badgerx16

But what private company is anywhere near as complex, or open to public scrutiny, as Birmingham City Council ? Also, Councils don't have the ability to pick and choose their markets or customers.

We've done this to death previously - on a 'like for like' basis public sector workers doing similar jobs to the private sector, generally earn less. Certainly I would be paid quite a bit more doing exactly the same job for a private company, as can easily be evidenced by perusing job adverts. ( The fact that I choose not to is my decision ). The 'average' figure for the public sector is swollen by including such people as teachers. Even at the top this probably holds true, despite the hysteria over Local Authority Ch Execs' pay - in the private sector, if you ran a company with a turnover of £300 million+ and employed 10,000 staff, what would you expect to get paid ?

The vast majority of council staff work a minimum 37 hour week, get at most 31 days leave, and most earn less than £20k pa. And of course, there aren't any unions in the private sector, are there ?

Adding more to the 'squeezed middle'.

That still leaves poor old Grubb. Far more efficient on the public purse to have 1 man doing the work of 6. As back to the Budget, will these new economic development zones lead to another round of what we saw under Thatcher - companies that don't actually create 'new' jobs, but instead migrate their factories and facilities around the country looking for the most advantageous incentives, like some new form of capitalist 'travellers'.

I am, at this very moment, filling in the application to apply to retain my own public sector job, due to a 40% reduction in numbers at my grade within my unit. Not through cutting 'bloat', but because the BrokeBacks have cut our budget by 28% wef April 1st - I may be 2 weeks from redundancy from a post that I most certainly DO think operates efficiently And I think that anybody who believes the bullsh!t assertion that the public sector IS bloated is themselves mental - all IMHO of course. And just to be clear, I have taken 2 days of my annual leave entitlement to give me time to do this, so I am not wasting work's time.

What proportion of public sector jobs are 'pointless' ? The Police, the Armed Forces, Doctors, Nurses, Teachers.... Admittedly there are also HMRC, MPs, and the Royal Family ( via the Civil List ).

balls

Oldham supporting colleague has just asked if I can confirm the rumour that we are signing Dale Stephens. Any ideas ?

Wooooooot !!!

guerilla

So why not sort out Mugabe in the same way ? Oh, hang on, where's Zimbabwe's oil ?

9.19 miles CH Blackpool Football Club 10.81 miles L2 Morecambe 15.77 miles CH Preston North End Football Club 24.07 miles PR Blackburn Rovers Football Club 26.98 miles L2 Accrington Stanley Football Club 29.37 miles PR Wigan Athletic Football Club 29.91 miles PR Bolton Wanderers Football Club 31.74 miles PR Burnley Football Club 33.85 miles PR Everton Football Club 34.41 miles PR Liverpool Football Club 219.19 to SMS

So, is that the UK form of democracy where less than 30% of those registered to vote can produce a Government with an overwhelming majority, or the US one, where you get a 'choice' between 'right of centre' and raving bigots ?

Will he also stand up for the people of Bahrain ? Or intervene in Yemen ? Or threaten to impose a no fly zone over Tibet ? It's his chance to play 'Billy Big ********'; all Prime Ministers wish for their 'moment', and Gaddafi set himself up as the Aunt Sally.

Are you also glad we are blasting the 'fuzzies' to hell ? ( Taking your Cecil Rhodes quote into account ).

relative

Libyans are claiming they've brought down a French jet

Dune, I find your current avatar insulting to the blessed Red & White stripes.

mistral

But that would be democratic. And if the elections were (1) free and fair, and (2) open to all, then they would be more democratic than either the UK or the USofA can manage.

Goetz

On the other hand, do a quick google for the 'Night Witches', Russia's female bomber pilots.

Nissan

Lots of sites poo-poo'ing this story, eg : http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/anna-kreisling-26658.html http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=174537 And as for a comparison with the B-29: Length - Ju390 112ft B-29 99ft wingspan - 165ft 141ft height - 23ft 29ft max weight - 75500kg 61000kg So bigger, but nowhere near twice the size. And if you believe Wiki : " New York flight The first public mention of an alleged flight of a Ju 390 to North America appeared in a letter published in the November 1955 issue of the British magazine RAF Flying Review, of which aviation writer William Green was an editor. The magazine's editors were skeptical of the claim, which asserted that two Ju 390s had made the flight, and that it included a one-hour stay over New York City. In March 1956, the Review published a letter from an RAF officer which claimed to clarify the account. Citing unspecified German aircraft records in his possession, the officer said that only one aircraft, the Ju 390V1 prototype, had made the flight in the latter part of 1944, and that it had reached a point about 19 km (12 mi) off the US east coast, just north of NYC, before returning to France. According to Green's reporting, in June 1944, Allied Intelligence had learned from prisoner interrogations that a Ju 390 had been delivered in January 1944 to FAGr 5 (Fernaufklärungsgruppe 5), based at Mont-de-Marsan near Bordeaux, and that it had completed a 32-hour reconnaissance flight to within 19 km (12 mi) of the US coast, north of New York City.[1][9] This was, however, rejected just after the war by British authorities.[10] Aviation historian Dr. Kenneth P. Werrell states that the story of the flight originated in two British intelligence reports from August 1944 which were based in part on the interrogation of prisoners, and titled General Report on Aircraft Engines and Aircraft Equipment; the reports claimed that the Ju 390 had taken photographs of the coast of Long Island. These photos have never been discovered.[8] The claimed flight was mentioned in many books following the RAF Flying Review account, including William Green's own respected Warplanes of the Second World War (1968) and Warplanes of the Third Reich (1970) but without ever citing reliable sources. Further authors then cited Green's books as their source for the claimed flight. Green himself told Kenneth P. Werrell many years later that he no longer placed much credence in the flight.[11] Werrell himself later examined the available data regarding the Ju 390's range and concluded that although a great circle round trip from France to St. Johns, Newfoundland was possible, adding another 3,830 km (2,380 mi) for a round trip from St. Johns to Long Island made the flight "most unlikely".[12] Karl Kössler and Günter Ott, in their book Die großen Dessauer: Junkers Ju 89, 90, 290, 390. Die Geschichte einer Flugzeugfamilie ("Great Dessauers...History of an Aircraft Family"), also examined the claimed flight, and thoroughly debunked the flight north of New York. Most importantly, it was nowhere near France at the time when the flight was supposed to have taken place. According to Hans Pancherz' logbook, the Ju 390V1 was brought to Prague on 26 November 1943. While there, it took part in a number of test flights, which continued until late March 1944. Secondly, they also assert that the Ju 390V1 prototype was unlikely to have been capable of taking off with the fuel load necessary for a flight of such duration due to strength concerns caused by its modified structure; it would have required a takeoff weight of 65 tonnes (72 tons), while the maximum takeoff weight during its trials had been 34 tonnes (38 tons). According to Kössler and Ott, the Ju 390V2 could not have made the US flight either, since they indicate that it was not completed before September/October 1944.[5]"