|
The Budget 2010
It is difficult to know where to start,
but defence appears to be the most ludicrous of all the cuts.
This government is going to scrap our most famous aircraft
carrier the Ark Royal along with the famous Harrier jump jets
she carries. First commissioned in November 1985 the Ark Royal
has seen service all over the globe. Her latest refit completed
3 years ago in March 2007 cost £18 million, and was
to be in service for the next 4 years, when the next carrier
is due to be completed. This will be a revolutionary aircraft
carrier, in that it will be an aircraft carrier, without aircraft.
To save money the government are going to spend money to modify
this carrier to take French and American planes. The next
aircraft carrier is due in service 4 to 5 years after that.
At this time the aircraft carrier built to replace the Ark
Royal [4 years after it has been scrapped], will be mothballed,
scrapped or sold, because we have no aircraft for it. All
this money the government are spending will save us... er...
um... nothing, but it will leave us an aircraft carrier with
aircraft short for about 10 years. Not being an economist,
I can’t see the logic in this.
On Sunday George Osborn said on television, that 35 of the
top companies in the UK [not necessarily UK owned], had seen,
and approved the budget cuts, saying they will be good for
creating jobs. The same companies who forced this government
to back down on the announced rise on employers N.I. contributions.
Of course it is only right that these companies know in advance
of parliament, what the cabinet is planning. The budget didn’t
propose anything about creating jobs, just about cutting them;
about 1 million job cuts were announced this week.
The ConDems did leak a document to the newspapers, before
announcing it in parliament concerning the closing of certain
“quangos”. Hoping to get the better of Labour
by doing this, the papers simply took the copy they had printed
in March of this year when Labour announced the abolishment
of the same quangos, and substituted the word Coalition for
the word Labour in their copy.
We all saw Danny Alexander posing for photos, with the budget
document opened to enable reporters to photograph it.
Back to defence, that is the defence of the general public.
Apart from the defence against terrorism and cyber attacks,
the government have gone soft on crime. They have already
announced the closure of a lot of Law Courts, which was welcomed
by the criminal community. They have now announced cuts to
the police budgets. On top of this they expect the prison
population to fall by 3,000. It is a proven fact that with
high unemployment, and massive spending cuts aimed at the
poor that crime will increase. Less police and fewer courts
mean that more and more petty criminals will receive a mild
caution and will, on the whole carry on furthering their criminal
careers without serious interruption.
There has been massive arguments this week, between the Government
and the BBC. The BBC were not included in the spending review,
but at the 11th hour the government decided the BBC should
pay for all the pensioners who are entitled to free TV Licences.
Who thought this idea up is not known, but it could be that
Rupert Murdock could have suggested to David Cameron on his
clandestine visit through the back door to no 10, that successful
private companies were making profits from people who were
paying the licence fee, and that it would be appropriate for
these companies to at least donate to the government the money
they were losing from older pensioners, who didn’t pay
the licence fee. It is understood the BBC successfully argued
against the government that they make good the cost of free
licences to the pensioners, at a cost. The BBC did have the
licence fee frozen for 6 years, and the BBC will in addition
foot the bill for the World Service, previously funded by
the Government.
If you like this article, hit the
“Like” button.
Vic
Farron RFT
Express. .
Follow us on Twitter
:: Facebook
:: and Blogspot
Bookmark this page using the ‘Share’ button
|
|
FREE Newsletter
Subscribe
Here
_____________________
Have you something interesting to say?
Be
a Guest Blogger
_____________________
Use the "Share" tool to email
this page to a friend, tweet it, or book mark this page.
|
