Freedom & Whisky asks: And where is Britain’s Ron Paul?

Ron Paul is a Texas Congressman running for presidency in 2008. He is a libertarian conservative Republican.

(He saw it on Lew Rockwell’s Blog who got it from Josh Purinton)

I’m a fan of the Burning our money blog, which has the following strapline:

They spend 43% of our income, yet fail to deliver decent services. They promise prosperity, yet tax and regulate our economy into stasis. They talk up social justice, yet consign millions to welfare dependency.

Enough is enough. We the peasants demand our high-spending, high-living, conflicted politicos mend their ways.

The scary figures quoted on Wat’s blog make the expenditure figures of Morley Town Council look somewhat trivial. However, they have a habit of adding up…

In an earlier posting, I guesstimated the tax hit on Morleians to be round about the £1m mark. I was fairly close:

2000/01 £104,870
2001/02 £104,870
2002/03 £104,870
2003/04 £152,900
2004/05 £166,661
2005/06 £166,661
2006/07 £171,650
2007/08 £171,650

TOTAL £1,144,132

This is from the local authority precept which is applied as a supplement to the council tax at various ratios depending upon the house banding. (Blogged before: The default band D is £17.85).

The 2007/8 budget is for about £220k so the taxation isn’t enough and reserves are being drawn on. This isn’t sustainable, of course, in the longer term the Council will need to cut its cloth or dig deeper into our pockets.

Now £17.85 doesn’t sound a lot, but £1.14 Million does, especially when a lot of it goes on double-taxation for things we supposedly already pay for, like local policing and keeping the parks tidy.

I’d question spending more than a Monkey’s worth of Wonga on crockery as well!

I enjoy Fabian Tassano’s Mediocracy Blog, incisive thinking with occasional snippets from his book of the same name.

I have now tracked down his book and am happy to plug it here, in exchange for his extended Christmas signing offer.

(Disclosure- I haven’t read it yet, although I have dipped in and enjoyed what I have surfed.)

When I was a schoolboy, I had a friend called Bruce, commonly known as “Toota” (although I don’t remember why). He was a member of a schoolboy band called Applecore along with Stew, Tud and a fourth lad whose name escapes me.

Toota came from what today would be called a dysfunctional family. He lived with his Dad and Brother on the 9th floor of a tower block in the centre of Newcastle.

His Dad was a journalist for the Newcastle Journal and went by the non-de-plume of “Joe Cona”, inspired by their coffee machine. The brother was called Norman who was large, fat and hairy, wearing denim and liking heavy music. Norman had an unusual hobby- he transcribed cricket scores out of Wisden almanacks into exercise books. He was friendly enough, although another of Toota’s friends used to wind him up mercilessly.

Toota shared a room with Norm but as Norm mostly watched Telly, whenever I came round we would go into the bedroom and Toota would play guitar. He had a Hofner Bass copy as he was a big fan of Paul McCartney and the Beatles. He wore a leather jacket and had hair long at the back.

At some point along the way, the Dad reconciled with his Mum and she moved into the flat. One one occasion, I was invited to join them for tea, which strained the crockery arrangements somewhat and they rustled me up whatever the meal was on a saucer. Using my vast wit and repartee, I said “I’ve never had my tea on an ashtray before”.

After that, Toota’s Mum took something of a dislike to me and it was a small source of argument between the couple, as his Dad rather liked me as I had intelligent conversations with him (something his two obsessive Sons were not good at).

Toota told me once that she was openly hostile about me, saying “Is that Idiot Head coming round again?”, although when I was there she just treated me with silent distain.

I sometimes wonder what happened to Toota. He got a job at a hardware store (a traditional old fashioned brown overall job in the Handyside arcade) but got the push after he was caught shoplifting an Album from Callers record department. The silly fool had stuck it up his jumper but they had recently fitted a security alarm system which went off as he went out of the door and he was caught banged to rights. He was an excellent guitarist though and had the talent to go far.

By chance, many years later, I bumped into Stew at the Kenton Bar, a large Pub near my Parents’ house. It was his wedding reception night and it seems it was a bit of a shotgun wedding. We were invited back to Stew’s parents house, were we found the Bride sobbing on the stairs, crying “I never wanted it to be like this” and the two families arguing. Exit stage left…

A strange tome in my Inbox…

Went to vote, and noticed there was a Paul Cook standing in our ward

“Oh”, I quipped “He used to be drummer with the Sex Pistols.”

Later when I saw the results, I saw Stephen Jones had also been elected.

” Ah”, I opined. “He was the Sex Pistols guitarist”

Needless to say, I scanned the rest of the results eagerly.

Nearest I could find was J.Beverley. Sid Vicious’ real name was John Beverley, so that’ll do.

Now all we need is a Rotten councillor…