Germany calling.......

‘Sensationalist; hysterical; distorted; exaggerated’ – choose your word to describe the ludicrous meeja reaction to Little George’s ‘cuts’. The chatterati are foaming at the mouth about the withdrawal of child benefit for earners of over £44.000. ‘He doesn’t know what it’s like to try living on £44 grand’ they squeal. Well, neither does a farmer on an average income of £23,000 or a newly trained nurse, or an OAP for that matter.

And yet in opinion polls, over 80% of people thought that this was fair.

Cuts? Public expenditure will rise by billions over the next 5 years. The overseas aid budget is going up by no less than 37%!

George might care to consider the following:

 Restore the married person’s tax allowance;

• Restore the tax breaks on pension funds;

• Restore the children’s tax allowance;

• Restore the tax breaks on mortgages;

• Abolish all hand-outs to OAPs and add the savings to the basic pension (including the costs of hordes of civil servants administering all these add-ons);

• Abolish MPs’ allowances totally and simply pay the same daily subsistence allowance as the Civil Service for those who have to spend 4 nights a week away from home;

• Abolish the race relations industry whose raison d’etre is ensure that racial discrimination continues and which is essentially patronising of minorities;

• Restrict benefits for immigrants to those who have paid UK tax for not less than 5 years;

• Require bankers’ bonuses to be paid in shares in the bank which can’t be redeemed for at least 5 years;

• Get rid of overseas aid – that would just about take care of the deficit;

• Bring the troops back from Germany – the Cold War is over, Dave;

• And whilst you are about it, bring them out of Afghaniscam – that war is unwinnable (read your history, Dave).

Why don’t they listen to us?

But when I hear of firemen in California getting $180,000 a year and retiring on full pensions at 50 I realise that we are behind the curve when it comes to being generous with taxpayers’ money.

Since the Greek economy went tits-up, we have seen a fascinating shift in the tectonic plates in European politics. France and Germany are no longer the Tweedledee and Tweedledum of the EU. The Hausfrau and the Pocket Napoleon are distinctly at odds as France descends yet again into chaos and Germany emerges as the single big hitter in Europe. The Germans now seem to have had quite enough of bank-rolling the Club Med who keep getting their fingers caught in the till.

The strange dichotomy is that Germany is the biggest economy in Europe by far, but can’t punch its weight because it has no military clout whatsoever. Interesting, is it not, that the UK and France between them contribute no less than 70% of European military power, and Britain, despite the cuts, has the fourth largest military expenditure per GDP in the world. How long before Germany, which alone accounts for 80% of Europe’s manufactured exports starts putting a bit of stick about? It is already causing some real problems in ‘two-speed Europe) because if the ECB intervenes to cool Germany down, it will stuff Greece, Spain, and Ireland.

France and Germany are also involved in a punch-up with the nomenklatura in the European Commission over their ideas for yet another Treaty to follow Lisbon in order to clobber the Club Med.

The one thing the French and Germans agree on is keeping Turkey out of the EU. Lucky old Turkey, although why they would want to join this revival of the Holy Roman Empire is beyond me. Negotiations have been going on for 5 years. No country that began negotiations has ever been refused entry, so in come the corrupt, ramshackle third-world countries of Eastern Europe. But Turkey, the Brazil of the region, not likely! Romania, which has 25% of its people living below the poverty line, gets in, but not Turkey which has an almost identical GDPpp. And we all know why!

Turkey is the coming place. Its economy is booming and it is that rare thing, a Muslim democracy but a secular state. It is intolerant of criticism and minority rights but it also occupies an increasingly strategic position economically. They should forget the Fourth Reich and turn their attention to the east, to India, China, Thailand and other growth areas, not to the Club Dirigiste in Brussels. It’s already a member of OECD and the G20.

O seems to be due for an early bath, looking at his approval ratings. Question: is he automatically the candidate at the next presidential election, or can the Democrats ditch him for, say, Hillary? And a further thought – is Clinton the only ex-POTUS to have had political clout after his retirement?

And finally........

After all the efforts made to extradite Gary the Hacker, why has the US not issued arrest warrants for the Wikileaks boss?