Nevermind about opec.
Brown ought to be more concerned with the people who live in this country stringing him up from the nearest lamp post.
After having paid my taxes over the years and what not, I'm told that because I signed on the dole earlier this year (in march this year, following redundancy in oct 2007) then having only intermittent temp jobs for a month or two here and a month or two there, I'm told that I'm not entitled to any more state 'help' this year and will have to sign off for a minimum of 12 weeks with no job, and no money before they'll open a fresh claim, as opposed to a continuation. I'll get nothing in the way of assistance from dec 22nd (starting from the 9th dec). Whenever I've been unemployed I've never just run down to the job centre and said "giz meh moneh naah!". I've waited and spent my carefully husbanded savings to live on accordingly - only when I have nothing left and no certain income have I opted for state help. When I and many others need it most we are told to take a long walk off a short pier.
Now with the worst economic climate in the UK since the miners strikes, with no prospect of decent employment any time soon (xmas period is always dead for work) and total refusal of state help, my other half has to support us both, which is extra pressure on her mental health (which is none to stable right now, what with consultant psychiatrists and heavy anti depressants) - she's only just gone back to work, but because she works more than 24 hours per week, and earns in excess of 16k pa, we have been refused working tax credit, housing benefit (help with rent), job seekers allowance (me). About the only thing we might get is a 25% reduction in our council tax bill. If you divide her income between the two of us it equates to less than 10k per annum, gross. I almost hate to say it, but if we were immigrants with loads of kids, we'd be laughing.
Nevermind about opec.
This government has been raking it in for the last decade, then wasting money on projects like the millennium dome, super computers for the nhs that don't work, unpopular wars in the middle east and countless local government initiatives and spending for just about everybody who doesn't hold a brittish passport - come on in to the UK have a house, appliances and as much money for your 10 kids (who still live somewhere in eastern europe or wherever) as you want.
They were quite happy to bail out the banks who squandered other peoples money, pissing it all away trying to make even more profit, to the tune of a billion something quid of taxpayers money, now they are making it harder to get state help, for everyone from healthy people to those with chronic illness and disability - work for you benefit or get stuffed. Telling people to go and get work... what ******* work?! My local jobcentre tells me that there are 400 000 jobs in the UK; the latest figures on unemployment are something are around the 2.5 to 3 million mark, depending on which massaged government figures you want to use or combine. Job listings at the jobcentre and in my local paper have virtually dried up - not even the rudest van driving job for minimum wage is available. The jobs pages have gone from 10-12 pages to 1 or 2 which are mostly adverts for recruiting companies and 'in house' vacancies for local government which will not go to the public at large but have to be advertised publicly to maintain the appearance of equal job opportunities.
Brown is a posturing idiot who ought to be removed from office (no one voted for him to be there) before he does this country any more harm. He'll happily give away 25m to aid developing countries to invest in low carbon initiatives (see xabba's first link), meanwhile this country is slowly but surely going to ****. Redundancies, bankruptcy, reduction of (what little we have left) manufacturing production, reducing workers hours to avoid insolvency, the list goes on. About the only business that is returning a profit are the 'home brewing' sellers; for 40 pence a pint of beer and 70 pence per bottle of wine it beats the stuffing out of paying up to £3.00 a pint in a pub or bar.
What do we hear about all of this in the news, what's being done to help ordinary folk in these times? FA of anything with any real merit. Cutting VAT is all very well and good if your reference for financial policy is 'economics for dummies'. It's just another sign of this governments determination to spend their way out of debt using other peoples money and expecting the rest of us to do the same and tow the line.
Sorry for the rant guys, reading those articles brought it all bubbling to the surface again - it's been a tough couple of months recently, with everything that
she and I have worked so hard towards gradually slipping through our fingers through no fault of our own.
I can only see this economic trouble here in the UK as just the beginning - If I was a betting man, I'd say things are going to get a whole damn sight worse for just about everybody except sodding politicians
