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.

Those Bad Posh People

The truth proves too difficult for Polly Toynbee (not for the first time) when it comes to anti-political bile:

Most depressing for councils, satisfaction mostly depends on something they cannot change – the population: happiest places have most graduates, fewest children, least ethnic diversity, least population churn, most private housing. Badly run areas (like Surrey) that are posh places will always score higher satisfaction than good councils (like Blackburn) with four-star ratings and a miserable populace. Where is the political justice in that?

Reminds me of that poem by Bertolt Brecht, 'The Solution':

After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?