Many lives have been indiscriminately ended recently.  I cannot begin to comprehend how it feels for all the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbours of those killed but every single one has my deepest, deepest sympathies.  It is nothing short of insanity that all these lives are lost for nothing and we must do all we can, individually, to bring an end to the lunacy of indiscriminate killing, whether it’s in Sudan, Afghanistan, Norway, Mumbai, Oklahoma, Waco, Iraq, Georgia, the Balkans, New York, London, Libya, California, Islamabad, Mexico, Somalia, Colombia, Madrid, Angola or indeed anywhere.  I do not wish to appear blasé or uncaring over such a raw and emotive issue but point made?  Please think about that.

Thank you.

Back to the subject in hand and finding solutions to other problems notably “Investing in Public Services being the Solution to the Deficit Crisis”.

As you will have ascertained, I believe that instead of cutting jobs in the Public Sector, we should be creating them.  Clearly we cannot rely on the Private Sector to create jobs because that’s not their agenda – they want to make profit, full-stop, period, end-of.  So the only other place that we’re going to create jobs is in the Public Sector and, surprise, surprise (thank you Cilla) there are several areas where Public Sector jobs urgently need to be created.

Let’s make a start with that hoary old chestnut – climate jobs.  Poindexter tells me that it’s been estimated that over a million ‘climate jobs’ could be created if the government was serious about tackling both climate change and unemployment.  Strikes me that Poindexter is getting a little too big in the boot department but when you actually think about it - and with areas covered such as housing, renewable energy and public transport investment including high speed rail, bus networks and electric car manufacture - then it does start to add up.

Social housing gets some pretty bad press.  Curious, because it’s estimated that there are 1.8 million families (representing over 5 million people) on social housing waiting lists awaiting re-housing.  Yes, yes, yes, maybe there aren’t that many – maybe some have died, maybe some have got other houses, maybe some are astronauts but obviously there is still a need to build affordable housing for these people which, as a by-product, would help reduce housing benefit payments.  Bonus!

Mmm, the UK lags behind much of the rest of Europe in the development of a high-speed rail network.  Such a network would have the potential to create thousands of jobs and reduce carbon emissions by shifting passengers and freight away from road and air travel.  Outside of that tiny little bit in the South-east, much of the country also needs huge investment in bus services.  And if we’re going to invest in trains and buses we may as well invest in electric car technology, electric buses and tram networks too!

Poindexter has found a bit more research from 2010 which shows that only 2.2% of UK energy comes from renewable sources compared with 8.9% in Germany, 11% in France, and an impressive 44.4% in Sweden.  Oh dear!  If we are truly committed to tackling climate change and ensuring domestic energy security, we really need to be investing in renewable energy technology.

It’s would be easy throwing money at these projects but all of them generate revenue and they would ultimately pay for themselves – people are billed for electricity, buy tickets to travel on public transport and, despite what the press tell you, pay rent for their housing.  And get this, Research by Richard Murphy (of Tax Research – he’s a bit clever and you can Google it if you want) has shown that the state recoups 92% of the cost of creating new public sector jobs – through lower benefit payments and increased tax revenues – come on, you can’t say it’s not worth it!

Talking about things that aren’t worth it – the next part is about Banks.