A fantastic glimpse of the New Britain after the Tories triumph (with the Sun's help of course). Try http://www.myconservatives.com. You'll be re-directed back to the "old" Tory site. Sounds familiar eh?

OK its back up now...

you would have thought that with there limitless expense accounts, that we are paying for, they could get some serious IT merchants to develop there site, maybe they should contact X404 for advice in this regard …

The Conservatives easily have the slickest and largest web presence of any UK political party.

http://www.conservatives.com/

And what would the X404 users suggest? I would link the register link to the Caravan Club, that would have the added benefit of annoying Jeremy Clarkson.

As much as I don't trust the Tories, they're the only major party that look like they planning to balance the books rather than getting us into even more debt. I don't like the idea of service cuts, but they have to happen.... and quickly. If they promised to end gold plated public sector pensions, they'd have my vote sealed.

The gold plated pensions are a big burden that the country cannot afford. Though there will be strikes over that. That is not necessarily a good enough reason to vote for them. Even Labour have accepted that there will be cuts, and they will try and minimise the pain on the front line. Though it is not a sensible reason to pick a party, All have said that there will be cuts needed, Just how painful.

It was Labour who racked up the debt in the first place, now you're going to trust them to sort their own mess out?

"Gold-plated" public sector pensions are about the only perk of the job. The basic salary just isn't competitive. Get rid of the pensions and you'll suddenly find the most capable civil servants leaving public service for good.

Spot on.

As for the debt - the Tories were not immune to recession either. Trouble is, we never give a government chance to learn from its mistakes and repair the damage. We'll end up with another tory goverment if we are not careful, the NHS will be butchered, education & schools will fall into disrepair but the bankers will continue to get rich. We could even end up leaving Europe and then we're all stuck here applying for Visa's.

Not going to deny that. Gordon has also overpaid via PFI which are an appalling waste of money. I do not trust the Tories to clean it up any better without granting more tax cuts to the rich. The liberals are probably the best option, though that will not happen unfortunately.


And what decade are you living in? The average chief exec of a local council earns up to twice the pay of the Prime Minister. The add that gold plated pension on top.

I will accept that for lower ranking staff the situation is very different. Job cuts and wage freezes are now the norm. My local council are close to going on strike over wage cuts.

i don't think so, a job of sorts for life
let them pay for there own pension
just like the rest of us that 'happen' to work for a living …

i am a fully paid up labour party member
Labour (new labour) have failed

because its not a 'Labour' party any more
the Labour party are more Tory then the Tory party

read this
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 860065.ece
its the same in other papers i can post links if required

i would expect this with a Tory Govt. not a Labour Govt.
Labour (new labour) have failed, end of fcuking story …

People in the public sector DO pay for their own pensions, they're just not sold off at the hands of directors. As for "jobs for life" - hardly. Civil servants lose their jobs in their thousands whenever the government is feeling a little unpopular - tax office staff and job centre staff earning barely above minimum wage - their "gold plated pensions" will be no more than £10k if they put in 40 years of service!

There does need to be reform of pensions everywhere. Government gold plated pensions need to end. Then they will be far more likely to do something about everyone's pension.

Final salary schemes need to end. They need to be switched to average salary schemes, Final salary schemes really only benefit those that have had a surge in salary in the last few years of their career. In these cases they get the benefit of the last years salary even though they have not put in anything like enough to cover it. Therefore they are being subsidised by the others.

Also companies need to have a single pension scheme. No separate schemes for directors, then there will never be the situation where directors pension funds are fully funded and employee schemes are broke.

Then have a mandatory system of converting peoples pensions in bonds when they get closer to retirement, then a sudden stock market crash will not destroy retirement hopes. So if you are due to retire in 12 months then it could almost all be in safe bonds so little chance of a massive valuation drop in a stock market crash.

There are many things that could be done that are not being done by either party.

From first hand experience, I agree. I spent years on a crappy wage which would have been at least 20% higher in the private sector. The decent pension is about the only thing worth staying for. Account for the massive discrepancy between public/private rates for similar jobs, and it just about makes up what you get in the pension.

Let's put it this way, when I moved to Cornwall....which has an average wage of £17k a year....my first temping job was less responsibility for an extra £4k a year than I'd been earning working for the MOD.