If further proof were ever needed of how much national wealth New Labour has squandered through its profligate public spending policies, one need look no further than to the business section of today’s Times.
It is there reported that council tax bills are due to rise next year by an extra 1.5% just to cover the ever-mounting bill for the pensions of the huge and seemingly ever-burgeoning ranks of the army of retired local authority workers so many of whom have been recruited during New Labour’s term of office.
If you ever wondered how and why taxes could have risen by so much as they have done during this time to so little apparent effect in terms of improved services, here lies the answer.
Apart from so many of the newly-created public-sector jobs serving precious little purpose besides removing those who fill them from the unemployment register, an ever-increasing of proportion of public expenditure is having to be directed to pay for the pension costs of public sector workers when they retire as they can as early as at aged 50.
In a characteristically incisive commentary on this sorry state of affairs, Times Business Editor, the ever redoubtable, Patience Wheatcroft, offers the following telling illustration of the scale of the problem:
‘In Greater Manchester, total pension payments for fire-fighters are put at £30.4 million in 2005-06, compared with salary costs of £74.9 million. This amounts to a doubling of pension payments in the past eight years... Council tax payers in the area have seen the amount that they pay for fire services rise by 68% over those eight years… [But] net of inflation and pensions, the Fire Authority’s budget has actually reduced by 7% over the period.’
New Labour managed to kick this mounting pension problem safely into touch until after the election, by announcing it would deal with it in the autumn only after Adair Turner delivers the report on the problem it commissioned.
By then, most likely, New Labour will have been returned to office for a third term.
This time round, there will be increasingly less for it to squeeze from tax-payers.
Whichever party wins this election might well rue the day it did, when the public is forced to wake up from the deep slumber into which New Labour’s public sector spending spree has lulled it for these long years to face the the protracted painful hang-over it must inexorably do for allowing New Labour to have gulled it for so many years, as it busily squandered the nation’s capital.
Tone, of course, will by then have long since retired to his villa in Tuscany or wherever to enjoy himself on the the massive pension he will have made sure he receives for his valiant services to Queen and country.
Comments (3)
Funny ive worked for 26 years as a police officer,working rotating shifts all that time.i have allways been a front line officer.i have been assaulted on numerous occasions,been punched ,kicked ,knocked unconcious, bitten by a drug addict.ive worked nights on new years eve and worked christmas day missing valuable time with my family.i now suffer from ibs-probably due to 26 years of shifts ,danger and missed lunches due to turning out to urgent calls.i dont see myself as a fat cat and i dont spend every weekend at home with the wife and kids.i get 2 weekends off in 5 and work nights every 2 1/2 weeks.we get abuse from the public the press and abuse and pressure from our bosses.
Fat cat -i dont think so.Ps statistically police officers live less than 5 years after retiring if they work more than 20 years of shifts.
Posted by Fat cat | October 23, 2005 12:28 AM
Posted on October 23, 2005 00:28
Yep, you could have joined the police force and enjoyed a cushy job, with a big fat, certain, pension.
Posted by StarDasher | May 11, 2005 4:27 PM
Posted on May 11, 2005 16:27
I'm afraid you've got it wrong on public sector pensions - you underestimate their generosity to the people involved.
One of the guys at my rowing club explained to me that he can retire with full pension rights next year. He won't, because he then couldn't receive his full pension for another five years, so would have problems living in the interim. Consequently he'll carry on working for five years after next year so that when he finishes he can take his index-linked police pension immediately - at the grand old age of 47 (he went straight from school to the police aged 17).
He's one of the fittest guys I know and physically could go on for at least 20 more years, aided by his recuperation during his annual 6 week summer holiday.
I stayed in education, got a physics degree and professional qualifications (at my own expense) and have worked in the electronics sector. My pension has been devastated in the last 5 years thanks to Gordon Brown's pension taxes and the collapse of the electronics industry (thanks Gordon for the tax on the 3G mobile licences which virtually shut down the wireless equipment industry in the UK) which has meant that I can't find work.
I wish I'd never bothered making the effort. I should have slacked and got a cushy public sector job.
Posted by HJ | May 5, 2005 9:47 PM
Posted on May 5, 2005 21:47