Tuesday, September 30, 2008

If Vince Ruled the World........

......we probably wouldn't have got into the mess we're in in the first place.

Rather than just sit back with his feet up and say "I told you so", though, he and Nick Clegg have come up with a comprehensive, people centred, practical plan to get us through the hard times and, long term, to get our economy on a more sustainable footing.

For now they suggest help for homeowners, extending the social fund to help people on low incomes pay off debt, cutting the rate of income tax by 4p and switching the emphasis to taxing pollution and the super-rich, proper, individual help for those who lose their jobs, not the one size fits all treatment currently meted out by JobCentrePlus, forcing energy companies to cut prices for the poor and action to insulate more homes.

For the long term, they ban short selling, include housing costs in inflation calculations, forcing banks to act more responsibly, a massive investment in green technology and providing more social housing.

There's a lot of good, sensible stuff out there - much better than the lily livered members of the US House of Representatives have managed to deliver in the last 24 hours.

As an aside, John McCain has not come out of this well at all. He rushes back to Washington to be the saviour of the economy and can't even get half of his own party to back the recovery package. His face is covered in dripping egg yolk. It shows that he is not in good standing even with his own side. He needed to deliver on this and he has failed miserably. And if an experienced Senator can't get the Republican Congressmen on side, Sarah Palin would have no chance.

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