The Case For Our State ...

[ahinton]

Fascinating how the issue of MPs' contracts with us, the public has been raised. I'm sure most of them would not see it like that.

I don't see how else they should expect to see it, really, in terms either of the moral obligations to the electorate that go with the business of being and MP or that of legal employment.

And then we have scotty and his civil servants' contract re secrecy; and what he would see as Mr Snowden's breaking thereof. Mr S says he's doing it to protect the USA and its citizens from its own Government's activities.

It isn't just scotty and his statement on those subjects are in any case unbalanced and disproportionate rather than all wrong; I don't think that anyone is suggesting that any country's government security services should have no secrets whatsoever (though technological developments will continue to make any such secrets ever harder to keep), but that does not - or at least should not - provide carte blanche to any government to snooping on its own citizens or those of other nations just as, when and how it chooses regardless of any genuine national security issues and it is the latter that Mr Snowden is seeking to expose.

Many of our MPs are acting mostly within their own self-interest, in my opinion.

Some no doubt do - or at least prioritise that interest from time to time over the interests of those whom they represent - but I would not care to conjecture what proportion of them might be guilty of this at any given time, nor do I think it likely that there are sufficiently detailed statistics to prove each case beyond all reasonable doubt; all MPs have "outside" interests - by which I mean interests other than those that are strictly germane to the terms of their contracts as MPs - and many such interests make considerably more money for many of them than they derive from their salaries and legitimate expenses as MPs.

Perhaps we should set up a list of current MPs on an e-petition thingo and get their constituents to vote for whether or not they believe that their MP is working principally for them, the constituents. I would if I could but I can't ... so I won't.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

this left me truly speechless

i wonder what part he played in our downfall

Eurotunnel opened in May 1994 one year behind schedule and £2bn ($2.9bn) over budget.

Sir David later admitted the deal was a "shambles" and that he had "successfully sold the market a pup".

But his chutzpah meant his career was not held back.

Hauled before furious MPs to explain the mispricing of Railtrack, he was subsequently appointed an advisor to the government on its successor, Network Rail.

... they are after every last cent ....

[amateur51]

this left me truly speechless

i wonder what part he played in our downfall




... they are after every last cent ....

It's grotesque that someone who has never been elected and who cannot be held directly accountable to the electorate should be put in charge of important government departmental work like this.

Do you remember years ago when Trades Union (TGWU) leader Frank Cousins retired from the Union in 1964, won a by-election at Nuneaton for Labour in early 1965 and only then was made Minister of Technology in Harold Wilson's Labour government from October 1964 until his resignation in July 1966? Innocent days.

Freud is one of a string of such appointments to government made by that well-known democrat Tony Blair.

[eighthobstruction]

It seems he regularly swims in Hampstead Heath ponds....some one should pay him a little visit.....

[ahinton]

It's grotesque that someone who has never been elected and who cannot be held directly accountable to the electorate should be put in charge of important government departmental work like this.

It may be, but it's hardly more so than putting in such charge people who have been elected and who can be held directly accountable at least as far as they're unable to get away with not being so but still make grave and gravely expensive errors of judgement and get away with those.

Freud is one of a string of such appointments to government made by that well-known democrat Tony Blair.

Many a Freudian slip and all that, n'est-ce pas?...

[ahinton]

It seems he regularly swims in Hampstead Heath ponds....some one should pay him a little visit.....

Maybe he owns them...

[amateur51]

Maybe he owns them...

I think the deeply suspect and highly secretive City of London Corporation would have a word or two to say about that

[ahinton]

I think the deeply suspect and highly secretive City of London Corporation would have a word or two to say about that

Is that - or is it owned by - one of those private equity companies?...

[amateur51]

Is that - or is it owned by - one of those private equity companies?...

Hampstead Heath was managed by the old GLC until that was abolished and it has been managed by the City of London Corporation ever since. I guess that it is publicly owned but I don't know by whom.

[ahinton]

Hampstead Heath was managed by the old GLC until that was abolished and it has been managed by the City of London Corporation ever since. I guess that it is publicly owned but I don't know by whom.

I was joking, ams!...

[amateur51]

I was joking, ams!...

that's what comes of getting rid of the emoticons, innit

[ahinton]

that's what comes of getting rid of the emoticons, innit

Not in my case, never having used them meself!

[amateur51]

Not in my case, never having used them meself!

I was joking, ah!

[ahinton]

I was joking, ah!

Ah!

[Serial_Apologist]

Great repartee, fellers!