Sunday, March 11, 2012

The return of the parasite class

Blagging at the taxpayer or ratepayers expense is an all too real event in many of our government departments and local councils, after all, it isn't their money they are spending it's ours. You have to wonder just how much has been spent on town twinning and fact finding missions to foreign parts staying at our expense in luxury hotels and wondering why many of us think that they are simply having a free holiday at our expense.
Express.
AN ARMY of British politicians, town hall fat cats and quangocrats spent four days wining and dining alongside tycoons and prostitutes at the world’s biggest property fair in French Riviera Cannes.
Sports Minister Hugh Robertson headed a list of politicians and council chief executives who enjoyed the sunny high life last week while taxpayers struggled with the closure of libraries, leisure centres and public toilets at home.
They were among 20,000 overwhelmingly male delegates who jetted to the south of France from all over the world for the MIPIM property show where hotel lobbies, super-yachts and bars became a magnet for prostitutes cashing in.
The public officials were there to woo investors for their pet property schemes, from housing blocks in Bristol to possibilities in the Olympic Park.
While some councils funded their trips from public funds, others were on freebies with thousands of pounds of expenses paid by their business friends.
The Sunday Express counted 41 councils and other publicly funded bodies which sent about 120 delegates to Cannes for four days last week.
The entry ticket to the famous Palais des Festivals conference centre alone was £1,400 a head, while flights cost several hundred pounds.
Newham Council in east London, one of the most deprived in Britain, sent six delegates, four more even than investment bank Barclays Capital.
Its contingent included powerful Labour Mayor Sir Robin Wales and communications head Douglas Trainer, who boasted his only expense was a “three euro” hotel room tax.
Bath and North East Somerset council sent four delegates, including two councillors, Lib Dem Tim Ball and Tory Francine Haeberling.
They shared a basement stand with Bristol but during one hour’s observation by the Sunday Express on Wednesday, only two people stopped by and that was to collect free mints.
The nearby Leeds stand, which included six officials from Bradford and Leeds councils, was not much busier possibly because cities from Eastern Europe, such as Riga in Latvia, employed glamorous women to entice the male property experts to chat.
The City of Edinburgh Council fared better by offering free whisky tasting sessions.
Coventry Council helped hire a two-storey apartment opposite the Palais, while MIPIM regular Manchester also went to greater expense.
It hired the Palais’s prime location, a balcony overlooking its famous red carpet film star entrance.
Nice "work" if you can get it and much of it coming from the pockets of ratepayers and taxpayers. The thing is, they know we hold them in contempt, yet they go ahead and do it anyway, they don't care that at home services (usually essential ones as they get more publicity) are being cut, so long as they can have a long weekend in Cannes swanning around at our expense and not really doing a lot other than being there. Many of these people are the ones who scream about bankers bonuses too, forgetting that at least banks earn their money, rather than leeching it off the public purse.
One of the commenter's on the article called them lazy thieving cockroaches, which was probably too kind and rather a slur on cockroaches as well.
We really do need to start getting these people out of office by not voting mainstream and stringing them up.They really are a parasite class and serve no useful purpose in society.

11 annotations:

Antisthenes said...

"getting these people out of office.........and stringing them up"

It appears to me the revolution you so earnestly seek is not that far off although the outcome of which may not be the one expected, they never are. The time of plenty is now behind us. Those who have been receiving something for nothing on the backs of those of us who work and toil for our daily bread are soon to find that those labours are not producing the excess that can keep them in the style to which they have become accustomed. Keeping the fat cats and the feckless and lazy in unearned luxury is already beginning to hurt and when that pain becomes unbearable the largess is going to stop. Then the revolution will happen in what form though is anybody's guess.

Quiet_Man said...

The problem with revolutions is that usually the extremists win as they are the ones usually prepared to put their time and energies into them.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

Have linked to this post QM.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

Well, not exactly have, more will do once I've finished preparing dindins.....

microdave said...

"And rather a slur on cockroaches as well"

I think I'm right in saying that cockroaches continue to live after their heads have been cut off, and only die once starvation takes its toll.

Heaven forbid the same thing happens when the piano wire and lamp-posts have done their job...

Gandalf said...

The English people are being "farmed" by the political classes, we are merely a resource they utilize to their own ends.

Platitudes are offered and eagerly swallowed by the public.

This is a critical time for the English, Welsh and Scottish people, the old order has to go, we need another Cromwell

Tom Paine said...

I have attended MIPIM for more than 20 years and can attest to the increasing involvement of public authorities. In theory they are there to "promote investment" and seem to have a high old time of it. Their stands are bigger and more highly staffed than those of major businesses with projects to market. In fairness they have substantially scaled down in recent years. Manchester used to charter a yacht to entertain its guests. This year it only hired a backstreet cafe.

Weekend Yachtsman said...

Whaddya mean by "return" of the parasite class?

Did they ever go away?

James Higham said...

The thing is, they know we hold them in contempt, yet they go ahead and do it anyway

And set their moral compasses low. We therefore have no need for anyone above us with a low moral compass.

Therefore they must go.

Simon Smth said...

" at least banks earn their money" if you're serious about this affirmation then you cannot be taken seriously, sir.

Quiet_Man said...

And what pray exactly do speculation and investment mean in your world?
That is what banks do, unlike the state and public services who rely upon the theft of earnings of taxpayers to fund their little empires.