General Chat

They are taking us for idiots again :-|

A committee of MP's has accused ministers of "shifting the goal posts" to reduce the number of households in England classed as in fuel poverty.

The definition of fuel poverty would be changed by amendments to the Energy Bill so that 2.4 million were classed as fuel poor rather than 3.2 million.

The Environmental Audit Committee says that is unacceptable.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25180992

Yet another example of slight of hand and a further insult to our intelligence, it never ceases to amaze me how stupid politicians think the British people are.

No doubt over the coming months Cameron & Osborne will be shouting from the Dispatch Box in The House of Commons - that they have lifted 800,000 people out of fuel poverty :-S

I think I must be one of the idiots who are being taken for a ride. I have always assumed fuel poverty was if your light, heat and power bills exceeded 10% of net household income. I know over half the households in my county are classed as in fuel poverty, and some are pretty desperate looking at this winter.

If that was the definition, then shifting £50 a year from bills to tax will make a huge difference, and tip quite a few of my neighbours back into subsistence living and just above breadline. It won't win votes in Rhondda for coalition, but it may salve consciences of potential Tory/Lib Dem voters in English marginals.

But fuel poverty is heat only (just checked on Wikipedia), and 10% is just a convenient figure plucked out by me and others. Perhaps we need to start any debate by a statement of what the Old Tories and New Labour are talking about and how we arrive at these figures first :-S

I acknowledge my deficiency by apologising for my ill-considered decision in voting for this bunch of incompetent unloved individuals who ground out every possible penny from the timid poor & weary constituents.

Politicians & Governments have a pathological unwillingness to admit to making a mistake. So, next time, I’ll definitely vote for an alternative party who will probably end up doing the same, if not worse, despite their pre-election promises.

Hobson’s choice.

Never mind Dermot - we will probably see an abundance of slight of hand tricks when the master of those, the magician George Osborne, delivers his Autumn Statement this Thursday ;-)

I love a good magic show :-D :-D :-D :-D

Osbourne is pretty good at smoke and mirrors, but not a patch on Gordon Brown. Rumours are Brown sacked the whole Treasury team when he began as Chancellor. And recruited a new team from the Magic Circle.

Brown's budgets were like a MacDonalds meal. You felt very full and satisfied when he delivered them and stuffed them down your throat, but half an hour later you were hungry again and needed a bag of chips. :-) ;-)

:-D :-D :-D

Brown was the reason the country's finances are in the sorry state they are.

Bottom line is that thanks to his his ten years miss-management as chancellor, aided and abetted by one Tony Bliar, and three more years as PM pulling the strings of a puppet chancellor, the government is now committed to spending in excess of £700 Billion a year, which the country simply can not afford and much of which has to be borrowed ultimately at our expense.

This is an unprecedented annual spend of around £11,500 for each person, man, woman, child. Most of this (i.e. 66%) goes on paying for Pensions, Health, Welfare, Education and Defence, in that order.

All this makes a saving of £50 a year per household pale into insignificance.

Two things I have learned in my long life that I try to pass on to my children:

1. Do not vote for any Government that cannot control public spending at levels below 40% of the Gross Domestic Product. 41% misery, 39% happiness.
2. Do not have a mortgage of more than 2.5X main income. 2.6x = misery, 2.4x = happiness

And I could add a third - don't pay any interest rates more than 5% above bank rate.

I think OneFootInTheGrave, makes a very good point.

On my Annual Tax Summary just received the guide to taxes spent on Public Spending starting from the largest amount are in the following order:

Welfare
Health
Education
State Pensions
National Debt Interest
Defence
etc

So National Debt interest costs more than what is spent on Defence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucIPrhF8UYo

<3