I don't think anyone could ever say that I thought our media let alone the BBC were a propaganda tool for the "rulers of our country."
I'm just watching This week and it amazes me (worries maybe) how much Portillo's opinion mirrors mine. He agrees with me r.e. Corbyn's speech on "A" common market. I hope he is right r.e Labour rebels making up for Tory rebels in the vote. He is right it will be very very close.
Oh dear, Liz Kendall doesn't understand much. Just repeating soundbites about the Norway option and called out on it. I have to put customs labels on sales to Norway Liz!!!
They earn very modest salaries for the responsibilities they have, and if we want talented, well qualified people to represent us we need to pay them well. 1.8% is well below any measure of inflation btw. Incidentally, it's not politicians who routinely rob and exploit us, it's bankers, Newspaper owners, and CEOs of tax dodging corporations. If we want politicians who act in the public interest, rather than in the interests of the rich and powerful, we need to reward said politicians adequately.
Absolutely right. Their salaries should be equivalent to a top-ranking professional person, such as a surgeon or a barrister. They should also be barred from having any other jobs while they are an MP.
Key point. Or indeed for some time after being a Member. The point is MPs, apart from a few souls near to my heart, have other income sources which mainly depend on them, err, being MPs. Offer to pay 'em £200,000 a year but no outside stuff, watch them run. Over the last 7yrs they've had an average rise of over 2% a year, 15.6% in total. My wife (a nurse) 5.8%.
Agree entirely. When I said “job” I should have added company directorships, consultancies, etc., and stocks and shares or other private income which could be affected by government policy changes. And I’m with you on the disparity with other public sector pay, having worked in the NHS for 38 years. In the last few years before I retired, my pension contributions went up more than my salary did!
Something I wish they'd bring up when reporting about the wonderful pensions "given" to Public Sector workers. No one denies they are proportionally often more generous, but it ignores the higher rate of contributions. Outside of PS where there is more choice about contributions people have not realised 3-4% will not give then a decent retirement pot. Most NHS contributions are more than double that for example.
So, right wing populists get the lions share in the Italy election. If this carries on every country will have trumps in charge imposing trump style trade tariffs on eachother. That will help get the world's economy back on track.
After 21 years at Royal Mail, I get a decent pension out of them, but in my opinion I earned every penny of it; it really winds me up when the right wing press castigate public sector pensions. That pension was one upside of working for what, before Vince Cable flogged it off, was a public service (well done Vince, because of you I will never vote Liberal). Job security and a final salary pension scheme compensated for the knowledge that I could have earned a lot more doing an equivalent job in the private sector. Another thing that grinds my gears is the myth that publicly owned industries are by definition less efficient and provide a poorer service than the private equivalent. I know from experience working in both sectors that this is simply nonsense.
It was defeated in 1945 Imps, but unfortunately it refuses to die. Populism and reactionary politics, however, is always on the wrong side of history.
Stalin wasn’t elected. And I know Hitler didn’t win a general election, but he successfully manipulated the democratic process in Germany to remove opposition. Stalin didn’t, he just had them shot.
And? You don't have to win an election or be involved in a democratic process to be a populist. Communists are populist pretty much by definition.
Ah the old "The USSR wasn't real communism" argument. A classic. Mao's China wasn't communist either. Nor were any of the other "communist" states where millions died. How convenient.
