While wandering around my new neighbourhood on Wednesday morning, I bumped into a couple of local characters and had a chat about life in West Clare. Clearly the mini-budget on Tuesday was a major topic of conversation - luckily I had paid attention to the morning news!
It was a bit of an eye-opener to see that one of the first announcements by the Finance minister was a 10% cut in pay and pensions for all TD's (members of parliament).
The opinion in the Rambler's Rest was that they could have given up a bit more but at least it was a start and they appeared to be sharing in the hardship of their electors.
Compare this to the situation on this side of the Irish Sea and as Jeff Randall points out in today's Telegraph, not only are we paying for our MP's and Minister's second homes, bath plugs and dodgy videos, but also for their lavish pension pots which will see the contribution (from our taxes) increase from 27% to 32% of their base salaries!
Where does the "Court of public opinion" sit on this? Its ok for Flash Gordon, Harriet Harperson and everyone else to criticise Fred Goodwin's pension arrangements - which were clearly within the rules (even if morally indefensible) - but not a hint of a concession about the cost of their own pension arrangements for all those "hardworking families" they talk about so often.
It's definitely time for me to get out for a while. At least I will have a woodburning stove in which I can use the newspaper as kindling!!
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I think we all appreciate they’ve been stalling on an election because most Labour schmucks appreciate their days are numbered and there aren’t exactly a lot of jobs out there for them to retire to. You and I both know that 3 years from now Brown will be supplementing his pension with a series of non-exec appointments at the likes RBS and BP.
ReplyDeleteMy nightmare is Blair as President of the Europe and Brown as Head of the IMF. But perhaps that wouldn't be bad if Cameron follows his right wing and takes us out of the EU?
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