Councillor Michael Brown has promised that outsourcing West Sussex
County Council services to private companies will save 58 million
pounds. He reassures us that there is nothing to worry about because
other outsourcing deals have seen staff being generously re-employed
by the profiteers taking over the role of the local authority.
It makes you wonder exactly how this 58 million pounds is going to be
made? If not by cuts in wages or cuts in staff, could it be magic?
Or is Councillor Brown's promise just another politician's pie-crust
promise? We all know how much they are worth.
Never mind. It will be quite legal and not at all corrupt for the
private companies awarded the contracts to make generous donations to
the Conservative Party in the future. So everybody wins. With the
exception of anyone who relies on council services, anyone who works
for the council or anyone who cares about the public services.
Thursday 31 May 2012
"56 up" Documentary highlights plight of public services
The BBC "56 up" program follows the lives of individuals in an
unprecedented documentary narrative spanning the time since the
participants were seven. This week it highlighted the plight of public
services. Lifelong library service worker Lynn Johnson said "for the
last thirty years I have been banging my head against a brick wall but
now nobody is listening. They say that the work I do, anybody could do
it."
It is worth emphasising she lost her job as a result of "nice Labour
cuts" not "nasty Tory cuts."
Now, rather than being able to take early retirement her husband has
had to take on full time work to make ends meet. "the goalposts keep
getting higher" for retirement. "People who started work assuming they
could retire at sixty, find the situation has now totally changed."
She regrets the fact there "is no party of the left" although she says
she is not political... and adds "they haven't got a clue what they
are doing. Some people are never ever going to recover from it and
unfortunately they will be quite devastated. We have no more left-wing
Labour Party any more. Tony Blair saw to that. They all veer to the
right. "
You can still see it on Youtube if you type in "56 up documentary" and
it is well worth a look. On the same program a wealthy Tory barrister
boasts that there is no class society in Britain :) Lynn felt her work
promoting literacy and love of literature with children had been
worthwhile. How many rich Tory parasites can say the same?
unprecedented documentary narrative spanning the time since the
participants were seven. This week it highlighted the plight of public
services. Lifelong library service worker Lynn Johnson said "for the
last thirty years I have been banging my head against a brick wall but
now nobody is listening. They say that the work I do, anybody could do
it."
It is worth emphasising she lost her job as a result of "nice Labour
cuts" not "nasty Tory cuts."
Now, rather than being able to take early retirement her husband has
had to take on full time work to make ends meet. "the goalposts keep
getting higher" for retirement. "People who started work assuming they
could retire at sixty, find the situation has now totally changed."
She regrets the fact there "is no party of the left" although she says
she is not political... and adds "they haven't got a clue what they
are doing. Some people are never ever going to recover from it and
unfortunately they will be quite devastated. We have no more left-wing
Labour Party any more. Tony Blair saw to that. They all veer to the
right. "
You can still see it on Youtube if you type in "56 up documentary" and
it is well worth a look. On the same program a wealthy Tory barrister
boasts that there is no class society in Britain :) Lynn felt her work
promoting literacy and love of literature with children had been
worthwhile. How many rich Tory parasites can say the same?
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