Them & Us


Capita idea

Big business continues to gorge on the public services honey pot, courtesy of the government’s privatisation programme. Since 2010 the Con-Dems have handed over worth of public service contracts to the private sector, dwarfing the that the previous Labour government managed.


Money talks

The suggestion that the super-rich can buy political influence is, of course, just Bolshie propaganda. The fact that the multimillionaire Tory party donor David Ross (he of Carphone Warehouse and chum of Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson), is in line for the chairmanship of schools’ inspectorate Ofsted, is mere coincidence!


Bad advice

Not to be outdone by Cameron in his close associations with wealthy and powerful people, former Labour leader Tony – the ‘Messiah’ – Blair continues to cosy up to the world’s despots. Having ‘advised’ Kazakhstan’s dictator Nursultan Nazerbayev, Blair has now agreed to ‘advise’ Egypt’s blood-soaked coup organiser, and latterly president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.


Boardroom pay

One and a half million public sector workers were obliged to take strike action on 10 July against another year of government imposed pay freezes, etc.

However, in the boardrooms of big business there has been no such pay restraint. In the last financial year 42 company executives enjoyed remuneration packages (pay and pensions, etc) of over £1 million. Two executives received total remuneration packages of over £5 million each.


Maximum minimum

‘Affordable housing’ is the much-hyped route onto the property ladder for first time buyers. In London, where a dilapidated garage will set you back £70,000, (the average salary of a nurse is £26,158) there are part-buy, part-rent affordable housing schemes with a £66,000 maximum salary upper limit for one or two bedroom flats.

However, to qualify for one recently advertised shared ownership two bedroom property in Camden, a worker must be “earning a minimum income of at least £66,000”. To avoid this qualifying/disqualifying conundrum you can always opt for a one-bedroom Pimlico flat, providing you earn “at least £64,000” but “under £66,000”!