MEPs Salaries and Expenses

With the present row over MPs' expenses still in full flow, we can only watch in horror. Trivial abuses have got mixed up with the more serious. Taking expert advice provides no mitigation.

Legal tax avoidance, which is mostly what MPs have indulged in, has long been generally accepted as the sensible thing to do. Let us hope that the public attitude will now change, and that more will be done to crack down on such abuses, first of all on the use of tax havens.

Budget Reactions

Too much emphasis is being put on forecasts. Economic forecasts are never wholly accurate, and in the present very uncertain times they amount to little more than indications of how the economy may develop, especially forecasts for some years ahead.

The total level of government debt should not in itself be a matter of great concern. It has been higher than presently anticipated in the past and for quite long periods. The level of debt of many individuals, however, may well be a burden for some years.

The present recession is more serious and will probably last longer than many people think. An early significant turn round seems unlikely. On the other hand, the actions of our own and other governments have hopefully limited its depth. The government's stimulus may have been too little rather than too much.

 

Political Control of the Council

We in the Labour Party watch with interest the Liberals and Tories falling out. The Council is now being run jointly by the Lib/Dems and Tories. The Tories do not just give lip service support at full council meetings. They have four members in the nine member cabinet. So they must take their share of responsibility when things go wrong.

Labour Councillors well remember when their leaders were blamed for council failures that they were not directly responsible for. And their transgressions were small beer in comparison with the situation facing North East Lincs Council today. But in our democracy the politicians in charge take the blame if they are in control. In our Icelandic fiasco nobody is saying that councillors themselves should have been investing the Council's money but they should certainly have woken up and smelt the coffee after many national warnings that the bubble might burst. Tory Councillors must also take some blame for the loss of the £7 millions.

Come the Council's annual meeting in May, will the Tories and Lib/Dems continue to work together in a coalition ? If not, what then ?

More Money for the Council

The Government are giving the North East Lincs Council £405,731, an unexpected addition to all other grants for the year. It is not ring-fenced i.e. it is not provided for a particular purpose, although the government's intention is that it should go to help those suffering from the recession.

So how will it be used? One source informs us that it is scheduled for buying more CCTV surveillance. We hope this is not true. There is a much more urgent need for extending advice services or retraining. We will wait and see.

Financial Crisis Deepens - 2009
The latest economic news from America, Japan, and Eastern Europe is worse than expected. What started out as a downturn or recession is fast becoming a world wide depression.

Forecasts for 2009 have been full of gloom and doom. Not without reason. The present recession is unlike any other since 1945. There is a worldwide lack of confidence in the financial system. The mood has changed from extreme optimism to extreme pessimism. The falls in house prices and the stock market has created losses and problems for both individuals and firms.

Britain was the first to ensure our banks had sufficient capital. But a lot more is needed. The US and Germany, amongst many others, are pumping vast sums of money into their economies. This is taking many forms, probably the most effective being direct government investments , of all sorts.

So our government's policies are certainly along the right lines and the conservatives have managed to give the impression that they don't know what to do. We suspect the recession will last longer than seems commonly expected, since much depends on our exports picking up, and that will take time. Meanwhile there are things the Council can do to help.

For Austin Mitchell's views on what should be done (written some time ago) click here and on election prospects click here.


Global Warming
Internationally, nationally and locally "global warming" or "climate change" will remain topical. For ongoing reports and comments click here.

 

Who would have expected a little river like the Freshney to cause so much damage
For some (old) pictures of the floods there click here.

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"The storm...is one of the most destructive ever known"
Vince Cable on the economic crisis

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In the old days a man who saved money was a miser; nowadays he's a wonder.

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"It isn't so much that hard times are coming; the change observed is mostly soft times going"
Groucho Marx
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"I wish that dear Karl could have spent more time aquiring capital instead of merely writing about it."
Jenny Marx

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