Lembit was cheeky before Gabriela

Poor Lembit struggles to grasp the nations dismay at the current daily outage of grotesquely avaricious MPs.

Yes we understand that the second home council tax should have been claimed for, and yes, everyone has sympathy for the loss of a loved relative. However, it simply is NOT the responsibility of the tax payer to pick up the £40 summons fee that he was issued with.

The logic of the fees office re-imbursing a legal charge brought about by the claimants negligence simply beggars belief. The pure cheek of claiming for it also makes me wonder if some other MP somewhere in this maelstrom hasn't claimed and been refunded a parking ticket?


nick

It's the rich wot gets the pleasure, it's the poor wot gets the blame

Just think about this and then try and fit it into the overall scheme of things in light of the MPs allowances kerfuffle. I’d be obliged if anyone can justify the rule of “You cannot get Carer's Allowance if you earn more than £95 a week after money has been taken off to allow for your expenses” to me.

I somehow feel things have got just a tad arse about face when it comes to national priorities!!


nick

Make the decisions you get paid for!!

I saw a few Chief Constables appointed in North Wales through my service, but none in this ridiculous manner. Somewhere hidden away in their confused muddle of a sense of purpose, the Police Authority members must realise that one of their tasks is the appointment of officers to the command team. On their website they admit they have to “Appoint the chief police officer and other senior police staff”. It therefore beggars belief that Authority members who receive their generous allowances to provide governance to the North Wales Police are failing to meet the criteria set in their own words, that the Authority should “Ensure best value in the delivery of police services”. By appointing consultants they are ducking the issue.

There used to be a saying that the public gets the Police Force it deserves. Now it seems to apply more to the Police Authority. Maybe some Authority members should think about leaving at the same time as Brunstrom!



nick

Football really is a ‘funny old game’!

A couple of weeks ago I was living in dreamland as Tottenham took a 2-0 lead into the Old Trafford dressing rooms at half time. Now I can accept the desperation for the position United were in as the catalyst for the second half onslaught and I acknowledge that our boys pretty much caved in under the pressure. What still irks though is Michael Carrick, an ex-Spur, knew he was cheating when he appealed for and won a dubious penalty. Gomes clearly won the ball and Carrick KNEW it! No play fair attitude from him as he watched his former team mates futilely attempt to argue the point with our most over-rated referee Howard Webb. Webb rubbed salt into the wound several days later by admitting to making the mistake.

I wonder if there was a hint of guilt dawning on Carrick last night as he witnessed the same scenario unfold with his United colleague Darren Fletcher, cruelly denied a Champions League final place by receiving a red card for a fair tackle?


nick

Tell us something we didn't know!

Not much surprise here to most of us who saw this coming literally years ago. Those of you who visited my old blog will hopefully remember the time around me taking part in the BBC’s programme about Debt and the Elderly. The very point of that programme was show how it was all going to end in tears. The financial institutions were throwing credit willy-nilly at people who simply couldn’t afford it. Indeed, even by repaying back the amount of monies lent at a minimum rate, some folks were going to have to live to ages of 130+!

Then introducing the multiplier of the number of people who had such colossal debt and it was obvious that the lenders were in worse trouble than the borrowers. Even scarier was that all the ‘senior’ figures in the banking/credit industry that we spoke to were adamant that they were ‘responsible lenders’ and the fault lay with ‘irresponsible borrowing’. The plethora of companies offering debt relief should have been ringing alarm bells to those who could have started to do something in preparation for the coming meltdown. There must be scores of families who now face an uncertain future as they thank Vorderman, Tufnell et al for introducing them to simple, affordable loans with the tiny proviso of ‘your home is at risk if you don’t keep up with the repayments’.

Now, some 3 years on we are told that The Treasury committee, in its second report on the crisis, has said the crisis has been caused largely by the banks' own reckless behaviour.

No shit Sherlock!


nick