Clearly the BBC seeks to engineer a confrontation between the State sector and the Coalition. This morning, it is hyping up the lunatic suggestion by Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, that cutting jobs now would be “economically illiterate”. (Mark does not do irony, evidently)
He said: “I believe there’s no argument for any cuts in public services at all at the moment, that it would be a massive backward step that would throw up to a million more people on to the dole queue.”
Serwotka also made the not so veiled threat that should the Coalition dare to make the State sector conform to best practise in the Private sector then strikes might happen. This is a re-run of the Thatcher years as the BBC seeks to ferment State sector agitation.
Jobseekers allowance is way cheaper than whatever the stupid rate is to pay them to do non-jobs in the public sector. I say do it.
They can always start their own businesses, see how the other half live and contribute to the economy. But , that would be work.
I guess it could take a while for the coalition government to get to grips with the BBC problem. The use of the surpluses from the digital switchover fund to finance the expansion of broadband may have been a sign of things to come. We’ll see.
You assume the coalition has any intention of getting to grips with the BBC problem. I’m afraid it just doesn’t recognise that there is one.
“The coalition government get to grips with the BBC”, that is a joke, isn’t it? Cameron has already said that he loves the BBC, thinks it wonderful. Don’t know whether it’s the rent boys or the coke????
Mr ‘culture,media sports’Hunt cant do anything until 2016 to amend the BBC charter,but what he could do is to freeze the fee or pass a law to change the law for non payment…been sending emails about the beeb to mr hunt since he got the job….
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As I wrote in vain to the Today people:
Yet another gentle interview with Mark Serwotka without anyone putting the opposite position just an expert who told us a few facts without analysis.
Will Today ever allow a debate on public sector pensions or have the unions a monopoly grip on the question?
I accept Serwotka is difficult to deal with but he is never tested in open discussion.
Previous unread or unaccepted comment on the matter:
Today has done it again. The last three discussions of public sector pensions have taken place with either a trade union speaker (Serwotka, Simpson) or this morning a Labour politician (Sir Steve Bullock). Never a Conservative.
And John Humphries latched on to the average council pension supposedly being £4,000 which is a meaningless statistic. The size of a public sector pension depends not just on your pay but your length of service.
Most public sector workers on £15,000 a year would get a pension of £7,500 p.a. and a lump sum of £22,500. If any get less it is because they have not served the full term for a maximum pension just as happens in the private sector.
By the way, even though John Humphries choked on the idea as the other speaker said that the BBC had a public sector pension scheme and then said he was not in it – it does. John must presumably be self-employed if not a member.
This guy was on the News Channel all weekend spouting this stuff about boodget coots. They repeated his segments over and over again. No Tories in evidence.
“Clearly the BBC seeks to engineer a confrontation between the State sector and the Coalition”.
That perfectly describes left-wing BBC business correspondent Adam Shaw’s interview this morning with Frances O’Grady, deputy general secretary of the TUC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8787000/8787301.stm
(The interview runs from 08:11-11.50)
Shaw was clearly trying to goad her into making provocative remarks and seemed impatient that she wasn’t being confrontational enough in the face of all these nasty public sector cuts.