Sunday 5 July 2009

Barons & peasants again

Headline on the front page of todays Observer: ' Pay freeze threat to all public workers'. The small print doesn't say whether this will apply to those on the top of the pyramid as well as the worker ants at the bottom but I'll take a decent wager that excuses will be found along the lines of 'need to attract the best talent' so that the 'haves' are exempted from pain. How long will the mass of the people continue to put up with this? Sadly, since they seem to think that voting Conservative [ or failing that BNP or UKIP] will do something for them, I fear it will be quite a long time.

Barons & peasants

David Schwartz writing in the Financial Times of 4th July describes the £9.6m pay package for the new RBS chief as 'draw dropping'. Apparently this is justified by the challenge of the job. David Schwartz says " Funny that, I thought he was paid £1.2million a year [the basic salary] precisely to handle a challenging job. The RBS Board appears to believe £ 1.2m merely encourages [him] to turn up for work each day. Getting him to act costs extra" It is truly extraordinary that this supine Government, who now own this catastrophe of a bank with our money, are allowing this to happen. It has to be an organ like the FT to protest about it. Hooray for them - one might have thought they'd be on the bankers side.