Disgusted - Tory fingers in the national pot AGAIN!

Or rather, how it seems to you, surely!

annodomini, "rants" be damned. I just say it how it is!

Joan, I think you should record it, we will look out for you on YouTube!

Great poem/song, Joan. And mcem I couldn't agree more. I'm another who has never voted Tory and never will. However, I am turned off by your rants, Ivanhoe, no matter how much I may agree with your principles.

Ivanhoe I have read your comments about the politics of the -Tories- and as someone who never has and never will vote for them, I feel that you are letting down anti-Tory voters by ranting on in this irrational way. Calm down, think about what you are trying to say, draft a meaningful post, RE-READ IT to ensure it's intelligible and only then send it.
I congratulate on your determination to put over your point of view but would suggest that this ( metaphorical ) shouting is not the way to do it.

In addition, according to the experiences of people I know who are trying to run small businesses, if they employ local people they often don't bother to turn for work, or stroll in late, ('don't feel well' which turns out to be a hangover or worse) whereas workers from overseas work hard and are generally pleasant and keen to learn the ropes and get on with the job.

What happened to the Australian work ethic amongst some of the young people? Not all, I hasten to add.

And many who are working are on those zero hours contracts in Australia, Joan. I don't mean just casual labour, backpackers etc.

However, one thing I have been told is that even casual labourers and itinerant workers have to have money paid into a superannuation fund by their employer, so there are always two sides to every story. It is difficult for small business owners to make enough to live on when they have to pay even casual workers a high wage plus the extras. Then the worker can reclaim the superannuation if they leave the country.

The minimum wage for casuals is over $20 per hour - perhaps high wage demands have contributed to unemployment?

Employers with small businesses such as farms are struggling to pay their way unless they have an additional source of income.

Oh yes, I forgot my main point: here in Australia there is an asset-sales frenzy both from our Queensland State government and the federal one. They are both LNP (Tory) of course.

The federal government's wrecking ball to everything worth while - health, education, safety nets, the arts, the environment....is utterly terrifying. Even petrol is being taxed more, making getting to work even dearer.

I've started writing a protest song based on American Pie. Here's as far as I've got:

Australian Pie

Long long time ago
I still remember how Australia made me smile,
I knew that we all had the chance
To love and laugh and work and dance
So sure we’d all be happy for a while

But May thirteenth just made me shiver
With the budget Joe delivered
Bad news on our teevee
For battlers just like me.

(chorus)
So bye bye, ‘cos the hard times are nigh
Drove my Holden to the garage
But my credit ran dry
While good old boys with the power were high
Laughing this will be the day their hopes die
This will be the day their hopes die.

The chill of autumn made us shiver
As smokin’ Joe filled up his quiver
With arrows that would streak
To the poorest and the weak.

The unemployed will soon be starving
While Smoking Joe and Tone are carving
Up the spoils of what they’ll save
From people driven to the grave,

And big old Joe eats steak and truffles
Spending thousands while we scuffle
Trying to buy the cheapest food
To feed out ever hungry brood.

Lilygran, of course privatisation under the Tory's is a political matter.

Privatisation is about making a profit, so it gets the greedy British vote.

Privatisation is also about laying off workers, and paying peanuts for wages.

Privatisation is also more costly than nationalisation.

point taken, Lilygran!

For the sake of clarity, my last post was intended as a riposte to Ivanhoe not to rosequartz!

Oh dear - Tory hypocrisy seems to be worldwide - we have got the most awful 'reverse Robin Hood' government here in Australia, where the arrogant Tories live it up while cutting just about everything for the battlers. In their first budget they've even removed the unemployment benefit COMPLETELY for jobless under 30 year olds. Those without an extended or immediate family to feed and house them will simply starve, become homeless, or turn to crime. The treasurer's answer is 'get a job' but there aren't enough to go round. And it will be a charter for bosses to bully as losing a job will mean destitution.

The whole 'need' for these so-called reforms is based on a series of outright lies. They've done things they clearly said they would not do. They've invented a budget emergency. A few days before the budget the treasurer spent A$50,000 on a dinner in Washington for 60 people, where they ate such things as wagyu beef and truffles.

My pension will be kept low, struggling families will lose some government help, the disabled will be targeted, schoolfunding is slashed, and a co-payment to visit a doctor and another for tests has been introduced. Our free health service which we pay for through taxes is no longer free. And the price of medicines for pensioners has almost doubled.

And there's more, but you get the picture.

The squandering of money on kitting out unnecessary "free schools" is a scandal. It was never meant to be about creating places it was about "raising standards" through a free market type model (and undermining local authorities).
as it said in the Telegraph during the run up to the last election:
The Conservatives’ principal education policy would allow parents, charities and private companies to set up and run their own schools within the state sector. The plan is based on the “free schools” model established in Sweden. The manifesto says such schools offered “better discipline and higher standards”.

Some of these "free schools" are (presumably not very successful) prep schools

A process which was started by Thatcher and continued by Blair. This isn't a party political matter, none of them will pursue policies which would result in losing power gained by a previous government and all of them subscribe to the daft idea that private enterprise always runs things better than public servants. Like G4S and Capita and the banks, for example.

However, adult literacy classes are still available in most areas.

Mamie, The Tory's are reducing the State, including State education, the NHS, State pensions and all other vital services.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul when Paul is obviously the favourite. [sigh]

And at this rate we will be sending children in to school to eat and teaching them to read at home.

I don't have a huge problem with the Grace and Favour apartments either. The Foreign Secretary does have a lot of entertaining of visiting dignitaries to do. And Downing Street is actually quite small and shabby compared with somewhere like the Elysée.
Michael Gove's behaviour over Free Schools is, however, a national disgrace.

Gove www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/11/michael-gove-warned-to-control-free-schools-spending Much, much more than the £8m I thought it was!

Well, I'll just put the link in again, Lilygran. Then I will go to investigate the other thing about Gove upsetting everyone (again)!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_and_favour

Why won't they sign off the EU accounts? And why do we keep letting them getting away with it? I can't bring myself to vote for Nigel but something needs to be done.

If we sold off these large grace and favour mansions it would be a temporary and shortlived addition to the nation's coffers; where would the money go to? Quite honestly I think as a nation we would be the poorer. I would rather they used the grace and favour homes available than we feather and pay for their own personal nests which many of them have been scrambling to do.

At least if they are kicked out of office or lose their job for some reason, the grace and favour home is available for the next incumbent. I have no objection at all to it as a system.
Not sure about the large country houses for their weekend jaunts, though.

rosequartz and when I said, This is scandalous, I meant Gove. It doesn't seem to matter how many times one Gransnetter refers another to some informative Wikipedia site explaining how officers of the Crown and the Crown itself are financed and who all these venerable piles of masonry belong to, the scandal about the cost of public office keeps on keeping on. As for me, I'd like to know why we are financing a lot of unelected officials in Brussels and Strasbourg to duplicate what we are financing in Westminster. I'm not suggesting they are in any sense corrupt, just that they are superfluous!

Lilygran, in the back garden in a very expensive marquee, then they could all stay in yurts and perhaps watch movies (!) on a big screen eating their takeaway!

The title OP is a partisan statement, so there is no point in claiming now that you meant ALL politicians, bankers etc, ayse!

The Hagues live in a 3 bedroomed flat in the official London residence, not the whole house, and they have redecorated it at their own expense, which they could have charged to the taxpayer.
David Milliband preferred not to live there when he was Foreign Secretary as he had a young family, so the taxpayer had the additional expense of guarding his own London home as well as maintaining the official London residence.

Before anyone picks me up on this, I do realise Jacqui Smith was Home Secretary and therefore may not have been meeting with foreign officials and dignitaries, more Home officials and dignitaries? Where?

I am not taking political sides, just trying to point out some facts. If people want to suggest ways of saving the taxpayer some money on MPs' expenses how about doing away with the huge country residences for ministers of state?

If any one who objects to this were to be offered a job with a rather nice 3 bedroomed flat in a prime location offered as part of the job would they turn it down on the grounds that it is funded by the taxpayer? I thought not. Oh, one or two if you on principle? Really?

The editor of the Daily Mirror should be ashamed at allowing such a sloppy piece of journalism to be published. It is incorrect factually, stastically and politically.

I might be being a little obtuse but how many foreign dignatories need to be 'entertained'? How many, on an annual basis, turn up to be 'entertained'? What do they turn up for? Who pays for it all?

(We don't get that many so I'm baffled as to why it appears so often.)