Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Afghanistan Front News

MOD: Has announced the name of the UK Soldier that was killed on Tuesday, the Soldier was “ Acting Corporal David Barnsdale from 33 Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), serving with the Counter-Improvised Explosive Device Task Force ”. Our thoughts are with the family of Acting Corporal Barnsdale.

How Safe are Safe Liberal Seats ?

Fox News: Reports that even in birth place of JFK the great State of Massachusetts once liberal seats are under threat from the Republican wave facing the Democrats in November. If Democratic safe seats in the House go Republican this will make 1994 look like a major victory for Bill Clinton. If the Republicans can gain between 75 to 100 seats they can block any Obama policy, they will have the electoral mandate, they can push through a Bill to revoke ObamaCare, this will force POTUS to veto the Bill, the question that Democrats in the House and the Senate will have to ask is will they sustain a Presidential veto, when they run again can they afford to be seen as close to POTUS. The Oval will have to work hard to prevent a wipe out of Democrats on November.

Conservatives vs. Labour

Iain Dale's Diary: The Conservative Political Blogger Iain Dale points out that the Coalition Cuts will be 19%, while Labour had promised 20% in Government, Dale writes the following, “ So their attacks on 19% cuts will ring rather hollow. ” In will be interesting to see how Labour really attack these cuts, one would expect a quite combative approach by Ed Balls the best Shadow Chancellor Labour never had, but Alan Johnson has no economic background at all, he is nice but didn’t have the guts to knife Gordon Brown and walk in to 10 Downing Street as a caretaker PM. Lets see the polls at the end of the week, if Labour is not ahead by between 4-6% they are in real political trouble, if they lose economic argument they will be out of power for a generation.

40,000 Teachers OUT - Coalition Government

Guardian: Reports on a internal Department of Education projection that forty thousand teachers in England face the axe due to public spending cuts. It is a tough world folks, teachers have transferable skills, if they don’t they are not much good as teachers, all sectors of Government are going to get a hit folks, the fault for this economic mess lies at the doorstep of one Mr Gordon Brown, have not noticed his face in the House of Commons of late, if the reader of this blog only turned up a few times for his job he would get the sack, from reports former PM Brown is finishing off his book, a massive book on economics from news reports, Go help us all!

Death in Afghanistan

MOD: Reports that a UK Soldier was killed on Tuesday in Afghanistan, the Soldier was from the “ 33 Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), serving with the Counter-Improvised Explosive Device Task Force ”. Thus since 2001 the UK has lost 341 of its Armed Forces Personnel in Afghanistan, of that total it has lost 301 in combat action and 40 due to illness, accidents or other incidents.

Welfare CUTS

Telegraph: Reports that the Coalition Government will axe another 7 billion from the welfare budget on top of the 11 billion already announced in the Emergency Budget. The Coalition Government has shown by its axing of child benefit to high earners that it is spreading the hurt from the top on down, the welfare budget is the biggest cost the honest tax payer, thus the need for some tough action, being on welfare should not be a life pattern, it should be basic and tough, and why should adults between 18-25 who have never worked get any benefit, if they are willing to help in the local community then yes it’s a good idea, otherwise they should either stick in Education or be helped by their families, there are of course exceptions, but they should be the exception to the rule, and the exceptions should be limited to extreme events.

PM Cameron KEEPS his WORD over CUTS

BBC News: Reports on the key points of the Government cuts to public spending, from the half a million that will lose their jobs to a permanent bank tax. The good point for PM Cameron is that the he has kept his word to the old age pensioners, they will still get their winter fuel allowance, a free bus pass and free TV when they are 75. The devil is in the details folks, this will take a few hours and days to work out, also in Wales and Scotland it will be Labour, Plaid Cymru and SNP who have to do the cuts, sometimes winning is fun when you have to make the Opposition do the real dirty work.