Monthly Archives: September 2011

          Mr Pritchard is right to point out the damage our current membership of the EU does to UK democracy and the economy.         The high payments the UK has to make into the EU bduget, the large transfers now being required to bail out Euro problems, and the vast burden of EU regulation [...]

              It is a strange paradox. Mr Cable dislikes high private sector executive pay, and wishes to get shareholders to curb it. Yet Mr Cable is one of  a select few who decides the pay of RBS executives, a loss making state owned bank. He does nothing to curb that.

              It is a strange paradox. Mr Cable dislikes high private sector executive pay, and wishes to get shareholders to curb it. Yet Mr Cable is one of  a select few who decides the pay of RBS executives, a loss making state owned bank. He does nothing to curb that.

        It was bad news this morning to wake to the briefing from the Lib Dem conference. We heard of their three priorities – tax the successful more, stand up to “ruthless tories”, and stop people getting high salaries.        I want to hear policies for growth and recovery, policies to lift people out [...]

             The rogue trader at UBS has allowed another round of banker bashing. Why aren’t more bankers in prison, the BBC and others ask. Wasn’t the granting and packaging up of low grade mortgages a crime? Shouldn’t they all be prosecuted?            I agree that if a banker steals money or perpetrates a fraud they [...]

                  Top rates of Income Tax: United Arab Emirates        0% Hong Kong                            15% Singapore                              20% USA                                          35% Switzerland                           40% (including  cantonal tax) Germany                                41% UK                                             50%  (plus extra NI)

              The government’s big idea is localism. It is said to underlie their approach to planning, to education, to health and to local government. Properly done it can save us money by abolishing government at the centre. If implemented it would mean that the whole country is not cursed with the same centrally imposed [...]

              The US Treasury Secretary is joining the EU Finance Ministers to tell them to sort out their ramshackle currency. He has bought his place at the table, by pledging Fed money to European banks in trouble. The dollar fix deals for the moment with the dollar liquidity problem. It does not resolve the [...]