Why the cuts have to stop

[lucky]

As the Torie cuts start to bite and more people lose their jobs. Fuel and other other household bill rise. We will see more families effected to the extent that they need food parcels. In a country which is one of the richest on this planet and has people resorting to not feeding themselves to feed their kids its surely time to put people before profit. Why as nation do we allow this to happen?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13765820

[Speedy]

I get what you're saying but articles like that piss me off. All it's doing is trying to exaggerate the situation.

They have a poor income and seven kids, of course they're having trouble with bills. There will be people worse off in every country in the world. It's far from representative of the average family.

[stoneyburn hibs]

as we donate £800 million to a vaccination programme ..

[Green Mikey]

as we donate £800 million to a vaccination programme ..

£800 million represents about 0.1% of our total debt.

I think it is important that we remember that there are people less fortunate than us and we have it within our power to help.

[stoneyburn hibs]

£800 million represents about 0.1% of our total debt.

I think it is important that we remember that there are people less fortunate than us and we have it within our power to help.

but why across the board do we have to give so much money to other countries ?, and as for the £800m to the vaccine programme , seems we have gone in way heavier than any other country.

[McSwanky]

but why across the board do we have to give so much money to other countries ?, and as for the £800m to the vaccine programme , seems we have gone in way heavier than any other country.

Aye, right enough, screw them. Why should we care that innocent people are dying of entirely preventable diseases? They weren't born in Britain, stuff em. Let them die. Yes?

[stoneyburn hibs]

Aye, right enough, screw them. Why should we care that innocent people are dying of entirely preventable diseases? They weren't born in Britain, stuff em. Let them die. Yes?

where did i say in my post not to give ?

[Phil D. Rolls]

Yeah, I'm selling my disability car and moving to Sierra Leone.

Peace, bread, land!

[Phil D. Rolls]

as we donate £800 million to a vaccination programme ..

A bit silly when you think about it. We might not be as well off as we were (my neighbours in Muirhouse are having to make do with one holiday in Florida this year).

We are substantially better off than people in the third world, when we are sleeping in the streets and sharing toilets with 40 other people, I might feel that saving children's lives is a luxury we can't afford.

Besides if we keep them alive longer, there's more chance we can sell them weapons to kill each other.

[stoneyburn hibs]

A bit silly when you think about it. We might not be as well off as we were (my neighbours in Muirhouse are having to make do with one holiday in Florida this year).

We are substantially better off than people in the third world, when we are sleeping in the streets and sharing toilets with 40 other people, I might feel that saving children's lives is a luxury we can't afford.

Besides if we keep them alive longer, there's more chance we can sell them weapons to kill each other.

aye fair enough, but there are lot of other countries as well off as we are, who dont put in anywhere near as much as we do.

[McSwanky]

aye fair enough, but there are lot of other countries as well off as we are, who dont put in anywhere near as much as we do.

So we base our moral stance on the lowest common denominator? I would hope that our government have enough savvy to make up their own minds rather than checking to see what France, Germany etc are doing first. Come to think of it, I'm sure there are loads of people just as well off as me who don't give to charity so I dont think I'll bother giving anything any more.

[matty_f]

I get what you're saying but articles like that piss me off. All it's doing is trying to exaggerate the situation.

They have a poor income and seven kids, of course they're having trouble with bills. There will be people worse off in every country in the world. It's far from representative of the average family.

I'm not sure it's that much of an exaggeration, though I do take your point that using someone with 7 kids is stretching it a bit.

That said, it's all relative and I know that people far wealthier than the couple featured are having to make substantial lifestyle changes just to get by.

I've certainly noticed a big difference in my standard of living over the last few years as a result of a significantly higher cost of living.

[bighairyfaeleith]

I'm not poor, I earn a decent enough wage, so does the missus but I must admit to now noticing the increased cost of living. Everything I buy seems more expensive and I definitely have less money in my pocket than I used to have, however I would rather we looked at cutting things like trident to save 6 Billion than 800 million in aid to save thousands of kids.

However, we cannot allow ourselves to be seen as a soft touch when it comes to charity either, otherwise other countries like france etc will just let us keep picking up the tab and doing nothing themselves, we should be putting more pressure on these countries to match us pound for pound.

[Beefster]

Why is it that Labour supporters always parrot the party line when criticising government policy? I've yet to see someone on here deviate from the same line as their MPs follow on TV.

When Labour present a feasible alternative to the current deficit reduction, there may actually be a genuine and realistic debate in this country about how to deal with the deficit. It appears, had the less wonky Miliband won, he would have admitted that the deficit needed to be dealt with and that Labour/Ed Balls were wrong on it.

In the meantime, when folk say "the cuts must stop" what they implicitly mean is "let our kids pay for our overspending". Our kids are going to have enough to worry about with their own problems and the ageing population without paying our debts too.

[steakbake]

Didn't Alistair Darling himself admit that massive cuts would have to be made? And wasn't the last credible deficit reduction plan set out by Labour more or less 85% of the cuts which are currently happening?

I don't see what the alternative actually is. Plenty of people bleating for 'the alternative' but precious few, including Ed Balls, setting out an alternative fully costed plan of what they'd do. Balls in fact, seems particular useless on this point. He'll gladly spend hours on TV berating any cuts yet at the same time will come out with some woolly suggestion along the lines of "the deficit isn't that bad - spend to create public sector jobs to make the economy grow". It would embarrass even the most idealistic student union activist.

This is short term pain, comparatively speaking. Brown ended boom and bust and also saved the world, but we're going to have to pay for it somehow.

[Phil D. Rolls]

as we donate £800 million to a vaccination programme ..


aye fair enough, but there are lot of other countries as well off as we are, who dont put in anywhere near as much as we do.

What are the figures? Because if France isn't giving as much as we are, with their massive population, then I am happy for kids to die of preventable diseases.

[Phil D. Rolls]

Didn't Alistair Darling himself admit that massive cuts would have to be made? And wasn't the last credible deficit reduction plan set out by Labour more or less 85% of the cuts which are currently happening?

I don't see what the alternative actually is. Plenty of people bleating for 'the alternative' but precious few, including Ed Balls, setting out an alternative fully costed plan of what they'd do. Balls in fact, seems particular useless on this point. He'll gladly spend hours on TV berating any cuts yet at the same time will come out with some woolly suggestion along the lines of "the deficit isn't that bad - spend to create public sector jobs to make the economy grow". It would embarrass even the most idealistic student union activist.

This is short term pain, comparatively speaking. Brown ended boom and bust and also saved the world, but we're going to have to pay for it somehow.

I don't think the debate is whehter or not to cut. It has been how soon and how deeo to cut. Many believe that Osborne may remove the tumour but kill the patient.

[Jack]

The coalition seem to be in a spin with all their U turns ‘we’re going to do this’, then ‘no we wont’ or ‘maybe we will’. Armed Forces cuts, or not, next.

IMO the legacy of the coalition will be the breakdown of public services; derelict hospitals (in England) a monument in their honour and another lost generation.

Its interesting that the richest in the country (not particularly just the bankers) are already back to seeing increases in their income well into double percentage figures while the poorest, and not so poor, are continuing to see their income drop – ‘because we must all pull together’.

With regard to the vaccine. Although I’ve not seen this anywhere I suspect it may be part of the package the NHS has agreed with drug companies, possibly as a sweetener for the reduced price the NHS is demanding from them i.e. the government spend £800m on nearly out of date drugs sent to the 3rd world and the NHS drug bill is reduced by £800m a year. The drug companies get their dosh this year but the NHS makes savings in future – maybe not though but it does tie in with the NHS negotiating a huge deal.

[steakbake]

I don't think the debate is whehter or not to cut. It has been how soon and how deeo to cut. Many believe that Osborne may remove the tumour but kill the patient.

...others believe that unless Osborne removes the tumour the patient has very little chance of survival anyway!

[Beefster]

I don't think the debate is whehter or not to cut. It has been how soon and how deeo to cut. Many believe that Osborne may remove the tumour but kill the patient.

I agree about the general debate but the OP wants the cuts to 'stop'.

[Betty Boop]

Did anybody watch 'Poor Kids' last week on BBC ? Absolutely heartbreaking to watch, and unbelievable that kids are living in these levels of poverty, in the 4th richest economy in the world. (and no their parents were not benefit scroungers, before anybody starts).

[RyeSloan]

As the Torie cuts start to bite and more people lose their jobs. Fuel and other other household bill rise. We will see more families effected to the extent that they need food parcels. In a country which is one of the richest on this planet and has people resorting to not feeding themselves to feed their kids its surely time to put people before profit. Why as nation do we allow this to happen?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13765820

What cuts?

Have you seen public spending levels?

Can you honestly say that record public spending is the reason this woman can't feed her children?

Is it not the fact that inflation (and therefore effective reduction in spending power) is the only way this country can get out of the horror show of national debt.

Is it not the fact that if we had a reduced national debt the government of the day WOULD be able to provide more assistance (if deemed appropriate!)

What are your proposals to ensure as a nation we don't allow this to happen....?

[stoneyburn hibs]

What are the figures? Because if France isn't giving as much as we are, with their massive population, then I am happy for kids to die of preventable diseases.

Dont know the figures, sure i could get them though, i never said dont donate to other countries, i am curious as to why we give a lot more foreign aid compared to other countries as well off as the uk.

[Leicester Fan]

The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/8569367/Labour-spending-Gordon-Brown-and-Ed-Balls-ignored-warnings-and-wasted-billions.html)


A confidential document presented to the Cabinet in January 2006 asks: "We've spent all this money, but what have we got for it?"
It warns that the efficiency of the public sector needed to improve rapidly and insisted that "spending growth will slow". The document drafted by civil servants also says that "ineffective spending" must be "closed down".
However, Gordon Brown discarded the advice and embarked on a £90 billion increase in spending when he became prime minister.
The expenditure meant that the economy was left facing a record deficit as the effects of the recession were felt.

Before anyone says "it's just the Torygraph" there's a link to the actual civil service papers.

[lyonhibs]

[QUOTE=Leicester Fan;2829571]The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/8569367/Labour-spending-Gordon-Brown-and-Ed-Balls-ignored-warnings-and-wasted-billions.html)



Before anyone says "it's just the Torygraph" there's a link to the actual civil service papers.[/QUOTE

"Its just the Torygraph" :greengrin

Looks like Blair - latterly - and Brown dropped a bit of a bollock if they actually did dismiss this paper out of hand

[Sir David Gray]

I think everyone's aware that living costs have been rising over the past couple of years but the BBC article, and also this thread, might have a bit more credibility if it hadn't featured a family of NINE.

Profiling a mother who has seven children to feed as an argument for why there should be no cuts at all is just absurd.

[Phil D. Rolls]

...others believe that unless Osborne removes the tumour the patient has very little chance of survival anyway!

No doubt about that. It's the skill of the surgeon that's open to question.

[Phil D. Rolls]

I agree about the general debate but the OP wants the cuts to 'stop'.

We can't have what we can't afford. :agree:


What cuts?

Have you seen public spending levels?

Can you honestly say that record public spending is the reason this woman can't feed her children?

Is it not the fact that inflation (and therefore effective reduction in spending power) is the only way this country can get out of the horror show of national debt.

Is it not the fact that if we had a reduced national debt the government of the day WOULD be able to provide more assistance (if deemed appropriate!)

What are your proposals to ensure as a nation we don't allow this to happen....?

I suppose you could say that public sector workers having a pay freeze is a cut. As well as that there is pretty much a recruitment freeze in the NHS with many nurses unable to find jobs.

I'm not saying whether that is right or wrong, merely highlighting the fact spending is getting reigned in.


Dont know the figures, sure i could get them though, i never said dont donate to other countries, i am curious as to why we give a lot more foreign aid compared to other countries as well off as the uk.

Fair question, I wonder if this is a way Britain seeks to gain political influence in certain areas of the word. As a small country, we need to have export markets for example.

[steakbake]

No doubt about that. It's the skill of the surgeon that's open to question.

:greengrin

A medical analogy-off. I like it. I have nowhere else to go after that one.

[steakbake]

Balls' latest idea is interesting - cut VAT and stimulate spending.

However, throwing in this proposal now which so far, he has not proposed, makes him look out of his depth.

It's a bit like when you're looking for your keys and several hours into the search, someone pipes up "do you remember where you last had them"?

[Hibs Class]

Balls' latest idea is interesting - cut VAT and stimulate spending.

However, throwing in this proposal now which so far, he has not proposed, makes him look out of his depth.

It's a bit like when you're looking for your keys and several hours into the search, someone pipes up "do you remember where you last had them"?

Don't disagree with your assessment of Balls but I'd support cutting VAT. I think the Govt's response was to note that the increase in VAT to 20% was a structural change to the country's tax system. When you consider that all VAT we pay is a 20% surcharge that we have to meet out of income that has already had a sizeable chunk removed by VAT and NI it is amazing that any Govt can get away with such robbery.

[steakbake]

Don't disagree with your assessment of Balls but I'd support cutting VAT. I think the Govt's response was to note that the increase in VAT to 20% was a structural change to the country's tax system. When you consider that all VAT we pay is a 20% surcharge that we have to meet out of income that has already had a sizeable chunk removed by VAT and NI it is amazing that any Govt can get away with such robbery.

I don't disagree - the general idea.

[IWasThere2016]

Balls' latest idea is interesting - cut VAT and stimulate spending.

However, throwing in this proposal now which so far, he has not proposed, makes him look out of his depth.

It's a bit like when you're looking for your keys and several hours into the search, someone pipes up "do you remember where you last had them"?

A VAT cut wouldn't increase our disposable income significantly, as the main causes of the rise in the cost of living for most are - food and utilities - these are levied a 0% and 5% respectively. ONLY a direct tax cut will do so - or the re-introduction of something like MIRAS to move the property market/encourage first time buyers etc .. should the banks ever lend of course! :devil:

[Speedy]

Don't disagree with your assessment of Balls but I'd support cutting VAT. I think the Govt's response was to note that the increase in VAT to 20% was a structural change to the country's tax system. When you consider that all VAT we pay is a 20% surcharge that we have to meet out of income that has already had a sizeable chunk removed by VAT and NI it is amazing that any Govt can get away with such robbery.

:greengrin

[RyeSloan]

Feels like a sound bite policy to me.

There is no clear evidence from what I have seen reported that the previous cut to 15% did anything but cost the government of the day money.

I hear Balls' argument that it leaves extra money in the economy which is then used to spend more or increase investment....it's just that there is little to prove that a 2.5% cut in VAT would do anything like that, or if it did that it would make a material impact on the performance of the economy.

Considering some of the global issues that impact the economy (and remember it was these global issue that were the main reason Labour claim the deficit grew so quickly) it seems slightly disingenuous to suggest one tax cut will save the day.

What is certain is that the cut would reduce the treasury inflow so thereby forcing extra borrowing, what is not certian is that the money lost would then generate extra economic growth to cover that borrowing (and the cost of borrowing) in any sensible timeframe.

[steakbake]

A VAT cut wouldn't increase our disposable income significantly, as the main causes of the rise in the cost of living for most are - food and utilities - these are levied a 0% and 5% respectively. ONLY a direct tax cut will do so - or the re-introduction of something like MIRAS to move the property market/encourage first time buyers etc .. should the banks ever lend of course! :devil:

I recently got a mortgage. Which was nice!

[Phil D. Rolls]

At the end of the day, the guy has got to get real, does he really think the British will ever vote for a Prime Minister with the name "Balls"?

The tabloids must be peeing themselves with excitement. One day Balls down, Balls up.

[Levenhibee]

Did anybody watch 'Poor Kids' last week on BBC ? Absolutely heartbreaking to watch, and unbelievable that kids are living in these levels of poverty, in the 4th richest economy in the world. (and no their parents were not benefit scroungers, before anybody starts).

I watched it and yes it was heartbreaking. Makes me realise how fortunate I am.

The boy who got a haircut for his birthday and wore hand me down school blouses is a real gem.

[magpie1892]

Profiling a mother who has seven children to feed as an argument for why there should be no cuts at all is just absurd.

Makes a compelling argument for the abolition of the License Tax though, doesn't it?

[Beefster]

Makes a compelling argument for the abolition of the License Tax though, doesn't it?

Not in my opinion. A commercial BBC would be an identikit of ITV and Sky 1. One of the unique points of the BBC is that they can provide the sort of programming that appeals to niche markets but which would never attract advertising for a commercial broadcaster - Sky at Night for just one example. We also wouldn't get their excellent radio stations and online resources.

The BBC does a lot wrong - left-leaning bias, opinionated reporting, terrible tech reporting, using white, middle class families as 'case studies' for everything - but they do a lot of great stuff too.

Watch the inane complaints on 'Newswatch' on a Saturday morning during Breakfast to see that it's utterly impossible to please everyone all the time.

[magpie1892]

Not in my opinion. A commercial BBC would be an identikit of ITV and Sky 1. One of the unique points of the BBC is that they can provide the sort of programming that appeals to niche markets but which would never attract advertising for a commercial broadcaster - Sky at Night for just one example. We also wouldn't get their excellent radio stations and online resources.

The BBC does a lot wrong - left-leaning bias, opinionated reporting, terrible tech reporting, using white, middle class families as 'case studies' for everything - but they do a lot of great stuff too.

Watch the inane complaints on 'Newswatch' on a Saturday morning during Breakfast to see that it's utterly impossible to please everyone all the time.

Hmm... agree and disagree. The BBC's appalling editorial bias needs to be addressed and, as it shows not even an iota of desire to clean its own stables, should be forced to.

Being legally obliged to pay - and the harassment of people that don't even own TVs (see online on numerous sites) - regardless of whether you use the service (Sky News in this house, nothing else) stings as well.

BBC Scotland's bias is not as pronounced as what comes out of London/Manchester but, and I speak from experience here, you should see how they operate down south, esp, in news and current affairs - some of the editorial and production values would make Goebbels blush.

Wholly untenable in its current form, in the long run.

[Steve-O]

You are not alone in the UK.

The right of centre National Party here in New Zealand are implementing similar cuts and I can tell you that the cost of food here is even more than in the UK, by some distance as well (I was back at xmas and thought everything was very cheap!).

I go to the supermarket to get 'a couple of things' and never fail to spend less than about $60 (30 quid) and it doesn't get much at all. One of the biggest dairy producers in the world and the price of dairy products is ridiculous - i.e. about $5 for a litre of milk and $10+ for 1kg of cheese!

Oh and a 'pint' (mostly 425ml glasses) is around $7-$8 in pubs. That's 3.50 - 4 quid.

[PaulSmith]

I was going to start another thread but this seems a good a place as any to start about public sector pensions and their working conditions.

Am I right in saying that the Govt in essence want to curb or stop the final salary pension scheme for public sector workers. Or at the very least ask them to pay c.2% per year extra towards their pension?

I'm not a Tory by any stretch of the imagination but GOOD. The pension schemes that were designed in the 50's/60's no longer work in modern times and the cost of providing them are crippling the country and as a private sector employee it does my goat to see my taxes rise to pay whilst the Unions hold the country to ransom.

Could any of the said public sector workers please come on here and tell me why your pension scheme should stay as it is whilst almost every large corporate ditched or changed their pensions within the last 10 years.

[Steve-O]

I was going to start another thread but this seems a good a place as any to start about public sector pensions and their working conditions.

Am I right in saying that the Govt in essence want to curb or stop the final salary pension scheme for public sector workers. Or at the very least ask them to pay c.2% per year extra towards their pension?

I'm not a Tory by any stretch of the imagination but GOOD. The pension schemes that were designed in the 50's/60's no longer work in modern times and the cost of providing them are crippling the country and as a private sector employee it does my goat to see my taxes rise to pay whilst the Unions hold the country to ransom.

Could any of the said public sector workers please come on here and tell me why your pension scheme should stay as it is whilst almost every large corporate ditched or changed their pensions within the last 10 years.

A quick guess but possibly public sector salaries are less than private sector?

Just a guess but that's the case here in NZ...and we don't have a good pension scheme either - employee, employer and government contribute to 'Kiwisaver'.

[Big Ed]

I was going to start another thread but this seems a good a place as any to start about public sector pensions and their working conditions.

Am I right in saying that the Govt in essence want to curb or stop the final salary pension scheme for public sector workers. Or at the very least ask them to pay c.2% per year extra towards their pension?

I'm not a Tory by any stretch of the imagination but GOOD. The pension schemes that were designed in the 50's/60's no longer work in modern times and the cost of providing them are crippling the country and as a private sector employee it does my goat to see my taxes rise to pay whilst the Unions hold the country to ransom.

Could any of the said public sector workers please come on here and tell me why your pension scheme should stay as it is whilst almost every large corporate ditched or changed their pensions within the last 10 years.

The reason that Public Sector Workers should keep their pension rights is because, unlike the Private Sector Workers that you refer to; they have Union representation and therefore are able to make a fist of sticking up for themselves.
I see it gets your goat to see your taxes rise to pay whilst the Unions hold the country to ransom: how does your goat feel about funding militatry operations in countries who have not acted aggressively against us, or a mobile phone provider being let off with £6,000,000,000 tax bill?
What I find really dispiriting about this post is that, despite not being a Tory, you have shown absolutely no empathy towards other people who are finding things tough too, but will at least have something tangible to look forward to in later life. Someone else has got something good - right, take it off the ****ing *******s.

[Jack]

I was going to start another thread but this seems a good a place as any to start about public sector pensions and their working conditions.

Am I right in saying that the Govt in essence want to curb or stop the final salary pension scheme for public sector workers. Or at the very least ask them to pay c.2% per year extra towards their pension?

I'm not a Tory by any stretch of the imagination but GOOD. The pension schemes that were designed in the 50's/60's no longer work in modern times and the cost of providing them are crippling the country and as a private sector employee it does my goat to see my taxes rise to pay whilst the Unions hold the country to ransom.

Could any of the said public sector workers please come on here and tell me why your pension scheme should stay as it is whilst almost every large corporate ditched or changed their pensions within the last 10 years.


Hopefully I can make this short.

Public Sector Pensions Schemes are no longer final salary for new employees, for the vast majority of schemes, they haven’t been for a good many years. The one for MPs and MSPs are among the very few remaining final salary schemes in the public sector.

The Hutton report, and many others over the last 30 odd years I’ve been interested, show the PSPS not to be an onerous burden on the State for a few reasons, some of which I will cover. The Hutton report, based on information from the Cabinet Office (the Gestapo of the Civil Service as far as money is concerned) and the National Audit Office (independent audit type people for the public sector) for example predict the cost of PSPSs will fall from 1.9% of GDP to 1.4% over the next [can’t remember how many] years.

Members of the PSPSs generally have their remuneration packages compared with private sector packages (MPs, MPSs being the exception). These comparisons include absolutely everything; salary, pensions, holidays, subsidised staff restaurants, medical insurance etc.. These surveys of remuneration are carried out by companies independent of both government and unions.

Based on the information contained in these surveys the unions go for a higher than average settlement, the employers for lower than average. On a good year the employees get average! In my 30+ years experience I have never known better than average – maybe once but that was a mistake! What this means is that public sector salaries are generally lower than private sector as the potential better benefits of the PSPSs are already taken into account and the public sector unions historically haven’t been very good. Although to be fair with more than 66% of the workforce women industrial action isn’t as effective as it could be and unsurprisingly the government take full advantage of that.

This also has the benefit, for the employer, that the eventual pension, based on a final salary (which you'll remember is lower than it might have been in the private sector) will be pay out less over the time of payment.

In my own personal circumstance the last survey showed I was between a fifth and a sixth down on my private sector counterpart on the remuneration package. The question is, would it be better to give me that ‘money’ now (probably taking most of it back in pension payments :rolleyes:), together with a higher pension at the end of the day, or just keep public sector wages down?

IMO increasing the public sector wage bill by that amount would cost much more than it would save.

Hope this helps. :greengrin

[Beefster]

A quick guess but possibly public sector salaries are less than private sector?

Just a guess but that's the case here in NZ...and we don't have a good pension scheme either - employee, employer and government contribute to 'Kiwisaver'.

That was possibly the case when the public sector pension scheme was designed but not nowadays. Public sector employees are paid, on average, £2000 more than private sector workers.

[Beefster]

Hopefully I can make this short.

Public Sector Pensions Schemes are no longer final salary for new employees, for the vast majority of schemes, they haven’t been for a good many years. The one for MPs and MSPs are among the very few remaining final salary schemes in the public sector.

The Hutton report, and many others over the last 30 odd years I’ve been interested, show the PSPS not to be an onerous burden on the State for a few reasons, some of which I will cover. The Hutton report, based on information from the Cabinet Office (the Gestapo of the Civil Service as far as money is concerned) and the National Audit Office (independent audit type people for the public sector) for example predict the cost of PSPSs will fall from 1.9% of GDP to 1.4% over the next [can’t remember how many] years.

Members of the PSPSs generally have their remuneration packages compared with private sector packages (MPs, MPSs being the exception). These comparisons include absolutely everything; salary, pensions, holidays, subsidised staff restaurants, medical insurance etc.. These surveys of remuneration are carried out by companies independent of both government and unions.

Based on the information contained in these surveys the unions go for a higher than average settlement, the employers for lower than average. On a good year the employees get average! In my 30+ years experience I have never known better than average – maybe once but that was a mistake! What this means is that public sector salaries are generally lower than private sector as the potential better benefits of the PSPSs are already taken into account and the public sector unions historically haven’t been very good. Although to be fair with more than 66% of the workforce women industrial action isn’t as effective as it could be and unsurprisingly the government take full advantage of that.

This also has the benefit, for the employer, that the eventual pension, based on a final salary (which you'll remember is lower than it might have been in the private sector) will be pay out less over the time of payment.

In my own personal circumstance the last survey showed I was between a fifth and a sixth down on my private sector counterpart on the remuneration package. The question is, would it be better to give me that ‘money’ now (probably taking most of it back in pension payments :rolleyes:), together with a higher pension at the end of the day, or just keep public sector wages down?

IMO increasing the public sector wage bill by that amount would cost much more than it would save.

Hope this helps. :greengrin

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7036131/Record-gap-between-public-and-private-sector-pay.html

[RyeSloan]

Hopefully I can make this short.

Public Sector Pensions Schemes are no longer final salary for new employees, for the vast majority of schemes, they haven’t been for a good many years. The one for MPs and MSPs are among the very few remaining final salary schemes in the public sector.

The Hutton report, and many others over the last 30 odd years I’ve been interested, show the PSPS not to be an onerous burden on the State for a few reasons, some of which I will cover. The Hutton report, based on information from the Cabinet Office (the Gestapo of the Civil Service as far as money is concerned) and the National Audit Office (independent audit type people for the public sector) for example predict the cost of PSPSs will fall from 1.9% of GDP to 1.4% over the next [can’t remember how many] years.

Members of the PSPSs generally have their remuneration packages compared with private sector packages (MPs, MPSs being the exception). These comparisons include absolutely everything; salary, pensions, holidays, subsidised staff restaurants, medical insurance etc.. These surveys of remuneration are carried out by companies independent of both government and unions.

Based on the information contained in these surveys the unions go for a higher than average settlement, the employers for lower than average. On a good year the employees get average! In my 30+ years experience I have never known better than average – maybe once but that was a mistake! What this means is that public sector salaries are generally lower than private sector as the potential better benefits of the PSPSs are already taken into account and the public sector unions historically haven’t been very good. Although to be fair with more than 66% of the workforce women industrial action isn’t as effective as it could be and unsurprisingly the government take full advantage of that.

This also has the benefit, for the employer, that the eventual pension, based on a final salary (which you'll remember is lower than it might have been in the private sector) will be pay out less over the time of payment.

In my own personal circumstance the last survey showed I was between a fifth and a sixth down on my private sector counterpart on the remuneration package. The question is, would it be better to give me that ‘money’ now (probably taking most of it back in pension payments :rolleyes:), together with a higher pension at the end of the day, or just keep public sector wages down?

IMO increasing the public sector wage bill by that amount would cost much more than it would save.

Hope this helps. :greengrin

A few links....as ever with pensions it's impossible to get an exact answer but it seems to me that what ever way you cut it the tax payer is being expected to fund a portion of public sector workers pensions.

Hutton mentioned fairness and I think that's the right word. Is it fair to expect private sector workers to have to save for their own retirement while paying extra tax to top up another sectors pension payments? Is it also fair that the pensions being topped up tend to be on better terms then the private sectors workers?

I don't think anyone would have a problem with anyones pension scheme as long as the employee and employer contributions were equitable and that those contributions cover the schemes benefits.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/pensions/article6597719.ece

http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/politics/mps-call-for-public-sector-pension-cost-benchmark/1031661.article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2011/mar/12/public-sector-pensions-burden-getting-lighter

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8317046/Public-sector-pensions-to-cost-taxpayer-10bn-a-year-by-2016-by-numbers.html

[Big Ed]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7036131/Record-gap-between-public-and-private-sector-pay.html

Simply comparing the financial middle position of the private and public sectors is so oversimplified that it borders on the deceitful.
How many unskilled and unqualified workers now work for the Public Sector? (now that Cleaners and Security Guards etc. in hospitals and Public Sector offices are employed by Private Sector companies) - not too many.
A more accurate example may be someone who is employed as an HR consultant in a Bank compared with his or her couterpart in the Public Sector (taking into account years of service etc.)
As for the rest of that article: there are direct quotes from the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, the chief economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the then Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the policy director at the Institute of Directors, each one with a vested interest in exacerbating these devisive and misleading statistics, yet still there is not one attempt at offering a contrary contention or argument. Balanced is a word that does not spring to mind.

[Mibbes Aye]

A few links....as ever with pensions it's impossible to get an exact answer but it seems to me that what ever way you cut it the tax payer is being expected to fund a portion of public sector workers pensions.

Hutton mentioned fairness and I think that's the right word. Is it fair to expect private sector workers to have to save for their own retirement while paying extra tax to top up another sectors pension payments? Is it also fair that the pensions being topped up tend to be on better terms then the private sectors workers?

I don't think anyone would have a problem with anyones pension scheme as long as the employee and employer contributions were equitable and that those contributions cover the schemes benefits.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/pensions/article6597719.ece

http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/politics/mps-call-for-public-sector-pension-cost-benchmark/1031661.article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2011/mar/12/public-sector-pensions-burden-getting-lighter

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8317046/Public-sector-pensions-to-cost-taxpayer-10bn-a-year-by-2016-by-numbers.html

Pensions are one part of the overall remuneration package that public sector employees receive. And being public sector,that is taxpayer-funded. That's how it works. If their pensions for example, are to be removed from that settlement then it sounds to me like the start of a backdoor privatisation of public services.

There was a whole raft of pension reform three years ago which led to a settlement that was seen as sustainable by all sides. The government is merely trying to use the politics of envy to attack the public sector and free up money to use as tax bribes prior to the next election.

Maybe if they hadn't made such a pig's ear of building growth and jobs, they wouldn't need to try and rip the money of nurses and teachers. Then again, they probably still would.

[Jack]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7036131/Record-gap-between-public-and-private-sector-pay.html

Average wages over the whole nation don't tell the whole story. The majority of the public sector is broadly admin and professional whereas the whole nation includes all those in less well paid jobs. The surveys I mentioned previously compare like with like – admin with admin and professional with professional.


A few links....as ever with pensions it's impossible to get an exact answer but it seems to me that what ever way you cut it the tax payer is being expected to fund a portion of public sector workers pensions.

Hutton mentioned fairness and I think that's the right word. Is it fair to expect private sector workers to have to save for their own retirement while paying extra tax to top up another sectors pension payments? Is it also fair that the pensions being topped up tend to be on better terms then the private sectors workers?

I don't think anyone would have a problem with anyones pension scheme as long as the employee and employer contributions were equitable and that those contributions cover the schemes benefits.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/pensions/article6597719.ece

http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/politics/mps-call-for-public-sector-pension-cost-benchmark/1031661.article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2011/mar/12/public-sector-pensions-burden-getting-lighter

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8317046/Public-sector-pensions-to-cost-taxpayer-10bn-a-year-by-2016-by-numbers.html


The tax [payer] pays for the public sector whether that is salaries or pensions.

The question I raised earlier asked how do you want to fund that public sector remuneration package?

Do you put all the money up front so that the public sector are seen to get paid the going rate and pay the full whack for their pensions, or as governments in the past have said you'll get less money throughout your career [in the public sector] with the reward at the end.

What started off as a couple of hundred pounds a year light in my salary when I first started work is now a good few thousand. That ‘unseen’ money paying for the benefit of a decent pension when I retire – that was the official line.

Seeing that decent pension being taken away is a bit like being scammed. A rough calculation suggests my ‘unseen’ contribution, over the pension contributions I already make, to this scam is around £125,000. CALL THE POLICE! :grr:

It also seems to me that what the government want to do now is remove that benefit while continuing to pay salaries below the going rate. CALL THE UNIONS :stirrer:

[magpie1892]

Maybe if they hadn't made such a pig's ear of building growth and jobs, they wouldn't need to try and rip the money of nurses and teachers. Then again, they probably still would.

I know, eh? They've had a whole YEAR to get the economy putting like a kitten again in the middle of a recession. Dereliction of duty, that is.

You missed out: 'the weak, disabled, ill, elderly, BMEs, LGBTs, etc.' who are getting their money ripped off. Sloppy of you. Had Labour won the election, they hadn't planned to make c.95% of the same cuts as the Tories have. Perish the thought!

I've never voted Tory and never will but the economy they inherited from Labour was hilariously summed up by Liam Byrne's wee note in his desk. Nurse! My sides!

This binary opposition is pitiful, myopic, and, of course, neglects to mention the rogering that Brown gave the economy in his attempts to create a client state of compliant Labour voters. He failed at that, as we see, much as he failed at virtually everything he attempted, but everyone pays the price nonetheless. Oh, except guys with floppy hair and stripy blazers, of course.

On the plus side, Brown did 'end boom and bust'. So... every cloud, eh?

[Mibbes Aye]

I know, eh? They've had a whole YEAR to get the economy putting like a kitten again in the middle of a recession. Dereliction of duty, that is.

You missed out: 'the weak, disabled, ill, elderly, BMEs, LGBTs, etc.' who are getting their money ripped off. Sloppy of you. Had Labour won the election, they hadn't planned to make c.95% of the same cuts as the Tories have. Perish the thought!

I've never voted Tory and never will but the economy they inherited from Labour was hilariously summed up by Liam Byrne's wee note in his desk. Nurse! My sides!

This binary opposition is pitiful, myopic, and, of course, neglects to mention the rogering that Brown gave the economy in his attempts to create a client state of compliant Labour voters. He failed at that, as we see, much as he failed at virtually everything he attempted, but everyone pays the price nonetheless. Oh, except guys with floppy hair and stripy blazers, of course.

On the plus side, Brown did 'end boom and bust'. So... every cloud, eh?

Funny you should mention the ill and disabled......

In a week when we've heard Tories saying disabled people should be paid less than minimum wage.

And in a week where we've found out the Tories are taking away benefits from cancer patients for not recovering quickly enough.

Same old Tories........

[Beefster]

Maybe if they hadn't made such a pig's ear of building growth and jobs, they wouldn't need to try and rip the money of nurses and teachers. Then again, they probably still would.

I love your posts. It's like the Brown Chancellorship and Premiership never happened in your world.


Average wages over the whole nation don't tell the whole story. The majority of the public sector is broadly admin and professional whereas the whole nation includes all those in less well paid jobs. The surveys I mentioned previously compare like with like – admin with admin and professional with professional.




The tax [payer] pays for the public sector whether that is salaries or pensions.

The question I raised earlier asked how do you want to fund that public sector remuneration package?

Do you put all the money up front so that the public sector are seen to get paid the going rate and pay the full whack for their pensions, or as governments in the past have said you'll get less money throughout your career [in the public sector] with the reward at the end.

What started off as a couple of hundred pounds a year light in my salary when I first started work is now a good few thousand. That ‘unseen’ money paying for the benefit of a decent pension when I retire – that was the official line.

Seeing that decent pension being taken away is a bit like being scammed. A rough calculation suggests my ‘unseen’ contribution, over the pension contributions I already make, to this scam is around £125,000. CALL THE POLICE! :grr:

It also seems to me that what the government want to do now is remove that benefit while continuing to pay salaries below the going rate. CALL THE UNIONS :stirrer:

The private sector figures also includes folk being paid hundreds of thousands and millions too. There is a myth that all public sector jobs are lower paid than the private sector. It's just that - a myth. When I was an SBA, I could have earned thousands more by working for the Scottish Exec and I know admin workers who went to the public sector for more money.

Incidentally, no-one will be losing any accrued pension so no pension is being 'taken away'. It suits the unions to make it sound like they will but all pension to date is protected. Any future entitlement hasn't been earned yet so can't be lost.

I heard one young teacher on the TV the other day saying that she had only gone into teaching because of the final salary scheme and that, if it was changed, then she would look at doing something else. Aside from going into teaching for completely the wrong reasons, if folk like her think they will get an average salary scheme in the private sector, they are living in cloud cuckoo land.

[Beefster]

Funny you should mention the ill and disabled......

In a week when we've heard Tories saying disabled people should be paid less than minimum wage.

And in a week where we've found out the Tories are taking away benefits from cancer patients for not recovering quickly enough.

Same old Tories........

There must have been a Labour press release on these. Are you capable of posting anything without it having an agenda?

Philip Davies' comments were rightly dismissed by the government. Are you really saying that one MP represents the view of a political party because I could dig out a ton of 'rogue' quotes from Labour MPs during the 13 years of government?

The cancer row is over people who HAD cancer but are now recovered and have been independently assessed, by a GP, as fit to work having their benefits means-tested, as I understand it. If their household earns enough, they don't get as much. If the household doesn't earn enough, they get it all. I'm sure it's just me but I'm not sure why we should continue to pay full benefits to people with a high enough income, just because they had cancer but have since recovered (as assessed by a medical professional). I'd means-test every single benefit though.

As I've said before, you do like your hyperbole. Any details on how the government are victimising the weak, the elderly and the young (seeing as you've already given us 'the disabled and the ill')?

[Big Ed]

The private sector figures also includes folk being paid hundreds of thousands and millions too. There is a myth that all public sector jobs are lower paid than the private sector. It's just that - a myth. When I was an SBA, I could have earned thousands more by working for the Scottish Exec and I know admin workers who went to the public sector for more money.

What sort of percentage of the Private Sector employee population earn six and seven figure salaries? I don't know, but I'd be staggered if it was anything like enough to significantly skew the figures the other way.
The myth that you mention: no one said all public sector jobs are lower paid than those in the private sector, however the fact that you have previously referred to a misleading and biased article, written about a year and a half ago for that champion of fairness, the Daily Telegraph, adds no substance to your assertion.

[Leicester Fan]

Maybe if they hadn't made such a pig's ear of building growth and jobs,

Didn't you notice the huge fall in the jobless figures this month?

As for pensions, the first thing Gordon Brown did when he became chancellor was to take £5billion a year out of the private pension funds, which lead in part to the collapse of several private pension schemes. I don't remember UNISON or the teacher unions going on strike then. Am I supposed to feel sorry for them now, now that they're expected to work until they're 66 the same age as the rest of us?

[Jack]

What sort of percentage of the Private Sector employee population earn six and seven figure salaries? I don't know, but I'd be staggered if it was anything like enough to significantly skew the figures the other way.
The myth that you mention: no one said all public sector jobs are lower paid than those in the private sector, however the fact that you have previously referred to a misleading and biased article, written about a year and a half ago for that champion of fairness, the Daily Telegraph, adds no substance to your assertion.

TBF he also ignored the fact that the independent surveys I've mentioned twice now compare similar jobs and can therefore be considered a fairer comparison of salaries between the public and private sectors.

[Mibbes Aye]

Didn't you notice the huge fall in the jobless figures this month?



I noticed that the number of people claiming unemployment benefit actually went up.

So, this government is costing us more money to pay for people out of work, as a consequence of its policies.

[Mibbes Aye]

There must have been a Labour press release on these. Are you capable of posting anything without it having an agenda?

Philip Davies' comments were rightly dismissed by the government. Are you really saying that one MP represents the view of a political party because I could dig out a ton of 'rogue' quotes from Labour MPs during the 13 years of government?

The cancer row is over people who HAD cancer but are now recovered and have been independently assessed, by a GP, as fit to work having their benefits means-tested, as I understand it. If their household earns enough, they don't get as much. If the household doesn't earn enough, they get it all. I'm sure it's just me but I'm not sure why we should continue to pay full benefits to people with a high enough income, just because they had cancer but have since recovered (as assessed by a medical professional). I'd means-test every single benefit though.

As I've said before, you do like your hyperbole. Any details on how the government are victimising the weak, the elderly and the young (seeing as you've already given us 'the disabled and the ill')?

Oh Beefster, you're using your line about press releases to try and have a dig on here when we're talking politics and on the football forum when someone defends Hibs.

You must really like it :greengrin

Of course it's still just you trying to avoid addressing the issue, just like when you start talking about Gordon Brown, or anything else to obscure that unusual combination of incompetence and malice that has been our government for the last thirteen months

As for Philip Davies, I think you're being unfair on him. At least he was honest and said what he thought - unlike David Cameron.

[PaulSmith]

The reason that Public Sector Workers should keep their pension rights is because, unlike the Private Sector Workers that you refer to; they have Union representation and therefore are able to make a fist of sticking up for themselves.
I see it gets your goat to see your taxes rise to pay whilst the Unions hold the country to ransom: how does your goat feel about funding militatry operations in countries who have not acted aggressively against us, or a mobile phone provider being let off with £6,000,000,000 tax bill?
What I find really dispiriting about this post is that, despite not being a Tory, you have shown absolutely no empathy towards other people who are finding things tough too, but will at least have something tangible to look forward to in later life. Someone else has got something good - right, take it off the ****ing *******s.

Maybe in days gone by but with the creation of the 'super' unions Accord and Unite you'll tend to find that private and public sector workers are represented by the same people, albeit I still believe that they actually don't care much for the private sector workforce and one of the reason I cancelled by DD with them a couple of years back.

re the second paragraph did the wars and the large corporate tax scandals not actually happen on the Labour watch, i.e the very same people who rely on the Union for most of their funds and policies?

No empathy towards people finding it tough, are you serious? We ALL need to realise that we have lived beyond our means for a number of years, yes people might have to choose between cancelling SKY Sports or seeing their gross income come down but you know what, such is life and this is not "finding it tough".

Finding it tough is having NO income or losing your job through no fault of your own, perhaps all the left wing labour voters might just wake up and see that by giving up a little they might secure their own jobs plus allow the Govt to continue to support those who do genuinely find it tough.

The whole pension thing though, you can guarantee that almost all public sector (or private) workers will be home owners and have no mortgage to pay when they reach 65/66. The working population seem to think now that they should be able to live a life with a high disposable income by the time they retire, it's madness and unless they are prepared to pay their own way then the monies should be better spread across the rest of the economy.

[Big Ed]

Maybe in days gone by but with the creation of the 'super' unions Accord and Unite you'll tend to find that private and public sector workers are represented by the same people, albeit I still believe that they actually don't care much for the private sector workforce and one of the reason I cancelled by DD with them a couple of years back.

re the second paragraph did the wars and the large corporate tax scandals not actually happen on the Labour watch, i.e the very same people who rely on the Union for most of their funds and policies?

No empathy towards people finding it tough, are you serious? We ALL need to realise that we have lived beyond our means for a number of years, yes people might have to choose between cancelling SKY Sports or seeing their gross income come down but you know what, such is life and this is not "finding it tough".

Finding it tough is having NO income or losing your job through no fault of your own, perhaps all the left wing labour voters might just wake up and see that by giving up a little they might secure their own jobs plus allow the Govt to continue to support those who do genuinely find it tough.

The whole pension thing though, you can guarantee that almost all public sector (or private) workers will be home owners and have no mortgage to pay when they reach 65/66. The working population seem to think now that they should be able to live a life with a high disposable income by the time they retire, it's madness and unless they are prepared to pay their own way then the monies should be better spread across the rest of the economy.

I'll change the basis of my arguement if I may; my tone was a bit aggressive this morning :tsk tsk:
I genuinely believe that Public Sector spending is only a smokescreen by which successive Governments can hide behind the fact that our dependence on the Financial Markets and obsession with growth are driving ordinary peoples' living standards down.
Increasing pension contributions for Public Sector workers will not make the slightest difference as people in Ireland are finding out first hand.
As for your assertions that Labour were as complicit as the Tories regarding wars and tax: I agree. They are as despicable as each other.

[Leicester Fan]

I noticed that the number of people claiming unemployment benefit actually went up.

So, this government is costing us more money to pay for people out of work, as a consequence of its policies.

Or possibly the crack down on incapacity benefit is encouraging people to come off the more lucrative benefit. Whatever the reason it's obvious that more jobs are being created which makes your statement a little bit silly.

[RyeSloan]

Pensions are one part of the overall remuneration package that public sector employees receive. And being public sector,that is taxpayer-funded. That's how it works. If their pensions for example, are to be removed from that settlement then it sounds to me like the start of a backdoor privatisation of public services.

There was a whole raft of pension reform three years ago which led to a settlement that was seen as sustainable by all sides. The government is merely trying to use the politics of envy to attack the public sector and free up money to use as tax bribes prior to the next election.

Maybe if they hadn't made such a pig's ear of building growth and jobs, they wouldn't need to try and rip the money of nurses and teachers. Then again, they probably still would.

So asking public sector workers to have fully funded pension schemes that require no further subsidy from the tax payer is ‘backdoor privatisation’…even for you that’s a bit of a leap is it not!!

So it’s politics of envy not unfunded liabilities…right got you. Are you suggesting that actually there is no shortfall in the public sector pension provision at all and it’s simply a dirty Tory tactic?

Good to know that none of this would be a problem if Labour were still in power, damn should have known that it would all the be Tories fault!

[Mibbes Aye]

Or possibly the crack down on incapacity benefit is encouraging people to come off the more lucrative benefit. Whatever the reason it's obvious that more jobs are being created which makes your statement a little bit silly.

"Crackdown on a lucrative benefit" ????

ESA or incapacity benefit is something like £4,000 -£4,500 a year. I wonder how many people would describe that as lucrative?

You've talked about unemployment falling last month - I think you're actually referring to the figures that were released for the first quarter of the year which showed a net fall.

That was prior to the new financial year starting of course. That means they won't reflect the impact of this year's public sector cuts - not just public sector jobs going, but public sector spending decreasing. Which means private sector jobs going.

And the growth in Q1 was almost exclusively driven by the service sector - with unemployment at 2.5 million and the cost of living going up for those in work, how sustainable is that?

Celebrating the Q1 figures as some sign of meaningful improvement unfortunately doesn't reflect the grabvity and the reality of the course we are set on.

[Mibbes Aye]

So asking public sector workers to have fully funded pension schemes that require no further subsidy from the tax payer is ‘backdoor privatisation’

Yes.

(And it isn't a subsidy)


…even for you that’s a bit of a leap is it not!!

No.

[Leicester Fan]

"Crackdown on a more lucrative benefit" ????


Obviously incapacity benefits pay better than normal unemployment pay else people would stay on the dole.

[RyeSloan]

Yes.

(And it isn't a subsidy)



No.

So if tax payers making up the difference for underfunded public sector pensions is not a subsidy what is it?

I'm also curious as to how wanting public sector pensions to be fully funded amounts to back door privatisation?

[RyeSloan]

"Crackdown on a lucrative benefit" ????

ESA or incapacity benefit is something like £4,000 -£4,500 a year. I wonder how many people would describe that as lucrative?

You've talked about unemployment falling last month - I think you're actually referring to the figures that were released for the first quarter of the year which showed a net fall.

That was prior to the new financial year starting of course. That means they won't reflect the impact of this year's public sector cuts - not just public sector jobs going, but public sector spending decreasing. Which means private sector jobs going.
And the growth in Q1 was almost exclusively driven by the service sector - with unemployment at 2.5 million and the cost of living going up for those in work, how sustainable is that?

Celebrating the Q1 figures as some sign of meaningful improvement unfortunately doesn't reflect the grabvity and the reality of the course we are set on.

I think a 5k benefit that you are not entitled to would be seem as pretty lucrative to quite a few people!!

But let’s talk about the employment figures:

The ONS figures it states that 104,000 private sector jobs were created....more than offsetting the 24,000 lost in the public sector.

Redundancies continued their strong downwards trend :
In the three months to April 2011, 116,000 people had become redundant in the three months before the Labour Force Survey interviews, down 27,000 from the three months to January 2011 and down 56,000 from a year earlier. The redundancy rate was 4.6 per 1,000 employees, down 1.1 from the previous quarter and down 2.3 from a year earlier.

The unemployment rate was 7.7 per cent in the three months to April 2011, down 0.3 percentage points from the three months to January 2011 and from a year earlier

The number of people in employment is 333,000 lower than the pre-recession peak of 29.57 million recorded for the three months to May 2008


All of these figures (and others like youth unemployment etc) show a positive trend…sure no one knows if that trend will continue or at what pace but really to try and say these figures weren’t a meaningful improvement in the situation is somewhat strange….are you saying they were meaningless and if so what in the figures makes you think that or are you basing your judgement of these figures on your prediction of the future?

Finally what’s the big thing about the services sector being the biggest growth area…you do know this sector is not just retail workers amongst others it comprises:
Information & Communication (the largest jobs provider in the quarter)

Financial & insurance activities

Professional scientific & technical activities

Administrative & support service activities

Education

Human health & social work activities

Arts, entertainment & recreation


Why does growth in this area trouble you so much?

Surely as Britain is such a successful exporter of services then growth in that area should be welcomed and may well be supported by more than just national drivers so more sustainable than public sector jobs paid out of tax revenue or jobs created out of falsely inflated consumer demand….yet you see job growth in this area as unsustainable….why?

[Mibbes Aye]

So if tax payers making up the difference for underfunded public sector pensions is not a subsidy what is it?

I'm also curious as to how wanting public sector pensions to be fully funded amounts to back door privatisation?

The employer's (and indeed the employee's) contribution to public sector pensions is part of the package of remuneration. This package is paid by the Government, or as you would have it, the taxpayer. That's what the public sector is.

By your argument the taxpayer is subsidising their own self (selves?), as they are meeting the liabilities that they have as the employer (once removed).

That's why it's nonsensical to describe the taxpayer as subsidising public sector pensions. They don't subsidise them, they pay for them. It's part of the package of remuneration.

[Mibbes Aye]

I think a 5k benefit that you are not entitled to would be seem as pretty lucrative to quite a few people!!

But let’s talk about the employment figures:

The ONS figures it states that 104,000 private sector jobs were created....more than offsetting the 24,000 lost in the public sector.

Redundancies continued their strong downwards trend :
In the three months to April 2011, 116,000 people had become redundant in the three months before the Labour Force Survey interviews, down 27,000 from the three months to January 2011 and down 56,000 from a year earlier. The redundancy rate was 4.6 per 1,000 employees, down 1.1 from the previous quarter and down 2.3 from a year earlier.

The unemployment rate was 7.7 per cent in the three months to April 2011, down 0.3 percentage points from the three months to January 2011 and from a year earlier

The number of people in employment is 333,000 lower than the pre-recession peak of 29.57 million recorded for the three months to May 2008


All of these figures (and others like youth unemployment etc) show a positive trend…sure no one knows if that trend will continue or at what pace but really to try and say these figures weren’t a meaningful improvement in the situation is somewhat strange….are you saying they were meaningless and if so what in the figures makes you think that or are you basing your judgement of these figures on your prediction of the future?

Finally what’s the big thing about the services sector being the biggest growth area…you do know this sector is not just retail workers amongst others it comprises:
Information & Communication (the largest jobs provider in the quarter)

Financial & insurance activities

Professional scientific & technical activities

Administrative & support service activities

Education

Human health & social work activities

Arts, entertainment & recreation


Why does growth in this area trouble you so much?

Surely as Britain is such a successful exporter of services then growth in that area should be welcomed and may well be supported by more than just national drivers so more sustainable than public sector jobs paid out of tax revenue or jobs created out of falsely inflated consumer demand….yet you see job growth in this area as unsustainable….why?
Nice Googling SiMar.

IIRC that fall in unemployment you're talking about for Q1 was dependent on a drop in January and February.
In March it went back up.
What were you saying about trends?

[Mibbes Aye]

Re your point about privatisation, if the employer doesn't meet their responsibilities on remunerating its employees and leaves a shortfall for them to address individually, then it is privatising that aspect. It's privatisation in the broader sense - responsibilising the individual for what should remain within the 'public'.

[RyeSloan]

Re your point about privatisation, if the employer doesn't meet their responsibilities on remunerating its employees and leaves a shortfall for them to address individually, then it is privatising that aspect. It's privatisation in the broader sense - responsibilising the individual for what should remain within the 'public'.

Pft. What does this actually mean?

"Privatisation by the back door" now equals "Privatisation in the broader sense" which is actually the fact that that employees might have to find other sources of income as their current remuneration leaves a shortfall (against some unstated measure).

As I said a massive leap and one that your explanation does nothing to convince otherwise.

[RyeSloan]

Nice Googling SiMar.

IIRC that fall in unemployment you're talking about for Q1 was dependent on a drop in January and February.
In March it went back up.
What were you saying about trends?

And you of course never use google and know everything without the need of refering to any sources..:rolleyes:

One thing I don't need google for is to tell me that a trend is the general direction of something...not even you can deny that the general direction of the unemployment figure was down in Q1.

Any chance you might answer some of the points that show substantially reduced redundancies, substantially greater number of private sector jobs created v public ones lost and what your problem with service sector jobs is? Or is your simple answer that none of this counts because it doesn't fit your agenda and you are really hoping the figures reverse in the next quarter so you can shout I told you so and then balme the evil Tories some more!?!

[Mibbes Aye]

Pft. What does this actually mean?

"Privatisation by the back door" now equals "Privatisation in the broader sense" which is actually the fact that that employees might have to find other sources of income as their current remuneration leaves a shortfall (against some unstated measure).

As I said a massive leap and one that your explanation does nothing to convince otherwise.

Privatisation can be both broad and by the back door (you just need a wide back door, I guess).

Apologies if I'm not articulating my case clearly (privatisation folk ken whit's gaun oan though :agree: )

The whole construct that is the 'public sector' has many constituent parts. By breaking off one or more of these elements, shifting responsibility from the state to the individual, or from the 'public' to the 'private', one is contributing to the privatisation of what were state functions.

The funding of the public sector, specifically employee remuneration, is such an element IMO.

It's more insidious than outsourcing the DWP to Sirco or Capita, and the tactics are to create resentment by creating a 'race to the bottom' where public sector pensions are compared to private sector ones to suggest the public sector are leeching, as opposed to the idea that maybe the private sector tend to prioritise shareholder profit over employee pensions. Hence the politics of envy.

[Mibbes Aye]

And you of course never use google and know everything without the need of refering to any sources..:rolleyes:

One thing I don't need google for is to tell me that a trend is the general direction of something...not even you can deny that the general direction of the unemployment figure was down in Q1.

Any chance you might answer some of the points that show substantially reduced redundancies, substantially greater number of private sector jobs created v public ones lost and what your problem with service sector jobs is? Or is your simple answer that none of this counts because it doesn't fit your agenda and you are really hoping the figures reverse in the next quarter so you can shout I told you so and then balme the evil Tories some more!?!

So you want to define a trend as 'three months that happen to fit with a point you are making'?

That doesn't really stand up either, does it?

[RyeSloan]

The employer's (and indeed the employee's) contribution to public sector pensions is part of the package of remuneration. This package is paid by the Government, or as you would have it, the taxpayer. That's what the public sector is.

By your argument the taxpayer is subsidising their own self (selves?), as they are meeting the liabilities that they have as the employer (once removed).

That's why it's nonsensical to describe the taxpayer as subsidising public sector pensions. They don't subsidise them, they pay for them. It's part of the package of remuneration.

No it's not nonsensical. It's quite straight forward.

The contributions to the schemes do not cover the payments. The difference is made up by the tax payer. The difference is in ADDITION to the monies already paid for the workers remuneration.


Now if the schemes either paid out lower benefits or the employee paid a higher percentage out of their current remuneration (or a mixture of both) the schemes would be able to afford the payments and NO EXTRA tax payers money would be required.

[Woody1985]

My work final salary was closed to new members.

We were given the option to pay more to attempt to obtain the same level of benefit.

I don't see why public sector workers should keep final salary when it's unsustainable. A large company like mine had hundreds of millions of deficit. I've not seen the figure for the public sector but I'm guessing billions or tens of billions.

[Mibbes Aye]

No it's not nonsensical. It's quite straight forward.

The contributions to the schemes do not cover the payments. The difference is made up by the tax payer. The difference is in ADDITION to the monies already paid for the workers remuneration.


Now if the schemes either paid out lower benefits or the employee paid a higher percentage out of their current remuneration (or a mixture of both) the schemes would be able to afford the payments and NO EXTRA tax payers money would be required.


My work final salary was closed to new members.

We were given the option to pay more to attempt to obtain the same level of benefit.

I don't see why public sector workers should keep final salary when it's unsustainable. A large company like mine had hundreds of millions of deficit. I've not seen the figure for the public sector but I'm guessing billions or tens of billions.

All this talk about public sector pensions being unsustainable - did you do the math yourself or do you just swallow whatever garbage George Osborne feeds you? :greengrin

The Government's own figures, both the Government Actuary and the OBR, say that the cost of public sector pensions, as a proportion of GDP will fall over the coming years and indeed decades. We're more or less at the crest of the wave just now and it's all downhill thereafter.

So yes, the cost of pensions will increase, but it will be more than covered by the amount of growth, even growth as stunted as that currently being experienced.

Bear in mind that the Government have proven enough already that their figures need to be treated with caution :greengrin.

But please don't talk about unsustainability when that argument is frankly, well it's unsustainable :wink: :greengrin

[Woody1985]

If it's unsustainable for a large company who specialise in pensions to plug their own deficit it doesn't fill me with confidence that a bunch of politicians, whatever their persuasion, can.

Why no uproar about pensions being changed from rpI to cpi, or the other way round as I can never remember, that will affect all private sector and probably public sector as well.

Whilst I'm no expert, rightly or wrongly, final salary is dead soon.

[Beefster]

All this talk about public sector pensions being unsustainable - did you do the math yourself or do you just swallow whatever garbage George Osborne feeds you? :greengrin

The Government's own figures, both the Government Actuary and the OBR, say that the cost of public sector pensions, as a proportion of GDP will fall over the coming years and indeed decades. We're more or less at the crest of the wave just now and it's all downhill thereafter.

So yes, the cost of pensions will increase, but it will be more than covered by the amount of growth, even growth as stunted as that currently being experienced.

Bear in mind that the Government have proven enough already that their figures need to be treated with caution :greengrin.

But please don't talk about unsustainability when that argument is frankly, well it's unsustainable :wink: :greengrin

I'm fairly sure the OBR said that the gap between contributions to the public sector schemes and the pensions paid was due to double in the next 5 or so years. That doesn't sound particularly sustainable.

Anyway, the Coalition are just implementing the proposals from a Labour peer (and ex-Cabinet member under Brown and Blair). What are the Balls / Miliband alternative proposals?

[Phil D. Rolls]

The reason that public sector workers, and anyone else, should keep their pension rights is that they are part of their contract of employment.

One of the tools management always used in pay negotiations is that part of the pay is being deferred as pension benefits. Those benefits therefore have been earned, and to take them away is the same thing as coming to you and asking for your wages back.

[RyeSloan]

All this talk about public sector pensions being unsustainable - did you do the math yourself or do you just swallow whatever garbage George Osborne feeds you? :greengrin

The Government's own figures, both the Government Actuary and the OBR, say that the cost of public sector pensions, as a proportion of GDP will fall over the coming years and indeed decades. We're more or less at the crest of the wave just now and it's all downhill thereafter.

So yes, the cost of pensions will increase, but it will be more than covered by the amount of growth, even growth as stunted as that currently being experienced.

Bear in mind that the Government have proven enough already that their figures need to be treated with caution :greengrin.

But please don't talk about unsustainability when that argument is frankly, well it's unsustainable :wink: :greengrin

Oh can you not actually answer some of the points for once rahter that being condesending?

Is there or is there not a funding gap. Yes there is.

Is it George Osborne that has made that up. No it is not.

Did Hutton propose reform to narrow it. Yes he did.

Was that reform targeted at final salary rules. Yes it was.

Are the unions going on strike. Yes they are.

Are the striking to try and stop the reform that will cause your downhill from here to happen. Yes they are.

You claimed there was no gap, no subsidy, no extra cost, no problem at all in fact. You were wrong. Try admitting it for once.

The laugh is you try to suggest that it is me swallowing whatever Osbourne says when it is clear that you are only ever looking to paint everything in a negative light to show why Labour must be better.

I have no problems saying that the Coalition has co*cked up plenty (what governments don't!) but simply saying everything is bad and wrong for your own political reasons is rather pathetic to be honest.

[Mibbes Aye]

Oh can you not actually answer some of the points for once rahter that being condesending?

Is there or is there not a funding gap. Yes there is.

Is it George Osborne that has made that up. No it is not.

Did Hutton propose reform to narrow it. Yes he did.

Was that reform targeted at final salary rules. Yes it was.

Are the unions going on strike. Yes they are.

Are the striking to try and stop the reform that will cause your downhill from here to happen. Yes they are.

You claimed there was no gap, no subsidy, no extra cost, no problem at all in fact. You were wrong. Try admitting it for once.

The laugh is you try to suggest that it is me swallowing whatever Osbourne says when it is clear that you are only ever looking to paint everything in a negative light to show why Labour must be better.

I have no problems saying that the Coalition has co*cked up plenty (what governments don't!) but simply saying everything is bad and wrong for your own political reasons is rather pathetic to be honest.

The reforms agreed three years ago are projected by the government to save £68 billion on pensions. They in turn inform the projection that pensions decrease as a share of GDP.

So pensions aren't some huge unsustainable timebomb that urgently needs addressing.

But it suits the Tories to peddle the myth that they are, so that they can undermine the public sector and free up money for tax bribes.

[Mibbes Aye]

I'm fairly sure the OBR said that the gap between contributions to the public sector schemes and the pensions paid was due to double in the next 5 or so years. That doesn't sound particularly sustainable.

Anyway, the Coalition are just implementing the proposals from a Labour peer (and ex-Cabinet member under Brown and Blair). What are the Balls / Miliband alternative proposals?

If you were to look at one part of my credit card statement, a large part even, over a few weeks, all you would see were outgoings - and that wouldn't be particularly sustainable.

If you look at the whole thing you would see the money paying it off, which does make it sustainable.

Essentially this is how the Tories are framing the debate, albeit on a much larger scale. Talking about one part, rather than the whole. Justifying cuts that are too far and too fast as a necessity, when it's an ideological crusade to continue what Thatcher wanted to do.

Don't let the Tories put blinkers on you - there is a bigger picture.

[Mibbes Aye]

Oh can you not actually answer some of the points for once rahter that being condesending?

Is there or is there not a funding gap. Yes there is.

Is it George Osborne that has made that up. No it is not.

Did Hutton propose reform to narrow it. Yes he did.

Was that reform targeted at final salary rules. Yes it was.

Are the unions going on strike. Yes they are.

Are the striking to try and stop the reform that will cause your downhill from here to happen. Yes they are.

You claimed there was no gap, no subsidy, no extra cost, no problem at all in fact. You were wrong. Try admitting it for once.

The laugh is you try to suggest that it is me swallowing whatever Osbourne says when it is clear that you are only ever looking to paint everything in a negative light to show why Labour must be better.

I have no problems saying that the Coalition has co*cked up plenty (what governments don't!) but simply saying everything is bad and wrong for your own political reasons is rather pathetic to be honest.

Oh yeah, "condescending" and "pathetic"???

I'm bordering on upset :greengrin. We often disagree but I tend to respect that what you post is thoughtful and thought-out, and although it's a different perspective from mine, that doesn't mean I think it's not valid.

I genuinely don't think that everything is bad and wrong about the Tories but it's not my fault if they keep providing evidence to the contrary :greengrin

And were Labour to return to power I genuinely wouldn't have a problem being critical about their actions, where relevant.

[Woody1985]

The reason that public sector workers, and anyone else, should keep their pension rights is that they are part of their contract of employment.

One of the tools management always used in pay negotiations is that part of the pay is being deferred as pension benefits. Those benefits therefore have been earned, and to take them away is the same thing as coming to you and asking for your wages back.

I don't know how they propose to change the public sector workers pension but when my company removed final salary we were allowed to keep the final salary contributions made to that point. Any new benefits would then be accrued on a defined benefits basis or defined contribution depending on when you joined.

They shouldn't lose whatever they've accrued so far but if it's not affordable in future then it's not affordable and has to be changed.

Ageing population with advances in medical treatments mean that people live for longer and will draw down on the pensions for longer. I think that, along with the contributions in, make FS unsustainable in the long run. That's what was pitched to us any way and there were plenty of highly intelligent people who challenged the decision at the time but ultimately it appeared to be the right one. The deficit is shrinking, slowly but surely, a good number of years on.

Whilst I think the whole idea of pensions is bollocks I have started contrubuting a small amount each month. I carried out some calculations and to get out what I will have contibuted I will need to live for 18 years post retirement date just to break even. Swindle!

[Beefster]

The reason that public sector workers, and anyone else, should keep their pension rights is that they are part of their contract of employment.

One of the tools management always used in pay negotiations is that part of the pay is being deferred as pension benefits. Those benefits therefore have been earned, and to take them away is the same thing as coming to you and asking for your wages back.

Accrued pension to date will be protected. Nothing is being taken away. They are proposing to change the retirement age, ask the members to contribute a bit more and amend the method in which future pension is earned.

There is nothing being proposed for the public service schemes that the private sector didn't do 5-10 years ago.


If you were to look at one part of my credit card statement, a large part even, over a few weeks, all you would see were outgoings - and that wouldn't be particularly sustainable.

If you look at the whole thing you would see the money paying it off, which does make it sustainable.

Essentially this is how the Tories are framing the debate, albeit on a much larger scale. Talking about one part, rather than the whole. Justifying cuts that are too far and too fast as a necessity, when it's an ideological crusade to continue what Thatcher wanted to do.

Don't let the Tories put blinkers on you - there is a bigger picture.

So we can quote the OBR when it suits your agenda but we're not allowed to quote them when it doesn't? Got it.

[ballengeich]

They shouldn't lose whatever they've accrued but if it's not affordable then it's not affordable.



They won't lose what they've accrued for past service. Pension legislation does not allow retrospective removal of benefits earned for past service.

[Woody1985]

They won't lose what they've accrued for past service. Pension legislation does not allow retrospective removal of benefits earned for past service.

Sorry, that was poorly worded. I didn't mean it to come across as they should lose it. Just that it's not affordable in future.

[RyeSloan]

The reforms agreed three years ago are projected by the government to save £68 billion on pensions. They in turn inform the projection that pensions decrease as a share of GDP.

So pensions aren't some huge unsustainable timebomb that urgently needs addressing.

But it suits the Tories to peddle the myth that they are, so that they can undermine the public sector and free up money for tax bribes.

There you go again.....Tories peddling myths....Is Lord Hutton not a Labour peer? Was it not Lord Hutton that has prescribed a move away from final salary schemes?

This LINK (http://www.ifacompare.co.uk/article-123/Lord-Hutton-addresses-Pension-conference) gives a nice summary of the situation.

Or how about this:

The former Labour business secretary charged by the coalition with overseeing its contentious pensions reforms has called on his party leader to back his plans and ask union leaders to stop threatening strikes.

Lord Hutton said people had to face the "reality" that public sector pension reform was necessary and that strikes would not "make this problem go away". When asked if Ed Miliband should oppose the threat of industrial action by the unions that backed him to become party leader, Hutton said "of course". He also said he would like to see Miliband endorse his report.

[Phil D. Rolls]

Accrued pension to date will be protected. Nothing is being taken away. They are proposing to change the retirement age, ask the members to contribute a bit more and amend the method in which future pension is earned.

There is nothing being proposed for the public service schemes that the private sector didn't do 5-10 years ago.

It sounds very reasonable when you put it like that. However, I think people in the private sector should have had the balls to stick up for themselves when their employers proposed change.

If public sector workers are prepared to fight, I don't think jealousy is going to stop them. The public has to wonder what sort of services it is going to receive from 70 year old nurses and prison officers.

[Beefster]

It sounds very reasonable when you put it like that. However, I think people in the private sector should have had the balls to stick up for themselves when their employers proposed change.

If public sector workers are prepared to fight, I don't think jealousy is going to stop them. The public has to wonder what sort of services it is going to receive from 70 year old nurses and prison officers.

For most private companies, it came down to funding a final salary pension or making redundancies. As someone who worked in pensions for 10 years or so, you wouldn't believe how expensive final salary schemes are and how often the employer had to shell out a huge sum at an employee's retirement to fund the earned pension.

I'm fairly sure a retirement age of 70 isn't a proposal.

Claiming jealousy is an easy way to dismiss genuine concerns IMHO.

[Woody1985]

It sounds very reasonable when you put it like that. However, I think people in the private sector should have had the balls to stick up for themselves when their employers proposed change.

If public sector workers are prepared to fight, I don't think jealousy is going to stop them. The public has to wonder what sort of services it is going to receive from 70 year old nurses and prison officers.

Easier said that done FR.

I was younger at the time and wasn't really interested and hadn't accrued any Final Salary benefits yet as I hadn't reached 20. However, looking at the figures and the evidence to back up why the decision was being made it was hard to argue with its removal.

The deficit at the time was hundreds of millions, and still is, but it's going down gradually.

Jealousy isn't a factor for me, if the scheme isn't self sufficient then it's not viable.

This thread got me thinking and I checked my pension projector. To maintain a 60% income by the time I retire I need to put away around a 1/4 of my net wage per month, which is then taxed again upon payment.

I know why they're (you're?) objecting, I just don't agree with it. If I want that benefit, I'd need to pay for it and if the scheme can't support it'self then that's the way it is.

FS feels a bit like ponzi schemes to me. They're increasingly needing to pay out more than they can possibly take in.

There's an agruement earlier in the thread that they get this benefit as part of their employment by the state and it's not subsidised. If that were the case why not just pay everyone £100,000 per annum, because after all, it's just part of their state package and considering whether it's affordable or not doesn't come into it.

[ballengeich]

This thread got me thinking and I checked my pension projector. To maintain a 60% income by the time I retire I need to put away around a 1/4 of my net wage per month, which is then taxed again upon payment.



Remember that pension scheme contributions attract tax relief by getting increased by the standard rate tax payable on the contributions so you're not actually getting taxed again - the tax is being deferred until you spend the money.

[Mibbes Aye]

Accrued pension to date will be protected. Nothing is being taken away. They are proposing to change the retirement age, ask the members to contribute a bit more and amend the method in which future pension is earned.

There is nothing being proposed for the public service schemes that the private sector didn't do 5-10 years ago.



So we can quote the OBR when it suits your agenda but we're not allowed to quote them when it doesn't? Got it.

I've not said you can't quote the OBR.

I've merely argued why your quoting them might be flawed.

[Phil D. Rolls]

For most private companies, it came down to funding a final salary pension or making redundancies. As someone who worked in pensions for 10 years or so, you wouldn't believe how expensive final salary schemes are and how often the employer had to shell out a huge sum at an employee's retirement to fund the earned pension.

I'm fairly sure a retirement age of 70 isn't a proposal.

Claiming jealousy is an easy way to dismiss genuine concerns IMHO.

I think the real point is that there is enough wealth in this country for all employers to give their employees a decent retirement, We just have to look at where the money goes, and how it is distributed.

Retiring at 70 is a genuine fear that many have. Personally, I have been taking a pragmatic approach for about the past 10 years, and I don't expect to ever retire.


Easier said that done FR.

I was younger at the time and wasn't really interested and hadn't accrued any Final Salary benefits yet as I hadn't reached 20. However, looking at the figures and the evidence to back up why the decision was being made it was hard to argue with its removal.

The deficit at the time was hundreds of millions, and still is, but it's going down gradually.

Jealousy isn't a factor for me, if the scheme isn't self sufficient then it's not viable.

This thread got me thinking and I checked my pension projector. To maintain a 60% income by the time I retire I need to put away around a 1/4 of my net wage per month, which is then taxed again upon payment.

I know why they're (you're?) objecting, I just don't agree with it. If I want that benefit, I'd need to pay for it and if the scheme can't support it'self then that's the way it is.

FS feels a bit like ponzi schemes to me. They're increasingly needing to pay out more than they can possibly take in.

There's an agruement earlier in the thread that they get this benefit as part of their employment by the state and it's not subsidised. If that were the case why not just pay everyone £100,000 per annum, because after all, it's just part of their state package and considering whether it's affordable or not doesn't come into it.

My concern about pensions is that for everyone who has been in an occupational scheme, it has been something they have been told they would get.

It became clear to me when the Maxwell scheme got into trouble, that such promises aren't worth anything.

[Leicester Fan]

Who's going to want to employ me as a decorator when I get to 70. To read this thread you'd think only public sector workers work hard. In my experience it's quite often the reverse.

[ballengeich]

My concern about pensions is that for everyone who has been in an occupational scheme, it has been something they have been told they would get.

It became clear to me when the Maxwell scheme got into trouble, that such promises aren't worth anything.

It's unfortunate that when a business runs into difficulties pension contributions are often one of the things that they cut back on.

While the Maxwell scheme was a disgrace, things are a bit different now. The Pension Protection Fund gives some backup to failing schemes, so people do not lose everything when a fund is inadequately maintained.

[Betty Boop]

Who's going to want to employ me as a decorator when I get to 70. To read this thread you'd think only public sector workers work hard. In my experience it's quite often the reverse.

I can't see many manual workers such as binmen or cleaners, who work for the council, lasting till they are 65 or 70 either. This public sector v private sector nonsense is a myth anyway, I think everybody works hard nowadays. :greengrin

[Phil D. Rolls]

It's unfortunate that when a business runs into difficulties pension contributions are often one of the things that they cut back on.

While the Maxwell scheme was a disgrace, things are a bit different now. The Pension Protection Fund gives some backup to failing schemes, so people do not lose everything when a fund is inadequately maintained.

IIRC there were measures in place to stop employers dipping into schemes back in Maxwell's day too. At the end of the day if a crook takes the money there's nowt that can be done.

[Phil D. Rolls]

Who's going to want to employ me as a decorator when I get to 70. To read this thread you'd think only public sector workers work hard. In my experience it's quite often the reverse.

I'm sure that will be great consolation for people who are given the wrong medication by a doddery nurse. :greengrin

[Mibbes Aye]

I think a 5k benefit that you are not entitled to would be seem as pretty lucrative to quite a few people!!

But let’s talk about the employment figures:

The ONS figures it states that 104,000 private sector jobs were created....more than offsetting the 24,000 lost in the public sector.

Redundancies continued their strong downwards trend :
In the three months to April 2011, 116,000 people had become redundant in the three months before the Labour Force Survey interviews, down 27,000 from the three months to January 2011 and down 56,000 from a year earlier. The redundancy rate was 4.6 per 1,000 employees, down 1.1 from the previous quarter and down 2.3 from a year earlier.

The unemployment rate was 7.7 per cent in the three months to April 2011, down 0.3 percentage points from the three months to January 2011 and from a year earlier

The number of people in employment is 333,000 lower than the pre-recession peak of 29.57 million recorded for the three months to May 2008


All of these figures (and others like youth unemployment etc) show a positive trend…sure no one knows if that trend will continue or at what pace but really to try and say these figures weren’t a meaningful improvement in the situation is somewhat strange….are you saying they were meaningless and if so what in the figures makes you think that or are you basing your judgement of these figures on your prediction of the future?

Finally what’s the big thing about the services sector being the biggest growth area…you do know this sector is not just retail workers amongst others it comprises:
Information & Communication (the largest jobs provider in the quarter)

Financial & insurance activities

Professional scientific & technical activities

Administrative & support service activities

Education

Human health & social work activities

Arts, entertainment & recreation


Why does growth in this area trouble you so much?

Surely as Britain is such a successful exporter of services then growth in that area should be welcomed and may well be supported by more than just national drivers so more sustainable than public sector jobs paid out of tax revenue or jobs created out of falsely inflated consumer demand….yet you see job growth in this area as unsustainable….why?

Because a lack of growth and cuts as deep and fast as the Tories are inflicting make it unsustainable.

As you'll have seen today, 15,000 Lloyds TSB workers are about to feel that personally, by losing their jobs. How many of the Lloyds jobs that have gone or going are people here, people struggling to get by as it was? There'll be more to follow. Talk to them about sustainability SiMar..,.......

The Tories are taking us the wrong way, all because they're hellbent on finishing what Thatcher started. They're more interested in ideology than the havoc their policies are wreaking in the lives of ordinary people, up and down the UK.

[RyeSloan]

Because a lack of growth and cuts as deep and fast as the Tories are inflicting make it unsustainable.

As you'll have seen today, 15,000 Lloyds TSB workers are about to feel that personally, by losing their jobs. How many of the Lloyds jobs that have gone or going are people here, people struggling to get by as it was? There'll be more to follow. Talk to them about sustainability SiMar..,.......

The Tories are taking us the wrong way, all because they're hellbent on finishing what Thatcher started. They're more interested in ideology than the havoc their policies are wreaking in the lives of ordinary people, up and down the UK.

Oh yes of course it was the Tories that created the monster that is Lloyds Banking Group wasn't it......oh wait a minute....

I suppose it's also the Tories fault that Lloyds is currently loss making.....

and also the Tories fault that the independent banking commission is pressurising Lloyds to sell off branches....

What is this 'wrong way'? What is the alterntive right way? Even more unsustainable government spending and even more debt is that it?

[Mibbes Aye]

Oh yes of course it was the Tories that created the monster that is Lloyds Banking Group wasn't it......oh wait a minute....

I suppose it's also the Tories fault that Lloyds is currently loss making.....

and also the Tories fault that the independent banking commission is pressurising Lloyds to sell off branches....

What is this 'wrong way'? What is the alterntive right way? Even more unsustainable government spending and even more debt is that it?

A couple of posts ago, you were defending the Tories' policies by talking about sustainable growth in the service sector.

Today has given you 15,000 reasons why you might be wrong.

Based on all the evidence I've seen, I reckon you're probably smarter than David Cameron.

He won't change his mind, but you could :agree:

[Leicester Fan]

A couple of posts ago, you were defending the Tories' policies by talking about sustainable growth in the service sector.

Today has given you 15,000 reasons why you might be wrong.

Based on all the evidence I've seen, I reckon you're probably smarter than David Cameron.

He won't change his mind, but you could :agree:

So 15,00 jobs lost =disaster
104,000 jobs created= nothing.

:aok:

[Mibbes Aye]

So 15,00 jobs lost =disaster
104,000 jobs created= nothing.

:aok:

Do you think Lloyds are the only company laying people off? :rolleyes:

No growth, cuts that are too deep and too fast and our cost of living is rising far higher than people's spending power. Tell me how service sector jobs can be sustainable in that climate?

Things will only get worse unless the Tories change course.

[magpie1892]

Do you think Lloyds are the only company laying people off? :rolleyes:

No growth, cuts that are too deep and too fast and our cost of living is rising far higher than people's spending power. Tell me how service sector jobs can be sustainable in that climate?

Things will only get worse unless the Tories change course.

Change course to what?

[Beefster]

A couple of posts ago, you were defending the Tories' policies by talking about sustainable growth in the service sector.

Today has given you 15,000 reasons why you might be wrong.

Based on all the evidence I've seen, I reckon you're probably smarter than David Cameron.

He won't change his mind, but you could :agree:

So what does that make the net gain in jobs in the private sector now?

Ignore the overall picture and jump on the one case that you can use for your agenda. You do surprise me.

[Steve-O]

That was possibly the case when the public sector pension scheme was designed but not nowadays. Public sector employees are paid, on average, £2000 more than private sector workers.

Trust me to work in a country where the opposite is the case!!! :rolleyes:

[magpie1892]

Trust me to work in a country where the opposite is the case!!! :rolleyes:

Blame the Tories.

[RyeSloan]

A couple of posts ago, you were defending the Tories' policies by talking about sustainable growth in the service sector.

Today has given you 15,000 reasons why you might be wrong.

Based on all the evidence I've seen, I reckon you're probably smarter than David Cameron.

He won't change his mind, but you could :agree:

The 'service sector' that you keep harping on about is what Britian does...have a look at the balance of payments without the service sector and you will see that it's substantially more negative.

I've already detailed to you that the serevice sector is not the burger flipping sector you are trying to make it out to be...it's Britians main export and source of GDP and provides a huge number of high end jobs.

I'm in no mood to change my mind. I'm absolutely convinced that false 'growth' based on even more unaffordable public spending would be a disaster for this country....much much more so than a few lean years where we make a number of painful but required changes to improve the outlook long term.

15,000 from one company is indeed a huge amount. But if it's required to ensure the company gets back to profit and then can grow again then it's required. (not to mention the fact that it might help to facilitate the state being able to sell it's stake to get it's money back!)

Considering the company in question was created by political intervention (it was a horrible fit in a commercial sense) and was therefore always always going to need serious pruing to get back to some semblance of a normal company your immediate jumping on the figures to blame the move on Tory policy once again shows that you are simply looking to score party political points rather than lettting any of the facts actually get considered in an objective manner.

Despite that I would be really interested to hear just what policy you think the Government should have been pursing that would have prevented Lloyds from needing to make these changes.....

[Mibbes Aye]

So what does that make the net gain in jobs in the private sector now?

Ignore the overall picture and jump on the one case that you can use for your agenda. You do surprise me.

That's a bit rich isn't it? :greengrin

You're the one clinging desperately on to three months of unemployment figures (and IIRC unemployment rose in the last of those three months) and wilfully ignoring everything else.

Do you want to talk about the wider picture Beefster?

Unemployment at two and a half million.

Youth unemployment at nearly a million.

Non-existent growth.

The full impact of the spending cuts yet to come, to further increase unemployment and restrict growth.

Inflation far in excess of income, so our wages keep buying less and less.

Is that the overall picture you were talking about?

[Mibbes Aye]

The 'service sector' that you keep harping on about is what Britian does...have a look at the balance of payments without the service sector and you will see that it's substantially more negative.

I've already detailed to you that the serevice sector is not the burger flipping sector you are trying to make it out to be...it's Britians main export and source of GDP and provides a huge number of high end jobs.



15,000 less at Lloyds now.

What you seem to be saying is it's okay to take those jobs out now (and all the others I presume) because it's all part of a cunning plan to have companies that are more profitable for their shareholders.

And then maybe, no promises, but maybe, they'll create some more jobs at some point further down the line. Assuming that the rest of us have enough income to spend more on their products.

I bet that's reassuring for those about to be laid off. Safe as houses then :wink: :greengrin

[RyeSloan]

15,000 less at Lloyds now.

What you seem to be saying is it's okay to take those jobs out now (and all the others I presume) because it's all part of a cunning plan to have companies that are more profitable for their shareholders.

And then maybe, no promises, but maybe, they'll create some more jobs at some point further down the line. Assuming that the rest of us have enough income to spend more on their products.

I bet that's reassuring for those about to be laid off. Safe as houses then :wink: :greengrin

So the company (part owned by the state) should continue to run at a loss then?

If a listed company is not run on the basis of what is good for it's shareholders what basis should it be run on?

Oh and you seem to have forgotten to explain just what the government of the day should have been doing to prevent Lloyds cutting jobs..

Gordon Brown didn't seem to have anything to offer back in July 2009:

""I understand their frustrations at what is happening.

"They have served the bank well and they are the victims of what has happened to HBOS in its worldwide activity, and particularly its failures in other countries."

He continued: "We will do what we can to help the staff of Halifax HBOS/Lloyds TSB.

"We are also making it possible for people to have new facilities to find jobs in the area and we will do what we can to reduce unemployment in these difficult circumstances."

What's your offering?

[One Day Soon]

So the company (part owned by the state) should continue to run at a loss then?

If a listed company is not run on the basis of what is good for it's shareholders what basis should it be run on?

Oh and you seem to have forgotten to explain just what the government of the day should have been doing to prevent Lloyds cutting jobs..

Gordon Brown didn't seem to have anything to offer back in July 2009:

""I understand their frustrations at what is happening.

"They have served the bank well and they are the victims of what has happened to HBOS in its worldwide activity, and particularly its failures in other countries."

He continued: "We will do what we can to help the staff of Halifax HBOS/Lloyds TSB.

"We are also making it possible for people to have new facilities to find jobs in the area and we will do what we can to reduce unemployment in these difficult circumstances."

What's your offering?

Part of my offering would be to force these self serving (currently state owned) entities to to address two issues.

One is the continuing massive waste of money on perks and privileges for their senior management.

The other, far more damaging matter, is their failure to support the SME sector anywhere near adequately with loans and risk sharing. This is the part of our economy most likely to help us grow out of stagnation and yet still the banks are only interested in 'sure things' and ripping whatever charges they can out of that sector.

For so long as that is allowed to continue we are not going to get the confidence necessary to address high unemployment and low growth.

It won't save the 15,000 jobs at Lloyds in the short run but if it was addressed it would save many jobs in the longer term.

The Government owns these banks, why doesn't it start flexing its muscles?

[magpie1892]

Do you think Lloyds are the only company laying people off? :rolleyes:

No growth, cuts that are too deep and too fast and our cost of living is rising far higher than people's spending power. Tell me how service sector jobs can be sustainable in that climate?

Things will only get worse unless the Tories change course.

Again, change course to what? Can you exemplify an alternative, one other than what the Coalition is doing and what Labour promised to do had it been returned at the GE?

Is there a 'third way' of which we remain unaware?

What would you be doing to address the debt, deficit and resultant borrowing stemming from expenditure vastly outstripping income?

[RyeSloan]

Part of my offering would be to force these self serving (currently state owned) entities to to address two issues.

One is the continuing massive waste of money on perks and privileges for their senior management.

The other, far more damaging matter, is their failure to support the SME sector anywhere near adequately with loans and risk sharing. This is the part of our economy most likely to help us grow out of stagnation and yet still the banks are only interested in 'sure things' and ripping whatever charges they can out of that sector.

For so long as that is allowed to continue we are not going to get the confidence necessary to address high unemployment and low growth.

It won't save the 15,000 jobs at Lloyds in the short run but if it was addressed it would save many jobs in the longer term.

The Government owns these banks, why doesn't it start flexing its muscles?

Thanks for the reply.

While Executive pay may well be excessive claiming that changing that would save 1000's of jobs is a bit like saying tax the rich more to pay of the deficit...it might help a bit but really would do nothing to change the fundamentals.

Interesting to note though that Lloyds claim to have increased net lending to small businesses this year by 2%, against a market that has shrunk 3% and that they are ahead of targets for lending to businesses Project Merlin....sounds like they are already doing what you ask.

While I agree that lending to the SME sector is critical you do have to wonder what begins to happen when Governments decide what lending criteria should be and how extra lending rules could be squared agianst the requirements for baks to meet Basel 3. The UK indeed is proposing even higher capital requirements than Basel 3. China is a good example of government led lending/investment targets and the jury is well and truly out as to just what trouble that is storing up for them.

Finally I can't reply without noting that despite your earlier ire at the Tories re these job loses that even you admit that your own ideas wouldn't prevent these job loses in the short term.

Maybe increased R&D tax credits might help or lower Corp Tax rates or CGT breaks for entrepreneurs or a more generous enterprise investment scheme or targeted Enterprise zones....:greengrin

[Leicester Fan]

The other, far more damaging matter, is their failure to support the SME sector anywhere near adequately with loans and risk sharing. This is the part of our economy most likely to help us grow out of stagnation and yet still the banks are only interested in 'sure things' and ripping whatever charges they can out of that sector.

For so long as that is allowed to continue we are not going to get the confidence necessary to address high unemployment and low growth.



I hear this a lot and I'm not having a go at you personally but some people have blamed the banks (and they do have a share of responsibility) for this recession because when times were good they loaned money to bad risks. Now that times are hard they are blamed for the recession because they won't lend money to risky ventures.

I'm glad I'm not in their shoes (although I wouldn't mind their wages).

[One Day Soon]

I hear this a lot and I'm not having a go at you personally but some people have blamed the banks (and they do have a share of responsibility) for this recession because when times were good they loaned money to bad risks. Now that times are hard they are blamed for the recession because they won't lend money to risky ventures.

I'm glad I'm not in their shoes (although I wouldn't mind their wages).

Yes they've been pretty bipolar in their behaviour. One day they're lending to anything that moves regardless of risk and the next they are off the scale in the other direction refusing loans even to cast iron propositions. They basically run monopolies, are accountable to no-one and are run to serve their own interests.

I have two very good contacts at a senior levels inside two of the major banks. The stories they relay privately on what still goes on at a senior level is hair raising.

[greenlex]

Yes they've been pretty bipolar in their behaviour. One day they're lending to anything that moves regardless of risk and the next they are off the scale in the other direction refusing loans even to cast iron propositions. They basically run monopolies, are accountable to no-one and are run to serve their own interests.

I have two very good contacts at a senior levels inside two of the major banks. The stories they relay privately on what still goes on at a senior level is hair raising.
Geez a PM. I could do with some hair. :greengrin

[magpie1892]

Would not waste my time debating your points however will resort to childish namecalling.....what a right wing Toryboy cock you are young man.


BIG G

Great work. A real contribution to this thread.

[magpie1892]

I have two very good contacts at a senior levels inside two of the major banks. The stories they relay privately on what still goes on at a senior level is hair raising.

I, too, would love to know more about this - spill the beans!

[Big Ed]

They basically run monopolies, are accountable to no-one and are run to serve their own interests.

Are they not meant to be accountable to their shareholders? :rolleyes::rolleyes:

[Holmesdale Hibs]

This thread got me thinking and I checked my pension projector. To maintain a 60% income by the time I retire I need to put away around a 1/4 of my net wage per month, which is then taxed again upon payment.



You shouldn't be taxed on money you put in your pension fund - my understanding is you get taxed once and that's when you receive payment (although you can normally get a 25% lump sum which I think is tax free).

I really feel for teachers/police. They have an increasingly difficult job and IMO they don't get paid enough for it. In an ideal world, teachers should be paid alot more and we should be recruiting the best we can.

Having said that, we don't live in an ideal world and the final salary pension fund is simply not sustainable. I'm not saying teachers/police don't deserve it, just that they its too expensive to fund.

I think its also important to make a distinction between teachers/police and some civil servants and overpaid council workers. There's some public sector jobs that are frankly a waste of tax payers money.

[Beefster]

Would not waste my time debating your points however will resort to childish namecalling.....what a right wing Toryboy cock you are young man.


BIG G

Sob. The old man bullied me because he couldn't think of a decent argument.

I feel violated.

[GORDONSMITH7]

Sob. The old man bullied me because he couldn't think of a decent argument.

I feel violated.

Yes, a girly Daily Mail /Telegraph sob. Bet you have not stood up for your rights in your wee puff. Whether punters stand up against so called left of Centre politicians in Pasok or Psoe, the Toryboys with their idealogically forced agenda or even if Labour had done it slower, the crisis has been one of rapacious greed of the wheelers and Lehman Brothers dealers of big Business internationally. You may never get off your knees but millions of people are. I salute them.

BIG G

[marinello59]

Yes, a girly Daily Mail /Telegraph sob. Bet you have not stood up for your rights in your wee puff. Whether punters stand up against so called left of Centre politicians in Pasok or Psoe, the Toryboys with their idealogically forced agenda or even if Labour had done it slower, the crisis has been one of rapacious greed of the wheelers and Lehman Brothers dealers of big Business internationally. You may never get off your knees but millions of people are. I salute them.

BIG G

Dearie me. My politics may be left wing but this post is just wrong. Why not enter in to debate rather than sneer at those who have a different viewpoint.

[Beefster]

Yes, a girly Daily Mail /Telegraph sob. Bet you have not stood up for your rights in your wee puff. Whether punters stand up against so called left of Centre politicians in Pasok or Psoe, the Toryboys with their idealogically forced agenda or even if Labour had done it slower, the crisis has been one of rapacious greed of the wheelers and Lehman Brothers dealers of big Business internationally. You may never get off your knees but millions of people are. I salute them.

BIG G

I can stand up for my own rights perfectly well when I need to. I just don't need union bigwigs on more than £200k a year to tell me when to do it.

I've never bought a Daily Mail or Telegraph in my life either.

[One Day Soon]

I, too, would love to know more about this - spill the beans!

I'd really like to. However I'm not going to put at prejudice someone else's job by revealing detail that is known by a pretty limited number of people. That sounds ridiculous I know, but it has the virtue of being true.

Think wasteful expenditure on things not necessary to perform one's job but really great to have if someone else is paying for it. And we aren't talking tens of thousands, but many multiples of hundreds of thousands in a range of different areas. That's just one case.

These people are still taking their customers, staff, shareholders and the taxpayer for a ride.

In the 1970s Governments propped up crap companies left, right and centre. It seems now only the banks matter. Masters of the Universe exposed as addicted gamblers in the international casino and now recycled as the companies that cannot be allowed to fail. No wonder they still treat everyone else with contempt, they are the little gods no one can touch regardless of how they under perform and they know it.

Speak to the Federation of Small Business about just how unhelpful they are to our SMEs. My personal favourite is when they effectively propose to sell you your own money. Need a business overdraft facility? Ok, you can have the £25k as long as you guarantee all of it with an asset like your home, pay a fee for setting up the overdraft and pay interest on the overdraft. So basically the bank takes no risk since you are guaranteeing the loan, and you then pay them for loaning you your own money and you pay them interest on your own money that they are loaning you. A risk-free parasitical relationship.

How about the bank that informed two people I know of that the mortgages they had on second properties needed to be converted to Capital and Interest repayment from Interest only after the initial deal ran out? Tough if they couldn't afford the higher monthly payments. They demanded substantial payments of equity into the mortgages whether the customer liked it or not. They were also explicit that the two customers couldn't get an alternative deal elsewhere so they were turning the screw on them as they knew they had nowhere else to go. In one case the bank demanded an equity injection of £5k initially and then gratuitously doubled it to £10k once they had looked at their customer's bank accounts and realised there were savings to that value in their account.

Power without responsibility.

[One Day Soon]

Are they not meant to be accountable to their shareholders? :rolleyes::rolleyes:

:faf:

[GORDONSMITH7]

I can stand up for my own rights perfectly well when I need to. I just don't need union bigwigs on more than £200k a year to tell me when to do it.

I've never bought a Daily Mail or Telegraph in my life either.

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Clicked Agree to this Yellow Card....deary me!


Should be ok with this then................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuMlHdxiIZ8


BIG G

Glory,Glory.

[BroxburnHibee]

The excessive use of swearing is not permitted.
Swearing in thread titles is not permitted.
No 'Flaming' or personal attacks directed at members of the board, or any other individual or company.
No Graphical Material of either gratuitous violence or a pornographic nature.
Any posts or links to such content will be deleted and your account suspended or banned.
No Warez (links) & Cracks.
This includes linking to illegally obtained software, movies & music files.
Observe all national and international copyright laws when posting (including the online media gallery).
Do not post anything relating to the undertaking of illegal activities. Such posts will be deleted, and if necessary, any information may be passed on to the relevant authority.
Always behave in a manner that is lawful under national and international law.
Due to the nature of the new search engine optimisations from the main search engine sites, links to anonymous commercial for profit organisations or business websites will be removed from posts. We hope that all users will adhere to this ruling and would ask that users check the links they have in signatures. Links decided by the administrators and moderators to be to commercial organisations will be removed.
The administrators reserve the right to edit or delete any posts that are in breach of these rules or deemed to be in bad taste.
Talk quietly - DINNY SHOUT.
All posts must be written in English, Nae text speak, ya radges..
Don't spam/abuse any other member via e-mail or Private Messages.
No Advertising
This includes but is not limited to offering items for sale, advertising of your services and/or websites.
Permission may be obtained for advertising by contacting one of the admin staff.

Clicked Agree to this Yellow Card....deary me!


Should be ok with this then................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuMlHdxiIZ8


BIG G

Glory,Glory.

Great contribution :aok:

[Beefster]

Rulez.....

Should be ok with this then................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuMlHdxiIZ8


BIG G

Glory,Glory.

Ah, you can't beat a bit of Bob.

PS I hope you don't think the yellow is anything to do with me. Us wet, girly Toryboy cocks can take a bit of mild abuse no problem.

[GORDONSMITH7]

Ah, you can't beat a bit of Bob.

PS I hope you don't think the yellow is anything to do with me. Us wet, girly Toryboy cocks can take a bit of mild abuse no problem.

Fornicate me blue Beefster you have just violated at least a dozen of the Holy Grail rules.

Mikey,Johnboy,Dianne...where are you guys when you are really needed.

BIG G

[RyeSloan]

Fornicate me blue Beefster you have just violated at least a dozen of the Holy Grail rules.

Mikey,Johnboy,Dianne...where are you guys when you are really needed.

BIG G


:yawn::yawn::yawn:

[Beefster]

The gap between the average salary in the public sector and that in the private sector widens.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14028848

[Mibbes Aye]

The gap between the average salary in the public sector and that in the private sector widens.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14028848

That can't be right. The Tories said that private sector growth would make up for the spending cuts. And economic growth in the private sector should mean higher wages......

Oh hold on, that's right, growth is pretty much non-existent isn't it?

Doesn't matter if you're public or private sector, everyone has less spending power when wages don't keep up with inflation.

[magpie1892]

That can't be right. The Tories said that private sector growth would make up for the spending cuts. And economic growth in the private sector should mean higher wages......

Oh hold on, that's right, growth is pretty much non-existent isn't it?

Doesn't matter if you're public or private sector, everyone has less spending power when wages don't keep up with inflation.

Forget that, I'm still keen to know what 'course' the Tories need to change to as per your assertion on the previous page...

[RyeSloan]

That can't be right. The Tories said that private sector growth would make up for the spending cuts. And economic growth in the private sector should mean higher wages......

Oh hold on, that's right, growth is pretty much non-existent isn't it?

Doesn't matter if you're public or private sector, everyone has less spending power when wages don't keep up with inflation.

Seems to me that pay is roughly equal...you can take various factors into accout to get various answers but the answer always seems to be a few percentage points either way.

Haven't seen too much press on the Tories stating economic growth will allow public sector workers to earn more in the private sector. I would be interested to read these assertions as I would like to see their assumptions, do you have a link?

Growth is indeed flattish...there are many reasons for this, not least the debt hangover at a domestic and national level, all which have been built up over a decade or two. Yet you seem to hold Osbourne personally responsible for the economic figures since the day he took office when you well know that economic growth is not something that you can magic up, especially after a massive financial shock.

I agree on your last point for sure...times are tough but again what levers are there left to pull in Whitehall or Threadneedle Street? The government's cupboard is bare almost beyond the point of no return and interest rates are at an all time low...above inflation wage rises are impossible for both the public and private sectors to support (and not desirable as they will simply lead to stagflation) and an interest rate rise would be a significant risk...again not too much any incumbent in Number 11 can do about these fundamentals in the short term.

What we should be doing is taking the medicine now, setting government spending to allow a surplus to facilitate gradual borrowing reduction and trying to ensure we create a thriving business environment that encourages investment......whether the coalition has done enough here I'm not sure but I am sure that more government intervention and specifically spending is not the route to go down, it will surely cause us more pain in the long run no?

[Mibbes Aye]

Seems to me that pay is roughly equal...you can take various factors into accout to get various answers but the answer always seems to be a few percentage points either way.

Haven't seen too much press on the Tories stating economic growth will allow public sector workers to earn more in the private sector. I would be interested to read these assertions as I would like to see their assumptions, do you have a link?

Growth is indeed flattish...there are many reasons for this, not least the debt hangover at a domestic and national level, all which have been built up over a decade or two. Yet you seem to hold Osbourne personally responsible for the economic figures since the day he took office when you well know that economic growth is not something that you can magic up, especially after a massive financial shock.

I agree on your last point for sure...times are tough but again what levers are there left to pull in Whitehall or Threadneedle Street? The government's cupboard is bare almost beyond the point of no return and interest rates are at an all time low...above inflation wage rises are impossible for both the public and private sectors to support (and not desirable as they will simply lead to stagflation) and an interest rate rise would be a significant risk...again not too much any incumbent in Number 11 can do about these fundamentals in the short term.

What we should be doing is taking the medicine now, setting government spending to allow a surplus to facilitate gradual borrowing reduction and trying to ensure we create a thriving business environment that encourages investment......whether the coalition has done enough here I'm not sure but I am sure that more government intervention and specifically spending is not the route to go down, it will surely cause us more pain in the long run no?

I agree about the risk around interest rates. I think it's noticeable how many more repossessions are available on the property market and with so many people overdue the equivalent of three or more months worth of mortgage repayments (I'm sure I read 160,000?), then it's not hard to imagine the consequences for a lot of them should a rise occur. At the same time, there iwould be some benefit to pensioners reliant on their savings. I suppose it's a balancing act and nobody said government was meant to be easy :greengrin

I agree that there's a need to show discipline and a need to show restraint, but there's a bigger picture which is that creating the conditions for growth over the long-term is consensually the best remedy for our tax and spending issues, regardless of ideology.

I think where a lot of people have concerns is that throttling public spending to such a great degree takes away one of the stimuli for growth. More worrying than that though is the suspicion that the deficit is used as a smokescreen for the dismantling of a public sector, which isn't what people voted for.

When you see what the Tories tried to do with the NHS and when you see the way in which normal people parrot the line that pensions are unsustainable (even though their cost will decrease!), then it's hard to trust that there isn't a subtext, hard to trust that their actions aren't motivated by an ideological zeal that most of the public (including probably a fair few Tory voters) don't actually share.

[Beefster]

I agree about the risk around interest rates. I think it's noticeable how many more repossessions are available on the property market and with so many people overdue the equivalent of three or more months worth of mortgage repayments (I'm sure I read 160,000?), then it's not hard to imagine the consequences for a lot of them should a rise occur. At the same time, there iwould be some benefit to pensioners reliant on their savings. I suppose it's a balancing act and nobody said government was meant to be easy :greengrin

I agree that there's a need to show discipline and a need to show restraint, but there's a bigger picture which is that creating the conditions for growth over the long-term is consensually the best remedy for our tax and spending issues, regardless of ideology.

I think where a lot of people have concerns is that throttling public spending to such a great degree takes away one of the stimuli for growth. More worrying than that though is the suspicion that the deficit is used as a smokescreen for the dismantling of a public sector, which isn't what people voted for.

When you see what the Tories tried to do with the NHS and when you see the way in which normal people parrot the line that pensions are unsustainable (even though their cost will decrease!), then it's hard to trust that there isn't a subtext, hard to trust that their actions aren't motivated by an ideological zeal that most of the public (including probably a fair few Tory voters) don't actually share.

Absolute nonsense. The projected share of GDP that will be spent on public sector pensions drops slightly over the next 50 years. The actual cost of them increases in real terms - in both the short and long term.

I'm sure that, considering you're always banging on about growth being non-existent, you're not going to hang your hat on figures that assume a certain growth in GDP.

[Dashing Bob S]

Ah, you can't beat a bit of Bob.

PS I hope you don't think the yellow is anything to do with me. Us wet, girly Toryboy cocks can take a bit of mild abuse no problem.

Okay, I'll bite.


Stop the cuts!

Cameron out!

etc etc

[Mibbes Aye]

Absolute nonsense. The projected share of GDP that will be spent on public sector pensions drops slightly over the next 50 years. The actual cost of them increases in real terms - in both the short and long term.

I'm sure that, considering you're always banging on about growth being non-existent, you're not going to hang your hat on figures that assume a certain growth in GDP.

Oh come on Beefster, everyone acknowledges the cost as a proportion of GDP represents the truth of the matter, the real 'real' cost. That's why Francis Maude and Justine Greening were left looking like idiots when interviewers challenged them about it.

As for the current lack of growth, I suppose I'm banking on this Coalition not being in power for the next fifty years.

[Beefster]

Oh come on Beefster, everyone acknowledges the cost as a proportion of GDP represents the truth of the matter, the real 'real' cost. That's why Francis Maude and Justine Greening were left looking like idiots when interviewers challenged them about it.

As for the current lack of growth, I suppose I'm banking on this Coalition not being in power for the next fifty years.

Course they do.

"Lord Hutton told BBC One's Politics Show: "We shouldn't rely on that 50-year bet that overall these pensions are sustainable in their current form.""

You're probably better informed than the Labour peer who spent months carrying out the review though.

[RyeSloan]

I agree about the risk around interest rates. I think it's noticeable how many more repossessions are available on the property market and with so many people overdue the equivalent of three or more months worth of mortgage repayments (I'm sure I read 160,000?), then it's not hard to imagine the consequences for a lot of them should a rise occur. At the same time, there iwould be some benefit to pensioners reliant on their savings. I suppose it's a balancing act and nobody said government was meant to be easy :greengrin

I agree that there's a need to show discipline and a need to show restraint, but there's a bigger picture which is that creating the conditions for growth over the long-term is consensually the best remedy for our tax and spending issues, regardless of ideology.

I think where a lot of people have concerns is that throttling public spending to such a great degree takes away one of the stimuli for growth. More worrying than that though is the suspicion that the deficit is used as a smokescreen for the dismantling of a public sector, which isn't what people voted for.

When you see what the Tories tried to do with the NHS and when you see the way in which normal people parrot the line that pensions are unsustainable (even though their cost will decrease!), then it's hard to trust that there isn't a subtext, hard to trust that their actions aren't motivated by an ideological zeal that most of the public (including probably a fair few Tory voters) don't actually share.

Careful we are almost on common ground here!! :greengrin

But that bit in bold is the crux isn't it...we are merely trying to get back to where we spend what we earn (in government terms), the quicker we do that (and 5 years hardly seems fast) the better it will be in the long run. I openly admit this will cause pain, and in some cases significant pain, but for the good of the long term health of the country and it’s ability to continue to support a huge welfare system and free point of use healthcare I think it’s essential. The fact is over the long term government spending does NOT encourage growth so continuing the government overspend is not a long term answer, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the areas where government spending is lowest per head tend to be the ones with the best GDP growth.

A bit off topic but the plans for the English NHS were not as bad as they seemed and I think the government flunked the chance to a) provide a better proposal and then b) to stick to their guns. There is far too many vested interests stopping reform and there is a world of difference between private provision and private funding, something that the UK public simply don’t seem to grasp.

We’ve discussed the public sector pensions already so won’t go over old ground…I do agree though that like any other government the Tories need watching, they often do have ideological tendencies but I must admit I really think you read far too much into some of the proposals of the coalition and that a lot of what they have proposed looks far from pathological right wing ideological zeal (bit of a mouthful that one!).

[GORDONSMITH7]

So asking public sector workers to have fully funded pension schemes that require no further subsidy from the tax payer is ‘backdoor privatisation’…even for you that’s a bit of a leap is it not!!

So it’s politics of envy not unfunded liabilities…right got you. Are you suggesting that actually there is no shortfall in the public sector pension provision at all and it’s simply a dirty Tory tactic?

Good to know that none of this would be a problem if Labour were still in power, damn should have known that it would all the be Tories fault!



Mary Bousted, the general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), pointed out that the taxpayer funded private sector pensions to the tune of £37.6 billion in 2007/08, the most recent year for which figures are available, through subsidies and tax reliefs.

This amounted to more than the total £35 billion paid out to beneficiaries of private schemes that year, she said. And it compares with the £27.1 billion estimated cost to the taxpayer of public sector pensions in 2011/12, according to figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Ms Bousted said that the Government had shifted its position in the row over public sector pensions and was no longer claiming they were "unaffordable", after it was revealed that they are set to decline from 1.9% of national income to 1.4% by 2060. Instead, ministers were now asserting that the public sector scheme was unfair on private sector workers whose taxes help fund it.
But she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I would like to take that head on. In 2007/08, the last year for which figures are available, the taxpayer subsidised private sector pensions to the tune of £37.6 billion in subsidies and tax relief.

"When you consider the amount paid out that year in private sector pensions was £35 billion, the total paid in private sector pensions was actually subsidised by the state.

"This idea that public sector pensions are paid for by the taxpayer and private sector pensions have to go it alone and pay for themselves isn't true.

"Let's stop this false pitting of private sector pensions and public sector pensions against each other. The state pays through its taxes for public sector pensions and it pays indirectly through tax relief to pension contributions for private sector pensions, which don't perform very well."



As someone who receives two Final Salary Pensions after working over 40 years for private companies and benefitted from tax relief to pension contributions, I happen to agree entirely with the above sentiments.

BIG G

[RyeSloan]

Mary Bousted, the general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), pointed out that the taxpayer funded private sector pensions to the tune of £37.6 billion in 2007/08, the most recent year for which figures are available, through subsidies and tax reliefs.

This amounted to more than the total £35 billion paid out to beneficiaries of private schemes that year, she said. And it compares with the £27.1 billion estimated cost to the taxpayer of public sector pensions in 2011/12, according to figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Ms Bousted said that the Government had shifted its position in the row over public sector pensions and was no longer claiming they were "unaffordable", after it was revealed that they are set to decline from 1.9% of national income to 1.4% by 2060. Instead, ministers were now asserting that the public sector scheme was unfair on private sector workers whose taxes help fund it.
But she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I would like to take that head on. In 2007/08, the last year for which figures are available, the taxpayer subsidised private sector pensions to the tune of £37.6 billion in subsidies and tax relief.

"When you consider the amount paid out that year in private sector pensions was £35 billion, the total paid in private sector pensions was actually subsidised by the state.

"This idea that public sector pensions are paid for by the taxpayer and private sector pensions have to go it alone and pay for themselves isn't true.

"Let's stop this false pitting of private sector pensions and public sector pensions against each other. The state pays through its taxes for public sector pensions and it pays indirectly through tax relief to pension contributions for private sector pensions, which don't perform very well."



As someone who receives two Final Salary Pensions after working over 40 years for private companies and benefitted from tax relief to pension contributions, I happen to agree entirely with the above sentiments.

BIG G

Lets be honest here….the ATL are trying to be smart here but end up sounding a bit daft. Pension contributions are not considered taxable income at point of contribution because they are taxed at point of payment and that’s before you consider the rather strange concept of tax payers subsidising themselves! Are the ATL suggesting people should pay tax on their contributions and then on the income those contributions will provide in later life??

The key with Public Sector pensions is that they do not have fully funded pots to pay for them. This means that the contributions being paid will not and do not meet the liabilities being paid. Private Sector pensions moved away from final salary schemes for this very reason, yes defined contribution schemes tend to pay less but if that’s what the contributions are worth then that’s what they are worth.

I really struggle to see why the public sector employees think that it’s right that after the expense of employing them the tax payer should be expected to make further payments to meet pension payments that are known to be higher than the value of the contributions. This is the unfairness Hutton picked up on and to my mind is the core of the issue.

Public Sector employees are being asked to contribute more and receive less so I totally understand their resistance to that concept, the fact is though the rest of Britain suffered that change sometime ago and can’t quite understand why one section of the nation, and especially the section paid out of tax income, should continue not to face what is an every day reality for the rest.

[Mibbes Aye]

Careful we are almost on common ground here!! :greengrin

But that bit in bold is the crux isn't it...we are merely trying to get back to where we spend what we earn (in government terms), the quicker we do that (and 5 years hardly seems fast) the better it will be in the long run. I openly admit this will cause pain, and in some cases significant pain, but for the good of the long term health of the country and it’s ability to continue to support a huge welfare system and free point of use healthcare I think it’s essential. The fact is over the long term government spending does NOT encourage growth so continuing the government overspend is not a long term answer, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the areas where government spending is lowest per head tend to be the ones with the best GDP growth.

A bit off topic but the plans for the English NHS were not as bad as they seemed and I think the government flunked the chance to a) provide a better proposal and then b) to stick to their guns. There is far too many vested interests stopping reform and there is a world of difference between private provision and private funding, something that the UK public simply don’t seem to grasp.

We’ve discussed the public sector pensions already so won’t go over old ground…I do agree though that like any other government the Tories need watching, they often do have ideological tendencies but I must admit I really think you read far too much into some of the proposals of the coalition and that a lot of what they have proposed looks far from pathological right wing ideological zeal (bit of a mouthful that one!).

I think you're right - we aren't miles apart, just some differences in interpretation and attribution.

I'm still not sure why wiping out the deficit so quickly is still seen as a necessity, let alone desirable. We've carried a structural deficit for decades haven't we? Most of the Thatcher years, most of the New Labour years. Being honest, it hasn't stopped our living standards improving immeasurably. I agree it is healthy to get rid of it but doing it at the rate we are just causes unnecessary and counter-productive pain.

If you wanted to pay off your mortgage and be debt-free, you wouldn't restrict your outgoings so much that you couldn't afford the petrol to get to work, would you?

I think that's partly where we differ - we judge the impact of the process differently and that's fair enough. There are many different perspectives and factors and they all have a validity, to an extent. On the point of growth and government spending, I think there's a plausible argument around why it should retract in the 'good times'. Nevertheless, there was sustained growth over the ten years or so until the global crisis kicked in and that sat alongside an expansion of spending. A good proportion of spending was capital expenditure, infrastructure etc which maybe is worth bearing in mind though - simplifying again, if a government spends a lot of capital money (e.g. on hospitals) that keeps people healthier, does that not in itself contribute to increased growth on a long-term (i.e. decades) scale?


Re the NHS I'm happy to concede that some aspects might well have been better than portrayed. At the same time I think some aspects were worse than they were being portrayed. Your point about the difference between provision and funding is a very fair one. I don't think the NHS proposals were wrong solely on ideological grounds - I think some elements were simply ill-conceived.

That probably illustrates my view of the government, in response to your last paragraph - there's been a lot of haste and incompetence (would Michael Gove have survived in any other job having botched so many policy initiatives?) but there are those at the heart of the party who have no qualms about what they were doing, which is why members of Cameron's inner circle, have been quoted talking about unleashing "creative destruction in the public services" or talking about replacing local government with "chaos".

I think there are people who are naturally inclined to vote Conservative who would have no truck with that whatsoever.

[Mibbes Aye]

Lets be honest here….the ATL are trying to be smart here but end up sounding a bit daft. Pension contributions are not considered taxable income at point of contribution because they are taxed at point of payment and that’s before you consider the rather strange concept of tax payers subsidising themselves! Are the ATL suggesting people should pay tax on their contributions and then on the income those contributions will provide in later life??

The key with Public Sector pensions is that they do not have fully funded pots to pay for them. This means that the contributions being paid will not and do not meet the liabilities being paid. Private Sector pensions moved away from final salary schemes for this very reason, yes defined contribution schemes tend to pay less but if that’s what the contributions are worth then that’s what they are worth.

I really struggle to see why the public sector employees think that it’s right that after the expense of employing them the tax payer should be expected to make further payments to meet pension payments that are known to be higher than the value of the contributions. This is the unfairness Hutton picked up on and to my mind is the core of the issue.

Public Sector employees are being asked to contribute more and receive less so I totally understand their resistance to that concept, the fact is though the rest of Britain suffered that change sometime ago and can’t quite understand why one section of the nation, and especially the section paid out of tax income, should continue not to face what is an every day reality for the rest.

I think the funding thing is another misrepresentation being put about by the Government.

I'm pretty sure the local government pension scheme, for example, is fully-funded.

Can't speak for the likes of firefighters or nurses though.

[RyeSloan]

I think you're right - we aren't miles apart, just some differences in interpretation and attribution.

I'm still not sure why wiping out the deficit so quickly is still seen as a necessity, let alone desirable. We've carried a structural deficit for decades haven't we? Most of the Thatcher years, most of the New Labour years. Being honest, it hasn't stopped our living standards improving immeasurably. I agree it is healthy to get rid of it but doing it at the rate we are just causes unnecessary and counter-productive pain.

If you wanted to pay off your mortgage and be debt-free, you wouldn't restrict your outgoings so much that you couldn't afford the petrol to get to work, would you?


I think that's partly where we differ - we judge the impact of the process differently and that's fair enough. There are many different perspectives and factors and they all have a validity, to an extent. On the point of growth and government spending, I think there's a plausible argument around why it should retract in the 'good times'. Nevertheless, there was sustained growth over the ten years or so until the global crisis kicked in and that sat alongside an expansion of spending. A good proportion of spending was capital expenditure, infrastructure etc which maybe is worth bearing in mind though - simplifying again, if a government spends a lot of capital money (e.g. on hospitals) that keeps people healthier, does that not in itself contribute to increased growth on a long-term (i.e. decades) scale?


Re the NHS I'm happy to concede that some aspects might well have been better than portrayed. At the same time I think some aspects were worse than they were being portrayed. Your point about the difference between provision and funding is a very fair one. I don't think the NHS proposals were wrong solely on ideological grounds - I think some elements were simply ill-conceived.

That probably illustrates my view of the government, in response to your last paragraph - there's been a lot of haste and incompetence (would Michael Gove have survived in any other job having botched so many policy initiatives?) but there are those at the heart of the party who have no qualms about what they were doing, which is why members of Cameron's inner circle, have been quoted talking about unleashing "creative destruction in the public services" or talking about replacing local government with "chaos".

I think there are people who are naturally inclined to vote Conservative who would have no truck with that whatsoever.

Achh all this sensible chat…no where near as good as bitter sniping!! :greengrin

To take the bit in bold first we are not paying off the national debt though, merely trying to stop it growing.

To take your analogy we are actually trying to get to the point where we can pay the mortgage without borrowing from the credit card to do so…and the quicker we do that the better I think.

I take your point about infrastructure spending and the like, I certainly do not think that there should be no government spending and to be honest I’m not that bothered as to what they or the people consider the priority for that spend. I am bothered though that we have came to accept a structural deficit as the ‘norm’ and not something to be overly concerned about. In the long term, and we are indeed talking decades here, it is simply not sustainable. You are right that Britain has had a deficit for most of the last 3 decades (I don’t know the detail to know how much of that would be considered a structural deficit) and that spending may well have helped the living standards to grow but at some point we have to admit that you cannot borrow more and more forever and ever and rely on government spending to keep ‘poorer’ areas afloat, ultimately it’s self defeating. The financial crisis merely hastened the day of reckoning and shone a very bright light on the strength of the nations finances…sadly that light showed them to be no where near as robust as some thought and not in a position to take a substantial shock without there being substantial pain afterwards.

Finally I do not in anyway wish local government to be in chaos nor required public services to be creatively destroyed…actually quite the opposite, more revenue should be raised locally and spent locally (damn is that me going all Big Society? :greengrin).

[RyeSloan]

I see the latest Labour Market Stats are out....they will hardly set the heather on fire (if any set of stats ever could :greengrin) but again they seem to show a labour market that is reasonably stable. So for the first half of 2011 which some were forecasting to be a disaster for jobs it has proven not to be.

As I have said before I have no idea if this will last but the figures do give a small encouragement to the idea that the government can at least try some austerity without causing too much damage in the job market.

There is lots of stats, some just on the good side, some just on the bad side but I though the following was quite interesting:

Excluding temporary Census employment there were 6.15 million people employed in the public sector in March 2011, down 39,000 from December 2010.
The number of people in private sector employment in March 2011 was 23.08
million, up 104,000 from December 2010.

Now correct me if I am wrong but does that not read like the private sector has created more jobs than the public sector has lost....:devil:

[Mibbes Aye]

I see the latest Labour Market Stats are out....they will hardly set the heather on fire (if any set of stats ever could :greengrin) but again they seem to show a labour market that is reasonably stable. So for the first half of 2011 which some were forecasting to be a disaster for jobs it has proven not to be.

As I have said before I have no idea if this will last but the figures do give a small encouragement to the idea that the government can at least try some austerity without causing too much damage in the job market.

There is lots of stats, some just on the good side, some just on the bad side but I though the following was quite interesting:

Excluding temporary Census employment there were 6.15 million people employed in the public sector in March 2011, down 39,000 from December 2010.
The number of people in private sector employment in March 2011 was 23.08
million, up 104,000 from December 2010.

Now correct me if I am wrong but does that not read like the private sector has created more jobs than the public sector has lost....:devil:

Not that straightforward though, is it?

We now have a record number of part-time jobs in this country. Having to take a part-time job because there's no full-time ones isn't a healthy sign.

And with wages losing their value month after month due to inflation, being employed is sadly no guarantee against becoming worse off.

I genuinely hope the government can address unemployment and inflation. The commentators seem to think unemployment is yet to peak though. I would hope they're wrong but let's face it, this wouldn't be the first Tory government to see mass unemployment as an entirely acceptable policy tool.

[SouthsideHarp_Bhoy]

If you were to look at one part of my credit card statement, a large part even, over a few weeks, all you would see were outgoings - and that wouldn't be particularly sustainable.

If you look at the whole thing you would see the money paying it off, which does make it sustainable.

Essentially this is how the Tories are framing the debate, albeit on a much larger scale. Talking about one part, rather than the whole. Justifying cuts that are too far and too fast as a necessity, when it's an ideological crusade to continue what Thatcher wanted to do.
Don't let the Tories put blinkers on you - there is a bigger picture.

This is where you lose your argument for me. Simply put, you cannot know that - nobody can. You might suspect it, but that is because you want it to be the case and you are going looking for evidence to back that up. Of course the other side are doign the same, and they cannot know that their action is right. The whole debate is intensely political, because frankly we all have to wait and see.

Where this whole argument gets me though, is why do those on the left think it is wrong for a right of centre government to be 'ideological', but it is OK for a left of centre government to be ideological?

Yes, i htink the tories want government to spend less (although i think you completely overstate your case when you paint pictures of some machivellian ploy by the tories to be Thatcher mark II) 0 there are plenty of tories who think this current coalition government is far too left wing.

But even accepting your point that there is some ideology in there, what is wrong with that? Just becasue you dont agree with it, doesnt mean it is wrong. They are a democratically elected government who got far more votes than the Labour alternative, who presided over an economic collapse unseen since the 1930s - yes there were other factors, but a lrge factor in all of that was Labour's ideology - that governments shgould tax more and spend more.

So ideological spending is OK, but ideological cutting is not? Typical sanctimonious left-wing attitude, that unfortunately for the left (and particuarly for Scotland and Wales), the main rump of the UK electorate (i.e. England) simply do not buy the left-of-centre stuff, and (arguably depending on your take on New Labour) have not voted for a left-of-centre government since the mid-seventies.

As much as the left hate to admit it (and no doubt why they despise her so much) Thatcher killed off the left so effectively that all they have now is clinging on to the same discredited theories about spending more, and being sanctimonious about their 'progressive' views (what does progressive even mean, because it seems to me that the left, such as it is in the UK now, are one of the most conservative forces in operation in politics - see the trades unions protesting at any and all changes).

[ballengeich]

- yes there were other factors, but a lrge factor in all of that was Labour's ideology - that governments shgould tax more and spend more.


I disagree with this. The problem was that the government spent without taxing. If they'd raised tax rates to a level needed to cover expenditure we wouldn't have the current deficit crisis (how the economy would have looked is a subject for another speculative debate). Ed Balls was in Gordon Brown's economic team. As a result, I can't take Labour's economic policies seriously as listening to him expressing views on how the economy should be run ranks with listening to Yogi giving advice on managing Hibs.

[Mibbes Aye]

This is where you lose your argument for me. Simply put, you cannot know that - nobody can. You might suspect it, but that is because you want it to be the case and you are going looking for evidence to back that up. Of course the other side are doign the same, and they cannot know that their action is right. The whole debate is intensely political, because frankly we all have to wait and see.Where this whole argument gets me though, is why do those on the left think it is wrong for a right of centre government to be 'ideological', but it is OK for a left of centre government to be ideological?Yes, i htink the tories want government to spend less (although i think you completely overstate your case when you paint pictures of some machivellian ploy by the tories to be Thatcher mark II) 0 there are plenty of tories who think this current coalition government is far too left wing.But even accepting your point that there is some ideology in there, what is wrong with that? Just becasue you dont agree with it, doesnt mean it is wrong. They are a democratically elected government who got far more votes than the Labour alternative, who presided over an economic collapse unseen since the 1930s - yes there were other factors, but a lrge factor in all of that was Labour's ideology - that governments shgould tax more and spend more. So ideological spending is OK, but ideological cutting is not? Typical sanctimonious left-wing attitude, that unfortunately for the left (and particuarly for Scotland and Wales), the main rump of the UK electorate (i.e. England) simply do not buy the left-of-centre stuff, and (arguably depending on your take on New Labour) have not voted for a left-of-centre government since the mid-seventies.As much as the left hate to admit it (and no doubt why they despise her so much) Thatcher killed off the left so effectively that all they have now is clinging on to the same discredited theories about spending more, and being sanctimonious about their 'progressive' views (what does progressive even mean, because it seems to me that the left, such as it is in the UK now, are one of the most conservative forces in operation in politics - see the trades unions protesting at any and all changes). I don't think you grasp what I'm saying, probably why you've been left with throwing words like 'sanctimonious' around, so much.I would also suggest that trying to say Labour have a 'tax more, spend more' ideology is ridiculously outdated.If there are genuine criticisms of Gordon Brown to be had, one of the main ones for me was that he too strongly believed that growth could sustain spending, without resorting to dramatic hikes in taxation.Your comments about Labour being the main reason for the economic crisis are just silly. How many protesters in Athens are blaming Gordon Brown, do you think?

[Big Ed]

Here are two statistics that should be imprinted in the mind of anyone who takes an interest in the state of UK finance:
1. The National Audit Office stated that Government support for Britain's banks has reached £850 billion and
2. The Government has indicated that the tax avoidance industry is estimated to cost the public purse £25 billion, and tax evasion as much as £70 billion.
These statistics are over a year old, but give or take a few billion, you get the idea.
SiMar has a good point with his analogy about using a credit card to pay your mortgage, but it is used to point out that austerity measures are necessary.
These austerity measures, as promoted by the IMF, will not work; Ireland appears to have followed them to the letter and they have had their Credit Rating downgraded in the last couple of months: They are ****ed.
Rampant lobbying by companies desperate to get their hands on Government contracts has put our political parties in hock to opportunists keen to grab billions of pounds of tax payers money.
In the current financial state, you would think that someone might even suggest an increase in Income Tax. I haven’t heard a thing. We are being led by the nose to oblivion.
No one knows how much our banks are at risk to the European debt contagion, but it has been suggested that if Portugal and Ireland default, they are in deep, deep trouble. What then?
Meanwhile mass unemployment is here to stay, so growth looks unlikely.
So, two alternative solutions:
1. Separate Retail and Investment banking and let the Investment banking fail if necessary
2. Grab back the tax the UK exchequer is due.

[ballengeich]

Here are two statistics that should be imprinted in the mind of anyone who takes an interest in the state of UK finance:
1. The National Audit Office stated that Government support for Britain's banks has reached £850 billion and
2. The Government has indicated that the tax avoidance industry is estimated to cost the public purse £25 billion, and tax evasion as much as £70 billion.
These statistics are over a year old, but give or take a few billion, you get the idea.


Even if you could bring in the £90 billion mentioned above there would still be £50 billion of government deficit to deal with, so do you have any figures on what tax rates would need to be set to cover that? I haven't seen any serious figures from anti-cut campaigns and it's a critical omission from their arguments.

While I'd like to see more effort going into combating tax avoidance and evasion, you won't eliminate either entirely, just as the police can never make an arrest for every crime (anyone ever paid in cash to get a job done cheaper?). In practice I suspect it would be difficult to get it down below a third of the current level, but that's just a guess.

[magpie1892]

Even if you could bring in the £90 billion mentioned above there would still be £50 billion of government deficit to deal with, so do you have any figures on what tax rates would need to be set to cover that? I haven't seen any serious figures from anti-cut campaigns and it's a critical omission from their arguments.

While I'd like to see more effort going into combating tax avoidance and evasion, you won't eliminate either entirely, just as the police can never make an arrest for every crime (anyone ever paid in cash to get a job done cheaper?). In practice I suspect it would be difficult to get it down below a third of the current level, but that's just a guess.

Tax levels in the UK are already well beyond punitive and the idea of another tax rise (following VAT and NI rises - up 15% and 9% respectively) won't wash with anyone. Neither should it, as countless studies both practical and theoretical have shown that tax breaks increase tax take overall.

Successive governments pissing the lot up the wall, or stealing, or using taxes to fund illegal wars and civilian slaughter well into six figures kind of removes the incentive to give any more of my money to the Exchequer.

[SouthsideHarp_Bhoy]

I don't think you grasp what I'm saying, probably why you've been left with throwing words like 'sanctimonious' around, so much.I would also suggest that trying to say Labour have a 'tax more, spend more' ideology is ridiculously outdated.If there are genuine criticisms of Gordon Brown to be had, one of the main ones for me was that he too strongly believed that growth could sustain spending, without resorting to dramatic hikes in taxation.Your comments about Labour being the main reason for the economic crisis are just silly. How many protesters in Athens are blaming Gordon Brown, do you think?

Dont worry, I grasp what you are saying fine. You said we are cutting too fast too quickly (which is of course the 'Labour line') - my point is that you cannot possibly know that, you only think that because you want it to be the case. It seems to me that the jury is very much out on Osborne's plan at the moment, and only time will tell whether it was correct or not.

Fair point you and the previous poster made about taxation, i was thinking more about the numerous stealth taxes brought in, but i accept that point. Tax and spend was the wrong way to put it.

I dont know about Greece im afraid, but i suspect the Greek situation (like the UK situation) is a case of beng mortagaged up to the hilt in the good times, so that when the bad times hit (which of course, they were never goign to do in the UK because Mr Brown had ended that cycle hadnt he?) there was little credit left, or it was quickly becoming unaffordable. I would have thought that the Greeks are protesting about their own Governent, and probably about the IMF (thank god we didnt have to go to the IMF eh?!)

I use the word sanctimonious because i think thats what many on the left are. Only the ideology of the left can be good thing, and obviously if the Tories are throwing ideology into their policies that is a bad thing - but that is rubbish.

[Twa Cairpets]

Tax levels in the UK are already well beyond punitive and the idea of another tax rise (following VAT and NI rises - up 15% and 9% respectively) won't wash with anyone. Neither should it, as countless studies both practical and theoretical have shown that tax breaks increase tax take overall.

Successive governments pissing the lot up the wall, or stealing, or using taxes to fund illegal wars and civilian slaughter well into six figures kind of removes the incentive to give any more of my money to the Exchequer.

I may well be being thick, but youre talking in the first paragraph about people not accepting tax rises, but at the same time arguing against tax breaks because they increase tax overall? So do you want tax reduced or increased?

As for your money being pissed up a wall - yeh, maybe lots of it has been. But I'm guessing when you have recourse to needing the NHS you'll be happy to pay for that. Or the police. Or the Fire Service. Whatever your politics, there are things a government will do that you disagree with, but in a relatively civilised country like the UK, a lot of your tax goes to provide services for everyone and the nation as a whole.

[Big Ed]

Even if you could bring in the £90 billion mentioned above there would still be £50 billion of government deficit to deal with, so do you have any figures on what tax rates would need to be set to cover that? I haven't seen any serious figures from anti-cut campaigns and it's a critical omission from their arguments.

While I'd like to see more effort going into combating tax avoidance and evasion, you won't eliminate either entirely, just as the police can never make an arrest for every crime (anyone ever paid in cash to get a job done cheaper?). In practice I suspect it would be difficult to get it down below a third of the current level, but that's just a guess.

Of course, you are right when you say that the prospects of getting back all revenue owed are remote. I was simply trying to show that there are billions of pounds that should be handed over to the Inland Revenue which we seem to be fairly nonchalent about collecting; meanwhile Public Services are to be cut to the bone.
Income Tax seems to be a sacred cow when it comes to economic policy. Put up VAT and Road Tax all you like but suggest an increase in Income Tax and your credibility is in tatters. I find that strange.
The real and continuing problem is that of the Banks. Even Mervyn King had a dig when he uttered "Of all the ways of organising banking, the worst is the one we have today” last October. Our economy appears to be utterely dependent on them, and so we continue to let them carry on with the same procedures as before the 2008 crash, in the hope that they might pull a rabbit out of the hat and save the economy.
The only rabbit I can see, is the Government one; staring at a set of headlamps.

[Beefster]

I may well be being thick, but youre talking in the first paragraph about people not accepting tax rises, but at the same time arguing against tax breaks because they increase tax overall? So do you want tax reduced or increased?

I thought that he was making the case for tax breaks (i.e. giving tax breaks increases the tax take)?

[magpie1892]

I may well be being thick, but youre talking in the first paragraph about people not accepting tax rises, but at the same time arguing against tax breaks because they increase tax overall? So do you want tax reduced or increased?

As for your money being pissed up a wall - yeh, maybe lots of it has been. But I'm guessing when you have recourse to needing the NHS you'll be happy to pay for that. Or the police. Or the Fire Service. Whatever your politics, there are things a government will do that you disagree with, but in a relatively civilised country like the UK, a lot of your tax goes to provide services for everyone and the nation as a whole.

Yes, you're being thick. I am saying that tax breaks (EDIT: do) raise the level of taxation collected overall (laffer curve, et al).

I, too, am familiar with the concept of taxation paying for those things used by all. In my previous post I don't recall mentioning having an issue with taxation for the NHS, Police or the Fire Service.... what's your point?

[magpie1892]

I thought that he was making the case for tax breaks (i.e. giving tax breaks increases the tax take)?

I was. Apols to anyone for whom this was not clear.

[Twa Cairpets]

Yes, you're being thick. I am saying that tax breaks (can) raise the level of taxation collected overall (laffer curve, et al).

The word missing in your original post was "can". Thanks for clarifying.


I, too, am familiar with the concept of taxation paying for those things used by all. In my previous post I don't recall mentioning having an issue with taxation for the NHS, Police or the Fire Service.... what's your point?

It was a response to your "removes the incentive" comment. There are lots of things I dont like my tax money being spent on, but I don't avoid paying my taxes. No-one likes it, or is massively incentivised in any way really, other than in general we live in a good country. Not perfect by any means, and if it was down to me (and Im guessing to you also) more money would go to education, health care and the like rather than the MoD, but using the disapproval of the disbursement of tax income as an argument against tax in generla is a pretty weak one to my mind.

[magpie1892]

The word missing in your original post was "can". Thanks for clarifying.

I'll recant on 'can' and refer you to my original post, which is stet. My follow up has been edited appropriately!





It was a response to your "removes the incentive" comment. There are lots of things I dont like my tax money being spent on, but I don't avoid paying my taxes. No-one likes it, or is massively incentivised in any way really, other than in general we live in a good country. Not perfect by any means, and if it was down to me (and Im guessing to you also) more money would go to education, health care and the like rather than the MoD, but using the disapproval of the disbursement of tax income as an argument against tax in generla is a pretty weak one to my mind.

You're being selective. I said: 'removes the incentive to give any more of my money' (my bold).

So your commentary, while no doubt well-intentioned, still struggles for relevance to what I was saying.

[Twa Cairpets]

I'll recant on 'can' and refer you to my original post, which is stet. My follow up has been edited appropriately!
Fair does - I just didnt fully understand the first post. All is clear now.


You're being selective. I said: 'removes the incentive to give any more of my money' (my bold).

So your commentary, while no doubt well-intentioned, still struggles for relevance to what I was saying.

Nae probs. Although in the context of the thread, on aa very basic level there are only two ways to reduce the debt, and that is either cuts on spending or increases in taxation (with the rider that the increases do actually increase the tax yield). A reluctance to pay more tax as a result of some of the policies of the govenrment is a valid, but weak, argument, in my opinion. Funding needs to come from somewhere unless there is an acceptance that the provision of some services lessen or are eliminated.

[magpie1892]

Fair does - I just didnt fully understand the first post. All is clear now.



Nae probs. Although in the context of the thread, on aa very basic level there are only two ways to reduce the debt, and that is either cuts on spending or increases in taxation (with the rider that the increases do actually increase the tax yield). A reluctance to pay more tax as a result of some of the policies of the govenrment is a valid, but weak, argument, in my opinion. Funding needs to come from somewhere unless there is an acceptance that the provision of some services lessen or are eliminated.

Do increases in tax increase the yield? I am not sure. The laffer curve says not; well, not indefinitely, and we need to consider deadweight loss also. I'm not convinced at all by the efficacy of tax rises to increase tax yield one bit and I'm far from alone in this position. I concede that there is a little latitude with taxation deducted at source, which is why the Tories put VAT up (and NI) but the headline figure of what proportion of our income makes its way back to the government is getting very close to levels that will lead to unrest if they are pushed higher. The solution with the greater economic credence is cutting spending - those who argue for an alternative (keep spending, when we're broke and barely out of a recession/depression) are hugely outnumbered by those who advocate cuts.

Of course, cutting £6bn from public services (usually vital stuff - the management and the five-a-day amputee lesbian outreach workers are too vital to sacrifice) doesn't achieve much if you then up your IMF subs to £12bn and give nine figures to countries with nuclear weapons and space programmes.

On that basis, I would - reluctantly, I might add (apart from in the egregious cases) - accept the lessening or elimination of some services. We simply have to cut our cloth accordingly - for now.

[Twa Cairpets]

Do increases in tax increase the yield? I am not sure. The laffer curve says not; well, not indefinitely, and we need to consider deadweight loss also. I'm not convinced at all by the efficacy of tax rises to increase tax yield one bit and I'm far from alone in this position. I concede that there is a little latitude with taxation deducted at source, which is why the Tories put VAT up (and NI) but the headline figure of what proportion of our income makes its way back to the government is getting very close to levels that will lead to unrest if they are pushed higher. The solution with the greater economic credence is cutting spending - those who argue for an alternative (keep spending, when we're broke and barely out of a recession/depression) are hugely outnumbered by those who advocate cuts.

Of course, cutting £6bn from public services (usually vital stuff - the management and the five-a-day amputee lesbian outreach workers are too vital to sacrifice) doesn't achieve much if you then up your IMF subs to £12bn and give nine figures to countries with nuclear weapons and space programmes.

On that basis, I would - reluctantly, I might add (apart from in the egregious cases) - accept the lessening or elimination of some services. We simply have to cut our cloth accordingly - for now.

The impact of a tax increase in terms of revenue generated will depend on what it (the tax increase) is. Increasing tax on something - lets say Alcohol, for example - will only increase revenue if the decrease in consumption as a result of a higher retail price is less than the value of the increase, which is your point I guess. Some areas of life are, to me, undertaxed, others are overtaxed but to think that any increase in tax will reduce reduce income isnt correct - I know thats not what you're saying, but its why the question of tax cant be looked at without detail.

Your second paragraph is utter nonsense. Seriously, if you're claiming this fictious "amputee lesbian outreach worker" as a reason why taxes are badly spent it's doing your argument no justice. There are some roles in some councils which are superfluous, but in the grand scheme of things, they are infintessimally small. The big ticket spends in the public purse are health, defence, education, pensions, welfare, and its in these areas that hits need to be made if a dent is to be made on debt reduction funded by cuts. Cutting 100% of a trivial sum might make good headlines, and I've no objection by the way in every penny of spend being looked at, but it will make no meaningful difference to the numbers.

[magpie1892]

Your second paragraph is utter nonsense. Seriously, if you're claiming this fictious "amputee lesbian outreach worker" as a reason why taxes are badly spent it's doing your argument no justice. There are some roles in some councils which are superfluous, but in the grand scheme of things, they are infintessimally small. The big ticket spends in the public purse are health, defence, education, pensions, welfare, and its in these areas that hits need to be made if a dent is to be made on debt reduction funded by cuts. Cutting 100% of a trivial sum might make good headlines, and I've no objection by the way in every penny of spend being looked at, but it will make no meaningful difference to the numbers.

Steady, I was just making a poor attempt at humour!

[RyeSloan]

Here are two statistics that should be imprinted in the mind of anyone who takes an interest in the state of UK finance:
1. The National Audit Office stated that Government support for Britain's banks has reached £850 billion and
2. The Government has indicated that the tax avoidance industry is estimated to cost the public purse £25 billion, and tax evasion as much as £70 billion.
These statistics are over a year old, but give or take a few billion, you get the idea.
SiMar has a good point with his analogy about using a credit card to pay your mortgage, but it is used to point out that austerity measures are necessary.
These austerity measures, as promoted by the IMF, will not work; Ireland appears to have followed them to the letter and they have had their Credit Rating downgraded in the last couple of months: They are ****ed.
Rampant lobbying by companies desperate to get their hands on Government contracts has put our political parties in hock to opportunists keen to grab billions of pounds of tax payers money.
In the current financial state, you would think that someone might even suggest an increase in Income Tax. I haven’t heard a thing. We are being led by the nose to oblivion.
No one knows how much our banks are at risk to the European debt contagion, but it has been suggested that if Portugal and Ireland default, they are in deep, deep trouble. What then?
Meanwhile mass unemployment is here to stay, so growth looks unlikely.
So, two alternative solutions:
1. Separate Retail and Investment banking and let the Investment banking fail if necessary
2. Grab back the tax the UK exchequer is due.

Your £850bn figure is total hogwash. That was the potential total liability....fact is £500bn odd of that was guarantees that were hardly used. The direct cost was largely the sums used to bail out Lloyds. RBS and B&B, about £100bn iirc. Of course that's a lot of money but the nation also got a hell of a lot of assets for that money...some of which may well be sold in the future substantially re-couping the initial cost.

The real cost to the exchequer was the associated recession and the slump in tax take, mainly from the banks! So don't believe the £85-bn figure, it's not an accurate figure to use when looking at the cost of supporting the banks directly.

I think you are partly right about austerity and the IMF...it simply doesn't work when the issue has gone too far...Ireland and Greece are good examples of where austerity is being applied too late. Of course government spending needs to be reduced but substantial losses on bond holders is also surely required.

Tax avoidance is not always not paying tax you are due. It is avoiding being due that tax in the first place. You can't on the one had have an almost unfathomably complicated tax system and on the other complain that people pay experts to reduce their liability to it on the other. A much better argument would be to propose a simplified and much clearer tax code that reduces the need or incentive to avoid paying a flatter, lower level of tax.

Finally your point about retail and investment banks is a popular one to read these days but considering Lehman was purely an investment bank and B&B was purely a retail play the proposed ringfencing (if it's even possible) is no guarantee to avoid failed banks in the future. Not saying it shouldn't be done. just pointing out that it is no silver bullet and of course the more you look at the detail the more opaque the the hole idea becomes.

[RyeSloan]

Of course, you are right when you say that the prospects of getting back all revenue owed are remote. I was simply trying to show that there are billions of pounds that should be handed over to the Inland Revenue which we seem to be fairly nonchalent about collecting; meanwhile Public Services are to be cut to the bone.
Income Tax seems to be a sacred cow when it comes to economic policy. Put up VAT and Road Tax all you like but suggest an increase in Income Tax and your credibility is in tatters. I find that strange.
The real and continuing problem is that of the Banks. Even Mervyn King had a dig when he uttered "Of all the ways of organising banking, the worst is the one we have today” last October. Our economy appears to be utterely dependent on them, and so we continue to let them carry on with the same procedures as before the 2008 crash, in the hope that they might pull a rabbit out of the hat and save the economy.
The only rabbit I can see, is the Government one; staring at a set of headlamps.

Cut to the bone? Really? Central Government Spending in 2010: 496bn, in 2011 512bn. Sadly most of the increase would appear to be in debt servicing costs but those figures hardly seem to be spending being cut to the bone do they!?!.

I'm not sure the banks are the real and continuing problem...the exchequers dependence on the tax they provide would seem to be closer to the mark.

Still despite the horrible mess some made of it all Britain is still pretty good at providing financial services and a global market place to trade so I'm possibly slightly more comfortable with the thought of that continuing rather than trying to re-invent our economy to be directly aligned to say Germany who's manufacturing knowledge and expertise would probably consign those efforts swiftly to the rubbish bin and our economy along with it!

[ballengeich]

I'm not sure the banks are the real and continuing problem...the exchequers dependence on the tax they provide would seem to be closer to the mark.

Still despite the horrible mess some made of it all Britain is still pretty good at providing financial services and a global market place to trade so I'm possibly slightly more comfortable with the thought of that continuing rather than trying to re-invent our economy to be directly aligned to say Germany who's manufacturing knowledge and expertise would probably consign those efforts swiftly to the rubbish bin and our economy along with it!

I think that the government wants to augment rather than replace the financial sector, and it's a part of their outlook that I agree with. As you say, a dependence on bank taxes is unhealthy.

A further consequence of the recession in financial services is the effect on the balance of payments. The last monthly figure I read showed a deficit of around £8 billion. That equates to us spending £1500 more per head per annum on imported goods than we earn in exports. It's not commented on much due to the focus on the budget deficit, but it worries me. In particular, any attempt to stimulate the domestic economy, in particular the retail market, runs the risk of a deterioration in this figure

[RyeSloan]

I think that the government wants to augment rather than replace the financial sector, and it's a part of their outlook that I agree with. As you say, a dependence on bank taxes is unhealthy.

A further consequence of the recession in financial services is the effect on the balance of payments. The last monthly figure I read showed a deficit of around £8 billion. That equates to us spending £1500 more per head per annum on imported goods than we earn in exports. It's not commented on much due to the focus on the budget deficit, but it worries me. In particular, any attempt to stimulate the domestic economy, in particular the retail market, runs the risk of a deterioration in this figure

I agree (to an extent :greengrin)...interesting to see the trade deficit without services (not just financial) would be significantly higher which to me shows that Services not Manufacturing is what Britiain is good at and what the rest of the world wants. I'm not sure the much mooted rebalancing is actually possible considering the skill base of the UK worker so maybe we should be looking to develop where we are strong and continue to push ourselves up the value chain. Niche manufacturing may have a role to play in that but a wholesale return to mass producing items is not possible to my small mind and would be doomed to failure although a complete reliance on one area of the service sector would clearly be just as bad....as we have already discovered.

[Big Ed]

Cut to the bone? Really? Central Government Spending in 2010: 496bn, in 2011 512bn. Sadly most of the increase would appear to be in debt servicing costs but those figures hardly seem to be spending being cut to the bone do they!?!.

I'm not sure the banks are the real and continuing problem...the exchequers dependence on the tax they provide would seem to be closer to the mark.

Still despite the horrible mess some made of it all Britain is still pretty good at providing financial services and a global market place to trade so I'm possibly slightly more comfortable with the thought of that continuing rather than trying to re-invent our economy to be directly aligned to say Germany who's manufacturing knowledge and expertise would probably consign those efforts swiftly to the rubbish bin and our economy along with it!

"Cut to the bone" may be a wee bit of hyperbole, but my comment began with "are to be...." therefore, I recognise that this is still to happen for the most part.
I am inclined to agree that re-inventing our economy would be potentially disasterous, but I think that it is equally disasterous to completely rely on the financial services industry, which has barely any regulation, even after 2008, and has the financial clout to lobby and influence our two main political parties; both of whom, in recent years, have been pleading poverty.

[magpie1892]

"but I think that it is equally disasterous to completely rely on the financial services industry

On what else should we rely? Heavy industry in the UK is donald ducked, all our world-famous car makers are now foreign owned, coal and steel finished, shipbuilding finished, etc., etc.,

The UK has a good tourist industry, as well it might despite the embarrassing state of the transport infrastructure and levels of crime, but the rest of the country seems to 'enjoy' a role as a service industry to the Home Counties whose primary industry is... financial services - the one thing we still lead the world in, as London remains the world's most important financial market.

Suggest some alternatives.

[Big Ed]

On what else should we rely? Heavy industry in the UK is donald ducked, all our world-famous car makers are now foreign owned, coal and steel finished, shipbuilding finished, etc., etc.,

The UK has a good tourist industry, as well it might despite the embarrassing state of the transport infrastructure and levels of crime, but the rest of the country seems to 'enjoy' a role as a service industry to the Home Counties whose primary industry is... financial services - the one thing we still lead the world in, as London remains the world's most important financial market.

Suggest some alternatives.

Suggest alternatives? Surely that is the job of the entrepreneurs out there.
One man who intrigues me is Sir James Dyson and what he has done: his vacuum cleaners are acknowledged as the best. He spends millions on research and development to keep his products at the top of the tree. He stood before a Conservative Party Conference audience and asked for Government to invest in industry, but he closed his production plant in England and now they are made in Malaysia (though the R & D facility is still there).
Here lies the problem: it is cheaper to assemble products on the other side of the globe and ship them back, than it is to make them here.
We have to be able to diversify and look long term, but what are the chances of that? Most CEOs are only interested in their company’s share price, as it is seen as the indicator of the company’s state of health, but history tells us that this is not always the case. We have to look long term and who wants to bother with that when you can make fortunes by doing whatever you want in the “lightly regulated” financial sector, and if it all goes wrong: the Government will foot the bill.
I’m aware that I’ve gone off on a tangent; but if our economy is dependent on one thing (which is so dominant that it determines Government policy to the exclusion of all else) then we are in a bad place.

[lapsedhibee]

if our economy is dependent on one thing (which is so dominant that it determines Government policy to the exclusion of all else) then we are in a bad place.

:agree: If it weren't for the Royal Weddings every other week, "banana republic" would spring to mind.

[magpie1892]

Suggest alternatives? Surely that is the job of the entrepreneurs out there.

It's your job, too, if you want to talk about it!


..but if our economy is dependent on one thing (which is so dominant that it determines Government policy to the exclusion of all else) then we are in a bad place.

I agree (though not with your assertion that 'everything else' is excluded). The UK is in a very bad place indeed. The country desperately needs - and would, I am convinced, respond enthusiastically to - complete root and branch reform but while there are countless people out there who would love to step up and pull the UK back from the grisly end that is approaching, they are stymied (and sometimes criminalised) at every turn by our elected representatives whose sole interest is the achievement and retention of office - the wishes of the electorate are wholly unimportant.

The idea that we have a representative democracy is laughable but, staying on topic, the idea atop this thread that 'the cuts must stop' is an incoherent suggestion, and remains so in lieu of any suggested alternative/s.

[Twa Cairpets]

It's your job, too, if you want to talk about it!



I agree (though not with your assertion that 'everything else' is excluded). The UK is in a very bad place indeed. The country desperately needs - and would, I am convinced, respond enthusiastically to - complete root and branch reform but while there are countless people out there who would love to step up and pull the UK back from the grisly end that is approaching, they are stymied (and sometimes criminalised) at every turn by our elected representatives whose sole interest is the achievement and retention of office - the wishes of the electorate are wholly unimportant.

The idea that we have a representative democracy is laughable but, staying on topic, the idea atop this thread that 'the cuts must stop' is an incoherent suggestion, and remains so in lieu of any suggested alternative/s.

Could you give an example of people of this sort?

[Big Ed]

..The idea that we have a representative democracy is laughable but, staying on topic, the idea atop this thread that 'the cuts must stop' is an incoherent suggestion, and remains so in lieu of any suggested alternative/s.

What I have tried to highlight, during the course of my posts on this subject, is my belief is that is erroneous to make the assumption that only cuts in Public Spending can save our economy.
In my opinion, these cuts are not about eliminating wastefulness (which would be virtuous) but identifying where cuts can be made in order to free up money: something entirely different.
We seem to have gotten away from the fact that our Public Services provide for our Society as a whole: if they are not fit for purpose; then they should be reformed until they are. Unfortunately this is where the opportunists step in and we are left with abhorrent creations such as PFI.
I am reluctant to suggest a dogmatic approach; I think that it is part of the reason that we are where we are, but the Nordic Model appears to be more pragmatic and flexible than the version of monetarism that we have in the UK and could serve as a very loose template.
Unfortunately, any possibility of informed debate on the need for change, is stymied the mercenary politicians, financiers and media who have no desire see past their next opportunity to exploit.

[magpie1892]

Could you give an example of people of this sort?

Big Ed gave a very good one - James Dyson. His moving manufacture overseas muddies the waters somewhat though.

In general, I would include the nameless thousands who give up their spare time to charities that deal with addicts, the homeless, criminals, the disabled, etc. People who work with youth services.

Entrepreneurs who understand that if you offer a good service at a decent price you can employ people without exploiting them and still make a profit. Sugar? Bannantyne?

People who make a contribution to society (taxes, and time (as above)) and are concerned about those that do not contribute, but only take - I think that's many millions of people.

Many sportsmen and women, people who inspire and are proud to represent the UK (from the past, Nigel Benn, from the present, Amir Khan).

Simon Weston?

etc.,

criminalised (not the 'big' names mentioned) in terms of the fact that certainly the last labour government's multiple assaults on liberty and freedom of speech made certain types of peaceful assembly at Parliament illegal, and so on. Criminal records for those giving some **** who's just smashed a window a clip round the ear, prosecution of teachers for 'assault', etc.

[magpie1892]

What I have tried to highlight, during the course of my posts on this subject, is my belief is that is erroneous to make the assumption that only cuts in Public Spending can save our economy.
In my opinion, these cuts are not about eliminating wastefulness (which would be virtuous) but identifying where cuts can be made in order to free up money: something entirely different.
We seem to have gotten away from the fact that our Public Services provide for our Society as a whole: if they are not fit for purpose; then they should be reformed until they are. Unfortunately this is where the opportunists step in and we are left with abhorrent creations such as PFI.
I am reluctant to suggest a dogmatic approach; I think that it is part of the reason that we are where we are, but the Nordic Model appears to be more pragmatic and flexible than the version of monetarism that we have in the UK and could serve as a very loose template.
Unfortunately, any possibility of informed debate on the need for change, is stymied the mercenary politicians, financiers and media who have no desire see past their next opportunity to exploit.

Agree again, although, again, with a caveat. I don't think you can blame the media (but I would say that).

Just back from a week in Iceland. Very jealous of how they have it all set up, if not the weather.

Little thing about Swedish politicians. When they need to be in Stockholm, the government puts them up in perfectly acceptable state-owned accommodation with bed, desk, kitchen, telly, internet and access to laundry services, etc. If they want a 2nd home they buy it themselves, if they want to do up their properties (or four of them, if you're Alistair Darling, three if you're Margaret Moran, etc.) then they pay for it themselves. Can you imagine the squeals out of the Westminster trough if we did that here? But why not?

It's hard to be optimistic about the future of the UK when you see who we, nominally, have in charge.

[Twa Cairpets]

Big Ed gave a very good one - James Dyson. His moving manufacture overseas muddies the waters somewhat though.

In general, I would include the nameless thousands who give up their spare time to charities that deal with addicts, the homeless, criminals, the disabled, etc. People who work with youth services.

Entrepreneurs who understand that if you offer a good service at a decent price you can employ people without exploiting them and still make a profit. Sugar? Bannantyne?

People who make a contribution to society (taxes, and time (as above)) and are concerned about those that do not contribute, but only take - I think that's many millions of people.

Many sportsmen and women, people who inspire and are proud to represent the UK (from the past, Nigel Benn, from the present, Amir Khan).

Simon Weston?

etc.,

criminalised (not the 'big' names mentioned) in terms of the fact that certainly the last labour government's multiple assaults on liberty and freedom of speech made certain types of peaceful assembly at Parliament illegal, and so on. Criminal records for those giving some **** who's just smashed a window a clip round the ear, prosecution of teachers for 'assault', etc.

That's a very nice soapbox speech about all the wonderful Brits that are out there. I don't quite get how these people are in any way denied the opportunity to "step up and pull the UK back from the grisly end that is approaching", so I'm still non the wiser. Are you suggesting that these people should do more in a Cameronesque "Big Society" kind of way? As for Nigel Benn and Amir Khan, what a very very strange selection of individuals.

On the criminalisation front, thats not really an answer either, as far as I can see - just a diatribe against Labour. Would returning to a 1950's approach to civil liberties really bring back us back from the grisly end? Seriously?

I love reading your posts. It saves me going onto the Daily Mail website.

[magpie1892]

That's a very nice soapbox speech about all the wonderful Brits that are out there. I don't quite get how these people are in any way denied the opportunity to "step up and pull the UK back from the grisly end that is approaching", so I'm still non the wiser. Are you suggesting that these people should do more in a Cameronesque "Big Society" kind of way? As for Nigel Benn and Amir Khan, what a very very strange selection of individuals.

On the criminalisation front, thats not really an answer either, as far as I can see - just a diatribe against Labour. Would returning to a 1950's approach to civil liberties really bring back us back from the grisly end? Seriously?

I love reading your posts. It saves me going onto the Daily Mail website.

Cameron's full of ****. I hate them all equally.

I don't see what's strange about Benn and Khan.

And signing off with an ad hominem, good work. I did sense that your initial enquiry was trolling but I gave you the benefit of the doubt. More fool me...

[Twa Cairpets]

Cameron's full of ****. I hate them all equally.

I don't see what's strange about Benn and Khan.

And signing off with an ad hominem, good work. I did sense that your initial enquiry was trolling but I gave you the benefit of the doubt. More fool me...

No, the first enquiry wasnt trolling. I was trying to understand what you were on about, I still dont know as you answered with some meaningless rhetoric.

It was not an ad hominem (either in terms of what an ad hominem logical fallacy actually is or what I suspect you take it as being). I could happily refer to you to a couple of your own posts on other threads if you would like classic examples of what an ad hominem is. Maybe I should just say "steady, I was just making a poor attempt at humour". :wink:

I genuinely would like to know what you mean in the post about "people being stymied". You suggest that there are people who are in some way being constrained by government into making changes that would stop the country going to hell in a handcart. Who? What constraints?

As for Benn and Khan, theyre odd because they're random examples of boxers of black/Asian descent who have done well. What on Earth has that got to do even remotely with "saving the country". I really don't get what you're trying to say here.

[magpie1892]

No, the first enquiry wasnt trolling. I was trying to understand what you were on about, I still dont know as you answered with some meaningless rhetoric.

It was not an ad hominem (either in terms of what an ad hominem logical fallacy actually is or what I suspect you take it as being). I could happily refer to you to a couple of your own posts on other threads if you would like classic examples of what an ad hominem is. Maybe I should just say "steady, I was just making a poor attempt at humour". :wink:

I genuinely would like to know what you mean in the post about "people being stymied". You suggest that there are people who are in some way being constrained by government into making changes that would stop the country going to hell in a handcart. Who? What constraints?

As for Benn and Khan, theyre odd because they're random examples of boxers of black/Asian descent who have done well. What on Earth has that got to do even remotely with "saving the country". I really don't get what you're trying to say here.

We've been here before with ad hom and I've posted dictionary definitions more than once but, yeah, OK...:wink:

The constraints imposed by Parliament not doing what the majority wants, in just about every facet of society. And, as I mentioned, criminalising peaceful assembly. Also, as I mentioned, the breakdown of classroom discipline and teachers unable or unwilling to teach. The curriculum, what is being taught. Crime, punishment? The death penalty (which I am broadly against, but I am well in the minority), why we need recall for failing politicians, the EU, ECHR, HRA, drugs legislation, levels of taxation - all of these things are barriers to changes that people want that I believe would make positive changes to the state of the country. If you don't agree, that's not a problem, but I don't see how I can make this any clearer.

I'm not sure I said that Benn and Khan would save the country - but I did mention people that inspire and as I like boxing these two came to mind - proud to be British and... inspirational in their achievement.

The overall point I am making (either poorly, or you're being wilfully ignorant :greengrin) is that the political set-up in this country is a complete anathema to democracy and majority rule - so apathy reigns, when action could and should be taking place.

You're not suggesting we're all pulling in the same direction, surely?

[Twa Cairpets]

We've been here before with ad hom and I've posted dictionary definitions more than once but, yeah, OK...:wink:

The constraints imposed by Parliament not doing what the majority wants, in just about every facet of society. And, as I mentioned, criminalising peaceful assembly. Also, as I mentioned, the breakdown of classroom discipline and teachers unable or unwilling to teach. The curriculum, what is being taught. Crime, punishment? The death penalty (which I am broadly against, but I am well in the minority), why we need recall for failing politicians, the EU, ECHR, HRA, drugs legislation, levels of taxation - all of these things are barriers to changes that people want that I believe would make positive changes to the state of the country. If you don't agree, that's not a problem, but I don't see how I can make this any clearer.

I'm not sure I said that Benn and Khan would save the country - but I did mention people that inspire and as I like boxing these two came to mind - proud to be British and... inspirational in their achievement.

The overall point I am making (either poorly, or you're being wilfully ignorant :greengrin) is that the political set-up in this country is a complete anathema to democracy and majority rule - so apathy reigns, when action could and should be taking place.

You're not suggesting we're all pulling in the same direction, surely?

Surely in a democracy people won't all be pulling in the same direction, almost by definition?

There are lots of ways in which we as a society can do better, but to claim that the political system is anathema to democracy is patently absurd. If you define democracy as the blind following of the majority (or possibly vocal minority) on every issue you'd end up with unworkable chaos, which is why there arent endless referendums and elections are five years apart. As for politicians, yes, some are self serving and corrupt, which is why some have been jailed. Some, however, do their jobs, representing and helping their constituents - I've had direct personal experience of both types.

You also throw in ECHR as a barrier to change to make a positive difference to the country. I tend to think that Human Rights are a good thing - maybe it needs constant review to avoid people taking advantage of it unfairly, but don't believe all the headlines - and that isnt a dig.

As for tax cuts, which is where this thread comes in, on an individual basis, of course people want to pay less in taxes - I certainly do. But at the same time I'm not naive enough to think that if I want benefit out - education and healthcare for my kids, roads that arent falling apart, armed services, police, fire services, right down to things like litter pickers, verge cutters and parks maintenance then they need to be paid.

If we followed your model of following the rule of the majority, then presumably we'd pay almost no tax? Doesnt work, and we'd be a hell of a lot further removed from any concept of democracy than where we are now.

[magpie1892]

Surely in a democracy people won't all be pulling in the same direction, almost by definition?

There are lots of ways in which we as a society can do better, but to claim that the political system is anathema to democracy is patently absurd. If you define democracy as the blind following of the majority (or possibly vocal minority) on every issue you'd end up with unworkable chaos, which is why there arent endless referendums and elections are five years apart. As for politicians, yes, some are self serving and corrupt, which is why some have been jailed. Some, however, do their jobs, representing and helping their constituents - I've had direct personal experience of both types.

You also throw in ECHR as a barrier to change to make a positive difference to the country. I tend to think that Human Rights are a good thing - maybe it needs constant review to avoid people taking advantage of it unfairly, but don't believe all the headlines - and that isnt a dig.

As for tax cuts, which is where this thread comes in, on an individual basis, of course people want to pay less in taxes - I certainly do. But at the same time I'm not naive enough to think that if I want benefit out - education and healthcare for my kids, roads that arent falling apart, armed services, police, fire services, right down to things like litter pickers, verge cutters and parks maintenance then they need to be paid.

If we followed your model of following the rule of the majority, then presumably we'd pay almost no tax? Doesnt work, and we'd be a hell of a lot further removed from any concept of democracy than where we are now.

Hmm, we'll agree to differ on the major points, it seems, but this:
If we followed your model of following the rule of the majority, then presumably we'd pay almost no tax?

...makes no sense at all. You're saying that I'm suggesting the majority of people don't appreciate the need to pay tax? Neither did I say that, nor do I think it's true. Tax in the UK is certainly too high, but that's just my opinion.

[Twa Cairpets]

Hmm, we'll agree to differ on the major points, it seems, but this:

...makes no sense at all. You're saying that I'm suggesting the majority of people don't appreciate the need to pay tax? Neither did I say that, nor do I think it's true. Tax in the UK is certainly too high, but that's just my opinion.

In the interests of keeping the thread going, I'm actually not going to agree to differ in this instance because you're not making any points that I can see.

I would love to see you expand one of your points into a suggestion or idea that isn't based on polemic.


The UK is in a very bad place indeed. The country desperately needs - and would, I am convinced, respond enthusiastically to - complete root and branch reform

What would this be? How would it work? What type of reform?


...there are countless people out there who would love to step up and pull the UK back from the grisly end that is approaching, they are stymied (and sometimes criminalised) at every turn by our elected representatives

I'm going to return to this point, because you havent answered my question about who these people are or what the criminalisation actually is. Small bits of legislation about, for example, assembly in London are not hugely going to affect what people do. I dont necessarily agree with lot sof this legislation, but its not even close to being a game changer.

I finished the initial post on this bit of the thread with my little "Daily Mail" comment - apart from being a gentle poke, the background behind it is that exactly like the Daily Mail (from my perspective at any rate) you do tend to voice your opinion in something of a soapbox style, throwing out much by the way of doom laden rhetoric and why everything is awful but without much by way of concrete suggestions about what to actually do. This, I stress isn't a personal dig at you - you have very strong opinions that (for the most part) I think are pretty much diametrically opposed to almost all of mine, but just because I think youre wrong doesnt mean that I think its pointless discussing stuff.