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Remember this from our mate Dave? (Tory Conference – October 2009 – full text here)
“It means showing that we’re all in this together, which is why we’ll freeze public sector pay for all but the one million lowest paid public sector workers for one year to help protect jobs. And it means showing that the rich will pay their share which is why for now the 50p tax rate will have to stay and child trust funds for those on middle and higher incomes will have to go.” + “But if we pull together, come together, work together — we will get through this together.”
Vince Cable upset the GMB union this morning by hinting that the government won’t tolerate joined up strikes protesting against “the cuts”. However, both “sides” of the argument are wrong; Because of the farcically weak position we are in thanks to the “financial markets”; bank bailouts; 2 world wars; and a series of inept and incompetent governments, we simply have to make cuts.
Had our “Dave” shown some leadership by:-
- cutting, say, all current & future public sector pensions over, say, £40k by, say, 50% until the “deficit is cleared”
- cutting public sector salaries over, say, £100k by 50% until the “deficit is cleared”
- freezing public sector salaries for “at least” 12 months or until the “deficit is cleared”
- dealing with errant MPs in the same way “we” are, i.e. gaol + 100% penalties (instead of letting most get away scot free
- even those 4/5 who are jailed don’t pay penalties)
- reclaiming £6bn tax avoided by Vodafone
- reclaiming £285m tax avoided by Philip Green (Top Shop, Arcadia Group etc: “its my wife you have to talk to, she owns the company – oh, by the way, she resides in Monaco .., so you can’t get the tax, tee hee”)
- not actually then hiring Green to help make efficiency savings! Difficult to make this up but its bloody true!
- renegotiating the PFI fiasco started by Thatcher & then embraced by Blair and Brown (£50bn of your cash criminally wasted)
- reclaiming Fred the Shred’s pension & suing him for incompetence
- dealing with the casino bankers properly & decisively
- etc. etc. etc
… then he might have got away with saying we are all in this together and the unions might be supporting him in his attempt to cut public sector pensions for less well off workers.
Strikes won’t help the country either – what we need is some serious, loud debate from journalists, politicians & unionists – do we get it? Do we hell! (*)
* Actually we do – but only in “Private Eye”, as far as I can see…