Should he succeed it will no doubt be painted as victory of his strength and prudence, but perhaps, before he does that, he should explain why that new Communications Allowance that MPs get of £10,000 a year rises based on the Retail Price Index which is running at over 2% higher than the Consumer Price Index which he uses all the time to make it sound like inflation is low.
Think about this for a moment. Brown says that public sector workers must be disciplined and accept pay rises that will not impact inflation. Now, putting aside the hogwash of that argument, how can it be that a public sector worker on say £12,000 a year is told that they can only expect a payrise of 2% based on the CPI, whilst the MPs in Parliament have a £10,000 allowance that will rise each year by - on current figures - about 4.3%.
Some people don't like the implication that MPs are feathering their own nests, but when you have a situation where allowances are risen in line with the more trutful and realistic inflation figure, whilst simultaneously telling people earning little more than the allowance that they can only have half the percentage rise otherwise they risk destablising the economy you can't help wondering what planet the people in power are actually on.
The current total value of the
Ricky Gervais's sitcom character in Extras has the catchphrase "are you 'avin a laugh? Is he 'avin a laugh?" All I can think is "are they taking the piss? Is he taking the piss?"
12 comments:
your blog is normally a sensible breath of fresh air after Guido and Iain - but this is really silly partisan nonsense... there are nigh on 6 million public sector workers; and 646 MPs in Parliament - think the inflationary impact of these two things might differ slightly no?
I;m sorry, how is this partisan exactly? I'm merely giving an opinion about how the CPI and RPI is selectively used in argument dependent on whether it is the proles or the MPs as the subject matter. I have not mentioned a political party at all. As to the inflationary impact of pay rises I don't buy it anyway.
yes you're right of course... partisan is maybe the wrong word. It was the tags of Gordon Brown, liar, spin that made that word jump to mind...
No explanation as to the equivalence of 646 and 6m yet? Whatever your view of the possibility of wage inflation (and if you trust Dom Lawson's economic sense on this I'm a little surprised)feeding real inflation this post seems below you.
On pols choosing which one they want to use for their own purposes, I'm sure you are also aware that benefits are uprated in terms of RPI...
"No explanation as to the equivalence of 646 and 6m yet?"
Well that's easy to explain, I;m not making an equivalence between 646 and 6 million, you inferring one.
My point was that on the one hand public sector workers are told that inflation is key, and there pay rises are based on the CPI as an indicator and that they must disciplined. Meanwhile on the other hands MPs allowances are measured against the RPI which is double and that is not a tad patronising and ill-disciplined?
At the end fo the day the MPs are there because of us, not in spite of us. For them to pontifcate, rightly or wrong, about inflation in relation to rises but to then take rises in allowances that far outstrip the inflation rate that we're all told we should beleive is a load of bollocks, and __that___ is the point.
Re: Gordon Brown, liar and spin. I said it because as far as I can tell he is a liar and he does spin, and the talk of inflation and the fluid choice btween RPI and CPI is of his doing as Chancellor.
Re: Gordon Brown, liar and spin. I said it because as far as I can tell he is a liar and he does spin, and the talk of inflation and the fluid choice btween RPI and CPI is of his doing as Chancellor.
I thought I heard on R4 yesterdays that the MP's pay rise was X% this year ( where they want us to pay attention ) then RPI + £650/year for the two years afterwards.
The cost of living in Britain is going up spectacularly faster than CPI.
Private sector wage increases are at 4%. Gordon Brown is really talking about pay cuts for the public sector - only being Gordon he lacks the courage to tell people straight.
well that's all well and good - but let's face it - we all want more money and as far as I can see (based on past performance if nothing else) GB is happy to pay it - public sector workers snouts have been deep in the trough since 1997... what matters about this is the reasons behind not giving them more money now, the inflationary pressure - which is not an issue in terms of allowances. And finally, this is 1.9% on top of way over-indexed increases for the past decade... allowances (I presume) are indexed each year...
Anyway, I don't think this is the right arguement to be having about inflation and public sector pay - it's a distraction from the real issues... which you usually tackle very well.
I dont care about the inflationary issue, right or wrong, what I care about is the principle that one measuring rule is applied to some whilst another measuring rule is applied to the other.
then you are writing the wrong story - which is what I said initially... not least when it is so obvious why the different measures are applied.
One rule for you, one for me...
I've bin doing that since I was wee...
I'm a socialist you see...
"then you are writing the wrong story"
WTF? I don't know whether you've noticed this but this is my website where I post things I find and give opinionated responses to things I see. There is no such thing as the "wrong story" here because all there is are my posts. If you don't like it, then fuck off.
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