General Great British Politics Thread!

Come across the bridge if you want a bit of a ruck.

Maybe it's the cider but Bristol starts kicking off around 23.00 and it gets really tasty by 01.00
 
In Birmingham city centre, there's a place colloquially known as the Gaza strip, and I guess the CCTV people just watch and consider solving the matter by financially backing one side.
 
OK -

3.4% - 5% extra in pension contributions
0.5% extra in NI contributions
2 year pay freeze with inflation at 5% pa (ie 10% real cut)

So
we're getting close to a 15% real wage reduction for the public sector.....

which so far is so very Tory....but then you look at what's going to happen in 3 years after the first graduates with £27,000 of tuition fees, plus £12,000 of loans come into the jobs market - is anyone actually going to be able to afford to go into the public sector? This will land graduates with an additional 9% on any income over £21,000 probably for the rest of their lives, and they'll still have the ~£12,000 debt for living expenses to service as well....

Can anyone plug in the numbers for a real life example?

Say

Teacher working in job for 6 years on £30,000
Now: About 6% pension and 1% NI? And income tax about 20% (adjusting for the initial tax free few thousand....). Maybe £1000 p/a servicing student loan.
Disposable income (in today's money) ~ £21,000 p/a

Versus

Teacher working in job for 6 years on (equivalent) £30,000 in the future.....
~10% pension, 1.5% NI, ~20% income tax, ~10% real wage reduction, 9% contribution over £21,000. Maybe £1000 p/a servicing student loan (not tuition fees bit)
Disposable income (in today's money) ~ £14,000 p/a

wow. I feel sorry for people not yet on the jobs ladder. :boxedin:
 
andyandy said:
Say

Teacher working in job for 6 years on £30,000
Now: About 6% pension and 1% NI? And income tax about 20% (adjusting for the initial tax free few thousand....). Maybe £1000 p/a servicing student loan.
Disposable income (in today's money) ~ £21,000 p/a

Versus

Teacher working in job for 6 years on (equivalent) £30,000 in the future.....
~10% pension, 1.5% NI, ~20% income tax, ~10% real wage reduction, 9% contribution over £21,000. Maybe £1000 p/a servicing student loan (not tuition fees bit)
Disposable income (in today's money) ~ £14,000 p/a

wow. I feel sorry for people not yet on the jobs ladder. :boxedin:
Click to expand...

Teachers get a significant chunk of their student loans written off.

More likely to see issues at colleges and support services (Things like librarian and archivist may become a problem).
 
geni said:
Teachers get a significant chunk of their student loans written off.

More likely to see issues at colleges and support services (Things like librarian and archivist may become a problem).
Click to expand...

They don't at the moment....have they said that they will in the future?

But yes on the wider point teachers will be better off than many others in the public sector....
 
a_unique_person said:
We already have the never ending 2010 election thread that is the de-facto Aussie politics thread. Though lately it seems to have been claimed as the personal soapbox for Alfie.
Click to expand...

Are labour regretting ditching Kevin Rudd yet?
 
There seems to be a perception that public sector workers have it so much better than private sector workers.

As the son of public sector workers I can confirm that from 1960 - 2000 their salaries were lower than equivalent private sector workers and their pension provision was not as good as equivalent defined benefit schemes.

The clock has wound forward and now there are hardly any private sector defined benefit schemes left. Salaries are still not that great but there is a feeling that the pension schemes are top notch.

The things that get me in phone ins are:

  • People who say that public sector workers are so well rewarded and that they, private sector workers, are so badly off. If it's that great then get a job in the public sector
  • They cheerfully admit to have made little or no pension provision themselves. Do they not realise that public sector workers pay a significant contribution towards their own pension
  • They reason that because their employer is rubbish then all employers should be so
 
The Don said:
There seems to be a perception that public sector workers have it so much better than private sector workers.

As the son of public sector workers I can confirm that from 1960 - 2000 their salaries were lower than equivalent private sector workers and their pension provision was not as good as equivalent defined benefit schemes.

The clock has wound forward and now there are hardly any private sector defined benefit schemes left. Salaries are still not that great but there is a feeling that the pension schemes are top notch.

The things that get me in phone ins are:

  • People who say that public sector workers are so well rewarded and that they, private sector workers, are so badly off. If it's that great then get a job in the public sector
  • They cheerfully admit to have made little or no pension provision themselves. Do they not realise that public sector workers pay a significant contribution towards their own pension
  • They reason that because their employer is rubbish then all employers should be so
Click to expand...

Also, why don't they unionize? My favorite is when people say that unions fiendishly get their workers better compensation than the private market. Uh, isn't that kind of the point of a union? I'd say there would be a problem if unionized workers received the same treatment.
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
Also, why don't they unionize? My favorite is when people say that unions fiendishly get their workers better compensation than the private market. Uh, isn't that kind of the point of a union? I'd say there would be a problem if unionized workers received the same treatment.
Click to expand...

To be fair, huge swathes of the public sector are not union members.

Our council has something like 30% union membership.
 
The Don said:
There seems to be a perception that public sector workers have it so much better than private sector workers.

As the son of public sector workers I can confirm that from 1960 - 2000 their salaries were lower than equivalent private sector workers and their pension provision was not as good as equivalent defined benefit schemes.

The clock has wound forward and now there are hardly any private sector defined benefit schemes left. Salaries are still not that great but there is a feeling that the pension schemes are top notch.

The things that get me in phone ins are:

  • People who say that public sector workers are so well rewarded and that they, private sector workers, are so badly off. If it's that great then get a job in the public sector
  • They cheerfully admit to have made little or no pension provision themselves. Do they not realise that public sector workers pay a significant contribution towards their own pension
  • They reason that because their employer is rubbish then all employers should be so
Click to expand...

Funny, the things that get me are:

People who say "why not get a job in the public sector" as if this was some sort of solution to the country running a massive deficit;

Public Sector workers who think that the contributions they pay come remotely close to paying for the final salary pension they feel entitled to. For comparison, PwC calculate that to provide the same salary in the average private sector role would require a contribution equal to 37% of salary;

Those who are not exposed to competition making banal points about a "race to the bottom" and how the private sector should demand better conditions, but don't hesitate to buy imported products to save themselves a few quid.

Oh and top of the pile, those who claim that the massive increase in public sector jobs and spending was in no way responsible for running up a massive debt.
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
Also, why don't they unionize? My favorite is when people say that unions fiendishly get their workers better compensation than the private market. Uh, isn't that kind of the point of a union? I'd say there would be a problem if unionized workers received the same treatment.
Click to expand...

To a large extent it's down to strength of bargining possition. A call center can just be shipped overseas. Most public sector stuff can't (and it's politicaly difficult to outsource the stuff that can be outsourced). Supermarks can absorb very high levels of staff turnover so it's questionable how effective a strike could be. By comparision there's a limit to how many teachers you can fire at once.

Manufacturing is increasinly reliant on agency and contract workers meaning the remaining staff may be too small to be able to carry out an effective strike. In the private sector workers also have to worry about making their company non competative. In the public sector not so much.
 
Jaggy Bunnet said:
Public Sector workers who think that the contributions they pay come remotely close to paying for the final salary pension they feel entitled to. For comparison, PwC calculate that to provide the same salary in the average private sector role would require a contribution equal to 37% of salary
Click to expand...

Here (I think) is the link..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8227380.stm

I wonder what assumptions they used to get that number. I have a feeling that to prove a point they have selected a low annuity and a conservative rate of return.

The reason I say this is that PWC administer one of my pensions, they're forecasting an income in the same ballpark for me and I've not made anything like that level of contribution
 
The Don said:
Here (I think) is the link..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8227380.stm

I wonder what assumptions they used to get that number. I have a feeling that to prove a point they have selected a low annuity and a conservative rate of return.

The reason I say this is that PWC administer one of my pensions, they're forecasting an income in the same ballpark for me and I've not made anything like that level of contribution
Click to expand...

3.134% based on the figures in this article.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...67/What-is-a-public-sector-pension-worth.html

And judging from here:

http://www.sharingpensions.co.uk/annuity_rates.htm#text1

That is likely to be in the ballpark for retiring at 60, with an index linked pension including 50% paid to the spouse if they survive you. (3% escalation on those terms is c3.7% in link, full indexing likely to cost more).

I understand that is broadly the terms of many public sector schemes so seems a reasonable comparator. Would like to find a link to the actual research doc though.
 
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