The Demise of Disposable Income

Well, it had to happen: I no longer have any disposable income. Checking my bank account has become a daily thing, making sure there is enough in the account to last the month.

Despite changing to a smaller, more economical car, the rise in petrol prices since I swapped has negated the benefit. I've also had a 2 grand pay rise, a rise of 10% because I went to the boss and said that if things got worse I'd have to look at working more locally. Even though I only work seven miles away. 

Now, all those attempts to keep the wolves from the door have been negated. I'm still in a worse place than I was at the beginning of the year and back then I was on less money and had a bigger car.

I hate to think what's going on with people that were already at the point of having no spare cash at the beginning of the year.

But we are the forgotten group: the working poor. Those on wages lower than the national average, those that don't qualify for any benefits, that struggle to survive only on what they can earn. No hand-outs for us, no cost of living benefit for us. 

Who will fight for us? Who will recognise our struggles? 

Not the Conservatives; they're in power and haven't helped us at all save the 5p a litre cut in fuel duty that lasted 3 days. Oh, and the £150 quid one-off refund that everyone got through council tax. Big deal.

Not Labour either, content as they are to increase immigration to bolster their vote because the working class won't vote for their Communist woke shitery.

And certainly not the Liberals, so focussed are they on pressing the middle classes.

We really needs party of the poor right now. A party that supports what the poor working class of this country supports. Patriotism without extremism, socialism with a smalls and conservatism with a small c. It supports workers and especially the working poor. It penalises the most excessive corporations that do not give back to the country, it penalises the rich who avoid taxes.

We need it now.

Conservative at Crossroads: Do they Elect a Vote-Winner, or The Same Old Bland Globalists?

 So the Conservatives are at war. Not just the battle between MPs vying for the top position, but MPs are not clashing with Conservative party donors!

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Donors wanted Boris to stay in position as a vote-winner. MPs smelled blood and pulled the trigger and resigned en masse anyway. 

Right now Tory MPs are sticking two fingers up to that people that actually keep the party going. Without them they're in the same wilderness  as the Labour party. Not a good plan moving forward.

I see that Steve Baker has been sidelined and that faction of the party is promoting Suella Braverman as their preferred candidate for PM. Haven't we had enough of Female Conservative PMs? Thatcher was, well, Thatcher. Theresa May was an ineffectual disaster. Even High-ranking Conservative Female MPs haven't exactly covered themselves in glory: Priti Patel talks the talk, but sadly can't walk the walk. Despite tough words on Immigration, we're receiving ever higher immigration numbers and the whole Rwanda thing has descended into farce.

If she had the gumption, there would be armoured convoys delivering failed asylum seekers to military airbases and armed guards ordered to shoot anyone daring to trespass on the base. Or just cut out the middle bit. Just puncture the dinghies as they cross the channel but whilst being escorted by French Navy boats. Then bugger off and let the French pick them up and take them back to France. Or alternatively a Navy Picket with shots across the bows of any French government vessels that escort dinghies across the channel and don't take them back to France. 

Braverman seems to be talking the talk, much like Priti Patel, but I get the feeling that like Patel, she's incapable of delivering any substance. The lights are on, but there appears to be no-one home. She doesn't seem shrewd, or clued up on anything regarding policy.

With Braverman it's just the same old platitudes just to get in power. It like listening to Kier Starmer prattle on without anything to back him up. 

This is the problem with most modern MPs: lack of substance. Kier Starmer could just as well be talking about washing powder, or some domestic appliance. Braverman is the same: I'll clean brighter, wash cleaner, do better than other brands of MP. No detail on exactly how any of the hogwash that comes out of their lips gets delivered. 

Right now, MPs need to be addressing exactly how they would address the cost of living crisis. First by accepting that previous Government Policy of printing money and hoping imported labour and cheap Chinese goods would keep inflation at bay. Then move on to how they intend to solve the problem. Promoting production and manufacturing in the UK for export would be one way. Just pick your industry and give it some tax breaks. 

Green policies need to be scaled back. They are unaffordable for a large proportion of the population. You can't keep blindly following dogma and ignoring the devastation in your wake.

Not everyone can afford an electric car, not everyone has the ability to charge one up, not everyone has a drive they can park it on. I'm sure my local council will applaud my green efforts as my charging lead is let out down and across the road in front of my house. I don't have a drive and the only parking space is on the other side of the Road. 

MPs need to deal with reality and not some pie-in-the-sky promises. They need to confirm they understand the hardship ordinary people are facing at the moment. I've already mentioned capping duty and VAT on fuel. Removing VAT on Gas and Electricity would be another way to ease the pain. Also now that Green energy companies are well established with hundreds of renewable wind and solar farms built, isn't it time we started to taper off any benefits to green energy companies? Surely the economies of scale have kicked in by now after more than a decade and building a wind farm should be no more expensive than building a coal fired power station?

Goodbye Boris.

Ever since Boris had a substantial number of votes against him, the sharks smelled blood and started circling. Well, the noncyness of last weekend spelled out yet another bout of poor judgement by the PM and the sharks attacked.

The bout of resignations started, the first person to do so being the most desperate for the top job. So the chancellor and the health secretary both want the top job it seems 

But are they the men for the job? Can they take the country with them? Can they command respect? 

Of the pair, I think Sajid has more in the public's interest than Rishi. Lifting Covid restrictions in a timely manner. Rishi's 5p a litre reduction in fuel duty and refusal to do more seemed a bit ineffectual.

In the end, I don't think the Conservative party will elect a vote winner to lead them. Because politics.