Author: Richard

So the UK is to rejoin the Horizon Project at a cost of £2.1bn. Presumably this was part of the funding which we said we would reclaim from Brussels with Brexit! How many more such deals will we need to do before we can return to the standards of 2016? Police co-operation and migrant return schemes come to mind? And Labour contiues to pander to red wall swing voters by refusing to counterance deals with Brussels.

As for the government – can it get any worse? First was the schools debacle which gets worse with every revalation of the way government withdrew funding. Then the prison break – with revalations of cuts in the prison service. Coffrey says that sewage discharges are nothing to do with DEFRA – it is all down to the Env.Agency -which is fully funded by DEFRA! What a pathetic excuse! Rather than the government spending £8million on photo’s of Charlie boy (what has he done for us in the last year?), if I am asked I will provide some tasteful desk notices for all government ministers stating the words of President Truman “The buck stops here”.

5 million single use vapes are disposed of every week – answer – ban them? Can it be difficult? I am surprised the govt. has not reacted more quickly – actually I am surprised that I just wrote that! What I was going to say was that it is younger people who vape, who do not vote or do not vote Conservative. Therefore a ban would not affect their polling potential … unless…… it was seen to cut profits??????

AND how many Conservative MP’s are tweeting about Woking council – considerably smaller than Birmingham, and with a £1.2billion debt forcing them to close a swimming pool, cut community welfare grants and basically everything that is not statutory.

The question for Sunak now is “How much longer can he and his pals milk the economy for all it is worth” before accepting the inevitable? Can he really believe that a turnaround of – well everything! happen in the next few months?

the longer that inflation rates remain high the worse it is. The quoted inflation rates are on a yearly basis. But if the rate was high a yer ago we should really be looking at inflation rates based on So inflation in 2021 was 2.59% Since then we have had a 9% rise in 2022 and thereofre the presnt rates (that the government boasts are falling) are actually 6% higher than the 9% rise of a year ago. I make that a 15% rise. Prices never fall and corporations are racking up record profits. So if wage rises are less than inflation the actual hit to household income is much worse.

Birming became the latest council to file a Section 114 Notice- they are the 7th and another 14 are likely to follow. Whilst the bill for equal pay has been a major factor and the IT fiasco another we need to look at the structure and purpose of local councils – what are they there for? Growing costs of social care, falling business rents and government austerity cuts are all major factors mentioned in the press. I would add executive pay, now many services and education are out sourced the pay of the nobs should be reduced, they cannot claim great efficiency! Some councils are bust due to property speculation – surely this is wrong, they are service providers, not speculators. They are forced to take extreme measures to benefit rate payers due to government cuts. Meanwhile important, if not essential services, like swimming pools and libraries are shutting. Car parking fees rise and visits to town centres fall, and thus business rates.

Their plush new city centre offices could be let out in part as many council jobs could be done from home.

Education secretary’s self assessment! Quite how she came to that conclusion is weird. But then the government has said that it is not responsible for school buildings – that is down to local authorities and academy trusts! The governments own estimate was for the need of 400 schools a year being rebuilt. Sunak cut his to 100 and then 50 with priority instead shifted to free schools – an ideological decision based on ERG thinking.

Hunt says that schools will do whatever is takes, but no extra money will be allocated! Sunak halved funding for school renewal 2 years ago. The more we hear about this problem the more it seems like the government prioritised cost over safety at every stage since the problem was flagged up 7 years ago. It will come up in Parliament today – I wonder whom they will blame? Or will they just claim to be better than other countries? Do they even comprehend the scale of the problem across all public sector buildings (hospitals, courts, etc. Universities have not been mentioned – yet!

Jamie Oliver calls for free school meals for all – a wise plea as a healthy diet pays back in results and health in the long term. Why not get the supermarkets and food chains to sponsor the lot – and give them a tax break for doing so. They would get the free publicity and the treasury a reduced cost. Perhaps they could compete to provide recipes. Extending free school meals is popular with voters according to a recent poll.

The Chancellor says they will spend anything necessary to make schools safe. Strange how they find money for this but not NHS wages to make us all safe? Basically it is just another bill for the next Government to pick up! More duplicity.

Incompetent in the extreme . When you think tey cannot get any worse they manage it! 11 months ago surveys were sent to schools about RAAC. Only when pressure was applied from outside did the Government respond by closing over 20 school completely with over 100 partial closures and over 500 results pending. Yet Gibb takes credit for being proactive and closing down buildings – the week before school starts again. Schools are left to sort out a problem that has existed for months and have been shut for 5 weeks. Other public buildings are in the same situation with courts being closed and some police buildings. Until yesterday the plan was to have schools prepare evacuation procedures! Were they planning on issueing body bags?

Rather than take credit for closing the schools he should resign. Schools are also expected to provide home tuition where relevant and send out lunch credits for thosd entitled. The position that England had done more than Scotland and Wales may be fair, but finding someone worse than you was always the cowards way!