It wasn’t me: Healy-Rae on 3,636 Dail calls to win TV show

I don't what's more crazy: that this sort of thing could go on in a democratically-elected parliament, or that a telecommunications provider can't tell what telephone these calls were made from . . .

An idea for political reform: a party's political manifesto should be a legally binding contract

One of the readers commenting on this story makes an interesting point about accountability in politics.

"You will only have true democracy when you have the "right of recall". A party's political manifesto should be a legally binding contract. They are elected on the promise of doing A, B and C and instead they do X, Y and Z. That should be illegal. They should be forced to call another election if they cannot deliver on their manifesto."

Sounds great in theory, but would it work in practice?

Surely a massive challenge would be defining exactly what counts as having "delivered" on an election promise?  If a party promises to provide £10m in funding for a project but ends up only finding £9.5m, is that reason enough to call an election?

Wouldn't the temptation be to make your manifesto as vague as possible - therefore actually reducing accountability?

Anyone?

RTE’s top 10 stars to suffer 30pc pay cuts in new purge

More bad news for the media industry: 200 jobs have already gone at RTE, with probably another 75 to follow by 2013.

Dark days.

Music Review Unsigned, June 2011: My interview with Australian singer Tara Stewart

Open publication - Free publishing - More festival
 
Check out my interview with the multi-talented Tara on pages 8 & 9.

LIFE Magazine: amazing photographs

Some of the old war photographs over at LIFE Magazine are incredible.

It's like there's a history lesson in each one of them - a lesson to be taken very seriously.

American Civil War (Photos)
World War 2 (Photos)
Vietnam (Photos)

Google also has a LIFE photo archive and Google Books has some of the LIFE magazines.

Three quarters of UK workers 'half an hour from work'

I couldn't believe this figure at all . . . until I realised that it didn't include London.

Before this I could have sworn it wasn't possible to commute anywhere in London in under 45 minutes!

Adele's tax grievances won't resonate with fans

"I'm mortified to have to pay 50%! [While] I use the NHS, I can't use public transport any more. Trains are always late, most state schools are shit, and I've gotta give you, like, four million quid – are you having a laugh? When I got my tax bill in from [the album] 19, I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire." - The Guardian

Wow!  Quote-tastic or what!

Not content with singing like an angel and seemingly spending her every waking moment at the top of the charts, she’s even able to feed the press with gems like this.

She’s a multi-talented lady, for sure.

All hilarity aside, in the process of quite probably incurring the wrath of the world’s entire working-class population, Adele has brought up an interesting topic: the dreaded income tax (or all taxes to an extent).

Firstly, it’s probably worth clearing up that no-one in the UK pays 50% on their entire income.

Only the earnings over the first £150,000 are taxed at 50%.  You can actually earn a certain amount (just under £8,000) which isn’t taxed at all, and then you pay 20% on any earnings up to £37,400 and 40% on any earnings between 37,401 and £150,000.

But what’s the point of tax, and why should you pay more than others just because you earn more?

For starters, tax pays for many things that people in the developed world take for granted.

As Adele has touched on the fact that public transport, public healthcare, roads, rubbish collection, state schools, the police and the fire brigade are all examples of services are all funded by the taxpayer in one way or another.

And of course, those street lights that people use to find their way home at night didn’t appear out of nowhere, and electricity isn’t free.

Now, you can argue forever about the lack of quality of these services in your country, or that too much total money is pumped into them, but taxes – of one kind or another – are what funds these services.

Also, it could justifiably be argued that these tax-funded services have a great part to play in what makes the “civilised” western world civilised.

For example, I’ve just noticed that Afghanistan and the Central African Republic have a very reasonable 0% income tax rate, but I don’t know what the public healthcare is like there, so you might want to check that out before upping sticks.

In contrast, Denmark’s income tax ranges from a low 30% to an eye-watering 60% (not to mention VAT at 25%), but I know in which of these three delightful countries I’d rather get hit by a bus.

Some people are also fond of complaining that the higher tax bands “punish” you for being successful and earning more; it’s the “Where’s the incentive to earn more?” argument.

In reality, of course, while you will pay more total money in tax if you earn more, you also end up with more net income in your pocket than someone that earned less to begin with.

There are lots more arguments for and against taxes, but it’s probably fair to say that no-one is ever likely to come up with a tax system that pleases everyone, so let the arguments rage on.

Maho Beach: The World’s Least Relaxing Seafront

Has anyone ever seen anything like this!?!

There I was just soaking up the sun with a good book when suddenly . . . 

Food prices to double by 2030, Oxfam warns

Charity says era of permanent food crisis will hit poorest people hardest and spark social unrest.

  There are so many issues to consider in this area, and without having all the facts and figures available it’s always going to be difficult to discuss viable solutions.

  I have to say, though, that I totally agree with Oxfam’s view that the whole bio-fuel movement needs to be seriously looked into.  In my opinion, the whole idea should be scrapped because it’s madness to turn food into fuel while people are starving.

  Yes, there’ll be people moaning about global warming, but wouldn’t you rather have food on the table before you fill up your car?

  All the contradictory science around global warming should be revisited anyway, so everyone should just stop refining grains for non-food use until the facts are clear.  Global warming: a topic for another day.

  Check out Oxfam’s GROW campaign for more details.