Please Pay Polly To Shut Up

Public pay is bloated. But don't forget the virus source | Polly Toynbee | Comment is free | The Guardian

Nice to see Polly Toynbee toeing the government line on public servants' pay. Just a few days ago Harriet Harman was blaming the private sector for the high rates of public pay.

Toynbee reiterates this nonsense:

Harman wants a clampdown on mushrooming public pay – and she quite rightly identifies the cause of the problem: "The huge salaries in the private sector have fed across into the public sector in a way that has got to be pulled back." Liam Byrne, the Treasury chief secretary, is conducting a review of public sector top pay, but as Harman points out, this is a virus caught from the greed in the private sector. Overpaid public officials are still paid less than their private sector equivalents – despite the propaganda of the Taxpayers' Alliance to the contrary. There is a limit to how far public salaries can fall behind. Eventually these would become disrespected jobs for disrespected people, second class, depressed and despised.

This umbilical link between the sectors means Byrne's review of public pay will be meaningless if it has nothing to say about private salary scales. The weak promise of a bill to curb future bank bonuses will not calm public fury as this year's bonuses of some £6bn are announced.

And who, pray, established this 'umbilical link' if not the government itself? And is not the real virus in this country people such as Toynbee and her ilk?

So, having shed responsibility for the government what does Toynbee then suggest is the answer?

A new quango! Of course!

That is why the government needs a high pay commission that, as well as defining reasonable top-to-bottom ratios for public pay, can set guidelines for the private sector too.

Toynbee is well remunerated for writing this cobblers every week and people in the media village are thick enough to think she's worth listening to.

No wonder the country's fucked.