Keep Bankers away from Food Banks

Cuts hit across Birmingham.  Erik Pickle's man puts the boot in after Trojan hoax.  Restucture of the restructure, with additional cuts and consultation of the cuts of the cuts.  It's getting tough here in Birmingham, but at Christmas time it's important to reach out - think of those people worse off than we are.

Birmingham City Council is 'consulting the people' again about Birmingham Budget 2015.  We get to choose between spending money to maintain a half functioning Library Service, clear up the remnants of the Bin men, or skeleton adult care provision.  Parks, youth services, any profitable part the Council, heritage & arts are pretty much out of the picture already.

It's important to visit the survey, although it's increasingly hard to have 'positive ideas about the future of Birmingham City Council'.  At first I thought the best thing to do would be to campaign to raise council tax, but as @politicalhackuk helpfully makes clear with graph after graph, no amount of increased council tax, or other income can really deal with the root cause of our problems.

That's why I propose everyone working should send a pound a week (or whatever you can spare) directly to George Osborne to redistribute to his friends, colleagues and other bankers.  If nothing else, it will reduce the bureaucracy and hedging necessary for party funds normally raised from bankers and other investment specialists.

It works in America so why not here?  I've done the maths.  The Daily Mail suggests there is a record 30 million in work.  If we all contribute £1 a week, that's nearly half the wealth of the cabinet in a week!  A pound a week would be £1.5 billion a year, which while this wouldn't make a huge dent in the debt of £(insert any figure you like, depending on what your trying to prove) billions we owe (it could, however, pay for a knighthood - at present cost, it could collectively buy four Houses of Lords).

Newspapers highlight Russel Brand's bullying tactics when discussing bankers.  Is Russel Brand blaming poor bankers for the financial difficulties leading to the poverty we (and bankers all in it together) face in the investment sector?

If we aren't prepared to pay our bankers, how long will it be before bankers are taking handouts at food banks (and sell it on for huge profits)?

Don't let the bankers get you down

I've just received a letter from Birmingham City Council announcing a doubling of allotment costs to £40 a year.  We will carry on, and in the grand scheme of cuts and so on, will largely go unnoticed.  Costs haven't doubled in the year since the last rise.  I guess, if anyone was bothered, the right wing press would have broke news days before like, 'Winging middle-class allotment holders don't dig over plots', or 'Lousy layabouts need to pay more'.  But what about encouraging healthy living? People on low incomes encouraged to feed themselves cheaply?

A little earlier I had a chat with a Tory relative about pensions, public sector cuts, so on, and got the 'Well you've got to realise there's a pot of only so much money, and we can't keep paying out more than there is' argument.  Thing is, if there's only a small pot, why is it the bankers always seem to get first dibs?  If you think it's complicated and hard to understand, it really isn't - try here.

It's a recession - recession hits everyone?  So how come sales in luxury goods are up? (try googling luxury goods boom)  Why is there a worldwide boom in yacht sales and luxury cars?  It's pretty clear those with bags of money are picking up the bargains, and those with a little less money are squeezing those with less, and so on (the trickle down effect), so those who are poorest, with least are paying the most.  And what is the government doing?  Protecting the most vulnerable?  Nope.  Cutting services and raising taxes for the poorest, while at the same time cutting taxes for the richest.

If it make's you mad too, try Tony Benn's Coalition of Restistance, try listening to Divine Comedy 'Complete Banker'.  It's not going to end allotment cost hikes, but maybe we should try to protect those who most need it.