During yesterday’s press conference to announce the latest banking bailout you demonstrated your true colours. When asked by a reporter if you were offering the banks a “blank cheque”, you turned on him saying that he needs to be careful about what he was accusing you of. I don’t know about the reporter, but I felt your response was menacing, bordering on threatening. Just who the hell do you think you are? Whilst you may surround yourself with yes men and women, the public of this country have to rely on reporters and the odd MP to ask searching questions.

The bottom line is you have offered a blank cheque. Please feel free to threaten me, because I will not be intimidated with your schoolyard bully antics, which can serve only to demonstrate that you are a weak or a vain man. Lets look at the accusation that you are issuing a blank cheque. You have refused to put a number on the cost of the banking insurance scheme, which implies that you don’t know the cost. This smacks of a blank cheque, furthermore, if you are not even prepared to put an upper limit on the exposure, this is another clear indication that you are providing the banks with a blank cheque. So blank cheque it is, if it look like a dog, barks like a dog etc, etc…

The truth is, when the original banking bailout was conceived, insufficient thought was given to it, instead a huge amount of taxpayers money was thrown at the problem and it has had little or no affect. Banks are not lending to each other and the high street banks have not significantly increased their lending to consumers or businesses. All the £37bn has achieved is, that it has allowed ailing banks to shore up their balance sheets. In other words, it was a complete and utter failure. In addition, the advisers that your government appointed, clearly failed to identify the extent of the questionable or ‘toxic’ debt within the banks that you invested our money in. That is hardly the sign of a competent government or leader.

What I find most galling is your abject failure to admit any responsibility for something that happened on your watch, principally as Chancellor and subsequently as Prime Minister. What you need Mr Brown, is more people around you that tell you how it is, not people that continually blow hot air up your backside. If you surround yourself by people that keep telling you, at least to your face, that you are brilliant, then there is an inherent risk that you start to believe them. Well let me put you straight Mr Brown. In my view, you were the most inept Chancellor in history, you knew that the entire economy was being driven by cheap and plentiful credit, in part because of historically low interest rates and more specifically because of the boom in house prices, allowing people to release and spend their equity. Some would call it fools gold. But, the bottom line is, many, many warnings were being given by economists and the like that the bubble would burst. You ignored them and we are now paying the price.

Granted Mr Brown, the housing crisis started in the United States, but as you well know, if we ourselves had not had an unsustainable housing boom, we would not have been so badly affected as we were. Remember, you were the one that promised and end to ‘boom and bust’, how hollow those words are now. Remember also, that you have claimed all of the credit for the so called boom years, but did you put anything aside for a rainy day, no you did not. Instead, you went on a massive spending and borrowing spree. For example, in spite of the fact that you increased employers and employees national insurance contributions by 1%, ostensibly to allow further investment into the national health service, you then used PFI to finance the building of hospitals, regardless of cost to the taxpayer. For example, to build a new hospital would normally cost around £60m, using PFI, the cost over 30 years in £300m. Little wonder that PFI contracts were traded on the open market with £millions being made on each trade.

Each time I hear you say that you are acting in the best interests of the public it makes me cringe. In my view, if you were as honest and sincere as you would have us believe, you would step aside and let this country decide who they want to lead us out of this enormous mess. You have made massive mistakes and ignored many warning signs, instead of taking appropriate, if unpopular decisions at a time that they would have made a difference, you ignored them in favour of the Labour Party’s populist approach. Don’t you dare try and tell us you didn’t see the warning signs, it was your bloody job, some of the people of this country placed a great deal of trust in you and you let us all down. You may be angry with the banks for embarrassing you, but trust me Mr Brown, we are very, very angry with you.

The last banking bailout may have prevented the banks from collapsing, but, for all intents and purposes, it failed on every other measure. Moreover, the recent report that your advisers failed to identify a potential £2,5bn write-off of a debt until recently is shameful. This should have been evident before you spent our money investing in a bank that is expected to report losses of up to £28bn. What happened to due diligence and warranties? Your current plans appear piecemeal and with respect Mr Brown, the whole thing smacks of a desperate man placing the last of his money on a horse in the vain hope that he can win big. Shit or bust as my father used to say! But, of course, it is not your money, it is ours and most of us, thank god, are not high stakes gamblers. If you cannot tell us how much it is going to cost, how can you claim that your response is measured? If the previous bailout failed, how can you convince us that this one will not follow suit?

The fact is Mr Brown, you lack credibility, if you fail to achieve your objectives, you simply move the goal posts, when asked a difficult but relevant question, you bluster, ignore them, or once again, refer to what the Conservatives have done in the past, ignoring the fact that we have heard it all before and they haven’t been in power for 12 years! Your party is a spent force and if I may be so bold Mr Brown, I was perhaps one of the few people that never believed you had the ability or nous to be a good chancellor, oh how I wish I had been wrong.

Your reputation for prudence Mr Brown is in tatters, your credibility as a prime minister has been in question almost from the outset and your ability to lead us out of this mess is simply too far fetched to imagine. So please do the decent thing and step aside. Let the people of this country decide who is best to lead us out of this financial mess. We deserve no less!

Gordon Brown has taken a great liking to decribing the Conservative party as the “do nothing party” and he may well have a point, because until recently, they (the Conservatives) have preferred to paint an austerity picture rather than coming up with something tangible or credible. But what of the Labour government? Rather than doing ’something’, their motto could be described as ‘do anything’, so long as they appear to be doing something.

As part of the government banking bailout in October last year, the taxpayer ended up with 58% of the Royal Bank of Scotland. However, whether this was a bailout, rescue or a necessary evil, the fact remains that the government, through its advisors, were obliged to act diligently and with care. Particularly given it is our money, not theirs. But did they?

There are reports that Gordon Brown is furious that Treasury officials have only just discovered that ABN Amro, the Dutch bank taken over by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2006, will write-off a £2.5bn loan to LyondellBassell which is reported to be teetering on the brink of bankcuptcy with £18bn of debts. Given the government was taking a controlling interest in RBS, it was right and would have been expected that whatever the circumstances, there would have been a process of ‘due diligence’ to ensure that there were no surprises in store. Furthermore, the taxpayer would have been right to have expected the government and or their advisors to have secured warranties against any undisclosed liabilities that the bank had. Was this done, if not, why not? Anywhere else this would be standard practice.

If these reports prove to be accurate, then at best, this government has demonstrated that they acted in haste and at worst, that they have been negligent resulting in a further cost to the taxpayer of £2.5bn. Furthermore, it could be argued, that if they missed a debt of this magnitude, how many other, ’smaller’ questionable debts have been missed? In my view, this government has already demonstrated a flair for acting recklessly with taxpayers money and a culture of blaming someone or something else. However, from my perspective, there can be no excuse, when spending so much of the British taxpayers money, for not acting responsibly and demonstrating best practice whatever the circumstances. The bottom line is, had this transaction been competed properly there should be no surprises unless there was a failure to disclose and if the latter was the case, then the government should be able to claim against warranties.

This banking bailout involved huge sums of money and the public is entitled to know that the government, ministers, civil servants and advisors all acted appropriately and with due care. There needs to be an independent public enquiry into what measures the government employed to protect the public purse when this government pledged taypayers money to the banks. This should be wide-ranging and at the very least, include details on what level of due diligence was employed, whether warranties were sought and received and what other commercial conditions were placed on the banks. Given, unlike many other countries, this government did not need the approval of parliament to invest these vast sums, evidence must be provided that the taxpayers interests were protected at all times. If it should subsequently be proven that individual government ministers, civil servants or advisors have acted negligently, then they must be prosecuted.

Gordon Brown likes to say that this governments’ intervention is measured and appropriate. To me it looks as if this government has little or no idea of what it is doing, opting to do anything, rather than something. More akin to a gambler having his last throw of the dice, rather than a government in control or one which knows where we are going. I literally shudder when I consider the damage that has been done to the British economy by this excuse for a government and it juts gets worst, when reports of undiscovered liabilities, on a majority owned state asset are discovered 3 months after the deal has been concluded.

Is it just me or are we are all becoming a little blasé about money, or to be more accurate, the number of noughts that follow the £ sign? Let me explain. Ever since Gordon Brown announced a massive £500bn plus bailout of the banking sector, commentators and politicians have been talking about £billions in the same way as they used to talk about £millions. In other words, everyone seems a little punch drunk. In the sales arena, the constant mentioning of large amounts of money was known as conditioning, if you keep talking about £65k BMW’s, then when the salesman mentions ‘just’ £15k for a new Vauxhall, it sounds like a bargain. However, in my little world, a £million is still a lot of money, especially when you consider how long it takes us to hand that amount of money to successive governments.

At a time when everyone is having to tighten their belt, this government has announced that they will increase spending from £620bn to £650bn, the conservatives tell us that they will “only” increase it by £25bn. Forgive me, but this sounds like an awful lot of money! In my personal life and indeed my business life, I have always understood and accepted that there are excesses, in other words, there have always been things that I want, rather than need. Therefore, when times are hard, I am obliged to deal with my excesses, to reduce my outgoings and I suspect, that this will be going on in the majority of homes and business up and down the land. This is a painful but necessary evil when times are hard. Not so for the government. No, instead, they tell us how they are going to spend more money, not how they are going to provide better value. The conservative are no better, because they say that they will just spend less (£5bn), but their proposals still amounts to an increase of £25bn!

By spending our money more wisely, buying what we need, rather than what we would like and curbing our wasteful habits, I suspect that most of us could, conservatively, reduce our outgoings by around 10%, possible considerably more. I didn’t say it would be easy, nor did I say all of us, so please accept that I am referring to most, not all of us. If this is a reasoned argument, why is it that the government cannot reduce their own waste, surely they are not going to argue that they are lean and mean or that all of our money is spent both wisely and without excess? Not a cat in hells chance. Surely, it would be better to reduce government waste and excess to channel the savings into more relevant or deserving causes, rather than just borrowing more money. The government is effectively condoning living on the never, never. Failing to practice what they preach. What angers me most, is that the conservative party, petrified of being accused of being the party of cuts, has failed to talk convincingly about value for money, getting the most of each taxpayer pound collected or borrowed.

With an election likely to be just around the corner, now is the time for the other parties to get tough. I am not talking about an austerity speech, nor a doom and gloom scenario, as has become the conservative party mantle. No, I am referring to a party, any party, that offers realistic hope, leadership and direction. One that refers to government money as taxpayers money, borrowings as future liabilities and above all, the use of taxpayers money in terms of value, not numbers to be bandied about. The people of this country do not need to see doom and gloom whenever they turn on the TV or read a newspaper, the majority of us know that times are tough and that they will be for the foreseeable future. What we need to witness, are politicians that appear to know what they are talking about (a very rare bread) and political parties that truly demonstrate that they know how to run a country and a good start would be how to spend taxpayers money wisely in order that we, the taxpayers, receive maximum bang for our buck.

Politicians and government must stop ‘conditioning’ the British people by constantly bombarding us with numbers most of us simply can’t envisage or picture. Instead, they must do what most normal people managing household budgets do when times get tough. Ensure that we are getting value for money. It is, after all, possible to spend more money on a holiday if someone gives up smoking, or to buy a better car if we shop at Aldi’s instead of Sainsbury’s, buy tea instead of coffee, drink tap water instead of bottled or even to survive the recession if we cut our cloth to suit our circumstances. It is a question of priorities. Government, whoever they are, have a responsibility, in fact a duty, to ensure that they spend or invest taxpayers money wisely. They must not be allowed to pour more money into a bucket which is already leaking taxpayers money.

I have no issue with government or other agencies seeking to discourage children and teenagers from smoking, after all, we all know that it is a lot easier to start than it is to stop. Therefore, I would actively support any education programme that is designed to achieve this objective, but banning the display of cigarettes, does anyone really think that this will have any affect whatsoever? Well clearly yes, this out of touch, politically correct Labour government.

This is political tokenism at its best, removing cigarettes from display will not reduce the number of young people from smoking, in fact it may provide a perception of something illicit, which I feel sure, will appeal to some youngsters. The claim is that there are up to 200,000 11-15 years olds smoking. Okay, so given it is illegal to sell cigarettes to children of this age, where does the government think they get them from. Maybe it is via vending machines or an older mate, or perhaps a ‘friendly’ local store. Either way, it is claimed that some 200,000 youngsters have found some method of feeding their habit. So, what really encourages them to smoke, is it peer pressure, something to do, the fact that it is illegal or because it makes them feel grown up? Maybe is is a combination of all these factors, but it can hardly be said it is because they have seen them displayed.

The problem with political tokenism is the knock-on effect or consequences of the action. For example, did the banning of cigarette sponsors for Formula 1 lead to a reduction in smoking? I don’t think so. But now, at a time when the likes of Honda are looking to put as many as 800 people out of work because they cannot afford to continue their race team, cigarette sponsors could have been a lifeline.

Take a look at the pub trade. Some 5 pubs are closing every week in this country; many landlords have put this down to, amongst other things, the ban on smoking. Yes, I accept that it is also as a consequence of the alcohol duties and competition in the supermarkets, but many landlord place the lion share of blame at the smoking ban. So, at a time when people need jobs and accommodation, 5 pub businesses are closing every single week. And, of course, it is not just pubs that are being affected, even beermat manufacturers are finding it tough. A few weeks ago there were 4 UK based manufacturers, now one has transferred manufacturing to Germany and another has closed its doors for good, halving the capacity overnight and placing people out of work.

What is not evident is whether this government simply couldn’t give a toss about collateral damage, or if they just didn’t bother to look any further than political tokenism and a positive set of headlines. Government should act responsibly, which means that if they intend to introduce new legislation, they should look at the potential consequences of their action, not just the headlines. A failure to do so, is a gross dereliction of their duty and of course, there have been many examples of this over the past 11 years. I am personally sick to the back teeth of this politically correct government, their sledgehammer to crack a nut approach to every problem and their insistence that stick is better than carrot. The bottom line is we are all being treated like children by New Labour, and I for one, have had enough.

Tomorrow at Prime Ministers Question time, the opposition parties shall seek to raise the issue of the arrest of Damian Green. In particular, they will want to know how much advance notice, if any, government ministers or senior civil servants had and why the police were allowed to search Green’s offices? In doing so, they are expected to cite the fact that leaks are necessary if government is to be held to account, provided the information is not protected by the Official Secrets Act. Further, that members of parliament are entitled to have legal privilege between them and their constituents. All very noble, but it completely misses the point, the Damian Green affair was the result, not the cause.

Instead of looking at self-interest, our elected members of parliament, in government and opposition, must look at the laws they have been passed that have allowed this type of attack on our democratic process. The truth is, the opposition parties have been lead like lambs to the slaughter by this government, who have said, if you don’t support our draconian anti-terror legislation, then we shall publicise the fact that you are soft on crime or security. Like little lambs, instead of holding the government to account, the opposition parties went to the slaughter. In other words, they didn’t do their jobs, it is all very well bleating about holding the government to account now, but what have they been doing for the past 11 years?

What is needed is a complete review of the anti-terror laws that have been introduced under this government. Opposition parties must seek clarity on how these laws are being implemented and used against the original intent when the legislation was ’sold’ to parliament. Because I am certain, that no MP expected anti-terror laws to be used to sequestrate the assets of an otherwise friendly country (Iceland), but that is precisely what happened. The police and security services have demanded and received new laws that allow them powers akin to those of a police state. To date, unlike many police states, they do not torture those arrested, but with 30,000 tasers being order, perhaps that is just a matter of time.

Eleven years ago, the police would not have had the powers that were used to arrest Damian Green. Nor would they have been able to gather telephone intercept evidence without a judges warrant. That is no longer the case.

Damian Green should be grateful that the police did not believe that he was receiving information contained under the Official Secrets Act, because then, theoretically, he could have been detained without charge for up to a month, not 9 hours. That is the problem, the police and security services have been given massive powers over the people of this country, not targeted powers for wrongdoers, but blanket powers that can be used against anyone including MP’s. Whatever this government says, the police are a tool of state, after all, the most senior policeman in the land is not elected, he is appointed by none other than the Home Secretary.
The people of this country have seen a massive erosion of their rights, freedom and liberties over the past 11 years and this event has highlighted this. Even the ‘New Labour’ supporting newspaper The Sun, has finally determined that the state has too much power over the populous.

People that claim we are moving towards a police state are branded as nutters, yet Privacy International were moved to say of the UK ”The worst ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which again fell into the “black” category along with Russia and Singapore.” And that our “identity scheme is still planned to be the most invasive in the world, highly centralised and biometrics-driven“.

This is what I said a month ago on the issue of government control:

The people of this country have had to endure an increasing level of state interference in their everyday lives, from 4.2m CCTV cameras, to chips in rubbish bins. With proposals that include a massive Big Brother Britain database which would store information on calls, text messages, locations, emails and internet browsing habits. Airport scanners which see though clothes, identity cards which include our most private and intimate details. Our children from the age of 5, will be monitored by the state to include their most private details such as details on their mental health, sexual health or any substance abuse treatment. The list is endless, as is the number of ‘agencies’ that will have access to this information, some 700 as last count!.

I earnestly hope that the opposition parties will take the wider issues into account. In other words, how we got where we are today, how and why the state and their agents have so much power, that people can be detained for a month without charge, have their email, phone calls, text messages and internet browsing habits, routinely captured and stored, their DNA taken and stored, even where no charge has been laid etc, etc. This has all been done in the name of fighting crime or terrorism, but what a price we have had to pay. Yet the terrorist threat has not been lessened and crime is not falling. All that has transpired is the police need less evidence to make a charge and have gained more charges to target the majority with. It is an appalling state of affairs in what has become Big Brother Britain. We need to reverse this situation now and there is no better opportunity than the Damian Green affair to widen the debate. Opposition parties must insist on a public debate on the issue of all the new legislation that has been introduced at the expense of our civil liberties, right to privacy and individual freedom.

How ironic that it has taken the arrest of Damian Green, the Shadow Immigration Minister to provoke David Cameron into describing the police as “Stalinesque“. Because his party has sat on its hands whilst this Labour government has consistently removed the rights and civil liberties of every single person in this country. What is Cameron’s problem, does he think he is a cut above the rest of us, that the draconian, Big Brother Britain laws introduced to control the citizens of this country shouldn’t be used against a member of parliament? Pathetic little man, it was Cameron’s job to keep this control obsessed government in check, he failed, now one of his minister pays the price. Bloody good job if this is what it has taken to wake Cameron and his party from their self-induced slumber.

For what it is worth, I completely agree, the police action was outrageous, but what did Cameron expect? On his watch, New Labour has introduced a raft of measures and legislation designed specifically to allow the state to control, spy and monitor every one of its citizens. This includes, but is not limited to tracking our vehicle movements through ANPR or CCTV cameras; indulging in recording, monitoring and commenting on our most personal details on a health service database; or having voyeuristic access to very email, text message and call we make. Then to compund this abuse of power by making the information available to up to 800 separate agencies, including private companies. Just yesterday, Jacqui Smith ordered 10,000 Tasers to be used against the people of this country, with the stated intention of arming 30,000 front line officers and barely a murmur from Cameron’s compliant party of opposition.

The police in this country have been given unprecedented powers, akin to that of a repressive police state, not the police “service” of a first world country and yet they are asking for even more. This government has pandered to their every whim, like a lovesick teenager, not the objective supervising team they are supposed to be. It was as if government ministers were in awe and the police no longer want to detect or investigate crime, preferring to monitor everyone and wait for them to make a wrong move.

Take a look at what has happened over the past 35 years in the police service. Foot patrols became mobile patrols, mobile patrols became poorly trained ‘plastic’ policemen. The ‘plastics’ were given uniforms that have been deliberately modeled to make it difficult to determine whether it is a PCSO or a proper copper. The traditional baton was enhanced with pepper spray, which is now going to be supplemented with the life threatening Taser guns. No wonder they need to go around in cars! Could Cameron’s Conservative party not see a pattern emerging here? If he is smart enough to be proposed as the next prime minister, why was he no so bright as to see what was coming, or perhaps he thought it didn’t apply to his sort!

We are told by government ministers that crime has been falling, especially violent crime, so why do the police have a need for such violent weapons to combat a smaller threat. News that every front line officer is to be provided with a Taser is unprecedented, what has happened here, have the police officers lost their bottle? There was a time when being a police officer meant you had to have courage, now police officers routinely hide behind their computer screens, desks and ridiculous health & safety rules that inhibit policing and risk to a level akin to crossing a busy road.

God forbid that police officers should have to leave their comfortable cars or offices to a investigate crime or risk getting hurt in the line of duty. What type of police officer feels the need to have an array of weapons which include a baton, pepper spray and a deadly taser gun before he or she will go outside and meet what is a relatively law abiding public? Under this government, the police have been allowed to determine which crimes they investigate, so for example, victims of burglaries and vandelism must accept a crime number, with no investigation. With very few exceptions, everyone that I know that has had to report a crime or interface with the police have come away appalled at their lack of commitment or unwillingness to investigating crime. The fact that anyone going to a police station to report a crime is expected to deal with a civilian is indicative of where the police have gone wrong. Bottom line Cameron, is the police service needs to be hauled in, they have quite simply go too big for their boots.

Gordon Brown claimed that his would be an open government. Whilst his ministers may not like the leaking of certain documents, if it is in the public interest, they should not be using the police as a weapon of state to punish those concerned. After all, if there was no national security risk, just a possibility of a minister being embarrassed or caught out in a lie, why the need for anti-terrorist officers. The claim that no minister knew the police were going to arrest Damien Green really pushes at the fringes of credibility.

But I feel the need to point David Cameron in the right direction. The problem is when government provides such a wide definition of a law. For example, Green was arrested on arrested on “suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office and aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office“. Now that encompasses just about everything. By the same token, this government has used similar, broad definitions to destroy many of the civil liberties and rights to privacy of the individual in this country under the guise of anti-terror laws. Cameron’s party wanting to appear tough on crime and terror legislation have been compliant to the extent that they could be accused of being complicit in the whole sorry state of affairs.

Our police service now has unprecedented powers, passed to them by a compliant government, that was intent on achieving state control. Damien Green has now become a victim of Big Brother Britain, his boss doesn’t like it and neither do we! Perhaps Cameron and co, will now realise how the public feel about the removal of our rights by opposing new legislation and offering to repeal similar, uneccessary acts. I am personally delighted that one of Cameron’s MP’s has had the opportunity to feel first hand the affects of a repressive state.

News that Jacqui Smith feels obliged to order another 10,000 Tasers at a time when the government coffers are empty has to be worrying for the British public. Whilst we know that this government doesn’t really care about how much of our money they spend, because they can just put up our taxes, the timing is very interesting and surely cannot be a coincidence.

Alistair Darling has just announced that the government finances are in a complete mess (not his words of course), in fact, if the country was a business, it would almost certainly need to call in the administrators. The economic reality of this situation has already started to trickle down, resulting in higher taxes at a time when people can least afford it ( ignore the VAT stimulus con ), the loss of peoples homes, fewer jobs etc. A public backlash is almost inevitable, as soon as those that still insist on hero worshipping New Labour for ’shafting the rich’ realise that they too must pay a price. A very high one at that.

You might think that in a developed country, government would seek to reassure people and provide genuine support or advice at a time of national crisis. But there are two systemic problems preventing this. The first is this government has wasted so much of our money on social engineering projects and Big Brother Britain spying exercises, that there is nothing left. In fact it is worse than that, we have a massive public debt, over £1 trillion. So financial support is not a viable option, hence the reason this government introduced a ‘fiscal stimulus’ based on Alice in Wonderland economics, purchase taxes. If New Labour were serious about a fiscal stimulus package, they would have offered a reduction in direct taxation, which would at least be tangible.

The second issue is that this government has never engaged with the public. Instead they have bribed their own voters with tax credits and the like, whilst bullying all other sections of the community including business to pay for them. The Pre-Budget Report, was supposed to demonstrate that New Labour cares, but anyone with any nous will know that it is an elaborate con, all presentation and no substance….classic New Labour smoke and mirrors. The bottom line is we should always be wary of a government that wants to be your best mate when they have been shafting you for the past 11 years. In other words, this government only knows how to preach, bully, con and bribe. The government also knows that eventually, they will get caught out and that day is looming ever closer, so they must now return to type. Bring forward Big Brother Britain and force.

So what can we expect? Unlike 1984, we will not witness the police controlling protesters armed with batons and shields, instead, in Big Brother Britain, we shall have to contemplate our police force using Tasers against its own citizens. This is in spite of the fact that Tasers are claimed to have lead to the death of up to 300 people in America. They say timing is everything. Why else would Jacqui Smith place such a massive order for Tasers? It appears to me that they are anticipating some form of backlash and they intend to suppress it with deadly, uncompromising force. This will be no surprise to those that have seen the UK moving steadily move towards a police state, but for the rest and that will be the majority, it is likely to become something of a shock, no pun intended!

I have delayed writing about the Pre Budget Report because I was so angered by its content. Not so much for the state of the public finances, which most people expected, but the fact that we have yet another missed opportunity. The Gordon Brown touch was everywhere, because once again, it was about perception not reality and could never live up to its promise.

The principal part of this stimulus package was the reduction in VAT, which is estimated to cost £12.5bn over a period of one year. Which is what I shall concentrate on. Now, I would like to know how the government came up with a figure of £5bn, because we all know that sales are down, so is the estimate based on historical figures, or current sales? This is important, because the suggestion is that this £12.5bn is an injection of real cash into the economy, so a smoke and mirrors approach to presentation would just be a con and unforgiveable. Furthermore, if I had £12,5bn to spend I would have reduced direct taxation by 2.5% for a year not VAT.

VAT is a purchase tax, therefore in a sense, it is a voluntary tax and as a consequence no-one will feel any richer as a consequence of such small a reduction in retail prices. It is also essentially a luxury tax, in other words, it is added to non-essentials. Yes, I know that over the years this has been extended, but for the most part, it has to be remembered that there is no VAT on food, children’s clothes and so on. The VAT reduction would have had a direct benefit to people if it had been applied to fuel, but the government decided to raise duties to negate any benefit, they did likewise on alcohol, tobacco and spirits.

Many retailers have been offering massive sale offers, with cuts of up to 50% to tempt consumers to buy products in their stores, no doubt with differing levels of success. A reduction of 2.5% pales into insignificance set against this backdrop. Which is precisely my point, the VAT reduction had nothing to do with providing a fiscal stimulus and more to do with being able to brag about a big number, knowing full well that it would never cost as much as the forecasted figures. Moreover, it provided an excellent backdrop for the government to introduce new taxes on the basis that the ‘VAT holiday’ would have to be paid for.

Ask yourself this, if the government had £12.5bn to waste, why didn’t they put it straight into our pockets, by reducing income tax by 2.5%? A fiscal stimulus has as much to do with consumer confidence as it does ability to pay. If you want the public to feel wealthier, then the only way this can be done is by ensuring they have more  of their own money in their purse or wallet. That is tangible! But this had nothing to do with a desire to introduce a fiscal stimulus, it was only designed to con the British public into the believing the government were doing something. This will be an expensive failure because those that are in a position to buy products where VAT is applied will do so anyway and save 2.17%.  By contrast those that were not able to make the purchase will find that this 2.17% reduction will make no difference whatsoever.

Now lets take a look at another aspect of this ’smoke and mirrors’ tax con. The government has made this years increase in the personal allowance permanent and sold it as part of the fiscal stimulus. But all is not as it seems, because they had no choice. The only reason they increased the personal allowances this year was because of the last 10p tax con. They knew if they did not act to make this ‘tax concession’ permanent that they would have had a backbench rebellion which would almost certainly have lead to Gordon Brown being ousted in disgrace. Now that is almost a price worth paying!

Now here is the best part for the government. In exchange for introducing a highly questionable fiscal stimulus, in the case of VAT for just one year, they have been able to substantially increase their tax take. For example, the adjustment in duties to offset the temporary VAT reduction on fuel, tobacco, alcohol and spirits will remain in place after VAT has been put back up. So this is a very real and permanent price rise, not only that, it is worth remembering that the consumer always pays VAT on duties, yes, a tax on a tax.

Plus, they have announced an increase in National Insurance contributions of 0.5% on employers and employees. This will raise billions and is permanent! So, in comes the smoke and mirrors again, by setting this tax increase against the change in personal allowances, the government can claim that certain taxpayers are better off. But hang on a minute, the change in personal allowances was introduced because, according to the government, they made a mistake when they removed the 10p tax band, so this was only introduced to compensate for that error. In other words, it was already our money! Don’t think for one minute that this tax raising government don’t know that and so do the media, but they are so far up the backsides of the government, the media refuses to reveal the truth.

On top of this, the government have decided to introduce a higher rate of income tax and remove personal allowances for those earning more than £140k. This means that they will be £2,246.70 worse off in 2010/11 and £2,849.93 down the following year. Now many will say that doesn’t matter, because they are rich etc, etc.

But lets put this into perspective. Firstly, they already pay more tax in real terms than the average person, in fact someone earning £150k per year pays as much tax as 4 people on average earnings. Also, many, I accept not all, of these people are the very people that create employment and provide jobs for the rest of us. Often, they will have risked everything they own to set up a business which creates wealth for the country and jobs for the people. Under this government they have seen capital allowances slashed, corporation taxes on the rise, massive increases in business rates (money which is a direct taxation by the government on business) and now a much higher tax take from them in their personal capacity.

I do not and never would begrudge anyone earning those sorts of salaries where they have contributed to the wealth of this country by creating jobs and a contribution to GDP. Two things that are vital, no, absolutely essential to the wealth of every country in the world. We have already seen a number of companies moving their businesses to other countries, such as Southern Ireland, because the tax regime is so much better. Can you really blame them if they are hounded for being successful and punished with punitive personal and business taxes for creating jobs and wealth. We all need to get real, envy is a very dangerous thing and in this case, if there was an exodus of the very people that help create jobs and wealth, we would be finished as a first world country. This pre-supposes that we are not already as a direct consequence of Gordon Brown’s reckless mismanagement of our economy.

The other changes made by the Chancellor are hardly worth mentioning, because they are so insignificant… so I won’t. I will say this however, they Pre Budget Report produced virtually nothing for small and medium sized businesses. Given these account for 50% of our GDP and employs 12.5m people, this was a massive mistake and one we shall all be paying for over the next few months.

Never was there a greater need for an honest fiscal stimulus, but Gordon Brown could not resist conning the British public again. The VAT reduction had nothing to do with providing a real fiscal stimulus, because the affects have been so severely limited. Instead, he contemptuously used it to introduce massive tax rises, which were designed to allow him to claim that the countries tax receipts, PBR and balance sheet would not be as bad as would have otherwise been in future years. Alistair Darling even included an assumption that we would see strong growth in a little over a year, everyone knows that is justwishful thinking. Whislt no-one believes this argument it makes the government books look a little better. They have no shame.  As my old boss used to say, it is all jam tomorrow.

The most worrying aspect of all this is how many people actually fell for the biggest and most dishonest tax con in history. Gordon Brown and his motley crew make Robin Hood look like a philanthropist.

Now, whilst I fully accept that this will not make one jot of difference to the current Labour government it is nonetheless, symbolic given it demonstrates that the government will have an uphill struggle to introduce identity cards. Scottish MSP’s do not believe ID cards will increase security or deter crime and quite frankly, nor do I. I don’t find myself agreeing with many Scottish MP’s at the moment, but I am more than happy to applaud their stance on this particular issue.

The reality is, identity cards are a genuine, tangible and unacceptable threat to the civil liberties and right to privacy of British citizens. No government minister has told the people of this country howID cards will deter crime and reduce the risk of terrorism, only that they will. That is not the way to sell a programme like this. However, as we all know, this government does not believe in asking, only telling, so they intend to introduce these cards come what may, simply because they are arrogant enough to believe that government knows best. Can anyone watch Jacqui Smith bumbling and stuttering away and say, with any conviction, that they feel safer with her at the helm? I think not, she is out of her depth, ill-informed and an appalling communicator.

Richard Baker a Labour MSP, no I hadn’t heard of him either, said “There’s nothing extreme or unusual in the introduction of ID cards and the kind of data which will be on them.” There is nothing clever in attempting to mislead the public. This government have already made clear that they intend to include a mass of data on ID cards, from bio-metrics, though to health and financial details. These little cards will end up being our own ‘police tags’. It has nothing to do with deterring crime and combating terrorism and everything to do with government attempts at controlling the people of this country. They can sod off!

Already, in what has become an all consuming quest to control and punish the people of this country, this government has indicated the “penalties” that will be applied if people fail to provide the government with updated details for their ID cards. Even though ID cards haven’t been launched for the masses yet, we are bombarded with our likely punishment for non-compliance. We are being treated like naughty schoolchildren, not adults capable of making decisions and running our own lives. Government ministers say that the penalties are not there to raise revenue and for once I believe them, instead, they are there to punish those that would dare to resist the will of our masters in government. In other words, by introducing fines and making non-compliance a criminal offence, they are seeking to control the will of the people of this country through fear, many people will doubtless be able to draw a parallel with a police state.

Phil Booth, national coordinator of NO2ID sums it up very well, “There is some very nasty stuff buried in the fine print of this consultation document. Basically, you have to tell them everything they want to know about you under threat - and pay for the privilege.”

Any party in power that would seek to introduce a programme against the will of the public is not fit for government. The bottom line is terrorists and criminals will always find a way around ID cards, just as they have been able to forge passports, drivers licenses and any other identity document you care to mention. The government know this, therefore, we should all be asking ourselves, what is the real game plan? This particular issue is not about party politics, it is about individual freedom, the rights of people in this country to not just be free, but to feel free.

Through its policies and inept handling of the economy, this government has removed our financial freedom. With the introduction of a raft of so called ‘anti-terror’ laws, they have already removed many of our civil liberties and rights to privacy. They now seek to go even further. ID cards, NHS Database, ContactPoint, DNA database to name but a few. It is time for us all to not only call a halt to all this, but to insist that any future government and MP’s undertake to repeal many of these destructive, draconian, obtrusive and unreasonable laws. If the main opposition parties refuse to take up the mantle, then perhaps there is a very good case for the public to support and vote for independent MP’s rather than those affiliated with a particular political party. In fact, I would very much like to see more independent MP’s put themselves forward with a local manifesto. Perhaps the bloggers should unite!

News that the Data Communication Bill has been shelved will be welcomed by all those that have campaigned against it. Needless to say, the government claim that it has nothing to do with those that are against this Big Brother Britain bill and everything to do with the fact that MP’s need to concentrate on the economy.

I suspect it has far more to do with the fact that the government needs a controversial bill like a hole in the head, the estimated cost of £12bn is going to be criticised in the current climate and they want to clear the decks for an early election to take advantage of Labour’s poll bounce. Whatever the case, it is unlikely that any attempt will be made to reintroduce the bill until 2011 and hopefully, by that time, New Labour will be history. Predictably, the police are complaining that it will hinder their efforts to fight crime and terrorism, well perhaps if they got off their backsides and did what they were paid to do, there would not be a need to spy on 65m people.

The police in this country have more powers than virtually any other country in the world and yet they still whine. They also have 167,000 police officers, but I have to confess, I haven’t seen one in the last 2 weeks, plenty of community support officers, but no real coppers, no wonder they want to spy on us all. This bill should actually be scrapped and its predecessor, which provides many of the same rights, save a legal requirement that service providers must keep the information for 2 years, should be repealed. Only then can we be certain that state sponsored voyeurism is being rolled back.