Angus about Angus

A new round of energy price rises was announced by energy firm EDF on Friday. Scottish & Southern also warned the day before that they will have to increase prices in the near future.

Where price rises are totally justified then fair enough – BUT  Scottish & Souther in the very same statement also went on to say – Our profits for the FIRST 3 MONTHS of this year 2008 will only be £1.23 BILLION pounds.

Fat cats

The obvious question is what on earth is done with all this profit, if that is profit for the first 3 months then for full year this is likely to be in the region of £4.92 BILLION Pounds. Where does it all go and who does it go to, shareholders probably get around 55p per share which is not a massive amount.

Must be going to the FAT CATS and others with their noses in the trough ?

 Oil Companies BP & Royal Dutch Shell will also announce profits this week of totally obscene levels and will still tell us they don’t make any money at the pumps. We all know it is the Government making the money at the pumps but this does not satisfy the ordinary working person who is having to spend £1.25 on a litre of fuel to transport themselves around the country and attend work etc.  Someone somewhere has to realise that while these obscene profits are being harvested, the ordinary man and woman on the street feels like they are being mugged on a daily basis.

Oh sorry, I forgot, the very people who can do anything about it are in with the pigs at the trough ! What hope have we got for fairer wealth distribution in this country with this sort of thing allowed to continue day in day out and the good old British public just lay down like lambs to the slaughter and take it !

A good MALT should sort it all out !!

MP’s will vote later today on their salary award. It is tipped that they will ignore Gordie and vote themselves a “restrained” pay award this year but 4.4% or more in the years to come.

Is your MP really worth – £61,820 basic pay  BEFORE any expenses ? (Expense listed here – too many to count !! BUT Huge) Don’t you think this puts them just a little bit out of touch with the very people they “represent” who on average earn just  £20,565 basic pay (according to the BBC – Nov 07) and not much chance of running up and receiving any “expenses”.

MP’s don’t then suffer to the same extent as the normal person in the street if they are earning 3 times basic salary and they can pretty much “expense” anything to cover any of their losses !

Another thing that is perhaps overlooked is that 4.4% or 2.2% of £60K is an awful lot more than 2.2% of £20K. All of us are being offered not much more than 2% of our salaries at this time. This is to cover the massive car fuel price increases (MP’s can of course expense that via their transport costs), increases in energy costs at home (MP’s can of course expense that on their properties in London or wherever they record as their 2nd home), the ever increasing food bills (I expect their is an expense for that too for the MP’s).

 All in all they really do very well indeed out of us all, not to mention the Rolls Royce of pension schemes and pay off’s they get.

Do you think there will ever come a point when us Britons will begin to object really loudly about some of this or will we just let it go on and on ?

The result tonight will be interesting and I am sure it will be hotly discussed on Question Time tonight !

UPDATE: 16:17 – 3rd July

The MP’s have actually voted to restrain their wages, Mmm perhaps they sense the public’s distaste at the massive pay they already get. The results are here

Later on today or this evening, they will vote on their EXPENSES. It is tipped that they may vote to award themselves a lump sum payment in lieu of the current system. This would allow them to “hide” all the expenses from the public. I hope they take the sensible route and vote this down too. I may then credit them with a little social responsibility and understanding of the hardships being experienced by their electorate.