Striking for gold-plated peanuts

Pinched from Private Eye

It was announced today that unemployment for young people aged 18 - 24 rose to 1.02 million in the 3 months to September. The total number of unemployed people is the highest since 1994 and the number of women out of work increased by 43,000 to 1.09 million, the highest level since February 1988. It's usually the case that as unemployment rises, industrial action drops, and it's infuriating the government that that pattern doesn't seem to be happening now. Instead the country is facing the possibility of the biggest strike for 80 years on 30 November. How come?

As you'll know, one of the main reasons for the strikes is the attack on public sector pensions, which even BBC journalists have been heard to describe as gold-plated. Employees will be required to work longer and pay more to get less. Is this an injustice? Union members feel angry that the government has reneged on its deal with them, that they are not getting what they have been promised, in some cases over decades. It seems quite reasonable to be angry over broken promises, especially ones with such wide-ranging consequences that will affect their standard of living for the rest of their lives. That sense of injustice must not be underestimated.

To try to get the general public on board, politicians talk about the excellent pensions public sector workers will still have after the changes, especially when compared to the private sector. Let's deal with the private sector first:

Much of the private sector did once have better pensions, often based on final salaries, until the 1980s, until politicians stuck their noses in. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, noted that in the financial boom of the 1980s, pension funds had large surpluses, so he allowed employers to have contribution holidays, which many took up, in some cases not contributing for years on end. Some like Robert Maxwell even stole from their pension funds. That's an extreme example of a view of pension funds as dead money that would be better used for the business, but those who only stopped paying into (as opposed to stealing from) pension funds clearly had the same mindset. What Lawson and the employers chose to forget is something we are all told when we take out an investment - that they can go down as well as up. And so it came to pass - they went down.

The next body blow to private pensions was one of Gordon Brown's first decisions as Chancellor of the Exchequer, which was to impose tax upon pension funds which had been previously exempt. These two measures by chancellors from both major parties, accompanied by an economic downturn in which investments weren't performing so well tipped many funds from prosperity in the early 1980s to an inability to meet their responsibilities by the mid-1990s onwards. All caused by a combination of both parties viewing pension funds as cash cows, either for the employers or for the Treasury, and many employers happily along for the ride.

One notable exception from the crisis in private sector pensions is the provision for chief executives and company directors, who looked after themselves by happily awarding each other massive pensions and large pay-offs from final salary schemes that somehow survived the pension crisis, while slashing the schemes for their own workforces. Fred Goodwin's final salary pension from the Royal Bank of Scotland pays him in six days what a retired executive officer (junior manager) in the civil service would receive in a year, providing s/he had completed 40 full years service (no career breaks or periods of part-time working). In contrast, Fred got his pension after 26 years in the industry between qualifying as an accountant in 1983 and retiring at 50 in 2009.

"Excellent public sector pensions."  Having messed up private sector pensions for the workforce (except for the top executives), politicians then turned their attention to public sector pensions. Gold-plated? Judge for yourself: the average civil service pension is £4800 a year, and its local government equivalent is even less. This is what the government wants to cut, and it's hardly surprising that public sector workers oppose having to work longer and pay more to get even less.  Yes, there are some in the public sector who get big pensions: politicians for starters, but also top civil servants (the Sir Humphreys) and local authority chief executives, but these represent a tiny proportion of the public sector and are in no way typical.

Some of the public, taken in by the propaganda about gold-plated pensions, believe that it's about time the feather-bedded public sector faced the real world like the private sector. If you apply that argument across the board, then logically you'd end up in a situation in which no one would get a pension more than the smallest in the private sector, which wouldn't benefit anybody. There is no doubt that private sector pensions have been treated disgracefully by governments and employers, but how does doing the same to the public sector help anyone? Some public sector staff are saying that if these changes are implemented, they will have to drop out of the pension scheme as they can't afford the extra contributions. If this happens, all we'll be doing is setting up a demographic time bomb whereby millions more from both the public and private sectors are forced to rely on state benefits in retirement. In what way is this "living in the real world" and planning sensibly for the nation's future?

Handing Over the Reins

Well, the strain of writing this blog is starting to tell! After continuous outpourings of wit and wisdom, I shall be taking a well-deserved break in the Far East for about a month. Regular readers of this blog will be reassured to know that my place will be taken by none other than RedNev, who I now appoint as Deputy Blogmeister. Nev will continue to run this blog in the spirit of our inspirational forbear, Major John Cartwright.
I shall return in December.
Good luck, Nev!
Good luck, all bloggers!
PS. I was only joking about the strain of writing.

Burning Poppies and the Blame Game

You may remember that last year, at this time, a small group of Islamists called "Muslims Against Crusaders" publicly burned poppies on Remembrance Day. Their leader, Anjem Choudhary, was fined £50. He was on TV last Sunday, announcing his intention to do the same thing this year. As might be expected, this planned gesture has been condemned by just about everybody - not least Muslims.
What I find of interest is that some pundits of the right cannot resist the temptation not just to attack this handful of Jihadi fanatics, but also to attack the Left.One such pundit is one Abhijit Pandya, whose views can be read HERE. Mr Pandya is entitled to his views, and makes some valid points, but he goes seriously off beam when he starts finding culprits for the rise of Islamic militancy. As he sees it, it's all the fault of the Reds:
"In essence, my thesis is as follows: Choudhary and his gang of poppy burners are much more a product (of?) anti-nation thinking that is fundamental to the left's critique of the world than to multiculturalism or failures of immigrant assimilation policy".
Mr Pandya does not sem to inhabit the same planet as the rest of us - either that or he is aiming to mislead people. Islamists loathe the Left (Marxist or non-Marxist) as much as they hate liberal democracy. I've discussed this in previous posts, but it still needs to be pointed out that both Britain and the USA found the Muslim Mujaheddin willing proxies in their battle against the USSR - in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Yet again, I find myself recommending readers to read "Secret Affairs" by Mark Curtis, which details how the UK and USA have worked hand-in-glove with Radical Islam over decades. Might not the present high profile of Jihadi militancy be something to do with encouragement from British governments - Tory and Labour? Don't watch this space. Instead, take a look at the picture below - it shows Muslim volunteers for the Waffen SS. The units to which these men belonged gained a reputation for savagery and fanaticism that rivalled that of their ethnic German counterparts. I would argue that Anjem Choudhary and his band of lunatics have more in common with these men than anyone on the Left. Nor did these SS men represent Islam as a whole - on Remembrance day, let's think of those who gave their lives to defend Britain from Fascism - including many thousands of Muslims from Commonwealth countries. Many Muslims fought and died on our side against Nazism - and Islamofascists like Choudhary, and his spiritual brethren in the Waffen SS.

The Slow Death of Local Radio

It made no headlines, but last night on "Folkscene", which is a folk music programme on BBC Radio Merseyside, you would have heard me talking to the host, Geoff Speed, about the cd "The End of the Line". Not heard of it? Well, it's the 9th album of songs and poems written by me, and recorded by various artists. I'm pleased to report that the programme went well, as have the sales of the album - sold out, in fact. In one way, however, it was rather a sad occasion. The BBC, because of cuts to its budget, is planning to axe all its local radio specialist music programmes across the country. When my collaborators and I make album 10, we will have very few folk music radio programmes available that will be prepared to play our cd. And, of course, it won't be just folk music programmes whch will be affected - Blues, Jazz, Country and Gospel music lovers will all see their local programmes disappear. But why?
   Well, the obvious answer is that it is a cost cutting exercise necessary to save public money. The problem that I have with this view is that no figures of how much money will be saved have been published. Besides which, I happen to know that most presenters of such programmes get a very low rate of pay. Many presenters record their programmes at home, and rarely ever set foot in the BBC studios. There could be other factors at work, but I'll discuss those later.
There is no doubt, surely, that the loss of these programmes will deprive local music fans of information about what is happening in their local area. Not only this, but local acts will not get opportunities to be heard by a wider audience. Local radio, in other words, will become a lot less "local", as it will cease to reflect their area's music scene. It may be said that BBC Radio 2 has specialist music programmes, but I know from long experience how difficult it is to get played on national radio - once in 18 years, in my case. The Paul Joneses, Mike Hardings and Bob Harrises of this world are only interested in nationally established artists. It will be left to local commercial radio to pick up the slack - but only if it is profitable. Many commercial stations are not interested.
But what of those "other factors"? Well, I don't claim that there is a conspiracy at work, but both the musical and political establishments stand to gain from the shedding of specialist music programmes by the BBC. Instead, we will have more of the same old stuff that we already get on daytime BBC Radio 2 - and yet more of the manufactured hits from X factor winners and their ilk. Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, etc, will be laughing all the way to the bank.
As for the political establishment, they stand to gain by shutting down an outlet for dissent. This is not to say that all Blues, Folk, Country artists are politically vocal, but the fact is that these types of music - especially Folk - have always included a radical, politically critical streak. If you listen to most music played on radio nowadays, you'd be hard put to find anything remotely critical politically - it's escapist, if anything. And with the axing of specialist music programmes from local radio, it will become even more escapist. Stalin would undoubtedly have approved.