John Ward November 25, 2015 Osborne UK Autumn Review, Uncategorized

Autumn Budget Review: the beasts behind the bravado

Three bogus elements in today’s announcements explained

It’s amazing what a bit of ringing around can reveal. Herewith an interesting summary of the yarns doing the rounds in Fleet Street, Westminster and Brussels tonight following the Draper’s latest attempt at turd polishing:

That overseas aid budget increase Despite the seeming lunacy of austerity-strapped Bighty now spending more on overseas aid than on the police – facing as we allegedly do mass beheadings from the invincible hordes of ISIL barbarians – the aid increase represents making good on the bribe we must pay to Commonwealth colleagues….in return for various deals involving arms, financial services, military training and administrative help.

That whopping sum of money suddenly given to the NHS Another example of Machiavellian desperation, it seems: Jeremy Rhymeeng-Slange has been caught unready as yet to persuade the indefatigable British public that the NHS needs to be burnt to the ground, and has a flappy bottom on the subject of a very cold winter in the offing and suddenly being found out as the liar in chief. Word also reaches me that a survey has been commissioned by his Ministry of Wealth, showing an uncomfortably large proportion of Conservative voters behind the Junior Doctors. Last but not least, secret figures showing that the NHS is haemhorraging staff as a result of underfunding and overwork.

That commendable £12.4bn to be spent on infrastructure (unspecified) This requires only elementary maths to deconstruct: one must set against this ‘investment’ in infrastructure the 37% cuts in transport spending, 17% cuts in business spending, and 22% cuts in energy spending. The usual left hand to right hand Peter to Paul dealing off the bottom we have come to expect from the Unborn one. For example – another rise for pensioners, but the pension age itself to rise again. A £10bn boost for the NHS, but also a demand for £22bn in ‘efficiency’ savings. Cap on student nurse training to be ended…but nurses to be given loans in future, not grants.

Roll up roll up folks, Georgie the Illusionist challenges you to spot which shell the pea is under….hevery one a winner, roller boller penny a push and a free godlfish for every player.

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1

Canexpat on November 26, 2015 at 11:22 pm

@Jeremy Stocks

Thanks for the link. I have suspected something was amiss at the Grauniad for some time now. I’m not convinced the change happened in 2013 though. I have been noticing a Neocon stance on Syria and Ukraine for longer than two years.

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Dean Ditchbank on November 26, 2015 at 8:34 pm

I’d like to hear more about this (Aid budget) bribe we are paying to Commonwealth colleagues. Which, and for what services? Nigeria? Ex-Commonwealth Pakistan??
It is of course good value for money to pay some Third World problems to stay in the Third World. That is why we buy the support of the local strong man to keep a lid on all the local rival (even more fanatically Islamist) thugs. I hope we are doing this now in Libya to plug the flow of Africans across the Med.

I’m thinking of starting a fund to protect all our appeasers when they fall from power – somewhere where they can die of shame quietly in their own time. Contributions? Suggestions for suitable hiding places?

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Caratacus on November 26, 2015 at 7:28 pm

Precisely so, Impoverished/Intolerant Psychologist, and thank you for reminding me how old I am ( I am old enough to be his grandfather). My young sister has found herself in the upper echelons of the NHS – after years as a Theatre Sister – and chills the blood with her tales of wanton excess and mindless mis-management by people who could not tie their shoelaces without a two day refresher course. You have my sympathy and warmest regards.

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4

Peter C on November 26, 2015 at 7:17 pm

Thanks to @JeremyStocks for crediting his previous comment with the reference to off-guardian.org
A very welcome addition to my news feed.

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mro on November 26, 2015 at 6:46 pm

shirley the 27 billion the obr came up with is a complete nonsense for all to see that want to see! the obr have not that i,m aware of got a forcast correct yet,but we have to wait five years to see the result which gives him/them a lot of wiggle time.

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Impoverished Psychologist on November 26, 2015 at 6:14 pm

Thank you Caratacus, I suppose Osborne represents everything that is wrong. He would have been in my year at school – except in my school he would have lasted 10 minutes. This has two depressing facets, one the chancellor is no more worldly wise than me and second, I am now as middle aged as him.
The man is a fool, and his glibness combined with his weedy warble is more than I can tolerate.

I suppose I should rename myself to Intolerant Psychologist, anyway best regards from inside the dying leviathan that was the NHS.

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Caratacus on November 26, 2015 at 5:24 pm

@ Impoverished Psychologist – Thank you for your comment, raised a laugh this afternoon …albeit a somewhat mirthless one, it must be said. Glad it’s not just me who is irritated by Osborne’s reedy voice. He sometimes reminds me of Pitt the Younger in “Blackadder – Dish and Dishonesty” whose whine about ‘a hot crumpet burning my cheeks with shame’ seems perfectly to encapsulate our precocious Chancellor. There is a particular coincidence in that the young actor rejoices in the name of Simon Osborne.

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Ron on November 26, 2015 at 5:23 pm

Osborne is just relaying the ‘compassionate conservatism’ of the present government:

https://speye.wordpress.com/2015/11/25/bedroom-tax-single-people-mass-evictions-for-disability-csr2-closure-of-all-womens-refuges/

how many more people are going to die as a result of their policies – in this country – nevermind bombing and plundering other countries???

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Gordie on November 26, 2015 at 3:35 pm

The one thing I don’t get in all this ( going off topic ) is who benefits from all this increased immigration? The figures are up again. When the civil war comes what are these idiot politicians going to do?
As for the nhs ,he can announce whatever he likes but the amount that trifles down to patient level will be miniscule. There will be a shortage of experienced Drs. soon . Many are retiring early and numbers are down applying to do medicine. This is what happens when you let non medical people in charge of running things

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angelteuton on November 26, 2015 at 2:59 pm

The Unborn One . Are you suggesting liebling that The Draper is merely a sartorial hallucination and probably a successor to Damien in ” The Omen ” ( sorry ” The Onan”) Surely not……

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rtj1211 on November 26, 2015 at 12:27 pm

Quite how he thinks the sorts of practical, sober citizens suitable to become nurses will think that a 3 year loan to go to college is a good deal when the old way was a practical on-the-job apprenticeship paid for by your employer is beyond me. You don’t learn how to deal with stroppy patients, bedpan-requiring geriatrics, nobhead relatives or doctors with an attitude problem and an Empire complex sitting in a lecture theatre with a nurse-who-couldn’t-nurse lecturing you.

By the way, you forgot to say that AUSTERITY IS OVER! It was on the website of a leading UK ‘newspaper’, so it must be true, mustn’t it??

Oh, and we will now be ‘engaged in Syria for many years to come’ which means that the arms dealers in London can sell weapons to both sides for at least another decade, which is what creating ISIL was all about at the end of the day, isn’t it?

Who’s paying for this war in Syria? What return on investment will they get for it? Why aren’t the Saudi Arabians, the Qataris, the Abu Dhabians paying for it? They’ve got a few trillion in sovereign wealth funds – spend that first, please.

Stamp duty going up – the way to pay for HS2 as you can ascribe all the Stamp Duty on newly built properties near HS2 to the account paying for it. Same for HS1 – that new town in Ebbsfleet- LOTSA LUVLY STAMP DUTY LOLLY!!

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Jeremy Stocks on November 26, 2015 at 12:24 pm

Have you read this?

“I understand the anger and frustration many people have voiced here – and I think that it would be worth posting an explanation of what has actually happened at The Guardian.
In 2013, The Guardian filed some of the worst financial accounts in the newspaper’s history. The publishers were clearly in deep financial trouble, and were forced to sell-off some of their assets, simply to avoid immediately bankruptcy. The financial outlook appeared very grim.
But ‘hope’ was around the corner… although it was a vile kind of ‘hope’ indeed.
The Guardian was (quietly) relaunched, positioning itself primarily in the USA and Australia – whilst aiming to retain as much as possiible from its former days as a left-wing newspaper in Britain. New and mysterious ‘backers’ appeared, who were now controlling the political content of the newspaper. Alan Rusbridger was quickly removed and thrown on the rubbish-heap – the usual nonsense about wanting to develop his career (in retirement?).
It was a very simple idea – “buy up the opposition to neoconservative American ideas – and neatralise it with a daily diet of pro-Pentagon, pro-Washington, shabby indoctrination”. Unwanted old left-wingers were quietly pushed aside. Ambitious Americans like Hadley Freeman were shoved forwards. New right-wing writers were hired, such as “Rafael Behr” (who he?). The screaming voices of the lunatic right, such as TImothy Garbage-Trash, suddenly become Leader Writers..
Let’s just explain what “neoconservative” actually means. It means following right-wing policies and ideas under the apparently acceptable cloak of being socialists, in order to secure public support for these extreme right-wing policies. Tony Blair is the perfect example… a man who found himself in perfect accord with George Bush – a god-bothering war-mongering racist fascist psychopath with the brain of a mollusc.
But it gets worse. The Guardian is now not really written by Guardian journalists any longer. Instead, coverage of all “sensitive” topics has been franchised out to American rightwing organisations. Now we get articles and editorial which have been “sponsored by the John D Rockefeller Foundation” (an extremist rightwing organisation), whose authorship and views chime perfectly with American hard-line exceptionalist Christian white right. Sometimes the sourcing is hidden more carefully… for example, the “Calvert Journal” – an American-funded pile of rightwing trash based in Calvert Street in London…. trailed as an “expert source” on Russia, but actually ghost-written in Washington. A few down-at-heel Russian emigres were hired as the ostensible “authors” of this crap. So now the Guardian’s Russia coverage is written by spooks in Washington under the guise of being written by “Russian opposition voices cowering from Putin in London”. I’ve met these filth – they are pathetic users who are happy to take Washington’s dollars to fund their empty-headed glamorous lifestyles in London. This comes under the heading of “New East”, headed by a new rightwing extremist at the Guardian called Maeve Sheerlaw… a cheap hack who has never been to Moscow in her life, yet was made an Overnight Expert to parrot the opinions of filth like Andrew McFaul, failed American Ambassador to Moscow.
Then there are all the articles ‘syndicated’ from the Moscow Times – another fake newspaper funded by American rightwingers in Washington, via a chain of anonymous holding companies in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Don’t be fooled by that “Moscow Times” title – it was one they picked on purpose, to make it sound like a serious newspaper. In fact it’s staffed by a team of cheap American journalism students, and there are no Russians working there at all. A few Russian names appear as columnists… but – surprise! – they are all Russian runaways, living in Miami or Brighton Beach, and delighted to have Washington’s cash in exchange for some bitter hatred penned during a drunken lunch-hour.
In summary, then – The Guardian which readers remember from the 1980s and 1990s no longer exists at all. Its exterior appearance and readership has been bought for cash by American fascist organisations… but covertly, so that readers “believe” they are still reading The Guardian. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, because it’s how Tony Blair came to power in Britain – the most Tory leader Britain has ever had. And where are his ‘socialist’ allies? Peter Mandelson, a penniless journalist, is now Lord Mandelson, with a two-million pound house and a seat in the House of Lords. Socialism, my arse.
The Guardian is now more right-wing than the Daily Telegraph. It features articles from Timmy Garbage-Trash saying how Britain should go to war against Russia, to save those jolly, plucky, Right Sector genocidal fascists in Ukraine.
None of this has ever been mentioned in the Guardian itself, of course. You are all still clinging to this rabid pro-American sheet of garbage until the moment they actually write it on the front page. That day will never come. Yet you still think the Guardian is a ‘socialist’ newspaper.”

from Offguardian.

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13

swiveleyed on November 26, 2015 at 12:15 pm

Reblogged this on Swivel Eyed and commented:
Some good analysis of yesterdays spending review from John Ward’s great blog, “The Slog”

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Jeremy Stocks on November 26, 2015 at 11:17 am

Here is a good site: https://lipstick-and-war-crimes.org/free-ebooks-2/

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15

theguvnor on November 26, 2015 at 10:44 am

JW you have often mentioned the need for debt relief across the worlds indebted nations which is growing by the day. However this only really works if everyone is in debt and I suspect now the end game is becoming clearer to TPTB encouraging all and sundry to acrue debt through home ownership puts all in the same position. Debt is also control which would appeal to this current band of meglomaniacs.

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16

Green Queen on November 26, 2015 at 10:21 am

He was damned either way, we’re in such a deep hole!

Having said they are going to build so many more (non-social) houses – Oooh, think of all that lovely mortgage monopoly money – I can’t help but think they are missing a trick with regard to there being upwards of 25% of the population being over 65 by 2030. Just how many of these new-builds will be multi-generational spaces, with self contained Granny flat on the ground floor, a decent provision for the ‘main family’ on the next levels, and space for the twenty-something offspring in the attics?
The NHS/Social funding will not be able to cope with the needs of so many in their dotage unless the family unit is somehow re-built to reflect the changing demographics. I can’t see we will have enough carers, warden controlled or council run rabbit hutches, hospital beds or all the other paraphernalia required, let alone sufficient pension provision…..or perhaps the new retirement age will be 85??
Wish I was into building/planning !!

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Mark Deacon on November 26, 2015 at 9:32 am

If Osborne had continued with the tax credits cuts then the economy would have seriously contracted and what everybody was so wound up about.

What came next next under that policy … more QE silly … so what he did was indirect QE just do not do the cuts … the zero sum game is we are broke. Osborne is being run as a front man for the elites and what he did was to bring the QE forward in a different way. Once an economy has reached such a small portion of the total value to keep cutting makes no sense, if anything the only thing left is print, print, print. This is akin to Merv the Swerv relaxing the rules on lending, although was pointless if people cannot borrow to spend.

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Dean Ditchbank on November 26, 2015 at 7:51 am

Osbo’s the new Gordo.
We’re on the coaster, we’ve climbed up the big one, a moment’s pause on the crest, then down we plummet. Raise your arms and scream

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19

The Porcelain Doll on November 26, 2015 at 1:18 am

Reblogged this on perfectlyfadeddelusions.

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Stephenroi on November 25, 2015 at 10:17 pm

JW it no doubt warms the cockles of your heart, that Mr Grant Shapps, is the current Minister of State at the Department for International Development and will presumably have a say in the disbursement of the increased overseas aid budget…..

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Impoverished Psychologist on November 25, 2015 at 9:10 pm

Today’s statement proved to me beyond any dissuasion that this government and therefore by association the entire neoliberal cabal have no option but to ride the greasy pole of debt to the very bottom.

‘We are the builders’ warbled Osborne in his weedy little voice. So there will be little if any social housing built any more just ‘affordable’ housing. Housing association tenants will have the right to buy their homes and there will be a new London help to buy scheme – where 40% of the cost of a new build home will be available from the government as an interest free loan.

So what we have is a festival of debt creation, mortgages being dished out left right and centre and in London yet another distortion of an already distorted and dysfunctional market.

Osborne’s approach is like the captain of a steamship running out of fuel, he is burning everything combustible, he started on the deckchairs, now he is tearing up the deck planks. Anything and everything will be sacrificed to keep his ‘growth’ illusion going, despite the collapse of world trade discussed previously on these pages. He can fan the flames using housing as a stopgap measure but for how long?

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desmond on November 25, 2015 at 9:08 pm

draper the swindling turd polisher extraordinaire … stealing from children, the lame, the retarded, the sick probably tells people he is a christian.. see Mathew 25 v. 40 onwards… and a merry xmas to you sir…

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Anonymous on November 25, 2015 at 8:55 pm

I had a godlfish: but that was once and long ago.

WAD

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Salford Lad on November 25, 2015 at 8:52 pm

Young Gideon is a total economic illiterate when it comes to running a country. He thinks he is operating in a house-wifes kitchen ,making ends meet. Does he know or does he ignore the fact that he can create interest free money at will by a stroke of a computer key at the Bank of England.
This money, if issued into the Real Economy and bypassing the private banking monopoly, can build housing and infrastructure, thus creating employment. It is called Overt Monetary Financing and is Interest free.
Much easier for Gideons personal employment future to issue bonds to the private bankers and pay billions of pounds interest on the money they create on their computers.
Great risk free racket if you can be part of this long running scam.

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