Israel’s Folly

Peter Oborne in “The Independent” – right on the nail as usual

Absolutely right. Israel is special for all of us, but it has completely abused our support. Whichever way you look at it, they have been occupying land gained by conquest for decades now. NO, they didn’t START the war that allowed them to occupy the West Bank, but on that basis Britain should now be ruling Germany and Japan be a state of the USA.

They have DONE ALMOST NOTHING to bring peace; no concessions or compromise on settlements, the exiles, Jerusalem. The Palestinians are the most educated, moderate and democratic people in the Middle East  and pose no danger to Israel, and yet Israel continues to steal their land andbuild settlements on it and maintain road blocks, apparently content to keep the people in poverty.

Nutandyahboo even CANCELLED the freeze on settlement-building IN THE MIDDLE OF PEACE TALKS. It is almost as if they are determined to provoke the next generation of Palestinian youth to rebel and join Hamas. The mainline Palestine faction has eschewed violence, but what have they been offered in return? Almost NOTHING.

The extent of the domination of Israel’s political agenda by right-wing religious nutters is astonishing. What do they EXPECT from the future? That they can go on for EVER like this? They simply give ammunition to Hamas but even worse to Hezbollah and Iran.

Obama is a disaster. When Nutandyahboo announced the end of the freeze on settlements, he merely said he was “disappointed”. The man is totally out of his depth, which is not surprising in one with so little experience and whose only competence is to make a good speech full of superficial froth but no substance – which the Americans in their desperation for a fresh start fell for hook, line and sinker. And not only the Americans of course – the surreally-stupid award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama showing the extent of the self-delusion.

What he SHOULD have done was get on the phone secretly (Wikileaks permitting of course) and told Nutandyahboo that if he didn’t compromise and therefore make real concessions then the USA would not only cancel all aid to Israel but start financing Palestine. An ultimatum to withdraw from the West Bank or face military action would not have gone amiss either.

As it is, the Israeli right-wing (Is it time to start calling them fascists? We would do if it were ANY OTHER PEOPLE) are leading the west by the nose into disaster. After 9/11 sorting out the Palestine Problem was supposed to be a top-priority.

It could and should have been so different. Israel and Palestine clearly need each other for trade, peace, as an example to the rest of the Middle East and the world.  At the moment, however, it is all a shameful disaster.

What can WE do? Well, nothing else has worked, so perhaps it is time for sanctions. We did it to get rid of apartheid; what is so different about Israel?

 

Lifetime Award ….

Question: What have David Beckham and Julie Andrews got in common?

Answer: They have both just won “Lifetime Awards”.

Well, we’re used to dumbing down in all areas; the pinnacle of which was possibly the award of Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama. To this day it escapes me what his contribution to World Peace had been before his election, and I can’t see how much this has changed AFTER the election either. His performance on Palestine has been breathtakingly-soggy. When the Israelis announced an end to the building freeze in the settlements while IN THE MIDDLE OF “Peace Talks” he merely said he was “disappointed.” I wonder what he’d have said to Hitler’s invasion of Poland? That it was ” a pity”? No, last year’s NPP award was as surreally-idiotic as THIS year’s  was sublime and deserved, going to a man who has put his own life and well-being on the line again and again in the interests of freedom and peace despite facing an overwhelming enemy.

David Beckham? Well, our David is a generally nice bloke and not bad at football, which has made him very rich indeed. He hasn’t a bad word to say about anyone, has an engaging smile and is fairly jolly to have around ambassadoring in one way or another. But “lifetime achievement”? Without wishing to be negative, I am puzzled. Where  IS this “achievement”? He has played for England of course – not very successfully one must say. Then he “helped motivate” the English team at the LAST World Cup by being “a presence in the changing-room”, and we saw what happened there. He was prominent during the sickening sucking up to the nauseating FIFA regime in Zurich – not much achieved there either (but not of course his fault) …. he went off to play in America for £50,000 a week. He is a big “Celeb” with a posh wife, a modern “superstar” indeed. Well done, David, but “achievement”? What does it take to get a “lifetime achievement”, just be very rich, open and “nice”?

AND HE IS ONLY 35 years OLD. Isn’t this a bit silly for a “lifetime” achievement? Supposing he single-handedly saves the world in the next 40 years, won’t they be a bit stuck as to which award to give him? He’s already got a “lifetime achievement”, after all.

This is not to criticize Beckham – he didn’t ask for the award, and accepted it with grace as usual. No, the fault – if there is one – is with the idiots at the BBC or whoever it was that awarded him this “achievement” award. Does it matter? Well, on the one hand, NO, of COURSE not; far more silly things happen all the time, including Gordon Brown saying : “I do know how to run an economy.” but there are those of us who do not LIKE this continual dumbing-down of values and awards or for that matter the misuse of English, analogous to “lifetime imprisonment” which usually means “8 years out in 4 for good behaviour“. A “lifetime achievement” should really MEAN something, shouldn’t it? Here are some previous BBC “lifetime achievers”:

Seve Ballesteros (2009); Sir Bobby Charlton (2008); Sir Bobby Robson (2007); Bjorn Borg (2006); Pele (2005); Sir Ian Botham (2004); Martina Navratilova (2003); George Best (2002); and Sir Alex Ferguson (2001).

There is no way our David measures up to any of that lot, but he is probably a bigger celeb of course …. it only remains for him to appear on “Strictly-come-Dancing” to eclipse them all.

And our Julie? Well at 75, she is a real super-trouper - no comparison with David. Besides, 75 IS A LIFETIME, isn’t it?

 

BOOKS

Government U-turn over book cuts

“Sir Andrew described scrapping the grant as an “act of gross cultural vandalism” while Mr Pullman – the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy – accused the Government of “wanton destruction”.

“Sheer stupid vandalism, like smashing Champagne bottles as a drunken undergraduate,” Mr Pullman told The Observer. “If you miss the first years of a child’s development, nothing can clear it up. It’s gone. It won’t happen. A whole generation will lose out.”

Blog Comment: If people can’t afford to buy books for their children, that means that they’re in really serious financial trouble and shouldn’t have children. Second hand books are widely available from 5p from charity shops, church stalls etc, but they’re available free in public libraries. In this country it’s never ever the case that they don’t have the money, they just prefer to spend what they have on Sky rather than books. That’s their choice, but they have the right to make that choice, and taxpayers don’t have a role in taking over their parenting duties.

RIPOSTE

VERY GOOD – This is the sort of commonsense that so many people seem incapable of understanding. If there is a problem with kids’ reading today IT IS THE PARENTS’ FAULT. It is EASY to get hold of books; libraries, second hand books from charity shops are practically given away. And so on. The problem is not the availability of books but the fact that certain parents aren’t INTERESTED in books and DO NOT READ TO THEIR KIDS AT NIGHT, EVERY NIGHT. They DO NOT INSTILL IN THEM A LOVE OF READING.

Can’t afford it? ABSOLUTE RUBBISH. They can afford fags, booze, colour tellies, DVDs and all the rest, can’t they? And of course processed foods, pizzas, burgers, oven chips and all the rest which make their kids fat and are MORE EXPENSIVE than fresh fruit and veg.

Yet we get writers whingeing on as if the Tory government was evil. IT IS ALL UTTER RUBBISH. Some of the comments int “The Telegraph” article are truly moronic. But in general people are of course pathetic. EVERYBODY knows (or should do) that we HAVE to CUT BACK. The Labour Party whinge on about evil cuts yet THEY had proposed the SAME POLICY before the election, recognizing the catastrophe that Brown’s insanity has brought. Yet EVERY SINGLE GROUP that looks like losing out from the state trough WHINGES and MOANS. NOBODY says: “OK, not what I’d prefer, but the country is in crisis and everyone has to take some pain.”

This book thing is a prime example. As if maintenance of the current expenditure (= free state handout) is going to produce a country of avidly-reading kids but the nasty Tories are going to produce illiterates. SURREAL. We ALREADY have the illiterates and it is NOT BECAUSE THEY COULDN’T GET HOLD OF BOOKS.

Yes, I know the nasty, idle rich and bankers have to take a bigger hit, but that is ANOTHER question. It doesn’t change the FACTS re books.

Blair prattled on about “education, education, education”, but he failed to educate either the kids or more importantly their parents. Until the blame is put fair and square where it belongs then people will continue to blame the Tories, society or whatever, ANYTHING but themselves.

For CHRIST’S SAKE. My parents fought in the war. After we had NOTHING – hardly ever saw a BANANA, no pizzas, burgers, tellies, videos, computers …. CHRIST, were we deprived!!!!!!. YET WE MANAGED TO GET OUR HANDS ON BOOKS AND WE LEARNED TO READ AND SPELL.

 

Tories Funk Repeal of Fox-hunting Ban

Tories renege on fox-hunting ban repeal …..

So, yet another promise ditched. I’m not personally in favour of fox-hunting, but it does seem surreal to allow the very “un-British” obscenity of HALAL meat (including that sold to non-Muslims WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE) but to ban the centuries-old British tradition of fox-hunting.

No doubt the most vociferous anti-hunt townies are only too eager to tuck into their burgers and chicken legs. So much for “caring for animals” then …. OK as long as we kill them humanely? (GOTO sentence 2, clause 2).

Supposing humans were only species n°2 on the planet, and the n° 1 species fed on US? Would that be OK as long as they killed us humanely? More PC of course to slit our throats first and let the blood drip out …

I’m beginning to wonder if these lunatics walking about with sandwich-boards proclaiming “The end of the world is nigh” are on to something after all ….

 

Multifaith Preachers in the HOC …..

Multi-faith chaplains to make House of Commons more inclusive

They are completely mad. Who is PAYING for this? The taxpayer? Oh, it is said “They won’t receive a salary.” Are they doing it out of charity then? Will they get expenses? These of course can be a nice little earner; MEPs having just got NINETY-ONE THOUSAND POUNDS WORTH without any need for receipts.

Why have we gone insane? Is it a sign of the beginning of the end of the world? Where is it safe to get away from this?

I thought the Coalition was supposed to be bringing sanity to British life after the last 13 years? Is this a JOKE? I thought that was April 1st?

Of course, the shambles the country is in there is dire need of every bit of help we can get, and if prayer is the answer …. But can’t one just pray on one’s own? It works for me … I prayed for the departure of Brown and it eventually worked …. mind you, I pray for the liberation of Cuba, but that’s a tougher nut, even apparently for God. I mean, Brown we could eventually vote out, but they don’t vote in Cuba – you’re stuck with the Castros . Funny how these dictatorships go with the family ….

But surely, if the HOC can have a multitude of mediums why not the whole country? Are we going to have legislation to put a couple of hundred imams, bishops, shamans, rabbis and so on in EVERY company in the country? And of course, there are the local COUNCILS  – can’t leave THEM out …

And if the Moonies and Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t on the list I shall be applying to the European Court of Human Rights for a start. The HOC is the LAST place where we should permit discrimination. Perhaps all the unemployed can become priests with all this demand?

 

God “surprises” us

Dawkins is right. The Pope’s message is – perhaps sadly – nonsense, bereft of any grounding in rational thought.

He said that: “God always keeps his promises, but he may do so in a way that surprises us.”

Well, he certainly promised us World War II, because there have been wars since time immemorial, presumably with his agreement, since he is all-powerful.

However, what surprised us was that 6 million Jews would be murdered by the evilly unhinged. Certainly, that was a novelty. Well done, God.

Or does “Original Sin” mean it was our fault? None of us are innocent, even children? It is all NONSENSE.

Mind you, they are all at it. The Archie of Canterbury has just said:

Archbishop of Canterbury: Royal wedding is symbol of hope in harsh times

What does he MEAN? These are two young people getting married. In what way is that a “symbol of hope”. I’d have cited the fact that African leaders have told Gbagbo that if  he doesn’t step down they will attack him with a joint African and UN force to restore democracy. THAT IS WHAT I CALL HOPE.

Some more “hopes”:

• that North Korea collapses under the weight of its own insanity before it kills millions of people with nuclear weapons
• that the people of China will enjoy political freedom
• ditto Belorus and various other “stans” of Central Aisa, and Zimbwabwe, Cuba and other dictatorships come to that
• that the majority of sane Muslims will at last realise that their lunatic brethren are their enemies as much as ours and start doing something about it – can’t AQ and the Taleban be “excommunicated” or something?
• that greed will be controlled and the insane rich-poor gap in the US and elsewhere will be dealt with before these societies collapse in revolution and disaster, as has ALWAYS happened with societies that get so far out of kilter
• that malaria will finally be cured, as has – just about – smallpox
• that the UK will get out of the corrupt EU and stop wasting FORTY-FIVE MILLION GBP per day to pay for the gravy-train.
• etc etc

These are REAL HOPES. Please, Archie, don’t bore us with the royal marriage as “a symbol of hope”. Good luck to them, but “symbol of hope” as a headline is just silly.

 

The Banks – the modern “Untouchables”

Wasn’t it Brown’s idea to bail out the banks? That is how he “saved the world”, isn’t it? Of course, he was a moron, but the EU are now at it too, and illegally according to the Lisbon Treaty, which we couldn’t vote on and is going to be changed without our consent.

The banks should all have been allowed to FAIL; they CLEARLY were GAMBLING with their clients’ money (particularly in Spain, with the insane and unsecured investment in construction (which the EU – in other words, US – will soon have to bail out even without being asked about it). The principles of “just-in-time” and “just-enough-to manage-on-a-daily-basis” are one thing in industry, but not in banking. The govt should have let them go bust, all their shareholders losing THE LOT (next time be more less greedy and more bloody careful) but guaranteed the depositors’ payments, taken the banks over and nurtured them slowly back to viability so that they could again make a profit and do a proper job FOR THE PEOPLE.

Banks are in general a licence to print money – unless of course they get GREEDY, which they did, THEN they should go bankrupt as described above.

To crudely sum up ths astounding sequence of events:

• the banks essentially went bankrupt but were saved with public money
• this pseudo-bankruptcy was caused by their collective greed and stupidity aided by a good dose of government irresponsibility from Gordon Brown and his total lack of regulation of the financial services, so keen was he to fuel a lending boom to give the illusion that the economy was “booming” (he having forgotten about the “busting” bit that usually follows, probably because he had announced (therefore it must happen) that he had ABOLISHED “boom and bust”.)
• the taxpayer took them over, preserved most of the directors’ jobs and allowed them to revcover
• as soon as the money started to come in again (EVEN IN A MAJOR RECESSION – see “licence to print money” above) the same directors and other staff started paying themselves vast bonuses once again, UTTERLY REMOVED from what REAL WORKERS earn doing the REAL JOBS society needs.
• NO GOVERNMENT HAS THE GUTS TO END THIS COMPLETE INJUSTICE. Brown saved the banks and most of the directors’ jobs and the Coalition is allowing them to get their bonuses. SO WHAT if they sod off to some tax-haven? LET THEM. We can then nationalize the banks and get people in with some sort of commitment to SOCIETY. I’d like to see all the banks survive if they all bugger off to Leichtenstein or the Bahamas.

A reality check is SORELY needed here. Is money even TOO IMPORTANT (its misuse being able to bring down entire economies) to be left to private individuals driven by personal greed?

However, let’s not beat about the bush; in Britain at least the GOVERNMENT IS SOVEREIGN. ERGO, the banks’ massive failure was in large part THE GOVERNMENT’S FAULT.

Footnote: Gordon Brown recently earned £56,000 in India for 50 minutes lecturing the Delhi Chamber of Commerce on how to avoid another financial crisis. Yes, you guessed it; the world is mad.

 

Why did you despise Noo Labour? (most of whom are in Noo Old Noo Labour of course)

Blogger: Why did you despise New Labour so much?

Riposte:
Well, you did ask .

• Too many of them blathered, pontificated, obfuscated, span, prevariacated, over-pledged and lied. Others stole our money then tried to evade the law.
• They were superficial; eternally indulging in petty points-scoring; often about class (the PLP is obsessed with class); trying to find a soundbite that made a good headline. In essence, they treated the public like idiots.
• They didn’t give a toss about our REAL concerns if these didn’t fit into THEIR agenda. (immigration, the EU, law and order etc etc.)
• They made election promises they could not possibly keep in real life.  Do they think we WANT impossible promises and “pledges”?
• They didn’t tell the public the real truth about the economy, immigration, the future. (see A)
• Few seemed to have a sense of vocation; getting into power was often the only apparent aim.
• Too many were totally incompetent and given posts they had no qualifications for whatsoever. (See Brown, who studied history at university – not that that helped him much, as he clearly hadn’t read about the South Sea Bubble or Dutch Tulips) – watching the last government was like being a spectator at a game of musical chairs, as hapless party cronies rotated uselessly through various Ministries, failing in each one and then being dumped onto some other poor load of mutts. Kinnock failed dismally in Britain so was cronied off to Brussels to make millions.
• They wasted VAST amounts of our money: (£700 on Prescott’s door sign, £4 billion on Nimrods THAT ARE BEING SCRAPPED WITHOUT EVER HAVING BEEN USED and so on, including a 30% payrise to doctors for doing less work and bonuses for highly-aid Whitehall mandarins ……)
• They didn’t speak English: Brown banged on year after year on about “the borrowing requirement”. WHAT “REQUIREMENT”? HOW MANY OF US ASKED THEM TO BORROW BILLIONS (or is it now TRILLIONS? I get lost) TO INDEBT AND BANKRUPT THE COUNTRY FOR YEARS TO COME? Any of you? I certainly didn’t. Had any politician asked me if I wanted to spend £700 on a new door sign for John Prescott’s office a few weeks before he was moved I’d have said “NO”). I suppose whoever replaced Prescott ALSO had to have a new sign costing the same, but I have no info on that. Did they ask anyone if we want to give money as “aid” to China? To China? “Come on, you can’t be serious!” Unfortunately, they are. “REQUIREMENT”? Are they INSANE? Nobody is REQUIRED to live beyond their means.
• They were gutless – see above. Saying “No, we can’t afford that.” takes some guts, since you have to disappoint people who want goodies. Sorry Brothers, you can disappoint me more often as long as we don’t end up in hock to the EU or to international bankers or the IMF.
• They bankrupted the country, connived in secret mass immigration they had no mandate for, did nothing to improve the housing stock (except congratulate themselves when house prices rose since everyone felt better off – except the homeless and people renting  … and rising house prices of course allowed people to borrow and thus spend more and create the illusion that the economy was “booming”) and in general presided over a severe decline in many of the most critical areas of British life.
• They refuse to this day to acknowledge any fault in all this; humility was never their strong point. It never is of “those who know best.”

I could go on, but you get the point; or perhaps not – perhaps you believe in “borrowing requirements”, “quantitative easing”, (it’s like something out of 1984 – why not call it what it is? “more humungous borrowing to solve the crisis caused by humungous borrowing” - it has its funny side at least), gutlessness, incompetence, lying and so on; after all, 30% or more vote Labour so I suppose they must believe in all that.

Unfortunately, most politicians in most parties share some of the attributes so repeatedly paraded in front of us by the Blair, Brown and Mandelscum  trinity. Even so, no party in living memory has so gruesomely combined all the above into one disastrous package; accompanied of course by the pathetic, childish and sulking Brown-Blair feud that went on for a decade.

I hope that answers your question.

 

Murdoch – the one we love to hate

Blogs and Comments pages on national press websites give us a fascinating insight into how people are thinking. They also stimulate thought and debate in a new way. I find them great fun.

Here is something from today’s “The Independent”. Once again, I find myself forced to reply in a very non-PC way. Why am I almost always “non-PC”? Should I be worried?

Comment: “How naïve must you be to be ignorant of the one and only iron rule of British life, which states that in any war, nuclear or otherwise, Rupert Murdoch will always win?”

Riposte: Isn’t this utter rubbish? What IS he on about? Perhaps anyone reading this would like to suggest some more convincing “iron rules”? Here’s a starter:

• At some point in any article on politics almost all current journalists will write something surreally-stupid. As they clearly think we won’t notice one can only assume that they think WE are stupid.
• At some point in any discussion of Britain Mrs Thatcher will be blamed for everything.
• The motley “left” will eternally whinge on about “rights” but the word “responsibilities” has rather too many syllables for them to manage in one go. Anything over two usually has them in trouble; that’s why they are having such difficulty with “bankruptcy”.
• the same dark force of the universe will endlessly bang on about “The Tories” as if they’d forgotten that millions of “working-class” voters support them.
• Labour Chancellors bankrupt the country even as they pledge to “end poverty”.
• Labour’s tsunami of cleverdick soundbites of promises and “pledges” are worth less than the paper they are written on; the most famous being “Education, education, education” (As they think we’re thick Blair felt the need to repeat it for us to give it time to sink in) and my all-time famously-fatuous favourite: “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.”

There’s a start – feel free to add ..

Murdoch? Bit like Pavlov’s dog. Naturally we all hate and despise the superrich (that should be another “iron rule”  in fact), grinding our noses into the dust, and this despite the fact that a lot of them create wealth, jobs and pay a lot in taxes to support our benefits beanfeast. Of course, they could pay more, but we have governments in Britain who are supposed to govern. If the rich don’t pay enough (according to the frenziedly-foaming and rabid left) after 13 years of Brown then whose fault is that?

What exactly is Murdoch supposed to have done, by the way? I realize it is very non-PC to defend this capitalist nose-grinder, but the Pavlovian response of the leftist intelligentsia (by definition a very small if noisy group of course) is puzzling. I remember that one day there was no SKY and you were stuck with the patronising rubbish of the BBC and the next day there was SKY, with – if you wanted to pay for it; nobody forced you – loads of choice, stuff you couldn’t see ANYWHERE ELSE, smart technology and so on. (This was a bit like BT before privatisation – you can have any colour phone as long as it’s black and you wait three months for a line of course). Why does he get so much flak for having the guts and nous to invest so much to create such a good service? What is it about the frenziedly-foaming that SO upsets them about Murdoch?

Yes, “The Sun” isn’t Britain’s greatest cultural achievement, but then nor is “Big Brother” or for that matter “Strictly Come Dancing”. Unfortunately, however, loads of people buy “The SUN” and loads of people watch SKY. How the left just HATE success, and of course the fact that the plebs have less good taste than they do. Ideally, the plebs shouldn’t be ALLOWED to read “The Sun” as it isn’t good for them. Don’t you SO love people who know what is good for other people? Stalin and Pol Pot come to mind.

Yes, the very word “Murdoch” brings out all the woodlice. Here was another comment:

“The fact that News International is an organisation which reflects your views does not make it right for a monopoly to exist in the media.”

I mean, one can either ignore such rubbish or respond, so forgive me for responding:

A) There IS no “monopoly in the media”. Long gone are the days when the BBC was the monopoly. By the way, did the leftish intelligentsia eternally whinge on about media monopolies THEN? 

B) Even if there WAS a “monopoly”, the last time I looked (but it’s best to look frequently because with Cable still thudding about like a verbally-diarrhearful loose cannon a nuclear explosion could go off at any moment) we have (for want of a better word) “governments” in Britain and even a “Monopolies Commission” and these are supposed to organise and regulate (don’t laugh) our lives in a fair, just and also (can you pls tell the PLP this?) sensible way that doesn’t bankrupt us.

If Murdoch HAS a monopoly, then don’t blame it on him. In fact, stop blaming everything on SOMEONE ELSE. It is getting tiresome.

Here was another classic:

“For far too long, Murdoch has held the British Government in abject thrall, as witness the fearsome hold which his empire held over not only Blair and Brown, but others before them, because of the baleful power of The Sun”

“Abject thrall”, “fearsome hold”, “baleful power”? – I didn’t realize we were talking about Genghis Khan, Darth Vader or indeed Mrs Thatcher.  What you need to do is increase the reason and reduce the hyperbole. I realise that after 13 years of Blair, Campbell and Mandelscum this sort of lunatic exaggeration has wormed its way into your skull, but it really is a bit silly and reduces anything that might once have promised to be a serious discussion into a meaningless “Who can find the most ludicrous insults?” competition.

 

Let’s Copy Sweden ….

Some ideas from Sweden – NOT MY IDEAS!! posted on comment page by 360_degrees in “The Independent” 

While Britain is plunging ever deeper into the Red, Sweden, while exposed to exactly the same global recession, has just sharply improved its forecast for its finances this year saying it will nearly balance its budget in 2010 and should see a surplus in 2011! Or to put it another way while Britain is expected to post a deficit of £155 billion pounds in the 12 months April 2010 to March 2011, Sweden will post a deficit of just £0.5 billion in the 12 months of 2010!

The contrast couldn’t be starker between good Swedish government and Labour’s 13 years of recklessly trashing the nation’s finances under one Gordon Brown. But now that Britain and its politicians have proven themselves not up to the job of running an economy perhaps it’s time for them all to simply sit back and take Swedish lessons. So here goes, this is how they avoid going bankrupt, à la UK style.

Healthcare
Free? Of course it’s Sweden right? Well,no …… actually it’s not. It costs £10 pounds to visit your GP, and £20 to visit A&E. Oh and you don’t get anything unless you have a valid Swedish ID card which puts paid to migrants flying in and bankrupting the system as in the UK.

Prescriptions are also not free. They cost. Sometimes a lot. However, the ID system allows for a record of your visits to be logged, and once you’ve paid around £90 in a 12 month period, your healthcare is free for the remainder of that period. It’s commonsense itself, which is why of course no Party in Britain has ever had the wit to introduce such a scheme.

Education
University courses are free for Swedes, everyone else pays. But Swedes still have to finance all their accommodation and living expenses. It’s an early dose of economic reality and the virtues of independence. Most cope by, shock horror, getting a part-time job. No, not flipping burgers. I sat next to a business student on the train the other day who told me she worked 18 hours a week in the control section of a major banks trading business.

Taxes

• 25 % VAT pretty much across the board. (UK 17.5 %)
• Capital gains tax is 30 % (UK 18-28 %)
• Capital gains tax on the sale of your first property, unless you buy another before the end of the next year. Capital gains tax on the sale of any other property regardless. (UK capital gains only on sale of additional properties)
• Income tax is around 32 percent on income under about £35,000, but jumps by another 25 percentage points on incomes over about £42,000. In total, a maximum rate of approximately 57.77% is levied on average. (UK top rate of tax of 50 % but is only applicable to income in excess of £150,000 per year)
• Non-residents are subject to tax but only on income from sources in Sweden.
• A foreign national is liable for full tax if he is regarded as resident ie in Sweden for more than 183 days during the tax year.

Unemployment benefit – For the first 6 months you’re on your own. Swedish unions have comprehensive unemployment insurance schemes which most people pay into, typically £30-70 per month, plus an extra £30 for a top up.

Welfare
Housing benefit – There is none. (UK currently limitless, govt plans to restrict to £2,000 per month).

Q. “But what if unemployment means you can’t afford to pay for your home in Sweden?”
A. You lose it. The state will give you sheltered accommodation, but you don’t want to go there, really.

Immigration
The system…

• No benefits unless you have a valid ID card.
• No ID card unless you arrive in Sweden legally and are accepted.
• NO ID card, NO home, NO benefits? You freeze to death.

That’s enough for now. You get the picture. Britain is the give away society of Europe compared with what is often mistakenly viewed as the welfare capital of the world.

Is it any wonder the Swedes are running the best finances in the world while Britain is bankrupt? The British need to grow up and stop being truculent about the need for reform. And that means everyone from students, to welfare claimants to higher income earning tax payers.