Brown and the Unions

While Blair was off trying to save Africa, sort out the UN and generally try to bolster his "historic world leader" ratings, Mr. "Perpetual-leader-in-waiting" Brown was left at home to deal with his left wing buddies at the TUC.

The chancellor delivered a lively speech, but received a rather cool reception.

As one union member put it, sounding left wing was not the same as delivering left wing policies.

There you have it. The Chancellor is not left wing enough. It is hardly surprising when he runs around inventing all sorts of Tory-lite(tm) policies. I have to ask though: Is there anyone on the New Labour frontbench who would be left wing enough to placate the unions? Didn't think so.

"The chancellor delivered a lively speech"? Bollocks. I'm with John Humphreys on this one. Just not possible.

Dominating the congress was the increasingly thorny subject of pensions.

Union chief attacks pension plans

The leader of the TUC has dismissed plans to raise the public sector retirement age to 65 as a "quack remedy" for the pensions crisis.

Brendan Barber said this would mean a "work-till-you-drop" culture and called for unions to act for "justice".

Unison leader Dave Prentis reiterated threats of strikes to defend pensions.

But Tony Blair's pensions chief, Adair Turner, told the TUC Congress in Brighton there were no "easy answers" to a multi-billion pound shortfall.

And from here:

Meanwhile Adair Turner, who was appointed by Mr Blair to chair the Pensions Commission and who is due to report later this year, came down to Brighton to outline the three options for Britain's state pension system.

These options, he said, were more means-tested pensions, raising the retirement age or an increase in taxes.

He said people were living longer and there was "nobody clever enough" to create a pensions system to cope with that fact "which doesn't involve one of those three things or some mix".

I might not be "clever enough", but it seems to me that getting rid of Gordon Brown and scrapping his £5bn a year pensions tax would be a good f'ing start.

This is typical left wing bullshit. Brown creates a pensions crisis by increasing tax on pension profits. One of the possible New Labour solutions: Higher Taxes (wonderful). Another possible New Labour solution: Work longer (pay tax longer, shorter retirement). If all else fails: Assuming you have been sensible enough to save for your own retirement then you can fuck off - you're getting nothing.

The ultimate solution will of course be a combination of all three. The sort of New Labour logic that makes me want to crack open certain heads with a baseball bat.

Filed under: Politics, New Labour Spin