Constantly Furious: gravy train

As regular readers will know, CF finds the time to craft his occasional blog posts because he has been - ahem - 'resting' since February. Finding work in the beleaguered financial services sector is a little tricky at the moment. Vacancies are few, and salaries and contract rates are falling.

The gloom lifts a little, when a juicy opportunity appears. Right sort of work, very good money. Only one problem - the work is in the North of England, whereas CF is currently domiciled in East Anglia, and normally works in London.

No problem, trills the agent: weekly flights will be paid for too. What? And, she adds, there's more than one vacancy here. Tell your friends. Come one, come all. Good Lord.

So, lets get this straight: this client has multiple vacancies, is paying more than any of the serious, global players in the famously profligate City of London, and is willing to fly workers in, every week, from all over the land. Surely there's a catch? Surely no-one has that sort of cash to throw around?

Just who, pray, is this beneficent client?

"You may have heard of them..", says the recruiter, "..they're called Northern Rock."

Oh. Suddenly all becomes clear.

That would be the Northern Rock that belongs to us, the taxpayers. The same Northern Rock that is currently running on our fucking money.

The same Northern Rock that The Telegraph claimed, earlier this week, is going to be sold soon. Gordon Brown wants to flog Northern Rock, possibly to Tesco's, just as soon as he can.

Clearly the instruction has gone out to urgently polish the turd, patch it up a bit. Stuff it full of highly paid 'Interim' directors and managers, make it look like a proper company, then flip it to a greengrocer as soon as possible.

As usual, Broon doesn't really care how much he sells the Rock for: no, this is all about political advantage. If he can dump the body ahead of the election, its one more 'triumph' he can shout about at PMQ's.

And - even more importantly in Brown's twisted mind - it stops the hated Cameron getting any credit from selling it in the future - for a whole lot more - when it's properly mended, and when the markets have recovered. So it must be sold, and sold now.

And that costs serious money. Money on consultants, money on temporary staff, money to recruitment agencies, money for tens of flights up and down the country: the .. errrr .. 'investment' is endless. But, hey, no problem: it's millions well spent, in Broon's head, if it makes him look slightly better, and thwarts those nasty Tories.

We're watching the departure of one of the very last carriages of the Brown Gravy Train, the final chance to suck the very last drops from the well of government-supplied money. And this time, it can be done without even have to retrain to become a Civil Servant.

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