Why minimum alcohol pricing is not the answer

I am firmly against the idea of a minimum pricing strategy for alcohol. This is for various reasons which I shall explain I do not think raising the price of drinks in pubs and in the super markets will bring down binge drinking one bit people who enjoy drinking and drink to get drunk will not be deterred by this in fact it will give them added incentive I feel as they will turn to shoplifting or worse to get alcohol. We may see the return of home brewing and some even stronger alcohol being imported from abroad which is even more dangerous than what we have currently. I think there is also the adanger of this turning into a nanny state question again. Where we are told what we can and cant do once more. I am a drinker of alcohol I’ll admit that but not excessively that often I am more a social drinker with friends and comrades at weekends and after meetings. This minimum price will hit me who am not a troublemaker in the pocket and guess where the extra tax will go? The government who already make huge amounts of cash in tax through alcohol and breweries will be hit as a result. The pub trade is an industry close to my heart and with the introduction of this plan this will put even more pubs out of business than there already is. Already there is roughly 1 pub closing every week in this country and this will only increase this further. It’s a barmy idea which will only benefit big business and capitalism this won’t solve peoples drinking habits or improve the pub trade. This is a cynical ploy by health charities who claim to want the best for us while not even stopping to think of the social reasons why people often young people end up drinking vast quantities of drink a lot. Do they stop to think could it be the lack of an education, lack of a good well paid job? Poor housing conditions or lack of housing at all that turn ordinary working class people to drink every day. I lay the blame squarely at the feet of capitalism who while drives people to drink literally through driving them into the ground through the wage slave system also makes millions of pounds out of peoples misery in the process. Nice this capitalism ay? The solution, a democratic planned socialist economy based on peoples needs, breweries which are run for peoples needs not for the profits of th boss’s a fair cheap affordable drink structure with good affordable housing with good well paid jobs. All possible when big business sits on 800 billion and refuses to invest, time to tax the rich!

latest GDP figures make bleak reading for the government

The UK economy returned to modest growth in the first three months of 2011, official figures revealed today, following a shock decline at the end of last year.


Gross domestic product (GDP) - a broad measure for the total economy - grew by 0.5% in the first quarter of the year, following an unexpected drop of 0.5% in the final weather-hit quarter of 2010, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.


All this makes bleak reading for George OSbourne as he looks to re balance the economy. I think these figures clearly show a failiure to bring in growth for the UK. These figures include figures since VAT went up in January to 20% but dont account for teh oncoming savage spending cuts by the government. THe next quarters figures will be very interesting indeed.

In the figures we can see that construction took a big hit no doubt as a result of loosing many contracts for building schools projects and a stagnation in house building market.

All this confirms mine and many others thoughts that cutting our way out of a recession is never the way to go. George Osbourne and his tory pals have not learnt the lessons of history. Although this 0.5% shows growth it is only returning to what it was in the third quarter of last year. This is in affect a 6 month stagnation . Whatever spin these political types and media who do a good job of spinning them for them too there is no way these figures show the tories plans are working.

Labour of course have no reply on this whatever they say they would have only cut 2 billion pounds less this year and had no ideas for real growth either.

Time after time i remind people that capitalism is broken and you cannot reform the system. Only a over throw of the system to bring the heights of the economy into public ownership will fill the public purse with funds to reinvest in the services we so badly need.

Removing the economic power of the rich and redistributing wealth to the many would by my idea of making society a fairer society.

2011 with spending cuts ahead looks to be anotehr bumpy year for the British economy. With growing fears in the global market of the likes of Greece and Spain defaulting on its debts the fear of a crisis in the capitalist society is bound to spread.

Why i dont believe the unemployment figures

So as we are leadto believe there are currently 2.5 million people out of work in the UK. I'd like to argue that figure is much higher than that in reality and i'll tell you why i think that.

Alot of people who could be counted as unployed are currently in training schemes which mask the true figures and often the figures are out dated or collected wrongly.

capitalism of which we live under has a lot to answer to for this result in high unemployment in 2011.
From a ‘rational’ point of view capitalism is a crazy way of running the world. Even though unemployment is relatively low at the moment in Britain (although this will change as recession hits the economy), there are still vast tracts of mass unemployment. The reality is far bleaker than the official figures suggest. In the North of England, Wales and Scotland, the destruction of manufacturing means that jobs are hard to come by.

Even in the South, in the inner cities up to a third of young black people are unemployed. The real number of people looking for work or on government training schemes is probably closer to three million than to two and a half million. (And even in areas where unemployment is currently low, it has been replaced by a massive increase in part-time, temporary work.)

Every unemployed person ‘costs’ around £10,000 a year in benefits paid and taxes lost. The Cambridge Journal of Economics shows that one million jobs could be created for £17 billion. This means that, at current taxation levels, an extra £10 million could be raised or saved! Economists also calculate that each employed person annually contributes, on average, around £22,000 to the economy. Therefore, each unemployed person, given a real job, could produce £22,000 worth of production - potentially around £60 billion.

At the same time as we have unemployment, four million workers in Britain work an average of 48 hours a week. This is the lunacy of capitalism. By introducing a 35-hour week with no loss of pay - in other words, sharing out the work - it would be possible to dramatically reduce the number of unemployed whilst simultaneously improving the quality of life for working people.

If this were combined with a massive increase in public services it would be possible to eliminate unemployment. This would allow us to develop a vastly better public transport system, build public housing, and hire more teachers, nursery staff and health workers.

But for the capitalist class profit comes before anything else. So the development of new technology does not mean, as it could, a shorter week for all, but rather longer, backbreaking hours for some and unemployment for the rest.




So i do think figures of unemployment are far worse than the capitalist news sources would have you believe. A lot of down playing the situation is going on at the moment and i'm no fool i can tell that my fellow people around me are struggling. The youth of toay and the people leaving university today are leaving to a labour market where there is little if any prospect of finding lasting employment for themselves.

The longer people are out of work and on job seakers allowance the doll to many people this will be costing the country more and more in deficit and ultimatly will not help the country or the economy. But these are forgotton people. The tories expect the private sector to pick up the loss of jobs in the public sector as a result of public sector cuts i fail to see this happening as the private sector in many ways is struggling too.

So as i say lets look at the governments figures with more sceptism as i frankly feel they dont tell the full story and never have as the working class are often forgotton about.

As the old saying goes out of sight out of mind...

are we being too hard on the poor bankers ?

Today i'm disagreeing totally with david camron today he made a statement that we must go easy on the banks and not try and make them feel they caused this recession.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12145612

How wrong could the bloke be i'm sorry but going all softly softly on the banks just tells me that the tories more than ever are in the pockets of teh bankers. The tories make a case for labour being in the unions pockets now its time to highlight the fact the tories are in the bankers pockets.

It is outragous to say that the banks didnt cause all this financial trouble. They lead the way with disgustingly large bonus's culture which rewarded failure and didnt punish if you messed up. It will show a real weakness if this government we have now goes too soft on the banks. Quite clearly the tories want to stick up for their rich mates in the city who they feel can do no wrong in their eyes. How wrong can thy be. If they cant see the real problems they do not deserve to be governing i'd go as far as to say.

Why are polititians scared of upsetting the banks and the financial sector are they scared they will up sticks and leave ? well as far as i'm concerned good ridence if they do. As i've mentioned in previous blog posts i think the way banks run themselves having a free reign over waht they seem to do and charge their customers is just not on. If they do end up leaving due to over taxation to bring our finances back on track well so be it i'm sorry. I have little sympathy for a industy which works on the idea of risk taking. With our money we wouldnt mind if it was their own money we wouldnt care less but when its public money being pumped into the system to keep them afloat we do deserve a lot better.

I do think polititians owe us something after bailing this retchid capitalist system out by pumping it full of our money coming down harder on tax avoiders and bank bonus's will win a lot of support if there was less attacks on the public sector and people on lower incomes and are less well off.

The plan to get us out of this recession is not working and its totally unfair. When will people wake up and realise this and speak up about it more ?

Fuel prices going through the roof

So i just come back from town with my mum in her car. We stopped at the petrol station on the way back. First time we have filled up post VAT rise. Now my mum doesnt have a gas guzzler by any means a 1.1 peogeot 107 very economical little car. does a lot of miles to the gallon normally. But today our fuel came in at £45. This is ridiculous coupled with the VAT rise and the price of fuel rocketing in recent weeks this is just outragous.

As i am not a driver or a motorist this doesnt affect me but i know this will affect many of you out there who do drive. For a large family with two cars possibly who are on a average to low income this fuel rise and VAT increase is going to cripple some families i feel.

What are beloved government doing about this shooting up of fuel ? nothing of course they are loving it as they can pull in more tax for themselves. Simply this is not on. With inflation going through the roof too in recent months this is just not helping people get on with their lives. I feel there is much more the government could and should be doing to put pressure on these fuel companies who are charging huge prices for fuel.

The oil companies in the world like BP and Shell are some of the worst offending capitailist companies i've ever known. The way they expolit their workers and the countries they drill in is just out of order. Cost cutting in the gulf of mexico to maintain high profit margins was found to have been the reason behind the huge oil disaster in the Gulf a year or so ago. This is just hugely irresponsible of these companies and they must be brought into line and properly regulated.

Back to my original point i feel this fuel hike and VAT will once again hit the poorest in our society the hardest. I dont buy this arguement that the rich will face more of the tax as they will be spending more. Wrong as if you are poor you have less disposable income in the first place so a rise in prices is always going to affect the people with less money the most. But once again this tory lead coalition see that attacking people on lower incomes as fair game.

Well lets see what happens in a month or so when fuel prices start reaching record highs and fuel protests start back again. Will the government then step in to help keep the country moving. Will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

Pay day in the UK calling on all tax dodgers

So as the UK currently sits under a blanket of snow and ice those brave hearty soles at UK Uncut and many others have joined together for a day of action closing down and protesting outiside many private companies who their owners illegally dodge tax. These shops include the likes of Top Shop which is owned by Phillip Green of Arcadia. Phillip green is one of the worst offenders going a cabinet minister filthy rich and avoids tax like it is the plague. Well i for one am glad people are showing this guy up. Of course an inconvenience to the public on one of the busiest shopping days of the year but would be a much greater inconvenience if these shoppers lost their jobs due to public spending cuts and job loss's to cover the fact people like Phillip green are not paying their tax's meaning the government go after the ordinary working person on the street instead.

It is a disgrace and i would just like to add my support for these people making a stand today for the good ofa ll of us on a very cold day.

why not much talk of the VAT rise in Jan ?

To me this is very important, will affect each and everyone of us. Rich or poor. Probably poor more so as they have little disposable income anyway to start with. But i know we have all the student tuitian fees debarcle which i have blogged time after time on but this will be the next bomb shell the condems will land on us for sure.

Vat from January will be rising from its current position of 17.5% to 20%. That extra few percent could tip things over the edge for people. NOt only will this cripple consumer spending confidence it will also have an affect with putting business's out of business as they tryt o compete with added pressures of putting up VAT.

The last Labour government dropped the VAT percent down to 15%. This did little to the naked eye it seemed but it did boost spending for a little bit. Combined with schemes like teh car scrapage scheme and the boiler scrapage schemes this helped a bit of growth appear in the economy.

The choice of the coalition to raise this figure to 20% will not help consumer spending confidence and will hurt a lot of people most motably the poorest in society who struggle to make ends meet as it is.

I am fully aware that if labour had been in power now they also wantedto put up VAT. This was one of Alastair Darlings plans. I feel both parties who are and would have been in power are wrong and lowering tax's at this time on goods that are essential woudl help people out a bit and lessen the squeeze that there is on people right now.

The rise in VAT will again hit families the hardest i feel as they have the biggest weekly outgoings with feeding a family of 4 for example. Food and petrol prices are already going up alarmingly quickly and this will only further put people under the strain.

I just thought i'd throw the VAT debate back into the ring as over christmas and the holidays people better make the most of the rate of VAT as it will go up in January as i have outlined above.

David Cameron and his war on benifits

As we read today the prime minister David Cameron has waged war on benifit frauds Let me make this point clear i have no problem with taking people off benifits who clearly should not be getting any benifits and are clearly cheating the system. that is not my issue.

As you may or may not know i'm registered blind and hope i will not be affected by these benifit cuts and tests and the like. I dont mind being medically assessed as long as its fair and does what it needs to do and doesnt chop anyone off who still needs help.

While its all well and good going on the offence trying to get people off benifits who should not be claiming any who clearly do not deserve this i feel that there is a bigger problem.

Hearingthe figures that even if the government manage to take people off benifits who should not be on them they will only recieve back 1 billion pounds. when you put that in context comparison to the bigger economic problem this doesnt really gain us enough money back. I feel the bigger problem and could yield us more money back is going after wealthy tax dodgers.

These are often multi millionaires who have silly amounts of money. tackling these wealthy criminals and bring more money back into the economey will be a far better way of helping our financial deficit.

As we all know this will be badly over looked by the con dems who are fronted by the lib dems but have the tories pushing them out in front of the media to defend their hard lined cuts.

Wealthy tax dodgers will never be properly clamped down on just like MP's will never seriously be dealt with over their expenses and everything as they are too much in league with the tories and other polititians. If the tories went after their wealthy benifactors and peers they would be upsetting their own so no wonder Cameron will carry on waging war on the public sector and the less well off. As these are his natural enemy and always have been.