UK ECONOMY - DOING WHAT IS RIGHT IN
NATIONAL INTEREST

 

History's verdict on David Cameron and George Osborne will

not rest on performing whatever economic contortions that are

necessary in order to save Conservative skins at the 2015

election. The country's dire economic state and its democratic

future demand that the Prime Minister and Chancellor act as

statesmen rather than politicians and look beyond the

electoral fate of their party to the spiralling debt that will be

the inheritance of our children and those yet unborn.

 

The Government should not be concerned about political

unpopularity and address our rapidly deteriorating economic

situation. It is one where tax revenues are declining by 7%

annually but social spending continues to grow by 8%, funded

by slashing capital investment and increased borrowing, which,

according to the Treasury, will raise the national debt by 40%

by 2016. This is a level at which no government will be able to

fund its budget deficit, as the international bond markets take

fright.

Voters must be disabused of the notion that we can grow our

way out the problem when the economy, together with the

economies of our main trading partners is, at best, flatlining,

with little prospect of any medium-term improvement.

 

The Prime Minister and Chancellor must have the courage

to take the tough choices needed to bring the economy back

into equilibrium. This can achieved by cutting the size of the

state, accelerating supply-side reforms, switching current

spending to capital investment, in order to create more jobs

and the introduction of a flat tax.

 

Continuing with the status quo, hands tied by a

disproportionally influential junior coalition partner, will

inevitably result electoral defeat. Doing what is right for

Britain just might produce a different outcome.

.

 

NOT THE TIMES NEWSPAPER

----- Original Message -----

 

             CUT TAXES, INCREASE REVENUE

 

A radical overhaul of Britain's tax system is an overriding

imperative for reviving the economy and any alternatives

should include the introduction of a flat tax.Such a move

would boost government revenues, reduce tax avoidance

and involve the abolition of all tax reliefs and exemptions.

 

In making the case for lower taxes, we need only look to

the Russian Federation, following the demise of the Soviet

Union in 1991. Here, in order to invigorate a sclerotic

economy, the introduction of a flat tax resulted in a 25%

rise in revenue from personal income tax, followed by

a similar increase in the second year and 15% in year

three.

The Laffer curve predicts such an outcome, attributing the

primary reason for increased revenues to higher levels of

economic growth, stemming from the introduction of the

flat tax. If the UK Government were to adopt this model it

would also benefit the exchequer by increasing declared

income and reducing bureaucracy by simplifying the way

tax is calculated and collected.

A flat tax would have a transformative effect on employers

and employees alike. It would incentivise, generate growth,

boost consumer confidence and get Britain moving.

 

NOT THE TIMES NEWSPAPER

             STANDING ROOM ONLY

David Cameron's plan to deny aid for immigrants

and MPs' censure of top civil servants for failing

to tackle the immigrant issue bring stable doors

to mind with regard to preventing unknown

numbers of people settling in the UK, Europe's

most densely populated country.

The last government will not be forgiven by

those whose quality of life has been affected

by the historically unprecedented wave of

immigrants, whose presence is stretching

the social and infrastructural fabric of our

society to breaking point.

We are where we are but should remind

ourselves how this situation has arisen.

The continuing assertion that, when in office,

Labour acted in good faith in not properly

assessing the impact of immigration and

of integration is contradicted by the facts.

A publication of 2000, obtained under the

Freedom of information Act, contained a

secret Cabinet Office report, which

characterised Labour's open-door

immigration policy as a deliberate attempt

to rub the Right's nose in cultural diversity.

Clearly, its aim was also to expand the Party's

support among the immigrant population,

where, according to Chris Mullen in his book

A View from the Foothills, 80% vote Labour.

Current projections are that by 2026 immigration

will add to England's population about the

equivalent of seven cities the size of Birmingham.

Research shows that in Manchester no fewer

than 151 languages are spoken. It indicates

a growing immigrant presence accompanied by

white flight. The dynamic is one of accelerating

cultural change which is transforming this

and other urban connurbations throughout the UK.

NOT THE TIMES NEWSPAPER

                     CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME

The Department for International Development's largesse

appears to know no bounds. The Government, not content
with diverting billions of borrowed money away from saving
the nation from impending bankruptcy, is allegedly now in
the business of electoral manipulation in Pakistan, redolent
of the corrupt political practices present in Great Britain
before the 1832 Reform Act. This is according to UK press

 reports on aid buying votes for Bhutto party.

The pensioner fearful of turning on the heating. The small

business struggling to survive the deepest recession for
a century. Taxpayers severely punished for the
recklessness of the last government. They look
at the annual contribution £450m of aid for Pakistan
scheduled for 2015 and wonder if this Conservative-led
Government inhabits a parallel universe.

Pakistan is a country with a growing nuclear arsenal.

two-thirds of politicians pay no taxes and the UK's
support for the Benazir Income Support Programme
will remove the incentive for tax reforms. Britain, on
the other hand, with a national debt equal to its annual

GDP, is sliding into insolvency on a quixotic mission to
save the poor with an annual contribution of £11.7bn in
foreign aid to regimes whose regimes have been shown
to be corrupt and undemocratic.

 

NOT THE TIMES NEWSPAPER

           BENEFITS OUT OF CONTROL

 

Changes in legislation on welfare are a stark reality check.

The exponential growth of our lax benefits provision has far

outstripped our ability to pay for an abused system that is far

removed from the Christian intent that influenced Beveridge's

thinking when in 1942 he wrote his blueprint for the welfare

State.

 

He considered that state benefits should be based on

contribution, a safety net in times of need. They were never

meant to be a lifestyle choice, promoting large families living

in overcrowded urban connurbations, where no-one works, with

each succeeding generation inheriting the dependency culture

from the preceding one.

 It is a depressing picture in which in many cases the Victorian

work ethic that our forebears successfully exported to those

with whom we fiercely compete in world markets, has all but

disappeared. It is one in which many of the million or so of

our young people are demotivated by a mindset of entitlement,

devoid of the desire to work, and failed by an education

system that is unfit for purpose.

The clergy's hostility to such reforms should perhaps be

tempered by the biblical axiom: As you sow, so shall you

reap. What Beveridge sowed seventy years ago was the

spirit of altruism. What we continue to reap is that which

can no longer be afforded when the economy is flatlining

and the crippling burden of debt grows by the day.

 

 

NOT THE TIMES NEWSPAPER

UK - FORGING GLOBAL TRADE LINKS



Few would not wish David Cameron well in his belated,
Canute-like endeavours to articulate to his EU colleagues
the largely ignored demands of the majority of the
electorate with regard to the re-negotiation of Britain's
relationship with the EU. The EU, far from emerging f
rom the financial crisis, as Jose Manuel Barroso and
Herman von Rumpuy assert, continues to implode under
the weight of its own economic and  political
inconsistencies. The Prime Minister will explain,
somewhat euphemistically, that support for the UK
remaining in the EU is wafer-thin. While this may true o
f much of the general population, who see the corrosive
effects of mass immigration and human rights' leglislation,
it is certainly true of those who are trying to create wealth.

Apart from big business which enjoys certain operational
benefits from EU membership, the negative head of steam
building up in the rest of the economy will only be
neutralised by action, not yet more words. The UK's
34,000 mid-sized businesses, where the real potential
for achieving growth lies, have a combined annual
turnover of £630bn, outperforming their smaller and
larger counterparts. However, rather than being seen
as a crucial part of the solution to the country's
deepening economic problems, they feel forgotten,
their innovative spirit and enterprise frustrated by
the dead hand of an incremental EU bureaucracy,
which adds to costs and weakens incentives. Britan's
future can be dynamic and successful, set free to live
in accordance with its own rule of law, trading with
the wider world and the emerging power-house
economies, which are shaping a new world order.