the gangsters win because the state is corrupt ....

[Pabmusic]

I shall have to be careful here, but I know of one case of a senior Civil Service official transferred to headquarters in London who was allowed to travel daily from Gloucestershire at public expense. (Rather him than me.)

'Working on the train' was taken into account.

[There is of course a serious point here - if your employers expect to transfer you around the country, they should be prepared to pay for it. I was asked to work at our HQ in London, but I lived in the Midlands. I was happy to take the job, but only if the Prison Service either paid for me to move to London, or paid for me to stay in London during the working week. They opted for the latter.]

[eighthobstruction]

I shall have to be careful here, but I know of one case of a senior Civil Service official transferred to headquarters in London who was allowed to travel daily from Gloucestershire at public expense. (Rather him than me.)

It is easy to believe (I find it easy to believe) that there will be hard facts similar to this to be found (awaiting suitable FOI requests) not only in the BBC, SFO, but in just about any Civil Service Dept /Quango/Public Institution.....a crony baby boomer elite buttering each others bread.....and most likely the average person is paying taxes and playing the Lottery to swell the bank accounts and pension of the bloated egoes bulging with self congradulation Blaa Blaa....

UGLY....

[eighthobstruction]

>>>"Britain's SFO was granted an extra 3.5 million pounds to investigate Libor last year and expects to get more than that this year. It has doubled its investigation team to 60.

David Green, who overhauled the SFO after taking over in April 2012, is under pressure to show results after the SFO's future was cast into doubt last year because of mixed success in the past."<<<

I was wondering what what happening about LIBOR....http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/0...96E0FJ20130715

[eighthobstruction]

Here's what the discredited Richard Alderman Chief Exec SFO is doing now....http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/f...ion-fight.html....failure rewarded again....

[eighthobstruction]

And here's the new Director SFO....http://www.sfo.gov.uk/about-us/who-we-are/director.aspx.....One wonders if he got a pay off when his Director of Revenue and Customs Prosecutions job was lost when the department was merged with the Crown Prosecution Service in January 2010.....(and how successful was he at that job?? of seeking out Tax Dodgers)....NOW HE IS BACK....

[amateur51]

It's always worth reading what Michael Quinion has to say:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gra4.htm

Thanks for this, jean

[umslopogaas]

Hmm ... not sure I understand this, but Chambers Dictionary says:

gravy train (coll.) a position in which one can have excessive profits or advantages in contrast to other people. [Perh. grave (acute accent on the e) a copyist's mistake for O. Fr. grane (acute accent on the e) - grain, a cookery ingredient.

So, presumably the gravy train is truckloads of good eating in old France where copyists were prone to lapse.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Mary says so too

[amateur51]

Mary says so too

Is a slipperly slope one that you can descend with relative ease and comfort?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

one

two

... buckle my shoe

[amateur51]

one

two

... buckle my shoe

I am full of admiration for the tenacity and capacity of Christopher Alder's family in their struggle for the truth and justice. As a society we should be ashamed not only that such deaths can be caused but that no hope of justice is offered to these people unless they kick and scream and struggle more successfully than Christopher Alder was able.

Where is the campaigning politician to take this case forwards? I despair of this society.

As to the creeping NHS privatisation - it was all predicted and lied about and now it's coming to pass. I do hope that Mr Clegg is ready to answer the questions that will follow on the doorsteps as electors ask for a reminder about why it was such a good idea for the LibDems to go into power-sharing with the Tories. They have acted as a human shield, that's all. They should have resigned en masse at the end of year one, clearly indicating what had driven them to this action.

Thanks again Calum :sigh:

[aeolium]

As to the creeping NHS privatisation - it was all predicted and lied about and now it's coming to pass. I do hope that Mr Clegg is ready to answer the questions that will follow on the doorsteps as electors ask for a reminder about why it was such a good idea for the LibDems to go into power-sharing with the Tories. They have acted as a human shield, that's all. They should have resigned en masse at the end of year one, clearly indicating what had driven them to this action.

am51, it's true that the privatisation of areas within the NHS are now proceeding apace, but I don't think one should make the mistake that this solely originated from Coalition policy. This article on a recent book about the NHS suggests that the groundwork was laid by New Labour. All three main parties have been complicit in this creeping development (and the article excoriates those in the media and medical professions who allowed it to go unchallenged). As so often in so many areas of government, the lure of the well-paid consultancy has proved too tempting - another shocking example in a different but very important field is reported here. Sometimes one wonders if there is anyone left in government circles who is capable of independent and honest advice and judgement.

[amateur51]

am51, it's true that the privatisation of areas within the NHS are now proceeding apace, but I don't think one should make the mistake that this solely originated from Coalition policy. This article on a recent book about the NHS suggests that the groundwork was laid by New Labour. All three main parties have been complicit in this creeping development (and the article excoriates those in the media and medical professions who allowed it to go unchallenged). As so often in so many areas of government, the lure of the well-paid consultancy has proved too tempting - another shocking example in a different but very important field is reported here. Sometimes one wonders if there is anyone left in government circles who is capable of independent and honest advice and judgement.

Oh I intend to leave no candidate unstoned, aeolium. It's whether there's a politician left who is a) in touch with the electorate and b) doesn't have his/her hand in the till that concerns me.

[Simon]

Fairly predictable, that this sort of amoral stuff should be blamed on <yawn> Lady T and, of course, Blair. But of course it's nothing new; corruption in so-called public service has been with us since the dawn of, er, public service.

Knee-jerk and unthinking, politicised comment won't help solve it.

Wherever you go, where there is public money available to be be spent, there are those who will be willing to spend it in a manner that many would find unacceptable. Where a particular group of people get together and know one another, the slippery slope of cronyism and avarice can lead quickly to a general acceptance that doing "favours" for one another isn't really wrong, it's just "helping things to run smoothly", "rewarding quality", "ensuring that we retain the best staff who would otherwise be snapped up by the private sector" and all the other cliches that proliferate. I know this happens because I've seen it close up.

When this happens in a culture that is jam packed with other people, at senior levels, doing exactly the same, it's easy to see why senior quango officials just keep on getting rewarded for failure. When, as I maintain, the press and media are all grubbing, to an extent, in the same trough, one also understands why officials who do wrong are rarely punished - and we hardly ever see the millions coming back to the taxpayer.

Contrast that, if you will, with the jobseeker who fails to complete a form properly, or to do what some bureaucrat believes is an adequate anmount of research to finds a new job, and s/he loses benefit for several weeks, saving the country what? £150 odd quid? (And I know this happens because I was told about a particular case last night). And there are worse examples, I gather, of harrassment of the really poor and of those unable properly to look after themselves being hounded by jobsworths.

Whilst I remain of the belief that our traditions are largely beneficial and that capitalism and centre-right, nationalist policies are the best way for Britain in general, such policies have to be moderated by a concern for, and a way of helping and supporting, those who fall by the wayside. That's also a Christian duty - not an irrelevant point to many of us. But whilst I haven't been much in touch lately with day to day politics in the UK, I feel very uneasy about where things are going. It's surely right to protect the social security fund in general from being raped by idlers who won't work and who believe they are owed a living - and I expect we all know at least one of those - but this present government, despite it's pious words, seems to be unable or unwilling either to prevent large scale abuse at the top or conscientiously to care for those truly in need. The culture seems wrong, somehow. The fire seems so often aimed at the wrong targets.

[ahinton]

Fairly predictable, that this sort of amoral stuff should be blamed on <yawn> Lady T and, of course, Blair. But of course it's nothing new; corruption in so-called public service has been with us since the dawn of, er, public service.

Knee-jerk and unthinking, politicised comment won't help solve it.

Wherever you go, where there is public money available to be be spent, there are those who will be willing to spend it in a manner that many would find unacceptable. Where a particular group of people get together and know one another, the slippery slope of cronyism and avarice can lead quickly to a general acceptance that doing "favours" for one another isn't really wrong, it's just "helping things to run smoothly", "rewarding quality", "ensuring that we retain the best staff who would otherwise be snapped up by the private sector" and all the other cliches that proliferate. I know this happens because I've seen it close up.

When this happens in a culture that is jam packed with other people, at senior levels, doing exactly the same, it's easy to see why senior quango officials just keep on getting rewarded for failure. When, as I maintain, the press and media are all grubbing, to an extent, in the same trough, one also understands why officials who do wrong are rarely punished - and we hardly ever see the millions coming back to the taxpayer.

I agree. Corruption, laxity, advantage-taking and the rest knows no public/private bounds or divides; it's amost everywhere and will likely remain so in a capitalist society of any kind just as it would in a non-capitalist one, since it also knows and respects no bounds or divides between capitalist and non-capitalist thinking; in some ways, Sorabji's phrase about Fascism (when used as an accusing pejorative) being everyone else's brand of Fascism except one's own could as easily be applied to capitalism, as the kinds of corruption, laxity and advantage-taking in public and private sector alike to which I refer surely makes abundantly clear.