Brief Notes
1. Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, appeared on Question Time and seems to have caused a bit of a stink. He’s now complaining about being faced with a ‘lynch mob’. Seems a bit ironic, considering that he’s supposed to have said that he was a fan of a former head of the KKK.
What gets to me about the whole thing is that regardless of your opinion of the BNP, they are a legitimate political party and the BBC has a duty to present an unbiased, balanced view of UK politics. Like them or not, the BNP are part of that.
2. Jan Moir has caused a bit of an uproar with her comments about the death of Stephen Gately. As with the whole Ross / Brand issue, I wonder how many of the 21,000 that have complained to the PCC actually read her article? A lot of the uproar seems to have been stirred up via Twitter by the likes of Stephen Fry, and from what I saw there seemed to be a lot of bandwagon jumping and not too much reasoned debate.
3. An American man is trying to sue Bank of America for $1,784 billion trillion. I know it’s US dollars, but it still counts as money. Trouble is, there isn’t that much money in the world and – even if there was – he hasn’t presented any evidence to support his claim. Apparently, he suffered poor customer service but if he that means he can sue, I think we’ve all got a case to go after our banks.
4. Looks like Donnington is going to miss out on hosting the British Grand Prix from next year. Despite Bernie giving them more chances to come up with the necessary financial backing than he ever gave Silverstone, it looks like they can’t manage it. Big shock!
All that remains to be seen is whether Bernie sticks to what he said a few months ago and takes the GP back to Silverstone, or whether he reverts to what he said when Donnington were first announced as new hosts – that the GP would leave Britain rather than go back to Silverstone.
Personally, I’d like to see the BDRC tell Bernie where to go, but unfortunately without the GP they’re a bit buggered so they can’t really afford to do that.
5. Jean Todt has been elected to replace Max Mosley at the FIA, so no surprise there – and probably no change in the way the FIA is run either. Todt was Mosley’s choice as replacement and the FIA seems to have been run solely for the benefit of Ferrari, Mosley and Ecclestone for years so it’ll likely be business as usual.
Poetry
Just received this by email. There was no credit attached for the author of this classic, so if you know who wrote it let me know in the comments.
I want a floating duck house
I want to clear my moat
I need to mend my tennis court
That’s why I need your vote.
I have to build a portico
My swimming pool needs mending
My lovely plants need horse manure
And the Aga needs much tending
A chandelier is vital
Mock Tudor boards are great
My hanging baskets won awards
And I’ve earned a tax rebate.
I need a glitter toilet seat.
My piano so needs tuning
Maltesers help me stay awake
And my orchard must need pruning
I could have said the rules were wrong
And often thought I should,
But somehow it was easier
To profit all I could
The public really have to see
That the rules are there to test
And by defrauding taxpayers
We were just doing our best
The Speaker of the House has gone,
Our sacrificial beast,
But the public are still braying
For our corpses at the feast
What do the public want from us,
Those vote-wielding ingrates?
They really should be grateful
To be financing our estates.
The message is so very clear,
(we’re merely learning late)
That the British way of living well
Is to screw the bloody state.
In case you missed it, the Commons authorities have today published details of MPs expenses for the last four years. Apparently, because of the amount of information that’s been redacted it’s tricky to work out who has been gaming the system but it’s still clear that MPs are allowed to claim far too much on their expenses.
Brief Notes
1. Possible taxes have been in the news just recently. First, there was the Scottish GP who wanted to tax chocolate to tackle obesity. The basis for his reasoning seems to be that fat people eat a lot of chocolate, therefore if you tax it so that it’s more expensive then they won’t eat as much of it, and they’ll lose weight.
Of course, that’s a load of bollocks. And it’s worrying that a GP would think that the problem of obesity is caused by chocolate alone and can be solved by making chocolate too expensive to buy.
2. The other tax being proposed – by none other than the Chief Medical Officer – is another tax on drinking. Well, to be fair, not a tax as such – a minimum price per unit. Again, this is intended as something that will be good for us and stop us all drinking so much. And, again, it’s complete bollocks. The problem isn’t – and never has been – the price of the alcohol; it’s the minority who can’t drink responsibly. You know who I’m talking about, you’ve seen them on a Friday and Saturday night puking up in the street or kicking the crap out of some poor passer-by.
Both of these misguided attempts at restricting our personal freedoms ignore one small but important fact – the majority of people are not obese and are not irresponsible drinkers. So why should they have to pay extra to try and solve the problems of the minority?
3. A recent survey found that six out of seven dwarves are not Happy.
4. Congratulations to Robert Webb for winning Comic Relief’s dancing contest. His interpretation of ‘Flashdance’ was just hilarious.
5. Oh no! They’re going to make a film version of Stephen King’s It. Well, at least it can’t be any worse than the TV version, which had John Boy Walton as the lead good guy and a totally unrecognisbale – and miscast – Tim Curry as Pennywise.
For me, this is one of those books that’s just not filmable; too much has to be sacrificed to make it fit the time scale demanded by a film audience. All you end up with is the fight against the (rather lame) alien, and the book isn’t really about that. It’s about the nature of friendship and how it changes as we get older, and how you can’t ever regain what you had, however much you try. The alien bashing is really secondary.
VAT are you doing, Darling?
Well, as predicted by all and sundry over the weekend, Chancellor Alistair Darling (yeah, like it was really his decision) has reduced the rate of VAT by 2.5% to 15% in an attempt to bankrupt the country.
Sorry, that should read in an attempt to kick-start the economy and pull the country out of recession.
The rate cut, introduced on 1 December, is to last until 31 December 2009 and is supposed to get everyone to spend their way out of recession. But are people really going to fall for it? How much are people really going to save?
Well, for something that currently costs £100 including VAT, the new VAT rate would bring it down to £97.87 – a massive saving of £2.13. For something that costs £1,000, the new price would be £978.70 – a saving of £21.30. Not really enough to tip you over the edge and make you go and buy the item. Let’s face it, if you can’t afford it at £1,000, you’re not going to be able to afford it at £978.70.
And that’s making the assumption that the prices change, anyway. The majority of your grocery shopping doesn’t have VAT anyway, so that won’t change. Your gas and electricity won’t change, because they attract VAT at a different rate. Fuel won’t change, as the duty on fuel has been increased to compensate for the drop in VAT. The same with alcohol and tobacco. Your mortgage payments aren’t going to come down, because there’s no VAT on them – and the interest rates are now less likely to fall again. Basically, most of the money that comes out of your pocket is going to be unaffected and you’ll be no better off.
For those products that do attract VAT at the standard rate, the Chancellor has said he hopes that manufacturers will pass the saving on to consumers. I think Mr Darling is going to be disappointed and I think that the majority of businesses won’t be doing that. January is typically the time when prices go up in many industries; what many businesses are likely to do is to say, OK, VAT has been reduced so we won’t put our prices up this year and they’ll maintain the status quo. Other businesses that wouldn’t necessarily be about to put their prices up are going to be unlikely to want to splash out on new catalogues, leaflets, etc – perhaps junking thousands of pounds worth of existing ones in the process – for a temporary reduction.
Basically, the costs that many small businesses would incur in passing along the VAT reduction would mean that they’d be forced to put their prices up, to a level probably greater than if they just leave them alone.
And it’s a logistical nightmare, too. Because of the knee-jerk, headless chicken, panic mode that the Government are in, the Chancellor has given businesses one week’s notice of the change. The work that is involved for most companies would usually need months of planning to get right and to roll out properly. So it’s not going to happen.
The only thing that Mr Darling and Mr Brown have achieved with this emergency Budget is to put the country billions of pounds in the red, and given us all a year’s notice that come 2010 things are going to hurt a lot worse financially than they were hurting before.
GB plc : Closing down sale now on, everything must go
Seems like Alastair Darling and Gordon Brown are well into headless chicken mode over the current state of the economy. In a panic-stricken attempt to get the country out of the recession that we seem to have talked ourselves into, they are about to announce tax cuts galore.
Trouble is, the public coffers are going to go at least £100 billion into the red next year to pay for it so when (or rather if) the country does ever come out recession, taxes are going to skyrocket to pay for it all and we’ll all be far worse off than if they just leave things alone now.
Of course, all of these tax cuts have got nothing to do with the fact that Gordon Brown is expected to call an election next year….
Wolfs Helpers
