The BBC picks up on the soaring and absolutely unaffordable costs of having to fund Public sector pensions. So, who better to get on to discuss this issue than Unison’s Dave Prentice who instantly takes the conversation off the tracks. Evan Davies tried to steer the conversation on topic but Dave Spart was having none of it and he was allowed to waffle. It’s going to be a big issue going forward as the Coalition finally gets to grip with the out of control State sector pensions and I am confident the BBC will handle this issue in it’s normal professional manner by pushing one side – the State side – of the story.
GILDED PENSIONS…
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There was a Radio 4 documentary last week about public sector pensions and I must admit it was pretty good. The kind of even handed investigative journalism that you rarely see from the Beeb these days. It was frightening though as I didn’t know there is no actual NHS pension fund pot as such instead all pension out goings come straight from government revenue. God only knows how we will get out of this mess.
Acording to Marc Farber (some call him Dr. Doom) government debt in many counties is too high and will be the cause of a future global collapse. Our government is only attempting to deal with a small part of total u.k. debt, Marc Farber predicts that , no government will do what is really necessary but will resort to printing money (it worked for labour just long enough to get off the sinking ship). Trouble ahead?
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A public sector pension levy is a perfect way of reducing the deficit without redundancies or creating higher unemployment. The BBC Radio 4 Today Programme has of course continued its campaign with another trade union boss (not Serwotka for a change) interviewed this morning, with no balance and no hard questions.
The interviewer plainly did not know when the trade union boss Dave Prentice was being deceptive. Today never brings on anyone to dispute the trade union position. And no interest was declared by the BBC employee that he was to be in receipt of an enormous public sector pension himself.
Such a levy is fair as the rest of us have to pay for these gold-plated, inflation-proofed, final salary pensions.
The only problem is the recent case brought by the civil service trade unions which exposed the fact that the government cannot change pension conditions without the unions agreeing! (Superannuation Act s. 2.3).
This judgment remains unappealed as yet.
And any attempt to change this law will no doubt be a ‘breach of human rights’. But not to worry, our all wise leader Cameron has agreed not to scrap the HRA. .. Which gives rise to the thought, if he did would the Supreme [‘have a nice day’] Court take a case and strike down an Act of Parliament abolishing the HRA as ‘a breach of human rights’?