"The public sector unions seem to think that public sector jobs are sacrosanct. Fair enough, that's what they're there to protect. However the reality is that savings have to be made - anyone who's had any dealings with the public bodies knows too well that they're monstrously inefficient. The private sector has been forced to cut jobs for some time - why should the public sector be immune? Why should someone be paid public money to do a job which is not necessary?"

For decades the public sector has suffered depressed pay levels compared to the private sector, with the tiny sweetener of reasonable (and hard fought-for) pension schemes (and please don't chuck that "gold-plated pensions" bollox back at me - the vast majority of public sector pensions are well below £10000). Even those are now threatened. Cap'n Bob wasted hundreds of millions of his employees' pensions by failing to ringfence the funds (to put it euphemistically), but the way our governments serially do that to public sector pension contributions makes him look like a kid nicking sweets. I could ask you to list the public sector jobs which are, in your view, unnecessary (I'll grant you that there is often far too much bureaucracy, but that's all and it is not everywhere), and I could also remind you that it was the deeply efficient private sector, which you appear to be speaking up for, that got us all into this shite in the first place. Thank God they weren't inefficient, that's all I can say!