Phoney Outrage at RBS bonus

Hypocrisy knows no depths at the (still yet to apologise) Labour Party.

It was Gordon (I have ended Boom and Bust) Brown and Alistair Darling who brought in Stephen Hester to be the CEO of RBS, in succession to the Labour-honoured but then disgraced, Sir Fred Goodwin.

It was these two who agreed and signed off on the compensation package for Hester.

Now we have cheap point scoring by Ed Miliband and his jolly band of overpaid media supporters saying it is a 'disgrace' and the government should intervene, etc..  I won't go into Labour's complete lack of success whenever it 'intervenes' as that would take toooo long. 

However, it is interesting to see only politicos, and most (all??) of those never having held down a real job, criticising the payout.  I guess their lack of understanding of contractual matters is to be expected - they seem to be pathologically unable to keep their election promises, after all.


My advice to Stephen Hester - tell the board that 'no, I want my full contractual entitlement, £1.6 million or thereabouts,  I want it in cash, oh and given the unprofessional way that you and the major shareholder handle bank affairs and most particularly my confidential compensation issues, I consider that I have been constructively dismissed - see you at the tribunal, where I will seek full compensation!'

Then Vince and George can figure out how they will get any banker of stature to take on the poisoned chalice that is RBS CEO and while they ponder, watch the share price of RBS spiral downwards and with it the taxpayer's 'investment'.

As you would expect with politicians, hypocrisy is leaking from Labour and finding a home with Lib Dem Jeremy Browne.  He talks of

"There's a question of honour. Even if there's a contractual opportunity for him to have a bonus it doesn't mean he has to accept it."

And exactly what is teh question of honour?

Mr Browne said Mr Hester was paid more in three days than a soldier serving in Afghanistan received in a year.
"He should reflect on that. He is effectively a public servant in a bank which is almost completely owned by us the taxpayers," he said.
"He needs to think like a public servant who has a duty to his country, not just his own wealth." 

Are we also going to see all Premier League footballers having their compensation packages attacked, as well?  What about newsreaders, the Director General of the biased BBC? union leaders like Brendan Barber and Bob Crowe? GPs and Council Leaderss?  Maybe fatous MPs and junior ministers?
 
AS for Boris - well he has an election coming up.  I think he will come to regret his short term opportunistic sound bite.  As an aside, I really can't understand what he is doing in Davos though.  Same applies to Ed M.

Scotland - My View

My heart hopes that the Scots vote to stay in the United Kingdom  - we have a lot of shared history and I believe we are better and stronger, together.

My head says, while I do think we are stronger together, the important thing is to make the decision and then implement whatever that tells us!

Why will it take so long to hold a referendum?

Labour was elected to be the majority party in the UK Parliament, in May 1997,  By September of that year the referendum that established the Scottish parliament was held.  So around 4 months!  The Scottish parliament was up and running by May 1999 or within 2 years

Salmond and the SNP say they prefer a simple In or Out question.  Since they are in charge, in Edinburgh and they reckon they have a mandate, why wouldn't they just go ahead and get this done?

Why would it take 2 1/2 years to get that simple thing done?  Are they going to hand write the ballot papers?  That may keep some folks employed but surely that wouldn't reflect well on Scotland's efficiency!

Scrap metal solutions - You read it here first.

In my earlier blog:
 http://thismakesmemadyoutoo.blogspot.com/2012/01/cash-for-scrap-act-now.html

I proposed that the way to address scrap metal theft and the threat it poses to both safety and memorials for our fallen soldiers was to require payment in methods other than cash and photo proof of identity.

Now the Transport Select Committee seems to agree with me.

Anyone trying to sell scrap metal should have to prove their identity, a group of MPs has said.

The Transport Select Committee also said the government should test a ban on cash payments for scrap to try to tackle the problem of metal theft.
Thefts from railways caused disruption to 3.8 million passengers last year and cost more than £16m.
Rail Minister Norman Baker said it was considering new legislation to regulate the scrap metal industry.
The metal recycling industry is worth about £5.6bn and employs almost 8,000 people in the UK.
But there are concerns about the number of illegal sites and about dealers prepared to accept metal in return for cash without any information about its origins.
Aggravated trespass The transport committee said the government must act with "more urgency" to tackle the problem and made a number of suggestions:

• create a new offence of aggravated trespass on the railway to help deter cable thieves
• give more powers to police to inspect both registered and unregistered scrap metal yards
• reform the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 to require anyone selling metal to provide proof of identity before a transaction can take place
• test the use of cashless trading in the scrap metal 

To members of any of the Houses of Parliament Committees, I will continue to post on this site and you can use my common sense approach to problem solving, free of charge!!

Scotland - After much thought - procrastination

Can you believe the nerve of Alex Salmond?

He has had how many years - 30 or more? - to ponder and decide on the question he thinks should be asked regarding independence for Scotland.

He says that he wants the question to be:

Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country? 

But because he is such a sweetie he wants to consult on this to ask Scottish voters if they think the Scottish parliament should have more powers.

Now the wily Alex knows full well that greater powers for the Scottish parliament are not within the remit of any referendum set by the self-same Scottish parliament.  He knows that such powers rest with the parliament of the United Kingdom.  He also knows that the granting of additional powers to Scotland would need to be discussed in a UK framework, affecting, as such would, the whole of the UK.

How would his nationalist colleagues in Northern Ireland and Wales feel about Scotland getting additional powers and they not?  The Welsh First Minister has already voiced his concern

How would the English feel about Scotland getting more and more powers while still 'sticking their oar' into English business?

Alex Salmond and his SNP cronies know that won't fly.  So...

They hope to stir up the pot so that anti-English and anti-Westminster feeling, in Scotland, rises at what they will portray as 'Westminster interference in the legitimate aspirations of a sovereign nation and people, etc.'

I trust that the Scots, not usually considered gullible fools, will see through his charade and political posturing and will understand that the only question they can be asked is In or Out and then they take their own decision.

Salmond also now wants to hold the referendum in autumn 2014 "on the same terms as any Scottish election, to the same standards and with the same guarantee of fairness"

He then goes on to say that the Scottish government proposed to extend the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds for this vote.

Usually the gap between saying one thing - same terms as any Scottish election - that is, franchise at 18 - and then  saying something very different - extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds - takes longer than a sentence or two but not for Alex and the SNP!

So dear reader, what is your view?

Simple Yes or No question?

Multiple choice?  If this then the referendum has to include the rest of the UK and be run by the government of the UK since it affects all of its constituent parts.

What constitutes a majority?  If the turnout is 75% and of these 53% vote for Independence and 47% vote against, would Scotland get Independence?  Bear in mind that with figures like that it would mean that of the possible electorate 60% either voted no or by abstaining could be considered to have voted for the status quo = No to independence.  As usual the devil will be in the detail  

Opponents of Welfare Cap and Arsenal

Great to see former Archbishop of Canterbury speaking out and attacking those bishops that oppose the proposed cap on welfare benefits.

Writing in the Daily Mail, as quoted by the biased BBC, he said:

The bishops cannot lay claim to the moral high-ground.  Considering that the system they are defending can mean some families are be able to claim a total £50,000 a year in welfare benefits, the bishops must have known that popular opinion was against them, including that of many hard-working, hard-pressed churchgoers.


The sheer scale of our public debt - which hit £1 trillion yesterday - is the greatest moral scandal facing Britain today. If we can't get the deficit under control and begin paying back this debt, we will be mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren.


Lord Carey praised the efforts of Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith - whom he called a "committed Christian" - to overhaul a benefits system which, at its worst, "rewards fecklessness and irresponsibility".
He argued the cost of benefits was "increasingly stoking social division" among the "squeezed middle, who feel resentment at the 'handouts' given to the long-term unemployed".
And he said the welfare system, originally designed to tackle "want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness", had become an "industry of gargantuan proportions which is fuelling those very vices and impoverishing us all"

We have heard nothing further from the revolting Lib Dems nor from the flip-flopping Labour Party.  From the former I sense their comments and votes can be put down to posturing and from the latter, since they both support and oppose the cap, what else could we expect?

For Your Information - Lord George Carey is a lifelong Arsenal supporter, which is presumably why his great  intelligence leads him to come to the right conclusion regarding the welfare cap.  Now we just need him to see what he can do to get us a defence, in the transfer window!

English Bishops - questions to answer

An amendment to the Welfare Reform Bill, that is currently winding its way through Parliament, was passed in the House of Lords, last night.  This amendment, was tabled by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds and was supported by other bishops, Labour peers, so-called cross bench peers (said to be independents) and Liberal Democrat peers. The amendment sought to exclude Child Benefit (a universal welfare benefit paid to all parents of children), from the total benefits cap of £26,000 that the government is seeking to set.

£26,000,  is the average gross pay of a UK worker - i.e. before taxes and national insurance (social security) are deducted!

One of the main reasons for a high cap is that 'Housing Benefit' is included.  This is where the rent for housing welfare claimants is also paid as part of their welfare package.  In certain parts of the UK, (particularly London and the South East)  this rent can run into more than  £1,000 (in some cases up to £2,000) per week.

Labour is in such a mess that it is not difficult to understand their peers voting for the measure and opposing the Government.  The Labour Party say they support a cap but don't want to hurt vulnerable people!  The reason they say they support the cap is that poll evidence shows that there is overwhelming public support for a cap on benefits.  So Labour saying two opposite things at once is to be expected.

The Lib Dem peers showed that their idea of participating in a coalition differs from what any sane or normal person would consider as right.  Former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown said that the Bill, in its current form was 'totally unacceptable'.  So we can presumably expect more whining and disloyalty from that quarter.

The Bishops used to be called 'the Conservative Party at prayer'.  That was a very long time ago.  Some of them, having ditched God and the Holy Trinity have now also been joined by others and moved wholeheartedly to the Labour Party!

The Bishops represent the Church of England

• The same CofE that is a very large landowner in the UK.  
• The same CofE that  rents out a very large number of properties to private tenants and charges them market rents.  
• The same CofE that is said to pay the average parish vicar considerably less than the average UK salary of £26,000

Given that attendance at CofE services runs at less than 2% of the population it is not really a surprise that the they are so out of touch with how the UK people think. 

Surely now is the time for this irrelevance to be dis-established and put on the same footing as the other religions in the UK?

1. How can the Bishops fly in the face of overwhelming public opinion?
2. Will they and the Church Commissioners, use their ample resources to fill the gap that their actions have the potential to create?
3. Will they declare how much they receive in rents from tenants that are in receipt of housing benefit?

This week's YouGov poll, in the Sunday Times, showed that among the public, 88% of Conservative supporters, 69% of Labour supporters and 66% of Lib Dem supporters, support a cap on benefits.  Overall, the support for a cap was 76%, with just 9% opposing..

The same poll  found that 59% believe that the cap should be  £26,000 or less and 36% think it should be less than £20,000

The UK Sunday Times reported this week, on a family from Somalia that arrived in Britain, three years ago and have never worked.  They initially lived in Coventry, in the West Midlands, where house rentals are much less expensive than in the South East but then wanted to move to London 'to be nearer their extended family.'  So they were re-housed in the very chic and up-market West Hampstead suburb, in a six bedroom property, which is estimated to cost around £4,800 a month to rent.  This is the rent that is then paid as housing benefit on top of all of the other benefits that they receive  

Housing Benefit has increased, from the 2008/9 figure of  £15.6 billion to £20.5 billion in 2010/11 an increase of 31% - this when property values have declined! 

We are being taken for a ride and paying a very heavy price for the dubious privilege and the UK Bishops support our pockets being picked! 

Do remember!  The cap is at the level of Average UK wage.  Somebody on the Average UK wage, would simply not be able to live at the same standard as someone on the cap, let alone someone claiming more than the cap.  Now you can see why work doesn't pay!

Thatcher the Serial Killer

I quote below a letter published in this week's Grantham Journal. Friday 20 January.

Councillor Ray Wootten obviously supports the idea of having a statue to Thatcher in spite of the very considerable body of opinion that is opposed to it.
Cllr Wootten says: “Whatever your political views of Margaret Thatcher...she did come from Grantham. We need to capitalise on that.”
This is a bit like councillors from Bingley say, or Gorton, arguing that no matter what you might think about Peter Sutcliffe or Myra Hindley, their places of birth should capitalise on the fact that they came from there.
The atrocities of Sutcliffe and Hindley pale into insignificance compared with those perpetrated under Thatcher’s watch.
People would be rightly outraged if statues of Sutcliffe and Hindley appeared in their home towns, and the notion of having a statue to Thatcher in Grantham is even more outrageous.

I don't care what or where your political sympathies lie, how can any sane mind, compare Margaret Thatcher with the horrors that were visited on their victims, by Sutcliffe and Hindley?  To me that takes an incredibly  warped viewpoint.

If you agree, send a letter to the Grantham Journal.

I have to ask, why would any respectable publication even print such vile rubbish?