There are two stories in the news at the moment which highlighted to me how much this country has changed from being a nation of heroes into a nation of pisstakers. Lets start with this story on the Hendon Times website
http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/topstories/8252891.Iconic_war_bomber_moved_from_RAF_museum_to_begin_five_year_restoration/
This story was poignant to me because my father flew a Wellington bomber during the second world war. He was shot down in one whilst bombing the Ploesti oil fields in Romania, was taken prisoner, escaped and saw out the war back in England as a pilot instructor and an air accident investigation officer. His best friend and rear gunner, F/o Spud Murphy was killed when they were shot down. To this day the bravery of the crews of bomber command has not been officially recognised by the government, despite them having the highest attrition rate of any wing of the armed forces. My father explained to me at a very young age just how rotten the British Government was, when he explained that he was based in Foggia air base in Italy. As he was living in a tent, he got a "hard living allowance" of a couple of shillings. For the sixty eight days he was in a Prisoner of War camp, with a diet of half a loaf of bread, a cucumber and a bowl of soup, this was withdrawn. My father flew 40 missions over enemy territory in total. By the time he was shot down in 1944 over Ploesti, every other crew he'd started with in 40 squadron had also been shot down. This squadron was far from unusual. For all his sacrifice, not even an official thank you. His view "You do it for your friends and family, not for the shiny arsed suits who send you there". What did he do it for?
Forward 64 years to 2010. Who stands up for the normal working man today? Who fights to ensure that we all get a fair deal? You would hope that the leaders of our trades unions. Well read this report in yesterdays Daily Express
http://express.co.uk/posts/view/184380/Trade-Union-rich-list-revealed
Union leaders such as Dave Prentis at UNISON get £127,436 per year. Derek Simpson of Unite gets £120,328 and Christine Blower of the National Union of Teachers gets £124,483. I read this and was totally disgusted. How can it possibly be right for people at the top of Unions to be getting three or four times the salary of their average members? They sit in their comfy offices, attending conferences and meetings, whilst some of their members are up to their necks in S**T for barely the minimum wage. What value do these fat cats add? I cannot believe that someone on such outrageous wages can truly understand or represent someone struggling on the minimum wage. It sets a rotten example and shows them to be hypocrites.
In the past couple of years, this blog has detailed how Sir Fred Goodwin, former boss of RBS got paid tens of millions of pounds to bankrupt the organisation. Then we have Moir Lockhead, boss of First Capital Connect, the train company which has failed to run a proper service for most of the last year. His reported package is £802,000 for a company which attracted a petition of nearly 6,000 of it's customers demanding it be sacked from the franchise.
Closer to home, we have Barnet Council, who's CEO Nick Walkley earns £200,000 per annum and his two deputies earn £180,000 each. These three characters earn £560,000 between them. Barnet Council is currently planning to abolish the Sheltered housing warden service in a bid to save £400,000. It is amazing to think that if they paid Mr Walkley £85,000, sacked one deputy and paid the other £75,000 they could save the warden service. I don't suppose they even gave that one a second thought. I suppose Mr Walkley wouldn't get out of bed for a mere £85,000 pittance of a salary, though would he (Note : When the Tories took over in 2003, the then CEO Leo Boland was on a salary of £114,000 per annum).
Then there is one of the loves of my life. Football. There was a report in the papers that England stars Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerard have pulled out of the Festival of Skills. The reason? They felt it was inappropriate to get the £500,000 fee after being so crap in the world cup. Did it not occur to these pair of chancers that the way to restore a little bit of faith in themselves would have been to donate their fee to a youth football charity? On their salaries, would they miss the cash?
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people in this country who are not on the take, who are not pisstakers. All of the boys in Afghanistan for a start. The many front line staff in the NHS, teachers, community workers, youth group leaders, mums and dads running football teams. The list is endless. The trouble is that it seems to me at every level, the people who are meant to be helping them at the top level are on the take. Buy the Guardian on a Wednesday and check the jobs on the Society page
This is what you'll find :-
http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/jobs/charities?sort=salary
How about Government jobs
http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/jobs/government?sort=salary
Are we a country run by a bunch of pisstakers? I'll let you decide for yourself (P.S. I hope you found yourself a nice new highly paid career amongst all those lovely jobs)
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