worth a try killing the Beeb in any case though eh?

Giving Out Of Poverty

I am on holiday having spent the better part of 3 months working 12 hour days just to keep vaguely on top of my work; it has been the peak season for us and I am bushed. I am on a retreat with several churches in North Wales with my wife and daughter followed by 2 days back before heading out to Spain, palming off our daughter on the grandparents (you know, for an actual vacation.)

In a meeting this morning the retreat organiser got up to remind us of the annual offering we make to the hotel staff; we bulk-buy the rooms and services of 2 hotels each year and at dinner on the Thursday we all contribute massively to the tips for the staff; the amount is divied up by management depending on the hours worked - we are hoping to raise over a £1000 this year as the staff are impeccable, attentive and long-suffering considering the number of elderly and infirm with us.

That is why it struck me as Dow right offensive when David, the organiser, told us that the management, in a spirit of honesty and integrity, put all the collected offerings through payroll, making it subject to tax and national insurance, then top up the amount extorted in tax so it doesn't hit their employees: the cleaners, the waiters, the receptionists and the cooks.

It struck me that in the drive to alter tax breaks for the rich and poor one thing that is never brought up in discussion or is very quickly closed down is the righteousness of taking this money; the workers in the hotel are all minimum wage and earn every penny yet will still be taxed and squeezed till their pips squeak; the final act of indignity is only avoided by the long-suffering management of the hotels giving up their own monies to dole out a gift for their staffs' hard work given by those, the majority of which are on a fixed income, who are seeing their savings undermined, and their own limited income destroyed by inflation. All so David Cameron can continue paying foreigners to build idols to the green god while thousands die for want of NHS resources being cut, squandering every saving he makes on keeping a currency we elected not to join afloat and an established elite saving face.

The poor will not bleat because they will never understand why their wage packet seems so light despite their phone calculator saying it should be something else; they don't understand why the terms of their contract with government - what they are getting with their money - are so inexplicably skewed towards the socialist kleptocracy and squandervatives in charge because they are too busy scrubbing toilets and waiting tables, and their management have enough respect and integrity to mitigate the effects of the looting of a gift from those they serve to ensure it is a finer offering than is possible.

But we are on the precipice; when understanding comes it carries a whirlwind with it and it will carry this new bourgeois with it; we have seen a glimpse of it over the last few weeks with a thousand people suddenly realising that the behaviour of the politicos' client class will never be challenged, whilst those who do try, the breadwinners, the tax-chattels defending their property, will be punished severly.

This can't go on.

Them Riots

Been a little busy these last few months and Lord knows the faux-Duggan riots has been better covered elsewhere.

But man this idea is coming into it's own eh?

Thinking Outside Of The Box

Your Nan. And A Solution to Greece's Debt Crisis

So a report is out describing the latest Titanic-deck-chair-rearrangement to the welfare system; this time to the social care system for the elderly and infirm:

"Social care costs in England should be capped so people do not face losing large chunks of their assets, an independent review says.

Council-funded home help and care home places for the elderly and adults with disabilities are currently offered only to those with under £23,250 of assets.

The Dilnot report said the threshold should rise to £100,000 and a £35,000 lifetime cap on costs would be "fair".

But the Treasury is known to have doubts about the expense of the plans.

Just over £14bn a year is spent by councils on social care.

However, the changes would cost an extra £1.7bn a year if they were implemented now - and this figure could rise by 50% as the "baby boom" generation begins to retire."

So under the law of unfeasible, made-up politician numbers lets call it £5Bn added to the above figure; this, if I've understand it correctly, is the amount of money taxpayers today will be screwed for whilst the vast Ponzi scheme wheels on.

I have an alternative suggestion: Greece is liable to British banks for £14.1Bn; I'll take a guess and say the same idiot bankers, who put themselves in a hole in this country for Gordo forked out billions, are the ones likely wrist-deep in greek debt.

So how about this - why not just do a straight swap for the debt? Those bankers get their debt clear in about 75 years and our wrinklies get to spend their twilight years in sunnier climes whilst the greeks enjoy the written off debt-swaps all for the knock-down price of looking after a few more wrinklies, likely re-energising local economies spending their own cash on cheap ouzo and dolmades.

I can dream.

In Mixed Minds

Been a while guys - mega mega busy but this caught my eye (H/T to Dick Puddlecote):

Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.
...
"Women are being stripped of their constitutional personhood and subjected to truly cruel laws," said Lynn Paltrow of the campaign National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). "It's turning pregnant women into a different class of person and removing them of their rights."

No, how the state views the rights of unborn children with respect to their mother's behaviour, whether they intentionally seek to commit "foeticide" or their lifestyle simply endangers a child to a great degree, is what is being rightly challenged in court.

I say rightly in a neutral capacity: regardless of my views of state-mandated child murder when a precarious position appears in law, particularly in one where it is readily apparent the waters are being tested to see precisely what the law makers meant when they passed it, it follows logic that the first few cases will be painful; all cases should when one entity in the equation is murdered.

The next story in the article illustrates this perfectly:

Bei Bei Shuai, 34, has spent the past three months in a prison cell in Indianapolis charged with murdering her baby. On 23 December she tried to commit suicide by taking rat poison after her boyfriend abandoned her.
Shuai was rushed to hospital and survived, but she was 33 weeks pregnant and her baby, to whom she gave birth a week after the suicide attempt and whom she called Angel, died after four days. In March Shuai was charged with murder and attempted foeticide and she has been in custody since without the offer of bail.

This is both a long-standing contention between libertarians: whether abortion is something allowed by negative freedoms or not, and a dilemma that would test the Wisdom of Solomon; as tragic as her story and life obviously are did it really require her making that decision to end not only her own life but that of her child's?

I am, quite obviously, of the caste of libertarians who believe that negative freedoms protect the life of unborn children; there is something abhorrent in nature that allows us to abrogate the rights of one who's only crime is to grow, a living testament of either or both parents' recklessness: there is no greater example of human sacrifice to vanity than this.

Casting aside fear of straw men a question: were I to walk up to a happily pregnant woman and kick get in the stomach causing the baby to die should I end up in jail? If so then why does my act of foeticide carry criminal consequences? Is it merely because of the mothers desire to have children or the child's life?

All this and more will no doubt be debated in one way or another in the coming months surrounding such instances as these as the argument for human sacrifice starts not to look so glossy; it tends to excuse lifestyle choices which are naturally risky by allowing innocents to pay the price.

All that being said I do share Mssr. Puddlecote's concerns over the other religious aspect of this: that of the ascendency of the great Shiboleth of Public Health:

We've already seen a few rumblings, and I'm sure we've all heard the "it should be classed as child abuse" line many times already with regard to parental lifestyles. So why not just go that little extra step and push for the prosecution of women who have problematic pregnancies while also being obese, consuming cigarettes, or drinking in excess of guidelines, eh?

We'll just have to take it on trust that those currently taking the opportunity to rail against the religious right on the criminalisation of pregnant mothers will be consistent when the idea is picked up by the predominantly left-leaning health lobby.

I will not be holding my breath either; it has never been a problem for the left to excuse ones' actions as you hold the right opinions: climate change fanatics bending results or damaging energy companies property are fine; conversely skeptics are "fair game" whether the operate above board or not.

Sadly the cost is eternal vigilance, not shutting the questions down; for good or ill these lady's actions (and that of the men who are as copacetic to these situations as any) must be questioned - we may not like the answer but we should endeavour to keep it accountable to all, not just those in unassailable positions of power over life or death.

Screwed. Royally Screwed

At 23 months old my daughter favourite garden object is our clothes line pole, she is forever clambering onto tables to dance, and she has a prediliction for putting her face in piles of spilt talc when I change her.

Epic fail.

And There Will Be Those Who Think This Man Cold

Gary Bennell, 52, put aside his grief over the death of 27-year-old son Jon to admit he hoped he too would have the "guts" to fight back if confronted by intruders.
...
He added: "The family view is he's dead and we're sorry about it and we're grieving. He's not lived with us for a few years. He was on bail for burglary and that's just the way he was.

"My wife is gutted - broken-hearted. Whatever has happened in the past between us, he's still our child - or he was still our child."

And yet you can be for private property even when it means the death of a wayward son.

Only hope I never have to endure what this brave man has endured.

Kudos sir.

Am I The Only One More Offended By The Use Of Internet Twit-Talk?

A juror who contacted a defendant via Facebook, causing a £6m drugs trial to collapse, has been jailed for eight months for contempt of court.

Couldn't happen to a nicer lady; this is just grating though:

Fraill also described her role on the jury in their conversations. "All that note-taking was just killing time. lol. drew more than i wrote lol," she said.

Mr Garnier had told the High Court that the contact and discussion had been in direct breach of the judge's repeated directions to the jury - and it constituted a contempt of court.

Peter Wright QC, for Fraill, said his client was terrified at the prospect of prison and was distraught and inconsolable about what she had done.

He described her as a woman of completely unblemished character before she "lost her senses" in the Facebook exchanges.

Should be done for murder...of the English language.

Problem With Proscription Not Application

Thousands of sex offenders, including rapists and paedophiles, will be able to apply to be removed from the sex crimes register under human rights laws, the Government has announced.

A Supreme Court ruling has forced the Government reluctantly to draw up new rules allowing serious sex offenders put on the register for life to have their place on the list reconsidered.
...
The case is the latest involving the Act to set judges against political opinion. It has increased calls for reform of the Act, which is being reviewed by a Coalition committee.

Under current rules, anyone sentenced to more than 30 months in jail for a sexual offence is put on the register for life on release. Those on the register are monitored by police and visited regularly by officers. The Home Office estimates that there are about 44,000 people on the register, about 25,000 of them for life.

The problem here as I see it is that sex offender registration has been argued effectively against as an arbitrary measure introduced and enhanced by knee-jerk reactionaries I'm the previous government (note, almost completely unopposed by the current one) in response to some pretty dire but isolated events (Ian Huntley's victims in the long run, with the hideous level of CRB checks required to even go near a kid, extend much further than the children the scummy bastard murdered); a 17 year old boy who sleeps with his 15 year old girlfriend should not be trusses up in the same band as a sexual predator like Huntley (which thankfully the law reflects I believe).

What this is actually arguing for is a more comprehensive set of rules governing sex offender registry; we already do this in lot other criminal hearings: 5 years for burglary reduced to 2.5 for a guilty verdict; 1 year for shoplifting suspended as it's a first offence - why shouldn't the law be able to say "10 years in jail with a further 10 on the sex offender register before you can appeal"?

What's that? Don't like the fact your judge is giving too lenient a sentence? Elect a new one or elect his boss on a tough on crime ticket.

Oh that's right you can't.

And maybe that is the problem; the extent of the human rights act only extends as far as parliament will let it - if our government is lazy in stating the rules surrounding it, or delegates it to soft, lefty judges then what the hell do you expect?

Expect more from your mps', and the rule of law will follow; ask for democratic police chiefs, justices' and hospital commissioners and they will respond to your concerns.

Or lament at the feet of the daily mail and talk about the "laws being made"; crap politicians make crap laws make crap society - demand more.

May I Make A Suggestion About The Scale Of This & Also Provide A Solution To The Homeless Problem?

Via @Old_Holborn on twitter O saw this; a plan to make prisoners work and contribute to society.

Many of my fellow libertarians may identify this with slavery to which I say the following: by and large criminals bought and paid for their proclivities, whether theft, rape or murder*, before they read the fine print - their problem, not society's. That all said I found interesting:

The thinktank suggests the introduction of a new prisoner minimum wage. This would be less than the national minimum wage to reflect the costs of board and lodging but more than current inmate earnings to encourage prisoners to work and save for their release as well as pay into a victims' fund.

What could this "prisoner wage" be? Let's tot it up:

Average cost to house prisoner in the UK: £34,000 (any better references please send me).
National Minimum Wage: £6.08
Salary based on 40hrs @ min. wage.: £12650
Therefore:
cost of prisoner wage = 12650 - 34000 = -21350

So the minimum prisoner wage is actually -£10.26 an hour; they still owe money for the cost of hosting them at our majesty's pleasure: so no wage then, at best, and longer working hours at worst.

And if prisoners don't like it? Tough: that case they can stay in jail indefinitely.

Thus solving the homeless problem as well; live on the street? commit a criminal act, refuse to work, live in prison for the rest of your life.

Flagrant Advertising, But Something I Am Actually Looking Forward To:

Feel like you did when you were on the e-train back in the 90s at Gatecrashers: buy Child of Eden.

Viral video by ebuzzing

Having just downloaded fun labs which babyrat loved I'm sure she'll love this.

Or have a fit.

Comment On Richard Murphy's Tax Clog: D'ya Think It'll Get Through??

Done in response to this piece of odourous doublethink:

No - I prefer freedom within a defined rule of law and the means to pay for it's upkeep; it matters not one jot if that is achieved by a dictatorship, democracy or theocracy, though all 3 and more besides have been found profoundly wanting.

Democracy beyond arbitrating over how best to deal with infringements on negative freedoms will also trend to tyranny and their suppression; it has become a decision between 2 wolves and a sheep as to who to eat for dinner.

And I will have no part in moralised cannibalism.

Apologies about my absenteeism - work calls, and frankly the pays better. I am still reading and seething though people.

Peace.

Proof There Is A God.

And he hates infidelity:

Chris Huhne’s career was hanging by a thread last night after his estranged wife agreed to testify that he asked her to take speeding points for him.

All part of a crass attempt to avoid controversy when he was contesting a seat in parliament by avoiding a ban for his precocious driving habits, something which later happened anyway when he was caught driving whilst using a mobile phone.

This is all the more fattening (being so rich and all) considering his last generic erection campaign was thought on the ticket that he was a family man - all the while schtuming a lefty bunt in a think tank.

Hopefully this'll mark the end of the lib dumb's insane climate policies.

We can live in hope.

Quote Of The Day (Goebbels Warmong Edition)

"We have used the best available data [and] the conclusion is that shale gas may indeed be quite damaging to global warming, quite likely as bad or worse than coal," he told BBC News.

- Robert Howarth from Cornell University in Ithaca, US on his report as reported here.

Yeah, I'm sure it's quite bad "to global warming"; you schills have been disabusing climate science of any credibility for decades.

Quote Of The Day

Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all it's myriads of inhabitants was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe...would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life...And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the sameease and tranquility, as if no such accident had happened...If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but...he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren.

Theory of Moral Sentiments, part 3-5 - Adam Smith

Say a prayer for those who suffer in places like Libya, Syria, Nigeria or the Arabs in Israel tonight; at least be thankful your elsewhere and you and your family are safe.

Where Are They Going With This?

Day off today getting my car cleaned and checked over then into sunny Bradford with my little girl for a day out; one thing picked up this morning from Aunty Beeb concerning cancer rates in homosexual men being higher than their heterosexual counterparts:

Homosexual men are more likely to have had cancer than heterosexual men, as US study has suggested.

Now it easy for a Christian to be tarred with the gay-bashing brush, to gloat over the misfortune of someone with a particular lifestyle - I prefer consistency in my belief in ideological freedom and so won't be doing that; besides I think the following author's comment might provide the clue as to why:

The authors speculate that the difference in the numbers of cancer survivors could be down to the higher rate of anal cancer in homosexual men or HIV infection, which has been linked to cancer.

Jason Warriner, clinical director for HIV and sexual health at the Terrence Higgins Trust, said: "We know that HIV can cause certain types of cancer, and that gay men are at a greater risk of HIV than straight men.

"Another factor potentially having an impact is Human Papilloma Virus, which can lead to anal cancer in gay men.

"The government currently runs a national vaccination programme for young girls, but we think recent figures on oral and anal cancers justify taking another look at whether the programme should be extended to include boys."

HIV is linked to a higher incidence of a cancer known as Kaposi's Sarcoma, which, like Human Papilloma Virus, can potentially cause cancers (in both cases sarcoma, cancers of connective tissues). My contention would be this is less "gay linked" and more an aspect of a person's sexual activity; the village bike would likely die from this family of cancers than their chaste neighbour for example.

This is all contention; what I am curious about is this comment:

Jessica Harris, senior health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "There is already evidence of some health inequalities as a result of sexuality, for example, smoking rates are higher in homosexual men and women than in heterosexual people.

I'm sorry, are we saying that the free action of homosexual men smoking is somehow linked to me being heterosexual and a non-smoker? That my not smoking is linked to a homosexual taking up the habit?

I really don't understand this, but if the contention that somehow my not smoking causes homosexuals to smoke, or increased use of nicotine is linked to homosexuality I have to call bullcrap.

This is almost as preposterous as The Spirit Level's authors claiming my rich europeaness causes poverty of a tribal Amazonian who has never seem civilisation.

Another Landslide Victory For The NOTA Party

Bramley & Stanningley Ward
Electorate: 16657
Total Number of Votes: 5137
Labour Win for Ted Hanley: 3121 votes, 18.8% of the vote or less than 2 in 10 people installed him into the LCC.
Voters who chose None Of The Above: 11520, 69.2% or a little under 7 in 10 people chose none of the people on the ballot paper.

I wonder what the figure will be for AV?

But Of Course He Did

Documents found at Osama Bin Laden's Pakistan home suggest he was planning new attacks on the US, including on the 9/11 anniversary, US reports say.

One plan aimed to target a US rail route, the reports said, although no imminent threat was detected.

Amazing what you can find when you want to continue the status quo ofass arms buildup and the war on terror: more evidence of terror.

The Terrifying Reason I'm Saying #Yes2AV Today

In my post yesterday I discussed how PJ Byrne's views on the AV referendum today were only partly right: i.e. it is a question nobody wanted to ask that has replaced several we were all asking, and how he was wrong that an AV system would largely be an irrelevance - let's illustrate the pros and cons of AV; I'll start with con:-

Con
1. It is complicated.
2. It will be expensive; additional layers of complexity always are.
3. It does reward the most "useless" votes/voters the most: you could effectively give multiple votes to a voter intent on the most insane and unelectable of candidate choices.
4. It will lead to more coalitions: this could be viewed as a bad or good thing - in one way endless coalitions mean nothing much can be changed without enormous amounts of horse trading and compromise; however, ultimately the good is that they cannot introduce too many laws straight out of parliament - it will become fast apparent that much of our laws come from the EU which is something a Bory/UKIP caucus is likely to get a referendum on more than a Bory or UKIP minority government.

Pros
1. It does require a great deal more focus of the candidate on their electorate; how likely that will last when the whip comes in to play is debateable.
2. It will be more representable of what voters actually want: 3 in 4 voted against New Labour in 1997, likely a government will come in in 2015 that the electorate will grudgingly accept under AV.
3. .
Pro 3. I believe weighs out all the cons above.
3. There is now a credible link to a desire for the majority of the electorate to select one candidate: any candidate will need 50% of the total number of voters at least agreeing to their representative; for example, look at Ed Balls fiercely contested 2010 constituency of Morley & Outwood:




Let's assume under AV that UKIP vote for the Bory's as a second, the Watermelons vote for Labour and the Lib Dumbs split between Bory and New Labour and the BNP vote for a single preference; my fag packet calculations indicate that no one will win and the election will void; where any candidate to pander for secondaries from the BNP will surely result in alienating other voters leading to the same problem.

This has been portrayed as a bad thing, but think about it for a second - the problem lies in the fact that we are presented with candidates who wield absolute power over the electorate and in most cases we wouldn't be willing to pee on them if they were on fire.

We have abrogated responsibility for our lives to incompetents and fools and wonder why things are going wrong - the least we can do is thwart the system, make it clear that we are not consenting to their rule, as often as possible until they actually start listening; to dictate to as their role demands rather than us being dictated at.

And I think AV gives us a powerful weapon in being able to void elections which in the absence of a recall or NOTA vote we desperately need to restrain the legislature.

My yes vote is not an endorsement of the #Yes2AV camp; it is a statement that the status quo, and of having a firm None Of The Above vote summarily ignored year on year.

And anything likely to deprive Ed Balls of his seat can only be a good thing.

In Which I (Partly) Disagree With PJ Byrne

Master Byrne in many ways manifests my own thoughts on AV in this article: that it matters little how we vote when we have no real choice over who we vote for and to what extent they control how we live our lives:

Despite the best efforts of the belligerents, I still struggle to care. The facts are these: the referendum will not end debate on electoral reform, since the twin bugaboos of proportional representation and reform of the House of Lords lurk still in the wings. Nor will the referendum, regardless of outcome, make our system "more democratic"-- not that this would be a good thing, since for seventy years "more democracy" inevitably meant more bureaucracy, unsustainable deficits and a lot of unwanted, oppressive and inflexible laws, with negative implications for day-to-day life. So why on earth are Libertarians talking about AV at all-- which seems, by comparison, such an inconsequential issue, a procedural tweak of a right we exercise for thirty seconds every five years?
...
Libertarians seek to minimize the existence of masters generally, particularly the state, a goal which currently no major UK political party is prepared to adopt and we are, therefore, only notionally able to participate in mainstream policy debate; free elections of whatever major party will not change the fact that in Britain, the tax-to-GDP ratio hovers around 40%, the state gags private citizens and the media over trivial information and singing Carl Douglas constitutes a hate crime. In this context, the central question for all reform of any kind -- electoral, fiscal, penal, or otherwise -- must be: will this reform emancipate individuals? And if not: what position can we adopt to try to steer public debate in our direction?

The answer is not to lose hope, to keep writing and keep moving; as put by Sam Bowman, to "'stand athwart history, shouting'... Faster!" For everywhere we look-- Greece, Spain, Japan, here in the UK, and even in the United States-- the onslaught of circumstance operates to prove libertarians right: global economic shifts, individual empowerment, demography and the structure of democracy itself conspire together to undermine the foundations of the western welfare state. As the catastrophe unfolds, the conventional wisdom will cling to the old ideas, the quartet will play the same familiar tunes-- "our institutions are sound," "our way of life is sustainable"-- despite a growing recognition from all quarters that Western governments will, one day this century, no longer wield the coercive and economic power to meet the obligations they set themselves in the last one.

In the meantime, however, I suggest getting used to being told you're wrong.

Quite, and whilst PJ isn't necessarily agreeing/disagreeing with the concept of the currently mooted electoral reforms, stating rightly that it doesn't really matter how we pick our masters, I disagree with him saying AV is a bad system.

That is not to say I am siding with the #Yes2AV cretins as a vehicle for greater Lib Dem recognition at elections.

My interest, as I stated in an earlier post, is that AV does enable a disaffected electorate to essentially derail election results effectively voiding results.

If the outcome of the entire libertarian philosophy is to point out how our western welfare statism will eventually fail for the sheer balk at reality that it is then why not merely underline it by upsetting the electoral system a bit?

Currently the FPTP enables governments to wield absolute power on not very many votes; New Labour royally screwed over the country on the basis of a little over 1 in 4 people voting them over the last decade and it seems Euroslime Dave couldn't even muster that kind of support; he had to bribe Clogg with a European Commission role when he is summarily ejected from his Sheffield Hallam constituency, just like Bliar had to do when Mandelson indicated he knew where the bodies were buried.

If AV offers anything, it gives us the chance to show how ultimately nonsensical an idea it is to give some idiot ultimate power over our lives, particularly when we are vehemently against the idea or have simply accepted their existence is at best unnecessary, as most NOTA voters have done.

And wrapping politicians up in knots and forcing them to pander to a wider community, then watch as there election is voided for lack of voters, is just too tempting.

Dem GDP Figures

Yes Chris you still get that shiny fiver once you put in your donate button.

But lets look at these GDP figures closer:

Preliminary figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that in the first quarter the economy merely recouped ground lost from severe snow in December, growing by 0.5 per cent. With value added tax rising 2.5 percentage points to 20 per cent in January, economic weakness was always expected in the first half of 2011.

But the stagnant economy over the past six months will force another downgrade to official forecasts – unless the gross domestic product figures are subsequently revised upwards.

Current UK GDP is £1310 billion, making a 0.5% an increase in £6.55 billion over 3 months.

But compare this to the amount borrowed in March alone according to the ONS:

In March 2011, there was net borrowing (excluding financial interventions) of £18.6 billion, which compares with borrowing of £19.8 billion in March 2010.

£18.6 Billion.

So the government has spent the increase in GDP nigh on 3. times. over. in 1 month.

Yes I know that this isn't an exact comparison; no doubt someone will say the only comparitive is the rate at which we have to pay off the interest on this - life is too short to do those calculations.

But with spending like this, in comparison to the wealth generated cannot be good.

Stop spending our money Osbourne you annoying ass-hat.