While the government seems hell bent on racing to the bottom in all aspects of civil life, let’s spare a thought for some public sector staff whose pensions are mouthwateringly succulent – why, we’re talking about the MPs’ own pensions of course!
MPs require just 15 years’ service for an annual pension of £24,000; tax payers contribute three times more to MPs pensions than members do themselves, and if they die, spouses receive a lump sum of four times their annual salary, and five-eights annually.
And let’s not forget the cabinet is chock-a-block with multi-millionaires who are following their doctrinaire approach without the need for a pension themselves. Is it any wonder they act in such a unilateral, high-handed way?
But there’s more, the MPs are just keeping up with the super rich as they race away both in terms of wage and the pension.
Mehdi Hasan in the New Stateman puts together some of the info the right-wing press is conveniently overlooking.
He cites the Guardian’s report on the latest from Income Data Services, which revealed ‘directors in Britain’s top 100 companies have accumulated final salary retirement pots worth £2.8m on average’ and ‘company directors, like MPs, have among the most generous schemes in the G20 group of richest nations.
And then there’s the fact that ‘tax relief on pension contributions of £37bn is heavily skewed towards the better off’
Oh, and the costs of public sector pensions are set to go down, so it seems like the Lib Dems and Tories are just picking a fight because they want to (or is this not about saving money, just like the proposed privatisation of the NHS isn’t?)
But let’s leave the final word with PCS union leader Mark Serwotka: “It’s not public sector workers who exploit [private sector workers] but their private sector employers.”
(image: Piggy Bank 
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