Jeremy Clarkson's comments on the One Show

http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/3811/vietclarkieshootingsm.jpg

awesome

Good on him! Just making a point this the strike is ridiculous

Exactly.

 

As long as we are in a recession, the public sector should NOT be expecting better packages than what everyone else gets.

They're not, divide and rule the populace is working well in your case. Who should pay for the economic crisis? The public sector workers? The Private Sector Workers? Or the useless Merchant Bankers that got us in this mess?

If most private sector companies stopped wasting money on private heath insurance as a perk for staff and put the money into pensions instead, then there wouldn't be this misapprehension that a public sector pension is generous!

Oh, Clarkson's an arse, isn't that why we laugh at him on a Sunday night on Top Gear?

clarkson you ledge if i went on strike id get told to stop being a mug and get back to work or you dont get paid... they should consider themselfes lucky they get a pention, i get bugger all

they should consider themselfes lucky they get a pention, i get bugger all

That's alright then, everyones taxes will pay for you in your old age as you've made no provision yourself.

That's alright then, everyones taxes will pay for you in your old age as you've made no provision yourself.

i dont work in the public sector so the goverment wont pay my pention. doesnt mean i dont save for the future

i dont work in the public sector so the goverment wont pay my pention. doesnt mean i dont save for the future

I work in the public sector, I have done for 26 years, the government haven't put a penny into my public sector pension. Your mistaking civil servants who work for the government with other public sector workers, most of whom do not have anything like a generous pension or even decent pay rates.

When you retire and get pensioner premium and council tax rebates because you have no pension, who do you think pays for you? Tax payers, including those with occupational pensions that still have to pay income tax after they retire on their pension income!

I agree with the devide and rule comment. Seems to be working well. I don't think people should be having a go at public sector workers that have chosen to strike. They are within their rights to do so and lets not forget that ''those people down the pub'' gave up a days pay in order to stand up and protect the benifits that people fought so long and hard to achieve. If you signed up to a new job that said if you pay in x you will get y at the end of it and then someone said they were changing it what would you do?

I think people outwith the public sector need to stop looking enviously at what others have. I dont know many in the public sector that used to get sales bonuses, and stock and share options. Its swings and roundabouts. We should be saying private sector pensions should be improved to a better standard instead of encouraging a race to the bottom that benifits nobody. (government aside!)

I understand people have a right to their opinion but find out some facts for yourself if you haven't already done so instead of trusting the media for objective info. I'm a public service worker and have a final salary pension. This might sound "gold plated" but the reality is that I pay 11% of my salary to it for 40 years. 11% is a lot of money so it's not like your getting something for nothing. If you want to talk about the real problem pensions look at those in Whitehall, don't look to the nurse teacher and cleaner to pay for investment bankers greed. Likewise I don't think those in the private sector outside banking should pay for it either.

The government is doing a great job misdirecting the fact that they still can't control the banks. Remember when these bailouts we're on condition the banks started lending to people? They love the fact we are fighting amongst ourselves. Days of action like today are a last resort and nobody wants to do it- how much would you loose in a days pay (and there might be more dates) but there comes a point when you need to stand up for yourself and I for one respect that.

Not trying to stir it up I just thought I'd give my opinion.

Ps jc is a knob but I think what he said was tounge in cheek but showed poor judgement

I work in the public sector, I have done for 26 years, the government haven't put a penny into my public sector pension. Your mistaking civil servants who work for the government with other public sector workers, most of whom do not have anything like a generous pension or even decent pay rates.

 

When you retire and get pensioner premium and council tax rebates because you have no pension, who do you think pays for you? Tax payers, including those with occupational pensions that still have to pay income tax after they retire on their pension income!

im not commenting to argue but you clearly have a different oppinion to me and your making assumptions about me .i work on a farm, slaving my arse of in all weather for 11 hours a day, im not bitching about it cos its my decision to work there. if i got a pay cut id deal with it and work more to make it up. ive still got many many years to work and put into my pension. im not exactly earning a fortune so i try and save what i can and im not after council hand outs. end of the day i agree with clarkson its my oppinion. if they want to strike let them, aslong as it doesnt affect me. good night folks

that man is a complete prat, but that is why we watch him. Entertaining, but a prat.

that man is a complete prat, but that is why we watch him. Entertaining, but a prat.

I always watch the One Show and watched the whole interview with him. If people actually watched the whole show it was totally clear he was having a laugh. He had made as silly comments about a whole host of other subjects that were on the show. In this instance it was clear that those complaining have taken the comments in isolation to the rest of the comments he made, or are simply complaining without watching the show. Clarkson even said the same thing when people tried to question him in the airport.

I personally thought Clarkson came accross well on the show. He was funny, played up to his Top Gear image (which the show was trying to push) and made some very funny comments. Having seen it all, I am not even sure he agrees with the comments he made, I actually got the impression he didn't really care but when put on the spot he just took a jokey route. It just seems a lot of people have had labotomies around here.

I cannot abide the man, but he was, like the strikers conveniently forget, doing just the same as them, using his democratic rights. Theirs to strike, his to to voice an opinion. The thing that really riles me is I have to admit to agreement with him

They're not, divide and rule the populace is working well in your case. Who should pay for the economic crisis? The public sector workers? The Private Sector Workers? Or the useless Merchant Bankers that got us in this mess?

 

If most private sector companies stopped wasting money on private heath insurance as a perk for staff and put the money into pensions instead, then there wouldn't be this misapprehension that a public sector pension is generous!

 

Oh, Clarkson's an arse, isn't that why we laugh at him on a Sunday night on Top Gear?

The economical messed SHOULD be paid by the banks, and the people who organise the wars. This is a different matter though to the strikes on hand.

As far as I am aware, contract is not changing, just that you aren't getting a X % increase because of the poor economy. The pension package should be like any company. The difference you will need to understand is private companies are bringing in revenue.

Absolutely cracking remarks from Jezza

If most private sector companies stopped wasting money on private heath insurance as a perk for staff and put the money into pensions instead, then there wouldn't be this misapprehension that a public sector pension is generous!

Where do you stop with that, though? Perhaps all "perks" as you put it should be stopped so the private sector could re-route their cash into pensions? I get health cover and a company car which together cost me about £250 a month extra in tax - so I guess in a roundabout way there is extra money going into funding the country because I choose to take these perks.

But let's say that you're right and the private sector gets forced to pay everyone a salary and that's that. Everything else has to be funded by the individual. How, then would company A attract the calibre of staff it wants as opposed to company B? Most probably by offering a higher salary, thereby automatically making themseves less profitable. There's probably a post graduate paper waiting to be written on what social and economic levers work best on prospective employees to get their CVs on your desk: Health care, company car, big salary or a good pension. Speaking personally, a good pension isn't a driver for me. I couldn't spend all my young life working in a low paid job I didn't enjoy just because I had the "promise" if a big purse to reture on. In recognition of that I've had a private pension ever since I first drew a wage, not a massive amount, but at least something. I looked very seriously at planning to retire at 50 and came to the conclusion that in order to do so even back when pension funds were healthy I would have to have lived like a monk through the best years of my life in order to benefit in old age. No thanks.

Hence I joined the company pension, which at the time was a very generous final salary scheme. As the economy worsened, each time I saw a financial adviser and told them what kind of pension I had they always looked surprised and said something like "wow, you're lucky." The writing was on the wall many many years ago - long before the "current" financial crisis. Sure enough a few years back our nice final salary scheme was replaced with a much less lucrative deal. I wasn't to blame for this any more than you or I are to blame for the current financial situation. In fact no-one in the company was to blame. The pensions funds failed because the whole ecoomy was failing. Its the same reason why my PEP / ISA mortgage whcih at one time looked like it would pay itself off in 14 years instead of 25 - you guessed it -failed. Times change. Economies change. Terms and conditions of employment change. Some changes are small and sow and others are big and fast. But there will always be change. I got a new mortgage and made different plans for the future. If things change again I'll do the same again.

The people I feel sorry for are those in the public sector who were very close to retiring and have just had the rug pulled out from under them. However I without looking at the numbers I think any kind of a pension now will probebly be better with what I end up with in 25 years or so when I retire (if I ever get to do so).

There was a trade union guy on BBC news this morning made a derisory comment that Clarkson gets paid millions by the BBC for "playing with cars". I think there's a lot to be read into that statement. Clearly Mr. trade union doesn't think that Clarkson has a job worth what he gets paid for it. I'm sure that on the face of it Clarkson's job looks great fun, but how much of his time is actually spent driving around in a Lambo screaming "poooowwweeerrrrrrrrrrrrggghhhhhh" and how much is spent in production meetings, on planes, away from his family and friends, typing up endless articles, etc, etc, etc. And at the end of the day he helps to make millions for the BBC through the license fee. What about the people who develop the computer games that his son (if he has one) doubtless enjoys? Do they get paid thousands of pounds for "playing on an XBox"? No. They get paid for their ability and talent, just like everyone on a a decent wage in a skilled profession does. Perhaps if he has a pencant for fast cars and thinks the job is easy money then mr. Trade union should have pursued a career in motor journalism instead. Would the same comments coming from someone further down the pay scale have been any less offensive? Perhaps if they had come from a private sector mother who had to fork out for child care for the day because her child's schools were closed?

That's the thing that sticks in my craw about prettty much every protest and demonstration. The anger is only ever aimed at people who are percieved to be better off than those protesting rather than looking at the big picture. I wonder how many people in the demonstrations were really there to show solidarity to those being affected by the proposed changes, but were actually unaffected themselves? How many people would have been happy to work but were told to strike by the unions, and just stayed at home or went shopping. In my opinion, real altruism is extremely rare. A monk setting himself on fire or a Suffragette throwing herself under the King's horse is a long way from putting on a V for Vendetta mask and waving a banner when you yourself have no idea how to actually fix the problem.

And FWIW in my opinion the reason we all got in this mess is that we cannot make money by making things anymore because businesses have been driven into a non-comptetitive situation where it is cheaper to get almost anything made in China. Why? Because everyone got greedy and priced ourselves out of the market as a manufacturing nation. So now the "best" way to make money is by trading in money, which is why all the power went to the banks, who sell money they don't really have to people who can't afford to pay it back. I saw a documentary about the British car industry in the 70's where workers were on strike because their bosses wouldn't pay them higher wages for making cars at a higher rate not because they were working harder, but because they were simply using more modern techniques invested in by the company in order to make the company more profitable, which would have in turn made the workers' jobs more secure. Talk about missing the point! And where did that all start? You guessed it: Trade unions.

:applause:

Also don't forget mister trade union conveniently ignored the point Clarkson made, which was "I'm givine two comedy extreme opinions because it's the BBC and we have to be impartial". What it boiled down to was a Union boss going "Hey, I can act like I'm really offended here and I might get on telly!" so they went off the rails, completely over the top, throwing around threats of legal action

It's annoying as I support the NHS side of the conflict, but not the rest of the public sector stuff. The NHS is about more things than just the pension, but because some loudmouth wants to be seen on telly and act more important than he really is, it's all diluted down to this nonsense

There was a trade union guy on BBC news this morning made a derisory comment that Clarkson gets paid millions by the BBC for "playing with cars". I think there's a lot to be read into that statement. Clearly Mr. trade union doesn't think that Clarkson has a job worth what he gets paid for it. I'm sure that on the face of it Clarkson's job looks great fun, but how much of his time is actually spent driving around in a Lambo screaming "poooowwweeerrrrrrrrrrrrggghhhhhh" and how much is spent in production meetings, on planes, away from his family and friends, typing up endless articles, etc, etc, etc. What about the people who develop the computer games that his son (if he has one) doubtless enjoys? Do they get paid thousands of pounds for "playing on an XBox"? No. They get paid for their ability and talent, just like everyone on a a decent wage in a skilled profession does.

 

That's the thing that sticks in my craw about prettty much every protest and demonstration. The anger is only ever aimed at people who are percieved to be better off than those protesting rather than looking at the big picture.

Agree.

Similarly it seems almost everyone has it in for the government and their 2-jag limo high-power-suit big-free-house lifestyles, with attitudes of "I could do a better job for less" although they never actually say that. Why don't those guys give their millions to the country etc. Yet they love their footballing heroes who work oh so hard to earn their £200k a week.

Just to alter my post slightly from above the way they calculate the pension increase has changed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15999970

If someone retired on an annual pension of £10,000 a year - a typical figure for a teacher - then over 20 years the uprating of their pensions by 2% (the Bank of England's CPI target) would see them accrue total pension payments of £245,500.

 

If a 3.4% RPI figure was used instead - because this would be 1.4 percentage points higher - the pensioner in question would receive £284,923. That's a difference of £39,423 over 20 years.

I don't think the private sector get £245k pension & these are the people bringing in the economy.

Let's not forget that even though he is paid well, Clarkson makes the BBC an astonishing amount of money World wide, given Top Gear is sold around the planet to over 30 countries and watched by more that 250,000,000 people.

In a sense, he's a salesman/writer/broadcaster who earns his commission and creates jobs. So begrudging him his money seems odd.

Let's not forget that even though he is paid well, he makes the BBC an astonishing amount of money World wide, given Top Gear is sold around the planet to over 30 countries and watched by more that 250,000,000 people.

 

In a sense, he's a salesman/writer/broadcaster who earns his commission and creates jobs. So begrudging him his money seems odd.

Also not forgetting the fact we are happy to take 40% of his earnings or millions he is earning...

Also not forgetting the fact we are happy to take 40% of his earnings or millions he is earning...

Actually we don't.

Because he lives in the Isle of Man

Actually we don't.

 

Because he lives in the Isle of Man

Ah, "lives on the Isle Of Man..." does he? Most likely what I would do if I was earning millions!

Does he? I thought he lived in Chipping Norton

here, to be precise

I'd imagine he has a house for filming TG and a house for when he doesn't want attention.