29/07/2009 by Steve Tierney.

Hitchhikers Guide To The Public Sector
Genius science-fiction author Douglas Adams, who wrote the classic Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series, managed (through a convoluted and extremely clever storyline) to populate prehistoric earth with refugees who crash-landed there, consisting mainly of service-sector employees - marketing types, management consultants, telephone sanitisers, as Douglas Adams pointed out.  As it turned out in his story these were all “useless” professions who leeched from the productive classes on their original world and that their own planet had gotten rid of by shipping them away under the illusion that the world was ending.

Today we are told a billion pounds is to be spent on creating tens of thousands of “soft” public sector jobs for unemployed people including dance assistants, tourism ambassadors and solar panel engineers. The taxpayer-funded jobs are being created by councils, quangos and charities under a desperate Government scheme to remove people from the unemployment register over the next two years.   Apparently the public sector is not yet big enough or expensive enough so we need to fatten it up a little more.  We can always print the money to pay for them…

But let’s look on the bright side.  When the country is struggling under the burden of ever higher debt and ever lower tax  revenues, when millions more are unemployed, houses are being repossessed and businesses closed - we wil least know that our handful of tourists will have plenty of guides, that our solar panels will be secured with precision and that we’ll all be able to dance like Fred Astair.

Douglas Adams, born in Cambridge, may have written mostly humorous speculative fiction, but it’s surprising just how prophetic he seems to have been.  I can’t help but think we might be needing a starship of our own soon. 
   

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29/07/2009 by Steve Tierney.

Good News Poll

CON 42 (+4) LAB 24 (+1) LD 18 (-4)

That’s the result of the latest ComRes poll whose results were released today.  I don’t usually do poll numbers on this blog but it’s been a quiet week and I was struck by the interesting mathematical result here that the Conservatives have as many polling points as Labour and the Lib Dems combined. 

Reproduced at a General Election this would result in a 150 seat majority for the Conservatives.  Happy Days.

Customer Service
I had to pay some money in at the bank today so I took a stroll there and was pleased to see nobody in the queue, just a couple of customers at the two open counters.  I stood at the end of the aisle and waited for one of them to finish their business.  Sadly, things were not as they seemed.  One of the customers was involved in some complicated business that was taking a lot of time, while the other was involved in an animated but friendly discussion with the cashier. 

I waited patiently, impressed that the bank staff were taking a little time to engage with their customers and be civil.  A few minutes passed and there was no sign of either counter clearing - the discussion continued with both ladies laughing and joking about something or other.  By now, there were half a dozen people in the queue.  Everybody was relaxed but a couple of customers had that harried look about them of people who’d hoped to get finished in a hurry and had seen that expectation dashed on the rocks of fate.

By the time I had been in the bank for ten minutes the mood of the line was changing.  When I had arrived I was the sole member of this queue, but now I was at the front of a snaking, muttering row of people that reached all the way to the banks external doors.  And still the chatterboxes showed no signs of ending their little natter, let alone noticing that they were holding up a significant portion of the population of Wisbech.

You know when a group of people has reached the end of their patience.  They begin snarling pithy comments beneath their breath, staring angrily with the sort of petrifying gazes that make you glad looks cannot actually kill.  Tutting, tapping their feet, coughing pointedly.  Since I was at the front of the queue it felt like all eyes were on me to try and move the situation forwards.  I resisted, but I was pretty irritated myself since this had already eaten up an unnecessary quarter of an hour or so of my day. 

Finally I decided to take action.  “Excuse me,” I tried.  “I don’t mean to be rude, but there is a long line waiting here.”  Some people grunted their agreement.  Others looked embarrassed, which was a bit of a stab in the back since just moments ago they had been mentally willing somebody to say something.  (I’m fairly sure.)

Both the gabby lineblockers (the customer and the staff member) looked at me like something slimy they had just found in their pasta but joy of joys they did seem to get the message.  Helpfully, at that moment the other cashier cleared too and finally the line was moving.

I shuffled up to the lady who had held me up for so long and put my paying-in book on the counter.  She smiled in a sweet-but-dangerous way and said: “Thank you so much for your patience, sir,” her voice dripping with irony.
“No,” I replied, my own tone absolutely deadpan, “Thank you.  This is just how I wanted to spend half my day.”

At which point a number of people in the queue starting laughing, the other cashier started laughing, then my own cashier and I started laughing too.  The tension eased away as quickly as that proving, if nothing else, good humour is a wonderful salve.  
  

Posted in Election, Wisbech, Conservatives | No Comments »