June 2010

Post Budget News in Brief

The “Free schools” one of the flagship proposals from the Conservatives to woo voters looks to be dead in the water. The Swedish scheme has not proved to be good value for money with only the very richest people seeing any benefit.  The Swedish schools were set up because parents did not have a choice, as parents in the UK have. The Swedish Free schools have to follow the national curriculum, the UK Free schools have to teach minimum English, maths, science and information and communications technology.  Cameron now suggests parents should set up schools in their own homes. The original plan was to take money from the schools building programme, the treasury expressed concern over this. The next idea was to use the money taken from the poorest families, i.e. the free school meals budget.  That is Fair and open Government take from the poor - give to the rich. Now the government intends using £50m from a £200m technology fund to help pay for set-up costs of schools this year.

The increase in VAT will hit many small businesses with reduced sales from the higher prices the customer will have to pay, this is compounded by the increase in the insurance premium tax from 5% to 6%.For average families this will mean an extra £425 per year. Cuts in benefits will target the poor, the sick and the elderly as well as those out of work. The single parent charity Ginger-Bread said families having a second child could be £1200 a year worse off. Save The Children the £2billion extra promised to the poorest families in child tax credits, would be wiped out  by other measures announced in the Budget. The British Heart Foundation was disappointed there was no increase on the duty of tobacco.

With other cuts in benefits, tax increases, and the higher projected unemployment rate, many companies will cease trading. The Cuts in the job creation schemes from the Department of Work and Pensions will swell the unemployed figures. Parents of young children will have to seek work when their child reaches 5 years, instead of the current 10 years, adding to the unemployed. Disabled people and those long term out of work will also be hit, being encouraged to work.

 People who have been out of work for 2 or more years know that a 100 letters a week won’t generate jobs. The majority of firms who receive 100’s if not 1,000’s of job applications a week, don’t bother to even acknowledge them, just bin them. So where are all these extra jobs coming from?

Noticeable was the fact that there was No Increase in tobacco and alcohol or fuel, apart from the VAT increase to 20%

Bankers and city financiers who got us into this mess– have got off very lightly. Economists, and the American President Barack Obama, agree that the government's zeal for deficit slashing is potentially dangerous and wrong. They are calling on European economies to stop the hard and fast cuts, and carry on spending to boost economic recovery. A slide into a decade-long depression, not just a double-dip recession, is now likely. The same as Japan did in the 1990’s.

As expected the Lib-dems have taken a battering for selling out there ideals and their electorate, for the 22 ministerial jobs. Nick Clegg was apparently ducking questions over his role in the reforms, and had to rely on a junior colleague to answer questions over plans to require a 55% majority vote to trigger an election. All credit must go to David Cameron; he bought and paid for the Lib-Dems at a knock down price, which he can cancel when the time is ripe.

Vic Farron RFT Express.
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Pre Budget cuts

Nick Clegg experienced the pain in the first round of cuts; the £2 billion cuts included the £80 million government loan axed for Sheffield Forgemasters in his bordering constituency. The giant factory secured a £80million loan from the Labour Government, to make Sheffield Forgemasters a world leader in forging high tech giant steel reactor cores, currently only available from Japan. With 80% of this production being exported, and an expanded workforce, Sheffield Forgemasters felt the deal was good value money . They received a phone call confirming the loan had been withdrawn, just minutes before Danny Alexander announced it in Parliament.

Nick Clegg the Deputy Prime Minister said “The truth is that this loan was promised by the outgoing Labour Government as a calculated ploy to win support in Sheffield just ahead of the election, when they knew all along that there simply wasn't the money to keep to that pledge in first place.” 

£80 million for a seat in Parliament, has Nick Clegg been converted to the Tory mud throwing policy? Maybe that was part of the deal to gain power. Thank Goodness we’ve got Open and Fair Government

David Cameron said it was right to review the decisions that were taken very close to the election by the last government."There was a suspicion that while some of these decisions might have been good decisions, not all of them were good decisions and not all of them were good value for money. .. Read the Full Article

Vic Farron RFT Express.
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Coalition Claim Discredited By OBR

The OBR [Office for Budget Responsibility] has blown the coalition myth of a big black hole in the deficit out of the water. Jon Snow comments in his   Snowblog   on the 14^th June,  ‘Nick Clegg, the chancellor and the prime minister have lately all been claiming that their initial look at the books has unearthed various subterranean horrors lurking in the hidden cells of the Treasury spreadsheets, hidden by a dying, desperate Labour government .’ Now I suppose rather than the usual smears and half truths coming out of the Coalition, it could be that the news that ‘When the deficit is lower in each and every year, and the overall level of borrowing £32bn lower than at the March 2010 budget’, That the real subterranean horrors are that they have less of a reason to increase VAT .

The trio have also been claiming that the £155 Billion is the highest ever deficit. They also claimed a few months ago that the projected deficit of £180 Billion was also the highest ever deficit, and they claimed it was also grossly underestimated. Does this sound like the old Tory concept of mud throwing?

Vic Farron RFT Express. Read the Full Article
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New UK Hydrogen Powered Car

Built by Riverspeed the car is not only revolutionary in its design, giving the equivalent of 300 m.p.g. and built to last 15 to 25 years, Riverspeed have also revolutionised the way you acquire the car, and the way it is built.

This car is the start of the future:  The car itself has five novel features – a composite body, weighing 350 kgs, four electric motors, no gearbox or transmission, regenerative braking and power provided by hydrogen fuel cells.

Cars will not be sold outright. Customers will buy mobility as a service, not a car as a product. It is in everyone's interest to keep cars on the road as long as possible. Riversimple will be the first car manufacturer not wanting you to buy a new one every three years.

The expected cost will be £200 to £250 per month plus 15p per mile . For a yearly mileage of 5,000 miles the cost would be approximately £3,150 or a net cost of 63 pence per mile, which ‘if you are buying a mobility service’,  is expected will include road fund licence, insurance and maintenance.

Riverspeed will be running two pilots in medium sized UK cities with 30 cars in each. This will include recruitment and training of customer service and vehicle maintenance staff. A memorandum of understanding was signed with Leicester City Council, the first city to sign up.

Due to be launched in 2013, these cars will be manufactured in smaller factories producing around 5,000 vehicles per factory each year. They will be produced on a city by city basis across the UK, with Leicester expecting to be the first. It is hoped that the car will go Global, with other manufacturers producing it under licence

How will it fair against the Nissan Leaf 5 door available later this year ?  The Nissan is a bigger car with a range of only 100 miles. Priced at £23,350 it needs a longer range to be competitive.

Newcastle has indicated it will provide free electric hook up points in city centre car parks. Local supermarkets may be encouraged to do the same.

  The first Electric powered London Taxi went into service this week. With a range of 250 miles, it will be a viable alternative to the standard London taxi. Already in service in London are large capacity electric powered vans.

As technology improves over the next few years we could see less and less fossil fuelled cars on the roads.

Vic Farron   RFT Express.

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Cameron blames Labour

Cameron blames Labour for the debt crises, and which he claims was even worse than he thought.  Alistair Darling told the BBC this was nonsense, the only thing that had changed was that when Cameron took over, we were borrowing £11 billion less than was forecast in March. How can £11 billion reduction in one month be worse than he thought?

Before he was Prime Minister, David Cameron was continually shouting in the commons that Gordon Brown was personally responsible for the World going into recession. How much power does he think Gordon Brown had? I thought it was the banks, with the US being the biggest culprit that put the world into recession.

David Cameron has had a busy week with his photo shoots. He went to Cumbria, and so he should, he was in the background when Tesco chief Sir Terry Leahy announced his resignation, and posed for a photo shoot with Margaret Thatcher outside no 10.

Danny Alexander looked really bored sitting behind George Osborne in the commons, I expected him falling asleep. During a TV interview this week Danny Alexander was asked what qualification he had to be Chief Secretary to the Treasury, he took some time answering before coming up with,” I helped broker the Lib Dem-Conservative Coalition .”

It is reported that Nick Clegg has asked that cabinet meetings could be held later, it is conflicting with his private life, and the times he takes his children to school.

Vic Farron   RFT Express.

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Not so Much a Blog More a ...

Not so much a blog more a mis-mash of bits and pieces.

 I noticed this week on the telly, David Cameron has lost his shadow Nick Clegg. The coalition hasn’t announced how much the new Office of Budget Responsibility will cost. I think so far they have announced more spending, than they have announced cuts.

To help things along, we have put some more free software on the site:

Logmein free is a free programme to enable you to access your computer from any other internet connect computer anywhere..Home and Office downloads   on the same page is the freebie  7-Zip a quality zip programme.

Freemind is a great programme for students and management Home and Office .    SkyDownloader is the #1 downloader for free music, movies, live TV and more. It’s home base for everything that entertains you online is in the Free Games section.

At the bottom of the Article Directory you will find a link to the BBC article, What its like to live with the Electric Mini an interesting read from a man who has been trial ling the new mini.

Vic Farron   RFT Express.

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Universities Cut to Fund the Rich

Sally Hunt the general secretary of the University and College Union told the Union’s annual conference that ministers are pursuing a policy of ignorance on education, where its’ education policy should be..

She asks ‘What kind of a government would want to cut colleges and universities by £1.5 billion while proposing a tax giveaway of £8 billion to big business. ‘The answer of course is a Tory led coalition, most of whom enjoyed free university educations, well free to them, courtesy of the tax payer. Big business put the Tories in power, shaped their manifestos with expensive advertising, it is only   Fair the Government should reward them. The resulting cuts will halve the number of extra places to 10,000 this autumn. Sally Hunt also warned the Lib-Dems not to go back on their promise to vote against an increase in fees from the current £3,225 per year.

Danny Alexander the new chief secretary to the Treasury, who took over from David Laws explains how he exploited a loophole to avoid paying Capital Gains tax on the sale of his tax-payer funded flat. He bought his London flat in 1999, then bought a home in his constituency of Inverness in 2005. He sold his tax payer funded flat in 2007, and bought another one. Because he sold the original flat within 3 years of purchasing his Inverness home, no Capital gains tax was payable. All legal and above board.

Vic Farron   RFT Express.

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