0600 Hrs GMT
London Saturday
14 November 2009:
Editor © Muhammad Haque. Khoodeelaar! Campaign against "the wasteful CrossRail scam..." here publishes a factually constructed account of what one of the ‘Fleet Street’ journalists the BBC News Channel slots in for few minutes every so often to ‘review the papers’ of the following day. It is not easy being slotted in that slot. The fact is the fronter, most often Chris Ekin, is the one that ‘does the reviewing’.
As does any of Ekin’s counterparts. The Fleet Street journalist in question here is Nigel Nelson, the political editor of the weekly Sunday People. He is a rare one in the context of Crossrail scam. For he is the only one in ‘Fleet Street’ who echoed the Khoodeelaar! Campaign and in March this year, said that the Govt could – should - scrap Crossrail [as a number of wasteful ones] to avoid the massive public sector debts [Others, including the ownership-changed London EVENING STANDARD and the ECONIOMIST magazine followed quite a bit after Nigel Nelson’s own column...
We here also refer to the column published in the London EVENING STANDARD on 30 April 2009 by Simon Jenkins. He too called for the scrapping of Crossrail. We have already referred to that item on several contexyal occasions and we will return to it in due course again] …
Little did Nigel Nelson know [when he wrote his first column that had in it a call for scrapping Crossrail] that Gordon Brown would THEN go into deeper debt and plunge Alistair Darkling into a sea of public sector borrowing of unprecedented size and burden…
Neither Nigel Nelson nor the official Opposition in the UK 'Parliament’ could have foreseen just how bad the debts burden was going to be… And being a reasonable craftsman, Nigel Nelson has not discussed the matter in quite the same way that he did that first time. So here is a possible, mild-mannered resumption of what Nigel Nelson might say this weekend:
“I even told how Alistair Darling could spare us the £25,000 debt burden. I published a list of wasteful scams that could be chopped. Crossrail was one.
But alas Alistair Darling would not follow sound advice. He has since shown that he too is heading for the hole.
One much bigger than the Crossrail hole so effectively highlighted by the Khoodeelaar! Campaign of the past 6 years or so... One of these days, I am going to do the unthinkable for ‘Fleet Street’ and actually publish in my own paper SUNDAY PEOPLE the truth about CRASSrail.
I know the diagnostic language is affecting me! I am going to list the things KHOODEELAAR! has been saying about the UK economy.... and show how on each count they’ve been getting it right...”
[As could have been told to AADHIKARonline]
[To be continued]
WHAT NIGEL NELSON PUBLISHED in the SUNDAY PEOPLE dated 22 March 2009:
"22 March 2009
BLACK HOLE COSTS YOU £25,000
EXCLUSIVE Here's how they might claw it back
By Nigel Nelson Political Editor
Every British taxpayer faces a debt of £25,000 to pay for Alistair Darling's borrowing binge.
New forecasts say the Chancellor needs to splash out £704billion on the nation's credit card over the next five years.
That will leave each taxpayer with a bill equal to the current UK average wage, say economists Ernst & Young.
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And it will be FIVE times the amount of debt run up over the last five years, which worked out at just £5,000 per taxpayer.
The predictions from forecasting group the Item Club say Mr Darling will need £180billion this year alone, exceeding his own estimate by £62billion.
They are so significant because the Item Club uses the same forecasting model as the Treasury.
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: "This is the worst fiscal mess any British government has created in peacetime.
"Tax receipts have collapsed but there is a great deal of scope for spending restraint."
Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Vince Cable added: "Spending will rise sharply over the coming months as unemployment surges.
"And the steep fall in output will continue to reduce tax revenues."
Last week the International Monetary Fund said the UK will have to borrow 11 per cent of national income this year, the most of all the world's top G7 industrialised nations. Ernst & Young say it will be 1.6 per cent WORSE.
Item Club chief economist Peter Spencer said: "The outlook is bleak. The Chancellor must present an unambiguous plan for restoring the public finances to health.
"We are all going to find ourselves paying a lot more tax once the recovery begins and our children will be paying that tax for a very long time to come."
The researchers say Mr Darling must now pump more cash into manufacturing to save jobs.
In April's Budget he is expected to cut taxes to encourage spending, as The People said last week.
But once the recession is over the Government will have to claw the money back. And we have some suggestions, see right, for doing it.
For instance Mr Darling could RAISE tax by 5p, SCRAP the Crossrail plan for new London train links or SUPPLY school meals free to cut obesity in kids.
Total £704 billion
Raise income tax by 5p £100 billion
Put VAT up to 25 per cent £240 billion
Cancel Trident missile defence £25 billion
Nationalise the banks £44 billion
Health screening for over 20s £75 billion
Trim Government waste £170 billion
Abandon Crossrail project £16 billion
Free school meals to save on obesity £18 billion
Cut civil service pay 1 per cent £7 billion
Scrap widening of M25 £5 billion
Cancel our new aircraft carrier order £4 billion"
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