Higher Eco-Taxes
I have always been an advocate of high environmental taxes on energy. I first wrote about this some years ago in a previous blog.
The main reason is that if the taxes are basically neutral and are balanced by a reduction in Income Tax, this measure probably would take a large number of people out of the tax system completely. This would give a greater incentive for people to work hard and cut large numbers of dead wood out of the tax collection system.
Obviously, if energy was expensive you would spend your extra money to save it, by putting insulation and energy-efficient heating systems into your house and getting a more efficient car. People would also work more from home and ideas would be developed to facilitate this. Perhaps pubs and post offices could become local business centres in both towns and the countryside.
The higher the taxes, the more innovative people will become.
Perhaps surprisingly, even if the measures were tax neutral, you would raise more money, because a lot of the worst gas-guzzlers seem to be owned by those with no visible means of support. i.e. higher eco-taxes would be a tax on the black economy.
So I was pleased to see the Green Fiscal Commission thinking my way.
They make one mistake thought, in that they feel there should be a high tax on new cars. That is wrong, as we want people to buy new cars that are fuel-efficient.
I think too, that we should encourage people to have a range of vehicles for different circumstances. For instance, you might use a very fuel-efficient runabout to go to work, but at weekends, you may use say a five or six seater to take your family and dogs to the coast. I would also replace Vehicle Excise Duty, with a small Registration Tax, that would be enforced very rigidly. You’d only pay the tax, when you bought the vehicle.
Nick Griffin Humour
There’s quite a bit of humour surrounding Nick Griffin and the BNP.
Two things made be laugh like a drain.
Kelvin MacKenzie in his robust way, said that on Radio 5 last night, that Griffin had had a severe rogering! It was the way he said it though! You’d expect nothing less from Kelvin.
Danny Baker commented this morning on the radio about the news that one-in-five people might think about voting for the BNP. He dismissed it by saying that nine out of ten men might like to give Jennifer Aniston a baby, but that that was unlikely to happen.
How to Make Science Fit Your Prejudices
Nick Griffin seems to have hijacked science from Professor Stephen Oppenheimer, a geneticist at the University of Oxford, to fit his prejudices, according to The Times. I have a feeling that is not the first time that they’ve used scientifically-correct books and research to back-up their views. In fact, that excellent book by Robert Winder, Bloody Foreigners, which is a meticulously researched history of immigration into the UK, is recommended on the BNP’s web site. I suspect though that it has too long sentences for most people who support such a party.
This is very much a trick of racists and fascists. Hitler did it all the time and was always looking for research to fit his awful theories. Read The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze to find out more.
But Griffin has had a bad day.
He tried to blame the BBC for his poor showing on Question Time, last night. I put it down to his bankrupt policies and the fact that he was out of his depth amongst his fellow panelists and the audience. After all it’s one thing to get up in front of friends as he does in the BNP and another to get up in front of critics.
He is no Jorg Haider or Geert Wilders.
I did like this comment on The Times article.
The Irish invented whiskey when they learnt distillation after trading perfume with Arab Muslims which proves Nick Griffin’s theory about how foreigners are destroying our heritage! If it wasn’t for those Muslims, we wouldn’t have all those alcoholics!
Nick Griffin on the Holocaust
He said last night that he couldn’t understand why he had denied the Holocaust in the past. He also said that EU law prevented him from explaining.
I need nobody like him to educate me about the Holocaust. I’ve read extensively and visited places such as Minsk and Prague, where only an idiot would deny what happened.
For a man who actually went to Cambridge University, he does seem rather stupid.
But then nearly all fascists and dictators are. The trouble is that their narrow philosophies don’t work, as to have a successful economy everybody needs to be brought into the thick of things to maximise the means of production and invention.
It could be argued that one of the reasons we succeeded in the Second World War, was that we mobilised everybody to build the planes, vehicles and other equipment we needed. All political parties were part of the Government.
So in fact Churchill, who Griffin claimed would sit happily in the BNP, was very much a man for all the talents.
Welcome to the Nick Griffin Comedy Hour
This must be one of the funniest programs for some time. A lot of heavy boots were used to good effect and in Bonnie Greer’s case some very well-placed stilettos.
Unfortunately, how many of his supporters will find it so and will still believe his totally objectionable views.
He says you’re British if you’ve only been here for seventeen hundred years. So that’s me on the next boat out, then! Most of my family came here to escape persecution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Nick Griffin on Question Time
I’m actually quite looking forward to Nick Griffin appearing on BBC Question Time.
I should say that this is not because I support his politics in any way at all. In fact, my father always claimed he caught one of Nick Griffin’s predecessors, Oswald Mosley, with a tomato at the Battle of Cable Street. Interestingly, my father was not of the left, but had voted Conservative most of his life and sat happily at the left of that party. But he was of Jewish ancestry and Mosley’s march was all about baiting the Jews.
So why do I want to see him appear?
There is nothing better than to see someone odious taken apart in a totally humane way. Especially, if it would not be the way they would deal with their critics.
I can remember the great Bernard Levin‘s interviews on That Was The Week That Was. Griffin would just be an hor’s d’oeuvre for Bernard. I also watched David Frost demolish the evil Emil Savundra, one of the first crooks to be destroyed by television.
If I have a doubt about Griffin appearing on Question Time, it is will the calibre of the other panelists be in the same class as Levin and Frost.
So who will be appearing with Griffin?
Jack Straw, Labour – Very much a worthy guy, but is the Justice Secretary the right man from that party? Perhaps John Prescott would be a better choice, as he is more combative and would rightfully claim to represent the same people that Griffin says he does. I should say that I’m not a fan of Prescott, but at least he is someone who would be entertaining on a long flight. A point to make about Jack Straw is that his great-grandfather was a Jewish immigrant. I wonder if this will get brought up on the programme.
Baroness Warsi, Conservative – She is of Pakistani origin although she was born in Yorkshire. She is also on record as saying, “People who back the BNP, criticised for its racist and homophobic agenda, may even have a point. They have some very legitimate views.” I doubt that this will not be brought up.
Chris Huhne, Lib Dem – He will be interesting, as he is a good debater and his pro-Europe views will be attacked by Griffin.
Bonnie Greer, Playwright – Another good choice and someone who will bring some fire to the discussion.
I shall be watching.
Should MPs be Banned from Employing Spouses?
A report in The Times, says that MPs will be banned from employing family members and would have to sell second homes.
I think this would create an even bigger can of worms.
Let’s take the case of an MP who has employed his spouse for twenty years to run his office. There are actually quite a few if the reports are to be believed. In probably the great majority of cases, we as the tax payers probably get good value.
My wife was a barrister and for much of her career, I was her very part-time unpaid helper. If she was in Court and a brief needed to be collected, I’d pop in to her Chambers to get it. Or if her computer needed updating, that was my department. Many partners work as a team, to their own advantage.
So even if we ban spouses from working for their partners, does this mean that they can’t do any work, unpaid or not?
And what about the situation, where an MP lives with someone, to whom they are not married?
As I said it will be an even bigger can of worms.
In my view, an MP is in effect a small business, so should they be under any different rules! Everything should be approved by the Inland Revenue and if your wife, partner, husband or grand-daughter is the best person for the job, then why should they not be employed.
I’m also reminded of a tale told to me by an MP. He was doing a series of speaking engagements for his party in the year running up to an election. As he would be tired after speaking and may have indulged in the odd glass or two, he did not feel it was a good idea to drive home. So he went to the Job Centre and said could they find him a driver, who could also help with moving his computer about, between home and the House.
The Job Centre said no, as he had said the job would not be permanent.
So in the end he employed one of his friend’s son’s in the year before he went to University.
Beckham’s Beard
David Beckham had grown a beard for the latest England game. He was asked if it was a new fashion statement or campaign.
He game the honest answer that ‘He was just too lazy to shave!’
That’s why I’ve had a beard for over forty years. I don’t think my youngest son, who is 37, has ever seen me without one!
My beard once featured in a letter to the PM program on Radio 4.
Magnetic Electricity
When I was studying Electrical Engineering at Liverpool University in the 1960s, one of the prize pieces of equipment was a laser. They had been invented only a few years before and the one in the University had cost several thousand pounds. Ideas were being researched for their use in commercial applications.
Now, we all own lots of lasers. Every CD player and computer has at least one and their cost is only a few pence. You see them in bar-code scanners at the supermarket and in many myriad applications from the mundane to the deadly.
So what will be the technology that now is just a scientific curiosity, but in forty years will be as commonplace as the laser is now?
Here’s one! Magnetic electricity.
Will it be the next great scientific advance? Who knows?
The Anonymous Widower 