Thursday 14 July 2011

ANOTHER SET OF GREEDY PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT ALL IN IT TOGETHER

I mentioned a few weeks ago that it seemed to me that there were few people in the UK who were avoiding the swinging cuts...
The royal family, as befits their position, were at the top of my list. Not only has the Treasury agreed that in future the royals can have a percentage of the Crown Estates money that previously went to the government, but the Duke of Rothsay has managed to increase his private income by over £600,000 and increase his state earnings by 40%. Nice recession guys.

The Lords were having a problem with people cheating (some would say 80%) on their expenses, so they introduced a new system whereby they pay themselves expenses whether or not they have expended anything, and needless to say, that now costs the taxpayer more. Brilliant way to not earn a living chaps and chapesses.

The bankers, fearful that their gigantic bonuses would be stopped by the government , awarded themselves massive pay rises to make up for the anticipated loss in income, only to find that the bonuses weren’t stopped after all, and so now they have both. Smart thinking lads.

And now, according to a report in the Telegraph, despite pleas from ministers not to do it, senior civil servants are taking bonuses worth between £8,000 and £20,000. The bonuses, which were agreed with the last government, seem to be set in stone. Although if I were the government I'd be inclined to tell them that they could fiddle for the bonuses. What are they going to do? Go on strike?

The total cost to the treasury will be around £10 million.

Helen Ghosh, permanent secretary at the Home Office (that bastion of efficiency) defended £10,000 bonuses for her staff as “not exactly big bucks”. She told a committee of MPs in the coherent manner you might expect: “The average was... I think the very maximum for the highest earners was £10,000.” Gosh Ms Ghosh. As people may be paid as much as 10% of their salaries, as salaries are as high as £200,000 pa, and as the bonuses are performance related, it is rather an indictment of the quality of staff in her department if they are only achieving £10,000. Why, at £180,000 pa, Helen's own bonus has the potential to be £18,000.

Not big bucks at £10,000 for Golly Ghosh, but twice what a pensioner gets to live on for a year and now the government has reduced their winter fuel allowance, regardless of the quality of their performance. And three times what the paid off civil servants all around the country will be collecting in Job Seekers Allowance.

What a grim, miserable, greedy, unpleasant country the UK is. Let’s get out of it.

Pics: Ms Ghosh and her shiny Home Office, which reminds me of Paris's Centre Georges Pompidou, to my mind, one of the world's most unlovely buildings.

10 comments:

  1. Arrogance is another name for our Civil Service.

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  2. A kick in the backside is what they need OR.

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  3. God save the Queen.

    Progress without reform is the only recipe which can work. Abolition of the Lords, the Monarchy or the established Church is not to be tolerated in a free and progressive country.

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  4. Yeh yeh Dean the Monarchy and church will solve all of the world's problem, stop drinking as it has certainly addled your brain.

    Met police put pressure on Guardian over coverage

    Scotland Yard's most senior officers tried to convince the Guardian during two private meetings that its coverage of phone hacking was exaggerated and incorrect without revealing they had hired Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World, as an adviser.


    How many more days/weeks can Cameron survive?

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  5. Erm Dean...where did I mention getting rid of the Queen, or the Lords or the Church of England (which is so very important to Scots).

    As I recall, this post was about another set of greedy fat cats who seem to think that everyone but them should suffer for the pigs ear that the last government made of the economy.

    I didn't even have a go at the lovely Dave.

    Sheesh!

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  6. That's pretty serious. The police were trying to stop the Guardian from printing a story which not only wan't exaggerated, it was underplayed compared to the heavy stuff that is coming out now.

    In short they were trying to save their nasty, sleazy, cheating, fiddling, corrupted backsides.

    I think Ken Clarke should start building new prisons now... Oh no, sorry, I forgot. Just like MPs these people will get off with whatever they have done with the mildest of slaps on the wrist.

    Sickening.

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  7. @Tris,

    lol - I need to keep a tabs on you ;)

    As to the post you did make...about the wa...bankers...

    One solution can kill of their dodgy corporate culture, and that is total separation of retail and investment arms. Oh, and get EU-wide agreement to cap bonus sizes. That way, we don't lose competitiveness vis-a-vis Paris, Brussels of Frankfurt and we can also clamp down on these unacceptable excesses!

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  8. Dean... I'm glad to see someone keeping tabs on me...

    ... but the post was about Civil Servants.

    Hmmmmm....

    But yes, as it goes I think that separation of retail and investment banks is a good idea, and cross border co-operation is also a good idea.

    The trouble is that we will have to start paying for our banking if it is not subsidised by investment arms. of course you can say that many other countries have bank charges for just running the account. but most of the banks are much more efficient than the British ones.

    Now about Civil Servants who think that they are worth big fat bonuses while everyone else is taking a cut....?

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  9. they think that you never sack a civil servant...

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  10. We appear not to sack top Civil Servants...just hand them bonuses.

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