Damage done to the UK ALREADY following the elction

They don't get a free house (or two), nor will anyone pay them megabucks to write an autobiography.

On 22 March 2019, Boris Johnson received £122,899.74 from Living Media India Limited, K - 9, Connaught Circus, New Delhi 110001, for a speech to India Today on 2 March 2019. Hours: 3 hrs. Transport and accommodation also provided.

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/191105/191105.pdf

There are loads of other talks listed. He only received £20k+ each for most of them. I doubt if there are any council employees who could earn that much for an after-dinner speech.

The Prime Minister's basic pay (before the recent pay rise) was £152,532, so many of those earning over £100k don't earn more than he does.

I seem to remember reading that Boris wasn’t in favour of Theresa May’s austerity programme but of course he wasn’t PM then.

I remain hopeful that he will fulfill at least most of his promises, but he he is well aware of the responsibility he has been given.

Naive? I hope not!

growstuff I did say Merseyside in my post, my council tax also goes to Essex County Council, and no doubt many council workers nationwide are in receipt of £100K plus salaries.

I just feel that it is odd that they command higher salaries than the PM.

Cheshire East Council, which has a population of 380,800, has 19 staff earning over £100k, so has more council staff high earners per head of population than Merseyside.

Just to put that in perspective GrannyGravy, that's for the whole Merseyside area, not just Liverpool City Council. It includes councils such as Wirral, Sefton, St Helens, Knowsley and Halton. and covers a huge area and a number of different councils.

My local district council, which is tiny in comparison with any of the councils on Merseyside, has three people earning over £100k. The whole Merseyside region has a population of 1.38 million, which means it has a population 16 times bigger than my district council.

In addition, the bulk of our council tax goes to Essex County Council, which had 55 staff being paid over £100k, which makes it top of the list for high earners - and it's true blue Conservative to the core.

GGMK3 the current Bank of England interest rate is 0.75%.

In the 80's it was as high as 15%

I am not sure that a rate rise of 0.25% can be classified as "interest rates keep rising".

Unfortunately I don’t think we will have a viable opposition to keep him on his toes.

At the moment that's neither here or there. No opposition will be able to dent what he wants for some months. It's down to him and what he has created in our country and meanwhile all the opposition parties have some breathing space to look at the future.

The point I was making was that Boris has only been PM with a large majority for such a short time.

I'm sorry JE but I don't think that's the point. We don't have government by a President and he cannot be said to have been a positive influence in his own party over the last nine years. Under the Conservatives, we've endured the worst decade for growth since the war. Workers are suffering the longest real-wage squeeze for two centuries and on top of the unrelenting austerity, interest rates keep rising and we have no idea what Brexit we will actually get or what the fall out will be from it.

He cannot hide from the fact that he was a member of that party during that time.

According to Liverpool Echo over fifty seven Merseyside council workers earn over £100,00 a year. Together with nice expense accounts.

It is a Labour Council, but surely council workers should not earn more than the PM?

I appreciate that there is a “you get what you pay for approach” but even so local services should come first.

I agree that it's just one reason, but it's something people believe. They don't realise how council funding works and how the formula has been changed over the last ten years.

It's about to affect schools. The Tories' idea of "levelling up" actually means that schools in more privileged areas will receive extra funding to bring them closer to the funding in less privileged areas, which need the money to support more children with problems. Over 80% of schools will lose real-terms funding over the next few years, but accountancy tricks mean that the Tories will claim they've increased funding.

People tend to be a bit fuzzy about who provides what, so it wouldn't surprise me if local councils get the blame for the state of some of their towns and cities.

I've seen that cited as a reason for previous Labour voters voting tory this time. They've had Labour councils for ever and ever and services have been cut to the bone, so they think that Labour has done nothing for them. They don't realise that council funding has been heavily cut, by the tories, in the name of 'austerity'.

(This is just one explanation among many, BTW)

Include a bridge across the Irish Sea in massive and expensive infrastructure projects

There needs to be a new formula for funding some of the areas which have just voted Conservative for the first time. Liverpool (which didn't actually vote Conservative) has a shortfall of half a billion pounds just to maintain current services. The current council tax system means that it just can't raise enough without breaking the cap (shades of Derek Hatton?) It has above average needs for child, disability and old age social care, which it has a statutory duty to provide. That means that cuts to other services, such as libraries, rubbish collections, maintenance of parks will inevitably be cut.

People care more about their local services and the NHS and education than they do about massive and expensive infrastructure projects, such as new motorways, high speed trains and bridges.

I have no doubt that central government will try to offload responsibility to local government. People tend to be a bit fuzzy about who provides what, so it wouldn't surprise me if local councils get the blame for the state of some of their towns and cities. I know from chatting to some people in an area which has just turned Conservative that that is happening.

The point I was making was that Boris has only been PM with a large majority for such a short time.

Yes the Tories have been in power but not with the current leader who seems determined not to let down those who voted Conservative for the first time.

Like everyone else though I really hope he keeps his pledges.

Unfortunately I don’t think we will have a viable opposition to keep him on his toes.

Maizie

Germany was keen to avoid the flaws in the pre-war system, which had enabled the Nazis to grab power, and the UK helped write the Basic Constitution, which became law in 1949.

Strongly tempted to point out that our current government is looking closely at similar 'flaws' in our constitution and seems on course to exploit them.

But I won't?

The year of my birth and in Germany Growstuff. I would say both the German State and I struggled for life for a few years but survived pretty well since

Sadly, I can't see the UK adopting a PR system anytime soon because the two biggest parties will never support change.

Having said that, the current realignment in support for the traditional parties makes the future difficult to predict.

It wouldn't surprise me at all, if the public is offered some very different choices in five ort ten years.

Yes, we did GracesGran. Germany was keen to avoid the flaws in the pre-war system, which had enabled the Nazis to grab power, and the UK helped write the Basic Constitution, which became law in 1949.

Hans-Dietrich Genscher was the German Vice Chancellor and Foreign minister for 18 years, despite being a member of the FDP, which has never had a majority in Germany. Most people probably haven't heard of him, but he was the architect behind German reunification and did an enormous amount to maintain peace in central Europe. He served under Chancellors from different parties, but Germany's foreign policy benefited from consistency through him. He was only in government because Germany has a PR system. If it had FPTP his skills would never have been used.

FPTP assumes that the entire electorate has a binary choice and think in binary terms. Which is absurd. There is a very wide diversity of thought across the electorate about what how they would like the country to be run and what priorities should be. These views are, on the whole, perfectly valid and need to be taken into account for citizens to feel that they truly participating in a democratic exercise. The days when the nation was an obedient fiefdom of one party or the other in a two party system should be long gone.

We surely must decide whether the country is to be run, as far as is possible, for the benefit of all its citizens, which means the compromises and reaching consensus inherent in a PR system, or for the benefit of just those who voted a particular party into power through FPTP.

Not only that Growstuff but didn't we have a hand in setting it up that way?

I agree GracesGran. Every single German government since 1949 has been a coalition and there have only been eight chancellors in that time.

Westminster’s voting system is bankrupt. It’s time for proportional representation

www.electoral-reform.org.uk/westminsters-voting-system-is-bankrupt-its-time-for-proportional-representation/

Coalitions work well in the Netherlands. They tend to keep the extremists in check.