You’re NICked…

First of all let me declare an interest : I spent the best part of the last 20 years of my working life as a self employed contractor in the IT industry. I’m also a chartered accountant so I was particularly interested in what the Chancellor had to say yesterday about National Insurance contributions.

There’s been a lot of nonsense spouted by various self employed people over yesterday’s announcement, not least of all by one particular blogger – whose blog I’m banned from accessing – that I read this morning (working well, that ban, isn’t it?) who simply doesn’t seem to understand the situation at all, frankly. However, in the interests of fairness, you can read his slant on all this here even if I’m not allowed to! (sic.)

What the Chancellor has done is to abolish Class 2 NICs and incorporate that saving into the Class 4 NIC. The Class 4 NIC has then been increased by 1% this year and a further 1% next year.

The bleat from the people who don’t like this seems to revolve around around their employment rights. The self employed have no employment rights, so the argument is irrelevant. The government provide the NHS and a state pension in return for NI. Here’s an important point : The State Pension has been changed so that self employed people now have the same pension rights as employees. They also have the same access to the NHS, so why should they pay less?

Even after these changes, the self employed still pay a lower NI contribution that employees whilst getting the same access to the NHS and the same pension rights. Employees pay 12% compared to the current Class 4 rate of 9%. Over £43,000 p.a. everyone pays 2%.

The net effect of the changes is that self employed people earning under £28,000 per annum will pay less NI. From £28,000 to £43,000 they will pay the same. Over £43,000 they will pay more.

This seems fair to me. Maternity rights, sick pay and paid holidays are not the responsibility of the government. When I worked as a self employed contractor, I earned more than I would have done as an employee. This was precisely because I had to earn enough to cover unpaid holidays, sickness, gaps between contracts and the like.

There is a class of people in this country and others who believe that things should be given to them as a right and that they shouldn’t have to contribute in order to get them. My fellow blogger’s rant calling the government ‘thieving scum’ and the taxman a ‘blood sucking leech’ shows a fundamentally bad attitude and is typical of the ‘something for nothing’ mentality. I won’t bother to argue the case with him because that would be like trying to teach a pig to sing.

The case for this change is clear. It’s about fairness. If you want the same rights, then you should pay the same contributions towards them. And, at the end of the day, nobody forces you to become self employed. It’s a choice for you as it was for me and I fail to see why there should be a financial incentive funded by employed people for you to do so…

Migrants in English Channel

News from the English Channel yesterday as a boat load of men were spotted in the English Channel off Dover.

The boat was intercepted by the Coastguard but surprisingly it was not heading to, but away from the UK, towards Calais.

Another surprise finding was that it was loaded with white British Citizens, who were all seniors of pensionable age.

They claim they were trying to get out of the EU so as to be able to return to the UK later as illegal immigrants, and therefore be entitled to far more benefits than they were receiving as legitimate British pensioners.

They were given food and water and assisted safely on their journey.

We are booking on the next boat out.

Let me know if you want to come…

Scrounger of the month

Say hello to Gwynfor Jones who I proudly proclaim to be ‘Scrounger of the month’ for July…

50 year old father of two Gwynfor pockets around £1,340 a month in benefits and says he can’t climb three steps or walk 100ft without a stick.

Strangely, he might claim he is too disabled to work but he appears quite capable of picking up his 17-stone, £4,295 Shoprider Cadiz mobility scooter by the axle and hauling it up the five steps to his one-bedroom council flat in Bournemouth.

Jones said he feared he would lose everything if officials caught him lugging the heavy machine to his front door, but insisted he could manage only three steps before collapsing. He told The Sun: ‘I’m not physically capable of working and haven’t been for years. I need the scooter. I can walk up three steps before I’m buggered.’ Shame there’s five steps up to his flat then. Must be a bit of a problem stopping half way up.

When confronted, the twice-divorced former trucker said: ‘The authorities would have my guts for garters if they saw this. They’d say I don’t need benefits.’

Well, you don’t really, do you Gwynfor?

Lazy bastard, stay-at-home mums

Men have known the truth for years. Mums want to stay at home with their kids so that they can lounge around all day living of child benefit and doing fuck all while they sponge off their poor hard working husbands. Now it’s official – and who would now better what’s good for you than the Fourth Reich?

It seems that the EU has commissioned a report – well, they had to piss your taxes up the wall on something! – that says that the UK has the laziest mothers in Europe and is telling our government that they need to tackle the ‘problem’ as a matter of urgency because it’s just not European to spend time bringing up baby when you could be out earning money for them to tax so they can commission more reports. So there…!

Britain, it seems, revels in this sort of blatant laziness. The large number of mothers who work part-time or not at all is a “social challenge” that the Government must address by providing more state-funded child care, according to the European Council. Thankfully, for Britain, unlike eurozone members, the recommendations of such reports are non-binding. Bloody good job too, I say. Because it’s none of their bloody business what we do in our own country.

And that’s not all. The broadly critical report, presented to George Osborne at a Finance Ministers meeting this week, warns that Britain faces excessive levels of household debt, which combined with rising house prices pose a threat to economic stability. More houses must be built, it says, including by implementing the Government’s controversial reforms to planning laws. So now we’re being told to build more houses – presumably so we have somewhere to put all those illegal migrants camped out at Calais?

It further warns that Britain has a large proportion of young people with “comparatively low levels of basic skills”, and the number of children living in jobless homes is among the highest in the EU. But then if you keep forcing us to import all those African migrants with no skills whatsoever, what the hell do you expect?

As far as I’m concerned, if mums want to spend their time bringing up their children instead of sitting behind a desk in some office somewhere on make work programs that’s fine by me as long as the family can pay its way. My own daughter had no choice in the matter. She wanted to go back to work as a radiotherapist in the NHS but had to be a full time carer for her eldest who had medical difficulties. She’d be one of those statistics captured by the EU but, hey, who needs facts to write a report?

I’ve never understood why people have children and then say thay don’t want them to change their lifestyle. If you don’t want your life turned upside down, then don’t have kids. In the 21st century, that’s a feasible choice. On the other hand I’d stay at home and care for my children any day of the week, finances permitting. That’s what parents should do – put their children first.

It’s a parent’s choice – and it’s definitely fuck all to do with the EU…

The NHS immigration fiasco

Another day and another bloody story about immigrants. More bollocks to digest from all sides of the political spectrum.

On Monday the headlines in the Sun screamed that 35,000 foreign nurses were to be sent home. The BBC claimed it would be 6,500. Another newspaper reckoned it was about 3,500. Personally, I reckon it’s going to be bugger all…

So why has all this crap been spouted in the first place? Well, the government announced that any migrant worker who does not attain a salary level of £35,000 a year within 6 years will be asked to leave the country. The Royal College of Nursing and all the lefty politicians immediately started jumping up and down and screaming that would mean thousands of vitally needed nurses being forcibly deported. But it’s all nonsense, isn’t it?

For a start, any immigrant from the EU would be exempted because of the right to freedom of movement. That’s the same old problem we have at the moment when it comes to lower paid EU citizens, predominantly from the old Eastern bloc countries, coming here to work. Whether we want them here or not, we’re stuck with them.

So that leaves the non-EU migrants and dramatically reduces the numbers game. Then there’s the list of ‘needed skills’ which the government says was independently drawn up and doesn’t include nurses – so it’s not their fault! Well, thats alright then. No need to take responsibility for running the country and making the laws. After all, you’re only the bloody government!

So if it becomes a problem, then the list of required skills just gets amended to included health workers and the problem goes away. Simples.

What this is actually all about is the government trying to convince the electorate that they’re doing their bit to protect British jobs against immigrants. It’s about convincing people that migrants don’t just come here to claim benefits. Problem is that many of them do, so the mouthwash ain’t making it.

And why the £35,000 a year figure anyway? I’ve no objection to anyone coming here to work. If they contribute skills and pay their taxers, then that’s OK with me. It’s the scroungers and chancers I have no truck with.

No, this is just a great big political storm in a tea cup blown up out of all proportion by both sides so they can preen and posture. Frankly, if the Labour party was in power and doing exactly the same thing, nobody would be saying a damn thing about it.