The Banker’s handshake
On Monday of this week I glance at a headline in the Daily Telegraph, which said a banker had received a £10,000,000 pension. I had not time to read the rest, but that statement set in motion a number of thoughts, and the greatest was that I couldn’t see how he could spend 10 million intelligently. In the dark ages, when they introduced the National Lottery, I decided to set up a system whereby I did the lottery, and if I won any money I would share it among the family, so I had to decide how much I was aiming for, and I discovered, as I was near retirement age, that a £1m, even spread among the family, would go a long way to fixing their needs, after all a house only cost, at that time, about £100k. I consider that this amount is obscene. A banker is in a position to lend money personally, at high rates of interest, let us suggests 7%, that would bring him in about £700,000 before tax, which would be pretty difficult to spend year on year. I’ll also bet he is about 60, instead of being in his 70s is my children will be, If this government has its way. When I retired I found the family home was far too big for just for the two of us, and ultimately moved into a smaller accommodation. I also found that we had enough of practically everything with which to furnish the new house, and had to spend very little to make a new home as we wanted it. For the life of me I cannot see firstly, how this guy can spend all this money, and secondly, at a time when industry and shops are cut to the bone, and people are being sacked from jobs, which once upon a time were secure, there is any justification for such a handshake, especially, since my savings have been reduced by the very people handing out this money, with the government supporting them. Is there an upper echelon in this country that I don’t know about, where policies of this sort are the norm?
MPs
Like everything else in life, MPs come in good, bad, and indifferent. If like me and my neighbours, you have someone who keeps their eye on a ball, I reckon you are lucky. At the time of the last election, I wrote about some of the people who had put themselves forward, and at the time I commented that the quality was not what one would expect. When someone is elected to parliament, they don’t have to have a string of letters after their name, like some professions, they walk into parliament, literally wet behind the ears with a steep learning curve in front of them. I suggest that the people who are employed to aid them, their staff, will probably be considerably better educated, and far more experienced in the political arena than your prodigy may ever be. There is no shadow of doubt in my mind that when you write to your MP, your letter will go through a number of hands before it reaches your MP, if it ever does in some cases. A civil servant of will draft a reply, the MP may, or may not have to approve it before it is sent out. If the MP decides to write to a minister, concerning your concern, I believe the same approach will pertain. I am certain in my own mind that at times it is the civil servant who makes the decision on behalf of the MP, a system which is logical, as the questions being asked will be repetitious and in a lot of cases manly verbose complaints. The question I therefore ask, is just how many MPs are really needed to keep the ship afloat, and whether the system should be changed to enable a greater number of highly trained and experienced civil servants to not only do the research as now, but also make proposals which are then transferred to a board of MPs for ratification, modification, or rejection. We are told that they need 600 because they are all working away in committee. I have said before, that in my experience most of the people on committee contribute nothing, and the decisions are made by an elite few. In view of the committees that I suggest here, the number of MPs could be reduced considerably, say to 200. If this happened, the cream would come to the surface, and the average quality and experience will be considerably higher at a point of the decision-making process than it might be currently. At the time of the election, prospective MPs would have to come under greater examination by the parties putting them up for election.