You readers have seen my views in the past. I have been critical of labour and I have given UKIP a pass in the past regarding Brexit, an ideal I am still in favour of, especially as we now see how quick French election promises were shifted like a stab in the back by the French Investment banker turned president. UKIP does not get a soft deal at present, merely because it had a year to prepare, it has a new ‘leader’, one that has nowhere near the charisma of Nigel Farage and charisma or not, they are vying for the top position and if I can chop Labour to size, UKIP deserves no lesser treatment. So what is up with them?
Page 10 gives us the first part “We will fund our schools, build more houses, and rebuild our depleted armed forces. We will do this without adding a single penny to anyone’s tax bill. Our cost-of-living package will also save households £400 a year“, the mere question ‘how?’ should be evident here. The answer given “reduce foreign aid to 0.2 per cent of Gross National Income, and end our financial contributions to the EU budget“, which cannot be done the first year at least, in addition, whatever the UK loses not having to shift into the EU will go into other places, now I am all in favour of giving a chunk of that to the NHS, but the math feels wrong. The reality is that foreign aid often intersects with creating business opportunity and visibility. In my view to get anywhere near all this it will be a lot more than the 0.2% of that national gross, yet how much would be cut exactly and from where? By hiding (read: presenting it like this) they are actually no better than Labour, they have no real idea how to fund their idea’s. In the end they would cut way too much changing the humane image of the United Kingdom that is nowhere near reality and more than that, the UK would lose their face of strength. You see foreign aid is also showing a face of strength. In light of: ‘We can help, we can do this!’ that is a strong message and that strong message cannot be tempered with in light of Brexit, until proper trade paths are set, and properly set in stone, changing the face of England is a dangerous one. In addition, the pledge of more police in light of Manchester just days ago is equally stupid. There is no indication that it would have stopped the Manchester events and more important, labour left the UK with so much debt that we will be feeling that pain for at least 3-4 more years and there is a reality, there will be initial pain from Brexit. UI have always stated that the UK would grow to strength much faster after that, but it is still an issue that will need to be overcome. In addition, as the VAT is removed from the domestic energy bills, the coffers will remain empty, the deficit will go up because that money would need to come from somewhere else. Where will it come from? Tax increases? Extra levies on environmental reasoning’s?
Then on page 12, UKIP does something really stupid, and believe me that stupid is the word for it. As I personally read it, they set into the light, their own Patrick O’Flynn, UKIP MEP for the Eastern region. When we read “Starbucks recently reported profits of £13.4m on a UK turnover of £380m. Its corporation tax contribution fell to £2.7m, down from £7m the year before. How can a vast business that sells coffee in paper cups all over the country for £2.50 a pop end up paying a corporation tax contribution amounting to much less than one per cent of turnover?” Now, the question is valid, but there is a clear side. Turnover (£380m) and profit set at £13.4m, so corporate tax being £2.7m. So we can speculate that it is 17%, that is not too low, consider that Starbucks has shops all over England and in some of the most expensive places in the UK. They have around 800 stores in the UK alone, meaning that there are UK offices too, including the European HQ. So with shops all over London, what do you think the costs are? Now, there are issues for sure, yet in that light to set Starbucks in the limelight whilst the Apple games of legally allowed bookkeeping is setting a very different picture was just stupid. Macworld gives us that part (athttp://www.macworld.co.uk/news/apple/apple-q2-2017-financial-results-revenue-figures-apple-earnings-report-3581769/), when you make $53 billion per quarter, a lot more should be going to the state, yet this is global not just UK, yet it is interesting to see that Ireland was fighting the EU ruling that Apple had to pay back taxes and the Irish government is fighting that ruling, which is insane on a few levels, so far the Irish state has spend €270,000 in legal fees, to fight the demand the EU has that Ireland is due back taxes from Apple. This links to the UK, because the tax system on corporations is an issue, which UKIP addresses on the same page, yet they are just addressing corporate taxation. It is not the issue that is draining taxability, it is the allowance to shift what is charged in the UK.
Let’s show this in an example. A software firm ships software to the UK. The software is set to £0.01 as it goes to the software office from wherever. The software costs £999 and is sold to companies lets say in a package deal with 30% discount. We now see £999 + training £250 + consultancy £750 totalling £1399, discount was £600. Yet the head office wants the agreed £999 software part (or at least the contribution percentage), so the discount is in the books applied to the other two. £1000 minus £600, so we see a taxable amount of £400, now considering the consultancy and training costs in staff, how much is left to tax? That is a multi billion-pound shift, so talking about cups of coffee is a little bogus in my mind. and all this is perfectly legal, because it was set in a package deal. If you make that option no longer an option then that firm either sells a lot less or pays a lot more in taxation, is that not a much better setting? The business side reads nice and it is a nice set-up, I am not sure if it would work like that, but time constraints sets me in the mindfulness that there are a few question marks, but overall the setting of opposition of the small-mindedness of Labour reads nice. In addition, they actually missed the opportunity to offer incentives for businesses to hire aged workers, when that is made more appealing, there would be a business shift that aids in better moral, implying that there would be more competition within a firm which would drive and work eagerness to some degree, which is merely a speculation on my side. Yet they drop the ball with British jobs for British workers. Yes, it has been their voice to do so and I am not against it, yet the voicing of “we should be offering jobs first to our own unemployed, rather than inviting cheap labour from overseas to do the jobs British people are perfectly able to do“, this brings fear to the British Farmers who at times feel lucky to get anyone to take a job outside of the cities. I took special interest on how UKIP decides to solve the housing issue. We get some facts, but there are two elements that are vital to it all. You see, the claim of “a bold policy to roll out high quality, low cost factory built modular (FBM) homes, affordable on the national average wage of £26,000” reads nice, but lacks any solution that would actually work. You see, I can find that (at http://www.hanse-haus.co.uk/house_overview.html), yet the issue is for the most not the house, it is the land and location. Unless the people in the UK are willing to move out of London by a decent distance, the land will be unaffordable, in addition, whatever is built will only fuel congestion in several ways. So it will be about location, infrastructure and availability of services (gas, light and internet). As these parts are often not too lavish or cheap, getting anything at £250K is a stretch at best, in addition, how would there be a working life when the places affordable are on an unholy distance from any location work could be found at. None of the parties has any realistic solution. The Greater London area is so pumped on price per square inch that finding a liveable solution is almost out of the question. so finding a place for 60,000 is almost the unsung drama of the century at present. Page 17 does have some nice parts, parts that I offered as a solution in the past to other parties. I like the restrictions of housing to be for living only and not for any resale other than back to the Housing Development Corporation (HDC). It is close to the only way to get a lid on speculative profiteering in housing projects. I have seen and felt that impact myself in the past. It would enable first home owners a lot more and might help, yet the reality is that this would be outside the Greater London area, which is not a bad thing as there are plenty of cities that could benefit, yet will it work? what reads nice is not a guarantee to be a solution, so I will keep an open mind. When it comes to the NHS, UKIP makes similar mistakes Labour does by merely throwing money at it. For sure the NHS needs the cash, yet the issues are not addressed. The issue is not just “1,500 doctors leave Britain every year for better pay and more relaxed working conditions in Australia or New Zealand“. Addressing that part is essential in solving some of the issues the NHS has, like Labour, throwing money at it will not really work and besides that, where the money is coming from is equally a question that is an issue, because a coffer that has no £9 billion, has no option to spend it, so where is it coming from, merely pointing at the foreign aid budget will not bring forth the coins, so as UKIP has no real solution at present we need to consider alternatives. One alternative could be that any doctor or nurse working a full year at the NHS would see a 5% lowering of their student debt. Would that not be a solution to consider? It would relieve stress, they would actively work and lower the debt without paying and that improves their quality of life especially their first 5-10 years, in there we would see that the NHS could benefit from those 6-10 year veterans, a group that is dwindling down the fastest as I see it. Their part on national not international health care is pretty insane. It is unworkable as refugees and other cases would fall out of the basket. Telling a refugee that this person is not entitled to health care is just not an option. It vilifies the NHS in untold and unacceptable ways. In addition, such paper requirements would give power to insurance agencies in ways I don’t even want to contemplate. Their entire approach to mental health is pretty much food for the waste basket. As we read “Every year, some 150 million GP consultations and up to forty per cent of A&E attendances are linked to mental health issues and drug or alcohol abuse, yet there are insufficient resources for doctors to refer patients to specialist care“, as I see it, Binge drinking needs to be vilified in an open and massive way. It is costing A&E pretty much an arm and a leg in the most literal of ways. Setting the premise that issues on narcotics and binge drinking is either set to private insurance or not treated at all is pretty much the only way left. As the crackdown on binge drinking has failed again and again other steps will be needed. This part in UKIP caters to votes in very much the wrong way. we can see that the healthcare side needs additional help, yet in equal measure it now needs to address that some should no longer be allowed to call for help. The entire mention of cyber bullying was a waste of space and many know that changes are needed, yet as legislation is falling short on technology issues in several ways, there is no answer, so voicing it in consideration is a loss as such. Overall the UKIP manifesto reads better and more believable than the Labour one by a fair bit, I do not believe that the numbers are realistically, as they are mentioning that cuts are to be reversed, yet in all this, there is no valid way where those required funds are coming from. When we consider that with foreign aid ‘The provisional figure for 2016 is £13.3bn‘, and the Gross National Income was predicted to be around £520B, the UKIP idea is to lose £13 billion and spend it in the UK is an issue. With £500 million, there will be no goodwill created outside of the UK, which now implies that business opportunities will go to players outside the UK, on the basis of what is required, what is desired to be cut and what is to be achieved overall, cutting in the wrong pie comes with dire consequences and the ‘upbeat’ story that UKIP provides the provisional voter will not be one that can be maintained to the slightest degree. In all this they focus on corporate tax, yet the tax overhaul that is needed is not seen or shown to the degree it should be. We might love the read on housing, the reality is that the plan has flaws from the very beginning and the protection of farms and farm labour is thrown out of the window as it will be about British jobs for British workers. The least stated on the NHS part the better. I admit, I liked reading their version the best, but like any novel, whether the novel is in red, yellow or in purple does not matter, the life of the people in the UK is not a novel and the reality is that hard times were bestowed on the people (that is excluding Brexit) and the current population needs to deal and suffer that inheritance. Weirdly enough, for the Tories (my blue team), UKIP offers options that the Tories should consider adapting or doing in unison with UKIP, there would be the benefit that some untrained outspoken members could convert to better outspoken people and as they see the light, not only will the quality of UKIP members go up, there is every chance that a more conservative view will be adapted which is good for all of the UK. I have seen messages and forums where UKIP members are and many of them are decent people, only at times drowned out by the loudest speakers rambling more and more extreme expressions, just to get attention. That is merely my view and I believe that this could be solved. As I noticed and reported on in 2015, it seems that people who were not outspoken Labour or Conservative were either Lib Dem or UKIP. It was almost a given that where one was, the other would not be. That is the situation that the Conservatives do not seem to have focussed on (as I personally see it). By offering a wider scope parts of UKIP and Lib Dems would go Conservative which is good as I see it. As Paul Nuttall made three blunders in the last 30 hours alone, he needs to carefully consider where he is moving to. Blaming Theresa May was utterly stupid (wrong does not begin to describe it), being seen as the anti-EU party is a given, but that focus is now no longer valued or valid perse. The issue has been that the spending spree of Mario Draghi was a clear motivator and now we see that Draghi is relabelling a vestment of finance (read: London), as stated by Reuters as “UK financial market infrastructures (FMIs) would be considered as third-country FMIs rather than EU entities“, that part alone should anger the UK people and its bankers. So as Draghi is now stating that the UK stops being European, and set to third country is not only wrong it is a clear statement on a course of blaming of his own failure down the line, and this is happening whilst many parties outside of the UK are questioning the policies of Mario Draghi more and more. the mere mention by the Dutch on how Draghi produced 2.3 trillion out of thin air gives voice that my fears have been forever correct (at least from the beginning of the second wave), that in light that the first wave never actually brought Europe any solid economic growth. The third blunder we see from Paul Nuttall is him calling politicians too cowardly. He wants to recruits thousands of police and troops, but again, there is no way to pay for that. In light of his statement in light of Manchester, he flaws in equal Titanic levels as (thank god for that), it is not up to politicians, but to the intelligence branch and the police to set the stage and the optional solutions, an option made a lot harder by the US lately, a side he did not really touch on. This is also not the time to ‘pounce’ on radical Islam as the path on how to resolve that is actually something that the professionals who are doing just that, are also considering what the best approach is. That is in part the lesson we are now learning from the Manchester Arena. These professionals know what to do and we should let them do that. The attacks on Theresa May, were folly and there was no clear indication on the threat. The evidence now shown that there is a support system in place for Lone Wolves is a really serious issue and I feel certain that the Metropolitan Police and MI5 will know on how to deal with this. So in all Paul Nuttall should have voiced support, not incriminations of any kind. He basically cut his own fingers whilst there was no need to handle a knife at all, as I see it, it will hurt his numbers!
So on the purple side, I have seen some nice reads, yet the reality is that none of the parties can offer anything positive for the Conservatives, they are all in denial of the utter emptiness of the treasury, which does not help their situation either, at least UKIP has the benefit of not trying to push the UK in deeper debt, something Labour is trying to do, straight off the bat. As I see it, the Conservatives remain the strongest, the interesting side is that both Lib Dems and UKIP have opportunities to work with the Tories if they mend their ways and in addition, if UKIP repairs its ability to speak properly and non-extremely on thoughts that were never required to be extreme.
As they presented a purple Union Jack on their cover, they need to realise that this jack is showing shades of purple, attuning their views better to a wider group of British people, who are all optional voters, they need to realise that they are a new party with a visible lack of experience. In all this, I personally believe that Nigel Farage, if persisted in politics could have made a strong gain, in the last week we saw that Paul Nuttall is not up to the job at present, which, if realised by the voters could turn a stronger shift to both Conservatives, yet especially the Lib Dems, because a lot of UKIP and Labour are too uncomfortable with the conservative view (or the Labour view for that matter) and that is fair enough. I just wonder how Tim Farron will deal with the easy slide towards his party. Oh, and that is discounting one part that a lot of people have not considered, which was the case in the Netherlands. The Greens could actually propel forward a fair bit. That part will be known this soon enough.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 