Monthly Archives: August 2009

I hear from my American contacts that the opposition to the Obama health plans is deep, spontaneous and strong. Many Americans think the state scheme will combine the usual characteristics of nationalised service – they think the cost will be too high for taxpayers, whilst the quality and volume of care delivered will be disappointing. [...]

Today the BBC struggled to grasp the obvious when interviewing George Osborne. We have just witnessed a twelve year ruinously expensive experiment, which entailed throwing money at public services, calling it investment, and assuming it would abolish poverty, raise educational standards for all and cure us of our illnesses. Instead it has left us ever [...]

Faced with the need to rein in expenditure, Councils are going to be tempted instead to drive for more income. Thwarted by some government control over Council Tax levels, and disappointed by the grant settlements from the centre, we should be ready for further increases in the level and range of fees and charges they [...]

Government Ministers and their faithful allies at the BBC report RBS as being in profit, making £15 million pre-tax. It is true that in one of the many presentations of figures within the complex Interim Statement by RBS it does show a pre-tax profit of £15 million. That same presentation also shows that the group [...]

Today’s Telegraph story places a strange headline and spin on Tory plans for curbing the budget deficit. We are told that Tories are considering a VAT hike to 20%, after this government’s hike back to 17.5% at the end of this year.The source is said to be Shadow Cabinet, probably meaning it is not the [...]

I might have guessed that the dumbed down thrills seeking media would regard my casual remarks about unreality TV as far more newsworthy and important than my analysis and recommendations to stave off national bankruptcy. Thanks, though, to the Daily Express for taking a centre page on the banks this week. However, there is a [...]

It was a sign of the times. A regional commercial manager of one of our leading banks said he wanted to come and talk to me as a local MP in his area. I agreed to see him yesterday. He brought along a colleague with some Nulab type job title. They asked me what issues [...]

You may have heard on the BBC that RBS made £15 million. If only. The loss for shareholders (yes, us the taxpayers) was £1 billion for the six months. There was a collosal £7.5 billion of write offs. The operating loss was £3.35 billion. The bank has started to shrink its size dramatically. The balance [...]

£50,000,000,000 is a lot of money. Yesterday taxpayers were told they would spending that much on buying up some more financial instruments to help the banking system. £50,000,000,000 is more than this year’s departmental spending on “children schools and families”. It is considerably more than the Transport, Home Office, FCO, International development,Energy and Climate Change, [...]