Thinning Smoke & A Mirror Cracked...

I guess it should be no surprise to me, or anyone of my age and background, that for the most part, governments across the world are frog-marching humanity towards climatic and economic armageddon in double time. Everywhere you look or listen, the voices of honest and sensible dissent are there to lend the lie to the outright dishonesty and blatant duplicitousness of our ruling elites. Take the half-truths of our Autumn Statement this week, for example. In the service of their desperate struggle to cling onto power at all costs, the Tories - as usual characterising the Labour Party as the party of tax, borrow & spend, whilst simultaneously being in thrall to the cabal of 'Union Bosses' that they [the Tories] see as actually being in charge of Labour Party thinking and policy - are tarting around with so-called 'tax cuts' that, in real terms are anything but.

But of course, if you read The Daily Telegraph, The Sun or The Daily Mail, you've been presented today with a glorious future of being overwhelmed by all the extra cash this beneficent Chancellor has doled out. Check out any sensible organ on the state of our economy however, and you see a very different picture indeed. For more informed opinion I read The Guardian, The New Statesman, and to a certain extent the i newspaper; so some might argue - rightly - that I am left of centre [no sniggering at the back there]. But I also read The Financial Times, which most people would regard as an establishment organ. Far from it: the FT is more often than not critical of the prevailing government, whatever its stripe; and today's commentary in said paper reflects the dismay of just about every independent economic commentator not in the pay of the government. To boil it down to one headline figure: 'Overall taxes rising to postwar high of 38% of GDP...'  Smoke and mirrors yet again: the ordinary person in the street and the vast majority of small to medium sized business [95% of UK business] will still be suffering increasingly higher overheads such as business rates and fuel bills, despite Hunt's sleight of hand tinkering. For all the smug smiles and glad-handing, though, this lot are staring an early election defeat full in the face.

I speak as one of the relatively fortunate ones. As a married pensioner [still sounds weird to me: at least the pensioner bit does], they're doing me a big favour with the triple-lock, and I will be better off, personally, in the new financial year: just don't try and argue that I should feel guilty about it; I've paid my dues all my working life for this soupçon of just returns on my investment. But the Tories will still never, ever, get my vote whilst there's breath in my body. And as for their bonkers approach to energy and climate-change policy, don't get me started. We're heading for 3-degree global warming, and all these twonks can think about is twiddling with budgets to garner votes toward their own political and pecuniary survival. Pathetic and downright dangerous. Let's hope for a spring election and a quick, sharp exit for these idiots...