So Barclays is reporting record profits for 2009 – £11.6bn, a 92% increase. Even removing the sale of its BGI fund management arm, profits were £5.6bn, and it plans to pay out £2.7bn in bonuses to its staff – though not its Chief Executive or President.
Now, I can see no problem with Barclays handing out massive bonuses. Why, you ask? Because they did not take any taxpayers money. Whilst RBS, Lloyds etc. relied on handouts straight from the taxpayer’s pocket to get them through the recession, Barclays didn’t. It got …

The annual cost of the new parliamentary body to be set up to monitor MPs expenses – the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) – is due to cost £6.5 million per annum, with most of this expected to go on recruiting 80 staff.
Let’s look at the costs:

From the Legg review, MPs paid back £1.12m, referring to the past five years.

The Legg review cost us to run £1.16m.

Just after the Legg report, we’re actually down £40k. But, of yes, there was also the inquiry by the standards watchdog.

The Sir Christopher Kelly …

It sounds rather like a middle-class sex position, doesn’t it? But if you ignore that (and get that image out of your head – that took me a while…) and read this Political Betting post:

So here we are – what many MPs are hoping will be the low point for them in the whole expenses saga – the publication today of the Legg Report…
The general theory, backed up by election after election, is that incumbent MPs get an electoral bonus. Could this affair see that produce the opposite. Will 2010 …

“Sir Robin” MPs – Labour and Lib Dem MPs in a Tory target seat who have decided to stand down rather than contest the next general election against a Tory – and so named by Tory Bear (after the Monty Python sketch) should not get any of their up-to £60,000 pay-off. And the same should go for all MPs – regardless of party or reason – who are standing down at the general election.
The reason for this is simple: by choosing not to stand for re-election, they have effectively resigned. …

What would be a “slap in the face“?
a) A pay freeze for local authority workers
Unison say:

The decision to cut our members’ pay without negotiation is a slap in the face for hard-working council employees who have kept local communities together through the financial crisis.

or
b) An inflation-busting 2.5% pay rise for local authority workers paid for out of our council taxes (inevitably either through a tax rise or decreased services)
The Local Government Employers say:

Councils are facing a perfect storm of falling revenues and increasing demand for services.
Up and down the country, …

A few Lib Dem bloggers have worked out the the “cost effectiveness” of the three main parties 2005 general election campaigns, by dividing the money spent by the votes gained. The results being:

And so Lib Dems are claiming this to be some sort of moral and financial victory. But it really ignores the reason people vote for a particular party. However much the Lib Dems many choose to deny it, much of their support is simply because they are the third party, because of what they are not – as …

A news report that is unlikely to do much to raise Christmas cheer reveals that civil servants by been paid £130 million in bonuses this year, a cost of £2 for every person in the UK – and a 25% increase on last year. And the largest bonus was £50,000 given to a civil servant in the Department of Health.
This is obscene.
No civil servant should ever get a bonus anywhere that amount – and considering both the fact that the UK is in the longest recession ever and that the …

Under Conservative plans to bury the “Zac Goldsmith is a non-dom and Michael Ashcroft might be” news stories, all members of the UK Parliament – both the House of Commons and the House of Lords – will be required to be, or be treated as, a UK taxpayer.
A new law will be introduced immediately after a Conservative general election victory making all peers and MPs have to pay UK taxes.
This is precisely the sort of move that is necessary both from a PR and political point of view. It shows …

We all know that Labour have drowned us in debt. The Conservatives made this point earlier in the year. And after the Pre-Budget Report last year (twice).
And now they have beamed it onto the Battersea Power Station for all to see:

Yes, it really does say £847,944,109,826. Up from £665,636,042,088 last year. An increase of £182,308,067,738 in just one year (assuming I’ve got my sums right…)!
And it’s going up by £5,500 every second!

Just two months ago, public sector workers were in uproar over plans to freeze their pay announced by both Labour and the Conservatives. I had little sympathy for them then, and even less now.
You see, I work in the private sector and this year my pay has been frozen and my (already minimal) bonus shrunk. So why should people who work in the public sector and thus get insulated from the recession, alongside their standard perks of job security and gold-plated pensions?! We in the public sector and paying for …