Articles

As I see it

15 January, 2011

By Steve Rush, Clitheroe Branch.

Affordable Housing, Tuition Fees and Pensions. Seems a strange mix, but here goes. The affordable housing debate rumbles on and one of the major questions, ‘who are all these houses really for?’ remains unanswered.

After the recent tuition fee farce and a forthcoming pension plan, we can now be even more certain that these new developments are not for youngsters who graduate from university. Most will be lucky if they can ever afford to buy a property.

Nimby is the common term for people opposed to affordable housing developments. So Numpty should be the new terminology for the instigators of the new tuition fee scam. Numerous politicians (who themselves went to university free of charge) have tried to convince us that this new system is cheaper than the existing one. How can trebling tuition fees be a cheaper option?

The new scheme will allow graduates to repay their tuition fees at a lower monthly amount than the current system, but the Numptys forgot to tell us some important facts. In most cases, these payments will last for 30 years and the more you earn the higher the interest you pay. Currently there are no plans to allow graduates to repay early.

Here’s a thought. We can contribute £48 million a day to the EU and bail out every man and his dog across Europe but we are unable to bail out our own university students.

Graduation complete – now let’s find a job. Any position paying over £21,000 will see 9% deducted from the surplus to repay tuition fees. An annual deduction of £450 would apply to a salary of £26,000 but earn more and pay higher. More bad news is around the corner.

Depending on company size, a new compulsory national pension scheme is to start between 2012 and 2016. Workers aged over 22 and earning more than £5,035 a year will be automatically enrolled in a pension. This enforced scheme will reduce an employee’s income by 4%. Let’s go back to our graduate earning £26,000 that is another £1,040 that has disappeared from the salary.

The good news is that the employer will be forced to contribute 3% also. The bad news is that in this economic climate that will probably see the end of wage increases. We must not forget that currently mortgage interest rates are extremely low. What happens when they rise and salaries don’t increase?

So why do we want to turn Whalley into a town and Clitheroe into a city? Could it be we need to accommodate EU migrants and prepare for a mass exodus from London when the new housing benefit rules bite? We are certainly not carrying out the exercise for young university graduates to get their foot on the property ladder!

Restructuring the North West

12th October 2010

Paul Nuttall MEP with members in Penrith

Last night was spent in Penrith in a meeting to help form the new UKIP Cumbria County Committee. This is an integral part of the much needed restructuring of UKIP North West, which will see decentralisation and greater power handed to the voluntary party. This move follows the aspirations laid down by our former leader Lord Pearson, who I personally still believe would have been the best person to lead us at this stage of the electoral cycle. He was a great loss in my opinion.

The restructuring programme will result in me, as the UKIP MEP, the party representatives and party officers being more accountable to the voluntary party through fully functioning and pro-active County and Regional Committees. This move, we envisage, will reinvigorate the party in our region by bringing the general membership closer to the decision making process.

It will also undoubtedly improve communication, as the branches will select members to sit on the county committees, which in turn will select members to sit on the regional committee. Thus the information flow is clear from top to bottom and bottom to top.  We hope that this improved structure will lead to increased interest amongst the members, greater activity and ultimately a rise in membership of our party. The clear knock-on effect will be a rise in donations and thus an improvement in literature and election results.

The new structure will also give those with ambitions to get involved at a higher level the opportunity to move through the committee structure. We have, in my opinion, so much talent in our party which has not noticed or utilised, and I genuinely believe that if we can get the changes right, our improvements in the North West will be significant.

UK Pension Crisis

Recently I watched a programme about gold prospecting in Zimbabwe. This revealed that all prospected gold was the property of the government. Those finding it were given a small proportion of it’s true value as payment.

Strangely this started me thinking about a similar situation in the U.K. Our pension system sprung to mind. Now you might think I’m losing my marbles, watching a documentary about gold prospecting in Zimbabwe and thinking about U.K pensions. You might be right.

The alarming comparison is that whilst the Zimbabwean government consider all discovered gold is their property, the U.K government consider our pensions are theirs. Successive governments have seized the opportunity to raid our planned retirement money and rendered many pensions almost worthless.

At this point I should state that during the eighties I was a pension consultant advising individuals and businesses about the value of structured planning for retirement. It was also the period when the Tory government were pushing the same message and advising that the state pension alone would not adequately provide a comfortable retirement. Little did anyone know who was lurking round the corner!!!

The people that listened, took the advice and joined a pension, are now left wondering why they bothered. It didn’t take Gordon Brown long to realise that pension funds were worth raiding to increase public finances. By scrapping tax relief on dividends he raised £5 billion and started the demise of the final salary company pension. Today hardly any of these schemes remain as the funds have been eroded and businesses cannot afford to administer them.

Private pensions have fared no better. Recent investment returns have been poor and this has resulted in little or no interest being added to contributions. Worse. If your payments are linked to the stock market you might even have lost money. We also know that the majority of us will have to wait another year before drawing our state pension and grabbing 55% death duties on certain pension pots is another recent government fund raiser. Talk about making the rules up as you go along.

Is it any wonder that a lot of people consider our pension schemes to be little more than legalised theft?  Finders of Zimbabwean gold get ripped off by their government and pension owners in the U.K get the same treatment from our government.

So it was with amazement I read recently about a new pension initiative. The scheme was the brainchild of Labour in 2008. With no pension schemes left to raid they decided to impose their own. The coalition look set to see the plan through. What a surprise!!!

Between 2012 & 2016 a new compulsory company pension is planned for all employees, aged 22 to state retirement age (whatever that might be) who are not in an existing pension scheme. This will entail a 4% contribution from the salary of the individual, 3% from the employer and 1% from the government.

So with a salary of £15,000 the proposed new pension scheme will, each month, relieve the employee of £50, the employer of £37.50 and the government of £12.50. There will be no reduction in state pension contributions as this scheme is proposed to be in addition to that. The more cynical of us can see an end to state pensions once this scheme is successfully implemented.

Affordability is an obvious issue. Salaries have been stagnant over the past two years and the cost of living increases regularly. As each year passes it gets harder and harder to make ends meet. If employers are forced to make a permanent 3% contribution into an employee’s pension, future pay increases will be rarer than a chocolate fireguard.

Whilst I agree planning for retirement is essential until governments stop raping and pillaging pension schemes, individuals will have no faith paying into them (and contributions will only happen when it’s affordable).

P.A.Y.E. ‘Pass Around Your Earnings’

14th September 2010

By Wayne Harling, Political Researcher to Paul Nuttall MEP

Taxpayers in this country are subject to quite possibly the most complicated tax system in the world with hundreds of tax codes causing confusion. The system was developed in the 1940’s when the majority of people would stay with one employer for their entire working life and before people undertook 2^nd or part time employment.

We need a system that we can have faith in. With the current economic climate of uncertainty, it is verging on heartless to demand re-payment because of HMRC’s mistakes, especially with the average repayment being as high as £1428. Mistakes such as these will only encourage workers to find a means to work outside of the tax system.

Let us restore confidence and fairness to the tax system by merging National Insurance and Income Tax together with a single low band of 31% and raise the tax-free allowance to £11,500.

Wayne Harling is a political researcher for Paul Nuttall MEP

The Brussels research team

August 7th 2010

By Michael McManus, UKIP Research Team.

UKIP Researcher Michael McManus

My working day starts at around 9:00 am, when I come into the office and check the mail for the MEP, emptying his pigeon hole and checking his e-mails. This mail can include everything from invitations to embassy dinners to letters from little old ladies in the constituency. I then sort out which mail is worthy of the MEP’s attentions and time, and what isn’t.

Then I go to committee. My job is to follow the proceedings as close as possible. I am pretty good at languages, and I can follow proceedings in English, French or Dutch, but I’ll confess to needing to wear the translator ear phones if a Slovenian MEP has something to say about the committee work! I then compile a brief on what went on, which is circulated to all the MEPs, who then act on it as they see fit. I follow the Regional Development and Foreign Affairs committees, and sometimes help out on the International Trade committee.

Once a month, the travelling circus kicks in, and we travel to Strasbourg. During Strasbourg week, everything changes. The session starts on Monday afternoon, but I travel on Sunday afternoon, because I like to get an extra half-day of work in before the official session begins. It is a five hour train journey from Brussels to Strasbourg, so it gives me plenty of time to read reports and briefs so I have a head start on the working day.

In Strasbourg, the MEPs have around 15 reports a day to vote on, sometimes with hundreds of amendments added. My job is to read through the reports, and advise them on how to vote on each amendment. Each morning, I present my reports to the chief whip Gerard Batten, who talks through his thoughts on my voting advice. We then meet the rest of the MEPs later to brief them on how to vote. This is repeated every day we are in Strasbourg.

Sometimes, I get to meet interesting visitors. I remember meeting and speaking with former Iraq weapons inspector Hans Blix when he addressed a hearing in the parliament, and also met officials from various embassies. Sometimes, lobbyists will ask to speak to you. This tends to be particularly true when an issue affecting them is due to be debated in parliament, and this can be everything from tweaks to industrial legislation to sanctions against a certain country. In addition to the interesting people I have actually met, I have also worked here during visits by everyone from the Dalai Lama to Hilary Clinton.

In addition to office work, I also deal with visitor groups. Recently, I addressed a group of economics undergraduates who came to Brussels, and the month before that, American international relations students. All visitor groups have to sit through the pro-EU talk before we get to say our piece. It is these slots that allow us to get our message to groups of young people, many of them still making their minds about the EU.

Group meetings are an important part of our work, and the role the EFD group plays in our work is vital. In meetings, the delegations from other countries update us on Eurosceptic developments there, offering the perspective only a national of that country could provide. For example, much of the information on the Greek Euro meltdown crisis UKIP used to such political advantage was provided by Greeks in EFD.

The EFD group also provides funding and staff support to UKIP. We have civil servants, some of them with decades of experience, who help us navigate the maze of EU laws and regulations. They also help us to arrange prominent speaking time slots, such as Nigel’s attack on Van Rompuy. Had we not been in EFD, this would never have happened, and we would not have got the air time and exposure his attack gave us.

In short, the research team here is very tight knit, and our work ethic is very high. It is considered quite normal to work until 8pm at night, and to come in at the weekends for several hours.

I enjoy my job and look forward to serving in the years to come.

Euro’ll going to pay

July 23rd 2010

By Steve Rush, East Lancashire Chairman.

So, along with millions of other people, I cannot retire until I am 66 which means I will have to contribute one year more into my state pension, in exchange for one year less of benefit. Doesn’t sound like a good deal to me, but what can be done when, as a country, we need to make savings.

NHS targets to be scrapped. Good I thought – they were only a bureaucratic thing in the first place. Then we learn that the real reason targets are to be abolished is because of NHS front line staff reductions. Fewer doctors and nurses equals longer waiting times.

Kenneth Clarke advocates that prison is often ‘a costly and ineffectual way’ of dealing with criminals. This statement comes 8 weeks after the Tory pre-election manifesto stated that if necessary they would ‘redevelop the prison estate and increase capacity’. Under the ‘cutback culture’ we can expect prisons to close and prison officers to be made redundant? We know that front line policing is to be cut so fewer criminals will be caught anyway.

Later in the year it is planned to sell off our marvellous British institution The Royal Mail. VAT will rise to 20%. An estimated 1.3 million workers will lose their jobs. Local Council budgets will be slashed giving reduced services. Clitheroe Hospital’s refurbishment will be cancelled permanently. Plus numerous other cutbacks are in place to counteract overspending by the now recluse Gordon Brown.

We are told we must accept hardships along the way to financial recovery and everyone will reap the benefits. Absolute Rubbish!!! Take this scenario.

Upon realising your household outgoings are more than your income you decide to take drastic action before you are declared bankrupt. You make several cutbacks, no holidays, sell the car, no new cloths and only eat one square meal a day. At the same time you decide to give all the money you save to 26 of your neighbours to waste in any way they see fit. Why?  You want to, no other reason, you just want to. This means that all your hardship and sacrifices are wasted as you remain in the same financial position. How many people would take this action? Answer – Two.

‘Call me’ Dave and ‘Non entity’ Nick from the Crackpot Coalition are doing just that. Putting us through hard times so they can pass on the savings to the European Union. The UK is committed to giving Greece £8 billion as part of the EU bail out agreement so the Greeks can retire at 58. We also pay an unaffordable £45 million per day to the corrupt EU who do not account for their money and spend it on ludicrous schemes.

Using our money the EU have recently contributed to the following hair brained ideas: Estonian Puppet Theatre, Circus Training, a Donkey travelling through Holland and many more which can be found on the following web link http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/top50waste.pdf. Best of all is the £65 million given to support people that stop smoking. What’s wrong with that? I hear you ask. Well the EU also contributes £265 million each year to tobacco farmers.

So we can sleep easily knowing that once the cutbacks and job loses bite we are at least continuing our contributions to European schemes. It makes me wonder if some of our politicians have taken advantage of the circus training – clowns spring to mind!!! When will they realise that we cannot afford to be a member of this expensive club. We need the money to return the UK back to financial viability, and we need it now, in order to reduce the hardship we are all about to face!!!

The Commonwealth: Our alternative future.

July 18th 2010

by Paul Nuttall MEP

Closer ties between Britain and the Commonwealth make economic and political sense. UKIP, with its policy of a Commonwealth free trade area, is the only political party in the UK that offers the British public a sound alternative to EU membership.

ALONGSIDE my UKIP membership, I also sit on the Executive Council of the United Commonwealth Society. My political ambition is for Britain to withdraw from the EU, so we can control our own affairs, and then cement stronger links with our natural partners in the Commonwealth of Nations.

In the second half of the twentieth century it was clear that the world was organising itself into economic blocs: NAFTA (North America), MERCOSUR (South America), ASEAN (South East Asia) and the EU (Europe). In signing up to the EEC (the forerunner of the EU) in 1972, Britain followed this trend and chose to join an economic bloc. However, what is becoming more apparent every year is that the EU is not an economic bloc and never was; it is the embryo of a European super-state.

I would argue that the increasing loss of sovereignty is too great a price to pay for membership of the EU and therefore Britain must look elsewhere. The answer, I would suggest, is close to home: the Commonwealth of Nations.

Today’s Commonwealth of Nations replaced the British Commonwealth in 1949 following India’s choice to become a republic. At the present time the Commonwealth comprises 53 independent nations. It has been growing since the 1950s and continues to do so.  The 1.6 billion people who make up the Commonwealth countries account for one quarter of the world’s population.

Membership is open to any state that adheres to individual liberty, accepts the English language as the predominant means of communication and recognises the Queen as the Head of the Commonwealth.  None of the independent states that are members of the Commonwealth is asked to pool its sovereignty and none of them has to adhere to crippling directives handed down from a central body. It sounds refreshing and all rather different from the EU.

The Commonwealth constitutes over 40% of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), making it exceedingly influential in global trade. Indeed, member states handle trade worth $2.8 trillion annually with foreign direct investment outflows of $100 billion, which account for more than 20% of international trade and investment. Thus, in the sphere of international trade the Commonwealth is a very serious player. It is also a player that Britain foolishly seems to have turned its back on in favour of the EU trading bloc. This has understandably led to sense of betrayal on the part of some Commonwealth nations.

The Commonwealth contains some of the largest economies on the planet. For example, Britain has the fifth largest economy in world, Canada comes in eighth, India twelfth, Australia thirteenth and New Zealand forty-fourth. The Commonwealth also contains some of the fastest growing and most dynamic economies on the planet.

The Indian economy, for example, is growing at stupendous rate. In 2006-07 India posted a growth in GDP of 9.6%, which is the second largest in the world behind China. This compares to the 3.1% of the EU. India is predicted to overtake Britain as the fifth largest economy in the world within a decade and some economists are even suggesting that India could become the world’s largest economy by 2050.

The Commonwealth includes nations with increasing populations and growing economies, in stark contrast to the EU with its ageing population and declining economic power. Therefore, whereas the Commonwealth opens up endless opportunities and enables us to look to the future, membership of the EU locks Britain into stagnation and firmly in the past.

Closer Commonwealth ties can only be initiated if Britain withdraws from the EU. This is becoming more difficult as British politicians purposely seek to entangle us ever more deeply in the EU web.  We need to act before it is too late.

It needs to be made clear that unlike membership of the EU, closer Commonwealth relations would not entail the amount of red tape that ties the hands of British businesses and our financial institutions. It would also free Britain from the shackles of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and allow us to negotiate agricultural deals and trade with Commonwealth nations, such as New Zealand. It would provide Britain greater access to Canada’s natural resources, which can only be matched by those of Russia. It would mean cheaper food for British people because we would fall outside the EU’s external tariff barrier. Leaving the EU would also release Britain from the destructive clutches of Common Fisheries Policy and return to us the power to control our own waters.

Closer ties with the Commonwealth make economic and political sense. UKIP, with its policy of a Commonwealth free trade agreement, is the only political party in the UK that offers the British public a sound alternative to EU membership. It is an alternative that would rid Britain of the suffocating constraints of EU red tape and directives; it would allow Britain to trade freely with whomever it wanted to and would no longer put British sovereignty in jeopardy. What UKIP is therefore offering is a bright future outside the EU and at the heart of a dynamic Commonwealth.

I Know the price of freedom

July 13th 2010

By Nick Hogan

Nick Hogan outside the Swan with Two Necks

July 1^st 2007 became black Sunday to publicans up and down England, as it was the day hard working and law abiding English citizens had a piece of freedom abruptly taken away. It was also the day that would put me on a path that would ultimately end up with my incarceration in HMP Forest Bank a category B high security prison in Manchester.

July 1^st was the day that a Labour Government took my freedom to run and operate my own business as I felt fit, as they bowed to pressure from the anti smoking gaggle and introduced the 2006 Health Act and ban smoking in public places.

It has been well reported, my stance to this draconian Act, but let me tell you once again that I am and never have been pro smoking. However, as a UKIP member and activist I will defend yours and my right to the freedom of choice as I did back in 2007 when three WWII heroes entered my public house in Bolton.

It was a day which was wet, cold and miserable outside, much like most of the 2007 summer, when the three gentlemen ask me as the Landlord and the owner of the business if it was ok to have a smoke out of the way in the pub. I told them it was, as in all honesty I had no desire to ask three Men who had fought for my freedom to go and stand outside in the wet and cold to indulge in an highly taxed and legal product.

As they sat in comfort enjoying their pint and fag, the council smoke detectives entered the pub, they observed the men smoking and to cut a long story short, I was summonsed to court charged with breaching the Heath Act.

After a court appearance and a crown court appeal I was handed a fine in total £11,500. By the time the fine was given to me I had lost my once successful pub due in main to the smoking ban and the lack of customers, who by now had abandoned public houses and sat at home consuming cheap supermarket booze and smoked in peace. As I was unable to pay the fine because I had no business, thanks to Labour, the authorities wanted a pound of flesh or should I say £11,500 pounds of flesh. As a result, they sentenced me to six months prison, you may think that this was a shock but it wasn’t I knew that the chairman of the bench had made it his personal goal to make an example of me.

I must admit I was very worried when I entered the prison and that I was very low in mood, but in the back of my mind I knew you and the party would not abandon me. I entered the prison on the Friday night and by the Tuesday I had dozens of letters and postcards from well wishers, most of them from you lot. I cannot tell you how much they meant to me you gave me a massive boost and will never be able to thank you enough.

The best part of this story is you and the thousands of freedom thinking individuals who in five days raised £10,000 to free me. After only twelve days I walked free from jail. Thank you. And just to let you know, I was released on the 10th March 2010, which is National No Smoking Day! Irony.