We are increasingly hearing the argument from our MPs that if you pay rubbish, you will get rubbish.
There are two problems with that argument. The first is that Nadira and Cameron yesterday left the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where the nurses and midwives are indeed paid rubbish, but were still absolutely brilliant.
They were motivated by something alien to so many of our MPs, a genuine care for people. They were also, for the most part, a standing rebuke to UKIP, BNP and others who knock immigrants and the role they play in our society.
The second and clinching argument is that our MPs have been looking after themselves extremely well, but they are for the most part of abysmal quality. (The same could be said of our top bankers).
In fact, the reverse of the argument is true. If you make it a gravy train, you get people who are primarily interested in gravy. Like Malik and Moran.
I was reminded forcibly on this when writing my recent post about Michael Foot. I noted that his biography of Byron, The Politics of Paradise, is one of my favourite books. He sat in a Parliament which contained scholars of the highest order. Enoch Powell, Robert Rhodes James, Roy Jenkins, Tony Crosland and Michael Foot are only some of the politicians of that generation who wrote books which retain academic authority. (Don’t choke. Powell was arguably the World’s leading authority on Herodotus).
In the current parliament I can only think of lowbrow effusions. Brown’s curious ghost-written monographs “On courage” are, I think, meant to point up his own courage in overcoming his (genuine) misfortunes. Michael Gove’s mad Melanie Phillips style anti-Islamic rants are astonishingly ill-researched and of no academic use except as a study in prejudice.
In fact for the vast majority of MP’s, it is hard to imagine them reading a book. let alone writing one.
Hear hear !
Is this not an indictment of the 50 years of left-wing ideals so prevalent in our educational system?
Educated and intellectual elites governing the nation went out of fashion I’m afraid, it becamse all about salt of the earth atttitudes and reading well with voters but not out loud.
Style not substance became the measure of an MP I’m afraid.
100% agreed GOM,
In 2004, I’d finished 6 months of ‘work placement’ at the local college; one of those schemes to get the unemployed back into work, so I was full-time and paid social security plus £10 per week.
The college was approximately 80% women and 20% men; with the latter being the old guys left over from the 70’s and 80’s.
The college was in the process of assessing all its staff for ‘numeracy and literacy’, since the Principal had twigged that the college would get government cash to process not only the volunteering public, but also the non-volunteering staff.
From my position in the library section which was in control of the ‘LearnDirect’ scheme which assessed everybody, I had access to all the files and ‘progress’ charts of all being put through these tests.
To blow my own trumpet first, I and a few other chaps, were the only members of staff to get full marks without requiring ‘tutoring’.
The line managerette, in charge of LearnDirect, couldn’t quite fathom what division was all about (she was on £26k), and required personal tutoring from the head of computing! (a bloke of course).
And the head of the Library (on £35k) was a big fat… wore comfortable shoes; she was so traumatized by the numeracy, that there were Down’s Syndrome kiddies scoring higher than her.
For our modern education system, it’s not what your academic nous is, it’s your political attitude that has come to the fore.
“It’s not what you do but the way that you do it.” (Bananarama)
The last politician to write with real academic authority is either Roy Jenkins or Conrad Russell; I can’t remember what order they died.
Craig
Nurses are better paid now than at any time since the NHS was creeated. I know, because I am married to one. The high level of care your wife received recently was a direct result of Labour policy in health, the very Labour Party that you despise so much. I call that hypocrisy. Your wife would probably be sent home if we had a BNP government. You are not a serious commentator when you make such stupid claims.
Vince Cable has written a pretty decent book on the financial crisis. At least I assume Cable wrote it.
But concur with the general sentiment, would be nice to have a few MPs with proper academic credentials.
Eddie, even if they are paid more now than before — does that take inflation into account? actually, it doesn’t matter — they are still not paid highly.
Craig’s point wasn’t that Labour pay nurses less (or more) than other parties; it was that nurses don’t get paid very much yet do an amazing job.
Also, your point about the BNP seems to be exactly the point that Craig made in his post.
*You* are not a serious commentator when you make such stupid claims.
The direct result of Labour policy in health was that when my father was in hospital, not only was making telephone calls too expensive, but mobile phones could not be used. New Labour have totally betrayed their socialist ideals and become a bunch of capitalist exploiters, just like the pigs in the last chapter of Animal Farm. Those who support them are idiots.
Eddie,
I am Rector of an institution that includes a teaching hospital and one of Scotland’s major nursing colleges (in Gordon Brown’s constituency).
Nurses are trained now to graduate level, yet start on about £20,000 pa for a job that is stressful, skilled and very very hard work.
At the Chelsea and Westminster they’ll be starting aroung £23,000. They’ll get about £1300 per month after tax and NI. Try living on that near Chelsea. And many have serious childcare expenses.
New Labour have improved things a little for nurses. Strangely, parties of the far right often have good social programmes.
Agree 100% with Abe Rene about the Patientline scam. Sir Alan Langlands was NHS chief exec who agreed the Patientline monopoly on patient telephone calls and television. He quit the NHS and immediately became – a Director of Patientline! Later unfortunately Prinicpal of Dundee University.
I know that Enoch Powell is favourite target of many, but he was a genuine academic and a true parliamentarian.
The youngest Professor of Greek in a British or Commonwealth university, as you pointed out, his Herodotus is still a masterwork. He also spoke Urdu fluently.
There was an occasion at Wolverhampton South when he was to give a speech and found that, against expectations, the hall was full of Indians and Pakistanis. So he scrapped the English version and delivered an impromptu translation in Urdu.
Some years after his “rivers of blood” speech he was asked in an interview whether he would change anything in retrospect: he said that he would have left the Aeneid quote in the original Latin in the text released to the Press (he’d translated the Virgil to be helpful).
There was a Beeb programme that was discussing parliamentarianism and they had cleverly set Powell opposite Michael Foot, I suppose hoping for fireworks. They spent the entire hour agreeing with one another.
George Galloway has written good books and is extremely well read.
Luke,
George writes good but rather folksy political books. (Not on insult, I put myself in the same category). He is indeed well read, and had the good judgement to call Murder in Samarkand the best book written this century. George is a very impressive auto-didact, but not really in the intellectual league I am regretting the absence of.
But Galloway joins the list with Mackinlay, Rifkind, Marshall Andrews, Bercow, Short, Cable, Hands and others who I think it is good are in Parliament. That’s not an exhaustive list, but there aren’t that many more.
Speaking of electing quality, the nominations for new Oxford professor of poetry, has exposed an interesting clash; after Walcott dropped out, due to anonymous smearing against his heterosexuality (the dirty swine), it is now a two horse race between a female woman and a minority non-female person.
Get the beers in, it’s going to be ‘rivers of blood’ all over… fight, fight, fight!!!
:))
Craig,
Thanks for informing NuLabour nitwit ‘eddie’ of a fact or two.
As you said…if you make politics a gravy train you mostly get people who are interested in gravy.
Ronald Raegan’s former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury published an article today along similar lines re US politicians. Here are Paul Craig Roberts’ first few paragraphs:
What do you suppose it is like to be elected president of the United States only to find that your power is restricted to the service of powerful interest groups?
A president who does a good job for the ruling interest groups is paid off with remunerative corporate directorships, outrageous speaking fees, and a lucrative book contract. If he is young when he assumes office, like Bill Clinton and Obama, it means a long life of luxurious leisure.
Fighting the special interests doesn’t pay and doesn’t succeed. On April 30 the primacy of special over public interests was demonstrated yet again. The Democrats’ bill to prevent 1.7 million mortgage foreclosures and, thus, preserve $300 billion in home equity by permitting homeowners to renegotiate their mortgages, was defeated in the Senate, despite the 60-vote majority of the Democrats. The banksters were able to defeat the bill 51 to 45.
These are the same financial gangsters whose unbridled greed and utter irresponsibility have wiped out half of Americans’ retirement savings, sent the economy into a deep hole, and threatened the US dollar’s reserve currency role. It is difficult to imagine an interest group with a more damaged reputation. Yet, a majority of “the people’s representatives” voted as the discredited banksters instructed.
Hundreds of billions of public dollars have gone to bail out the banksters, but when some Democrats tried to get the Senate to do a mite for homeowners, the US Senate stuck with the banks. The Senate’s motto is: “Hundreds of billions for the banksters, not a dime for homeowners.”
If Obama was naive about well-intentioned change before the vote, he no longer has this political handicap.
Democratic Majority Whip Dick Durbin acknowledged the voters’ defeat by the discredited banksters. The banks, Durbin said, “frankly own the place.”
This is the reality of the ‘gravy train’. Politicians being mere instruments of the big money agenda.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22611.htm
What does our NuLabour troll/friend Eddie think of Malik and the £60,000 trousered. That is just under three years’ salary for a graduate nurse as Craig says.
This article concerns Malik’s hypocrisy from 15 months ago.
http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=2
well put craig – I see even in this crisis they are angling for a big salary increase. It was the low pay that turned them into cheats!
Beckett – that ex Foreign Secretary to the right of Jack Straw as you know – on Question Time last night took the biscuit
“Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”
Don’t get me started on Alan Langlands …
Douglas Hurd isn’t too bad a writer and although not a politician, Stella Rimmington’s novels are riveting.
Time you started a book club Craig. 🙂
“Nurses are trained now to graduate level, yet start on about £20,000 pa for a job that is stressful, skilled and very very hard work.” Sorry Craig but you simply don’t know what you are talking about. Ten years ago nurses were cleaning and lifting. They do neither of those things now. Their jobs are significantly easier now than in the past and they get paid a lot more. You benefit from the improvements that Labour has brought to the health service yet you attack them. As I said, hypocrite.
Re: Galloway, I met him a couple of years ago as he spoke at a conference I had organised. I liked him a lot as a person, but politically I put him on a par with Oswald Mosley, Horatio Bottomley or Berlusconi. See this clip from Youtube for an example of his disgraceful “interviewing” technique. Wehn he loses an argument he resorts to abuse. If you lot can’t see that he is a crook then heaven help us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSmd99iuTPY
As for MPs expense, please don’t suggest this is a party political matter. They are all at it. The vast majority of MPs work long hours for modest pay. The defective expenses system has grown up over a period of many years and for many of them it has clouded their judgement of right and wrong.
KevinB – I won’t engage with racists.
It’s not as exciting as being an expert on Herodotus, but David Howarth is an expert in constitutional law and a fellow of a Cambridge College. I don’t know much else about him but he was able to use his academic knowledge and understanding in the campaign against the appalling Regulatory and Legislative Reform Bill.
Back in the 1970s, Patricia Hewitt wrote some useful handbooks on civil liberties and women’s rights which were indispensible aids for campaigning and everyday life. Unfortunately she was then sucked into New Labour.
Incidentally, I’m getting fed up with the minority of posters who think it’s funny to use demeaning language about women. Certainly attack women as well as men for incompetence, corruption, etc. – but why use the kind of insults that women who are out alone have to endure regularly from men (often drunk) who think it’s funny to abuse, assault and threaten women and girls? I don’t think there’s a comparable language to insult men because, although men may face abuse and violence, when they’re out alone they don’t routinely face shouted insults on their appearance, sexual performance, etc. or the threat of sexual assault and rape.
The RCN website states that the starting minimum salary of a nurse is £19,683. Evidently Craig does know what he is talking about. But the last laugh will come next general election night. I predict a slaughterhouse!
1- I am a Master of Science in computing
3- I have studied for almost thirty eight years.
4- I have worked hard, and harder than hard to keep still in the business that I have owned for the last twenty years.
2- I can barely earn enough to keep above the minimum wage for the hours that I work.
Therefore, as per the pontifications of the MPs and their sought after equivalence in commercial salaries, where is my fecking dues?
I have already gone on record about the selection process for the potential prospective parliamentary candidates, that results in cookie cutter politician production, which in turn results in the almost feudal attitudes of the political classes currently on display.
The fact that we are in a Marie Antoinette moment of concurrent history, in which Marie is personified as our “Honourable” Members of Parliament, and “cakes” have been replaced with; “all has been within the rules”, clearly, and manifestly indicative of the degrees of divergence between we the people, in our very real world, getting represented by the out of touch, barricaded, and inaccessible Make Believe Parliamentarians, in their phoney and unreal world of “parliament”.
This matter as yet not becoming the subject of any of the overpaid lickspittles in the “Media” whom have not the courage or willingness to stick their neck out, for the fear of losing their inordinately generous remuneration, as well as sad absence of any of the so called; “checks and balances” getting triggered into action, which leaves the field wide open to yet more bogaoboga of; Fascio is at the outskirts of town, and any minute now Duce will step in, if you don’t stop this nonsense, about transparency, decency, integrity, value for money, and above all liberty, egality, and justice!
Notwithstanding the above; and noting that human beings’ core programming mandates for these to; “improve upon”, hence it should not come as any surprise to find human beings to excel in any endeavour these undertake, including being; crap, greedy, useless, waste of space, and waste of resources, fields too.
Therefore, to find that the selection processes are set in place to filter out any real competition of idea, and or free competition between those willing to rise up and lead , with a view to extend the remit of the operation of the incumbent power lever attendants, and their ensured longevity in style, and course of events. In this outcome, due to the shortcomings of the said attendees and their stale and half baked notions of the realities, as well as skewed abstractions of the conventional theorems, mainly the notional adherence to Adam Smith school of economics, which when unstuck then is inverted (as per the said attendees standards) into a Keynesian intervention, which in any case is a an abysmal, and woefully inaccurate abstractions of the ; “real world”, which then is reflected in the transacted anomalies on the TV. ie the “real economy”, which is spoken about by a fake representative, who is enjoying their tenure in the lofty settings of he make believe world of parliament.
Therefore to debate the quality of those drawn into parliament is a moot point and an exercise in futility, the debate ought to be around who, how, where, and what, of the selectors, whom then proceed to select a member, who is almost invariably voted in by the electorate based on their selection of the parties and not policies, or the individuals whom are contesting in the elections, for the policies would be far too complex for the ordinary man to make head, or tail of any such things, and he/she ought not bother their cute little brains, and let the matters to be decided by those whom chuck around kaleidoscopes and such.
Finally, as the bankers have been buying counterfeit bonds, which then have passed these to we the people as sub-prime mortgages, the politicians have been acting within the rules, and as supreme Justice Jackson observes; whence a government adopts criminal conduct as standard, ultimately citizens of the said government will follow suit. Hence, the appointment of a dyscalculic librarian, and an illiterate examiner. Therefore, to sanguinely look back and then compare the present actors with those of the past, borders the equivalence of solitary vice (masturbation) in intellectual discourse, for there are copious pools of talent available to draw upon, but who makes the decision on that ought to be debated.
PS sorry for the long-windedness!
And here in my country India the prime misnters are made to be subserveint to teh business class by the anglosaxon controlled business interests and english corrupt media.
when the BJP govt of neaolieralism type was sounbdly defeated in 2004 the media immediately started saying that economic policy must remain the same-though it wasclear that e Indian public had given verdict aghasint so called glaoblization. but the media propaganda made sure that n UNELCTAED PERSON WHO ENTERED PARLAIMENT THROUGH BACK DOOR IS SELECTED AS PRIME MINSITER. THAT MAN MOHAN SINGH HAS BEEN AN AMERICAN AGENT DID HELP A LOT.
NOW WE KNOW HOW THE AGENDA OF THIS TRAITOR MANMOHAN SINGH HAS BEEN FOLLOWED TO THE LETTER THOUGH HE IS NOT A LEADER OF PARTY OR COUNTRY AOR OF MEN.
THE SaME WAY WGHILE THE CONGRESS HAD BEEN DEFEATED IN AN ELELCTION 10 YEARS AGO-THE BJP WHICH CAME ON PLATFORM OF ANTI GLAOBALIZATION HAD TO CHANGE TACK WITHIN 5 DAYS.
THE MEDIA SAID THAT FICANNCE MISNTER SHOUDL BE THE SAME PRO WEST PRO GLAOBALIZATION MAN,
THE iNDIA N PUBLIC HAS BEEN BOOTING OUT THWE GOVT AFTER TERM EXPIRES BECAUSE INDIA N PUBLIC DOE SNOT WANT SO CALLED LIBERALIZATION AND PRIATE CAPITALIST SSUYTEM BUT THE POLITICANS INT EH PAY PACKET OF BUSIENSS MEN AND MEDIA BEING PIMPS OF CAPITAL HAVE BEEN NULLYIFYING TH EELCTAION RESUTL FOR LAST 15 YEARS.
THIS SYSTEM WAS BROUTH TO iNDIA BY THE AMERICAN AGENT MANOHANS SINGH WHO BRIBED THE MPS TO KEEP THE NEAO LIBERAL AGENDA OF HIS UNCLELCTABLE GOVT. IN 1993 and 2008.
such people swear a lot by democracy aswell.!!
and what that has done to the indian elelction process is that it has made the result of Indian elelction as farce as of anty american or british elelction result. during 60s and 70s and even 80s the Indian masses used to celebrate elcetion time as a festival of choice -the poeple power to take account of the polictiicans -therefore there was a large turn out of people in voting. but having seen that even after toppling the govt. the new govt from oppositon is made to act just like previous one-looking after interest of beusiness class and corrupt traders-the Indian public is getting tired of voting and the voting tally is going down from 85% to 65 %. this is exactly what the corrupot business class want-the people to be depoliticised.
and that is the tactics the Indian corrupt busienssclass has imported from britian and usa.
7th october, 2008
even after the obvious faliure of free markeeters in america this americna gen manmonan singh ( a person who is not only unlelected but unelectable-he sttod for lower house of parliament but was throughly defeated by the elctorate-then he entered parliament through uppwer house-like house of lords from where he is not supposed to become prime minsiter at all-but law was circumvented for him) such is the democracy we are talking about) not been killed frhh treason but also not chastised
this manmhan singh is a charlaton whose theory fits with fit with Milton Friedman’s “greed is good” Chicago School mumbo jumbo. Both Friedman and Kemp believe that what is good for the stock market is good for America, ignoring the shocking economic polarization that has divided the nation. Now, more and more people are beginning to see that Friedman was a charlatan who provided ideological cover for obscenely rich financiers and their dodgy investment scams.
may 9th , 2007.
This ( rejected thrice by the public in general election) prime minister(installed at american behest) manmaohan singh is trying to enter parliament again through vack door-he filled nomination through assam with help of sonai gandhi congress(of whoioch he is not a leader or person of any singificance).
such is the democracy we live in.
i thought democracy meansd people electing the party and primeminister to be elected through that elelctable persons.
but as for american definigitn of democracy like in stooge s in afggansitana nd iraq we have an americana tooge who doe snot need to boyther wabout indian opinion because he has not been s-chosen by the indian people for the post but isntalled by a foreing country to make idnia run for foreing.es nbenefit.
and we are celebrating 150 yrs of what?
return of the company and corporate again?(not called ast or west india company this time but same nevertheless)..
the media now decries that the polling rate in india is rapdly going down that in india where the people have always been enthusiatic to vote. doe sit not occur to media that pepel are now refusing to rubber stamp the primeminsiter sna his cabinet when the people have already rejected such lots and still unelectable person gets chosen as prime minister of foren minister(jaswant singh) with no popular support anbut only because angloamerican agents in india want that to be. For several general elections the people have rejected the so called loiberalization and wasnhington consensus policy of govet. of india but each time new govt is elected the media astrats telling that economic and foreing policy msut not change even though people have overwhelmingly voted agasint that.
media brings irraneous cause for defeat of incumbent govt liek communalism and all russbih but never mentions that people have thrwon that american dictated policy.
tsuch is the genesisi of indian eelctorate disilluionment with voting -all due to corruption of media and jourtnalists along with the biusisness class of india(thse days traitor FICI is organising more conferences than the govt. of india for interministerial meetings!.
How india is being treacherously enslaved by angloamerican agents likes of (unelectable and defeated in democratic election ) this pm manmohan singh and the english media inside india.
a great misconception is that so caled liberalization and globalization was brought to india by this manmohan singh. In fact soon after victory in iraq war in febraury 1991 the bush no. first declared a new world order in which he explicitly said that he will open up the world for american business. In fact his trade seccratary immeditealy annomnuced that she will make sure that america open up the thighs of thrid world countries as a slwoly and surely to american business(true analogy to a rape)-that was given the name liberalization and globalization for which the british and americans had been working since 1986. What was left for america to do was install maleable stooges inside the thrirld world countries. escpeally those types who are unelctable and have no mass base of their own– in other words who are not elelctable democratically but installed from above through media and other manipulations.
this manmohan singh in india fulffiled that criteria of being unliked and unelctable insignificant person who was willing to act on arder of his american masters -if they had asked him to turn communist he would have done that.it isa sad refletion on india that since 1986 we have has only weaklings as our prime minsiters and fincnace minsiters not to speak of non mentionable defence misnters who made sure that indians nuclear and missle programme got stuck at 1986.
Rubin, Summers and Geithner are credited with managing the global economy through the turbulent nineties, including the Mexican, East Asian, Russian and Latin American financial crises. This narrative glosses over the role they played in forcing countries, particularly in Asia, to liberalize financial flows.
A New York Times account from February 1999 noted: “It was American officials who pushed for the financial liberalization that nurtured the speculation (even if developing nations themselves welcomed it). And it was American bankers and money managers who poured billions of dollars into those emerging markets. Then, when the crisis hit, American officials insisted on tough measures like budget cuts and high interest rates, which many economists argue made things worse.”
Summers and Rubin were the point men for liberalization, which led to the rise of oligarchic billionaires and financial panics that saw huge outflows of funds, currency devaluations, mass impoverishment and Western capital sweeping in to cherry-pick industries at fire-sale prices.
march, 2007
–this unelectable (and three times defeated in democratic elections ) so called prime minieter manmohan singh is a blot on the face of democratic india. he is there aonbly because the anglosaxon powers wanted him there instead of sonia gandhi(who wouldnot have been that maelelable to english speaking world-master race as this stooge manmohan is). this manmohan singh has been very unpopular in democratic election losing even when there was a wave in favour of congress. he has not even let pujab select his d=congress pqarty for assembley election in 2007 so mucn unpol;ular he is. but he is very popular amnost the anglosaxon media and govert. therefore he is popular amonst the english media and all the angloamerican stooges theat you find in any thirld world aka allwi,Ahmed Chalabi(of iraqi traitor fame) mubarak types.
manmohan singh is a yeltsin of india-very pouilar amonst enemies of india exactly because he has sold india cheap to thse amngloamericn interests.
now the idito indian elites are pro=jecting this imbecile manmohan singh as some intelecutal -whoever heard of e=an economist as a scintist or intellectual espceaccilly the economist who foolws voddo ecnomy of chaicago school?
even granted someone is educated what thse iditot elites of india are saying is that a geek with =zero personality and nil oratory power with no public fowwlloping should become a leader of 1.2billion people without being unecleted or despite losing elelction in genral elelctions. three times.
ofcourse with no personality and a rote knowledge of chicago peudo-economics this y and primeministreship.
this fellow has made indian air force virtually a camel air force.manmohan singh is responsible for tracherous indo nuclear pact and for dragging his feet over delay procumrent to indian air force jsut to please his real masters the angloamerican interests.
Quite right Craig. MPs are not paid too little but too much. Serving your community by contributing to the governing of the country should be an unpleasant but unavoidable duty; rather like doing jury service.
MPs (a much smaller number) could be selected by a lottery process, given reasonably generous bed and board and their dependants provided for but paid nothing themselves for a year while they served their fellows.
May That is stupid. Do you know anything about local government? The quality of councillors has declined markedly over the past 25 years as powers have been taken to the centre. Jurors represent all sectors of society from the bright to the very dim. Most MPs could be earning five times what they earn in Parliament. The system of pay needs to be reformed. If you pay peanuts etc… that is the sad truth. We get the quality of politicans that we deserve, and it’s no use whingeing from the sidelines, if you feel strongly about it then get involved.
Posted by: eddie at May 15, 2009 8:45 PM
/////Most MPs could be earning five times what they earn in Parliament////
Come again?
These mediocre “yes men” would be at the best scenario donning a hat on and asking pertinent questions; “do you want French fries with that?”
Fact that these mediocre operators are in demand is their proximity to the “seats” of power, and no more.
Your contention to pay the MPs huge amounts of money is to insure their loyalty and make sure they will not rock the boat, seeing as stake holders are hardly likely to cause any ripples.
Furthermore, your pontifications about the local councillors, give me a break, the electoral shambles passed as local elections is the envy of any wannabe tinpot dictator of a banana republic.
Fact that these have been allowed to remain with little interference, is an attempt in buying the loyalties of the “local” movers and shakers, fully in the knowledge that if all the councils were to be abolished tomorrow, there will be no difference, and in fact local services may start operating more efficiently.
After the Tory years of undermining the sphere of influence of the local authorities to counteract the reluctance to the criminal policies of the said Tories, a tradition that neo labour has carried on to date, which has resulted in outsourcing of all manner of services to the private sector, including the lighting and lampposts in the streets, there is little these local authorities are in charge of, yet the numbers of councillors drawing their thirteen thousand pounds fixed salaries which is then supplemented with fact finding missions in various exotic destinations around the world, as well as good will of those caught up in the bureaucratic hold of the local by-laws etc. ie good will retainers, and stipends (never any bribes we are British FFS), less said about the cabinet posts and their huge salaries, an fringe benefits.
Your contentions are as phony as the rules set in place for expenses, to aid the relevant snouts in the trough from getting chaffed, by any unjustified interference of the police, or any other busy body enforcement organs!
As for your disingenuous; “why don’t you get involved?” wreaks of glibness, bordering cocking a snook for you fine well know that unless there is a good insider connection and or very good referees high up in the closed shop hierarchy, picking up tennis, or jugging as hobby is a far more practical involvement.
It’s English but not as we know it. Babble. Go back to school son.
correction-i meant 2004 general election in India.
fact is that the indian electorate mostly cosistning of average and poor people-and counting 640 millions-have consistently refused to endorse those parties or groups who have not performed well-therefore rejecting the party ion the elction(ubnlike in us ana dbriitan where one party can go on for 20 years!). indian general public is much wiser than what you find in uk and usa about electiuon but the tragediy is that despite there not having only two party system0-the busines class with money and isnitagation from uk and usa has hijacked the agenda of all parties except commiunists who soley are the nationalists in India.
therefore though the public reject the ruling party soon after elction the same vultures from british and american embassies and their agents in India are out in nu,ber to create a govt which has the same agenda as pervious one.
so the Indian public is trapped byt his trator indian middle class and their instagators from abraod ( read anglosaxons).
25 October 2007
Life after Westminster ?” what MPs do after leaving office
“There’s nothing so ex- as an ex-MP”, it is often said.
In a major study, a team at the University of Leeds sought to find out whether this is true by asking more than 180 former MPs about aspects of their post-Parliamentary life including how difficult it is to find a job, the support they receive from their political party and how it feels to lose their seat.
The study found some former MPs struggled to find work and many earned less after leaving the House of Commons. Around half of those who did not retire voluntarily from the Commons said it had taken three to six months to find a new job. Just one fifth said they were able to find work immediately or almost immediately. One in seven took over a year to find employment.
http://reporter.leeds.ac.uk/press_releases/current/westminster.htm