C’mon – Answer The Question
By now if you’ve read my blogs you’ll know that I’m a bit of a sad git so it’ll come as no surprise that my preferred viewing on a Wednesday afternoon is Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQ’s) from the UK’s House of Commons. OK – I know it’s a sad admission to make, almost as bad as admitting to watching Heir Hunters where they try and find the heirs of people who have died and have not left a will. Voyeurism I hear you say but it’s not that, there’s a surprise connection between these two programmes in that if an heir is not discovered, the cash (from the deceased’s estate) goes into the government’s coffers – a travesty – it should go to charity.
So politics in general and this government in particular is the link (albeit tenuous) and let me start of by saying that I think Gordon Brown is an out-and-out pillock, prat, plonker and a few other words beginning with ‘P’ which I cannot possibly put into print. So - he’s a fellow Scotsman, but that does not even register with me when I think of the untold havoc he has wreaked on the lives of my fellow ex-Brits.
Why am I worried when I live 1000 miles away in France ? It’s because my children and grandchildren have to suffer the consequences of his financial mis-management and will suffer for many years to come. Also – I have recently started taking my pension so I am directly involved albeit not to the same extent as some other people.
Gordon Brown is the great illusionist of our times. He reminds me of those rather average people in IBM and BT who persuaded (no conned) their management that their skills were actually better than they were and who were promoted beyond their wildest dreams. Once promoted they couldn’t be demoted (as the management who promoted them would be regarded as having flawed judgement) and so were promoted again and again to unbelievable levels of influence within the company.
Gordon Brown is the same as these corporate pond-life. Him and Blair got together years ago and ok managed to make the Labour party electable. By then they had the two main positions sown up and there they stayed. By common consensus amongst financially knowledgeable journalists, the only remotely positive thing Brown has done was to give the Bank of England independence in setting the UK’s interest rates but I suspect this was all part of the Labour party’s initial propaganda campaign – since then Brown has sneaked through tax after tax after tax.
Britain once had the best corporate pension system in the world albeit funded by some Government rebates which had been in place for years. Then along comes Brown and wipes out the rebates at a stroke thereby plunging corporate pensions into an abyss. Now I have no real issue with the rebates being gradually removed or eroded over time but in typical Brown fashion he saw an easy £5 billion a year and grabbed it, literally overnight. Pension companies could have restructured and redesigned their schemes with a bit of notice but because it was another ‘stealth’ move, most, if not all pension schemes are now in deficit and many loyal workers, having worked all their lives and paid into their company funds now find their pension scheme closed and they are thrown to the mercy of the stock markets. All well and good except that if you were retiring today on such a scheme you would get precisely 22% less than you would have got 6 months ago ! What pensioner can afford a 22% reduction in their pay ?
I could go on but I get angry so when I see the pillock standing up at PMQ’s and evading question after question, spouting forth financial statistic after statistic, all of them praising HIS record when, if he was faced by financial jouralists, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
I tell you, if my family gave me a poll rating as bad as his is with the British public, I’d leave home. Let’s hope the Scottish control freak is shown the door when Labour are brave enough to call an election. After all there’s no chance of him being found in a celler with 5 hookers having an orgy and being forced to resign – is there ?
By now if you’ve read my blogs you’ll know that I’m a bit of a sad git so it’ll come as no surprise that my preferred viewing on a Wednesday afternoon is Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQ’s) from the UK’s House of Commons. OK – I know it’s a sad admission to make, almost as bad as admitting to watching Heir Hunters where they try and find the heirs of people who have died and have not left a will. Voyeurism I hear you say but it’s not that, there’s a surprise connection between these two programmes in that if an heir is not discovered, the cash (from the deceased’s estate) goes into the government’s coffers – a travesty – it should go to charity.
So politics in general and this government in particular is the link (albeit tenuous) and let me start of by saying that I think Gordon Brown is an out-and-out pillock, prat, plonker and a few other words beginning with ‘P’ which I cannot possibly put into print. So - he’s a fellow Scotsman, but that does not even register with me when I think of the untold havoc he has wreaked on the lives of my fellow ex-Brits.
Why am I worried when I live 1000 miles away in France ? It’s because my children and grandchildren have to suffer the consequences of his financial mis-management and will suffer for many years to come. Also – I have recently started taking my pension so I am directly involved albeit not to the same extent as some other people.
Gordon Brown is the great illusionist of our times. He reminds me of those rather average people in IBM and BT who persuaded (no conned) their management that their skills were actually better than they were and who were promoted beyond their wildest dreams. Once promoted they couldn’t be demoted (as the management who promoted them would be regarded as having flawed judgement) and so were promoted again and again to unbelievable levels of influence within the company.
Gordon Brown is the same as these corporate pond-life. Him and Blair got together years ago and ok managed to make the Labour party electable. By then they had the two main positions sown up and there they stayed. By common consensus amongst financially knowledgeable journalists, the only remotely positive thing Brown has done was to give the Bank of England independence in setting the UK’s interest rates but I suspect this was all part of the Labour party’s initial propaganda campaign – since then Brown has sneaked through tax after tax after tax.
Britain once had the best corporate pension system in the world albeit funded by some Government rebates which had been in place for years. Then along comes Brown and wipes out the rebates at a stroke thereby plunging corporate pensions into an abyss. Now I have no real issue with the rebates being gradually removed or eroded over time but in typical Brown fashion he saw an easy £5 billion a year and grabbed it, literally overnight. Pension companies could have restructured and redesigned their schemes with a bit of notice but because it was another ‘stealth’ move, most, if not all pension schemes are now in deficit and many loyal workers, having worked all their lives and paid into their company funds now find their pension scheme closed and they are thrown to the mercy of the stock markets. All well and good except that if you were retiring today on such a scheme you would get precisely 22% less than you would have got 6 months ago ! What pensioner can afford a 22% reduction in their pay ?
I could go on but I get angry so when I see the pillock standing up at PMQ’s and evading question after question, spouting forth financial statistic after statistic, all of them praising HIS record when, if he was faced by financial jouralists, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
I tell you, if my family gave me a poll rating as bad as his is with the British public, I’d leave home. Let’s hope the Scottish control freak is shown the door when Labour are brave enough to call an election. After all there’s no chance of him being found in a celler with 5 hookers having an orgy and being forced to resign – is there ?
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