With yesterday's Budget Statement and the response and debate that followed, it was inevitable that the subject of 'cuts' is once more buzzing around the various media.
There are significant misconceptions about this whole topic. The political left always increase the size of the public sector hugely, largely to be able to surreptitiously blackmail more of the electorate – by then employed by the State – into voting for them 'otherwise you'll lose your jobs, or be transferred to the private sector on worse conditions.' Unemployment also goes up markedly during our country's periods of Labour governance.
Thus we end up with fewer people bringing wealth into Britain's economy, and more people taking it out by being paid from the public purse. Now, there is a genuine need for public employees, and probably always will be – but not at the ridiculous levels we find under a Labour government. That party even resorted to inventing fake positions (non-jobs) in pursuance of their warped – and expensive, to all of us via taxes – ideology.
Thus the reductions in the public sector, both in expenditure in general and the number of employees, isn't really a question of 'cuts': it is merely trying to restore the correct size of the public sector to where it should have been all along. Even Labour admit that they too will need to make cuts (and have done for several years, though inconsistently and largely incoherently) though this hasn't sat well with the more-left side of their party or with other Lefty parties, of which there are quite a few in this country.
This is why Labour don't usually talk about their own cutting plans unless strongly pressed to do so: watch any interview where this is put to a Labour person and you'll see what I mean. They just don't want the topic associated with them, and try to pretend that it's a 'Tory thing' alone.
Thus 'cuts' has been adopted as an emotive word by Labour and the rest of the Left, as part of their lexicon of misleading, inaccurate or downright dishonest nomenclature, of which 'bedroom tax' is probably the most dishonest of all in current use (it's not a tax at all, but another restoration of what should always have been the ruling).
The Lefties have plenty of sales lines about what is, in their view, appropriate for a 'modern' and 'enlightened' society – one of their current favourites is 'the civilised state', whatever that means – but when it boils down to it, in every case it is in pursuance of their own agenda, and near-enough always at everyone else's expense.
Always self-interested at core, but expert in dressing it up to come across as 'compassionate' or similar, is an accurate thumbnail image of every single Lefty on the planet – and those who claim otherwise can easily be shown to be lying (sometimes even to themselves!) by any decent questioner.
The bottom line is not to be taken in by any of those oh-so-convenient Lefty lines, many of which are repeated ad nauseum, in a Goebbels-like Big Lie manner – and, notably, those that don't work for them being dropped after a while, showing they were not real in the first place, or certainly not of real interest to the party beyond self-benefit.
Thus one can easily understand the Left. A simple three-word mnemonic is: never trust them!
Showing posts with label budget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label budget. Show all posts
Thursday, 19 March 2015
Thursday, 26 February 2015
Medway Budget Council Meeting 2015 – Actuals
Well, that was it. I didn't stay until the end, only until the Budget item was dealt with (including convolutions caused by amendments) and voted upon, with the usual (and expected) result: it passed and the amendments were defeated.
So, was the process the same as in previous years? Essentially, yes – just as I outlined in my previous post, but a little shriller, with three Labour members shouting during their speaking times, quite apart from the usual heckling and hectoring for which the Labour group is notorious. It was obvious that elections were coming...
The matters I mentioned in my previous post did come up; and the alert observer would have sussed out very easily what was really going on, especially with the local media present. Tonight's claque was primarily the Trades Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) who are probably even more Communist-alike than the Socialist Workers Party – though I suspect it is close to being a tie!
As I always do at these annual events, because one member of each party gets unlimited speaking time, I time each of them, so here are this year's figures, for the record...
There was little of particular note this time, policies-wise, really just the FUSE Festival, which (it transpired) had been cancelled because the Arts Council, who had previously provided match-funding, had this year withdrawn that funding as this particular festival was considered 'poor value' to be subsidised from the public purse.
That echoes my own feelings, and I have long considered that the only way to be sure of its ongoing viability would be for it to become essentially self-financing and the council become merely a facilitator and promoter through its 'What's On?' print and on-line facilities.
In the end, what seems to have been some unspecified nifty footwork behind the scenes has resulted in the Arts Council re-opening the file and partially relenting. Thus the festival will go ahead after all, but in a slimmed-down form as its funding will, in total, be a little less than half its customary level.
There were other 'political footballs' including the canard that is the mythos regarding Rochester Airport. I have dealt with this topic elsewhere, and might even upload a video where I discuss the topic in moderate depth (it's already recorded, I am just thinking about whether to make it public) so don't need to go into it again now.
This was, however, a handy opportunity for Cllr Jarrett to give a little history lesson about Labour and the Lib Dems and their pursuance of the closure of the airport for a good fifteen years. A number of truths I know only too well came out in that one-minute summary, but I could have added even more, given the chance!
Another valuable history lesson was given by the Leader of the Council in response to Labour's claim that they were 'expressing the views of the people of Medway' whereas the ruling Conservative group didn't reflect public opinion. The leader did what I have done on this 'blog and elsewhere in the past: point out the always-increasing Conservative presence on the elected Medway Council, from May 2000 (when I was first elected, incidentally) to the present day. The full Medway public obviously differ in viewpoint from the claque and their Labour buddies, who between them counted as well under a twentieth of a percent of that number...
Labour's 'surveys' (to which they made several references) are selective and slanted in how they are done – I know: I've had them here – and they use scaremongering techniques when surveying by door-knocking – several of my 'eyes and ears' have reported their own first-hand experiences of this, including from three former (Labour) mayors. Therefore, do not fall into the trap of thinking these rather convenient outcomes are valid.
Overall, the budget debate – along with the distractions of the Labour and Lib Dem amendments – went on a little too long, but wasn't quite as bad as I had predicted. It was close, though.
UPDATE 1: For a (very much) Left-dominated view of the proceedings, in tweeted form, check this out.
UPDATE 2: Here is a breakdown of where much of the money is set to go.
UPDATE 3: This is the audio recording of the entire meeting, lasting 3 hours and 41 minutes (though the first 3 mins 20 secs are blank).
So, was the process the same as in previous years? Essentially, yes – just as I outlined in my previous post, but a little shriller, with three Labour members shouting during their speaking times, quite apart from the usual heckling and hectoring for which the Labour group is notorious. It was obvious that elections were coming...
The matters I mentioned in my previous post did come up; and the alert observer would have sussed out very easily what was really going on, especially with the local media present. Tonight's claque was primarily the Trades Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) who are probably even more Communist-alike than the Socialist Workers Party – though I suspect it is close to being a tie!
As I always do at these annual events, because one member of each party gets unlimited speaking time, I time each of them, so here are this year's figures, for the record...
- Cllr Alan Jarrett (Con) – 50 mins 45 secs
- Cllr Vince Maple (Lab) – 28 mins 48 secs
- Cllr Geoff Juby (Lib Dem) – 6 mins 40 secs
- Cllr Chris Irvine (UKIP) – 3 mins 38 secs
There was little of particular note this time, policies-wise, really just the FUSE Festival, which (it transpired) had been cancelled because the Arts Council, who had previously provided match-funding, had this year withdrawn that funding as this particular festival was considered 'poor value' to be subsidised from the public purse.
That echoes my own feelings, and I have long considered that the only way to be sure of its ongoing viability would be for it to become essentially self-financing and the council become merely a facilitator and promoter through its 'What's On?' print and on-line facilities.
In the end, what seems to have been some unspecified nifty footwork behind the scenes has resulted in the Arts Council re-opening the file and partially relenting. Thus the festival will go ahead after all, but in a slimmed-down form as its funding will, in total, be a little less than half its customary level.
There were other 'political footballs' including the canard that is the mythos regarding Rochester Airport. I have dealt with this topic elsewhere, and might even upload a video where I discuss the topic in moderate depth (it's already recorded, I am just thinking about whether to make it public) so don't need to go into it again now.
This was, however, a handy opportunity for Cllr Jarrett to give a little history lesson about Labour and the Lib Dems and their pursuance of the closure of the airport for a good fifteen years. A number of truths I know only too well came out in that one-minute summary, but I could have added even more, given the chance!
Another valuable history lesson was given by the Leader of the Council in response to Labour's claim that they were 'expressing the views of the people of Medway' whereas the ruling Conservative group didn't reflect public opinion. The leader did what I have done on this 'blog and elsewhere in the past: point out the always-increasing Conservative presence on the elected Medway Council, from May 2000 (when I was first elected, incidentally) to the present day. The full Medway public obviously differ in viewpoint from the claque and their Labour buddies, who between them counted as well under a twentieth of a percent of that number...
Labour's 'surveys' (to which they made several references) are selective and slanted in how they are done – I know: I've had them here – and they use scaremongering techniques when surveying by door-knocking – several of my 'eyes and ears' have reported their own first-hand experiences of this, including from three former (Labour) mayors. Therefore, do not fall into the trap of thinking these rather convenient outcomes are valid.
Overall, the budget debate – along with the distractions of the Labour and Lib Dem amendments – went on a little too long, but wasn't quite as bad as I had predicted. It was close, though.
UPDATE 1: For a (very much) Left-dominated view of the proceedings, in tweeted form, check this out.
UPDATE 2: Here is a breakdown of where much of the money is set to go.
UPDATE 3: This is the audio recording of the entire meeting, lasting 3 hours and 41 minutes (though the first 3 mins 20 secs are blank).
Medway Budget Council Meeting 2015 – Predictions
In this dual-election year, I thought it might be worth placing on the public record my expectations in advance of this evening's budget-setting meeting of the full Medway Council. It's not because it will be momentous, but just worth having 'on file', so to speak, so that one can see after the event whether I was anywhere near accurate.
Of course it will follow the pattern of recent years in particular; and beyond that also, to some degree. The ruling group will present their well-structured budget, bemoaning the reductions in Government grant yet again that mean they are having to 'take difficult decisions. They will gloss over or ignore the mistakes that have been made in the last two or three years that have cost a lot of money, much of which would be said by most to have been wasted – though some of it was, in practice, unavoidable, but by no means all.
It is true that the Conservatives have been able to produce what are known as 'balanced budgets' for many years, though often using a number of wheezes in order to achieve that desired outcome each time. They have, to their credit, been more pragmatic than dogmatic, and that approach has consistently produced the proper 'bottom line', if only by the skin of their teeth on a few occasions!
On the official opposition side, the big difference this decade has been that the only Labour councillor here at Medway who has any idea about council finance, the estimable Cllr Glyn Griffiths, was removed from the position that made him their finance spokesman – deputy leader of the Labour group on the Council.
His replacement as deputy leader hasn't a clue (but is very 'mouthy') so their current group leader has taken it upon himself to double-up on the job of finance spokesman, even though he doesn't have all that much more of an idea than their deputy leader.
As I expected would happen once this structural change within Labour's councillors had occurred, their budget meeting speech in response to the budget proposals turned into an almost entirely irrelevant rant about national politics, point-scoring being the sole driver of most of what was said in these more recent years. The only exceptions were when they had a (Union-dictated) agenda to pursue at local level.
This year's such matters will be (predictably) the so-called 'living wage' and reduction in numbers of (Unionised, subscription-paying!) council staff. They will quote (especially on that first matter) what 'so many other councils, of all political persuasions, are already signed up to' – or similar wording, as if that has a direct bearing on what should happen here.
Incomes have gone up in the country in recent years, not by putting increased pressure on employers – which means fewer jobs affordable from the same-sized salaries pot – but through reduction in Income Tax and raised personal allowances. Note that an increased hourly rate for council staff would mean even more job reductions, directly contradicting Labour's other big policy plank this evening(!)
Purely locally, there is also the anticipated loss of the Fuse festival as an issue that Medway Labour have taken up – again, somewhat predictably..
I have sat through these events for years, and although Glynn's interminable rambling rants were tedious and a lot of what he said was irrelevant, at least some of it was applicable and he did inject some (usually fairly dry) humour into his budget speeches. All that mitigation has now gone, and the whole thing is orchestrated.
Each year a good-sized claque occupies the public gallery, and one can hear in the way Cllr Maple (the Labour group leader these days) uses tone of voice and significant pauses to try to get this (somewhat dim, it has to be said) group to cheer and appluad at the 'right' moments. They have been known to miss their cues several times, and it is a picture to watch Cllr Maple try to signal to them, in order to get the reaction he wanted the journalists in attendance to notice and report on.
Yes, it's all 'manufactured' – and will be more intense this year, as it is both a General Election year and also coincides with the Council's all-out local elections for the 55 seats on Medway Council.
Will the local media fall for it? Are they merely complicit and will go along with it anyway, even knowing the extent of the fakery and deceptions, the slants, selective statistics and the rest of it?
We shall know only when we read what they report after tonight's meeting. I shall be there, though, and I'll know exactly what was really going on!
Of course it will follow the pattern of recent years in particular; and beyond that also, to some degree. The ruling group will present their well-structured budget, bemoaning the reductions in Government grant yet again that mean they are having to 'take difficult decisions. They will gloss over or ignore the mistakes that have been made in the last two or three years that have cost a lot of money, much of which would be said by most to have been wasted – though some of it was, in practice, unavoidable, but by no means all.
It is true that the Conservatives have been able to produce what are known as 'balanced budgets' for many years, though often using a number of wheezes in order to achieve that desired outcome each time. They have, to their credit, been more pragmatic than dogmatic, and that approach has consistently produced the proper 'bottom line', if only by the skin of their teeth on a few occasions!
On the official opposition side, the big difference this decade has been that the only Labour councillor here at Medway who has any idea about council finance, the estimable Cllr Glyn Griffiths, was removed from the position that made him their finance spokesman – deputy leader of the Labour group on the Council.
His replacement as deputy leader hasn't a clue (but is very 'mouthy') so their current group leader has taken it upon himself to double-up on the job of finance spokesman, even though he doesn't have all that much more of an idea than their deputy leader.
As I expected would happen once this structural change within Labour's councillors had occurred, their budget meeting speech in response to the budget proposals turned into an almost entirely irrelevant rant about national politics, point-scoring being the sole driver of most of what was said in these more recent years. The only exceptions were when they had a (Union-dictated) agenda to pursue at local level.
This year's such matters will be (predictably) the so-called 'living wage' and reduction in numbers of (Unionised, subscription-paying!) council staff. They will quote (especially on that first matter) what 'so many other councils, of all political persuasions, are already signed up to' – or similar wording, as if that has a direct bearing on what should happen here.
Incomes have gone up in the country in recent years, not by putting increased pressure on employers – which means fewer jobs affordable from the same-sized salaries pot – but through reduction in Income Tax and raised personal allowances. Note that an increased hourly rate for council staff would mean even more job reductions, directly contradicting Labour's other big policy plank this evening(!)
Purely locally, there is also the anticipated loss of the Fuse festival as an issue that Medway Labour have taken up – again, somewhat predictably..
I have sat through these events for years, and although Glynn's interminable rambling rants were tedious and a lot of what he said was irrelevant, at least some of it was applicable and he did inject some (usually fairly dry) humour into his budget speeches. All that mitigation has now gone, and the whole thing is orchestrated.
Each year a good-sized claque occupies the public gallery, and one can hear in the way Cllr Maple (the Labour group leader these days) uses tone of voice and significant pauses to try to get this (somewhat dim, it has to be said) group to cheer and appluad at the 'right' moments. They have been known to miss their cues several times, and it is a picture to watch Cllr Maple try to signal to them, in order to get the reaction he wanted the journalists in attendance to notice and report on.
Yes, it's all 'manufactured' – and will be more intense this year, as it is both a General Election year and also coincides with the Council's all-out local elections for the 55 seats on Medway Council.
Will the local media fall for it? Are they merely complicit and will go along with it anyway, even knowing the extent of the fakery and deceptions, the slants, selective statistics and the rest of it?
We shall know only when we read what they report after tonight's meeting. I shall be there, though, and I'll know exactly what was really going on!
Thursday, 20 February 2014
Smallest Budget – Shortest Budget Meeting
Medway Council's meeting this evening to set the coming financial year's budget (including a modest increase in Council Tax), as well as a couple of other items of business, was over in a shorter-than-expected time of around two and a hour hours, in fact a fraction under that.
Again we had the claque of public sector Union bods flooding the public gallery – well, not quite as it happened, as an additional 108 seats (six rows of nine each side of the aisle: I counted 'em) had been put out, but not one of them was needed. Of course they had their own (largely disruptive, as before) agenda, and again they – and Labour councillors – tried to suggest that the sixty or so there represented 'the people of Medway'.
Oh no they don't: they number under a fortieth of a percent of the borough's population, who are vastly more diverse than the one-dimensional batch we had dominating the public gallery this evening. As I strongly suspected last time, this is to become a permanent feature of Full Council meetings for 2014 and beyond. Fortunately, trouble had been anticipated and there was a police presence throughout – which tells you something, and which probably explains why the claque was less extreme in its behaviour this time round.
Not that they had rehearsed or planned the occasion's activities all that well: at least once, Cllr Vince Maple (Labour group leader), deploying his most nasty ever voice, paused significantly for the expected applause, but his dimwit claque forgot to applaud until he glared at them. They shouted over him too much as well, and that caused obvious annoyance to the Labour leader.
This clearly wasn't what they had planned between them (and yes, it was glaringly obvious that it was all a set-up job: one didn't need to a senior member of MENSA to work that out).
As for the speeches: as always at these events, each political group (just three this year) gets unlimited time to speak for one member, after which the normal rules apply including the three-minute limit. Here are the timings for each speaker, with last year's figures in parantheses...
Labour did what they always do (at least since 2010, when the national government changed, so this is the fifth such occurrence in this exact form), which is to ignore their job and instead abuse the unlimited time-frame and more extensive than usual media presence as a platform to attack the national government on various topics, rather than deal with Medway's council budget.
As ever, they tried to camouflage that aspect by token references to 'the effect on Medway' or 'services in Medway' or some other such artifice, but probably few will be fooled by that. On the rare occasions that there was any actual Medway relevance, it was the usual tired old rhetoric, at best misleading and at its worst out-and-out dishonest.
As in previous years, they have not contributed any budget proposals of their own, either in advance or as amendments on the night, showing they have nothing to offer. Once upon a time (and I witnessed this personally) they did contribute to the budget debate proper, and I have known the Conservative Group occasionally accept at least part of their proposals where they were properly costed, funded from actual sources, and justified – so it can be done.
It just isn't done nowadays, though, because the Labour Group are now worthless to the Medway community; and they obviously realise it themselves, so bluster instead, hoping that no-one will notice. It is very telling indeed that they have felt the need (desperation?) to employ such severely underhand techniques as those we witnessed at this and the previous council meeting.
They have shown not only how low they are prepared to sink, and how inherently dishonest they are, but also that they have absolutely nothing of any value to offer. That is now proven, and will never be forgotten: the line has been crossed, on a one-way street!
In the end, the budget was of course passed, on a so-called 'recorded vote', with the Conservative Group (all but one absebtee who was abroad doing charity work this evening) voting for it, the Labour Group (all but two absenttes) voting against, and two of the Liberal Deocrats not voting at all. The third Lib Dem (Cllr Diana Smith) voting 'for', which probably surprised a few others there – but |I have long known that the lady's heart is in the right place, and I doubt that many if any of the other councillors, of any party, would disagree.
This does mean that Medway's Council Tax will be going up a little (just under two percent), the first rise in four years. Contrast that with the national double of Council Tax during the Labour years, though not as severe as that here, admittedly. It will still be the lowest rate in Kent, and remain one of the lowest in the country. It's a very good deal; and I think that the voters of Medway would do well to remember this when they go to the polls in next year's all-out council elections here.
Addendum: As expected, the Labour-friendly media outlets are already posting slanted (and, frankly, very limited and largely irrelevant) commentary on the meeting. I am not going to waste your time on them, so am not even going to bother to post any links to these (they are that far beneath contempt) but I shall certainly remember who they are, in case of future encounters, perhaps at a later Council meeting.
The biggest clue to the first of these I encountered today was that there was nothing whatsoever in the article about the actual business of the evening: the budget, or any other item on the agenda. Nothing! Big give-away there...
Y'see: there are essentially two types of reporter (and pseudo-reporter): those who report what is, fully and across the board; and those who write selectively to promote a specific agenda. The latter are trash, and best ignored.
Again we had the claque of public sector Union bods flooding the public gallery – well, not quite as it happened, as an additional 108 seats (six rows of nine each side of the aisle: I counted 'em) had been put out, but not one of them was needed. Of course they had their own (largely disruptive, as before) agenda, and again they – and Labour councillors – tried to suggest that the sixty or so there represented 'the people of Medway'.
Oh no they don't: they number under a fortieth of a percent of the borough's population, who are vastly more diverse than the one-dimensional batch we had dominating the public gallery this evening. As I strongly suspected last time, this is to become a permanent feature of Full Council meetings for 2014 and beyond. Fortunately, trouble had been anticipated and there was a police presence throughout – which tells you something, and which probably explains why the claque was less extreme in its behaviour this time round.
Not that they had rehearsed or planned the occasion's activities all that well: at least once, Cllr Vince Maple (Labour group leader), deploying his most nasty ever voice, paused significantly for the expected applause, but his dimwit claque forgot to applaud until he glared at them. They shouted over him too much as well, and that caused obvious annoyance to the Labour leader.
This clearly wasn't what they had planned between them (and yes, it was glaringly obvious that it was all a set-up job: one didn't need to a senior member of MENSA to work that out).
As for the speeches: as always at these events, each political group (just three this year) gets unlimited time to speak for one member, after which the normal rules apply including the three-minute limit. Here are the timings for each speaker, with last year's figures in parantheses...
- Cllr Jarrett [Con] – 36m 42s (2013: 51m 05s)
- Cllr Maple [Lab] – 17m 55s (2013: 21m 54s)
- Cllr Juby [LD] – 5m 15s (2013: 5m 11s)
Labour did what they always do (at least since 2010, when the national government changed, so this is the fifth such occurrence in this exact form), which is to ignore their job and instead abuse the unlimited time-frame and more extensive than usual media presence as a platform to attack the national government on various topics, rather than deal with Medway's council budget.
As ever, they tried to camouflage that aspect by token references to 'the effect on Medway' or 'services in Medway' or some other such artifice, but probably few will be fooled by that. On the rare occasions that there was any actual Medway relevance, it was the usual tired old rhetoric, at best misleading and at its worst out-and-out dishonest.
As in previous years, they have not contributed any budget proposals of their own, either in advance or as amendments on the night, showing they have nothing to offer. Once upon a time (and I witnessed this personally) they did contribute to the budget debate proper, and I have known the Conservative Group occasionally accept at least part of their proposals where they were properly costed, funded from actual sources, and justified – so it can be done.
It just isn't done nowadays, though, because the Labour Group are now worthless to the Medway community; and they obviously realise it themselves, so bluster instead, hoping that no-one will notice. It is very telling indeed that they have felt the need (desperation?) to employ such severely underhand techniques as those we witnessed at this and the previous council meeting.
They have shown not only how low they are prepared to sink, and how inherently dishonest they are, but also that they have absolutely nothing of any value to offer. That is now proven, and will never be forgotten: the line has been crossed, on a one-way street!
In the end, the budget was of course passed, on a so-called 'recorded vote', with the Conservative Group (all but one absebtee who was abroad doing charity work this evening) voting for it, the Labour Group (all but two absenttes) voting against, and two of the Liberal Deocrats not voting at all. The third Lib Dem (Cllr Diana Smith) voting 'for', which probably surprised a few others there – but |I have long known that the lady's heart is in the right place, and I doubt that many if any of the other councillors, of any party, would disagree.
This does mean that Medway's Council Tax will be going up a little (just under two percent), the first rise in four years. Contrast that with the national double of Council Tax during the Labour years, though not as severe as that here, admittedly. It will still be the lowest rate in Kent, and remain one of the lowest in the country. It's a very good deal; and I think that the voters of Medway would do well to remember this when they go to the polls in next year's all-out council elections here.
Addendum: As expected, the Labour-friendly media outlets are already posting slanted (and, frankly, very limited and largely irrelevant) commentary on the meeting. I am not going to waste your time on them, so am not even going to bother to post any links to these (they are that far beneath contempt) but I shall certainly remember who they are, in case of future encounters, perhaps at a later Council meeting.
The biggest clue to the first of these I encountered today was that there was nothing whatsoever in the article about the actual business of the evening: the budget, or any other item on the agenda. Nothing! Big give-away there...
Y'see: there are essentially two types of reporter (and pseudo-reporter): those who report what is, fully and across the board; and those who write selectively to promote a specific agenda. The latter are trash, and best ignored.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)