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| Sick to the pit of my stomach to read the spinning coming out of the Exchequer about how our economy is an unparalleled success and how the next ten years will be - get this - "Britain's Decade", while with every day Gord makes the maximum effort possible to strangle the economic vigour of which he is supposedly so proud.
Here's my suggestion for Gord on how to close at least some of our deficit: 1. Eurofighter - cancel it. S**t plane; the sort of thing that you'd buy from Arthur Daley if he was in the areospace business; should never have been built. The one export customer - Greece - has now wisely cancelled its order, having come to the conclusion that the billions of Euro it was going to spend could be better spent on...................well, on just about anything..........The US does rental packages on F-16's now; can't be long before Avis will be doing weekend specials. Let's just have a few dozen of those with full tank return and collison damage waiver and the option to have a few more if we ever need them....which we won't, if we display a modicum of sense and follow point 3. For those that will say "ah, but that makes us completely dependent on the USA in the event of a war"....well, we are anyway, see point 2 [click here for BBC report on Eurofighter-Ed] 2. Our 2 big-wing aircraft carriers that we are buying at GBP 3bn a shot. Still on the drawing board? Not if I had my way!! Bin 'em. We scrapped big carriers as too expensive in the 70's at a time when we were facing a massive Soviet fleet designed specifically to blockade and strangle us. Er, so we need them NOW???? I'd have loved to see Tone's, Gord's and Blunkett's outraged reaction in the 80's if Mrs Thatcher had had the gall to suggest spending that kind of money on these things then when they actually might have been some use. Interestingly, to save money (a novel concept for a labour Govt, must have been something odd in the tea that day) Hoon announced recently that our Sea Harriers will be scrapped from our current mini-carriers about 5 years early, leaving us with a 5 year gap during which we will have no air-sea power at all. When challenged about this he glibly replied "well, we don't need them, because it is inconceivable that we will be engaging in any mission without American support, so they can provide the air cover". Er, Geoff.....so that's why we're spending over GBP 1000 for every man woman and child in this country on new air cover is it? Because we don't need it? Great..... [here's something from Naval-Technology.com about the two new carriers-Ed] 3. Impose a complete moratorium on involvement in any new foreign wars (NB - giving Tony another chance to strut his stuff on the world stage is NOT a vital national interest). None of the current potential wars (US v Iran US v N Korea, China v Taiwan, Ukraine United v Ukraine City) are conflicts where Britain's combat participation will make a spit of difference one way or the other, so let's just keep out. A few peackeepers in the Kiev derby maybe to stop pitch invasions after the full-time whistle, a couple of votes for the US in the Security Council to show we are still lovers of freedom, that's all we need. [link for Stop the War Coalition-Ed] 4. Immediately scrap the MoT's new GBP 50 million internet routefinder. Thanks to Viamichelin, AA, and various others we've already got routefinders completely free of charge, dunno why my money's being spent to create a supefluous new one (that will probably be crap anyway). 5. Immediately withhold any funds that we are contributing to Europe's new multi-billion Ozymandian project to have its own version of the GPS satellite system. We've already got one, dunno why my money's being spent to create a supefluous new one (that will probably be crap anyway). [link for UKIP] 6. Immediately withhold any funds that we are contributing to anything else in Europe, for that matter. We've already got a state - the UK, dunno why money's being spent to create a supefluous new one (that will CERTAINLY be crap anyway)[links for the European Movement,the European Union and the Daily Mail -Ed] 7. Find a latter day equivalent to Ian MacGregor and set him loose with the sharpest axe he can find at Whitehall's equivalent of the National Coal Board - the Foreign Office. GBP 1.2 billion for what is essentially an outdoor relief scheme for public schoolboys who lack the brains for the City or the guts for the Army???? No, thanks.....we could slim that down by half and IMPROVE our standing in the world in the process.... [link for current vacancies at the Foreign & Commonwealth Officer- Ed] 8. Asylum seekers............look, keep them out........or let them in................but for goodness sake let's make our minds up, instead of spending GBP 1 bn per year on a dog's breakfast of camps, benefits, rules that aren't enforced, appeals, appeals for the appeals, etc, that are all just symptoms of being too lazy to take any real decisions. [links for the Refugee Council, Migration Watch, and the Home Office- Ed] 9. Sack Peter Hain. (OK, it woudn't save very much money but, never mind, just sack the b***ard) [Peter Hain's website] 10. Sack Peter Hain again (well if Mandelson could be sacked twice Hain certainly can be, too) [E-mail Tony Blair to suggest this, if you like- Ed] |
| Here at Mike's Very Sad Little World, we (that is, the editorial team of me, Clanger, and my wooden carved giraffe, Vincent) do believe in free speech, and this month, we are delighted to present one of my former flatmates, and fellow Lancaster politics graduate, Bill Morrison as a guest columnist. Bill has carved out a career as a VAT consultant, and has travelled the planet explaining just how difficult it is to work out 17.5 % of something. He is labouring under the delusion that achieving publication on this website will open him up to a larger audience, but for me, it's just an excuse to produce another animation, one which looks about as advanced as an unimaginative magic lantern. Well, it almost seems to work Bill also offers us some thoughts on national stereotypes: click on the arrow for more. |
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