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Posts Tagged ‘UK Economy’

Quite often, some might say all too often, the reader’s responses to articles published in the Media are often far more interesting than the published original and one response because no doubt of my personal experiences, caught my attention concerning “Carers”.

We all know that cuts in Government expenditure are coming and therefore in the run up to the final decisions being made in October, one can expect just about every special interest to be putting forward the case why they should be ‘left alone’. However and as I thought about it, there is rather more to this “Benefits Reform” and in a sense, the basic decision hinges around whether people expect help from the State on the basis of a ‘right’, a contractual basis or, on as ‘needed’ basis.

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A writer in the Independent today penned a piece entitled, “University is not right for everyone and that sentiment touches upon what I have felt for quite a few years now. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/philip-hensher/philip-hensher-university-isnrsquot-right-for-everyone-2053386.html

It is a simple fact of life that when only a few people take part in any particular activity, it tends to be ‘Fun’. Driving a car used to be fun before everyone had a car and were competing for the same bit of road space. Likewise, not only are our roads overcrowded but in these small islands subject to heavy commercial air traffic, so too are the skies. If you fancy flying privately, it is only tolerable whilst there are few other people wanting to do the same, faced with congestion and higher demand, rationing of any activity by “price or licence” is inevitable.

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By and large, I have always been of the view that it makes sense to replace the Trident Missile Submarines when required which is, I understand, in about 20 years time however and such is the gestation period of these things, we must start now. True, given the parlous state of the UK Finances, better not to have to find the estimated £20 billion cost but…

It should be the purpose of any personal blog to explore and consider ‘ideas’ that are outside of the mainstream or at the very least, “question” the current perceived wisdom. Wednesday bought the following: “The government should scale back the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent to save money, a think tank has said. The Royal United Services Institute urged ministers to consider dropping the requirement of always having a nuclear submarine on patrol at sea.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10784192

This has prompted a number of thoughts…

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There was a piece in today’s Independent by Dominic Lawson in which he stated that “Our Banks are doing a good job”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-our-banks-are-doing-a-good-job-2041713.html

In fact and whilst not a fashionable view, I suspect that he is right and to a large extent, they are rather caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea whatever they do over the next few years and in this, are in a similar position to Members of Parliament.

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Last Saturday, I attended the Fairford “Air Tattoo” and what a splendid event it was with hours of continuous flying marred only by taking an hour and a half, to get out of the car park after the ‘show’ and despite delaying departure for a couple of hours after flying ceased still, there you go…!

However and in the run up to Farnborough and defence spending reviews, a number of ‘issues’ have come increasingly into focus via the Media and especially a ‘bete-noir’ of mine, the willingness of Governments to spend on high cost capital projects whilst ignoring the ‘military realities’ of the PBI – Poor Bloody Infantry. A very interesting article in the Telegraph, is worth reading: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamescorum/100047944/americas-armed-forces-are-at-breaking-point-its-time-for-a-republican-fightback/

But I want to both use that whilst taking the ‘concept’ further…

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I saw on the BBC web site in their “Magazine Section”, an article that posed the question as to whether London ‘sucks’ the life out of Britain. The link is as follows: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/10508673.stm

In most ways, I suspect that the ‘proposition’ is an ‘Aunt Sally’ and the author is playing a “Devils Advocate” role which I was quite prepared to participate in as follows:

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When I started this blog back in November 2007, I had in mind two personal priorities: Firstly and along with my photography, it was a ‘tool’ to keep my intellect ‘alive’ by taking the current news topics and writing a personal view upon them.

Secondly and coming from an IT background I wanted to know in personal terms, whilst it is easy to start a ‘blog’ or put up a web site in the first place, the real question is whether or not you can ‘sustain’ it ? Well, coming up for some 600 ‘postings’ less than three years later seems to indicate that I have lots of ‘Hot Air’ yet to expel !

The one thing that I really didn’t care about, both then and now is whether anybody actually read the stuff I published and indeed, few have posted comments, less than 300 but it seems to be read by many, but most popular by far, there has been almost 20,000 spam mails !

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I am not being cynical but, I do fail to understand all the fuss and faux anger aimed at the Emergency Budget the other day in some sections of the media as well as by deposed politicians such as Harmon, it is a total joke if not a pantomime. The reality of course is for all these people is to maintain the fiction that they are important and their job “matters” in some way – hilarious !

According to them, George Osborne and David Cameron have “duped” their LidDem Coalition partners and have set the Country on the road to a “Tory doctrine inspired Hell” whereas the reality is rather more simple: We have a massive Budget Deficit which includes a “Structural Element” of some £70 billion annually, the choice is to start cutting early or, keep trying to hide under the Duvet in the vague hope that it “might go away”.

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Of all the former Labour Ministers, John Hutton was one of the better ones and at least as Defence Minister, looked like he cared. His very public resignation had a degree of ‘principle’ to it and the ever craven David Miliband would have done well to have followed him and set off a change of Labour Leadership before the General Election.

The Labour Party has very little ‘talent’ available as the current Leadership Election demonstrates only too clearly (a bit like a Muppet Show), they really couldn’t afford to lose people like Hutton who stood down at the last election.

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With the current state of the Public Finances, it is obvious that all Government Departments will come under very heavy pressure to reduce their spending and historically, Defence has always been seen as a ‘soft target’ for politicians, let us hope not, this time around. Just like at the end of the Cold War, people looked for a “Peace Dividend”, there really never is one because “If you want peace then, you must prepare for war” and that is still true to this day.

The real questions must hinge around defining accurately what our “Defence Posture” should be and why. This approach must be stuck to and regardless of the current economic problems because too often in the past, a cash figure seems to have been struck first and then our Armed Forces ‘squeezed’ to fit it which is obviously, the wrong way round.

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