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Thread | Train Drivers Pay Rise
at 18:35 19 Mar 2025
What prompted me to create this thread is yet another comment by another of the useless members of the last Tory Government re train drivers pay.
He criticised the Labour government for awarding a pay rise to the train drivers in order to end the dispute about pay. He said, yet again, that the rise was inflation busting and that some train drivers were earning far more than their standard £60,000 or so salary.
A while ago the train driver pay story came up in the same newscast as a story about Thames Water. In that story the boss of Thames Water was explaining that when they were appointing people to senior positions within their company they had to pay the going rate to attract the best people.
I googled the Thames Water boss’ pay and this came up.
Chris Weston, the CEO of Thames Water, has a base salary of £850,000 a year, plus a performance-related bonus of up to 156% of his salary. This gives him a potential total package of around £2.25 million. This is obscene bearing in mind what an awful service they provide.
Because of this obscenity OFWAT started looking to reduce their pay levels by cutting the amount they can be paid in bonuses. The water companies then told OFWAT that if they limit the amount they are allowed to pay the bosses in bonuses they will simply raise the base salary. So, no matter what happens these people will get their enormous salaries and neither OFWAT nor the Government nor anybody can do a thing about it.
If you were to ask these people how they warrant these levels of pay they say that they have enormous responsibilities, that they are in charge of a multi million pound company and they have to run that company well and if they don’t they will be sacked. When they ARE sacked how many times have we read that their contract included a golden handshake. So they still don’t lose out despite utter incompetence.
If it is their responsibility that the company is run well then it’s their responsibility when the company doesn’t run well – like when the company breaks the law for example. It has been reported that Thames and all the other Water companies break the law several times a day, every day of the year. So does that not make the people that run those companies criminals if they say they are responsible for how the company is run ?
Now take your average train driver. He drives his train from Swansea to Paddington for example and then drives it back again. And he does that every working day and, as far as I’m aware, doesn’t break the law. He just does the job that he is responsible for and does it properly. And if he did break the law the company would quite rightly sack him. And he wouldn’t have a golden handshake.
The deal the train drivers were awarded was 5% a year over a number of years. That would be £3000 a year on a base salary of £60,000. And after tax just £1,800 after paying higher level income tax.
Ask yourself how many times members of the last Tory government said the pay rise was inflation busting. Inflation this last year is around 2.5/3% so 5% is inflation busting. So what was 5% the year before in 2023 when annual inflation was 7.3% with a peak of 11% ? I don’t remember any of them mentioning that. I also don’t remember any of them praising the train drivers for working through the pandemic because they were an essential service like NHS workers.
And did they mention that, when inflation in 2023 was 7.3%, bosses in the biggest UK companies enjoyed average pay rises of 16%. Did they call that inflation busting ? Of course they didn’t. Makes you wonder why when those pesky train drivers were being so horrible.
Now think of how the two groups of workers were treated by the press. The water company problems were/are criticised in the press every now and then. But when the train drivers were striking to try to get their ‘inflation busting’ pay rise they were crucified on the front pages of the usual papers virtually every single day of the week.
It almost makes you think that maybe ordinary people are treated unfairly in the press. Surely not.
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Reply | News on Sheehan and another contender joins the race
at 10:33 19 Mar 2025
In now is far and away the best option. The new manager would have a number of games to get to know the squad (games are always the best way of doing that) ready for the summer. Otherwise he'd spend the summer bedding in and before you know it it's panic stations again. |
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Reply | Crown Estate latest
at 11:39 18 Mar 2025
Agreed. It works both ways.
I suppose what's most important is that twenty years ago or so support was less than 10%. So support has definitely increased substantially while the Welsh demographic has been much the same. In fact the population is getting gradually older. |
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Reply | Crown Estate latest
at 11:33 18 Mar 2025
A government minister said in an interview a couple of weeks ago that the armed forces get around 100,000 applications a year. So, in theory, it should be easy to expand the size of the armed forces as long as the money is there to recruit and train those people.
He also said that incredibly it takes 249 days from application to acceptance. Plainly ridiculous. |
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Reply | Harry Darling
at 11:26 18 Mar 2025
I wish all our players were as average as Harry. |
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Reply | Crown Estate latest
at 10:01 17 Mar 2025
I've seen this many times. The suggestion is that when they grow up they realise the folly of their ways and change tack.
In the Scottish ref in 2014 the result was 45% yes and 55% no. The numbers in the younger age groups was more yes than no. Fast forward 11 years and in theory, according to unionists, many of those younger voters will have grown up and changed to become unionists.
Also many unionists were thrilled at the fall in SNP popularity saying that would mean a fall in support for Indy in Scotland. A plainly ridiculous thought.
Just think of the logic. A person who believed in Scottish Indy votes for the SNP because they are a pro indy party. They wouldn't have been pro indy because the SNP suddenly existed, they were already pro indy. But then when the SNP implodes (for internal party reasons) that person suddenly thinks I think i'll change to pro union ! As I say, ridiculous.
And when you check what the current Indy situation is in Scotland it's basically the same as in 2014, roughly a 45/55 split. |
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Reply | Crown Estate latest
at 18:07 16 Mar 2025
Just checked.
The latest one I could find showed that 55% of 18 - 24 year olds would vote yes. |
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Reply | Crown Estate latest
at 17:58 16 Mar 2025
You're right KK. I was just correcting Cat's numbers across the whole demographic.
When they produce the numbers by age group the percentage is substantially higher in the younger groups. Which means that the YES percentage will grow naturally over time. |
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Reply | Crown Estate latest
at 11:11 16 Mar 2025
'most Welsh people want to remain in the Union and that majority has only grown this last few years'.
Not wishing to intrude on the discussion between you and Trampie Cat but this is factually incorrect. Opinion polls over the last five years show the pro indy vote hovering in the low to mid twenties and the pro union vote in the low to mid fifties.
There have been some blips where NO went into up to 61% and where yes went up to 33%. But for the most part they went as above, mid twenties and mid fifties. |
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Reply | Swansea City sink closer to those relegation spots after another poor display
at 10:25 16 Mar 2025
Sheehan has coached them to play differently since taking charge and it has a lot of the time made games more enjoyable. But the passing in yesterday's game and last Saturday was atrocious. It gives the impression they haven't done any work in what is such a basic part of the game.
I said in another thread that I don't want Sheehan to get the job. I want an experienced Champ manager which hopefully the new owners will see as the best option to stop the slide even if it will cost more. We should remember that AS is almost totally inexperienced at this level. Is it twelve games now in the two spells ? |
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Reply | Wrexham
at 10:01 15 Mar 2025
Being selfish, if Wycombe get promoted it will be a lot more difficult for the Swans to get Low from them if Harry does leave. |
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Reply | Coleman’s future becomes clearer & Harry Darling deal will be offered
at 09:52 15 Mar 2025
'we most certainly believe that Swansea City will be in a much stronger position players and asset wise at the end of this summer period'.
This is all we want. And not a splurge of money either (not that we can because of FFP). Just to have something positive happen in the Summer so we can look ahead to next season with some confidence.
After the last four or five years that's not much to ask is it ? |
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Reply | Watford v Swansea City : Match day thread
at 09:16 13 Mar 2025
After LW left many people (most ?) were saying we need to employ an experienced champ manager this time rather than take a punt on a less experienced one or one with lower league experience only.
Sheehan has done very well based on a small number of games but is extremely inexperienced as the number 1. And as has been said by a number of people that means we haven't seen him having to cope with really difficult situations yet. That's where experience kicks in.
If the new owners are willing to spend a bit i'd prefer going down the experienced champ manager line. |
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Reply | US/UK/EU - the way forward
at 18:18 6 Mar 2025
I'm very surprised that there haven't been a load of replies from brexiteers complaining about my praise for the idea of a European army.
We can still be part of one of course. We don't need to be part of the EU for that. Let's hope that happens soon. |
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Reply | US/UK/EU - the way forward
at 18:33 5 Mar 2025
Bearing in mind where we are at the moment with Europe starting a scramble to work together to re-arm and build up their individual armies imagine how great it would have been if 10/15/20 years ago a European army had been created.
Europe would have been in a much stronger position in dealing with Trump and Putin.. |
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Reply | US/UK/EU - the way forward
at 18:44 4 Mar 2025
I accept that the EU will do what's best for the EU same as America will. And the same as the UK will.
The difference is that what's good for the EU, in the case of Ukraine for one, is the same as what's best for the UK. |
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Thread | US/UK/EU - the way forward
at 14:14 4 Mar 2025
Donald Trump is going to be POTUS for the next four years and if his policies are still popular in America at the end of that time it may very well be that a Republican (Vance ?) will replace him. And that person will probably continue in a similar vein.
So what should the UK do now ?
At the moment the UK is stuck in the middle trying to balance keeping the US onside while doing the same thing with the EU. That applies with trade as well as the Ukraine problem.
In my opinion we should, while carrying on being diplomatically onside with the US, accept that in the long run our future is better served by accepting we are part of Europe (not the EU) and work toward better relations with the EU.
If we engage with the US on trade we know that they will ALWAYS, especially if it's a Trump/Vance Republican administration, ensure that the US wins the (Trade) war. They will use their size and might to ensure that happens because they hold all the cards, to use a currently popular phrase. |
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Reply | Trump and Vance
at 18:55 1 Mar 2025
Vance talked about diplomacy with Putin being the answer to stopping the war. Zelensky asked him a simple question.
He said Putin signed a ceasefire agreement in 2019 after the Crimea invasion (Macron and Merkel also involved in the negotiations). A couple of years later he just ignored the agreement and invaded Ukraine again. So he asked what sort of diplomacy will work this time ? He was very calm and measured in asking a what to me was a very reasonable question.
Vance's response was to accuse him (Z) of coming to the Oval Office and being disrespectful in trying to litigate in front of the media.
Throughout the whole 50 minutes or so Zelensky kept calm despite his frustration because on many occasions he had to actually ASK for a chance to give his answer to the questions put because Trump just talked and talked and took over virtually the whole meeting.
I thought he did brilliantly. |
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