Cabinet Applauds Smokescreen !!!

I am pretty staggered how many people here find debate impossible or don't read the earlier posts before commenting. I stated clearly that I was not saying this was engineered and yet several later posters suggested I was....:rolleyes:

Equally I am amazed that some folks think that everyone who earns £50K works hard. I have known and I have fired over the years an awful lot of chaps who did not. Equally I've fired folks earning very little for exactly the same reason.

It is my experience that those who rise to higher rank are often more capable of presenting the illusion of work than those at lower grades. Its very easy to shift a lot of paper and appear busy in an office but if you're a cleaner and you don't move any of the dirt it is recognised far more easily.

All I am saying is that whenever I have had to go into a company and slash costs I've typically found it easier to find lazy b's that aren't worth their salary in middle management than finding the same on the shopfloor.

The reality is that the current bunch IMHO are more Marketeers / Spinners than any I have ever seen including the last lot. Hardly surprising when so many of the current Cabinet come from PR or similar disciplines.

Now I ask again - Who thinks that the Cabinet cheered and banged the table, as DC said they did, simply because they were so excited for Wills and Kate?

But based on one of your posts you DID suggest that 3 17k workers would be fired instead of one lazy 50k a year sits on his arse and does nothing worker.

The problem is, you're wrong.

Most jobs being shed directly, are public service jobs, jobs that SHOULD NEVER HAVE EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Thats what people missed, they are removing ENTIRE LEVELS of beurocrasy, which includes many "management level" staff.

This is the other problem, go talk to someone in ANY department in the NHS, knowing personally, and having spoken to dozens of people in management positions, having family that work in the sector, having worked in several departments and having the general concensus of most who work in those departments is that Labour massively increased the sizes of these departments, and half the workers don't turn up, come in late, spend all their day e-mailing and on the internet.

Partially the quick expansion, creation of new department and jobs and very little long term thinking, most of these staff are almost impossible to be fired despite being incompetant. Largely because the first people to lose their jobs when companies downsize, is the worst employee's, and they are the ones that find it hardest to find new employment, which led to a disproportionate number of unqualified, lazy or attitude problem having personel being added to the NHS.

Basically, most of the wasted 17k a year jobs in the NHS(the uk's biggest employer, by far) and many other government departments are, completely unnecessary, completely useless, massively overpaid, and should be fired even if we weren't in a terrible economic situation.


The first ever decent point I've seen Britboy make is, there is indeed a danger that the Tories will blame every single cut, and every single mistake they make on Labour.

But the reason that won't matter is, we've seen it before, more than 51% of the public are stupid, and manage to live under supposedly "bad times" under Thatcher, ignoring she dragged a useless government/country forward in the same way the Tories are being asked to again. It didn't stop the country completely forgetting what Labour had done, and several times since then people have still forgotten how completely inept Labour are.

Maybe not in 4 years, but 8 at the most and people will have entirely forgotten that it was labour who put us in this situation, so theres absolutely no problem with the public getting caught up in the Tories " we only did this because of labour" message, because its failed to make the slightest bit of difference previously.


The bad thing is, fairly obviously, is that Tories will cut our spending, dramatically(but no where near as far or as fast as necessary, something people miss), people will get unhappy, forget Labour put us here, vote them back in, they'll reverse every Tory policy and they'll plunge us into a new economic crisis, worse than the one we are no where near out of yet.

As for the wedding, honestly, I don't think there are enough politicians in the house of commons to think that quickly, calculate the media ignoring the government problems and then cheer about it, its stupid to even think it.

Fact is, take them all, put them in their own room and tell them the news, they'd do nothing, put people together in a huge room, they celebrate loudly.

have you seen a pub full of people celebrate a goal for any game, or at a match, have you ever reacted THAT much on your own in your living room.

People act differently in groups, its a proven fact, in almost any given situation the bigger the group in the further from what you think is "normal" most people act, strange, but very true.
 
Great so this means I can buy another silver painted double decker bus with their mugs on it instead of charles and diana?

What really annoyed me was the news coverage they got! It will be non stop for a few days and all the news rags will have 10pages devoted to it all lol.
 
@ simulatorman

Nope. I've got to reply to 40 first only then can i respond to 41. To paraphrase a certain famous phrase though, "The gentleman is loving this".;)

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@ Casteil

Well reading your last post I find that perhaps our positions are not as diametrically opposed as it may at first have seemed. We clearly both concur that there can be much dead-wood in middle echelons that needs clearing from time to time. Equally we agree that someone coming afresh to post in either the permanent role or the temporary role of a consultant often sees the wood from the trees far more clearly.

The one area though where we are still miles apart is re the Cabinet reaction this morning. You wrote:

"Your OP insinuates that their first thought and reason for cheering the news of the Engagement was that they now had a ready made smokescreen and was not genuine. Something that is cynical and in all likelihood just based on your own mindset rather than any real truth."

No, my friend, it was not mindset, purely logic. Consider - How did you react this morning when you heard the news? Did you start cheering and banging your desk? And if you had been in a full board meeting at your company when the news broke would you and all your fellow Directors have started cheering and banging the table? Equally how would they have looked at you if you did?

What we do know is that Cameron said that the Cabinet reacted like that. So we must either conclude that DC was lying his head off or it did occur. If it occurred either the whole cabinet has shares in souvenir manufacturing companies or something else excited them to that which was an OTT level. If it wasn't OTT then you would and your fellow Directors would have all done it too. As I said in my OP, I think the Cabinet just couldn't believe their 'kin luck. I think that because nothing else explains the OTT reaction. Indeed their reaction was surely similar, was it not, to a group of football supporters when by sheer chance their side suddenly flukes a goal.

My mindset? I think not. Merely logic based on that which was such an unusual OTT reaction?


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@ drunkenmaster

In many ways I agree with a great deal of what you said. Indeed much of my professional life revolved around clearing such dead-wood from organisations. However, there are a couple of areas where I disagree.

You are correct that group dynamics play a role. That often means the quickest thinker leads the pack. Therefore it only took one Minister to realise the political advantages of this and start cheering and banging the table for a classic, "One shoot, all shoot", situation to occur and everyone join in.

Equally you are right with the football supporters analogy. That's how I saw it too. But supporters don't go crazy about random goals by random teams. They only go crazy when it is of advantage to them, such as when their side scores a goal or some other team takes a point or three of their worst enemies.

The cabinet reaction was not normal excitement at such news. If it was then every board room and every shopfloor and every open plan office would have reacted the same when the news arrived. That is unlikely to have happened unless there was something directly in it for them. Certainly the Talk Radio stations are all suggesting that most folks are not very excited at the news. So, as I said to Casteil, it becomes clear the Cabinet perceived something above the norm reacting more as if a degree of considerable personal gain resided within the news.

Moving on to the other area where I disagree. That is whether first clearing out the dead-wood £17K sector you identified is wise? The cost of sustaining those people on benefit is not that much less than leaving them in situ. For this reason it makes far greater economic sense to look at pruning any £30K to £60K dead-wood first. Doing so returns larger savings per person placed out of work. It also has less social impact because less people become unemployed.

Personally I would like to look at the managerial ratios in the NHS. That's one of the quickest ways to identify over-manning. If a Manager has less than six or seven subordinates reporting directly to him/her then you have a problem. My bet is that ratios in the NHS most often average far less than six. But how can you expect a group of predominantly PR folk (the Cabinet) to understand things like that?

It also amazes me that Cameron has used his most experienced businessman as Justice Secretary. Good move, Davy. I can't think of a bigger waste of Ken Clarke's talents.

It gets worse. Cameron would claim that all these problems are caused by Labour and that the Tories left a great set of books in 1997. So what does he do, he takes the very Chancellor from '97 who left that great set of books, a guy who he is clearly claiming was excellent at the job and instead of using that experience and talent he makes him Justice Secretary. :rolleyes: Instead he gives the job to his old school pal. :rolleyes::rolleyes: See what I mean about relationships and loyalties. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: Nice one, Davy boy.

Call me a cynic if you want. But this crew are the worst Tory front bench I've ever seen and that comes from an almost lifelong Tory voter.
 
Spunkey, I concur wholeheartedly. No doubt the tax payers will also have to fork out for the usual pomp and ceremony that accompanies anything the inbreds do.

I almost fell over when I heard the news a while back that Liz had applied for a poverty loan for repairs to Buck House. You couldn't make it up.

Since this country makes a huge profit from the royal family, you're making yourself look silly. That's without taking into account how much it would cost to hire a replacement head of state and all the staff, security, etc, to go with them. Even if you ignore that and ignore tourism, we still make a huge profit from the royal family.

So you're talking about losing at least a billion a year in order to save little or no money. Why on earth do you think that makes any sense?
 
Since this country makes a huge profit from the royal family, you're making yourself look silly. That's without taking into account how much it would cost to hire a replacement head of state and all the staff, security, etc, to go with them. Even if you ignore that and ignore tourism, we still make a huge profit from the royal family.

So you're talking about losing at least a billion a year in order to save little or no money. Why on earth do you think that makes any sense?

Got any factual figures for this 'Profit'? I've only ever seen the 'Boosts Tourism' Spin which is highly dubious at best (I find it hard to believe any tourist would visit the UK with the sole intention of seeing a Royal.), I also find it strange that whenever Royal 'costs' come up they will not include Security costs which I'm sure we can all agree are going to be pretty damned expensive! And would we even need a replacement head of state? No, not really.
 
Got any factual figures for this 'Profit'?

The country makes over £200M profit per year purely from the 100% tax on the income from the royal family's land and property. The tax they pay in order to get the civil list.

I bet you didn't even know about that.

If the government said they'd take everything you have and let you have ~4% of it back, would you consider yourself a sponger?

Or how about, for example, Lord Sugar? He owns a lot of property from which he gets a lot of money. Should the government tax that income at 100% and give him ~4% of it back? Would you think of him as a sponger if they did?

As for the pittance that is the civil list, the large majority of that goes on wages. So you'd put those people out of a job and on benefits. So you wouldn't even be "saving" the small amount you claim you'd be "saving" (by losing many times as much).

I've only ever seen the 'Boosts Tourism' Spin which is highly dubious at best (I find it hard to believe any tourist would visit the UK with the sole intention of seeing a Royal.),

Your statement about tourism is so strange that I'm genuinely unable to decide whether you're serious or joking. Would you clarify that? Surely you can't seriously think that the only effect the existence of the monarchy has on tourism is people who visit the UK with the sole intention of seeing a royal. Nobody could believe something that ridiculous.

I also find it strange that whenever Royal 'costs' come up they will not include Security costs which I'm sure we can all agree are going to be pretty damned expensive!

Same as for any head of state.

And would we even need a replacement head of state? No, not really.

Yes, really. What else are we going to do? Not have a head of state? Maybe we could operate as an anarcho-syndicalist commune?

Help, help, come and see the oppression inherent in the system!
 
.....................The country makes over £200M profit per year purely from the 100% tax on the income from the royal family's land and property. ..............

Errrrmmmmm, hello. Who's land and property did you say? Now there's a topic for debate isn't there. Where did the family acquire such land and property in the first place?
 
Errrrmmmmm, hello. Who's land and property did you say? Now there's a topic for debate isn't there. Where did the family acquire such land and property in the first place?

Good point,they robbed the land many years ago,the royal family are just leeches end off....
 
Errrrmmmmm, hello. Who's land and property did you say? Now there's a topic for debate isn't there. Where did the family acquire such land and property in the first place?

It's their land, simple as as that. How it was acquired in antiquity is irrelevant. The simple fact is that the Royal Family Inc. brings a serious amount of money into this country via tourism and trade, far more than the cost of their maintenance.

To remove the Royals and replace them with a Republican President would be foolish, both economically and traditionally.
 
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Errrrmmmmm, hello. Who's land and property did you say? Now there's a topic for debate isn't there. Where did the family acquire such land and property in the first place?

There is indeed a topic for debate. How did anyone acquire land and property? Are you advocating stealing all land and property acquired by inheritance? Or just that of people you dislike?
 
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