Wipe out Welfare

Well ok, maybe not completely. But we could easy knock a few billion of the benefits bill by getting tough on the lazy ‘can’t work, won’t work’.


Now, I don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of the UK’s liberal welfare system...its way too complicated, but maybe this is part of the problem. Who, for example, understands how tax credits work ? Anyone ? Anyone at all. No, thought not, and that apparently includes most of Her Majesty’s revenue and customs officers. The founding principles of welfare are basically positive – to provide assistance to the deserving poor. But our generous welfare system has resulted in this deserving minority becoming vastly outnumbered by the undeserved.

So it’s time to get tough. 10% cuts on public spending ?.. .Welfare should be the first place to drop the axe. It’s an unfortunate time to be saying this, but I just don’t believe there aren’t enough jobs out there. McDonalds are recruiting ! Seriously though, society would be much better off if public sector jobs were created for the unemployed instead of just paying them to sit at home watching Kilroy (or whichever other useless person hosts daytime TV shows these days). Our schools and hospitals need cleaners, they along with most other public buildings are filthy, the streets need sweeping...pay people to scrape chewing gum off the pavements if you have to. As long as the government pays the lazy to do nothing, they will do nothing. Continuing to do so goes against the principles of the state welfare system.



Another place to get tough is single teenage mothers. Have children young by all means, but do not expect the state to raise you and your kids. Partners, families, friends should be turned to for support, but the young and uneducated seem to believe that a pregnancy and a baby are a ticket to your own home and a weekly cheque courtesy of the state. How did this happen? It’s absolutely right that every child in this country should receive a guaranteed sum to prevent that child ever going hungry, many deserving single mothers are grateful for this lifeline. But these are usually the ones that also work full time and claim no other benefits. Young single mothers should remain in the care of their own family, or be housed in a similar manner to other children in care, ensuring that education continues.



Well, would you look at that, it’s happening as we speak...Gord announces young teenage mothers will no longer get their own homes paid for by the state. The talk doesn’t work unless you do what you say you’re going to though Labour.

The debt disaster

Finance, the economy, money, up there as one of my favoured discussion topics, expect much much more. So where to start ? This really could go on for quite some time, its getting late, and I have a TV date with...no, sorry not ready to confess my guilty TV secrets yet ! So just briefly...



I am no expert, but this has been concerning me for years, ever since I first learned whilst at uni that the amount of interest paid annually on UK national debt was well into the billions, and that was just the interest. I remember thinking that just the interest on the debt was almost as much as the higher education budget. The actual amount of debt eclipsed pretty much everything else.

And this week we learn that the country is 800 billion quid in the red ? Doesn’t that scare you just a little bit. And we are now paying 24 billion annually just to have that debt. To put this into perspective, that’s about half the total MOD budget or the schools budget. There’s a whole lot more productive things we could be spending that money on if we didn’t have so many billions of debt to pay interest on.


So pay down the debt, right ? This is just basic budgeting surely. Something I realised a decade ago... I’d be a lot better off if I wasn’t paying 100’s of pounds every month in debt interest. This had to be my priority. So why isn’t it the government or the nation’s top priority ? I know we’re (still) in a recession, but hello, maybe this is part of the reason why. Economists (hi bro) will tell you debt is a good thing; I am not convinced. Not at this level anyway.

And why is national debt always hidden by quoting it as a percentage of GDP ? Just give us the hard figures. Tbc.

Spell checker

So, as has been extensively pointed out to me, the spelling in my first blog was appalling ! This is made doubly worse as bad spelling is one of my biggest pet hates. (Disclaimer to a guy I was dating recently: it wasn’t your dyslexia that put me off !)



I therefore apologise profusely for my disrespectful use of the beautiful English language. In my defence though, I did knock up my first post in about four minutes ! I now have a dilemma though. Do I, as was suggested, use a spell checker, thus becoming lazy in my attention to proper English and probably ending up with worse spelling, or attempt to make do without one, try harder to improve my writing (I have a written exam in a few months and I am concerned I may have forgotten how to use a pen and paper and write an essay !), but risk looking a bit dumb because I mis-spelled ? (Long sentences are another of my bad habits !)


Well I’ve decided, I am going to go it alone. So here is my plea, I am not dense, I have a bachelors degree, am a practising scientist and able mathematician. But in commitment to good English, am currently experimenting with not using a spell checker. So I will be re-reading my blogs as often as you !

Public transport

OK, I confess, I took the car.  It looked like it was about to rain, and I had cyled into the city and back already this morning.

There was no real need for me to drive.  But my options, based on the public transport services in Bristol are limited.  A bus journey cost close to a fiver (one-way), takes ages and teh bus is usually fiflthy.  And there was no train / tuve / tram option, but if there were, I can guarntee it would cost more.

Public transport in Bristol could be so much better.  There has been talk for years about bringing back trams, but all thet really needs to happen is gto open up the train lines again.  The infrastructure is already there.  Brunel did a fanatastic jub, and society today just ignores this.  Virtually every hamlet around the city has an old train station - Redland, Clifton, Montpellier, Severn Beach, Ashley Down. And most of the old platforms are still there and beautiful.

• Introduce a congestion charge, approx £8.  I would be happy to cycle, get the bus / train of price was reasonable, but there is no deterrant to me driving so I often do
• Add a subsidy to coucil tax, say £100 - £200
• Use money from above to subsidise bus / train service.
• A £2 day rider ticket should enable all residents and visitors to travel anywhere around the city - look at the New York subway, Paris metro, both are a zillion times better than anything in the UK
• Residents should be able to purchase a £500 annual public transport pass.
• There should be a bus or train available within a 10 minute walk and 10 minute wait from anywhere in the city.

Don't just talk about it, do it.  People are not going to get out of their cars unless you make them, and give them a better alternative.

New blog

Afternoon.

Have just created my blog page, have some stuff to do now, so will begin later.  First up, public transport.  The services in Britain suck and we could really learn alot from the examples elsewhere in the world.  I am about to cycle a 20 mile round journey to pick up some glassess so back later.