Mad Frankie Swings the Axe
Hot off the podium:
“…the support they get from the taxpayer has got way out of hand. Just in the Civil Service alone this so-called facility time is costing no less than £30 million a year. Can you believe that there are around 150 civil servants who are actually full time trade union officials, all on the public payroll? We can’t go on like this. That’s why I’m announcing today that we’re consulting on limiting the time civil servants can spend on trade union work, and on ending the employment of full time union officials at the taxpayer’s expense.”
Guido will be buying the champagne later…
And have a FAT cigar!
Well done.
What about Osborne’s speech? Now he wants to guarantee business loans or wants government to give business the loan.
“…we’re consulting on limiting the time civil servants can spend on trade union work,…”
Doesn’t say anything about ‘scrapping’ the practice – the term ‘Long Grass’ comes to mind…
No money will be saved as £30 mill will have been spent on consultancy fees
Actually, more than £30 million will probably end up being spent on schmoozing the Tories’ business donors, giving them PFI contracts and other activities designed to put money into the Tories’ bosom buddies.
I’m dead against paying union reps out of public money, but equally, I despise the notion of taking money from one shower of shits and giving it to another.
Polly says someone called her a ‘Tory Hunt’ as she had a conference badge.
Formally, the policy is called “credit easing”. In effect, HM Government is going to lend money directly to companies, buying bonds. Details are still scant, but the questions that arise from this are numerous.
How will the State decide which companies are a good risk, and which should be denied loans? And if they are safe bets for loans, why aren’t private lenders already lending to them? Will this leave the State lending only to weaker companies, with all the financial risks that implies? What rates will the State ask for its lending? Will it undercut commercial lenders?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/8768102/Conservative-Party-Conference-2011-live.html
Staff from the bank formerly known as northern rock will do the deciding.
Was suggested on WATO by a gummint spokesman that this would be done through the banks. The banks are closest to small businesses, so can differentiate between fair and poor credit risks, and it overcomes the problem of banks using revenue to rebuild their capital reserves and thus having less available to lend.
All a bit sketchy at the moment, and small businesses using bonds as a way to raise capital hasn’t been tried before in the UK, so how it might work out is somewhat less than clear.
It’s an idea that might be worth a try. Better than more public borrowing and spending, anyway.
So you become a small businessman’s overdraft facility.
Tell you what, you need to get some banking expertise to package all sorts of loans like that together. good ones. bad ones. then you could sell them on. That would really get things booming. (just in case anyone hasn’t twigged I’m on about the US subprime thing … right?)
Quite – the thought had occurred. It was mentioned on WATO that this would have to be cleared by the BoE, which rather suggests that it’s more bright idea than thought-through policy with all the loose ends tied up. Some stringent regulation might be in order, like a total ban on reselling of packaged debts, or some such.
What interest rate would you want, to hand over 10 grand to a local small business?
Actually, sp#4, the repackaging already occurs in Spain and has been quite successful. There is a set of conditions for government guaranteed loans to small businesses. The bank lends the SME (<€5m annual turnover) the money, if the company goes tits the bank get refunded by the government. Spain has given €1-€1.5bn a year in g'tees for the last ten years. You could argue that they're in a state now, but the principal still applies. The amount actually drawn against the guarantees has been small, and the securitisations of the SME loans (called FTPYME in Spain) have for the most part performed reasonably.
Oh fuck. That’s going to work. Not.
In answer to your question “how will the state decide which companies are a good risk and which should be denied loans” I can exclusively reveal that they will utilise the talents of MR Ed Milliband who apparently has devised a system which identifies good companies from bad.
My question is: why does the Government have to go through all this rigmarole after we – that is you and I – bailed out the banks? In other words, why aren’t the banks lending? Has the Government changed the capitalisation regs? What’s stopping the Government issuing an edict saying “O.K. Start lending!” Just askin’, like, man!
Huh. The bastards love politicking – it’s their hobby – so they’ll out-game him unless there is an outright ban.
The total annual cost of employing civil servants is approximately £13 billion.
(£ 13,000,000,000)
Saving of £30,000,0000 still leaves 12,970,000,000 ie only a saving of 0.023%
To put it into context it would be the loss of approximately 0.3 of one gramme from a 21 stone person.
The public sector need to get on a serious diet
There are about 6,000,000 people on the public payroll (up from about 5,000,000) in 1997).
If the total cost of employing civil servants is £13bn, and there are 6 million of ‘em, the average annual salary of a civil servant is £2,166.
Suspect there may be something adrift with the stats, somewhere.
That is at least 5,000,000 too many…
Plus there are about 2m more employed by fake charities and fake businesses wholly dependent on taxpayers. That’s 8m.
Of these about 2.5m are doing something vaguely useful – military, police, medics, paid informers (aka teachers) etc etc. Give them another 1m to provide admin support and then explain to me just what the remaining 4.5m are doing, exactly. Fuck all seems to be the consenus. And even then medics and teachers need not be on the State payroll at all. They can be funded by transfer payments in the form of vouchers to sick people and students to spend as they think needful on the merit goods of health and eddikayshun.
The really sad bit is that these 4.5m + bods were conned into these pointless jobs by New Labour. It’d be handy to send NL the bill for the dole they’ll need to claim whilst looking for proper more rewarding wealth creating work in private business.
ENGINEER I WAS TALKING ABOUT THE CIVIL SERVICE NOT THE PUBLIC SECTOR YOU FUCKWITT – ARE YOU ON THE PUBLIC PAYROLL? IF NOT YOU SHOULD BE WITH THOSE SHIT FOR BRAINS
we need a fat cun*t in charge of local government
I wouldn’t let you anywhere near my fat cigar, bitch.
Sorry Guido but i thought i would leave this quote:
“I love it when a plan comes together”
and another 150 bite the dust… !!
I want to see Labour defend this…
I’m all right Jack!
Labour dance to the union tune. They’ve elected a puppet in the puny Miliband.
So will they be taking more sickies?
But on the other hand……….
Osborne’s tackling unemployment by make it easier for companies to sack their workers.Is there no sense of irony left on the right?
“consulting on limiting” smells like a rat. Let’s just see if they have what it takes to face down the squawking.
Well, if it’s anything like the EU referendum I aint holding me breath.
+100
Absolutely; “consulting” is Tory/LibDem weasel words for kicking it into the long grass. Just like they have done with the Human Rights Act.
THey’ll consult and then say: OK, we’ll give you unpaid time off. How about that, eh?”
That is fine. At least the Tax Payer isn’t footing the bill. When the Union time is coming out of their own pocket, they won’t quick to go to the Union’s beck and call.
Maybe the Union will make up the difference? Fat chance!
Indeed Anti-Fabian. An overly optimistic caption there I fear.
“We’re consulting on limiting the time civil servants can spend on trade union work”
The word “limiting” doesn’t remotely amount to “scrapped” in any vocabulary.
“ending the employment of Lord Ashcroft at the taxpayer’s expense.”
Hear Hear
Would that be the self made, job creating entrepeuner Lord Ashcroft
the saviour of Watford FC, the person who was heavily involved in crimestoppers?
That Lord Ashcroft?
the wanker that doesnt pay any tax. That lord Ashcroft?
He pays tax, just not in the UK.
He pays tax in the UK as well, on his UK income and capital gains.
Careful. Do oyu work for the Gruniad, or BBC? Glass houses. Stones.
I am sure he abides by the law unlike Rangers football club that owe HMRC 40-45 million pound that has built up over ten years.
whats good enough for GMG is god enough for ashcroft
Income tax should be illegal, as should employment tax including the National Insurance fraud. Taxing employment is economic illiteracy defined.
Did anyone see or hear that speech? We didn’t
I want my free Wagamama staff safaris you rotten right wingers!
Magic , make the bloody unions pay for all time spent on union matters, if not make these tossers do the job they are employed to do
Fuck em
Sounds awfully right wing.
I am in total agreement, this is undemocratic and would never be allowed to happen in Russia. Boaz.
More girls waiting for you next time you come over. Well done.
If conservatives were patriotic they would allow their party to wither and die so that it could be replaced by something decent.
If socialists were patriotic they would allow their party to wither and die so that it could be replaced by something decent.
Fixed it for ya
They have already Billy
‘Wither and Die’ – just like Labour
This is pure spite. Give me one good reason why I should not piss around at the taxpayers expense.
OK. The taxpayers are pissed off with it and refuse to fund it.
That good enough?
Note to all news editors:
This story should be presented as the sacking of hard-working nurses, teachers and civil servants.
Line ‘em up, Guido
How many Pilgrims Troll about on sites like this?
And this from a man who was quite happy to fleece the taxpayer for a second home allowance for a property three doors down from his first.
What a hypocritical sanctimonious gobshite!
Nearly as bad as the last lot of hypocritical, santimonious gobshites.
So that makes two lots of hypocritical sanctimonious gobshites.
Which lot did you vote for?
The current lot, on the grounds that they were a less bad option than the last lot.
What limited aspirations you do have. In your world one set of thieves is worth supporting over another.
But, what’s the bloody choice? We are voting for a self serving political class (with a few honourable exceptions I concede) whatever we fucking do…
OK, smartarse. What’s the better available option?
Pointless whinging on a blog or moving to bulgaria apparently.
I’ll stick with the first meself.
(Sorry lola – not aimed at you!)
Answer came there none, which tells you all you need to know.
Depends what the Union bods are doing. Time spent supporting members with genuine employment-related problems, probably OK; time spent on political activity or Union administration, not OK. It’s a moot point whether the first should be remunerated from Union funds with unpaid time off allowed by the employer, or whether there is a reasonable case to make it paid facility time. Maybe depends on the amount – a day a week might be acceptable, full time is somewhat harder to justify.
This won’t suddenly end all employer funding of Pilgrims, but it might make it harder for Union activists to take the mickey.
Chickenfeed.
What about DFID & the EU? Expenditure with no benefit to the taxpayer.
Anyone heard any mention of these stalwart Conservative principles at conference?:
* Small state
* Low taxes
* Government out of the economy
No benefit to the tax payer….really wow I guess your education is stuck to ‘in the good old days…’ large parts of the British agricultural sector only survive due to EU subsidies, and those stalwart conservative values are so old that they were created when the no one could even imagine what driver for change capitalism is. I fear you sound like somebody from the Tea Party
We give the EU £16bn every year. They waste most of it on pointless bureaucracy, the pockets of corrupt cronies and improving our competitors, such as paying twinnings to switch production from the UK to Poland. They give a bit back to our farmers and you call that a result? Are you a self-loathing leftie c*nt or a f*ckwit? Probably both.
And to rub salt into the wound the Geordie workers had to train their replacements. I for one will never sup their rancid brew.
“large parts of the British agricultural sector only survive due to EU subsidies,”
Hahaha. And where does the EU get the money from in the first place?
Its you that needs educating.
I want to give more money to our brothers and sisters in Pack his Stan.
They love us and are so grateful
The % time spent on Union work should result in an equivalent % reduction in salary. Bugger paying people not to do their job.
That`s the end of the Police Federation chairmans` jobs, nationally and in every police force then. That will teach them to get involved in politics in future.
There was a rich tory called Maude,
Whose speech he thought all would applaud.
But his wonderful plan
Went straight down the pan,
When the conference said,
Fuck off, we’re bored.
Watching the party conference?
What sad empty lives some people lead.
Posting on Order-Order?
What sad empty lives some people lead.
see above
At least this audience is alive.
?
How dare you make me work a real job! …. I’m Striking!
Good. Do us a favour and make it permanent, eh?
1. Rob the Brits.
2. Give it to the EU.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!
You could always try walking the streets around east london of an evening Ms Pilgrim.
Some of our Somalia, Kenyan, Romanian, Nigerian & Bulgarian visitors might find you of interest if you are willing to receive buggery, sans rubber of course
Another vicious Tory plot is mounted aganist a proud member of a trade Union….hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Back of the NET, Pilgrim
Well hell, you’re fucked Pilgrim
….. only with a bag over her head and one to be sick in afterwards.
Scrapped and pigs were seen flying around Manchester Conservative conference, jelly has more backbone than this gang of munters, usual wait until the cry dies down and it will be forgotten
As is the way of British politics, they’ll be out on their arses in 2015, or when the dogshooters implode.
Which will come sooner?
If the Labour vermin get back in to begin another borrowing binge, how many of these worthless Union parasites will get re-employed?
Hhahahahahahaha larfin at Labourites
I suggest a cap on the amount that Government Departments, Quangos, Local Authorities, Health Authorities, Education Authorities and Police Authorities can spend on staffing costs, benefits and pensions. That way, to improve say pensions, an authority will have to cut its number of staff. At some level, an inability to achieve this will lead to dismissal of those leading it (without compensation) and installation of new management who would have to weed out the waste or suffer the same fate.
Alas no, Schroed. What will happen – as it always does (Think NYC in the early eighties), is that the upper echelons will fire those on the sharp end and they’ll remain in situ. MoD seems to be a prime example!
I have followed this campaign since it started. The outcome is a huge step forward and hats off to GF and all those involved.
However, let’s hope there’s no watering down of the original concept that the costs of unions organising at the work place should be theirs and theirs alone.
This original situation probably developed over many years as weak and ineffective management allowed ‘custom & practice’ to get them off the hook for letting it happen in the first place. This time no half-measures, no cosy deals. Let the unions pay with union funds and we’ll see how long the sponging bastards last.
O, these Tories, how they love consulting
Talking things up and sod all resulting
So, more beer and sandwiches for Number Ten
Then, business as usual, brothers. Again
there are only two things that you need to know about maude:
1. he’s a cun*t
2. he’s thick as pigshit
Wish I had some policies last week.
All we came up with that tother kid with an iPad.
I blame Sue.
“limiting the time civil servants can spend on trade union activities”? Does that really mean anything? Is it just a sound bite for the conference?
Great news & not before time. What about freeing up Council Homes to anyone earning over £80k pa…starting with Bob (Charming) Crow!
Mr Maude, there is no need for consultation. Just stop the practise forthwith. Unions must stand or fall by their own efforts, and not with any of my money.
Maude’s approach is the wrong one; it simply won’t work to ban full-time union reps on public money, and here’s why….
You ban, say, a school, from employing a full-time union rep at public expense. The school will simply employ 5 part-time reps instead to get around the rules (eg they’ll grab 5 of their existing teachers, and allow them to spend 1 day a week each on union activities, then they’ll employ an extra teacher to make up for the time they’ve lost from those existing teachers now being part time reps). Having 5 part-time reps will be more costly to the tax payer than employing 1 full time rep.
The only solution that would work would be a blanket ban not just on full-time union reps being paid with public money, but to ban ALL publicly-funded union time/activity.
ie you have to say:
“nobody who works in the public sector is allowed to spend a single minute of their working time on union duties. If they want to do union duties then they must do it outside their working hours on their own time, or the union should fund an employee out of their own pocket.”
Maude’s solution will actually make things worse and cost the tax payer more money. I applaud his instinct, but his logic is fatally flawed; he needs to have a 100% ban on all publicly funded union time as that’s the only way it’d work.
All union work should be carried out in the in their own time, reimbursed by the union. There is no way that a full time employee working (sic) in the public sector should expect to be payed by the taxpayer. Lets kill this nonsense once and for all.
In 2009, using the Freedom of Information act, I found the North East Labour MEP had an office inside Durham County Council’s County Hall and was paying a peppercorn rent (started at £1,000 per annum around 1991, rising to £1,642 in 2009).
After much deliberation Durham County Council stated it was to review the leases on all such office space. The Labour MEP had his office size halved (not sure why) and his rent went to around £4500. So he ought to have been paying around £10,000 previously…over 18 years I might add. He was getting away with at least £9,000 each year for 18 years and not a peep. He employs his wife as his Head of Staff, using a different surname, despite her being a prominent local councillor using her married name!
This all made the Westminster japes look like tuck shop stuff, but alas nothing said, the media won’t run with it beyond suggesting this is but a few swivel-headed anti-EU picking on a defenceless elected representative…
To make matters worse, I now find that despite assurances that all leases would be assessed, 4 offices are leased to unions at no cost to the unions – with the Labour MEP being a big union man too.
It all smells pretty bad to me, with the irony that the same MEP is stating how printing money and increasing taxes will save the eurozone in a full page article in a North East regional paper today. He wasn’t even willing to pay his fair share, but is asking us to pay even more!
The problem is that if you stuck a red rosette on a fucking slug it would still get elected in the North East.
I thought that is what they were doing already!
The good citizens of hartleppol once mistook a monkey for a Frenchman. What is less well known is when they caught it they sent it to represent them in Parliament and have maintained the tradtion till this day.
What is all of this “consultation ” business ? stop it NOW ! and lending money to busineses covered by the tax payers, forget it ,we are already over taxed over governed by a dictatorship. To get out of this mess lower taxes and get out of the EU, NOW, “You know it makes sense”
What level of carbon emissions would be generated from using all the pilgrims as fuel for coal fired power stations? If the levy on it is less than 30 million that could be quite a clean solution….
Ex Head of a Fraud Squad suggests -
Entry 109 reminds me that you’re probably all too young to remember the Poulson Affair. But nothing changes. Give yourself an education. Seek out ‘Web of Deceit’ by the Sunday Times Insight Team.
Is it obligatory to give part time union officials paid time for union work?
If it is, it may be more efficient to have one full time than 6 spending 20% on the same .
Indeed (as per my post 100), it’s a case of all-or-nothing; either keep things as-is, or make it illegal for public servants to spend any of their paid time on union activities.
A half-way house where you make it illegal for public servants to work full time as union reps but where you still allow them to spend some of their paid time on union activities will cost more money than the current situation because of precisely the point that you raise.
In fact I wrote to my MP about Pilgrims, and he replied making the same point; banning Pilgrims will cost more money than keeping them unless you changed the law to ban all union activity by all public servants during their paid working hours, and you can’t ban your employees from doing any union activity during working-time because then you’d be up in the EU courts.
The only solution is:
1) Ban all public servants (and private sector workers for that matter) from performing any union duties/activities during their paid working time; let them do it in their own time, or let them employ union workers at the union’s own expense.
then:
2) Tell the EU to fuck off.
I think it’s perfectly reasonable for ALL union activity, whether in the public sector or the private sector, to be carried out outside paid/working time or to be financed completely by the union. But there’s no way the tories are going to go for an all-out ban; they simply don’t have the balls/guts.
So, you’ll get a “we saved the tax payer £250 million” headline when they ban the full-time pilgrims, but in reality you’ll save that £250 million and then we’ll be paying £400 million so that the public sector departments all employ 5 part-time reps each instead of 1 full time rep.
Not sure why Fawkes hasn’t spotted the gaping hole in his logic on this one; I saw it, and my MP saw it before it even got in the mainstream media.
Jane Pilgrim may no longer be a full-time rep, and she might be doing some real nursing now, but you can bet your arse that she’s still doing some union work on her paid time, and that they’ll simply be employing another nurse in the same way to make up for the lost union-time; a full-timer-union-worker ban WILL cost more than keeping the status quo unless they ban ALL union work on public money/time.
Hi Any – sorry – missed your post!
Dunno exactly what the law is. There might be an emotional value of not having people as full time union reps – esp. if you give the part timers plenty of real work, people less likely to interrupt them with moans, and they don’t plot things when between problems?
21yrs I paid for protection money trades union ,what did I get back Fuck ALL,where did my money go!
Remember that picture of Bob Crow picking his nose while on holiday in the Caribbean?
He sends his thanks.
Sometimes comments appear on my screen in illegible white on cream background, which I have to highlight to read.
Anyone else get tihs? Or know why?