Just got back from a week in England with my mother. Here's a pic to add a bit of glamour to this post :)
Timber!
Mum lives on the south coast in Worthing where a few weeks back a sea tanker shed its load and dispatched tons of timber across the beach!
Here’s a photo of the 14ft high wood planks after they’d been dragged up from the shore and made ready for removal.
Back to the Future?....
The first English news I saw after the plane touched down was that the bank Northern Rock had been nationalised! What? I couldn't believe it. I'd taken a plane ride back to the 70s...
It wasn't long though before I realised, no, this is 2008, it's just the Brown The Merciless is in charge. This was confirmed by the taxi radio as we left Heathrow: the news was that the Government is going to increase the tax on alcohol: more on alco-pops to combat teenage binge drinking in the streets and more on wine to combat middle-class binge drinking at home. What about teenagers that drink sparkling Lambrusco? Or middle-class mums who like Bacardi Breezers? Maybe the publican or office licence has to determine the punter’s socio-economic group and then set the price accordingly? Of course it’s all in the name of public heath – nobody suspects for a second that it’s about fleecing the population of more tax revenue.
My mother had a good suggestion: why not stop paying kids to stay on at school and then they wouldn’t have so much disposable income to waste on booze? It's double-plus-good: fewer young drinkers and we’d save tax dollars. Trouble is Brown sees himself as Robin Hood stealing from the rich to give to the poor… only he steals from everyone, rich and poor – anyone so long as he can grab headlines about his generosity.
Take for example his promise to allow pensioners free bus travel anywhere in the country. Now that’s a good headline. So how is this being paid for? We’ll, in Worthing where my mother lives, where as a pensioner she’s already had free bus travel within the local area, she now has to find money for a 1% rise in council tax to pay for the free bus travel of pensioners from outside the local area who come to Worthing for the seaside. You see, local councils are responsible for funding journeys that originate in their area. As a popular resort, Worthing has to find £600,000 (about US$1,100,000) to pay for Brown’s big heart. Yeah, great idea comrade Brown. My mum saves a few bob in travel but has to pay many times over in local tax.
It’s been very interesting to compare American’s engagement with politics with the apathy in England. Ron Paul is said to have raised $10million in a day from Internet-originated donations for his campaign. Brown’s sorry party are in the red and apparently looking to small businesses for donations. Lol! Is that a joke? Does Brown mean the same small businesses that have seen increased costs dealing with red tape and who are about to be hit with an ill-thought out reactionary hike in corporate gains tax? I think that any small businesses man that donates money to Brown doesn’t have the sense to stay in business.
So why the apathy? It’s partly the usual British cynicism but more than ever there’s a deep-seated mistrust caused by a blatant lack of honesty and transparency. Take for example the EU. This Government made a direct promise in its election manifesto to hold a referendum on the EU constitution. They know they’d lose the vote if they put it to the people so they rename the document, call it a “treaty”, think we’re all too stupid to realise we’re being lied to, and then say there’s no need to have a referendum because there is no “constitution”… it’s a treaty.
Maybe if this Government were to hold the EU to account over the disgraceful secrecy over its finances (Euro 107 billion of which Euro 1.3billion is for the Parliament itself) then the British might start to have more respect for it and the EU. But while MEPs are quaffing champagne, eating in Michelin starred restaurants, expensing their holidays and lining their gilt-edged pensions with taxpayers money it’s no wonder we’re all angry and distrusting. Who does the EU think it stands accountable to? It has failed its audit for the 13th consecutive year – the sums don’t add up and they won’t tell us where the money's gone! What small businessman would Brown allow to get away with that?
But of course nobody in Government is going to rock the boat. They’ll be out in 2 years and Brown, like Blair and the Kinnocks before him will be queuing up for his time at the EU trough.
Oh man… it’s so good to be back in sunny San Fran J
The second is 
