Plymouth goes Socialist then. No big surprise given the effort they put in here, justified worries about defence spending and Tories like me who have withdrawn their support while the Brexit catastrophe goes on. Corbyn is coming here as one of the few councils they've won. I'll get my gun..... Sent from my mobile phone - E&OE
He's probably got a Palestinian minder.....be careful. Not counting results here until this morning....with results trickling through after mid-day....it's not going to change by one jot here....total stagnation....the affluent areas get more affluent and the poor areas get poorer....that's life in a strong Tory area.
Aha, to assume makes an ass out of you and me, I do actually work in the public sector. I'm not talking about the secretaries and the administrators and the people like that, I'm talking about self-serving egomaniacs like this dude: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...ves-pay-rise-declaring-running-multi-million/ Or the staff at Kent County council on 150k plus. If they all took a 10% cut, how many redundancies would that save? So don't cry poverty without looking at the mirror first. Furthermore, with the private sector, people have the option to use their services or not (except with railways, but then they're run in the form of regional monopolies), if you feel a company is spending too much on the higher salaried earners, then you can take your custom elsewhere. With councils, you can't do that unless you move.
That's a Coucillor and not what I would describe as a worker. I also think it's mainly Chief Executives who earn the sort of money you are talking about. The Services and budgets they have responsibility for is huge and if they did what they do in the private sector would be paid a lot more than they get. The same applies to others on a lesser wage. I worked for the Housing Department as an Estate Manager. Had I worked for a Housing Association I could have earned around £5k per year more and would have had responsibility for 50% less properties than I did have. The only thing making financial sense was a decent pension package. I paid for that by getting less in salary in my book. If you think you get paid too much then may I suggest you donate the excess to a local charity that is no longer being subsidised by the Local Authority. Water and Electricity are two others that you cannot do without but are in private hands along with your Railway point. No doubt if I thought about it longer I could come up with others. Providing something for the protection of children for example cannot be privatised but still unfortunately has to exist. Continually cutting the budgets for these things is not a good thing at all.
notDistant.....happy pictures of Corbyn on the Hoe on the news.....so I assume his minders kept you away. Bromley increased its Tory majority by two seats.....Tories 50 seats.....Labour 8.....Independents 2.....Lib/Dems 0.
And we all came out and waved our little flags as well plym. I think they only told the media for the pictures and the local labourites. I didn't even know he was here. Bet he didn't drive either. How are all of your £150k a year workers getting on? Ok I hope. The Council leadership here has always flip flopped between the two main parties. This maybe a bit of a layed back part of the Country but it has pretty much always voted locally on local stuff rather than national politics and that for me is how it should be.
Local matters here never get a blink from a local council.....unless it's from the affluent part of the borough.....the down market part of the borough...,.the Crays have traveller problems......we had the funeral Thursday of that down life chap who got stabbed burglaring that old fellow in Hither Green.....£100,000 spent on his funeral.....50 police assigned to guard the church from locals in St Mary Cray.....still problems.....more police bussed in plus a helicopter to keep track of them.....I blame the council for turning that area into a travellers ghetto.
In fairness, I never used the phrase council workers, most of whom I agree are on a pittance (including myself, hence I won't be donating any excess salary as there is no excess), like I said I was referring to the higher ups. Whether these higher ups could get more working the private sector or not is neither here nor there because if they're working the private sector, people have the choice whether to subsidize their salary by choosing to use their services or not, with the public sector you have no choice because you have to pay your council tax and national insurance and whatever.
How many 'council' workers are they're this day and age.....contracted out is the norm.....no dustmen work for the council around here....a French firm does it all....and so it is with a lot of privately run 'council' facilities.....employ the cheapest quote.....then the council tell you that they are looking after your rates from going up. Many departments that looked after the less well off have been 'ditched' ......remember they don't vote Tory so that's ok init.
Outsourcing is a bit of a red herrings as far as public sector wages are concerned. TUPE ensures that T&C's are preserved when contracts are awarded and council's usually insist that pensions are too although in that case the law only requires that an "equivalent" is provided. Even if an equivalent is allowed, past pension rights are preserved.
So sorry to hear of the death of Tessa Jowell aged 70 with brain cancer. A politician I felt was genuine amongst a crowd of iffy MP's who I wouldn't trust with looking after my biggest enemies wallet. Someone I would have voted for as a person whatever party she represented....because party politics wouldn't get in her way of doing the right thing.
I fell for watching the Eurovision song contest yet again....having to watch the dross rise to the top and get all the votes as always. The UK entry wasn't a bad song....but even getting it interfered with by some loony didn't even get it any extra votes of sympathy and it was at one time the only country left with no votes....ending up somewhere near the bottom at the finish. Seems to draw all the partying nutters from around the world to perform amongst the audience.
*shrug* Our song just wasn't very good imo. The lyrics were quite repetitive but fair play to her for keeping calm while some nutter ran onto the stage. Professional performance, just think the song wasn't very good. Saying that neither was the winner, and it's annoying that that won when there were so many better songs. Ireland's was quite nice, as was Germany's but my favourite was Denmark. That was awesome. So awesome i bought it off itunes.
Couldn't tell you what any of the entries sounded like and definately didn't watch it. Can't see the point anymore as it is all sort of political these days. It's supposed to be a song contest but it is far from that now. You wasted several hours of your life there Plym.
I never watched it or even knew it was on the TV , should be on pay per view with the soaps.. Then we could have the sport on normal tv for free ..
I'm going to whisper this so her in doors can't hear me. I agree with the pay per view theory Joe..................Sssshhh!
Pompey, you cant be serious buying off itunes for a euro song ? there are much better songs on there than that surely?
