When Theresa May needs to save herself and scrap cap on public sector pay — there really is a magic money tree
HEY, guess what? Theresa May has shaken the famous magic money tree and – would you believe it – a whole bunch of money has fallen out.
The cap on public sector pay has been scrapped. First in line for a raise are the coppers and the screws.
I’m glad for them, I really am. The higher wages are, the more people spend.
I’ve always been in favour of high wages. Especially, as it happens, for me.
But it raises a few questions, doesn’t it?
The pay cap was imposed seven years ago because the country was very heavily in debt. We’re still very heavily in debt. We’re not better off. So was the pay cap wrong in the first place? Or is breaking it wrong now?
It has to be one or the other.
This shambolic Government has got itself into all kinds of trouble.
The death knell for the public sector pay cap came shortly after the disastrous General Election result in June.
Earlier, when asked about giving a rise to the nurses and so on, Mrs May made her patronising comment about that magic money tree. There isn’t one, apparently.
Then, when she was stuffed in the election and desperate to form a government with anyone who would listen, what did she do?
Yay, she suddenly FOUND that magic money tree. And she gave it a good old shake. And out dropped a bung of more than a billion quid for the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.
When it came to saving her skin, it seemed there was a magic money tree after all.
And so, as a consequence, she’s in real trouble. Because giving the police and prison officers a small pay hike was never going to appease the unions.
They’ve already described the rise as pitiful and useless.
Truth be told, they’d have said the same thing if the Prime Minister had decided the coppers should get an extra 20 per cent.
It’s not really pay rises that the unions are after. Leaders such as Len McCluskey — the man with the face of a giant unbaked pie — simply want to bring down the Government.
That’s what this is all about. And you can bet, as sure as night follows day, that we’re going to be in for a winter of discontent.
All the public-sector union leaders will be demanding more and more money.
We will have a whole bunch of strikes on our hands. And urging them on from the sidelines will be Jezza.
Because remember, no matter how much money the Government offers, it will not be nearly enough.
The odd thing is, it may in the end rebound in Mrs May’s favour. If this comes down to a battle as to who runs the country — government or the unions — then I’m pretty sure I know what side most people will come down on.
Either way, though, we’re in for disruption. And the pay rises will cost the country dearly. I bet Mrs May wishes she’d never mentioned that bloody money tree.
— SCHOOLS are to give pupils lessons in something called “resilience”.
I think resilience means still being able to give someone a kicking after eight pints and a kebab.
It’s a word used a lot by social workers. Teachers are worried that our little snowflakes are not able to cope with the world. One woman said: “Young people today face a range of new pressures that can potentially harm their emotional and physical wellbeing.”
No, they don’t, love. They are less pressured than they ever were and much better off.
You want to make them more resilient? OK, ensure they leave school able to count and spell their own names.
Jen’s an eco-maniac
AT last we know the truth. Hurricane Irma, which devastated the Caribbean and Florida, was “Mother Earth’s wrath and rage” at Donald Trump voters.
This is the view of the dingbat actress Jennifer Lawrence.
Like lots of her fellow liberal luvvies, Lawrence has the IQ of a toaster. She can’t believe people don’t agree with her point of view.
She also said she thought we were witnessing the “end of days”. End of your career, more like, poppet. Nobody cares what you think, Jennifer.
Incidentally, if that was Mother Nature’s wrath against Donald Trump voters, it’s a bit rough on the people of Cuba and the British Virgin Islands, isn’t it? Irma was a hurricane, Lawrence. You get them every year, no matter who is in power.
What a load of plonk
GOOD news for pregnant mums. You can have a few drinks. That’s according to a new study.
The old studies said that drinking during pregnancy would harm the unborn child.
The new one says it won’t make a happorth of difference.
But who’s to say the new one is right and the old ones are wrong?
Truth is, nobody has a clue.
And that’s true for all these health warnings we’re given, every day of our lives.
One moment eggs are bad for you, the next they’re great.
One minute it’s safer to grill food, the next you’re told not to do it in case you drop dead of cancer.
Nobody really knows.
My advice? Ignore all the health advice. Just eat and drink, y’know, sensibly.
— ARE you sure we’re being told the full story about those Muslim Rohingya refugees who are flooding into Bangladesh from Burma?
All we get is a BBC correspondent crying in front of the refugee camps every night.
It’s probably true that the Burmese government has been a bit, um, heavy-handed.
But shouldn’t we be told a little more about the causes of the problem?
The countless terrorist attacks against Burmese police stations and Buddhists?
Just askin’.
— QUOTE of the week comes from a chap called Roger Fearn, of Chesterfield.
He’d just been to see the “floral tribute” to Princess Diana, in Chesterfield town centre. Got to say, it is a bit grim. Looks like it was cobbled together by a bunch of six-year-olds who’d been out on the razz. Anyway, Roger saw it and said: “Our shops are closing, our market stalls are empty, we have homeless people in our bus station, our football team is crap . . . and now this.”
Also, mate, the steeple on your church is bent. I’d give up altogether if I were you.
It’s all on you, Hillary
HILLARY CLINTON is touring the States publicising her godawful memoir.
Why anyone would want to read anything by the worst presidential candidate in living memory is beyond me.
In the book, apparently, she blames everybody else for her defeat by Donald Trump.
“Not my fault,” the smug, frozen-faced woman insists. Oh yes it is, Clinton.
The reason we have a clown as president of the free world is because the American people – rightly – thought you were devious, complacent and wouldn’t look after their interests.
They’d have voted for anyone but you. A pig’s bladder on a stick, an ornamental shrubbery.
Instead, we got Trump. You have nothing to tell us, Clinton. Go away.
— SOME brave words from Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban.
His country is fighting desperately to stop the European Union forcing them to take in loads of economic migrants.
“Hungary does not want to be an immigrant country,” he said.
No, indeed. And nor do Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic. But the EU will have its way in the end.
These central European countries get a lot of money from the EU.
But look at what they’ll lose as a consequence.
Mr Orban – it’s time to get out. Or you’ll be bullied and bullied until your country is no longer recognisable.
I’m appy to pass
I’M trying to think about what a phone would need to do for me to pay a thousand quid for it.
Automatically ring Diane Abbott at three in the morning every day and cackle madly at her, maybe.
And send a piercing shriek down the line to anyone trying to offer me personal injury advice.
Or when I’m a bit the worse for wear, stop me posting stuff on Facebook. Other than that, can’t think.
I certainly don’t want a phone that recognises my face. That’s getting a bit too familiar.
You can keep it, Apple.
