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…

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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.

2,946 people killed in 2007: no inquiry?

If nearly three thousand people (or 10 people for that matter) were killed in one incident, it would be all over the papers and there would be an inquiry.

But in 2007, it was yesterday reported, TWO THOUSAND, NINE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX PEOPLE (including many children), yes 2,946, were killed on Britain’s roads.

This was due mainly to other people’s dangerous driving, drink driving, speed, etc.  It means that if repeated for the next 30 years at the same rate, ALMOST NINETY THOUSAND of our fellow citizens would die on the road.

And the Government still will not ban people from drinking any alcohol while driving.  The limit should be zero then there will be no confusion.

As for speed, we have speed cameras and all the rest, but daily we see people driving in the most appalling way.  Where are the police to take them on?

Driving offences should be treated with zero tolerance and the law should crack down on these people to stop the carnage they cause.

Time for an inquiry into driving?

So much for “Every Child Matters”

A few years back Labour launched “Every Child Matters” with great fanfare.  It was the policy document that was supposed to make sure there would never again be another Victoria Climbié.

Haringey Council’s social workers’ incompetence, however, has led to the death of Baby P, or Child A, who was murdered in the family home by an evil brute:

The report says that there were “numerous examples” of good practice [RUBBISH] within all agencies involved in the case, but concludes:

“There were many factors which contributed to the inability of the agencies to understand what was happening to Child A.  With the possible exception of the paediatric assessment of 01.08.07, none on their own were likely to have enabled further responses that might have prevented the tragic outcome.”

The report says that just over a week before he died, legal advice was that on the information provided, the threshold for initiating care proceedings had not been met [WHEN SHOULD IT BE?] and adds:

“Most critically Child A was seen on 01.08.07 by a community paediatrician for the purpose of the long awaited development assessment.  Expert medical opinion commissioned during the course of this serious case review concluded that a diagnosis of abuse should have been made at that point.”

It also says:

“This serious case review has revealed clear evidence of appropriate communication between and within agencies as well as weaknesses in specific areas of information flow.”

The review found that “safeguarding structures exist across Haringey agencies and offer a sound framework for the implementation of required procedures, it has also identified scope for improving the detailed application of some processes.”  

The above justification of Labour-run Haringey Council’s overseeing of the murder of a child – and outright incompetence – as well as the poor framework put in place by the Labour Government just shows why we can’t trust Labour with our children.

So much for “Every Child Matters”.  Every child clearly doesn’t matter.

Labour betrays our troops as X Factor stars sing for heroes

Major Sebastian Morley of the SAS resigned because the Labour government has failed to support and equip our troops well enough.

As the inspiring X Factor stars (you should vote for Eoghan, by the way) sing for heroes, Labour betrays our troops.

A vote for Labour is a vote against troops.  Whatever your view on the war, you must be sympathetic to the suffering of troops who go to war for their country.  Don’t let Labour betray our troops any more.