Aircraft carriers with no aircraft on them.
Going to war in Mali, and putatively in Syria.
Proving Bashar al-Assad right.
The proliferation of pound shops, of betting shops, and of pay day loan shops.
Pay day loans at all.
The idea that, in order to get them out of bed, the poor must be compelled to do companies' work for nothing more than the benefits to which they were already entitled, whereas the rich must have public money thrown at them in mind-boggling quantities to the same end.
Bonuses larger than the salaries of those to whom they are paid, and over which shareholders, including the taxpayers' elected representatives where applicable, have no say.
The cutting either of defence or of "welfare" (when did that Americanism become common usage in Britain?) while public money is used to pay bonuses to the people who, since they run loss-making banks, are by definition incompetent.
The fact, highlighted by Angela Eagle on this week's Question Time, that it has fallen to the EU to do anything about the seventh and eighth of these, when that is exactly the sort of thing that the Parliament of the United Kingdom ought to be doing. What is it for?
Abolishing national pay agreements for the rest of the public sector, to which the bailed out banks now belong, so that spending power in great swathes of the country will be reduced even further, to the extreme detriment of the private sector in those places. Advocates of this no more believe in a large and thriving private sector than they believe in a large and thriving middle class.
And the disgusting, ubiquitous description of the globalised, non-taxpaying, legally immune beneficiaries of this scam as "Britain".
Opponents of the bonus cap, was Cameron 'bonkers' in the word used this week by the Telegraph for stating in 2009 that the level of bank bonuses were 'simply wrong' and should be capped at £2000?
ReplyDelete"was Cameron bonkers?"
ReplyDeleteYes, he was.
If we cap bonuses here (but not in Singapore, Zurich, Tokyo and Wall Street) the only result will be to drive all the talent, and money, there.
They'll be delighted in Singapore.
But what is pro-British about that?
They'll celebrate while we drive all the talent there, to make our politicians look good.
ReplyDeleteEurope doesn't care-they don't have a financial services industry.
British patriots should care-if you live near London, you'd know much of our local economy depends on the City that the French are so keen to target.
For what they get up to, they'll lock them up in Singapore. Or in America, come to that.
ReplyDeleteThey contribute nothing positive to this, the only country daft enough to pay to keep them in existence. The fact that they could threaten to leave rather than be dragged into even the tiniest level of civic participation, other than as recipients of public largesse, only adds yet another of the many very good reasons to bid them very good riddance. Very good riddance, indeed.
Rubbish.
ReplyDeleteAnd is London Britain, anyway? But even if it is, rubbish.
Only Britain is stupid enough to fork out to keep these people in the style to which they are accustomed. Expect many another country to refuse them admission outright. They wouldn't last five minutes in New York or Singapore. They'd be sent to jail.
You have no clue whereof you speak.
ReplyDeleteThe City delivers over 12% of our annual tax revenue!
London's economy would be utterly devastated if they left-try checking how many jobs, house prices, and amenities in London depend on the City, you profoundly ignorant man.
The City contributes enormously to Britain, and the Treasury.
It's not about "civic participation" but simple market logic-if you can earn more in bonuses in Singapore or Zurich-that's where you'll go.
People don't tend to pick the job where they earn LESS, Dave.
Get a clue, old chap.
Good riddance to anyone who thinks like that. With no loyalty to Britain, Britain should have no loyalty to them.
ReplyDeleteYes, the house prices in London (a place about which, like most people in Britain, I find myself caring less and less anyway, precisely because of what these people have turned it into) depend on the City. Thank you for making one of my best points for me.
Your revenue figure is absurd. The City is not the whole of the financial services sector.
Oh, and as for this preposterous idea that there is no financial services sector on the Continent, do you also imagine that they live in mud huts?
ReplyDeleteThey just have more sense than to put up with parasitical states within their states for the convenience of a deracinated global superclass. We did have banks in Britain before Thatcher and her wretched Big Bang, you know.
There is going to be some long-overdue attention to UKIP now that it is coming second at by-elections. The backgrounds, and the foregrounds, of Nigel Farage and Stuart Wheeler should provide, as it were, very rich pickings indeed.
You anti-British traitor-the Left never change, sadly.
ReplyDeleteWho cares if a few million people lose their jobs in London, eh?
What exactly are you going to about it, Dave? Tell the people of London they aren't "British" because they don't share your prejudices?
"The City is not the whole of the financial services sector"
This is really hilarious-have you noticed the thriving financial services industry in Cardiff and Newcastle?
No, I didn't either.
80% of Europe's banks are based in London.
ReplyDeleteSo, no they don't have a financial services industry.
You just have no patriotism.
As for UKIP... Peter Hitchens has endorsed us in today's column.
With these words...
"" If you feel for some odd reason that voting is a duty, vote for UKIP""
At last, Peter! Hurray!
Because you have never visited either of them. Lucky them.
ReplyDeleteSo, not only are there no banks on the Continent, but there are none in Britain outside London, either. What an extraordinary little world you inhabit.
You are just worried that the common people might ever again be able to afford to live in London. "Millions put out of work," indeed! They are already are being. By you. And they are being kicked out of what they had thought were their secure tenancies into the bargain.
We finally have Mr Hitchens endorsement.
ReplyDeleteSimon Heffer already says he voted UKIP in 2010.
Surely, the rest of the Right-wing press have to come aboard now.
That's your idea of an endorsement, is it?
ReplyDeleteIf they are based in the City, then they are not based in the United Kingdom, either. The thing is the greatest of all affronts to British parliamentary sovereignty, where the writ of Parliament does not run and which the Queen may not enter without special permission.
Its liberties were granted to a city properly so called within the understanding of the time, and are therefore void under the drastically changed circumstances. It has of late pioneered the social cleansing now being rolled out across London at large, and then across the entire country.
80% of Europe's banks are based in London-that's a fact, Dave.
ReplyDeletePity you didn't look it up before making yourself look silly.
I know you don't like dealing with facts.
People aren't being "driven out" of London-working people have to commute to London as they can't afford it-why should they fund people who don't work to live in areas they can't afford?
I know you don't seem to understand aspiration, or economics. But deary me.
Most Housing Benefit claimants and most council tenants are in work. The clearing that I describe is already happening as an undisputed matter of fact. There is no gap in the market for a third pro-City, pro-cuts party.
ReplyDeleteThe endorsement of Hitchens (such as it is) and of Heffer should guarantee that the rest of the right-wing media will not go within 50 miles of UKIP. Those two exist entirely outside those media's mainstream. That makes them interesting. But, for good or ill, it makes them no more than that.
The Telegraph is already in "Protect The Tories" overdrive. It won't be the only one during the next two and a half years.
What is it with all the anonymice on this blog? Can't you require them to use a pseudonym, David, so we might follow which of them is writing?
ReplyDeleteAs for the bankers, we should be locking them up for fraud. They should not have the option of crossing our borders.
Three million jobs directly depend on the City, according to Tim Congdon.
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely a gap in the market for a pro-cuts party. Cameron has raised 299 taxes since coming to power-he's strangled the private sector to death.
Most of the (miniscule) deficit reductions he achieved have come from tax rises.
There is particularly space for an anti-immigration, anti-benefits culture, anti-EU party.
It's the only way we can achieve growth. Transferring money from the unproductive to the productive sector of the economy.
That's what drives our economy, Dave.
When the effects of the French drive to undermine the City become clear, it'll be another great reason for British patriots to support EU withdrawal.
By the way, I note that you say bonuses shouldn't be awarded to incomptenet bankers.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more. Blame Gordon Brown.
He bailed them out.
Us free marketeers would have happily let them go to the wall.
Three million jobs directly depend on the City, according to Tim Congdon.
ReplyDeleteAt least you don't give him his comedy pseudo-academic title.