General Election and the Debates and How Much We Subsidise Big Business

So the debates are going ahead whether the Prime Minister takes part or not, fine – but I won’t be watching.

Why?

Well, I sat and watched all the debates last year and quite honestly, they were all a waste of time and effort.

How many of the statements of intent have come true?

I’ll give you an example “I agree with Nick” – but what did Nick do?

He backed down on all just to become a part of the government.

I will state here that I was brought up as a Liberal and when they became the Liberal Democrats, I was over the moon; it looked like we had strong party leaders who could influence government. Do I vote Lib-Dem now? That’s between me and the ballot box – if I told you what I voted and you followed suit and it was a disaster, I’m not taking the blame.

To be honest, I hate politics! I care what happens to this country and I’m not sure politicians do – OK, there are some good ones who represent their electorate and don’t always dance to the party tune, but to many it’s just a career with a wonderful expense account.

The tribal, playground bullying as demonstrated by both sides at Prime Minister’s Question Time is a prime example of why I and many like me hate politics.

Many MPs have never worked in “the real world” and cannot see past the frosted glass windows of the ivory tower – I think all politicians should have to do at least three year’s work outside of the political circle. See my blog, “My Wish List for 2015” https://madkentdragon.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/my-wish-list-for-2015/

Whoever takes power, whether a straight forward election or another coalition, please, please STOP CUTTING SO DEEP!

We need our Police Force, stop cutting it – why are you doing this – or do you want companies like Serco to take over —

“Welcome to Serco, if it is an emergency and you need the police, press 1.

If it is an emergency and you need an ambulance, press 2. …..”

Do we really want this? Robert Peel must be turning in his grave!

By the way, you wouldn’t have to cut so deep if the Living Wage was enforced instead of the National Minimum Wage, but then fat cats and shareholders may have to tighten the belt on their Burberry or Alexander Wang attire!

Do you realise that we are all subsidizing these Fat Cats? Well we are!

The National Minimum Wage is £6.50 an hour, and all those earning it have to claim Tax Credits to get by – but at least they are working.

Compare that with the National Living Wage of £7.85 – OK some of those earning this may claim tax credits – but they will be claiming less as they are earning £1.35 more per hour, so we will be subsidising those wage earners less.

But what we are really doing isn’t subsidising the workforce, we are subsidising the company paying the lesser wage, because many of these large multinational companies are still making profits and paying bonuses and shareholders – and how many of these people are tax evaders, the story goes on, doesn’t it??

Back to our emergency services – the difference between the two wages quoted is as shown above, £1.35 per hour which is £47.25 for a 35 hour week – multiply that by the number of employees in this country who are being paid this paltry wage – I Googled this and got various numbers of between 1 – 5 million; so let’s say 1.5 million – this comes to a whopping £70,875,000 per week! Now that’s an enormous number of emergency workers’ wages!

When that figure is multiplied by the number of weeks in a year – £3,685,500,000 – that’s how much we subsidise big business instead of employing emergency services – time to put this right isn’t it?