Britannia Radio

Simon Heffer is not to everyone's taste since he rarely minces his 
words - to put it mildly. But his underlying themes are usually 
sound.  We must all learn to judge from what is written rather than 
be prejudiced by the writer's name (AND YES - I would apply that even 
to Polly Toynbee!)

Here he starts to put his finger on a great scandal  which is 
building up.  The bank accounts of most people have been protected 
but not their savings.  With the bank rate falling below the level of 
inflation so both the income of prudent savers and pensioners has 
dropped sharply while the capital value has dropped dramatically.  
Many who have saved prudently for their old age find themselves not 
only in real danger of poverty, but unable to sell their homes and 
now being targeted by Gordon Brown as the people who must pay in 
increased taxes for the improvident who have over-borrowed.

Just ask yourself a simple question.  How are the astronomical sales 
figures in the Sales now on being achieved.  WHAT money is paying for 
them.  It is the improvident who got themselves  - and the rest of us 
- into trouble by buying what they couldn't afford on credit, who are 
doing exactly the same again.

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TELEGRAPH    27.12.08
Gordon Brown will hit the middle classes but what would David Cameron 
do?
(If this doesn't rile the Tories, What will?)
There is no secret about the theme of the year about to start: the so-
called rich are going to pay.

By Simon Heffer

The Brown Terror, having wrecked the economy, now proposes to wreck 
it further by penalising those who already make the biggest 
contribution, and ensuring they contribute even more. That is what 
socialism is all about, and why socialist countries are inevitably 
economic failures. If you tax successful people until their pips are 
squeaking, they tend to clear off to be successful elsewhere, and 
stop paying our taxes altogether.

We learned this - or I thought we had - back in the 1960s and 1970s, 
when we became a third world economy and the International Monetary 
Fund had to rescue us. Perhaps that is the best thing that could 
happen now. Not just the IMF but also the Germans, lenders of last 
resort for the European Central Bank, have pointed out the suicidal 
tendency of the Brown economic miracle. In the nature of most 
suicidalists, Mr Brown won't listen.

He is perched on his window ledge and no-one can talk him down.What 
is so worrying is that the definition of "rich" has been extended to 
include almost all the middle classes. It was bad enough when, after 
last month's mini-Budget, it turned out that the Government thought 
everyone on over £150,000 a year was absolutely loaded, and would tax 
them more savagely accordingly - and it remains to the Tory party's 
shame that it has not so much as raised a finger in protest at this, 
betraying once more its core vote. But now we are told that anyone 
living in a "nice" area will end up paying more council tax .

This is not because people in "nice" areas enjoy better public 
services, which are what council tax is supposed to fund. Far from it.
I am fortunate enough to live in a "nice" area which, because it is 
rural, has almost no public services at all, except for the 
occasional visit by dustmen. My council tax, like that of my 
neighbours', is already eye-watering. Now, because we have the 
temerity to live somewhere not haunted by crack cocaine dealers, 
petty criminals, hookers and urban blight, we middle classes are 
going to be made to pay for the privilege.

I am not an environmentalist, but it always struck me that if you are 
going to get aerated about the idea of global warming, and punish 
those you imagined caused it, then the principle of "the polluter 
pays" was rather a fair one. It manifestly won't apply in the case of 
the "nice" tax. There, the polluter gets away with it. Those who make 
areas not nice - the drug dealers, criminals and so on - continue to 
get their free ride. By contrast, those who take trouble to build 
safe, clean, thriving communities that reinforce the values of a 
decent society are to suffer a financial penalty for doing so. What 
on earth is the logic of that?

The Conservative party has just about stirred itself on this issue, 
talking in dreary and uninspiring terms of the "tax bombshell" about 
to explode over its constituency. For the year to come, this sort of 
cliched posturing is simply not enough. The electorate is fed up with 
this dishonest and incompetent Government and its useless Prime 
Minister, and given half a chance will want to vote them out. 
However, that chance depends on the Tories' willingness to talk 
incessantly about the penal and unfair taxation that Labour plans to 
inflict not just on those on big six-figure salaries, but on those 
who live ordinary, decent lives on much smaller incomes. The 
Conservatives must draw attention to the taxes on enterprise, 
responsibility and self-reliance that Labour seems determined to 
levy, to fund its own leech-like client state.

Otherwise, no one will see any difference between having a Tory 
government and keeping in power the present bunch of charlatans: and 
they won't vote for one. I couldn't care less how bad that will be 
for Dave's career. I care very much, though, about how destructive it 
will be for Britain.

You're better off spending than saving
Perhaps you are all engaging today in the national sport of hunt-the-
discount, charging round charmless shopping centres buying things you 
don't need simply because they happen to be 75 per cent off. But then 
again, why not? If you save your money instead of spending it, you 
will get literally no return on your investment, once the 
ridiculously low interest rate, inflation and the penal rate of tax 
on any interest are taken into account. Nor, if you have savings, 
will you be allowed a share in the enormous benefits pot earmarked 
for the feckless of the client state.

So you might as well blow it because, one way or the other, the 
Government will snaffle it to pay for its economic disaster. Once it 
is all spent, and there is nothing left, and the shops go bankrupt 
because there's no wealth being created, no demand and no point in re-
stocking, and our high streets (and out-of-town malls) become ghost 
towns, then what? Some may think I'm being pessimistic about how bad 
2009 will be. Sadly I'm not, and that's why.