FAO: Andrew Mackenzie, Head of Factual Channel 4

Programme: Student Location, Location, Location.

Background: Students get shown round successive, shit houses. At the end of the programme Kirsty and Phil have to put in an offer to the corrupt bandit who owns the property on behalf of the penniless students. Propertys in desirable locations – near to kebab shops, pubs, bars, etc. Excellent views of broken glass bottles on the top of the yard walls. Bathrooms with the use of a flushing toilet.

I found some fantastic new old music today, from a label named Eccentric Soul, presenting the work of the lesser known recording studios in and around 1960s Detroit.

This is particularly for you if you like searching out rare gems of music, there’s even a fantastic version of the traditional gospel song Wade in the Water – made popular by the Ramsey Lewis Trio. There is a catalogue DVD detailing the history of the songs and there are even a whole tonne of photographs of the artists taken in glorious grainy colour analogue film.

This grubbier version of Motown soul has some real kick to it. There’s also a lot of gospel too. It offers some fantastic listening though and I’d strongly recommend it.

Take a look here:

http://www.numerogroup.com/catalog_detail.php?uid=00951

Boiled down to the bare bones, St George’s Day is a celebration of some bloke from the 3rd Century who killed a ‘dragon’. Yes, fairly bonkers… Who on earth would believe that?

Well, a certain affection for the great dragon slayer (whether he or the poor, deceased, fire breathing beast were real or not) is still held today by those who are proud to be English in a good way, and those who are proud to be English in a bad way. Everyone else either doesn’t give a shit or is too scared to give a shit for treading on toes.

As a rule, the support for St George largely comes from the nationalists on the right; and I can’t help but think of knuckle dragging dingbats of the said political stance waving their red and white crossed flags about shouting about immigrants, terrorists and how Britain ought to be great again.

This isn’t to say that logical people of fair political positions who love their country and celebrate St. Georges Day are all dingbats. I’m just saying that it is what the whole day makes me think of.

The die hard supporters of the day (knuckle draggers) also moan about political correctness gone made, and how this has stopped us from being able to properly celebrate good old St George.

Well, political correctness can often go too far, though it must be remembered that it was invented by left wing academics taking the mickey out of themselves. Those who take it seriously are either those against it – who think it is a serious obstruction to freedom of (usually racist) speech, or those who are geniunely of the left without a clue – who go to any length to reiterate any non-offensive phrase to make it even more non-offensive.

However, St Georges day isn’t by description ‘non PC’. It’s the knuckle dragging minority and quietly right wing people who support it that are politically incorrect. The idiots on the left who believe political correctness ought to be addressed in any slight sense of the issue are the ones who are to blame perhaps, for making these PC haters cry political correctness gone mad.

Calling something political correctness gone made appear’s also to be a way of making right wing events vaguely acceptable – it makes them harder to criticise.

Anyway, enough PC and non PC discussion, it’s twisted me in knots so it’s most likely lost you too.

We ought to be proud of our country, though for the right reasons. The knuckle draggers crying political correctness gone mad arguably want to celebrate St George as a symbol of British greatness. Of pubs, white people, football, low taxes, Sunday roasts, British jobs for British workers, red pillar boxes, anti European Union and the Queen.

I want to see British people celebrate St George for the things that really make Britain great, or the aspects that we need to foster in order to make Britain truly great. As the French revolutionaries once said: Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité.

If that was the Britain St George represented, I truly would wear my flag with pride. Let’s take the image of an unfair, bigoted, racist Britain and make it something worth celebrating. Until then, count me out of St Georges Day, or count me out of nation states completely.

After yesterdays budget, I am still a little concerned about the way in which business leaders, the public and media commentators are reacting to the new 50% tax band for those earning over £150,000 a year.

The Liverpool Daily Post fumed:

“The increase in the income tax rate to 50p for the nation’s highest earners, though, is the worst kind of gesture politics.

Presumably, it is meant to demonstrate that the fat cat financiers who have grown rich on bonuses while leading the world into its current financial mess are being punished for their profligancy.

Sadly, all it will do is serve as a disincentive to the brightest and best entrepreneurs and leaders to ply their trade in Britain.”

From my perspective, if someone wishes to earn over £150,000 per year and will deliberately leave Great Britain in order to avoid the taxation, do not deserve to be deemed British. So farewell to those self-centred, soulless fat cats.

If the impact of raising the tax will create a “relatively small return”, as David Frost director general of the British Chambers of Commerce suggests, then they will not be too much of a loss to the nation anyway.

As it stands, these types already commit very little to the wider good of the country as it is, so losing them once and for all is no real loss – not a sign that the UK will lose its brightest and most productive stars.

These stars are only shine for themselves, and go to extraordinary events to protect their wealth from enhancing the lives of others within the UK – through tax loops, offshore bank accounts and using private services rather than public.

Furthermore, I’m fairly certain that this same right wing sentiment that attacks the 50% tax band is the very same one which fuels the patriotism for today, St. Georges Day. So why aren’t they willing to hand over just that bit more for the love of their country and the betterment of its population?

There were mixed receptions in Liverpool after the budget announcement today, and this blogger is concerned.

Standing just off camera whilst the BBC went live from the Albert Dock, I saw the budget as it  happened and the piecemeal tv moment reactions which took place.

There really is nothing like tv land; where hanging around is the order of the day, only to speak for a few minutes and not really even getting much reaction to the budget in.

Though as soon as the cameras stopped rolling, the business leaders on Merseyside started to try and stick their oars in properly – as they will, no doubt, across the rest of the country.

The Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce David Frost, has already responded:

“A major concern has been raised over the income tax hike for the highest earners. The strength of the UK has been as a low tax economy giving us a competitive advantage and able to attract the most highly skilled workers.”

Other conservative economic commentators have also noted that the ‘tax hike for the highest earners’ (which sees the highest tax band upped from 45% to 50% for those earning over £150,000 pa) will stifle new entrepreneurs – something which the government would like to see more of.

This is all quite scary stuff. The right wing is already shooting down one of the most sensible statements coming out of the budget.

True, upping the taxation rate by 5% will not make a dramatic difference to the exchequer, though in principal, it makes perfect sense. Taxing the most affluent members of society is always a must from my perspective, even though my elders say I will live to rue those words if I’m ever in a position to earn money which is taxed at a higher rate.

I hope, for my sake, that I never become one of those disgruntled bastards that I used to serve pints of lager too in a little country pub. The tight-fisted, no-brained nonces would continuously moan about being ‘taxed up to the hilt’ and how we are, today, taxed more by Labour than the Conservatives ever took in the 80s.

Firstly, it is simply not true that we are ‘taxed up to the hilt’ in modern Britain. If one looks at the total tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP,) taxation has roughly remained the same since the 1980s. Given the rate of inflation and growth in GDP output since that time, this is no small miracle.

Indeed the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that tax as a percentage of GDP was higher at the height of the Thatcher 80s (at 37.6%), than in the Blair 200s (at 37.1%).

Secondly, one must remember that you have to be earning an extrodinarily large amount of money before higher rates of taxation effect you.

These right wing middle aged lager louts are probably on salaries with a large number of zeros after the initially obscene figure, so of course they are being taxed quite a lot. Which is only correct.

For comparrison, they ought to take a day away from their Porsches and million pound rural homes to see how the lower tax band types live.

However, the 50% taxation band for those earning over £150,000 a year is strangely making this blogger say Thank God we have a Labour government right now.

Though this tax hike plays right in to the right wing rich type lager louts’ hands, it is a necessary step to take, and I can not see the Conservatives having made this step.

If anything the tax hike is perhaps a purely political step by Labour to see if the tories will contimplate abolishing the hike, though it is also a return to some sound left wing thinking, which the Labour party is supposed to stand for.

From this bloggers perspective, a society of equality is built on the fair and correct distribution of wealth. To appease those who get taxed a lot, I also believe one must see the advantages of a high rate of taxation – in the schools, health service, emergency services and transport links of the country. Sadly, this is not at current what we have.

Therefore, todays budget is a mixed bag.

It has seen the Labour party swing slightly to the left with its higher taxation – though whether this allows us to see a visible benifit in our public sector, I do not know. (it probably wont now will it… knowing New Labour)

It has also laid down the gauntlet to the Conservatives. Whether they step up to the plate, remains to be seen.