Why we won't back down on public sector pensions

Contrary to the coalition's spin, ministers have consistently refused to negotiate

In the last few days we have heard some extraordinary claims from the government about my union's involvement in what have been unnecessarily fractious and frustrating talks over public sector pensions.

This peaked yesterday [Tuesday] with an outrageous claim in parliament by Danny Alexander that we had "walked away" from the negotiating table.

This was grossly misleading. In fact, the government is attempting to exclude us from future negotiations, making good on a threat first issued by Cabinet Office officials at the end of last week.

Not only do we believe this is unlawful, the truth is the blockage in the talks has come from a Tory-led government intent on cutting public sector pensions. And why? To raise money to pay off a budget deficit caused by the failure and greed of the banks, and to make it easier to privatise more of our public services.

Ministers have consistently refused to negotiate. From the announcement in the June 2010 budget, without any prior consultation or negotiation, that pensions would rise by the consumer prices index instead of the traditionally higher retail prices index, to the increase in employee contributions, to linking scheme pension ages with the state pension age.

To nail another lie that ministers have tried to distract people with, PCS has been at every single meeting with officials and ministers. I have attended every meeting centrally with Mr Maude and Mr Alexander - though they haven't met us since 2 November - and my deputy has attended all the meetings with their officials about the design of any new scheme. The problem is, these meetings can only discuss ways of implementing the government's cuts to pensions, when what we need are proper negotiations with ministers about the core issues.

In continuing to block this kind of discussion, they want to force public servants to pay hundreds of pounds more each year and work up to eight years longer for much less in retirement - in many cases, tens of thousands of pounds. This was their position when hundreds of thousands of civil and public servants, teachers and lecturers took strike action on 30 June; it remained their position when two million public sector workers were on strike on 30 November; and it remains the case today.

Faced with this, and the government's bullying tactics, what would any reasonable person do? We believe that if it was right to strike in June and November, it's right to continue to oppose these things now.

Other unions will make their own decisions and account for them. But we could not, in all conscience, recommend this dire package of cuts to people who are in the middle of a two-year pay freeze, facing the prospect of at least a further two years of pay capped at 1 per cent.

The TUC has estimated that by the end of the pay freeze and cap, living standards will have dropped by 16 per cent. In this context, the government's raid on pensions - orchestrated by a cabinet of millionaires - looks like legalised theft of the worst kind: taking from those who can least afford it, to pay for economic problems caused and exacerbated by the very wealthy.

Our national executive will meet on 10 January to discuss where we are and where we go next. But we are clear that to reach an agreement there needs to be compromise on both sides, and there has been none by the government on the issues of substance to millions of public servants.
We want to reach an agreement, but we will not be bullied into signing away our members' futures to satisfy a political project run by Tory millionaires and propped up by Liberal Democrats.

Mark Serwotka is general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union

An explanation of the government's pension offer letter

The government made an offer to the unions on 15 December in relation to the civil service pension scheme.
The letter sought the agreement of negotiators that the offer would be recommended to union executives with a view to agreement. PCS has responded today (Monday 19 December) that these proposals will be put to the national executive committee, but that they will not be recommended as they do not provide a basis for agreement.

Click to download the letters or visit:http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/pcs_comment/index.cfm/id/D8BDE8C6-C045-4455-891ECD6996F8E892

Letter from government 15 Dec 2011
Letter to Francis Maude 19 Dec 2011

During negotiations the government has shown little flexibility on the key issues in the dispute. The offer will mean that all civil servants will pay more, all aged under 50 will work longer, and all will get less in retirement.

The offer

The government plans that current civil service pension schemes (Classic, Classic Plus, Premium and NUVOS) will close and will be replaced by a new scheme on 1 April 2015. The government’s offer relates to this new pension scheme. Those within 10 years of pension age will remain in the current schemes – all others will be offered the new scheme. There is some protection for those just over 10 years from retirement as well.

The government’s offer starts from the assumption that the new scheme is based on the NUVOS scheme. However, the value of the existing NUVOS scheme was significantly reduced when the government decided to change the inflation indexation from RPI to CPI. A NUVOS pension is not based on a final salary but a career average salary. Career average salary is calculated by taking a percentage of each annual salary (2.3%) and up-rating it by inflation. By cutting the inflation indicator from RPI to CPI, the government at a stroke reduced the value of the existing NUVOS scheme.

Click to see how career average schemes work:
How CARE works

Paying more

There are two elements to the government plans for increasing contributions:
From 1 April 2012. The government has confirmed plans to introduce increased contributions for all public sector pension members (including those within 10 years of retirement), by an average of 3.2% of salary, phased in over 3 years. The PCS pension calculator gives information about the increased contributions.

From 1 April 2015. The contribution rate, which will apply to the new scheme, will be for all except the lowest paid - 5.6% of salary.

How much will you lose - use the PCS pension calculator?

Working longer

The new scheme will have a pension age (the age at which scheme members can receive an unreduced pension) in line with the state pension age (SPA). How this will work in practice has still to be discussed. Classic and Premium schemes have a pension age of 60, and NUVOS has a pension age of 65. The state pension age will rise to 68. People born on or after 6 April 1960 but before 6 April 1961 will have an SPA between 66 and 67. People born on or after 6 April 1961 will have an SPA of 67 or higher.

Getting less

After retirement - inflationary pension increases will increase by CPI, rather than RPI, which will mean that over a normal 20 year retirement, pensions will be worth up to 20% less.

PCS Response

The largest union in the civil service, PCS, today rejected the government's latest attempt to force public servants to pay more and work longer for less in retirement.

Government officials had previously imposed an arbitrary 10am deadline on the civil service unions, threatening to exclude them from future talks if they did not sign up to the changes. This was later put back to 3pm.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka has written to Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude this afternoon rejecting a formal offer - which would mean contributions increasing from April 2012, the pension age rising to 68 and pensions indexed by CPI instead of RPI. These terms had already been unanimously rejected by the union's national executive, and the union has reiterated its call to ministers to seriously negotiate on these core issues.

Ministers have consistently refused to negotiate on these three key points and, in the case of the CPI indexation, introduced it in last year's budget without any prior consultation, forcing unions to go to the High Court to challenge the switch.

While talks with officials have been held in recent weeks on aspects of the civil service scheme, there have been no central negotiations with ministers on the key issues under dispute since the government's 'final offer' was announced by chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander on 2 November.

There is a meeting of the TUC's public sector group of unions at 5pm today, where unions will receive updates on scheme talks elsewhere.

PCS will say that the offer on the table in the civil service is not good enough and that the union believes further industrial action should be organised as early as possible in the new year if the government continues to refuse to negotiate on the core issues.

Mark Serwotka said: "Nothing has changed since two million public sector workers were on strike on 30 November and we continue to oppose the government's attempt to force public servants to pay more and work longer for less.

"It is uncontested that all the public sector pension schemes are affordable now and in the future. Public servants should not be forced to pay off a budget deficit caused by the greed and recklessness of bankers and exacerbated by the Tory-led government's economic incompetence."

Why double standards by HM Revenue and Customs mean you pay more

The taxman has been accused of double standards by treating ordinary workers and small firms less favourably than large companies.


HM Revenue and Customs have failed to collect more than £25 billion in “unresolved tax bills” from major firms — the equivalent of £1,000 for every British family — a committee of MPs claims.
The revenue has recently sought to raise hundreds of millions of pounds in extra revenues by cracking down on tax avoidance by workers. Penalties for those submitting self-assessment tax forms late are being increased and professional workers are being aggressively targeted by tax inspectors.

Last year 1.4 million people were sent backdated tax demands totalling almost £4 billion after problems with the PAYE system.

Yet at the same time, the parliamentary public accounts committee says revenue executives have become “unduly cosy” with larger firms and have tried to hide from public scrutiny details of a series of secret deals with companies.

The disclosure that ordinary workers may suffer from a less forgiving tax regime than large corporations at a time of economic hardship will anger voters and embarrass the Coalition, which has pledged to raise billions of pounds more by clamping down on avoidance schemes.

Margaret Hodge, the former Labour minister who chairs the committee, said: “This report is a damning indictment of HMRC and the way its senior officials handle tax disputes with large corporations. We uncovered both specific and systemic failures which must be addressed.
“There is more than £25 billion outstanding in unresolved tax bills and it is essential there should be proper accountability to Parliament for the settlements reached.

“Parliament and the public have legitimate concerns that large companies are being treated more favourably than ordinary taxpayers.

“The department’s working practices must be seen by the taxpaying public to be absolutely impartial. The impression being given at the moment is quite the opposite, of far too cosy a relationship between HMRC and large companies.”

Richard Bacon, a Tory MP on the public accounts committee, said it appeared that the revenue took “a softer approach to powerful firms while being tougher on small businesses. “Whether accurate or not, this notion is toxic for HMRC’s relationship with the vast majority of taxpayers,” he said.

HMRC officials summoned to appear before the committee refused to give details of deals agreed with large firms, including Vodafone and Goldman Sachs. Instead the committee had to rely on allegations from a whistle-blower, the HMRC lawyer Osita Mba.

In some of the most damning comments made by MPs against serving public officials, concerns are raised that “many millions of pounds may be lost to the public purse”.

Mrs Hodge said: “It is extremely disappointing that senior HMRC officials were not prepared to co-operate with our inquiry.

“It is absurd that we had to rely on the media and the actions of a whistle-blower to find out about the details of individual settlements.”

The committee also criticises governance arrangements at the revenue with the same officials responsible for negotiating and approving deals with major companies.

Read more here:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8967002/Why-double-standards-by-HM-Revenue-and-Customs-mean-you-pay-more.html

No Bail-Out for the Planet

Why is it so easy to save the banks, but so hard to save the biosphere?
By George Monbiot, published on the Guardian’s website 16th December 2011

They bailed out the banks in days. But even deciding to bail out the planet is taking decades.

Lord Stern estimated that capping climate change would cost around 1% of global GDP, while sitting back and letting it hit us would cost between 5 and 20%. One per cent of GDP is, at the moment, $630bn. By March 2009, Bloomberg has revealed, the US Federal Reserve had committed $7.77 trillion to the banks. That is just one government’s contribution: yet it amounts to 12 times the annual global climate change bill. Add the bailouts in other countries, and it rises by several more multiples.

This support was issued on demand: as soon as the banks said they wanted help, they got it. On just one day the Federal Reserve made $1.2tn available – more than the world has committed to tackling climate change in 20 years.

Much of this was done both unconditionally and secretly: it took journalists two years to winkle out the detail. The banks shouted “help” and the government just opened its wallet. This all took place, remember, under George W Bush, whose administration claimed to be fiscally conservative.

But getting the US government to commit to any form of bailout for the planet – even a couple of billion – is like pulling teeth. “Unaffordable!” the Republicans (and many of the Democrats) shriek. It will wreck the economy! We’ll go back to living in caves!

I’m often struck by the wildly inflated rhetoric of those who accuse environmentalists of scaremongering. “If those scaremongers have their way they’ll destroy the entire economy” is the kind of claim uttered almost daily, without any apparent irony.

No legislator, as far as I know, has yet been able to explain why making $7.7tn available to the banks is affordable, while investing far smaller sums in new technologies and energy saving is not.

The US and other nations began talking seriously about tackling climate change in 1988. Yet we still don’t have a legally-binding global agreement, and we are unlikely to get one until 2020, if at all. Agreements to help the banks are struck at economic summits without breaking sweat, yet making progress at climate summits looks like using a donkey to tow a 44-tonne truck.

So saying, the outcome at Durban, after some superhuman feats of traction, was better than most environmentalists feared. After Copenhagen and Cancun, it seemed implausible that rich and poor nations would ever agree that they would one day strike a legally-binding treaty, but they have. That doesn’t mean that the outcome was good: even if everything happens as planned, we are still likely to end up with more than two degrees of warming, which threatens great harm to many of the world’s people and places.

The clearest account of the negotiations and the outcome of the Durban meeting that I have read so far has been written by Mark Lynas, who attended as an adviser to the president of the Maldives. The Byzantine complexity he documents is the result of twenty years of foot-dragging and obstruction. When powerful countries want to do something, they do it swiftly and simply. When they don’t, their agreements with other nations turn into a cat’s cradle.

Here are some of the key points:
- The most important negotiations boiled down to a battle between two groups: the European Union, least developed countries and small island states on one side, which pressed for steeper, faster cuts, and the US, Brazil, South Africa, India and China on the other side, seeking to resist that pressure.
- The first group (EU + LDCs) succeeded in one respect: the other nations agreed to work towards a legally binding deal “applicable to all parties”. In other words, unlike the Kyoto Protocol, which governs only the greenhouse gas emissions of a group of rich nations, this will apply to everyone. (It doesn’t necessarily mean that all nations will have to reduce their emissions however).
- The first group failed in its attempt to get this done quickly. The poorest nations wanted a legally binding outcome by the end of next year. But the US-China group held out for 2020, and got it. Unless this changes, it makes limiting the global temperature rise to two degrees or less much harder – perhaps impossible.
- The Kyoto Protocol, though it will remain in force until either 2017 or 2020, is now a dead letter. In fact, Lynas suggests, unless the loopholes it contains are closed it could be worse than useless, as they could undermine the voluntary commitments that its signatory nations have made.
- The countries agreed to create a Green Climate Fund to help developing nations limit their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of global warming. But, with three exceptions – South Korea, Germany and Denmark – they didn’t agree to put any money into it. The fund is supposed to receive $100bn a year: a lot of money, until you compare it to what the banks got.
- Between now and 2020, all we have to rely on are countries’ voluntary commitments. According to a UN study, these fall short of the cuts required to prevent more than 2 degrees of global warming – by some 6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
- But as the Durban agreement conceded, two degrees is still too high. It raised the possibility of pledging to keep the rise to no more than 1.5 degrees. This would require a much faster programme of cuts than it envisages.

So why is it so easy to save the banks and so hard to save biosphere? If ever you needed evidence that our governments operate in the interests of the elite, rather than the world as a whole, here it is.
www.monbiot.com

Chapter and verse on Cameron and God

Letters to The Guardian

So David Cameron has declared that Britain is a Christian country and we should not be afraid to say so (Report, 17 December). Following the chancellor's autumn statement, the burden of paying for the deficit has been on the most vulnerable. The Child Poverty Action Group reports that 100,000 more children will be thrown into poverty. It cannot be clearer that ours is not a Christian country. It is barely a civilized one.
Rev Michael Land (retd)Hereford

• The most pertinent teaching of the gospel for our time is surely this: "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6:24). Yet Cameron leads a government serving mammon in the utmost, striving ever to advance the interests of the 1% towards ever greater riches and dominance, at the expense of the needs of the truly needy – the old, the sick, the disabled, the unemployed, children, all those indeed whom Jesus came to serve. I see no Christians here.
Dr Henry Jones London

• No doubt the Tories will have taken their core philosophy from Mark 4:25: "For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath." Clint Backhouse Carlisle, Cumbria

• Cameron claims the Bible has helped make Britain what it is today. Which events would he claim were uniquely Christian – slavery, the exploitation of children, colonialism, the Crusades, wars, torture and execution etc? David Marshall Llanrwst, Conwy

• On the day Cameron makes a call for a return to Christian values, yet another country, this time the Netherlands, publishes a report into decades of child abuse by Roman Catholic priests. If so many of the priests of the world's oldest and largest church can find themselves in a state of "moral collapse", then there doesn't seem to be much hope for the rest of us.
Bob PlattSteyning, West Sussex

• A revival of traditional Christian values could solve the eurozone problem at a stroke. A realignment of the currency into a Protestant euro, a Catholic euro and a Greek Orthodox euro would accord with historic choices and current economic reality. Britain might even opt in.
Dr John Doherty Vienna

Unions call for extra money for fair pensions

Trade union leaders have met in London today (15th Dec) to discuss the campaign to stop the government from robbing billions of pounds from public sector workers' pensions.

Twenty-nine unions - representing more than two million workers - supported strike action on 30 November in protest at government plans to make people pay more and work for longer, for a smaller pension.

Members of the TUC public sector liaison group met this morning and agreed with a PCS proposal to call on the government to provide the extra money necessary to reach a fair settlement.
Before 2 November, central meetings were taking place between trade union leaders and Treasury and Cabinet Office ministers. These public sector wide talks covered government plans to increase pension contributions, increase the retirement age to 68 and cut inflation proofing of pensions from RPI to CPI.

No public sector wide meetings with ministers have taken place since 2 November.
Talks have also been taking place within each of the four major public sector pension schemes covering local government, NHS, teachers, and the civil service. While some progress has been made on peripheral issues, these talks do not deal with the real issues in the long running dispute - paying more and working longer for a smaller pension.

Civil service talks have focused on the details of a new pension scheme for all civil servants from 1 April 2015. However, the proposals assume that members of the new scheme will work longer, until 67 or 68, and include the switch from RPI to CPI uprating. The proposals also assume an increase in contributions will be introduced in April 2012 for all – even those over 50.
With the government refusing to negotiate on the central issues in the dispute, there is little prospect of an agreement.

Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: "The government has seen how strongly people feel about the attacks on pensions. Now is the time for real negotiations – which have to be with ministers, and have sufficient resources to reach a fair settlement”

Sign the petition opposing the switch from RPI to CPI

Read our ‘Fair pensions for all’ booklet

There is an alternative - economic arguments against the cuts

Follow PCS on Twitter, Facebook and Unionbook

Remind you of anyone?

A Whitehall scandal that's bigger than lobbying?
Revealed: the top public officials involved in awarding companies lucrative contracts - and who then go to work for them


It was the week that Bell Pottinger, one of Britain’s largest lobbying firms, was secretly filmed bragging of its intimate access to government. But there is a potentially even worse scandal than lobbying: the practice known as the “revolving door”, where ministers, officials or military officers involved in controversial public-sector contracts then go on to work, at high salaries, for the beneficiaries of those same contracts.

The stakes here are higher than Bell Pottinger’s boast that the Prime Minister will take your phone call. Billions of pounds of public money are on the line. In one of the biggest-spending departments, the Ministry of Defence, almost 250 staff – including 20 generals, admirals or air marshals – have joined defence companies in a single year, new figures obtained by this newspaper show.

And a Sunday Telegraph investigation has established that the organisation supposedly responsible for vetting the most senior “revolving-door” appointments has not vetoed a single application in the last 15 years.

According to the annual reports of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), it has considered 944 applications for private sector jobs by former top mandarins and ministers since 1996. Of these, 412 were approved with conditions, and 532 – 56 per cent – were approved unconditionally. None was rejected.

Among the most heavily criticised deals of recent years is that for the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers, which will cost taxpayers more than £6 billion, even though one will be immediately mothballed and the other will carry no aircraft until 2020. At least four top military officers and ministers, including the heads of the Navy and the RAF, a former vice-chief of defence staff and the former minister for defence equipment, Ann Taylor, have since joined companies with an interest in the aircraft-carrier project. Their appointments were approved by Acoba.

Read more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/8948475/A-Whitehall-scandal-thats-bigger-than-lobbying.html

The Corporate Welfare State

Despite the crisis, it’s still socialism for the 1%, capitalism for the rest.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 22nd November 2011

In the documentary series which finished on Friday evening, the heiress Tamara Ecclestone set out to prove that she isn’t “a pointless, quite spoilt, really stupid, vacuous, empty human being”(1). This endeavour was not wholly successful. Channel 5 showed her supervising the refurbishment of her £45m home in London, in which she commissioned a £1m bathtub carved from Mexican crystal, an underground swimming pool complex, her own nightclub, a lift for her Ferrari, a bowling alley with crystal-studded balls and a spa and massage parlour for her five dogs, to save her the trouble of taking them to Harrods to have their hair sprayed and their nails painted. But there was something the series didn’t tell us: how much of this you helped to pay for.

In court a fortnight ago, her father, the Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone, revealed that the fact that his family’s offshore trust, Bambino Holdings, was controlled by his ex-wife rather than himself could have saved him “in excess of £2bn” in tax(2). The name suggests that the trust could have something to do with supporting his daughter’s attempt to follow the teachings of St Francis of Assisi.

Ecclestone has also been adept at making use of the corporate welfare state: the transfer by the government of wealth and power from the rest of us to the 1%. After the mogul made a donation to Labour’s election fund, Tony Blair demanded that Formula 1 be exempted from the EU’s ban on tobacco sponsorship. The government built a new dual carriageway to his racetrack at Silverstone(3).

In other countries his business has received massive state subsidies. Russia, for example, has recently agreed to build a circuit for Mr Ecclestone, and then charge itself $280m for the privilege of letting him use it(4). Working in India in 2004, I came across the leaked minutes of a cabinet meeting in which the consultancy McKinsey insisted that the desperately poor state of Andhra Pradesh – where millions die of preventable diseases – cough up £50-75m a year to support Formula 1. The minutes also revealed that the state’s chief minister had lobbied the prime minister of India to exempt Ecclestone’s business from the national ban on tobacco advertising(5).

Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor: that is how our economies work. Those at the bottom are subject to the rigours of the free market. Those at the top are as pampered and protected as Tamara Ecclestone’s dogs.

On Tuesday the Chancellor, George Osborne, decided at last to review the private finance initiative (PFI), under which the companies building public infrastructure made stupendous profits while the state retained the risks(6). But if you thought that Osborne’s decision represented a wider shift in policy, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Two days later he agreed to sell the state-owned bank Northern Rock to Richard Branson. Under the deal, the state keeps the liabilities while Branson gets the assets: rather like PFI. The loss equates to £13 for every taxpayer(7).

Someone who will not suffer unduly from being touched for £13 is Matt Ridley. As chairman of Northern Rock, he was responsible, according to the Treasury select committee, for the “high-risk, reckless business strategy” which caused the first run on a British bank since 1878(8). Before he became chairman, a position he appears to have inherited from his father, Matt Ridley was one of this country’s fiercest exponents of laissez-faire capitalism. He described government as “a self-seeking flea on the backs of the more productive people of this world … governments do not run countries, they parasitise them.”(9)

The self-seeking parasite bailed out his catastrophic attempt to put his ideas into practice, to the tune of £27bn. What did the talented Mr Ridley learn from this experience? The square root of nothing. He went on to publish a book in which he excoriated the regulation of business by the state’s “parasitic bureaucracy” and claimed that the market system makes self-interest “thoroughly virtuous”(10).

Having done his best to bankrupt the blood-sucking state, he returned to his family seat at Blagdon Hall, set in 15 square miles of farmland, where the Ridleys live – non-parastically of course – on rents from their tenants, hand-outs from the Common Agricultural Policy and fees from the estate’s opencast coal mines(11). No one has been uncouth enough to mention the idea that he might be surcharged for part of the £400m loss Northern Rock has inflicted on the parasitic taxpayer. It’s not the 1% who have to carry the costs of their cock-ups.

Even in the midst of this crisis, when the poor are being hammered on all sides, the government still seeks to transfer their meagre resources to the rich. Last month Vince Cable’s business department listed five employment rules that businesses might wish to challenge. Among them were the national minimum wage and statutory sick pay(12).

On Friday, David Cameron opened negotiations with Angela Merkel over the Eurozone crisis. His two principal demands were that there should be no Robin Hood tax on financial transactions and that the working time directive, which prevents companies from exploiting their staff, should be renegotiated(13,14).

Just as instructive was what he did not discuss. In fact, as far as I can tell, none of the European leaders have yet mentioned it in their summits, even though it accounts for almost half the EU’s spending. It is of course the agricultural subsidy system, which now costs British taxpayers £3.6bn a year(15).

We like to imagine that this money supports wizened shepherds who tie up their trousers with bailer twine, but the major beneficiaries are people like the Ridleys. The more land you own, the more support you receive from the state. The Common Agricultural Policy is a massive state subsidy to the richest people in Europe: the aristocrats and plutocrats who possess the big holdings. British politicians pretend that it is protected only by the French. This is bunkum: in February a House of Commons committee demanded not only that the existing subsidy system be sustained but also that we should reinstate headage payments, encouraging farmers to produce food nobody wants(16).

Last week the Guardian exposed a system which looks like state-enforced slavery. To qualify for the £53 a week they receive in Job Seekers’ Allowance, young people are being forced to work without pay for up to eight weeks for companies such as Tesco, Poundland, Argos and Sainsbury’s(17). Some of the nation’s poorest people, in other words, are being obliged by the state to subsidise some of its richest businesses, by giving them their labour.

For the corporate welfare queens installing their crystal baths, there is no benefit cap, no obligation to work, in some cases no taxation. Limited liability, offshore secrecy regimes, deregulation and government handouts ensure that they bear none of the costs their class has inflicted on the rest of us. They live at our expense, while disparaging the lesser mortals who support them.

www.monbiot.com

References:http://www.monbiot.com/2011/11/21/the-corporate-welfare-state/

'Call Me Dave' stands up for Britain, by standing up for bankers?

Why?

The Conservative Party has become reliant on bankers, hedge fund managers and private equity moguls for more than half its annual income, an independent analysis of Tory finances has revealed. Since David Cameron became Conservative leader in December 2005, the amount of money the City has given to bankroll the Tories has gone up fourfold, to £11.4m a year. Over those five years, the City has donated more than £42m to the party.

The research, conducted by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, highlights how reliant the party has become on the City at a time when David Cameron and George Osborne are under pressure to reform the financial sector.

Since Mr Cameron assumed the leadership, the Conservative Party has become twice as dependent on City funding: from 25 per cent of its total donations to nearly 51 per cent in 2010.

So when he says he is standing up for Britain... check your wallet.

"He has failed in his duty. He is not the veterans minister; he is the minister against veterans."

Defence Minister Andrew Robathan should be sacked over his insult to the heroes of the Arctic Convoys, veterans said last night.

He sparked anger by comparing the Second World War veterans' claim for a medal to the large number of honours 'thrown around' by Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi and Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein.

The beleaguered minister made the disparaging remarks after Tory MP Caroline Dinenage urged the Government to keep its pre-election pledge to honour the sacrifice by striking a specific Arctic Medal.

Yesterday even his boss, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, distanced himself from the comments.

He told the Commons' defence select committee: 'I don't think he intended to cause any offence but there was an unfortunate juxtaposition of words.

'The role of the Arctic convoys is well known and if any offence has been caused I deeply regret that.'

More than 3,000 British sailors died on the convoys to keep the Soviet Union supplied and fighting on the Eastern Front. They braved treacherous freezing seas and ran a deadly gauntlet of Nazi U-boats and warplanes.

Of 1,400 ships on 78 convoys – described by Winston Churchill as 'the worst journey in the world' – 101 perished in the icy waters north of Norway.

Veterans Minister Mr Robathan, a former soldier who was awarded a medal for running a prisoner-of-war camp in the first Gulf War, faced a clamour of demands for his resignation after likening the Arctic medal campaign to notorious authoritarian regimes which handed out so many medals it diminished their worth.

He said: 'Medals in the UK mean something. Authoritarian regimes and dictators often throw around a lot of medals.

'One can look, for instance, at North Korean generals who are covered in medal ribbon, or Gaddafi, or Saddam Hussein. We have taken the view in this country, traditionally, that medals will only be awarded for campaigns that show risk and rigour. Some regimes give out very large numbers of medals whereas we, traditionally, do not.'

But Commander Eddie Grenfell, 91, the leader of the Arctic Medal campaign, said: 'He cannot get away with the fact he said those dreadful things about the Arctic veterans. The man should be sacked from his job.

'He has failed in his duty. He is not the veterans minister; he is the minister against veterans.'

Falklands veteran Simon Weston said: 'The minister should think long and hard about resigning over this terrible insult. It was a cheap shot.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2071419/Tory-minister-insults-WW2-Arctic-convoy-heroes-We-dont-dole-medals-like-Colonel-Gaddafi.html#ixzz1fvpFCBIn

And there's more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2071178/Award-Arctic-convoy-veterans-medal--set-Andrew-Robathan-s-ministerial-career-adrift-cold-sea.html

NHS computer farce to cost another £2bn

CSC the US company contracted to provide IT technology for the National Health Service, and one of the bidders in SPVA's market test, is set to receive a £2 billion extension to its contract despite the failed project being abandoned, it was claimed last night.

Computer Sciences Corporation [CSC] has reportedly informed Wall Street that it expects its contract to provide electronic patient records across the NHS to be extended.

Taxpayers are now facing an estimated £2billion bill, despite the company already failing to deliver a fully functional version of its software.

The £11.4billion National Programme for IT, set up in 2002, was at the time billed as the world’s biggest civilian computerisation project.

Read more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8942087/NHS-computer-farce-to-cost-another-2bn.html

A 'Cut' to cause frustration

Everything it seems is being cut, so now even sex is being cut for those with a need for erectile dysfunction drugs!

New policy documents advise GPs in parts of the country that patients in need of Viagra or similar drugs should be limited to two pills per month, down from the normal prescription of four.
Although the policy was described as a "recommendation" by NHS authorities, local medical committees told the GPs' magazine Pulse it was being handed down to family doctors as an "edict".

Erectile dysfunction medication is already stringently limited on the NHS and can only be prescribed to patients with certain conditions such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis and prostate cancer.

According to the NHS some 2.2 million prescriptions for erectile dysfunction drugs were issued last year, with 14.5 million tablets issued at a cost of about £78 million.

Read more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8940812/Viagra-rationing-to-limit-patients-sex-lives.html

X-Factor Fixed

HMV accidentally let the cat out of the bag.

X-Factor winner fixed in advance of the final.

'Call Me Dave' the ghost of Christmas future

'Call Me Dave' has finally done something that is so far beyond the pale that satire just cannot touch it.

'Call Me Dave's government has announced cancer patients on chemotherapy will have to undergo tests to prove they can’t work.

This is not satire – it’s true:
DWP proposes to force chemotherapy patients to undergo stressful benefit checks

Here’s a link to Macmillan Cancer Support’s online petition against the government’s plans:
Time is running out to make sure that people with cancer don’t lose benefits.

And finally, to explain why the government might be doing this, have a look at this article:
Welfare reform and the US insurance giant Unum
What's almost as bad is the connivance of the Liberal Democrats who are enabling this travesty to take place, all in the name of cutting the deficit. Meanwhile there will be no Tobin tax on financial transactions, bankers will pay themselves enormous bonuses, FTSE 100 executives will award themselves huge pay rises, and we will be expected to bail the banks out yet again when they fail as surely they must.

We know where the cancer is. Let's cut it out!

Income inequality growing faster in UK than any other rich country, says OECD

Top 10% have incomes 12 times greater than bottom 10%, up from eight times greater in 1985, thinktank's study reveals

Income inequality among working-age people has risen faster in Britain than in any other rich nation since the mid-1970s, according to a report by the OECD.

The thinktank says the gap has come about due to the rise of a financial services elite who, through education and marriage, have concentrated wealth into the hands of a tiny minority.

Economists from the group, which is funded by developed-world taxpayers, say the annual average income in the UK of the top 10% in 2008 was just under £55,000, about 12 times higher than that of the bottom 10%, who had an average income of £4,700.

This is up from a ratio of eight to one in 1985 and significantly higher than the average income gap in developed nations of nine to one.

However, the report makes clear that even in countries viewed as "fairer" – such as Germany, Denmark and Sweden – this pay gap between rich and poor is expanding: from five to one in the 1980s to six to one today. In the rising powers of Brazil, Russia, India and China, the ratio is an alarming 50 to one.

Read more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/05/income-inequality-growing-faster-uk

Your union in action

Thought for the day

He sells £1.4 billion pounds worth of 'Good' Northern Rock to Virgin Money at a loss to all of us (except Richard Branson, of course) of £400 million pounds...



...whilst keeping hold of the £22 billion pounds of 'Bad' Northern Rock.




Glad the economy is in a safe pair of hands?

Unions to appeal High Court ruling on pensions switch

Unions will challenge a High Court ruling that the government was entitled to switch the measure of inflation used to increase public sector pensions.

While one of the three judges said the government’s decision to use the consumer price index (CPI) instead of the traditionally higher retail price index (RPI) was unlawful and should be quashed, the other two decided that the government was within its rights.
A judicial review by six unions challenged the switch to CPI, which was announced in the June 2010 budget, without any consultation or negotiation.

Chancellor George Osborne claimed CPI was the more appropriate measure. But the unions have always contended it was a deficit reduction measure and therefore unlawful under social security legislation which does not allow for national economic considerations to be used when deciding which is the best practicable estimate of the increase in prices.

While all three High Court judges agreed with the unions that deficit reduction was the motivation for the switch, two of them said the secretary of state for work and pensions was within his rights to take into account public finances.

October’s inflation figures put CPI at 5% and RPI at 5.4%, meaning that the loss to existing public sector pensions is around 15%. Ministers have refused to negotiate on the issue.
The six unions are the Fire Brigades' Union, teachers' union NASUWT, Prison Officers Association, Public and Commercial Services union, UNISON and Unite.

A spokesperson for Thompsons Solicitors, which acted for the six, said: “While the High Court’s split ruling is disappointing, the unions are pleased that their main argument, that the chancellor was motivated by deficit reduction when he made the switch, was accepted.

"It is encouraging that one judge agreed that this was illegal. We have instructions to lodge an appeal urgently on behalf of the unions.

“At a time when public sector employees are being forced to bear the burden of the financial crisis, the unions will not allow this unfair and, in our view, unlawful breach of the contracts of millions of workers to rest.”

Following the successful public sector strike on 30 November, the unions will continue to campaign against this and other cuts to pensions in the weeks and months ahead.

Clarkson flees country after foot in mouth

Jeremy Clarkson is reportedly headed to Beijing after having recommended that public sector strikers should "Be shot!". He also added that, we should be taken outside and executed in front of our families. Pretty rich from a guy who earns over a million pounds a year... from the public sector of the BBC!

Titter ye not!

However, there is some irony in him fleeing to Beijing... as it would be there that they very well might execute public sector strikers!

We can only hope he is made welcome there... and never returns.

The Pay-Off

As part of the Autumn Statement on 29 November, the Chancellor announced that public sector pay awards, including those for the civil service, will average at 1% for the two years following the public sector pay freeze.

The Government has confirmed that the public sector pay freeze will end in March 2013, but given the wider pressures on the public finances, there is a need for a further period of pay restraint.

For the some 55,000 civilian staff covered by the MOD main pay award, the public sector pay freeze began in 2011, will continue to apply in 2012 and will end in 2013. Other civilian staff whose pay is linked to counterparts outside MOD such as the MDP, fire service, teachers and most medical grades will be treated in accordance with their pay link.

DSg 30 November briefing 8 – Thank you to the 15,000+

The action on 30 June was at that point the best ever supported by PCS MoD members. Today, we have eclipsed that and by some margin. From myself as group secretary, can I thank every single member of our group who took action today.

Below are some reports from MoD establishments throughout the country with the same message repeating itself over and over again – very few, if many PCS members went to work in the MoD today. Indeed, we signed up numerous new PCS members either on the picket lines today or in the days preceding today’s action. Reps saw a particular swell in membership after the Chancellor once again attacked public sector workers yesterday.

From the feedback we have had from picket lines at almost every main MoD location, we estimate that in excess of 15,000 members have taken action today and supported our union and the wider labour and trade union movement in the fight for fair pensions.

Across the country, we have been part of a three million strong band of brothers and sisters who have told this government that enough is enough. Your action today will send a clear message to the government that our union will not allow them to tear up our contracted pension entitlements without a fight.

In the coming days, we will get full details of all the picket lines across the Ministry of Defence. The following is just a quick snapshot of what has happened today –

Merseyside – Only 14 went into work and none of these were members.
Leconfield - 60 members on 2 picket lines. Virtually closed the whole establishment staff car parks virtually empty.
Yorkshire – Picket lines at five different sites, reps reported that no members had crossed the picket line on 4 out of these 5 sites.
Bath – Picket lines at all 3 sites with Ensleigh reporting hardly anybody at work. DBS management board was changed at last minute from Imphal barracks in York because they heard we would have a strong picket line there. They held the meeting at Foxhill and were met with an equally strong picket line!
Scotland West - 5 picket lines. Kentigern House – 1 member went in out of over 600 members (99.8% out). 20 pickets at Faslane who stopped every car and caused gridlock around Faslane. At Coulport, it was only contractor staff and they had to be kept in the canteen all day for health and safety reasons. The march in Glasgow had in excess of 20,000 trade unionists marching, more than 5 times the STUC expected.
Cosford – 60+ on the picket line, the place “was virtually deserted” PCS, Prospect and NASUWT members there.
Cheadle Hulme - 10 on the picket line Approx 97% of the site out.
West Midlands - 2 picket lines. 95% support. At Donnington we had 60 pickets at one entrance and 150 at the other.
Salisbury Plain – 4 picket lines with 34 pickets in attendance.
Greater London – St Georges Court closed. Joint picket lines at Main Building with Prospect and FDA, “Significantly less people crossed the picket line than in June 2011”. Chinese television and Spanish TV filmed the pickets.
Abbeywood –Picket lines set up jointly with Prospect and Unite on several gates. Estimate that it is about 75% out with 40 pickets. Avon and Somerset constabulary had to order the MoD to open the gates after members did not turn up for work. Gridlock almost reached the M4 and took hours to clear.

Rallies have been held all over the country and addressed by hundreds of speakers to literally millions of trade unionists striking, but I wanted to finish by quoting a teaching union rep who spoke at one of the rallies today –

“They want us to work longer, pay more and get less – GET STUFFED”

It may not be the most eloquent statement ever made, but it is straight to the point and I think it sums up exactly the mood of the three million plus public service workers today. Once again, many thanks to every PCS member in our group who has taken action today. You have made a stand and should rightly be proud of yourself by doing so.



Bob Rollings
PCS DSg Group Secretary

One out all out

PCS, with PROSPECT and FDA at SPVA sites are on strike 30th November along with all public sector unions locally and nationally.

All SPVA sites will be picketed and members are invited to support the action on the picket lines or on the joint public service march in Blackpool meeting at St Johns Square 12:00 noon.

Budget update and impact on MoD staff

As 60,000 plus MoD civil servants prepare to protest tomorrow to defend their pensions, jobs and terms and conditions, they have been dealt another savage blow in today's autumn statement by Chancellor, George Osborne.

The Chancellor has announced that the public service pay freeze will be replaced by a 1% increase in the two years following the pay freeze. If inflation remains at the current rate of 5.6%, in reality this means that MoD civil servants will face a real terms pay cut in the region of 20-25%.

This is even before the proposed increase in pension contributions that will mean we will work longer, but get less pension. Contrast that with the friends of this government - the casino bankers that caused the global economic problems. Do they face similar financial pressures? NO!

The Robin Hood tax that our union has supported and would have put a transactional tax on each banking transaction will not be supported by this government. Today, George Osborne said such a tax would be, "a tax on people's (bankers) pensions." The hypocrisy is staggering. There were many, many more statements within the Autumn statement that will penalise working people.

Where the defecit came from?

It is often said that government income and expenditure were out of synch before 2008.

And it is also claimed that it is excessive spending before then that caused the current crisis.

Neither claim is supported by data. The graph reflects HM Treasury out-turn data to 2009-10 and June 2011 budget data for 2010-11 onwards.

The visual imaging tells the story.

Labour ran surpluses.

And then it ran tiny deficits that related in large part to investment spending.

And then tax revenues collapsed, which had nothing whatsoever to do with excessive spending and had everything to do with banking collapsing.

Supposedly this will correct by 2015.

We don’t believe that.

But let’s not for a minute think that Labour mismanaged the economy. The data simply does not suggest it did. Banks did that. And it was banks that created the deficit.

Fox-Werrity. In Gus we trust?

This weeks Private Eye reports:

Cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell’s “inquiry” into the Fox–Werritty affair identified two meetings between the former defence secretary Liam Fox, his chum Adam Werritty and Matthew Gould, the UK ambassador to Israel. But a former diplomat has been able to uncover at least six meetings between Gould and Werritty.

According to O’Donnell, Fox and Werrity met Gould in Tel Aviv at “a private dinner with senior Israelis” and before Gould took up the ambassador’s post in Tel Aviv for “a general discussion of international defence and security matters”. O’Donnell says Werritty was invited “as an individual with some experience in these matters”.
While O’Donnell did at least say it was “not appropriate” for Werritty to be briefing British ambassadors or meeting “senior Israelis” at dinners with the defence secretary, ex-diplomat Craig Murray has established that there were at least four other Werritty-Fox-Gould get-togethers that O’Donnell did not consider.

Outfoxed?
The Foreign Office (FCO) admits that the three men had a formal meeting and a “private social engagement” when Dr Fox was still shadow defence secretary in 2010. Murray spotted two more meetings at conferences in 2011; but the FCO won’t even discuss whether there were meetings between Werritty and Gould without Fox.

Murray, who lost his job as ambassador to Uzbekistan after complaining about torture, speculates on his website that the meetings involved talks about attacking Iran. Given Gould’s experience in British embassies in Washington and Tehran, Werritty’s interest in Iran and his Atlantic Bridge charity linking US neo-cons and UK Conservatives, Murray might be right. But the cabinet secretary seems to have avoided the question entirely – surely not because he was trying to put a lid on the affair as quickly and cleanly as possible?

Evading the questions
More recently O’Donnell has been busy mimicking senior HM Revenue & Customs officials’ economy with the truth when discussing the dodgy Vodafone and Goldman Sachs tax settlements in parliament (see last Eye).

Defending tax boss Dave Hartnett’s legendary lunching (and coincidental sharing of his corporate schmoozers’ view of the tax world), O’Donnell scoffed at any link: “The fundamental flaw with that argument,” he told MPs, “is that, if you discovered that Dave was secretly having these lunches and had not told anybody, it is a fairly weird conspiracy when it is all published, and we took the initiative to publish all these things.”

Er, not quite. “These things” – ie details of Hartnett’s and top mandarins’ hospitality – were published only after a two-year freedom of information battle fought by the Eye, which O’Donnell’s Cabinet Office resisted at every turn. His officials even instructed other Whitehall departments to block requests for information on grounds they knew to be false, and they were eventually forced to apologise by the Information Commissioner (see Eye 1279). Only then did O’Donnell make a virtue of the “transparency” that had been foist upon him and start publishing limited details (omitting names of restaurants etc to spare embarrassment).

This knee-jerk porkie is part of a “defend Dave” mission across HMRC, the Treasury and the Cabinet Office. Losing one civil servant, in Brodie Clark, is unfortunate. If Hartnett had to go it would make the government (and Sir Gus) look distinctly careless.

The unions would be mad not to strike

Dan Hodges, The Telegraph, 24th November

Yesterday the Prime Minister launched a robust assault on the impending strike action by public sector workers. “It is the height of irresponsibility,” he chided.

David Cameron couldn’t have been more wrong. If union leaders hadn’t decided to call strike action next Wednesday they’d have needed their heads examining.

Let’s start from the basis that even within a modern, mixed economy, collective representation in the workplace has its role. Obviously there are some who still hanker for the Pinochet model of industrial relations, and long for the day Mark Serwotka and Len McCluskey are safely incarcerated in the bowels of Wembley stadium. But beyond the confines of the Carlton Club, and the odd reunion of former members of the Blair cabinet, that remains a minority view. Even Margaret Thatcher stopped short of making membership of a trade union a proscribed activity (though it was touch and go).

Legitimacy does not, of course, equal respect or empathy. And the charge sheet frequently levelled against the modern trade union movement is a lengthy one. Its leaders are aloof autocrats, out of touch with their memberships. Their agenda is divisive and political, shaped by dreams of a Marxist-Leninist utopia. They exist solely to sow the seeds of economic and social unrest. Plus Bob Crow wears a very silly hat.

OK, the RMT leader’s choice of headwear has no defence. And the trade union movement has been guilty of some spectacular own goals, some of which, while working for the GMB, I side-footed home myself. But next Wednesday will not be one of them.

“I'm so angry union bosses are ordering millions of public sector workers to strike next week,” David Cameron told the Sun. This slightly synthetic outpouring may make for good copy and sound politics. But it also represents wishful thinking on the part of the Prime Minister.

Britain’s trade union leaders aren’t having to force their members to the barricades. If anything they’ve been struggling to keep them in check. "Even if we wanted to hold back the members, we couldn't," said one trade union insider. "We're having to do everything we can to keep from being left behind."

The depth and breadth of this anger is underlined by the names of the unions participating in next week’s action. The Chartered society of Physiotherapy. The Society of Radiographers. The First Division Association. The National Association of Headteachers. Next Wednesday’s strikes aren’t being led by the angry brigade. They’re being fronted by Sir Humphrey and Mr Chips.

Despite what some on the right fear, and some on the left hope, this is not a return to the militancy of the 1980s. Indeed by recent standards, next week’s protests will be positively restrained. There will be no street theatre. High tea at Fortnum and Mason will not be interrupted, nor the Cenotaph defiled. This is because the TUC have been careful to shun the hotheads and fellow travellers calling for the pensions issue to be subsumed beneath a general and incoherent assault on the Government. In fact the unions most heinous tactic will probably turn out to be the release of their solidarity record “Let’s Work Together”.

Nor, despite efforts by ministers to hang next Wednesday’s action around Ed Miliband’s neck, is this essentially a political dispute. It’s a good old fashioned dust up about pay and conditions. Or specifically what the TUC is calling the “Triple Squeeze” on public sector pensions; namely the shift in calculating uprating from RPI to CPI, the increase in individual contributions and the proposed increase in the retirement ceiling.

Some may see these as perfectly sensible changes, which reflect modern economic and social realities. That’s a matter for debate. But what’s not debatable is they mean an erosion of the existing pension entitlements of public sector workers. And however moderate or far sighted, trade union general secretaries get paid to improve their members conditions, not sit idly by as they decline. Again, some may question why trade unionists should expect better pension provision than the rest of the population. But that’s the whole point of collective bargaining; to obtain better terms collectively than you can individually.

There’s also another important element to next Wednesday’s proposed strike action. It’s already working. We know this because David Cameron told us it is. “What is on offer is an extremely reasonable deal," he told prime minister’s questions, including lower and middle income earners getting a larger pension than now, existing accrued rights being fully protected and any worker within 10 years of retirement seeing no change to retirement age, or payment. “It’s a tragedy,” he added, “the party opposite refuses to condemn these strikes”.

Condemn them? If Labour’s leader could wring concessions like that from the coalition the Durham Miners’ Gala would be renamed the Ed Miliband Appreciation Ball.

Britain’s trade union leaders have become accustomed to accusations of industrial recklessness. They will face them again next week. But this time they march to the picket lines with their membership broadly united, a cause they feel is just and a government seemingly in a mood to compromise.

The height of irresponsibility? Hardly. From the unions' perspective it’s the most responsible course of action they’ve taken for some time.

Pants on fire!

Ministers' misleading claims that their proposals for public sector pensions will mean better retirement packages for some have been exposed by PCS using the government's own figures.

On 2 November, when the government made its latest offer, prime minister David Cameron told the Commons: "I can tell the House that low and middle-income earners will actually get more from their public sector pensions."

Publishing a document, 'Public Service Pensions: good pensions that last', chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander also claimed on the same day: "...we are offering the chance of a significantly better pension at the end of it for many low and middle income earners."

The document makes a similar claim and used case studies to illustrate the point.

But a pensions calculator placed on the civil service website by the Cabinet Office last week – then hurriedly removed, but not before we saved a copy – confirms the proposals deliver year on year lower pensions than existing schemes.

Case study B in the Treasury document is a civil servant on £22,000 a year with 18 years' service who will be 40 when the new scheme is introduced in 2015.

The figures given show retiring at 60 under the existing scheme and working just 18 months longer under the new scheme would give them the same pension of £9,100.

But, as reported by Channel 4 News last night and on its FactCheck blog, the calculator gives a very different outcome to the same example.

It shows the Treasury underestimates the case study's pension and that even working four years more, they would still get less. The calculator shows: pension at 60 under the existing scheme, £13,932; retiring at 64 years under the new scheme, £13,791.

The total pension the civil servant would miss out on under the new scheme by working to 64 would be £87,888 over a normal retirement, including:
Four years of pension at £13,932 a year (£55,728)

Additional pension by working to 64 of £1,608 a year, totalling £32,160 over a normal retirement of 20 years.

The same civil servant will still be required to pay extra pension contributions of at least £704 a year from April 2015 onwards – including the additional four years working until 64. This totals £16,896. The switch in indexation from RPI to CPI would also cost them around £21,500 over a normal retirement.

The calculator confirms we are right to oppose the plans because civil servants will be required to pay more and work longer for less in retirement.

From the outset the government has tried to mislead the public and public servants. This confirms ministers have also given misleading and inaccurate information to parliament and they must correct it and apologise.

All in it together?

"Call Me Dave" has just paid his neighbour, the rather wealthy Conservative party donor Lord Chadlington, nearly £140,000 for a small piece of land that edges his driveway and garage.

This payment did not require a mortgage... he paid for it outright it seems.

The point?

When those in power tell us we are "all in this together", in facing financial and other hardships caused by their policies, it is deeply insulting to spend the equivalent of the price of a decent two to three bed house in this area for what is essentailly a garden border.

In what way can this qualify him for being IN THIS TOGETHER with any normal person in this country.

Disability History Month

Read more about Disability History Month at the PCS website here: http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/equality/guidance-and-resources/disability-history-month-toolkit.cfm

PCS and UK Disability History Month

Learn more at the PCS website here: http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/equality/guidance-and-resources/disability-history-month-toolkit.cfm

United in Defence

Click image to enlarge