My New Year resolution to get fitter and run more has (remarkably) got to a second month. I know…..go me! I have always run with headphones blasting out anything to help me to zone out and not feel the pain. However, the one downside is (all too often) not hearing a large moving vehicle that is quite happy to mow me down. It creates a scene not too dissimilar to a middle aged man dressed in dayglow lycra being caught in the headlights. It’s not pretty and near death experiences are very overrated. Reluctantly, I’m now a headphoneless runner.
Whilst cars are now more often than not dodged,
it does permit my mind a regular opportunity to freestyle whilst I cough,
splutter, swear and limp around another 10K course. And it is a very random
freestyle. Very. This month’s highlights include:
- Nothing unclean ever goes into the cutlery
drawer, yet it still gets dirty. Is the cutlery drawer where the best utensil
parties occur at night? It’s one of life’s great mysteries.
- I still remember the phone number for swapshop……01 811 8055. Yet in an accident, I wouldn’t be able to give my wife’s phone number for emergency use……or any number in fact…… other than the direct hotline to Noel Edmonds and Keith Chegwin.
- Is there a more ungainly activity than carrying the hoover upstairs?
- There is no longer walk in life than when a
staff member shows you to an item on the other side of a big shop. Perhaps some prepared
ramble for the walk would help ease the awkwardness. “I did have a good look,
but for some reason, I just couldn't seem to see it.” Followed by forced laugh.
“I did wonder if they'd maybe moved it to anoth..., ah, there it is.
Cheers." That should do it.
- And while we’re here……there is no longer wait
known to mankind than people who get to the till and wait for all the shopping
to be scanned and still haven't got their wallet / purse out. Let alone the
compulsory fishing around inside said wallet / purse for the correct card or,
worse still, pennies lying deeply buried for decades. Come on……life’s too short
for such a lack of efficiency.
- Why is pancake day in March this year? You
really can’t make this up. Who is deciding this rubbish? I’ll blame Trump.
- I’ll never understand the “Yorkshire pudding
only goes with beef!” people. Imagine restricting yourself like that. Yorkshire
pudding goes with everything. Free your minds.
- Why is it compulsory to announce that “you
managed to find us then?” when someone visits your house for the first time? Stop
it. Stop it now.
- Smoking must have reduced drastically because
I can’t remember the last time I was asked if I had a lighter. Which means it’s
been years since I have been able to apologise to a stranger for not smoking.
In fact, I can’t remember being asked "have you got the time please" in
years. It’s also a rarity now.
- Placing your head on a just flipped pillow in
the middle of the night is right up there with the birth of my daughter. Such
an amazing feeling.
Perhaps the safer option is to wear headphones
and dance with the cars than let my mind freestyle. Perhaps.
The Numbers
Every so often a report slaps you in the face
and provides a context to all that is going on in the UK currently. New World
Wealth, the global analytics firm, produced a report that I found simply
staggering……the UK lost 10,800 millionaires over
the last year as the wealthy sort more stable politics and tax regimes.
Why so important?
30% of the total UK income tax was paid by
the wealthiest 1%. 50% of total UK income tax was paid by the top
5%.
Millionaires leaving the UK is not good. You
know the tax system is messed up when the proceeds from gambling are 100%
tax free……whilst your life savings are taxed at 40% when you die.
Rachel Reeves is part of the problem not the
solution until she changes direction. In the meantime, the impact of her
thoughtless Budget continues to bite harder……
Food inflation is now expected to rise between 4.5% and 5.5% this year.
Why?
The Chancellor announced in the Budget that,
from April, the threshold on employee earnings at which businesses begin to pay
national insurance will drop from £9,100 to £5,000, the rate will
also increase from 13.8% to 15% and the minimum wage for over-21s is rising by
6.7% to £12.21.
These changes are particularly painful for
retailers, which employ many part-time workers on low wages and for companies
that produce fresh food, where labour comprises up to 60% of production
costs. The rising of employment costs to companies will simply be passed on to
consumers. And that’s inflation……something Rachel Reeves struggles to
understand.
It is no coincidence that consumer confidence
has reached a 12-month low and the employment market is in its longest
downturn since 2000.
There was no surprise that the Bank of England
cut interest rates in February from 4.75% to 4.50%, the third
reduction in six months. It also now expects the economy to grow by just 0.75%
this year, half its November forecast of 1.50%. Interestingly, 2 of
the 9 monetary policy committee voted to reduce interest rates by 0.5%,
which is a striking summary of the state of the UK economy.
How’s that ‘budget for growth' working out for
you now Rachel Reeves? Absolutely clueless.
My least favourite number of the month……£700,000……the
cost of Keir Starmer’s flights to the taxpayer in 3 months. This is more than the
3 previous PMs combined! To be fair though, one of those didn’t even
make it to 3 months!
And my favourite number of the month……80……quite
a milestone for my favourite father-in-law.
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Trump of the Month
I challenged myself this month to exclude The
Trump from being considered for the award for dedication to lunatic behaviour.
It’s no longer a challenge for him given that every day he raises the bar to a
whole new level of craziness.
- He called Ukraine's President a
"dictator" and blamed Ukraine for invading Russia.
- Arranged Russian authorities to release a US
national who was arrested at a Moscow airport for drug possession.
- Ended New York congestion charge and
announced on social media that "CONGESTION
PRICING IS DEAD and Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE
KING!"
- Cut benefits for undocumented migrants and
legal aid for migrant children.
- Snubbed G20 talks in South Africa
- Fired his top general for no reason.
However, my particular ‘favourites’ this month
were……
Firstly, sign an executive order to reverse the
Biden administration’s push away from single-use plastics in government
facilities. “These things don’t work, I’ve had them many times, and on
occasion, they break, they explode.” Explode? What on earth is he trying to
drink?
He also reassured us that there would be no
issue to the environment. “I don’t think that plastic is going to affect the
shark very much as they’re eating, as they’re munching their way through the
ocean.” Utter madness.
Secondly, he expressed his desire to turn Gaza
into Dubai…….but signed an executive order extending a halt to funding for the
Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, on the same day. "Executive departments
and agencies shall not use any funds for a contribution, grant, or other
payment to UNRWA," the order reads.
When questioned who exactly he was suggesting
would live in Dubai-Gaza, The Trump said “I envision world people living
there”. As opposed to……non-world people? Aliens?
He really is the dumbest and craziest President
in history.
There is literally nobody that has come close
to such lunacy, so that is why I set myself a ban on The Trump to find the best
of the rest.
A worthy candidate was Mike Amesbury,
the suspended Labour MP, who was jailed for 10 weeks after he punched a
constituent in the street in an argument over the temporary closure of a local
bridge. Interestingly it happened on a night out at 2.15am in a taxi queue.
What else would you expect an MP to be doing on a Saturday night? Oh, yes……the
obligatory kebab first. Crazy stuff.
Another MP, Andrew Gwynne was sacked
over racist and sexist messages including one saying he hoped a pensioner who
did not vote Labour would die before the next election and another for an
elderly constituent’s death over a bin collections disagreement. The MP said he
“deeply regrets my badly misjudged comments”. There’s an understatement!
Then there was Elon Musk, who always seems just a whisker away from losing the plot. He sent an email to all US government employees with a stark subject line: “What did you do last week?” He requested five bullet points summarising a worker’s achievements in the past week and gave them two days to respond. Failure to respond would be taken as resignation. Exactly who was going to read millions of emails and decide who achieved competent status still remains unclear. Absolute madness.
All three are worthy candidates for services to
stupidity., However, the Trump of the Month award for February 2025 could only
go to……Rachel Jane Reeves.
Aside from the mess of her Budget and
subsequent fall out, it has been an interesting month for Reevesy……
It started with a damning report into Reevesy’s
new brainwave……the Office for Value for Money. The report suggested that the
office was “poorly defined,” runs the risk of “unnecessary duplication” and
there was ‘no way to measure effectiveness”.
And it gets worse…… Rachie appointed David
Goldstone as chairman of the Office for Value for Money. He sat on the board of
HS2 and lead Parliament’s over-budget restoration and renewal programme. If
anybody knows how to waste public money in bucketfuls, clearly it is this man
who fails to know how budgets work……or what value for money is. You really couldn’t
script it.
Then all eyes turned to Reevesy to defend her
overinflated CV. “I spent a decade working as an economist at the Bank of
England,” she said in 2021. However, she didn’t……her CV is a work of fiction. It
was picked up by someone (with less of a life than me) examining her CV on
LinkedIn.
Surely the bigger issue is not the lie but why
on earth is the Chancellor even on LinkedIn? Are there other Chancellor jobs
she might be interested in? Is Italy on the lookout, maybe Luxembourg? Experienced
candidate……good (ish) with numbers……maybe not with farmers though.
And none of this would really be a problem if
the economy was behaving like we had a red-hot economist at the helm The
current reality though, suggests the economy has pretty much been left to
someone who blindsided HR about their CV.
And just when you thought she couldn’t inflict
any more madness……we have Reevesy’s Spring Statement to look forward to on 26th
March. The joy.
Trump Lunacy Rating: 10 / 10
And Finally……
“Ability without honour is useless.” Marcus
Tullius Cicero
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