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Monday, May 31, 2010
David Laws Resignation
3 weeks into the coalitions’ term, they have lost there first minister, David Laws.
Multi millionaire David Laws has resigned over allegations in the daily Telegraph that between 2004 and 2007, Mr Laws claimed between £700 and £950 a month to sub-let a room in a flat in Kennsington, South London, from his secret long-term partner, lobbyist James Lundie .
Since 2006, Parliamentary rules have banned MPs from "leasing accommodation from a partner". Mr Laws has confirmed he will repay the £40,000 of tax payers money, but queried whether Mr Lundie, his long time “partner” counted as a "partner" as defined by the rules on expenses . Mr Laws said he wanted to protect his privacy. Read The full Article
Friday, May 28, 2010
Referrals
For the last two weekends I have had to be on the road, nothing booked for this weekend and back to the office on Friday for 4-30. Time for a spot of relaxation!
Just had a quick look at the stats, and they are probably more interesting than last week. If you click on the links, most of them take you directly to the search page the visitor found . We had one visitor who tapped ‘rft’ into the Sky search engine [I didn’t know they had one] Sky directed them to the RFT Express home page. We were at the bottom of Skys’ first page:- looks like I upset Rupert by reporting his visit to no 10 !.. I will send him a birthday card; see if that will improve the ranking position for RFT Express.
’ valuable delivery from uk to europe ’ was another unusual search request which was sent to RFT home page. It turned out we were 4th after the paid adverts, out of the 3.6 million other sites also found with this search term
This search term ‘www.uk to eurpe and all over uk corrier company van jobs ‘ left Google a little perplexed, and sent the visitor to our home page
More interest than usual came from India this week the term ‘Garments Companies in u.k’ put us at the top, the enquiry came from Calcutta.
One visitor came from http://programmeforgovernment.hmg.gov.uk/transport/ which was a little perplexing, when I checked further it was a comment I made on this site that brought the visitor to RFT Express
The search term 'Lib Dem Public Funding Opposition' put both the BBC and the Guardian above RFT Express & the official Lib-Dem site.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
News in Brief
David Cameron failed to highjack the 1922 committee, defeated by his own Back Benchers .
Jon Snow reports that according to David Laws, the Treasury fed advice to the coalition talks. The Treasury is only meant to advise the government, at that stage still Labour. Is it possible that in the scrupulously and smoothly run negotiations, Whitehall, enthusiastic for a settlement to the constitutional hiatus, eager to help the smooth-running of negotiations in any way it could, have over-stepped the mark?
The rate of growth for the first 3 months of this year was 0.3%, an increase of 50% on the forecast of 0.2%. The deficit estimated at £180 billion, which the Tories continually said was under estimated stands at £156 billion.
The net cuts the coalition have announced amount to less than 1%, of the deficit, but that doesn’t take into account the new department the coalition are setting up, the Office of Budget Responsibility , which will provide borrowing and economic growth forecasts for the Treasury. Main elements of the proposed bill "have yet to be decided upon". No mention of reforming the remit of the National Audit Office, which was predicted in advance media coverage.
Regulation of the Banks will go back to the Bank of England , No mention of the Bank Levy.
Welfare Reform Bill will create a single welfare-to-work programme and make benefit payments more conditional on willingness to accept work. Disabled to be ‘encouraged‘to work. [No mention of bringing back the Workhouses]. Where are these Jobs?
The coalition will introduce system of HGV road user charges to ensure "fairer arrangement" for UK haulers. HGV road user charges, is a new policy mentioned in the Queens Speech, but not mentioned in either party's manifesto. I think they mean that Fair Government, is Fair to the Government.
Several commentators have suggested that the coalition will last 2 or possible 3 years. One also asked if David Cameron will be remembered for sending his party into oblivion, and will Nick Clegg be remembered for the sending the Lib – Dems to oblivion.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Fair Government, Creating Trust in MPs
The Lib Dems have applied for public money allocated to the opposition parties for research. In a Newsnight interview they claimed it was in the public interest. This is what they call Fair Government, and is inline with the principals of the Governments’ intent to promote confidence in the Electorate following the Expenses Scandal . It is also compatible with the Coalition pledge to cut Government spending. Well that’s Fair, isn’t it?
The Conservatives are going ahead with their schools for the people, by the people. The idea behind this is that a group of like minded parents set up their own schools, because the ones we have now are not good enough for them. Funding will come from....well the general public. These schools will be purpose built, with public money,[ £30 million], have the best teachers, and of course be run by the group of parents, with the help of a preferred professional organisation. The Governments preferred partner is Serco, who incidentally have just been relieved of this responsibility in Bradford.
They will be the new Private schools, the only difference being that parents won’t have to pay for these better Private schools, the general public will. Of course the selection process will be more strict, probably dictated by income and, or, race. Well that’s Fair, isn’t it?
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Rule Changes to Stabilise Coalition?
David Cameron is planning to change the rules on how an election is called, in order to quote ‘to help the stability of his coalition government’ . This is what the conservatives say is fair government .
The deal agreed between the conservatives and the lib-dems is for a fixed 5 year term for the present government, and it can’t be dissolved without the support of 55% of the MPs. Conveniently the coalition doesn’t have 55% of the MP’s needed, so they cannot dissolve parliament. And coincidentally the lib-dems along with all the other MPs doesn’t have 55% either. So the conservatives can get rid of the lib-dems anytime they want, and nobody can do anything about it.
That’s open, fair government, designed to rekindle trust in MPs, well at least David Cameron thinks absolute power is fair to him.
The present rules call for 50% of the MPs plus 1 as the number required to dissolve Parliament, under these rules when David Cameron ditches the lib-dems, there would be enough MPs to dissolve Parliament. No wonder he wants to change the rules.
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Thursday, May 20, 2010
What is Happening to This Country?
According to Elaine Okyere of the BBC, two thirds of young carers are being bullied at school.
What a disgusting state of affairs !
From a survey carried out by the Princess Royal Trust for Carers, who questioned 700 young people between the ages of six and 18, showed that 39% hadn’t told their teachers about their carers’ responsibility.
Those who did tell their teachers felt they weren’t being supported!
Ms Manzi for the charity said the results of the survey were unsurprising.
"We knew anecdotally that young carers were suffering in regard to education and schools and didn't have the support that they needed," she said. The charity hopes more schools will take notice of vulnerable pupils.
These kids are heroes, they look after invalided parents, cooking, cleaning, washing as well as doing their school homework, and in return they suffer stress, depression and tiredness.
The thanks they get... they get bullied , and for a lot of them, this is all they have to look forward to.
Vic Farron RFT Express Read a previous article Cyberbullying – What every parent should know
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Visitor Referral
It has been a busy week this week, with most of next week already fully booked, and part of the week after booked.
I have just had a chance to check the stats for last week’s searches, with Google still providing the bulk of the search engine traffic. The furthest Google queries were from Japan and China. What is interesting is the increase in the use of the UK Ask. com search engine from UK visitors.
Twitter and the blogs contributed an increasing number of visitors.
Some of the search queries entered into Google were vague to the say the least, the term ‘self employed courier table of competitors’ , was one that Google directed to the Article Directory, and ‘ how do I work the mileage a small can do’ was one that Ask also directed to the Article Directory. AOL also sent the search ‘Van courier contracts’ to the Article Directory. Google sent the search term ‘caravan trim manufacturers’ to the article ‘Meet the Family’. It’s nice to know that the search engines think we know everything.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
UK Democracy is Dead
The UK has a new government voted in democratically by the citizens of the UK. What a laugh!
The Conservative voters, voted for the Conservative Policies: They didn’t get those policies they voted for.
The Lib.Dem. Voters, voted for the LIB. Dem. Policies: They didn’t get those policies they voted for.
The Labour Voters, voted for the Labour Policies: They didn’t get those policies they voted for.
The Conservatives and the Lib. Dems. ditched their manifestos in the selfish pursuit of power. The two leaders have dictated to the UK what they will get. At least Gordon Brown stuck to his election promises, and didn’t compromise his integrity.
That’s Dictatorship spelt Democracy.
One of the first things the UK voters have to suffer is that the new Government will pass a bill giving them a 5 year fixed term. That is 5 years of policies that the majority of the country don’t want. There isn’t one voter in the country that elected their MP to pass this law. Is this being power crazy, or just the fact that they expect the country to rebel against not getting the policies they voted for. Read the Full Article
Scammers Hit UK Again
The latest scam to hit the UK with a vengeance is being operated using mobile phones. It started about 3 weeks ago with a simple text message from a supposed legal company, asking if you have had an accident in the last two years. The text message invites you to reply ‘NO’ to stop future messages.
The mobile numbers are randomly generated by computer, and by texting ‘No’ it confirms to the scammers your number is live, enabling them to build a list for future scam campaigns. When they have extracted sufficient cash from the list, the list is then sold on to other scammers. Read More..http://bit.ly/dd0Hrb
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Meet The Family
I was reading the part of the budget again concerning the increase in fuel duty. You may remember I did predict that as the world came out of recession the price of fuel would start to rise again. Although the oil companies increase the price of fuel more than the government increase the tax, we all pay the price in increased delivery costs, and of course when the duty is increased, or the oil companies put the price up, the private motorist also has to pay the increased VAT as well.
As part of a promotional email campaign 8 Years ago , I wrote several articles ‘The Average UK Family’ which charted a hypothetical day in the life of an average family, and how RFT Express with the contracts and deliveries we were making at the time, contributed to their standard of living. Sadly a lot of the companies we were delivering for have fallen by the wayside during the recession.
What the article does show is that everything you own, use, wear or eat has been transported by road, by several vehicles. The house you live in came by road, your place of work, every piece of equipment, every machine, was transported by road.
I have reproduced one of the articles, I know several important decision makers in government read the blog, this could be a gently reminder of how increased fuel duty impacts on everyone.