Discipline and Punish

The Glorious Successor has decreed that the past ten glorious years of low inflation, economic growth and very large pay deals for corporate paunches is the result of "the discipline of pay awards". He was referring to a staged pay award of less than nothing which has caused the Prison Officers' Association to take strike action. The Glorious Successor has frozen the pay of almost the entire public sector; which, since he has not frozen inflation, means the pay has been cut. The Government plans to make the award to prison officers in two parts - one of less than nothing in April, and another of two-thirds of less than nothing in October. It appears that New Labour, which so enjoys putting people in prison that it has created a new criminal offence for almost every day of the Vicar of Downing Street's ministry, treats its prison officers even more contemptuously than it treats nurses. As a sample of joined-up thinking, this rivals the Conservatives' plundering of British Rail, which involved selling off the tracks, the stations and the rolling stock to various different companies which did not communicate with one another. The Glorious Successor has not frozen the pay of military personnel, although the improving security situation in Afghanistan and Iraq does mean that there are fewer claimants these days.