Business rates to go up by 2% not 5%

The BBC are reporting that the Chancellor Alastair Darling is to u-turn and put business rates up by 2, not 5%. I’m glad he’s doing this but in these times we need a complete freeze on business rates to stimulate our economy and stop businesses, and hence jobs, from collapsing.

Mr Darling said the rise was linked to the Retail Prices Index last year, but RPI inflation had now fallen to zero.

He said businesses would face only a 2% rise this year and the remaining 3% would be smoothed out over the following two years.

“I believe this will provide real and genuine help for businesses in this country,” said Mr Darling.

If it was based on the RPI inflation, which is now zero, then this furthers my point that we should freeze business rates at what they are. This is what real and genuine help to business and workers is.

Alastair Darling referred to the ‘Conservative Government’ in present tense. If only.

Merkel to Brown: “We can’t afford more borrowing.”

Gordon Brown would like to think he’s leading the world to economic recovery. His current plan is to have another massive spending binge, this time co-ordinated by the G20, who meet later this week. He would like to waste more money, and create a bigger burden for future generations to pay off. We’re already in as much debt as in World War 2, could it get any worse?

Last week when Bank of England Governor Mervyn King himself, warned that Britain could not afford to go on another borrowing binge. Let us not forget, this all has to be paid for in taxation at a later date. Our nation is being bankrupt.

This week the German chancellor Angela Merkel, a strong opponent to further fiscal stimulus, has warned of the risks of debt, that Germany simply cannot afford. The Germans have the 4th largest economy in the world, and considerable influence, therefore I can’t see how Brown’s ’save the world’ by burdening the world with more debt, is going to get a unified thumbs up.

Brown is running around trying to be the saviour of the world, but the world don’t want to listen.

Ground control to major tom
Your circuits dead, theres something wrong
Can you hear me, major tom?
Can you hear me, major tom?
Can you hear me, major tom?
Can you….

Jamie Oliveoil cooks EU Agricultural Fudge

The EU common agricultural policy costs each British family £400 a year, a total £10.3 billion of waste. You can see the Taxpayers’ Alliance in depth report here.

Government want to track you on Facebook

The latest idea from the government is to not only track our e-mails, our phone calls, but now our activities on social networking sites. The government must think it’s Christmas after witnessing the soaring use of Facebook, they’re desperate to trample over our private affairs. The creation of this big brother database is allegedly going to make us more secure, but then, that’s always the reason they use to coerce the electorate to give up essential freedom. At what point does protecting our freedom, by taking it away, actually negate the idea? The government needs to stay out of our lives.

There is no doubt that this will make no difference at all to our security, just like their expensive, intrusive ID cards. It’s all about filing the citizens away as a statistic, a statistic that will presumably be left on a train somewhere. I think they already have more data than they can cope with, we all know how good the government are at keeping what they have now safe. Once this data is taken, how do we know future governments won’t use it in a different way, perhaps one we really don’t consent to? Welcome to 1984.

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. – Benjamin Franklin

On Reflection; Suspend Wheeler

I think David T Breaker over at NewsJunction has the best solution. Cameron has to be tough on a member donating a large sum of money to an opposing political party, that actively campaign against the Conservatives. On the other hand expelling somebody is a rather harsh and strong decision, Wheeler needs to simply be shown that it’s not acceptable, and that we’ll have him back in due time.

22:18 update: I’m aware that Wheeler has already been expelled, I still think suspension is more appropriate.

Don’t Expel Stuart Wheeler

Yesterday evening the News of the World broke a story about a Conservative donor, lending his support to UKIP for the European elections, and is also donating £100,000 to them. His basic argument is that David Cameron’s Conservatives don’t say enough about Europe, and he feels they’re completely ignoring an important issue.

Conservative Home, and Iain Dale both believe he should be expelled from the party for disloyalty. I believe Mr Wheeler has highlighted an issue quite important to a lot of the Conservative grassroots. To not talk about Europe and give a more defined decision, risks alienating some of their core vote. Expelling him would be the wrong course of action, the man is a Conservative, through and through, and will be voting that way in the local and general elections. If you expel somebody for having strong anti-European views, then you risk a trickle of open UKIP praise based on principle, turning into a flood, which could be deeply damaging to the party.

19:27 Update: According to the Telegraph, Wheeler has been expelled from the Conservative Party.