Do they think we are stupid?

 We are now in a new fiscal year and the new state pension for OAPs comes into effect.  Many pensioners will now suddenly find they are now paying tax on their pension. Labour has had to resort to taxing pensioners as taxing the rich hasnt worked - they have simply moved to Italy or other tax friendly countries. Last year the state pension was £230.25 per week or £11,973. From April 2026 the state pension has increased by a 4.8% to £241.30 or £12,547.60 per year. The tax free personal allowance has been frozen at £12,570 since April 2021 and Rachel has generously frozen it until April 2031.  A decade of fiscal drag where inflation will erode the earning parity. The pension has increased by 4.8% as a result of the triple lock despite CPI inflation being 3.4%. The reason was it was to keep pace with wage inflation.  Most non public sector workers I know have not had a pay rise in about 3 years. The reasion is overall public sector workers received a whopping 7% - 7.9% ...

 I'll start by saying this is not investment advice and is more my ramblings about the state of the world.   So one thing is certain - we (the collective We - not just the UK) are heading for period of high inflation. Despite what  Red Milibrain thinks - the world is heavily dependent on oil and all the green energy in the world will not fix that. Very few British policitians have any science or technology qualitifications. The only one's I am aware of are Kemi Badenoch and Chi Onwurah (Labour). Red Milibrain has a degree in Politics which is about much use as a chocolate teapot for doing calculations on energy.  He certainly hasnt got a Chemical Engineering  degree and therefore probably hasnt got a clue about the Haber process and why it is important. The Haber process is a chemical method to make fertiliser. It is critical for low cost agriculture - typically it uses gas as an input material to make fertiliser - it's not about creating electricity -...

 Back in 2025 Starmer said: "Britain is, and always will be, a multicultural, diverse country. That's not just a slogan - it's our history and our strength." I struggle to see how being a multicultural country is a strength. Sure we get a wider range of food, get to chat with locals when we are planning holidays to get useful information.  The fact that a large percentage of our population is now multi-lingual - that could be useful for trade although I suspect that strength is rarely exploited. Sadly 2% of people who live in the UK cannot speak English. Quite the opposite - I see huge cultural divisions emerging in the UK.  There are areas where English is not spoken - and I dont mean Wales.  The divisions are not generating wealth for the UK.  So let's look  at China. It's 90% Han Chinese and is pretty much 99.9% oriental.  China is forcing Mandarin to be the sole language of China - Cantonese is a dying language in Hong Kong. Or Japan - it's 97% nat...

 Today my council tax demand arrived and I was shocked to find it is now £3,350 per year. That seems a lot given the state of the roads, pavements, non existent policing etc. I bought the house in 2000 so I decided to look up how much the council was back in the good old year 2000. So it was approximately £1,250 per year. Using the Bank of England's inflation calculator that £1,250 should now be £2,340 but it's now £3,350.  A difference of £1,005 or 43% more than it should be after inflation. Are the services better as a result of this extra £1,005?  No. Are the roads in better shape?  No. Do I feel it is better value for money?  No. I can say the bin collection has been consistent.  But I can say the tip/recycling facility is far worse - huge restrictions on what you can take there and the inconvenience of having to book in advance. All the local police stations have closed and there are none in my borough yet it says I paying for policing. The libraries a...

 Whenever Starmer or Rachel are on the ropes, their default "get out of jail card" is to state that Liz Truss crashed the economy. She was Prime Minister for 49 days, from 6 September 2022 to 25 October 2022. That's nearly 4 years ago.  I know Labour havent got a clue about the economy but can something which happened 4 years ago and never got implemented really have caused such prolonged damage to the economy?  It's clear Rachel's jobs tax, the huge inflation busting pay rises for public sector workers and big increases for those on minimum wage has been inflationary and caused a big increase in unemployment.  Surely this must be worse than Liz's damage? So let's wind the clock back.  Crashing the economy implies economic output fell or GDP fell. So let's look at the ONS numbers. Q2/22 GDP = £686,335M (Before Liz was PM) Q3/22 GDP = £687,029M (During her premiership) Q4/22 GDP = £688,817M (After  her premiership) So Q4 is higher than Q3 so surely if s...

The news today is that the British public are being rewarded with a cost of living reduction by Ofgem reducing the price cap by £117 from April. Wind the clock back to November 2025 and Rachel promised to remove £150 of "green taxes" from our bill from April. So how come a £150 reduction has now become just £117? Where has the £33 per household gone? Well the excuse is that network costs have increased. Energy prices have come down by £38 per year but network costs have increased by £66 per year. So that's an overall increase of £28 yet it should be £33. The reduction should be £122 not £117.  Where has the £5 gone? Who is getting that? The network costs have gone up due to the RIIO-3 price control framework. The reason is that  we are paying for £28.1 BILLION to upgrade the transmission network through our bills- that's needed because the old model was we have a few power stations and now we have wind turbines, solar panels etc distributed everywhere.  The old grid ...