Voluntary Early Release Scheme - Consultation

Members have understandably been very interested to know what the departments plans are regarding VERS. We can now share the latest information we have regarding this.

1 Consultation on the VERS scheme has begun with the unions and is due to complete by the end of February.

PCS is opposed to the use of an early release scheme at this stage, believing that the measures contained in the Managing Surpluses Agreement with the department, such as removal of consultants and agency staff, should be enacted first to mitigate the need for job losses through voluntary early release. Members should also note that the terms of the voluntary early release scheme are those imposed by the Government in December 2010. PCS is taking legal action to challenge this imposition, through a judicial review. However, we will be responding to this consultation exercise on a without prejudice basis and members will be asked to comment through this branch to inform that process. Full details can be read here. continued in brief below.

2 A revised compensation calculator will be made available on Civil Service Pensions website – end Jan 11

3 DCP to publish DIN on VERS – end Feb 11

4 Applications received by PPPA – end Mar 11

5 PPPA consolidated information to Selection Panels – by end Apr 11

6 TLB Selection Panels advise PPPA of initial selections – by end May 11

7 My CSP provide costed estimates to PPPA – by end Jun 11

8 Selection Panels confirm selections and PPPA issue offers to staff – by mid Jul 11

9 Acceptances/selections due by – end Jul 11

10 3 months notice to individuals of release date – finishes end Oct

11 First departures – early Nov 11

Lies, damn lies, Call Me Dave and the Boy George

Bonus Balls, as published by George Monbiot 24th January 2011

It’s bonus season, the time of year when bankers show us what they really believe. As soon as they get their money, they spend much of it on land and houses. They know that these are safer investments than the assets in which they trade. If they trash the economy again, they at least will survive.

This year the frenzy will be almost as bad as ever. But it could have been worse. Here is the story, revealed by a leaked document, of how our government covertly tried – and failed - to kill tougher European rules on bankers’ bonuses, and how the Chancellor of the Exchequer appears to have misled parliament.

Before I explain what the government did, let me remind you of a few of the statements the Conservatives made about bonuses while in opposition. In February 2009, David Cameron announced that “where the taxpayer owns a large stake in a bank, we are saying that no employee should be paid a bonus of over £2,000″. Stephen Hester, chief executive of RBS, 84% owned by the taxpayer, is now said to be lining up a bonus of around £2.5m.
In October 2009, George Osborne announced that he was calling on the Treasury to stop retail banks “paying out profits in significant cash bonuses. Full stop.” Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, is due to make around £8m this year, half of which is likely to be cash.

In April 2010, a Tory policy paper observed: “news that bank bonuses this year are expected to total £7 billion shows that Gordon Brown’s claim to have ended the era of the big bonus was ridiculous.” Bank bonuses in 2011 are expected to total £7 billion.

A fortnight ago, a Downing Street spokesman admitted that the government would, after all, make no attempt to limit the size of bonuses. This much we knew. But what the leaked document shows is that even as the government claimed to be seeking strong international rules to curb the bonus frenzy, it was secretly lobbying to prevent them from being passed. The document is, or should be, big news, but so far it has been covered in just one place: Tribune magazine, where the freelance reporter Ben Fox broke the story.

As David Cameron pointed out before he took office, the UK’s bonus culture “encouraged short-term risk-taking instead of rewarding the long-term interests of shareholders and the public.” This risk-taking helped cause the financial crash. The EU wanted to prevent it from happening again, by reducing the incentive to chase short-term gains. It hoped to update the Capital Requirements Directive, to ensure that bankers could take only a small part of their bonus as an immediate cash payment. The rest of the bonus would be a mixture of cash and shares, held over for up to five years. If, during that time, the bank did worse than expected, some of the promised money would be clawed back.

This would force bankers to think about the future as well as the present. The European draft proposed that no more than 30% of smaller bonuses and no more than 20% of larger ones could be paid upfront in cash. The British government had other ideas.

The leaked document, which was passed to a socialist-group MEP, lays out the UK Treasury’s negotiating position. It reveals that “throughout the negotiation and implementation of the Directive, we have supported an interpretation that limits upfront cash to 40% of a total bonus”. The European parliament’s proposal – for a 20% limit – would, the UK claimed, “have a significant impact on the European financial services sector’s international competitiveness.” The Treasury, the document shows, also contested the plan to impose a minimum period for deferring the rest of the bonus payment. “Some may argue,” the leaked document conceded, “that we are supporting a position that is less onerous on bank pay than other European legislators.”

Under the heading “Line to take”, the document proposed that the government should claim that it has “led the way in implementing G20 principles and doesn’t believe that the EU should go further than what was agreed by the G20.” It argued that “the only consistent option” is to drop the “minimum retention conditions.” I’m publishing the leaked document in full on my website.
Read it here.

In December the UK proposals were defeated, and the tougher rules on bankers’ bonuses were adopted by the European Parliament. But here’s the kicker. On January 11th 2011, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, made the following statement to the House of Commons. “… on 1 January this year we introduced the most stringent code of practice of any financial centre in the world. For the first time, there will be a strict limit on the amount of bonus payable in up-front cash. Also for the first time, there will be a requirement that 50% of bonuses be paid in shares or other non-cash instruments, which bank employees will not be allowed to sell on for an appropriate period.”

In other words, Osborne is claiming credit for the very policies his government tried to squash. He is also wrong to claim that the UK’s is the most stringent code of practice. It is in fact the minimum possible implementation of the EU directive (for example, under the UK interpretation, bonuses aren’t classified as “large” until they reach £500,000). The rules are mandatory, and they came into force in all member states on January 1st. It seems to me that Osborne misled parliament.

As for the claim in the leaked document that the tougher rules would damage the sector’s competitiveness, such restraints will do the opposite, as Cameron and Osborne both acknowledged while in opposition. They defend the banks against their bosses’ greed.
The Treasury made the following statement when I asked if it had tried to water down the directive. “This accusation is wrong. The updated Code is tougher than last year’s … for the biggest risk-taking employees, the amount they can take up-front in cash has been halved from 40% to 20%.” Yes, but what it failed to add is that this happened despite its best efforts. The deception continues.

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have been playing a double game. They claimed they wanted to tame the banks. In reality, they were protecting them. They never meant to address the economic polarisation of this country, or to check the incentives which caused the last crash. Their intention was always to pamper the rich and to make the poor pay for their follies. As the leaked document shows, the Conservatives are ready to risk the whole economy to help the filthy rich get richer.

The battle against benefit cuts and "poverty pimps"

By Laurie Penny - 24 January 2011 - New Statesman

Disabled people and their allies are fighting back against cuts - shame on the rest of us if we do not fight with them.

Of all the obdurate lies peddled by the Conservative party in the run-up to the last General Election, perhaps the most callous was when Tory disability spokesperson Mark Harmer told key representatives of Britain's millions of disabled and mentally unwell citizens "I don't think disabled people have anything to fear from a Conservative government". It turns out that disabled people have a great deal to fear.

Despite a fraud rate of just 1%, the government is determined to toss 500,000 people who currently rely on sickness benefits into the open arms of the bleakest labour market in a generation, to cut already meagre disability stipends to starvation levels, to confiscate mobility scooters and community groups from the most needy, and to remove key services that make life bearable for thousands of families with vulnerable relatives. The party assures us that someone's got to pick up the tab for the recklessness of millionaire financiers. So, naturally, they're going to start with the disabled and the mentally ill.

Disabled people, their friends, family members and allies, have much to fear - and much to fight. Today has been designated a national day of action against benefit cuts, and resistance groups across the country will be staging protests and spreading the word about how the government's plans to dismantle most of the welfare state and privatise the rest will affect them. Housing benefit cuts mean I'm probably going to lose my home," says Carole, 32, "but the removal of the Incapacity Benefit safety net means that I'm terrified of looking for work. If I'm made to do a job I'm not well enough for and have to leave, I'll be left penniless. I don't know what to do."

Many of the demonstrations will target private companies like Atos Origin, which have been given government tender to impose punitive and - studies have shown - largely unreliable medical testing of welfare claimants before forcing the sick to seek work that even the healthy can't get. Campaigns like Benefit Claimants Fight Back are quite clear what they think about these companies - they are "poverty pimps".

Read the full article here.

Joint campaigning with Prospect in the Ministry of Defence

The recurring theme from PCS MoD all member meetings is that we should be working closer with and campaigning with our sister unions in the Ministry of Defence. We have now had constructive talks with Prospect, the second largest TU in MoD about how we will jointly campaign to fight the cuts proposed by the Con Dem coalition government.

This will mean that approximately 90% of TU members in the Ministry of Defence will be working and campaigning alongside each other as we face 25,000 job cuts in the next four years. Both unions will retain their own sovereign electoral powers and there will be areas when we have different bargaining agendas – our differing attitudes to the ongoing civil service compensation scheme dispute being a prime example.

However, both the PCS MoD group executive committee and the Prospect group council recognise that 25,000 job cuts will devastate our department, put the front line further at risk and will kill off communities across the country where the MoD is the main employer.

Therefore, whilst we may have had differences in the past, we are united that we must fight the employer together against these challenges. Both our union and Prospect are now committed to resolving any future potential differences and working and campaigning together. This will take many different forms.

Indicative ballot

We have agreed with the Prospect group council to conduct an indicative ballot of members to gauge your support for potential industrial action, aimed at forcing the coalition government and the MoD to reverse the political choice to cut 25,000 civilian posts and to implement the managing surpluses agreement with the trade unions to mitigate against job losses.

If the department and the government refuse to talk to PCS and Prospect then our joint intention is to proceed to a full statutory ballot for industrial action.

We have not yet finalised a timetable for this process and we need to ensure any possible industrial action is also dine in conjunction with the PCS national campaign.

All members’ meetings

During February and early March, all branches should be holding their annual general meetings. These will provide an opportunity to brief members on the proposed SDSR cuts, the civil service compensation scheme and the latest on the PCS national campaign. Prospect will be holding similar meetings with their members and in the future we will be looking to hold joint meetings with speakers from both unions.

Parliamentary campaigning

Both PCS and Prospect will be using their parliamentary groups to raise the issue of defence cuts and the impact of the loss of civilian jobs on the front line. We will also be working with the Defence Committee and Public Accounts Committee to look into the role of civilians in defence and the outcome of the strategic defence review. We will also be looking at a lobby of Parliament.

Joint campaign bulletins

We will be seeking to establish a joint campaign bulletin for members of both unions, to highlight activities and issues we are progressing.

TUC Rally, Central London, 26 March 2011

Nationally, both PCS and Prospect are fully supporting the national TUC rally and demonstration in London on 26 March 2011. In the Ministry of Defence, we are working together with our Prospect MoD colleagues to ensure reps, members, friends and families come to London to show their opposition to the proposed cuts.

Across the MoD many sites and communities are under threat. PCS and Prospect work alongside each other on a day-to-day basis on these sites. It is imperative reps and members from both unions work together at site level to organise as many attendees as possible for 26 March.

Work with other unions and campaign groups

Whilst we have now established formal joint working with Prospect, our union will also be seeking to build constructive relationships with the other MOD trade unions and other campaign groups with shared interests.


Conclusion

Both our union and Prospect are in agreement that the 25,000 target is a political choice and nothing to do with making the Ministry of Defence a better and more efficient department in coming years. Both unions are now committed to jointly campaign against this ideological political game and to save members jobs in our department.

This campaign will be the most important in our history and will determine whether we have a fit for purpose Ministry of Defence in the future, able to support the front line. It is a campaign we must win. Together we can make a difference.

From MoD PCS group president Chris Dando, vice-president Rob Bowers and Bob Rollings, MoD group secretary.

Call Me Dave's greatest betrayal (so far!).

Just before midday yesterday, a Bristol mother called Riven Vincent announced to the internet:

"Have asked social services to take dear daughter into care … They have refused extra respite. I can't cope."

The public revelation of her desperate situation became an instant internet cause celebre, and swiftly attracted a flood of over a thousand messages of sympathy and dismay. The online outrage quickly mounted when it emerged that David Cameron had visited Vincent at her home during pre-election campaigning and assured her that if he became prime minister he would not do anything that would harm disabled children. (As reported in todays Guardian.)

Respite care is being decimated acrioss the country... but meanwhile Call Me Dave says we cannot do anything about the banks or their bonuses, but clearly expects us to believe that we are all in this together.

See more on this pressing subject here.

Paratrooper wins £1.7m payout from MoD

A paratrooper who lost a leg trying to rescue a wounded colleague from a minefield has won £1.7million in compensation from the Ministry of Defence.

Read the full article here

Sgt Stuart Pearson was awarded damages for his ‘pain, suffering and loss of amenity’ at the High Court yesterday, while the MoD also agreed to pay £600,000 for prosthetic limbs and £270,000 for his future care.

The payout came after the 35-year-old made a negligence claim against the MoD for ‘breach of duty before contact with the enemy’.

He had already received money from the Forces Compensation Scheme, which assesses payouts under a tariff system, the MoD said.
Claims such as Sgt Pearson’s rarely make it to court because the military has ‘combat immunity’.

Charities pay price of greed at Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs Bank are reacting to the economic downturn by reducing the amount they give to charities by a third this year. Thats about £110 million pounds less of the £330 million donated last year.

On the upside though, they are paying themselves, on top of already massive salaries, a bonus pot of £9.6 billion pounds. Evidently times are hard, as this amount is 5% less than they paid themselves last year.

Truly, we are all in this together.

Amplify the eloquent voices of the disabled protesters

From todays Guardian an article by Sue Marsh about how the "One Month Before Heartbreak" blog shows how desperately help is needed to get our message about DLA changes across.

"There has been inspirational support for the recent "blog swarm" campaign organised by The Broken of Britain, a disability rights group. The One Month Before Heartbreak weekend encouraged disabled bloggers, carers, tweeters and concerned onlookers to come together for three days of blogosphere frenzy in an attempt to highlight the unthinkable pressure being piled upon physically and mentally ill people through a range of cuts that leave us breathless and terrified. The consultation on changes to the disability living allowance (DLA) ends on 14 February and the event hoped to raise as much awareness of the proposals as it could.
And my word, did we write. We wrote for our dignity, for our sanity and, in some cases, we wrote for our lives. The posts were astonishing. Some were lyrical, others desperate. They all shared such eloquence, it's hard to remember that you're reading ordinary words from untrained writers. This group, who often can't march or even leave the house, have become bloggers of great talent. Perhaps written words are their only defence against a media and political class unable to hear, see or understand them.

Some tried to just show healthy, able-bodied readers why they weren't "scroungers" (many work and only receive DLA to aid them continuing to do so) or to explain their conditions and how the cuts will affect them personally. Some were carers, terrified for their children, clients or parents. Some were humorous and heartbreaking, all at once.

Some video-blogged, too. This entry is nearly too distressing to watch, but shows – almost unintentionally – the shocking neglect we now appear willing to accept, and just how many people are found "fit for work" who clearly are no such thing. Perhaps most distressing of all is this from a mental health patient unable to cope any more. What struck me was the matter-of-fact honestly and clarity in most of the posts. If you sit down with a cup of tea and a spare half an hour, you will read stories of great bravery, heartbreaking pleas for understanding, but none whatsoever appealing for pity or claiming that life isn't "fair".

And if you haven't got link fatigue, this is probably the best article any of us have ever read on just what it really means to be chronically ill or disabled. The "spoon theory" was born in an attempt to explain not how it feels to be ill, but just how it is. Picture disability as a bouquet of spoons (bear with me). For every small action you take, you lose a spoon – getting out of bed, showering, eating, taking the bus. When the spoons are gone for the day, they're truly gone. If only one is left by lunchtime, you eat or you go to bed but can't do both. Do you wash up or play with the kids? Do you visit a friend if it means you can't go grocery shopping later on? When do you find the time to be politically active and throw your energy to defend the rights of those who, like you, are disabled?

On top of this neverending juggling to live our lives the best way we know how, we're constantly in fear. What if "they" see us? What if "they" stop our benefits, cancel our lifelines? What if "they" take pictures to pass in brown envelopes to "medical assessors" paid by the hour to prove we're cheats?

As a wise friend pointed out that to truly have an impact on the ongoing debate "you need a mass of people chained to railings in Parliament Square in the freezing cold in February". And, of course, he's quite right. For the mainstream to take notice, that's exactly what we need. But the barriers disabled people face to protest are often insurmountable: we might be bedridden, unable to leave the house. Some of us live in isolation with no one to push their chairs or guide them around Westminster, let alone help them make a journey to London that most would take for granted, but that to us might seem like climbing Everest. Likewise, someone living with agoraphobia or schizophrenia might consider marching on parliament about as achievable as becoming pope. Could it be that it is this more than anything else that makes politicians so confident they can persecute this group with no chance of a backlash?

Benjamin Franklin once said that "justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are". Perhaps you will all just have to lend us your spoons. Or even march for us. The stories at One Month Before Heartbreak show with absolute clarity not just why we need you so desperately, but why it could as easily be your mum, son or wife that needs state assistance one day. In a month's time, you might find that if that dreadful day ever comes, it's too late."

POA members overwhelmingly reject new civil service compensation scheme

The Prison Officers Association have concluded its ballot on the new Civil Service Compensation Scheme. Out of a 31,000 membership who were eligible to vote, a turn out of just over 48% produced a massive 95% rejection of the new terms.

Steve Gillan, POA General Secretary stated:

“This was a resounding rejection by the second biggest Union in the Civil Service, of the Coalition Government’s imposition of the new terms, which on the whole are detrimental to our members”.

The POA are urging the Government to re-open negotiations, otherwise they may have to resort to law for a remedy.

Steve Gillan added:

“The largest union in the Civil Service, which is the PCS, have already rejected the new arrangements, now we have. We will be discussing our options with our lawyers in the coming days. Our membership has demonstrated that they will not accept a detriment to the terms and conditions that they signed up to when they joined the Civil Service”.

We say, that is nearly 90% of all civil service members voting to reject the changes to the CSCS. It reveals the outright lies of Francis Maude, that only PCS stands against the changes, in his attempts to divide the civil service unions.

Call Me Dave says call me unpopular...

...as he prepares to let the bankers have it all.

Signaling he is prepared to defy public opinion, the Prime Minister indicated he will reject demands for punitive action on bankers bonuses and admitted his approach could be unpopular.

Taxpayers are “rightly angry” about bankers getting huge bonuses, Call Me Dave said.

But he insisted he will not court short-term popularity by trying to “hammer” the financial sector.

“It’s about getting the balance right. It’s not going to be easy and it won’t satisfy everybody,” CMD said.

But we’ve got to try to work for that balance rather than just think, let’s take revenge on people because they’ve made us mad as hell."

City investment banks are beginning their bonus season, informing staff about their payments for 2010, with total bonuses expected to be £7 billion.

It emerged yesterday that JP Morgan, a US bank, will pay £1.87 billion in salary and bonuses to its London staff. They will enjoy an average payout of £234,180.

Other large payments will be announced in the coming weeks, including bonuses at state-owned RBS.

CMD said he understood public anger over bonuses (believe anything, he says): “There is part of me, like probably everyone in this room, that thinks, right, let’s just go after every penny we can get out of those banks, let’s tax these bonuses to hell. That would look good for a few weeks.”

But, he said, punitive taxes on banks could be counterproductive, hurting bank lending and profits, in turn harming the UK economy.

And here we were thinking that "we were all in this together"? Yeah right. They are in it up to their snouts... we aren't even in the farmyard.

Massive support for campaign against cuts

PCS members have voted by a massive majority to back the union's campaign against cuts to public services, jobs, pay and pensions.

In a national ballot 90% rejected changes to the civil service redundancy scheme – and 96% supported the union's national campaign, ‘There is an alternative’.

More than 80,000 people voted in the ballot – a turnout of 32%.
PCS starts a legal challenge next week.

The union has called on the government to reopen negotiations to agree a new scheme that protects members’ rights.

Meetings will be organised in workplaces covered by the CSCS so members can discuss the next stage of the campaign.

Across the country PCS branches are taking part in anti-cuts campaigns and putting forward the argument that there is an alternative to austerity.

And PCS members are urged to attend the trade union organised ‘March for the alternative’ on Saturday 26 March, with their friends and family.

Another year, another error

An error in the use of a new British Army computer payment system has meant that junior army officers have been forced to pay back a sum of money following an overpayment amounting to over three quarters of a million pounds.

Early this week Conservative MP for North East Milton Keynes Mark Lancaster said in a Commons Debate that cash amounting to £783,347 had been erroneously given to recipients on various pay grades due a mistake made in data entry into the much maligned Joint Personnel Administration system.

"After the introduction of joint personnel administration-the new payment computer system in the Army there has been a problem with some junior ranks in the British Army being effectively overpaid for a number of months," he said. "That has amounted to a sizeable sum for some individuals. I do not think any fair-minded person would suggest that that money should not be paid back; it is an overpayment and we would all expect to pay it back."

"It should not have to be paid back in a single lump sum in one pay cheque; those concerned should be allowed to pay the money back over time."

The overpayment of an incremental pay increase in fact went undetected for three years due to it being split over a large period of time, with a total of 485 officers receiving between £1,000 and £3,000 dependent on pay grade.

A source at the Ministry of Defence said those who received the over payment would not be forced to pay back the sum in one go, claiming that the MoD would not be doing anything to cause financial hardship.

Furthermore it is not within legal guidelines to take more than three days wages from a salary of one month. Of course it may come as little comfort to those who are continuing to pay off the mistake, as, while they may not have noticed the extra money coming in, it is fair to say they will certainly miss it going out.

For sale - Cameron's green credentials

Why do the Tories think timber companies want to buy them? To abandon the work they do and become druids?

Can you hear the silence of the huskies? When he was rebranding the Tory party, David Cameron promised us he would lead "the greenest government ever". Since he came to power, he has broken every environmental promise he made – and then gone much further. He has opened up the coasts of Britain to the deep-sea drilling that worked so well in the Gulf of Mexico, and put a "for sale" sign outside every single remaining forest in England. Yes, as his own Environment minister puts it, Cameron is determined to "dispose of public forest" – and the timber companies and holiday parks are preparing their opening bids.

In order to raise £2bn, the Government is selling all 650,000 acres of our forests – a privatisation that even Margaret Thatcher blanched at. These are the most popular outdoor spaces in Britain. They are the last places where millions of people can go to escape their anxieties and glimpse what Britain looked like to our ancestors for millions of years. They are the site of some of our most potent national myths: what would Robin Hood say if he knew Sherwood Forest itself was now on the market? Is Cameron really taking the Sheriff of Nottingham as his role model? This is in direct contradiction to what Cameron told us he would do before the election. In 2007, talking about forests, he promised he would "take a more effective and strategic approach to safeguarding a priceless – and irreplaceable – natural asset." He said the countries that were cutting forests down were "barmy". The Government says there is no danger to the forests in selling them to timber companies and the other highest bidders. They say they will still be standing, they will be cared for as well, and the public will have just as much access. Does this match the facts?

It is true that once a company has bought a forest, it will still need planning permission to cut the woods down. This is a crucial brake. But – wait – Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has just announced he is "remov[ing] the structures of control" and making it "much easier" to get planning permission across the country. Planning is being massively deregulated, just as the forests are sold.

Not every buyer will cut them down, but some will. Why do the Tories think timber companies want to buy them – to abandon the work they do in every other country on earth and become druids? Confronted with this point, the Government admits there is a "possibility of established forest being bought by energy companies who would proceed to chip it all for energy recovery" – and then swiftly insists there is nothing to worry about.

The forests that remain will be less well maintained and harder to access. The Forestry Commission looks after our woods today, and 100 per cent of it is maintained to the international Forest Stewardship Standard. By contrast, only 25 per cent of private forests in England are looked after this way. After the sale, they will become more degraded, less biodiverse and less likely to survive for the long term.

And you will find it harder to get to them. The Government says that the legislation passed in 2000 granting us all the "right to roam" will mean we can enjoy them just the same. But the public only has a right to access woodland classified as "freehold". According to The Ecologist magazine, half of privately owned woodland is barred to the public.

It gets worse still. The Forestry Commission works very hard to make our woods accessible to everyone. It builds car parks, bike tracks, visitor centres, picnic areas. When the land is privatised, most of that will go. They can put a massive fence around the forest, they just can't put up a sign that says "keep out". Look at what happened to Riggs Woods in the Lake District, sold a few months ago. The car park has been shut down, the picnic area has been dismantled, the visitors' centre closed, and all you see when you go there now is a large, bolted gate that, legally, you are allowed to clamber over. And for what? To preserve our forests costs just 30p per taxpayer a year. Selling them off for ever will raise just half of the sum that one corporation – Vodafone – did not have to pay after the Tories came to power out of what Private Eye estimated was its total tax liability. (Vodafone denies this figure). So if you go down to the woods today, you'll find the best metaphor for Cameronism. Change your party's logo to a lovely green tree – then sell off all the real trees to corporations. Oh, and then say you are "empowering volunteers" by doing it.

The Prime Minister has said the forest sell-off "empowers local communities" to take over the forests for themselves as part of a "Big Society". Yet sources within the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs say that, unsurprisingly, only about 1 per cent of the sales are anticipated to go to local co-operatives or green groups. The "Big Society" is a fluffy fig leaf for dismantling and demolition.

But, amazingly, this may not be the biggest environmental vandalism of the Cameron years. The Conservatives have just authorised the launching of deep-water drilling off the coast of Shetland. The White House investigations are only now uncovering quite how disastrous this tactic was in the Gulf of Mexico – but it would be worse in the Shetlands, where the very harsh, cold and windy conditions would make a clean-up dramatically harder and more expensive. It would have to be bigger too: Chevron has admitted that if things went wrong it would release 77,000 barrels of oil a day – 25 per cent more than went into the Gulf.

The Health and Safety Executive warned that serious accidents on British oil rigs almost doubled last year. These are the very warning signs that preceded the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. Even if the oil is excavated "safely", it will then release huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and destabilise our climate even more, which doesn't sound very safe to me. As if that wasn't enough, Cameron has also authorised drilling for shale gas off the coast at Blackpool – an extremely controversial practice that is suspected by many scientists of poisoning water supplies at several sites in the US.

Britain's forests and seas do not belong to David Cameron. They belong to us. As Bill Hobman, the former chairman of Forest of Dean District Council, says: "Mr Cameron should show us the deeds to the forest. How can they sell something they don't own?... This is a wonderful part of the world and shouldn't be auctioned off to the highest bidder to have their own little bit of heaven. We will fight this all the way." The fightback will be ferocious, and, like the inspiring fight against super-rich tax-dodgers, it unites people from the Tory shires with amazing left-wing activist groups like 38 Degrees.

This is a fight about what we value as a country. Do we want to preserve Britain's most beautiful places – forests and seas that were alive for our distant ancestors, and should be alive for our distant descendants – or do we want a few rich corporations to make a little bit more money from destroying them? David Cameron has made his choice. Now we need to make ours.

Johann Hari, The Independent 7th January 2011

You can sign the petition to save our forests: click here.

We are all in it together?

The rate of Value Added Tax rose by 2.5 percentage points at midnight, from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent – an attempt by the 'Boy' George Osborne to reduce the deficit. He returns to the UK from his luxury skiing holiday in Klosters to preside over yet another financial scam.

Analysts believe many businesses such as gyms, mobile phone companies, restaurants and shops will raise their prices by between 5 per cent and 8 per cent, or possibly even more. To recoup the escalating cost of petrol, energy, cotton and other key commodities, they are expected to use the tax change to obscure far larger price increases. This could add far more to a family's annual expenditure than previously expected.

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, said yesterday that the VAT rise would cost the average family almost £400 a year and put 250,000 jobs at risk. Campaigning in the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, Mr Miliband cited a Liberal Democrat poster from last year's general election, that warned a "Tory VAT bombshell" would cost households £7.50 a week.

The increase in VAT has been introduced by the 'Boy'George Osborne, who calculated it should generate an additional £13 billion a year for the Treasury. The increase should, in theory, add 2.1 per cent to the price of the majority of items on the high street, with the exception of food. For example, an item costing £100 before tax will increase from £117.50 to £120.

Jason Gordon, retail expert at Booz & Co, a leading consultancy, said: "From the retailers I've been speaking to, I expect prices to increase by between 5 per cent and 8 per cent. The majority of retailers will 'round up' rather than 'round down'. There have been so many years of price deflation, retailers need to move up prices to stay profitable. The pressure to increase prices has been building for some time, and that time has come now."

Most clothing price increases will come into effect gradually as the spring and summer ranges enter the shops in a month or two.

A study by KPMG Performance & Technology, the consultancy, found that 60 per cent of retail managers intended to increase prices above the 2.1 per cent. Martin Scott, a partner at KPMG, said: "If everyone was enjoying a healthy time of it, most retailers and manufacturers would just soak up the price increases and not pass them on to consumers.

"But they have been discounting for so long it is impossible to see how they can afford not to pass on the VAT increase, and some more. I'd be very surprised if we didn't see the majority increase prices by far more than the VAT jump."