While foodbanks become ever more prevalent....
 

.... it seems the Lords do not want to compromise on their champagne!

Champagne wars in the Lords as peers say no to a cheaper vintage

"It has emerged that a proposal to save taxpayers some money by making peers and MPs share a catering department has been rejected “because the Lords feared that the quality of champagne would not be as good if they chose a joint service”."

"The House of Lords – which has a £1.3m annual catering budget – has bought in more than 17,000 bottles of champagne since the coalition took office, enough to give each peer just over five bottles each year, at a cost of £265,770."

We're all in this together :Whatever_

Scandalous.

I have noticed that around here where we have savage Council cuts (but rising council tax rates), they are putting all their powers of persuasion behind voluntary groups.

All our public loos at beach locations now shut in the Winter - the Councils answer is to use local cafe/pub loos... Meanwhile the parking charges at the beaches now stays at peak rate all year...

Just one example of paying more for less.

Usual pigs in the trough. These people don't know any better.

Public sector has the same mentality when it comes to the lack of thinking about where their money comes from.

As a similar situation - We temporarily employed someone I knew who was recently made redundant to do some basic office/clerical stuff at work which in the main was basically scanning all the paperwork onto computerised archives, so the paper originals can be shredded and binned.

All of this is stapled etc. Of which had to be separated in order to be scanned. Big bin provided by document feeder. What does she do? Just throw the staples on the floor.

I noticed this mess on the floor and asked her what the deal was, she replied, "oh won't the cleaners hoover it up?".

I am the cleaner! The company can't afford to employ cleaners to wash dishes and vacuum floors, instead all of us just keep everything as tidy as possible so it only needs vacuuming once a week. So use the bin wash your own stuff, and if the bin is full - you empty it into the Biffa outside instead of letting it overflow everywhere.

This is where she said that where she used to work (where she worked for the last 20yrs) they had cleaners everyday so they just throw stuff on the floor.....She used to work for the council....

This got me realising that even though this is a minor thing, taxpayer's money was being wasted employing daily cleaners, which probably could be reduced to twice a week if the staff were trained to use the sodding bin!!! And I bet this extends far deeper into the public and civil sectors than just the cleaning (stationary, IT equipment, turning off the lights etc. etc.) I don't blame her specifically, her attitude came about due to the ethics and mentality in her old workplace, and maybe if they were collectively a bit more conscientious of their budgets they would have been manageable and she'd still have her job there! But oh, no, that the Conservative's fault! Cleaning up your own mess is at the one end of the scale - paying for the champagne is at the other!

Never been taught to think matey. Same can be said for so many people out there.

No wonder they don't know what there doing,always pi55ed up ...

Seriously, These people are little more than parasites who have no real knowledge of the real world outside their own bubbles.

Yes I agree, but I am sure a certain someone will be along in a minute to tell us why we are wrong ;) :mad:

There's greed everywhere you look, got to have the latest phone, need to shop at m&s and John lewis etc.
I think people are waiting for it to go back to how it was before the down turn, spend spend spend, it's just MP's etc are already there.

My favourite is when people say "you can't take it with you". So that's then justification for when they go out and get a car on finance thats way out of there price range and a house with 100% mortgage with 6 credit cards maxed out etc etc.

I think there's as many labour peers as tory.?

And Cameroon /tory headline was 'we are all in it together'

eOsborne's economic plans depend on that... not that the blinkered Tories on this site want to realise it! They would rather think all is rosy.... well when VAT goes up to 25% in the next 18 months they may think otherwise as that is what is going to have to happen!

Parasites the lot of em, I've no time for any of them, the sooner they all meet their maker the better IMO.

Outdated system, but there's no way they'll be voting for reforms, they've got it way too good.

22% ...we won't go higher than Ireland or Greece.

Other than that carry on. :thumb:

22% won't make up the numbers Ali as their will be a decrease in spending because of the rise anyway. It will need to be 25% unless something unforeseen happens :(

The thing is the numbers have never really added up since 1997. Maybe it shouldn't have been dropped to 15% at the worst point? 17.5% didn't cover it then, nor does 20% now.

It's rather galling. There is SO much wastage in the public sector.
I've done ad buying for organisations who hsve budget to get rid of; so they actively avoid discounts!!
This is particularly bad though; there HAS to be a revolution of sorts soon. The inequality is getting ridiculous.

I really hope vat doesn't end up at 25% it will be very bad news for my business.

There is waste and inefficiency in every sector

Simply focusing on the "public" sector misses the point

I can't imagine a private sector company asking me to pay full price on ads when I just negotiated a near half price discount.

Or paying 10 times the going rate for IT kit.

Or setting up incredibly swanky offices when they've not made a bean in profit.

Or not having to make any profit; ever.

Business naivety = bad decisions = waste.

I think it will stay at 20% for another 18 months. If it goes up - I don't think it would go up to 25% - perhaps 1 or 2% max. 2016 is my guess.

Great news if that ends up true :thumb:

I agree, but many wouldn't, they will harp on about the private sector having an equal share of it, but those days are long gone..

So if only the public sector could get a little more efficient all our problems would be solved?

Freed up economic resources just seem to get cornered by the rich in a Capitalist society, it's why the theory of 'trickle down' is all wrong. Our economy can grow and grow but people at the bottom will be as subjected as always.

In my experience Middle Britain is getting squeezed not the top or the bottom ;)

I'm not sure which bit you're all missing. There is a massive shortfall in tax revenue and Osborne is basically lying when he tries to gloss over it. It will have to be recovered somehow and the only guaranteed way is VAT!

Jeez, so many

But just off the top of my head, BSB, aka British Satalite Broadcasting, spent 100 of millions on offices (the Marco Polo building), they did not even make a program let alone a profit

Thousands of private companies never make a profit, Facebook barely breaks even in the UK

But if you think the UK problems will be sovled by unleashing Alan Sugars apprentices - the shock troops of private capital, on us

Crack on

They can't be solved but it would certainly help a lot if massive wastage could be cut.

That's why Labour was a against a independent Scotland here is a example says it all.:mad:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...pay-perks.html

Sure, no one wants "waste and inefficiency", but in truth they can be nebulous terms

I was at conference the other day, and a keynote speaker was recounting a story where she (the Internet entrepreneur behind confused.com) was working as a consultant (deloittes) for a pharma company (welcome, Pfizer etc)

She worked on 6 to 8 week projects, analysing how they could improve the efficiency of the sales process

She told us how she developed a spreadsheet/methodology that could cut down the amount of time needed to produce the report/stats from 6 weeks to 3 days

She went to her boss at deloittes to explain her workings - what do you think he said Mattee,

"That's great, we can cut down on waste and inefficiency, and deliver result to the customer in 3 days that it used to take us 6 weeks"

Or, "how will be I be able to bill you out for the other 5 weeks"

Is the single biggest con played out on the people of the western neo liberal economies in the last 30 years

Of course, the idea that sending more resources up in society will make even more come down is supremely stupid.