Category Archives: Taxpayers' Money

Totally barking…

By scrubber | Published: December 8, 2010
Ok, quiz for the day. Who wrote the following in their recently-published book? “I am neither a finance expert nor a trained economist but fear of making technical mistakes (of which, I am sure, this book is full) should not silence us altogether when the task before us is so urgent.” Got it yet? Here’s a clue: [...]
Also posted in Gordon Brown, Ministerial incompetence, New Labour, Waste | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

À bas les Banques!

By scrubber | Published: November 19, 2010
The French, as we all know, are not exactly backwards in coming forwards on the civil disruption front. They do love a good old shindig, whatever the excuse, and make our home-grown student protesters look like a bunch of pussies. So it comes as some surprise that they should come up with an idea, somewhat [...]
Also posted in Bank of England, Banking, Civil Liberties, Corruption, Economy, Eurozone, Taxation | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Ecotards overstep the mark again.

By scrubber | Published: October 2, 2010
I hardly know where to begin with this one. I think I’ll work backwards on it, and start with the 10:10 website. 10:10? Who he? No, I hadn’t heard of it either. It seems that the 10th of October is going to be a “Day of doing”. The aim, apparently, is “Cutting carbon 10% at a [...]
Also posted in Climate Change, Nanny State, New Labour, Quangoes | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

HMRC: All your dosh are belong to us

By scrubber | Published: September 7, 2010
Sometimes I ponder on this blog, its future, the direction it has taken and will in future, and not just because the rest of the writing team seems to be permanently on holiday. We originally set out to expose institutional stupidity, but during the Election campaign wrote much from our joint perspective of EU-scepticism, broadly supporting [...]
Also posted in Big Brother, Civil Liberties, David Cameron, Ministerial incompetence, Nanny State, New Labour, Nick Clegg | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Zac Goldsmith: what a twat.

By scrubber | Published: July 20, 2010
I’m in catch-up mode after a couple of weeks working away and quite over-whelmed with the sheer volume of crap falling around our ears worthy of a blog or two. This one stands out, and although a few days old, needs wide dissemination… We’re all well used to politicians not answering questions, their evasion tactics, obfuscation [...]
Also posted in David Cameron, General Election, MPs Expenses, Parliament, Political Stupidity | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The economic consequences of Mr. Brown

By scrubber | Published: June 29, 2010
My thanks to our blogging colleague Old Holborn for bringing our attention to the following youtube clip of a speech by Professor Stein Ringen, and thence, by extension, the rather longer version below it. The subject is a book by Professor Ringen called “The Economic Consequences of Mr Brown”: quite a subject… The good Professor is [...]
Also posted in Broken Britain, Corruption, David Cameron, Economy, Gordon Brown, Ministerial incompetence, Nanny State, New Labour, Parliament, Technology, Tories | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Scroungers on £42k a year benefits because they’re better off not working

By DiamondGeezer | Published: June 29, 2010
Today’s instalment of why Britain is so totally screwed after 13 years of Labour administration is brought to us by thisismoney.co.uk. To summarise, Peter Davey and his wife Claire have seven children, with yet another one on the way, and have an ‘income’ of £815 per week (£42,500 pa) entirely in benefits. To [...]
Also posted in Broken Britain | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Andrew Neal ambushes Diane Abbott

By scrubber | Published: June 25, 2010
I happened to catch This Week last night on the Beeb, and noticed that Diane Abbott had re-appeared next to Michael Portillo on the sofa. She’s been off campaigning for the Labour leadership, apparently. Speaking personally, I have no major feelings either way on her, or her chances of winning the leadership. Frankly, I don’t care [...]
Also posted in Ed Balls, MPs Expenses, New Labour, Parliament | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Why shouldn’t Britain go the same way as Greece? (and other musings)

By DiamondGeezer | Published: May 5, 2010
Prevalent in the news today have been the riots in Greece. The country is now sufficiently unattractive to investors and ratings agencies that their bond markets have frozen, and due to this and their enormous deficit they are no longer able to service their debts. Greek workers’ unions hold enormous sway, and thanks [...]
Also posted in David Cameron, Economy, European Union, Eurozone, General Election, Gordon Brown, Lord Pearson, New Labour, Nick Clegg, Parliament, Taxation, Tories, UKIP | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sunlight Centre roasts Ed Balls

By scrubber | Published: May 5, 2010
The Sunlight Centre for Open Politics sent out an email last night drawing our attention to their new video, dubbed an “attack ad” about Ed Balls. The Centre is “committed to helping voters, bloggers, and journalists be their own watchdogs, by improving access to existing information and digitising new information, and by using new website [...]
Also posted in Corruption, Ed Balls, General Election, Gordon Brown, MPs Expenses, New Labour | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments