Alan Hansen gets 10K for every MOTD appearance. Wayne Rooney gets over 200K a week and pays 2% tax on it. For every story about tube drivers, car workers, teachers, I have a hundred about celebrity **** stains getting phenomenal money.
The reason I brought up about Afghanistan was to highlight the way in which we are lied to. Did you know GB no longer has an army. There have been so many redundancies that per head of population we don't have enough soldiers to be classified as anything other than a HomeDefence Force. Yeah, Dads Army. We send our boys out to Afghanistan and we are told they are the best and supported superbly. Lies. My son is a Sergeant in the Coldstream Guards. He was leading his section in the famous Green Zone when they were caught in the open. Some of the younger lads froze and he had to organise them all while they were being shot at and mortared. The machine gunner froze and my son had to take over or they were in deep joy. He managed to kill enough Taleban that they buggered off. When they got back to the ****e hole called a forward operating base, he got a bollocking because he'd used to much ammunition! Money matters more than lives. Yet the politicians are telling us they are so proud of them and are looking after them. In fact they are reducing their pensions, yes reducing them, and taking away the bonuses they get after length of service. That's fine but don't lie about how well our armed forces are being looked after. And that's any politician not just that smarmy git Cameron and his lackey Clegg.
The tanker drivers earn a similar salary evidently £45K, most of our boys in Afghanistan earn just over half that. The tanker drivers claim they should be paid more because of the dangers involved transporting fuel around the country. Now you tell me what's more ****ing dangerous, driving that tanker with all safety precautions in place or putting your life on the line in the desert. I say, pull our troops out of Afghanistan and let someone else sort the buggers out and give our returning heroes £45K to drive those bloody tankers and tell the militant bastards holding the country to ransom to go and do one! Rant over
Just been looking at current rates for tanker drivers. Looking at a few sites, it seems to be between £8 and £16 per hour. Even at the highest rate, it equates to just over £33k pa for a 40 hour week. There are people with cushier jobs earning far more than that.
Its not just money with the tanker drivers. The companies are sub contracting some of the driving, which is all about money and not safety. I actually don't think 45K would be a lot for driving a missile. The boys in Afghanistan would obviously appreciate more money but that's not the answer, they aren't going to get it. They want proper rules of contact, decent back up, proper equipment and better living quarters. The Yanks treat their boys as heroes after their poor treatment of the Vietnam vets. Ours get George Galloway telling them they are murderers.
Its not as admirable as you like to make out! His basic pay is £45K Plus he will get an added bonus just for doing his job during the Olympics. Most workers in the private sector (the ones that actually create the wealth to pay taxes) haven't had pay rises for the last 3 years! So forgive me if I am sick to death of the Teachers, Council Employees, Civil Servants et al whinging on about their decrease in pensions and 2 year salary freezes! Thanks to successive Governments my own private pension is now worth next to nothing and all I have to look forward to is working til I drop. The majority of Public Sector workers have had it far too good for far too long thanks to Labour creating a dependent 'client state'. Its about time we recognise that the public sector is out of control and needs to be brought back to economic reality in line with the rest of us!
Totally agree the Public Sector needs to face reality, that they have accept cuts when Government spending is cut. And you can't expect somebody to subsidise your pension when they can't afford one themselves. But I think Teachers get a rough press at times. Most parents look upon them as baby sitters, do fcuk all to help teachers in the evenings by reading, assisting or encouraging their own children. They turn up to a yearly PTA meeting and moan that little Johnny is crap at spelling when they never check themselves. And to blame Labour is an assumption because most public sector workers come under the auspices of councils of which most are not Labour controlled. The welfare state began in these islands under a Liberal Govt and in fact the Labour Party were the last of the Big 3 to endorse it. Labour brought in the National Health act of course. In fact 13 member states of the EU spend more on Welfare than the UK but only nine have a bigger GDP.
I didn't say it wasn't good money, I was trying to point out that figures quoted can be exaggerated. There's a lot of difference between £33k and £45k. As for the skill involved. Probably not a lot. All you've got to do is drive a 50ft vehicle filled with a flammable liquid, through cities and motorways crammed with traffic, in such a way that said liquid doesn't start sloshing from side to side making the vehicle unstable possibly causing it to tip over. Then you have to go to Petrol stations and connect to and fill the tanks making sure you don't turn yourself and the surrounding area into an inferno. Yeah, no skill involved at all.
I'd say a lot of that was probably more luck than judgement....seeing first hand how some of them drive.
Great topic, I could go on all day but I don't have time right now, ill be back... Sent from HTC Sensation XE
Far more than an NCFC footballer on 15K a week. Or a BBC radio presenter on 38 weeks a year for a 3 hour day. We are quite prepared to think that if you are unimportant and ask for something more, like Oliver Twist, you are a loser. We pay our Prime Minister 142K a year to run the country yet think Grant Holts a hero for running around for a couple of hours on 750K.
aah the national anthem..i never understood when i faced taunts such as...'theres no black in the union jack' im still to see blue and red people in GB.
|Just been watching the golf. Reminded me that my pet hate is a Yank who makes me look slim yelling in the hole every time an American drives on a par 5. I used to be charitable and think they were taking the p*ss. Now I realise they are morons.
And Lo the teachers unions have voted for yet more action. Will they protest for one day in their 13 weeks of holiday? No. Will they take another day in their 39 week year off causing disruption to anyone with kids? Of course. What are they complaining about? More money (poor loves now having a two year freeze, most of us have had this and can expect little better to come), more pensions (currently have better pensions than 95% of the working population putting less in and getting more out and yes they get less than bankers and policiticans but I don't expect we have many of these on our board). I am married to a teacher who works pretty hard but still gets a half day a week for marking/planning, has a treaching assistant and only has 6 hours actual teaching a day. Don't get me wrong I still wouldn't fancy it myself but I can't help but get annoyed by that professions constant resistance to change and whining about how difficult things are for them. I know that parents need to take more responsibility but teachers need to understand that in the grand scheme of things they have it pretty good. The only explanation I can think of is they have too much free time.......
