Saturday, March 31, 2007

Proof of Brown's pension grab exposed after two year battle by the Times

This morning's Times has published evidence received through the Freedom of Information Act that show that Gordon Brown was repeatedly warned about the impact his £5 billion-a-year raid of pensions would have and still went ahead with it. Brown was told, in no uncertain terms, his plans "would make a big hole in pension scheme finances".

Gordon Brown has consistently denied he has caused the current crisis in the pension system, yet these documents make it clear that he was not only told what would happen, but that he blundered on forward, even when alternatives were offered such as phased introduction of his changes. On the back of his tax grab Budget of the low paid, and the news that only 1 in 4 people actually claim tax credits, the documents show that Brown was told his changes would "lead to a reduction in pension benefits for the lower paid" and he still went ahead with it.

The Treasury denial to the Times is quite amusing as well. They called it a "travesty" of the information they received (which took two years to extract from the Treasury) and claim that "[a]nyone who pretends these decisions have led to the funding problems for pension schemes in recent years, while ignoring the impact of the dot.com crash, the pension holidays in the 1980s and 1990s, and the rise in life expectancy is simply distorting the facts."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Every NuLabor twat that believes Gordimmo is fit to lead this country, and not another corrupted, gormless, spineless politican; should be made to read these papers - then donate their pensions to the thousands that were buggered by the Fifer.

Anonymous said...

The comments over on Iain Dale have been heavily spammed by Labour spinners trying to say 'it aint Gordon's fault honest' which is a bit of a hoot. This story must have them worried :-)

Chris Paul said...

Why is it a blunder? It is not TORY. But then he's not a Tory so why should he maintain a rather unfair arrangement? At least thanks to very well looked after economy and inflation pensions are in better shape vis-a-vis the cost of living than under a collapse plus inflation model preferred by Cameron - the nit.