As MP’s expenses come to the fore again, Peter Mandelson spoke on Radio 4 this morning and did his usual self by not explaining anything and being perfectly unclear about everything!  Listen hear here!

Thank god the interviewer cut him off.

The question was “Have you got much sympathy with MPs who’ve claimed under one set of ‘rules’ and now might have to cough-up under a changed set of rules” (my wording)

“Of course…but…” said Mandelson

“…these are the last painful and expensive throws of an old and discredited system…”

The trouble is that Mandelson’s flower bills for his office/department are over £24,000 per annum.  When news of this started coming out, Darling’s Treasury flower bill of ~£3000 was cut to zero but the Business Dept.’s of Mandelson has remained the same. (see Government departments ran up £780,000 flower bill)

That’s  the painful truth.  And as the most disadvantaged in society, dependant on the State for their well-being, are now coming into the firing line as the cause of society’s ills, it’s a truth that deserves repetition.

As the money given to bankers to pay for their bonuses (~£1.2 billion!) goes out, consider the £3 billion stolen from the Post Office worker’s pension fund by the State in a ‘pensions holiday’ since 1994.  These Post Office employees are now having to suffer because as part of the Royal Mail’s super-imposed business ethic, it has to recoup the missing Pension money from it’s business at the same time as it’s core business changes and it reacts accordingly.

Now, the focus is on the Post Office worker who must change and not go on strike to ‘save the company’!

• Q. Who is in charge of pushing these Post Office changes?
• A. Mandelson

I think a few more ‘rules’ need changing.  If the Royal Mail was not hamstrung by the Pensions millstone round it’s neck it could compete equally with the piss-poor Home Delivery Network owned by the odious Barclay brothers who have their own idea of democracy on their little island fiefdom.

Without the millstone, Royal Mail could have expanded it’s network of local offices as collection and despatch points for the country’s expanding home shopping bonanza.  Instead, it’s closed many down because reduced investment made them un-economic.

The Dept. of Business is a fool’s paradise of blinkered short-sightedness, completely devoid of morals and common sense.  Mandelson though, is no fool.  He knows exactly what he’s done and is doing.

I think he’s borrowed one of Dr Who’s perception filters because of the way that people’s focus shifts as their gaze falls upon him.

Further Reading:

Home Delivery network

• Amazon delivery problems. Home Delivery Network put their side (from 2007)
• Home Delivery Network toss my parcel over the gate (from 2008)
• Home Delivery Network Limited www.hdnl.co.uk Reviews: 1.3 out of 5! (this week,2009!)

The prime problem for HDNL is that they have few offices and don’t deliver out-of-hours which is no use for normal consumers, the majority of whom work 9-5.  Consequently they are cheap so mail-order companies will use them…

Previous Posts

• I’m so tired from watching TV I have to have a nap
• How Rowland Hill Turns in His Grave

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