British Government should tell Virgin Atlatic CEO to do one.

Virgin Atlantic Chairman - a guy called Peter Norris - has asked the "British Government" for a £7.5bn bailout. This is due to the Corona Virus and he says that they will have to lay people off. First and foremost I think most people will be sympathetic to anyone that is affected by this dreadful disease.

Here is my problem with Peter Norris and his request - Virgin Atlantic is a foreign-owned airline. 49% is owned by Delta Airways, Then the second-largest shareholder is Air France with 31%. Then Multi BILLIONAIRE - Richard Branson owns 20%.

So why on earth does this foreign-owned company believe that they and the Airline Industry is owed a bailout from the UK Government? There are a couple of systems to look at here is socialist - where the state owns and runs the companies and then capitalist where private shareholders own the company. The later is whereby the shareholder takes a risk in the business and they buy into a company that will make them money. I have absolutely no problem with free enterprise - this is not quite capitalism. For me the difference between free enterprise and capitalism is capitalism just pure greed buy people just to get richer and damn everyone else. Whereby, for me, free enterprise is where the private business owns and runs the business with the correct regulations. And it allows markets to freely compete, but not at any cost to others.

So here we have Virgin Atlantic which is majority-owned by foreign investors and then take the rich pickings and then when things go tits up they want the rest of us to pick them up and save them? I say no you can't have your cake and eat it! Especially if you are foreign-owned as well. cheeky gits.

Now, Virgin Atlantic has form for this, as they bought Flybe when that was struggling. It could be argued they outmanoeuvred the shareholders and left them with very little when they bought the struggling airline, but then when that too went bust again they thought they would ask the British Government for a bailout. If people want to buy a business they do it on the knowledge they get it right they will be rewarded with dividends etc but if it goes wrong then they lose the lot. If there was a small single shoemaker in a Town in the UK if that went bust the owner wouldn't get a bailout from the Government so why should these rich foreign-owned companies?

Also as part of the argument if the Government bailed out the airlines where does it stop? What about airport staff? What about travel agents? What about hotels? What about tourist attractions? The answer is you can't bail out rich foreign shareholders and leave the people of the country poorer for it. That is not how the free enterprise works - nor should it.

 The harsh reality is if airlines go bust it is because there is no demand for it and when this virus is over then people will want to fly and the companies that are managed in a healthy manner will thrive. I am sure when these days come back - the sooner the better - new airlines will start again. It is a cycle and the shareholders know this and in these bad times, they should stop thinking about themselves but understand that most people will be affected in some ways.

Boris Johnson - Corona Hero or idiot?

So, Boris Johnson, this week rolled out on Thursday that the Government was moving to delay phrase. This, we were told, that would mean school closures, mass events being stopped and other measures, But surprisingly Boris Johnson said that even though he was moving to this phrase he was not going to introduce any of the measures above or what he had said previously.

The only thing he said to do if you have a new cough or fever to stay away from work and self-isolate for 7 days. However, those in your household wouldn't need to self isolate - which is a strange piece of advice - as surely those in the household would spread any disease that the person who is self-isolating had by being with them and then going out.

Also previously the government had said to self-isolate for 14 days and now it is 7 days. So why the change?

It is clear the Government is going into a very different direction than the rest of the world. The rest of the world seems to put more directions in to stop the spread of the virus but Boris Johnson said he wants about 60% of the population to get the virus and then we get what is known as a herd immunisation. Boris says that we have no treatment or vaccinations yet for this virus and if we do what other countries do then all we do is release the virus again when the restrictions are lifted. And this would make sense. But for me what I guess this buys those Government is time for treatments and poss vaccinations to be developed, so when it is released they are better prepared. Whereby Boris plan is just to try and get 60% infected and then to get this herd immunisation. But then he said that by doing this some people will die! How bizarre. Other Countries seem to want to stop their people getting ill, Boris we want to make the strong stronger and some of the weak will die!

Science lead

Boris said that all the advice is being science lead - which is a great thing to do. But given that this is a new virus how much science is there out there to do their models?  Also, models from scientists quite rightly look at science and put things in place that they think will happen. One thing it seems is the scientists use the fact that if they tell people not to panic-buy then that people wouldn't do that. But this is clearly not the case so if they have put that into the plan and then other things roll off the back of that, that means if people do panic buy then all the other things in the scientist's plans will not happen, so the questionability of the models has to be questioned. That seems to be happening with over 200 scientists writing an open letter saying such things. The government has now said they will publish their model plans so these scientists and others can review it and that has to be congratulated but why nor share it sooner?

Hero or Villian

But Boris doing something different to what the rest of the world is not doing then he is taking a gamble with our health and lives. and if he gets it right then Boris will be a genius if he gets it wrong and the rest of the world will not be. But if Boris gets it wrong then very serious questions will and should be asked.

Wigan Labour Cllrs give themselves a pay rise and back date it 12 months

Wigan Council has just recently had it's annual Budget meeting and typical Labour-controlled council have given themselves a pay rise. Some will say ok. But then you read on from the document and you see that they have backdated it. one month? Two maybe? No nearly a year. How on earth do they justify nearly a years backdated pay rise?

It is not too dissimilar to Labour Cllr Fred walker who said I have never claimed any expenses on his re-election campaign - got re-elected and then and whacked in £20K of expenses. That is again just shocking and shouldn't have been allowed.

On the elections, Labour have been caught out before using taxpayers money for their leaflets. They have paid resident group money and then that group has gone and paid for Labour leaflets and given that Labour Cllrs have to give a kickback to the Labor party locally for elections I bet the 12 months has been backdated for that purposes to prop up their campaign funds after the kicking they got in the general election. This is wrong and again should not be allowed.

But also Labour has given their Cllrs that sit on Tenants group a pay rise too and I bet this is also backdated and again used for the local elections funds. So in essence on this basis, Labour have just given themselves about £10K for their election funds This is a disgraceful act and should be outlawed.

I am shocked thatCllrs never knew this and never spoke up about it in the Council chamber and here is the link for those that want to see it in black and white.

Covid 19 and how it could affect democracy

As we all know the Corona Virus is spreading and more and more cases are reported around the UK, and the world. The Government have to handle the issue and it affects so many parts of lives and there could be widespread disruption the PM is saying.


As part of one element of life, we have the Local Elections coming up in May and the Government are trying to delay the spread of the virus. One area of planning that needs to be considering is polling day as polling stations around the country will be opened up and official notifications for the elections will be going up shortly.

On polling days at certain times, the polling stations are a meeting area and would the Government stop Local Elections? They could make it an all postal vote system - although historically that has benefitted labour so the tories may not want to opt for that for political reasons plus there will be people just meeting and touch one area - the post box so it could spread there as well. They could well postpone the election. That would be affecting democracy and what would happen to the Cllrs terms that end in May. Will they have to stand down as their notice have said? If it is postponed how long far? Democracy has to be allowed to take place at the earliest opportunity if delayed.

Also, there are the counts were the candidates, agents and others all meet to see the count and this is again another area the Government may want to view? Keeping it behind closed doors is not one option as the candidates and agents have to be allowed to watch the process so there is no fiddling, unlike last year where there was.

If the Government is going to postpone the elections they will need to tell candidates soon otherwise they could put application for costs for all their elections material. 

So we will wait and see but the question that needs to be answered in this area is will Covid 19 affect local democracy?