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  1. #1
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
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    Default Blair's gravy train

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    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    ...Blair will receive a severance package from the state worth some £300,000 a year.

    Thanks to some astute lobbying by other ex-PMs, Blair will get a car, a police driver and round-the-clock special branch protection.

    He will also receive an immediate prime-ministerial pension of almost £64,000 a year as well as a further £84,000 to run his office - on top of what he makes as an MP...


    The article is mainly going on what Blair can do from now onwards. I think that he's entitled to do what he wants.

    BUT I don't see why the state is to spend vast sums of money on him from now until his death.

    Get MPs to curtail their own slurry at the trough? Fat chance. It would take the Queen to make a stand and sort this mess out.

    So do others think that this is an acceptable way of spending state money?

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  2. #2
    Voluntary Suspension Voluntary Suspension Philippus Flavius Homovallumus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blair's gravy train

    No, and it's a shame out Queen made herself a Lame Duck in the fifties.

    This is not a Republic and the Prime Minister should be nothing more than the Queen's First Minister, nothing special. I'll go with the Police protection but the rest is a joke. He's already rich.
    "If it wears trousers generally I don't pay attention."

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  3. #3
    Member Member Productivity's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blair's gravy train

    While I don't particularly care in this case as it's not my tax money, in general I hold to the view that if you pay peanuts in general for allowances to politicians, you will get monkeys in those positions. You end up with politicians that are too afraid to pay themselves sums that will attract people who are effective, consequently a lot of people who might otherwise have been interested go through to the private sector because of a wage gap.

    Given the responsibility, stresses etc. that politicians are put under, I don't think a generous remuneration package is unfair, if you want to seriosuly attract people who will produce results.

    When I look at the West Australian government and struggle to think of five ministers who I would think of as effective, then look at the opposition and struggle to think of one, there's something wrong. Then you look and realise they could receive five times as much in the private sector and think maybe good people refuse to work for peanuts.

  4. #4
    Voluntary Suspension Voluntary Suspension Philippus Flavius Homovallumus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blair's gravy train

    Well given the ten years of basically bad handling of government clearly more money doesn't work. You attract the greedy instead of the conciencious.
    "If it wears trousers generally I don't pay attention."

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  5. #5

    Default Re: Blair's gravy train

    You also get the people who have the skills to get five times more cash.

  6. #6
    Master of Few Words Senior Member KukriKhan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Blair's gravy train

    That does seem a rather lavish severence package for an ex-Brit PM. Didn't someone recently post a black-and-white photo of a former PM catching a London bus, all alone, just another regular guy, the day after he left office?

    So, that "return to the farm after service" idea is gone nowadays?
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