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Posts Tagged ‘Pensions’

I have written before about the deplorable Bob Quick over the Damien Green Affair and Mrs Quick’s wedding car hire service run from their home:- http://baldysblog.co.uk/2008/12/21/an-early-retirement-decision/

His latest cock up was to walk into Downing Street for a meeting and clearly on show, a detailed A4 summary sheet of an on-going anti-terror operation which was photographed by the crowd of press photographers and transmitted around the world before you could say “Bob Quick”. The man should have been fired last time, finally the creep has resigned but this ‘blog’ is not about these events, it is about Public Service Pensions.

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A Tory Party poll was conducted to ask whether given the likely economic circumstances, Cameron’s Team should with regard to policy go for: (a), Maximum openness – 33% (b). Medium Openness – 35% or, Minimum Openness – 29%.

The closeness of the result indicates the problem that all the political parties currently face as evidenced by the polls which may well be totally inaccurate and even, deliberately misleading. That the public are “angry” with their politicians must be totally obvious to anybody sitting inside the Palace of Westminster in possession of even half a functioning brain but few or none have yet to grasp a solution…

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The problem with Gordon Brown is simply that he just doesn’t grasp the significance of events as they develop and consequently, he is far too slow to take positive action. I suppose if I was being unkind, because Labour is so used to making “policy announcements” over the years and likely only 25% of which turned into some kind of action, talk rather than action is all to him.

The fuss about MP’s expenses and allowances in one sense, is not that important of itself. At times such as these, people will pick on most things where “people in power” seem rather cavalier with public money however, not dealing with the situation decisively, can only make matters worse. David Cameron’s words today were right, “Let us meet and sort it out, we don’t need to wait on this one…” Well something along those lines, let’s face it, it isn’t rocket science…

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In some ways and based upon whenever I’ve seen him interviewed, I have quite liked Tony McNaulty because he seemed a far more solid chap than the average Labour Cabinet Minister. However his involvement in the current Parliamentary expenses scandal and his lack of honesty merely demonstrates that there is absolutely no one in this Government of any integrity what so ever.

It is also perfectly clear that there needs to be a radical reform of how much, what and under what rules, any Member of Parliament gets paid, the current situation being clearly no longer tenable and clearly, MPs of all parties being far too venial to produce decent and transparent changes to clean up Parliament’s oh so tarnished reputation.

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In Thursday’s Telegraph blog, Iain Martin put forward an interesting perspective on City Bonuses by pointing out that in the “cut and thrust” of the City, Bankers and Traders feel no loyalty to their employers because they know, their employers have none to them. At the first sign of any turndown in trading, the employees get shown the door’.

The consequence is that “big bonuses” are the only way to recruit and retain the available talent. I suppose from that, the argument must follow that in the current economic circumstances, you need the best talent and that means bonuses, whether the Bank is partly owned or even fully owned by the taxpayer. I do not know whether that is true or not…

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It is not wrong to use public money to invest in major infrastructure and construction projects to provide real work for people that will keep the economy moving forward during a Slump, however, there are some basic rules that should be applied.

The projects should have major economic benefits moving forward into the future. Rather than treating this as a “failure” it is an “opportunity” to do things that in other times just would not happen or be affordable. If you want to build a hydro electric dam, railways and so forth, now would be the time to do it but it cannot be done on the spur of the moment, you needed to have planned for this long before; you need to have a sense of “A Vision or at least a Road Map…”

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The two previous essays were to describe a current and a possible future situation but in this one hopefully, I can try to pull the various elements together. As to whether my ideas are practical is a matter of opinion but at least I’m thinking about it and trying to communicate with others in order to provoke thought and discussion.

I want to move on to the more important part of these 3 essays, the politics and political impacts of change. The principles of democracy are far more important than just “one person, one vote”, they extend to the structures too and within which democracy is served.

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This is the second article concerning using Pension Provision Reform as a major policy tool in the UK and as previously, I am deliberately being ‘simplistic’ in describing possible solutions. As always, the Devil is in the Detail but in generating ideas, one should never be scared of being “shot down” by the naysayers and people with vested interests in the status quo, it goes with the territory.

My proposed solution is that over a period of 40 years, all UK pensions both public and private should be moved over to a “money purchase” system which whilst lacking the security of outcome that a final salary scheme delivers, is potentially both more realistic and fairer for all in society. If you like, in terms of social fairness and harmony, all the best government policies will emphasize “we are in this together” rather than the “Us and Them” mentality so sadly common of late.

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This essay is about UK pension provision, but it is as much about looking at the way our parliamentary system works and the impacts of a major change in just one policy area. However odd, it is intended to raise some questions and hopefully designed to provoke thought, in that regard it is the first of 3 essays – Background, Alternatives and the Political Dimension.

In order for me to explore some ideas, I need to set the background which means laying out the current situation in the UK on pensions before I can project a different course of action. Yes, pensions are boring but I don’t want to sell you one, I just want to broadly describe the terrain so that you can form your own opinion.

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