Fact 1: I've always been a Tory voter and supporter.
Fact 2: I don't care one bit if the Tories, Labour, LibDems, or Gay Dwarf Differently-Abled Martian Party of Cydonia are in power at the moment as long as they sort out the economy.
Hmm. The economy. I am starting to wonder if Labour's spending plans actually made some sense after all? Since the election and the cuts that are forever being announced, I have never known business to be as dead as it currently is. During this recession, business has been incredibly difficult and stressful to the point where it has made me wonder why I bother getting out of bed every morning, but at this very moment, it feels as though the economy is literally frozen solid and incapable of even the slightest turnover. Today I had to break the news to my staff that I may have to start cutting jobs, and I'm sure many of you know how well that goes down, and no matter what we do, there just isn't any work out there. Well, for certain nobody is spending anything. Not a measly dime.
I know that the measures being taken by the coalition wouldn't work overnight, but I didn't think it was possible for matters to get worse. But they have - business is utterly diabolical and the worst I've known it, to the point where we can't sustain these conditions for very long. Maybe the spending that stimulates the economy WAS a good idea after all? I don't pretend to understand the deeper complexities of these things but just before the election things did feel like they were moving, albeit slowly. Now they've just crashed out.
I can't help feeling that the emergency budget, which seems to be putting a lot on my shoulders (ie the shoulders of the private sector business) is just going to be a massive fail as the private sector has no money and no confidence to spend at the moment. I work for just about every sector imaginable and I'm feeling this slow death all around at the moment.
My early feelings are that the coalition is going to screw things up badly. Confidence isn't low - it's gone.
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
Spot on Rick. I've never known business so quiet, but I cannot blame a Government that's only been in office two months. The fault lies squarely with Gordon Brown and a discredited, overspending Labour Party that shafted the country good and proper.
True friends stab you in the front.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
business confidence has crumbled over the last month and got markedly worse after the budget statement.
the deficit will not be cut by an appreciable amount by the present methods.
i heard more than a few economists say prior to the election that there should be small spending cuts in the first year then building up over the next 4 in order not to kill off the recovery.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
just shows how these people are dosent it.
I just saw the the Pope is coming here at a cost of over £12million. How the hell is that good value at a time like this? How about they cancel his visit and spend that £12million giving small businesses a boost?
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
12 miilion is nothing great in the grand scheme of things weighed up against the rage that tax paying catholics would feel.
a lot of small businesses will earn a total far in excess of that figure anyway flogging all the stuff that goes with a papal visit.
Ahem, also, there is a plan, not sure if inherited from the previous spendthrifts, to create a coastal footpath around Britain, at a cost of.... £50m!!
The money is to be spent over 5 years and one landowner has already calculated this works out to approximately £1000 per kilometre for the 5 year term. So, it might be enough to get the pathway created, but it won't provide anyrthing like the funds required to maintain it over the 5 year term.
To me it is simple, bugger the few thousand walkers and save £50m. I would also cancel the Popes visit, we are a nation with our own church and have no need for Rome to interfere (and it will as it always does) with our lives and country.
Let him go to Ireland again. that is a solid catholic nation who would rightly welcome him with open arms.
Amazing isn't it? 7 posts on this thread and we've saved the country £62m. I hope Charlie is paying attention.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
You can save £45million per day by just puting across next to UKIP next time.
No Vic, that is not true.
There are contracts in place which will attract huge penalties or get-out clauses. Our credibility within Europe will go to zero, along with our business.
I'd have more respect for yours and Andy's and UKIP views if you would all be honest and present the exact financial situation for the UK on exiting the EU.
As UKIP doesn't provide the full picture it must only be becasue the truth destroys the emotive argument.
So, there is my challenge. PROVE the financial cost of your action so we can decide on facts, not emotion.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
Ok, we will do just that but not tonight, but it will be done by the end of the week. But must say I have already done it once before.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
much as i have no time for the pontiff, i welcome his visit.
he may have some backward views, however there is no question of him trying to encourage hatred and division among races.
good for the well being of the catholics and good for the economy.
Vic, this information MUST be readily available from UKIP HO surely? I don't expect you to have to work it out, that would be unreasonalbe, just post the answers from your Party HQ so we can see for ourselves. Cheers.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
In front of me now I have the very booklet on Pope Benedict XVI visit to the UK 2010,the dates are from 16-19 September 2010.this what the Pope visit is about and who and where he is going the headlines are.
(1)Why is the Pope meeting the Queen?
(2)What has the Pope got to say about how our Society works?.
(3)Why are there different churches.?
(4)Why is Pope Benedict meeting leaders of the other faiths.?
(5)What is the Holy See and its contribution worldwide?
(6)What is the Catholic contribution to British society?
(7)What about child protection?
(8)Why are there Catholic schools and colleges?
(9)Why is Pope beatifying John Henry Newman?
(10)How do I connect with God?
(11)Prayer.
(12)So what is the Catholic Church for?
If you wish to know any of the above tell me the number and I will write what it tells us in the booklet.
Further information about the Papal Visit can be found at
www.thepapalvisit.org.uk
Thank you Vic Matcham
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
fair comment vic, i liked the bits about his holiness meeting other faith leaders and connecting with british society.
the rest is for the converted in my view, but the truth is we have millions here.
i rather suspect that the forum fuhrer is secretly lapsed but still a believer.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
I am not a Catholic but go to a Catholic church but God is with all of us 24/7 if you need him and we all do,
Sid, you asked about the "cost" of EU membership etc. There`s no point whatsoever giving you the official UKIP figures as you`ll just say that they`re biased and not to be trusted. I therefore set out below an article from a body totally independant of UKIP ( the Taxpayers Alliance ) which hopefully gives you some of the answers that you`re looking for, although I don`t expect you to agree with them either. Apologies for the length of the following but I think it important to cover as many points as possible.
" The European Union is most commonly discussed in terms of constitutional debates, treaty negotiations, vetoes and votes. Of course, it is absolutely right that the crucial issue of the democratic deficit is addressed, but there are other reasons to be concerned about our relationship with the EU. The vast cost of the EU is foremost among them.
As important as questions of sovereignty and freedom are, it would be wrong to discuss the EU without fully investigating the costs it imposes: costs to the taxpayer, the consumer and business. And by any estimate, those costs are massive.
In our book The Great European Rip-Off, my colleague David Craig and I estimated the total cost to Britain of the EU, once the harmful impacts of its numerous policies and regulations have been taken into account, to be £118 billion a year. That is equal to £1,968 for every man, woman and child - a life-changing amount of money for millions who are currently struggling to make ends meet.
So what is that cost made up of? Up front, we paid the EU £16,398 million of taxpayers' money directly in 2008: £650 for every person, or £45 million a day. This goes into the central EU budget. Of course, that £16,398 million contribution is a gross figure and the EU are always quick to point out that we receive money back from Brussels in the form of grants.
In fact, in 2008 they were generous enough to hand £9,830 million of our own money back to us. Before accepting that this money should be deducted from any estimated cost of the EU, though, it is worth looking at exactly what those grants are for. You will occasionally see "Funded by the EU" badges stuck on works of public art, stiles, free school diaries or in other places, and the range of things the money is used for is remarkably broad.
On close investigation, the actual list of what those EU grants goes on throws up numerous dubious examples. Meals for industry representatives at swanky restaurants, thousands of promotional items like fridge magnets and key rings, £460,000-worth of media training for EU officials based in London, video podcasts about EU events, and even a project run by an actors' union to combat discrimination against elderly female actors - all are counted as grants to Britain from the EU, which we are expected to be grateful for.
The direct contribution to the central EU budget is just the beginning, though. On top of the cost of funding an army of well-paid bureaucrats in Brussels, the British taxpayer also foots the bill for a cohort of public servants employed by our own Government to implement and oversee the EU's rules and regulations. With the EU in control of business, trade, environment, agriculture, fisheries, migration and more, a sizeable portion of each Government department effectively works for Brussels.
Those regulations themselves generate a large bill for all of us indirectly, too. Having paid Brussels to come up with so many rules, and having funded people in Whitehall to administrate them, we as consumers, employees and shareholders then have to bear the cost of abiding by it.
EU regulation touches just about every level of every industry. If you want to build something, grow something, mince something, scrap something, recycle something, burn something, paint something, bake something, package something or do a myriad of other things, there is a sheaf of densely typed regulations just for you. In total, red tape from Brussels adds another £100 billion of lost income, extra expenditure and forfeited economic growth to the bill.
The EU's policies on food production have been particularly disastrous. The Common Fisheries Policy has had a horrendous impact economically, socially and environmentally. Almost 100,000 jobs have been lost in fishing and dependent industries, leading to increased social security bills in devastated fishing communities. Because fishing boats are banned from bringing home fish that exceed their quotes, even if they are caught accidentally, 880,000 tonnes of dead fish are dumped into the North Sea every year. With the fish supply reduced by these quotas and by the radical reduction of fish stocks, prices at the till are increased to the tune of £4.7 billion a year - £186 a year per family.
The same goes for the Common Agricultural Policy. A huge proportion of the EU's annual budget is spent on dishing out subsidies to European farmers, whose sales are protected by tariff barriers which effectively tax much non-European produce out of the market. On top of our direct taxpayer-funded subsidy, the CAP costs the British consumer an extra £5.3 billion on their food bills.
There are numerous other examples of waste. The VAT system is so dysfunctional that it loses £80 billion of taxpayers' money a year through carousel fraud. The EU's libraries are so overfunded and underused that each book loan costs £570. A leaked copy of the secret report by auditor Robert Galvin that we published earlier this year revealed financial irregularities in the accounts of the majority of MEPs in the European Parliament . The list goes on.
Of course, there is heated debate about the actual cost of the EU when everything is taken into account. Various estimates have been produced, ranging from that of the Conseil d'Analyse Economique, which is chaired by the French Prime Minister and which failed to identify any trade benefits from the Single Market or the Euro, to that of the Swiss Federal Government which concluded that joining the EU would cost between six and eight times more than their current relationship with Brussels. The striking thing is that no Government has yet demonstrated in a fully detailed assessment that the EU is of overall benefit to its members.
Remarkably, even the EU itself has failed to produce any convincing figures to demonstrate the benefits of the organisation. Commissioner Gunter Verheugen estimated in 2006 that the cost of regulation to the European economy as a whole is £405 billion a year, while the Commission itself believes that between 1986 and 2002 the Single Market only brought benefits of £110 billion. Even after taking inflation into account, that means that the EU Commission itself believes the costs are three times larger than the benefits.
When weighing up any activity, it is sensible to work out how much it costs and what benefits it brings. If you join a club, you would expect the perks received in return to be worth at least the cost of your membership. If they were not, then you wouldn't join - there are better things you could do with your money without such a costly middle man.
The more one looks into the costs and benefits of the EU, the more it seems like just such a rip-off. All the data suggests that it is a hugely expensive club which provides very little in return for your membership fee. As hotly as the EU's cheerleaders try to discredit any and every figure produced that casts it in a negative light, it is impossible to ignore that the weight of evidence suggests overwhelmingly that the EU is a net cost for Britain.
It would be perfectly easy, of course, to settle the debate once and for all: the British Government could carry out its own cost/benefit analysis. Strangely, whenever that proposal has been put to government ministers they have blathered, obfuscated and then refused to carry one out. The unwillingness of a Government which believes, as Gordon Brown put it, that "we benefit from our membership of the European Union" to do the sums that would prove or disprove that assertion once and for all is suspicious and telling.
One of the first acts of an incoming Conservative Government should be to carry out just such a comprehensive cost/benefit analysis. If David Cameron wishes to balance the books and help the economy, he must address the vast costs of the EU. "
Matthew Elliott
Matthew Elliott is chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance and co-author of 'The Great European Rip-Off' (Random House)
Sid, that dismissive and disrespectful outburst about the Pope is the kind of attitude that contributes to poor relationships in our communities, and Catholisism is in fact a great supporter of societal and family values. I think £14mill is a lot of money, but I don't think bleating about it and causing offence is the best way to deal with it. As Howard says, in the scheme of things it isn't going to break us, and there could be positive outcomes. Your assumption about Ireland is equally offensive, and that lumping together of people based on race or religion doesn't do you justice.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Sid the Catholic Church is now the leading Church here in the UK and outstrips in numbers all other Church groups here in the UK, a fact just about being recognised by the state at last, but of course still not the 'official' church which alas continues to both implode and dwindle over issues such as gay priests, women priests and so on.
So a visit from the Pope to a massive chunk of voters and a massive chunk of the population wont be wasted.
But back to the business angle in Ricks original post. The Osborne emergency budget has almost certainly had a negative effect on business. Im out of business these days and am very glad about that. Labour were fearing a double dip recession if these massive cuts were implemented by the Tories and this is very likely to happen. There is already talk of 600,000 workers from the public sector alone losing their jobs...spread this job cut situation right across the board, right across the economy, and couple it with every Government Minister talking the economy down on national TV by promising even more severe cuts of 40% ...then you can see where the business problems are coming from.
in a nutshell...confidence is gone. The people out there taking the cuts and job losses are the spenders in the high st. The ones that generate business. They wont be spending now...confidence gone...businesses struggle.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Howard said in post #3
""""business confidence has crumbled over the last month and got markedly worse after the budget statement.
the deficit will not be cut by an appreciable amount by the present methods.
i heard more than a few economists say prior to the election that there should be small spending cuts in the first year then building up over the next 4 in order not to kill off the recovery.""""
I challenge the first statement. It has got quieter for business, we all feel it, but as Andy says this not the fault of a government a month old trying to deal with the aftermath of the deepest and longest recession ever and a record deficit.
The budget is getting support from businesses as they know failure to deal with the deficit would be a disaster for them.
You have no basis to claim the deficit is not going to be appreciably cut by the present methods. That is patently untrue.
As for economists - there are different schools of theory and yes it is all theory. The left love Keynseyan economics because they think it gives them the licence to be spendthrift, but theirs is a butchered form of Keynes. He never did advocate the borrowing splurge during the growth cycle that Labour indulged in. The leading cheerleader for the Government approach is David Blanchflower, who I met in January and found that he was disingenious, very selective on the basis of his approach and a man who thinks that 5% plus inflation for 5 yeasr or more is a price worth paying.... the idiot is clearly not a pensioner on a fixed income who's standard of living would drop by around 30% on thatbasis.
Remember, howard, the 365 economists who objected to Geoffrey Howes retrenchment budget in 1982 - they were all wrong and ended up with egg all over their faces. Interesting that Labour at the last election could not conjour up anywhere near that number....
I retain a believe if the Friedman school of economics. It actually works in real life and is not based on voodoo.
Dont worry, Rick - difficult as it is things would be a lot worse if this nettle were not to be grasped and the firmer and quicker it is grasped then the less painful it will be over the longer term. Osborne is right to go in hard and fast.
Guest 695- Registered: 30 Mar 2010
- Posts: 426
I'm glad you bought the thread back on topic Paul. I read Rick's post and wondered how it had changed so quickly to bashing political and church drums.
I have the utmost respect for your business (I don't know you Rick as far as I'm aware). The downturn in business you're experiencing currently - could it be seasonal or perhaps due to company budgets being on hold why they wait to decide what to do? There will be something you can do to give the order book a kick. I'm sure you'll be able to come up with something.