Not much more to add to this, except that as the current economic crisis is global, this probably applies just about anywhere.

Paraphrasing Mitch Benn...

No offense love, but why are you still here? Why are we still seeing you on the news?
Why are you still turning up on the TV, with gormless journos asking for your views?

When you don't dance you dont sing, you dont do a bloody thing
there's no telling where your talent might begin
but still your mug appears, god knows how many years
after that stupid fucking show you didnt win

No offense love, but what's it all about, tell me just how long do you expect...
to drag this spurious situation out, please bugger off and get some self respect!

Unbelievable!

Despite the fact that their selfishness and greed has dropped us all into the worst financial crisis for decades, RBS, Northern Rock and HBOS bankers are still planning to pay themselves bonuses!.

And like the bunch of muppets that they are, there appears to be a strong possibility that the government might let them do it!

It became abundantly clear yesterday that bankers have completely lost touch with the real world. At the same time that new unemployment figures were released (showing an increase to 1.97 million) and a handful of senior bankers faced a "grilling" by a toothless Select Committee, some bankers still had the unmitigated gall to claim entitlement to bonuses!

One "total banker" interviewed on radio yesterday, even made the extraordinary claim that he should get his bonus because:-

"I only earn 90,000 a year"

Is this arsehole out of touch or what?

Frankly, I'm astounded that any bank employee should expect any form of bonus. And those working for the banks that have been bailed out by the taxpayer should consider themselves bloody lucky that they still have jobs! Just before Christmas, some 30,000 employees at companies such as Woolworths were not so lucky...

Mid-level bank managers and other pointless pundits have issued dire warnings: if bonuses are not paid then many banks may lose their key people.

But where exactly are these "key" people going to go?

Certainly not to other banks; none of them are hiring! And most other industries in the finance sector (insurance companies, investment houses etc) already have their full quota of unproductive, useless, thieving, greedy bastards...which they are looking to jettison in the near future.

To my way of thinking, the biggest potential danger is letting some of these greedy fantasyland figues loose in other industries. But since most other industries only pay bonuses based on positive results (if they pay a bonus at all), I don't think we have much to worry about in that direction...

So here's a message to all bankers from those of us still living on Planet earth:

When you have helped dig us all out of this huge hole and truly learned the meaning of Accountability, then we can talk about bonuses...MAYBE

Until then...

Today's news story about President Obama admitting that he "screwed up" over his handling of a controversy that led two politicians to decline posts in his administration, is - I think - a welcome breath of fresh air.

One of the things that politics has increasingly suffered from in recent years (and this is particularly true of US politics) is an ever-growing tendency by Joe public to view the top dogs as infallible. If they make any kind of mistake (even comparatively small and relatively honest ones), they get crucified by the press.

This tends to create an environment where politicians do one or more of the following, whenever they "screw up":-

1. Spin their way out of trouble with a bunch of weasel wording double-talk.
2. Pass the buck to some hapless scapegoat down the chain of command.
3. Blatantly lie their arses off.

All of these approaches have problems;

• They leave the politician more vulnerable to further attacks (witness the Bill Clinton / Lewinsky thing - what really got him was not the fact that he poked an intern, but the fact that he lied about it)
• They leave the electorate unsatisfied and further increase cynicism of politics by the general public.
• None of them addresses whatever the particular issue at hand is. This means there is no culpability and therefore no accountability. And if there's no accountability, then no-one learns from their mistakes. And the same shit happens again!

Personally, I think the approach taken by Obama is the only sensible one; He has admitted that the buck stops with him (thus taking ultimate responsibility), he has apologised and has taken the necessary steps to try and avoid a repeat of this situation.

I don't think you can say fairer than that.

Regardless of political ideology, leanings or preferences, most people - be they conservative or liberal, left-wing, centerist or right-wing - value two things above all in their leaders.

The first thing that the public really want from their leaders is for them to lead by example. Nothing turns the voting public against a politician quicker than listening to him or her publicly endorse or criticise one thing and then do exactly the opposite. That's called hyprocisy and it pisses everyone off!

The second thing that that the public really want from their leaders is something that most politicians seem to have forgotten (or have been conned by their advisors and spin doctors into believing no longer exists); at the end of the day (especially in hard times) what the voting public really want from their elected leaders is a healthy measure of honesty.

And politicians fuck with that at their peril.

We might not like it when the occasional honest politician lays the truth on us, but we still appreciate it. Truly effective politics is much more to do with what is right, rather than what is popular...and it looks like we finally have a president who understands this.

Perhaps if we start seeing genuine accountability and honest undertakings by our leaders to avoid the repeat of earlier mistakes, we will start cutting them a little slack (at least when the mistake is an honest one and the apology is genuine).

Maybe then we might start seeing them as a bit more human.

Apology accepted Mr President.

Now let's get back to work!

Now available:Bramshill Feb 2009 - Photo Gallery

Last night's heavy snowfall (at least by British standards) has predictably caused the usual commuter chaos today. Large sections of the rail network have shutdown completely, London buses, trains and even the tube have largely ground to a halt and the roads are, by all accounts jam-packed.

And all for less than 6 inches of snow.

Why is that?

OK, so Britain does have one of the busier commuter networks in Western Europe. In fact, I believe Clapham Junction is offically the busiest station (by train numbers) in both Britain and Europe. But isn't that all the more reason to have effective contingency plans for unusual little weather patches like this?

And likewise, Transport for London, the quango that oversees and manages large portions of London's transport infrastructure seems equally unable to cope, despite it's £40 billion budget. How can they not have some kind of contingency fund / plan for these circumstances?

And of course, thanks to the Whitehall worms, we have already used up what little spare capacity on the road network that we had left, so that's the roads buggered.

Do other countries in western Europe suffer from the same level of commuter chaos after a 6-inch snow flurry? The only story I could find in a quick Google search about traffic chaos in Europe caused by bad weather is a BBC article from 2004 and included at least one photo of cars in a 2 foot bank of snow. Apparently it's a long time since the rest of Europe's transport infrastructure ground to a halt from such a relatively minor weather event.

So, the lack of any spare transport infrastructure capacity, contingency planning and foresight all appear to be partial culprits in our lineup of usual inefficiency suspects. And then of course we need to take one more factor into account.

The average British "worker" is a terminally lazy bastard who will skive off at the earliest opportunity, for as long as (s)he can get away with it.

...and suddenly, it all makes a lot more sense!