YOU WHAT?

You couldn't make it up

I mean really you couldn't make it up.

For the first time ever the government pays out more in benefits than it receives in income tax

FLUFFY

"The Observer On Sunday Magazine Section

Lost. Will to live. Answers to the name of Fluffy."

Juliette sets out why she hates the left, here

PENSIONS APARTHEID

Are you in your 30s?
Do you have a final salary pension?

Well you must be in a public sector job then.

The pensions apartheid continues to grow as the gap between public and private sector continues apace and the sums are frankly astonishing. As reported in the Telegraph:

"If a 25-year-old worker joined a defined contribution scheme — the kind used by most workers in the private sector — this year and paid in 2.7 per cent of a lifetime average salary of £50,000 a year, while their employer paid in 6.5 per cent, they would receive an annual pension of £16,023 from the age of 65.

"A 25 year-old on the same pay joining a final salary scheme — most typically found in the public sector — could expect to receive £57,714"

That's over £41k a year more.

Now I am not going to fall into the trap of saying public sector workers aren't tax payers but there are some things to consider-

1) Final salary schemes, good benefits etc were originally there to supplement rather poor wages in the public sector. However, this is no longer the case. In fact as recession bites, public sector pay is outstripping private pay for the first time. The Pensions Policy Institute puts average public sector salaries at £25,600 and those in the private sector at £25,300,

Between 1997 and 2006 we saw a 13% increase in public sector pay alone representing 12.4% of national income.

2) With one-in-five in public sector pay, this represents an annual bill of £16bn a year according to the PPI and £45bn a year according to the Policy Exchange - the MOD is given £35m a year to run the army!

Why an annual bill? Well one of the problems with the public sector pension schemes is that most are unfunded - that is the government, me and you pay the bill. Which leads us to the really scary figure

3) Public liability

In 2005 the liability stood at £600bn rising to £725bn in 2006.
Even on the Government’s own figures, in 2005-6, the interest paid on the unfunded liabilities
exceeded the interest paid on the National Debt for the first time.

According to the Policy Exchange, using the Government’s own calculations, the accumulated liability of unfunded public sector pensions schemes is estimated to be greater than the national debt. If proper financial methods are applied, the true figure is vast - £1.1 trillion, or equivalent to 78% of GDP.

These are truly frightening figures.

So as the private sector final salary pension goes to the wall, public sector pensions carry on going in their merry unfunded way.

But why?

I mean why should 76% of public sector workers get a gold plated pension compared with 17% - and shrinking - of private sector workers?

At least there was a funding requirement for most of the private sector pension schemes.

If companies that earnt the country billions of pounds of income cannot cope with the pressure of final salary schemes why can a sector, which by its nature spends the country's capital rather than generates, think it can carry on with high wages and high pensions?

That is where the pension apartheid comes from and for the sake of our wallets, this will have to be addressed.

One final word: What do you call a pension scheme with a few planes?

British Airways

UPDATE:
Must be a meme going on- John Redwood is examining the death of private sector final salary schemes

MINISTRY OF TRUTH

With all the troughing etc going on, a private members bill that would make it illegal for MPs to deliberately deceive the public has been given a fresh breath of life

"The bill was originally presented by Adam Price MP to the House of Commons in October 2007, but ran out of time on second hearing.

After the expense scandal, the coalition want to re-introduce the Bill because the expense fraud is just a small part of a much bigger problem. Currently MPs police themselves for deception. They can’t be held to account by anyone other than themselves." Ministry of Truth

Headed up by Dom Joly, the site can be found here and the blog here

QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES?

Fitwatch is an organisation that turns the table on the forwards intelligence teams of the police - those are the plod that video protestors and activists at demos.

Two of their members were arrested by West Yorkshire Police in 2008 for trying to get officer numbers which, as we have seen in London, have a habit of being covered up thus avoiding responsibility for their actions.

Ignore the climate protestors, Fitwatch are doing an admirable job in highlighting the surveillance and actions of police that appear to have gotten worse in the last few years and watch this video from the Guardian.

Hat Tip: The Ranting Penguin

tories amok prt 2

So Hague and Clark are at loggerheads over the Lisbon Treaty according to Peter Osborne.

Europe is a fault line that has blighted the Tories since the mid-80s.

Since the putsch of Margaret, Europe has become the rallying call for those who misremember Thatcher and how closely she put the UK within the EC. So an eeiry sight of a dogmatic Tory appeared.

To be honest this lot are chasing some kind of ideological purity in the way that the left pursued in the Labour party post-79. A purity that has never existed. These people would rather see a Labour victory than see a pragmatic Conservative party in power and it is those people that are betraying party traditions not the other way round.

Let me explain, since its creation the Conservative Party has had one ideology - power. That's it, nothing more. If being a one-nation Tory got them power, then that's what the party became. If it was Friedman and economic liberalism then that would do to.

I like pragmatic governments, those that are generally use any means to help the country, (and of course in turn help their party win elections). Blair was pragmatic, hell, Thatcher was one of the most pragmatic leaders the country ever had. Although in my opinion Thatcher would never run away from Parliament to argue what she thought was right (even when she was wrong).

Some would say that parties need to identify with their supporters. Well no not really. They need to identify with the 20% of floating voters that decide our elections. I think it's fair to say that this 20% were disgusted with the left ideology of the likes of Foot and the right ideology that infected Hague, the two Ians and Howard's campaigns.

That is why Cameron is consistently ahead in the polls, the latest Comres gives a Conservative majority of 104. People like the pragmatic young communicator, again much like they liked what they heard and saw with Blair.

Blair knew the importance of kicking the ideologues into touch, so does Cameron. Indeed, if bedblockers become a problem (see below) then it could give him that decisive Clause 4 moment to finally break perceptions of the Nasty-Europe-obsessed party and place the Tories back in the pragmatic bracket that led them to be called the "natural party of government".

And if they want to be true to their roots, some tories had better remember that.

tories amok

Well not really but since that letter complaining of Cameron's treatment of some in the party compared to his inner circle that old beast has started rumbling.

There is nothing such as loyalty as the Tory party - they do discontent so well!