A fair adjustment of MPs’ salaries is an increase of £30,000
a year, says Parliament. And: A fair adjustment of Police salaries is a
reduction of £4,000 a year, says the same parliament in the same month. (An
instructive use of the word “fair”, I guess.)
While I find it a relief to know that the Elect seem to be
attacking everybody outside their own
little circle (and not just >>me<<), I suggest that this hubris
really does beg a question.
Have they lost it completely, or do they know that they can thumb their noses at
us with impunity? (Sadly, I suspect it’s the latter and that the revolutionary
Marxists, the SWP, or anyone else who still believes that the People of Britain
will answer to their call are finally being taught the lesson that it will
never happen, whatever the Heaven-Born may on a whim decide to do.)
It has to be one or the other of those explanations (unless
the MPs have a wager going on what they can get away with). Either they’re quite
mad or they’re utterly, out-of-control, rapacious.
Some thoughts, before words fail me:
1. If I remember right: 25 years ago, when the quality and/or quantity of teachers was
becoming unacceptable (even to Thatcher’s mob – and she really did loath
teachers with a passion), a (commission?) found that teacher’s pay was historically
low, and out of step with the market. An increase of £2,000 pa was suggested in
order to attract and retain staff, and restore a slightly more reasonable
standard of living to teachers. A tory line at the time was (and I quote), “What
would a teacher do with an extra £2,000?” The question was asked with sincerity
and bewilderment.
2. It has been standard thinking for the past thirty years that the wealthy will be encouraged to work harder by being given
more money – the carrot; but that the great unwashed work better threatened
with the stick. But you all realised that, long ago...
3. We know where the media stand, of course. The Daily Mail
produced the headline “Now we really are all in it together” over the
explanation that an extra quarter of a million or so people would be entering
the 40% tax bracket in the near future. (Remember, the 40% is only a marginal
rate.) About 1% of the working population, and those amongst the wealthiest, mostly
faced with a simple fall in net
income less than 1%. (As opposed to over half of the ordinary working
population + those on many benefits, who are facing a compound fall of about 1.5%. And that's ignoring their greater hurt from particular the way prices are rising).
Even the Independent referred to the poorest and the richest as being hardest hit. They went on to quote
figures – the poorest will lose about £5 pw (is that all????), the richest will lose about £8 pw.
I assume, and hope, that they were being ironic.
-/-
Incidentally: while I never achieved the national average wage, I paid a 40% (marginal) tax rate for years. It was part of the contract imposed on me by the state (not that I complained... much...). Now that I need the state's help, the state has reneged.
I'm beginning to remember ancestors killed at Culloden and others hanged at Clonmel (and still others...). I'm kept in my place now solely by threat.
-/-
Words have failed me.
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