Birmingham Airport faces closure threat

I noticed a copy of the Birmingham Mail in Morrisons this afternoon. "Holiday Chaos" was the headline with the distinct impression that summer holidays might be ruined for some. It's all about Birmingham Airport being forced to close completely if angry firefighters opposing changes to their pensions take industrial action.

About 55 fire service workers based at the airport are fighting planned changes to their final salary scheme which they say could cut their pensions by up to 30 per cent. So strike action may be taken.

Personally I think it's a bit rough for them to get their pension contracts re-arranged when the bankers got given tidy sums to carry on with their "work". But that's life. It's not a fair world. I wonder if we have the gumption to change it.

Read More http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2011/05/11/birmingham-airport-faces-closure-threat-97319-28670569/#ixzz1M3qpPGc5

All In This Together - Part 1

David Cameron has said we are "all in this together" as the country battles the financial problems such as the mega deficit. It has been decided that richer types won't be getting child benefit from 2013. They don't need it and it will save £1 billion. I don't need the winter warmth allowance, so I'm happy to give that one up. But is everyone playing with the same bat? I suspect those in the "financial services" industry are not yet in a mindset to play nicely.

The bankers are still getting stick from the public. This is partly I suspect because they don't want reform that will expose some of their murkier transactions. Banking was once an honourable profession. It is now infected by the practices of spivs and charlatans. I know of a number of good people who have left modern banking because their consciences were sorely tested by what they were asked to do in order to get a sale.

If we are "all in this together" then those in the financial services need to be properly in with us. When it comes to pensions most of us believe we are dealing with honest brokers. However, this may not be the case. Most of us thought the Robert Maxwell days were gone. But we live today with pension deficits. Why? Because companies have not been paying into the funds. Shortfalls abound everywhere. The Post Office pension fund is a disaster masquerading as a genial leviathan. If ever the outfit is privatised it will be the taxpayer that gets this actuarial monster to deal with. And yet more liability will be heaped on us. The governance of pensions has been left in the hands of the incompetents and handwringers. Not only are the contractual elements of pension funds being flouted but those in power seem not to care. Let the coalition government shine a light on these pension deficits.

Transparency is hard to get in the pension world. BBC Panorama is exposing the collossal fees taken by private pension funds. Pension-selling companies are taking the equivalent of 80% of money paid into some pension plans out in fees and commissions, Panorama has found. In one HSBC pension plan, £120,000 paid in over 40 years would result in fees and commissions totalling £99,900. How much, HSBC? And this organisation used to be run by an Anglican priest. Surely he had some idea of this daylight robbery. HSBC just replied that its pension product is competitive. BUT THEY JUST DON'T GET IT. It is precisely this weasly way of working that has got the banks into such a dim light with the public. Shanghaid indeed! Perhaps when the reverend gent becomes a trade minister he can advise the prime minister on how to clean up this pension fiasco? He and Vince together, the Dynamic Duo. Angela Knight watch out!

Malcolm McLean is a pensions consultant. He says, according to the BBC, that the problem is a lack of transparency when the pension is sold and what seems like a small annual percentage charge grows each year in real terms as the fund gets bigger. "You suddenly find that after 30 or 40 years there's a terrific amount of money lost and I don't think many people actually understood that when perhaps they took out the pension," he said.

Lack of transparency, eh? Well, if we are "all in this together" let's have these pension providers being honest and open. By all means take properly earned fees. Nobody can run a business without a profit. But this is ridiculous. How much of this excessive skimming off the top goes into bonuses? Dig deeper Dave! We need answers.

The city has an expression for poorly performing funds. They're called dog funds. And I expect they come with all the crap as well!


Panorama site

Vince Cable tells it as it is!

I was going to write masses of stuff on Vince Cable's critique of corporate Britain. But I can't just yet get it all out of my head for it to make much sense. So I went to Robert Peston's blog and found his first unmoderated comment from someone called "watriler". It goes:-

"The reaction to Cable's remarks reminds me of the quote "The religion of the Englishman is the law of supply and demand". In modern capitalism there is no free market except in that free enterprise is hardly controlled. Their aim is to eliminate or manage competition. Throw the text books away."

Couldn't put it better myself. Vince Cable said of Gordon Brown that he had gone from being Stalin to being Mr.Bean. British corporations have made sure that there are no Mr.Beans to cause trouble and have made sure their gravy trains remain on track. We must be mad to put up with it all.

On the radio this morning a woman from Price Waterhouse was complaining about the immigration policy. She apparently wants 63 erudite beancounters from outside the EU to "make a cultural difference" to PWC's business in London. She also popped in the now mandatory blackmailing threat that she and her co-workers "might leave the country".

What is it with these people? Is patriotism dead? Are they so craven to filthy lucre that nothing will get in their way? David Cameron says we are all in this together. I get the impression it is not about fighting the deficit but stopping these boardroom bozos from causing us any more problems.

Free enterprise is not an easy thing, but at least it allows people to develop their talents, try out their ideas and be free to work as they wish. On the other hand, the big business theory of today seems more like an effort to circle the wagons and keep the real entrepreneurs out. Pension deficits, uncontrolled remuneration committees, slapdash safety and forced redundancies are just a few of the negative aspects of corporate business.

If shareholders really did control these large companies, we might get some real change. But all the while they try to eliminate or manage competition and keep everything as it is, we won't.

Banking on a Barclays' pension?

Barclays Bank is in the financial package selling business. That's basically what banks have become. High Street offices with sales people ready to sell a "product". One of the products that banks are keen to promote is the pension. The trouble is one needs an eagle-eyed proofreader to go through the small print nowadays.

It is an irony of all ironies that Barclays has contemplated stuffing their own employees as far as pensions are concerned. The closure of Barclays' final-salary pension scheme to existing members has caused the union Unite to support the idea of strike action.

One has to wonder whether these banks, not just Barclays, have any notion of being proper stewards of other peoples money. All manner of excuses are being trotted out as to why employees should consider themselves lucky to retire on paltry pensions. I know my grandmother use to say to us that there are "starving children in Africa" as if to make us feel grateful but banks are in business to make money for others by investing properly. Over the last few years they have shown themselves to be barely capable of such a thing. In fact, they have been more driven by obtaining bonuses for their own inner circle of self-serving "executives".

I'm not a conservative that blindly supports the antics of business regardless. I have been a trade unionist when in the insurance industry and remember the subterfuge that employers can sometimes be capable of. Ever since Robert Maxwell was caught raiding his staff pension fund we have been told that the funds of companies are millions of pounds adrift. Ostrich-like we have gone on as if this problem can be rectified by a fairy with a magic wand. It can't.

Banks of all businesses should know how to look after their staff as far a pension provision is concerned. Barclays obviously has failed to keep abreast of proper investment. It begs the question who in their right minds would venture into a branch of Barclays to discuss buying a pension policy when those selling the things have such a dim view of their own retirement prospects!

"Je ne regrette rien", Gordon Brown tells Americans!

Gordon Brown is going against the advice of fellow ministers. He regrets nothing, except maybe the 10p tax fiasco. But that was only a slight problem. Brown blames the bankers for the mess we're all in. The same bankers he cosied up to all these years. He seems to have been in their company with cloth ears. See no evil, that sort of thing.

Whilst he goes around like some kind of amateur pied piper looking for followers, others are beginning to give him grief. One such is John Kingman, the chief executive of UKFI, which manages the taxpayer interest in the part-nationalised banks. He hinted that he believed the tripartite system of regulation had not been a great success. Kingman got a verbal bashing from John McFall, the treasury select committe chairman. I think McFall is beginning to set these polecats against each other with significant flair. The truth is being weedled out of them.

And whilst Brown is swanning around chatting to anyone who will listen to him, it is said that Fred Goodwin's pension has gone up by another ten grand! It's a whole new meaning to the concept of inflation, isn't it.

Wrong horse bolts out of No.10 stables!

If I was heavily involved in horse betting I wouldn't pop round to Downing Street to ask the Celtic Clowns for any tips. Or any of their chums, either. Harriet Harman is getting very flaky these days. She thinks she can pass a new law specifically aimed at Sir Fred Goodwin's pension. What crazy notions did she wake up with yesterday morning. It was St.David's Day, when all good Welsh people display either leeks or daffodils. This government seems to have only one choice on offer and those are very different leaks. There seems to be a leakage of talent, leakage of ideas and a generally leakage of authority and basic honesty.

Sir Fred Goodwin may be a lot of things, but I think he is probably telling the gospel truth when he says that the government knew all along about his pension arrangements. Whether he is morally entitled to this whacking great treasure chest is one thing. That he is legally entitled to it is quite another.

How much is it going to cost for these treasury legal eagles to spend time sifting through this pension detail? We are not told, but it is bound to be more money wasted on a pointless gesture.

Gordon Brown is just grandstanding. Sir Fred's horse has passed the winning post! Another nag is running round Whitehall with all the equine grace of a knackered mule!