THE FOURTH OF JULY

[Spectric]

Starmite! Love him or loathe him!

You might have started something there, I will keep an eye out for any banners or such with Starmite on them !

 

[sploo]

Crazy how Teresa May looks positively statesmanlike when put up beside Johnson, Truss and Sunak.

I long for those heady days of competence and stability... under Cameron and Osborne.

Imagine finding out back then that we actually had it good (relative to what followed). Bonkers.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

The national leadership team:

• There are 7000 senior civil servants - people who earn similar amounts to MPs, Ministers and the PM. Mostly Whitehall types
• There are 50,000 NHS staff earning over £100k pa. Most are professional medical staff - at a guess perhaps 5,000 are admin and management.
• There are 1000 school heads earning over £100k
• The Metropolitan police has ~300 officers earning more than £100k pa - add other forces and at a guess numbers rise to 1000+
• 3100 council "town hall" staff earning over £100k

Assumed that £100k is the starting point for the "national leadership team" - the salary for MPs is £91k. I would guess in total that the "national leadership" is 20-30,000 people.

There are 650 MPs - only 3-400 of which represent the party in power. They are expected to take responsibility for all that happens despite being:

• outnumbered by other "leaders" ~50:1,
• appointed as ministers to roles of which they have experience or knowledge
• diverted to issues receiving media focus rather than the genuinely important or critical

All our elected "leaders" can do is create strategies and priorities. It is the unelected leadership which should be held to far greater scrutiny for that which happens.

I believe ascribed to Enoch Powell (who may have been wrong on other issues) - "all political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.

 

[Spectric]

That has been a problem for years, pay does not reflect ability or role. Once you end up paying excessive wages to numpties and undervaluing the essential skills such as nurses and doctors then you create problems. Why do we pay an unskilled politician £90,000 a year plus expenses whilst paying a junior doctor peanuts who has peoples lives in his hands. Does a train driver warrant £55,000 a year when he only has GO, STOP & DOORS to control and can only go where the tracks go whilst an HGV driver has 44 tons on the public roads to navigate and control. Who actually runs the country, politicians or the unseen civil servants or maybe the lobbyist .

 

[deema]

Who runs the country? Thats simple, Sir Humphrey Appleby and his descendants.

 

[RobinBHM]

It is the unelected leadership which should be held to far greater scrutiny for that which happens

I respectfully do not agree

The govt sets policy
The civil service implement policy

I don’t see what relevance salary has

I think attacks on civil service is a Tory deflection, they in turn attack EU, foreigners, civil service, Supreme Court etc etc

 

[RobinBHM]

Sidenote: damn shame about Trump the felon

 

[sploo]

Sidenote: damn shame about Trump the felon

 

[niall Y]

One can't help looking at the political scene in America, and thinking that this is how the Roman Republic came to an end.
They seem to have all the same problems that we have - only dialled up a notch. In comparison, our choice of candidates to be next Prime minister don't seem to be quite as bad as theirs to be President.

 

[RobinBHM]

Does a train driver warrant £55,000 a year when he only has GO, STOP & DOORS to control and can only go where the tracks go whilst an HGV driver has 44 tons on the public roads to navigate and control

Maybe train drivers have the support of Unions to negotiate decent wages
Maybe Sun reading Conservative voting lorry drivers hate unions
(above is tongue in cheek please dont scream)

I find it ironic that (not saying this is true in this case) those people who wanted to get rid of EU workers supposedly so British workers could earn more also often complain bitterly about Unions such as RMT striking to try and get better wages....for British workers

 

[RobinBHM]

They seem to have all the same problems that we have - only dialled up a notch

Steve Bannon, Trumps advisor helped in the 2019 election

populism has been the flavour of the day on both sides of the big sea

 

[Jacob]

That has been a problem for years, pay does not reflect ability or role. Once you end up paying excessive wages to numpties and undervaluing the essential skills such as nurses and doctors then you create problems. Why do we pay an unskilled politician £90,000 a year plus expenses whilst paying a junior doctor peanuts who has peoples lives in his hands. Does a train driver warrant £55,000 a year when he only has GO, STOP & DOORS to control and can only go where the tracks go whilst an HGV driver has 44 tons on the public roads to navigate and control. Who actually runs the country, politicians or the unseen civil servants or maybe the lobbyist .

Emphasis tends to be on high pay, bonuses etc but this is not a problem in itself.
The real issue is the people suffering low pay, low benefits, high rents and other burdens.
Solve these problems and the excess wealth issue gets resolved at the same time.

 

[sploo]

I find it ironic that (not saying this is true in this case) those people who wanted to get rid of EU workers supposedly so British workers could earn more also often complain bitterly about Unions such as RMT striking to try and get better wages....for British workers

Yep... and the same people who complain bitterly about foreign aid ("why don't we help our own first") are usually the same people opposed to helping our own ("lazy slackers/benefits scroungers/work harder" etc).

 

[RobinBHM]

Yep... and the same people who complain bitterly about foreign aid ("why don't we help our own first") are usually the same people opposed to helping our own ("lazy slackers/benefits scroungers/work harder" etc).

so true

there are of course feckless people on benefits, what riles me is those who talk about "benefit scroungers" without qualifying what percentage they are talking about.

I tend to find they get very angry when you ask "how many on benefits do you think are scroungers"?

 

[sploo]

so true

there are of course feckless people on benefits, what riles me is those who talk about "benefit scroungers" without qualifying what percentage they are talking about.

I tend to find they get very angry when you ask "how many on benefits do you think are scroungers"?

Exactly. And the fact that the total amount lost to benefits fraud is tiny compared to corporate tax avoidance. It's like arguing to put a sticky plaster on a graze when you're bleeding out from a missing leg.

 

[Keith Cocker]

That is why Labour will win by default, people are not voting for Labour but because they do not want anymore Conservative, they will gamble on the unknown. I think more people including myself would vote for Labour if it was not headed by Starmer as he is like marmite. Someone said that the best thing about getting a Labour government is that it has been so long since we have had one that there are now many voters who have never lived under one and need the experience. Whoever wins will not really change our lives over the next five years, we have such a national debt due to covid that there is no spare cash, even with the current high levels of taxation we are almost just treading water. We sowed the seeds of our downfall many years ago by making manufacturing a dirty word and thinking we could rely on finance and service industries, we are now paying for that bad decision and is why we import all our tools and goods. All we can hope for is that we get Reform as the main opposition party to keep Labour in check and the Conservatives in the undergrowth.

Fortunately, Reform will struggle to get a single MP. They, and many of their supporters are odious, racist, ignorant bigots.

 

[mudman]

Fortunately, Reform will struggle to get a single MP. They, and many of their supporters are odious, racist, ignorant bigots.

So what experience leads you to that claim? Do you know many members of the Reform party? How many people do you know that have declared their support for Reform? If you have some clear evidence of your claim, I would like to hear it. Or is it that you have been told that they are such people and so you parrot the same line? It could be because they simply don't agree with you that you smear them with such epithets. Whatever it is, the labels lost their meaning quite some time ago. Now, anyone that moves away from the left of centre political view is relentlessly smeared in this way. You did forget to include 'far right', that is now thrown around with abandon, to indicate anyone who's viewpoint is anywhere on the political spectrum to the right of the left wing mob. The use of these terms invalidates them and makes them meaningless. I think in reality, there are very few real odious, racist, ignorant bigots in the UK and even fewer of the actual far right. We should be engaging in meaningful debate, not slinging slurs. If you engage in that practice, then it invalidates your argument and shuts down debate as people try to protect their careers and public lives by hiding their true feelings.

 

[RobinBHM]

So what experience leads you to that claim? Do you know many members of the Reform party? How many people do you know that have declared their support for Reform? If you have some clear evidence of your claim, I would like to hear it. Or is it that you have been told that they are such people and so you parrot the same line? It could be because they simply don't agree with you that you smear them with such epithets. Whatever it is, the labels lost their meaning quite some time ago. Now, anyone that moves away from the left of centre political view is relentlessly smeared in this way. You did forget to include 'far right', that is now thrown around with abandon, to indicate anyone whose viewpoint is anywhere on the political spectrum to the right of the left wing mob. The use of these terms invalidates them and makes them meaningless. I think in reality, there are very few real odious, racist, ignorant bigots in the UK and even fewer of the actual far right. We should be engaging in meaningful debate, not slinging slurs. If you engage in that practice, then it invalidates your argument and shuts down debate as people try to protect their careers and public lives by hiding their true feelings.

You make a valid point and I for one am happy to have a meaningful debate about Reform, their funding and their candidates.

I am not sure you would enjoy it though.

 

[mudman]

You make a valid point and I for one am happy to have a meaningful debate about Reform, their funding and their candidates.

I am not sure you would enjoy it though.

I don't know enough about them, how they are funded or their candidates so I wouldn't be able to engage in such a debate without some research. What I would like to know is why anyone that dares to express right of centre beliefs are smeared in such a way. It is unhelpful and often the only argument that can be mustered against them that unfortunately invalidates their anti-right viewpoint.

 

[mudman]

You make a valid point and I for one am happy to have a meaningful debate about Reform, their funding and their candidates.

I am not sure you would enjoy it though.

Your statement that you feel that I wouldn't enjoy such a debate indicates to me that you may be making an uninformed assumption about me. One that is most likely wrong but provides further evidence of the state of political discourse today. It is rarely based on facts but more usually on assumptions, misinformation, dogma, and ad hominem attacks.