Mr. B, sad to hear of more attacks on infrastructure in Ukraine.
Mr. Royale, hmm. I would have Sunak as favourite. But time will tell.
Sunak isn't at the table and Mordaunt gave an impressive performance yesterday, and we know she's on manoeuvres.
I don't think there's much to choose between them, except the commentariat are fixated on Sunak.
Well, one is an occasional fantasist who seems very happy making stuff up if it suits her argument who is already in her most senior post and the other is a by no means perfect former Chancellor of the Exchequer who, for example, managed to get out the furlough scheme and deliver it in record time (query whether this was actually a brilliant idea rather than very expensive consequence of excessive lockdowns).
To me, it does not seem even remotely close. I don't see Sunak and Hunt having any problems working together, after all yesterday was very largely Sunak's platform for the leadership. Mordaunt does human well and is an effective performer in a party not exactly blessed with them. She has earned a promotion, I would like her as Home Sec instead of the current incumbent but then I would also prefer my daughter's hamster in the role.
The bridge needs to be reopened, there's 2 bods up there with professional climbing equipment. Meanwhile the poor sods living in Greenhithe, Grays and Dartford might well have an ambulance not show up in time.
Seriously the balance of risk is way way way toward the bridge being reopened (At a reduced speed obvs) compared to it being closed indefinitely due to the protesters. I wouldn't particularly make an effort to get them down either, just leave them up there with a reopened bridge.
I think they should get two years in prison for this.
"If the Tories lurch from the one extreme of a giveaway budget to the other extreme of Austerity 2.0, they will be slaughtered in the next general election, and rightly so."
Hunt yesterday made several interesting comments about this in the context of responding to questions. Firstly, he rejected the suggestion that this was going to be anything like as severe as 2010. Secondly, he said that he expected cash budgets to continue to increase (impliedly accepting that they will fall in real terms). Thirdly, he was clearly open to yet more taxes to close some of the gap including a potential windfall tax. But fourthly, he unequivocally promised that debt would be falling as a share of GDP almost immediately.
That last one is going to be very hard to deliver when we have the cost of 6 months of the energy scheme to accommodate. I think a VAT increase is almost inevitable now. I just don't see where else sufficient money comes from. I think it would be sensible to eliminate VAT on fuel and possibly hot food to reduce the regressive elements but with the interest rate bill growing substantially in real terms as well I do not see any other way to square the circle in the short term.
Inflation is the killer here. VAT will drive inflation even further. At 10% inflation will turn flat cash budgets into major cuts.
Yes, but the energy scheme, for all its many faults and extreme cost, is supposed to be clipping 5% off inflation. I suspect that was for a full year of the scheme and 6 months will have a smaller effect but inflation has probably already peaked, at least in the short term. The other effect of inflation is of course fiscal drag. Many more people are going to be paying more income tax on wages that have probably fallen in real terms. They are not going to be happy.
I don’t think that’s the way fiscal drag works
Effectively let’s say you get a £1000 pay rise. But you are now above the threshold (because it hasn’t increased).
Hence you get less from your pay rise net of tax than you might have expected
I’m not sure that people really notice that specifically - they grumble about cost of living, about small pay rises, etc. but I don’t think they isolate the impact of tax. It’s why the treasury likes it so much.
Mr. B, sad to hear of more attacks on infrastructure in Ukraine.
Mr. Royale, hmm. I would have Sunak as favourite. But time will tell.
Sunak isn't at the table and Mordaunt gave an impressive performance yesterday, and we know she's on manoeuvres.
I don't think there's much to choose between them, except the commentariat are fixated on Sunak.
Well, one is an occasional fantasist who seems very happy making stuff up if it suits her argument who is already in her most senior post and the other is a by no means perfect former Chancellor of the Exchequer who, for example, managed to get out the furlough scheme and deliver it in record time (query whether this was actually a brilliant idea rather than very expensive consequence of excessive lockdowns).
To me, it does not seem even remotely close. I don't see Sunak and Hunt having any problems working together, after all yesterday was very largely Sunak's platform for the leadership. Mordaunt does human well and is an effective performer in a party not exactly blessed with them. She has earned a promotion, I would like her as Home Sec instead of the current incumbent but then I would also prefer my daughter's hamster in the role.
Careful - your daughter’s hamster might suggest a migrant-operated wheel as the solution to our energy crisis…
And thanks to others who also pointed out your monumental stupidity.
Sadly I expect our erstwhile colleague has already flounced. Therefore remains in his ignorance.
Lurking, I would imagine, but too embarrassed to post again given what a tit they made of themselves
I wondered if that was what DJ41 was trying to imply yesterday - but it seemed so tenuous and implausible. I'm 100% sure that wasn't what Scott was implying.
The bridge needs to be reopened, there's 2 bods up there with professional climbing equipment. Meanwhile the poor sods living in Greenhithe, Grays and Dartford might well have an ambulance not show up in time.
Seriously the balance of risk is way way way toward the bridge being reopened (At a reduced speed obvs) compared to it being closed indefinitely due to the protesters. I wouldn't particularly make an effort to get them down either, just leave them up there with a reopened bridge.
I think they should get two years in prison for this.
Also am investigation into them, their group, and its funding.
Betfair suggests Ben Wallace is no longer a runner; there is nothing on the lay side. As a general observation, the Betfair market is quite thin and if you fancy a cheeky tenner on the next Prime Minister, the books might well have better prices.
He ruled himself out yesterday. Credit to the man for recognising his limitations; he’s guaranteed respect and an important job in the cabinet.
The ERG has clearly given up on Truss...
Not entirely. Baker was doing the media rounds yesterday arguing that she must stay in post.
I guess he’s the one clever enough to realise that they’re going to get Hunt or Mordaunt and the ERG batting for a true nutter is both doomed and will make things even worse than hanging onto Loopy.
The other bizarre thing about this is that Penny Mordaunt was, and is, the true Brexiteer.
But for some in the Party her views on for example trans rights are more important than whether we are outside the EU, or whether they win a General Election.
This loss of perspective is quite staggering. Straining at gnats whilst swallowing camels.
There is a lot of projection on Mordaunt in exactly the same way as there was on Truss on this forum. She can speak without falling over but that is the lowest of bars. She lies as easily as she speaks - over Turkey, over social issues, over her record. She has no accomplishments to speak of in her Ministerial career and seems to have annoyed those she worked with - so the basis for her claim that she would lead a good team seems to be based on nothing. She sucked up to Truss to get in the Cabinet and as recently as the Tory conference was saying that the policies were great. Why the great love for her is a mystery.
A serious figure is needed as PM not a lightweight whose main claim to fame is great hair and making speeches with double entendres in them.
Hunt would have a better claim or Sunak. Apart from Wallace and Sharma pretty much all those associated with the Johnson and Truss cabinets need to go. They have shown appalling judgment and/or cowardice. Their time should be past.
Agree, though her performance yesterday was star.
Sunak also comes with the same flaws he had 3 months ago - too rich, nondom wife, rubbish budget, money spaffer by inclination and in the eyes of the Faithful (MPs as well as members) a Judas.
Read the header: Sunak is suddenly more acceptable to "the Faithful".
Read the header. It doesn't pit him against the possible contenders it pits him against Truss. And is only members not MPs.
Betfair suggests Ben Wallace is no longer a runner; there is nothing on the lay side. As a general observation, the Betfair market is quite thin and if you fancy a cheeky tenner on the next Prime Minister, the books might well have better prices.
He ruled himself out yesterday. Credit to the man for recognising his limitations; he’s guaranteed respect and an important job in the cabinet.
The ERG has clearly given up on Truss...
Not entirely. Baker was doing the media rounds yesterday arguing that she must stay in post.
I guess he’s the one clever enough to realise that they’re going to get Hunt or Mordaunt and the ERG batting for a true nutter is both doomed and will make things even worse than hanging onto Loopy.
The other bizarre thing about this is that Penny Mordaunt was, and is, the true Brexiteer.
But for some in the Party her views on for example trans rights are more important than whether we are outside the EU, or whether they win a General Election.
This loss of perspective is quite staggering. Straining at gnats whilst swallowing camels.
There is a lot of projection on Mordaunt in exactly the same way as there was on Truss on this forum. She can speak without falling over but that is the lowest of bars. She lies as easily as she speaks - over Turkey, over social issues, over her record. She has no accomplishments to speak of in her Ministerial career and seems to have annoyed those she worked with - so the basis for her claim that she would lead a good team seems to be based on nothing. She sucked up to Truss to get in the Cabinet and as recently as the Tory conference was saying that the policies were great. Why the great love for her is a mystery.
A serious figure is needed as PM not a lightweight whose main claim to fame is great hair and making speeches with double entendres in them.
Hunt would have a better claim or Sunak. Apart from Wallace and Sharma pretty much all those associated with the Johnson and Truss cabinets need to go. They have shown appalling judgment and/or cowardice. Their time should be past.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
My God that's awful. An object lesson for anyone who takes freedom for granted. And an object lesson for anyone casually throwing around the word 'fascism'.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
The mess has been caused by Liz Truss, a neoliberal Remainer, as much as people want to rewrite history.
"If the Tories lurch from the one extreme of a giveaway budget to the other extreme of Austerity 2.0, they will be slaughtered in the next general election, and rightly so."
Hunt yesterday made several interesting comments about this in the context of responding to questions. Firstly, he rejected the suggestion that this was going to be anything like as severe as 2010. Secondly, he said that he expected cash budgets to continue to increase (impliedly accepting that they will fall in real terms). Thirdly, he was clearly open to yet more taxes to close some of the gap including a potential windfall tax. But fourthly, he unequivocally promised that debt would be falling as a share of GDP almost immediately.
That last one is going to be very hard to deliver when we have the cost of 6 months of the energy scheme to accommodate. I think a VAT increase is almost inevitable now. I just don't see where else sufficient money comes from. I think it would be sensible to eliminate VAT on fuel and possibly hot food to reduce the regressive elements but with the interest rate bill growing substantially in real terms as well I do not see any other way to square the circle in the short term.
Inflation is the killer here. VAT will drive inflation even further. At 10% inflation will turn flat cash budgets into major cuts.
Yes, but the energy scheme, for all its many faults and extreme cost, is supposed to be clipping 5% off inflation. I suspect that was for a full year of the scheme and 6 months will have a smaller effect but inflation has probably already peaked, at least in the short term. The other effect of inflation is of course fiscal drag. Many more people are going to be paying more income tax on wages that have probably fallen in real terms. They are not going to be happy.
I don’t think that’s the way fiscal drag works
Effectively let’s say you get a £1000 pay rise. But you are now above the threshold (because it hasn’t increased).
Hence you get less from your pay rise net of tax than you might have expected
I’m not sure that people really notice that specifically - they grumble about cost of living, about small pay rises, etc. but I don’t think they isolate the impact of tax. It’s why the treasury likes it so much.
Tories love fiscal drag. It appeals to their raison d'etre. If a freeze in allowances is combined with a headline grabbing cut in the basic rate of income tax, so as to be revenue neutral overall, then it amounts to a cut in income taxes for the higher paid but an increase in taxes for the lower paid.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
Perhaps he just doesn't want to be PM.
Tories best chance of turning this round is Sunak as PM - keep Hunt as Chancellor - keep Wallace where he is - Mordaunt FS.
How to make this happen and what to do with Truss? Would she demand a cabinet position to save some face as a condition of resigning?
The thing that LP wants is for Truss to stay PM - therefore the Tories must not do this.
I've actually just laid Truss 2022 exit (well, backed the other options as odds were more favourable). I don't see the Cons pulling themselves together and organising a coup, they can't go to the members and they won't manage to orangise a coronation without some loons putting forward another candidate. Hunt as CoE has/will stabilise things a bit and the urgency will go (polls remain terrible, but they will hope something turns up before the GE/a unity candidate will emerge).
Truss may well still go this year (if several cabinet resignations happen) but I think the value in the betting is now against that. If she survives the week then I think the odds on early exits will lengthen a bit and I may well trade out at that point.
It is also possible Truss is forced out this year but the 1922 Committee runs the election of a new leader over the Christmas recess, so that for betting purposes, handover is in January 2023.
This needs to be balanced by the fact that even the 1922/Tory MPs will know that prolonging this agony is both painful now and in the medium term massively damaging. Christmas and 2023 feel aeons away the the moment, during which time LT is a national joke and humiliation, and there can be no recovery. Next week feels far too long for this to go on.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
Perhaps he just doesn't want to be PM.
Tories best chance of turning this round is Sunak as PM - keep Hunt as Chancellor - keep Wallace where he is - Mordaunt FS.
How to make this happen and what to do with Truss? Would she demand a cabinet position to save some face as a condition of resigning?
The thing that LP wants is for Truss to stay PM - therefore the Tories must not do this.
You have the right top three but need to rotate them. Mordaunt as PM, Sunak as Chancellor, Hunt as FS.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
Given a job you enjoy why would you take a job you can clearly see is a poisoned chalice.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
Perhaps he just doesn't want to be PM.
Tories best chance of turning this round is Sunak as PM - keep Hunt as Chancellor - keep Wallace where he is - Mordaunt FS.
How to make this happen and what to do with Truss? Would she demand a cabinet position to save some face as a condition of resigning?
The thing that LP wants is for Truss to stay PM - therefore the Tories must not do this.
You have the right top three but need to rotate them. Mordaunt as PM, Sunak as Chancellor, Hunt as FS.
Mordaunt as PM works but I wouldn't change Chancellor again.
It was interesting following both BBC & ITV News last night because both sets of commentators described the state of shell-shock among Conservative MPs.
There are a few on here for whom the penny has still not yet dropped. The Conservatives are going to lose the next General Election very heavily. You simply don't come back from 30% poll deficits.
Even in 1992-7 when the economy was in stellar state, Labour still won with a lead of 12.5%.
What trashed the Conservatives in 1997 was what happened 4.5 years before on Black Wednesday. I remember that day and it was (until now) unprecedented. It wasn't just what actually happened in economic terms, it was the sense of a Government which was totally out of control. It was completely chaotic. The pound crashed, the BoE burned £10bn trying to save it, and interest rates rose twice, then fell and we ejected from the ERM. It was chaos.
What happened that day trashed the tory's reputation for economic competence.
Roll on quarter of a century and they've done it again, only this time far worse. The utter chaos. The total shambles. The zillion U-turns. The now-unprecedented sense of a Government in office but not in power. It is gobsmacking.
But what is FAR FAR worse for the Conservatives this time around is that unlike 1997, the fiscal economic outlook is very grim. We are heading INTO recession, with high inflation, higher interest rates, public sector borrowing out of control, public services already on their knees now coming under further constraints, and a terrible cost of living crisis.
Quite simply, anyone who even entertains for one second the notion that the tories can win the next election is living in cloud cuckoo land.
The only question now is: how big a defeat will they suffer?
Nothing in your post is wrong, including the conclusion.
But you’ve put all your chips on one factor.
Two other considerations are, firstly, the stronger position of Labour in 1997, with a popular charismatic leader besting the government in parliament, and a prepared policy programme which was both costed to reassure the markets and packaged into the five pledges to sell to the public.
Starmer has some heavy lifting to do to achieve the same, and is hard to see his personality ever generating the same enthusiasm as there was for Blair.
And, secondly, it’s an established fact that voters feel more able to invest in a centre-left government when things are improving and there’s money to spend on better services. Whereas in hard and worsening times, voters typically look to the right. Pack ignores this factor which worked against the improving economy reviving the Tories - it was the improving economy that made Labour’s promises of better schools and hospitals credible.
As I say, I accept your conclusion, but still feel the Tories have the ability to run Labour closer than in 1997, if they get their act together (a big IF). And we’re still not seeing Labour walking by-election victories, nationally or locally, in the way that they did in the 1990s.
The next election is to elect a government to sort out the most tremendous mess, which has never been Labour’s role. A huge challenge for Starmer’s team.
Also, the markets have now closed off the ability to borrow to fund their manifesto. This is going to be raising the questions of which taxes are you going to raise to pay for it, Labour? On Newsnight last night, James Murray, Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, was utterly woeful on economic policy. If he is indicative of what Labour are offering up, those opinion poll leads are going to look very transient....
The thing is we are in a hell of a mess and I think it is firmly planted in the voters' minds that that mess was caused by the Tories and by the Brexiteers in particular. Whilst bringing in saner individuals like Hunt might steady the ship a little things are going to be pretty grim for the next year or two and in those circumstances voters tend to just choose the other option. The result will be much closer than current polls suggest but I don't see the public deciding to give the Tories another go in 2 years time.
How can the Conservatives credibly go into the next GE arguing that Labour would wreck the economy when we have all watched them trash it themselves? Johnson and Truss have effectively destroyed the Tories best attack line against Labour.
I see down thread that abbreviating Chief Operating Officer to COO is racist now because - err - it's - err - scratches head - a bit like coon without the last letter.
Please can mods consider rank stupidity a valid reason for banning a poster?
I see down thread that abbreviating Chief Operating Officer to COO is racist now because - err - it's - err - scratches head - a bit like coon without the last letter.
Please can mods consider rank stupidity a valid reason for banning a poster?
It was interesting following both BBC & ITV News last night because both sets of commentators described the state of shell-shock among Conservative MPs.
There are a few on here for whom the penny has still not yet dropped. The Conservatives are going to lose the next General Election very heavily. You simply don't come back from 30% poll deficits.
Even in 1992-7 when the economy was in stellar state, Labour still won with a lead of 12.5%.
What trashed the Conservatives in 1997 was what happened 4.5 years before on Black Wednesday. I remember that day and it was (until now) unprecedented. It wasn't just what actually happened in economic terms, it was the sense of a Government which was totally out of control. It was completely chaotic. The pound crashed, the BoE burned £10bn trying to save it, and interest rates rose twice, then fell and we ejected from the ERM. It was chaos.
What happened that day trashed the tory's reputation for economic competence.
Roll on quarter of a century and they've done it again, only this time far worse. The utter chaos. The total shambles. The zillion U-turns. The now-unprecedented sense of a Government in office but not in power. It is gobsmacking.
But what is FAR FAR worse for the Conservatives this time around is that unlike 1997, the fiscal economic outlook is very grim. We are heading INTO recession, with high inflation, higher interest rates, public sector borrowing out of control, public services already on their knees now coming under further constraints, and a terrible cost of living crisis.
Quite simply, anyone who even entertains for one second the notion that the tories can win the next election is living in cloud cuckoo land.
The only question now is: how big a defeat will they suffer?
Nothing in your post is wrong, including the conclusion.
But you’ve put all your chips on one factor.
Two other considerations are, firstly, the stronger position of Labour in 1997, with a popular charismatic leader besting the government in parliament, and a prepared policy programme which was both costed to reassure the markets and packaged into the five pledges to sell to the public.
Starmer has some heavy lifting to do to achieve the same, and is hard to see his personality ever generating the same enthusiasm as there was for Blair.
And, secondly, it’s an established fact that voters feel more able to invest in a centre-left government when things are improving and there’s money to spend on better services. Whereas in hard and worsening times, voters typically look to the right. Pack ignores this factor which worked against the improving economy reviving the Tories - it was the improving economy that made Labour’s promises of better schools and hospitals credible.
As I say, I accept your conclusion, but still feel the Tories have the ability to run Labour closer than in 1997, if they get their act together (a big IF). And we’re still not seeing Labour walking by-election victories, nationally or locally, in the way that they did in the 1990s.
The next election is to elect a government to sort out the most tremendous mess, which has never been Labour’s role. A huge challenge for Starmer’s team.
Also, the markets have now closed off the ability to borrow to fund their manifesto. This is going to be raising the questions of which taxes are you going to raise to pay for it, Labour? On Newsnight last night, James Murray, Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, was utterly woeful on economic policy. If he is indicative of what Labour are offering up, those opinion poll leads are going to look very transient....
The thing is we are in a hell of a mess and I think it is firmly planted in the voters' minds that that mess was caused by the Tories and by the Brexiteers in particular. Whilst bringing in saner individuals like Hunt might steady the ship a little things are going to be pretty grim for the next year or two and in those circumstances voters tend to just choose the other option. The result will be much closer than current polls suggest but I don't see the public deciding to give the Tories another go in 2 years time.
How can the Conservatives credibly go into the next GE arguing that Labour would wreck the economy when we have all watched them trash it themselves? Johnson and Truss have effectively destroyed the Tories best attack line against Labour.
Heapey on R4 explicitly accepted that the mini-budget has pushed up interest rates. I have a feeling we'll see quotes from his interview again...
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
I see down thread that abbreviating Chief Operating Officer to COO is racist now because - err - it's - err - scratches head - a bit like coon without the last letter.
Please can mods consider rank stupidity a valid reason for banning a poster?
Or we agree that in future we'll all use COPOFF? Or even CHOPOFF?
It was interesting following both BBC & ITV News last night because both sets of commentators described the state of shell-shock among Conservative MPs.
There are a few on here for whom the penny has still not yet dropped. The Conservatives are going to lose the next General Election very heavily. You simply don't come back from 30% poll deficits.
Even in 1992-7 when the economy was in stellar state, Labour still won with a lead of 12.5%.
What trashed the Conservatives in 1997 was what happened 4.5 years before on Black Wednesday. I remember that day and it was (until now) unprecedented. It wasn't just what actually happened in economic terms, it was the sense of a Government which was totally out of control. It was completely chaotic. The pound crashed, the BoE burned £10bn trying to save it, and interest rates rose twice, then fell and we ejected from the ERM. It was chaos.
What happened that day trashed the tory's reputation for economic competence.
Roll on quarter of a century and they've done it again, only this time far worse. The utter chaos. The total shambles. The zillion U-turns. The now-unprecedented sense of a Government in office but not in power. It is gobsmacking.
But what is FAR FAR worse for the Conservatives this time around is that unlike 1997, the fiscal economic outlook is very grim. We are heading INTO recession, with high inflation, higher interest rates, public sector borrowing out of control, public services already on their knees now coming under further constraints, and a terrible cost of living crisis.
Quite simply, anyone who even entertains for one second the notion that the tories can win the next election is living in cloud cuckoo land.
The only question now is: how big a defeat will they suffer?
Nothing in your post is wrong, including the conclusion.
But you’ve put all your chips on one factor.
Two other considerations are, firstly, the stronger position of Labour in 1997, with a popular charismatic leader besting the government in parliament, and a prepared policy programme which was both costed to reassure the markets and packaged into the five pledges to sell to the public.
Starmer has some heavy lifting to do to achieve the same, and is hard to see his personality ever generating the same enthusiasm as there was for Blair.
And, secondly, it’s an established fact that voters feel more able to invest in a centre-left government when things are improving and there’s money to spend on better services. Whereas in hard and worsening times, voters typically look to the right. Pack ignores this factor which worked against the improving economy reviving the Tories - it was the improving economy that made Labour’s promises of better schools and hospitals credible.
As I say, I accept your conclusion, but still feel the Tories have the ability to run Labour closer than in 1997, if they get their act together (a big IF). And we’re still not seeing Labour walking by-election victories, nationally or locally, in the way that they did in the 1990s.
The next election is to elect a government to sort out the most tremendous mess, which has never been Labour’s role. A huge challenge for Starmer’s team.
Also, the markets have now closed off the ability to borrow to fund their manifesto. This is going to be raising the questions of which taxes are you going to raise to pay for it, Labour? On Newsnight last night, James Murray, Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, was utterly woeful on economic policy. If he is indicative of what Labour are offering up, those opinion poll leads are going to look very transient....
The thing is we are in a hell of a mess and I think it is firmly planted in the voters' minds that that mess was caused by the Tories and by the Brexiteers in particular. Whilst bringing in saner individuals like Hunt might steady the ship a little things are going to be pretty grim for the next year or two and in those circumstances voters tend to just choose the other option. The result will be much closer than current polls suggest but I don't see the public deciding to give the Tories another go in 2 years time.
How can the Conservatives credibly go into the next GE arguing that Labour would wreck the economy when we have all watched them trash it themselves? Johnson and Truss have effectively destroyed the Tories best attack line against Labour.
Probably. But if Labour is conceding significant tax rises are going to be required to deliver their manifesto? Some voters will think
"This lot are idiots...but at least they are cheap idiots."
It is for these reasons that I am entirely relaxed about a labour government
Yes, the last two weeks have certainly made it less likely that a Labour Government will do anything too reckless.
As well as OBR scrutiny, everything that has happened is going to make Starmer much more nervous about doing anything where there is any risk that markets react adversely.
I don't buy this at all. Starmer is skillfully holding in check all the usual instincts to spray money at every politically favoured cause amongst its ranks of deluded and deranged activist MPs, who have largely arrived on the scene against the backdrop of 'tory austerity'. It is almost as inevitable, like a phenomenon in the natural world. Starmer cannot do anything to stop it. All the public sector workers will be demanding 15% more pay etc, their unions and MPs will go along with it, and the Labour government will just agree to the requests. Can you imagine Angela Rayner etc saying no to the baying masses of aggrieved healthcare workers wanting £1 per hour more?
It really feels like we are in the mid 1970s, Labour will get a few years to really destroy the economy, and then we finally get the necessary structural reform after that.
How would you describe the last couple of years, and particularly the last couple of months, if not "destroying the economy?"
There is a difference between 'destroying the economy' and 'really destroying the economy'. The discussion in parliament yesterday was quite revealing, in this respect. Labour have no answers other than to spray money at every politically fashionable and favourable cause that grabs their attention. They have also had the strategy of going along with tax cuts supported by the tories which has worked out ok for them when we had a clown as PM, but when up against someone like Jeremy Hunt they suddenly don't look so clever.
If you are thinking of voting labour, then you need to look past Starmer - You need to look carefully in to their MPs and what they say and believe.
That's rubbish, Starmer now has a very strong grip on the party.
It would have been like saying in 2010 don't trust Cameron just look at what Rees-Mogg et al are saying.
It was interesting following both BBC & ITV News last night because both sets of commentators described the state of shell-shock among Conservative MPs.
There are a few on here for whom the penny has still not yet dropped. The Conservatives are going to lose the next General Election very heavily. You simply don't come back from 30% poll deficits.
Even in 1992-7 when the economy was in stellar state, Labour still won with a lead of 12.5%.
What trashed the Conservatives in 1997 was what happened 4.5 years before on Black Wednesday. I remember that day and it was (until now) unprecedented. It wasn't just what actually happened in economic terms, it was the sense of a Government which was totally out of control. It was completely chaotic. The pound crashed, the BoE burned £10bn trying to save it, and interest rates rose twice, then fell and we ejected from the ERM. It was chaos.
What happened that day trashed the tory's reputation for economic competence.
Roll on quarter of a century and they've done it again, only this time far worse. The utter chaos. The total shambles. The zillion U-turns. The now-unprecedented sense of a Government in office but not in power. It is gobsmacking.
But what is FAR FAR worse for the Conservatives this time around is that unlike 1997, the fiscal economic outlook is very grim. We are heading INTO recession, with high inflation, higher interest rates, public sector borrowing out of control, public services already on their knees now coming under further constraints, and a terrible cost of living crisis.
Quite simply, anyone who even entertains for one second the notion that the tories can win the next election is living in cloud cuckoo land.
The only question now is: how big a defeat will they suffer?
Nothing in your post is wrong, including the conclusion.
But you’ve put all your chips on one factor.
Two other considerations are, firstly, the stronger position of Labour in 1997, with a popular charismatic leader besting the government in parliament, and a prepared policy programme which was both costed to reassure the markets and packaged into the five pledges to sell to the public.
Starmer has some heavy lifting to do to achieve the same, and is hard to see his personality ever generating the same enthusiasm as there was for Blair.
And, secondly, it’s an established fact that voters feel more able to invest in a centre-left government when things are improving and there’s money to spend on better services. Whereas in hard and worsening times, voters typically look to the right. Pack ignores this factor which worked against the improving economy reviving the Tories - it was the improving economy that made Labour’s promises of better schools and hospitals credible.
As I say, I accept your conclusion, but still feel the Tories have the ability to run Labour closer than in 1997, if they get their act together (a big IF). And we’re still not seeing Labour walking by-election victories, nationally or locally, in the way that they did in the 1990s.
The next election is to elect a government to sort out the most tremendous mess, which has never been Labour’s role. A huge challenge for Starmer’s team.
Also, the markets have now closed off the ability to borrow to fund their manifesto. This is going to be raising the questions of which taxes are you going to raise to pay for it, Labour? On Newsnight last night, James Murray, Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, was utterly woeful on economic policy. If he is indicative of what Labour are offering up, those opinion poll leads are going to look very transient....
The thing is we are in a hell of a mess and I think it is firmly planted in the voters' minds that that mess was caused by the Tories and by the Brexiteers in particular. Whilst bringing in saner individuals like Hunt might steady the ship a little things are going to be pretty grim for the next year or two and in those circumstances voters tend to just choose the other option. The result will be much closer than current polls suggest but I don't see the public deciding to give the Tories another go in 2 years time.
How can the Conservatives credibly go into the next GE arguing that Labour would wreck the economy when we have all watched them trash it themselves? Johnson and Truss have effectively destroyed the Tories best attack line against Labour.
Probably. But if Labour is conceding significant tax rises are going to be required to deliver their manifesto? Some voters will think
"This lot are idiots...but at least they are cheap idiots."
Labour going in conceding tax rises allows them to ask the Tories - so if you aren't going to increase Taxes, what are you going to cut?
And then delve into the detail until they get to points that cost the Tories votes.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
In the past at least, there was an explicit trade-off for many potential workers between the security, work-life balance and pension of the public sector versus the higher salary, bonus and career opportunities/mobility in the private sector.
And don't forget that, while the way you describe public sector pensions suggests you're thinking of some hypothetical top manager, most public sector pensions are pretty small, paid to front-line and relatively junior workers such as nurses, postmen, admin staff, council employees, teachers, etc. - and the size of the burden is because there are millions of such people rather than because they're all getting tens of £thousands.
I see down thread that abbreviating Chief Operating Officer to COO is racist now because - err - it's - err - scratches head - a bit like coon without the last letter.
Please can mods consider rank stupidity a valid reason for banning a poster?
Please don’t. I like posting here.
I don't think you have much to worry about if that rule came in. Me on the other hand...
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
Perhaps he just doesn't want to be PM.
Tories best chance of turning this round is Sunak as PM - keep Hunt as Chancellor - keep Wallace where he is - Mordaunt FS.
How to make this happen and what to do with Truss? Would she demand a cabinet position to save some face as a condition of resigning?
The thing that LP wants is for Truss to stay PM - therefore the Tories must not do this.
You have the right top three but need to rotate them. Mordaunt as PM, Sunak as Chancellor, Hunt as FS.
Hard to understand why anyone with the best interests of the country at heart would want Sunak back as Chancellor. It was his reluctance to bring us out of furlough that brought on the fiscal pressure we now faced.
Combined with his cosy acquiescence to the recklessness of the MPC, which has directly caused the inflation problem. And finally failure to ensure the Bank was providing proper oversight of LDI pension assets that more than anything else has led to the recent collapse in gilts.
No thanks. If Rishi needs a “top job” to keep his noisy backers from causing any more trouble, then shunt him off to the foreign office but take away its powers the way May did to Johnson.
Can we assume, for the purpose of argument, that the present government staggers on until the spring. Managing somehow to avoid any further car crashes! By April gas and electricity prices have dropped… further assumption… and the government claims credit for same. Is it not likely that they will get that credit with the voters? Or has too much damage already been done?
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
No but unlike you and MaxPB, I think that people should be given what they were contractually offered and accepted when their signed up to work in the public sector.
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
Perhaps he just doesn't want to be PM.
Tories best chance of turning this round is Sunak as PM - keep Hunt as Chancellor - keep Wallace where he is - Mordaunt FS.
How to make this happen and what to do with Truss? Would she demand a cabinet position to save some face as a condition of resigning?
The thing that LP wants is for Truss to stay PM - therefore the Tories must not do this.
You have the right top three but need to rotate them. Mordaunt as PM, Sunak as Chancellor, Hunt as FS.
Hard to understand why anyone with the best interests of the country at heart would want Sunak back as Chancellor. It was his reluctance to bring us out of furlough that brought on the fiscal pressure we now faced.
Combined with his cosy acquiescence to the recklessness of the MPC, which has directly caused the inflation problem. And finally failure to ensure the Bank was providing proper oversight of LDI pension assets that more than anything else has led to the recent collapse in gilts.
No thanks. If Rishi needs a “top job” to keep his noisy backers from causing any more trouble, then shunt him off to the foreign office but take away its powers the way May did to Johnson.
You're forgetting that Sunak is supposedly the deep state's candidate...
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
As someone who moved from private to public sector 5 years ago - the public sector has it staggeringly good. People do still move from public to private, and I put this down to one of three reasons: 1) professional frustrations/new opportunities: what each individual finds satisfying in work will be different, and I wouldn't criticise anyone for going the other way because they think their jobs will be more satisfying. 2) simply not understanding how good their public sector pension arrangements are. 3) very effective recruitment from the private sector (certainly compared to the public sector, which does tend to place quite a lot of hurdles in the way of potential applicants: you have to really want the job.)
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 41m Tories have an acute timing problem: change leader soonest to prevent further damage; or let Hunt regency run to stabilise things first?
That only 60% of Con members prefer him to a catastrophe illustrates Sunak's problem with the party. Lots of ERG types seem to hate him too. His price for next PM is too short imo.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
In the past at least, there was an explicit trade-off for many potential workers between the security, work-life balance and pension of the public sector versus the higher salary, bonus and career opportunities/mobility in the private sector.
And don't forget that, while the way you describe public sector pensions suggests you're thinking of some hypothetical top manager, most public sector pensions are pretty small, paid to front-line and relatively junior workers such as nurses, postmen, admin staff, council employees, teachers, etc. - and the size of the burden is because there are millions of such people rather than because they're all getting tens of £thousands.
I would disagree with your first paragraph. Go back to the 60s and 70s there wasn't really a huge amount of differential between state and private (take a look at how much bankers were getting paid in the 70s, it may surprise you). A teacher could afford a decent property plus have the pension to boot. The idea that there was this huge divide is not true. Having said that, many private sector employees also had defined benefit schemes.
Re your second, true, they are not huge (my mother has one as an ex-postie)
I see down thread that abbreviating Chief Operating Officer to COO is racist now because - err - it's - err - scratches head - a bit like coon without the last letter.
Please can mods consider rank stupidity a valid reason for banning a poster?
It wouldn't be the first instance of this (though it tends to be an American phenomenon). Off the top of my head, there was the public sector finance bod who was forced out of his job after apologising for having to be 'niggardly' because, you know, it sounds a bit like...
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
But hang on, whatever you think about them, they are payable under contract just as much as salary is.
I'm not entirely clear why Liz Truss would want to stay in Number Ten. I have never seen a Prime Minister endure such public humiliation. And there may be much more of it to come. https://twitter.com/tombradby/status/1581962592612155392
Agree our politicians have a uniquely high bar for humiliation. But Gordon tried to stay on after Bigotgate, Clegg would have stayed on if he could and the one who actually walked away after a massive wounder - Cameron - has been pilloried for desertion ever since @tombradby https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1582292145045585921
Betfair suggests Ben Wallace is no longer a runner; there is nothing on the lay side. As a general observation, the Betfair market is quite thin and if you fancy a cheeky tenner on the next Prime Minister, the books might well have better prices.
He ruled himself out yesterday. Credit to the man for recognising his limitations; he’s guaranteed respect and an important job in the cabinet.
The ERG has clearly given up on Truss...
Not entirely. Baker was doing the media rounds yesterday arguing that she must stay in post.
I guess he’s the one clever enough to realise that they’re going to get Hunt or Mordaunt and the ERG batting for a true nutter is both doomed and will make things even worse than hanging onto Loopy.
The other bizarre thing about this is that Penny Mordaunt was, and is, the true Brexiteer.
But for some in the Party her views on for example trans rights are more important than whether we are outside the EU, or whether they win a General Election.
This loss of perspective is quite staggering. Straining at gnats whilst swallowing camels.
There is a lot of projection on Mordaunt in exactly the same way as there was on Truss on this forum. She can speak without falling over but that is the lowest of bars. She lies as easily as she speaks - over Turkey, over social issues, over her record. She has no accomplishments to speak of in her Ministerial career and seems to have annoyed those she worked with - so the basis for her claim that she would lead a good team seems to be based on nothing. She sucked up to Truss to get in the Cabinet and as recently as the Tory conference was saying that the policies were great. Why the great love for her is a mystery.
A serious figure is needed as PM not a lightweight whose main claim to fame is great hair and making speeches with double entendres in them.
Hunt would have a better claim or Sunak. Apart from Wallace and Sharma pretty much all those associated with the Johnson and Truss cabinets need to go. They have shown appalling judgment and/or cowardice. Their time should be past.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
But hang on, whatever you think about them, they are payable under contract just as much as salary is.
I don't disagree, but it is still a political challenge which politicians fail to grasp. IMO compensation should be expressed as total salary, so if a hospital doctor will end up with a £2M pension pot on top of what is a very good salary for a safe job (which they also top up with private practice) then that should be expressed. The general public should be able to see what senior public sector workers draw from the public purse
I'm not entirely clear why Liz Truss would want to stay in Number Ten. I have never seen a Prime Minister endure such public humiliation. And there may be much more of it to come. https://twitter.com/tombradby/status/1581962592612155392
Agree our politicians have a uniquely high bar for humiliation. But Gordon tried to stay on after Bigotgate, Clegg would have stayed on if he could and the one who actually walked away after a massive wounder - Cameron - has been pilloried for desertion ever since @tombradby https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1582292145045585921
bigotgate was during the election campaign wasn't it, so hardly comparable.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
The mess has been caused by Liz Truss, a neoliberal Remainer, as much as people want to rewrite history.
Of course. The public will never forget that the last 6 years has been dominated by a "Remain" govt...
I see down thread that abbreviating Chief Operating Officer to COO is racist now because - err - it's - err - scratches head - a bit like coon without the last letter.
Please can mods consider rank stupidity a valid reason for banning a poster?
It wouldn't be the first instance of this (though it tends to be an American phenomenon). Off the top of my head, there was the public sector finance bod who was forced out of his job after apologising for having to be 'niggardly' because, you know, it sounds a bit like...
Though the push back from all sides is thankfully forthright
"Julian Bond, then chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, deplored the offense that had been taken at Howard's use of the word. "You hate to think you have to censor your language to meet other people's lack of understanding" "
Cool interview with the counter intelligence chiefs in the Baltic. Some deep and very dark views about Russia. The contempt for human life and the only way they interact is either slave or enemy. Balts prefer to be enemies than slaves.
Betfair suggests Ben Wallace is no longer a runner; there is nothing on the lay side. As a general observation, the Betfair market is quite thin and if you fancy a cheeky tenner on the next Prime Minister, the books might well have better prices.
He ruled himself out yesterday. Credit to the man for recognising his limitations; he’s guaranteed respect and an important job in the cabinet.
The ERG has clearly given up on Truss...
Not entirely. Baker was doing the media rounds yesterday arguing that she must stay in post.
I guess he’s the one clever enough to realise that they’re going to get Hunt or Mordaunt and the ERG batting for a true nutter is both doomed and will make things even worse than hanging onto Loopy.
The other bizarre thing about this is that Penny Mordaunt was, and is, the true Brexiteer.
But for some in the Party her views on for example trans rights are more important than whether we are outside the EU, or whether they win a General Election.
This loss of perspective is quite staggering. Straining at gnats whilst swallowing camels.
There is a lot of projection on Mordaunt in exactly the same way as there was on Truss on this forum. She can speak without falling over but that is the lowest of bars. She lies as easily as she speaks - over Turkey, over social issues, over her record. She has no accomplishments to speak of in her Ministerial career and seems to have annoyed those she worked with - so the basis for her claim that she would lead a good team seems to be based on nothing. She sucked up to Truss to get in the Cabinet and as recently as the Tory conference was saying that the policies were great. Why the great love for her is a mystery.
A serious figure is needed as PM not a lightweight whose main claim to fame is great hair and making speeches with double entendres in them.
Hunt would have a better claim or Sunak. Apart from Wallace and Sharma pretty much all those associated with the Johnson and Truss cabinets need to go. They have shown appalling judgment and/or cowardice. Their time should be past.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have become a Farage apologist and simply have no credibility when it comes to supporting a one nation conservative party
You do remember I voted for Sunak over Truss? My only warning is that Hunt as Leader means a Farage return and given Hunt is less popular with the public on today's Yougov than Sunak and Mordaunt wouldn't win back many voters from Labour either
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
I worked for just over a decade in the public sector and now work in the private sector.
I'm now being paid twice as much in the private sector as I would be being paid if I'd stayed in the public sector, and the work is less complex and less demanding. The pension provision in my public sector job was a lot better, but not to the value of doubling my salary.
My Dad and Grandad did very well out of their public sector pensions, but they were some of the lucky few who ended their careers in senior positions, and so did best out of a final salary scheme. With the new career average pensions you won't get the same distortions for a small number of lucky recipients. I did pretty well to leave when I did as my pension entitlement is accruing more quickly with CPI uprating then it would have done from pay increases.
In the past a model of pay less now, pay more in pensions later made sense because growth was strong enough that it was cheaper to pay later than in advance. A lot of private sector companies did the same.
The demographic transition changes this calculus, because it unavoidably results in lower growth. This probably means it makes more sense to reduce the value of public sector pensions in exchange for better pay now, but making that transition is hard when you have to pay out the accrued pensions at the same time.
It's not some huge conspiracy to defraud taxpayers. I really don't know why you're so aggressive and unpleasant about it.
I see down thread that abbreviating Chief Operating Officer to COO is racist now because - err - it's - err - scratches head - a bit like coon without the last letter.
Please can mods consider rank stupidity a valid reason for banning a poster?
It wouldn't be the first instance of this (though it tends to be an American phenomenon). Off the top of my head, there was the public sector finance bod who was forced out of his job after apologising for having to be 'niggardly' because, you know, it sounds a bit like...
Not to mention snickers instead of marathon, and because there is more to life than race, tidbits rather than titbits.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have become a Farage apologist and simply have no credibility when it comes to supporting a one nation conservative party
You do remember I voted for Sunak over Truss? My only warning is that Hunt as Leader means a Farage return and given Hunt is less popular with the public on today's Yougov than Sunak and Mordaunt wouldn't win back many voters from Labour either
Hunt as backstreet driver running the country whilst Truss is hidden away and if needs be dosed up on tranquillisers to make public appearances may be the torys cunning plan
Can we assume, for the purpose of argument, that the present government staggers on until the spring. Managing somehow to avoid any further car crashes! By April gas and electricity prices have dropped… further assumption… and the government claims credit for same. Is it not likely that they will get that credit with the voters? Or has too much damage already been done?
Too much damage has been done. Reputational damage tends to happen swiftly (though there is quite a high bar to it - low level incompetence, even quite high level incompetence can rumble on for some time without apparently cutting through, then one single event can be uncomebackfromable); reputational repair takes an age. Boris's reputational damage didn't survive partygate. But just as Boris managed to campaign as Boris, not as the Conservative Party, the damage was largely to Boris himself. Whereas I think the shambles of the past month implicates the party, and will tarnish them for upwards of a decade.
Now my view is that the economic damage was a) caused by political incompetence rather than the principle of lower taxes and high growth being flawed, and b) has in any case now been pretty much cauterised. But I don't think the reputational damage is repairable. But they have to try. Truss out ASAP and someone competent at politics in her place. There's still a big difference between a defeat at the next election and a wipeout.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
In the past at least, there was an explicit trade-off for many potential workers between the security, work-life balance and pension of the public sector versus the higher salary, bonus and career opportunities/mobility in the private sector.
And don't forget that, while the way you describe public sector pensions suggests you're thinking of some hypothetical top manager, most public sector pensions are pretty small, paid to front-line and relatively junior workers such as nurses, postmen, admin staff, council employees, teachers, etc. - and the size of the burden is because there are millions of such people rather than because they're all getting tens of £thousands.
I would disagree with your first paragraph. Go back to the 60s and 70s there wasn't really a huge amount of differential between state and private (take a look at how much bankers were getting paid in the 70s, it may surprise you). A teacher could afford a decent property plus have the pension to boot. The idea that there was this huge divide is not true. Having said that, many private sector employees also had defined benefit schemes.
Re your second, true, they are not huge (my mother has one as an ex-postie)
I can only recollect back to the '80s, but I'm pretty confident that public sector pay was lower than private sector for comparable jobs. And it's certainly been the case over subsequent decades that the public sector loses some of its better people to the private, poached away with packages that offer higher immediate reward. If such a person put their extra income entirely into a pension throughout their career, they too wouldn't be badly off come retirement. The problem of course is that they don't - they spend much of the extra and the rest goes into property which they hope to rely upon to see them through retirement.
BBC radio: Wallace doesn't want the job and is happy where he is.
Wallace was a strong remainer, and still is I suspect, so knows the membership would be hostile to him. I also doubt he would be inclined to want to be the one with the bucket and shovel clearing up the mess the Brexiteers have left behind.
The mess has been caused by Liz Truss, a neoliberal Remainer, as much as people want to rewrite history.
Of course. The public will never forget that the last 6 years has been dominated by a "Remain" govt...
Can we assume, for the purpose of argument, that the present government staggers on until the spring. Managing somehow to avoid any further car crashes! By April gas and electricity prices have dropped… further assumption… and the government claims credit for same. Is it not likely that they will get that credit with the voters? Or has too much damage already been done?
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
But hang on, whatever you think about them, they are payable under contract just as much as salary is.
@nigelforman Anyone who complains its too good in the Public Sector should get a job there. Well over a Million Vacancies in key roles.
Get off your arse and train as a Doctor, Nurse Teacher take one of the vacant roles and pay your up to 14.5% contribution to your pension as well as your NI and your 40|% Tax.
If its so rosy why are there no takers from the poor old private sector apart from your IR35 tax avoiding types who dont seem to want an NHS Pension with all the downsides of 12 years of pay cuts and contribution hikes.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have become a Farage apologist and simply have no credibility when it comes to supporting a one nation conservative party
You do remember I voted for Sunak over Truss? My only warning is that Hunt as Leader means a Farage return and given Hunt is less popular with the public on today's Yougov than Sunak and Mordaunt wouldn't win back many voters from Labour either
Your posts for many weeks have affirmed your Farage tendencies and you simply are part of the right-wing of the conservative party, including the ERG, who are actively destroying the conservative party and I reject any protestations from you that you have any support for a one nation conservative party
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have become a Farage apologist and simply have no credibility when it comes to supporting a one nation conservative party
You do remember I voted for Sunak over Truss? My only warning is that Hunt as Leader means a Farage return and given Hunt is less popular with the public on today's Yougov than Sunak and Mordaunt wouldn't win back many voters from Labour either
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have become a Farage apologist and simply have no credibility when it comes to supporting a one nation conservative party
You do remember I voted for Sunak over Truss? My only warning is that Hunt as Leader means a Farage return and given Hunt is less popular with the public on today's Yougov than Sunak and Mordaunt wouldn't win back many voters from Labour either
Your posts for many weeks have affirmed your Farage tendencies and you simply are part of the right-wing of the conservative party, including the ERG, who are actively destroying the conservative party and I reject any protestations from you that you have any support for a one nation conservative party
No, unlike you I can analyse what would happen even if I wouldn't necessarily support it myself
The Tories cannot coherently argue that they are dumping ideology for practicality and saving the economy while simultaneously rejecting a much closer relationship with the EU. That is magical thinking. And it is an opportunity for Labour and the LDs.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
But hang on, whatever you think about them, they are payable under contract just as much as salary is.
In law, they are "deferred salary", already earned and therefore protected, subject to the solvency of the fund (and even then, mostly protected under the PPF)
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have become a Farage apologist and simply have no credibility when it comes to supporting a one nation conservative party
You do remember I voted for Sunak over Truss? My only warning is that Hunt as Leader means a Farage return and given Hunt is less popular with the public on today's Yougov than Sunak and Mordaunt wouldn't win back many voters from Labour either
A Farage return might not hurt the Tory Party as much as you fear.
Farage is an expert tactician. I suspect that, like last time, his party would seek not to fight against Tories in Tory marginals but would seek to attract Labour votes in Labour marginals.
My God that's awful. An object lesson for anyone who takes freedom for granted. And an object lesson for anyone casually throwing around the word 'fascism'.
Now view it from a female perspective. Women are routinely abused the world over for the crime of being born female. The middle east is a cesspit of misogyny.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have the choice HY, choose sensibly and perhaps (not guaranteed) lose the next election. 15 years is, after all a long time in power.
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have become a Farage apologist and simply have no credibility when it comes to supporting a one nation conservative party
You do remember I voted for Sunak over Truss? My only warning is that Hunt as Leader means a Farage return and given Hunt is less popular with the public on today's Yougov than Sunak and Mordaunt wouldn't win back many voters from Labour either
A Farage return might not hurt the Tory Party as much as you fear.
Farage is an expert tactician. I suspect that, like last time, his party would seek not to fight against Tories in Tory marginals but would seek to attract Labour votes in Labour marginals.
If Hunt was Tory leader Farage would put up candidates in Tory seats, as he made clear yesterday he hates Hunt.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have become a Farage apologist and simply have no credibility when it comes to supporting a one nation conservative party
You do remember I voted for Sunak over Truss? My only warning is that Hunt as Leader means a Farage return and given Hunt is less popular with the public on today's Yougov than Sunak and Mordaunt wouldn't win back many voters from Labour either
A Farage return might not hurt the Tory Party as much as you fear.
Farage is an expert tactician. I suspect that, like last time, his party would seek not to fight against Tories in Tory marginals but would seek to attract Labour votes in Labour marginals.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
This is 16% higher in real terms vs. 20 years ago. That doesn't seem bonkers to me to be honest, but your view may vary.
Doubtless there will be some on final salary pensions who have done very well. If you wanted to target that money - I believe higher taxes for pensioners (perhaps they can pay NI like the rest of us) is much much fairer than retrospectively changing contracts.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
In the past at least, there was an explicit trade-off for many potential workers between the security, work-life balance and pension of the public sector versus the higher salary, bonus and career opportunities/mobility in the private sector. And don't forget that, while the way you describe public sector pensions suggests you're thinking of some hypothetical top manager, most public sector pensions are pretty small, paid to front-line and relatively junior workers such as nurses, postmen, admin staff, council employees, teachers, etc. - and the size of the burden is because there are millions of such people rather than because they're all getting tens of £thousands.
My wife was a teacher for 23 years and she finished her career as a deputy head. Her monthly pension is around £700.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have become a Farage apologist and simply have no credibility when it comes to supporting a one nation conservative party
You do remember I voted for Sunak over Truss? My only warning is that Hunt as Leader means a Farage return and given Hunt is less popular with the public on today's Yougov than Sunak and Mordaunt wouldn't win back many voters from Labour either
Your posts for many weeks have affirmed your Farage tendencies and you simply are part of the right-wing of the conservative party, including the ERG, who are actively destroying the conservative party and I reject any protestations from you that you have any support for a one nation conservative party
No, unlike you I can analyse what would happen even if I wouldn't necessarily support it myself
You cannot even analyse what would happen with your ridiculous claims of popular support for your new found hero Farage
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have become a Farage apologist and simply have no credibility when it comes to supporting a one nation conservative party
You do remember I voted for Sunak over Truss? My only warning is that Hunt as Leader means a Farage return and given Hunt is less popular with the public on today's Yougov than Sunak and Mordaunt wouldn't win back many voters from Labour either
A Farage return might not hurt the Tory Party as much as you fear.
Farage is an expert tactician. I suspect that, like last time, his party would seek not to fight against Tories in Tory marginals but would seek to attract Labour votes in Labour marginals.
If Hunt was Tory leader Farage would put up candidates in Tory seats, as he made clear yesterday he hates Hunt.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
In the past at least, there was an explicit trade-off for many potential workers between the security, work-life balance and pension of the public sector versus the higher salary, bonus and career opportunities/mobility in the private sector.
And don't forget that, while the way you describe public sector pensions suggests you're thinking of some hypothetical top manager, most public sector pensions are pretty small, paid to front-line and relatively junior workers such as nurses, postmen, admin staff, council employees, teachers, etc. - and the size of the burden is because there are millions of such people rather than because they're all getting tens of £thousands.
I would disagree with your first paragraph. Go back to the 60s and 70s there wasn't really a huge amount of differential between state and private (take a look at how much bankers were getting paid in the 70s, it may surprise you). A teacher could afford a decent property plus have the pension to boot. The idea that there was this huge divide is not true. Having said that, many private sector employees also had defined benefit schemes.
Re your second, true, they are not huge (my mother has one as an ex-postie)
I can only recollect back to the '80s, but I'm pretty confident that public sector pay was lower than private sector for comparable jobs. And it's certainly been the case over subsequent decades that the public sector loses some of its better people to the private, poached away with packages that offer higher immediate reward. If such a person put their extra income entirely into a pension throughout their career, they too wouldn't be badly off come retirement. The problem of course is that they don't - they spend much of the extra and the rest goes into property which they hope to rely upon to see them through retirement.
Anecdata: a friend's boy was offered a graduate job with the Treasury but turned it down for the City on double the salary plus bonuses.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
Please show me the average public sector pension v private of those due to retire in the next ten years? Please also explain the pension availability for police service? The gold-plated pensions for hospital doctors, GPs and NHS senior managers and many civil servants. As mentioned, these give pension provision, at the tax payers expense, that are vastly over what many people will ever receive as monthly salary. Pretending they don't exist show that you clearly don't understand the cost to the country. The country cannot afford these pensions, but nothing will be done about their fundamental unfairness and the greed of those that demand them because the politicians benefit from them themselves. I guess you are someone that is looking forward to drawing on one yourself. Or perhaps you think you have a "right" to a pension that is massively better than your fellow citizens in the private sector?
I worked for just over a decade in the public sector and now work in the private sector.
I'm now being paid twice as much in the private sector as I would be being paid if I'd stayed in the public sector, and the work is less complex and less demanding. The pension provision in my public sector job was a lot better, but not to the value of doubling my salary.
My Dad and Grandad did very well out of their public sector pensions, but they were some of the lucky few who ended their careers in senior positions, and so did best out of a final salary scheme. With the new career average pensions you won't get the same distortions for a small number of lucky recipients. I did pretty well to leave when I did as my pension entitlement is accruing more quickly with CPI uprating then it would have done from pay increases.
In the past a model of pay less now, pay more in pensions later made sense because growth was strong enough that it was cheaper to pay later than in advance. A lot of private sector companies did the same.
The demographic transition changes this calculus, because it unavoidably results in lower growth. This probably means it makes more sense to reduce the value of public sector pensions in exchange for better pay now, but making that transition is hard when you have to pay out the accrued pensions at the same time.
It's not some huge conspiracy to defraud taxpayers. I really don't know why you're so aggressive and unpleasant about it.
That is because he is an aggressive , unpleasant , nasty nasty person.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have become a Farage apologist and simply have no credibility when it comes to supporting a one nation conservative party
You do remember I voted for Sunak over Truss? My only warning is that Hunt as Leader means a Farage return and given Hunt is less popular with the public on today's Yougov than Sunak and Mordaunt wouldn't win back many voters from Labour either
A Farage return might not hurt the Tory Party as much as you fear.
Farage is an expert tactician. I suspect that, like last time, his party would seek not to fight against Tories in Tory marginals but would seek to attract Labour votes in Labour marginals.
If his strategy is based ariound where was marginal in 2019 then 'expert' might not be the word for it.
Why it makes sense to put Mordaunt in the top job.
Mordaunt is on -17%.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
You have become a Farage apologist and simply have no credibility when it comes to supporting a one nation conservative party
You do remember I voted for Sunak over Truss? My only warning is that Hunt as Leader means a Farage return and given Hunt is less popular with the public on today's Yougov than Sunak and Mordaunt wouldn't win back many voters from Labour either
A Farage return might not hurt the Tory Party as much as you fear.
Farage is an expert tactician. I suspect that, like last time, his party would seek not to fight against Tories in Tory marginals but would seek to attract Labour votes in Labour marginals.
So he'll only be standing people in a few places, then, like Epping Forest (on latest projections)?
Can we assume, for the purpose of argument, that the present government staggers on until the spring. Managing somehow to avoid any further car crashes! By April gas and electricity prices have dropped… further assumption… and the government claims credit for same. Is it not likely that they will get that credit with the voters? Or has too much damage already been done?
As I mentioned earlier, it should be seen as more likely than not that gas prices will be higher going into next winter than this winter. In summer 2022 Europe mostly filled up its strategic reserves with Russian gas and topped up with LNG. Next year they won’t have the luxury of using the Russian gas at all but LNG terminal and shipping capacity won’t have meaningfully increased yet.
Comments
Right now Mordaunt is in a good place.
Effectively let’s say you get a £1000 pay rise. But you are now above the threshold (because it hasn’t increased).
Hence you get less from your pay rise net of tax than you might have expected
I’m not sure that people really notice that specifically - they grumble about cost of living, about small pay rises, etc. but I don’t think they isolate the impact of tax. It’s why the treasury likes it so much.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-63280855
Starmer -5%
Sunak -21%
Johnson-36%
Hunt -41%
Truss -70%
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1582280655953502208?s=20&t=-TFwBgrlrkguDb3s-uyx4w
Tories best chance of turning this round is Sunak as PM - keep Hunt as Chancellor - keep Wallace where he is - Mordaunt FS.
How to make this happen and what to do with Truss? Would she demand a cabinet position to save some face as a condition of resigning?
The thing that LP wants is for Truss to stay PM - therefore the Tories must not do this.
So Sir Keir beats all of them, just Mordaunt and Sunak save a few Tory MPs seats
How can the Conservatives credibly go into the next GE arguing that Labour would wreck the economy when we have all watched them trash it themselves? Johnson and Truss have effectively destroyed the Tories best attack line against Labour.
17 points lower than Johnson's worst of -53 (July 2020)
15 points worse than Corbyn's worst, -55 (June 2019)
Leaders just don’t come back from this. https://twitter.com/yougov/status/1582280649548828672
Please can mods consider rank stupidity a valid reason for banning a poster?
Voters it seems just despise pure libertarian leaders.
https://twitter.com/corjayperks0/status/1582281835819962368?s=20&t=-TFwBgrlrkguDb3s-uyx4w
Or we agree that in future we'll all use COPOFF? Or even CHOPOFF?
"This lot are idiots...but at least they are cheap idiots."
It would have been like saying in 2010 don't trust Cameron just look at what Rees-Mogg et al are saying.
And then delve into the detail until they get to points that cost the Tories votes.
And don't forget that, while the way you describe public sector pensions suggests you're thinking of some hypothetical top manager, most public sector pensions are pretty small, paid to front-line and relatively junior workers such as nurses, postmen, admin staff, council employees, teachers, etc. - and the size of the burden is because there are millions of such people rather than because they're all getting tens of £thousands.
Combined with his cosy acquiescence to the recklessness of the MPC, which has directly caused the inflation problem. And finally failure to ensure the Bank was providing proper oversight of LDI pension assets that more than anything else has led to the recent collapse in gilts.
No thanks. If Rishi needs a “top job” to keep his noisy backers from causing any more trouble, then shunt him off to the foreign office but take away its powers the way May did to Johnson.
EDIT And the SNP are the official opposition.
By April gas and electricity prices have dropped… further assumption… and the government claims credit for same. Is it not likely that they will get that credit with the voters? Or has too much damage already been done?
And if you think the public sector gets a great deal - there was nothing stopping you trying to get on that bandwagon. The fact you now look enviously at their pensions is your problem.
People do still move from public to private, and I put this down to one of three reasons:
1) professional frustrations/new opportunities: what each individual finds satisfying in work will be different, and I wouldn't criticise anyone for going the other way because they think their jobs will be more satisfying.
2) simply not understanding how good their public sector pension arrangements are.
3) very effective recruitment from the private sector (certainly compared to the public sector, which does tend to place quite a lot of hurdles in the way of potential applicants: you have to really want the job.)
@JohnRentoul
·
41m
Tories have an acute timing problem: change leader soonest to prevent further damage; or let Hunt regency run to stabilise things first?
Re your second, true, they are not huge (my mother has one as an ex-postie)
The good news for her is she's ahead of Putin by 4%.
https://twitter.com/tombradby/status/1581962592612155392
Agree our politicians have a uniquely high bar for humiliation. But Gordon tried to stay on after Bigotgate, Clegg would have stayed on if he could and the one who actually walked away after a massive wounder - Cameron - has been pilloried for desertion ever since @tombradby
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1582292145045585921
@EdConwaySky
·
1h
That being said, there's an auction of 2051 debt coming up later on this morning. Let's see how that goes...
(We really need a "Rolls eyes" emoticon for PB)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly
Though the push back from all sides is thankfully forthright
"Julian Bond, then chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, deplored the offense that had been taken at Howard's use of the word. "You hate to think you have to censor your language to meet other people's lack of understanding" "
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/10/17/fiona-hill-putin-war-00061894
(thanks to @rcs1000 for posting it yesterday)
I'm now being paid twice as much in the private sector as I would be being paid if I'd stayed in the public sector, and the work is less complex and less demanding. The pension provision in my public sector job was a lot better, but not to the value of doubling my salary.
My Dad and Grandad did very well out of their public sector pensions, but they were some of the lucky few who ended their careers in senior positions, and so did best out of a final salary scheme. With the new career average pensions you won't get the same distortions for a small number of lucky recipients. I did pretty well to leave when I did as my pension entitlement is accruing more quickly with CPI uprating then it would have done from pay increases.
In the past a model of pay less now, pay more in pensions later made sense because growth was strong enough that it was cheaper to pay later than in advance. A lot of private sector companies did the same.
The demographic transition changes this calculus, because it unavoidably results in lower growth. This probably means it makes more sense to reduce the value of public sector pensions in exchange for better pay now, but making that transition is hard when you have to pay out the accrued pensions at the same time.
It's not some huge conspiracy to defraud taxpayers. I really don't know why you're so aggressive and unpleasant about it.
Boris's reputational damage didn't survive partygate. But just as Boris managed to campaign as Boris, not as the Conservative Party, the damage was largely to Boris himself. Whereas I think the shambles of the past month implicates the party, and will tarnish them for upwards of a decade.
Now my view is that the economic damage was a) caused by political incompetence rather than the principle of lower taxes and high growth being flawed, and b) has in any case now been pretty much cauterised. But I don't think the reputational damage is repairable.
But they have to try. Truss out ASAP and someone competent at politics in her place. There's still a big difference between a defeat at the next election and a wipeout.
Get off your arse and train as a Doctor, Nurse Teacher take one of the vacant roles and pay your up to 14.5% contribution to your pension as well as your NI and your 40|% Tax.
If its so rosy why are there no takers from the poor old private sector apart from your IR35 tax avoiding types who dont seem to want an NHS Pension with all the downsides of 12 years of pay cuts and contribution hikes.
Funny that.
Farage is an expert tactician. I suspect that, like last time, his party would seek not to fight against Tories in Tory marginals but would seek to attract Labour votes in Labour marginals.
I'll get my coat...
Or choose Braverman who goes crazy-ape-bonkers populist. Hanging, flogging, routinely arming the police to shoot down Dartford Crossing protesters and strafing Avon inflatables in the Channel so they sink. You might well win handsomely in 2024, but it won't be what the people want once they experience it, and you will be consigned to oblivion (unless you Putinise the electoral system- something not beyond the wit of Braverman, I daresay).
He did a deal with Boris in 2019 only as both were Leavers to get Brexit done
https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1582089109090185216?s=20&t=-TFwBgrlrkguDb3s-uyx4w
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1582295807931580416?s=20&t=-TFwBgrlrkguDb3s-uyx4w
https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Public-service-pensions.pdf
This is 16% higher in real terms vs. 20 years ago.
That doesn't seem bonkers to me to be honest, but your view may vary.
Doubtless there will be some on final salary pensions who have done very well. If you wanted to target that money - I believe higher taxes for pensioners (perhaps they can pay NI like the rest of us) is much much fairer than retrospectively changing contracts.
I understand why you are worried about Hunt as PM.