Harris, of New Road, Radley, Hertfordshire, earlier admitted 13 offences, including displaying 15 misleading signs at the site and sending letters from a debt recovery firm without revealing it was the same company as OPC. OPC earlier pleaded guilty to 23 charges, including similar offences and further counts in which details of the “additional vehicle activity” of drivers were ignored. The admissions were made on the basis of neglect rather than connivance. Harris was fined £3,100 and ordered to pay £2,585 costs. His firm OPC was hit with a £26,750 fine and £5,000 costs.

I've read fully your submission and I'm most impressed, essentially, it's the 'reasonable cause' assertion that's been removed from the ANPR process that appears to be key to stopping this quite wrongful practice I guess.

The case of Observices Parking Consultancy Limited is astonishing in the fact that a proven criminal can continue to obtain details - this alone is unbelievable! - if it was a 'profession' they would be 'stuck-off' and not allowed to practice again!

It will be interesting to hear Philip Hammond MP's response to this, for the DVLA is an executive agency of the Department for Transport and it is directly responsible to the Minister of State.

Nice work

 

I believe so

 

From the Information Commissioners Website (under the DVLA section specifically) "it is an offence under section 55 of the Data Protection Act 1998 to unlawfully obtain information, for example by stating they want the information for one reasonable and lawful purpose when actually they want it for another illegitimate or unlawful purpose".

 

As we all know, the person who has breached the parking contract is the driver, the Private Parking Companies (PPCs) uses the legal gateway to obtain the Registered Keepers details (supposedly) in the first stage of their enquiries to trace the driver. At this stage everything is fine and dandy. BUT the PPCs, then misuse that data by sending out unlawful, threatening and intimidating demands to the RK and express no interest in identifying the driver whatsoever.

 

The DVLA are therefore complicit in this breach of the DPA because they know that this is what the PPCs do yet they continue to sell RKs details.

Very good point.

To be honest if your going to steal money your better off doing it via huge mortgage pimping and then getting the taxpayer to pick up the tab.

 

I'm surprised they haven't labelled the researcher a terrorist.

Your not wrong.

I came across this video which, in my opinion gives one of the best history lessons that simply is not taught in schools today. It's called "The Money Masters" and made in 1995.

It is lengthy (available via YouTube in chunks if you google), but it explains very well how 'the financial' system is run (controlled) buy private companies and not government, showing how it's specifically designed to get the masses to pay great sums to 'the few'! - It is not a conspiracy theory video, but a factual statement of events going back hundreds of years till the current day, well 1995.

What is interesting, is that it forecasts the current financial crisis and suggests that it was caused deliberately by private corporations as it was in 1929. It also suggests what we still have to look forward to - not good!

Link is here:

http://freedocumentaries.org/teatro.php?filmID=243&lan=en&size=big

Description:

The Money Masters is a 1995 documentary, produced by Patrick S. J. Carmack and directed and narrated by William T. Still. It discusses the concepts of money, debt, and taxes, and describes their development from biblical times onward. It covers the history of fractional-reserve banking, central banking, monetary policy, the bond system, and the Federal Reserve System. It explains how throughout the history of the United States important politicans have been bribed, conned and even assassinated (including Abraham Lincoln) due to banking related policies. This documentary argues that the profit from issuing money is currently being used in the United States to benefit a few wealthy individuals. It goes further and argues that this situation should be remedied, so that the profit benefits the public good, as during four periods in the history of the United States. Finally it presents a bill, the Monetary Reform Act, to implement such a remedy. As support, the film provides many quotations from notable figures including economists, members of the financial system, kings of England and United States presidents

http://thegwpf.org/ipcc-news/1670-hal-lewis-my-resignation-from-the-american-physical-society.html

IPCC (News Friday, 08 October 2010):

Hal Lewis: My Resignation From The American Physical Society

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Here is his letter of resignation to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society.

Anthony Watts describes it thus:

It’s so utterly damning that I’m going to run it in full without further comment.

From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara

To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

 

Dear Curt:

 

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence---it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

 

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d'être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

 

It is of course, the global warming [problem], with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford's book organizes the facts very well.) I don't believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

 

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

 

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

 

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer "explanatory" screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

 

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

 

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind---simply to bring the subject into the open.

 

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members' interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

 

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

 

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

 

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people's motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don't think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I'm not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

 

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

 

Hal

 

Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President's Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)

This Is Why There Are No Jobs in America

Here's the deal. You're going to start a business or expand the one you've got now. It doesn't really matter what you do or what you're going to do. I'll partner with you no matter what business you're in – as long as it's legal.

 

But I can't give you any capital – you have to come up with that on your own. I won't give you any labor – that's definitely up to you. What I will do, however, is demand you follow all sorts of rules about what products and services you can offer, how much (and how often) you pay your employees, and where and when you're allowed to operate your business. That's my role in the affair: to tell you what to do.

 

Now in return for my rules, I'm going to take roughly half of whatever you make in the business each year. Half seems fair, doesn't it? I think so. Of course, that's half of your profits.

 

You're also going to have to pay me about 12% of whatever you decide to pay your employees because you've got to cover my expenses for promulgating all of the rules about who you can employ, when, where, and how. Come on, you're my partner. It's only "fair."

 

Now... after you've put your hard-earned savings at risk to start this business, and after you've worked hard at it for a few decades (paying me my 50% or a bit more along the way each year), you might decide you'd like to cash out – to finally live the good life.

 

Whether or not this is "fair" – some people never can afford to retire – is a different argument. As your partner, I'm happy for you to sell whenever you'd like... because our agreement says, if you sell, you have to pay me an additional 20% of whatever the capitalized value of the business is at that time.

 

I know... I know... you put up all the original capital. You took all the risks. You put in all of the labor. That's all true. But I've done my part, too. I've collected 50% of the profits each year. And I've always come up with more rules for you to follow each year. Therefore, I deserve another, final 20% slice of the business.

 

Oh... and one more thing...

 

Even after you've sold the business and paid all of my fees... I'd recommend buying lots of life insurance. You see, even after you've been retired for years, when you die, you'll have to pay me 50% of whatever your estate is worth.

 

After all, I've got lots of partners and not all of them are as successful as you and your family. We don't think it's "fair" for your kids to have such a big advantage. But if you buy enough life insurance, you can finance this expense for your children.

 

All in all, if you're a very successful entrepreneur... if you're one of the rare, lucky, and hard-working people who can create a new company, employ lots of people, and satisfy the public... you'll end up paying me more than 75% of your income over your life. Thanks so much.

 

I'm sure you'll think my offer is reasonable and happily partner with me... but it doesn't really matter how you feel about it because if you ever try to stiff me – or cheat me on any of my fees or rules – I'll break down your door in the middle of the night, threaten you and your family with heavy, automatic weapons, and throw you in jail.

 

That's how civil society is supposed to work, right? This is Amerika, isn't it?

 

That's the offer Amerika gives its entrepreneurs. And the idiots in Washington wonder why there are no new jobs...

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article22094.html

This really does go to demonstrate how unfair the whole taxation system is!

Don't know what's happened to the font but I cannot read quoted articles in: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?87070-The-great-interest-rate-rip-off/page823 without it hurting my eyes! (the italics bits) This thread was always a very good read, but I can't do it any more with it looking this way! - I've tried the 'Ctrl' plus scroll wheel which makes it bigger, but still fuzzy on my PC's LCD - there wasn't a problem before! I hate it. - If you can't read it, what's the point of the site?

Don't know what's happened to the font but I cannot read quoted articles in: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?87070-The-great-interest-rate-rip-off/page823 without it hurting my eyes! (the italics bits) This thread was always a very good read, but I can't do it any more with it looking this way! - I've tried the 'Ctrl' plus scroll wheel which makes it bigger, but still fuzzy on my PC's LCD - there wasn't a problem before! I hate it. - If you can't read it, what's the point of the site?

Coincidently, I've just successfully completed my training (one week course) and this was done at CEW Forklift Training Ltd in Luton.

http://www.cewforklifttraining.co.uk/index.htm

In my case, my company paid for the course, but a good few others on the same course had it funded through job seekers - although I'm not sure of exact details.

I suggest you do indeed 'sign-on' to qualify and get your training funded. You could even contact CEW at Luton who I'm sure would be happy to point you in the right direction.

Good luck

Assuming of course that those budgets aren't significantly cut. It's very possible that very soon the largest govt expenditure will be on govt debt. Just think how cool that will be.

:lol: - Excellent!

Thanks interestrateripoff, I always enjoy your comments and rye sense of humour.

This country is in so much sh*t - it's really quite depressing - thanks Gordon, your place in history is well assured - lol

Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs

Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs - Yahoo! News

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. – The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.

It's time to start cashing them in.

For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits — billions more each year.

Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more.

Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs — in the form of Treasury bonds — which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg's municipal offices.

Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn't be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion dollar deficits for years to come.

Social Security's shortfall will not affect current benefits. As long as the IOUs last, benefits will keep flowing. But experts say it is a warning sign that the program's finances are deteriorating. Social Security is projected to drain its trust funds by 2037 unless Congress acts, and there's concern that the looming crisis will lead to reduced benefits.

"This is not just a wake-up call, this is it. We're here," said Mary Johnson, a policy analyst with The Senior Citizens League, an advocacy group. "We are not going to be able to put it off any more."

For more than two decades, regardless of which political party was in power, Congress has been accused of raiding the Social Security trust funds to pay for other programs, masking the size of the budget deficit.

Remember Al Gore's "lockbox," the one he was going to use to protect Social Security? The former vice president talked about it so much during the 2000 presidential campaign that he was parodied on "Saturday Night Live."

Gore lost the election and never got his lockbox. But to illustrate the government's commitment to repaying Social Security, the Treasury Department has been issuing special bonds that earn interest for the retirement program. The bonds are unique because they are actually printed on paper, while other government bonds exist only in electronic form.

They are stored in a three-ring binder, locked in the bottom drawer of a white metal filing cabinet in the Parkersburg offices of Bureau of Public Debt. The agency, which is part of the Treasury Department, opened offices in Parkersburg in the 1950s as part of a plan to locate important government functions away from Washington, D.C., in case of an attack during the Cold War.

One bond is worth a little more than $15.1 billion and another is valued at just under $10.7 billion. In all, the agency has about $2.5 trillion in bonds, all backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. But don't bother trying to steal them; they're nonnegotiable, which means they are worthless on the open market.

More than 52 million people receive old age or disability benefits from Social Security. The average benefit for retirees is a little under $1,200 a month. Disabled workers get an average of $1,100 a month.

Social Security is financed by payroll taxes — employers and employees must each pay a 6.2 percent tax on workers' earnings up to $106,800. Retirees can start getting early, reduced benefits at age 62. They get full benefits if they wait until they turn 66. Those born after 1960 will have to wait until they turn 67.

Social Security's financial problems have been looming for years as the nation's 78 million baby boomers approached retirement age. The oldest are already there. As that huge group of people starts collecting benefits — and stops paying payroll taxes — Social Security's trust funds will shrink, running out of money by 2037, according to the latest projection from the trustees who oversee the program.

The recession is making things worse, at least in the short term. Tax receipts are down from the loss of more than 8 million jobs, and applications for early retirement benefits have spiked from older workers who were laid off and forced to retire.

Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, says the crisis has been years in the making. "If this helps get people to look more seriously at that in the nearer term, that's probably a good thing. But it's only really a punctuation mark on the fact that we have longer-term financial issues that need to be addressed."

In the short term, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security will continue to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes for the next three years. It is projected to post small surpluses of $6 billion each in 2014 and 2015, before returning to indefinite deficits in 2016.

For the budget year that ends in September, Social Security is projected to collect $677 million in taxes and spend $706 million on benefits and expenses.

Social Security will also collect about $120 billion in interest on the trust funds, according to the CBO projections, meaning its overall balance sheet will continue to grow. The interest, however, is paid by the government, adding even more to the budget deficit.

While Congress must shore up the program, action is unlikely this year, said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., who just took over last week as chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees Social Security.

"The issues required to address the long-term solvency needs of Social Security can be done in a careful, thoughtful and orderly way and they don't need to be done in the next few months," Pomeroy said.

The national debt — the amount of money the government owes its creditors — is about $12.5 trillion, or nearly $42,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. About $8 trillion has been borrowed in public debt markets, much of it from foreign creditors. The rest came from various government trust funds, including retirement funds for civil servants and the military. About $2.5 trillion is owed to Social Security.

Good luck to the politician who reneges on that debt, said Barbara Kennelly, a former Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut who is now president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

"Those bonds are protected by the full faith and credit of the United States of America," Kennelly said. "They're as solid as what we owe China and Japan."

EU draws up plans for first direct tax with fuel levy - Telegraph

"Algirdas Semeta, the new European commissioner for taxation, is planning a "minimum rate of tax on carbon" across the whole EU as a "priority".

Looks like the EU is running out of cash and needs direct taxation to fund it's waste.

Climate emails inquiry: Energy consultant linked to physics body's submission | Environment | The Guardian

Gaia theorist James Lovelock and former minister Michael Meacher label carbon trading a failed [problem] | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Looks like the EU are fraudulently looking to direct taxation IMHO:

The science is NOT settled that 'global warming or climate change' (or what ever you want to call it) is attributed to man's contribution of CO2 emissions, nor that man's activity has any significant effect on the climate with relation to CO2 emissions.

Any taxation applied in the name of 'climate change' is therefore only based on a bogus assumption propagated by government propaganda to make a few people very rich indeed at the great expense of the tax payer (now where have I witnessed that before - ah yes, bankers!).

Climate change is happening (naturally, for we are still coming out of the ice-age from 10,000 years ago), but for governments to use scare tactics in the name of climate change, based on discredited data models as their excuse to tax the hell out of us is simply fraudulent and a [problem].

For a very good balanced overview on the subject, you might wish to watch the following video link entitled "CLIMATE CHANGE: Facts and fictions" hosted by The Brisane Institute, Australia Jan 2010:

Brook + Readfearn / Monckton + Plimer on Vimeo

Burning our money: Her Majesty's Worst Ever PM

Her Majesty's Worst Ever PM

 

You can't help wondering what Her Majesty thinks of the arrogant dunderheads she's had to deal with since her Coronation in 1953. Since she came to the throne she's had 11 Prime Ministers, and almost without exception, they have all fallen short.

 

In her name, and without a shot being fired, they have surrendered large chunks of national sovereignty to a fascist superstate ruled over by the very people we'd spent the previous thousand years defending ourselves against. They have taken Britain into illegal wars bringing nothing but pain. They've watered down our criminal justice system and permitted a massive upsurge in lawlessness. They've dumbed down our education system, destroyed our work ethic, and undermined our cultural integrity. Her Majesty's great-great grandmother would have been seriously unamused.

 

But until now, she has at least been able to console herself with the thought that her subjects have benefited from an unprecedented rising tide of material prosperity. With one or two slight hiccups along the way, living standards have risen continuously throughout her reign. Overall, GDP per capita has trebled, an average annual growth rate of 2% pa. It has been an achievement without parallel in British history.

 

Moreover, every one of her Prime Ministers - every single one - has left average incomes higher than they found them.

 

Well, every Prime Minister until now, that is.

 

For the first time ever, Her Majesty has a Prime Minister who has presided over a fall in GDP per capita - and not a small fall either. Since the idiot Brown took over less than three years ago, per capita GDP has fallen by a catastrophic 5%.

 

Here's the complete Prime Ministerial record up to end-2009 (per capita GDP at basic prices; ONS data and BOM calcs):

 

Churchill (1953-55) +7%

Eden (1955-57) +2%

Macmillan (1957-63) +15%

Douglas-Home (1963-64) +4%

Wilson (1964-1970 and 1974-1976) +15%

Heath (1970-74) +12%

Callaghan (1976-1979) +7%

Thatcher (1979-1990) +26%

Major (1990-97) +13%

Blair (1997-2007) +27% (yes, on this measure, he beat Thatcher)

Brown (2007-2009) -5%

 

Please take a moment to absorb that list. Brown's record is miles worse that Callaghan's - despite all those Red Robbo strikes and the Winter of Discontent. And it's miles worse that Eden's - widely reckoned to be our worst post-WW2 PM.

 

Indeed, the damage suffered under Brown has been so extensive, average incomes have now fallen back to their level five years ago - the most dismal five years we've seen since the Coronation.

HM is no fool. She must be well aware what a complete dud Brown is. And just like the rest of us, she must watch the news, wondering HTF such an idiot can possibly be catching up in the polls.

 

But unlike the rest of us, she can't really leave if he gets back.

 

Instead, she'll have to sit there listening to another five years of his bullying lectures as her kingdom sinks into the abyss.

 

Off with his head!

Think-tank calls for VAT change

Politicians should consider imposing VAT on food, children's clothes and household gas and electricity, a report from a think-tank suggests.

 

Alternatives

As well as the VAT change, Reform said that changes to the personal allowance what also make the tax system simpler.

This would raise extra revenue of £8.3bn in 2011-12 and £8.4bn in 2012-13, compared with the government's plans which would raise £11.1bn in 2011-12 and £14.3bn in 2012-13, Reform said.

Under its suggestions, Reform calculated that households with incomes of less than £17,000 would, on average, see a tax reduction from lower National Insurance Contributions and protection from the broadening of VAT.

Households with incomes of over £17,000 would, on average, see a tax increase due to the broadening of VAT and, for higher rate taxpayers, replacement of personal allowances with a zero rate threshold. Individuals earning more than £105,000 would see a tax reduction.

David Cameron cited recent examples of government waste including the Department for International Development spending £240,000 on Brazilian dancing and the Department for Children, Schools and Families spending £3 million on lavish new offices which included a massage room and a 'contemplation suite'.

He said: "I hold in my hand a golf ball – a government-sponsored golf ball – just one of many that they spent £12,000 on branding."

And hit out at the £4.5 billion a year spent on NHS bureaucracy. "They lose £3 billion – every year – in benefit fraud and error, to name a few.

The media keep banging on about a 'choice'! of only three possible political parties to vote for, come the next election Lab/Con/Lib!

- but there IS a forth option (and IMHO a very good protest vote, if nothing else) and that is UKIP to which a considerable number of disgruntled ex Tory MPs have recently migrated.

The total waste of tax payers money is so enormous and unsustainable, yet this current government do nothing to kerb the hemorrhaging!, but, instead, continue coming up with new 'ingenious' ways to spend even more!!!!!

This irresponsible way to run Britain's finances has got to stop, and quickly, before any more damage is done - with falling tax revenue (company closures/increased unemployment ect) Britain, very simply, HAS to tighten it's belt to survive - simply expecting the dwindling number of current tax payers to pay more tax is a ridiculous idea and will only serve to drive the country into a worsening situation.

It all boils down to simple economics of 'income in and expenditure out' - it's not rocket science Mr Brown! - if we can't afford it, you don't spend it!

Greece should sell islands to cut debt

BBC News - Greece should sell islands to cut debt - Merkel allies

Greece should consider selling some of its uninhabited islands to cut its debt, according to political allies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Josef Schlarmann and Frank Schaeffler told Germany's Bild daily that the Greek state should sell stakes in all its assets to raise more cash.

Greek PM George Papandreou is due to meet Mrs Merkel in Berlin later this week for talks about the crisis.

Mr Papandreou has already announced a strict austerity programme.

 

'Affordable' islands'

"Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks - and the Acropolis too!" says the headline in the Bild newspaper.

Only 227 of Greece's 6,000 islands are inhabited

 

It sounds like the sort of daydream induced by too much ouzo, but the idea comes from two senior politicians in Europe's biggest economy.

Mr Schlarmann is a senior member of Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats and Mr Schaeffler is an MP for the Free Democrats - the junior partner in the centre-right coalition.

 

Both confirmed to the BBC that they wanted to start a debate about what Greece could do to help itself and bolster the battered euro.

Those who face insolvency, Mr Schlarmann said, must sell everything they have to pay their creditors. He advised Mrs Merkel not to promise any financial aid when she met Mr Papandreou in Berlin.

 

According to a poll published on Thursday, 84% of Germans think that the EU should not help Greece out of its debt crisis.

 

It is true that dotted in the blue waters of the Aegean are some of the country's most valuable assets - about 6,000 islands, of which only 227 are inhabited. Many of them are privately owned by the world's super-rich.

According to a specialised real-estate website, Greek islands evoke images of sunglass-sporting shipping magnates sipping champagne on enormous yachts, but cost as little as $2m (£1.3m).

 

Relatively affordable, the website says - unless, of course, you're a Greek.

Bullying law firm (Davenport Lyons) complaint pursued

source:

[size=2]http://www.which.co.uk/about-which/press/product-press-releases/which-computing-magazine/2010/03/bullying-law-firm-complaint-pursued.jsp[/size]

04 March 2010

Consumer champion Which? today welcomed the news that the solicitors’ watchdog will pursue its complaint about a London law firm, Davenport Lyons*, which accused hundreds of innocent consumers of illegal file sharing.

 

In its complaint, sent to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in December 2008, Which? said it believed the conduct of Davenport Lyons had been ‘bullying’ and ‘excessive’. The SRA agrees that there are grounds to call Davenport Lyons to account and has referred the matter to its disciplinary tribunal.**

 

However, Which? is disappointed that the process has taken so long. At least two other law firms (ACS Law and Tilly Bailey Irvine Solicitors(TBI)) have jumped on the bandwagon since the original complaint and are engaging in volume litigation*** relating to ‘illegal’ file sharing.

 

Deborah Prince, Head of Legal Affairs, Which?, said:

 

“We’re pleased to see some action at last from the SRA and hope the tide is finally turning in favour of consumers. We now want to see some decisive action to stop these bully-boy tactics. We hope the SRA’s decision sends a message to law firms like ACS and TBI that they can’t make a quick buck by accusing people of copyright infringements they haven’t committed.”

 

Which? continues to hear on an almost weekly basis from distressed people who have received letters wrongly accusing them of illegal file sharing and demanding payment for their ‘crime’. It has produced advice for such people on its website.****

 

Which? also has forwarded a copy of the latest letter from TBI to the SRA.

Notes to Editor

 

For further information, or to interview Deborah Prince, Head of Legal Affairs at Which?, contact Martin Chapman on 020 7770 7373 or martin.chapman@which.co.uk

*Davenport Lyons, while acting for its clients, had accused internet users of illegally sharing copies of games, music and films. The alleged file-sharers received letters from the law firm demanding payment of around £500 compensation for copyright infringement.

Which? drew attention to the fact that Davenport Lyons’ letters to alleged file sharers: made incorrect assertions about the nature of copyright infringement; ignored the evidence presented in defence; and increased the level of compensation claimed over the period of correspondence. In addition, the letters threatened, incorrectly, that failing to properly secure an internet connection was grounds for legal action.

 

**On 1 March 2010 the SRA decided to refer the conduct of two of the Partners of Davenport Lyons - Brian Miller and David Gore - to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

 

***Volume litigation is a process whereby the same claims are made against a large number of defendants, using pro-forma letters and documents to reduce the costs of the litigation and maximise profitability.

 

****which.co.uk/campaigns/file-sharing-fears/file-sharing-are-you-breaking-the-law/index.jsp

 

People who have received a letter from Davenport Lyons and believe they have been wrongly accused should contact Which? at whichcomputingnews@which.co.uk. Which? has also produced guidelines which it believes protects both consumers and copyright holders: File sharing: are you breaking the law? - Which? Campaigns

So they're not getting away with it after all.

Peter Schiff vs. Financial Experts in 2006 and 2007

I found this YouTube video which I think makes very interesting viewing looking back to predictions from a couple of years ago.

How many times have you heard the news outlets say something similar to "No one could have seen this economic downturn coming."

IBM takes on services in Essex as part of £5bn privatisation deal - Times Online

 

 

 

So the council is aiming to save £240m a year and IBM can earn up to £5.4bn over the term of the contract! Although there is nothing here stating how long the contract is over, but even over 20 years they still won't have saved £5.4bn. Conservatives saving people money!

 

A nice pay day for IBM. The public sector directly bailing out the private.

A Conservative council has signed a pioneering deal with IBM worth up to £5.4 billion to manage and provide public services in a new wave of privatisation supported by David Cameron.

 

The eight-year deal between the technology giant and Essex County Council is expected to transform the way that public services are provided across the county and save 20 per cent of the authority’s annual £1.2 billion budget within three years.

Well it's over (at least for now), and what a total waste of time & money - time & money that could have been spent on THE REAL issues ADAPTING to climate change - not this poppycock nonsense of man made CO2 emissions - created as an excuse to tax the hell out of everyone.

Here is a very good summary (couldn't have written it better myself - lol):

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/message-on-climate-emotive-but-a-fraud/story-e6frezz0-1225812018528

THE Copenhagen conference was rightly killed by greed, science fiction and a surfeit of hot air emitted by the 45,000 delegates, rent-seekers and assorted hangers-on, all of whom attempted to defy common sense and cripple the global economy.

 

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who sought to attain some semblance of world statesmanship as a "friend of the chair" appointed by host, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, again demonstrated his lack of diplomatic negotiating skills as conferees failed to agree to a meaningful conclusion.

 

Fortunately, Rudd's attempts to scare Australians into supporting an untested emissions trading system in advance of the failed conference were derailed by a new and reinvigorated Opposition, under Tony Abbott, at the eleventh hour.

 

Had Malcolm Turnbull's plan to go along with the Labor Party succeeded, Australia would now be suffering under a new tax scheme that would have ensured the collapse of industries fundamental to the economy.

 

The collapse at Copenhagen into a weak, almost meaningless morass of platitudes and "legally non-binding" (how's that for humbug?) agreement with no firm limits on emissions provided real-time proof of the inability of the United Nations to organise, let alone operate, anything.That Australia sent more than 100 people to Copenhagen to participate in this gabfest only to return with a piece of paper that reads like a drunk's New Year's resolution is an absolute disgrace. What's more, the whole show will be repeated in Bonn in six months in another exercise of futility, fatuity and duplicity.

 

Left-leaning nations and taxpayer-funded organisations went to Copenhagen prepared to give the dysfunctional global bureaucracy the power to operate the largest, most intrusive, supra-national tax-and-police authority ever envisaged.

 

Characters dressed as polar bears and pandas cheered such irrational leaders as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez as he called for the end of capitalism, for only with the end of rationalism can such endangered fruit-loops hope to survive.

 

One of the few to show any independent thinking was Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who said his nation supported a collective global agreement, but any compromise must not ignore the science. "To settle for something that would be seen as diminished expectations ... would be in our view a very wrong message to emerge," he said.

 

Without doubt, the wrong message has been sent.

 

As Patrick Michaels, formerly professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, Climategate - the now famous leaked emails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit - demonstrate some arbitrary manipulating of various climate data sources in order to fit preconceived hypotheses, deliberate blocking of freedom of information requests related to data provided to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the silencing of climate scientists sceptical of the prevailing orthodoxy.

 

In effect, the global warming claims of the so-called science has been ripped apart. The crowd who gathered in Copenhagen were there pushing a fraud.

 

The Russians were on to it early when they checked the claims being put forward on the basis of the data they had supplied.

 

Last week, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) was issued a report claiming that the Hadley Centre for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian climate data.

 

The IEA said Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory and that the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey had cherry-picked available data.

 

It had ignored material that showed no substantial warming in the late 20th century and early 21st century and included incomplete data, rather than using uninterrupted observations.

 

The London Daily Telegraph's James Delingpole, a keen student of Climategate, noted: "What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock."

 

In The Weekend Australian yesterday, a number of respected scientists dismissed the alarmist warnings about the extinction of the Great Barrier Reef. The widely anticipated extreme weather predicted by climate alarmists has not eventuated.

 

Even the threats of rising sea levels have been rejected by one of the world's foremost sea-rise experts, Nils-Axel Morner, the leader of the Maldives Sea Level Project, who wrote in October to Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed telling him that the results of extensive testing of the sea levels in the Maldives over several decades showed "overwhelming evidence that sea level was by no means in a rising mode in the Maldives, but had remained quite stable for the last 30 years".The same goes for Tuvalu and the other island nations claiming to be threatened by calamitous sea rise, he said. Very emotive, but a fraud.

 

There we have it. As yet, the global warming crowd have failed to produce any observation-based evidence that carbon dioxide levels have led to rising temperatures, but have shown that they are willing to distort data, manipulate facts and censor those who disagree with their ideology.

 

May all those who have peddled this dangerous and unscientific nonsense wake to a lump of coal in their stocking on Christmas Day.

Climategate: One Must Ignore 200 Years of Observations to Believe in AGW by David Bellamy December 12th 2009

http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=4634

There is no evidence of carbon dioxide being a poison, or that it is capable of causing a warming Armageddon. What follows is a summary of the proof — straight from real science, peer-reviewed over the past 232 years by legions of physicists, thanks to Newton’s Principia.

 

Remember the famous picture of Miss Marilyn Monroe with her skirt blown high? Even at the age of 76, when I see this picture my temperature goes up — followed by the amount of carbon dioxide I exhale. Never the other way ’round. Now, thanks to the study of a series of ice cores, this appears to be an inconvenient truth for the global warming industry.

 

Al Gore used this ice core data to claim that carbon dioxide made the temperature of the world rise, threatening life on earth, because there was a correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and the world’s average temperature. Yet the data from the much-celebrated Vostok ice cores paints a very different picture: Up goes the temperature, followed by a rise in carbon dioxide.

 

Effectively flattening Gore’s dreams of hedging his funds.

 

More troubles lie ahead for the warmists. Independent researchers have pointed out that crucially important pieces of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) evidence were based on false statistical analysis. For starters, take a look at historical evidence from the last 1,000 years. There was a worldwide Medieval Warm Period — no, not just in Europe — and a few centuries prior to that period it was warm enough for the Romans to produce red wine on the borders of Scotland.

 

The warmists did their best to hide this inconvenient truth, too. In 2006, Dr. David Deming of the University of Oklahoma testified to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. He stated that soon after he had published a paper on borehole temperature based on historical data in the journal Science, he received an email from a major climate change researcher which read:

 

We have to get rid of the medieval warm period.

 

Michael Mann, one of the divas of global warming, had done just that. He published a reconstruction of past temperatures from AD 1000 to the present … in which the Medieval Warm Period conveniently vanished.Warmist believers joined in, flag-waving and sandwich-boarding, calling Mann critics “deniers” and worse.

 

Over the past 5,000 years? There was not just one, but three periods when it was warmer than today. And yet life on Earth survived. Climate change is natural, and warmer periods occur without human CO2 emissions being the cause. Just looking at the last decade, world temperature is falling as CO2 rises — big emitters China and India have been stocking up their coal sheds. Increases in CO2 rarely coincide with rises in the Earth’s temperature — so how can CO2 be the driver of global warming, let alone climate change?

 

Following the spread of this evidence, the warmists began to see the lights of the skeptic train rushing down their tunnel of hype. Those with the most to lose dropped the term “global warming,” replacing it with “climate change” — which has been happening since the first living thing was there to record the evidence. With this new term, they gave themselves a spurious license to carry on frightening law-abiding citizens with waterlogged tales of unprovable tipping points just around the corner.

 

Meanwhile, one of Britain’s mainstream scientific groups, NERC, sidestepped this troublesome term by blaming everything on “environmental change” in their publication Planet Earth.

 

We have had at least 75 major temperature swings in the past 4,500 years — all in great part explicable by solar cycles, volcanic activity, and those little rascals El Nino and La Nina. Those “warming” oceans? The recent trend is one of cooling, not the warming predicted by legions of modelers and their models. Since 2007, the Arctic ice cap has been increasing in area, heading back towards the norm again. Yes, the Northwest Passage was navigable this year — but it has been that way on a number of occasions, just since 1850. Thanks in great part to prevailing winds changing direction, as they are wont to do.

 

During the past 10,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age, all the civilizations of the world came to fruition — and they mainly prospered in the warmer periods.

 

There are now more polar bears dining on seals in the Arctic than when I was filming there some 30 years ago, thanks to good wildlife management. So good, in fact, that the global warmists did their best to lock out the lead manager on that project from an important meeting discussing polar bear population — a matter that Al Gore would use to falsely frighten children across the world.

 

Sea levels have been behaving themselves, slowly rising ever since the end of the Little Ice Age. However, much to the chagrin of the warmists, they have remained stationary since 2006 — against all their predictions. Those who had bothered to read the IPCC’s 2007 report might have noticed the following from Chapter 5:

Finally, the global average sea level rise for the last 50 years is likely to be larger than can be explained by thermal expansion and loss of land ice due to increased melting and thus for this period it is not possible to satisfactorily quantify the known processes causing sea level rise.

 

We can only guess why the likes of the BBC chose not to report this good news.

 

Just this year, the data behind Michael Mann’s hockey stick was finally released. Mann had used only 12 carefully selected tree ring sequences to prepare his story — omitting 34 that didn’t suit his purpose. This is surely one of the most scandalous examples of cherry picking on record, a blatant attempt to keep the world scared of carbon dioxide, and to keep reputations and research budgets safe. A gravy train, of jet-set travel to conferences in choice locations around the globe, each well-laced with top cuisine for the top tables and adulation from a regular caravansary of hangers-on, swelling a spurious and unscientific consensus.

 

I have spent over 50 years of my life talking to and about plants, while doing my bit to recycle carbon dioxide to keep the living world going round and round. Today, children are taught that carbon dioxide is a poison. No — it is odorless, colorless, and non-toxic. We drink it in fizzy drinks and lager, and it puts the rise in our daily bread. Most importantly, it is one of the most important components of all life — photosynthesis converts CO2 into oxygen and carbon, life’s main building blocks. As long as plants have sufficient water and nutrients, their growth is enhanced by rising concentrations of carbon dioxide. CO2 is the free airborne fertilizer of the world.

 

Many experiments prove this fact of a carbon-rich atmosphere, experiments corroborated by millions of farmers across the world who cash in on the use of enhanced carbon dioxide in their greenhouses. Many even burn fossil fuel to boost production. Carbon dioxide plays a vital part in providing the 18 billion daily meals that do their best to feed the growing number of people across the world. The once-starving people of parts of the Sahel and Sahara deserts have returned to farm their lands, thanks to the shade of trees that now grow on some 300,000 square kilometers of their tribal lands, thanks in great part to rising levels of carbon dioxide.

 

The last thing Africa needs is to reduce its non-existent carbon footprint. Likewise, the last thing the economy of the world needs is to spend trillions of taxpayer money trying to solve the credit crunch by raising taxes to win a non-existent carbon dioxide war. The cost of the global warming [problem] is rising fast, and soon will pass the hundred billion dollar mark. Money that could have been spent solving real problems.

 

This August, right in the middle of the BBC’s promised barbecue summer (which didn’t come to pass), the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit disclosed that it had destroyed the raw data for its global surface temperature records. Despite the fact that they own some of the most powerful computers in the world, the reason they advanced was “an alleged lack of storage space.” The very foundation of the global warming argument was gone forever. Draw your own conclusions — sabotage or desperation?

 

Remember the millennium bug, or the dot-com bubble? Tens of thousands of the highest-paid and most computer-literate people fell for it, and rued the day. Now we see folks forced to stand by and watch biodiesel, palm oil, and soya swallow up their biodiverse, sustainably farmed rangelands.

 

Earth’s climate has remained within the limits tolerated by life for several billion years. During this time, the planet has experienced unimaginable volcanic events which liberated huge amounts of CO2. It has collided with extraterrestrial objects, triggering either an increase or decrease of temperature. Even the energy flow from the sun has varied over such a span of geological time.

 

And yet — here we are! Life remains. The global temperature is now well within life’s limits, the present-day is cooler than much of previous geological time, and you may soon have the opportunity to buy a secondhand private jet from the worlds first carbon-neutral billionaire.

By Bob Ellis on December 13th, 2009

 

Lord Christopher Monckton just has fun where ever he goes.

 

Whether it’s to a university in Minnesota, or the Glenn Beck show, or correcting modern-day climate “Hitler Youth,” or even education Greenpeace protesters, he just has such a wonderful way of educating environmental extremists with such calm and grace–no small feat, in light of the maddening lack of intelligent or analytical thought out of most environmental extremists.

 

In the video below, he chats for about 10 minutes with a Greenpeace woman, enlightening her on many, many things that she obviously did not know. (Hint: reading only memos from environmental extremism groups is the last way to find out any real information).

 

I have a feeling that, if this woman can stay out of the clutches of her fellow environmentalist wackos–where she might be re-assimilated back into the hive mind–long enough to actually look up some of the information Monckton told her about for herself, she might just get a grip on reality and come to the startling realization that the theory of anthropogenic global warming is a load of hooey.

 

I once believed some pretty shallow, stupid stuff; I’m sure there’s hope for this woman, aren’t you?

http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/12/lord-monckton-educates-greenpeace-drone

Now what worries me is that 50% of the human population is below average intelligence!

.

Gordon's only interest in the environment is ECO-TAXES.

Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy: banks should pay for climate change - Times Online

A tax on banking could be used to pay for combating climate change under plans pushed by Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy today as Britain almost doubled the cash it put up for short-term funding to help developing countries to go green.

The Treasury found £1.5 billion in so-called fast-track funding from 2010 to 2012 for clean fuel projects and to stop deforestation in developing countries, the Prime Minister said after an EU summit in Brussels.

This was a big increase on Britain's initial offer of £800 million for a voluntary international fund to help encourage progress in climate talks at Copenhagen but Mr Brown suggested that there would be no extra call on taxpayers because the money was already budgeted for.

It means Britain is offering the largest EU contribution to the fund, followed by France and Germany on €1.26 billion each over the three years.

 

Mr Brown added: "This world deal at Copenhagen must be ambitious, global, comprehensive, legally binding within six months. We have agreed this: it must include a fast-start launch fund for 2010-2012 which is $10 billion (£6.1 billion) annually."

 

The joint statement by Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy added: "We are determined that Copenhagen agrees to put in place stronger global environmental governance. There is much at stake at Copenhagen. We will be doing all in our power to reach the ambitious and comprehensive global agreement the world needs."

(more at the link)

Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN's negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol

Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after 'Danish text' leak | Environment | The Guardian

The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.

The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as "the circle of commitment" – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.

The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol's principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.

The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as "a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks".

A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:

• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;

• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called "the most vulnerable";

• Weaken the UN's role in handling climate finance;

• Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.

Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.

"It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process," said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.

Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: "This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up. It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed."

Hill continued: "It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN. That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints on developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks."

The text was intended by Denmark and rich countries to be a working framework, which would be adapted by countries over the next week. It is particularly inflammatory because it sidelines the UN negotiating process and suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive next week.

Few numbers or figures are included in the text because these would be filled in later by world leaders. However, it seeks to hold temperature rises to 2C and mentions the sum of $10bn a year to help poor countries adapt to climate change from 2012-15.

Didn't know they where already doing it, how long has this been going on for? Wouldn't that imply everyone is due a tax refund?

Thursday 26 February 2009 this Government responded to a petition raised on the subject:

http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page18414

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to stop charging VAT on Fuel Duty.”

Details of Petition:

“Currently, between 50% and 60% of the nett price of fuel is Fuel Duty. VAT is added on top of this which automatically increases the Fuel Duty by 17.5% - i.e.,

there is a tax levied on the tax

. As far as I can tell, VAT is a tax levied on the difference between a commodity’s price before taxes and its cost of production. It therefore seems to me that VAT on fuel should be charged just on the price BEFORE Fuel Duty is added.

I call upon the Prime Minister to correct this

injustice

and stop this Double Taxation

.”

Read the Government’s response:

It is a long established and comprehensively applied principle that VAT is due on the total amount payable for goods and services inclusive of any charges, such as excise duty. This is laid down in the basic VAT rules that apply throughout the European Union.

The legal provision for this rule can be found in Article 78 of the Principal EC VAT Directive, which states that, for the purposes of calculating the VAT due on goods and services, the taxable amount shall include taxes, duties “, levies and charges, excluding the value added tax itself”.

The Government cannot, therefore, exclude excise duty from the value on which VAT is charged on fuel.

In 2008, faced with the unusually difficult conditions created by surging global commodity prices - including crude oil prices, which nearly doubled in the 12 months to July 2008, when they reached a real-terms record high of $146 per barrel - the Government responded by postponing the 2 pence per litre increase in main fuel duty that was expected to take place on 1 October 2008. This decision helped businesses and families across the UK cope with record high fuel prices over the summer.

After the summer, however, crude oil prices fell by more than 60%, while both petrol and diesel prices at the pump dropped by more than 20 pence per litre, bringing the average retail petrol price down below £1 per litre for a number of weeks. Petrol and diesel prices continue to fall. In these circumstances, it is right for the Government to return to its long-term policy of increasing fuel duty rates each year, and so at the Pre-Budget Report the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that on 1 December 2008 fuel duty would increase by 2 pence per litre, to 52.35 pence per litre. This increase will continue to support the Government’s long-term environmental objectives while also protecting the revenues required to fund essential public services.

At the same time, however, the Chancellor also announced that the standard rate of VAT, which is also charged on fuel, would be cut by 2.5% to 15% for a period of 13 months. As a result of this cut, fuel prices for the private motorist are likely to be largely unchanged by the increase in fuel duty.

This stance by government to charge tax on tax has been legally challenged before, but alas hide behind the EU ruling that it's acceptable!

IMHO, at the very least, it is immoral and unethical and does not uphold the 'spirit' of the Magna Carter.

Our Government (cough) seems to me to be hell-bent on one sure-thing, and that it to tax us to oblivion! :

Remember how our government told us leaded petrol was bad, and thus justified higher tax? Did they ever reduce the tax on LRP to the same level as unleaded petrol? No.

Remember how diesel used to be cheaper, persuading lots of people to buy diesel cars? What did the government do? They increased the rate of tax on diesel.

Hauliers complained that the extortionate tax on diesel gave foreign competitors an unfair advantage over British companies. Gordon Brown's solution? Introduce a tax on foreign trucks. Genius!

And remember when VAT got reduced to 15% the chancellor increased fuel duty by 2p to make up the difference. Now that VAT is going back up to 17.5% that extra duty is not being removed.

Scandalous - but I wouldn't expect anything less from 'Nu-Labour'

 

So they are putting VAT onto a tax!!!!

 

This is desperate and insane.

 

I suggest they go for VAT on VAT, just think about that infinite loop.

 

We could have VAT on income tax, VAT on alcohol tax, VAT on petrol tax.

 

The list is endless.

I thought they already charged VAT on 'fuel duty' which is technically illegal, but the government seem to have got away with it for many years now!

On a tangible note:

For an insight into the 'intelligence' of today's 'Joe public' with regard to the current financial crisis check out this YouTube video - it's unbelievable and at the same time alarming but explains how the Fed get away with soooooooooo much

People sign petition calling for 100% inflation

http://faustiesblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/people-sign-petition-calling-for-100.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FWoLA+%28Fausty%27s+Libertarian+Blog%29

Education, education, education - where has it gone?

Petition the Prime Minister

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to suspend the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia from preparation of any Government Climate Statistics until the various allegations have been fully investigated by an independent body.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/UEACRU/

For a current update (4th December 2009) and easily understood explanation of the current situation to Climategate, watch the following YouTube videos by Lord Monckton:

Lord Monckton on Climategate at the 2nd International Climate Conference, Dec. 4, 2009 - 1of4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1UAFRlZtVE&feature=related

Lord Monckton on Climategate at the 2nd International Climate Conference, Dec. 4, 2009 - 2of4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk1wi9_P7C0&feature=related

Lord Monckton on Climategate at the 2nd International Climate Conference, Dec. 4, 2009 - 3of4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhaG4q81Do4&feature=related

Lord Monckton on Climategate at the 2nd International Climate Conference, Dec. 4, 2009 - 4of4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMIbDT7Se-s&feature=related

If you wish to see a copy of the draft Copenhagen Treaty a PDF version can be found here:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/un-fccc-copenhagen-2009.pdf