Dear Shankill People,
If like me you have been reading or listening to local media, you will have not been surprised to read or hear that the current defenders of the Union and the Unionist working class are doing what the old Unionist politicos used to do best?
That is to line their own pockets at the expense of the Unionist working class and the less fortunate Unionist electorate.
Now let’s be clear here, strictly speaking they have done nothing illegal or wrong! However, it is a bit on the questionable side and a tad immoral, and lets not forget most of these Unionist politicos are alleged God fearing men and women?
The bad smell of nepotism and avarice is rife at Stormont and the Commons.
Let me set out again what our Unionist colleagues have been up to.
1. Employ your wife, son, daughter or in-law.
2. Rent an office from your wife or in-law.
3. Get two full time jobs and if you’re lucky you could also pick up a third, a ministerial or junior ministerial job too.
4. If you have a second house in London you can claim tens of thousands of pounds in expenses.
Now let’s set out some of the sums we are talking about.
MP’s pay £60,000 plus
MLA’s pay £43,000 and if you’re a minister or junior minister add on up to another £30,000
MP’s office expenses no set sum however each MP can claim over £100,000 add to this travel and the generous rent expenses and you can claim another £50,000 or £60,000+.
MLA’s office expenses no set sum however each MLA can claim over £60,000 add to this travel and the generous rent expenses and you can claim another £50,000 or £60,000+.
Wages for wives, sons, daughters, girl friends or boy friends or in-laws up to £20,000+
And let’s not forget about that nice pension and special pension.
Then there is a resettlement grant on leaving office.
At this point if any of our elected Unionist politicians wish to dispute the sums mentioned above and they wish to do it in this forum. I’m sure we would all be grateful to be put straight on this matter!
However you look at these figures they are mouth watering sums, some of these amounts we can only dream about or get if the six numbers come up on a lottery ticket.
But these are the sums our elected representatives get and they make us feel grateful that they are representing us up there with the rest of the folks (berks) on the hill.
There is also the Members Dining Room where sumptuous three-course meals are available for under £20 per head to MLA’s. Again these are subsidized by the hard pressed Northern Ireland Tax payer to the tune of £850 per day or £211,241 form May to December 2007.
I hope they enjoy every mouthful of their subsidized smoked salmon and wheaten bread starters followed by a thick rump steak with potatoes and vegetables, followed by black forest gateau and tea or coffee.
I will remind them that while they tuck into their subsidized meals, some families and pensioners on the Shankill have little more than £20 a week to feed their families and themselves after they pay out everything that they owe from their pension, minimum wage pay packet or from their social security benefits.
By the way I work for the government and I don’t get a free or subsidized meal from the government. I have to pay for my own Christmas lunch the government don’t pay a single penny or provide a single mince pie to my Christmas meal or any meal for that matter, so why should I subsidise meals and drinks for people who earn more than I do!
These bottom feeders at Stormont and Parliament get more in expenses than I earn a year. Some claim £40,000 for a second home in a posh part of London.
In Northern Ireland some of these same bottom feeders claim for rent on a portacabin on their own land that allegedly belongs to their wife. Or pay rent for an office that their wife owns, as well as paying her a wage to work in the same office, another few nice little earners, nice if you can get it.
So in these days of equality I want the same perks that these berks on the hill get?
As every week goes by I am becoming more and more disillusioned by the perks, expenses and the goings on with the berks on the hill.
From the age of eighteen, when I was eligible to vote, I have voted Unionist at every election. I seen it as my duty as a Unionist, and when the DUP have been on the ticket I have voted for them. However the day is fast approaching when I will be abstaining form voting. I am starting to get very disillusioned with the DUP and the UUP as are my family and friends.
To be a good Unionist one must look after and maintain the Union. However it does not permit the elected Unionist representatives to forgo the working class Unionists, and to line their own pockets at the Unionist Tax payer’s expense.
I am also increasingly despondent with the way the DUP and UUP are holding the hand of Sinn Fein/IRA, and their phoney war in Stormont and in the committee rooms.
I would like to question what these Unionist politicos know about what its like to be brought up in a poverty filled low education attaining housing estate. Were the people live from hand to mouth on a day to day basis? Were mental and physical sickness, despair and an early grave are your daily companions!
We see the money generated by double and triple hated MP's and MLA's as avarice at its most contemptible. The sums of money in salaries and expenses are 5 or 6 times my government wage. This is feeding my impression of, typical old Unionist party. The view is that the MP's and MLA's are not in it for the Unionist working class people or the Union but lining their own pockets.
If Northern Ireland were to succumb and be absorbed into a United Ireland, then all this money our Unionist politicos are generating will make a nice nest egg for them to set up home across in the Home Counties. I can just see them scrambling to the air and sea ports just as the balloon goes up leaving the working class Unionist, up the road without an 11/1.
The DUP’s Peter and Iris Robinson are a classic example with their 40k expenses for their London home, that’s more than I earn a year! They supposedly need this London home to stay in when they go to parliament. And when it comes to selling this house they can usurp the rules to avoid paying capital gains tax. This is another nice little earner. By not paying capital gains tax they are getting the tax payer to subsidize payments on this second house and as it increases in value, then when they come to sell this second house they pocket all the profit from the sale all at the tax payer’s expense!
An extremely nice way to do business?
Let’s not forget 9 of the current DUP team at Stormont are double hated earning huge sums of money and then there are the 19 DUP MLA’s employing 27 relatives and in-laws and the UUP have 11 relatives and in-laws employed by MLA’s.
I can only draw the impression of nepotism and avarice from our MP’s and MLA’s.
How can one person do two or three full time jobs and give of their best to the Unionist electorate?
What the Unionist politicos need to remember is that, we listen and read the news and log on to blogger sites on the Internet and listen and participate on local phone-in radio shows.
So here is the warning to our Unionist politicos, turning into the old Unionist party of the past will not be tolerated. Trying to hide from the Unionist electorate is not as easy as it used to be in the bad old days of the old Unionist party. Remember in the bad old days when the only time you seen a Unionist politician was when they were banging the big drum looking to get elected. Then after getting elected they did nothing for the poor and the working class Unionist population. Well those days are long gone and we are watching you and if you appear to be moving away from the working class Unionist population the same Unionist population who put the Unionist parties were they are today we will not vote for you.
What is being discussed is not voting at all at any elections. This is not based on a few conversations but everyone I have spoken too.
So again be warned if you the Unionist politicians are not seen as whiter than white and don’t get you’re act together and fight the good fight for the working class Unionist population you may find that the working class electorate will vote with their feet and stay at home (I know this was a mixed metaphor but it suits the state of the Unionist parties)!
Yours
Ranger
Disgruntled Unionist Voter Shankill Road
Belfast.
If like me you have been reading or listening to local media, you will have not been surprised to read or hear that the current defenders of the Union and the Unionist working class are doing what the old Unionist politicos used to do best?
That is to line their own pockets at the expense of the Unionist working class and the less fortunate Unionist electorate.
Now let’s be clear here, strictly speaking they have done nothing illegal or wrong! However, it is a bit on the questionable side and a tad immoral, and lets not forget most of these Unionist politicos are alleged God fearing men and women?
The bad smell of nepotism and avarice is rife at Stormont and the Commons.
Let me set out again what our Unionist colleagues have been up to.
1. Employ your wife, son, daughter or in-law.
2. Rent an office from your wife or in-law.
3. Get two full time jobs and if you’re lucky you could also pick up a third, a ministerial or junior ministerial job too.
4. If you have a second house in London you can claim tens of thousands of pounds in expenses.
Now let’s set out some of the sums we are talking about.
MP’s pay £60,000 plus
MLA’s pay £43,000 and if you’re a minister or junior minister add on up to another £30,000
MP’s office expenses no set sum however each MP can claim over £100,000 add to this travel and the generous rent expenses and you can claim another £50,000 or £60,000+.
MLA’s office expenses no set sum however each MLA can claim over £60,000 add to this travel and the generous rent expenses and you can claim another £50,000 or £60,000+.
Wages for wives, sons, daughters, girl friends or boy friends or in-laws up to £20,000+
And let’s not forget about that nice pension and special pension.
Then there is a resettlement grant on leaving office.
At this point if any of our elected Unionist politicians wish to dispute the sums mentioned above and they wish to do it in this forum. I’m sure we would all be grateful to be put straight on this matter!
However you look at these figures they are mouth watering sums, some of these amounts we can only dream about or get if the six numbers come up on a lottery ticket.
But these are the sums our elected representatives get and they make us feel grateful that they are representing us up there with the rest of the folks (berks) on the hill.
There is also the Members Dining Room where sumptuous three-course meals are available for under £20 per head to MLA’s. Again these are subsidized by the hard pressed Northern Ireland Tax payer to the tune of £850 per day or £211,241 form May to December 2007.
I hope they enjoy every mouthful of their subsidized smoked salmon and wheaten bread starters followed by a thick rump steak with potatoes and vegetables, followed by black forest gateau and tea or coffee.
I will remind them that while they tuck into their subsidized meals, some families and pensioners on the Shankill have little more than £20 a week to feed their families and themselves after they pay out everything that they owe from their pension, minimum wage pay packet or from their social security benefits.
By the way I work for the government and I don’t get a free or subsidized meal from the government. I have to pay for my own Christmas lunch the government don’t pay a single penny or provide a single mince pie to my Christmas meal or any meal for that matter, so why should I subsidise meals and drinks for people who earn more than I do!
These bottom feeders at Stormont and Parliament get more in expenses than I earn a year. Some claim £40,000 for a second home in a posh part of London.
In Northern Ireland some of these same bottom feeders claim for rent on a portacabin on their own land that allegedly belongs to their wife. Or pay rent for an office that their wife owns, as well as paying her a wage to work in the same office, another few nice little earners, nice if you can get it.
So in these days of equality I want the same perks that these berks on the hill get?
As every week goes by I am becoming more and more disillusioned by the perks, expenses and the goings on with the berks on the hill.
From the age of eighteen, when I was eligible to vote, I have voted Unionist at every election. I seen it as my duty as a Unionist, and when the DUP have been on the ticket I have voted for them. However the day is fast approaching when I will be abstaining form voting. I am starting to get very disillusioned with the DUP and the UUP as are my family and friends.
To be a good Unionist one must look after and maintain the Union. However it does not permit the elected Unionist representatives to forgo the working class Unionists, and to line their own pockets at the Unionist Tax payer’s expense.
I am also increasingly despondent with the way the DUP and UUP are holding the hand of Sinn Fein/IRA, and their phoney war in Stormont and in the committee rooms.
I would like to question what these Unionist politicos know about what its like to be brought up in a poverty filled low education attaining housing estate. Were the people live from hand to mouth on a day to day basis? Were mental and physical sickness, despair and an early grave are your daily companions!
We see the money generated by double and triple hated MP's and MLA's as avarice at its most contemptible. The sums of money in salaries and expenses are 5 or 6 times my government wage. This is feeding my impression of, typical old Unionist party. The view is that the MP's and MLA's are not in it for the Unionist working class people or the Union but lining their own pockets.
If Northern Ireland were to succumb and be absorbed into a United Ireland, then all this money our Unionist politicos are generating will make a nice nest egg for them to set up home across in the Home Counties. I can just see them scrambling to the air and sea ports just as the balloon goes up leaving the working class Unionist, up the road without an 11/1.
The DUP’s Peter and Iris Robinson are a classic example with their 40k expenses for their London home, that’s more than I earn a year! They supposedly need this London home to stay in when they go to parliament. And when it comes to selling this house they can usurp the rules to avoid paying capital gains tax. This is another nice little earner. By not paying capital gains tax they are getting the tax payer to subsidize payments on this second house and as it increases in value, then when they come to sell this second house they pocket all the profit from the sale all at the tax payer’s expense!
An extremely nice way to do business?
Let’s not forget 9 of the current DUP team at Stormont are double hated earning huge sums of money and then there are the 19 DUP MLA’s employing 27 relatives and in-laws and the UUP have 11 relatives and in-laws employed by MLA’s.
I can only draw the impression of nepotism and avarice from our MP’s and MLA’s.
How can one person do two or three full time jobs and give of their best to the Unionist electorate?
What the Unionist politicos need to remember is that, we listen and read the news and log on to blogger sites on the Internet and listen and participate on local phone-in radio shows.
So here is the warning to our Unionist politicos, turning into the old Unionist party of the past will not be tolerated. Trying to hide from the Unionist electorate is not as easy as it used to be in the bad old days of the old Unionist party. Remember in the bad old days when the only time you seen a Unionist politician was when they were banging the big drum looking to get elected. Then after getting elected they did nothing for the poor and the working class Unionist population. Well those days are long gone and we are watching you and if you appear to be moving away from the working class Unionist population the same Unionist population who put the Unionist parties were they are today we will not vote for you.
What is being discussed is not voting at all at any elections. This is not based on a few conversations but everyone I have spoken too.
So again be warned if you the Unionist politicians are not seen as whiter than white and don’t get you’re act together and fight the good fight for the working class Unionist population you may find that the working class electorate will vote with their feet and stay at home (I know this was a mixed metaphor but it suits the state of the Unionist parties)!
Yours
Ranger
Disgruntled Unionist Voter Shankill Road
Belfast.
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