Topic: Swindon's rally in defence of public sector pensions 30 Nov 2011

[ph1lc]

Tweet

Mart
We are all in a similar boat. The RM scheme was £4 Billion in deficit at end of March - the markets have worsened since then so probably a bit worse now. Royal Mail is not alone by any means in cutting benefits.

Sign of the times. Strikers need to take that on board i'm afraid.

[Des Morgan]

Tweet

It is also true that the first thing that Gordon Brown did as Chancellor was to tax the private pension schemes and just look at the effect!

Only partly right Richard.  Gordon Brown only continued what the Conservatives had already started. His crime was that he did it knowing the dire affect it would have on private pension funds.

My fund is the Royal Mail one. I do blame Gordon Brown for his pension raid scam. I do blame successive Governments for their introduction of and continuance of the pension holiday legislation

.

And Gordon Brown/Tony Blair promised to guarantee your fund 100% plus the £8billion shortfall.

Of note is that Tony Blair/Gordon Brown allowed the banks to use taxpayer 'bail out' money to bolster their ailing pension funds - in the case of RBS tha amounted to a cool £800 million

all in it together, I think not.  If they were why do Cameron and Osbourne have new Jaguars

Come come Richard - you and i both know that's a silly one. The cars are part and parcel of the job, they don't sit there choosing colour schemes and drooling in showrooms

[Mart]

Tweet

And Gordon Brown/Tony Blair promised to guarantee your fund 100% plus the £8billion shortfall.

I gave that statement the credibility it deserved at the time, where are they now and what is their word worth? They were transient chancers as are most politicians. One of them was convinced of WMD's the other promised British jobs for British workers. The list of what they got right and what was true is shorter and easier to remember. Though I can't presently recall a single thing on that list.

Strikers need to take that on board i'm afraid

Indeed they do, as I have. It is those who have not and will not be compelled to but have the power to compel me to that cause me to, um, question their sincerity. It's a valid whinge but ineffectual in terms of personal fiscal advantage

[Des Morgan]

Tweet

The Government plans to take responsibility for Royal Mail's pension fund deficit from April.

Ms Greene said: "It will be essential for Royal Mail that the European Commission approves the Government's State Aid application to relieve the company of its historic pension liability and allow restructuring of the Royal Mail balance sheet."

This quote from the Independent 22 November would tend to suggest that yoo fund will be protected by the Government.

Tony Blair/ Gordon Brown did nothing for me. As Mr Brown made clear at the CBI conference in 2004  when he refused to consider support to the innocent victims of collapsed pension schemes on the basis "that it would be wrong for ‘the burden of meeting the risk for the next generation’ to be passed to the state".

[Mart]

Tweet

My irritation is largely in part due to the assumption it would be quite healthy if successive Governments hadn't taken it upon themselves to f*ck about with it. Then blame the previous Governnment for f*cking about with it before reaching mutual agreement and blaming the contributors for being slackers for, with hindsight, for many years.

The Royal Mail traditionally returned a nice divi on the investment successive Governments annually put into it until Governments did, as they are want to do, got greedy.

If they had protected the fund,and others, with the same dedication as they have their own this would be a non thread.

Hence my nicely developing bitterness.

[Des Morgan]

Tweet

If they had protected the fund,and others, with the same dedication as they have their own this would be a non thread.

Indeed

[ph1lc]

Tweet

The RM scheme was considerably more than 4 billion in deficit as I remember. That was one of the main reasons it could not be privatised a few years ago. The deficit is not out of line with other organisations - both M&S and RBS had deficits over £2 billion at their last published accounts.

Remember - a pension deficit is an item that is shown as a liability on the face of the balance sheet. That was the reason Gordon Brown let them use public money to reduce the deficit.

Both M&S and RBS have moved away from defined benefit schemes, M&S for sveral years.

[Mart]

Tweet

As has RM.

I'm not denying present realities, my pension will still be welcome and I intend to draw it. It's simply not what it was and I have huge resentment for the po faced scrotes who attribute it's state to some kind of half arsed attitude from all of it's contributors. They have in fact consistently contributed and maintained their part of the bargain.

Politicians from successive Governments have trundled up and pointed at creaking inefficiency as the sole cause of the deficit, well as the single shareholder for the past forever and the signatories to the most demented piece of deregulation I have ever seen since the last one and until the next one I'll be polite and call that disingenuous.

My bitterness, does it show?

Don't worry, it's not consuming. I just wheel it out and give it an airing now and again.

[Richard Beale]

Tweet

Great post Richard - but how many were single? Die in service you get a death in service benefit(3 -4 times salary) and a 50% pension for your widow. That was the security you were working for - and well deserved it was too.

Two of the three deaths in service had wives and children, in a traditional family set up of housewife/mother and male breadwinner.One was single.

More importantly:

The benefits are NOT 3-4 x the annual salary, as I understand it, its 3x the annual pension benefit as calculated from money paid in by employee and the length in days in the scheme. The calculation should give a final death lump sum of 3x 50% annual salary only IF the full pension provision was paid over 40 years....

So if you've died well before then, which most had the payout isn't great...

What's left after burial very much depends on how long you lasted and how soon you started paying in after being eligbile to start in the scheme


On a sad note I would like to add another name to the list of dead before pensionable age...

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/9397800.Tributes_pour_in_for__true_gent__son_of_Busby_Babe/

Might have been a director, not a gardener... But a top bloke, and an officer of the council I was proud to have worked with and for... A sad sad day. The people of Swindon have lost a great man.

RIP Roger Byrne
 

[kohima]

Tweet

Richard, I have been looking in the press, but you cant get beyond Gary Speed these days, but have anybody told or informed Man Utd that Roger has passed away, I'm sure they would make some kind of rememberance for him..

[Bassettina]

Tweet

If they had protected the fund,and others, with the same dedication as they have their own this would be a non thread.

Indeed

Agreed. I'd be more supportive to changing public sector pensions if it applied to the whole public sector. At the moment, judges' pensions and MPs' pensions are exempt. Funny that.

[Muggins]

Tweet

Mart "Politicians from successive Governments have trundled up and pointed at creaking inefficiency as the sole cause of the deficit"

It's like some weird and dangerous pass the parcel each successive governemtn saying we will have to make redundnacies and efficiencies.

At some point, and it must be getting near, one of them will take off the final layer and find they have made all they can.

Is that when we start paying more?  And the cost of all the cuts, will be to pay for it all we had before to be built again?  For all the things that have been fought for, to be fought for again.   Because to me at present everything is being unpicked and we will be were Cllr Perkins wants us to be a third world country.

[Richard Beale]

Tweet

Richard, I have been looking in the press, but you cant get beyond Gary Speed these days, but have anybody told or informed Man Utd that Roger has passed away, I'm sure they would make some kind of rememberance for him..

From talking to Roger I know that the club have always kept in contact, I am sure they, the club, provided very generously for the familys of those that were lost in the munich air disaster

I must have been working for him in 2008 as I can remember him going to a memorial day..
http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/archive/2008/02/06/Swindon+News+%28swindon_news%29/2023424.Timely_tribute_to_Busby_babes/

So i'm fairly sure they already know.