Jesus H Christ on a bike. This thread proves that politicians are geniuses. Absolute bloody geniuses.This is what you do if you're you're a politician. You sit back watching your old school chums in the city trousering MASSIVE salaries for gambling ever more recklessly with other people's money. Then, when the whole thing goes tits up, as it inevitably was going to, you bail out your rich friends out with the poor people's money.That's not the genius bit. This is the genius bit.Instead of the poor people being annoyed with you and the rich people, YOU GET THEM ANNOYED WITH EACH OTHER!! You play off the public sector against the private, and everyone moans about how everyone else has it easy. From time to time you look grim and say things like "we're all in this together" (which is patently untrue), and people dutifully put on their hair shirts and feel guilty about the slightest decent thing going on in their lives.Private sector workers; the public sector is not full of incompetent people slowly organising lesbian peace workshops and retiring at 50. Some of them do difficult, unpleasant and necessary jobs very well indeed. Next time you need your life saving at three in the morning, it's a public sector worker that's going to do it. And the public sector doesn't have a monopoly on incompetence and waste, there's plenty of it around at your place too.Public sector workers: the private sector is not full of Armani-suited flash gits buying new Ferraris every year. Some are quite badly paid, exploited and overworked, and they don't have much security. Chances are they are far more scared than you are at this moment, and for good reason. And the private sector doesn't have a monopoly on greed, cynicism and naff corporate wannabe dickheads, there are plenty of them in the public sector too.Everybody: there's an increasingly blurred line between public and private sector. Both cover a huge range of jobs. Generalising about one or the other invariably means that you're talking bollocks. Can we actually start blaming those at fault for the current crisis, instead of each other?If you got this far, I hope I've offended everyone equally, and thanks for reading. JH
