I was talking to somebody yesterday who is employed by a local council and they were unsurprisingly bemoaning the impending cuts that most if not all councils will soon have to implement. Naturally I suppose their focus was on the likelihood of potential job losses and the likely impact on “front line services”. When I raised the subject of so-called non-jobs I was surprised by their answer which was to the effect that these are amongst those least likely to be affected. I was naturally sceptical until the rationale was explained to me.
It seems that most of the normal council workers (housing, finance, IT, planning etc.) are paid for out of general council funds but most of the non-jobs are in fact usually fully funded by central government under a plethora of initiatives, so axing the horde of diversity officers etc. will save the council nothing at all. If they lose the post they will lose not only the salary of the former employee but also the additional money that goes with it to help fund their office costs, HR costs and so on. By simply axing one of these jobs paying say £25,000 pa the council will probably lose another £5,000 to £10,000 of central government money as well.
Cutting this army of LGBT outreach workers etc. will have no impact on general fund expenditure; it will in fact only serve to reduce the amount of money available to pay for front line services. There is no incentive for councils to cull these jobs; in fact there is a positive disincentive because by doing so they will lose the additional funding that comes with them.
Wednesday 20 October 2010
Friday 15 October 2010
Who should we choose
With the latest expenses scandals hitting the headlines this week with reports that yet another Labour MP is being investigated by the police, surely it is time we had a radical rethink about precisely who should represent us in Parliament. I doubt for a minute that we can find a system which will give us a less corrupt bunch than we have at the moment but surely we could find a system which might inject a bit of competence.
My first and probably biggest gripe is with the lack of real world experience that many of the current crop of political leaders have, with few notable exceptions most of the political top table on both sides is replete with fresh faced professional politicians. Politics is no longer a way of serving your country, it is a career. Schoolchildren openly talk of having a career in politics maybe more with hope than certainty but when I was a child nobody gave it a moment’s thought as a way to make a living when you were fresh from school or university. We all had aspirations to do proper jobs whether it was to go to the pit or join a bank or go to university to study and become a “professional”, we all saw our futures out there in the real world doing a proper job to which our family and friends could relate. We knew we would start pretty close to the bottom but with luck and hard work we knew that the rewards of promotion would follow until we reached the point where our accumulated wisdom and experience would count for something.
Now we are faced with a plethora of ruddy cheeked, identically suited, media trained clones, slavishly loyal to the party which in effect controls their future in their chosen vocation. With few notable exceptions, no longer do MPs represent their constituents in Parliament; instead they represent their parties in the constituency. This country is no longer run from the bottom up as it should be rather it is now run from the top down and is becoming more like an elected dictatorship with each passing administration.
When election time comes round again I would like to be able to choose from a list of candidates who have achieved something in their life. Somebody who knows the cost of milk in Tesco because they have to pay for it and not because it is an item on an expenses claim form. I want my candidates to have CV’s replete with accomplishments and experience not degrees in PPE from Oxbridge.
Accordingly I would like to suggest the following ideas for bring back some sanity.
1. No candidate for paid political office shall be allowed to stand until they have spent a qualifying period in the world of real work, be it on the factory floor or the trading rooms of a merchant bank. Paid employment as a political advisor or similar would not count. The realistic minimum would be ten years.
2. Each candidate should provide a detailed CV, similar to that required when applying for a proper job, to each household immediately each election is called. As candidates are normally selected by their parties well in advance it could easily be fact checked before it is published.
3. Nobody should be allowed to be an elected politician for more than four terms at any level.
4. No duplication of representation, I don’t want my MP sitting on the local council as well; concentrate on the one job.
5. Compulsory retirement at the next election after the sixty fifth birthday.
6. No better pension arrangements than are available to the public at large.
7. No resettlement grants when your time is up over and above what would be your redundancy entitlement if you lost a job in the real world.
8. The right of recall
9. Each politician to publish an annual return of their achievements, voting record, attendance, expenses etc.
10. Each politician to hold an annual public meeting in their constituency within 45 days following publication of the annual report.
11. Upon leaving office, no politician to be allowed to take a job which has not been publicly advertised unless there is an established connection prior to first election such as a family enterprise. There may need to be an option to independently scrutinise the recruitment process if the former MP gets the job which the employer will pay for.
12. The removal of all centrally imposed quotas and lists from the process of candidate selection, this to be an entirely local affair, no parachuting in of the favoured few with constituency parties free to choose who they want to represent them.
We need to get choice, scrutiny and accountability back to the voters who in turn deserve candidates who will put their interests ahead of party and career. WE need MPs who will put something back instead of take out.
My first and probably biggest gripe is with the lack of real world experience that many of the current crop of political leaders have, with few notable exceptions most of the political top table on both sides is replete with fresh faced professional politicians. Politics is no longer a way of serving your country, it is a career. Schoolchildren openly talk of having a career in politics maybe more with hope than certainty but when I was a child nobody gave it a moment’s thought as a way to make a living when you were fresh from school or university. We all had aspirations to do proper jobs whether it was to go to the pit or join a bank or go to university to study and become a “professional”, we all saw our futures out there in the real world doing a proper job to which our family and friends could relate. We knew we would start pretty close to the bottom but with luck and hard work we knew that the rewards of promotion would follow until we reached the point where our accumulated wisdom and experience would count for something.
Now we are faced with a plethora of ruddy cheeked, identically suited, media trained clones, slavishly loyal to the party which in effect controls their future in their chosen vocation. With few notable exceptions, no longer do MPs represent their constituents in Parliament; instead they represent their parties in the constituency. This country is no longer run from the bottom up as it should be rather it is now run from the top down and is becoming more like an elected dictatorship with each passing administration.
When election time comes round again I would like to be able to choose from a list of candidates who have achieved something in their life. Somebody who knows the cost of milk in Tesco because they have to pay for it and not because it is an item on an expenses claim form. I want my candidates to have CV’s replete with accomplishments and experience not degrees in PPE from Oxbridge.
Accordingly I would like to suggest the following ideas for bring back some sanity.
1. No candidate for paid political office shall be allowed to stand until they have spent a qualifying period in the world of real work, be it on the factory floor or the trading rooms of a merchant bank. Paid employment as a political advisor or similar would not count. The realistic minimum would be ten years.
2. Each candidate should provide a detailed CV, similar to that required when applying for a proper job, to each household immediately each election is called. As candidates are normally selected by their parties well in advance it could easily be fact checked before it is published.
3. Nobody should be allowed to be an elected politician for more than four terms at any level.
4. No duplication of representation, I don’t want my MP sitting on the local council as well; concentrate on the one job.
5. Compulsory retirement at the next election after the sixty fifth birthday.
6. No better pension arrangements than are available to the public at large.
7. No resettlement grants when your time is up over and above what would be your redundancy entitlement if you lost a job in the real world.
8. The right of recall
9. Each politician to publish an annual return of their achievements, voting record, attendance, expenses etc.
10. Each politician to hold an annual public meeting in their constituency within 45 days following publication of the annual report.
11. Upon leaving office, no politician to be allowed to take a job which has not been publicly advertised unless there is an established connection prior to first election such as a family enterprise. There may need to be an option to independently scrutinise the recruitment process if the former MP gets the job which the employer will pay for.
12. The removal of all centrally imposed quotas and lists from the process of candidate selection, this to be an entirely local affair, no parachuting in of the favoured few with constituency parties free to choose who they want to represent them.
We need to get choice, scrutiny and accountability back to the voters who in turn deserve candidates who will put their interests ahead of party and career. WE need MPs who will put something back instead of take out.
Thursday 14 October 2010
Is Sally a chav or just a silly little girl?
A thought popped into my mind a while ago that Sally Bercow is a chav. Now where did that come from I wondered; after all chavs are from the social underbelly that populates many of our towns and cities and Sally certainly is not that.
She comes from a comfortable middle class background and was educated at the top private school Marlborough College as were those other poor underclass children Princesses Eugenie and Kate Middleton, a good few MPs and BBC journalists, and of course Anthony Blunt the communist spy. So it is fair to say that she had a bit of a leg up in life courtesy of mum and dad. She must also have a brain as she was accepted for Oxford University where she spent a few terms enjoying the life of an undergraduate. Unfortunately she did not graduate though I guess she must have tried hard as she did make out that she had when she applied for a job with a City PR firm.
No, Sally is not your stereotypical chav. She wasn’t born on a council sink estate, she didn’t go to a failing comp, she didn’t leave school without qualifications, so why do I think of her as a chav? I think it is more to do with her mental attitude to life, rather than her actual circumstances.
Chavs seem to have this innate sense of entitlement, if they want it they will have it; no need to work for it just take it. A bit like Sally and her supposed degree which she never actually received but that did not stop her from intimating that she had one on her CV to get a job. I think that used to be called obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception; the normal chav version is called TWOCing or shoplifting.
Typically your average tabloid chav is also renowned for their consumption of alcohol, again this is an area where Sally has admittedly excelled though I suspect her tastes run more to Dom Perignon than White Lightning, and like most chavs ethanol is the source of many of their troubles. Your average chav is likely to pop down the nearest alley for a quick bit of rough and tumble or hoik up her top and show her tits to the CCTV cameras whilst Sally is probably more likely to jump up on stage with a male stripper at Oxford if rumours are to be believed.
Sally, you are no martyr to free speech and despite the above I don’t really think you are a chav though one might be forgiven for thinking that; in truth you are no more than a silly little girl.
EDIT
Well since the revelations in the Standard which seem to be all over the MSM today, The Daily Mail being a particularly thoroughly nasty job, I have seen nothing to make me change my mind about the utterly pointless stupid woman.
She comes from a comfortable middle class background and was educated at the top private school Marlborough College as were those other poor underclass children Princesses Eugenie and Kate Middleton, a good few MPs and BBC journalists, and of course Anthony Blunt the communist spy. So it is fair to say that she had a bit of a leg up in life courtesy of mum and dad. She must also have a brain as she was accepted for Oxford University where she spent a few terms enjoying the life of an undergraduate. Unfortunately she did not graduate though I guess she must have tried hard as she did make out that she had when she applied for a job with a City PR firm.
No, Sally is not your stereotypical chav. She wasn’t born on a council sink estate, she didn’t go to a failing comp, she didn’t leave school without qualifications, so why do I think of her as a chav? I think it is more to do with her mental attitude to life, rather than her actual circumstances.
Chavs seem to have this innate sense of entitlement, if they want it they will have it; no need to work for it just take it. A bit like Sally and her supposed degree which she never actually received but that did not stop her from intimating that she had one on her CV to get a job. I think that used to be called obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception; the normal chav version is called TWOCing or shoplifting.
Typically your average tabloid chav is also renowned for their consumption of alcohol, again this is an area where Sally has admittedly excelled though I suspect her tastes run more to Dom Perignon than White Lightning, and like most chavs ethanol is the source of many of their troubles. Your average chav is likely to pop down the nearest alley for a quick bit of rough and tumble or hoik up her top and show her tits to the CCTV cameras whilst Sally is probably more likely to jump up on stage with a male stripper at Oxford if rumours are to be believed.
Sally, you are no martyr to free speech and despite the above I don’t really think you are a chav though one might be forgiven for thinking that; in truth you are no more than a silly little girl.
EDIT
Well since the revelations in the Standard which seem to be all over the MSM today, The Daily Mail being a particularly thoroughly nasty job, I have seen nothing to make me change my mind about the utterly pointless stupid woman.
Monday 4 October 2010
Madame Speaker - Heroine?
Some people think that Madame Speaker is a bit of a gobby tart, whilst others fawn on her every word of which there are plenty. Her main claim to fame is that she is married to the Speaker of The House of Commons, apart from which she has done little of note. She has however used this platform to promote not only her political views but also to catapult her into the media spotlight. She has like other nonentities used her marriage to a high profile individual to give her celebrity, a bit like a political Colleen Rooney.
In her earlier years she benefitted from a good education at Marlborough College (with Sam Cam) and Keeble College Oxford where she had a brief flirtation with Conservative politics. She appears to have dropped out after a couple of years and moved politically to the left having stood unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate in recent council elections.
Having failed to obtain her degree, and having failed to be elected to a council she has sought another outlet for her talents and of late taken up a bit of punditry, on one occasion alongside the Grand Dame of Blogging, Iain Dale. As a result of an unguarded comment on one of these shows she has been threatened with a Libel suit by somebody she upset and no doubt after a bit of wise advice gone running to her lawyer of choice who seems to be labelling her as a heroine.
Now this is where I have to take issue with a lawyer, something I am not normally afraid to do in my professional life but this lies outside my area of expertise so I move forward with a bit of trepidation.
Sally Bercow is not a heroine!
Joan of Arc was a heroine, Boudicca was a heroine, Odette Hallowes was a heroine, Mother Theresa was a heroine, Marie Curie was a heroine. These women were heroines because they showed courage and bravery in the face of death, all Silly Sally has done is to shoot her not insubstantial mouth off on television one too many times and then gone running to her lawyers at the first sign of trouble.
I cannot think of one conspicuously brave thing in this which merits the honorific of heroine, silly girl maybe or complete idiot but heroine; come off it.
For the record I do not think her comment constitutes a libel and she does not deserve to be dragged through the courts for it, though I doubt it will ever get that far. She is just another silly little girl with no discernible talent trying to make her way in life with a mouth that is conspicuously quicker than her brain.
In her earlier years she benefitted from a good education at Marlborough College (with Sam Cam) and Keeble College Oxford where she had a brief flirtation with Conservative politics. She appears to have dropped out after a couple of years and moved politically to the left having stood unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate in recent council elections.
Having failed to obtain her degree, and having failed to be elected to a council she has sought another outlet for her talents and of late taken up a bit of punditry, on one occasion alongside the Grand Dame of Blogging, Iain Dale. As a result of an unguarded comment on one of these shows she has been threatened with a Libel suit by somebody she upset and no doubt after a bit of wise advice gone running to her lawyer of choice who seems to be labelling her as a heroine.
Now this is where I have to take issue with a lawyer, something I am not normally afraid to do in my professional life but this lies outside my area of expertise so I move forward with a bit of trepidation.
Sally Bercow is not a heroine!
Joan of Arc was a heroine, Boudicca was a heroine, Odette Hallowes was a heroine, Mother Theresa was a heroine, Marie Curie was a heroine. These women were heroines because they showed courage and bravery in the face of death, all Silly Sally has done is to shoot her not insubstantial mouth off on television one too many times and then gone running to her lawyers at the first sign of trouble.
I cannot think of one conspicuously brave thing in this which merits the honorific of heroine, silly girl maybe or complete idiot but heroine; come off it.
For the record I do not think her comment constitutes a libel and she does not deserve to be dragged through the courts for it, though I doubt it will ever get that far. She is just another silly little girl with no discernible talent trying to make her way in life with a mouth that is conspicuously quicker than her brain.
Sunday 3 October 2010
Ryder Cup
Quite why somebody decided that holding this event in Wales in October would be a good idea escapes me for the moment but nevertheless they did so here we are with one of the worlds most significant sporting events due to take place over the first weekend in October. Unfortunately the glorious Welsh climate has intervened and thus far the competition has been a near complete washout.
But why?
I used to play a bit of golf a few years ago and along with every other amateur golfer in the UK I was equipped with wet weather gear. I had a rain suit which kept me dry, a wide brimmed hat, waterproof shoes, waterproof gloves and a big umbrella. In short despite the very best efforts of the British climate I kept dry whilst out on the course. I even had a waterproof cover for by golf bag so the clubs did not get any wetter than they needed to.
I cannot remember any competition I was in from the monthly medal to the annual club championship being postponed because of rain, so why is the Ryder cup being delayed by a little precipitation?
The competitors each have somebody on hand to lug round the extra kit, they will have access to the very best wet weather gear FOC, yet for some to me unfathomable reason they are not expected to venture forth into the Welsh countryside and risk getting wet.
The paying spectators are perfectly willing to stand around in the wind and rain for hours on end, mostly keeping themselves warm and dry with their own waterproofs and umbrellas yet the massively wealthy prima-donnas they have come to see while away the hours ensconced in a warm dry hotel playing cards or watching TV or whatever until the clouds roll back and they can sally forth unencumbered by a layer of Gore-Tex. I do hope the paying public who have shelled out a small fortune for tickets will be reimbursed for the cost of tickets and the time and expense they have incurred but I sadly doubt they will.
But why?
I used to play a bit of golf a few years ago and along with every other amateur golfer in the UK I was equipped with wet weather gear. I had a rain suit which kept me dry, a wide brimmed hat, waterproof shoes, waterproof gloves and a big umbrella. In short despite the very best efforts of the British climate I kept dry whilst out on the course. I even had a waterproof cover for by golf bag so the clubs did not get any wetter than they needed to.
I cannot remember any competition I was in from the monthly medal to the annual club championship being postponed because of rain, so why is the Ryder cup being delayed by a little precipitation?
The competitors each have somebody on hand to lug round the extra kit, they will have access to the very best wet weather gear FOC, yet for some to me unfathomable reason they are not expected to venture forth into the Welsh countryside and risk getting wet.
The paying spectators are perfectly willing to stand around in the wind and rain for hours on end, mostly keeping themselves warm and dry with their own waterproofs and umbrellas yet the massively wealthy prima-donnas they have come to see while away the hours ensconced in a warm dry hotel playing cards or watching TV or whatever until the clouds roll back and they can sally forth unencumbered by a layer of Gore-Tex. I do hope the paying public who have shelled out a small fortune for tickets will be reimbursed for the cost of tickets and the time and expense they have incurred but I sadly doubt they will.
Friday 1 October 2010
It was too good to last I suppose
Well H came round this evening shortly after I had gone out and got into another confrontation with her mother. Fortunately no injuries this time just some minor damage to some shrubs and a few thumps on the car. She has been a lot calmer these past couple of months so I have no idea what caused her to kick off like this. SWMBO reckoned she was wild eyed and angry as soon as she answered the door so maybe she had taken something she shouldn't, who knows. The police have been round and they are going to go and look for her to give her a bollocking but I fear she is becoming hardened to this and will pay no heed to their warnings.
It is horrible living like this not wanting to go out for an hour or two in case she comes round and attacks her mother or sister.
It is horrible living like this not wanting to go out for an hour or two in case she comes round and attacks her mother or sister.
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