Pensions, the Looming Crisis and Who is to Blame?

Damien Green announced he will curb pensions to be fair to the young. Isn't it time that MPs and British people woke up to the fact that it's successive governments' handling of finances that has caused the financial crisis. Stop blaming others! Government has created its own financial crisis and doesn't plan.

For example, Margaret Hodge has featured everyday n the Press last week (September 12-15), promoting her new book (Called to Account) and how she identified massive government waste of money across all sectors. Did Hodge actually do anything to curb the massive waste of money? It seems not, otherwise it wouldn't still be an issue. Across all sectors of government there seems to be a financial crisis and by her own admission it's due to incompetence. So what did Hodge achieve in her time as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee? Did she reign in spending? It seems not. And yet she has a cheek to write a book and crow about it.

Why then, with all this government waste, is Damien Green blaming financial problems on pensioners? When pensioners were young, their earnings paid for pensions at the time, so shouldn't they expect the same in return? If there is anything at blame it is that the government's inability to plan ahead and financial ineptitude. Surely they should have planned for pensions rather than relying on the current generation. Surely that is what the National Insurance is for, except we all know that NI has been spent on whatever the government at the time wants to shore up rather than actually saving it towards pensions.

As further evidence of lack of government planning, look at the crisis in the NHS and Energy. Government simply fails to plan. If you need further convincing, look at BREXIT and the Scottish Independence vote. No one in government had actually considered what might happen should the vote be a surprise. Government doesn't think and that needs to change.

Back to pensions -- wasn't it Gordon Brown who raided pensions? Hasn't that contributed to this mess? I don't remember Brown even getting the blame at the time. So how can Damien Green blame financial problems on pensioners. It is government ineptitude. And if you think this is Tory bashing, think again. Labour are just as much to blame. The NHS, as an example, was just as much in crisis under them as it is with the Tories. 

In summary, the looming crisis in pensions is due to:

1. A government created crisis in finance due to wasting money (see earlier articles on a failure to collect business taxes)

2. Government inability to plan 

3. Gordon Brown's raid on pensions

Government needs to change.

Election Summary: Spin and Lies All Round

On the Remain camp: finances and pensions will crash. 

On the Leave camp: Migration is too high and there are world markets to explore.

Unsurprisingly, the evidence on both sides is very thin. Taking one of many examples: both camps have polar views on how much Eu law there is in the UK. Leave say 75% and remain about 8%. They have chosen figures from the same report. They chose a figure to suit their argument, not one that actually helps the debate. 

There is so much spin that I am surprised my neck hasn't snapped. What politicians refer to as spin I think most people would say are lies.

So why? Who benefits? The PM is being pressured by the US to remain and that's a powerful pressure. It is clear that reform failed and was a damp squib so that argument doesn't really hold water, hence back to the US pressure.

Boris wants to be PM and this is a route to this. 

Corbyn remains quiet and secretly wants to become Russian I think. 

In my view, it is a great shame that the British public are hoodwinked by spin/lies. This is not what we should expect from people supposedly leading us. Shame there isn't a vote to state our displeasure.

A Key Government Failure in the Referendum -- Lack of Planning

If the Vote Leave is such a disaster why has the Prime Minister allowed a referendum?

Answer

Government has once again failed to think ahead. Look at the Scottish referendum and how MPs on both sides behaved like headless chickens just before the voting. They hadn't thought ahead, that Scotland might vote to leave the UK. 

I am absolutely amazed that the very same thing is happening in the lifetime of one parliament. Surely the government considered that the public might vote to leave the Eu ...and yet once again the politicians are behaving like headless chickens trying to make us vote Remain. 

Perhaps there should be a vote of no confidence in how we run politics. It seems politicians are only keen on winning votes rather than what is good for the country. How many U-turns have there been and mainly due to vote winning? Cameron's first act in his last government was to close grammar schools until he famously faced a backlash.

The premise of this website is that government fails to think, whether it is Labour, Conservative or others. Allowing a referendum on Europe and then trying to shoehorn the UK public demonstrates a lack of ability to plan and think. Is this the type of politician we want?

What we should strive for:

1. We should have politicians with an experience of life, industry, business. Career politicians have proven to be a failure.

2. We need a body to control parliament and to direct them to important and difficult issues such as energy and the NHS. Throwing money at the latter is not the answer and we should find out where the money is spent. 


3. The House of Lords does not work and is full of cronyism. This should be replaced with something that does work and soilves teh issues mentioned in 2.

Is the UK No Longer Democratic?

OK this seems absurd, asking if the UK is democratic but bear with me and decide for yourself.

1. Tony Blair committed UK to war in Iraq on his word alone.
2. David Cameron has committed the UK to a £11 billion overseas aid package on his say so alone.
3. Gordon Brown destroyed pensions by raiding the private sector pension pot on his say so. The private sector has been targeted as a result as their pensions looked strangely one-sided.
4. Cameron increased student fees from £3k to £9k.
5. Frank Dobson based on his says so doubled/tripled the cost of the NHS based on his "advice"/management, seemingly ignoring any advice.

Were any of these voted on? I can go on.

Nearly every pledge has been dropped over the last 20-30 years. We vote the government in based on their manifesto, which they simply drop when it suits them. So where is the democracy? We vote and are ignored time and time again.

Are we stupid?.

Are Ministers Destroying the UK?

The NHS crisis is a good example to look at. Every government argues they know best for the NHS. It is an election nightmare for the British public, knowing who to trust. But what is the truth about the NHS and funding?

An article written by Broken Vows: Tony Blair - The Tragedy of Power written by Tom Bower is a very interesting read. Frank Dobson was the minister in charge of the NHS, appointed by Blair. He knew nothing about the NHS and it seems that he tore up all the advice and made many bizarre decisions that effectively committed money to the NHS with no guidance on where it was to be spent. An IT system at the time was estimated at £2 billion but cost £18 billion. That is a staggering sum of money. GPs were allowed to negotiate their own pay and conditions and amazingly they got a 26% rise in pay for fewer hours. How many of us would dream of that.

When Blair came to power the NHS budget was £34 billion. In 2012 it was £127 billion. Where is all that money going and why is the NHS gobbling money so much? Surely a firm of accountants should be called in to look at the books. I was told by a friend that a colleague inputting data on a data base for the NHS earned £100k. That is an incredible salary for a simple job.  I believe locums are paid £1000 a day and many nurses are bought in from agencies at 3 times the cost of an NHS nurse doing the same job.

Are the Tories any better? The answer seems to be no. They ring-fenced the money and offer another billion a year. It seems the solution for every government is to lob more money at the problem, to the detriment of many other departments.

But why should a minister ignore the advice of the civil service and force his/her own agenda, even though he/she has no experience. It seems to be normal practice, Gordon Brown raided pension funds, seemingly with no advice. David Cameron has introduced sweeping changes to obey Eu law that frankly even France and Germany ignored. Cameron even ignored advice of his top military in air raids in Syria, leading to one commander telling David that his experience in the Cadets did not justify his taking over. However, he did do. So Frank Dobson was not alone in introducing his own agenda regardless of outcome.

An argument is always that medical equipment is expensive but what is the truth? Military equipment is definitely expensive and costs have soared, but the MOD has managed on reduced budgets year in and on.

Why does the British public allow it?? Ministers make sweeping changes with little thought to the outcome. The UK should return to setting policy based on advice from the Civil Service rather than fame-seeking people with no common sense.

Should Prime Ministers Be Allowed to Lie to the British Public?

This seems a very obvious statement with a very obvious answer. NO!

However, it seems the British public have become used to lies and we now just accept it as the norm. Is it constrained to the current government? Far from it, it seems. Let's look at them first.

It seems accepted that David Cameron is lying to force an In Vote for the Eu elections. Far from being fair and an educated response he seems to be doing his best to constrain the truth and distort facts, according to several publications. Of course his government have dropped many election pledges, but that is true of every recent government, but however you look at it -- that is a barefaced lie to get into power. Why do we accept it? Surely government should be accountable.

How about previous PMs? It seems accepted that Tony Blair lied about weapons of mass destruction to commit the UK to war in Iraq. I am sure there are other lies associated with Blair, but lying on one issue and such an important issue is a disgrace.

Gordon Brown, I believe, was asked several times at one of the many inquiries (Chilcot, Leverson??) and eventually backtracked on one lie to many when pressed, or so I believe. I cannot find the article as there were 930,000 hits on google when you type Gordon Brown and lied at inquiry. A lot was linked to Tony Blair and the Iraq war so it's difficult to say. However, in a very undemocratic way, Gordon raided pension pots destroying many people's aspirations for retirement.

The problem for me is that Freedom of Information Act is meant to open up government, yet if the PM lies how can anything be trusted. PMs are not afraid to announce statistics to better their objectives, but any statistic can be massaged to give the answer you want to hear. Where do they get their statistics? That is the scary part. I heard a joke once that 72% of statistics are made up.

Why do the British public allow PMs to lie? OK Chilcot is taking years over the Iraq inquiry and many delays have been granted for the guilty to worm their way out of difficulty, but every election manifesto pledges go by the wayside.

All PMs have lied to us -- of that I am certain and for me that is unacceptable.