4,000 Diamond Jubilee beacons

All over the world beacons will be lit by people to honour the Queens 60 year reign.

Australia, Canada , Tonga, Falkland Island, Malta, Kenya and many others.

all over the world our commonwealth cousins are re-affirming the strength of a constitutional monarch



Sandwell Tory said I wonder what the Socialists think of that?

The Beacon system was once used as notification of a pending invasion

Greece problems mount

We now seem to be watching a classic left wing and right wing finacial battle with Greece, with the news that
Germany has given Greece a few warning comments on their spending, this follows Greece announcing unemployment up to almost 22% 

Greece is due to make a massive debt repayment on Friday and some pundits are questioning if they can make it 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9255637/Germany-warns-Greece-it-will-halt-aid-unless-it-commits-to-bailout-agreements.html
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9255710/Keep-cutting-or-EU-aid-stops-Greeks-told.html

This comes on top of news that Spain nationalised a big Bank(Bankia) Spain it self has an unemployment rate of 25%

Yet the country that is currently bankrolling the EU ( Germany) now has its own politicians openly talking about letting Greece sink.

Sandwell Tory said
Our unemployment rate about is 8% and we are working Damn hard to get that down

Do you feel we should send over a few Labour MP's to help them sort it all out?,

Markets Plunge

Following the elections in Both Greece & France the markets have plunged,  I wonder why ?

Could it be that after borrowing loads of money on their national credit card, now the bills arrived no one wants to pay the bill?

Lets tax the rich, is the battle cry of the socialists, but this was tried before in England and France during the 1960's, with the "We will tax the people" approach

see

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=101


This section is from another site in the US

Wealthy Residents Have Fled New Jersey and Other High Tax States.Similar to the UK, these states thought taxing wealthy residents was the answer to their fiscal woes.
They have since learned the wealthy have other options. Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) has repeatedly emphasized that as taxes have gone up in his state, the wealthy have relocated. The state had a $98 billion surplus from 1999 to 2003.
Then New Jersey significantly raised taxes on the wealthy, and between 2004 and 2008 they ended up losing $70 billion. The Garden State has America’s heaviest tax burden


It goes on to say

The UK’s Upper Class Exodus
The New Jersey lawmakers should not have been surprised because taxing the wealthy an inordinate amount has rarely worked. Denis Healey, who was the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979, was correct when he predicted “howls of anguish” from the rich. He was referring to the tax increases made by the Labour governments in the 1960s and ’70s.

The result was a huge decline in Britain’s income when the upper class fled. The UK’s biggest export turned
out to be its wealthy residents


See for your self
http://diplomatdc.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/the-return-of-the-tax-exiles-the-uks-biggest-export-has-been-its-wealthy-citizens-by-gregory-hilton/


and it finishes with

The UK has a new government, but it inherited one of the largest budget deficits in the world and they are coping with a larger structural deficit than they thought. Similar to the 1970s


let the debate start

Tony may be back

There are press reports that Tony is considering a come back


Come on Labour welcome him back.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/poll/2012/may/03/tony-blair-uk-politics



Well then what do you think ?? Ho Ho

Labour Isn't working

Back in the 1970's a new poster was issued for the election 

it showed what unemployment was like under a Labour Government this was at a time of major strikes and high inflation Labour lost the election

Strangely enough 30years later, following another period of Labour Government we have a similar fate 

High unemployment High Inflation

Deja Vu

   

Government funds Sandwell Social Housing

After years of Sandwell bulldozing properties and leaving the land fallow for decades
(see previous blog posts) the Government has given Sandwell £10 Million to kick off a rebuilding programme

The HCA (Homes and Communities Agency) wants 80,000 new social home built with some being for sale
as part of this Sandwell is being funded to build 450 new homes in the first wave giving about 2 - 3000 homes
by 2015


Sandwell Tory said

Its funny Labour were in office for 13 years with little social housing being built
we're in Government for less than 2 years and 1000's are being built but there's more to do
we have to get the school achievements improved next

To park, or not to park, that is the question:

At Last!

I see in the press Sandwell have dropped their plans for parking restrictions to be implemented by the Albion Ground; I feel that if this plan had been implemented, it would have had a serious impact on the loyal Albion fans, which with their team bring in such well earned kudos and revenue into the borough.

This news came in the same week as a number of traders have been voicing concern that the lack of car parking in West Bromwich is affecting their trade, allied to the fact the new Police station has no car park for its staff and the new college has only a handful of parking places.

What is Sandwell’s problem with the car?

Mean while we are still waiting to see if the West Brom Building Society moves its head office out of the borough

What is going on in Sandwell??

wisdom, care, and guidance

I see Providence Place opened this week and I truly hope it’s a success, as our borough seriously needs the jobs, one problem still to be corrected however are the jobs that it brings with it.

The multinational is offering salaries of up to £22,500 a year, yet a recruitment company handling the jobs has stated that the standard of applications to the company, has been weak.

Apparently 1,500 people had enquired about, registered an interest and about 50 started on

Sandwell Tory said

I do hope there’s no link between local school achievement and these jobs, from other postings they are after people with Math’s & English GCSE level qualifications, strangely enough that's just what the Coalition Government want as well.   

let’s wait and see what the councils scrutiny department find out

Source

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2012/01/07/bt-struggles-to-fill-200-jobs-at-black-country-call-centre/

Another Free School starts to rise

Some people must have been reading my last posting as I read this week of a new proposal for an academy school in Smethwick.

I applaud them and wish them every success, as the group hope the school will be a multi cultural school, but based on a Sikh ethos, I also see that they wish to grow the school over a few years to around 700 students from all walks of the community.

It now seems people are fed up with the typical promises of better education next year, that Labour have churned out every year for about the last decade only to find out months later that Sandwell is still at the bottom of national league tables, so they are voting with their feet setting up new schools.

I hope that it will raise educational standards by raising achievement and students aspirations