Shane Greer: Tories Approve "Who You Know" and Bought Jobs

Shane Greer, no no no not this one, it'll be this one who stands up and gets counted ... with a rather pathetic argument in favour of the latter day slavery and corruption that is internship.

It is one thing to recognise that life can be unfair and that you may have to work round that.

But it is quite another to make the case for the deliberate continuation of avoidable and prejudicial unfairness and job-buying.

Here, thanks to Shane, we have a further example of clear blue water between what's good and true ... and what's Conservative Party thinking. With mentors like the rather unpleasant Dr Donal Blaney (racist "joke" warning), to whom the boy Tory grovels to this day, and his buttered up boss the today sheepish Mr Iain Dale it is little wonder that Shane's turns out mean and feral. Snarling Tory Boy: "I clawed my way to the front of the rat race ... sharpen your claws, and so can you."

Fewer internships ... and more proper jobs. Albeit paid at National Minimum Wage. There's a thought. To hire someone for an MP's office on National Minimum Wage for 25 weeks costs £5,000. This should be something MPs consider spending our money on. Rather than having exploited volunteers do would be workers out of jobs. And rather than those MPs hatching any number of selfish allowances scams and self enrichment opportunities.

Which reasonable, right-thinking person gives a flying fig if there are fewer internships? A shortage of internships? There wouldn't be ANY in fact in the current sense. It is not as if willingness both to be exploited and to leverage favours ... in order to begin the climb to becoming an exploiter oneself in turn ... is a sign of merit, ability, principle or skills.

We might even find ourselves with better politicians, researchers, lobbyists and so on if we did away with this nonsense.

Ending the march of the Old School Tie, the wretched machinations of freemasonry and modern surrogates, the communalism of the elite, and other such evolutionary adaptations of insider dealers, bullies and bastards is a worthy aim from the Rt Hoon Alan Milburn MP.

But much of what he writes (PDF) is actually guff. Suggestion of "internship loans", to which Shane Greer can see only technical objections, is particularly whiffy if applied to public service.

Why on earth do we need to keep internships and the like, and subsidise this bad practice instead of kicking it into touch?

An end to slavery in the professions and even more scandalously in public service? Yes please.

Get over it Shane. Life ain't fair. But it is a noble ambition, not a weakness as you Tories might have it, to aspire to and to take steps to make life fairer. Not to mention making all the organisations freed from nepotism, from nods, winks and handshakes, from old school ties, and from pay to play ... in short deep-seated corruption ... better at their jobs.