NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE
I know I shouldn?t have done it but I decided to listen to the Budget speech and right from the start things went downhill. I hadn?t even clicked the ?listen live? button on my computer and the gas meter reader walked past the window that immediately put me in a bad frame of mind.
As the Isle of Man Treasury Minister delivered his 5th budget, in a stumbling and at times disjointed manner, I realised all those jokes I had made about plagiarising and it being written by his CEO were true.
It was clear that Eddie Teare obviously had not been able to polish up delivery so at one stage I felt it would have been better if he?d said to Zac Hall MHK; ? hey you’re good at this sort of thing read it out?. Better still the Treasury CEO could be given lessons from Nina Conti and she should deliver it with a dummy of Eddie on her knee.
Eddie kicked of in positive vein saying despite all the difficulties and fiscal challenges we had done well. It should be noted at this point that we have, according to government had over three decades of growth. I shook of my air of despondency and thought there must be good things to come.
However basically what the Budget boiled down to was not things are going to get better for you but rather Eddie is only going to make them marginally worse ? unless that is you are in the business community whose praises he sang to the rafters and it would seem from some of his monologue that elements of them are already in the corridors of power pressing the buttons.
Workers and especially Unions are required to be ?sensible? or else he will make their members redundant. This was classic Bell philosophy cosy up to business and shaft the workers. I know what I would be doing if I was active in the Union now and that?s preparing a counterblast for these arrogant bastards who seem to have forgotten who runs the engine room in this economy.
It was clear (as indeed I had predicted) that this government knows it?s so unpopular that it appreciates it?s a waste of time to try and give out a few sweeties ahead of the election because the punters (you and I) would regard them with suspicion.
Eddie?s rambling disjointed monologue did reach a couple of interesting points before I hit the off button.
The first was when in a carefully veiled manner he indicated that part of the EDF could be diverted to deal with unexpected infrastructure projects (always carefully channelled to their mates in the private sector of course) which seems to suggest they may have overstepped themselves when they ?took a snow shovel to the government reserves? money box!
The second, dealt with almost by sleight of hand, was when he admitted that 30% of those disability claimants reassessed and turfed off benefits had gone round in a circle and were back on it ? so that went well then ? nothing like putting the disabled through hell to cheer the Treasury Minister and his side-kick Bill up!
Meanwhile the puerile tripe just flows out of the media with no one saying;
?Thirty plus years of growth and we are still in the crap don?t you think its time you admitted successive governments are getting things wrong?.
From the bit I listened to Eddie gets 100% for pulling of another con-trick on the media and us and 5% for presentation.
Let?s hope the ?dummy? does better next year!
Photo: Nina Conti and dummy!
BERNARD MOFFATT
Issued by: The Celtic News
16/02/16
THE CELTIC LEAGUE INFORMATION SERVICE.
The Celtic League established in 1961 has branches in the six Celtic Countries. It promotes cooperation between the countries and campaigns on a range of political, cultural and environmental matters. It highlights human rights abuse, military activity and socio-economic issues
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