Spending Review: Which plan did they use? - Plan 9 from outer space!

Those geniuses from our in-touch and financially astute coalition government and their brainy, experienced, selfless civil servants came up with a cunning plan for the 2010 Spending Review ™.

Just to remind those from another planet, the immediate problems our country faced as at the time of the Spending Review in October 2010 were:

• Huge existing debts
  
• The need to borrow huge amounts each year
  
• The need to print millions in monopoly money each year (they call it Quantitative Easing)
  
• A ruinous, huge annual public sector spending.
  
• Part of the public spending is down to the EU in terms of annual membership fees, lost business because of illogical EU rules, welfare payments being paid to the 100,000s of Poles, Lithuanians, Afghans, Iraqis, Indians and Pakistanis the EU forces us to import.
  

What was their solution? Guess which one of the following spending plans our enlightened masters chose:

Plan A - No cuts.

• Keep spending at the existing £696 billion per year.

Plan B - Small cuts of 2% per year.

• By 2014 we should be spending the same amount as 2008/09.

Plan C - Cuts of 5% per year.

• By 2014 we should be spending the same amount as 2007/08.

Plan 9 from Outer Space - NO CUTS, but INCREASE spending.

• Keep increasing the public sector spending EVERY year.
  
• Keep borrowing MORE money each year.
  
• Keep increasing the national debt each year.
  
• Keep giving 100s of millions of pounds to India each year. India has a billion dollar space program and has just bought a multi-billion dollar aircraft carrier.
  
• Keep giving billions to unproven "green" technologies which are not based on settled, empirical science and, in any event, will be completely useless against the global increase in CO2 emissions. By the way, CO2 is an essential plant food, it is not a poison!
  

[Hat tip to Richard North at http://eureferendum.blogspot.com]

Source Data
----------------------------------
Public Sector Spending

2004–05 Actual £492.377 billion
2005–06 Actual £524.006 billion
2006–07 Actual £550.046 billion
2007–08 Actual £582.534 billion
2008–09 Actual £629.844 billion
2009–10 Estimate as at Jul 2010 £669.260 billion

2010–11 Planned £696.800 billion

2011-12 Forecast £701.8 billion
2012-13 Forecast £713.0 billion
1013-14 Forecast £724.2 billion
2014-15 Forecast £739.8 billion

----------------------------------

Source documents

[1] Richard North's article on the Spending Review: http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/10/for-avoidance-of-doubt.html

[2] H.M.Treasury's Spending Review document: http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sr2010_completereport.pdf
(see "Total Managed Expediture" on pages 17 and 77

[3] H.M.Treasury's document on previous actual spending: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/pesa_2010_complete.pdf
Page 30 Table 1.11

[4] Indian government document on aid received from G8 countries

What if the Chilean miners had been trapped in ...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If the Chilean miners had been trapped in a British mine ...

If the Chilean miners had been trapped in an American mine ...

If the Chilean miners had been trapped in an EU controlled mine ...

If the Chilean miners had been trapped in a North Korean mine ...

If the Chilean miners had been trapped in an Afghan mine ...

If the Chilean miners had been trapped in a Swiss mine ...
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If the Chilean miners had been trapped in a British mine ...

• Rail trade union boss, Bob Crowe, would declare the rescue tunnel was part of the tube rail network and then call a strike to shutdown the rescue because of "safety ishoos" (and ask for more pay).
• Tony Blair would hog the television for days by making "They were the Peoples' Miners, who dug into our hearts .." speeches.
• Gordon Brown would blame Margaret Thatcher for the situation.
• No miners would be allowed out until an "X Factor" and "Britain's Got Talent" show had chosen which miner to rescue first.
• The miners would die anyway because a new Health and Safety directive would forbid any rescue worker from working near a disaster scene.
• Ten new QUANGOs would be created and would last for 10 years. They would be staffed by many incompetent civil servants, left-leaning academics and failed Labour politicians, on huge salaries and eye-watering, inflation-proof pensions. At the end of the 10 years, they would release 20 guideline documents, each at least 15,000 pages long.
  
  The document guidelines would ensure that:
  • The miners' human rights would not be breached.
  • The miners would have access to halal meat.
  • A diversity czar would be appointed to make sure the ethnic and other minorities are well represented in the cavern.
  • A global warming risk assessment is completed.
  • Lawyers and police are present to make sure the miners don't resort to Hate Speech.
  • Teams of care workers and psychiatrists are on hand in case the miners do resort to Hate Speech.
  • The miners must not be rescued because their CO2 would melt the glaciers.
  
  As a result, any miner who survived underground for those 10 years would be grateful to the nation for being a member of a diverse, halal-eating, green society.
• Any relative of the miners who approached the Prime Minister would be arrested, shot or beaten up by the police.
• Anyone who insisted on reading out a list of the miners' names, near Westminster and without a state permit would be arrested for breaching Britain's liberal anti-terrorist laws.

If the Chilean miners had been trapped in an EU controlled mine ...

• EU bureaucrats would prosecute the miners for spending more than eight hours on one shift.
• The EU would levy an emergency "miners' rescue" tax on all EU citizens until the miners were safe or for 100 years, whichever is the longest.
• The rescue would fail because all of the national leaders and EU bureaucrats would argue about which country sponsors the drill, which country sponsors the supplies, and so on.
• Actually, the EU rescue wouldn't even start because EU regulations state that the mining accident is not officially an accident because no EU flag was flying over the mine at the time. The marxist bureaucrat who designed that rule would later be found dead in the Chilean quarter of Brussels, with several pickaxes in his head.
• To prevent accidents like this happening again, the EU would make new directives that would force a new militarised EU police force to be deployed on all European streets. Any citizens stopped by these police who had no mining permits would be shot.
• All elections in Europe would be suspended until the EU-wide trauma caused by the mining accident had subsided to a safe democratic level (or 100 years, whichever is the longest).
• All EU bureaucrats would be granted a 200% pay rise because of the stress they endured.

If the Chilean miners had been trapped in an American mine ...

• They would name the operation "Shock and Ore", bomb the mountain until a crack appeared, pull out all of the miners' dead bodies, declare that they had succeeded in forcing democracy on them and send a bill for the bombs to the miners' widows.
• or ... American special services would be sent in, they would throw grenades into the miners' cavern and then claim Osama bin Laden had killed them with a suicide bomber.
• Wall Street bankers would create a complex hedge derivative trading instrument based on the favourite number of the first rescued miner's son and cause another mini recession.
• Obama would prevent any rescue until a new raft of legislation had been passed that required all rescuers and miners to invest in state healthcare and pay green taxes.
• Obama would make a presidential address on all TV stations describing how, if the miners are rescued, it would be entirely down to his tireless efforts and vision. However if any miners die, it would all be the fault of British Petroleum and the British Empire.
• Mysteriously, the miners find that the first person to appear in the cavern is an ambulance-chaser lawyer.

If the Chilean miners had been trapped in a North Korean mine ...

• The state media would report that Kim Jong-il's brave eldest son had single handedly rescued all of the miners
• ... using technology devised by his genius glorious leader of a father.
• Communications from dissidents in North Korea report that no miners survived and that thousands of peasants died trying to dig the miners out with medieval tools.

If the Chilean miners had been trapped in an Afghan mine ...

• The Taliban would suddenly appear in the cavern before anyone else.
• The Taliban would take everyone hostage, set up a heroine purification factory in the cavern, along with a terrorist training camp and an islamic school.

If the Chilean miners had been trapped in a Swiss mine ...

• It would have been over in 5 minutes because the Swiss would have built in clever rescue channels during the mining.
• All the miners would survive.
• Very few TV stations would report it because it happened so quickly and no one had ever been at risk.
• The mine would reopen the next day to resume full production.
• The miners happily go back to work the day after that.

Missing In Action - Anna Raccoon

This region of the blogosphere was shocked to discover that all traces of the formidable and much loved blogger Anna Raccoon have been erased.

Her website is no more, her facebook, twitter and email accounts have been deleted and little trace remains, apart from the few cached web pages in Google. It is almost as if she has suffered a systematic 1984-like purge from all known records.

Several long-time collaborators of Anna's have tried to contact her but no news of a reply has been received yet. Well, apart from this tweet from Obnoxio the Clown:
I am the bearer of foul news. Anna Raccoon has ceased blogging. She is fine, but has decided to give up blogging and has taken her site down
about 16 hours ago via TweetDeck
Retweeted by 1 person
obotheclown
Obnoxio The Clown

There are several theories:
    1. Just fed-up with blogging
    2. Legal pressure
    3. Health
    4. A joke
    5. She has a new job as Gordon Brown's assistant

If this is really the end of Anna's career, then her insight, humour, rigorous research and compassion will be much missed. I think there are few, if any, bloggers out there who could fill her boots.

Whether Anna's disappearance is permanent or not, I feel it would be prudent to protect her legacy. I think it would be a crime to deprive the web of her best posts.

So, does anyone wish to collaborate on an archiving project? If so, please use the email at my contact link. Similarly, if anyone wants to suggest or vote for the best of Anna's posts that they think should be preserved, then please also get in touch. We don't have much time as Google's cache eventually removes old posts.

== UPDATE 1 == [13-Oct-2010 20:50]
Gildas the Monk posted an excellent eulogy to Anna on Grumpyoldtwat's blog here: Ana Raccoon.

GOTY also mentioned the following:
Gotty says:
Anna is fine but for personal reasons she felt that now was the right time to quit blogging. Best wishes Anna for whatever you decide to do in the future .... and thank you ;-)

== UPDATE 2 == [14-Oct-2010 20:00]
Anna has written a farewell post here.

Rather sad but at least Anna is choosing a less stressful, happier life.

To Anna:
Many thanks for the hours of amusing, entertaining, beguiling, illuminating and surprising articles you provided for the legions of blogonauts. You most certainly made a difference, a very good one and have set the bar very high.

Take care, enjoy your life, you deserve it.
Bon Chance, Daedalus.

10:10:10 Day! - Kill All Humans To Save The Planet

Well aren't we all excited and happy! Today is 10:10:10 day, yippee!

Yes, those thoughtful fans of child executions at 10:10 (who created that thoughtful Warmist propaganda snuff movie), have deemed that today is the day that we must save the planet by exploding children or some such activity.

You too can join these lovely, fluffy, tree-hugging do-gooders by signing up here: Sign Up to 10:10

The poor dears are really quite shy and have not worded their Sign Up page in the robust way that Warming Alarmists should do.

So as part of my bit to save the planet, here is my translation of their Sign Up web page in the language that they should have used:



It doesn't end there! Those 10:10 folks have also, very kindly, provided a clever web page that allows you to design your own poster, here: Make Your Own 10:10 Poster. (Hat tip to grumpyoldtwat)

Again, these lovely, fluffy hippies are just too modest to really express their true feelings, so I have made a couple of my own posters for them, above and here: