Guitars and Life

Or is it... My son has just posted a rant on his blog over at The Cynical Scientist . I can't say I disagree with him. Is this country in too much debt? Yes - as a country but also as individuals, too many people have mortgaged themselves to the hilt and have loans for this and that, credit cards maxed out etc. The UKs personal debt is about £1.5 trillion (source BBC news). I can't even thing in numbers that high. So taking the World Bank published population for the UK as 61,414,062 that means we are in debt to the tune of about £25,000 each. Hang on! Each that is every man woman and child in the country. Now think on how many have no debt at all? Suddenly you start to realise the mess we are in - and I'm not talking government debt here - this is the debt people personally have. So we have to stop living the ludicrous way but we have an economy that is pretty much funded by services and the public sector - we make precious little and a lot of our income is thing...

My last rant today... apologies but this stuff needed to come out. The release of Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was probably a mistake - that mistake being that his release was based on the expectation that the poor man had only 3 months to live. He has survived now nearly a year more. Had he died in a week of release then I doubt we'd even remember the event. Was it a mistake to release him on compassionate grounds - I feel not. I always feel it is important that society rises above the retaliation "eye for an eye" kind of retribution those directly affected by something like this understandably feel. As a whole society should to my mind always be above the acts of those that they then show compassion to. This is why I can never agree with a death penalty for anything. Hold people in prison for their entire life if necessary but never sink to the depravity we supposedly are punishing them for in the first place. In this case though I personally think he should have died...

Could this be the thing that breaks the Lib Dem/Tory partnership? So Vince Cable (Business Secretary) recommends a graduate tax - the Tories instantly distance themselves from it - to them no doubt it's subtitled "Loss of middle class vote". Two things about this... firstly it shows the holes in the coalition along with Nick Clegg's mistakes when standing in at PM question time this week (Word of advice Nick - you cannot give a "personal opinion" when standing in for the PM - you have to stick rigidly to the "party line" else we all get confused and think that you don't actually agree with the policy that you are supposedly implementing - a quick learning curve here for what it means to be in the government not on the opposition benches I feel). If Vince is the Business Secretary he shouldn't be making public statements about potential policy for it to be debated openly. This is ok if we are in a public consultation but surely the govern...

Okay I've been holding off on some of this stuff but there is a load going on in the world that I just need to let off my steam about. So a bunch of posts to follow... NHS reforms So hang on - the government have hardly warmed up their newly acquire leather seats and are no doubt still cleaning out the 4000 paper clips at the back of the drawer left by the last encombant and they come up with this load of nonsense! Firstly - where the hell was this in the manifesto? Really bugs me we elect people on a set of "promises" and then they either don't do that or come up with some totally new. If this was in the plan why wasn't it debated in the election campaign? If they've only dreamt it up since being in power that is even more worrying - you can't take something like the NHS and dream up a reform of this magnitude over night. My issues with it? In principle the putting the money closer to the patient sounds sensible but... how will you make big funding...

I’ve tried a little research but not got to find what I was looking for. My memory of VAT was that it first came to be in the UK in 1973 as part of our entry into the European Common Market (as it was called then). At that point I remember there being three bands – 0% for essentials, 12.5% for most items and something like 24% for luxury items. Some years later the two charging bands were pulled together into one at 15%. Many items that were exempt as essentials have over the years lost that status and are now taxed – Children’s shoes I recall being one that was hotly argued at the time. Along with fuel which was at times on a different lower band. I thought that VAT was “temporarily” increased to 17.5% from 15% by the Tory government in the early 90s to cover the deficit that the treasury had due to number of people not paying the community charge (“poll tax”). It never went back down – so this “temporary” move to lower it to 15% could be viewed cynically by people with long mem...