Big Stakes and Big Bucks

Just as the febrile political activity in Westminster reaches its climax, our potential leaders are readying themselves to tackle the national deficit through a slash and burn assault on our much admired and appreciated public services, despite the economic and political reality that such blood-letting is neither required nor acceptable in a civilised society.

We all accept that the debt has to be dealt with but why should the general public carry the can when they neither desired nor engineered the financial debacle.

There are alternative solutions which our representatives never mention.

According to figures released by the Office for National Statistics, our annual output is measured at £1.4 trillion, which almost equates to the £1.3 trillion of public cash which the last Government made available to the banking sector, and total wealth in the UK amounts to an incredible £9.1 trillion!

The ONS also states that the richest 10% of the population owns and controls 44% of this bonanza which equates to £4 trillion!

If this super-rich strata of society had their wealth taxed at a very reasonable rate of 5% - leaving them with 95% - instead of the incredulous 0.5% which they actually pay, the exchequer would raise £200 billion, which is more than enough to draw down the deficit and fund actual improvements to our public services.

But then, why stop at 5%? Is this what the billionaires tremble at and does this explain the deafening silence from the establishment on this issue?

Such a solution would satisfy the public and should also calm fevered, mystical markets, which let us admit it, are simply driven by greedy, panicky individuals who can and should be controlled.

The recommendations of credit rating agencies such as Standard & Poors and Moodys should also be challenged as these are the very agencies which gave AAA ratings to collateralised debt obligations, the toxic assets which brought the whole house of cards crashing down.

These agencies are not some independent, refereeing, inspectorate operating in the stratosphere, but are in fact executing their clients' instructions and picking off countries one by one in order to force them to sell off public services to grasping, irresponsible privateers!

Apathy and Incompetence

This General Election is supposed to be the On-Line Election or the Leader's Debates Election, but my experience of assisting in one candidate's campaign tells me that the major characteristics of this election are Apathy and Incompetence.

The response of the general public to public meetings and campaigning activity has been woeful, with attendances at meetings being in the region of 20 to 30 people and activists having to work very hard to have the public accept their Party's election literature.

This is understandable given the fact that all the main Parties are threatening the electorate with unemployment, greater poverty and poorer services but the sheer incompetence of most of the candidates at meetings I have attended is hard to believe.

At one hustings the UKIP candidate, attempting to represent a constituency with an economically inactive population of 30% admitted that he knew nothing about DWP crisis loans, the Liberal candidate had such a grasp of new technology that he did not know if the microphone was on or off on 3 separate occasions, the Labour candidate who had been parachuted in by HQ over the heads of local party members could hardly string 3 sentences together and was guilty of numerous pregnant pauses, the Tory candidate admitted that he worked in the public sector yet still supported extensive cuts in public expenditure reminding all present about Turkeys voting for Christmas.

The only saving grace was the competence and ability of the SNP and SSP candidates.

Despite their heroic efforts, it is no wonder that our "democratic system" is disappearing down the drain and that the turn-out in this particular election is heading for a figure of somewhat under 40%.