Monday, 21 April 2014

Demonising Public Sector Workers

Since they have got into power the Conservatives has been effective in blaming two groups for spending all our tax pounds, anyone on benefits and those in the public sector. 
The National Audit Office published a report into the costs of the bail-out and concluded: 'The amount of cash currently borrowed by the government to support banks has risen by £7bn to a total of £124bn since December 2009'.
Before the crash in 2008 the public sector was not the enemy but suddenly times are tight and rather than blame the bankers (private companies back then) for taking the cash, the Conservatives are targeting the people who receive money from the Government instead.
The Conservatives transformed a crisis of the banks into a crisis of public spending so as the bankers who paid themselves £14bn in bonuses last year are forgotten and the blame is on the public sector workers leeching off the taxpayer.
So which of the cushy jobs in the public service can be slashed with no effect? Shall we do with a few less nurses, teachers, firefighters, librarians, police officers, bin-collectors? Can we do without so many military personnel or less collectors bringing in tax or how about we lop a few off the number stopping the asylum seekers sneaking through our sea-ports? 
It's classic divide and rule politics that some are stupidly falling for, make low-paid supermarket workers and those sitting in call centres resent teachers and nurses and so when the inevitable strikes come as announced by the Teachers Union this weekend, support from anyone outside the public sector goes missing.
The Conservatives have been successful in demonising anyone on benefit, even pensioners, and is working on demonising the people who work in hospitals and schools or put out fires and empty our bins.
The groups who should be demonised are the bankers taking our money and continuing to whoop it up, the private sector companies that pays their employees such low wages that the Government has to top up their income with Tax Credits, the tax evaders depriving the coffers of billions and the Conservative party and their supporters who portray the public service as dispensable because it isn't.
Remember that next time you telephone HMRC and are on hold for 30 minutes or you are in pain in a hospital waiting room for an hour or that pothole at your end of your road shreds your tires because nobody has been around to fill it, the Conservatives has shrunk the Civil Service so there are just less of them to do all these important things and if the Conservatives get their way, there will even less of them in the future.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

socialize everything and pay everybody the same amount regardless of experience, education level, or skill.

that will fix all the problems right?

q

Anonymous said...

everytime i read this post of yours the answer is really simple. raise taxes a lot and fix everything.

q

Lucy said...

The moral of the story is if you vote for a right wing government, when you get a right wing government this is the sort of thing they do.

The way to fix the problems is
a> don't vote for right wing governments
b> clamp down on tax evasion
c> clamp down on employers paying such poor wages that the taxpayer has to part pay their employee's wages.

Anonymous said...

a> whatever, the left wing doesn't have anything to brag about from an economic performance persepctive
b> agree
c> employers pay what workers are willing to settle for. blaming the employers only is intellectually dishonest, and lame

following your philosophy
d> every economic function that is valuable should be socialised
d> increase taxes to pay for everything
f> pay everybody one set amount to make everything fair and equal

go for it

q

Tony Beale said...

Absolutely right - completely agree with the blog's comments