The tax authorities must crack down on late payers, a powerful committee of MPs will say today in criticising HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for the enormous sums owed by businesses and individuals.Tuesday, June 09, 2009
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
Getting worried are we?
Edward Leigh, the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said: "The department must try every means it can to tackle what is likely to become a growing problem of tax debt … ".
Getting worried about the expenses are we? Perhaps it might help if MPs paida little more tax.
COMMENT THREADFool's paradise
With Watts up with that exulting in the news of recent snowfalls in North Dakota (the first June falls in sixty years), a Daily Telegraphleader yesterday took the Met Office to task for issuing a weather forecast for 2080. How preposterous it is, the leader stormed, to issue a weather forecast for 71 years hence when the Met Office cannot guarantee getting it right 71 hours from now.
This was precisely the issue which Booker raised last week, noting also the downturn in temperatures which undoubtedly are giving rise to the North Dakota snows.
Yet it is not only this locale which is experiencing unusually cold weather. The delightfully named Carole Cloudwalker informs us of "2-4 inches of snow fall in Cody", in (almost) next door Wyoming. Further north, across the border in Alberta and Saskatchewan this weekend there were reports of six inches of snow on the ground while it was still snowing heavily, with an expectation of eight to ten inches.
In South Africa, unusual snow was also reported, with over an inch of snow in the Eastern Free State (pictured – note the caption), making driving conditions hazardous, with temperatures forecast to plummet.
Australia is experiencing good snow conditions for the opening of its ski season. It is also reported that skiing is well underway with resorts in New Zealand starting early. There is snow in Norway and a fresh fall in Austria - and some in India too. Even in Saudi Arabia there was snow, although this has now melted.
And, on the opposite side of the planet from Australia, last week we saw two inches of snow in the Cairngorms after temperatures on the mountain plunged to 0°C. Hail and snow was expected with winds of up to 30mph and temperatures at 3000ft were not expected to rise above 3°C.
All of this is jolly good fun with which to bait the warmists, but there is also a deadly serious side. Just one report from the Mississippi basin tells us that weather related problems have curtailed spring time planting for corn. Growers have reduced yield per acre prospects for the 2009 crop and projected end stocks to use for 2009/10 corn working toward a record low level dating back to 1999.
We see the same effect further north, where cool weather has pushed growth of Western Canada's wheat and barley crop at least 10 days behind schedule. Late-spring frost has hit and continues to strike the Prairie canola (rapeseed). One pocket of western Manitoba dipped to -4°C and some farmers are considering reseeding.
Similar weather effects are being reported in Brazil, which is considering cutting this year's corn output forecast for a third consecutive time as a frost in central southern states damaged crops. A drop of as much as nine million tons against last year is being expected.
What is extremely disturbing is that we are seeing the beginnings of a trend and, in fact, we were reporting similar woes this time last year. At the time,the message was don't panic … yet.
Despite this the global warming industry ploughs on regardless, continuing its ludicrous propaganda, heedless of the political implications of a prolonged cooling cycle.
And if a global shortage of food is a distinct possibility, the really disturbing thing is that the political classes – including our own – are so fixated with their global warming myth that there is no recognition of or planning for the travails that may well come.
That, above all, may well be the greatest political betrayal of them all, when the world starves because our fatuous politicians cannot even being to deal with reality and remain firmly embedded in their own fool's paradise.
COMMENT THREADMonday, June 08, 2009
Playtime is over
Having confronted the real enemy – the electorate – it was inevitable to the point of certainty that the putativeputsch was going to evaporate. Thus does The Daily Telegraph and the others report, that the backbench coup against Brown "appeared to have faltered …".
It fact, the "plotters" – such that they were - had always misjudged their man. Brown was never going to resign voluntarily. Short of that, there was no way a Labour prime minister could be forced to quit without a long-drawn-out and highly damaging contest, stretching late into the year.
This much was always known to the political lobby and, if there is any doubt, the procedures, these are clearly set out, not least here.
In short, where there is no vacancy – i.e., with Brown refusing to step down, which was always going to be the case – nominations have to be sought from all sections of the party, and all those sections must be given a vote. Further, the voting has to take place "so that the results are declared at an annual session of party conference."
Under these rules, the earliest Brown could have been forced to step down – assuming he lost any leadership battle – would have been in October. A four-month battle, undoubtedly bitterly fought, would have spelt suicide for the Labour Party. It was never going to happen, making the events of the past few days exactly as described - nursery games.
The much-hyped back-bench meeting of this evening, therefore, was never going to come to anything, leaving the BBC hacks and hackettes (one pictured) to explain to their adoring public that the "crisis" was over, makingJim Greenhalf's piece all the more prescient. Brown has asserted himself and the rebellion is no more.
There is going to be no leadership change. There is going to be no early election. There was never any prospect of either. Playtime is over.
COMMENT THREAD
Tuesday 9 June 2009
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