Boris says 'BOGOF Cops'!

Gotta hand it to Boris, who else could launch a buy one get one free scheme for policemen?

For every new police officer a borough pays for, the Mayor will ‘match fund’ the post and recruit another officer. This means boroughs will effectively be given two police officers for the price of one – a huge boost to the numbers of uniformed officers patrolling local streets.

Boris, we who are about to die salute you!

Example AV Ballot Paper

Image "borrowed" from http://votenotoav.wordpress.com/

Alternative Voting

So we are to have a referendum on the 5^th of May!

To Vote or Not To Vote Alternatively?

Lord Winston has changed his mind in recent weeks, as to the usefulness of such a system! Initially he was in favour of such a thing, but now has concerns that it will lead to a constant state of flux, in which we will see ourselves stuck with coalition after coalition. Or put another way, he fears it will signal the end of tribal party politics!

On the same news bulletin, a Lib Dem MP commented that the Alternative Voting System was to be welcomed because it would ensure that a Member of Parliament would always represent at least 50% of his or her constituents!

And there we have it! That one little statement sums up all that is wrong with the system we have in place at the moment.

Too many of our MPs feel that they are the representatives of their parties, rather than the representative of their constituency. Regardless of the banner under which an MP considers he was elected, his job is to represent the views of all of the people in his constituency. We need to get away from this “us and them”, this ”winners and losers” mentality amongst our politicians.

We need to get away from opposition for opposition sake!

Having a referendum to decide between First Past the Post and Alternative Voting will do nothing to bring true democracy any closer to the people of this country. Democracy is not served by a system that sees a few nameless, faceless people deciding the fate of the nation in darkened rooms and then feeding their decisions down to the people by way of their party structure.

True Democracy is the unfettered will of the people.

If we are going to have a referendum on May the 5^th, why not ask the people what we should do with our paedophiles? And if the people suggest that we nail them up, rather than concern ourselves with their human rights, then our government’s job should be to plant more trees, rather than trying to sell off our forests.

Perhaps we would be better served on May the 5^th to vote for a candidate who will represent us, rather than voting for the nameless, faceless party oligarchs.

Vote Apolitical!  

Here endeth today’s lesson!

Downing Street launches the logo for National Citizen Service

Oh dear, some bright spark appears to have rather conflated Constructivism as a learning theory with Constructivism, the art movement.

Is it really possible that a Tory led government is seeking to flavour a flagship policy with the art of the Revolution as conceived by The Commissariat of Enlightenment, the Bolshevik government's cultural and educational ministry?

However Constructivism did have a great deal of effect on developments in the art of the Weimar Republic. And as the Weimar Republic is chiefly associated in our minds with hyperinflation, the choice might prove eerily prescient.

Cross posted from Charlie's blog.

Egypt

Uninstalling dictator in progress ... ███████████████████████████░ ...99.9% complete

They’re Making Monkeys of Us

My wife tells a story from her younger days, of a man armed with a sawn-off shot gun, dressed in a gorilla suit, walking into the pub and demanding the contents of the till. While the regulars watched with some intrigue, the landlady simply shrugged her shoulders opened the cash draw, pulled out a worth-while wad of the folding stuff and handed it to the man saying “There you go Trevor, but what’s with the gorilla outfit?”

I was reminded today of another classic gorilla moment, when I heard that the top four banks in this country “were livid” at the news that George Osborne has imposed a further levy on them of £850 million, taking their collective charges to £2.5 billion for the year.

As the day unfolded we heard various comments from our political leaders. Outstanding amongst them was firstly Tim Farron, President of the Lib Dems, who told listeners of Victoria Derbyshire’s show on Radio 5 Live, that it was only right that the banks be made to pay for “causing the deficit” and then George Osborne himself saying that the banks had to “pay their fair share towards the deficit”.

The problem with having a government made up of young career politicians half of whom have studied PPE at uni, is that they have all been taught from the same old texts, they have all sat at the feet of the same old indoctrinated economists spouting the same old accepted wisdom that has gone before. But let’s get one thing clear. What ever their dusty text books and dry old lecturers may have told them at university, it is inexcusable for senior political figures in this country to give the impression that the banks have anything to do with the setting of this country’s budget.

I will say it again! The Deficit is the difference between what the government spends each year and what it receives through taxation. The Deficit, is the government not living within its means.

The National Debt increases each year by the amount of the Deficit – It’s Not Rocket Science.

All three main parties went into the general election last year, saying they would halve the deficit over the life time of the next parliament, from around £150bn per year to about £100bn per year at the end of four years (clearly maths is not a big part of the politics, philosophy and economics degree curriculum) a reduction of £11bn per year (and interest). George Osborne and David Cameron then decided to go at it like a bull at a gate and get it down by £83bn over four years. Yet government borrowing for November was £23.9bn which would indicate the deficit for this year being more like £250bn. Austerity isn’t going to work. It isn’t the answer.

It’s time to throw away the dusty old text books, and let the old duffers at Cambridge out to pasture. We need to change the system so that is suits us, the people, not the bankers.

The answer is to change the monetary policy of the country, so that instead of the banks creating the nations money for the government to borrow, the government creates the money, and if the banks want to borrow some to lend to us, then they can pay interest to the government for the privilege. The government shouldn’t need to lay off thousands of people from their jobs, and then go cap in hand to the banks to borrow the money to pay them a bit of job seekers twice a month.

David Cameron tells us we are paying £120million a day in interest on national borrowing. The banks create the money that they lend to the government (and us for that matter) out of thin air, by way of an accounting fraud on a computer screen, and lend it to us at 3% interest.

Interest payments for the government this year are £43.8bn, but when George says he’s going to claw back £2.5bn by way of a levy, the banks all scream like a troop of baboons.

The people in the gorilla suits on this occasion are the bankers. The government is trying to give the impression of having tamed them, and like Gerald in the “Not The Nine O’clock News” sketch when the interviewer asks were they wild when they were caught? They have replied “Wild? We were livid! But it’s the bankers who are laughing, because dressed in their gorilla suits, we can’t see the grins on their faces.

They’re getting away with it again.

In truth the bankers are more like Psycho Trevor from the pub. We all know who it is that’s robbing us, but we just let them do it anyway.