Lewes Forum thread

The average public sector pension is believe something just over £5000,hardly gold plated is it?Let`s show our support for the people that nurse us when we are ill,put out the fires when our houses are in danger of burning down,empty our bins and sweep our streets,educate our kids,look after our elderly and do a thousand and one things that help us maintain a decent society. Let`s support the strike,they are striking for all of us, if only we realised it.

thank you Dingo
It is one day, all emergencies will be covered, this is not the 1970s and it is our democratic right to stand up to the bullies and non tax payers of this country. Let's be honest, if the big corperations paid their taxes like the little people do we could have a world class social system.
Everyone deserves a secure future.

Rubbish.In 2008 a retiring teacher on £32000 (The average salary was just over £34,000 then) received a pension of £21,300 a year ( Index linked guaranteed ). The Union figure is cobbled together by including short term contributions.
These generous arrangements have a perverse affect .According to the Pensions Policy Institute,(2005) 25 per cent of teachers retire early ostensibly due to ill health compared to 6 per cent of the forces for example , and they do get shot at after all.
Lots of people, in all walks of life do a good job and are not well rewarded ,but when our creditor’s confidence is all that differentiates us from Greece ,encouraging fraudulent grievances is unforgivably selfish and irresponsible .

If they were striking for our pensions they would have been on strike when Gordon Brown raided the private pension schemes of the country.As if.
Corporate tax is largely born by consumers and employees. On actual illegality Countries that have money smugglers representing less than 10% of their respective GDPs include Austria, Luxembourg ,The United States, and Switzerland .We are 12.5% and Italy 27%.What does that tell you?

Paul Newman wrote: 'If they were striking for our pensions they would have been on strike when Gordon Brown raided the private pension schemes of the country.As if.'

Weren't you paying attention Paul when the Thatcher government made solidarity strikes illegal? A union member is only allowed to strike on an issue in which he or she is personally engaged.

Alright then Clifford, the Unions failed to register their outrage at stealth taxes levied in private sector pensions as they have against Public Sector cuts. Coincidence probably .

well i pay for some of there pension out of my taxs . i would love to be getting a pension of £3000 a year .lots of us work very are two

Conservative = worker, creator, giver, optimist, tax-payer. Labour = work-shy, destroyer, taker, complainer, pays little or no tax (often on benefits). Discuss.

@Jo...im afraid that's how life works. Through our taxes, we all pay for other people's health care, state funded nursing homes etc etc and last but not least, the family of pikey chavs who live next door to me and have never done a days work in their life despite having 3 cars and a houseful of top of the range gadgets and electrical goods.
Now i don't mind the first two but the last one really sticks in my throat.

Wow, that's a simple world you have there SHS, but too continue in the same limited vein.

Tory:
Selfish and self-centred, lacking a sense of community, collective responsibility and any sense of concern for others outside their immediate family or small circle of friends. The phrase 'I'm all right Jack' might as well have been coined for Tories and the political party is truly 'The Selfish Party'', the party for the small minded, unimaginative and lazy-minded.

Labour:
understands the phrase 'we are all in this together'. Believes in equality and equal chances for all, a fair society where the likelihood of success is not entirely delendant upon the circumstances you were born into. Realises that a healthy individual depends upon the health of the wider society. Understands mercy, compassion, tolerance, powerlessness and tries to accommodate the points of view of others. Cares for others, including the weak and the less fortunate.

Importantly Labour believes that our society will benefit if everyone is given a fair crack at the whip and that those with the ability will succeed on merit. Enabling the best to succeed, irrespective of background, is good for all of us. The Tory party believe that power should stay exactly where it is and are not interested in providing equal opportunity for all. Their vested interest is in themselves, and the established pecking order.

I am afraid that Blair, Brown, Balls, Miliband etc. deliberately allowed the public sector to expand out of control thus sticking thousands more on the Government (and Labour) payroll particularly in the north of England. For Brown, it was his form of social engineering to 'buy' votes for ever. I think the problem of the pension bill for all public employees would be less acute if the last Labour Government had not let the expansion of the public sector happen.

Looks like the 'day of action' on Wednesday is working as I heard on the news an extra 100,000 jobs are to be lost in the public sector!
Now if they had 5 'days of action' perhaps we could save the salary's of a further 500,000 selfish peoples lost jobs!
If you don't like your jobs ..............LEAVE and join the private sector, if they'll have you.
Mr Newman you are right to bring up the issue of Gordon Brown's raid on the Private sector pensions and also to highlight the lack of support, at the time, from the people WE pay for with OUR taxes.
There was no strike then mainly because people were afraid of losing a job needed to keep their families, not one that many Public service workers hog to pay for their holidays.
I have no particular leanings to any current political party as a common sense party has yet to be founded.
We could all help by pulling together for a change! Try it, it's worked before in post War Britain!
Take heed the gravy train is slowing down and striking will only set it on a course to crash...........then who will you blame!

Tories=Pigs,Snouts,Troughs.Then you have the almighty cheek to lecture the rest of us on the scarcity of resources and how we must all reduce our standard of living to pay for the bankers and stockbrokers greed and incompetence!Who the hell do you think you are kidding?All in it together? Don`t make me laugh!If you bas***** don`t wise up soon you will I predict, create such a wave of justifiable fury that I fear for your continued existence.History will sweep you and your idiotic attitudes away ,unless you learn to share the wealth with your fellow brothers and sistersThis time, the "times really are a changing" and in the words of the song ,"get out of the new one if you can`t lend a hand".

Wait a minute Captain, are you seriously suggesting the public sector should have supported the private sector when they didn't go on strike?
That seems a bit a-about-f to me.
Maybe I missed something but when did the private sector ever complain or ask for their support anyway?
How does attacking the public sector's right to fight for their contracts to be honoured square with the 'pulling together' you're calling for?
As for the gravy train slowing down, it certainly isn't for the bankers or other top earners, its speeding up and running away. This whole mess would be cleared up overnight if they were paying post war tax rates, but that's not on the cards is it?

School didn't do you much good did it Dingo?
Public sector worker is a misnomer, they are Public Servants paid for by the taxpayer.
Just because they have been allowed 'upstairs' contact doesn't mean that their behaviour is acceptable.
Go back 'below stairs' or sleep it off in your garret.
It's happened at last as predicted.........the lunatics have taken over the asylum!

Your post seems to suggest that they have at least taken over this forum Mr Hudson

so much vitriol from the right wing can only mean one thing...they are actively scared.
Paul, the public sector is smaller than it has ever been considering the contracting out to private companies and was never 34k ten years ago..maybe in a top private scool but not in the public sector, as usual your so called facts are wrong...do you work for the daily mail.

No, ex pat I wasn't suggesting that there should have been a strike and yes the Private Sector didn't ask or get any worthwhile support.
I was only illustrating the selfish, me, me attitude that seems to be prevalent and it is certainly not helping anyone in the long term.

As for pulling together, why not, as digging ourselves into a deeper hole will solve nothing?
I would also agree on the tax suggestion and ask if you can recall when 32% was the basic rate of Tax.
Do we really want to return to these rates and Purchase Tax which was variable?
Whoever we blame for the economic mess that we are in, I believe that we ALL need to help try to get out of it for the sake and future of our Children and Grandchildren.
Playground bullying tactics won't help!

I ahve worked in the private sector in my life and I watched little girls work 12 hour shifts with no minimum wage while the elderly ate rubbish so the shareholders could sit back and watch their cash grow at the expense of the relatives.
That's why I joined the public sector..I now work with people who deeply care about society and they see to it that everyone is treated as an equal.
Dedication should be respected..but that isn't what I see in the private sector because it squeezes people to death.
Please answer this question without dialogue, just from the heart
Do you want to feel secure financially in old age, and if you could be offered a secure pension that was not going to evaporate into a dying companies assets, would you pay into it now?

jo, I know you work har and if it was up to me you would be paid properly and get access to a pension top up but you won't get that out of the present government.
many people have forgotton that at one time working rights were not just for the public sector but for everyone...ask your nan

Paul your figure may be right for teacher in a london secondary who has worked the full 40 years. But few people in the private and public sector reach pensionable age with a full pension. Adjust for the amount of women and part time workers and apart for the gold plated pensions for top civil servants, most public sector pensions are a pittance.
My mother worked as teacher for 25 years - she receives a teaching pension of about 5 k a year. Hardly a fortune.

Final Salary Pension is a complete misnomer. Public sector pensions (at least amongst my long serving teacher and social worker friends) are nothing like the levels being reported by the reactionary Tory tabloid press. Not even close.

I think some research is needed by those on this forums that think public sector pensions are high. You have been misled.

You should avoid those cheap newspapers too you know. They only feed you lies to keep you toeing the Tory line. They want you stupid. It's depressing it works so well.

The teacher's pension is calculated as avarage final salary divided by 80 multiplied by years of service (it is an 80th scheme not a 60th scheme). The maximum a teacher could receive after 40 years of service would be half their final salary.
The strike is over a 3% pay cut, dressed up as an additional employee contribution for a worse pension. It comes on top of a year in which teachers received no pay rise when inflation is at over 5%, therefore a 5% pay cut.
No workforce should just accept this without a struggle.

Brixton Belle - That is how the Unions get their figure, by including numbers not ,person years. Most people assume they means a pension after a full career and contributions, and that is what you are comparing it with. It is a lie basically and a banal lie at that. It is quite important we gets the facts straight here
Bastian on the average salary I am quoting Jim Knight, I have left a link on my old blog Newmania should you wish to see discussion of the details .

You couldn't make this up. Except that you did, as usual. 40%?!

Yawn I am quoting Ruth Porter of the Institute of Economic Affairs "Taxpayers ...could not possibly afford the sort of pension schemes that teachers have without sacrificing 40% of their income"

Ah, that well known right wing think tank secretly funded by the very powerful and wealthy to spread ideas aimed at continuing their wealth, privilege and power. Why is it in your interest to further spread their propaganda Paul? You are hardly of the ilk that benefits.

The increases in contributions will not go into the pension fund of public sector workers. They don`t need to. The fund takes in £4 billion per year more than it pays out. If it wound up tomorrow, it could meet its obligations to pensioners for the next 20 years. The cost of the fund is set by actuary. Five years ago the unions agreed an increase in contributions that were required by actuary. The current increase being imposed by the government will go straight into the Exchequer to wipe off the debt incurred in bailing out the bank. Public sector pensioners won`t see a penny of it.

I would like to try to redress the balance again.
I work in the private sector, I'm self employed. Most important point - I'm not rich and not particularly materialistic.
However, I need a certain amount to live comfortably and therefore I don't want to see the country I love in huge unsustainable debt and I don't want to have to pay loads more taxes to fund unsustainable public sector pensions in the future.
I work extremely hard - in fact I work hours that most teachers eyes water - but I choose to do it so that's fine.
I earn enough to live and a little bit more. Who am I? I'm your typical tory voter, that's who - not the stereotype land-owning lord that the left-wing dinosaurs on this forum seem to think we are.
Tory supporters believe in fairness, common sense, and sensible and sustainable economic policies and above all that enterprise and hard work be rewarded.
The truth is, Bastion, Clifford etc that many tory supporters are financially far worse off than the 'poor' public sector workers that are striking.
Not only is the strike unhelpful in the current economic climate but I would go as far as to say it is unpatriotic. This is not a political issue it is an economic one and may have a huge impact on the future well-being of our country.
Those that say 'hang the expense of our pensions' are really not the caring. sharing community-minded people that some on here would have you believe. I believe that it is for the good of all of us to take an adult rational view of what the country can really afford to pay-out and that we all need to do some serious belt-tightening to get through the next few years.
I'm just an ordinary working guy - maybe you could call me an entrepreneur in very small way, but I and most of the people I know entirely accept that times are hard and we all need to do out bit - except the public sector workers who apparently think they need to be treated just that bit better than the rest of us. It makes us ordinary workers/small business people REALLY mad!

NFAH, maybe some 'Tory supporters believe in fairness, common sense, and sensible and sustainable economic policies and above all that enterprise and hard work be rewarded', but the conservative party certainly doesn't.
They believe that special measures are taken to ensure those richer than you remain that way, they peddle rubbish like the famously fraudulent Trickle Down Theory - not common sense at all, and that the rich get most rewarded, not hard workers.
Tories have traditionally been very critical of those that resent the very rich, in what they dismissively termed as 'politics of envy'. Now, it seems, they're tapping into that very rich seam themselves to castigate those who'd like their contracts honoured, and are encouraging you to do the same.
Incidentally, how much has your pay or pension been cut by your employer?

Drone - That is fantasy, let us hope if you are a teacher you are a gym teacher !
Expat 2 - There is nothing envious about resenting a neighbour who wants your children to pay for a life you cannot afford. That is the natural resentment of the robbee for the robber. There is no contract for future contributions, you might argue the change of index linking is a contractual matter,which would get a horse laugh from the rest of the country. Your moustache twirling capitalists do not take our money. They grow the Economy .
Having said that there is a problem of inequality that grew during the years of redistribution New Labour tested to destruction whilst mobility also declined. One of the main problems has been our abysmal secondary education for which we have the Teaching Unions to blame.
Are you interested in improving the country or just spouting junk?

NFAH.
You take the pain while the Tory backers, the people who have the power and the money, the financial institutions, the large companies, the landed gentry, the establishment and the filthy rich take no pain whatsoever. You have completely swallowed the Tory line, spread through the vested-interest cheap media and the secretly funded organisations and think tanks (such as the ones Newman is so fond of quoting). They have you exactly where they want you, convinced you that the problem is down to other lowly paid workers, in this case those that work for the state (next it'll be immigrants!). Once they have conned enough of those who can't see further than their nose (or the Sun or the Daily Mail) they can continue with their real agenda, to decimate the state. Why do they want to do this? Because the Tory backers, the powerful and privileged do not need it and much of the state works agaiunst them as it serves to protect the little people (nhs, education, benefit system etc, etc, etc) and acts to curbs the worst excesses of capitalist zeal and exploitation. It also servers to aid transparency (a real anathema to those who really hold the power). The less state there is the freer the backers of the Tory party are to exploit the rest of us and ensure that power, wealth and privilege stays with those that already have it.

You are being had, hoodwinked. You have swallowed the Tory line hook, line and sinker, so much so that you don't act in the interest of yourself and your peer group, but vote to keep the likes of the Bullingdon Club brats and their ilk at the centre of power in this country for ever more.

BTW. Contrary to your assertion, state workers have already been feeling the pain. Redundancies and pay freezes have been in operation for a long time already.

Drone, the surplus money, as you call it, has not only been contributed by the 'workers' but also by the Taxpayers contributions.
If your figures are accurate we, the Taxpayers, have been paying too much to too many for too long.
Reduce the workforce and,:
Let's all start on a level playing field; close all pension schemes and refund all the contributions to the members that they have made to
date.
Let them all, private or taxpayers funded workers, use the money to make their own arrangements for their pensions. This would, I suggest, provide a shocking return to reality for many!

Drone, the surplus money, as you call it, has not only been contributed by the 'workers' but also by the Taxpayers contributions.
If your figures are accurate we, the Taxpayers, have been paying too much to too many for too long.
Reduce the workforce and,:
Let's all start on a level playing field; close all pension schemes and refund all the contributions to the members that they have made to
date.
Let them all, private or taxpayers funded workers, use the money to make their own arrangements for their pensions. This would, I suggest, provide a shocking return to reality for many!

we are tax payers to..the only people who do not pay tax are the rich..if they did then everyone could have a safe pension regardless of who they work for.

Expat 2 - you weren't paying attention. I'm self employed and therefore I am the employer.
My 'wages' are not fixed they go up and down with the fortunes (or otherwise) of the business I'm in. I don't have a pension scheme but I have invested in some property to give myself a modest income in my old age. I often work for way, way below the equivalent of the minimum wage when needed - on a busy week without much actual income for example.
Do you still think I'm a privelidged tory or that I am so stupid that I have been 'tricked'?
How much have I suffered in the recession? That's hard to quantify as my income regularly rises and falls anyway according to the good or bad fortunes of my business. This year is better than last year.
I don't read the 'cheap media', can't stand the Daily Mail and I have not swallowed anybodies 'line'. You may find it hard to accept (because it goes against your entrenched politcal views) that I managed to decide to vote tory all by myself. Do I still fit your stereotype?
Principally because of reasons mentioned before and because in terms of financial management of the country the tories generally do a far better job than anybody else.
I believe that if the economy is strong we ALL benefit. There IS a trickle-down affect. For example, the businesses that are much criticised by the naive on this forum - if those businesses do well (because the gov has put the correct economic framework in place) then they tend to employ more people. This is how the trickle-down effect works and anybody who has ever been in any kind of business will know this.
As a business I charge what the market can stand for my services. If people are willing to pay less then I couldn't insist on taking the same wage regardless as I would go out of business fairly rapidly. I adjust my income and circumstances to suit the economic situation - and that is what the public sector must learn to do.
Incidentally I haven't always consistently voted tory and actually voted for that war criminal Tony Blair in the late 90's, but soon realised my mistake.

but you still seem to loath the public sector who work for the poorest people in the country.

As their natural habitat shrinks and their survival strategy becomes even more ineffectual one can still find although in ever decreasing numbers the three different kinds of Tory left inthe wild today. We can categorise them simply as the incredibly stupid,the incredibly greedy or a hybridised variety that exhibit both stupidiity and greed in equal measure.All three varieties are characterised by a deep complacency and self congratulatory smugness and as so often happens with a species on the edge of an extinction a distinct inability to cooperate and integrate with other members of the wider society they inhabit.This self imposed isolation has inevitably due to inbreeding brought about a degree of feeble mindedness that bodes paricularly badly for their long term survival.Being such unattractive and destructive creatures though, their inevitable demise will I believe bring great benefits to the wider ecosystem, freeing up greater resources for the majority population. In short they will not be missed.

Bastian I do not 'loathe' the public sector at all - I never said I did, anf loathe is a very strong word. But I do loathe the strikes. I'm old enough to remember how the unions dragged this country into the mire in the late 70's and i don't want to return to that.
Why call me stupid because I don't agree with you DA?
Also DA I think that the party most likely to dissapear is the LibDems who have shown themselves to ineffective and the weekest part of the coalition.

In this telling piece of film we see the last surviving Tories muddled and puffed up with their own sense of self importance following their even more inbred leadership constantly squabbling with the Lib Dem lemmings that follow them in the hope of a small scrap or two,yes we see them throwing themselves over the snowy cliffs into an icy sea were they willl no doubt quickly perish.

I really think the government should be focussing on getting the literacy skills of employers up.