The Barnet Eye national news round up - Anelka, Income Tax, The Weather, Watford & Ed Balls !!!

Did last years big freeze damage the economy?

As it's Sunday, here is my take on the weeks news in brief.

West Bromwich Albion striker Nicholas Anelka has been charged over making a racist gesture when celebrating scoring a goal. The striker made a "quenelle" gesture, widely associated with far right/nazi groups. Mr Anelka claims it was nothing of the sort, simply a getsure of solidarity with his mate, who happens to be an anti semite. Anelka claims in France the gesture is simply anti establishment. Given that the Nazi's invaded and did unspeakable things to many people in the French establishment, it is always possible that he is just a complete moron. If someone tood outside a synogogue in Golders Green performing Zeig Heil salutes and was arrested for incitement, a defence that  they were simply showing solidarity with vegetarians and dog lovers, as Hitler was both, would be laughed out of court. Anelka performed his gesture in front of thousands of people and a TV audience potentially of tens of millions. I'd never heard of the Quenelle before or the racist thug who invented it. Mr Anelka has succeeded in promoting the vile gesture beyond his wildest dreams, with Nazi  morons photographing themselves making the gesture outside all manner of sites associated with the holocaust. I rather hope that Mr Anelka is banned from playing football in the UK for good. That will cost him a fortune and it will serve as a warning to the next moron who wants to behave in such a manner. In Barnet we have a large Jewish population, many with familiy ties to holocaust victims. I personally do not want any scumbag who insults the memory of the these innocent victims to be allowed any platform at all.

This week, Ed Milliband and Ed Bollocks launched a commitment to reintroduce a 50p top rate of tax for the highest earners. The Tories have a long term ambition (meaning when and if they can ditch their Lib Dem partners) to reduce the top rate to 40p. I find this to be a very interesting debate, as it won't really affect anyone apart from a small band of "the slightly rich" . Millionaries employ accountants to ensure they pay nothing and the majority of rest of us don't pay it. The Tories claim that by cutting tax rates, more people simply pay up and don't employ accountants to avoid it. So if we did a straw poll of multi millionaires and said would your rather pay tax at a rate of 50p, 40p or nothing, what do you think they'd say. In truth to get multi millionaires to pay income tax, you'd have to cut the top rate to 10p in the pound. Then they would probably not bother to avoid it. I discussed the matter with a couple of friends who were accountants. They said that if you borught in a top rate of 10p for earnings over £1 million, the treasury would rake in zillions. I am not an accountant so I have no idea whether this is true. When I asked why no government has ever proposed this, they laughed and said that the accountancy firms who advise the government keep schtum because it would be like turkeys voting for Xmas to let the cat out of the bag. Who would employ an accountant if it was cheaper and easier just to pay tax.

Being British, we all love a good moan about the weather. We have certainly had a lot to moan about this winter. Last year it was absolutely bloody freezing at this time of the year. This year, it is warm and wet. As a dog owner, it has been a nightmare. The garden is a quagmire and every comfort break for our two hounds results in the mop coming out. Many areas such as Arrendene, where we like to exercise the mutts are almost impassable. Having said that, as a businessman it has actually been great for business. Last year, the big freeze caused hellish travel disruption. This resulted in mass cancellations of sessions at our studios and the weather probably cost us £50,000 in lost revenue one way or another. Just for example, our takings last week were approx 45% on the same week last year. If people aren't going out, they don't spend money. I believe that Mill Hill Music Complex wasn't the only business to suffer due to the freeze. I am of the opinion that the reason for the poor economic figures this time last year, with stalled growth, were largely due to the freeze. On Friday night I attended our football club late Christmas curry at the Mill Hill Tandoori restaurant. Every table was full and Mr Lemon who runs the establishment said it was his best night for years, even without our party of 14. Which leads me to a very interesting conclusion. Could it be that the result of the next general election will be defined by the weather next winter? If we get another big freeze, then Osbourne's recovery will stall. If we get mild and pleasant weather, the economy will power ahead. In a week when UKIP announced that the wet weather was the result of God's opinion of the decision to pass Gay Marriage legislation, a cool rational view is that as it has boosted the economy, it will also boost the chances of Osborne and Cameron getting elected. Given that God is the supreme intelligence (assuming you accept the premise that God exists), then it is most unlikely that God failed to take into account the effect of this weather on the election chances of the party that passed the legislation. Of course trying to figure out exactly what message God is trying to send us by watching the weather is perhaps a little bit futile. I'd suggest that UKIP would be far better taking account of the story of the "Good Samaritan". The moral of this story is that despised foireigners (The Jewish population of Israel at that time despised Samaritans) can be as good, if not better people than the rest of us.

We started with football, so we'll end with football. This week has seen two rather extraordinary games. The victory of Sunderland over Manchester United at Old Trafford was perhaps the most extraordinary game of football I've ever seen. United ultimately paid the price for being so conservative at a time when they had the advantage. What was extraordinary, was the fact that so many professional footballers, men paid a kings ransome to kick a ball, having been trained since the age of six or seven, couldn't hit the target from ten yards. Then we have the performance of Watford at Manchester City yesterday. City have swept all before them, yet Watford played without fear and were desperately unlucky to lose, with their young goalkeeper making a howler at 2-2. Unlike United (and many others) Watford went to the Etihad and threw the kitchen sink at City. At half time they lead 0-2. City sent on the big guns and pulled it back, but all credit to Watford for having such a go. As a City fan, I was relieved at the end, but my many watford supporting friends can be proud of their team. A special mention to Sergio Aguero. Yet again he was the saviour for City. He is a sublime talent, unlike Ed Milliband he is admired for the way he can use his talent to Ed Balls and score ! (groan !)

Have a great Sunday.

Barneteye Weekly Roundup - 10/1/2012

What a week it has been. On Monday we had the shop owners of Finchley holding a protest against Barnet Council's parking policies. The parkimng fiasco, overseen by Barnet and Camden GLA superemo Brian Coleman (who is up for re-election for his £50K a year part time job in May - hint, hint) has not only pushed many traders all over Barnet to the brink of bankruptcy, it has ACTUALLY COST THE COUNCIL NEARLY HALF A MILLION QUID IN LOST INCOME ! My fellow Barnet blogger Mr Mustard has done an excellent expose of just how much the fiasco has cost - http://lbbspending.blogspot.com/2012/02/permits-figure-differences-mr-mustard.html. You can see a video of the protest if you scroll down and look in the sidebar. It was a good humoured event, despite the snow! The North Finchley traders are a resilient bunch and any sane council would harnessing their energy for the good of Barnet, not indulging in a slash and burn policy of destroying their businesses.

On Tuesday we commemorated the 200th Borthday of Charles Dickens. Barnet was an inspiration for Charles Dickens, his experiences of the workhouse in Wellhouse Lane inspired perhaps his best known novel, Oliver Twist. Dickens was a staunch fighter for social justice and this was a permanent theme through all of his work. The Barnet Eye wonders what he'd make of a character such as Brian Coleman and his recent outburst against the disabled "Why should the Council subsidise transport for these people", which would be a bad enough thing to say without Colemans penchant for free taxis at the public's expense  - http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/Brian_Coleman_2010_2011.asp. I have wondered if the reason Brian Coleman and his chums in the local Tory party are so keen to shut all of the museums in Barnet is purely because they associate with the type of character Dickens used to lampoon ni his works and they want to erase all memory of one of our greatest authors links with the Borough. I can think of no other reason why the historic workhouse building would be demolished.

On Wednesday, the Barnet Eye stats counter showed that our website had been inundated with hits from recruitment companies and headhunters searching for a very well known (to readers of this blog) figure at Barnet Council. What was intriguing was that there was a splurge of them in the afternoon and then another splurge of hits in the evening from private emails. It rather looked to me as if people had been checking the individual out and then decided to dig deeper later in the day. Is someone planning to jump ship? Only time will tell.

Yesterday, the big news was the strike in Barnet by Council workers, against outsourcing, redundancies and cuts to services. To ensure their time was not wasted, they volunteered to put a shift in at a local charity. There is an excellent write up in the Edgware and Mill Hill Times -
http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/9523342.Strikers_fighting_council_s_outsourcing_plans_help_out_charity/ - as ever the story has the obligatory inane comment from Councillor Daniel Thomas.

"Any staff who move as part of the restructure will remain in the local government pension scheme, keep the same level of pay and have a job guaranteed for 12 months at the very least from their move.  I'm sure many of our residents would envy that level of certainty in the current financial climate."

At present, many staff are being forced to relocate to Croyden. All of this for a job which is likely to only last 12 months. Does Daniel Thomas really think that for mothers working part time for the council with children in local schools, this is enviable? The man is quite clearly a blithering idiot.

There are also a couple of big national stories. Of most interest to this blog was the news that Fabio Capello had resigned. My 11 year old son ran in excitedly and announced "Capello has just resigned". He was not a fan. I suspect that the England job is an impossible task. Harry Redknapp seems to be the man for the job. He has transformed Spurs from mid table mediocrity to Champions League contenders. Whilst he's made some shrewd signings, he has developed players such as Gareth Bale beyond recognition. He clearly is a great motivator and a man who understands the way British players play. Spurs play great football, which is something any purist such as myself would say should be paramount.

Then there was the Harry Redknapp tax trial. I have some sympathy for Harry Redknapp.  Many footballers and rock stars do not have a great education and end up with pots of money. Many end up skint, due to the fact that they really don't understand tax. I would like to see all footballers and other short career/high earners have to be enrolled in a scheme whereby their tax affairs were managed by a competent professional, otherwise the football club/ record label would bear the tax liability. This would soon stop the situation where young people earn a lot of money in a short time, spend it and then get bankrupted because they can't pay the tax. For the taxpayer, the worst thing is usually by the time the Inland Revenue take action, the money has been spent, so they bankrupt the individual and never get the money back anyway. That is clearly a ridiculous situation. I don't blame the tax authorities, they are just doing their job as best they can. If we didn't pay tax, the country would fall apart.