Brown bounce deflates again

What can we say about the latest deflation of the Brown bounce.  He’s just not sustainable popularity-wise.  He’s done so much since the summer to try to make himself look leader-like. 

He’s tried to be a statesman by tackling the credit crunch globally … not.

He brought back Mandelson … so?

He spins … and spins …

He messed up a PBR opportunity by slashing VAT rather than income tax …

Brown had a 3 month bounce (again), like he did when he first became Labour leader.

The Guardian’s ICM poll today has CON 45%, LAB 30%, and so it’s clear evidence of Brown bounce deflation.

Brown’s finished, but he will just cling on …

Will there be another Brown bounce?  Perhaps a few more but they won’t last more than a few months.  Will he time it with an election?  He might try, but he might make a real mess of that too.

After Mumbai, Govt uses anti-terror laws to arrest Green; Davis vindicated

Labour is still in a complete shambles over immigration.  On a day - after the atrocities in Mumbai when Labour and the police should be focusing on how to stop a similar attack here (we know that Al-Qaeda sleeper cells have bound already to enter the UK via its porous borders) – how dare Labour use anti-terrorist legislation to arrest Damian Green, the Shadow Immigration Minister.

Andrew Allison (one of the 4DavidDavis4Freedom bloggers) sums this up well,

The timing of this stinks of Downing Street. We are living in a socialist, police state, and if the latest polls are to be believed, the electorate are sleepwalking their way in to re-electing this despicable government. What has happened today is just the beginning. The ancient freedoms we are accustomed to in Britain are going faster than I ever thought they would.

This again vindicates David Davis’s stance to force a by-election over Labour’s assault on civil liberties.  Jacqui Smith should resign over this despicable attack upon the freedom of our MPs, and upon our democracy. 

A weaker person than Damian Green would have buckled under the pressure, but he will continue to challenge Labour on the issue of immigration.

Iain Dale has 15 questions that need to be answered and Guido reckons Osborne will be arrested next, to which I say that Brown & Darling would be better arrested as they have been reckless with our money - worse than Enron, in fact. 

The frightening thing is that Labour are arresting decent Opposition MPs (just like under Mugabe in Zimbabwe!) and yet Labour is not protecting our borders, which would safeguard not only our economic freedom to work in our jobs but would also keep Al-Qaedo infiltrators out.  Sadly, they are likely to have already got in, and we can only dread what they are planning …

It is tragic that we cannot even rely on our Government to defend us.  Its defeat in an election is long overdue.

Under Labour — even Woolworths has gone under.

I remember as a small child, and as a medium-sized child, and as a tween, and as a teenager, and as a twentysomething … etc … going into Woolworths.

If anything is going to sink Labour, it’s the fact that on its watch Woolworths has now gone under.

Robert Peston (who else?) has found out that Woolworths is filing for administration, with the potential loss of TENS OF THOUSANDS of jobs on the High Street…

The board will meet at 6pm to take the formal decision. …

The collapse of Woolworth is likely to lead to the closure of hundreds of stores across the UK.

And it is also likely to lead to many thousands of redundancies.

Woolworth has 815 stores. The store chain employs 25,000 and Entertainment UK employs 5,000.

People will be furious.  There won’t be riots, but people will fume privately – then they will vote Labour out.  It may be Woolworths that finally does for Labour…

The only people who’ve fallen for Brown’s tax con are 35-54 year old C2 men in Labour heartlands (Rab and Onslow)

Has Mondeo man fallen for Labour’s tax con?  No, Mondeo man definitely hasn’t - but it’s a different kind of creature, a core Labour voter in his late thirties or middle age who lives in a Labour heartland and is probably on the sick or on the dole.  We shall call him “Rab” or “Onslow”.  This is according to the detailed figures from YouGov’s latest opinion poll.  Such a creature may still yet deliver a hung parliament for Brown, but isn’t it more likely Labour will just pile up huge majorities in its safer seats?

Labour’s marginals in the South and the Midlands are gone – and it will struggle to hold onto even seats in the North, like Ruth Kelly’s Bolton West and the likes of Tynemouth.  This is because the Tories still have a 50% advantage in London and the South East, where much of the economic misery is concentrated this time, compared to 29% in London and 26% in the SE for Labour.  Yes, Labour seats in the South will fall like ninepins. 

And in the North Labour is ahead by 12 points (45% to 33%) and in Scotland Labour is so far ahead to be unbelievably secure, when not long ago it was under threat from the SNP.  But Labour will still lose some seats to them.

In Wales & the Midlands (a strange combination), Labour is ahead by 42% to 35% for the Conservatives.  The Rabs and Onslows in the Valleys and in places like Smethwick may well vote Labour in droves, but seats in Birmingham, Dudley [yes, Ladies, Chris D. Kelly will be in Parliament!] and Wolverhampton will fall to the Tories.  As will leafier or rural (non-Valleys) Welsh seats.

But even in the Valleys and in Sunderland and elsewhere, women (like the Valleys Mams perhaps?) are not so keen on Labour.  Women are 42% for Conservatives and 33% for Labour – they don’t like Brown, do they?  Brown has women problems.

The Tories are also 10 points ahead amongst the ABC1s (who will have to pay back for Labour’s profligacy, along with the rest of us) and Labour only leads slightly in the 35-54 age group.  But then, if you’re in this age group, you might be moderately more likely to be on the sick or on the dole in the Heartlands, thanks to Labour’s economic incompetence.  And there’ll be many more like you.

So Rab and Onslow are a bit like Turkeys voting for Christmas.  Unless we stop this Labour mess, there will be a lot more Rabs and Onslows (which is what Labour is hoping for, to build up a hopeless generation of men who will vote them back in again).

Female common sense won’t fall for the tax con, nor will Southerners.  What will it take for this “Brown Bounce” to dissipate?

Actually, Labour may have set a timebomb for itself – if Rab and Onslow votes Labour back in, Labour will be out for generations after the election after that.  Though Labour winning is too depressing a scenario to contemplate.  Or can the Tories win over some of these Rabs and Onslows?  Maybe, if they come up with strong reactions on taxation and the economy – and, most importantly, for many Rabs and Onslows who haven’t lost hope … JOBS FOR RABS AND ONSLOWS.  Also, bringing David Davis back into a frontline role again would certainly help methinks.  A bit of Northern common sense is what’s needed now – the ladies have got sense up North, what about the Rabs and Onslows?

So now we know VAT will rise to 18.5%

A Government document has now revealed that VAT will rise to 18.5% in 2010-11. Although the Government is desperately spinning its way out of it, we do not believe them.  There is, as usual, a black hole, which has been identified tonight by the Tories. 

Whatever they say, the electorate knows that they’ve been conned again by Labour, and taxes will rise significantly thanks to Darling’s disastrous Pre-Budget Report.

Without the wealthy, no one would have any shoes.

Benjamin Grey has a nice story on taxation (which I won’t post here, but you can link to it)… Read the post first then below:

They might just drink overseas.

But out the other nine, many will realise how foolish they have been, and like the good people of Crewe lined up to vote outside The Sidney Arms, they will vote Labour out.

After all, that electrifying evening watching the results in Nantwich Conservative Club wouldn’t have been the same had it not been for one issue – the 10p tax band.

The street poets outside the count – who nearly lynched Nick Robinson who they thought was a Tory – especially that poetess shouting “Buy me some shoes”, should have realised that without the wealthy, none of us would have any shoes!

A debate on the PBR (really a Budget) at last!

John Redwood (who I have realised is a lot more reliable than Lord Peston’s son’s BBC blog, after Peston’s ludicrous announcement that the PBR – with its pitiful VAT cut and no income tax cut – caused the stock market to rally; as someone pointed out, did the PBR, not Citigroup, affect the markets in Frankfurt, and elsewhere?) has managed to force a debate on the PBR/budget and here is his question to the Speaker:

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): As we have just heard a pre-Budget report that turned out to be a Budget with an urgent and big tax change, will the Minister give us guidance from the Treasury Benches on how soon we will be able to debate and vote on the huge VAT change? It is very unusual to have a Budget, yet not be able to proceed to a Division on it.

Now hopefully there will be a vote too so let all those Labour MPs in marginal (and not so marginal) seats put their names to this disgraceful “PBR” with its record £118 billion of borrowing …

Who said this Government was against taking “excessive risks”?

Alistair Darling should perhaps be a banker as he has taken a huge risk which we will all end up paying when it goes pear-shaped.

In some superb forensic analysis of what has gone wrong with our economy under Labour, John Redwood explains that we have too much financial risk and too much borrowing:

(1) The biggest increase in borrowing comes to buy bank shares and nationalise smaller banks. I have been using the figure of £58 billion for 2008-9 for this programme. For the first time the government sets out more detail. Their current estimate for this year is now £69 billion. …

(2) The collapse of tax revenues. This year they anticipate a revenue fall of £30 billion, to be followed by a huge dip of ££64 billion next year excluding the policy change on VAT.

(3) A series of policy alterations in favour of more spending and lower taxes. The £8.6 billion next year off VAT is the largest.

So there you have it.  By the way, today’s Telegraph Pre-Budget section has a graphic showing the peaks and troughs of borrowing.  The fiscal deficit reached its peaks around 1976, then again in 1994, then again in 2008.  What happened after 1976?  Callaghan lost, Mrs Thatcher won.  After 1994?  Major lost, Blair won.  After 2008?  Well, I think we know what’s coming and is it just that Labour is trying to protect the seats of its “rising stars”, the next generation, so they can come back in again at some future point? 

Has Labour learnt from Clinton who left the sub-prime timebomb ticking in 2000, which let his arch-enemy Obama in in 2008?  Is that what they’re thinking?  It may not work – British people are not THAT stupid.

And Darling insults pensioners too

£5 a week pension rise?  “What a liberty”, I can hear the pensioners cry…

£60 Christmas bonus or £120 for a couple.  “Thanks for nothing.”

You can understand why many pensioners are thinking that not only has Darling-Brown messed up the economy, and is raising National Insurance, and goodness knows what else in the future - but also has insulted pensioners with this derisory rise.

The Devil’s in the detail? No, the Devil’s Labour.

Darling-Brown’s PBR includes …

- £5 BILLION pounds efficiency savings in 2010-11, yeah right, we’ll believe that when we see it.

-£3 BILLION capital spending brought forward from 2010-11 to this year.

- VAT cut from 17.5% to 15% from 1 December 2008 until 1 January 2010, “the recovery will be under way” – Do we believe him? No. And will this help? Will it work? No.

- £120 a year 10p tax rebate up to £145 a year and made permanent. They shouldn’t have abolished the 10p rate in the first place, should they?

- Chosen the “fairest” (which, of course, means the opposite) tax rises, which are:

* NATIONAL INSURANCE UP 0.5% by April 2011. Labour scum.

* NEW 45% BAND FOR INCOME OVER £150,000. The Top 1% of income, many of whom will leave the country, after why shouldn’t they? Or just cut their income?

* PERSONAL ALLOWANCE “LOOPHOLE” (over £100,000), PERSONAL ALLOWANCE REDUCED. More reason to leave the UK.

This is a despicable PBR from a despicable and discredited Labour Party.  This will mess up the economy, the public finances, and will impoverish many people.  He should have cut income tax by at least 3p, rather than this nonsense about VAT and all the rest.

And the business “measures ” he has announced were not much better – and what is this about foreign dividends?

The PBR, an indictment on Brown

Darling claims it’s a £20 billion fiscal stimulus Nov 2008 – April 2010 ; that’s the next general election? It’s an 18 month electoral strategy.

He says £118 BILLION BORROWING IN 2009

and “Borrowing only to invest” (roars of laughter from the Opposition )

Growth forecast at only 0.75% this year (which, given previous inaccuracies, it will probably only be 0.25%, if that).

This PBR is a real indictment on Brown, a failed Prime Minister.

Another victim of the recession…

I don’t know about you, but this recession is really starting to get me down, and we mustn’t forget the human cost of this almighty mess that BROWN has left in his wake (although, sadly, he hasn’t gone yet – and by the end of it I doubt there will be many people who will mourn his passing when he loses the next General Election).

I’ve just had an email from the removal firm that I had booked so I can move out of my rented place now that I am moving back in with the parents (to make ends meet in this recession):

Due to the economic downturn in business I have had no option but to close my company. Thank you for your interest again my company which  unfortunately is now no longer.

This guy is a decent chap who had at least one employee who worked with him.  So there’s one more business down and a couple of people out of work.  And yet there could be more grief on the way if Brown makes “business” (i.e. small firms) – which in reality is the people who OWN and WORK FOR them – pay for his £18 billion tax con package.   Gordon Brown, here’s another example of your handiwork – how can you sleep at night, you lying, heartless, incompetent politician?

45p? Is this the new 10p?

Glynn Davies has an excellent post on the issue of today’s PBR and he says:

Gordon Brown does seem to have discovered a gambling gene, so anything is possible, but I still feel that tomorrow’s PBR will turn out to have been over-hyped. I can see myself listening and thinking ‘Is that It’? But lets assume its big, and we have tax cuts of say £30 billion. Fear of a run on Sterling means that we will have to be told how its going to be repaid, and when – which is where the ‘Tax Bombshell’ comes in. We are already seeing Government borrowing figures beyond anything we could ever have imagined. And another £30 billion on top. I fear for my children. Truth is that ‘However much Gordon Brown wraps it up, it is still a Tax Bombshell’.

Andrew Allison and Donal Blaney highlights how the VAT cut to 15p will not work - see also Donal Blaney’s post on the same theme.  The only way is to give people back their own money – at least 3p in the pound cut on income tax, as the TPA has recommended.

This will be paid for we learn by introducing a new 45p tax rate for the “rich”, as Tony Sharp observes:

The proposal to create a new 45% top rate of tax has absolutely nothing to do with tackling the recession. The effect on the struggling economy of this measure will be the equivalent of dropping a pebble into the middle of Lake Windermere. The proposal is nothing more than an outrageously cynical attempt to use taxpayers to create a political trap for the Conservatives. It is merely a plan to secure party political and electoral advantage for Labour. It is political game playing of the worst type imaginable. This is the abolition of the 10p starting rate of tax all over again. 

Brown is engaged in a calculated move to try to put the Conservatives on the wrong side of public opinion by challenging them to say they would scrap the tax increase. “The Tories are looking after their rich mates,” is the planned narrative if the Conservatives pledge to scrap it. If the Conservatives support the increase then Brown, Mandelson, Whelan and the rest of the spinners hope those whose tax bill increases will refuse to vote Conservatives in retaliation. This is naked political self interest by Labour that achieves nothing for the economy. It is a move that should not go unpunished by voters who, disgracefully and shamefully, are being used by Brown in his strategy to win the next general election – at a time when the economy should be his sole focus.

If ever the phrase “Labour scum” were appropriate, this has to be the moment.  What a nasty shower they are, this Government.

What is Labour playing at, trying to raise a few billion by increasing 40p to 45p for people earning whatever the arbitrary threshold is for this new Labour tax rise.

Is it because they think the Joe The Plumber message didn’t get through in the US Elections?  It clearly registered big, otherwise McCain wouldn’t have got 58 million votes and held a number of key states that he was supposed to lose. 

As in 1992, if voters think they might one day earn £100K (which won’t be that much when inflation takes its hold), they will not be pleased.

If voters rightly realise that this 45p rate will eventually “after the recession” apply to people earning a lot less than £100K, say £40K, which many people would like to earn (or may already be earning), then they will not fall for Brown’s latest tax con and Mandy’s spin..

Brown thought his 10p tax abolition was such a wonderful policy and it came back to bite him.

The same is true of 45p.  It might be a spun as a tax on the “rich”, though my definition of the rich would be at least £1M – not £100K - but after they’ve paid tax, their mortgage and all the rest, there’s not a lot left.  This is just Labour’s old class warfare raising its head again. 

What incentive is there for people to go earn £100K with this policy?  And in a few years, if Labour get back in again, and they expand 45p to include people on £40K or over, that’s some reward for people who have talent, brains and work hard, isn’t it?

It’s pretty clear that Labour Ministers, Labour MPs and the Prime Minister have little of either talent or brains – they may work hard (at least some of them when they’re not in their villas in France or in their caravans) - and Ed & Yvette and others will have to pay this 45p rate too.  And what will Labour MPs do when they have to pay the 45p rate in a few years on their “modest” incomes of £60K, or maybe they’re “rich” too under the new definition.

One thing’s clear, we’ll all be “poorer” if we let Labour away with this latest despicable Brownian policy.

If Brown were Santa Claus…

If Brown were Santa Claus, he would deliver the presents to the smiling kids … then steal them back the following week!

Tax credits and ‘pauperisation’

Labour won the 2005 general election because many voters stayed at home – apart from core Tory voters -and the welfare-dependent turned out in force.  This is the calculation that Labour is using in its forthcoming announcement on tax credits, which Melanie Phillips rightly describes as causing ‘pauperisation’:

If Brown’s fiscal stimulus turns out to be merely yet more tax credits, he should be jumped on from a great height since this will increase pauperisation and dependency. What is needed is tax cuts for those in work on modest incomes. The danger is that Brown will simply increase state spending and use the crisis to pursue his agenda of redistribution and control. But the Tories, having got it wrong until now, have proceeded to reverse themselves and got it wrong again. They went along with Brown’s reckless spending programmes in times of plenty solely as a piece of political positioning, because they were terrified of being called ‘heartless’ public service cutters and thought the only way to regain power was by hanging onto the coat-tails of the left. Yet those times of plenty were precisely when they should have been calling for ‘prudence’ and cutting spending to put reserves aside for a when times got hard. They did not – until now, when they have ditched Brown’s spending increases on the grounds that adding to the national debt is an act of recklessness – even though it is probably necessary for these present circumstances and only these present circumstances. Their current position therefore seems to be deflationary and likely to make the situation even worse.

I empathise with her when she says she has “not and never has been a Tory”.  She’s not the only one, and there are many like me too who think that, on balance, the UK is better off with a Conservative Government than a Labour one.  The “Judas kiss” that the UUP have given the Tories will no doubt come back to haunt Cameron – the UUP is as discredited and as defunct a party as there can possibly be.

But that the UK is better off with a Conservative Government has never been clearer than on the Tories’ Tax cuts to help hard-working families Vs Labour’s Tax credits to win Labour the next General Election. 

Hopefully, though Labour’s core welfare-dependent voters will vote for more of the same, other people in England and Wales will vote against Labour.  We shall see – looks like June 5th for the General Election.