I am wracking my brain to try and remember when I first had a bonus from the government for doing what I was paid for. It was probably around about 2002 and it was about £30 for the year. Even so I was surprised at the time but I was told that it was performance related. Well to be honest £30 was neither here or there so I didn't overconcern myself.
Now it would appear that this performance related culture in the Civil Service has ballooned as it would when the snouts get into the trough. According to Clare Short this was, would you believe one of Tony Bliar's ideas to bring Public Service in line with the Private sector, but of course the two are not compatible. I have never seen a Civil Servant given the boot for incompetence but I have seen thousands who deserved it!
For Gordon Brown to keep the military short of equipment to such an extent that it caused the deaths of many of our servicemen and then to reward the army of keyboard operators for manning a computer is a gross insult. If he feels that his grotesquely overpopulated Civil Service needs more money (and many of them in the lower echelons do)then he should sort out a decent salary structure. He should not sneak in bonus payments because these bonuses will never reach the people who need or deserve them.
This government should decide if we are at war or not. If, when they have faced up to to the consequences of what that means, then they should throw everything at it. Civil Servants should not get a bonus if we cannot afford helicopters! Don't tell me that it comes from another budget! Reduce the bloody budget and send out kit that detects IEDs.
I still believe that there is a government cell somewhere who are hell bent on trying to cause a public reaction to Gordons' policies. After all this news is certain to provoke huge resentment when servicemen who have lost limbs must almost beg for appropriate compensation. To leak this news only days after the rawness of Armistice Day and the Rememberance Parade is without doubt intentional.
They are spitting on the servicemen. Perhaps the servicemen should withdraw into Camp Bastion and go on strike! Something has got to crack but once it does what then? If this cell succeeds in getting the public onto the streets what have they got lined up in response?
I once read that there is a high powered armed European Police Force all lined up to prevent insurrection. What a better place to deploy it than the UK. After all our army is being picked off one by one in a far off land and our police have been neutered so we are in effect defenceless.
Nobody can really offer a plausible explanation for our presence in Afghanistan to prop up a tainted Afghan government but perhaps this is the reason. If we don't have a defence force then we would have to call on our allies in Europe particularly as we are now full paid up members since Gordon signed away his country.
1 comment:
your turn for my comments Bryboy.
Afghanistan has always been a lost cause.
The British suffered defeat regularly in the North West Frontier in the past.
The Russians did no better.
Brown, an historian by training, fails to recognise this historical fact.
I always said, from the start, that this was another Vietnam. I still think that.
The Afghans, left to their own devices, would eventually rise up and overthrow the extremists. Could take many decades.
In Spain the natives took centuries but eventually expelled the extremist Islamic conquerers.
Instead thousands, perhaps millions, are taking the cowardly way out and fleeing and claiming asylum here there and everywhere rather than looking to overthrow the Taleban.
There IS a news story this week that some northern Afghan villages are arming themselves and fighting against the insurgents because they are so sick of the interference and bullying.
We COULD help, and likely defeat for all time, if WE sent masses more troops to Afghanistan. It won't happen though and European countries are not contributing their fair share.
In the meantime an MoD typist got over £400k compensation for repetitive strain injury (RSI) - far far more than a soldier losing a leg. The Court/tribunal clearly did not understand that a COMPETENT typist would never get RSI.
As for bonuses. Well things have changed since I was a public servant. We were paid less because of supposed "jobs for life" and "gold plated pensions". Neither were true.
The pensions still exist and some have now become "platinum plated". Wages for SOME are now far more than those people would ever get in the private sector. I know, have worked in both and I WAS very senior and would have benefitted had I stayed. They also get huge "bonuses" just for performing to contract. Disgusting.
Unlike you I have actually sacked people for incompetence in public service. Then again many incompetents continued to be paid their "annual increments" even though they were failing to perform. The witholding of those increments was available in the Conditions of Service but never exercised. Says a lot.
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