In it for the money – How many council workers does it take to cut the grass?

For a long time I've been meaning to write about where modern Left wing politics is going wrong; why the idealistic followers are deluding themselves as their incompetent Leaders attempt to delude everyone else. But obviously it’s a big topic, it’s an over long blogpost let alone a Doctoral thesis or an entire life’s work…

So in a way I've been waiting for the right story or issue to latch on to, something to just let the subject flow and illustrate the situation in modern Left wing politics, particularly in the Western world.

Well there probably have been suitable topics, but the one I have doesn't necessarily encapsulate everything, but it does show up both the reality of what Labour did during their 13 years of power and also what can happen under Left wing regimes of any pretty much any kind.

    North Korea - Extreme Left?

    According to the BBC; so extreme it's actually Right wing... 

On a recent edition of a popular prime time game show in this country, one contestant gave his job title as ‘Monitoring Officer’ for his local council. So far so vague, the presenter clearly wanted some illumination and with light pressing; discovered that the contestant, for a living, checks that the grass has been cut properly… Grass the Council is responsible for and cut by Council employees, of course.

There was a just audible gasp in the crowd, with perhaps a smattering of laughter. The contestant provided only a minor justification, saying it has to be level and so on. The presenter asked if he just went back to the office afterwards and the contestant, clearly mildly embarrassed, could only shrug.  

The answer to that question is more than likely, yes. Possibly completes a report and if at all possible, has a kip before knocking off…

If there were more to the job, surely he would have thought about how to present it? He must have had time to think beforehand, even if one might then falter under those bright studio lights… So let’s just assume that is  pretty much all he does, maybe he does have other ‘monitoring’ responsibilities but clearly grass was most important. Truth is I would hope to God they find him something else to do in the winter…!

    The Grass Monitor assesses the situation…

    ‘Yeah I don’t think there’s much point coming in today…’

Does this situation need dissection? A Council employs someone to monitor their own grass cutters’ work. It’s not left to the grass cutters, no, they obviously can’t be trusted…

    The Monitor finds the job half done...

    This is what happens without close monitoring...! 

So the answer to the title question is one (or more) to cut the grass and one to check it’s been done correctly…

Salary and benefits, to monitor grass…? Build up the pension, retire early if at all possible, I don’t give a s**t whether or not it’s gold plated, it’s a stretch to call it ‘hard-earned’ whatever comes out on retirement!

And of course that is what we hear so much about; ‘hard working public servants’… Do they include the Grass Monitors in that?

    Hardest game in the world…  

    The Monitor seems happy with his day's work...

As I commented on Twitter at the time, there is no justifying a full time position like that, in any economic climate. The notion of ‘non-jobs’ is a staple of Right wing criticism of the public sector, I struggle to recall many clear rebukes from the Left, it seems the commentators are more inclined to ignore it.

Here the BBC try to offer some balance on the subject - Council cuts: Just what is a 'non-job'? Councils try to defend the jobs when directly criticised, a classic in the article regarding 'Diversity Co-Ordinators'; the defence is that the role complies with their obligations under equality legislation. OK, well all companies would have to comply, but is there really a need for a whole separate position...? And therein is the mentality of it.  

How could anyone possibly argue the case for a separate grass monitoring position? It is clear this won't be isolated, not this one role in one council, that in itself would be ridiculous. This is merely a good example.

Now this type of role may have been around a very long time, but this is what happened under Labour. The Labour Government threw money at the public sector and this is the kind of thing that resulted. That’s not to say that no workers in the public sector were pushed into difficult circumstances, but then the existence of a job like this just exemplifies poor management and ludicrous inefficiency.

Probably the most important question that arises from this is why is it still happening? Why wasn't his head first on the block? These are hard times, whichever way you look at it.

If they talk about staff cuts and ‘vital services’ being reduced, well most people are annoyed by reducing policing, nursing, etc, but the fact it is the people feeling the sharp edge of the cuts should be the most indignant of all that this job still exists!

But no, that’s not how it works, no malice towards their fellow workers whatever they might do, perhaps with the exception of managers and HR…

    Protesting Council Workers 

    A message to their managers?

It’s been identified before; the ones making the cuts are the people who should be cut. The Tories don’t make the cuts directly; the budgets constraints are put in place and the manager have to make the decisions. Only the managers and the one eyed supporters of the public sector will overlook the fact that they could easily remove a number of their own positions and reduce their pay and benefits, instead of cutting ‘vital’ services.

The grass monitor must have friends in power…

    It always helps to have friends in power...

    Ed Miliband asking which way to go next...

Here’s a simple management lesson for those in charge at the council; get the monitor out cutting the grass and just add to the job description ‘check it’s level when you’re done’...! He can have a couple of extra quid for that. He’s obviously qualified for the job, but I suppose the actual grass cutting is a different skill set to the assessing of the work…?

    This could get tricky.

    That bit will need to be checked for sure...

It is the world Labour created. While indeed money was made in the private sector and this funded Labour profligacy with the public sector, conditions in the low end of the private sector worsened. Labour may have introduced the minimum wage, but wage inflation was dragged down and the pressure put on workers was steadily increased. At the same time Labour tried to build their idea of a utopian workplace in the public sector, continually increasing wages and staff numbers, and improving conditions. Gordon Brown’s socialist ideals, paid for by the boom in the private sector.

They tried to justify the increasing salaries of managers by claiming they had to compete with the private sector to ‘attract the best talent…’ Utter b*llocks.

With all the money and staff thrown into the public sector, was there really any substantial and noticeable improvement for the average tax payer, let’s say particularly in the case of councils? They’d claim that practices and delivery have changed and improved, but so to has the world of work changed mainly due to technology. It’s essentially circumstantial (like so many of the ‘improvements’ that happened under Labour), not driven by increasing salaries for managers and their ‘management skills’.   

When salaries are compared between the public and private sector, a favourite public sector adage is that they could ‘earn more in the private sector for the same job…’ A line often touted by public sector IT workers, as I've mentioned in a previous post.

Well I wonder how much a ‘grass monitor’ would earn in the private sector…?

Labour did preside over a fair amount of cutting back in certain areas of the public sector. Services were privatised for instance and in fact early on when the comparisons between wages in the sectors were highlighted many defenders of the public sector pointed to the workers who’d been affected by privatisation, they were the low paid, cleaners for example. So this increased the average wage in the public sector and essentially vice versa, though the complexities of private sector wages were never touched upon. To many the ‘private sector’ means bankers and estate agents, or so it seems…

When Labour promised a "Future fair for all” in the 2010 general election, that certainly meant ‘fair’ for the Grass Monitor, but what about those facing cuts or being privatised? One must assume they meant ‘fair’ in a different respect…

    Labour's comic book Manifesto cover for 2010 

    There was a lot of grass in Labour's vision of the future...

This is a good example of the fallacy and delusions of Left wing politics; this is what would happen under a Left wing regime of any kind. Who knows one day maybe it won’t matter, in a changing world with rapid technological advances, but in the here and now, it matters.  

When workplace decisions are not based on the needs of a business and the pressures of a market, of any kind, they are or should be based initially on function, but then after that, they’re based on the whims and prejudices of those in charge.

It’s just jobs for the boys and if a business can afford a load of hangers on then so be it, but in state institutions, the rest of society are supporting it. It is a feature of any Left wing or Statist regime; the people in power will make themselves comfortable and surround themselves with favoured parties. Right wing governments will do the same thing, governments of any kind, but this is an argument against the self righteous, holier than thou Left…   

So what’s the difference between the bloated state institutions created by the Leaders of ‘the people’ and the old establishment? Just the entry requirements change a little and people are still potentially born into it; it’s never what you know, always who you know…

    North Korea's Finest

  

    Clearly his favourites...

So in the current remnants of Labour’s regime, the 'Grass Monitor' remains… Of course a further characteristic of the public sector in full flow is that when you’re in, you’re in. You’d have to go so far as to kill someone to be sacked, and even then…

It has changed over the years and into the current climate, but claims about the likes of teachers (Have just 20 teachers been dismissed for incompetency in 40years?) have given some indication of what it can still be like and I've seen the evidence in the workplace.

I know social workers have long been under pressure in terms of time and resources, this has been raised again recently with new government initiatives for graduates, and is just one example of so very many, where you have to question wouldn't the money be better spent in social services than in the ‘grass management’?

    Social Workers on Strike

    Barking up the wrong tree...?

The Left frame the argument in defence of the public sector as it exists, in terms of both individual lives - the jobs and the wider economic benefits of those jobs. It is ignoring and excusing poor management, this argument isn't about economics and has nothing to do with 'austerity'; there does need to be investment to stimulate the economy and 'vital services' should remain. This is about having the state functioning effectively, removing incompetence, inefficiency and the bias and self interest in poor management. Public money should be spent wisely, not just thrown at state institutions...

As I mentioned why not have the ‘monitoring’ role as a function of a different job with wider remit, if it is then I'd like to hear how and why that wasn't clear? I'm sure the defence would be that the role does have more functions, but it was apparent ‘grass’ is the most significant and it shouldn't be like that, that’s the wrong way round.

In terms of grass cutting obviously there are private sector equivalents we can compare with, I wonder how many gardening firms employ a grass monitor…? Well if they are making enough money and want a monitor then that is their business, it can’t be and shouldn't be justified at the expense of the tax payer.

 

Just as the Left say the Tories distract from their failings and the Bankers by saying look at the public sector, so to do the Left distract from this kind of state extravagance, for that is what it is, by saying look how much money those rich people have and look at the Tories protecting them....!

But the Left fundamentally do not care about this kind of situation; everyone should have a job, and it is in that world where some will slave away and others will sit back and enjoy the benefits, one way or the other.

Some slave, while others live easy lives? Kind of sounds like a Right wing regime...? The BBC's Panorama would probably say that such a regime is by definition; as linked above, the programme claimed North Korea was so Totalitarian that it was actually more like the Nazis and therefore not Communism.

    Obedient North Koreans

    When Communism goes bad...?

It was a pointless attempt at a technical definition, the fact is the same s**t ends happening whatever the original intentions, however noble...

Leftist politicians and commentators must assume they will keep their comfortable positions 'when the revolution comes', over here… Owen Jones for instance, he's bound to be Junior Minister for Propaganda. Can't imagine him getting hands dirty.

    A Champagne Socialist in Training...?

    Owen celebrates his new role in the Ministry of Propaganda...

As I was writing this post Liam “There’s no money left” Byrne has raised the issue of ‘full employment’, a classic policy of the post war social democratic years. There is nothing wrong with it as an aim, and forgetting any notions of Right wing views of unemployment, you’d have thought most governments would see low unemployment as desirable. But how would Labour go about achieving full employment? More Grass Monitors? Fair for all?  

You think Liam Byrne gives a s**t who’s doing what, as long as the stats look good? 

    Liam Byrne is asked how many grass monitors Councils need?

    ‘You think I give a f**k about anything other than my career?!’

Shouldn't the actual people cutting the grass be the most insulted of all? They work harder and probably earn less… Do they even know, does the Monitor do his ‘work’ surreptitiously…?

    As the grass cutters take a break...

    The Grass Monitor takes evasive action...

It's a huge s*** sandwich and we're all gonna have to take a bite...

I was going to write about the issues of the week, from Laws to Campbell, but throughout the last week or so, on the internet and on the TV, this question continues to be posed almost relentlessly:

"Why should Civil Servants pay for the mistakes of bankers?"

And it will continue to be asked over the next few months/years as the cuts are planned and take effect.

So I just wanted to return to this issue, briefly...

I have seen comments on social media that say public sector workers get 'paid less' than private sector works and this is one of the common misconceptions that are generated from the public sector, unions and the left wing media.

I'm sure civil servants are sick of seeing all these contract cleaners, warehouse staff, factory workers, call centre workers, admin staff, bar/hotel staff, waiters, care workers, etc, etc, etc, driving around in Porsches or the like, mocking their impending plight..!

The misconceptions and propaganda seem to confuse the whole of the private sector with the financial services. As if all the workers listed above are on massive wages and bonuses. A common quote I've heard over the years from public sector representatives when confronted with the issue of their pensions and benefits, was that they wished they could have the 'bonuses of the private sector'. (Well apparently some government agencies do hand out bonuses, just to perfectly contradict this oft-repeated mantra. One fine post-crash example was the FSA)

It may be true that some industries, particularly the financial services, have a bonus culture, but it is far from all and certainly few at the lower levels.

It has been the low paid private sector that is currently being criminally over looked during the election and now as the issue of cuts takes centre stage. Unemployment has been an issue, but not the conditions in the private sector as belts have tightened for two years. Gordon Brown even tried to take credit for keeping unemployment low even though it is in the private sector that changing working conditions (e.g. going part time, reducing hours, etc) meant many clung onto their jobs.

Times have been very hard for nearly two years, but apparently it is civil servants paying for the downturn? That doesn't really ring true in many circumstances.

Those rejecting the need for cuts seem to use the word 'victims' quite regularly, again as if they alone are feeling the brunt of the crash, just two years after it happened. That's a painfully slow shockwave...

The simple fact is we should all have to deal with it. It is actually quite insulting to those who have suffered, the unemployed and the low paid.

It has also been harder in non-unionised industries, obviously recent examples of Network Rail and BA have shown that changes in conditions are not forced on to them without a fight. While my opinions of unions have altered over the years and I do believe in collective action in principle, these actions are unlikely to ultimately help. Workers in many any other industries have simply have to put up with changing conditions, or leave, if they so wish.

Public sector unions will mobilise over the cuts, of course attempting to defend the interests of their own members, but I think ultimately that is the problem of modern British employment. The solidarity throughout the working population, formerly found in industrial labour, no longer exists and the influence is much more limited. Unions will be looking after narrow interests that wouldn't necessarily benefit the larger population, those who have already suffered, no matter how well intended any action is.

There is huge scope for cuts in the public sector and while the private sector has largely been squeezed it within an inch of its life, little has changed for public servants and surely it is only right and fair that the situation changes.

It is now close to two years that this downturn has effected the world economy and as it transpired the two main culprits have come away largely scot-free.

It was the banking sector and Government, through action and inaction respectively, that caused the crisis. However, with the banks having been propped up by Government and the cuts in public spending having largely been postponed until now, in many ways these two sectors have not felt the full effects of the downturn, or at least no as perhaps they could have, should have...

Yes there have been job losses in the banking sector and the Labour Government was thrown out at the election (though only just, Brown was clinging onto the door of No. 10 with his fingertips...), but the banks were saved from extinction and they have in some ways returned to business as usual. Perhaps they are trying to balance the books a little better, so have tightened their belts (much to the dismay of some would be borrowers), but bonuses are back. While in terms of Government as I have stated clearly for nearly two years the public sector has been largely saved from cuts.

The debt has gone from the debt of banks to sovereign debt, the debt of the nation. So who will take the greatest relative proportion of that debt? Not the rich, the rich will not suffer in the downturn and that was clear and identified long before the crash actually happened. In the global economy the super rich will prosper over the long term as the Times rich list has already illustrated quite clearly this year.

And in terms of my two protagonists, the Labour party don't seem too disheartened by opposition, since they weren't completely annihilated. I mean Big Al Campbell is having a right laugh on Twitter, on Question Time and while getting publicity for his trashy book.

Alastair Campbell

A man utterly convinced of his own importance

The fact is the level of economic growth was unsustainable therefore the level of investment in the public sector was also unsustainable. Cuts have to be made.

The idea of sustainable growth reminds me of the huge of amount of rubbish stated about Brown's economic record. The absolute best was early on in the crisis when on Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 show John Prescott claimed that Brown had delivered 10 years of "sustainable" economic growth. It so completely nonsensical it doesn't require analysis.

I don't think Vine picked him up on it properly. It astounds me that the likes of Prescott and Campbell get away with such nonsense so easily, or are allowed to by professional presenters and journalists.

John Prescott

F***ing clueless

Stick to what you know best John

Spot on


Maybe in a few years' time the higher level of investment could return, if significant growth returns. But probably not if the Tories have anything to do with and greater efficiency does need to be brought to the sector. This is a main aspect in the disparity between the public and private sector and I do intend to look more closely at Labour's legacy in the public sector and employment in Britain.

The issue of debt reduction and cuts is complex, but many of those fundamentally opposed to spending cuts are suggesting that the debt should be paid by increasing taxes.

This blog article is along those lines

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/05/28/camerons-claim-on-8020-tory-cuts-doesnt-stack-up/

So effectively the private sector pays, even if some public sector workers suffer de facto pay cuts, the basis of the debt would be paid from wealth generated in the private sector.

Taxes will have to be increased of course, but the idea of just taxing the rich, or the banks, or whoever; will not work without the corresponding cuts. The rich should pay their fair share and banks need to be levied (something Labour was waivering on), but tax increases have to be combined with spending cuts.

To put it simply, the rich will avoid the taxes as best they can and the conditions at the wrong end of the private sector will continue to deteriorate as the burden of the tax is shifted. Even if the low paid are not directly taxed, companies will cut further in attempts to maintain profits.

I have to admit that this scenario adds some credence to the Tory and business leaders claims about the NIC rise, the 'tax on jobs'.

Job cuts, pay freezes, etc, etc. The low paid in the private sector shouldering an even greater level of the burden to maintain the conditions in the public created during an
unsustainable boom.

It's just the way the system is now. Labour and their supporters may not like it, but then they had 13 years to at least try to do something about it.


I don't know if I'm hammering the point home... I would hope the point is clear enough, there is more than just the disparity between the rich and the poor in this society Tory and Labour alike have mangled over the last 30 years.

A bit bogged down by debt and cuts. I will move on this weekend...

Cutting remarks

Against the clock once more. I don't seem to have enough time outside of commuting to work, to do my part in paying off this massive national debt, under increasingly difficult conditions. It's a hard life...

There has been a reasonable amount of activity of course, in the early days of this coalition, but two major stories that hold my interest are the Labour leadership race and the impending cuts in public spending.

These are ongoing matters (the Labour leadership bun fight will drag on for months it seems), so I will look them again, but I wanted to make some quick comments, in a vain attempt to keep up with things.

Ed Balls and Ed Miliband criticised the Iraq war over the weekend. Well that's very big of them... Just 7 years after the war, and granted neither of them were MPs at the time of the war, but we heard barely a squeak out of them until now. Now Brown has gone these brave boys have piped up.

Balls thinks he can do what he likes now Brown has gone.

"S**t. Is that Gordon?!"

But it is David Miliband who has once again stated that we 'should just move on'. It is true that none of what has happened can be undone, but the effects of the war will continue to be seen for years to come. Many people feel the angry about the thoroughly deceptive way the Labour Government acted before and after the war and that we have not received anything close to satisfactory answers and admissions.
You could make a lot of comparisons to other historical events stretching back over many years and the extent to which we've 'moved on', World War Two seems to still get a lot of press these days...

But a good example I saw a couple of years ago was on Question Time when the Leader of the SNP, Alex Salmond, picked up the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, about his dismissal of questions about the Iraq war. Lord Falconer was saying we need to 'move on' and it's in the past now, when Salmond pointed out that this attitude was coming from a Government that was considering an apology for Britain's involvement in the salve trade.

Some people do pick and choose which parts of 'history' to move on from. Maybe we'll hear from Blair's descendants in 200 hundred years. Now there's a thought...

This sort of attitude from David Miliband is just an example of the dismissive and patronising disposition that I came to expect from the New Labour hordes in the latter years of their government. He's going to have his work cut out trying to change the mechanics of that spin machine. As since he was integral to it, can it really change?

"Next Labour", really? That's pretty desperate and I reckon they are scrambling around trying to come up with something new.

Maybe that was a covert parting shot from Alastair Campbell? Whoever it was, I bet Mandelson was probably laughing his arse off that one.

Mandelson and Brown consider their legacy

"Well we f***ed over Miliband. Me and you Gord, they won't forget us in a hurry..."

Patronising, dismissive, deceptive; some of New Labour's finest traits and all embodied in Peter Mandelson. But they still like to have a laugh...

They're all at it, Tory or New Labour, taking the piss. But some of them get caught out.

I'm thinking 'time and place' with Liam Byrne's joke letter to his successor at the Treasury about there being 'no money left'.

Different economic and political circumstances he might have got away with it. But I've seen Mr Byrne's 'performances' a few times, I can't say I'm a fan...

But laugh it up, because cuts are on the way. A lot of people are running out of time (just as I am as I write), because the axe will fall as announcements today have made clear.

I will come back to this subject again, as I say it will continue to roll on of course, not least because of the reactions from the Unions as plans are laid out and the cuts begin. The thing that I find slightly disconcerting is this very common viewpoint that the public sector should be saved from cuts, on various timescales, what a tragedy the cuts will be for normal working people and 'why should civil servants pay for the mistakes of Bankers?'

I agree that no job cuts are good and also that frontline services should be protected as much as possible.

But hundreds of thousands of people have been losing their jobs in the private sector over the last two years. Pay and recruitment freezes and declining working conditions have occurred throughout the private sector. There is a common focus on higher earning bankers apparently carrying on regardless, but this is not replicated through the rest of the private sector at all, times are still very hard for those at the bottom.

In comparison the public sector has been largely sheltered from the downturn and in many ways it has been sheltered from the effects of the global economy over the last 30 years, which have continued to radically change conditions in the private sector. Except in one way, in that Gordon Brown's Treasury benefited from a long period of economic growth based on global economic circumstances, so the public sector grew. And as that growth turned out to be completely unsustainable, surely it correlates quite directly that the size of the public sector is unsustainable?

I don't think anyone if they were honest and had some real experience of the public and private sectors would deny that there is huge scope for these cuts. Only the most rabid Unionist or sheltered public sector worker would object to any cuts. I imagine we'll see a few in the coming months/years.

The fact is we're all going to have to pay for the mistakes of the Bankers AND the Labour government, because of their lax regulation.

I don't see why the private sector, particularly the low paid, should have to work and compete in increasingly difficult environments, to help maintain the conditions of the public sector through these hard times. As well as have to pay off all this debt.

Would that have been Labour's "Future Fair For All"?