OK fair point Andy I accept that there were overall benefits

But in the case of HSBC, Barclays etc they also had to raise private capital, at some cost, to cover their exposure to the above bad debts, which balanced out much of the general overall benefits. They have also since been hit hard with extra taxes and charges to help the government pay back the bailout money which they did not receive in the first place.

So it is wrong to demonise all the banks as though they are all equally guilty of causing the problem. The public has bought the politicians line that it is all the fault of the banks which they have put out to divert attention from their responsibilty in this mess. The banks in the main were playing within the rules laid down by the politicians. IMO regulators and governments were equally to blame with the bad banks.

What are the names and positions of these excutives?

Not the same. An MP is there for the whole consituency. A union rep is only there for the union members

I would have had some sympathy if this strike were for a special deal for the low paid. But it isn't

The coalition government has a mandate to gevern this country and their first duty is to reduce the huge debt left behind by Labour. Their proposals have been approved by the IMF, CBI and all the international credit rating agencies without whose approval we would be in the same trouble as Italy, Greece etc. To tamper with the deficit reduction plans would risk our "AAA" status and increase the interest we are paying on our huge debt to unmanageable proportions.

Labours Plan B is to borrow some more moneyy and increase our debit! Have they learnt nothing from their over spending?

The average public sector worker earns nearly £4,000 a year more than a typical private sector worker, official figures revealed yesterday. from the Office for National Statistics who said the average public sector worker, who works full-time, is paid an annual salary of £28,802. This includes teachers, nurses and civil servants.

By comparison, the average full-time worker in the private sector receives a salary of only £25,000, a gap of £3,802.
This could cover the cost of a two-week foreign holiday for a family of four, or nearly 40 trips to the supermarket spending an average of £100 on each visit.

So lets not pretend we are talking about low paid workers. (who I agree should get a special deal)

Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance campaign group, said: ‘This is yet more evidence that the justifications for disruptive public sector strikes are divorced from the economic reality faced by ordinary workers.

‘For years, private sector workers have struggled to pay ever higher taxes with meagre raises, while public sector workers have enjoyed inflation-busting pay hikes.

'These figures disprove the spin from union bosses that the generous pension deals found in the public sector are somehow compensation for lower pay than the private sector.’

The majority of private sector workers do not get a pension from their boss. If they do have a pension, the average pension pot they will have built up is only £26,000, which is equal to a retirement income of around £1,400 a year.

The average annual pension in the public sector is worth £7,841, according to a report, commissioned by the Government and produced by former Labour minister Lord Hutton.

Obviously they don't exist, otherwise your government wouldn't be pushing through an agreement with the Swiss authorities about the £125billion of taxable UK funds diverted there. Also, your friends in the City wouldn't explicitly make a plank of their lobbying against a 50% tax rate the idea that a reduction would make tax-avoidance schemes less attractive.

I have worked in and then covered the City for many years, and have been party to several recent conversations with hedge-funders, brokers and bankers (both non-doms and British residents) specifically about entirely legal tax-schemes. HMRC and the Treasury do their best in redefining some tax-avoidance schemes as tax evasion, but the targets keep shifting. It's a game, or a running joke, for those who know. I have no interest in whether you believe what I'm saying anecdotally, but would recommend you consider the pretty simple points in the first paragraph as background evidence for exactly how much tax-avoidance goes on.

Ultimately it just quelled genuine competition though. I was a surveyor in the construction industry through the 1970s and early 80s and working for a large electrical sub-contractor I was involved in tender preparation for every large public and private works contract that occurred in the north east from 78 to 83, we worked on the Tyneside Metro system for instance, virtually built the whole of Washington New Town, worked on the Metro Centre and the redevelopment of the Quayside - and on tens of thousands of housing refurbs and new builds.

The one area we only rarely got a sniff in, us and every other sub or main contractor, was South Tyneside, for South Tyneside was controlled by a 100% Labour council and was a socialist region to the extent of almost being communist, nothing ever got built in the South Tyneside area by anyone other than the Direct Works Dept and if any subbie got a sniff of a contract from them it was because their own sub-contractors were too busy or didn't want the work because it was to awkward.

30 years later I still refuse to believe that the rate payers of South Tyneside got value for money during the biggest phase of local authority investment that we will ever see in our lifetimes.

How can competition in the market be a bad thing? As long as it is legal, and I'm well aware that sometimes it isn't, then the client (gov't) can only benefit from it. The people who work in the Private Sector (me included) have a choice if they feel their employer is acting unreasonably...

As for the comment "there aren't any decent Tories at all", do you usually throw such massive stereotypical generalisations around?

In the 2010 election the Comservatives polled 36.9% of the popular vote the LibDems 23.5% and the Labour party 29.6%. So the coalition had a joint total of 60.4% of the vote

I don't doubt that much tax avoidance goes on, but as you would say "you're disengenuously switching the argument" to cover other people in other jobs. You stated.....



I note you cannot back up this statement.

This is the third time you have quoted this book (which I haven't read but will try to) to make the same point, but it does seem to contain some political predjudice. To say "there aren't any decent Tories" is a bit over the top as they represent almost 37% of the vote in the last election. By the way I am not a member of any political party and never have been. I may have voted for the Conservatives more times than other parties but on the whole I dispise most politicians. To have a different political view of a subject does not deny you decency and to assume so rather erodes any high ground you may have been trying to build for yourself.

You have not addressed my point that Public sector workers now have a salary on average of almost 29K, which is nearly 4k more than in the private sector and in addtion the public sector have far superior and generous pensions, early retirement conditions etc. All of this has to be paid for out of taxes created by the private sector or "private gangster firms" as you call them.

When I worked in local government it was understood that in return for a lower salary than the private sector you had more security, better pension terms and lets be honest a cushier number. All this has changed over the years as salaries have overtaken the private sector yet the original quid pro quo principal and benefits have remained.

Had the last Labour government not expanded the public sector out of all previous proportions (and gained some extra votes on the way) then perhaps there would have been no need for the cuts and changes to pension terms.

As it is we are not producing the income necessary as a country to pay for our expenditure and so we now have to start living within our means whether we like it or not. This will be unfair on many workers but you only have to look at Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain and possibly soon France to see the horrendous alternative. IMO it is better to accept a cut, in what any reasonable person would say are generous pension terms, than make many more people redundant so that others get to keep their top hat pension schemes.

It is for this reason that so many of our population, who it falls on to pay for terms better than their own, are against this strike and believe it is down to pure selfishness. I believe it will harm the unions and the reputation of public sector workers. I have to say though that it is a credit to the majority of public sector workers that they chose not to even take part in the vote to strike which shows that it is only the minority that are selfish.

You know as well as I do that quoting average salaries, like quoting average house prices, is a straw man. Both a very seriously distorted by those at either end of the scale, particularly in the private sector where there are both more people on minimum wage at the bottom end and more people earning seven figures at the top.

A better comparison would be like for like on the same jobs - e.g. chief executive of a civil service department against a chief executive of a similarly sized private sector organisation, or an NHS staff nurse against a BUPA staff nurse with similar experience/specialisms.

I note you don't include things like bonuses and share options in your comparisons - things that are much more frequent in the private sector than the public?

Do only those in the private sector pay taxes these days? I must remember to tell my friends who work in the public sector that PAYE and VAT don't apply to them any more.

This is a key point people often ignore when talking about the evil tories.

Mc!I am not talking about the 70s I'm saying why they they were created, and it was long before the 70s.While I was at Leeds public works dept and we were doing council house repaints we used to work nearby private contractors ,the firms were the usual suspects SLAP IT ON AND MAKE HASTE LTD,RUSHTON AND CO OF MUGSBOROUGH LTD etc their lads werent provide toilet facilities, cabins,caravans etc.They had to have their meals on door steps ,but really they used to go to the pub.If it rained they didnt get paid.Even now those private building firms who have taken over the public works dept and taken on the works dept lads had to do it on the ALMO agreements whereas they had to be taken on only on their old terms and conditions.Although I will say I have worked alongside these building maintainance firms and they were a lot better than those old painting firms of many years ago

What was the Union equivalent of 'the popular vote' in favour of a strike next Wednesday?

If the politicians are genuinely concerned about the legitimacy of mandates perhaps they should make the voting process for Union members easier?

At least with the Union a Yes vote should result in a strike unlike many a political party manifesto pledge. If they want to talk about the democratic deficit perhaps they should get their own hiouse in order first before lecturing others?