The Public sector take another bullet for the team



Hard working Museum staff left without a good pay rise again



I was most despondent when I heard the Chancellor's speech yesterday with yet another attack on the Public

sector workers.

For another year our pay is frozen at 1% increase, which effectively results in a pay cut yet again as prices rise by 4% and rail fare could rise as much as 8% next year if we're truly unlucky.

I understand that the Public sector is often seen as bloated and in need of trimming but it always comes to us plebs at the bottom rather than the Sir Humfrey and fellow Mandarin types at the top. I have worked within the Public sector in various capacities since 2004 and have managed to get myself to a grade 2 position within my current organisation on a modest salary of £19,000 p.a which currently loses £4000 on train fare a year getting to London. At the moment my wage covers half our out goings with my wife's covering about a third and tax credits helping to top up the other areas such as child care (which allow my wife to work at all). With another 1% rise I find the family tightening the belt another notch and we start to look for something else we can afford to do with out. Thankfully we are not a greedy people and our luxury budgets are almost non existent and clothing comes from bargain basement shops and charity stores, my books are mostly second hand or free Kindle editions and we do our food shopping from Aldi.
Still the fear that it will become uneconomical for either of us to be working is constantly with us. If childcare prices do rise next April - and with Medway Council's cut of 40% to the nursery budget it is most likely, and/or if the train fare rises by another £320 a year then we are spending more than we are earning.

I find it disheartening when I look at areas of the Service and see the amount of middle management and project supervisors etc compared to staff with a ration of almost 1:1 in places. The Pyramid of power is now more of a diamond with a bloated middle management, who rake in up to twice what I earn depending on seniority, and then a small upper management group. Unfortunately when it comes to cutting jobs or toupee-ing out departments to a private contractor it is always conducted by this same middle management sect who get rid of us at the bottom.

Also, and let's take Museum's as an example, when you cut budgets where does the internal axe fall? The new exhibition they were going to install? The New Media touch screens? The high tech security system? Nope its the dogsbody stood at the door taking tickets or providing a security presence. Maybe it is the staff member in the shop or the cafe? Or in the Police force will the amount of Squad cars be cut? Will the chopper be grounded more often? Will it be the PCSOs and Coppers on the beat that will go - probably. People and families will suffer.

The Public sector is not what it once was and there are many of us on low incomes like teachers, museum staff, immigration staff, prison workers all working long hours for not much income (in comparison to some similar jobs in the Private sector) who are being asked again to go without or to lose their jobs.

We're all in this together but the MPs can still vote themselves a payrise!

Other sources of income have to be looked at and legal loan sharks like Wonga are likely to see families like mine turn up to get a bit extra cash just to tide them over to payday.

I sort of see the point about pay awards after longevity of service - it may not seem fair to many that after a certain amount of longevity in a job you receive a pay rise as a reward but when you are front line staff dealing with the public for long hours for little pay you should get a reward for making it to ten years or twenty or even thirty. The Civil service is the front of the government and we give our time and energy for not much money, to administer all it's menial tasks and for the benefit of the public. Why shouldn't there be a reward?

The nation forgets how much of their services are run by the Public sector and they do have a false image of all Civil servants having golden triple locked pay packets and pensions which is in fact untrue and the headline grabbing - We're cutting back our expenditure on Civil servants, actually has a massive impact on many of the nations hardest working and their families who are already on lower funds.

Whom to tax?

In a Tale of Two Conferences there seems to be a desparity of thinking between the two Coalition parties.

George Osborne has proposed saving another £16bn from the budget by 2016/7 harvesting from the Welfare system in savings rather than rising taxes.

Vince Cable and the Libdem conference voted in favour of Mansion taxes to hit homes valued over £2m as rich internationals can hide their money abroad but they can't move their houses.

Which one is more in line with the public view of things?

Fair enough the Conservatives are not talking about rising taxes BUT if you are cutting benefits and people's income then they will still end up at the same destination - less money in their already depleted pockets.

One of the brave strategems is the cutting of housing benefits for the under 24s making people stay at home and save up for a deposit rather than just finishing school and demanding a house. In a way it sounds very good but at the other end of the scale - if you can't get a job, you become a drain on your parents pocket.

Although there is a feeling of entitlement that has swept through this nation - The state HAS to do this for me etc, that should be overcome, there are also lots of genuine cases of welfare. It is easy to weild the axe and say that people don't need this and that but it should be weilded with campassion and thought like a surgeon with a scalpal not a drunk headsman.

So who is going to stand up for the working family?

Ed Miliband? He couldn't stand up if his seat was on fire.

Nope, our hope lies in the hands of the Right Honorable Nick Clegg MP who is frankly a little confused and angry by the Chancellor's announcement.

According to his Radio 4 interview the other day the Deputy Prime Minister says he hadn't agreed to the Housing allowance change - a fact backed up by Simon Hughes on BBC's Question time who when asked about it said; We don't agree with it and we'd scrap such a move.

Nick went on to say;

The idea that of the £16bn we're going to scoop out £10bn from welfare - which will inevitably hit the poorest before asking anything of the wealthiest -no. Flatly, no.

I start from a very simple principle that when we're all having to make sacrifices... you ask people at the top and then work down. You don't ask people at the bottem and work up.

I think it's unrealistic to assume that you can't make any more savings from welfare... but it hasn't been agreed in Government.

I certainly don't agree with the idea that you just pluck a £10bn figure out of the sky and say 'that's what we're going to do' without asking how you can do that more fairly.

These will be welcome words for many people in the same boat (and indeed the many who are worse off than I) as my family across the nation, many living in Medway and other urban areas.

It seems that the Conservative element want to wring blood from a stone and countless administrations have tried it before and run up against a brick wall. As the Wealth gap appears to grow more and more distant with each passing year can it not be said; Enough is enough?

I understand that it isn't fair that the "Sucessful" are stung more than the "Unsucessful" but the simple fact is that people are at the end of their bank balances and unable to support themselves or their families and the rich well...

It seems to me that for the "Duration of the economic emergency" we should look to the Haves rather than the Have nots for more money and why a Mansion tax has been ignored is beyond me.

In the spirit of World War One, whose centenary is up coming they should ask; Not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country and if we're truly in this together Dave and George... why do the many who have less have to suffer more than the less who have more?

Workers of the world unite to lose rights

I must admit as I read George Osborne's plan for the future of our workforce I became frightened, angry and then laughed at the irony.

The basics of stage one is good. Offering employees the chance to buy shares in their companies and so they get a say in its direction. For smaller companies it means there is a definite togetherness and ethos that if this ship sinks we all go down and must pull together. For larger companies it offers the chance for those in the frontline to voice their ideas and concerns, something that a lot of us in the trenches feel should happen as some managers have lost touch with what is going on and are happy to ignore their workers concerns as nothing more than "Nay saying." Indeed I know of one manager who said "You can't have the staff dictating to the managers" but at times I really think there needs to be a two way dialogue and managers should listen to their foot soldiers a lot more as our livelihood is dependent on the business being successful to.

Any way - that's ok. I like that. I understand its a Libdem proposal too which makes it win win...

Now comes the bad thing.

Employees will be offered £2-50,000 shares in the company and no Capital gains tax on any profit you make that way at the expense of.... their rights.

Yes that's right. No more unfair dismissal tribunals, extra notice for returning after maternity work, no more redundancy money, no more time off for training.

Here's what George said in his speech;

Workers: replace your old rights of unfair dismissal and redundancy with new rights of ownership. And what will the government do? We will charge no capital gains tax at all on the profit you make on your shares. Zero percent capital gains tax for these new employee-owners. Get shares and become owners of the company you work for. Owners, workers and the taxman, all in it together. Workers of the world unite.


I don't want to sound to reactionary or knee jerk and hopefully this will be explained more over the coming weeks but my instant response is; WHAT? HOW HAVE WE SIGNED OFF ON THIS??

It seems like a return to Victorian working, we are all to be worthless drones that toil on with no rights.

Don't get me wrong, I've worked with some really inept staff that management haven't been able to get rid of and as an employee who pulls their weight I do get cross that they're hands are tied and some dead weight is getting paid the same as I am and doing a third of the work. However, in genuine cases there will be no recourse for unfair dismissal. If the company goes down the pan and has to let you go you could get nothing for your years of toil. It seems an awful gamble.

There is the safety net that existing employees don't have to have it but it will be mandatory for new employees as of April as George rushes all these reforms through the back door after Doctor Vince ruled out these suggestions and said he was against the Hire and fire culture. I can understand the need to may be bend rules so that small companies can try and get rolling and any help they can get in this economic times is worth a punt but this? This seems a step too far in the wrong direction.

I really hope there is some real depth to these proposals that will belay this mild panic I find myself in and if there aren't that the party will stand by the liberties and hard fought rights of this nation's workers and obstruct this if they can. These rights have been hard fought by generations over centuries and now they could all vanish with a flurry of new policy that George is trying to rush through. This should be opposed.

In a climate where I find myself worrying about redundancy, being shipped over to an agency, being made redundant then offered a less conducive contract or rota - these new declarations are adding to my fear for my future and that of everyone else like me. We want to be valued as workers but treated as human beings with rights that help us safeguard our jobs, livelihoods and families.

Political leaders our out of touch with reality

Taken on Gillingham High street last week

In his article for Party People last week Councillor Geoff Juby, leader of the Medway Liberal Democrat Council group has rightly indicated that those who run the economy are not seeing the whole picture.

The situation at the bottom is indeed dire. The Medway towns are indeed suffering, in fact the three poorest wards of Chatham central, Gillingham South and Gillingham North have been granted improvement funds to be administered by the CAB due to their poverty.

Across the towns we have empty buildings, both commercial and residential and with people's outgoings far exceeding incomes it is no wonder legal loan sharks and pawnshops are so popular, especially with 17% of houses in the area have no one in work and 174 applicants for 22 jobs at a local Tesco. The people of Medway aren't lazy or looking for handouts they want to be listened to and good economic judgement from those at the top.

Geoff said: Whom can we trust with the economy? Ed Balls presided over the the scandalous greed of the big banks and unfortunately our current leaders live in a world of private schools and high income. It would do them all good to come and live for a week at the level of some of our workers, existing on the minimum wage with families to support - there might be a bit more compassion then!

I think it's a fair comment. After all, of you've never had to scrimp and save in your life time, had to stretch the food budget to its limit, been faced with the balance screen at the cashpoint saying "amount available £0 " whilst having to pay out still, will not appreciate what they have got. I've been that poor before and I regularly review things so that it won't happen again.

I'm not discriminating against George Osborne or David Cameron but lets be honest, they have never known such times, I'd wager neither have the Eds and to be brutally honest I doubt Nick has. It is difficult to empathise with a situation which you are not familiar with.

Although this plan to encourage the building trade will bring welcome relief to areas of the country and to those in the building trade there is also the problem that here in Medway, no one can afford to do the work. What is more important to you? Getting to work? Keeping a much needed car on the road? Extending your conservatory?

Politicians need to think about us, those at the bottom of the ladder, who want to make ends meet, who don't want hand outs, who work hard but still want family life. Yes, the Liberal Democrat influence in Government has helped with the raising of the Income tax threshold, immeasurably so as now my wife won't have to pay it putting money back in our pockets, but we need more action like this rather than sweeping measures.

Morgan Spurlock, the American documentary maker once spent 30 days living on the US minimum wage and he was shocked at how much of a struggle it was. I, like Geoff, would welcome members of the cabinet doing the same thing!

George Osborne out; Vince Cable in?

So the original call for the removal of George Osborne has become a clamour.

I'm not an economist and a lot of the information and stands washed over me, I'm also not about to score political points for my party by touting our virtues and saying that;

Doctor Vince was right and he should be made Chancellor.

It is not my style and I don't think that is what Politics is about.

I was thinking about the drop in GDP and the failure of plan A and wondered what my heroes would do about it.

Then as the thought of Darth Vader muttering Apology accepted as he force choked Mr Osborne sailed through my mind I decided that a more practical solution was needed.

I understand David Cameron's backing of the Chancellor and his faith that things will turn around but things are mounting up and I shudder to say this... maybe Ed Balls was right.

Despite Government cuts - and lets face it the previous Government were pouring money down the drain on a lot of pointless crap that needed jettisoning, i.e. as nice as it is for every child born to get a government grant it was an overly expensive move that we all survived without before and will do now, or those damn costly ID cards... the economy isn't recovering as it should.

The list of excuses like the weather, the Royal wedding, the Jubilee, the Tsunami, Clegg stole my biscuits... just aren't cutting the mustard for a lot of people. Action needs to be taken and the Prime Minister has to act for the benefit of everyone.

If George Osborne was to take all the plaudits for success so must he take the blame for failure.



The future's bright... the future's Yellow



With two years to go and with so much riding on economic recovery surely a new team or chancellor should be appointed?

Go on Dave, be selfish, don't just do it for the economy, the people and the nation but do it for your party - after all if you want to be reelected in 2015 you'll need to show the nation that you guys got it right. After all the Conservatives are the party for good economic management right?

So who to chose? Well... I'd suggest Vince Cable - he's an economist, he knows what he's talking about and could really make a difference. Though it doesn't matter what I, any Libdem or even the Daily Mirror thinks because Dr Vince won't get the job. Despite Coalition niceties there is no way that the Conservative backbenchers will sit still whilst a great and well respected position gets given to a Libdem and not one of their own. It is a sad state of affairs but it is probably the truth.

There are other good choices within the Conservative party and others who are well placed to take the position or to bring fresh ideas to the table but will they get their chance?

It isn't to late to change things or for the economy to move up a notch just now is the time before its too late. With Germany set to lose its AAA status and the rest of Europe's economies hemorrhaging money it is only going to get worse.

Shuffling out George Osborne

I was thumbing through the paper last Monday and found a couple of comments about whether or not George Osborne should be shuffled out of the Chancellorship in a front bench reshuffle.

The Sun's Trevor Kavanagh was quoted as suggesting that his unseemly bust ups with Ed Balls were distracting and even damaging his credibility as the man for the job and even suggesting that it was causing a lack of credibility and public esteem (and not us!).

Yes, I agree duelling with Ed Balls is unseemly but to be honest it would happen with whomever was Chancellor. Ed Balls is somewhat of a blunt instrument whose boorish manner acts like a battering ram and can easily get a rise from anyone.

But lets be honest;  Ed Balls can protest all he likes but he was buried in the treasury when all this rubbish with the banks happened in the first place.

The Newstatesman's George Eaton played down the talk of a reshuffle but suggested that the fact that it is being talked about and considered shows how much his stock has fallen.

However Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF has criticised the Treasury saying that the outlook is not great and that Osborne has until next year to see if "Plan A" can come to fruition, if not its time for "Plan B." The IMF points to the deep downturn in the economy, deeper than the Eurozone and indeed the USA, recovery has been weak and austerity has knocked 2.5% off the GDP. To cap it off Government borrowing is also up.

This may be why George Osborne is being asked to give up his position as Conservative planner and mastermind for strategy in 2015 by former Chancellor and well respected Conservative Lord Lawson in a Radio 4 interview;


I do think it might be sensible to give up the formal (strategy) role and focus exclusively on his job as Chancellor of the Exchequer which is a tremendously important job.
I think his last budget was not his biggest success but I think he should continue in that job,. But I do think... that it would be sensible for him to set aside his second job. 


So could George's time be up?

I don't think so yet. The pressure is mounting though, after all the strength of this government was always going to be on tackling the deficit and at the moment it has hit a bit of a pothole. Although replacing the Chancellor is not the solution (unless it is with David Lawes) at this time, serious thought needs to be directed to the situation and further to that 100% concentration on the matter so I agree with Lord Lawson on this.

The Economy and its recovery should be his priority and if it gets back on track the Conservatives won't need a strategy to win the next election but should it fail...

Keeping the investigation into Newscorp balanced.

As the News Corp case unfolds and the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks are held to account by a parliamentary select committee I have begun to think about some of the dangers of the case.

The British people always need a villain, be it the Germans (at war and football), Nick Clegg (a former hero who fell to villainy- the best kind of hate figure.), Gary Glitter and Bin Laden. These are people that you can walk into any Pub or public venue and say "... what a bastard" and get a general murmur of agreement whether deserved or not.

The media will often attack them on front pages and reports, it becomes easy for people to be lead by the passions and centralise their anger on one target often losing track of all of the information involved aided by distortions in the media.

A current example of this is the growing call for David Cameron to stand down and resign over links between Andy Coulson and the mobile hacking cases at News of the World. It would be ridiculous to suggest that Cameron should be removed just because he has association. To be fair to David Cameron, when Andy Coulson was hired he had been sworn, on oath, that he had no involvement with phone hacking. As far as anyone should be concerned, at the time the man was not proven guilty. Accusations are not fact until proven.

At the time, despite these accusations, Coulson was a good choice for the role. (although maybe Cameron should have listen to leading Lib dems such as Clegg and Lord Ashdown!) The appointment has now proven to have been a mistake but despite the protestations of Ed Miliband- who is himself courting the media and scoring easy points against the government by echoing what the people want to hear rather than come up with an alternative economic policy, hindsight is the only thing proving it.
Beyond that, the removal of David Cameron as Prime minister at this time, for this reason would be detrimental to this country's economic recovery. Agree or disagree with the coalition's economic policy any delay or massive political upheaval cannot be good for the economy or in investment confidence in Britain.
After all for the meantime Nick Clegg would be running the country until the next Conservative Party conference in September when the leadership contest would be resolved and then there would be a shift in the dynamic in the Coalition agreement. Love it or loath it the fact that Cameron and Clegg get on in a personal capacity and share many of the same ideals helps keep the coalition together, without that dynamic it could descend into chaos and inter party fighting that could tear the agreement apart and possibly force a general election, something no one is prepared for and would again through economic stability to the wind, or a minority government. What we need is stability and a steady hand on the tiller. At the moment I think that there is the correct amount of debate and discussion in parliament to affect change that has been thoroughly thought our.

My other worry is that Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson are being painted up to be the main villains of the piece along with the Murdoch's. I think Rupert Murdoch has shown good amount of humility and an understandable lack of culpability with the main issues, after all he claims not to have spoken to the News of the World editor on a more than a monthly basis, after all it made up less than 1% of his global empire.

However Coulson and Brooks are being painted as the key "bad guys" - The danger of this is, yes they as editors were responsible for the conduct of their staff and if they were unaware that certain practices were being carried out then they were clearly incompetent and had no idea how their organisation was being run. However I fear the public will continue to bey for their blood and once they have been prosecuted then they will lose interest. Much like the MP expenses scandal, some of the worst were charged, publicly shamed, lost their seats or removed from power but the lesser players got away with it as the Public lost interest. Worse yet they will shout miscarriage of justice if they are declared innocent whether they are or not.

My fear is that everyone will be concentrating on Brooks, Coulson and the Murdoch's and forget about the people who actually carried out the acts or allowed them to happen and will have satisfied themselves with just the big scalps much like the Nuremberg trials, the top people all rightly dealt with by justice but those who signed individual orders, or carried out acts of brutality slipped the net.

Another fear is that this will turn into a guilt by association like the July bomb plot of 1944. Just because you have had dinner with Mrs Brooks, or had meetings with Mr Murdoch over the years you must somehow be linked to the scandal and have your name and office smeared by the association. After all Sir Paul Stephenson has gone from the Met and he was a much better head then Sir Ian Blair, and now so has his deputy on the basis of an as yet unproved rumour and pressure is mounting on Cameron to resign just for association with the Murdoch press. Something Mr Miliband has avoided despite him having 11 meetings out of 32 with News international yet the PM is feeling all the heat and now George Osborne is taking the flak as well for 18 meetings during the election.

What needs to be done is a sensible, non frenzied investigation that takes in all the possible guilty parties and prosecutes everyone who is guilty. There should also be a further reaching investigation to see if other newspaper groups are responsible for similar acts and legislation drawn up so as to make sure it never happens again. Clear guidelines need to be put down as to what is and isn't acceptable for reporters and also the way politicians and Police interact with the media as well as stiff penalties for those who break them.