Chris Huhne and Dennis Moore

Dennis Moore - the unforgettable and inept highwayman in Monty Python.

He starts out as a champion of the poor, but only steals Lupins. Finally he is convinced by the starving peasants to steal items of value.

But he ends up robbing the poor to give to the rich.

Dennis Moore has a rousing anthem, sung to the tune of Robin Hood. The final verse of Dennis Moore's anthem says it all:

Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore
Without a merry band
He steals from the poor
And gives to the rich
Stupid bitch

So has Chris Huhne become the real life incarnation of Dennis Moore? Has he become the Lupin Czar of the Coalition?

Maybe not. But he is eagerly pursuing hair brained policies that give tax breaks to the rich while making the poor pay for them.

Lets just leave the lunacy of the ROC subsidies for wind power to one side for the moment and look at the other great plank of renewable subsidy. The FIT subsidy for Solar PV. FIT stands for Feed In Tariff.

Basically a householder would spend about £12-25000 on having an "approved" solar PV system fitted. This of course is done by an "approved" installer.

The FIT subsidy then pays the house-holder about 41p for every unit of electricity they generate (even if they use it themselves).

The electricity generated also offsets previously bought in electricity. This saves about 13p per unit, knocked off the electricity bill.

Finally, if they manage to export electricity to the grid (unlikely) they will be paid roughly what it cost to generate by any normal means - 3p.

The tax free return on the initial investment is said to approach 10%. ( See Here ).

Not bad. especially if you are a higher rate tax payer.

The scheme is paid for by a levy on all domestic electricity bills. Rich and poor all pay the same.

So, who has £10-25K just floating around gathering dust?

I don't mean who has saved £25K for a rainy day, their kids education, weddings or retirement or whatever. I mean who has £25K, surplus to requirements. Money that can be locked up long term in a Solar PV investment.

The answer is of course - the well off.

So, for the well off, fitting solar PV is an extremely tax efficient way of using a spare £25K that is probably just rotting in a bank account.

I have nothing against people being canny with their money. Taking advantage of this ludicrous scheme is a no-brainer. After all, it is government approved! Looking after your own tax efficiency and wealth is a good thing.

Taking advantage of gross governmental stupidity is more akin to sport than anything else.

But you can guarantee that those on low incomes, won't be queuing up for their FIT approved Solar PV panels any-time soon.  Most don't have 25p going spare, let alone £25K.

But thanks to Chris Huhne's levy, it will be the poor who will be paying. Along with those who cannot justify the long payback time-scale or initial outlay.

There is perhaps a case for some encouragement for getting people to fit solar PV, but punishing the less well off to give what is essentially a tax break to the rich is hardly equitable.

Along with that, the current scheme with "approved" installers and "certified" panels etc. is just a dodgy salesmen's dream come true.

You can guarantee that there is a huge mark-up on this "approved" kit and on the hourly rates being charged by these newly badged up installers.

But it is still worthwhile getting FIT approved solar PV installed. If that is, you have the money to spare.

So Billothewisp's Top Tip:

If you have the money and are not going to need it in the short to medium term, and especially if you are a higher rate tax payer, get some FIT approved Solar PV installed.

If however you are poor or simply cannot afford solar PV then, well, you need to get used to paying the subsidy for other peoples tax breaks.

For that you can thank the aspiring Dennis Moore of the modern age:.

Our own Chris Huhne.

Tactical Voting, AV and First Past the Post

Supporters of FPTP often promote tactical voting as a way minority party supporters can make their vote count.

While tactical voting under FPTP can obviously give a minority party supporter a greater influence over the outcome of a FPTP election, it is at a huge cost to the voters real desire.

With tactical voting under FPTP, the voter must personally transfer their vote without it first being counted for the minority party the voter would prefer. The result of this is that the actual true support for the minority candidate is not reflected in the election result. The positive policy preferences of the tactical voter are left hidden. The major parties, which are inevitably the beneficiaries of tactical voting, carry on their chosen paths without reference to the real but hidden wishes of significant sections of the electorate.

Smaller but important parties are ignored, simply because they appear to have no support. As far as their true wishes are concerned, the  tactical votes of the minority party supporters have gone down the drain.

The tactical voter has to guess where the most effective place for his vote is going to be. Remember while this is essentially their second preference vote it may up being cast for their third or fourth choice. The tactical vote is rarely a vote of support or preference. It will be a vote against the candidate the voter perceives as the less desirable potential winner.

While any form of voting is better than abstention, it is far better for people to vote for who they prefer rather than vote against those they dislike. That is why the 1,2,3 etc of AV is so important.

Finally and arguably the most important advance given by AV is that it is inclusive. It gives everyone a chance to see their vote count. People who would not bother voting because they dislike the concept of tactical voting, because of its usual negativity, will be enfranchised and more likely to vote.

The country is currently on a slippery downward slope. Less and less people vote in general elections and even fewer in council elections. Something must be done to defeat the apathy and re-enfranchise the disillusioned.

Tactical voting has some very large negatives associated with it. It is in no way a substitute for a proper transferable voting system like AV. AV is not perfect but it is far better than FPTP. AV is a way for the political establishment to re-engage with the electorate.

Vote for AV on May 5th.

Lib-Dems and Flying Pigs

Billothewisp loves the party political leaflets. He swoons over the promises and is thrilled by the wonderful feats of rationality they include. But he does get puzzled by the maths, especially the Dorset South pre-poll results given by the Lib-Dems.

A Hat tip to James Cleverly for this post. It made me take a closer look at the Lib-Dem literature that has been poked through our door. Like James we see a miraculous transformation of the voting intentions of the electorate.

My constituency is South Dorset.

In the Lib-Dem leaflet there is a bar-graph of party support. According to the Lib-Dem leaflet, this is the voting intentions

Lib-Dem 37%
Conservative 41%
Labour 14%

The Labour bar on the bar graph also has a handy little arrow stating “A Long Way Behind”

Hmmmmm.

I felt a little nonplussed by this, especially as the sitting MP is Jim Knight (Labour). While I expect he is going to lose his seat, he is actually one of the better of the Labour bunch and actually commands a level of loyalty within the constituency. I would be very surprised (amazed even) if his support fell to 14 %..

I thought I would Google the last election result. Here it is in this Guardian article.

In summary we got:

Lib-Dem 15.7%
Conservative 37.9%
Labour 41.6%


So Ros Kayes (Lib-Dem) reckons she has more than doubled Lib-Dem support. While poor old Jim Knight has seen his support fall by 2/3rds!

Hey! There goes another flying pig.

I hope this is simply wishful thinking and not a deliberate attempt at deception.

Maybe it is simply that the Lib-Dems need a few maths lessons. If so it doesn't sit well with the idea of them running the economy. But it is much worse if they have been deliberately deceptive.

One thing politics desperately needs in this country is honesty.
Not spin, not deception or wishful thinking.
We have had quite enough of those, thankyou.

Lib-Dems Euro Fighter Cancellation

During the last Leader Debate, Billothewisp watched Nick Clegg announce that Euro Fighter (Typhoon) should be cancelled. In fact I think what he meant was cancellation of the Tranche 3B contract as outlined in his Defence Policy (see summary here).

As I understand it cancellation of the Tranche 3B contract is actually a cancellation of the latter stages of the overall contract. Some Typhoons are already in service. So at least Nick Clegg's grand money saving idea would only seriously damage the RAF's air defence capability rather than completely crippling it.

It is funny how ambitious political leaders simply cannot remember recent history.

You would have thought he would at least be able to remember the utter catastrophe Gordon Brown unleashed on our forces by failing to provide enough helicopters and modern armoured vehicles for use in Afghanistan.

But lets go back in time a little further, and to another country..

Go back to 1st September 1939, and look what happened to Poland. Like us, the Poles had dedicated brave and courageous airmen. Unlike us they had old and out-of-date aircraft ( see PZL P.11 here). While their airmen flew with undoubted bravery, they had little chance of stopping the Germans (even the German bombers were faster than the Polish fighters).

One of the reasons Nazi Germany attacked Poland was it knew the Polish air force was outdated, under equipped and no match for the Luftwaffe. If the Poles had had a up-to-date air force with sufficient equipment then maybe the Nazi's would have bottled it. Then today the world would be a very different place.

Now come forward to a little known aspect of the Battle of Britain. We all know of the success of Hurricanes and Spitfires. Even then these state-of-the-art machines were hard pressed. But what is often forgotten is that there were two other aircraft used in Britain's aerial defence. These fared less well.

These planes were the Boulton-Paul Defiant and the Bristol Blenheim (a bomber conversion). Both of these planes were also flown by dedicated courageous crews but they both suffered such appalling losses that they were soon relegated to night interceptions only. These aircraft were not completely obsolete like the Polish PZL P.11 but were they inadequate for the role given to them. If, at the time, we had had to rely on these aircraft rather than the more advanced Spitfire and Hurricane we would have probably lost. Again the world today would be a very different place.

If the remaining Euro fighter contract is cancelled we end up being defended with what we have got. Air defence will be left to a mix of a few Typhoons and Tornado F3's( which are, like the Blenheim, essentially bomber conversion) The Tornado is now at end-of-life. Tornado F3's are not (and never have been ) highly regarded. Now they are also obsolete.

If Euro fighter (Typhoon) is cut back then we leave ourselves open to aggression from those who are better equipped.

I could go on about who/what/where the threat may be. But is that necessary? Have we not learnt Gordon Browns lesson?

He ignored the need for more helicopters and new armour because the threat, at that time, was not fully tangible.

He gambled with our security and with the lives of our servicemen.

Are we going to make that mistake again?