We can only hope that the reshuffle delivers a strong hand!

The cabinet reshuffle due in the next few days will be rather more important than usual.  For a start, it will clarify 'DomBo's general direction.  By the way, I continue to use the expression "DomBo" in order to indicate the duality of today's government.  Only time will tell whether 'Dominic' or 'Boris' are actually sharing the controls or fighting over them!  In the meantime we must simply fasten our seatbelts and hope for the best. 

On the whole, the outlook seems to be set fair.  'The Donald' has utterly squidged the Democrat party who have been reduced to looking like those old circus clowns who ran around pouring buckets of water over each other.  So  matters 'over there' should remain fairly quiet and with a bit of luck and a fair wind we should be able to strike a mutually advantageous trade deal with 'Uncle Sam', ooops, I meant 'Uncle Don'!

Meanwhile, 'just over there' the European Union - who sniggered? - might huff 'n' puff but with Germany sailing into stormy economic times and the East Europeans  using their elbows to make room for themselves, it may be gradually dawning in what passes for the collective mind of the EU that they may need us as a trading partner rather more than we need them!  Cold shower time, mes amis!

So, cautious optimism is permitted but keep your provisions safe and your ammo dry!

 

 

 

Comments

[Whitewall]

It is unlikely that the "piffleocracy" in Brussels can overlook a market the size of Great Britain. Money runs everything.

[Scrobs]

"piffleocracy"

Best word for ages!

Living near two shore-based fishing fleets means we all look out for them around here, Amber Rudd didn't...

[Loz]

"Keep your provisions safe and your ammo dry!"

Unless these include your house and pension, in which case you're about to lose them already ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/02/08/tories-eye-mansion-tax-raid-pensions2/amp/

For those outside the DT paywall ...

Boris Johnson has been weighing up shock plans to impose a “mansion tax” on owners of expensive homes, in a move which will infuriate the Conservative Party’s grassroots and stun MPs.

Severe cuts to pension tax relief enjoyed by millions of voters are also being considered by the Prime Minister and his Chancellor, Sajid Javid, for the Budget next month in an effort to pay for a huge increase in public spending.

Blue socialists, red in tooth and claw.

You're now trapped on an island with 3 shades of socialism and no external oversight and governance, no checks and balances, no personal escape route. You surrendered all that when you left the EU and single market.

This is what they meant when they said, " Take back control". They didn't mean you take back control with lower taxes and more freedoms, no, they meant Westminster takes back control with higher taxes and fewer freedoms.

It's ok, I won't say I told you so.

SoD

[Loz]

And then there's work.

Many people prefer to work freely in the gig economy, I'm one of them. The gig economy is the oil in big cogs of the Brit economy, private and public sector. From the Polish cleaners, who I adore and always chat to after hours when I'm working late, to the high-flying management consultants and everything in between including me, these people have made Blighty's economy survive and thrive through their flexible working, risk taking, going the extra mile. And now they also are being targeted by the blue socialists.

This victimisation is via something called the IR35 tax legislation. It started under Blair / Brown. Since then it has meant that vague rules about "hidden employment" and "working like an employee" which require a king's ransom in administration and legal fees to defend against have been foisted on the gig economy. Falling foul of these vague rules means you have to repay all the back tax and NI you would have paid if you'd been on your customer's payroll. It bankrupts most victims.

Well now the blue socialists have found it tricky to winkle out individual contractors on less than £100k a year. The tax man is no more efficient at work than an NHS, social services or state education worker of course, and the pathetic cases they have tried to bring against lower income contractors have such a poor success rate and high cost due to each and every one having its own court case, the tax man gave up and focussed on the high income contractors, like top media presenters, for example.

So the blue socialists decided to change tack in order to rob the lower income giggers. They're in the process of changing the IR35 rules to target the gigger's customer rather than the gigger.

So this means any organisation that uses contractors will be liable for IR35 back tax and NI for any of their giggers deemed to be "working like an employee" or "hidden employees" under the same vague rules. The logic of the tax man being that one big corporate using contractors is only one set of legal costs to bear compared to many if the individual giggers were targeted.

And the result?

Organisations, private and public, are closing their doors to giggers. Too vague. Too complicated. Too risky.

So my livelihood, my way of being: challenging authority as an independent hire with no boss's ring-piece to brown nose, just the truth to tell and the work to do, and if the truth ain't what they wanna hear then I move on, is about to end.

The one avenue up which truth and productive work can arrive in the big corporate stitch-ups of private and public sector Blighty is just about to be closed for access.

The legislation hits the statute books in April.

So now it's upfront and personal for me.

I ask myself the question: -

When the state routinely starves and dehydrates 10,000 of my fellow citizens to death per annum, hands over 1300 girls to rape gangs and more yet to be discovered, turns out a generation of knife wielding ignoramuses with zero work ethic, deprives me of freedom of movement, rejects external oversight and governance in spite of their own mandate for it being "the will of the people" when the "will of the people" shows in every poll that no mandate exists, and then deprives me of my livelihood through vague arbitray power, is it time to take up arms against the state yet?

SoD