Howards political blog
- 7 December 2009 18:1534541i trust that the family silver is safely locked away barry, if the blues get elected they will try to sell it off like they did our industries.
i know your forebears suffered enough under the socialists. - 7 December 2009 18:4734545Quick - hide the escritoire!!!!
- 7 December 2009 19:0534551had to look that one up in the dictionary bern, apparently a writing desk.
never even heard of posh barry's heppelwhite, what a sheltered life i lead.
are they all available in flat pack? - 7 December 2009 22:5234562CHRIS P
You are, and have always been that indy, and thats fine.
There is a place for us all,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
- 30 December 2009 22:1535960time to dig up this thread, read in the last few days that:-
the FTSE is back to the level it was when lehman bros went mammaries up some time ago.
house prices continue to rise at a very slow rate, always a good sign.
1 in 7 businesses that relocated abroad for cheap labour and other costs, have come back to the UK.
high street spending is going through the roof.
seems to me like the inponderable is happening for david and george, the dreaded "feelgood factor".
do i hear the sound of slackening sphincters from the blues? - 31 December 2009 12:4335986You are being very and overly rosy there Howard, unfortunately.....
The double dip is likely, Q1 will suffer because of Q4 retail activity.
Unemployment is set to continue to rise to 3m or more, fresh inflationary pressures are building with the risk of 'stagflation'. House prices may well tumble due to the unemployment situation. Tax rises are likely and we all individually and as a nation have a massive debt hangover that must be dealt with.
The last 10 years have been the worse 10 year period on record for economic growth and the worse for stockmarket returns......
There is good news though so we can be more cheerful.
13 years of Labour misrule are about to come to an end with those who are guilty of creating this mess losing office. A Conservative Government will once again, as they always have had to do, will repair the damage done to the economy by Labour, enabling greater prosperity for all of us, but first the medicine needs taking and that will not be nice.... - 1 January 2010 22:3936088sounding like harold wilson all those years ago barry, he used that phrase about 13 years of tory misrule.
i was famous then at school for my impression of harold wilson.
back to the point.
you have given your economic indicators, today the head honcho at the CBI gave his "large income growth for UK PLC this coming year".
people in that position do not usually buy socialist worker either. - 2 January 2010 08:5936104I do not doubt that growth will resume this year, Howard, but it will be a slow and painful recovery from a low point that is not likely to start until Q2 though Q4 09 figures are likely to show growth. Nice to hear someone sounding bullish though but that does bot mean he is buying Labour's economic mess. Whatever happens anyway this, the worse and longest recession in our history, was on Brown's watch and he was responsible for turning a cyclical recession into an economic crisis of unprecedented proportions. He will not avoid being held to account over it.
- 2 January 2010 21:5736216thanks for that barry, now on to the speech from DC in oxfordshire today.
i did not see it all but got a general impression that he was doing the "time for change routine" beloved of opposition politicians close to an election.
he is planning visits to medical centres hospitals etc to reassure the staff that there will be no cuts there.
he has already said that education will not suffer, in fact new specialist teachers will be appointed.
where will all these spending cuts be made?
he will be asked this many more times before the election and from clever people too. - 2 January 2010 23:4936220There will certainly be a huge reduction in the functions of Government. It will simply do a lot less and what it does will be done differently.
Cuts need not be applied to the front lines essential services such as hospital medical staff for instance. I have written before about the approach I would take in a fair bit of detail.
One thing is absolutely certain, cuts are needed whoever wins the election. I have said 20% before (when 9% was spoken about) and its interesting to see the 20% figure being now bandied about by economists. Time they caught up. - 4 January 2010 20:3436313what happened to less government and more personal responsibility from the blues?
married persons allowance???
sounds like state control over our personal lives by bribes.
it appears today that it will not happen though now, what other sound bites will be exposed as hot air over the next few months? - 4 January 2010 20:3736314HOWARD
A lot howard, didn't I tell yuou so!!!!!
once tories came out with uncosted policies they would be found out - 4 January 2010 23:3336331Keith - do keep up.
Its Darling who has been promising more and more uncosted spending today. No-one believes it is affordable and he can only do it because he knows he will not be called upon to deliver. Plainly dishonest.
Of course what you are talking about is Labour's dodgy dossier of fictional Conservative spending pledges and highly dubious figures. Darling really has to do better than that and start trying to justify his own claims first rather make up Conservative ones. - 4 January 2010 23:3836332Howard how on earth do you equate that. Utter nonsense, its about correcting the 'single parent' bias in the tax/benefit system and to stop making it pay for parents to part. Sensible stuff, recognising the social benefit of families sticking together through the tax system, just as every other European nation does and we did up until 13 years ago.
- 4 January 2010 23:4836338no barry tax and benefits are two different things.
the tax system does not differentiate between married and unmarried people at present.
why should it change?
why are unmarried parents to be penalised?
what about homosexual couples?
not that it matters, boy dave seems to have backtracked anyway. - 5 January 2010 00:1536340Unmarried parents are not to be penalised, it is correcting the 'couples penalty' by which it is the married couple, staying together who are being penalised. It merely recognised the superiority of stable relationships and the overall benefit of them to society, particularly when children are involved. Figures show that married couples are more stable than unmarried couples due to the commitment they make, despite the increase in divorce.
Tax and benefits are interweaved since Brown introduced tax credits, a plainly daft and expensive system.
Civil partnerships are also to be recognised in the same way.
No backtracking at all Howard, incidentaly. This will be done in the first Parliament, not the first year as previously hoped for, thanks to Brown's economic mess.