The Congestion Charge

At long last Boris is getting rid of the westward extension to the Congestion Charge Area. Why isn't he getting rid of the congestion charge altogether? We all pay taxes to maintain the roads and those of us who live in London also pay to park our cars on the street. Why therefore should we have to pay to use the Queen's Highway? It is not as if London streets are some sort of private club, they are a public concourse. What is more a town is a congestion of people, houses, businesses, shops, restaurants, roads and cars so why impose a double tax on cars. The argument that it controls the level of traffic is dubious at best. Basically the congestion tax is just another stealth tax and a regressive one as well as it hits the poorest hardest. It should be abolished.

Chutzpah

One has to admire the chutzpah of the committed global warming believer who tells us that this year has been one of the hottest on record despite temperature readings and empirical evidence which show otherwise. It is like the Serco representative who despite empirical evidence to the contrary could not accept that the variable speed limits on the M25 created jams rather than helped the traffic flow. The chaos algorithm Serco used was possibly too conservative - in any event in my view it kicked in a reduced speed limit too soon and to too slow a speed. Better not to have interfered with nature. The same surely goes for global warming which, if it is happening at all, is a natural not a man made phenomenon.       

Why is it that so many African countries are unable to handle the results of elections? It seems that despite the Electoral Commission announcing that the Opposition leader had won and the UN representatives involved in the election believing likewise the President's man on the Electoral Commission has now ruled that the President won after all. Another example of chutzpah or gall every bit as breathtaking as Woolas's statement that today's High Court judgment has created uncertainty, which of course he would not have said if the judgment had gone in his favour.

World Cup

So we didn't win it. A great disappointment for football fans although much less so for the rest of us. Even though it would have brought coin to these shores would it really have made a profit? Many think that unlikely knowing how cost overruns on projects of this kind spiral out of control. A relief therefore for the taxpayer and yet an irritation that we only garnered two votes and that Russia won even without Putin making a trip to Zurich. Could he have known it was already in the bag and thus did not have to make any extra effort? If so, I wonder how he knew and why FIFA decided on Russia. We will probably never know the full story. Save for one or two of them the FIFA members are a motley crew. I would hate to go tiger hunting with them. I think they and Russia deserve each other. Does the way these things happen remind you of the Eurovision Song Contest? I think we should resign from both and set up our own institutions which we control. 

Chanukah

If you go to Conservative Home playpolitical.typepad.com/uk_conservative/2010/12/william-hagues-chanukah-message-to-jews-in-britain-and-around-the-world.html you can see William Hague sending a Happy Chanukah message to Jews around the World. Was it really meant for ED Miliband or to show that Hague is even handed when it comes to Israel and the Arabs and thus unhelpful statements that Hague is keener on the Arabs than Israel are wrong? Whatever, it's a nice touch.

Hysteria or what?

Did the Armistice terms in 1918 make World War 2 inevitable? The conventional answer is 'yes' but had the Powers that be taken notice of the multiple and some would say obvious signs from Germany of the disastrous effects of the Armistice terms on that benighted country and had the Powers that be been intelligent and forceful enough to do something about it the answer must be 'no'. Is Europe sleep walking into a similar disaster by persisting with the Eurozone? The conventional answer is 'no' but are the Powers that be failing to take any notice of the multiple and some would say obvious signs from the 'piigs' (or rather currently only Greece and Ireland) of the disastrous effects of the bail out terms being imposed on them by the ECB and others and will the Powers that be fail to do something sensible and intelligent in time the answer must be 'yes' - there is no evidence to the contrary. It will thus be up to countries like Ireland to do the right thing. What is the right thing for Ireland to do? Only time will tell but today it seems obvious that the present Irish Government will be defeated at the upcoming General Election and that the coalition that takes over will include Sinn Fein with its policy of bail out rejection. It is not clear though that Sinn Fein will have enough clout to persuade their coalitionists to reject the bail out terms. I never thought I'd say this but I hope they do. Common sense needs to prevail since without it we could even descend into another European war.        

Taxes

Now that Osborne accepts that lower taxes are a good thing for stimulating growth, viz. the 10% tax on profits from intellectual property researched and developed here, why does he not take the next logical step and abandon the 50% tax rate and reduce other taxes. It is well documented that lower taxes produce greater tax revenues. The reason is not hard to understand as those allowed to keep more of the money they earn have a greater disposable income to use in a myriad of ways. All of which use will benefit the private sector thereby increasing its wealth and that of the individuals in it who by earning more will pay more in taxes. QED.

Wikileaks

Hardly interesting to learn that before the General Election the Governor of the Bank of England expressed great concern to the US ambassador about Cameron and Osborne lacking experience. A statement of the blooming obvious most would say. Neither had been in Government before but neither had Blair or Brown before they crashed the economy and Osborne seems to be doing rather better than that. It is to be hoped that ex member of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee Danny Blanchflower and current member Posen's gripes against Mervyn King will be ignored as they sound very much like sour grapes to me.

Hardly interesting either to learn that Brown and Miliband D considered asking Hillary Clinton to emphasise US support for a 'strong' Europe (a euphemism for support for the EU apparently) as a way to highlight Conservative schisms on this subject. Brown and Miliband D it seems were also using Britain's role in the EU (and one assumes the Conservative attitude to the EU in contrast to the then Labour Government's attitude) as an example of Conservative economic and foreign policy 'isolationist' tendencies. What a joke as the only international tendencies of the left have been those of the Red Flag as evidenced by their love of the fascist EU regime.