From our Swindon Correspondent:
From the Telegraph
Boris Johnson on Friday made it clear there was “no question” of freezing public sector workers’ pay, and said he would “double down” on funding new transport projects in the north of England.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but that’s it. I’m done with them.
I expect the Labour Party to suck up to the public sector. The public sector, via union subs pays for the Labour Party. As a bloc, they overwhelmingly vote for them. And while we do need some public services, the other party should be less about trying to stuff gold into their mouths and more about the voters who have to pay for it.
Most of the public sector have had a reasonable Covid-19. Sure, there’s a few nurses that have affected, but then, so have some care home workers, pharmacists and bus drivers in the private sector. Financially, most of them have been sent off to sit at home on full pay, while people running businesses have been those struggling most.
At the end of all of this, there’s going to be certain sectors that will be wrecked. Hospitality, entertainment. People aren’t going to have as much money in their pockets to spend. The effect of this might be a very hard recession. That’s going to mean falling wages in the private sector.
Public sector wages are pegged to the private sector. Someone working as an administrator for the NHS could leave and go and work in the private sector. So if private sector wages are falling (or not rising), you don’t have to pay the public sector more.
In addition to that, why in the name of all that is holy is anyone promising transport schemes now? The north doesn’t even have transport demand problems (or the fares would be higher than they are). And after all this we’re going to have a decline in transport.
Add all of this to Boris talking about pushing for more government health stuff, and well, why should someone working in the private sector even bother voting for them? They aren’t looking out for our interests, just the public sector, like the other parties. After May and Cameron, we have to accept that this is the state of the Conservative Party.
I mentioned somewhere else that as all those on furlough had taken a 20% wage cut, it was only fair that those still working in the public sector did the same. Comment came from someone that those furloughed on 80% of gross wage were not paying tax, NI etc., so better off than if they were still working.
Spoke to my son in law who is furloughed and no, he was on 80% wage, but still being hit with tax, NI and pension contributions.
Although you are correct, it doesn’t actually take much of a reduction in commuting costs, child care, ancillary work costs (lunches, various difficult to refuse whip-rounds etc) to make up the lost 20%.
And you can do a project which in normal times you would pay someone else to do. I think you can work for someone else temporarily too.
I’m in…
They do also keep the interests of Farmers in mind……
But if you are private sector, or longer thinking public sector, it is obvious the Tories are just Blue Labour and Bojo in particular……
Indeed. That’s why the post-Brexit tariffs are protecting British beef and lamb.
Starting a new party and getting somewhere with it is a long hard slog. UKIP managed to achieve a single one-off policy goal which had widespread grassroots support from both left and right, and it took them over 25 years. And that’s a stand-out success story. A far better scheme would be to take over the mechanics of the Cons. The membership themselves are generally pretty sound, but I suspect that CCHQ is staffed largely by people who would have gone to Labour under Blair but were put off by the Clunking Fist, the Wrong Milliband and Comrade Gummidge. What’s… Read more »
What’s the stand-out success story of Conservative infiltration in the past 25 years? There hasn’t been one, because while the membership are often sound, they don’t have any democratic rights like Labour members do, and the people who step forward to be activists are, based on my experience, pretty much soft Labour (it may be that the more libertarian members who try to be activists realise they get nowhere). They’re like the the sort of people who write for Unherd. They fundamentally believe in Good Government, rather than government as a necessary evil that should be pared back at the… Read more »
See also, “Why don’t you work within the Republican Party?” Trump did not, as Bernie did not work within the Dems. Biden famously did, but he is not an idea man, to put it very mildly.
Matt, the first task is to convince the Tory party-archy to voluntarily relinquish some of its power? Seems more effective to sustain the UKIP and use it to flesh out what “independence” looks like in detail.
Be easier to take over the LibDems. And more fun.
Accept that Boris is completely loony, hang on and enjoy the ride. HS2, fracking, NI bridge, he just cranks them out like a machine.