Is anyone here getting any help from NAS ?

Any group can set up a facebook group and do exactly what we are doing here and there are other private blog sites, that can be set up.

After this site's setting up costs, it costs NAS nothing to run it. And the time spent to write posts, is that of desparate autistic families like myself, who unlike the NAS employees making posts are  not paid for their contributions.

Most GPs are very behind the curve when it comes to Asperger syndrome. Unless one is lucky to have a GP who properly understands the condition then do not expect them to be fit to even consider a diagnosis. All they will do is recommend the NAS if they haven't already written out a prescription for medication that is not required. The situation is further exacerbated that a GP's surgery is a location that does not bring out the AS traits in a child like the school playground does. A 10 minute discussion with a GP will form an impression in his mind that he is talking to a hypochondriac rather than somebody who needs referral to an ASD specialist.

My own GP was absolutely useless and failed to identify any possible ASD traits. He thought that there was nothing wrong with me and disliked being dragged dealing with problems at primary school. Similar scenarios have happened with other people.

justice said:

The local groups are all highly stage managed and provide a weekly coffee morning and half day playgroup/ recretion session at most.

I can second that. The independent groups tend to be more ASD person centric and hold more useful activities than the NAS groups do. For example, my local independent support group trains children how to ride a bike. The NAS group doesn't seem to have noticed that approximately half of all 10 year olds in Britain with ASD can't ride a bike. Personally I think that stabilisers are the culprit but the NAS hasn't picked up on this yet.

What is most tragic is that several independent ASD groups have been taken over by the NAS, on the impression that it will enable them to access plenty of money and resources that otherwise they would not access if they stayed independent, and transformed from groups which offer activities and support services to the local ASD community to coffee mornings for parents. More often than not such taken over groups end up channeling their support towards a very small number of people who require expensive services and associated PR stunts whilst ignoring larger numbers of people with higher functioning ASD who do not need them. One such group is run in the interests of about 4 or 5 people with traditional autism who require residential services or NAS schools but it no longer wants to know about 20 to 30 people in the area with high functioning AS who attend mainstream education or are working / looking for work because their needs are deemed to be less. This is despite the local group was originally established to support such people. The NAS has effectively destroyed support services rather than created them. Some of the parents of children with high functioning AS are now trying to start a new support group. They describe the NAS as a poisoned chalice.

A glossy magazine selling NAS related services and repetative stories, full of NAS propaganda and workshps teling you information already available from the web is the only other support.

Many parents have said similar things. They already fully well know that the internet is awash with information about ASD and JKP has more books on the subject than most people have time to read.

Strangely, although labour made NAS the fourth? largest charity in 2007, by its funding, NAS is specifically precluded by its charitable purpose from any research or investigation into the causes of autism. This is suspicious in itself, but together with the goverments failure to fund any research into the effects of vaccines, and their increased use is worrying.

If as you say, and it is, autism is big buisness, then it should not be funded by tax payers, as a charity. NAS etc pay no tax,as they are supposed to be motivated by philanthrophy, and not make a profit, ie be true volunteers as far as possible. But we are living in a post charity age, where philanthrophy and donations are merely used to make as much profit as possible for the cause hijacker. This leaves the individual autistic family to use its own resources through law and web to gain their own help. It also means that donations are largely received on false pretences. The charity commission and government must address this fundamental issue of society's lack of charity, and the subversion of its role in today's society. Meanwhile it worsens the plight of the autistic and wastes hard earned, well meant charitable donations. 

Come on NAS lets get some basic help which we are entitled to by law already. Ditto

All that would need to be done, as sadly everyone including GPs, are motivated by money, is to give GP's a premium on the number of autistic people registered with them. This money being subject to carers and the autistic person's feedback on the service they provide. This service should then be house calls, if severely autistic and/or ad hoc problems with attending surgery. It should provide a designated GP wherever possible to deal  with a particular autistic patient, to ensure minium disruption and the need to relay same info on each visit. It should also mean the GP can be phoned directly when the autistic person is about to arrive at the surgery, so there is no delay that could lead to meltdown and distress. NAS can provide a crib sheet to GPs on the basic problems of autism per se, and the carer can fill in on the individuals particular needs. 

This is not a lot to ask and NAS should put forward such a request to the Minister for Health, and each member of NAS, and indeed any autistic person or carer should be encouraged to contact their local MP by a Facebook campaign. It is not rocket science and should have been done years ago. It is no more than a registered patient in any event is entitled to under NHS legislation.

Despite this, quite the reverse is happening in most GP practices, as they are run for maximum profit, which means efficient processing of patients. GP's use any excuse to get autistic people removed from their lists, it happened to my daughter and obviously our whole family, and we were left without a GP for two months at a very critical time. That GP refused to come too our home to see our daughter or to assist in any way with her aggressive behaviour and terrible anguish- it turned out that she had been impacted with pooh for years.

Come on NAS lets get some basic help which we are entitled to by law already.

Justice quote"NAS will not take on any authorities/ establishment, as their main funding is from the government or was. So they will not insist GP's come out to autistic children, who are too disturbed to attend surgery, or indeed attend to their medical needs or monitor them more closely because they cannot tell you they are in pain"

This is a very good point, the 7 minute patient turn around at GP surgery with a purely NT doctors mindframe. PILL AND GO ! Does not work or give any long-term comfort to a person with Autism. Visiting the GP, making an appointment, waiting in the surgery, seeing a stranger doctor, explaining your situation, even taking a pill as prescripted are all big issues for an autistic person. The GP's and other professionals do not get this !!!

Frustration because this is the type of simple work, the NAS should be guiding to on to assist Autistic people in there daily lives.

NAS have hijacked autism, as it is a very lucrative business. No one knows what it is, so it can be used as a label to increase the NAS empire. They promote that people are grateful for a label. But that is effectively all they get. And what does such a label mean substantively- little. Practically it means that NAS can then broke its recommendations , legal contacts, insurance etc. Even charging £2 for a card which can be shown by parents to the public to show their child is autistic- but what help or use will that serve ?

NAS has wasted money on campaigns such as autisim awareness,, which are not needed, and serve little purpose other than wasting donations and fundraising - the public do not want to know about whatever autism is, and as it is unknown will be even more frightened of an autistic person.

NAS has done nothing about excluding autism from being a mental illness within the new MHA, which means that any autistic person can now lose their liberty, and be put on enforced inapproriate,highly damaging, expensive antipsychotic medicine to regain it.

Anyone can gain academic qualifications and become autistic specialists and enhance their careers, and education is thus highly lucrative for NAS, as the one eyed man is king. The befriending help that NAS boasts of, is paid for in the degree the befriender student pays for as it is part of his training.

NAS's only support is an impersonal phone help line, which can only refer you to a lawyer who is out to get work, usually intially providing the same information as NAS web or internet, or a parent volunteer in a local group . The local groups are all highly stage managed and provide a weekly coffee morning and half day playgroup/ recretion session at most.

A glossy magazine selling NAS related services and repetative stories, full of NAS propaganda and workshps teling you information already available from the web is the only other support.

NAS will not take on any authorities/ establishment, as their main funding is from the government or was. So they will not insist GP's come out to autistic children, who are too disturbed to attend surgery, or indeed attend to their medical needs or monitor them more closely because they cannot tell you they are in pain. NAS do not stop the use of drugs like respiridone, as chemical coshs on these children and adults, in fact the use of such drugs is up 10 fold on children, yet forbidden for alzeihmers because of that associations campaigns.

The options for the deemed severely autistic are 52 week placements for which NAS is paid on average 200.000 per annum, recently a particularly difficult boy commands 300,000, most of these will be put on enforced chemical cosh,s and if parents object they will be cut out of their child's care by a care order. Remember to, as a charity this income is tax free. In these times of recession autism is a goldmine, as it would appear education, heALTH and social services are prepared to pay any amount to get these children and adults out of the community and off their books. Meanwhile the care given them is by carers on the minmium wage often from agencies.

NAS does little for autism, the families of the autistic or the deparately vunerable, whose only misfortune to be  born different.  

There is one way to change this.

Become a member of the NAS, attend the AGMs, and push for change.

I see that the CEO still hasn't piped up and defended his exhorbitant salary.  All charities are the same these days, nothing but gravy trains that use the plights of others to get money into the coffers so the conmen can get their filthy little grubby hands on it - all the while using a few measily percent of the money to show how much good they are doing while sqandering the bulk of it. Such as a (profanity) AWARDS CEREMONY for god sake - thats just obscene it truly is - nothing but an excuse for another booze up in an expensive hotel with you know who footing all the bills and paying all the expenses - 26 executives all quaffing whisky and champers all night and patting each other on the back and eating a posh dinner - I pity anyone who cannot see why this is wrong..it's just another pawn in the game of institutional corruption that is rife in society today. this would never have been allowed to happen 50 years ago.

zone_tripper said:

A Chief Executive earning £130,000 does NOT take home £130,000, when one deducts PAYE, NI, pension contributions, travel costs, household bills, mortgage, etc! 

I don't understand your point. You seem to be saying that if you earn £130,000 then you spend alot of it. Are you pointing out that 'the higher your income, the higher your outgoings'?.

What is the incentive of studying hard, working hard, and gaining promotions within the workplace, if you are expected to remain on a similar salary as somebody less qualified and less experienced than you? 

You honestly can't think of any reason other than money to work hard and to try and realise then fulfil your potential?

zone_tripper said:

Likewise, I could not care less whether the NAS Chief Executive's salary is £30,000 a year or £130,000 a year; if you want the best business brains, you have to pay good money in salaries to acquire them.  

I am interested what is your definition of the 'best business brain' actually is?

Also from my own experience (anxiety issues, meltdowns, anger management issues, etc), it seems to me that some people's autistic-related anxiety issues can manifest itself through anger and confrontation.  Therefore, I question whether some people criticising the NAS are letting their anxiety issues manifest as anger and are being somewhat unreasonable with the NAS.  

I am sure that anxiety is an issue. However is it not hat you are trying to pass off peoples opinions as just 'sympoms of their condition'. This is something that  autistics face every day.

Thank you zonetripper for toning down your comments. I never said that I was left-wing. You don't need to be left-wing these days to criticise what's going on. Cecil Parkinson, on the Daily Politics last year, asked why do the capitalists want to destroy capitalism? All of this has nothing to do with working hard. Now speaking personally...I fail to see why countries so rich in ideas, inventions,  and tech have not been able to figure out a way to equalise the wealth of society. There is no need for people to be hungry, lack a home, or get an education in such a wealthy world. When people can command resources that they can never hope to spend something is really wrong. A big salary means you can get people to work for your benefit (chauffeur, pilot, dresser, clothes buyer, personal trainer etc.) A calculation was performed recently to show that the Living Wage would dent a major supermarket's bottom line scarcely at all. There is no relation between work and reward any more. It's a comlete non-sequiter to say anyone 'earns' these big salaries. How would you measure that exactly? 

As for the top post of the NAS (nothing to do with the present incumbent). By relative salaries the NAS is not going to attract a great business brain with £140,000. They are going to attract an accountant who knows how to keep costs down. Many in the City (banking, trading, insurance) would look down on that sum of money and many in big business would think running a charity beneath their expectations.

Finally I am clamming up now. I have to restrain myself from getting into these long-running discussions that in the end don't really go anywhere or change anything.

This is a very interesting debate, and I am enjoying  reading it, and participating.

Zone-tripper: I am glad you identify as 'left-wing', but I am saddened that you think it is ok for people to earn astronomical sums of money for doing things that are questionable from both an ethical, ecological, and humane perspective. Like yourself, I have dappled with the SWP, and while I agree with its values, I think it is too black and white in its analysis of society. However, I identify as 'far left', if being so means that you question the societal system as a whole (namely the logic of Capitalism) and not just parts of it.

Communism, as practiced in the 20th Century,  was a dictatorial system which caused immense suffering, and it mocked the genuine, humanitarian, ideals of progressive Communist thinkers prior to its actualisation. I am anti- Communist, if by that you mean being against the regimes of the last century. However, I do believe in the progessive ideas of a Communitarian society, which has never yet been actualised. I prefer to identify as a democratic, humanist, Socialist.

Most, if not all, of the millionaires you mention have not done the majority of the hard work themselves - I am surprised that you should think this. In fact, a lot of their success comes down to luck, being in the right place at the right time, and having useful contacts; although I agree that you have to have a certain personality and motivation to successfully exploit these factors. Secondly, many millionaires employ workers to do the dirty work for them, and these workers create surplus value that is  turned into profit by their bosses. As an ex Marxist,  you would already know this.And thirdly, many important jobs, such as caring and nursing, are very low paid: the inverse logic of value. I agree that doctors and surgeons should be paid a generous salary, to reflect the training and importance of the work they do. I agree that some jobs should be paid more than others. HOwever, I do not agree that people should be paid ludicrous amounts of money to wreck the environment, fund their super cars and mansions, and profit off the backs of the workers. There should indeed be a maximum wage.

zone_tripper said:

They may indeed get 90% of their income from the Goverment and local authorities, and 10% of their income from supporters, but it is how they use that 90% which is most important, NOT where it comes from!

If the NAS offers very little for myself or other similar people then why should my taxes pay for it?

Likewise, I could not care less whether the NAS Chief Executive's salary is £30,000 a year or £130,000 a year; if you want the best business brains, you have to pay good money in salaries to acquire them.

I can see where you are coming from with the 'best business brains' but running a charity should be seen first and foremost as a labour of love rather than a means of making big money. Therefore I cannot understand why the NAS Chief Executive will not cap their salary at £30k on the grounds of morality and decency despite being capable of earning £130k if they chose to work as a senior manager in industry.

Therefore, I do not begrudge the NAS and Social Services for prioritising their services to those most in need.

If the NAS will not provide effective services for people with high-functioning Asperger syndrome because those with traditional autism who require special schools and care services are deemed to be more in need then why doesn't the NAS revert back to this and get out of Asperger syndrome altogether?

Members who can use a computer, use the Internet, spell, read and write, research using Internet search engines, etc, are probably those in the least need of the services of the NAS.

You are probably right there because of the historic nature of the NAS but it doesn't mean that they don't need high quality help or support for the problems that they face.

Making comparisons between people with low functioning autism and high functioning Asperger syndrome when it comes to prioritising services is almost like making a comparison between people who are blind and people who use wheelchairs when it comes to prioritising services. Their needs are DIFFERENT in both cases. Not higher or lower priority.

If you want support, then why not set up your own local support group

There already are plenty of local support groups but they have to scrimp and beg for money from private donors as they are not funded by millions of pounds of taxpayer's money like the NAS is. Government funding of the NAS gives it an unfair advantage and creates an unlevel playing field for independent support groups that 100% rely on donations.

A second advantage that the NAS has is that it is the approved ASD provider by the NHS and state school system who almost always exclusively recommend the NAS even if there there are independent support groups in the locality. This means that most parents head straight for the NAS with only a few 'shopping around' for other ASD support groups. A high proportion of parents who have come to my local independent support group are those who are disappointed with the NAS and the services it provides. When asked why they chose the NAS in the first place, the answer is almost always it's what the school / local authority / NHS recommended.

so why not band together and set up your own, with the help and support of the NAS?

Because it will have to obey orders from NAS central office rather than tailor its services to what the local ASD community requires.

Hope said:

Zone-tripper: I have Aspergers, can read, write, have been to Uni and attained an upper 2.1 History degree, have recently attained Permitted work on a part-time basis, and now live more or less independently in my own flat.....But I have a long-term disability (Aspergers) with significant mental-health problems, and I do not think my condition is 'mild'. While my issues are very different to a person who can't speak and is  learning disabled, I actually experience a similar degree of disability relative to what is expected of me. You are very lucky to be able to go to gigs on your own, and to have a full-time job, but only 15 per cent of people with Aspergers are in full-term work!. Most people with Aspergers require some degree of support, and the NAS should campaign for this support to be made available. Not everyone is as fortunate as yourself!

Dear Hope,

(Firstly, I apologise if what I wrote caused you any offence, upset or ill-feelings.  They were merely my viewpoint and not meant to cause any offence.)

I actually agree with you what you have wrote.  Yes, I am extremely lucky and I often think how lucky I have been in life, how one day my luck might run out, and how different my life might have been if I had not been so lucky.  

However, that is not to say my life has been easy-going.  I have lost jobs, in part due to my anxiety issues symptomatic of Autism/Asperger; although thankfully, I have been in my current job for over eight years.  Even in my current job, I was suspended for approx six weeks after having a meltdown at work, caused by job insecurity, my office being redecorated and boxes and furniture everywhere; I had a meltdown as a result of it!  But I have since returned to work.  

After I moved out of my parents home, I started suffering from loneliness and home sickness almost immediately.  My home sickness got so bad, that I eventually had to move back in with my parents.  

I am on anti-depressants (the highest safe daily dosage) and have seen psychologists, psychiatrists, and counsellors, on and off since my early twenties (I am now 36).  I have anxiety issues and suffer from depression and stress, difficulty coping with changes, suffer from home sickness, suffer from panic attacks and meltdowns, etc.  

But in comparison to my elderly uncle, who is much more Autistic than I, I do not begrudge the fact that his welfare is given greater priority than my own.  Because I have an uncle who has more severe autism, has learning disabilities, cannot read or write, does not know what the time is, has social communication difficulties, and so forth, and needs 24/7 care, I regard my own autism as mild in comparison; hence my usage of the word mild.  But I appreciate and understand that others suffer more than I, which is why I say services have to be prioritised to those in need.  

I agree that there should be as much more support as possible for people with High-Functioning Autism / Asperger Syndrome, especially for adults.  (In my local area, there is very little.)  

Indeed, I used to know somebody with Asperger Syndrome, before I was diagnosed, and she had a carer, had council accommodation, etc, because her Autism affects her more than my Autism affects me.  And people such as yourself, my uncle and the person I used to know should be prioritised ahead of, say, myself.  

The NAS can only do so much and they have to prioritise their work, based on those most in need.  Likewise, the same goes for NHS mental health trusts (especially at a time when they are expected to make £20 billion pounds worth of efficiency savings over five years and also prepare to become Foundation Trusts; combine these with paying off PFI debts, recent scandals involving Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust and others, and the NHS is struggling).  

That was my basic point.  

But there are things that some of us MAY be able to do to help ourselves, such as forming local support groups, local NAS groups, and so forth.  

The Imp of the Perverse said:

Thank you for that long reply zone tripper. I learned a lot about you but I'm not sure you realise the bind you put yourself in. You argue that Britain and Denmark are not comparable in size and then you tell us a lot about yourself and extrapolate from there to encapsulate everyone else. You and everyone else are not the same size. What is right for you, in all of that detail, is not right for everyone else. We all have to fit on a planet whose resources are very unequally divided and may be nearing a point where the consequences of that have very significant effects.

Your comment about the SWP was pretty cheap. The fact that you no longer have those leanings is no significant marker of maturity. I could name any number of people, presumably more qualified than both of us, who are well-respected economists and political thinkers, and who do see real problems in such an unequal society. Not everyone is as rational about their mediocre wage as you seem to be. The £140,000 compensation is not so material for me. It's more a sign of decadence and no reason at all for not engaging with the NAS. Perhaps I should ask to be paid in cash because I do not like how much bankers get paid or live in a cave because of the salaries of solicitors. I guess having an opinion about high pay is problematic is it?

 

I respect your viewpoint, although I do not agree with it.

I should point out that I am left-wing, but I am NOT far-left.  I may believe in some socialist ideas, but I am not in favour of Communism.  We do not make an equal society by punishing people who are on better salaries than others.  What is the incentive of studying hard, working hard, and gaining promotions within the workplace, if you are expected to remain on a similar salary as somebody less qualified and less experienced than you?  

To make a society more equal, you make opportunities for poorer people to better themselves in terms of access to university education, small business start-up grants, subsidised housing, tax relief, etc, so that they can one day get a good degree, and a good job.  Renationalising the railway industry and public utilities, the reintroduction of student grants, and the building of more social housing would perhaps go some way of making lives a little easier for the poorer members of society, as well as graduates who come from poor backgrounds.  

(Sadly, the introduction of student loans is causing hardship amongst many students, as they leave university in debt BEFORE they start any career!  And life is made harder for graduates due to the rising costs of (private) train and bus travel, high rates of car insurance for young motorists, high cost of living, the privatisation of our utility companies, etc.)

A Chief Executive earning £130,000 does NOT take home £130,000, when one deducts PAYE, NI, pension contributions, travel costs, household bills, mortgage, etc! 

Many millionaires are self-made, many come from working class backgrounds and lived on council estates, but they worked their fingers to the bone to earn their living and I do not begrudge them their fortunes.  Working class men such as Lord Alan Michael Sugar (who was born into a working class family, living on a council estate) should be seen as an inspiration to others.  

Not everyone who is born into poverty wants to remain so.  Many work their fingers to the bone to earn their wealth, others study hard, work hard and get promotions within their workplace, and others emigrate to the UK from poorer countries because they can earn a higher wage in the UK than in their own country.  

(The singer Ketevan Melua, better known as Katie Melua, was born in Georgia when it was still a part of the Soviet Union.  In the 1980s, her father, a qualified heart surgeon, was earning less money than a taxi driver could earn in Georgia!  How was it fair that a qualified professional surgeon, performing life-saving operations, was earning less money than a taxi driver?  After the fall of Communism in the early 1990s, the Meluas emigrated to Belfast, Northern Ireland, and then eventually to Surrey, England, where Ketevan's father now works as a GP.  At the first opportunity he got, her father did not hestitate to make a better life for his family, when the fall of Communism and the Soviet Union gave him the opportunity to seek a medical job with a better paid salary in the UK.  Ketevan herself attended the Brit School of Musical Arts, eventually being talent-spotted by Mike Batt.  Adopting the stage name of Katie Melua, she is now a multi-millionaire, successful singer.)

Thank you for that long reply zone tripper. I learned a lot about you but I'm not sure you realise the bind you put yourself in. You argue that Britain and Denmark are not comparable in size and then you tell us a lot about yourself and extrapolate from there to encapsulate everyone else. You and everyone else are not the same size. What is right for you, in all of that detail, is not right for everyone else. We all have to fit on a planet whose resources are very unequally divided and may be nearing a point where the consequences of that have very significant effects.

Your comment about the SWP was pretty cheap. The fact that you no longer have those leanings is no significant marker of maturity. I could name any number of people, presumably more qualified than both of us, who are well-respected economists and political thinkers, and who do see real problems in such an unequal society. Not everyone is as rational about their mediocre wage as you seem to be. The £140,000 compensation is not so material for me. It's more a sign of decadence and no reason at all for not engaging with the NAS. Perhaps I should ask to be paid in cash because I do not like how much bankers get paid or live in a cave because of the salaries of solicitors. I guess having an opinion about high pay is problematic is it?

Zone-tripper: I have Aspergers, can read, write, have been to Uni and attained an upper 2.1 History degree, have recently attained Permitted work on a part-time basis, and now live more or less independently in my own flat.....But I have a long-term disability (Aspergers) with significant mental-health problems, and I do not think my condition is 'mild'. While my issues are very different to a person who can't speak and is  learning disabled, I actually experience a similar degree of disability relative to what is expected of me. You are very lucky to be able to go to gigs on your own, and to have a full-time job, but only 15 per cent of people with Aspergers are in full-term work!. Most people with Aspergers require some degree of support, and the NAS should campaign for this support to be made available. Not everyone is as fortunate as yourself!

The Imp of the Perverse said:

The Imp of the Perverse

All of what you say is fine zone tripper but £140,000 compensation IS an issue at this time. What the last few years has shown is that there is no direct correlation between business acumen and competence. The NAS chief executive isn't getting all that money because of who he is but what the NAS charity is offering. The proof will be in the result...not at the end of his tenure but when his actions are no longer effective in any way. 

The NAS CEO does not have to accept that money. He could make a gesture and our country could begin, in the smallest of ways, to get to grips with over-extended salaries. The old argument used to be that 'luxury' amounts of wealth don't matter because these people will use that money to employ lots of people. You might call that Downton Abbey economics. I, personally, disagree with that idea. All it does is produce a servant class. Plus accountants. Plus lawyers. Plus interior decorators. And so on. Nothing happens in isolation.

I was recently reading that in Denmark, being a lawyer is not that well-paid and that huge discrepancies in wealth are nowhere near what we have. So if you are OK with a top tier of people commanding resources that no ordinary person could possibily have use for then that is your choice. It is precisely this that I think has gone wrong with this county. And it's getting worse.

[This debate reminds me of my student days, in my late teens, when I was a member of the Socialist Workers Party for a (thankfully) short time.  I am now 36 and have matured since then!]

Denmark is a much smaller country and not comparable with the UK economically.    

Secondly, some people who live in poorer countries have emigrated to the UK, precisely because they can earn higher wages in the UK for doing a skilled profession; not everyone who is poorly paid or low-waged wishes to remain so!  

When you are born into poverty, you can either bemoan those who have more than you (despite the fact that many of them have worked hard at University and in the workplace, in order to earn the money they earn) and spend your entire life quoting Karl Marx, or you can get as good an education as possible, work hard, and maybe one day earn a very good living yourself.  

Some self-made millioniares, like Lord Alan Michael Sugar were born into working class families, living in council houses, but worked their fingers to the bone for many years to earn their wealth.  Not everyone who is rich came from a rich background; a lot of people who are rich came from poor families.  

I believe that the wealthy should pay their fair share in taxes into the Government coffers.  However, £130,000 per year is a small drop in the ocean compared to what a premiership footballer can earn PER WEEK, or what a banker may earn in bonuses, etc.  Indeed, when you deduct PAYE, NI and pension contributions, household bills, travel to and from work / commuting, etc, I reckon the Chief Executive's disposable income is not £130,000!  

I am earning £19,000 per year before PAYE, NI and pension contributions.  However, I can assure you I would LOVE to be earning £130,000 per year.  Some of us born into poverty or working class families do not want to spend the rest of our lives poor and are determined to work hard to better ourselves and earn a decent living. 

Membership to the NAS is entirely voluntary; members who disagree with what the Chief Executive is can simply not renew their membership or join the board of trustees.