PEOPLE IN PUBLIC LIFE

Collective Excuses Vs Individual Responsibility
The Truth Would Be Good
They Really Should Know better
Mr Mandelson MP
Piers Morgan
Michael Martin MP
MPs Salaries And Expenses
David Cameron On MPs Salaries

 

 

Moving The Country From Collective Excuses To Individual Responsibility – 5/2/2010

There is a concept in many peoples minds that “if others can do it, then so can we”, and over a number of decades it has become monstrously destructive in many aspects of our society, our communities, and our public way of life.

Whilst there is always a great deal of comfort in seeing other people doing wrong, when you are also doing wrong yourself, it is none the less, wrong.

There are many and varied examples.

• Most MPs have claimed false, and some would say fraudulent, expenses, but they take great comfort from the fact that over half of all the other 645 MPs in the House Of Commons are doing precisely the same thing.
• Some people in the higher positions in our Public Services, massage their working circumstances, and in some cases their salaries too, in order to gain higher pension benefits. They know, by all moral judgements, that it is not quite right to do so, but they see others doing the same thing.
• Some surgeons in the NHS take a full NHS salary, with extraordinary pension benefits, whilst not working anything like a full week for the NHS. But, so many are doing the same thing that it makes their own fraud seem less relevant.
• Some Policemen, or any other public servant for that matter, take early retirement on the basis of some spurious and un-diagnosable illness such as a “bad back”. They know it is wrong to do so, but so many have already done it, that it seems OK.
• Some school teachers profess to be working in the long holiday periods, when they are doing nothing of the kind. Some school teachers profess to be taking work home with them, when they really ought to be in school and doing it there.

I could go on considerably further, but perhaps it is too depressing to do so.

Now, please don’t misinterpret me. I am not saying that all these people in all these occupations are all taking advantage of their positions, or being fraudulent. However, what I am saying is that there are far too many people out there who are doing precisely that, and it is very expensive for those of us who have to foot the bill in increased taxation.

The private sector has it’s problems too.

• The other day, I was listening to one of our Bankers, who was bemoaning his fate because his bonus was nothing like as much as was the case in previous years. His concept seemed to be that, as he was spending it in the economy anyway, and being taxed accordingly, then why should he not have the same levels of bonus as before. He had no consideration of whether he had earned it or not. I feel sure that his comments were intended for someone other than me, but goodness knows who exactly he thought might accept this unbelievable twaddle.

Of course the Bankers should certainly have their bonuses, at exactly the same levels as before, but only if he or she has earned it. There lies the real issue.

• At the other end of the scale, I even had an instance of sharp practice the other day concerning my car. The car was running beautifully. It went in for a minor part to be replaced on the suspension, and came out running like a tractor, with the warning lights on the dashboard looking like the main runway at Heathrow during a night landing. What a coincidence.

Anyway, I took the car to another dealer of the same make, and they were glad of the business, and they put the car right again for me. Bloody annoying, and for me it was £700 of … shall we say … a less than happy experience.

My point is that, as a society, we have inadvertently developed and propagated a system of collective irresponsibility, or indeed, criminality. In other words, if someone stretches a point, or takes a little bit of an unfair advantage, then someone else will come along and convince themselves that it is also fair play for them to do the same. They will then push it out a little bit further. The result is that the original stretched point becomes much more than stretched, and the little bit of an unfair advantage does in fact become fraud and criminality.

The result of decades of these attitudes is that we currently have an awful lot of apparently very successful people in our society, who also appear to be perfectly honest and upstanding citizens, people who are the pillars of their communities, people who are well respected and who are supposed to be our leaders, but people who are in fact … ripping the system off for all that they can.

Are they to blame? They would argue that they are not. After all, everyone else is “at it … aren’t they?”

Well … actually … no they are not.

At least a third of our MPs have never claimed an incorrect expense, or worked the system in that way at all.

As is always the case when the pot runs dry, we start looking around at each other and asking ourselves how we got where we are, and more importantly, what exactly are we going to do about it?

The resounding conclusion must surely be that we all need to do a re-appraisal of ourselves, and those around us. We need to achieve a collective realisation that not only is this sort of behaviour unaffordable, but it is in fact basically … dishonest.

I would argue that it is the highest echelons of management that need to put their own houses in order before they attempt to correct those under them, some of whom it would seem are completely out of control. This may not be as easy as you would think, as it is within those very same high echelons of management where the worst miscreants reside.

If you doubt my words, look no further than our own MPs.

After all, if you cannot rely on your MP or your Doctor, or your Surgeon, or your Policeman to do the right thing, who exactly can you rely upon?

We need a change in public attitudes, and all of us, without exception, must reappraise the concept of trust, acceptable behaviour and fundamental honesty, in all the ways in which we do business with each other.

Above all else, we need a true statesman at the very top, to lead by example.

We need a true leader who is not swayed by obscure concepts of how to retain the marginal voter, and how to protect his own popularity and position.  A recent Prime Minister was so besotted with his own popularity that he took us into the Gulf War for entirely the wrong reasons.

We need a leader who is more interested in getting the job right, rather than building his own pedestal as high as he possibly can. Our current Prime Minister was so proud of his “prudence” in successive budgets that he then trashed the economy along with all our pensions.

Unfortunately I do not see any sign of such a statesman like leader at this moment.

Never the less, I am hoping with all my heart, that David Cameron is in fact the man that we are looking for, simply because it seems most likely that we will finish up with him as our Prime Minister, whether we like it or not.

If David Cameron is the man that we are looking for, we should know fairly rapidly. He will clear out all the dishonesty, and all the MPs that have failed us time after time, including all the MPs who have been disgraced and who have then re-invented themselves.

If he keeps Alan Duncan in his cabinet, we shall know that David was not the man that we were hoping for.

 

The Truth Would Be Good – 22/2/2010

For many years, our political parties have been stuck with a very old concept of electioneering.

They talk about silly little bits of legislation that benefit the minority or placate the majority, and they offer us financial “give aways” in the mistaken belief that we might be swayed by it. They seem to believe that doing these silly little things will lead us to the ballot box with their name in mind.

These days, the voting public is highly intelligent, and very knowledgeable about the Country and how it functions, both financially and politically, and they are not misled by such things.

We are looking for a “statesman”, and I would have to say that offering us “financial inducements” to vote for them, such as a few shares in a half destroyed bank, is hardly what we would call “statesmanlike behaviour”.

We are looking for a consistent statesmanlike leader who will ignore the “vote buying” antics of the past, and simply concentrate on the honest and accurate truth, along with their own beliefs, ideology and principles.

We do not want political electioneering, or political engineering, and we do not want political correctness, or the tortured presentation of party politics.

We really just want the truth.

We really want a leader who is a true statesman.

I have the great and special privilege of knowing a very large number of people, probably because of my professional career. I know and talk to people from literally every walk of life. I mix with the great and good as well as the great and the very hard working. I drink and socialise with every sort of artisan and profession, my friends vary from tax exiles to the local roofers. I count myself lucky and honoured that they share their lives with me in however large or small a way that may be.

These are the real people of this Country, and they :  

• Are not happy that our political leaders continually re-employ disgraced MPs in their cabinet, many of whom have disgraced themselves on more than one occasion.
• Are embarrassed that the Garden Of Remembrance was used as a photo opportunity, and trips to Afghanistan are used as publicity stunts.
• Do not believe that cutting back on malingerers who are fraudulently claiming State Disability Pension is fair, when they propose no such undertaking in the public sector pension system.
• Are not convinced that the NHS should be sacrosanct when it comes to expenditure cuts.
• Do not believe that all school teachers are wonderful, just because they are school teachers.
• Are not happy with the derisory level of the State Pension, and they do not believe that the new one being proposed is going to be anything more than just another form of taxation.
• Are not convinced that man made global warming even exists.
• Do not believe that our public services are good value for money.
• Do not believe that the Police service is good at it’s job, and do not believe that they should be treated as a special case with early retirement.   
• Are not at all happy with the idea of teaching our pre-pubescent children that sex is OK, homosexuality is OK, cross dressing is OK, and any other form of sexual deviation is just fine.

These are the real people, and the real people want real leaders, with real principles and beliefs.

We find it difficult, if not impossible, to believe in the current crop of party political automatons.

We find it difficult, if not impossible, to use our vote.

In the end, we may well vote, but only to keep one party out, and not because we really want a particular party in.  

That, my friends, is the tragedy of modern politics in the United Kingdom, and all because of a lack of truth.

 

People In Public Life Really Should Know Better

 

Far too many people in public life, be they politicians, or other people of influence, repeatedly fail to meet the basic moral standards that are required of them.

And yet, even after they have been exposed as frauds, cheats or morally deficient opportunists, often on more than one occasion, we still have to endure their regular appearance in the news and on our television screens, usually purporting to be an authority and an expert on one thing or another.

Personally I do not think we should have to listen to Mr Mandelson, who has been fired, or he has resigned, from political life no less than three times already, and I certainly do not think he should be anywhere near representing this country at anything other than tiddlywinks. Although I am quite sure that even those who regularly play tiddlywinks would be horrified to find themselves sitting opposite him.

Neither am I pleased to have to listen to Piers Morgan every time some sort of game show appears on TV, despite the fact that he was apparently forced to resign his post as Editor of a national news paper. It would seem that he was not required to serve a notice period but was asked to leave instantly because, allegedly, he cheated his readership by pre-buying shares that he knew his newspaper was going to ramp-up the next day – apparently it was pure coincidence. Or indeed, was he actually sacked for publishing fake photographs of British soldiers abusing Iraqis? In either event I really do not want to listen to him ever again.

The previous “speaker of the house”, Michael Martin MP, was forced to remove himself from that privileged position because he failed to recognise his own moral bankruptcy in cheating his expense account, to the tune of many thousands of pounds, notably in taxis for his wife to go into town. Like many people in this country, and abroad for that matter, I am staggered that the Government are now contemplating making him a Pier Of The Realm. He cheated. It is perfectly correct that he should leave public life, and certainly he should never be brought back again, let alone in an even more privileged position. As a businessman, I would not re-employ a person who I had just dismissed for theft, or falsifying his expense account if you prefer, and neither do the people of this country want to re-employ Mr Martin.

In short, I do not believe that we should have to endure politicians, leaders, or public figures who have already amply proven that they are incapable of behaving decently and honestly, when they have betrayed the trust that we put in them, and worse still, when they have taken financial advantage of their privileged position.

 

 

XXXXXXXXXX

 

MPs Salaries And Expenses

 

MP’s “criminal” misappropriation of their “expense accounts” continues apace. Up here in the Shires, we tend to see this particular problem as just one of many such deeply embarrassing and shameful issues that afflict our political system. It would seem that most of the country is heartily sick to death of our MPs and their antics, illusion, fraud, deceit and, and miss placed “political correctness”. The pathetic voter turn-out at our general elections is the result.

There are probably only two fundamental problems within our political system, of which our MPs outrageous fraud on their “expense accounts”, is merely a symptom.

First of all, we need to look very seriously at our MP’s salaries, and to be perfectly frank, £64,000 per year is peanuts in this day and age for a job of such responsibility. It is most certainly not a salary that is likely to attract the high achievers from our businesses and professions after their careers have succeeded. If ever you wanted a good example of “paying peanuts results in the employment of monkeys” then one really needs look no further than the House Of Commons.

 On the face of it there is a fairly simple solution to this first problem. We should of course be paying our MPs a realistic salary, whilst also removing any claims, of any nature, for “expenses”. I would suggest a salary of at least £125,000pa. Then they would be paid appropriately, and they could then spend their salaries entirely as they see fit, be it on junkets to the Far East, or second homes in London. Of course, their outrageous pension benefits should also be brought more into line with everybody else’s as well.

For the taxpayer, the point about increasing their salaries is a very simple one. The fact is that we are already paying this sort of figure to them anyway, through nefarious means called “MPs expenses”. The average expenses claim per MP, in addition to their salary of £64,000pa was actually £60,000 in 2007/8.

Therefore, we may just as well let them have it as non-pensionable salary. Not only would there be no additional costs to the country, there would be large savings to the public purse in not having hordes of civil servants procrastinating over MP’s so called “expense accounts”.

The second problem is that there are increasing numbers of our MPs who have been “found out” and/or “exposed” as cheats and liars. Quite a number of them on repeated occasions.

At the beginning of their political careers, at the point of selection by their chosen political party, it would seem that most MPs hold themselves up to be something which we later discover they quite patently are not.

In Rutland and Melton, our own Alan Duncan is a classic example.

In this country, over a couple of hundred years, we have inadvertently developed a party political system which forces the electorate to vote for a political party, rather than a specific and individual candidate. Unfortunately, this subsequently enables the political party to overrule it’s electorate, and forcibly retain an MP through successive elections, regardless of their crime or dishonesty, and regardless of what the electorate themselves feel.

In most of the examples of their missbehaviour, if the MP was in any other occupation, he/she would have been summarily and instantly dismissed - not early retirement – dismissed. I believe that we must find ways of restricting the relationship between the political parties and our MPs, particularly at election times. Ceasing all financial links could very well be a damn good start.

Resolving these two political problems will take considerable time, and substantial effort from a great number of people. Getting our experienced and successful people, from our businesses and professions, into the House Of Commons, with their morals and ethics intact, and with no financial relationships with political parties, is a national problem.

The three main political parties are only just beginning to contemplate these issues, largely because of their need to find and motivate apathetic voters, who no longer bother to turn up to the ballot box at election time.

The rather frightening fact is that we are running the second largest economy in the World (not the third or fourth – I have done the figures), this cradle of democracy, on a vote that consists of something less than half of the population who bother to vote. Even more worrying is the fact that if only half the eligible people vote in the first place, that means that something less than a quarter of the population supports the government, even at the best of times. This is the stuff that civil wars are built upon.

Of course, the three political parties are unlikely to disturb the status quo, if only for the reason that turkeys do not vote for Christmas.

However, in the meantime, we voters “up here in the sticks” could all make a damn good start by at least trying to vote for someone more like ourselves, rather than the local party political puppets and buffoons that we have been force fed for far too many years.

 

XXXXXXXXXX

 

David Cameron – Saving Money on MPs salaries – 10/9/2009

 

This week we have had another unfortunate example of “popularist policies” in politics, which as usual, completely misses the point.

David Cameron wants to limit MPs remuneration, and in so doing save the country some £120m odd.

Generally speaking, people see the issue of MPs salaries much more clearly than David is giving them credit for. I hardly think that the public would be in the least bit concerned what MPs were being paid, if only they would do the job properly, honestly and in the best interests of the Country, instead of fleecing the system and lining their own pockets.

It is not particularly the amount that MPs are paid which rankles with the Public, but it is far more to do with the question of getting the right people as our MPs in the first place, and then getting them to do the right job, to the exclusive benefit of the Country and all of us within it.

For this unique position of trust and power, it is patently obvious that we will have to pay the right amount in order to attract the right people to the job in the first place.

To the Public’s way of thinking, the biggest issue of concern, is the fact that once we have acquired an MP into politics, and it subsequently becomes patently obvious that he/she is either incapable of keeping their fingers out of the till, or in any event they are incapable of doing the job properly and honestly, we cannot seem to get rid of them. We seem to be stuck with them forever – it is infuriating.

In the UK, we desperately need to attract successful businessmen from the private sector into our politics, those who know the difference between profit and loss, the difference between the financially effective and the financially unviable, and those who still have a sense of reality in what is right and what is fundamentally wrong.

Unfortunately, today, the people see an overwhelming number of politicians in Wesminster who have never had a proper job, who apparently do not understand the financial implications of running a home and a family, and who have no experience of life in our communities at any levels of achievement, or indeed, underachievement. Many of them have never come into contact with real day to day life at ordinary levels, at any time.

With regard to the concept of saving a paltry £120m on MPs salaries, when the national deficit is running at £175billion, people are left with yet another example of our MPs being “out of” normal society or community for so long, that they have long since “lost touch” with the reality of day to day living. All too many of our MPs are either “child prodigy” of the political scene who have been in politics since they left school, or they are so wealthy in their own right that they have never been involved in normal day to day life.

Of course, if the Public are not aware that the “going rate” to attract our top people into politics from the Private Sector, with all their experience of truth, honesty and reality, is between £60,000pa and £150,000pa, then we have to provide them with convincing evidence and the hard facts. Perhaps the simplest way to do that is to refer to the appointments pages of the Sunday Times where they can see for themselves what is and what is not a compatible remunerative salary for people from the private business sector, who have the experience and the necessary tried and tested quality of judgment.

So, let’s look at some basic factual reality –

1)      We are not attracting the right people into politics when an MP’s salary is only £64,000pa, and they therefore feel the need to draw spurious and highly suspect expenses of that same amount again in order to make up a realistic salary.

2)      We are fed up with having to listen to disgraced MPs who are then “reborn” as …. the same thing all over again!

3)      We are not misled by some ill-conceived presentation that saving £120m on MPs costs is going to solve any problems at all … especially when the deficit is running at £175billion … just pay MPs the going rate for the job, but then make sure they do the job properly … if not … get rid of them.

4)      If you pay MPs a proper salary of say £125,000 there would be no extra cost to the Country because they are already “paying themselves” that through the addition of spurious expenses in addition to their £64,000pa salary.

5)      If you paid a proper salary of that sort of amount, and left the additional figure above the existing £64,000pa as “non-pensionable”, that would also bring MP’s pension rights more into line as well.

6)      If you gave our MPs a proper salary of these sorts figures you could make the civil servants redundant who currently procrastinate over MPs expenses … and probably save a damn sight more than £120m.

“David – there are quite a few bullets to bite in this subject, but it is the truth, and we need a lot more of that commodity when it comes to politics in the UK, rather than some politically vote motivated fob off”.