Rulers and the ruled

If you had any doubts about the madness that is infecting the UK, today, this week's events in Parliament should provide clarity.

At the start of the week, the Labour party (joined by some Lib Dem malcontents)  opposed the Coalition's proposal to limit welfare benefit handout increases to 1% over the next three years.  Their opposition wasn't because they thought that benefits should be progressively cut in the same period, by say something like 10% per year. 

Oh no!  The opposition was that they felt this would hurt the poor and hard-working families. 

For those unfamiliar with the stupidities of the UK welfare system, the Socialists have developed and honed a process where the government impoverishes you by taking so much in taxes and National Insurance (Social Security) and then let's you apply to get some of your own money back as tax credits and other welfare handouts!   

OK, so you might expect a Conservative-led Coalition to end this farce and leave money in the pockets of those that have earned it but that would be expecting too much.  Two and a half years into a five year Parliament and nary a sign that common sense will surface.

Why?  Well consider the following.

The week has ended with MPs suggesting that they should receive an average 32% increase in salary.  There is no decimal point missing!  You read it correctly - thirty two percent.

Consider this.  The average salary in the UK is £26,500.  Currently MPs receive a salary of more than £65,700 or 2 1/2 times the average.  Now Conservatives want to take that to £96,740, the Lib Dems to £78,361 and Labour to £77,322. 

Oh, and on top of their generous salary, they receive expenses to cover travel, offices and assistant's salaries, etc. 

Is it any wonder that the finances of the UK government are in such an appalling state, when the economic incompetents that rule us have only one concern - their own pocket? 

Many of these are the same MPs who had their greedy snouts so far into the trough that they must have been gagging on the expenses that they were fiddling.  These are also the same MPs who are now pushing to muzzle a free press (including newspapers that exposed the MP expenses fiddling) - Would any writer ever dare to come up with such an unbelievable story-line?

And yes, you probably guessed it, they knew, when they put themselves forward for election, what the salary was, that was on offer.  Ask yourself this, what chance of getting an increase would you have if, today, you went to your boss and said, I know we agreed the starting salary 2 1/2 years ago but now I want a 32% increase.

Any MP that votes in favour or even has the audacity to speak in favour of getting such an increase should have the courage to force an immediate by-election and put the matter, this single issue, to the public - the people who vote him/her into Parliament - and, just as importantly, those taxpayers that pay these high wages. 

If these greedy, stupid, hypocritical and mendacious people can't survive on £65K then they should quit and go and find another job that appropriately rewards the talents and skills that they (alone) think they have!  They should do it, today!

I do accept that many of  those  called for the resignation or firing of Stephen Hester indicated that they could do his job for a lot less than his £1 million pay packet.  Of course that is largely complete twaddle.  MPs though?  They can be easily replaced - it isn't as if the job requires any particular skills - although lying, cheating and thieving doesn't come easy to everyone - just consider the backgrounds and experience of the shower currently sitting in Westminster - how are they more qualified than anyone else?  How many of them have ever held down a real job or managed a business or department or any kind of budget? 

This ruling elite is on a tax-payer funded gravy train , along with their mates in Euro-lalaland and just about  all of them are at 'it' and serving only their own financial interests.

This is what the UK has come to!




 

Airport strikes, Maude and Pilgrims

How do you think Francis Maude is feeling, today?

Not unreasonably, he finally decided to start a 'consultation process' looking to end the abuse of taxpayers, by public 'service' unions.   I refer of course to the so called 'pilgrims'.  Full Time union officials who are ostensibly employed in the Public Sector and paid by the taxpayer  and who, instead of doing the job for which they are employed, then work exclusively on union business.

Instead of just immediately ending this abuse, he wants to 'consult'.

The payback for his 'softly, softly Mr Nice Guy' approach is that the most militant of the public 'service' unions has decided to call a strike among its members in the Border Control agency, right on the eve of the London Olympics.

See what happens when you trade-in a spine for reasonability?  The un-reconstructed class-warriors that run, dictator-like, public 'service' unions sense the lack of back-bone and push on with their aims of causing the maximum disruption to their paymasters - the tax-payer - under the guise of 'concern about service levels'.

Yet again, another example of government rhetoric that isn't matched by real action. 

Consider.  We are going to be tough on Welfare claimants!  We will impose a cap on Welfare benefits!  Then think about the level of 'toughness'.  Such claimants will eventually have their benefits capped at £26,000.  That is, higher than the national average wage, before tax. 

Rhetoric and fine words or intentions shouldn't be a substitute for running the country and doing the right thing!

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!