Vote Osborne!
Only cynics would argue that the government’s extension of its pensioner bond scheme is a blatant attempt to buy the votes of the over 65s!
The average investor will make a reported £600 profit but who is actually paying for the above market rate of 4% interest payment for savers? This largesse will be funded by further cuts to public services and to low income households receiving benefits.
£26.7 billion a year that private landlords have gained from the taxpayer, equal to £1,011 each for the country’s 26.4 million households
Caring, sharing Dave
PM David Cameron implored business leaders this week to allow their staff to benefit from the UK’s economic recovery by giving them a pay rise. Aside from the fact that the economy remains in the sick ward, big hearted Dave has been accused of being a tad hypocritical by wanting to extend public sector workers’ pay freezes until 2020.
Paying the piper
Several hundred super-rich people gathered at a posh Mayfair hotel last week to wine and dine with government ministers at the annual Tory fundraising bash. The assembled coterie of hedge fund managers and assorted billionaires paid up to £15,000 each to sit alongside a cabinet minister.
Readers may ask if this dinner and dance was all about cementing the relationship between finance capital and the Tory party.
Of the 59 wealthiest hedge fund managers in the UK, 27 have made a combined £19 million in donations to Tory funds – £10 million alone since the 2010 election. In 2013 the government abolished stamp duty tax on investment funds amounting to a £145 million ‘hedge fund tax cut’.
