An excellent article Wat. I'm sure both you and many of your readers could come up with more items to add to Fraser Nelson's list. There seem to me to be some obvious omissions though. Perhaps we could consider adding the money we could raise - or at least wasting less - if we were to:
Sell off the BBC. Do away with as many Quangos as possible - can I nominate the British Council for a start? Reinstate the Old English Legal principle of equality before the law with the implicit abolition of the thousands of jobs tied up in the various manifestations of the 'Diversity Industry'. LEAVE THE EU (sorry for shouting). As far as possible transfer spending to Local Authorities who would also be responsible for raising the money they spend. Cap the money spent on MPs by giving them a salary - say £60,000 - and telling them that they have to pay for their own pension and expenses oh, and no second houses or subsidised bars paid for by us. Stop trying to buy friends abroad by wasting our taxes on foreign aid. If people want to see their money send abroad to alleviate suffering do what I and many others do and make regular contributions of your own money to charity.
Perhaps once I have had a longer think I could add some more.
Regards
Never mind the dollar or Euro how about the Thai baht?
One year ago I was getting 70 Thai baht to the £ today 50 thanks a bunch, now this is a developing economy and I made my money in the UK by buying derelict houses in good areas refurbing them and either renting to working people(avoid DSS tenants like the plague) or selling them so my income is generated in GBP.
Why isn't the Thai baht going down the drain the same as the £is?
House building shows no sign of a slowdown and there are about 4 Million empty houses here there is a reduction of tourists but not much if the people doing the counting are to be believed.
I think that as there is no dole here don't work you don't eat, so that helps try that in the UK you will have mass starvation and what a good idea that is.
Might lower my tax bill.
Paul,
Same here. Ringgit gone from 7 to 1 to 5 and a bit to 1 in less than 6 months. That means a difference of RM10,000 on £5000 in r/e only. The average wage here is around RM800-1000 a month so that decline makes an Olympic sized swimming pool hole (the size of a year's salary for some)in the budget! Your solution applies here to - you no work, you no eat. We really should try that in the UK. Productivity would go through the roof before next weekend.
Give more responsibility for spending tax money to my incompetent, wasteful local authority? No thanks. It has to be steady as we go until we can improve the quality of management of many of the LAs. Brown has missed a trick by not doing something that I'm convinced he knew is necessary: improve the competence of the public sector. This morning's criticism of school inspections shows that they are in the same boat as the tick box targets: good for a short, sharp shock, but to be quickly replaced by good management.
And, sadly, Osborne is not really up to the job, so he's a good target for Brown who really is on a mission (which I think goes back to the mid 1990s). The Tories don't yet seem to have a constructive programme to put to the electorate - but of course they will think that they don't need to. Put up something good. Even if Brown adopts it, it will still have the blue flag on it.
Paul and Exiled in KL,
Sympathies for your respective financial situations... although I'd still give my right arm to be back out in KL instead of here. And yes, isn't it odd that Thailand with its current political wobbles is seen a safer home for money than the 'best placed country in the world to weather the economic crisis'?
I have to agree with you both concerning the way welfare acts as a drag on the incentive to work and upon entrepreneurial activity too. It always raises my spirits to see those rows of shophouses that are so common in your part of the world. Everyone seems to be doing something... sometimes for small reward, but its undeniably a honest living.
I wrote more on this a couple of days ago on Old Holborn's blog: Civilisations dont die, they commit suicide
Tyler is right also (as he invariable is on these matters) that our morally bankrupt Labour Government has created an economy in its own image. Gordon Brown talks about opening the spending taps but we know the money won't go into wealth creation but rather into expanding debt, growing the size of its pet projects and on bigger feather bedding for their client voters.
Dreamingspire wrote:
"And, sadly, Osborne is not really up to the job, so he's a good target for Brown who really is on a mission..."
I'll tell you what his mission is all about... revenge.
Cameron and Osborne repeatedly gave Brown and his puppet Chancellor a bloody nose last summer over the 10 Tax fiasco. Brown has never forgotten that humbling experience and has set out to make Osborne pay. He cannot touch Cameron but he (or rather Mandelson) has correctly calculated that taking out his right-hand man will be just as devastating. And it would.
Yes I know some of us feel that Osborne should taking the fight to Brown more successfully than he is doing, but Brown is always going to have wriggle room on economic matters. Even if Osborne were to be replaced with a heavy-weight like Clarke or Davis; Brown will either steal their better ideas or seek to score cheap political points. That's not to say Brown is a 'good' politician in the classic sense, just that he's an unprincipled one that will do anything and everything it takes to beat-up an opponant.
Go take a look at this bitter Commons exchange between Gordon Brown vs Ken Clarke from December 1995.
Brown even back then was using his usual condescending, specious arguing based on selective reading of facts, outright lying and refusing to answer questions when challenged. He hasn't changed much. Ironically, Brown was arguing here about his proposed 10p tax rate against the Tories 20p starting rate... and we know how that one turned out.
Frankly, the Tories would make an absolutely monumental mistake if they were to hand Osborne's head to the wolves... and quite possible ruin their chances of winning the next election.
George Osborne has a difficult and unenviable job with very limited room to manoeuvre in the current climate. Having said that, Osborne has consistently voiced perfectly sensible arguments on his party's policies and warned (accurately as it happens) against some of those of the current Government. Its just a shame the public and the media don't listen as closely as they should.
A fitting quote.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
English essayist, novelist, & satirist (1903 - 1950)
Wonderful article (as ever) BUT the have Tories missed the boat. They are probably decent people, people I would prefer to meet than the appalling NuLab b****** but they fail to realise how partisan Labour are. They did themselves a power of no good by their apparent "statesmanlike" acquiescence to Brown's grand plan. Now its being shown by Brown as a simple lack of ideas and the Tories are being punished for it.
The lesson they should have learned from NuLab is not anything clever - Clarke and Major - yes Major - used to wipe the floor with Blair (read Mr Parris' sketches from the Times Archive) but Blair and Brown kept up a constant attack on the Tories on ALL fronts - and its paid off for 11 years and may pay off for another 7.
Brown's got away with his appalling running of the economy - Mandleson and Brown have successfully exported the blame to the US - and that lapse by Cameron and Osborne can never be recovered. And I mean never, ever.
They have to learn that the punishment the Opposition can levy on the Government has to be easily understood, immediate, viscious and cross-media. Oh, I mean radio, telly and newspapers (the blogosphere is sown up 
They have lost the Torygraph and the Mail. They need to step up their media bribery and their PR.
Isn't Campbell a self confessed media whore? Get him onboard gentlemen, as you need to media tutor to ex Bullingdon boys...
John,
If this situation persists I shall soon have a vacancy for you to come and help me sell fried bananas on the KL streets. Many of today's millionaires here started out doing just that.
Interested??
Exiled in KL,
Quite seriously, that appeals more than you might imagine.
Goreng Pisang, yummy
Why not back the Pound with Gold to save it.
Commenting by HaloScan
