The Tory's new shared-grief Age of Austerity starts here ...

[non sociopath skin]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7842208/BP-oil-spill-Tony-Hayward-will-get-10.8m-pension-if-he-steps-down-as-chief-executive.html

Come on, how's the poor bugger supposed to survive on that - especially if Boy George cuts the pensioners' fuel allowance and bus passes?

Anyone for getting up a petition to get him a better deal?

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

1. I am sure that we can soon expect...

the Daily Fail to complain about the 'workshy' Hayward taking advantage of the 'handouts culture'. And for the Torygraph bloggers to rant that 'Disaster is what it is, trapping the weak into a life of idleness.'

At least, Hayward's predecessor Browne is not workshy. He is being kept busy, no doubt on taxpayers' money, advising Gove and Willats on how to increase tuition fees for students.

[Hopeless Romantic]

2. All very contemptible but

what has that to do with the Tories?

[realcrookswearsuits]

3. Haywards whining about wanting his life back

had the worlds smallest violin orchestra playing pianissimo in sympathy at my house.

Maybe it has escaped his attention that his humungous salary as CEO of BP actually requires him to take some responsibility for the company's activities.

[Nihil]

4. Wow ...

... and I thought that Iain Coucher (Network Rail CEO) was getting a
lottery win with the opportunity to retire at 48 ...

> The chief executive of Network Rail is to resign after three years in
> the job, saying it was a "good time" to move on, it was announced today.

+

> Mr Coucher, 48, earns £613,000 a year and is believed to be Britain's
> best-paid public sector worker. He is in line to double his salary when
> NR announces its bonuses by the end of the month.

> Last year he declined his bonus but received an extra £150,000 as part
> of a long-term incentive scheme.

> Earlier this month Mr Coucher made clear he had no intention of surrendering
> part of his bonus, despite earning almost four times more than the Prime
> Minister.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/network-rail-chief--to-resign-2002967.html

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23846197-network-rail-chief-will-resign-after-pressure-over-his-pound-600000-bonus.do


Bitter? Me? Nah ... I only pay his wages and dream of retiring with a pension ...

[dipsydoodle]

5. Maybe use

Laura Kuenssberg's tweets for updates and comments : http://twitter.com/BBCLauraK

[dipsydoodle]

6. Fuel allowance for pensioners

Yes I'm hoping they'll help out with fuel for my Jeep.

[craigmatic]

7. can we all agree that they'd do this even if the economy wasn't bad?

for the tories the cuts are a matter of ideology. Was Thatcher this bad?

[LeftishBrit]

8. Hard as it is to imagine, Thatcher was even worse.

Thatcher was a clever fanatic. She had principles and a brain. Cameron does not have principles beyond wanting to be in power. Sadly, neither does Clegg. Osborne may or may not have principles, but he certainly doesn't have a brain. This made Thatcher more dangerous than any of them.

Though the Thatcherites are having too much of an influence on Cameron and Osborne. And with Clegg caving in for power, and Labour having no leadership at all at the moment, the Tories are able to get away with it.

[non sociopath skin]

9. Thatcher also had chutzpah,

She KNEW she was right.

What will be interesting will be to see how long it takes this lot to buckle when the inevitable boatload of shit comes their way.

The Skin

[FunkyLeprechaun]

10. I don't know about these cuts

However, these cuts have to be done as Labour spending put the UK in a big hole. Would you rather we were like Greece and Spain, bankrupt and hoping the IMF bail us out?

[miscsoc]

11. There's no economic consensus that cuts on this scale and at this time are the right approach

I'm not an economist, perhaps you are, but it's certainly debatable.

It's conventional wisdom in the press that the tory approach is the right one, but the press have their biases and prefer a good story to anything based on facts.

[T_i_B]

12. Well to be perfectly honest...

Gideon Osbourne could have buggered a small boy at the dispatch box and he would still be praised by the Diana Express and the Daily Fail.

And it's worth noting that Gordon Brown's decision to abolish the 10p tax rate was widely lauded in the press at the time. They only changed their tune when people started to get their tax bills in.

Not that the likes of the Daily Fail would want you to know that they got it wrong mind...

[miscsoc]

13. Daily Express has "scroungers get a kicking" on the front page

[non sociopath skin]

14. That would be about bank CEOs, yes?

I noticed that Boy Gideon had ordered them to put a little of their small change into the poor box.

The Skin

[miscsoc]

15. that's not even funny any more :(

christ, i'm becoming nostalgic for new labour, it was possible to laugh bitterly when THAT lot whored themselves out to the bankers, since they didn't actually HATE the poor; they just didn't give a shit.

Gordon sucked the dick of the rich because they paid him back with money and power, Gids does it because he likes it (and actually, it's basically autofellatio so it's no wonder he does)

[T_i_B]

16. I can only assume...

...that nobody at the Diana Express pays UK tax. Otherwise I fail to see how it's possible to be in raptures about that budget.

[miscsoc]

17. The people who own the thing probably don't, really.

I doubt the hacks are in raptures but a job's a job.

[LeftishBrit]

18. 'Labour spending put the UK in a big hole'? As our American friends on DU would say, you've been

the Kool-aid!

I know that, even more than most politicians (which is difficult), Dave and Georgie like blame everything on the Previous Government. And I know that our RW press fawns on the rich and 'successful', hates the poor and 'weak', and detests almost all aspects of the public services.

But the problem is *world recession* (to quite an extent caused by banking and financial mess-ups), not 'Labour spending*. Though I suppose 'Labour' in its last incarnation did fund two wars, bail out the bankers on a big scale, and continue the Thatcherite policy of emphasizing the financial and service industries at the expense of maintaining our industrial base. None of which helped - but I don't think that this is the sort of thing that our RW press is talking about.