I don’t know about boom, but we’re certainly going bust

Unfortunately, the grip of winter is still with us. This morning, I ventured out and into the cold and very nearly slipped on some black ice at the side of a road junction. What a shame that out of all the money our local council demands from us in the form of council tax, they can’t spare some of it to make our roads and pavements a little safer to walk on. But I guess that while council workers are paying themselves such high wages with their jobs for life, there’s nothing left with which to consider the safety and welfare of the people it’s supposed to be serving.

Well done, President Obama, it’s honestly good to see you in office at long last. I have to echo Froggy’s sentiments here, it’s even better to see that Bush has finally gone, and about time too. Whatever happens now, mister Obama, don’t do as Bush did and go and let your people down. The whole world needs good leaders, and you appear to be one of them. But unlike your people, we here in Britain have to put up with a bunch of no-hopers to do our bidding for us.

This week saw the arrival of my latest gas bill. Now I don’t know about you, but as I’m retired I tend to spend a whole lot of my time here at home, though not always in the house. However, because the price of gas has reached profiteering levels again, I realised through using the figures on my bill, that in order to have my heating on for just three to four hours a day, especially as it’s so cold this winter, it would cost me £250 just for a single quarter alone.

Just like many in Britain today, this is way above my being able to afford such exorbitant costs, and even though I suffer with Rheumatoid Arthritis, I’m having to endure regular temperatures that are nearly always below 18C during the daytime, and more so at night. I get no extra money for having to endure pain 24/7, something that could quite easily be alleviated in living in a warm house and not a damned cold one. There are at least 500,000 of us who have RA, so if you don’t believe what I say about the pain, try asking one of the others who have to suffer, often in silence.

Remember, I’m like the rest of you. I pay my taxes, my VAT, my council tax and just about every other damned tax you can think of. I’m not asking for charity, but I am asking that the British government respects my needs as one of its senior citizens, and not to treat me like some money grabbing financier who thinks of nothing more than to bring this country down around its knees.

I’ve just picked up on something that Froggy talked about a while ago. This concerns the behaviour of the former boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Despite that we have just learnt of the £28bn losses made by this bank in the last year, this same former boss was given a bonus of £2.8m for his excellent ‘sic’ work within this company. How on earth is it right to pay enormous bonuses to people like him, when they have quite obviously done more harm than good? Must I remind you all that Britain is on the verge of bankruptcy, so why are we rewarding these dimwits for pulling this country down around our necks?

It seems to me that even though millions will lose their jobs because of a few greedy financiers, we British are prepared to forgive and forget, well not me. All I see around me, it’s the constant notion of being crapped upon. We have a government that is next to being bloody useless, no I correct myself, it is bloody useless. And what’s worst of all, they have no real incentive to pull this country off its feet.

MPs and virtually all other government ministers, are paid far too much for what they give back to Britain and those they represent, in return. Where is the incentive to do any better, when these people are paid enormous salaries no matter how badly they do in representing us?

That’s it, I’m off to try and do something constructive around my garden. Politics does my head in. Until next time, take care of yourselves…

Bob, standing in for Froggy