political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Come on, he deserves every penny; after all, on him depends almost the entire structure of the AGW scam now that CRU have been outed. Of course he also needs the full unthinking and mendacious support of the Beeb too, but that's a given these days and has never been in question. Yours, Sitting here, waiting for today's snowfall and utterly convinced it's a symptom of the warming that will fry the planet ....
That, young man, is what we experts call a "no brainer". He obviously deserves it because he is so good at his job. It was his team that predicted the "barbeque summer" we have just enjoyed in the Lake District, and the lovely mild winter we are currently enjoying courtesy of Global Warming.
Perhaps the Met Office staff should have a part of their salary paid pro-rata with the the accuracy of their forecasts.
For that matter, perhaps the Prime Minister and Chancellor should be paid pro-rata for the accuracy of their [economic] forecasts too: that would rapidly cut public spending!
Yep. He, and the financial officer, are there to do Labour's bidding. 'Climate Change', 'Global Warming', dodgy dossiers full of dodgy temperature readings carefully selected to suit the scene.
EVERYTHING under the control of the Government or has any involvement in Government, is polticised. EVERYTHING.
And to do that, you need to pay your men and women. With taxpayer funds.
The World Government knows that his role in propping up AGW to enable the carbon trading scam is more important than the puppet head of the UK parish council.
This "more than the Prime Minister" argument is utterly fatuous. The PM also gets, to name but three, benefits such as free travel for self and family, free London and country houses, free secretarial and household staff. He also gets a place in history, gongs galore, deference, all the sycophancy he can manage, a lavishly-funded retirement and the opportunity to make a further fortune on the not very arduous speech circuit.
Thus it's not unreasonable for people like Mark Thompson, his chums in the upper echelons of the BBC, John Hirst and countless others 'in public service' to be paid sums that dwarf the PM's bogusly-presented salary figure. A salary of £200,000 for the head of the Met Office, for all the responsibility and potential for egg/physiognomy interface seems like a complete bargain to me.
As a former WWF global warming mouthpiece he will need all the financial help he can get now that the sun is setting on that specialism as a career.
It is just to bump up his salary and pension pot before he "resigns" - silence bought with other people's money to minimise potential government embarassment over climategate.
I mean, come on, it's a stroke of genius to improve their weather prediction accuracy by creating a combined sun, cloud and rain graphic and plastering that all over their UK weather map every time...
Who actually makes the decision on his pay? Is it transparent and defensible? In my ignorance, is the Met office a government or government-funded organisation?
How about paying them on results and not on predictions? And a big fat bonus if they continue to deliver consistently. A similar type of set up to bankers bonuses. I am of course joking....
Politicians for that matter should be paid a flat salary, and not just one that enables them to trough over 8 years and then retire on a big fat pension that would take someone 40 years to earn instead of 20....
On the specifics no - I can't justify it because I know nothing about the man, his performance or the market for his skills (or indeed what his particular skills are). It may simply be the case that without remuneration on that scale he'd have walked and they wouldn't have been able to secure anyone suitably qualified.
What interests me is that nobody on this thread will know the answers to those questions, it's a pay rise probably far smaller than many awarded in the banking or investment sectors (with or without public money) and yet purely on the back of this being public money we think it's OK to speculate on and have a moan about?
I suspect that he is on a performance related pay scheme with a bonus paid on the basis of additional revenue generated by the Met Office. These days they pay no attention to weather forecasting (which is why they mostly get it wrong). They spend more and more of their time running courses for corporations on the implications for their businesses of 'climate change'. It's a substantial earner for them, which is why whenever anyone challenges the global warming scam, they issue a press release stating that 'everyone knows that global warming is real - there is no longer any question about it'. Strange that I can never recall them issuing a press release about anything ever before. The Met Office and the CRU are in it up to their necks. Completely corrupt.
Iain, I would guess that he created a load of boxes that needed to be ticked in order to award a bonus. Predictably, the boxes got ticked. The fact that they are unable to predict the coldest winter for a genertion in neither here nor there.
The next thing you know, he will be a Labour Peer.
"A Met Office spokesman said Mr Hirst’s total pay had jumped because a “performance related bonus” from 2007/8 was paid in 2008/9. There was no underlying increase in salary, she said."
Since the article also says "Mr Hirst had joined midway through the previous financial year in September 2007" and that he had a "pay equivalent" salary of £155k, a little calculation shows he was given a performance related bonus equivalent to £80k a year, or more than half his salary. Unfortunately, the spokesman does not say what this was based on. Clearly it must have been an absolutely exceptional performance, so it's surprising that she didn't take the opportunity to elaborate - does anybody here know anything about it?
I would readily justify it on the basis that the Prime Minister is a useless, deluded, benighted, nation-ruining bully and even those on Jobseekers Allowance ought to receive far more than him.
More inclined to listen to the superbly Branestawm-like Professor Piers Corbyn. Check out this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yyld9QH55dw&feature=related published in July 2009 and worry about this http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews10No2.pdfproduced published yesterday
Because he helps to raise billions in taxes through the CO2 scam. He can bring down the huge lies about Global warming with one phone call - mind you he'd be found with his wrists slit long before he did that.
Iain due to Global warming there is due to be 50cm of snow over Kent starting at 6. So book up a hotel or get home sharpish.
Compared to the amount of revenue generated in 'green taxes' as a result of his organisation's fatuous global warming predictions, his salary is a drop in the ocean!
I need the extra money to compensate me for all the BBQ equipment I bought earlier in the year.
And let me tell you, my summer staycation turned out to be a bit of a damp squib so, while arctic conditions sweep the nation, I'm heading off to Barbados to top up my tan.
I can't be right all the time you know, I know I think I am, but you don't really believe I'm God do you?
The comment about Ed Milipede not appearing to tell us how we are all going to fry because of Global Warming (caused by baby eating Tories) is completely unfair. I have it on good authority that he is snowed in at home, and all communications are lost due to the blizzard where he lives - No9 Cloud Cuckoo Land!
I went to a Met Office presentation last year by Dr Vicky Pope (head of climate change propaganda at the MO) and she was almost hissy (and later apologised) when I gently asked about Nigel Lawson’s book An Appeal to Reason.
Supposedly the MO computer modelling is nearly as powerful and clever as the one at the treasury. And HMG have swallowed its predictions wholesale and created a department with Miliband Junior at its head.
But I have always wanted to ask this: As HMG got it predictions of the PSBR wrong by a factor of four between November 2008 and March 2009 why should we be making policy of the basis of computer model predictions 50 or 100 years hence?
The 25% pay rise relates to the 25% accuracy that the Met Office achieved (if that !). I'm looking forward to seeing Dave Cameron travelling to Parliament on his huskie-driven sleigh.
As a farmer I am dependent on the weather for much of my business operations - when to sow, harvest, cut grass for hay etc etc.
I can honestly say the Met Office is utter cr@p. Its forecasts change daily. It will be forecasting a dry week for example on Sunday, but by Monday morning that has changed entirely, to rain.
Pay the man by results - every day take their 5 day forecast, and then compare it to what actually happens. If its 100%, give him £200K. Reduce pro rata.
Sorry to disagree Iain. By promoting this MMGW fairy story to the full the Met Office help earn billions for the treasury in "green" tax revenues. On the other hand our esteemed Prime Minister cannot help but give this, and much more, of our taxes away whenever he wants to look big on any international issue (Yemen etc). Ergo in terms of worth to the country the man from the Met Office is much more value for his salary than the unelected, and democratically unaccountable, PM.
Great Britain is the global hub of Climate Terrorism. British Met Office, British Mediocre Universities, British Antarctica Survey, British Charities against Climate Change (WWF, RSPB Oxfam, Christian Aid, GreenPeace) The BBC, and of course the British Treasury and British Government.
The Met office is the government's Chief Armourer. The head of the Met Office is pivotal to keeping Climate Terrorists armed with dodgy scientific claims, and argument-proof vests.
His acquiescence is essentisal to the whole War on Carbon. What if he said "I 'fess up, its all bollx"? He's worth every penny, but sadly not to us.
According to "Letters from a Tory", his "salary reflected the need to bring in, and appropriately reward, skills to meet the significant opportunities and challenges in our weather and climate business.” That is the skills to explain away the abysmal forecasts and the challenges of explaining why the climate isn't doing what the global warmists expect. My piece of seaweed does better than he does.
It is minor comparedcto the £13.7 million the government gave professor Jones for his "research" supporting their catastrophic warming scam.
More seriously I think government spending on science, when it is politically motivated as the climate stuff clearly has been & as the firing of the "independent" drugs advisor was, is extremely damaging to science. It is what has prevented economics & social scince achieving the sort of rigour we expect in physics.
NOPE.
ReplyDeleteBe fair
ReplyDeleteHis organisation was 100% accurate about the summer and this winter and is unsullied by climate gate
Er....
Doesn't the Met Office generate an enormous surplus, far bigger than any other department? Doesn't really justify it though.
ReplyDeleteBecause he along with everybody else is worth more than that useless gurning chump of a prime minister.
ReplyDeleteCome on, he deserves every penny; after all, on him depends almost the entire structure of the AGW scam now that CRU have been outed. Of course he also needs the full unthinking and mendacious support of the Beeb too, but that's a given these days and has never been in question. Yours,
ReplyDeleteSitting here, waiting for today's snowfall and utterly convinced it's a symptom of the warming that will fry the planet ....
That, young man, is what we experts call a "no brainer". He obviously deserves it because he is so good at his job. It was his team that predicted the "barbeque summer" we have just enjoyed in the Lake District, and the lovely mild winter we are currently enjoying courtesy of Global Warming.
ReplyDeleteG Brown
Planet Zarg
Perhaps the Met Office staff should have a part of their salary paid pro-rata with the the accuracy of their forecasts.
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, perhaps the Prime Minister and Chancellor should be paid pro-rata for the accuracy of their [economic] forecasts too: that would rapidly cut public spending!
Is he the one providing Ed Miliband with the ficticious 'facts' about global warming? The warmists and Ed have been very quiet over the last few days.
ReplyDeleteBut to answer your question..NO!
Possibly the job requires some skill?
ReplyDeleteMaybe because Met Office forecasts are a little more relaible than Gordon's?
ReplyDeleteGood question - it's not as if the weather has been any better!
ReplyDeleteYep. He, and the financial officer, are there to do Labour's bidding. 'Climate Change', 'Global Warming', dodgy dossiers full of dodgy temperature readings carefully selected to suit the scene.
ReplyDeleteEVERYTHING under the control of the Government or has any involvement in Government, is polticised. EVERYTHING.
And to do that, you need to pay your men and women. With taxpayer funds.
Well they said it would snow and snowed.
ReplyDeleteI blame global warming. Man made CO2 scaremongering is directly proportional to the amount of money to be made out of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the chief exec can...
ReplyDeleteCome on now. They did say that it would be snowing, and it has.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember the PM forecasting anything accurately.
Fair's fair.
The boy done well. Didn't you interview him when he was known as the Jailhouse Lawyer?
ReplyDeleteWell there's been at least a 25% increase in Weather, hasn't there?
ReplyDeleteThe World Government knows that his role in propping up AGW to enable the carbon trading scam is more important than the puppet head of the UK parish council.
ReplyDeleteThis "more than the Prime Minister" argument is utterly fatuous. The PM also gets, to name but three, benefits such as free travel for self and family, free London and country houses, free secretarial and household staff. He also gets a place in history, gongs galore, deference, all the sycophancy he can manage, a lavishly-funded retirement and the opportunity to make a further fortune on the not very arduous speech circuit.
ReplyDeleteThus it's not unreasonable for people like Mark Thompson, his chums in the upper echelons of the BBC, John Hirst and countless others 'in public service' to be paid sums that dwarf the PM's bogusly-presented salary figure. A salary of £200,000 for the head of the Met Office, for all the responsibility and potential for egg/physiognomy interface seems like a complete bargain to me.
'coz it's getting hotter, innit
ReplyDeleteEvetyone should be receive more than the current PM whose name should not be mentioned henceforth.
ReplyDeleteAs a former WWF global warming mouthpiece he will need all the financial help he can get now that the sun is setting on that specialism as a career.
ReplyDeleteIt is just to bump up his salary and pension pot before he "resigns" - silence bought with other people's money to minimise potential government embarassment over climategate.
I think he's worth every penny.
ReplyDeleteI mean, come on, it's a stroke of genius to improve their weather prediction accuracy by creating a combined sun, cloud and rain graphic and plastering that all over their UK weather map every time...
Well done to The Telegraph!
ReplyDeleteThey've found an area where a cut in public spending would have no detrimental effect on public services.
Who actually makes the decision on his pay? Is it transparent and defensible? In my ignorance, is the Met office a government or government-funded organisation?
ReplyDeleteHow about paying them on results and not on predictions? And a big fat bonus if they continue to deliver consistently. A similar type of set up to bankers bonuses. I am of course joking....
ReplyDeletePoliticians for that matter should be paid a flat salary, and not just one that enables them to trough over 8 years and then retire on a big fat pension that would take someone 40 years to earn instead of 20....
On the specifics no - I can't justify it because I know nothing about the man, his performance or the market for his skills (or indeed what his particular skills are). It may simply be the case that without remuneration on that scale he'd have walked and they wouldn't have been able to secure anyone suitably qualified.
ReplyDeleteWhat interests me is that nobody on this thread will know the answers to those questions, it's a pay rise probably far smaller than many awarded in the banking or investment sectors (with or without public money) and yet purely on the back of this being public money we think it's OK to speculate on and have a moan about?
Oh come on Ian - it's part of the MoD - they've plenty of money sloshing around with nothing to spend it on.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that he is on a performance related pay scheme with a bonus paid on the basis of additional revenue generated by the Met Office. These days they pay no attention to weather forecasting (which is why they mostly get it wrong). They spend more and more of their time running courses for corporations on the implications for their businesses of 'climate change'. It's a substantial earner for them, which is why whenever anyone challenges the global warming scam, they issue a press release stating that 'everyone knows that global warming is real - there is no longer any question about it'. Strange that I can never recall them issuing a press release about anything ever before. The Met Office and the CRU are in it up to their necks. Completely corrupt.
ReplyDeleteThe cheeldrun! Think of the liddle cheeldrun!
ReplyDeleteSo he can afford to pay his heating bills this winter. They will be much higher this year - just look outside.
ReplyDeleteHe can.
ReplyDeleteIain, I would guess that he created a load of boxes that needed to be ticked in order to award a bonus. Predictably, the boxes got ticked. The fact that they are unable to predict the coldest winter for a genertion in neither here nor there.
ReplyDeleteThe next thing you know, he will be a Labour Peer.
There's a recession and a massive govt. overspend. His pay should be slashed by 25%
ReplyDelete"A Met Office spokesman said Mr Hirst’s total pay had jumped because a “performance related bonus” from 2007/8 was paid in 2008/9. There was no underlying increase in salary, she said."
ReplyDeleteSince the article also says "Mr Hirst had joined midway through the previous financial year in September 2007" and that he had a "pay equivalent" salary of £155k, a little calculation shows he was given a performance related bonus equivalent to £80k a year, or more than half his salary. Unfortunately, the spokesman does not say what this was based on. Clearly it must have been an absolutely exceptional performance, so it's surprising that she didn't take the opportunity to elaborate - does anybody here know anything about it?
Bribery of course.
ReplyDeleteGot to kepe spinning the lies about Global Warming.
200k is a drop in the ocean compared to the tax revenues that will be collected on the back of these Green Lies.
Because it never rains but it pours ...
ReplyDeleteClimate change - it heats up salaries?
ReplyDeleteIt's easy Iain.
ReplyDeleteHis organisation makes accurate forecasts of climate for the next 100 years justifying more green taxes.
Simples.
All the rest is hot air..
Sorry I will rephrase the last sentence.
All the rest should be hot air except due to a brief chill wind from the North bringing snow storms.
Can I collect my prize now?
Wrong question Ian it should have read:-
ReplyDeleteCan anyone justify the position of chief executive of the Met Office?
I'm warming to him
ReplyDeleteYou cant have a pay freeze because of global warming
ReplyDeleteOr alternatively .....can you name a public servant who ISNT worth more money than Gordon?
ReplyDeleteI would readily justify it on the basis that the Prime Minister is a useless, deluded, benighted, nation-ruining bully and even those on Jobseekers Allowance ought to receive far more than him.
ReplyDeleteQED.
"I would guess that he created a load of boxes that needed to be ticked in order to award a bonus. Predictably, the boxes got ticked. "
ReplyDeletePaul - you know you are exactly right. That's just how the SCS bonus system works. In the jargon it's sometimes even called 'box marking'
It's hush money.
ReplyDeleteDon't tell anyone global warming is a load of bullsh and we'll pay you big to carry on keeping quiet.
Same with bankers et al.
Slogan for the MET Office -
Crime Pays.
More inclined to listen to the superbly Branestawm-like Professor Piers Corbyn. Check out this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yyld9QH55dw&feature=related published in July 2009 and worry about this http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews10No2.pdfproduced published yesterday
ReplyDeleteWell he has solved global warming - and without all those tax rises previously thought necessary. Worth every penny!
ReplyDeleteBecause he helps to raise billions in taxes through the CO2 scam. He can bring down the huge lies about Global warming with one phone call - mind you he'd be found with his wrists slit long before he did that.
ReplyDeleteIain due to Global warming there is due to be 50cm of snow over Kent starting at 6. So book up a hotel or get home sharpish.
Anon 12:51 Totally agree, this is going on everywhere in this country.
ReplyDeleteYep.
ReplyDeleteExeter is a very expensive place to live.
And,
His bonus scheme is not based on accuracy.
Compared to the amount of revenue generated in 'green taxes' as a result of his organisation's fatuous global warming predictions, his salary is a drop in the ocean!
ReplyDeleteDear Britain,
ReplyDeleteI need the extra money to compensate me for all the BBQ equipment I bought earlier in the year.
And let me tell you, my summer staycation turned out to be a bit of a damp squib so, while arctic conditions sweep the nation, I'm heading off to Barbados to top up my tan.
I can't be right all the time you know, I know I think I am, but you don't really believe I'm God do you?
John Hirst
Hooray anonymous comments allowed, can we talk about nadine and nepotism now.
ReplyDeleteBecause the sun no longer shines out of the PM,s a*%e.
ReplyDeleteThe comment about Ed Milipede not appearing to tell us how we are all going to fry because of Global Warming (caused by baby eating Tories) is completely unfair. I have it on good authority that he is snowed in at home, and all communications are lost due to the blizzard where he lives - No9 Cloud Cuckoo Land!
ReplyDeleteG Brown
Planet Zarg
Sounds like an "inconvenient" truth is proving rather expensive.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the Met Office knows that Govt wants kept quiet ?
public sector pay is out of control.....
ReplyDeleteI would love to see the all public sector salaries listed and published online.
Followed by 25% cuts across the board please.....
Perhaps you should offer us your opinion instead of simply insinuating without any evidence whatsoever.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the Met Office should just subscribe to Piers Corbyn's www.weatherwatch.com That would save a few bob. Check this out
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yyld9QH55dw&feature=related
...published in July 09...spooky
And he pulled how much when he moved house?
ReplyDeleteAs the weather forecast has been wrong for Norwich almost every day for the last 2 weeks, no, I can't.
ReplyDeleteWorse still, their broadcast relay what the weather is and was like and they get that wrong more than they do right.
Andrew Neil put it quite succinctly:-http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/
ReplyDeleteI hope David Cameron orders a judicial review into the activities of this organisation that gets every forecast incorrect!
I went to a Met Office presentation last year by Dr Vicky Pope (head of climate change propaganda at the MO) and she was almost hissy (and later apologised) when I gently asked about Nigel Lawson’s book An Appeal to Reason.
ReplyDeleteSupposedly the MO computer modelling is nearly as powerful and clever as the one at the treasury. And HMG have swallowed its predictions wholesale and created a department with Miliband Junior at its head.
But I have always wanted to ask this: As HMG got it predictions of the PSBR wrong by a factor of four between November 2008 and March 2009 why should we be making policy of the basis of computer model predictions 50 or 100 years hence?
@Damon
ReplyDeleteGoo goo goo joob!
Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun
If the sun don't you get a tan from standing in the English rain
The 25% pay rise relates to the 25% accuracy that the Met Office achieved (if that !).
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to seeing Dave Cameron travelling to Parliament on his huskie-driven sleigh.
Quite simple really. Most people care more about the snow outside then what Gordon Brown or David Cameron are up to.
ReplyDeleteNo. No-one can justify it.
ReplyDeleteAs a farmer I am dependent on the weather for much of my business operations - when to sow, harvest, cut grass for hay etc etc.
ReplyDeleteI can honestly say the Met Office is utter cr@p. Its forecasts change daily. It will be forecasting a dry week for example on Sunday, but by Monday morning that has changed entirely, to rain.
Pay the man by results - every day take their 5 day forecast, and then compare it to what actually happens. If its 100%, give him £200K. Reduce pro rata.
Sorry to disagree Iain. By promoting this MMGW fairy story to the full the Met Office help earn billions for the treasury in "green" tax revenues. On the other hand our esteemed Prime Minister cannot help but give this, and much more, of our taxes away whenever he wants to look big on any international issue (Yemen etc). Ergo in terms of worth to the country the man from the Met Office is much more value for his salary than the unelected, and democratically unaccountable, PM.
ReplyDeleteGreat Britain is the global hub of Climate Terrorism. British Met Office, British Mediocre Universities, British Antarctica Survey, British Charities against Climate Change (WWF, RSPB Oxfam, Christian Aid, GreenPeace) The BBC, and of course the British Treasury and British Government.
ReplyDeleteThe Met office is the government's Chief Armourer. The head of the Met Office is pivotal to keeping Climate Terrorists armed with dodgy scientific claims, and argument-proof vests.
His acquiescence is essentisal to the whole War on Carbon. What if he said "I 'fess up, its all bollx"? He's worth every penny, but sadly not to us.
According to "Letters from a Tory", his "salary reflected the need to bring in, and appropriately reward, skills to meet the significant opportunities and challenges in our weather and climate business.”
ReplyDeleteThat is the skills to explain away the abysmal forecasts and the challenges of explaining why the climate isn't doing what the global warmists expect.
My piece of seaweed does better than he does.
sick of this snow- global warming bring it on! This man is giving me hope and for that he deserves the money.
ReplyDeleteWhat, Gordon receives nearly as much as a Met Office Wallah!?
ReplyDeleteAt least the latter can't f#ck up the country as much as the former.
It is minor comparedcto the £13.7 million the government gave professor Jones for his "research" supporting their catastrophic warming scam.
ReplyDeleteMore seriously I think government spending on science, when it is politically motivated as the climate stuff clearly has been & as the firing of the "independent" drugs advisor was, is extremely damaging to science. It is what has prevented economics & social scince achieving the sort of rigour we expect in physics.