Ed's Clause Four Alarm?

As my euphoria at the spectacular sporting summer was finally dampened yesterday by an abject batting
display from England, I noticed so wrapt have I been this past month with the Lions, Wimbledon et al, that I have been rather remiss with my blogging. There are a few worthy candidates for centrepiece of July's first rant...

It will have come as a massive shock to everyone I am sure to find out the jobs-for-your-leftie-mates wonderful public service (which a recent survey shows is less well-regarded than a decade ago) that is the Beeb has been throwing your tax pounds around like a drunken student on loan day. Or like the public sector in general, really. Overly generous compensation packages for those leaving the BBC have been hitting the headlines of late, and no wonder. It appears the fat cats at the Beeb, who they insist have to be paid so generously to lure them away from the private sector (well, thank God we are paying them so well - they've been so good recently; think Saville, Hall, McAlpine scandals to name a few), have been stuffing the pockets of their chums with wads of cash as they leave.

Presumably this is so it becomes generally accepted practice so when they next make an enormous balls up themsleves, nobody bats an eyelid when they walk away with a cool half million of so including pay in lieu of work they were actually paid for in the first place. It would almost be funny if it were a private company that would obviously only be hurting itself by depleting its cash reserves rewarding failure (or the quite magnificent compensation given to Caroline Thomson to make up for her not being considered good enough for the top job - what's the point of getting promoted when you can fail to get promoted and still get the higher salary to make up for your hurt feelings?). But it's not funny because we are forced to pay for them, whether we like them, watch them or not. Rather like having to donate to the Labour party regardless of your political persuasion... more on that in a bit.

There has been some totally expected politically correct quota-based nonsense over company recruiting. It is unsurprising in today's climate in which where you come from isn't your fault, unless of course you come from some degree of deemed 'privilege'. Yes, we are back beatng the class envy drum again and making sure we socially engineer our workforce. A study by the Association of Graduate Recruiters shows one in six leading companies are vetting the socio-economic status of their applicants, and predict it will soon be a quarter. Why? So they can make sure they have the 'right' mix of poor kids, rich kids, kids from state school, kids from private school, kids with university-educated parents, kids with barely-educated parents (vast tracts of the last two of which will in years to come merge together the way we are going). Apparently we have a 'need to diversify our workforce'. Yup, it is not just our universities that shouldn't any more have anything to do with meritocracy, but companies too. The best companies aren't run by the 'best' people, they're run by the politically correct 'right' people. Everyone knows that.

Under what banner is this positive discrimination taking place - "social responsibility is becoming higher on the HR agenda, so professionals are pushing this forward more". I know we've been here many times before, but imagine for a moment a world where this exact thing were happening but instead of saying we didn't want well-educated rich kids of well-educated parents, we had companies actively discriminating against better candidates on the basis that their parents didn't go to university, they don't earn much money and they sent their children to a state school. There'd be riots. But of course, as ever, class discrimination is ok as long as it harms the supposed higher echelons. Two wrongs apparently make a right. Absolutely barking.

The human rights fiasco barely needs touching on because it has all been said before. The laws are written in far too loose a way which thereby fail to recognise that firstly there will obviously be cases where different articles are competing on opposite sides of an argument (e.g. freedom of speech vs. right to respect for family and private life), and secondly it fails to fully elaborate on the caveats which allow for the limiting of human rights (e.g. fair imprisonment and the knock on effects). Clearly the most recent judicial horror show where the European Court of Human Rights have somehow sunk lower in eveyone's estimation is their ruling that whole life tariffs breach the human rights of the convicted multiple murderers and rapists in question. Utter horse shit. Illogical judges trying to be controversial to gain a name for themselves twisting the wording and interpretation of the poorly scripted laws to justify an obviously incorrect decision. Nothing more. What should we do?The same as we should do with the rulings over prisoners voting, or conjugal visits so prisoners might be allowed to father children. Ignore it, tell Europe to go hang and if they kick up a fuss, take our ball and leave. Same thing the French do with every ruling they don't like. We just need to stop being so British - stop being the only ones who queue at the great European ski lift.

But the winner is Red Ed and his 'Clause IV moment'...

The Tories have had a lot of fun this last week of so with the embarassment that is the Union stranglehold on the Labour party. Everyone knew it, as everyone knows the only reason brother Dave's taking his banana and heading off to America is that the Unions also choose the Labour party leader, and they wanted push over lefty Ed. Milliwho is doing his best shot at righteous indignation over the underhand tactics he has undoubtedly known about forever. The Falkirk scandal has brought the dead hand of the unions to the fore and with it their funding of the Labour party.

Now I for one think it's absolutely fine for the unions to try to influence policy - surely much of their raison d'être. As I have written before, I don't want politicians to exist in a bubble. They are meant to be being lobbied - which means trying to influence (the key word is 'trying'). We are then meant to pick the ones who we think respond in the best and most upright manner to said lobbying and produce votes, decisions and policies designed to help the country. People campaign for more attention (and normally more money) to be directed towards things they hold dear to themselves; it is human nature. People with relations with rare diseases form charities and pressure groups and lobby Government to get more funding for research. Communities lobby Government to say they don't want a massive power station built in their green fields. Business lobbies Governments to make business easier ahnd cheaper to do. Workers unions lobby Government (supposedly) on behalf of their workers to get things their workers would like. This also extends to funding political parties who they think will in general promote policies their interest group will like. It is barmy to have an issue with this.

What Miliband is trying to do though is make it seem he is breaking from the Unions and cleaning up political party funding. He is not. All he is proposing, at some unidentified future date, is that he will stop mandating anybody whjo joins a worker's union (which offer various benefits and are generally not a bad idea whatever your political leaning) paying money direct to the Labour party. It's one hell of an assumption to make and it is good that it will stop. What won't stop is the unions donating vast sums "on behalf" of their members (who don't vote on this - it's down to their self-important Gernerally-Thick-Secretaries). So union influence won't stop, nor will the money. However, because Ed has apparently cleaned up his side of the house he can now apparently assume the moral high ground and demand that political party donations from individuals be limited to £5,000.

Ridiculous. As everyone knows, the vast majority of donations Labour gets it gets from the unions who will still not qualify as 'single donations' despite it being a donation from a single entity generally run by a single person. The Tories differ in their funding, with far more coming from large individual donations. So Ed thinks he can somehow trade removing a disgraceful forced stealth donation for slashing the funding of the Tories. Not a chance. Anyone is free to give as much money as they want to poitical parties. All you need to do is have a system which mandates you to declare it all properly so the electorate can make a decision whether the party in question is being overly influenced by said donors against the best interests of the country. It is the same check against a millionaire oil tycoon donating millions to the Tories and naturally wanting less tax on oil as it is against the enormous workers union donating millions to Labour and naturally wanting more pay for its workers.

The other bizarre mandate from Ed, all pumped up from his showdown with Big Len is his stance on second jobs for MPs. Apparently not having checked that it might affect some of his senior MPs too, Ed has declared no Labour MP can have a directorship or consultancy by 2015, nor earn more than 15% of their Parliamentary salary elsewhere. Another barb aimed at the Conservatives who have many more MPs who have outside interests of note, it is a pathetic attempt to ride the swell of public opinion against MPs. It is the same swell that sees those in handsomely paid ministerial roles denouncing Ipsa's proposed basic salary increase. Easy for Cameron, Miliband and Clegg  (paid around £400,00 between them and each worth millions) to say that backbenchers on £66,000 shouldn't get another £6,000 or so; it's peanuts to them.

You can't have your cake and eat it boys - you wanted an independent body to set pay; you've got one. Yes, it is poorly timed but the grown up response from all of them should have been that the correct level of pay should be some degree higher. In comparison to similar public sector roles, their pay really is rather low - think about the Beeb, think about NHS managers, think about civil servants, hundreds of whom get more than the PM let alone a lowly backbench MP. They should acknowledge what everyone knows - that there have been years of refusing to increase headline pay because it is bad press but stealthily increasing benefits in lieu. It was what in part caused the expenses scandal. I'm not advocating a "pay them more so they don't have to steal" concept but you have to see on a basic level their salary is relatively low. It is better to have ourselves rid of the obfuscation of the expenses system and just pay them an appropriate upfront salary.

Ed is as plain wrong on this second job ban as he is on individual donations. MPs should be encouraged to be actively involved in the country they run. We don't want canned professional politicians, believe me - there are enough already. I want doctors, soldiers, teachers, lawyers, businessmen. MPs whose sole life experience is of politics is a recipe for disaster - political spin, survival over achievement, zero subject matter expert knowledge in policy making or on committees. I could go on. Earn what you want, declare it all and let the public decide. If they think an MP spends too much time in their private hospital surgery and not enough in their constituency surgery, boot them out. If they think an MP spends too long writing articles for papaers and magazines and not long enough writing replies to their constituents' letters, boot them out. If they think an MP is making decisions on his defence sub-committee based on the whims of his masters at a defence firm, boot him out. The answer is not banning influence, it is not banning our MPs from the right to earn more than their parliamentary salary, and it is certainly not banning them from having any interaction with the society they are meant to represent.

Milliwho's announcements this week have sought to impress some kind of leadership upon the unions who elected him and tried to turn the tables of debate onto donations to the Tories and their outside interests. It is not as Blair and some commentators suggest, a defining moment of leadership, though it might be a defining moment in his leadership. Ed has highlighted the overbearing influence the unions have on his party and picked a fight with McClusky he cannot afford to lose. With the IMF upgrading the economic outlook, the Labour lead slimmed to mid-single digits and still no coherent policy other than 'we'll copy the Tories plans but be really miffed about the unfairness of it all' there are better odds on Len still leading Unite after the election than of Ed leading the Labour party. This looks less like a Clause Four moment and more like a c(l)ause fo(u)r alarm (sorry, best I could do)...

The Magical Money Tree

I saw a little article in the paper last Monday that I thought illustrates very well Labour's attitude towards

other people's money. Labour MP for Dundee West, Jim McGovern has taken Ipsa to court over their refusal to reimburse him £23.90 for a train ticket to a Labour Party meeting. He lost. The judge decided each side would be liable for their own costs.

Ipsa's share of the cost of the lawsuit will be borne entirely by the taxpayer, naturally. It comes to some £27,000. McGovern's costs are said to be only £740 but will be borne entirely by the GMB union. He told the Sunday Herald that he didn't know his costs. He simply stated "To be honest, I doubt very much if I could afford it. I imagine it would be expensive. Ipsa are using public money. I don't use any public money for representation."

There are two main points here…

First, McGovern decided to take a (proven) frivolous case to court. He knew that the taxpayer would be forced to pick up the defence bill just a Ipsa is forced by its mandate to not let MPs claim party political expenses as Parliamentary ones. As they rightly say, if Ipsa cave in every time someone appeals one of their decisions, there's no point in their existence. The rules may not be the most logical, they may have been soon to change and Ipsa certainly appear to have spent more than they needed to (we've talked about their inefficiencies before). However, when submitting a claim an MP agrees that he understands the rules and is abiding by them. McGovern didn't abide by them. So he lost. He knew this would happen. The cost borne by the taxpayer regarding this case is thus entirely of his own choice.

Jim - stop claiming for things to which you aren't entitled, and when correctly advised why you have no entitlement, don't get on your moral high horse and charge to the taxpayer the price of your hubris.

Second, note the disdain with which he holds those general workers part of whose wages settle his legal fees. It is disgraceful that he can't even be arsed to find out how much the cost would be before deciding to pursue litigation or even find out after the fact so he could try to defend why this was good use of contributions from the general public (for that is what trade union coffers contain). I should like to see him settle his bill himself and if he so desires he can attend the next GMB AGM and ask the members (not the general secretary) - boilermakers, shipwrights, blacksmiths, tailors, clerical staff, and manual workers to name but a few - for them to reimburse him. Because that is where the money comes from - the public. He did use public money. He simply either doesn't realise it or care to consider it.

You see this is the problem the left have - they don't understand that cash doesn't grow on a magical money tree.

They have little care for where money comes from (unless there's some mileage to be had in the politics of class-envy punitive angle of taking from 'the rich'), they just rejoice in spending it all on "fair" and "worthy" causes. They are hooked on spending other people's money - it is an addiction. Tony and Gordy loved the adulation they got from spending. It's like someone who keeps buying presents for people to make himself feel and look good. All of a sudden the boiler burst and not only were there no funds to fix it, but all the credit cards were maxed out.

This is a small case in point of the contempt with which your rights to your money is held by Labour. As far as they are concerned it is there for them to spend however they wish. You have no rights over it and certainly wouldn't know how to spend it anywhere near as well as they do. Will they never learn?

Civil Disobedience

Hot on the heels of my NHS rant I feel we should opt for some thematic consistency and stay with the public sector - and what better example of overpaid, bloated, self-perpetuating beauracracy than the not so Civil Service. The news now a couple of weeks ago (almost current this blog - so relevant, no?) is that they are beginning a series of strikes, starting with budget day. Why? Are they being indiscriminately fired? Is there rife abuse of power, sexual harassment and so forth perpetrated against the voiceless and penniless Bob Cratchet types staffing the Home Office workhouses? Perhaps they are working 23 hour days and are forced to send their babies down the pits at the Energy Department? Which Herculean task is ahead of them? Which ignoble wrong must these Trade Union leaders right? Surely it must be some great disservice being foist upon these loyal, industrious bastions of our society? Oh no, my mistake, they want another enormous pay rise. What a bunch of pumpers.

Yup, yet again the Trades Unions are going to war with the Government over pay, holding us all to ransom for a 5% pay rise in a recession when there's clearly no money to pay for it. Everything else is fine. There is no point in their existence other than a way of finding jobs for quarter-wits (think Len McClusky) and holding the country to ransom over eye-watering pay increases for their members whilst everyone else has to live in reality (not something with which Bob Crow is particularly au fait) and tighten their belts during tough economic times.

We've been here before.

Please try to remember, when the BBC plaster wall to wall coverage on Budget Day and thereafter of these "vital cogs" in our society explaining that they are being "victimized" by the Government in a public vs private, divide and conquer strategy, and they are just trying to "make ends meet" and "put food on the kitchen table" and "clothe their children" and other such shit, that everyone is trying to do that yet they are demanding a pay rise none of us could hope for in this climate.

And they want it from you. From your pocket. Big pay rises to them mean less money for education, for public transport, or to keep fuel prices down. It's why there is no money for a tax cut for anyone, why child benefit is no longer universal, and why the upcoming budget will be no better news than the announcement of the next series of Big Brother. It's just pure unadulterated greed - and the Beeb will sell it to you in its standard, tawdry "it'll only hurt the children" mantra. Just don't buy into it. Because if you do, we'll all end up paying for it.

Crowing from the Rooftops: A Moronic Masterclass

OMG. Yup, it has been about 2 months since anything urged me to put pen to internet paper. No recurrence of past transgression or stupidity has incensed me enough to regurgitate my bilious rant, nor has anything new of any real interest happened in my world. Apart from the Olympics. They were quite fun, and very much more than the "potted sports plus athletics'" competition I thought they might appear as.

Certainly there is an element of only watching some sports because they are part of a more important overall national competition. On a side note, who did win the Olympics? If there's a medal table and it's as important as everyone suggests, shouldn't the closing ceremony actually be Barrack Obama being given an enormous gold medal with Wen Jiabao looking glum and ol' DC grinning next to him on the podium (with Boris trying to take his place)? Anyway, there was enough good stuff there in its own right. We shall see if the legacy element is a success if Britain manages to increase not just participation in many of these sports but increase awareness and perhaps give them some more airtime (and with it much-needed TV cash). Bring back Grandstand has probably been the cry from some quarters, though I hear someone is planning to launch a 'minor sports' channel before Christmas.

But that's not the point. That's not why I'm writing. I was going to write that weeks ago but couldn't be arsed. And when you consider it's not ground-breaking or funny, you can probably see why.

No, I'm writing because I just heard Bob 'Mentally Subnormal' Crow trying to defend how a man as rich as he still deserves to live in a council house. He earns over £130,000 a year. That's about 5 times the national average wage. He must have been dropped on his head a lot as a child along with anyone who has ever voted for him or thinks he's a good spokesperson for the working man of the RMT. He thinks council houses shouldn't just be for poor people.

Moron.

They are subsidised by taxpayers to help those who can't afford to rent or buy a home for themselves.

Key phrase - "can't afford". Once you can, join the real world, pay full rent for a house and thank social mobility (or hard work, good genes or rigging union ballot boxes - whatever does it for you) for helping you out of the lower economic echelons.

His defence included the fantastic line "but what would happen if I never had this job, would my wealth come into it then?" When pointed out he does have this job, and it does pay him a fuckload of money, it apparently doesn't matter. Quite the existentialist. Because in another world he may be poor, in this one where he's rich, he can claim the benefits as if he were poor. Brilliant.

It is genuinely amazing he can think like that and not fall down more, or forget to breathe. It strikes me that a man who doesn't see that being more than likely a millionaire and taking subsistence designed to help the needy from the taxpayer is morally wrong is probably not quite there in the head. A man who appears to believe that because he was born there, now he doesn't need the help and another family certainly does (there are waiting lists for council houses), he still is under no obligation to move out. Lobotomised. Has to be something like that.

They should get him checked. Or just put down.

A Timely Ketchup on Recent Events

So it has been rather a while since I put pen to paper. I suppose it is not really that I could find nothing interesting to blog about in the political nanosphere, it is that too much of it falls into the category of 'same shit, different day' and it tires me to drag out a new example of the same argument I (and many others) have already made. I now realise that the hard thing about journalism isn't making current affairs interesting to the public, it is making them seem different to the current affairs you've been spewing out forever.

I could write about banker bashing, but we've been there before. Bottom line we need a thorough look at the regulatory system because it allows far too much shenanigans, but we must realise that the sector as a whole is one of the few areas of world politics and commerce (as if they were that different) where we are still at the top table. Indiscriminately attacking everyone and everything in the sector will only hurt us, especially with the British public's new-found hatred of money and anyone who has it or produces it.

Which I suppose brings me nicely onto the subject of the court of public opinion and its apparent role in people accepting bonuses. I think Stephen Hester (way back) and Bob Diamond (more recently) should have told the Government and the British people to go take a long walk off a short cliff. Their pay packets are none of our business. They are also none of the shareholders' business once they've had their say in agreeing remuneration packets. Ultimately, if Boards fail to include penalty clauses like "If you mismanage the bank so wildly the Government will have to rescue us by buying 80% of our shares, which incidentally will plummet to a tiny fraction of their original worth" then more fool them. Clearly Big Steve came in after the RBS crash and didn't preside over it, but you get the idea.

If they fail to add the clause "If you preside over an illegal rate-fixing PR disaster that you might not technically be incriminated in, but is sufficiently bad for you and for the company that you resign following a huge share price drop", then the CEO is perfectly entitled to walk away with whatever gains he/she can, ill-gotten or otherwise. This is because…wait for it... THEY HAVE A FUCKING CONTRACT. I wrote that in caps so nobody missed the point. The answer to the issue of massive payoffs for failure is not guilting people in the court of public opinion into waiving bonuses or pay to which they are legally entitled. It is getting people to write contracts properly so if the nuclear power plant blows up, the Board can contractually remove the bonus from the outgoing chief exec of Chernobyl.

But I'm not going to go on about that again.

Nor am I going to bang on about Trades Unions striking at the time most likely to screw everyone over despite their already comfortable pay arrangements and constant underperformance. Today, I would clearly be talking about the Public and Commercial Services Union, to whom the UK Border Farce belong. Obviously you know what I think of them, and what I think should happen to them. Not quite Clarkson style execution in front of family members, but not far off. They have no leg to stand on. They are a joke. And they're trying to ruin the Olympics. But I'm not going to bang on about that.

Nor am I going to make yet another comparison between that dark side of the public sector who blackmail the country into paying them bonuses just to go to work, or not even to go to work over the Olympics (as they are contractually obliged to), and the military, who are yet again filling the gap, not just without extra pay, but in many cases, instead of holiday. That would be going over ground we already well know. So I won't bother.

I could express my dismay at the continuation of our farcical judicial system that places the rights of immigrant terrorists and criminals ahead of British, law-abiding taxpayers, with their deference to the most ill thought out piece of legislation ever, the ECHR, but we've been there before.

I could bang on about the Lib Dems with a massive 8% hold on the UK's votes demanding what are, considering the current climate, irrelevant (and poorly thought out) bits of legislation be pushed through, or else they will bring the whole house down as if they were equal partners. Big Dave knows the Lib Dems can't afford to split because from now until 2015 is the last influence on power they are likely to have for a generation, because nobody will ever vote for them now they've had to deal with the realities of actually being in Government. Problem is, Cleggo knows that the 10 point deficit the Tories lag behind Labour also means a snap election would be bad news for them too. They need the next couple of mini-giveaway budgets and they need their European luck to turn.

Who really deeply cares about Lords reform, or realistically when there is only a limited amount of political capital around, about gay marriage? They are both on a list of things that we'd like to do after we stop the world falling apart. This doesn't mean we are evil Lord-loving, gay-hating Tories, it means we understand priorities. As ever, pollsters will be able to tell you that x and y % of the population are on either side of both arguments. What they fail to point out is that neither topic would make the 'top 10 issues that will influence the way you vote' index for more than a handful of people. But we've done that one to death too.

There are a few more things I cannot bring to mind right now, but which I have got very close to writing about before realising I would simply be nudging you, the solitary reader, to a hyperlink to some crap I wrote last year (which I've helpfully done with the hyperlinks above, in case you're really bored). So I'm going to write about a point of minimal political significance but one which has roused me into action after over 2 months off. Yup, it's time to go to town on condiments as you may have guessed from my genuinely brilliant title…

My quarrel is not actually with condiments, but with when I am in restaurants the timing of their appearance on my table of late in comparison to that of my food. Ditto cutlery. It is totally beyond me why when someone takes an order of fish and chips, they wait until they have put the plate in front of you, hot, steamy and asking to be devoured, before asking if you'd like any of the normal accompaniments or even some fighting irons with which to eat. Amazing.

These are people who earn much of their annual wage from tips. And they don't have the foresight to put knives and forks out, or preposition a likely array of condiments before bringing the food out, piping hot. I can imagine how a competent server might deal with this…

Server: "Chef, how long for table 2's fish and chips?"
Chef: "About 5 minutes"
Server: "Right, I may as well bring them their ketchup, vinegar and cutlery now so I stand an outside chance of a tip."

Alas, they instead deliver your food and ask if you would like ketchup with your chips as if they had asked if you would like a toasted sandwich comprising a walnut whip and a paperback copy of the Homer's Iliad. Dumbstruck at your adherence to nutritional form, they wander slowly back to the kitchen to return with some of your requests just after your food has gone cold.

The blame is owned jointly between the serving staff and the manager. And our current educational standards. Oh, looks like we've been here before too..

Self-Righteous Poor Girl

So I've been off on holiday, hence the absence. I've waded through the thousands of pleading emails from my fan desperate for my return to the blogosphere (I can't back this up) and I'm finally ready to recommence. Of late I have grown somewhat weary of the domestic news cycle hence the paucity of my posts.

I may be the only person in the country not astonished that politicians talk to the media to get themselves favourable coverage and that the media talk to politicians because they are a source of information, which roughly speaking is their currency.

I'm not suggesting I think all is well in the media or politics garden, but a bit of perspective from time to time would be grand. As I'm sure I've said before, I don't think anyone is surprised that politicians speak to those with vested interests in their policies. Labour meet the unions; Ed Milliwho has meetings with the Bob Crows of this world and then comes out in support of the unions' standpoints against the Government. No-one kicks up a fuss. Whoever is the Government of the day will be courted by those who stand to lose or gain from the decisions they make. Likewise the Government of the day will always court those who they think can deliver them electoral victory, be they individuals, groups of voters, financial backers or the all-powerful media. This is genuinely getting a little boring. There are slightly more interesting things going on.

One of those is not Nadine Dorries attempting to fan the fames of self-implosion of which governing Tory parties are so fond. Who gives a shit if the Prime Minister knows how much a pint of milk is? I don't know (and I tend to buy it in litre flagons), and I earn less that the improbably stupid Dorries. Newsflash: if you're on over £65,000 a year as the lowliest backbenchers are (and under 1/2 what the PM is on), you just put however much milk you want in your trolley/basket (online or actual) and pay for it. It's not a crime. It's just financial security; knowing you have enough in the bank to pay your usual grocery bill. And you have it too, you hypocritical moron.

I for one would love the people making decisions on how to run the country to not fill their heads with so unbelievably insig-fucking-nificant things as the current price of an arbitrary low cost staple. I'm sure they know the stats on food inflation in the country for the last four years and the projections for what future food inflation will do to GDP. This is a relevant thing to fill the space in their heads. They probably have a fair grasp on defence matters and international diplomacy - you know, the stuff we pay them for.

Your average bod who knows the price of milk might need to know that to save a few pence by going to the cheaper store. They probably don't know the relevant food inflation statistics, the current LIBOR or indeed the nuclear launch codes. This is because it is not relevant information for them to have. It is irrelevant. Like you Nadine. So fuck off your high horse and try to fill your clearly empty head with some grown up ideas to justify your (considering your very public demonstration of your unsuitability and under-qualification for it) staggering salary, you idle buffoon.

The pathetic class envy that is being exercised by all and sundry right now you would think the person most likely to win a seat at the next election and be voted unanimous President of the Whole Fucking World would be an out of work plumber from Stepney who left state school (not some poncey private school where you might learn something) at 16 with no GCSEs (he has a degree from the university of life, of course), is salt of the earth, calls a spade a spade, knows Asda's milk is normally cheaper at 50p but Tesco have got an offer on matching that price from their normal 58p - yes, I had to google that, so that's me out of the running) and has a glottal stop to rival Eliza Doolittle's. Just as long as he's not well-educated, he knows some insignificant pub trivia and his family were poor, he'll be an absolute shoe-in.

Arrogant rich boys vs self-righteous poor girl. In our woeful court of public opinion they never stood a chance. Class-based discrimination. Clearly fine as long as you only target the rich - everyone knows that unlike the poor it's their fault their parents have money.

And So I'm Back, From Outer Space...

I'm not dead.

I've been away in deepest darkest Scotland for a couple of weeks and have had to watch budgetary developments et al from afar. I was hoping to be able to blog whilst up there but my wi-fi hopes were somewhat dashed when I produced a new fangled 'credit card' to pay for drinks in a pub and received a look as if I had try to pay with babies' limbs and fairy dust. They don't take plastic, the kind barman spat, suggesting those who wished to pay with this new found wizardry were not the sort who were welcome here. So I didn't bother asking for the wi-fi password.

So I find myself in the familiar territory of waterski-ing behind the news.

45p - Good start but a shame Osborne either didn't have the guts or the bargaining power to go the whole hog. And a shame it won't come into effect until next year (though you can see by giving people a year to defer earnings out of 50p towards 45p it should guarantee a bumper first year of 45p revenue thus 'proving' a point in 2014). It doesn't matter that it makes sense financially, it's bad news to go to 45p PR-wise. It will be bad news again PR-wise (though sensible and encouraging of growth and investment) to drop it to 40p, or indeed the Laffer curve's 38p optimum. It would have been better to get this PR out of the way in a oner (like removing a sticking plaster) 3 years before the election and let the real economics of the decision speak for themselves by election time in generated growth. No surprise the media or their political arm in Westminster are painting it as they are. Ignore and move on.

Granny tax - Old people have done fine from the Coalition - let's not get hung up on having a generous benefit reduced until it falls in line with everyone else. Yes there are poor and needy aged members of society, but not in much greater numbers than elsewhere across the spectrum. Conversely they are in general better off than average. Today's pensioners are the baby boomers. They have enjoyed the massive enrichment of the last 40 years, particularly in terms of home values. They rarely have mortgages and other outgoings are smaller with no small children etc. Time to take a bit of 'pain' and realign to the rest of society. Incidentally, nice to see some (thought the minority) understand this in letters pages across the media.

Child benefit - good to see an effort has been made to taper the issue of the cliff edge benefit drop. This deals with the only important problem - that of someone getting a pay rise which results in a net earnings loss after they become disqualified from child benefit. It doesn't, because it is too costly to do so, deal with the almost irrelevant 'problem' of envy. That is that people who earn £60,000 don't like the idea that they get nothing and 2 people earning £40,000 each still do. My advice: suck it up, big lad. I have banged on about what is 'fair' before in taxation etc. I am willing to say categorically than it is not unfair that if you earn £60,000, you don't get child benefit. Yes it would be nice, but the economy isn't built for that luxury. I find it pathetic that people are still complaining. All they are is upset that someone else got a bigger lolly.

Donorgate (which I assume it is already being called) - who gives a shit? Politicians cannot and should not live in bubbles. They are meant to be lobbied by the people they represent. This includes you, me and Richard Branson if he so wishes. Political parties need funding. They get this from people who think this will buy them influence and people who wish them well. Just like many big businesses will want to donate to Tories who are small Government people, Trades Unions will want to donate to Labour who are big Government people.

Why? They feel those parties better represent their interests. The idea is we get to decide if we like the policies people come up with - it's a democracy, we have elections. If we think our politicians are making bad decisions entirely based upon their donors' wishes, vote them out. I have no issue with who comes to tea with Dave - it's the policies he makes I care about. And whilst we're on the subject, perhaps is it a touch hypocritical of Labour to make a fuss over supposed influence of donors to Tories when their party has actual proven influence of donors? Largest donors to Labour? Trades Unions. Who essentially decided who leads the party - the Trades Unions.

That'll do for now.

Bonus Culture Club

Today's post is some slightly delayed comment on a story from last week. It concerns greedy individuals holding their employers to ransom demanding a bonus for simply doing their jobs. Nope, not bankers. No Stephen Hester in sight. No Mr Fred Goodwin. Who then? Who thinks that they should be paid on top of their generous salaries a bonus just for turning up?

If you're struggling to work out to which story I'm referring, perhaps I should reword it. Who thinks they should be paid on top of their generous salaries a bonus for not going on strike? Yup, you got it - the sanctimonious moron Bob Crow and his merry band of lazy bastards, the RMT. Not satisfied with an average wage of £50,000 for sitting still operating one binary control (for 35 hours a week, with 8 weeks annual leave), the RMT is demanding its tube drivers be bribed to not go on strike during the Olympics. What a bunch of belters.

The fact that they get paid double the minimum wage for a job perhaps unsurpassed anywhere on earth for its simplicity is in itself an oddity. Remember that wage when you next see the RMT striking, demanding higher pay in a recession for its "hard-pressed, hard-working members". The little boy in the picture above can at least decide to turn the train left into his mother's ankles or to drive it into a sleeping cat on his right. Tube drivers have 'go forwards' on rails and 'stop'. I'm pretty sure even the doors are automatic. Anyway, enough maligning of the noble profession of tube driving. Onto the specifics of the non-strike bribe…

Because London is hosting the Olympics, there will be a couple of extra people coming to town and this might require a slightly better than normal service in quality and quantity. Because they are working longer shifts they have already been given an extra £1200. Okay. But to guarantee they won't strike (always the last resort clearly, not just the first bargaining chip on the table by an unscrupulous, greedy, lazy leadership - we've been here before) they want a bribe. No point calling it anything else. It's a bribe.

And the Government have already quietly offered them about an extra £500 mainly made up of £20 per shift extra. Now that in itself is sickening; demanding more money because for 1 month of the year, the work might be slightly harder. I think it fair to say that workers in department stores the country over have to work harder in the run-up to Christmas when more people use their stores. But they still work their 9-5 or whatever the shift. And they do it for the same wage as in June. Why? Because it's a yearly salary. Yup, sometimes work is harder, sometimes it's easier. As an office worker, you don't get paid more because you didn't get to go on Facebook as much at work but actually had to do your job.

But even better, the RMT have refused this unwarranted offer of a bribe. Nope, they say it isn't enough and because it's based on having to work longer hours during the Olympics, their members who are on leave or sick won't benefit. Yes, you heard that right. Bob Crow thinks it would be unfair for those who don't even do the apparently harder work to miss out on the bribe to not go on strike just because of the simple technicality that they aren't doing any of the work anyway. Presumably they'll be busy attending the overpriced games seeing as they can definitely afford it on their salaries.

Worth finishing with a comparison methinks. The military will have nearly 15000 soldiers, sailors and airmen working on security flat out over the Olympics. Are they getting a bonus for the many extra hours they will have to work like the £1200 bung for tube drivers? Nope, same yearly salary. Will they demand a bonus on top of that to not go on strike thereby totally fucking the Olympics in the ass? Nope again. Because not only do the not have the right to strike, if they had it I'm sure they wouldn't use it. Because therein you can still find some Britons with a sense of duty and selflessness who will be proud to play their part. There is one bonus for them though that I forgot to mention - to ensure sufficient staffing, they've all had their leave cancelled.

Enjoy the Olympics. Just cycle or walk. London Fucking Underground.

Pension Scheming

When November 30th comes around and you are stuck in traffic because all the trains have stopped running; or you are in your 10th hour of waiting to see a medical professional in A&E; or you are forced to take a day of annual leave to look after your children as their teachers aren't coming into work, think long and hard. Think about whether or not those who have chosen not to come into work and inconvenienced a nation struggling for economic recovery should be on strike.

This week has seen the Government offer farcically large pension deals to public sector workers who have looked that particular gift horse straight in the mouth. One can only assume that the definitely over-generous offer from the Government is a political ploy. Knowing it would be refused by the selfish Trades Unions they are able now to point to the very generous terms they had proposed which are being turned down point blank. It gives them some political leverage, but one hopes they have not gone too far - even with the changes to pensions, many still consider the deal unaffordable. One should hope the deal that is eventually reached has less generous terms, but that is a very unlikely outcome.

Let us look at the other main player in this pensions farce - the ever more idiotic unions (we have been here before). They, the 6-figure salaried morons-in-chief with healthy pay and pension packets, have been rousing their members to turn down a gold-plated offer from a nervous Government. And not actually rousing that many of their members; the strike laws must be changed. We have unions declaring a majority in favour of striking when only a quarter of its members vote for said strike. 75% of people 'represented' in the union have not said they want to strike, yet striking is apparently the will of the people. Barking.

The pension pots that moderate earners in the public sector would still end up with under the new rules are the things of fairy tales for those in the private sector. Little over a million people in the private sector have a final salary pension scheme, yet it is what those in the pubic sector think is their right. Those on relatively small pay packets (say £12,000) up to those on reasonably comfortable wages (say £40,000) all will still receive pension payouts far in excess of what their private counterparts on the same salary could dream of.

Under the new system, a public sector worker on £15,000 per annum would end up with a pension of £12,000. If that was your private wage, to receive the same pension you would have to put away £325,000 from that meagre pay packet - which is never gong to happen. I shan't even go into the pension pots of the rather better off public sector employees - rest assured generous doesn't cover it. The Treasury figures go on, and for a quick look here's a Torygraph article to save me paraphrasing.

In short, the pension scheme being offered is still ridiculously generous. To build up a pension pot large enough to match that of a similar-waged public worker, a private worker would have to pay in vast amounts more of their salary. Yet the unions are not willing to take this on board. The Government is rightly looking to budget - to see what our liabilities are, listing our wants, counting how much cash we have and then managing those liabilities and wants accordingly. One area identified is the largesse of public sector pensions; they cannot be afforded alongside education bills, NHS bills, defence bills - all the things that have to come out of the taxation pot. With the ballooning of the public sector (vastly so under a Labour Government more keen on winning votes by getting people into work in the right constituencies than costing those jobs properly to see if they were affordable) these pension schemes must change. The ostrich behaviour of the Unions is as predictable as it is laughably moronic.

The public must be honest with themselves and not give in to the tired 'underdog' cause that the unions will undoubtedly try to put forwards when they strike. They have been offered a staggeringly generous pension scheme; a scheme that private sector workers of similar wages could never afford. They are turning it down out of pure greed. Yes it is a cut, but a cut to a still high level. There isn't enough money to continue the scheme in its current form. Having been paid a lot yesterday is not a reason for being paid a lot tomorrow.

The demands of the Trades Unions are for the public sector to be ring-fenced, for the economic realities we all have to face to be something they don't. In short, they are demanding we cripple the economy with a pension burden the nation cannot afford. Quite simply, if we carry on like they wish, there will be no pensions because we will be bankrupt. The public sector must not only take their share of the medicine, they must do so humbly whilst realising quite how privileged they are. They complain at having to work longer and pay more to receive less - welcome to the world everyone else is living in. There should be no public support for the proposed strikes. They are not the underdogs. You are.

That's What I Go To School For...

So today saw the announcement from two of the main unions representing teachers in the UK, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), that they are planning the first of a series of strikes later this month. The news was met with mixed reactions. Some supported the rights of the strikers to do just that. Others lambasted the selfish action of those charged with the education of our future generations.

The strike is, of course, over the amendments proposed by Lord Hutton in his report of earlier this year. Now the crux of the matter was nicely surmised by the union spokesladies. They are seeking to justify their striking stating that the evil plans of the Government meant that they would have to work for longer, pay more towards their pensions and ultimately receive less.

Now I shall sit down to try to deal with this staggering news. Already seated, so there's a moment saved. Yup, I think I'm over it. I'm not sure I should be that impressed that it took an entire two unions' worth of teachers and lecturers to work out the Government's proposals. Maybe I have missed the point? I think the idea the unions are proposing is that this move is in some way a) unfair (ah, the "fair" word again), and b) malicious.

As I have been into in rather more depth already (here), public sector pensions and national pensions were devised when the population was a fraction of what it is now, when life expectancy was far shorter and when people accepted a lower base standard of living. Getting 40 years work out of someone and then paying for 40 years rest probably won't work if they only put a small amount in. It probably won't work if the country doesn't discover endless wells of oil just outside Bracknell. It probably won't work if we continue to define a "fair" amount to live on as what will pay for luxury goods as a staple rather that a luxury.

In short, there clearly isn't enough money to keep on with the original plan. One has to adapt when situations change. Anyone who cannot see that the goalposts have moved is an arse, plainly put. So, anyone planning on striking over this is a little simple for my money. Now I might have accepted a defence of not understanding the exact economics of it all from perhaps the union of village idiots (should such a thing exist, and I'm doing my best to resist the temptation here to liken a great many unions to this one), but from the teachers?

Maybe then it won't be such a shame if they all go on strike as anyone failing to comprehend the need for amendment to pension policy probably shouldn't be teaching our children even basic arithmetic. Get with the program people - you aren't victims, you're not targets, it's just adapting to the realities of modern life, plain and simple. Burying your head in the sand and saying "I want the same pension as they used to hand out", ignoring the glaring impracticalities and unaffordability won't work. Striking over this is idiotic. There are too many of us living too long and not enough dosh. You can't just magic the money out of thin air. Although Ed Balls will probably come out to say he could.

RMT: Rail Morons' Twaddle

Now you may have already read (here and here) my musings on trade unions. A little more on that today though. The Rail Union, RMT, has confirmed that it has rejected Network Rail's latest pay offer. The offer was for a whopping 5.2% pay rise for operations and customer services staff next year and an RPI pay rise in 2012. Interesting.

I find myself again using the phrase 'at a time of national and international austerity', but apparently some people still are yet to open their eyes to the big picture. RMT General Secretary Bob Crow, hewn from the same block as Red Len McClusky, has decreed that "with VAT going up to 20% in January, power and utilities bills going through the roof and expectations that inflation will continue to rise we are looking to make sure that we achieve a pay deal for Network Rail ... staff that protects and improves their standards of living in this time of economic and political instability."

A nice idea. In other words Bob is saying "the economy is rebuilding slowly from a recession, and everyone is going to get a bit poorer but I think my lot are special, so we should get huge pay rises instead, because we can't have RMT members suffering like everyone else." Yup, it appears Bob knows there was some form of economic crisis, he just hasn't grasped the relationship that might have with future pay deals for him and his boys. The fact that pretty much everyone has overspent, public and private alike and a great deal of restructuring and budgeting is necessary lest various institutions, private (Network Rail) or public (HM Government), go down the drain, has passed him by.

Yes, Bob is another of those who would take a chainsaw to the golden goose for a bit of press, some classist grandstanding and his ludicrous salary and then wonder why there were no more golden eggs for him and his union afterwards. It seems there are swathes of society who do not feel the need to do their bit, whether it's actually going out to get a job, or accepting some of the pain necessary to save the country or individual companies from ruin. The latter are most obviously prevalent in these overly strong, militant trade unions.

So, when you next read about strike action from RMT, or the like, have a look at what they are demanding. And it is demanding, not asking, for they hold their companies to ransom like terrorists. The right to strike is a great privilege and should be used accordingly. Instead, it is being abused and the people perpetrating these acts are a disgrace to the workers, the public and the politicians who fought so bravely for that privilege. It was designed as the last resort against an oppressive and unfair employer, not as the first resort to getting paid over the odds when everyone else is taking pay cuts.

Again, I would ask you to remember the Armed Forces (who will also still suffer the VAT increase, rising energy bills and inflation, and many of them on their return from 6 month tours in Afghanistan) are on a 2 year pay freeze, without so much as a squeak of dissent.

This has to stop. Trade Unions are no longer built for purpose and they are led by utterly inappropriate personnel. They have the ability to be great institutions for legitimate and productive representation of workers. The workers must save their unions from themselves though, for no matter what action is taken to attempt another breaking of the unions from the outside, unless they understand why it has become necessary to break them, why they are out of line, they will regrow again the same archaic beast.

Coming in with unrealistic wage demands when all around are tightening their belts is not the action of a union that is there to "fight for its members' interests." Remember this when the picket lines form again, when your lives are disrupted for the sake of trade union greed. Then, if you can't get to work because the trains aren't running, maybe grab a placard and picket the picketers. They must be shown the nation is not with them on this one.

Trade Union Tantrums

As promised, but no doubt not eagerly awaited, I shall herein say a little more about trade unions. Before we get into the nitty gritty of modern day trade unions, we should glance back to their origins. Here you find the reasons behind their creation (naturally) which are crucial in assessing their place and behaviour in today's society.

The prevalence of low-skilled jobs in the industrial revolution meant that employers were able to hire pretty much anyone to do a job. So, a worker had little bargaining power as it was easier to fire them and hire someone else than accede to the employee's demands. Employment law was virtually non-existent, and certainly not biased in favour of the poor. There was normally no course of legal appeal. There was no access to widespread media (the court of public opinion) in which to shame the employer. Indeed, the general mores of the time would have meant any such complaint would likely fall on deaf ears. Losing one's job was worse than than it is today. There was no welfare state, coupled with lower living standards, meaning losing your income could well set you and your family on a rapid spiral to destitution. You get the idea - you've all read Oliver Twist I am sure. The point was that employers could do what they wanted and there was little the employee could do about it. Speak out and you lose your job, and with it in many cases your life.

Out of this imbalance grew the concept of trade unions; a collective voice to speak where lone employees were before drowned out. Sounds sensible enough, noble even. However, times have changed; There are better living standards and a safety net in shape of the welfare state. Losing a job does not generally cost a worker their life. Employment law has improved out of all recognition from the point of view of the employee. Most workers are unlikely to be illegally sacked and are able to appeal through the law courts if they feel they have been. There is certainly an argument that these changes in employment law have gone too far. Fair employment law should be fair equally to employer and employee alike and many more employers than employees probably now feel they get the rough end of these laws.

I witnessed a case in point a few years ago. An utterly underqualified and useless individual was in charge of a department where I worked. Her rather important department functioned terribly due to her maladministration. People pointed it out to her and tried to suggest ways to improve said department. She then signed off sick with stress. For 3 years. On full pay. How can you still be stressed by a job you no longer attend? She then tried to take the company to an employment tribunal for bullying - stating among other things that people telling her that she was bad at her job and that she should improve in areas x, y and z was bullying. Indeed, her boss ringing her up every few months to see if she was well enough to come back to work was also apparently bullying. What happened? Was she eventually sacked? Of course not, she was moved to another department and they settled out of court with her. Brilliant. Now we don't want a return to Mr Bumble's Dickensian-style employment but the scales have perhaps tipped the other way. That may be a topic for further discussion (with myself).

Now we have looked at the evolution of trade unions we can return to how they fit in in today's world. There are still 'small people' and 'big corporations'. Because of this, the concept of trade unions as a collective voice still makes a lot of sense. They work as an organisational tool, a forum for discourse, able to capture the mood of the trade and to canvass opinion. However, it seems to me today's trade unions are totally out of touch with reality. To them, strike action has become their first, not last resort, and their demands are ludicrously inapt. It appears they believe if they are striking, they must be right and everyone must be on their side. They could hardly be further from the truth. Listening to trade union spokesmen complaining at the moment is like watching a young child throwing a tantrum.

The tantrum metaphor works (though I say so myself) quite well: The child wants a new and very expensive toy for Christmas - let us say a Buzz Lightyear action figure. Unfortunately, its parents are not doing quite so well in the recession. Cutbacks have been made all over the household budget. Father had to accept lower pay at work to keep his job. Family holidays have had to be kept in Britain rather than abroad. Parents don't dine out anymore, and they shop at Aldi rather than Tesco. Regardless of this, the child still wants his Buzz Lightyear toy.

The point that I am approaching in a manner as subtle as a Frankie Boyle joke, is that even with a backdrop of national and international austerity, union after union has chosen to demand higher wages, better working conditions, more perks and definitely none of the savings that are vital for the country's economic survival.

Take BA for example. On the back of £500M losses in 2008/9, and a global economic crisis, BA reduced the cabin crew numbers from 15 to 14 (or about 6-7%) on long haul flights. They also froze their pay for two years; the pay incidentally which was already about double the industry average. The Civil Aviation Authority published data in 2009 showing an average BA cabin crew salary to be £29,000 compared with £20,200 at Easyjet or £14,400 at Virgin Atlantic. The same comparison for pilots showed £107,600, £71,400 and £89.500 respectively. The cabin crew managers aboard the long haul flights (who earned in excess of £50,000) would now have to push the odd trolley too in cost saving measures.

The company was in dire straits, and would go on to post £500M losses for 2009/10 also. The threat of budget airlines, the general economic crisis and the archaic civil service-esque structure of its company were sending BA under. What happened? Did the overpaid waiters and waitresses thank their lucky stars they still had lucrative jobs or did they throw their toys out of the pram and demand their Buzz Lightyear toy. Well, you already know, but as simplistic as it sounds I can think of no better comparison than the tantrum throwing child, either unaware of its surroundings or uncaring of them, its mind set solely on its own personal gain.

Equality in employment law is a welcome thing, but there is no place in today's society for selfish, socially-oblivious, militant trade unions. Speaking of militant, the armed forces took a 2 year pay freeze with CSR and will see larger reductions in personnel than BA over the coming years. Striking? I doubt they would even if it was legal. Perhaps trade unions should take a lesson out of their book.

Len McCluskey: Prick

I had been planning on retiring to Bedfordshire after watching a couple of poor hours of Test cricket. Then I leafed through today's (now yesterday's) Torygraph. No point going to bed now, my boiling blood would definitely keep me up well beyond when Australia pass England's paltry total for the loss of at most one more wicket. You may have guessed from the single entendre in the title, this is going to be a 'route 1' rant.

I shall go into more detail on Trade Unions in general and their recent behaviour, but this post centres on Red Len McCluskey. Here is a man so proud of his ability to fuck everyone over by convincing the dolts in his Unite union to strike again and again over totally ludicrous pay demands that he simply cannot wipe the self-satisfied look off his face. The face, incidentally, of a bulldog chewing a hornet's nest.

The moron has predictably suggested he will urge his lemmings to strike over the much-hyped 'Royal Wedding' next Spring. In typical fashion he suggest that Britons "don't go on holiday." He goes on to justify how one of his next planned strikes bizarrely falls again over a time when it will screw the maximum number of people the biggest amount thus: "I know where this comes from - never strike at Christmas, never strike at Easter, never strike in school - why don't we just not strike at all. Then we won't upset anybody."

Calm. Calm. Woosah. 1.2.3.4.5... no, can't do it. What a total and utter prick.

It cannot have escaped many people's attention that Unite in particular and Trade Unions in general ALWAYS strike at the worst possible moments. Firefighters - Bonfire Night - pricks. BA - Spring Bank holiday/Half-term/World Cup (all 2010)/Christmas 2009) - pricks. I could go on, but you already know.

He even had the temerity to say "I never met a worker who likes strike action." Odd that - can't have met many workers. I could have sworn pictures were beamed worldwide of Unite members screaming for joy at finding out they had all voted to cancel Christmas last year. If you don't remember, it's on You Tube, BBC, everywhere. Why, oh why, is this lying, stupid relic of the 60s even given newsprint? Surely any mention of him and his comments should appear alongside signs saying 'never knowingly reasonable', 'a total liar' or indeed other shorter messages?

Oh, and he thought a bunch of hooligans smashing up Tory HQ, fighting and vandalising a police van is "fantastic" and that "the population [should] take a leaf from their books."

Prick. Total. More on Unions soon...