Snouts in the Trough

Firstly, in my blog yesterday about “thighing”, I did warn that someone might have been taking me for a ride. Following contacts from a reader, I suspect that the whole thing could possibly be a set-up by a right-wing US group. I don’t know. But I have deleted the post.

Back to charities. How would you feel if a chugger from Oxfam stopped you in the street or an Oxfam collector came round to your house or even if there was a TV ad from Oxfam and you were told, ‘We already take £139m from the taxes you pay the Government in the belief that your tax money pays for schools and roads and the NHS and the police. But in addition to that £139m of your tax money, we’d like you to donate £5 or £10 a month from you own money’?

Possibly, you wouldn’t be too inclined to be generous. In fact, you might even think, ‘hold on a minute – you already take £139m of our taxes and you want more!!!!! F*&@@@!!!!!k‘

So here’s a chart showing something our major poverty charities tend not to mention (click to see more clearly)

Oxfam takes £139m a year of our taxes – 37% of its £368m revenue. Save the Children takes about £139m too – 48% of its £284m income. Christian Aid helps itself to a generous £39m – 41% of its £95m. ActionAid, CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development) and Care International also plunder our taxes while guilt-tripping us to give even more. So do many other supposed ‘charities’.

I’ve called these charities the ‘double-dippers’ because they get two shots at taking money from us – firstly by grabbing millions or even tens of millions from the taxes we pay and then again from usually heart-rending appeals showing starving  African children (as they have been doing for at least the last 50 years).

So, next time a charity tries to get your money, ask them if they’re a ‘double-dipper’ and if so, how much taxpayers’ money they’re already getting. I bet they won’t tell you because they know that if you knew, then you wouldn’t want to give too much more.

Some research showed that around 27,000 charities get three quarters or more of their money from the Government while often asking us for further donations.

Double-dipping – that’s how to make real money when you’re a ‘charity’.

(Talking of charity – think how motivated I would be to write another 1,000 words of my new book THE GREAT CHARITY SCANDAL if some readers were to buy copies of either GREED UNLIMITED or DON’T BUY IT! Today you could hep feed a starving overweight writer. Go on, you know it makes sense….

We’re all meant to be pretty excited by the fact that a businesswoman, Rona Fairhead, has become the new Chair of the BBC Trust. But could it be the usual case of ‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss’?

If I understand correctly, the Chair of the BBC Trust is meant to represent licence-fee payers and ensure we get good value for money from the bloated, over-paid, over-staffed, paedophile-protectors who run the BBC.

So what do we know so far? Firstly that Ms Fairhead wants to protect the system of funding the BBC through us suckers being forced to pay for a licence to view programmes many people don’t watch any more. In a session with Parliament’s Culture Committee, the good lady said the current £145.50 fee represents “good value” for money, given the breadth of services the BBC provides and that the BBC’s funding model provides “complete clarity and accountability” for how money is spent.

So, it rather look like the fragrant Ms Fairhead has already made up her mind about what we worthless plebs deserve from the BBC and how much we should pay.

But is it value for money that almost 100 BBC bosses are paid over £150,000 a year? Is it value for money that BBC sent 272 staff to Brazil for a month for the football World Cup when all TV footage is provided by local TV crews? Is it value for money that the BBC sends around 300 staff to the Glastonbury music festival?  Is it value for money that several top BBC bosses were given redundancy payments three to four times higher than necessary (with one receiving over £1 million) and nobody has been punished for what amounts to millions of pounds in theft? Is it value for money that we licence-payers have forked out millions in legal fees to try to hide the BBC’s cover-up of widespread paedophilia and sexual abuse?

Has Ms Fairhead carried out a detailed financial analysis of the BBC to see whether it does actually provide ‘value for money’? I suspect not.

Is there any difference at all between Fairhead and the disastrous Chris Patten? Or are they both (IMHO) lying, self-serving establishment stooges, out to enrich themselves and puff up their own egos and to hell with the fools who have to fund their gilded existence? (click to see more clearly)

How about letting the punters decide if the BBC is good value for money or not? After all, what other consumer product has the right to compel you to buy it? On pain of imprisonment at that, uniquely among debts, even if you don’t actually use the product.

If the BBC is as wonderful as its apologists claim, there will be no problem for the BBC becoming a subscription-only service. On the other hand, if we are allowed free choice and decide we don’t want the broadcast version of the Guardian, all sneering, preaching and self-righteous snobbery, why should we be forced to pay for it?

Why the need, Ms Fairhead, to compel people to buy something that is supposedly such “good value”?

As it’s the weekend, I’m taking a day off. Instead of my usual stuff, here’s a rather loquacious email a Scottish reader and company director sent to his employees. It seems he’s neither a YES nor a NO, but a NONE OF THE ABOVE:

“At risk of antagonising everyone at this historic time, I felt I should email you all to let you know my thoughts on the referendum vote.

Next week we  get the opportunity to vote to decide whether Scotland stays as part of the UK or becomes an independent country.

The politicians debase themselves by the hour either promising woe and bad tidings if we leave the UK, or promising new concessions to Scotland if we stay, which will only cause jealousy and disunity in the other parts of the UK, should the no vote succeed.

We are told by Salmond that it is time Scotland should rule itself alone and then he has a hissy fit that we would not automatically be a member of the EU as he obviously prefers to have our laws dictated  to us by unelected Hungarian communists, based in Brussels. “ You may legislate on how powerful our vacuum cleaners can be and abolish 100 watt light bulbs, but you will never steal our freedom !”  Yea , right !.

To throw away a successful union that has lasted for over 300 years only to be ruled by a collection of cheese-eating surrender monkey’s does not appeal to me.

The SNP are riding high on the uneducated 16-year-old  “Brave Heart” factor, while refusing to answer even the most basic questions about what currency would be used in the event of independence and also denying the flight of cash Southwards that is already happening, even now. But as long as Salmond can get a photo opportunity with some fat toothless pensioner giving him a hug in the depths of some dreadful housing estate, the man’s day has not been wasted. Even if Salmond’s strategy of refusing to pay Scotland’s share of the UK National Debt appeals as crafty to the workshy and unemployable, it is not a plan that is economically acceptable to our international trading partners and outside investors. Please don’t renege on our debts in my name Alex, unlike you,  I come from a family who were always proud to pay our bills.

The apathy shown by Westminster to this election is a scandal in itself with our leaders more interested in toppling governments in Syria by arming *sl*mic lunatics and protecting human rights for terrorists, than engaging in a constructive discussion about Scotland and its future, in relation to the UK.  This Independence vote has been on the cards for two years and none of our political leaders have done anything but laugh it off so far. There is not even a third box to tick for extra devolved powers as Cameron wanted a yes or no vote to call the SNP’s bluff. A pity Cameron couldn’t see fit to also give us a vote on leaving the EU until the electorate vote him in for another five-year term. So much for democracy et al Cameroon.

It is all too late now, and the idea that the Labour, four-time-house-flipping, tax-dodging Alistair Darling and the corrupt Trotskyist buffoon Gordon Brown are going to be wheeled out by the Tories who will  get us vote no is as laughable as dragging out the ex-chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, the same clown who appointed the egomaniacal, financially incontinent Fred Goodwin who brought the UK to the brink of bankruptcy, but who now sees fit to tell us he sees a bright, sustainable financial future for Scotland, using the pound even though this is against the Bank of England’s wishes. What kind of idiots to these people think we are ?

While the big multinational companies threaten to leave Scotland on mass and as the oil industry tells us that the oil is all but used up, Salmond’s subsidy junkie, green windmill brigade continue to wish to cover our country with 400m high windmills, made anywhere but Scotland and we are all expected to pay for this with an extra green tax on our electricity bills.

So in my opinion, the whole lot of these political dwarfs, who would be our masters, are a bunch of stupid, lazy two faced lying scoundrels and I hate them all with a passion.

You should not vote because of what you are afraid of, you should vote for what you hope for.

Scotland is a great country, always has been and always will be.  If it can get past the idea that it is now just a post industrialised rust bucket wilderness and embrace the future with both hands it will show the world that it does not have to be a land of subsidy junkies, that it takes pride in paying its way and that it has a strong enough culture to be proud of its ancient past without having to invent one with the help of Hollywood and other charlatans.

Big business has sucked this country dry over the years and the boot has also gone into the ribs of every ordinary family in Scotland in the shape of sentimental socialist clap trap that has also held us back for generations.

Scotland needs companies like ours, small, independent companies with a proud tradition of working hard and rising to everyday challenges that enable  us to make a living  without bleating for special grants and privileges paid for by the taxpayer. We survive because of our own efforts, despite the idiots and snake oil salesmen who presume to rule us.

Scotland is at a tipping point where more people are now  employed directly or indirectly by the state in percentage terms, than was ever the case in Stalin’s Russia. This is the economics of the asylum whether it is a yes or a no vote.  This has to change. Regardless of the result next week, Scotland has to shed thousands of non-jobs in the public sector and encourage companies exactly like ours to rise up and fill the vacuum. It is one thing to look after the weak and vulnerable who need and deserve our help, but Guardianist, social inclusion, multi ethnic, team leaders encouraging one eyed lesbians to express themselves in music and dance who are on the Council payroll at £65 K, plus holidays , perks and inflation proof two thirds final salary pensions can ***k off.

The way to change it is not for Cameron to allow George Osborne to increase the national debt from £700 billion to £1.4 trillion while his pals in the city resume paying themselves massive bonuses of our money and announcing the country has beat the recession. What a joke.

Meanwhile, whole streets where I grew up have been transformed into a no-go sea of Asian and black faces as well as the more recent Poles, Bulgarians and Romanians. Politicians of every hue tell me they are making a fantastic contribution to the economy and will be required in the future to pay my pension. I find this surprising as most of them are unemployed. These newcomers when they do work, appear to be needed to work the tills at Tesco and Aldi to the financial benefit of these multinational’s shareholders as their wages are subsidised by working tax credits paid by your taxes, which also allows them to be eligible  for council housing and rent subsidies to private landlords. Naturally the Big issue sellers go to the front of the queue as they are classed as self-employed.

Here’s an idea! Why not cut our taxes and stop shipping our money abroad to corrupt dictators in the shape of foreign aid, so that we can afford to have more Scottish children ourselves without our households  us sinking below the poverty line? Then Scottish children could pay our pensions instead of the ones from Budda and Pest ?

Why can’t we be allowed to afford to have our own children instead of being taxed to pay for everyone else’s ?

Also, I am not holding my breath on getting my pension as Gordon Brown stole most of it and there are plenty of wide boys who want you to vote for them that will take the rest when the time comes.

So to conclude, whatever happens next week, you should use this time to take stock of what is past and what is to be.  If we were not in a union with England at this time would we be voting to join up with them now ?  Not likely.

The English are a nation of lions who have allowed themselves to be engulfed in a quagmire of political correctness that has eroded the values that we all, in the UK,  grew up with, so that the man with the Union Jack is the one who is now arrested on the high street while his new neighbours burn poppies at the Cenotaph Remembrance Ceremony. Who wants to be part of that ?

And the flip side of the coin is do we really want a welfare subsidy Nationalistic , tax, tax, “we were robbed” collection of failed, never had a real job in their life, bunch of communist  scoundrels calling the shots in Scotland ?

Whatever the verdict, you should take time to take stock and think hard what kind of a country and what kind of a community you wish to live in and be a part of.

When the dust settles and these politicians think you have all gone back to your huts, then is the time to find your voice and involve yourself at a local level with the community you live in.

Go to meetings. Ask questions. Write letters demanding these politicians justify themselves and send their replies to the newspapers. If you can’t get an audience there, write and print up your thoughts yourself and with a few hours spare time  and some shoe leather, you will be amazed how quickly you can post 5000 leaflets explaining to your neighbours why your local councillor or MP is a lazy lying prick.

Don’t be fooled again !

So I will repeat , vote for what you believe in and hope for, not because of what you fear.

Best wishes for Scotland, the UK and you and yours.”

Luckily for our major charities (and their well-paid bosses), there are always a few disasters – war, famine, drought, disease etc – going on in the world at any time. So they can come on our TVs or do hugely expensive advertising campaigns or direct mailings or chug us to guilt-trip us into giving them lots of our money.

But there’s something our major charities don’t usually mention – the sometimes tens of millions of pounds and even hundreds of millions of pounds they already take from us by getting our government to hand over great chunks of the taxes we pay.

After all, would you still be tempted to give £5 a month or £10 a month or whatever to perhaps the greatest bleater of all – Oxfam – if you knew that £162.1m of Oxfam’s £367.9m income already came from your taxes?

Or would you be so enthusiastic about donating to Care International if you were aware that £24.9m of its £39.2m income was coming out of the tax money you handed over to pay for things like the NHS, schools and the police?

Or how about the worthy-sounding Christian Aid? It gets £27m of the money you might have thought went to pay for public services in Britain.

And if you’re a Catholic, don’t worry, your favourite charity CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development) pockets £11.1m of taxpayers’ money.

I could go on, but I assume readers get the picture. Just these four anti-poverty charities are being given over £225m a year of our money and yet they come begging for more without mentioning how much they already get.

I suspect that if people knew how much of their hard-earned money was already being poured into the eager hands of these ‘supposed ‘charities’ they’d be a little more wary about giving them even more.

And I suspect that these charities are well aware we might be rather less generous if we knew to what extent they’re being funded by our taxes and that’s why they keep rather quiet about the whole issue of our Government-enforced ‘generosity’. After all, if an Oxfam collector was to say something like, ‘excuse me, we already take £162 million of your money, money that could have been used to provide better public services, but would you mind sparing another fiver a month as we really need it, honest’ they’d be unlikely to elicit too many donations.

(Talking of charity – or rather lack of – it’s been about a month since any reader bought a copy of my book DON’T BUY IT! and a few weeks since anyone bought GREED UNLIMITED. I was telling a journalist about this the other day and they were surprised at the extraordinary difficulty I was having trying to get readers to show some small support for this blog by putting their hands in their pockets to buy a book or two)

Podgy Toad look-alike, Alex Salmond, must be laughing his lardy arse off at our leaders’ stupidity.

For a start, he got the question he wanted – “Should Scotland become a independent country?” As any market researcher or consumer behaviour specialist will know, had the question been “Should Scotland remain part of the UK?” many fewer people would be voting for independence.

But actually, whether the Scots vote YES or No almost doesn’t really matter to Salmond – he wins massively either way.

If the Scots vote YES, Salmond gets his own little empire to run and becomes a great Scottish hero – a modern-day William Wallace or Robert the Bruce.

If the Scots narrowly vote NO, then Salmond can still claim to be the winner as he can portray himself as the brave Scottish underdog fighting courageously against the overwhelming forces of the English establishment and winning wide-ranging new powers for the Scottish Parliament from a panicking Westminster. So, even in the case of a NO vote, he still gets his little empire to run and will still be able to puff himself up as a modern-day William Wallace or Robert the Bruce.

In fact, were the Scots to vote YES, Salmond might have a problem – there isn’t enough money to pay for the ‘everything is free’ socialist paradise he has promised the Scots and he would be blamed when his great dream collapsed in national bankruptcy and swingeing cuts to public services.

I even suspect that Salmond might prefer to lose narrowly, because then he’d still be a hero and can carry on heaping welfare largesse on the Scots, all paid for by stupid English taxpayers.

As so often in politics, while the cretinous masses get all heated up about the likely result, there is only one result – that is whatever the result, the top dogs win.

Alex Salmond is one very sharp cookie – especially compared to dopey David Cameron.