Interflug – no I am not an expert, if by that you suggest I would have a degree in economics, perhaps. I can only plead an A-Level and half a lifetime in business, but I certainly do know that blaming the entire mess as simplistically as you do on bankers and financial whizz kids is about as far from the truth as you can get. Kev had it rather well when he referred to the disgusting wastage of central government.

I have followed the rush of exchanges between you, Lincoln and Kev with great interest and can’t really add anything more, at this stage.

Presumably all these decisions are based on intelligence. If they are not then someone wants their head examined. Hard intelligence on what is being planned for the Olympics is unlikely to be known now. If it is then the terrorists have been given 15 months notice to plan a different way of attacking the Games. And if it is not the same argument applies. I just fail to see the logic in the decision.

I visited Duxford the other day and asked a member of staff about the Hind and they said that due to the lack of space in the hangar and the impending arrival of the B17 from the AAM it was being made “smaller” to save space.

Herby

Did they tell you why it was being moved?

Linc – the piece on pensions I mentioned…………

Herein lies the great conundrum for David Cameron and his team. The pensions regime in the public sector cannot continue as it is. The case for change is powerful, yet in order to make it, Mr Cameron needs to stoke up the resentment felt by those in the private sector at having to pay for the continuation of “gold-plated” schemes they themselves no longer enjoy. For a Prime Minister whose favoured phrase is “we are all in this together”, this is hardly a palatable option.

There are six million public sector workers and 23 million in the private sector, so there is little doubt where the majority of sympathies will lie. But if the row over pay and conditions becomes tied up in the wider controversy about reform of the public services, then things might not look so straightforward.

The most important first step is to make the case for pension reform in the public sector, where retirement promises were recently described in a report for the Centre for Policy Studies as a “Madoff-style pyramid, now collapsing under the weight of insufficient contributions, rising longevity and an ageing workforce”. The author, Michael Johnson, said that unless the problem is addressed, Britain faces a “societal division” caused by the gulf between private and public-sector pension provisions, and the “disproportionately high pensions paid to high earners” in the Civil Service. Without reform, these divisions will be entrenched between the generations.

More than three-quarters of civil servants are in a final salary scheme, compared with less than a fifth of private-sector employees, with the taxpayer providing almost 80 per cent of all public sector final salary contributions. In 2009, the state paid £14.9 billion towards the £19.3 billion cost of the UK’s four largest civil service schemes, while staff provided £4.4 billion. By 2016, according to National Audit Office projections, the taxpayer is likely to be contributing an even larger portion as the state makes up a projected £10.3 billion shortfall between total contributions and total payments. The total unfunded UK public-sector pension liability is estimated to be up to £1.18 trillion – 80 per cent of GDP or £47,000 per household.

The system is a total mess and should have been sorted out years ago but successive governments were too terrified to address it. How will Coalition ministers, assailed on so many fronts – opened up, it must be said, by themselves – succeed where their predecessors have failed? Have they the stomach for such a fight? Already they have promised that final salary schemes for existing employees will not be withdrawn, but can that really be sustained, either politically or financially, when these so-called defined benefit schemes have almost disappeared in the private sector?

It has become impossible any longer to defend a system in which private sector workers are required to pay more in taxes to fund public sector pensions than they manage to save for their own retirement. Thanks largely to the depredations inflicted on their pensions by Gordon Brown when, as Chancellor, he jacked up the tax on dividends received by pension funds, millions in the private sector have seen their value plummet. They might wish to top them up, but cannot afford to.

More than that, the old rule of thumb that a good pension was the reward for years of poor pay in the public sector no longer holds true. Official figures show that graduate public sector workers are paid better than those in the private sector throughout Britain, apart from in London and the South East. Add in the pension, retirement at 60 or younger, job security and holidays, and you have a package that surpasses most equivalent jobs in the private sector.

The mighty expansion of the public sector under Labour – with about 800,000 more employees than in 1997 – has made matters worse. Mostly, they have gone into jobs with unfunded, final-salary pension schemes. On top of that, people are living longer. Recent data from the Government Actuary’s Department show that, as recently as 1990, the average employee lived for 15 years after retiring; now he will survive for 25 years, with obvious consequences for long-term pension commitments. Some public sector workers will spend 30 years in their job and a further 40 years on a fully-funded pension, with the option of starting a second career.

It is understandable that people in public sector jobs want to protect the benefits that they were led to expect when they signed up. But millions of private company workers were promised final salary pensions as well, and they were simply removed from under their noses. Try getting them to sympathise with the plight of a council official or police officer enjoying a better deal for which everyone else is paying.

Of course, another reason that little has ever been done to sort this system out is because those in a position to do so are themselves its beneficiaries – the MPs and civil servants who all enjoy the security of generous final salary schemes, the highest of which give annual payouts well into six figures.

For Mr Cameron, who has all the other problems on his plate while trying to hold together a Coalition of left and right, this poses a monumental political headache. He likes to present himself as a One Nation Tory; yet what will be exposed this week is how divided we have become. He is a party leader whose overtures to his opponents encapsulated a belief in consensus politics, yet in order to do the right thing he needs to engineer an equality of misery.

If nothing is done to rectify matters, then those in the private sector will become increasingly resentful at the costs they are having to bear. But if radical reforms are pursued, then those who lose out will be left feeling bitter and betrayed.

We may indeed be all in this together; unfortunately, we’re not on the same side.

Kev can defend himself and although I only know him from his posts on this forum I don’t think your remark was in particularly good taste. Surely the point is, and in a sense the point he was making, is that we all want different cuts. We all have different priorities and Kev was merely echoing what even you could not deny the thoughts of many of the members on this forum.

I do try to do a bit of research and often come unstuck against people who know more trhan I do bu thsat way wer all learn.

It is interesting that we all seem to accept that cuts are needed. I’ll dig out a piece about public sector pensions which you will enjoy…………

I think you are right. No Vulcan. Lots of Spits, the Belgian F16 taxying out and having been there last year and the year before I would guess the Sunday last year which was under a cloudless, burning hot sky.

Just makes me even sadder that the plug has been pulled on this iconic airshow.:(

Tornado – I know you slapped my wrist last time I struggled to read one of your posts, so I won’t criticise, only say I wish I had time to do so….:)

Linc – yes, you have indeed, although not in this thread. And I agree with much of what you say although some of the items are not going to deal with the problem with any speed. And I presume you have not researched it all enough to know what would be saved and when – I certainly have not.

I would immediately stop all payments to the EU until all the problems we have with it and its offices are resolved. That’s £750 million each MONTH staying in the kitty. What do you reckon?;)

Careful, you’ll be getting a visit from the anti-terror branch for tea and cakes…….

:D:diablo: