Monday 20 April 2009

Budget 2009-2010 For Our House


Mr. Speaker, and I do hope all your family and friends enjoyed the fact finding trip to Dubai, it is just the right time of year. Prime Minister, congratulations on your wonderful world tour of salvation, Fifth Horseman indeed, and of course, our Home Secretary, we are all looking forward to seeing the videos of your waterboarding holiday in Florida, Members of the House, if you could just leave filling out your expenses forms for a few minutes, I will now present my Budget for 2009-2010.

At first sight the figures may look optimistic, 5% up on pension income, bargains to be had at the bankruptcy and home repossession sales, and significant cuts in the prices of illegal substances thanks to the noble work of NATO and our American allies in Afghanistan. Unluckily, there have been other pressures, due to the improvidence and mismanagement of foreigners. These have forced interest rates down for savers in ordinary accounts, meaning a substantial loss of income from this source, greater than the sum realised from pension after tax.

Council tax is up by only six per cent, but there are a raft of added costs. The issue of the national bus pass could have given benefit, unluckily there are no longer any bus routes functioning close to my home. As the taxi tokens have been withdrawn as an option, this means the cost of going to and from the local hospital, and other facilities has now greatly increased. As are rail fares, and a range of other costs associated with any form of movement. The sharp increases in water rates add to the costs of natural movement, despite our economising on bathing and washing up.

Also, to park my elderly car outside my flat will entail a new large road charge, and the extra charges for collecting rubbish add to costs as do all the bin liners of different colours available only from council offices at ten times the price of their equivalents in ordinary retailers. A range of retail prices has gone up by rather more than inflation, food, health goods, petrol, insurances, and more, especially power costs for our home. During the last winter, we had memories of those wonderful days in 1947 and 1963 when it was bitterly cold and the fuel supplies ran out.

The property management services company of my flats and the associated freehold company have all racked up charges one way and another by ten per cent, and will not be paying out on any claims on the buildings insurance at any time in the future. All the contractors they employ are substantially increasing their charges because they now have to pay administration fees to the property company. It is unlucky that the foreign owners of this offshore company have fallen on hard times, in that the crash in commercial property and left them with highly leveraged debts that were hedged against the income stream afforded by our service charges. Before they took over, we were entirely free from debt, but now apparently I am liable through this company for a sum about the same as the Gross Domestic Product of Iceland, where all the freehold and other property assets are alleged to be held.

This is a concern, because the National Geographic Channel has informed me that the Laki Fissure is about to erupt again causing devastation over the whole of the Northern Hemisphere. I have thought about moving into social housing, but apparently the rents on these are going up even more than my charges, and the cost of maintaining Rottweiler dogs for our personal security would be an added burden.

Consequently, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker are you awake? Thank you Sergeant At Arms, there have to be some adjustments. I have cancelled delivery of all newspapers and journals. Sadly, because so many others have been obliged to do so our local newsagents is to shut, leaving the supermarket five miles down the motorway the nearest outlet. We have substantially reduced our contributions to charities, membership of local and other societies. We have not had a holiday now for some years, so there is no scope there, and we are wearing out our old clothing. Footwear is still a problem, but we are trying to harden our soles in case in the event of having to go barefoot. As we are now unable to either consume much or save, we cannot help the economy.

Thanks to the wonderful and stylish new hospital buildings and opened by a junior minister of the Department of Health, unluckily the Primary Care Trust has fallen into insolvency because of the Private Finance Initiative financing. This has not only halved the number of beds available, but most of those remaining have been infected by either bubonic plague or some more dangerous infection. The outsourcing of some medical services and closure of others now mean extensive travel around most of England for basic treatments.

Quite why the blood tests can only be done in Banbury on the same day as the X Rays in Brighton, before the specialist in Birmingham can see me is a puzzle, but I have been assured that this new bookings choice, together with modern management dependent on computer services based in Ulan Bator is giving me a far superior service to that at my old local hospital just along the road before it became a depot for storing NHS office equipment. At least the NHS is free, apart from the several charges that seem to be needed, and all the little extras so necessary to treatments and of course, the travel costs. It is just as well I no longer pay national insurance, because then it would be even more free, or so I have been told, but I have yet to work this one out.

We have tried to do our patriotic duty by our Queen and Country and have actively sought credit from the usual sources, only to be met by ridicule and contumely by all those financial institutions kept going by the taxes we pay. Moreover, this may be the last year when we can present any budget at all. Any further increase in the inflation of general costs, or for that matter much in the way of added burdens and we shall be hopelessly and completely broke.

We look forward to hearing the government’s proposals of how they intend to help the millions of bankrupt poor in future years, as opposed to helping their friends in the financial elite who have suffered some marginal losses in their overall wealth. Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I gather you do not use your official lodgings all that much, any chance of lending us the key now and again so we can have a bath, and a warm evening watching the telly on wide screen digital?

1 comment:

  1. Very good.. Email it to CU.
    Tell him to give you a link in the Best budgets post tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete