Hush about public duties allowances
8:54am Tuesday 8th November 2011 in Comment
SOME people clearly resent the pensions that hard working public servants receive after many years of toiling to perform essential services.
This is not surprising given the deliberate misinformation being presented by Government ministers, parts of the media and many others.
For example, the so-called “offer”
made to unions last week was nothing more than a cynical attempt to reinforce the neoliberal policy of divide and rule.
Readers should instead direct some of their understandable and justified frustration towards certain former prime ministers.
It was recently announced just what an astonishing amount of our money they are pocketing under the guise of “public duties allowance”.
Despite being in ill health for the past few years, Baroness Thatcher has pocketed a staggering £535,000 in five years.
John Major, who introduced this nest feathering allowance, has pocketed £490,000 in the past five years.
Tony Blair has pocketed £273,000 just since leaving office, just from “public duties allowance”. These figures are on top of their pensions.
They no longer hold the mandate of having been elected to office, so just what “public duties” are they performing?
They are certainly not getting bins emptied or streets swept.
They aren’t cooking award winningly nutritious school dinners. They aren’t healing the ill and injured. They aren’t educating children. They aren’t risking life and limb to fight fires or catch criminals.
Nor are they doing any of the myriad duties performed for low pay by the nation’s army of loyal and dedicated public servants.
For that matter, the Government does not hold the mandate of having been elected nor are they enacting the policies of any election manifesto.
So just what right do they have to continuously vilify public service workers?
And just why are they keeping so quiet about the £1.7 million that these three former PMs have cost us in just five years?
Dave Milne Brookfield Street Bolton
