Monday 31 August 2015

Jeremy Corbyn poses national security threat, says George Osborne

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/31/jeremy-corbyn-poses-national-security-threat-george-osborne


It doesnt get any better, even the Tories are now getting worried. After loads of them registering to vote JC in they now join the mud slinging, because they suddenly realise JC is galvanising people up and down the country, hes now a real threat.

 As for Prime Minister material ... you have to be kidding me.

So lets go back to this accusation, how can Osbourne, after decimating the Army, the Navy, the Airforce, leaving the UK without a carrier based defence and without planes to fly on them. How can he turn around and say that JC poses a national security threat?

Vernon Coaker, the shadow defence secretary, said: "Under David Cameron's government, morale in the armed forces has collapsed and is getting worse. Over a quarter of service personnel say they are dissatisfied with service life, and almost a third of all servicemen and women across the army, the Royal Navy and the RAF rate their morale low."

One could assume that he's only got the chancellors position because he's godfather to Camerons children, no qualifications to do the job (Ok a history degree) and he lost the country its AAA rating with his policies.

George Osborne has said safeguarding the rating was his “first benchmark” and a “measure of success”. He has also warned that a credit rating downgrade would be “humiliating” and that it is “absolutely essential” that Britain does not have one:

Are the majority of you better off for his policies ...NOPE.

Has the national debt gone down as promised ... NOPE. Its gone up by at least 50%



Monday 24 August 2015

Andy Burnham on Corbyn "credibility"


"I don't believe we can promise free universities, re-nationalise the utilities and the railways...as well as printing money"


Andy Burnham on Corbyn "credibility"
"I don't believe we can promise free universities, re-nationalise the utilities and the railways...as well as printing money"Andy Burnham tells Krishnan Guru Murthy he believes Jeremy Corbyn's plans "lack credibility".
Posted by Channel 4 News on Monday, 24 August 2015



So Andy Burnham talks about Margaret Thatcher ... who was deemed unelectable by the Tories, I'll go think about that one.

We cant print money to stimulate the economy but we can inject money into the money markets (Quantative easing) which has been proven to have made lots of rich people loads of money, given companies the ability to raise cheap finance but didn't lead to increased investment and had virtually no impact on the economic growth (http://www.bath.ac.uk/.../policy.../quantitative-easing.html). 

Maybe that's why economists are coming out and saying, hang on, what Corbyn is saying is actually good policy and what George Osboune is doing has no basis in good economics. 

Go check the facts. [More Here]

Jeremy Corbyns plans are based in reality or at least in the reality of economics. But lets get this straight they are probably not perfect, no one set of idea's are ever perfect. But if Corbyn gets in he can start working with others in the party who will have input into the ideas. Why doesn't Andy Burnham and the rest talk policy rather than just mud slinging...... answer: Because they are trying to get into power by scaring people rather than fighting on their own policies.

Sunday 23 August 2015

The expected attacks are growing against Jeremy Corbyn but is there any truth?

35 to Corbyn 79 against Osbourne

We have 35 economists saying that Jeremy Corbyns policies are sensible and 79 that say George Osbourne's policies have no basis in economics.

All people can do including the other candidates is scaremonger and attack because they have no new policies of their own.  Corbyn's policies are backed by economists, whereas George Osborne's policies are slated by economists. Corbyn's policies are not the old socialist policies of the past as some would have you believe, they are progressive, which is why hes getting the backing of economists.

I guess that Margret Thatchers quote can be used as a positive for George Osbourne as well but ... Don't forget that George Osbourn's policies lost the UK its AAA rating. The effects of that will be that all the money the UK owes is costing the the UK more in interest. So all the austerity is going towards paying off that additional money owed.

The debt hasnt doubled but it has INCREASED by 50%, even with all of the austerity measures (More Here)


The Tories had 5 years, they didn't reduce the debt as promised, it has gone up. They have another 5 years, lets see how much they can increase the debt by at the end of this term. Their policies are not working, they are surviving on spin, lies and keeping the really rich and big companies happy.

Don't believe the spin and lies, its time for a change.





http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/12/academics-attack-george-osborne-budget-surplus-proposal

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/12/osborne-plan-has-no-basis-in-economics

http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/entry/six-reasons-you-dont-want-to-be-george-osborne-right-now

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/ourkingdom/35-economists-back-corbyn%27s-policies-as-%27sensible%27

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2015/08/pensions-and-tax?zid=309&ah=80dcf288b8561b012f603b9fd9577f0e

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/19/george-osborne-policies-have-huge-recessionary-risk

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/george-osborne-s-cunning-plan-how-chancellors-austerity-narrative-has-harmed

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/11480148/George-Osborne-got-the-economics-right.-Thats-what-has-killed-Labour.html

http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/understanding-george-osborne.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/two-thirds-of-economists-say-coalition-austerity-harmed-the-economy-10149410.html

http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2015/07/george-osborne-british-conservative-or-german-style-christian-democrat/
https://fullfact.org/factcheck/economy/has_uk_debt_doubled-41769

Thursday 20 August 2015

Is the EU impotent regarding Tax Avoidance

Amazing isnt it EU MEPs are investigating big corporations tax avoidance schemes.  However the big corporations are not turning up.

Now why would that be?

The EU MEPs have no powers to make them come and explain themselves. Why would they? So who does have the power?

If an organisation has no power its impotent and therefore a waste of time.  Time for either the EU to be granted the power or sink into oblivion.

Below are some great links .......

"Amazon, Facebook and Google are among those who have been invited to a pow-wow with MEPs over their tax practices – but not all plan to show up."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/10/amazon_google_facebook_tax_europe/


Check out Disneys scheme


Disneys adventures in a tax wonderland

http://www.icij.org/project/luxembourg-leaks/explore-documents-luxembourg-leaks-database

 

Follow Koch’s money

One part of Koch’s 26-step plan involves a $736 million loan that is passed from company to company until the American branch of a Luxembourg company becomes “both the debtor and creditor of the same debt, which is canceled at the level of the American branch.”


http://www.icij.org/project/luxembourg-leaks/explore-documents-luxembourg-leaks-database

Wednesday 19 August 2015

Jeremy Corbyn will be unelectable ..... and Margret Thatcher was viewed as unelectable by the Tories in 1975


With all the rhetoric coming from all sides claiming Jeremy Corbyn will be an unelectable disaster for Labour, we should remember this simple point. Margret Thatcher was viewed as unelectable by the Tories and the upper echelons of the Tory party did all they could to stop her becoming leader.... Sound familiar?

Charles Moore, author of another biography of Thatcher, concurs: “Many regarded her candidacy as nothing more than a chance to prepare the ground for challenges by someone more serious, or merely for malcontents to let off steam.”  Sound familiar? [More here]

The Guardian’s Anne Perkins simply notes Thatcher was seen as “unelectable” by her own party”  [More here]

The Sunday Mirror’s Woodrow Wyatt argued Thatcher would take the Tory Party in “an extremist, class-conscious, right wing direction” which would keep it out of office for a decade. She was “precisely the sort of candidate who ought to be able to stand, and lose, harmlessly”, argued The Economist. “Leading Heathites… believed that the Tory party must stay on the middle ground to stand a chance of winning elections”, according to Campbell. [More here]

If all this sounds strangely familiar four decades later, Moore provides another uncanny historical parallel: “As the campaign entered its closing phase, the ‘establishment’ which Mrs Thatcher had decided to take on pulled out all the stops.” [More here]

Of course, there are many significant differences between Thatcher’s and Corbyn’s bids to lead their respective parties and, if the Labour backbencher should win, their attempts to lead the country. However, my key - though obvious - point still stands: the unexpected can and sometimes does happen. And it can happen a lot quicker than anyone was expecting. There is, in short, no unchanging historical or political forces, or logical reason, why Corbyn couldn’t be prime minister.
[More here]

a YouGov poll for the Evening Standard found Corbyn “has more support among the London public than his nearest rivals, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper, put together.” The fact that many of Corbyn’s political positions are supported by a majority of the general public can only increase his electability. [More here]

So, before politicians, journalists and, yes, Corbyn supporters, blindly repeat the establishment-framed and establishment-preserving argument that Jeremy is unelectable, they would do well to ponder the words of Nelson Mandela, a man who knew a thing or two about political change: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” [More here]

Across three decades New Labour strategists have overlooked a crucial reality: politicians reinforce the values they espouse. The harder you try to win by adopting your opponents’ values, the more you legitimise and promote them, making your task – and that of your successors – more difficult. [More here]

Tuesday 18 August 2015

'Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few'.


On this day 18th August 1940, 75 years ago the hardest day of the Battle of britain was fought.

'On this day the Luftwaffe tried its utmost to destroy our fighter airfields flying 850 sorties involving 2200 aircrew. The RAF resisted with equal vigour flying 927 sorties involving 600 aircrew.'  

The few consisted of 2,353 British pilots and various other nations as below (In order of number of pilots)  More here: Non-British personnel in the RAF during the Battle of Britain
Nation Number
 Poland 145[1]
 New Zealand 127[1] or 135[2]
 Canada 112[1]
 Czechoslovakia 84[3] or 88[1]
Belgium 28[1] or 30[3]
 Australia 26[3] or 32[1]
 South Africa 22[3] or 25[1]
France 13[1] or 14[3]
 Ireland 10[1]
 United States 9[1] or 11[3]
 Southern Rhodesia 3[1] or 4[3]
 Northern Rhodesia 1[3]
Barbados 1[1]
 Jamaica 1[1]
Newfoundland 1[1]


Part of Churchill's speech on 20 August 1940 -  More Here
'The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day, but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate, careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers who will play an invaluable part in the case of invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meanwhile on numerous occasions to restrain…'
 — Winston Churchill



Flypast to mark 'hardest day' of Battle of Britain BBC News

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hardest_Day


Prior to 'the few' speech Churchill delivered his battle of Britain speech on 18th June https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain

... What General Weygand has called The Battle of France is over. The battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of a perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour".
— Winston Churchill


Virgin Heathcare, Alliance Medical, Medical Records and Tax Avoidance.


I live near Weybridge in Surrey, so when I damaged my shoulder I went to the Weybridge walk in center to get the incident logged on my records. I discovered while I was there that Weybrige NHS walk in center is run by Virgin Prime, basically the service is contracted out.

The problem is that there is no linking of records. So if you visit a contracted out NHS walk in center like the one in Weybridge.  You Doctor will not see any evidence on your records of you having been there.

I was advised to book an appointment with my Doctor so that my records could be updated. So about 1.5 hrs waiting at walk in center and over an hour trying to get a telephone consultation from a Doctor and of course thats efficient.

My main point so far is that due to fragmentation of services, rather than them being NHS, we now have fragmentation of our medical records.

 

It all sounds nice and, comfy and fluffy in Mr Bransons video above.

Interesting to note that Mr Bransons Virgin Healthcare hasnt paid tax in this country, yet. It probably never will as it borrows money, to fund itself, from another in his group set up in a tax haven. The money will then be paid back with hefty interest therby ensuring Virgin Healthcare will make little or no profit and also pay no corporation tax.

Ive also been for two MRI scans, both were in trucks outside Ashford hospital. Apparantly the hostpital no longer has scanners as they are too expensive to run. Er!... Well forgive me for being stupid but if an enterprise as large as the NHS cant get a decent deal to run and service MRI scanners how is a much smaller company like Alliance doing it. Those MRI scanners are not outside the hospital making a loss they are there making a profit for the private company. Once again our money is being syphoned off out of the NHS and into shareholders pockets under the guise of efficency and cost. Shocking!

Now would you be shocked to find that disgraced Tory MP Sir Malcolm Rifkind sits on the board of Alliance Medical? Strangely Alliance Medical was awarded the contract when the local NHS bid is understood to have been better value for money.  Read more here

Companies with links to Tories ‘have won £1.5bn worth of NHS contracts’  Well theres a supprise.


How the EU is making NHS privatisation permanent
Virgin Care Ltd
NHS Standard Contract 2014/15
Delivering the Prime Contractor approach to NHS services
Weybridge Walk-In Centre
http://www.alliancemedical.co.uk/
NHS England chooses Collaborative Network bid to provide PET-CT scanning services across England
Alliance Medical in debt restructuring deal
Alliance Medical company check