The new banknote, which will be launched on 2 November, is the first to contain two portraits and the first to be signed by Chris Salmon, who was appointed as the Bank of England’s Executive Director – Banking Services and Chief Cashier in April.

It will also be complete with a raft of new and enhanced security measures designed to combat forgery.

Boulton and Watts entered partnership in the 18th Century and were hailed as pioneers of the Industrial Revolution, particularly with the development of steam-driven technology.

Boulton founded the Soho Mint, Handsworth, where, using steam-powered machines, they were able to produce identical, perfectly round coins for the first time.

He was honoured with a statue in Westminster Abbey after his death in 1819.

Watts focused on a range of civil engineering projects, including a canal to link Fort William to Inverness, providing a survey and estimate, according to the Birmingham Mail . It was built in the early 19th century and called the Caledonian Canal.

The Bank of England has confirmed that it will release more details about the enhanced security features when the note enters circulation.

It was revealed that the economy had grown by just 0.2% in the second quarter of 2011, a promising start but hardly a ringing endorsement of the government’s current economic strategy.

Let’s be fair for a minute, though. No individual or business can be sustained by spending more, year-on-year, than they are earning. There is no infinited line of credit available, and the deficit this country faces needs to be drastically cut.

The economy the coalition inherited from Labour was almost on its knees, with public spending out of control. The state had become too inflated, and the cost to taxpayers unbearable.

Cuts in the public sector are a vital component of the strategy needed to regain control of the nation’s finances.

But it is no good in cutting jobs in the public sector if there are no jobs for those workers in the private sector. The burden of paying those people will shift from their respective department to the Department for Work and Pensions – at considerable cost to the taxpayers still.

The private sector, though, cannot magic money out of thin air to take on new staff, and so rely on the government to stimulate the economy; by taxing the highest earners offshore, punishing big businesses into emigrating and forcing the middle classes to bear the brunt of the new measures.

Nope, makes no sense to me, either. Surely it cannot actually be true? Well…

One of Britain’s biggest names in sport, F1 racing driver Lewis Hamilton, resides in tax haven Switzerland.

Hamilton will shortly be joined by Virgin Enterprise, owners of the Virgin trademarks and brands, as announced recently, most likely too to cut their tax bill.

You may ask yourself, how can an economy grow if some of its biggest contributors desert it? And I think you may already know the answer.

Yes the current cuts to the public purse are necessary, but they must also be joined by common sense ways of stimulating growth.

On National Insurance, raise the lower earnings limit, leaving individuals with more of their hard-earned money untouched, but scrap the planned cut in the Upper Earnings Threshold to help counter the lost revenue.

On Income Tax, cut the top rate of tax to 47% and raise the threshold at which the personal allowance is lost to the Prime Minister’s salary. The rate at which the personal allowance is lost, though, can be doubled. Meanwhile, double the rate at which the personal allowance is increased, so that, from 2011/2012, the personal allowance would be ?8,475, not ?7,475, with it reaching the target ?10,000 from 2012/2013.

On small businesses and the High Street, force councils to agree to a blanket 10p cut in the cost of parking nationwide, and encourage an increase in parking fines by ?10 to cover some of the loss. Cut VAT to 18.5%, cut the lower rate of corporation tax and, while you’re at it, the higher rate of corporation tax. Even a 2% cut to each could help.

Of course I am not an economist, and of course these are not fully-costed, but the principle behind them is clear: economic growth will not come about if the highest earners big businesses are taxed out of the country and small businesses are forced to go out of business, as both will cause job losses, inflate the benefits bill and decrease consumer spending. Such a trend would reduce the government’s revenues further and, worse, risk a double-dip recession.

Both sides of the argument are after one thing: creating a strong, healthy, growing economy again. This needs to be tackled with common sense, though, otherwise we all end up suffering.

Although usage of the humble cheque has been in steady decline with the rise of alternative payment methods, particularly credit and debit cards, small businesses and charities continued to rely on cheque payments as a cost-effective way of receiving money from clients and donors.

It was also popular with elderly people, who are traditionally more likely to use cheques, as care for the elderly charity Age UK’s charity director Michelle Mitchell told the Telegraph today.

“We are delighted that the Payments Council has listened to the many people who said how difficult the loss of cheques would be for them,” she said. “This is a vital first step that will help many older people.”

The Payments Council is comprised of the UK’s financial institutions, including payment processors such as PayPal, who had tried to phase out cheque usage before the final withdrawal in 2018.

Now, however, they have performed a complete U-turn after complaints from the public and lobbying by MPs and government ministers.

“It is great news that the Payments Council has reversed its decision to abolish the cheque,” John Walker, the national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, stated.

“Scrapping the humble cheque would have put many small firms at a disadvantage, especially in rural areas which rely on the cheque for payments.”

According to the (linked) Atticus column, penned by Roland White, Medway Council is advertising for the author’s chosen “non-job” of the week – a Community Development Officer.

“Medway Council is looking for a community development officer (up to ?36,313 a year),” White writes. The role, apparently, is to “ensure compliance with all aspects of the national agenda for resident and community engagement”.

The advert is on the Medway Council website, and after a quick glance at the description (you don’t need to read it all – this author certainly couldn’t manage it!) White’s sarcastic conclusion becomes agreeable:

“Yet another local authority bracing itself for austerity”.

But don’t for a second think that we are alone in this mess, as New Zealand satirist John Clarke explains. As Guido rightly said, they can laugh at us “because they are literally sitting on thousands of tonnes of gold?”.

Let’s be clear before I continue, however, that I have every sympathy for anyone losing their job, but, sadly, c’est la vie, as the French saying goes. Public sector jobs are historically volatile as they depend on the mood of the country-at-large at the time.

Strangely enough, I can think of another similar job, and I believe with those employees, too, there has been quite a significant (proportionally) turnover of staff. As a brief aside from this post, I would like to suggest the coalition government agrees to reduce the number of MPs by 10%, as per the Conservative Party manifesto.

Why? Well, at present, an MP’s salary is ?65,738 and each receives roughly ?100,000 for staffing. If the number of MPs were to be reduced by 10%, i.e. 65, then salary costs would be reduced (at the present rates) by almost ?4.3m and staffing costs would be reduced by around ?6.5m – thus, a total saving of almost ?11m would be made, per year, for just 65 MPs – not including additional expenses!

(And Labour suddenly wanted to create a second chamber of salary-taking elected representatives, when the current one is costing almost ?107m on just MPs and their staff¹?! 1997 would have been a good time for such a reform, but the focus now needs to be on reducing the deficit.)

Anyway, to return to the original point of my post. Public sector workers are introduced into a volatile working environment from day one. Remember the Department for Education? It was created in 1992, before becoming the Department for Education and Employment in 1995. In 2001 it changed again to the Department for Education and Skills, then in 2007 to the Department for Children, Schools and Families. This year, the department made a full-circle return to being the Department for Education. And remember the Home Office? Of course you do, it still exists, but so too does the Ministry of Justice, which came into existence after the Home Office was split in two.

That good old executive agency HM Land Registry has also taken a hit, its office closures, which could lead to the loss of up to 2,000 jobs, were announced before the election. And let’s not forget those 192 executive non-departmental public bodies (just part of a total 766 quangos) employing over 111,000 people and spending almost ?46.5bn in 2008/2009² – that is where the brunt of the government savings will come, and yes, staffing levels will be affected.

Just as c’est la vie, la vie continue aussi, to continue les paroles fran?aises started at the outset of this article. I have listed above just a small – and hugely limited – summary of a selection of government entities – and believe me, there is a lot more to be seen!

From MPs to government departments, executive agencies to quangos. ?6bn is a very small figure when compared to government expenditure, and there are doubtless many ways costs could be cut back in order to make such a minimal saving.

I will not try to second guess Osborne-Laws’ programme to be released later on today, but I can imagine that the unions will be up in arms, as a few of their members will be suffering at the hands of the blunt axe. However, many of their members’ jobs should never have existed in the first place, and after yesterday’s Sunday Express story about a certain union’s ?100m country mansion, the unions certainly don’t have my sympathy at the moment.

There are so many ways Osborne-Laws can get the cuts right today, and so many ways they can get them wrong. But any attempt to scale back the state and public expenditure can only be welcomed as the coalition government aims to reduce the massive deficit it has inherited and the poor state public finances are in after 13 years of Labour.

Notes

1. It is recognised that, at present, there are just 649 MPs, but the five Sinn F?in MPs who practice abstentionism have not been counted in this sum.

2. Civil Service Public Bodies 2009 report.

Discount retailer 99p stores is to open its latest store in Gillingham High Street on Wednesday morning.

The popular discount chain is to open at 9am on Wednesday (17th June) on the site of the old Woolworths store, creating many jobs and providing a much-needed boost to the Gillingham economy.

However, news of the store’s imminent opening has already prompted a price reduction at nearby discount store Pricebusters.

Local residents used to seeing all items priced at ?1 at Pricebusters will now notice a drop in 3p – as it retails items at 97p to stay in competition.

I’ve had first-hand experience in the past of the dangers of writing blog posts in anger without pausing for thought, but right about now I’d very much like to stick two fingers up at Darling and Brown – ’cause it’s no worse than they’ve done to me and tens, maybe hundreds of thousands, if not millions, like me!

Alcohol (moderation), fags (when necessary – i.e. too often at the moment) and petrol (complete necessity) have all been taxed more heavily by the dour one and his white-haired, black-eyebrowed sidekick.

Tax on alcohol has gone up 2% as of midnight. For me that’s an annual rise of about ?7 – not including other price rises.

Tax on fags has also gone up 2% as of 18:00 yesterday. That translates as roughly 7p extra per pack of 20. For me that’s an annual rise (if I manage to continue smoking at my new cut-back rate) of ?31.

Fuel duty is to rise by 2p per litre in September. Then in April next year, and a further three years, it will rise by 1p above inflation. For me that’s an increase for next year alone of around ?71.

In total, thanks to the morons in charge, I will be almost ?110 worse off over the next year – mostly due to petrol – and I’m already struggling enough.

Yet I’m not alone, and my predicament is trivial compared to those who currently face repossession and that terrifying knock on the door from the bailiffs. I am a mere statistic – and I would be willing to accept that if the government cared more about its sixty million statistics than it did headline-grabbing policies and opinion polls.

This inept government is on its way out. And it knows it. Bob Crow of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union called yesterday’s budget ‘the final political suicide note of the New Labour government’.

Out of online characteristic and style for this particular website, I should like to apologise in advance to anyone who may be offended by my following remarks. But I am consumed by anger and this blog (aside from perhaps my bedroom wall) is my only outlet.

It is only just that I say to Gordon and his darling Darling, on behalf of everyone who suffered before, yet suffer more thanks to yesterday’s budget: ‘f**k you!’.

Now call an election so we can all say it properly!

It seems that, in all the economic gloom and doom, there is some good news afoot for Co-operatvie Group members.

I look forward to my ?18 share of the profits in June…

The photograph says it all: Another one Bites the dust !!

The Royal Engineer in Twydall Green has displayed the sorry message for some weeks now since its closure, highlighting the fate of all too many Great British Pubs thanks to government policy after government policy.

The fact is, no one wants to stand outside a pub, often in cold and/or wet conditions, like a social leper when they need to light up. No one wants to pay ?3 (rough average) for a pint when they can get a four pack of cans from their local store for not a lot more.

Once again, the Government is penalising the majority, the responsible drinkers, due to the actions of the minority, the irresponsible drinkers. In order to “tackle” their fictitious “binging Britain” image ( an image exacerbated by the media which implies most drinkers, particularly the younger drinkers, are alcoholic louts), the government has taken it upon themselves to raise the Beer Tax.

The Government’s Beer Tax now accounts for 33% of the price of every pint.

However there is a way we can save the Great British Pub, a way that expands on the Conservative campaign features but which would, most likely, not meet with their approval.

The Conservative way, which I am not disagreeing with, is simple: they are ‘calling on the Government to help save our pubs and safeguard jobs’ by:

1. Cutting taxes on lower alcohol drinks such as low alcohol beers and raising taxes on problem drinks like high strength ciders and alcopops in order to use the tax system to target binge drinking whilst ensuring that responsible drinkers and the traditional British pub are not unfairly penalised
2. Enforcing existing laws to deal firmly with irresponsible drinkers & premises
3. Trusting adults to make informed choices, not punish them for the actions of an irresponsible minority
4. Supporting the British pub as a vital part of local communities

The fact is, though, that the smoking ban has contributed to the slump in the Great British Pub’s fortunes. Indeed since the ban was introduced, the proportion of British men who smoke has increased, leading to a greater proportion of men being put off going down the local for a pint in bad weather. And no amount of tax- or price-cutting will solve this issue.

The only thing that will truly save our pubs is by bringing back that great freedom: choice. I am not suggesting that it would be right and proper to completely lift the smoking ban, just to allow special dispensation for a proportion of pubs. Smoking in the workplace (excluding pubs) should not be allowed to return.

My “plan”, though not perfect, is as follows: every pub should be allowed to apply for a smokers’ licence. Every pub in posession of such a licence would then be allowed to let their patrons smoke inside again. However, this licence would need to be introduced with great care, thus the idea of choice comes into play.

There would be little point in allowing all pubs in one town to hold a smokers’ licence, as those wishing to just enjoy a drink or two in a clean atmosphere would not be able to. Thus local authorities, who should have the ultimate authority over the licences, would decide upon which pubs could, and could not, permit smoking inside by means of a cap: with at least, say 40% non-smoking pubs and 40% smoking pubs.

As I said, it’s not a perfect plan, and it would most certainly be received with very mixed opinions, but at least I’m trying to offer suggestions to save the Great British Pub.

Which is more than can be said about the Government.