The Times - Labour Plans Pension Raid

redux

coastline wrote: »

The level of debt would have been the same as the Tories backed Labours spending plans from 2007 to 2010...both would have landed us with a £100bn a year budget deficit..

Absolutely.

At the party conference in 2007, George Osborne was promising to match the slight annual increases in Labour's spending plans.

It may have earned him a record low approval rating amongst grass roots supporters, but it did happen.

Of course, those of short memories can no longer check such things on the Conservative Party website, as they had a large scale deletion of old speeches not long ago, but copies can be found elsewhere thanks to loyal supporters.

"I can
confirm for the first time that a Conservative Government will adopt [the
Government's] spending totals. Total government spending will rise by 2 per cent a
year in real terms, from £615 billion next year to £674 billion in the year 2010-11.
Like Labour, we will review the final year’s total in a spending review in 2009. The
result of adopting these spending totals is that under a Conservative Government
there will be real increases in spending on public services, year after year."

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2007/09/tories-will-mat.html

What does this mean? What I said before about the differences between these parties' approach to policy not being as large as some people think, and varying by much more range in response to changing circumstances.

robin61

Linton wrote: »

The public sector net debt was reduced in absolute terms during the years 1997-2001 and until the crash the public sector net debt was a lower % of GDP than under much of Major's time. See here.

But I didn't mention debt ?

Radiantsoul

There is a board on the forum that is devoted to politics. It is not especially illuminating part of this website, as it just tends to end in a bit of a rant.

I suspect that at some point in the future the amount of tax relief available to higher rate taxpayers will be reduced regardless of who is in Downing Street.

coastline

Radiantsoul wrote: »

There is a board on the forum that is devoted to politics. It is not especially illuminating part of this website, as it just tends to end in a bit of a rant.

I suspect that at some point in the future the amount of tax relief available to higher rate taxpayers will be reduced regardless of who is in Downing Street.

http://citywire.co.uk/money/higher-rate-pension-tax-relief-for-the-axe-after-election-warns-webb/a790935

Cyberman60

redux wrote: »

Absolutely.

At the party conference in 2007, George Osborne was promising to match the slight annual increases in Labour's spending plans.

It may have earned him a record low approval rating amongst grass roots supporters, but it did happen.

Of course, those of short memories can no longer check such things on the Conservative Party website, as they had a large scale deletion of old speeches not long ago, but copies can be found elsewhere thanks to loyal supporters.

"I can
confirm for the first time that a Conservative Government will adopt [the
Government's] spending totals. Total government spending will rise by 2 per cent a
year in real terms, from £615 billion next year to £674 billion in the year 2010-11.
Like Labour, we will review the final year’s total in a spending review in 2009. The
result of adopting these spending totals is that under a Conservative Government
there will be real increases in spending on public services, year after year."

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2007/09/tories-will-mat.html

What does this mean? What I said before about the differences between these parties' approach to policy not being as large as some people think, and varying by much more range in response to changing circumstances.

That's totally disingenuous. In 2007, Osborne was obviously unaware that the annual deficit would be 160 Billion in 2009. :rotfl:

Cyberman60

robin61 wrote: »

Yes you have to deal with the deficit before you can pay off the debt. People will have to decide whether they think Labour would have reduced the deficit they left behind them faster than the Coalition have done and who they trust with the economy and their pensions more. I've not seen anything positive from Labour on pensions which are very important to me as I come up to retirement.

Clearly they would not have reduced the deficit at all, and that is what they are still proposing if they get elected. They have opposed every cut the Coalition have made and Balls has said all along that the Coalition were cutting too fast and that the economy was flat-lining. :rotfl:

Linton

robin61 wrote: »

But I didn't mention debt ?

The deficit is funded by debt so one is regarded as a measure of the other. See here for example. This graph appears to be in actual £bn, not allowing for inflation.

Cyberman60

Linton wrote: »

The public sector net debt was reduced in absolute terms during the years 1997-2001 and until the crash the public sector net debt was a lower % of GDP than under much of Major's time. See here.

For the first two years Labour said they would stick to the Tory budget and also remember the dividend tax credit raid on pensions coupled with sales of the airwaves to Orange/BT etc and the windfall tax on utilities, and it's hardly any wonder they had some money for a while, but it was all frittered away as usual by a profligate government who also took us into an expensive illegal war. :(

Cyberman60

robin61 wrote: »

Of course it would have been better if Labour's deficit had been reduced more quickly. After seeing Labour oppose virtually every measure to reduce the deficit I have every confidence that it would have continued to increase every month as it did when Labour were last in power.

Indeed !!! :rotfl:

Cyberman60

hyubh wrote: »

That's just not true - final salary pensions, in hindsight, weren't fit for purpose, for a variety of reasons. Employers understated their costs and employees undervalued their benefits - not a good combination. They also greatly favoured only a small subset of the working population, at least by contemporary standards - part timers and people who didn't have single-company careers were either excluded completely or could only build up benefits of significantly lower value. While over time these negatives were lessened, that was only with government meddling, not of its own accord.

Final Salary pensions seem ok for the Public Sector as they are funded mainly by the taxpayer !!! It was Private Sector Final salary pensions that Brown decimated in the main. Brown ruined perfectly good pensions. :mad: