Whatever’s wrong with socialism.

Miliband said he would 'fix power bills until 2017' if he won next election

But the energy industry warns it will lead to gas and electricity shortages

Centrica’s Sir Roger Carr called the policy ‘a recipe for economic ruin’
Energy firms said capping prices would halt the investment needed to avoid blackouts, and lead to gas and electricity shortages.

Freezing bills, may be superficially attractive, but it will also freeze the money to build and renew power stations, freeze the jobs and livelihoods of the 600,000 plus people employed in the energy industry, and make the prospect of energy shortages a reality, pushing up the prices for everyone.

It seems highly likely that the power companys would increase their charges, before Milliband could enact a bill for his freeze, and then at the end of the two years, would again hike the price to cover their lost profits.


A Miliband administration, we can now be sure, would have appalling consequences for the economy, and undo the limited, hesitant progress of the past few years.

Whatever’s wrong with socialism. Well we have tried that, and look where it got us. We know Ed Miliband’s master plan.  Socialism turned post-war Britain into a bankrupt basket case.

Ed Miliband’s assault on the energy market is the final, depressing confirmation that Labour has returned to its collectivist, anti-capitalist stance.

Industries and Banks that fall out of favour will be hit by almost random hit and grab raids.

The Labour Party’s 20-year attempt at reconciling left-wing politics with the market economy, private business and individual aspiration is now over.

Labour’s approach will buy votes but rob the energy industry of any kind of certainty: why invest to reconstruct the UK’s crumbling infrastructure. 

Will Miliband nationalise the whole industry to ensure the lights stay on?

And once you start with electricity price controls, what next? Transport, petrol, food, clothes, or the Labour favourite – the Banks.

Labour seeks yet more levies on banks, as if they are some sort of magic money tree that can endlessly be tapped, with no consequences on jobs, credit or customers.

Ed Miliband has no understanding of incentives and cannot see that those who work hard, build a business and career or save and invest should be able to reap the fruits of their efforts.

Miliband has lived up to his Red Ed nickname by telling Labour activists he is ‘bringing back socialism’, and set out a socialist agenda, saying that if he won power in 2015 he would: 

·                                 Grab land from owners who fail to build on it;

·                                 Reverse housing benefit cuts;

·                                 Force firms in key sectors to pay employees a higher rate under the minimum wage laws;

·                                 Penalise companies that fail to take on apprentices and trainees

·                                 Stop rural communities objecting to urban sprawl and new towns;

·                                 Fund a business rate freeze for small firms by hitting 80,000 medium and large employers;

·                                 Give 16- and 17-year-olds the vote.

·                                  

Len McCluskey, the militant leader of Unite, the country’s largest union and Labour’s biggest financial backer, declared: ‘There wasn’t anything you couldn’t like.’ 

And former Labour leader Lord Kinnock, was seen clapping and cheering, and declared Miliband’s vision was ‘brilliant’.

With those two endorsements, we should all be scared.

Unions, through the Socialist party have exercised a stranglehold on production and distribution. In the name of the ‘workers’, wealthy union leaders, living a champagne lifestyle, called strikes at the drop of a hat.

This resulted in swathes of industry closing. We all remember the disputes at British Leyland, Longbridge, the problems with British Steel, the coal miners disputes, and the earlier problems at the Port of London together with the many strikes at Fords at Dagenham. All reigned over by the socialists. All now disappeared, with the loss of thousands of jobs, and the wholesale dependence on social security.

The socialists compensated by nationalising every aspect of our daily lives, through quangos such as the Health and Safety and Equality Commissions and the ‘human rights’ racket. Employment was solved by over hiring in the civil service.

In an attempt to sway voting trends, immigration was encouraged and allowed to go out of control  ‘‘diversity’ is a socialist fronted industry aimed at eradicating the Tories.

Ed Miliband will pledge to build 200,000 homes a year by 2020 as he sets out plans for a new generation of garden cities and new towns, and many will be to house immigrants that have swamped this country, and has caused overloading of our NHS and Education system.

During the Labour Party conference, union boss Len McCluskey warned Labour had ‘no future unless it bowed to the union's’ demands, and declared Labour was now ‘our party’. The cat is out of the bag

Ed Miliband pledged to reverse government's housing benefit cuts, and said it would be funded by scrapping 'tax cuts for hedge funds'

But industry bodies say savers and pensioners will lose £140m-a-year.

Labour's pensions raid to pay for scrapping bedroom tax will 'put people off saving for their retirement'  and will find that all pensioners will live in equal poverty reliant on the State. Ultimately the entire population will live in equal poverty, reliant on the State. Sound familiar?

It amazes me that Labour would ever have the gall to contest a General Election again with the same incompetent idiots who cocked it up last time. They must think we have very short memories.

Miliband is promising to fix the economy, but don’t forget it was the Socialists that put us into this mess during their long term in power, and are asking us to vote them in, to repeat more of the same.

Labour’s answer is a re-run of the tax-and-spend disaster system which got us into this mess in the first place. 



There are now 5.98 million members of TUC-affiliated unions, which is fewer than half the number just 30 years ago.

The TUC blames the fall, on job cuts in the public sector. Of course that is correct, because the last Socialist government hired people to do non jobs in the public sector to massage the employment figures

Trade union ranks soared in the post-war years. By the end of the 1970s - a decade of widespread industrial unrest - more than 12 million workers were paying their subs.

Union membership plummeted during successive Conservative governments and the trend continued under New Labour, albeit at a lower rate.

Since the start of the financial crisis in 2008, membership has declined by more than half a million.

The TUC said that the fall in membership was "a direct result of redundancies particularly in the public sector".

There are 29.17 million people in employment aged 16 and over, and yet the Unions with their 5.98 million members want to dictate to the rest of us through the Socialist party.

A deeply flawed and duplicitous policy.

The British Government has proposed to remove from British pensioners in certain European countries the right to Winter Fuel Payments on the grounds that the country in which they live is "warmer" than Britain in winter months.

The Department of Work and Pensions commissioned a study which it has now admitted calculated average winter temperatures for France and Spain which included in their calculations overseas tropical and semi tropical departments.

It has been confirmed, that the Meterorological Office used, the Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, Ceuta & Melilla for the figures for Spain, and

The Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, the Indian Ocean islands of Réunion and Mayotte and French Guiana in South America were added to average temperatures for mainland France.

The whole policy is deeply flawed and duplicitous. It ignores the fact that many parts of France and Spain, are much colder IN THE WINTER than the relatively temperate British climate, as a result of basking in the warmth of the Gulf Stream.

Ministers and their acolytes think that all British expats enjoy millionaire life styles and ignore the fact that many retired Brits live in Europe because they are able to live a little cheaper than in those parts of Britain where they used to live. In addition many British retired expats "enjoy" minimal pensions and live in quite strapped circumstances, this being true of many pensioners who will not enjoy the well protected and generous parliamentary and public pensions of Iain Duncan Smith, the Minister responsible for this decision.

British expats form an exceedingly loyal group, in many cases having served their country and their communities, and love and support their country of birth, but are being picked on knowing that they are denied the vote, to be able to protest this policy.

This is an ill considered, shabby and unfair proposal. To put the matter into perspective the DWP has itself recently wasted the entire cost of the saving that would be made in one year on a useless computer system.

If you are an expat or you know expats who may be affected I urge you to support the petition which may be accessed by the link below.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/52121

A petition also exists calling for a dedicated MP for British expats at: MPs petition 
This is the best way for our voices to be heard. 

The political class in general is actually out of touch with the general population.

Britain’s new political elite is an assortment of multi-millionaires who studied at exclusive universities. But down on the streets there is a growing sentiment that those running the country are detached from those they lead.
The latest example of how a few careless words by a millionaire in power triggers anger from the people affected by his governmental decisions comes from Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith. when he claimed in a radio talk show that if he had to, he could live on 53 pounds a week.
Hours later an astonishing 97,000 people signed an online petition on the change.org website calling on Duncan Smith to prove his words. The text challenged him to “live on this budget for at least one year” instead of spending his salary, which is almost 50 times higher.

The coalition of millionaires: 23 of the 29 member of the cabinet are worth more than £1m... and the Lib Dems are just as wealthy as the Tories

David Cameron’s coalition Government may have adopted ‘we are all in it together’ as one of its defining slogans, but his team of Ministers has been drawn almost exclusively from the ranks of the financial elite.

Our three main political leaders are thought to be comfortably off, and beyond the effects of the cut backs in the UK economy.

David Cameron

The PM and his wife both come from wealthy backgrounds and enjoy substantial property assets of their own: their London home has been valued at £2.7million and their constituency house at £1million. Both are in line to inherit fortunes from their parents: the combined wealth of the Camerons’ parents has been put as high as £30million. 

Nick Clegg

Like his coalition partner Cameron, Clegg’s father made millions in the City. While Clegg senior has an impressive international property portfolio worth several million pounds, the Lib Dem leader’s own wealth comes from a £1.5million property in Putney and a constituency house in Sheffield.

The question stands: can the political elite really understand what the cuts mean for ordinary voters?

Ed Miliband inherited a share of a multi-million pound property from his Marxist father.

The Socialists often use the phrase “Cabinet of Millionaires”. Red Ed especially calculates this will harm the government in an era of cuts.
But there are quite a few millionaires around the Shadow Cabinet table. And Ed Miliband and his wealthy counterparts have been dubbed ‘champagne socialists’ 

Millionaress Harriet Harman, privately educated at St Paul’s girls school. After an eighteen year parliamentary career, she is set to get at least a half a million pounds from her pension pot. Along with her husband’s salary and pension, things are looking comfortable with one house in Herne Hill and a country pile in Suffolk. 
Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper received a joint household income of some £300,000 per year for their five years or so in goverment positions.

There is a problem with the political class in general. It is actually out of touch with the general population. They don’t really understand how a lot of families are suffering now with rising basic costs. I often wish that when being interviewed on the TV or Radio that they are asked to give the current price for a loaf of bread or a pint of milk.

Just an ordinary guy in the same old home? Are you sure, Nick?

Well we have had the Liberal Party conference, during which Nick Clegg boasted of saying ‘no’ to a raft of Tory policies as he lifted the lid on coalition in-fighting.

Echoing Margaret Thatcher’s famous ‘no, no, no’ speech, he claims to have blocked 16 measures including tax cuts, employment reforms and profit-making schools, but makes no mention to saying no, to deny British expatriates living in Europe, the vote.

Clegg with Senorita Clegg who still
has the right to vote in Spain, whilst
Clegg denies British expatriates the
right to vote in the UK. Hypocracy!!!

He says ‘Sometimes compromise and agreement isn’t possible and you just have to say “no”. 

That is why our country is going downhill fast. At least Lady Thatcher made up her mind – for right of for wrong and stuck to it. Not like the wishy washy Coalition government that we have got at the moment.

He also made a delusional claim for being responsible for the economic recovery, Mr Clegg suggested there would be no growth without him being in power. He then shows his economic acumen by announcing that from next September all children aged under 7 in England will receive free school meals, but the announcement descended into confusion, as ministers contradicted each other over how the £600 million bill will be paid for.

Blair, Cameron, Osbourne and Clegg - don't live in the same world as the ordinary citizen. I'm sure that the only reason Clegg wants to be in coalition again is that he is power crazy.

How can Clegg and his like understand the wants and worries of ordinary people, that's what wrong with politics, they are all wealthy career politicians playing with our lives

The current crop of politicians' are out of touch with real life, and for all those that bang on about the rich Tories, the Socialists are just as wealthy and just as much out of touch.

Clegg is keen to point out, he lives in the same old family home that he lived in before he became Deputy Prime Minister. But valued at £1.5million, it is one, that most of us can only ever dream of.

He makes no mention of having the run of his mother’s £7million, luxury 20-room mountain chalet near the exclusive Swiss resort of Klosters, and his father’s ten-bedroom chateau near Bordeaux, in France,

While Mr Clegg’s £134,565 salary sounds more than comfortable to most mere mortals, it is dwarfed by his Spanish-born wife’s estimated £600,000 a year income as a commercial lawyer at the major US law firm Dechert.

The daughter of a Madrid senator, she is also a director of a Spanish building company.

Mr Clegg himself was raised in luxury in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, going to £19,000-a-year Caldicott prep school and then Westminster School. His maternal grandfather was a friend of the Dutch royal family and his banker father, Nicholas, is the son of a Russian-born baroness.

  

He currently says ‘I won’t be in politics forever. Matthew Oakeshott will be relieved. Only three or four elections to go,’ As a 46 year old that means he will be retiring at the age of 61 or 66. An age that many of us will be dreaming of, under the government’s plans for retirement.

Although he says he won't be in politics forever he pleads to be in power after 2015 with a claim that he would be a better PM than Cameron or Miliband.

Whilst I am a strong believer that both of these others could do with a good kick up the rear end, Clegg is being delusional when making this assertion. He is Deputy PM by a voting error and certainly not through the choice of the voters.

Clegg has pleaded  for the Lib Dems to continue in power after the 2015 election.

But in a blow to his hopes of clinging on to power a new opinion poll showed just one in ten voters would prefer the next general election to result in another coalition government.

More than two thirds (67 per cent) would prefer to see an outright victory by one party, despite the Liberal Democrat leader warning a clear Tory or Labour win would be the 'absolute worst' outcome for the UK.

It is highly likely that the next election could be a disaster for the Liberal party, and Clegg suggested he could quit politics if he is not returned as Deputy PM. That could swiftly bring his retirement forward and the hypocrisy of us ALL being in it together.

Having tasted his 15 minutes of fame Clegg has made it clear that he was ready to serve in coalition with either Labour or Conservatives.

With 18 months to go it is time the DOG started to wag the TAIL. Cameron must start to push some traditional Conservative policies at the Libs. If they don't agree, let them walk away. They won't do that, they like the power they have in Government.

If there was anyone in Britain has any doubt about the complete Wasters the LibDems are, then this conference of theirs should have removed any doubt.

The appalling duplicity of the Civil Service and politicians

In his spending review, the Chancellor said under a new "temperature test" the Winter Fuel Payment would be removed from people living in portugal, spain, greece, france, gibraltar & cyprus. Note Italy is not included?????

The appalling duplicity of the Civil Service and politicians in Britain has been revealed with regards to the Winter Fuel Payment being withdrawn from pensioners who live within France.

Apparently Minister Iain Duncan Smith’s Department of Works & Pensions has included temperatures for France’s tropical territories - Martinique, Reunion, Guadeloupe, Mayotte, and French Guiana - with those of Metropolitan France to create typical winter average!  Obviously with the sole objective of  depriving UK expats in France of the Winter Fuel Allowance.

According to them French tropical islands help determine what the average temperature Winter or Summer is for Metropolitan France - does anyone need to spell out such idiocy. There are no more than 30 British pensioners in the overseas départements of France,  but > 59,600 in mainland France.

Perhaps the Dept of Works & Pensions should now include the average temperatures of Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad, the Bahamas, the Turks & Caicos Islands, the Leeward and Windward Islands, plus maybe a few other exotic British possessions, Dominions, and territories – to that of the UK, in that way they could stop the payment of Winter Fuel Payment to ALL pensioners.

Minister Iain Duncan Smith has lost all sense of reality, certainly political reality, in his desperate bid for political stardom, and save his Department some money. Perhaps he should concentrate on getting rid of the full time Union representatives ‘’embedded’’ in all sectors of the Civil Service and Public sector, and being paid for by the UK Taxpayer to the tune of at least 36 million sterling a year, and by some accounts, as much as120 million sterling  a year.

By denying a number of UK expat - pensioners, who all worked and paid into all the UK systems, all their working lives - he might, just might, save 30 million, providing he is not defeated in the EU court,  when it is challenged by a disgruntled pensioner –  another total waste of time taxpayers’ money

Meanwhile what is happening to over 400,000 non UK nationals being paid a variety of benefits.

Apparently new figures showed there were 407,000 non-UK nationals receiving hand-outs last year, a rise of more than 118,000 since 2008, with the total bill running to hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

Child benefit payments which EU residents are entitled to claim even if their children live abroad are not included. According to latest figures the taxpayer foots the bill for payments to 40,000 children overseas at a cost of £36 million a year. None of whom have contributed anything whatsoever to the UK economy in taxes –-  claiming anything they could get in benefits and welfare!  Unlike UK Pensioner Expats, who paid in all their working lives. Let Ian Duncan Smith’s Department crack down on non UK national benefit scroungers.

  

Stop the Governments victimisation of pensioners living abroad who have contributed to the welfare state by withdrawing their winter fuel payment

Many pensioners have decided to move abroad for their retirement. All of these pensioners have contributed to the welfare state via taxes and national insurance throughout their working lives. Withdrawing their winter fuel payment is unjust.

How can Iain Duncan Smith get away with it? It is quite simple, ex pats are denied the vote and can have no say in government policies, even when they are most affected. In 2015 the Prime Minister has promised a vote on continued membership of the EU and some of the people most affected will be Ex pats, who once again will have no vote on the matter. Our soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan for democracy and yet the British government deny their own citizens that basic right.

It appears that Iain Duncan Smith is beginning to make a habit of getting things wrong

Blow to Iain Duncan Smith as Universal Credit plan is branded 'unrealistic': Auditors warn scheme should be delayed to prevent further losses to taxpayers

     National Audit Office says Universal Credit is beset by ‘  weak management, ineffective control and poor governance’

The scheme is designed to ensure that it always pays people to take a job.

Auditors warn the £2.4bn project has not achieved value for money

  

Iain Duncan Smith’s flagship welfare reform has got off to a disastrous start and should be delayed to prevent further losses to the taxpayer, auditors warn today.

The findings are a major blow to Mr Duncan Smith, who has staked his reputation on delivering the complex project on time.

He should now also look at WFP for ex Pats.

The WFP petition has added nearly 1400 signatures in two days being now 3661 - but at least 10,000 are needed - ask all your relatives to sign and those British friends who are not yet pensioners!

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/52121

And do not forget the need to have political representation -

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43238

A permanent vote is crucial!  This the politicians respect.