Hello Chief Constable, gotta new motor?

While the Police Authority has insisted on savings in front line policing - closing down public access to Bradford's police offices, for example, this doesn't extend to looking after the "Command Team". Yesterday I was e-mailed this:

West Yorkshire Police in its efforts to cut spending have just spent £40,000 each on 7 vehicles for its command team. Top cops in West Yorkshire are driving a fleet of flash cars – as the force struggles to save £96m.

More than £286,000 has been spent on top-of-the range models for the six members of the West Yorkshire Police command team and its counter-terrorism chief – at an average of over £40,000 per car. The motors include a luxury Jaguar XF, two BMW X5s, a BMW 535, two Audis and a Lexus 450H. 

Not bad business being a top copper but surely the men don't begrudge the brass their nice new motors?

The news, which comes as the force seeks to slash £96m from its budget and cut up to 2,000 jobs by 2015, has been met with outrage from frontline police.

So that's a 'no' then!



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Bankers Bonus Day - now that should be a holiday!

Let’s face it, we’re envious of those bonus-wielding bankers. That’s it – the whole story. There is no great economic issue, no nascent destruction to be visited upon us as a result.

No, we’re just envious:

So the annual feeding frenzy is starting. While the rest of us face the trauma of how to pay Christmas credit card bills, the City’s high-rollers shove their snouts in the trough and hoover up mind-boggling bonuses of £7billion. Government pleas to stop the gravy train have fallen on deaf ears.

And not only has the media got itself into a state of excitement but politicians have been quick to capture this envy with talk of “social responsibility” and other such tommy rot. Some, such as the boss of the Charity chief executive’s trade union, call for a special extra tax on these bad bankers to be handed over to the ‘third sector’ where of course it will be spent so much more effectively!

So, instead of getting ourselves in a lather about the paying of bonuses to bankers, let’s get a little perspective. Not about whether or not the payments are earned, justified, evil or corrupt but about whether it actually matters. Can we ask ourselves why we have such a problem with people receiving bonus payments in accordance with their contracts of employment? To the extent that we want to punish them for their good fortune by either banning the bonuses or slapping on an extra tax?

Personally, I think big bonuses for bankers are just fine.

In the same way I think what premiership footballers earn is great and the scary money earned by leading luvvies is just brilliant. I’m not even that fussed about people running £1bn plus public organisations being paid “more than the Prime Minister”. Nope, if banks want to remunerate their top employees this way, that’s fine by me – and entirely the banks’ business.

And I don’t think that these arrangement merit any further investigation, any greater transparency or some form of passive-aggressive quid pro quo from the Government – "it’s OK folks we won’t have a go at your bonuses if you let us lecture you about your operational practices". The Government – an organisation with a truly awful record in business management – seeks to direct banking decisions because there’s a big stick to beat the bankers with in the form of endless attacks on the normal remuneration practices of banks. This doesn't instill me with much confidence.

So British banks will pay out £7bn in bonuses to their employees. Bear in mind that half of this - £3.5bn – will go straight back to the Government in the form of taxes. And that doesn’t include the contribution from the bewildering panoply of duties and levies that these wealthy bankers will pay on their leisure and pleasure! And remember that these bankers will spend the money, invest the money, and make rational decisions that will help build our economy.

I’m not envious of bankers (well maybe a little) and think we should celebrate their good fortune rather than trying to argue that not receiving what you’re earned is in any way ‘socially responsible’.  The day bankers get their bonuses is a great day for our economy – a day when money leaves the business balance and starts being consumed, starts driving our great economy.

Perhaps that day should be a bank holiday – I’d party with the bankers for sure!

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How labour will confiscate your savings

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The public finances are in a mess. The level of Government borrowing cannot be sustained. The prospect of serial strikes by public sector unions looms. International agencies, the markets and the central banks eye Britain with doubt.

But Gordon cannot increase taxes much more – he cannot increase taxes on the rich beyond the (pointless and negative) level of 50% or revenues will drop. He can’t muck about with VAT for fear of really screwing the “recovery” – assuming there actually is one. And there’s only so much cash that can come from tinkering with allowances, duties and the like.

What Gordon would really like is to get his hands on our savings. On the billions we have squirreled away for our retirement, to pay for long-term care, to provide for our kids education, to do any number of little things we thought were important. But nothing is more important than Gordon pretending he doesn’t have to cut public spending. Nothing. Not your retirement pension, not the lump sum to pay off your mortgage, not the cash sums you’d like to give to your grandchildren. Nope. Gordon needs that money.

And he’s going to get it. Not by confiscation – that wouldn’t be popular. He can’t introduce a stinging wealth tax without plumbing new depths of unpopularity. But he’s going to get it…

…he’s going to use inflation to make your meagre savings get him out of the mess. Let it rip…last month +1% - the most rapid increase on record. This month +0.6% - the second biggest monthly increase. And next month? Expect similar.

The Government’s strategy is to use inflation to reduce the impact of massive debt and to protect Labour’s key public sector voters. That’s why they printed £180bn in so-called “quantitative easing”.

Inflation is 3.5% now. Expect 4.5% - even 6% - over the next few months. And watch the value of your savings shrink! Transferred neatly into the reduction of the real value of government debt. Let it rip!

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