Money Isn't Everything, You Know
Some people have no sense of gratitude. Jacqui Smith, poor Jacqui Smith, has been busting whatever passes for a gut in the New Labour anatomy to get the police the power of holding people for six weeks without charge, and yet the police are giving no indication whatever that they appreciate her efforts, and may even be preparing to deepen her miseries by voting to lift the ban on strike action.
Of course, the extension of internment to forty-two days is thoroughly necessary, since the Home Secretary obviously thinks it is, and has said so several times, with such positivity that the offering of actual evidence in favour of the idea would be an act of culpable bad taste. Still, one would think the police would give some show of gratitude for a measure which will give them so much more to do with their copious free time, and which, as an added bonus, is bound to make them even more popular and trusted than they have been since the taxpayer generously agreed to pay the fine which the Met incurred for failing to execute Jean Charles de Menezes in a non-public place.
The problem, as usual, is money. It is a perennial source of sorrowful ministerial astonishment that public sector workers cannot seem to take the same insouciant attitude to filthy lucre which is so upliftingly demonstrated by Conrad Black and his spiritual brothers in the boardroom, as well as, on occasion, by ministers themselves. In September, the Police Arbitration Tribunal agreed a below-inflation pay rise - in Oldspeak, a slightly smaller cut in living standards than would result from not raising salaries at all - and Jacqui Smith, poor Jacqui Smith, has simply decided not to backdate it. She has defended the decision with characteristic cogency, pointing out that everyone except junior doctors and the armed forces has got the same deal or worse, and that "the £30m involved was the equivalent of an extra 800 police officers". Well, that ought to clinch it. Like the public with its mulish opposition to ID cards, those poor silly policepersons are harming no-one but themselves. If this is the way they behave now, they'll be in for a short sharp shock once they're eventually privatised.
Of course, the extension of internment to forty-two days is thoroughly necessary, since the Home Secretary obviously thinks it is, and has said so several times, with such positivity that the offering of actual evidence in favour of the idea would be an act of culpable bad taste. Still, one would think the police would give some show of gratitude for a measure which will give them so much more to do with their copious free time, and which, as an added bonus, is bound to make them even more popular and trusted than they have been since the taxpayer generously agreed to pay the fine which the Met incurred for failing to execute Jean Charles de Menezes in a non-public place.
The problem, as usual, is money. It is a perennial source of sorrowful ministerial astonishment that public sector workers cannot seem to take the same insouciant attitude to filthy lucre which is so upliftingly demonstrated by Conrad Black and his spiritual brothers in the boardroom, as well as, on occasion, by ministers themselves. In September, the Police Arbitration Tribunal agreed a below-inflation pay rise - in Oldspeak, a slightly smaller cut in living standards than would result from not raising salaries at all - and Jacqui Smith, poor Jacqui Smith, has simply decided not to backdate it. She has defended the decision with characteristic cogency, pointing out that everyone except junior doctors and the armed forces has got the same deal or worse, and that "the £30m involved was the equivalent of an extra 800 police officers". Well, that ought to clinch it. Like the public with its mulish opposition to ID cards, those poor silly policepersons are harming no-one but themselves. If this is the way they behave now, they'll be in for a short sharp shock once they're eventually privatised.
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