Tynemouth Lodge Hotel

URGENT PRIORITY

Looking after the day to day interests of the poorest and most vulnerable members of the population to be the top priority.

Scrapping of all NHS hospital parking charges throughout the UK.    The last thing distraught relatives need is to have to queue at ticket machines in our hospital car parks on cold winter nights.

Harmonisation of English/Scottish/Welsh legislation in relation to student tuition fees, payment of residential home charges for the elderly, and any other financial anomalies, including prescription charges, as the devolved regions have no tax collecting powers, so it is blatantly unfair for English tax payers to be in receipt of lower handouts than their Scottish/Welsh residing neighbours or to be forced to subsidise them in any way whatsoever. A level playing field for all citizens of the UK is of paramount importance.

Withdraw all troops immediately from Iraq and Afganistan and cease any further foreign military adventures.    It is simply not acceptable to put the lives of our young service personnel at risk unnecessarily. We are an island nation and our best option is to protect the integrity of our coastline.

The invasion of Iraq was illegal, unnecessary and irrational and in monetary terms very expensive.  There was no firm evidence of weapons of mass destruction and ‘regime change’ is against international law.

Tony Blair asserted recently that he thinks about the invasion on a daily basis but that he is convinced that ‘getting rid of Saddam Hussain was a good thing’, so he is presumably of the opinion that regime change should be legalised.

This cruel invasion opened up the gates of Hell in Iraq and has cost the lives of over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians. As an British woman married to an Iraqi man asserted on the media a few weeks after this invasion :  ‘I could walk safely through the streets of Baghdad at any time of the day or night, but now I can not go anywhere’.   This invasion was all about George Bush Junior finishing off a job that Daddy had started, aided and abetted by his toy poodle and arch patter-merchant  Anthony Blair, who is now making a fortune on the American lecture circuit, whilst the Iraqi nation with is broken infrastructure has been returned to the Stone Age.

No foreign invader has had any success in Afghanistan, including the Soviets who lost over 30,000 troops not that long ago.

Acceptance of the fact that the UK is now a financially-impoverished, over-populated country and can no longer act as if it were a rich super-power. We simply can not afford financially to wage war abroad anywhere, period.

All nuclear weapons to be destroyed.

All bombs, landmines and chemical weapons to be phased out quickly from our arsenal.

Tight domestic border controls to be top priority.

MONETARY

Scrap National Insurance Contributions.

Scrap the complex Income Tax bands.

Replace both with a standard rate of Income Tax of 10% payable on all earnings over £12,000.

Reduce Corporation Tax for all companies to a flat 10%.

Reduce and fix rate of VAT to 10%.

Above measures should serve to create domestic employment by reinvigorating manufacturing industry in the UK.

The ‘benefits trap’ will be eliminated, as workers will pay no tax in low-earnings occupations.

Tax Havens : As a result of above new low levels of Income Tax, Corporation Tax and Capital Gains Tax,  the need for offshore tax havens is effectively eliminated and huge funds would no doubt be diverted to our shores,  to the detriment of  the economies of Jersey, the Isle of Man, the Caymen Islands, etc.

Shipping : Britain is a world leader in shipping, but for economic reasons most of Britain’s ships ply their trade under flags of convenience. This unacceptable scenario should be undone by a low tax economy and more ships will be flying under the British ensign, with shipping companies choosing to pay their taxes to the UK government.   (It has been no accident that Somali pirates have seized no registered British ships, as they are not flying under our flag, nor are their owners paying UK taxes.)

Low taxes will create jobs and wealth in the United Kingdom.

Conversely, the high tax regime endorsed by Gordon Brown and Alistaire Darling will  destroy jobs and wealth, both of which will be driven overseas.

Inheritance Tax : No inheritance tax payable whatsoever on principal private residence when any surviving family members are in residence in the house.

For example, in a case where a daughter looks after her sick and widowed mother in the family house, when the mother passes away there will be no Inheritance Tax payable on the house and the daughter will not be forced to sell the house to pay I.T.

No inheritance tax payable by surviving legal partner on inheritance of the deceased partner’s  estate.

Inheritance Tax payable at 10%.    First £1m of estate exempt for immediate offspring.

Capital Gains Tax to be set a 10% of gain on shares and property.  No indexing.

FSA to be wound up and its role returned to the Bank of England.

All foreign aid to be terminated until such time as the UK economy is back in the black.

No further bailouts of any private companies.

The banking sector bailout has been a disaster and will still be being paid for by taxpayers for many years to come.

OTHER PRIORITIES

Introduce high-tech identity cards which double as a passport.   No point having the expense or inconvenience of both.

Introduce watertight border controls.

Return illegal immigrants and introduce mandatory prison sentences for the employers of illegals.  A recognition that many impoverished illegal immigrants are coaxed into the UK by unscrupulous employers.

Re-nationalise the utility companies : gas, electricity, nuclear and water.

The country is being held to ransom by the private utility firms who seem to be treating the UK as a cash cow,  especially in the commercial-user sector where there are no safeguards in place for consumers.

Rip-off utility prices are clearly not in the public interest and extortionate utility prices for commercial users is costing the country jobs.

Railways to be re-nationalised,  including Network Rail.

Privatisation and resultant fragmentation of British Rail has not been in the public interest.

Branch lines to be reopened where there is a need and where practical.

New lines to be opened where deemed necessary and affordable.

More passenger rail travel will save lives on our roads and reduces pollution.

Objective to run an all-electric service powered at source by nuclear and green fuel.

Oil company pricing to be tightly controlled with the threat of nationalisation if they abuse their control over the market.

Their recent profits have been obscene at a time when the public has been paying top dollar for fuel.  There pump prices have been shot up instantly with daily price of oil, but have been slow to move with falling oil prices.

Withdrawal from European Union.

Imposition of a 200 mile foreign vessel fishing exclusion zone around UK waters, aimed to invigorate our domestic fishing industry and to improve fish stocks.

Abolition of all subsidies to the farming community.

Abolition of Business Rates for small businesses.  This is now recognised as nothing less than a tax on local jobs.

Objective to get more small shops and pubs open on our high streets.

While supermarkets have brought down price of every-day consumables for the public at large, the cost has been a huge number of lost retail jobs.

National Lottery to be run by the government.

Law and order : All non-violent prisoners to be released from our prisons, to make way for dangerous offenders currently at large on our streets.

GREEN AGENDA :

Set a reduced UK population target of 50m, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of the nation and reducing the demand for all utilities and housing.

Phase out all coal and gas-fired power stations, to be replaced by state-of-the-art nuclear facilities.

Stricter planning conditions for siting of wind turbines.

Removal of turbines already placed in unsightly or ecologically unfriendly locations.

Big investment in green energy development, including geothermal, tidal sources and hydroelectric. One thing this country is not short of, despite erroneous press releases from the water companies is WATER.  Global warming means more humid winds coming in with the prevailing winds from the west over the Atlantic, equating to lots more rain year on year, on average.

Draconian legislation to be put in place to quickly phase out conventional petrol and diesel engines in all vehicles and plant and in ships in UK waters within next 10 years.

Duty to be imposed on aviation fuel and heavy oil fuel used by shipping.

These two industries are recognised as being among the heaviest polluters of the planet.

Government to offer financial assistance to companies developing high tech commercial sailing ships.

EDUCATION

Phase out comprehensive schools, to be replaced by traditional grammar and technical schools.

Less academically gifted students to be encouraged to take up an apprenticeship or other training, as currently less than one in three graduates manage to find employment related to their degree and they are being burdened with £9,500 of tuition fees in England plus long-term student loans.  In 2009,  the 300,000 graduates leaving our universities are chasing less than 80,000 jobs,  so there are clearly too many students completing degree courses and the future for many of them is bleak.

Reintroduction of traditional 5 year building trade apprenticeships for 16 year olds, subsidised by state funding, in such trades as bricklaying, joinery, plumbing, electrical, decorating, etc.

Other traditional apprenticeships to be encouraged by central government in such diverse trades as tailoring, dressmaking, cabinet making, catering, etc.

Agricultural and marine colleges to be reopened.

French to be taught in all schools, including Primary and to be made the official second language of the UK. (French is already the official language of the Olympic movement.)

Close cultural links to be set up with France, especially in the schools sector.

Our nearest-neighbour, France, has an enviable cultural heritage and a rich language with strong grammatical links to English.

The now discredited modular A-levels to be replaced by the much more demanding International Baccalaureate examinations for university entrance.

Top performing public schools to be forced to take a quota of 25% of pupils from the state sector to be funded by bursary from the school, topped up by state funding.

In return these schools be allowed to retain their charitable tax status.

Verbal English to be a top priority in our schools.

PENSIONS

As annuity rates have plummeted and as the gap between the expectations of workers in the private and public sectors have widened in favour of public sector workers, there is an urgent need to address this problem.

As average wages in the public sector are now higher than in the private, the old argument for final salary public pensions is now defunct.

Taxpayer-subsidised public sector pensions in which there is no pot of money put to one side are simply unsustainable.

Long term goal of setting up a Singapore government style closed Pension Investment Fund for paying public sector pensions with contributions being made by both employer and employee.

The country can no longer afford to pay public sector workers’ pensions out of day to day taxation.

Measures to be put in place to get the private pension industry back on track.

Private pension companies to be given special tax status.

No tax payable by these companies on dividends earned from their investments, reversing Gordon Brown’s raid on the pension industry.

Pension companies to work on a not-for-profit basis and to be tightly regulated by the Bank of England.

Tax relief on all private pension contibutions up to a generous annual limit with top-up allowances in place for under-funded individuals.

SUMMARY

This budget is aimed to achieve the following :

1. Reduce the exposure of our service personnel and to reduce our military objectives to defending our borders without nuclear capability.
2. Simplification of the tax system and reducing the tax burden of the working population.
3. Renationalisation of utility and rail companies.
4. Drastic improvement of state education and apprenticeships.
5. Overhaul of pensions to achieve more equality between private/public sectors.

Author : Hugh Price (April 2009)

Blog category : Humour.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.