Curly's Corner Shop, the blog!

We need to rejuvenate private enterprise and create additional tax payers

Dealing with the current (and future) budget deficit is a huge problem that will face an incoming Conservative government and some of the options open to them will not be popular, but by far the most important is to start making inroads into reducing the all consuming nature of public spending. The private sector cannot for much longer continue to fund the spending of the public sector.

We must remember that tax revenues are gleaned mostly from those who produce and make a profit from their business and enterprise, these revenues are then spent on government funded projects and the largest slice is allocated to wages in the public sector, be they civil servants, policemen, teachers, doctors and nurses, or High Court judges! The Adam Smith Institute propose that one of the best ways of reducing government borrowing and the budget deficit is to reduce state funded employment:

Making public sector employees redundant would not totally reduce the burden, as they would then become an added burden to the welfare system through social security. Instead, it would be more effective to incentivise them to join the private sector, become entrepreneurial, set up small businesses, and employ people. This could be carried out through a number of measures. For instance, tax holidays for start-up businesses.

You could also increase firms’ willingness to take on new employees by abolishing national insurance. National insurance is a disincentive for businesses to employ people. It would be far more sensible to remove this tax in its entirety, encouraging businesses to employ more people who will in turn pay income tax themselves. This is likely to generate more government revenue than national insurance did to begin with.

Food for thought, and an opportunity for David Cameron and his team (George Osborne and Steve Coulson included) to think about other taxes that could be abolished or reduced which would have the same effect of increasing incentives, we have proved in the past that lower taxes produce more revenue!

Recent talks about abolishing the commitment to reduce Inheritance Tax and CGT shows that Cameron and his team are still able to be blown about by the political winds, this is not what is needed in government, the Conservatives need a plan that is sensible, prudent, and workable economically, not just a plan to get elected.

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Chatham High Street photographer arrested

This is an outrage not dissimilar to this, and it illustrates perfectly how we have meekly allowed our freedoms and rights to be stolen by the Blair/Brown regime in the interests of TWAT (The War Against Terror) . I cannot believe that a policewoman can assert that she felt threatened by a man with a camera because he was 5’11″ and only 12 stone in weight, despite her being assisted by a number of other officers and plain clothed unidentified individuals.

Just when, exactly, are some police officers and council employees going to thoroughly understand that amateur photography is a hobby and that it provides us with a social documentary of the life and times that we live in, something which future generationes will pore over with interest?  What surprises me is that so few people with mobile phones glued to their ears are stopped and searched by police under counter terrorism legislation to ascertain if the phone is capable of detonating an IED (improvised explosive device) – no, no, it’s always the poor guy with an SLR camera who gets stopped and searched.

I hope Alex gets full redress, a full apology, and some form of compensation, I note that he says he’s been stopped a dozen times in his area, I’m lucky to have only been stopped once, and it isn’t a pleasant experience.

Obviously the Met’s advice hasn’t percolated a few miles down the road to Kent yet.

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A selection of my favourite posts today

• Don’t grow old under a Labour Government – John Redwood
• The News of the Screws is screwed – Liberal Conspiracy (no story about the Tories here guys)
• Call yourself a Conservative? – Donal Blaney
• Dignitas – Tim Worstall
• Revolution, French style – Anna Raccoon
• Capitalist Bees@work – City Unslicker

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Pompey agree £12m fee

According to the Portsmouth News a £12m fee has been agreed with Sunderland to take the striker to the Stadium of Light, all will now depend upon talks with the player. He is also wanted by Fulham – Bruce could be in a fight with Abbey Clancy.

Would South Shields based supporters be agreeable to a strike partnership of Crouch and Campbell, and where would it leave Kenwyne Jones?

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Bursting of a bubble

I came across this story in the Daily Telegraph complete with it’s picture from Barcroft Media, and apart from being ridiculously impressed with the beautiful colours and sharpness I was incredibly, ludicrously, insanely jealous and envious.

There are many things in the business of photography which are very much “of the moment”, which is why we carry cameras around with us, but sometimes the moment that we want to capture is so infinitely short that it has gone before we can get our finger on the shutter. It is all about the timing, and sure there is a lot of luck associated with it.

Which is why I’m madly, badly, envious over Richard Heeks’ photograph.

Heeks doesn’t tell us whether his camera was set to single shot recording, or whether he was using multi-shot recording (like a motor drive in the old days), he only tells us that the exposure was 1/500 second. One of five hundred parts of one single second! How can you be so lucky to choose the exact five hundredth when the bubble shatters?

There is no evidence of any Photoshop trickery here, I’ve turned the picture upside down and I can see the reflection of Mrs. Heeks holding out her finger for the bubble to land upon, and I can see Richard in the background with his camera. This is a remarkable picture considering that he was not using some extremely expensive fast burst technologically advanced equipment.

Yes,as a photographer, I’m very green with envy!

By the way, I have a new photoblog up and running, South Shields Daily Pictures which you might like to look at and bookmark.

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Labour’s confused position on “cuts” and defence.

The Prime Minister belts it out at every PMQs like an old 78 rpm record stuck in the groove – Labour will invest the Tories will cut – yet we all know that the current levels of public spending are wholly unsustainable and frankly indefensible given the levels of Brown induced debt that needs to be serviced. Should we believe the Prime Minister or the de facto leader, Lord High Almighty Everything Mandelson?

Mandelson says:

“Of course we will re-balance public finances in the medium term. There will be spending choices and a growing need for greater efficiency across the board, and less spending in some programmes.”

Now that surely means they are going to cut spending or it does not Mr. Brown?

Labour cannot have it both ways.

Similarly on the subject of the Defence budget and the Afghanistan campaign Gordon Brown said:

“I am confident that we are right to be in Afghanistan, that we have the strongest possible plan and we have the resources needed to do the job.”

Do we believe Gordon or should we believe Lt. Mark Evison of the Welsh Guards who died from his wounds in May:

“This is harder than it seems. Paperwork trails which tend to disappear are commonplace. As it stands I have a lack of radios, water, food and medical equipment. This with manpower is what these missions lack. It is disgraceful to send a platoon into a very dangerous area with two weeks’ water and food and one team medics pack. Injuries will be sustained which I will not be able to treat and deaths could occur which could have been stopped. We are walking on a tightrope and from what it seems here are likely to fall unless drastic measures are undertaken.”

The words of the Prime Minister really won’t do, and as we watch more hearses carrying the bodies of our fallen heroes through Wootton Bassett almost on a weekly basis, it is becoming more and more obvious that his ears are incapable of keeping up with output of his mouth. He is so used to using the words of his spin merchants that he probably recites them in his sleep.

So who would you believe? Gordon Brown or the reality of life as we see, hear, and feel it?

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On the Blairs and the Iraq business

“I couldn’t bear that grinning, money-hungry, beaming, Cliff Richard-loving, Berlusconi-adoring, guitar-playing twat. I suppose I would say that, at the risk of being inoffensive. No, it’s that beaming Christianity and that frightful wife with a mouth on a zip-fastener right round to the back of her head. And both of them obsessed with being wealthy. And he got us into this disastrous war with Iraq because he had consulted with God. Like Bush.”

Dr. Jonathan Miller – 75 year old author, theatre and opera director, television presenter, humorist, and sculptor.

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Foreign Secretary’s internet addiction stifled after China visit

David Miliband the South Shields MP and Foreign Secretary, who was recently spoofed by fans on Twitter, is to review his internet surfing and posting habits on his official Foreign Office blog after a recent visit to China.

Whilst there he reviewed the communist methods for curing the internet addiction which has led to millions of freedom seeking youngsters attempting to breach the Great Firewall of China using overt and subversive methods involving IPV tunnelling and a variety of proxy servers to defeat the censorship of the internet applied by the Chinese government and multi national companies such as Google and Yahoo.

Miliband discovered on his visit to Beijing that the Chinese are heavily involved in blogging and sharing photographs on the internet, as well as spending inordinate amounts of time in chat rooms and online gaming sites, which  with his Foreign Office blog, Flickr feed, YouTube, Twitter and Second Life makes “Brains” just like the average Mandarin geek. So he was more than happy to partake in a short lived Chinese experiment to cure his ills, unfortunately it didn’t work and after extensive consultation and negotiations with his hosts agreed to return at a later date for further treatment.

Following his visit to China, Mr. Miliband travelled to the sub-continent where he proceeded to upset our old allies the Indians then the Sri Lankans with a diplomatic style that has been seen as bristling, shocking, and highly charged with static energy. Lobby correspondents have said that after the Foreign Secretary’s recent travels his blog posts and other internet activity have slowed, but not ceased, as he launched himself into a new bid to control the Labour Party and reinvent itself as a mass movement emulating the successes of Barack Obama, Chairman Mao, Joseph Stalin, Kim jong-Il, Pol Pot others who have failed to provide freedom and liberty succeeded in the past.

Meanwhile Chinese authorities have temporarily banned the use of their new internet addiction therapies;

Today’s ban follows reports that Dr Yang Yongxin from Linyi City’s psychiatric hospital in Shandong province was using electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

According to the Beijing News, Yang said he had created the unique “xingnao” (“brain-waking”) therapy which involved sending a small current through the brain. He added that the stimulation might cause pain but was very safe and would not harm children in any way.

Yeah right – obviously the voltage wasn’t high enough to produce a more permanent result to keep the freedom lovers away from their keyboards, but just enough to keep the bureaucrats amused.

An earlier report by the Information Times claimed patients received electroconvulsive therapy if they broke any of the centre’s rules, which included eating chocolate, locking the bathroom door, taking pills before a meal and sitting on Yang’s chair without permission. It said parents had to sign a contract acknowledging their child would be given ECT before admission.

Starting to sound familiar this is, eat what we say, take five a day, don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t photograph our armed or uniformed personnel, don’t fly the flag of St. George, don’t sing Christmas carols, don’t go to your school childrens’ sports day, and God forbid don’t wear a crucifix at work.

I’m starting to wonder whether the Foreign Office is exporting our ideals and cultures or whether it’s importing more and more regulation from it’s favourite states!

Never mind, if they do manage to perfect the technique perhaps Gus O’Donnell might suggest to the stuttering monocular  unelected Scottish Prime Minister that he takes his over “geeky” Foreign Secretary and the rest of his Cabinet  for a  course of treatment before they return to Parliament after the summer (all on expenses of course).

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…..and Brian

He has to go Boris, no man can be allowed to get away with this, surely?

Even as someone who strongly supports Conservative values I cannot bear to read much more about Mr. Coleman, one would expect a Conservative like Boris the Mayor to show more leadership and courage and be rid of Colemanballs.

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