The Budget

     So having asked the question of whether the Conservative government is attempting to ruin the country, and giving my own humble opinion on it, the latest budget was released this past week. So where was the cuts to the NHS? The decreased taxes for the 1%? The decreases in minimum wage? Non-existent. Yet people still found time to complain.

     During the general election campaign earlier in the year the NHS director claimed the NHS required £8 billion in order to maintain standards. So Lib-Dems came out and said they would ensure the NHS received the required money, the Torys did the same. In fact only Labour didn't promise the full £8 billion, instead promising £1.2 billion. So where did this myth that Conservatives wanted to privatise the NHS come from? Admittedly the Coalition had privatised 2% of it, but that increased it to 7% private. So who privatised the initial 5%? You guessed it. Labour. Yet it was Labour who made a large part of their campaign about how they would save the NHS and the Torys would destroy it. Do the facts not point to the reverse?  Especially now in the budget Torys have started the increase in NHS funding to reach £8 billion by 2020?

     Student finance has been discussed a lot in the past 5/6 years as the increased tuition fees and the change in how loans are repaid has come into play. Now Torys want people to pay back loans rather than have the government pay for them. Is this really such a terrible thing? Why should you, purely because your parents have a lower income, be entitled to not pay back loans? The way loans are repaid now, you only start repaying a loan when you have a high income. For me, student loans aren't about parental income, but about your future income. So if you anticipate a high earning job in the future, which if you attend university you should, why shouldn't you repay a loan? Put simply, if you qualify for a maximum loan (rather than grants), unless you have a high earning job yourself, the loan is wiped off after 30 years. Whether the whole system is flawed because so few will fully repay their loan is another matter.

    Claims that the Torys are only for the richest 1% (although clearly flawed based on 37% voting for them) cannot now be maintained, in this one man's opinion. Raising the living wage to £9, and giving everyone an extra £400 tax free each year is further pointing towards a government working for the working people. A lowered benefit cap is further indication of this. Sure, we'll have people claiming they no longer receive enough to live on, but it isn't our job as tax payers to subsidise people who can't, or refuse to work. The fact is if a working person is receiving £20,000 a year (the new cap) they have to pay tax, pay national insurance, pay council tax and then when it comes down to decisions such as whether they can afford a third child, have to make that decision based on their income. Why do people living on benefits think it is their right to have children they can't support themselves, and expect the state to provide for them? Why do people on benefits think it is their right to have a bigger house, bigger income, bigger family than a working person? It isn't their right, and we should put a stop to it!

     The fact does remain Torys have helped the middle class by increasing the 40p tax rate and getting rid of inheritance tax for all but the richest. But can anyone argue with this? Can we complain that this is a tax cut when its cutting taxes that the people  on lower than £42,000 and estates worth over £350,000 don't pay anyway? Is it not more fair if we all pay the same taxes rather than the richest have added taxes to pay?

Rather than a pretty picture I thought I'd leave this analogy here as something to think about:

Everyday ten men go out for beer after work and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

 So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. What about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I got" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill! And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

   

The new government

     We are now 2 full months into the first solely Conservative government of the 21st century, yet I'm yet to see any of the atrocities that the Conservatives "promised". I use the term promised very loosely due to the fact most of the policies they allegedly had were made up by the opposition. Where are the promised £50 doctor visits? The abolition of all human rights? The huge increase in 0 hour contracts? The reality is Conservatives didn't actually promise these things, it was Labour's work on social media proclaiming these policies as fact which saw them known.

     Do Conservatives really want the country to get into a worse state than it currently is? Do Labour? The reality is, no, they don't. Both parties genuinely believed their way was the better way, and isn't that the wonderful thing about democracy? The fact we can have two completely different ways of running a country, and we as the people can choose who we think is best? My belief is yes, yet in the aftermath of the election thousands took to the streets to protest in the name of democracy. Let's just think about that for a moment. People took to the streets, to protest against a government, which had been democratically elected, in the name of democracy. Doesn't quite add up does it? Furthermore, people complained about the voting system resulting in just 25% of the electorate voting Tory. Their argument was that 25% wasn't a majority and it shouldn't be a Tory government. Who then? Labour who had less than 25%? And wasn't there a vote over whether we kept our current voting system or not during the years when Conservatives were in a coalition?

     This election saw more hate between the parties than any in recent years. Perhaps this was because of the more easily accessible social media? Maybe it was the surge of the SNP and UKIP taking the traditional 2 horse race with Lib Dems making up the numbers into a, to continue the analogy, full grand national? It was hard to access social media without hundreds of posts calling you "heartless" unless you voted Labour, "moronic" if you didn't vote Tory, "racist" if you voted UKIP. So my question is has this gone too far? Was this election less about policies and more about who could shout loudest? Shy Conservatives yet again showed up to give Conservatives a far greater victory than polls suggested, is that right? Should people be ashamed of their political allegiances?

     Please don't attempt to guess where my vote went from this. This is merely my thoughts on how the election panned out. If a party receives more votes than any other party, surely that party can be considered the most popular? And if they are the most popular, surely they should have the chance to govern without riots trying to undermine them? Regardless of your personal opinion? The brilliant thing about a democratic country is we have regular votes. So whether you like them or not, Conservatives are here for 5 years. Then who knows?

More on the Media, specifically their disrespect for privacy

     So this seems reasonably soon after my first post, but the whole idea of the media has been irritating me all day. What's striking me is their complete lack of respect for people's privacy. So my initial question is, is this the price you must pay for fame? Celebrities go into their various fields; the music industry, acting, sport, knowing the price. So do they only have themselves to blame when their demands for privacy are ignored? Or have things gone too far?

     The leaked photos last summer of various celebrities was perhaps the largest invasion of privacy in recent times, and although this wasn't orchestrated by the media, it got worldwide recognition because of the airtime the media gave it. So was this too far? Should celebrities just "be more careful" as people at the time so eloquently put it? This one man's opinion is: Yes, it was. So where is the line? At what point does the invasion of privacy stop being the "price of being a celebrity" and start being wrong? Is reporting on alleged love affairs acceptable? The inner details of a marriage? Pregnancy? The birth of a child? Jay Z and Beyonce reportedly paid $1.3 million to clear an entire hospital ward, purely to ensure they could experience the birth of their child in private. Is that too far? Yes, the argument is they can afford it, but should they really have to?

     Celebrities turning 18 is a whole new chapter. Back when Emma Watson was turning 18, a newspaper had a COUNTDOWN to her 18th birthday. To quote Russell Howard, can you imagine following a non-famous 17 year old down the street shouting 6 days to go? Of course not! The idea is ludicrous. Yet once we begin dealing with a celebrity, this is common practise.

    What about when it isn't a celebrity? In 2010, Katie Wassiel got to the finals of the X Factor. Was she a celebrity at this point? On the borderline. Her Grandmother however? Definitely not. Yet it was her Grandmother who was exposed by the media as 'a prostitute'. It was her Grandmother was disowned by her entire family purely as a result of media outlets' lack of respect for her right to a private life. Is that fair?

      Finally, it's hard to mention unjust portrayals within the media without mentioning the infamous headline "The Truth". 1989 saw 96 people go to a football match and not return, yet The Sun took it upon themselves to tell the country how it was the Liverpool fans' fault for being drunk, disorderly and general hooligans. They felt they had the right to print "the truth" as fans "pissing on the dead." The truth? No wonder Liverpool as a city still refuse to read The Sun. How can a newspaper print lies as disrespectful as this? How can that same newspaper still be running over 25 years later? Why do people deem these lies acceptable in the name of an entertaining read?

     So when does the media go too far? When will it stop? What can we do? The cold hard facts are, as long as people read it, as long as people watch it, the media will continue to restrict the privacy of newsworthy people. So who's really to blame? Is it the media? Or is it us?

Media's Reactions to Groups

     We're all members of groups. Be that an age-group, a religion, a society, a political party, a gender, the human race. So why is it some of these groups are tarnished because of individuals, whilst some aren't? Why when mentioning The Beach Killer in Tunisia, does media feel it is important to mention his religion, but not his age, his political status, his sexuality, his job? Why, in a similar terrorist attack in Oslo, was it not mentioned that the shooter was Christian? Why did the media focus instead on his age and political allegiances? Finally why in Tunisia is it a Muslim who shot innocent British civilians, yet it is Tunisians who formed a human shield to protect further casualties?

     Media attention to the Tunisian has baffled me in all honesty. Certain media outlets are forgetting that innocent people lost their lives in a brutal attack, and it's these people who should be getting air time. Not a Heretic, disowned by his own religion. Not only that but why, if he has indeed been disowned by his religion, is his religion worthy of comment? The Tunisians who bravely formed a human shield were almost certainly predominantly Muslim, yet in the media they're merely Tunisian locals. If religion is worthy of note in the person committing acts of atrocity, surely religion is equally worthy of note in those who bravely stood up against him?
   
     Now, as hypocritical as it may be at this point in the post, I must divert my attention to the people who really matter; the victims. Recently I've been watching Criminal Minds (as a side note it is brilliant, a must watch), and there's an episode where a conversation takes place saying how it's a sad state of affairs where, in the episode's context, serial killers names are remembered, but their victims aren't. Reading and watching the media the last few days, this conversation has really resonated in me. In 10 years time it won't be the victims names talked about, it'll be the killer (who I'm refusing to dignify by naming). How can that be right? How can it be right that throughout history it is the evil that is remembered? How many people can really name 9/11 victims (except for those personally affected)? How many people can name the 7/7 victims? Even the afore mentioned attacks in Oslo? Not many, yet people know the event, and people are far more likely to remember the people responsible.

     All that remains to be said now is remember what needs to be remembered.