When will Someone Get a Grip of the Town Hall Fat Cats?

Today I was sent a copy of the 'Town Hall Rich List' as published by the Taxpayer's Alliance.  It merits the attention of everyone because in this age of so-called austerity the same people are milking the system and each year there are more of them.

Many of the job appointments in this particular area of the public sector have often caused comment notably for their nebulous titles. The recruitment of  Town Hall staff appears to be continuing unabated despite the continual squeals of councils that they are being bled dry of money.

They continue to close libraries, public toilets and other necessary services but they never seem to address the outrageous salaries being allocated to senior staff.  The fact that over 2500 relatively unimportant people are earning over £100,000 each for what is a mundane role in society is ridiculous.

This is Council tax money that should be filling in potholes and maintaining parks and waterways.  I came across a table listing the salaries of senior officials at Leicestershire County Council for 2010/11  and 28 of them were earning over £80,000 per annum. This is rural Leicestershire where generally prices are reasonable in comparison to the sunny south. It meant that just 28 individuals are taking two and a quarter million pounds out of the economy and that was 2010/11!

It is statistics like these that are driving people towards UKIP.  Nick Clegg is always talking about 'fairness' but what is fair about these Town Hall Fat Cats taking more than their fair share?  I have posted about this before but nothing seems to shame councils into constructing a reasonable pay scale for their officers. Mind you when less than a third of the population bother to vote then what can you expect?

Taxation and our Chancellor

Today the Daily Express took up the cudgels on behalf of the nations' pensioners. It revealed that pensioners in modern Britain are unfairly taxed in comparison with so many others. I find the whole tax issue vexing having earlier this year been pursued vigorously by the tax authorities on a false premise.


What I cannot understand is why are all the rich people are allowed to employ tax experts so that they can find loopholes which allows them to escape paying their fair share? Why are these loopholes not being closed. If there is a weakness in the system why is it not being  investigated?


We even hear that the BBC (bless 'em) employ a system which enables their high earners to avoid paying the full amount due! This must cease but when do we ever get the Chancellor announcing that he is closing down all tax loopholes? When will the Chancellor start addressing issues which matter to the public? Who gives a monkeys about a Pasty Tax when billions are being lost every year through negligence, incompetence and greed.


We never hear that our contributions to the EU are being slashed. We never hear that International Aid is being slashed and we can afford neither until the economy begins to perform. If these largely useless politicians cannot get the economy going then they should be slashing their own pet projects not punishing the public.


I will repeat however that we voted them in. People like Osborne, Balls, Miliband must really wonder how they continue to gain votes after such miserable achievements. One lot ruined the economy and the other lot cannot rescue it. Still why worry when the pensioners have no redress other than to pay more tax to support bankers who are avoiding it. All in it together Mr Cameron? Not from where most of us stand...get a grip of that bloody Chancellor!

The 'Pilgrim' Scandal

The Taxpayer's Alliance are exposing a scandal which is ever growing in the public sector. It is the employment of people who although on the staff and paid out of public funds work full time as union officials.

The most famous is Nurse Jane Pilgrim who berated Health Minister Andrew Lansley for his recent proposals when he attempted much needed reforms in the NHS. She is a nurse by trade but works full time as a Trade Union official and WE pay her salary. This is happening everywhere in the public sector and is costing us millions in tax revenue.

I am positive that at the last election many of the voters who voted Conservative did so in the conviction that this type of socialist nonsense would be dismantled by any Tory government. Trade Unions should pay their officials out of the union fees collected from their members. I would go further and insist that their nefarious activities would be conducted in their own time.

In my experience modern Trade Union officials are usually arrogant bullies used to intimidate the work force and harrass management. They have agendas which are tailored towards confrontation and do nothing to enhance productivity. It is high time that the government curb this activity, pull the rug out from under the feet of the Nurse Pilgrims and use public money for public services.

It is, of course, extrememly difficult to confront the Unions and at the same time support the European Union. No wonder the Coalition does so many U-turns. They know what they should be doing but are unable to do it because the wreckers are still in charge of the asylum.

The Taxpayers Alliance

The Taxpayers Alliance are currently circulating their own version of the National Debt. They admit that much of it is speculation but it looks pretty accurate to me. Some of the figures are terrifying not just because the deficit is SO large but it proves that both banks and the government during the past few years have been utterly incompetent.

Firstly it nails the NoLab lie that the banks were solely to blame for the rise in the National Debt. For almost a decade not only did they allow the Debt to rise by £500 billion but they also failed to check the rise of the unfunded public sector pensions which climbed unchecked by £800 billion.

That is unbelievable and it proves that the public sector has burgeoned under NoLab to a point where we clearly cannot afford the resulting public sector pensions.

What really shivered my timbers however was the extent to which we had to bail out the banks. I had no idea that according to the TPA figures we had to find in 2008/9 £3439 billion pounds! Now these are supposedly professional finance experts but they must have been gambling with such disregard for consequence that it had to be criminal.

How on earth can any responsible government allow them to continue to milk bonuses considering their abject performance in the past. This is another lie nailed because if these are the same guys who benefit from the bonus system because they are the best in the business how come they lost all that money?

The last lie exposed by the TPA is the size of the official National Debt. The government owns up to an official debt of£890 billion but the TPA have added on unfunded public sector pensions, unfunded state pensions, the RBS/Lloyds debt, PFI (capital only), Network Rail debt, deficit on Local Government PS, nuclear decommissioning and sundry other deficits and the total national debt rises to £7873 billion!! A government has to be either extremely incompetent or corrupt to mass that kind of deficit.