Greedy Pigs

 MORE THAN SIXTY GREEDY PIGS

The following individuals are named in recent annual reports for various Northern Ireland Executive departments. Some people might say that those below are selfish, overpaid money grabbers, but I couldn't possibly comment.

The publication of their salary figures is done in a characteristically sneaky way by putting neither a pound sign nor the zeros next to each amount. Furthermore, a couple of departments have tried to camouflage the top earners' identity by initialising their first name. Are they ashamed to reveal the full name?

I regard these people as the enemy. As so much public funds are diverted into their bank accounts, it means that there are less financial resources allocated elsewhere in the public sector. Some folk might describe this as a disgusting scandal, but I couldn't possibly comment.

Anyhow, their inflated remuneration applies to the following years:
*2017-2018
**2018-2019
***2019-2020

THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE
David Sterling, £455,000-£460,000*
Brenda King, £200,000-£205,000*
Dr Mark Browne, £95,000-£100,000*
Katrina Godfrey, £100,000-£105,000*
Peter Toogood, £90,000-£95,000*
Colm Shannon, £195,000-£200,000*
Chris McNabb, £90,000-£95,000*
Graeme Wilkinson, £105,000-£110,000**

DEPARTMENT of AGRICULTURE, ENVIRONMENT, and RURAL AFFAIRS
Dr D McMahon, £165,000-£170,000**
B Doherty, £220,000-£225,000***
N Fulton, £145,000-£150,000***
R Huey, £125,000-£130,000***
F McCandless, £140,000-£145,000***
D Small, £135,000-£140,000***
D Reid, £90,000-£95,000**
S McGrade, £210,000-£215,000**

DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION
Derek Baker, £150,000-£155,000*
Fiona Hepper, £115,000-£120,000**
John Smith, £225,000-£230,000**
Noelle Buick, £130,000-£135,000**
Gary Fair, £90,000-£95,000**
Gavin Boyd, £145,000-£150,000**

DEPARTMENT for the ECONOMY
Mike Brennan, £220,000-£225,000***
Noel Lavery, £160,000-£165,000**
Heather Cousins, £125,000-£130,000***
Eugene Rooney, £110,000-£115,000**
Colin Lewis, £120,000-£125,000***
Richard Rodgers, £105,000-£110,000***
Diarmuid McLean, £100,000-£105,000***
Stephen McMurray, £100,000-£105,000***

DEPARTMENT of FINANCE
Joanne McBurney, £250,000-£255,000***
Sue Gray, £245,000-£250,000***
Hugh Widdis, £190,000-£195,000***
Bill Pauley, £175,000-£180,000**
Eugene O'Loan, £155,000-£160,000***
Paul Wickens, £145,000-£150,000**
Jill Minne, £140,000-£145,000**
Ian Snowden, £140,000-£145,000***
Claire Archbold, £135,000-£140,000**
Des Armstrong, £130,000-£135,000***
Stewart Barnes, £160,000-£165,000**
Siobhan Carey, £130,000-£135,000***

DEPARTMENT of HEALTH
R Pengelly, £195,000-£200,000**
S Holland, £130,000-£135,000**
C McArdle, £90,000-£95,000**
Dr Michael McBride, £200,000-£205,000**
D McNeilly, £145,000-£150,000**
J Johnston, £125,000-£130,000**
N Lloyd, £105,000-£110,000**
S Gallagher, £200,000-£205,000**
D West, £135,000-£140,000**

DEPARTMENT for COMMUNITIES
Jackie Kerr, £125,000-£130,000**
Louise Warde Hunter, £115,000-£120,000**
Deborah Brown, £90,000-£95,000**

DEPARTMENT for INFRASTRUCTURE
Katrina Godfrey, £175,000-£180,000**
Peter May, £130,000-£135,000*
John McGrath, £105,000-£110,000**
Dr Andrew Murray, £120,000-£125,000**
Fiona McCandless, £110,000-£115,000*
John Irvine, £195,000-£200,000**

DEPARTMENT of JUSTICE
Peter May, £155,000-£160,000***
Anthony Harbinson, £140,000-£145,000***
Ronnie Armour, £150,000-£155,000***
Deborah Brown, £95,000-£100,000***
David A Lavery, £110,000-£115,000**
Lianne Patterson, £120,000-£125,000**

You've Been Framed

Framed Certificate Copies Of The Ulster Covenant for sale, £8. 

Simply email gw930@yahoo.com with the names of your ancestors and I will dispatch a certificate on request.

Also, framed certificates of the war dead from the two world wars are available, same price and same email address as above.

FARCEBOOK!

 I BLOODY HATE IT WHEN CERTAIN FOLK ON FACEPUKE POST QUOTES AND ASSORTED BULLSHIT IN HUGE LETTERS SO THAT EVERYONE NOTICES IT. WELL WHEN I SEE SOMETHING SO ATTENTION-SEEKING, I QUICKLY SCROLL BEYOND IT. FOOLS! xo

A Few Observations Of Politics [by the author and commentator Gary Watton]

Why, why, and why again must Neanderthal Northern Ireland persist with the cumbersome Single Transferable Vote for the purpose of electing three MEPs out of a list of only ten candidates? Surely a 'first-past-the-post', or to be precise first three-past-the-post solution is infinitely more preferable and far less time-consuming. Considering the fact that Northern Ireland's voters cast their preferences on the Thursday and then wait until the following Monday for the count to begin, and then after the yawn fest of several eliminations and vote re-distributions, the final two MEPs are not officially over the finishing line until the Tuesday, five days after the vote. It's a shambolic scenario which even Third World countries would be able to avoid. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from maintaining the same electoral system for the European parliamentary election in the six-counties constituency. Almost always, the top three first preference votes go to the three MEPs who are ultimately elected after the laborious nonsense of the redistribution of the votes of eliminated candidates. This drama simply prolongs the agony unnecessarily in a farce that is akin to much ado about nothing. Come on Norn Iron, let logic prevail.


Secondly, I've been watching a copious amount of election and general politics coverage on the BBC and let me assure the ill-informed that when it comes to confronting politicians, the highly competent Andrew Neil makes Jeremy Paxman seem like a pussycat. In fact, I find JP to be very affable and someone who relishes the opportunity for a tete-a-tete with all manner of people. Jeremy just loves interviews, even if he may protest otherwise. He is perfectly at home in such interviews.


This brings me on to another issue. Politicians are getting worse, not better, at evading questions and failing to give straight answers. The political swine even compound this disagreeable situation by generally starting most responses with "First of all, let me make the following point" which is the repeated formula of trying to clarify a number of points and promote a number of bits and pieces which the interviewer has not requested. Such manoeuvring from politicians does little to reinforce public confidence in a profession that is viewed in some circles as a playground for slippery characters whose commitment to honesty, straight-talking, and integrity is conspicuous by its absence. Please politicos, answer the flaming question and stop sidestepping issues. It's counter-productive.


Next of all, I am particularly amused and confused by all these deluded politicians who state that although their party is struggling terribly in the opinion polls, they retort with "That's not what I've been hearing on the doorsteps." Oh come off it. Has it not occurred to you that many people are merely agreeing with you and pledging to vote for you just to get rid of you from their door? When politicians try to persuade us that the feedback on the doorsteps is favourable, then they are only fooling themselves. Candidates really must stop persisting with this broken record about what they are hearing on the doorsteps. It's boring.


Furthermore, we find that when an election is over, the vanquished state that they didn't quite get the message across properly. Could it be that the voters are more than familiar with your message and just did not like what they heard?


Finally, the electorate also have unrealistic expectations of the various political parties. This usually explains why newly-elected governments are suddenly very unpopular one or two years after coming to power, such as 1967, 1976, 1981, and 2012. The stupid electorate expect the new incumbents to wave a wand and introduce all manner of reforms that will lead to increases in pay, cuts in taxes, a prosperous economy, better transport services and an improved transport infrastructure, better healthcare provision, improved education standards, oh and world peace too. People expect far too much of elected politicians and it is important that political parties dampen down the naïve expectations of the population, instead of wild-eyed daydreams of jam tomorrow and a brighter future, as they misleadingly promise in conference speeches and manifesto 'spin'. High expectations lead to hopes dashed and reveal elected governments to be impotent or incompetent or just downright dishonest about their vision of better times ahead. Talk about the blind leading the blind.

*****SEE ALSO http://gw930.blog.com

Tags: doorsteps; expectations; false promises

Ed Miliband: Unelectable? [by the author and commentator Gary Watton]

There is a lot of silly talk doing the rounds in media circles about how unelectable and unconvincing Ed Miliband is. It's true that the clever one is still very much on a learning curve and that euphemistically his leadership is 'a work in progress', but it's important to make one or two points to defend this besieged individual.

First of all there is a lot of tosh about how Ed 'doesn't look like a future Prime Minister'. What drivel. Did Margaret Thatcher, pre-1979, seem like Prime Minister material? Did Harold Wilson appear to be authoritative and a commanding presence before he was appointed as the first among equals? Most people, David Cameron included, don't look like a Prime Minister until they actually become one. After all, we all know of countless individuals in our family and friendship circles who we struggled to imagine as becoming a doctor or a teacher until they were actually employed as such. Similarly, we all wondered with some alarm how a particular young guy or young woman could ever cope as a father or a mother, only to subsequently discover that they were 'naturals' in such roles - something that was not patently apparent before the event.
Secondly, poor young 'red Ed' is simply the latest in a long line of Labour leaders whom Fleet Street has taken an almost instant dislike to. Perhaps with the exception of Tony Blair [a bloke who could have charmed his way out of a room with no doors in it], almost all Labour leaders in living memory have incurred the antipathy of a media that is unashamedly right of centre and which almost automatically pulls up its drawbridge when a new Labour leader enters the bear-pit of British politics. After all, the hacks and journos may have had a begrudging admiration for the wily Harold Wilson, but they were less impressed with 'sunny Jim' Callaghan. The red tops thought that Michael Foot was more a laughable fool than a would-be statesman. The gutter press also stamped on Neil Kinnock, even though he took significant and courageous steps to move Labour away from the brink of militancy. Then there was Gordon Brown, another Labour leader whom the media mercilessly threw rotten tomatoes at.

Yes, it seems to go with the territory for any Labour leader that he or she will have to cope with the abuse from a prejudiced media that decides right from the starting pistol that the new incumbent is not worthy of the benefit of the doubt. Nevertheless, Ed Miliband spectacularly demonstrated in the Labour leadership contest that he should not be written off as a no-hoper. This should serve as an ominous reminder for the complacent Conservative leadership and complacent conservative press. Red Ed may not look like Prime Minister material but it wasn't so long ago that he didn't necessarily pose as Labour leadership material either. Life is full of little surprises. Could unelectable, unconvincing Ed be standing at the portico of ten Downing Street in May 2015? Stranger things have happened.

Mind you, if Ed does prove to be a dead Ed next May and is as unelectable as the doom-mongers would have us believe, then it is likely that he will fall on his own sword, post-election. We then could be faced with the very real possibility that the personable and media-friendly Chuka Umunna [or the talented Rushanara Ali] could be upgraded to the position of Leader of the Opposition. I would quite like to see this. In particular, I would dearly love to see Trevor Kavanagh of the Scum newspaper and the other Labour-haters in the press pour scorn on Mr Umunna. It would be interesting to see if they can find any angle to heap their customary abuse upon him, as to criticise a black person could be misconstrued as 'racist'. Oh it would be jolly nice fun to see the swine of the media belatedly button their big lips in the face of a Labour leader. Again, stranger things have happened.

In the mean time, we all must soldier on with the seemingly unelectable Ed Miliband. I suspect that although he lacks the charisma of Nigel Farage or the gravitas of David Cameron, young Edward just might be triumphantly waving from the doorstep of ten Downing Street next year.

*****SEE ALSO http://gw930.blog.com

'Racism' and UKIP by the author and commentator Gary Watton

Most people haven’t got the slightest notion what racism is. Let me explain for all you bandwagon-jumping slow learners who allow the Mirror, the Guardian, and the liberal media to misinform you. There are, broadly speaking, a handful of major races: Caucasian (eg white Europeans and white north Americans); negroes (more commonly regarded as Afro-Caribbean people), Semitic (or Jewish people), and Mongoloids (better described as Asian people). Each race can be broken down into a whole host of ethnic groups, which are basically drawn from a variety of nations, for example Brits and Irish and Poles are all Caucasians. If a member of UKIP denounces Poles and east Europeans, this is not a racist outburst.

UKIP are nationalists, not racist. If the BNP is uncomfortable with Asian and/or Afro-Caribbean immigrants, then that is racist. UKIP are not racist. They are perfectly entitled to express their concerns about the continuing net migration to soft touch Britain. How does an increased population contribute to a reduction in unemployment, health service waiting lists, or classroom sizes? Answer: it doesn’t. Labour are uncomfortable with the immigration hot potato because Labour traditionally win much of the votes from the immigrant communities. Therefore irresponsible Labour politicians are keen to admit all and sundry, knowing that such migrants are likely to vote for them, enabling their elected representatives to laugh all the way to the bank.

 The Conservatives, the Labour Conservatives, and the Liberal Conservatives have wanted to bury the burning issue of uncontrolled immigration under the carpet. For them, the economic folly of perpetual net migration to the UK is the great taboo. George Galloway, admittedly no lover of UKIP, has correctly identified the three major political parties as “a bum with three cheeks.” Well, the establishment-orchestrated smear campaign against the new kid in the playground, UKIP, has clearly not paid dividends. The ludicrous accusation of being racist simply doesn’t stand up. It just doesn’t follow that because someone denounces people of another nationality, this constitutes ‘racism’. It doesn’t. If I pour scorn on the people of Switzerland or Canadians or Austrians, this doesn’t amount to ‘racism’.

If denouncing people of another nationality is racist, then presumably all the Brit-haters in the Irish nationalist camp are racists.

*****SEE ALSO http://gw930.blog.com

Labour and UKIP [by the author and commentator Gary Watton]

For the benefit of any slow learners out there in the so-called 'labour movement' who are perplexed by the swing from Labour to UKIP in the likes of Rotherham and other apparent working-class strongholds, permit me to enlighten you.

Throughout the UK [England in particular] are many small towns and villages where one hundred years ago, all the young men, without exception, would have gone off to fight for King and country in the 'Great War'. Many of them didn't return. Then, in the post-war era, many men and women would all have been employed in the same local factory or colliery. The community spirit that would have arisen out of such shared experiences cannot be underestimated. Well, that community spirit is eroding, and the blame can peculiarly be laid at the door of well-intentioned, but insensitive and misguided Labour. How? Why?

Nowadays, people of a certain vintage who perhaps never went to university and have rarely drifted beyond the confines of their locality find themselves having to 'cope' with all manner of new migrant workers being parachuted into their presence from eastern Europe. Suddenly, it becomes strange to find that the two men queuing ahead of you in the post office are conversing in a foreign language. It is equally disconcerting to find yourself waiting at the bus stop with two women who also are engaged in a dialogue in a foreign language. Such circumstances may not have transformed the locals into racists with extreme views, but what they have undoubtedly done is left the locals feeling uncomfortable and somewhat uprooted by the changing demographics. It's not unreasonable to expect people to be disconcerted by the fact that suddenly in a small space of time at least half the people in their street or their block of flats were born in a foreign land. Suddenly, folk no longer recognise or can identify anyone in the street or at the local shops. Suddenly everyone is a stranger, speaking in strange tongues. Suddenly, many people feel that their community's own identity, and indeed the identity of their country has been radically altered. It's not unreasonable for many working-class people, especially in England, to be experiencing an identity crisis, as they try to make sense of the social upheaval.

The thing is that the smart Alecs amongst the liberal media and the bourgeois, cosmopolitan commentariat do not comprehend the extent to which many people feel that their communities have been put out of kilter by rapid population changes, arising out of a large influx of migrant workers. The trouble with the liberal elite among the governing classes, as well as the clever young things who scribe on behalf of the press, is that they all went to university [and possibly private school] where they were thrust among a variety of peoples from all corners of the globe and all walks of life. They can readily fit into any social setting with others from different ethnic groups and cultural backgrounds, but fail to see how difficult it is for others to adjust when there are many others from small towns and villages who have rarely strayed far from the community that they and their ancestors have cherished. While the city slickers are accustomed to cultural diversity, many others in the provinces are not. For those in the latter to have east Europeans thrust into their midst is not a comfortable experience. Admittedly, it is far from comfortable for the new residents either.

However, this scenario that I have outlined goes some way to explain why the Labour heartland feels like it has been left behind and even betrayed by a Labour Party that presided over a huge influx of migration from eastern Europe a decade ago. Labour just loves to welcome migrants from foreign shores, not least because such migrants invariably tend to then cast their votes for Labour in subsequent elections. Therefore, Labour's traditional enthusiasm for immigration is perhaps governed by self-interest, by the realisation that immigrant communities tend to be more favourably disposed towards the Labour party. Nevertheless, we may now be seeing chickens coming home to roost for Labour, because the party in its devotion to the open-door policy of the European Union has left the Labour heartlands and communities awash with migrants from distant shores. Now, the traditional Labour voters are feeling left behind, unable to come to terms with the rapid population change. They now denounce Labour as 'out of touch', with the Labour shadow cabinet stuck inside the Westminster bubble, putting in appearances on various television programmes, including the obligatory slot on Have I Got News For You. Suddenly it seems that the new Labour brigade have lost touch with their grassroots and that the party's pre-occupation with looking good on television is of paramount importance.

To make matters worse for Labour, the accusation that has been directed at them in recent days is that their politicos do not even give a straight answer any more to anything, and it is difficult to respect people who are evasive in interviews. Only the other week, Andrew Neil asked Douglas Alexander about the unfair electoral advantage that is presented to Labour by the current electoral system. Mr Alexander characteristically slimed his way out of the question. It would have been infinitely more preferable if Mr Alexander had stated that yes Labour do derive an electoral advantage but that this apparent benefit is negated by the fact that 1) the overwhelming proportion of the printed media is biased in favour of the Conservatives during election campaigns and 2) the Conservatives enjoy greater funding at election times, which collectively would perhaps nullify Labour's so-called advantage. Mr Alexander would have won himself credit for an answer of this nature, rather than the usual ducking and diving that the likes of Hazel Blears used to specialise at when she played all interviews with a tedious straight bat. Oh yes, Labour politicos mustn't veer off-message. They must instead repeat the same old parrot expressions about cutting too fast and too far; or harping on about the so-called 'bedroom tax'; or continually screaming about a cost of living crisis. Well, as far as I am concerned, Labour is both out of touch and liable to beat about the bush. In fact, the current Labour team are expert practitioners at beating about the bush. Just to quote an example of Labour's current follies is that when Yvette Cooper is confronted about the public disquiet over net migration, she states that yes Labour are 'concerned' about immigration, and then with her next breath she utters in the next sentence that Labour is especially anxious about the exploitation of foreign workers. Well, Yvette that sentiment is all fine and dandy, but thee are missing the point. Most people want a drastic reduction in foreign workers, first and foremost. It's not the exploitation of cheap foreign labour which is uppermost in the minds of the UK electorate. The Labour Party just does not get it.

Of course, the people who are now flocking to UKIP dare not speak out against immigration for fear that Kevin Maguire and the Daily Mirror and the chattering classes of the media demonise them as bigots and racists. As a consequence, the immigration debate is brushed under the carpet and largely treated as taboo by the liberals and leftists who are essentially a bunch of Utopian daydreamers. Instead, there is a silent mass of people who have concerns about the continuing net migration to Britain. Once they are in the privacy of the polling booth, then they are able to speak, and by Jove they speak quite emphatically in favour of UKIP. This infuriates the apologists for soft touch Britain. Such Liberal Democrats and Labour daydreamers wish for a cosmopolitan, heterogeneous United Kingdom which is effectively a united nations. Well, if these dreamers cast their eyes at the actual United Nations assembly in New York, they would find that even the reasonable, educated gents and ladies who are delegated to sit in that body cannot see eye to eye with one another, so what chance do we have in Britain of different communities being shoved together in an idealistic exercise of social engineering aimed at reinforcing the ideologies of left-wing and liberal daydreamers?

Another dimension which has so far dwelled under the radar, but which represents a slightly surprising source of simmering discontent is tension between the Afro-Caribbean community and the east European immigrants and between the Asian community and the east European newcomers. It's hard not to appreciate the concerns of Britain's ethnic coloured communities. They have toiled for decades, trying to get a foothold in Britain. They struggled to get the best jobs, the best houses, and the best schools for years, and now that the coloured people of Britain are belatedly no longer on the periphery of UK society, they find their social mobility being threatened by the hordes of east Europeans who are now muscling their way into the British workplace. In addition to this, there are precious few black and Asian people residing in the countries of eastern Europe, for one reason or another. Consequently, it is a culture shock for east Europeans and the coloured communities to be hurled together into the same neighbourhoods. One cannot underestimate how mutually uncomfortable this state of affairs is proving to be. It is an indication after all of how unaccustomed the eastern Europeans are to coloured people in their midst that when visiting British teams play soccer matches in eastern Europe, their black players are sometimes recipients of monkey chants and other awful racist taunts. This all goes a long way to explain why a surprising number of black and Asian people both join and vote for the inaccurately described 'racist' UKIP.

Until Labour faces up to the discontent fostered by the mass migration from eastern Europe that happened on their watch, then they will continue to reside in the low 'thirties in the opinion polls and linger in the low 'thirties crucially one year from now. It's something of a tragedy because I do have much sympathy for Labour's traditional desire for social justice and equality, but it just so happens that the current Labour party has travelled a huge distance away from its grassroots, leaving its voters feeling alienated and disgusted with huge payouts to high-flying civil servants, to others in publicly-funded organisations such as the BBC and a plethora of Quangos. Even Labour's devotion to the welfare state is in danger of creating a nanny state in which benefits claimants exploit a system that was established to help them. Labour needs to toughen up. I respected Theresa May's tough love speech to the Police Federation the other day. There was an individual who wasn't afraid to speak her mind and who wasn't courting approval from the assembled members. Could you envisage a Labour representative speaking in such terms? I couldn't. The Ed Miliband party is so obsessed with winning everyone's approval that its representatives dare not speak their mind any more. Sanitised new Labour has lost its soul.
It's no wonder that more and more of its supporters are 'migrating' to UKIP. They have my deepest sympathy.

Oh and let's not delude ourselves with the wishful thinking that support for UKIP will melt away between May 2014 and May 2015. I am far from convinced about that. UKIP's challenge is to tap into the massive reserves of people who don't ever bother to vote anymore at general elections and who amount to about one third of those eligible to vote. If UKIP can engage such disenchanted members of the electorate, then the UKIP phenomenon will prove to be more than a one-year wonder. At the very least UKIP ought to command about ten per cent of the vote share in the next national beauty contest, while a percentage of 25% is also achievable. Either way, the vote share of UKIP will be of a sufficient amount in a whole host of key marginal constituencies to throw a spanner in the works of the two major political parties. In much the same way as the SDP provided nuisance value to the Labour Party in 1983, so UKIP will similarly upset the plans of British politics' terrible twins. Quite frankly, the Labour Party's soft touch approach to immigration means that it only has itself to blame.