Comments on: Hard-headed realism from James Purnell

By: James Purnell resigns. Britain shrugs - Chicken Yoghurt

James Purnell resigns. Britain shrugs - Chicken Yoghurt — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:16:42 +0000

[...] I imagine it’ll be just the Tories upset at his departure, him having been a sleeper agent for them – ‘I say old boy, any chance you could be a bit more beastly to the great unwashed?’ ‘I. Obey. Master.’ [...]

By: redpesto

redpesto — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 10:47:39 +0000

I’m surprised that Purnell didn’t suggest lap-dancing, if only because of New Labour’s belief in the service economy.

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 10:17:37 +0000

The driving instructor training industry is a fucking huge con. For every 100 people that attempt to become instructors, only 8 become fully qualified. This is because the training is shit, and deliberately so. You see the ads in the paper each week… Become a driving instructor! Earn £30k a year! Utter bollocks! The likes of the instructor college take £2500-3000 off you, let you work as a trainee for 6 months then you fail your teaching test and the space in their driving school is freed up for some other poor mug. And while your working for that 6 months? Are you going to earn £15000? My arse you will. They will take a couple of hundred quid off you each week in franchise fees and give you just enough work to cover their fees. I now work for myself, after being given a right royal screwing by the AA. I spend most of my time trying to find work. There are already too many instructors competing for the business, without putting thousands more job-seekers into the market. And as peak oil/climate change/etc really starts to bite, who will want to learn to drive?

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a brilliant job if you have the aptitude, but you need to be a salesman far more than you need to be a teacher.

By: Justin

Justin — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 13:35:35 +0000

And don't get me started on this roof-lagging horseshit either.

By: Justin

Justin — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 13:17:09 +0000

A revolting column from her today. Traditional Toynbee though, innit. Minimum wage, New Deal, comfy jobcentres, tax credits – a huge part of their design is to assuage that particular brand of liberal middle class guilt experienced by those who’ll never have to use them (until now). Whether these initiatives actually function is pretty much an afterthought.

By: Mr Eugenides

Mr Eugenides — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:49:47 +0000

Despite myself, I smiled at this, from Polly today: Gone are the rows of battered plastic chairs bolted down to lino floors, gone the bulletproof screens, the angry queues hours long. Now it's plush carpets, soft bright armchairs, an appointment system with attentive personal advisers at open desks. Where it took countless separate claims to Revenue & Customs, local council and benefits office, repeating the same story over and over, now everything will be sorted in one interview. "Gone are... the angry queues hours long"? "Everything will be sorted in one interview"? Nothing like swallowing government Kool-aid in one gulp, is there?

By: marksany

marksany — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:43:46 +0000

Telephone sanitisers: the training course for that is quite short.

OR:

I’ll wash your car, you can wash mine. I don’t have a car anymore? Shit.

OR:

You paint my house, I’ll paint yours. I don’t have a house anymore? Bugger