Archive for the ‘Wales’ Category
May 6th announced as date of General Election UK
The General Election is finally called
Tuesday, April 6 2010
David Cameron has welcomed the official announcement of the General Election date.
The election is a choice between five more years of Gordon Brown’s tired government making things worse - or change with the Conservatives, who have the energy, leadership and values to get Britain moving again.
Speaking to supporters this morning, David Cameron will say that the Consevatives are “fighting this election for the great ignored”.
“Young, old, rich, poor, black, white, gay, straight. They start our businesses, operate our factories, teach our children, clean our streets, grow our food, keep us safe. They work hard, pay their taxes, obey the law”, he will say.
“They’re good, decent people – they’re the people of Britain and they just want a reason to believe that anything is still possible in Britain.”
“This election is about giving them that reason, giving them that hope”.
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Alan Sugar thinks small business are moaners who live in Disney World – Appointed by Labour on April Fools Day UK
Sugar appointment criticised
Philip Hammond has criticised Labour’s announcement that Lord Alan Sugar will lead a new government task force designed to fight the corner of small businesses against the banks.
“Only Labour could announce on April Fool’s day that it had appointed the man who called credit-starved small businesses ‘moaners’ who lived in ‘Disney World’ to be the adjudicator on their applications for bank loans”, he said.
Lord Mandelson has selected Lord Sugar to sit on the task force which will set up the Small Business Credit Adjudicator. Lord Mandelson believes the people he has chosen “… understand the critical importance of new finance and credit flow to the growth of small, innovative companies”.
But Lord Sugar said last year: “The moaners are bust… they don’t need the bank, they need an insolvency practitioner”.
This comes on the same day that the Federation of Small Businesses, the British Retail Consortium and 23 business leaders attacked Labour’s planned tax on jobs.
“No wonder no-one believes Lord Mandelson’s claims to be the champion of small business when Labour would rather tax jobs and the recovery than cut government waste”, Hammond added.
Well this is news that small business can do without. Clearly Lord Alan Sugar has nothing in common with small business and is merely another puppet of Labour.
Jim Ferguson
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Captains of Industry and Business Leaders are Backing the Conservatives UK
Top Business Leaders Back Tories On Tax
9:42am UK, Thursday April 01, 2010
Ruth Barnett, Sky News Online
A group of business leaders have written a letter backing the Conservatives’ proposal to halt a planned rise in National Insurance.
David Cameron described it as a “very important moment in the election campaign”.
The executive chairman of Marks and Spencers, Sir Stuart Rose, and easyJet entrepreneur Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou are among the 23 people to have signed the letter, which is published in the Daily Telegraph.
The signatories employ around half a million workers between them.
They agree with shadow chancellor George Osborne that increasing NI by 1p next April, as Labour plans to do, is bad news for the economy.
“The Government’s proposal to increase national insurance, placing an additional tax on jobs, comes at exactly the wrong time in the economic cycle,” the letter says.
The Labour Party feel that the Conservatives’ plan has not been properly costed and not properly thought through.
Sky’s political correspondent Joey Jones
“In a personal capacity, we welcome George Osborne’s plan to stop the proposed increase in national insurance by cutting Government waste.”
Mr Cameron told BBC Breakfast: “These household names – people like Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Mothercare – are saying that Labour’s plans to put up National Insurance contributions are the biggest threat to the recovery.
“They are saying there is no threat to the recovery from cutting waste in 2010 but there is a threat to the recovery from putting up National Insurance contributions.
“Labour have said the whole thing is that we can secure the recovery. Well, today that plank of their whole approach has been removed.”
Chancellor Alistair Darling pledged to introduce the rise as a way of paying off some of the nation’s debts.
But Mr Osborne said he would axe the increase for people earning less than £45,000 if his party wins power at the next election. He said he would pay for this by finding efficiency savings worth £12bn.
Mr Darling counters that Mr Osborne’s policy is at odds with the Conservatives’ claim they would cut the deficit sooner and deeper than the Government plans.
Treasury Chief Secretary Liam Byrne said the Conservatives were not able to fund their promise on NI.
“No business goes to its shareholders with unfunded promises – but that’s exactly what the Tories are doing,” he said.
The captains of industry and top business leaders are fully aware of the failure of this Labour Government. They are giving their full backing to the Conservatives, because they know we have the experience and common sense, to get rid of Labour’s crippling debt, but not at the expense of putting more businesses out of action, or risking the creation of new jobs.
Members of the public whose jobs are hanging by a thread need to take note and ensure their vote is for the Conservatives. Another term of Labour could spell disaster for them and everyone else in the United Kingdom.
Jim Ferguson
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Conservatives to offer real help for small business UK
I am pleased to see some real help being promised for small business. Its encouraging that small business is being recognised for the part it plays by the Conservatives who understand the importance of the fact that we are a nation of traders and that small business accounts for 80% of the revenue raised.
Jim Ferguson
Conservative tax reform to aid self employed
Wednesday, March 31 2010
Mark Prisk, the Shadow Business Minister, has announced that a Conservative Government would undertake a full and fundamental review of small business taxation, including IR35.
The aim will be to provide a simpler, clearer and lasting tax regime, so businesses can plan with confidence.
“For the last 13 years, Labour have constantly meddled with the tax rules for freelancers and self-employed, Prisk said. “IR35 has especially proved to over-complex, uncertain and often unfair”.
IR35 has cost business £73 million over 10 years but it has barely raised revenue for the Treasury. Prisk criticised Gordon Brown for making it harder to be self-employed at a time when Britain should be open for business.
“This is why a Conservative Government would mandate the independent Office of Tax Simplification to undertake a fundamental review of current arrangements with the aim of providing a clearer, lasting and fairer tax regime”.
This announcement is in addition to previous plesges to simplify the tax system, cut Corporation Tax for small firms, and make small business rate relief automatic.
“Small businesses cannot afford 5 more years of Gordon Brown”, Prisk added. “Only the Conservatives have the energy and the ideas to get Britain working by boosting enterprise”.
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Labour will kill the recovery with their tax on jobs UK
We will stop Labour’s damaging NIC increase
Monday, March 29 2010
The Conservatives have announced that a Conservative Government will stop Labour’s tax rise on jobs by cutting waste.
Stopping the planned increases in National Insurance Contributions will result in 7 out of 10 working people being better off.
A Conservative Government will take immediate action to start cutting Government waste, in order to spend £6 billion less in 2010-11 than Labour’s plans.
“The re-election of a Labour Government under Gordon Brown – with more debt, waste and taxes – will bring us a new recession”, George Osborne said, speaking alongside Ken Clarke and Phillip Hammond.
“Labour will kill the recovery with their tax on jobs. We will cut Labour waste to stop it.”
Former Government advisers Sir Peter Gershon and Dr Martin Read, now members of the Conservatives’ Public Sector Productivity Advisory Board, advise that savings of £12 billion across all departmental spending are possible in-year without affecting the quality of front line services.
Having identified these savings the Conservatives can now commit to stop Labour’s tax rise on working people and jobs at the same time as reducing the deficit faster:
Labour are planning to raise Employees National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for everyone earning over £20,000. We will stop this increase altogether for everyone earning under £35,000 by raising the primary threshold at which people start paying NICs by £24 a week, and raising the Upper Earnings Limit by £29 a week.
Relative to Labour’s plans everyone liable for Employees NICs earning between £7,100 and £45,400 – which is 7 out of 10 working people – will be up to £150 better off a year under the Conservatives. Lower earners will get the greatest benefit as a percentage of their earnings. Nobody will be worse off.
Labour are also planning to raise Employers NICs for everyone earning over £5,700. This is a tax on jobs that will undermine the recovery. We will raise the secondary threshold at which employers start paying NICs by £21 a week, saving employers up to £150 for every person they employ relative to Labour’s plans. This will reduce the cost of Labour’s tax rise on employers by more than half.
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For the sake of the British people we must get rid of this Labour Government UK
The biggest risk for Britain is five more years of Gordon Brown
Wednesday, March 10 2010
William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, has argued that the biggest risk for Britain is five more years of Gordon Brown.
Speaking to the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, he said that ”our ability to undertake economic modernisation will be critical to Britain’s future influence”.
“When capital, labour and technology are increasingly mobile we cannot stand still”, he said. “That is why James Dyson’s report about how we can give more weight to science and technology in our economy is so welcome”.
“That is why our proposals on business taxation are oriented towards attracting and maintaining investment, why our programme of education reform explicitly draws from best practice across the globe, from Alberta to Sweden to Singapore, to ensure we make the most of every young person’s talent in the future.”
Hague warned that the modernisation our economy needs is not guaranteed. “If our opponents’ mistaken arguments and mistaken principles prevailed Britain will move backwards towards a ’70s style model, with a bigger say for the trade unions who want to impose rigidity and unaffordable regulation across the public and private sector. The bridge will be drawn up against innovation and investment.”
He also warned that Labour is no longer “the outward-looking thinking of the late 1990s”, but that it’s taking “an explicitly old-fashioned Left approach” – particularly in selecting candidates who are ”hardened union activists with a track record in resisting modernisation”.
Hague said Gordon Brown was right to refer to the economy being “at a crossroads” in a speech he gave today. “We could continue with five more years of his debt, waste and taxes. We know where that would lead – just yesterday an international credit rating agency warned that Labour’s plans would result in the loss of our credit rating. ”
“That would be a catastrophe for our economy and for our reputation around the world”, he said.
“So the biggest risk for Britain is five more years of Gordon Brown. The alternative is to change direction, deal with our debts more quickly and restore confidence in our economy. A new Conservative Government will be a chance to send the signal far and wide that Britain is once again open for business.”
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Labour and EU dictate terror policy putting British people at serious risk
Labour are at it again. Now they want to put the British people at risk from terrorists and all with the EU’s blessing.
Incredible.
Jim Ferguson
EU rules are fatal for terror watchlist
Thursday, February 25 2010
Shadow Security Minister Baroness Neville-Jones has pointed out that EU rules will make the Government’s proposed terror watchlists ineffective.
In response to the failed attack on an airliner heading for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, the Government announced that it would use the existing Home Office Watchlist as the basis for two new lists.
There was to be a no-fly list, and a larger list of those who should be subject to special measures prior to boarding flights bound for the UK (including transit/transfer passengers).
However, the European Commission says the UK cannot compulsorily collect Advance Passenger Information (API) for flights from within the EU under the e-Borders scheme, regardless of the nationality of the passenger.
And as the British Government has decided to also not collect and use Passenger Name Record information (PNR) for intra-EU flights, this means that Britain currently has no way of collecting advance information on all travellers arriving from within the EU.
The Detroit bomber flew from Nigeria to Holland and then on to America. If he’d travelled through Britain he might well not have been picked up by the new watchlist.
Speaking about the issue in a speech at the Royal United Services Institute, Neville-Jones said that Labour are “knowingly and inexcusably misleading the public into thinking that they are creating a system which will be an effective barrier to dangerous people being able to get on to a flight to the UK”.
“The flimsy basis of the new watch list will provide no such protection”, she added.
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British jobs for British workers – a joke under Labour
Labour have failed to get a grip on immigration
Thursday, February 25 2010
Damian Green has accused the Government of allowing immigration to run “out of control” following new evidence published by the Home Office.
The Shadow Immigration Minister was commenting on figures that lay bare the extent to which the Labour Government has failed to get a grip on the level of immigration in the UK.
The Home Office figures show more student visas being issued than ever and visas, settlements and EU benefit claims all up.
New asylum statistics also reveal that there are more asylum seekers arriving in Britain than failed asylum seekers leaving.
Damian said these immigration figures, the last to be published before a General Election make it clear that immigration “has been running out of control throughout the lifetime of this Government”, and he added:
“Even in a recession with more than two million unemployed the number of work visas issued is going up. So much for British jobs for British workers.”
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Better care for the elderly
Protecting Britain’s Pensioners
Labour want to cut Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance for over 65s, wrecking their chances of living independently.
2.4 million elderly people need support to cope with a physical or mental disability.
These people rely on disability benefits – a third of them through the Disability Living Allowance for over 65s, and two thirds of them through the Attendance Allowance.
Labour want to cut these benefits, wrecking their chances of living independently and having the freedom to tailor their care to their needs.
Those over 65 who claim Disability Living Allowance currently get an average of £75 every week, and those who receive Attendance Allowance get an average of £60. This compares to an average pensioner’s income of around £250 a week.
This means that some of the most vulnerable pensioners in our country could lose around a quarter of their income – amounting to a loss of around £8 billion a year.
These cuts are unwise, unfair, and unkind. Our pensioners deserve better.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
- Sign our petition against the care cuts
- Email/Write to your MP to ask them to oppose these cuts
- Add your name to this petition to the Prime Minister
CAMPAIGN UPDATE:
The Government’s social care policy was plunged into disarray during the Conservative Opposition Day debate on Tuesday 8th December in the House of Commons on ‘disability benefits for the elderly’.
The Health Secretary has now tried to assert that there will now be “no cash losers” amongst current recipients of disability benefits in a future care and support system. This is at odds with the proposed changes to Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance for the over 65s contained in the Government’s own Green Paper.
All of the preferred funding models in the Government’s Green Paper are underpinned by integrating Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance for people over 65 into a future care and support system, with no guarantees that benefit recipients would receive the same level of ‘cash’ support.
The change of policy, announced unexpectedly on the floor of the House, has effectively holed the Government’s own Green Paper below the waterline as none of its funding models currently reflect this new policy.
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