Cameron's fairness agenda

Ghengis

Most, if not all, Westminster people, suffer a mindset regarding "fairness". which in their circle is strictly "NIMBY".

Paul Danon

It's grotesque to hear such Marxist talk from Tory lips. The PM's mission is to explain to people that enterprise works best when left alone. Government, by contrast, needs hawk-like scrutiny.

David Cockerham

What I've never understood is why the 'market' for senior business people only operates in one direction - upwards. Surely if it were a genuine market it would operate in both directions? If a particular post is the absolute dream job that many fully qualified and competent people have always hoped to land for themselves, why do they never seem to bid each other down to get it? Why does it nearly always seem to be a case of companies deciding who they MUST have at any price and then agreeing to pay whatever price is needed to get their man (or very occasionally woman)? It would be great to see a few major companies run a trial scheme by quoting salary and bonus packages for senior vacancies way below what has been the going rate for them in the immediate past and locking themselves into accepting the best of the applicants willing to take that rate for the job. I think they might pleasantly surpise themselves if they did. But of course they won't do that because it would undermine the ramp and expose the charade that has boosted their own incomes; i.e. it wouldn't be a 'pleasant surprise' but a worrying threat to them. In short, the whole system stinks to high heaven and it is high time a Tory government did something about it. It has to be a Tory government that fixes it because any Labour government would be crucified for being anti-business if it tried. One of the rules of politics is that the really big problems can only ever be fixed by the party traditionally seen as being on the wrong side of the fence for the issue concerned. That's why, for example, only a Tory government could give Hong Kong back to the Chinese and survive it politically.

Mudplugger

Talk is cheap, Dave.

Hugo Chav

Will the Bank of England be prosecuted for inflating the Bubble of Britain? When will they be held responsible?

Jeremy

James Forsyth:

"The politics of the ‘undeserving rich’ is again dominating the news this morning. David Cameron tells the Sunday Telegraph that ‘The market for top people isn’t working, it needs to be sorted out’."

Whilst we are on the subject of the 'undeserving rich', what about the nomenklatura at the BBC?

The comedians, in particular, appear to be operating a 'closed shop' - wherebye only the same few leftist faces appear on programmes like QI. In other words, only that small group can repeatedly claim the appearance fees and nobody else is let in.

This is hardly appropriate behaviour for an organisation which is funded by pretty much the entire public.

Mike, Brighton

I thought we were not going to have government by vapid headlines, eye-catching-initiatives and misleading PR? With a socialistic focus on controlling incomes and "fairness" it feels like Labour never left office. Just without the brutal politics of personal distruction but that's coming....

Andrew Taylor

He's fighting against 13 years+ of Labour telling everyone:
That they can have something for nothing;
That it is their 'human right' to have a better house than the people who get up and go to work every day;
That it is someone else's fault;
That everyone can go to university and, when they have their degree, they can all get high paying jobs;
That money grows on trees in rich peoples gardens and when you need some more, the government can just go and take it;
That the state should provide every service and when anyone else wants to do it, they should be regulated out of existence.

This list could go on and on and on. Ed Moribund would just add to it....

Fatbloke on tour

JF

Elephant in the room.
Dave the Raves silver foot in the mouth moment.

Why no comments on this?
Selective reporting, trying to spare his blushes?

He really is a numpty.
Second rate nobody puffed up by a media clique.

He is not the new SB.
He is the new TH but with less political ballast.
Acting tough only to crumble when it all goes breests up.

Magnolia

Fatbloke knows that I have repeatedly warned against using medical terms as an insult to others and I've taken a lot of stick for it.
The most common example of usage of the term Cretin that I have found on this site is from one P Shaw, on the Wall, who is a lefty.
It's dreadful if not ilegal to make any insult on the basis of race or religion but a disability?
Most people just feel free to let rip and have no qualms about inadvertently insulting the disabled.
I want freedom of speech for all about everything but in a context of general good manners and not in terror of the police or a media witch hunt.
DC should have read my comments.

c0mat0es

Let's not forget that the usual word for getting out according to what you put in is "equity".

Brian A

Surely, many politicians were complicit in the financial negligence that led to our current economic mess. So to suggest prosecuting bankers while allowing politicians to escape their responsibilities is self-evidently unfair.

Our politicians are behaving like a football referee who suspends the offside rule during the game only to complain about unfair goals afterwards. The self-serving displacement activities of our political class are breathtaking in their hypocrisy.

Heartless Curmudgeon

The H2B seems to be going against the direction of his Hero, - for whom sinecures and obscene emoluments were part and parcel of his woe-begotten crew.

Perhaps this forms part of the H2B’s very own manifestation of his Thrid Way !

Whatever, the word ‘Fairness’ reminds me of another fatuous saying, - I forget by whom . . . something like A Future Fair For All - and we all know what that meant, - and who did very well out of it, - thank you very much!

Rhoda Klapp

Dear Mr Forsyth, when you are being fed these lines, does it occur to you to enquire what the Eton and Oxford educated rich bloke thinks he is doing lecturing the oiks on fairness?

Nicholas

More Nanny law that like New Labour's barrow load will be used to punish the easy targets amongst the little people not the big offenders it was designed for.

Give it a rest Dave. Some of us are grown up and just want to be left alone.

Jeremy

Rhoda Clapp:

"Dear Mr Forsyth...does it occur to you to enquire what the Eton and Oxford educated rich bloke thinks he is doing lecturing the oiks on fairness?"

The laughably simplistic (and skewed) assumpton behind this comment appears to be that the oiks are always fair, whilst the toffs are not.

Tell that to Bill Sikes.

Augustus

David Cockerham
January 8th, 2012 11:07am -

An interesting post. Nevertheless, rather than government interference in remuneration, the overriding say should surely remain with the company shareholders in general meetings. Their job is not just to appoint the directors, but to decide on their pay levels as well.

Verity

What experience does Dave have in the private sector, other than as a failure?

Verity

I am not saying this to be mean. But David Camoron's face really does make me feel sick. The nausea-inducing, privileged, pampered, self-satisfied, condescending,smug face of disconnection. That was a long sentence for "the software" to cope with. I may have to come back and post it word by word.

crowbait

Will this new criminal offence apply to ministers as well as bankers? After all Messrs.Brown, Balls, Milliband etc. along with their scorched earth policy have virtually wrecked the economy.

Verity

Jeremy, I fear you missed the point of Rhoda Klapp's lucid and typically trenchant post. You missed the spelling of her name, too. That was quite a lot to get wrong in a one-sentence post.

Hexhamgeezer

I hope dave has checked with Brussels that this vapid, arse achingly nebulous tripe doesn't conflict with any Directive on Fairness.

We really are back to Government by Gimmick.

tom jones

Really pleased that Cam is stealing Milliband's thunder on this issue. With the LibDems on side and most Tories having seen just what a mess the free market can do in recent years, Cameron is right to talk and act on it. It's politically shrewd too because it's cheap to do and popular.

Rhoda Klapp

Jeremy, the charge is hypocrisy, and it would apply equally to Clegg, either Miliband, and anyone else who has achieved their position by privilege. If they seek 'fairness', they should consider their own positions first.

Radford NG

David Cockheram:your idea might start at the top...with MPs being paid no more than a 3yr. squadie who'se Aldershoting it(ie.basic Army pay).

Steve Cass

Augustus - "rather than government interference in remuneration, the overriding say should surely remain with the company shareholders in general meetings. Their job is not just to appoint the directors, but to decide on their pay levels as well."
Problem is the majority shareholders of most companies are large Investment Fund Management companies who are interchangeable with the top executives who's pay they allow!

Steve Cass

Rhoda - I hope your commenst are a simple case of not thinking them through first rather than you actually beieving them.

Example: People work their way up from humble beginnings to be a success and become rich while doing so. Are they intrinsically bad people? Most would think not.
But they have kids who, because the parents are rich, have a much better start in life than most. Are you really saying that those kids, when they grow-up, are not allowed into politics or have a view on how the country should be run, just because their parents could afford to give them a better education than the majority?
If you really think that then I am sorry for you - you would have been much happier as a Soviet Communist aparatchik.

Cynic

While discussing this recently, one interlocutor suggested that CEOs' pay should be linked to a percentage of profits. If the company made a loss, pay should be reduced by the same percentage. Sounds like an incentive to succeed, to me. KISS! I agree that there should be no reward for failure (Fred Goodwin, Sharon Shoesmith and Cynthia Bower spring to mind).

Rhoda Klapp

Steve Cass, it is still hypocrisy. No-one is stopping him from keeping his mouth shut, but by harping on about fairness, when he has achieved his position by getting an advantage, by harping on about that political nonsense concept of fairness, so easy to appeal to, so hard to define, he is being hypocritical. If he has a genuinely held view that life has treated some people unfairly, but that does not apply to him and his colleagues, it is hypocrisy. I note that he, and Clegg, and the milibands and most of the rest, have far more in common with each other than with most of the electorate. I do not want to hear about fairness from any one of them.

And I would have made a poor apparatchik.

Tarka the Rotter

Nicholas says it in a nutshell - we should tell government to leave us alone.

Rhoda Klapp

I return to the concept of fairness, having possibly left some readers with a mistaken impression. I always thinks the easiest way to sum up the conflicting beliefs of what are usually caled left and right is the following

Left: It's not fair!

Right: Get over it!

I am on the right. And I would say you will never hear a politician refer to fairness except when he is trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

fergus pickering

Nobody ought to be allowed, on pain of death, to say Elephant in the room ever again.

Verity, note Dave's good suit.

Re fairness. I am short, fat and bald. It's not fair.

Joe Gammie

I agree with Rhoda. The issue isn't that it is intrinsically bad that some kids get a better education because their parents can afford it, the fact remians that they know nothing about this echelon of society so aptly pigeon-holed as 'oiks'! I don't begrudge anyone their opinion, but for DC to talk about fairness beggers belief because he has absolutely no idea what goes on beneath a certain tier in society. As is pointed out, the 'oiks' cry it's not fair, and sitting in an ivory tower created by your parents replying 'get over it' shows a complete lack of understanding about different social demographics in the UK.

It doesn't add up...

Perhaps someone will consider attacking the overpaid quangocracy in similar vein. Do we get to vote on their pay?

Radford NG

2nd. thoughts:start with the local Council.The decent title of Town Clark has gone;replaced by CEO....& paid accordingly. Then the CEO.falls-out with the Council Leader & is given £250,000 pay-off.~~~No Council employee should be paid more then £680per.wk...& should be on 28 days notice.

Verity

Life is not fair. Legislating fairness is not within the means of any legislator, much less a simpering, condescending moron of the magnitude of David Cameron.

Verity

Magnolia writes: "It's dreadful if not ilegal to make any insult on the basis of race or religion but a disability?"

It should be perfectly legal to make sarcastic or cutting comments based on race, religion, appearance or disability. And take the consequences.

The government has absolutely no business legislating what people in a free country can say. Speech control leads to thought control, especially in today's Sovietesque Britain.

Good manners should be taught in the home, not legislated on the benches of the House of Commons.

What's more, Camoron does not match Blair in communications skills, never mind cheap charisma.

Dimoto

I think Cameron is just trying to shoot the Labour/LibDem fox.

Senior exec/CEO remuneration spiralled out of control when the line between ownership and corporate officer became blurred.
At least the "CEO and Chairman" scam is now mostly frowned on.

Nothing at all wrong with PERFORMANCE bonuses, the problem is with "share of proceeds bonuses" and lavish stock options/gifts.

Unfortunately the furore about bonuses is driving companies towards even more stock bonuses.

But actually, Cameron trying to legislate to control bonuses in ONE COUNTRY, is exactly the same as trying to impose a financial transaction tax in ONE COUNTRY.

Can't he see the parallel ?

David Lindsay

Since apparently even single paragraphs are now too long for Coffee House to cope with, see a more extensive version here - http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.com/2012/01/reining-in.html

Colin Cumner

On many levels, life is seldom fair. The super-rich like the abject poor will always be with us. Sure, it's laudible to try to redress the balance somewhat but I doubt any politician will achieve it. If anything, Government legislation to fulfil such aims usually exacerbates the situation. We only have to look back at New Labour's reign - at the end of it, the gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots' was greater than ever. Fairness, like Christianity, has never really been tried.